Devil Dog or Don't It Make His Brown Eyes.....Aqua?

Crime Victim Rob Thurman

Well.....maybe just Accident Prone Rob Thurman would be more appropriate.

Yeah...yeah....maybe this was just an accident; and maybe if that nice cute fella hadn't written down the license plate number of the lady who hit my car and drove off; and maybe if the police hadn't been so helpful in finding her and notifying her she needed to repair my broken mirror, I might be a crime victim.....but that is a hell of a lot of maybes.

Mostly I'm just annoyed by all the car drama this week.

Sunday night, I spun around and slid off Highway 44 thanks to the bounty of ice and snow...and then today - my car gets nailed. My neck is so sore and tight, I can hardly turn my head. It's not whiplash - just some sort of delayed stress/anxiety/freakout reaction to spinning out of control through the ice and snow - but I don't feel quite as confident in my little putt-putt car as I once did.

Maybe my next car will be a Hummer.....coz though stylish, I think me and a Vespa spells early death.

Art Prom Photos

Birthday Silliness

I scored some great gifts for my birthday! Kelly had a theme with his wrapping - country vs. urban - which made total sense once I unwrapped the first season of Green Acres on DVD and the Zsa Zsa Gabor Workout Video, "It's Simple, Darling!" He, Jim and I watched the tape, which features a workout regimen that involves sitting (whew! that burns), lifting one's legs and push-ups that resemble dry humping. I'm also terribly excited by the Green Acres DVD featuring the slightly less-divorced and some say, far more talented Eva Gabor. I'm really looking forward to this episode:

Episode 14 | What Happened in Scranton Lisa is disturbed to discover that Hooterville doesn't have a beauty parlor and calls her mother to send a hair dresser. However, once he gets there he gives all the Hooterville women new hairdos and they refuse to work on the farms, for fear of mussing their big bouffants. Meanwhile, Oliver tries to fertilize his wheat crop.

Sister Mary Girl also gave me Slang Flashcards, described as The Perfect Gift for the Unhip Busta! With daily practice, hopefully I'll catch on to the young people's hip new language.

Speaking of hip, last night was amazing. The Mad Art Gallery's Art Prom was the perfect place to spend my 33nd birthday!!

I had the biggest problem getting ready, though. My makeup kept blotching and caking off and smearing -- which was sort of in keeping with my Goth Cheerleader in a Neckbrace -- but it put me in a bad mood. In fact, I was really unhappy with my outfit, and was having a total emotional meltdown over it, stompin' around, glitter and fingernails flying.

But once I got to the party - that frown turned upside down and then some!! Flasbulbs and attention is the best remedy for anyone who is cosmetically challenged.

To start off with, the crowd really embraced dressing up! Everyone looked amazing. The combination of glitter, prom gowns, Becky Queen of Carpets and great friends made for a most memorable evening.

The Some Photos from the Mad Art Gallery Art Prom 2004 night are here at rob thurman dot com! as well as here at Harry Bean's society (hee) photo gallery!

It's My Birthday!

Volumes of warm-wishes may commence now.....

Saintly Sinners

The Saints & Sinners Ball 2004 -- The Divine Comedy --

Our Costumes from Last Year's Event Photo By Sarah Carmody

The third annual Saints & Sinners Ball to benefit The AIDS Foundation of St. Louis will be held Saturday, February 7, 2004, from 8:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. The theme for this year's Ball is Dante's Divine Comedy. The event will be held at the A.D. Brown Building on the corner of Tucker and Washington. A full cash bar and buffet will be available as well as private areas for groups. Ticket prices are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. To purchase advance tickets, call The AIDS Foundation at 314/367-7273 or e-mail aidstl@earthlink.net. Download the invitation by Clicking Here! (it is a pdf)

Congressional Hijinks

This article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is unnerving, yet not unexpected.

Let me do a few tricks

Because I have the sense that God gave a goose, when legenday actress Uta Hagen died last week, I decided to look up Nina Hagen instead. I then wound up confusing Uta with with Ute.

It must be some sort of dissociative disorder - Uta. Nina. Nina. Ute. Yeah, yeah... I know Letterman did that schtick....but there you have it.

Anyway, Nina had a new album out last year. Check out the Flash Version of the site to hear such classics as Let Me Entertain You.

It's so nice we had this time

TV Land is running a Carol Burnett Marathon this weekend.

I remember when this show went off the air. I cried. I sobbed, uncontrollably, actually. I remember being in front of the TV, disillusioned tears streaming down my cheeks, not understanding why this show would no longer be there to entertain me every week. No more Eunice. No more Bob Mackie. No more big Hollywood dance numbers. I still remember the set from that last episode - and that was 26 years ago.

Carol Burnett leaving TV was fundamentally wrong in my eight year old mind. I felt betrayed and abandoned. It was also my first experience with media skepticism. I didn't believe Carol really wanted to leave the air. I remember thinking "it had to be the network." I understand, now, that she chose to leave for a variety of reasons, but the memory of my first TV heartbreak still lingers.

Occasionally, I still have uncontrolable crying jags when shows leave the air. I did with Buffy and I imagine I will when I watch the last Sex and the City. Anyway, I'm going back to the marathon. Steeped in nostalgia - this weekend's theme.

Mmmmmm!!! Yummy Brains...

Read More About "beloved deep-fried cow brain sandwiches" here!

Alexis Morrell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan

Great Stuff Here!!!!

Scientology can help you with that...

Learn More!

In my latest effort to better understand myself, I decided to see what the folks over at the Church of Scientology could tell me about what makes me tick. Now, now, don't scoff. I was dubious, too. Just check out this page of their website. Who doesn't want to nurture his creativity? And they have a celebrity center! Seriously.

So, I pulled up into their parking lot (which has packed) and after an hour and a half of testing, the way-too-slick dude told me I was depressed, that I had a below-average IQ and that for $82.50, I could started on a new way of life! Say goodbye to sadness ***goodbye sadness!!*** and in 15 short days, I could overcome depression by learning how other people oppress me and suppress me. Wow...other people have been the problem, all along. What a relief!

After that program, there were other courses I could take -- some at the same modest price, some just a skosh higher-- and I could find the life that I wanted and deserved. I was told that "20 percent of society" is "antisocial" and potentially dangerous to me. No wonder I came to them for help, with two out of every ten people conspiring actively against my happiness. Sounds grim, for sure. But there were only happy, smiling faces at the location here in St. Louis. Guess that's where the other eight people are. I guess I know where I'll be spending my free time from now on!

By the way, there's also a detoxification program that only costs $1500. Goodbye toxins. I'll be popping pills and sitting in the sauna, which sounds just like the bathhouse to me, but hey....Kirstie Alley says it works!

Still have your doubts? You can read more about it here!

From the Sunday Obits

Hi Rob:

I haven't called because I felt you were sleeping late and I hope you check your EMail.

Your Uncle Harding died this morning around 4:00AM. I do not know any details... The funeral will be either Monday or Tuesday with full military rites there in Morehead. If I do not hear from you will try to call this afternoon.

I have a hair appointment at ll:l5 so need to get going.

Sorry to have to tell you by Email.

Love Mom

---

MOREHEAD - Dr. James H. Powell, age 82, of Knapp Avenue, widower of Mary Northcutt Powell and retired Dean of the College of Education at Morehead State University passed away Sat., Jan. 3, 2004, at his residence. Dr. Powell was the eldest son of the late Jed H. and Ethel Taylor Powell. He was born Nov. 23, 1921, in LaRue County, KY. He attended public schools and graduated from Hodgenville High School in 1939. Prior to WWII, he enrolled in Transylvania University and worked as an attendant at the U.S. Veterans Hospital in Lexington. As a member of the Army Reserves, he studied radar repair at the Avon Army Depot before going on active duty. His military assignments included the Army Specialized Training Program at the University of Iowa and various Signal Corps schools. He was deployed to the Pacific Theatre for duty with the Eighth Army for campaigns in New Guinea, the Philippines, and the Army of Occupation in Japan. After his discharge from the military services, he re-entered and worked for General Telephone Company while he earned an A.B. degree from Transylvania and a M.A. from the University of Kentucky. Dr. Powell served three decades in elementary, secondary, and higher education. He was a teacher/principal at Cumberland, Loyall and Benham in Harlan County, KY. After earning the Ed.D. at the University of Kentucky, he joined the faculty as Director of the University Laboratory School and Chairman of the Department of Instruction at the College of Education. Dr. Powell was appointed Dean of the School of Education at Morehead State University in 1969 and retired as Professor Emeritus in 1982.

After retirement, he and his wife, Mary, became involved in beef cattle/calf farming in Rowan County. Throughout his professional career, Dr. Powell was actively involved in civic and professional organizations. He served on many committees concerned with accreditation, evaluation and improvement of teacher education at the state and regional levels. He was a member of the Morehead United Methodist Church and a Master Mason, belonging to Lodge No. 880 in Benham, KY.

Tick. Scrape. Clunk.

My Nephew's Gift

My Tree

A Favorite

My Tree Topper

Pretty, Pretty

My Aunt Edith - from the family archive. Yes! This is how my family celebrates Christmas, with guns.

Here are some images of my Christmas tree and of the uber-fancy drawing my eight year nephew made for me this year. December was bleak – but it was not all sadness. It’s just a big-ole mix of good and bad. While I was home, I met the children of a dear friend from college. Maya and Andy are wonderful parents and their children are beautiful and smart and funny. Their laughter and the sound of my mother crying are intertwined in my memories of this past Christmas.

Christmas is not terribly celebratory for my family. My father was killed in a farming accident eight years ago, two days after Christmas. He was buried on New Year’s Eve. Since then the holidays have been bittersweet, to say the least. Some years have been torturous, others simply maudlin, and some quite joyous. It’s really hard to predict where the emotional pendulum is going to swing any given Christmas. This year, Christmas was very bleak and while I was home visiting my family, it turned a little darker.

Saturday, on the anniversary of my father’s death, my mother was told that her brother, who is dying from skin cancer, had slipped into a near-coma. On top of that, my nephew and his wife lost their two-month old baby that day. As I stood in the kitchen watching my mother shaking, trying to open her blood pressure medicine, trying to cope with this extraordinary amount of bad news, I was reminded of my father’s death and the ensuing sadness and stillness that filled our home for weeks afterward. I felt powerless to help her, and overwhelmingly numb.

Death brings extreme quiet to your home. Everything gets slower and louder. Clocks tick louder. Even the digital ones. And then there’s the scraping sound of chairs on the kitchen’s linoleum floor, as another neighbor pulls up a chair, asking how you’re doing as she places a casserole of potatoes on an already-full table. That is what death sounds like: Tick. Scrape. Clunk.

We drove into the Appalachian mountains that day to see my uncle. He was an extraordinary man. At 17, he hitchhiked to college. He dropped telephone lines during World War II, traveling ahead of the troops, right into the line of fire. He was a teacher and a dean of Education for two Universities. He was a husband and a father and one of the most distinguished and most friendly people that I’ve ever know. He had the most elegant voice I’ve ever heard. Seeing him that day, his nose a baseball-size black mound of rotting flesh, was as horrible as finding my father buried face-down, suffocated in a grain silo eight years prior. Death was as palpable in his home as it was in that grain silo. And I found myself utterly emotionless.

While my mother held her brother’s hand and spoke to him, I sat on his sofa, petting his dog. I couldn’t stop looking at him, lying still in a hospital bed they set up in his den. Rather, I couldn’t stop looking at his nose. My mom told me that it had once been a solid mass, but that mass had started to peel away, and large chunks of cancer-ridden black skin were peeling away. They looked like those snakes that ooze out of the fireworks you buy at the convenient store. The really cheap ones that spark and fizzle while mounds of dried-up black gunpowder ooze out. It was simply horrific. He gurgled (radiation treatments destroyed his saliva glands) and he choked on the mists of water his caregivers sprayed in his mouth. He has amazing women who come in every day and take care of him. They were there when his wife was dying from cancer, helping him take care of her, and now they are with him as he dies, painfully and alone.

The University of Kentucky was playing University of Louisville that day. That college rivalry is as big as a rivalry can get. Families divide over that game. A U of L fan, I really wanted them to win. But my uncle was a big U.K. fan (he’d worked there) – and, for his sake, I wanted him to wake up and hear that U.K. had won. As I was petting Clyde the dog, I imagined him being happy for even a few minutes, upon hearing the news of U.K.’s dramatic victory. But they lost, my uncle didn’t wake up, and the dog went into the garage and went to sleep.

My uncle is still alive. But he has not regained consciousness. He’s still there, barely breathing, still gasping and occasionally shaking. The Hospice workers said that now that the cancer has spread to his throat, they expect the cancer to erode a major vein or artery. He will bleed to death when that happens, suffocating on his own blood. They told my mother they had dark towels to mop up the excess. That’s the reality these very kind women have to face. But they still tend to him, talk to him, tell him jokes and watch after Clyde.

So here I am, almost a week after all this happened. Trying to understand what I felt and what I am feeling. I feel strangely lucky to be alive and healthy. My mood, while contemplative, is not dour. Today at work, I realized that I felt okay. It was the first time I’ve felt okay since I saw a grave blanket last month, the word dad spelled out in fake poinsettias. I joked and kidded around and not in that fake way you can kid around when you feel like shit. I actually really felt good. But feeling okay, or even quite good, while so much death and sadness looms around my family makes me feel like some-sort of traitor. Like Miss Scarlet at the ball, all clad in black, but tapping her toe, nonetheless.

Many folks who know me can attest that my laugh could rattle windows. But I have no such emotional release for sadness. While my laughter is boisterous, my sadness is its absolute counterpoint. It’s a dark, sad and very quiet place. Sometimes I wish I could just wail out, cry, scream, holler…..but it takes me a great deal of time to express those emotions. Rather, it sits and festers, working its way out, slowly and painfully. Life goes on, so they say. They also say: Carpe Diem. Box of Chocolates. Blah. Blah. Blah. Fuck those platitudes, man. I get the point. But it’s just not that fucking simple.

When I was little, my sister was in a car accident. The windshield shattered and shards of glass flew into her face. While she was recuperating, I remember that she bled glass for weeks afterward. The glass was simply expelled as her face began to heal. Sadness is like that for me. It worms its way out, at its own pace, at its own time. Today, it felt like a big emotional piece fell out of me -- but it was a loss that brought some healing.

That’s the kind of loss I can live with.

It's 2 AM, do you know where your ex is?

Wow! Three posts in one day. The New Year is starting off with quite the flourish. Anyway, this post is for the love-lorn. Recently, I attempted to counsel a friend on matters of the heart. And I didn’t too half-assed a job! So now I’ve decided that in my spare time, I might fashion a column or two for the heartbroken.

This is a list compiled from a couple of different sources and the motivation was a couple of unexpected phone calls last night. When the phone rings and it’s the last person you expected to hear from on the other line, drunkenly rambling off some half-assed, semi-sweet sentiment, man….it can leave your mind reeling. This list is a primer or a reminder to those of us who over-analyze every situation and every slip of the tongue. Men sure are funny and fickle. This list will help you keep it real.

WHEN GUYS SAY	THEY MEAN
I don't like him	He won't blow me
I need you	My hand is tired
I need you	...at least for right now
I really want to get to know you better	...so I can tell my friends about it
I really want to get to know you better	Do you have a big dick?
How do I compare with all your other boyfriends?	Is my dick bigger than theirs?
You're the only man I've ever cared about	You are the only man who has not rejected me
I want you back	...for tonight anyway
I miss you so much	I am so horny
I am different from all the other guys	I am not circumsized
I go out with my buddies at least once a week.	I'm dating other men.
I'm not looking for a serious relationship right now.	You're unattractive and I was drunk
I really value you as a friend.	You're unattractive and I was drunk
I really value you as a friend.	You have cute friends that I want to sleep with
I really value you as a friend.	Maybe if I was drunk again.....
My career has always been my top priority	I have a two inch penis.
The sexiest thing about you is your mind.	You're not that attractive but I'll still sleep with you.
You're so funny	I won't sleep with you. Ever.
I work out a lot. I take pride in my body!	Why are you so fat?
This is so special. Let's keep it between us.	I'd be totally humiliated if anyone knew we were dating.
Can you be discreet?	I have a: girlfriend wife boyfriend husband

2004 Resolutions

Today, I was chatting…okay gossiping…with one of my nearest and dearest friends about last night's blow out bash. We had a little spy news to share, we talked about cute girls and their punk rock outfits and, eventually, the subject eventually turned to New Year’s resolutions.

Now, given that I have absolutely no impulse control, I have never actually had a New Year’s resolution. And while I can be a little, well, a lot inflexible with my thinking, I’ve decided that I will compose a brief list of goals for the upcoming year – whether or not I stick to them is another matter. But change begins with a tiny pebble falling in a big lake…or something like that.

Rob’s Resolutions for 2004:

Diet/Health
– Trips to Taco Bell must be made by foot – well, at least once a month.
– Smoking is hazardous to my health. That’s why I’m walking to Taco Bell. The cardio will offset the lung and heart damage.

Family
– I will call my mother when I am supposed to – Sunday afternoons – no excuses.
– I will remember my sibling’s birthdays. But I have to call my mother to find out when they are.

Financial
– I will leave my credit cards at home. Cash is king. And my cards are maxed out anyway.
– Walking to Taco Bell will save gas money. But will I need new, cute walking shoes?

Friends
– I will call/e-mail my friends more often. And I won't call/e-mail just to whine about my current state of affairs. Even when I am mired in self-pity, other people matter.
– When dumb boys say they just want to be friends, I will remember that I’ve been neglecting my long-standing friends while dating this dumb boy, and that sooner or later, I will neglect this dumb boy when I meet the next dumb boy, so hearing “let’s be friends” isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds. That’s a really rambly sentence, but I swear, when read aloud, it totally makes sense.

Grammar
– I have tens of thousands of dollars in college loans. My writing should reflect that, okay?
– I will read more. Star Magazine does not count.

Sex
– I will at least ask a trick what his last name is. Whether I remember it (or his first name, for that matter) is another story.
– More three-ways. Double the fun, with zero guilt.

Sex/Relationships
– I will not fall for emotionally unavailable, yet terrible interesting men or at least bitch less about it.
– I will quit pretending that I am such a slut and admit that I’m just cracking jokes to hide years of bitter isolation, frustration and emotional agony. (YAY! One resolution already accomplished)

So, that’s my list. A bit insipid, but it’s my first effort. Quarterly progress reports will totally be available for public inspection.

New Years 2004

New Year's Eve was a very, very good time. Special thanks to party hosts, Randy (your house looked amazing), Joanna (super yummy food) and Lucy (bubbly provider), and a big kiss to the other folks who contributed their time spinning records, making flowers and causing mischief!