Because I’m absolutely freakin’ SHAMELESS, I’m stealing an idea from Jill, as recompense for her using my “post the funny search phrases” gimmick, which of course I stole from Jeff Kay. She filled out a cool questionnaire that a friend of hers sent her, but since I don’t have any cool friends with questionnaires to send me (I usually just get the “Robin Williams Plan For Peace” email twice a day), I just stole the one she used. Here we go:

Your Name Here: Matthew David Hearn, although I often go by General Custer.

1. If you were Imperator/Imperatrix for just enough time to pass one global mandate, what would it be?
By Imperial Dictate, anyone that sends me the “Robin Williams Plan For Peace” email has to give me $50 or be kicked in the jubblies. Same goes for that thing about life that George Carlin allegedly wrote after his wife passed away.

2. What is your favorite opera?
Ooh, a toughie! Probably La Boheme. Saw it at the Met a few years back and it was so money I wanted to rename it Benjamin. Carmen is also a favorite since I’ve performed in it a few times myself. Unfortunately I just don’t know that many operas because I find oratorio and choral music so much cooler. I’m gonna say La Boheme. Yeah. No. Wait. Yeah, that’s it.

3. What was the last movie you saw that made you want to hurl your popcorn at the screen in disgust?
Haven’t seen anything in a theatre in years; I don’t see the point in paying $10 per ticket. I can’t recall ever seeing a movie that was so horrible I was actually pissed when I left, because the only time I get out to a movie theatre is if I KNOW a movie is going to kick so much ass that I won’t be able to sit down. I did get a little pissed when I went to see the remastered Star Wars, episode IV, and they changed stuff like “Han just blows away the bounty hunter” to “The bounty hunter shoots first, so Han HAD to kill him!” PC crap that like that makes me throw up in my mouth.

4. What is your favorite rainy day activity?
Playstation 2. No question. I’d like to say it’s something much more meaningful, like “reading poetry to my beautiful wife,” or “baking donuts for the homeless,” but in all honesty if I’m stuck inside with nothing to do I’m gonna be firing up MVP Baseball and hurling 100mph fastballs at Barry Bonds’ enormous head.

5. If you could whisper something in the US President’s ear in the middle of a press conference, what would it be?
“You’re doing an okay job, but it’s time to back off the gay marriage thing, dude. Homosexuality is perfectly natural, or at least more so than snorting cocaine off a stripper’s foot in a Texas honkytonk in 1973.”

6. What musical instrument would you like to master [that you do not already play]?
The list is endless. I’m working on learning the piano, but I also think it’s time I learn to play a woodwind instrument of some sort; I’m thinking the bassoon would be cool. But I also want to learn the mandolin and dobro so I can get my bluegrass band off the ground. I think I’ll stick with learning the piano, if only because not knowing how to play is rapidly becoming a serious liability (running a choral rehearsal and not having anyone to play the keyboard parts gets REAAAAALLLY annoying).

7. Did you ever have a friend who was born in the 19th century?
I had a great-grandmother that died in 1993 that was born in 1899. I never exactly thought of her as a friend, but she was pretty cool.

8. What song drives you up the wall?
“I Don’t Want You Back” by Eamon. Absolutely makes me insane if I can’t change the channel.

9. Tell us about a time you fell asleep while driving (if applicable):
So Kyle and I are driving out to Michigan to help my buddy Brian move all his crap from Kalamazoo to Flint. It’s about a 12 hour drive, plus I had driven 4 hours down to Richmond to pick up Kyle, so Kyle took the first shift, starting around 9pm, while I napped fitfully. Around 1am, we were coming out of West Virginia, and we stopped for gas, so I took over driving, quickly chugging two Red Bulls to keep me awake. Sometime around 3:00, I wondered if I was gonna make it to the next gas fillup. Sometime around 3:30, after having driven several feet onto the shoulder 2 or 3 times, I woke Kyle up and said, listen, we gotta stop, I’m gonna kill us. Kyle switched over to the driver’s side and I passed out until 6am.

(There are other instances of falling asleep, but this is a family website, and that’s all I have to say about that.)

10. If the Earth was about to be destroyed and you were allowed to save only one work of literature to represent your home planet, what would it be?
I have no idea. Probably a collection of Dave Barry columns, or a copy of Hustler.

11. What sport would you like to play (that you do not already play)?
Whoof. Well, I’d love be a football star, but quarterbacks seem to get hurt a lot and die young. Baseball would be fun, of course, but realistically I’d like to get pretty good at basketball. It’s something I could actually play in rec leagues around here, year round, and it’d help keep the weight off. As it is now, I can barely dribble without looking at the ball, I shoot approximately 7% from the field, and my ability to rebound is limited by my complete inability to jump more than 8″ into the air.

12. What sport would you like to abolish (that hasn’t already been abolished)?
I guess this would imply that there are sports out there that are “wrong,” but I can’t think of one. Liberalism, maybe?

13. Tell us a little about the worst job you ever had:
They’ve all pretty much sucked. I’m not a big fan of working, personally. I’d like to have a music career, but unfortunately I like expensive things, and giving up my cushy job seems a high price to pay for the, what, 1 in a million chance of making it big as a musician? I think being a poor musician would suck worse than being a bored computer engineer.

14. What is your earliest childhood memory?
Not sure…probably when I was about 4, I remember riding in the car to the hospital because mom was in labor with Amelia. I THINK it may have been the Monte Carlo, but they might have bought the Caprice Wagon by then. Not sure.

15. What was the first record you ever bought with your own, hard- earned money?
I think it was the Eagles reunion live show thing, “Hell Freezes Over.” Not a bad album, when you think about it.

16. If you were forced to be on one of those idiotic TV talk shows, which one would you opt for? Why?
Probably Regis and Whatshername, because Whatshername is so hot. Or maybe The View to flirt with Elizabeth Hasselbeck. She is highly rad.

17. If you could communicate with one particular specie [sic] of the animal kingdom, which would it be and why?
Cats, no question. Just to find out why the hell our cat The Cheat doesn’t like anybody and refuses to use a litterbox consistently. Also to find out why Pete throws up all over the house.

18. Which holiday ought to be stricken from the calendar?
Labor Day. Unions are communist. (If I disappear over the next few days, check local construction sites.)

19. How would you make automobiles safer for everyone?

• Make it 100 times harder to get a license.
• Spend billions on public transportation infrastructure.

20. Was this a fun interview or should it be stricken from the records?
It was rather fun. It remains to be seen if my readers will be impressed, but they’re such hard nosed bastards anyway.

So I bought the recent Norah Jones album. It’s got some absolutely incredible songs on it, and some okay ones; this is unlike the first album, which was pretty much good from beginning to end. Still, well worth the money, if only for the vast array of instruments. Here’s a short list of some of the weird things that are played on the CD:

• Slit Drum: Sounds kinda like a euphemism for doing the horizontal mambo, if you catch my drift, but it’s kinda slick. Sounds like rain drops, from what I can tell, or people of every shape and size doing the “S. S. Lollipop” thing with the finger in the mouth. You know what I mean? I’ll demonstrate next time I see you.
• Banjolin: Either a banjo-sized instrument that lacks a banjo’s drumhead body, or a mandolin-sized instrument that includes the drumhead body. I think it’s the latter, but it’s hard to tell. You’d think they’d’ve just, ya know, picked a mandolin or banjo, one or the other. MAKE UP YOUR MINDS!
• Resonator Guitar: I think it’s basically a dobro without the raised strings. Like, a regular acoustic, but with that weird metal thing in the body that makes all the strings sound like they’re mounted on rattly springs. Somehow it works.
• Foot Tapping: Really. It’s listed as an instrument played by Kevin Breit on “Above Ground.”
• Box: I’d like to pretend that this is some kind of neat name for a percussion instrument with all kinds of sticks and drumheads and electronic doohickeys, but from what I can tell Andrew Borger just tapped on a cardboard box with his fingers. Seriously.
• Norah Farting Into An SM58: Just kidding. But after the Foot Tapping and Box, I wouldn’t’ve been too surprised.

Anyhoo, if you get a chance to pick it up, you’ll find your foot tapping along nicely with track 1, “Sunrise,” which you may have seen videos for on VH1 or CMT. Most of the next 7 are unremarkable, but I’ve listened to track 9, “Humble Me,” approximately 1,348,487 times in the last 3 days. A tasty morsel of the lyrics:

What do you say when it’s all gone away?
Baby, I didn’t meant to hurt you.
Truth spoke in whispers will tear you apart,
No matter how hard you resist it.
It never rains when you want it to . . .

You humble me Lord
Humble me Lord
I’m on me knees empty
You humble me Lord
You humble me Lord
Please, please, please forgive me

The verses are even better, but it’s getting a little dusty here in the Hearn-cube, and the last time my coworkers saw me crying they staged this whole intervention and gave me a tshirt that said “Here comes a special boy!” It sucked.

All right, I guess I better go home and practice my box. I think I’m ready to go into the studio with it, but I wanna make sure I’m playing with feeling. (I’m working my way up to cowbell.)

Woo! Man, did I get YOU guys! Hahahahahaha!

Okay, I apparently got NOBODY. Lesson learned: do all April Fool’s jokes on October 13th or something. My boy Corey did a hell of better job with his gag, which was convincing everybody that the Harrington Theatre Arts Company was shutting its doors after 30 years.

Oh well. (Note that if young driver Matt Hearn did offer me a lapload of cash for my domain name, I’d sell in a heartbeat. Don’t believe for a minute that just because I seem like such an ethical guy that I’m not, at heart, a gamey manwhore who’d sell his grandmother for 50 grand. (Just kidding, Gam-Gam!)) Hopefully I’ll have time for a nice update this afternoon, but today’s schedule is heavy:

• 11am: meeting.
• Noon: Run over to the Amy E. Dupont Building to see the Brandywine High Blazers (jazz band) play.
• 1pm: meeting until 3 FREAKING O’CLOCK.
• 5-7: drinking. Heavily.
• 7-whenever: Del A Cappella.
• Whenever-whenever: bowling.

I’ll try and write my Atkins Diet column at some point, but no promises! I’m free all weekend, though, so you should expect a quality update (with pictures!) on Monday. Have a superb weekend.

Okay, my bad, it’s been like 3 days since I was done with all the busy crap that’s kept me away from you. But now I’m back – to let you know: I can really shake ’em down.

Anyway, the show went great (I have some pictures of it that I’ll try and get up this week), and the performances on Sunday went really really well. Despite feeling a little dry and allergenic, I managed to get through a Fauré Requiem, and then an entire Bach St. John Passion (I played Pilate and sang the last bass aria). Then I found a bottle of single malt scotch.

The next few weeks should be a breeze compared to the last month (in March, except for the road trip, I basically worked 16 hour days every day of the week), even with Easter coming up. I suppose I should look at the schedule and find out what all I have to do Easter weekend, but I don’t think I have anything more than a good Friday service, and an Easter morning service. I might have to do Maundy Thursday, but I’m not sure.

Okay, now that I’ve gotten the “Matt’s Life Update (Not That You Care)” portion of the column out of the way, I’d like to discuss why my pee smells. I can’t figure it out. I assume it must have SOMETHING to do with the fact that I ate asparagus last night, but I’ve eaten asparagus in the past and haven’t had this happen. Perhaps coupled with the Atkins diet (I’ve been doing pretty well, I think I’m down to about 240), asparagus enzymes in my whizz just really reek. For a while I thought I was just smelling remnants of hair colorant and conditioner, but I’m not sure. It definitely gets stronger in the bathroom (and lingers on me, much to the endless joy of my coworkers).

Hair colorant? Yes, I dyed my hair. And without Sarah’s help! Which is why it doesn’t look quite like I’d hoped, although it’s not bad. It’s a little more “golden” than “blond,” unfortunately, and it’s not really “highlights” like I wanted. It’s still highly rad, though. I’m so pretty. It’s like being Goldilocks, except without the curls, and my job lost me my girlish laughter eons ago.

Next time: why Charles Atkins is my real dad. Or would be, if I didn’t already have a real dad. And if Dr. Atkins wasn’t, ya know, dead.

Wednesday is Zoo day! We went to the Atlanta Zoo and had us a righteous time antagonizing the animals, at least until the elephant picked me up with her trunk and flung me into the tiger den. They were able to reattach my foot, and they say I’ll eventually get 50-60% use of it again, although I got an infection and they had to amputate my left buttock.

Hobbes stretches out for a nap; awakes to feast on the flesh of his human masters

We saw many critters, and took pictures of same, including some truly sweet ones of the pandas (I got a pic of the female from about 6″ away, it’s totally hot); I’m adding them to the total “Road Trip Gallery” that I plan to put up when I get back next week.

After that, around 1pm, we headed north. We got about an hour north when I saw the signs: Iron Skillet . . . 20 oz. T-bone . . . 9.99. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So we stopped. Here’s the down-low: if you are ever in the mood for a steak, you need to drive to Carnesville, GA, to the Petro truckstop there, and get the 9.99 20oz t-bone, dude. It was the best steak I’ve had in months, and that includes multiple trips to Lone Star, who wouldn’t know a decent cut of meat if leapt onto their face while they were sleeping. Tender…juicy…so delicious. I’m nearly weeping.

Then we continued north, stopping at the outlet mall in Gaffney, where my frustrations at being able to find pants had steam coming out off my ass. (Although that also might have been the 20 oz. t-bone reacting badly with my colon, as sometimes happens.) Sarah found a few things, and we went into the Levi’s store thinking they’ve GOTTA have a pair of jeans that fit me!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Their jeans went up to 38×34, and 40×32. No 40×34 to be found, at least in the 505 section, which is the style I like. I did see a decent jean jacket (they’re back in style…who knew!), but it was $50, and I just couldn’t justify it. And then….Haggar.

Oh, Haggar…how do I love thee? Let me count the ways: 1, 2, 3 . . . $108.64 ways, to be exact. For that fairly minimal amount of cash, I got a polo shirt, 2 pairs of flat-front khakis, and a totally money sport coat. I was almost giggling with joy at finding clothes that fit. I haven’t felt like that since I was in prison in Hungary a few years back! (There was this girl, and a llama…nevermind.)

We got to Charlotte and found a hotel, went to a bar and had crablegs, and passed out around midnight. (Luckily Milo’s not with us, since there was a girl at the bar that he would have simply clubbed over the head with a barstool and dragged out by her hair.) Plan for Thursday: hit up Kannapolis for a Dale Earnhardt memorial, go to JR and buy brassieres and chandeliers (remind me to tell you later), get into Richmond sometime in the early evening, and commence drinking heavily with Kyrone and Kritdy. Update tomorrow!