Ketchup, Rubber Buns and Liquor

Back when I was a kid, there was this awful joke we used to tell...even if we didn't quite understand it.

JOKER: Okay to every single thing I say, you have to respond "Ketchup, rubber buns and liquor," got it?

JOKEE: Sounds reasonable enough and you've never lead me astray so I shall play into your little ruse.

JOKER: Great. So what do you eat for breakfast?

JOKEE: Ketchup, rubber buns and liquor.

JOKER. Right. So what do you eat for lunch?

JOKEE: I see where you're going with this...

JOKER: Shut up. What do you eat for lunch?

JOKEE: Ketchup, rubber buns and liquor.

JOKER: Exactly. What do you eat for dinner?

JOKEE: You know what I'm going to say...

JOKER: WHAT DO YOU EAT FOR DINNER, DAMN IT!

JOKEE: Ketchup, rubber buns and liquor.

JOKER: Good. Now when you meet up with your old girlfriend, what do you do?

JOKEE: Ketchup, rubber buns and liqu....HEY!

JOKER: Hahahahah you like giiiiiiiiiirls!

JOKEE: We're through professionally, man.

I guess what I'm trying to say, Internet, is that it has been a while. And with your permission I would like to now catch up, rub your buns and lick you.

It's been a long summer. That's not to say it hasn't been a good summer by any stretch of the imagination...just long, you know. Well if you are over the age of 20 and live in a reasonable American tax bracket than you probably DO know.

I now live in a house...a house that I make payments on (however late they may be) and a house that I'm responsible for. It seems like just yesterday I was on the receiving end of jokes that cruelly made me prove my attraction to women. Now I study in coffee shops, work at baseball stadiums and live in houses that my parents don't.

Weeeeird, man.

I also have a day job. Only it's not every day...and they don't pay me....and it's not a job so much as it is an internship but it is awesome. I'm writing game recaps for the Southern Ohio Copperheads and living the dream several nights a week, sitting in an overcrowded press box on balmy summer nights watching young men play baseball WITH ACTUAL WOODEN BATS. Then I get to go home and write about it. It's actually rather wild.

I'm also writing here and there for the Athens News. A long time ago I once called a certain editor of a certain local paper "long-winded." Two years later, that man would not only generously let me write for his paper but also patiently wait for me to figure out AP Style instead of saying "Jesus, this kid is an idiot," and kick my short-winded ass to the curb.

Life works in mysterious ways, children.

I don't know if you've noticed but I've also changed the appearance of the blog for a bit. The name "The Collective(ly) Unconscious" is one of my favorite things my demented little mindhas ever produced but my writing habits and skills haven't been able to live up to the name of such a serialized genius. I wanted my blog not to be so much a blog as it was a center for serious

cultural analysis. But almost two years into the process, I've realized that that isn't what a blog is. A blog is a narcissistic cesspool where I write about my day-to-day existence to justify the 55-80 years I will spend suffering the tragic human illness of consciousness.

Also, the blog is now in the color orange.

I've been catching up with some television as I am ought to do.

I finally finished the third season of Mad Men. I go through Mad Men in spurts. It is such a slow, literary show that my mind can only take so much of it at once. Having said that, season three was the most entertaining the show has ever been and hours like "The Gypsy and the Hobo" prove once again that television is the best it has ever been.

I've also started watching Starz recently cancelled series Party Down. I have a thing for recently cancelled shows. Lord knows I want to tackle Buffy or The Sopranos one day but 20 episodes of Party Down look a lot more conquerable than 70+ episodes of The Sopranos or 100+ episodes of Buffy. I never really watched Veronica Mars, so I had nothing to expect from a Rob Thomas show...I only watched because of the low episode count. Now that I have only four episodes left, I wish I had four-hundred more. Adam Scott and Lizzy Caplan are utterly tremendous - the best star-crossed couple I've seen on television since the first season of Jim and Pam. And how Ken Marino has escaped my radar this long is beyond me. I never would have believed that Ron Swanson of Parks and Recreation may be my second favorite character named Ron on a comedy ever.

Then of course there's True Blood...oh sweet, sweet, soooo damn sweet True Blood. I could write sonnets for this show. True Blood confirms something that I've long suspected about television - it's all in the casting. Every single casting decision that Alan Ball has made regarding True Blood has been utterly perfect. Some shows try to inject fresh blood (pardon the pun) and only succeed in taking screen-time away from better characters. The newbies on True Blood just make everything just so exponentially better.

Dennis O'Hare as a vampire King? So brilliant.

Captain Gault from Lost as a douchebag werewolf? Perfect.

James Frain as a British Vampire PI with a serious case of jungle fever? Best. Casting. Decision. Ever. In. The. History. Of. Forever.

True Blood just continues to be the best B-movie level entertainment for smart people.

Well it looks like the seventeenth episode of Party Down has finally loaded. With that, I take my leave, Internet.

May I lick you once more in the future.

Here's a picture of Copperheads Centerfielder, Luis Pollorena, doing a Mariachi dance...just in case you ever wanted to see that.