'Tis the Season

I hope you enjoy the "Rudolph" parody.
As I march through my final Kickstarter day. I hope for your generous shares.

And if you haven't seen it yet, watch my Kickstarter Vid.

Do it for the Laughs

OK You! Yes, you! right there with the computer (or mobile device). I need you like I have never needed anyone before (unless you're my mom). I need you to find it in your heart and your wallet to pledge $5 to my amazing book project (Romancing the Hilarity). 

I have 52 hours left to make my goal or I am all the way back to square one. And, while I know you've enjoyed the attention, is that really what you want. If you can't find those elusive five dollars, can you spare a "Share."

Only 680 people need to

Go to Kickstarter.com 

Search: Romancing the Hilarity

And be amazed (or at least amused).

Enough to pledge less than a gourmet espresso-based drink.

Let's do it!

To the tune of Oh Christmas Tree.

Skating at 5 is an Adventure

Polos Aren't Dressy

Shuffling down the hallway in high school, I was behind a fellow student wearing a polo shirt, when I overheard the following exchange

                Sweatsuit: Man, why are you so dressed up.

                Polo: I have a job interview.

                Sweatsuit: Well, you look good.

                Me:…

                Me: [Thinking] Dressed up? Sad.

Dressing nicely is something I’ve always enjoyed. Even as a child I was drawn to fedoras, top hats, mirror-shined shoes, vests and ties. I asked for a white suit every Christmas and birthday from ages 6-10. My parents, in their infinite wisdom, knew that my LOVE of fine clothes, did not always directly translate into quality CARE of clothes. So, I never got a white suit. And, I’m really okay with that.  These days, I don’t go for the white suits. I still wear a lot of shirts and ties, but mostly I add my flair with cufflinks and pocket squares. When I’m feeling extra dressy, I match my socks to my ties.

I was visiting friends in Maryland and Jeff, a friend of their family came over sporting the Uber-functional look of Vibram FiveFingers™, a minimalist shoe marketed as a more natural alternative for outdoor activities. Visually and functionally the footwear is meant to replicate being barefoot and has flexible soles contoured to the shape of the human foot, with VISIBLE individual sections for the toes.  While I love the function, I can’t quite get over the form. So, from the outset, I couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea of wearing those even in the most casual situation.

We chatted a little about the shoes, and then he said the words which will ring in my ears until my dying day. “Yeah, I have two pair. This is my everyday pair. Back home I have my dress pair, for church and stuff.”

I’m pretty sure that the puff in my head was audible, as a tiny part of my brain exploded.

Knowing who I was, Jeff was being a bit tongue-in-cheek, but we both go very much our own separate ways in terms of attire. And, we have a good time doing it.

As I head into the homestretch of my Kickstarter Campaign, I'm busting out Christmas Kickstarter Parodies. Enjoy.

My Little Thank You

Friends and Followers,

  Thanks for your support of my unusual expression over the years. You all helped me keep writing and improving, telling stories, and having fun.

I feel like I've kinda dropped the ball on posting new material because I got a little caught up in my book, and my Kickstarter Campaign. So here's an uplifting piece just for you my blog friends.

*~*~*

In a world that shares stories of the low expectations for children with no intellectual curiosity and is awash with bad examinations and false equivalencies, I'm privileged to share stories of active and involved parents, who raise fascinated, creative children. My parents set a fine example, but this evening's story is from a friend.

So, we adults went to see Thor. Later, we are sitting around the table discussing the physics of the Thor type movies, and my eight year old granddaughter interrupts and asks, "What's a singularity?" Well, Joel [the girl's father] immediately and with all seriousness begins," A singularity is when....", and I absolutely LOST IT!!! But, it turns out Joel regularly discusses the most advanced quantum theory and particle physics with the little girls, and he is as adept at explaining these mind-boggling concepts as Bill Nye is at teaching how water freezes. Anyway, we got a bit bogged down when I tried to trip Joel up with the conflicting nature of gravitational vs magnetic forces, but it was nice to see my son not JUST speaking with his children about Tinkerbell or Hello Kitty. Although they enjoy those topics just as much.

This reminds me that, for all the children left behind, there are parents taking hands and walking together with the leaders of tomorrow.

Parenting Level: Awesome!

Before tweeting vitriol (Look it up... I'll wait) about superstars remember, celebrities are human. http://t.co/VR9O778pm4 @JimmyKimmelLive

— Morris DuBose III (@MoTheThird) November 11, 2013

Share This Video... To Keep Me Out of Prison

Does the chance to video chat with Mo seem like it would be fun? See how you can bring that dream to life:

Promotial Pics

I have that little blue indicator under the "me" tab and I can't figure out how to make it go away...I feel old.

— Morris DuBose III (@MoTheThird) November 6, 2013

This is Why I Write 1: Waiting in Line

I love writing, a while back I wrote a post on why I write. Now, I want to share some of the stories about my life as a writer.

Often, DC between November 1^st (the day 60% of the establishments in Metro DC start playing Christmas music nonstop), and January 5^th (when the last of the New Year’s hangovers are finally gone) can be a massive vortex of impatience and entitlement which in no way resembles the touted “Spirit of Christmas.” People get so caught up in the holiday to-do list that they miss out on all but a few moments in what could be a month of magical comings and goings.

I was spending Christmas 2008 with friends in the area, and I had one gift left to get, a John McCain action figure, a consolation prize for a fairly conservative friend of mine, who happened to collect action figures. But, between the election being over and Christmas being days away the only place to get one was at a Borders® about an hour and fifteen minutes worth of transit riding away. On the plus side, I had just picked up Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris, so at least I would be entertained.

Borders® was swarming with bodies, bags, books and egos. In contradistinction to almost every other trip to a bookstore I got my action figure and headed directly for the checkout line. Settling in for what promised to be about 20-50 minutes of waiting, I listened to the grumblings and rants of my fellow line dwellers for a minute or two before withdrawing my book from my bag and picked up reading “The Santaland Diaries,” where I’d left off on the bus.

Almost instantly I was chuckling quietly, but very quickly my quiet chuckles became barely containable full on laughter. My line mates stole glances at me, I assume to figure out if I was genuinely amused by the book, or an unbalanced young man freefalling into Christmas induced madness. After deciding that I was unlikely to erupt in rage at normal interaction, a decidedly experienced and slightly worn-down looking soccer mom inquired, “Seriously, what’s so funny?”

I gave a quick summary, “It’s about one man’s hilariously intense time as a Santaland elf in Macy’s New York.”

“I could go for a laugh…”

“Same here,” said another shopper.

“Um…Okay,” I replied. I flipped a page or two back, and started reading at the point where the narrator sets up his interview to become an elf:

The woman at Macy's asked, "Would you be interested in full-time elf or evening and weekend elf?"

I said, "Full-time elf."

I have an appointment next Wednesday at noon.

I am a thirty-three-year-old man applying for a job as an elf (p4).

I continued reading uninterrupted for minutes as my growing audience of queued shoppers laughed along with me. When I paused to ensure I wasn’t annoying people, I was surprised to see that many of the people within the sound of my voice were listening intently, some going as far as shushing others.

In what I consider to be the best line waiting experience I’ve ever had, a dozen or so strangers and I passed an absurdly long Christmas line wait, being highly entertained by the words of David Sedaris. And, I thought to myself, I’d like to do that for someone someday.

I’m Morris DuBose, and that’s one of the reasons I write. 

Let It Not Be Said, "MoTheThird Did Not Try."

Ladies and Gentlemen,
  The good news is that Mike (or at least his brother Joe) has seen some of the stuff I've written and posted in my quest to secure him as the writer of my book forward.

  The bad news is, he has declined my request. Thank you all for your support. my "Letter to Mike Birbiglia" got a good number of page views in almost no time.

  Please continue to check out my Kickstarter Campaign and share that love.

 Sincerely,
   MoTheThird

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1455357374/romancing-the-hilarity

The Best Dream I Ever Had: starring Mike Birbiglia (Updated)

Update: Mr. Birbiglia has officially declined to write my forward...

~*~
I rarely remember my dreams or any part thereof. If 3 seconds after waking up I remember even a single detail, that’s almost celebration worthy. It took me an entire semester to complete a three-night sleep study that everyone in my psychology class did in a week. Every few years, however, I have a dream which gets etched in my brain.

Four years ago I had a dream that still gives me chills. I was trapped by an inhumanly overbearing iteration of a not-to-be-named member of my extended family. In what felt like cross between a Repo Men, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I was under this person’s power, and my escape attempts were met with crushing defeat. For the only time since I was ten I woke up terrified, gasping for air.

But that’s not what this is about. This is about

The Best Dream I Ever Had

            Starring Mike Birbiglia

The day my wife encouraged me to reach out to my hero, to possibly write the forward to my book, I dove into all of my social media outlets, contact websites, and anything else I could find, with fervor worth noting. So, really, it makes sense that that first day spring toward getting Mr. Birbiglia’s attention, resulted in a (bir)big night.

What makes the dream so much better for me, in retrospect, is that Mike has a fairly expansive repertoire of sleep and dream based material. “Sleepy Karl,” the great dude/ bad employee who works the night shift in Mike’s mind and has ideas like, staying in bed to “…make out with Miss Pac-Man®.” He often discusses his love for sleep which seems to go back and forth between unhealthy and a full-on addiction requiring 5 wake-up calls between 7am and 1pm. And then, of course, there are his dreams, which, “…are so effortless. It’s like a movie. ‘I want to go to the store.’ [Cuts to the store][Fade to black] [Pizza montage]” While, there were no pepperoni-wheeled cars in this dream, there was the quest to meet Mike Birbiglia and ask him face to face, if he’d write the forward.

~*~

I set off to find him. I’m not entirely sure from where I was setting off, or, why I wasn’t going to drive. But, it was a beautiful area on a beautiful day and I was walking.  Thankfully I was in a dream, because suddenly I was strolling up the final stretch of road on the way to his house after a travel montage of power-walking, walking, and trudging across several states, and arriving at the wrong house…twice. I’m walking up this path to the massive, yet understated home of my storytelling hero. FYI, Mike’s house, in my dream also has an awesome gully/moat in front of it, with a bridge. It was basically a 21 century adaptation of a castle.

I actually ran into him before stepping foot on the bridge and what followed was another montage of a fun-filled day full of sweet hangouts, and diversions which all seemed to have a reality bending aspect. One of which was bouncing a ball from his moat off of two walls into a basketball hoop, on the first try. Kinda like how unplugged kids would have played around if they were hanging out in the Matrix.

After the montage, we’re back in his place and, it’s evening. There is a party of sorts going on and we start a massive laser tag game (‘cause apparently Mike Birbiglia’s house is kinda like the Tardis, and he loves laser tag enough to own 40+ packs). Mike invites me to be on his team, and we tear it up for a little while. But, somebody does something stupid, mean and moderately dangerous to others, inspiring Mike and me to break off from the group and head to another room to talk about how mean people suck.

I screw my courage to the sticking place, and open my mouth to do the big ask,

…

Then I woke up.

My brain, readjusting to conscious thought, is at once flooded with these, almost simultaneous thoughts:

 Crap!! You squandered the perfect opportunity to ask, by waiting too long.

 Don’t sweat it. It could be worse. At least if you make contact with him now, you can just remind him of the laser tag party.

Wait… it was a dream. None of that happened. You might remember that party forever, but Mike was never there. You’re still completely at square one

~*~

I still felt oddly encouraged, and took off from square one with an overly-enthusiastic inspiration. I emailed, facebook messaged, tweeted, wrote an open letter in my blog, inserted posts in my facebook pages and started a campaign of all my media followers.

At this point I fear I may have just scared him into hiding (in my “Letter to Mike Birbiglia, I did call myself a Birbiglophile…yikes).  So, that’s a concern. But hopefully he finds my relentless pursuit endearing.

Either way, I’m going to keep pressing on until he accepts my request or very clearly tells me, “No.” 

Designer Flyers

And now, it’s time for a challenge…

Are you awesome at designing? Do you want a signed first edition of Romancing the Hilarity? Are you full of leftover creative genius in the post-Halloween costume lull (and a little sluggish coming off of your sugar crash or hangover, depending on your vice of choice)? What you need is a chance to show off all your skills by designing the promotional poster/ flyer for Romancing the Hilarity.

From now through Tuesday, November 5,

I’m looking for submissions of graphics of at least 82 x 82 ppi  

Accepted file formats: .JPG, .JPEG, .TIF, .TIFF

It would be nice if the winning designer is able to submit a layered file of the winning design.

All submissions must be original art/illustrations. Respect other’s intellectual property.

No copyrighted work.

To submit your work, message me at my Facebook Page MoTheThird (https://www.facebook.com/pages/MoTheThird/314058095290532). Include your name, email address, and website or Facebook page (optional).

These will be posted on my blog where fans and friends can vote on their favorite designs until 11:59 on Friday, November 8^th.

The design with the most votes (min 20) will be featured on each of my media pages, including Facebook (MoTheThird), My Kickstarter Campaign page, and blog. It will also be on flyers and other promotional material. The winner will also, receive a digital and signed print copy of Romancing the Hilarity upon publication.

So, watch the video, and check out some of my other work to inspire yours.

Good luck!

Tell your friends and show off your work and mine.