In Memoriam...

Thank you all for coming. Recently my hair has been threatening to cut itself, like an unruly teenager. So, I (my hair's loving family) have staged this mock funeral to show how much we (the editorial "we") care about it.

(After taking this introductory photo, I realized that I should maybe give my hair a little more credit, and that it was all right to admit that it could be sexy. So I channeled Desperado-era long-haired Antonio Banderas and came up with this)

See, hair? You can totally pull it off.

I think my hair feels better already. Its hairy heart is being moved by all the pretty words we are saying about it. Let's have a look back at some of my hair's travels.

Here's a picture of my hair at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. There were many cowboy hats to try on, but my hair wasn't feeling very thin that day and trying things on probably would have just made it feel worse.



Ah and here's my hair posing with a burrito in Mexico. My hair is a bit of a racist, and its social commentary on the "dirty" Mexicans was to not be washed for most of the time. What an asshole. What? Oh AHEM HEM HEM... but we're here to remember the good times. Moving right along...



Here's my hair in a rare artistic piece. The photographer wanted to shock you with the contrast between a long, flowing head of hair and a bald, green head. Or perhaps one could interpret the receding hairline of the human subject to challenge the viewer to imagine him becoming the bald anthropomorphic reptile skilled in the arts of stealth and assassination.



And here is my hair taunting what it believes to be an Ewok. My hair is a Star Wars fanatic of almost religious devotion, and it was not pleased with the Ewok spin-off movies cashing in on what it considered to be non-essential and "stupid" characters. Don't even get it started on Jar Jar Binks.



Here is my hair when it was younger, embarrassing itself at a party. This was one of the many times my hair forced me to base a transition into a closing paragraph on a pun. After three beers, I told my hair I'd have to CUT IT OFF.

I can see that in your grief-stricken state, you're not in the mood for puns. Well of course it's the grief. At any rate, my hair is feeling a little better about itself, and has come out of its suicidal depression long enough to remind me that I'm in a rock band, and that if I cut it off, how am I going to get to be as sweaty on stage? My hair has greatly overestimated its understanding of things I like.

THE PBJ

Being a proud bachelor/poor/awesome, I have logged many hundreds of hours making and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Not many other cheap foods can consistently deliver the way a solid PBJ can. They've evolved about as much as sharks or AC/DC and are just as much a piece of the very fabric of American life. Thus, I would like to share what I have learned so that you may enjoy your sandwiches as much as I do.

THE INGREDIENTS
Now I could rattle off brand names of specific breads and where you can purchase a certain kind of jelly, and we could argue smooth versus crunchy peanut butter until I punch you in the chest because you say crunchy. Crunchy peanut butter is gross. I win.
But the three ingredients of an enjoyable PBJ all adhere to three guidelines:
First, ingredients to make PBJs for a week should not cost any more than $10. Making an expensive PBJ is like putting peanuts in peanut butter. WHY DO IT. Second, they should be easy to utilize. Now this is where I half break one of my own rules. Obviously jelly in a squeezable container was an international revelation and should have its own commemorative day complete with parades and awkward family gatherings. But peanut butter needs to come in an old-fashioned screw-top jar, and I'll tell you why. Did you ever wake up one picturesque winter morning to a fresh snow so completely brand new and untouched by anything that you had to suit up and get out in it to be the first to upset the pristine white surface with your giddy, excited-for-Christmas-presents energy? Yeah me neither. But that's pretty much what the first stab into a new peanut butter jar is like for me. Perfectly flat smooth brown surface BUTTER KNIFE DESTROY!! It's an important piece of your formative childhood memories that I get to live whenever I feel like it. By stabbing something.

INAPPROPRIATE PARAGRAPH BREAK 
And then third and finally, ingredients should be plentiful and easy to find. Half the appeal of the PBJ is that headaches are allergic to it. Nothing about it says "I'm stressful" or "give up." You should never have to drive to a second store to round up ingredients. If you do, you might as well go ahead and buy yourself a turkey to cook in the oven for seven hours or whatever.

A CAUTIONARY TALE 
You may make it to the end of a loaf of bread and find that you're left with an odd number of slices. You may be tempted to employ the well-worn sandwich adage "bigger is better" and attempt a double-decker PBJ, peanut butter on one side, jelly on the other side. I'm here to tell you the result will leave you angry, confused, and likely to throw your sandwich off your sixth-floor balcony. The bread buffer between your PB and your J violates the most important PBJ rule: the peanut butter and the jelly MUST be touching. The bond between the two is half science, half magic, and all amazing. Don't disrespect it.

THE FUTURE? 
Recently, I've been flirting with the idea of adding another ingredient into the mix. But every time I go to make myself a sandwich, I can't seem to muster up the enthusiasm to desecrate something so holy. And now I'm sad because I'm afraid I've offended mayonnaise by calling it a desecration. But I think the mark of an advanced civilization is that sometimes it's not already extremely hungry when it prepares its food, so it might get adventurous and tamper with the sanctity of jelly and bread and peanut butter. I, however, am not an advanced civilization and I am starving. I think I'd better go make myself a turkey club and apologize to mayo.