Pretty much since I can remember wanting to do something I wanted to be a writer. Movies, books, magazines, in flight catalogs, anything. It didn’t matter. I just knew that it was something that I could do and something that I thought I would enjoy doing. Well, after years of NOT doing anything to make that a reality I have finally made my first step.
In February of this year I started Miller Park Drunk. It was meant to just be a distraction, something to get me through the days while filling the void in my life to talk/write about baseball. Well, as it got going I started to realize more and more that it was better off as a comedy blog about baseball than any sort of serious baseball blog that featured comedy. As soon as I realized that the blog really took off. Currently, it’s averaging over 300 a day and has had almost 20,000 visitors since it’s debut. Of course, there is no money involved. I do it for the adulation. People don’t make money off the internet. Unless they get an email like this:
I’m the Milwaukee city editor for Decider.com, the local version of The Onion A.V. Club. I’m writing because I’m a fan of your blog and I was wondering if you’d like to write a guest column for our weekly “Talkin’ Baseball” feature devoted to the Brewers.
I’m basically looking for you to bring some of that Miller Park Drunk magic to Decider. I envision the column being a lot like a Miller Park Drunk post, except a little longer and maybe with a few more swear words.
If you’re interested, we can start talking about ideas and deadlines. And, yes, we will pay you for this.
Of course I said yes and today that article is running. I did as I was asked and made it longer with more swear words, then turned it into an editor who didn’t make too many changes. They titled it Miller Park Drunk’s Guide To How Not Be a Brewers Fan (which I’m not sure makes complete sense when read aloud) and I can now call myself a professional writer. Why? Because professional’s get paid. No matter how immature they are.
Tags accomplishment, adulation, blog, Books, Brewers, catalogs, comedy, debut, distraction, email, emails, filling the void, guest column, life, magazines, magic, miller park, milwaukee city, money, onion, professional writer, talkin baseball, v club
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I decided to give the show Weeds a try and thanks to the magic of Netflix online and the internet, I have watched the first three seasons and part of the fourth in the past week. (Yes, I am aware that I have watched over 24 hours of this show alone in under 7 days. I know I have a problem.) Overall, I have to say that I really, really like the show. Despite being a drug dealer Mary Louise Parker’s character comes off as one of the most realistic moms on television. She really does an amazing job with her character and it’s obvious that she deserves any awards that she has won for this show. Surprisingly she is outshined in the acting department by Elizabeth Perkins’ Celia Hodes character who may be one of the biggest bitches in the history of television. She does the most unbelievable bitchy, selfish things (starting with shipping her daughter off to boarding school in Mexico) that make you want to kill her, but you somehow never end up hating her and kind of miss her when she’s not around. Really a great job by the girlfriend from Big. Who thought you would have ever seen her again? There are some really well drawn characters on this show and some good acting performances. The writing is sharp, witty and more often than not laugh out loud funny.
That being said, this show has it’s flaws. The first two seasons are excellent and you can tell the story was mapped out very clearly. In season three and beyond this isn’t always the case. Some things are started and not re-visited without rhyme or reason. Nancy will do things that sometimes feel more like fanwank (Nancy in a thong! Nancy swimming in bra and panties! Nancy having random meaningless sex!) than a part of any overlying story. The show is still good, but it’s missing a lot of what made it the nice, quirky drama that it was in the first two seasons. Nancy crosses a line at some point and there is no going back. It’s no longer about providing for her kids, she’s in it for different reasons. (The picture I used is when I think this came to be.) It makes sense character-wise for this progression, but it’s kind of sad to see the moral gray line she was walking disappear. She still won’t mess with other drugs, only marijuana, but she’s also a lot more okay with some of the things that go along with being a drug dealer and that shouldn’t be okay. The show was recently renewed for a sixth season and I hope that the producer’s have a plan to get her back to being a good person by the time this thing is all said and done. I haven’t even made it to the fifth season yet and I’m already wondering where her breaking point is.
Regardless I highly recommend this show to anyone. It’s not a show about drug dealing or drugs, it’s a show about a family who happen to deal drugs. You don’t have to approve of what they do. It might actually be more enjoyable if you don’t because they don’t glorify drugs at all. It’s immediately shot to the top 5 of my active television show list (along with Lost, How I Met Your Mother, 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights). Which shouldn’t be surprising considering I watch True Blood every week despite the fact that it’s a vampire show 1/50th as good as Buffy or Angel (and that’s being generous). Check it out. If you have Netflix online the first two seasons are online or I am sure if you search the internet you can find them for free somewhere.


Tags acting department, Angel, bitches, boarding school, buffy, celia hodes, different reasons, elizabeth perkins, girlfriend, history of television, jobs, magic, mary louise parker, meaningless sex, mexico, moms, nancy, netflix, panties, pictures, rhyme, thong, three seasons, two seasons, weeds
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