Simple Displeasures

Life is full of simple pleasures like a walk through the woods, a fresh cup of coffee, watching TV or just having complete silence when you get home from work. For me, the simplest of pleasures is sitting at my kitchen table and doing a word search. It's very relaxing, I'd like to think that it improves some sort of mental faculty and there's always a great feeling of accomplishment that comes with finding the last word, a feeling of completion.

Contrarily, I understand that our feelings about an activity or any other thing is strongly tied to our own personal experiences. As an example, some people may imagine a perfect day as waking up early on a winter morning and hitting the slopes to do some skiing. In my lifetime, I have had the misfortune of losing a ski halfway down a mountain, jumping off of a malfunctioning chairlift and possessing a genuine hatred for thermometer readings that are preceded by a minus sign. In my opinion, if Hell were ever to freeze over, the first thing the Hellites would do is open up a ski resort. I sincerely hope that this happens, because that way we would ensure that all of the inhabitants were genuinely bad people. As  a New England native with a pasty complexion, it pains me to say this, but give me a beach chair and a beer and I'll give you a happy guy.

Again, this is just based off of my own personal experiences and because I have now made several trips around the sun and have had twenty-four years of experiencing this crazy thing called life, my likes and dislikes have changed as I've learned and been introduced to new things. Similar to the way most of us are at one point dependent on baby formula or we watch "That's So Raven" for longer than we are proud of, but then we grow out of it. I have noticed two instances which had brought me joy in the past, but now, for reasons I will delve in to, I can not stand them!  

I love hockey. Hockey helped me learn to get up at 5 a.m. and be happy about it. Hockey taught me how to be a team player and work together with others to accomplish a common goal. Most importantly, the game of Canadian Anger Management taught me that if you throw enough padding on him, even a twiggy twelve year-old can turn into a merciless Michelin man on skates. Sadly, I had to stop playing once people started checking and I know, hockey without checking is like boxing without bunching. Just a bunch of dudes hugging, pretending that they are tough, but I really enjoyed the time I spent playing. The only downside of my career in two-hand touch twig and twine was that attending professional hockey games was no longer an exciting event, it was a study session. I watched the Left Winger on the home team to see how he responded to various situations when the puck went into his corner in the offensive zone, where he positioned himself when the puck was in the defensive zone and most importantly, whether or not he spit in his palm prior to the post-game handshake as many of the kindergarten competitors at my level did. This was how it went for years, I would pay hundreds of dollars and one vital organ to go see a professional hockey game that ended up turning into a study session. It served a great purpose while I was playing, but once I got to the age where people were allowed to hit each other, like any true nerd does, I quit hockey and started running track. Unfortunately, like anyone who drives the same path to work for years and years, this habit of on ice observation is ingrained in my unharmed and salvaged cerebrum and my eyes wonder and watch the movements of the Left Winger regardless of where the action is on the ice. I'm fine watching the games on television, but the moment I enter an arena to go to a game live, the Soviet Russian student in me, Markgei Markov takes over and as is the case with any activity adapted by the Russians, all of the fun is immediately sucked out of this event for me.  

"Picture your audience in their underwear." Yes, because the quickest way to gain the respect of an audience which you are speaking to is definitely undressing them with your mind. This technique was not covered in the public speaking class that I took in college. We did, however, learn all about posture, the format for a good presentation and how to utilize different dramatic tools such as tone change and intentional pauses. As part of this class, we examined famous speeches such as the "tear down this wall!" speech made by Ronald Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate and his address to the nation following the Challenger disaster. The timing and the way in which President Reagan could sternly or solemnly address his audience in these speeches had a lot of interesting layers that we, as a class, dove into at length.

Aside from politicians, we also looked at speeches from actors in various films, the most memorable of these for me being Mel Gibson's portrayal of William Wallace in Braveheart. In a pivotal scene that could undoubtedly invigorate someone in a coma, Wallace addresses a band of worn out and wary soldiers as they prepare to fight the Goliath British garrison. Wallace asks the men if they would be willing to die on the battlefield for their freedom or if they would rather live out a life of regret if they chose not to take a stand against the evil King Longshanks. The question he poses creates a shift in the mindset of his men as they begin to see the reward as greater than the risk. The impassioned Wallace utilizes tone changes to express the importance of their decision and dramatic pauses to allow his audience to weigh the possibilities of its outcome. As any self-respecting man has, I've watched Braveheart in its entirety about a dozen times. However, I have watched the "Freedom" speech scene an additional 30 times in the school library with an excerpt from the script, highlighting dramatic pauses in blue, tone changes in green and words of emphasis in pink (highlighting words spoken by William Wallace in pink seemed like treason itself, but we will have to deal with that later). This assignment was awesome! An educational experience that called for me to watch a scene from Braveheart, are you kidding me?! I aced that assignment because I was educationally and excitedly invested in it. Each time I watched the speech, I picked up on new things and from delving into this diagnosis, I gained a fuller appreciation for the elements that roused a band of rowdy Scotsmen. Unfortunately, much like my continued on-ice analysis, to this day I enjoy 99% Braveheart until it comes time for William Wallace to step up to the mic and drop the word bombs that inspired the Chase credit card company to give people cash back on every purchase. My ears perk up at every pause, my inner-analytical is tapped in to at every tone change and any ounce of entertainment I could feel is vexed by the variations of volume this speech has to offer. The spectacle I once viewed as the "Freedom Speech" is now shrouded, strangled and sickened by the Studious Syndrome and I will forever hate my professor for that, because any arsehole with a PhD and a syllabus who can take one of the greatest pre-massacre monologues of all-time and cause me to mentally minimize it to a series of dialectal devices, needs to have their intestines and their head removed.    

Top 10 Reasons People Didn't Smile in Pictures

Nowadays, people will more often than not judge the quality of family photo by how good it is that they look in it. Everyone else in the picture could look Red Carpet ready and happy to be able to capture the gift in their life that the present moment has proven to be. However, if someone feels as though they seem to resemble an MMA fighter in a post-fight press conference following a losing effort, the foreground, the background and the entirety of that picture is now something to be thrown in the electronic or literal trash. I like something I heard from comedian, Gary Gulman when he says "People will say things like 'I don't photograph well.' Oh it's not you, it's the technology. It's not me that's unattractive, what's unattractive is any exact copy of my face." Have there been pictures of me that I'm not proud of? Absolutely! There are pictures somewhere on this planet of me dressed as a doctor or a football player. Two professions I would later realize I do not have the brains or brawn to pull off. When I was at a dance in high school, a slow song came on and the moment felt right so I gave my date a kiss. What I didn't realize is in that exact moment, a group of Platonic friends directly in front of me decided they were going to capture that moment in their lovely suits and dresses and keep it to remind themselves of what a great night that dance had been. I am forever in the background of that picture and despite the fact that the kiss had been an innocent little peck, frozen in time is now a couple that looks like they are trying to turn that high school dance into a preschool graduation and for that, I will always be sorry.

The fact of the matter is that people did not always place such a high level of importance on how they looked in pictures, whether they looked happy or attractive in that moment. A lot has to do with people not knowing when "that moment" was going to be because there were no flashing timers or selfie sticks. There was no way to tell when someone should start or stop smiling for a picture so, why bother? Have you ever had to smile longer than you expected for a picture? I end up looking like a frightened Botox dummy. The second the camera is lowered, my first thought is "I'm done smiling? Thank goodness!" and then I get in all of the stern-faced frowning I had been missing out on for the last minute and a half.  

So while none of the following is based in fact, here are my Top 10 Reasons People Never Smiled In Pictures In the Old Days

1. William T. Sherman is pissed that his cannons are malfunctioning and he keeps sending letters to the company, but all of the replies just say "Plez b hoden fir de nes afelibull pursan hu nus ha tew rit"
2. The farming family is upset because they have just came from seeing playwright Nathaniel Bannister's 1837 hit "the Marriage Contract" and they will have to wait a whole two years before he comes out with "The Maine Question" and thus, they are stuck in what we now know to be a "show hole." 
3.  They Had Gas. I obviously can't prove it, but if you look at the collection of pictures that Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln have taken together, I can pretty much guarantee in that moment, one of them is fanning the fanny flatulent flames of marital discord. Happy belated birthday Honest Abe!
4. They didn't have tooth brushes. So it's safe to say that the color pattern on the inside of people's mouths looked something like a busted up, old piano and that is certainly nothing to show off.  They didn't have toilet paper. I've done some sub par wiping jobs in my day, whether it be because my bus was arriving, my show was back on or because when your the smaller of two brothers, your "number twos" become a secondary concern to Older Bros' bathroom needs. It is not comfortable walking around like Porky Pig looking for Bugs Bunny until you get to school. With no toilet paper at all? I can't even imagine!  They didn't have Xbox. They didn't even know the concept of what would become the Xbox, because they were too busy just trying to survive on a daily basis, but still somehow they knew that they were missing out. All they had were arranged marriages and that can make for a very bitter group of "settlers." (Sorry, that one was bad, it won't happen again.)
5.  Half of the people were probably drunk. Given the fact that alcoholic beverages were much more common back then and a "drinking age" was nonexistent it wouldn't surprise me if pretty much everyone in these pictures had been, or was currently getting their "Colonial Williamsburg Crunk" on. Colonial times almost forced us into creating a whole new humanoid chart entitled "The Inebriation of Man" where you start out crawling, then walking, then stumbling, then falling, then crawling again and then eventually dying from a minor cold. My point is, have you ever seen a picture of yourself drunk and thought "this would make a great Christmas card?" I'm guessing not, so let's cut these people some slack.
6. Lesser healthcare meant that people back then were dying from colds, wartime injuries and just the act of being born, so the hardened people before you in these photos had seen death and hardship throughout all of their lives and were essentially rough riders one blue bandana away from being leaders of the Crips. 
7. Fashion. People like to look good. In high school, I had this faded jeans and green plaid button down shirt combo that really made my eyes pop. Anytime  I put that on, I left the house feeling like a million bucks. Don't get me wrong, the second I walked out into public, I pushed on doors that said "Pull" and I stepped onto extra stairs that weren't even there, but when I had my Superman costume on, none of that mattered, I was invincible baby! Back in the old days, women looked like extravagant peacocks and men dressed as if they were cast as extras for an off-Broadway production of The Nutcracker so I don't blame them for looking a little upset. By looking at my school pictures, I could tell you the exact year I started picking out my own clothes because there suddenly was a complete extinction of the cartoon dinosaurs that once inhabited my clothing, but there is an ever-present smile on my face. 
8. Individuals and families being photographed often felt judged. Photographers back in the day would disappear under a large hood and then pop back up after the picture was taken. Although American football hadn't even been invented yet, most families expected the cameraman to resurface and say something along the lines of "After further review, the ruling in the booth is that the father's got no teeth, the mother smells like feet and the children don't know a letter from litter of kittens now get on outta here, git!"
9. Today, prior to taking a picture, saying the word "cheese" naturally presses the lips and mouth into a upright and smiling position. We figured this out as a result of some trial and error having previously experimented with a few other options. Sadly, the main dishes back then consisted of poultry. Saying "poultry" has an early gravitational downward pull on the mouth and the harsh and sharp sound of the -try suffix does not at all help to brighten the mood, thus the reason why after several centuries this practice was ultimately scrapped. 
10. The 1800s saw a musical boom in the brass band movement including widespread use of tubas, trumpets and trombones. I will admit that, despite the upbeat tempo of "Happy" by Pharrell Williams, given its repetitive nature, after about a minute and a half I'm all set. If I get irritated by that joyous jubilee of sound, I can't imagine what it must have been like to have a compilation of noise that amounts to a New York City rush hour rolling around in your head all day. 

So there you have it. If you were ever wondering why everyone was so glum at Gettysburg or what was with all of the long faces in London, those are most likely the top 10 reasons why people didn't smile in pictures. 

Buzzer Beater

I will never possess the height, athleticism or sense of timing needed to know what it feels like to stuff someone's shot in a game of basketball. I imagine it must feel really good to know that you just prevented someone from scoring points on your team. On a personal level, there must be some sense of power that goes along with out-muscling and flat-out shutting someone down like that. With regards to this milestone in life, I feel as though I am truly missing out. However, I have discovered somewhat of an equivalent for myself to be waking up for work the morning before a day off and completely shutting off my alarm. Because there's always a little extra oomph behind smacking the alarm on days such as that. It just feels great knowing that the next morning I will be waking up to the birds' song outside of my window instead of being brought to consciousness by something that sounds like the edited version of a rap CD. In basketball, your team can be down by twenty points, but swatting away some would-be points must feel great (again, this is just speculation for me). Is the five minutes of trash talk to my alarm necessary? No. As any sports analyst will tell you, Father Time is undefeated and eventually, he will make the greats look like grandparents and I know that he will be patiently waiting for my on Sunday night in order to reclaim his title.    

The Turing Point

The idea of global warming and widespread pollution makes me angry. However, for me, the most aggravating feeling in the world is when I pull up behind someone at a stoplight and I look down at their license plate and see a combination of letters and numbers that is clearly not an accident. So for the next twenty seconds or so, I'm sitting there like Alan Turing trying to crack the code behind the Enigma machine. Does this mystery necessitate me being a CR-V stalkerish part of this persons' life for the next two and a half miles? Probably not, but that's one of those things where if I am not able to come to some sort of satisfying conclusion as to what I think the person in front of me is trying to communicate, it will probably bother me for the rest of the day. I also used to get really annoyed when I saw an actor in a movie that I recognized from another film or show, but I couldn't remember which one. However, that is no longer a problem thanks to the computer, which also owes a debt of gratitude to Alan Turing. Thanks Alan!

Eat Here, Not There

Hi, I'm Mark Woonton and I'd like to talk to you about a topic I know to be near and dear to your heart, food.

I say that, not because I think you're fat or gluttonous, but because everyone needs food to survive which is why the culinary industry can be such a lucrative business to go into. Unfortunately, factors such as location, advertising and financial resources seem to benefit a select few places while, according to a study done by Ohio State University, causing 80% of failed restaurants to go under in their first five years.

While anyone who opens a business is in it, at the end of the day, for the purpose of making a profit, the monopolization that has occurred over the past few decades has been insane. Mom and Pop shops open their doors because they love food and enjoy meeting and serving people. Unfortunately, the financial strain of owning and operating a place of business becomes too much for some, because of the reasons mentioned above and hardworking and devoted people are forced to forfeit their dream.

So here's the deal, I'd like to tell you about some lesser-known eatery options you may have not known were even out there, but you can now support these places instead of these gourmet Goliaths that have dominated our airwaves and our wallets for far too long. Think of it as a "Eat This Not That" for your conscience. Let's make Bernie "Hot Fudge" Sanders proud, huh?    

1. Sonic - Dr. Eggman's
2. Burger King - Sesame Czar
3. Wendy's - Ginger Kid's Gingerbread, Ginger ale and Gingivitis Emporium
4. Dairy Queen - The Vegetable Chancellor 
5. Chic-fil-a - Dude Grill Salmonella and E. Coli Kitchen
6. Subway - Jared's Prison Food
7. Jack In the Box - Rose on the Door 
8. McDonald's - Insane Clown Patty's 
9. Little Caesar's - Nero's Inferno 
10. Pizza Hut - Dope Boy Fresh's Dough Boy Adobe   

Caffeine Canton Class of 2017

To all of the gym teachers that told me I'd never amount to nothing,

I'll have you know that this morning as I was getting my lunchbox out of my car, I put my coffee on the roof (which was admittedly a stupid decision) and as the glorious cup of Jesus juice began it's slide down the slippery sedan slope, I adjusted my lunchbox with one arm and with the other, I made a midair grab that would have impressed Julian Edelman. Last Pick in kickball and now I'm a first ballot Hall of Famer. Suck it! 

Corporate Hoax Person

Hi, I'm Mark Woonton and these are the Top 10 Spokesperson gigs that will never happen

1. Campbell's Soup - "M'm! M'm! Good!" - Darth Sidious

2. Brylcreem - "A little dab'll do ya" - Cam Newton

3. Crest - "Look, Ma, No Cavities!" - Waka Flocka Flame

4, Forbes - "Capitalist tool" - Nicolas Cage

5. Guinness - "Guinness is good for you" - Shane MacGowan

6. Nike - "Just Do It" - Shia LaBeouf

7. Wendy's - "Where's the beef?" - Joe Budden and Drake

8. Capital One - "What's in your wallet" - Jesse James

9. Verizon Wireless - "Can you hear me now?" - Samuel L, Jackson

10. Calvin Klein - "Between love and madness lies obsession" - Leonidas I

PLAYgiarism

Hi, I'm Mark Woonton and these are the top 10 songs and people who definitely didn't write them:

1. I Don't Wanna Live Forever - Arwen Undomiel and the Lord of the Dance
2. 24K Magic - Bugs Bunny and the St. Looney Tunes Squad 
3. Shape of You - Robert M. Rey, M. D. feat. Dr. Dre 
4. Million Reasons - Regis Philbin feat. Big Boss Li'l John Carpenter  
5. Chained to the Rhythm - Nick Carter feat. Lindsay "Locked Up" Lohan
6. Body Like a Back Road - "Konvict" Konishiki Yasokichi feat. Billy "Ray of Sunshine" Blanks
7. Paris - Kim Kardashian and "Angryface Killah" Liam Neeson
8. Helium - The Fifth Dimension feat. Alvin and the Chipmunks 
9. Bom Bidi Bom - Hampton and the Hamsters feat. "News Boy" Brian Collins 
10. Say You Won't Let Go - James Arthur feat. Rose "Dimwit" Bukater 

Road Remorse

I am not a scoundrel.

Allow me to make that perfectly clear, because unfortunately, along with the rise of the world wide web, there has come a generation of tech-savvy tough guys who are all to eager to engage cross-continental conflict with total strangers as they sit half a world away typing from the safety of their living room. Yes, the minuscule, medium build man behind the words you are currently reading is definitely not the kind of guy whose buddies would describe him as "swole." Nor has a woman ever commented that she feels even remotely safe in the uneasy embrace of the toothpick sized protrusions that I call my arms.

From the start of 5th grade up until I graduated high school, I was a member of both the Cross Country and Track team and the only times I received detention was because I had either been caught chewing gum or had been late to school more than three times in one semester. In the 8th grade, I had a social studies class with one of my friends. While the teacher yammered on about the firing on Fort Sumter, my friend decided it was only appropriate to commemorate the event by wading up a piece of paper and lobbing it across the room like a cannonball and hitting me in the face. I couldn't believe how well he had timed his shot as my teacher had just turned around to write on the board another valuable life lesson that has stayed with me to this day, but escapes my memory at present. I was eager to hurl it back over. Unfortunately, my lack of attentiveness and athleticism caused me caused me to send the projectile parchment into the face of an innocent and easily angered adolescent sitting two rows away from my friend at the exact moment my teacher had chosen to turn around and make eye contact with the class in order to place emphasis on the importance of the export of cotton in the south. He looked at me and said "Do you want one after school detention or two lunch detentions? I couldn't believe my luck! Lunch detention meant that I wouldn't have to tell my parents about this middle school misdemeanor and I knew that any punishment handed down by the Pelham Memorial School faculty would amount to a paid vacation compared to what my parents were capable of. My parents never knew and have never known until that fateful day that there son decided to post about it on the internet.

As a boy, I once quenched my thirst for thievery by sneaking a candy bar in with the mix of groceries my mother had purchased and the one time in my life I offered to help carry bags out to the car was only so that I could intercept the chocolate contraband before the parental police caught on to what I was doing. You're probably thinking to yourself that I could rest my case there, as I have provided sufficient evidence to support my opening claim, but allow me to continue. At the age of nine, I attended my first professional hockey game in Boston. This particular on ice outing was chippy from start to finish and loaded with cheap shots and checks from behind that culminated in a third period bench clearing brawl. As the predominantly Canadian and Russian men did battle on the ice, the crowd roared and cheered. This all became too much for poor, little me as I sat teary-eyed in my seat wondering "Why can't we all just get along?" Do you feel as though you now have an elementary understanding of who you are dealing with? Good. Now we can begin.

New England. It's where I grew up. It's the place I call home. As a sports fan, I've seen my hometown team capture 1 NBA title, 1 Stanley Cup, 2 World Series championships and 4 Super Bowl rings. As a student, I've lived a Barry Bonds stones throw away from world-renowned institutions such as Harvard, MIT and Dartmouth. These establishments of academia have molded some of the most brilliant minds of today boasting alumni such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeremy Lin. Unfortunately, the prestige and prowess does not translate too well from the hallway to the highway as it oftentimes appears that these same people whose IQ's are off the charts are turned into absolute morons the second that they are placed behind the wheel.

While driving, people have to make thousands of split-second decisions. Unforeseen events can sometimes lead to split-second reactions as well. In the negative sense, this manifests itself as something referred to as road rage. When someone does something on the road that we don't like, we immediately visualize and verbalize a lot of assumptions and opinions about the offenders intellect, ethnicity and gender identity In times of anger such as this, I find that it's important that I ask myself, What Would Jesus Do? Given the self-centeredness of one particular country music superstar, in this instance, the answer to that question is that he would  chauffeur around Carrie Underwood, because she has placed Him and His arsenal of chariots as being solely responsible for keeping her on the road, but that's an issue for another episode.

A short time ago, I was driving down a two lane road and the driver next to me, much like an unhappy college student, decided that they did not like the direction that they were heading and in one insurance policy pounding trust fall with a car, they decided to swerve into my lane without so much as a signal or scream. I slammed on my brakes in order to accommodate their incompetence and I beeped at them. Moments later, I thought to myself "was that really necessary? Did I really have to beep? Did I really have to do that?" We were both fine and five seconds later, the sudden lane change really hadn't impacted my life in a major way. Unfortunately, my mind continued to wander. I thought "What if they had just had a tough day at work and didn't get that promotion they wanted? What if they had just received some bad news about the health of a family member or friend? What if issues in a relationship caused them to momentarily lose sight of what was going on around them?" When in all likelihood the reality is that maybe they are just an asshole. These thoughts followed me home long after the driver had made a turn and they had continued on their way and to tell you the truth, it was really kind of annoying. I've been beeped at before and did I get angry for a few seconds? Sure. However, being in the position of Beeper instead of Beepee sent me into this whole introspective mode of self-examination.  

In short, Road Rage involves several brief moments of fiery, yet seemingly righteous anger, while Road Remorse involves putting yourself through the Five Stages of Gravel Grief. So, although this has not panned out to be the heartwarming moral I had originally intended, my advice to you would be to get into as much trouble as you possibly can while you're young so that by the time you start driving and someone cuts you off in traffic you can do whatever you got to do to get it out of your system. It's a Dodge eat Dodge world out there and this approach is much more gratifying in its immediacy and proves to be exponentially less mentally and emotionally draining.