Funny Messy Life

It seems like a favorite of my stories for listeners is the one I titled, “The Time I Peed On My Leg”. Apparently people enjoy hearing about embarrassing moments and I’m more than happy to be the guy you turn to when you need someone for a good point and laugh. To my mother and my wife’s dismay, I’m a person who enjoys sharing the little things that most people would rather forget. I revel at the thought of seeing the faces of those around me when I tell one of these stories in a crowd and I invent expressions in my mind for those who hear these tales after I record them.      This will be one of those stories. And although I fear I might have spoiled it a little from the start by offering the reveal in the title, there’s still a lot of meat in the middle for you.      I’ve been gone for a while. I’ll get to the reasons why after the story because that’s what you came here for, isn’t it? The story? All I will tell you right now is that I had pretty much given up on Funny Messy Life and I had good reasons for

The past few weeks have been extra hard on me, and as I sit here and write this out, I really don’t feel like it. See, on top of everything else that’s going on in my life, my son is graduating high school, and I never thought about the idea that we would be experiencing so many “lasts”. I’m definitely a proud dad, but there is pain that tags along with it. So I think it’s time to vent a little as my oldest child becomes a man. I’m Michael Blackston, and as much as I don’t want to have to admit it, these are necessary events along the path of my Funny Messy Life. _________________________       Pomp and Circumstance rings loud and quite obnoxiously in the distance. I used to like that song. It’s regal. It tells a story of celebration and accomplishment. And lately it rudely smacks me upside the head with the sour flavor of truth. Now the song doesn’t ring as jolly as before, because my son Noah is graduating.     Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for him. Any parent with a strong-willed child who doesn’t like to

There’s a snarky saying about how women change their minds. It goes something like, A woman’s mind is cleaner than a man’s because she changes it more often. In my experience, women won’t mind you saying that when you’re with a group of people and everyone is smiling, laughing, and generally having a by-golly swell time. Experience has also taught me that there is a time and a place for everything. Saying that when it’s only you and your wife in the car after you’ve been arguing about where to eat because at first she wanted a burrito, but now she’s decided she’s in the mood for baked ravioli, and she’s already giving you the stank eye because you said something like, “Make up your mind”, … you probably ought to think about not whipping that nugget out of your grabbag. She ain’t in the mood for your shenanigans. I don’t really think it’s that fair of a quip anyway, because I am A Man, By Thunder, and men can be just as wishy-washy. From Atomic Red Studios, which is being moved again because I keep changing my

Let’s see … how should I describe my back issues? Um …. If there was a further sublevel of hell past anything Dante came up with where the devil himself would say, “Nope, nope, nope!”, then you pushed into a dank corner of the sewer system of that hell where stagnant, rotting remnants of the bowels of the worst demons that have ever existed have gotten caught in a gooey, churning cesspool, it might - and I say might - come close. Because, my friend, your humble host recently slipped a disc in my back, and the subsequent agony was the worst thing I’ve ever endured. It’s part of the reason for another lengthy delay in episodes of this podcast, and I’m about to tell you alllll about it, including the lessons I’ve learned, both spiritually, and in the area of my own stupidity. From Atomic Red studios, I’m Michael Blackston, and if you thought a whiny man with a cold can be bad, wait till you hear about this latest test of my endurance straight out of my Funny Messy Life. _________________________ I sit and prepar

Part of a conversation with my friend, Toni King from a previous podcast called, "Cue One Go - The Theatre Show". We're talking about things that happened onstage.

Due to my busy schedule, I'm going to be giving you a look back into the history of my podcasting. In this episode, I'll introduce you to my friend, Toni King, who co-hosted a podcast with me called, Cue One Go - The Theatre show. I really miss C1G and I hope listening to this episode brings you as much joy as it did for me.

The Uncanny Consequences Of Being Me The title of this piece reads like a fancy-pants movie they’d show at a film festival where the people in the audience all eat their popcorn with a fork so they won’t get their fingers greasy and spot up their turtle necks and skinny jeans. I’m sorry about that. I don’t mean to make you feel like you’re one of those people. You might prefer your popcorn the way I do … floating in a bucket of butter oil that resembles a gigantic vat of cereal that’ll stuff your arteries like a Thanksgiving turkey. I mention my arteries because they’ve been on my mind lately. My doctor told me they’re as clogged as a man’s who eats movie theatre popcorn the way I do. Which got me thinking … I’d love a bag of that Lance Movie Theater Extra butter popcorn I talked about in episode 71, titled Diary of a Rage Monster. Which got me to thinking … I’d probably not be able to find it anyway because that’s how things go for me. Which brought to mind … Hey, I wanted to write about that! Well, now that

A Christmas interview with my 8 year old daughter, Merida.

My Perfect Christmas I told you so. I suspect a few of my regular listeners didn’t believe me when I said I’d be back to Funny Messy Life after a brief hiatus, but here I am. I’ve been gone for a few weeks because it’s hard to find the time to write out full episodes of this podcast when there are other things that I have to do in place of it, like editing the final draft of a novel, which is what has been going on with this last break. But every break has to come to an end at some point, and while I’m not done with editing Mr. Long Said Nothing because my life is too full with obligations, I’ve been thinking it’s time to get back in the podcast saddle. The question was this: Should I jump on back in now, or give myself the rest of the year and jump back in at the beginning of 2022? I mean, it’s only about a week now, right? Then something happened. I received a Christmas card from my friends, the ________, in Minnesota and my heart soared. By the way, _________, I wanted to send you an email to thank you, bu

   Well, I felt really stupid this morning. And then I felt even more stupid around lunch time. And then I felt supremely stupid at the end of the day. Why? Because I was having a bad day.    Actually, check that. There was nothing particularly bad about the day. I was having one of those days when it seemed like everything - and I mean EVERYTHING - was out to irritate me.    From Atomic Red Studios, located in a secret bunker somewhere in Northeast Georgia, I’m Michael Blackston and sometimes I have days when waking up on the wrong side of the bed is an understatement. The problem is, the stuff that gets under my skin, really shouldn’t. By the end of the day, I can find myself in a ridiculous headspace, and I’m not alone. I’ve seen footage of people just like me. One young man at a gas pump got so angry with a door compartment on his motorcycle that when he’d had enough, he reared back to kick it. Luckily for the bike, his friend intervened and wrestled him back from his maniacal discourse before anything ba

   I make my home in the Deep South. Northeast Georgia to be exact. I was born and raised here, I love our traditions, I love and respect my mama, I’m proud that there’s a church on every corner, and my rear end is plopped on the couch every Saturday in the fall because behind God and family, college football is king. Go Dawgs.    BUT …..    I’m not your typical southern boy. In fact, I spend my days expecting any minute to hear a knock at the door because I’m finally getting the visit from the South-Land Authentication Authority Works, otherwise known as S.L.A.A.W. They’ll be asking me to hand over my southern card.      “Ye’uns ain’t from around these parts, ere ya?”    “Yes, sir. I was born and raised right here in the Peach State. I like grits!”    “Oh yeah? Cooked or instant?”    “Instant.”    “Hand over that cahhhhhhd!”      It’s true. I prefer instant grits to cooked every single time. It’s what I grew up with and I like the taste. I particularly favor the brand with the Quaker guy on the front. That a

   You want to know what having ten teeth extracted at once will do for you? It will make you long for your happy place, that’s what it’ll do for you. I’ve made no secret that I’ve had some pretty major dental issues and I’ve been transparent about it. Why hide it? It’s part of who I am. And now, my dental issues have come to a head in a way that required drastic action. I had to get a denture plate for my top teeth. In the long run, it’ll be a good thing. As a matter of fact, I’m already reaping the benefits because I now have an attractive smile, but the hours leading up to E-day were stressful.    What, exactly, is E-day? That’s what I’m going to tell you about. I’m Michael Blackston. Strap yourself in if teeth-related stuff bothers you, because that’s the town we’re going to visit from my Funny Messy Life. _________________________    E-day for me was August 16, 2021. The “E” stands for “extraction”, so Extraction Day! … not a day in your calendar where you would expect to plan a cookout, or exchange gift

   It’s refreshing to be able to find a place to rest from a road trip and ease my mind from the perpetual gray asphalt desert that the interstate can be. There was a time in my career when I could hit the road at 3 am and keep moving till I got where I was going, no matter how far the destination, with the exception of bathroom and food stops. But I’m getting older by the minute, and I can’t make my trips as easily without taking a break. No duh, right? Every minute that passes, you’re another minute older, Captain obvious! It’s just that I used to be able to ignore it. I can’t ignore it anymore. I seem to be falling apart - something my younger self was warned about, but I pushed away from my mind because that was in The Future …    Well now I’m coming to terms with the reality that my body has its own agenda. It wants to call it quits. It’s my body’s grand scheme to rot like that bag of salad you said you were going to eat, but then threw to the back of the refrigerator and forgot about. That salad got sof

   The older I get, the more I realize Mama was right … Your mouth can get you in trouble. Actually, the older I get, the more I realize Mama was right about a whole lot of things, and I try to implement the lessons I’ve learned as much as I possibly can. Take my chickens, for example. They’re always hatched before I count them. Well, they’re mostly hatched. My chickens are sometimes hatched before I count them. On occasion. Occasionally, I will wait to count only the hatched chickens. Once in a blue moon.    Maybe it’s obvious I’m hard headed. And I have a mind that doesn’t always run my words through a filter, so I have to be careful about what comes out of my mouth. That’s why I have a shirt that I bought at the World of Wally to help me remember who I am. I’m a Christian and I should behave like one. My shirt says Team Jesus across the chest. When I’m wearing it, I feel like I’m getting a little extra mental discernment before I speak because people can see before I open my pie hole, what they ought to ex

   Today, I’ll tell you that I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m blessed to get to do what I do for a living, and although the road getting here was long and winding, frequently taking turns onto dark and unfamiliar lanes, I can definitely track God’s plan. Some of those lanes got bumpy though, and those were never long. I’m going to tell you about a road along my career path that only lasted a couple weeks, and one that only lasted a few months, but both share a single common fact … I was not cut out for them.    I’m Michael Blackston and at the time of this writing, the country is going through a new pandemic called an employee shortage, which is what prompted me to tell you a few new stories about my own work history during my Funny Messy Life. _________________________      Like I said, at this writing, the United States has a huge problem. Nobody wants to work because they’re getting free unemployment money from the government. There are two types of people in this scenario …   Those who are willing to work

   I’ve been toying with some ideas about new kinds of stories to tell you. Originally, I thought I could get listeners to send in tales about their own funny, messy, lives because, let’s face it, I’m getting older, but I haven’t lived forever. I’m gonna eventually hit a wall and there won’t be much left to tell about my life. I’m starting to see that wall in the distance and I’m not ready to stop running my mouth. Pair that with the fact that nobody seems to want me to tell their stories and I have to start figuring out where my content is gonna come from in the long run. Then it hit me … every town in the world, from the biggest to the smallest, has interesting stories. I don’t want to dive into folklore too much - the podcast LORE by Aaron Menke does that just fine already. I don’t want to give an interesting history in the lives of famous people - the podcast The Way I Heard It by Mike Rowe accomplishes that extremely well, thank you very much, and Mike’s got one of those amazing, deep voices that’s so bu

   As a whole, I’m happy about how my life has turned out so far. Hopefully, there is plenty more left of my story, but you never can tell. We live second by second, and minute by minute. I first learned about life in that context through Rick Springfield’s epic eighties ditty, Love Is Alright Tonight from his Working Class Dog album. That album is one of the things in my life I do not regret. My sister and I sang that song at the tops of our lungs while the LP played on her stereo before karaoke was a thing, and those are happy memories. The pattern on life’s wallpaper is not always pleasing, though. Sometimes you sit back in your chair, staring at the stains and faded designs that mark the walls of your life and you think, “That part wasn’t pretty. Or smart. Or made any sense at all, you complete moron.”    It’s the complete moron marks of my history that I want to talk about now. The ones that were made in permanent marker. You can’t erase them because if you could, there wouldn’t be anything there to remi

   I don’t want to be one of those old men that constantly gripe about stuff because I’m just generally mad. I like to think I have a positive outlook most of the time, but I’m no different from anybody else in that I have my days. Even when I’m putting together a piece for the podcast, I at least give it an honest shot at putting a light, humorous spin on things if I’m complaining. There are some things though, that no matter how happy I’m feeling at the moment, no matter how full of flavor my crunch berries were that morning, no matter how much Ram I currently have in my Rama Lama Ding Dong, I will always hate them with every tiny, sinuous fiber of my being. I’m going to tell you what those things are and why, even though I respect and fear God to the uttermost, I’ll have a few questions for Him when I get to Heaven.    From Atomic Red Studios in the Granite Capitol of the World, I’m Michael Blackston, and this is a thought provoking episode of Funny Messy Life _________________________      (The following

   I have a laundry list of insecurities that keep me in a perpetual state of uncertainty. Uncertainty about whether or not the last thing I sang was on key, uncertainty about whether or not the last thing I wrote was up to par, uncertainty about whether or not the last thing I painted or etched would cause the viewer to retch and look for the closest bush. I even worry about the sound of my own voice because it never fails that I’m addressed as “Ma’am” at a drive-thru, no matter how deep I try to make my voice to avoid it. Just as I sat down to write this, my son sent me a text. And I quote: “Well, McDonalds just ‘yes ma’am’d me. So this is how that feels?” The two of us sound a lot alike when we talk, so I’m afraid he has a life full of annoying drive-thru lanes ahead of him.    One of the ways I’ve always combatted being insecure around people has been to mirror their personalities. There’s a word for this that crossword filler-outers everywhere will recognize. It’s called “Aping”. For the most part, the a

   I’m a Type 2 diabetic, which means that I should stay a safe distance from sugary delights, such as ice cream, milk chocolate, cakes and pies, spoons full of sugar to make the medicine go down, and soft drinks. I thought I was being a good boy when I started ordering diet drinks, but then people seemed to take a wicked pleasure in bursting my healthy eating bubble by happily admonishing me with the news that …    Those are just as bad for you as the regular drinks because your body thinks its really sugar and the blah blah blah blah blah!    They’ll tell me that, and in my mind, they’re throwing their heads back in maniacal laughter as they take a ridiculously long drag from a straw jammed down into a ridiculously enormous, full-on, jacked up with sugar, absolutely real Pepsi.    When that happened to me recently, it naturally sent me into a tailspin of memory of playing in the woods with my cousin who joined me in the doing of stupidly stupid things. And that’s the stuff this episode is actually about. Fr