I know previous posts have waxed philosophical and and positive on the joys of learning to perform your own home improvements. But coming off weekend of enormous stress, and just so people think I’m not entirely brainwashed by this self-help learn-through-the-joy-of-work happy horsesh*t, I thought now might be a good time to jot down just five of the many reasons NOT to even think of attempting performing your own home repairs:

1) IT TAKES TIME: It takes a lot of time. Time you don’t necessarily have. Time you could be spending with your children and family. Time you could be wasting by watching TV or surfing the interweb Time you could taking a nap. Time you could be using to relax so you don’t get stressed and yell at those same wife and kids whom you profess to love and care for and used as excuse to begin this project that never ends. And when you do finally get some rest, late at night, you will spend hours staring at the ceiling, thinking about your obsession.

2) IT’S NEVER GOOD ENOUGH: When you do it yourself, because of your relative inexperience, you are always hyper-aware that you don’t know exactly what you are doing, and so that magnifies every single mistake that you make (and you will make mistakes, many of them, both big and little), whether it be dropping a rip bar and making a gouge in the floor that will soon go unnoticed, or the time you had to re-drill those holes because you read the instructions wrong because the kids wanted attention from the person who had brought them into this world, or wondering if you will be killing your family by installing the gas line to the stove yourself. Things that, had you hired “professionals” to do this, that they might not have made or, if they had made them, you probably wouldn’t even notice. But not you. No, you’ll spend every moment thinking about them. People will say “It’s beautiful! You did this all yourself?” and you’ll say, inside, “Yeah, but what about the ugly Sawz-all hole in the bottom of the sink cabinet?”

3) YOU HAVE TO DEAL WITH OTHER PEOPLE: You don’t know everything, so you ask for help. And other people are generous enough the help you, and share their time and expertise. Except that that they won’t do it “your way” (even though you’ve never done it before, so you don’t even have a “way”, unless by way you mean obsessively researching and worrying and fretting and never actually getting anything done), and not on your timetable, and they don’t necessarily listen to you, and they ask for tools you don’t have or can’t find, and they’ll make a joke and you’ll be oversensitive because you feel stupid enough as it is, and their professional opinion is always different from what you read in the book and on the web, and… Am I getting my point across here? They are other people who are not you!

4) YOU WILL START TO QUESTION REALITY: Once you do your own project, and see how your own house is jury-rigged together with tape and wire and plaster and any number of “non-code compliant” items, and you see how your more experienced friends cut corners to get the project done, and you look at your own work which strangers praise but you know better, you start to wonder: Is anything “right”? Is anything built “correctly”? Does it matter? Once you cross through that looking glass you lose the calm sense you get by hiring a “professional”, because you start to realize that in 90% of the cases, these profssionals really don’t know more than you do, and they are just taking a stab at it, just like you! Is there a gold standard for anything?

5) It’s is always easier just not to do anything, ever.

Now, that being said — doesn’t this corner cabinet with lazy-susan look awesome? And you know what–I did it all myself!!

Those of you who follow this blog (and don’t you have anything more meaningful to do with your time, anyway?) know that am four months into my kitchen remodeling project, which includes but is not exclusve to:

–Ripping out three layers of old flooring down to subfloor and installing new wood floor (complete)
–Repainting (pretty much complete)
–Removing all old cabinets and counteryops (complete)
–Ripping out wall section, re-wirig electrical, replacing with Hardi-backer for backsplash tile (in progress)
–Installing all new Ikea cabinets and countertops (in progress)
–Installing undercabinet lighting (next few months)

Had I ever done any of this stuff before? No I had not. Did I have any idea how to do it? Yes I did, by talking to people (especially my neighbor) and a lot of web-based research. Did I have the necessary tools? No, I borrowed my neighbor’s or went to Lowe’s. Did it go like I expected it to go? If by moments of sheer unadulterated panic, then yes, it has gone exactly according to plan.

I’ve been reading this excellent book called HEAT, a biography of an amatuer chef who went to work at Mario Balto’s New York restaurant to find out all the things he did not know, which fill up this book. Most aspiring chefs will work for free in an established three or four star restaurant as a “kitchen slave”, doing whatever the Chef tells them to do for up to three years, learning the trade from the bottom up (chopping onions for two months straight, for instance.) We have all seen movies about interns in hospitals, or read about that moron Donald Trumps’s APPRENTICE TV show. But now, after almost four months of this, I am starting to think there really is something to this whole sink-or-swim-uncontrollable-panic thing.

I can safely say that I have learned more about home improvement from these past few months than I had ever known in my life. Not just physically and intellectually, but emotionally. (Though my helpful neighbor, who I yelled at last week over a minor construction issue, may disagree with that…) I am also nominally more confident about doing certain jobs, and a lot more confident about destroying things. And I don’t think I would be as confident or would learned as much without the pressure that comes with doing a large project. I have felt the same way about computer programming at my job, and learning to be a good husband and Dad With great responsibility comes great fear, and the opportunity for greater knowledge. And more spectacular failures!

I was talking to a friend about this, and I had to say that it reminded me in part of my mis-spent youth, where you ask yourself “What about one more [insert legal or illegal substance here]? Could I handle it?” or other related actvities that we now look back on as adults in our “What Was I Thinking?” mode. Hopefully though, these little projects are not based on self-destructive impluses, but on a desire to keep stretching and learning and challenging myself. The people I respect and admire the most always keep trying new things and opening themselves up to new experiences, even when it’s not in their comfort zone. And hopefully I’m mature enough to have a back-up plan in case things don’t turn out like I expected…

Anyway, enough yappin’. Where’d I put the Sawz-All?

By far our son’s favorite show, after GO DIEGO GO! and DORA THE EXPLORER, is THE WONDER PETS. He saw the first episode during an EKG check-up at the hospital, and he hasn’t looked back since. For those uninitiated, The Wonder Pets are a gerbil (Linny), a baby duck (Ming-Ming), and a turtle (Tuck) who save baby animals in trouble. The show is musical, but done opera-style (“The phone! The phone is RING-ing!”). It’s target audience seems to be three primary groups – very young children, very tired parents, and very stoned college students. It’s done in the post-Quiznos photographic animation style, and is very interesting to look at it. Check it out! More information after the break.
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My daughter is starting a band with some friends from school called The Sweet Tarts. They used to be called The Flickas, but now they’re called The Sweet Tarts, and, from what I am hearing, they all have stage names of different flavors of sweet tarts. Here are the lyrics from one of their new songs, written by my daughter. I could not be more proud. It won’t be long before they’re on every radio station in town, so you saw it here first!

Hey, guess what happened to me? I was driving home from work last night when my cellphone rang, and it was my PTA buddy Gary saying he had a free pass for the press screening of GRINDHOUSE that night. After obtaining a work release from the wife and trying to round up a date (no one was available—something about “commitments”), I went by myself, just me and 200+ other people with piercings, punk rock T-shirts, short skirts and go-go boots (and those were just the guys).. Not even having to run back to my car and dispose of my cell phone for security purposes (after all, who but a 40-something PTA President is more likely to make a pirate copy of the movie on his RAZR?) was enough to dissuade me from enjoying myself.

The stuff I liked? Robert Rodriguez PLANET TERROR was terrific, probably his best movie ever. It may have been a cheesy homage, but it had tons of stuff his other movies (ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO, SPY KIDS, etc.) did not — it had loads of plot, it had interesting characters who had real (if movie-like) emotions, it had awesome action/suspense sequences, it took its time. (Too many RR movies are like a kid hyped up on Mountain Dew and Pop Rocks trying to speed talk from one action setpiece to the next.) Rose Magowan was terrific, Freddy Rodriguez was too cool for words. And the soundtrack, by RR himself, was frickin’ awesome. It was just a great movie!

The stuff I wasn’t crazy about: Tarantino’s DEATH PROOF has so much footage of chicks yappin’ and jawin’ and hemin’ and hawin’ I thought I was watching MY DINNER WITH ANDRE with chicks and car chases. The action sequences are very cool and exciting, but the chicks! The yappin’ ! The infernal yappin’! I know QT kind of reinvented the whole talking about nothing entertainingly genre, but come on! Quit yer yappin’!

Also, if you were to ask me (and aren’t you glad you did?), QT cheats! While RR plays by the rules, updating 70’s-style action sexploitaion horror grindhouse cinema, QT barely acknowledges this concept at all. DEATH PROOF is more an homage to Eric Rohmer French cinema than Russ Meyer or LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT revenge flicks. I mean, I like that kind of thing, but as we say–it may be nice, but it wasn’t the assignment, was it?

The fake previews are also swell, especially MACHETE, DON’T, and Eli Roth’s awesome THANKSGIVING. (And what about the Austin audience award previews, especially HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN?)

So check it out. And when it’s time for DEATH PROOF, re-fill the popcorn, pick up some jujubees, hit the bathroom. Take your time. Because believe me, by the time you get back, it’s guaranteed — those chicks will still be yappin’!!

This new song by Bright Eyes, “Four Winds”, is truly the sh*t. It has an awesome video to go with it. The very meaningful words are here. It also made me look up The Whore of Babylon. Why can’t all music be this great and sincere?

Your class, your caste, your country, sect, your name or your tribe
There’s people always dying trying to keep them alive
There’s bodies decomposing in containers tonight
In an abandoned building where
Squatters made a mural of a Mexican girl
With fifteen cans of spray paint and a chemical swirl
She’s standing in the ashes at the end of the world
Four winds blowing through her hair