Category Archives: Guest Blogs

Guest Post: Tuesday Before Thanksgiving

Hey folks, Tuesday Before Thanksgiving here. Nice to meet you. Wanna start by giving a shout-out to this blog for providing me a platform from which to speak my truth. Much gratitude to the staff for making me feel welcome, it’s been great hanging with everybody. (Todd B.–sorry again for eating your Cheesecake Factory leftovers. I think what happened is the piece of tape with your name on it wilted in the fridge and fell off.)

For those of you disappointed that I’m not Black Friday or (eye-roll) the “big” day itself, all I can say is you’re lucky this isn’t a blog post by Day Before Thanksgiving. First of all, the guy is usually too bombed-out to even find his nose with a flyswatter let alone string a few coherent sentences together. Secondly, when he is halfway-sentient he’s about as charming as stuffing your turkey with the unresolved emotions from a childhood trauma. Cigarette butts regurgitated by a diseased pigeon are more convivial. Not great company, folks.

And by the way all you Black Friday fans, BF isn’t the only day this week associated with a positive color. Tuesday Before Thanksgiving is all about the tan. Because tan goes with everything. Because people who are tan are awesome. Because tanned-leather goods are still a prized commodity. AND because a tan car interior is soothing to a mother-in-law’s fragile nerves isn’t that right, Dolores?

Get abstract with me for a second. Would you rather be buddies with a day that forces you to camp out in line for hours for some ridiculous toy your kid’s going to abandon by New Year’s, or do you want to ride the TBT train to rocking a pair of clean pleat khakis that DO NOT WRINKLE no matter how many roundhouse kicks you execute? Just saying. Team Tan Tuesday Before Thanksgiving.

Is that not enough to get my name on the fricking calendar?

Fricking Fine.

Because guess what? I’m also the last day legally that you can bail on hosting Thanksgiving without being sued. Look it up and then shut it all down and don’t come out of your room until you’ve watched every episode in the FHU.*

…….

Okay, I’m not gonna lie, you probably aren’t salvaging those relationships after doing that, which, hey-hey-hey, also makes me the most honest day of this week. Bonus tip: With the money saved on legal fees you can buy yourself an amazing tanning bed that will make all the bad feelings go away.

……..

Can’t lie to you again, probably not gonna work……………didn’t for me.

Oh, nice job, Tuesday, why’d you have to go and tear the scab off that wound? Bet you’d like to call Saturday After, huh? Eat a tub of ice cream together? Well, you blew up that bridge, didn’t you?

Folks, I can’t do this, I, I’m sorry—-wow, this is awkward.

I gotta go.

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*Full House Universe

Where Do Blog Posts Come From?

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Picture by Claude Covo-Farchi

Hi everybody, this is Second Junior Deputy Assistant Walter “Malty” Merrickson from Unforeseen Blog Aftermath Operations at bryanhilson.com. The memo I’ve been authorized to paraphrase states that Bryan was “over-served” recently at his pharmacy and has been quarantined inside a silo to cycle through the remaining side effects, which include lycanthropy and neo-conservatism. As a result, responsibility for this month’s post has “somehow” slipped through the bureaucratic cracks and landed on my desk.

Yeah. “Somehow.”

Really convincing, Foreseen Blog Aftermath Operations, I’m sure this has nothing to do with me winning the How Many Jelly Beans In The Mule contest. Thanks a lot, jerks!

Anyway, since I’m quitting immediately after this and escaping to Bolivia to sell oil fires, I thought why not just expose the inner workings at bryanhilson.com? You want to know, don’t you? How does Bryan, exactly, manage to write 500-800 words a month? Read on to see how the sausage is made.

AN IDEA IS BORN

It all starts with sausage. Ha-ha. No, Bryan is more of a morning ham person. Actually, he’s mostly a morning lamb roasted on a spit person, and sometimes I get to turn it if I’ve done a good job hosing down the intern barn. Anyway, really, it all starts with calisthenics. Performed by random tourists hoodwinked into straining themselves on the back lawn while Bryan bathes in 75-degree fruit punch. Very inspiring!

But, also, sometimes, not so much.

Plan B involves regressing Bryan to five-years-old and then losing him inside the replica shopping mall located in the northwest zone of the estate, where people wear masks with the facial features removed and speak in squealing gibberish. Nothing like reliving his childhood to get those creative juices flowing!

Plan C is a post doesn’t get written and our bubble-wrap privileges are revoked the rest of the month. Nobody likes Plan C.

FROM CONCEPT TO EXECUTION

It’s one thing for an idea to bloom, it’s another to snip off its head and press it into a book for generations to enjoy. But if I had a nickel for every snipped-off head without a home here at blog headquarters, I could afford to remove the Ghoulish Metaphor requirement from my UBAO contract. Yes, that’s right, everyone, the head thing was just a metaphor. :O

Ahem, once the idea’s been finalized it needs to be expanded to proper blog-length, and thank goodness we finally were able to remove the raccoon carcass from the Expanding Machine. Bryan was starting to enjoy putting his ideas on the rack a little too much.

FINAL PHASE

Our penultimate steps include allowing a reanimated team of Gold Rush miners to examine and polish every word, our fugitive android in residence to deal with the formatting, and then finally, after the legality of the post’s photo is ignored and the ransom for our field photographer forgotten, all employees, even those from Cannon Fodder, are invited into the cafeteria to watch the live-stream of Bryan pushing the PUBLISH button.

Of course, this time around it’s good old “Malty” who gets to slice off his fingerprints and wear the company flesh gloves.

Oh, who am I kidding? This post won’t even make it past the receptionist in General Indifference. I’ll be dragged off the plane before it sniffs Bolivia and all my “Oil Fires And Your 401K” brochures will be blown across the tarmac. My god, I’ll be sealed inside my own silo. I’ll never turn another lamb on a spit.

Well, at least somebody else will have to deal with the intern barn. Bunch of savages, you have no idea.

January 31, 2016 Just Checking In

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So yeah I decided to ease into the early new year on social media and offer this opening slot to a guest poster. Please welcome friend of the blog, January 31, 2016!

Image by Viscious-Speed

Hey everybody, January 31, 2016 here, just checking in a few days early to say I hope you can all make it to me this Sunday. Here are just some of the incredible things I’ve got planned:

YOU KNOW: births, deaths, truths, lies, connection, confusion, celebration, despair, war, peace, ignorance, tolerance, greed, generosity

JOINED BY: seeds planted, secrets plundered, circles widened, doors closed, genders dissed, genders switched, high-fives left hanging, hugs held too long

ALSO LIKELY TO APPEAR: moral victories, mores abused, stolen bliss, blinkers mostly unused, burgers with tomatoes on them that weren’t supposed to, sentences ending with prepositions, sentences unspoken, sentences served

SPECIAL GUESTS: callused hands, blood vessels burst, honest dollars earned, fingers never worked, glances, sighs, abandoned shoes, justice, fraud, love in the afternoon

WINNER OF THE 1/31/16 PREMONITION AWARD: Narkeet Awljara of Jakarta, Indonesia…you will not ride the 4:15 today…you’ll take the 5:15, thank you very much…

Guest Blogger: The Number 6

Guest Blogger – Mike Nubarb

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Mike Nubarb's Dream Security Monitor

Here’s the second in a series of guest blogs. Please welcome Mike Nubarb!

Hey, I’m Mike, I’m the manager at Store and Go Storage in Palms, Los Angeles, California. Basically all day I’m just watching my computer. Cuz all the security cameras broadcast back to my monitor so the screen’s divided up into maybe twelve different screens within one screen. It’s like I’m watching twelve different movies at once. And I sign off on rental contracts. So yeah, my day can be kind of exhausting but at the same time it’s pretty cool being the manager because I can take unlimited smoke breaks, and I’m pretty sure the regular employees only get two ten minute breaks during an eight-hour shift. But don’t get the wrong idea here. What I mean is that perk was a big deal when I was smoking but I quit almost a month ago. So don’t write me off ladies.

I could go on about my job and what I do all day, but to be honest I like to leave my job at the job. I don’t bring my work home with me. And the ladies are into honest guys, right? That’s a big deal for them. So okay ladies, right off the bat you know (a) I’m honest and (b) I don’t smoke. Two checks in the pro column for Mike.

Actually there should be three checks in the pro column because (c) I’m in Upper-Middle Management. Okay, wait, Honest Mike needs to step in for a second. I don’t know that I’m actually in Upper-Middle Management, I haven’t ever seen a corporate chart for Store and Go. But I picture it kind of like the NCAA bracket, and I’m seeing myself at least in the Sweet Sixteen.

That speaks to another thing you should know about me. I like sports, so I’ll probably make a lot of sports references like the above the more we spend time together. I’m from Ohio originally and since I’ve been living out here I’ve done a lot of apologizing for the Browns, Indians and Cavaliers. Suck it LeBron! So anyway, I’ve kind of adopted the Clippers as my new team. Yeah, yeah, yeah, make room for Mike on the bandwagon. Hilarious, guys. Beat LA!

Wait, you know I mean Beat the Lakers, right? Because they suck.

Now I get it that a lot of the ladies out there don’t like sports, they like to watch girly movies instead. That’s fine. I love girly movies. I’ve seen Sucker Punch and I’d totally see Sucker Punch 2 and Sucker Punch 3 if they ever get their asses in gear and make them. Hello Hollywood, are you listening?

Okay, so there’s a little taste of Mike Nubarb. I’ve been promised at least another blog post so I don’t want to give you a full meal just yet. Consider this like an appetizer I’ve brought to the relationship table.

Been great getting to know you. Talk soon. Late.

Guest Blogger – Eugenia Spotty

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Photo by Kevin Dooley

I’ve been working recently on a pretty intensive screenwriting project, leaving my blog untended for longer than I’d like. Figured it was time to enlist the aid of some guest bloggers to help carry the load. Today’s featured post is from one of my downstairs neighbors, retired church secretary Eugenia Spotty. Thank you, Eugenia!

Goodness. So much space to fill. Didn’t quite know what I was agreeing to here. But I did so okay then.

I guess I just do it huh. Here I go. Bogging. Yep. Yep. Yep. I’m bogging now. And when I write this too? Is that bogging? I guess it is. Am I done? Yikes. Lots of blank space down there still.

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That’s cheating I know. But it looks kind of neat all those dollar signs lined up like that. Makes me want to spend money. Could use some new rubber bands actually.

Yes, I know it’s cheating Darlene!!! Thank you for coming in here and spitting Oreos all over just to say that!!!

Boy that’s three exclamation points each up there. I should probably fix that. Don’t want you to think I can actually raise my voice as loud as three exclamation points. That would put me only two exclamation points away from God. Not there yet.

Sorry. Back to bogging. What did Bryan say? Treat it like a diary kind of?

March 28– My grand niece Darlene is here visiting for spring break. Does not give a fig what she puts in her mouth. Actually, figs would be a nice change of pace. Child eats way too many Oreos if you ask me. But does her mother ask me? Nope. Just ships her out here with two packs of the devil’s cookies and now I’ve got to deal with it.

Boy that’s really gossipy. Or maybe that’s what bogging is? I don’t know. I should probably take that part out in case Darlene comes back in the room.

Heck you know what, eye for an eye, I’ll just gossip about myself to make up for it.

March 28 – I’m too agreeable sometimes. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. Susan who checks me out at the Rite Aid thinks so too. First about taking Darlene for a week and then about the Oreos and then about this bog. I can hear Susan now. Eugenia dear you’re just too agreeable, honestly. Only it takes her awhile to get it out because she coughs a lot. She has one of those cigarette voices. I always think, any day now when I’m vacuuming up the dead flowers at the church cemetery I’ll see a tombstone with her name on it. Though I guess I don’t know if I’d know it was her because I don’t know her last name and the tombstone wouldn’t just say Susan on it.

Boy that’s pretty gossipy about Susan. Guess I’ve got to give another eye so to speak. But what’s that saying about eye for an eye until everyone’s blind? So maybe it’s silly for me to go blind when I doubt Susan will ever read this bog. She told me herself all she reads is body rippers or something like that. They sound like the books Pastor Gary says Eve would’ve checked out of Hell’s library. Should probably bring her my Bible the next time I’m in for rubberbands.

So is that it? Am I done with the bogging?

Oh lord Darlene’s back and she’s wiping her Oreo fingers all over the cat. Poor Folgers!! Mommy’s coming to save you. Gotta go now. Goodness there’s still so much blank space down there.

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