Year End Liquidation

In the grand tradition of TV in December, I'm breaking out the retrospectives. While I have to save the smarmy wrap-ups and obituary montages until after Christmas, I can share with you the very finest in residual imagery. That's right, reheated leftovers from my Flickr account...

Hey, ever tranquilized a lion and stuffed him in a minivan, all in a hundred percent humidity? I haven't either - but I did hover over a sweaty group of good hearted souls who enacted that very slow-motion mission one sweltering July day. Some scenarios cannot be rushed and man-hauling a catatonic apex predator is one of them. By the time the big cat was was stuffed and cuffed in a jumpy vet's backroom, I wasn't sure what was worse - enduring the ungodly heat or smelling what Mufasa had for breakfast. Warthog and Meerkat, I think.

As much as I like to feign existentialism, I'm really just a guy who drives around with tools in his truck. With that in mind, you'll understand how nothing is more sacred (or guarded) than a shooter's arsenal, pictured here in all its new/antique, dead battery, color-coded glory

Halloween was the farthest thing from my mind when I blew into Madison, North Carolina on Ocotober 31st. So you can imagine when my surprise when seemingly every citizen of the tiny Rockingham County town turned out to meet me - in disguise, no less. Sure the DA candidate I'd come to interview said something about an annual trick or treat event downtown, but I knew the pimps, vampires and zombies were there just to screw with my head. On the way out of town, I couldn't help but grab a snapshot of this Elvis worshiper - in hopes he'd stop following me. When I got back and really looked at the shot, I realized the dude really wasn't in costume. To him, it was just Tuesday.

Speaking of days of the week, all mine kind of blur together. But that's bound to happen when you spend all your time racing from unplanned calamity to scheduled event. After a while all those tireless stops seem the same, whether they center around chalk body outlines or golden shovels.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Lenny and Squiggy. Okay that's probably not their names, but in my mind they will always share the monikers of Laverne and Shirley's skeevy neighbors. This particular shot comes from outside the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, hours before Taylor Hicks reached full American Idol ascension. Tall and Skinny I don't know so well, but Short and Swarthy I recognized from all those Idol audition shoots. Dude's probably shot more delusional humans than Bob Barker's floor crew. Think of him the next time some hysterical pair of glitter twins is bouncing off Ryan Seachrest and your TV screen. Hope he gets combat pay...