Monday, February 25, 2013

The Chris Reed World Tour of a few Cities in America and 1 in Canada Announcement!!!

Those of you follow me on twitter know that I've been traveling around, making appearances and signing autographs at certain World of Wheels shows. Those of you coming to World of Wheels shows have been awesome.
Here is my remaining Schedule.

Chicago, IL           3/2
New Orleans, LA  3/3
Detroit, MI            3/8
Omaha, NE           3/17
Boston, MA          3/23
Winnpeg, GWN    4/6

So there you have it. Some totally awesome chances to come meet me, get an autograph, some pics and check out some sweet custom cars. I'm way diggin all the folks I've met so far and hope a few more of you awesome badasses can get out and say hi.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

The View from the Stern

I didn't know that I dealt with grief by wanting to write until 14 minutes ago. I usually don't care much for writing. I find my self unmotivated most of the time I force myself to do it, and rarely get any sort of drive to put my thoughts onto paper just off the cuff (most of the time they are truly not worth the effort. No really. Today I seriously laughed out loud thinking about penguin dicks and what they might look like.)  But I'm having trouble tonight, and I HAVE to write. It's not unlike the days when I made my last 2 posts and I'm not a detective but I see a pattern. So, if you're not in the mood for a little indulgent emoting on my part, I would understand if you wanted to go back to twitter or facebook or xvideos.
But please don't. Not yet.
Christopher Dorner has become a household name in the past 2 weeks. His violent campaign against the authorities in Southern California has left a population on edge, the conspiracy theorists on Facebook frothing and several families destroyed. He has become celebrated amongst some of the more ignorant, stupid and heartlessly cynical members of our population. We will hear his name until the day we die.
Jeremiah MacKay will never be a household name. He served with the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department for 15 years and had 2 kids according to the articles I can find about him. They're all based on the same information his Department released earlier. No one other than those he came into direct contact with him will remember his name. Hell, many of those who met him won't remember him. I know because I almost didn't.
When the news first broke about 2 SBSD deputies being shot by Dorner, I was concerned. During my years working on my father's Sportfishing boat I had fished with a group of about 30 of the men and women of the San Bernardino Sheriffs at least 15 times. That's almost 3 weeks with them, since many of their trips were 1 1/2 day trips. One of them attended my wedding. They are great people. When I found out that one of the deputies shot was DOA from someone within the department I began to dread. When Jeremiah MacKay's name was released I didn't recognize it and began to hope it wasn't one of our guys.
When my friend told me that Jeremiah had indeed fished with us, my heart sank.
When I saw his picture it broke.
I didn't know Jeremiah MacKay's name because I knew him as Dennis the Menace.
I remember him wearing sunglasses and sweatpants. I remember him leaning against a rail talking with another of my favorite deputies, who I remember as Chris. I remember handing him blue trash bags stuffed with fillets at the top of the ramp. Memory is pretty cruel when it comes to giving us clear pictures of those we haven't seen in years, but I'm glad I have something to remember him by.
He deserves it. So does Officer Michael Crain, Keith Lawrence and Monica Quan.
Please remember them.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

My Boots


My boots are too small. There aren't too many size 17 humans around, let alone those who wear the boots used by those who serve in the US military. I've never served. My boots are caked in the soil of the free and safe land I have lived in my whole life.
My boots will never have the hot dust of Afghanistan on them. They won't have the blood of a brother on them. They won't because of those who have volunteered to go where I won't.
I wear them when I ride. I wear them when I hunt and I wear them when I hike.
I wear them when I'm going to any place most shoes won't go and though they're too small, I also wear them as a small but heartfelt tribute to those who wear them for me.
For like my boots, those who serve in the Armed Forces go where others won't and take the burden of freedom off of their neighbors and carry it voluntarily.
They make this nation who we are.
They go where we won't.

I'll wear my boots today, knowing many more will wear them away from all they love in order for what they love to endure.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who goes where I don't.

Have a happy and safe Veteran's Day

To get your boots on and contribute to making the lives of those returning from combat better, visit http://www.bootcampaign.com

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Heroes and Humans and Hurt

I was 13 years old when I considered killing myself. I know I am hardly alone in this regard, being a teenager generally sucks for everyone, but middle school was particularly rough on me. My school required uniforms, white collared shirts and blue shorts/pants. It was a particularly rough financial period for my family and I have always been a tough person to buy clothes for. So not only was I a fat kid, I was a fat kid with grease stained shirts and very short blue shorts. In other words: a perfect target. My 8th grade year I had zero friends, hung out in the library and tried not to stand out anymore than I naturally did. I would go on the school computers, open up the Paint program and draw digital representations of me killing other students, myself and scenes of war. If this was a few years later in post-Columbine days, I might have been expelled or arrested.
Instead I became more and more isolated in school. I had a GPA of 0.29 my first semester. 6 F's and 2 D's. I had a couple of friends older than me in high school so after school who I could go play video games with them, but from 9:30-3 I hated my life. I truly have no idea what would of happened if I hadn't asked my mother one day after school "Does it hurt to stab yourself?" My mom didn't respond, so I elaborated in a manner I prefer not to share. She stopped the car almost immediately and told me not to ever talk like that again, that she loved me and that it hurt her very badly to hear me talk like that. Then she bought me a Jumbo Jack, because apparently life lessons are more easily digested with loads of trans fats and refined sugars.
I love my Mom.
I never thought about offing myself again. Because I knew the impact it would have on those I loved.
Today I caught shit on Twitter for labeling suicide "selfish" in the wake of Junior Seau's suicide. I'm trying to deal with Seau's death. To understand number 55's influence on a boy growing up in 1990's San Diego, you only need know that I will never have to look up how to spell his name. He is as big a part of my childhood as Tony Gwynn, Bill Clinton or Michael Jackson. Today he shot himself in the chest and died alone in Oceanside, where he grew up and played high school football. He IS San Diego. He IS the San Diego Chargers. And he was selfish for taking that away from everyone who loved him.
Four years ago I was working at a Fishing Tackle/Gun Store. I hadn't done a play in a while, I didn't have any dedication to getting better as an actor and wasn't motivated enough to get out and try. I thought being an actor would maybe happen, but I was likely to end up running a Sportfishing boat, a highly unappealing but easy scenario.
Then my friend Jeff, one of the funniest, most talented and awesome people I had ever met shot himself in the head. It's hard for me to understand Jeff's impact on me. He once duct taped me to a chair in a playful mutiny against me, his stressed out lighting designer. We spent an awful lot of time together. We once talked our way out of a surefire DUI for him, in a car with no registration or insurance. Then, this being the BFB era (Before Facebook), we hadn't spoke for a while. He had gone to New York, to perform and be awesome. I had stayed in San Diego, to sell Springfield 1911s and cut Albacore. When he died, I felt like he had taken something special from the world. Out of everyone I met up through college there were 4-5 people I thought were going to "make it" and make a living entertaining people. I was one. Jeff was another. Losing him made me feel like I was wasting what I had learned and the only talent I had been born with. I went back to class. I auditioned. I worked at my favorite theatre in the world and got on TV. Jeff could of done better.

Selfishness is defined thus:
devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one's own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others.
You can decide for yourself if Suicide falls under this definition. For me it does. I'm not attacking the ones I have known or you have known who have done it, but it is an inherently selfish act and one way to prevent it is to understand that fact. Maybe if Junior or Jeff would of thought about those who loved them they would still be with us. Our world would of been better with them here.
I would of gladly told them the same thing. Or bought them a Jumbo Jack.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Pride and Predisposition to Heart Disease

I lost a battle today friends. I'm a guy who doesn't have a ton of pride. It's a sin. Perhaps the most deadly of the Deadly. So I tend to hold dear the few principles and accomplishments I do place meaning in. So today hurts. Because today I failed to uphold one basic, just, and valued principle. I made myself a hypocrite and broke a vow I made to myself the last time I wiped whatever the fuck is in a Steak Chalupa out of my beard and onto a cheap, paper like napkin covered in hot sauce.
I ate at Taco Bell and it hurts.
Not just my somewhat fragile and now thundering digestive system. My pride. I had thought I had moved past fast food. It's awful for you and I'm a guy fighting genetics and gluttony hard enough as it is. But apparently I'm an idiot and Taco Bell knows it. Or at least their Marketing Army does. (Seriously, they have an army. Here's the first page of the Marketing Division's directory http://www.jigsaw.com/id237339_d20/taco_bell_inc_marketing_business_contacts.xhtml)
They know I'm an idiot because they developed a product that every fat kid born since 1980 couldn't/t possibly resist.
The Doritos' shelled Taco.


                                                    Fuck You Taco Bell.

When I first saw a commercial for this godforsaken abomination of sodium stuffed mastery, I knew I was done. The perfect fat kid/stoner/fat stoner concoction of devilry. A combination of flavors so familiar and enticing that just thinking about them fires off more pleasure receptors in my brain (the science! http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-10-16-obesity-gene_N.htm) than the thought of Alison Brie giving me a lap dance in a bacon bikini. Ok, a regular bikini. But a near nude, full contact lap dance nonetheless. I don't know how many of these they have sold, but I cannot think of anything they have put on the menu at any Yum! brand "restaurant"which has gotten me into a KFC, Taco Bell or Pizza Hut. This was a coup. They got me. I ate one. My wife ate two, but with beans instead of meat because she has a little respect for herself and tries not to eat recycled fertilizer.
If you're wondering how it was, I'll just say that you will enjoy the Taco as much as you anticipate it.If you have issues like mine, you'll wonder what took them so long and love it. If you are just trying it to try it, then it's just a bright orange taco(insert Snooki joke here).
This is melodrama, yes. But reality based melodrama. I judge myself by the few standards I keep. I'm going back to keeping my "no fast food": promise. At least till Wienershnitzel and Fritos get together.
They say that Satan's deadliest vice was Pride. I don't know if that's true, but I know one thing for certain. Taco Bell knows which sin sells tacos.
It's Gluttony.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

NEIL PATRICK HARRIS IS A VAMPIRE!!!

As some of you may know already, I'm a bit of a geek. Little did I know, but me being a geek may have saved humankind's very existence on this planet. For you see gang, perhaps my most geeky and obscure habit is collecting ads out of old Time Magazines. This hobby brings me great joy and makes my house smell like a decaying cake flavored scratch-and-sniff sticker (which may explain the great joy). Regardless of why I collect these treasures, my doing so has provided a discovery which may shatter what we think we know about life as we think we know what we know it.
Neil Patrick Harris. Is. A. Vampire.
That's right. Nosferatu. A creature of the night. It's the only way to explain why society finds him endlessly charming and can't help but want him in our housesBECAUSE HE WANTS IT THAT  WAY.
I know what you're thinking. "Chris, what would make you say such outlandish balderdash?"
My answer?
This is taken from one of my previously mentioned old-ass-cake-smelling Time Magazines dated January 13, 1958; a full FIFTEEN YEARS before NPH was supposedly "born".


BAM! That's right. Neil Patrick Harris isn't who he seems. I call him Reswoheigood, which sounds like what an evil, hilariously goofy and handsome vampire should be called. And he wants to sword fight.
 Now, friends, we know already that Nic Cage is a godforesaken bloodsucker. And we know from the "Twilight"documentary films that Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart (although no one really needs proof for those two) are as well. This new evidence can only lead me to believe that amongst me - as I live, play, and (work?) in Hollywood - are multitudes of evil neck biters waiting to pounce. Some may pose as comical yet dignified and downright sexy Gods of Entertainment, while others just call themselves Nic Cage.
Please, loyal twitter friends and anyone else with enough time on their hands to read this: If I am to disappear DO NOT FORGET MY WARNINGS! Prepare yourself for the oncoming vampire plagues!
And to my wife, never forget this: If you come home one night to a dark house and Neil Patrick Harris is there sucking on my neck, thank you for rescuing me from what was totally a vampire. No matter how politely he leaves.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

KONY 2012 and why it bothers me.

Being a cynical person can be a lonely existence. Such is the case for me amongst this whole Kony 2012 campaign. First of all, twitter peeps, this has nothing to do with the fact I sometimes appear on TV. TV may be the only reason why I have as many people follow me as I do, but I've had these same feelings about many viral causes that have come and gone dating back to when I was filleting Albacore and selling shoes for money. The only difference now is that I can make a lot more people despise me. I'm a guy who hates getting invitations through facebook, generally can't stand social media's attempt to make me build a virtual farm, slaughterhouse, or castle, and loathes when the masses gather around a cause most never bothered to learn anything about until it was all over the goddamned Internet and their favorite celebrity chef retweeted it.
It is through this distorted, mangled lens that I view the Kony campaign. Do I believe that Joseph Kony is a horrid excuse for a human being that should be doomed to the 12 circles of hell and have his soul raped, tortured, and tormented for eternity? Yes. Do I applaud the actions of those who do all they can in trying to highlight his crimes and bring him to justice? Of course. Everyone does. And here's where I get annoyed:
When these things blow up on the net all I can see is the mindlessness by which these phenomena spread like wildfire. This is great when you are trying to merely spread awareness. Like if there is an outbreak of the monkey virus and you need to duct tape your windows to keep from getting it. What's not great is that most people only bother to learn about an issue when it's trending on twitter then act as if it's a mission sent from directly from God to them, and they must convert everyone by posting it on their wall and getting all up in my business. Fact is 90% of these assholes won't remember what fucking country Joseph Kony terrorizes in 2 weeks. They'll go back into whatever cyber-catatonic state they live in and will be bothering me about another cause they really, truly don't care about.
Folks, I don't know what difference this campaign will make. If their goal is only to raise awareness, Invisible Children has accomplished that tenfold. If this awareness leads to pressure on the international community to bring Kony to justice - President Obama made it a priority months ago, even commiting US troops and no one said a fucking thing.  Here's a link with a Rush Limbaugh bashing bonus http://mediamatters.org/blog/201203070006 - then the people behind Invisible Children deserve the Nobel Peace prize, a chapter in every history book detailing their achievement, and a three month orgy with every model in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. But if this campaign is to bring awareness to the Invisible Children organization in order to raise them money so they can make more heartbreaking videos and only spend 32% of that money towards services that directly benefit those they advocate on behalf of - http://c2052482.r82.cf0.rackcdn.com/images/737/original/FY11-Audited%20Financial%20Statements.pdf?1320205055 - then I WOULD RATHER SEE THE INTERNET RALLY BEHIND OTHER GROUPS THAT ARE MORE EFFICIENT. That's it. That's my distorted reasoning and why I can't get behind them 100%.
This may make me a complete asshole, I understand that. I hope I'm just a cynical douchebag and, because of this 30 minute video, a terrible person gets what he deserves and Invisible Children gets richly deserved accolades and satisfaction of truly changing the world for the better. That is my preferred ending. But if not, if my skepticism proves true and the world forgets and jumps on board the next trendy cause without accomplishing anything, do me a solid and leave me out of it. I've got a printer that isn't going to plug itself in.