Just Your Typical Everyday Morning Car Explosion

It's not every morning you walk out of a Starbucks and find yourself in the middle of a real-life fucking action movie.
Let me back up...
I stopped off for coffee on my way to work yesterday morning. While getting out of my car, I vaguely noticed a man across the street dealing with his car's overheated engine. When I walked back outside not five minutes later, I stopped in tracks, uttering the words, "What the fuck...?"
The car directly across the street from mine was on fire. The entire top half of it was covered in flames, and huge plumes of smoke were billowing upward over Wilshire Boulevard. The car's owner was nowhere to be seen. Passerbies began to linger on the sidewalk, faces dropped, cell phone cameras coming out. "Oh shit!" said a guy over my shoulder. I started towards my car, thinking I should jump into it and drive away, but very quickly thought better of it. The flames were growing bigger, spreading across the vehicle. My car wasn't more than a dozen feet away. A passing driver sped up to get beyond the blaze. A man stood next to me on the shop's patio. "Oh, man,"he said. I absent-mindedly held my cell phone, wondering if someone had already called for help. A few spectators walked to the sidewalk directly across from the car, positioning their phones for a better picture. Then the flames reached something combustible, and an explosion shattered the driver's side window and sent debris into the street. "Get away from there!" people shouted. "Don't go near it!" The man next: "Oh man, if that hits the fuel tank, it's gonna' blow." I tensed, and backed up a few feet, but kept eying my own car. "Jesus," I said. Then the man turned to me, "You know, this reminds me of a time I was in Sedona..." As he kept talking, I could hear sirens in the distance, and soon two fire trucks appeared off of Wilshire and parked.

Note my silver Volvo in the foreground.

When things were sufficiently doused, I slid into my car and eased past the fire truck...

... because I was late to work. But I hoped my boss would understand that I'd woken up to a scene from Children of Men or Breaking Bad.

Johnny C. at the holiday party

At the FunnyOrDie holiday party, John C. Reilly was looking pretty relaxed as he strolled amidst the sea of comedy nerds. I wanted to approach him not just as a movie fan but to tell him I saw his amazing production of True West in New York back in 2000 (the one where he and Philip Seymour Hoffman switched roles every few nights, and where I saw them in the roles that the Times liked a little less). Standing there in the chi chi Hollywood bar, I could remind Reilly that after that play I'd gotten up the nerve to get his autograph and, as a shy 17-year-old, had asked if he "had any advice for an aspiring actor." To which he replied, "Trust yourself," and a few of his post-show friends snickered over his shoulder and he cracked a wry smile. And at the holiday party, furthermore, I could demand, "And where has your advice gotten me, huh? Were you friends right to snicker?? I've been trusting myself for the last ten years, and what do I have to show for it?? Huh, John C. Reilly?? WHAT HAVE I WROUGHT?" 

How do you think that'd go over?

A Fractured Fairy Tale for you - (Teaser)

The Sweetest Best-est Most Un-wicked Stepmother Ever

            ONCE upon a time there lived a young boy and his stern, hatchet-carrying father, whose wife had recently passed away. She was done in by one of those icky annual poxes that are nowadays so laughably curable. What a waste. The cottage where they lived sat on the Eastern slope of a tall hill, looking pretty quaint and idyllic even though it was structurally very unsound. It had also grown unkempt and dreary in the days since the lady’s death – a woman’s only, only vocation at the time being to keep that homestead shit straightened out. Even the boy’s hygiene and demeanor were going south. The father took note of all this (with a countenance that only ever expressed the emotions “nonplussed” or “enraged”) and, after a five-word heart-to-heart with his boy, resolved to get a new wife lickety-split. His land, his cottage, and all his livestock were super impressive-by-peasant-standards and could probably fetch a new wife-homemaker within the fortnight, which was a word that meant two weeks. The father readied his horse and, leaving the boy with a minuscule food ration and a list of exploitative chores, journeyed off to the large nearby village (population: 40).

....