That’s Tom Wilson and I, after his show at the Funny Bone Sunday.

None of the things I was not so secretly hoping would happen did actually happen, but I wasn’t disappointed. Wilson’s set was a lot of fun, and in addition to being legitimately funny, he surprised me by playing the guitar and singing pretty well.

One of the first things he did after taking the stage was say, “Let’s get over the Back to the Future stuff right off the bat,” and he somewhat cheekily rattled off a few of Biff Tannen’s more popular lines, to the audience’s delight.

Then he picked up the guitar and proceeded to sing “The Question Song” — embedded below — which he said “would save everyone some time after the show.”

Having paid proper homage to his BACK TO THE FUTURE past, he moved onto some other subjects, including a clever song about his daughter and about playing football at a drama school. He also interacted with the audience, picking on a couple of people whose tables were right next to the stage. This included a dudebro-ish looking fellow whose nickname was — and I’m not making this up, I swear — “The Beef,” and another guy who runs a rehab center. So thank Cthulhu Kristin and I’s table was slightly removed from the stage, or I’m fairly certain I would have been embarrassed in some way.

And then after the show I picked up a copy of his DVD, and he was kind enough to pose for the photo. Though I’m fairly certain that’s a taser in his hand. Fortunately he didn’t have to use it. At least not on me.

Going to the Funny Bone tonight to see Thomas Wilson (Biff Tannen of the BACK TO THE FUTURE trilogy) perform. I am secretly hoping that Old Biff will show up to harangue his younger self and give him a mysterious gift.

That, or, for a grand finale, I’d settle for watching him wreck a ’46 Ford convertible into a manure cart on the main street of the Greene.

(Posted via mobile phone from Joshua Bales’s Posterous.)

My dad went in today for surgery to remove a small piece of bone that has been pinching his sciatic nerve for the last month. Since he couldn’t sit or lie down for more than an hour or so at a time without his leg being in excruciating pain, he hasn’t been able to get more than three of four cumulative hours of sleep a night for the past several weeks.

It makes for a rather unpleasant existence, being constantly exhausted and in pain, and generally unable to relax for any extended period of time. Of late, my dad had begun to resemble one of the walking dead: shambling around town, his right foot, which had been rendered somewhat useless from the pinched nerve, dragging as he went. Constantly seeking out brains, but always unsuccessful in his quest. But unlike our zombie brethren, instead of brains, he would have been happy with a good night’s sleep.

He finally got in to see a neurosurgeon yesterday, who upon seeing the results from the tests, immediately said, “Yep, gonna have to operate on that sumbitch,” or something to that effect. Fortunately, the doctor had an opening today at the hospital, so they were able to operate right away.

So that is how my mom, sister, and I ended up spending the day in a nicely appointed hospital waiting room. My dad went in to surgery prep around 11:30, and by 5:30 he was out of surgery and in the recovery room.

When my mom talked to him briefly afterwards, he was happy to report that, although sore from the surgery, his leg was feeling fine. He’ll come home tomorrow, and by month’s end he should hopefully be back to his normal, non-zombie-like self.

As to why this post is called “Back Surgery and Caramel Sundaes” . . . Well: while we were waiting with my dad inside the surgery prep room, my mom looked at the caramel-colored IV bag full of blood platelets feeding into his arm, and remarked, “A caramel sundae sounds pretty good right now.”

Only my mother.

Over on their website, National Geographic has a fascinating article up on a top-secret spy plane prototype being tested at Area 51 during the height of the Cold War and which crashed in Utah in 1963, and the subsequent governmental cover-up:

In an undated picture, a mock-up of the A-12 spy plane sits perched upside down on a testing pylon at Area 51—part of radar tests to reveal revealed how visible, or invisible, the design was to radar.

Area 51 staff had to regularly interrupt such tests and hurry prototypes into “hoot-and-scoot sheds”—lest they be detected by Soviet spy satellites.

The article is based on a cache of documents recently declassified by the CIA. There are a number of other wonderful and very retrofuturistic photos on NG’s site.

The weather is gorgeous and warm this evening, and I’m enjoying the hell out of it. Currently I am ensconced on my back porch, sipping a Sprite Zero and trying not to engage in a staring contest with my neighbor across the way, with semi-successful results.

This past Saturday found me attending two birthday parties. They couldn’t have been any more different from each other, but both were a hell of a lot of fun.

The first was being thrown for my adorable devildaughter, Kennedy, who was turning two that day. Her parents had apparently decided that they wanted to make it as stressful as possible for themselves, so the party was of course held at Chuck E Cheese’s.

There’s something kind of overwhelming about being in a cavernous room full of frenzied toddlers and dazzlingly colorful machines blaring music at you. Kind of like being in a casino, but with a bunch of tiny people and less alcohol.

Kristin and Lindsey were there as well, which helped make things a little less maddening. We ate some surprisingly good pizza, then wandered about, participating in a multitude of games of skill and chance and being rewarded with tickets instead of money. Which I suppose is more than most people get from a casino.

The little monster was kind enough to sit still long enough for me to snap a photo, before the sugar rush from the cake could take hold.

And then later on that evening, Kristin threw a birthday party for two of her best friends, Amanda and Kat, that was also sort of a “Christ, it finally feels like Spring” party. A number of their other friends showed up, most of them charming people, and we spent the majority of the night drinking and scheming on the back porch.

(Left to right: Kristin, Lauren, Kat, Little Kristin, and Amanda.)

I tried a mojito for the first time, and it turned out to be quite delectable. Although I’m told it wasn’t a proper mojito, since these were made with Sprite Zero instead of club soda. Still: damned tasty, and probably better anyway, seeing as I don’t really care for club soda.

A few people stayed the night in a tent in the backyard. I, of course, was not one of them. My idea of roughing it is sleeping in a bed inside a house where the air conditioning isn’t turned on. They seemed to enjoy it though. Nutters.

So all in all, ’twas a very pleasant party-filled day indeed.

Too bad the song by Bruno Mars is god-awful. Though I doff my hat to Leonard Nimoy for agreeing to be in such an inspired video.

And it has a pitch-perfect ending, too.

It’s time to get donuts.

(Posted from the field via Joshua Bales’s Flickr.)

It’s now past 6:00 in my particular time zone, so, to everyone on the Internet: please stop talking about the Rapture.

What little mocking humor remained in the subject had been sucked dry days ago by the Internet’s collective “cleverness,” and at this point it’s just become tired and recycled. So let’s let this particularly silly meme die the quick death it deserves now, shall we?

But if anyone is legitimately upset that the Rapture didn’t actually happen and take them away . . . well, cheer up — it’s not like it’s the end of the world.

Rewatching ROSEMARY’S BABY the other night, I was reminded just how mental the last ten minutes of it is. I could remember what basically happens plot-wise, but what had escaped my memory is how sheerly unnerving it is watching a bunch of well-to-do senior citizens standing around a crib swathed in black, fanatically shouting things like “Hail Satan” and “God is dead” and “the year is one,” while the ominous musical score slowly grows louder and more intense.

I like to think that when the day approaches and my future spawn is about to be unleashed from its mother’s womb, the baby shower will look something like this. But with more younger people attending, of course.