Ball Face Loren

Once upon a time there was a boy named Loren. When he was good, he was very very good. And when he was bad, it somehow stuck and he grew up into the man he is today. Which is not to say he's not likeable. A self-admitted liberal "asshole", Loren is somehow more charming spewing epithets against religious groups or explaining why he hates "pretty much everyone" than an entire troop of Girl Scouts working with needy kids. Maybe it's because his gleeful sense of humor softens the caustic rhetoric, or because deep down we all know he means well. Or maybe it's because it's hard to be offended by someone in a pink band t-shirt and mussed hair who's clutching the latest Japanese import of a Radiohead single like Sophie's one remaining child. Either way, Loren's basically a kitten. A kitten with sharp, left-leaning claws.

So we decided the other day to play kickball (I think this was the 4th of July), as a kind of tribute to our childhood and also to escape the throngs of tourists in town for Cherry Fest. We didn't have enough players to form proper teams, with the result being a kind of free-for-all, every-man-for-himself melee. When the fun of that wore off, we mosied over to the playground. I quickly discovered that merry-go-round G-Force has the same effect on my stomach as 6 shots of Jager, and Kyle and Jeff Chapin spent a considerable amount of time whizzing around on the zip line and walking across the high narrow beams of the equipment. I wanted to get a picture of Loren stretched out on the swings, a huge ecstatic grin on his face, because frankly he looked like a handicapped kid at recess. I steadied my camera phone to take the shot and just before I pressed the button, Bail Money (that's Baylee to you) threw a kickball full force at Loren's head. As Loren's arms were stretched out on either swing, the poor guy had no choice but to take a direct hit to the face. In a moment of perfectly timed glory, my camera snapped the photo, and the resulting phenomenon known as Ball Face Loren was born. This photo is now in popular use as a screen saver, desktop, buddy icon, etc. We're looking into T-Shirts.