Sunday afternoon was one of those gloriously warm mid-spring days in Phoenix. The mercury was feeling up the 100 mark like it was an easy prom date and the sun was set to toast.
These are the kind of days I love. A real meat broiler that pinks the skin. A hair fryer that singes split ends and straightens the curlies. A peanut roaster that cooks some knuckleheads tootsies when he decides to do the hot coal walk across the dirt driveway to grab the mail.
It was likely our last sub-ohmygodit'sfriggin'hot day, and the perfect weather to play football.
That's right, with the thermometer tickling the one-zero-zero level, us gridiron gladiators (we all watch the game better than we play it) took the field one last time before our nut sacks shrivel to raisins and our skin turns into slabs of human-flavored jerky.
We came prepared: sunscreen, cooler with water (and beer), ankle braces, knee braces, shoe padding and one doctor (with this group, you can never be too prepared). That's right, I invited ol' Doogie Howser, who said he wanted to play the next time we got together. I'm guessing Doogie saw dollar signs when he realized the majority of us were on the evil side of 30. I'll give it to the doc, he know how to drum up business. The game is two-hand touch, but he made it two-hand shove football, and as his target writhed on the ground - often whimpering - he'd flick his business card at the wounded player. "Take that, news bitch! Office hours are 8-to-5."
My fear of Doogie was misplaced, however, as I watched two fellow news hacks (the high school sports perv and a copy editing monkey - just like me) run into each other like they were chasing down the last donut in the newsroom. It was no surprise to the group that invovled in the play was the human weapon of mass destruction - for safety reasons (mine, not his - I'm afraid he'll kick in my other ankle) we'll call him Mr. M. This the same gent who, in January when the sun was out and about as warm as a pack of frozen peas, angry that I'm pickin' a pass in front of him hauled me down and when no one was lookin', turned my left ankle into one of those soft pretzel you get overly hairy man on a New York street corner.
But as the sun cooked every fiber of our beings and forced us into water breaks every three minutes I wondered how the dudes who get paid a few bucks to play football can work in wearing 50 pounds of plastic, aluminum and steal while running full steam at a line of 11 similarly clad players. We'd hike the ball, blast ten steps down the field, wave our arms half-assedly and hoped the QB would throw it to someone else on our four-man squad so I (or the other guy) didn't have to run. We'd then return to the huddle gasping the remaining oxygen in the Phoenix metro area. We could have been down wind from a dairy farm and a port-a-potty depository, and we'd still suck wind like we hust finished climbing Mount Everest.
I'd like to blame it on the heat - it's not like the sun is going to talk back if I do blame it - that's what wore most of us down. It's hard to play when you have Niagra Falls filling your eye sockets like little tidal pools. The majority of us wannabes might have 30 in the rearview mirror, but it was the sun that kept kicking us in the nuts.
By the end of the game, we were so drained a beer didn't even sound good. Of course, that could be because I'm a cheap bastard and only brought a twelver of Natural Light - slightly better tasting than New Orleans gutter water after Mardi Gras.
At the end of the day, though, pink and heat exhausted, sore from my extra-long ear hairs to my pointy pinky toe nail, everyone kept asking the same question:
"So, when' the next game?"
I hear July is nice time for afternoon of football. I wonder if there'll be any takers.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Hey Letterman, I got your top 10 hangin' right here
The other night, with no new midget porn to be found on the Internet, I decided to feel up the boob tube. I thought amid the 200 or so channels we have maybe there wouldd be at least one show I could sit through for 30 minutes or an hour before some hot monkey love with Wife and then beddie-bye time.
Of course that meant cutting through dozens of Spanish-language channels, which seem to either feature variety shows with a fat dude host surrounded by chiquitas with their jumblies busting out of their mini-dresses (maybe I should watch more) or Spanish soap operas that feature chiquitas with their jumblies busting out of their mini-dresses while crying to their fat husband on the show (maybe I should start watching those, too).
Once I got through those channels, then it was off through the wonderful viewing world of home improvement TV. I think these shows are designed to give folks an idea what they can do with their shacks, but I watch what these butt munches do to the houses and thank God they ain't ever comin' down to my neck of the woods. Wife and I watched one of these TV abortions without fail during a 6-week span - I'm pretty sure it was called "Screw up a room in my house" - where two couples swap houses and, with the help of a show-provided interior designer (the producer's words, not ours), irreperably disfigure one room in each other's house. But the show's evil because they don't want these homeowners beating the crap out of the designer, so they force them to say nice things about the newly designed room ("Oh, what a pretty color of brown. Look honey, it will be like we're living inside a turd."). I know our friends, and if we gave them carte blanche to redesign a room Wife and I would get booger-colored walls with caricatures of Diamondback players stenciled througout the room painted in pastels because Wife hates those colors. So, yeah, don't look for our application any time soon.
Finally, after wading through more channels than I could give half a pubic hair for (who's going to watch BYU TV, really? That's right, we have BYU TV because secretly the Mormons are trying to take over the world. The hell with Osama and Islam, those Utah sneaks are up to no good) I finally spy a show I've wished I could find on the tube for some time - The Wonder Years. It epitomized my high school experience (more than Head of the Class or Welcome Back, Kotter, since I was neither a braniac or a Sweathog), complete with those Kevin Arnold daydreams of sweeping Winnie off her feet or playing a hard case to sweat down one of my sister's boyfriends. It was like the show's creators crawled into the caverns of my mind and put my memories to the small screen.
So I sat there watching it, remembering how much I loved that show, and slightly freaked at how much I saw myself in the main character. And finding that show came on the heals of learning there are late night reruns of Cheers another channel just before Seinfeld comes on in the desert. It's two-and-a-half hours of great TV (bless channel 17 and channel 10, they show an hour of Wonder Years and Seinfeld, respectively).
With three great sitcoms playing grab ass with each other from 9 to 11:30 p.m. out here, it paused me to ponder (I ponder just like Thoreau, but better because I consider the important shit like TV shows while he just looked at the colors of the leaves - what a schmuck): Of all the sitcoms I've watched on a fairly regular basis, including those I caught in syndicated reruns, what would make my top 10? I'm not talking about those a-holes in the newspapers and TV rags and what they think, or even what y'all think are the best shows, I'm considering only the shows I've actually watched on a regular basis. You won't see The Simpsons or The Andy Griffith Show or The Honeymooners on this list. Not that they're bad shows, it's just that I never watched them regularly.
So, let's start with the honorable mentions. Some of these might not be the best of shows, hell I watch some now and think what was I thinking which is quickly followed by waves of guilt for making the Old Man and Dear Ol' Ma watch these steaming piles of elephant poo.
In no particular order, with comments for some:
Of course that meant cutting through dozens of Spanish-language channels, which seem to either feature variety shows with a fat dude host surrounded by chiquitas with their jumblies busting out of their mini-dresses (maybe I should watch more) or Spanish soap operas that feature chiquitas with their jumblies busting out of their mini-dresses while crying to their fat husband on the show (maybe I should start watching those, too).
Once I got through those channels, then it was off through the wonderful viewing world of home improvement TV. I think these shows are designed to give folks an idea what they can do with their shacks, but I watch what these butt munches do to the houses and thank God they ain't ever comin' down to my neck of the woods. Wife and I watched one of these TV abortions without fail during a 6-week span - I'm pretty sure it was called "Screw up a room in my house" - where two couples swap houses and, with the help of a show-provided interior designer (the producer's words, not ours), irreperably disfigure one room in each other's house. But the show's evil because they don't want these homeowners beating the crap out of the designer, so they force them to say nice things about the newly designed room ("Oh, what a pretty color of brown. Look honey, it will be like we're living inside a turd."). I know our friends, and if we gave them carte blanche to redesign a room Wife and I would get booger-colored walls with caricatures of Diamondback players stenciled througout the room painted in pastels because Wife hates those colors. So, yeah, don't look for our application any time soon.
Finally, after wading through more channels than I could give half a pubic hair for (who's going to watch BYU TV, really? That's right, we have BYU TV because secretly the Mormons are trying to take over the world. The hell with Osama and Islam, those Utah sneaks are up to no good) I finally spy a show I've wished I could find on the tube for some time - The Wonder Years. It epitomized my high school experience (more than Head of the Class or Welcome Back, Kotter, since I was neither a braniac or a Sweathog), complete with those Kevin Arnold daydreams of sweeping Winnie off her feet or playing a hard case to sweat down one of my sister's boyfriends. It was like the show's creators crawled into the caverns of my mind and put my memories to the small screen.
So I sat there watching it, remembering how much I loved that show, and slightly freaked at how much I saw myself in the main character. And finding that show came on the heals of learning there are late night reruns of Cheers another channel just before Seinfeld comes on in the desert. It's two-and-a-half hours of great TV (bless channel 17 and channel 10, they show an hour of Wonder Years and Seinfeld, respectively).
With three great sitcoms playing grab ass with each other from 9 to 11:30 p.m. out here, it paused me to ponder (I ponder just like Thoreau, but better because I consider the important shit like TV shows while he just looked at the colors of the leaves - what a schmuck): Of all the sitcoms I've watched on a fairly regular basis, including those I caught in syndicated reruns, what would make my top 10? I'm not talking about those a-holes in the newspapers and TV rags and what they think, or even what y'all think are the best shows, I'm considering only the shows I've actually watched on a regular basis. You won't see The Simpsons or The Andy Griffith Show or The Honeymooners on this list. Not that they're bad shows, it's just that I never watched them regularly.
So, let's start with the honorable mentions. Some of these might not be the best of shows, hell I watch some now and think what was I thinking which is quickly followed by waves of guilt for making the Old Man and Dear Ol' Ma watch these steaming piles of elephant poo.
In no particular order, with comments for some:
- The Cosby Show (we were a house divided over this, it faced off against Magnum P.I. for many years, so one week Sister and I got to watch The Cos, and the next week the parental units would watch Magnum. We were very democratic because we only had one tube)
- NewsRadio (I still miss Phil Hartman)
- Diff'rent Strokes (What you talkin' about Ma? This show doesn't suck? Oh wait, yeah it does)
- Three's Company (I lived this show in Las Vegas)
- Family Ties
- Growing Pains (I kept a soft spot in my heart for this show until I watch The True Hollywood Story and saw what a nut bag that Kirk Cameron is. )
- My Name is Earl (Young show keeps me laughing, and often I find myself asking, "What would Earl do?" I'm going to start wearing a WWED bracelet.)
- The Monkees (That little guy with the limey accent makes me laugh every time, and I can never get that theme song out of my melon)
- I Love Lucy
- Married with Children (I still have a crush on Christina Appelgate, and I was hopelessly similar to Bud Bundy)
- Brady Bunch (an after-school staple in the Melissa house)
- 3rd Rock from the Sun
- MASH (I hemmed and hawed about including this show, I've seen many episodes, but am hard press to pick out any that stand out)
- Entourage (this isn't your typical sitcom, but it's worth watching if only to laugh at Jeremy Piven each week)
- Everybody Love Raymond (This show would rank higher on my list if it didn't hit so close to home - and I mean that literally)
- Scrubs (another I'd rank higher if I just watched it more - it's ER without the cheesy previews that proclaim each ER to be "The ER that will change the way you watch ER."
- Mork & Mindy (I was pretty young for this show, but I remember going around the playground shouting "na-nu na-nu" to everyone)
And now the top 10:
10. Happy Days (The finale damn near made me weep like a gay dude losing out on a pair of pink Keds, and I still go around smacking juke boxes to see if it will play. Aaaaaaa, a man's gotta try, right?)
9. All in the Family (at first this was going to fall in the MASH and Scrubs category, but then I remembered an episode with The Jeffersons, before they were The Jeffersons, that had me laughing to the verge of tears, so it gets a slot on my list)
8. Friends (I fought to keep this off the list, but I watch the reruns still and find myself laughing all the time)
7. Sanford and Son ("I'm comin' to join ya honey," Redd Foxx was funny before Eddie Murphy could say funny. He left us way too soon)
6. The Office (This show makes me wet my pants every week, literally and figuratively ... try to understand that one)
5. Fawlty Towers (Brit show starring John Cleese. An English teacher in 8th grade turned me onto this show, and because of her gift of opening my eyes to this show I worked my ass for a B- ... thank Ms. White)
4. Cheers (Makes me want to own a bar, or at least visit on such a regular basis that everyone shouts "Mike ... what's new Michael?" "Terrorists, Sam. They've taken over my stomach, and they're demanding beer.")
3. The Wonder Years (I got a lump in my throat watching the final episode where the narrator epilogues the characters' lives. It might not be the funniest, but it's the most relatable no matter your age)
2. Arrested Development (Horribly mismanaged by Fox, I still don't understand how this show was cancelled - it's a travesty, and I blame the Mormons. I mean, someone has to be the skapegoat, right?)
And finally...
1. Seinfeld - I find myself on a daily basis hearing snippets of dialogue that I can remember hearing on the show. I've seen every episode so many times I can see it in my mind if I close my eyes. Remember, this is a show that gave us: Man hands, close talker, low talker, master of my domain, nip, changing teams, the library cop - a personal favorite as episodes go, serenity now, festivus, Art VandeLay, Doctor Van Nostran, and the Moops.)
Maybe one day I'll rave about how The A-Team and Dukes of Hazzard are easily teh best TV dramas to every travel the airwaves, but for today you'll just have to live with comedies. Feel free to jump on the comments page and tell me your top 10, or your favorites, or how full of rhino poo I really am.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Beating around the bush
Word had finally reached the Free World's Head Cheese that I have the answers to fix not only our country, but the entire world.
I've told everyone who'll listen, and plenty who just kept walking, that my plans would produce world peace, cure herpes and ease porn restrictions.
And finally, Bush Jr. heard me and wants to work hand in hand with Mikey.
"I am looking forward to working with you this year and next to acheive these goals." That's what the e-mail from Georgie states. That's right, me and the Bushmaster are on an e-mail basis nowadays. Heck, pretty soon he'll look me up on Gmail chat just to shoot the shit. Gmail chat in the oval office isn't the worst thing that's happen there, right? He'll type some funny wise crack about Dick Cheney's aim or Karl Rove's egg-shaped head and I'll LOL or if he's in a particularly wise mood (OK, considering who we're talking about, wise is the wrong choice of words) I might LMAO.
So what if the e-mail came addressed "Dear Republican" (I'm not, by the way, proving again The Big Man isn't the most thorough fact checker so it doesn't surprise me that he got that wrong), me and President Frat Boy obviously made a connection. And, just like any deadbeat friend, Bush is asking for money. "Your secure online gift of $100, $50 or $25 is vital..." Running with the Prez ain't cheap, I guess. He needs 100 smackers for something vital? I'll tell ya what, owning all six seasons of The Sopranos on DVD is vital. Being sandwiched by Salma Hayek and Marisa Tomei is vital.
And calling it a gift? What's that all about Georgie? This ain't no gift, bud. I'm not running Home Savings and Loan here, man. Plus, with all due respect, chief, I don't exactly have confidence that you'll pay me back. Especially when you're running a gatrillion dollar deficit. Where I come from, that's enough to get your knees Louisville Sluggered. You want to talk gifts, big guy? How 'bout you and your D.C. bed buddies chip in for some gas cards. I'm not picky. Mobil, Shell, Chevron, whichever oil company you got your fingers in will do just fine. Maybe we can work out a deal, pal, I'll send you your vital cash and you can cut gas prices to a buck-and-a-half (I'll settle for 2-bones per gallon, but I'm not telling the Head Cheese that yet). I mean, if you really meant what you said in your little e-mail, then I'm ready to work with ya, Big Boy.
So, Head Cheese, what do you need that cash for? Seran wrap to seal the ozone layer and halt global warming? Another set of fancy photo prints to show us where the weapons of mass destraction are? More crayons for your Powder Puff Girls coloring book?
The Free World's Top Dog is like Wimpy from Popeye, "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hundy and a barrel of oil today." I had friends like the Prez in school, and if I had half a brain or even the one Bush claims he uses, I would have set up a tidy little loan sharking business to ensure payment from these nose-wiping friends in grade school. "You don't want to pay me, Andy, fine. How 'bout I crap in your Superman lunch pail and pee in your soup thermos everyday until you pay me my 60 cents? If I don't get it by corn dog day (every day is a good day when you have a corn dog) I'll go atomic wedgie on your He-Man underroos. Got it?"
I'm not a political strategist, and I sure as hell won't pretend to play one here, but sending e-mails with big red pulsating "Donation" buttons (which resembles a throbbing dingaling with a "donation today" tattoo down the shaft) for the Republican National Committee to a non-GOP member doesn't fit. I feel like a spy. I could meet other political party heads on quiet park benches, face forward, pretend to talk to the air, and tell this member the deepest, darkest RNC secrets: "They want to cut taxes and keep us safe by fighting wars in underdeveloped countries."
So, I think I'll e-mail my new friend back, President George Walker Bush, maybe invite him to the football game in the park this weekend and perhaps watch some NASCAR this weekend - he's good ol' Texas boy, he likes those redneck sports, I'm sure. And when he's ready, he'll ask for my help, just as the e-mail suggests. However, the on thing that makes me nervous about my best new pal is the last line his in his little note: "I thank you for your sacrifices and for your continued support." Sacrifices? Dude, if I sacrified anymore, I'd be living in a van down by the river. Maybe you can gift me $100. What do you say Head Cheese?
I've told everyone who'll listen, and plenty who just kept walking, that my plans would produce world peace, cure herpes and ease porn restrictions.
And finally, Bush Jr. heard me and wants to work hand in hand with Mikey.
"I am looking forward to working with you this year and next to acheive these goals." That's what the e-mail from Georgie states. That's right, me and the Bushmaster are on an e-mail basis nowadays. Heck, pretty soon he'll look me up on Gmail chat just to shoot the shit. Gmail chat in the oval office isn't the worst thing that's happen there, right? He'll type some funny wise crack about Dick Cheney's aim or Karl Rove's egg-shaped head and I'll LOL or if he's in a particularly wise mood (OK, considering who we're talking about, wise is the wrong choice of words) I might LMAO.
So what if the e-mail came addressed "Dear Republican" (I'm not, by the way, proving again The Big Man isn't the most thorough fact checker so it doesn't surprise me that he got that wrong), me and President Frat Boy obviously made a connection. And, just like any deadbeat friend, Bush is asking for money. "Your secure online gift of $100, $50 or $25 is vital..." Running with the Prez ain't cheap, I guess. He needs 100 smackers for something vital? I'll tell ya what, owning all six seasons of The Sopranos on DVD is vital. Being sandwiched by Salma Hayek and Marisa Tomei is vital.
And calling it a gift? What's that all about Georgie? This ain't no gift, bud. I'm not running Home Savings and Loan here, man. Plus, with all due respect, chief, I don't exactly have confidence that you'll pay me back. Especially when you're running a gatrillion dollar deficit. Where I come from, that's enough to get your knees Louisville Sluggered. You want to talk gifts, big guy? How 'bout you and your D.C. bed buddies chip in for some gas cards. I'm not picky. Mobil, Shell, Chevron, whichever oil company you got your fingers in will do just fine. Maybe we can work out a deal, pal, I'll send you your vital cash and you can cut gas prices to a buck-and-a-half (I'll settle for 2-bones per gallon, but I'm not telling the Head Cheese that yet). I mean, if you really meant what you said in your little e-mail, then I'm ready to work with ya, Big Boy.
So, Head Cheese, what do you need that cash for? Seran wrap to seal the ozone layer and halt global warming? Another set of fancy photo prints to show us where the weapons of mass destraction are? More crayons for your Powder Puff Girls coloring book?
The Free World's Top Dog is like Wimpy from Popeye, "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hundy and a barrel of oil today." I had friends like the Prez in school, and if I had half a brain or even the one Bush claims he uses, I would have set up a tidy little loan sharking business to ensure payment from these nose-wiping friends in grade school. "You don't want to pay me, Andy, fine. How 'bout I crap in your Superman lunch pail and pee in your soup thermos everyday until you pay me my 60 cents? If I don't get it by corn dog day (every day is a good day when you have a corn dog) I'll go atomic wedgie on your He-Man underroos. Got it?"
I'm not a political strategist, and I sure as hell won't pretend to play one here, but sending e-mails with big red pulsating "Donation" buttons (which resembles a throbbing dingaling with a "donation today" tattoo down the shaft) for the Republican National Committee to a non-GOP member doesn't fit. I feel like a spy. I could meet other political party heads on quiet park benches, face forward, pretend to talk to the air, and tell this member the deepest, darkest RNC secrets: "They want to cut taxes and keep us safe by fighting wars in underdeveloped countries."
So, I think I'll e-mail my new friend back, President George Walker Bush, maybe invite him to the football game in the park this weekend and perhaps watch some NASCAR this weekend - he's good ol' Texas boy, he likes those redneck sports, I'm sure. And when he's ready, he'll ask for my help, just as the e-mail suggests. However, the on thing that makes me nervous about my best new pal is the last line his in his little note: "I thank you for your sacrifices and for your continued support." Sacrifices? Dude, if I sacrified anymore, I'd be living in a van down by the river. Maybe you can gift me $100. What do you say Head Cheese?
Monday, April 23, 2007
Royal flush
I've ate enough wedding cake over the past four weeks my ear wax is leaking fondant frosting and strawberry filling.
Don't get me wrong, the buffet king of Royal Carribbean Cruise lines - me - will eat a tasty wedding cake until the wait staff starts prying the cheap China dishes out of my food coma clutch. I couldn't tell ya if I were eating chocolate, vanilla, coconut, or barbecue brisket flavored cakes during our stretch of three-weddings-in-four-weeks extravanganza, but I can say they were all decorated the same: A little man and woman up on top, boinking away in a position I've never seen in any Kama Sutra video. OK, that may have just been my own vivid imagination, but I'll tell ya what, if I marketed and sold such cake toppers I'd be the richest SOB this side of the Atlantic and could afford an assistant to wash my nuts on a daily basis.
This wedding crap is big business, too. DJs, photogs, caterers, halls, coordinators, preachers, florists, midgets to carry the bride's train, all that shit sucks cash from your wallet like a $10 Jamaican hooker. And I'm a dude, there's probably things in that list I forgot. I'm pretty sure Wife's old man had to shell out a few clams to those ducks who flapped through a half dozen pictures five long years ago. And those quackers were lucky, my best man is from Montana and doesn't travel without some sort of firearm. Hell, he arms himself on five-minute trips to the grocery store for milk (wait, it's Montana, they may not have store's up there - trading posts sure, but not store - so, they likely have to milk a cow for the milk). I'm sure he was lickin' his chops, thinkin' the family was going to eat well during their 20-hour trek back up to Butte after Wife and I hitched our wagons together.
Knowing how much dough is involved with these shindigs, when I spotted some similarities between our wedding and any of the three we attended recently, I figured we'd rake in some royalties from these idea thieves. If I knew our wedding was going to be recycled by friends and relatives I would have designed a menu with values next to the touches:
$5 per guest signature - Two had picture frames with a photo of the lovely couple (I'm sure it was before they said "I do" because they were still smiling with happiness in their eyes. I didn't have the heart to tell either couple that wanes day, nay, minutes after the party's over The couple looks into each others' eyes and both mutter "oh crap"). Around the photo is plenty of white space for guests to express their best wishes (or in our case getting messages like, "You'll be lucky to make it through Wednesday," or "If you don't make it, can we have our fondu set back?").
$25 per special song used, i.e. First Dance, Father/Daughter Dance, Mother/Son Dance, Groom/Porn Star Dance - Wife's high school pal ripped off Sinatra's "The Way You Look Tonight," straight from our wedding. Wife will say that it was a band and not a DJ-spun record and that should knock off a few bucks, but you know what they say, "Give a bride a song and she'll put your table next to a speaker the size of a Super Wal-Mart." Twenty-five bones is fair since there's a million songs out there - who wouldn't want their First Dance to be to "All out of Love"? - and if we crashed weddings to see what songs they used, we could retire on our own island where servants in cocunut shell bikini tops and cabana boy with palm frond fans wait upon our every need (and believe us, we're a needy pair).
$3 for that "Love is" verse in the New Testament - We ain't religious folks (I'm pretty sure the Lord, Al Pacino, is TiVoing our every move and weighing our actions against his naughty and nice checklist - that's right him and the fat man in the red suit use the same list, it's more efficient that way) but if I can score some dinero in the name of the Lord, well, hell, sign me up. I'm not giving away freebies here, credit should paid where credit is due. So what if it was heard before at another wedding (or if we stole from a wedding before), that's not my problem, it's the other's couple problem since they weren't bright enough to think of it first.
That's right folks, the gravy train is leaving the station so jump on board. This royalty plan will fly and take Wife and I to great financial heights. We'll be bigger than the Gates, the Trumps, the Clampetts put together. Nut scrubbers and boob spongers for everyone.
Don't get me wrong, the buffet king of Royal Carribbean Cruise lines - me - will eat a tasty wedding cake until the wait staff starts prying the cheap China dishes out of my food coma clutch. I couldn't tell ya if I were eating chocolate, vanilla, coconut, or barbecue brisket flavored cakes during our stretch of three-weddings-in-four-weeks extravanganza, but I can say they were all decorated the same: A little man and woman up on top, boinking away in a position I've never seen in any Kama Sutra video. OK, that may have just been my own vivid imagination, but I'll tell ya what, if I marketed and sold such cake toppers I'd be the richest SOB this side of the Atlantic and could afford an assistant to wash my nuts on a daily basis.
This wedding crap is big business, too. DJs, photogs, caterers, halls, coordinators, preachers, florists, midgets to carry the bride's train, all that shit sucks cash from your wallet like a $10 Jamaican hooker. And I'm a dude, there's probably things in that list I forgot. I'm pretty sure Wife's old man had to shell out a few clams to those ducks who flapped through a half dozen pictures five long years ago. And those quackers were lucky, my best man is from Montana and doesn't travel without some sort of firearm. Hell, he arms himself on five-minute trips to the grocery store for milk (wait, it's Montana, they may not have store's up there - trading posts sure, but not store - so, they likely have to milk a cow for the milk). I'm sure he was lickin' his chops, thinkin' the family was going to eat well during their 20-hour trek back up to Butte after Wife and I hitched our wagons together.
Knowing how much dough is involved with these shindigs, when I spotted some similarities between our wedding and any of the three we attended recently, I figured we'd rake in some royalties from these idea thieves. If I knew our wedding was going to be recycled by friends and relatives I would have designed a menu with values next to the touches:
$5 per guest signature - Two had picture frames with a photo of the lovely couple (I'm sure it was before they said "I do" because they were still smiling with happiness in their eyes. I didn't have the heart to tell either couple that wanes day, nay, minutes after the party's over The couple looks into each others' eyes and both mutter "oh crap"). Around the photo is plenty of white space for guests to express their best wishes (or in our case getting messages like, "You'll be lucky to make it through Wednesday," or "If you don't make it, can we have our fondu set back?").
$25 per special song used, i.e. First Dance, Father/Daughter Dance, Mother/Son Dance, Groom/Porn Star Dance - Wife's high school pal ripped off Sinatra's "The Way You Look Tonight," straight from our wedding. Wife will say that it was a band and not a DJ-spun record and that should knock off a few bucks, but you know what they say, "Give a bride a song and she'll put your table next to a speaker the size of a Super Wal-Mart." Twenty-five bones is fair since there's a million songs out there - who wouldn't want their First Dance to be to "All out of Love"? - and if we crashed weddings to see what songs they used, we could retire on our own island where servants in cocunut shell bikini tops and cabana boy with palm frond fans wait upon our every need (and believe us, we're a needy pair).
$3 for that "Love is" verse in the New Testament - We ain't religious folks (I'm pretty sure the Lord, Al Pacino, is TiVoing our every move and weighing our actions against his naughty and nice checklist - that's right him and the fat man in the red suit use the same list, it's more efficient that way) but if I can score some dinero in the name of the Lord, well, hell, sign me up. I'm not giving away freebies here, credit should paid where credit is due. So what if it was heard before at another wedding (or if we stole from a wedding before), that's not my problem, it's the other's couple problem since they weren't bright enough to think of it first.
That's right folks, the gravy train is leaving the station so jump on board. This royalty plan will fly and take Wife and I to great financial heights. We'll be bigger than the Gates, the Trumps, the Clampetts put together. Nut scrubbers and boob spongers for everyone.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Dodger fans gone wild
I caught a pair of Dodger-Diamondback games this week and came away with one morsel of realization - Dodger fans can be real A-holes.
Not all of us, mind you. Yours truly is the poster boy of good, visiting fans. Hands in my lap, my trap shut despite Nomar taking some scrub rookie snake pitcher deep, I keep to myself and don't let the thrill of another D-Back ass whoopin' get the best of me. If not for the Dodger hat and jersey, the other snake fans would likely think I'm a just a quiet fan who'd let his emotions ride shotgun if the tables were turned and the Diamondbacks were schoolin' the Dodgers. Hell, they'd probably console me after the snakes lost if I wasn't in my Blue gear - "it will be OK, dude, they'll comeback tomorrow night. The season will turn around." - Snake fans aren't the tightest baseball stitches in the box.
The first night I went with my buddy - we'll call him Paulie- who I often take to Dodger-Diamondback games, not because he's a Snakes fan or an old Dodger fan, but for the fact that the Big Blue Wrecking Crew is 4-0 with Señor Paulie in attendance. He's my rabbit's foot when it comes to Dodger games in the desert. If it was the last game of the season, and both teams were battling for the division title - winner goes the playoffs - and Paulie was on his deathbed, I'd cart his diseased ass and his half-dozen IVs to the ballpark just to ensure a Dodger win. If he's out of town for a crucial series, I'll take the few bills I managed to pilfer out of Wife's lock box and buy Paulie a plain ticket back. And if he declines the return trip, well, there's always the B.A. Barrackus method - find him, drug his milk with a sleeping agent, lug his hairy ass on the plain, and let him wake up in section 319, row 11, seat 8 of Chase Field in Phoenix. I ain't messing with a streak, and a little high school sports reporter won't deny me the opportunity of watching my Dodgers in the playoffs.
I realized I don't fit in with most of the Dodger fans out here. I'm missing a few holes in my ears, nose, eyebrows, lips, nipples (I didn't verify this as I was afraid I'd be sliced like a Easter ham) and more than likely other regions that I shall not discuss because this is a family forum. My arms, neck and back are painfully naked, as in, I have no ink to sport, either. It seems that to be a Dodger fan these days, you need an array of tattoos. Maybe that's why Wife fits in better at these games than me. Be it heavy-green jailhouse tats of naked bodacious ta-ta'd women, battleships or Chines letters that mean strength or patience or peace or whatever the hell (likely it means big armed jackass with little pee-pee), or ink with more color than Michelangelo's palate, Dodger fans are quickly becoming more entertaining to stare at than the bearded lady at the circus.
Just to keep Paulie the Snake Fan in check, I sat him next to a mastodon of a human, who of course was inked up to his neck with colorful dragons, skulls, naked chicks and elk (because nothing says friendly like a tattoo of a snarling elk with an 8-point rack of antlers). And to top it off, as if you couldn't guess, Andre the friggin' Giant was a Dodger fan. Paulie coward in his seat, making sure to not look "Andre" in the eye for fear of the behemoth human being would feel challenged and pounce on his meager body like it was a dangling bloody stump in a shark tank. I'm not sure if he spilled his beer in fear of the impending attack by Megasaurus or if the dark stain was some other liquid (I'll leave it at this since the dinner hour is approaching, suffice it to say you won't want to drink lemonade if I went into more detail). I nodded a hello to the fellow Dodger fan, basically telling him I had his back if any of these spindly Snakes fans got out of hand, but for some reason I didn't believe he'd need my help. He wedged into his seat, shaking all of the upper-deck, and then folded down the seat next to him for his 4-year-old son who was clad in Dodger blue as well. And that sight alone eased Paulie's rattled nerves. How can "Andre" be so bad when he's cheering along with his son during the Mustard, Ketchup and Relish Race?
It's a shame the rest of the Dodger fans in the stands weren't so easy to get along with. Everywhere I look, I saw dudes and chick dressed in blue wigs and white Dodger jerseys swiggin' suds and pointing fingers at distraught Snakes fans. Oh, they put up a fight, hurling mustard and diamond-dog greased-streaked napkins at the drunk Dodger fans, but that's just like throwing stones at a pack of wolves, you're just looking for an attack.
There was no attack this night, however, but one slightly inebriated - I may be underselling that fact - Dodger fan broke down the tight-fisted Chase Field security (if it was anymore tight-fisted a wild gaggle of lemurs could break through), jumped the outfield fence and ran donuts around the Dodger right fielder. For a second I thought it was Drew Barrymore, but the jet black hair, moustache, goatee and rather heavy upper half told me it is was not the star of Bad Girls. I hung my head low. Is this what us Dodger fans have come to? Running drunk around the Dodger right fielder, lugging 200 pounds under the girdle and a half-empty cup of watered-down, $22 Bud Light? Could it get any worse?
Yes.
The next night I went with Wife, who up until that game is 1-3 at Dodger games. When she agrees to attend a game, I cringe before meekly saying "OK," and buying the tickets. It's already a recipe for disaster night before we even step into the stadium. The lot I like to park in, which is across from America West Arena where the Phoenix Suns run and gun, cost $20 instead of the customary $5 thanks to a Suns home game. Next, I find our seats are smack in the middle of a Snake season ticket holders. There we are in Dodger jerseys and Dodger hats (I converted Wife two years ago; I think it was tougher than turning a gay dude straight), two mice sitting in a aquarium full of, well, snakes. Every strike, every ball, every ground out, the season-ticket holding nerd to my right would poke me in the ribs and scream (the stadium was as silent as a prayer service, did he really have to scream?) "Did you see that? Orlando Hudson sure knows how to run to first, doesn't' he?" And then in between innings, he'd ask me without fail, "So, when was the last time the Dodgers won the World Series?" Of course, this gives him the opportunity to say, "Well, we won ours in 2001." 1988. 2001. I could have gone into the six other World Championships, and the 20-some-odd WS appearances, but when you're talking to a Snakes fan, logic is thrown out the window.
And while the game is dragging on, we're watching the shenanigans in the right field seats. It seems there's a power struggle, one side chants "let's go Dodgers," and that's answered with a "let's go, D-backs," which is punctuated with flying debris. It comes to a head in the sixth inning. While the Dodger pitcher is struggling the Snakes top of the order, everyone in the stadium turns their head toward the right field stands where Dodger fans and Snake fans turn the aisle into a gladiator arena. Punches and soda cups are flying, and all I can see is a dude in a white and blue shirt windmilling arms like a 8-year-old in a fight. The war wages on for the better part of five minutes before Phoenix's finest, obviously on break at Yum-Yum donuts, go up the wrong aisle, back-track, and finally break up the melee. They escort the Dodger fan out, and buy the Snake fan a slice of pizza and some new nachos, which I believe was flung at the battle's start.
Could it have been any worse? I guess so, if you're this guy... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOZm8gUdr-Y
Anyway, as we leave the game, a string of Dodger fans line the stadium's outside wall, and a Chase security guard, hand on gun, watches them intently. I'm sure the rent-a-cop is just waiting for these Dodger hooligans to make a move so he can cap these heathens.
What happened to those days when the ribbing was taken for what it was - good-natured jabs at one another's teams? We used to attend Dodger games as kids and the worst thing I saw or heard was a group of guys urging a woman a few rows ahead to pull up her top (she didn't - prude). I sat with Giant fans behind me at Dodger Stadium when the Dodger were getting their butt handed to them and no one tied them to the Think Blue sign and pelted them with tomatoes. So why now? Why do most fans feel it's their right to being annoying nincompoops using any words (and some made up) they see fit despite a little league team sitting within earshot of their foul mouths?
I blame it on Raider fans. That's what makes up the Dodger fan base for the summer, disturbed Raider fans using baseball as their summer outlet for unabashed aggression.
It may also have to do with beer consumption. Maybe stadiums should go alcohol free to curb the aggressive behavior.
Hell, what am I saying? That's just crazy talk. No beer at baseball games is like no communion wafer at a Catholic Mass.
Not all of us, mind you. Yours truly is the poster boy of good, visiting fans. Hands in my lap, my trap shut despite Nomar taking some scrub rookie snake pitcher deep, I keep to myself and don't let the thrill of another D-Back ass whoopin' get the best of me. If not for the Dodger hat and jersey, the other snake fans would likely think I'm a just a quiet fan who'd let his emotions ride shotgun if the tables were turned and the Diamondbacks were schoolin' the Dodgers. Hell, they'd probably console me after the snakes lost if I wasn't in my Blue gear - "it will be OK, dude, they'll comeback tomorrow night. The season will turn around." - Snake fans aren't the tightest baseball stitches in the box.
The first night I went with my buddy - we'll call him Paulie- who I often take to Dodger-Diamondback games, not because he's a Snakes fan or an old Dodger fan, but for the fact that the Big Blue Wrecking Crew is 4-0 with Señor Paulie in attendance. He's my rabbit's foot when it comes to Dodger games in the desert. If it was the last game of the season, and both teams were battling for the division title - winner goes the playoffs - and Paulie was on his deathbed, I'd cart his diseased ass and his half-dozen IVs to the ballpark just to ensure a Dodger win. If he's out of town for a crucial series, I'll take the few bills I managed to pilfer out of Wife's lock box and buy Paulie a plain ticket back. And if he declines the return trip, well, there's always the B.A. Barrackus method - find him, drug his milk with a sleeping agent, lug his hairy ass on the plain, and let him wake up in section 319, row 11, seat 8 of Chase Field in Phoenix. I ain't messing with a streak, and a little high school sports reporter won't deny me the opportunity of watching my Dodgers in the playoffs.
I realized I don't fit in with most of the Dodger fans out here. I'm missing a few holes in my ears, nose, eyebrows, lips, nipples (I didn't verify this as I was afraid I'd be sliced like a Easter ham) and more than likely other regions that I shall not discuss because this is a family forum. My arms, neck and back are painfully naked, as in, I have no ink to sport, either. It seems that to be a Dodger fan these days, you need an array of tattoos. Maybe that's why Wife fits in better at these games than me. Be it heavy-green jailhouse tats of naked bodacious ta-ta'd women, battleships or Chines letters that mean strength or patience or peace or whatever the hell (likely it means big armed jackass with little pee-pee), or ink with more color than Michelangelo's palate, Dodger fans are quickly becoming more entertaining to stare at than the bearded lady at the circus.
Just to keep Paulie the Snake Fan in check, I sat him next to a mastodon of a human, who of course was inked up to his neck with colorful dragons, skulls, naked chicks and elk (because nothing says friendly like a tattoo of a snarling elk with an 8-point rack of antlers). And to top it off, as if you couldn't guess, Andre the friggin' Giant was a Dodger fan. Paulie coward in his seat, making sure to not look "Andre" in the eye for fear of the behemoth human being would feel challenged and pounce on his meager body like it was a dangling bloody stump in a shark tank. I'm not sure if he spilled his beer in fear of the impending attack by Megasaurus or if the dark stain was some other liquid (I'll leave it at this since the dinner hour is approaching, suffice it to say you won't want to drink lemonade if I went into more detail). I nodded a hello to the fellow Dodger fan, basically telling him I had his back if any of these spindly Snakes fans got out of hand, but for some reason I didn't believe he'd need my help. He wedged into his seat, shaking all of the upper-deck, and then folded down the seat next to him for his 4-year-old son who was clad in Dodger blue as well. And that sight alone eased Paulie's rattled nerves. How can "Andre" be so bad when he's cheering along with his son during the Mustard, Ketchup and Relish Race?
It's a shame the rest of the Dodger fans in the stands weren't so easy to get along with. Everywhere I look, I saw dudes and chick dressed in blue wigs and white Dodger jerseys swiggin' suds and pointing fingers at distraught Snakes fans. Oh, they put up a fight, hurling mustard and diamond-dog greased-streaked napkins at the drunk Dodger fans, but that's just like throwing stones at a pack of wolves, you're just looking for an attack.
There was no attack this night, however, but one slightly inebriated - I may be underselling that fact - Dodger fan broke down the tight-fisted Chase Field security (if it was anymore tight-fisted a wild gaggle of lemurs could break through), jumped the outfield fence and ran donuts around the Dodger right fielder. For a second I thought it was Drew Barrymore, but the jet black hair, moustache, goatee and rather heavy upper half told me it is was not the star of Bad Girls. I hung my head low. Is this what us Dodger fans have come to? Running drunk around the Dodger right fielder, lugging 200 pounds under the girdle and a half-empty cup of watered-down, $22 Bud Light? Could it get any worse?
Yes.
The next night I went with Wife, who up until that game is 1-3 at Dodger games. When she agrees to attend a game, I cringe before meekly saying "OK," and buying the tickets. It's already a recipe for disaster night before we even step into the stadium. The lot I like to park in, which is across from America West Arena where the Phoenix Suns run and gun, cost $20 instead of the customary $5 thanks to a Suns home game. Next, I find our seats are smack in the middle of a Snake season ticket holders. There we are in Dodger jerseys and Dodger hats (I converted Wife two years ago; I think it was tougher than turning a gay dude straight), two mice sitting in a aquarium full of, well, snakes. Every strike, every ball, every ground out, the season-ticket holding nerd to my right would poke me in the ribs and scream (the stadium was as silent as a prayer service, did he really have to scream?) "Did you see that? Orlando Hudson sure knows how to run to first, doesn't' he?" And then in between innings, he'd ask me without fail, "So, when was the last time the Dodgers won the World Series?" Of course, this gives him the opportunity to say, "Well, we won ours in 2001." 1988. 2001. I could have gone into the six other World Championships, and the 20-some-odd WS appearances, but when you're talking to a Snakes fan, logic is thrown out the window.
And while the game is dragging on, we're watching the shenanigans in the right field seats. It seems there's a power struggle, one side chants "let's go Dodgers," and that's answered with a "let's go, D-backs," which is punctuated with flying debris. It comes to a head in the sixth inning. While the Dodger pitcher is struggling the Snakes top of the order, everyone in the stadium turns their head toward the right field stands where Dodger fans and Snake fans turn the aisle into a gladiator arena. Punches and soda cups are flying, and all I can see is a dude in a white and blue shirt windmilling arms like a 8-year-old in a fight. The war wages on for the better part of five minutes before Phoenix's finest, obviously on break at Yum-Yum donuts, go up the wrong aisle, back-track, and finally break up the melee. They escort the Dodger fan out, and buy the Snake fan a slice of pizza and some new nachos, which I believe was flung at the battle's start.
Could it have been any worse? I guess so, if you're this guy... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOZm8gUdr-Y
Anyway, as we leave the game, a string of Dodger fans line the stadium's outside wall, and a Chase security guard, hand on gun, watches them intently. I'm sure the rent-a-cop is just waiting for these Dodger hooligans to make a move so he can cap these heathens.
What happened to those days when the ribbing was taken for what it was - good-natured jabs at one another's teams? We used to attend Dodger games as kids and the worst thing I saw or heard was a group of guys urging a woman a few rows ahead to pull up her top (she didn't - prude). I sat with Giant fans behind me at Dodger Stadium when the Dodger were getting their butt handed to them and no one tied them to the Think Blue sign and pelted them with tomatoes. So why now? Why do most fans feel it's their right to being annoying nincompoops using any words (and some made up) they see fit despite a little league team sitting within earshot of their foul mouths?
I blame it on Raider fans. That's what makes up the Dodger fan base for the summer, disturbed Raider fans using baseball as their summer outlet for unabashed aggression.
It may also have to do with beer consumption. Maybe stadiums should go alcohol free to curb the aggressive behavior.
Hell, what am I saying? That's just crazy talk. No beer at baseball games is like no communion wafer at a Catholic Mass.
***
Look for a new Sleazy Teazy tomorrow morning. I can't wait, and I know you can't either.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Where's Zig Ziglar when you need his slimy ass?
Since I was a little ankle hugger wiping my snotty nose on my coat sleave, I always wanted to be a writer - well, either that or the second-coming of Steve Sax (I imitated his game, including the wild throws three rows into the stands). Because my lord Al Pacino didn't bless me with bat speed, a strong arm or soft hands, my baseball career was cut short by 20 years and it forced me to fall back on my fall back plan - a writer.
My teachers, none of whom looked like Michelle Pfeifer in "Dangerous Minds," would assign spelling-word stories. Here's how they went: Haggard, catcher-mitt-faced teacher gave us students a list of spelling words that must be used in a story, whereupon we'd misuse given words in a variety of wonderful, Steinbeckesque sentences (with the spelling words in bold) like, "Ernie exceeded quickly to his hiding place," or "The lamination process had tooken longer than he though since his sister didn't move too fast." I was a regular word smith at 8 years old - and I'd eat the assignments up like they were peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches. You can have your multiplication tables. Forget learning about fulcrums, inertia and what NaCl means on the periodic table in science class; give me 100 spelling words and a blank pad of lined paper and I'll spin a yarn about Paul the marijuana smoking goat and his buddy Chris the cockfighting rooster battling barnyard evil in Ames, Iowa.
Those spelling-word stories turned into two- and five-page topical reports about Ecuador, The Beatles and poo-flinging Orangutan's in Kenya's coastal jungles as I got older. The reports were easy; grade-school teachers are about as bright as an 8-year-old 40-watt closet light bulb, so give them a dose of a 10-year-old's circular reporting, and as long as the sentences are coherent and there's two full pages of oversized, heavy-inked letter words you could be talking about dogs licking their own genitalia when the report should cover post-war Italy and its impact on the world and still scoop up that A and a cool five bucks from the old man when he spies the report card. I'd write the old hags into circles. The bobby pins in their wiry hair would spring loose sending their tight buns (not to be confused with other buns which were about as tight as cottage cheese, but likely just as hairy) into convulsed wildness giving them a Doc Brown-mad scientist look. I tried this report tactic throughout my school career with a fairly high measure of success.
It wasn't until I hit college and decided pounding down jello shots while dancing to AC/DC's "She Shook Me" was much more important than what Chaucer had to say in The Cantebury Tales. With the deadline looming just one day away, I'd finally sit down the night before and pound out 10 pages of unmitigated nonsense, believing my ol' grade school tactics would keep me afloat. Maybe not A work, but likely a strong B. And lo and behold, the college professors won. They saw through my lines of BS, sniffing out the crap like bomb-sniffing dogs at the airport and deservedly gave my trite (or is it tripe?) prose a C - they must have liked the effort enough to spare me the dreaded D.
What I'm getting at is that it all comes down to motivation. I'll admit right now, hand on Mario Puzo's "The Godfather," that I'm an unmotivated slug who's ass fits better on a couch cushion than an office chair. And while the thought of writing, constructing 300-page tales about sex, drugs and poo flingin', sounds peaches and cream to me, that actual act of sitting and writing is the toughest thing for me to do. Take this blog for example. I was planning to write Thursday but was derailed by 1) dinner that night, and 2) Survivor at 7 p.m. Since 8 p.m. was much to late to start working on another masterpiece. It was easier to sit my butt down after hammering back a steak and three or four Tecates to watch nine TV whores who are basking in their 15 minutes of fame on a deserted Fijian island than to sit in front of the computer and pound out 1,500 words on why my pee smells oddly like stale eggs and oranges.
Then came Friday. I could have forced a grand of words out before we jetted off to a rehearsal dinner in Snottsdale. But what happens if I didn't finish in time? The entire night I'd fret about not getting the post completed, and instead of staying sober enough to finish my nightly diatribe - and give out the much awaited Sleazy Teazy - I skipped the exercise entirely.
I take the weekends off, so that's that. Five days between posts and here I am, pounding out words about my motivational drive, which seems more often than not, stuck in neutral. I read biographies about writers who would put everything second and writing first, and I wonder if could ever do that. I like my TV shows. I like nights out at the ball park, movie theater, or just kickin' with friends. And I'm not a night owl. Like I've said before, the clock hits 9:30 p.m. and my flowing white gown turns into a pumpkin. The eyes slam close like wind-blown doors and the only way to keep them open is heavy-duty duct tape. I've pondered the idea of getting up at 4 a.m., writing until 5:30 and getting to work for 6, but that all seems like cruel and unusual punishment. That's why death row inmates aren't executed in the early morning, human right activists would fight it as inhumane.
Then again, maybe I should just suck it up, write whenever and whatever, and let you, dear reader, decide whether it's an A or a C (I got $5 for A's back in the day, so if it's an A effort, feel free to send cash or a check to the compound).
And now, I'm off to the ball park to watch the Dodgers face the Diamondbacks. Ta-ta.
My teachers, none of whom looked like Michelle Pfeifer in "Dangerous Minds," would assign spelling-word stories. Here's how they went: Haggard, catcher-mitt-faced teacher gave us students a list of spelling words that must be used in a story, whereupon we'd misuse given words in a variety of wonderful, Steinbeckesque sentences (with the spelling words in bold) like, "Ernie exceeded quickly to his hiding place," or "The lamination process had tooken longer than he though since his sister didn't move too fast." I was a regular word smith at 8 years old - and I'd eat the assignments up like they were peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches. You can have your multiplication tables. Forget learning about fulcrums, inertia and what NaCl means on the periodic table in science class; give me 100 spelling words and a blank pad of lined paper and I'll spin a yarn about Paul the marijuana smoking goat and his buddy Chris the cockfighting rooster battling barnyard evil in Ames, Iowa.
Those spelling-word stories turned into two- and five-page topical reports about Ecuador, The Beatles and poo-flinging Orangutan's in Kenya's coastal jungles as I got older. The reports were easy; grade-school teachers are about as bright as an 8-year-old 40-watt closet light bulb, so give them a dose of a 10-year-old's circular reporting, and as long as the sentences are coherent and there's two full pages of oversized, heavy-inked letter words you could be talking about dogs licking their own genitalia when the report should cover post-war Italy and its impact on the world and still scoop up that A and a cool five bucks from the old man when he spies the report card. I'd write the old hags into circles. The bobby pins in their wiry hair would spring loose sending their tight buns (not to be confused with other buns which were about as tight as cottage cheese, but likely just as hairy) into convulsed wildness giving them a Doc Brown-mad scientist look. I tried this report tactic throughout my school career with a fairly high measure of success.
It wasn't until I hit college and decided pounding down jello shots while dancing to AC/DC's "She Shook Me" was much more important than what Chaucer had to say in The Cantebury Tales. With the deadline looming just one day away, I'd finally sit down the night before and pound out 10 pages of unmitigated nonsense, believing my ol' grade school tactics would keep me afloat. Maybe not A work, but likely a strong B. And lo and behold, the college professors won. They saw through my lines of BS, sniffing out the crap like bomb-sniffing dogs at the airport and deservedly gave my trite (or is it tripe?) prose a C - they must have liked the effort enough to spare me the dreaded D.
What I'm getting at is that it all comes down to motivation. I'll admit right now, hand on Mario Puzo's "The Godfather," that I'm an unmotivated slug who's ass fits better on a couch cushion than an office chair. And while the thought of writing, constructing 300-page tales about sex, drugs and poo flingin', sounds peaches and cream to me, that actual act of sitting and writing is the toughest thing for me to do. Take this blog for example. I was planning to write Thursday but was derailed by 1) dinner that night, and 2) Survivor at 7 p.m. Since 8 p.m. was much to late to start working on another masterpiece. It was easier to sit my butt down after hammering back a steak and three or four Tecates to watch nine TV whores who are basking in their 15 minutes of fame on a deserted Fijian island than to sit in front of the computer and pound out 1,500 words on why my pee smells oddly like stale eggs and oranges.
Then came Friday. I could have forced a grand of words out before we jetted off to a rehearsal dinner in Snottsdale. But what happens if I didn't finish in time? The entire night I'd fret about not getting the post completed, and instead of staying sober enough to finish my nightly diatribe - and give out the much awaited Sleazy Teazy - I skipped the exercise entirely.
I take the weekends off, so that's that. Five days between posts and here I am, pounding out words about my motivational drive, which seems more often than not, stuck in neutral. I read biographies about writers who would put everything second and writing first, and I wonder if could ever do that. I like my TV shows. I like nights out at the ball park, movie theater, or just kickin' with friends. And I'm not a night owl. Like I've said before, the clock hits 9:30 p.m. and my flowing white gown turns into a pumpkin. The eyes slam close like wind-blown doors and the only way to keep them open is heavy-duty duct tape. I've pondered the idea of getting up at 4 a.m., writing until 5:30 and getting to work for 6, but that all seems like cruel and unusual punishment. That's why death row inmates aren't executed in the early morning, human right activists would fight it as inhumane.
Then again, maybe I should just suck it up, write whenever and whatever, and let you, dear reader, decide whether it's an A or a C (I got $5 for A's back in the day, so if it's an A effort, feel free to send cash or a check to the compound).
And now, I'm off to the ball park to watch the Dodgers face the Diamondbacks. Ta-ta.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Hoppin' mad
Doogie Howser is a sadistic SOB.
I thought my therapist (physical that is) and I had come to an understanding, he'd fix my ankle without inflicting too much pain and I'd stop pissing on his tires after each session. It was becoming a symbiotic relationship, the swelling in my bad wheel had dropped and his white-walls remained yellow free.
Then Tuesday happened.
My first mistake was answering his first question of the session honestly.
"How does the ankle feel, meat?"
"Fine," I said. "Probably the best since I've entered your chamber of torturistic pleasure."
His grin chilled my balls. It was the same grin my dogs get when they see a feral cat meander into the compound's yard. It says, for lack of a better phrase, "Your ass is grass and I'm the lawn mower." And you better know it ain't Tori the lawn mower, but one of those lawn-mangling push mowers our grandparents rolled with back when the world was black and white.
"Great, meat, now get on the table," he says. I crawl up like a puppy waiting to get popped for poopin' behind the love seat. "Let's stretch this sucker out."
He bends my foot back far enough to form a U with my leg, then pushes it down so that toe to hip is one straight line.
I want to scream. I want to call Doogie a buck-tooth butt widget. I want my mommy.
But I don't, because doing so would give proof to something he already knows - I'm a sissy momma's boy who can handle about a teaspoon of pain before wailing in agony. If Doogie saw me bow to the pain, he'd continue the onslaught of ligament popping with a maniacal, mad doctor's laugh and I'd be lucky to walk out of his office with an unaided limp. So, I put the pain in a mental box and closed the lid, sealing all the hurt inside.
Once Doogie finished twisting and pushing and pulling and turning, it was trampoline time. Afraid Doogie would dress me up in the pink tutu he had me in the previous four weeks for trampoline work, I tell him no, thanks, the stretching worked wonders and I think I can go now. The mad doc face reappears and his laughter rings through my head like Chinese water torture. The mental box rips open and the pain that was sealed up rushes to the ankle and swells it like an over-inflated bicycle tire.
"You're a funny guy, meat. Now, get into costume and hop on the tramp."
I follow his instruction, hopping up and down until I'm reduced to tears and a puddle of sweat. By the end of the exercise I can't catch myself with the foot and am stumbling repeatedly into his collection of skeletans (past patients). Doogie is laughing so hard he falls off his throne and bangs the sweat drenched floor.
"OK, now we're doing Karaoke."
"Karaoke?" I say, pulling down the tutu to cover my bum a little better, afraid he'd make me sing about these exercises.
"Not that Karaoke. This is a dance."
The dance consists of two steps, front foot crosses the stationery leg, then crosses behind it with the next step. The catch? I have to do it double time. It didn't seem too hard, and thought this was finally, my chance to shine in this pit of hell. With his OK (if I didn't ask for permission he'd likely chase me with a Taser and shock the holy hell out of me until my pubes stood on end if I misstepped), I proceed slowly the first few passes before picking up the pace. I pick up the clip and move side to side, believing I have this sucker whipped now. But this is also a coordination test, and law of averages kick in two minutes down. I catch my back-crossing foot with my stationery leg, trip and roll like a bowling ball into an elderely couple working on their repaired knees with some treadmill marching. I unfold myself and survey the damage, Doogie's papers float to the floor like large snowflakes, and the two seniors, woosy from me slamming into them like they were a 7-10 split at the bowling alley, use the treadmill rails to steady their shaky bodies. I'm guessing they'll need knee replacements again.
Finally, I think afraid I would cause more damage to his torture chamber, Doogie has me perform what I term "the Field Sobriety Exercise."
"I just want you to feel ready to take on the real world again," Doogie said, in what I figured was a momentarty lapse of human kindness. And if there was something I needed work on, it's my field sobriety tests. This exercise has me hopping over a rope, from one side to the other, of course landing on the bad wheel, so each landing sends streaks of pain through my leg like little nails spiking every few inches. Fourteen minutes into the exercise Doogie shouts out a number and I'm supposed to yell back the corresponding letter. If I fail to answer, or say the wrong letter, he chucks a bean bag at my nut sack.
I guess his human kindness meter hits full rather quickly and takes an extremely long time to refill.
So, I didn't feel too guilty when I left his office and pissed on his tires.
I thought my therapist (physical that is) and I had come to an understanding, he'd fix my ankle without inflicting too much pain and I'd stop pissing on his tires after each session. It was becoming a symbiotic relationship, the swelling in my bad wheel had dropped and his white-walls remained yellow free.
Then Tuesday happened.
My first mistake was answering his first question of the session honestly.
"How does the ankle feel, meat?"
"Fine," I said. "Probably the best since I've entered your chamber of torturistic pleasure."
His grin chilled my balls. It was the same grin my dogs get when they see a feral cat meander into the compound's yard. It says, for lack of a better phrase, "Your ass is grass and I'm the lawn mower." And you better know it ain't Tori the lawn mower, but one of those lawn-mangling push mowers our grandparents rolled with back when the world was black and white.
"Great, meat, now get on the table," he says. I crawl up like a puppy waiting to get popped for poopin' behind the love seat. "Let's stretch this sucker out."
He bends my foot back far enough to form a U with my leg, then pushes it down so that toe to hip is one straight line.
I want to scream. I want to call Doogie a buck-tooth butt widget. I want my mommy.
But I don't, because doing so would give proof to something he already knows - I'm a sissy momma's boy who can handle about a teaspoon of pain before wailing in agony. If Doogie saw me bow to the pain, he'd continue the onslaught of ligament popping with a maniacal, mad doctor's laugh and I'd be lucky to walk out of his office with an unaided limp. So, I put the pain in a mental box and closed the lid, sealing all the hurt inside.
Once Doogie finished twisting and pushing and pulling and turning, it was trampoline time. Afraid Doogie would dress me up in the pink tutu he had me in the previous four weeks for trampoline work, I tell him no, thanks, the stretching worked wonders and I think I can go now. The mad doc face reappears and his laughter rings through my head like Chinese water torture. The mental box rips open and the pain that was sealed up rushes to the ankle and swells it like an over-inflated bicycle tire.
"You're a funny guy, meat. Now, get into costume and hop on the tramp."
I follow his instruction, hopping up and down until I'm reduced to tears and a puddle of sweat. By the end of the exercise I can't catch myself with the foot and am stumbling repeatedly into his collection of skeletans (past patients). Doogie is laughing so hard he falls off his throne and bangs the sweat drenched floor.
"OK, now we're doing Karaoke."
"Karaoke?" I say, pulling down the tutu to cover my bum a little better, afraid he'd make me sing about these exercises.
"Not that Karaoke. This is a dance."
The dance consists of two steps, front foot crosses the stationery leg, then crosses behind it with the next step. The catch? I have to do it double time. It didn't seem too hard, and thought this was finally, my chance to shine in this pit of hell. With his OK (if I didn't ask for permission he'd likely chase me with a Taser and shock the holy hell out of me until my pubes stood on end if I misstepped), I proceed slowly the first few passes before picking up the pace. I pick up the clip and move side to side, believing I have this sucker whipped now. But this is also a coordination test, and law of averages kick in two minutes down. I catch my back-crossing foot with my stationery leg, trip and roll like a bowling ball into an elderely couple working on their repaired knees with some treadmill marching. I unfold myself and survey the damage, Doogie's papers float to the floor like large snowflakes, and the two seniors, woosy from me slamming into them like they were a 7-10 split at the bowling alley, use the treadmill rails to steady their shaky bodies. I'm guessing they'll need knee replacements again.
Finally, I think afraid I would cause more damage to his torture chamber, Doogie has me perform what I term "the Field Sobriety Exercise."
"I just want you to feel ready to take on the real world again," Doogie said, in what I figured was a momentarty lapse of human kindness. And if there was something I needed work on, it's my field sobriety tests. This exercise has me hopping over a rope, from one side to the other, of course landing on the bad wheel, so each landing sends streaks of pain through my leg like little nails spiking every few inches. Fourteen minutes into the exercise Doogie shouts out a number and I'm supposed to yell back the corresponding letter. If I fail to answer, or say the wrong letter, he chucks a bean bag at my nut sack.
I guess his human kindness meter hits full rather quickly and takes an extremely long time to refill.
So, I didn't feel too guilty when I left his office and pissed on his tires.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Morning of the living dead
The alarm whistles at me at 4:30 every morning and I swear it's Salma Hayek singing to me. That's until Wife slaps me in the melon. That's her loving way of telling me to "turn off the alarm, you horse's ass."
I gave up the snooze alarm about two years ago. It delivered a false sense of extra sleep. Hitting the snooze alarm is like dating the high school tease, you think you're going get your old man's station wagon - which you begged to borrow just for this occasion - a-rockin' only to have the tease put her hands on your shoulders and say, "let's just be friends." The alarm clock on snooze let's you kiss her on the neck but smacks your hands away when they go for the ta-tas. Plus, it killed those wonderful pre-alarm dreams. Stopping and starting dreams of me being the ham in a Hayek and Kidman sandwich just wasn't filling. You need a good hour or two of REM sleep to really flush out the meaning of such visions. Just as the three of us stepped into a steamy bubble bath, the alarm would beep for the first time - SNOOZE - and there are Hayek, Kidman and me, no longer settling in for a bubble bath, but this time stepping into a vat of tapioca pudding wearing nothing but Moo-Moos depicting the munchkins from The Wizard of Oz roasting Toto and Dorothy at stakes. SNOOZE AGAIN - and gone are my two beauties, and instead I'm laying on a bed of rose petals with Fred Sanford and Uncle Jesse (Denver Pyle, not that cheap knock off Willie Nelson) who are fanning me with palm fronds while wearing togas and crowns of braided fig leaves.
My head's a sea of '70s and '80s TV at 4:30 in the a.m. I'm just glad the dogs don't come over to lick my face, I'm afraid my mind would interpret that as Uncle Jesse sucking on my toes.
Nowadays, Wife presses her ice blocks for hands against my back and it's enough of a reminder to get my butt out of bed and get ready for a day at the prison work camp. I'm a zombie, only instead of terrozing frightened villagers with outstretched arms and barritone moans I stumble around the bedroom scratching my ass and moaning.
Wife, on the other hand, springs out of bed like she's just downd a can of Jolt cola and popped a half-dozen No-Doz. She buzzes around the bedroom like a butterfly hopped up on extra-strength caffeine pills. She talks a mile a minute as if she's in a word marathon for the day and wants to get out to an early lead.
And that's how it was this morning. I celebrated Jesus's return to his posse Sunday by swigging down a trough of regular coffee laced with what must have been combined with some scientific expirament strength caffeine which left me awake until midnight. Too make my night even longer, the only movie on TV was that stellar piece of cow poop, "Six Days, Seven Nights." I thought about guzzling abottle of vodka figuring a half dozen shots or more would knock me out for the night, but I was afraid I'd find Anne Heche sexy after the fourth shot and that was something I couldn't stomach. So, in a post sleep haze that has me looking at the world through eyelid slits opened wide enough to allow just a sliver of light through, Wife kicks off her morning verbalness with a machine-gun like onslaught.
"Whatwouldyoulikefordinner? Steaksoundsgood. IthinkI'llmarinateitalldayinthat (she finally takes a breathe before exhaling the last part of her sentence) teriyakimixture. Whatdoyouthink, honey?"
"Unh."
She picks up that my mental window shades aren't exactly raised for dawn's early light, so she speaks a little slower.
"I dreamt about squirrels blocking the wind with a giant bed sheet. What do you think it means, sweetheart?"
"Unh."
I climb into the shower, which typically becomes a 15-minute nap standing up, and Wife continues gabbing.
In a perfect world, I'd say a few minutes later my verbal switch gets flipped on. But this is my realm, and sometimes that switch takes hours to click on.
"Good morning ... how was your weekend?" Asks head boob No. 2 as I stumble into the prison work farm at 5:30 a.m.
"Unh."
"Did you finish copy editting reporter No. 3s story?" Asks co-copy editting monkey just before deadline at 10 a.m..
"Unh."
"Do you want a steak tonight, dear?" Asks Wife as she saunters into the house after her day in cushy office land.
"Unh."
Maybe, while everyone and everything around me is evolving, I'm actually de-evolving. Slowly sliding back to my ancestors' (the cavemen, and not those whiny pansies in the Geico commercials, but the Quest for Fire honchos who tackle gazelle and slice their neck with sharpened granite hunks) form of communication - grunts.
I could be on to something, though. Wife just asked about some sweet lovin' and my reply:
"Unh."
***
And now, for those of you wondering about the answers to this week's Sleazy Teasy, here ya go:
Alan Crawford ... Cumbria ... Pony
Cliffy Rowlands ... Essex ... Guitar
Jennifer Feather ... Cornwall ... Computer
Liz Northey ... Yorkshire ... Painting Set
Sarah Jamison ... Kent ... Bicycle
One commenter - way to go Carrie - got it right, so I'd call this an overwhelming success (I set my expectations pretty low to guard against failure ... I'm crafty that way). Friday will see another Sleazy Teasy.
I gave up the snooze alarm about two years ago. It delivered a false sense of extra sleep. Hitting the snooze alarm is like dating the high school tease, you think you're going get your old man's station wagon - which you begged to borrow just for this occasion - a-rockin' only to have the tease put her hands on your shoulders and say, "let's just be friends." The alarm clock on snooze let's you kiss her on the neck but smacks your hands away when they go for the ta-tas. Plus, it killed those wonderful pre-alarm dreams. Stopping and starting dreams of me being the ham in a Hayek and Kidman sandwich just wasn't filling. You need a good hour or two of REM sleep to really flush out the meaning of such visions. Just as the three of us stepped into a steamy bubble bath, the alarm would beep for the first time - SNOOZE - and there are Hayek, Kidman and me, no longer settling in for a bubble bath, but this time stepping into a vat of tapioca pudding wearing nothing but Moo-Moos depicting the munchkins from The Wizard of Oz roasting Toto and Dorothy at stakes. SNOOZE AGAIN - and gone are my two beauties, and instead I'm laying on a bed of rose petals with Fred Sanford and Uncle Jesse (Denver Pyle, not that cheap knock off Willie Nelson) who are fanning me with palm fronds while wearing togas and crowns of braided fig leaves.
My head's a sea of '70s and '80s TV at 4:30 in the a.m. I'm just glad the dogs don't come over to lick my face, I'm afraid my mind would interpret that as Uncle Jesse sucking on my toes.
Nowadays, Wife presses her ice blocks for hands against my back and it's enough of a reminder to get my butt out of bed and get ready for a day at the prison work camp. I'm a zombie, only instead of terrozing frightened villagers with outstretched arms and barritone moans I stumble around the bedroom scratching my ass and moaning.
Wife, on the other hand, springs out of bed like she's just downd a can of Jolt cola and popped a half-dozen No-Doz. She buzzes around the bedroom like a butterfly hopped up on extra-strength caffeine pills. She talks a mile a minute as if she's in a word marathon for the day and wants to get out to an early lead.
And that's how it was this morning. I celebrated Jesus's return to his posse Sunday by swigging down a trough of regular coffee laced with what must have been combined with some scientific expirament strength caffeine which left me awake until midnight. Too make my night even longer, the only movie on TV was that stellar piece of cow poop, "Six Days, Seven Nights." I thought about guzzling abottle of vodka figuring a half dozen shots or more would knock me out for the night, but I was afraid I'd find Anne Heche sexy after the fourth shot and that was something I couldn't stomach. So, in a post sleep haze that has me looking at the world through eyelid slits opened wide enough to allow just a sliver of light through, Wife kicks off her morning verbalness with a machine-gun like onslaught.
"Whatwouldyoulikefordinner? Steaksoundsgood. IthinkI'llmarinateitalldayinthat (she finally takes a breathe before exhaling the last part of her sentence) teriyakimixture. Whatdoyouthink, honey?"
"Unh."
She picks up that my mental window shades aren't exactly raised for dawn's early light, so she speaks a little slower.
"I dreamt about squirrels blocking the wind with a giant bed sheet. What do you think it means, sweetheart?"
"Unh."
I climb into the shower, which typically becomes a 15-minute nap standing up, and Wife continues gabbing.
In a perfect world, I'd say a few minutes later my verbal switch gets flipped on. But this is my realm, and sometimes that switch takes hours to click on.
"Good morning ... how was your weekend?" Asks head boob No. 2 as I stumble into the prison work farm at 5:30 a.m.
"Unh."
"Did you finish copy editting reporter No. 3s story?" Asks co-copy editting monkey just before deadline at 10 a.m..
"Unh."
"Do you want a steak tonight, dear?" Asks Wife as she saunters into the house after her day in cushy office land.
"Unh."
Maybe, while everyone and everything around me is evolving, I'm actually de-evolving. Slowly sliding back to my ancestors' (the cavemen, and not those whiny pansies in the Geico commercials, but the Quest for Fire honchos who tackle gazelle and slice their neck with sharpened granite hunks) form of communication - grunts.
I could be on to something, though. Wife just asked about some sweet lovin' and my reply:
"Unh."
***
And now, for those of you wondering about the answers to this week's Sleazy Teasy, here ya go:
Alan Crawford ... Cumbria ... Pony
Cliffy Rowlands ... Essex ... Guitar
Jennifer Feather ... Cornwall ... Computer
Liz Northey ... Yorkshire ... Painting Set
Sarah Jamison ... Kent ... Bicycle
One commenter - way to go Carrie - got it right, so I'd call this an overwhelming success (I set my expectations pretty low to guard against failure ... I'm crafty that way). Friday will see another Sleazy Teasy.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Sleazy teazy
It took me a while to break from my mold of poop jokes, sex jokes and stink jokes to break a new idea out on this site. So today is the birth of Sleazy Teazys, the Net's fastest growing sensation. Tired of looking at midget porn (I don't know if that's possible)? Don't feel like watching reruns of "Dharma & Greg?" Then head over here Friday afternoons for Sleazy Teazys. You won't be
disappointed (and if you are, well then go play tiddly-winks with your ma).
disappointed (and if you are, well then go play tiddly-winks with your ma).
For those sticking around, here's how it works: Each week I'll find a puzzle on the Net (thank you www.brainbashers.com), paste it here, and tweak it a bit. I'll post the answer on Monday (or Tuesday if me and the little lady are busy gettin' busy). Without further wackadoo, in the spirit of this weekend's holiday (it's kind of a Christ's birthday celebration in reverse) here ya go...
Santa waddles his fat ass around his slave labor camp (hundreds of elves forced to build cheap toys without time off - sounds like a winter sweat shop to me) getting ready for the holiday that celebrates over-indulgence. St. Nick, with a pint of nog already in his bowl full of jelly (it was more brandy than nog, but don't tell his ol' lady) sorts through presents, fills sacks (that means something different when the missus is around) and works out his route to make sure he stops in the cities with his sluts (Santa likes the naughty ones, despite what that song says). Oh, he also plans his path to deliver all that crap to those greedy punks across the world, making sure he gets there in time for when they wake up, hungover, Christmas morning. The trouble is, every year just before Christmas, the reindeers have nothing to do but hump each other raw. They ask that lazy slob in the red jump suit if there is anything they can do to help but the head elf (Santa's own little toy, if you know what I mean) tells them there ain't nothing to do until Santa gets off Ms. Claus in the back of the
sleigh.This year, Santa is prepared for the slack-ass, humpin' deers (especially Rudolph with that friggin' stripper light for a nose - he's the biggest ho hound of the bunch) and he's set them a little challenge to help keep them busy. He's given them the following problem: Five children from five different families living in five different counties of England have asked for a different gift each. From the clues, the reindeers have to work out who's who, where each child lives and what present each has asked for. The first reindeer to solve the problem gets an extra portion of Christmas pudding (don't ask Santa how he makes it, that's his own special secret) on Christmas Day!
1. Neither Cliffy, nor Jennifer Feather (that's her stage name, and does not live in Yorkshire), lives in Kent.
2. Young Crawford, who is neither Sarah nor Cliffy, asked for the pony (a gift that Santa would have particular difficulty getting down the Crawford family's chimney! So the Jolly Ol' Soul chopped off the nag's legs and shoved the glue stick down. He went down with a snap. Adapt and overcome, that's Chris Cringle's motto).
3. Young Rowlands is neither the child who lives in Yorkshire nor the child who has asked for a bicycle.
4. The gift due for delivery to Cornwall, which is not for the child surnamed Rowlands, is a computer (this kid is a midget porn addict, and lives for little people doing it in a kiddy pool full of baby oil).
5. Liz, who has asked for the painting set, is not from Kent. Her surname is not Jamison (she doesn't know her surname because her mom is a one-legged hooker who spent her nights at the docks sucking down crack pipes - among other things).
6. The child who lives in Essex has asked for a guitar. Alan lives in Cumbria.
Children’s first names: Alan, Cliffy, Jennifer, Liz, Sarah
Children’s last names: Crawford, Feather, Jamison, Northey, Rowlands
Counties: Cornwall, Cumbria, Essex, Kent, Yorkshire
Presents: Bicycle, Computer, Guitar, Painting Set, Pony
Feel free to post your answers in the comments, and enjoy your Easter holiday.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
3 is the key
I take full credit for the Dodgers first win of the season. If it weren't for me, they'd likely finsih the year 0-162. Lucky for them, I figured out the magic quotient to get them over the hump and plan on exposing the Baseball God's weakness - beer.
Opening day saw my fat Dodger-fan ass sitting in my computer chair watching them get beat worse than a Charger fan in the middle of a Raider circle jerk. I had Wife wash my jersey and lucky underwear. I pulled down the blue Dodger cup and cooked up some dogs (the kind from the store, not the ones in the back yard - but who's to say those packaged weiners are the cause for a pooch shortage in the greater Peoria area?). Obvoiusly, that ensemble and my water-filled cup wasn't the trick to the Dodgers' championship season of2007.
Tuesday I went with a different approach. I sat down and worked (code for downloading midget porn for the nights the Dodgers are off), keeping one eye on the game window, one on the writing window and made sure to keep one hand free if the mood struck. Then, I departed for three innings for dinner - charcoalized steak thanks to Chef Michael (Emeril's a hack who couldn't toast bread if you spotted him the toaster) - and lo and behold the Blue Crew were leading 3-2.
Wife warned me that I shouldn't watch. That I should leave well enough alone, look up the results later and come to the living room to watch some "Full House" reruns, but I stayed, and I watched, and the Dodgers caved like a dude convicted of tax-evasion trapped in a room full of rapists.
So, finally, while the third game of the season, and sweathing through a pair of boxers I once thought were about as lucky as a lost Krispy Kreme donut in an Ethiopian family's mud hut. The best way to combat an ass-sweat stripe is to pound beers.
And three beers seemed to do the trick.
Ass-sweat stripe disappeared and the Dodgers held on to win their first game. The rest of 2007 is gravy, that first W is on the board, and as long as I keep hammering back the 40s (King Cobra is good drinking folks) the left-hand column in the standings will rise.
Finding that right equation that kicks off a streak is tough to find. I was nervous a few weeks ago when I watched UNLV beat Georgia Tech at a local sports bar one Friday morning. I knew my chances were slim that I'd get back to the bar, and even slimmer that I'd get the same seat (that's tantamount to taking the title), so I counter-balanced that by wearing the same clothes for the next tournament game. And the Rebs upset Wisconsin.
Like Crash Davis tells Annie Savoy, "a player on a streak has to respect the streak." I ain't a player (my JV coach will agree), but I play one on the Internet, and if I believe drinking three beers and watching a pair of midgets 69 each other on one Web window while the Dodgers play in another spawns a win, well, dammit, that shit must work and I'll do it every game until it proves itself played out.
So, Wife, keep the fridge stocked with Colt 45 40s and if you see Mini-me banging away on a fellow little person, just know I'm doing it for the team.
Opening day saw my fat Dodger-fan ass sitting in my computer chair watching them get beat worse than a Charger fan in the middle of a Raider circle jerk. I had Wife wash my jersey and lucky underwear. I pulled down the blue Dodger cup and cooked up some dogs (the kind from the store, not the ones in the back yard - but who's to say those packaged weiners are the cause for a pooch shortage in the greater Peoria area?). Obvoiusly, that ensemble and my water-filled cup wasn't the trick to the Dodgers' championship season of2007.
Tuesday I went with a different approach. I sat down and worked (code for downloading midget porn for the nights the Dodgers are off), keeping one eye on the game window, one on the writing window and made sure to keep one hand free if the mood struck. Then, I departed for three innings for dinner - charcoalized steak thanks to Chef Michael (Emeril's a hack who couldn't toast bread if you spotted him the toaster) - and lo and behold the Blue Crew were leading 3-2.
Wife warned me that I shouldn't watch. That I should leave well enough alone, look up the results later and come to the living room to watch some "Full House" reruns, but I stayed, and I watched, and the Dodgers caved like a dude convicted of tax-evasion trapped in a room full of rapists.
So, finally, while the third game of the season, and sweathing through a pair of boxers I once thought were about as lucky as a lost Krispy Kreme donut in an Ethiopian family's mud hut. The best way to combat an ass-sweat stripe is to pound beers.
And three beers seemed to do the trick.
Ass-sweat stripe disappeared and the Dodgers held on to win their first game. The rest of 2007 is gravy, that first W is on the board, and as long as I keep hammering back the 40s (King Cobra is good drinking folks) the left-hand column in the standings will rise.
Finding that right equation that kicks off a streak is tough to find. I was nervous a few weeks ago when I watched UNLV beat Georgia Tech at a local sports bar one Friday morning. I knew my chances were slim that I'd get back to the bar, and even slimmer that I'd get the same seat (that's tantamount to taking the title), so I counter-balanced that by wearing the same clothes for the next tournament game. And the Rebs upset Wisconsin.
Like Crash Davis tells Annie Savoy, "a player on a streak has to respect the streak." I ain't a player (my JV coach will agree), but I play one on the Internet, and if I believe drinking three beers and watching a pair of midgets 69 each other on one Web window while the Dodgers play in another spawns a win, well, dammit, that shit must work and I'll do it every game until it proves itself played out.
So, Wife, keep the fridge stocked with Colt 45 40s and if you see Mini-me banging away on a fellow little person, just know I'm doing it for the team.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
This job stinks
Every time I talk with Dear Ma-ma, she gently reminds me in that motherly way, "You better be nice to the senior (citizens), you punk-ass whipper-snapper."
"Or what, ma? They'll take out their dentures to use them as hand pinchers to snap my danglies?"
So I write this little diddy with one eye looking over my shoulder, afraid Dear Ma-ma is hovering over me with her weapon of choice - a rolling pin - ready to crack me one if I talk wise about the fogeys out this way.
Don't worry ma. I'll keep it peaches and cream for the Greatest Generation.
I've found the seniors have a smell all their own. Part Ben Gay, part moth ball, part Estee Lauder (or Old Spice if its an old dude) and all cream-of-corn loving senior citizen, you catch a whiff of one and you'd swear the grim reaper just let loose a bomb that would burn your nose to a smoldering nub. Hell, when I'm asked to be Joe Nice Guy when one of my walker-toting fans stop by the office, I hold my breathe hoping the conversation will be short - passing out from a lack of oxygen could be problematic and may lead to a 90-year-old, thick-whiskered grandma who looks like Anne Ramsey in "Throw Mama from the Train" giving me mouth-to-mouth to revive me.
But nothing is like the nose-hair singing stench that hugs the men's room at the prison work camp and gut kicks you with each stifled breathe.
That was my realization this morning as I sauntered in for my fifth leak break of the morning (if I don't hit six by 10 a.m. my eyes go yellow) and was whalloped by such a stink I thought one of my walker-toting fans keeled over on the crapper and died. Just great, I thought, one less reader. There goes my twenty-five cent raise. I checked the first stall - nothing but a crumpled sports page and some nudie magazines (the reporters need something to do during their breaks). Next came the handicap stall - everyone's favorite because it's the size of an airplane hanger so we can really stretch out and get some good reading done - and I breathed (I filtered it through pinched nostrils) a sigh of relief when there was no body f0und.
And with nary a soul in the can, I had to ask myself, who is walking around with a diseased hunk of meat in their intestines? I let it go and quickly did my business so my clothes wouldn't become a host to the stench like a cow is a fly hotel in a pasture.
Just as I'm about to depart from the Little Room of Stink, in comes one of the nudie-magazine reading reporters, and of course he can't let the putridness of the bathroom go uncommented on.
"Having a not so fresh morning, are ya?"
"Whoa, buck-o, it ain't me."
"Yeah, and I'm coming in here to read the magazine articles."
I would have fought more, but at that point, with my oxygen level nearing empty, I passed out from holding my breathe too long. Done in again by geritol-munching seniors. I swear they're plotting against, likely trying to kill me off. Maybe Dear Ma-ma is right, I should be nicer to them.
"Or what, ma? They'll take out their dentures to use them as hand pinchers to snap my danglies?"
So I write this little diddy with one eye looking over my shoulder, afraid Dear Ma-ma is hovering over me with her weapon of choice - a rolling pin - ready to crack me one if I talk wise about the fogeys out this way.
Don't worry ma. I'll keep it peaches and cream for the Greatest Generation.
I've found the seniors have a smell all their own. Part Ben Gay, part moth ball, part Estee Lauder (or Old Spice if its an old dude) and all cream-of-corn loving senior citizen, you catch a whiff of one and you'd swear the grim reaper just let loose a bomb that would burn your nose to a smoldering nub. Hell, when I'm asked to be Joe Nice Guy when one of my walker-toting fans stop by the office, I hold my breathe hoping the conversation will be short - passing out from a lack of oxygen could be problematic and may lead to a 90-year-old, thick-whiskered grandma who looks like Anne Ramsey in "Throw Mama from the Train" giving me mouth-to-mouth to revive me.
But nothing is like the nose-hair singing stench that hugs the men's room at the prison work camp and gut kicks you with each stifled breathe.
That was my realization this morning as I sauntered in for my fifth leak break of the morning (if I don't hit six by 10 a.m. my eyes go yellow) and was whalloped by such a stink I thought one of my walker-toting fans keeled over on the crapper and died. Just great, I thought, one less reader. There goes my twenty-five cent raise. I checked the first stall - nothing but a crumpled sports page and some nudie magazines (the reporters need something to do during their breaks). Next came the handicap stall - everyone's favorite because it's the size of an airplane hanger so we can really stretch out and get some good reading done - and I breathed (I filtered it through pinched nostrils) a sigh of relief when there was no body f0und.
And with nary a soul in the can, I had to ask myself, who is walking around with a diseased hunk of meat in their intestines? I let it go and quickly did my business so my clothes wouldn't become a host to the stench like a cow is a fly hotel in a pasture.
Just as I'm about to depart from the Little Room of Stink, in comes one of the nudie-magazine reading reporters, and of course he can't let the putridness of the bathroom go uncommented on.
"Having a not so fresh morning, are ya?"
"Whoa, buck-o, it ain't me."
"Yeah, and I'm coming in here to read the magazine articles."
I would have fought more, but at that point, with my oxygen level nearing empty, I passed out from holding my breathe too long. Done in again by geritol-munching seniors. I swear they're plotting against, likely trying to kill me off. Maybe Dear Ma-ma is right, I should be nicer to them.
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