You've probably all been wondering where the heck I've been lately. I can hear the chorus of questions now:
"How come he hasn't posted anything lately?"
"Did he forget about us?"
"Just HOW many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?"
Well, unbunch your undies, I'm here. Usually a topic just pops up and grabs me then pulls me to my computer and demands I start writing - at gunpoint. Since I last wrote, Thanksgiving, Christmas and various other holidays have come and gone and New Year's Eve is tomorrow. In other words, there's been nothing to write about. However, I DID find something that caught my eye and it's currently holding me here at my computer - at gunpoint, no less.
Have you ever heard of the Uncle John's Bathroom books? If you haven't, get your narrow behind to the book store and quickly buy up every copy on the shelf. Uncle John has been putting out a new volume every year for the past 18 years or so, full of wild stories, anecdotes and my favorite of all - fun facts. He's also put out many other titles covering a similar style on history, weather, science, Hollywood...well, you get the picture. I currently have a metric ton of his books in my bathroom, so there is no room to shower. The sacrifices we make.
One book that I can, and have, read several times over is Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Extraordinary Book of Facts and Bizarre Information. It's virtually perfect save for the fact the title could have been a little longer. For the Tidbit Maven, the Baron of Useless Information and the Cliff Clavin in all of us, let's have a look-see at some of what Uncle John and the gang at The Bathroom Reader's Institute have prepared for us:
Women have a keener sense of smell than men - Well, they didn't have the benefit of pulling each others' fingers or being in a car in the dead of winter with their drinking buddies as everyone unloads a blast of beer farts at each other. Such things can render your sense of smell legally dead.
The average American develops his or her first phobia at age 13 - How unlucky can you get?
Ernest Hemingway's rules for manhood: plant a tree, fight a bull, write a book, have a son - Well, three out of four ain't bad as far as my life is concerned. I've fought a tree, planted a book and written a lot of bull.
The ancient Sumerians had a goddess of beer - Little known fact is that the entire Sumerian civilization was made up of frat boys.
The world's longest earthworms...can grow to as long as 12 feet and as thick as a soda can - In other words, he's your typical AOL chatroom male.
The average office chair with wheels will travel eight miles this year - Constantly having to move the office eight miles down the road is the biggest expense in the modern-day business world.
Sixty-one percent of American students find school boring - Ninety-one percent of American teachers agree.
In July 2004 Colin Powell sang and danced to "YMCA" for foreign ministers at an Asian security summit in Indonesia - There is nothing I can add that would make this more humorous.
The Pentagon uses up 666 rolls of toilet paper on an average day - Finally, something I have in common with our government.
Charles Darwin's cousin invented the IQ test - The idea came to him from a burning bush.
There are six pounds of pennies in the average American home - And they're all wedged under your couch cushions.
Spiders can eat their own weight in one meal - Just like Britney Spears.
When asked to name the odor that best defines America, 39 percent of Americans said "barbecue" - 38 percent said "new-car smell". 10 percent said "beer farts".
Three percent of all photographs taken in the U.S. are taken at Disneyland or Disney World - In 1978, my dad accounted for 50% of those photos.
An alligator has a brain the size of your thumb - Just like Britney Spears.
Three percent of all English surnames are derived from animal names - So, if your name is Calvin Rhinoceros, Edwina Cuttlefish or Reg Llama, you're probably the only one in the history of this great planet. Unless you're a "Junior".
If you feed beer to a laboratory rat, it will live six times longer than a rat that drinks only water - And it will never move out of his mother's basement.
Difficult, Tennessee, gets its name because its residents couldn't agree on a name for the town - "Screw You, Buddy, Tennessee" and "Up Yours, Tennessee" came in second and third place, respectively.
Leonardo de Vinci figured out that the rings of a tree reveal its age - Only years later, did scientists think of just asking the tree for some I.D.
Cats sweat through their paws - So does the average interview candidate.
Christopher Columbus' fee for "discovering" America: about $300 - And worth almost every penny.
Americans eat 4 million pounds of bacon and 175 million eggs every day - Just like Britney Spears.
Peru's Inca Indians were the first to cultivate potatoes, around 200 B.C. - Finally someone to blame for curly fries.
J, the youngest letter in the English alphabet, was not added until the 1600s - The hazing it received from the letters "I" and "K" was legendary.
Ice covers about 15 percent of the earth's landmass - Just like...well, you know who.
And that's just a small sample of the most amazing, mind-blowing useless information you'll find in Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Extraordinary Book of Facts and Bizarre Information. Amaze your friends! Bore co-workers! Initiate your divorce! It's all there for you, and if that doesn't work, don't worry - there'll be another one next year! Not one of my better efforts, but I was under the gun to get an essay out this month. Speaking of which, just remember that the United States is first in the world in gun ownership per capita. Finland is second.
Well, nature calls and I have an Uncle John's book in hand. It's gonna get ugly - quick.
Just like Britney Spears.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Friday, November 03, 2006
Shoe-Be-Doo-Be-Doo
Shoes. The mere mention of the word and women the world over break out into an ecstasy that men equate with their team intercepting a pass and returning it for a touchdown. To win the game. In overtime. In the Super Bowl.
Hey, women don't understand our preoccupation with The Three Stooges, explosions and porn, so why should the absence of an extra X chromosome give us any insight into the magical world of shoes? They're shoes, for Christ's sake! They go on your feet. They protect you from damage when rounding the corner into the living room and slamming your foot on the coffee table. They allow you into convenience stores as long as you're also wearing a shirt. They enable the police to conduct the proper forensic tests after you flee the crime scene.
The point is that the average man (and let's face it, all men are average) owns about five pairs of shoes. He owns shoes for work, a pair or sneakers, shoes for formal occasions, another pair of sneakers, and a third pair of sneakers. Women, however, own approximately 400 pairs of shoes, 390 of which she'll wear once or maybe twice, depending if it's a Leap Year.
I decided to do a little bit of sleuthing in the women's shoe department (since sleuthing in the women's undergarment section was a bit too dangerous - and full of other men). I discovered that there is a different shoe for every woman. Some women shape their daily personality depending upon which objects they put on their feet. And yes, I did say "daily" personality. So, without delaying you much further, let's take a look at some of the fruits from the shoe tree, shall we?
PUMPS
A sensible shoe with just a hint of "Banker by Day/Bacardi by Night." Full leather uppers with a rogue-ish chunky heel says, "Bartender, make it a double" while checking your Blackberry in between fingerfuls of Bloomin' Onion at the Outback Steakhouse.
Part ergonomic foot friend, part jawless fish from the late Devonian Period. Made from the finest synthetic fibers, it's as soft as an infant's head when rubbed top to bottom. Rub in the opposite direction and it can smooth the rough edges of a diamond.
Ah, the garden-variety pump. Every woman possesses at least several dozen, in just as many colors, and has several dozen outfits to go with each pair. Don't try to do the math, it won't be on the final.
BOOTS
What would you get if you combined the 1980's fashion sense of Madonna with the torture sense of the 15th-Century Spanish Inquisition? Why, you'd get this charming little demon of the Devil's footwear. The razor-sharp heel and toe combo demands you convert, while the double buckle shows your flirty side and that you're not afraid to lean into your semi-circle of drunk girlfriends to sing Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" for the 500th time on the bar patio.
Nanook of the North? Forget it! You're Nanette of the North! Be the envy of the ice floe with the latest in Arctic foot fashion. Made only from synthetic bunnies who died of old age, you'll be mockin' the moccasins at the next whale blubber-carving shindig.
Don't have blonde hair and blue eyes? No worries! You'll be knockin' them over at the Reichstag with these sexless beauties! Made from only the most boring cows, you'll be goose-stepping in no time to your favorite Teutonic tunes, frau-Valkyrie!
EVENING
Let's be honest here. How the hell does this shoe stay on? What is that paisley-looking knick-knack on the grill? Why does this shoe have a halo? For the woman who has everything and decides she wants a pair of stupid-looking shoes, too.
"Luke, you're going to have to sell your Speeder (before we can fly with Han Solo and Chewbacca to Alderan)" Equal measures sailboat prowl and Star Wars desert glider, it's warp 10 to the future in this snazzy foot conveyance object. Just don't transport yourself between Memorial Day and Labor Day, starship trooper. Roses not included. Yeah, we knew you'd ask.
The serious shoe for serious women, who like things serious. Don't mess with women who wear shoes like this. They'll kick your ass and then light their cigarettes with matches struck off your bleeding forehead. Faux-decorative binding ring can be activated with big toe, releasing deadly neuro-toxins. A serious shoe.
MULES and CLOGS
You're sassy! You're sporty! You like your Britney and you like it loud! You pine for the days of toe-socks and designer jeans. Desperately hold onto your youth with a pair of these hellions. Excellent for taking off and putting back on...and then taking them off again! Available only up to size 5.
Five cups of coffee and you still can't get started in the morning? We hear ya! When you can't be bothered to bend over to put on your shoes and don't even care if they're on the proper feet, try a pair of these on for size. Engineered by the finest chaise lounge scientists, this low-maintenance little number is perfect for those days when you feel like you just can't finish what you...
Feeling bold? Like taking chances and risking public humiliation? Then ease on into these puppies! Made on a dare by armless apes, they're perfect for pretending to fly or shocking the local gentry into passing a law to outlaw you showing your face on Main Street during business hours.
SANDALS
They're flip flops. They cost $29.00. Twenty-nine freaking dollars! Apparently made from the rarest Styrofoam and pipe cleaners, they're not sandals - they're SCANDALS!
Look, folks, I can't make heads or tails out of these things. Something about a ridiculous blocky sole, material clipped from your grandmothers sofa - the one under the plastic - and apron strings. I have to say, though, they look pretty comfy. Not that I would wear them. Just sayin'. All I mean is if I was a woman...forget it. Moving on...
Enjoying retirement? Just ordered a second copy of your AARP card because the first two wore out? Taken to wearing sun hats the size of a kiddie pool and sunglasses so big they border on novelty items? Then this sandal is for you! Complaining about the wait at the buffet will be a thing of the past while this little number cradles the cracked skin of your well-weathered wheel.
FLATS
Out to kick some ass? Protesting the abuses of a male-dominated society? Going to pick up the latest Indigo Girls CD? You'll be posh in the mosh pit with these steel-toed ambassadors of violence and anger. Accessorize with white socks and cuffed jeans, because, frankly, that's all you own.
Dude, you'll be totally groovy with the latest in asexual hippie footwear. Made from only natural fibers, you'll be bogarting the attention of everyone in the room. Secret panel under the heal allows for easy stash of your stash when The Man comes a-calling to hassle you.
Salute that flag! Bake that apple pie! Wave to your neighbor from behind your picket fence, because you wear the true All-American shoe! Classic, practical and durable, it's the shoe for every woman from Eve to Evening.
So, that's my mini-review of women's shoes. Tune in next time when I review women's underwear. I'll just have to wait until it's not so crowded.
Hey, women don't understand our preoccupation with The Three Stooges, explosions and porn, so why should the absence of an extra X chromosome give us any insight into the magical world of shoes? They're shoes, for Christ's sake! They go on your feet. They protect you from damage when rounding the corner into the living room and slamming your foot on the coffee table. They allow you into convenience stores as long as you're also wearing a shirt. They enable the police to conduct the proper forensic tests after you flee the crime scene.
The point is that the average man (and let's face it, all men are average) owns about five pairs of shoes. He owns shoes for work, a pair or sneakers, shoes for formal occasions, another pair of sneakers, and a third pair of sneakers. Women, however, own approximately 400 pairs of shoes, 390 of which she'll wear once or maybe twice, depending if it's a Leap Year.
I decided to do a little bit of sleuthing in the women's shoe department (since sleuthing in the women's undergarment section was a bit too dangerous - and full of other men). I discovered that there is a different shoe for every woman. Some women shape their daily personality depending upon which objects they put on their feet. And yes, I did say "daily" personality. So, without delaying you much further, let's take a look at some of the fruits from the shoe tree, shall we?
PUMPS
A sensible shoe with just a hint of "Banker by Day/Bacardi by Night." Full leather uppers with a rogue-ish chunky heel says, "Bartender, make it a double" while checking your Blackberry in between fingerfuls of Bloomin' Onion at the Outback Steakhouse.
Part ergonomic foot friend, part jawless fish from the late Devonian Period. Made from the finest synthetic fibers, it's as soft as an infant's head when rubbed top to bottom. Rub in the opposite direction and it can smooth the rough edges of a diamond.
Ah, the garden-variety pump. Every woman possesses at least several dozen, in just as many colors, and has several dozen outfits to go with each pair. Don't try to do the math, it won't be on the final.BOOTS
What would you get if you combined the 1980's fashion sense of Madonna with the torture sense of the 15th-Century Spanish Inquisition? Why, you'd get this charming little demon of the Devil's footwear. The razor-sharp heel and toe combo demands you convert, while the double buckle shows your flirty side and that you're not afraid to lean into your semi-circle of drunk girlfriends to sing Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" for the 500th time on the bar patio.
Nanook of the North? Forget it! You're Nanette of the North! Be the envy of the ice floe with the latest in Arctic foot fashion. Made only from synthetic bunnies who died of old age, you'll be mockin' the moccasins at the next whale blubber-carving shindig.
Don't have blonde hair and blue eyes? No worries! You'll be knockin' them over at the Reichstag with these sexless beauties! Made from only the most boring cows, you'll be goose-stepping in no time to your favorite Teutonic tunes, frau-Valkyrie!EVENING
Let's be honest here. How the hell does this shoe stay on? What is that paisley-looking knick-knack on the grill? Why does this shoe have a halo? For the woman who has everything and decides she wants a pair of stupid-looking shoes, too.
"Luke, you're going to have to sell your Speeder (before we can fly with Han Solo and Chewbacca to Alderan)" Equal measures sailboat prowl and Star Wars desert glider, it's warp 10 to the future in this snazzy foot conveyance object. Just don't transport yourself between Memorial Day and Labor Day, starship trooper. Roses not included. Yeah, we knew you'd ask.
The serious shoe for serious women, who like things serious. Don't mess with women who wear shoes like this. They'll kick your ass and then light their cigarettes with matches struck off your bleeding forehead. Faux-decorative binding ring can be activated with big toe, releasing deadly neuro-toxins. A serious shoe.MULES and CLOGS
You're sassy! You're sporty! You like your Britney and you like it loud! You pine for the days of toe-socks and designer jeans. Desperately hold onto your youth with a pair of these hellions. Excellent for taking off and putting back on...and then taking them off again! Available only up to size 5.
Five cups of coffee and you still can't get started in the morning? We hear ya! When you can't be bothered to bend over to put on your shoes and don't even care if they're on the proper feet, try a pair of these on for size. Engineered by the finest chaise lounge scientists, this low-maintenance little number is perfect for those days when you feel like you just can't finish what you...
Feeling bold? Like taking chances and risking public humiliation? Then ease on into these puppies! Made on a dare by armless apes, they're perfect for pretending to fly or shocking the local gentry into passing a law to outlaw you showing your face on Main Street during business hours.SANDALS
They're flip flops. They cost $29.00. Twenty-nine freaking dollars! Apparently made from the rarest Styrofoam and pipe cleaners, they're not sandals - they're SCANDALS!
Look, folks, I can't make heads or tails out of these things. Something about a ridiculous blocky sole, material clipped from your grandmothers sofa - the one under the plastic - and apron strings. I have to say, though, they look pretty comfy. Not that I would wear them. Just sayin'. All I mean is if I was a woman...forget it. Moving on...
Enjoying retirement? Just ordered a second copy of your AARP card because the first two wore out? Taken to wearing sun hats the size of a kiddie pool and sunglasses so big they border on novelty items? Then this sandal is for you! Complaining about the wait at the buffet will be a thing of the past while this little number cradles the cracked skin of your well-weathered wheel.FLATS
Out to kick some ass? Protesting the abuses of a male-dominated society? Going to pick up the latest Indigo Girls CD? You'll be posh in the mosh pit with these steel-toed ambassadors of violence and anger. Accessorize with white socks and cuffed jeans, because, frankly, that's all you own.
Dude, you'll be totally groovy with the latest in asexual hippie footwear. Made from only natural fibers, you'll be bogarting the attention of everyone in the room. Secret panel under the heal allows for easy stash of your stash when The Man comes a-calling to hassle you.
Salute that flag! Bake that apple pie! Wave to your neighbor from behind your picket fence, because you wear the true All-American shoe! Classic, practical and durable, it's the shoe for every woman from Eve to Evening.So, that's my mini-review of women's shoes. Tune in next time when I review women's underwear. I'll just have to wait until it's not so crowded.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Clothes to the Edge
I'm a slob.
No, I'm not one of those beer-commercial bozos who champions his maleness by going to the grocery store in his pajama bottoms, scratching rude parts of his body and unleashing wave after wave of lunch meat belches so foul they part the hair of the person ahead of him. Instead, I'm the guy who slowly devolved into waking up amongst the McDonald's wrappers, ATM receipts and orphaned pen caps asking, "Where did all this crap come from?" Hey, I'm not proud of it. I survive amongst it, I manage around it, but I'm surely not proud of it. I am anything but metrosexual. The closest I come to being Metro is the fact I've seen Fritz Lang's classic movie, Metropolis, a half dozen times. Toss in the fact I've taken public transportation to and from New York City and enjoy the occasional bagel with my coffee and you have the sum total of anything in my life even remotely resembling "Metro."
Why am I telling you this? For the obvious fact that I went clothes shopping today. Wait, let me amend that. I bought a shirt and a pair of khakis. I don't "shop" - I buy. I see something I like and buy it. No trying it on, no waiting around for sales, no driving around to different stores to compare prices. Nope. It's get in, get out and go the hell home.
"Will you just get on with the damned story?!?!?!?!?!"
Yeah, ok. So, there I was in the store, and I'm sizing up some polos when an odd thing happened. I noticed that the only shirts I was even considering were dark. I asked myself why that was. Then it hit me. I'm not buying shirts for how they look; I'm buying shirts based solely on their ability to cover up food stains.
A little history here:
I am the world's messiest consumer of food. I'm a full body-contact eater. If you can cook it, I can wear it. I am the unofficial record holder for the greatest variety of foods worn in a lifetime. Now here's the part where you chime in and say, "Well, I always seem to be wearing white when I have pasta and I never fail to get some little spots of sauce on me." Amateur. I wore a personal pan pizza WITH crazy bread down the front of my shirt. I got french toast in my hair. And once, I ended up with the entire Country Buffet salad bar in my front pocket - even in the useless little mini-pocket. One day at work, a co-worker came up to me and said, "Hey, Chief, you've got some mustard on your shirt." I looked all over and couldn't see anything. "No, it's right there." He pointed to my shoulder. I looked over and there it was. How the hell did I get mustard on my shoulder? ON MY SHOULDER! Like Sherlock Holmes, I reconstructed my lunch. I had a ham and cheese sandwich on a kaiser roll. Apparently, when I bit into the sandwich with the force of a 100-megaton bomb, a fissure in the top part of the roll opened up just enough to allow a stream of mustard to gracefully arc its way into the air and crash land onto my shoulder. I have ruined more shirts, trousers, suits, ties - you name it - than any 10 people you could name. You're probably asking, "What are you, a complete idiot?" No, I'm still paying on the installment plan.
Anyway, back to the clothing store. Look, I know I'm nowhere near the shape I was in the salad days of my life, but the clothes racks were so close together I felt like I was stuck in the gears of some evil puppet master's voodoo clock while trying to navigate my way through the store. I'm not joking. Had it not been for the sales staff, I'm sure I would have been taken down in the 20% Off aisle and by daybreak my bones would be whitening beneath the Dockers display.
All in all, though, I seem to have escaped relatively unscathed. No more buying clothes for their style. For me, it's function over form, and that function is to not be walking through the hallways at work with the soaked-in remains of an errant spoonful of chili in the shape of Greenland visible on my chest.
I must say, I like the new shirt. I just put it on and it fits, so I'm happy and all is right with the world.
Hey, gotta run. The pizza's here.
No, I'm not one of those beer-commercial bozos who champions his maleness by going to the grocery store in his pajama bottoms, scratching rude parts of his body and unleashing wave after wave of lunch meat belches so foul they part the hair of the person ahead of him. Instead, I'm the guy who slowly devolved into waking up amongst the McDonald's wrappers, ATM receipts and orphaned pen caps asking, "Where did all this crap come from?" Hey, I'm not proud of it. I survive amongst it, I manage around it, but I'm surely not proud of it. I am anything but metrosexual. The closest I come to being Metro is the fact I've seen Fritz Lang's classic movie, Metropolis, a half dozen times. Toss in the fact I've taken public transportation to and from New York City and enjoy the occasional bagel with my coffee and you have the sum total of anything in my life even remotely resembling "Metro."
Why am I telling you this? For the obvious fact that I went clothes shopping today. Wait, let me amend that. I bought a shirt and a pair of khakis. I don't "shop" - I buy. I see something I like and buy it. No trying it on, no waiting around for sales, no driving around to different stores to compare prices. Nope. It's get in, get out and go the hell home.
"Will you just get on with the damned story?!?!?!?!?!"
Yeah, ok. So, there I was in the store, and I'm sizing up some polos when an odd thing happened. I noticed that the only shirts I was even considering were dark. I asked myself why that was. Then it hit me. I'm not buying shirts for how they look; I'm buying shirts based solely on their ability to cover up food stains.
A little history here:
I am the world's messiest consumer of food. I'm a full body-contact eater. If you can cook it, I can wear it. I am the unofficial record holder for the greatest variety of foods worn in a lifetime. Now here's the part where you chime in and say, "Well, I always seem to be wearing white when I have pasta and I never fail to get some little spots of sauce on me." Amateur. I wore a personal pan pizza WITH crazy bread down the front of my shirt. I got french toast in my hair. And once, I ended up with the entire Country Buffet salad bar in my front pocket - even in the useless little mini-pocket. One day at work, a co-worker came up to me and said, "Hey, Chief, you've got some mustard on your shirt." I looked all over and couldn't see anything. "No, it's right there." He pointed to my shoulder. I looked over and there it was. How the hell did I get mustard on my shoulder? ON MY SHOULDER! Like Sherlock Holmes, I reconstructed my lunch. I had a ham and cheese sandwich on a kaiser roll. Apparently, when I bit into the sandwich with the force of a 100-megaton bomb, a fissure in the top part of the roll opened up just enough to allow a stream of mustard to gracefully arc its way into the air and crash land onto my shoulder. I have ruined more shirts, trousers, suits, ties - you name it - than any 10 people you could name. You're probably asking, "What are you, a complete idiot?" No, I'm still paying on the installment plan.
Anyway, back to the clothing store. Look, I know I'm nowhere near the shape I was in the salad days of my life, but the clothes racks were so close together I felt like I was stuck in the gears of some evil puppet master's voodoo clock while trying to navigate my way through the store. I'm not joking. Had it not been for the sales staff, I'm sure I would have been taken down in the 20% Off aisle and by daybreak my bones would be whitening beneath the Dockers display.
All in all, though, I seem to have escaped relatively unscathed. No more buying clothes for their style. For me, it's function over form, and that function is to not be walking through the hallways at work with the soaked-in remains of an errant spoonful of chili in the shape of Greenland visible on my chest.
I must say, I like the new shirt. I just put it on and it fits, so I'm happy and all is right with the world.
Hey, gotta run. The pizza's here.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Raisin D'Etre
When I was about 11 or 12, I bit into a Chocodile.
Not familiar with Chocodiles? Basically, they are Twinkies covered in that industrial chocolate only Hostess knows how to make. And they are good. Damned good. But, on this occasion, after I bit into this particular Chocodile, I was met with a spectacular, mouth-gasming...nothing. No cream. Nuttin'. Nada. "That's odd," I thought. So, in typical Bobby Brady fashion, I shrugged my shoulders and went in for another bite. Again nothing. By now I was a good 1/3 of the way through my treat and the sugary, brain-shocking cream was nowhere to be found. I ate my way all the way through that damned thing and the scoreboard read:
Bogus Chocodile - 1
Unhappy Boy - 0
I was steamed. I didn't have enough money to buy another Chocodile, but even if I did, it wouldn't have mattered. Someone was going to have to pay. So, I broke out the #2 pencil, a sheet of lined paper and went to work writing the company a letter saying how displeased I was to have been duped out of my cream filling. I mentioned that since I was so young, if they planned on having me as a customer into my disposable income years they had better hop to it and right this wrong. About a month later, I received a letter from the company apologizing for the error along with a coupon for a free box of any Hostess product I wanted from my local store. Justice was served, birds were chirping, and songs of "Kumbaya" spread across the land.
The Chocodile story was actually the last thought that came to my head as I sat down to write this, however, but in the grand scheme of things, I suppose I didn't skid off tangent as much as I originally thought. It all started the other day when I picked up a pack of Raisinettes. There I was, happily chowing down on a box when I noticed than one of my Raisinette pebbles didn't have a raisin in it! It was void of raisin! It was a raisinless, anti-raisin, raisin-lacking Raisinette! I was crushed.
Immediately, I started to go through my mental Rolodex in hopes of finding other food disappointments to help me put this whole charade into perspective. I thought about how befuddled I was as a youngster when I found a Cheerio inside a box of Franken Berry. I'd look at it like a primate eyeballing a radio knob, periodically sticking it in my mouth and pulling it out to see if it was edible. I was certain that the Cheerios silo didn't cross streams with the Franken Berry silo, so I chalked it up to aliens and popped that sucker into my mouth.
Don't tell me you don't get the same mental hiccup when you order the Whopper Jr. meal and find an onion ring in your french fries. You stare at it, try to communicate with it, reason with it, all in all ignoring the fact that it probably just fell into your fries while under the heat lamp. If you ordered onion rings, you'd just shoot it into your maw before you could say "Jack Robinson." Of course, it's inevitable in the reverse scenario that you would find a renegade french fry in your order of onion rings and resume your ballet of primitive head tilts.
It's probably no surprise to you that I, like many Earthlings, enjoy the occasional packet of M&Ms. Yeah, yeah, I know I mentioned Raisinettes earlier, but put away the floss and the clucking tongue for five minutes, ok? Anyway, back to the M&Ms. The M&M thing is usually divided into two camps - those who prefer plain and those who prefer peanut. I'm firmly entrenched in the Plain M&Ms tent. However, from time to time, I'll get a wild hair up my cinnamon ring for Peanut M&Ms. Now this next part is for the Plain M&Ms folks since the Peanut M&Ms people are already very familiar with what I am going to say. There is a certain way to eat Peanut M&Ms, and that is to bite into the candy around the middle and gently chew the chocolate around the peanut and lift, leaving the exposed, denuded peanut half. Then, you chew the remaining chocolate off the peanut and flick the goober into your mouth. Pretty simple, right? Well, it is. And I am certain the world's population of Peanut M&M eaters would be happy eating their candy until rapture if it wasn't for one thing. That's right, you guessed it - the booger peanut. You know what I'm talking about, partner. It's that one sort of dark peanut that, when you bite into it, all sorts of terrible nastiness overwhelms your mouth. You're reaching for napkins, wiping your tongue on the sleeve of your shirt, swallowing fire - anything to get that knee-buckling taste out of your mouth. At that point, the party is over, the keg is kicked, and you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. It's the food version of farting on the first date.
But, let's not give ALL the grief to George Washington Carver's favorite legume. Does anyone remember Upton Sinclair? Anyone? No? Oh, ok, you in the back there.
"Um, he wrote that song "Upton Girl" for Billy Joel or something?"
"Sit down."
Upton Sinclair wrote "The Jungle," which, while taking on such topics as Socialism and poverty, he tells of meat packing factories where animal parts and people (PEOPLE!) fell into the tanks and were sold to the unsuspecting public. The book came out in 1906 and since that time the Food & Drug Administration has done a better job of keeping Chuck from being Ground Chuck. Why am I telling you all this? I am telling you this because every time I bite into a damn sloppy joe, I inevitably find something small and bony NOT named Kate Moss bouncing between my molars. It's stultifying (go ahead, grab your dictionary; I'll still be here) and gives me the full body gross-out shake. After that, who wants to go tucking into the rest of the sandwich? And dammit, I LOVE sloppy joes...at least until I get to the shin bone or whatever the hell it was I bit into. Ever have chicken salad? Great stuff, huh? How about when you hit that piece of rubbery gristle or whatnot? I've given the biggest girlish yelps when I hit that sandbar in my sandwich. Not only is the sandwich ruined, but, I'm walking away from the chips and the pickle spear, as well.
It's just as well. None of the foods I mentioned above have any real nutritional value. Some of them have negative nutritional value, as far as I'm concerned. But, hey, if I didn't eat sloppy joes, Franken Berry and Raisinettes at least at some point in my life, then you wouldn't have such neat stories from me. I need SOMETHING to write about.
After all, it's my Raisin d'etre.
Not familiar with Chocodiles? Basically, they are Twinkies covered in that industrial chocolate only Hostess knows how to make. And they are good. Damned good. But, on this occasion, after I bit into this particular Chocodile, I was met with a spectacular, mouth-gasming...nothing. No cream. Nuttin'. Nada. "That's odd," I thought. So, in typical Bobby Brady fashion, I shrugged my shoulders and went in for another bite. Again nothing. By now I was a good 1/3 of the way through my treat and the sugary, brain-shocking cream was nowhere to be found. I ate my way all the way through that damned thing and the scoreboard read:
Bogus Chocodile - 1
Unhappy Boy - 0
I was steamed. I didn't have enough money to buy another Chocodile, but even if I did, it wouldn't have mattered. Someone was going to have to pay. So, I broke out the #2 pencil, a sheet of lined paper and went to work writing the company a letter saying how displeased I was to have been duped out of my cream filling. I mentioned that since I was so young, if they planned on having me as a customer into my disposable income years they had better hop to it and right this wrong. About a month later, I received a letter from the company apologizing for the error along with a coupon for a free box of any Hostess product I wanted from my local store. Justice was served, birds were chirping, and songs of "Kumbaya" spread across the land.
The Chocodile story was actually the last thought that came to my head as I sat down to write this, however, but in the grand scheme of things, I suppose I didn't skid off tangent as much as I originally thought. It all started the other day when I picked up a pack of Raisinettes. There I was, happily chowing down on a box when I noticed than one of my Raisinette pebbles didn't have a raisin in it! It was void of raisin! It was a raisinless, anti-raisin, raisin-lacking Raisinette! I was crushed.
Immediately, I started to go through my mental Rolodex in hopes of finding other food disappointments to help me put this whole charade into perspective. I thought about how befuddled I was as a youngster when I found a Cheerio inside a box of Franken Berry. I'd look at it like a primate eyeballing a radio knob, periodically sticking it in my mouth and pulling it out to see if it was edible. I was certain that the Cheerios silo didn't cross streams with the Franken Berry silo, so I chalked it up to aliens and popped that sucker into my mouth.
Don't tell me you don't get the same mental hiccup when you order the Whopper Jr. meal and find an onion ring in your french fries. You stare at it, try to communicate with it, reason with it, all in all ignoring the fact that it probably just fell into your fries while under the heat lamp. If you ordered onion rings, you'd just shoot it into your maw before you could say "Jack Robinson." Of course, it's inevitable in the reverse scenario that you would find a renegade french fry in your order of onion rings and resume your ballet of primitive head tilts.
It's probably no surprise to you that I, like many Earthlings, enjoy the occasional packet of M&Ms. Yeah, yeah, I know I mentioned Raisinettes earlier, but put away the floss and the clucking tongue for five minutes, ok? Anyway, back to the M&Ms. The M&M thing is usually divided into two camps - those who prefer plain and those who prefer peanut. I'm firmly entrenched in the Plain M&Ms tent. However, from time to time, I'll get a wild hair up my cinnamon ring for Peanut M&Ms. Now this next part is for the Plain M&Ms folks since the Peanut M&Ms people are already very familiar with what I am going to say. There is a certain way to eat Peanut M&Ms, and that is to bite into the candy around the middle and gently chew the chocolate around the peanut and lift, leaving the exposed, denuded peanut half. Then, you chew the remaining chocolate off the peanut and flick the goober into your mouth. Pretty simple, right? Well, it is. And I am certain the world's population of Peanut M&M eaters would be happy eating their candy until rapture if it wasn't for one thing. That's right, you guessed it - the booger peanut. You know what I'm talking about, partner. It's that one sort of dark peanut that, when you bite into it, all sorts of terrible nastiness overwhelms your mouth. You're reaching for napkins, wiping your tongue on the sleeve of your shirt, swallowing fire - anything to get that knee-buckling taste out of your mouth. At that point, the party is over, the keg is kicked, and you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. It's the food version of farting on the first date.
But, let's not give ALL the grief to George Washington Carver's favorite legume. Does anyone remember Upton Sinclair? Anyone? No? Oh, ok, you in the back there.
"Um, he wrote that song "Upton Girl" for Billy Joel or something?"
"Sit down."
Upton Sinclair wrote "The Jungle," which, while taking on such topics as Socialism and poverty, he tells of meat packing factories where animal parts and people (PEOPLE!) fell into the tanks and were sold to the unsuspecting public. The book came out in 1906 and since that time the Food & Drug Administration has done a better job of keeping Chuck from being Ground Chuck. Why am I telling you all this? I am telling you this because every time I bite into a damn sloppy joe, I inevitably find something small and bony NOT named Kate Moss bouncing between my molars. It's stultifying (go ahead, grab your dictionary; I'll still be here) and gives me the full body gross-out shake. After that, who wants to go tucking into the rest of the sandwich? And dammit, I LOVE sloppy joes...at least until I get to the shin bone or whatever the hell it was I bit into. Ever have chicken salad? Great stuff, huh? How about when you hit that piece of rubbery gristle or whatnot? I've given the biggest girlish yelps when I hit that sandbar in my sandwich. Not only is the sandwich ruined, but, I'm walking away from the chips and the pickle spear, as well.
It's just as well. None of the foods I mentioned above have any real nutritional value. Some of them have negative nutritional value, as far as I'm concerned. But, hey, if I didn't eat sloppy joes, Franken Berry and Raisinettes at least at some point in my life, then you wouldn't have such neat stories from me. I need SOMETHING to write about.
After all, it's my Raisin d'etre.
Monday, September 25, 2006
I'd Like a Word With You
We've all heard the expression, "A picture is worth a thousand words" many times in our lives, but I've never really subscribed to the math. I suppose it all depends upon the picture. For example, if you show me a picture of a corn chip, I might max out around 600 words. 800 if it's barbecue. On the other hand, show me a picture of a monkey wearing a Def Leppard concert T-shirt while trying to pick up nerdy chicks in the hotel corridor outside of a Star Trek convention, and I'm fairly confident I could pump out 1,500...2,000 if he's wearing "Vulcan" ears and giving the "live long and prosper" hand jive.
But, you know, maybe all of those cliché-hounds should take another look at that expression. Maybe, just maybe, a word is worth a thousand pictures.
Now, don't try to get me in trouble with the Picture Lobby. I have nothing against them and their pork barrel word worths. It just seems to me that a thousand words was too tidy a sum. A hundred words would be selling it short. With the exception of Jessica Simpson, Bluetooth technology and reality programs, practically everything is worth at least 100 words. Saying a picture is worth 500 words is a little too precise, like you're getting a bit cutesy and should be shaved down and have someone put cosmetics on your ass. A thousand words just FEELS like the right amount. Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? Too cumbersome to say. A million words? Now you're sounding like Dr. Evil. How about a billion words? Well, hell, if you're going to say a billion, why not say a cajillion? An ecky-ecky-ecky-swoomvillion? Infinity? I swear, if someone said that to me, I would have jacked them up and given them the mother of all Indian burns.
Think about it. Mention the word "grandmother." Tell me you don't immediately get the impression in your head of sweet little grandma, scuttling around her kitchen trying to stuff one last meatball into your gullet, rehashing stories of the Old Country, and teaching you how to play Keno. For those of us lucky enough to have known our grandparents, whether they are still with us today or not, just the word "grandmother" or "grandfather" can let loose a deluge of shimmering memories. Like someone on a 1970s game show, you reach out and grab as many memories as you can while they all fly and swirl around you in the money tank. Only this time, you're not stuffing dollar bills into your terrycloth tube top or your Rayon silk shirt. Remember when your grandfather would tell you stories about guys he knew in the war? How about helping him pick the tomatoes in his little corner garden? Or when you went to or watched the ball game together? And honestly - could anyone lay on a hug like your grandmother?
Try it yourself. There is an endless ocean of words, in every language known to mankind. Words like "marriage," "vacation" and "family" can generate a multitude of positive images (or negative images, depending upon which stage of your life you are in). Maybe something as innocuous as the word "key" can light the fuse for you. You imagine a key in your mind. Maybe it's to your first house. Maybe it's to the beach house you used to share with friends during the summer. Maybe it's a car key. Maybe your first car. After flashing on that moment for a while, maybe you get to thinking about your friend's car, and how cool it looked. Remember when you and your friends went driving in the valley that one night, and you parked by the big rope swing that hung from the oak tree? Remember everybody taking turns swinging on the rope and splashing into the creek? Remember that guy or gal you really liked who showed up with their friends too? Remember the tunes playing from one of the cars and the sound of aluminum cans being crushed after consumption? Remember having that first kiss that night from someone you used to daydream about during social studies class? A thousand pictures, right? Probably more. All from one word that doesn't even play a part in the end memory - "key."
Here's another exercise for you. Try following the same string to a different destination with an abstract word such as "love." You're more apt to imagine examples of love. Maybe an image of a little boy giving a girl a daisy or two senior citizens walking in the park still holding hands after all these years. You might even conjure up a past relationship or two in your mind; however, it's just not the same, is it? A word of something tangible can click the tumblers in motion from the inside, and the images you get are fuller, richer and much more meaningful than an abstract word like "love," which then forces you to find definition rather than uncovering a heartfelt memory.
And these memories are all around you. You don't have to look far. Maybe you hear a name on television or the radio that reminds you of a friend you had in school that you haven't talked to in years - someone who used to be your best friend. Follow the "key." Follow not the picture, but the frame. Hell, follow the damned toaster! Reach back and remember from time to time. They're YOUR images. You're allowed.
For you see, a word can be worth more than a thousand pictures - it can be worth a thousand memories, as well.
But, you know, maybe all of those cliché-hounds should take another look at that expression. Maybe, just maybe, a word is worth a thousand pictures.
Now, don't try to get me in trouble with the Picture Lobby. I have nothing against them and their pork barrel word worths. It just seems to me that a thousand words was too tidy a sum. A hundred words would be selling it short. With the exception of Jessica Simpson, Bluetooth technology and reality programs, practically everything is worth at least 100 words. Saying a picture is worth 500 words is a little too precise, like you're getting a bit cutesy and should be shaved down and have someone put cosmetics on your ass. A thousand words just FEELS like the right amount. Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? Too cumbersome to say. A million words? Now you're sounding like Dr. Evil. How about a billion words? Well, hell, if you're going to say a billion, why not say a cajillion? An ecky-ecky-ecky-swoomvillion? Infinity? I swear, if someone said that to me, I would have jacked them up and given them the mother of all Indian burns.
Think about it. Mention the word "grandmother." Tell me you don't immediately get the impression in your head of sweet little grandma, scuttling around her kitchen trying to stuff one last meatball into your gullet, rehashing stories of the Old Country, and teaching you how to play Keno. For those of us lucky enough to have known our grandparents, whether they are still with us today or not, just the word "grandmother" or "grandfather" can let loose a deluge of shimmering memories. Like someone on a 1970s game show, you reach out and grab as many memories as you can while they all fly and swirl around you in the money tank. Only this time, you're not stuffing dollar bills into your terrycloth tube top or your Rayon silk shirt. Remember when your grandfather would tell you stories about guys he knew in the war? How about helping him pick the tomatoes in his little corner garden? Or when you went to or watched the ball game together? And honestly - could anyone lay on a hug like your grandmother?
Try it yourself. There is an endless ocean of words, in every language known to mankind. Words like "marriage," "vacation" and "family" can generate a multitude of positive images (or negative images, depending upon which stage of your life you are in). Maybe something as innocuous as the word "key" can light the fuse for you. You imagine a key in your mind. Maybe it's to your first house. Maybe it's to the beach house you used to share with friends during the summer. Maybe it's a car key. Maybe your first car. After flashing on that moment for a while, maybe you get to thinking about your friend's car, and how cool it looked. Remember when you and your friends went driving in the valley that one night, and you parked by the big rope swing that hung from the oak tree? Remember everybody taking turns swinging on the rope and splashing into the creek? Remember that guy or gal you really liked who showed up with their friends too? Remember the tunes playing from one of the cars and the sound of aluminum cans being crushed after consumption? Remember having that first kiss that night from someone you used to daydream about during social studies class? A thousand pictures, right? Probably more. All from one word that doesn't even play a part in the end memory - "key."
Here's another exercise for you. Try following the same string to a different destination with an abstract word such as "love." You're more apt to imagine examples of love. Maybe an image of a little boy giving a girl a daisy or two senior citizens walking in the park still holding hands after all these years. You might even conjure up a past relationship or two in your mind; however, it's just not the same, is it? A word of something tangible can click the tumblers in motion from the inside, and the images you get are fuller, richer and much more meaningful than an abstract word like "love," which then forces you to find definition rather than uncovering a heartfelt memory.
And these memories are all around you. You don't have to look far. Maybe you hear a name on television or the radio that reminds you of a friend you had in school that you haven't talked to in years - someone who used to be your best friend. Follow the "key." Follow not the picture, but the frame. Hell, follow the damned toaster! Reach back and remember from time to time. They're YOUR images. You're allowed.
For you see, a word can be worth more than a thousand pictures - it can be worth a thousand memories, as well.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Getting Your Point Across
I was watching a show on The History Channel earlier this week. I mention that because I would like to give the impression that I am somehow more intellectually-inclined than I actually am and impress the 0.00001% of you who actually give a damn. That's right, the same percentage of people who actually work for The History Channel. Anyway, I was watching a special on drugs and their history in America. Fascinating stuff. We made it into the 1980s and there it was - THE commercial. It was the "This is your brain on drugs" advertisement. Next to Clara Peller's "Where's the Beef?" Wendy's commercial, this had to be the most hilarious thing on TV. Somewhere in the 1980s, a conference room filled with barrel-bellied, balding men and priggish women with tightly screwed-on hairdos trying to hammer home a message "that kids will understand." Right. Let me tell you something about kids in the 1980s that is pretty much true of kids today - you're not going to scare them away from drugs with ads like that. When I saw that commercial, I was in my early 20s and after the voiceover said "This is your brain," showed an egg, then fried the egg in a skillet and finished with "And this is your brain on drugs. Any questions?" I said, "Yeah, can I get a side of bacon, a large orange juice and a couple of slices of unseeded rye toast? Oh, and maybe throw a couple more eggs on there, too, since I'm stoned and have one hell of an appetite."
One of the more humorous aspects of that commercial is that, chances are, those very same upstanding citizens who created that campaign were probably the very same flower children we saw on grainy 16MM film at Woodstock, painting peace symbols on their asses, dancing like frogs in a blender and smoking joints made with banana-flavored rolling papers. Hell, some of them were probably doing lines of blow off their daily organizers in the bathroom stall. Remember, folks, this was before drug screening was commonplace in corporate America.
Look, if you're going to try to put fear into your intended targets, do it the right way, the old school way. Take LBJ, for instance. He was a bully par excellence. He would zero in on some other politician and buttonhole him into submission so badly that the other guy would leave a puddle on the floor. And speaking of which, Johnson would often hold meetings while he was on the toilet taking his morning "constitutional." Could you imagine suppressing the gag reflex with the presidential waft hanging in the air? He was big on eye contact, too. I don't know about you, but looking a person in the eye while they bear down and turn apple-red is the time to start working on that resume for something a bit more uplifting, like, say, inseminating a steer. Yet, he made sure he was able to get his points across. Who, in their right mind, is going to forget one of those meetings?
Speaking of presidents, let's not forget the wife of another one. Nancy Reagan, the undisputed Diva of the White House, made a guest appearance on one of the most popular shows of the early 1980s - "Diff'rent Strokes". Her message? "Just Say No." Well, hell, if that's all it takes, why am I bothering to have a good time when I could just say "no"? Think of all that could have been avoided. Don't get me wrong, it's a great message, but it's also incredibly naive. Maybe she should have said "Just say 'In Moderation' or "Just say 'I'd like to, but if my folks found out, they'd kill me' ". And what better show for the former First Lady to appear? After all, "Diff'rent Strokes" was the pinnacle of wholesomeness. Of course, Dana Plato went on to abuse drugs, get arrested multiple times, posed nude and died young. Todd Bridges also became an alleged substance abuser and arrested for weapons charges and vehicular assault - not to mention the worst crime of all: appearing on Celebrity Boxing with Vanilla Ice. Oh, and Gary Coleman? His crime was being Gary Coleman.
If you're going to have any kind of impact at all, either speak to the individual at his or her own level (and I'm not just talking about parents talking to kids here) or at least, swing the axe of advantage, be it by denying privileges, year-end bonuses, or using the Vulcan Mind-Meld, just as long as it's not for selfish or damaging reasons. Slogans and laugh-out-loud "messages," such as the fried egg commercial, are as productive as bong hits in the boardroom.
I hope I got my point across. Any questions?
One of the more humorous aspects of that commercial is that, chances are, those very same upstanding citizens who created that campaign were probably the very same flower children we saw on grainy 16MM film at Woodstock, painting peace symbols on their asses, dancing like frogs in a blender and smoking joints made with banana-flavored rolling papers. Hell, some of them were probably doing lines of blow off their daily organizers in the bathroom stall. Remember, folks, this was before drug screening was commonplace in corporate America.
Look, if you're going to try to put fear into your intended targets, do it the right way, the old school way. Take LBJ, for instance. He was a bully par excellence. He would zero in on some other politician and buttonhole him into submission so badly that the other guy would leave a puddle on the floor. And speaking of which, Johnson would often hold meetings while he was on the toilet taking his morning "constitutional." Could you imagine suppressing the gag reflex with the presidential waft hanging in the air? He was big on eye contact, too. I don't know about you, but looking a person in the eye while they bear down and turn apple-red is the time to start working on that resume for something a bit more uplifting, like, say, inseminating a steer. Yet, he made sure he was able to get his points across. Who, in their right mind, is going to forget one of those meetings?
Speaking of presidents, let's not forget the wife of another one. Nancy Reagan, the undisputed Diva of the White House, made a guest appearance on one of the most popular shows of the early 1980s - "Diff'rent Strokes". Her message? "Just Say No." Well, hell, if that's all it takes, why am I bothering to have a good time when I could just say "no"? Think of all that could have been avoided. Don't get me wrong, it's a great message, but it's also incredibly naive. Maybe she should have said "Just say 'In Moderation' or "Just say 'I'd like to, but if my folks found out, they'd kill me' ". And what better show for the former First Lady to appear? After all, "Diff'rent Strokes" was the pinnacle of wholesomeness. Of course, Dana Plato went on to abuse drugs, get arrested multiple times, posed nude and died young. Todd Bridges also became an alleged substance abuser and arrested for weapons charges and vehicular assault - not to mention the worst crime of all: appearing on Celebrity Boxing with Vanilla Ice. Oh, and Gary Coleman? His crime was being Gary Coleman.
If you're going to have any kind of impact at all, either speak to the individual at his or her own level (and I'm not just talking about parents talking to kids here) or at least, swing the axe of advantage, be it by denying privileges, year-end bonuses, or using the Vulcan Mind-Meld, just as long as it's not for selfish or damaging reasons. Slogans and laugh-out-loud "messages," such as the fried egg commercial, are as productive as bong hits in the boardroom.
I hope I got my point across. Any questions?
Saturday, July 29, 2006
They Say It's Your Birthday!
There's been a lot of talk about birthdays lately. Actually, there hasn't, but I needed a way to open this story. A while back, I wrote about turning 40. As the year moves along, more and more of my college friends are falling under the black curtain of a new personal decade, and with it, the lament of "I was just 25 yesterday! What the hell happened???" Well, I'll tell you what happened. Tomorrow happened. And it's going to happen again. And again. And again.
I'm not much of a student of the Bible or any other religious literature. I know enough to get me by, however. For example, I know that Charlton Heston WAS Moses, that Noah forgot the unicorns, and that Pulp Fiction's Jules Winfield was a "Bad Mutha-F*r" when he'd recite Ezekiel 25:17 before popping a cap in yo' ass. I also know that Adam lived to be an old man. A VERY old man, like 900-years-old old. I also know that some cat named Methuselah was supposedly the oldest living man - ever! What was he, 969 years old? Thanks to the folks at Wikipedia.com, they have information that Methuselah actually only lived until he was 78 years old. Not bad, considering the life expectancy of a man in Sierra Leone is only 44 these days, but a few days short of 969 years. Now, I'm no mathematics genius, but 78 is roughly 8% of 969. Now, if Jesus was supposedly 33 when he was crucified, if the same math was applied, he'd have been a little over two and a half years old upon his death. I don't know about you, but, from all the paintings in my grandmother's house, he looked a little older than his classmates.
But, enough of all that. Before you know it, I'll be accused of being something I'm not. Instead, I'd like to focus on that time-honored tradition of birthdays - or more specifically, birthday parties. I remember the birthday parties from my youth. Funny hats with elastic string, cartoon animal napkins, and presents that were far more enjoyable back then than they would ever be today, such as coloring books, Super-Elastic Bubble Plastic and Silly String. And tell me you didn't used to press Silly Putty onto the comics page and try to stretch Beetle Bailey's face in a thousand directions. Back then, you weren't self-conscious about opening gifts in front of people. You just tore into them. The gifts like socks and underwear from some tuned-out relative were met with the miserable "Thank you, Aunt so-and-so..." that your mom used to whisper into your ear. And money. Nothing beat money. I don't care if it was a dollar bill or the crisp ten-dollar bills my great-grandmother used to give me, money was a win-win gift to give and receive. I'll always take cash, thank you. And speaking of my great-grandmother, those bills were so crisp and so sharp (she said she would always insist on a "new" $10 bill from the teller) that you could use it to cut a hole in the fabric of the time/space continuum.
As we grow older, we become a bit more selective and demanding about our birthday parties. We insist on having them at places away from the home and we pester our folks for the REALLY expensive stuff. Placating us with cake, ice cream, and those damned trick candles that would always light back up wasn't going to do it for us anymore. In addition, being invited to a "cool" kid's birthday party did more than just put you in esteemed company for the day, oh no. What it effectively did was elevated you to the "in-crowd" that so many of us longed to belong to when we were young. Of course all of us now say, "Oh, I didn't belong to any specific group. I kinda got along with everybody." Right. Pinhead.
As I got older, the parties kids my age had subtlety changed. There was always at least one kid whose parents were of the mind set, "What's a beer or two going to harm?" as they upended another bottle of Jack Daniels into the punch bowl. These parties were the social event of the season until summer came around and peoples' parents went away on vacation and left the teenagers home. But that's another story. Many people's first kisses happened at these parties and more than a couple of lucky jerks went to sleep that night knowing what a girl's boob felt like. Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Capture the Flag, and Duck, Duck, Goose were replaced by Spin the Bottle, Post Office, and Puking in the Azaleas.
It's of little use to go into the typical person's 21st birthday party, because the only way you truly remember it is when other people told you how much fun you had until you woke up the next morning with one of your eyebrows shaved off and peanut butter on your scrotum. After that, there were no more birthdays to look forward to. Now came the inelegant slide into meaningless birthdays. The dreaded 29th birthday, where you said, "That's it! I'm not having any more birthdays." Well, of course you did, sunshine. There just wasn't much more to celebrate. Jack Benny made a career out of poor violin playing, effeminate mannerisms, and being 39. Life goes on, amigo. With modern science and medicine, we are now effectively living twice as long as we were 150 years ago. Hell, at the rate we're going, the average expected life span for a human being will soon probably be over 90 years old.
I'm 40 now. In another 40 years, I'll be 80, which, if my math is right, would make me older than Methuselah.
And I'll still take cash.
I'm not much of a student of the Bible or any other religious literature. I know enough to get me by, however. For example, I know that Charlton Heston WAS Moses, that Noah forgot the unicorns, and that Pulp Fiction's Jules Winfield was a "Bad Mutha-F*r" when he'd recite Ezekiel 25:17 before popping a cap in yo' ass. I also know that Adam lived to be an old man. A VERY old man, like 900-years-old old. I also know that some cat named Methuselah was supposedly the oldest living man - ever! What was he, 969 years old? Thanks to the folks at Wikipedia.com, they have information that Methuselah actually only lived until he was 78 years old. Not bad, considering the life expectancy of a man in Sierra Leone is only 44 these days, but a few days short of 969 years. Now, I'm no mathematics genius, but 78 is roughly 8% of 969. Now, if Jesus was supposedly 33 when he was crucified, if the same math was applied, he'd have been a little over two and a half years old upon his death. I don't know about you, but, from all the paintings in my grandmother's house, he looked a little older than his classmates.
But, enough of all that. Before you know it, I'll be accused of being something I'm not. Instead, I'd like to focus on that time-honored tradition of birthdays - or more specifically, birthday parties. I remember the birthday parties from my youth. Funny hats with elastic string, cartoon animal napkins, and presents that were far more enjoyable back then than they would ever be today, such as coloring books, Super-Elastic Bubble Plastic and Silly String. And tell me you didn't used to press Silly Putty onto the comics page and try to stretch Beetle Bailey's face in a thousand directions. Back then, you weren't self-conscious about opening gifts in front of people. You just tore into them. The gifts like socks and underwear from some tuned-out relative were met with the miserable "Thank you, Aunt so-and-so..." that your mom used to whisper into your ear. And money. Nothing beat money. I don't care if it was a dollar bill or the crisp ten-dollar bills my great-grandmother used to give me, money was a win-win gift to give and receive. I'll always take cash, thank you. And speaking of my great-grandmother, those bills were so crisp and so sharp (she said she would always insist on a "new" $10 bill from the teller) that you could use it to cut a hole in the fabric of the time/space continuum.
As we grow older, we become a bit more selective and demanding about our birthday parties. We insist on having them at places away from the home and we pester our folks for the REALLY expensive stuff. Placating us with cake, ice cream, and those damned trick candles that would always light back up wasn't going to do it for us anymore. In addition, being invited to a "cool" kid's birthday party did more than just put you in esteemed company for the day, oh no. What it effectively did was elevated you to the "in-crowd" that so many of us longed to belong to when we were young. Of course all of us now say, "Oh, I didn't belong to any specific group. I kinda got along with everybody." Right. Pinhead.
As I got older, the parties kids my age had subtlety changed. There was always at least one kid whose parents were of the mind set, "What's a beer or two going to harm?" as they upended another bottle of Jack Daniels into the punch bowl. These parties were the social event of the season until summer came around and peoples' parents went away on vacation and left the teenagers home. But that's another story. Many people's first kisses happened at these parties and more than a couple of lucky jerks went to sleep that night knowing what a girl's boob felt like. Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Capture the Flag, and Duck, Duck, Goose were replaced by Spin the Bottle, Post Office, and Puking in the Azaleas.
It's of little use to go into the typical person's 21st birthday party, because the only way you truly remember it is when other people told you how much fun you had until you woke up the next morning with one of your eyebrows shaved off and peanut butter on your scrotum. After that, there were no more birthdays to look forward to. Now came the inelegant slide into meaningless birthdays. The dreaded 29th birthday, where you said, "That's it! I'm not having any more birthdays." Well, of course you did, sunshine. There just wasn't much more to celebrate. Jack Benny made a career out of poor violin playing, effeminate mannerisms, and being 39. Life goes on, amigo. With modern science and medicine, we are now effectively living twice as long as we were 150 years ago. Hell, at the rate we're going, the average expected life span for a human being will soon probably be over 90 years old.
I'm 40 now. In another 40 years, I'll be 80, which, if my math is right, would make me older than Methuselah.
And I'll still take cash.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Food for Thought
Let’s get everything out in the open here. We’re friends, and as friends, we are not only entitled to being truthful with each other, we’re sort of obligated. So, I’m baring my soul to you in order to strengthen our bonds of friendship – either that or disgust you to the point of frantically dusting yourself off like a homecoming queen walking face-first into a giant spider web. Here we go:
I’m a pain in the ass when it comes to food.
Like any typical human, I have an attraction to being alive. Part of that equation is the consumption of food and drink. Not only is it a necessity, but, like sleep, it’s one of my favorite things in life. It’s right up there with reruns of The Simpsons.
I wasn’t always a fussy eater. When I was young, if you laid something marginally digestible within arm’s length of me, I was at least going to have an exploratory taste. I had no biases. Applesauce and pudding were just as likely to be on my menu as dog hair and pencil erasers. Then, one day, having discerned that, yep, I sure do love the taste of sugar, I decided to help myself to a titanic amount of it. So, I grabbed the container, tilted my head back, and proceeded to pour a heroic portion into my gullet. One problem – it wasn’t sugar. It was salt. I felt like I was on an episode of the 1960’s Batman series, with a voice-over saying, "What’s THIS?" I don’t remember much except getting violently sick at the foot of the stairs and making a mental note to not try this in the future. It was the first time food had been bad to me. I felt like I had been betrayed; however, there’s not much you can do to exact revenge on food. You can’t short-sheet broccoli, jump vanilla extract for a fight after school behind the Woodshop building, or give ice cream a wedgie. No, you just have to ball your fists and shake them at the sky like the hero of some great Nordic saga. Oh, and read the label next time.
Whereas my first negative rumble with food was an all-around disaster and loss for the home team, my second negative experience with food had a somewhat more satisfying conclusion. It was dinnertime, circa 1970-something. Mom, who has a black belt in cooking, made some sweet potatoes, or candied yams or some such thing. I don’t know the difference now and I certainly did not know the difference then. Anyway, the smell…well, have you ever smelled sweet potatoes? I mean really shoved your honker into the abyss and taken a good whiff of that stuff? Sewage! Raw, unprocessed sewage! It smells like the stink of a thousand middle school bathrooms. It smelled so foul that I almost lost my balance. Mom, ever the one to encourage us to try new culinary paths, told me to try some. Risking the violation of one of the Commandments, I emphatically declined. The more I declined, however, the more insistent she became. It became a battle of wills, and if common sense (i.e. avoiding being grounded) hadn’t prevailed, I’m confident that it would have become so violent that it would have made a monkey knife-fight look like a retirement party dance by comparison. I relented. So, I took what basically amounted to a gnat’s-weight of the stink on my fork and put it into my mouth. Imagine not only my surprise, but the surprise of everyone at the table when, about two seconds later, I vomited all over the kitchen table – you know, the kitchen table that, up until that time, sat my entire family happily enjoying their meals. And, oh no, this was no mere vomiting. This was projectile vomiting at its best. This was projectile vomiting that would have knocked Linda Blair down to the silver medal. I never did get to finish my dinner, and that was just fine by me. But, two inimitable universal truths were born that evening – when it comes to food, with me, no thank you means no thank you and mom never again forced me to eat anything I didn’t want. I went to bed triumphant.
Fast-forward more years than is your business, and I’ve compiled an impressive list of foods that I consider stable mates of sweet potatoes/yams. For the sake of brevity, I’ll give you my top three:
Onions – Onions are probably the most versatile of foods that I don’t particularly like. It’s the cooking staple of almost every Mediterranean cookbook. Open up to a recipe for homemade oatmeal and it will begin with, "Dice five fresh onions…" I cannot say exactly why I don’t like onions, but my best answer is the taste. I don’t like the taste. There are those who will say, "But onions don’t have any taste," but they’re fooling themselves. They most definitely have a taste – a bitter onion-y taste. Not only that, but the texture is aggressive and intrusive and it dominates the taste of everything else currently being shredded in my mouth. It’s the gunslinger of tastes that announces, "while I’m here, we’re gonna be doin’ things MY way. Anyone don’t like it can answer to me." Meanwhile, perfectly upstanding tastes like steak, chicken, rice, or whatever, cower behind the molars. Unfortunately, there are no tastes willing to play Gary Cooper. Now for the strange part: I love French onion soup. Maybe because there is no crisp texture to the onions or maybe because the taste is muted, but the fact I love it boggles my mind. Still, onions don’t get a pass for me liking French onion soup.
I don’t mind onion rings, either, and I have no explanation for that, either. I guess everything gets a pass when it’s deep-fried.
Mushrooms – Well, almost everything gets a pass when it’s deep-fried. Mushrooms wouldn’t get a pass even if they were the only source of food on earth. I guess I just don’t get it. Why would anyone, by his or her own volition, voluntarily consume a fungus – A FUNGUS! – that grows in manure? MANURE! A FUNGUS that grows in MANURE! Ever drive past a mushroom farm? You’d think they were exhuming bodies from a septic pipe. When the wind is right (can’t believe I’m using the word "right") in the morning, and a mushroom farm is within 30-40 miles of your location, you, too, can enjoy the sweet smell of animal turds, as thick as peanut butter soup, without having to go through the trouble of actually smashing your face into a steaming pile of animal poop. I don’t care if you wash them 100 times over or sand-blast the filth off of them – I’m not going near them. Besides, they’re a FUNGUS! We all eat mold, in some quantities, just by accident, but…well, I’ll leave it there. On the other hand, I have tried magic mushrooms once, and only once. A few things happened that I remember:
1. My voice sank about 10 octaves. I made James Earl Jones sound like Betty Boop.
2. I laughed constantly. I laughed so much that I was getting annoyed with myself. I was so annoyed at myself that I actually started to find it amusing. Of course, then I laughed some more.
3. My friend, Tim, and I went to a Phillies game at Veterans Stadium when the mushrooms began to kick in. We bought the cheapest tickets and sat in the upper deck. We had practically the entire upper level to ourselves. There, I decided to perform what I imagined to be the play-by-play of the immortal Philadelphia announcer, Harry Kalas. Tim probably wanted to throw me over the railing.
Peppers – Peppers just might be the most enigmatic of the top three. I don’t like peppers. Sweet peppers, hot peppers, Peppermint Patties, table pepper…I don’t like any of them (okay, I lied, I like Peppermint Patties. Taste the sensation). Again, it really begins and ends with the taste. Let’s get past the sweet peppers and just say that I don’t like the taste, but I’ll get back to that later. The hot peppers, however, well, jumping Jesus Jemima Junior, someone tell me the joy in eating something that has so much capsaicin (the "hot" element in hot peppers), that it’s the equivalent of eating broken glass. You know the people I’m talking about; we all know at least one person who prides him/herself on being able to eat food so hot it could light a cigar. These people make Charles Manson look like George Will. And yet, there was a summer in 1992 or 1993 where I suddenly became obsessed with peppers, and not just sweet peppers. I was downing hot peppers like crazy, too. I have no idea how this craze generated, but there I was, ordering every type of food with peppers on it. I was sailing along, nicely, perfectly at peace with my new gastronomic family of friends when I went to breakfast one morning at The Starboard Restaurant in Dewey Beach, Delaware. A woman was wheeling a cart with various peppers around the dining area (don’t ask) when I decided to strut my newfound pepper-eating bravado. "So, what’s the hottest pepper you have?" She showed me a habanera, or scotch bonnet, pepper but warned me that it was very hot. Tossing my head back theatrically and laughing at the warning from this mere human, I proceeded to pick up my prey by the stem and gently lowered towards my mouth. I bit the pepper in half and before my teeth were even 1/4th of the way into the bite, my brain was saying, "you are in big time trouble, son." I yelled loudly. By the time I had swallowed what I had bitten, I was in what can only be described as biblical agony. My eyes were gushing with water, so, of course, I did the sensible thing and wiped them dry…with my bare hands. Yes, my frighteningly capsaicin-drenched hands. More screaming and yelling. I actually walked out of the restaurant and back to my house, completely blinded because my eyes were swollen shut. I only lived a block away. But it took me a half hour to get home. I spent the rest of the day with ice cubes and wet wash rags on my eyes, laying on the couch and dying a thousand deaths. So endeth my dance with peppers.
Oh, there are still other foods out there that I cannot stand: almonds, pistachios, cashews, sunflower seeds, bleu cheese, feta cheese, goat cheese, peas, chickpeas, raw carrots, red cabbage, pine nuts, lima beans, oregano, garlic, cilantro, mint leaves, rosemary, capers, scallions, basil, and pretty much every type of food the typical American family serves for Thanksgiving (including the pies). I could go on, but, including the top three, that represents pretty much 95% of the foods I cannot stand and could happily live without.
Yes, that does mean I could live without onion rings.
Not so sure about the French onion soup, though.
I’m a pain in the ass when it comes to food.
Like any typical human, I have an attraction to being alive. Part of that equation is the consumption of food and drink. Not only is it a necessity, but, like sleep, it’s one of my favorite things in life. It’s right up there with reruns of The Simpsons.
I wasn’t always a fussy eater. When I was young, if you laid something marginally digestible within arm’s length of me, I was at least going to have an exploratory taste. I had no biases. Applesauce and pudding were just as likely to be on my menu as dog hair and pencil erasers. Then, one day, having discerned that, yep, I sure do love the taste of sugar, I decided to help myself to a titanic amount of it. So, I grabbed the container, tilted my head back, and proceeded to pour a heroic portion into my gullet. One problem – it wasn’t sugar. It was salt. I felt like I was on an episode of the 1960’s Batman series, with a voice-over saying, "What’s THIS?" I don’t remember much except getting violently sick at the foot of the stairs and making a mental note to not try this in the future. It was the first time food had been bad to me. I felt like I had been betrayed; however, there’s not much you can do to exact revenge on food. You can’t short-sheet broccoli, jump vanilla extract for a fight after school behind the Woodshop building, or give ice cream a wedgie. No, you just have to ball your fists and shake them at the sky like the hero of some great Nordic saga. Oh, and read the label next time.
Whereas my first negative rumble with food was an all-around disaster and loss for the home team, my second negative experience with food had a somewhat more satisfying conclusion. It was dinnertime, circa 1970-something. Mom, who has a black belt in cooking, made some sweet potatoes, or candied yams or some such thing. I don’t know the difference now and I certainly did not know the difference then. Anyway, the smell…well, have you ever smelled sweet potatoes? I mean really shoved your honker into the abyss and taken a good whiff of that stuff? Sewage! Raw, unprocessed sewage! It smells like the stink of a thousand middle school bathrooms. It smelled so foul that I almost lost my balance. Mom, ever the one to encourage us to try new culinary paths, told me to try some. Risking the violation of one of the Commandments, I emphatically declined. The more I declined, however, the more insistent she became. It became a battle of wills, and if common sense (i.e. avoiding being grounded) hadn’t prevailed, I’m confident that it would have become so violent that it would have made a monkey knife-fight look like a retirement party dance by comparison. I relented. So, I took what basically amounted to a gnat’s-weight of the stink on my fork and put it into my mouth. Imagine not only my surprise, but the surprise of everyone at the table when, about two seconds later, I vomited all over the kitchen table – you know, the kitchen table that, up until that time, sat my entire family happily enjoying their meals. And, oh no, this was no mere vomiting. This was projectile vomiting at its best. This was projectile vomiting that would have knocked Linda Blair down to the silver medal. I never did get to finish my dinner, and that was just fine by me. But, two inimitable universal truths were born that evening – when it comes to food, with me, no thank you means no thank you and mom never again forced me to eat anything I didn’t want. I went to bed triumphant.
Fast-forward more years than is your business, and I’ve compiled an impressive list of foods that I consider stable mates of sweet potatoes/yams. For the sake of brevity, I’ll give you my top three:
Onions – Onions are probably the most versatile of foods that I don’t particularly like. It’s the cooking staple of almost every Mediterranean cookbook. Open up to a recipe for homemade oatmeal and it will begin with, "Dice five fresh onions…" I cannot say exactly why I don’t like onions, but my best answer is the taste. I don’t like the taste. There are those who will say, "But onions don’t have any taste," but they’re fooling themselves. They most definitely have a taste – a bitter onion-y taste. Not only that, but the texture is aggressive and intrusive and it dominates the taste of everything else currently being shredded in my mouth. It’s the gunslinger of tastes that announces, "while I’m here, we’re gonna be doin’ things MY way. Anyone don’t like it can answer to me." Meanwhile, perfectly upstanding tastes like steak, chicken, rice, or whatever, cower behind the molars. Unfortunately, there are no tastes willing to play Gary Cooper. Now for the strange part: I love French onion soup. Maybe because there is no crisp texture to the onions or maybe because the taste is muted, but the fact I love it boggles my mind. Still, onions don’t get a pass for me liking French onion soup.
I don’t mind onion rings, either, and I have no explanation for that, either. I guess everything gets a pass when it’s deep-fried.
Mushrooms – Well, almost everything gets a pass when it’s deep-fried. Mushrooms wouldn’t get a pass even if they were the only source of food on earth. I guess I just don’t get it. Why would anyone, by his or her own volition, voluntarily consume a fungus – A FUNGUS! – that grows in manure? MANURE! A FUNGUS that grows in MANURE! Ever drive past a mushroom farm? You’d think they were exhuming bodies from a septic pipe. When the wind is right (can’t believe I’m using the word "right") in the morning, and a mushroom farm is within 30-40 miles of your location, you, too, can enjoy the sweet smell of animal turds, as thick as peanut butter soup, without having to go through the trouble of actually smashing your face into a steaming pile of animal poop. I don’t care if you wash them 100 times over or sand-blast the filth off of them – I’m not going near them. Besides, they’re a FUNGUS! We all eat mold, in some quantities, just by accident, but…well, I’ll leave it there. On the other hand, I have tried magic mushrooms once, and only once. A few things happened that I remember:
1. My voice sank about 10 octaves. I made James Earl Jones sound like Betty Boop.
2. I laughed constantly. I laughed so much that I was getting annoyed with myself. I was so annoyed at myself that I actually started to find it amusing. Of course, then I laughed some more.
3. My friend, Tim, and I went to a Phillies game at Veterans Stadium when the mushrooms began to kick in. We bought the cheapest tickets and sat in the upper deck. We had practically the entire upper level to ourselves. There, I decided to perform what I imagined to be the play-by-play of the immortal Philadelphia announcer, Harry Kalas. Tim probably wanted to throw me over the railing.
Peppers – Peppers just might be the most enigmatic of the top three. I don’t like peppers. Sweet peppers, hot peppers, Peppermint Patties, table pepper…I don’t like any of them (okay, I lied, I like Peppermint Patties. Taste the sensation). Again, it really begins and ends with the taste. Let’s get past the sweet peppers and just say that I don’t like the taste, but I’ll get back to that later. The hot peppers, however, well, jumping Jesus Jemima Junior, someone tell me the joy in eating something that has so much capsaicin (the "hot" element in hot peppers), that it’s the equivalent of eating broken glass. You know the people I’m talking about; we all know at least one person who prides him/herself on being able to eat food so hot it could light a cigar. These people make Charles Manson look like George Will. And yet, there was a summer in 1992 or 1993 where I suddenly became obsessed with peppers, and not just sweet peppers. I was downing hot peppers like crazy, too. I have no idea how this craze generated, but there I was, ordering every type of food with peppers on it. I was sailing along, nicely, perfectly at peace with my new gastronomic family of friends when I went to breakfast one morning at The Starboard Restaurant in Dewey Beach, Delaware. A woman was wheeling a cart with various peppers around the dining area (don’t ask) when I decided to strut my newfound pepper-eating bravado. "So, what’s the hottest pepper you have?" She showed me a habanera, or scotch bonnet, pepper but warned me that it was very hot. Tossing my head back theatrically and laughing at the warning from this mere human, I proceeded to pick up my prey by the stem and gently lowered towards my mouth. I bit the pepper in half and before my teeth were even 1/4th of the way into the bite, my brain was saying, "you are in big time trouble, son." I yelled loudly. By the time I had swallowed what I had bitten, I was in what can only be described as biblical agony. My eyes were gushing with water, so, of course, I did the sensible thing and wiped them dry…with my bare hands. Yes, my frighteningly capsaicin-drenched hands. More screaming and yelling. I actually walked out of the restaurant and back to my house, completely blinded because my eyes were swollen shut. I only lived a block away. But it took me a half hour to get home. I spent the rest of the day with ice cubes and wet wash rags on my eyes, laying on the couch and dying a thousand deaths. So endeth my dance with peppers.
Oh, there are still other foods out there that I cannot stand: almonds, pistachios, cashews, sunflower seeds, bleu cheese, feta cheese, goat cheese, peas, chickpeas, raw carrots, red cabbage, pine nuts, lima beans, oregano, garlic, cilantro, mint leaves, rosemary, capers, scallions, basil, and pretty much every type of food the typical American family serves for Thanksgiving (including the pies). I could go on, but, including the top three, that represents pretty much 95% of the foods I cannot stand and could happily live without.
Yes, that does mean I could live without onion rings.
Not so sure about the French onion soup, though.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
All Dressed Up, But Nowhere...
I recently was engaged in conversation with the mother of a friend of mine when we began to talk about writing and writing topics. I explained to her about the most recent entry and, without so much as missing a beat she asked, "Why don't you do one on Garanimals?" Now, this struck me as funny on several levels, least of all was the word "Garanimals." I was born too early in life to be able to experience the giddy joy of this line of clothing. To the uninitiated, allow me to give you a brief explanation: Garanimals are sets of clothing, both tops and bottoms, for children of all genders (no need to discriminate against budding hermaphrodites). Each article of clothing had a certain animal affixed to it. Now dressing your kid is simple; just match the giraffe-labeled top to the giraffe-labeled bottom and bingo - one less Xanax to pop that day.
Because they are designed for children, the animals are drawn all cute and cuddly and have precious names like Charlie Chimp, Pamela Panda and Geraldine Giraffe. I thought about this whilst still in the conversation above - nattily attired in ragged khaki shorts, rumpled-collar polo and sneakers looking like they were forcibly rescued from the spider gears of an axle off an old Ford. I also noticed that something happens to men right around the time they hit 30. Just like ants are selected to be workers or soldiers as soon as they are laid (don't say it), men get shuttled into either the "metrosexuals" or "regular guys" group. We've all read the oh-so-witty articles about metrosexuals in magazines, seen how they have kept two Bruno Magli strides ahead of the rest of us when it comes to neatness and fashion, and marveled how their hair remains perfectly motionless, as if forged by mountain dwarves deep below the Earth's mantle. Even nature allows passage and reverence to such hair:
Air Molecule #1: "Hey! Hey fellas! Would you get a look at that? That's one hell of a head of hair!"
Air Molecule #2: "Maybe we should angle away from it, just in case."
Air Molecule #3: "Yeah, I don't wanna mess that up."
Air Molecule #1: Are you kidding? You could fire a machine gun at it and he wouldn't even notice it. That's not hair, boys. That's SUPER HAIR!"
All: "Wow...."
The rest of us - the regular guys - don't have the problems of the metros. We're not going to invest any effort on such time-wasting activities as exfoliating, feng shui and flossing. No, we have to put up with the eye-rolling of spouses, fiancees and girlfriends who are just waiting for us to fall asleep so they can go to the kitchen, grab something sharp and dangerous, reach down, and cut to hell our favorite T-shirt, shorts, and sweats that we've had since college. Never mind they don't fit anymore, or have lost their shapes, or are so blasted with rips and holes that they are more gas than solid, we're men! And dammit, despite what Cosmo says, we ARE emotional and we ARE nostalgic. We remember wearing that shirt doing our first beer bongs, we remember those shorts because of that one late night at 7-11 when we put a hot sandwich bagel into the left pocket and it burned so badly it left an oval-shaped scorch mark for a month; and, dammit, we remember those sweats for when I was talking with cute little Michelle Napravnik after a game of touch football and my bastard friends snuck up behind me and yanked them down - shorts and all - in front of her, thereby certifying having no chance in hell of ever having sex with her. You see, gals, it's not just because the clothes are comfortable. They are. The reason we hold onto those clothes is because of the memories they hold. Well, that and the fact they're comfortable - and we non-Metros HATE to go shopping for clothes.
I suppose I could always come up with my own line of Garanimals for regular guys. We could call them GarMANimals, or something equally uninspiring. Instead of all these cute names for animals, we could use more utilitarian labels. Try these on for size:
Ernie the Engine - Boy, oh boy, like painters caps and coveralls in the 80s, this could be a burgeoning fad right out of the gate. Ripped jeans were in fashion in the 1980s, as well as acid-washed fabrics. For some stupid reason, they are back in fashion. Why can't oil and other automotive fluid stains climb aboard? This GarMANimal label would even offer a jumpsuit product. A sure-fire winner amongst the shade tree mechanic crowd.
Parma-John - Made from industrial strength polymer fibers, it comes in as many colors of red or black as you want. For wear at Italian restaurants only. Clip-on ties are available in the "Trying-To-Impress-Your-Date-Just-Enough-To-Get-Her-into-Bed-Without-Dropping-Too-Much-Cash-At-the-Restaurant" package. Buy two and get the two-toned pocket hanky to close the deal while pouring her a fourth glass of Asti Spumonti. Visible stains from the sauce? "That's somebody else's problem!" you laugh to yourself as the valet pulls up in your 1986 Cutlass Supreme.
Chicken Wing - The only animal on the list, well PART of an animal on the list. It's also the most versatile as far as color, size and style, as its target consumer is basically every "regular guy" in existence at a time when he is in his fullest glory - the weekend. It's clothing that serves basically two purposes: - The first is to answer the door when the pizza/chicken wing/cheese steak/hoagie/Chinese food delivery person arrives either before kickoff or at halftime. If the delivery person comes at any time during the game, it never fails that something big just went down on TV and your friends are either high-fiving or cursing at the screen while you stand there like a dork asking, "What did I miss???" The other purpose for this line of clothing is that you can basically say you didn't spend the entire day naked or in your underwear. As tempting as that sounds, it's really sort of creepy - even if you're with a woman. At least put on a robe. Or a cape. I tried the stay-naked-for-an-entire-day thing once a long time ago. By the time the next day came, I was so disgusted with myself that I couldn't look people in the eye for a month.
So, there it is. My first line of fashions in time for Fall. Maybe, with the blessings of the good people at Garanimals, I can extend my line more into the animal kingdom and come up with such characters as:
o Paulie da Piranha - for when you wanna look good when youse sleep wit' da fishes. Capiche?
o Shep the Sheep - for those morons who will wear whatever we tell them to wear because they can't think for themselves.
o Randy the Rabbit - for those lucky bastards who get laid in biblical proportions without any rhyme or reason. This label is for those guys who can sleep with the best looking woman at the club that night while wearing a T-shirt that reads, "Yes, I AM looking at your tits!" ($14.95 + shipping).
Of course, I anticipate our biggest mover to be the Hugh Heifer line, which are basically men's pajamas with Gary Larson's "The Far Side" cows all over them. Chicks must dig guys who spend all day in their pajamas. Hell, it works for Hef, it can work for me.
Right?
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Who can take a sunrise...
This one has been brewing and fermenting for a while, and lucky you, you get to read it. So strap yourself in while I take you on tour of a place so magical, so wonderful, it can only be the worst place in the world - the land of candy.
I was first moved to thinking about writing of candy when Easter jumped out at us from behind the vernal corner. No warning, no postcards, just BAM - there it was, all resplendent and covered in pastels. I asked my friend if she made Easter baskets for her kids and she said "of course!" Immediately, the abacus stones in my brain were thrust violently to one side and I was sent tumbling back to 1973 (or 1974 - all the years in the 70s were the same. Until disco). I found myself staring chocolate-brown eye to brown chocolate eye with a hulking behemoth of a bunny. It was enormous and it weighed as much as a pair of wet dungarees. Back then, chocolate bunnies were made of SOLID chocolate, not this fake-me-out hollow business that couldn't withstand the grip of a two year old and collapses more easily than a South American government. I remember those old bunnies because you could never break through and just snap off a piece. Oh sure, the ears were easy prey, but that was like pretending your hot breath on a cold day made you look like you were smoking - anyone could do that. The real challenge was getting to the heart of the beast, namely, when all protrusions and distractions like feet, ears, head, tail had been conquered and you were left with something that resembled a chocolate pancreas brick. And oh what stories that brick could tell: The ridges on all sides gouged by your teeth in thick corduroy fashion desperately looking for a weakness; The fingerprints deeply embedded as you fought and strained to siphon off a chunk; the strangely flat and concussed part where it hit the kitchen floor after your teeth slipped and you accidentally bit a hole into your tongue, your cheek, or both...
But, Easter was more than killer chocolate bunnies. There were other candies, as well - and other candies for other moments. Back then, saying you were going to get a Hershey Bar meant that you were going to get a Hershey Bar - a nice, long flat bar of chocolate that you would happily devour for no reason at all. If you were haute couture, you'd buy the Hershey Bar with almonds. Today, no one just goes into a store and buys a Hershey Bar. And if you do, you don't just sit back in the bean bag chair and eat the whole damned thing. No, today, you break off the conveniently sectioned pieces of a GIANT Hershey Bar and put the rest in the refrigerator or hide them in your desk at work. This, of course, brings me to the miniatures. Now, don't put this all on the shoulders of the hard working folks at Hershey - there's plenty of blame to go around - but, who in the hell decided to call the little pieces of Krackle, Three Muskateers, Mr. Goodbar, etc. "Fun Size"? Are you having "fun" when you eat one? I sure as hell am not. Watching a good chick-flick "weeper"? Don't reach for that candy bowl - you're liable to have "fun" and blow the entire mood. Having the gang over from work and everyone just kind of stares awkwardly, shifting their stances and pushing crackers around on paper plates while you wheel out the half-empty bags of whatever potato chips you had in the cabinet over the stove? Break out the "Fun Size" candies and turn your monastery of a bachelor pad into a roller disco!
Back in the day, there were some great candies that either are not being made anymore or are only available in that one place your sister went with her husband about three summers ago or online from some sketchy guy who also sells "Keep On Truckin'" and "Stoned Again" T-shirts. Let's see if any of these ring the old memory bell:
Marathon Bars - The marketing department nailed this one. Imagine a foot-long link of caramel in the shape of interlocking pretzels and covered with a fragile coating of what passed as chocolate and you have the Marathon Bar. After unwrapping one end and sinking your teeth into a section, the caramel would change properties, converting into some type of evil epoxy that ripped fillings from your teeth, sprained the muscles in your jaw, and left your communication abilities to frantic arm-waving. By the time the enzymes in your saliva freed you from confectionary death and you could finally collect yourself after breathing deeply for a minute or two, what did you do? That's right, you took another bite. Dumb ass.
Charleston Chews - I don't remember much about this candy bar except that it fell in line with the Marathon Bar in the "size matters" category. I think I might have had it once and developed lock-jaw. I also remember the television commercial for it showing some jittery hooligan doing the Charleston dance with his fringy flapper gal. Laugh now. Today, kids are buying candy that looks and feels like snot.
Mallo Cups - Yeah, yeah, I know, they're still around. But, they were never around where I used to buy and steal MY candy. I had to go visit my grandmother in Pennsylvania just to be able to buy Mallo Cups. Talk about a candy that was so sweet and overbearing - it would make the insides of my ears sting. I loved them - well, the idea of them, anyway. Difficult to find in most places that hadn't already been carrying them since the rise of the Ottoman Empire.
Razzles - Is it a candy? Is it a gum? Why, it's two things in one! Razzles MUST have been the result of some maniacal candy scientist trying to come up with some other type of candy and accidentally "discovered" this. I can see it now, the scientist, up all weekend, existing on cigarettes, garden hose water and powdered gravy. After a series of explosions in the lab, all the police find the next day is a shredded lab coat with multi-colored candies stuck to the inside. After a furious game of rock-paper-scissors with his partner and the lieutenant, one officer puts a piece in his mouth while the other policemen and detectives point and say "Ewwww!" He realizes that, hey, this is more than just candy! It's...it's...it's bubble gum, too! Legend has it that every piece of Razzles to this day came from the inside of that lab coat.
Chunky - Imagine if you will a cement trapezoid. Cover it in chocolate. Imagine the rapid increase in emergency room admissions from kids trying in vain to bite through this monstrosity. Imagine being a fat kid being caught by your classmates buying a candy bar with a name like this. Prozac was invented for these kids.
Candy Cigarettes - Oh, here's a great idea. I suppose it would go great with ginger ALE and root BEER that you would drink whenever mom made POT luck dinner and HASH browns. Of course, I drank COKE instead. Gotta admit, though...it did make you look cool when you were seven years old.
Pixie Stix - Sugar. Pure sugar - but worse. Feed this to a monkey in the morning and you'll be digging a grave for it before lunch time.
Hell, today if I take a bite of candy, my whole body becomes stiffer than a teenager riding the school bus (trust me on this, girls). I end up unbalanced and reaching for a solid structure to steady myself like I was caught in an earthquake. My teeth feel fuzzy and I'm already bequeathing all of my possessions to loved ones as I slam onto the couch in a dizzying heap. Then, a tingling euphoria floods over me - kind of like when someone lightly scratches the back of my neck. It feels like a roller coaster ride. I look down at the wrapper that fell on the floor next to me and see that it was a "Fun Size" candy.
Hmmm. Maybe they were right.
I was first moved to thinking about writing of candy when Easter jumped out at us from behind the vernal corner. No warning, no postcards, just BAM - there it was, all resplendent and covered in pastels. I asked my friend if she made Easter baskets for her kids and she said "of course!" Immediately, the abacus stones in my brain were thrust violently to one side and I was sent tumbling back to 1973 (or 1974 - all the years in the 70s were the same. Until disco). I found myself staring chocolate-brown eye to brown chocolate eye with a hulking behemoth of a bunny. It was enormous and it weighed as much as a pair of wet dungarees. Back then, chocolate bunnies were made of SOLID chocolate, not this fake-me-out hollow business that couldn't withstand the grip of a two year old and collapses more easily than a South American government. I remember those old bunnies because you could never break through and just snap off a piece. Oh sure, the ears were easy prey, but that was like pretending your hot breath on a cold day made you look like you were smoking - anyone could do that. The real challenge was getting to the heart of the beast, namely, when all protrusions and distractions like feet, ears, head, tail had been conquered and you were left with something that resembled a chocolate pancreas brick. And oh what stories that brick could tell: The ridges on all sides gouged by your teeth in thick corduroy fashion desperately looking for a weakness; The fingerprints deeply embedded as you fought and strained to siphon off a chunk; the strangely flat and concussed part where it hit the kitchen floor after your teeth slipped and you accidentally bit a hole into your tongue, your cheek, or both...
But, Easter was more than killer chocolate bunnies. There were other candies, as well - and other candies for other moments. Back then, saying you were going to get a Hershey Bar meant that you were going to get a Hershey Bar - a nice, long flat bar of chocolate that you would happily devour for no reason at all. If you were haute couture, you'd buy the Hershey Bar with almonds. Today, no one just goes into a store and buys a Hershey Bar. And if you do, you don't just sit back in the bean bag chair and eat the whole damned thing. No, today, you break off the conveniently sectioned pieces of a GIANT Hershey Bar and put the rest in the refrigerator or hide them in your desk at work. This, of course, brings me to the miniatures. Now, don't put this all on the shoulders of the hard working folks at Hershey - there's plenty of blame to go around - but, who in the hell decided to call the little pieces of Krackle, Three Muskateers, Mr. Goodbar, etc. "Fun Size"? Are you having "fun" when you eat one? I sure as hell am not. Watching a good chick-flick "weeper"? Don't reach for that candy bowl - you're liable to have "fun" and blow the entire mood. Having the gang over from work and everyone just kind of stares awkwardly, shifting their stances and pushing crackers around on paper plates while you wheel out the half-empty bags of whatever potato chips you had in the cabinet over the stove? Break out the "Fun Size" candies and turn your monastery of a bachelor pad into a roller disco!
Back in the day, there were some great candies that either are not being made anymore or are only available in that one place your sister went with her husband about three summers ago or online from some sketchy guy who also sells "Keep On Truckin'" and "Stoned Again" T-shirts. Let's see if any of these ring the old memory bell:
Marathon Bars - The marketing department nailed this one. Imagine a foot-long link of caramel in the shape of interlocking pretzels and covered with a fragile coating of what passed as chocolate and you have the Marathon Bar. After unwrapping one end and sinking your teeth into a section, the caramel would change properties, converting into some type of evil epoxy that ripped fillings from your teeth, sprained the muscles in your jaw, and left your communication abilities to frantic arm-waving. By the time the enzymes in your saliva freed you from confectionary death and you could finally collect yourself after breathing deeply for a minute or two, what did you do? That's right, you took another bite. Dumb ass.
Charleston Chews - I don't remember much about this candy bar except that it fell in line with the Marathon Bar in the "size matters" category. I think I might have had it once and developed lock-jaw. I also remember the television commercial for it showing some jittery hooligan doing the Charleston dance with his fringy flapper gal. Laugh now. Today, kids are buying candy that looks and feels like snot.
Mallo Cups - Yeah, yeah, I know, they're still around. But, they were never around where I used to buy and steal MY candy. I had to go visit my grandmother in Pennsylvania just to be able to buy Mallo Cups. Talk about a candy that was so sweet and overbearing - it would make the insides of my ears sting. I loved them - well, the idea of them, anyway. Difficult to find in most places that hadn't already been carrying them since the rise of the Ottoman Empire.
Razzles - Is it a candy? Is it a gum? Why, it's two things in one! Razzles MUST have been the result of some maniacal candy scientist trying to come up with some other type of candy and accidentally "discovered" this. I can see it now, the scientist, up all weekend, existing on cigarettes, garden hose water and powdered gravy. After a series of explosions in the lab, all the police find the next day is a shredded lab coat with multi-colored candies stuck to the inside. After a furious game of rock-paper-scissors with his partner and the lieutenant, one officer puts a piece in his mouth while the other policemen and detectives point and say "Ewwww!" He realizes that, hey, this is more than just candy! It's...it's...it's bubble gum, too! Legend has it that every piece of Razzles to this day came from the inside of that lab coat.
Chunky - Imagine if you will a cement trapezoid. Cover it in chocolate. Imagine the rapid increase in emergency room admissions from kids trying in vain to bite through this monstrosity. Imagine being a fat kid being caught by your classmates buying a candy bar with a name like this. Prozac was invented for these kids.
Candy Cigarettes - Oh, here's a great idea. I suppose it would go great with ginger ALE and root BEER that you would drink whenever mom made POT luck dinner and HASH browns. Of course, I drank COKE instead. Gotta admit, though...it did make you look cool when you were seven years old.
Pixie Stix - Sugar. Pure sugar - but worse. Feed this to a monkey in the morning and you'll be digging a grave for it before lunch time.
Hell, today if I take a bite of candy, my whole body becomes stiffer than a teenager riding the school bus (trust me on this, girls). I end up unbalanced and reaching for a solid structure to steady myself like I was caught in an earthquake. My teeth feel fuzzy and I'm already bequeathing all of my possessions to loved ones as I slam onto the couch in a dizzying heap. Then, a tingling euphoria floods over me - kind of like when someone lightly scratches the back of my neck. It feels like a roller coaster ride. I look down at the wrapper that fell on the floor next to me and see that it was a "Fun Size" candy.
Hmmm. Maybe they were right.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Cinnamon
My best friend lost her best friend today. No, it wasn't me. It was Cinnamon, her sweet puppy dog. I thought it over many times what I would say to eulogize this wonderful little guy, but I was never satisfied at how my words could convey just how special he was - so I'll just write whatever comes out of my mind. You see, like most pets who are loved by their owners, Cinnamon - or "Cinny," as he was called - was never just a pet. He was a part of the family.
I never had the opportunity to have a dog while I was growing up, and while I look back with regret at not having a four-legged friend to call my own, I also look back with relief - a coward's relief that comes with not wanting to risk loving an animal because of the simple knowledge that they live much shorter lives than humans. I would struggle with thoughts of balancing the imaginary joy of my dog's company with the heartrending despair of losing him to accident, disease, or Father Time. Cinny was as much a part of my best friend's family as her children. In fact, he was her third child. He was only six years old and had his whole life ahead of him, but disease brought an end to this special little guy much too soon. He had recently become sick and my friend was growing increasingly concerned. I felt helpless because there was nothing I could do for her or Cinny. I prayed for him, I prayed for her and her family, but it wasn't enough.
Dogs are wonderful creatures. They give their love to their owners unconditionally, and Cinny was no different. He lived with another family for the first two years of his life - a family that didn't want him. Cinny found a home that loved and adored him and he gave that love back to them in spades. Whether he was barking frantically at people when they walked by the house, carrying back generous clots of snow stuck to his fur when he would answer nature's call in Winter, or leave his little squeaky toys all over the living room floor for people to step on, it was impossible to get mad at him. He loved to have his tummy scratched and he had boundless energy. The only thing he didn't have was the voice to tell the family just how much they meant to him. When he started getting sick, he was scared. He was just too young and naive to understand what was happening to him. Closing my eyes, I can see him looking up at my friend and asking, "What's happening to me?" and she not knowing what to tell him - saying over and over again that he's going to be all right while in the back of her mind knowing it probably is not. It must have been frightening to him to not know what was happening, to not have an ability to be told that you are sick and understand those words. His only comfort was feeling the warmth and love of the family - a warmth and love that he played a large part in helping create himself as a member of that family.
Her children have known Cinny their entire lives. They don't know what life is without him. They could always count on him to meet them at the door after school and feed him scraps under the table. Some day, when they are older and have the benefit of a few more years on their odometers, they will look back and reminisce about Cinnamon with loving remembrance. They all will; and not just the immediate family, but everyone who ever knew this mercurial (in the best sense) little guy and experienced him racing around the living room at top speed whenever someone new walked in. He didn't have an enemy in this world. How many humans can say that about themselves? And here, we're supposed to be the superior creatures.
I would have gladly given time off my life to give to Cinny, even if it was only one extra day so my friend and her family could spend just a little more time with him and Cinny could feel just a little more love before he passed beyond this world. After all, isn't time the greatest gift to receive? It wouldn't have just been a gift for Cinny; it would have been a gift to the family and all who knew him. It's the least anyone could have done for him.
For wasn't his unconditional love the greatest gift he gave to us? We all miss you, little guy. Thank you for letting us share in your life.
I never had the opportunity to have a dog while I was growing up, and while I look back with regret at not having a four-legged friend to call my own, I also look back with relief - a coward's relief that comes with not wanting to risk loving an animal because of the simple knowledge that they live much shorter lives than humans. I would struggle with thoughts of balancing the imaginary joy of my dog's company with the heartrending despair of losing him to accident, disease, or Father Time. Cinny was as much a part of my best friend's family as her children. In fact, he was her third child. He was only six years old and had his whole life ahead of him, but disease brought an end to this special little guy much too soon. He had recently become sick and my friend was growing increasingly concerned. I felt helpless because there was nothing I could do for her or Cinny. I prayed for him, I prayed for her and her family, but it wasn't enough.
Dogs are wonderful creatures. They give their love to their owners unconditionally, and Cinny was no different. He lived with another family for the first two years of his life - a family that didn't want him. Cinny found a home that loved and adored him and he gave that love back to them in spades. Whether he was barking frantically at people when they walked by the house, carrying back generous clots of snow stuck to his fur when he would answer nature's call in Winter, or leave his little squeaky toys all over the living room floor for people to step on, it was impossible to get mad at him. He loved to have his tummy scratched and he had boundless energy. The only thing he didn't have was the voice to tell the family just how much they meant to him. When he started getting sick, he was scared. He was just too young and naive to understand what was happening to him. Closing my eyes, I can see him looking up at my friend and asking, "What's happening to me?" and she not knowing what to tell him - saying over and over again that he's going to be all right while in the back of her mind knowing it probably is not. It must have been frightening to him to not know what was happening, to not have an ability to be told that you are sick and understand those words. His only comfort was feeling the warmth and love of the family - a warmth and love that he played a large part in helping create himself as a member of that family.
Her children have known Cinny their entire lives. They don't know what life is without him. They could always count on him to meet them at the door after school and feed him scraps under the table. Some day, when they are older and have the benefit of a few more years on their odometers, they will look back and reminisce about Cinnamon with loving remembrance. They all will; and not just the immediate family, but everyone who ever knew this mercurial (in the best sense) little guy and experienced him racing around the living room at top speed whenever someone new walked in. He didn't have an enemy in this world. How many humans can say that about themselves? And here, we're supposed to be the superior creatures.
I would have gladly given time off my life to give to Cinny, even if it was only one extra day so my friend and her family could spend just a little more time with him and Cinny could feel just a little more love before he passed beyond this world. After all, isn't time the greatest gift to receive? It wouldn't have just been a gift for Cinny; it would have been a gift to the family and all who knew him. It's the least anyone could have done for him.
For wasn't his unconditional love the greatest gift he gave to us? We all miss you, little guy. Thank you for letting us share in your life.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Dream a Little Dream
Many people with many more degrees and many more star charts on their walls than I have undertaken the abstract subject of dreams. Look, let me say this right up front - I don't put much stock in dream interpretation. Sure, there are easy bridges to make such as, if you had a dream about eating chocolate pudding from the head of Sherlock Holmes, you are obsessed with death. Dreamt about balancing a marshmallow deck chair on the tip of your nose? Death. Had a dream about snapping into a cyanide capsule as you kick away the ladder and swing in a noose while Satan pumps round after round of armor-piercing bullets into your swinging body? Well, actually, that's not about death, it's about sexual anxiety in group situations, but more on that another time.
When I was a kid, I was terrorized by nightmares. It wasn't even funny. It was vivid, raw and disturbing. They were kinds of dreams that would make Norman Bates wake up and cry "Mommy!" Then, poof! They were gone. No more monsters chasing me, no more scary dreams, not even an off-camera grunt. Almost overnight, I became immune to all of it. Dreams starting taking on more of an idyllic tilt. Of course, as I grew older, reveries of scoring the winning goal in the Stanley Cup finals, morphing into all-powerful beasts, and discovering large sacks of money were replaced with dreams of naked girls, opulent homes, and large sacks of money. Even more so, they constituted the backbone of my daydreams, but that's another story for another audience.
Now, I'm going to back up and tell you that I lied. I DO still have dreams with horrific monsters in them, but, I know it's only a dream, so I simply make myself bigger than the monster and knock the snot out of them. No more running down that long hallway that stretches farther with each step and no more dead-legging where I can't run anymore (that's only in real life). Now? Well, nowadays I can glide along like I'm skating on a thick crust of tiramisu, lift off the ground as easily as a birthday balloon, and change locations more quickly than a fast-forwarded version of a montage of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" episodes. Dreams of falling have been replaced with dreams of gliding down softly and nonchalantly before cruising into my next adventure. What can I say - I'm at peace with my dreams.
Now, if you are a so-called normal person, you've had the naked dream, or at least the underwear dream. Those are the dreams where you are in a public setting either bare-ass naked or in your underwear, and you're terrified. Me? Not a chance. Hey, I'm no bronze Adonis, nor am I a reincarnation of John Holmes, but in my dreams, I'm strutting like Tony Manero in the opening credits of Saturday Night Fever, with my junk out there catching the breeze. Some of you have even had the toilet dream. What's the toilet dream? Glad you asked. It's the dream where you are sitting (usually naked) on the toilet, and it ain't a result of drinking too much water, if you catch my drift. The thing is, you're doing it in such private confines as a busy train station, the mezzanine of baseball stadium between innings, or by the cash registers of Macy's on Black Friday. This can really test your mettle, and it's not considered a weakness to wake up to re-calibrate yourself and fall back asleep into another dream. With any luck, you'll forget about it by the time you wake up.
I've also found myself experiencing repeats in my dreams. Sometimes a dream will get under way and I'll think to myself, "Oh, I know how this one goes." Then I'll kick back and enjoy it, shouting at the "screen" to "not go in there!" or, "oh, yeah, this is where that chick gets naked" - I love those dreams most of all. I do dream in color, and some jokes that I remember from my dreams are actually funny when I repeat them to myself after I'm awake, so I wonder on which side of the line of consciousness I belong. Personally, I think I belong on the side of the gorgeous naked girl dream that repeats over and over and over again. No need telling me what THAT dream means...
Last I heard, it was about death.
When I was a kid, I was terrorized by nightmares. It wasn't even funny. It was vivid, raw and disturbing. They were kinds of dreams that would make Norman Bates wake up and cry "Mommy!" Then, poof! They were gone. No more monsters chasing me, no more scary dreams, not even an off-camera grunt. Almost overnight, I became immune to all of it. Dreams starting taking on more of an idyllic tilt. Of course, as I grew older, reveries of scoring the winning goal in the Stanley Cup finals, morphing into all-powerful beasts, and discovering large sacks of money were replaced with dreams of naked girls, opulent homes, and large sacks of money. Even more so, they constituted the backbone of my daydreams, but that's another story for another audience.
Now, I'm going to back up and tell you that I lied. I DO still have dreams with horrific monsters in them, but, I know it's only a dream, so I simply make myself bigger than the monster and knock the snot out of them. No more running down that long hallway that stretches farther with each step and no more dead-legging where I can't run anymore (that's only in real life). Now? Well, nowadays I can glide along like I'm skating on a thick crust of tiramisu, lift off the ground as easily as a birthday balloon, and change locations more quickly than a fast-forwarded version of a montage of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" episodes. Dreams of falling have been replaced with dreams of gliding down softly and nonchalantly before cruising into my next adventure. What can I say - I'm at peace with my dreams.
Now, if you are a so-called normal person, you've had the naked dream, or at least the underwear dream. Those are the dreams where you are in a public setting either bare-ass naked or in your underwear, and you're terrified. Me? Not a chance. Hey, I'm no bronze Adonis, nor am I a reincarnation of John Holmes, but in my dreams, I'm strutting like Tony Manero in the opening credits of Saturday Night Fever, with my junk out there catching the breeze. Some of you have even had the toilet dream. What's the toilet dream? Glad you asked. It's the dream where you are sitting (usually naked) on the toilet, and it ain't a result of drinking too much water, if you catch my drift. The thing is, you're doing it in such private confines as a busy train station, the mezzanine of baseball stadium between innings, or by the cash registers of Macy's on Black Friday. This can really test your mettle, and it's not considered a weakness to wake up to re-calibrate yourself and fall back asleep into another dream. With any luck, you'll forget about it by the time you wake up.
I've also found myself experiencing repeats in my dreams. Sometimes a dream will get under way and I'll think to myself, "Oh, I know how this one goes." Then I'll kick back and enjoy it, shouting at the "screen" to "not go in there!" or, "oh, yeah, this is where that chick gets naked" - I love those dreams most of all. I do dream in color, and some jokes that I remember from my dreams are actually funny when I repeat them to myself after I'm awake, so I wonder on which side of the line of consciousness I belong. Personally, I think I belong on the side of the gorgeous naked girl dream that repeats over and over and over again. No need telling me what THAT dream means...
Last I heard, it was about death.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Brothers in Arms - and Fists
I was a pretty lousy brother when I was growing up. Not that local municipalities are dueling at dawn for the right to erect a statue of me as a testament to my excellence at being a brother in my adult years, but when I think back to those days, I realize that, as far as brothers go, Satan himself was probably saying, "Wow, what a lousy kid. Make sure he goes to heaven."
My older brother was slightly less than two years older than me, and if my math is correct, he still is. Dave was a bit of a roughneck, who would go tear-assing through the neighborhood at top speed, without any regard for his safety, and generally came home with the cuts, bruises, and groundings to prove it. Me? I was a shy, skinny kid, who preferred playing with my dinosaurs, reading dictionaries, and eating spiders in the backyard. There was always an uneasy truce between us. Dave was bold and bombastic while I was the sneaky, calculating one. Many a time when something was missing, broken, or on fire, it was Dave who received the punishment, while I would shove my hands into my pockets and whistle lightly as I coasted out of the room. But, you don't look into the mouth of the lion without being mauled once in a while. When my folks were not around, Dave, who was always handy with his fists, would bombard me with a barrage of haymakers until I was a tenderized and soft lump of meat - ready for the grill. On some occasions, I would do something to upset Dave (which didn't take a lot in those days), while we played on the side of the house. Before I knew it, he was launching himself at me, fists drawn back and ready to explode. I knew my window of opportunity was short, so I would let fly a diamond-cracking scream so loud that the dogs in the neighborhood would break into a cacophonous chorus of pain and anguish, followed by the appearance of my mother or father (or both) at the side door to grab Dave in mid-flight and give him a "lesson" on why he shouldn't hit his brother. I had this down to an art form, which only made Dave madder. I could have lived out the rest of my pre-adolescent years in this fashion if not for one mistake.
I went to the well one time too many.
Same scenario: playing baseball or football on the side of the house, Dave getting mad at me for something I may or may not have done, and then, with the roar of a hurricane of pissed-off tigers, he was on top of me, giving me a near-biblical beating. I yelled for my parents while fending off the blows, but, nobody came! I yelled again, and through the blur of fists, saw both my mother and father standing there, just watching me getting smashed like a beer can at a Sturgis bike rally. They figured it was time that I took my beating. I have to admit, they were right.
Oh, the thumpings continued, but with less frequency, if not less ferocity. I finally had enough. I could understand if I was the one who started the trouble - which was most of the time - but when Dave initiated it because I happened to score a touchdown on him or netted a goal against his team, I'd had enough. I'll never forget it. We actually duked it out in our driveway. It wasn't planned, it just manifested itself out of some strange cosmic "understanding" that it had to happen some day and today was that day. Dave was both fast and strong. I was fast and agile. He landed a few punches that sent me reeling, but I wasn't going to cry out this time. I turned it into anger and threw a couple of roundhouses that hit the mark. I think this surprised Dave the most - the fact I was even fighting back. Instead of receiving the grudging respect I thought my wild punches had earned me, I was hammered with a flurry of fists so fast that gravity itself started to bend in towards the oil spot on the driveway - but I wouldn't go down. There were these two skinny metal poles that held up the roof of the driveway, and I was always putting them between Dave and me, so he couldn't take a direct charge. Then, when neither he or I was expecting it, I closed my eyes, and threw a punch so hard that it rocked the heavens. God himself later told me that he had to tell the younger angels that "the humans are bowling downstairs." I connected with some part of Dave's face. I couldn't be sure if it was his nose or his mouth, but I saw blood - and blood always meant one thing to brothers who wanted to beat each other up - the fight was over. Why? Well, because while you wanted to pound your older or younger brother into cube steak, you didn't really want to HURT him. Unless you've had typical sibling fights at that age, you might not know what I'm talking about.
But, something changed that day. The fights stopped. It's not because Dave was afraid of me now - far from it. He knew that I would fight back and there would be no more free lunch, no matter how terrified I was at age 10 of being pummeled by him again. Yet, I never felt threatened by him anymore. We could disagree, argue, even yell at each other and it would never come to fisticuffs again. I had learned a lot from Dave. I became a good defensive fighter and wound up with excellent wrestling skills (though I never went out for any teams), but I earned his respect, and when you are a pre-adolescent with an older brother, all you want is his respect and acceptance. Sometimes, I've wondered if he was waiting for me to punch him all along and then when I did, he was giving me the gift that I had to earn myself. No one was going to earn it for me, and maybe, just maybe, he was glad to have a bloody nose or lip from his little brother.
Today, I have a very good relationship with Dave. It's been through some difficult times, don't get me wrong, but the love and respect we have for each other now is worth all the effort that brought us to where we are today.
Dave, thanks for making me stand up like a man, even when I was still a boy, and teaching me a lesson even you didn't know you were teaching.
But, you have to admit, that was one heck of a punch.
My older brother was slightly less than two years older than me, and if my math is correct, he still is. Dave was a bit of a roughneck, who would go tear-assing through the neighborhood at top speed, without any regard for his safety, and generally came home with the cuts, bruises, and groundings to prove it. Me? I was a shy, skinny kid, who preferred playing with my dinosaurs, reading dictionaries, and eating spiders in the backyard. There was always an uneasy truce between us. Dave was bold and bombastic while I was the sneaky, calculating one. Many a time when something was missing, broken, or on fire, it was Dave who received the punishment, while I would shove my hands into my pockets and whistle lightly as I coasted out of the room. But, you don't look into the mouth of the lion without being mauled once in a while. When my folks were not around, Dave, who was always handy with his fists, would bombard me with a barrage of haymakers until I was a tenderized and soft lump of meat - ready for the grill. On some occasions, I would do something to upset Dave (which didn't take a lot in those days), while we played on the side of the house. Before I knew it, he was launching himself at me, fists drawn back and ready to explode. I knew my window of opportunity was short, so I would let fly a diamond-cracking scream so loud that the dogs in the neighborhood would break into a cacophonous chorus of pain and anguish, followed by the appearance of my mother or father (or both) at the side door to grab Dave in mid-flight and give him a "lesson" on why he shouldn't hit his brother. I had this down to an art form, which only made Dave madder. I could have lived out the rest of my pre-adolescent years in this fashion if not for one mistake.
I went to the well one time too many.
Same scenario: playing baseball or football on the side of the house, Dave getting mad at me for something I may or may not have done, and then, with the roar of a hurricane of pissed-off tigers, he was on top of me, giving me a near-biblical beating. I yelled for my parents while fending off the blows, but, nobody came! I yelled again, and through the blur of fists, saw both my mother and father standing there, just watching me getting smashed like a beer can at a Sturgis bike rally. They figured it was time that I took my beating. I have to admit, they were right.
Oh, the thumpings continued, but with less frequency, if not less ferocity. I finally had enough. I could understand if I was the one who started the trouble - which was most of the time - but when Dave initiated it because I happened to score a touchdown on him or netted a goal against his team, I'd had enough. I'll never forget it. We actually duked it out in our driveway. It wasn't planned, it just manifested itself out of some strange cosmic "understanding" that it had to happen some day and today was that day. Dave was both fast and strong. I was fast and agile. He landed a few punches that sent me reeling, but I wasn't going to cry out this time. I turned it into anger and threw a couple of roundhouses that hit the mark. I think this surprised Dave the most - the fact I was even fighting back. Instead of receiving the grudging respect I thought my wild punches had earned me, I was hammered with a flurry of fists so fast that gravity itself started to bend in towards the oil spot on the driveway - but I wouldn't go down. There were these two skinny metal poles that held up the roof of the driveway, and I was always putting them between Dave and me, so he couldn't take a direct charge. Then, when neither he or I was expecting it, I closed my eyes, and threw a punch so hard that it rocked the heavens. God himself later told me that he had to tell the younger angels that "the humans are bowling downstairs." I connected with some part of Dave's face. I couldn't be sure if it was his nose or his mouth, but I saw blood - and blood always meant one thing to brothers who wanted to beat each other up - the fight was over. Why? Well, because while you wanted to pound your older or younger brother into cube steak, you didn't really want to HURT him. Unless you've had typical sibling fights at that age, you might not know what I'm talking about.
But, something changed that day. The fights stopped. It's not because Dave was afraid of me now - far from it. He knew that I would fight back and there would be no more free lunch, no matter how terrified I was at age 10 of being pummeled by him again. Yet, I never felt threatened by him anymore. We could disagree, argue, even yell at each other and it would never come to fisticuffs again. I had learned a lot from Dave. I became a good defensive fighter and wound up with excellent wrestling skills (though I never went out for any teams), but I earned his respect, and when you are a pre-adolescent with an older brother, all you want is his respect and acceptance. Sometimes, I've wondered if he was waiting for me to punch him all along and then when I did, he was giving me the gift that I had to earn myself. No one was going to earn it for me, and maybe, just maybe, he was glad to have a bloody nose or lip from his little brother.
Today, I have a very good relationship with Dave. It's been through some difficult times, don't get me wrong, but the love and respect we have for each other now is worth all the effort that brought us to where we are today.
Dave, thanks for making me stand up like a man, even when I was still a boy, and teaching me a lesson even you didn't know you were teaching.
But, you have to admit, that was one heck of a punch.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Ragazines
Let's get down to business - I love to read. I'll read any time and anywhere, given the opportunity. I'll read dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs, web pages, newspapers, pamphlets, matchbook covers, cereal boxes...well, you get the idea. However, I have to admit a certain weakness for magazines.
My love affair with magazines probably started with those "Highlights" magazines stacked in the corner of the classroom near the reading carrels. Back then, it was all about the puzzles in each issue. I'd time myself to see how long it took me to find the boot hidden in the tree, the star in the garbage or the cucumber in the nun's habit. Come to think of it, that sounds like something from a Salvador Dali/Robert Mapplethorpe collaboration. As it was, magazines were portable, flexible, and always had a new issue coming the next month. It was only natural that the next magazine I hooked onto was Playboy. Dad always had them in the basket (yes, you had them, too) shuffled in with the Sports Illustrated, Sears catalogs and Cosmopolitan magazines. Naked women in magazines can have a substantial effect on a boy. Soon, connecting the dots to show a dalmation wagging its tail at a fire hydrant didn't seem as appealing as naked women, party jokes and Annie Fannie. Oh, and do I need to remind you that they were also portable?
Fast forward a couple of decades. I'm still a hardcore reader of magazines, but I can't tell you the last time I bought a Playboy magazine. You know you're getting old when you really DO buy Playboy for the articles. All of the girls look the same - airbrushed to the point of blurring your vision. Fake boobs, idiotic platform shoes, spine-wrenching poses and laughable "come-hither" faces kind of turns me off. If I want to see naked women, I have approximately 100 bookmarked sites on the Internet I can access any time I wish. Pretty much every other man would tell you he has at least that many sites in his "favorites" folder, catalogued by brunettes, blondes, redheads, petites, "naturals", celebrities, and other categories. Then there are those who have a whole fetish thing going, but, I'm circling the drain here, so we'll leave it at that.
I migrated to the ultra-hip magazines that were supposed to speak to me - that's right, the "me" who is supposed to be the prototypical American man, with prototypical American appetites. Apparently, I'm supposed to drink - a lot, know exactly which words to say to a woman to make her tear her clothes off in an elevator, and laugh at everything Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson have ever done. These magazines, such as Maxim, FHM, Stuff, and their other periodical frat brothers started out with promise. There were some interesting articles, factoids, and bizarre photos, but they soon gave way to run-of-the-mill photos of dingbats in bikinis, smug articles that were more about the author than the subject of the article, and sophomoric captions for every damned photo in the magazine. To top that off, after rifling through the first two-thirds of the magazine being told just how neanderthalic, disgusting, and unwashed we men are - and celebrating that fact - we get treated to an entirely too-long section of men's fashion. These are clothes that no man - certainly not a man that reads a frat mag - would ever a) be able to afford, or b) even want to wear. The male models either look thin, reedy and androgynous (hey, solid move, Mr. Advertiser), or they have figures hewn out of marble, wearing clothes that the average overfed, unsophisticated and style-challenged man could never get away with wearing...in other words, the actual readers of those magazines. Don't go trying to push a $200 pocket square or $500 pair of huaraches on us when women prefer men in t-shirts and jeans - especially when that's all we own. We don't look like that. In fact, no men look like that except the models themselves, and I seriously doubt they are buying frat mags.
And don't forget to browse the last pages where you'll be shown how to increase your sexual performance, enhance yourself, talk to REAL horny co-eds, buy t-shirts with edgy sayings, purchase a vial of blood from the REAL Count Dracula, and, if you're lucky, how to buy your own hydroponic device to grow some seriously killer marijuana. They'll even throw in some starter seeds for you! By all means, don't expect to get caught or anything...
This brings me to the summit of Mount(ing) Frustation. Remember when you could open a magazine and within the first couple of pages was the Table of Contents? Remember that? Nowadays, the Table of Contents starts around page 80 because of all the ads. Take a look at a typical periodical and you'll be confronted with a pullout ad welcoming you to Smoking Country USA, then several over-priced liquor displays, jewelry/watch ads, perfume/cologne advertisements with various naked bodies, designer label clothing ads, and automobile promotions. Stir, mix, repeat. By the time I get to the Table of Contents, I've forgotten which magazine I bought. Of course, if I try to flip directly to the Table of Contents, I usually end up flipping right past it, as well as past the articles, and end up squarely in the middle of the fashion section or face-to-face with an advertisement wanting me to tell her all my deepest desires and how she can make those desires come true. Now that I think about it, maybe I should give that number a call.
I'll tell her she can start by tearing out 90% of the pages of my magazines so I can get a little reading done.
My love affair with magazines probably started with those "Highlights" magazines stacked in the corner of the classroom near the reading carrels. Back then, it was all about the puzzles in each issue. I'd time myself to see how long it took me to find the boot hidden in the tree, the star in the garbage or the cucumber in the nun's habit. Come to think of it, that sounds like something from a Salvador Dali/Robert Mapplethorpe collaboration. As it was, magazines were portable, flexible, and always had a new issue coming the next month. It was only natural that the next magazine I hooked onto was Playboy. Dad always had them in the basket (yes, you had them, too) shuffled in with the Sports Illustrated, Sears catalogs and Cosmopolitan magazines. Naked women in magazines can have a substantial effect on a boy. Soon, connecting the dots to show a dalmation wagging its tail at a fire hydrant didn't seem as appealing as naked women, party jokes and Annie Fannie. Oh, and do I need to remind you that they were also portable?
Fast forward a couple of decades. I'm still a hardcore reader of magazines, but I can't tell you the last time I bought a Playboy magazine. You know you're getting old when you really DO buy Playboy for the articles. All of the girls look the same - airbrushed to the point of blurring your vision. Fake boobs, idiotic platform shoes, spine-wrenching poses and laughable "come-hither" faces kind of turns me off. If I want to see naked women, I have approximately 100 bookmarked sites on the Internet I can access any time I wish. Pretty much every other man would tell you he has at least that many sites in his "favorites" folder, catalogued by brunettes, blondes, redheads, petites, "naturals", celebrities, and other categories. Then there are those who have a whole fetish thing going, but, I'm circling the drain here, so we'll leave it at that.
I migrated to the ultra-hip magazines that were supposed to speak to me - that's right, the "me" who is supposed to be the prototypical American man, with prototypical American appetites. Apparently, I'm supposed to drink - a lot, know exactly which words to say to a woman to make her tear her clothes off in an elevator, and laugh at everything Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson have ever done. These magazines, such as Maxim, FHM, Stuff, and their other periodical frat brothers started out with promise. There were some interesting articles, factoids, and bizarre photos, but they soon gave way to run-of-the-mill photos of dingbats in bikinis, smug articles that were more about the author than the subject of the article, and sophomoric captions for every damned photo in the magazine. To top that off, after rifling through the first two-thirds of the magazine being told just how neanderthalic, disgusting, and unwashed we men are - and celebrating that fact - we get treated to an entirely too-long section of men's fashion. These are clothes that no man - certainly not a man that reads a frat mag - would ever a) be able to afford, or b) even want to wear. The male models either look thin, reedy and androgynous (hey, solid move, Mr. Advertiser), or they have figures hewn out of marble, wearing clothes that the average overfed, unsophisticated and style-challenged man could never get away with wearing...in other words, the actual readers of those magazines. Don't go trying to push a $200 pocket square or $500 pair of huaraches on us when women prefer men in t-shirts and jeans - especially when that's all we own. We don't look like that. In fact, no men look like that except the models themselves, and I seriously doubt they are buying frat mags.
And don't forget to browse the last pages where you'll be shown how to increase your sexual performance, enhance yourself, talk to REAL horny co-eds, buy t-shirts with edgy sayings, purchase a vial of blood from the REAL Count Dracula, and, if you're lucky, how to buy your own hydroponic device to grow some seriously killer marijuana. They'll even throw in some starter seeds for you! By all means, don't expect to get caught or anything...
This brings me to the summit of Mount(ing) Frustation. Remember when you could open a magazine and within the first couple of pages was the Table of Contents? Remember that? Nowadays, the Table of Contents starts around page 80 because of all the ads. Take a look at a typical periodical and you'll be confronted with a pullout ad welcoming you to Smoking Country USA, then several over-priced liquor displays, jewelry/watch ads, perfume/cologne advertisements with various naked bodies, designer label clothing ads, and automobile promotions. Stir, mix, repeat. By the time I get to the Table of Contents, I've forgotten which magazine I bought. Of course, if I try to flip directly to the Table of Contents, I usually end up flipping right past it, as well as past the articles, and end up squarely in the middle of the fashion section or face-to-face with an advertisement wanting me to tell her all my deepest desires and how she can make those desires come true. Now that I think about it, maybe I should give that number a call.
I'll tell her she can start by tearing out 90% of the pages of my magazines so I can get a little reading done.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Rod
I want to break from my usual form - go ahead, laugh amongst yourselves - and tell you a little bit about a special person. I am abandoning the writing style and whiplash humor that usually inhabit my stories to introduce you to a person who has had as profound an impact on my life as either of my parents. His name is Rodney, but he's better known as Rod. Actually, we (his friends) rarely ever call him that, either. In college and the knucklehead years just after college, a close group of friends rarely escapes without each member of the group being yoked with a nickname. Rod, for his part, had a handful of nicknames draped over him: The Hawk, Dad, The Stain, The Delaware Condor, and the most popular one - The Ripper, which we sometimes shortened to "Rip." He took all of the nicknames in stride, even reveled in them, because no matter what we called him, no matter what divisive cut-ups were lobbed his way, one thing was without question: He gained your respect from the first hello.
I first met Rod in first grade on the school playground in the early 1970s at recess. He had buddied up with some kid named Chris Spring and they both stood out because they had the most bitchin' Converse high-tops. Chris had red sneakers and Rod wore green, if I remember correctly. Rod was your typical Cuban/Irish kid, which, if you know any Cuban/Irish kids, would require no further explanation. He was tall and had a permanent tan, with gangly arms and legs that belied his slick coordination. His hair was curly and wild and large eyes that seemed to pop out of his head. Even then, he was a force of nature. Everyone wanted to be his friend and he made complete strangers comfortable - even at that age. He was also freakishly intelligent. However, Rod's intelligence was not a purely scholastic ability. He was a master of deductive reasoning and savant of common sense.
I don't really remember when Rod and I became close friends. It had to be sometime towards the end of Junior High. When you were friends with Rod, you were swept into a world of seemingly hundreds of people who admired him and enjoyed his company. Rod's sense of humor was sharp and biting, and he could tear an unlucky victim to shreds, yet, five seconds later would make a self-deprecating joke about himself when he realized he went too far. And that laugh... Rod's laugh was infectious and contagious. It was a roiling, rolling, high pitch of thunder that rattled the windows of the surrounding neighborhood. Rod was what everyone who knew him, if they were honest with themselves, aspired to be.
By no means was he the perfect person. He made mistakes like anyone else. But, Rod held people in the palm of his hands - students and teachers alike - even the principal. Ferris Beuller had nothing on him. When Rod ran for Senior Class President, it was no surprise when he won in a landslide. His campaign slogan was "In Rod We Trust". And we sure did. He never smoked, drank, nor ever used profanity. Not even "damn" or "hell". People who never met him still knew about him. But Rod never let it go to his head, and by the time we graduated High School, we were very good friends.
There were never any really significant events during those high school years that emblazoned our friendship, rather, it was the consistent fun we had doing the most innocuous of things; Walking through the neighborhoods late at night singing "Hotel California" or "Stairway to Heaven" (I never had the heart to tell Rod he couldn't carry a tune - sorry, buddy!), taking my little brother with us to see a Benji movie and then sneaking into see Tarzan so we could see a naked Bo Derek, getting into his mom's station wagon in Winter and driving to the icy parking lot of the High School so he could lockup the breaks and do fishtails and spin outs.
When we went to college, I fell in with a terrific crowd of friends that are still my friends to this day. I brought Rod around and he quickly gained favor with everyone. MY college friends immediately became OUR college friends, and Rod returned the favor. We were a big, happy family and Rod was never too far from the center of the storm. He was the single most enjoyable person in any room he was in. He was also my best friend.
But, as much as we were long-time friends, Rod was willing to put our friendship on the line. I had flunked out of college and all of my university friends - including Rod - were continuing on. I half-heartedly took a few classes, took a few jobs, and partied all the time. One night during the summer, Rod was dropping me off at my parents' house after we had gone to see a movie. He said "I'm going to tell you something, and you're probably not going to like it, but I'm willing to risk our friendship because this is important." He then ripped into me for throwing my life away. I balled my hand into a fist and was ready to punch him, but I figured I would give him the benefit of the doubt and let him finish. When he was done, I realized that he was right. I was throwing my life away. My friends WERE moving on without me. To make a long story short, I eventually matriculated back to college full-time and graduated, and I still had my friends. It never would have happened if Rod hadn't risked our friendship that night.
Rod called me yesterday. We laughed and joked just like old times again. We don't get to see each other much - none of us do anymore - but five seconds into any conversation and we were right back where we left off. It's been 34 years since we first met and I could never look back at the good times in my life and not have Rod's presence permeate those memories. He has a wife (Stephanie) whom he loves dearly, and three children who lucked out in having him for a dad. Sometimes, I would wonder why someone who seemingly always had the world in his hands would have me as his friend. Thinking about it now, I'm probably Rod's longest-standing friend - just as he is mine. It doesn't say anything about me that he chose to be my best friend all these years.
But, it sure as hell says a lot about him. Thanks, buddy. Here's to another 34 years.
I first met Rod in first grade on the school playground in the early 1970s at recess. He had buddied up with some kid named Chris Spring and they both stood out because they had the most bitchin' Converse high-tops. Chris had red sneakers and Rod wore green, if I remember correctly. Rod was your typical Cuban/Irish kid, which, if you know any Cuban/Irish kids, would require no further explanation. He was tall and had a permanent tan, with gangly arms and legs that belied his slick coordination. His hair was curly and wild and large eyes that seemed to pop out of his head. Even then, he was a force of nature. Everyone wanted to be his friend and he made complete strangers comfortable - even at that age. He was also freakishly intelligent. However, Rod's intelligence was not a purely scholastic ability. He was a master of deductive reasoning and savant of common sense.
I don't really remember when Rod and I became close friends. It had to be sometime towards the end of Junior High. When you were friends with Rod, you were swept into a world of seemingly hundreds of people who admired him and enjoyed his company. Rod's sense of humor was sharp and biting, and he could tear an unlucky victim to shreds, yet, five seconds later would make a self-deprecating joke about himself when he realized he went too far. And that laugh... Rod's laugh was infectious and contagious. It was a roiling, rolling, high pitch of thunder that rattled the windows of the surrounding neighborhood. Rod was what everyone who knew him, if they were honest with themselves, aspired to be.
By no means was he the perfect person. He made mistakes like anyone else. But, Rod held people in the palm of his hands - students and teachers alike - even the principal. Ferris Beuller had nothing on him. When Rod ran for Senior Class President, it was no surprise when he won in a landslide. His campaign slogan was "In Rod We Trust". And we sure did. He never smoked, drank, nor ever used profanity. Not even "damn" or "hell". People who never met him still knew about him. But Rod never let it go to his head, and by the time we graduated High School, we were very good friends.
There were never any really significant events during those high school years that emblazoned our friendship, rather, it was the consistent fun we had doing the most innocuous of things; Walking through the neighborhoods late at night singing "Hotel California" or "Stairway to Heaven" (I never had the heart to tell Rod he couldn't carry a tune - sorry, buddy!), taking my little brother with us to see a Benji movie and then sneaking into see Tarzan so we could see a naked Bo Derek, getting into his mom's station wagon in Winter and driving to the icy parking lot of the High School so he could lockup the breaks and do fishtails and spin outs.
When we went to college, I fell in with a terrific crowd of friends that are still my friends to this day. I brought Rod around and he quickly gained favor with everyone. MY college friends immediately became OUR college friends, and Rod returned the favor. We were a big, happy family and Rod was never too far from the center of the storm. He was the single most enjoyable person in any room he was in. He was also my best friend.
But, as much as we were long-time friends, Rod was willing to put our friendship on the line. I had flunked out of college and all of my university friends - including Rod - were continuing on. I half-heartedly took a few classes, took a few jobs, and partied all the time. One night during the summer, Rod was dropping me off at my parents' house after we had gone to see a movie. He said "I'm going to tell you something, and you're probably not going to like it, but I'm willing to risk our friendship because this is important." He then ripped into me for throwing my life away. I balled my hand into a fist and was ready to punch him, but I figured I would give him the benefit of the doubt and let him finish. When he was done, I realized that he was right. I was throwing my life away. My friends WERE moving on without me. To make a long story short, I eventually matriculated back to college full-time and graduated, and I still had my friends. It never would have happened if Rod hadn't risked our friendship that night.
Rod called me yesterday. We laughed and joked just like old times again. We don't get to see each other much - none of us do anymore - but five seconds into any conversation and we were right back where we left off. It's been 34 years since we first met and I could never look back at the good times in my life and not have Rod's presence permeate those memories. He has a wife (Stephanie) whom he loves dearly, and three children who lucked out in having him for a dad. Sometimes, I would wonder why someone who seemingly always had the world in his hands would have me as his friend. Thinking about it now, I'm probably Rod's longest-standing friend - just as he is mine. It doesn't say anything about me that he chose to be my best friend all these years.
But, it sure as hell says a lot about him. Thanks, buddy. Here's to another 34 years.
Friday, February 03, 2006
40
"How long...to sing this song? How long...to sing this song?..."
"40" - U2
I turned 40 today. For those of you who have had the pleasure of experiencing this milestone already and have come to terms with it - hell, even revel in it - this may seem like some melodramatic navel-gazing to you. For me, it's like putting on a new pair of jeans. No, not those trendy "broken-in" jeans that you just HAVE to have. I'm talking about the stiff, itchy bulletproof denim jeans. Remember Toughskins dungarees? Yeah, like them. You'd walk around like Frankenstein's monster the first several times you wore them until you broke the spirit of the unholy molecules in the fabric. After that, they became your favorite pair of jeans...just in time to watch them develop holes, scuff the hem, or dislodge a belt loop.
See, that is how I am approaching my new decade of life. By the time I'm used to my 40s, I'll be receiving brochures for how wonderful my 50s are going to be. Hey, I still have a few good years from my 20s and 30s in a savings account. I'd like to cash those in before the market drops out - or my teeth. 40 was always a mythical number for me. Noah was adrift for 40 days and nights. Moses was on Mount Sinai for the same length of time when he received the 10 Commandments. And how could I possibly forget the 40 oz. bottles of King Cobra Malt Liquor Scotty and I used to polish off in college before heading out to heap even more abuse onto our livers? If I'm correct, Edgar Allan Poe was 40 years old when he died. He wrote some of the most arresting literature in American history. He practically invented the crime story, was a master of the macabre, and still celebrates a cult status around these parts. Me? I just turned 40 and can barely write a bawdy limerick The only way I'll ever be remembered is if I get drunk, belch "Amazing Grace" and whistle a whiskey bottle between Simon and Paula's heads. Then, I'd have to rub marshmallow fluff all over my chest and scream, "Is it sexy in here, or is it just me???"
Hell, after that, the television studios would be shoving blank checks into my clenched fists - after I finished my 60-day stretch in the hoosegow.
Lately, I've been hearing all this delusional, say-it-enough-times-and-I'll-believe-it pile of steaming horse turd sunshine about 40 being "the new 20." Want to run that by me again? So, does this mean I can't buy beer until I'm 41? Do I have to date bimbos with big hair and stirrup pants again? Do I have to witness the stomach-churning ascension of Julia Roberts in the Hollywood community yet one more time? What about my resume? Will I have to put fry cook, paper boy, and grocery clerk back to their former positions of prominence? On the flip side, can I go back to Spring Break, drink from the keg, and smoke reefer on the roof of my house? And who decided that 40 is the new 20? Is 83 the new 63? Is 19 the new pre-natal? I mean, for 40, I don't look bad for my age. Many people guess that I am in my early-to-mid 30s. But, if I'm supposed to be 20, well then, I look like someone who spent a long, hot summer underneath the foam couch cushions of a round-the-clock team of unwashed, chain-smoking mountain men who farted and spilled tobacco juice every time they took a seat. The people who decided to declare that 40 is the new 20 are probably the same people who sneer at others who just order a "plain" coffee, have (or wish they had) a drag queen as a best friend, and gossip breathlessly until 4:00 in the morning about people in Hollywood who have absolutely no bearing on their lives and who wouldn't think twice about blowing their nose into the hair of their adoring public. 40 is not the new 20, it's not even the new 39. 40 is 40, so stop hypnotizing yourselves into trying to feel better about your age. You are what you are. If you feel 16 inside, so be it - you're still 40 on the outside. However, if you're 16 on the outside and feel 40 on the inside, I'd say that you're too young for premarital sex and someone is going to get 10-20 years in County Jail.
Oh, I'm sure that this is only a passing phase. I'll laugh this off as just another silly hiccup of vanity. No more gray hairs sprouted up overnight - no more than usual, that is, no liver spots moved into town, and I can still read without glasses. Of course, I'm going to need to buy a leather jacket, pick up a sports car, and date cheerleaders and Hooters girls. Hey, I'm 40 now. I'm OWED that.
Well, at least I thought I was. Apparently, I have to wait another 20 years.
"40" - U2
I turned 40 today. For those of you who have had the pleasure of experiencing this milestone already and have come to terms with it - hell, even revel in it - this may seem like some melodramatic navel-gazing to you. For me, it's like putting on a new pair of jeans. No, not those trendy "broken-in" jeans that you just HAVE to have. I'm talking about the stiff, itchy bulletproof denim jeans. Remember Toughskins dungarees? Yeah, like them. You'd walk around like Frankenstein's monster the first several times you wore them until you broke the spirit of the unholy molecules in the fabric. After that, they became your favorite pair of jeans...just in time to watch them develop holes, scuff the hem, or dislodge a belt loop.
See, that is how I am approaching my new decade of life. By the time I'm used to my 40s, I'll be receiving brochures for how wonderful my 50s are going to be. Hey, I still have a few good years from my 20s and 30s in a savings account. I'd like to cash those in before the market drops out - or my teeth. 40 was always a mythical number for me. Noah was adrift for 40 days and nights. Moses was on Mount Sinai for the same length of time when he received the 10 Commandments. And how could I possibly forget the 40 oz. bottles of King Cobra Malt Liquor Scotty and I used to polish off in college before heading out to heap even more abuse onto our livers? If I'm correct, Edgar Allan Poe was 40 years old when he died. He wrote some of the most arresting literature in American history. He practically invented the crime story, was a master of the macabre, and still celebrates a cult status around these parts. Me? I just turned 40 and can barely write a bawdy limerick The only way I'll ever be remembered is if I get drunk, belch "Amazing Grace" and whistle a whiskey bottle between Simon and Paula's heads. Then, I'd have to rub marshmallow fluff all over my chest and scream, "Is it sexy in here, or is it just me???"
Hell, after that, the television studios would be shoving blank checks into my clenched fists - after I finished my 60-day stretch in the hoosegow.
Lately, I've been hearing all this delusional, say-it-enough-times-and-I'll-believe-it pile of steaming horse turd sunshine about 40 being "the new 20." Want to run that by me again? So, does this mean I can't buy beer until I'm 41? Do I have to date bimbos with big hair and stirrup pants again? Do I have to witness the stomach-churning ascension of Julia Roberts in the Hollywood community yet one more time? What about my resume? Will I have to put fry cook, paper boy, and grocery clerk back to their former positions of prominence? On the flip side, can I go back to Spring Break, drink from the keg, and smoke reefer on the roof of my house? And who decided that 40 is the new 20? Is 83 the new 63? Is 19 the new pre-natal? I mean, for 40, I don't look bad for my age. Many people guess that I am in my early-to-mid 30s. But, if I'm supposed to be 20, well then, I look like someone who spent a long, hot summer underneath the foam couch cushions of a round-the-clock team of unwashed, chain-smoking mountain men who farted and spilled tobacco juice every time they took a seat. The people who decided to declare that 40 is the new 20 are probably the same people who sneer at others who just order a "plain" coffee, have (or wish they had) a drag queen as a best friend, and gossip breathlessly until 4:00 in the morning about people in Hollywood who have absolutely no bearing on their lives and who wouldn't think twice about blowing their nose into the hair of their adoring public. 40 is not the new 20, it's not even the new 39. 40 is 40, so stop hypnotizing yourselves into trying to feel better about your age. You are what you are. If you feel 16 inside, so be it - you're still 40 on the outside. However, if you're 16 on the outside and feel 40 on the inside, I'd say that you're too young for premarital sex and someone is going to get 10-20 years in County Jail.
Oh, I'm sure that this is only a passing phase. I'll laugh this off as just another silly hiccup of vanity. No more gray hairs sprouted up overnight - no more than usual, that is, no liver spots moved into town, and I can still read without glasses. Of course, I'm going to need to buy a leather jacket, pick up a sports car, and date cheerleaders and Hooters girls. Hey, I'm 40 now. I'm OWED that.
Well, at least I thought I was. Apparently, I have to wait another 20 years.
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