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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Rate Your Mate by Trait

I just finished reading a little article out of Toronto that asked men and women around the world what they considered the most important trait is in a mate. I'm always amused by these types of studies because I wonder if they consider the fact that an answer to a pollster might not be the answer they would get after a truth serum kegger. Ask a guy on the streets, any guy on any street in Anytown, U.S.A., what he feels is the most important trait in a mate (or potential mate), and he's liable to belch a cloud of lunch meat breath at you and say, "big tits!" while concaving his palms and crooking his fingers and holding them over his chest, in case you needed visual confirmation. Ask his equally charming buddy, and he'd come at you with, "she had better have a GREAT ass!" while using the same hand formation and looking like he's stroking both ends of an invisible watermelon. Then, they would get into a philosophical discussion about their respective favorite female body parts, acknowledge each others' favorite choices, and turn to see the pollster had disappeared an ago to bang his or her head against the table of the nearest Internet cafe.

The five choices given in the survey of what is most important were, Sense of Humor, Brains, Good Looks, Religion/Race (which should have been two categories), and Money. These questions were asked to people on six different continents. I assume Antarctica, even with its trendy discos, upscale real estate, and its tres-chic theater district, wasn't included because it is practically all white and wouldn't give a broad enough cross-section of races. Then again, I don't imagine they went into the deepest parts of Africa, either, preferring to cherry-pick South Africa and maybe Morocco. Can't really see them getting too many responses from the religious fundamentalists in the Middle East, or the high altitude people who live in the Himalayas. Basically, I think, they selected their sample population sources from places that had a roaring nightlife, easy access to Ecstasy, and was populated by too-cool people who wouldn't be caught dead without a fashionable scarf (both male and female) and a designer coffee in their hands.

Now, the survey I took was only inclusive of the five choices above. Let's take a look of those five choices individually (and the percentages of what people considered most important traits), shall we?


Sense of Humor (55%)

Right off the bat, I'm thrown for a loop. 55%? Are you kidding me? I guess we can all tear up those gym memberships, put off those tummy tucks, trade in that Mercedes for an economy car, and enroll in a stand-up comedy class. I see a huge number like 55% and I'm half tempted to walk up to a pretty gal and tell a knock-knock joke - court order be damned. Now, I'm not going to bash the opposite sex here, but one thing I have learned from all the women I have known over the years, is yeah, they love a guy with a sense of humor - as long he is a good-looking guy. I was voted Class Clown for my stellar work in high school for a number of years, but I didn't have any homecoming queens or cheerleaders stuffing their panties with their phone numbers written on them into my pocket when they passed me in the hall. Even as an adult, if sense of humor is your long suit (and maybe your only suit), and if you don't have the looks, money, or position of status, women will generally look at you like you remind them of their creepy uncle if you ask them out. You know the uncle I'm talking about - the one your mother wouldn't let be alone with you in the same room. Men are no less guilty, but in a different way. Men generally size up women by imagining them naked first. Not saying that women don't do the same thing, but we're more consistent. It's our nature. To a man, a woman with a sense of humor isn't someone who is humorous, but, rather, someone who will laugh at his jokes. It makes our egos erect, and I don't care what anyone says - the quickest way to a man's heart is through his ego. So, you see, men who answered "Sense of Humor" as being the most desirable trait have already assumed that she would be pleasing to his eye when she is naked and selected "Sense of Humor" as a self-serving answer. Not too many guys are going to tell their buddies about a new girl they're seeing and lead with, "well, she's got the greatest sense of humor..." All they care about is how she looks naked.


Brains (22%)

Brains actually hooks into Sense of Humor, but they're not reflexive. To have a genuinely sharp sense of humor, you have to be reasonably smart. You have to be sharp, astute, and nimble. That's not to say Stephen Hawking would keep you in stitches talking about his Unified Field Theory. Many people who are just flat-out geniuses never bothered to dust off that part of their DNA. But, let's be frank here. Smart people are intimidating to a lot of people - even smart people. But, ask yourself, are we talking about book smarts or life smarts? Sure, there's the person who can spend the entire date talking about the Defenestration of Prague but not know they have to change the oil in their cars. Similarly, there are people who can take apart an entire small block engine, rebuild blindfolded, and think Oscar Wilde is the name of an Academy Awards preview show. My guess is that, for women, it's a guy who can fix the car when it breaks down AND find all the legal tax loopholes on your income tax return. For men, it's a woman who can complete the Sunday crossword puzzle that he couldn't finish as well understanding that the play-action pass is dependent on a strong running game. She also has to look good naked.


Good Looks (13%)

Well, we finally get to the nitty gritty - the only people who answered this question truthfully. We men are visual creatures and there's no getting around it. That's not to say women are not visual creatures, either. The combined 77% of Sense of Humor and Brains doesn't even get past the screen door unless Good Looks are involved. Let's not kid ourselves here, folks. It is what it is. There is a vanity that comes into play. We are all vain to some degree and some only care what a person looks like on their arm. Many women are quick to note that they once dated someone who wasn't incredibly handsome; but notice they aren't dating that person anymore. The more attractive a woman is, the more attractive a mate she feels she DESERVES to have. No one DESERVES an attractive mate. Just because you work out, honey, doesn't give you manifest destiny to be with a hunk. And fellas, we're no different. In fact, men are generally worse, as we trade in our aging beauties for newer models. Remember, when women age, they get old - at least that's how many women and men feel; when men age, we become "distinguished" or some nonsense like that. Baloney. Generally, women who go for older men are attracted to the power they possess in business or socially. Older men leverage that position and end up with a new girlfriend and alimony payments. But, the tide is turning. More and more women are grabbing men younger than them - in some cases, MANY years younger, so if you thought this was a man's game, you're living in the past. There is definitely a caste system in effect when it comes to looks. You're either the Sneetches with Stars or the Sneetches without Stars upon Thars. We are a shallow society trying to convince ourselves that we look beyond the surface, but when we are buying a new car, we only look at the kick-ass stereo if we like what the car looks like on the outside first.


Religion/Race (6%)

The fact that this rated higher than money tells me a couple things: a) That some people will not date someone from outside their religion or race, which is due to a conditioned prejudice, a fear of what family and/or friends would think, or the fact that they are just that committed to a future household where certain basic values are ensured; or b) the people who wanted to select "Money" actually chose "Sense of Humor" to make them feel less guilty about showing their true colors. For those who chose "Religion/Race," I actually believe them. This wasn't the glamorous choice and it certainly was the least sexy.


Money (4%)

Like the Good Looks category, I also think that these people answered 100% honestly. They didn't care that they looked like gold diggers, regardless of gender, they were straight out, saying, "I want a man (or woman) to provide a luxurious lifestyle for me, and I don't want to work." Nothing wrong with that. I'm sure most of us would like that, but Money is not a personal characteristic. Money has no sense of humor, has no intelligence, isn't going to win any bodybuilding or wet T-shirt contests, and it belongs to no race or religion. Anyone who selected Money as the most important trait pretty much doesn't care about the person - only themselves. Women were pretty much shoved in this direction for decades, if not centuries, to marry someone who could take care of them and provide for them. How else do you explain when a women meets a new guy, the first thing they mention is the man's occupation? What a silly, childish thing to do. They might mention his car(s), house(s), how much he makes, etc. when the most important thing is how he treats her. Mentioning that other stuff off the bat is for immature teenagers. As for men, they look at it as a free ride to raid her father's 100-year-old scotch, buy as many toys as possible, and STILL cheat on her. Why? Because sudden wealth can change everything.

Even if she looks good naked.

Auld Lang Resign Yourself

Today is the first day of the new year. I am not exactly sure when it stops being a "new" year and transforms into being just a regular old "year." But, one thing is for sure, we know when a year becomes an old year.

It's the middle of the afternoon and if you listen closely, and the wind is just right, you can hear the crashing and burning of millions of resolutions going down like Hindenbergs as another cigarette is lit, another treadmill is still covered in dirty laundry and the bottom of another pint of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream gets scraped clean. Motivations to improve our lives are a lot tougher than passing the calendar version of Monopoly's "GO", collecting $200 and losing 15 pounds. Why January 1st? Why not March 4th? Yom Kippur? Boxing Day (for those of the British/Canadian persuasion)? Personally, I think the best day to toss my line into the shallow lake of promises would be February 29th - that's right, Leap Year. Every four years, like the Olympics, the general election and when I clean out my fridge, make some changes. Hey, at least it's not as contrived as the holier-than-thou "I will be the best ultimate person I can be" wall that so many people steer themselves into as the days tick towards December 31st.

As I sit here with two cigarettes lit and a death-grip on a tube of raw cookie dough, I thought about some of the more popular resolutions and how they usually end up when the harsh blast of December winds eventually make their way back to our The Far Side cartoon-a-day calendars:

I'm going to stop smoking

This is one of the most popular resolutions ever trumpeted. It's usually followed by a little voice in your head that says, "but, geez, do I really HAVE to?" Sure, you can give all the reasons you want, such as improving your health, saving money, and not having the stench of tobacco on everything you could possibly own, but, in the end, when you're tipping back that third glass of merlot or get stressed out over work or a relationship, you're tearing through a fresh pack of smokes like a ghoul searching for a juicy brain. Of course, then you can rationalize it away by saying, "ok, that was one time. It'll never happen again." A few months later, you're machine-gunning cigarettes like bullet casings as you're charging an enemy hill. By the time the year is up, your cigarette consumption has actually increased by 50% over the previous year. And don't even mention cigars. For some people out there cigars (and to a lesser degree, pipes) aren't "smoking". That's like saying, "they aren't my drugs, mom, I was only holding them for someone". Smoking is smoking. Either do it or don't do it, but don't try to be the heroic 1% who can actually quit cold turkey; otherwise, buy stock in Phillip Morris.

I'm going to lose weight

This is the second head of the Cerebrus of Resolutions. You start out really well on this particular resolution because a food craving is different than a cigarette craving. Cigarette cravings are pangs of insanity for a smoke while a food craving is mostly something to fill your gullet. You have a choice between celery and a dirty paw full of animal lard, between water and a tureen of gravy, between grilled chicken and a jumbo cheesesteak sandwich, breaded, deep fried in hog fat, and sprinkled with confection sugar.

(God damn, does that sound good...)

The choices are yours as to what you eat. There are plenty of diets out there with awful-tasting pre-packaged entrees. Plenty of dietary supplements festoon the shelves of practically every drug store. And, if you love television as much as I think you do, you know there is a virtual conga line of infomercials on in the wee hours of the morning, all claiming to melt 50% of your body weight away overnight by using an extraction of the feathery extension of the stamen of the desert Choctaw cactus. But, of course, that little voice in your head tells you, "oh, that little piece of cheesecake isn't going to kill you. You need to reward yourself now and then!" A few months go by and you're shot-gunning cans of Redi-Whip, two at a time, before you even leave the supermarket. By the time the year is up, you refuse to eat anything not deep fried and dipped in chocolate. Then, right before New Year's Eve, you have a salad and some water and proclaim you are getting a head start on next year since all of your "fat clothes" from the previous year are now your "skinny clothes" for the next.

I'm going to get in shape

Finally, the dropping of the third shoe. Some may think this is related to the "I'm going to lose weight" resolution, and it does, but it just as easily can be attached to the "I'm going to quit smoking resolution," too. All of that expensive equipment you paid for in the drive to firm up those abs, lose that unsightly cellulite, and cut in half your number of chins is no more than a place to hang wet towels, dirty clothes, or convert into S&M devices for flaying pasty white, overweight businessmen. Now, this may be the hardest one to do, because this resolution generally requires a buddy to keep you going and for you to keep him or her going, as well. It's too easy to look outside, see a single cotton ball cloud in the sky and say "Looks like rain. Have to put off that jogging until tomorrow." We've all seen the ads with the guys with the impossibly-etched six-pack abs and the women with buns so tight they could knock the horn off a charging rhinoceros. Trust me, these people were either hatched, scientifically assembled, or the latest in life-like animation. These aren't real people like you and me. We'll never look like them. But, if your resolution to get in shape is genuine, follow the first two resolutions above and get a buddy to help you through, or you'll be out of the race before the groundhog rolls out of bed on the second day of February.

Look, people, I'm not here to preach. I am the worst example of how to make and hold on to a resolution. My resolution? Make no resolutions. Just do what you think is right when you are ready to make it right - or unless medically demanded by the physician whose mutual fund program you are personally financing. As for me? Perhaps some day I'll take my own advice.

Maybe next year.

The Twelve Daze of Christmas

Now someone please tell me I am not the only human defect who confused the "Twelve Days of Christmas" as ENDING on Christmas. As it turns outs, only the partridge gets given on December 25th and the gift giving continues right on through to January 5th of the following year. Not only is this expensive, but the Christmas tree needles have already cannonballed their way to the carpet and the New Years' resolutions have gone up in smoke by that time. So, I am here to do what, oh, say, millions of other people before me have done, which is to dissect this song and figure out what all the excitement is about.

On the First Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: A partridge in a pear tree.

There are a few things wrong here. A wobbly, bulbous bird in a tree that couldn't survive the harsh winter to begin with is a gift? From my TRUE love? My TRUE love would provide me with cooked partridge with a nice pear glaze, substitute prime rib for partridge, and give me a little rub and tug under the covers. THAT is TRUE love. Damn bird. Another mouth to feed.

On the Second Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Two Turtle Doves

What on God's green earth is a turtle dove? Talk about your paradoxes. It's on par with a breakdancing sea sponge. Don't I already have a partridge? Now I have three birds all fighting for territory and waiting to poop in my morning cereal? Will there be mating involved? Because if there is, I'll have two for sale - cheap, the following day.

On the Third Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Three French Hens.

What is it with these damned birds? Was this song written by genetically-engineered super cows trying to get us to not eat beef? How will I know they were French? Would they have accents? Berets? Would a bill have been passed to call them "Freedom" Hens? Wait, it gets worse...

On the Fourth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Four Calling Birds.

Well, let's just open a bird sanctuary, why don't we. Should be called the 12 Days of Audubon Song. Do they call on little cell phones? Are they on a good calling plan? Should I wait until off-peak hours to answer them? Should I put them in a steel cage match with the partridge, doves and hens and let them have some sort of Battle Royale for the right to be my future dinner?

On the Fifth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Five Golden Rings

I don't know bout you, but jewelry was never my strong suit, and unless you are a pimp, multiple Super Bowl winner, or mafioso, two rings should be your maximum - and one of those had better be a wedding ring. As for women? This is their favorite part of the song, that's why there's such the pause and emphasis on FIVE GOL-DEN RINNNNNNNGS!. Great. She gets gold and I get poultry.

On the Sixth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Six Geese a-Laying

At least someone is getting some action, but all that means is more freaking birds. At least I can get good market value for them. Omelets on the house.

On the Seventh Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Seven Swans a-Swimming

Good. Keep on swimming. Don't worry about the private hell my life has become with all these birds (and rings) multiplying with each day.

On the Eighth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Eight Maids a-milking.

For some reason, I just get this idea that Brigham Young himself wrote this part. If they're milking, they've just given birth, and with squawking birds and piles of golden rings towering over my head, eight is too many for me. If I was a caliph, maybe, but, I'm just a working-class idiot, and my seed bill has just taken a severe hit.

On the Ninth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Nine Ladies Dancing

Finally! A day for me! No birds, eggs, rings, milking ladies, just some good old-fashioned women dancing round that ol' brass pole. Is this the shortest day or does it just seem that way? Hell, I'll bring some of those Golden Rings to get me into the Champagne Room. Hey, plenty of Kev to go 'round!

On the Tenth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Ten Lords a-Leapin'

Um........um....... Between you and me? Leaping Lords, particularly of the British import, brings visions of limp-wristed theater actors and artists who have been knighted singing, "When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way..." with all kinds of pirouetting and frolicking.

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Eleven Pipers Piping

Depends what they are smoking in those pipes. Then again, they could be pan-flutes and then I'd have to kill my entire menagerie in a homicidal rage while Zamfir covers Kenny G's "Songbird".

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Twelve Drummers Drumming.

Let me tell you something, after the birds, eggs, rings, new mothers, strippers, prancers, and assorted pipes, why not form my own drum circle? I can cover myself in bear grease, adopt the manners of a wild animal, howl at the moon and kill what I eat.

Think I'll start with the partridge.


Merry Christmas, everyone.

Book 'em!

After being wonderfully pestered by friends and foes alike, I have decided to join the world of publishing. So what if it's a self-published doo-dad, it's still a book and it's mine - ALL MINE! In this book, I'll scale Everest, end communism, and kill off Harry Potter, if I want to.

So, there I was, staring at letters on a page and they stared back. They had that lean, hungry look, like teenagers after a few hours in the basement. I figured if Ernest Hemingway, Charles Manson, and Socks the Cat could write a book, why not me? So, I sat down, typed a few lines, basically re-wrote comedy as we know it, became fabulous, and still had a losing football team.

I finally put together 30 or so stories for your reading pleasure. The first round of books are going to family and best friends. The second round will go to anyone who would like one - which could be done within a month if I get enough orders. It costs me $15.00 per book, so, send something if you can, but if not, just consider it a gift from me. And do me a favor - share it with others. They, too, may finally enjoy humor the way it was meant to be - dressed up with a big gut, not dumbed down in a cummerbund.

Please contact me at rhinokev19702@yahoo.com for all book requests and questions!

Movin' Out

I just moved into a new place a few days ago. The place where I was living was about as cozy as living in a broom closet with an oily engine manifold that shoots waves of maggots at you every five seconds. So, naturally, any change from that would be an improvement, right? Right?

Well, maybe not so much, but I have myself to blame. You see, I have accumulated an epic amount of junk over the years - none of which I am proud - to the point where there is no room for me. There's my junk and then there's me, and guess who is winning the war? So, taking a page out of Alexander's book, with one clean stroke (CLEAN stroke), I eliminated whole chunks of junk. I took it like a man: I cried, peed my pants, threw a tantrum, drank heavily, and set myself on fire. You see, comportment is important to me.

Truth be told, most of the things should have been discarded long ago - things like cassette music tapes, VHS movies, and my paltry collection of sports awards. I'm a pack rat, so sue me. Sure, you say, a pretty simple exercise to John Q. Normal. Well, normal ain't me, because I will be getting rid of over 1,500 video and cassette tapes. The only way I can legitimize trashing all of it is that I had this crap in storage for about a year without ever feeling the need to access it, so into the buzz saw it goes.

I have a bad back, so I hired a team of movers. You might have heard of some strange names in the moving business. Me? I had my choice of "Hungry Student Athletes" (none of which were athletes - good guys, though, "Starving Student Athletes," and "Near Death Student Athletes" moving companies. I figured the "Near-Death" folks wouldn't do so well with the heavy lifting and my corpse-burying skills are, admittedly, on the wane, so I chose the first company. Quality people, all of them, but what I really needed was an interior decorator. I ended up doing more heavy lifting, shifting, and moving than I have ever done in my life. I'm pathetic. If I just didn't gather so much "stuff" (thank you, George Carlin), I wouldn't need so much room - and this hombre needs a LOT of room.

I did not need movers as much as I needed a SWAT team of interior decorators. I lifted, shifted, and moved more garbage than I should have been legally allowed. I can tell you this: once I become a homeowner again (I'm sharing a house right now), that's it, game-over, man. I will love there and die there because I have maybe one more good move left in me - that's it! And when I do slither off this morbid coil, don't hang around too long for the reading of the will and the distribution of possessions because there won't be any. I'll live like a hermit, snaring silverfish off the walls and drinking dew from the morning grass - and I CERTAINLY will not need to throw away 1,500 of anything to clear my house, because I'll be having a little ceremonial fire to dance naked around to celebrate the fact that I finally stopped being belonging to the things that belong to me

Was it Something I Said?

"Was it Something I Said?" Don't take that as a question, but rather as a reference. You see, after surreptitiously sneaking my "KISS - ALIVE II" album into the house as my first album purchase, Richard Pryor's "Was it Something I Said?" was the second album, and included a multitude of subterfuges and counter-intelligence to get it in the door. You see, I have been a fan of comedy ever since I can remember. I was too young for Lenny Bruce, but caught the wave of George Carlin, Cheech & Chong, and Monty Python. Comedy, for me, was about fart jokes and belching "Hail to the Chief." My older brother, Dave, and I, weaned ourselves on our parents' collection of albums from the 1960s - of which was Bill Cosby's classic, "I Started Out as a Child..." Funny was funny, whether it was from Redd Foxx, Freddie Prinz or Carol Burnett.

All of which brings me to Richard Pryor. Richard was the first person to really use language that awed us, offended us, and truly pissed us off. Like Carlin, he dared to take our thoughts and put them in front of our faces for us to confront. You weren't "black," - you were a "nigger." You weren't "white," - you were a "honky." Because that's how we saw each other, and, in fact,that is how many of us saw ourselves when we were looking upon ourselves honestly. Richard Pryor didn't just walk through the last door of comedy. He detonated it, and the shards are still flying around today, from Chris Rock to Joe Rogan to Ralphie May.

The cover of "Was it Something I Said?" showed Pryor being burned at the stake by a group of hooded Klansmen. Richard was never one to tiptoe through the tulips when he could stomp through them with cleats. It was shocking, the skits were racially charged, it was an affront to every decent sense you could muster up.

It was also damned funny.

But, Richard Pryor did more for me than just make me laugh. His divisiveness (and yes, he could be divisive), showed me that blacks and whites were indeed not cut from the same cloth, that there were differences beyond skin color. Back then, a black kid was no different to me than a red-head or a fat kid or a tall kid. He was just a kid. I never knew people divided themselves against each other in this fashion before. I had a friend,named Steve Jennings, who was about 6'8" when he was 12, and was (and probably still is) black. His family, along with Tony, Laurie, and Ann, were some of my best friends. Steve was probably my first friend. Anyway, we were watching our friend, Ray, being chased by a black kid named Omari. Ray was/is white. Steve and I were laughing and shouting insults to them both. Then I said something I'll never forget, to Omari:

"Hey, Ovaltine! That's enough!"

The chasing eventually ended, everyone laughed, but Steve turned slowly to me and said "I heard what you said. You called him Ovaltine." I didn't know what to say. To me, it was as innocent as saying, "Hey stinky!" or "Hey jerkface!" - or more to the point, "Hey fatty!" or "Hey shrimp!" But, it didn't matter. The words were out there and I couldn't take them back. Worse yet, Steve, who had to grow up with the sort of stigma I couldn't even imagine, seeing as they were the only black family in the neighborhood when they moved in the same time we did, probably now saw me as less of an innocent friend and more of a typical white person. I meant no harm by it,but it stuck with me just the same. Then,I started thinking of all the terrible things I had said all in the name of friendship without knowing how much damage I was doing:

"You're not really black. You act more like a white person."

"There are niggers and there are blacks. You're not a nigger, just black."

"Why don't you listen to any music by white bands?"

Do I forgive myself? Well, yes and no. Yes, because I had not been poisoned by honestly knowing how much those words can hurt someone else. On the other hand, I do not forgive myself, because no matter where those words came from, they still hurt a friend - a good friend. A friend I really miss a lot sometimes.

Richard Pryor passed away this weekend, and his death brought with it a terrible loss for me personally. Without Richard Pryor to show us, front and center, without euphemisms and without white-gloving it, to force us to face the ugly truth of racism - even if he used comedy to deliver it to our doorsteps, this planet has lost a true genius. Was he a good man? Not all the time? Did he make mistakes? Often. Was he guilty of racism himself? That's for others to decide. Right now, I hope he is at God's side, strolling that funky stroll of his, asking God:

Richard: "Was it something I did that got me here?"

God: "No, my son"

Richard: "Was it what I believed that got me here?"

God: "I am afraid not."

Richard: "Was it Something I Said?"

God: "You're damn right it was."

Winter Blunderland

We're now a few footsteps into the month of December and I have to admit how much I hate the cold. It's not Canadian cold nor is it the cold of the morning-after-the-night-before stare of your significant other when you pulled the old "ding-dong" bit with your mother-in-law's breast after doing shots with your wife's cousin. No, it's just really the first "unpleasant" cold of the year. I walked outside to commune with nature on my way to get a coffee and saw it there, plain as a monkey head in the collection plate - snow. It wasn't much snow, but, it was if Mother Nature was spray painting a warning telling me, "Hey, Sparky, I'm still in charge around here."

It's not that I hate snow. Just keep it off my roads and out of the hands of adolescents when I'm driving down the street. There was a time when snow was the answer to all of my prayers. Now, you folks who have lived your entire lives in warm weather, you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. Please skip to the next story, have a laugh, and leave a complementary compliment. Snow was much more than frozen ice crystals. It meant Santa was coming, Christmas specials and egg nog. Remember hearing about the "Storm of the Century" that was predicted to come five to six times per Winter? Remember gathering around the static-y radio or the fuzzy television screen just dying on every word of the news anchor until the weather-person showed you the local map that had "48+" covering your area. All you cared about was waking up the next morning and listening for the school closings. No matter what school you went to, it was always the last school announced, or, you tuned in just after they announced your school and had to wait until the next. All the surrounding schools were off and your school was going to open "one hour late". Life was not fair! Dad had off, so he was in his robe reading the sports page and asking, "So, want to go sledding today? Oh, that's right, YOU have to go to SCHOOL today!" and laugh that evil Dad-laugh before flipping to the comics to see what Marmaduke was up that today.

There was always a kind of giddy edge to going out to play in the first real snow. Mom would wrap you up in long underwear, three pairs of socks, t-shirt, regular shirt, sweater, pants, snow pants, gloves, ski mask, hat, shoes and boots. Then, after she would buckle than last piece of sharp metal buckle, you told her you had to go to the bathroom.

Once you made the jail break into the white cold world of the outdoors, a specific truth hit you smack in the face like a neighbor’s snowball - it’s freaking cold out here! If you fell down, you stayed down until the Spring thaw. Nothing could get you back on your feet. You also had to beware what type of show was on the ground. Now, the Native Americans in Alaska, Canada, and the Pacific Northwest may have 100 different words for "snow" - we have two: "Packable and unpackable". Packable meant you could make snowballs easily, which meant more chance for trouble and more chance for getting bombarded by your friends. You can also build a snowman more easily in Packable snow. Now, this leads me to a point in my life of which I am not proud, but, my buddy, Ray, and I used to go tearing through the neighborhood at 10 p.m. with aluminum baseball bats and beat the tar out of the well-constructed snowmen in the community of Greentree. It wasn’t our best moment, but, it sure as hell was fun. Anyway, back to the snow. The unpackable snow was worthless. You couldn’t form a proper snowball, it didn’t harden on the streets to play hockey or tag rides on. Tagging rides was when you ran up to a car, grabbed its bumper, and let the car drive you all over town. It was illegal and highly dangerous - which is why it was probably so much fun.

For some reason, there were some mothers in the neighborhood who made their kids wear mittens instead of gloves. I never could figure this out. You couldn’t do anything in mittens and ended up with frostbite because you always took your mittens off for snowball fights, building forts and doing battle with the Dark Lord. And it was impossible to hold a baseball bat.

Nowadays, snow is just a nuisance. We can telecommute to work (some of us), have to shovel the driveway, sidewalk, and God-knows what else, according to whatever civic association to which you belong, and you have to drive in that stuff. And it’s not just you that you have to worry about; it’s that yahoo with the bald tires and rear-wheel drive careening maniacally into your lane that you have to worry about. There’s salt deposit, slush, dirty windows…the list goes on and on.

But still, I get that first shiver of excitement whenever I see the first real snowfall of the year. It takes me back and I want to make some hot chocolate and sit by the static-y radio again.

Don’t you?

A First for Everything

I was reminded today of how great firsts are in life. There's nothing quite like the first time you try something, no matter how mundane or marvelous. It's a first impression, that, more or less, will last with you an entire lifetime. There's the first boyfriend or girlfriend, the first innocent kiss in the garage, the first hand-holding, the first grade, the first time you had your training wheels taken off your bike. Firsts can also be a drag, such as the first time someone knock you in the jaw, the first time you lose a tooth, the first zit, the first time you discover there is no Santa, the first real break up. Of course, then you can look forward to your first car, your first REAL date (accompanied by your first REAL kiss), and some other firsts that I am sure our parents would rather not want to know about us. Getting to first base, the first man and woman, the first state of Delaware (my home state, thank you), the first colored major league baseball player, the first woman in space, this first paragraph - all tremendous firsts in our private and public lives. Everything has a first.

However, I am not here to talk about any of that. I am here to indulge you, and myself, into some firsts that REALLY matter when it comes to the little pleasures in life, because, after all, isn't that what life is all about - the little pleasures? Little pleasures like opening up a carton of Breyer's ice cream, busting out the ice cream scooper with the little flippy thing, starting at one end, and smoothly skimming the surface from one end of the carton to the other. A frozen vanilla fudge curl arcing and folding into itself, slowly and erotically before being plunked down into your bowl. That first taste of ice cream that sets your taste buds ricocheting in all directions deciding, in panic mode, "Just what the hell flavor is this, anyway!?!?" before the red alert dies down and a murmur ripples through your taste buds, "It's ok, folks, it's vanilla fudge". Then, your taste buds do the Snoopy Dance.

Don't even try to deny it. It's with everything. How awesome is it to be the first to break the creamy surface of a freshly-opened jar of peanut butter? That first bowl of cereal on Saturday morning? That first cup of cawfee? That first bite of pizza or the first chomp on a carefully-crafted Dagwood sandwich? For the smokers and drinkers out there, you don't need me to tell you just how toe-curling that first drag from the first cigarette from a fresh pack is or that first whip-back of whiskey or beer (or both) after a long week of reattaching that ass you just worked off.

How many of us love the smell of a new car and driving it for the first time? Ok,hands down. How many of us have had a father or grandfather who would thump you in the head for reading his newspaper before he did. Hmmm, same number of hands. It's not like the news was going to change, but he had to be the FIRST to read it.

The fact is that you can never really go home again, according to some famous white person whom I never took the time nor energy to remember. That first year in the dorms or your first apartment; that first rinky-dink house with ideas of making it look like an adult lived there, the first holiday you hosted, the first time you had the girls over for margaritas and gossip or the guys over for burgers and the football game.- or both over for poker night.

Remember the first time you went to Walt Disney World or other similar vacation destination? Going back may have been fun, but it just wasn't the same anymore. Remember turning 10, then 13, then 16, 18, and 21? Great years since you were first A) in double digits, B) a teenager, C) legal driving age, D) an official adult, and E) legal drinking age. After that, it's 30, 40, 50. and ever-increasing, vanity-thieving landmarks. And, sadly, more and more of us have had the pleasure of walking down the aisle more than once - and although those first marriages that ended in divorce were not necessarily happy circumstances, I'll wager that the marriage day itself was like no other.

I dream of a day where computer chips, manufacturing by ultra-smart monkeys, will be implanted into our brains to make us feel like everything we do and experience feels like the first time we ever had that particular experience. Gone will be the disappointment and the yearning. Gone will be the deja vu. How about that? Every kiss will feel like the first, every ball game you attend will be just like when your uncle or aunt took you, and every time you re-read my essays, you'll be moved to heights of ecstasy.

Yeah, that'll be a first.

Season's Grievings

'Tis the season to be jolly. Actually, not many people would appreciate being called "jolly" since it infers a negative image when said person is naked, but there is no doubting the Holiday season is nigh. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, Tet, or any other number of late-year holidays, there is one immutable truth: we cannot wait until it is over.

Oh sure, there's the whole Peace on Earth and Good Will Towards Men thing, but those are arbitrary concepts. What's peace to one person may be subjugation to another. If some ding-dong cuts in front of me at the check-out counter, peace is the last thing on my mind. I'm going to cut his throat with my Border's Rewards card, carry his head to the Lady's Auxiliary who do the volunteer gift-wrapping and settle in at Bugaboo Creek for two-inch-thick slab of prime rib afterwards. And the whole Good Will Towards Men not only completely eliminates women from the sentiment, it also makes it impossible for me to enjoy my steak since my Border's card would be bloodless.

I think the whole concept for celebrating the Holiday season late in the year is to keep us from going insane while making us go crazy. Now follow me here. It is a well-known fact that light, especially sunlight, produces a chemical reaction in our brains that releases endorphins that make us happy. Well, wouldn't you know the Winter Solstice falls within the same week of those holidays? We need light during that time. The Winter Solstice is the shortest day (in terms of sunlight) in the whole year! Don't believe me? Go to Sweden or some other country that rises above the Arctic Circle. Their suicide rate is almost at lemming-level and all the kids are into Death Metal music. They're not just producing world-class hockey players and chewy licorice fish, they're trying desperately to keep their sanity.

Now, for those of us in the Western world, the holidays are a time to set every angle ablaze with red, green, blue, orange, yellow, and white lights. Sure, it's pretty, but there's an evil below the surface. Those lights on the tree aren't for decoration, they're for keeping us wobbly-eyed and sedated. Decorating the house? It's to keep the kids from unsheathing the Ginsu blades from the knife block in the kitchen and doing in Mom and Dad. And who here hasn't had a relative who grabs the family and tosses them into the station wagon or mini-van and goes on a driving tour of the neighborhoods looking at how some people have more illuminated clutter on their lawn than Pee Wee Herman. Every self-loathing father on the block secretly clenches his teeth when he passes the Anderson's house because they ALWAYS have the most lavish and classy light display. Mom doesn't help when she coos, "Oh, honey, look at what the Andersons have done THIS year!" It takes all the discipline of a trappist monk to keep Dad from careening into a snowbank, kicking out the family, and going back to torch the Andersons' house.

To rip off an idea from Northern Exposure, the Holiday season is a festival of lights, which is really just a festival of life itself. It's affirming, comforting and brings us warmth. It's the tree in the morning, all glittering and majestic. You may have seen the tree every day for a week or so before that, but on Christmas Day, it's at it's most vibrant. It's almost as if it knew today was THE day. The Menorah, solemn and celebratory, dignity in the candles, fireworks, and memorial fires of our ancestors and family, both past and present. Light is a celebration. Light both hides and exposes our grieving. Light is all this and more.

Light is Life

I'm not too cynical to enjoy the finer elements of the holiday season, but it is fair to say that if the grand Holiday Season was held in June, during the Summer Solstice, I doubt we'd get all bunched up about it from a secular standpoint, especially since the holiday season has been co-opted from religion by Buck McDollar. But, I'll leave that rant for another time. It's December, I have some shopping to do, and I have my trusty Borders Rewards card ready to go.

Home Cookin'

I was a child of the 1970s. Sure, I was born in the 1960s, but the decade that formed my wonderful self was the decade of polyester, Match Game, and Star Wars. That also meant I was subjected to some of the most interesting meal items of the past 100 years. Some of these items pre-date the seventies and some stretched into the 80s and beyond. Still others died out completely, but, in the ever-incestuous culture we live in, some food ideas have experienced a rebirth in much the same way elephant flares, Marcia Brady hair, and wannabe Grateful Dead Heads have slithered their ways back onto the AOL Welcome page.

BREAKFAST

Let's start with breakfast, where most of us used to begin our day. Back then, it was basically cereal with names like SUGAR Pops, SUGAR Frosted Shredded Wheat, and the king of all boastful cereal names - SUPER SUGAR Crisp, with the lovable SUGAR bear. And why wouldn't he be lovable? After all, he had that cool, smoky voice, hipster half-stoned gaze, wore that kick-ass blue turtle neck sweater, and of course wore no pants. He wasn't just pushing cereal on hyperactive kids, he was pushing animal porn. Throw in Porky Pig and Donald Duck and you'd have an x-rated version of Animal Farm. But, back to the cereal. It seemed each commercial claimed their cereal was loaded with "8 essential vitamins and minerals" and was a "part of this balanced breakfast." The balanced breakfast would show half a grapefruit, unsweetened juice, some unbuttered wheat toast, and maybe a handful of blueberries. I never knew anyone who ate all of that crap. The kids I knew filled up a bowl of Trix, Apple Jacks or Frosted Flakes, over-poured the milk, and with all the skill of a Wallenda, navigated their way in front of the television to watch Scooby-Doo. If you were a boy, you did all of this in your underwear.

The more enterprising among us would find a way to bug our parents for a slice of cake, some cinnamon sticky buns, or some other quickly-decaying dessert left to harden overnight when your folks' Pinochle game breached the midnight hour the night before. The right amount of nagging usually did the trick. Go too far and you got backhanded. Yeah, that was still in vogue back then. After breakfast, your mother threw you outside so she could A) get some peace, B) make you burn off the sugar, and C) watch her soaps.

LUNCH

For the sake of argument, let's not include the conveyor belt cafeteria food served in school. In fact, let's just stick to summer and weekend lunches, because, and let's be honest here, the school cafeteria lunch is a subject unto itself.

Lunch was a pretty straightforward affair. It was usually peanut butter and jelly, tuna fish, or lunch meat - usually baloney. We can all thank that damned Oscar Mayer commercial ("My baloney has a first name, it's O-S-C-A-R...") for roughly 30%-40% of our lunches back then. We were also big on deviled ham, Spam, and something called fluffernutters, which sounds like the name of a stagehand on a porno movie set but was actually just peanut butter and brain-shivering marshmallow cream. Now, some kids were particular about how their sandwiches were cut. The ones who didn't care, had theirs cut into four squares. The cool kids had theirs cut club-sandwich style into four triangles. Their bigger kids just went for the single cut into two halves, and the weenies always wanted their crust cut off. But, there was one thing we ALL agreed on: potato chips in the sandwich was the ONLY way to go. Toss in a few Oreos, Nutter Butters or yummy Keebler chocolate doo-dads, and you were a lazy blob until dinner rolled around. Then,mom threw you outside again or you watched reruns of The Flintstones, Gilligan's Island, or The Brady Bunch.

DINNER

Dinner was more than the third meal of the day. Dinner was a ritual. Some would call it "supper" but in our house, it was dinner, with a capital DIN. That's right, it could get downright noisy and boisterous with three boys at the table. Mom could have been part of the U.S. Olympic cooking team while Dad could have captained the Big Pork Chop stare-down squad. I really didn't appreciate the effort and taste of stews, roasts, stroganoffs, au gratin potatoes (or as we called them, "rotten au gratin"), stewed tomatoes on macaroni and cheese, and assorted casseroles. Fondue was big, as was BLT night and breakfast night where pancakes, eggs and bacon ruled the roost and there was Dad, methodically slicing his Jersey tomatoes with every meal.

We were an iced tea family, but not the kind made from the sugary powder. Nope, we had this convoluted, mad-scientist formula for making iced tea that involved photosynthesis, the alignment of the planets, and the sacrificing of an annoying neighbor, of which we had many. It tasted awful. The only way my Mom and I could stand it was to drench it in Minute Maid concentrated lemon juice. I put so much lemon juice in my tea that a black hole would form on my uvula.

DESSERT

We weren't a big desert family, but when there was dessert, it was a big to-do. Large hunks of cake and pie and teetering stacks of cookies. For holidays, mom would make ambrosia, which I hated. Separately,I like each ingredient, but, combined, coconut doesn't jive with marshmallows and those tiny Mandarin oranges creep me out in any language. Of all things I do miss, though, it was ice box cake, which my grandmother made. It was simple: a rectangular pan with a crust of graham crackers, about 2 inches of chocolate pudding, then topped with another layer of graham crackers. Chill. Serve into squares and top with an Alpine-size wallop of Kool-Whip. Die with a smile on your face.

Wow. I never really realized how much I have missed ice box cake, or those meals with my family.

Hell, I even miss the rotten au gratin potatoes.

Be a Man!

So, I settled in for the evening to expand my cultural palette by watching some bone-snapping, pupil-dilating, testosterone-boiling professional hockey. Of course, it wasn't on any of the sports channels - instead, it was on OLN (that's the Outdoor Life Network for you 'slickers). Even worse, it wasn't even on OLN like it was supposed to be, but I'll get back to that in a sec.

The OLN is a unique color in the television spectrum. It plays host to the Tour de France, the Boston Marathon and Survivor: Crab Nebula. It also boasts a roster of multiple animal hunting, tracking, and killing shows. This is not a network for vegans. You won't find Moby's Watercress Cook-Off or commercials for Mahatma Gandhi burgers (the "Gand-wich" is a real mover at patchouli-scented festivals). Pick a random time of the day, turn on OLN and you'll inevitably see some once-breathing animal hanging upside down ready for gutting, stuffing, and/or mounting. It's a chest hair network. Watch an hour or so of it and feel your canine teeth stretch and throb like vampiric stalactites. Watch two hours of it, and get ready to eat your meat raw. Watch three hours or more of it and your penis grows five inches. For this reason, I recommend women watch no more than two hours' worth of OLN.

Getting back to the more civilized programming of professional hockey, OLN provides National Hockey League (NHL) coverage every Monday and Tuesday evening. Me? I'm a hockey fan - I've been one all my life. I remember the Broad Street Bullies that were the Philadelphia Flyers of the mid-1970's, I've watched Wayne Gretzky from his first NHL game until his last, I've seen scoring go up down and now back up again. I witnessed the majesty of a Stanley Cup parade. I played it in summer, taping bricks to both sides of my stick blades and stickhandling a tennis ball across a root-laced lawn, I played it on video, banged the hell out of the garage door with the orange Mylec ball, played it in the basement, got the snot beat out of me by the larger Catholic school kids while still beating them on the scoreboard. If a big kid wanted to punch me, I would duck, but if that bigger kid's even BIGGER brother tried to cross-check me during a game, I'd put my stick between his legs and knock his ass hard onto the cement. I was a skinny, scythe-wielding bringer of street hockey death and my Air-Flo stick had more notches on it than a totem pole violently hacked by Crispin Glover.

I sit down with my sandwich and iced tea and wouldn't you know it? OLN is running a Ted Nugent reality show - something called "Wanted: Ted or Alive". Now, I can get down with "Cat Scratch Fever," "Double Live Gonzo," and "Wango Tango" and other prom-theme anthems of Mr. Nugent's rock and roll days, but I had hockey on my mind. Then, a strange thing happened. I started watching it. And watching it. Then I realized it was a freaking marathon - and I was enjoying it! Hell, I was hooked. Now, good old Ted swings from a different branch on the tree of life. He's from Detroit and has never smoked, never drank, never did drugs - he just rocked and rolled. For that, he was dubbed "The Motor City Madman" with such mood-setting lyrics as "...pretend that your face is a Maserati..."

Well, good old Ted had he had these five people skinning deer, killing and eating chickens, getting plastered with paint balls, being human scarecrows. One guy allowed himself to be shaved bald, another idiot kept dropping his pants and playing the token bad-ass, one girl quit, another girl kept crying - but bless her, she kept at it, and another gal was a Xena warrior with a heart of champion gold. I'm not that big a fan of Ted's music, and his politics are polarizing, but the man sure as hell is entertaining and could probably arm a militia big enough to take down Eastern Canada - or at least Nova Scotia. He's a force of nature...would have made a hell of a hockey player.

On this show, there was so much blood, so much violence, so much sacrificing - hell, I might as well HAVE been watching a hockey game. I must have viewed at least three hours of it.

I'd better stop here. My teeth are sharpening, I crave raw meat, and if I write any more, well, the ladies? - they'll come a-knockin'.

No Composite, No Return

I took some time away recently to get some things in order. Sometimes, even the most enjoyable things in life, such as trimming ingrown toenails, explosive diarrhea, and competitive back-zit popping lose all of their organic romance. You have to step away, toss out the old soy sauce packets in the fridge from the local Chinese delivery shop, finally stack those nickels on the dresser and finally put the toilet paper roll on the spool.

The truth is, I had to reload. Sure, there are always things to write about if you're interested in writing about whether to put the salt shaker to the left of the pepper shaker, how best to do battle with a large spider while showering, or how I lost over 11,000 Roll-Over minutes when I changed my wireless phone plan. That's right, 11,000 frigging minutes! Actually, doing battle with the spider would have made a fun story.

See, our lives are composites of all we see, smell, think, blah, blah, blah and how we burn that fuel towards making our psychic engines sputter along. I simply had nothing in the tank. Oh, I could have thrown some sub-standard bone to my reading audience (both of you), but that would have been as welcome as a beer-fart during an afternoon tea at a Red Hat Society meeting. It's not that there is a dearth of topics to write about. Hell, I could write an ordinary story of walking across a river of lava on the charred corpses of festival mimes and probably even make THAT funny. That's part of the triumvirate of comedy jello: Mime jokes, the outrageous Southern preacher voice, and complaining about the opposite sex. There's always room in one's routine for any and all of those.

I've been having to give blood a lot lately. Apparently, it's a delicacy in some parts of Eastern Europe (I'm looking at you, Transylvania). I've had roughly 10 bath tubs full of blood drawn from me in the past month with needles about as thick as Arby's straws. Apparently, "You might feel a little pinch" is Transylvanian for "You didn't by chance have any garlic recently?" as a smooth-domed, walrus-mustachioed, barrel-chested man in a leopard-skin singlet crashes down on my arm with a 500-lb. mallet so hard that he leaves his feet upon the descent. I have so many holes in my arm that it looks like I had a whole army of drafting compasses River Dancing on my forearms.

First of all, walking into one of those labs holds about as much joy and whimsy as seeing your grandfather naked in the shower - with your grandmother. You walk in with what amounts to other pathetic bastards like yourself, all coughing, sniffling, and playing the "I wonder what disease SHE has" game amongst themselves. The thoroughly uninterested desk clerk hurls the sign-in clipboard at me and tells me to sign in while asking if I had been there before. I say, "Lady, I've been here longer than you have over the past month, don't you recognize me?" She probably doesn't because when I walk into the lab, I'm all pink and rosy and when I leave I look like a cigarette-ash sculpture of Keith Richards.

You might be wondering, "What's the deal with all these tests? Are you dying?" Of course I am. We all are, but, not for a while. To make a long story short, the blood work has detected what was wrong and I'm hunky-dory now. However, when you are being shuttled between this doctor and that lab and this specialist and that pharmacist, you kind of just want to stay home, turn on the National Geographic channel and watch animals kill each other rather than sit perpendicular and slap humorous thoughts out of my head and onto my computer. When something keeps you so focused that you practically ignore all that swirls around you, you lose your composite self and become a singular, iconic slab of meat. Now that I've been able to move my DEFCON to a safer level, I am ready to return to the multi-level idiocy for which I am loved and loathed.

So, put on your Tony Orlando and Dawn records, take down my ribbon, and give me a kiss, a hug, a smile, a handshake, high-five, ceremonial bow, salute, pinch, punch, slap, kick, or set me on fire...

I'm home again.

Beat the Clock

It's coming up on that time of year again. Yep, it's only a few days away. You know what I'm talking about - cooler temperatures, crisp falling leaves, costumes, decorated pumpkins. That's right, it's Daylight Savings Time again.

No, it's not the sweet-and-sour DST of the Spring where we lose an hour. It's the woolly-sock comfort of gaining an extra hour. Ask anyone about DST (except for those iconoclasts in Arizona and parts of Indiana), and they'll say "Yep, we get an extra hour of sleep." No one ever says, "Hey! An extra hour of daylight! Let's all detail the car or paint the fence!" We are creatures of comfort and nothing is quite so comforting as prying open a bloodshot eye with the rest of your face buried in the pillow and thinking, "Hot damn! I still have another hour!" It's not like we get any real use out of that hour. Most of us will still get up and kick-start our bodies into action. We'll make the coffee, read the paper, take up residence in the bathroom for a while, flip through the channels on TV, take a few stabs at the crossword, have more coffee, go back into the bathroom and then realize you pissed away most of your Sunday. As usual.

Like a lot of people, I always set my clock ahead. For some reason, we think we're cheating our Circadian Rhythms and buffering in that extra time to make us feel we have a jump start on our day. Give me a break. Some people take that opportunity to squeeze out a few extra minutes of shut-eye...and promptly end up falling into a deep sleep, waking up in a spastic panic and rushing to work with their hair in a ponytail or smothered in styling gel because they didn't have time to shower. Others realize the literal translation that five minutes was supposed to bring and can quickly (and subconsciously) do the math that 6:00 am actually equals 5:55 am. What recourse do these junior varsity math team wizards have? Why, set the clock ahead by TEN minutes, of course. Feeling slightly superior with 10 extra minutes to their day, they don't realize that their lives are one constant deja vu (forgive the lack of accents, but my laptop doesn't speak French).

Being one of those clock-setter-ahead-ers, I thought I'd take it to the next level. Every time I moved the clock, unplugged it or the power went out because nature hates me and battered me with a violent storm, I would keep setting the clock ahead a little bit more. And a little bit more. And even more, until, after a year, my clock was ahead by two hours and thirty-seven minutes (seriously). Yet, I STILL compensated in my brain when I woke up, saw the clock read 9:15 and almost automatically calculated that it was 6:38. I kept setting it so far ahead that I traveled through time. As of this writing, I am currently living in the distant future. Please send me $1,000 and I will provide you with stock tips, winning lottery numbers and the next several World Series winners. Supermodels only, please.

Usually, there will be some knucklehead at work who will claim, "I just got used to setting my clock ahead - now we have to turn our clocks back again!" and chuckle that annoying self-satisfied chuckle that only the A-List sycophantic brown-nosers can give. It's enough to make you want to set them on fire and light a Cuban cigar off their burning bodies. But that would be wrong. After all, Cuban cigars are still illegal in this country.

I never could quite get the hang of the future ramifications of DST. Let me explain. When pondering what effect setting my clock back another hour would provide, I'm stumped. I have loads of questions. Will the mornings be darker? Lighter? Will it be pitch black when I leave the office now? Will the local vampire community have extended dining hours? Do I look fat in these jeans?

You have probably noticed that I seamlessly transitioned from calling "Daylight Savings Time" to the more economical "DST". You probably also noticed that DST sounds like something a sailor would come home with after a year at sea with monthly visits to the flesh pots of Thailand:

Sergeant: "Say, private,* I hear you have a nasty case of DST"

Private: "It's nothin', Sarge. Got some ointment for that."

Major: "Maybe you should have kept your privates private, private."

Private: "It's nothing major, Major."

Captain: "That's admirable, private. Still, you should see a specialist for that discharge."

Private: "For something so petty?"

Colonel: "You could be a carrier, son"

Private: "Will you be able to get someone to sub for me?"

Admiral: "Replacing privates is our business, son...in general."

* - No, I have no idea how military ranks work in the Navy

And what about those stores that are open 24 hours a day when there's an extra hour to account for? Do they have to close for an hour? Hell, if it's late night and I'm in my pajamas with my fuzzy slippers on and a bloodlust for a heavily-blistered chili dog, I'm not going to want to spend 60 minutes yelling at the cashier to open the damn doors while he grabs his crotch and shakes it at me, making comments about the circumstances of my birth. No, I'll just haul my carcass back to the house, get back in bed, set the clock ahead five more minutes, and go to sleep.

For another hour.

Soldier of Fortunes

Bear with me, readers - I have no idea where this is going to go. First of all, let me thank all those yahoos out there who bought Power Ball lottery tickets. If it wasn't for your fastidiousness (hope I'm using that word properly) and desperation, I might have been having paltry $100 million fantasies instead of the more robust $340 million fantasy that I wrestled with for a handful of days. If you're like me - and God bless you if you are - you queue up with other shifty-eyed citizens when the jackpot breaks the $100 million membrane. A lot of people buy their tickets in convenience stores, supermarkets, or off the big sweaty Lottery Fairy. Me? I go to the local newsstand-cum-gigantic-humidor. Normally, this place would be replete with itchy middle-aged men who pretend to find interest in magazines with such titles as "Civil War Pumpkin Carving," "Heavy Metal Pan Flute," and "Condensed Stories of Rickets Survivors". What everyone knows is that they're just trying to see how long they can hold out before letting out a rebel yell and barreling towards the adult magazine rack. Why go through this whole charade? Embrace your perversion! Stride mightily and purposefully towards your super-glossy, thick-stock pages of smut. Let the other customers think, "Now HERE is a man with direction and a clear vision. THIS guy lives by his own rules." Yeah, and he probably still plays Dungeons & Dragons, but 15 seconds of fleeting respect is about as much as he can reasonably expect each month. I never buy lottery tickets with the expectation that, hey, SOMEONE has to win - why not me? Sure, and SOMEONE has to be the first to hump a whale's blow hole, but it sure as hell is not going to be me. I only buy tickets when it's an intoxicatingly large jackpot. I'm not buying a chance to win - I'm buying a dream, or to be more exact, the RIGHT to dream. The right to dream of super-cool power boats, gargantuan houses and acres and acres of naked women. Could I instead put that effort into being industrious, thrifty and organized? Sure, but, spending $10 once or twice a year is much easier.

So, there I am, waiting behind the enterprising guy who has a list of "his" numbers - you know, the numbers he plays for every lottery, no matter what the size? Somehow, this modern-day Euclid has calculated that the gods of random chance have pre-ordained his inevitable jackpot if he just keeps his hands on the wheel every night the ping-pong balls are dropped. Let me put this gently: You have just as good a chance of winning if a stoned baboon hurled handfuls of warm dung at a giant bingo card and used those numbers. It's not like counting cards at the Black Jack table, watching for the lip-twitch of a slightly toasted businessman with a pair of Queens, or calculating the probability if the Redhead at the Roulette Wheel is a crumpler or a folder. Yet, there are people out there convinced that they have the system beat. Hell, there are lottery junkies so addicted that even past winners are still known to play the numbers. And how about the people in the office - you know, 50 people in the office chipping in $5 a piece, everyone from Darlene the receptionist to Frank in Accounting to Marci in Marketing going in on a jackpot, that, should they win, might net them each 500 bucks once the money has been split up. And should they win a substantial amount, who is going to bother to show up for work the next business day? Oh sure, you'll get the people who return to pick up the photographs of their spotty teenagers, their "special" pens and their "I Hate Mondays" coffee mugs, but other than that, they're busy booking flights to get their flabby pale bodies on a stretch of hot sand quicker than you can say "Jack Robinson". What if this was a vital utility office such as a gas company in the middle of Winter? What if it was a garbage-collection company? What if it was the local phone sex company? I'll tell you what - it would be anarchy, dear citizen. Anarchy.

Personally, I think lotteries and other games of chance are loaded pistols in the hands of a nation full of Bubbas if the proper perspective isn't maintained. Gambling is an addiction and if you have to ask yourself if you might be a gambling addict, then you probably are. For those of us who are not addicted to gambling, have a bit of perspective and realize that, well, you just might be a loser every time you play. Don't take it personally. There's not an Angel of Gambling who peers down at you through the toes in his sandals and says "This ain't your day, Butch" as he's chomping on a ratty cigar and hurling lightning bolts of bad luck your way. Meanwhile, you're cashing in savings bonds to maniacally scrape the silver coating off yet another serrated rectangle of chance with your lucky buffalo-head nickel.

I am a consumer of Coca-Cola products. I am not doing a commercial for them unless they want to offer me an oil tanker full of money, and even then, they wouldn't risk the profitability of their company by having a clown like me advertise for them.

But, I digress...

Coke runs contests constantly. Lift the cap and win the panhandle of Florida, have a disease named after you or get to punch out the actor or actress of your choice. Millions of prizes! One in three wins! Let me tell you something, I have NEVER won anything from these so-called contests. I'd have a metric ton of soda caps saying "Drink Coke - Play Again" while some lucky bastard out there is up to his pucker in winning caps. Yet, for all of my indignant posturing, I can let it go and focus on more important things, like the NEXT contest, the NEXT $100 million jackpot, the NEXT winning hand.

After all, I'm a man with direction and a clear vision. I live by my own rules. And will you look at that - it's time for Dungeons & Dragons.