I'd Like a Word With You

We've all heard the expression, "A picture is worth a thousand words" many times in our lives, but I've never really subscribed to the math. I suppose it all depends upon the picture. For example, if you show me a picture of a corn chip, I might max out around 600 words. 800 if it's barbecue. On the other hand, show me a picture of a monkey wearing a Def Leppard concert T-shirt while trying to pick up nerdy chicks in the hotel corridor outside of a Star Trek convention, and I'm fairly confident I could pump out 1,500...2,000 if he's wearing "Vulcan" ears and giving the "live long and prosper" hand jive.

But, you know, maybe all of those cliché-hounds should take another look at that expression. Maybe, just maybe, a word is worth a thousand pictures.

Now, don't try to get me in trouble with the Picture Lobby. I have nothing against them and their pork barrel word worths. It just seems to me that a thousand words was too tidy a sum. A hundred words would be selling it short. With the exception of Jessica Simpson, Bluetooth technology and reality programs, practically everything is worth at least 100 words. Saying a picture is worth 500 words is a little too precise, like you're getting a bit cutesy and should be shaved down and have someone put cosmetics on your ass. A thousand words just FEELS like the right amount. Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? Too cumbersome to say. A million words? Now you're sounding like Dr. Evil. How about a billion words? Well, hell, if you're going to say a billion, why not say a cajillion? An ecky-ecky-ecky-swoomvillion? Infinity? I swear, if someone said that to me, I would have jacked them up and given them the mother of all Indian burns.

Think about it. Mention the word "grandmother." Tell me you don't immediately get the impression in your head of sweet little grandma, scuttling around her kitchen trying to stuff one last meatball into your gullet, rehashing stories of the Old Country, and teaching you how to play Keno. For those of us lucky enough to have known our grandparents, whether they are still with us today or not, just the word "grandmother" or "grandfather" can let loose a deluge of shimmering memories. Like someone on a 1970s game show, you reach out and grab as many memories as you can while they all fly and swirl around you in the money tank. Only this time, you're not stuffing dollar bills into your terrycloth tube top or your Rayon silk shirt. Remember when your grandfather would tell you stories about guys he knew in the war? How about helping him pick the tomatoes in his little corner garden? Or when you went to or watched the ball game together? And honestly - could anyone lay on a hug like your grandmother?

Try it yourself. There is an endless ocean of words, in every language known to mankind. Words like "marriage," "vacation" and "family" can generate a multitude of positive images (or negative images, depending upon which stage of your life you are in). Maybe something as innocuous as the word "key" can light the fuse for you. You imagine a key in your mind. Maybe it's to your first house. Maybe it's to the beach house you used to share with friends during the summer. Maybe it's a car key. Maybe your first car. After flashing on that moment for a while, maybe you get to thinking about your friend's car, and how cool it looked. Remember when you and your friends went driving in the valley that one night, and you parked by the big rope swing that hung from the oak tree? Remember everybody taking turns swinging on the rope and splashing into the creek? Remember that guy or gal you really liked who showed up with their friends too? Remember the tunes playing from one of the cars and the sound of aluminum cans being crushed after consumption? Remember having that first kiss that night from someone you used to daydream about during social studies class? A thousand pictures, right? Probably more. All from one word that doesn't even play a part in the end memory - "key."

Here's another exercise for you. Try following the same string to a different destination with an abstract word such as "love." You're more apt to imagine examples of love. Maybe an image of a little boy giving a girl a daisy or two senior citizens walking in the park still holding hands after all these years. You might even conjure up a past relationship or two in your mind; however, it's just not the same, is it? A word of something tangible can click the tumblers in motion from the inside, and the images you get are fuller, richer and much more meaningful than an abstract word like "love," which then forces you to find definition rather than uncovering a heartfelt memory.

And these memories are all around you. You don't have to look far. Maybe you hear a name on television or the radio that reminds you of a friend you had in school that you haven't talked to in years - someone who used to be your best friend. Follow the "key." Follow not the picture, but the frame. Hell, follow the damned toaster! Reach back and remember from time to time. They're YOUR images. You're allowed.

For you see, a word can be worth more than a thousand pictures - it can be worth a thousand memories, as well.

Getting Your Point Across

I was watching a show on The History Channel earlier this week. I mention that because I would like to give the impression that I am somehow more intellectually-inclined than I actually am and impress the 0.00001% of you who actually give a damn. That's right, the same percentage of people who actually work for The History Channel. Anyway, I was watching a special on drugs and their history in America. Fascinating stuff. We made it into the 1980s and there it was - THE commercial. It was the "This is your brain on drugs" advertisement. Next to Clara Peller's "Where's the Beef?" Wendy's commercial, this had to be the most hilarious thing on TV. Somewhere in the 1980s, a conference room filled with barrel-bellied, balding men and priggish women with tightly screwed-on hairdos trying to hammer home a message "that kids will understand." Right. Let me tell you something about kids in the 1980s that is pretty much true of kids today - you're not going to scare them away from drugs with ads like that. When I saw that commercial, I was in my early 20s and after the voiceover said "This is your brain," showed an egg, then fried the egg in a skillet and finished with "And this is your brain on drugs. Any questions?" I said, "Yeah, can I get a side of bacon, a large orange juice and a couple of slices of unseeded rye toast? Oh, and maybe throw a couple more eggs on there, too, since I'm stoned and have one hell of an appetite."

One of the more humorous aspects of that commercial is that, chances are, those very same upstanding citizens who created that campaign were probably the very same flower children we saw on grainy 16MM film at Woodstock, painting peace symbols on their asses, dancing like frogs in a blender and smoking joints made with banana-flavored rolling papers. Hell, some of them were probably doing lines of blow off their daily organizers in the bathroom stall. Remember, folks, this was before drug screening was commonplace in corporate America.

Look, if you're going to try to put fear into your intended targets, do it the right way, the old school way. Take LBJ, for instance. He was a bully par excellence. He would zero in on some other politician and buttonhole him into submission so badly that the other guy would leave a puddle on the floor. And speaking of which, Johnson would often hold meetings while he was on the toilet taking his morning "constitutional." Could you imagine suppressing the gag reflex with the presidential waft hanging in the air? He was big on eye contact, too. I don't know about you, but looking a person in the eye while they bear down and turn apple-red is the time to start working on that resume for something a bit more uplifting, like, say, inseminating a steer. Yet, he made sure he was able to get his points across. Who, in their right mind, is going to forget one of those meetings?

Speaking of presidents, let's not forget the wife of another one. Nancy Reagan, the undisputed Diva of the White House, made a guest appearance on one of the most popular shows of the early 1980s - "Diff'rent Strokes". Her message? "Just Say No." Well, hell, if that's all it takes, why am I bothering to have a good time when I could just say "no"? Think of all that could have been avoided. Don't get me wrong, it's a great message, but it's also incredibly naive. Maybe she should have said "Just say 'In Moderation' or "Just say 'I'd like to, but if my folks found out, they'd kill me' ". And what better show for the former First Lady to appear? After all, "Diff'rent Strokes" was the pinnacle of wholesomeness. Of course, Dana Plato went on to abuse drugs, get arrested multiple times, posed nude and died young. Todd Bridges also became an alleged substance abuser and arrested for weapons charges and vehicular assault - not to mention the worst crime of all: appearing on Celebrity Boxing with Vanilla Ice. Oh, and Gary Coleman? His crime was being Gary Coleman.

If you're going to have any kind of impact at all, either speak to the individual at his or her own level (and I'm not just talking about parents talking to kids here) or at least, swing the axe of advantage, be it by denying privileges, year-end bonuses, or using the Vulcan Mind-Meld, just as long as it's not for selfish or damaging reasons. Slogans and laugh-out-loud "messages," such as the fried egg commercial, are as productive as bong hits in the boardroom.

I hope I got my point across. Any questions?

They Say It's Your Birthday!

There's been a lot of talk about birthdays lately. Actually, there hasn't, but I needed a way to open this story. A while back, I wrote about turning 40. As the year moves along, more and more of my college friends are falling under the black curtain of a new personal decade, and with it, the lament of "I was just 25 yesterday! What the hell happened???" Well, I'll tell you what happened. Tomorrow happened. And it's going to happen again. And again. And again.

I'm not much of a student of the Bible or any other religious literature. I know enough to get me by, however. For example, I know that Charlton Heston WAS Moses, that Noah forgot the unicorns, and that Pulp Fiction's Jules Winfield was a "Bad Mutha-F*r" when he'd recite Ezekiel 25:17 before popping a cap in yo' ass. I also know that Adam lived to be an old man. A VERY old man, like 900-years-old old. I also know that some cat named Methuselah was supposedly the oldest living man - ever! What was he, 969 years old? Thanks to the folks at Wikipedia.com, they have information that Methuselah actually only lived until he was 78 years old. Not bad, considering the life expectancy of a man in Sierra Leone is only 44 these days, but a few days short of 969 years. Now, I'm no mathematics genius, but 78 is roughly 8% of 969. Now, if Jesus was supposedly 33 when he was crucified, if the same math was applied, he'd have been a little over two and a half years old upon his death. I don't know about you, but, from all the paintings in my grandmother's house, he looked a little older than his classmates.

But, enough of all that. Before you know it, I'll be accused of being something I'm not. Instead, I'd like to focus on that time-honored tradition of birthdays - or more specifically, birthday parties. I remember the birthday parties from my youth. Funny hats with elastic string, cartoon animal napkins, and presents that were far more enjoyable back then than they would ever be today, such as coloring books, Super-Elastic Bubble Plastic and Silly String. And tell me you didn't used to press Silly Putty onto the comics page and try to stretch Beetle Bailey's face in a thousand directions. Back then, you weren't self-conscious about opening gifts in front of people. You just tore into them. The gifts like socks and underwear from some tuned-out relative were met with the miserable "Thank you, Aunt so-and-so..." that your mom used to whisper into your ear. And money. Nothing beat money. I don't care if it was a dollar bill or the crisp ten-dollar bills my great-grandmother used to give me, money was a win-win gift to give and receive. I'll always take cash, thank you. And speaking of my great-grandmother, those bills were so crisp and so sharp (she said she would always insist on a "new" $10 bill from the teller) that you could use it to cut a hole in the fabric of the time/space continuum.

As we grow older, we become a bit more selective and demanding about our birthday parties. We insist on having them at places away from the home and we pester our folks for the REALLY expensive stuff. Placating us with cake, ice cream, and those damned trick candles that would always light back up wasn't going to do it for us anymore. In addition, being invited to a "cool" kid's birthday party did more than just put you in esteemed company for the day, oh no. What it effectively did was elevated you to the "in-crowd" that so many of us longed to belong to when we were young. Of course all of us now say, "Oh, I didn't belong to any specific group. I kinda got along with everybody." Right. Pinhead.

As I got older, the parties kids my age had subtlety changed. There was always at least one kid whose parents were of the mind set, "What's a beer or two going to harm?" as they upended another bottle of Jack Daniels into the punch bowl. These parties were the social event of the season until summer came around and peoples' parents went away on vacation and left the teenagers home. But that's another story. Many people's first kisses happened at these parties and more than a couple of lucky jerks went to sleep that night knowing what a girl's boob felt like. Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Capture the Flag, and Duck, Duck, Goose were replaced by Spin the Bottle, Post Office, and Puking in the Azaleas.

It's of little use to go into the typical person's 21st birthday party, because the only way you truly remember it is when other people told you how much fun you had until you woke up the next morning with one of your eyebrows shaved off and peanut butter on your scrotum. After that, there were no more birthdays to look forward to. Now came the inelegant slide into meaningless birthdays. The dreaded 29th birthday, where you said, "That's it! I'm not having any more birthdays." Well, of course you did, sunshine. There just wasn't much more to celebrate. Jack Benny made a career out of poor violin playing, effeminate mannerisms, and being 39. Life goes on, amigo. With modern science and medicine, we are now effectively living twice as long as we were 150 years ago. Hell, at the rate we're going, the average expected life span for a human being will soon probably be over 90 years old.

I'm 40 now. In another 40 years, I'll be 80, which, if my math is right, would make me older than Methuselah.

And I'll still take cash.

Food for Thought

Let’s get everything out in the open here. We’re friends, and as friends, we are not only entitled to being truthful with each other, we’re sort of obligated. So, I’m baring my soul to you in order to strengthen our bonds of friendship – either that or disgust you to the point of frantically dusting yourself off like a homecoming queen walking face-first into a giant spider web. Here we go:

I’m a pain in the ass when it comes to food.

Like any typical human, I have an attraction to being alive. Part of that equation is the consumption of food and drink. Not only is it a necessity, but, like sleep, it’s one of my favorite things in life. It’s right up there with reruns of The Simpsons.

I wasn’t always a fussy eater. When I was young, if you laid something marginally digestible within arm’s length of me, I was at least going to have an exploratory taste. I had no biases. Applesauce and pudding were just as likely to be on my menu as dog hair and pencil erasers. Then, one day, having discerned that, yep, I sure do love the taste of sugar, I decided to help myself to a titanic amount of it. So, I grabbed the container, tilted my head back, and proceeded to pour a heroic portion into my gullet. One problem – it wasn’t sugar. It was salt. I felt like I was on an episode of the 1960’s Batman series, with a voice-over saying, "What’s THIS?" I don’t remember much except getting violently sick at the foot of the stairs and making a mental note to not try this in the future. It was the first time food had been bad to me. I felt like I had been betrayed; however, there’s not much you can do to exact revenge on food. You can’t short-sheet broccoli, jump vanilla extract for a fight after school behind the Woodshop building, or give ice cream a wedgie. No, you just have to ball your fists and shake them at the sky like the hero of some great Nordic saga. Oh, and read the label next time.

Whereas my first negative rumble with food was an all-around disaster and loss for the home team, my second negative experience with food had a somewhat more satisfying conclusion. It was dinnertime, circa 1970-something. Mom, who has a black belt in cooking, made some sweet potatoes, or candied yams or some such thing. I don’t know the difference now and I certainly did not know the difference then. Anyway, the smell…well, have you ever smelled sweet potatoes? I mean really shoved your honker into the abyss and taken a good whiff of that stuff? Sewage! Raw, unprocessed sewage! It smells like the stink of a thousand middle school bathrooms. It smelled so foul that I almost lost my balance. Mom, ever the one to encourage us to try new culinary paths, told me to try some. Risking the violation of one of the Commandments, I emphatically declined. The more I declined, however, the more insistent she became. It became a battle of wills, and if common sense (i.e. avoiding being grounded) hadn’t prevailed, I’m confident that it would have become so violent that it would have made a monkey knife-fight look like a retirement party dance by comparison. I relented. So, I took what basically amounted to a gnat’s-weight of the stink on my fork and put it into my mouth. Imagine not only my surprise, but the surprise of everyone at the table when, about two seconds later, I vomited all over the kitchen table – you know, the kitchen table that, up until that time, sat my entire family happily enjoying their meals. And, oh no, this was no mere vomiting. This was projectile vomiting at its best. This was projectile vomiting that would have knocked Linda Blair down to the silver medal. I never did get to finish my dinner, and that was just fine by me. But, two inimitable universal truths were born that evening – when it comes to food, with me, no thank you means no thank you and mom never again forced me to eat anything I didn’t want. I went to bed triumphant.

Fast-forward more years than is your business, and I’ve compiled an impressive list of foods that I consider stable mates of sweet potatoes/yams. For the sake of brevity, I’ll give you my top three:

Onions – Onions are probably the most versatile of foods that I don’t particularly like. It’s the cooking staple of almost every Mediterranean cookbook. Open up to a recipe for homemade oatmeal and it will begin with, "Dice five fresh onions…" I cannot say exactly why I don’t like onions, but my best answer is the taste. I don’t like the taste. There are those who will say, "But onions don’t have any taste," but they’re fooling themselves. They most definitely have a taste – a bitter onion-y taste. Not only that, but the texture is aggressive and intrusive and it dominates the taste of everything else currently being shredded in my mouth. It’s the gunslinger of tastes that announces, "while I’m here, we’re gonna be doin’ things MY way. Anyone don’t like it can answer to me." Meanwhile, perfectly upstanding tastes like steak, chicken, rice, or whatever, cower behind the molars. Unfortunately, there are no tastes willing to play Gary Cooper. Now for the strange part: I love French onion soup. Maybe because there is no crisp texture to the onions or maybe because the taste is muted, but the fact I love it boggles my mind. Still, onions don’t get a pass for me liking French onion soup.
I don’t mind onion rings, either, and I have no explanation for that, either. I guess everything gets a pass when it’s deep-fried.

Mushrooms – Well, almost everything gets a pass when it’s deep-fried. Mushrooms wouldn’t get a pass even if they were the only source of food on earth. I guess I just don’t get it. Why would anyone, by his or her own volition, voluntarily consume a fungus – A FUNGUS! – that grows in manure? MANURE! A FUNGUS that grows in MANURE! Ever drive past a mushroom farm? You’d think they were exhuming bodies from a septic pipe. When the wind is right (can’t believe I’m using the word "right") in the morning, and a mushroom farm is within 30-40 miles of your location, you, too, can enjoy the sweet smell of animal turds, as thick as peanut butter soup, without having to go through the trouble of actually smashing your face into a steaming pile of animal poop. I don’t care if you wash them 100 times over or sand-blast the filth off of them – I’m not going near them. Besides, they’re a FUNGUS! We all eat mold, in some quantities, just by accident, but…well, I’ll leave it there. On the other hand, I have tried magic mushrooms once, and only once. A few things happened that I remember:

1. My voice sank about 10 octaves. I made James Earl Jones sound like Betty Boop.

2. I laughed constantly. I laughed so much that I was getting annoyed with myself. I was so annoyed at myself that I actually started to find it amusing. Of course, then I laughed some more.
3. My friend, Tim, and I went to a Phillies game at Veterans Stadium when the mushrooms began to kick in. We bought the cheapest tickets and sat in the upper deck. We had practically the entire upper level to ourselves. There, I decided to perform what I imagined to be the play-by-play of the immortal Philadelphia announcer, Harry Kalas. Tim probably wanted to throw me over the railing.

Peppers – Peppers just might be the most enigmatic of the top three. I don’t like peppers. Sweet peppers, hot peppers, Peppermint Patties, table pepper…I don’t like any of them (okay, I lied, I like Peppermint Patties. Taste the sensation). Again, it really begins and ends with the taste. Let’s get past the sweet peppers and just say that I don’t like the taste, but I’ll get back to that later. The hot peppers, however, well, jumping Jesus Jemima Junior, someone tell me the joy in eating something that has so much capsaicin (the "hot" element in hot peppers), that it’s the equivalent of eating broken glass. You know the people I’m talking about; we all know at least one person who prides him/herself on being able to eat food so hot it could light a cigar. These people make Charles Manson look like George Will. And yet, there was a summer in 1992 or 1993 where I suddenly became obsessed with peppers, and not just sweet peppers. I was downing hot peppers like crazy, too. I have no idea how this craze generated, but there I was, ordering every type of food with peppers on it. I was sailing along, nicely, perfectly at peace with my new gastronomic family of friends when I went to breakfast one morning at The Starboard Restaurant in Dewey Beach, Delaware. A woman was wheeling a cart with various peppers around the dining area (don’t ask) when I decided to strut my newfound pepper-eating bravado. "So, what’s the hottest pepper you have?" She showed me a habanera, or scotch bonnet, pepper but warned me that it was very hot. Tossing my head back theatrically and laughing at the warning from this mere human, I proceeded to pick up my prey by the stem and gently lowered towards my mouth. I bit the pepper in half and before my teeth were even 1/4th of the way into the bite, my brain was saying, "you are in big time trouble, son." I yelled loudly. By the time I had swallowed what I had bitten, I was in what can only be described as biblical agony. My eyes were gushing with water, so, of course, I did the sensible thing and wiped them dry…with my bare hands. Yes, my frighteningly capsaicin-drenched hands. More screaming and yelling. I actually walked out of the restaurant and back to my house, completely blinded because my eyes were swollen shut. I only lived a block away. But it took me a half hour to get home. I spent the rest of the day with ice cubes and wet wash rags on my eyes, laying on the couch and dying a thousand deaths. So endeth my dance with peppers.

Oh, there are still other foods out there that I cannot stand: almonds, pistachios, cashews, sunflower seeds, bleu cheese, feta cheese, goat cheese, peas, chickpeas, raw carrots, red cabbage, pine nuts, lima beans, oregano, garlic, cilantro, mint leaves, rosemary, capers, scallions, basil, and pretty much every type of food the typical American family serves for Thanksgiving (including the pies). I could go on, but, including the top three, that represents pretty much 95% of the foods I cannot stand and could happily live without.

Yes, that does mean I could live without onion rings.

Not so sure about the French onion soup, though.

All Dressed Up, But Nowhere...

I recently was engaged in conversation with the mother of a friend of mine when we began to talk about writing and writing topics. I explained to her about the most recent entry and, without so much as missing a beat she asked, "Why don't you do one on Garanimals?" Now, this struck me as funny on several levels, least of all was the word "Garanimals." I was born too early in life to be able to experience the giddy joy of this line of clothing. To the uninitiated, allow me to give you a brief explanation: Garanimals are sets of clothing, both tops and bottoms, for children of all genders (no need to discriminate against budding hermaphrodites). Each article of clothing had a certain animal affixed to it. Now dressing your kid is simple; just match the giraffe-labeled top to the giraffe-labeled bottom and bingo - one less Xanax to pop that day.

Because they are designed for children, the animals are drawn all cute and cuddly and have precious names like Charlie Chimp, Pamela Panda and Geraldine Giraffe. I thought about this whilst still in the conversation above - nattily attired in ragged khaki shorts, rumpled-collar polo and sneakers looking like they were forcibly rescued from the spider gears of an axle off an old Ford. I also noticed that something happens to men right around the time they hit 30. Just like ants are selected to be workers or soldiers as soon as they are laid (don't say it), men get shuttled into either the "metrosexuals" or "regular guys" group. We've all read the oh-so-witty articles about metrosexuals in magazines, seen how they have kept two Bruno Magli strides ahead of the rest of us when it comes to neatness and fashion, and marveled how their hair remains perfectly motionless, as if forged by mountain dwarves deep below the Earth's mantle. Even nature allows passage and reverence to such hair:

Air Molecule #1: "Hey! Hey fellas! Would you get a look at that? That's one hell of a head of hair!"
Air Molecule #2: "Maybe we should angle away from it, just in case."
Air Molecule #3: "Yeah, I don't wanna mess that up."
Air Molecule #1: Are you kidding? You could fire a machine gun at it and he wouldn't even notice it. That's not hair, boys. That's SUPER HAIR!"
All: "Wow...."

The rest of us - the regular guys - don't have the problems of the metros. We're not going to invest any effort on such time-wasting activities as exfoliating, feng shui and flossing. No, we have to put up with the eye-rolling of spouses, fiancees and girlfriends who are just waiting for us to fall asleep so they can go to the kitchen, grab something sharp and dangerous, reach down, and cut to hell our favorite T-shirt, shorts, and sweats that we've had since college. Never mind they don't fit anymore, or have lost their shapes, or are so blasted with rips and holes that they are more gas than solid, we're men! And dammit, despite what Cosmo says, we ARE emotional and we ARE nostalgic. We remember wearing that shirt doing our first beer bongs, we remember those shorts because of that one late night at 7-11 when we put a hot sandwich bagel into the left pocket and it burned so badly it left an oval-shaped scorch mark for a month; and, dammit, we remember those sweats for when I was talking with cute little Michelle Napravnik after a game of touch football and my bastard friends snuck up behind me and yanked them down - shorts and all - in front of her, thereby certifying having no chance in hell of ever having sex with her. You see, gals, it's not just because the clothes are comfortable. They are. The reason we hold onto those clothes is because of the memories they hold. Well, that and the fact they're comfortable - and we non-Metros HATE to go shopping for clothes.

I suppose I could always come up with my own line of Garanimals for regular guys. We could call them GarMANimals, or something equally uninspiring. Instead of all these cute names for animals, we could use more utilitarian labels. Try these on for size:

Ernie the Engine - Boy, oh boy, like painters caps and coveralls in the 80s, this could be a burgeoning fad right out of the gate. Ripped jeans were in fashion in the 1980s, as well as acid-washed fabrics. For some stupid reason, they are back in fashion. Why can't oil and other automotive fluid stains climb aboard? This GarMANimal label would even offer a jumpsuit product. A sure-fire winner amongst the shade tree mechanic crowd.

Parma-John - Made from industrial strength polymer fibers, it comes in as many colors of red or black as you want. For wear at Italian restaurants only. Clip-on ties are available in the "Trying-To-Impress-Your-Date-Just-Enough-To-Get-Her-into-Bed-Without-Dropping-Too-Much-Cash-At-the-Restaurant" package. Buy two and get the two-toned pocket hanky to close the deal while pouring her a fourth glass of Asti Spumonti. Visible stains from the sauce? "That's somebody else's problem!" you laugh to yourself as the valet pulls up in your 1986 Cutlass Supreme.

Chicken Wing - The only animal on the list, well PART of an animal on the list. It's also the most versatile as far as color, size and style, as its target consumer is basically every "regular guy" in existence at a time when he is in his fullest glory - the weekend. It's clothing that serves basically two purposes: - The first is to answer the door when the pizza/chicken wing/cheese steak/hoagie/Chinese food delivery person arrives either before kickoff or at halftime. If the delivery person comes at any time during the game, it never fails that something big just went down on TV and your friends are either high-fiving or cursing at the screen while you stand there like a dork asking, "What did I miss???" The other purpose for this line of clothing is that you can basically say you didn't spend the entire day naked or in your underwear. As tempting as that sounds, it's really sort of creepy - even if you're with a woman. At least put on a robe. Or a cape. I tried the stay-naked-for-an-entire-day thing once a long time ago. By the time the next day came, I was so disgusted with myself that I couldn't look people in the eye for a month.

So, there it is. My first line of fashions in time for Fall. Maybe, with the blessings of the good people at Garanimals, I can extend my line more into the animal kingdom and come up with such characters as:

o Paulie da Piranha - for when you wanna look good when youse sleep wit' da fishes. Capiche?

o Shep the Sheep - for those morons who will wear whatever we tell them to wear because they can't think for themselves.

o Randy the Rabbit - for those lucky bastards who get laid in biblical proportions without any rhyme or reason. This label is for those guys who can sleep with the best looking woman at the club that night while wearing a T-shirt that reads, "Yes, I AM looking at your tits!" ($14.95 + shipping).

Of course, I anticipate our biggest mover to be the Hugh Heifer line, which are basically men's pajamas with Gary Larson's "The Far Side" cows all over them. Chicks must dig guys who spend all day in their pajamas. Hell, it works for Hef, it can work for me.

Right?

Who can take a sunrise...

This one has been brewing and fermenting for a while, and lucky you, you get to read it. So strap yourself in while I take you on tour of a place so magical, so wonderful, it can only be the worst place in the world - the land of candy.

I was first moved to thinking about writing of candy when Easter jumped out at us from behind the vernal corner. No warning, no postcards, just BAM - there it was, all resplendent and covered in pastels. I asked my friend if she made Easter baskets for her kids and she said "of course!" Immediately, the abacus stones in my brain were thrust violently to one side and I was sent tumbling back to 1973 (or 1974 - all the years in the 70s were the same. Until disco). I found myself staring chocolate-brown eye to brown chocolate eye with a hulking behemoth of a bunny. It was enormous and it weighed as much as a pair of wet dungarees. Back then, chocolate bunnies were made of SOLID chocolate, not this fake-me-out hollow business that couldn't withstand the grip of a two year old and collapses more easily than a South American government. I remember those old bunnies because you could never break through and just snap off a piece. Oh sure, the ears were easy prey, but that was like pretending your hot breath on a cold day made you look like you were smoking - anyone could do that. The real challenge was getting to the heart of the beast, namely, when all protrusions and distractions like feet, ears, head, tail had been conquered and you were left with something that resembled a chocolate pancreas brick. And oh what stories that brick could tell: The ridges on all sides gouged by your teeth in thick corduroy fashion desperately looking for a weakness; The fingerprints deeply embedded as you fought and strained to siphon off a chunk; the strangely flat and concussed part where it hit the kitchen floor after your teeth slipped and you accidentally bit a hole into your tongue, your cheek, or both...

But, Easter was more than killer chocolate bunnies. There were other candies, as well - and other candies for other moments. Back then, saying you were going to get a Hershey Bar meant that you were going to get a Hershey Bar - a nice, long flat bar of chocolate that you would happily devour for no reason at all. If you were haute couture, you'd buy the Hershey Bar with almonds. Today, no one just goes into a store and buys a Hershey Bar. And if you do, you don't just sit back in the bean bag chair and eat the whole damned thing. No, today, you break off the conveniently sectioned pieces of a GIANT Hershey Bar and put the rest in the refrigerator or hide them in your desk at work. This, of course, brings me to the miniatures. Now, don't put this all on the shoulders of the hard working folks at Hershey - there's plenty of blame to go around - but, who in the hell decided to call the little pieces of Krackle, Three Muskateers, Mr. Goodbar, etc. "Fun Size"? Are you having "fun" when you eat one? I sure as hell am not. Watching a good chick-flick "weeper"? Don't reach for that candy bowl - you're liable to have "fun" and blow the entire mood. Having the gang over from work and everyone just kind of stares awkwardly, shifting their stances and pushing crackers around on paper plates while you wheel out the half-empty bags of whatever potato chips you had in the cabinet over the stove? Break out the "Fun Size" candies and turn your monastery of a bachelor pad into a roller disco!

Back in the day, there were some great candies that either are not being made anymore or are only available in that one place your sister went with her husband about three summers ago or online from some sketchy guy who also sells "Keep On Truckin'" and "Stoned Again" T-shirts. Let's see if any of these ring the old memory bell:

Marathon Bars - The marketing department nailed this one. Imagine a foot-long link of caramel in the shape of interlocking pretzels and covered with a fragile coating of what passed as chocolate and you have the Marathon Bar. After unwrapping one end and sinking your teeth into a section, the caramel would change properties, converting into some type of evil epoxy that ripped fillings from your teeth, sprained the muscles in your jaw, and left your communication abilities to frantic arm-waving. By the time the enzymes in your saliva freed you from confectionary death and you could finally collect yourself after breathing deeply for a minute or two, what did you do? That's right, you took another bite. Dumb ass.

Charleston Chews - I don't remember much about this candy bar except that it fell in line with the Marathon Bar in the "size matters" category. I think I might have had it once and developed lock-jaw. I also remember the television commercial for it showing some jittery hooligan doing the Charleston dance with his fringy flapper gal. Laugh now. Today, kids are buying candy that looks and feels like snot.

Mallo Cups - Yeah, yeah, I know, they're still around. But, they were never around where I used to buy and steal MY candy. I had to go visit my grandmother in Pennsylvania just to be able to buy Mallo Cups. Talk about a candy that was so sweet and overbearing - it would make the insides of my ears sting. I loved them - well, the idea of them, anyway. Difficult to find in most places that hadn't already been carrying them since the rise of the Ottoman Empire.

Razzles - Is it a candy? Is it a gum? Why, it's two things in one! Razzles MUST have been the result of some maniacal candy scientist trying to come up with some other type of candy and accidentally "discovered" this. I can see it now, the scientist, up all weekend, existing on cigarettes, garden hose water and powdered gravy. After a series of explosions in the lab, all the police find the next day is a shredded lab coat with multi-colored candies stuck to the inside. After a furious game of rock-paper-scissors with his partner and the lieutenant, one officer puts a piece in his mouth while the other policemen and detectives point and say "Ewwww!" He realizes that, hey, this is more than just candy! It's...it's...it's bubble gum, too! Legend has it that every piece of Razzles to this day came from the inside of that lab coat.

Chunky - Imagine if you will a cement trapezoid. Cover it in chocolate. Imagine the rapid increase in emergency room admissions from kids trying in vain to bite through this monstrosity. Imagine being a fat kid being caught by your classmates buying a candy bar with a name like this. Prozac was invented for these kids.

Candy Cigarettes - Oh, here's a great idea. I suppose it would go great with ginger ALE and root BEER that you would drink whenever mom made POT luck dinner and HASH browns. Of course, I drank COKE instead. Gotta admit, though...it did make you look cool when you were seven years old.

Pixie Stix - Sugar. Pure sugar - but worse. Feed this to a monkey in the morning and you'll be digging a grave for it before lunch time.

Hell, today if I take a bite of candy, my whole body becomes stiffer than a teenager riding the school bus (trust me on this, girls). I end up unbalanced and reaching for a solid structure to steady myself like I was caught in an earthquake. My teeth feel fuzzy and I'm already bequeathing all of my possessions to loved ones as I slam onto the couch in a dizzying heap. Then, a tingling euphoria floods over me - kind of like when someone lightly scratches the back of my neck. It feels like a roller coaster ride. I look down at the wrapper that fell on the floor next to me and see that it was a "Fun Size" candy.

Hmmm. Maybe they were right.

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."