My relationship with St. Patrick’s Day: It’s nothing to shake your shillelagh at!

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I am the proud owner of a festive little green speedo, but circumstances have forced me to stop using it to show off my shamrocks on March 17th. As a side note, the Metro North conductors have also stopped me from showing off my lucky charms in it. I was almost charged with assault in a crowded train car when my Irish polka combined with the speed of the train didn’t mesh well last St. Patrick’s Day. My jig went horribly off-course and I almost did polka an old lady in the eye with my shillelagh when I lost my balance. Tea bag one old lady on the train and suddenly no one is proud to be Irish anymore.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to carry tokens for the subway dressed like this?

 

In as much seriousness as I can muster, I am kidding about the above paragraph. Anyone who has seen this body in motion knows that I have rhythm and smooth moves like Justin Timberlake and will not hesitate to compete in a dance off on a train if challenged. That being said, I am serious here – I’m not going out on St. Patrick’s Day; I just can’t do it anymore.

When I was Studying Abroad in London, two of my friends from college were on the same program. While that often lends a sense of familiarity to the proceedings, it might have been too much for me. Baby M (not THE actual Baby M from the 80’s, but a close second in my mind.) was always a cool bean. She is a calming presence at all times except that one time when that hairdresser snapped some of her hair off of one side and left her with an awkwardly short sprout pointing upwards. I could describe her to you with words, but a cartoon character has her down pat, so I will just show you:

She doesn't knit, so pretend the yarn isn't there. Other than that, Gwendolyn is the spitting image of Baby M.

 

Yes my friends, she has the absolute sheer fortune to look just like the Gwendolyn character from Wallace and Grommit. I actually had to buy the keychain in the photo above when I saw it due to the uncanny likeness. As little as she appreciated that, she would get even more annoyed when I would show people in the bar and ask them if anyone in here looked like the keychain I was holding and nine out of ten people would look around and point right at her. The other person would usually run off because Baby M would see what I was doing and scream across the bar that she didn’t look like that. Her reaction always encouraged me to show more people when they asked about the yelling. I might have dropped it after a while if her mother hadn’t gotten her a stuffed version of that doll that Christmas. Far be it from me to argue with your mother (I actually love her mother – she’s a cute little peanut) but if she says you look like the doll, then you look like the doll!

The wild card was always Mary because she is insane. I’m not kidding and I didn’t change her name for two reasons: One, she is a LUNATIC and doesn’t mind people knowing it. Two, every woman of any age that I have ever met with the name of Mary has been crazy. No lie – show me a Mary that’s not crazy and I’ll show you a Mary you don’t really know. This Mary, Motown Mary, ZXO Mary, Old Lady Mary that looks like Stefano Dimera from Days of Our Lives, – they’re all nuts.

My friend Lisa from college. She would fill up on green beer before French class and all of a sudden she was fluent!

 

So, we went out for St. Patrick’s Day and as is my habit, I started talking to all of these randoms in the bar. One particular guy that we met was named Mohammed and he was apparently very wealthy. He was buying us drinks because he thought we were funny and then he actually let Mary use his cell phone to call our friends in college. She thought nothing of using his cell phone to call Upstate New York from London and what it would cost. We hung around with him and a bunch of others for a few hours and then as we were about to leave Mary came busting up, grabbed me by the shoulder and swung me around:

“Did you tell that Arab guy Mohammed that I was your girlfriend and that I would go home with him for Fifty Pounds? Why would you tell him we’re going out? Why are you trying to sell me again?”

“Mary, it’s not like I’m not going to split it with y…“

With that I didn’t even get to finish my sentence before she hauled off and punched me in the face. Literally, close fist, punched me in the face like she was Marky Mark in The Fighter. She doesn’t look it, but that bitch is strong!

Marky Mary regulating big time in London!

 

No sooner had she struck me before she switched personalities, forgot the assault and then said calmly “Come on, we’re leaving!” As I might have mentioned before, I have actually never been in a fight before and don’t count this incident as one but I always stand a little further away from her since that day. Also, this is not me being demeaning to women – this is me being a friend: friends try to sell their friends to Arab men. It’s what we do!

If I had known it would result in her giving me a pop to the chops like that, I would have held out for a hundred pounds from Mohammed. She was more offended that I said we were dating than me trying to sell her. Needless to say when she announced that we were leaving, he tried to follow us out and come too, but she gave him the stink eye real bad and he beat a hasty retreat. Probably a safer bet for him than going home with her if you ask me because that bitch was strong and left marks!

As an isolated incident, one might veer towards taking Mary’s side of the situation, but not anyone that knows her. I will go into greater detail about her at a later date and link back to here because that girl is a force to be reckoned with and should have reality cameras following her 24/7. She is mucho loco and wears her straight jacket like it’s from Prada.  

I couldn’t decide between this and another St. Patrick’s Day incident, so I split them into two different posts. Come back on Thursday and read all about how I tasted a brick wall sandwich and then mistook a family gathering as my intervention and you’ll understand why I just will not go out on St. Patrick’s Day again!

Our Honeymoon Part Two: Forget finger lickin’- my masseuse was testicle flickin!!!

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If you have successfully devoured Part One of my Honeymoon Saga, you may now advance past Go and collect $200. If you haven’t, click here to catch up. Don’t worry, we’ll wait for you slowpoke! There is always the wild card third option of flying blind and not knowing how or why I ended up here, so whichever route you choose to take – here’s Part Two.

 

Part of the draw of going to The Body Holiday in St. Lucia is that it’s an amazing beach-front tropical paradise where your body is pampered with spa treatments every day. Their tag line actually is “Give us your body for a week and we’ll give you back your mind.” At first glance that might sound really appealing to a normal person, but in case you didn’t know: I’m not normal!!! I hate to be touched in any way shape or form and I gave my mind over to those internal voices and their fighting years ago. I know my body pretty well and its idea of a holiday is not being man-handled – it’s resting on the couch or reclining in an air-conditioned movie theatre.

 

After dinner one night and just before the bed broke the first time, we went to a fashion show where the staff members (they actually refer to the help as “Bodyguards”) model some of the clothes you can purchase in the gift shop. It was at that moment when I first saw an ebony goddess strutting down the runway in slow motion. She was clad in a white bikini smaller than my pocket square and working that runway like she owned it when I suddenly realized that despite the heat, the birds, or the outdoor dining – I love St. Lucia!

 

bodyguard-for honeymoon part two

 

As part of your body’s holiday, there is a spa treatment scheduled every day.  I didn’t want to go to the treatments, but my wife talked/forced me into it. I don’t like the idea of being oiled up and jostled about like a show pony, but it was a no-win battle. Also (and more importantly) as I was now a married man, anyone besides my wife rubbing, fondling, or karate chopping me was gonna start something that wouldn’t be finished. If I am not making myself crystal clear put it this way: Do you know what happens when you knead the bread dough and it starts to get hot? It starts to rise people!!!

 

kneading - for honeymoon part two

Do I even “Knead” to explain this one?

 

As I headed to my first treatment, I asked directions to the spa. The friendly male bodyguard (no, not Kevin Costner) gently directed me to “follow this path towards your Oasis.” What he neglected to mention in his cult-like directions was that the path to the spa was almost ninety steps up the side of a very steep cliff. His “path” was a winding steep staircase the likes of which I thought would never end. I made it up about twenty steps before I had to sit down to catch my breath. There were smokers and senior citizens – literally fucking seniors – passing me as I sat there like a lump. Did I mention the blistering heat and no shade on the path? As a general note for the resort: If you want a fat fuck like me to climb all those steps up a cliff in that heat and you better have a paramedic on standby!!! I thought I was gonna drop dead right there and then.

 

To let you in on how and when the spa treatments are assigned; when you arrive, they plan out an itinerary of spa selections for each day that you’re there. I tried to get them to give my wife two treatments a day instead of getting any for myself, but they wouldn’t do that and my wife convinced me to “try it you might like it.” I gave in – but once again my Immodium Spidey-senses were tingling. Also, I couldn’t help but be self-conscious after the therapist suggested that I might want to upgrade and get a Cellulite Flush. Obviously, I passed as there’s no way I’d ever get anything resembling a literal stick of dynamite for the sole purpose of “flushing me out!” I want to know who in their right mind would choose to cleanse the circulatory, lymphatic, and digestive systems and then walk down ninety steps. Hello? There would be a massive cleanup on aisle two for sure!

 

By the time I finally made it up that never-ending path, I was soaking wet and almost ready to die. As a point of reference, let me just tell you that Hannibal actually crossed the Alps with those elephants in less time than it took me to get up that path. I went into the locker room and looked at myself in the mirror and I was just disgusted. Forget being tired and out of shape, I looked like the Pillsbury Dough Boy in a Girl’s Gone Wild Video with that sweaty, slicked-up chest hair peeking out of my wet T-Shirt. That white rag that used to be my T-shirt was stuck to me like saran wrap around chop meat. I peeled it off me, threw it out, and then took the coldest shower I could.

 

The very top of the never-ending “Path”

 

When I got into the room that my massage was in, I was not looking forward to it but thought it might be OK. I was on the table and tried to explain to the male masseuse that I didn’t like to be touched and that I didn’t want a massage. He said to calm down and relax and before I knew it, he was rubbing my feet with nasty oil and smiling. At that moment, I knew exactly how date rapes start – because he wasn’t taking no for an answer and I wanted him to go slow because I was unsure. He told me to lie back and close my eyes and then released my feet. I was about to do just that when I saw these two big hands covered in oil moving towards my face which prompted me to scream “What are you doing?  You just touched my feet – don’t go near my face.” He was laughing and telling me to close my eyes and relax but that was enough for me. I jumped off that table and out of went to scrub that oil off my feet.

 

Afterwards, I didn’t have to give my wife the play by play to tell her what happened because she was actually in the room next to mine and she said that I ruined her massage. She couldn’t concentrate with me complaining the whole time and because I kept saying “What are you doing? I don’t like this. Why is that oil warm? Where is your hand?” she was actually happy that I gave up and left so that she could enjoy what was left of her massage. She also rescheduled her treatments for different times than me so I wouldn’t be anywhere near her as she said she “wanted to relax” (which I took to mean pretend she didn’t know me.)
I wasn’t going to go to the next treatment (or any others after that) at all, but my wife made me promise that I would give just one more treatment a fair try and she advised me to “not be myself” and try to enjoy it. I caved in and went into the treatment room where I met up with someone facing the wall with her back towards me telling me to get undressed and under the sheet on the bed. Apparently, she wasn’t even attempting small talk and who was she kidding about a sheet – it was more like a short towel. I obviously didn’t want any part of it until I realized who the woman saying it was: It was the ebony goddess from the fashion show! I dropped those shorts in an instant and thought I actually might enjoy this treatment after all.

 

My masseuse right before she attempted testicular manslaughter!

 

As she started to massage me, she was explaining the treatment to me, but I wasn’t listening because I was distracted by how much she moved around. She was back and forth from one side of the table to the other like she was playing ping pong, yet she didn’t miss a spot on me. She was gingerly moving the sheet/towel as she massaged and I really did try to just relax. She was all over me like a rash and I was actually really starting to enjoy the massage. She was firm and then gentle, firm and then gentle. That ended abruptly when she told me to turn over and get onto my back. I pretended that I hadn’t heard her and figured that if I ignored her, she would let me stay the way I was yet she didn’t. I actually COULDN’T turn over and get onto my back because I was REALLY, REALLY, REALLY enjoying the massage if you know what I mean…If you don’t know what I mean, see the comment below about kneading the bread.

She then got a little louder; “You turn over now.”

“I’m OK like this, thanks anyway…” I offered back weakly as I tried to jostle myself and get the sheet/towel to try and cover me again so it wasn’t as obvious what was really going on….
“I said turn over” she said sternly.
“And I said No – No means No!” I shot back at her even more sternly – hoping upon hope that she would just take the hint and leave me alone – but then the unthinkable happened!
She lifted the sheet off me and said “Turn Over – Now!” I jumped to turn over, lost the sheet/towel off the side of the table onto the floor when I tried to recover myself with it and just gave up all hope of modesty or self respect at that point. Her lifting the sheet is not even the unthinkable part I was referring to. As I lied back down and tried to reposition myself and tried to get the sheet/towel back over me, she flicked my testicle! She fucking flicked my testicle!

The play-by-play re-enactment!

 

Obviously I was shocked and scared at the same time (talk about a vulnerable position) and then she took the sheet/towel and tried to recover me which didn’t matter so much anymore at that point because I had taken a nosedive faster than Michael Phelps, if you know what I mean. I was in shock and pain from the flicking assault that I didn’t even notice what she was doing next until I felt this gritty mud being spread all over me as if it were crunchy peanut butter and I were the slice of bread. I tried to complain/ask questions, but she gave me a nasty glare and held up a finger that basically meant one more word and the other testicle gets it too! Needless to say, I shut right up.

 

I tried to remain calm yet look around for the nearest exit to plot my escape until she started to wrap what looked and felt like saran wrap around me. It was almost like I was the sausage and she was putting the clear coating around me. My bruised ego (and bruised testicle) got the best of me and I jumped up to get dressed and get out of there. No one was wrapping me in saran wrap and that crazy shit no matter how hot she was. She tried to get me to lie back down, but I had enough so I put on my shorts and made a run for it. Another treatment ends in disaster…needless to say my wife said it served me right for her flicking my testicle. I know sometimes I am a psycho and bring these things on myself – but in no way did I instigate a testicle attack! That’s literally hitting below the belt!

 

I was totally done with the treatments at that point, not to mention those god damn steps…The next day my wife forced me (literally) to go to my facial. “What could happen? It’s a facial…” she said.  I got into the room and this tiny little peanut that spoke very little English said “OK, you take off now” and pointed at my shorts. I thought she must be confused and said “Just the shirt – It’s a facial right? No need to be naked…” I certainly had no intention of getting naked again , especially after yesterday’s testicular attack. You got me once, but I’m not a fool.

 

She stood up and said sternly “OFF!” and pointed at my shorts, which scared me a little so I did as I was told. This nice little peanut suddenly turned into a little bit of a bitch. Then she proceeded to hand me a “modesty coverup” which was a towel the size of a large index card, but I was just happy to have any coverage at all. As I was lying there on my back, she took slices of some sort of fruit and put them over my eyes. I was concerned being naked again and now having my vision obscured, but I really was trying. I didn’t make it ten seconds like that before she stared rubbing some sort of shit on my face. I’m not sure what it was and hope it wasn’t actually shit, but since my line of view was covered I can’t be positive.

 

This would have been less ridiculous than my facial.

 

She started rubbing that stuff on my face and she was leaning down over my head when all of a sudden I can only assume something got caught in her throat because she started coughing uncontrollably. RIGHT IN MY FACE! I got hit with exactly two bits of phlegm before I started screaming and jumped up. I was flailing around naked looking to get the towel to wipe my face off and ran towards the door when she tried to speak through the coughing…”You…(cough cough)…have a …(cough cough)…sit back down…(cough cough)” I started to open the door to make a run for the shower to scrub my face and get the shit and the phlegm off of it, when I realized that I was still naked as she was vomiting into the little sink in the corner. I found my shorts on the floor and put them on and ran to the showers. As if that wasn’t bad enough, don’t you know that my wife’s first response to me telling her about this latest assault was “Is she OK?” I looked at her like she was crazy and said “What? That’s not the point – who cares? I didn’t even check – she could be dead for all I care, she almost threw up on my fucking face and I was naked again. There’s something wrong with this place!”

 

Every treatment was originally scheduled to be an hour, but I didn’t even make it through a third of that for any one of the treatments. The facial must be a record, because I wasn’t even there for all of four minutes. My wife loved every minute of every one of her treatments and we actually did have an amazing Honeymoon in spite of me and my antics. The lesson here is that if you know that something isn’t right – stick to it or your gonna write a check that your testicle can’t cash!


Our Honeymoon Part One: Ain’t no joke, our bed broke (Twice!!!) and I had to call a bloke who was sippin’ on a coke; All because I gave her a poke!

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When we booked our Honeymoon at a resort called The Body Holiday in St. Lucia, my spidey senses should have been tingling that something was off. I wanted to be a good sport for my wife because she was really excited about going there, but I just knew in my core that it might not be the right fit for me.

It was early April when we went and it really was remarkable. Everyone, except for me, thought the weather was fantastic, but I didn’t even make it out of the cab from the airport without completely sweating right through my linen shirt and leaving a mark on the back seat. I was literally stuck to that seat like white on rice, but I kept quiet (believe it or not) and made the best of it. Travelling with me is never an enjoyable experience for anyone, as I will readily admit, so I was really going out of my way to make this a pleasant experience for my wife. It was our Honeymoon and I wanted her to always remember these moments and have the most amazing experience.

By the time we arrived at the resort, it was dark and we were starving. They led us to our absolutely amazing suite and we dropped off our bags and went right to eat. We were seated quickly and I was so hungry and sweaty that I didn’t realize it at first, but we were outside. The restaurant was little more than a hut with no walls. It was a really nice hut and pleasant enough, but there were birds sitting on the beams of the roof. If I have neglected to mention this before, or if I am repeating myself, please accept my apology: I do not eat outside. I’m not a squirrel and I have absolutely no desire to brave the elements or fight with wildlife while trying to devour my chicken and rice. Those birds in the rafters were giving me the stare down like someone’s feisty grandmother and it’s like they knew they could take me if it turned into a fight which was very disconcerting. And do I even need to bring up my traumatizing experiences with birds anyway? There were fewer birds in the rafters at night than during breakfast the next day which was small consolation at the time.   

I will admit that it really was an amazing beach-front resort but the trouble is that I actually hate hate hate the beach. I am so pale and ill-colored that, at times, my wan complexion has been mistaken for that of an albino and I burn like a hot dog when I go outside in the sun. I actually have no tanning potential in my body; I go from zero to red-as-a-smacked-ass with no in-between. Also, beaches skeeve me out: I mean what’s relaxing about sitting in dirt? You’re sitting in fucking dirt – That’s disgusting!

As my wife went swimming in the ocean after breakfast, I was wandering around that beach all covered up under a bathrobe and Hello Kitty parasol like Michael Jackson searching for some shade. I made a bee-line to the first available beach chair that I saw with a shaded umbrella above it. There were two lounge chairs under it and I dropped into the empty chair next to the one cradling an elderly bronze woman. She looked at me and said in a very nice old lady British accent “Honey, my husband is sitting…” to which I cut her off and offered my right pointer finger along with my almost polite answer of “Not anymore!” She got mad and left in a huff, but I didn’t ask for both chairs; Screw her if she didn’t want my company.

My wife came over to me and was surprised how I got two shaded seats so quickly on a crowded beach, but I just smiled and shrugged because I just knew that she would have made me give them back to the old lady. She asked me to make sure I stayed there as she was concerned how we would find each other if we got separated on the beach. “Look around Honey – I’m like the moon out at night – you can’t miss me.” As I scanned the beach, it was almost as if I was glowing. Everyone around us had the perfect bronze/leathery skin and there was my Breyer’s vanilla complexion shining like a nightlight in the center of it all. 

The best thing (well really the only good thing if you ask me) about that beach was the drink system. Each person got a flag and when you wanted waitress service you placed your flag standing upright into the ground and they came over to take your order. Alcohol Efficiency at work and the only way to get me to stay on a beach! I actually tried to implement that same system into my living room at home, but the waitress there threatened to disembowel me if I brought that flag out again…          

After a tense situation later that afternoon, we called it a day. It turns out that taking scuba diving lessons for the first time (against my will mind you – I mean really: How many people have had these snorkels in their mouth? And can you just imagine how many filthy feet have used those flippers? All this and me without my bleach) isn’t a good idea when you have a bad stomach normally and then add a bad hangover to it. As that equipment was strapped on and we were heading under, I was getting queasy and starting sweating profusely (I know right, who else sweats in water?) and I just knew that there was no possible way that this could end well. I know those symptoms and sort of like when you hear a doorbell and you know someone’s there – I knew someone was knocking at my door if you get my drift.

I got that equipment off of me like it was on fire and ran off like a flash of lightning only to find the Housekeeper in our room cleaning. I begged her to get out immediately or at least step aside and let me into the bathroom, but something was lost in translation and she wouldn’t get out of the way. What wasn’t lost in translation was me speeding off and clenching the whole way back down to the restaurant bathroom before I caused a St. Lucian mudslide. I made it just in time and Thank God I didn’t have to sneeze or there would have been a whole new trail to follow down from the bungalows. My wife was actually mad that I left her in the water with a French speaking couple that she couldn’t understand, and she said that almost shitting my pants served me right. I caught a quick-hitter during scuba and almost shit my pants because of a rogue housekeeper yet she’s the one who’s mad?

Dinner went without incident and then we went to the Piano Bar before calling it a night. I will be a gentleman and kindly use the Fast Forward Pass and skip ahead to the midde of the night when I had to call the Front Desk because our bed broke. I will admit that at first, there was a little part of me that was arrogantly beaming with macho pride that we had just broken our honeymoon bed, but that part was quickly smacked down by the bigger part of me that was mortified as I tried to explain it to the Front Desk Agent on the phone. I’m not sure if it was me talking too fast, his heavy island accent, or more likely, me being drunk – but I just could not for the life of me explain it to him clearly so I finally just blurted out “Dude, it’s our Honeymoon – How do you think the bed broke?” Yep, cleared that right up!

Think there's any way that we can pretend it was like that when we got here?

The agent called the hotel carpenter at home to have him come and fix the bed immediately. St Lucia must be smaller than a legal sized envelope, because that carpenter was there so fast that I really couldn’t believe it. As soon as I opened the door to let him in, he gave me a knowing look and he then asked me (in his really heavy Island accent) how I could have broke the bed as he was glancing around the room. In my stupor, I had no idea what he was looking for until it hit me like a truck: He thought I was there alone and broke the bed by myself. My wife was nowhere to be found (she had locked herself in the bathroom because she was embarrassed) and there I was making small talk with the carpenter and the shit-eating grin on his face. I could have just been a mature adult, but I got embarrassed and blurted out “My wife is in the bathroom – it’s our Honeymoon you know” which I’m not quite sure he believed anyway. After what felt like an eternity, he finally fixed the bed and my elusive wife appeared from the bathroom ONLY after he left the room so she could go to bed.  

Don’t you know that the very next night, that bed broke again! I‘m not sure if it had anything to do with my training as a college gymnast or if that carpenter jimmy-rigged the bed with scotch tape and paper clips, but it was ten times more embarrassing calling the second night (to the same exact agent) than it was the first time. Forget the ten shades of red that my face was when the carpenter showed up again, and focus on the twenty shades of red that my face got when he said in his island accent while pointing at the bed “Tomorrow, you go easy on this man!!!” Needless to say I was ready to put that freaking mattress on the floor or sleep out on the balcony instead of risking that frame collapsing again…

Senior Year at regionals in college – That’s me in the scarlet unitard!

 Coming up on Thursday:

Our Honeymoon Part Two: Forget Finger Lickin’- My Masseuse was Testicle Flickin!!!

The only A A that I care about stands for Academy Awards!!!

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I’m going to be like all the other hacks and take this time to talk with you about the Oscars coming up this weekend. I’m not presumptuous enough to believe that any of you are actually out there waiting around for me to tell you who to pick for your office Oscar pool, but here goes. OK, maybe Weezie is actually waiting for me to tell her, but with my picks she has been undefeated and actually shut down her company Oscar Pool. They got pissed off that she kept winning yet hadn’t seen any of the nominated films so they stopped doing it. Way to go Weezie – work that system!

A little history about me, if you will. I will say it loud and clear: I am a movie lover. New ones, old ones, musicals, foreign, Black and White, documentaries, I love all types. Well OK, I actually detest 3D movies, but come on – Why would I want things flying at my face while I’m watching a movie?

Now that's how you make an entrance!

 Before we go any further, a little respect needs to be paid. February 27th is not only the 83rd Academy Awards Ceremony, but the birthday of my very first love, Elizabeth Taylor. Cleopatra was the first movie that I ever saw and let me tell you – this little boy was just blown away. I sat there transfixed as I watched her arrival into Rome on that enormous barge (no I am not referring to Richard Burton) and I could tell even then that this feeling was something special. It instilled an insatiable desire that still burns in me to this day. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had experienced the unmistakable power that movies can have over you. To be drawn in and be so completely enraptured is the ultimate experience. Such emotion gets so intertwined into a great movie that you remember that feeling every time you see it again. That’s power.     

With Cleopatra, I dove head-first into the movie pile devouring everything that I could get my hands on, and I haven’t been out since. I learned what being cool was from James Dean, what it meant to be a man from Paul Newman, and what funny really was from Cary Grant. I saw in these amazing films other worlds that just sucked me in and, somehow, resonated with me. Who didn’t want their very own Auntie Mame? Whose family doesn’t resemble Claudia Larson’s in Home for the Holidays and who didn’t want a friend like E.T.? I laughed with Arsenic and Old Lace, I was terrified of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, I was enchanted by A Place in the Sun, and I cried like a baby with Life is Beautiful.  On the downside, that painted an almost unrealistic picture of what the perfect woman should be for me. I never could have guessed back then that I would somehow manage to find the ideal mix of Vivien Leigh’s feistiness, Audrey Hepburn’s elegance, Rosalind Russell’s sense of humor, and Jayne Mansfield’s rack – but somehow I did. And she loves movies as much as me if that’s even possible!!!

One of my favorite movies - EVER!

 I tell you this to reinforce how personally I take these movies. Just like with a great book, I love that feeling of getting swept up in a story and just transported – there‘s absolutely nothing like that. I am also OCD compulsive and cannot control my need to see every single film nominated for the Oscars. Every single film. My wife was pregnant and tired, but I still dragged her almost two hours each way to see August Rush because it was nominated for Best Song. Suck it up Honey, its Oscar Season!

The actual Academy Awards Ceremony is the icing on the cake. Granted, it’s really good icing, but the reward for me is to see all of these movies that I possible might not have. I had heard of Animal Kingdom, but after seeing Jackie Weaver’s scary-good performance in it – Wow. Javier Bardem in Biutiful – Oh my God, just amazing! Restrepo – I dare you to watch that documentary and not feel something. Exit through the Gift Shop –one of the most fun films about a truly charmed and crazy individual; it’s like reality TV gone wild. Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy – OK, now that one I should have skipped because it was really awful. It reminded me of this one time in college after we ate mushrooms and I couldn’t get off the sidewalk. It was torture, but I physically couldn’t lift myself off the ground so I just stayed there – lying on the ground next to the Post Office for hours. That was Tron: Legacy for me. If you haven’t seen it – it’s basically an ultimate Frisbee game if the Frisbee were glow in the dark. And where was the warning label before that movie. Forget what rating it was, I was afraid I might stroke out right there from all those god damn flashing lights.  

While I’m up on my soapbox, let me also say that I don’t agree with ten films being nominated for Best Picture instead of five. It takes some of the cache away from being an “Oscar nominee” when there are now twice as many films. When Beauty and the Beast was nominated for Best Picture it was such an accomplishment for an animated film to make the cut and now for the past two years there have been animated films nominated (Up and Toy Story 3). I’m not saying they weren’t worthy or aren’t very good, but it’s less of an accomplishment in a way. And let’s be honest, neither really had/has a shot at actually winning Best Picture anyway. Best Animated Picture definitely (although I did personally love How to Train Your Dragon – which I was surprised to learn as the movie started – was not a porn film) To me, it just comes across as a way of the Academy trying to skewer younger to be inclusive of movies that they feel younger people want to see and will root for. My message to the Academy: The formula works, stop messing with it!     

What I love as much as a great film is when I see a movie that is nominated or gets rave reviews and I hate it. It reminds me that my perceptions and tastes aren’t universal but sometimes it shocks me too. Lord of the Rings – I absolutely despised it and want the movie gods to give me my time back. It’s not that I don’t like the fantasy movie genre, but it just did nothing for me and I just don’t get all the raves for it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but there is absolutely no ring, or any piece of jewelry for that matter, that’s worth over ten hours of my time!

Another example of critical love/my hatred is True Grit, which I think is just awful and clowny. I know that people love the Coen’s and cozy up to shower praise on the Coen Alter, but once again I just don’t get it. I sat there watching it thinking A) I cannot understand half of what Jeff Bridges is saying and B) who thought that Matt Damon’s moustache and sideburns were a good idea? Don’t read into this and think that I am anti-Jeff Bridges either. He was outstanding in Crazy Heart and deserved to win Best Actor last year and I actually think that The Door in the Floor is the best movie he’s ever been in, but I am really surprised by this nomination. Speaking of last year, I am still offended that A Serious Man was nominated for Best Picture.  As I sat there watching it, I really thought that Netflix sent me the wrong disc because it was that bad. It doesn’t come across as quirky, just annoying. How ironic that A Serious Man was such a joke.

I want to talk about chemistry in the movies. People are annoyed at some of the nomination oversights and snubs this year, but which category has a snub where someone non-deserving took their place? Supporting Actor? I think The Social Network worked because of the dynamics between Andrew Garfield and Jesse Esienberg together, but I wasn’t surprised that Garfield didn’t get a nomination. The played off each other so well and that’s what made the betrayal in the story sting even harder. Garfield gave a great performance and was deserving of a nomination, but he was a victim of a foolish studio trying too hard to get three Supporting Actor nominations. Why would they campaign so hard for Garfield, Justin Timberlake and Armie Hammer? Timberlake had the least showy of the three and was the furthest chance for a nomination by any means and this is a movie that is seen as a writing triumph, not an acting triumph. They should have focused on Garfield and he might have edged out Mark Ruffalo. Don’t get me wrong, Mark Ruffalo is a great actor, but not in this role. He’s really good, but should have been nominated for You Can Count on Me.

The Kids Are All Right is another example of this. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore were so realistic and their relationship made you care about the story and pushed it further. They should have been campaigning for Moore in the supporting category all along, not as a lead. I know she was as much if not more of a lead as Bening was, but her performance got lost due to so many great performances this year. She will win one of these days (as will Bening, but not this year) and we will look back at this as a side note in her illustrious career. I see her in so many performances and have this terrible thought in the back of my mind that she might turn out to be like Lauren Bacall and always be the bridesmaid…I hope I’m wrong about that though.  

Blue Valentine is such a powerfully realistic portrayal of a decaying marriage, but truthfully, it’s a bit of a downer. It pulls you in, makes you care about them so much, and then spits you out because your heart just breaks for Ryan Gosling and you want so badly for it to work out between them. Michelle Williams makes you forget all about Dawson’s Creek and the two of them are like magnets drawing each other in and then repelling each other. This is a movie that stays with you long after the credits and Gosling’s snub is a shocking omission because the two performances are brought to another level because of each other. They work as a whole and it is impossible to separate where one begins and the other ends in the equation. I knew in my heart he was going to be left off the nominations list, but he was the one I was hoping might sneak in.

I will make the exact same case for Aaron Eckhart in Rabbit Hole. As I said about Blue Valentine, people have a tendency of shying away from sad stories/downers no matter how good they are and this is one that just breaks your heart. Unimaginable loss drives him and Nicole Kidman and they both just give it their all. I saw this movie by myself and I am not embarrassed to say that I was sitting in the back, clutching my Twizzlers welling up and just thinking “Oh my God” because it was just so powerful. Maybe if I saw this a few years ago when I didn’t have a son it might have hit me a little differently, but wow. When the cell phone video of his son got accidentally deleted, I just lost it. That stayed with me for weeks and hit me like a ton of bricks because of the two of them intertwined into each other. It is not an overall great movie, but the two of them elevate it to a higher level.

Natalie Portman totally transformed herself and is utterly unrecognizable as The Black Swan

I bring up these deeply intertwined relationships to lead you to Natalie Portman. Black Swan (despite what I wrote about it earlier) is at times a psychological thriller and at times a little girl’s fairy tale crossed with a horror film. If Natalie Portman isn’t announced as the winner Sunday night, than the Academy Awards really have stopped being about the performances. Annette Bening is Hollywood royalty and should have won already for Being Julia (my favorite movie she’s been in) but she shouldn’t win for Kids. Sure, she is great and our heart aches along with her, but this is not her strongest performance. Nor is her performance stronger than Kidman’s or William’s and I will just omit Winter’s Bone entirely, because I was taught if you have nothing nice to say – blah blah blah…Bening winning this year would be a triumph for a deserving career, a political statement without saying a word about gay marriage and the recognition for a film that dared us to look at “unconventional” lives and show us what the new “normal” might be, but it would not be about rewarding the best performance. Portman gave her heart, body (literally) and soul and every ounce of it shows on the screen. This was a go-for-broke, give-it-your-all performance that carried the movie to another level. If you removed any of the other performances in the film (Kunis was great and looking good as always) Portman would have still been as effective. She gave an amazing stand-alone performance that was great because of what she brought to it, not what she played off of. I’m all for a good upset, but I will be shocked if another name is called in this category.  

The Fighter was absolutely amazing and one of my favorite films. Christian Bale is unrecognizable and surely a lock – unless Geoffrey Rush gets caught up in a sweep for The King’s Speech (which will win Best Picture). The Fighter has the best ensemble performances on screen this year. Mark Wahlberg was overlooked for a nomination, but should take solace in the fact that he is personally responsible for elevating Christian Bale, Melissa Leo and Amy Adams to nominations. His was a more subtle role, all the while driving the other three to go all out, but never over the top. Melissa Leo could have easily become a cartoon character with the big hair and multiple-daughter posse she rode with, but she brought it home like a champ. I think that she might have peaked early and given a little room for Adams to sneak through with the award because this is a movie you see more than once. The first time, Bale and Leo dominate your thoughts and conversation, but you go back for Wahlberg and Adams. Supporting Actress is the only category I allow myself to go against conventional wisdom every year, so I am backing Adams for the win. I will not even mention Melissa Leo running her own “consider me” ads either. Where are her people? She was a lock until she started getting all crazy. Not that one should ever use Monique as an example to follow, but she should have just let the performance speak for itself.     

Clearly, I am no expert and I’m not the go-to Oscar prognosticator for Entertainment Weekly like the genius Dave Karger but I hope you take my thoughts into account before you fill out your ballot for Sunday night. At the very least, maybe it will encourage you to see some of these extraordinary films. See you at the concession stand!   

Forget the Apple store, the only Mac I care about starts with Big or ends with Rib!

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Hard as it is to believe, I’m a guy that really used to go to the gym every day and actually really cared about how I looked. Don’t worry, I’m still that same shallow person underneath; I’m just underneath a lot more layers now. I wasn’t always so self-conscious until people started reacting oddly to me.

Just me daydreaming again at work - they really need to fix that Air Conditioning.

After the last tuxedo incident I wrote about, I thought it better to go out and buy a tuxedo instead of renting one. I was interrupted while browsing the selections by the sales guy who felt the need to yell at me across the store “Hey! What are you doing over there? You need to be in the short and portly section down here!” As if I wanted everyone in the store to know that the height Gods might have snubbed their noses down at me but the fat Gods had given me an overabundance of gifts. And who calls someone “portly” anyway – is that even a real word? As funny as I didn’t think he was, he didn’t seem at all fazed when I yelled back “Thanks asshole; do you have any portly shoes to match this?” Some people might have gotten the hint at that point, but he then proceed to follow me into the dressing room and lecture me on how short people look even shorter when wearing the vest of a three piece suit as I was undressing. I’m not sure why, but I always seem to find the most helpful people out there…    

If you were to ask my sister Marlene to share her sage advice on the topic of me gaining a few pounds, she’d gently say “It’s because he’s fucking lazy!” but I like to think of it as being conservative with my energy. The kind and gentle words of a mentally unstable sister can be so soothing sometimes…

I’ve gained so much weight, that if you were to look at my driver’s license picture (which was taken when I was in college, when I was younger and, more importantly, when I was hotter) it looks like a distant relative. You know how when people look at a fake ID and squint and then tell you, unconvincingly, how you could almost pass for the person in the photo? It’s just like that although it looks like I have swallowed the person in my picture. Seriously, people look at that photo and then look back at me, and then back one more time at the photo to make sure it’s really me. They usually furrow their brow as if unsure how to respond and although no one has actually said it out loud yet, I know it’s only a matter of time. I just know that they’re looking at that photo and thinking “What happened you fat fuck?” Don’t tell me that people wouldn’t say that because that’s the type of thing that I would say to someone!   

I don't know why my wife won't go to the beach with me!

I almost feel like I need to explain to them that I broke my left ankle twice – two years in a row on April 22nd actually. It takes a real uncoordinated ass to do that but I’ll wear that crown. Whenever I try to offer that up into the conversation, my ever-supportive wife likes to remind me that it has been five years since I broke my ankle for the second time so it’s probably healed by now enough for me to start exercising again…She also likes to throw in for good measure, that three Presidents have been in office since I was last considered “in shape” so the excuse doesn’t really hold water anymore.

Would she say that to Joe Theismann about his injury? I thought not. As a side note, that is the first and only time you’re ever likely to see a sports analogy used in anything I write. It’s not because I don’t think sports analogies offer anything to the dialogue, it’s because that’s the only sports factoid I actually know and to be perfectly honest, I really only know that one because it was in The Blind Side.

I know very scant bits about sports and can offer little by the way of anecdotal evidence unless you’re referring to the subject of an Oscar-nominated movie. I wouldn’t know Lebron James from Rick James, but you get me started about The Fighter, Field of Dreams, or Rocky and I’ll light this mother up.  

Isn't he on the Miami Heat now?

I was always way too uncoordinated to ever play sports anyway. The last time I tried was the first time I broke my left ankle. Picture it like a mathematical equation if you will: volleyball + a really tall bitch spiking the ball in my face + short stubby me + a one-time jump trying to block a shot that was three feet over my head = Emergency Room, Crutches and then surgery. Get the picture?

Don’t even get me started about that surgery on my ankle because Like B.A. won’t get on an airplane, I will never go in that hospital again. They gave me a sedative and my wife and sister walked me down the hallway as the attendant rolled me towards the elevator and into surgery. I had taken my contact lenses out and couldn’t see anything past my nose. As we passed by, another attendant asked the attendant pushing me to drop a sample off at the lab and then proceeded to toss the sample on the stretcher and it landed next to me. I was squinting like mad to make it out for sure, but I knew it was shit in a bag and I looked to my wife and sister for help.

I pity the fool that put shit on my stretcher!

 Little use they were, because they were looking at each other trying not to laugh. The only thing protecting me from a log of someone’s shit was a thin layer of cotton that the hospital was calling a sheet! The last thing I remember before the sedative knocked me out was me trying to sit up and get off that stretcher because I was so worked up and muttering over and over “There’s shit in that bag…Oh God, There’s someone’s shit in that bag…” No, I am not exaggerating and I am not mistaken – THEY LITERALLY PUT A CLEAR PLASTIC BAG FULL OF SHIT ON TOP OF ME!

My biggest fear in life had been realized and where was my wife during it? Laughing in my face! I might have to go back and rewatch our wedding video, but I’m pretty sure that we covered this in the vows. If it is at all still unclear Honey, please let me remedy that right now because to me “in good times and in bad times” actually means that I vow not to let someone transport a bag full of shit on my spouse!!! 

Incidentally, the second time I broke my left ankle on April 22nd was exactly one year after the first time I did it. No volleyball this time, but I went out with friends to “celebrate” my anniversary and my finally being able to walk unassisted after a year of surgery, physical therapy, wearing a boot cast up to my knee, walking with crutches, falling with crutches, and then walking with a cane like every pimp should. I got drunk that night and left the bar to get into a cab towards home when I tripped stepping off the curb. I twisted my ankle and smashed head first into the rear quarter panel of the cab as I was screaming in agony on the ground clutching that damn ankle again.

One would think that in that situation, a normal person might get out and help someone that had fallen, but the cab driver leaned over the front seat and yelled out the open back door towards me “Are you getting in or not?” As I tried to crawl off the ground and into the back seat, he asked me “where to?” I just cringed and muttered “Hospital – I think I broke my ankle again.” The nurses and doctor thought it was so funny and so ironic that I somehow managed to break the same ankle on the same date two years in a row, but you know who didn’t think it was funny: My wife who was in Florida with her sister. At least the second time, I didn’t break a piece of the bone along with the ankle and need to have another surgery but I was back in that cast and back on those crutches for months again…       

I hope that you weren’t expecting a positive, lesson-learned ending to this post: That’s not me. I will admit that I have gained a little weight and while others might waste time with vows to lose weight this time of year, I am actually heading the other route. I’m vowing right here and now to gain at least ten more pounds over the next month to spite all of those people on a diet!

Screw you! Next time your stomach is growling or you’re tired from getting up early to go to the gym and you’re nibbling on carrots for lunch, picture me and my McRib sandwich laughing as I pass by on the obesity train. Next stop – Elastic waistband pants, Chubb Rubb, and medical intervention with the lap band surgeon! CHOO CHOO!

The things a little prick will do…

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What did you think I was talking about?

 

I was in a friend’s wedding and went for a fitting at the tuxedo shop. Easy peasy right? Wrong.

Once the sales guy handed me a yellowish, sweat-stained shirt to try on, I should have known there would be an issue. I set him straight immediately and made him give me a brand new shirt which annoyed him to no end. Sorry if filth bothers me, but I am certainly not trying that dishrag on if it’s covered with enough sweat and God-only-knows-what to make it look yellow. As I came out of the dressing room with the shirt on, the sales guy winced and looked at me with a very confused look on his face and said “Where is all that blood coming from?”

Having no idea what he was talking about, I looked down and was caught off guard because it looked like I had been shot. There was blood all across the front of that shirt at every button from the neck straight down to the belly. I, of course, reacted as any sensible person would in that situation and started screaming “I’m fucking bleeding – Oh my God, I’m fucking bleeding!”

Mine always comes when I'm wearing something nice" Hedy (Jennfer Jason Leigh) Single White Female

 

Apparently, since I am neurotic and forced him to give me a brand new shirt to try on, he neglected to take out all the pins and I stuck my finger, thus all the bleeding. I should have noticed, but because my hands are always so dry and cracked from my OCD compulsive constant hand washing I didn’t feel the pin prick me.

My wife reacted as she thought any sensible person should in that situation and started walking the other way and out the front door so that nobody would know she was in there with me. The sales guy from the shop, on the other hand, was a young punk and reacted like an asshole when he started screaming at me to calm down or he would smack me. It might not have been as big of a deal if it wasn’t Prom season and there weren’t fifteen High School guys getting tuxedos in there at the same time.

When you’re a High School kid, you kind of expect that High School kids will point and laugh at you and call you a Pussy among other things. When you’re an adult and they’re doing it to you, it’s a slightly different experience. I stood there like Carrie at the prom, literally covered in blood, and didn’t know what to do until the sales guy (compassionate once again) yelled at me “What are you standing there for – go take that shirt off!”

It’s then that I realized that my father was right all along: the day we stopped being allowed to hit other people’s kids was the day this country took a steep nosedive downwards. If I were able to get back into that dressing room and find my belt – I would have whooped some ass in that tuxedo shop. Needless to say, I got out of there real quick. The worst part of that whole process was that I didn’t even get the tuxedo there because there was no way that I could go back into that shop after that. At least the wedding was fun and I did look good…

Watching Dirty Movies with my Wife’s Mom

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My little Black Swan Natalie Portman was waking up and feeling a little bit frisky so she decided to follow that old yellow book slogan and let her fingers do the walking. It was dark in her bedroom and she went to work as the camera panned down slowly, but I couldn’t appreciate it. Don’t get me wrong – she’s a “Hit That” hottie, she was down to her skivvies, and the mood was right. All that was missing was some red wine and scented candles, but nothing. 

Looks like Padme has gone over to The Dark Side

Don’t get nervous, you’re not reading the start of my testimonial for a performance enhancer. And no, I have not traded up my Imodium for Viagra. I am all for independent women showing that they don’t need a partner for everything, but I’m not sure why this keeps happening. Black Swan was the THIRD time that I was at a movie where a woman on screen proved that she wasn’t the Queen of the Castle – while I was sitting next to my Wife’s Mother!!!

Three times! I know this might sound like the intro to an episode of The Maury Povich show, but it’s not like we’re going to a peep show to see these films. For God Sakes, it was an AMC Theatre!    

Mila munching makes many malapropos moments ...

Looking back on the first time that it happened, it almost seems like it was her fault and I’m not usually a finger pointer unless there’s a fart involved. Me, my wife, and her mother were at the movie theatre heading in to see Dinner Rush (a great movie with Danny Aiello that you should put at the top of your Netflix Que if you haven’t seen it yet.) It got great reviews but her mother heard that it was violent and doesn’t like those types of movies, so we got tickets instead for Innocence  and we headed in…

Seems innocent enough, but looks can be deceiving

None of us knew anything about the movie, but it was about a couple reuniting after many years apart, so we went for it. Who knew it would turn out to be geriatric porn? All of a sudden, the 70-something year old actress in the movie got naked on her couch after a phone call with her former lover and then gave herself a “touch up.” DID I MENTION THAT SHE WAS NAKED! AND IN HER MID 70’S!!! When I tell you that the old lady on that couch wasn’t the only one violated that day, I mean it. I squeezed my equally as repulsed wife’s hand and whispered in her ear “Oh my God, why did your mother choose this movie?” She had no idea that would happen, but I also couldn’t get that horrible sight out of my mind. I wasn’t so much embarrassed that I saw that in front of my mother-in-law but that I saw that at all. There are certain things that one should never be subjected to and trust me when I say that there is nothing more disturbing than the sight of a saggy, old, AARP tittie wiggling around while an old lady works it on her sofa…

If the first time was her fault, the second time was definitely mine. I have a well documented obsession with Nicole Kidman and Margot at the Wedding had just opened so my wife and I were on the way to see it. Her mother called and she was leaving lunch with her grandmother near where we were seeing it, so we invited them to go to the movie with us.

Not now - her Grandmother is watching!

Everything was going along swimmingly until Nicole got in bed and then started getting restless under the covers. Once again, I couldn’t fully enjoy the situation. I got a knot in my stomach and looked over at my wife, who looked over at her mother, who looked over at her grandmother, but Gran apparently had no idea what was going on. Thank God – she just thought Nicole Kidman was having trouble falling asleep. We all left the theatre quietly after the movie and all I could mutter was “I didn’t know…I didn’t know.” As weird as it was with my Mother-in-Law – it felt ten times stranger with her mother there too…   

Needless to say,  it doesn’t matter if me or my mother-in-law are both over 17 – I don’t need the MPAA ratings to tell me that it isn’t OK to see Blue Valentine with her – it’s off the list. Tangled, here we come! 

Blue Valentine - Absolutely Not!

When I was mistaken for a retarded person TWICE in less than a half hour!!!

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I won’t bury the lead and make you work for it: I was actually mistaken for a retarded person TWICE in less than a half hour. Breathe that in for a second and chew on it. Now that it’s out of the way, here goes. It was Spring Break so I headed to Disney World with my aunt and two cousins and of course, chaos ensued. I will bypass the long drive from New York to Florida and that whole crazy situation entirely because no one wants to hear about a Passover Seder gone wrong, a diet saboteur, dog vomit in the car or a highway flashing anyway; let’s head right to the good stuff.

 

After we checked into our hotel, we decided to hit the water to lounge around and relax. I should clarify this and say that they wanted to hit the water and I wanted to hit the bar to lounge around and relax. I hate the outdoors and I HATE the heat so I was not in my element. After a few drinks in the shade, they convinced me to go in the water. I hadn’t unpacked so my cousin went into the gift shop to get sunscreen for me since I was absolutely not going anywhere near the water without it. Of course, me sending a boy to do a man’s work bit me in the ass because he got the wrong sunscreen.

 

I’m OCD and I cannot touch anything with my fingertips, so I can’t put on my own sunscreen. I usually get a spray bottle, but he got a regular bottle that you have to rub on. I had to have my aunt put the sunscreen on me and then I went into the water with them. Needless to say, I should have gone to my room and got my own sunscreen because the one he got wasn’t a high SPF nor was it waterproof. As a stupid ass is prone to do, I proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon getting sun poisoning on parts of my face, back, neck, stomach, arms and legs. I say parts of my body, but it was more like sporadic streaks of sun poisoning where the sunscreen had washed off. I easily could have passed for an albino ET with patches of psoriasis. It looked like my normally lily-white pasty complexion had been assaulted by a bus full of preschoolers holding red crayons.

Now do you see how important Sunscreen is?

 

The next day, we hit the parks like a tornado – rushing through to make sure we could go on everything multiple times. Maybe it was the youthful energy of me in my twenties, or maybe it was the delirious nature of sun poisoning, but we were literally running from one ride to the next. Because of my sun poisoned state, I had to wear a big T-Shirt, khaki shorts because they were loose on me, and flip flops because my poor battered skin couldn’t bear anything too constricting.

 

Everything at the park had such long lines to get on and it was getting very frustrating until it hit me – we need a wheelchair! (Keep in mind that you can’t do this nowadays, and I am probably the reason, but back the, this trick worked.) I got a wheelchair, put my aunt in it, she pretended that she was handicapped and we sped right up to the front of every line we got on. People were literally forcing us to the front of the line because they felt bad for us. They didn’t think someone in a wheelchair should have to wait on line and I must say that I actually agreed with them. My two cousins are goody goody’s and felt very hesitant about the wheelchair and the faking until we left them at the back of the line and went on Pirates of the Caribbean ride without them. They met up with us over an hour later (meanwhile, we had been on two other rides and got a churro while they were still on that line for Pirates) and after that, they didn’t leave our sides.

 

My aunt and I took turns in the wheelchair and, in all honesty, I must say that she was really much better at it than me. She was a little over the top sometimes with her facial expressions, grunts, and hand tremors, but it played well. We spent the afternoon shooting through each and every line like we were royalty and it truly was like the park was there just for us. Need a table to eat lunch at? People cleared out of our way for us. Want a good spot to watch the parade? The crowd parted like the Red Sea for us. It was great – until, as it is want to do – karma came and bit me in the ass.

 

It was getting late and the park was closing. Everyone was heading out and I’m not sure if you’ve ever been in Disney World when it’s closing, but it’s like a madhouse getting out of there. For some reason I didn’t fully flesh out in my mind at the time, I thought that we could make it to Space Mountain one more time before they closed. My aunt was in the wheelchair, my cousins were walking on each side of it, and I was pushing her and I just knew in my heart of hearts that we could make it. We had to get there fast if we wanted to make it, so I just started to run like Forrest Gump. Not knowing what else to do, my aunt held on for dear life in the wheelchair and my cousins started running along-side as we made our way. The ground started to slope down a little, but it wasn’t a huge incline so I didn’t really pay that much attention to it.

My aunt leaned back in the chair to say something over her shoulder to me and what I heard was “Go faster – speed up” when, in actuality, what she said was “You Bastard, there’s a curb!” What happened next went by so fast and happened in such a quick instant, yet what I saw felt like it was happening in slow motion and was absolutely the funniest thing that I have ever bore witness to in my life still to this day!!!

 

As I was running full steam not paying attention to anything ahead of us, the wheelchair ran right into a curb and there was a thud of impact just as my aunt was thrown forward from the chair and into the heaving crowd all the while screaming at the top of her lungs. With that scream – the world stood still – and people everywhere froze in an instant. My cousins scattered like mice to get away from us and the scene we were causing. Right on that curb was a vendor holding a huge jug of glow in the dark light sticks that bend and interlock into necklaces and he was right in my aunt’s trajectory.

 

As her now airborne body was thrust forward and she started screaming, his face froze with fear and he threw the bucket of light sticks into the air and reached out to try and catch her – shocked that a paralyzed woman was being thrown from her wheelchair right into his arms. Imagine his shocked look when she landed on her feet and ran off into the crowd because she was embarrassed as I was screaming “It’s a miracle, she can walk.” I then fell to the ground in a heap next to the overturned wheelchair with its wheels still spinning, hysterically laughing with absolutely no control of my body and peed my pants right there. Yes, as a twenty-three year old man, I am not embarrassed to tell you that I peed my pants at Disney World!

 

As I lie there on the ground, tears of laughter running down my face, unable to fully process what just happened because I couldn’t regain control of myself; there were a ton of people in the crowd staring – not quite sure what to make of me or what to do when I heard it. That one voice in the crowd that just rose right above the others somehow: “Oh my God – that retarded boy just fell out of his wheelchair and he’s crying!” and with that I peed my pants for the second time!!! Yes, as a twenty-three year old man, I am not embarrassed to tell you that I peed my pants at Disney World TWICE! I was laughing and crying at the same time while rolling around on the pavement I just peed on – twice – and muttering “She thinks I’m retarded…She thinks I’m retarded…” and just could not regain control of myself.

 

Imagine if you will the memory that I have and am sharing with you – now picture the memory those people who witnessed this must have went home and recalled. I couldn’t stop heaving and laughing and for the life of me just could not get off the ground. When I finally did, there were still a ton of people around trying to help me, but not one of them was my aunt or my cousins. I tried to compose myself and stop laughing, but I just couldn’t. I was pushing through the crowd trying to find them all the while still laughing with tears streaming down my face. I couldn’t even look back on the carnage I had just left because the vendor who threw the light sticks when he tried to catch my aunt was now down on all fours cursing us as he tried to sift through the trampling crowd around him and pick up that scattered mess. If I were able to speak coherently at that moment in time, I might have tried to offered him an apology, but finding a men’s room seemed like a smarter course of action.

 

I thought that since I was wearing soaked khaki shorts and you could tell that I had just peed my pants twice, it might be better to take off my shirt and tuck it into my shorts to hide the wet spot and head for the monorail. (We were staying in the Contemporary hotel and you had to take the monorail to get back to the hotel.)

 

As I walked by, I was trying to control the laughter and the tears, but people were literally parting the aisles to let me pass so as not get anywhere close to me. I guess if I saw a guy passing by that smelled like piss and was crying as he walked by – I wouldn’t get too close either. I could see my family standing on line as the monorail was pulling up and once they spotted me, one look said it all: I was a mess they wanted no part of.

They proceeded to board and get on the monorail hoping I would miss the one they boarded and be forced to take the next one. I was the last person on and tried to shimmy over to where they were when I just gave up and sat down alone – still laughing to myself. That’s when I looked up and saw myself in the mirror and almost died. When I took my shirt off and tucked it into my shorts to “hide the wet spot” from peeing my pants, I wasn’t even thinking of the sun poisoning. I had completely forgotten all about it. Here I was with my pasty white/sun poisoning streaks all over my body like a zebra with blood red enflamed racing stripes and I was laughing hysterically (by myself mind you) when I heard that voice. An elderly lady gasped at the sight of me and said to her husband for the whole car to hear “Is that retarded boy on the monorail all alone? Do you think he’s alright?” and that was it for me.

 

Thankfully, I didn’t pee my pants for a third time, but I did collapse into a heap of laughter and if there were any fluids left in my body – I surely would have peed them out right there. My aunt later told me that it felt like the longest monorail ride in the history of Disney and there was not a sound except for my hysterical laughter and the people that were whispering to each other and pointing at me. They were afraid to laugh because they didn’t want anyone to know they were with me but people staring really thought that there was something wrong with me.

 

There are times when we laugh at other people and there are times when they laugh at us, but that day was absolutely one of the funniest things I have ever witnessed in my life so I don’t care how many people laughed at me. Granted, I was humiliated and publicly peed my pants twice so they did have a really good reason for laughing. Also, I made a scene in Disney of all places and an enemy for life of that poor light stick guy, but until the day that I die it will be one of the funniest memories I have.

 

For some odd reason, my wife still refuses to ever go to Disney World with me. Come on, it’s been years, what are the odds I’d pee my pants again? She also says that you shouldn’t say the word retarded – you should say M.R. but no one in that crowd or on that monorail was confusing me with a Mr. – They actually thought I was retarded. I’m not sure how that should make me feel being mistaken for a retarded person twice, but I guess that if I was walking by and saw an adult man on the ground lying next to a wheelchair while rolling around in the fetal position with tears streaming down his face and he was having fits of hysterical laughter and then literally peeing his pants, I might assume that something was wrong too.

Just for the Holiday Season: My Famous Baby Jesus Story

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I am not one to start with a disclaimer, but this post might need one. Some people get really crazy about Religion and what should and shouldn’t be done with iconic religious figures, so let me say right now that if you are the type that gets easily offended by the inappropriate misuse of a religious figurine by an absolute moron – STOP READING THIS NOW! Otherwise enjoy and don’t say that I didn’t warn you…

 

As you get together this week and surrounded yourself with those animals that you call Dad or Mom or maybe they’re your brother, sister, or even the housekeeper serving dinner  –  remember the spirit of the Holiday Season and what it was intended to be about: The Baby Jesus! I’m not kidding – I’d like to share a little something that happened to me the year that a little plastic baby named Jesus came into my life.

I was on winter recess from college and the insurance claims company where my sister Marlene worked needed temporary help for the holidays. I wasn’t really the working type but I figured a few extra bucks couldn’t hurt, so I signed on for a few weeks.

The office was in the basement of the owner’s house and besides him and I, there were only women working in the office. They were all crazy, but of particular note was the Office Manager, Kim. She was nuts and I do say that a lot about people, but with her it was actually true. She was dating my brother Angelo and if there was ever a person that should have been force-medicated because she was oh so crazy – it was Kim. She was a nice girl and all and no offense to my brother, but there was something really wrong with the water in that well if you know what I mean. Something was off and this is coming from a person that is a little “off.” If I know one thing for sure when I see it – it’s another crazy person and that bitch made me seem like a calm breeze. More about her later.

The office was about twenty minutes away from our house and Marlene and I had just left work and were heading home. We were driving along talking about nonsense as usual when I looked out the window and saw it. It was dark out and partially concealed, but I could see clear as day. They don’t call me Eagle Eye for nothing. (OK, no one actually calls me Eagle Eye, but what a cool nickname that would be – right?) I started screaming “Stop the car – Stop the car right now!!!” and Marlene swerved to the right, cut someone off and slammed on her brakes landing her hooptie halfway up the curb. I bolted out and ran down the sidewalk and as quick as a bunny I was back in the car cradling two plastic Baby Jesus figurines from a lawn manger. They were both life-size and in perfect condition, but one was painted to look like a real baby and the other was completely white – like a poor little albino Baby Jesus. I just knew in my soul that he wasn’t painted to remind me of the hardships and sacrifices in life and to remind me to give back and think of others…Or maybe the factory it came from ran out of flesh colored paint, which is far more likely.

It was January and Christmas was over, but someone had disgracefully thrown the Baby Jesus into the trash pile. Is it Baby Jesuses? Or is it like “The Gift of the Magi” and they’re called the Baby Jesi if there are more than one? Either way – You don’t do that! Just like with the disposal of a damaged American Flag, there is a certain protocol for the disposal of religious figurines. I am not sure exactly what that protocol is and Father John has been ignoring my calls since my Stigmata scare turned out to be a false alarm (OK, maybe I jumped the gun a little and got a little nervous…but it sure seemed like Stigmata to me) a few months ago but I knew that it wasn’t supposed to be in a heap of garbage and my Catholic guilt couldn’t let the Baby Jesus go out like that.

I was trying to buckle the Baby Jesus and his albino twin into their seatbelts in the back (Don’t roll your eyes, obviously, I didn’t know I would be picking up two babies or we would have brought car seats – sometimes life throws a curveball at you and you gotta duck) when Marlene went all kinds of crazy on me.

“Are you kidding? You almost got us into an accident to pick those fucking plastic dolls out of someone’s garbage – what’s wrong with you?”

“Lower your voice right now! They can hear every word your saying and they’ve been through a lot! I whispered back at her harshly.”

“What are you even going to do with those? Why did you take them out of the garbage Fred Sanford?”

Me in the Red Sweatshirt and Marlene in the Robe

“I guess that makes you Lamont then…DUNT DUNT DUNNIT…” and with that we were laughing and heading home. If you’re reading this and don’t know the theme song to Sanford & Son call your mother right now and tell her that I said that you were raised by animals! Then go to Best Buy immediately and get the Season DVD sets because that show is hysterical!

In actuality, I think Marlene was more annoyed at herself than me for stopping the car. Usually, her ninja-like reflexes kick in when she stops the car short and this time they just didn’t. In case I failed to mention this before, Marlene thinks she’s Curtis Sliwa in the Long Island Chapter of the Guardian Angels.

All she needs is a red beret and Marlene is can be an official Guardian Angel!

She’s got a baseball bat in her trunk at all times just in case something happens; all she needs is a red beret. True as I am typing here, one night she and I saw a kid getting jumped on the street by four other guys. She stopped her car in the middle of the road, popped the trunk, got her baseball bat out of it and went running down the sidewalk faster than TJ Hooker after a suspect.  As she was out there, I did what any sensible person would do – I screamed like a little girl and then dove into the driver’s seat, rolled up all the windows, locked the doors and slipped that mother into drive to get the hell out of there. I was carrying on like someone was chasing me in a Scream mask and figured it was every man for him or herself. Sister or no sister – out there on the streets – you’re on your own! Unbelievable as that was, she chased four guys away and when she helped the guy that got jumped up off the ground – he actually started yelling at her that he could have taken them. That’s when Florence Nightingale herself told him she hoped they came back and kicked the shit out of him again – she’s all heart that one.

So as we drove towards home with the babies safely tucked into the back seat – there was almost an explosion in the car. Like the stick of dynamite that went off on that cold Thanksgiving night when I drank half a gallon of apple juice – Marlene was in gastric distress. Believe it or not – this time there was severe stomach pains, sweating, cramps and a 98.6% chance of someone shitting their pants in the car and it wasn’t me! That’s what we call dramatic irony folks!

All of a sudden, Marlene shot across the highway and made a break for it down a side street. Kim, the crazy Office Manager that my brother Angelo was dating, lived close to where we were stuck in traffic so she headed that way. Kim lived in a basement apartment on a very busy street and as we pulled up in front of it, Marlene just slammed on the brakes and ran towards Kim’s door. This wouldn’t have been a big deal except for the fact that she almost got hit by at least two passing cars as she got out because she stopped short in the middle of the street. The car in back of us almost rammed us along with the cars screeching to a halt and lining up in back of his car. I got out of the car and tried to explain to the driver holding his horn down and cursing at me that she was having bad stomach pains and then just as I got to his window and tried to apologize, he leaned out and started screaming “Move that fucking car right now you Asshole!” Well, excuse me for trying to let you know what happened sir! I finally got the car out of the street and as I parked – it came to me like a vision: I knew exactly why the Baby Jesus had been brought into my life that cold dark night…

Do not ask me what possessed me over those next few moments, but I can still see it playing out in my mind’s eye in slow motion. When I got out of the car, I unbuckled the painted Baby Jesus, took off my jacket and wrapped it around him and I went running off into the night like a flash of lighting.

By some Christmas miracle, Marlene actually made it into Kim’s bathroom seconds before shitting her pants. I guess abandoning the car in traffic was a good strategy because she got there right in the nick of time. She ran in and went straight into Kim’s bathroom leaving the front door half open. Kim was on the telephone with my brother Angelo making plans to meet up later that night as Marlene bypassed any form of small talk.

Like a SWAT team busting up a meth lab, I kicked that half-opened door and came crashing through. I was cradling the wrapped-up Baby Jesus and hunched over so that you couldn’t really tell what I was holding as I burst into the room. I started screaming at the top of my lungs “KIM, KIM, – OH MY GOD KIM– THERE’S A DEAD BABY ON THE FRONT LAWN! THERE’S A DEAD BABY – CALL 911 – THERE’S A DEAD BABYYYYYYYYYY!!!” and with that, I thrust the Baby Jesus right up into her face as I was screaming.

The look of surprise, fear and confusion on her face was such that it will forever be embedded in my memory like a tattoo. As I went in screaming at the top of my lungs, it was loud; possibly a little louder than I should have screamed, as I think about it in hindsight. Kim was normally a very nervous person and a little on edge, but screaming frightened her… As I went rushing in like I was on fire, she threw the cordless phone (with Angelo still on the line) and immediately started screaming and freaking out, I mean FREAKING THE FUCK OUT! She was running around in circles crying and screaming and throwing her arms around. When I pushed it all up in her grill and she came face-to-face with the frightened Baby Jesus, she actually swung at it to get it away from her as she threw herself to the floor and collapsed into a heap. It might not have been as bad if immediately after she hit the ground, the Baby Jesus landed on top of her and then rolled off and settled right next to her on the ground staring up into her hysterical crying face.

It was so low as she talked that it was like a little squeak in between her wheezing at first…”ge… ge… ge”  “get” ”get out” “GET OUT” “GET THE FUCK OUT!!!!” as she tried to crawl towards the telephone that my brother was screaming through “WHO THE FUCK IS IN THE HOUSE…WHAT HAPPENED?…WHAT’S GOING ON?…I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU IF YOU TOUCH HER!…WHO’S THERE?” (He said later he thought she had been assaulted or attacked for sure with the way she was screaming and it happened so fast that he didn’t know if he should get into the car and head over or stay on the line.)

I would like to tell you that I was a mature person and sense finally came over me during her outbreaks and then subsequent breakdown immediately following my entrance, but alas that isn’t me…As she was alternately screaming, crying, and crawling towards the phone to try and recount to Angelo what had just occurred…I was crying laughing and on the floor trying not to pee my pants. I guess in hindsight I can see how she might not have thought it was funny, but in the moment – I really thought she might laugh at the absurdity of it all. Not the case.

As she tried to talk into the receiver it was a mess…”The…Baby…The Baby…Dead Baby…the Baby Jesus is in my house…” of course it made me laugh even harder and Angelo was trying to decipher what the hell she was talking about. She was then up on her feet screaming at me to get out again and calling me every curse in the book, heavy breathing/gasping for air, and still crying while my brother started screaming again “IS SOMEONE IN THE HOUSE?…WHO’S THERE?…WHAT BABY? TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED!” as she threw me out the door. If she could have mustered the strength – she might have punched me in the face.

As I tried to stop laughing in her driveway and wipe the tears from my eyes, I realized that my jacket was still either wrapped around the Baby Jesus or on the floor where he and Kim hit the ground – and the car keys were tucked in the pocket of the jacket. There was absolutely no way that I could go back into that house without getting a serious beating (maybe deservedly so, I’ll give her that) so I sat out on the hood of the car waiting for Marlene.

Marlene came out of the bathroom and found Kim slumped in a pile on the living room floor crying into the phone and still not being able to explain fully what had happened to Angelo. She saw the Baby Jesus staring up at her from the living room floor and realized that the screaming and banging that she heard earlier was from me. She didn’t need to ask, but could pretty much piece together the events of the last few minutes in her mind and just walked out the door.

She came out to find me shivering from the cold but still laughing and then she got my jacket and we got back into the car. “Hey, do you think she’s going to give me back the Baby Jesus?” I asked trying to be serious and she just looked at me. “I can’t even right now…What the fuck is wrong with you?” she said and then we just busted out laughing…

As funny as Kim never found the incident and probably still doesn’t all these years later – Angelo tried not to laugh but he never heard the end of it from her. Needless to say, she was afraid to be alone there and he had to sleep over to calm her down because she was crying hysterically for hours.

The following Monday, she wouldn’t talk to me at work (OK, so maybe she had a right to be mad – I’ll give her that) and so I told her that I would “make it up to her” and go out to start her car and put the heat on for her as we were all getting ready to leave for the day. I went out and then came back to get Marlene. We got into our car, which wasn’t running and the windows were all rolled down. As I held my finger to my lips and told her not to say a word – I counted to about five before we heard Kim screaming at the top of her lungs out into the dark of night: “OH MY GOD – THE BABY JESUS IS IN MY CAR…WAAAAHHHH!!!” She started crying again and we got the hell out of there because I knew she would beat the shit out of me this time. As funny as she didn’t find it the first time, me putting the albino Baby Jesus in her car in a dark parking lot which scared her for a second time was worse. We didn’t even make it into the front door of our house before she had called my brother hysterical crying about the Baby Jesus again. He looked at me and Marlene and said “Enough with the Baby Jesus – How many of them do you even have?” and then he busted out laughing realizing how silly it sounded out loud…

I guess since time has passed I realize that it probably wasn’t something to joke about and it might have come across as mean…but it really was funny. She collapsed quicker than a Jenga game and I have never heard someone cry like that before or since. For the record, she never did give either Baby Jesus back to me.

I realize this might not be the Baby Jesus story you tell while sitting around your Christmas tree, but not a Christmas goes by that I don’t think about it and repeat around mine. I’m pretty sure not a Christmas goes by that Kim doesn’t think about it either…I imagine that if things had worked out between Angelo and Kim I might have grown to feel bad about it or been made to stop repeating this story, but like I said – she was crazy and they broke up – so here you go!

Happy Holidays to you and to all of the people in your life that would scare the shit out of you with a plastic Baby Jesus.

Warning: The Post below contains Graphic Photos!

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I posted a piece on Associated Content  that I thought I’d share here…Like a gigantic elm, I’m branching out kids – I’m branching out!

Click Here:

You can read all about how handy I am (not!), hear about how I developed Stigmata a few weeks ago, and see how I will take absolutely any opportunity that I can get to namedrop the greatest television show ever made:

Before you snicker or for those of you who were raised by animals that didn’t let you watch Dynasty when you were younger (No judgements, it’s just a statement!) look at the proof:

Exhibit A: Pamela Sue Martin played Fallon! That Nancy Drew certainly made me a Hardy Boy if you know what I mean. As a young teen I had raging hormones, the lithe muscle tone and awkwardness of a newborn giraffe, and a squeaky high-pitched voice. Well, who am I kidding? My voice is still that way. Her seductive eyes and lusty voice really showed me the impact TV can have…She left the show and was replaced by Emma Samms (Who was also hot which seemed to really help me through the transition!) That was dificult, but it taught me about depression and loss, and gave me a new-found appreciation for Heather Locklear. Heather was always on the show, but she really burned brighter when PSM left me…  

This Nancy Drew made me a Hardy Boy if you know what I mean.

 

Exhibit B) The many valuable everyday life lessons that I learned. Seriously, do you know why I don’t light candles? Hello – Season Six Cliff-hanger when crazy Claudia Blaisdel was all torn up about her well running dry (no pun intended – her oil well really did run dry.) In her devastating depression, she filled her hotel room at La Mirage with lit candles and promptly burned that mother to the ground! Also, I learned about the danger of horses – look at what happened when Krystle got dragged by that horse in Season two and lost her baby… And never tell your siblings anything incriminating! Remember when Caress got out of that prison in Caracas and tried to publish a tell-all book about Alexis?  Or Ben coming back after all of those years trying to pin their mother’s death on Blake? Siblings should be blackmailed, not blackmailing you!

Exhibit C) Of the many, many, many lessons that I learned from devouring episodes of Dynasty, the most valuable was this: Life will Screw with you! Picture a 12 year old lad in May of 1985 wishing he had the power to fast forward through the next three months. Not to get back to school and not to get to my birthday quicker; I desperately needed it to be September 25, 1985. I remember it like it was yesterday because that’s when the premiere of Dynasty Season 6 was airing. Typically, you’d watch a show and when you got to the end of the season in May you knew that no matter what happened or what they went through – it would really all be OK in September. They’d work it out and call off the divorce, the baby would get out of the well, he’d still be choking her – but he hadn’t killed her, or like Nelly said it was all just a dream (Don’t even get me started about Dallas. I loved it as much as the next pre-teen boy, but it certainly was no Dynasty!) No, that summer I learned what anticipation and anxiety really were which probably laid the foundation for the neurotic mess that I have become in later years.

When those revolutionaries stormed Prince Michael and Amanda’s wedding that dark night in May, those guns went a blazing and I was screaming louder than Lady Ashley for someone to cover Krystle. I could take something happening to anyone else, but not to her. If Dominique got shot, OK. If it was Steven, I could probably get through it; but not my fragile little, chocolate covered raisin, Krystle. I knew Sammy Jo was safely back at home, Fallon was presumed dead with amnesia in Los Angeles, and in my soul I just knew nothing could happened to Alexis; but Krystle was in the thick of it all. I needed that summer to be over and it just crawled by like a snail in a garden.

To make it worse, Off-screen Joan Collins (who played Alexis) threatened to leave the show over the summer while they were negotiating with her because she wanted more money and and I just couldn’t take it. She was worth every penny she asked for and then some, but if Alexis died, I wasn’t only worried about me. I just didn’t see how Dex could make it through that and what would happen to Colbyco or those South China Sea Oil leases? It was too much for me to process, yet I could talk or think about little else. It really taught me that when someone you love is hurt or in danger, you can’t think of anything else and you’d do absolutely anything for them if you could. That was me in my depression because my beloved Carrington family was covered in blood on the floor of that Moldavian chapel.

It's all coming back...It still hurts to think back on that day...

September finally arrived and there was a distinct spring in my step again, but it was very short lived. My dreams were then pounced upon and life was very cruel to me; even crueler than giving me the genetic makeup of a shorter Dom Deluise. My dear innocent soul was thrashed in an instant – quicker than when that old lady shit on the floor after she tripped over her IV cord in Good Samaritan Hospital. And just like her, I was a real mess and needed a nurse. 

As a young man, I didn’t ask for much. Sure, it would have been nice if I had some friends that weren’t imaginary or stuffed, but I always had the Carringtons to get me through. I could count on them and they could always count on me. At least until September 25, 1985 when a little bitch named Hurricane Gloria came rolling into my life. As the power went out, we were playing Manhunt in the pitch black house and it was great – I didn’t give it a second thought. Who cared that we had no power – it would surely come back on tomorrow, right? Little did I know that we would be without power for days – forcing me to miss the most important day of my life thus far: The season premiere of Dynasty. Do not roll your eyes – we didn’t have TiVo back then! They didn’t repeat those shows! If you missed it, it was gone forever…No Hulu, No ITunes, No renting the season on DVD!       

I was a wreck. I was throwing myself to the floor and screaming and carrying on with that scrunched up, snot dripping, and ugly crying like Halle Berry when she won the Oscar for Monster’s Ball. She might be hot, but she was still a real mess.

She might be hot, but she was still a real mess.

I kept begging and telling my mother that if she really loved me, she would find a way for me to see it but she kept telling me that if I loved her I would get out of her face and stop crying. I kept thinking that she would snap to her senses and get her priorities straight, but it was to no avail. I was left to my fester in my pain like a deer shot in the woods. No one cared and even my sister Marlene wasn’t as fazed by this disaster as she should have been. Obviously, none of them seemed to grasp just how dire the situation was. Needless to say I missed the episode…

(It still hurts to talk about it, so give me a second…)

If that summer seemed like an eternity, imagine how it felt waiting ANOTHER week to see the recap and the follow-up episode. I read in the paper that Krystle was OK (Thank God) but Alexis was missing, and I couldn’t sleep or eat…I needed to know. Finally, next week’s episode came on and we had found out that Alexis was OK too, (Phewww) but I always felt that I let them down just a little bit. Sure, I guess it couldn’t be helped, but I still felt like if the roles were reversed and I had been shot up in a wedding massacre by revolutionaries in a foreign country – Krystle would have found a way to make sure I was OK. Such is the cross I bear.  

As I said earlier, they didn’t rerun the episodes back then and I had tried to forget and move on, but I always thought about it and wondered what if…until one day something happened that made me believe in miracles again: EBAY. By some random act of luck – I found a woman selling complete seasons of Dynasty on EBay and I ordered it immediately and paid extra for expedited shipping. I tried not to get myself too worked up and just play it cool, but when that brown box arrived at my front door, I almost dry humped the UPS guy holding it! I was bouncing around like a little girl with a jump rope. I signed for it as fast as I could, thanked him, and ran inside. I furiously ripped that box open as if there was a bomb inside, put the tape into the VCR, and pressed Play.

Then I heard it: that old familiar theme song came on and my heart started racing…All the emotion came rushing back and I just knew there was good in the world again. I watched through the credits and it felt like I was looking back at an old photo album. When I tell you that I sat back in my papasan chair transfixed and sporadically pausing to explain to my dog Smokey who was who and what he had missed. (He was raised right, but he wasn’t even alive when Dynasty was on so he had an excuse for never having seen it.) As I sat there watching, I was transported back in time and the tears just started rolling down my face. As my wife will tell you, I am not an emotional person and am more prone to sarcasm than actual emotion, but a wave came rushing through me like never before: it was one of the best days of my life.

The downside of getting all the episodes on EBay was that I once again got sucked into their world all over again and was staying up until four AM watching. I had seen all the episodes and remembered like it was yesterday, but there were no commercials and I just couldn’t stop. I found myself calling in sick and staying home to watch…I was like a coke-whore: I needed my fix and I couldn’t get enough. My wife finally had enough with me consumed by it and said “It’s me or Dynasty” and so I stopped watching it to make her happy. Or at least, that’s what I told her. Don’t tell her, but I was already through the last Season and the Reunion Movie by the time she was fed up…

As a side note: I was told that I was too young to be watching Dynasty by my elementary school teacher when she heard me call someone a Bitch and asked where I had heard that bad word. I told her that it obviously wasn’t a curse if they were allowed to say it on Dynasty and you can just picture my mother unamused at that little nugget. If I was too young for it, then Marlene who is three years younger than me, certainly was too. Her and I would sneak into my mother’s bedroom and turn on the TV with the sound so low that you literally had to put your ear and face right up against the screen to hear anything. Every time Krystle and Alexis fought, you felt every slap. It’s no wonder my eyesight is so poor now – but it was worth it. Marlene would be standing in back of me holding a towel up around the back of us to keep the light of the TV from creeping out under the door and into the hallway which might give us away. I would have to repeat most things to her because she couldn’t hear a word standing behind me with the towel. Sometimes with great joy comes sacrifice. Or at least that’s what I told her to get her to hold the towel. Oh the good old days…. 

So go and check out my post and let me know what you think about it – Like the old saying goes “What’s the (Stig) mata with you?”

If they see this face, they’ll never book!!! Why I’m not using Facebook with my clients

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I am one of the few, the proud – The Facebook haters. I tried to ignore it for so long, but I have finally given in and now have a Facebook page. I do it only to get people to read my website blog, but I hate, hate, hate it. I definitely have the face for radio so I do not need any prospective clients to see me online because If they see this face – they’ll never book!   

I think that at the heart of it, I just don’t get Facebook. I’m a mid-thirties guy that feels like I’m up on what’s current – but I just can’t see the point. It’s supposed to be “The Great Connector” bringing everyone together, but how?

We see the value of face-to-face meetings over anything else every day, but with Facebook you’ll never actually have to be face-to-face with anyone again. You can put up a picture, write on their wall, poke a friend – whatever the hell that means or is good for, but that’s the extent of your relationship. You will never call them again or have to ask about anyone’s family because you can see their pictures and read all about their vacations on their wall. It virtually eliminates the need for telephone calls, letters, or (God Forbid) in-person visits. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I think that stinks. For my birthday, I want the people that care about me to actually remember the date on their own, put a little thought into it, and then pick out and send me an actual greeting card for my birthday. And send it In the Real Mail!  

We have turned into a sad ADD, quick-post society and forgot about the basics. We fall into these 140 character short message people that cannot process a simple conversation. Blackberries and IPhones (The new dirty mistress of many corporate professionals) are a separate story entirely. We are held hostage and feel like we need to post our every mood and move or check our wall and hear about the newest Facebook apps. If you’re not a manic Facebook Frequent poster, than you definitely know someone that is.

Also, what’s with the incomplete, cryptic messages like “cannot believe it?” What can’t you believe? I have no idea what half the people I’m friends with are talking about and I cannot be the only one. Did you ever hear the old expression don’t bury the lead? Let someone know what the heck you’re talking about.     

That’s not to say there aren’t any positive things about Facebook. People learn practical and valuable skills every day.  I am actually so proud that my sister (who couldn’t be trusted to watch my guinea pig Liz for one weekend without killing it) is now a proficient agriculturist with thriving herds and crops in her pasture and that my father is exploring his Italian heritage with Mafia Wars. What’s with the Ancestry requests? I need to click so you realize that I’m your son and we’re related? Marlene tells me all the time how she has no time to get anything done around the house; of course she doesn’t – she spends her whole day tending to the crops and feeding the animals. She is a housewife, but how can her husband expect her to cook dinner or do the laundry after working the fields all day?

Also, I can now “friend request” back and forth with the people in High School and College that knew me when I had a mustache and mullet that I thought made me look cool like Tom Selleck in Magnum PI, but actually looked more like Dennis Spade in Joe Dirt. These are people that I made fun of, got beat up by, dated and then hated, and generally don’t keep in touch with. If we were that close we would have kept in touch. Now I have to feel guilty if I don’t let them be my friend. I’m Catholic, we’re bred to feel guilty – it’s been ingrained in me for the past thirty years. If anyone sends me a friend request, I feel bad to say no or decline them and I let them be my friend because no one likes rejection. Even with people I don’t like, I let them in. I’m a sucker. I have work people that are looking to be friends and I just cannot say no. Keep in mind that these are people that I can’t stand and don’t want to eat lunch with, nonetheless hear about their summer in The Outer Banks or see their cat cleaning himself while perched atop their living room curtains.

Everyone puts every picture they have ever taken up there for the world to see and sometimes the people in the photos don’t even know it. The last thing I need is for a prospective client to see me fist pumping with Snooki last weekend in Hackensack or doing keg-stands in my underwear back in college. People pop up in other albums and they have no control over them. My friend Mary has group pictures in her album, and our other friend Susan looks like she’s in the middle of an epileptic fit in one photo. Unflattering photos are funny to see, but the person looking foolish should be the one to decide who gets to see it.

I know that there are privacy settings and you can limit who sees or reads what, but I still don’t agree with it or trust it. I don’t want people I don’t know to see pictures of my son and hear all about his personal details. I feel like it makes it less personal and takes something away from it. Also, and let’s be honest and loud and clear here; not every baby is cute. This is extremely difficult because I’m the parent of a really really cute kid but I have friends that aren’t and that is a very hard lesson for them to learn. Especially when people see my cute baby in his Gap Jeans and Kenneth Cole hoodie and then they go and put up a picture of their little troll with the misshapen head and lazy eye. You know what an ugly baby in really cute clothes is? A Wannabe!         

While we’re at it, Caroline – I don’t care which Glligan’s Island character you are, stop sending me that nonsense and get back to work! Paul, if you send me one more “what NFL player are you? I’m going to come to your house and feed your cat chili and then lock it in your bedroom. Randi, let me just say that if you have a top-ten stalkers list – that means something is really wrong with you! And Missy, I’m never going to build a civilization and attack my friend’s empire, so please stop asking.

In the whole Social media vein, I hate Facebook, but I will not even discuss Twitter. I’m not David Koresh looking for my own Branch Davidians, so anything advocating me having “followers” goes against my long held, anti-Cult stance. I’m not George Clooney or Brad Pitt doing anything of any importance so who really cares if I go to the library or to the movies?  Why do I need followers? Who should we be followers of – Kanye West?  He’s a musical genius, but what in the world could he be spouting that is of any consequence to me? What about the lessons we teach kids about never being a follower? Throw them right out the window with the art of sending a hand-written thank you card.

In all seriousness, I can see that there are positive things to be gained by using Facebook but for business, I just don’t see it for me. I don’t think our clients should (or even want to) know that much about our personal lives. It’s inappropriate and if you turn them down, you’re rejecting them. We work so hard to maintain our reputation and control the light our clients see us in and Facebook can darken that in an instant. Now that I’m off my tangent – let me go and pretend that I’m not annoyed that my friends have checked their fortunes with Madame Sonia and felt the need to share it with me.

Rhianna says “Please Don’t Stop the Music” – yet proceeds to kill my IPOD

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I constantly chastise my wife because she leaves tissues or loose change or dollar bills scrunched up in the pockets of her clothing all the time; she never checks them before putting them into the laundry basket. I know, I know, it could be worse – I could have a wife that hits me or has bad hair or runs up credit card debt, but this is serious. Every time that she does it, I take it as an opportunity to get on my soapbox and tell her how it is irresponsible and that she needs to check each and every time. “It’s not that hard to check the pockets” I’m prone to saying. I don’t feel good while doing this to her, but I hate, hate, hate, to have torn up tissues mixed in with the clothes. It gets all over and annoys me to no end. Or worse than that is if I stick my hand into her pants pocket to check and grab a disgusting snot rag – GROSS and that is exactly how my last fist fight started.  I don’t bring this up to rat her out or make her feel bad; I bring this up because what goes around came around for me.  Don’t tell her, but I accidentally left my IPOD in the pocket of my bathrobe and put it through the Washer AND the Dryer which destroyed it.  

I keep my IPOD set up in the bathroom with speakers.  I need it there in order to time myself when I shower so that I will know how long to stay in there. It regulates me and keeps me on track. Some might say that it is enabling my compulsions and rituals (yes – I’m talking to you Turtle Lady!) She thinks that I need to evict it from the bathroom immediately, but how else will I know how long my son should be in the bath if I don’t play the specific number of songs? Don’t even waste your time trying to understand my cleanliness rituals – they will just confuse, frustrate, and annoy you. 

My IPOD died in vain folks. It all happened because I had gotten some new music on ITunes and Damn you Rhianna! You asked me to make you feel like you’re The Only Girl in the World and you had to make that song so God Damn catchy, Didn’t you! I’m dancing around like a fool and can’t get that song out of my head and my poor innocent IPOD paid the price for it. I took my shower, finished my routine, and put the IPOD into my bathrobe pocket so that I could go downstairs to my office and download that song onto my IPOD. Unfortunately, as I’m often prone to do – I got distracted with my usual nonsense and forgot that it was in my pocket. I removed my robe, got dressed, threw it into the hamper to wash and the rest is history.

As a rule, I never check the pockets in my clothes because I never need to. I always empty my pockets when I take off my clothes. Multiple times. I am a neurotic individual who has to do things many times in a row so you know that I always check the pockets again and again in case I left my keys or the winning Powerball ticket in there. My wife never checks her pockets, so I always make sure to check hers again and again. (Once again with the multiples.) I got paid back in spades for lecturing her over and over when I threw my bathrobe into the washing machine. One can debate the frequency with which I clean said bathrobe and how if I didn’t wash it as much this might not have happened – but it’s easier for me to blame Rhianna on this one.          

As I opened the dryer door, there it was. My poor little green Nano looking up at me helpless and wondering why…just…why…I immediately picked it up and started blowing into the bottom of it to see if I could dry it off in some way – but nothing. (It’s funny because I would never attempt CPR on a human because of my fear of other people’s filthy mouths, bad breath, and, most of all I‘m lazy – but an electric music device brings out the hero in me.) Of course I was cursing myself profusely and being reminded of how stupid I really am to have done that, but I was still hoping above all hope that it just might flicker on. I cradled that poor mint-colored baby and spoke gently with encouraging words, hoping for some miracle resuscitation like when Jack and Kate found Charlie and brought him back to life after Ethan had hung him in those vines on Lost. (Another time that beloved saga made me tear up like a little school girl that missed the bus– don’t even get me started about when Jin and Sun died together on that sub in Season Six because I’m still not over that!)

I then realized what an idiot I must look like trying to give CPR to my dead IPOD on the laundry room counter. Imagine the looks I would get if my wife walked in on me shouting into that dead IPOD’s face “Whitney , come on Whitney – are you still in there Baby?” I really felt like – all of a sudden –  Ms. Houston was gonna just flash on that display screen and maybe I was hallucinating, but I could almost swear that she looked me in the eyes and purred softly “Didn’t we almost have it all…”

Needless to say, my shower the next morning was not OK and I was all out of whack. I did not pass go and went immediately to Best Buy to get a replacement at lunchtime. (This is a big deal for me to admit because me and Best Buy have a long and sordid, love/hate relationship dating back to a certain incident a few years ago that I still cannot talk about without getting irate. Long story short, it had to do with a McDonald’s Monopoly game piece and a piss-poor online ordering experience which led to me to their hotline screaming and threatening to call Ask Asa! The operator finally shut me up and got me off the phone when I told her that I had their address and I was on my way over to the call center. It wasn’t true, but she didn’t know that and credited me back to get me off the phone.) I left Best Buy without incident (this time) with my new IPOD in hand and all was right with my shower today.

Lesson learned here: If Rhianna ever tries to Disturbia my bathroom routine again, that bitch is off my IPOD and out of my shower forever!!! And little green nano in whatever dump site you end up at – “Call me Rude Boy” but I had to get a new model…I had to go on. I really wanted to be like Rose telling Jack in the end of Titanic: “I’ll never let go Jack” but your name wasn’t Jack and I needs me some music for my shower…

AS A POSTSCRIPT TO THIS POST:
I asked my wife to read this and see what she thought of it before I posted it. As she was reading it, she looked over at me, laughed to herself, then looked back at the laptop screen, and then she looked back at me and laughed again. I was thinking how clever she must have thought I was with my Rhianna Song title play-on-words in the post, but no – she wasn’t laughing at that. She proceeded to then reach into her front pants pocket and pull out my Banana Republic Credit Card! She looked up at me and said “Oh, that reminds me…I forgot to give you this back after I ordered that stuff…” I rest my case people!

Dog Day Afternoon

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I will share something here that I bore witness to that shocked even me – and I’m not one that’s easily shocked – so, as Sophia Petrillo said “Picture it: Fat Camp – Winter Season.

Besides the Fat Camp, my aunt also owned a diner and the Manager she had working there was this bumbling Frenchman George (Think Inspector Clouseau in a nicer suit) that made even my mostly good-intentioned, but half-retarded cousin, Lon, seem like a scientist. George and his wife, Maddie, used to come to the Fat Camp to torture (or visit, depending on who you ask) with us. I’m not sure how or why this was started, but it didn’t take long to realize that it wasn’t a good idea.

One day as we were hard at work (sitting by the pool drinking of course) they arrived. We had started out with intentions of painting the fence, but that quickly turned south when I brought out the alcohol. Truth be told, I never had any intentions of painting that fence and was drinking by the pool when they came up to paint it. One drink led to another and another and then they realized the fence could wait. As George and Maddie pulled into the driveway along with my aunt, they opened the car door and their two mini-Dobermans got out and followed my aunt and Maddie over to the pool while George went into the house.

As a pet owner, I’m always interested to see how other dogs act with their owners. My Shih-Tzu Smokey likes to be held on your lap and to have you pet him while driving in the car, but once you arrive wherever you’re going he can’t wait to see who else is around to play with and get away from me. One night when I was in college and Smokey was still a puppy, I got all up in his grill when we came back from the bar and was raising him into the air like Simba in The Lion King and then bring him face to face and I would slur “SSSS SSSS Smokey, SSSS SSSS Smokey, SSSS SSSS Smokey” until he finally had enough of my nonsense and bit down on the tip of my nose in retaliation. It might not have been so bad if he had just nipped and released to prove his point, but his pincers got caught in my nostrils. Every time I screamed out in pain he got scared and bit down harder and clamped onto my nose like it was a rawhide. I was running around screaming with this five pound dog biting down harder as he was glued to my face and it looked like he was T-bagging my nostril, but not one person helped me. Everyone just laughed their asses off. He could have bitten the tip of my nose off and swallowed it for all they cared. Smokey finally released but he left indentations in my nose on both sides where he chomped down – talk about a conversation starter, “When Shih-Tzu’s Attack!” (Not like the time when my father actually did get attacked by Marlene’s killer Shih-Tzu (Brutus) and had to get stitches in his face – at least I can blame my bite on drunken stupidity; He was sober. My father I mean – not Brutus).

So, as we made small talk with Maddie and offered them a drink, those two dogs fought for affection on her lap. As we were talking and I was just starting to really enjoy my Vodka, those dogs started pushing each other to try and get better placement. They’re very cute dogs, but it was odd because they never left Maddie’s side. Literally never. (Foreshadowing alert)

Next thing I know, here comes George strutting out of the house like a peacock in a bright blue Speedo. A fucking, bright blue Speedo. He was calling out in his little French accent “Allo, Allo” to everyone and then came over and full-body hugged my cousin, and then full-body hugged her boyfriend, and then came right at me arms outstretched. It was like slow motion and Thank God I have reflexes like a cat. I almost jumped over the fence as he tried to hug me and everyone looked at me like I was the crazy one when I put the bottle of Vodka as a buffer between us and offered him a drink. I jammed a cup into his open hand – anything to avoid contact with him and the little blue teacup he was wearing. He looked at me for a second, confused, and then proceeded to make his way around the table shaking everyone else’s hands. My aunt gave me a quizzical look that said “What’s wrong with you?”as if she couldn’t tell or didn’t see anything odd here. Right, I’m the crazy one – George just bump and grinded his bright blue Speedo against my teen-age cousin and then against her boyfriend and I’m the bad guy because I refuse to let him dry hump me next.

That situation wouldn’t have been OK even if George was in shape, if George wasn’t over fifty, or if George wasn’t wearing his knee length black dress socks and slip on black loafers with that Speedo, but for God sakes none of us were even swimming or wearing bathing suits. Who walks up to a group of fully clothed people wearing a bathing suit smaller than a do-rag and starts hugging them? It was a Fat Camp, not a swingers colony!

I gathered my friends and headed out to the local bar for the rest of the afternoon to try and burn that image out of my memory forever, and my aunt said to make sure I was back for our “Family Dinner” and then gave me a dirty looked when I asked her if there was going to be a dress code. George never did go swimming – he just hung out (literally) all day by the pool.  (As a side note, whenever questioned about George and Maddie saying or doing something weird, my aunt would always shrug and say “He’s French” or “She’s French, that’s what they do” as if that explained it.)

There were so many lunatics that I will tell you about at another time, but in the center of the assorted arsenal of players that worked at that camp was UFO Joe. We called him that because, obviously, his name was Joe. What wasn’t as obvious about him at first glance was that he had been abducted more than once. I’m not talking Liam Neeson’s daughter in Taken kind of abduction, I’m talking full-blown, alien poking, possibly impregnating, but definitely fucking-with abduction! (Please re-read that last sentence again and really see what I have had to overcome in my life. I am a neurotic putz with a host of my very own issues which I heartily admit, but I am constantly faced with fucking crazy people that make me seem like the normal one.) There is not enough room on the internet to capture all of UFO Joe’s exploits, but I promise to revisit them another time.

Dinner went without incident and while her two dogs sat on Maddie’s lap the whole time – my dog, Smokey, and my aunt’s two Yorkies were suspiciously avoiding her like the plague. I thought it odd that they weren’t begging, but didn’t think too much about it because at that moment, our maid Happy (The African/Crazy/slothlike/sexy in a certain leather yellow moomoo-wearing kind of way) hit me with her breast as she leaned over me and started to clear the table. George went to smoke cigars with the “Men” so I went to smoke a fattie with the “Real Men” and try to burn the thought of Happy’s middle-aged, bra-less breast swinging against me (like a pendulum on a grandfather clock) out of my mind.

As I headed back to the Dining Room for cake to satisfy my munchies, my aunt and Happy were in the kitchen getting the coffee and dessert together. As I walked back into the Dining Room, only UFO Joe and Maddie (and of course the two dogs) were sitting at the table as everyone hadn’t come back in yet. I walked in on their conversation and sat down as I opened a fresh beer:

Maddie (in her French accent): It must be beautiful here in zee fall when Zee trees drop Zee leaves…

UFO Joe: It is – Do you think you’ll come back when the weather changes?

Maddie (in her French accent):  It depends on Zese babies and what Zhey want to do…(she directed this comment at Zee dogs as she started nuzzling their noses against hers)

UFO Joe: Maddie, I meant to mention earlier that I can’t help but notice that you keep masturbating the dogs…

It was like slow motion as I started to choke and spit my beer out all over the table covering everything while they looked at me as if I were the crazy one. After I picked my jaw up off the floor I looked at him, speechless, waiting for her to either slap his face or, God forbid, answer him…

Maddie (in her French accent): Oh, Zhat. (Like it was nothing!!!)  It’s all about ZEE pleasure Joe…I love Zee dogs and I want them to be happy…Zhey like it…

UFO Joe: I would too…

With that, I jumped up and ran out of the room like the mature adult that I am…I was first off looking for Smokey to keep him off her lap and the hell away from her (now I understood why he and my aunt’s two dogs were staying away from Maddie the Masturbator) and then I burst into the kitchen to find my aunt.

“Oh my God – Maddie is masturbating the dogs! Hello, she’s fucking masturbating the dogs!”

To which Happy responded (in her heavy African accent) – “At the table?”

My aunt put the stack of dessert plates she was carrying down on the counter and slowly turned glaring at me and growled at me: “You know what? You’re a very sick person – something is really very wrong with you? Why would a sixty year old woman masturbate her dogs?

“Because she’s French? Remember, that’s what they do” I replied with the only answer that would possibly make sense. I thought it was a very clever comeback as it was her goto line about anything odd they did, but she found it as humorous as her last pap smear.

 

Before she could slap me or worse, UFO Joe entered the kitchen with some dirty plates and as he passed by, he matter-of-factly said “I knew she was jerking those dogs off. These eyes don’t lie. Lucky dogs, huh” he said as he bumped my shoulder and then headed back into the Dining Room. I then proceeded to help my aunt lift her jaw off the kitchen floor as Happy walked out of the room shaking her head and muttering to herself (in her heavy African accent) “At the table? I don’t understand.” A woman right off the boat from Africa understands what masturbating means, understands what masturbating dogs means, but the part that she found disturbing about that whole situation is that Maddie did it at the table? At the table! There must be some crazy shit going on in Africa!

 

Needless to say I was not allowed to go back to the Dining Room table for dessert because the general consensus was that I wouldn’t be able to control myself (probably a good guess.) Forget about how I was gonna act – I was afraid to walk back into that room and see UFO Joe jump up on Maddie’s lap next!”  I went and locked Smokey in the back bedroom – at that point it was every dog for himself!!! Suspiciously enough, they never visited us again and I, for one, didn’t miss them. UFO Joe on the other hand was constantly hoping that they’d drop by again as that was the only party he’s ever attended when he wasn’t the craziest person on the guest list.

 

As a postscript, I am really disturbed. That statement could obviously describe my mental state most times, but it’s so odd.  That is the second instance where a person has admitted to me that they had masturbated their pet. Also, they both offered it up to me without provocation or instigation. I don’t know why they’re doing it or what it is about me that invokes feelings in these lunatics to share it with me, but if one more person tells me they’re getting their pets off – I’m making a citizen’s arrest right there! I see myself as a fun-loving guy with all sorts of crazy shit going on but people are getting a little too comfortable around me for my liking. This shit’s gotta stop.

The “No Means Nose” Hair Movement!

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Cameron, thank you for letting me know that you agree with me on the nose hair issue – I know that there is a quiet majority building out there that thinks it’s as disgusting as I do and that it’s about time we stood up and banded together. To that end, forget the Tea Party – I’m starting the “No Means Nose” Hair Movement and I might actually approach Jimmy McMillan, the “Rent is Too Damn High” guy, to be the face of our movement because if there is one man we should all be listening to about facial hair – it’s him! I don’t think he’s crazy at all – I wish I could get away with wearing gloves 24/7 and never touch anything with my bare hands. He’s the aftershock of a BP Sized Rogaine Spill, but I took one look at him, with that spectacular goatee sculpted like two giant fuzzy white testicles and those black OJ Simpson ready to do some damage gloves on his hands and it made me realize that him and I could be really good friends. I’m serious, he’s a little crazy so we might not become Besties, but we’re definitely gonna hang out!  And you’ll notice that there is an immense amount of hair all over his face – but none coming out of his nose! Way to go Jimmy!

The very next time I see a person that has a nose hair “Boa” swinging in the wind – I‘m going to stop what I’m doing and start chanting: “Hell no, don’t let it grow!” Forget the economy or unemployment – this is the issue the politicians should be covering! I’m going to start a revolution and run for local office on the nose hair platform alone.

Truth be told about my toiletries – the cosmetic companies are more important to me than doctors. Forget getting better; the people that make you look better are the important ones. No oath needed – just make me look good and cover this up as much as possible. The toiletries listed in the post are only the products that I use daily. I didn’t include the products that I use intermittently such as facial masks, scrubs, toners and don’t even get me started about the products I use when I shave.  I start with a Body Shop for Men Maca Root Shave Oil to restore my skin’s natural moisture barrier. Then I take my birch shaving brush (you didn’t think I was gonna put that cream on my fingers did you?) and slather on the Neutrogena Men Sensitive Skin Shave Cream. The wooden brush keeps my hands clean and enhances the foamy lather. Then I shave and get a good rubdown of the Neutrogena Sensitive Skin After Shave Balm. At this point, I get out my cotton pads (Cotton balls just fall apart and leave a cotton residue on my skin – and then I finish it off with Tendskin to prevent skin irritation. That product is actually for women’s ingrown hairs that they get when shaving their cooch, but it works better than anything else I’ve tried. Before you even ask, no, I am not embarrassed to admit that!   

Imagine how hard it is for me to travel? Besides the ton of clothes I bring, I like options – I have to bring all these toiletries (even if it’s just overnight) or I just will not be able to sleep. If I forget even one thing, I’ll be worked up all night. I forgot my blinders one night and I was tossing and turning the whole night – I am a creature of habit and I need my things. If I didn’t have my toiletries, I would look like a creature of the night, not a creature of habit.

We just moved and when unloading the boxes and trying to find where everything should go – we had more boxes for the bathroom than we did for any other room. I have a tendency to buy a few at a time when I get my toiletries. I like to line the products up in the cabinets in a row all facing front so I can see the four or five replacements behind the currently used on – sort of like a row of Storm Troopers on the Death Star; they’re all there for the sole purpose of fighting for and protecting my skin at all costs.  One might be thinking (and my wife will swear to it) that I am on the path to being featured on Hoarders, but one would be wrong. I buy some of these products online because you just cannot get them in certain stores and I am always afraid I will run out. I can concede that if I was living in a studio apartment or didn’t have enough space to put this stuff, that I might be going overboard a little, but who is getting hurt? Are the shelves in the bathroom closets complaining about me behind my back again? Did the hand towel rat me out to the pot holder when they were tumbling in the dryer and now everyone in the house knows about me? Who cares – I say let me have my toiletries and worry about your own nose hair! And Elect Jimmy McMillan! Forget Snookie or Yo Gabba Gabba – the hottest Halloween costume of the year is just a fuzzy white Afro Mullet away!