The Suburbs Will Suck Your Soul

I hate losing contact with my friends from the suburbs. It's not that I like them any less than my city dwelling friends, it just happens. It reaches a point where it's a standoff: They hate coming out here and I hate going out there. It's like, I have this terrific city all around me, and they have . . . Naperville. Sure the suburbs can be fun, if by fun you mean going to the same two bars every weekend to watch the cool kids from high school become bigger and bigger losers over the years, and then hop in your car, only to be followed by a DUI-ticket-writing-hungry, suburban cop who has no real crimes to fight. I came up with percentages for the reasons I think the suburban friends have for not coming out, and my good friend Roxana helped me with a pie chart. Thanks, Roxy. However, I can't figure out how to get the pie chart on my blog, so you'll just have to form a little pie chart in your head, which is a pretty fun way to pass the time. Enjoy.

70%: There is nowhere to park in that fucking city. Why don't they have any God damned parking lots? After driving around looking for an hour, I just want to go home, drink a sixer, and go to sleep.

20%: $6.50 for one Heineken? I can get a twelve pack of Busch light for that in the burbs.

7% $5 cover charge? That's bullshit. I've been to Joanie's Dry Dock dozens of time, and not ONCE has Joanie asked me for a cover charge.

2% I'd like to come out to Chicago, but I have to get a fresh start on my lawn early tomorrow morning, or the neighbors will start talking about me.

1% Just come out by me! Hootie and the Blowfish are playing Ribfest in Naperville!

Go Cubs Go!

Baseball season is, yet again, upon us, and this no doubt means another disappointing year for the Chicago Cubs. I’m tired of them fucking sucking. I don’t think people get how serious I am about Cub baseball. Let me give you some of the alarming signs that I am a die-hard Cub fan.

1. When someone insulted the post-stroke Harry Caray, I honestly think I could have killed a few of these jerks. This man’s voice was around my house so much growing up that he might as well have been my grandfather. Hell, he was my grandfather, so don’t make fun of my fucking grandpa! Will Farrell, I’ll let you slide, since your impression is God damned funny.

2. I’m not sure if there is a God or not, but I AM sure that if I leave a game early, I can drastically affect the outcome of a game.
I can also alter the results of a game by turning the radio or television off for a brief while. Believe it or not, my bleacher bum friends and I can turn the tides of a game simply by switching our seats. I don’t believe in a higher power, but I swear by this bullshit? There’s something wrong with that rationale.

3. Wrigley Field is not just a ballpark to me. It is my favorite place in the world. I love all the sights, sounds, and especially the smells – beer, hotdogs, ice cream . . .
I don’t like the smell of cigars, but I love to smell it at Wrigley. I have even grown to love the smell of hot urine in the men’s room. It is one of the only parks in the country that still has the trough-style urinals. They maximize available pissing spots by cutting out the spaces in between urinals. Efficient? Yes. Smelly? Definitely. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

4. Speaking of urinals, and why not speak of urinals, I love getting off that self/team deprecating one liner that makes the whole men’s room erupt in laughter, and not your usual laughter, but the bazaar looking laughter of men looking straight ahead, so as not to be accused of looking at a penis.

5. I will drink a piss-warm Old Style beer out of a paper cup and ask for seconds, and thirds, and tenths, and stack my dead soldiers up to show my drinking prowess. I dreamed of being the guy with the seeminlgy endless, stacked up cups when I was a young man, and look at me now America! My first frothy brew at the Friendly Confines will be for you, my 9 readers.

The Gospel According To Frank Zappa

Someone I know did a post in which you use your favorite band's song titles to answer the questions below. Although Frank Zappa isn't my favorite, he is certainly among them, and his songs have the funniest titles, by far. It should be noted that I only used songs that are in my personal catalogue. I hope you enjoy the list, and I'd love to see your version, either in comment form or posted on your blog.

1. Are you male or female? Muffin Man

2. Describe yourself: I Can’t Afford No Shoes

3. How do some people feel about you: Dancin’ Fool

4. How do you feel about yourself: I’m So Cute

5. Describe your ex girlfriend: Crew Slut

6. Describe your current significant other: Road Ladies


7. Describe where you want to be: Wild Love

8. Describe how you live: Broken Hearts Are For Assholes

9. Describe how you love: Advanced Romance and Dirty Love (tie)

10. What would you ask for if you had just one wish: Titties and Beer

11. Share a few words of wisdom: Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow

12. Now say goodbye: Wait a Minute . .

Wow, these titles make me sound like a pervert or something. Well, that's just Frank for you. If I chose another band the list would have a whole different feel. Frank, thanks for giving me a good laugh while sorting through some of the titles of songs I love.

Sit Down?

I’m coaching boys, 7th grade volleyball this year. I just got done with my first game, and I need to kill a half hour to charge my ipod and to let traffic die down. So, I figured this would be a great time to knock out a blog.

We lost both games today, but we did way better than the last time we faced the same team. I was out of town, but I heard we didn’t crack 10 points in either game the first time we faced them. In today's games we were up in the 20's both games. I’d like to think that the spike, pun intended, in point production had something to do with Dr. Kenneth Noisewater’s coaching prowess. What I lack in knowledge, I make up for with enthusiasm. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a pretty good volleyball player, and I know the rules. It turns out all my years of playing volleyball at the bar and on the beach did not equip me with the knowledge of all the anal, little nuances in organized volleyball. When you sub in players you have to have them run to the sidelines with the backs of the guys subbing out to the judge, and the front of the guys subbing in has to face her. There is also a hand shaking format in which they have to go to opposite corners, run straight up to the front, so that they can run across and slap hands under the net. Okay, I’m willing to learn these particulars and abide by them, but what I REFUSE to do is sit down while I coach.

I have ADHD. It’s never been diagnosed, but I have a brutal case of it. If you saw my desk right now you’d know what I’m talking about. When I coached basketball I NEVER sat down during a game. I pace back and forth like a caged panther and I howl like a, well, caged panther. Today, midway through the second game, the judge told me to sit down. There were some snickers as the crowd heard the howling come to an abrupt halt, and I sheepishly sat down and put my clipboard under my chair. I really would have liked to have found another place for my clipboard, namely in that bitch judge's corn hole, sideways.

I have a tournament this weekend, and I’m going to continue to pace until I am warned a few times, at which point I’ll sit, but I don’t have to like it.

-Coach “Panther” Noisewater

Tip Your Waitress. Try the Veal.

Last night, The Roomy and I actually met some cool, attractive girls that we are both excited about calling. It wasn’t one of those times where I was talking to a girl all night, hoping that I could take her home, and then settling for a phone number that I have no intention of ever dialing. Jeez, that sounded mad sleazy. It wasn’t one of those, “yeah, I guess I’ll call her. Maybe she’s cooler and/or smarter when she’s sober. . .” The point is, I’m tired of meeting, and what’s worse, following up with, girls who I’m indifferent about. Love is supposed to start with a spark, maybe an explosion, but never apathy, right? So, The Roomy and I are stoked to have met girls who actually got our blood pumping a little.

Oddly enough, the events leading up to us meeting the women in question started when my roommate, our friend Jason, and myself were watching NCAA games at Finley Dunne’s, a great dive bar to watch sports. Our waitress was cute and likeable, and she was laughing with us because our television was about 5-10 seconds ahead of the other 6.* We would see a big play, have a given reaction, and then look around to see if the patrons had a similar reaction moments later. We tipped this waitress tall and went home, thinking that was the last we would see of this lovely bar maid.

So, last night (Saturday) we were out at The Liar’s Club, having fun, but the lady front was not looking good. We had a pretty big group with us, at least one of which was female, and it looked like we were going to fall victim to, what I like to call, the “bringing sand to the beach” effect. We were dancing in a circle formation, which makes it tough to infiltrate into other groups, or for other girls to penetrate our defenses. I hate when that happens. Just to shake things up, I spotted The Naked Guy, fully clothed, see two posts ago, so I requested Hot in Here by Nelly to get him good and naked. As I looked anywhere but in the direction of his flaccid penis, I noticed that the talent in the bar was looking slim. Sure it was good for my ego to have a mediocre-looking girl make me dance with another mediocre looking girl who was getting married in a week while her mediocre-looking friends cheered, or to have a so-so looking girl try to coerce me into taking my shirt off. I remember Tom Petty’s American girl was playing while I pushed my shirt down as she fought back pushing upwards. That’s all well and good, but now that the ego had been thoroughly massaged, I was hoping to meet a more pleasing to the eye woman.

Not long after the Tom Petty shirt pulling fiasco, just when I thought all was lost, the waitress from Thursday spotted us and said, “hey, I waited on you guys on Thursday.” She really likes us for some reason, and she insisted that we meet two of her friends, who were both really good looking and, as it turns out, a lot of fun. My roomy and I chatted up these girls all night, and when the ugly lights came on, which thankfully didn’t make either of these girls ugly, I remember typing my girl’s number into my phone as I saw The Roomy at the end of the bar typing in his girl’s number. The Roomy and I had a little spring our step as we went off into the night. I actually have to break a cardinal rule and call mine today. She is leaving for Switzerland tomorrow, and I’m going out of town tomorrow too. If this works out for him, myself, or even better, both of us, we will have to stop into Finley Dunne’s on another Thursday to watch sports on the super-fast television, and thank the match-making waitress for setting us up. Moral of the story: Tip your waitress? Don’t give up until last call? How about simply remembering that while life as a single guy can be lonely, frustrating, unfulfilling, and it has any number of other negative aspects, sometimes you have one of those nights where you meet someone great, and you remember why sometimes it’s great to be single, and you also remember why some of your not-single friends sometimes envy you.

* I want to add that I found this waitress photo on Google Images, so that's not her, and those guys aren't me or my friends, but how funny is that picture? Those guys look so drunk, and it looks like the Asian Indian fella is giving her the stalker look from hell glare.

Ninja Blankie!

I don't want to be one of those dorks that talks about his kids on his blog, but I can't help my self this time. This isn't even my kid, but I promise, it's funny. Keep reading, fuck-face! During preschool, my 3-year-old nephew was asked what he wanted to be when he grows up, to which he responded "a ninja." How cool is that? He later changed his answer to a knight, because they have a "double ax." He's not sure what kind of badass he is going to be, which century or continent the ass kicking will be on, but he is certain that he is going to reap havoc and utilize some weaponry.
The next day he had to bring something in to show and tell, and he may have tarnished his badass reputation by bringing in his "blankie." I'm sure lots of tough as nails ninjas have security blankets of some kind . . . Well, Aidan, I still think you're a badass. No matter what.

* Aidan is the kid in the front giving you the finger.

More Than Meets the Eye

http://www.thephatphree.com/features.asp?StoryID=2160&SectionID=3

Disclamer: I am posting a site about Transformers and The Gobots. Yes they are toys. I'm sorry if I am alienating some of my female readers or my readers that think they are too cool to talk about toys. Wait, I don't care about the too cool for toys people. You people suck! The rest of you, enjoy this link.

The link is to an article written on the phatphree.com. The guys on this site do a great job at writing humorous articles. I read one once written from the perspective of a hardass in a striped shirt going out to the bars - very funny stuff there. In this article, the author ranks the top 5 crappiest Transformers and Gobots.

- I tend to agree with his number 1. What kid would have fun playing with a robot that turns into a rock? That is like a cruel joke, like giving a kid a lump of coal in his/her stocking.

- I don't like Grimlock being number 5. I see his point about dinosaurs not being able to blend in on earth like a car could, for instance, but Grimlock is the shit. This guy must not have seen Transformers the movie 800 times like me, or the Canadian version with the handful of curse words, for that matter, because Grimlock is part of the reason that the movie kicks ass, well, that and Judd Nelson lending his vocal talents to portray Hotrod.

- I agree with his dissing of Perceptor too. Come on! A telescope?? On the show he was a pacifist, Green Peace, hippy who wouldn't shoot anyone. That is until the movie when he just up and starts shooting Decepticons like it was going out of style. I always wondered if that was because the writers didn't research the show's history, or if Perceptor just snapped like a disgruntled postal worker from endless days of looking at slides while all the cool Transformers ran around solving mysteries and getting in adventures.

Anyone have any thoughts? I promise I'll get back to writing about stuff more people can relate to, but I had to let my inner nerd shine, if only for a moment.

The Naked Guy

You heard it here, folks. If you ask me what the best bar in the city of Chicago is, without a doubt, and without hesitation, I will tell you The Liar’s Club. Let me give you a few reasons why:

1. Take a look at this picture. I mean the place looks condemned for Christ’s sake. You know that if a bar has a façade like this, then it must stay busy on reputation alone.

2. They have the best music/DJ’s. I know the Friday and Saturday DJ’s by name, and they not only play awesome stuff on their own, but they play most anything I request. If you were by the DJ booth around 12:30 last night, you would have heard this exchange:

Me: I’m going to leave it up to you, Kevin. Do you want to play Chains of Love by Erasure or Billy Idol’s Dancing With Myself?
Kevin: I’ll play them both, man.

What’s crazy too is that they will blare heavy metal music out of nowhere. Everyone will be done dancing to Justin Timberlake, or whatever, and then Mother by Danzig will kick in.
You’d think that would clear the floor, but people dance away and sing to their friends, and sing to people they’ve never met, but could tell are cool because they know the words to a random song like that, or some other terrific song.

3. They have The Naked Guy. On any given Friday night, when you hear It’s Getting Hot In Here by Nelly, look over to the end of the bar for a guy who looks like a mix between Kevin Spacey and the guy from Midnight Oil. The second he hears the song, he takes one last drag from his cigarette before extinguishing it, he takes one last healthy swig from his cocktail, and he marches out to the dance floor. It’s kind of like when Batman gets the call. The only difference is, I’ve never seen Batman strip naked and dance by himself, although for the right price I think Adam West might be willing to do a naked appearance and dance the Batoosie. As I was saying, the man who is simply known as The Naked Guy begins a dance that seems to be intentionally done in a way as to create an over exaggerated flopping motion. Girls circle around him and take pictures of him, while I dance with a hand blocking the view of the flip-flopping member. One night I struck up a conversation with The Naked Guy, and I said to him, “Say, Naked Guy, how ever did you start this fine tradition?” Evidently, someone dared him to do it a number of years back, and he has been dancing in nature's own just about every Friday night since. He’s also a card-carrying nudist, well, I don’t know if they have cards, or where they’d carry them when they’re naked, but he goes to nudist events all over the country. Through the course of the conversation I did get his real name, but to me, and the other loyal patrons of the best bar in Chicago, he will always simply be The Naked Guy. Here’s to you, Naked Guy. May you continue to flip and flop yourself to your heart's content.

The Most WORSTEST Times I've Heard Words Used WRONGLY

I don’t claim to be a grammar whore. I know I mess up lots of stuff, but there are some English language boo-boo’s that make my skin crawl. I started to go in order of most annoying, but I think to avoid being anticlimactic, I’m going to go in order of how funny the screw ups were.

5. This one girl and I did an internship together a ways back, and by the time it was over we both hated one another. Remember that Seinfeld where Jerry’s mom can’t fathom how anyone could not like Jerry? That’s how I felt. I’m not saying that everyone loves me, but I get along with most everyone, and I’ve certainly never had someone detest me to this degree. I think it had something to do with the fact that we were complete opposites, we shared a 10 by 10 office Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and we had every one of our grad. school classes together Tuesday and Thursday. The word that this gal said that made me want to turn on a hand mixer and swirl around my innards was UNappropriate. Yes, UN.

4. This same girl was talking about the new dog she was getting. Shit, I have to look up the spelling on this . . . I’m so damn lazy. Okay, Weimaraneris the name of the breed. She would say “wisenheimer.” Isn’t that something Moe called Curly on any given episode of the stooges just before he stuck a finger in each of his eyes? Believe me, doing the finger in the eyes bit sounded like a good idea after the 7th or 8th time she screwed up this word. Maybe getting on the ground and running around in a circle, i.e. the Curly Shuffle, would have helped me blow off some steam. I mean, the fact that I already couldn’t stand her, and she was so darn excited about this dog, and she KEPT saying the wrong word, and such a silly word . . .

3. I work with a girl that is just my type physically. She is a petite, little, Italian woman with dark, curly hair. I don’t want to sound like a pig here, but I’d be leaving out a very important piece of information if I did not mention her rear end. She’s super thin and then her rump just jets out to the point where, if she were standing up, one could set his can of beer on her hiney, you know, if you needed to free up a hand for something. Her drawbacks, as far as the possibility of ever dating her are concerned, are that I work with her, and she has a kid (sorry if that sounds insensitive, but I'm not ready for that). However, I think I’d sooner look past those two MAJOR strikes against her before I’d get past the fact that about every other time I talk to her she says “supposaBly” with a “b.”

2. While working at a music store, the best job I’ve ever had incidentally, a customer struck up a conversation with me about the band Queen. He said something to the effect of, “That guy could sing.I mean, he was awesome. I don’t care if he was as gay as a three dollar bill.” It’s QUEER as a 3 dollar bill, you nimrod! Hasn’t he ever stopped and thought how the expression made no sense the way he was saying it? What’s funny is now I say it his way in a thick Chicago accent, and it gets enough laughs for me to continue to do so.

1. Many moons ago my friend’s dad had one of his buddies over, and over the course of a brief conversation, the guy made two of the funniest blunders I’ve ever heard. The first came when he said he was in a subdivision and turned his car around in “one of those coups d'états (he meant cul de sac). Then he was talking about something he had seen on the nature channel in which a tribe in Africa practiced annual sex. My friend’s dad asked, “You mean sex once a year?” To which he replied, “No, man. Sex in the butt. In the butt!” I think you know which word he meant to say.

I have to open this one up to the floor, since so many of you are such talented writers. What’s the crappiest use of the English language you’ve ever heard?

Bubba's Fixin' To Get Hitched!

Last night I attended a wedding celebration in honor of my good friend Bubba. Just about any time you go to an event involving a guy named Bubba you are in for an interesting evening, and this night was no exception. Here are some of the highlights:

1. There was a circuit blown, a power failure, or something that lasted for about an hour. This meant no lights, no music, and perhaps most importantly, no air conditioning. I was sweating my tail off up in that piece! I give credit to one guest who danced into the room with her boom box and some cd’s. This resulted in a thunderous round of applause, and I was excited to have music too, until I heard “The Pina Colada Song.” I’m afraid to say that the songs didn’t get much better from there. As compensation for the hour of power failure, the venue offered an extra hour on the open bar. Drunken Dr. Kenneth Noisewater was loving that solution, but hung-over Dr. Kenneth Noisewater is thinking he could have done without the extra hour of cheap rum.

2. The husband of one the bridesmaids did an Elvis performance, complete with sideburns, a cape, and the whole nine. At one point in the evening he came into the room with a bag of Dracula fangs. Why I have no idea, but it was fun as hell talking to people with those things in. It dawned on me that I was the only guy still keeping them in way later in the evening, which should have discouraged me, but it was just too damn fun. Every time I walked by Elvis, Dracula teeth or not, I’d say, “How you doin’, King?” Then we’d chat for a while, and I must say, he was very entertaining, as was I, I was told, so naturally we hit it off quite well. The King was helping me out by telling me which women were available. Thanks, King, wherever you are . . .

3. I was rocking a feau-hawk for the first time. Am I too old for that style at the ripe-old-age of 29? Call me metrosexual, tragically hip, or a just plain dork, but I think it looked cool. Maybe I’ll post some pictures when I get some emailed to me.

4. I took my closest, female friend as a date, which worked out well, since she knows a lot of the guests. Her and I are on the If We’re Not Married By 35 We’re Just Going to Say Screw It and Marry One Another So We Don’t Die Alone Plan, or the IWNMBTWJGSSIMOASWDDAP Plan for short. Well, not short, but shorter. Unpronounceable too. The plan needs a better name; I admit. Both our respective parents live in the Chicago suburbs, so we stopped by her folks’ place in between the church and reception. Her dad is a chef, so he whipped up some hors d’oeuvres for us: Rolled-up prosciutto on a cracker with fancy cheese on top, dribbled with a touch of olive oil. Then we sipped our wine and watched an episode of Frazier. The hoity-toity crap was out the window, as we were off to Bubba’s weddin’ . . .

5. I realize this is my second blog in a row ending with a reference to Ween, but the song the bride and groom danced to was Stay Forever by the aforementioned band. Nicely played, Bubba.

Eureka! I found my beloved ipod!

I found my ipod! It’s really an amazing story (watch closely for the fun words in caps and the accompanying stars). I sent out a mass email to the staff telling them to keep an eye out for it. We have an in-school suspension program in our school, and we have 3 RUFFIANS* that are there for the remainder of the school year. The teacher that runs the program told her students about my situation, and one of the loveable little HOOLIGANS made a wanted sign for my ipod with a picture of an ipod, and it said, “Have you seen me?” As I was leaving, this darling, little HOODLAM** ran after me to give me the wanted sign.

When I got back to my office, my 9th hour group of 8th graders were waiting patiently for me. Just for the hell of it, I showed them the sign that this adorable STREET TOUGH*** had made, and I told them the story. Hearing this, one kid said he saw an ipod in the lost and found the day before. I grabbed him by the collar and yelled in his face, “Tell me everything, you rotten little bastard!” Actually I didn’t lay a hand on him, and it was more like, “Really, what did it look like,” but it would be funny if I had done it the first way. He said he gave it to some girl, so I got her name, tracked her down, and sure enough, it was in her locker.

The thing that blows me away is, if this LOUT**** had not made the cute wanted sign, if he had not ran after me to give it to me, I would not have shown it to this kid, and I never would have seen the ipod again. I can’t help but think the guidance I have given that little SON-OF-A-GUN led him to feel some compassion for me and my plight. No good deed goes unrewarded, right? Well, I’ll be thinking of that little PUNK on my ride home when I’m bumping Booze Me Up and Get Me High by Ween on my freshly recovered ipod.

* Great word
** Great use of this word in Yackity-Yack when they’re all, “Just tell your hoodlum friends outside, you ain’t got time to take a ride!
*** I ganked this word from an episode of Seinfeld
**** I must admit that I had to use the thesaurus for this one. Anyone ever hear of this one?

The Robbery That Shook the Nation. Well, It Shook This Guy Anyway.

For those of you who don’t know me that well, I work in a school. Today some kid went into my office and stole my ipod. You have no idea how much this event has taken the wind out of my sails. I am simultaneously mad, sad, and disappointed.

I'm MAD for obvious reasons. I really would like to do an Andy Sipowitz style investigation in which I simply go student to student beating and black mailing information out of them until I get to the bottom of it. That would more than likely get me fired, so I think I’ll save the Sipowitz approach for another day, but believe me when I say that I really did consider it. I nearly stopped by Best Buy so that I could get the NYPD Blue box set for pointers on beat-downs and questioning styles to trip them up.

I’m SAD because this event will honest to God decrease my quality of life. This may sound like an exaggeration, but those of you who know me well know how important music is to me on an every day basis, and you know that this really isn’t a stretch. I listen to my ipod every day on the way to and from school. I just bought a freaking tape adapter for my car so that I can do so. You have no idea how annoyed I was on the ride home when I had to listen to the radio, knowing that I could be listening to one of my 4,500 favorite songs. Midway through a Bon Jovi song I had to shut the radio off and pound the dashboard a few dozen times. I also use it when I go running. I have a very short attention span, so most of my exercise is through sports, since running bores me. The only way I can make running seem halfway entertaining is to make bomb-ass play lists to keep my legs moving. This thief of a kid is going to make me fat! Okay, my blood is boiling right now. Give me a minute . . .

Okay, last but not least I am DISSAPOINTED. Whoever this kid is, he/she was more than likely visiting me at the end of the day, saw I wasn’t there, and took the ipod. I listen to these kids’ problems all day, I help them with every little aspect of their little lives, and sometimes I take their problems home with me to the point where their little lives are racing through my head when I’m trying to sleep, and this is the fricking thanks that I get. That is the hardest part about this whole thing.

Dodging an Army of Belushi's Is Even Harder Than It Sounds

Some of you may not know that I have four roommates. Yes, four. You are probably picturing a frat house, complete with toga parties, panty raids, maybe even a kidnapped mascot of some kind, and that is most everyone’s first reaction. I swear it isn't like that, but it is what people picture. My roommate and I have a new addendum to our description of our living situation when we meet girls, and it is as follows: . . “but I’m looking towards getting my own place.” Trust me, girls over 25 or so don’t like the sound of four roommates.

Well, last night actually was like a cotton-pickin’ frat house up in here. A friend, who is more a friend of a friend really, who had moved to California with his lady, is back in town for his bachelor party. You have to understand that if it was a close friend I would follow whatever itinerary that they had come up with, but as long as it is a friend of a friend, I just assume do my own thing and skip the nudey bar, etc. I saw him Thursday night, so I figured I’d toast to him then, and that would count for my contribution to the bachelor party weekend. I think I could have pulled that off, but I didn’t bank on like 10 guys taking Friday off and drinking all afternoon, which made them a little more persistent in their attempts to suck everyone into their vortex. I was in the bathroom when a representative was sent upstairs to oust my roommate Andy and I out of our rooms. Luckily, this guy, who was the bachelor’s brother, who neither of us knew, did such a bad job trying to get Andy out, that he gave up on me. I could hear it turning into an argument, so I knew I was safe for a while . . .

After I was all changed and ready to make my escape, I peered down the balcony thing and no one was in the front room. They were all in the kitchen. It was the perfect time to make my get-away! I darted downstairs, but I heard footsteps coming in my direction! I tried to make my way to the second set of stairs without looking back, but I was relieved to see, out of the corner of my eye, that it was Andy. Despite it being a very dated phrase, I said, “I’m outy.” Alas, Andy, who had been sucked into the vortex, could only meekly say, “I don’t blame you . . . “

When I got home, everyone was still out, except for the bachelor, who I saw sleeping soundly on the couch. Apparently, he had thrown up a few times, dowsed himself in his own urine, and didn’t even make it out. I guess 10 guys taking the day off, drinking all afternoon, and a non-stop regiment of shots all spelled trouble for the poor bachelor. Well, he does have another night tonight to try to pace himself better, or more accurately, fight off the vortex better. Wait, that means another night of me having to sneak around and crawl under the barbed wire. Wish me luck . . .

With This (Altered) Ring I Thee . . .

I met a new friend last Thursday at volleyball. I was at the bar I play at really early, and I was having some drinks. I know the bartender, she’s a great gal, and she was talking to this guy. Eventually the three of us were chatting, and we discovered that both of us guys are divorced. Somehow he and I were got to discussing what it is we have done with our wedding rings. I told him mine was in the case for my glasses, which I never wear. I wish that I had done something more clever with it, or at least made something up, because this guy’s response was maybe the single best thing I’ve ever heard. He said he was going to “make his wedding ring into a cock ring to fuck other chicks with.” Brilliant. Well, tonight I have volleyball at that very bar, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m more excited at the prospect of seeing this guy than any girl I can think of in the last couple of months.

Sick Days and the Bad Television We Endure During Them

I took a sick day today. I slept through the hour that has been my favorite sick day activity since I was eleven: watching The Price Is Right. Darn! Instead I confirmed a suspision that I’ve always had about us not missing anything important on television while we’re at work. Here are three things I watched.

1) I watched a portion of Tyra Banks’ talk show in which she was interviewing legal prostitutes from The Bunny Ranch in Nevada. You would think I could watch this for hours, but Tyra somehow managed to make hookers boring. I couldn’t help but think that the only difference between these girls and Tyra is that she is slightly prettier. I’m pretty sure that any one of these hookers could catch up to her level of interviewing skills in a matter of minutes. The picture I used was from a show in which Tyra put the rumors about her breasts being fake to bed by having a live sonogram! The uncertainty was keeping me up at night, so I’m glad that’s resolved once and for all.

2) I then watched a few Michael Jackson videos. He was a good-looking guy, remember? What in God’s name did he do to his face? What surgeon went through with those wacked-out surgeries? Wouldn’t he/she be like, “Yeah, Mike, we could make you look really goofy like that, but maybe God put cartilage in our noses for a reason. You know, so our noses don’t look like a deflated balloon. Um, yeah, we could make your face look like a Michael Myers mask from the movie Halloween pulled back way too tight, but let me show you a few of our more subtle alterations . . . ?” Didn’t he have friends to talk him out of that stuff? I wonder if he was showing photos to his buddies, and being like, “Yeah, in just two weeks I’ll look like THIS?” Maybe when your friends are Elizabeth Taylor, Emanuel Lewis (TV’s Webster), and Bubbles the chimp, who I heard he stabbed routinely with a pen or something, perhaps one needs more rational friends. Where was the ever-level-headed Tito when these decisions were being made? That was a perfect opportunity for him to throw his weight around (see photo).


3) Right when I was about to put my sloppy joe away and go back to bed, I heard an intriguing song on BET. The close ups revealed that it was a new Prince song called Black Sweat, in which he says “workin’ up a black sweat.” God, that’s a great chorus! The song and video were overtly sexual, like "Get Off" or "Pussy Control," but it was very much with the times while staying true to his James Brown and Sly inspired funk/R&B roots. I immediately downloaded it, legally of course.

Well, tomorrow I’ll be back at the old salt mine, my dad would say, so Tyra, the hookers, Michael, Tito, Bubbles, and TAFKAP (The Artist Formerly Known as Prince) will have to get by without me.

Is It Wrong for 3 Straight Men to Watch Flashdance, and What's Worse, Enjoy it?

My friend from L.A. was in town this weekend, and a bunch of us went out. We had entirely too many libations and we were talking about old times. The next day we were all useless, and more than ever aware of how a hangover is much more severe in your late twenties than it was in our seemingly invincible early twenties. This led us to sit around all day watching movies in lazy boys, like a bunch of, well, lazy boys. One movie we watched was Annie Hall. That is an unbelievably influential movie to the point where filmmakers don’t even realize they’re ripping it off. Great movie, but it’s not the one I’m blogging about today. Hell, we didn’t even finish that movie. The one that we left on for its entirety was Flashdance.

Yes, she is a welder by day and a semi-erotic dancer by night, with aspirations of becoming a dancer on Broadway, or whatever. She is, in fact, “just a steel town girl on a Saturday night,” etc, etc. The movie does follow the token 80’s, and let’s face it, almost every movie’s formula of boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy blows it somehow, boy gets girl back, roll credits. While the film does follow this horribly predictable formulaic pattern, it manages to be memorable through the visuals. Watch the scene when Jennifer Beals is wearing a sexy-ass, sleeveless, tuxedo number, eating what appears to be a shrimp cocktail in a seductive manner, and all the while touching his junk under the table with her fishnet stockinged foot. I defy you not to get a little frisky in that scene.

It’s not even just the fact that she’s smoking hot in the movie, which she is, but she is so damned captivating somehow. She has that hint of craziness (see breaking a window in his house at the slightest sign of infidelity, running away from him for no good reason, taking her bra off through her shirt, asking him to close his eyes and “feel the music,” getting out of his Porsche under a bridge with traffic going both ways and walking down the middle of the street.) I don’t know about you, guys, but I like a little hint of crazy. I don’t like them too crazy, but you have to admit that a little bit of crazy can be fun and interesting, and it often translates into “the sack.” Did I just say “the sack?” How old am I?

I have no idea what the character’s name is! That may have something to do with the fact that we were talking throughout the whole thing, but the fact is the dialogue isn’t important in the movie – it’s the visuals. Hey, why not have her and her friend stop and watch some breakdancing for what seemed like way too long? While we’re at it, why not have her do an artsy-fartsy dance in kabuki theatre makeup with strobe lights blasting while she runs into the walls? Was she a meth-addicted performance artist? Would people really come to that dirty bar to watch performance art? Wouldn’t they yell for her to take it off, etc? Oh no, these working class, Pittsburgh natives just sip their beers and applaud her efforts. There is one scene where she tapes up her feet and proceeds to dance alone in her apartment, but the dancing appears to be more accurately running in place, and more exercised based than anything else. The amount of sweat shooting off her curly hair is ridiculous (see photo)! I think I may need to switch to running in place dancing in my apartment to fill the cardio component of my workouts. Great looking scene though, and it is when we hear Michael Sembello’s Maniac, which had to be rewritten due to the fact that it was originally a song about a serial killer. You didn’t think I’d get through this blog without a tid-bit of obscure music knowledge, did you? Anyway, there are tons of bazaar, visual based scenes that aren’t realistic, and they don’t really move the story along, but it’s a lot of fun to watch somehow.

What is really sad is that because Jennifer Beals is so damned captivating in the movie, the character grows on you to the point where you really do want her to nail that audition at the end. I felt a little gay when I got the chills right when she puts the record on and What a Feeling by Irena Cara kicks in. I felt even gayer when faced with the realization that I was guarding the remote all day, and perhaps a little more into this movie than my friends, but that’s a realization I don’t care to delve into right now. Moving on, she falls down at first, but she asks to start over. That’s when she wins those judges over. Maybe it was going judge-to-judge, spinning around pointing right in their faces, or the 80’s-out fist pumping while backpedaling, but I contend that when she goes into that tight, fast, breakdancing backspin she really won their hearts. We don’t know for sure if she passed the audition, but it doesn’t matter. The way she goes running out of there, looking like she’s on top of the world, with her boss boyfriend, the foreman or whatever at the steel plant, who has put a bow on her pit bull and brought flowers, you know that either she passed the audition or she simply knows that she has wowed those judges and she doesn’t care what the result is. That’s all the viewer needs to know, so it is at this time that they do the cheesy freeze frame and the film concludes, with all of us, or maybe just me, feeling a little happier than we were before investing that hour and a half. “What a feeling,” indeed. God, I wanted to delete that lame sentence, but it’s too funny, so I’m going to leave you with that: “What a Feeling,” indeed.

It's a Sad Day When You Find Yourself Alone Watching American Idol

Watching American Idol alone is like watching someone fall down in glorious fashion with their grocieries spraying in all different directions, and having nobody around to laugh with. All my roommates were out tonight, and I felt like watching this show, despite not watching the last three weeks or so. I really did try to get into it alone, but I found it difficult. So, since I had no one to share my comments with, I will now bore my 7 readers with my impressions of the 15 minutes of Idol I saw tonight. Here is what I wished I could have shared with someone an hour or two ago:

1. I need more witnesses to the fact that I consistently have the same view as Simon, before I hear him comment, even when his opinion differs from the other two judges. Does this mean I’m an amazing judge of talent or just an amazing asshole? Matching his ear would be great, but if I could approach his assholeness, I’d die a happy man.

2. If someone does a spot-on impression of Randy Jackson in the middle of the forest, and no one hears it, did it really happen, and was it really that money? Well, yes, it is that money, but not much fun to do alone. “I don’t know, dogg (even when he’s talking to a girl), it was a little pitchy.” Funny, pitchy came up on spell check. You know why? Because it’s not a flipping word! Well, neither is assholeness, which I used in the last bullet-point, but that’s just for effect. “I don’t know dude (still talking to a girl), I just wasn’t feeling it . . .” Randy, if by feeling it you meant the nausea, I was feeling it in spades this evening, and that’s what I love about the show, when you have COMPANY. The queasiness alone serves no purpose, but shared discomfort can be a riot, you know?

3. I need someone to share the beauty of Paula Abdul’s public breakdown. I don’t know what her story is, but sometimes she is high as a kite, hugging everyone, and the next minute she is super crabby and wanting to kill Simon. He is SO GOOD at pushing her buttons. He does it effortlessly. She is so sedated sometimes that you can sense Randy and Simon’s uneasiness. I used to love how she was in the business of being nice to people instead of actually providing any valuable input. Even if she had nothing nice to say about the singing she’d say, “You look beautiful.” What the hell does that have to do with anything? All of a sudden this season she’s a tough critic. She must have taken all the criticism about being overly nice to heart, so she’s suddenly become a hardass. Well, guess what Paula: I don’t think your input on singing ever held too much validity. She was a good dancer, a good choreographer, a good Laker Girl, she even provided a good cameo in the Nasty Girls video by Janet Jackson, but she was never a good singer. “I don’t know, dogg, Forever Your Girl was a little pitchy . . .”

4. Have you seen the terrible montage segments when they show the contestants out on the town together and they’re all singing? I want to meet the person that gets done watching that little slice of hell and is glad they watched it. You know what, this is the part of the show in which more than any other time one needs a partner in crime to endure the discomfort. Watching that without throwing out comments to someone is impossible. Luckily, one of those segments did not come on during the course of my watching, but if it had, I may have had to run downstairs and grab one of my neighbors to watch with me, preferably not the guy that unknowingly lent me his bicycle that I in turn rode to work . . .

The good news is my roommates came home in time to watch some Winter Olympics with me. The feud between the Black and white American speed skaters was a lot of fun, but I’d much rather have had someone to marvel in my ability to match Simon’s keen ear, to be astounded at my ability to mimic Randy, to share in the joy of watching a public breakdown, and to watch in disgust at the perfect excecution of a stomach churning, musical montage.

Dick Vernon: An Innovator

I am working a Saturday Detention as I type this blog. I got thinking about The Breakfast Club. I was in grade school and junior high when I watched that movie for my first through forty-first time, and I so looked forward to being like John Bender and getting Saturday Detentions every weekend! Sadly, I was more like Brian Johnson, and much like him, I was a dork, and I only had one Saturday detention. My Saturday detention was nowhere near as cool as in the movie. It was me and like 3 other kids, and we were watched over closely by the dean. In the movie, Dick Vernon leaves the room. Leaves the room!!! Can you imagine? It’s not like anything bad happened, right? Well, I guess the kids did GET HIGH!! How did he not smell that? Also, John Bender climbed up onto the ceiling and crawled around in the rafters, but that’s not dangerous, right? I wonder if I should take the Dick Vernon approach . . .

I have seven middle school kids in here. It is a library, like the Breakfast Club, but we don’t have the modern art sculpture as a centerpiece, complete with bologna stuck to it. I made sure to put them all at individual tables with each of their smiling faces facing me. They have to raise their hands if they want anything, and then I come over to them to see what it is they want. I let them know at the start that there are scheduled bathroom breaks, so don’t ask me if you can use the washroom. It appears as if Dick Vernon and I differ in our styles. I am also yet to use the pull the kid into a private room and dare them to punch you in your face technique, but maybe I’m just not being open-minded enough. We have little packets of busy-work for them to do, so that they can’t use this as an opportunity to catch up on work, and so we have a standard measure of how much they complete. Dick went with the essay of “no less than 1,000 words.” That’s always good too, but aren’t they going to have to come back next Saturday since Brian Johnson wrote all of their essays? Well, four of them hooked up with each other, and they got high, so why WOULDN’T they want to come back the following week? Wait, four of them hooked up, so that leaves Brian Johnson as the lone guy not to hook up, AND he had to do everyone’s homework. Wow, he was a lot like me in high school.


Sincerely Yours,

The Breakfast Club

(Cue the Simple Minds track. As a kid I always thought that was Billie Idol. The singer really sounds like him. I had a soccer picture in button form from when I was around 8 in which the wind was causing my blond hair to blow and my face to contort, both of which led me to look just like Vital Idol! I have to find that picture and post it . . . )

Chronic Case of Guitar Envy

I have a chronic case of guitar envy. I think I’ve had this affliction ever since I made a guitar out of cardboard and played along to “Save a Prayer,” of all songs, by Duran Duran when I was like 7.

It is a really irritating disease because I come up with these unbelievable ideas, but I have never even come close to mustering up the ambition to pick up a guitar and try to learn one God damned note. One idea I just had was a version of Without You by Badfinger. You know, it would start out all slow, acoustic, heartfelt, and puss-rocked out like:

Well I can’t forget this evening
And your face when you were leaving
But I guess that’s just the way the story goes
You always smile but in your eyes your sorrow shows
Yes it shows

Well I can’t forget tomorrow
When I think of all my sorrow
I had you there, then I let you go
And now it’s only fair that I should let you know
What you should know . . .

(Then the drum fill kicks in, the guitars get all crunchy and loud, and the singer starts SCREAMING!)

I can’t live!
If living is without you!
Can’t live!
Can’t give anymore!

(Then I think maybe the singer should curse through the chorus like this):

You’re a bitch!
You’re a dirty, stinking bitch!
You’re a bitch!
You scum-sucking bitch!

Jeez, this Idea sounded way better until I wrote it out. Well, I still think if you REALLY sold it, then it could bring the house down. My little imaginary band in my head is doing an extended jam version of this number right now live at the Empty Bottle. I’m the guy stage right, rocking the cardboard Stratocaster with my hair all teased up like Andy Taylor.

I Never Met a Zombie I Didn't Like

Was it Roy Rogers who said, “I never met a zombie I didn’t like?” I tend to agree. If a flesh eating zombie were gnawing at my arm right now as I type, I’d be in excruciating pain and scared for my life, and scared that I too would become a zombie and try to eat my roommates, but I couldn’t help but look down at his glazed over eyes and rotting flesh and I’d smile.

I can’t say for sure when my love affair with zombies started, but I’m sure it had to do with watching Night of the Living Dead on PBS every Halloween. There was something about watching those people run away from zombies and bash them in the heads with blunt objects that made me want to have a gaggle of them after me. I think it has to do with the fact that due to their dimwitted nature and lack of speed and agility, I can’t help but think I’d stand a chance against them. If Freddy Krueger wanted to kill me, he’d have no problem. He has all kinds of super powers and trickery. However, I believe since I’m still relatively young and in decent shape, I think I could hold out for quite some time with numerous flesh eating zombies after me, and I might even take a few down with me.

I thought about these lovable silver screen stars when I was watching Sean of the Dead the other day. I went into my kitchen to get something, it could have been peanuts, my roommate’s Captain Crunch, it’s not important right now, but I was hoping against hope that as I turned the corner I’d be face to face with a real life zombie! Because I’ve watched enough of these movies to know that the only way to kill one is to get to their brains, I was thinking I’d take the thing that screws in the paper towel roll in the paper towel holder and I’d stick it dead center into his forehead. At least I think that would do the trick. Well, until that glorious day when I see my first zombie, and he meets his end with a perfectly delivered paper towel thingy, I’ll have to settle for the movie versions. Here’s my favorite zombie flicks.

1. 28 Days Later: This was directed by the guy who directed Trainspotting, so it’s almost like a zombie art film! I can watch this movie 100 times. It’s very well done.

2. Night of the Living Dead: You can’t go wrong with the original. The acting is SO BAD, but I heard the people weren’t even actors. Kudos to the bald guy who repeatedly insists on trying to talk everyone into going into the cellar with his zombie daughter. Great idea!

3. Dawn of the Dead (The remake): As much I love the slow moving, groaning zombies of yester year, I have to admit that the updated fast as hell ones, like in 28 Days and Dawn of the Dead, are much scarier. Watch the scene when they’re pointing out zombies that look like celebrities and picking them off from the rooftop.

Big Bangs, The Environment, and Republicans: The Oneness

I wake up every day to 780 AM, a local Chicago radio station that I stumbled on. They do a hell of a job at shooting through the news stories and not annoying me, which is good, because I’m VERY easily in annoyed in the morning. It’s a super station, but it’s not the station I’m writing about; it’s the content on this particular morning.
The DJ, or newscaster, or whatever you want to call him, was saying that the economy has been boosted in recent months due to an increase in shopping, believed to be because of the warmer weather. This is an equation that Republicans have to love: A rise in global warming causes a spike in the economy. Wow! Republicans are typically apathetic, perhaps even adversarial, when it comes to the environment, so this seems like a win-win situation for them.

Hold on! Don’t leave me yet, readers. I’m not usually political in my writing. I’d say it’s more focused on writing on all things useless. Now comes the useless, absurd part that you’ve grown accustomed to. Would if Republicans dropped the “War on Terror” and launched a campaign called, “The War on the Environment.” The first strike would be, naturally, a long overdue, direct assault on the ominous, shopping reducing ozone layer. The CIA would fly out to New Jersey to round up all the girls that swore by “jersey hair,” which is the style in which they tease their hair 1 foot in the air. God, I’m glad I was only in junior high at the time this was big, so that I never had to sleep with a girl rocking this God-awful look. If I could post pictures with my crappy internet, I’d find a picture for you by digging out my junior high yearbook, openning up a page at random, and blindly pointing. Odds are I would hit a girl with at least a foot of bangs straight up in the air donning a NKOTB shirt. If you don’t know who NKOTB is, all I’ll say is, they are no longer “hanging tough,” nor were they at the time in my estimation. My advanced sense of humor buddy wore a “Nuke Kids on the Block” shirt with a big mushroom cloud. Tom, big ups to you and your 12-year-old inner child for having the juevos to wear that to school, knowing that you’d piss off all the hottest girls who were in love with Jordan, Donny, and the rest of NKOTB. Perhaps Tom, like me, just didn’t find that hair attractive. Personally, it was all I could do not to reach over and crack a fistful of the straw-like hair in two. Not to be mean, just because once I got the thought in my head, I couldn’t get it out.

Yikes! Mammoth tangent. Back to the CIA and “Operation Jersey Girls.” These jersey girls, thinking that style of hair would be en vogue forever, and now hoping against hope that the style would come back, still have cases of Aqua Net in the basement of their mom’s house, where many of them still live. The CIA would, through threats of releasing tapes of their shocking behavior backstage at a 1990 Poison show, coerce them all into driving to an open field at 4 am and spraying ALL of their Aqua Net into the air. The CIA would provide the biggest fan known to man to blow it directly at that ozone layer, delivering the crushing blow that will lead us all to shop until we drop, and drop we will when we all get skin cancer and die, but we’ll look great in our Speedo’s, which will come back into fashion due to necessity, and the economy will be rock solid. Sting, if you’re reading, stop this nightmare from becoming a reality! Better yet, just shut up and get The Police back together before you’re too old and embarrassing.

The Eighth Samurai

My mom sent me the following article from the Chicago Tribune:

Cops probe series of N. Side robberies
--------------------

Tribune staff reports

February 9, 2006, 9:09 AM CST

Police are investigating a number of strong-arm robberies on the city's
North Side.

The crimes occurred in the evenings and weekends between Jan. 21 and
Feb. 3 mostly in the Lakeview neighborhood, in an area bounded by
Lawrence Avenue on the north, Diversey Parkway on the south, Lake Shore Drive
on the east and Damen Avenue on the west, police said.

The robbers are working in teams of two or more, jumping victims from
behind, striking them on the head and in the face, knocking them to the
ground, police said.

The suspects demand victims' wallets and bankcard PINs, and have fled
on foot or in a white Pontiac, police said.
Copyright (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune
------------------------------------------------------------

Granted this is a HUGE stretch of real estate, so the odds of getting robbed by these thugs are a little slim, but I was a little scared when I read it. I have done many walks home alone and thought nothing of it. However, there was one night . . .

I was at the Liar’s Club. It was just my roommate and I out. We got talking to some girls, and then there was a stretch of time when the lone semi-attractive one was chatting with the two of us. I got thinking, well, he’s in a bigger slump than me, I’m certainly not into anything that would involve the BOTH of us, So, I was looking to pull a Houdini, and let him have this one. I know there is a definition of a Houdini that has to do with an act that no man has actually ever done in the same vain as The Donkey Punch, but that’s not the definition I’m talking about. The one I’m referring to is when you duck out of a bar without saying goodbye to anyone. This is done for various reasons:
1) You don’t want people trying to talk you into staying.
2) You want to disappear because there is someone at the bar you don’t want to see
3) Your friends are all hooking up and you’d rather just disappear without making an issue of your absence.

This night was a Class 3 Houdini. All my close friends have done this on at least one occasion. As a guy, I think it’s fine, but women tend not to do this because of safety issues. This is when you come across some Gate Keepers, but that’s a whole other blog entry. Anyway, I’m walking home alone up Ashland thinking I’m perfectly safe. For whatever reason, be it drunkenness, tiredness, depression, or some combination of all of them, I was walking with my head down. Just through my sense of hearing, I knew there were some drunken 20-somethings approaching, but I didn’t lift my head to acknowledge them. Before I knew it, I heard an ungodly war cry, which caused me to look up, as anyone would when they hear an ungodly war cry, and at that time I saw an angry-faced psychotic drunk swinging a samurai sword in my face. What could I do? I screamed like a girl and said, “Jesus Christ you scared the shit out of me!” as I kept walking. His friends continued to walk away, laughing, while angry-faced psychotic drunk (AFPD) just pivoted, all the while maintaining his angry face and pointing his sword at me as I walked away.

Well, needless to say it scared the bajeezes out of me, but at least I didn’t get beaten into giving up my wallet and ATM code. Well, mom, if you’re reading, I promise to take a cab from now on. But, if I happen to be heading up Ashland in my cab, and I see AFPD, I will be left with no choice but to exit my cab, “striking (strike) them (him) in the head and in the face, knocking them (him) to the ground. He can keep his “wallets (wallet), “bankcard PINs”, and “White Pontiac.” I may have to take his sword so that this doesn’t ever happen to anyone again! Well, after the 2 or 3 people I do it to on the walk home . . .

Online Dating Part 2

A good friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, read my blog and sent me a terrific email. So, I felt obliged to post it on my website, with her permission of course. I think the female perspective helps. Thanks, friend that shall remain nameless. Enjoy:

I was just complaining about the EXACT same thing to a friend of mine
yesterday, except with changing the word "ladies" with "guys."
Seriously. They ALL write the exact same thing. They all have a
sarcastic/dry sense of humor, like to travel, love their families and
friends, are up for going out or staying in ... They all like
intelligent women with a sense of humor who, you guessed it, like to
travel, are close to their family, and are up for going out or staying
in.

The picture section is even worse. I would like to send all guys on
that thing a list of what not to post.

Do not post

1) A picture of you in front of some European cathedral, to prove to
me that you like to travel, in which you are 2 centimeters big.
Everyone and their moms backpacked across Europe in their 20s, and
that cathedral looks like every other cathedral in Europe. And I
still have no idea what you look like, and that makes make me think
you don't want me to know.

2) (I know you did this, because you told me so, so forgive me) A
picture with your niece/nephew/daughter/son/random child to prove to
me you like kids. Yes, I get it. There are billions of these.

3) A picture of yourself without your shirt on. No. One dude who
winked at me was even lying down on a bed posing. In fact, there was
a SERIES of photos of him on/beside the bed without his shirt on. I
wish I was kidding. (Along with this is a picture of you with a
tank-top/muscle shirt on ... Guess what? Those went out in nineteen
eighty-something ... Wait, those were never in. You make me worry
that if I scroll down, you will be wearing zoobas.)

4) A picture of your dog/cat/fish/horse. I don't care.

5) A picture of cars you like. Seriously, don't do this. Some guy
who looked like a cross between Joe Piscopo and Rambo and winked at me
and had Ferraris in his photo section. No.

6) A picture with two buxom women on either arm. I cannot believe how
many guys do that. Is it to prove you could get women if you really
wanted to? That you're a ladies' man? It's even better when they
scratch out their faces in a very scary manner.

7) An outright bad photo. I know not everyone is photogenic. I, for
one, can't take a good picture to save my life. But there HAS to be
one better than some these guys post.

Anyway, to answer your question, the experience has been a big bust
for me. I'm glad I'm only signed up for a month. I am quite popular
with the out-of-state divorced 40-year-old father of 2. Oh, and
incredibly short dudes with no college degrees. The normal looking
guys I wink at want nothing to do with me, which really hasn't done
very good things to my self-esteem.

In conclusion, I am going to die alone.

Have a great day!

Online Dating Part 1

I’m going to make a confession: I dabble in online dating. Hey, there are millions of people doing it. Allow me to paraphrase what every loser writes on their page to justify being blatantly lonely enough to try this endeavor: “I just wasn’t meeting the quality of people I’m looking for in the bar scene.” How about, “I’m just so busy during the week, that I don’t have time to meet people.” Better yet, “I was holding out for a long time, but my friend has been begging me to sign up, and here I am.” Please accept any one of those horrible excuses, and we’ll simply move onto uncovering the embarrassing world that is online dating.
I’ve only been on 5 or 6 dates, and I’ve been signed up for over a year. I’m sure you’re thinking I’m being overly picky, but if you saw some of the women that email me, you’d understand. Sometimes I’d like to email back one of these unfortunate looking, young ladies and say, “I didn’t know Trolls really existed! Isn’t there a bridge you should be under right now, or do you get a wireless signal under your bridge.” Okay, so I don’t get the random emails from attractive ones, but I do find lots of pretty ones when I sort through the profiles. Pretty ones with anything INTERESTING to say in their profile, now that’s a different story. Allow me to list some boring elements that I guarantee a profile picked at random will have at least one of:

“I really like to travel” – I do too, but I can’t fucking afford it. I can love it all I want, but let’s face it; my salary only allows me to do so much. Well, hope she likes the Wisconsin Dells! I know a guy that can get us the best bench at Paul Bunyan’s, so we can share a romantic flapjack meal.

“My family and friends are very important to me” - I want the one that says she’s alienated and estranged from her family, and the split has to do with a horrific incident that she’s only able to talk about through hypnosis. It would be scary, but at least be interesting . . .

“I want a man that’s confident but not cocky” – You rarely come across the gal saying she’s looking for an arrogant prick of a man that picks a bunch of fights with strangers.

“I enjoy going out, but I also like staying in” - Doesn’t everyone love those two things? If you did just one or the other you’d either be a raging alcoholic or a hermit. I think we all strike that balance, honey.

I think the reason for the boring female profiles is that men are under the gun to be funny and witty all the time, and online dating is no exception. When I get an email or a wink (how nerdy is that) from someone, they are usually interested in the picture or something they found funny on the profile. I’m almost always interested solely in the picture, then I frantically skim through the profile for something mildly interesting to comment on, and if I don’t find it interesting, I fake it, like this, “Wow! I like to travel too, usually with my family, who is so very important to me. I love going out almost as much as I love to stay in, but if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s cocky men. Damn those cocky bastards . . .” Am I lying when I say these things? Of course I am. The whole world of online dating is based on lying, which I think will be the topic of my next blog. Stay tuned . . .

New Show Hits Close To Home But Still Manages to Kind of Suck

I was kind of excited to watch that new show Love Monkey with the guy from Ed, so I taped it and watched it today. Why in the world would I get excited about a new sit-com? Well, it’s supposed to be about a guy that drinks with his buddies, has a series of failed relationships with women, and he’s a huge music fan. How could I NOT watch that?

This show has been billed as Sex and the City for men. I see the connection because it has the same obsession with narrating the SHIT out of something instead of letting the characters tell the story. “And then it occurred to Miranda: She had hair EXACTLY like Ziggy Stardust.” Have you seen those episodes? I mean, I like Bowie as much as the next guy, but I have no desire to have sex in ANY city with a girl that looks like an androgynous, fictional, rock God character that David Bowie portrayed, “God-given ass” or not. I always loved that line . . . Wow that was a tangent.

I guess a rock music related rant like that is case in point why I’m like the guy in Love Monkey. However, if I am ever portrayed in a movie, PLEASE write a better show to highlight my dysfunctional rock music obsession. There is one scene when a girl breaks up with him and says, “If you love someone set them free,” and they cut to him and the narration says, “Did she just quote Sting?” If I were writing that scene she would have been walking away and he would have muttered to himself, “Wait, fucking Sting!!?” Then hollering to her, “Fucking Sting! You’re breaking up with me using a Sting song?! Do you want to give me one of his speeches now about the rain forests or the two-hour-long tantric sex he claims to have with his wife?” See, funny, and no narration necessary.

There’s a couple things I liked about the show. I liked that Brandon from 90210 got fat. It makes sense though because he plays the complacent brother-in-law/friend of The Guy from Ed. I’m too fricking lazy to look up the names of these actors in case you can’t tell. I didn’t, however, like how his other friend was the stereotypical, oversexed, black man type just like in 40-Year-Old Virgin. I liked a couple of the music references and how he values good taste in music in girls he meets, but I think that they will not be able to keep the music tie-in going into later episodes, and then we’re left with a mediocre sit-com. I get the sense that there was a good script in there somewhere that would have been really good had it been on HBO, but because it’s on CBS, everything is cutesy and the plotlines and characters are all neat and tidy.

You know what else I didn’t like? I hated that there was a young songwriter act that The Guy from Ed is trying to sign and he is claiming that he is a genius, yet he’s a poor man’s John Mayer, and in my estimation, that is PISS poor. Does anyone else think John Mayer blows? I think he plays guitar okay, but his vocals are weak and constricted like someone has a wrench around his throat. My stomach still hasn’t stopped churning at the “body is wonderland” line. Why not your body is Disney Land or your body is Six Flags Great America. Your fucking body is like the ride The Edge that fucking killed a few guys! Now THAT is a compliment the likes of which a chick would not get every day. Your body is like drinking a can of Jolt cola while riding The Edge, or whatever they called that ride at your local Six Flags.

This is when the overnarration in my little story would chime in and say, “So, that’s when he decided to END his crazy, ranting blog entry . . .”

Gancing

It occurred to me that I’m four entries into my blogspot and I’m yet to explain the title of the page. What is gancing you may ask? It is a term that a friend of mine came across somewhere, but while whatever publication it was coined the term, I believe my friends and I have perfected it, and indeed made it an art form.

Gancing is when two or more guys are dancing, essentially with each other, with no girls around. Hence, the “g” in the word stands for gay. Hold on, I’m not saying this is something that you see at a gay club. That’s a whole different animal. An animal which I don’t have as much knowledge about, and of course, the lack of knowledge does not stem from intolerance or fear, but just a lack of interest in hairy assholes, or guys assholes in general, regardless of hair. In any event, the type of dancing that gay men do, and they probably dance a hell of a lot better than my friends and I, is done with the intention of hooking up with his dance partner, while ours is to hook up with girls.

How does one hook up with girls by dancing with his male friends you may be asking yourself? It takes a lot of patience, but simply keep dancing with your friends as if you don’t have any interest in hooking up with girls. You are just there to dance and have a good time with your friends, which is what girls always say they are doing. That is bullshit and it’s bullshit when we do it, because of course in the back of our minds men and women want to meet someone, but the trick is to LOOK like you don’t. Then the women say, “Wow, would you look at those guys! They are so much fun!! I want to hang out with THEM!” What they won’t ever say is, “Hey, look at that brooding, depressed guy standing off to the side. I want to rock his world!!” Of course you can still be the brooding depressed guy on the inside, but the trick is projecting an image of a fun guy to the people around you.

Now a problem may arise if a girl thinks to herself, “Jeez, I don’t remember seeing this many openly gay men in this bar . . .” Now that’s a problem if they think that. I didn’t say this approach is fool proof, and I don’t as of yet have a solution for this particular dilemma. I have to say though, if you’re dancing well enough that girls think you are gay then you are gancing all WRONG! The gancer must say to the people around him, “I can’t dance for shit, but I don’t let that stop me from gancing the night away!!” You go from casual gancer to PROFESSIONAL gancer when you actually ARE having fun and are no longer feigning enthusiasm when you gance. This can be done through going out with the right people, the right blend of loud mouth soup, the right place, and most importantly, the right music. If you actually ARE feeling the song and having a good time, then your gancing is no longer a cheap ploy to get girls, it actually IS what you want to be doing at that time, and when this happens more girls believe that a dancing with your male friends is all you want to do. When you get in a groove like this just keep it going with the occasional survey of the room to look for pockets of girls who may be lancing (hmmm, that’s a new one) and especially you need to keep your eyes pealed for everyone’s favorite band of bad decision making lancers (the term is growing on me), the bachelorette party.

So, I say to the gancers of the world. Gance! Gance like you’ve never ganced before. Gance, damn it!