Let's Play Guess Their Day Job!

I was at a concert last night, and there was a series of openers, one of which had the most eclectic-looking group you could ever see. I defy anyone to find a band where each individual has their own distinct look, and comes from such a wide variety of different age brackets, shapes and sizes.

I was at the show with my girlfriend, Law School Dropout (LSD), and a good friend of mine, Southie. All of us started playing the Guess Their Day Job Game, and the following is the consensus.

Drummer: LSD decided this guy's name was Merv, and we couldn't argue with that. He was bald, overweight, looked to be in his late forties, presented as a cross between Butterbean (only much thinner than that) and Larry Bud Melman, and he he on tinted glasses. I also thought he looked like one of those fat babies on Maury Povich, especially with the funny slack jawed, fly-catching face he made with his head slightly cocked through out his playing.





His Profession: Southie decided he was a school bus driver. Nailed it.










Bass Player: As you can see from the actual band shot below, this guy looks a lot like Ogre from "Revenge of the Nerds," but as Southie points out, he looks like he may have been a love child between Ogre and Kerry King from Slayer. This man is absolutely enormous and looks to be very active in a biker game full of marauders, so I really, really hope he never finds this blog for my safety's sake.



His Profession: He makes the majority of his money selling drugs and assault rifles to other biker gangs, but for tax purposes, Southie maintains that he cleans shoes at the bowling alley.






Keyboardist: I liked this guy because there were very few songs where you could hear his keyboard, and I just got the sense that he is always pushing the band to go in a more progressive direction like Yes or Deep Purple. He had that hair that is long in the back in bald in the front like Klaus Meine from The Scorpions, and he had on a 70's shirt buttoned down with nothing underneath. He was very short as well, which made him look a little like the second half of the life of the late great Dio.





His Profession: He is an insurance claims adjuster, but he produces the band's records in his home studio (his basement), along with local high school and college bands, for whom he also supplies with home grown marijuana, another source of income. He's doing quite well for himself!






Lead Guitarist: Now, when I say this band has people from all across the board, this guy is a prime example because he was way younger and more attractive than the rest of the band. He would be getting any chick showing interest in the band. Maybe on a good night the singer could land some of his run off, but the rest of the band would be hoping for the older bar flies to get on - and there were a few of that night - good luck, Merv! The lead guitarist also had a quite good physique, including some very nice arms, so again, I really hope these guys don't find this blog entry. Actually, though he played with a game face for the duration of the set, he was actually very nice and all smiles afterwards. LSD found his phone on a bench, and he was extremely grateful. Man, am I huge dick for making fun of these guys?

His Profession: We considered pool boy, but how many of those are there, really? LSD decided he was a construction worker, I'm thinking from 7AM to 3PM, and then he gives guitar lessons, showing young hopefuls the joys of the power chords and drop D's. But mostly trying to nail his students' mothers in the process. (There are no pictures because he had no celebrity twins).

Singer: Now, this is really the guy that got us looking for celebrities that they looked like because he had the exact hair and facial hair of Frank Zappa. I really hope he's in a Zappa cover band, having that look and being able to sing and play guitar well. LSD was quite jealous of his thick, lustrous hair, but I reminded her that he probably doesn't wash it much, which is the trick. Think about it: How many bald homeless guys do you see?

His Profession: Although he also looks a little like Otto from "The Simpsons," bus driver is now already taken by the lovely Merv, so for the singer, we're going with manager at Jiffy Lube. I can just see him pulling that mane into a pony tail and going to work, and I can see him being an honest mechanic, not encouraging his employees to rip people off, despite the heat he gets from corporate to do so. However, Frank-Zappa-Guy has been doing well at his location by getting regulars through his charm that spreads down to his hard-working and dependable employees.

And, here is the pic of the whole band, taken by the lovely and talented LSD:


I hope you enjoyed this, Seven Readers, and I encourage you to try this upon your next visit to a rock concert. However, make sure you get there for the openers, as the headlines may not need the day jobs, unless it's all cover bands, which makes for a really good time for this game.

I was walking home from the grocery store today, picking up some soup and juice and the like to make me feel a little better, when I heard from a line of cars at a light, "Move your fucking asses, people!" A light had changed, and there was no way in hell, even with perfect reaction times from all motorists, that this person would have gotten through. So, he's just swearing loudly for no good reason. Then I was shocked to see that this guy was super old. I'm disturbed by old people swearing, especially the fuck word, like Jack Lemmon as Shelley "The Machine" Levene in Glenngary Glen Ross.

Although, I have heard from a lot of people who work with the elderly that old folks start swearing like mad when they're starting to lose their faculties, so maybe they no long have the energy or patience to hold back.

So, I guess let it rip, old folks. You've earned it. I always try to be nice to the elderly and help them out however I can, and I guess I'll have to grow a little more tolerant of the disturbing swearing.

My Nephew Is Gifted . . .

. . . at Battleship.

He's a first grader and he was playing the seventh grade nephew in the classic naval battle game. It was clear that the little guy wasn't fully understanding how the game worked, so Uncle Ken was helping him along.

He got hits in like 3 out of his first 4 guesses, and each time I'd try to explain that he should keep guessing near those hit to sink them. He proved me wrong by finding new boats, which really is better - if you're gifted at Battleship.

When the older one would guess somewhere, the little guy would say it was a hit when it was really a miss, and I'd say, "You hit water," so then we were all saying it and laughing. I recommend saying that next time you play, with a pause: "You hit! . . . water."

The older one said that there is a black Battleship that has sound effects, and I let him know that they had that thing in the 80's, and I wanted it every Christmas, circling it in the Sears Catalog but never finding it under the old tree.

Later, while playing at the park, the 4th grader (there are three - he wasn't playing the Battleship) said out of nowhere, "butt licorice." I asked him just what in the hell that means, I think in those exact words (I swear a lot around them, but I'm working on it), and he said, "I just made it up." I think he's also gifted. At saying awesome stuff because that's pretty amazing. I think it could be an Urban Dictionary term for when you have that awful black poops or maybe even a band's record title. Better yet, a backup bands' name like Dr. Kenneth Noisewater and the Butt Licorice Experience.

Is any of this at all interesting or funny?

Is this thing on?

So, I Was Singing the Way You Make Me Feel . . .

. . . by Michael Jackson in the shower today, and the following statement occurred to me and rang true in my screwed up brain:

All that kid fucking really infringed upon all that hit making.

Jorts' Lesser Known Cousins

I'm having my second National Redneck Appreciation Day (NRAD) celebration/moonshiner tonight, and putting together my outfit from the local thrift shop was great fun and informative.

I had my heart set on a pair of jean shorts (jorts), but that begot a denim dilemma: everything needed to be denim. Before I knew it, I had myself full-blown, full-body Canadian tuxedo.

So, I got a jean hat and a jean shirt. Then later, while cutting my jorts shorter to get them nice and frayed, I made a some jean loops, two of which can be used for guests who don't show up with outfits; now they can wear jean hats (jats), one of which I inadvertently cut a tail in the back like a coon skin cap, or a Davey Jocket. Yet another smaller loop I'm currently wearing as a jean bracelet (jracelet) or a jean watch (jwatch), if you prefer.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I also bought a jean wallet (jwallet), but it's really more like a jean coin purse (coin jurse).

They didn't have any jean shoes, but that's probably for the best because then they'd be called jews.



How about you, Seven Readers? Have you thrown any theme parties lately or been a guest at one?

No. Not Another Caption Contest? Are You Fricking Serious, Ken?

Yes, I'm not feeling creative today, so we're doing another caption contest. You know, when you look up "weird pic" on Google Images, you get a lot of Weird Al pictures.


Anyway, here's the pic. As always, the winner gets no monetary gift, but he/she gets a virtual smack on the virtual butt and a "good effort."

Randomly Random Updates in No Particular Order

1. Last night, while celebrating my good friend Gung Ho's 30th birthday, we ended up stopping into Chicago's famous late night eatery, The Wiener Circle. Part of the schtick of the place is that the heavy set Black women swear at you, and you can swear back at them a bit, within reason. I talked all about the joint here at the forever floundering Chicago blog, "The Liars Club." I'm really looking for more Chicago based bloggers to get it running again, so email me if you're interested.

Anyway, after getting my dog and cheese fries, it dawned on me that I hadn't been sweared at, so I went up to the counter and said, "Excuse me, miss. You didn't swear at me." To which she said, "Man, I'm too tired for all of that." I said I understand she was working hard, to which she replied, "Just sit your pussy lips down."

Boom.

2. I'm horribly hung over, and at 8:00PM, I'm having a glass of wine out of a coffee cup that says "Special Interest Public On Target Marketing" that has a big target on it, and it's the only time I've felt good all day.

3. I saw an old guy filling up his cup of McDonalds coffee in the grocery store where you're supposed to use the dixie cup sized ones for free tastes. I figure he knows he's not supposed to do that, but like Honey Badger, he "doesn't give a shit." I saw another old guy showering in a fountain the other day, and I'm thinking it's the same effect. I can't wait until I'm old. Or a honey badger.



4. I have only one more day of physical therapy, and I'm excited about getting this ankle 100% so I can run my first marathon. At first I didn't like my therapist lady because I thought she was a snatchatollah khomeini (a Gancey original term), but once I get to know her, she's not so bad. Also, she was torturing me at first, so it's hard to like your torturer, unless you got that Stockholm Syndrome. Speaking of which, my favorite band from Sweden is coming to town, Truckfighters, the guys I interviewed here. Also, Stockholm Syndrome is an awesome song sung by the fat guy in Yo La Tengo. Give it a listen.



5. My roommate just got a ticket for parking more than twelve inches from the curb. I have done that a bunch of times and never have I gotten a ticket for it, usually when I'm parking drunkenly (is that correct grammar? Why can't I use the adverb form of drunk at the end like any other adverb?) The thing is, Chicago is bullshit about squeezing money out of people through parking violations and automated red light camera-jobbers and the like. As my roomy was looking at his ticket, another lady said that she got a ticket for the same thing, so it must have been some total doucher trying to fill his quota. But, here's the thing: that violation isn't even on the big list of things to check off on the ticket, so the doucher had to write it in. The beauty of it is that he put one hash mark instead of two, which would indicate that he was 12 feet from the curb, so I totally say the Spinal Tap defense holds up in this case.

The Cali Report

My lady (LSD) and I are back from our Cali trip where I accompanied her to a wedding and saw and fell in love with San Francisco for the first time. And I'm going to give you, my beloved seven readers, a full report. Now, don't worry - it won't be like a boring slide show. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I typically, although not always, succeed in making my stories funny, which is the mark of a good blogger. I just don't don't update enough to be really good anymore, which is what great bloggers do. However, I intend to do a decent job at this, so let me know how I did.

The beauty of doing things like this is that you get all the details down on "the page" to look at years later. Every once in a while when I leaf through some old entries, I will have completely forgotten about funny little moments, and I'm grateful that I have this rag for that reason.

Thursday:
We got into Oakland and the way I met LSD's parents was her father picking us up from the bus station. I liked him right away. He has a mustache, so he kind of looks like a cop but the good cop in the movie that you trust, not the crooked one. He also has a terrific sense of humor, like his daughter. Then we sat down to a dinner at their place, and I met mom, who I liked just as much as dad. I have been nervous in the past about meeting girlfriends' parents, but it's a helluva lot easier when I'm completely in love and 100% sure she's the right one for me.

Friday:
We got a nice early start to this day, but then we set ourselves back by royally screwing up the eggs we cooked and having to clean up the orange juice that I managed to spill inside of seemingly every kitchen cabinet, somehow. We then drove into San Francisco to check into the hotel before driving off to wine country.

The best thing about wine tastings is not the crappola lectures about grapes and shit, but more so I like getting to know these people and having some laughs, as many of them, you'll find, have terrific personalities. One small winery is owned and operated by a middle aged couple who look like the types who could also run "dopery" because they were just really laid back good folks, and the guy, while he was bright and witty, was a little deliberate in the way he carefully put his thoughts together into phrases. Somehow I sang a line from some random song, as I tend to do that sort of thing, and he told us how the two of them were just dancing to that song for their anniversary the night prior. They talked about it being an occasion ripe with wine flowing, dancing, and merriment. When I asked where they spent such an evening, they said that it was right where we were standing. Alone together in their very own winery, drinking their own blends, dancing to the sounds of their iPod.

After sobering up, we drove to Muir Woods because Dr. Ken had his heart set on seeing him some redwood trees. It was a long path through the woods, and we wanted to beat the traffic, so we decided to go back to the car to fetch our running gear to jog through it. This was a bad idea because there were wicked hills, giant red wood roots sticking out of the ground, the sun was beating down on us, and we got a little lost. One German guy with a giant back pack asked us if we knew where we were going, and I'll never forget the look of despair on his face when we told him we also had no idea where we were going.

But, we made it out of there alive to enjoy a great Italian meal in the North Beach area of San Francisco. We were going to hit some bars afterwards, but we were both tired from the Redwood adventure, so we returned to the hotel for some alone time. Why is it that "getting to know each other" in nice hotels is so damn awesome? We need to travel more because that's just a great deal of fun.

Saturday:
We knew that we had a rehearsal dinner in the late afternoon, so we packed in as much touristy stuff as we possibly could beforehand: cable cars, Bailey's and coffee at a bar called Buena Vista that invented the drink, some clam chowder, and Alcatraz. Overall, my impression of this city is that I've never been to a major city before that looks and feels so cozy and comfortable to me. All the buildings look like one of a kind, and there are so few Starbucks and Wallgreens on all the corners. You feel like you're living in a movie when you walk around that town, and it could be set now or twenty or thirty years ago.
The thing that I learned at Buena Vista is that they have plaques dedicated not to athletes who have nothing to do with anything, like say, Joe Montana, but to patrons who came to the bar every day for thirty years. The bartender told me this when I asked of the significance of a plaque on the wall that said a guy's name, a dry gin martini, and a range of years. That's what he drank and the years he did so, and it was hanging behind the bar on the corner in which he sat, along with the cane he would rest on the bar after ordering his martini before heading home, which he did every day up until he died at over 80 years of age. Another fellow who sat at the other end of the bar at a different time of day had just passed as well, and the bartender was in talks with the family to get his hat to put above a plaque over on his end of the bar. I don't know why, but I really liked that these guys were being honored in this way. Perhaps this appears as a random detail when you're talking about a trip like this, but not to me.

Saturday:
Just after waking up, I met the brother and his girlfriend, who are both great people. LSD had to do wedding stuff all day, so I spent the day with the family I had just met, which sounds strange but was totally fine. I went to the mall with the brother and girlfriend and watched the Giants game on TV with the dad, who rarely misses a game.

The reception was outdoors on a golf course with mountains behind it, which was beautiful, but it was just about the hottest day of the year. While it was a wonderful ceremony, getting to the indoor air conditioned reception and open bar was tremendous. LSD and I danced a few songs, had some shots cooled through a fire engine ice sculpture, and they had paid dudes out back to hand roll fresh cigars. I only smoke one or two cigars a year, but I really do like how it makes me feel more sophisticated and wealthy than I really am, if even just for a moment.

Around last call, I let LSD know that entering into what will soon be a long distance relationship, no longer scared me. It's just what we have to do, and we're going to do it right. I also told her that San Francisco will always be the city where we fell even deeper in love. I was thinking maybe we name a girl Bay some day, but maybe that's getting ahead of ourselves a touch. In the midst of this heartfelt discussion, one of the drunken groomsman came over to us to incoherently tell us some drunken philosophy. We politely told him that we were kind of having a moment, but that didn't really get rid of him. He was a lot like, and I hate to reference this show, but Joey from Friends: kind of stupid but lovable. So, we just had to laugh and not worry much about it because he kind of enhanced the moment in his own way, actually.

Sunday: Because this is getting long and nothing much happened on this day, I'll just take this time to say thanks for reading if you made it this far, and I hope you've enjoyed it.

Good night, seven readers. And goodbye San Fran. You'll see me again some day. Count on it.

Time Off

I'm headed to San Francisco for 5 days to meet my lady's parents, go to a wedding, go to Sonoma to drink wine, and see Alcatraz so Vicky (Phil Hartman) can show me around.

I'm taking some time off from the blog for a while. Be good, everyone.

Gnomes and Legos

At last, here is the story about the wedding I went to a couple of weeks ago.

At our table were:
Dr. Kenneth Noisewater: Yours Truly
Law School Dropout (LSD): Dr. K's main squeeze
Gung Ho: Friend of Dr. K.
Gelfling: Gung Ho's ladyfriend
Monique: Another friend of Dr. K.

The wedding went fine, but it was the events afterwards where things got nutty. We went back to Gung Ho's hotel room and stumbled right into a Lego convention. There were rooms upon rooms of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars battle scenes with literally hundreds of soldiers on each side. There was even a life sized Harry Potter, as pictured below along with The Good Doctor. I thought he'd be taller in person - maybe with his witch hat, or whatever.

I got one of the best calls of my life when Gung Ho rang me to tell me that he found a whole room full of Star Wars stuff. At the time, LSD and I were getting a private tour by a nice hunchbacked fellow. I made sure he knew his stuff by asking him the name of Boba Fett's ship, and he responded by saying that it was, of course, Slave One, but he also knew the class and distributor, something he would have had to have read in super-nerdy books. His credentials checked out. When telling us about things in the industry, I learned that guys who make their own big Lego projects call themselves "builders," which sounds way better than grown men who play with Legos.

The night only got weirder when a nice guy working for the hotel shuttled us to a dive bar down the street. As you can see in the pictures, the place looked like the basement in "That 70's Show," there was that picture of a naked woman, and there was a big gnome that we had a little too much fun playing with. The pic above is my favorite because Gelfling is acting loving towards him, but Gung Ho is giving him a stern talking-to. Differing gnome parenting styles perhaps . . .

I got another wedding coming up this weekend in Cali with LSD, as well as checking out San Francisco for the first time, and going to Sonoma to sip wine. Anyone else been to a good wedding lately or have gnome or Lego stories?

What I Learned Today About Dolphins

1. They run in groups with other dolphins, like dolphin gangs, getting in rumbles with other groups.

2. As you probably have heard, they are the only other species that have sex for pleasure. They showed a couple doing it while they swam, kind of like road head.

3. They appear to also be the only other species that has best buddies. Males often have an alliance with another male who they hang out with exclusively for up to 12 years.

4. They engage in complex dating games with a deep network of communication in an attempt to cock block one another.

5. They can pull some real dick moves like bumping a dolphin calf down over-and-over so he can't get air. They do this to make the female DTF (Down To F) again. That's "cold blooooooooded!" If I'm that female, I'm not getting it on with the dudes who killed my kid, but who am I too judge 'dem dolphin bitches . . .

Random Gancey Updates

1. I'm on summer vacation once again, starting today. I spent the whole day at the doctor, but the good news is that it looks like I won't have to bow out of the marathon if I stick to my rehabilitation.

2. Sorry about the huge gap between updates, but I promise to be better about writing now that the summer is here.

3. Have you ever noticed that in the soul classic, "Baby Come Back" by Player, he says "you can blame it all on me?" It seems to me that if he really did believe it was his fault, he would simply say that it was his fault. To say that she could blame it on him, sounds as if he's just allowing her to believe such a thing, but he doesn't believe it to be true. No? Also, I thought these fellas were Black.


4. My buddy's mom is doing better, at home now, but it's still not looking good. Then my other good buddy's mom died out of nowhere.

5. I'm going on a booze cruise this weekend with my four roommates, one of which has a boat. What better way to spend the first weekend of summer vacation, right?

6. Things are still going great with Law School Dropout, but yes, she's going far, far away in the fall for graduate school. : (

7. Did I provide a link yet for the Truckfighters article/interview that I did? Either way, here it is. You need to go see these guys live because they rock the asshole from here to Oslo.


8. I'm reading a tremendous book called "A Visit From the Goon Squad" that my mom sent to me in the mail just because she thought I'd like it - and I do. This lady is suddenly my favorite female author of all time. Thanks, mom!


9. I have a lot of funny stories to tell about the wedding I went to last weekend and there are gnomes and Leggos involved, so stay tuned for that.

10. Another good recommendation for you is the last record/vinyl I bought: Son Seals "Live and Burning." He's a Chicago blues guy who plays and sings just about as well as anyone.


That's all I got for now, Seven Readers. What's new with you?

Back on the Rickshaw Again

I'm riding the rickshaw once again this summer around Wrigley Field and other Chicago locations as my summer job. Some of you may recall that last summer I had some interesting stories (see Tales from the Rickshaw posts).

Let's see what happened today . . .

1. A guy showed me his ID, and his name was actually Rick Shaw.

2. I learned three things that I need to buy tomorrow: another bike lock, an allen wrench set, and a hand pump.

3. The damn firehouse guys are stingy with turning the water on, so I was wicked dehydrated out there. Luckily a friend who lives in the area stopped watching the "Bachelorette" long enough to throw me down a Power Aid.

4. One of my closest friends' mom has really bad cancer and might not have much time left. I feel like an ass because he's been going through it for a while and hasn't told anyone, and here I am jabbering on about useless crap like I do on this blog - and worse. That has nothing to do with rickshawing, but it's been on my mind a lot lately. What can I do for him, Seven Readers?

The Fat Boys

We were drinking tonight at a Meat on a Stick Party out in the suburbs, and I can't tell you why, but we were wondering how many of The Fat Boys are dead. Turns out, The Human Beatbox is dead, but the other two are still alive and kicking and gearing up for another tour.

What's weird is that when Heteroxexual Life Partner was looking it up on his phone, the first thing that came up on the search was something about how many of the Fat Boys are dead, and this means that there were a group of idiots looking up the same stupid, worthless bit of information in recent history.

Fat.

I Hate Small Talk. So, I Do This Sort of Thing

(Dr. Ken bumps into an old "friend" at the bar)

Other Guy: Dr. Ken! It's been a while! What have you been up to?

Dr. Ken: You know. S.O.S. You?

OG: (Talks for way too long about himself. And then . . .) Are you still writing?

DK: Not really. Kabuki Theater has been my new passion, and that takes up the majority of my time, to be honest.

OG: That's so awesome! Wait, what is that again?

DK: Oh, well, you know, a group of us guys paint ourselves white and perform. All the women parts too, which is usually what I get stuck with, being the new guy and all. Okay, I had better get back to my friends, but great seeing you.

OG: Hold on just a minute. When is the next performance?

DK: Oh, we're sort of in between theaters right now so it's a little up in the air, but we're fixin' to keep the Kabuki going. Kabuki or die is what we say in the industry. We're down for life. I mean, it is quite a commitment, especially since the traditional white paint we use doesn't wear off until the middle of the next week of our day jobs, so we kind of look like splotchy albinos until at least Wednesday. But, we suffer for our art. For our Kabuki.

OG: Wow! You've always been . . . different. You got a Facebook or a Myspace for your theater group?

DK: No way, man. Kabuki has always been sort of underground, and that's the way we like it. We don't tell a soul until 20 minutes before the show, at which time we run out onto the streets in full makeup and swords and round up folks, usually tourists. Scared ones. It's more organic that way.

OG: Yeah. I think I read about that in The Reader.

DK: I wouldn't doubt it. The Kabuki scene is getting a lot of press, which to me is no good. But, so be it. If it gets too commercial, we just take it deeper into the underground. Maybe cut off each others fingers to show we're true artists.

OG: That is keeping it real.

DK: No. That's keeping it Kabuki. You be good, man.

(Dr. Ken merges into the crowd, disappearing, leaving Other Guy to his phone, frantically trying in vain to look up information on the Chicago Kabuki Theater scene. Must be too underground to find . . .)

The Stoner Steve Brownie Story

I know this guy Stoner Steve, and I rarely see him because he's a friend of a friend and he lives on the south side. He is a UPS delivery guy who loves the mommies on his route, he's the type of guy who brings his own beer cozy to the bar, and he's usually drunk and stoned when I see him, which isn't surprising being that his name is Stoner Steve.

Almost every time I see him, I make him tell The Brownie Story, but for some reason this time I did not. Maybe it's because I was too busy laughing at him being awesome, like when he bought a case of beer, lifted it over his head, and dropped it so that when we pulled up in the cab, we saw him on all fours gathering up fallen beers (only breaking one! But we had to tap them all like crazy). He's a happy drunk, never an angry or irritable one, and I like those types.


The Brownie Story goes about like this:

Back when Stoner Steve was in high school, he had some friends over when his mom was out of town, and they made some pot brownies. When they were on the back porch waiting for them to cool, his mom's boyfriend came over, saw there were brownies and ate a shit load of them. Nice guy, right? What's funny is that Stoner Steve said there's no way they would taste good because there were stems and seeds everywhere. Nonetheless, the mom's boyfriend had no idea he had eaten pot brownies, and he thought he was having a heart attack. The doctors told him that he had marijuana in his system, and I imagine Stoner Steve was in some big trouble.



I think when I ask him to tell that story, he says that the boyfriend was a bit of an asshole, or maybe he was just nice but stupid. Either way, terrific story . . .

The Curb in the Sky

This is a story by James Thurber published in The New Yorker in 1931. It's about a pain-in-the-ass lady who finishes people's sentences and corrects people's stories. This is very funny and good writing, people. Thurber was way ahead of his time in terms of writing humorous stories so long ago that still make you laugh out loud. Hope you enjoy:

The Curb in the Sky

When Charlie Deshler announced that he was going to marry Dorothy, someone said he would lose his mind posthaste. “No,” said a wit who knew them both, “post hoc.” Dorothy had begun, when quite young, to finish sentences for people. Sometimes she finished them wrongly, which annoyed the person who was speaking, and sometimes she finished them correctly, which annoyed the speaker even more.

“When William Howard Taft was--” some guest in Dorothy’s family home would begin. “President!” Dorothy would pipe up. The speaker may have meant to say “President” or he might have meant to say “Young” or “Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.” In any case, he would shortly put on his hat and go home. Like most parents, Dorothy’s parents did not seem to be conscious that her mannerism was a nuisance. Very likely they thought that it was cute, or even bright. It is even probable that when Dorothy’s mother first said, “Come, Dorothy, eat your –“ and Dorothy said, “Spinach, dear,” the former telephones Dorothy’s father at the office and told him about it, and he told everybody he met that day about it – and the next day and the day after.

When Dorothy grew up she became quite pretty and so even more of a menace. Gentlemen became attracted to her and then attached to her. Emotionally she stirred them, but mentally she soon began to wear them down. Even in her late teens she began correcting their English. “Not ‘was’ Arthur,” she would say, “’were.’ ‘Were prepared.’ See?” Most of her admirers tolerated this habit because of their interest in her lovely person, but as time went on and her interest in them remained more instructive than sentimental, they slowly drifted away to less captious, if dumber, girls.

Charlie Deshler, however, was an impetuous man, of the sweep-them-off-their-feet persuasion, and he became engaged to Dorothy so quickly and married her in so short a time that, being deaf to the warnings of his friends, whose concern he regarded as mere jealously, he really didn’t know anything about Dorothy except that she was pretty and bright-eyed and (to him) desirable.

Dorothy as a wife came, of course, into her great flowering: she took to correcting Charlie’s stories. He had traveled widely and experienced greatly and was a truly excellent raconteur. Dorothy was, during their courtship, genuinely interested in him and his stories, and since she had never shared any of the adventures he told about, she could not know when he made mistakes in time or in place or in identities. Beyond suggesting a change here and there in the number of a verb, she more or less let him alone. Charlie spoke rather good English, anyway – he knew when to say “were” and when to say “was” after “if” – and this was another reason he didn’t find Dorothy out.


I didn’t call on them for quite a while after they were married, because I liked Charlie and I knew I would feel low if I saw him coming out of the anesthetic of her charms and beginning to feel the first pains of reality. When I did finally call, conditions were, of course, all that I had feared. Charlie began to tell, at dinner, about a motor trip the two had made to this town and that – I never found out for sure what towns, because Dorothy denied almost everything Charlie said. “The next day,” he would say, “we got an early start and drove two hundred miles to Fairview – “ “Well, “ Dorothy would say, “I wouldn’t call it early. It wasn’t as early as the first day we set out, when we got up at about seven. And we drove a hundred and eighty miles because I remember looking at that mileage thing when we started.”

“Anyway, when we got to Fairview –“ Charlie would go on. But Dorothy would stop him. “Was it Fairview that day, darling?” she would ask. Dorothy often interrupted Charlie by asking him if he were right, instead of telling him that he was wrong, but it amounted to the same thing, for he would reply, “Yes, I’m sure it was Fairview,” she would say: “But it wasn’t, darling,” and then go on with the story herself. (She called everybody that she differed from darling.)

Once or twice, when I called on them or they called on me, Dorothy would let Charlie get almost to the climax of some interesting account of a happening and then, like a tackler from behind, just throw him as he was about to cross the goal line. There is nothing in life more shocking to the nerves and to the mind than this. Some husbands will sit back amiably – almost as it seems, proudly – when their wives interrupt, and let them go on with the story, but these are beaten husbands. Charlie did not become beaten. At the end of the second year of their marriage, when you visited the Deshlers, Charlie would begin some outlandish story about a dream he had had, knowing that Dorothy could not correct him on his own dreams. They became the only life that he had that was his own.

“I thought I was running an airplane,” he would say, “made out of telephone wires and pieces of old leather. I was trying to make it fly to the moon, taking off from my bedroom. About halfway up to the moon, however, a man who looked like Santa Claus, only he was dressed in the uniform of a customs officer, waved at me to stop – he was in a plan made of telephone wires too. So I pulled over to a cloud. “’Here,’ he said to me, ‘you can’t go to the moon, if you are the man who invented these wedding cookies.’ Then he showed me a cookie in the shape of a man and woman being married, made of dough and fastened firmly to a round, crisp cookie base.” So he would go on.

Any psychiatrist will tell you that at the end of the way Charlie was going lies madness in the form of monomania. You can’t live in a fantastic dream world, night in and night out and then day in and day out, and remain sane. The substance began to die slowly out of Charlie’s life, and he began to live entirely in shadow. And since monomania of this sort is likely to lead in the end to the reiteration of one particular story, Charlie’s invention began to grow thin and he eventually took to telling, over and over again, the first dream he had ever described – the story of his curious flight toward the moon in an airplane made of telephone wires. It was extremely painful. It saddened us all.

After a month or two, Charlie finally had to be sent to an asylum. I went out of town when they took him away, but Joe Fultz, who went with him, wrote me about it. “He seemed to like it up here right away,” Joe wrote. “He’s calmer and his eyes look better/” (Charlie had developed a wild, hunted look). "Of course," concluded Joe, “he’s finally got away from that woman."

It was a couple of weeks later that I drove up to the asylum to see Charlie. He was lying on a cot on a big screened in porch, looking wan and thin. Dorothy was sitting on a chair beside his bed, bright-eyed and eager. I was somehow surprised to see her there, having figured that Charlie had, at least, won sanctuary from his wife. He looked quite mad. He began at once to tell me the story of his trip to the moon. He got to the part where the man who looked like Santa Clause waved at him to stop. “He was in a plane made of telephone wires too,” said Charlie. “So I pulled over to the curb – “

“No. You pulled over to a cloud,” said Dorothy. “There aren’t any curbs in the sky. There couldn’t be. You pulled over to a cloud.”

Charlie sighed and turned slightly in his bed and looked at me. Dorothy looked to me too with her pretty smile.

“He always gets that story wrong,” she said.

Your Tuesday Hood Revelation: Are You a Big Homie or a Little Homie?

I hear my "clients" on the West Side say "Big Homie" and other times "Lil' Homie," and I was dying to know the distinction. One guy called me each one on separate occasions, so beyond him calling a teacher any type of homie, the fact that he wavered between the two really threw me.

There isn't a lot on "dem internets" on this subject, but I did find some valuable information from a fellow blogger, TopMackNiggga, and he states the following:

Big Homies are tha OG Niggas and tha Little Homies are tha Up and coming Niggas. Big Homies are always fighting to hold on to the respect the've earned through tha years, little homies are trying to earn initial respect. Both must continuously work around tha clock to maintain respect and status within tha Hood.

Thanks, TopMackNigga! I think I now have a better understanding on this issue, and the next time someone calls me one or the other, I'll correct them. I think that at the bars, for instance, I'm a Big Homie. I've been around these blocks for years, and if these Lil' Homies would let me bend their ear for a moment, they may just find themselves laid because there's a lot of knowledge I could drop on these young bucks.

How about you, Seven Readers? What type of homie are you?

Ball Lift

I was talking with my special lady-friend (LSD), and we were wondering if there is a cosmetic surgery for old guys with old, saggy balls. I mean, you could lift and tuck just about anything else, so why not an unsightly, wrinkly scrotal sack?

Does such a thing exist? To the internet! . . .

Well, I found some of the grossest pictures of all time. If they're really trying to sell these surgeries, couldn't they find some better looking penises? Holy crap fart! If you want to get a look, and you don't, here's a link. One surgery is to correct penoscrotal webbing, or turkeynecking. Yuck!

I'm having a hard time finding this, and I can't stand to read any more things about knives in and around male genitals. I know it has to exist because you figure dudes like Hugh Hefner have corrected their grandpa nuts, right?

Hey, Seven Readers, sorry about this post. I'll try to have something less gross when I post again tomorrow or the next day . . .

Lice Check Day

Law School Dropout (LSD) was giving me a sweet head scratch yesterday, and I was telling her how I kind of liked Lice Check Day when I was a kid, with those mommies ever so gently poking around my head in search of cooties. I then told her that it was a great day unless you actually had lice, in which case they threw a bag over your head, sent your ass home, and everyone for the rest of their lives remembered that you were a nasty fucker with parasites.

4 Granparents. One Chocolate Factory

At the bar tonight, somehow we got talking about Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), and of course we talked about the oompa loompas, the everlasting gobstopper, and how they killed kids off like whacking goons on "The Sopranos." However, the new information that was revealed by my good friend, Douglas Morrison, was that all FOUR of Charlie's grandparents slept in the same bed.

This begs some questions . . .

1. How did this come about? Who really owned the house, and how are you going to let both sets of in laws live there?

2. Was anyone fuckin', and how much lube were they using? Did Charlie have to come in there once a week with a fresh bucket of Astro Glide? We need to know these things!

3. Does anyone remember this, as I can find no facts about this on the internet. Well, I probably could, but I'm all full and drunk on Belgian beer and ready for bed. With my grandparents.

4. Huh?

I Wanted To Tell You Some Things That Happened on the West Side Today . . .

. . . but I'm so damn mad about The Bulls losing that all I can remember are these things.

1. We were talking about "First 48," and this coworker of mine, Big Ron, said that he'd like to watch, but he can't stop watching that show where they "wrastle" alligators. That one dude on there, who is "country as hell" by Big Ron's estimation, looked in the fridge, saw there was nothing to eat, and decided he had better step out to shoot a squirrel, coon, or possum. Would you all eat a possum? I don't know - anything with a tail like a rat . . .

2. Big Ron was then talking about Oprah, and he makes a point that a lot of people have done a great deal of charity - they just don't have a public forum every day to showcase it. According to Ron, Bill Cosby put loads of kids in the south through college and Michael Jackson walked into a hospital somewhere and paid for a bunch of surgeries - he just didn't have a talk show to let everyone know that he got his awesomeness on that day. Good point. Big Ron also thought he should have been on the Oprah show because he was a "battered man" due to the fact that his sisters "beat the shit" out of him all the time.

3. Later, Big Ron asked everyone what they were doing for Memorial Day Weekend because he was looking to BBQ. One gal said she was having a party on the South Side, so he said, "Cool. Do you want me to bring the charcoal or lighter fluid?" She said, "Shoot, you could bring some steaks or something," To which the quite brilliant Big Ron responded, "That's a little out of my price range. I gave you the two items I'm willing to bring, and without them, you got no fire."

I can learn a lot from Big Ron, and I hope you can too, Seven Readers.

You Know When You Think of Something In Your Head and Laugh, Making Someone Around You Think You're Nuts? . . .

. . . Well, I have done that a couple times with the girl I'm seeing who you may know by the name of Law School Dropout.

The first instance came when we were lying in bed and I started cracking up laughing a little. Then the more I tried to stop it, I just totally lost it, which made her laugh. Don't think I'm an asshole, please, but I was laughing thinking about having seen a goofy kid trying to do push-ups earlier that day. My friend, Gung Ho, was scoring how many they could do, and by the time it was this kid's turn, this second grader had watched at least twenty youngsters perform the act. Yet, for some reason, he arched his butt way up in the air, crouched up like a frog, and slowly attempted to make love to the ground. First the other students started to laugh. I tried not to laugh myself, but when Gung Ho through his head back in the air and laughed uncontrollably, I lost it too. I guess you just had to be there . . .

The second time I laughed to myself like a dumb-ass, I was, again, lying in bed with Law School Dropout (LSD?). Earlier that day, I had been at a meeting with the scuzziest man of all time who was fillbustering the hell out of all of us with random dumb crap, disagreeing with everyone and being rude. I say scuzzy because he wears dirty clothes, smells like cigarettes, has the longest dirtiest nails ever, and his laptop had missing keys, stains, and his gum stuck on it - saved for post meeting chewing, perhaps? As he's pointing his fingers to the group, with his dirty and long gross fingernails quite close to my face, he was saying, "I'd like to propose blah, blah blah," and all I could think is, "I have something to propose. I propose this gross sonuvabitch cut those nails and perhaps even clean them!" I guess I laughed out loud thinking about that because I was picturing myself actually saying that and the people's reaction to it. Actually, I damn near blurted it out, to be honest.

Any of you ever do that? Anyone have a name for it?

This post is probably full of typos and things, but I had to do it quickly before falling asleep. Maybe I'll giggle to myself in a minute, and if so, you'll read all about it tomorrow . . .

Which Beatle Are You?

I think I may have asked my readers which "Golden Girl" they were at one point, but this one is also interesting. For example, if you're the quiet one, then maybe you're George. If you're the pretty boy, perhaps you're Paul.

As for me? I am kind of the darker, cynical, funny one, so put me down for John. Also, I like Asians.

So, what are you, seven readers? Even the "lurkers," come on out and let me know because I want to get a good discussion going here. And extra points for creativity!

The Second Drunken Voicemail Post!

As always, be sure to pause the music player on the right so that you can make an informed decision.

The Lads

I had been meaning to get together with my buddy Skittles for some time now, as he just moved to Chicago from Ireland a few weeks ago. I met Skittles during a summer working at Navy Pier together taking pictures of tourists. I thought, it being a Wednesday, that I would just have a beer or two, catch up on old times, and then leave shortly after the Bulls game. Instead, when I stepped into the bar, I saw around 5 familiar Irish faces from that summer, one of whom was having a bachelor party. That's right: A bunch of drunken Irishmen who I know and love had come out to Chicago for a stag party, and I had unknowingly stepped into it.

I could have stuck to my guns with my self-imposed curfew, but come on, these lads are great fun and I hadn't seen them in years. Here are some highlights in no particular order:

1. There was a little Black girl in the first bar (there would be a few) who we were calling Rooty Huxtable (hope that's not racist), and one lad, Plastico, said, "Huxtable. That's a magnificent surname."

2. When we were reminiscing about that summer a few years back, they were all saying how a picture of a rapist on the loose at the time had his sketch on the door of every bar and club on the north side of Chicago, and the guy looked just like one of the lads, Dunigan. I don't remember this, but it has to be true because even Dunigan, a guy too nice to do anything remotely as heinous as rape, had to admit it to be true.

3. We were trying to think of what bar had a good special on Wednesday nights, as when they were here last, all the Irish kids working on the Pier knew the schedule of the best specials so that each and every night they could find a place to drink extremely cheaply. What's funny is that when you went into one of those places, you would learn that the word had spread to Irish kids all over the city, and you would see it packed full of sun burnt Irishmen, happily drinking away their wages.

4. I don't remember why, but I was asking them what the expression is in Ireland for being horny or having a boner, and as it turns out, it's "on the horn" or a you're like a "bag of horns." Try to work that in a conversation sometime soon, Seven Readers.

5. The lads had plans to go to nudey bar, something I wasn't game for on a Wednesday, and Skittles was saying that the last time he was at one was when he was last in Chicago, when he and Pony (a lad who couldn't make it out for the stag but was missed dearly) went to such a place with a raging cokehead they met that night by the name of Phillip Kuntz. Old Kuntzy took a liking to the boys and bought them their drinks and titty bucks all night, but when he started to have an intense freak out/meltdown in the cab, the lads made a "quick exit."

6. I guess there's something called Chess Boxing where guys alternate rounds of boxing and a few minutes of speed chess for a total of 12 minutes of chess, and you can win by either checkmate or knockout. Yes, something that stupid exists, we talked about it, and you can see it here:


7. While at the titty bar**, I learned that, like Christmas, it's better to give than to receive. I'll explain: Remember when you were a little kid and all you cared about what was present you got rather than what you got other people, but then as you got older, you really wanted to know that people liked what you picked out for them? Well, I'm finding titty bars to be kinda like that because I had so much fun picking out the perfect stripper for the bachelor, Buttons, to spend my money on him, and I ultimately decided upon a beautiful Russian one (or at least she faked a good accent) by the name of Kassandra who was sitting all alone. I asked her what she was doing sitting there all by her lonesome, and she said she was waiting for me. Of course she was! They're such sweet talkers (read bullshitters) in those place. In any case, Buttons was quite pleased with the Russian's work.

8. Kassandra was the best looking and arguably the most "talented***," but the funniest one by far was one by the name of Heidi the Mountain Girl, who dressed not unlike the famous literature hero of the Swiss Alps. After she sat on my lap, I asked her why she went by the mountain girl, and she said because of her mountains, motioning towards her giant fake boobs. Duh! Then she said she wanted to do the splits on my face. I asked in which direction, and after thinking about it for a moment, she said the outwards way. I guess I really didn't have a preference as this was Buttons' night, and as such, I bought him a dance from the Mountain Girl as well.

9. A nudey bar on a Wednesday night is ordinarily a horrible idea, but it was so good to see all these gents. They're such great guys that if they asked really nice, I think I'd do the splits on their faces in any direction they saw fit.

------------------------------
*Phillip, if you googled yourself and found this blog, I hope you're not offended, and I hope you've cleaned up. God's speed, Kuntzy.
**Never mind what I said in number 5 about limitations on school nights. It was just too much fun to see these guys.
***Another of the lads, Tonto, agreed, so that's two Irishmen giving Kassandra a nod for a Lappy, which is a lap dance award I just made up.

For Those of You Who Don't Have Me On Facebook, Behold Me Commenting on My Own Stupid Update . . .

And here's the fun part: I'm so stupid that I don't know how to change the color of the font for just this post, so highlight everything and scroll so you can read it against the background. It's like a secret decoding mission! Yeah, I'm just trying to make it sound fun because I don't know what the hell I'm doing . . .

Dr. Kenneth's Profile, Dr. Kenneth's Wall

• 

  Dr. Kenneth Noiswater:

  Anyone watching NBA live on TNT-internet? This is a great Heat/Celtix game, but switch the camera to "Action Cam" or you will be watching "Mosaic Cam," which I think is how flies watch the NBA.

  2 hours ago · · ·

  • • Dr. Kenneth Noiswater

      Actually, when regular TV is at commercial, go back to "Fly Cam" and watch random crap going on all over the stadium and "Jock Jams" over the P.A.

      2 hours ago ·
    • Dr. Kenneth Noiswater

      Oooh! "Backboard Cam!" I can't wait until someone dunks right in my muthagrabbin' face!! I swear I don't work for TNT.

      2 hours ago ·
    • Dr. Kenneth Noiswater

      And, ladies, if you like Wade, you can just switch on the Wade cam and watch him close up, even when he's on the bench. Rondo Cam too if you're into weird guys who are good athletes but kinda weird-looking.

      2 hours ago · · One Person

Beluga Whales Are My Personal Trainers

Here's the new bike. Isn't it bitchin'?

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I love my new bike, but I might like riding too much. The thing is, when I run or bike I often get it in my head that I have to go to a certain long route I decide upon, and then anything less and I'm a big puss. So, I head down to the lake, take it north until the path ends, go all the way back south to the Shed Aquarium to peek in on the beluga whales through the glass (today was feeding time!), and then head back home, leaving my legs completely cashed out and I'm ready to sleep at 9:30PM. Sure, it's too much, but if I don't make it all the way, it's like I'm letting the Belugas down.

Here's a picture I took with the aquarium on the left and the skyline (this city is beautiful . . . When it's warm out).

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I didn't take this picture, but how cute is that big, white sonuvabitch?

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I just think it's interesting that an animal so full of blubber is motivating me to stay skinny.