This Week's Post . . .

Is at The Liar's Club.

Notary Babe

I have to get something notarized. So I'm searching online for notaries in Chicago, and there's a page called the "Notary Rotary" with a big list of people, all of whom will meet you anywhere, anytime, and many of whom have pictures. I'm scrolling through their pictures, thinking, I might as well have a hot ass chick meet me anywhere, preferably at 2:00 in the morning, at my house, while in my undies. I thought my odds were pretty slim at finding the allusive hot-to-trot, notary-babe, but low and behold the blond bombshell pictured immediately to the left of this sentence. This scenario begs a few questions:

1. How could I NOT go with the hot one?!?
2. Doesn't everyone?
3. Do any of these other losers get calls, or since she started did all their business dry up?
4. Is the notary game just a front for an escort ring?
5. God I hope so.
6. Was #5 a question or more of a beg?

So, this notary bird is meeting me Thursday night at the bar at which I play volleyball. I can't wait to tell my whole team about it, so we can all anxiously await her arrival. Maybe she'll sub for us! Maybe she notarizes naked! Maybe she signs with her . . .

I'll be sure to keep you, my loyal readers, posted of the upcoming events.

My Big Brother

At my new job I was assigned a big brother, and it was up to me to set up a time to "talk shop" with him. He and I decided that we should get a drink after work this past Wednesday. A few drinks turned into quite a few for a Wednesday, and I really didn't need to hear him say to the bartender, in his thick, Chicago accent, "We'll take a coupla' those bombs (of the Jaeger variety) that ya got der."

What's kind of funny is that he is a lot like the crazy-ass big brother I never had, in that he's a couple years older than me, he has the blond hair and blue eyes, and he takes some of my craziness up a notch. Okay, a big notch. However, I will say that My Big Brother imparted a lot of knowledge upon me, only a handful of which was work related, and I'd like to share with you, my seven readers, a few pearls of wisdom that he bestowed upon me that very day.


1. Don't ever get married to a girl with whom you regularly have threesomes. Quite regularly, Big Brother and the little mrs. would go to bars, he'd approach girls, and the three of them would go home for a swinging-good time. He confirmed my suspicions about threesomes not always being all they're cracked up to be, mostly due to her having twosomes with gals when he wasn't around. Well, to his credit, swinging or not, hitting the one-year-mark to the day, he stayed married four months longer than I.


2. If you get married to a girl with whom your regularly have threesomes, or any other type of girl for that matter, don't put off the wedding for three years until Halloween falls on a Friday, since you're both big fans of Halloween, and make a it a huge, blowout, masquerade party that you pay for with your own money. Big Brother has done really well for himself at work. He bought his dream car, a Jaguar, and he just recently, finally, payed off his masquerade ball wedding. I'd like to also say I learned that I shouldn't ever, ever "masquerade with the guy in shades, oh no," but Corey Heart taught me that long, long ago.

3. This is more something in which he simply agreed with when I mentioned it, but because his convictions were so firm when he concurred, I'm going to include it anyway: Always date the prettiest of the sisters. I told him about the Peruvian girl I once dated, who to her credit, was a foxy-ass lady, she was in no way the Carnie Wilson in a Wilson Phillips equation, but she had two smokin' hot, little, twin sisters. Big Brother responded immediately that one must always date the prettiest of the sisters, or it will vex you for eternity.

When in a foreign land, and it's getting close to last call, one must hone in on the first girls one comes across who speaks English. Big Brother was on an annual company outing to Puerto Rico, which Doctor Kenneth is very much looking forward to, incidentally, and he applied this tactic with great success, in that he and a coworker got the girls back to his room. Their only downfall was being told numerous times by staff members to quite down, and they were thrown out of the hotel, having to pack their bags in the wee hours of the morning. I have a feeling Puerto Rico is not going to know what hit it when Big Brother and Little Brother come strolling into town . . .

Discussion: Since I'm confident this little-rag-that-couldn't bosts having the wittiest, funniest, most savvy readers in all the land, tell me a funny, little life lesson you've picked up along your way.

Chuck E. Cheese: Where a Kid Can Be a Kid and a Nonce Can Be a Nonce

First off, the Cubs broke my heart, and in a related matter, my days on the wagon came to an end. I tried to stay on the straight and narrow, I really did, but Alphonso Soriano literally shoved me off the wagon. As a result, I arrived late to the suburban Chuck E. Cheese (a kiddie arcade, in case you're not familiar, and thank your lucky stars if you're not), where my mom, dad, sister, and her three kids were fully engrossed into Chuck E. Cheese heaven or hell, depending upon which end of twelve-years-old each given family member was.

My first observation was that the guy at the door just unhooked the velvet ropes for me as I walked in without so much as batting an eye. I guess checking I.D. wouldn't make much sense, but shouldn't I have had a kid with me? I could of been some big ol' child molester waltzing in there, ready for an Osh-Kosh-B'Gosh-Damn good time. If Gary Glitter, or any other nonce, which is the British slang for sex offender, is reading my blog right now, then I just inadvertently gave him a money-ass tip for prime noncing. Okay, the implications of this paragraph are in really poor taste, but too funny to delete, so let's just move on.

If you really want to feel like a loser, show up hungover to your local Chuck E. Cheese. Do you ever get so hungover that your body is all out of wack, and dumb thoughts pop in your head as a result? I was looking at the rubbery pizza thinking, "That might be the shittiest looking pizza I've ever seen. I would eat the shit out of that right now." I had a fleeting thought pass of taking a cold, leftover, no-doubt, snot-coverd slice, but I maintained . . .

When I was a kid Chuck E. Cheese was called Showbiz Pizza, and it was ruled on high by hillbilly bear, I think he was a bear anyway, Billy Bob, and his rocking, animated, fuzzy, robotic band. The band's female member was a mouse, who didn't play anything, but instead opted to provide the cheerleading. Maybe Toni Basil inspired her, I don't know, but in any event, I remember a young Gancer's curiosity getting the best of him, as he stuck his head up her skirt to get a peak. To his surprise there were stars under that there skirt! That's right, seven readers, I poked my heard up there just in time to get walloped in the head with a pom-pom, which wouldn't be a big deal, but the bitch had metal hands! There are metaphors for my life all over this little tale, right?

So, as I'm handing my nephew one token at a time, it occurs to me that when he's all out of tokens, I get to go home. This is when I steered him over to the big jack-pot, ticket-getting machine. It's this one where you have to stop the light right on the jackpot. Does anyone else think these places are the first, little steps a kid takes towards becoming a video game junkie, and even worse, a degenerate gambler? Call me a dick, but I kept telling him how close he was, getting his hopes up, handing him more and more tokens, until we were all out. Hey, don't look at me like that! He still got a bunch of tickets each time he missed the target, he had fun, and he got to purchase some useless crap with those hard-earned tickets.

The Useless Crap Counter is the worst part of Chuck E. Cheese, because you're so close to going home at that point, yet so very, very far. Each kid deliberates over whether to get a ring-pop or a whoopee cushion for the better part of an hour, while the pimply, rightfully-disgruntled kid behind the counter subtracts numbers from the total after each carefully selected item is placed onto the counter, and he considers either taking a job at McDonald's instead or mowing down his Algebra class with the AK-47 he'll buy online that night.

As I helped my nephew bag up his useless crap it occurred to me that I still had to get my mom a birthday card, which is why the whole fam-damnly was meeting up that day, so I suggested that my favorite nephew, don't tell the others, accompany me next door to get a card and then ride home with me. He told me about a card he almost bought that said, "Mom, there's nothing stronger than your love, except for maybe dad's farts." I really wish he hadn't told me about that card, because there was no way I was going to find a funnier one than that. I share his fourth grade sense of humor. We then did a Price Is Right scratch-off together, only to lose, further encouraging his inevitable gambling habit, and we were on our way. During the car ride, he told me how dirty my car was, that he was getting straight A's, that his dad might get him an iPod if he stops losing stuff (?) and I just smiled. I know I can't compete with Chuck E. Cheese, but I know he was happy to get one-on-one attention from his favorite uncle, and I was feeling good about our man-to-man chat too. This is what his asshole dad doesn't get. The prick takes him to Great America or something every time he sees him, which is not what a kid from a freshly divorced family needs. He needs solo time with his old man, and his old man needs to leave his new, home-wrecking girlfriend at home. God, I'd like to hit that fuck-stick in the head with a pom-pom with a hard, metal hand underneath.

Okay, that was a long post and I'm sorry I ended on an angry note like that. Let's just do the usual discussion and be done with it.

Hey, Seven Readers, where was your favorite place in the world when you were a kid? A place you could go and not have a care in the world? Where's that place now?

Beer is for Closers

I'm giving up drinking until I make a commission by placing one of these asshole VP's with a job in advertising at my job. The people at my work say all the time that "pain is the greatest motivator known to mankind," and let me tell you, being in Chicago the night the Cubs clinch a playoff spot and NOT being able to drink is damn painful, and, with any luck, one heck of a motivator. My willpower once I start drinking is horrible, in that as long as people are willing and able, I'll keep sucking them back. However, my willpower has always been strong once I'm fully committed to something. Here are some fine examples which illustrate this very point.

1. Earlier this year, my doctor told me that that my "good cholesterol" was good, but my "bad cholesterol" was a touch bad. Nothing to worry about, but just a little high. I freaked. "What do I do, doc!" I replied in a frantic state. "Well," he said calmly, and a little annoyed with my frantic state "just cut back on fried foods a little." I haven't had a fried food since. Not a french fry, not a tater-tot, and nary an Arby's curly fry dipped in Horsey sauce.

2. Going back a little further. My mom told me that I had a bit of a thumb sucking problem as a kid, which came as no surprise for me to hear, as I'm a bit of an oral fixator. It was a habit she could not break me of until my dentist told me that if I continued suckling on my fattest of digits my teeth would stick out like "Bugs Bunny." My thumb-sucking days were over that very afternoon.

3. Going back even further, I was 16 in that last story, when my mom was trying to potty train me, I was not hearing it. When she'd ask if I was going to go in the potty that day, I'd say, "Not today." I've always been a bit of a procrastinator, and a brilliant one, in that I wasn't being defiant, just putting it off a little, just trying to buy myself a few more glorious days of shitting in my pants. One day when the whole family was getting ready to go to the public pool, my favorite place in the world to shit my pants, and my mom, in a stroke of genius, said, "You can't go, little Gancer, unless you go in the potty first." And I've been going in the potty ever since, unless the situation calls for other more creative endeavors, like writing my name in the snow or pooping off a high dive at that very, same public pool. Ironic? No, but a good poop story.

So, as you can see from these stories dating back to when I was potty trained, at age seven, once I set my mind to something I'm damned determined. I kind of wish I wasn't though, because going to bars when you're sober, with millions of drunken Cub fans, is damn irritating. Here are some things I discovered:

1. Bars are smoky. It's like I'm immune to it when I'm schnockered, but when I'm sober I'm so annoyed and disgusted. Believe me when I say I don't like being the guy annoyed with smoke. Even though I only smoke a pack a year, nine times out of ten I prefer smokers to non-smokers, but that's another post for another day.

2. People are obnoxious when they drink. The only worth-while drunken display I saw was a girl, who couldn't dance for shit, trip over her big boots, and fall on her face. A good laugh was had by all. She was crying, but I'm sure she wasn't hurt. The makeup undoubtedly broke the fall. See, that wouldn't be as funny to me if I were drunk, and I probably would have thought she was a damn, fine dancer, but sober Gancer was too observant for his own good and way too crabby.

3. It's hard to pick up girls when you're sober. I don't want to be the stone sober guy picking up on drunk girls, because that's kind of sleazy, so I just kind of stand around thinking of a good time to sneak out.

4. I notice how much my friends and I drink when I'm sober. I feel like their mom when I'm like, "jeez, another round already?" I know full well that if I were drinking too I'd be right along with them, and some nights, maybe worse, and that's the scary part.

5. The crazy thing is that for the first hour or so of barroom sobriety, it's all I can do not to jump over the bar and slam the first three bottles of anything I can grab at random, but then I reach a point where I want no part of what the demon rum makes people become. That rhymed! However, I had better have some success at work soon, because I know these Cubbies are going cause me a great deal of stress, and then when they blow it again, making it officially 100 years since they've won a World Series, I'll need to get properly Schlitzed, and you're all coming out with me, seven readers, to watch my glorious, drunken, tumble off the wagon.

Your turn: Isn't it some sucky-ass shit to be the lone sober person when you go out with your booze-hound friends? Discuss . . .

Raw Jello

I was riding home from work, with my iPod on random, and out of all 7,000 songs that could have popped up on this afternoon, No One is To Blame by Howard Jones Came on. I instantly wanted to eat raw, powdery, sweet, sugary, jello right out of the box.

Let me explain, since anyone who says something that recockulous had better well explain his or herself:

When I was in the 9 to 10 years of age division on my swim team, we'd eat raw sugar during meets, because someone, somewhere along the line must have told us that it gave you energy, which somehow made you swim faster. I was skeptical, since I was a skeptical kid (the Easter Bunny was bullshit to me by the time I was four), but I suspended my disbelief for any excuse to eat a box full of colored sugar. Hell, it would stick to your hands and make your fingers all red, then you'd wipe your face and hands with your towel. Fucking decadent.

Anyway, for whatever reason, my brain has a decades-long, lasting, Pavlovian response to Howard Jones, which makes me want to pour gelatin in powdered form down my throat, which may make me choke and cough a little, but sweet, sweet, sugar-burning, choking coughs. I can't say that I listened to HoJo at swim meets, ate raw jello while listening to his Brit-synth pop stylings, or at any time combined all three elements, but I'll be damned if I didn't want to, the second the song came on, want to pull my piece of shit Camry into the Wallgreens, walk up in that piece, find a box of jello, lick my dirty, little finger, and lick me up some strawberry, jello powder.

How's about you, seven readers? Anyone out there have a knee-jerk response to a song they'd like to share for the other six readers?

The Birf' of a Salesman

Not many of you know this, but I was in the education field for the last few years. Even less of you know this, but I resigned and started recruiting for advertising firms. One day it dawned on me that if I taught all my life, I would die penniless. Plus, I would never be compensated for how hard I worked. In sales type jobs, you do get paid for how hard you work, and while I've been working my tail off, I haven't made squat yet.

People always tell me I'd be good in sales, because I'm funny, personable, likable, and trust-worthy. These are all true, and they do translate well into sales. However, I have some draw-backs that aren't as obvious to everyone, but they are becoming very clear as I get further entrenched into the corporate world. I'm unorganized, scatter-brained, forgetful, and I have bad anxiety.

I'm getting better every day, but there were a few days where I didn't think I could hack it. Have you ever had a job where you felt like an idiot all day at work, and every second outside of work all you can think about is having to go back there?

For example:

Let's say you're a Bearded Lady, and you keep flaking out and shaving every morning.

Or let's say you're a Belly-Dancer, and you keep blowing on your partner's belly.

Or let's say you're a Cannibal, and you keep filling up on roasted chicken with butter sauce.

Or let's say you're a Skin-Head, you strongly dislike The Jews, but you just can't bring yourself to hate them.

On any given day, I feel like any one of those guys above. However, I'm starting to see myself being damn good at some stuff, especially cold calling, which I have to do a lot of until I have more regular clients. The thing about ad people though, is they're a cool bunch. I mean, they're really boss! Sometimes I'll bullshit with them for quite some time, and it seems like a lot of them drink a lot too, which is jolly-good for The Gancer. My plan is to hit a Chicago advertising happy-hour with a shit-ton of business cards, schmooze, and booze.

Just today I met a girl on the phone, and even though I've never seen her, I feel pretty confident saying that she was really, damn hot. I mean, for fuck's sake, she's an account planner in Los Angeles named Nik. Not Nicole, not Nikki, just Nik. We chatted for a while and she emailed me back with a bunch of her friends' names who I could, in-turn, talk out of working wherever they are. She just took a new job, but she's keeping me in mind, and she said, "I think I'm going to like you." That's what I'm talking about. Are any of my blog buddies from L.A., because I smell a business trip in my near future?

Well, here are your questions. Answer one or both of them:

1. Tell me a about a job at which you were useless as tits on a bull.
2. Anyone know anyone in advertising anywhere in the country who may want to make a job change? Email me at www.thegancer@yahoo.com

-The Gancer

Kick to the Nuts

There are four young, attractive pre-med girls living in the unit below mine, and for the last few months, I've been a little bit in love with the Asian one. A month or so back, her and the Chesty One went out with the my fireman roommate and myself. Evidently, Chesty One had a crush on Fireman, so it was like Asian and myself were wing-people. By the end of the night, Chesty was no longer into Fireman, but Asian and I really seemed to hit it off. Because I was just trying to play Goose to my roomy's Maverick, I wasn't even trying very hard, which is probably why I was so money. Wait, Goose and Maverick were in the same plane. I suppose I was the Maverick to his Ice Man. Wait, Maverick was always leaving his wing man, and getting reprimanded for it. Let's just say I was the Wolfman to his Hollywood.* Anyway, I felt like her and I were no doubt enjoying each other's company, but I in no way thought there was much interest in either direction. That is until I found myself thinking about her before I went to bed that night, immediately the next morning, and periodically for the months to come.

Having a thing for your neighbor is a tough spot to be in, because even though I'm almost positive there's some interest on her end, if I'm wrong and go for it, I run the risk of feeling like a nimrod every time I say hello to her while taking out the trash. For this reason, and because we have opposite schedules, I hadn't talked to her in a while, but tonight I texted her to tell her we were going to a bar near our apartment. She called back to tell me they were going to SoPo, and I must have really been digging on her to show my face in that yuppy, guys in striped-shirts, girls in tube-tops shit-hole. When I get in there she's all in my fries. Before long she's grinding upon me like there's a piece of flint on my package and she desperately needs to make a spark.

Then a bunch of dudes these girls know show up, and before long she's dancing with the Big Headed One. He's show-boating by shaking his butt (not well in my estimation), and her dumb-ass is eating it up. After watching her neglect my friend and myself for some time, my BFF and I excuse ourselves, and she doesn't even say, like, "You sure you have to go?" It's just a flippant "thanks for coming," and right back she goes to her fucking, Goodyear Blimp-headed, fuck-stick guy.

BFF and I then went back to his house for one last beer and the last 45 minutes of Swingers. Jeez-Louise that movie is still great! I was enjoying the flick, but then every couple of minutes I'd get pissed about the whole neighbor thing.

Well, I take solace in the fact that she was gladly singing along to an O.A.R. song. They're a poor man's Dave Mathews band, and I don't even like Dave Matthews, which puts them in the destitute range. Any girl with taste that poor couldn't hang with The Gancer long term.

But she is fucking, damn cute. I was replaying the events in my head, and having spurts of anger on my walk home too. You ever get that? You know, where you do crazy shit like smack a stop sign as hard as you can for no acceptable reason? Then I get home and see some dude and one of the neighbors, squatted down, kanoodling on the porch. My heart sank, but a closer look revealed the couple to be not Asian Neighbor, but Chesty Neighbor and Ben (a guy with a cranium size closer to the national average). I know his name because when these girls were still being cool to me tonight (they declared me their favorite neighbor around this time) Chesty asked me to evaluate Ben when he got to the bar. Well, with or without my endorsement, I think Uncle Ben is giving her the San Francisco treat as I type this poorly-written, drunken paragraph. Wait, Rice-A-Roni is the San Francisco treat. Oh well. Fuck it.

Hey, Seven Readers, have you ever had a person of the opposite sex on the horizon, and then suddenly it doesn't work out and you're left with a bleak-ass horizon? Well, my horizon is slightly bleaker, but if she likes O.A.R, chodes like the guy she was dancing with, and being prone to sudden-onset, being overwhelmingly unneighborly, then maybe I'm not missing out on too much.

P.S.: Scary Monster, and I suppose anyone else who read and were too scared/disgusted to comment, was privy to the original, drunker, angrier, more depressed version of this post, because this morning I took out some of the scarier lines and smoothed out the edges.

*If you haven't seen Top Gun a few dozen times like me, then you're going to be more than a little lost during this section.

Songs You Hear at the Bar That You Can't Help But Slur Your Way Through

I know I've posted a lot of popular music oriented pieces in this rag's brief existence, but I'm obsessed with rock music, and you'd rather read a nice, quick list than read my long-winded, depressing rants. So in a sense, we both win. So, here are some of the greatest barroom sing-alongs ever, in no particular order:

- Piano Man by Billy Joel: If you ask me, the line sang the loudest, aside from the chorus, for whatever reason, is ". . . and he's talking with Davy, who's still in the navy, and probably will be for life." What about Davy made the drunken, piano-playing narrator so sure that Davy was destined to be a "lifer" in the Navy? Was this sailor, who was inexplicably a regular at this piano bar, telling anyone who would listen how awesome it is to be a navy man, and how he can't see himself wearing anything but that white hat and the black, scarf thing?

- Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville: Everyone seems to chime in right when he says "Some people claim there's a woman to blame," not unlike everyone sings the word oasis in the chorus of another song that needs to be on this list: Friends in Low Places by Garth Brooks. The thing is, while I don't feel I'm missing out on a whole hell of a lot by not owning any of his records, I don't dislike Jimmy. What I do dislike are the majority of his fans, who seem to see his concerts as an excuse to put on a Hawaiian shirt and drink frozen drinks out of the back of their minivans. It's likened to what Chicago White Sox fans hate about stereotypical Cub fans, not true Cub fans like your's truly, who go to games to stack up cups of Old Style, barely even paying attention to the game.

- The word oasis in my last paragraph immediately made me think how just about anyone from Ireland or England's faces light up to sing along with anything by the big-eyebrowed Gallagher brothers in Oasis. If you're ever in a room with more than a few Micks or Limies, just put Don't Look Back in Anger on the jukebox, sit back, and watch them grab each other's shoulders and sing to one another. It's quite a joyous ocasion to behold.

- Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi: It was kind of cool the first seven or eight times I heard this song in the bar, since I really hadn't heard it regularly since I brought in the cassette to be played loudly every Friday in my fifth-grade art class. I also took great pleasure in bringing in tapes that swore, like INXS, Beastie Boys (sort of), and of course, Guns and Roses. I think my teacher was so happy the week was finally over, as art was always on Fridays, to care that Axl was saying, "Turn around bitch I got a use for you. Besides, you ain't got nothin' better to do, and I'm bored." Anyway, I no longer get that joy when I hear Jon Bon. It used to make me long to eat paste again, and while I still kind of do, now when I hear a room full of nimrods sing it, I pray that if I get my hands on some paste, it's as toxic as it is delicious.

- Don't Stop Believing by Journey: This song used to be kind of cool, but then the Chicago White Sox, who I hate by nature, since I'm a lifelong Cub fan, used it for their theme song and effectively ruined it. It always gets people singing, but now 100 years of futility, anger, and jealousy build up to the point where I'd like to beat Steve Perry to death with the mop he so stupidly clung to in the Oh Sherry video.


To Be With You by Mr. Big: This is a song that every girl who was between the ages of 6 and 22 when it came out loves. Secretly, well not so secretly anymore I suppose, I fucking like this song. It makes sense to me that, despite the fact that this one-hit-wonder (although some heralded them as a somewhat of a supergroup?), hair metal band probably sucked, but this song remains well appreciated years later. What I don't get is why the protagonist of the song wants to be next to be with this chick. Was she getting filled out like an application by the whole band, yet he was still pining for her depraved, slutty, STD-ridden ass? Maybe he meant she was getting around, but he actually wanted to be with her. I actually once dated a girl who seemed to have slept with everyone I knew at one time or another, sometimes with my roommate at the time and another girl at once, yet I saw something I liked in her. In the end, it was really hard, ultimately too hard, to get passed the fact that she could pick all of my friends' penises out of a line-up, but for a while, I was the one who wanted to be with her.

- There are a number of rap songs, not limited to, but including Jump Around by House of Pain, Humpty Dance by Digital Underground, It Takes Two by DJ EZ Rock and Rob Base, and Regulators by Warren G (thanks GSR) that make drunks rap to one another. However, the two songs that bring more white people together to rap badly are Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice, a man who inexplicably managed to weasel his penis into a near hey-day Madonna, and Baby Got Back, by apparently knighted Sir Mix-a-Lot. As for the former, I don't think there has ever been a video , aside from anything by Michael Jackson, that spawned more drunken imitations of dance moves, and in Vanilla's case, really spastic, stupid-looking ones. Also, without fail, someone will do a steering wheel motion when he says, "rolling in my five point o." Now the latter, I must say, I'm very sick of. Granted I still like to watch a bunch of girls shake their butts in unison, but what I'm confused about is why women seem to like this this jam so much. Rarely are the women undulating on the dance floor in any way "thick soul sisters," so do they like the idea of a song that celebrates bigg-butted women, even if they themselves have narrow, over-Tae Boed and rollerbladed behinds?

There is also a trend with women and rap music whereby the dirtier, nastier, and more degrading the song is toward women, the more likely a gaggle of them are to sing it loudly and know ever word. I'm not going to type any words to Ain't No Fun by Snoop Dogg or Gimme' Dat Nut by Eazy E, because my mom sometimes glances at my site, but trust me when I say the phraseology is not something you would want to include in your wedding vows. So what does a love affair with slut anthems say about modern women? I like to think that they are trying to break down the double standards involved with female promiscuity by embracing a God-given right to be a freak. Either that or the songs are just damned catchy, and remind them of their slutty, carefree, college days.

Okay, I ended up on too many rants to really have a list worth any merit. That's where you come in, seven readers. What are some songs you notice get the whole bar singing?

P.S.: My crappy computer is out of space on its hard drive, so you'll have to make do without all the awesome pictures I found, including a picture that someone took of an Etch N' Sketch which an artist, and a quite gifted one in my estimation, deftly twisted the knobs around to make a fairly accurate, bust-shot of Eazy E.

P.P.S.: Never mind. I made room for the pictures. In my messed up universe, space for Eazy E Etch N' Sketch pics is way more of a premium than space for Microsoft Word or my resume.

Let's Get Physcial, Bitches.

One of the few things I hate more than cats is working out. Because of this, I get exercise through every type of sports league I can think of, and by riding my bike everywhere, even when it doesn't make any sense to do so. I'm just not a gym guy. Maybe it's the swollen-up, muscley, Neanderthal man grunting and groaning to assure that everyone becomes well aware that he is squatting hundreds of meaningless pounds. Maybe it's watching Johnny Hardass, perhaps the very same Neanderthal man, hit on the fake-breasted, but cute girl at the juice bar. Anyway, today I decided to do some gym-free push-ups and sit ups for two reasons:

1. I recently had an encounter with an old flame, and although the border police were stringent around her 38th Parallel/Mason-Dixon Line, we did end up mostly naked, back at her place. For whatever reason, she felt compelled to tell me that I should do some bench-pressing. That hurt a little bit, but after cycling through the pictures in her camera, I saw the type of guy she prefers in her recently dubbed ex-boyfriend: A totally ripped, cheesy-looking, Chip and Dales(tm) Dancer type. I wish I could say I didn't have this knowledge, but judging by his good-sized, yet unkempt penis area, he could have made a decent living at it. If you saw this dude, you'd know what I mean when I say that all he needs is the bow tie. In any event, I left her crappy, little apartment very ashamed of my lack of chest definition.

2. In a men's health magazine, I saw like seven push-up techniques, and I wanted to try them out, despite the fact that I could only seem to remember the one where you make a diamond out of your hands. Holy mackerel do those make my chest hurt, even now, with each and every keystroke. I also borrowed my neighbor’s ab-roller(tm). Those are a bitch, man! While I was rolling away, I Saw the Light by Todd Rundgren came on, and I remember thinking: "Those killer, bombastic drums bumping give quite an edge to an otherwise, fairly-tradional pop song. Hey, that's one heck of a guitar solo too. I wonder if that's big Todd himself? If memory serves, he raised Liv Tyler as his own daughter, even though it was Steven Tyler who knocked up her groupie mom." My mind went through various tangents like that one, until I realized I had been rolling for far, far too long. My tummy hurts, but not nearly as bad as my back.

Now, if you'll excuse me, me and my sore back and puny, but sore, chest, are going to anoint ourselves in a bathtub full of BenGay.

I Hate Cats . . .

. . . and they hate me. You don't believe me? Allow me to regale you with some tales of asshole cats in my recent asshole cat history:

1. I'm with a buddy in St. Louis, and he says he has to feed his mother's cats before we go out. When we get there, the two cats seemed friendly enough. However, as soon as they were fed, the sons of bitches start hissing at me, and I'm talking hair on their backs standing up, scare your pants off hissing. What a couple of selfish pricks, right?

2. I was dating a girl with a blue, really cool looking cat named, oddly enough, Mr. Blue. He was the biggest cat I ever saw, and I don't mean fat, I mean long. Legally, It is probably the closest she could have been to having a live panther in her house, and he had all the ferocity of a gull-darned panther, well towards me anyway. The little turd of a cat was always darting out from somewhere trying to attack me, so I'd get all on edge, and I swear the rat-bastard could sense it - and he'd come at me more. Maybe he also sensed that I wasn't into his owner anymore. I swear, you look into this cat's eyes, and it's like he knew things. I don't hate cats because they're dumb, because they're actually quite smart. I hate cats because they're assholes.

3. My roomy has a black, really skittish cat who, because of our landlord's anti-pet policy, has to be hidden up in his bedroom at all times like Anne Frank. However, lately he's been exploring more, and for some reason he loves to hang out under my bed. Maybe he sees no danger of being crushed by any hanky-panky, as this has been a very slow August for The Gancer. Could it be that he knows that black cats crossing one's paths creates bad luck, and because cats hate me, this little fuck-stick is milling around me to surround me with a doom cloud of crap luck? Well, it's working. In any event, it's weird when I sit down at my computer to, let's say, goof on Cherry for sharting himself, and I see a creepy black cat run over to the door for me to be let him out. Also, the other day I'm walking down the hall and he paws me in the leg. My Roomy is there, and he says that this is what he does when he wants My Roomy to pet him. I informed him that this cat never lets me pet him. To this he furrows his brow, thinks for a moment, and says, "Yeah, I don't know why he did that to you."

I will say, there is some precedent that may speak to why this particular cat may hate my guts. One night, when My Roomy wasn't around, me and Another Roomy were desperately trying to get him out of that bedroom, because the landlord was coming over to look at some light fixtures. Trying to pick him up was greeted with hisses, and he was wise to any attempts to shoo him in any direction to lock him into another room. I remember standing on the bed with a broom, trying to shoo him towards my other roomy, and thinking, "This animal was not meant to be domesticated."

It's true, folks. On the whole, dogs seem happy to see you, while a cat will barely look up from licking his balls as you walk through the door. You may think your cat loves you, but he is merely making the best of the situation. He'd rather be out in the alleys, sniffing out some cat-poon than sitting in your lap watching Hope Floats. Don't get me started on even crummier pets, like iguanas or komodo dragons. Yeah, there are no iguana pieces of ass out there your pet lizard would rather be riding. He much prefers the dorm room he calls home, with dip-shits listening to 311 and blowing bong-hits into his two by one foot cage. Incidently, tell me another blog where you'll see the phrase "iguana piece of ass?"

Hey, Seven Readers, first off, sorry this post was so darn long. Secondly, tell me an animal, whether a species or one in particular, that you'd like to punt with a nice, high leg kick like Reggie Roby, or tell me an animal that hated you.

26 Ladies

I recently got thinking about the best songs about girls with every letter of the alphabet. Blogging this topic became a bit of a labor of love, since there were two important, sometimes conflicting, considerations: How good the song is versus how cool the chick sounds. Ultimately I had to pick songs that struck the best balance between these two considerations, and I wanted to make a 26 track disc out of it. I would not mind input via your comments, and I'm not opposed to making changes if you make a good case. For some reason I think Zen Wizard is going to have some pearls of wisdom. In any event, here's the list:

A: Amie by Pure Prairie League. A nod to Angie by The Rolling Stones, but if he's dumping her she couldn't have been that great.

B: Burnadette by The Four Tops. He mentions that when he's with her he sees envy in other men's eyes, plus he just sounds ANGRY in love with her. This might be the best oldie of all time, and that's all there is to it. Chud, a loyal reader, pointed out that Brandy by Looking Glass should be on the list. It's a great song that always makes me happy. However because she'd be a good wife, yet he chooses "the sea" over her, it has to remain in the honorable mention category.

C: Cecilia by Simon and Garfunkle. What a slut, right? Shaking the poor guy's confidence. Daily, no less.

D: Diane, as in Jack and Diane by John Cougar Melloncamp. I would not mind having a hot-ass chick with whom to suck down a chili dog outside the Tasty Freeze.

E: Eleanore by The Turtles. Gee, I think she's swell. A nod, suggested by Chud, goes to Come On Eileen by Dexy's Midnight Runners for causing thoughts to "verge on dirty."

F: Foxy Lady by Jimi Hendrix

G: Gloria by Them and Girlfriend in a Coma by The Smiths are both good, but I have to go with Glad Girls by Guided By Voices because she ONLY wants to get me high. Girlfriend in a Coma just kind of lays there.

H: Hang on Sloopy by The McCoys is one hell of a song, but it should really be categorized under S, so I'm going to go with Chasing Heather Crazy by Guided By Voices. After all, she likes it when it grows.

I: Isabella by Jimi Hendrix. "I" was tough. Little help??

J: Jane Says by Jane's Addiction. This chick takes a swing, and she can hit. She sounds like my brand of crazy. A shout out goes to Jenny by Tommy Tutone, because you could get her number off a bathroom stall and break her off.

K: Killer Queen by Queen because not only is she well-versed in etiquette, but she's simultaneously dynamite with a laser beam and extraordinarily nice.

L: Lola by The Kinks is one helluva song, but I'm not sure what putting a tranny on my list would say about me. Little Wing by Jimi Hendrix was about his favourite groupie, which is nice, the song is good, but is her name really Little Wing? I'm going with Kadonkadonk, one of my reader's, suggestions, and changing my song to Layla by Derrik and the Dominoes. When you're in love with your best friend's wife, you tend to write passionate songs, and this one is no exception to that rule.

M: A lot of people might say Maybellene by Chuck Berry, Michelle by The Beatles, or My Michelle by G n' R, but I'm going with Monique the Freak by Ween. Deal with it.

N: Darling Nikki by Prince, because all her masturbating with a magazine got Tipper Gore's panties all in a bunch.

O: Ophelia by The Band. Pretty cool song, but mostly because there weren't many "O's."

P: Poison by Bell Biv Devoe. Never, EVER trust a big butt and a smile.

Q: Queen Wasp by The Misfits. Not the best song by these guys, but Q is tough, plus I'm happy to sneak the Misfits into this list.

R: Rosanna by Toto, because Roxanne by The Police is about a straight-up hooker. I likes them slutty, but not quite where they're getting paid for it.

S: Sexy Sadie by The Beatles is good, because this chick evidently came to turn on everyone, so how bad could she be? A nod also goes to Wake Up Little Suzie, because I think she put out. He said that they fell asleep, but you know he tapped that. I'm, evidently, one of those guys who would have said "oooh-la-la." I also considered Summer Babe by Pavement for her mixing of cocktails with a plastic-tipped cigar, but I just have to go with Sharleena by Zappa.

T: Tiny Dancer by Elton John, because it sparked that bus sing-along in Almost Famous.

U: Unbelievable by EMF. She sounded good, because unbelievable is a strong adjective, and I like the use of Andrew Dice Clay in the chorus.

V: Nods go to Veronica by Elvis Costello, Venus by Frankie Avalon, and Vera by Pink Floyd. However, I'm going with Valerie by Jerry Garcia, because he shot his dog because he growled at her. That's a special lady right there to make a guy make that rash of a decision. The song is quite good too.

W: Wonderwall by Oasis is a damn hit, but I have to go with West End Girls by Pet Shop Boys

X: Xena theme song??? That's horrible, I know, but I'm really drawing a blank here. Little help???

Y: I had gone with Yellow Leadbetter by Pearl Jam, even though I was pretty sure something that ridiculous could not be a woman's name. My buddy Neil, perhaps the biggest PJ fan in the free world, confirmed my suspicion that the song is not about a girl, so I had to take it off the list. However, he did come up with an alternative in Yolanda by Reality. Not a great song, but it helped me learn the vocab word bufanda, which is Spanish for scarf, when I was studying for a high school Spanish test in the mid-90's. You know, "Ohhhh-oooh-oooh, yeah, yeah. Oooooh-weeee, bufanda."

Z: Zoot Allures by Frank Zappa. I'm just going to assume that Zoot Allures is a girl's name, and I really can't be proven otherwise, since it's an instrumental.

* Some research was done through this website www.popculturemadness.com/Music/Girls-Names-Songs.html

Salt Shakers as Visual Aids, Bad, Yet Appropriate iPod Songs That Come Up on the Random Setting, and the Longest Title Since That Fionna Apple Record

Don't you hate when some jag-bag is telling you a story, usually about a car accident, and he goes into a long description with visual aids to give you a better mental picture of the events? He's always all like, "So, this salt shaker is me, right? And this sugar and sweetener container is the other guy's car. And . . ." I'm always a patient, polite listener, but I really want to say, "Just stop right there, you uninteresting slob. Your story will not magically become interesting when I've achieved the PERFECT visual of the intersection due to your God damn diorama presentation."

In a completely unrelated matter, on my bike ride home from work today I heard Semicharmed Kind of Life by Third Eye Blind, and while that song is horribly nerdy, it made me really happy today. Even though I was sure no one could tell what song I was listening to, I got a little embarrassed that I was listening to it, and what's worse, enjoying it so much. I will say though, it's the perfect make-you-happy-whilst-you-bike-by-the-lake song, because in the video all the guys in the band were merrily riding in some sort of gay-ass, moped procession. So, given the situation, the song was perfect to listen to, while I would not be caught dead listening to it on any other occasion I can think of.

This is even more the case with another song I heard on today's bike ride: Riding the Storm Out by REO Speedwagon. There was a massive storm hitting the Chicago area, so I was trying to bike home fast before I got caught in the thick of it. As it turns out, the only real good time to listen to Riding the Storm Out is when you're, well, riding a storm out.

Wanted: A Funny Imbruglia With Good Taste in Music

I was trying to explain to someone that I don't really have a "type" when it comes to women, nor do I believe that there is a "soul mate" out there somewhere for me, but sometimes I swear that I can picture the gal for me. For some reason, I always see a gal in my head who has dark hair, big, blue or green eyes, and she's almost always wearing tight-fitting t-shirts and wife-beats. She kind of looks like Natalie Imbruglia, but, of course, her taste in music doesn't suck. She doesn't have to be quite a music snob, like me, but she at least has to be open to new music and passionate about it.

She's funny too. And I don't mean she's the funny one according to her group of female friends; I mean guys think she's funny too. This is a tall order, and I'll tell you why. I'm estimating the percentage of funny women to be around 13%. Of those funny women, I'm going to say that .07% of them attractive. This is because pretty people, boys and girls alike, so rarely cultivate much of a personality, since they get by so easily on their looks. I guess what I'm looking for is that late bloomer chick, who became funny and intelligent through her ugly duckling phase, and then rose out of her ugly-ass ashes, like a phoenix. Like a hot, funny phoenix.

She's exciting and fun to be around. She's unpredictable and maybe even a little crazy. Not bat shit crazy, just a dash, enough to keep me on my toes, but not to the degree where she's slicing off my penis in my sleep like Lorena or burning my house down like Lisa "Left Eye."*

She's easy-going and low mainainence, but not quite a push-over. Nothing turns me off more than when someone gets all pissy and brings everyone down. I hate when people put themselves above everyone else, and make a situation uncomfortable.

She really likes sex, on the brink of nymphomania, but just with me. Well, maybe with some of her female friends on occaision, but she's not into that sort of thing to the point where she leaves me for one of them, then later trades in her cute, Imbrulgia-hair for a not-so-cute, Martina Navratilova femullet.

She drinks socially. Sometimes it gets a little out of hand, but she's rarely a mean-spirited or embarrassing drunk.

She's a genuinely nice person, but she also has edge to her. She can make a very innapropriate joke as well as laugh at one. If you've been reading for more than a post or two, you know that this one is REALLY important.

What do think, seven readers? Is all of this too much to ask? Should I cut and paste it onto Craig's List? What's that illusive quality you search for in the opposite sex?

*That reminds me of a joke: What's the difference between Bob Barker and Lorena Bobbit?
Answere: Bob is SLick PRicer