I asked Boris Yeltsin if he wanted to paint the town red. "No," he said, backhanding the wall. "We'll paint the town Boris Yeltsin." (He was infatuated with referring to himself in the third person and with inserting his name into idioms: "tilting at Boris Yeltsin"; "once upon a Boris Yeltsin"; "all Boris Yeltsins on deck.") I nodded as if I understood. He spoke perfect English. I was on primo hallucinogens but I never did detect an accent. We sipped and enjoyed two bottles of Johnnie Walker Blue and headed to the college bar scene.
It was a balmy spring night, and we wore khakis and pastel polos. It was beyond weird to see Boris Yeltsin in khakis and an apricot polo, but he made it work. "Perestroika? More like Pee-estroika," he said, wobblingly urinating behind a dumpster in a dim alley.
Boris Yeltsin didn't walk. He strolled down the sidewalk, his white hair shining under the moon and in the neon. He glided through swarms of collegians. Some looked askance at him. Others patted him on the back. Others made ignorant comments. "Welcome to Nebraska, Khrushchev!" "Watch where you're going, Gorbadouche." "I loved you on Gilligan's Island." "Joe Stalin, hey! What's Joe short for? Joseph?" Boris smirked and whispered, "Nebraska sounds like a Russian invective. 'Go Nebraska yourself.' 'Suck my Nebraska.'"
We barhopped like crazy. Boris Yeltsin was not a man who had two drinks in a bar. It was one and gone. I repeatedly offered to order him a White Russian. He continually refused, saying, "Boris Yeltsin is not a cliché, not a so-called good German. I want a screwdriver."
At one bar, he ordered a Guinness and proceeded to pour half of it on his left pant leg. The dark liquid beaded off and pooled on the floor. "Stain-proof! Stain-proof pants!" he beamed, before adding, "What's the greater invention: the hydrogen bomb or stain-proof pants?"
Two bars later, an accoster poked Boris in the chest and asked, "Why's your face so red? Is it because you're a flea-bitten commie bastard?"
"No," Boris said, his eyes hooded and glassy, "Boris Yeltsin is an alcoholic. Boris Yeltsin wets a duffel bag of whistles."
He had one glaring problem: He was unskilled with the ladies; however, chicks may did the long ball but they dig the titillating power to bombard Russian Parliament more. They were naturally curious, and Boris wasn't above a friendly graze here or an unplanned grope there. It wasn't exactly good, clean fun. In his immortal words, "A breast is a breast" and "Nipples need twisting." After exchanging pleasantries with a random woman, he'd say, "Boris Yeltsin wants to know if you have syphilis." Conversation over.
The bars closed at 1 a.m., and that's when his iPhone began blowing up. "I can't hear you!" he'd yell into the phone, "Where you at? You having after-hours? Boris Yeltsin makes after-hours happen. Holler." We went to an after-hours party which Boris deemed a sausage fest. He quipped, "What is this, the Ukraine?" We left and went to Perkins for pancakes, where his insatiable lust for liquor and women revved up again. He elatedly and wildly swigged from a flask, made none-too-smooth remarks to our waitress ("Unlike these pancakes, I'd smother you in more than syrup and powdered sugar"), knocked three forks on the floor, and left a $2,000 tip on a $20 ticket. Still, he couldn't convince her to quit her job, leave her husband, abandon her children, and join him for some "Easy Rider-like misadventures."
I dropped him at his hotel. "Let's do it again—tonight," he said with a wide, childlike smile, his face redder than a tomato in a glass of Merlot. "What happens in Boris Yeltsin stays in Boris Yeltsin."
May 28, 2008
May 13, 2008
A Smorgasbord of Irritation and Oddities
I really don't know what is or isn't funny—as if these blogs aren't comparatively indicative of that. This became very apparent on Sunday while in a dark theater; no, not a porn theater. The trailer for Hamlet 2 rolled. I smiled and chuckled throughout, thinking, Hmmm, looks absurd. I'd check out a matinee. When it ended, I was set to whisper to two friends, "What an ingenious premise. I'll illegally download it a week after it hits theaters." I didn't. Before I could, I heard a gentleman behind me gruffly mutter, "Looks stupid." Then I heard one friend say, "Looks dumb," which the other seconded. Not wanting to be seen as too nonconformist, I reverted to embracing the sound of silence.
Some of this prose, this logorrhea, this bluster isn't high comedy, illuminating, or even entertaining. The well of material is dry at this time, so yours truly is a rudderless writer. That said, I'll detail a few recent occurrences that I found amusing.
A. Thursday, May 8. 10:00 p.m. I was showering. A boom box on the floor played a CD I'd just burned. What song? Oingo Boingo's "Weird Science." My cell phone rang. Dandy thoughts of intoxication, tomfoolery, strolling the stroll, unhealthily fearing pickpockets like a paranoiac, fibbing the fib(s), and tan women in sundresses danced in my head. (I call any tomato, an "offensive" term that I use with love and affection, in a sundress "Sunny D" and am so looking forward to drinking in an orange grove's worth of Sunny D this summer.)
I shut off the water, flicked droplets off my hands, yanked back the curtain, and answered the call. I was more brusque than usual as I shivered and hummed and spun like a top. The night was a go. Hooray. Ended the call. Water on. New song: Oingo Boingo's "Dead Man's Party"—yes, I burned consecutive Oingo Boingo songs on a CD. What's my major malfunction? Who answers a somewhat meaningless call while showering? It wasn't a hospital calling with the results of a biopsy. It wasn't a mandatory phone interview for a job. It could've waited. What's five or ten minutes between future alcoholics? Nothing. Ugh. Taking this call may've been life's low point, you know, thus far. Of course, it'll soon be topped, er, bottomed. But that night, it was, "Gents, bottoms up!"
B. May 10. 7:30 p.m. Random thought: Clay Aiken is creepy. He looks like a mannequin or a post-op tranny.
C. May 11. 10:30 p.m. Hy-Vee on North 27th Street. Hy-Vee closes one of the electronic doors at ten, and two petitioners had set up shop at the only working entrance/exit. I wanted to elude them, but a collision was unavoidable. I growled and wheeled my cart out the doors. They bombarded me with "Will you sign this petition about electing candidates this November who are the most qualified and the best trained?" I begrudgingly said yes and filled out my information.
Small talk ensued. A shopper left Hy-Vee. The petitioners tried to cajole her. She said, "I'm not registered." That struck me as rude and odd. Was she lying to evade signing? If so, well done. Artful. People are shady like that. I asked, "What's the percentage of registered to unregistered voters?" A petitioner said, "Oh, probably sixty to forty." Wow. Whoa. Hold on. Timeout. Either Lincoln has a superabundance of fabricators, okay, stinking compassionless liars, or a superabundance of unregistered voters. I don't know what the true statistics are, but neither reality is at all comforting. Then the other petitioner said, "A lot of felons too."
Felons? What the flip?
I asked, "Are you serious?"
He nodded intently and said something like, "Yes. You wouldn't believe the number of people who said, 'Sorry, I can't. I have a felony on my record.' It's kind of startling."
My brain was mush by now. Oatmeal. After some forgettable jokes between us, I wished them a good night and left.
Well, I won't be squeezing fruit like there's no tomorrow in that supermarket anymore. Who knows how many ex-cons are carrying shivs in the cereal aisle while shopping for Frosted Cheerios?
D. May 11. 4:00 p.m. Relaxing outside The Mill, eating uncut, plain bagels that were supposed to be French toast-flavored. Overweight couple after overweight couple tramped up and down 8th Street, blocking the sun, waddling like crabs, and holding hands. Each planet—and that's what these walking soda and vending machines are, planets—needs to remain in its respective orbit. Why is Saturn palming one of Jupiter's moons?
I'm not much of a romantic. Chivalry is under the sod. PDA? Strictly for the birds. I understand literal handwringing but not literal handholding. What does it prove? Does it shout your love to the world? I'm lost. Adrian Monk these touchy-feely folks aren't. I'm naturally dismissive, so it seems that holding hands is a sign of insecurity. Oh, I'll hold your hand in mine. We'll lightly swing our arms to prove that, yeah, we're together. I'm with you. Hey, everybody, I'm with this person! That'll show 'em. Balderdash. Picture me hawking a loogie.
There should be a weight limit on couples desirous of holding hands. How about 300 bills? Is a two-chin max too mean? If you've been responsible for a solar eclipse in your day, you should hold a Slim-Fast shake and not the sweaty, fleshy paw of your indubitably obese enabler.
Some of this prose, this logorrhea, this bluster isn't high comedy, illuminating, or even entertaining. The well of material is dry at this time, so yours truly is a rudderless writer. That said, I'll detail a few recent occurrences that I found amusing.
A. Thursday, May 8. 10:00 p.m. I was showering. A boom box on the floor played a CD I'd just burned. What song? Oingo Boingo's "Weird Science." My cell phone rang. Dandy thoughts of intoxication, tomfoolery, strolling the stroll, unhealthily fearing pickpockets like a paranoiac, fibbing the fib(s), and tan women in sundresses danced in my head. (I call any tomato, an "offensive" term that I use with love and affection, in a sundress "Sunny D" and am so looking forward to drinking in an orange grove's worth of Sunny D this summer.)
I shut off the water, flicked droplets off my hands, yanked back the curtain, and answered the call. I was more brusque than usual as I shivered and hummed and spun like a top. The night was a go. Hooray. Ended the call. Water on. New song: Oingo Boingo's "Dead Man's Party"—yes, I burned consecutive Oingo Boingo songs on a CD. What's my major malfunction? Who answers a somewhat meaningless call while showering? It wasn't a hospital calling with the results of a biopsy. It wasn't a mandatory phone interview for a job. It could've waited. What's five or ten minutes between future alcoholics? Nothing. Ugh. Taking this call may've been life's low point, you know, thus far. Of course, it'll soon be topped, er, bottomed. But that night, it was, "Gents, bottoms up!"
B. May 10. 7:30 p.m. Random thought: Clay Aiken is creepy. He looks like a mannequin or a post-op tranny.
C. May 11. 10:30 p.m. Hy-Vee on North 27th Street. Hy-Vee closes one of the electronic doors at ten, and two petitioners had set up shop at the only working entrance/exit. I wanted to elude them, but a collision was unavoidable. I growled and wheeled my cart out the doors. They bombarded me with "Will you sign this petition about electing candidates this November who are the most qualified and the best trained?" I begrudgingly said yes and filled out my information.
Small talk ensued. A shopper left Hy-Vee. The petitioners tried to cajole her. She said, "I'm not registered." That struck me as rude and odd. Was she lying to evade signing? If so, well done. Artful. People are shady like that. I asked, "What's the percentage of registered to unregistered voters?" A petitioner said, "Oh, probably sixty to forty." Wow. Whoa. Hold on. Timeout. Either Lincoln has a superabundance of fabricators, okay, stinking compassionless liars, or a superabundance of unregistered voters. I don't know what the true statistics are, but neither reality is at all comforting. Then the other petitioner said, "A lot of felons too."
Felons? What the flip?
I asked, "Are you serious?"
He nodded intently and said something like, "Yes. You wouldn't believe the number of people who said, 'Sorry, I can't. I have a felony on my record.' It's kind of startling."
My brain was mush by now. Oatmeal. After some forgettable jokes between us, I wished them a good night and left.
Well, I won't be squeezing fruit like there's no tomorrow in that supermarket anymore. Who knows how many ex-cons are carrying shivs in the cereal aisle while shopping for Frosted Cheerios?
D. May 11. 4:00 p.m. Relaxing outside The Mill, eating uncut, plain bagels that were supposed to be French toast-flavored. Overweight couple after overweight couple tramped up and down 8th Street, blocking the sun, waddling like crabs, and holding hands. Each planet—and that's what these walking soda and vending machines are, planets—needs to remain in its respective orbit. Why is Saturn palming one of Jupiter's moons?
I'm not much of a romantic. Chivalry is under the sod. PDA? Strictly for the birds. I understand literal handwringing but not literal handholding. What does it prove? Does it shout your love to the world? I'm lost. Adrian Monk these touchy-feely folks aren't. I'm naturally dismissive, so it seems that holding hands is a sign of insecurity. Oh, I'll hold your hand in mine. We'll lightly swing our arms to prove that, yeah, we're together. I'm with you. Hey, everybody, I'm with this person! That'll show 'em. Balderdash. Picture me hawking a loogie.
There should be a weight limit on couples desirous of holding hands. How about 300 bills? Is a two-chin max too mean? If you've been responsible for a solar eclipse in your day, you should hold a Slim-Fast shake and not the sweaty, fleshy paw of your indubitably obese enabler.
May 2, 2008
Yeah, I Called You a Racist. Tough!
"You're a racist!" she half-shouted at me last Thursday at Gecko's, er, Iguana's. Her portly friend, a real bowling ball, chirped in too, saying, "Oh, she called you out."
Bollocks. Uh-uh. Not a BombPop's chance in hell.
(She of the potty mouth and forked tongue—a friend's girlfriend whom I've wasted less than five minutes of conversational breath on in total since summer 2007—was an acquaintance at best. Look, I'm perversely happy that she slandered me. I instantly thought, "Well, here's a blog.")
I didn't deserve this putdown. I hadn't said anything racially insensitive. Other times? Sure. I'm as imperfect as broken glass. But I was on my best behavior. Not a peep of offensive material. Though I was in ultra-critical mode as always, she hadn't heard any of it. In point of fact: I'd hardly spoken a word to her. That's what was so queer about it. Her attack was entirely unprovoked. She said her group was going to Main Street and urged me to join them. I declined. Then with a devious grin, she tossed the racist frag at me. That is a label whose appropriateness I will dispute until I'm royal blue in the face.
Yeah, I could've berated her—and maybe cracked that "listening to you is worse than listening to Arianna Huffington"—but my all-important torpor was too great.
In a futile attempt to backtrack, she said something like, "I know my boyfriend's friends, and they're all racists."
I didn't know how to reply then. I don't know how to reply now. I still have lockjaw.
Look, you don't even know me, Geraldine Ferraro!
Bollocks. Uh-uh. Not a BombPop's chance in hell.
(She of the potty mouth and forked tongue—a friend's girlfriend whom I've wasted less than five minutes of conversational breath on in total since summer 2007—was an acquaintance at best. Look, I'm perversely happy that she slandered me. I instantly thought, "Well, here's a blog.")
I didn't deserve this putdown. I hadn't said anything racially insensitive. Other times? Sure. I'm as imperfect as broken glass. But I was on my best behavior. Not a peep of offensive material. Though I was in ultra-critical mode as always, she hadn't heard any of it. In point of fact: I'd hardly spoken a word to her. That's what was so queer about it. Her attack was entirely unprovoked. She said her group was going to Main Street and urged me to join them. I declined. Then with a devious grin, she tossed the racist frag at me. That is a label whose appropriateness I will dispute until I'm royal blue in the face.
Yeah, I could've berated her—and maybe cracked that "listening to you is worse than listening to Arianna Huffington"—but my all-important torpor was too great.
In a futile attempt to backtrack, she said something like, "I know my boyfriend's friends, and they're all racists."
I didn't know how to reply then. I don't know how to reply now. I still have lockjaw.
Look, you don't even know me, Geraldine Ferraro!
April 27, 2008
"I Can't Write for Shit but I Want Your Vote"
If you have a law degree but can't write coherently, satisfactorily, or cogently for that matter, I have to excoriate you. I must—especially when you're running for the Nebraska legislature! (Note: I refuse to capitalize "legislature." Sue me.) There's no gray area here. You're supposed to be educated. You're supposed to be more than an empty suit and a three-dollar haircut. Get your act together.
His name is Brent Smoyer. We went to the same high school; he was a year below me. While a genial fellow, he was an unpopular goof. Plays, choirs, and musicals occupied his time, not that there's anything wrong with that. He was the most ungainly football player ever. One gasser would leave him wheezing like a geriatric without an oxygen mask. He'd jog out to practice, and his face would already be as red as a maraschino cherry. His car? An Oldsmobile that looked like a beige outhouse. I mention this to highlight the fact that he failed to relate to anyone then. Toss in the nugget that people don't normally change drastically. So how's he supposed to relate to the populace now?
He's chasing a fairy tale and losing ground.
It's as clear as day: Besides being a wannabe, he's just another callow, jerkwater politico, albeit one with the language skills of Danny Bonaduce.
His error-strewn "Issues" page:
www.brentsmoyer.com/Issues.html
What is this dross? And it is dross. Is it a first draft?
It's redundant. It's schlocky. It's infantile from alpha to omega. It's categorically boring. Where's the flair? You have a law degree, and this pabulum is you putting your best foot forward? Forget that. You're not earning, or getting, my vote. You're earning my contempt. This isn't quantum physics. How can you sleep at night? Reproach yourself this instant!
(I'll forgo adding a [sic] to all of his oversights. There'd be far too many of them. They'd bog down the writing. I'll just get it out of the way: [sic].)
Ever heard of a hyphen? No? Okay. Didn't think so. "Ever growing need"? "High caliber universities"? "Well being"? Dude, it's a blasted noun. Hyphenate it already! That is sad and pathetic. Hemingway was a drunk who ate a load of buckshot but he respected and employed the hyphen. Correctly using a hyphen can be a gratifying experience. But I'm talking jabberwocky right now, aren't I? Hyphen. Hy-phen. Not hymen. Hyphen.
Understand the rules of a period? Nope? Not surprising. Here's a free lesson: Always, always, always, always, always, always place a period (or a comma) inside the quotation mark. Is "always" too vague for you? Too ambiguous? The Unabomber was a deranged (and violent) stargazer but he cared about his manifesto's grammaticality. He cared. Why don't you? Hmmm, perhaps I'll cast a write-in vote for Teddy Bear Kaczynski.
Here's you: "family".
Here's me: I'm now flaccid.
Here's civilized society: "family."
"Nebraskan" is singular. "Their" is plural. "Child"? Singular. "Them"? Plural. "Them" cannot refer to "child" and "their" cannot refer to "Nebraskan," yet you nonchalantly do it. Repeatedly. Interminably. Strangely. Unprofessionally. Vexingly. Is it pathological? It's as if you think the—what you see as negligible—difference between singular and plural is pure semantics reserved for stuffy grammarians in ivory towers. Are you ignorant or just careless?
Did you write this tripe or did one of your surrogates, say a toddler on the refrigerator door with crayons?
Looks like someone skipped remedial English many summers ago to put on a fantabulous rendition of Guys and Dolls at the Piccadilly Dinner Theatre. I hope you enjoyed your curtain call. It was surely your last.
His name is Brent Smoyer. We went to the same high school; he was a year below me. While a genial fellow, he was an unpopular goof. Plays, choirs, and musicals occupied his time, not that there's anything wrong with that. He was the most ungainly football player ever. One gasser would leave him wheezing like a geriatric without an oxygen mask. He'd jog out to practice, and his face would already be as red as a maraschino cherry. His car? An Oldsmobile that looked like a beige outhouse. I mention this to highlight the fact that he failed to relate to anyone then. Toss in the nugget that people don't normally change drastically. So how's he supposed to relate to the populace now?
He's chasing a fairy tale and losing ground.
It's as clear as day: Besides being a wannabe, he's just another callow, jerkwater politico, albeit one with the language skills of Danny Bonaduce.
His error-strewn "Issues" page:
www.brentsmoyer.com/Issues.html
What is this dross? And it is dross. Is it a first draft?
It's redundant. It's schlocky. It's infantile from alpha to omega. It's categorically boring. Where's the flair? You have a law degree, and this pabulum is you putting your best foot forward? Forget that. You're not earning, or getting, my vote. You're earning my contempt. This isn't quantum physics. How can you sleep at night? Reproach yourself this instant!
(I'll forgo adding a [sic] to all of his oversights. There'd be far too many of them. They'd bog down the writing. I'll just get it out of the way: [sic].)
Ever heard of a hyphen? No? Okay. Didn't think so. "Ever growing need"? "High caliber universities"? "Well being"? Dude, it's a blasted noun. Hyphenate it already! That is sad and pathetic. Hemingway was a drunk who ate a load of buckshot but he respected and employed the hyphen. Correctly using a hyphen can be a gratifying experience. But I'm talking jabberwocky right now, aren't I? Hyphen. Hy-phen. Not hymen. Hyphen.
Understand the rules of a period? Nope? Not surprising. Here's a free lesson: Always, always, always, always, always, always place a period (or a comma) inside the quotation mark. Is "always" too vague for you? Too ambiguous? The Unabomber was a deranged (and violent) stargazer but he cared about his manifesto's grammaticality. He cared. Why don't you? Hmmm, perhaps I'll cast a write-in vote for Teddy Bear Kaczynski.
Here's you: "family".
Here's me: I'm now flaccid.
Here's civilized society: "family."
"Nebraskan" is singular. "Their" is plural. "Child"? Singular. "Them"? Plural. "Them" cannot refer to "child" and "their" cannot refer to "Nebraskan," yet you nonchalantly do it. Repeatedly. Interminably. Strangely. Unprofessionally. Vexingly. Is it pathological? It's as if you think the—what you see as negligible—difference between singular and plural is pure semantics reserved for stuffy grammarians in ivory towers. Are you ignorant or just careless?
Did you write this tripe or did one of your surrogates, say a toddler on the refrigerator door with crayons?
Looks like someone skipped remedial English many summers ago to put on a fantabulous rendition of Guys and Dolls at the Piccadilly Dinner Theatre. I hope you enjoyed your curtain call. It was surely your last.
April 23, 2008
Don't Accost Me in a Restroom!
Whosoever accosts a stranger in a Gold's Gym restroom/locker room deserves unequivocally callous scorn. Last night, I was said stranger. The no-neck, tatted-up, partially cross-eyed accoster was a redheaded stepchild if I've ever seen one.
It was 11:15 p.m. I was blowing my nose after running about four miles. Sweat saturated my shirt. MP3 player blared Phil Collins' "Something Happened On the Way to Heaven."
In walks the goon with the cartoonish mass, acting as if the room were too small for his gigantic muscles. (C'mon, you have to save that swagger for O Street!) He wore sweatpants and a blue wifebeater. His left arm was one continuous tat, with the U.S. flag emblazoning his shoulder. "You're looking at a patriot. Get my patriotism in ink. I was a special-needs student throughout school. Do you do tramp stamps? I want a rainbow." A pro-wrestling reject, I thought. His underdeveloped mustache looked as if he'd smeared Dorothy Lynch under his nose. His eyes had this slow-on-the-uptake glaze about them. Dopey-looking—that's the choice descriptive.
I'd shaved off my mini-afro earlier in the day and was/am rocking a cut that a friend calls the Jack Shephard, and the lastingly wretched sunburn on my forehead had warped my face into a grimace. I didn't exactly look like the kindest, most approachable fellow in the gym.
Meathead was unfazed. He asked, "Have a nice workout?"
I said something like, "I work hard and have overactive sweat glands. It's the perfect storm."
Curtains. Or not.
(The following one-sided conversation occurred with about ten feet between us. He was still in my personal space, and I was out of my comfort zone. He was a body language abecedarian, okay, know-nothing. He sure as heck couldn't read mine. I often glanced away. I twirled my earbuds. I discreetly tapped on my left wrist where a watch might be. No difference.)
He launched into a gassy monologue that was as self-serving as it was unintelligible. Besides "Cool, man," "I see," "Good luck with that," "Oh," and "That sucks," I couldn't get a word in edgewise. He inconsiderately prattled for about three minutes—it seemed like three years—about tearing a rotator cuff and a bicep, some bone protruding somewhere, and bodybuilding competitions. (Bodybuilding? He had breasts! C cups. He needed a "mansiere.") This wasn't/isn't his fatal flaw. The motormouth could not enunciate. No enunciation, period. He'd spit out a paragraph like it was one word. I could maybe understand every sixth word. (Insert your own "Hooked on Phonics" joke.) "Body" was the only word you'd find in a dictionary.
It was highly perturbing. I wanted to bail but didn't want to be overtly rude. Why couldn't I be more of a fire-eater? "Enough out of you! No one cares how many steroids you injected today? You're not Lyle Alzado." I couldn't do it.
He said he has three jobs, I think, one as a bouncer. Of course. A person with piss-poor to no people skills should work with people, and unthinking, sodden, dissatisfied ones at that. Makes sense.
My breaking point came, and I walked past him. He was still crowing illiterately about powerlifting, bronzing, and pose-offs. I waited for him to take a breath and said, "Dude, I'm not gay."
Interaction? Flatline.
It was 11:15 p.m. I was blowing my nose after running about four miles. Sweat saturated my shirt. MP3 player blared Phil Collins' "Something Happened On the Way to Heaven."
In walks the goon with the cartoonish mass, acting as if the room were too small for his gigantic muscles. (C'mon, you have to save that swagger for O Street!) He wore sweatpants and a blue wifebeater. His left arm was one continuous tat, with the U.S. flag emblazoning his shoulder. "You're looking at a patriot. Get my patriotism in ink. I was a special-needs student throughout school. Do you do tramp stamps? I want a rainbow." A pro-wrestling reject, I thought. His underdeveloped mustache looked as if he'd smeared Dorothy Lynch under his nose. His eyes had this slow-on-the-uptake glaze about them. Dopey-looking—that's the choice descriptive.
I'd shaved off my mini-afro earlier in the day and was/am rocking a cut that a friend calls the Jack Shephard, and the lastingly wretched sunburn on my forehead had warped my face into a grimace. I didn't exactly look like the kindest, most approachable fellow in the gym.
Meathead was unfazed. He asked, "Have a nice workout?"
I said something like, "I work hard and have overactive sweat glands. It's the perfect storm."
Curtains. Or not.
(The following one-sided conversation occurred with about ten feet between us. He was still in my personal space, and I was out of my comfort zone. He was a body language abecedarian, okay, know-nothing. He sure as heck couldn't read mine. I often glanced away. I twirled my earbuds. I discreetly tapped on my left wrist where a watch might be. No difference.)
He launched into a gassy monologue that was as self-serving as it was unintelligible. Besides "Cool, man," "I see," "Good luck with that," "Oh," and "That sucks," I couldn't get a word in edgewise. He inconsiderately prattled for about three minutes—it seemed like three years—about tearing a rotator cuff and a bicep, some bone protruding somewhere, and bodybuilding competitions. (Bodybuilding? He had breasts! C cups. He needed a "mansiere.") This wasn't/isn't his fatal flaw. The motormouth could not enunciate. No enunciation, period. He'd spit out a paragraph like it was one word. I could maybe understand every sixth word. (Insert your own "Hooked on Phonics" joke.) "Body" was the only word you'd find in a dictionary.
It was highly perturbing. I wanted to bail but didn't want to be overtly rude. Why couldn't I be more of a fire-eater? "Enough out of you! No one cares how many steroids you injected today? You're not Lyle Alzado." I couldn't do it.
He said he has three jobs, I think, one as a bouncer. Of course. A person with piss-poor to no people skills should work with people, and unthinking, sodden, dissatisfied ones at that. Makes sense.
My breaking point came, and I walked past him. He was still crowing illiterately about powerlifting, bronzing, and pose-offs. I waited for him to take a breath and said, "Dude, I'm not gay."
Interaction? Flatline.
April 21, 2008
Am I Trying to Sabotage This First Date?
I behave stupidly. Ergo, I do stupid things. To understand why I do stupid things, I may as well do stupid things.
My brainlessness was on full display yesterday—during a first date. At one point, I even thought, Am I trying to sabotage this? During this meltdown for the ages, I riddled my feet with lead. Though I was a gaffe machine, the date still seemed to go well, somehow.
The Litany of Blunders
1. The previous week, I'd emailed her various songs. These included Buckcherry's "Lit Up," the Stones' "Let's Spend the Night Together," and Stone Temple Pilots' "Sex Type Thing."
2. The yolky sun arcing over Saturday's Red-White Spring Game and its temperate rays terribly seared my lily-white skin, so my nose, forehead, and cheeks were glaringly rosy. The tops of my knees and the bottoms of my thighs looked as if I'd colored them with dullish red chalk. I was in such pain that I'd been popping Aleve like they were Chewy Runts. I wasn't nervous. No. I was in exorbitant agony from all the melting flesh. Thus, no yips.
3. I showered but moronically chose to wear the same clothes from the night before when I was a walking sales rack for American Eagle. I likely reeked of Budweiser and Michelob Ultra.
4. We tried to eat at The Green Gateau. This was Sunday at noon, so it was packed. We tried to eat at Bison Witches. What a zoo. We went next door to The Coffee House. Thankfully, the place was dead. I was down to my last strike.
5. After making a platitudinous comment to the barista about "muffin tops," I ordered two "giant" muffins, blueberry and pumpkin. Muffins? Really? Can a man—okay, I'm not a man; I'm a lad in a man's body—order muffins on a first date? Isn't this tantamount to a man ordering a salad at a restaurant on a first date?
6. I somewhat rudely chastised her for trying to pay for her food and drink. She pulled her purse from her bag, and I said, "Put that away! We're not going Dutch." The total cost was $7.92. Yep, I looked like a real cheapskate.
7. We sat down and began eating. The muffins were disintegrating like wet sandcastles. I was making a mess. Crumbs everywhere. And I was talking with my mouth full.
8. I was dehydrated from three nights of insobriety so I ordered water and chomped away on ice cubes. My date? A future dentist. She duly and politely called me on it. I unabashedly continued crushing those glorified hailstones.
9. I yammered about Nazi Germany and how it was a good thing that my ancestors fled to Russia decades earlier. I said, "Who knows what the Nazis would've done with my ancestors...probably put them on a train to Auschwitz-Birkenau." (Germans exterminating other Germans? What?) Boy, you're some conversationalist. Will you wise up?
10. I told her I'd shaved my legs on Saturday and said, "Go on. Feel 'em." She did. I said, "I'm just not that hairy," and delved into this story: "It was junior year of high school. I was jogging out to football practice when some, like, seventh-grade girl goes, 'Hey, do you shave your legs?' 'No!' I shrieked. She almost reduced me to tears." By now, I'd completely, if not irrevocably, emasculated myself, but the self-destruction was far from over.
11. I mentioned how I'm set to apply to the Iowa Writers' Workshop. "I used to be like, 'I know I can write at that level.' Now it's more like, 'I think I can write at that level.' I'm not as arrogant as I once was." A short while later, I blurted out, "I've wasted prodigious talent." Gee. That's attractive. That's what every woman wants to hear.
12. I waxed nostalgic about my days as an opinion columnist for the Dakota Student newspaper—the old Dakota Stupid—when I was "the most reviled columnist at any student paper in the country." I said that the students created a Facebook group. It's name, you ask? "Jake Beideck...I Use Big Words to Feel Smart." I added that they labeled me a pompous ass.
13. Then I brought up abortion. "I'm pro-life with an asterisk, because if a woman is raped, she should have every right to an abortion." Was I brain-dead? Bless her heart for changing the subject.
14. We left and walked to my truck in the parking garage across from BDubs. I walked around to the passenger side, saying, "We open doors in my family!" I motioned to insert the key into the lock and saw that she hadn't locked it. (I may've made a snide remark. "You didn't lock your door." I don't recall. I did say, "We lock doors in my family!") Then I didn't bother opening the door for her.
15. I drive a '98 Dodge Dakota. It has a tape player. Led Zeppelin's "Misty Mountain Hop" played as I started the ignition. I proudly said, "I made this tape on Friday. I'm the last person on Earth who still makes tapes." She laughed. "I made this tape" guarantees a laugh—but it's usually out of sheer pity.
16. We drove by the Cornhusker Hotel. I said, "[Redacted] once pulled a Keith Moon in one of their hotel rooms. You know, throwing lamps and stuff." (She got the reference, which I thought was hotter than hot.) How does sharing this off-center anecdote further my cause?
17. Finally, I realized I'd forgotten to tell her that she looked beautiful, which she most certainly did. So I wrote it in an email.
End
"Yep, I'm a real man. I'll prove it to you by gnawing on ice cubes, eating a delicious pumpkin muffin, and flaunting my smooth legs. Call me."
My brainlessness was on full display yesterday—during a first date. At one point, I even thought, Am I trying to sabotage this? During this meltdown for the ages, I riddled my feet with lead. Though I was a gaffe machine, the date still seemed to go well, somehow.
The Litany of Blunders
1. The previous week, I'd emailed her various songs. These included Buckcherry's "Lit Up," the Stones' "Let's Spend the Night Together," and Stone Temple Pilots' "Sex Type Thing."
2. The yolky sun arcing over Saturday's Red-White Spring Game and its temperate rays terribly seared my lily-white skin, so my nose, forehead, and cheeks were glaringly rosy. The tops of my knees and the bottoms of my thighs looked as if I'd colored them with dullish red chalk. I was in such pain that I'd been popping Aleve like they were Chewy Runts. I wasn't nervous. No. I was in exorbitant agony from all the melting flesh. Thus, no yips.
3. I showered but moronically chose to wear the same clothes from the night before when I was a walking sales rack for American Eagle. I likely reeked of Budweiser and Michelob Ultra.
4. We tried to eat at The Green Gateau. This was Sunday at noon, so it was packed. We tried to eat at Bison Witches. What a zoo. We went next door to The Coffee House. Thankfully, the place was dead. I was down to my last strike.
5. After making a platitudinous comment to the barista about "muffin tops," I ordered two "giant" muffins, blueberry and pumpkin. Muffins? Really? Can a man—okay, I'm not a man; I'm a lad in a man's body—order muffins on a first date? Isn't this tantamount to a man ordering a salad at a restaurant on a first date?
6. I somewhat rudely chastised her for trying to pay for her food and drink. She pulled her purse from her bag, and I said, "Put that away! We're not going Dutch." The total cost was $7.92. Yep, I looked like a real cheapskate.
7. We sat down and began eating. The muffins were disintegrating like wet sandcastles. I was making a mess. Crumbs everywhere. And I was talking with my mouth full.
8. I was dehydrated from three nights of insobriety so I ordered water and chomped away on ice cubes. My date? A future dentist. She duly and politely called me on it. I unabashedly continued crushing those glorified hailstones.
9. I yammered about Nazi Germany and how it was a good thing that my ancestors fled to Russia decades earlier. I said, "Who knows what the Nazis would've done with my ancestors...probably put them on a train to Auschwitz-Birkenau." (Germans exterminating other Germans? What?) Boy, you're some conversationalist. Will you wise up?
10. I told her I'd shaved my legs on Saturday and said, "Go on. Feel 'em." She did. I said, "I'm just not that hairy," and delved into this story: "It was junior year of high school. I was jogging out to football practice when some, like, seventh-grade girl goes, 'Hey, do you shave your legs?' 'No!' I shrieked. She almost reduced me to tears." By now, I'd completely, if not irrevocably, emasculated myself, but the self-destruction was far from over.
11. I mentioned how I'm set to apply to the Iowa Writers' Workshop. "I used to be like, 'I know I can write at that level.' Now it's more like, 'I think I can write at that level.' I'm not as arrogant as I once was." A short while later, I blurted out, "I've wasted prodigious talent." Gee. That's attractive. That's what every woman wants to hear.
12. I waxed nostalgic about my days as an opinion columnist for the Dakota Student newspaper—the old Dakota Stupid—when I was "the most reviled columnist at any student paper in the country." I said that the students created a Facebook group. It's name, you ask? "Jake Beideck...I Use Big Words to Feel Smart." I added that they labeled me a pompous ass.
13. Then I brought up abortion. "I'm pro-life with an asterisk, because if a woman is raped, she should have every right to an abortion." Was I brain-dead? Bless her heart for changing the subject.
14. We left and walked to my truck in the parking garage across from BDubs. I walked around to the passenger side, saying, "We open doors in my family!" I motioned to insert the key into the lock and saw that she hadn't locked it. (I may've made a snide remark. "You didn't lock your door." I don't recall. I did say, "We lock doors in my family!") Then I didn't bother opening the door for her.
15. I drive a '98 Dodge Dakota. It has a tape player. Led Zeppelin's "Misty Mountain Hop" played as I started the ignition. I proudly said, "I made this tape on Friday. I'm the last person on Earth who still makes tapes." She laughed. "I made this tape" guarantees a laugh—but it's usually out of sheer pity.
16. We drove by the Cornhusker Hotel. I said, "[Redacted] once pulled a Keith Moon in one of their hotel rooms. You know, throwing lamps and stuff." (She got the reference, which I thought was hotter than hot.) How does sharing this off-center anecdote further my cause?
17. Finally, I realized I'd forgotten to tell her that she looked beautiful, which she most certainly did. So I wrote it in an email.
End
"Yep, I'm a real man. I'll prove it to you by gnawing on ice cubes, eating a delicious pumpkin muffin, and flaunting my smooth legs. Call me."
It's four a.m. Time to buy a gun.
Well, it happened again. I was in Wal-Mart in the wee hours and overheard two sows, er, associates in requisite grody blue vests talking about "some guy in sporting goods making a scene because he can't buy a handgun." (I giddily smiled like Larry Craig in a men's room.)
I heard a similar conversation at a similar time in the same Wal-Mart in 2003. One associate said, "No good comes from buying a gun at four in the morning." Amen to that. The smartest thing a Wal-Mart hump ever said! If she'd have said, "It's not like Biggie Smalls said. Quote, 'I never thought it could happen, this rappin' stuff. I was too used to packin' gats and stuff,'" I would've barebacked her with closed eyes while feverishly burning, inhaling, and hacking on an entire pack of Marlboro Reds. I made a Taxi Driver joke—"Travis Bickle wants his insanity back"—that didn't land whatsoever and trudged away.
Why would a man suddenly need a heater at four bells? Perhaps desperate times call for gunplay.
I've puzzled over this for days and can't make heads or tails of it. I don't know if there's something in the water in Lincoln, if Wal-Mart is the honey to every bee of a wacko, if every nutter in town hits the streets under a full moon like in the "Thriller" video, or if alcohol propels these schizos to believe they're characters in any Grand Theft Auto game, craving ballistic mayhem and fantasizing about pistol-whipping streetwalkers.
(Nothing is sacred—not even inappropriate and crass fictitious dialogue about gun violence.)
"Yeah, my ex's cat puked on my favorite bedspread. Gimme a Glock. Now."
"I love the phrase 'hail of gunfire.' I'd very much like to do that. Call me crazy. So yeah, I want that gun and that box of bullets."
"Any gun will suffice. Just hand me a bullet and a gun and look the other way, friend. Please. This is such an upside-down world. How can Santa Claus not be real?"
"The six degrees of Kevin Bacon is a thought that continues to keep me up at night. Well, not any longer."
"I've had it with people abbreviating everything. Les Mis? I mean, what is that? I'll take that shiny six-shooter. Then it'll be like, Les Comatose."
"There's a man from Great Britain who likes Nebraska, and the Lincoln Journal Star figured it was worthy of a column in yesterday's paper. I'm going to put a stop to this." (The Journal Star actually wrote this column in August 2004. Blockheads.)
"I'll take that snub-nosed piece. This isn't Dirty Harry. I'm not Billy Rosewood in Beverly Hills Cop II. My gun doesn't represent or overcompensate for my phallus. It's just, you know, my in-laws are staying with us. Hey, I'd also like to practice first. Do you guys sell bowling pins?"
"Listen, I've seen weeping willows before. Did they look like they were crying to you? I'll give them something to cry about."
(Speaking like Lumbergh) "Yeah, hi. My boss wants me to come in on Sunday. If I have to come in on a Sunday, I'm coming in heavy. M'Kay?"
"I told her I'm not getting a vasectomy. She's out of her gourd! Damn her. I need a gun with stopping power. I'm gonna empty that sucker, and she'll be on Dancing with the Slugs. Oh yes, she'll be doing the dance all right."
I heard a similar conversation at a similar time in the same Wal-Mart in 2003. One associate said, "No good comes from buying a gun at four in the morning." Amen to that. The smartest thing a Wal-Mart hump ever said! If she'd have said, "It's not like Biggie Smalls said. Quote, 'I never thought it could happen, this rappin' stuff. I was too used to packin' gats and stuff,'" I would've barebacked her with closed eyes while feverishly burning, inhaling, and hacking on an entire pack of Marlboro Reds. I made a Taxi Driver joke—"Travis Bickle wants his insanity back"—that didn't land whatsoever and trudged away.
Why would a man suddenly need a heater at four bells? Perhaps desperate times call for gunplay.
I've puzzled over this for days and can't make heads or tails of it. I don't know if there's something in the water in Lincoln, if Wal-Mart is the honey to every bee of a wacko, if every nutter in town hits the streets under a full moon like in the "Thriller" video, or if alcohol propels these schizos to believe they're characters in any Grand Theft Auto game, craving ballistic mayhem and fantasizing about pistol-whipping streetwalkers.
(Nothing is sacred—not even inappropriate and crass fictitious dialogue about gun violence.)
"Yeah, my ex's cat puked on my favorite bedspread. Gimme a Glock. Now."
"I love the phrase 'hail of gunfire.' I'd very much like to do that. Call me crazy. So yeah, I want that gun and that box of bullets."
"Any gun will suffice. Just hand me a bullet and a gun and look the other way, friend. Please. This is such an upside-down world. How can Santa Claus not be real?"
"The six degrees of Kevin Bacon is a thought that continues to keep me up at night. Well, not any longer."
"I've had it with people abbreviating everything. Les Mis? I mean, what is that? I'll take that shiny six-shooter. Then it'll be like, Les Comatose."
"There's a man from Great Britain who likes Nebraska, and the Lincoln Journal Star figured it was worthy of a column in yesterday's paper. I'm going to put a stop to this." (The Journal Star actually wrote this column in August 2004. Blockheads.)
"I'll take that snub-nosed piece. This isn't Dirty Harry. I'm not Billy Rosewood in Beverly Hills Cop II. My gun doesn't represent or overcompensate for my phallus. It's just, you know, my in-laws are staying with us. Hey, I'd also like to practice first. Do you guys sell bowling pins?"
"Listen, I've seen weeping willows before. Did they look like they were crying to you? I'll give them something to cry about."
(Speaking like Lumbergh) "Yeah, hi. My boss wants me to come in on Sunday. If I have to come in on a Sunday, I'm coming in heavy. M'Kay?"
"I told her I'm not getting a vasectomy. She's out of her gourd! Damn her. I need a gun with stopping power. I'm gonna empty that sucker, and she'll be on Dancing with the Slugs. Oh yes, she'll be doing the dance all right."
April 15, 2008
"Do you need help out?" Hell no!
Why are the cashiers in Lincoln such unsocial functional illiterates and grumps? Are "scowl your heart out" and "must hate life" job requirements?
How about a smile? Show me your Chiclets—if you have any. Dentures will suffice.
Please greet me with anything besides a perfunctory, lifeless "hey." Change it up. Variety is the spice of Cashangri-La. Say, "Hi." Say, "Hello there." Say, "Whaddaya say? Whaddaya know?" Say, "That's some bulge in your pants." Say something different or just say beans.
Don't futilely talk at me as if you can enrich my existence with your dime-store insights. Get ahold of your life. You're fluent in Basic English on occasion so confidently arrange a few of those 850 words into a competent and piquant sentence and drop it like it's hot.
We're all in the same boat, are we not? Stop rowing retrograde. Stop whittling the hull of the Mayflower. We'll never discover the next brave new world together if we sink ignominiously or go out like the Andrea Gail. Pull-start your brain, don't overcharge me for the cheese popcorn, and let's have a conversation.
Stop blathering about the weather. Yes, it's nippy outside. I have skin! I know it's raining sideways. I'm not Ray Charles! Sure, the roads are slick. I just sideswiped a minivan and left the scene of the accident! Of course this mid-July day is a broiler. I have Old Nick on speed dial. Satan's in my Fave 5!
This brings me to this morning—specifically the small hours, about 1:20 a.m.—when I had an encounter with a fiftyish female cashier at the Russ's Market on Havelock that was grippingly head-scratching and moderately insulting. (It left me so flabbergasted that I ran a red light at 48th and Superior.)
The cashier wore reading glasses, the designer frames dangling on the tip of her nose like raindrops on a gutter, in an otherwise vain attempt to feign sophistication. She sacked up my groceries, and I grabbed the four light sacks and said thank you with genuine politeness. Then came this repugnant, irrational, and wacky dialogue:
Crazy Cashier: "Do you need help out?"
Me: "Uhh." What is she trying to say in this peculiar, un-English way? Light bulb! Oh, the sacks. "No." Dramatic pause. "It'd be pretty sad if I needed help carrying these." A faint grin.
Crazy Cashier: Nodding. "Okay."
Me: (In an inquisitive tone) "Are you required to ask that?"
Crazy Cashier: "No."
Me: Confusion glinted in my eyes. "Hunh? Well, do you ask everyone that?"
Crazy Cashier: Slowly shook head "no."
(This cashier was as guileful as Livia Soprano.)
I shambled into the parking lot with my mouth agape—you could've wedged a beehive inside. I almost had an out-of-body experience. What just happened? Was she insinuating that I was physically challenged? A limp gimp? Get real. Some featherbrained, menopausal cashier who makes minimum wage and can hardly afford gruel can't pull this crap. (It's a good thing that I didn't have a woman at my side or else I would've instructed, okay, warmly begged her to deck this hag.) How dare she? I wasn't wheeling around like Lieutenant Dan!
How about a smile? Show me your Chiclets—if you have any. Dentures will suffice.
Please greet me with anything besides a perfunctory, lifeless "hey." Change it up. Variety is the spice of Cashangri-La. Say, "Hi." Say, "Hello there." Say, "Whaddaya say? Whaddaya know?" Say, "That's some bulge in your pants." Say something different or just say beans.
Don't futilely talk at me as if you can enrich my existence with your dime-store insights. Get ahold of your life. You're fluent in Basic English on occasion so confidently arrange a few of those 850 words into a competent and piquant sentence and drop it like it's hot.
We're all in the same boat, are we not? Stop rowing retrograde. Stop whittling the hull of the Mayflower. We'll never discover the next brave new world together if we sink ignominiously or go out like the Andrea Gail. Pull-start your brain, don't overcharge me for the cheese popcorn, and let's have a conversation.
Stop blathering about the weather. Yes, it's nippy outside. I have skin! I know it's raining sideways. I'm not Ray Charles! Sure, the roads are slick. I just sideswiped a minivan and left the scene of the accident! Of course this mid-July day is a broiler. I have Old Nick on speed dial. Satan's in my Fave 5!
This brings me to this morning—specifically the small hours, about 1:20 a.m.—when I had an encounter with a fiftyish female cashier at the Russ's Market on Havelock that was grippingly head-scratching and moderately insulting. (It left me so flabbergasted that I ran a red light at 48th and Superior.)
The cashier wore reading glasses, the designer frames dangling on the tip of her nose like raindrops on a gutter, in an otherwise vain attempt to feign sophistication. She sacked up my groceries, and I grabbed the four light sacks and said thank you with genuine politeness. Then came this repugnant, irrational, and wacky dialogue:
Crazy Cashier: "Do you need help out?"
Me: "Uhh." What is she trying to say in this peculiar, un-English way? Light bulb! Oh, the sacks. "No." Dramatic pause. "It'd be pretty sad if I needed help carrying these." A faint grin.
Crazy Cashier: Nodding. "Okay."
Me: (In an inquisitive tone) "Are you required to ask that?"
Crazy Cashier: "No."
Me: Confusion glinted in my eyes. "Hunh? Well, do you ask everyone that?"
Crazy Cashier: Slowly shook head "no."
(This cashier was as guileful as Livia Soprano.)
I shambled into the parking lot with my mouth agape—you could've wedged a beehive inside. I almost had an out-of-body experience. What just happened? Was she insinuating that I was physically challenged? A limp gimp? Get real. Some featherbrained, menopausal cashier who makes minimum wage and can hardly afford gruel can't pull this crap. (It's a good thing that I didn't have a woman at my side or else I would've instructed, okay, warmly begged her to deck this hag.) How dare she? I wasn't wheeling around like Lieutenant Dan!
April 10, 2008
April 8, 2008
An Unwitting Beard
I'm in a quandary. An ex-flame returned to Lincoln in June 2007, back from playing pro B-ball overseas. I saw her three times last year—including once at The Alley where I had to end a spat between her and her lover—but I don't want to see her anymore. I've ignored her texts ("Are you dead?" "Houdini, hello?") and calls for months.
Here she is at my twenty-first birthday extravaganza at the West A Pub.
Oops, wrong photo. This is it. (Check out the townie in the background. She wanted my junk, hard!)
I'm hesitant to go into details. (This one-time Miss Nebraska Basketball played for the Huskers before transferring after three years.) Her father and uncle were once made men in the Chicago mob. I'm not embellishing for effect. I spent an Easter at her uncle's compound somewhere in the wooded outskirts of Omaha, where they forced me to mash potatoes and watch The Crew and Goodfellas. The house had eight security cameras. C'mon, I know former wise guys when I see 'em. Ink. Humorlessness. Rooms brimming with what appeared to be ill-gotten merchandise. It was like having Easter brunch with Al Capone and Frank Nitti.
She's now a lesbian—I'd even characterize her as a lipstick lesbian—and I was the last guy she dated a handful of years ago. I was oblivious to her lesbian proclivities. A friend threw a non sequitur in an email that said he saw her and her girlfriend, now "wife," making out in the back of a van during a road trip. My mouth dropped. I didn't even know she was bi. Maybe she wasn't.
Maybe I was her beard! Did I actually play such a godforsaken role? It always seemed as if it'd be so much hotter to be a beard. Hmmm. It was colder than cold cuts.
Here she is at my twenty-first birthday extravaganza at the West A Pub.
Oops, wrong photo. This is it. (Check out the townie in the background. She wanted my junk, hard!)
I'm hesitant to go into details. (This one-time Miss Nebraska Basketball played for the Huskers before transferring after three years.) Her father and uncle were once made men in the Chicago mob. I'm not embellishing for effect. I spent an Easter at her uncle's compound somewhere in the wooded outskirts of Omaha, where they forced me to mash potatoes and watch The Crew and Goodfellas. The house had eight security cameras. C'mon, I know former wise guys when I see 'em. Ink. Humorlessness. Rooms brimming with what appeared to be ill-gotten merchandise. It was like having Easter brunch with Al Capone and Frank Nitti.
She's now a lesbian—I'd even characterize her as a lipstick lesbian—and I was the last guy she dated a handful of years ago. I was oblivious to her lesbian proclivities. A friend threw a non sequitur in an email that said he saw her and her girlfriend, now "wife," making out in the back of a van during a road trip. My mouth dropped. I didn't even know she was bi. Maybe she wasn't.
Maybe I was her beard! Did I actually play such a godforsaken role? It always seemed as if it'd be so much hotter to be a beard. Hmmm. It was colder than cold cuts.
April 7, 2008
Boris Yeltsin and Bob Kerrey's Excellent Adventure
Boris Yeltsin was an alky and a womanizer, and Lincoln's bar scene wasn't satisfying his urges anymore. So he and Bob "Hail of Bullets" Kerrey hopped into Yeltsin's Range Rover (Buckingham Blue) and rolled to Omaha. Kerrey loved to drink as much as he loved to beat a lady with his prosthetic leg as she beat him off.
"I once bought a sizeable piece of Poland for this Polish broad," Yeltsin said. "This gesture pleased her. You know what happened next. Stanky on my hangdown. Then she grew clingy. And as it turns out, the bitch wasn't Polish. Just stupid. God, how I hate Warsaw. You can't spell Warsaw without ass.
Kerrey swigged from a bottle of Mount Gay Rum (Extra Old) and smiled grimly, falsely. He never said much. He was a quiet dipsomaniac—the type who'd get out of a swimming pool, stumble around, mix a cocktail, and offhandedly say, "Jesus. It's kinda wet out here."
They passed exit 420 on I-80.
"Let's go to the barn," Kerrey said, staring out the window at the oversize red barn with the "XXX" sign.
Yeltsin looked over. "What barn?"
Kerrey tapped urgently on the window. "The porn barn."
Yeltsin shook his head "no" and turned down the radio. "Do you know what I miss about Mother Russia? No, not the vodka. It's the poverty. The corruption. The desolate landscape. Tomato soup for breakfast. The empty faces. Misery is all around, and the only pick-me-ups are prostitutes, warts and all. Sickly hookers. Those whores—and they are whores—spread cheer and orgasms like it's nobody's business." He was doing ninety, tailgating, jerkily swerving from lane to lane as if he were Alexander Litvinenko trying to evade ex-KGB agents on his tail. "But the hookers in Russia aren't like Spitzer's in-and-out machine. A thousand dollars an hour? No. No. No way in Stalingrad. The average Russian hooker charges three loaves of bread and a tub of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter per hour and even that is pushing it. Any more than this, and she deserves whatever physical abuse you dish out." He exhaled loudly and thumbed the steering wheel. "Boris Yeltsin is sorry. I've crossed a line. Some of my best, closest friends are sooty prosses afflicted with mattress-back syndrome. I love 'em all, sometimes all at once, a carousel of breasts!"
They sped toward Omaha, listening to Kerrey's "Bob's One Good Leg Greatest Hits Vol. Two" CD—including "Pussy Control (Club Mix)," "Super Freak," "Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)," and "Ruff Ryders' Anthem." They eventually drove through Omaha, pulled into a strip mall, noticed the full parking lot, and parked in the neon glow of The Draft House. They heard the cacophony of voices and rap ("Gin and Juice") and shared a look, a "this could be a legendary night" look, the look of two preschoolers about to eat cinnamon graham crackers.
"If I don't get a BJ from some chick in the bathroom, or if some chick doesn't use my cock as a hand towel," Yeltsin said, killing the engine and checking his hoary hair in the mirror, "I'm gonna be pissed."
Kerrey nodded and unbuttoned his Banana Republic shirt, a pale yellow like his teeth. "I hope this is the type of bar where a guy can sweet-talk a fine-looking lady, take her home, light a Yankee candle or two, pour the stiffest drinks imaginable, play some Bryan Adams to get her feeling comfortable, you know, like "Heaven," and ultimately Superman the ho. Fingers crossed."
They exited the Range Rover, strutted toward the bar, and stood before a cocky, balding, sturdy doorman. Yeltsin whispered to Kerrey, "Get a load of this lummox. I bet he's never squeezed a football or a tit."
The doorman said the cover was a dollar.
Yeltsin waved his iPhone in the doorman's face. "I will not pay a cover! I outta break this iPhone over your skull! I'm Boris Yeltsin! You're spittle. You're the result of a mistake made by two dead drunk strangers at a Genesis concert, you buffoon. This isn't the Viper Room. It's the Drought House."
The doorman glared. "That's Draft House."
"Eat me. Get out of the way. I ran the Kremlin! I ran the world, at least in my mind. I did pelvic gymnastics with Nadia Comăneci." Yeltsin pushed the doorman aside and entered the bar.
Kerrey gave the doorman two dollars and apologized. "Don't mind Yeltsin. He just needs to get shit-faced. Sobriety is his worst nightmare."
The Draft House was a boozy version of the river Styx and a land of nodding acquaintances. The lighting was inadequate, the DJ and the sound system overpowering. This was the place to abuse alcohol cheerfully.
Boris Yeltsin and Bob Kerrey sashayed about, double-fisting at all times. They exchanged forced pleasantries. They mugged for photos. They gyrated on tables. Kerrey drank shots from his prosthesis.
The night wore on. At one point, Kerrey asked Yeltsin if he wanted to go to The Max, as it was "straight night." Yeltsin spat out his Moscow Mule, slammed the glass on the bar, and said, "No. Boris Yeltsin will not, as you say, gay it up. Why don't you just take a hammer and a sickle to my manhood, you bastard? I only Boris Yeltsin it up."
Kerrey drank as if he were on spring break in Panama City. He talked at length about 'Nam. "Yeah, I committed atrocities. So what? Those atrocities make this Corona taste like honey mixed with Columbian white mixed with God's tears mixed with Sour Patch Kids."
Yeltsin tried a new batch of pick-up lines: "You want glasnost? Open your mouth. I'll insert my dick." "Have you seen Boogie Nights?" "The only thing you need to know is that I have a healthy tongue." "I've never had a penis enlargement." "Where I come from, a one-night stand is beautiful, like peanut butter on celery." All failed woefully.
Last call came. Yeltsin raced into the men's room and urinated on every roll of toilet paper. Kerrey moonwalked up and down the dance floor while mumbling about hating his liver. The bar closed. Yeltsin and Kerrey poured onto the sidewalk. Deciding against attending and briskly leaving some after-hours meat market, they instead went to Burger King and scarfed down a bagful of Rodeo Cheeseburgers, littering and repeatedly calling Al Gore "Robot Turd."
The night ended when Bob Kerrey persuaded Boris Yeltsin not to drunk-text "Hey, doll. Nipping out? Up for a ménage à trois?" to Madeleine Albright.
"I once bought a sizeable piece of Poland for this Polish broad," Yeltsin said. "This gesture pleased her. You know what happened next. Stanky on my hangdown. Then she grew clingy. And as it turns out, the bitch wasn't Polish. Just stupid. God, how I hate Warsaw. You can't spell Warsaw without ass.
Kerrey swigged from a bottle of Mount Gay Rum (Extra Old) and smiled grimly, falsely. He never said much. He was a quiet dipsomaniac—the type who'd get out of a swimming pool, stumble around, mix a cocktail, and offhandedly say, "Jesus. It's kinda wet out here."
They passed exit 420 on I-80.
"Let's go to the barn," Kerrey said, staring out the window at the oversize red barn with the "XXX" sign.
Yeltsin looked over. "What barn?"
Kerrey tapped urgently on the window. "The porn barn."
Yeltsin shook his head "no" and turned down the radio. "Do you know what I miss about Mother Russia? No, not the vodka. It's the poverty. The corruption. The desolate landscape. Tomato soup for breakfast. The empty faces. Misery is all around, and the only pick-me-ups are prostitutes, warts and all. Sickly hookers. Those whores—and they are whores—spread cheer and orgasms like it's nobody's business." He was doing ninety, tailgating, jerkily swerving from lane to lane as if he were Alexander Litvinenko trying to evade ex-KGB agents on his tail. "But the hookers in Russia aren't like Spitzer's in-and-out machine. A thousand dollars an hour? No. No. No way in Stalingrad. The average Russian hooker charges three loaves of bread and a tub of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter per hour and even that is pushing it. Any more than this, and she deserves whatever physical abuse you dish out." He exhaled loudly and thumbed the steering wheel. "Boris Yeltsin is sorry. I've crossed a line. Some of my best, closest friends are sooty prosses afflicted with mattress-back syndrome. I love 'em all, sometimes all at once, a carousel of breasts!"
They sped toward Omaha, listening to Kerrey's "Bob's One Good Leg Greatest Hits Vol. Two" CD—including "Pussy Control (Club Mix)," "Super Freak," "Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)," and "Ruff Ryders' Anthem." They eventually drove through Omaha, pulled into a strip mall, noticed the full parking lot, and parked in the neon glow of The Draft House. They heard the cacophony of voices and rap ("Gin and Juice") and shared a look, a "this could be a legendary night" look, the look of two preschoolers about to eat cinnamon graham crackers.
"If I don't get a BJ from some chick in the bathroom, or if some chick doesn't use my cock as a hand towel," Yeltsin said, killing the engine and checking his hoary hair in the mirror, "I'm gonna be pissed."
Kerrey nodded and unbuttoned his Banana Republic shirt, a pale yellow like his teeth. "I hope this is the type of bar where a guy can sweet-talk a fine-looking lady, take her home, light a Yankee candle or two, pour the stiffest drinks imaginable, play some Bryan Adams to get her feeling comfortable, you know, like "Heaven," and ultimately Superman the ho. Fingers crossed."
They exited the Range Rover, strutted toward the bar, and stood before a cocky, balding, sturdy doorman. Yeltsin whispered to Kerrey, "Get a load of this lummox. I bet he's never squeezed a football or a tit."
The doorman said the cover was a dollar.
Yeltsin waved his iPhone in the doorman's face. "I will not pay a cover! I outta break this iPhone over your skull! I'm Boris Yeltsin! You're spittle. You're the result of a mistake made by two dead drunk strangers at a Genesis concert, you buffoon. This isn't the Viper Room. It's the Drought House."
The doorman glared. "That's Draft House."
"Eat me. Get out of the way. I ran the Kremlin! I ran the world, at least in my mind. I did pelvic gymnastics with Nadia Comăneci." Yeltsin pushed the doorman aside and entered the bar.
Kerrey gave the doorman two dollars and apologized. "Don't mind Yeltsin. He just needs to get shit-faced. Sobriety is his worst nightmare."
The Draft House was a boozy version of the river Styx and a land of nodding acquaintances. The lighting was inadequate, the DJ and the sound system overpowering. This was the place to abuse alcohol cheerfully.
Boris Yeltsin and Bob Kerrey sashayed about, double-fisting at all times. They exchanged forced pleasantries. They mugged for photos. They gyrated on tables. Kerrey drank shots from his prosthesis.
The night wore on. At one point, Kerrey asked Yeltsin if he wanted to go to The Max, as it was "straight night." Yeltsin spat out his Moscow Mule, slammed the glass on the bar, and said, "No. Boris Yeltsin will not, as you say, gay it up. Why don't you just take a hammer and a sickle to my manhood, you bastard? I only Boris Yeltsin it up."
Kerrey drank as if he were on spring break in Panama City. He talked at length about 'Nam. "Yeah, I committed atrocities. So what? Those atrocities make this Corona taste like honey mixed with Columbian white mixed with God's tears mixed with Sour Patch Kids."
Yeltsin tried a new batch of pick-up lines: "You want glasnost? Open your mouth. I'll insert my dick." "Have you seen Boogie Nights?" "The only thing you need to know is that I have a healthy tongue." "I've never had a penis enlargement." "Where I come from, a one-night stand is beautiful, like peanut butter on celery." All failed woefully.
Last call came. Yeltsin raced into the men's room and urinated on every roll of toilet paper. Kerrey moonwalked up and down the dance floor while mumbling about hating his liver. The bar closed. Yeltsin and Kerrey poured onto the sidewalk. Deciding against attending and briskly leaving some after-hours meat market, they instead went to Burger King and scarfed down a bagful of Rodeo Cheeseburgers, littering and repeatedly calling Al Gore "Robot Turd."
The night ended when Bob Kerrey persuaded Boris Yeltsin not to drunk-text "Hey, doll. Nipping out? Up for a ménage à trois?" to Madeleine Albright.
April 5, 2008
High School Doesn't Last EIGHT YEARS!
I know this twentysomething dude who can't or won't stop mentioning high school, the sports he played, and how grand it was. He is Al Bundy. His interminable overemphasis of being, well, a run-of-the-mill athlete is strictly aggravating.
From bits and pieces of our scattered conversations that I'm bizarrely replaying in my head, he'd probably paint himself as a white Julius Peppers but with better hops. His reality is that he was a legend or a folk hero. Have you seen Slap Shot? If he'd have played hockey in high school, he'd say that he was the Hanson Brothers rolled into one. If he and I were friends, I'd ask to borrow his Hoosiers and Varsity Blues DVDs.
High school football. High school basketball. Cheerleaders. Away games. Playoffs. State. Circle jerks. It never ceases! The topic could be the racial divide in the United States, and he'd interrupt with a vapid story about catching a pass or shooting a free throw or fingering a husky cheerleader. I'm waiting for him to say, "This one time, at band camp...." I only see him when I'm out getting my drink on. He invariably makes me want to drink more. "How many until I black out? Yeah, I'll risk liver failure just to quiet his prating."
I'll temporarily lift my self-imposed ban on profanity. Holy shit! You're how old? Quit talking about high school. It is so queer. It's as queer as a rainbow over San Francisco. It's uncool. It's uninteresting. It's unbecoming. It's borderline loathsome.
Yeah, talking in glowing terms about your exploits from six or seven years ago may impress your erstwhile shop teacher but it engenders no respect or adulation from your peers. It doesn't one bit. I'm sorry. Someone who cares for you should pull you aside and give you a talking-to or have a heart-to-heart with you. If neither approach cuts ice, I proffer electroshock. Consider it. (I am not wrong, person whom I'd tepidly call an acquaintance. You're in the wrong.) I think I speak for all of us—and by "us," I mean greater Lincoln—when I kindly say that you need to look deep within yourself tonight, pray for an epiphany, and hope against hope that you can conclude this battiness once and for all. Please. Pretty please. Pretty please with a sixer of Rolling Rock on top. Wise up. For the love of Sargent Shriver!
High school, touchdowns, lay-ups, and track duals were not your apotheosis. High school was no one's apotheosis. How could exuberantly screwing off for forty-five hours a week for four years be any clear-headed person's apotheosis? High school wasn't Everest. It was a molehill. The mountain is still heretofore unknown. The actual glory lies in waking up to the uncertainty that tomorrow could mysteriously present the first steps up the real mountain. That's what you should be yapping about, not how, as an eighth-grade football player, you verbally abused another team's cheerleaders from the opposite sideline.
The future is calling. It wants you to zip it about the past. Be a pal. Look forward, or at least become a mute.
Let it go. The sun has set.
You're an addict. Reminiscing about high school is your addiction. Seek help. Call that show Intervention. You'd be doing it for mankind.
From bits and pieces of our scattered conversations that I'm bizarrely replaying in my head, he'd probably paint himself as a white Julius Peppers but with better hops. His reality is that he was a legend or a folk hero. Have you seen Slap Shot? If he'd have played hockey in high school, he'd say that he was the Hanson Brothers rolled into one. If he and I were friends, I'd ask to borrow his Hoosiers and Varsity Blues DVDs.
High school football. High school basketball. Cheerleaders. Away games. Playoffs. State. Circle jerks. It never ceases! The topic could be the racial divide in the United States, and he'd interrupt with a vapid story about catching a pass or shooting a free throw or fingering a husky cheerleader. I'm waiting for him to say, "This one time, at band camp...." I only see him when I'm out getting my drink on. He invariably makes me want to drink more. "How many until I black out? Yeah, I'll risk liver failure just to quiet his prating."
I'll temporarily lift my self-imposed ban on profanity. Holy shit! You're how old? Quit talking about high school. It is so queer. It's as queer as a rainbow over San Francisco. It's uncool. It's uninteresting. It's unbecoming. It's borderline loathsome.
Yeah, talking in glowing terms about your exploits from six or seven years ago may impress your erstwhile shop teacher but it engenders no respect or adulation from your peers. It doesn't one bit. I'm sorry. Someone who cares for you should pull you aside and give you a talking-to or have a heart-to-heart with you. If neither approach cuts ice, I proffer electroshock. Consider it. (I am not wrong, person whom I'd tepidly call an acquaintance. You're in the wrong.) I think I speak for all of us—and by "us," I mean greater Lincoln—when I kindly say that you need to look deep within yourself tonight, pray for an epiphany, and hope against hope that you can conclude this battiness once and for all. Please. Pretty please. Pretty please with a sixer of Rolling Rock on top. Wise up. For the love of Sargent Shriver!
High school, touchdowns, lay-ups, and track duals were not your apotheosis. High school was no one's apotheosis. How could exuberantly screwing off for forty-five hours a week for four years be any clear-headed person's apotheosis? High school wasn't Everest. It was a molehill. The mountain is still heretofore unknown. The actual glory lies in waking up to the uncertainty that tomorrow could mysteriously present the first steps up the real mountain. That's what you should be yapping about, not how, as an eighth-grade football player, you verbally abused another team's cheerleaders from the opposite sideline.
The future is calling. It wants you to zip it about the past. Be a pal. Look forward, or at least become a mute.
Let it go. The sun has set.
You're an addict. Reminiscing about high school is your addiction. Seek help. Call that show Intervention. You'd be doing it for mankind.
Drunk, or Lying Pathologically?
Are you lying for your sake or my sake? Both?
I was at a bar—The Downtown—last night with some friends when a friend of said friends, a somewhat cool dude whom I'd never met before, sat beside me in a booth, and we began volleying jokes back and forth. I said something like, "You know what I hate about the bars? It's like an amateur bodybuilding convention." He said something about why these neckless dopes buy five-sizes-too-small shirts. I then tossed out a sentence with the phrase "let themselves go." His smirk vanished. He was all serious now. I don't know if it was vanity, Dutch courage, or full-on mendacity, but he said, "I've been getting back into shape lately. I've lost twenty-five pounds in three weeks." A barefaced lie. "Ah, nice," I said, nodding, gritting teeth, squinting at him to make sure he wasn't Larry the Cable Guy in some take-it-to-the-streets advertising blitz for NutriSystem. (Why won't Larry the Hayseed fall asleep on a couch on a front porch and never wake up? Larry the Cable Goon is why the terrorists hate us. You can't tell me that KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed], in between waterboarding jags, isn't in his cell at Guantanamo Bay cursing Larry's name and plotting an attack on a doublewide somewhere.) Boiling I was.
Do I look stupid or fatuous? (Maybe so.) I was about to scream to Mr. Minus 25 in 3, "Who the hell do you think you're kidding? I'm Jeff Skilling! Jeff. Mother. Effing. Skilling. I'm the smartest guy in the room, you deceitful schmuck." I bit my tongue—I prefer the facade of niceness—and left for the restroom, never to see him again. But his "black jelly bean" lie still resonates, ringing in my ears like a point-blank blast from an air horn. Why this lie? What did he perceive he was gaining? I was ogling women's legs like there was no tomorrow, so he wasn't trying to line up any sweaty bathhouse sex with me. I didn't and still don't see his endgame.
Some lies are necessary. Some lies are risky. Some lies are strategic. Some lies are innocuous. Some lies are fun. Some lies exist solely to concoct more lies; they snowball; before you know it, you've got a village of snowpeople and you're desperately trying to keep them upright, frozen, and free of piss. Some lies are unapologetically and intentionally malicious.
This dude's lie was an uncreative, thoughtless boast with high improbability. I'm clean mystified. It served zero purpose. Maybe he was in that blissful hammered state where logic and reason don't belong in what little blood is still in the brain.
Hey, what if he believed his lie was the truth? It's possible, I guess. Is it even a lie if you truely, wholeheartedly believe it?
I mean, if you're going to lie to a complete stranger—and we're all strangers in a wonderfully strange land when it comes to the bars—tell a whopper. The big lie. When you don't know someone, it's hard to discern fact from fiction, especially if he or she is convincing. When Grey Goose saturates your gray matter, you don't know what to repudiate.
I once claimed to have dated Amber Valletta when she was in her modeling heyday. This was daft on its face, as I would've been a squeaky-voiced, Married...With Children-obsessed adolescent at the time. She's an unknown, more or less, so the lie was decent. It didn't land but it didn't have gaping holes or totally bomb either. Yes, yes, yes, I could lie another day. (Just look at this goddess! Who wouldn't commit quadruple homicide for her?)
I lied about dating her because she's a Venus, and it's admirable to have ties to Venuses, whether those ties are real or fabricated. I don't know why Mr. Slim Fast lied about shedding weight. Maybe that's how he befriends others. Maybe he's related to Nixon. Maybe he's a defective. Maybe it was the gin talking. I have no clue whatsoever. Maybe he wants to bend over Kirstie Alley.
In the end, he told a good-for-nothing lie. What a shame. Lying willy-nilly does a disservice to liars everywhere. He gives us a bad name. (Exasperated sigh.) Doesn't he understand? A lie is a terrible thing to waste, like a party ball.
Lying is a science. It requires time and ingenuity. It requires vast field studies. It requires dedication—"my mission in life is to lie day in, day out with burgeoning aplomb." Lying is best left to the professionals.
I was at a bar—The Downtown—last night with some friends when a friend of said friends, a somewhat cool dude whom I'd never met before, sat beside me in a booth, and we began volleying jokes back and forth. I said something like, "You know what I hate about the bars? It's like an amateur bodybuilding convention." He said something about why these neckless dopes buy five-sizes-too-small shirts. I then tossed out a sentence with the phrase "let themselves go." His smirk vanished. He was all serious now. I don't know if it was vanity, Dutch courage, or full-on mendacity, but he said, "I've been getting back into shape lately. I've lost twenty-five pounds in three weeks." A barefaced lie. "Ah, nice," I said, nodding, gritting teeth, squinting at him to make sure he wasn't Larry the Cable Guy in some take-it-to-the-streets advertising blitz for NutriSystem. (Why won't Larry the Hayseed fall asleep on a couch on a front porch and never wake up? Larry the Cable Goon is why the terrorists hate us. You can't tell me that KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed], in between waterboarding jags, isn't in his cell at Guantanamo Bay cursing Larry's name and plotting an attack on a doublewide somewhere.) Boiling I was.
Do I look stupid or fatuous? (Maybe so.) I was about to scream to Mr. Minus 25 in 3, "Who the hell do you think you're kidding? I'm Jeff Skilling! Jeff. Mother. Effing. Skilling. I'm the smartest guy in the room, you deceitful schmuck." I bit my tongue—I prefer the facade of niceness—and left for the restroom, never to see him again. But his "black jelly bean" lie still resonates, ringing in my ears like a point-blank blast from an air horn. Why this lie? What did he perceive he was gaining? I was ogling women's legs like there was no tomorrow, so he wasn't trying to line up any sweaty bathhouse sex with me. I didn't and still don't see his endgame.
Some lies are necessary. Some lies are risky. Some lies are strategic. Some lies are innocuous. Some lies are fun. Some lies exist solely to concoct more lies; they snowball; before you know it, you've got a village of snowpeople and you're desperately trying to keep them upright, frozen, and free of piss. Some lies are unapologetically and intentionally malicious.
This dude's lie was an uncreative, thoughtless boast with high improbability. I'm clean mystified. It served zero purpose. Maybe he was in that blissful hammered state where logic and reason don't belong in what little blood is still in the brain.
Hey, what if he believed his lie was the truth? It's possible, I guess. Is it even a lie if you truely, wholeheartedly believe it?
I mean, if you're going to lie to a complete stranger—and we're all strangers in a wonderfully strange land when it comes to the bars—tell a whopper. The big lie. When you don't know someone, it's hard to discern fact from fiction, especially if he or she is convincing. When Grey Goose saturates your gray matter, you don't know what to repudiate.
I once claimed to have dated Amber Valletta when she was in her modeling heyday. This was daft on its face, as I would've been a squeaky-voiced, Married...With Children-obsessed adolescent at the time. She's an unknown, more or less, so the lie was decent. It didn't land but it didn't have gaping holes or totally bomb either. Yes, yes, yes, I could lie another day. (Just look at this goddess! Who wouldn't commit quadruple homicide for her?)
I lied about dating her because she's a Venus, and it's admirable to have ties to Venuses, whether those ties are real or fabricated. I don't know why Mr. Slim Fast lied about shedding weight. Maybe that's how he befriends others. Maybe he's related to Nixon. Maybe he's a defective. Maybe it was the gin talking. I have no clue whatsoever. Maybe he wants to bend over Kirstie Alley.
In the end, he told a good-for-nothing lie. What a shame. Lying willy-nilly does a disservice to liars everywhere. He gives us a bad name. (Exasperated sigh.) Doesn't he understand? A lie is a terrible thing to waste, like a party ball.
Lying is a science. It requires time and ingenuity. It requires vast field studies. It requires dedication—"my mission in life is to lie day in, day out with burgeoning aplomb." Lying is best left to the professionals.
April 2, 2008
Cable News: One Giant Muckheap
I love cable news, but it's broken. (Mitt Romney would say it's "fundamentally broken." Ah, Mitt, can I plug some of your extra wives?) It needs a fixer—like Mr. Wolfe.
CNN skews left. Fox News skews right; "fair and balanced" is such a con job. MSNBC skews, oh who cares about that hanging-by-a-thread, excremental network? Headline News is trivial.
Errors and homophones litter the tickers. Graphics and color schemes are garish. Men wear shiny monochrome ties. Talking heads use big words like "inexorably," "sectarian," and "Zimbabwe." Stylists and cosmeticians excessively preen Brit Hume, Anderson Cooper, Nancy Grace, Keith Olbermann, and their otherwise average-looking ilk.
Anchors try to sound competent and informed. They segue painfully between stories. They're powerless against "hard" commercial breaks. They seem to care and wrongfully assume that they're still cool on some level. They're respectful to guests. Why?
New female hires are mostly lip-glossed, hot-as-Hades airheads who wear short skirts and cross and uncross their legs so often that it seems as if it's a contractual obligation. It's a small miracle that some of these twits can even read the teleprompters.
New male hires are mostly fit Caucasian tools with dorky haircuts, blindingly white teeth, forced smiles, erectile dysfunction (You're telling me that Bret Baier doesn't have a saggy noodle?), and pitiful senses of humor.
As a mid-twentysomething, I've had it with these decrepit newspeople in their suits. They may reach the Me Generation and those older than that, but their overall seriousness falls damn flat with me.
CNN's flaws
Wolf Blitzer's beady eyes and pointing at camera.
Candy Crowley is a butterball who wears inordinate rouge.
Larry King is a fuzzyheaded hunchback whose "interviews" go nowhere.
The Situation Room is three hours of Obama-bashing.
Contributor James Carville's persona is the largest and most fascinating on CNN, and the network still underutilizes him and his rage.
Anderson Cooper isn't a tenth as hip as he believes.
Carol Costello's tan was so orange that I emailed them to complain that she resembled an Oompa-Loompa.
Headline News's flaws
Nancy Grace is shrill, tiresome, and anything but telegenic.
Glenn Beck is a former alcoholic who thinks that he speaks for and to the masses. He's such a clueless sap. He fabricates statistics. His name is Glenn Beck, which sounds like that of a gay pornstar. "What ratings?" is how TV execs refer to his show's numbers.
MSNBC's flaws
They haven't fired Dan Abrams.
Chris Matthews won't shave his head.
They haven't fired Dan Abrams.
Keith Olbermann is such a hair-trigger paleoliberal that he's almost as bad as Sean Hannity.
They haven't fired Dan Abrams!
Fox New Channel's flaws
Fox and Friends is three hours of meaningless, head-scratching blather. Why not call the show Fox and Dross? It has a nice ring to it.
Bill Hemmer is a phony. He's not fooling anyone. Just look at him. He has small-man syndrome.
Megyn Kelly is nearing forty and has Michael Jackson's nose. Oh, you're a lawyer? Hello? Earth to Megyn! That's irrelevant. You're on Fox News! Your life is over. Done. Goose? Cooked. Give up. And wipe that ridiculous smirk off your Botox, er, face.
Jon Scott is creepy. The Night Stalker would find him creepy.
Shepard Smith is an odd, glassy-eyed megalomaniac who seems to have an unhealthy "thing" for J.Lo.
Neil Cavuto's neck is trying to swallow his head.
Brit Hume is a cougher. "The Grapevine" is a two-minute segment that attacks the left and props up the right. His "All-Star Panel" is a dud. Special Report with Brit Hume? What's so special about it? Snores with Brit Hume.
Bill O'Reilly is a blowhard with a turkey neck. He's obsessed with Jessica's Law. (I don't have a joke for that.) He claims that he revived and brought back "bloviate" into the American lexicon. Really? Shouldn't you be as or more proud of keeping Little Debbie afloat since 1974?
Greta Van Susteren is a scientologist [sic]. I refuse to capitalize that word.
Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld is a laugh-free, inane disaster.
Fox News only treats its viewers as partial idiots but not complete idiots. This isn't helpful.
---
There's room for a new cable news network—say, The SAD News Channel, aka the Sex, Alcohol, and Drugs News Channel—a network that's amateurish, cheap, unprepared, and tactless. The correspondents and anchors: bright but unskilled twentysomethings who never dress up and utter oaths and phrases like "that's queer," "this story sucks," "I hate these people," "I don't know what this story's about," "I didn't read my notes," "I don't give a shit," "We're all going to hell," "My earpiece doesn't work," "We really should have a news director," and "What's on CNN? We'll ape that." It'd be entertaining. It'd be a train wreck. It'd be no worse than what we have now, which is, categorically, nothing.
CNN skews left. Fox News skews right; "fair and balanced" is such a con job. MSNBC skews, oh who cares about that hanging-by-a-thread, excremental network? Headline News is trivial.
Errors and homophones litter the tickers. Graphics and color schemes are garish. Men wear shiny monochrome ties. Talking heads use big words like "inexorably," "sectarian," and "Zimbabwe." Stylists and cosmeticians excessively preen Brit Hume, Anderson Cooper, Nancy Grace, Keith Olbermann, and their otherwise average-looking ilk.
Anchors try to sound competent and informed. They segue painfully between stories. They're powerless against "hard" commercial breaks. They seem to care and wrongfully assume that they're still cool on some level. They're respectful to guests. Why?
New female hires are mostly lip-glossed, hot-as-Hades airheads who wear short skirts and cross and uncross their legs so often that it seems as if it's a contractual obligation. It's a small miracle that some of these twits can even read the teleprompters.
New male hires are mostly fit Caucasian tools with dorky haircuts, blindingly white teeth, forced smiles, erectile dysfunction (You're telling me that Bret Baier doesn't have a saggy noodle?), and pitiful senses of humor.
As a mid-twentysomething, I've had it with these decrepit newspeople in their suits. They may reach the Me Generation and those older than that, but their overall seriousness falls damn flat with me.
CNN's flaws
Wolf Blitzer's beady eyes and pointing at camera.
Candy Crowley is a butterball who wears inordinate rouge.
Larry King is a fuzzyheaded hunchback whose "interviews" go nowhere.
The Situation Room is three hours of Obama-bashing.
Contributor James Carville's persona is the largest and most fascinating on CNN, and the network still underutilizes him and his rage.
Anderson Cooper isn't a tenth as hip as he believes.
Carol Costello's tan was so orange that I emailed them to complain that she resembled an Oompa-Loompa.
Headline News's flaws
Nancy Grace is shrill, tiresome, and anything but telegenic.
Glenn Beck is a former alcoholic who thinks that he speaks for and to the masses. He's such a clueless sap. He fabricates statistics. His name is Glenn Beck, which sounds like that of a gay pornstar. "What ratings?" is how TV execs refer to his show's numbers.
MSNBC's flaws
They haven't fired Dan Abrams.
Chris Matthews won't shave his head.
They haven't fired Dan Abrams.
Keith Olbermann is such a hair-trigger paleoliberal that he's almost as bad as Sean Hannity.
They haven't fired Dan Abrams!
Fox New Channel's flaws
Fox and Friends is three hours of meaningless, head-scratching blather. Why not call the show Fox and Dross? It has a nice ring to it.
Bill Hemmer is a phony. He's not fooling anyone. Just look at him. He has small-man syndrome.
Megyn Kelly is nearing forty and has Michael Jackson's nose. Oh, you're a lawyer? Hello? Earth to Megyn! That's irrelevant. You're on Fox News! Your life is over. Done. Goose? Cooked. Give up. And wipe that ridiculous smirk off your Botox, er, face.
Jon Scott is creepy. The Night Stalker would find him creepy.
Shepard Smith is an odd, glassy-eyed megalomaniac who seems to have an unhealthy "thing" for J.Lo.
Neil Cavuto's neck is trying to swallow his head.
Brit Hume is a cougher. "The Grapevine" is a two-minute segment that attacks the left and props up the right. His "All-Star Panel" is a dud. Special Report with Brit Hume? What's so special about it? Snores with Brit Hume.
Bill O'Reilly is a blowhard with a turkey neck. He's obsessed with Jessica's Law. (I don't have a joke for that.) He claims that he revived and brought back "bloviate" into the American lexicon. Really? Shouldn't you be as or more proud of keeping Little Debbie afloat since 1974?
Greta Van Susteren is a scientologist [sic]. I refuse to capitalize that word.
Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld is a laugh-free, inane disaster.
Fox News only treats its viewers as partial idiots but not complete idiots. This isn't helpful.
---
There's room for a new cable news network—say, The SAD News Channel, aka the Sex, Alcohol, and Drugs News Channel—a network that's amateurish, cheap, unprepared, and tactless. The correspondents and anchors: bright but unskilled twentysomethings who never dress up and utter oaths and phrases like "that's queer," "this story sucks," "I hate these people," "I don't know what this story's about," "I didn't read my notes," "I don't give a shit," "We're all going to hell," "My earpiece doesn't work," "We really should have a news director," and "What's on CNN? We'll ape that." It'd be entertaining. It'd be a train wreck. It'd be no worse than what we have now, which is, categorically, nothing.
Mein Führer-ious Orgy
Formula One president Max Mosley getting busy in a Nazi-themed S & M orgy with five prostitutes—by the way, it reportedly lasted five hours—is the juiciest story since the Spitzer scandal.
First of all, how much Viagra and Levitra is a sixty-seven-year-old popping to keep his guitar "strumable" for five hours? Fistfuls of pills? Bottles? Fifty-five-gallon drums? Does he wash said pills down with prune juice or Maalox?
Second, who combines prostitutes with reenacting the unknowable hell of an SS death camp? That's five circles and a square peg. It's incongruous. Mosley should have considered other sensitive themes: The Last Supper; 9/11; any Kennedy assassination ("Oh, yeah! I'm about to shoot some magic bullets!"); Hurricane Katrina ("You'll leave the Superdome when I say you can leave! Now play with my berries").
Third, has any trollop anywhere heard of Nazi Germany, Hitler, Eichmann, Auschwitz, or the Third Reich? Hookers aren't Oxford-educated. They're not educated, period. In high school, they were turning tricks instead of reading My Ántonia. They think Falstaff is a risky sexual position. A hooker with a GED, or one without a social disease, is as rare as the Ghost Orchid. There isn't a dirty pross on the planet who could make heads or tails of this sentence: "All right, I'm gonna teabag you until I bruise both your eye sockets." (Now in a playful voice.) "Here come the panzers."
Note: I don't call hookers "call girls." It's showing them undue respect and giving their sordid profession a touch of class. Forget that. These women, okay, these soulless, icky tarts have about as much cred on the streets as Air America has on the airwaves.
My friends and I had an interesting back-and-forth on this iniquitous tale. Some of our one-liners:
"Watch it, you whore, or else I'll go all Josef Mengele on your ass."
"No mention of Eva Braun, I'm out."
"The man is delusional if he thinks this type of stuff still flies in the world today."
"He's like Dr. Strangelove, only different. 'I can cum!'"
The Nazis hated and exterminated Jews but they loved money and treasure just as much. Prostitutes love money and heroin and crack. I guess you could say that the Nazis were prostitutes for genocide. Ah, Nazis and prostitutes. The lines of distinction between the two blur significantly, leaving them indistinguishable, except when SS lieutenants have black-and-blue eyes or brownshirts have noticeable stains.
First of all, how much Viagra and Levitra is a sixty-seven-year-old popping to keep his guitar "strumable" for five hours? Fistfuls of pills? Bottles? Fifty-five-gallon drums? Does he wash said pills down with prune juice or Maalox?
Second, who combines prostitutes with reenacting the unknowable hell of an SS death camp? That's five circles and a square peg. It's incongruous. Mosley should have considered other sensitive themes: The Last Supper; 9/11; any Kennedy assassination ("Oh, yeah! I'm about to shoot some magic bullets!"); Hurricane Katrina ("You'll leave the Superdome when I say you can leave! Now play with my berries").
Third, has any trollop anywhere heard of Nazi Germany, Hitler, Eichmann, Auschwitz, or the Third Reich? Hookers aren't Oxford-educated. They're not educated, period. In high school, they were turning tricks instead of reading My Ántonia. They think Falstaff is a risky sexual position. A hooker with a GED, or one without a social disease, is as rare as the Ghost Orchid. There isn't a dirty pross on the planet who could make heads or tails of this sentence: "All right, I'm gonna teabag you until I bruise both your eye sockets." (Now in a playful voice.) "Here come the panzers."
Note: I don't call hookers "call girls." It's showing them undue respect and giving their sordid profession a touch of class. Forget that. These women, okay, these soulless, icky tarts have about as much cred on the streets as Air America has on the airwaves.
My friends and I had an interesting back-and-forth on this iniquitous tale. Some of our one-liners:
"Watch it, you whore, or else I'll go all Josef Mengele on your ass."
"No mention of Eva Braun, I'm out."
"The man is delusional if he thinks this type of stuff still flies in the world today."
"He's like Dr. Strangelove, only different. 'I can cum!'"
The Nazis hated and exterminated Jews but they loved money and treasure just as much. Prostitutes love money and heroin and crack. I guess you could say that the Nazis were prostitutes for genocide. Ah, Nazis and prostitutes. The lines of distinction between the two blur significantly, leaving them indistinguishable, except when SS lieutenants have black-and-blue eyes or brownshirts have noticeable stains.
April 1, 2008
Your Pee is Too Good for This Newspaper
I'm sitting in CBA 143, a large lecture hell, listening to a lawyer talk about S corporations. There is garbage everywhere. And by garbage I mean Daily Nebraskans. They blanket the floor.
Joe or Jane UNL: "This paper is shit. What a joke. I don't even know why I pick one up. The writers blow. They blow hard, man. The cartoonist couldn't draw a dong on a passed-out guy's face. I'm tired of reading about residence halls and Nebraska football minutiae and prank calls and student government and how the chancellor bought a new tie and, you know, like, education. The editorial board needs to die too. Death by a million paper cuts. I'm not going to throw this paper in the trash can or some recycling bin. Why would I do that? I hate the DN. Let some asshole janitor throw it away. I have texting to do."
My mom said she called it The Daily Rag when she was at UNL in the seventies. The Daily Rubbish was, is, and always will be pure crap. I'd rather watch Disney movies and pork Roseanne than read this "newspaper."
Joe or Jane UNL: "This paper is shit. What a joke. I don't even know why I pick one up. The writers blow. They blow hard, man. The cartoonist couldn't draw a dong on a passed-out guy's face. I'm tired of reading about residence halls and Nebraska football minutiae and prank calls and student government and how the chancellor bought a new tie and, you know, like, education. The editorial board needs to die too. Death by a million paper cuts. I'm not going to throw this paper in the trash can or some recycling bin. Why would I do that? I hate the DN. Let some asshole janitor throw it away. I have texting to do."
My mom said she called it The Daily Rag when she was at UNL in the seventies. The Daily Rubbish was, is, and always will be pure crap. I'd rather watch Disney movies and pork Roseanne than read this "newspaper."
Omaha Women Vs. Lincoln Women
Preface: I'm an egotist. When I go out, I drink to get drunk, to feel like I'm floating down a river while listening to the Zep's "Whole Lotta Love," and to keep everything in perspective. My only concerns are alcohol and cracking wise. Stiff drinks, cold Budweiser, and sharp jokes. "Am I plastered and are my chums laughing at my supposed witticisms?" That's it. (A successful night of carousing in Lincoln ends with drunk-speeding down 180, across Superior, and up 27th while praying that all LPD radio cars are elsewhere.) Unknown women are secondary. They're inessential. I think as "highly" of Tucker Max as I do James Frey. I didn't care about amassing notches on my bedpost when I was twenty-one. I don't care now. I don't carry a rubber in my wallet. I don't see women as toys—"just crank and wind and hope she hops on my pecker." No, not at all. So, this kind of affords me a fresh or different view and interpretation of the boozy estrogenic wilderness in our feculent, er, fair cities.
This is not a debate. The ladies of Omaha are the winner—by a landslide. The scattered nature of the bar scene in Omaha definitely plays a role. It's as if all the driving from this bar to a collection of bars to that bar somehow dissipates bitchiness or diffidence (no, not "indifference") or snottiness. I dunno. It's beyond me. (Generally, men in both cities are flagrant, unabashed douchebags. Each is a sea of clowns. [I would make a joke about Gacy but I won't.] I'm both a douchebag and a clown.) The following, which may be just my jadedness talking vis-à-vis Lincoln, is, jestingly, a combination of speculation, observation, and putative fact.
Lincoln women:
Immature (Asking, "Who's Robert Palmer?" Expecting 475-RIDE to show up after just two hours. Drinking more than one at Woody's.)
Blockheaded (Going to Bodega's and not anticipating thirty guys to attempt to line up a one-night stand with you.)
Touchy (Getting peeved at Bodega's after someone sees a tat on your arm and asks if you're in a gang.)
Unapproachable (Cold shoulders. Shooting fire from eyes. Eyes betraying wrath. Nails as long as knives.)
Delusional ("I don't wear underwear but, no, I'm not having sex with anyone tonight.")
(An actual Lincolnite. Will you look at this crazy?)
Omaha women:
Conversational ("Yes, I've heard of Hillary Clinton. But I don't follow politics. I'm not a registered voter. When is the election?")
Attractive on more than just a physical level (if only because they're not from Lincoln)
Unhurried (Standing on the dance floor at the Draft House, holding their purses, gazing about like elephants in the Serengeti.)
Worldly, well, somewhat (Chastising straight men in a gay bar for their choice of clothing.)
Chill, the good way (Laughing at profane, homophobic, racist, sexist, and taboo jokes more than once. Flat-out owning the vocals on "Dead on Arrival" on Rock Band.)
---
I will say that, so far, Lincoln women tremendously outshine Omaha women when it comes to after-hours; however, my sampling data are limited and incomplete. (Last weekend in Omaha, one gal even refused to cheat on her husband who's serving in Iraq. Say what? You have scruples? Why? For what? "You need to come to Lincoln.") Ninety-five percent of said data went down in the L Word, but I'm not ready to count Omaha women out just yet. As for Lincoln, do-nothings don't have to work the morning after, so more women show up at over-hyped yawn-fests posing as after-hours.
Lincoln is fun until you turn twenty-three. After that, it's Omaha or NyQuil and MIKE AND IKE®.
This is not a debate. The ladies of Omaha are the winner—by a landslide. The scattered nature of the bar scene in Omaha definitely plays a role. It's as if all the driving from this bar to a collection of bars to that bar somehow dissipates bitchiness or diffidence (no, not "indifference") or snottiness. I dunno. It's beyond me. (Generally, men in both cities are flagrant, unabashed douchebags. Each is a sea of clowns. [I would make a joke about Gacy but I won't.] I'm both a douchebag and a clown.) The following, which may be just my jadedness talking vis-à-vis Lincoln, is, jestingly, a combination of speculation, observation, and putative fact.
Lincoln women:
Immature (Asking, "Who's Robert Palmer?" Expecting 475-RIDE to show up after just two hours. Drinking more than one at Woody's.)
Blockheaded (Going to Bodega's and not anticipating thirty guys to attempt to line up a one-night stand with you.)
Touchy (Getting peeved at Bodega's after someone sees a tat on your arm and asks if you're in a gang.)
Unapproachable (Cold shoulders. Shooting fire from eyes. Eyes betraying wrath. Nails as long as knives.)
Delusional ("I don't wear underwear but, no, I'm not having sex with anyone tonight.")
(An actual Lincolnite. Will you look at this crazy?)
Omaha women:
Conversational ("Yes, I've heard of Hillary Clinton. But I don't follow politics. I'm not a registered voter. When is the election?")
Attractive on more than just a physical level (if only because they're not from Lincoln)
Unhurried (Standing on the dance floor at the Draft House, holding their purses, gazing about like elephants in the Serengeti.)
Worldly, well, somewhat (Chastising straight men in a gay bar for their choice of clothing.)
Chill, the good way (Laughing at profane, homophobic, racist, sexist, and taboo jokes more than once. Flat-out owning the vocals on "Dead on Arrival" on Rock Band.)
---
I will say that, so far, Lincoln women tremendously outshine Omaha women when it comes to after-hours; however, my sampling data are limited and incomplete. (Last weekend in Omaha, one gal even refused to cheat on her husband who's serving in Iraq. Say what? You have scruples? Why? For what? "You need to come to Lincoln.") Ninety-five percent of said data went down in the L Word, but I'm not ready to count Omaha women out just yet. As for Lincoln, do-nothings don't have to work the morning after, so more women show up at over-hyped yawn-fests posing as after-hours.
Lincoln is fun until you turn twenty-three. After that, it's Omaha or NyQuil and MIKE AND IKE®.
Baseball or a Lobotomy?
Baseball sucks. It's boring. It's long. The uniforms are gay. Heckling is often a chore. No cheerleaders—not that those purposeless bimbos belong at any sporting event and especially not on a football field. Foul balls zinged down the foul lines are like Scud missles. Teeball. A baseball game is a convention for fatsos, where smaller fatsos orbit around bigger fatsos.
Sidebar: The Lincoln Saltdogs banned me, ahem, for life from Haymarket Park years ago after I harassed the Fargo-Moorhead Redhawks's plump third base coach so relentlessly and viciously. I must've screamed "insatiable lust for hot dogs" a thousand times. Saltdog fans were even scolding me for my crass behavior. One fortyish woman said, "You're ruining the game for everyone." I said, "Oh, what do you know? You're a soccer mom. Go back to juice boxes." Seriously, who goes to minor-league baseball games in the first place? Free tickets and the promise of a free beer barely got me to go. The Saltdogs? That's the best they could come up with? Retards.
Okay. Where was I? Highlights of MLB games on SportsCenter are painful to sit through. Baseball jerseys look stupid. The average first baseman is morbidly obese. Most of the crowd is morbidly obese. The commentators are tying nooses in the broadcasters' booth halfway through the second inning because calling the "action" on the field is a fate worse than death. Red Sox fans omit "r"'s from too many words and sound like dunces in the process. The Brewers likely frown on public drunkenness and running out onto the field with a beer in each hand. What kind of messed-up double standard is that? The seventh-inning stretch. "Apartments on My Forehead Start at $1,400 a Month" Barry Bonds. "Don't Look at My Eyeballs" Jose Canseco. "Scarface" Mark McGwire. Rudolf Hess (just kidding). Once heroes and icons, these former players are spittle. Swinging a baseball bat at a baseball is far less fun or exhilarating than maniacally swinging one at (wherever your perverse mind takes you).
Rain stops games. Rain, for Pete's sake! The best place for a baseball card is in the spokes of a ten-speed bike.
And I don't want to hear about the College World Series. In point of fact: For most twentysomethings, the CWS has nothing to do with baseball. You just like the nonstop partying, women from out of town, and loading up on Rodeo Cheeseburgers after the bars close. The only gloves you care about were made by Trojan.
Baseball has fleas. Pass it on.
Sidebar: The Lincoln Saltdogs banned me, ahem, for life from Haymarket Park years ago after I harassed the Fargo-Moorhead Redhawks's plump third base coach so relentlessly and viciously. I must've screamed "insatiable lust for hot dogs" a thousand times. Saltdog fans were even scolding me for my crass behavior. One fortyish woman said, "You're ruining the game for everyone." I said, "Oh, what do you know? You're a soccer mom. Go back to juice boxes." Seriously, who goes to minor-league baseball games in the first place? Free tickets and the promise of a free beer barely got me to go. The Saltdogs? That's the best they could come up with? Retards.
Okay. Where was I? Highlights of MLB games on SportsCenter are painful to sit through. Baseball jerseys look stupid. The average first baseman is morbidly obese. Most of the crowd is morbidly obese. The commentators are tying nooses in the broadcasters' booth halfway through the second inning because calling the "action" on the field is a fate worse than death. Red Sox fans omit "r"'s from too many words and sound like dunces in the process. The Brewers likely frown on public drunkenness and running out onto the field with a beer in each hand. What kind of messed-up double standard is that? The seventh-inning stretch. "Apartments on My Forehead Start at $1,400 a Month" Barry Bonds. "Don't Look at My Eyeballs" Jose Canseco. "Scarface" Mark McGwire. Rudolf Hess (just kidding). Once heroes and icons, these former players are spittle. Swinging a baseball bat at a baseball is far less fun or exhilarating than maniacally swinging one at (wherever your perverse mind takes you).
Rain stops games. Rain, for Pete's sake! The best place for a baseball card is in the spokes of a ten-speed bike.
And I don't want to hear about the College World Series. In point of fact: For most twentysomethings, the CWS has nothing to do with baseball. You just like the nonstop partying, women from out of town, and loading up on Rodeo Cheeseburgers after the bars close. The only gloves you care about were made by Trojan.
Baseball has fleas. Pass it on.
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