Knucklehead!

One Down . . .

2012-05-31T08:30:00.000-07:00

. . . three to go.

What Ever Happened To . . . The Little Engine That Could?

2012-05-09T09:24:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful morning in Toyland. The Slinkies were walking downstairs (alone AND in pairs), the Hungry Hungry Hippos were enjoying a good meal, and the Duncan yo-yos . . . well, the yo-yos weren't doing much of anything because for the most part they're a bunch of lazy bastards. Meanwhile, on the other side of Mount Whiteman, hundreds of good little boys and girls (and a couple of obnoxious brats whose sense of entitlement was truly disgusting) eagerly awaited the arrival of toys and goodies scheduled for that afternoon.

The train was loaded and ready to go. As it pulled away from the station, however, Ellsbury the Engine sustained an injury which caused him to grind to a halt.

"Hey, Ellsbury, what the hell's going on up there?" hollered Raggedy Andy. Andy was an impatient asshole to begin with, and since Raggedy Ann had gone over the mountain a week earlier, he'd been anticipating their reunion with lust in his nether regions. He was going to loosen her stitching tonight, that was for damn sure.

"I think I snapped a connecting rod!" cried Ellsbury. "I can't move!"

"Well shit," said Rollo the Clown, snuffing out a Marlboro on the sole of his size 38 Chuck Taylor sneaker. "Someone get this worthless sack of nuts and bolts off the track while I flag down another engine to take us over the mountain."

A few minutes later, a passenger engine pulled up.

"Hey, bro, how about giving us a lift over the mountain?" asked Rollo. "Ellsbury crapped out before we even got fifty yards so we're pretty much screwed."

"Piss off, clown, I only pull passenger cars. You and G.I. Joe can sit out here all night for all I care."

As the passenger engine sped away, Rollo gave him the finger.

A rough-looking freight engine came by next. Rollo decided to try a more diplomatic approach this time. "Why, hello there, Mr. Freight Engine. We seem to be in a bit of a pickle here, as you can see. Would you mind hooking up to our train here and taking us over the mountain? We'd be ever so grateful."

"Aaaaaaaaaah!" screamed the freight engine. Like 99% of the world's population, he was scared to death of clowns because they're friggin' creepy, so he chugged off without looking back.

"I hate it when that happens," muttered Rollo, lighting up another cigarette. Off in the distance, he noticed a small-but-enthusiastic-looking engine heading their way. It was Phillip, the train yard rookie. With all the other engines dispatched to their usual duties, Phillip was the toys' last hope. Rollo couldn't risk blowing this one.

"Hey, Barbie!" he yelled. "Get your ass out here!" He quickly briefed her on the situation.

"No problem, Rollo," said Barbie. "I'll take care of it." She adjusted her outfit into "full slut" mode, and stood by the tracks. Phillip went from 50 MPH to a dead stop in about half a second, sparks spraying from his wheels.

"How YOU doin'?" he said.

Barbie laid it on thick. "We're in so much trouble," she sobbed. "Our engine, who isn't nearly as strong or as good-looking as you, he broke down and now we can't get over the mountain. The good boys and girls won't be getting any toys for a long time if we can't get there. Do you think you could help us?"

"I think I can," he said, half to himself.

"Oh, I'm SURE you can," purred Barbie. "You're the best."

Phillip never would have admitted it, especially not to Barbie, but he wasn't sure he could pull this one off. He was the new engine in town and had never gone over the mountain before, not even alone. With a fully-loaded train of cargo, Phillip was afraid his crankshaft had made a bet his power supply couldn't cover. Well, no turning back now, he'd have to give it his best shot.

And faster than you can say "all aboard," they were off.

Phillip kept chanting his confidence-building mantra all the way up the mountain. "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can . . . " It wasn't easy, but with maximum effort (and sultry encouragement from STD Barbie, who was painting her nails in the engineer's seat), he made it to the top. At the summit, he beamed with pride and all the way down he boasted, "I thought I could, I thought I could, I thought I could." Phillip had saved the day and when he pulled into the station, the toys disembarked and showed their appreciation by hosing him off and giving him a good scrub. Barbie polished his smoke stack.

For the next several months, Phillip was the "Big Engine in Train Yard." He was well-liked by the other locomotives, and they'd taken to calling him "The Little Engine That Could". His confidence was sky-high, as he was assigned to all the important shipments in a five-county region. But after a while, Phillip's ego spun out of control and he started acting like he was "all that and a boxcar full of iPads." That's when the steel-toed boot of reality kicked him square in the ball bearings.

One morning, Phillip was hooked up to fifty cars loaded with brand-new Porsches. This was, by far, the heaviest and most expensive shipment he'd ever been responsible for.

"You up for this one, Phil?" asked the train yard captain.

"I think I can, Joe. I think I can."

"Well, that's good enough for me," replied Joe.

As it turned out, Phillip was wrong. About halfway up the mountain, he started slowing down. "I hope I can, I hope I can, I hope I can . . . "

Two minutes later, as he was being dragged backwards down the hill, his screams became even less confident. "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, OH SHIT! OH SHIT! OH SHIT!"

The ensuing damage was reminiscent of Hurricane Katrina if, instead of wind and rain, Katrina had pelted the Gulf region with a torrent of train parts and mangled sports cars. Carreras burst into flame, Boxsters bounced down the hillside, Phillip himself was pitched into a cow pasture where he landed at the feet of a startled Holstein.

When he returned to the train yard, he was no longer a hero. He was a laughing stock.

"Hey, look! Here comes The Cocky Engine That Couldn't!"

"I think he sucks, I think he sucks, I think he sucks!"

Locomotives can be a bunch of assholes when they put their minds to it.

After the Porsche Incident, Phillip's confidence was shaken. He became irritable, and refused to pull any load that was more than a couple flatcars, preferring instead to transport cargo that was inexpensive and had limited desirability. Things like throw pillows, lawn furniture, DVD's of "The Office". Joe the Train Yard Captain grew frustrated with his defiance.

"Come on, Phil," said Joe one day. "Snap out of it. Today's run is just a few oil tankers, it'll be easy."

"Leave me the hell alone, Joe. I'm not going to do it."

"What, are you saying you can't?"

"No. I think I can. But I don't want to and you can't make me."

That's how he came to be known as "The Oppositional-Defiant Engine That Wouldn't".

No one has much use for a freight engine with a shitty attitude, so the train company had no choice but to sell Phillip to a local zoo where he spent the rest of his days giving kiddie rides to snot-nosed children eating cotton candy. Then, in July 2005, a circus act came to town to give a special performance at the very zoo where Phillip worked. That's when the engine noticed an old friend approaching.

"Rollo, how the hell are you?" asked Phillip.

"Dude, what the fuck?" replied the clown. "How'd you end up doing this shit?"

Phillip told him the story.

"Damn," said Rollo. "Isn't this a little humiliating? You look like a beaten-down pile of garbage. Have some pride, man, you're better than this."

"You know, I used to feel that way, but the hell with it," said Phillip. "Right now, I'm just The Apathetic Engine That Doesn't Give a Damn."

Phillip the Freight Engine broke down for good in 2008. All of his metal parts were recycled, and no one knows for sure what became of him. But his old friend Rollo has a theory:

"I think he's cans. I think he's cans. I think he's cans."[1]

[1] I apologize. That's just awful.

d

Balls

2012-04-24T16:44:00.000-07:00

Warning: This is a story about my testicles. Proceed with caution.

Every guy knows the indescribable pain of getting hit square in the nuts. Doesn't matter if it's a baseball, hockey puck, combatant's knee, wayward paw of an overly-enthusiastic German shepherd, you take a shot to the man-biscuits, you're in a world of hurt.

Let me pause here for a quick disclaimer. Ladies, I know that at this very minute you're shaking your head and muttering under your breath about how no man will ever understand the pain of child birth. I'm not disputing this. I'm not suggesting that a Wiffle bat to the gonads compares in any way to popping a nine-pound bundle of goopy flesh out from between your thighs. You win, I get it.

Anyway, this isn't a story about me getting hit in the jewels. I was merely raising a point of reference for guys out there about a pain I felt the other day, similar to how your balls feel about a day and a half after you take a direct shot. A dull ache, uncomfortable but not excruciating. This had been going on for a couple days, and since I hadn't suffered any trauma to the groin region recently, I was a bit concerned. So I figured I'd better give the boys a brief inspection. To my horror, the right nut felt a bit misshapen. I'm certainly no doctor, but there's not much question that extra-testicular lumpage can be a symptom of something scary.

So I had Theresa take me to urgent care. She was surprised, as it normally takes an act of Congress to get me to see a doctor. But as I said, a wacky juevo is not to be taken lightly.

Dr. Nguyen (pronounced, inexplicably, "Win") inspected the area and asked a few questions.

"Any pain when you urinate?"

"No."

"Pus-like discharge?"

"No."

"Redness?"

"No."

"Does it hurt when I do this?"

"AAHHHH!"

"Okay, could be a couple of things, we're going to have you go downstairs for an ultrasound."

So I went to the ultrasound room and met Carolyn, the whatever-you-call-someone-who-works-in-the-ultrasound-department. Without any preamble or light "get to know you" conversation at all, she rigged up a hammock-like contraption using nothing but a common white towel, adjusted a certain object that was blocking her view of Heckle and Jeckle, and took a series of photographs.

"Okay, those look pretty good."

"Why thank you."

"I mean, I don't see any unusual masses or anything."

"Ah. Well, that's good."

The process took about twenty minutes. After reassuring me that she didn't think the problem was serious, she sent me on my way. An orderly came down to wheel me back upstairs, according to his badge, the guy's name was Nick.

"So, how'd it go?" he asked.

"Well, Nick, I must say I'm a little disappointed."

"Why's that?"

"When you brought me down here, I saw a lady who got to keep her ultrasound photos. Carolyn didn't even ask if I wanted to keep mine. Seems unfair, doesn't it?"

"Should we go back and ask for them?"

"Nah . . . but maybe it would be funny to have her give mine to the next pregnant woman who comes down. Tell her she's carrying a pair of pudgy twins."

After about an hour, the ultrasound results came back and Dr. Nguyen told me it was probably just a swollen something-or-other from over-exertion. I told him I've been going to the gym and lifting weights, and he said that could very well be the cause. So I'm backing off on that for a while, at least until the pain goes away.

I'm 47, and this was my very first "Holy crap, I think I might have cancer" moment. I'm happy to say it was a false alarm, but it was still scary.

I thought I was gonna go half-nuts.

d

Interview With Hannibal Blatch, ACME Company CEO

2012-04-10T15:07:00.001-07:00

Hannibal Blatch, ACME CEO

The Acme Company, headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, is one of the most diverse manufacturing and distribution companies in the world today. For decades, customers from Alabama to Zimbabwe have looked to Acme for pet supplies (Acme Birdseed), recreation (Acme Jet-Propelled Pogo Stick), novelties (Acme Explosive Tennis Balls) and even for local weather control (Acme Do-it-Yourself Tornado Kit).

Today we're happy to have Acme's long-time CEO Hannibal X. Blatch here with us to talk about his company's history and shed some light on a controversial lawsuit filed against him in the 1970's.

Knucklehead Humor: Thanks for talking to us today, Mr. Blatch. Let's start by having you tell us a little bit about your company's history.

Hannibal Blatch: Yeah, sure. The original owners of Acme were Ron and Josephine Farkle, who started the company in the 30's as a roller skate shop. You remember those old metal skates that you had to have a special key to adjust the size? Ron and his sons made the skates, and Jo ran the front of the store. It really was a mom and pop operation. They began to expand in the early 40's, adding a variety of other toys like Acme pogo sticks, Acme red wagons, and Acme hula hoops. Acme's Toy Store grew in popularity and then in the 1952 the business just exploded.

KH: You mean, sales increased dramatically?

HB: No, I mean the factory blew up. See, Ron and Jo's youngest son Frank was into firecrackers and other explosives and was something of a pyromaniac. He was trying to improve on Acme's original product, the roller skates, by adding external propulsion mechanisms, or as they're more commonly called, rockets. During initial testing, Frank's first pair of rocket skates exploded upon ignition, blowing the entire Acme factory sky-high.

KH: My god, was anyone hurt?

HB: Uh, yeah, the guy wearing the skates was Jackson Pollocked all over the floor.

KH: Okay, changing the subject. How did you get involved with Acme?

HB: Well, by this point Ron and Jo Farkle had turned the day-to-day operation over to Frank and their other son Martin. Those two rebuilt the factory pretty much from scratch and decided to make Acme an all-purpose manufacturing and distribution company. They moved away from toys and expanded into areas like novelties, military gear, hardware, anything you could think of. I applied for a job in the warehouse and started out literally sweeping floors and stocking shelves. Martin Farkle took a liking to me, and gradually gave me more responsibility. From the warehouse I was promoted into the shipping department, then up into the business department, and after Frank passed away in 1962 and Martin retired a year later, the board of directors appointed me CEO.

KH: So you could say you really did start at the bottom and worked your way to the top.

HB: I think I did just say that, in so many words.

KH: How did the company evolve under your leadership?

HB: I just followed the course that the Farkle Brothers had set, continuing to expand our product line. Acme became a household name, featuring products like Acme Roller Skis, Acme Giant Springs, Acme Earthquake Pills, and so on and so forth. Our product development department was staffed with geniuses from MIT and Caltech, and they came up with some brilliant ideas. My personal favorite is the Acme Invisible Paint. One coat of that will render any object completely invisible. I painted my car with that stuff once, and you should've seen the looks I got on the freeway.

KH: So is it safe to say that you took the company from being an innocent toy manufacturer to producing a diverse line of dangerous -- some would say lethal -- products?

HB: Lethal? No, I wouldn't say that our products are . . . wait a minute, you're referring to that stupid legal bullshit from several years back, aren't you? Wile E. Coyote was a complete buffoon who used our products for purposes other than which they were intended. There is nothing inherently dangerous about, say, the Acme Spring-Powered Shoes, but if you're going to be stupid enough to attach them to a large boulder, you deserve whatever harm befalls you. But despite his own colossal stupidity, Coyote decided to sue us anyway. I'd call it a frivolous waste of time, but unfortunately the courts saw it differently. Simply put, Wile E. Coyote was a conniving liar, looking to make a buck at Acme's expense.

KH: Well, that lawsuit put Acme on the front page of every newspaper in the country and cost the company millions. There must've been some truth to the plaintiff's allegations.

HB: None whatsoever! I'm telling you, our stuff is safe. Just because Wile E. Coyote got hurt while using, or more accurately, misusing Acme products doesn't mean the products themselves are to blame. Hell, ANYTHING can cause injury in the hands of an idiot. People spill hot coffee on themselves, but I don't see you getting all up in Maxwell House's face for producing "lethal products." It's ridiculous. I challenge you to name even one Acme product whose main purpose is to cause harm.

KH: The Acme Giant Catapult comes to mind.

HB: Okay, look. The catapult was a key exhibit in the lawsuit because Mr. Coyote apparently can't read a warning label. It's right there on the side of the device, "Do not stand directly behind catapult after loading, because if the load is too heavy, the entire catapult may tip over backwards and crush the hell out of you. The user is advised to stand off to the side of the catapult to ensure his safety." And anyway, who uses a catapult and a boulder to catch a friggin' roadrunner? It's ironic, isn't it, that Coyote intended to use the catapult to harm the roadrunner, but it ended up harming Mr. Coyote.

KH: So you admit that the main function of the catapult is to cause harm.

HB: Maybe when it's used by Mr. Coyote, but history has shown that he can harm himself with pretty much anything. Rocket skates, anvils, a Christmas package machine, giant rubber bands . . . he's just a world-class injury magnet who doesn't learn from his mistakes. But to answer your question seriously, the Acme Catapult was never intended to be a weapon. It's more of a display item.

KH: What are your personal feelings about Mr. Coyote?

HB: If it weren't for the fact that he screwed us out of millions of dollars, I'd actually feel sorry for the guy. He was so focused on catching that damn roadrunner that he barely noticed all the physical pain and suffering he caused himself. In a weird way, that's kind of admirable. But at the end of the day, he was a liar and a cheat and for that I can't forgive him. And that's a shame, because he was always our best customer. No one's done the math, but I wouldn't be surprised if most of the money he won in the lawsuit was money he'd paid to us in the first place.

KH: Did the lawsuit have any impact on Acme's product line, or on how you do business?

HB: It set us back a bit at first, we had to lay off some employees and streamline our distribution routes, but other than that it was business as usual. Most of our business now comes from Internet orders, which helps with some of the overhead. And because our company is so diverse, we're not as susceptible to the current economic downturn. We'll be fine.

KH: What do you see for Acme in the future?

HB: Just continuing to do what we do best, provide our customers with a wide selection of top-quality merchandise at competitive prices. You need birdseed, call Acme. Running low on axle grease, call Acme. In the mood for a thrilling ride, who are you going to go to for a jet-propelled unicycle?

KH: Acme?

HB: Damn right. We've got it all. That's what ACME stands for, A Company Making Everything.

KH: Thanks for talking with us, Mr. Blatch. Best of luck to you.

HB: No problem, thanks for having me.

d

Fishing With Grandpap

2012-03-26T15:13:00.000-07:00

For the gung-ho bass fisherman, there are few places in the U.S. better than Central Florida, specifically Orlando. There are hundreds of lakes in the area, from the bucket-sized Lake Dot to the expansive Lake Jessup, many of which feature fish camps where anglers can go after an Eden of bass, perch, catfish, and an unmatched variety of panfish.

None of that meant a thing to me out on Lake Silver, however, as I sat in a banged-up aluminum motorboat with my 250-pound grandfather, lightning crackling across the sky and rain pounding down upon us.

"Whassa matter, there, Chris?" Grandpap asked, unlit cigar hanging from his mouth like a wet sponge. "Yer not gonna let a little rain roon the day, are ya?"

If this was "a little rain" I'd hate to see what Grandpap would call a downpour, but the rain was the least of my worries. First off, there was the lightning. My third grade class had recently learned that objects made of metal, fishing boats for example, were excellent conductors of electricity. I was a nervous kid with more than my share of mortal fears, and being struck by lightning was right up there with fire, roller coasters and, of course, clowns.

"No, Grandpap, I'm fine," I lied, looking down at him. Grandpap's weight, combined with that of the outboard motor, created an imbalance that left me jacked way up in the air. I was not "fine", wasn't even in "fine's" area code. On a scale from one to ten, I was freaking petrified. My pants were soaking wet, and I assure you it wasn't just from the rain. I shivered in my bright orange poncho forgetting all about our pursuit of largemouth bass, picturing instead my body getting ravaged by lightning bolts, pitched into the water, and chomped to bits by a strike force of hungry alligators who were undoubtedly gathering off the starboard bow. All the while Grandpap, I'm sure, would be chastising me because my blood-curdling screams and thrashing around were "skeerin' away all the fish."

We braved the elements, though, (and by "braved" I of course mean there was no way I was going to muster up the courage to ask to go home) and after about half an hour, the monsoon subsided. We stayed out on the lake until sunset, Grandpap reeling in a string of monstrous bass while I caught six pounds of flotsam and pneumonia.

And that was but one of our many fishing expeditions.

Bill "Grandpap" Knight was my maternal grandfather and, as he was only too happy to tell anyone who would listen (or pretend to), he was the greatest fisherman to ever wield a Fenwick Trigger Stick fiberglass rod. The only traveling the Knight family ever did was fishing trips, or weekend jaunts up to Suwanee River country north of Gainesville to visit Grandpap's mother (known as Grammy) where they'd all go, yes, fishing. Everyone in the family fished, not just Grandpap. The menfolk would fish the river all morning for red-bellies, stumpknocker, shellcracker, bream, and whatever else they could fry up in a cast-iron skillet. Around noon, the rest of the family would meet them down at the riverbank for a fish fry. They'd feast on fish, grits, hush puppies, and watermelon fresh from the garden. As Mom says, true soul food is the food of people making do with whatever's on hand.

I was Grandpap's first grandchild and as such, I learned to fish before I learned to tie my shoes. I picked up a lot of fishing lingo just by listening to Grandpap, terms like "back-trolling," "crankbait," and "quit throwing stuff into the water." If we're going to be honest about it, though, I never really got the hang of the actual "fishing" part. While it's true that Grandpap spent many hours on the lake trying to teach me, whether or not I actually learned anything depends on your interpretation.

For example, he taught me to cast the line. In theory, it was simple. Pull the trigger on the Zebco 202 reel, bring the rod back over my right shoulder, then whip it forward and at exactly the right moment release the trigger, sending the baited hook hurtling out into the lake. Grandpap demonstrated this about ten times, and with a confident, "Awright, now'ts yer turn, give 'er a good fling," he handed me the rod.

I wound up and let it fly.

"Okay, now, next time yer gonna leggo the trigger jes' a little sooner," said Grandpap, calmly dislodging the hook from his left ear.

With practice, my casting skills rose to the level of "not horrible" but that was the extent of it. And in the many trips we took over the years, I never caught a single thing. Well, that's not entirely true. One time, my hook embedded itself in the downy skull of an unlucky mallard and while I thought it should qualify as a legal catch, Grandpap and the Florida State Game Warden had a different opinion.

"Grandpap, look! I caught a duck!"

"Ya shore did. Ya usin' live bait or jus' the plain ol' hook?"

Always the sportsman, Grandpap guided the boat over to where the duck was flailing around in the water, unhooked him, and set him free.

"Better let 'im go," he said with a chuckle. "That one's under the minimum size limit."

Over the years, my brothers went along on the fishing trips as well. My youngest brother, Bobby, seemed to inherit some of Grandpap's skill. He always caught a fish or two every time we went out, and Grandpap nicknamed him "Hot Rod." I wasn't jealous, though. Sure, my brother was a better fisherman than I was, but he never got to experience the "thrill" of lightning storms or the "prestige" of hooking our grandfather's ear.

Grandpap passed away about ten years ago, leaving a void in the lives of his family, Moose Lodge buddies, billiards rivals, and fishing companions.

But Central Florida became a much safer place for largemouth bass.

d

Hi Everyone!

2012-03-19T15:47:00.001-07:00

Okay, this is awfully presumptuous of me, but in case you've been wondering, "What ever happened to Knucklehead?" (you know who you are), the answer is:

Nothing, really.

I just haven't had the time to get much writing done. I've been getting in shape, though. No, I'm not kidding, I've actually made a commitment to losing weight and getting healthy. No more In-N-Out Burger (okay, once, on a "cheat day"), and I've been hitting the gym five or six times a week. And it's working . . . lost 40 pounds since New Year's. Only 30 more to go to get ready for the cruise in June, at which point, I'm spending a week eating whatever the hell I want to.

So what else?

Work is going well. I'll spare you the details, but being in a position of leadership is very rewarding, and I'm lucky enough to work with some outstanding people. I recently finished reading a book entitled "Focus on the Good Stuff" by Mike Robbins, and it is truly inspirational. Not only has it impacted how I do my job, but it is also highly applicable everyday life in general. Check it out on Kindle, or order your copy from Amazon. Hang on, I'll save you the trouble and give you the link myself.

Here you go.

So, having a week off from work, I thought I'd stop in and say hello to everyone and let you know I haven't just vanished into oblivion yet. I hope to get back into the writing routine soon, and when that happens you'll be the first to know. Thanks for hanging in there (assuming you've been coming by often and perusing the pure literary genius that is the Knucklehead archives).

Delusion is really a wonderful thing, isn't it?

Take care,
Chris

What Ever Happened To . . . Thing One and Thing Two?

2012-02-24T09:47:00.001-08:00

Mike and Mark Fitzmulligan were identical twins, born in Springfield, Illinois in 1952. For the most part, the boys' childhood was unremarkable. They were friendly young men and excellent students, adored by their teachers as well as their peers. After school, the boys worked part time at the market owned by their parents Henry and Connie, where they stocked shelves, swept the floor, and bagged groceries. The Fitzmulligan Twins were among the most popular and well-liked kids in all of Springfield, which makes what happened to them even more tragic.

One afternoon in April of 1967, Mark was manning the checkstand when a suspicious-looking customer entered the market.

"Good morning, sir, welcome to Fitzmulligan's," said Mark. "Can I help you find anything?"

"Why yes," answered a six-foot three-inch black and white cat wearing only a red and white hat and bow tie. "Where do you keep your tuna?"

"Here, let me show you," said Mark, stepping out from behind the counter. "The canned fish are right over . . ."

That's as far as he got. Without warning, the cat clubbed the unsuspecting twin over the head with an umbrella, dragged him out to the street, and tossed him into a large wooden box in the bed of a 1962 Ford pickup. The cat closed the latch on the box trapping Mark inside. That's when Mike came out of the store, trying to figure out why his brother was no longer working the cash register.

"Excuse me, sir," he said to the cat. "Did you happen to see my brother? He's about four-foot two and looks, well, exactly like me."

"Why yes, he's standing right there behind you. I don't know how you missed him."

Mike fell for it -- hook, line and sinker. When he turned around, the cat whacked him with the umbrella and loaded him in the box with his twin brother. The cat climbed into the driver's seat and sped away.

For the next month, the felonious feline subjected the Fitzmulligan twins to various types of physical and mental torture. He dressed them in identical red jumpsuits, dyed their hair a hideous shade of blue, and fed them nothing but brown sugar cinnamon Pop Tarts and Jim Beam whiskey. To dehumanize the twins, the cat referred to them only as Thing One and Thing Two; if the boys dared to call each other by their given names, the umbrella came out and the beatings commenced. The two Things spent most of their time drunk out of their minds, and the cat only let them out of their box when he wanted to vent his anger, which often included playing a game he called "Hit That Thing".

In addition to being a violent psychopath, the cat was a petty thief and he often took Thing One and Thing Two with him on jobs, one of which has been well documented.

It was a rainy Saturday morning. Sally and Tommy McCrumm were left at home, just the two of them, while their mother Josie went to the store to do the weekly grocery shopping. Mrs. McCrumm was a single mother, and while she would have preferred to hire a sitter to look after her children (Tommy, the older of the two, was only eleven), her budget didn't allow for such luxuries. Most Saturdays this wasn't a problem, as the kids were fairly responsible, but on this particular afternoon some adult supervision would've saved an awful lot of heartache and paperwork later.

As Tommy would explain to the investigating officers, at around 1:25 PM something went "bump", and that bump made them jump. They looked to see what caused the noise, and that's when they saw him. They saw him step in on the mat. They looked, and they saw him, the cat in the hat. Tommy immediately told the furry intruder to leave the premises, as they weren't allowed to have visitors while their mother was out. The cat, however, ignored the boy's pleas and began to destroy the family's possessions. He started with a book, a teapot, a cake, a rake, and most troublesome of all, a glass bowl containing the family goldfish, Mr. Krinklebine. The cat later claimed that he was merely trying to juggle these items to entertain the children, but Sally insisted, "the cat wasn't juggling at all, he just tossed everything up in the air. The cake splattered, the coffee cup shattered, and if Tommy hadn't caught the fishbowl, Mr. K was a goner."

As the kids scrambled to clean up the mess, Mr. Krinklebine screamed at the cat, "Get out of here! You should not be here when their mother is not!" The cat did, in fact, leave the house at this point, only to return moments later carrying the wooden box containing two things formerly known as Mark and Mike Fitzmulligan. As usual, the Things were completely hammered, and as a new twist, the cat had laced their morning Pop Tarts with a healthy dose of PCP. When the cat opened the latch, Thing One and Thing Two shot out of the box like a couple of hyperactive weasels zapped with a cattle prod. For the next hour and a half, Sally and Tommy McCrumm (and Mr. Krinklebine) experienced a level of chaos unmatched in the entire history of poorly-supervised pre-adolescents. The cat and the Things flew kites in the house, played tennis, and caused a variety of damage to the floors, walls, and the overall structural integrity of the McCrumm house. After the drugs wore off and the Things slowed down a bit, Tommy was able to capture them in a net and secure them back inside their box.

By this time, Mrs. McCrumm had finished her shopping and was about to return home. In a rush, the cat haphazardly straightened up some of the wreckage (though the plumbing and electrical work would require extensive repairs by certified professionals which created a financial hardship for Mrs. McCrumm, since her homeowner's insurance did not cover damage caused by psychotic cats and drug-crazed teenage Things) and fled the scene.

Mrs. McCrumm asked Tommy, "What the hell was going on here? This place looks like a bomb went off!" Tommy was an honest kid, so he told his mom an accurate, if watered-down, version of the day's events. Mrs. McCrumm immediately contacted the authorities, who questioned the children. Mr. Krinklebine refused to talk to the officers without his attorney present.

Meanwhile, the cat drove away at a breakneck speed and when he turned the corner, the box containing the Things fell off the truck and smashed on the pavement. Confused and injured, One and Two sat down on the curb where they were soon picked up by the police. Using information the Things provided, Officer Marvin K. Mooney and his partner were able to track down the cat at his home and launch an investigation.

As it turns out, the hat-wearing cat was much more than a petty thief and vandal. His real name was Skitch Morris, and the ransacking of the McCrumm home was but the latest (and least disturbing) of the cat's criminal activities. An extensive search of Morris's home revealed drug paraphernalia, unregistered hand guns, and an extensive collection of underground kitty porn stashed in a closet. To top it off, buried in the backyard, crime scene investigators found the bodies of three Sneetches who had been brutally murdered a few months earlier. Apparently, two of the Sneetches had been tortured prior to their deaths because while one Sneetch's belly had not been mutilated, the others had scars upon thars.

Skitch "The Cat in the Hat" Morris was convicted on all charges and sentenced to death. His execution was carried out on February 7, 1978.

After six months in a drug rehabilitation facility and three more in a mental hospital, Mark and Mike Fitzmulligan returned home to their parents in the summer of 1969. Though not quite the same as they were before their abduction, both boys were able to return to Geisel High School that September and graduated the following June. Neither of the twins discussed the details of their ordeal ever again.

After high school, Mike went on to the University of Northern Michigan where he majored in criminal justice. He served thirty-five years with the Lansing Police Department, and retired in 2009. He currently lives in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan with his wife Mitzi. They have three grown children and seven grandkids.

Mark, on the other hand, spent his time redefining the word "lazy". Uninterested in attending college and unwilling to look for work, the disturbed twin never moved out of his parents' house. He sat around all day in his underwear, eating potato chips, drinking root beer, Coca Cola, Dr. Pepper, and any other soft drinks he could find in the refrigerator. One afternoon in early '71, while completely hopped on pop, Mark stole the keys to his father's '69 Chevy Impala and went for a drive. He didn't make it very far. While speeding on the Interstate, Mark lost control of the vehicle and collided with an eighteen-wheeler transporting a shipment of Spaghetti-os to Pittsburgh. In a gruesome avalanche of twisted steel, burning rubber and neat round spaghetti you can eat with a spoon, the Chevy tumbled down an embankment killing Mark instantly. The driver of the truck was uninjured, although he could never quite get the smell of tomato sauce out of his trailer.

At the funeral, Mike Fitzmulligan spoke fondly of his twin brother.

"I loved him, man, we were two brothers sharing one soul. We looked out for each other, we took care of each other, we shared each other's secrets. As most of you know, we went through a terrible time together, but we were able to put that behind us and move on with our lives. At least, I thought we had, but it seems now like Marky needed me more than I thought. I wish I'd been there for him at the end. That's one Thing I'll never forgive myself for."

d

The Sandwich

2012-02-12T16:55:00.000-08:00

It was a Saturday afternoon, the year was 1977. My brother Eric and I were in the kitchen whipping up a couple of baloney and cheese sandwiches for our lunch. Mom was at work, and Dad was in the cellar working on something. Our youngest brother Bobby was lying on the couch, recovering from the common cold.

"Dad! Can I have lunch?" Bobby yelled. It was a small house. Voices carried, even down to the cellar.

Dad called up, "Are you guys in the kitchen?"

"Yeah!" I hollered back.

"Make Bobby a sandwich, would ya?"

There's no way to sugar-coat this. At the age of seven, our brother Bobby was a little shit. Being the youngest, he took a lot of crap from me and Eric, but he dished it out pretty well too. And now, with the support of our father, he had us doing his bidding. He was more than eager to take advantage of the situation.

"You heard him, slave boys. Make my lunch."

Eric and I looked at each other. "I'm not making it, not if he's gonna be a jerk," said Eric.

"Don't look at me, I'm not making that little twerp a sandwich."

"And hurry up about it!" Bobby ordered.

Eric slammed his green army hat to the floor, and stomped over to the top of the cellar stairs. "Dad, Bobby's being a jerk! Do we really have to make his lunch?"

"Just do it, please!" Dad replied.

"Yeah, slave boys," said Bobby. "Just DO it!"

Eric came back to the kitchen. "This sucks."

By this point, though, a thought had occurred to me. Dad didn't exactly say what KIND of sandwich to make for our smart-ass little brother. "So, Eric," I said. "Just what kind of sandwich do you think Bobby would like?"

"I don't care, baloney?"

"Okay, anything else you want to add?"

Eric's eyes narrowed, and a smirk crawled across his face. "Uh, yeah, I think he might like some peanut butter on it, too."

I spread a thin layer of Skippy on the one slice of bread. "What next?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Eric. "Maybe some mustard?"

Out came the Heinz Spicy Brown. We took a quick inventory of the refrigerator. Catsup. Horseradish. American cheese. Grape jelly. Hey, with a name like Smucker's . . .

By the time we finished, Bobby's sandwich was loaded up pretty good. We went extra heavy on the horseradish around the edges of the bread, so that first (and probably only) bite was going to be a doozy. Then we used lettuce leaves and a couple extra slices of baloney to make the sandwich look "normal". We put it on a paper plate, garnished it with some Lay's potato chips, and delivered it to our sickly brother.

"About time, slave boys. Now get me a Dr. Pepper."

"Anything you say, your majesty," I answered, stifling a chuckle.

Eric and I went back into the kitchen and waited.

"AAAAGH! What is this?!? This is DISGUSTING!" Ah, the joys of horseradish. "DAAAAAAD!"

Our father thundered up the cellar steps. "What's going on?" he asked.

"They made me a gross sandwich!"

We were still giggling when Dad confronted us in the kitchen. "What did you guys put on his sandwich?"

"Actually, Dad," said Eric, "it would be easier to tell you what we DIDN'T put on his sandwich. Milk."

We knew we were in the clear when Dad cracked a smile. "Okay, okay, maybe he asked for it. Can you guys make him a baloney-and-cheese-and-nothing-else sandwich now?"

"No bread?" I asked.

"Uh, yeah, bread too."

So we did. You've never seen a kid eat a baloney and cheese sandwich more carefully.

o

Another Year Without the Jets in the Super Bowl

2012-02-04T19:54:00.000-08:00

Yes, the Jets did win the Super Bowl. I was three.

Well, for the 43rd consecutive year, my beloved New York Jets are not playing on Super Sunday. That's right, in the entire forty-six year history of the Super Bowl, the Jets have made exactly ONE more appearance than the Edmonton Oilers who, in case you don't keep up on such things, play in the National Hockey League. The good news, of course, is that the Jets actually emerged victorious in their lone appearance, thanks to the magic of Joe Willie Namath combined with the complete ineptitude of the over-confident Baltimore Colts.

We'll take it, don't get me wrong.

Since it is virtually impossible for me to watch a sporting event as an impartial observer, I am, for the forty-third consecutive year, forced to select a non-Jets team to root for. Generally, there is a system I use to help me decide.

First, I will not ever root for the Raiders, Rams, Dolphins, Bills, Patriots, Jaguars, Panthers, Ravens, Browns, Steelers, or any team with a completely candy-ass quarterback (other than the Jets, of course). The reasons here are varied, but I view those teams as "the bad guys."

I will often cheer for a team if they have a player who I respect, both for their athletic talent and their perceived off-the-field demeanor. Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, and Warrick Dunn are examples.

There are also players I will never root for, no matter who they play for such as Ndamukong Suh, Chad Ochocinco, Terrell Owens and Brett Favre (again, except when he was a Jet).

Sissy.

Thankfully, this is one of the easy years, since the New England Patriots are playing. I absolutely despise the Patriots, every single thing about them. From their candy-ass quarterback to their 600-pound Sumo Lineman who hilariously has the word "fork" in his name, to their slovenly, hoodie-wearing, rule-breaking head coach, the Patriots are about as likeable as the Taliban. In fact, if New England was playing the Taliban in the Super Bowl, I would root for the Taliban.

Okay, that's not exactly true. I'd root for the Patriots to win, but for Tom Brady to blow out both knees in the process.

Vince Wilfork mistaking Jay Fiedler for a pizza.

Making my selection even simpler this year is the fact that the Pats are playing a team from New York. Sure, it's not the Jets, but I'll take a New York team over a Boston team any day of the week and twice on Super Bowl Sunday. Yankees-Red Sox, Rangers-Bruins, Knicks-Celtics, Syracuse-BU, doesn't matter. As I once heard 50,000 New Yorkers majestically chant, "Boston Sucks!"

Making this year even more fun is the fact that the Giants are most assuredly going to win the game. Sure, it might be somewhat close, but the New England defense couldn't stop traffic if they had fourteen spike-strips and a bazooka. And while the Patriot offense is somewhat formidable, they're depending quite a bit on an over-sized buffoon named Rob Grinkoflabowski (or something like that) who will be limited due to a boo-boo on hims widdle ankle.

Giants 38, Patsies 31. Write it down.

d

What Ever Happened To . . . Little Red Riding Hood?

2012-01-30T13:44:00.000-08:00

Jessica Hood was a child of the streets. They were dirt streets, since she lived in the forest, but these mean streets couldn't have been any meaner if they'd been located in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of New York City. From the time she was just a baby, Jessica lived on the periphery of the criminal underworld. Her father Robin was a local outlaw, burglarizing the homes of the upper class citizens in and around Nottingham County. Robin Hood claimed he was a benevolent crusader for the underprivileged, simply "robbing from the rich to give to the poor," but that didn't fly with his victims or the local sheriff. Mr. Hood was finally apprehended in 1983, convicted on 129 counts of burglary, and sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out publicly in early 1984.

But back to Jessica. Devastated by her father's death and unable to get along with her mother Marian who upon being widowed became a raging alcoholic and, to be honest, a bit of a whore, Jessica spent a lot of time at her grandmother's house. Most mornings, Jessica could be seen pedaling her bicycle through the woods toting a basket of goodies, sporting her trademark crimson bonnet and cape. This snappy outfit earned her the nickname "Little Red Riding Hood."

One morning in April of 1986, while en route to Granny's, Little Red Riding Hood was confronted by Oliver James Wolfe, or as he was known in law enforcement circles, The Big Bad Wolfe. Through an amazing zoological coincidence, Mr. Wolfe was in fact an actual wolf and as such, he approached the sprightly Miss Hood with bad intentions in his heart. Seeking at minimum to pilfer the girl's basket of goodies, which contained a dozen snickerdoodles, three cake donuts, a two-liter bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper and a strudel, Wolfe bared his teeth and snarled, "Hey, little girl, what's in the basket?"

To which young Jessica replied, "Ah, just some stuff for my grandmother. I'm in kind of a hurry, though, so if you'll get out of my way, maybe I'll bring you a few cookies if there are any left over, 'kay?"

Wolfe was somewhat taken aback by Jessica's cool demeanor in the face of his intimidation tactics (not to mention her offer of leftover snickerdoodles), so he mumbled something like, "Um, okay, sure. I'll be waiting over by the lake if you happen to come by later." Jessica smiled kindly and pedaled off to Granny's.

A short while later, while sitting by the lake skipping stones, Wolfe was struck with a "what the hell just happened here?" moment. Regaining his sense of entitlement and overwhelming thirst for the kill, he took off down the road and headed for the cottage of Darla Hood, former co-star of The Little Rascals [1] and Jessica Hood's grandmother.

Wolfe managed to arrive at Granny's before Jessica showed up, locked the old woman in the basement [2], threw on a nightgown and cap, and curled up in the bed. When Jessica arrived, she entered the bedroom and noticed a certain inconsistency in the eyes, ears, and teeth of what she was slowly beginning to realize was an impostor. A wolf in senior citizen's clothing, if you will.

Jessica managed to escape and contact the Nottingham County Sheriff who, after dragging his feet a bit when he found out the victim was related to his lifelong nemesis Robin Hood, arrested Wolfe on charges of trespassing and kidnapping. Oliver James Wolfe was convicted and served two years in county prison. [3]

In 2002, at the age of 23, Jessica Hood opened a bakery called "Hood's Goodies" and for a while, her business thrived. She was known for her business savvy and firm control over her employees. As she told Good Housekeeping magazine in 2003, "Quality control and customer service are essential in the goodie industry. Customers expect fresh, delicious baked goods served with a smile. Every one of my employees is expected to maintain a high standard of professionalism and if they don't, well, they won't last long. Just last year I had to fire the head of my pastry department for continually sticking his thumbs in the pies, if you can believe that. There's just no room for that kind of behavior at Hood's Goodies."

The employee in question, Mr. Jack Horner, could not be reached for comment.

Despite the popularity and financial success of Hood's Goodies, Jessica became the subject of controversy in 2005. On September 23 of that year, the five-year old Dumpty Quintuplets (Bumpty, Frumpty, Lumpty, Mumpty, and Phil) stopped by the bakery to grab a few cupcakes to snack on before school. Running low on supplies and behind schedule for a birthday cake order, the stressed-out Jessica cracked the five youngsters over the head, disemboweled them, and used their innards as ingredients in the cake batter. In a frenzy, Jessica beat them and whipped them and marked them with a B, and tossed them in the oven with no remorse whatsoever.

The distraught father of the quintuplets, who chooses to remain anonymous, released a statement through the family's attorney:

"My wife and I are devastated by the murder of our five children. What kind of a world do we live in, if kids can't go into a bakery without being scrambled to death? We're asking the citizens of Nottingham County to join us in the fight to protect children everywhere by making a donation to our foundation Five Good Eggs, which we've established in memory of our wonderful quintuplets."

Jessica "Red Riding" Hood was convicted of assault and bakery, and is currently serving a life sentence in Nottingham County Prison. She's occupying cell number B213 which, on a sentimental note, was daddy's old room.

[1] Okay, Darla Hood died in 1979 at the age of 47, which kills my timeline, but you must admit you didn't see that one coming.

[2] Some history books claim that Wolfe actually murdered and consumed Red Riding Hood's grandmother, but that account is pure fiction. As Wolfe would testify during the trial (Nottingham County. v. Wolfe, 1988) "I' ain't never ate a human in my life. Pigs, chickens, the occasional sheep? Hell yeah, that's the food chain and I ain't gonna apologize for it. But eat a human? Man, you gotta be kiddin' me."

[3] A few years after his release, Oliver James Wolfe was back in court facing civil charges of destruction of property (Winchester L. Pigg, et.al. v. Oliver James Wolfe, 1992). He lost, and was ordered to pay three million dollars in damages. Since then, he's turned over a new leaf and is on the straight and narrow. No one is afraid of him.

The Brady Mob

2012-01-23T15:42:00.000-08:00

Here's the story, of a man named ... Tony?

Throughout television history there've been many examples of model fathers. Some, like Andy Taylor and Ward Cleaver, were models of kindness and understanding while others, such as Homer Simpson and Al Bundy, would better serve as an example of parenting "strategies" you should avoid. Generally speaking, though, every TV dad was more or less a perfect match for his particular family. Sure, Al Bundy was an idiot, but so were his wife and kids. Ward Cleaver was a great father, and his family reflected that.

So whaddaya say we have a little fun here, and perform a parent transplant? What if we took one of our favorite TV families and replaced their father with the dad from a different show? I mean, how would the Brady kids have turned out if their father was, say, Tony Soprano?

Remember the episode of the Brady Bunch where a bully named Buddy Hinton picked on Cindy for talking with a lisp? "Baby talk, baby talk, it's a wonder you can walk," he'd say, sending poor Cindy home in tears. One afternoon, on their way home from Clinton Avenue Elementary School, Peter decided to stand up for his little sister, telling Buddy to knock it off. Buddy then said to Peter, "why don't you make me?" and ended up kicking Peter's ass. Peter and Cindy went home with their tails between their legs, and told their father what had happened. Being an unrealistically optimistic pacifist, Mike Brady tried to reason with Buddy's father, with no success.

But how would Tony Brady (formerly Soprano) have handled the situation?

THEME MUSIC:

Here's the story of a lovely lady
Who was bringing up three very lovely girls
All of them had hair of gold
Like their mother
The youngest one in curls.

Here's the story, of a man named Tony
Who was busy with three punks of his own
They were four thugs
Living all together
Yet they were all alone.

Till the one day when the lady met this goombah
And she knew he was the right guy for the job
So her girls were brought in to "the family"
That's the way that they became the Brady Mob.

The Brady Mob, the Brady Mob. That's the way they became the Brady Mob.

We pick up the scene in the Brady family room, with Peter and Cindy talking to their father.

TONY: Whoa, what the fuck happened to your face, Pete?

PETER: I got in a fight with Buddy Hinton.

TONY: A fight over what?

PETER: He was making fun of Cindy.

TONY: Is that right.

Never pick on a girl with mob connections, Buddy.

CINDY: Yeth, Daddy. He wath making fun of my lithp. He thaid I thound like a baby.

TONY: That's why I told your mother to take you to the fuckin' speech therapist. Haven't ya been going?

CINDY: Mommy thaid not to tell you we've been going to the mall inthtead of the thpeech clatheth. That would be tattling.

TONY: I'll deal wit' your mother later. So Peter, dis Hinton character, I might wanna have a word wit' his fuckin' father. You happen to know where he lives?

PETER: The Hintons live over on Sherwood Avenue, it's the blue house with the cobblestone driveway. I can show you if you want.

CINDY: Can I go too, Daddy? I want to thee you talk to Mithter Hinton.

TONY: No, Cindy, you better stay here wit' Alice. Let's go, Pete, we gotta stop by and pick up Silvio and Christopher and then we'll have a little chat wit' dat douchebag's old man.

Tony and Peter make a quick stop at Brady Bing, the strip club Tony owns and manages. Peter repeats the whole story to Tony's consiglieri Silvio Dante and lower-level associate Christopher Moltisanti. They drive over to the Hintons' place and Tony rings the doorbell.

MR. HINTON (opening the door): Who the hell are you greaseballs?

Mom always says, "Don't break balls in the house."

Silvio busts Mr. Hinton in the temple with the butt-end of his .44-caliber pistol, and then unleashes a knee to the stugots (that's mob talk for "nuts"). Hinton crumples to the ground, where Christopher and Sil proceed to kick him repeatedly in the ribs.

TONY: Get the fuck up, ya fuckin' fanook. Chris, Sil, help him out.

Christopher and Sil lift the semi-conscious Hinton to his feet and hold him upright.

TONY: Where's your kid?

HINTON: Humph?

TONY: Your son Buddy. Get him out here. He should see this.

HINTON (groaning): Buddy! Come down here for a minute!

Buddy hustles down the stairs.

BUDDY: What is it Da - aaaaah! What's going on?

TONY: Hi Buddy. So I hear youse been makin' fun of my little girl Cindy. Is that right?

BUDDY: NO! I NEVER SAID ANYTHING TO HER!

Tony pulls out his own pistol and fires a bullet into Mr. Hinton's thigh. Christopher punctuates this with an elbow to Hinton's mouth.

TONY (to Mr. Hinton, who is moaning in pain): You might wanna explain to your kid dat he should probably tell da truth in dis situation.

HINTON (pulling out what's left of his broken front teeth): Buthy . . . jutht tell Mither Brady duh trooth . . .

"I think I see a leg bone popping out!"

PETER: Gee, Mr. Hinton, you sure talk funny!

Christopher and Sil chuckle softly, and drop Mr. Hinton who curls up in a fetal position on the living room floor.

BUDDY: Okay, okay, I've been teasing Cindy, but I was only playing around. I didn't mean to hurt her feelings. I'll never do it again, I promise.

TONY: Whaddaya tink, Peter? Does Buddy sound like he's sorry? Or do you tink he might need a little more, how should we say dis, um, encouragement?

PETER: He's been doing it for a while, Dad, and remember he did punch me in the face.

TONY: Right, I almost forgot about dat. Christopher, go get da baseball bat from da trunk.

CHRISTOPHER: You got it, T.

Christopher exits, then returns a moment later wielding a 33-ounce Louisville Slugger, Derek Jeter model.

CHRISTOPHER: T, you're not gonna ask me to beat up a kid, are ya?

TONY: No, of course not. Give da bat to Peter.

Peter takes the bat and without a word, rams it knob-first into Buddy's mouth. Then, in one swift motion, he swings low, dislocating the younger Hinton's right knee. Buddy falls to the ground next to his father, crying.

BUDDY: I'm thorry! I'm thorry! I'm thorry!

PETER (to Buddy): Baby talk, baby talk, it'll be a while till you can walk. C'mon Dad, let's get the fuck outta here.

TONY: Dat's my boy.

Tony, Peter, Silvio, and Christopher leave the house, leaving Buddy and his dad lying on the floor bleeding.

We're not even going to discuss what would happen to Mike Brady if he had to take over the Soprano family. Somehow, I don't think his "family" would respond well to settling their disputes with calm, cool reasoning.

d

Is World Peace Really Necessary?

2012-01-16T12:19:00.000-08:00

Shakespeare once wrote, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." The Bard's philosophy has been put to the test recently by the Los Angeles Lakers' controversial forward Ron Artest. For reasons understood only by him, Ron has legally changed his name to Metta World Peace. Perhaps he did this to protect his self-esteem. I'd imagine it would be uncomfortable for 18,000 fans at the Boston Garden (or whatever they're calling it these days) to chant "World Peace Sucks! World Peace Sucks!" On the other hand, it might be interesting to hear his teammates support him by imploring coach Mike Brown to "give World Peace a chance."

Dennis "Tina Turner" Rodman

Mr. World Peace is hardly the first athlete to change his name. In many cases, the change has been made for religious reasons such as Lew Alcindor becoming Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bobby Moore becoming Ahmad Rashad, and most famously, Tina Turner becoming Dennis Rodman.

Other guys have tried to be more whimsical about it. Middleweight boxer Marvin Hagler went to court to fight for the right to be called "Marvelous" Marvin Hagler. NFL wide receiver Chad Johnson ridiculously took on his uniform number as his last name, converting to Chad Ochocinco. The fact that he erroneously translated "eighty-five" into Spanish did not dissuade him one bit. This of course makes me wonder if there's some Portuguese soccer player running around with the name Juan Carlos Fourseven.

Artest isn't even the first NBA player to try to spread a political message on his drivers' license. Back in 1981, Lloyd Free changed his name to World B. Free.

Clever, huh? He didn't even have to do anything with his last name.

Here's my problem.

Ron Artest is just about the last guy on the planet (certainly in the NBA) to take up the mantle for world peace. If Gandhi chose to go by Mahatma World Peace, sure, I think we could all buy that. Even John Lennon would've had a bit of credibility if he recorded Imagine under the name John World Peace.

But Ron Artest? As I'm about to explain, Artest calling himself Metta World Peace is a lot like Charlie Sheen calling himself Drug Free McSoberman.

"All we are saying . . . "

As you may recall, in 2004, Artest was the central figure in one of the ugliest displays of unsportsmanlike conduct and mayhem the sports world has ever seen, an incident that has affectionately come to be known as "Malice at the Palace." Late in a game that was already well out-of-hand, Artest -- then with the Indiana Pacers -- committed an egregiously flagrant foul against Detroit Pistons' Ben Wallace (not exactly Mr. Softie himself). Mr. Wallace took exception to this and politely expressed his displeasure by violently shoving Artest. Predictably, fights broke out, a melee ensued, and eventually Artest decided to take a break and lay down on the scorer's table. The Detroit fans, somewhat irked at Artest's behavior, began throwing various concession-related items onto the court and at one point Artest was pelted with a half-full (or half-empty, depending on one's perspective) cup of soda. Some witnesses say it was Diet Coke, others claim it was Dr. Pepper. Artest, none too pleased with his new-found fizzy beverage predicament, charged into the stands and confronted the man he incorrectly believed was responsible. This, of course, inspired the surrounding fans to go -- and here I use the clinical psychiatric term -- totally friggin' berzerk. Regaining his senses (to a point), Artest returned to the now-chaotic basketball court where he was called a rude name by yet another pissed-off Piston fan. As you'd expect by now, Artest punched the guy in the face. As a result of his actions, Ron Artest was suspended for the remainder of the NBA season, including playoffs. This is still the longest suspension for an on-court incident in NBA history.

But wait, there's more.

In 2007, Artest -- who had moved on to the Sacramento Kings -- was involved in a domestic incident and was charged with corporal injury to a spouse, battery, false imprisonment and dissuading a witness from reporting a crime, all misdemeanors. He pleaded no contest.

While researching this piece, I spoke with at least three individuals who asked, "Hey, isn't Artest the guy who choked out his coach a few years back?" Actually, that was Latrell Sprewell (who has since changed his name to Butterfly Placid Tranquility), but the fact that three separate people connected Artest's name with the choking incident tells you all you need to know about the guy's reputation.

Doesn't exactly scream "World Peace," does it?

And here's another thing. There are a lot of completely normal and even, dare I say, admirable ways to support meaningful causes. Bumper stickers, for example. I don't see why Ron couldn't have just slapped a WORK FOR WORLD PEACE sticker on the back of his Lamborghini. Start a foundation, build a website, write a weekly column for War Haters Illustrated, whatever. No need to get all "I think I'll give myself a stupid name" about it. After all, Bob Barker has done a lot of great things in the arena of animal rights activism, but he never once asked to be called Puppy Spay Chihuahua.

As a Laker fan, I would like to suggest that Mr. World Peace spend less time worrying about his name and a bit more time on other issues.

Like his jump shot.

To view the video of "Malice at the Palace," click here.

d

Woodchuckery

2012-01-09T15:00:00.001-08:00

Apparently this is the kind of story one writes when one is sleep-deprived.

Just last week, I was taking a stroll in the park when I stumbled upon a grumpy woodchuck. When I say "stumbled upon," I don't mean that I noticed him sitting by a tree, or we crossed paths in front of the flower garden. I mean that I literally stumbled over him as he was plopped down in the middle of the sidewalk.

"Hey, watch where you're going, dumbass," he said. Like I said, grumpy.

"Oh, sorry," I replied. "Didn't see you there. You're a woodchuck, right?"

"No, I'm a friggin' water buffalo. Yes, I'm a woodchuck. Name's Carl."

"Hi Carl. I'm Chris."

"I don't give a shit."

"Can I ask you a question, Carl?"

"Would it matter if I said no you can't?"

"Probably not. Don't know if you know this, but we humans have always wondered something about you guys."

"No kidding. What's that? What we taste like if we're barbecued and slathered in A-1 sauce?"

"Uh, no. Actually, we'd like to know how much wood you could chuck. I mean, if you could chuck wood. What's the story?"

"You can't be serious. You're the most advanced species on the entire friggin' planet, and that's the sort of shit you spend time thinking about?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Pathetic. But I'll see what I can do. First, I guess it all depends what you mean by 'chuck,' man. Do you mean 'to toss or throw with a quick motion,' 'pat or tap lightly, as in under the chin,' or to eject from a public place, like, 'Sully was being such an obnoxious asshole that he got chucked from Fenway Park without receiving a refund?'"

I thought about that for a minute. This guy sure had a keen grasp of the English language, not to mention Bostonians. After determining that wood would not attend Red Sox games at Fenway, nor did it have a chin to lightly tap, I said, "Throw with a quick motion. How much wood do you think you could throw?"

"What kind of wood? I'm sure that I could chuck pine farther than say, mahogany." I could tell Carl was warming up to this.

"Pine."

"How big a piece?"

"Twelve inch lengths of two-by-four."

"What's the time frame? Are we asking how much wood could I chuck in ten minutes? An hour? Or how much could I chuck until I simply collapse from exhaustion?"

"Let's say fifteen minutes."

Carl said, "Well, I guess there's only one way to find out, man. Let's go get some wood!"

I helped my new rodent-like buddy into the bed of my Ford F-150 and we took a quick trip to Home Depot. I bought 500 foot-long cuts of two-by-four and loaded them in the truck. Carl rode shotgun as we headed back to the park. Along the way we hit a McDonald's drive thru and I quickly found out how many fries a woodchuck could eat if a woodchuck could eat fries. Answer: a lot.

We got back to the park where I unloaded the wood with no help whatsoever from Carl, who sat in the shade polishing off the last of his strawberry shake. When I had all the two-by-fours arranged in a neat pile, I told him that it was showtime. He did a few quick stretching exercises, picked up a piece of wood, and chucked it.

"Shit, Carl! What the hell?" He'd hit me right in the forehead.

"Sorry, man," he said, giggling. "My bad."

He didn't look sorry.

"All right, let's do this," I said. "You've got fifteen minutes, time to start chucking."

In a maelstrom of woodchuck fur and lumber, Carl sent the two-by-fours flying all over the park. A Boy Scout on a Razor scooter took one off the left hip. Another landed at the feet of a stray German shepherd, who picked it up in his mouth and bolted. Several more boards ended up in the fountain, scattering a flock of pigeons who were mostly minding their own business. Fifteen minutes later, it was all over.

"TIME!" I called.

As I counted the two-by-fours that remained on the original stack, Carl walked over to the lake, took a quick drink, scratched his personal area and crapped on the grass.

"Okay, Carl," I said, "we have the results. There are 218 boards left, which means that you successfully chucked 282. Not bad!"

"Whatever. Now piss off, would ya?"

And with that, Carl and I parted ways. But I'd learned two things that day. First, a woodchuck would chuck 18.8 twelve-inch lengths of two-by-four per minute, if a woodchuck could chuck wood. And I learned that Carl the Woodchuck is a furry little asshole.

Now where can I find that damn owl with the Tootsie Pop?

My New Year's Unresolutions

2012-01-03T16:16:00.000-08:00

So here we are in the future. It's 2012 which, according to fifty years' worth of science fiction movies, means we should all be piloting flying saucers, zipping around in jet packs, and spending our summers relaxing on the beaches of Mars. Do you realize that we're only three short years away from 2015, which was the "future" in Back to the Future, Part II?

Scary, isn't it?

As we turn the calendar page yet again, most folks cheerfully delude themselves into thinking this year's going to be different and make all sorts of resolutions designed to make them happier, or to make them better people. This year, I'm going to stick to a diet. This year, I'm going to get regular checkups and take care of myself. This year, I'm going to quit smoking. Normally these resolutions last until somewhere around Martin Luther King Day, and then it's back to business as usual.

So this year, I'm going to do something different. Realizing that I'm probably not going to take any drastic steps to improve myself, instead I'm going to make a list of New Year's Unresolutions -- things that I will strive to NOT do in 2012.

We'll start with an easy one. I will not, under any circumstances, hit Betty White in the face with a water balloon. My chances of even running into Ms. White are very slim, since I don't think we frequent the same establishments. I spend very little time in Hollywood, she (apparently) doesn't hang out at Buffalo Wild Wings. And on the off-chance I do bump into her, I most likely won't be carrying a water balloon. I'm pretty confident I'll be able to stick to this unresolution.

In the coming year I will also not shove habanera peppers up my nose and whistle the second movement of Mozart's Symphony #29. Easy enough, because I do not know Mozart's 29th symphony, and I cannot whistle.

During 2012, I will not cheer for the Boston Red Sox. By way of comparison, this is even less likely than my shoving peppers up my nose and whistling Mozart while chucking water balloons at Betty White. Not gonna happen.

I will not sit on Oprah Winfrey's shoulders as she runs the New York City Marathon. I placed a call to her agent, who explained to me that Ms. Winfrey will not be participating in this year's event. Also, I'm working that week.

I will not walk up to Will Ferrell and scream in his face, "YOU ARE AN UNTALENTED, VULGAR BUFFOON AND YOUR MOVIES SUCK!" I will instead send it to him in an e-mail.

Furthermore, I won't mow the lawn of the White House while wearing a rainbow wig and a Speedo. I think our nation's leaders will thank me for this.

I won't write blog posts while under the influence of pretty strong pain medication I received from my doctor. After this one, I mean.

And I will try not to be too disappointed that I do not yet own a flying car. After all, according to Doc Brown, that's not due to happen for a few years yet.

d

The Year Without Orange Danish

2011-12-26T21:15:00.000-08:00

When I was a child, like most kids, I looked forward to Christmas morning with all the wide-eyed anticipation of a hungry lion stalking out a semi-arthritic gazelle as it hobbled its way across the Serengeti. My brothers and I simply couldn't wait to jump out of bed at the crack of dark, bug our parents until they woke up, and storm downstairs to open our gifts.

We were just like every other kid in the world, is what I'm saying.

Kids who celebrate Christmas, that is.

And like most families, we had a few time-honored traditions that made the holiday season even more special. For example, after opening our presents and enjoying them for at least a couple hours, Mom and Dad would take us across town to our grandma's house where the routine would start all over again. Another round of spectacular games and toys -- and one Foot Fixer by Clairol, on that Christmas That Will Live in Infamy -- followed by a nice dinner of turkey or ham with all the trimmings. Most Christmases, we would then head down to Florida for a week or so to visit my mom's family.

In addition to these fine traditions, there has always been one other small-but-significant detail that has made every Christmas complete. I am of course referring to the Pillsbury Orange Sweet Rolls.

For as long as I can remember, Mom would diligently prepare a pan of those scrumptious danish with the orange frosting, and we'd munch away as we opened our presents. It just wasn't Christmas without them. In fact, for the past several years, my wife Theresa has whipped up a batch for us to enjoy on Christmas morning, before heading down to my parents' house.

Pillsbury Orange Sweet Rolls are to Christmas morning what turkey is to Thanksgiving, trick-or-treating is to Halloween, and getting totally rip-roaring drunk is to New Years' Eve. The orange-flavored icing on the cake, so to speak.

Until this year.

Before I continue with the story, I have to share with you my mother's opinion that in many of my stories, I tend to make her look like "the bad guy," that I'm unfairly harsh in my retelling of events. Personally, I call this "responsible and accurate reporting," but in the interest of fairness, I thought it best if I make you aware of an opposing viewpoint. Of course, this "opposing viewpoint" is held by a grown woman who would, on more than one occasion, chase her pre-adolescent sons down the upstairs hallway, wielding a stretch of plastic track from a Hot Wheels set yelling, "Come back here right this minute, or you're getting this across your butt!"

So I leave it to you to judge her credibility as we proceed.

Since our kids are older and therefore do not pounce on us anymore, Theresa and I woke up this Christmas morning at around ten o'clock. At least that's when I woke up. Theresa was already up and around at this point, so to be honest, she could've risen at dawn for all I know. Since we had planned on heading to my parents' at noon, there was no urgent need for breakfast. Theresa hadn't prepared the orange danish, but I didn't figure this would be a problem since my mother was sure to have taken care of it.

Little did I know.

So we arrived at my folks' where Mom was busily preparing dinner for the houseload of people that would arrive shortly. Turkey, ham, three different kinds of stuffing, various pies, almost everything one could hope for on Christmas day.

Almost.

I do not mean to sound ungrateful here, but somehow my mother had forgotten all about the traditional Pillsbury orange danish. To make matters worse, if that is even possible, when I politely brought this egregious oversight to her attention, she didn't seem to know what I was talking about.

"What do you mean, where are the orange danish?" she asked.

"You know, the Pillsbury orange danish that we've had every single Christmas since I was a little kid."

She seemed incredulous. I guess overwhelming pangs of guilt can cause one to feign surprise. "I haven't made those in years."

"You're joking, right? Where are they?"

"Chris, why would I make orange danish?"

"Why WOULDN'T you?"

We went back and forth like that for several minutes, so to bolster my argument (which really shouldn't have been necessary when you stop to think about it) I turned to my brother Eric and asked, "You remember the orange danish don't you? That we have every year?"

I guess he didn't want to hurt Mom's feelings or something, because he said, "I remember having them, but not that it was some kind of tradition."

Unbelievable.

So then I asked our other brother Bobby. His reply?

"I don't know what you're talking about."

At this point I must have been carrying on a bit, maybe acting like a baby about all this, because Theresa said, "You know, you're acting like a baby about all this."

Easy for her to say. She hadn't been looking forward to orange danish for 364 days.

Aside from that (which is sort of like the old question "Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"), our Christmas was very nice and dinner was outstanding. Mom did a wonderful job as always, which is why we all love her so much. One of the reasons, anyway.

But next year, Mom?

Don't forget the danish, please.

d

Dumbed-Down Classics: Of Mice and Men

2011-12-19T06:36:00.000-08:00

According to a recent study which I am just now making up, 83% of American high school seniors are reading at the sixth grade level or below. Therefore it's not surprising that when asked to name a few great works of literature, today's teens typically give responses such as "Wikipedia," "Twilight," and "What the hell is literature?"

Not to worry, I'm here to help.

In an effort to make classic novels accessible to a new generation of whacked-out, Facebook-addicted nimrods, I'm taking it upon myself to translate them (the novels) into language that is easily understood by everyone, even your teenage daughter who thinks "OMG U R SO STOOPID LOL" is a complete sentence.

So here we go. We'll start off with one of my favorites.

THE DUMBED-DOWN LITERATURE SERIES PRESENTS:
John Steinbeck's OF MICE AND MEN

Here's a tale of two men, who set out on their own
To earn honest wages, and perhaps find a home.
George was the smart one, stern but kind-hearted
His pal Lennie was, to be blunt, retarded.

Lennie was enormous, but wouldn't hurt a fly
At least not on purpose, as we'll learn by and by.
For a mouse he could pet, that's all he was wishin'
But what Lennie calls "pettin'" most people call "squishin'"

When he made George mad, to make light of the fuss
Lennie would beg, "Tell about guys like us."
It was a ritual they had, a mantra, you'd say
And they had to run through it almost every day.

"Other guys," George began, "ain't got no one else,
The things that they do, they gotta do by their self.
But not us, because we both got each other
We walk side by side, we're loyal like brothers."

"Go on," Lennie pleaded, "tell about our own place,"
And he listened to George with a smile on his face.
"We'll have our own house," at least so they'd planned,
"And we'll work hard and live off the fat of the land."

"We'll sell off our crops, and we'll share all the money,"
Then Lennie burst out, "Tell me about the bunnies!"
George let out a sigh, as became force of habit
"Yes, Lennie," he said, "you'll tend to the rabbits."

But to make this dream real, they'd have to build up a stash
Not drugs, you dumb asshole, it means save up cash.
They were hired as farmhands, and they labored each day
Feeding the livestock and baling the hay.

"Aloha, Mr. Spicoli."

They met many ranchers, tough guys with grit
Who had western-type names like Slim and like Whit.
A stablebuck Crooks, and Candy the oldie.
In the movie, the same guy who taught Jeff Spicoli.

The villain of the story is a punkass named Curley
The son of the boss, he was hostile and surly.
Simply put, he was a prick that nobody could stand,
But they put up with his crap so they didn't get canned.

Curley's wife, let me tell you, she was quite a hottie
She didn't mind showing off her sensational body.
Making passes at Carlson, flirting with Whit,
Yeah, the bitch had a knack for stirring up shit.

One day after lunch, Curley seemed even meaner,
He'd misplaced his wife, asked if anyone seen her.
Which, for some reason, Lennie thought was quite funny
And Curley got pissed, "What you laughin' at, dummy?"

He swung at the big guy, whacked him right in the chops,
And Lennie cried out, "George, please make him stop!"
When Curley saw that Lennie wasn't going to fight,
He tagged him again with a left and a right.

George then decided it was one punch too many,
And turned his pal loose yelling, "Go get 'im, Lennie!"
The next punch, Lennie caught in the palm of his hand,
And he crushed Curley's fist, ground his bones into sand.

Blood spurted everywhere, it was really quite gory,
To save Lennie's job, they came up with a story.
The farmhands discussed it, and all that they'd seen
Was Curley getting his hand caught in a machine.

With things back to normal, George continued to plan
For the day when they'd live "off the fat of the land."
Candy overheard and asked, "Is that really true?
I've got some spare cash if you'll let me come too."

George worked the numbers, and much to his delight,
He realized it could work, you know, it just might!
So the three men worked together and saved up more money,
And assured Lennie that he could still tend the bunnies.

But just when their dream was there to be had
Lennie screwed it all up, and he screwed it up bad.
See, Carlson gave Lennie a pup to take care of
A mistake, of course, he should've been quite aware of.

As I said once before, Lennie liked to pet things
But because he was "slow" he would tend to forget things.
Like when you grab puppies to stop them from yapping
If you grab them too hard, it's their neck you'll be snapping.

So he killed the poor puppy, and he knew it was trouble,
But when Curley's wife wandered in, well, the trouble was double.
She sat down next to Lennie, in the barn where it's dirty
And Lennie said, "Gee, ma'am, you hair sure smells purty."

Curley's wife let him touch it, which wasn't real bright,
And before very long, she was shaking with fright.
Lennie, as usual, started getting too rough
When the woman cried out, Lennie said, "That's enough!"

"You gotta be quiet, please lady, don't yell,
If George hears you hollerin' he'll come give me hell."
But she kept right on screaming, the terror had filled her,
And before Lennie knew it, it seemed that he'd killed her.

He knew that he'd done it, dog gone and dag-nabbit.
There was no way in hell he'd be tending them rabbits.
So he hid by the river, waited there for his friend
He knew that ol' George would come save him again.

Back at the barn, Candy got the shock of his life
As he was the one who found Curley's dead wife.
He went and got George, and the two men felt sick
They knew Lennie'd hang for this, and it wouldn't be quick.

George made up his mind that he'd find Lennie first
And make sure that bad didn't end up as worst.
So he went to the river, where he knew Lennie'd be
And he found his friend crying, sitting under a tree.

"You gonna give me hell?" he asked softly, while wiping a tear.
"No," said George, "We'll just sit quietly here."
"Tell me again," Lennie said, "About the fat of the land,"
And George stood behind him, with trembling hands.

"Some guys got no one gives a hoot in hell about 'em
In fact, the world might be better without 'em.
But not us, that's not how our life will be
Because I got you, and because you got me.

One day we'll have a place of our own
A farm, and some livestock, and even a home.
It's right out there, Lennie, just reach out and grab it."
And Lennie called out, "I get to tend the rabbits!"

Just then George heard Curley's mob coming to get 'em.
But no way in hell was he going to let 'em.
They'd torture poor Lennie, beat him till he was dead,
So George took out a gun and he shot him instead.

d

Crumbling Economy Forces Santa to Downsize

2011-12-14T17:30:00.000-08:00

In breaking news from the North Pole, Kris Kringle has announced that beginning in January 2012 his company, Santa Claus Enterprises, will be implementing massive budget cuts to deal with the current global economic crisis.

"This has been coming for some time now," Kringle told reporters at a recent press conference. "We've always been a non-profit organization, but unless we make drastic changes, we'll no longer be able to provide children with the service they've come to expect."

The biggest change will be the discontinuing of Christmas Eve delivery of presents and goodies. This will allow Santa to sell his Icemaster Turbo SL-500 Sleigh and also terminate the employment contracts of his reindeer staff.

"This was a tough decision," said Kringle. "But the reality is, no one is allowed to see me making the deliveries anyway, so if we just ship gifts all around the planet, the impact on our customers will be minimal. FedEx has agreed to give us a substantial discount on shipping costs, so when you balance that against the expense of sleigh maintenance and the housing, feeding, and upkeep of our reindeer, we'll come out ahead."

When asked what will become of Santa's legendary sleigh, Kringle replied, "We're putting it up for auction right after the holidays. The Icemaster is a one-of-a-kind vehicle, equipped for both land and air travel. The ultra-super-sonic engines allow it to cruise at Mach 7, and its stealth mode feature renders it invisible to enemy radar. Slap a few missile launchers and a bomb bay on that sucker and it will undoubtedly become the linchpin of some lucky nation's air force. We're starting the bidding at fifty million dollars."

The revelation that the sleigh is powered by engines, not reindeer, came as a shock to members of the media. When asked to explain, Santa said, "The reindeer are purely cosmetic, used mainly to support our company's image. What magic would there be in Santa Claus soaring through the sky in a supersonic sleigh? No, Donner, Comet, Vixen and the crew are simply along for the ride."

Santa's elves have not escaped the proverbial head-rolling either. Currently, Santa Claus Enterprises maintains a staff of over five thousand "vertically challenged" employees who work year-round to build toys for children all over the world. However, with today's kids becoming more and more sophisticated, the demand for generic, hand-made gifts has decreased to practically nil.

"Look, what kid wants an airplane carved out of wood or a skillfully-crafted red wagon when they can have a laptop computer or an iPad?" said Santa. "We're going to keep five hundred or so elves to work in our I.T. department, where they'll be ordering products from Nintendo, Sony, Apple, and other manufacturers for us to send off to the good boys and girls. Everyone else is being let go. Even at minimum wage, the savings will be significant."

Santa went on to say that he was going to have to make some changes in his own day-to-day activities as CEO. "I'm still going to be making a list, but now I'll only be checking it once. I figure, if one or two naughty kids slip through the cracks, it's not that big of a deal. And no more 'seeing you when you're sleeping.' I've got better things to do, if you want to know the truth."

Kringle and Salaben, in happier times.

Badhron Salaben, shop steward for the International Federation of Elves (Local 241), did not share Kringle's enthusiasm about the diminished work force.

"This is total frickin' elk dung," said Salaben. "Laying off ninety percent of your entire manufacturing staff is just insane. Most of these guys have been working at the North Pole since they were teenagers. Their fathers were toy-makers, their grandfathers were toy-makers . . . it's a legacy around here. And now Kringle is just gonna put forty-five hundred elves out in the cold? It's not like there are a lot of other employment opportunities for them up here above the Arctic frickin' Circle. You ever see a homeless elf? Break your heart, man."

The Global Reindeer Association (GRA) had no such concerns about their laid-off members.

"Not a problem at all," said Dasher. "It's not like the fat tub of figgy pudding ever paid us anyway. He kept us locked in a stable all year, feeding us hay and oats. Like we were HORSES or something! Firing us? More like liberating us, if you ask me."

Asked if the timing of Kringle's announcement might negatively impact the upcoming Christmas, Dasher replied, "Nah, fat boy timed it perfectly. The elves can't do squat because the toys are already packed up in the warehouse, and we reindeer are just decoration to begin with. What are we gonna do, strike?"

Comet, though, has other ideas. "Oh, it's gonna have an impact, all right. Starting a week or so ago, I've had a couple disgruntled elves bring me nothing but burritos and prune juice for every meal. Come Christmas Eve, I'm gonna be packed to the antlers with turd bombs. Let's just say I'm gonna make an impact on most of North America."

In related news, the Wall Street Journal reports that stock in Santa Claus Enterprises (SNTA) has dropped 35% in the wake of recent events, trading at $28.03 per share at the close of business on December 14.

d

Jesus X

2011-12-08T10:27:00.000-08:00

You want to tick off a bunch of people this Christmas season? Of course, who doesn't? All you have to do is send out your Christmas cards with the message, "Wishing you and yours a very Merry X-mas." Most of your friends and family probably won't say a word about it, at least not to your face, but certainly a couple hyper-sensitive folks with nothing better to do will take exception to the "X-mas" part.

The assumption is, when you use "X-mas," you're "taking Christ out of Christmas," and by doing so you expose yourself as a pagan nimrod, destined to spend eternity burning to a crisp in the company of Satan, Osama bin Laden, Adolf Hitler, and whoever invented beat-boxing. How dare you "cross out Jesus's name" from the holiday where we celebrate his birth?

I did some research (believe it or not) to determine when this illicit yuletide abbreviation was introduced. Turns out that in Greek, X is the first letter in the word "Christ," and was used as early as the 1600's to abbreviate words like Xian (Christian), Xianity (Christianity), and Xanthemum (Chrysanthemum). It wasn't done out of disrespect, it was done because when your only writing instruments are chisels, or perhaps the Gutenberg Printing Press (invented by Johannes Gutenberg, the great-great-great-great grandfather of Police Academy star Steve Guttenberg), you want to shorten as many words as possible.

So basically, referring to Christmas as "X-mas" is just like calling Alex Rodriguez "A-rod." Not that I'm comparing the Yankee third baseman to the yuletide season, but you have to admit, there are some similarities. For example, they're both good for one month of excitement per year, neither one shows up in October, and when all is said and done, you have to admit you spent way too much money. Also, X-mas features artificial trees, A-rod displays artificial muscles.

But I digress.

I realize, of course, that certain devout types will still object to "X-mas," so in an effort to bring peace and joy to all mankind (and womankind, back off ladies), I am offering a solution. A way to "level the playing field," if you will.

We're going to start replacing the letter X with the word "Christ" wherever it makes sense to do so. For example, the game Tic-Tac-Toe will require one person to be "O's" and his opponent to be "Christs." Sure, they'll be harder to draw, but we're talking about equality not convenience.

Other changes:

When burying treasure, pirates will "mark the spot" with a Christ.

Hospitals' radiology departments will stock up on Christ-ray machines.

David Duchovny will star in the next Christ-Files movie.

Wolverine and his buddies will be known as the Christ-Men.

Women will spend weekend after weekend searching for a hot guy with the Christ-factor.[1]

And of course, the 1960's civil rights leader will henceforth be referred to as Malcolm Christ. I'm sure that won't cause a ruckus, right?

Now if you'll Christ-cuse me, I'm off to do some X-mas shopping.

[1] Thanks to Olivia for this one.

A Gift from Grandma

2011-12-06T11:32:00.001-08:00

When we were young, my brother Eric was our family's Eeyore -- pessimistic, rather gloomy. Experience taught him early on that if something bad was going to happen, it was going to happen to him. Most of the time it wasn't even his fault, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, fall victim to a misunderstanding, or suffer some other stroke of random misfortune like putting his arm through a window or sliding down a wooden bench and getting a foot long splinter embedded in his thigh.

One Saturday afternoon when I was thirteen and Eric was nine, our dad came home with two bikes that were given to him by a friend whose kids had outgrown them. One was a sleek metallic blue five-speed with a banana seat and hand brakes, the other was a small turtle-shit green K-mart model with coaster brakes and a basket on the handlebars. In retrospect, Dad should've decided beforehand which of us was going to get which bike. Maybe he was hoping it would work out naturally, but whatever the case, Dad committed one of the Cardinal Sins of Fatherhood -- he asked both of us which bike we wanted. The result was not a surprise.

"I want the blue one," I said.

"No, I want the blue one," said Eric.

After several minutes of arguing back and forth, firing phrases like "I'm older, I should get it," and "No fair, you always get your way," at each other, Dad decided to flip a coin.

"Chris, you call it," he said.

"Why doe HE get to call it?" asked Eric.

"Fine, you call it then," I said.

"Heads," said Eric.

Dad tossed the coin, caught it, and flipped it over on the back of his hand.

"It's tails. Chris, you get to pick your bike."

I'd like to say that I took this golden opportunity to be the bigger person, to set aside my own selfish desires and accept the turtle-shit green K-Mart clunker so my little brother could have the bike of his dreams, to be a thoughtful and caring big brother who Eric would look up to for the rest of his life.

But I think we all know what really happened.

"I'll take the blue one."

Eric, predictably, pitched a hissy fit and ran upstairs to our bedroom. I felt guilty for about eight seconds, then I hopped on my bike and rode to my friend Paul's house, shifting gears the whole way.

A similar incident had occurred a few years prior only instead of bicycles, the subject was Halloween costumes. Most years, our Aunt Patti took me, Eric, and our youngest brother Bobby to FAO Schwarz in New York to pick out really cool outfits to wear for Trick or Treat. One year I was an astronaut, another time Eric was a snazzy-looking Canadian Mountie, and Bobby spent Halloween 1975 gathering Tootsie Pops and Milky Ways decked out as a four-foot tall Spiderman.

One year, though, all we had to choose from were the family's Costumes of Halloweens Past, those that were recycled year to year and passed along as hand-me-downs. Bobby was a tiger, I was Batman, and Eric was a clown.

Eric, however, had absolutely no interest in being a clown. He griped, he grumbled, he pouted. To this day, no one is sure why he was so against the idea, but it may have had something to do with the time we were all kidnapped by Giggles McYukyuk at one of our mom's Cub Scout leaders' meetings.

It gets worse.

Not only did Eric have to don the clown suit, Mom insisted on stuffing the front of the costume with balloons so he resembled one of those inflatable punching bags. As a result, Eric is the only child in Halloween history to sulk his way through Trick or Treating.

It also led to the most hilarious picture in our family's scrapbook:

So yeah, Eric always seemed to be the one getting the bum deal, which makes what happened on Christmas 1979 all the more pitiful.

Every Christmas, we'd wake up at the crack of dawn, roust our parents out of bed and storm downstairs to unwrap our presents. Once the gifts were opened, Mom would whip up a batch of Pillsbury orange danish and we'd spend the rest of the morning playing with our new toys. In the early afternoon, we'd drive across town to our grandmother's house for round two.

Traditionally, Grandma would give us each a stocking full of candy and small toys, a couple mid-level gifts (clothes were the most common in this category), and finally, our one "big" present. Grandma had a fairly close relationship with Santa Claus, so we always knew that the main gift was going to be something really cool. One year I got a complete set of barbells, another time it was a guitar, and when I got a bit older, I received a top-of-the-line Texas Instruments digital watch.

The 70's were a much simpler time.

So anyway, on the Christmas That Will Live in Infamy, we'd plowed through the preliminary presents and were ready for the main event. Family policy required us to open our presents one at a time, so we all got to see what the others had received. Also, it made the process last longer than twelve seconds.

"Okay, who wants to open their big gift first?" asked Dad, clearly forgetting about the bicycle incident of a year earlier.

"I do!" said Bobby.

"Me!" I shouted.

"Here we go again," muttered Eric.

Since there were three of us involved in this decision coin-flipping wasn't an option, so Dad wrote down the numbers 1, 2, and 3 on slips of paper and put them into a bowl. Eric drew first and pulled out the number 3.

"What a surprise, I'm last," he said.

Bobby had drawn the number 1, so he retrieved his gift from under the tree and ripped off the red and gold wrapping paper.

"Cool! A Johnny Lightning racing set! Thanks, Grandma!" He reluctantly set the box aside so he could watch me unwrap my present.

Mine was wrapped in green paper with snowmen all over it. I tore it open, to reveal the gift I'd been asking for since August.

"An Atari video game set with five game cartridges!" I said. "Pacman, Adventure, Kaboom, bowling, and Tank Battle! This is great, thanks, Grandma!"

By this point, Eric was practically bursting with anticipation. Seeing Bobby and me hit the jackpot with the Hot Wheels and Atari, he just knew his present was going to be something spectacular. Taking his time, he removed the silver paper from the box, revealing his special gift. It was exactly what he'd asked for . . .

A few months earlier, Eric and Mom were watching television when a commercial came on advertising an innovative new product. It was an item that Eric did indeed have a particular need for, even if it wasn't something most ten year olds would have any interest in. As kind of a joke, he said to Mom, "Hey, look at that, maybe Santa can bring me one of those for Christmas." Mom, however, didn't realize he was kidding, so she passed this information along to Grandma who went out and bought Eric the gift he was now looking at with a puzzled and somewhat somber expression on his face.

The Foot Fixer, by Clairol.

Think about this for a minute. Here's a ten-year-old kid who's just seen his brothers open a brand-new video game system and a racing set where you can actually juice up the cars and they rip around the track on their own. It's Christmas, the highlight of every kid's year, and what does he have to show for it?

A frickin' Foot Fixer.

All things considered, the kid handled it pretty damn well. He didn't burst into tears, he didn't throw the thing across the living room, he didn't look at Grandma and ask, "What the hell is THIS?" He just let out a pathetic sigh and said, "A Foot Fixer. Thanks, Grandma."

He wanted to cry, though, you could tell.

Here's the rest of the story.

Eric had flat feet. He was always quick to point this out, and he often used it as an excuse to get out of doing household chores, kind of like a ten-year-old on disability.

"Eric, it's your turn to bring in the trash cans."

"I can't, my feet hurt. I have flat feet, you know."

"Eric, it's time to set the dinner table."

"My feet hurt, I'll do it later. I have flat feet, you know."

Truthfully, he did suffer through bouts with foot pain from time to time, especially at night while trying to get to sleep. So when he and Mom saw the Foot Fixer commercial on TV, he thought it might be something that would help.

But not as his Christmas present.

The real victim here, though, is our grandmother. She genuinely believed that Eric wanted The Foot Fixer, and once she realized how disappointed the poor kid was, that it was all a big mistake, she felt terrible. I don't recall what happened in the aftermath, but I'm sure it involved taking Eric to Toys R Us and letting him pick out whatever he wanted.

But to be honest about it, The Foot Fixer wasn't a total loss. If you filled it up with water and plugged it in, the resulting vibrations caused a tsunami that was great for capsizing our toy battleships.

Note: In no way is Grandma at fault for this. She was absolutely the kindest, most thoughtful, and most wonderful human being to ever grace the planet. Her role in the Foot Fixer Incident of 1979 was simply to provide her grandsons with whatever they asked for. The misunderstanding was absolutely not on her. No, the blame lies somewhere else entirely.

I'm looking at YOU, Mom.

What Ever Happened To . . . Schroeder?

2011-11-12T14:02:00.000-08:00

Dear Readers:

Time is short right now, and I haven't been as attentive to Blogland as I have been in the past. So, until things slow down a bit, enjoy this re-run of one of my favorites.

In his childhood circle of friends, Schroeder was "the quiet one". Never caused any trouble, didn't want to be the center of attention, he preferred to spend his time practicing the piano and listening to his beloved Beethoven. His only pet peeve was a girl named Lucy Van Pelt, whose unwanted attention and infatuation with Schroeder drove him to distraction.

Lucy's affection blossomed into full-fledged stalking by the time they got to high school, and during his junior year, Schroeder and his parents were forced to file a restraining order against her. That was also the year that Schroeder gave up the piano.

"My love of music never left, but I found out pretty quickly that piano players don't get chicks," Schroeder told Rolling Stone magazine. "At least, not NORMAL chicks. And Beethoven's cool, but after you've played Fur Elise a thousand times, it gets kinda boring. When I was sixteen, I heard my first Hendrix album, and I knew right away that my future was as a guitarist."

With his perfect pitch and natural talent for music, Schroeder took to the guitar immediately, and formed a band called Lucy's Obsession. The band had a distinct sound, blending hard core punk rock with the neo-classical and Romantic elements of European music. During the late '70's, Lucy's Obsession climbed to the top of the charts with their eponymous debut album, featuring the top ten single I Gotta Rock. Schroeder talked about their first bona fide hit in a 1979 interview with Circus Magazine.

"That song (I Gotta Rock) came from my childhood. Every Halloween, a bunch of us would go trick-or-treating and we'd talk about what kind of candy we got at each house. 'I got a candy bar, I got a caramel apple,' stuff like that. Well, there was this one kid with a huge head, I can't remember his name, but he was a total loser. For whatever reason, at every house we went to, all of us got treats except him. He kept getting rocks. So when we showed each other what we'd gotten, he kept saying, 'I got a rock . . . I got a rock.' The phrase just stuck in my head, and it ended up being our biggest hit."

Between 1979 and 1993, Lucy's Obsession recorded seven albums, including the Platinum Psychiatric Help, Five Cents, which was released in 1984. Although the band never really caught on with the mainstream music world, they did receive a lot of attention in 1986, when Schroeder filed a lawsuit against an up-and-coming alternative band called Jane's Addiction.

"Yeah, Jane's Addiction hit the scene right about the same time that the Five Cents album came out," Schroeder recalls. "It was such an obvious rip-off that our lawyers suggested we do something, so we filed the suit. We let them keep the name, but let's just say that some money changed hands."

Jane's Addiction lead singer Perry Farrell could not be reached for comment.

When asked about Lucy Van Pelt, stalker and inspiration for his band's moniker, Schroeder became agitated. "She really made my life difficult in high school," he said. "When we were little, she was just annoying, but as we got older, she pretty much freaked out. She'd send me articles of clothing in the mail, follow me home from school, peek in my bedroom window at night. My parents eventually went to court and put an end to it. She still shows up at our concerts sometimes, though. I think she's got a thing for [the band's drummer] Steve now."

Confusion still remains as to whether "Schroeder" is the guitarist's first or last name. Rumors have surfaced claiming that his real name is Heinz von Schroeder and he is actually descended from Nazi war criminals. Other sources claim that his name is Schroeder Reinhardt, and that he is a relative of jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. There has been no clear evidence either way, and Schroeder himself refuses to tell. "I've heard the rumors, of course, and they're all wrong. And now that the band and I are famous, I kinda like the mystery. There are lots of one-named musicians. Sting. Bono. Slash. So that's just who I am. Schroeder."

Lucy's Obsession reunited in 2008 after a fifteen-year sabbatical, and is currently touring the U.S. opening for Lady Gaga.

Thanksgiving: The 90-Pound Weakling of Holidays

2011-10-30T17:19:00.000-07:00

Is he really saying, "Eat me?"

Recently, my swell pal Suldog wrote a lengthy rant about how the over-commercialization of Christmas has infringed upon the respect and attention that he feels should be given to Thanksgiving. He's called this piece, and the resulting political movement, "Thanksgiving Comes First." The basic premise is that we shouldn't begin the Christmas hoopla (in-store marketing displays, TV commercials, etc.) until after everyone's done their Thanksgiving dinner dishes and the Detroit Lions have lost their annual Turkey Day game.

I'll admit that I agree with Suldog's sentiments to a point. I'm not crazy about hearing "Sleigh Ride" pumping through the speakers at my local supermarket in October. Hell, I live in Southern California where it doesn't even feel like Christmas on Christmas, let alone Columbus Day. But I don't think we can blame the supermarket management for this, nor can we pin the yearly Thanksgiving neglect on toy companies, advertising agencies, or whoever's in charge of when "A Charlie Brown Christmas" airs. No, Thanksgiving is its own worst enemy, and there are several reasons why it has become the 90-pound weakling of holidays.

The simplest, of course, is that Thanksgiving is chronologically-disadvantaged, sandwiched between the two most popular and marketable days of the entire year -- Halloween and Christmas. Even the lesser holidays like Valentine's Day, the Fourth of July, and Easter benefit from being somewhat isolated on the calendar, although Easter struggles a bit because no one is quite sure when it's coming. April? March? The day before Memorial Day? Who the hell knows? But Thanksgiving has a better holiday four weeks ahead of it and a month or so behind it. It's kind of like the Three Stooges, Christmas and Halloween are Moe and Curly, Thankgiving is Shemp.

The next problem Thanksgiving faces is that there's really not much to it. Halloween is all about costumes, spookiness, parties and candy. Christmas, of course, is full of presents, family gatherings, traditional songs, and endless merriment and good will. What does Thanksgiving bring to the table? Turkey, cranberry sauce, indigestion, and a couple football games. Hell, Christmas has everything that Thanksgiving has. Every year, my family gets together for a huge Christmas dinner of turkey (or sometimes ham), mashed potatoes, that casserole made from green beans and crispy noodles, and Grandma's lemon cheese pie, just like we do on Thanksgiving. And on top of all that, we get to exchange gifts and listen to the Frank Sinatra Christmas Album. Put another way, Thanksgiving is merely Christmas without the presents which, unless you live in Whoville, kind of sucks.

So the question becomes, how do we help Thanksgiving earn its proper respect? I think the first thing we need to do is move it the hell out of November. Pack up the horns o' plenty and the Indian corn in a huge U-Haul and relocate to the second Thursday in September. Sure, that puts it a week after Labor Day, but who cares? Using our Stooges analogy again, Labor Day isn't even Curly Joe, it's more like Moe's second cousin Phil who hated slapstick comedy so he became a plumber. With Thanksgiving in September, it gets to lead off the fall-winter festivities, building up to Halloween and Christmas.

Next, we need to come up with a Thanksgiving representative, a character who is instantly recognizable and lovable. Christmas has Santa Claus, Halloween has witches and goblins, Easter has the giant bunny, Valentine's Day has Cupid, even the Fourth of July invites Uncle Sam to the barbecue. Thanksgiving, though, has absolutely no one banging its proverbial drum. The closest you'll see is a turkey wearing a pilgrim's hat, but let's be honest here. The turkey can't possibly be the Thanksgiving rep because by the end of the day he's DEAD! Not exactly the most festive of all outcomes. What do you think the reaction would be if every Easter, families got together and slow-roasted a rabbit? "Say, Jimmy, would you like a leg or an ear?"

James O'Thankful says, "Have another drumstick!"

So the turkey is out. But what if we named an official Thanksgiving Pilgrim, a suave, smooth-talking guy named James O'Thankful (he's part Irish, go with it) who shows up on Thanksgiving Night with extra gravy and a few seasonal trinkets, and reminds your family of everything it should be thankful for. Love, health, happiness, the fact that Christmas is just a few months away (we've moved to September, remember?).

I think that would be a good start.

In the meantime, Thanksgiving will have to deal with Christmas and Halloween poking it in the eyes and cracking it over the head with baseball bats.

Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

Subway Subterfuge

2011-10-24T17:45:00.000-07:00

In case you've somehow missed it, October is "Anytober" at Subway, which means for the entire month you can get any foot-long sub for the low, low price of five bucks. The commercials are everywhere, the annoying "Five Dollar Footlong" jingle being sung by a wide variety of even more annoying characters. Cheerleaders, Asian guys playing video games, the list goes on.

"Five! Five dollar! Five dollar foot looooong. Any, any, any! "

Let's start by examining their creation of the word "Anytober." This, my friends, is what's called a "reach." "Any" doesn't sound anything like "Oct." It's a terrible attempt at wordplay. Last time Subway introduced the "any footlong for five bucks" deal, it was February, which they transformed into "Februany." While this still wasn't going to earn them the Clever Ad Pun of the Year award, you could tell what they were going for. For lack of a better word, it worked.

But Anytober? I'm not buying it.

On the bright side, though, five bucks is a pretty good deal for a foot-long sub sandwich, and since I love Subway, the last few weeks have been Anytoberfest at my house. But today, Subway and their "Any-any-anyness" pissed me off big time.

I entered the store and decided to try a foot-long pastrami sub. Never had one before, as I'm more of a Subway Club or Italian BMT guy, so I figured it was time for a change of pace. I ordered it, gave the (ahem) "Sandwich Artist" my condiment preferences, and made my way to the cash register to hand over a five-spot.

"That'll be six seventy-five."

"Excuse me? What happened to Anytober?"

"The pastrami doesn't count . . . it's a premium sandwich."

"Doesn't count? I distinctly remember the cheerleaders singing ANY ANY ANY."

"Right, but that's just for our regular foot-longs."

"Well that's not any foot-long, is it? It's ANYTOBER, Todd! Technically, I should be able to come in here and order a foot-long Cold Cut Combo with triple meat, double cheese, and Grey Poupon mustard and have it cost five bucks. Any means ANY."

Apparently it doesn't. I paid $6.75.

"Thanks for visiting Subway," said Todd. "Come again any time."

Which, if you're going to believe their "Almost Anytober" policy, really means, "Come again some of the time."

d

iPhone Idleness

2011-10-10T11:53:00.000-07:00

I was one of the last people on the planet to own a cell phone. It was 1999, and I just didn't feel the need to be all that accessible. I had reluctantly purchased a pager earlier in the year, and even that was more of a pain in the ass than I thought it would be. But eventually I broke down and got the cheapest Nokia phone I could find, basically a hunk of plastic with buttons that weighed about four pounds.

Ever since then, I've had a rare form of Attention Deficit Disorder, something I call Cell Phone Disaffection Syndrome (CPDS). Every six to eight months, I get bored with whatever phone I have, and end up getting a newer, better, glitzier model. After I got tired of the clunky slab o' plastic, I upgraded to a slimmer, lighter Nokia. But then the RAZR flip-phone hit the market, and I absolutely had to have one of those. All sorts of wonderful features, and it looked so 22nd century. It even had a camera. I couldn't imagine how you'd improve on something that high-tech.

And then someone invented "smart" phones.

So I got a Blackberry Curve, a phone that would actually let me access the Internet. Sure, it took three hours for the Google home page to download (or is it upload? I can never keep that straight.), but it was the INTERNET! ON MY PHONE! Of course, the original Blackberry Curve turned out to be a complete piece of crap, so a few months later I upgraded to the Blackberry Storm. How's that for brand loyalty? The Storm didn't even have buttons, you just tapped letters on the screen and voila! A text message! Of course, it was virtually impossible to type the letter you wanted because touchscreen technology was apparently too difficult for the Blackberry IT department to grasp, but the Storm was one fancy piece of equipment, if you didn't mind removing and then reinserting the battery every couple hours because the damn thing froze up again.

So I upgraded to the Blackberry Bold because who needs touchscreen, anyway?

Of course, after a year or so, the Bold became more trouble than it was worth. The little pad that you slide your finger across to scroll through your icons (there's probably a name for it, but you know what I'm saying) turned out to be one moody son of a bitch, and sometimes decided it didn't want to do anything. Plus, it browsed the web like Theresa browses Target which is to say, it takes forever and pretty much wastes your entire day. So a few days ago, I went and did something I swore I was never going to do.

I bought an iPhone.

Thankfully, I was eligible for an upgrade so it cost me next to nothing, and let me tell you, this is one absolutely ingenious little device. First of all, yes, it's touchscreen which had proven to be problematic with my now-obsolete Blackberry Storm. But apparently the Apple guys are way smarter than the Blackberry guys because I'm having no trouble typing what I want to type. And if I do happen to make a mistake, the iPhone magically corrects my spelling. Plus, I still have the camera feature, it has a GPS, e-mail, and in addition to all that technological goodness, it's also a telephone.

Random thought: If all this technology had been available in the 70's, we might have heard this Stevie Wonder classic:

I just texted to say I love you.
I changed my Facebook status because I care.
I just Skyped to say I love you.
And I Tweeted from the bottom of my heart.

Moving on.

You can also watch videos on the iPhone, with amazing clarity. But wait, there's even more. Over the weekend, I was introduced to the wonderful world of "apps" which is short for "apparently not having anything better to do with your time."

Some of these apps are quite useful, like Mobile Banking and my personal favorite, the In-N-Out Burger app that instantly points you to the nearest In-N-Out restaurant. What the hell will they think of next?

Slice, slice, Baby!

And game apps! I'm telling you, you have not lived until you've played a thrilling game of Fruit Ninja. You can keep your Angry Birds, the sheer joy of slicing up virtual kiwi, coconuts, and watermelons is beyond description.

Hmm. Maybe there's a "Get a Life" app.

Anyway, I'm very happy with my new iPhone, and I'm sure this will be the last cell phone I ever need to own. I mean, really, how could they possibly improve on this?

d

Just 'Chute Me

2011-10-02T19:44:00.000-07:00

I'm not a particularly adventurous person. My idea of "roughing it" is staying at a hotel where the room service menu doesn't include shrimp cocktail. Vacations are for relaxing, not for pitching a tent and hanging bags of food in trees so the bears don't eat your Mallomars.

Not everyone shares my cautious attitude, however, so travel agents have discovered another great way to separate vacationers from their money -- provide them with unique and challenging ways to kill themselves. Rock-climbing, skydiving, and ceremonial fart-lighting while chugging Budweiser from a beer bong (yes, Alabama has a Department of Tourism too) all attract and gloriously cripple thousands of tourists every year. For thirty bucks, you can even buy a framed action shot to share with loved ones as they stand around your hospital bed. But, like I said, such treacherous pastimes aren't for me.

Except once.

I was on a Mexican cruise, and the ship docked for the day in the beautiful resort/dump of Puerto Vallarta. I spent the morning taking the official city tour, which consisted of a high-speed foray in a beat-up '72 Volkswagen Beetle driven by Paco the Tour Guide. Paco quickly pointed out the carnicerias, which is Spanish for "store that sells fly-infested pig heads." We saw many of Puerto Vallarta's other lovely attractions too. I'd be happy to tell you about them, except I was too busy vomiting out the rear window to notice what they were.

The tour ended (perhaps by accident, but let's give Paco the benefit of the doubt) when the VW's right front tire blew out shortly after we'd run over a flock of wayward chickens. I headed back to the dock with three hours left to kill, and since the ship's casino was closed while in port, I tried to find something "touristy" to do. I bought a couple packs of Chiclets from the kids on the beach, and that's when I noticed a cardboard sign propped up against a sleeping "extra" from The Three Amigos. The sign read "Parasailing: $20".

Parasailing is really quite simple. A crew from the Mexican Navy straps you into a parachute, which is tethered to a speed boat. The boat heads out to sea, and as it picks up speed, you run along the beach and gently rise into the air. The captain pilots the boat in a large circle while you enjoy the breath-taking view from an altitude of about three miles. After a while, the boat comes back to shore, and you return safely to the beach, your life forever changed.

I can give that a go, I thought. Before fully committing, I decided to assess the risk by watching a few other tourists take their turns. I popped open a Corona and took a seat at a nearby picnic table. Over the next forty-five minutes or so, I saw a little kid, an old lady, and a morbidly obese gentleman in an unfortunate shirt and Bermuda shorts have the time of their lives.

If they could do it, I reasoned, so could I.

So I handed my twenty bucks to a guy named Jorge. His two partners got in the boat as Jorge helped me strap on the parachute. Jorge then gave the captain the high sign, and we were off.

According to The Official Mexican Parasailing Captain's Training Manual, the take-off procedure requires the boat to stay parallel to the shoreline to provide a sufficient "runway". Once the parasailer is airborne, the captain then -- and only then -- heads out to sea. That's how it's supposed to work, and that's exactly how it DID work with every single person I watched go up.

That's not, however, how it worked this time.

As the boat accelerated, I trotted along the beach, waiting to be lifted into the air.

And waiting.

And waiting.

I ran faster and faster trying to keep up with the speedboat, which was now approaching the speed of sound. Before long I lost the race and gravity took over. I plunged face first into the sand and got dragged about fifty feet. Fortunately, I came to a quick stop. Unfortunately, it was because I slammed sideways into a pile of large boulders. Jorge was yelling at the top of his lungs, "PARE EL BARCO! PARE EL BARCO!" (in English: "Get your asses back here, this stupid gringo is about to die!").

The captain turned the boat around and returned to shore. I picked myself up off the ground and assessed the damage. Banged up hip. Scraped up knees. Bump on my forehead. "Uh, I think I'd like my money back, Jorge. I'm done."

"Sorry, amigo, no refunds." At least, that's what I think he said. It was hard to hear him clearly with my ears full of sand.

Since I didn't want to resort to fisticuffs over a matter of twenty dollars, I decided to give it one more shot. We secured the parachute, backed up to the original starting point, and tried it again. This time, the parachute filled with air and off I went, into the wild blue yonder.

It was not comfortable. I wasn't simply hanging from the harness, I was also "sitting" on a rope "seat" that was digging and chafing its way into the "back of my thighs". After about fifteen seconds, I was ready for the whole debacle to be over with.

They kept me up there for a good ten minutes, which seemed much longer and resulted in the rope "seat" finding its way into my butt crack. Given my lack of confidence in Jorge's parachute maintenance skills, I was reluctant to shift around to try and remove the rope from my keester for fear of unhooking myself and plummeting to an embarrassing and watery death. So I dealt with it.

Eventually, we headed back towards the beach, and I landed without further incident. Jorge helped me out of the chute, shook my hand and said, "Amigo, chu want to go 'gain? Only ten dollar dees tine."

"Hell no," I said, as politely as you can say "Hell, no", and I walked back toward the street to get something to drink. I bought a Corona, and when I turned around I saw Paco's VW, complete with a repaired tire. I said hello but I don't think he recognized me, which is understandable given my facial lacerations and swelling.

"Welcome to Puerta Vallarta, senor," he said. "You want a tour of the city?"

Category Five Hurricane

2011-09-23T15:39:00.000-07:00

When I regained consciousness, I was curled up in the corner of an upward-bound elevator in the Orlando Sheraton.

The year was 1985. I was in college.

Our jazz ensemble traveled from Southern California to Orlando to participate in the Walt Disney World Jazz Festival. Now, you’ve all probably heard the stereotype that band members are geeks, dorks, and various types of goobers. This, of course, is a stereotype and as is the case with most stereotypes, it’s absolutely true. Most of us were nineteen or twenty years old, so we were still a year or so away from being of legal drinking age.

In California.

In the great state of Florida, however, the legal drinking age was twenty, a detail that did not escape our attention. The first night,we were sitting around in the hotel room, plotting the evening’s activities. When you’re underage, opportunities for obtaining alcohol are somewhat limited, and you get used to bumming booze off the older siblings of your party buds, or bribing someone of age to make a beer run. With our new found freedom, though, it was much simpler.

“Hey, let’s go down to the hotel bar and get hammered!” suggested Alex.

Alex Harrison was a trombone player, and I mean that in the nicest sense of the term. He was about six-two, and vaguely resembled Frankenstein. He was the kind of guy who would do anything for a laugh, even if he were the butt of the joke, which he often was. Alex owned a gold Volkswagen Beetle with a sunroof. Just for shits and giggles, he’d open the sunroof, pop his head out, and drive around like that. It was hilarious, as well as ridiculously stupid.

We hooked up with two more guys, Ralph and John, piled into the elevator and headed down to the Zanzibar Lounge. The hostess seated us at a table in the back, and we perused the drink menu. Gator Wizz. The Swamp Bomb. The Barracuda.

“Hey, check out this one,” said John, pointing at the drink menu. He was the lead trumpet player, incredibly arrogant, and among the four of us, had the most experience with alcohol. None of it good, but experience nonetheless. “The Category Five Hurricane. This looks pretty potent.”

The Category Five Hurricane, Zanzibar’s specialty, consisted of three kinds of fruit juice, rum, vodka, peach Schnapp’s, a shot of grenadine, and if I’m not mistaken, turpentine and nitroglycerin. The menu was not particularly specific.

Up to this point in our young, foolish lives, most of our drinking experience was with beer, and we all knew (more or less) what our personal limits were. For example, I knew that three beers gave me a nice buzz, while five had me doing the Technicolor yawn on someone’s carpet. Through an unforgivable oversight, the Zanzibar Lounge did not provide a beer-to-Category Five Hurricane conversion chart, but as it turns out, Budweiser and Hurricane do not have a one-to-one correspondence. It’s more like a one to a very tiny sip correspondence.

We did not know this at the time.

“You fellas gonna trah the Hurry-kine?” drawled the waitress. According to her gold name badge, she was Amanda. A bit on the pudgy side, not spectacular looking, but nothing you’d throw a bag over, either. Let’s call her a soft six on the one-to-ten scale.

“Yep,” said John. “A round of Category Five Hurricanes please, Amanda. We’re ready to party!”

A couple minutes later, Amanda brought out the hooch, and we were in absolute fucking awe. Though it wasn’t made clear by the picture on the menu, the Category Five Hurricane is served in a glass that’s approximately the size of the Stanley Cup.

Oh, were they tasty. Peach, orange, lime, just a hint of turpentine. We blew through the first round of Hurricanes like Anna Nicole at a Viagra convention.

“Okay, the next round’s on me,” said Ralph, although it came out more like, “Oh, kay. Zhuh neft rowd’s agh meh.” Ralph was a throwback to the 1950’s. Leather jacket, slicked back hair that he was always combing. He was a neo-Fonzie, if Fonzie played the tenor saxophone, wore an earring, and had an acne problem.

Amanda carted out the next round, and we dived back in.“Mebbe we orta get zub food zo we don’ get too wayshted,” suggested John, as he stared into his drink.

“Good thinkin’,” mumbled Alex. “Don’ wanna ged sick er shumfin.”

We ordered some hot wings, onion rings, potato skins, and the seafood platter. And, of course, another round of Hurricanes.

By this time, things were getting a little fuzzy. Okay, a lot fuzzy. We knew we had to get up early in the morning for our performance at the Tomorrowland Terrace, so we didn’t want to do something irresponsible like staying up too late.

“You boys ready fer one mo-ah round?” purred Amanda. Over the last half hour or so, she’d somehow gone from a six to a solid eight, and rising.

“Who’sh gudda buy duh nesht round?” asked Alex.

Ralph passed out face first in a plate of fried clams and cocktail sauce. We took that as a signal that the next round was on him.

By the time we polished off the last our Hurricanes, it was approaching one o’clock in the morning.

“Grf bulla frubba gut googa,” suggested John.

"Waff stroffa," replied Alex. "Bub dubba burble gorp."

“Merf,” I added, reluctantly. “Blubba gunk friff brap.”

Ralph said nothing. He was still asleep in his seafood platter.

We paid the check, which was astronomical, tipped the waitress, splashed some water on Ralph's face to revive him (somewhat) and stood up.

Have you ever been really, really hammered? Not tipsy, not buzzed, hell, not even merely drunk. I mean blurry vision, room spinning, jelly-legged, I-can’t-feel-my-fucking-face blasted. That kind of covers our state of being as we attempted to navigate our way out of the Zanzibar Lounge.

"Oh, Earl, look at those boys," said some blue-haired old bat. "That's just embarrassing."

"Forrrrk Yoooooou," mumbled John, drawing a shocked gasp from Gramma Moses.

We somehow made it to the elevator and headed up to our rooms. The sudden movement made me even dizzier than I already was, so I sat down in the corner and stared at the ceiling. It seemed to be melting.

The next thing I knew, I was in the elevator by myself. Nauseous. With a screaming headache. I stared at my watch and waited for it to come into focus.

Five o’clock AM. Those fuckers had abandoned me.

We were all supposed to be in the lobby at eight, so we could go over to Disney World and be ready to perform by eleven. I got off the elevator at the eleventh floor and stumbled to my room. When I opened the door, I noticed an unusual smell. Vomit, mixed with the unmistakable scent of fruit juice and cocktail sauce. I went into the bathroom, and there was Ralph, asleep with his head resting on the toilet seat.

Ralph had ralphed everywhere. The shower curtain. The bath tub. The sink. It looked like “The Exorcist Meets Psycho”.

I kicked him in the ribs to wake him up.

“Fuuuuuuuuuuucccckkkkkk,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, I know, me too. Let’s clean this shit up.”

We did the best we could. When the bathroom was passable (to us) we took turns showering and got about an hour of sleep. We got ready and barely made it to the lobby on time. John and Alex were asleep on one of the lobby couches. Everyone else was milling around, chipper as can be, ready for an exciting day in the Magic Kingdom.

As we dragged ourselves onto the bus, the band director noticed our condition.

“What the hell happened to you guys?” he asked. “You look like you’ve been hit by a tornado.”

He was pretty close. Actually, it was a series of Category Five Hurricanes.