As you know, my dog, Hadley, has some pretty bad back legs. He has real difficulty getting up and cannot climb stairs any more. So while we were at my friend’s ranch in Colorado recently, we’d always be sitting on his deck, which was on the second floor. Vic and I and his two dogs and various cats and critters, would all be up there having some damn fun, and Hadley would be on the ground floor envious of all the noise and action.
So, because he’s a smart dog, he went to the bottom of the stairs, and started to bark. So Vic and I, being not quite as smart, said, “Shut the hell up, you mutt!” Finally, we figured out he wanted us to carry him up the stairs. Pretty cool, huh?
So Vic would grab him under the front legs and chest and I would grab his rear end, and we’d carry him up the stairs. At first, his heart would beat really fast, and he’d be very unsure of the whole thing, and then he gradually got used to it, and relaxed, and told us in doggie yelps to carry him faster. And we did, and he got up there and ran around and smelled a few butts, and life was good. (I don’t get any more heartwarming than that.)
But before you come to the conclusion that Vic is a nice guy, I have to say that I stood at the bottom of the stairs a number of times and barked and he didn’t do shit. He never carried me up. Not once. The bastard.
By the way, remember in my last column when I used the word “dickhead,” as in “Did you bring the steaks, dickhead?” Well, I asked Vic if he used that term with love as kind of a guy insult thing, and he said, “No. I always thought your head looked like a penis.”
Anyway, on the way home, Marge and I were driving through Arizona and we were on Highway 10, pretty much flying, and we saw an Arizona Highway Patrol car stopped by the side of the road, and we went by him, and then a few minutes later he comes up behind us with his lights flashing. I told Marge, “I guess he thinks going 90 in a 75 is speeding.”
We stop. He comes to the window. I roll it down. And he says, “Do you know why I stopped you?” And I said, “Because my head looks like a penis?” He said, “What?” I said, “I don’t know. Why?” He said, “Because you failed to move over to the next lane when you saw a Highway Patrol stopped car at the side of the road.”
I told him I had never heard of that law and that we didn’t have it in California and that I was sorry. I really, truly hadn’t heard of the law, and I was sincerely sorry. He kind of looked at me over his sunglasses and asked to see my driver’s license, registration and my insurance card. Well, I had my license and registration, but my insurance card was outdated — by a month.
He told me my insurance card was not good, and as I was looking for the right one in my special car envelope I pulled out a 50 dollar bill (that I keep for emergencies) and he saw it and said — and if I’m lying I’m buying — “Is that for the nice Arizona Highway Patrolman?”
Marge’s jaw dropped and she looked at me like she would be visiting me in jail, and she said, “Officer, I don’t know this gentleman. I was hitchhiking and he picked me up.” True love.
The nice patrolman only gave me a warning and we made it back to good old Altadena. Glad to be home. Until I opened the accumulated pile of mail. I had a notice from the IRS saying that I owed them $2,300. I called my accountant, Steve Boyer, and asked him if I had any other alternative than paying and he said, “Prison.”
So, the next day, after sleeping in my own bed, the bed with the dried bloodstain on my pillow, the bed where I use my CPAP machine to blast off into dreamland, the bed that is even softer than the Lakers, I get up and go out to the kitchen. Marge is there at the table with her oatmeal and coffee. We read the papers. And then we each take a crossword puzzle, one from the Star-News and one from the LA Times, and we start working them, and then, as always, we switch about halfway through, and we slide the puzzles over to each other.
As we slid the puzzles to each other, we both, at exactly the same time, also slid our pencils over. Did you catch that? We slid our pencils over to each other. Do you see what I’m saying? We were both incredibly moronic at the same exact point in time. I guess we figured the puzzles could only be completed by pencils they already knew. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a new law in Arizona.
Then I went to Brookside Park to get back into my routine, and within three minutes and 100 yards, these things occurred. I swear. On a stack of pancakes. A kid in a school bus said, “Is that your nose or your trunk?” and then ducked down under the window; a guy in a captain’s hat told me his dog more than liked my dog, his dog loved my dog; I overheard a tennis instructor tell his young 8- to 10-year-old students, “Quiet! I want to be able to hear a cricket fart.” I walked by the swimming pool where elderly lanky-ladies in one-piece bathing suits were doing water nymph exercises to the recorded scratchy blaring of “Mellow Yellow.”
Glad to be home.
Contact former Pasadena Weekly Publisher Jim Laris at jim.laris@mac.com.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Reality Checkpoint (Cigar Smoke 6-19-08)
The first day on the road was pretty dang good. Just drove through the desert, had a BLT at Denny’s and got to Phoenix in six hours of fulfilling anticipatory delight. We got settled in our Holiday Inn room (please, stop the envious looks) and we rested for a couple of hours, and then some of the anticipation started to hit the fan.
We were deciding to eat at either Chili’s or The Cracker Barrel. Marge didn’t really have a strong hankering for either one, so I made the decision to go to The Cracker Barrel. Mainly because I like cookie-cutter fake-antique places that are exactly the same either in South Carolina or Albuquerque and serve food you need help with lifting to your mouth.
We’re looking at the menu and Marge says, with clenched little feminine teeth, “They don’t serve wine here.” And I know she wanted to add, “comma, Dumb-ass.” But she didn’t. Because she has two things I sometimes dream about having — class and restraint.
So, throughout the entire meal of consuming dumplings with white gravy that you could mortar a house with, she didn’t speak to me. And I didn’t talk to her either, because I was enjoying my mashed potatoes that were making the table tilt towards Tucson.
We got back to the hotel room. She still wouldn’t talk to me. We went to bed. I cooed, yes cooed, to her, “You want me to go to a liquor store and buy you some Annie Green Springs and pour it on your Cracker Barrel body and then slurp the little puddle out of your navel.” She did not respond.
The next morning I get up at 5:30 because Hadley the Airedale has to take a whiz. I got out of bed, put on my sweat pants, threw on my SC T-shirt, slid into my sandals and took him out to the parking lot to consummate his urinary desires.
Well, Hadley did fine. And then I reach into my sweat pants pocket to get my hotel key to slide into the door to gain entry into such hotel. And, yup, no key.
So I walk around to the front entrance and walk back to our room and knock on the door. No response. I knock again, really loudly. Nothing. I start yelling, “Marge! Marge!” I know she can hear me, but I just hear parts of her answer, like “Maybe next time you’ll pick a place that serves wine.” I yell out, “I’m sorry!” The guy in the room next to us opens his door, and says, “You cheat on her?” I said, “No! I took her to a restaurant that didn’t serve wine.” He said, “Dumb shit.” And he closed the door.
So I walk Hadley back to the front of the hotel and we walk up to the desk clerk, and I say, “Uh, I locked myself out of my room. Could I please have another key?” And she looks at me and my hair is all sleep-matted down to one side with the top of my hair sticking straight up like I’ve just been hit by lightning and there is dry spittle on my chin and crusty eye deposits on the corners of my crusty eyes. And the clerk says, “Can I see some identification?” And, or course, my wallet is in the room, next to my key. You talk about anticipation not meeting expectations, baby. They were strangers.
Eventually I get back into my room (they got tired of me scaring their guests with my crying) and after not speaking with Marge for an hour I dropped her off at her son’s house, and Hadley and I went on our way to Colorado, the land of anticipation.
Then about four hours into the day’s drive, I stopped for lunch at a McDonald’s in Kayenta, Ariz. I got a Big Mac and Cheeseburger for Hadley, and I got a Fish Sandwich for myself, because I get sleepy after eating beef, and I was driving, so I wanted to be responsible and alert and mature. Yes, I am wonderful. By the way, how does McDonald’s find all those perfectly square fish for their sandwiches?
After we finish off the sandwiches, I go back in and order a large soft-serve ice cream cone. When I get it, it is indeed large. Probably six inches of ice cream on this tiny cone base. It was scarier than false anticipation. The ice cream just tottered there waiting for its fate. And then it happens. The entire tower of ice cream breaks off. It does not fall off, or topple over. The ice cream doesn’t separate where it meets the cone. No. It breaks off in the middle of the dinky-ass cone it’s heaped onto!
What I’m trying to say is that it wasn’t my fault it fell. My alternative-side-licking was good. No, McDonald’s had engineered a faulty cone! Those commies. Really, the cone was so damn small it couldn’t hold the weight of the ice cream, so it snapped off. That’s just not right.
And here I had a giant glob of ice cream in my hand and I tried to eat as much as I could until my fingers froze and then I got pissed off and just dropped the glob on purpose and let it plop on the pavement. I’m still irritated. I think we have a class action suit.
Anticipation, meet reality. The sound of that plop was just, as my friend Fred Bankston always says, “So life.”
We were deciding to eat at either Chili’s or The Cracker Barrel. Marge didn’t really have a strong hankering for either one, so I made the decision to go to The Cracker Barrel. Mainly because I like cookie-cutter fake-antique places that are exactly the same either in South Carolina or Albuquerque and serve food you need help with lifting to your mouth.
We’re looking at the menu and Marge says, with clenched little feminine teeth, “They don’t serve wine here.” And I know she wanted to add, “comma, Dumb-ass.” But she didn’t. Because she has two things I sometimes dream about having — class and restraint.
So, throughout the entire meal of consuming dumplings with white gravy that you could mortar a house with, she didn’t speak to me. And I didn’t talk to her either, because I was enjoying my mashed potatoes that were making the table tilt towards Tucson.
We got back to the hotel room. She still wouldn’t talk to me. We went to bed. I cooed, yes cooed, to her, “You want me to go to a liquor store and buy you some Annie Green Springs and pour it on your Cracker Barrel body and then slurp the little puddle out of your navel.” She did not respond.
The next morning I get up at 5:30 because Hadley the Airedale has to take a whiz. I got out of bed, put on my sweat pants, threw on my SC T-shirt, slid into my sandals and took him out to the parking lot to consummate his urinary desires.
Well, Hadley did fine. And then I reach into my sweat pants pocket to get my hotel key to slide into the door to gain entry into such hotel. And, yup, no key.
So I walk around to the front entrance and walk back to our room and knock on the door. No response. I knock again, really loudly. Nothing. I start yelling, “Marge! Marge!” I know she can hear me, but I just hear parts of her answer, like “Maybe next time you’ll pick a place that serves wine.” I yell out, “I’m sorry!” The guy in the room next to us opens his door, and says, “You cheat on her?” I said, “No! I took her to a restaurant that didn’t serve wine.” He said, “Dumb shit.” And he closed the door.
So I walk Hadley back to the front of the hotel and we walk up to the desk clerk, and I say, “Uh, I locked myself out of my room. Could I please have another key?” And she looks at me and my hair is all sleep-matted down to one side with the top of my hair sticking straight up like I’ve just been hit by lightning and there is dry spittle on my chin and crusty eye deposits on the corners of my crusty eyes. And the clerk says, “Can I see some identification?” And, or course, my wallet is in the room, next to my key. You talk about anticipation not meeting expectations, baby. They were strangers.
Eventually I get back into my room (they got tired of me scaring their guests with my crying) and after not speaking with Marge for an hour I dropped her off at her son’s house, and Hadley and I went on our way to Colorado, the land of anticipation.
Then about four hours into the day’s drive, I stopped for lunch at a McDonald’s in Kayenta, Ariz. I got a Big Mac and Cheeseburger for Hadley, and I got a Fish Sandwich for myself, because I get sleepy after eating beef, and I was driving, so I wanted to be responsible and alert and mature. Yes, I am wonderful. By the way, how does McDonald’s find all those perfectly square fish for their sandwiches?
After we finish off the sandwiches, I go back in and order a large soft-serve ice cream cone. When I get it, it is indeed large. Probably six inches of ice cream on this tiny cone base. It was scarier than false anticipation. The ice cream just tottered there waiting for its fate. And then it happens. The entire tower of ice cream breaks off. It does not fall off, or topple over. The ice cream doesn’t separate where it meets the cone. No. It breaks off in the middle of the dinky-ass cone it’s heaped onto!
What I’m trying to say is that it wasn’t my fault it fell. My alternative-side-licking was good. No, McDonald’s had engineered a faulty cone! Those commies. Really, the cone was so damn small it couldn’t hold the weight of the ice cream, so it snapped off. That’s just not right.
And here I had a giant glob of ice cream in my hand and I tried to eat as much as I could until my fingers froze and then I got pissed off and just dropped the glob on purpose and let it plop on the pavement. I’m still irritated. I think we have a class action suit.
Anticipation, meet reality. The sound of that plop was just, as my friend Fred Bankston always says, “So life.”
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Anticipation (Cigar Smoke 6-12-08)
There aren’t too many things better than the anticipation of an adventure. (Oh sure, I anticipate dating a sex surrogate who has season seats in Section 112 for the Kings, but that’s just a false anticipation.) Getting ready for a trip is just plain old fun. The actual trips may be great or not so great, but the thinking about them ahead of time is always well worth the delusion.
I’m getting ready to go see my buddy, Vic Vieira, who lives on a ranch in Colorado. I’m taking Hadley, my 11-year-old Airedale, who is literally on his last legs. His legs are in pretty bad shape, but he just loves it out there in Hicksville. Once I actually said the word “Hicksville” while I was there and I learned the meaning of a new term — shotgun blast. But that’s another story. I kid the hicks.
I think this is probably Hadley’s last trip over there. The ranch is about 80 acres or 120 acres or 5,000 acres. I don’t know. It’s pretty big. And Hadley just loves to explore and sniff and pee and dig and run around. And Vic has a chicken coop (yes, Virginia, there are actual chicken coops) and Hadley turns into a chicken-killing machine when he smells that place. One time we went there and we hear this commotion and serious clucking and we see Hadley tearing into the chicken coop and he’s got fire in his gut and death in his eyes and a chicken in his mouth.
Hey, I felt bad for the chicken, but wow, that city-slicker dog had gotten in touch with his inner wolf and it was kind of primal, baby. Jeez. He ate that dang chicken. Feathers and all. I wasn’t gonna stop him. I’m dumb, but not that dumb.
I’m getting ahead of myself a little. (There’s a flash.) I was talking about the anticipation of the trip. Not the actual trip. So I am anticipating the kind of fun I have already related to you a little, and I go to Ralphs to get some stuff for the trip.
I’m at the check-out counter and I pay for my items and the helper-guy says, “Enjoy your hog pood and penis.” I kind of look at the checker and she has a quizzical look on her face, and she kind of nods her head towards the helper-guy. And I’m contemplating if I will enjoy my penis and my hog pood. And then I realize that Ralphs, to their credit, hires mentally challenged people to pack the groceries. And I realize that he slurred his words a bit and he meant dog food and peanuts. Not hog pood and penis.
But I didn’t want to offend him, so I said, “Thank you for your interest. I will enjoy my hog pood and penis. It was very thoughtful of you to have my welfare in mind.”
Well, now that I had my supplies, I was ready to get fully involved in the anticipating of the trip. And let me tell you, I anticipated my butt off. And with my butt, that’s a whole lot of anticipating. I thought about just getting on the road and heading out towards Palm Springs and seeing all those wind turbines spinning and then cruising past Joshua Tree and into the California desert with the wind in my hair — which is kind of tough without a convertible — and stopping at a Denny’s for some nice hog pood and relieving my peanuts.
And then I thought about going through Kingman and Flagstaff and other cool-sounding places and venturing into the northern Arizona desert and driving for, literally, hours without seeing a gas station or a cafe in 115-degree heat and then feeling the excitement of running across an Indian trading post in the middle of you-know-what Egypt.
And I thought about going in there to get an overpriced soft drink and being happy that there was overpriced anything. And I thought about seeing that old Indian guy in there, whose face you could make a saddle out of, who looked at me like I was Custer, and he would have spit on me but he wanted to save his spit to roll a ciggy. And I thought I’d probably buy some $14.95 Kachina doll so he would think I was really OK and evolved and that my ancestors weren’t cavalry officers. Yes, I anticipated all of that. As I said, I am an anticipator.
And then, because I was anticipating having hunger pangs, and I couldn’t keep anticipating about anticipating that I would be hungry on an empty stomach (an empty head, yes) I anticipated stopping at one of those little side-of-road semi-hogan-like places to get a couple of flatbread tacos. That charred bread and spiced-up coyote meat. And cilantro. With that red stuff. I think it’s the blood of an Englishman. Hadley and I love those suckers. Of course, he has his taco with, you guessed it, chicken.
And finally I anticipate rolling into Cortez, Colorado, and going out to Vic’s ranch, and driving down his dirt road and squishing a few cow pies and having him greet me with those seven words that have to come to define our 50-year-old friendship, “Did you bring the damn steaks, dickhead?”
Oh, it brings tears to my eyes. And then I anticipate having Davy Sanford, another great Humboldt buddy of mine, who has a farm nearby, come over with his two sons, Paul Bunyan and Bigfoot, because he heard the city-slicker butt-face who brings the steaks is in town. The warmth is just too much. I have to stop this anticipating. A man of my age, a man with only 7.9 years left, has to ration his anticipatory glands. I’ll try.
OK, one last anticipation. I think ahead and I know Vic and I will sit up on his great log deck overlooking the Mesa Ass Mountains and, yes, we will be sitting in old padded rocking chairs and puffing on a couple of bad-boy stogies and he will shoot at some raccoon or varmint 75 yards away with his 30-ought six rifle (I’m not making this up) and we will talk about life and love and enlarged prostates and we will acknowledge each other with a manly and rugged, yet non-Brokeback Mountain kind of love, which is accepted by most enlightened people nowadays, and he will lift his left butt cheek just slightly and say, “Pull my finger.”
I can hardly wait..
I’m getting ready to go see my buddy, Vic Vieira, who lives on a ranch in Colorado. I’m taking Hadley, my 11-year-old Airedale, who is literally on his last legs. His legs are in pretty bad shape, but he just loves it out there in Hicksville. Once I actually said the word “Hicksville” while I was there and I learned the meaning of a new term — shotgun blast. But that’s another story. I kid the hicks.
I think this is probably Hadley’s last trip over there. The ranch is about 80 acres or 120 acres or 5,000 acres. I don’t know. It’s pretty big. And Hadley just loves to explore and sniff and pee and dig and run around. And Vic has a chicken coop (yes, Virginia, there are actual chicken coops) and Hadley turns into a chicken-killing machine when he smells that place. One time we went there and we hear this commotion and serious clucking and we see Hadley tearing into the chicken coop and he’s got fire in his gut and death in his eyes and a chicken in his mouth.
Hey, I felt bad for the chicken, but wow, that city-slicker dog had gotten in touch with his inner wolf and it was kind of primal, baby. Jeez. He ate that dang chicken. Feathers and all. I wasn’t gonna stop him. I’m dumb, but not that dumb.
I’m getting ahead of myself a little. (There’s a flash.) I was talking about the anticipation of the trip. Not the actual trip. So I am anticipating the kind of fun I have already related to you a little, and I go to Ralphs to get some stuff for the trip.
I’m at the check-out counter and I pay for my items and the helper-guy says, “Enjoy your hog pood and penis.” I kind of look at the checker and she has a quizzical look on her face, and she kind of nods her head towards the helper-guy. And I’m contemplating if I will enjoy my penis and my hog pood. And then I realize that Ralphs, to their credit, hires mentally challenged people to pack the groceries. And I realize that he slurred his words a bit and he meant dog food and peanuts. Not hog pood and penis.
But I didn’t want to offend him, so I said, “Thank you for your interest. I will enjoy my hog pood and penis. It was very thoughtful of you to have my welfare in mind.”
Well, now that I had my supplies, I was ready to get fully involved in the anticipating of the trip. And let me tell you, I anticipated my butt off. And with my butt, that’s a whole lot of anticipating. I thought about just getting on the road and heading out towards Palm Springs and seeing all those wind turbines spinning and then cruising past Joshua Tree and into the California desert with the wind in my hair — which is kind of tough without a convertible — and stopping at a Denny’s for some nice hog pood and relieving my peanuts.
And then I thought about going through Kingman and Flagstaff and other cool-sounding places and venturing into the northern Arizona desert and driving for, literally, hours without seeing a gas station or a cafe in 115-degree heat and then feeling the excitement of running across an Indian trading post in the middle of you-know-what Egypt.
And I thought about going in there to get an overpriced soft drink and being happy that there was overpriced anything. And I thought about seeing that old Indian guy in there, whose face you could make a saddle out of, who looked at me like I was Custer, and he would have spit on me but he wanted to save his spit to roll a ciggy. And I thought I’d probably buy some $14.95 Kachina doll so he would think I was really OK and evolved and that my ancestors weren’t cavalry officers. Yes, I anticipated all of that. As I said, I am an anticipator.
And then, because I was anticipating having hunger pangs, and I couldn’t keep anticipating about anticipating that I would be hungry on an empty stomach (an empty head, yes) I anticipated stopping at one of those little side-of-road semi-hogan-like places to get a couple of flatbread tacos. That charred bread and spiced-up coyote meat. And cilantro. With that red stuff. I think it’s the blood of an Englishman. Hadley and I love those suckers. Of course, he has his taco with, you guessed it, chicken.
And finally I anticipate rolling into Cortez, Colorado, and going out to Vic’s ranch, and driving down his dirt road and squishing a few cow pies and having him greet me with those seven words that have to come to define our 50-year-old friendship, “Did you bring the damn steaks, dickhead?”
Oh, it brings tears to my eyes. And then I anticipate having Davy Sanford, another great Humboldt buddy of mine, who has a farm nearby, come over with his two sons, Paul Bunyan and Bigfoot, because he heard the city-slicker butt-face who brings the steaks is in town. The warmth is just too much. I have to stop this anticipating. A man of my age, a man with only 7.9 years left, has to ration his anticipatory glands. I’ll try.
OK, one last anticipation. I think ahead and I know Vic and I will sit up on his great log deck overlooking the Mesa Ass Mountains and, yes, we will be sitting in old padded rocking chairs and puffing on a couple of bad-boy stogies and he will shoot at some raccoon or varmint 75 yards away with his 30-ought six rifle (I’m not making this up) and we will talk about life and love and enlarged prostates and we will acknowledge each other with a manly and rugged, yet non-Brokeback Mountain kind of love, which is accepted by most enlightened people nowadays, and he will lift his left butt cheek just slightly and say, “Pull my finger.”
I can hardly wait..
Thursday, June 5, 2008
At Least My Dog Likes Me (Cigar Smoke 6-5-08)
I’m looked down on for a lot of things. Oh, sure, you’re going to say it’s because I am short. Real funny. And I’m not that damned short, dammit. I’m taller than Napoleon. I’m taller than that woman race driver. I’m taller than them short people who Randy Newman sings about.
But, I have to admit there are numerous traits I have that are looked down on by people such as yourselves and your critical friends. To which I say, “Pshaw.” I am going to keep those irritating traits and I will enjoy exercising them until I either buy the farm or one of you sells me the farm.
I cannot go into all of those traits right now because this is a limited space, so I will just highlight one of the things I do which seems to irritate people who observe me doing it. I like to feed my dog weird shit, OK. Is that so bad?
Here’s how I see it. A dog is on the planet for, say, 13 years. And I think he should be happy for those years. And most people I know just feed their dogs dog food. They think it’s healthy and their vet tells them it is and maybe it is. I don’t know.
What I do know is that it is damn boring. And if I were their dog I would bite them as hard as I could or at least pee on their leg.
One friend of mine, who I consider a great friend, just dumps a 50- pound bag of kibble crap on the garage floor and if his dogs eat it, fine. If not, they die. I took Hadley the Airedale to his house one day, and he looked at that pile of supposed dog food and he got back in the car. I couldn’t blame him. We left and went to In-N-Out and shared a couple of double-doubles.
I spend time fixing Hadley his meal every night. He never knows what the hell he’s going to get. But he usually eats it all. Yes, I am that great of a cook. I’ll usually give him two packets of Caesar dog food just to give a nod to vitamins and minerals and such. But then I’ll add some hot dog chunks. And some strands of string cheese. And some pieces of liverwurst. That kind of thing.
Each night I try to do something different. Like I’ll buy sliced ham and cheap baloney and cut off hunks of salami. And I’ll just add those to his dish. And, of course, if we have any leftovers, I’ll put meat loaf or chicken or two-week-old, fat-covered stroganoff lumps in with his packets of health. I’m telling you, he smiles. Really. He looks at me, and I smile back at him and he tells me in dog language (which, by the way, is very similar to stuttering) that he is so glad he doesn’t live with my garage-floor-dog-food-spilling, animal-mistreating friend.
Every once in a while I will buy him some ground round. And I’ll just give it to him raw (although at times in the past I admit I have lightly browned it in the skillet) and he goes over to his dish and his nostrils flare and he sticks his long-headed dog nose in that raw meat and he wolfs that ground round down, and then he comes out into the living room walking on his hind legs and he high-fives me. Oh God, that’s a great feeling.
Hey, the point is, I try to think of him. That’s all. Hell, he’s made it to 11 years old. That’s 77 in our years. Heck, he’s older than I am. And he seems happy. And all his dog friends want to come over to our house to eat. I don’t know, I think dog health is overrated.
The other night I went to Panda Express and got some Orange Chicken and some chop suey and sweet and sour something and cashew nut chicken and beef broccoli stuff. And I brought it home and sat on the end of the couch and was eating it, and then Mr. Fur Face comes over like he always does and sits right in front of me and looks sadder than a monk seeing Madonna naked. And he just looks up at me with his big eyes and dripping tongue. Kind of reminds me of someone I dated in high school. Oh, no — that was me.
I couldn’t stand the sound of a dog crying, so now and then I would give him a piece of cashew chicken to shut him up. He liked it. And then I gave him a few tidbits of the bad fatty pieces of beef I didn’t want, and he liked them, too. Then I gave him a big glob of Orange Chicken and you know what he did? If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’. He spit it out! On my pants!
That ungrateful little weasel. Anyway, I finished eating and had some leftovers, so I thought I would piss him off and teach him a lesson. I got a plate and put out the sweet and sour pork stuff that even I couldn’t stomach and threw in a little chop suey and the Orange Chicken gooey-ass sauce. And I put the broccoli right on top. I put the plate down in front of him. I think it was moving by itself. And you know what?
He ate the whole thing! Just slopped it up like a four-legged vacuum. Man, it was gone. Fast. And then he is going around the living room wiping his snout-face on the chairs and all over the rug and smiling his dog smile. So what did I do? The only thing I could do. I gave him a fortune cookie. He ate the whole thing. Even the little paper fortune.
Which I carefully picked out of a moist pile with my chopsticks, and was able to decipher that it read, “Canine who eats General Mao Chinese shredded chicken will do a dog barf on your carpet.”
Those commies are very wise.
But, I have to admit there are numerous traits I have that are looked down on by people such as yourselves and your critical friends. To which I say, “Pshaw.” I am going to keep those irritating traits and I will enjoy exercising them until I either buy the farm or one of you sells me the farm.
I cannot go into all of those traits right now because this is a limited space, so I will just highlight one of the things I do which seems to irritate people who observe me doing it. I like to feed my dog weird shit, OK. Is that so bad?
Here’s how I see it. A dog is on the planet for, say, 13 years. And I think he should be happy for those years. And most people I know just feed their dogs dog food. They think it’s healthy and their vet tells them it is and maybe it is. I don’t know.
What I do know is that it is damn boring. And if I were their dog I would bite them as hard as I could or at least pee on their leg.
One friend of mine, who I consider a great friend, just dumps a 50- pound bag of kibble crap on the garage floor and if his dogs eat it, fine. If not, they die. I took Hadley the Airedale to his house one day, and he looked at that pile of supposed dog food and he got back in the car. I couldn’t blame him. We left and went to In-N-Out and shared a couple of double-doubles.
I spend time fixing Hadley his meal every night. He never knows what the hell he’s going to get. But he usually eats it all. Yes, I am that great of a cook. I’ll usually give him two packets of Caesar dog food just to give a nod to vitamins and minerals and such. But then I’ll add some hot dog chunks. And some strands of string cheese. And some pieces of liverwurst. That kind of thing.
Each night I try to do something different. Like I’ll buy sliced ham and cheap baloney and cut off hunks of salami. And I’ll just add those to his dish. And, of course, if we have any leftovers, I’ll put meat loaf or chicken or two-week-old, fat-covered stroganoff lumps in with his packets of health. I’m telling you, he smiles. Really. He looks at me, and I smile back at him and he tells me in dog language (which, by the way, is very similar to stuttering) that he is so glad he doesn’t live with my garage-floor-dog-food-spilling, animal-mistreating friend.
Every once in a while I will buy him some ground round. And I’ll just give it to him raw (although at times in the past I admit I have lightly browned it in the skillet) and he goes over to his dish and his nostrils flare and he sticks his long-headed dog nose in that raw meat and he wolfs that ground round down, and then he comes out into the living room walking on his hind legs and he high-fives me. Oh God, that’s a great feeling.
Hey, the point is, I try to think of him. That’s all. Hell, he’s made it to 11 years old. That’s 77 in our years. Heck, he’s older than I am. And he seems happy. And all his dog friends want to come over to our house to eat. I don’t know, I think dog health is overrated.
The other night I went to Panda Express and got some Orange Chicken and some chop suey and sweet and sour something and cashew nut chicken and beef broccoli stuff. And I brought it home and sat on the end of the couch and was eating it, and then Mr. Fur Face comes over like he always does and sits right in front of me and looks sadder than a monk seeing Madonna naked. And he just looks up at me with his big eyes and dripping tongue. Kind of reminds me of someone I dated in high school. Oh, no — that was me.
I couldn’t stand the sound of a dog crying, so now and then I would give him a piece of cashew chicken to shut him up. He liked it. And then I gave him a few tidbits of the bad fatty pieces of beef I didn’t want, and he liked them, too. Then I gave him a big glob of Orange Chicken and you know what he did? If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’. He spit it out! On my pants!
That ungrateful little weasel. Anyway, I finished eating and had some leftovers, so I thought I would piss him off and teach him a lesson. I got a plate and put out the sweet and sour pork stuff that even I couldn’t stomach and threw in a little chop suey and the Orange Chicken gooey-ass sauce. And I put the broccoli right on top. I put the plate down in front of him. I think it was moving by itself. And you know what?
He ate the whole thing! Just slopped it up like a four-legged vacuum. Man, it was gone. Fast. And then he is going around the living room wiping his snout-face on the chairs and all over the rug and smiling his dog smile. So what did I do? The only thing I could do. I gave him a fortune cookie. He ate the whole thing. Even the little paper fortune.
Which I carefully picked out of a moist pile with my chopsticks, and was able to decipher that it read, “Canine who eats General Mao Chinese shredded chicken will do a dog barf on your carpet.”
Those commies are very wise.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Funny You Should Bring That Up (Cigar Smoke 5-29-08)
Everything has been going along pretty well for me. I just tossed out my empty can of Clean Linen bathroom spray and am now using Country Garden. It’s so much better having the bathroom smell like a tomato patch than a towel. I’m still pretty excited.
So, after this deodorizer excitement, I’m sitting out on the couch eating a no-sugar-added Fudgsicle, watching the tube and playing online Scrabble with someone from Newfoundland, and my dog Hadley starts to retch a little. I offer him a bite of my Popsicle thing, even though I know dogs shouldn’t eat chocolate because I am a what? A rebel. And a non-thinking pet owner.
But he doesn’t even want it. He’s too busy heaving his guts out on the rug. I mean, he was doing some serious Airedale hurling, baby. Mixed in with the hurl-goo were blades of grass and a Reese’s Pieces wrapper and what looked like a chicken foot. I think he made the right decision to hurl it.
And, of course, that reminded me of three of the favorite throwing-up experiences I’ve had over the past 30 years or so. And because I live to share things with you readers and readerettes, I am about to share my empty stomach with you. Warning! If you are about to eat lunch, that would be a mistake. Unless you want a fourth throw-up story of your own.
My first upchuck memory happened in the early ’60s. I was a student at Humboldt State College (where the men were men, and so were the women. I know I’ve said that before, but I just love repeating it.) I was attending a little party just off campus. The primary goal of this party was to drink as many cans of Brew 102 beer as you could and then take a shot of bourbon after each beer and then consume some Corn Nuts and baked beans and PB&J sandwiches and then see who could light the longest tightly pulled-skivvies-over-your-buttocks red rocket. Oh, the fun we had. I’m just glad we could pass these achievements on to the younger generation.
Anyway, around midnight I didn’t feel too good. I don’t know why. And I walked out onto the deck to get some fresh air and maybe survive the night. Well, this deck was on the fourth floor of the house we were in. Pretty high. Kind of like a certain columnist.
As I stood there, holding the rail, I knew I could not keep the evening’s refreshments down. And I also knew I could not make it to the bathroom or a sink or a pan or a bag or a hat. So I stuck my head over the railing and let her fly.
Wow. I can still see the chunks of spaghetti and meatballs and nuts in this foamy glob of beer and saliva just drifting down through the cool night air. It was like it was in slow motion. A Fellini movie. Each chunk of gunk was slightly separating as it fell toward the parking lot. And then it hit with a fourth-floor splat and it just missed a couple who were face-sucking. And I’ll never forget what they said. “Let’s check out some other party.”
About seven years later — but not seven years smarter — I was at a party with my ex-wife, who shall remain nameless because of my gallantry, good judgment and the provisions of the restraining order. I was working at the Army Corps of Engineers and they were having a little party for all of us to get to know each other at some guy’s house.
There were about 20 of us there, and we were all getting, uh, as they say in the construction industry, plastered. Everyone was pretty damn happy if your definition of happy is “can’t walk.” At some point in the evening’s proceedings, we all gathered in a big circle. I don’t remember why we were in this circle. People would go out into the middle and do something and then return. Well, when it was my turn, I went out into the middle of the circle and did something, too. I barfed.
Even in my condition, I could tell that this was not well-received. Especially by the hostess of the party. I remember her husband telling her that he didn’t know who I was and I would never be invited back. And then he took the kitchen knife away from her.
The last thing I remember was being carried into the bedroom where they put all the guests’ coats and they plopped me right in the middle of all those big coats and jackets and scarves. It was actually pretty comfy. I felt all snug and warm and loved as I wiped my face on a really soft chinchilla coat collar. (Furs were OK back then.)
Finally, on my little trip down vomitory lane, I remember back in the ’70s I spent a pleasant evening at The Catacombs, a cool little Mexican bar in downtown Los Angeles. The place was actually underground and it was dark and damp and seedy. Me and my other ink-stained wretch compadres would go there after putting out an edition of the paper. They owed us money for ad space and we took that out in giant platters of guacamole de huachucas and Coronas.
Four of us were sitting there in a dark leather booth and one of the young ladies we were hoping to have meaningful and fulfilling sexual intercourse with later was getting, as they say in the trucking industry, pretty loaded.
My potential love partner of the opposite sex turned towards me, looked at me with her big brown eyes, and she fluttered them a few feminine flutters like they did back then, and she tried to smile, but instead of smiling she projectile vomited her earlier consumed taco plate which was loosely held together by warm cerveza and female spittle. Or maybe it was warm spittle and female cerveza. I don’t know. But it was definitely memorable. And it was all over my chest and my shirt and my psyche. And if I knew the Spanish word for traumatized, I would relate that to you now.
Well, I hope you all have enjoyed our little trip down upchuck lane. Maybe we can meet again next week and I’ll tell you how I had my warts removed.
So, after this deodorizer excitement, I’m sitting out on the couch eating a no-sugar-added Fudgsicle, watching the tube and playing online Scrabble with someone from Newfoundland, and my dog Hadley starts to retch a little. I offer him a bite of my Popsicle thing, even though I know dogs shouldn’t eat chocolate because I am a what? A rebel. And a non-thinking pet owner.
But he doesn’t even want it. He’s too busy heaving his guts out on the rug. I mean, he was doing some serious Airedale hurling, baby. Mixed in with the hurl-goo were blades of grass and a Reese’s Pieces wrapper and what looked like a chicken foot. I think he made the right decision to hurl it.
And, of course, that reminded me of three of the favorite throwing-up experiences I’ve had over the past 30 years or so. And because I live to share things with you readers and readerettes, I am about to share my empty stomach with you. Warning! If you are about to eat lunch, that would be a mistake. Unless you want a fourth throw-up story of your own.
My first upchuck memory happened in the early ’60s. I was a student at Humboldt State College (where the men were men, and so were the women. I know I’ve said that before, but I just love repeating it.) I was attending a little party just off campus. The primary goal of this party was to drink as many cans of Brew 102 beer as you could and then take a shot of bourbon after each beer and then consume some Corn Nuts and baked beans and PB&J sandwiches and then see who could light the longest tightly pulled-skivvies-over-your-buttocks red rocket. Oh, the fun we had. I’m just glad we could pass these achievements on to the younger generation.
Anyway, around midnight I didn’t feel too good. I don’t know why. And I walked out onto the deck to get some fresh air and maybe survive the night. Well, this deck was on the fourth floor of the house we were in. Pretty high. Kind of like a certain columnist.
As I stood there, holding the rail, I knew I could not keep the evening’s refreshments down. And I also knew I could not make it to the bathroom or a sink or a pan or a bag or a hat. So I stuck my head over the railing and let her fly.
Wow. I can still see the chunks of spaghetti and meatballs and nuts in this foamy glob of beer and saliva just drifting down through the cool night air. It was like it was in slow motion. A Fellini movie. Each chunk of gunk was slightly separating as it fell toward the parking lot. And then it hit with a fourth-floor splat and it just missed a couple who were face-sucking. And I’ll never forget what they said. “Let’s check out some other party.”
About seven years later — but not seven years smarter — I was at a party with my ex-wife, who shall remain nameless because of my gallantry, good judgment and the provisions of the restraining order. I was working at the Army Corps of Engineers and they were having a little party for all of us to get to know each other at some guy’s house.
There were about 20 of us there, and we were all getting, uh, as they say in the construction industry, plastered. Everyone was pretty damn happy if your definition of happy is “can’t walk.” At some point in the evening’s proceedings, we all gathered in a big circle. I don’t remember why we were in this circle. People would go out into the middle and do something and then return. Well, when it was my turn, I went out into the middle of the circle and did something, too. I barfed.
Even in my condition, I could tell that this was not well-received. Especially by the hostess of the party. I remember her husband telling her that he didn’t know who I was and I would never be invited back. And then he took the kitchen knife away from her.
The last thing I remember was being carried into the bedroom where they put all the guests’ coats and they plopped me right in the middle of all those big coats and jackets and scarves. It was actually pretty comfy. I felt all snug and warm and loved as I wiped my face on a really soft chinchilla coat collar. (Furs were OK back then.)
Finally, on my little trip down vomitory lane, I remember back in the ’70s I spent a pleasant evening at The Catacombs, a cool little Mexican bar in downtown Los Angeles. The place was actually underground and it was dark and damp and seedy. Me and my other ink-stained wretch compadres would go there after putting out an edition of the paper. They owed us money for ad space and we took that out in giant platters of guacamole de huachucas and Coronas.
Four of us were sitting there in a dark leather booth and one of the young ladies we were hoping to have meaningful and fulfilling sexual intercourse with later was getting, as they say in the trucking industry, pretty loaded.
My potential love partner of the opposite sex turned towards me, looked at me with her big brown eyes, and she fluttered them a few feminine flutters like they did back then, and she tried to smile, but instead of smiling she projectile vomited her earlier consumed taco plate which was loosely held together by warm cerveza and female spittle. Or maybe it was warm spittle and female cerveza. I don’t know. But it was definitely memorable. And it was all over my chest and my shirt and my psyche. And if I knew the Spanish word for traumatized, I would relate that to you now.
Well, I hope you all have enjoyed our little trip down upchuck lane. Maybe we can meet again next week and I’ll tell you how I had my warts removed.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Bumper Cars (Cigar Smoke 5-22-2008)
OK, it was a Wednesday evening and on most Wednesday evenings I am heading to West Hollywood to play Scrabble and get my butt handed to me by way-better players who laugh at me and throw sand in my face. Which is rather difficult because they have to drive down to the beach to get the sand and come back and repark their cars and come in and throw the sand in my face. They don’t seem to mind the extra time and trouble.
Anyway, I head out the 134 going west and I’m bopping along, singing a song, trying to enjoy the remaining 7.9 years I should have on the planet. And I merge onto the Glendale Freeway going south and I kick my old Hemi (yes, girls, I am available) into a pretty scary gear and that part of the freeway is always wide open and I’m flying, baby. I’m passing Cessnas.
At the end of the Glendale Speedway I hit surface streets and make it through northern Mexico, I mean the Alvarado triangle, and finally get to the Hollywood Freeway. It’s kind of fun to see signs in English again, and I’m be-bopping along, singing a different song and I’m trying to change the channel on the radio and I’m reading the last two pages of my book on the Kindle and I’m trying to open a little bag of peanuts with my teeth and flicking a cigar ash somewhere towards the ashtray and would you believe it, I ran into some lady in front of me. Damn women drivers.
OK, maybe I was a little distracted. So I get out of the car and go up to her and ask if she’s OK, and she was, because I really wasn’t going that fast. I mean, I hit the brakes and everything. So we’re standing on the freeway looking at the bumper damage and everybody else is driving by and just openly hating us. Hey, I don’t blame them. It’s 5 o’clock on the Hollywood Freeway and they’re just off work and they’re tired and there’s all this damn traffic and then this irresponsible woman stops in front of a nice old gentleman such as myself. Who wouldn’t be irritated?
Anyway, after a pretty spirited flipping-off match with the driver of a Ford F-150 with a “No Fat Chicks” sticker, I exchanged information with the bad woman driver, suggesting she never again make such an unsafe stop, and I got back into my hurt Hemi. And I made it to Santa Monica Boulevard and was be-bopping along for the third damn time, and I went over this bump in the road and I heard this sound. Kind of a scraping sound like maybe I had run over a Democrat. (I kid the Democrats.)
So when I get to my Scrabble place, I get out of the car and look at my bumper, and damned if the right portion of the bumper isn’t just hanging there scraping my tire. I hadn’t even seen it on the freeway. I thought I was just going to sue the bad woman driver for a severe case of fraudulent whiplash and call it a day. I didn’t even consider that my bumper had been more than bumped.
So, being the what? Being the incredibly bright guy who I am, I decided I should have the bumper repaired. And I took Mr. Hurt Hemi Face over to the Dodge dealer in Glendale. I showed him the bumper and he looked at it and rubbed his chin, really, and got that expression. Dodge dealers must teach all their service guys that concerned expression. Damn, was he concerned. And then he called one of his fellow concerned associates over and they both looked even more concerned.
Finally, the head service rep says, “I think the frame’s bent.” I said, “I barely hit the thing. I think it’s just sprung. Can’t you just pop it back in?” And he said, “Oh, sure, I can just pop it back in, if you’re not concerned about the safety of your family.” I said, “Just suppose I was concerned about the safety of my family, how much would it cost?” And he said, “Well, with the new frame and the new mounts and the additional work on the adjoining struts and the damage to the differential and the universal and, of course, the labor involved from our factory-trained technicians and body shop people, I’m guesstimating here, say $2,500, plus the labor.”
Well, after me and my wallet got a good laugh over that, I declined to have him fix the bumper. I told him my family would have to fend for themselves on this one.
Now, I am not the most knowledgeable guy when it comes to cars. I basically know where the steering wheel is and how to turn the radio on. When I was a teenager and my buddies were fixing their cars in their dimly lit driveways at night, I was the guy who would hold the flashlight for them. And sometimes drop bolts onto their heads when they were under the car. Even then I was a kidder.
But I did know one thing: this guy was trying to rip me off. I have learned from Scrabble and poker when I’m being bluffed, and baby, I was being bluffed. And I called that sucker. And I am really happy with myself. Because nobody else will be.
So to end my sad tale, I took the car over to my favorite gas station, a Mobil station at the corner of Colorado and Allen. It’s called K & S Mobil. And I talked to my guy. I’m not sure if it was K or S, but he’s a great guy. And he’s an honest guy. And he’s always done great work for me — for a fair price. And he works fast. And if I wasn’t married I’d date this guy and take advantage of the new marriage laws in California.
I show him the bumper and ask him if he can fix it. He looks at it, looks up under it, nods a couple of times, and says, “Sure.” I would have cried, but there’s no crying in mechanic relationships.
I go pick up the car. The bumper has been fixed. It looks great. All ready for new things to bump. And how much does he charge me? He charges me $266; 166 bucks for the parts and two hours of labor at $50 an hour. And he says, it really took us three hours, but we’ll only charge you for two because we like you.
It’s gonna be a nice June wedding. We’re registered at Crate and Barrel.
Anyway, I head out the 134 going west and I’m bopping along, singing a song, trying to enjoy the remaining 7.9 years I should have on the planet. And I merge onto the Glendale Freeway going south and I kick my old Hemi (yes, girls, I am available) into a pretty scary gear and that part of the freeway is always wide open and I’m flying, baby. I’m passing Cessnas.
At the end of the Glendale Speedway I hit surface streets and make it through northern Mexico, I mean the Alvarado triangle, and finally get to the Hollywood Freeway. It’s kind of fun to see signs in English again, and I’m be-bopping along, singing a different song and I’m trying to change the channel on the radio and I’m reading the last two pages of my book on the Kindle and I’m trying to open a little bag of peanuts with my teeth and flicking a cigar ash somewhere towards the ashtray and would you believe it, I ran into some lady in front of me. Damn women drivers.
OK, maybe I was a little distracted. So I get out of the car and go up to her and ask if she’s OK, and she was, because I really wasn’t going that fast. I mean, I hit the brakes and everything. So we’re standing on the freeway looking at the bumper damage and everybody else is driving by and just openly hating us. Hey, I don’t blame them. It’s 5 o’clock on the Hollywood Freeway and they’re just off work and they’re tired and there’s all this damn traffic and then this irresponsible woman stops in front of a nice old gentleman such as myself. Who wouldn’t be irritated?
Anyway, after a pretty spirited flipping-off match with the driver of a Ford F-150 with a “No Fat Chicks” sticker, I exchanged information with the bad woman driver, suggesting she never again make such an unsafe stop, and I got back into my hurt Hemi. And I made it to Santa Monica Boulevard and was be-bopping along for the third damn time, and I went over this bump in the road and I heard this sound. Kind of a scraping sound like maybe I had run over a Democrat. (I kid the Democrats.)
So when I get to my Scrabble place, I get out of the car and look at my bumper, and damned if the right portion of the bumper isn’t just hanging there scraping my tire. I hadn’t even seen it on the freeway. I thought I was just going to sue the bad woman driver for a severe case of fraudulent whiplash and call it a day. I didn’t even consider that my bumper had been more than bumped.
So, being the what? Being the incredibly bright guy who I am, I decided I should have the bumper repaired. And I took Mr. Hurt Hemi Face over to the Dodge dealer in Glendale. I showed him the bumper and he looked at it and rubbed his chin, really, and got that expression. Dodge dealers must teach all their service guys that concerned expression. Damn, was he concerned. And then he called one of his fellow concerned associates over and they both looked even more concerned.
Finally, the head service rep says, “I think the frame’s bent.” I said, “I barely hit the thing. I think it’s just sprung. Can’t you just pop it back in?” And he said, “Oh, sure, I can just pop it back in, if you’re not concerned about the safety of your family.” I said, “Just suppose I was concerned about the safety of my family, how much would it cost?” And he said, “Well, with the new frame and the new mounts and the additional work on the adjoining struts and the damage to the differential and the universal and, of course, the labor involved from our factory-trained technicians and body shop people, I’m guesstimating here, say $2,500, plus the labor.”
Well, after me and my wallet got a good laugh over that, I declined to have him fix the bumper. I told him my family would have to fend for themselves on this one.
Now, I am not the most knowledgeable guy when it comes to cars. I basically know where the steering wheel is and how to turn the radio on. When I was a teenager and my buddies were fixing their cars in their dimly lit driveways at night, I was the guy who would hold the flashlight for them. And sometimes drop bolts onto their heads when they were under the car. Even then I was a kidder.
But I did know one thing: this guy was trying to rip me off. I have learned from Scrabble and poker when I’m being bluffed, and baby, I was being bluffed. And I called that sucker. And I am really happy with myself. Because nobody else will be.
So to end my sad tale, I took the car over to my favorite gas station, a Mobil station at the corner of Colorado and Allen. It’s called K & S Mobil. And I talked to my guy. I’m not sure if it was K or S, but he’s a great guy. And he’s an honest guy. And he’s always done great work for me — for a fair price. And he works fast. And if I wasn’t married I’d date this guy and take advantage of the new marriage laws in California.
I show him the bumper and ask him if he can fix it. He looks at it, looks up under it, nods a couple of times, and says, “Sure.” I would have cried, but there’s no crying in mechanic relationships.
I go pick up the car. The bumper has been fixed. It looks great. All ready for new things to bump. And how much does he charge me? He charges me $266; 166 bucks for the parts and two hours of labor at $50 an hour. And he says, it really took us three hours, but we’ll only charge you for two because we like you.
It’s gonna be a nice June wedding. We’re registered at Crate and Barrel.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Futile Gestures (Cigar Smoke 5-15-08)
I’m discovering that the older I get the more futile my gestures are. Does that make sense? Here’s the deal. When I was younger I would only get teed off, and then sometimes when I was really bent I would get ticked off, but now, as I am fully ensconced in my body-part-non-functioning years, I tend to get pissed off quite easily.
Marge notices it. At the breakfast table she will say something like, “Honey Mate, you tend to get pissed off more easily now that you’re very old and almost dead.” It’s that kind of inspiration that keeps me going.
So what do I mean by “futile gesture?” Well, gesturers and gesturettes, I mean this. I have been a loyal member of the Priority Club, which is the hot-shot premium membership deal of the Holiday Inn. For the last dozen years or so, I have always tried to stay at a Holiday Inn. It’s a pretty good hotel and their beds are fairly decent. But mostly it’s because I love their cinnamon rolls. (As you can see, my standards, like my arches, my chins, and my libido, have fallen over the years.)
Anyway, you get bonus points for staying at the hotel and I’ve accumulated a lot of points and have enjoyed a number of free nights. It just makes me feel good to be a member of something so trifling and petty. So, a few months ago, I took a little trip with my sons, Mike and Casey, down to see an Evander Holyfield fight in El Paso. And I reserved two rooms. One for me. And one for my loin-springers.
Well, when I got back home I looked on my Holiday Inn recap sheet online, and I was only credited with one room. My room. They wouldn’t give me credit for the other room, which I had paid for. I was, of course, what? I was incensed.
So I wrote them a long email and complained and bitched and moaned about not being important to them and how disappointed I was at not being special and I used obscene words, like Hilton and Marriott and Doubletree, to scare them. And what happened? Nothing happened, that’s what. They just ignored me. A loyal guy like me. Ignored me.
So, that is what I mean by a futile gesture. I gestured. It was futile. It was a futile gesture.
Another time a while back I canceled my subscription to Newsweek magazine because of that false story about GIs peeing on the Koran. I told them I couldn’t keep paying them to write bullshit stories, and I knew not receiving my subscription money was going to hurt them drastically. I was pretty sure it was going to force them into bankruptcy and that they would have to beg me to reconsider, and they would tell me about all the fathers and mothers they would have to fire, and let me know how many kids would be thrown on the streets. Never heard from them.
And I used to have trouble with a damn Hewlett-Packard printer back when I was publishing the Weekly, about 10 years ago. That sucky printer would never, ever work. It would always give me an error message, some code with four numbers and a dollar sign and an exclamation point and a little icon of a bomb exploding.
I tried everything to fix it. I re-installed the software. I called the HP help line. I gave the damn printer its own power outlet. I even read the manual. But it would never work. I got so frustrated I threw things at it. I even elbowed its sorry toner-cartridge butt one day. And I hate to admit this, but I think the statute of limitations has run out, so I can tell you. I killed three members of my staff for laughing at how red my face got and giggle-pointing at the spittle on my cheeks. They deserved to die. (By the way, Barack Obama knew about this, but continues to own Hewlett-Packard stock to this day.)
So I gestured up to the plate and wrote old Hewlett-Packard a letter informing them of my less-than-optimum experience, and that I would never ever buy another one of their damn supposed printer pieces of crap even if I was on a desert island and was hit on the head with a coconut. I was that mad. And over the last 10 years two things have happened. I have never bought another Hewlett-Packard product and I’m sure they’ve gone out of business because of that. And the second thing is that I have never heard from them. Gesture this!
But the most painful futile gesture I’ve made is the one I made to Bruce Springsteen. As you might remember, during the last election campaign he came out in support of John Kerry for president. He was going around the country having concerts and bad-mouthing Bush and all that. Now, I don’t want to get too political, but let’s just say I thought it was stupid and disgusting and repulsive and revolting and sickening and simplistic and it had warts and pimples on it.
So I got on Bruce’s Web site and sent him an email. I told him how big a fan of his I was, and that my favorite album of his was “Nebraska,” and how much I loved “Highway Patrolman,” and I told Bruce how I admired how he stood up for the little guy and expressed the longing of the downtrodden. And I even told him I enjoyed misconstruing the meaning of his “Born in the USA” song.
But because of his misguided political stance, I was going to have to discontinue referring to him as The Boss and that now I would be forced to refer to him as Just Another Employee. I also told him I would not ever, as long as I still had single digits to live, not ever buy another one of his albums. And I told him that I knew this would devastate him financially, but that I had to go with my heart and stand up for my ideals. And that I’m sure he would understand.
Well, I never heard from Just Another Employee. I guess he was just too wounded when his last album only sold nine million copies.
Marge notices it. At the breakfast table she will say something like, “Honey Mate, you tend to get pissed off more easily now that you’re very old and almost dead.” It’s that kind of inspiration that keeps me going.
So what do I mean by “futile gesture?” Well, gesturers and gesturettes, I mean this. I have been a loyal member of the Priority Club, which is the hot-shot premium membership deal of the Holiday Inn. For the last dozen years or so, I have always tried to stay at a Holiday Inn. It’s a pretty good hotel and their beds are fairly decent. But mostly it’s because I love their cinnamon rolls. (As you can see, my standards, like my arches, my chins, and my libido, have fallen over the years.)
Anyway, you get bonus points for staying at the hotel and I’ve accumulated a lot of points and have enjoyed a number of free nights. It just makes me feel good to be a member of something so trifling and petty. So, a few months ago, I took a little trip with my sons, Mike and Casey, down to see an Evander Holyfield fight in El Paso. And I reserved two rooms. One for me. And one for my loin-springers.
Well, when I got back home I looked on my Holiday Inn recap sheet online, and I was only credited with one room. My room. They wouldn’t give me credit for the other room, which I had paid for. I was, of course, what? I was incensed.
So I wrote them a long email and complained and bitched and moaned about not being important to them and how disappointed I was at not being special and I used obscene words, like Hilton and Marriott and Doubletree, to scare them. And what happened? Nothing happened, that’s what. They just ignored me. A loyal guy like me. Ignored me.
So, that is what I mean by a futile gesture. I gestured. It was futile. It was a futile gesture.
Another time a while back I canceled my subscription to Newsweek magazine because of that false story about GIs peeing on the Koran. I told them I couldn’t keep paying them to write bullshit stories, and I knew not receiving my subscription money was going to hurt them drastically. I was pretty sure it was going to force them into bankruptcy and that they would have to beg me to reconsider, and they would tell me about all the fathers and mothers they would have to fire, and let me know how many kids would be thrown on the streets. Never heard from them.
And I used to have trouble with a damn Hewlett-Packard printer back when I was publishing the Weekly, about 10 years ago. That sucky printer would never, ever work. It would always give me an error message, some code with four numbers and a dollar sign and an exclamation point and a little icon of a bomb exploding.
I tried everything to fix it. I re-installed the software. I called the HP help line. I gave the damn printer its own power outlet. I even read the manual. But it would never work. I got so frustrated I threw things at it. I even elbowed its sorry toner-cartridge butt one day. And I hate to admit this, but I think the statute of limitations has run out, so I can tell you. I killed three members of my staff for laughing at how red my face got and giggle-pointing at the spittle on my cheeks. They deserved to die. (By the way, Barack Obama knew about this, but continues to own Hewlett-Packard stock to this day.)
So I gestured up to the plate and wrote old Hewlett-Packard a letter informing them of my less-than-optimum experience, and that I would never ever buy another one of their damn supposed printer pieces of crap even if I was on a desert island and was hit on the head with a coconut. I was that mad. And over the last 10 years two things have happened. I have never bought another Hewlett-Packard product and I’m sure they’ve gone out of business because of that. And the second thing is that I have never heard from them. Gesture this!
But the most painful futile gesture I’ve made is the one I made to Bruce Springsteen. As you might remember, during the last election campaign he came out in support of John Kerry for president. He was going around the country having concerts and bad-mouthing Bush and all that. Now, I don’t want to get too political, but let’s just say I thought it was stupid and disgusting and repulsive and revolting and sickening and simplistic and it had warts and pimples on it.
So I got on Bruce’s Web site and sent him an email. I told him how big a fan of his I was, and that my favorite album of his was “Nebraska,” and how much I loved “Highway Patrolman,” and I told Bruce how I admired how he stood up for the little guy and expressed the longing of the downtrodden. And I even told him I enjoyed misconstruing the meaning of his “Born in the USA” song.
But because of his misguided political stance, I was going to have to discontinue referring to him as The Boss and that now I would be forced to refer to him as Just Another Employee. I also told him I would not ever, as long as I still had single digits to live, not ever buy another one of his albums. And I told him that I knew this would devastate him financially, but that I had to go with my heart and stand up for my ideals. And that I’m sure he would understand.
Well, I never heard from Just Another Employee. I guess he was just too wounded when his last album only sold nine million copies.
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