Ehren's Secret To Filling Out A Pair Of Pants

I am, at heart, a giant packrat. I’m not sure why. When I was a kid, I used to comb garage sales and tag sales looking for cool stuff that I could bring back to my room to hide in some dusty corner to never be looked at again. If asked, I produce essays I wrote as far back as sixth grade.

My closet is a full-blown disaster area. Sure I have clothes in there…somewhere. But I also have:

• Every single Nintendo Videogame system ever produced.
• Shoeboxes filled with games for said systems. Hey, you never know when I might be filled with the over-powering urge to play Duck Hunt or Zelda 1.
• A blender and a rotisserie oven (Because what kind of a party is it without margaritas and a roast chicken?)
• My comic book collection. (This is kept under the vain hope that I had when I first bought them: If I keep them long enough, they’ll eventually be worth money. At this point, however, I’m beginning to think I’d have been better off collecting dirt.
• My baseball and basketball card collection. (Bought and kept under the same assumption as the comic books. Hey, they might not be worth much now, but when Grant Hill finally becomes the Hall Of Fame player he was projected to be out of college, I’ll be sitting pretty.)
• Three rubber chickens.

My closet is bad. I know this. However, the place where my pack-rat compulsion is damaging can be seen every time I have to reach for my wallet. In the course of my lifetime, I’ve carried a grand total of three wallets. The first one went off the side of a canoe when I was in 7th grade. The second was supposed to have been leather, but I carried it so long that I actually wore it down to cloth. The thing was, conservatively, the size of one of those bibles that soldiers carry onto the battlefield. Roughly the size of an autistic raccoon’s head.

I used to keep EVERYTHING in my wallet. And I do mean everything. I had ticket stubs to “Water World,” “Batman Returns,” and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" And when you’re carrying the county Yellow Pages around in your pants, it’s impossible to keep it in your back pocket. If I did, I’d be perpetually sitting at a 45 degree slope. So instead I was always sporting what looked to be a very square, off-center, flaccid cock swinging around one side of my pants. I don’t care what you say: some women DO think that’s hot.

The wallet I carry now is five years old and I still refer to it as the “new.” I made a conscious effort when I got it to clean out the shit I don’t need on a day to day basis (naturally, I saved it all in my room, just in case I ever need to prove that I sat through a terrible Kevin Cosner film in the late 80s). But that was five years ago and I’m beginning to think that it’d be easier to just haul a mattress around with me to hide my money under.

Let’s face it: men have a lot of shit to haul around: cell-phone, money, change, business cards, credit cards, keys, condoms, knives, flashlights, guitar picks, power tools…and yet we have no socially acceptable way to carry everything. Say what you want, but no woman respects a dude who carries a purse. I used to wonder what the fuck anyone could be carrying that would necessitate a fanny pack. Now I know. The only two things you can't carry around with a fanny pack are your balls and self respect. Seriously, if you’re over the age of 7 and you carry a fanny pack, immediately go out to the garage and hang yourself with it. We need to get you out of the gene-pool before you contaminate future generations.

So I began thinking: Who is the only dude I’ve ever seen that carried a bunch of shit around in a manner that was cool?

Batman.

So I believe I have what will be the next big thing in Men’s Fashion: Utility Belts.

Think about it: secret compartments for your phone, wallet, business cards, and even about 70 other things that you’d never find a use for. Like some of those smoke bombs that let you disappear. Laugh if you want, but I guarantee that your boss will take your raise request with a whole new degree of earnestness if you make your demand and then vanish in a cloud of smoke.

Until then, for the last time people: Yes, that is my wallet in my pants. And no, I’m not happy to see you.

Injuries

In keeping with my vow to aim this blog back in the direction of heterosexual topics, I was thinking last night about sex related injuries. I’m really not sure how it is for women when they sustain damage in the heat of the moment, but I know for a fact that men brag about it to anyone who’ll listen. We’re PROUD of them.

One night I called up my friend to ask if he was going to join the rest of the boys for poker that evening.

“Can’t do it.” He declared. “I’ve scheduled a fuck-weekend. Starting at 6:00 tonight I’m going to do nothing but sleep, eat and have sex until Sunday night. So don’t bother calling me for anything else this weekend.”

“Have fun.” I said. “Remember to stay hydrated.”

Three hours later I got a call from him.

“What’s everyone up to?” he asked.

“Why? I thought you were having sex all weekend! In fact, if you’re not balls deep as you talk to me now, I’ll lose all respect for you!”

“I’m coming over.”

When he arrived and settled into a chair, he told us the story. It would seem that mid-coitus our girl threw her back out. The exact mechanics of the tale elude me, but I believe that the moral of the story was “lift/thrust with your legs, not your back.” Either that or “don’t have sex with anyone twice your weight.” I’ve tried to take both lessons to heart.

I wondered if that girl was waiting for the perfect moment when she was sitting around with the girls, wearing PJs, and watching “One Tree Hill” to say, “My man fucked me so hard I threw out my back.” Is it something that women like to brag about?

It got me thinking to what injuries I’d gotten in the sack. Not counting rug-burn, of course. I threw my neck out going down on a girl once. I guess if I wanted to pull out the big guns of injuries, I could always go to the Condom Allergy, but that seems like a half-assed wound. Men have a clearly defined ranking of injuries we’re proudest of. They are (in order):

1. Sports Related
2. Sex Related
3. Work Related
4. Drinking Related
5. Idiocy Related
6. Viral/Bacterial/Allergy Related.

Every single injury, scar, burn, cut, scrap, tear, or break is infinitely worthy of retelling to your fellow men. However, the point of every story should be:

1. How the injury you sustained would have killed an Alaskan Grizzly
2. How you hardly felt anything at all
3. How you went back and did exactly the same thing again ten seconds after convalescing, or failing that, how it was the only thing that stood in the way of your career as a pro-athlete.

The ultimate Guy-Injury story happened to a friend of mine. He was riding his motorcycle down the highway in upstate NY, when he decided to try to stand on the seat. He promptly fell off, went over the guard-rail, fractured his collar-bone and broke a leg. Three months later, completely healed and having finally scrapped together enough funds to repair his bike, he drove down the same stretch of highway and tried to do the trick again. This time he managed to stay vertical long enough to fall off a bridge, hit a rock and break the same leg once more.

I hesitate to publish his name here, but it’s interesting to note that he now works for (I kid you not) Military Intelligence.

Jesus VS Superman

I’ve been having a lot of Nyquil-induced hallucinations recently. Among my more amusing visions was one for yet another blasphemous comic book. Way back in December when I flipped out and decided I wanted to write “The Adventures of Black Jesus Featuring the God Squad,” I was mostly kidding. I also realized later on that I had sort of subliminally ripped of the idea from the Adult Swim show The Boondocks.

On my desk at work I have two bobble-heads: one of the Buddy Christ from the Kevin Smith film “Dogma” and one of Superman from the film…Superman. People always ask me why I have the two of them, and my reply is always, “Because they’re my favorite fictional characters.” At any rate, I was looking at my desk and I began to wonder who would win in a fight between the Son of God and the Son of Krypton.

Superman can fly, shoot lasers from his eyes, and can move “faster than a speeding bullet.” But he loses points for parading around in spandex and a cape. Plus, he’ll drop anything he’s up to if Lois is in danger. You ever think that maybe Lois Lane should consider retiring? I mean, how many times does that uppity bitch have to be kidnapped? You’d think that she’d eventually get the message: Stop fucking with Lex Luther!

Jesus can walk on water, return from the dead and turn water into wine. Granted a never-ending supply of alcohol is infinitely cool, but ultimately fairly limited when it comes to being used as a weapon in hand to hand combat. We all know that the Catholic Church claims that Jesse’s blood is actually wine. Now if he could turn OTHER people’s blood into bubbling spirits, then it’d be a weapon. In fact, if I could have one super power that might be it. How fun would it be to suddenly turn your boss’ blood-alcohol level to .25% just before that big meeting? As for the whole “rising from the dead” thing, I’ve often wondered (especially around Easter), what if Jesus was just a zombie? It’s just something to ponder.

Supes and Jesse actually have a whole lot in common: sent to earth by their fathers to be the salvation of mankind, extraordinary powers, pathetic with women…they’re a spandex suit and a pair of sandals away from being twins. How’s that for the ultimate buddy movie?

24 A.D. Jesus roams the desert looking for his long lost twin brother Clark Christ. The two hit the road in a heart-warming comic adventure about life, beer, and bi-curious man love. Hey, there’s no way I’m the only one whose figured out that Superman is gay. Come on, how many straight men do you know who dress up in spandex, knee-high boots and always seem to have their little spit-curl in place? The man has two identities and both of them are fruitier than a mimosa…getting ass-fucked…in the backroom of a bar named “the toolbox”…by a mimosa of the same gender…while listening to show-tunes.

Clark wears his little glasses and is entirely too conservative and “anal.” The guy lives alone in his neat little apartment, but goes out nights dressed up in tights to grapples with large, scantily-clad men. Or goes and hangs out with other spandex flaunting men in the Justice League. We all know that’s just the name of the gay bar that Batman and Robin hang out at when they’re looking to swing. Face it, the reason he’s not fucking Lois Lane is because he’s too busy going down on Jimmy Olson in the copy-room of the Daily Planet.

All this from a guy who two days ago said that he’d marry 64 year-old British dude. I swear next week’s blog will be all about sex with hot girls.

Say Yes To Drugs

Just a quick something before I run home and try to remove my sinuses using a rusty hook:

I’m the worst person ever when it comes to medication and doctors. Maybe it’s because I was raised under the belief that disease builds character, maybe it’s because the one time I went to the wellness center in college they were convinced that the pain in my ear was somehow related to my sex life. Whatever the reason, I just generally ignore all illness until I’m completely laid out flat.

I dated a few girls who were all about meds. Hey, from what I can tell about our culture based on the commercials on TV, it seems like the whole country is all about pills. Look, I don’t want to appear anti-drug, believe me I’m all for drugs, but why the fuck have commercials for medicine? If it’s the right one for you, shouldn’t the doctor recommend it to you? It seems like they should spend all that advertising money bribing med schools and doctors.

I always get amused when I’m watching TV. They always play about 10 “Say No to Drugs” commercials for the kids. Meanwhile, they have spots for about 7,000 new pharmaceutical meds in between. They tell you that everything is a condition that needs to be medicated: being sad, being happy, being bald, being horny, and not being horny…what the fuck message is REALLY being here? It’s “Kids don’t do drugs…unless you buy from us.”

At any rate, I remember having a girlfriend who was literally on about 15 pills a day: allergies, A.D.D., tendonitis, plus God-knows what anti-depressants. I don’t even take ASPRIN. My strategy for dealing with illness is a simple one: I curl into a ball, drink my weight in tea and prepare a copy of my will. It used to bug the hell out of her when I’d be lying in bed sick, refusing the 50,000 strange color pills she wanted me to swallow. I do think it was a cultural thing: she was raised to believe that people don’t get well unless they take medicine. I was raised to believe that whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.

The last two times I’ve been sick, I completely forgot that I had medical insurance. I was limping into work, drinking a bottle of Dayquil a day, sleeping in the car on my lunch break, somehow over looking the fact that a hefty portion of my paycheck goes to people who are supposed to get me better. Today I did some calculations and realized that I hadn’t even been to the doctor since 1998. Once a decade qualifies as “regular check-ups” right?

It’s times like this that I think about Warren Zevon. He was an awesome musician who wrote “Werewolves of London,” “Excitable Boy” and “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me.” At any rate, he skipped the doctor for about twenty years then went in and discovered that he had inoperable cancer. The doctors gave him two months to live. He went on the Letterman show and said, “Do I have any regrets? In retrospect, not going to the doctor for two decades might have been a mistake.”

In honor of that very cool dude, I’m finally going to try to go to the doctor tomorrow. He skipped for 20 years. I’m only at 8. By my calculations, that means that I still have a good four months to live.

Money Really CAN Buy Happiness--Or At Least Me

Generally I try to steer clear of celebrity gossip and public events. I figure that there are already so many blogs and websites out there covering this sort of thing that there’s absolutely nothing left to say. Besides, celebrity watching is right up there with bleach drinking as far as stimulating intelligent thought.

A few years ago, my friend and I came up with an idea for a business called We Stalk the Paparazzi. Essentially, the concept was that we (with the aid of some top-notch first amendment and trial attorneys) make the private lives of selected paparazzi members a complete hell. For the prize of a few grand a week, we put a van of men on these guys: rummaging through their trash, taking high-powered photos, bursting in on private dinners with inappropriate questions, the works. Hell for a little extra, we’d even distribute handbills and pamphlets to their neighbors on the gossip, rumors, and unconfirmed stories of their lives.

I still think that the idea would be interesting. However, I can’t imagine the level of self-hatred it must take to turn a person into a member of the paparazzi. I do know that these people must be out of their minds, and sketchy enough that I wouldn’t really want to get engaged in a semi-legal invasion of privacy war. Also, I don’t own a van.

At any rate, at the end of last week, Paul McCartney announced that he and his wife were separating. This is the same woman that he married about twenty minutes after Linda died of cancer.

I know, celebrity divorces are about as shocking as the release of another Pam Anderson sex video (seriously Pam, you've already had like three of them stolen and released. Can you stop pretending to be amazed? I want you copy this sentence 50 times: "I will not bang washed up 80's rock stars within 75 feet of a camcorder.") But what caught my eye about this is that there was no pre-nuptial agreement. According to what I’ve read, Sir Paul is valued at about 1.5 Billion dollars. You realize what this means, right? This makes Sir Paul’s ex-wife, Heather Mills McCartney, the most expensive piece of ass since Helen of Troy. Maybe more. I’m telling you this: the war against Troy didn’t run three quarters of a billion dollars.

They were married for a grand total of four years. Let’s break down some of that math, shall we?

That’s $187.5 Million a year
That’s just over $15 Million a month.
That’s about $3.6 Million a week.
That’s about $515,100 a day.

He’s 64, so how often do you figure they had sex? Could we call him lucky if he was getting it once every two days? I figure even that's a little optimistic. And not just because he's old. He’s a national treasure with public appearances and protests to attend and she’s a working model. Shall we say it averaged out to about once every three days? That would work out to over $1.5 million a fuck. For what he was paying I hope he got anal. Because it’d be a shame if he was the only one in the relationship that got ass-fucked.

The irony of this whole affair is that when Ms. Heather Mills McCartney remarries in, of I’d say, the next 15 seconds, you’re damn sure that SHE’S going to have a prenupt. They’re going to have to pry her eighth of the Beatles from her cold, diamond-encrusted fingers. Paul, your marriage may well go down as the most idiotic thing EVER. Really, what the fuck were you thinking? First you sell your music to Michael Jackson and now this???

Lest I seem unsympathetic to the only living contributing member of the greatest band in history (yes that was a slam at you, Ringo), let me just say this:

“Paul, I’m deeply sorry for your loss. In fact, I’d like the chance to show you how sorry I really am. Let me comfort you as only a man knows how. That’s right, I love you. And when we’re making sweet, hot tongue love for the first time, you’ll forget all about that harlot! It’s high time you find out how true your songs was: happiness really IS a warm gun.”

I knew England legalized gay-marriage for a reason.

I’m not really homosexual. But for 187 mill a year, I’d learn. Hell, for that price I’d adopt a British accent, wear a thong, and act like John Lennon was a hack for no extra charge. And don’t even act like I’m alone. I’ve seen videos of women screwing horses. I’ve no idea what it cost to get those chicks to do that…but I guarantee it wasn’t six figures.

Besides, I work for corporate America. I’m already getting paid to be shit on and take it up the ass. I’m really just a bad moustache and a pair of chaps away from being a gay-prostitute. And in the end, isn’t that what marriage is really about?

Grizzly: The Other White Meat

Generally I get along with hippies even though I’m not really one. It’s not that I don’t sympathize with their “Let’s Save the World” rap; I just don’t see how getting stoned and going to Burning Man really fixes anything. I’m pro-chilling in the sun, playing music and seeing boobs, but I fail to see how it really accomplishes anything. This apparently is where my philosophy becomes incompatible with about 99% of the current hippy music.

At any rate, I do generally get along with them by relaxing, drinking, playing music and avoiding politics. But eventually you run into hippies that take themselves so seriously that it would be a criminal waste of an opportunity to not fuck with them. Among the most serious (and thus must fuckable-with) are the vegetarians.

I admit that I’m being a bit unfair by grouping the vegetarians as a subspecies of hippies. After all, I’m completely ignoring the “I’m-a-stuck-up-rich-cunt-with-too-much-time-who wants-to-be-difficult” breed of vegetable-eater. But I definitely don’t wind up hanging out with too many of those types of people. Socialites might say that this is proof that I don’t attend the right parties. I say that it’s proof that I’m doing everything in power to avoid going on a killing rampage.

Generally, I have no problem with vegetarians. I can get along with about 75% of them. But for some reason, as with every other weird cult, religion, and political group, about a quarter of them feel like it’s their responsibility to make my business their shit. You want to survive the rest of your life on tofu and bean sprouts? Go nuts. But leave me and my 87 ounce prime-rib the fuck alone.

It seems like inevitably, I’ll be at a party when someone will come up to the grill master and demand, “You have veggie-burgers, right? And you’re cooking them on a separate grill, right? Because I won’t eat a veggie-burger if it’s cooked on the same grill as beef.”

Let me explain something: if you’ve made the choice to be vegetarian, you instantly lose the right to make any demands at a bar-b-queue. Because vegetables don’t need to be grilled. As far as I’m concerned, if you start making demands at my party, I’m tossing you the frozen cow-turds and saying, “You don’t want to use the one grill? Hope you like your patties rare.”

This is a group of people who thinks that they’re running the grill scene, when in reality they should be thrilled that the rest of us aren’t tossing them lettuce and telling them to get the fuck out. If you ever go to a party hosted by meat eaters, you’ll find that most of the time, they take into consideration their turnip-munching associates. However, vegetarian cook-outs NEVER have meat. Ever. If you even ask, you’re subjected to an hour long speech about the cruelty of slaughterhouses.

I don’t even bat an eye at the speech anymore. “You’re saying that they’re inhumanely butchered while watching their mothers die? Coooooooooooooool. Now, you’ve cooked the meat on a separate grill, right? Because if my burger touched anything vegetarian, I won’t eat it.”

Personally, I don’t think we have enough cruelly raised and brutally slaughtered animals. It’s high time we started bringing back some of the meats that have for too long been deemed “unavailable.”

I have a friend who wants to retire and open a new ranch for specialty meat. I imagine that he’d have to buy a bunch of land up in Canada, and invest in some serious electric fences. The animal? Grizzly.

I can see it now, herds of bears being driven across the tundra on the way to be branded. I keep telling him, that

1. He’s going to have to find some TOUGH mother-fucking cowboys.
2. Bears don’t herd. In fact, I think they’re pretty territorial.
3. The only occupation that’s manned by people tougher than bear cowboys, are bear rustlers.

None of these facts have dampened his enthusiasm. On the plus side, I imagine that aside from the occasional brutal mauling, his ranch would be virtually crime-free. I mean, who’s going to fuck with a guy who raises bears for a living? All I have to say is that if I were a Canadian citizen living next to a large tract of free land, I’d be VERY nervous.

Ironically, I had this discussion with my friend over a meal at a Brazilian Steakhouse. For those of you unfamiliar with this particular brand of self-degradation, allow me to explain some of the finer points. Essentially, you walk in and are seated by a cashier with an amazing ass. This is true whether they have male or female counter person working that day. They sit you down at a table that has a large, thick, wooden stick. One end is green and the other is red. As long as the green end of your stick is up, they bring you food. When you lapse into beef-induced coma or turn the red end up, they bring you the bill. As long as your stick is green cooks come to your table, one after another, bearing huge platters of meat: lamb, pork, turkey, duck, chicken, beef, rabbit, hippo, and sloth. It’s like a group of Brazilian cooks founded the place after misinterpreting a passage from the Bible. It’s the only place I’ve ever known where you can literally sit down and say, “Bring me two of every animal.”

I went there with one of my friends and when the check finally arrived, the waiter asked, “Is there anything else I can get you?”

“Yeah.” My friend responded. “How about a gurney?”

Now that’s my kind of restaurant. Remind me to start demanding that my vegetarian friends meet me there for dinner.

Death, Canada, and My Life As An Illegal Immegrant

I was watching Coneheads the other day, and I was struck by the scene where the main character is asked, “If I died, would you remarry?” I’m not really sure if this is a popular question among wedded couples. It’s a rather morbid question. However, if anyone ever poses it to me, I’ve got the perfect response:

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. Would you consider moving to Utah and becoming a polygamist? That way I wouldn’t have to wait until you’re dead.”

I’m sorry, that’s a terrible thing to joke about. No one should make light about moving to Utah.

There are a few places where I would never want to live and, although I’ve never actually visited, Utah’s right there, just behind scenic Detroit, Newark, and Saudi Arabia. Also, it would take a lot of convincing to get me to move to the South.

I’m heading down to Virginia tonight, traffic permitting. My recollection of the South will always be an exchange I had with a girl from the region. She was shocked when I asked for sweetened iced tea. I guess they consider it a Southern thing that we heathen Yankees don’t have a taste for.

“Sweetened tea??? I thought you were from the North!”

“What do you mean you don’t sleep with your brother???” I demanded. “I thought you were from the South!”

The more I think about it, the more appealing Canada becomes. See, I’ve noticed something: the further south you get in America, the crazier and more conservative people get. Yes, that was aimed at you, Texas. My theory is that with Global Warming (which, ironically enough, most of the South doesn’t believe exists) insanity and conservatism have been slowly working their way North tainting large portions of the here-to-fore sane New York, New England and, to a much lesser extent, New Jersey. That’s right! I’m blaming Jersey on Republicans and Global Warming.

I know that a lot of people refer to Canada as “America jr.” or “the loft above a really great party” or “America’s disowned, gay cousin.” I prefer to think of it as strawberry ice cream: underappreciated and vaguely fruity. But with the change of climate and the crazy southerners moving ever northward, I'm thinking that eventually I'll just have to move up to Canada. I think it'd be worth it simply to insult New Englandians as red necks. How "y'all" doing in Boston, Nomah? You like watching "the NASCAR" and not showering, huh?

I went to college about 30 minutes from Niagara Falls, and frequented our northern neighbor on a fairly regular basis. Let me just say this: for a country that’s allegedly slightly gay, they have an awful lot of alcohol (drinking age of 18), gambling, legalized marijuana and strippers.

One of my favorite Canada stories happened shortly after September 11th when a van-full of friends and I went up for a birthday celebration. Our car was stopped by the Canadian Authorities who separated and interrogated us, searched us and completely stripped down our vehicle, luggage, and spare tire.

I really have no clue what they thought 6 white kids in a mini-van were up to. No matter.

The next day, ill-groomed, unshaven, and thoroughly hung-over the same car-full of guys drove back down to the U.S. Boarder.

“Where you headed?” asked the officer at the booth.

“New York.”

“Go on through.”

That’s right, no question about our business and no request for vehicle registration or ID. He just waved us right in. So laugh if you must at Canada’s low crime rate, public health care, and crazy coins that keep stopping me from buying vending machines sodas. All I know is I’m a draft, drug-addiction, or stripper-binge from running up there to seek asylum. Or maybe I’ll just be an illegal immigrant. When the next war rolls around, I’m changing my name to Juan Romero Mendoza Guappo Fernandez Caballo XVIII.

Gender Blindness

I was walking down the street today in the wonderful weather, when I passed a couple eating lunch in an open air restaurant. The woman had her back to me, but I could see the man, a slightly nervous looking youth, chatting over his drink. I turned my head as I walked past and caught a glimpse of the woman he was talking to.

“She wants to fuck him” I said.

Here’s the funny thing about men: we’re absolutely DESPERATE to get girls, learn about girls, and have girls. But we know almost nothing about them. At least not when it concerns us directly. This was the perfect case.

The girl on the lunch date was sending out all the physical cues that said “just stop talking and bend me over the hood of that Jalopy:" leaned slightly forward, one finger on her neck, lips parted, laughing at smiling at the first hint of a joke or witticism, the top button of her blouse undone…everything about her body screamed: just come over the table and take me.

Sure I could see it, but I don’t think that the guy she was talking to could. He continued blundering on, looking more nervous, and hardly allowing her a word edgewise. I couldn’t help but wonder how often I’d done the exact same thing. That’s the weird part about men: we can see that a girl across the street is attracted to the guy she’s eating with, but when we’re across the table from her, we’ve got no clue what’s going on.

The extreme case of this was back in college, I was hanging out in my room with a few friends, when my buddy called me. He was going to school hundreds of miles away and I spoke with him for a little and then passed the phone off to a girl who was drinking with us. He spoke to her for about 40 seconds, before she gave the phone back to me.

“He wants to talk to you” she said.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Yo, you know she likes you, right?” he asked.

To this day I have no clue how it was that obvious to him. I’d known the girl for an entire semester and had no idea.

I began wondering today whether women are aware of the physical and verbal cues they send out. Are they thinking, “For God’s sake, run your finger over the rim of your glass! Push out those breasts!”? Is it something planned? Are they doing those things purposely? The only reason I ask, is because generally I’ve got no clue WHAT my hands are doing when I’m talking to a girl I like. I suspect it’s nothing nearly as erotic. No woman’s ever said to me, “The moment I saw you rub your eyes with your fists like a six-year-old, I knew I had to have you.”

So I guess my questions for the day are:

1. Are women aware when they’re sending cues that say, “Can’t you just rip my clothes off right now?”
2. Do guys send out physical cues when they’re interested in a girl? And no, slipping roofies into a drink doesn’t count as flirting.

Cracking "The Code" of Illiteracy

I’ve stopped trying to “get” the hype around the Da Vinci Code. About two years ago when this book was all anyone spoke about I went down to the library and started reading. I mean, from the way people were carrying on, I thought that this was the next War and Peace. There’s always this weird sort of hype about these crazes. The only thing I can think about to describe is by looking at the first two seasons or so of The Sopranos. To everyone who was into the show, it was this gigantic amazing experience. To everyone else, it was just some weird cult of people who were obsessed with some cable TV show about opera singers.

There’s a point where hype and buzz actually begin to work against the product. That’s where The Sopranos, The Simpsons, and Metallica are right now. They’re so big that everyone just assumes that anything these beasts turn out is pure gold. Let’s be honest. The Sopranos hasn’t been great since the end of Season Two and hasn’t been good since the end of Season Three. The Simpsons haven’t made a funny episode in about 6 years. And Metallica hasn’t had any decent music since The Back Album. These are hugely hyped machines coasting along on their own enormous success of last decade.

Let me just say this is not the problem the Da Vinci Code has to worry about. Now that I read it, I’m even more puzzled about why people are crazy about is. I’ve read it and I STILL have no clue. For those of you who haven’t read the book, take one dimensional characters—seriously, the most hollow, most lame, and transparent characters ever conceived—stick them in a plodding, predictable plot and then add lots of poorly researched and interpreted history lessons, and drag it on for about 300 pages. Seriously, it’s “See Spot Run” with bad Middle Ages cliff notes.

I mean, if you’re looking for a summer reading experience with more thrills and plot development, go down to the local truck stop and read the men’s room walls. That’s roughly the same reading level the book is at.

And I don’t want to hear people tell me that I’m a stuck-up English major shitting on popular culture. I’m a sucker for a good page turner. I think Michael Crichton is amazing and Stephen King is perhaps the most under-rated writer of all time.

I really don’t know which is more laughable: the people who think this book is great because it’s based on “facts” or the insane Christians who think that this book is undermining religion and Godlessness. Let me explain something for both sides: this is a work of fiction. Fiction is stories. Made up stories like your mommy or priest used to tell you. In no way is anything in this book even resembling something factious. Here’s the new deal: if you think that The Da Vinci Code is an accurate portrayal of history, sit down and actually read some historical documents. Until you do, I don’t want to hear SHIT out of you. Any time I turn on the TV, or open a book, some dude with a P.H.D. is tearing the author of this piece of shit to shreds. The man knows dick, ok? If The Da Vinci Code is based on history, The Disney Movie “Alice in Wonderland” is a documentary. If you think that the Da Vinci Code is undermining your religion, sit down and read the entire Bible. It’s been around for a couple thousand years. I might not agree with everything in it, but it’s in no danger of going anywhere. 100 years from now, the only reason that people will be reading The Code is to prove what illiterate losers schools in the late 1900's produced.

So this leads me to my point of this whole little piece. Is this really all it takes to keep people entertained and turn someone into an international hit author? Is this really all that the World wants to read about? Because I’m seriously starting to think that anyone could poor-research and broken English themselves to a book deal.

In other news, I’ll be quitting my blog to write the new smash hit novel: The Jesus Jam

Here’s a sneak preview:

In the year 2026, one museum curator makes a startling discovery: Jesus was Jamaican and played in a Rastafarian band. Now, with the help of Bob Marley’s grand-daughter, he must unravel the secret progression of seductive island rhythms, before the two thousandth anniversary of the Savior’s death. But who is the mysterious narc out to “kill his buzz”? Is he really looking for ghost pirate drug smugglers on a cruise ship, or is he a member of ancient society whose object has always been to get teenagers to cut their hair, get jobs, and stop listening to “the rap music”? As each mystery deepens, our hero must learn the true meaning of Jesus’ Rasta jams as the fate of our world swings in the balance.

Late Night TV and Things NOT to Ask Your Significant Other

Generally, I have a TV “safety zone” that I stay in. I figure that if I can’t find anything on my few favorite channels, I’m not going to find anything. My zone consists of:

ESPN
HBO
Discovery
Comedy Central
And after 10:30: Cartoon Network
For small periods of time when I want to oggle hot girls: Telemundo or Univision

I'm sorry, but I just don't have the patience to deal with network TV anymore. So basically, if there’s nothing on HBO I just give up and go download porn. Last night at around midnight, I was so bored that I was channel surfing through the unknown wilds of the dial. I was like the Magellan of the cable TV globe. Until last night I didn't even know that my TV went higher than 50. As is my nature, I usually give each channel about 2 seconds to captivate me or I move on. Hey, that’s longer than I give most women! Being a man, I heard the word “orgasm” and stayed my hand on the most unlikely of candidates: the Oxygen Network.

There, dressed in huge glasses and a sweater, was a 70 year old woman named Sue Johanson talking about the most outrageous sexual acts I’ve ever heard. If I’m the last one to hear about this show, forgive me. I have a tendency to be slow in keeping up with today’s youth. For example, did you know that some singers (or “rappers” as they like to be called) yell the lyrics instead of singing the melody properly? When did this happen???

I have trouble picturing what the average person from the Midwest looks like, but if I had to pick one person, it’d be this sweet-tempered old skank. I tried describing the weirdness of watching what looks to be my grandmother describe in graphic detail the finer points of fisting only to have a Doctor Ruth reference brought up. It wasn’t exactly fair. See, no one could look at Doctor Ruth and not think she wasn’t a little crazy. She just had that look and strange accent that was out there. But no matter how long I watched this show, and no matter how long I heard Mrs. Sweet Old Grandma talk about swallowing semen, threesomes and bondage, I was never prepared for the shit that came out of her mouth. Every time she opened her mouth, I expected her to talk about cookies or knitting. For an hour the world was a better, less sarcastic place, because I was literally rendered speachless.

The highlight of the episode was when she took a call from a woman complaining about her boyfriend’s penis size. Without blinking an eye, she said, “Honey, what you need to do is head down to a good sex-shop and pick up a penis-extension like this.” Where upon she reached into her desk and pulled out…a penis extension. It was a silicon piece that would fit over a man’s rig and add an extra few inches of length and girth. I wasn’t stunned that such a thing had been invented…but I was pretty shocked that she had one lying about. I mean, even if you’re the host of a call-in sex show, how often would you really need something like that? For purposes other than your poorly-hung sound-guy, I mean. Who carries something like that around with them?

Also, I have difficulty imagining a scenario where a man could be asked to wear a penis-extension and not be a little insulted. I think that if I were ever with a girl who asked me to get one I’d have to say, “Only if you get that pussy-clamp I’ve looking at. Deep-sea shipping barges have tighter handling than you. I swear, last night I thought I was balls deep in the storm cellar.”