The Leper Pop Man Up Challenge – Part 7

All I want to know is when is the bus going to be fixed! No, I don’t know anything about bus engines. Well, don’t you have any other buses? What about that one? Charter? For who? GLEN CAMPELL? Oooo I love Glen Campbell! Like a rhinestone cowboy…Riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeoooooooo….ack, ahem, ack, ack, are we on? Oh, sorry.

Welcome back to the beautiful outskirts of, (where are we at again? Oh, right), the beautiful outskirts of Cozad, Nebraska for Round 7 of the Leper Pop Man Up Challenge. Yesterday’s action was unbelievably…er…um… Oh, forget it. Here’s today’s action. I’m sick of this.

If you have no clue what we're talking about, click here to catch up.


A man should be able to:


56. Create a play-list in which ten seemingly random songs provide a secret message to one person.

Sid: And then I’ll call them on my Dick Tracy wrist radio to see if they figured it out. Seriously, who writes this crap? (0 points)

Moist Rub: This is getting pretty silly. I think he is running out of material. Maybe he should have stopped at 50 man skills. OK, here is my play-list:

Everybody Have Fun Tonight – Wang Chung
Sussudio – Phil Collins
Quando, Quando, Quando - Engelbert Humperdinck
Undercover Angel – Alan O’Day
I Wanna Sex You Up – Color Me Badd
Reunited – Peaches and Herb
Every Time You Go Away – Paul Young
Sexy Back – Justin Timberlake
Up Where We Belong – Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes
Xanadu - Olivia Newton John

(0 points)



57. Explain what a light-year is. It's the measure of the distance that light travels over 365.25 days.

Sid: It’s also how close I am to getting a subscription to Esquire after reading this article. (1 point)

Moist Rub: The good news is we’ve progressed from the third grade area calculation skills all the way to the astronomical measurement skills of the sixth grade. Might we graduate high school by Skill 75? (1 point)



58. Avoid boredom. You have enough to eat. You can move. This must be acknowledged as a kind of freedom. You don't always have to buy things, put things in your mouth, or be delighted.

Sid: Between all the changes in the tax code every year and internet porn, how in the world can anyone ever say they’re bored? (1 point)

Moist Rub: Boredom happens to be one of my favorite past times. It is those brain dead periods of life, where I am too bored to even make it to the couch, and I lie on the floor with a rerun of a horrible edited-for-tv movie like Mannequin or Footloose on the television in the background as I ponder the meaning of life, that I cherish. Embrace the boredom our technologically advanced society has afforded us. Use it to your advantage. Maybe I should mow the lawn? Maybe if I think about it long enough, the lawn may cease to exist. (0 points)



59. Write a thank-you note. Make a habit of it. Follow a simple formula like this one: First line is a thesis statement. The second line is evidentiary. The third is a kind of assertion. Close on an uptick.

Thanks for having me over to watch game six. Even though they won, it's clear the Red Sox are a soulless, overmarketed contrivance of Fox TV. Still, I'm awfully happy you have that huge high-def television. Next time, I really will bring beer. Yours,

Sid: If I wrote a thank you note to a buddy for inviting me over to watch the game I think I’d get a well-deserved ass-kicking. For other occasions such as gifts from family or friends I married a woman that lets me sign my name to her notes. (1/2 point)

Moist Rub: I prefer this simple formula. I already told you “thank you” for the piece of crap you gave me or the favor you did for me or the nice gesture you made when you gave, did or made it to/for me. Why do you need it in writing? Are you trying to sue me or something? (0 points)



60. Be brand loyal to at least one product. It tells a lot about who you are and where you came from. Me? I like Hellman's mayonnaise and Genesee beer, which makes me the fleshy, stubbornly upstate ne'er-do-well that I will always be.

Sid: Screw brand loyalty. The company selling the crap doesn’t give a flip about you, so if someone else makes a better product then why would you deny yourself? I mean, if I was loyal to Miller High Life all these years I would never have tasted the deliciousness of a Bartles and Jaymes berry wine cooler. Just don’t spill any on my Chuck Taylors. (1/2 point)

Moist Rub: What are we, communists? Once we start becoming brand loyal, the capitalistic society we hold so sacred will come crashing down all around us. I don’t want that on my conscious. Sure, I usually use Heintz ketchup, but once in a while, I’ll squirt some Del Monte catsup into my borscht just to keep Heintz on their toes. (0 points)



61. Cook bacon. Lay out the bacon on a rack on a baking sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

Sid: Baked bacon? WTF? Mel’s Diner never baked bacon and neither will I. I’ll take half a point for doing it my way – in a greasy pan on the stovetop will splattering grease burning my forearms and messing up the stove. (1/2 point)

Moist Rub: Baking bacon is just wrong. The glorious pig has engineered itself specifically so that its luscious belly and back could be cut conveniently into strips and fried in a pan. What fun is cooking bacon unless there is a chance of getting a spit of hot grease in the eye? None fun, that’s what. (1 point)



62. Hold a baby. Newborns should be wrapped tightly and held against the chest. They like tight spaces (consider their previous circumstances) and rhythmic movements, so hold them snug, tuck them in the crook of your elbow or against the skin of your neck. Rock your hips like you're bored, barely listening to the music at the edge of a wedding reception. No one has to notice except the baby. Don't breathe all over them.

Sid: I don’t know if I’m scoring this thing right. If either of us gave a crap, we would have agreed to some guidelines ahead of time. I know how to do some of this stuff, but apparently it doesn’t meet Esquire’s requirements. Esquire would be a bitch to live with. I’ll take half a point for holding a baby in complete fear, at arm’s length, cradling the head so it doesn’t fall off, and looking for the earliest opportunity to pass it on. If I hand it off alive and in similar condition then I win. (1/2 point)

Moist Rub: Note to you new and prospective dads out there – once the baby is strong enough to hold xe’s head up without wobbling, it’s ok to rough them up a little bit. They are quite resilient. I’m not saying you should pile drive the little buggers, but they’re tougher than you might think. It’ll build character. My two kids, who happened to have lived through me holding them as babies, are proof. (2 points)




63. Deliver a eulogy. Take the job seriously. It matters. Speak first to the family, then to the outside world. Write it down. Avoid similes. Don't read poetry. Be funny.

Sid: Fortunately, I’ve never had to deliver one. But I did watch an indie movie called Eulogy a couple years ago. It starred that chick Zooey Deschanel that I totally dig. Plus it was distributed by Lions Gate, which was a major holding in one of my mutual funds. I seem to remember it being pretty entertaining. Zooey recently decided she was a singer and released a record with a dude named M (what’s up with that?) under the moniker She and Him. Critics seem on-board with the release and recent shows, but I say she’s no Juliette Lewis. If my first eulogy digresses as much as this blog, it’s going to be fun. (1 point)

Moist Rub: I don’t deliver a eulogy for anybody who hasn’t delivered one for me. (0 points)



64. Know that Christopher Columbus was a son of a bitch. When I was a kid, because I'm Italian and because the Irish guys in my neighborhood were relentless with the beatings on St. Patrick's Day, I loved the very idea of Christopher Columbus. I loved the fact that Irish kids worshipped some gnome who drove all the rats out of Ireland or whatever, whereas my hero was an explorer. Man, I drank the Kool-Aid on that guy. Of course, I later learned that he was a hand-chopping, land-stealing egotist who sold out an entire hemisphere to European avarice. So I left Columbus behind. Your understanding of your heroes must evolve. See Roger Clemens. See Bill Belichick.

Sid: Okay, Esquire, so I need to strive to achieve loyalty (#23) and be brand loyal (#60), but as soon as Roger Clemens sticks a needle in his ass I need to decapitate my bobblehead? It seems hypocritical of you, Esquire, but I’m with you on this one. Walter Payton never chopped anybody’s hand off. But if I find out that he did, I’ll be sure to burn my #34 jersey. (1 point)

Moist Rub: I’ve read Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen. Unless Loewen is also lying to me, like my teachers apparently did, then I know that Columbus was a son of a bitch. I also know that he was one hell of a Bocce player, and he used to smash olives between his knuckles (this was not in the book – I heard it from some guy at a bake sale). (1 point)



65. Throw a baseball over-hand with some snap. If you can't, play more ball.

Sid: I retired from baseball at the age of 14 because of my hitting, but I think my throws still had enough snap. Let’s put it this way – if I had to throw out the ceremonial first pitch for the Lansing Lugnuts I think I could do so without bouncing it in. (1 point)

Moist Rub: If you mean snapping my humerus, I’m all over it. I don’t throw like a girl like Johnny Damon does, if that’s what you mean. The snap isn’t as snappy as it used to be, but I’ve gunned out a few base runners from the outfield in my day, thank you very much. (1 point).



Oh, you want me to do a wrap up now. I told you I'm sick of this. When the hell are we getting out of Nebraska? Huh? I don't care that we're live! NO! I don't care! OK...OK...OK, here's your wrap up - right here in my pants. Right here between Mr. and Mrs. Thigh, right down at the end of Old Buttcrack Road. How do you like that wrap up?!


MAN UPNESS SCOREBOARD

Sid F'er: 30

Moist Rub: 37 ½


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