Chorus Abhorrus

My daughter has been singing some strange songs around the house lately. By strange, I mean unfamiliar. If that’s the case, why didn’t I say “unfamiliar” instead of “strange”? I don’t know. They are unfamiliar to me, not to her. If they were unfamiliar to her, I doubt she would be singing them. Like Czechoslovakian folk tunes – I never hear her singing those, because she is not familiar with them. Nor am I, so if she were singing them, I would not know. Maybe those are the songs she’s been singing. I don’t think she’s Czechoslovakian. I have never seen her wear a babushka.

It wasn’t until a day before my daughter’s chorus recital, when ex-Mrs. Rub told me it was the following day and we needed to have her to the school by 6:30 in the evening that I realized my daughter was in the school chorus. I think I may have been aware of this fact, but honestly, I pretend my way through life so much, I’m not always sure what is reality and what is that giant potato in the shape of Abe Vigoda doing on my couch! Oh, no worry, he is merely petting the dog. This, the chorus recital, not the Abe Vigoda potato, explains my daughter’s singing behavior of late.

I arrived at the school multi-purpose room (MPR), with the son by my side, at approximately 6:45 pm on the night of the recital. The MPR, as some call it, is basically a gymnasium with fold out cafeteria tables built into the walls, so that the room can serve as a food oasis during lunchtime in addition to being an incubation center for the athletes of tomorrow. I asked the Principal about this exotic building naming convention. She informed me that if the children knew they were eating their lunches in a gym, they would be scarred for life and would never be able to dine in public, rendering the future of the restaurant business doomed. I doubted her claim, but she was wielding a yardstick, so I did not argue. To change the subject, I asked her if she minded being at the school at such a late hour in the day. She suggested a tour of her office to show me how, in the good old days, they used to administer corporal punishment to the naughty, naughty students. I took my seat.

After enduring some inane chit-chat with the son, where we both decide the other is an idiot (and both correct), a scope of the room for hot moms and a discussion of some kid scheduling details with the ex (about exactly what, I’m not sure – some things don’t change), the chorus, all dressed in white tops and black bottoms (some pants, some skirts), entered the MPR gymnasium food court. Mr. Hoek, the musical director, dressed in the same manner, only larger sized clothes, led them in.

The chorus consisted of two boys and about twelve girls. Boys of that age (fourth grade) aren’t into singing much – not in front of people, anyway. Peer pressure ridicule looms large for them. There are not many other afflictions worse than getting ribbed by the guys for doing something seemingly “girly”. Boys don’t realize that the payoff of singing could be an in road to the affections from the ladies. They don’t realize it because they don’t care at that point in their lives. In a few years they will care, and they won’t care so much about getting the business from the fellas. Weird, huh?

Mr. Hoek, a very tall and slender man, with short brown hair, Jimmie JJ Walker facial hair and wearing black Converse MPR shoes, welcomed us to the performance. He explained that their first number, The Concert Etiquette Rap, was a lesson to the audience on how to behave during the show. Apparently, there has been a history of unruly and horny parents causing distractions. The song preached the basic etiquette: be quiet, pay attention, applaud thunderously, etc. I think they went a little too far with the refrain, “Keep your pants on, Daddy-O, that school marm just ain’t no ho!” I stopped searching the room for hot moms when I heard that, so maybe they know what they’re doing.

The children’s performance of this song was adequate. It was a rap song. Honestly, I cannot tell the difference from a good rap song and a bad rap song. It’s hard for me to give you a judgment of their performance on that song. I CAN tell you that their singing during the rest of the show was pretty bad. Most of them were out of tune. Their tempo, as a group, was off and inconsistent, for the most part. Any attempt at harmony was ear hell. The two boys were lip-syncing. Thinking back, I should probably have thanked them for that. Overall, it was pretty much terrible, by adult standards. We were subjected to a kazoo orchestra performance for one song, which sounded like a bunch of bees with speech impediments. Considering bees make their buzzing sounds with their wings and not with their voices, you can imagine how atrocious that sounded. Some members of the chorus, during one song that my mind has blocked out of my memory so I don’t commit suicide, played soda pop bottles containing water at different levels to produce different tones, while the others sang. Fortunately, the soda pop bottles were in tune. Unfortunately, that only exacerbated the inconsonance of the singers. The show was the longest forty-five minutes I ever suffered. None of this, of course, applies to my daughter. She was wonderful, but you couldn’t hear her very well. Why is it that the untalented ones are always the loudest?

The highlight of the evening was when they were about to sing Dona Nobis Pacem. Mr. Hoek, who evidently doesn’t teach singing, and is merely baby sitting fourth graders after school for an extra grand a year, asked the audience if anybody knew Latin and could tell everyone what the English title of the song was. I waited to see if anybody was going to answer. I had been secretly translating the title since I saw it on the program.

The translation of Latin into English is no easy task. You must follow stringent guidelines. First, you have to figure out what all the words mean. It helps to have memorized each Latin word’s English meaning. If not, you need to, at least, know the meaning of similar English words derived from Latin words. I favor the latter method. In this example, “dona” sounds like donate, donor, donation, etc, so there is a good chance it means “give”. “Pacem” is similar to pacify, pacific, pacifier, etc., which are all words relating to “peace”. As for “nobis”, who the hell knows? Although, I did remember that “nobis” meant something like “our”, using the former method described above. Once you have determined the possible meanings of the words, start mixing them around and manipulating their forms, if needed, to form some sort of legible sentence, and then hand it in.

I must warn you, some Latin teachers will tell you that each Latin word in a given sentence has a specific suffix that will tell you what part of speech it is, and where it belongs in the translated English sentence. However, I speak English, and that is not what suffixes do in this country. Nice try, Mrs. Latin teacher. You can’t always trust them. They’ll even make up English forms of words, like gerund, just so they can give you extra useless endings to have to remember. I’m not buying it. Gerund. I’ll believe that right after I believe the buying of the Brooklyn Bridge from a guy in the street is a good investment.

I had determined that the three words in the sentence were “give” “peace” and “our”. “Give peace our” didn’t make much sense (although I had turned in goofier sounding sentences back in high school). I jumbled the order until I ended up with “Give our peace”, which sounds better, but not quite correct. So, I added “to us” to the end to get, “Give our peace to us.” That version didn’t sound quite complete. I added, “you bastard”. “Give our peace to us, you bastard”. That was it. I did it. It was during the kazoo mess that I figured it out. I was prepared with the correct answer, in case the question came up.

The last thing I wanted to do was to blurt it out immediately after Mr. Hoek asked the question and look like a bigger dork than I am. So, I sat back calmly. Once I realized there were no other scholars in the group, or at least none that needed to show off as much as I did, I declared for all to hear, “Give Us Peace” was the name of the song. Luckily, I had forgotten the sentence I had determined, and at the last second, made something up. Mr. Hoek gave me a verbal A+ (I’m not sure what he said, exactly, since I was basking in my insolence, but he probably said something like, “What are you doing here, you should be at Harvard or curing cancer or something!”) Finally, four years of sitting in Latin class in high school had paid off. I could tell by the look on my daughter’s face that she was thinking, “Oh no, that’s my dad. I wish I was dead!” I’m kidding of course…

Abe Vigoda Potato: Excuse me, Mr. Rub.

Moist Rub: Yes, Abe Vigoda Potato?

Abe Vigoda Potato: First off, I’m not a potato.

Moist Rub: Rutabega?

Abe Vigoda Rutabega: No.

Moist Rub: Then, what are you?

Abe Vigoda non Potato nor Rutabega: I’m Abe Vigoda, himself.

Moist Rub: Oh. Good. I thought you were a potato.

Abe Vigoda: Well, I’m not. I can’t help the way that I look. I’m very old. I’d like to see you when you’re my age.

Moist Rub: Not if I looked like you, you wouldn’t. Are you sure you’re not a root of some sort?

Abe Vigoda: I don’t think it was very nice of you to have criticized your daughter’s chorus the way you did. They worked very hard on those songs. They’re young and learning. Learning the capacity of their voices. Learning to sing together in a group. Learning how music can be meaningful in their lives.

Moist Rub: I understand all that. But, you weren’t there. It was pretty bad.

Abe Vigoda: Some people think that a child singing is the most beautiful sound in the world.

Moist Rub: Sure, if that child happens to be in The Osmonds or The Jackson Five…

Abe Vigoda: No, regular children. Their voices resonate with the beauty of innocence and sincerity, of love and compassion, of humanity and a carefree existence – all which is lost in adulthood.

Moist Rub: That must be why everybody was clapping. I guess I was too busy translating Latin to have understood the true magnificence of their performance.

Abe Vigoda: I guess you were. Next time, try to experience it for what it is, and not for what you expect it to be.

Moist Rub: I don’t think I will be able to.

Abe Vigoda: Sure you can. Try.

Moist Rub: OK, Abe Vigoda. Thanks for setting me straight. Now, can you please do me a favor?

Abe Vigoda: Certainly, Mr. Rub.

Moist Rub: Please put some clothes on. You’ll be less apt to be mistaken for a potato.

A Bicycle Built For Two

Not to turn this into a bike log, but it’s better than bitching about work. So I leave my laptop in my bag, blow off my work, and hop on the bike this weekend. About 1/8 of a mile into the ride, I nearly run into the side of a minivan. Normally I don’t have to worry about traffic on that cul de sac, but today’s garage sale was attracting a steady flow of 1989 Dodge Caravans all looking for a deals on 8-track tapes and broken lawn chairs.

[Side note: While going through all our crap and prepping for our own garage sale a couple months ago, we found something they call a unity candle from our wedding. You do your vows and then jointly light a candle that’s supposed to represent the Second Circle of Hell. Well, we found our hell candle and the following conversation ensued:
Mrs. F’er: You want this?
Sid: Not really, do you?
Mrs. F’er: No.
Sid: Really?
Mrs. F’er: No. Is that bad?
Sid: No. Garage sale it is.
A week later, a strange woman in a Dodge Caravan paid us $1 for an official “Mr. & Mrs. F’er, May 17, 1998” candle.]


But I digress. At mile 3, I cut through a local park and was going to photograph the place for the blog but I didn’t think that standing in a park wearing spandex and sporting a homeless guy beard while taking pictures of teen girls on the playground would endear me to the local residents of Flower Mound, recently voted a top ten place to raise a family. So I pedaled onward.
Mile 5 presents the busiest intersection – FM 2499, which requires Frogger-like skills to cross without becoming roadkill. I pass Flower Mound High School and arrive at Peter’s Colony Road. I envision Peter Griffin from Family Guy standing naked in a nudist colony and laugh. Sometimes I picture a bunch of cartoon penises wearing powdered wigs and those 18th century colonial hats. There are a few churches in this area, so on Sundays I have to be extra careful to dodge all the cars filled with the Lord’s love racing to get to church on time (and then subsequently motoring home to catch the Cowboy’s kickoff in the fall). I get to mile 7 and get the ride the fastest downhill on my route. Although unlikely, a crash here would turn my supple skin into ground beef, so I try to focus and avoid thinking about cartoon penises and whether Betty was really hotter than Veronica in those Archie comic books.
After a few turns at mile 8 I hit the steepest climb on the route, a short uphill through the exclusive River Oaks Estates subdivision, where it looks like they negotiate group discounts on Hummers, sporty convertibles, and illegal immigrants to handle their landscaping needs. When I’m in shape, I only require one finger to discretely nudge a lung out of my throat and back into its proper position. When I’m not in shape (like now), I usually fall over onto a lush lawn and have to use both hands to violently restore them to their internal organ status. I guess the Tour de France will have to wait this year. Hell, I guess the local Kiwanis bicycle rodeo might have to wait. Luckily, a long rambling slight downhill run that follows gives my cardio system a chance to recover. Unluckily, what goes down must go back up and I begin the long rambling uphill on Shiloh Road into an uncooperative headwind. I get passed by a fellow cyclist (slightly more fit than I) and decide to jump on his wheel and draft for a bit. I’m able to hang at his pace for about a minute, but my cardio system isn’t onboard with the idea anymore and insists that we go it alone. Bastard cardio system. Finally I approach Hawks Road around mile 12 and enter the gateway to my little cycling nirvana. The next 18 miles I pedal through Bartonville, Argyle and Double Oak and will probably only pass a dozen cars, and the cars will be far outnumbered by the horses that hangout on the various ranches, estates, and horse properties. They say a picture’s worth a thousand words and I’m too tired to type that much, so join the ride and enjoy the scenery. Click on the pictures if you need to see the full size version.






We really do have Longhorns in Texas. I want those for the front of my truck.














Jackass.


Damn kids.



Eventually, I make my way back to civilization and I’m welcomed back to McMansionville, where the homeowner’s association fines you if your farts don’t smell right.

I don’t live there. I couldn’t afford the fines. All the homes have pools, but nobody is ever in them. The kids are in their rooms playing Xbox on their plasma televisions, while their parents are in the study filling out their college applications. This is also the point where I need to start paying attention again and start hip checking the soccer moms in their Excursions, Tahoes, Yukons and Suburbans for a little room on the road as they race to pick up Jacob and Emily from gymnastics class.

Back through Peter’s Colony Road and the images of patriotic genitalia, past the high school, Frogger past 2499, through another few neighborhoods and I’m back in the park. This time there are other people out there, so I snap a shot.



How much more family friendly can you get than flying a freaking kite in the park on a Sunday afternoon? Where’s Norman Rockwell?

Three more miles and I’m home. I stink, but I feel good. I take a self-portrait.


You remember the Donny & Marie Show? She’s a little bit country, he’s a little bit rock n’ roll. Me and the wife are like that with bikes. I lean more to the roadie side and she’s more a mountain biker, but we do both. I prefer to zone out, clear my head, sing some Neil Diamond tunes, and knock out some miles. Mrs. F’er prefers to get dirty, jump rocks, fall down, and get bruised up so that I look like a wife beater. When our schedules coincide, I’ll jump some rocks with her and she’ll take the occasional ride to smell the cow shit with me. Life is good. So in compliance with the Equal Opportunity Biking Act, here’s a photo from her ride on Friday with her boyfriend.


Thanks for coming along. Next time you might want to try pedaling a little harder.

Movin' On Up

You might have noticed that my posts have not been as frequent or extensive as in the past. I can explain. You see, many years ago, I got set up with a girl who was new to town. We’ll call her Iguacu. This is very soap opera-ish, so pay close attention. You see this girl (Iguacu) came to town to manage a BBQ joint when her ex-boyfriend needed help staffing the expansion that was going on. But the ex-boyfriend had a new girlfriend. The new girlfriend thought that her buddy Sid might like Iguacu and arranged the meeting. It would also occupy Iguacu and hopefully distract her from fanning old flames. It did, in fact, work out and I eventually phased out my own old girlfriend who had recently been convicted of embezzlement and was busy repaying her debt to society.

I kind of liked Iguacu, so after about six months you can probably guess what happened….

Blog Reader: Awww… they got married and she became Mrs. F’er!

No, the fake titty whore kicked me to the curb and didn’t even have the decency to return the remote control for my garage door. That’s cold. It’s like disclosing to her the location of the Batcave and then having her draw a map for the Joker. But I weaned myself from the free BBQ and learned to hunt and gather food elsewhere. Looking back, I think I really liked the free BBQ and beer better than her anyway.

Shortly thereafter, I had to get my moppish locks shorn so I made my way over to the mall to visit my hairdresser. I always enjoyed my time with her during my appointments - she was hot and actually seemed to “get” my twisted brand of humor, and I dug her pink hair, nose ring and funky shoes. Unfortunately, word of her styling talents were getting around and her prices were rising faster than the price of gas during an oil embargo. Just as I was resigned to finding somebody new (I couldn’t justify $37 for a men’s haircut), I found out that she had just broken up with her boyfriend. So I asked her out and must have caught her by surprise because she agreed to go out with me. I kind of liked her, so after about six months you can probably guess what happened….

Blog Reader: Oh, no! She kicked him to the curb, too!

No, I took her to Mexico, suggested we get married, caught her off-guard again, and the following year she became Mrs. F’er in a beautiful ceremony just a few blocks from where President Kennedy got his head blown off.

Remember those rising prices I told you about? Well, eventually it changed the demographics of her clientele from fun, young upstarts like me to snooty, obnoxious types that deserved a pair of scissors in the temporal lobe. Rather than lose another woman to the big house, I agreed when she proposed a new career in massage therapy where clients mostly just lie down and shut the hell up. She was digging that but realized that spending day after day listening to the CD’s of new age soundscapes might lead her to dig out those old scissors and take a stab at her own temporal lobe. So she went back to college while continuing to operate her massage practice.

Mrs. F’er pursued her interest in forensic science and even did a gig with a crime scene unit. Believe it or not, real crime scene investigators do not run around in Versace suits and Prada shoes and solve exciting murder cases in 60 minutes every day. In fact, they spend most of their time attempting to lift fingerprints off storage sheds after meth addicts bust in looking for Neil Diamond 8-tracks to pawn. But when there were dead bodies around, Mrs. F’er was more interested in what the medical examiner was doing. So she finished her degree and got a job as an investigator for the medical examiner’s office, where she gets to examine dead bodies, take gruesome photos, and type up reports based on her investigations in the field before the bodies get shipped off to the morgue. In her spare time, she enjoyed hanging out in the morgue with the pathologists doing the autopsies. That means she knows how to kill me or you and get away with it. I don’t mess with her and neither should you.

Life was good and then about a year and a half ago she announced she wanted to apply to medical school. I had made the offer the previous year when she had finished her undergrad – “OK, Mrs. F’er – medical school is on the table, or you can take the job at the medical examiner’s office… deal, or no deal” She didn’t take the deal and started poking dead bodies. I put a rubber glove on my head and blew it up with my nose. So I was kind of surprised a year later when she knocked the glove off my head and brought it up again.

The first step was taking the MCAT (Medical School Admissions Test). I figured it was like the SAT – you read some passages about penguin habitats and answer some questions and then you’re done. Turns out that the test is all about biology, chemistry, physics, organic chemistry, and carburetor rebuilds, as well as the obligatory penguin habitats. Surprisingly, people pay for the privilege to take this exam. She locked herself in a room for four months and spent the entire time memorizing chemical reactions, discovering new elements on the periodic table, reenacting cellular mitosis, and calculating the centripetal force on her ass when I take a corner at 40 mph in the F150. She took the test last April, a year ago, and then had to wait three months for them to get around to finding a scantron machine to grade it. The score was competitive, so next began the application process.

To apply, you send your MCAT score to the school, along with transcripts, letters of recommendation, a pepperoni pizza and the all important personal statement. The personal statement gives you 500 words to explain why the hell you would ever want to go through the time, pain and expense of medical school rather than just get an MBA, buy a gray suit and a Blackberry and make the same money without worrying about uninsured patients or malpractice suits. Oh, and also try to explain why you’re different from the other 8,000 pre-med biology majors that have the same MCAT score, the same killer GPA, and have been volunteering at clinics in Africa every summer since pre-school. So Mrs. F'er focused on her love of examining dead bodies and her time on the vaudeville circuit as a professional cat juggler. You also have to send them money.

She applied to all eight Texas schools so that we could take advantage of the fine public universities that our tax dollars paid to support over the last 14 years, as well as about 12 out-of-state schools as a backup plan. After you apply, the admissions committee reviews your package and throws out your application if your MCAT score sucks, if your GPA sucks (e.g. anything below 3.975 out of 4.0), if they think you’re lying about inventing penicillin, or if they are offended by your cat juggling experience. If you make the first cut, then they send you a secondary application where you tell them that you weren’t kidding about all the stuff on the first application, tell them why you want to go to their school in particular, and send them more money.

Depending on their mood and the weather on the day your application arrives (and whether they feel cat juggling would add to the diversity of their student body), you may or may not be granted an interview. So here’s what happened.

Unfortunately, all Texas schools had already met their quota of cat juggling death investigators and sent violent rejection letters that caused me to shed a tear as I saw the dream of in-state tuition shatter before my eyes while out-of-state schools rubbed their hands together with evil glee in anticipation of out-of-state tuition payments. Those schools granted her a total eight interview invites, five of which she accepted. Which means you then take time off of work, rack up some unreimbursed travel expenses, tour the school, meet the deans, confirm with a straight face that everything you wrote on your applications was sincere, and attempt to explain to admissions committees how you would solve the health care crisis despite the fact that your own government doesn’t have a clue. If you survive that without cracking, then you might get an offer. Mrs. F’er, after dealing with me for the last 8 years, breezed through this phase and received four acceptances and a wait list. Or as she put it, “Holy crap, I’m going to medical school.”

Which brings us to today. She narrowed down her choices and ultimately picked a school in Chicago. While this was going on we also had to do some major prep work to sell the house, and we put it on the market last month after hiding all the porn, packing up my extensive cabbage patch doll collection, and repairing all the damage from the last time Moist Rub, Stiv_OO, and Captain Break-It visited. Despite my attempts to quit my job, they’ve made arrangements to transfer me to the Chicago office and continue my servitude. As of today, the house is under contract, and we may be moving as soon as Memorial Day. Which is a little unsettling since we don’t have a place to live and, while the offer from Mom is nice, it’s a little creepy living as a married couple in the room you grew up in.

Beginning after Labor Day, Mrs. F’er will spend the next two years learning and memorizing every detail of the human body so that she can pass the first step of the licensing exam and explain to me what the hell they're talking about on House. After that, she will get to spend about 60-80 hours a week for the following two years dodging body fluids while doing rotations at hospitals around Chicago. Then she will get to apply for a four year residency and hang out with cool people like you see on Gray’s Anatomy. If all goes as planned, about eight years from today she will be released into the wild and get to spend the rest of her life doing autopsies.

To recap, I asked out my hairdresser so that I didn’t have to pay for a $37 haircut, and now I’m paying four year’s tuition at a private medical school. I haven’t done a present value analysis, but I have a feeling it would have been cheaper to pay for the damn haircut. But I’m pretty proud of her and it will all be worth it after the loans are paid off and I can retire early and buy my own BBQ joint to hang out at.

By the way, Wednesday is her birthday and we're taking donations for the Leper Pop Scholarship Fund. Thank you for your support.

Thoughts From The Saddle

I’ve finally gotten back on my bike after a long and unnecessary winter layoff of eating Marshmallow Fluff and avoiding exercise like a rear end collision in a Ford Pinto. Not only does riding help get me back in shape, but the long miles give me time to think and clear my head. Sometimes this is dangerous. Here are some of my thoughts and other items that came out of the memory banks during the 75 miles I traveled this weekend.

So around mile 18 on Saturday an old dude (older than I) comes hammering past me as if I were on a Big Wheel. That makes me realize how out of shape I really am. Unless the old dude was Eddy Merckx, in which case I shouldn’t feel so bad. However, I seriously doubt that Eddy left Belgium for a weekend just to humiliate me on the backroads of Argyle, Texas. If you don’t know who Eddy is then check out Wikipedia since I’m apparently too fat, lazy and out of shape to explain.

Kellie Pickler may be cute now, but she’s got Carnie Wilson written all over her.

Nobody should drive with a dog on xe lap, but especially men. Unless it’s a German Shepard. And the German Shepard has a license. Not a dog license, but a drivers license.

How come you don’t find Odd Couple reruns on TV anymore?

Everytime I see the new Ted Ferguson commercials it makes me think of Turd Ferguson and I laugh. It’s a funny name.

Speaking of commercials, I find myself getting inexplicably turned on by that fairy in the Dodge Caliber commercial. Gay people seem offended and that’s just silly.

I saw a woman reading People magazine in the airport and it reminded me of a quote I read recently. I couldn’t find where I had read it and don’t know who to attribute it to, but it went something like, “For a nation that boasts one of the highest literacy rates in the world, it’s shame we haven’t taught our population what to read.” That should also be obvious from your presence here.

Few people will change their energy consumption habits and all this government talk about commitment to alternative energies is likely bullshit, so I came up with an idea. Why don’t we just steal the oil from the Middle East from underneath them. If we drill from a point in the South Pacific (international waters) through the center of the earth we should be able to tap their reserves and solve the supply problem. Need to fire all those aerospace engineers at NASA and get some geologists on the payroll.

Why do clerks at hotels have their hometown on their nametags? Why do they move for a crappy clerk job? There are hotels in the towns I see on their nametags - so what are they running away from? Should that me make nervous?

I was in the elevator the other day with a woman that smelled like a dentist’s office. It wasn’t bad, but I still felt like rinsing and spitting as soon as we got out.

Bonus story from the road:
I’m going through security at the airport last week when they decide to do a bag check. That’s not uncommon since the fake can of peanut brittle with the spring loaded snakes that pop out which I travel with is often mistaken for a pipe bomb. Then they do the bag check and we all have a good laugh. But this time I was nervous since I had been working at an explosives plant all day and they also test for explosive material. Between the explosives residue and my Al-Qaeda issue beard, I was pretty sure I was going to end up in Guantanamo Bay and considered making a break for it. But I maintained my cool, and my bag passed without incident. But if I disappear someday I suggest arranging a rescue mission to Cuba to bust me out.

The Man Zoo

I have figured it out – the key to the success of the future of our society. It wasn’t easy for me to do this, because of my limited cognitive capacity due to my lack of advanced state as a life form (as you’ll learn about shortly). But I did it. This is a woman’s world, and it’s about time they took it over.

I’ve been listening to women lately. In the past I have pretended to listen to them, but I wasn’t. Instead, I was thinking about sports or sex or food or some combination of them. But, lately, I’ve been paying attention. I’ve learned a lot, of what I could understand, anyway.

In addition to the topics I do not (cannot) understand, like beauty and fashion ideas, raising children, Desperate Housewives, flaky feet elixirs, feelings and emotions, general concern for people and railroad design theory, women talk a great deal about men. Sometimes it’s their husbands or boyfriends, sometimes it’s the men in their family and sometimes it’s men in general. As far as I can figure out, they don’t like us very much. Apparently, all we men ever think about is sex, sports and food, and we shouldn’t be. We don’t care about anybody’s feelings except our own. We have no control over our bodily functions. We sit on the couch all day long, have no clue how to raise children, are tremendous slobs, are too hairy and are incapable of making any kind of decision other than deciding which direction to aim our farts. And, we are incapable of opening up emotionally to another human being (specifically, them). Some women go on to say that men have been running this world throughout its history, and they’ve done a pretty crappy job doing it.

I can’t argue. I agree with them. All the criticism women have of men is true (as far as I can tell, anyway). And, I know why. The simple fact is that the male human is a slightly less advanced life form than is the female human.

Many may consider me somewhat of a modern day Pliny the Elder standing at the foot of an erupting Mount Vesuvius, as I have not employed the scientific method in this discovery. I do not have any scientific proof, such as DNA evidence, strictly controlled behavioral analysis or even Ouija board case studies, to support my claim. All I have are vicarious experiences and provisional deduction, which my standards of study shoddily accept.

Empirical evidence shows men to be governed by two great innate forces – sex and aggression. Generally speaking, men want to have sex and if they can’t have sex, they resort to beating somebody up (or kicking a dog, slamming a door, pounding a sledge hammer on a comforter, etc.). I don’t want to get into all the specific data that supports this declaration. Suffice it to say that the proof for male aggression is in all the wars this world had suffered. If men were getting enough sex (which is impossible in the male mind), they wouldn’t have time for wars. The point is that these characteristics are among the most base in the animal world. Aggression is a conflict resolution technique used by lower life forms because they do not have brains capable of reasoning through a problem. Take, for example, the rhinoceros. Have you ever tried talking sense to a rhinoceros? It’s impossible. Before you can get two words out, they charge at you, attempting to acquaint you with their horn. It’s not like I meant to run over his mailbox. I was just trying to avoid hitting the meerkat that jumped out between the parked cars. If the rhino was having sex at the time, he would have never even noticed. And if he did notice, he wouldn’t have cared, at least not until he was finished. By then I would have been long gone. I tried to offer to pay for it, but then the charging happened. It didn’t solve anything. Sure, I’m gored, and all, but I still think he’s a jerk.

Women, to the contrary, excel in communication and community building. Women are the architects of society with the emotions they wield and the nurturing they bestow. The human animal depends on this society for survival and to support progress. Without their ability, we would all be living in houses with no sheets on the beds, no food in the refrigerators and no silverware organizers in the drawers. That’s how animals would live if they could figure out how to build houses.

These are characteristics of an advanced life form who work together for the survival of the species, instead of the survival of a single member of that species, like men do (hence the reason men only think of themselves). Consider the slug. Slugs are very low life forms. Do you ever see a group of slugs getting together for a Tupperware party? Need I say more?

These societal factors as I outlined them above suggest that women are higher life forms than men. But there is more evidence out there. Way out there. Look to the cosmos and the physical laws that rule it. There is a wonderful concept in physics called entropy. Entropy is the tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of disorder. It is in entropy that we shall find truth.

If you believe in the Big Bang theory, or some facsimile of it, prior to the big bang, this universe was in perfect order. Everything was organized into a single dot or spec or whatever (I don’t want to get too technical on you). Then, all of a sudden, the dot exploded and expanded and then galaxies formed, and stars formed and planets formed and life formed, and that life formed fans, which were subsequently hit by shit, which added to the disorder. The universe became more and more disordered, and becomes more disordered each second. It may seem that the universe is becoming more ordered, but it’s not. Trust me. Do the math: S = k log W. Consequently, anything helping the entropy in its plight for disorder would be more in tuned with the universe than something that is not.

When I first learned of entropy, I thought it gave me an excuse to sit on my ass and do nothing, since it’s easy to let things fall apart. I figured it was nature’s way, so I embraced it. However, I was wrong. As it turns out, when women straighten out a room, put things away, organize their recipe cards and reorganize their shoes, they are adding to the entropy of the universal system, not quelling it. It may appear on the surface to the uninformed that women are creating order. But, they’re not. In the whole scheme of things, the heat they release and the disruption that heat causes to atoms floating around us while women rearrange their closets actually messes up things more than the order they attempt to achieve. Women, with their organizing efforts, are adding more to the natural entropy than we guys do sitting on a bar stool watching sports. They are more in tune with the cosmos because they are a higher life form.

Now that we know that women are more advanced then men, how do we use this knowledge to help society? Well, what do we do with lower life forms? That’s right, we put them in zoos. That is what I suggest women do with men. Although, like circus animals, men can contribute to society. I propose a work release zoo program for men. Men can do things women don’t want to do, like haul Port-o-Johns, clean Port-o-Johns and use Port-o-Johns. I’m sure there are other things men can do. Not that women couldn’t do whatever those things are, but why should they if they have a work release zoo full of men to do them?

Zoo technology has advanced over the years. The days of sequestering animals in cages are gone. Today’s zoos are built in a manner so they emulate the animals’ natural habitats and living conditions, including food, instinctual requirements (yes, I’m talking about accommodating the human male animal’s sex drive. More on that later.) and leisure. The man zoo should be created in the same fashion. The environment should be equipped with sports bars, playing fields, leather recliners, garages/work sheds and massage parlors. Studies have shown that the average man can work effectively for only four hours per day. This should be considered when creating work release schedules.

The work release programs should be designed to take advantage of each individual male’s talents. Some are good at math, so put them to work in insurance companies. Some are good at cuddling, so dish them out to women who need some cuddling. Note: expecting a non-cuddler male to cuddle will cause a similar result as expecting an elephant to incubate a chicken egg - so make sure your assessments are accurate. Some men actually are good at listening and empathizing. Harnessing these rare specimens could be a great money making initiative to the entrepreneurial woman. Then there are the builder men, the fixer men, the heavy lifting men, the plumbing men, etc. I’m sure you women will be able to figure it all out. I certainly can’t, being a lower life form, and all.
Maintaining a healthy male population in the man zoo will also necessitate the instinctual requirements (as mentioned above) of the human male animal to be satisfied. There are a number of ways you can accomplish this. One would be to relegate select “hot” and “adventurous” members of the female population to “work” with the animals. A more severe and cruel solution would be castration (please don’t do this. C’mon, you’ve already put us in zoos! What more do you want???). One last suggestion would be the invention and implementation of the BJ 2500 robot, fully equipped with drink holder, ash tray and sandwich dispenser. But, you ladies do what you think is necessary.

Once the men are safely tucked away in the sports bars, I mean, man zoos, women can run the planet as they see fit. I would expect to see less wars, less pollution, a better environment, more human dignity abound and more knick knack stores. If any men act up, then employ the castration I talked you out of in the last paragraph. Freeing the world of the scourge that is the less developed human male animal will certainly pave the way for the success of the matriarchal society our species has evolved to maintain. We already have the raw materials – sports bars, leather recliners, playing fields, etc. They just need to be organized into a zoo setting. Once women use their entropy enhancing powers to do so, the world will be a better place.

Know Before You Go – Monroe, Louisiana

The airport has only three gates, so don’t sweat it if you don’t know your gate number before leaving.

The accent on the word “umbrella” is on the first syllable.

Camo is the new black and can be purchased at the local Army/Navy Surplus store. It should be worn by all genders, ages, races, and sizes at all times.


Monroe is first place west of the Mississippi to bottle Coca-Cola.

Spend a Day with West Coast Ray (WCR)

A client in sunny Southern California needed our assistance, so I donned my tights and cape and booked a flight on American Airlines. They made me take off the cape while going through security, but for the good of all mankind I was allowed to pass through with my tights on. I arrived at LAX Wednesday night, rented the Sid-Mobile (actually a Pontiac G6, the same kind Oprah gave away, so I guess it was more an Oprahmobile), and made my way to the Westin. Westin is branding the entire hotel experience as “heavenly”. It started with their new fancy heavenly beds, but now includes a heavenly check-in, heavenly elevators, heavenly key cards, heavenly thermostats, heavenly showerheads, heavenly wake-up calls, heavenly desks and heavenly bellboys. That last one sounded a little too gay porn and I made most of them up except for heavenly showerhead. They make it sound like when you die, St. Peter will check you into the great Westin in the sky where God is hosting a manager’s heavenly reception in the penthouse every evening. But I digress. It’s not a bad place, except for the Celine Dion, Donald Trump and creepy Alfred Molina billboards staring into my room. They were slightly offset by the Rebecca Romijjn as the up-and-coming, but klutzy, Pepper Dennis, who always gets her story billboard (Tuesdays 9/8C on the WB). After checking in I had a dinner at Second City Bistro in El Segundo. I went with the filet mignon with blackberry peppercorn sauce, port soaked cherries, mashed potatoes and spinach. It sounds good, but was all kind of piled together like a rugby scrum and all those distinct flavors got lost in the mess. It wasn’t bad, but would have been so much better if they weren’t trying to be so eclectic with the presentation and just served it up on one of those compartmentalized Chinet paper plates (I'm pretty low maintenance). I considered stopping at the Purple Orchid Exotic Tiki Lounge next door, but decided that fat, drunk and naked was not the best way to return to the Westin. If it had been a Monday I don’t think I would have been able to resist their famous manicure and martini night ($10).

The next day I managed to finish up business in El Segundo by 4 p.m., returned the Oprahmobile back to Hertz and was ready to return to DFW when I suddenly realized it was Holy Thursday. Holy Thursday is the most complex and profound of all religious observances, saving only the Easter Vigil. It celebrates both the institution by Christ Himself of the Eucharist and of the institution of the sacerdotal priesthood (as distinct from the "priesthood of all believers") for in this, His last supper with the disciples, a celebration of Passover, He is the self-offered Passover Victim, and every ordained priest to this day presents this same sacrifice, by Christ's authority and command, in exactly the same way. The Last Supper was also Christ's farewell to His assembled disciples, some of whom would betray, desert or deny Him before the sun rose again. (I stole all that verbiage from catholic.org since I’m a CCD dropout and didn’t readily know the significance of Holy Thursday.) But Holy Thursday also represents the day when West Coast Ray (WCR) and I would wash the feet of dancers at the local titty bars. I could not betray my friend by leaving So Cal without calling, so I rang him up, found out where he was, and grabbed the first cab to Santa Fe Springs. I found him at SB II, which I learned is short for the name of the sports bar Scoreboard II (since Scoreboard I was apparently a smashing success). He was waiting with a co-worker named Sarah. (Her real name is spelled Sarrah, but I’m leaving out the second “r” to protect her identity.) Sarah had come to have her favorite Leper Pop blog signed. It happened to be one of Moist Rub’s posts, so I signed it “Barry Manilow” and returned it with a smile. Since I missed the excitement of the crosswalk sting, in which Santa Fe Springs police would send little old ladies through the crosswalk of busy Firestone Avenue and then ticket drivers who hit them after failing to yield, we made plans for the next stop.

There were rumors of a mean, evil bartender at the Santa Fe Inn, so WCR wanted to take on the challenge of finding this troubled being and proving xe as just misunderstood. Just like Bumbles in Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The Santa Fe Inn was a classic dive with a diverse group of drunkards balanced precariously upon rickety stools. WCR’s stool threatened to face plant him into the bar, while mine threatened to body slam me back into the floor behind. The wicked barkeep of the west was off-duty, but on-premises with her head buried in a video poker machine. She did pop out to buy Sarah a drink and seemed harmless enough. The actual barkeep on duty was even friendlier and gave us the remote to one of the bar TV’s to try and find the Mighty Ducks game since all she could find were repeats of Friends and Yes, Dear. I wanted to watch Friends since it was one of the episodes where Ross had the monkey that was just so darn cute, but relented after the other patrons threatened to rape me on the pool table. We couldn’t find the hockey game and instead settled on an NBA game that nobody cared about, while Mrs. WCR sent text message updates on the Ducks from the homestead. But more importantly karaoke was awaiting, so we packed up and took off for Bruce’s.

Bruce’s karaoke was already in action and we took our seats at the bar as a woman who looked like she ate Shania Twain sang Still The One. WCR grabbed the songbook and flipped to the Elvis Presley section. The usual rotation of Frank Sinatra wannabes, blue jean country crooners, burned out classic rockers and other aberrant songsters rotated through the spotlight when WCR was finally called. The distinct opening bars of You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling played out as he took the stage.

“Yo, yo, yo, dawg, awright, awright, y’know it was a little pitchy in the beginning, y’know what I’m saying, but, dawg, you pulled it off.”

“Oh, WCR, I love watching you every week and you have the greatest voice and you can soil my hot tub anytime!”




“WCR. I thought it was well done, but….”
(audience boos… gets punched in arm by Paula)
“But…. you need to work the room a little more.”
(cue music)




Behind the scenes we learned that the karaoke DJ made a rookie error and cued up the Righteous Brothers version instead of the requested Elvis version (ahm sorry, DJ, but you’re just not roit for our house band). More determined than ever to win over the judges, WCR pulled out the songbook and knew exactly where he needed to go. He decidedly filled out the request sheet, turned it over the karaoke queen and confidently took a seat while waiting his turn. I took a long draw of diet coke from my glass and, full of aspartame courage, filled out my own song request. The karaoke queen was losing the crowd by approving When The Music’s Over by the Doors, turning the vibrant lounge into a poetry slam attended by a crowd of lizard killers wanting to rip the tail off the diminutive Jim Morrison imitator. With that WCR took the stage again and suddenly good times never seemed so good. I looked at the night and it didn’t seem so lonely.
Neil Diamond filled the air, the bar swayed, hands, touching hands. Randy named a wing of the dawg pound after him, Paula passed out in an orgasmic tizzy, Simon got caught doodling pictures of unicorns on his pad of paper, the barkeep bought a round of drinks on the house, and confetti dropped from the cork ceiling overhead. And when it was all over, they called Sid to the stage. Suddenly I knew what it was like to be JD on the Switched On tour. As the opening chords of the Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I Go filled the hall, I fluffed up my beard and dropped into my best leg splay. I channeled Joe Strummer and did the best damn version of the tune ever by a guy dressed in business casual wear and a fluffed up beard in a full leg splay at Bruce’s that night. Sarah attempted a photo, but I hear the battery ran out. So you’ll have to trust me. After I finished, the next singer sang a Chicago tune. That’s right… Chicago with lead singer Peter Cetera, who did a duet with none other than…….

Crystal Bernard.

Now that we owned Bruce’s we packed up and decided to conquer the unknown. WCR needed an evil looking, bearded sidekick to back him up just in case the locals weren’t too friendly during his first trip to a nearby roadside saloon. In a way, each of us has an El Guapo to face. For some, shyness might be their El Guapo. For others, a lack of education might be their El Guapo. For us, El Guapo is a big, dangerous man who wants to kill us. We pulled into the parking lot of Hedz or Tales and were greeted by the Karaoke banner flying haphazardly over the entrance. As soon as we walked through the door, we were greeted by a Latina porn star in a “Got Stiffy?” spaghetti strap tank top moonlighting as a bartender and currently in the middle of a hot hip-hop karaoke performance. Despite the assault on our high morals, we didn’t want to be rude and walk out so we took a seat at the bar right in front of the welcoming Wild Turkey sign. There were only about 10 other patrons, including a Jack Russell of Great White look-a-like. He took the mike and while we steadied ourselves for a hair metal classic, he busted unexpectedly into another hip-hop song and, as far as I could tell, nailed it with some fitting improv vocals of his own included. Neil Diamond would not fly here, so WCR dialed up some Green Day and took his turn at the mike. Soon the PA system burst forth with the Stone’s Midnight Rambler. WCR did his best Ashlee Simpson and jigged over to the DJ and slapped him upside the head, explaining the difference between Green Day and the Rolling Stones. The DJ seemed to understand and cued up some Pointer Sisters. And then some Judas Priest. And then some Garth Brooks. And then some Don Johnson, Eddie Murphy, Eddie Money, Marky Mark, Beastie Boys, and Slayer. Each time WCR rejected the opening bars like a vegetarian rejecting a Big Mac. Eventually, the DJ gave up and admitted he couldn’t find the song while WCR informed him he’s just not roit for our house band. Jack Russell jumped in, changed gears and offered up a fine rendition of some death metal classic about Lucifer taking his hand and going out for Thai food or something. Several minutes later, an excited Jack Russell came running over to us with a songbook to tell WCR that he found Green Day. WCR explained that he had found it as well, but the DJ was the one that got stoned and mislabeled his CD collection. Jack looked like somebody had just told him Oz Fest was cancelled because he forgot to reserve the arena. We couldn’t stand to watch the disappointment in his eyes anymore and departed for our next stop.

Group Therapy is WCR’s home bar and where I was introduced to everybody as Sid from Montana, where I lived among the grizzlies with my beard and a jar of peanut butter. That seemed to frighten them a bit, which gave me the opportunity to sit back and enjoy my selections on the jukebox (Garbage and Van Halen) without the distraction of idle chitchat. At one point WCR was outside keeping company with the smoker contingent when he sent over his buddy Melody to introduce herself to Sid (the guy with the beard). What he failed to realize was that a Jesus look-a-like was in the bar to re-enact The Last Binge. I enjoyed the confusion of the ensuing conversation between Melody and Jesus for a few moments before volunteering that she was probably looking for me and not the false idol before her. As WCR says, “All you bearded freaks look alike.” Although I had been reluctant to leave the Latina porn star bartender at the previous establishment, WCR made sure I was aware that the Group Therapy resident stripper was tending bar that evening. She wore a white fishing hat and hence earned the name Gilligan for the night, although I preferred to call her Maynard to further confuse things. I also learned that bartending is a great second gig for a stripper since all the drunken guys in the bar are more than happy to help restock the bar, sweep the floors, clean ashtrays and kiss your ass as 2 a.m. approaches. As the closing rituals progressed, we realized that we hadn’t eaten in the last 14 hours and planned a trip for some late night burritos.

We ordered up the burritos, then took them out the patio where there is usually something entertaining going on at 2:30 a.m. Upon our arrival, there was but one person out there. A girl of about 17, sitting with an order of french fries and a tall boy of Miller Genuine Draft. Greatness. We had a chat about closing times at area bars and the various food options after closing. Then we were joined by a group of about six college age guys, their leader a chatty fellow with a backpack who quickly christened WCR with the name Bill Gates for no apparent reason other than the fact that he was wearing glasses. Backpack Boy then entered a debate with Bill over computer technology, talk radio, politics, and geography that sounded more like dialogue from Pulp Fiction rather than a dweeb trying to impress a 17 year old girl by trying to annoy a couple of old farts out past their bedtime. The next several minutes consisted of some decked out club goers, the threat of a food fight, the threat of a real fight, a female bodybuilder and a peace agreement brokered by WCR before our departure. The patio never disappoints.

We took the 17 year old girl home with us, but Mrs. WCR made us take her back where we found her. We claimed that she just followed us home and asked if we could keep her, but the Mrs. wasn’t buying it. I made that last part up, so I hope you weren’t buying it, either. The rest, however, is my story and I’m sticking to it.