Have you ever been out and about when you came across a person who you knew was just a total badass? I'm not talking about a run-of-the-mill badass like the guy who can do seven chin-ups in a row without grunting like a girl or who can run up a wall and do a back flip and land like he's a ninja. Those guys are everywhere.
Nope, I'm talking about a guy who can lift a fire truck to save a kitten too scared to come out from underneath it or a guy who can catch bullets in his teeth while riding a wheelie on his Harley. And not just any Harley, the kind of Harley where the oil spills onto the road behind it and causes Toyotas and any hybrid vehicles to wreck in its wake.
I'm talking about a man's man, basically. Not even a man's man, a Man's man's man. There's got to be some sort of graduated scale for this type of manliness and I'm guessing it will be up to me to create one because no one else is brave or bored enough to do it.
So here is how I like to measure a man.
Wait, I take that back. I don't really like to measure men and as soon as I typed that I knew that was the wrong thing to type. Of course I could always go back and erase that and you would never know it happened, but I am manly enough to leave it there and punch all the naysayers and laughing happy funmakers squarely in the neck with an untrained but probably very painful karate chop. KEEYARF!
My word program is telling me that funmakers is not a word but KEEYARF is. What the hell?
So here is the scale of levels of manliness. And keep in mind that it is possible to span several different levels of manliness but if you cross to a lower level you are stuck there even if you have traits for higher levels.
Level 1 – Guys who wax any part of their body for anything other than a joke or payment of a bet they lost. Engaging in any plastic surgery that is not a form of reconstruction after a grisly accident with industrial machinery (special preference given to augers, tractors or thrashing machines) or a wild animal that can only be found in a zoo. Anyone who has plastic surgery as a result of an attack by a house pet loses man points, and an attack by a kitten will actually result in being forced to play for the women's team at the next family gathering.
Guys who have ever spent more than $15 on a haircut and/or who have an actual hairstyle. Any man who has been to a day spa on purpose. Any guy with a subscription in their name to People, In Touch or Oprah's magazine (reading them while on the crapper is perfectly acceptable as long as there is also a fully dog eared copy of Playboy, FHM or Maxim within easy reach). Any guy who takes a bath when there is a shower available within a 15-mile radius.
EXAMPLES of a level 1 male include the guy from "What Not To Wear," male cosmetologists, dudes who drink Cosmopolitans at keg parties, guys who have stylists that dress them at any point in their life, French Canadians who don’t play professional hockey and Rosie O'Donnell.
Level 2 -- Guys who can't name more than 5 athletes in any one sport. Guys who would rather play video games of a sport than actually going out and playing it. Guys who smoke weed instead of drinking beer. Guys who iron their shorts and t-shirts without a girl telling them to, guys who wear ties that cost more than $29, guys who either don't own hiking boots or only own hiking boots, guys who only eat raw vegetables, guys who don't have at least 7 random receipts in their wallets and guys who can't walk a mile in anyone's shoes, much less their own.
EXAMPLES of a level 2 male include hippies, the guy who brings the guitar camping so he can sing folk songs while eating s'mores, the first guy in line to buy the new version of HALO for XBOX, sightseeing helicopter pilots who didn’t see combat in a war of some sort, Dunkin Donuts managers, The Prince of Wales, Lance Bass and the 85% of the French, including the womenfolk. 14.5% of the French are Level 1’s and .5% are actually level 4’s thanks to the French foreign legion, the guy who invented champagne and a couple of kickboxers they have over there.
Level 3 – These are guys who are middle of the line manly. A man who can fix a garbage disposal without breaking a knuckle or the disposal. A guy who not only knows what a nickel defense is in football but can explain it to a girl so she understands what it is and why it doesn't really have anything to do with US legal tender. Guys who only shave because they have to for their job or they are trying to get girls. Guys who get hurt but still keep doing whatever it is that hurt them. Guys who can chop wood and can start a campfire on the first try. Guys who have the ability to cuss freely when they are with their friends but don't when there are women around. Guys who still wear flannel because it works and not because it's fashionable.
EXAMPLES of Level 3 males include Tim Taylor from Home Improvement, your dad, guys who run the cash register in lumberyards, truck drivers, ACE certified mechanics, the guys in a bowling league and carpet/flooring installers.
As a special note, guys that are 3.5's on the scale are all the really useful blue collar folks who do stuff most Level 3’s aren’t smart enough to do, including plumbers, locksmiths, handymen with their names engraved on their belts, Ned Flanders, HVAC technicians, loggers and bouncers in Irish pubs.
Level 4 – These are men's men. Guys that were Special Forces, Navy SEALs, Green Berets, etc. in the military. Anyone with a legal confirmed kill of a human, a big five game animal with a knife or a bow and arrow, or anything but a fish with a spear. Any guy who isn't a real doctor but still knows how to perform a tracheotomy with a butter knife and will do it without hesitation whether you like it or not. A man who not only has the tools to rebuild an engine but can actually do it without a copy of Chilton's Auto Repair manual or formal training. Jewel and art thieves who don't stoop to the "smash and grab" technique. Guys who write things like the Declaration of Independence. A guy who eats his steak straight off the cow.
Level 4 men usually smell of Old Spice, sweat and either animal blood or motor oil.
EXAMPLES of a Level 4 male include your high school football coach, Bear Grylls, the dude from Survivorman, guys who own junkyards, real cowboys who actually drive cattle and rope horses on the open range, James Bond (the Sean Connery version, not the Pierce Brosnan version), tow truck drivers, your grandfather and MacGuyver if he would get an $8 haircut every once in a while.
Super Level Alpha – This level is reserved for the baddest of the bad. Anyone who has lost an eye in a street fight and just sewed it shut himself and threw on an eye patch instead of going all Sammy Davis Jr. with it. This guy actually changes his own oil and then doesn't wash his hands before eating corn on the cob and 7 pounds of uncooked chicken wings. He doesn't wear a shirt or shoes to Circle K but still gets service. These guys can eat quiche in front of biker gangs and still have people offer to buy him a drink.
EXAMPLES of Super Level Alpha males include guys who wear steel-toed boots to the grocery store, John Rambo (especially in First Blood), Mike Singletary, professional assassins who write poetry in their spare time and any character that Clint Eastwood ever played.
B!
Friday, November 21, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Some Thoughts On The Election
I spent about 5 hours last night watching the election coverage on CBS, mostly because I was interested in who our next president is going to be but also because I think Katie Couric is TOTALLY do-able even though she’s like 55 years old.
Yeah, I said it. Don’t lie, you want to do her too. It might take a few cocktails, but you know you’d do it. Ladies, I’m talking to you too.
Anyway, I have to preface everything I am about to say with this: I did not vote yesterday. I am registered in Flagstaff but live in Mesa right now and I don’t have the money to drive all the way up there to place a vote I didn’t want to make anyway. There was only one thing on the ballot that I cared enough about to vote (I was hoping to see Proposition 102 get shot down, which called for marriage to be defined as between “One Man and One Woman” by the law—unfortunately it didn’t get shot down, so now only straight people are going to be allowed to fuck up the sanctity of marriage).
Even if I had been in Flagstaff, I’m not sure I would have voted for president anyway. The guy I really wanted never made it out of the primaries, and because I am a registered Republican and the guy I wanted was a Democrat, I couldn’t have helped him out of the primaries anyway.
I don’t really like the way the voting system is set up anyway, but I won’t get into that very much, because I have some other things I would like to talk about regarding the new president of the United States and what I saw on the coverage last night.
The first thing that I noticed, and probably the most telling about the difference between the parties and what they stand for, is the choice of venue chosen for the election parties of each party. The Democrats were stationed in a park in Chicago (Grant Park), which was the site of the famed Democratic national convention in 1968. The Republicans, on the other hand, were stationed at The Biltmore in downtown Phoenix.
For those who don’t know Phoenix, The Arizona Biltmore is a hotel in central Phoenix and it is pretty much the symbol for old money in the Valley. Right now their specials for room rates start at $259 per night for the worst room in the place, to give you some kind of idea of the type of hotel we’re looking at. And as an FYI, the Barry Goldwater suite, where the McCain’s were staying, STARTS at $1,000 per night in the off season, and while I’m sure they got it comped to them, I think that speaks volumes.
So, what I noticed about the election parties was that the Republicans held their party in a very elite, inaccessible place known for it’s “old money” smell while the Democrats held their party in a free park in Chicago. This may not seem like much of an issue to some people, but to me it speaks VOLUMES about what the Republican party has grown to stand for since I registered as one in the 1990’s.
Another thing I noticed was the lack of class many of the Republican backers showed during McCain’s speech when he conceded victory to Obama. At the mention of Obama’s name, a spattering of “boos” erupted from his supporters on more than one occasion. While I thought McCain did a good job of putting an end to that, the fact that he even had to just made his supporters look that much worse in my eyes. There were probably 2-3000 people around when he made that speech, and I would guess at least 100-200 of them booed Obama’s name. I do have to give McCain credit, though, because his speech was classy and I have no doubts he will continue to serve his country to the best of his abilities.
Conversely, at Obama’s victory speech (and I’ve got to interject what a cool dude this guy is, he seems like the kind of guy who could get you to buy into an abstinence program from him while he was in the other room humping your sister) when McCain’s name was mentioned, there were actually cheers from the audience. There were probably 70,000 people there and I heard no “boos” at the mention of McCain’s name. Not to say there weren’t any, but if they did boo, they were not close enough to be heard.
I don’t want this to come across as Republican-bashing, because I’m sure if things would have turned out the other way there would have been some boos from the crowd in Chicago, or possibly even a riot, but those were all low- to middle-class people there (except for Oprah, who not only could have bought a new house for everyone there if she wanted to, but she actually had little flecks of gold in her tears if you look closely at the video. Kind of like Goldschlager, only not as fun to drink before singing karaoke) so that type of thing might be expected. I don’t expect that type of behavior from people who are “in the money” so to speak.
The bottom line is that something big happened last night, whether you like it or not. I got the same kind of feeling I got when the twin towers came down in New York—not necessarily as bad of a feeling, just the feeling that the world was about to change. Only time will tell if that’s good or bad for us as a country. 9/11 seemed like it was good for us in the short run, spiking our patriotism to heights I’d never seen it, but not even 6 months later all of the American flags that people had gone out to buy for their car windows were littering the freeways across Arizona.
Hopefully this doesn’t turn out the same way. Hopefully we can be the great country we are supposed to be.
B!
Yeah, I said it. Don’t lie, you want to do her too. It might take a few cocktails, but you know you’d do it. Ladies, I’m talking to you too.
Anyway, I have to preface everything I am about to say with this: I did not vote yesterday. I am registered in Flagstaff but live in Mesa right now and I don’t have the money to drive all the way up there to place a vote I didn’t want to make anyway. There was only one thing on the ballot that I cared enough about to vote (I was hoping to see Proposition 102 get shot down, which called for marriage to be defined as between “One Man and One Woman” by the law—unfortunately it didn’t get shot down, so now only straight people are going to be allowed to fuck up the sanctity of marriage).
Even if I had been in Flagstaff, I’m not sure I would have voted for president anyway. The guy I really wanted never made it out of the primaries, and because I am a registered Republican and the guy I wanted was a Democrat, I couldn’t have helped him out of the primaries anyway.
I don’t really like the way the voting system is set up anyway, but I won’t get into that very much, because I have some other things I would like to talk about regarding the new president of the United States and what I saw on the coverage last night.
The first thing that I noticed, and probably the most telling about the difference between the parties and what they stand for, is the choice of venue chosen for the election parties of each party. The Democrats were stationed in a park in Chicago (Grant Park), which was the site of the famed Democratic national convention in 1968. The Republicans, on the other hand, were stationed at The Biltmore in downtown Phoenix.
For those who don’t know Phoenix, The Arizona Biltmore is a hotel in central Phoenix and it is pretty much the symbol for old money in the Valley. Right now their specials for room rates start at $259 per night for the worst room in the place, to give you some kind of idea of the type of hotel we’re looking at. And as an FYI, the Barry Goldwater suite, where the McCain’s were staying, STARTS at $1,000 per night in the off season, and while I’m sure they got it comped to them, I think that speaks volumes.
So, what I noticed about the election parties was that the Republicans held their party in a very elite, inaccessible place known for it’s “old money” smell while the Democrats held their party in a free park in Chicago. This may not seem like much of an issue to some people, but to me it speaks VOLUMES about what the Republican party has grown to stand for since I registered as one in the 1990’s.
Another thing I noticed was the lack of class many of the Republican backers showed during McCain’s speech when he conceded victory to Obama. At the mention of Obama’s name, a spattering of “boos” erupted from his supporters on more than one occasion. While I thought McCain did a good job of putting an end to that, the fact that he even had to just made his supporters look that much worse in my eyes. There were probably 2-3000 people around when he made that speech, and I would guess at least 100-200 of them booed Obama’s name. I do have to give McCain credit, though, because his speech was classy and I have no doubts he will continue to serve his country to the best of his abilities.
Conversely, at Obama’s victory speech (and I’ve got to interject what a cool dude this guy is, he seems like the kind of guy who could get you to buy into an abstinence program from him while he was in the other room humping your sister) when McCain’s name was mentioned, there were actually cheers from the audience. There were probably 70,000 people there and I heard no “boos” at the mention of McCain’s name. Not to say there weren’t any, but if they did boo, they were not close enough to be heard.
I don’t want this to come across as Republican-bashing, because I’m sure if things would have turned out the other way there would have been some boos from the crowd in Chicago, or possibly even a riot, but those were all low- to middle-class people there (except for Oprah, who not only could have bought a new house for everyone there if she wanted to, but she actually had little flecks of gold in her tears if you look closely at the video. Kind of like Goldschlager, only not as fun to drink before singing karaoke) so that type of thing might be expected. I don’t expect that type of behavior from people who are “in the money” so to speak.
The bottom line is that something big happened last night, whether you like it or not. I got the same kind of feeling I got when the twin towers came down in New York—not necessarily as bad of a feeling, just the feeling that the world was about to change. Only time will tell if that’s good or bad for us as a country. 9/11 seemed like it was good for us in the short run, spiking our patriotism to heights I’d never seen it, but not even 6 months later all of the American flags that people had gone out to buy for their car windows were littering the freeways across Arizona.
Hopefully this doesn’t turn out the same way. Hopefully we can be the great country we are supposed to be.
B!
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Ms. Biggie Big Goes To CiCi's
It’s always a bit of a shock to the system when you get used to driving a certain way because you live someplace small and lovely (like Flagstaff) and you are forced to end up driving around someplace large and shitty (like Mesa).
Especially the part of Mesa where I live, which should change it’s name from Mesa to Baby Mexico or Nogales North or something like that. I’ve never driven in Mexico, and from the way people drive around my neighborhood I don’t think I ever want to because, apparently, they don’t have driving laws down there. Or crosswalks. Or brains.
There has to be some kind of rational thought that would cross a mother’s mind before dressing herself all in black and standing in the middle of a 40 MPH road at 11 O’clock on a Tuesday night with a FUCKING BABY CARRIAGE and a 2-year-old in tow. And I’m not talking about a smart-looking 2-year-old (you know, the kind that carries around books about fractal geometry so they can continue their thesis research at the Laundromat), I’m talking about your average, run-of-the-mill 2-year-old with poop in her diaper and a bright future of walking her own kids across the street at 11PM on a Tuesday night thanks to the brilliant example her mother is setting.
I wish I were kidding about that. I’m not. I’ve seen it on more than one occasion, along with other mind-bending feats of mental prowess ranging from seeing 3 guys carrying a shopping cart full of groceries down the street to the countless numbers of young children (5, 6, 7-year olds) riding their bikes in the middle of the street at all hours of the day. And night. Late night. This is not some small residential street in a sleepy town, it’s what’s known as a major thoroughfare where I’m guessing at least 10,000 cars a day pass through. At speed.
Enough about the people walking and riding their bikes, because if it comes down to a confrontation between someone walking and me driving my Durango, I will always win. And I will win twice on Sundays. My car has already proven itself in mortal combat against a deer. Which reminds me, I should probably find an artist to paint a small deer on my front quarter panel and then put a little red X through it, just to dissuade any other deer from challenging my ride to a game of chicken. Maybe I will even embellish the picture by painting the deer the colors of the Texas flag, star and everything.
Now there’s an idea. I just hope I don’t have to commission the same artist to draw a little picture of a person with a red X through it, mostly because I don’t want to go through the process of finding out what state and/or country that person is from so I could pass that on to the artist.
The bottom line is that stupid people are walking everywhere down here and apart from the emotional turmoil I would experience from running down a family of morons, I would probably have the hardest time filling out the paperwork to nominate them for a Darwin Award at the end of the year. That and having to deal with higher insurance rates.
The thing that is the scariest about living down here in Mini Mexico is the fact that NOBODY knows how to drive. I have been genuinely terrified for my life at least 3 times a week down here just because of the way people drive. They come flying up to the ends of the side streets and slam their brakes on at the last second. They change lanes without signaling or really even needing a reason to. And I thought the drivers in Tucson were bad.
So far, though, I have encountered one driver who was so bad that I felt compelled to write about her. She was driving a red Dodge Avenger. Fast. Really fast. I’m guessing she was listening to ‘N Sync or a Backstreet Boys CD and forgot she was in control of a 3,500 pound battering ram. First she drove about 35 though a 15MPH school zone until she caught up with me (I don’t know why she was after me, but it sure seemed like she had an agenda). Then, she stayed right on my tail until we got to where the turn off where we were both turning left.
I was heading to the gym. She was heading to CiCi’s Pizza. The all-you-can-eat buffet. And I guarantee she was going to eat all she could. But only if she could pry herself out of her car. That girl was big. More than just big. Biggie big.
And before anyone jumps all over me about weight discrimination and all that crap, let me cut you off at the pass. I am a big dude. At my last weigh-in I tipped the scales at 290 pounds. I know what it’s like to be big. I’m just not biggie big, because I have always tempered my trips to the all-you-can-eat buffet with 2-3 hour torture sessions in the gym the next day. I don’t get skinny, because I like to eat, but I GUARANTEE I move better than 95% of the 300 pounders in the country.
If I didn’t do that, I could easily cross the line from being big to being BIGGIE BIG, but as it stands, I don’t, so I will pass my judgments on a 400-pounder who almost ran me off the road to get to her coveted pepperoni and cheese. In retrospect, I think she might have been scared that I was going to get the last slice of Cheesy Supreme and she was going to have to wait 5 extra minutes to get the cheese count in her blood to a satisfactory viscosity level. Either that or she was so big she was driving like a maniac to test the theory that she could be her own airbag in a front-end collision.
Only she knows for sure, but after the gym tomorrow I might stop by CiCi’s Pizza and see if they can include a driving instruction booklet with every 10th piece of pizza taken from the buffet. Maybe if she collects enough of those she might read one during the commercials on Maury while waiting for the paternity tests to come through and the next time I see her I won’t be able to see that she’s singing a Justin Timberlake song by reading her lips in my rearview mirror while I’m traveling 45 MPH.
Maybe.
B!
P.S.—I bet if she cuts herself shaving, syrup pours out. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Especially the part of Mesa where I live, which should change it’s name from Mesa to Baby Mexico or Nogales North or something like that. I’ve never driven in Mexico, and from the way people drive around my neighborhood I don’t think I ever want to because, apparently, they don’t have driving laws down there. Or crosswalks. Or brains.
There has to be some kind of rational thought that would cross a mother’s mind before dressing herself all in black and standing in the middle of a 40 MPH road at 11 O’clock on a Tuesday night with a FUCKING BABY CARRIAGE and a 2-year-old in tow. And I’m not talking about a smart-looking 2-year-old (you know, the kind that carries around books about fractal geometry so they can continue their thesis research at the Laundromat), I’m talking about your average, run-of-the-mill 2-year-old with poop in her diaper and a bright future of walking her own kids across the street at 11PM on a Tuesday night thanks to the brilliant example her mother is setting.
I wish I were kidding about that. I’m not. I’ve seen it on more than one occasion, along with other mind-bending feats of mental prowess ranging from seeing 3 guys carrying a shopping cart full of groceries down the street to the countless numbers of young children (5, 6, 7-year olds) riding their bikes in the middle of the street at all hours of the day. And night. Late night. This is not some small residential street in a sleepy town, it’s what’s known as a major thoroughfare where I’m guessing at least 10,000 cars a day pass through. At speed.
Enough about the people walking and riding their bikes, because if it comes down to a confrontation between someone walking and me driving my Durango, I will always win. And I will win twice on Sundays. My car has already proven itself in mortal combat against a deer. Which reminds me, I should probably find an artist to paint a small deer on my front quarter panel and then put a little red X through it, just to dissuade any other deer from challenging my ride to a game of chicken. Maybe I will even embellish the picture by painting the deer the colors of the Texas flag, star and everything.
Now there’s an idea. I just hope I don’t have to commission the same artist to draw a little picture of a person with a red X through it, mostly because I don’t want to go through the process of finding out what state and/or country that person is from so I could pass that on to the artist.
The bottom line is that stupid people are walking everywhere down here and apart from the emotional turmoil I would experience from running down a family of morons, I would probably have the hardest time filling out the paperwork to nominate them for a Darwin Award at the end of the year. That and having to deal with higher insurance rates.
The thing that is the scariest about living down here in Mini Mexico is the fact that NOBODY knows how to drive. I have been genuinely terrified for my life at least 3 times a week down here just because of the way people drive. They come flying up to the ends of the side streets and slam their brakes on at the last second. They change lanes without signaling or really even needing a reason to. And I thought the drivers in Tucson were bad.
So far, though, I have encountered one driver who was so bad that I felt compelled to write about her. She was driving a red Dodge Avenger. Fast. Really fast. I’m guessing she was listening to ‘N Sync or a Backstreet Boys CD and forgot she was in control of a 3,500 pound battering ram. First she drove about 35 though a 15MPH school zone until she caught up with me (I don’t know why she was after me, but it sure seemed like she had an agenda). Then, she stayed right on my tail until we got to where the turn off where we were both turning left.
I was heading to the gym. She was heading to CiCi’s Pizza. The all-you-can-eat buffet. And I guarantee she was going to eat all she could. But only if she could pry herself out of her car. That girl was big. More than just big. Biggie big.
And before anyone jumps all over me about weight discrimination and all that crap, let me cut you off at the pass. I am a big dude. At my last weigh-in I tipped the scales at 290 pounds. I know what it’s like to be big. I’m just not biggie big, because I have always tempered my trips to the all-you-can-eat buffet with 2-3 hour torture sessions in the gym the next day. I don’t get skinny, because I like to eat, but I GUARANTEE I move better than 95% of the 300 pounders in the country.
If I didn’t do that, I could easily cross the line from being big to being BIGGIE BIG, but as it stands, I don’t, so I will pass my judgments on a 400-pounder who almost ran me off the road to get to her coveted pepperoni and cheese. In retrospect, I think she might have been scared that I was going to get the last slice of Cheesy Supreme and she was going to have to wait 5 extra minutes to get the cheese count in her blood to a satisfactory viscosity level. Either that or she was so big she was driving like a maniac to test the theory that she could be her own airbag in a front-end collision.
Only she knows for sure, but after the gym tomorrow I might stop by CiCi’s Pizza and see if they can include a driving instruction booklet with every 10th piece of pizza taken from the buffet. Maybe if she collects enough of those she might read one during the commercials on Maury while waiting for the paternity tests to come through and the next time I see her I won’t be able to see that she’s singing a Justin Timberlake song by reading her lips in my rearview mirror while I’m traveling 45 MPH.
Maybe.
B!
P.S.—I bet if she cuts herself shaving, syrup pours out. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
It's A Good Thing Whoop Ass Comes In A Can
This is going to be a sport-related blog, so for those of you who don’t like sports, go ahead on and find something else to do with your time. Go macramé yourself a quilt or milk a goat or do some scrapbooking or whatever the hell it is that people do when they aren’t watching sports or talking about them.
Scrapbooking? I just don’t get it. Sure it’s nice to have a book that you can go to and reference all the good times you’ve had when there just happened to be a camera along with you while you were drunk. But you know what else is fun? Going out and actually having a good time that you might take pictures of and one day put in a scrapbook. Then, on that Sunday afternoon when you were going to go spend the afternoon with 79 sheets of multi-colored paper, a shoebox full of pictures, a Matchbox 20 CD and 19 different types of glue spread out across your bed, you take all that stuff, put it in a drawer and go out and get drunk instead.
Trust me, it will be just as much fun. If not more. Just make sure you bring a camera. And put a Matchbox 20 song on the jukebox, just for fun.
The thing with scrapbooks, and pictures in general, is that the only purpose they seem to serve is giving you a reference to how skinny you used to be or how small your puppy/baby/lawn/beer gut used to be. Who needs that? The only thing I need telling me how cute I USED to be is my own skewed memory, not some piece of hard evidence that could one day be used against me in a court of law.
Which brings me to my point, which is that pretty much everything we do is just a waste of time anyway. Honestly, everything we are doing, or going to do, is just something to pass the time away while we wait to die. Especially scrapbooking.
Is that a downer or what?
That wasn’t really my point. The whole reason I started writing this thing was because I thought of something I thought was really clever last night and I decided that my fragile ego needed to get that thought out into the cyber world.
We watched the EliteXC fights last night on CBS. Kimbo Slice was the main headliner and he got TKO’d in 14 seconds by a guy who used to be the UFC heavyweight champion. No big deal there, because I had been saying he was a fraud all along and I couldn’t wait for him to fight somebody who knew what the hell they were doing instead of some bum off the streets.
Nope, the big news was the Gina Carano fight. I don’t know the name of the girl she fought against, and that’s kind of the point. The only reason I know who Gina Carano is results from the fact that she is hot. Like crazy hot. Like “I wish she would pose in Playboy” hot (you hear me Hef? Get on that, stat!).
In the pre-fight interview, the lady interviewing Gina had a quote along the lines of, “I think you are living proof that girls want to open up a can of Whoop Ass every now and again. You really inspire a lot of girls to go out there and open one up.”
First off, I don’t think that’s very professional for an interviewer to drop the name of a product like that without proper compensation. Second, the only reason a lot of guys EVER watch girl fights is that they really and truly hope that at some point a boob will pop out of a top. Never mind that Gina Carano actually has skills beyond being an American Gladiator and could probably punch the life out of me without even breaking a sweat OR putting her hair in cornrows first.
The reason I watched those fights last night was to see Gina Carano in any way, shape or form (but the most preferable form would have been topless or at least a little bit chilly in her form-fitting shirt) and to see Kimbo Slice get beat by somebody who actually knows what the hell they are doing in the ring.
Last night’s real winner? Me. Hell yeah. Except for the topless part. Curses!
Which brings me to my REAL point in this blog. Isn’t it good that Whoop Ass comes in a can? If it only came in jars, girls wouldn’t be able to open it. They’d have to give it to a man to open for them. Then what would we watch on TV?
Lucky us.
I wonder if Gina Carano will scrapbook the press clippings for her win last night?
B!
Scrapbooking? I just don’t get it. Sure it’s nice to have a book that you can go to and reference all the good times you’ve had when there just happened to be a camera along with you while you were drunk. But you know what else is fun? Going out and actually having a good time that you might take pictures of and one day put in a scrapbook. Then, on that Sunday afternoon when you were going to go spend the afternoon with 79 sheets of multi-colored paper, a shoebox full of pictures, a Matchbox 20 CD and 19 different types of glue spread out across your bed, you take all that stuff, put it in a drawer and go out and get drunk instead.
Trust me, it will be just as much fun. If not more. Just make sure you bring a camera. And put a Matchbox 20 song on the jukebox, just for fun.
The thing with scrapbooks, and pictures in general, is that the only purpose they seem to serve is giving you a reference to how skinny you used to be or how small your puppy/baby/lawn/beer gut used to be. Who needs that? The only thing I need telling me how cute I USED to be is my own skewed memory, not some piece of hard evidence that could one day be used against me in a court of law.
Which brings me to my point, which is that pretty much everything we do is just a waste of time anyway. Honestly, everything we are doing, or going to do, is just something to pass the time away while we wait to die. Especially scrapbooking.
Is that a downer or what?
That wasn’t really my point. The whole reason I started writing this thing was because I thought of something I thought was really clever last night and I decided that my fragile ego needed to get that thought out into the cyber world.
We watched the EliteXC fights last night on CBS. Kimbo Slice was the main headliner and he got TKO’d in 14 seconds by a guy who used to be the UFC heavyweight champion. No big deal there, because I had been saying he was a fraud all along and I couldn’t wait for him to fight somebody who knew what the hell they were doing instead of some bum off the streets.
Nope, the big news was the Gina Carano fight. I don’t know the name of the girl she fought against, and that’s kind of the point. The only reason I know who Gina Carano is results from the fact that she is hot. Like crazy hot. Like “I wish she would pose in Playboy” hot (you hear me Hef? Get on that, stat!).
In the pre-fight interview, the lady interviewing Gina had a quote along the lines of, “I think you are living proof that girls want to open up a can of Whoop Ass every now and again. You really inspire a lot of girls to go out there and open one up.”
First off, I don’t think that’s very professional for an interviewer to drop the name of a product like that without proper compensation. Second, the only reason a lot of guys EVER watch girl fights is that they really and truly hope that at some point a boob will pop out of a top. Never mind that Gina Carano actually has skills beyond being an American Gladiator and could probably punch the life out of me without even breaking a sweat OR putting her hair in cornrows first.
The reason I watched those fights last night was to see Gina Carano in any way, shape or form (but the most preferable form would have been topless or at least a little bit chilly in her form-fitting shirt) and to see Kimbo Slice get beat by somebody who actually knows what the hell they are doing in the ring.
Last night’s real winner? Me. Hell yeah. Except for the topless part. Curses!
Which brings me to my REAL point in this blog. Isn’t it good that Whoop Ass comes in a can? If it only came in jars, girls wouldn’t be able to open it. They’d have to give it to a man to open for them. Then what would we watch on TV?
Lucky us.
I wonder if Gina Carano will scrapbook the press clippings for her win last night?
B!
Friday, October 3, 2008
Little Kato In The House--A Repost Because I Have A Picture Now
Once upon a time, on a dark and stormy night, call me Ishmael, there was a group of friends wandering the streets of Flagstaff looking for a good time. The group was wandering into a watering hole called Collin's Irish Pub when one of the members saw a poster on the wall next to the door.
"Dude, there's midget wrestling at Flagstaff High School next Wednesday."
"Sweet, lets get tickets. But for now, lets get drunk."
So a week passed and our eager protagonists lined up, excitedly, outside of the Flagstaff High School gymnasium, celebrating something for a friend named Toddler (either a birthday party or bachelor party, alcohol and time have blurred facts in this instance) by boring him to tears with the prospect of midgets beating the crap out of each other. The gates opened and our group of ne'er-do-wells procured themselves some prime seats for the gala.
While the pre-show autograph session was in play, an astute member of the group noticed that Little Kato had taken a liking to a young, 19-year-old friend of the group named Jenne (who would later on become the reason for another friend's bachelor party, interestingly enough). A member of the group, Zoom perhaps, convinced Jenne to tell Little Kato that she would meet him at a bar called Maloney's after the show was over.
Little did Kato know (ha ha, that's kind of punny) that Jenne couldn't even get into the bar and the setup was just part of the groups nefarious plan to buy a midget a beer. Kato was all too eager to meet Jenne after the show. The bait was set.
As soon as Kato's performance was over (he rassled Beautiful Bobby, of that I am sure) the entire group made a bee-line straight to Maloney's and began the process of drinking WAYYY too much beer in the form of 32 ounce mugs of goodness. Most of the group had gone through 2 of these mugs and were working on a third when, lo and behold, LITTLE KATO walked through the door, alone.
A rousing cheer went up from the table, for their bait had worked and a midget was now standing in their favorite bar. Kato gave the group an evil eye and proceeded to walk around the bar, looking for Jenne, who had gone home after the show to do whatever it is 19-year-old people did in those days.
After Kato had looped the bar once, the group yelled to him to come over and have a seat because we LOVED his performance and we wanted to buy him a beer. He looked around, saw no other groups of people offering him a beer, and came to the table.
I immediately pulled up a stool to the table, which is funny because the stool was almost as tall as he was. He climbed up the stool like it was a ladder (or scaffolding, perhaps) and introduced himself. When we offered him a big, man size 32 OZ beer, he shook his little nub fingers in front of his face in fear and decided to go with a pint because it would look the same in his hands as a quart does in our hands.
Long story short, one beer became two, two became four, and all of us became drunk. Kato even managed to buy us a round of beer. THEN, to add glory to an already glorious story, a Budweiser rep came up to the table and asked what we were drinking.
"Coors Light. YAY!!!" was the reply.
"Well, if you drink Budweiser the rest of the night the next round is on me, plus I'll give you all a hat."
"Budweiser. YAY!!!"
So after a round of beer that we probably didn't need, Kato decided he needed to go hang out with the rest of the wrestlers at another bar in Flagstaff. I, being a gentleman and a scholar and a guy who wanted a midget in his car, offered him a ride. He told us that if we gave him a ride he would get us into the new bar by telling them we were part of his ring crew.
We piled into the car and I drove, KJ (all 6'8" of him) rode in the front seat and J-Credible and Zoom sat on either side of Kato who was sitting in the "bitch" seat in the second row of seats in my Durango. KJ had the Kool-Aid-est grin I've ever seen in my life and actually spent the entire ride turned in his seat, staring at Little Kato and laughing. KJ had to go home for some reason so we dropped him off and Little Kato took his place in the front seat. We went to the bar and continued having one of the best nights ever.
Two things have come from this evening: Sitting shotgun is no longer called shotgun in my circle, it is called sitting Little Kato. And, sometimes I am able to remember the vision of a midget sitting next to me in my ride and I laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh . . .
B!
P.S.-if anyone who was there wants to add anything to this, please feel free. I was drink drank drunk that night. And yes I drove and yes I have learned my lesson and I don't do that anymore, so don't give me any shit.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
A Lesson In Clumsy Horses
So, I don’t know how many of you know this or not, but I found out recently that when someone is barrel racing with a horse, rodeo stylee, and the horse falls down or runs into a barrel or throws the rider, it is known as a “horse wreck.”
I’m not kidding. In rodeo-land, horses actually wreck.
I can’t stop giggling about this one.
I have seen plenty of animals fall down in my lifetime. I have personally spent at least 80 hours of my life trying to find a way to trip a dog. I’ve seen ducks fall down, penguins, goats, sheep, dogs, cats, even a bird once. NEVER did I say to myself, “Wow, I just watched a goat wreck.”
Apparently I was watching the wrong animals if I wanted to see a wreck.
And before you start thinking I am making this shit up, I got it from 2 sources (both rodeo barrel riders) in different conversations about what happens when you fall off the horse. You are in a horse wreck, naturally, you silly ass bastard.
So I promised them that I would come up with a better term for them to use the next time their horse is involved in an “incident” because, honestly, the word ‘wreck’ has a connotation that REQUIRES metal to be involved in it as far as I am concerned. Cars wreck, motorcycles wreck, boats wreck, bicycles wreck. Horses DO NOT wreck.
The problem I am running into right now is that I am drawing a blank on what term should be used instead of wreck. I looked up some synonyms but none of them quite do justice to the video in my head of a horse falling down.
I thought I might try to go with a celebrity name, i.e. “I’m in the hospital because my horse Oprah’ed on me and there were limbs twisted everywhere.” Or, “Holy shit, did you see that Rosie at the Kentucky Derby? It was like a 7 horse pileup.”
But I don’t think so. I think this one is going to have to be a completely new, never-before-seen type of word, mostly because I don’t want Oprah suing me and the thought of Rosie O’Donnell kind of makes me want to poop on myself or on people next to me.
So here are some choices I have come up with. Please, help me out and vote for your favorite, or add your own candidate, because I told the barrel racers who keep “wrecking” their horses that I would have a better word for them by this Friday:
dernk brangle gord smalmatation dobble
briange blat chingle trammterfuge boof
charkle stintch carntock mantelflam trink
Oh, and for those who care about tripping a dog, the consensus on this maneuver is that you need to be laying on the floor and the dog has to be running past you and not paying attention to you while you stick both of your arms out, catching both the front and the back legs at EXACTLY the same instant.
Sure it’s kind of mean, but the laughter that results will MORE than make up for any guilt you might have about tripping your dog.
Oh, and cats deserve to be tripped. And so do ducks.
B!
I’m not kidding. In rodeo-land, horses actually wreck.
I can’t stop giggling about this one.
I have seen plenty of animals fall down in my lifetime. I have personally spent at least 80 hours of my life trying to find a way to trip a dog. I’ve seen ducks fall down, penguins, goats, sheep, dogs, cats, even a bird once. NEVER did I say to myself, “Wow, I just watched a goat wreck.”
Apparently I was watching the wrong animals if I wanted to see a wreck.
And before you start thinking I am making this shit up, I got it from 2 sources (both rodeo barrel riders) in different conversations about what happens when you fall off the horse. You are in a horse wreck, naturally, you silly ass bastard.
So I promised them that I would come up with a better term for them to use the next time their horse is involved in an “incident” because, honestly, the word ‘wreck’ has a connotation that REQUIRES metal to be involved in it as far as I am concerned. Cars wreck, motorcycles wreck, boats wreck, bicycles wreck. Horses DO NOT wreck.
The problem I am running into right now is that I am drawing a blank on what term should be used instead of wreck. I looked up some synonyms but none of them quite do justice to the video in my head of a horse falling down.
I thought I might try to go with a celebrity name, i.e. “I’m in the hospital because my horse Oprah’ed on me and there were limbs twisted everywhere.” Or, “Holy shit, did you see that Rosie at the Kentucky Derby? It was like a 7 horse pileup.”
But I don’t think so. I think this one is going to have to be a completely new, never-before-seen type of word, mostly because I don’t want Oprah suing me and the thought of Rosie O’Donnell kind of makes me want to poop on myself or on people next to me.
So here are some choices I have come up with. Please, help me out and vote for your favorite, or add your own candidate, because I told the barrel racers who keep “wrecking” their horses that I would have a better word for them by this Friday:
dernk brangle gord smalmatation dobble
briange blat chingle trammterfuge boof
charkle stintch carntock mantelflam trink
Oh, and for those who care about tripping a dog, the consensus on this maneuver is that you need to be laying on the floor and the dog has to be running past you and not paying attention to you while you stick both of your arms out, catching both the front and the back legs at EXACTLY the same instant.
Sure it’s kind of mean, but the laughter that results will MORE than make up for any guilt you might have about tripping your dog.
Oh, and cats deserve to be tripped. And so do ducks.
B!
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
That's Okay Because I Pooped On Myself
I know I should be writing my book right now, but I don’t feel like it so fuck off and stop trying to control my life. I am going to write this instead because it takes less preparation than book writing and I can feel like I accomplished something today even though we all know this blog is just a bunch of bull puckey. And who knows, this puckey may end up in the book anyway and you can all feel like a bunch of special monkeys for getting a free preview of a small portion of the greatest book ever written.
Lucky F’ers.
Anyway, to get it started, over the past few weeks I have taken notice of a disturbing trend among some people during conversations. It always seems to happen the same way and in the EXACT same phrasing and after I started to notice it, it began to make me want to go pummel a clown. Or even a lion tamer. Basically any circus worker, actually. And since I am kind of jealous of the circus worker’s lifestyle, I don’t want to go around beating them mercilessly in case I end up trying to join their union or something. So let me tell you what I have noticed so you can stop people from doing it around me.
In a conversation with a few people, what happens is that you all take turns telling stories about a certain topic and then that topic morphs into another topic and another topic and so on and so on until someone passes out or starts having sex. Some people completely ruin the flow by starting all of their stories with “That’s okay ‘cause I . . . “
Let’s just say that I have just told a very riveting story about the time we were having a slam-dunk contest at the toy store I used to manage and somebody let the ball roll into the mall where a guy walking by accidentally kicked it and it bounced off of an old woman’s face and right into my hands. Invariably someone in the conversation will follow my story with these words or words very similar to these, “That’s okay ‘cause I tripped over a squirrel once and dropped a box of Nutter Butters.”
There are two things that happen when someone starts off a sentence with, “That’s okay ‘cause I . . . “
#1. I automatically know my story was better because they had to try to discount it by telling me that it was okay. I already know it’s okay because I am not only still here to tell you the story, I’m still here telling a story that is way better than anything you have in your repertoire.
#2. I stop listening to your story because I am wondering where I can find a clown to attack.
I will trump any story that person may have to say because I have not only pooped on myself as an adult but I have been spit on a walrus (unfortunately not at the same time, because that would probably trump even the bible for greatest story ever told). I will NOT, however, tell my story by saying, “That’s okay ‘cause I got spit on a walrus once and now I’m afraid of Wilford Brimley.”
I will tell my story this way, “Your story sucked ass you prick. But that’s okay ‘cause I got spit on by Wilford Brimley once and now I’m afraid of walruses.”
Just kidding.
Oh, and as a side note, I highly recommend that the next time you get a group of people together at a party with some alcohol flowing you should begin the evening with “Adult Poop On Self” stories. It lightens the mood and you can find out that ALL girls are liars because they won’t admit that they ever pooped on themselves as an adult.
It also opens the way for ANY other topic because as soon as someone has a visual of you as an adult with poop running down your leg nothing seems off-limits. You can even talk about politics after the proverbial “poop ice” has been broken.
Just a few party-planning tips from a guy who once spit on Wilford Brimley while riding a walrus that smelled like poop.
But that’s okay, ‘cause I fell down the stairs a couple of weeks ago.
B!
P.S.—I like myself. And Wilford Brimley. But not walruses.
Lucky F’ers.
Anyway, to get it started, over the past few weeks I have taken notice of a disturbing trend among some people during conversations. It always seems to happen the same way and in the EXACT same phrasing and after I started to notice it, it began to make me want to go pummel a clown. Or even a lion tamer. Basically any circus worker, actually. And since I am kind of jealous of the circus worker’s lifestyle, I don’t want to go around beating them mercilessly in case I end up trying to join their union or something. So let me tell you what I have noticed so you can stop people from doing it around me.
In a conversation with a few people, what happens is that you all take turns telling stories about a certain topic and then that topic morphs into another topic and another topic and so on and so on until someone passes out or starts having sex. Some people completely ruin the flow by starting all of their stories with “That’s okay ‘cause I . . . “
Let’s just say that I have just told a very riveting story about the time we were having a slam-dunk contest at the toy store I used to manage and somebody let the ball roll into the mall where a guy walking by accidentally kicked it and it bounced off of an old woman’s face and right into my hands. Invariably someone in the conversation will follow my story with these words or words very similar to these, “That’s okay ‘cause I tripped over a squirrel once and dropped a box of Nutter Butters.”
There are two things that happen when someone starts off a sentence with, “That’s okay ‘cause I . . . “
#1. I automatically know my story was better because they had to try to discount it by telling me that it was okay. I already know it’s okay because I am not only still here to tell you the story, I’m still here telling a story that is way better than anything you have in your repertoire.
#2. I stop listening to your story because I am wondering where I can find a clown to attack.
I will trump any story that person may have to say because I have not only pooped on myself as an adult but I have been spit on a walrus (unfortunately not at the same time, because that would probably trump even the bible for greatest story ever told). I will NOT, however, tell my story by saying, “That’s okay ‘cause I got spit on a walrus once and now I’m afraid of Wilford Brimley.”
I will tell my story this way, “Your story sucked ass you prick. But that’s okay ‘cause I got spit on by Wilford Brimley once and now I’m afraid of walruses.”
Just kidding.
Oh, and as a side note, I highly recommend that the next time you get a group of people together at a party with some alcohol flowing you should begin the evening with “Adult Poop On Self” stories. It lightens the mood and you can find out that ALL girls are liars because they won’t admit that they ever pooped on themselves as an adult.
It also opens the way for ANY other topic because as soon as someone has a visual of you as an adult with poop running down your leg nothing seems off-limits. You can even talk about politics after the proverbial “poop ice” has been broken.
Just a few party-planning tips from a guy who once spit on Wilford Brimley while riding a walrus that smelled like poop.
But that’s okay, ‘cause I fell down the stairs a couple of weeks ago.
B!
P.S.—I like myself. And Wilford Brimley. But not walruses.
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