The Omen

Halloween’s later this month and I’m in the mood for a good fright. I miss old-fashioned horror movies, those movies that would get inside your head, make you nervous about rounding corners in your own house at night. It’s fun when you can’t decide whether you’re more afraid of what might be around the corner or just embarrassed that a part of you is actually entertaining the notion that the boogeyman might really exist.

 

When you’re little these movies can seriously freak you out, have you scared to look under your own bed until you’re old enough to buy alcohol. But at age 28 and trying to make comedy your life, enjoying music and being a little scared are often the only vacations the brain gets from the guilt of feeling like it should be trying to think of something funny and new at all times (easily one of the most obnoxious things about being a new comic or hanging out with new comics).

 

Just watched “The Omen” on OnDemand this weekend, forgot how cool this movie was. What I love about the older horror flicks is how much life in the movie seems reminiscent of the way real life functions or at least a serious drama. The pace of the action, the conversations, the problems characters are in the middle of facing when all hell starts breaking loose, it all seems relatively believable within the context, makes everything that much scarier.

 

All that stuff has gone to hell in most modern horror movies, too many of them start out looking like a lost episode of Dawson’s Creek or 7^th Heaven that degenerates in a brainless gore-fest. Feels like a 90 minute game show question “How many friends does a teenybopper have to lose before she realizes she’s in danger, that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to get drunk and play ‘hide and go get it’ in an abandoned amusement park, that no one just gets stabbed 12 times on an empty bumper car track?” The answer? All but one friend, who invariably survives just long enough to sacrifice himself and buy her dumb undeserving ass a little more time just before she gets saved or figures out how to kill the monster at the end. For me, good horror can make even the predictable unpredictable, good horror is all in the details and the characters.

 

Take Gregory Peck. That is one super-dignified white guy. I think he came out of the womb with a blazer on his back and half the lines from “To Kill a Mockingbird” already memorized. Gregory Peck doesn’t look like he’d believe that he missed his flight, much less that his son might the child of Satan, not without cause anyway.

 

He uses his intellect to fight that suspicion for pretty much the whole movie and you the viewer can identify with his sense of reason and belief in normalcy. The fact that all these loved ones and religious characters keep having these horrific “accidents” must be a matter of circumstance, right? No reason to get your security binkie out just yet. But then when he realizes this isn’t all just coincidence, that something larger or darker may be at work, that this child must be at the low end of the mental bell curve or just plain evil to be smiling at a time like this, in your mind you go “Oh sh*t, Gregory Peck thinks this is for real? Quick, someone get me a bedpan and lock the damn door!”

 

The credits roll and you think you’re cool at first. Three hours later, “…Hello, Mama? Oh nothing, I just wanted to say how much I love you… of course I’m fine, why, do I sound nervous? …Hey, keep an eye on that Barack fellow, you know he’s risen to the top pretty fast, almost unnaturally… What do we know about his dad again? …No, no, I’m just wondering just how much ‘help’ he’s had… and from ‘whom’… no, I’m not talking about Bill Ayers, good night Mom… hey, do you think it'd be alright if I drove down and slept with you and Dad?”

Testing Filaments and Rocket Skates

Dating is not for the faint of heart in 2008. The rules of the game change constantly, like trying to vote in the South during the Reconstruction; it’s not uncommon to get sent home completely frustrated and feeling like less than a man. Everyone who knows me personally knows that I don’t have the slightest idea what I’m doing out there. Anyone who wrote and posted his last blog entry at 10:30 on a Friday night will never be mistaken for Hitch.

 

My “method” (if one were charitable enough to call it that) amounts to simple, bone crushing, pride-swallowing trial and error. Almost but not quite the cool kind like where Edison was testing filaments for the light bulb; my style is more reminiscent of the Coyote chasing the Road Runner, convincing himself believe maybe the rocket skates will work THIS time.

 

That being said, I can’t tell you any “lines” that will help you close escrow with the opposite sex. What I can do is mention a few soundbytes you’ll probably want to avoid at all costs, at any point in the evening, or in life. Consider these a few less filaments for you to test; those skates will probably work this time…

 

“Would you like to try some of my bratwurst?”

 

“Don’t be so paranoid baby, I’m sayin’, it don’t even burn anymore”

 

“What are you talking about? I AM aroused.”

 

“I work on Wall Street.”

 

“You know, David Alan Grier is not that bad looking as a woman.”

 

“You know how many calories are in those things?”

 

“Wish I could remember how old these condoms were…”

 

“My kid is going to love you. That is, when he gets out of juvie… It wasn’t entirely his fault though, if the babysitter didn’t want it, he wouldn’t have been wearing those shorts…”

 

“So what are your thoughts on abortion?”

 

“You don’t know how limber you can be until you try hooking up on a twin size bed.”

 

“Your sister is not that bad looking as a woman.”

 

“I’m sayin’, we don’t have to START with that hole, we can work our way up to it…”

 

“Have you read the latest issues of ‘Astonishing X-Men’ and ‘New Avengers’?”

 

“Oh, was I supposed to be listening just now?”

 

“Where is the bathroom? Don’t think that bratwurst was such a good idea…”

 

“You’re pretty hungry there, aren’t you girl?”

 

“I have a van.”

Ignorant Things I’ll Do When I Get Rich, vol. 1

Track down the female relatives of misogynistic entertainers and court them expressly for the purpose of pouring alcohol on their booties. No grandmother’s bucket list is complete if she hasn’t had her bloomers soaked with Arbor Mist.

 

Have the American Chopper guys build me a custom motorcycle that I’ll be too scared to ride and end up just rolling out into the driveway every Saturday morning so the hotties who jog in my neighborhood can see me rubbing it down with Armor-all in my leather pants and muscle-less muscle shirt. Get carried away with the Armor-all, start rubbing down my leather pants. Realize how bad I look when neighbors step outside to find me massaging my own butt cheeks. Move. Leave leather pants in trashcan in driveway.

 

Rent a house in the Hollywood hills and throw coke parties without having any actual drugs on the premises. Probably won’t help me climb the social ladder, but what could more fun than a house full of dejected upper class junkies? Too fidgety to enjoy the crab dip, too polite to say just how much they were looking forward to scoring, you can’t put a price tag on that kind of entertainment.

 

Bring cock fighting and baby seal hunting to the mainstream so I can promote them as pay-per-view “family” events.

 

Open a chain of overpriced sub shops that uses 3 day-old meat and lots of jalapenos, even and especially when customers ask employees to “hold the jalapenos”.

 

Invest every dime I’ve got into a company that manufactures hickory smoked oatmeal cookies, pleated baseball caps and combustible cushions for flip-flop thongs.

 

Try to bulldoze a community center so I can build a shopping mall in its place, see whether the local youths really do band together through break dancing.

 

Tour parts of the country that are pro-McCain and see how many times I can pummel Muslims and Arabs before anyone questions the bigoted unconstitutional nature of my remarks. Extra style points will be awarded for use of the words “dirty”, “godless” “heathen”, and “whore”.

 

Become everything I ever made fun of when I didn’t have money.

 

Raise kids who think “please” and “thank you” are sarcastic taglines.

 

Hire a personal chef whose sole reason for being is to cook me scallops with butter sauce any time day or night.

 

Hire a personal heart surgeon to keep my soon-to-be-portly ass alive when my arteries harden from all the butter sauce.

 

Hire a rugged looking stable boy to bone my wife because I’ll be too fat for the exertion anymore. Get neurotic about my wife enjoying it more than I thought she should have, spend the next morning arguing. Earn extra style points for use of the words “dirty”, “godless”, “heathen”, and “whore”. Hire some guys to kick that stable boy’s ass. Feel bad for arguing with my wife, go pick up a bouquet of flowers, get mad and storm back out the house when I find she’s still not speaking to me. Hire some guys to kick that stable boy’s ass again.

 

Attempt to set up a Brazilian Barbeque in my basement, get careless with the embers during a party and burn down the back half of my house, including the file cabinet where I kept all my archived standup material and original script drafts. Wake up angry the next morning, hire some guys to kick that stable boy’s ass again.

 

Shoot my employees with a paintball gun whenever they displease me. Shoot them for dressing nice; shoot them for not dressing nice. Shoot them for having a sweet ass, shoot them for having no ass. Shoot them for letting the stapler run out without refilling it. Shoot them for not offering me coffee. Shoot them for not knowing I don’t drink coffee. Shoot them for not bringing me my bagel first on bagel day. Shoot them for bringing a handgun to work. Shoot them for asking me if I’m “ready to die, b*tch”. 

Cheering Up

So needless to say last night’s entry left a brother kinda wiped out, kinda stupefied, too spent to even search for answers. As I sat on my couch flipping between Keith Olbermann and what has to be my 50^th viewing of “Casino” (does anyone ever really tire of seeing James Woods get his ass kicked or Joe Pesci threaten Charlie the Banker?), began to make a mental list of other things that brighten my mood when the spiritual chips are down. Here are some of my faves:

 

The theme song to “Tiny Toons. Seems random and infantile but it’s impossible to sing this whole song aloud or even listen to it without cracking up from embarrassment. How did my Dad manage to stomach sitting through entire episodes of this show with my brother and I after school? That’s love. If I were ever to rob a bank or end up in a police standoff and wanted the hostages to think I was capable of anything, I’d make the bank manager sing that song while marching in place in his blazer and boxers, hitting him and/or a random onlooker with my rifle butt whenever he got a lyric wrong. If I were a young hostage, seeing something like that would probably put me off cartoons and boxer shorts for the rest of my life.

 

Cocoa Butter. Certain cosmetic products like lipstick make no sense to me. Cocoa butter is not one of them. I love what this stuff does for the softer sex. Is like getting a girl’s otherwise average legs digitally remastered in high def. There’s no more muscle tone than was there before, no less stubble either, but everything looks better when it’s shiny, right?

 

The first day after payday. As close as I come to feeling like a high roller. Steak and eggs for breakfast, on a Thursday. A lunch that costs more than $10. Buying people drinks for no reason at all. Pay off my bills like it’s the Death List Five. Two days later it may be back to ramen and hot dogs, rationed bologna and stale cheetos, but that first day is glory like the Battle Hymn Republic.

 

The way your room looks so much cleaner just because you made your bed. This tactic is extremely high yield in the perception department, especially considering how little time it takes. I wish there were other quick fixes in life that paid off this handsomely, would abuse the system like it was the slowest child in the factory.

 

Going to museums with friends and making distractingly inappropriate remarks about the art. The acoustics in those places are fantastic, nothing takes the potency a field trip lecture or the intimacy of a first date like overhearing some clown exclaim from the other side of the room “check out those mammaries son, makes me wish I was a baby!”

 

UFC matches where one of the fighters has been talking real cocky, only to walk face first into a roundhouse kick within the opening seconds of round one. Especially enjoy the post-fight interviews where fighters get reflective and talk about how getting kicked in the face brought them closer to their Lord and Savior. I’m sure it did sir, the way he knocked you out, you almost got to meet Him. My other favorite thing about short UFC fights is when it’s a pay-per-view party and everybody starts looking at each other afterward like “what do we do now? Got any weed? Beer pong? Nothing? I should be heading home…”

 

Free meals. A lot of vendors come by my office to pitch their building products; you’d be surprised how much more receptive you are to buying windows when eating a panini you didn’t pay for.

 

Tom Brady getting sacked repeatedly in Superbowl XLII. I know my Patriots fan-friends won’t like me for still reveling in this but oh baby baby was that ever sweet. Can’t stand the Patriots, I hate them almost more than I love football. I know his leg’s busted and that sucks because the League loses when it’s deprived of it’s best competitors, blah blah blah, yackety shmackety, but on a visceral level, I’d rather watch Tom Brady get sacked than be a judge at a lap dance contest. New York is Washington’s division rival, but for me, that was the most emotionally satisfying football moment since Superbowl XXVI. I literally cried the night the Eagles lost to the Pats in the Superbowl a few years ago, vowed to never watch football again, the pain was too great. “Never again” turned out to be “until the start of the next season”, but who’s counting? Tom Brady, I can’t wait til you come back man, watching sacks just isn’t the same without you.

 

Trying to eat nachos quietly in a crowded movie theater. Don’t look at me like that sir? I know it’s almost as loud to you as it sounds in my head, but no one should be this uptight while watching “Stealth”.

 

Seeing pundits get their comeuppance. Thank you Robert Gibbs. I wish I had a uterus so I could carry that guy’s baby. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgn6rjGbp0c  Out-Friggin’-standing.

Post-Election Programming

I’m a devout MSNBC viewer. I know it’s got a shameless liberal bias that I have to constantly winnow through for some semblance of truth, but Keith Olbermann cracks me up. Would rather read the day’s top stories off a bathroom wall or used toilet tissue before watching Fox News. That channel is so conservative I’ve considered using a map and thumbtacks to keep track of cities where the station’s number one, so I know where not to take interracial dates or be found walking the streets without a King James Bible in hand. Of course there’s CNN, but who can get their news from a guy named Lou Dobbs? That’s not a good name for news, sounds like somebody who makes cheesesteaks for a living, maybe spends his free time scalping tickets to gun shows and getting hustled out of his mortgage money in backwater billiard halls.

 

As I mentioned yesterday, I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to watch once this election is over. Heaven knows it won’t be “LockUp”. I’ll never understand the placement of that show; does the standard MSNBC viewer really need to be reminded that jail is not a nice place? Do middle class middle-aged white people ever forget to be scared of disadvantaged minorities or big Aryan dudes who want to make you one of their wives?

 

They should run that show on other channels where it could maybe do something useful, like right after Scarface airs for the zillionth time. Or maybe after those music videos where people act like they’ve got “hustle” just because they’re willing rhyme about to shedding blood and trafficking life-destroying narcotics into their own communities. Ooh, what enterprising individuals you are gentlemen, Andrew Carnegie would be proud, not to mention Dr. King. Such a sound logic… “Hey, why wait for ‘the Man’ to destoy us when we can destroy ourselves? That’ll show ‘em, we’re our own men…”

 

It’s like some bad brainstorming session. Can’t seem to get out of the hood? I got it, let’s make it look like the hood is an amazing place to be, a magical place, a place no one would ever want to leave. Look at all my cars and name brand sh*t! Look at my hat, it’s made of terrycloth, look at my shoes, this is the only time I’ll ever wear them. Isn’t that great? Definitely makes up for not developing character, growing as a person, or empathizing with other human beings, right?

 

C’mon dog, let’s glorify a life that is bereft of hope or opportunity. C’mon dog, let’s glorify a life devoid of a basic innocent smile, a smile free and unfettered by a lifetime of socio-economic baggage, or a laugh free of scorn, a laugh free of the kind of pain that can only be masked with haughtiness to stay sane. C’mon dog, let’s glorify a life where the most esteemed virtue is not real courage but rather a willingness to die, a willingness predicated not on grit, sacrifice or conviction to a higher ideal, only on the tragic belief that you have nothing left to lose. Yes sir, that sho is deep baby, we got this gangsta sh*t on lock son, let’s lay down some tracks, cause nothing says “party” and “dance” like a man with nothing to live for.

 

But hold on, it doesn’t just stop with you video whores. You’re so good at what you do, you’ve gone and influenced a whole generation of youths. They don’t want to read or think about doing anything constructive that might make this world substantively better for their children, they wanna play ball and ‘stack dat paper’ so they can grow up just to be like your dumb ass. Yeah, maybe they’ll die, maybe they’ll end up in jail, maybe they’ll get strung out on those fine narcotics you shipped them. Maybe they’re lost causes about to run out of time, but not before they lay down to hump the unprotected taint meat of every female they can get their hands on, spreading legs, spreading disease, spreading seed, creating truckloads of more misbegotten muthaf*ckas along the way, insuring that the cycle will never end.

 

Congratulations dear sirs, job well done, this is going to be a wonderful environment for me to one day bring up my kids in, I’m so happy for this opportunity. Stressing whether somebody’s going to beat the living hell out of my son on the school bus because he’s eight and still smiles and didn’t grow out of Bugs Bunny fast enough for their taste, or wondering whether some ignorant cornholer is going to catcall my daughter, daydream about pouring champagne off her ass, call her a bitch or “stuck up” just because she doesn’t want to give him her phone number or worse. What a brilliant, sweeping plan, a real stroke of genius. Excuse me if I don’t sound completely overjoyed; am just a little preoccupied right now hoping I can one day come up with something just as fun and fulfilling…

 

…

 

…

 

…Man, how the hell did I get so off topic? That’s the danger of free association and stream of consciousness writing. Right or wrong, feels like I just missed the bar in a trapeze act. Just realized this very moment that’s probably how my career is going to end. I’m gonna get real close to serious success and then f*ck up all these years of work with a random Cosby-esque outburst, only without the lovable sweater collection and high-class courderoys. What a sideshow that will be. Right or wrong, Jesse Jackson’s going to talk about cutting my nuts off and Al Sharpton’s going to imply that I’m “the worst kind of Tom”. Gonna end up with a reputation as an angry comic, will only be able to get gigs in Spike Lee Joints and John McCain rallies if I’m lucky, but in all likelihood will probably end up wherever Michael Richards ended up, picking up truckers’ spunky Kleenexes off the floors of some run-down porn theater in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Man, this comedy thing was a good investment of time and energy. Maybe I should sit down for some Lou Dobbs after all…

 

So much for “Post-Election Programming”, at least for today. I need to go somewhere and hug this out. Peace.

Evening the Odds

As election season winds to a close, it’s becoming clear that this most dignified horse race may be slipping away from the McCain-Palin ticket. The Republicans are one bad turn from breaking out insults about Obama’s mama and if things get much worse I fully expect Cindy McCain to storm the next Democratic fundraiser and try to start a food fight. Because I have no idea what I’ll watch on television once this election is over, I’ve taken it upon myself to jot down a few ideas may or may not help the McCain camp tighten things up in these last few weeks. These may not keep the race close, but they’ll at least keep it interesting…

 

-Burn your own house down and imply the DNC and Washington insiders had something to do with it.

 

-Call Obama “uppity” at tonight’s debate and demand he refrain from making eye contact with “his superiors”.

 

-Refer to Michelle Obama as “surprisingly articulate”, “the most relevant black woman since Butterfly McQueen” and sit back as Michelle goes ballistic the next day, terrifying white people both here and abroad for the next 12-16 years.

 

-Encourage Sarah Palin to criticize Malia and Natasha Obama for “not playing enough hockey”.

 

-Drop an anvil on his head from a cliff. It almost worked for Wile E. Coyote, and this guy can’t be as fast as the road runner, what have you got to lose?

 

-Get taken hostage by Islamic insurgents, who want to see another 10 billion in federal earmarks and pork barrel spending and insist on breaking one of your arms again just to show they mean business. Have Keifer Sutherland embark on an ill-advised solo rescue mission, and when he gets captured, mount an effort to rescue and carry him out of danger with your one good arm. Have a photographer on site when you bring Keifer across the border to friendly soil, make you’ve got a grenade pin lodged in your teeth. Poster slogan: “John McCain: Real American Hero.”

 

-Use CGI to create 80’s footage of Obama in Chicago, warming his hands over an oil drum full of burning babies and miscellaneous puppy parts.

 

-Have Sarah Palin challenge Joe Biden to a winner-take-all wet t-shirt contest.

 

-Start arriving at campaign events in a hot air balloon, sporting a top hat and spats and challenging random onlookers to a race around the world.

 

-Show up to tonight’s debate in a pair of ass-less chaps and stiletto leather boots. When your opponent looks puzzled, call him intolerant and talk about how you’re committed to bringing real change to Washington.

 

-Set up a photo op where Sarah Palin field dresses a still-breathing donkey, followed by the now-cold remains of John Edward’s career.

 

-Edit together an ad implying Obama was somehow involved with 9/11, Apartheid and the beheading of John the Baptist

 

-Get Tom Clancy to re-issue his books and re-dub his movies substituting the name John McCain in place of Jack Ryan

 

-Offer an incentive package to pundits who mispronounce your name as John McClane at least twice per broadcast. Everybody loves Diehard dude, you probably should’ve named Bruce Willis as your running mate.

 

-Schedule a concert featuring Seal, Mary J. Blige, and U2. Could there be a more unifying image than that of John McCain doing the worm to Mary J. Blige’s “Just Fine”? Wouldn’t matter if he supported the dissolution of civil liberties and questioned whether the Holocaust actually happened, no one can resist an old guy doing the worm.

 

The right to vote is probably wasted on people like me, thank you Lyndon Johnson.

Paper Towel Dispensers and Subaru Outbacks

What do these two objects have in common? They elicit from me a rage typically reserved for old plow horses and children you don’t realize are deaf. It’d be nice if the design teams for both were locked in a room and forced to listen to Alanis Morissette on an endless loop. Not a whole album. Just “You Oughta Know” for 72 hours without relief, without food, without light or bathroom breaks, see if we can’t push them to that point where people start giving up on God and begin carving pentagrams into their chests and thighs.

 

That would begin to approach the level of annoyance I experience every time I go into a restroom and see another one of those stupid electronic sensor dispensers, one of those self-righteous carbon-footprint-minded machines that’s going to give me 3 inches of paper before demanding in petulant silence that I wait 5 seconds before waving my hand again. Who the hell does this device think it is? Now I have to prove how bad I want my hands to be dry? It’s not enough I gotta dance for the Man at work, now I’ve got to dance for you too? I don’t like to start my day off swearing, but every morning that’s exactly what happens. I can give it to you word for word “…Gimme the f#%@ing paper you piece of s%*! a$$ f@#$ing whore! Do you have any idea what I could do with twenty five seconds and a sledgehammer? I will break open your face and take what is mine, laughing at your high-minded “green” designers as I walk out the door… Don’t test me b*$%#, I will end you!”

 

That’s a lot of anger to hold against an inanimate object, feel kinda spent just typing that. Have a strong urge to go pray somewhere and try to get my life right. But those dispensers really do make me mad. In the last six months I’ve been to my first strip club and in the last six months I’ve walked in upon a freshly destroyed paper towel dispenser; was disappointed beyond expression to find I was more excited by the sight of shattered plastic entrails than ice cube lathered nipples. The only thing that distracts me from my hatred of modern paper towel dispensers is the Subaru Outback.

 

My buddy Ryan Connor does a fantastic bit about Subarus, and ever since I heard it I can’t help but notice when I see them on the road. I live in Takoma Park, the San Francisco of the East, a haven for hippies, unchecked liberal aggression and stores where you can buy iridescent pantsuits for your unchecked liberal dog. There are a lot of Subarus in my community. I’d say at least 1 out of every 6 cars is an Outback and no less than 6 out of 6 of their proprietors drive like tourists in their own neighborhood. How is it possible to look so hopelessly indecisive at every single green light? Don’t you come home this way every day? Do you really need to look both ways 8 times before pulling out of your driveway? How do you make yourself drive 5 miles under a 10 mile-an-hour residential speed limit? Do you have to stop and debate grocery acquisitions with your wife at every last stop sign and speed bump?

 

It must be something in the design that makes owners drive like this. It would make sense, there’s something perverse about trying to make a station wagon “sporty”. It’s ridiculous, like racing stripes on dress shoes or old ladies who love displaying cleavage and hate bras. Whatever it is, their driving makes me want to toss babies into burning oil drums, and I only say oil drums because I have no idea where to get my hands on a boiling cauldron. Despise those cars so much… realized tonight if I heard the Obamas drove one, I’d actually consider voting McCain. It’d be me, Juan Williams and Mike Paul; the only brothers that confuse America more than O.J. To hell with terrorists, Tony Rezko and Reverend Wright; being associated with a sport utility wagon is a scandal that does not go away.

 

So, if you are a paper towel dispenser or a Subaru Outback and you are reading this right now, you’re probably wondering what can you do to make the peace, to quell this terrible animosity? Can’t guarantee anything, but one of you destroying the other would be a terrific start. Style points will be awarded for anything that takes more than two hours and involves humiliation, the desecration of graves, or gratuitous use of the word “whore”.

 

My name is Mike and I’m not always sure what’s going through my head either.

Lockstep

As someone who doesn’t own a car, I’ve logged quite a few hours as a pedestrian. I’ll be one of the only parents in this generation who’ll still be ranting to his kids about having walked 2 miles to and from work every day, in the snow… odd that own parents never actually hit me with that one… As a career pedestrian I’ve got to say I find it incredibly annoying when people walk the same pace as me within a ten-foot radius. It’s incredibly awkward, especially when the two of you are going the same direction for more than two minutes.

 

These are the same clowns who, when they do drive, linger in other people’s blind spots on the highway, hanging back by your driver side passenger door for five minutes straight, perplexed to see that surprised look on your face when you try to change lanes and almost take out the front quarter panel on their Dodge Intrepid. You’re lucky I looked over my shoulder “Robert”, because you and baby Bobby there were about to eat some serious embankment. I don’t think car seats or baby chins are rated for SUV tires or concrete retaining walls, might want to be more alert.

 

I can’t stand people who walk like that, lockstep with you, like you two are executing the world’s loneliest march. Girls will do it while they’re ahead of you, and then suddenly look back at you like you were deliberately following them. Don’t shoot me that look sister! I didn’t ask you to walk this direction, at that pace. Can I help it that we work in the same building or that after a year and a half you still don’t recognize me?

 

I’m just as uncomfortable as you are in this whole “following” thing; probably more so because I’m a minority and if push comes to shove, no one will believe a word I say. No matter how correct my grammar is, I’m getting invited to “talk about it down at the station” and being told to “watch my head”. I wore a cream-colored golf shirt to work today. Cream, son. I looked in my closet this morning and said “Yep, that’s me. I’m a cream man today.” You think I’m cut out for being in a police station, even for a few hours? I don’t even have to walk in the door to start crying, just pulling up in a squad car will have me weeping like a three-year old. Cream-colored golf shirt. I looked in the mirror this morning as I was leaving, the Southeast in me wanted to beat myself up as a reflex

 

“Get that mutha!… oh wait, that’s me. Ooh, I should get beat up good today…”

 

Back to the original point, I get so irritated with people who walk the same pace as me inside of ten feet, it’s probably a little unreasonable. I’ll be honest, this morning I fantasized about suplexing people on the sidewalk. A running drop quick to the small of the back at the very least. Something where you’re going to have to relearn how to walk, maybe this time around you’ll learn to walk without being an ass.

 

Wouldn’t that be great? Temporarily maiming a perfect stranger, a perfectly annoying stranger, and as they’re crying out “why did you do that?” lean down and calmly whisper in their ear “please mind your surroundings” and just walk away as if nothing happened. If you’re calm enough while you walk away, no one’s going to believe you just suplexed a perfect stranger in broad daylight. Not while wearing a cream-colored golf shirt. It doesn’t matter how loud the guy yells. It doesn’t matter if the guy describes you and knows your mother’s maiden name. Even people who actually saw you suplex him wouldn’t believe the guy, guys in cream-colored golf shirts don’t just randomly suplex perfect strangers on their walk to work, what they saw must’ve been performance art or CGI.

 

This would be the most brazen getaway since the restaurant scene in the Godfather, which means I absolutely have to do it now at some point. Fellow pedestrians, please be advised, mind your paces, because the suplexes… they are a-coming.

 

My name is Mike and some days are more antisocial than others.

Making it Hot, Making it Wet

I got to have lunch with my Dad Saturday afternoon. We ordered some kabobs and just chilled at a cafe table on the sidewalk, people watching, talking and laughing for hours. I’m very lucky to have my Dad; I joke a lot about being a mental case but with less capable parents I could have easily ended up as full-blown nut-job. Not like a cute, oh-isn’t-he-zany-let’s-invite-him-to-parties-so-we-can-watch-him-dance nut job, more like an I-can’t-believe-anyone-would-show-up-at-a-movie-theater-wearing-only-a-poncho nut job. Sometimes I think about all the guidance and advice he’s given me over the years, how much of it has come in handy, can tell I’m gonna have to have kids at some point just so I can pay it forward and get karma off my ass.

 

One of the things I admire most about my Dad is his honesty; it’s ruthless and brutal like an African dictator. Cuts deep and hot like a lightsaber fight in a coat closet, once you’re in there, you know nobody’s getting away unscathed. Good or bad he’s going to tell you the truth and let you deal with it however you want. I usually respond myself with a lot of half-started, frustrated-sounding sentence fragments, intermittent staring contests with the ground, and a pair of alarmingly moist armpits.

 

There are friends and family members who understandably make a conscious effort to avoid my father at all costs because they know given a few minutes he’s bound to make it hot for them. It’s never hateful or mean-spirited; he’s genuinely trying to help. I think that’s what makes stuff really sting sometimes; knowing that the person upsetting you is not only right, but that he or she is only speaking out of genuine empathetic concern. To make things worse, he regularly calls himself on his own B.S., so it’s not like you can even hope to one day find the footing to usurp the moral high ground. Takes away your right to be legitimately angry on your own terms, leaving irrational resentment as the only satisfactory recourse.

 

“Yeah, well you may be right hot shot, but you’re not getting an invitation to my party next month, so how bout THEM apples? …Oh I’ll invite you, but it’ll be a phone call like twenty minutes before the party starts… then we’ll really see whose to blame for my breakup, won’t we?”

 

He’ll tell you the truth, knowing it may well cost him his friendship with you. As an adult, those are the kind of people who have turned out to my most valued friends, people who will be honest with you about who they are, who don’t care about seeming perfect or poised and who can tell you when they disagree or think you’re full of sh*t (more often than I’d like to admit) without judging you and trust you to do the same for them. That all stems from my Dad and it’s cool to have had that influence. Think it’s important to take note of stuff like that while everybody’s in good health; he is the first and last role model for the kind of man I strive to be. Still got a long looong way to go yet, all we can do is keep moving. Speaking of moving, it’s time I wrapped up this Hallmark Channel tribute and got back to the point of this entry…

 

Chilling with my Pop had me reminiscing about growing up as I walked to work this morning. Was listening to Kanye West at the same time, remembered how I used to wet the bed as a kid. Me and the ole bladder put in some serious work between the ages of 2 and 5; like Eminem and Dr. Dre or the Funk Brothers, we was CRANKING. That poor mattress spent more time getting disinfected and drying out on the back porch than it did on my bed frame. You would’ve almost thought I was doing it just to be funny, taking pride in my output. Could imagine myself drinking coffee and cranberry juice before going to bed, taunting my folks as I marched upstairs, sounding like a cocky rapper about to hit the studio.

 

“I think I feel another hit coming on guys, no one can contain these flows baby… when I spray it’s GOLD!”

 

Gosh, those years sucked, waking up soaked and smelling like your diaper needs to be changed. That foolishness ain’t cute when you’re old enough to be taught manners. I’m not sure if I knew what dignity was at that age, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t have any on those nights. That’s probably why I didn’t go to prom; I didn’t believe in myself. I should’ve joined a boys and girls club, had Denzel Washington make a surprise visit, show me how to play badminton. That wouldn’t have made me believe in myself any more, but at least I could’ve told girls I’ve met Denzel Washington. If you can’t get your nerve up with an icebreaker like that, you don’t deserve to have tux and corsage money spent on you.

 

At any rate, I don’t think waking up soaked and stinking like a third world outhouse was the worst part of wetting the bed. It was two seconds later when you realized you’d have to wake your folks up so the post-Katrina clean up could commence. As a remembered, I never felt comfortable just walking in their bedroom, waking them up with a straight face and calm voice

 

“Hey there. I uh, (sniff) hate to be a pain, but I’m afraid I’ve had a bit of an accident, was wondering if I could trouble someone to be a dear and refresh my linens. So sorry about this… you know it sounded like you two were awake (sniff)… but apparently you were sleeping you were sleeping quite soundly, I don’t know how you two can sleep with it being so (sniff) musty in here, can’t quite place that scent… hey, were you guys having a party? Then why are these empty balloons everywhere?”

 

You can’t walk in there calm and proper like that, trying to have a damn discussion. You got to go in there hysterical, like a ghetto mama who’s 28 year-old “baby” just got smoked and refuses to accept that no one would “plant” 35lbs of cocaine in her son’s backpack just to make him look bad. When it’s time to report a bedwetting, you go all out. If you didn’t have that little snot moustache going and the ultra-contorted post-breakup-about-to-breakdown-any-minute face… well let’s just say you weren’t really committed to the role and it’s going to reflect in ticket sales.

 

Frustrating thing for me was that no matter how committed I was to the role, my folks always saw through my performances, used to make me mad.

 

“Well, you could at least let me know you weren’t gonna buy it, saved me the trouble of getting all worked up… with all due respect, I mean damn!”

 

This is where my Dad’s honesty would come into play. He’d call me on it and start doing a comedy set on how bad an actor I was while cleaning the mattress.

 

“Might as well stop with all the jive tears, you know you ain’t really cryin’ right? What do you have to cry about anyway? You think you’re the first person to wet a bed? You think you’ll be the last? I should be sad… I mean “I” was in the middle of something… boy, if you only knew… there should be tears in MY damn eyes… that’s ok, one day you’ll understand, when you’re older… we’ll sit down and we’ll have kabobs, I’ll tell you all about it…THEN you can cry. We’ll BOTH cry…”

 

That’s what it means to me to be a parent; being willing to clean a mattress in the middle of the night, night after night, as long as it takes, and being able to do it without giving your kid any more of complex than he or she is already destined to have. My name is Mike and I’d better not turn out to be a deadbeat.