WEARING YOUR MITT TO A BIG LEAGUE GAME IF YOU’RE OVER 13

When you begin to grow hair around and sometimes on your schmekel you have a certain responsibility not to act like a boob. Many parents don’t teach that important rule. Tweenagers should be told to wear a glove in the bedroom and not at the ballpark. It’s responsible parenting 101. There is no greater feeling than holding a full beer in one hand and a home run in the other. Your bareback catch will make kids see you as a superhero and grownups admire your commitment to keeping every drop of the liquid gold in your cup. The $8 price tag on that Coors Light will give you that much more incentive. Even the ballplayers will take a timeout from roid-rage to toss you a respectful head nod. Heck, it could even land you on Sportscenter, especially if you catch the ball right in front of a kid’s face. But don’t try for that move. There’s too much downside in a failed attempt. 

 

JOINT COUPLE EMAIL ADDRESSES

Why not just get joint underpants while you're at it? I'm not saying you need to keep secrets, but sometimes you need to keep secrets, you know what I'm saying? Email systems should be required to issue warnings when they sense these addresses: We have detected a joint couple address, are you sure you want to send? If you hit yes it should send you another one that says: Are you absolutely sure? Why are you even friends with these people? Then it should wait a day and send you another one that simply says: Seriously, dude? Why even have an email address at that point? It’s tough to catch up on correspondence when you’re constantly locked in a loving gaze with your significant other. You’re not going to be checking out Uncle Steve’s beautiful pictures of Alaska when you have all the Eskimo kisses you can handle right in front of you. It’s a free country, so do what you want, but I’m just saying it’s the first step on a long path leading to the applying of preparation-H onto one another’s underbums.

PREGNANT MANNEQUINS

Even if the boobs are awesome.

 

THE BACK CORNER BUS SEAT

I would venture to guess that the chasm between what I imagine goes on back there and what actually takes place is a small one indeed. Here's a list of what I’m pretty sure happens in this seat:

Gang related activity

Hobo Masturbation

Excrement handling and/or flinging

Teenage HJ’s

Criminal activity resulting in blood

Farting

Something involving menstruation

Satanic and/or religious graffiti

Reading of The Wall Street Journal

Heroin injection

Booger picking, rolling and flicking

Booger picking and smearing

The whispering of sexual advances and/or death threats.

Peeing

Something having to do with HIV

The lingering odor of death

JARRING ITUNES LIBRARY TRANSITIONS

It’s a true joy to shut off shuffle and plow through an entire record, just as the artist intended. It’s music’s version of reading a book. In fact, you can get so immersed you lose track of the last song. That’s when Bel Biv Devoe’s “Poison” comes out of nowhere and hits you like a ton of bricks. Here are the most jarring transitions in my iTunes library:

Beirut to Bel Biv Devoe

Ben Folds Five to Beyonce

Billie Holiday to Billy Idol

The Black Angels to The Black Eyed Peas

Bob Marley to Bobby Brown

Bon Iver to Bone Thugs & Harmony

Chuck Mangione to Chumbawamba

Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi to Darryl Hall and John Oates

Dead Confederate to Dean Martin

Devotchka to Dexy's Midnight Runners

Elvis Presley to Eminem

Fang Island to Fat Joe

Frightened Rabbit to Fu-Schnickens

George Clinton to George Winston

The Hold Steady to House of Pain

Led Zeppelin to Leona Lewis

Mumford and Sons to Murray Head

The National to Naughty By Nature to Neil Diamond

CHURCH BONERS

Church isn't for camping, so when I pitch a tent I feel real bad. It's for serious reflection, soulful awakenings and wrapping yourself in the lord’s golden light. Not for acting like a pimply-faced middle school kid. It is simply unacceptable behavior for a highly respected member of the community like me. Not to mention, it lands you in one hell of a pickle. If you don’t stand at certain points it’s disrespectful to the baby Jesus. Then again, if you do stand and someone sees you partying at 3 o’clock, it’s almost worse. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. In my defense, some women’s idea of what constitutes their “Sunday best” has gotten pretty darn risqué. I know, I know, no excuse. But you wouldn’t see that kind of skankery in a singles bar 20 years ago much less god’s house. Plus, if you go as many times as I have you pretty much have the thing memorized. The mind begins to wander. It’s just really really embarrassing. For everybody. Especially when I’m giving my sermon.

NEW YEAR'S EVE

Unless you’re Lil’ Wayne, New Year's Eve is a perpetual letdown. Too expensive, too crowded, too hard to get a cab, too anticlimactic, too much douchery. Here are some things I’d rather do with my time besides going out on New Year's Eve:

Making a red vine into a straw at a movie

Playing 18 holes of golf (Golden Tee)

Re-ordering my pantry while drinking beers

Scratching my athlete's foot

Going to Chili's

TPing houses

Watching TV at the gym while riding the stationary bike really slow

Deleting files on my computer

Coming up with new hopes and dreams

Facebook stalking

Dominating old people in Bingo

Trying to finish a medium level song on Guitar Hero

Correctly naming all the songs in my iTunes called "track 1"

Finishing a Grisham while taking a Grisham

attched

Recently, I received a work email from someone who wanted to include an attachment. Attachments are generally a prepared document that goes a little more in depth than what can be included in the body of an email. Often, someone will give you a little note as a precursor to the attachment. Often, these notes will be quick and to the point so you can get right to the meat of the correspondence. And diligent coworkers don’t want you to miss the attachment, so they’ll give you a little heads up. I’m all for moving at the speed of business and I’m also a fan of laziness, but just putting “attched” isn’t cutting the mustard on either piece of bread. I mean, you just left out one letter. “Attchd” would be annoying, yes, but at least there’s a little effort involved in that sort of laziness. Hey, who has time for vowels when you’re busy as shit? I get it. Or maybe if it was a buddy sending me a particularly spicy picture that he had to zing off before someone sees, circa 1998, I might understand. Let’s not email the same way 12-year-old girls text. How do I know how 12-year-old girls text? Mind your business and let’s stay on topic. General rule from here on out: we don’t need to give a heads up when something is attached. If they don’t see it, they suck anyway. Unless it’s a spicy photo. Then you can say whatever you like. 

SPAGHETTI SAUCE STAINS ON TUPPERWARE

Maybe I’m holding the bat too tight but spaghetti sauce stains on tupperware make me want to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. No matter how much you scrub and scrub and scrub and scrub and scrub and scrub and scrub it just refuses to come out. It makes you feel like sadness will takeover the land and death will rain down upon us all. It makes you feel like no matter how hard you try in life nothing will ever work out the way you want it. It makes you feel like grabbing your best friend Thelma’s hand and driving off a cliff together. It makes you feel like fashioning a shirt on a stick so it holds some essentials and jumping on the first empty train car out of here. It makes you feel like wrapping a belt around your neck and holy shit I have to stop listening to this Tracy Chapman record.

MY HALLIBURTON STOCK

Yesterday, Halliburton (HAL) closed down nearly 3.25% after weak earnings reports coming out of the war crimes sector. I’m not ready to sell but if they don’t get back to being the ruthless go-getters we all know and love, that opinion could change fast. So, what’s going on? There are a few red flags I can identify right off the bat. First, they’re not partnering with nearly as many oppressive regimes as they used to. Herzegovina wasn’t destroyed in a day. It takes time and it takes collaboration. Next, Dick Cheney, aka Steve Jobs with balls, isn’t getting any younger. Without his innovation, nose for cash, and category-defining moral turpitude, I don’t know how far this stock can climb. Who’s the next evil genius to fill the void? Bachman? She has the hate but not the stones. Romney? His first name is Mitt so he’s out. Also, what happened to using nepotism as an awesome way of landing new contracts? How can you get into places like Somalia to bleed it dry without key people in place? In business, it’s not what you know it’s who you know. So let’s step it up on the wild-coke-parties-hosted-by-Thai-hookers front. And, of course, it didn’t help that Obummer got us out of Iraq and wants to do the same in Afghanistan. I thought that dude was on our side! Listen, this little cash cow’s teats will start giving up the milk again eventually, but this is one farmer who doesn’t like to stay thirsty for long.

TELLING ME YOU DON’T OWN A TV

Do people decide not to own a TV because they hate TV or because they love telling people they don’t have a TV? Don’t scratch your head for too long, because like most philosophical questions, I happen to know the answer. They relish any opportunity to raise their eyebrows and say, “Oh, I don’t have a TV.” It allows them that tone, that tone that says so much more than words ever could. It says, “listen dumbass, I didn’t see the werewolf bite off the skier’s head because I was at the library researching my next trip to the Galápagos Islands. I didn’t see when Nash Bridges almost slept with his cousin because I was perfecting my bouillabaisse. No, I happened to miss Jeff and Zoila’s fight about the guacamole at El Pollo Loco because I was teaching Pilates. I, unlike you, have more important things to do that actually matter to the world and to my own personal growth.” And you know what, they’re right. Good for them. But drop the tone. All you need to say is, “ha, no I didn’t see that, but it sounds like a hoot.” Then pat me on the head and move on with your awesomely productive day.

JARED LETO

Jared Leto makes me want to throw a shoe at the president.

Jared Leto makes me want to stick a firepoker in my eye.

Jared Leto makes me want to punt a puppy.

Jared Leto makes me want to punch a clown.

Jaren Leto makes Lars Ulrich look like Jack Nicholson.

Jared Leto’s mom hid him on Facebook.

Jared Leto is an affront to Summer’s Eve.

Jared Leto has advanced douchebags 20 years

Jared Leto sucks so hard he’s endorsed by Dyson.

PLASTIC SURGERY

My main beef with plastic surgery is that there isn’t enough of it. I want to see an entire race of peoplecats take over the planet. Catlandia, as it will henceforth be called, will be ruled with an iron fist by the sinister Diane Cannon. This will lead to a period of deep oppression stemming from her ban on any new procedures in order to galvanize her position as the most stunning feline beauty in all the realm. Such despair will give rise to an underground revolution led by the brave thundercat Meg Ryan and her dangerously witty sidekick, Carrot Top. Michael Jackson will come back from the dead to declare his love to the man-jaguar Bruce Jenner. Their deep love will inspire Meg “Cheetah-Che” Ryan to challenge Queen Cannon in a no-holds-barred cage match to the death. Cheetah-Che will emerge victorious, helping foster decades of peaceful peoplecat existence. That is until her daughter, the bubbly bobcat Heidi Montag, turns to the dark side and threatens to destroy everything we’ve worked for. 

ORDERING AT JAMBA JUICE

Fact: Jamba Juice is delicious. Fact: Jamba Juice is the category-defining leader in healthy blended beverages, juices, and good-for-you snacks. Fact: ordering the Berry Fulfilling makes you feel like a complete dillweed. Fact: telling a 16-year-old with a smirk on his face that you’d like a large Mango-A-Go-Go makes you question if you’re even a man. Fact: they called it a Razzmatazz just to mess with customers. Fact: The Peanut Butter Moo’d looks gross so I’m glad I don’t have to order it. Fact: starting a sentence out by saying “Fact:” is extremely annoying and will be the subject of a future post.

WATCHING HOARDERS HUNGOVER AT A CONVALESCENT HOME WHILE IT'S RAINING

There's something about watching Hoarders hungover at a convalescent home while it's raining that really bums me out. I don't know what it is. Maybe I just have a shitty attitude. Or maybe it's the fluorescent lighting, which always reminds me of the DMV. Or it could be the TV they have over there. Is that what it is? I'm so accustomed to a 40-inch flat screen that I can't watch anything unless it's in high-def? Wow, that's sad. Leave it to someone from my generation to find the bad in any situation. Why can't I just look past the constant smell of impending death in the air? Who cares if the coffee tastes like athlete's feet? Me and my country club expectations need to just get over it. Still though, it's difficult. Especially when every time I look over at Melvin he's staring deeply into my soul and rubbing his nipples. Gives me the willies. Then there's the fact that Regina stopped giving me half her pills. What a selfish bitch. I didn't mean that. Maybe it's all these things. Maybe it's none of them. Sigh.

MIXED NUTS AT BARS

Dear son, I know you haven’t been born yet, but I want to give you a quick head's up before I forget. For now I’m going to call you Clyde because people named Clyde are always cool as shit. Anyway Clyde, I need you to listen carefully. Never eat the mixed nuts at bars. Seeing as how your name is Clyde I predict you’ll find yourself in more than a few extremely sketchy bars. I’m talking about some real shitholes. The kind of places where a guy shivs you in the back one minute and hands you a pickled egg the next. So please son, take heed. In these dingy, dark and awesomely depressing bars people will visit the restroom and handle their dirty bits. Often, they’ll get a little pee on their hand, or worse. You’ll know what I mean by “or worse” because you’ll be a bright kid who can make connections easily. These people will then leave the bathroom without washing their hands and rejoin their companions. What comes next? A wrist-deep dive into a bowl of mixed nuts. After that point it’s just a big bowl of Hepatitis. Listen, you’re going to face a lot of challenges in your life and I can’t promise to prepare you for every one, but when it comes to the mixed nuts situation, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

SPOKEN WORD

Chicken in the rooster coop. That is life. The mother. Raising. Reaching. Reciprocating. Flowing through a cross-pollinated monochromatic half-lens. Slipping. Slipping. Slipping further down the pitch-black ether. And I deny. I deny this rooster game. But not yet, not ever. Mother. This mother. Mother Earth. The goddess of all who portend the enflamed liquid hopelight. Light be the majesty. Darkness be the void. Like so many wretched receipts responding and reacting to this paved-over blindfold. And paved-over once again. And again. And again. And again until shhhhh. Commercial in its emptiness. Filled full with regret. Damage done. And yet, the shadows speak in muffled tones! But the echo is real. Mother magnificence make me whole. Bring me into your womb. Leave me awash in that glorious placenta. Oh mother. Cover us all. From the liars and the thieves and the greedy greed greed of the political machine. Bring the rain that makes the rust that stops the system that kills the birth of a yet one more system. A new stream engulfing man and woman in one. Fell. Swoop. Buried. Into the deep nothing. A ripple-scorched landscape. Left bone dry but for one. Impossible glimmer. A drop of utopia. Waiting. Waiting. To keep us from evaporating.

UNNECESSARY USE OF THE WORD “LIKE”

The word "like" is a bigger scourge on society than cancer. And if you think that’s being too dramatic, you’re right, I already regret starting out that way. Cancer is far worse. Let me begin anew. The word "like" sucks nads. Better. My statistician, Romeo, informs me that the average American says “like” 782 times a day. Astonishing. Romeo goes on to explain that 98% of us say it in 98% of our sentences throughout 98% of the year. Astounding. In a This Guy's Pet Peeves Exclusive, it has come to light that during the early part of 1982 an Al Qaeda sleeper cell embedded itself deep inside California's San Fernando Valley. Their central focus: to whisper the word “like” in the ears of unsuspecting teenaged blondes. Positioned conveniently next to Hollywood, the cell also disseminated the word into popular culture through such films as Valley Girl, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Hardbodies. From there it took on a life of its own and none of us are safe from its clutches. Young or old, smart or stupid, its wicked tentacles have turned us all into mindless drones bent on turning everything into a simile. Resistance is, like, futile.

ONLINE SECURITY CODES

You need a 90-inch monitor and an advanced degree in computer engineering to figure out some of the security codes they lay on you. I'm no computer wiz and I hate to question protocol, but can't we at least stick to the keys on the keyboard? What are they testing anyhow, if you have eyeballs? Nope, that kid put farnimagin instead of famimagin, that's a code one breach. Access to professional wrestling tickets denied. I think this is what happened to the Unabomber. He was trying to surprise his wife with tickets to the symphony when he came across one of these. He snapped, yelled "Fuck It!" and marched into the woods.

CHINESE TOURISTS IN CHINA TOWN

I don’t speak Chinese, but I can tell they’re being total snobs about how crappy all the stuff is. It’s pretty obvious that they’re getting a good chuckle over the shitty craftsmanship on some of those Zodiac paper placemats. Just one look at their body language tells you that none of the mooncakes comes close to the quality you’ll find in Shijiazhuang or even Guǎngzhōu. How is a lady from Nebraska supposed to feel after she picks up a hot little silk imperial dragon cheongsam to spice things up with the husband back in Lincoln only to have some O.G. Chinese folks smugly laughing from overall lack of authenticity? All she’s trying to do is honor your country by initiating some awkward, sweaty and heartfelt sexytime. And what do you do? You sit there and laugh at how ripped off she's getting. Not cool.

POOPSMEAR™

That ain't chocolate, kids. Poopsmear™ angers me on a number of different levels. It angers me because it's, well, poop on a sidewalk. It also angers me for the person who steps in it. There's something about seeing Poopsmear™ that immediately transports you to the moment it occurs. You can see them reaching new levels on Angry Birds as they walk. You can feel the moment of impact; the shoe pressing down hard on the hot, wet dog (we hope) poop; the unmistakeable mix of disappointment and rage on their face. And we can empathize with the emotional trauma it will surely cause during cleanup.

Every Poopsmear™ tells a unique story. In the one pictured above, Wolverine was out walking his dog Pickles. The night before, as Wolverine was making his nightly spot of tea, Pickles saw his chance to devour the bread bowl of clam chowder sitting on the coffee table. Pickles was in heaven, but it didn't come without a price. During their morning walk he had to let loose the lion something fierce. Wolverine tried to stop it, but even he isn't fast enough for that kind of action. Being the good guy he is, he tried to pick it up. With bag in hand he gave it a fair go, but the situation quickly escalated. They had no choice but to flee the scene. Moments later, I mosey up and nearly step in it. But I don't. Because I'm not into Angry Birds.

VAMPIRES WITHOUT MULLETS

Since when did it become okay for vampires not to have mullets? Since never if you ask me. Call me traditional but I think it’s every bit as important as red velvet furniture and sharp fangs. In fact, the vampire mullet is the only cool mullet out there. I can already hear you throwing Blade and this new guy Eric Northman in my face, but the former is only a halfie and the latter is a glorified bar manager. All I’m asking is that we have a little respect when it comes to the way we treat the undead. And by that I mean super-pimpin’ clothes, bejeweled canes and glorious, flowing mullets. I’ll leave you with a collage of things done right.

KATY WALKER'S DECISION TO GO TO HR

I don't understand what her deal is. She went to HR and said I’m stalking her. Me. Stalking. I know. How crazy is that? We’ve been working together for just over eight monthsK and I thought we were pals. You can imagine how flabbergasted I was to hear this news. Sure, I’ve run into her a few times outside work, but it’s a small world. That’s going to happen. Like when I saw her at the coffee shop on Sunday morning, total coincidence! She looked at me all cross-eyed like I was some sort of psycho freak. The table next to hers was the only one open. What was I gonna do, stand and read my Muscle and Fitness magazine? Not likely. I thought it was a little weird that she was wearing a guy’s sweatshirt and I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it, but still! Also, is it my fault her house at 1426 Grove Street is basically on my way to work? No, it’s not. We're going to run into each other! Listen, nobody was more embarrassed than I was when I saw her with some dude at that wannabe-chic restaurant. I actually tried to hide behind a menu because I thought to myself, she must think I'm stalking her. The bar was directly in her line of sight. What am I supposed to do! I think the guy she was with's name was Brad or Bret or Brent or something. Whatever, he looked like a tool and I'm pretty sure they're not dating anymore. He probably doesn’t even get her adorably dark sense of humor. When I happened to bump into her at the farmer's market, I was like, this is too weird. She must be stalking me! That's always been my farmer's market. It’s a little far from my house, but it’s the only place to get those amazing hand-foraged golden chanterelles we both love so much. Anyway, I smoothed it over with HR. We chalked it up to a really long series of unfortunate coincidences. I hope it doesn't affect our working relationship. Or any other relationship that could possibly sprout up. I bet her hair smells like flowers.

WEARING BASEBALL PANTS TO SOFTBALL

Listen dude. The dream is over. You didn’t make the cut. Sure, you had a good stretch during your junior year of high school when you batted a serviceable .289 with 12 RBIs for the 8-and-7 JV squad. Back then, you should’ve taken things seriously. Who knows, you could’ve had a stellar off-season and really come into your own on Varsity the following year. Perhaps that would’ve led to a tryout with the Kane County Cougars or the Burlington Bees. Maybe then you find your stride in the Triple-A where you spend a couple years honing your game when finally, look at that, the starting third baseman for the Cincinnati Reds breaks his leg. Suddenly, you’re in the show. And you do well, not great, but well. Well enough in fact to meet a beautiful and exotic Hawaiian Tropic model. She’s not brilliant, but shit neither are you. You have a couple kids, you go bone fishing once or twice a year off the coast of Key West and you’re able to buy your mom a house so she doesn’t have to stay in that apartment building that always looked like it was going to burn down. Then guess what happens? You buy a car dealership and things really take off. You’re elected to city council and your life actually starts to mean something to you, and more importantly, to the people around you. But none of that happened. No, you got cut. You moped around for a bit then finally signed up for drama club where you played Joe Crowell Jr. in a really bad production of Our Town. And you were awful but you didn’t care because it looked good on college applications. It helped you get into Kansas State University where you studied accounting. Why not, you had a knack for numbers. After college, you eventually passed your Series 4 and got a decent paying job with a local accounting firm. Problem is you’ve grown to hate that job over the last 12 years, but you’re stuck with three kids and an ex-wife who’s bleeding you dry because you cheated on her at an accounting conference in Chicago. The softball league is the only thing you look forward to during your whole miserable week. So you take it very seriously. So seriously that you keep track of your stats, refuse to drink beer during the game and you wear baseball pants, just like the big leaguers. Because, if only for a moment, when the light is just right and you stretch that single into a double, it makes you feel like a pro. It makes you feel like a winner.

WIDE WALKERS

Whilst moving unnoticed in rural outcroppings, the quasi-mythical Wide Walker may be spoken of in the same breath as the Front Fannypacker or Speedlane Clogger. These creatures have an innate knack for commandeering an entire sidewalk no matter how large it may be. Powerful instincts draw them to any side the passer attempts, as if guided by an internal magnet. Acute psychological skills have developed over centuries to make others believe they roam completely unaware of their powers of frustration. Upon being snapped at, one of their more devious methods of trickery is to make bustling young urbanites feel super-guilty. The most skilled Wide Walkers do not need a large body mass to be effective. However, many of them do thanks in part to The Olive Garden's liberal endless breadstick policy. They are at their most insidious during rush hour when their enemies are required to be swift and direct. Police are always on the lookout for instances of sidewalk rage, so do your best to avoid them at all costs.

PRONOUNCING CHILE CORRECTLY

We get it. You’re amazingly well traveled. You speak four languages. You actually write in your diary. You have a serape from Papua New Guinea draped over your couch below masks from Mozambique. You went on semester-at-sea in high school. Your dad is a missionary, but a cool one, not a creepy one. You actually saved a whale once. At some point you'll open a hostel in Costa Rica where you'll teach yoga. You think Eurail passes are for pussies. You’ve developed your immunity so you can drink the water in the Okavango Delta. You made your own sling thing to hold your baby. Your baby is half African. You once wore a Patagonia jacket in Patagonia. 98% of your facebook photos are shots of food you’ve eaten outside the United States. 12% of your facebook friends don’t speak English. You once made it from Portland to Cape Horn on a bike for only $6 a day. You’ve seen Like Water for Chocolate nine times. You've seen Dodgeball zero times. You also think The Amazing Race is for pussies. You don’t have a TV. But if you did, you’d only watch Frontline. We get it. You’re sucking the marrow out of life. And that’s awesome. Just don’t say freakin’ Cheelay. 

THE DAILY RECOMMENDED AMOUNT OF WATER

In order to consume the daily recommended amount of water you’d have to drink a glass every 4 minutes for 24 straight hours. You’d have to make a neck strap for your laptop to do work in front of the toilet. You’d have to buy a really good straw, for snorting Flomax. You’d have to wear a camel back and a camel front. You’d have to trade in your water bottle in for a water bucket. You’d have to sleep with Depends under your wet suit. If just 5% of the world drank the recommended daily amount of water we’d have to melt more polar ice caps. Those are better if read in Bob Hope’s voice.

Checking yourself out in the mirror at the gym

Nothing cheeses me off more than when a guy can't stop eye-banging himself in the mirror while I'm trying to isolate my glutes. Some of us are at the gym to actually work out. To us, the mirror is an important tool, like a jump rope or a stability ball. We need it to focus on our technique in order to prevent injury and maximize our intensity training. To these tools, it's a personal buffet featuring a wide array of themselves for which to feast on. If these guys weren't so huge I'd tell them to get back in their corvettes and head to the local singles bar where they can stare at themselves in the mirror while sipping mojitos. Freakin' posers. It's almost enough to spoil my post-workout smoothie. Theses guys make me sick. I say guys because I'm not sure if women are guilty of the infraction. I'm too busy checking out their expertly sculpted buns.

Aaron Neville's Mullet

DANTE CONDOR'S LIFE DECISIONS

Dear Dante, there’s certainly nothing wrong with being a bathroom janitor. Cleaning up other people’s shit is what most of us do for a living every day. It’s a whole lot more honorable than being a celebrity lawyer or blood diamond merchant or Donald Trump. There’s absolutely no shame in it. Unless your name is Dante Condor. Then it’s time to aim much, much higher. You’re Dante Freakin Condor, man. Just saying your name makes me feel like I could punch through a brick wall with my face. You should be saving defenseless women in dark allies or threatening to fire a missile at the world from SpaceLab Dante IV unless they hand over Fort Knox and Hawaii. Whichever way you want to go, it’s yours for the taking. I’ll even be your sidekick. I could be Andre Falcon or Eagle Steve or something. You’re right, I’m not bad-ass enough. I’ll be your wise butler slash father figure. Who knows, maybe you’re working up to things, filling out your back-story, creating solid alibis. Or maybe you’re leading a double life, but then you wouldn’t use your real name but maybe your real name is even more awesome. Who am I kidding, it can’t get any more awesome. Listen Dante, sorry, Mr. Condor, this is only chapter one. How the remainder of your epic tale unfolds is up to you. That being said, when I have extra time on my hands I sit at home, blast Motorhead and think about what you should be doing instead of cleaning bathrooms. Here are a few:

-Barracuda rancher

-Ballet Dancing Assassin

-The man who finally tracks down and kills Santa

-The man who actually saves the whales through the most human of all tactics, vengeance

-Electrify the fashion world by creating pleated pants that gay men actually want to wear

-Hollywood super-agent who resurrects Steve Guttenberg’s career.

-Sarah Palin’s fluffer

-Parlay your Mr. Universe title into a lucrative action-movie career that helps you meet and marry a beautiful and highly connected TV news personality which propels you to become governor of California where you cripple the state with hilarious policies because you’re focused on a passionate love affair with your maid who has a heart of gold but ain’t too easy on the eyes which you don’t care because she bears you a child named Conan the Condor who goes on to be the fiercest Barracuda Rancher in all the land

-The first black, non-muslim president

-The first Guatemalan to score a basket in professional hoops

-Rhinestone cowboy

-Hard and/or soft-core porn director, writer and actor

Corporate Buzzword: Trousermeat

I’m sure you’ll agree that trousermeat is one of the most annoying corporate buzzwords to come down the pike in a long, long time. People think they’re so smart when they break it out. I can’t help but bight my lip when I hear a colleague say something like, “let’s drill down to the trousermeat” or, “we should embrace a more holistic approach to trousermeat,” or the absolute worst, “let’s just take the trousermeat as it comes.” So lame, right? I realize that moving at the speed of business requires vigorous, free-flowing discourse, but it usually ends up coming off so dry. You certainly don’t want the conversation to peter out before it begins, but why must we always climb on top of the same stiff, unimaginative language? I don’t know, it all gets a little hairy.

Vanity Plates on Children’s Bikes

Who the hell do some kids think they are? Not one kid in history has come even remotely close to earning this magnificent privilege. I know what you’re thinking–Webster–and you’re absolutely correct I forget about Webster. That's my bad. Besides Webster, no kid has done what it takes to rock a sweet, personalized identifier on their bike. And the ones that do have the balls, nay, the audacity to try to pull it off aren't even creative. It's always something super self-indulgent like “Kenneth” or “Amy” or “Dave.” I’m sorry Kenneth, when was it that you were knocking out 100-hour workweeks on Wall Street again? Oh that’s right, NEVER. I didn’t know you were a doctor, Amy. What med school did you go to? One that teaches you how to make crappy art with uncooked pasta and pennies? Never heard of that one. Where’d you do your residency? St. Bieber? Get out of my face. Let me throw a little hypothetical at you, Dr. Amy. My Gam Gam and I are walking down the street when she feels a little pain in her chest. She falls to the ground and you roll by in your little pink Dora the Explorer bike. Thank god, I think to myself, a vanity plate. I run over and ask you to save my sweet Nana and what do you do? You just stare at me like a dumbutt while MeeMaw dies before she’s gotten a chance to tell grandpa she’s been sleeping with the pool man for the past 40 years. So, not only do you kill Bubbe, you send her to hell. Awesome. Thanks. Listen, do us all a favor and lose the pretense until you’ve earned it. That’s all I’m saying. I don't think many of these plates are even registered with their local governments, but let's not get into that.

My Dentist

Sure it’s easy to say you hate dentists. Nobody likes them. They drill holes in your teeth. They’re total assholes. But mine is a particular type of asshole and let me tell you why. Because he doesn’t speak to me. Instead, he relays information by talking to his hygienist, Margaret, while I’m in the room. “Looks like this fella hasn't been flossing as much as we asked him to, hey Margaret? I think he may have lost that floss we gave him. Hmmm, you'd think he’d want to keep his teeth his whole life. Sure would look pretty silly without them.” Margaret nods her head and says stuff like “looks that way,” but I don’t blame her. She’s just trying to earn a paycheck. I think she hates him too. All I can do is focus on the wise advice from the cat hanging from the tree limb in the poster on the ceiling and hang in there.

My Boss

Here's a breakdown of what makes for a good boss and why mine fails on every single point:

1. Praise in public. Chastise in private.
Good bosses know that praising and encouraging staff members is the key to creating a positive work atmosphere. If a correction needs to be made, it's never a good idea to call someone out in front of the group. Well, this one day I decided to play a goof on my coworker Donald. I gave him an epic atomic wedgie and made him think I was gonna dip his nards in the deep fryer. My boss saw me and completely freaked out right in front of my fellow employees! It's not like any customers saw me so I told him to chillax. I mean, earlier that week I refilled the napkins without even being asked to. Did I get so much as a thank you or a raise? Hell no.

2. Always make team spirit a priority.
In any organization, maintaining good team spirit is critical for better overall employee performance. Everybody knows that. So, during the Monday morning staff meeting I suggested we all take our clothes off and hit this righteous bag of peyote I had. My boss instantly shut me down in a very loud and hurtful manner. See point #1.

3. Share experiences and insights.
Sharing personal anecdotes can be an effective way for a boss to teach valuable lessons in a non-confrontational way. My boss told me about how this one time he ran out of cat food for his ten cats. And there was a blizzard outside, so he killed one of his cats and fed it to the other cats. He said sometimes you need to think on your feet and kill a cat to save nine cats. I'm just kidding, he didn't say any of that, but how awesome would that be if he did! I'm sure he does have a butt-load of cats, though.

4. Be open-minded and an effective listener.
Someone in the team may come up with a new and different way of looking at a problem. For instance, my boss told me to go mop the bathroom and I told him to shove the mop up his ass. Obviously, he doesn't have a very open mind about the best thing to do with the mop.

5. Don't play favorites.
It's obvious to all of us that Dale is the golden child. My boss makes very little effort to hide that fact. He got moved to the register in like two weeks and I don't remember the last time he scrubbed a toilet. Becky told me they went bowling together! Did I get an invite? No. Why don't they just go marry each other or something. Whatever. Like I care. Those guys are losers. I hope they both get herpes.

Game. Set. And match.

AARON NEVILLE'S MOLE

Kevin Jonas

Is it just me or is Kevin Jonas really phoning it in these days? This hurts to say, but he seems more concerned with collecting checks and walking down red carpets than being the true musical craftsman he was born to be. No one expects him to return to such heights as Mandy from the Zoey 101: Spring Break-Up soundtrack. Nor can we hope for a duplication of the vortex-bending riffs found on DisneyMania 4’s Yo Ho (A Pirates Life For Me), but we at least deserve to know he’s trying. Perhaps the rumor mill is right. Perhaps he’s no longer interested in pushing himself creatively.

Until this recent period of uncertainty, Kevin had never been one to shy away from austerity (the poignant Lovebug, the retro-futuristic Year 3000 and the provocative masterworks of Camp Rock2: The Final Jam). These classics provided a much-needed counterbalance to more raucous rave-ups like Set This Party Off and That’s Just The Way We Roll. Whereas 2008’s Burnin’ Up exuded the playful existentialism that planted roots in our collective unconscious, their most recent effort – LA Baby (Where Dreams Are Made) – lacks the compositional tension between innocence and impudence that has always distinguished The Jonas Brothers from their rock counterparts.

And I blame Kevin.

Pitch-perfect Nick Jonas remains at the top of his game and Joe hasn’t skipped a beat with his consistently ferocious and always uncompromising percussive attack. So, the question remains. Where is Kevin and when is he coming back? Maybe the answer lies in the second verse of Year 3000:

He took me to the future in the flux thing, and I saw everything
Boy bands, and another one and another one...and another one!
And girls there with blonde hair, like in Star Wars, they floated up on the floor.

Well, Kevin. The world is waiting for you to float again. Just like in Star Wars.

Complaining about how many emails you get

I have a theory that the more you complain about emails, the more you freakin’ love it. And by theory I mean stone-cold fact. “Argh, today is nuts. I have like 600 unread emails sitting in my inbox and it’s only 10:30.” Translation: “I am goddamn amazing. I am wanted. I am a big deal. There’s not enough of me to go around. They should clone me so ten of me could each clone me so there would be umm…many many more of me. It would be a me-posse of pure domination. If I had spare time, which I don’t, I’d turn on my webcam and stare into my eyes to try to learn something. I get so many emails I have to check them during meetings and on elevators and toilets. I am sexually irresistible. And my parents were richer than yours.”

Autoflow being removed on gas pumps

It makes you want to do this:

Jim Grey

I want Jim Grey to lie down on my lawn so I can run him over with a dull push mower. Who is more to blame for this world-class abomination in a skinsuit, the man himself or his boss for putting him in front of the camera all these years? Neither. His mother is to blame. She did not provide the necessary love and positive reinforcement required to raise a stable and kind individual. She was a very bad mother. For those who don’t know who Jim Grey is, he's that jackhole who always interviews the losing team after big games like the Superbowl. He’s amazingly astute at squeezing all the sadness he can out of his target. He has evil, wee-beady eyes and a hateful voice. If my computer weren’t running out of juice I’d track down his top five most uncomfortable interviews. Too bad, but shame on you Jim Grey. And shame on you, Jim Grey’s mother.

Jeanette Cazden’s Emails

I’m starting to think Jeanette isn’t shooting me straight. The last thing I want to be is cynical and I’m certainly no private investigator, but my instincts are pointing towards foul play. I'm afraid the poor girl has gotten herself mixed up in some sort of spam consortium. My first clue was from taking a good look at the subject line in one of her emails: Don'TbbeStupiiddToMissTheChanceTooBuuyBestEerectetileDyssfunctionDrruggAttHhalfPricc.
I don’t want to be stupid, I love great deals and I have a friend who suffers from that particular ailment. It wouldn’t be for me. The candy is dandy down there if you catch my drift and I think you do. Needless to say, I wanted to believe in this young go-getter from Bloomington, Illinois or wherever she’s from. Sure, she’s not great with spelling or punctuation, but she had spunk. And sometimes that’s all that matters. But the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced she’s just a common web grifter looking to turn a quick buck. I don’t think I’m going to give this one a shot. That link she sent will have to go unclicked. As the saying goes, fool me six times…

Seat Heat

There’s not much worse than sitting in a bus seat and feeling the warmth of the stranger before you. It’s not just body heat, it’s booty heat. You can almost taste the heebie-jeebies. It doesn’t matter if the source is a hobo or a real person, it’s a big can of crummy either way. I’d even argue there’s a metaphysical angle to all this. It’s the emanation from all the person’s crushed hopes and dreams and daily frustrations. And who has those more than bus people? Perhaps the worst part is, when you get in really close, it smells like sadness.

Rolling computer bags

You best be going somewhere on a plane if there’s a bag rolling behind you, that’s all I’m saying. Actually, that’s not all I’m saying. I’m a big fan of laziness, but this is taking it too far. Strap that thing on your shoulder and get your ass to that meeting. You have a carefully thought-out and flawlessly executed PowerPoint presentation to walk people through. This is the Mt. Everest of laziness. If laziness were a no-nonsense, chain-smoking xenobotanist with a heart of gold, rolling computer bags would be Dr. Grace Augustine. If laziness were quintessential jazz recordings, they would be A Love Supreme by John Coltrane. If laziness were gratuitous jazz references, they would be that last sentence. If laziness were amazing analogists, rolling computer bags would be me. Just because you have hot legs and know a magic pathway into the sea of love is no excuse. Stop being a douche-bag. Wait, that’s it. The rolling computer bag is literally a douche-bag. Perfect. Pass it on.