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.