Master of Disguise

I’ve had been the victim of mistaken identity a bunch of times. I’ve been approached by people recently that asked me if I was a professor of business at the University of St Thomas. That made me feel old. I wasn’t even wearing my tweed jacket with the patches on the elbows. I was smoking a pipe and holding an issue of the Economist while buying wine, but I didn’t think I looked that old. Damn it. Someone asked me if I was Ron Reagan Jr. I don’t recall my dad ever saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Are there similarities? Perhaps, but one thing that I will never understand is when I got mistaken for the police.
At the Infiniti dealership I worked at in North Carolina, as I mentioned before, I worked with some real fuckers. In a situation like that, I was forced to make the best of the situation.
There was a strip club near work called the Crazy Horse. Sometimes for lunch, we would go down there and throw back four or five beers and a bag of chips and go back to the dealership. Don’t have the t-bone by the way. This place was a complete dive, conveniently situated next to a hotel in a questionable side of Winston.

We went in there enough between work and after work that we started to know a bunch of the dancers and staff. These girls weren’t even pretending to be working there to put themselves through school.

So one night, my friend from the dealership, Dave, who wasn’t sure if he should bring in his gun to the club or not, and I went in there and got pretty smashed. After hearing Wild Side by Motley Crue for eight times, we left.
Two days later we went in for a few drinks during the day. The usually friendly bar staff and dancers were not only keeping their distance, but it was obvious that they were talking about us.

At first, I thought I was being paranoid. I turned to Dave and laughed when “bad boys bad boys, whatcha gonna do” started playing. It was then that I noticed that everyone in the place was looking at us. I asked one of the girls why the hell they were playing that, and she said, “because you guys are fucking cops.” I looked around and the looks that I thought we were getting were now actually glares. These home wreckers were pissed. We hastily finished our beers and left.

I mulled this over the rest of the day and decided that we should go back there that night and set things straight. So I left work, went home and changed and met Dave in the parking lot. In college, we had a bunch of theme parties in college and one of them was an ATF party where my roommates and I dressed as agents from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms. I thought it would be in good taste to wear my shirt from that party to the club that night.

Literally when we walked in, three guys said “Oh SHITTTT!” and bolted for the door. Apparently no one really thought that this was funny except for me and Dave. After getting the attention of Brie, one of the girls that we were the most friendly with, we sat her down to find out why everyone thought we were cops.

The night that Dave and I had gone in there and gotten bombed and then left, there was a prostitution bust at the hotel next door, and we were there. We showed her our Modern Infiniti business cards and told her that there was no way that we could have been the police and gotten so drunk that night. We counted how many shots we did, and she finally agreed. After explaining where I got my shirt to everyone, the 70 year old woman who was at the bar was back to flashing her udders to me.

Maybe I shouldn't have said anything.

Next story: How I almost got rubbed out by the Crips

Innocent when you dream (Also, boring. Big time boring.)

They say that there's two things that no one wants to hear about: your fantasy sports teams and your dreams. I agree with the proverbial "they" for a couple of reasons:

1. Your fantasy teams suck;
2. but not as much as your god awful dreams.

Telling me your convoluted theory about how punting saves in exchange for high .ops guys will guarantee you a win (it won't) is as uninteresting to me as your dream about Abraham Lincoln driving you around in a sidecar (ZzZzZzZzZzZzZz!) Luckily for the readers of this blog, all 2 of them, my dreams are a-w-e-s-o-m-e! I know what your thinking. "Hmmm. I wonder if there's anything new anywhere else on the internet whatsoever?" Wait wait wait! Here's a tease: I tried to murder Jimmy Johnson. No, not the Nascar guy, this one:

"Nothing says 'the dreams of disenfranchised minorities about
to shatter' quite like a hastily photoshopped Grim Reaper"

Yep. I tried to kill that man in my dream. The dream opened on an old Victorian house where I was throwing a delightful dinner party for several close friends, which included Jimmy. A lot of boring crap happened (Probably we sat around reenacting all your shitty dreams. Zing!) then Jimmy turned bright red and started screaming at me. He started to really lose his shit when I asked him to kindly "Act like you know how to shut the fuck up" and he charged at me. I wrestled him down a long hallway to the front door where I shoved in the direction of a set of five concrete steps. He tumbled down them and landed in a motionless heap on the sidewalk. The relatively short fall was not accurately represented by his injuries. He looked like he fell out of a goddamned plane. His legs were smashed to pieces, one of his arms looked like it belonged on the other side of his body and he was covered with blood and bruises. As I peered at him through the window I thought to myself "WOW! Jimmy is FUCKED UP! Oh man, he's not moving. I think he's dead! Oh well. Not going to let that ruin my night!"

I locked the door and went back to the party. I came back a little while later to find that a coroner had covered my entire front lawn with a black blanket. She had just finished wrapped Jimmy up in some sort of carpet which apparently symbolized "Totally Dead" when I started to worry that I was going to go to jail. This would have been a fine time for things to head in a sexy, lesbian, Cinemax jail direction, but unfortunately that wasn't this kind of dream. Unfortunately for me anyway. You guys should count your blessings.

As the clueless coroner haphazardly collected evidence of my crime, I stood looking at the mangled corpse of Jimmy. Quick pros and cons of the jail term I was definitely going to get:

CONS:

• I wouldn't be able to see my daughter or wife again
• I will probably be forced to act-out the movie Grease or, at the very least, have to watch it
  
• My beloved booze will be replaced by fermented orange peels consumed out of a toilet
  
• I'll never again be able to wonder what a penis tastes like

PROS:

• I will finally have all the time I need to go to the gym

I spent a few minutes thinking about the myriad of ways I was fucked as I listened for the approaching sirens. Then, like he was breaking the surface of a pool, Jimmy let out a huge gasp and lifted his head. His face was mangled and bloody, but his hair was still perfect, actually it even had a faint glow about it. The coroner called for an ambulance and I helped Jimmy sit up. He grabbed me and hugged me, crying and apologizing for what he'd done. He'd been out of line and he was sorry. As he was collecting his broken legs into a wheelbarrow...

Actually you know what? My dreams suck just as much as yours. I'm bored to fucking tears just writing this bullshit.

Whatever.

Fact or Fiction: America's Funniest Home Videos is the original YouTube.

Remember Rap Around? Remember when you
thought it was about hip-hop music? Moron.

The Search for Power

I make really great cards. Ever since I was in single digits, I’ve been putting my artistic ability to use as the poor man’s John Hallmark[1]. Whether it is a birthday or Kwanzaa, if I have the time and love[2], you have gotten a piece of paper crafted and folded with devotion. Even when I went through a spurt of mass production in my preteens, when we got our first computer and I was introduced to clip art, I still made sure every tagline was something I had never used before. If my life plan had veered a little to the left, I’d be in Kansas City right now dreaming up Shoebox greetings.

My most recent creation was to be a belated wedding card for my friends Zach and Shana. Originally I was going to make a very Sponge Bob or Love Boat card[3] but I scrapped that in favor the theme of Addicted to Love.

The idea was set. All I needed was to draw the famed Robert Palmer Girls add the catchphrase and viola. This would have gone right to plan if I could have found better photo reference then paused grainy YouTube clips. All I had to work with was blurred blobs of tight hair and make-up. After two hours of crappy sketches I gave up for the week. So until better reference is found, I’m sorry Zach and Shana, the wedding card is off. It’s OK I still have five months.

The upside of this was that I got to do a lot of unintentional Robert Palmer research. You may remember Mr. Palmer as Rolling Stone’s best dressed rocker of the 80’s and for the model posse that seemed to follow him like an unaffected band of puppies, but just before his landmark Riptide album made Robert Palmer a Pepsi spokesman, he was involved in one of the more successful all-time supergroups Power Station.

If it’s not coming to you, the Palmer/ Duran Duran/ CHIC amalgam brought us the international hits like “Some Like it Hot” and “Bang a Gong (Get It On).” Just reading this should be making you sing to yourself, “Some like it hot………some like hawwwwt.” And then you would sing to yourself. “Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel the heeeeeeeeeeat!/ Burning you up/ Ready or not!” I know this isn’t just me. They played Live Aid for crying out loud.

The video for “Some Like It Hot” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M41Xnqq8FQw is an 80’s visual history lesson featuring bad animation, worse video graphics, a woman shaving her armpits, the Duran Duran guys looking like they got kicked out of a Robert Smith’s supergroup[4] and Robert Palmer in priest’s clothing preaching to a pink cactus that was occasionally “on fire.” So why on Earth doesn’t anyone own The Power Station album?

After a few inquiries, I found that only two of my music inclined friends even admitted interest. Nick said that he recently almost bought it with one of his gift cards and my friend Chad admitted to owning the vinyl back in his tender Minnesota youth, and tried to convince me of the power Duran Duran’s other side project Arcadia had back in the day. But no one, not one hipster, nerd or wall street power broker had a hard copy.

My own excuse is simple. I’ve never really been much of a music person. The breadth of my pop culture knowledge focuses on TV and Movies. I’ll only buy an album if it comes highly recommended from a small cabinet of musical advisors or if I have to buy it for my wife. In the 80’s, I purchased one tape: The Back to the Future soundtrack. Mostly for The Power of Love because Huey Lewis was and still is my idol. His album, with the News, “Sports” is one of the most ironically owned albums in history. It wasn’t til Queensryche’s Empire that I bought another.

Chad suggested I just download it, but it wouldn’t be the same. I want to know that somewhere out there. There is someone (Chris?) that looks through their stack of CD’s when they are sick of what’s on their iTunes and at least thinks about grabbing the Power Station out from between their Postal Service and Pretty Girls Make Graves.

Maybe availability was the problem? What if it was impossible to find? It would surely be more of in store impulse buy then an online search driven quest. I went to three local “cool” record stores in the heart of Williamsburg and Greenpoint. I even had to explain to the counter guardian at AMny’s own Earwax exactly what I was talking about. Sadly, he just got defensive and said, “We don’t sell 80’s pop here.” So be it, it seemed its ironic value was even higher then I thought.

I gave it look see in the music department of Barnes & Noble, thinking bigger means Power Station. Well not quite. I did find four different Greatest Hits albums of Robert Palmer including a 20th Century Masters album. Now before you get hysterical there is also Master of the Twentieth Century album for Eddie Money, Tears For Fears and someone called Rainbow. There was also a two disc anthology that featured the hits of Power Station, but it wasn’t the prize. I wanted the bad cover art. The surely cryptic liner notes. The photo of Robert looking like he was the manager that just happened to get into the picture.

To avoid the shutout I went to Virgin. If it wasn’t there, then it wasn’t in print and that was that. I flug open the doors from a bitter Union Square and launched into the maze of Madonna albums, Miss Sunshine DVD’s and $10 things that I already owned and when I got to the P’s just above Powerman 5000 there it was[5]. Red and black jagged cutouts, the band awkward picture and eight rock songs from an era when you could get away with having eight songs on a record. And of all of this nostalgic bliss and ironic superstardom for a mere $18. So maybe Chad’s right; I’ll download it.

[1] Historical note: This name is completely made up.
[2] Aka If I’m not being too lazy.
[3] Their wedding was at a public beach and reception was on Narragasset Bay.
[4] Which I found out was called, “The Glove.”
[5] I also found Arcadia.

Tales from Carolina
I moved back to the town that I grew up in North Carolina for about three months a few years ago. I will always have a fond place in my heart for Winston-Salem, but that spot is reserved for my childhood. As an adult, Winston doesn’t offer the type of action and entertainment that I have become accustomed to in Boston and Minneapolis.
So what do you do in a town that has passed legislation against cruising Stratford Road? This is the most retarded thing ever by the way. Kids think that they are going to meet people as they wait at stoplights. Fights break out, people drag race, brainpower shrinks, pant meat swells, you know the deal. So what do you do as a 28 year old? You drink. You drink a lot. Sometimes you drink at Applebee’s. How retarded is that? Fucking Applebee’s. It got to a point that I just didn’t give a shit about what I was doing. I barely avoided getting my ass kicked by a chain-smoking soccer mom when I repeatedly asked her if she liked anal.
I worked in the worst job ever. I was a car salesman. You are a third class citizen in this job, and the only people that seemed to pay you any respect were fourth class citizens. If I was flying on a plane, I would be in cargo or a dog cage, or maybe clinging to that netting like Harrison Ford in Air Force One. I hung out with two guys from work, one of which used to be a Hells Angel, and the other who carried a pistol in his car and sometimes on his person, at all times.
From what I was to understand, you never really leave the Hells Angles. At any point, the “club” could come in and beat my colleague to death. He repeatedly warned me of this and told me that if it ever happened, to say that I had never met him. This is who I spent my time with. It kept life interesting, but certainly did not set a standard for quality of life.
One night after work, as usual, a few of us hit sweet sweet Applebee’s. I don’t know what I drank, but by the time I left, I was pretty drunk. I had a short drive home, so I wasn’t worried, but still I shouldn’t have been driving. I got home and made it up to my room. The last bit of booze that I had was beginning to catch up with me. I was pretty wobbly. Like the fucking parachuting elephant in Operation Dumbo Drop, the need to shit hits me.
I run into the bathroom and sit down and get down to business. The toilet is right next to the tub where I keep my reading material (shampoo bottles.) As I am leaning to the left to clean myself up, I lean too fast and ram my head into the wall. At the same time, the toilet seat comes unbuckled from the commode and shoots off. It blasts through the shower curtain and lands in the tub. I have now found myself wedged in between the wall and the shitter. My pants are down around my ankles so I can’t get any leverage to get back up. I eventually struggle my way out, yelling at the damn toilet. I finished up and went to bed. I used the downstairs bathroom the rest of the time I was there. I bet that toilet seat is still lounging where it landed. I became accustomed to stepping around it every morning as I took my shower so I never bothered to move it.

I have more retarded stories from living down there if there is an interest...

Good news!

My mustache is catching up with my beard!

Bad news!

Snow is playing "Vandy's with an Edge", Mike Vanderjagt, Reggie Wayne and Edge James' sports bar in Marco Island, on July 1st. (No seriously, that's the name of their bar.) That's 5 days before I'll be down there for a wedding and that's lame.

So far 2007 has been a mixed bag.

(except for this blog, where's it's nothing but a straight shot downhill.)

"Ma'am."

Off the SHITLIST for 2007

In my first of many articles (including its sister article Welcome to the SHITLIST SUCKA!), I’m taking a prominent pop culture figure off the SHITLIST.

This first figure really came to my attention when I was reading the back page of a recent Esquire (which if you haven’t seen me in a while, has put way more hair on my chest). It was a satire on sobriety coins. For instance, the United States received one for going 42 months without starting a war. Ha ha get it. Well there was also one which was labeled 52 years without being funny for Red Heat co-star Jim Belushi. Instead of laughing, I was almost depressed. I just thought of Jim getting this magazine in the mail and checking out the back page and just sighing, turning the page and pouring his whiskey up to the top. So I’ve decided its time to leave Jim Belushi alone.
Now in full disclosure, I was four years old when John died so I didn’t mind going to see K-9 in the theater or trying and to center my 13th birthday around Taking Care of Business (I didn’t get in cause it was Rated R so we had to go see Ghost, and we were followed in to the theater by the usher who thought we would sneak into the other theater, cause kids in Danvers are bad ass like that). But since I’ve grown hair on my balls, I’ve thought Jim Belushi is just as much of a talentless oaf as the rest of America. The recent syndication of According to Jim and the mere existence of Mr. Destiny have only solidified just how unfunny Mr. Belushi has been. But saying it out loud or making reference of it in a national syndication is the equivalent of saying, “You know who’s a good actress, that Meryl Streep.” Not only are you kicking a dead horse, but you are breaking its legs, putting it in a head lock, hitting it with a steel chair, running it into the turnbuckle and then shooting it in the face. The only thing less funny then Jim Belushi is saying that Jim Belushi isn’t funny.
If anything, his legacy should be seen as one of bravery. Think about it. Pretend your brother opened a really successful whorehouse. There wasn’t a tit under a C and the ass was more giggly then a paint mixer. Every one who worked there seemed to have been born and raised in Slutztown. There were so many blowjobs being given out you’d think you were inside a combustion engine. You would go to the brothel and your brother would come out from the throngs of celebrities, rub your head and say, “Hey everyone look at my lil brother. Get this guy some anal.” Goodbye virginity. Then he would give you rent money and let your underage ass drink for free. Life was great!
Then your brother dies. You’re devastated. You can’t leave your house. You start eating your own feces. Well maybe not, but you’re a deadbeat and your brother was your hero. So wouldn’t you try and get behind the spunk shield the day after the funeral and keep the good times going. Everyone would say you couldn’t do it. They would say things like it will never be the same, and you would hear every single jibe. Jim Belushi was a loyal son of Albanian immigrants and he tried to keep the whorehouse open, but everyone noticed. The whips were a little less leathery. The buttplugs didn’t quite fit and suddenly you look around and Penthouse quality staff are fat, saggy and Nugget just called to say they were gonna pass on the photo shoot with your amputees . Soon his staff is down to runaways and trailer park moms and his customer base is a couple of Vietnam vets who kept telling stories of the good old days when rimjobs cost a buck in Saigon. Sure, it would have been easier if he had just opened a bar or restaurant or even an H and R Block, but ostensibly there was still money coming in but even he knew he had run the good times straight into ground.
Don’t think that for one day he wouldn’t trade the neverending supply of beat up pussy to have his brother back and not be Jim Belushi, but we all know pimpin' ain’t easy.

So without further ado, Jim Belushi, you are off the SHITLIST.

A Sure Sign of Growing Older. Just not gracefully

I have resisted growing up and getting older for years. There is a part of me that still thinks that I am 22. I like pop punk, I still have a sort of aggressive hair style, I laugh at Jackass, and really just want to play in a band and spend my time drinking outside in the sunshine.
Sadly this cant happen forever. I wish it could. I have finally realized that that part of my life is over. Like hoping for Ray Combs to make a comeback and host Family Feud again, there is just no chance. It’s done.
Why this fatalist outlook on growing up?
Because.
Why?
Because.
Come on, why?
Because. I. Am. Going. Bald.
So what, lots of guys are shaving their heads now.
I’m not talking about the hair on my head.
…
I’m losing my leg hair. My legs are going bald.
In the six years that I have effectively been in the work force, I have been relegated to wearing the black mid calf socks instead of just flip flops that I so desire. Like the population of Bhopal, India in the 1980’s my leg hair is being wiped from the planet. Only this time Union Carbide had nothing to do with it. Unless, of course they have a controlling stake in Gold Toe.
Now I am not a very hairy man. I cant even grow a full beard. I’m not so sure that I could even wear a fake beard without it looking spotty. The point is that I never really worried about that. Now when I go to the beach this summer, people are going to think that I shave that part of my legs for swimming or some other retarded reason. It would make sense, as the hair next to your ankles can create an awful lot of drag when fleeing a shark or a moray.
If this is the double entendre that Sox Appeal is referring to, I can do without it. I am old before my time. I am considering cutting the elastic out of all my socks and bringing back the sox suspenders of yesteryear. So when you get your invite to a benefit dinner to Save the LH, know that it isn’t to Save the Laotian Hogpile ( a wrestling move that is banned in 92 countries), it’s to save my leg hair.
I wonder if Rogaine would work.

Fun* with Google Image Search

This is all of you! That's right, you on the blogroll "contributors" list. More like "detributors"! What does that mean? Fuck you, that's what it means!





Look! I've been waiting for new posts for so long it's now 1982! What's that? "Centerfold" by J. Giles is now number 1? Radical! I'm going to play this cassingle in my walkman while jumping my BMX over Ronald Regan's broken promises! Catch you later dudes!











What the hell is going on here? Probably some relatively cutting edge progressive rock and roll! Perhaps if I use the amplifying powers of Stonehenge to boost the synth on track 6 ("Bow Down Wolves of Yore, Ye Treble Sword of Cocaine Glows Bright") we'll finally get some results around here! Okay...that should do it.

Oh good god. Yes sucks.














According to my Google search for "asleep at the keyboard", this is a "golf instruction prank". I have no idea how you could sleep at the keyboard with this on the screen (AM I RIGHT GUYS!). What a sexy, sexy prank! If this doesn't get you on the course with a clearly illegal 15th club in your "bag", I don't know what will. What? Who the hell is Dorf?














Let's take a quick time out for something TOTALLY AWESOME!!!!















If I can be serious here for a minute; Dude, you helped write Appetite for Destruction. Do you realize how ridiculously good that album is? It's one of the few things just about everyone can agree on, from the hipsters right down to the mockable aging burnout townies. Let's take a minute to really look at ourselves (by ourselves I mean you). Do you like what you see? I didn't think so. Now go write another "Mr. Brownstone" and stop wasting my time.
















Where is this guy now? Why, he's incredibly busy sprucing up his elaborate fantasy world:

"I'm working on a new record right now, which I hope to get rolling later this year. People tell me I paved the way for EMINEM.

"He paved his own way, but he got it easy. I came just after VANILLA ICE, and people were saying, 'What the hell is this guy doing singing in patois?' I had to win people over the tough way. I'm still banned from Japan though.

* Fun is an incredibly subjective word.

SWEET BOOTS

Have you had what you thought was a really great idea, only to find out later that you were wrong? I’ve had this happen a number of times, like when I lopped off the end of my finger when I wanted to feel the movement of the hedge clippers as a child. It didn’t take off a lot, but a small part of my rounded finger tip was now square and bleeding. It seems amazing that I was selected to take the SAT’s for Duke in seventh grade for some Talent Identification Program (TIP) with this type of behavior, but I digress.

Behind my house in North Carolina a few hundred yards away there was a creek. Being eleven and tired of riding bikes for the afternoon, a friend and I went down to the creek to play in the sand. As we gingerly walked along the pipe that stretched from one side of the creek to the forbidden West Side and back, I got an idea. If my shoes are too wet to wear to school tomorrow, I can wear my sweet boots. BOOM! Into the water I went. The water, which was probably mostly run off from roads and highways, crested the tops of my shoes, filling them completely. Walking on what amounted to sponges on the way home, I felt pleased and a sense of accomplishment. I had beaten the system. No more tennis shoes for me at school. Tomorrow I got to show off my sweet boots.

So the next day shows itself and with my mom aggravated over my sopping wet sneaks, I was off to school in my sweet boots. I was walking tall. I didn’t recall anyone wearing such a sweet pair of boots to school. I was going to set a trend. The kids in my grade would marvel at the sweetest pair of boots they had ever seen.

The first few classes went by and no one said anything about the glorious footwear that I had graced them with. Finally we got down to music class. The chairs were arranged in a horseshoe shape, perfect for me to stick my feet out to show off these kicks. One of the girls in my class had just gotten Janet Jackson’s Control tape and we all sat and listened to “Nasty.” The song ended and Beth Griffen noticed my kicks, and like a punch in the face said, “look at Chris Neher’s shoes!!!”

I looked down. All of a sudden my high top navy moon boots with three Velcro straps didn’t seem that cool anymore. “I had to wear them,” I exclaimed. “I got my tennis shoes all wet.” Some kids snickered, some made moon boot comments, some didn’t care.

When I got home that afternoon, I took my not so sweet boots off and put them in the storage room where we kept our winter gear. We had once had a torrid love affair, me and sweet boots, but we would never be the same. A year later my mom got rid of them. I couldn’t have grown out of them fast enough.

2007!?

So yeah, 2007. Pretty wild, right? This is the year man, I'm telling you. Things are going to be different. No seriously, I'm turning this shit around for real. Yeah, I know I've said this type of stuff before. What? No man, I meant it when I said I was going to get shit straightened out before, but complications came up you know? Oh man, that's so unfair. Whatever man, you're a fucking hater. Here's my 11 point plan for 2007 (Don't worry there's going to be pleeeeeeeeenty of filler in this one):

Step 1: Figure out what I want to do with my life.

Year 2012
"Okay, Michael, that was lovely. Next up we have Neko. What does your dad do?"
"My dad's a secretary. He makes me call him an 'Executive Assistant' at home because he says it's more 'official' but I really know it's just a fancy name for secretary."

How depressing is that? "Hey Neko, your dad answers my dad's phone! I bet he gives my dad head while he's on conference calls too!" Ugh. No fucking way, dudes. This has to change. I need to get cracking on a career that my kid can respect. Either that or I need to create an elaborate web of lies about my profession and keep it going until she turns 21 and moves out. Considering that the latter seems more plausable, be sure to agree with her when she tells you that her dad is Val Kilmer.

Step 2: Figure out how to profit from the retarded things my brain comes up with.

Last night the phrase "mutual semen" popped into my head. I'm not sure exactly what it means, but I bet it has a use that can be exploited. I'm thinking the most likely application would be within the gay community. Maybe it's something that happens when two gay men get married? Either that or it's the most digusting "Take a Penny, Leave a Penny" dish you've ever seen. Someone's got to be interested in buying this phrase from me and expanding on it. God I hope so, because I need money. Like fast. (See Step 3.)

Step 3: Pay down some of my debt.

Seriously, mutual semen? Anybody? I got like $3,000 on my credit card that I need to pay off a.s.a.p because I got this trip I want to take and we could use a new bed. Thanks.

Step 4: Cultivate a better moustache.

Right now my moustache is not on par with my beard. It's not terrible per se, but it's lacking. It's patchy and blond on the sides, which makes for a sweet faux-Hitler look when it gets too long. This would be a fine look if I was going to Charlie Chaplin convention and I wanted to suffocate under the weight of 4 tons of angrily tossed dreidels. While I had a grand time making them out of clay, I really don't want my cause of death to be those shitty tops. Basically my moustache better man the fuck up. I'm tired of it playing the Victor Prinzim to my beard's J.J. McClure. How do you improve your moustache though? I'm going to try thinking really hard about it while drinking whiskey, but I'm open to (better) suggestions.

Step 5: Try and write more.

Gerald Ford also promised to try, like really, really, super hard to come back to life too. Writing more would probably help me feel more useful and productive even though I'm not particularly good at it. Still, Spud Webb got by on less, so fingers crossed! Feel free to pop by my house this weekend while I'm drinking and playing video games to point out all the time I'm wasting. Then sit down, have a beer and shut the fuck up, you hypocrite.

Step 6: Learn how to properly use commas.

Pretty sure there are way too many in Step 5.

Step 7: Get sexually harrassed.

Oddly enough, this has nothing to do with trying to achieve Step 3. I just want to feel pretty. I don't wear light blue cashmere socks to work because I like them or because they were on sale (even though they were). I wear them because I want undressing by eyeballs; man, woman, immigrant or otherwise. Don't worry, prompt eyeball redressing would follow as I'm not what one would call "the good naked".

Step 8: Make it through another year without seeing the movie Grease.

This is most likely the lock of the list. I have never and will never* see this movie. I know I won't like it. What? There are tits and ass and sex and all sorts of cool shit in this movie? I still won't watch it. Why? Because you're lying, asshole. If there was anything remotely enjoyable about this movie, I would have seen it already. Please note that this Step applies to the movie Ghost as well.

Step 9: Convince my mom that having a few beers does not automatically make you a lock for alcoholism.

My mom's got a distorted view of drinking alcohol. From what I gather, she assumes that once you complete your first beer, you've just hit the countdown to degeneration. She actually said recently that she was concerned that my brother and I are going to become drunks. Nevermind that her retarded views on booze make my father hide his Coronas at my house like a 17-year-old. Apparently it's easier than hiding them in the woods by the Little League field. Hiding your drinking is healthy. Yeah. Totally. Naturally the only way to handle this is to drink ONLY when she was around and in high doses. I think I'm going to down a fifth of whiskey and go fist fight my parent's trash cans tonight. That will prove my point perfectly!!

Step 10: Stop people from saying "I just threw up in my mouth a little."

Enough. It was funny 2 years ago (maybe) but it's just not anymore. We get it, one ball hanging out of my jeans is gross. Don't resort to cliched, hacky quotes to express your disgust. It's gotten to the point where people use on shit that's not even gross. "Oh my god! That guy wearing last year's Gucci just hit on me! Ummm, no! I totally just puked in my mouth a little!" Seriously, I once saw a homeless man with his pants around his ankles taking a shit on a wall. That's a prime moment for puking in your mouth, yet all I did was finish my boston creme donut with a smile. Just stop it. You're pissing me off.

Step 11: Fix my life in less steps next year.

Seriously.

*obviously if certain circumstances came up, I'd watch this movie. Like if someone offered me money or if someone I cared about was dying and it was their last request or something. None of these will probably happen so I think we're in the clear. By the way, if any of my friends are writing this into their will right now just to spite me, fuck you. I'll watch it, but let it be known that I'm going to dig up your grave and reenact the entire movie for your surviving family with your skeleton.