Wednesday, December 27, 2006

I xxxx you: Or how I learned to stop whining and to enjoy Christmas

Being perpetually single, Christmas season sometimes gets tough.

I come from a family, well I come from a family I just visited a week before the holiday, and my parents didn’t have a tree up or lights in the window. Even I do that - and leave the inside ones up until St. Patrick’s Day sometimes (unless there’s the slim chance I might actually have someone over and/or might get laid).

We’re also not very good about the love thing, meaning I’m pretty sure we all care a great deal for each other but have a hard time saying so.

Case in point: My folks deciding in September to move ASAP, giving themselves 10 days to pack it all and get out.

I show up like a good son the first chance I get to get things rolling and the dialogue goes a little something like this.

DAD: What the hell are you doing here?

ME (as I am lifting heavy objects): What the hell do you mean what the hell am I doing here? You gave yourself 10 freaking days to move. Someone’s got to do it.

DAD: Don’t do us any favors.

ME: Fuck you.

DAD: Fuck you (then storms out of house to sit in car for hours staring at pond in local forest preserve).

ME (to MOM): Doesn’t he realize I’m doing this because I love you guys and I get really frustrated when you rush into things and I’m afraid you’re going to get hurt and I don’t want you to get hurt.

Get the idea?

And Christmas is all about gushy feelings and Julie Andrews singing “My Favorite Things.” Deep down I am not immune to this. Songs like “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” can turn me into 220 pounds of blubbering seal meat.

I also feel like a fifth wheel going anywhere to the point that one Christmas not so long ago, as no immediate family was around, to go see two movies instead of visiting friends.

But this year I decided not to be such a neurotic idiot about it. I even tried skiing when visiting my sister in Lake Tahoe, which is bold for a klutz like me, not caring too much if I fell, as long as it wasn’t on a small child.

Reinforcing how self-centered my “nobody loves me” shtick can be anyway, was seeing some friends on TV with their 22 year old son, who is in a hospital out east, learning how to use an artificial limb and what’s left of his other arm, both of which were blown up in Afghanistan.

Suddenly that I don’t have anyone next to me in bed every morning, hell any morning, seemed really not such a big deal. Plus, I snore anyway.

Plus, I sure do bitch and moan, but I realized this year, I really do have a good batch of friends.

So back to that four letter word. While the Eskimos may have dozens of words for snow, we only seem to have one for love, with no delineation, but for hot monkey love, which ain’t so bad when you get it either.

But that doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room when you say it, which means its overused and trite and can make people uncomfortable.

Maybe there should be a word “loke” for when you’re in between falling in love and really liking someone. And another one for how you feel about your friends. And another one for your pets. Or your hobby. Or food.

Since there aren’t and since it’s Christmas I thought I’d let the government know by posting it here that there are people I think I love, which doesn’t mean I want to marry them, but that they my life does seem a helluva a lot fuller because I know them and for which I will use xxxx, not like a porno or a Muslim, but because we need a new word:

There’s a new friend and an old friend who both helped me find a liquor store to get the hardest to find gift on my list: Serbian Plum Brandy. And the place they both told be about had 4 kinds! That’s just one reason why I xxxx them both.

There’s my friend who I only talk to once a year, but who sends me a Christmas present, but I’ve known him 30 years. And his parents have me over every Christmas Eve like one of their own.

There’s my buddy in Northbrook who goes on adventures with me for my often fun job whose had his family and his Mom over for holiday meals (and meals will be a trend here).

There are my friends in Elgin who have me over to watch the Sopranos and eat with them and have made quite a few otherwise forgettable Sundays end with pleasant slightly drunken evenings. And another couple in Elgin who have me over to watch Monday night football, but really just to talk because who really cares when its's the Raiders playing?

There are my Irish friends who are not even 10 years older than me but consider me their son, who feed me and let me sack out on their sofa, and open the door and let me in whenever, for whatever.

There are my friends in Oak Park who feed me, too, and invite me out for beers and to have funny conversations about the sad state of the world.

There’s my buddy who asked me to bake Christmas cookies with her and her nieces, knowing full well I barely use my own over. It was great fun.

There are my basketball buddies who give me a reason to get off my ass and out of bed on Sunday mornings when it’s frozen outside for the last 15 years or so.

There’s the receptionist at work who always buys me a T-shirt when she goes on vacation, and I do the same for her. And the reporter whose been there longer than me with the heart of gold.

There’s my two friends from college, one in Denver, one in Boston, whom I hear from on the Internet.

There’s my friends from when I thought I wanted to be a comic actor a long time ago, whom I went with to a Sox game - the first time I saw them in almost 10 years.

There’s the guy who sends me e-mail all the time who should write a book about his life on the fringes of show business; my Notre Dame cousins; the couple in Chicago by Northeastern Illinois with whom I’ve explored the city and its fine bars; the woman in St. Louis who has sent me on some fun adventures in her hometown; and the sexy photographer with the tattoos at work, and the goofy photographer who makes me laugh just by walking into the room with his Polish Hawaiian shirt; the woman who got me King Tut tickets and the people I went with to that show.

There’s my buddy whom I only knew for a year, who was from Africa, who loved blues and taught at DePaul, who died this fall.

There are the people who actually read this blog.

Cripes, I feel like George Bailey or whatever the hell Jimmy Stewart’s name was in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” without having to have an angel snag my whiny ass off a bridge.

So to all of you, for what it’s worth, there’s a guy near a river in Illinois who xxxx you.

And if I forgot you, I owe you a drink.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

I wish a bear would find me: notes from Reno

My 8 year old niece’s interpretation of a line from Green Day’s "Boulevard of Broken Dreams”: Someday I won I wish a bear would find me.

With that in mind, here are some things I learned on my vacation West:

A) Further proof there’s no real point to airport security: In Reno, I checked my bags curbside and even tipped the guy $5. I get up to the first checkpoint and show my boarding pass and ID, and make it to the carryon/shoe/cell phone/makeup/chap stick/gum check. I hand another TSA person my pass, and she tells me, “You’re not Donna Daniels,” to which I thoroughly agreed.

So I tell her I made it passed one of her coworkers, so I don’t know what the heck happened. They escort me back with all my stuff back out to get another boarding pass. I return, coincidentally, to be inline next to the real Donna Daniels. Or so she said.

While you might think she had my pass, she didn’t. And she was heading to Seattle, not Chicago.

Noone quite figured out what happened.

B) The vertical striped shirt thing must stop. I was at a party and all these rich 40-something guys were wearing them, which made them look like the dads of Abercrombie & Fitch models. I, of course, wore a kilt. And you can’t go wrong with that.

C) You know how some guys shake hands really hard just to show how manly they are? Well I overheard some women talking about how some women do a similar thing with their boobs when they hug each other, rubbing them into the hugger. “Like a porn star,” is how one wealthy soccer mom put it.

D) People who like the Grateful Dead typically don’t have any good dance music available.

E) Rich people are different than you and me. They have nicer houses and live in prettier places.

F) Why are surf suits black? In Northern California the ocean is green-gray. Plus black makes you look like a sea lion, especially if you are a fat surfer. Why don’t they color the suits?

G) Never go snowshoeing if you are from the Midwest, new to 8,000 feet, have a cold and were drinking the night before. Then again, hyperventilating does clear the senses.

H) If you try to learn a new sport such as skiing after the age of 35, just keep reminding yourself that it’s no big deal if you fall on your ass. You have a life. Plus, people will just think you are handicapped and take pity on you. Or realize you are from a flat place, which they might consider to be a handicap anyway.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

91 Cheerleaders: The Niece Chronicles

So I'm in Northern California meeting my familial holiday obligations, visiting my parents, brother, sister and her clan, in advance of December 25 in part to reduce self-inflicted stress and in larger part to avoid airports around Christmas.

Also, we're sort of an autistic family, meaning we can go weeks without even hearing from each other for no reason of animosity. Then again, I have a friend in New Mexico whose only form of communication with me is a Christmas present, typically a DVD or CD box set of some sort. I just mailed him a tin of indigenouse Chicago cookies to see if maybe it would get him to call.

Which is to say, maybe it's me.

Anyway, not putting up with any of my bullshit is my 8 year old niece, with whom I could have starred in a movie about a door to door Bible salesman, if this were the 1970s or maybe a community theater production of Annie but that she doesn't have red hair and I'd have to shave my goatee.

Which is to say she is a bit of an actress, and I am her comic foil.

For instance, at a dinner party the other night, out of the blue she asks me if I cook for myself.

I tell her that being single I don't do much cooking but rely on the kindness of friends for many a meal. I have to remain popular in order to eat well, I say.

"Not gonna happen," she quips as if Tina Fey is writing her material.

Later that night I pay her $5 to tell my Dad who is giving a friend of my sister's his version of my middling life story, which she promptly does.

A dinner I tell her she is my favorite niece.

She says, "I am your only niece."

Well, I guess that means you are my least favorite niece, too.

A little later, after mulling that over, she says, "You know, I don't get you."

Get in line, I think, worried a bit that I have no appeal even to the Nickolodeon generation.

The next day, she is preoccupied with my love life, which seems a curious thing for an 8 year old to ponder. I try to change the subject by offering to open a restaurant with her (back to the food topic and how I will eat, I guess) and suggest that we buy a closed place we see along the highway. She comes up with the name Crabby Bob's after my dad and her grandpa, which will, of course, serve crab.

Still, she sees hope for me and wants to take me shopping for a nice outfit and maybe have me shave my goatee. Yet, she doesn't have friends with single moms (which, since she lives in a well-off town, would mean me dating way out of my league anyway).

It's not like I'm my brother, whom she believes needs a total makeover, she says. Ouch.

Yikes - to be that young and to be so daytime TV. Wait until she is that age of the 91 cheerleaders who performed at the halftime of a Golden State Warriors basketball game I attended tonight. (Aside: Could NBA games be any duller? Attending one almost made me want to see The Nutcracker. It was that boring.)

She'll either be their queen or way beyond that.

I'll probably still be single.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

An Irish Christmas Show Story NOT by James Joyce

So I get dragged to an Irish concert on a night after a snowstorm. Top it off, it’s a Danny Boy singer, meaning Celtic Branson, Mo., stuff.

What I don’t get about that sort of stuff is Mick Jagger is over 60, which means the people who like Andy Williams, cheesy Russian comics and fishy Japanese violin players have all got to be 90 now.

This is either proof that Social Security won’t be there for me and you or that there is such a thing as mental age, and a lot of people act way older than they are - perhaps to balance out the immature rest of us.

Anyway, this guy’s name is Tony Kenny, and to start the show he was dressed in an outfit that sort of looked something like what a Pilgrim or a creepy magician like David Copperfield would don.

Tony tours every Christmas and seems to be a nice enough guy. He used to be the house entertainment for the blue haired tourists at Jury’s, a hotel in Dublin.

He specializes is stuff that sounds like it was left out of Jesus Christ Superstar, which means Andrew Lloyd Weber, which gives me hives.

One of Tony’s tunes, which he sings with a pianist and taped music, was something about the Virgin Mary. Actually, two of them were - you can never have too many songs about virgins.

The one that stuck out was Tony wondering if Mary knew that her baby would be God’s son and what a difference he would make in the world.

Which made me want to shout, Of course she did, you dumb Mick. Didn’t you read the Bible? Poor Joseph had to raise God’s kid as his own. They were all in on it, which is a weird story when you start to think about it.

Now Mary and maybe even Jesus didn’t know how terribly wrong the world would get what he was saying, that people even 2,000 years later would be fighting wars and killing over religion.

Now that might be a good song, but probably not one 90 year olds all whimsical about the Emerald Aisle would pay good money to hear.

Anyway, there was fun to be had, and it was was twofold.

First, Tony (who has perfect TV anchorman hair) had this little guy singing with him, not a dwarf, but a guy barely 5 feet tall, like Tom Cruise, but not as annoying. He had the Pilgrim clothes on, too. We didn’t stay long enough to see if Tony made him put on a elf outfit for the encore.

If I were this little dude, though, I’d be pissed at Peter Jackson. Probably the only short guy in Ireland not used in Lord of the Rings. Maybe he’ll get a part in The Hobbit.

The other nice thing: Tony had Irish eye candy, some dancers, two boys for those who like boys and two ladies for those of use who like ladies, the blond of which reminded me of another business idea of mine: Irish lap dancing.

They were cute and their skirts flew up into the air.

After that we made like the breeze.

But way before that I heard a story, which made it worth going out on a shitty evening.

Tony has a superfan, there that night in one of those holiday sweaters that women of a certain age and/or demographic like to wear. I don’t think it had bells sewn into it, but I bet she has one that does.

Anyway, the superfan goes to ALL of Tony’s shows and even came up with a dance for one of his songs that she showed him and that she wants him to do. It uses scarves as he sings about the Virgin.

Come to think of it, this was all way more entertaining than the Madonna thing I saw on TV before Thanksgiving.

My NFL ad for the Super Fabulous Bowl

So the NFL is having this contest for people to create their own ads about the league, the winner of which supposedly will get made for the Super Bowl.

Since this is a sport where play begins with a man putting his hands under another man’s legs, gently touching his ass and junk, here’s one:

Scene: A bunch of Desperate Housewives types tell their husbands that they are having some sort of suburban dreadful gathering like a candle party, so the guys leave the house for the bar.

Once they are sure the men are gone, they turn on the HDTV to watch football, too.

Camera cuts to shots that have their attention: asses in tight pants; steam coming off shaved heads on the sideline.

Cut to the women erotically eating their low fat snack foods.

Cut to more beefcake.

Cut to women who say: This is why we love football.

Cut to bar where some of the husbands might even be, but Cher music can be heard in backround.

TV in bar has shots of football players hugging and patting each others’ asses.

Cut to guys in bar, belly butting.

Guys lilne: And it's why we love football, too (leaving the closet door wide open).

Care to make an investment?

I’m heading out to Northern California, the venture capitol capital (and I am not such which gets the a and which gets the o, but I’m sure there are plenty of the two together somewhere near Palo Alto).

I never got in on the Dot-com thing, mainly because they are afraid to admit there is money to be made off sex. Come on, Guy Space would be a great site, with home videos of strippers and dude’s lighting their farts on fire and shirtless drunks at tailgates.

And for the guys on the other team, Gay Space could offer similar.

Think of the confusion this may cause bad typists of either persuasion.

OK, I’m lying. I never pitched either idea. But I should.

I had another investment idea from this week’s weather in Chicago, which went from 60 and sunny and 12 and a foot of snow in three freakin’ days: winter weight shorts.

Just about every guy I know who weighs more than 200 pounds (which is about 80 percent of the adult guys in Chicago) and who is under 50 occasionally wears short pants in cold weather.

I say 50 because that seems to be the hemline of sorts for the fellows who still insist on wearing their shorts above the knee. The rest of us know that: A) unless you are a go-go boy short shorts are wrong, wrong and B) women wear skirts in winter - what’s the diff?

But to make wives and kindly old ladies who always ask at the grocery store if you are cold happy, winter weight shorts could come with linings or be made of the latest in heat-retaining micro fibers.

Then when someone asks why the hell you are wearing short pants in December in Chicago, instead of saying it’s none of your Goddamn business (which is more of a New York thing than Chicago, anyway), you can say, “They are winter shorts.” End of story.

My other idea worth pitching to some guy with lots of funny money: Since they are building so many Walgreen’s and there already are so many McDonald’s, why not just get it over with and combine the two. Get the pills you eventually will need from eating all those Big Macs right there with your fries and shake.