Blinded by the Light

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

A few quotes, song lyrices, etc.

Plots and character don't make life. Life is here and now, anytime you say the word, anytime you let her rip.
Henry Miller

"We all agree that your theory is crazy, but is it crazy enough?"
-Niels Bohr (1885-1962)

I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody but my own confusion.
-Jack Kerouac

Imagination is more important than knowledge...
-Albert Einstein

Well I hope that someday buddy
we have peace in our loves
Together or apart
Alone or with or wives
And we can stop our whoring
And pull the smiles inside
And light it up forever
And never go to sleep
My best darn beaten brother
-Johnny Cash


Humanity has advanced when it has advanced not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.
-Tom Robbins

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
-Hunter S. Thompson

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.
-Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.
-Hunter S. Thompson

"Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas...with the music at top volume and at least a pint of ether.
- Hunter S. Thompson

We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.
-Tom Robbins

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.
-Henry Miller

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww."
-Jack Kerouac

To be nobody-but-yourself--in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else--means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
-e e cummings

When you feel in your gut what you are and then dynamically pursue it - don't back down and don't give up - then you're going to mystify a lot of folks.
-Bob Dylan

We turned at a dozen paces, for love is a duel, and looked up at each other for the last time.
-Jack Kerouac


-SMM

Observations in Miniature – People in the Gym V

If you see yourself amongst these people it might be time to change your gym habits.

Little Big Guy (The Napoleon Complex) – Did you just walk under a bench without ducking? No, I’m not staring at you I just looked down because I saw you scurrying across the gym and thought you were a groundhog. You’re what? Five feet two inches tall and weigh two hundred and ten pounds? I’ll let you in on a little secret. Lifting weights isn’t going to make you taller and the wider you get the shorter you look. It’s a no win situation. If you want to attract women I suggest you stop walking like you’re carrying an industrial size can of SpaghettiOs between your thighs. You’re legs aren’t that big and either are your lats so stop holding your arms out to your sides like your carrying invisible luggage. That’s it, make believe time is over. Exhale. It feels good not to have hold all that air in your chest to make it look big doesn’t it? No, I won’t tell anyone you shop in the children’s husky section of Sears.

Aerobics Guy – Okay, to the left now and kick…no, whatever you do don’t fucking high kick. High kicking is an activity that is strictly reserved for female aerobics enthusiasts, female cheerleaders, and members of the Rocketts, none of which you are. And for God’s sake if for some reason you would have to high kick, to say defend yourself in a Ninja battle against a throwing star, make sure you wear some pants that cover your hairy ass. Speaking of asses did you notice the shapely behind of the woman aerobics instructor in front of you? No? Something is definitely wrong here. Did your mother dress you up like Shirley Temple in frilly dresses and red bows and call you little Judy? That’s sad but I’ll let you in on a little secret. You’re not a WOMAN! Get the fuck out of the aerobics room and take off those tight spandex pants they’re cutting the circulation off to your brain.

Senior Woman Trainer – I’m glad to see you’re still trying to take care of yourself. What I’m not glad to see is that sleeveless spandex shirt you’re wearing; when you walk in front of the fan the baggy chicken skin hanging off the back of your arms flaps in the wind like the sail on a pirate ship. Are those nipples just above your pubic line or did you drop Ju Ju Bees down your shirt at lunch? Did you ever hear of a sports bra? Another no no is that tights and spandex shorts combo you’ve got going on. You’re ass looks like a deflated volleyball and I don’t even know if Viagra stands a chance against that visual assault. Here’s a clue. Cover yourself up with a plain grey sweat suit and secure anything that might jiggle or flap in the wind. Got it? Good. Carry on.

Senior Guido Tough Guy – Okay, stop slicking your hair back and put the unbreakable flex comb down, you don’t live on the set of the West Side Story. And wipe the grease spot up your hair left on the bench. Yeah, I’m sure once upon a time, back when you delivered blocks of ice off of a horse drawn cart that you could squat half of what I can do now but guess what? Your sixty years old now and I don’t care who you were. And please wear something other than that wife beater over your odd shaped barrel chest and lose the ID bracelet and gold chains. Ditch those velour sweat pants and Adidas tennis shoes and would it be too much to ask you to wear deodorant? That natural musk you have going on just peeled the paint off the leg extension machine. Don’t fucking growl and grumble and say under your breath that I was never as strong as you. Because guess what? I can hear you and I don’t really have a problem with getting my eight-four year old grandfather to kick your ass.

Stretching Freak (Rubber Woman) – Did you just pull your head between your legs, look over your ass and smile at me? Okay, I get it you’re flexible. You’ve had your leg up on the treadmill for the last 45 minutes stretching out your hamstring. Do you know why Olympic runners stretch so much? It’s because they have something you don’t and it’s called MUSCLE! Earth to rubber woman you are not Houdini. Ease out of that wrestler’s bridge, untwist your arms, and put your shoulders back in joint. And for God’s sake wash your hair it looks like something the street cleaner drug in. I don’t know if you get some kind of buzz off the Zen vibes that emanate up through your stretched muscles but I’ll let you in on a little secret. You don’t need to pay $40 dollars a month to come to the gym and just stretch. You can do that for free at home and really I would prefer that because I have to keep stepping around you like an out of place piece of furniture every time I walk past the treadmills and it’s starting to piss me off.



Circuit Training Guy – One thousand seven. One thousand eight. One thousand nine. How many fucking reps are you going to do on that peck deck machine? Since you started on it I shaved three times and read War & Peace. And how in the fuck did every piece of equipment I want to use end up in your circuit? Every time I turn around you are setting a towel down on the exact piece of equipment I was going to use. Are you purposely trying to piss me off because I’ll let you in on a little secret…YOU ARE PISSING ME OFF! Your physique looks like that of a prepubescent girl so do you really think the circuit training is working? If your goal is to have a physique that looks like that of Pippy Longstocking’s then you’re right on track and I commend you for your efforts but that still leaves us with the problem of you hogging up every damn machine in the gym so I’m going to make a modest proposal. Stay the fuck off the machines I want to use and I won’t meet you outside the gym when you’re done working out and kick your ass. Sound fair? Good. Carry on.

Observations in Miniature: People in the Gym IV

If you see yourself amongst these people it might be time to change your gym habits.


Speeding Treadmill Woman -– Hello, is there anybody home under that igloo of sweat clothes you have on? Exactly how fast is that treadmill of yours turned up to? You have to hold onto the safety bar to keep from flying off the back and every five or six steps you slip and are running on your knees. Here’s a clue. Don’t eat an entire fucking cheesecake and a bag of Grandma Utz’s potato chips and then expect to come into the gym and do some insane marathon of a workout and get rid of the extra 6000 calories you just ingested. You’re built like Marlon Brando not because you don’t exercise enough. You look like him because you take in enough calories to sustain every sea fairer that ever sailed in the Spanish Armada.

Ambiguous she/he – Okay, I’m not going to ask. I think I saw you come out of the women’s locker room but my thoughts are that you might have just walked into the wrong locker room to start with? I’m I right? Can you give me a hint? No, I’m not trying to compete with you I don’t even know what you are. Don’t dress in Chuck Taylors and men’s basketball shorts and cut your hair down so you look like Pee Wee Herman if you’re a woman. That tattoo on your arm does that say I love Jean? That’s no help. Why did you just get pissed off at me and say I'm a male chauvinist while I was talking to that woman at the water fountain? Do you have a crush on her? Do you have a crush on me? Do you have a crush on the water fountain? Someone somewhere has the answer and please don’t venture into the Twilight Zone of your sexuality and threaten to pull your pants down. My heart couldn’t take that.

White Sista Worker Outer – I don’t know if you’ve looked in the mirror in the last 25 years but I’m going to let you in on a little secret…YOUR WHITE! If I hear you say “shizzle to da shiznit” one more time I’m going to blow the gym up. While you’re on the stair stepper reading Ebony did you notice that no one in that magazine looked like YOU! No? No matter how much time you spend in the tanning bed or how many hair extensions you glue to your scalp you aren’t going to be black. Your ass is as flat as freezer door and no matter how many reps on the Butt Blaster you do you’re never going to get that elusive ghetto onion you’re after. I have an idea. Pretend for a moment you’re white. How does it feel? Kind of weird isn’t it? Now imagine that both your parents were white and all your grandparents and all your great grandparents and so forth back through history were white because, well, they were. Now guess what that means? YOUR FUCKING WHITE.

Farm-aceutical Hay Seed– (Is this guy just at my gym?) Did grandpa Zeke drop you on your oblong head when you were an infant because you have to be the stupidest person I’ve ever met? Really, you work on the family farm and dip into the supply of veterinary steroids? The zits on your back the size of prunes were my first clue that you might be experimenting with Gus the Mules hormone therapy medication, the second would be that your eyes are so yellow with jaundice that it looks like someone pissed in your ear hole and filled up your hollow head. I’m not stronger than you because I take more goat thyroid than you. Believe it or not I’ve never opened up an animal’s medicine cabinet. I’m stronger because I exercise the muscle between my ears. Yeah, that atrophied thing in your skull that rattles around like a petrified dinosaur turd is your brain and you should start using it before you kill yourself with the next injection of pig growth hormone.

Rico Suave – You did not just put some foreign fucking substance in your hair and then hastily comb it back with your hand did you? Because something wet just hit me on the arm and if you cherish your machismo you will go get me a paper fucking towel and some disinfectant and wipe my arm down this instant. And after you’re done lying on a bench clean the grease stain up that your head has left there. And don’t talk in Spanish at 5000 rpms and then point in my direction and laugh I just might mistake you for a barbell and try to put a 45 pound plate on your head. Comprende? Good now turn down your MP3 player that rumba music is driving me insane. And by the way in case you haven’t noticed, which obviously you haven’t because you just checked again, you look exactly the same as you did three seconds ago when you looked in the mirror.


Hyperactive Aerobics Instructor – One and two and one and two and one and two and…Okay, stop it. Slow the fuck down. We get it you’re peppy. You did not just do a split on top of the Gatorade machine did you? Where’s the off switch? It’s good to have energy but when you get home and have sex by sitting on your husband with two and one half pound dumbbells in each hand and count out reps each time you pump up and down it’s time to admit you have a workout addiction. Wipe that grin off your face. Nobody is really that happy. That false bravado and forced giddiness were just what your cheerleading coach in high school ordered but the older you get the less and less cute it is. I would suggest hanging out at your local biker bar. Drink beer. Learn to fart on command and scowl. That’s it baby’s got a new tattoo. Did you just say cocksucker? Great. Welcome back to the human race.

Observations in Miniature: Different Drivers II

If you see yourself amongst these people it might be time to change your driving habits.

Crotch Rocket Punk – Could you rev that motorcycle a little louder my other ear drum hasn’t blown out yet? Not wearing a helmet is a good move it just shows me you don’t have much up there to protect anyway. This is what Darwin called survival of the fittest and your kind will soon enough wipe themselves out. And no that Nautica T-shirt isn’t going to protect you when you go flying over the handle bars and skid across the interstate on your stomach. Sorry, I just ran over your nipples trying to avoid the ten car pile you caused. Hopefully they’ll be able to sew those back on if you make it. If not maybe a vulture will eat them, fly over the ocean, shit them out and in this way they will have a burial at sea. The next time you decide to go weaving in and out of cars in a traffic jam at maximum speeds just remember how easy it would be for me to open my door. And oh yeah good luck with the career at Ruby Tuesdays as a “chef.”


Sleazy Trucker – How imaginative, naked lady mud flaps. I’ve never seen those before. 1-800-How’s My Driving? How about 1-800- It Fucking Sucks. You just cut me off going 80 miles over the speed limit on an icy road. Maybe your life is worth risking to deliver a shipment of doll heads to Walmart by 5 o’clock but mine isn’t so back off. I get it you’re tired and angry. Did your meth dealer cut his product too much this time? Did that lot lizard at the last truck stop not want to stick a Maglite up your ass and call you Betty Boop? Tough luck but driving at 130 miles per hour with those neocon cocksuckers Brooks and Dunn wailing in the background like two injured seagulls won’t make up for that. The only thing it will do is cause you to hit a row of cars waiting at a stoplight and if this happens you’d better pray to the jiggling hula girl on your dashboard that I’m not in one of those cars because if I am the Maglite won’t go up your ass it will go upside your bloated head.

Packed Station Wagon Guy – Are you related to the Clampetts? Because the only thing that’s missing from the back of your station wagon is Grandma’s rocking chair. How could you possibly accumulate that much shit and stuff it in the back of one vehicle? You say you’re a hoarder? No, get out of town. Those piles of newspapers dating back to the early eighties and the Tupperware lids, rubber bands, old brassieres, dog collars, plastic shopping bags are not treasures they are GARBAGE! Drive that heap straightaway to a dump and unload. You will find you’ll get 40-50 more miles to the gallon and you might find that interbred son of yours that you thought ran away ten years ago under a stack of flattened Krimpet boxes.

Bill the Volunteer Fire Fighter – Okay, slow the fuck downs the Spicy burrito at Taco Bell is not a three alarm fire call. Turn that eight foot high rack of swirling lights off on top of your 78 Chevy Impala; no one needs that much illumination unless they’re landing aircraft at night. I know your job is thankless one so let me be the first to thank you but to also add that you're not a cop. That’s right, stop wearing that blue uniform that your grandmother sewed for you, it doesn’t give you the authority to pass me by driving over the flower bed in the middle of town. We need to find you a girlfriend before you start hiding bodies under your floorboards in your house so I suggest you get some acne medication, deodorant, shampoo and trade in your walkie talkie for a cell phone. That sixteen foot antennae on the roof of your car and the 4 x 6 foot side mirrors need to go too. Believe me you’ll be able to see fine without them. Now, ask her out but don’t take her to the all you can eat Firehouse pancake breakfast at least take her to Ruby Tuesday where Crotch Rocket Punk will prepare you burritos for two from a box.

Eating Daddy Driver – Did you just unfold a table cloth and drape it over the dashboard? And blow those fucking candles out. First of all the car is not a place to have a picnic. I know you want to make it to Dolly World and have maximum fun time at the wave pool watching buxom teenage girls bounce up and down but you’re swerving all over the fucking road and endangering me. That’s it two hands on the wheel. Put the 4 gallon Diet Pepsi down, spit the KFC drumstick out and wipe off your grease mustache. I have an idea. Instead of vacationing American style and adding more blubber to you’re already doughy physiques why not vacation in Ethiopia? There won’t be fast food and in some cases toilet paper might not be available but you might learn something other than how to balance a king sized double chocolate milk shake on your steering wheel while careening through traffic and by the time you get back your four family members combined weight won’t exceed the restrictions on most freight elevators.

Speeding Trooper – First of all lighten the fuck up. Your scowling so hard you could crack walnuts in the creases in your forehead. Does that chin strip ever go in the right place? I’ve seen it under the nose, under the lip, under the second double chin but never under the actual chin itself so after you guys figure out the saga of the chin strap you might want to work on slowing the fuck down and learning how to use turn signals. If you check your handbook I think you’ll find you’re not above the law so you might want to obey it too. I know I’m not a hot chick so you won’t let me off when I’m in the position to get a ticket but I’ll make a deal with you. If you learn how to buckle up that chin strap properly I won’t speed.

Observations in Miniature: People in the Gym III

If you see yourself amongst these people it might be time to change your gym habits.

Gym Worker Guy (Don’t kick me out of the gym. I was asked to do some of these.) – Hey asshole, yeah you dusting the smoothie machine, how about coming over here and picking this barbell up off my neck? Do you get paid just to look good? If so you’re not doing your job. Don’t give me a dirty look I don’t think I know more about working out than you do. I know I know more. Maybe the first clue I have that makes me believe I have superior workout knowledge is that your physique looks like that of Colonel Sander’s, a man that ate fried chicken daily for 80 years. It is also apparent that you know little by the unsolicited workout advice you give. Did you just tell that me to twist the cable around my back and pinch my shoulder blades together so I will get a peak on my traps? Maybe you’d better stop reading Muscle & Fitness magazine and start paying attention to all the people in your gym that are as clueless as you are because I think one of them just hung himself on the lat pull down.

Gym Nomad – What the fuck are you doing in the gym? You’re sure as Hell not working out. Every time I look up you’re walking around with that towel around your neck. It seems the only rhyme or reason to your workout is that every other piece of equipment you want to use is on the other side of the gym. Although, I’ve never seen you use anything once you get there. And stop it with that fucking grin it’s freaking me out. I have an idea. Get on a fucking treadmill and then you can walk in place and instead of you walking by everyone in the gym fifty or sixty times in an hour they can walk by you! It’s a novel idea and it may take time to adjust but in the end I won’t have to see you and really, that’s all that matters.

Gym Maintenance Woman – Could you please not run that vacuum under the bench while I’m going for a maximum weight? You might want to concentrate on that dust ball the size of a raccoon in the corner while people are on the equipment and for God’s sake please don’t spray disinfectant next to me while I’m performing a set of triceps extensions. First of all I don’t know what chemicals concoction is that I just inhaled and second of all I’ve just been blinded and can’t see to put the weight back on the rack. Your job is thankless, I understand this and perhaps you need to advertise a bit. Secure a bucket to your belt and tape a sign to it that says: TIPS. I will pay you to get the fuck away from me while I’m trying to lift weights.


Quarter Squat Guy – Head band. Check. Skimpy running shorts. Check. Shirt with sleeves cut off. Check. Joe Weider 1/18 of an inch Junior leather weightlifting belt. Check. Strength…oh, that’s right you’re not strong and no matter how many times you quarter squat 405 lbs you’re not going to get any stronger. Every time I see you lift that 405 lbs barbell and your whole body begins to quake and the sweat pours out of your comb-over and collects in your headband I have to turn away. It’s just too painful to watch. You have the knees of a sixty-five year old arthritic fluffer who’s been in the porn business for forty-five years. That’s a lot of time to spend on your knees and 405 lbs is a lot of weight to hold on your spindly spine. For the sake of your joints and my sanity please vacate the squat rack and move to the leg extension machine. I don’t want to have to clean you up with a dust pan when you finally snap in half.


Tanning Queen – You’re twenty-five! You look old enough to have voted for Hoover during his first term. If someone put a handle on your back I’d think you were an alligator suit case. Those aren’t crow’s feet around your eyes they look more like the claw marks left by a vulture. I know you want to be fashionably brown but barbecuing yourself like a porterhouse everyday is not going to make you more attractive. First we have to establish the fact that a tanning session is not a workout and you can’t cover that pouch under your belly button, which looks like your trying to smuggle an Easter ham across a hostile border, with a darker tan. You need to actually exercise to lose that excess pork and this involves MOVING! We’ll take it slow at first, a trip to the stair stepper and back and we’ll withdraw you from the ultra violet rays one hour at a time so by next Christmas your skin won’t look like the turkey’s that's sitting in the center of the table.


The Ladies Man – Did you just slip Barry White into the Gym’s stereo system and sneak back to the breaker box and dim the lights? The gym is not your bachelor pad, put the radio back on and turn up the lights. Here’s a clue as to why your workout takes five hours. While walking from the locker room to the free weights you talk to and touch every fucking woman in the gym. Do you really think they believe you to be as witty as you think you are? They know you just want to get laid so cut out the bullshit and give them a business card that reads: I like to Fuck and Run. This will cut your workout down to fifteen minutes. And for God’s sake please stop smothering yourself in that cut rate cologne that you buy by the oil drum at Costco; this is not an alternative to washing with soap and hot water. You smell like something the pimp dragged in. Yes, everyone can hear your over exaggerated laugh and see your white teeth as you pretend to be amused but are really scoping out the next piece of “ass.” You have a problem it’s called an over-exaggerated sense of self and while I was going to get a drink of water I tripped over your ego which has now engulfed half the gym. So reel it in. Show some modesty. Take off the spandex pants, lower your eyes and quit laughing so much to show how jolly you are because although you’re laughing on the outside everyone else is laughing on the inside at the buffoon you’ve become.


Angry Workout Woman – Did you just bight a ten penny nail in half? Chill, I’m not staring at you, it just so happens you’re standing in front of the clock! And besides how would you know I was looking at you if you weren’t looking at me? Makes you think doesn’t it? Maybe you’re not the bitch everyone thinks you are. Maybe underneath that makeup spackled on your face there is a decent woman but I doubt it. If the gym environment makes you hostile maybe you should fill old milk jugs up with cement and throw those around your yard because every time I look up and see your sour face it ruins my day. Did your boyfriend break up with you and now you hate all men? I can’t possibly see why he’d break up with you, it seems like you’re such a kind and loving person. Maybe he’s the asshole but somehow I doubt it. My advice as unlicensed physician would be to lighten the fuck up because the way things are going the only people that are going to show up at your funeral are the Ladies Man, because he’ll think there might be a chance he’ll get laid, and the crazy woman with fifty cats that lived in the apartment above you. Not much of a send off is it? So yeah, I was looking at the clock but if I wasn’t who the fuck cares?

Observations in Miniature: Different Drivers

If you see yourself amongst these people it might be time to change your driving habits.

Granny Driver – If the only part of your body that I can see when I’m behind you is your knuckles on the steering wheel and the floral arrangement on your hat then you might be too shriveled and old to drive. The lines on the road are there for a reason. Your car is not a pinball that can careen happily back and forth over three lanes hitting the guard rails and bouncing back into traffic. Here’s a clue, that 1962 decommissioned aircraft carrier on wheels without power steering that you drive and can’t seem to control needs to be dry docked, yes, sent to that great resting place for over the hill vessels and stripped down and the excess scrap metal used to build a wing on the new children’s hospital. I’m sure you make great cookies and someone out there loves their granny but the fact is that you’re a horrible fucking driver and I’d feel a lot safer with you behind a pair of knitting needles than the wheel of a car.

Middle Aged Corvette Guy – I don’t know what’s shinier the bold spot on your head or the wax job on your cherry red Corvette. For God’s sake button up your shirt, I could stuff three throw pillows with all the chest hair hanging out of it. And that gold chain with the medallion on it that’s blowing up in your face in the wind isn’t helping matters, it makes you look like a retired porn star. Do you feel the need for speed? Are you randy from the Viagra cocktail you just ingested with the Bloody Mary? Here’s a clue you aren’t going to hook up with a hot 21 year old babe no matter how much pheromone cologne you douse yourself with so stop cursing night clubs and start cruising the retirement village, the women there, many of whom use walkers, won’t be able to run away from you like everyone else does.

Monster Truck Guy – Yeah, Mopar, I get it you’re car part savvy. Nice decal of a guy peeing on the window on the back of your cab. How original, a W 04 and an American Flag bumper sticker on your tailgate. You have a lot in common with George Bush don’t you? Do you guys get together and discuss how getting rid of the dividend tax has allowed you to expand your investment portfolio? Oh, you don’t have an investment portfolio? Stupid me. When it’s snowing out and you pass me going 75 mph do you really think that even with your 40 inch super knobby tires you are going to be able stop on a sheet of ice? No? So, slow the fuck down because the person you hit could be me and if you do I sincerely hope you kill me because if you don’t I’m going to get out and strangle you with that stupid Rebel flag hanging in the window of your cab.


Sports Car Punk - You are not Vin Diesel and no matter how many fins and pieces of plastic you super glue to your Honda Accord it will never be a Ferrari. And yes, I am giving you a dirty look. You just passed me doing 125 mph in your tuna can on wheels and nearly ran me off the road. You are not playing a video game and the world isn’t out to get you, that’s the carbon monoxide talking, which is leaking into your car from that loud muffler you “self-installed” on your car. Here’s a clue, instead of working 60 hours a week to buy new accessories for your $2000 dollar car why don’t you study and get good grades, go to college, and then become something? Then you really will be able to buy a Ferrari and will become something else other than a pain in my ass whenever I drive through the Giant parking lot.

Seat too far back guy – Does your car have a front seat home slice? Why does it look like you’re driving sitting in the back seat? Are you wearing stilts so you can touch the gas pedal and breaks? Take your feet off the dashboard, you might need them to stop your car and turn down the fucking bass on your stereo, my coffee cup just vibrated out of its holder. I get it, you’re laid back, too cool for the front seat, there’s a bigger party going on in the back seat, but you’re not really driving your car are you? You’re improvising, lunging forward when you need to stop and straining like a mother fucker to even get the tips of your fingers to touch the steering wheel. Improvising is fine in Jazz or even when your boat is leaking and you plug the hole with a hotdog roll but when you’re driving it can be deadly so be a big boy and move up to the front seat so we all feel a little safer on the road.

Minivan Momma –Your days of driving like a maniac were over the day junior’s umbilical cord was cut so don’t try to pass me with twelve kids in that underpowered three cylinder minivan from 1985, you’re just going to sit in the passing lane unable to build up enough speed to beat the old guy on the side of the road in a wheelchair. You didn’t just cut me off and then flip me the finger did you? Calm down, try to show some restraint in front of the horde, I’m not trying to beat you to Chucky Cheese, there will still be pizza there if you’re ten minutes late. And please put some clothing on, you’re not Hugh Hefner, stop wearing your pajamas when you’re running around town, coupled with your unkempt appearance you look like a deranged circus clown. Be careful and remember the little ones in the back of your minivan are the future of our country…God help us...

Observations in Miniature: People in the Gym II

If you see yourself amongst these people it might be time to change your gym habits.

Naked Guy – For God’s sake throw a towel over yourself when you’re in the locker room, it is not a nudist retreat. If you want to be naked in front of people do a Google search under “exhibitionist” and find a healthy alternative for your weird behavior. I don’t want to look up from tying my shoes to see your unit swaying in the breeze. You are the reason I spend only nano seconds in the locker room. Some men like to walk naked amongst other men and actually search out places where other men can be found naked. They are GAY and maybe you are too! And if you insist on sitting on the benches for God’s sake please put a towel down first or better yet put some fucking clothes on.

Mr. Upper Body –Evidently you bought your Arnold Schwarzenegger Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding at a fire sale and the section on legs was burned away because your lower extremities look like they belong to an anorexic nun. When the circumference of your biceps is equal to that of your thighs it might be time to give up some of the time you spend on power curls and do a few sets of squats. Of course this could make you sweat and disrupt that avant-garde gel creation that is holding your hair sculpture up but in the end you won’t look like you traded legs with Don Knotts and women won’t be laughing behind your out of proportion back.


Ms. Steroids- Is that a beard or are do you moonlight as a chimney sweep and forgot to wash the soot off your chin this morning? Here’s a clue women aren’t supposed to have beards or testosterone levels higher than a 340 lbs NFL lineman. That bulge in your pants that looks like a trouser weasel is your clitoris which has grown large enough from your anabolic adventures to be noticed from across the gym. Don’t you think it’s odd that they moved you to baritone in your church choir? The science experiment is complete, you proved you can turn yourself into a man, now get off the juice before you start to look even more like the Reverend Al Sharpton than you already do.

Mrs Mom and Mr. Dad – First and foremost the gym is not a playground for underprivileged children. Do not bring your kids to the gym and let them hang from the lat pulldown and swing like drunken acrobats. This is neither amusing nor original; monkeys have been doing it for millions of years. If you want people to see how cute your children are make them sit at the protein drink bar and memorize the Gettysburg Address. Then, after my workout, when I’m getting a protein drink I’ll listen intently to them quote Abraham Lincoln. Otherwise lock them in your minivan or leave them at home locked in a closet but don’t bring them to the gym.

Neurotic talking guy – When I’m in the middle of a set of squats and the veins are popping out of my forehead don’t tell me about how you had to take your cat to the vet last night because it wouldn’t eat for a week. First off I hate cats and second of all I DON”T CARE! I’m sure what you have to say would be interesting to someone that has been stranded on a deserted island for thirty years and is starved for conversation of any type but I’m not that person. You’ve stretched my 45 minute workout into an hour and a half because you can’t keep your pie hole shut. I have a solution to your verbal diarrhea. Go see a therapist. You pay this person to listen to your boring stories and then they actually say something back to you which in case you haven't noticed is how a conversation is carried out!

Mr. Gear – Do you really need a Nike backpack with a thirty piece endurance silverware set to complete your wimpy circuit training? Do you really think a four hundred dollar pair of suction cup sneakers is going to help you dunk a basketball? Is that two hundred dollar silk Adidas sweat shirt with Pele’s name stitched in gold on the back going to get you the hot chick in spandex doing the Butt Blaster? Are you even listening to that $600 dollar Ipod strapped to your arm or are you just pretending to listen to it and are really trying hear if anyone is talking about how cool you look? If you answered no to all these above questions you are well on your way to recovery. If you answered yes to even one of these questions then you have serious gear issues and need to refocus your energies on your physique, particularly that big roll around your midsection and your third chin because when those hand stitched Terrell Owens Body Armour underwear come off you’ll have only your original gear for women to focus on and by the looks of you they will be sorely dissapointed.


Treadmill foot smacker – okay jackass quit fucking smacking your feet when you’re running on the treadmill. It is perhaps the most annoying sound I’ve ever heard in my life and you’re treading dangerously close to me grabbing you by your thin runner’s neck and snapping it. We all see you’re using perfect form and that you’re throwing your long legs out like a giraffe and hoisting your elbows up properly like a Nazi storm trooper. Now, slow the fuck down like a normal human being and quit making a spectacle of yourself. We all know you were some big shot in cross country running once upon a time but those days are over and no matter how good your form is you can't run back to them.

Full Body Spandex Guy – Please tell me you have underwear on under that Spandex body suit. Are you friends with naked locker room guy? Does walking around in nothing but a form fitting swatch of spandex make you feel closer to nature? I have an idea. Why don’t you and naked locker room guy come to the gym at 4:00 AM. No one is in the gym at that time so you will probably be able to work out naked and no one will know. Just make sure you put down a towel before you sit on the fucking equipment.

Surprise for Luch

Surprise for Luch from the soon to be pieced together book; American Dream Woman: Waxed Parts

In a penthouse suite in the Hilton in downtown Harrisburg, as the early evening gave way to the darkness called night or as the polish call it Wieczór późny, thirty people commixed for the reason of bidding a fair adieu to our friend Luch who was to set sail for distant lands, i.e. Iraq, in two weeks time. Yes, it would be memorable event but not for the reasons normally associated with such affairs. No, it would not be a night of cordial introductions and gently sipping Chablis, my friends would not and could not let a party of this nature proceed in a boring, civilized manor. It isn’t their nature or mine. There would have to be mayhem, intoxication, carousing and at least one fight to complete the evening. I’m just grateful no one fell off the balcony, although several came close and other than the broken furniture, salsa and popcorn ground into the carpet and the bathtub full of people that overflowed no real damage was done. It is all so vivid in my mind…well, the part before I started drinking but I think I can more or less recall what happened after that.

“We’re getting in the elevator now,” my friend the Weasel said, into his cell phone.

“I’ll see you in a minute,” I said, closing my cell phone. “Okay, everyone Luch is on his way up, go hide on the balcony.”

The thirty or so guests that had attended shuffled from the parlor out onto the balcony.

Amongst the guests were nine of Luch’s family members, including his grandmother who smoked a corncob pipe and swore like a coal miner and his uncle who flew in from California on a military transport. His uncle, Champ, was a former CIA operative and was decked out in full camouflage and combat boots. He didn’t follow the rest of the guests out onto the balcony but instead walked around the table of food poking at various appetizers with a large Rambo knife.

“Do you want to hide?” I asked.

“I don’t hide,” Champ said, running his hand through his salt and pepper flat top.

“Right,” I said. “Would you like a fork?”

“Never use them,” he said, stabbing a cheese ball with his Rambo knife and biting it like an apple.

“Right,” I said. “You don’t want crackers with that do you?”

“Do I look like a cracker eater to you boy?”

The way Champ stared at me with his cobalt blue eyes made me feel, exposed, vulnerable, and naked. No doubt this was taught to him for interrogation purposes while he was an undercover operative in the CIA. Luch had mentioned something about him having spent a lot of time in South America and torturing people with ABBA records.

“Okay, D.B, Wilson, assume slovenly positions on various pieces of furniture.

It had been my idea to keep only the scruffiest and oldest of Luch’s friends, who included me, visible for the grand entrance. He would be let down when he saw only us, the usual rowdy crowd, sitting there drinking beer and then when he was at his lowest we’d lead him out to the balcony where everyone else was hiding.

The door burst open and Luch and the Weasel stepped into the parlor of the suite.

“Surprise,” D.B. said, holding his beer up above his head.

The crooked smile that had been stretched across his face disappeared, replaced by a look of bewilderment. It was obvious he was under whelmed.

“To Luch,” I said, raising my beer.

“Surprise,” the Weasel said, twirling an American flag.

“Whatever,” Luch said and cracked open a Coors Light.

“Don’t get too excited it can cause heart palpitations,” I said.

“Everything’s a ha ha with you people,” he said taking a healthy slurp from the Coors Light that had magically appeared in his hand.

“Drop the military speak your starting to freak me out,” I said.

“What’s wrong with military speak,” Champ said, setting his cheese ball and knife down on the table.

“Champ what are you doing here?” Luch asked his uncle.

“I heard you were having a party. So I came,” Champ said. .

“From California? This is weird,” Luch said, “where are the chicks? The least you could’ve done is gotten some strippers.”

“Better yet how would you like to see your grandmother naked?” D.B said. “Because she’s out on the balcony.”

Before I knew what was happening Champ had leaped across the table of food and was strangling D.B.

The balcony doors flew open. “Surprise,” everyone yelled.

“Help,” D.B cried.

“That’s my mother you’re talking about,” Champ said as he tried to strangle D.B.

It took several of us to pry Champ off D.B. I was just thankful that he hadn’t had his Rambo knife when he attacked. Wilson, a veritable pharmaceutical warehouse, slipped a tranquilizer in a beer and gave it to Champ who guzzled it without stopping for a breath. This seemed to calm him somewhat and he sank back into a plush chair and gnawed on his cheeseball.

The evening from that point on progressed without a hitch. There was much back slapping and pledges to write to Luch and he grinned his crooked grin and drained Coors Light after Coors Light. And then there was a loud knock on the door. Woops, did I say the evening progressed without a hitch?

D.B. did the Mic Jagger chicken dance all the way to the door and opened it.

“Hi there security we followed a trail of crushed peanuts back to your room,” a security guard in a captain’s suit said. “Evidently someone is hiding an elephant up here or being very goddamn sloppy. We also have noise complaints.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” D.B. said.

“That’s because you’re the ones making the noise,” the security guard said.

“Oh, right,” I said. I folded up a twenty dollar bill and slipped it into the security guard’s hand. .

“Thank-you sir,” he said, stuffing the bill into his blue polyester pants.

“Hey, what are you doing?” a guy standing along the wall said. “They’re being noisy and bothering us.”

The complainer was a rather husky individual, with three chins and coconut sized man boobs. I wasn’t scared but respected the immovable force that he might be if I tried one of my patented Karate styled kicks on him; I might lose one of my Burmese jungle boots between the rolls that hung from his sides. There was also the matter of his blubbery entourage which totaled two but on a Richter scale might have caused a 3.0 if deck they were standing on gave way.

“It’s under control,” the hotel security guard said.

“The fuck it is,” the guy said.

The Weasel, about five nine and one-hundred and thirty pounds lunged at the guy. Luckily I was close enough to grab hold of him before he flung himself in front of what was tantamount to a speeding eighteen wheeler.

“Ho there big guy,” I said.

The Weasel’s legs spun madly as I held him around the waist.

“Okay, let’s get back to our rooms,” the security guard said.

“This isn’t over,” the big burly guy said. “I will be back.”

“Oh, it’s over,” Champ said, pointing his Rambo knife with the cheeseball on the end at them.

“And who do you think you’re going to do scrub brush?” the big guy said, hitching up his khakis.

“I’ll carve that blubber off your sides with my knife, wring it out and use the oil to power my Skidoo when I trek across the Himalayas next winter,” Champ said.

“Come on lets get out of here. These guys are crazy,” the big guy said.

“That’s right, I’m crazy,” the Weasel said.

“Thanks again,” I said, to the security guard.

We went back inside and gathered everyone together. We had planned to take the party out on the town for a few hours and then end the party back at the room. Since I had the keys Luch, Champ, and I were the last ones to leave the room.

“Okay, let’s get out of here,” I said.

“Those cocksuckers can’t tell us to be quiet,” Champ uncle said. “Come on.”

Luch and I followed him out in the hallway to the elevators. He looked up to a service panel in the ceiling.

“Boost me up,” Champ said to Luch.

Luch obliged and boosted his uncle up to the ceiling panel in front of the elevators. Champ quickly removed the screws and climbed up inside.

“What are you doing?” Luch asked.

“Payback. Now hand me my bag,” Champ said.

I hoisted his bag up. He turned on a flashlight.

“We’ll be at the Hardware bar if you want to come down. His arm shot out of the hole poised in the thumbs up sign and then quickly disappeared and the panel slid back into place.

“Let’s get the Hell out of here,” Luch said. “We don’t want to be around when he has his revenge. It’s never pretty.”

We went down the elevator and burst out into the cold night air. Everyone else from the party had already headed out to the bars downtown. Thanks to his whacky uncle Luch was missing his own party.
* * *

At the Hardware bar Luch, D.B. the Weasel and I positioned ourselves on the second floor loft which overlooked the dance floor where most of the guests from Luch’s party were dancing. I like to be able to look out over the dance floor and observe people. This night’s scene was another spectacle of the mechanical dance of despair and envy that engulfs the sweating masses. I am not above it but simply outside it. I’ve never been one to dive into the crowd, to follow. And maybe I’m not a leader of many men, which in history makes you great but I am a leader unto myself and have taken myself into life’s battles without the comfort or need to be part of a group. If I fuck up I want all the responsibility if I don’t fuck up I want all the glory because in the end the people around you aren’t going to crawl into the cold dark box with you. Unless one of those closest to you is a necrophiliac and well, I don’t want to go into the details that might accompany such a thought..

“Man I have bad gas,” D.B, said, letting loose a fart that rattled the fixtures on the walls.

“I know I heard you that sounded like a honking goose with its head stuffed in an empty mayonnaise jar. You need to get some Beano or something. That flatulence is starting to wreak havoc on your personal life.”

“My personal life is fine but she will make it better,” D.B. said.

Coming at us was one of the women from our party. She was a slender brunette fitness fanatic with enough energy per square inch in her supple body to pry the lug nuts off a rusty eighteen wheeler with her armpits. She appeared to be crying.

“What’s up you guys,” she said, tears streaming down her face.

“Angela, what’s wrong?” D.B. asked.

“I don’t know. What’s wrong with me? No one likes me. I can’t get a boyfriend,” she said.

“Gee, I wonder why,” D.B. said.

The Weasel stepped between them before Angela bitch slapped him.

“I like you,” the Weasel said.

“I’m the prettiest girl in three counties and look at my abs,” she said pulling up her shirt.

The Weasel ran his fingers across her abs. “Nice,” he said, smiling out of the corner of his mouth.

“Do you want to see this dancing queen shake her abdominals?” she said.

“Yes, yes, I do,” the Weasel said.

They headed down the stairs to the dance floor but I didn’t follow. I was having too good a time watching people and besides if I’d step on someone with my Burmese jungle boots I’d probably crush their toes.

“I should go dance on the bar,” Luch said, slurring his words.

“Guys aren’t allowed to dance on the bar,” D.B. said.

“How much do you want to bet?”

“Fifty bucks.”

“You’re on,” Luch said, downing the rest of his Coors Light.

They took off for the bar and there was but one. Yeah, that’s right, me. I was the one, who as usual was sequestered to the outside of all activities, just where I like it but soon enough I grew tired of watching people twisting like reanimated corpses with some strange outer space bacteria attacking their central nervous systems.

I drained my Guinness and made my way down to the dance floor. D.B. was doing the Mic Jagger chicken dance across the top of it. I’d have to have a talk with D.B. He’d been doing the chicken dance much too much lately and it was beginning to worry me. I swiftly traversed the dance floor careful not to appear as if I was dancing and made my way out the front door.

Immediately upon exiting the Hardware bar I noticed a young lady from the gym where I workout. I remembered from her nametag that her name was Erica. She was crossing the street. I followed and as I crossed to the other side I brushed up against a BMW.

“Watch the car,” the owner of the BMW said.

I smiled and gave him the finger.

Erica entered the Brick House, a German establishment that specializes in waitresses clad in lederhosen and tall frothing glasses of Franzinkaner. I followed.

Once inside I found the place to be packed so I positioned myself at the top of the stairs. I looked far and near and didn’t see her. I began observing the hula-hoop hip gyrations of a twenty-something female dressed tightly in a swatch of wool sateen when the crowd of people on the dance floor parted as if split in half by an invisible snow plow. I wondered what all the ruckus was about until I saw who it was. It was Erica.

Her hips swayed hypnotically like two cantaloupes wrapped in a hammock that was blowing gently in a breeze on some tropical island. I would need all my mental faculties popping in a synchronized fashion if I was going to make this happen. I went deep into a trance and collected myself, picturing a goat on a far away mountain top smoking a hookah. “Ah, ha,” I said, coming out of the trance. The people next to me moved.

“Hey, there,” I called.

She looked up.

“What are you doing here,” she said. “I’ve only ever seen you in the gym.”

“Yes, well, I like the smell of moldy gym socks in the morning, athletes foot, and stair step aerobics.”

“You’ve never done stair step aerobics.”

“I didn’t say I did. I merely said I liked them and that would be in an observational capacity.”

“In fact I’ve never seen you work out,” Erica said, seductively running her index finger along her bottom lip.

“I don’t workout in the strict sense of the word. I like to watch people workout. It keeps the muscle between the ears lubricated.”

You’re going to say something and screw this up aren’t you?” she asked.

“I see my reputation precedes me. I’ll also have to let you know I’m not a dancer. That can sometimes end a relationship before it gets started.”

“I don’t care about dancing.”

She looked down at my Burmese jungle boots and then at the five days of scruff on my face.

“What do you do?”

“I do as little as possible. It’s the American way.”

“I’m tired of liars and cheats.”

“I am neither a liar nor a cheat. In all the infinite ways I can fuck things up I am merely me. I’m not sadistic and I don’t have the energy to be vindictive.”

“It takes up so much energy,” she said.

“It really does. Excuse me,” I said, and turned to pick up my beer on the bar.

In the time that I’d turned to retrieve my beer the guy whose BMW I’d brushed up against outside had moved in on Erica. He looked like he might have been a mannequin in the showroom window at Macy’s, with high angular cheekbones and hair that flowed off his head like flames off a burning ball of gasoline soaked newspaper. I don’t have cheekbones and what little hair I have can hardly be said to flow and therefore I already had two strikes against me.

I watched as this guy gradually backed Erica into a corner. She looked over his shoulder; her eyes wide, as if to say help me. I started to walk away. I knew I wasn’t flashy enough to outdo this guy. I don’t care to be. If there’s one thing I can’t stand its guys that overdo flashy; the cocksuckers that relentlessly hound and badger until women break down to their phony charms. These are the same women that find themselves thirty years later sitting in their local Moose club drinking shitty liquor and wondering what happened to their lives. I’d tell them they ended the minute Mr. Charming opened his mouth and the glint from faux gold teeth blinded them but no one wants to hear that.

“Where the Hell are you going?” D.B. asked.

“D.B., what are you doing here?” I asked. “You were well into the chicken dance when I left the Hardware Bar.”

“We can talk about that later,” D.B. said. “I saw you with Ms. Hotty pants and you let Mr. BMW take her away. What is wrong with you lately?”

“I’ve given up.”

D.B. smacked me hard across the face. Instantly my inner Curly came out and my feet churned as I repeatedly and involuntarily smacked my nearly bald forehead.

“Hey you, BMW cocksucker,” I cried.

“What did you just say?” he asked.

“I said, hey you BMW cocksucker.”

Sweat was poring from ever inch of my body, my Burmese jungle boots were quickly filling up. I hitched up my pants and fondled my brass knuckles belt buckle.

“Fuck you,” he said, taking a step towards me.

“Kick his ass,” D.B, said.

“Is that your BMW being towed over their?” Erica said.

“Oh, my God, my BMW,” he said and rushed down the stairs and out the door.

“Come on let’s get out of here,” Erica said and we fled out the back door and hightailed in back to the Hilton.

* * *

As we waited for the elevator to come down in the lobby the fatty patrol that had bitched about our noise level was getting on the elevator beside us. They were carrying buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken and gripping them like they were the last jumbo Dixie cups of fountain of youth water. I growled like a mad dog and they ignored me.

“Come on,” D.B. said let’s get on this one.

D.B. and Erica pushed into an already full elevator and I tried but wouldn’t fit.

“I’ll catch the next one,” I said.

I got in a separate elevator and went up. When I reached our floor my elevator lurched to a stop. The doors didn’t open.

“I’ve got you you fucking punks.”

I knew that voice. It was Champ. It sounded like he was in the elevator shaft somewhere.

“No, it’s me Luch’s friend,” I yelled. I’m one of the people that helped set up the party for him. I’m going back up to rejoin the party now.”

“Shut up you goddamn punk or I’ll cut the cable on this elevator and send you straight to hell,” Champ screamed.

“Was this all because I asked you to hide?” I yelled.

He cackled like a mad man.

“I never hide. I’m always there in plane sight. You just don’t know where to look,” Champ yelled.

“This will teach you to complain to hotel security,” he said.

“I’m not those guys. They went up in another elevator,” I screamed.

The lights went out. I heard Luch’s uncle moving around above me and then it was silent. I opened up my cell phone so I could see and noticed Erica’s cell phone number there which I’d programmed in on the way back from the Brick House.

I pressed send and after about for or five rings she answered.

“Who is this?” she said.

I could hear heavy breathing in the background.

“It’s me.”

“You’ll have to do better than me,” she said.

“I was just with you at the Brick House. I saved you from the guy with the BMW.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. There was silence and I heard the smacking of lips and then a surprisingly loud fart that sound like a honking goose with its head inside an empty mayonnaise jar.

“I’d recognize that fart anywhere,” I said. “D.B. is that you?”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“D.B, I know that goose honking fart sound of yours anywhere,” I said.

“That stinks get out of bed,” Erica said.

“It’s only a fart,” D.B said.

“D.B., it is you,” I said.

The phone went dead and I slumped against the back wall of the elevator. I thought how life is a ultimately a strange tangle of events, like the vines twisting through the tree tops of a jungle canopy, with each bend and break representing choices and opportunities and their consequences. I felt like burning down the jungle.

I noticed a lot of peanuts on the ground and started eating those when my cell phone rang again.
“Hello?” I said.

“It’s me,” Erica said.

“I’m sorry about that. I’ve been drinking a lot. Your friend D.B. was doing that Mic Jagger chicken dance on the end of the bed and I thought it was cute. The next thing I knew we were making out.”

“Damn him and that chicken dance,” I said.

“I want you to come up here,” she said.

“I would but I can’t I’m trapped in an elevator.”

“If you don’t want to come up just say so. You don’t need to make up excuses.”

“No, I’m not really. I’m really trapped in an elevator.”

“You know I really tried to get past what people say about you but you won’t let me. You just can’t be straight with anyone can you?”

“No, I am I’m being straight. Luch’s uncle did something to the elevator and trapped me in here.”

“Don’t call me again,” she said.

“Wait,” I said but it was too late the battery on my phone died. I hadn’t even called anyone to get me out of the elevator.

I jumped to my feet and started pounding on the elevator doors. “Let me out of here,” I cried. I pounded on the doors for a minute or two and then exhausted I fell to the ground, curled up and fell asleep.

* * *

The next morning I awoke on the floor of the elevator as the door opened. A group of Boy Scouts stood outside staring at me. They were there for some sort of fire starting competition.

“I have a bad case of vertigo,” I said jumping to my feet.

“He’s drunk,” I heard one of the boys say.

“Yeah, and you little cocksuckers discriminate against gays. You sold cookies outside the ACLU because they called you on your homophobic views. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Why won’t you let a gay kid build a popsicle log cabin and make pinecone Christmas ornaments with you? Are you afraid they might be better than yours?”

Some of the kids started to cry and I ran out of the hotel and onto the street and the new day’s sun warmed my face. I looked up at the hotel and new that another chapter of my life had ended. Luch was going to Iraq, Wilson was headed to Florida, D.B. had already moved down around Philly and the Weasel was busy teaching senior citizens badminton six nights a week at the YMCA as a condition of his probation.

Me, I am off to D.C. on Wednesday to meet up with my brother. He told me he’s gotten in with a group of friends that will keep me on my toes and that he knows a certain blond secretary that seems just crazy enough to tame me. I’ll believe it when I see it.

So goodbye to the old group, you’ll all still be in my dreams and D.B. I think Philadelphia might be a good place to get in trouble, so pencil me in for an upcoming spree of debauchery. Like I’ve said all along I need to keep moving. In fact I want to build up so much momentum that I kick through this earthly canvas and into dimensions unknown. Maybe then I can slow and will know peace. Until then remember that you’ll never know me as well as you think you do. I won’t allow for it. I like being on the outside looking in. The joke is that I am the joke.

P.S. Erica you left your spandex halter top in my Jeep. I’m outta here.

Observations in Miniature: People in the Gym

If you see yourself amongst these people it might be time to change your gym habits.


-Mr. Glory Days – The glory days are over. Take off your high school football jersey; it only fits as a belly shirt now anyway. We know that once a couple of centuries ago you made all conference at tackle in high school and all twelve of the girls in your senior class swooned whenever you walked into a room. Now, you’re just the fat balding guy with the high blood pressure that turns lobster red trying to bench press the same weight as the twenty-five year old “punk” on the bench next to you. You couldn’t still “suit up” and kick the ass of the kids playing “ball” today. Get on the treadmill and cut down on the carbs (beer) you don’t need the bulk anymore. It’s over. Let it go. Slide into old age with some dignity.

-Mr. 70’s running short guy – The seventies are over so please stop wearing those damn nylon running shorts that show half your ass, the ones that aren’t made with enough material to make an eye patch for a squirrel. No one is impressed by your skeletal runner’s physique. Start eating carbs, a lot of them and for God’s sake stop doing exercises that cause you to bend over. And on a side note please shave that tuft off chest hair off that sticks out of the collar of your Adidas tank top.

-Circuit Yoga lady – Get the fuck out of the lotus position and off the bench I want to use. My testosterone levels are peaking I didn’t come to the gym to attend a sit in. There is a time and place to be laid back and it’s not on the machine I want to use that you’ve been hogging up for the last half hour. You might also want to get some conditioner for your frizzy red hair and pick the burrs out that have been stuck there since Woodstock.


-The Screamer – Did you just see the headless horseman or are you trying to workout? Quit screaming! A twenty pound barbell curl shouldn’t illicit the same screams that a birthing mother would make. A little grunt is okay and sometimes unavoidable but if you really want to get noticed this isn’t the way to do it. What you need to do is remain quite and reserve all the energy you waste during a workout screaming and use this energy store to lift more weight. You’ll get bigger and stronger and women will notice you for the right reasons, because you’ve transformed yourself, not because you’re screaming like Linda Blair in the Exorcist.


-Ms. Aerobics freak – How long are you going to stay on the stair stepper? You were on it two days ago when I left and I can see by sweat stain in the carpet surrounding you that you haven’t been off of it yet. The gym is not your home. It is a place to go and workout. There is life outside the gym. Go find it. Live a little. Eat a French fry. Get really wild and eat two French fries. You’re not going to one day slide exhausted off the end of the treadmill and into the arms of Mr. Right. He’s left the gym and is at a bar buying the chunky girl with a life a drink.

-Mr. Sweaty – If you smell like a Bermuda onion and you look like you’ve been swimming with your clothes on at the end of your workout please carry a beach towel and a spray bottle of disinfectant spray around with you when using the different machines. There’s nothing worse than sitting on a bench and sliding off of it because someone with overactive apocrine glands doesn’t think it’s his responsibility to wipe up the sweat he’s streaked all over it.


-Mr. Steroids - Are steroids really going to help you become a better auto mechanic? You’re not a professional athlete. Why do you need to take drugs? Is your ego really that small or is it your penis? No, not everyone is giving you dirty looks or thinks they can beat you up, that’s just the extra testosterone talking so don’t freak out when you look in the mirror and see someone across the room that is laughing. And a note on clothing, a skull and cross bones bandana wrapped around your head, yellow bodybuilder sweat pants with flowers on them, and a tank top that says “Kill” on it is not formal wear. You look like a reject from the Pirates of Penzance musical. Go off the juice and take care of your heart before it explodes.

-Hot Spandex Lady – If you don’t want guys to stare out you, which obviously you don’t because you give them the look of death every time they even casually glance in your direction, then wear something less revealing than the rubber band and two peanut shell aerobics outfit you wear every time you come to the gym. What is your game hot spandex lady? I just don’t get it but I’d like to.

Air America Radio

They're at it again.
Iranian Nukes: Powell's "Evidence" Still Unverified

Check this story out at:
http://www.airamericaradio.com/

Other News:
http://www.nytimes.com

http://www.buzzflash.com

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

http://www.michaelmoore.com/

Observations in Miniature: Archaic Hairstyles

I saw the mother of all mullets last night; it stood out like a beacon to all things NASCAR. I would imagine smaller mullets would bow down to it’s alter and present it with offerings of hairspray. It was awe inspiring in its frosted length and the sheer volume of its split ends which gave the wearer the aura of a chieftain donning a magnificent headdress. Mesmerized by the sight of it I nearly drove into the gas pumps at the Seven Eleven as its owner, a forty something year old man in Nike high tops, red sweatpants, and a black Ozzy Osbourne T-shirt picked something from his teeth with a key.

For those of you unfamiliar with the mullet I will give a brief description of this archaic hairstyle. The mullet is characterized by its length in the back, which may vary from just above the shoulders to mid thigh. The sides are generally cut short, the sideburns sheered away and the top can be spiky to medium in length. Mullets can be the product of a hair dresser but often times are home jobs chopped away by an amateur Edward Scissorhands using a Flowbee Vacuum Haircut System or garden sheers. For a vivid visual picture Davy Crockett in a coonskin hat.

I realize that adults adorning mullets, women included, are generally lost causes and cannot be weaned from this misguided hairstyle. I will not however stand idly by and watch the redneck children of America, so full of life, so full of potential, be brought down by the mullet, all their hopes and dreams dashed by a reluctance of their parents to adapt to socially acceptable forms of hair styling. You wouldn’t think something as small as a mullet could change the course of a person’s life but a mullet can mean the difference between food stamps and Microsoft stock options, or living in a converted chicken coop apartment vs. a château on a lake in the south of France. Bill Clinton didn’t have a mullet but his brother Roger sported one well into the 90’s. Bill went to the White House, Roger went to jail. This is just one of many cases of siblings split by the mullet and the difference it made in their lives. I could go on…

Why is it some of us hang on to hair cuts or clothing styles of bygone eras? Ric Ocasek of the 1980’s band The Cars, one of the founding fathers of the mullet, gave up the hair style when New Wave gave way to Grunge. He knew when to “Shake it Up” and when to cut it off. I would emphatically ask the rest of America still holding onto to this distorted remnant of hair styling past to do the same because life isn’t about how long the back of your hair is compared to the front…no, really it is. I can’t pretend it isn’t, so please cut off your mullets America you’re already fifteen years late.

Check out the mullets at: http://www.hotmullets.com/

Observations in Miniature

The little man/ big car complex is not a new phenomena but I feel I need to mention it since I was almost run off the road last night by a 15 foot high Toyota truck driven by what can only be described as a Hobbit. The origins of this complex can be traced as far back as the Stone Age with the discovery of the Blue Caves of Mongolia where a tiny stick figure caveman is depicted puffing out his chest next to a giant wheel. This doesn’t say much for our evolution but it does speak volumes about our primitive inclination to compensate for our inadequacies by directing attention away from them by creating oversized forms of personal transportation.

A good rule of thumb for a shorter guy looking to buy a car is not to buy any vehicle with wheels that come up to your neck. Sure, if you buy the monster truck you’ll look big as you tool down the highway running over pint sized compact and hybrid cars but when you get out everyone will be disappointed, especially the women. It’s the equivalent of stuffing a suck in your underwear or toilet tissue in your bra. I’ve seen several vertically challenged men use rope ladders to climb in and out of their Hummers and it’s just down right degrading. My modest proposal would be to invest in a pair of boots with enormous heels and tease your hair (if you have any) into a very high afro if you need to feel big. Sixty inch tires and a lift kit aren’t going to elevate your social status or your height so stick with a Mini or fuel efficient Hybrid Insight, then you can brag to environmentally conscious chicks that you care about the earth’s atmosphere. You have a better chance of getting somewhere with this angle than driving a vehicle that gets snagged in power lines.

What does this dream mean?

I was looking for a reason to believe when I slipped and hit my head on a dream.

I grabbed the corners of the night sky like a bed sheet and tried to straighten it, rolling it in waves. The stars came unhinged and shot upward. Sparks cascaded down and singed my beard; some of the sparks fell into the black holes that are the centers of my eyes. I suspect these sparks have collected like a swarm of fire flies and are floating somewhere in the outer space of my mind.

I lost interest in the night sky when I looked at my hands and noticed they were stained with the blackness of it. So, I continued on my journey. Halfway across a river I felt something digging into my ankle and upon removing my boot I discovered that Saturn had fallen in there and its rings had been digging into my flesh. I removed Saturn and upon further inspection noticed that it was cracked and that a yolk like substance was leaking from it. Curious, I peeled off the rings and cracked the planet the rest of the way open. What fell out, embedded in yolk, was not what I expected. At first it looked like a pale featherless chicken but when it spread its legs and craned its neck I realized it was human and wasn’t just any human. It was Mahatma Gandhi. Yes, the father of Civil Disobedience and right before my eyes he grew to the proportions of normal human being.

Hi there, I said, not being able to think of anything more charming to say. Hi there, he said. Do you have a towel? I didn’t have a towel but I had my polyester disco shirt so I took it off and wiped him down, making sure to clean him thoroughly for fear of some strange outer space infection taking hold in the folds of his skin. Thank you earthling, he said. I bowed and then did a split, which is no easy feet in one boot, standing on water. Very nice, he said, but I had something different in mind. Really? I said. Yes, really, he said. Now listen to me carefully. You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

Right, I said. Gandhi wrapped my disco shirt around his waist and beckoned me closer. I have a plan, he said. I thought the plan Gandhi laid out was at the very best whacky but who was I to question him? So I gathered seven thousand of my closest friends and we hiked to Washington DC in one continuous line, hands on each others waists. Once there we enjoyed the sites and dined on hot dogs from the street vendors and then it was time to do what we’d come to do.

As the sun set we surrounded the white house holding hands in a giant circle and then we handcuffed ourselves the person on either side of us. I still didn’t understand what exactly we were doing, Gandhi’s plan wasn’t all that clear.

As the full moon rose above the White House I noticed a figure on the roof he was hunkered down behind a massive machine gun. Suddenly he began to fire. The machine gun lit up the sky and I saw the man at the trigger was none other than W. and he was cackling madly as he squeezed the trigger. As those around me were blown to bits I saw Gandhi approaching W. from behind. Evidently he’d scaled the side of the White House, using the ivy covered lattice as a ladder.

Stretched between Gandhi’s hands was a length of piano wire. I felt several fifty caliber bullets rip through my body as the woman to my left fell dead but I wouldn’t die, I refused to. Die! I cried. Yes, die, Gandhi cried and then he cinched the wire around the commander in chief’s neck. I watched as his face turned from red to purple to blue and then his life was over. Gandhi stepped up to the machine gun and loaded it with cans of Diet Coke and fired them at us. The cans magically hit the same spots as our wounds and plugged the hole in my heart and I stopped bleeding as did all the others. He shot another Diet Coke at me and I caught it, cracked it open and held it up in the air. I toast you, I said and he nodded and spread his arms, clapped his hands and we all disappeared.

What the Hell does this dream mean? I have no idea but it might have something to do with drinking one too many Troegs Hopbacks last night.

Global Warming

According to AOL News Vladimir Putin signed the Kyoto Protocol, which would bring the pact into action in the beginning of the new year. 55 industrialized nations were needed to ratify this pact. The United States and Australia rejected the protocol. The pact aims at reducing global warming by cutting down on green-house gas emissions.

A new report mentioned on Air America radio reports that global warming is accelerating at twice the rate previously thought. During the election the Bush administration worked to quash this report.

W time to get off your mechanical bull, be careful not to spill your non-alcoholic beer, and take a look at this protocol. You can't spend money in an atmosphere that doesn't exist.

Read more about global warming at :http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0328-08.htm

Observations in Miniature

What’s up with the girlfriends of guys in sports bars wearing bulky football jerseys? Is this just a Pennsyltucky thing? Its not exactly the most attractive get up I’ve ever seen. I don’t know anyone that harbors fantasies about women in Raiders jerseys and stone washed jeans seductively eating hot wings off the counter top of a bar. Yes, I’m sure somewhere there is a website dedicated to such a fetish but it can’t be considered universally appealing like lingerie or mini skirts. It’s just weird.

Ever check out the personal ads on those dating sites? Dancing and horse riding seem to be the two leisure activities most favored by women in these profiles and I can’t think of any two activities I would like to do less. If I dated a woman that listed dancing and horse riding as her primary leisure activities I might suggest killing two birds with one stone and buying a dancing horse so that she could go out in the woods on the weekends with her galloping friend, ride the trails and then dance in the clearings. Don’t laugh; I’ve seen dancing horses at the circus. They can move. A boom box could be tied around the animal’s neck to provide the desired tunes. Of course I would be off golfing while this went on...

Speaking of circuses…. I’m watching my brother’s two French Bulldogs for a year until he buys a house. He lives in an apartment that won’t allow pets. Coupled with my two Chihuahuas my home has been transformed into a dog circus; Dogs hopping over dogs, dogs leaping from chair to chair, dogs sliding across the wood floors and crashing into more dogs. In the center of this raucous canine mix I try to read Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut, the words not sticking with me so I have to read and reread. I pause. Somewhere in the distance I think I hear circus music. The big male bulldog leaps off the top of the couch legs sticking straight out so he looks like a mutated Superman (minus the cape). He lands on my crotch. My book flies up into the air and lands on the ground with a thud, which starts the other dogs barking. “By God you fool,” I cry jumping to my feet, my hands cupping my testicles. All the dogs are barking now and nothing I do will stop the show so I sink back down into the couch, realizing it’s just another day in the dog circus.

Uma, aspiring dentist. "Just as I suspected they're all rotten. You'll need dentures and gargling with mouth wash wouldn't hurt either."