Feb 21, 2009

Out Of Africa...


NEW YORK - A Nigerian man has been charged with trying to swindle nearly $27 million from a Citibank account in New York held by Ethiopia's central bank.

You're kidding me, right? I mean you have to have the I.Q. of a fcuking juicebox to not know this. C'mon, my daughter's five and even she rolls her eyes when we get spam from some financial officer at an unheard of African bank promising us our soon-to-be released millions just as soon as we send him our bank account information.

And you're telling me that Citibank fell for this?

Man, how desperate is the US banking industry? What's next, the CEO of Skank Of America hoping his Lotto 649 ticket hits so he can increase credit lines?

Dude, read the fcuking memo--the words "Ethiopian" and "Bank" in even remotely the same sentence are about as legit as "Paris Hilton" and "Singing Career", "Pamela Anderson" and "Natural","Olsen Twins" and "Solid Food", "Amy Winehouse" and "Sober" or "Ryan Seacrest" and "Girlfriend".

Worse, who had to admit they were getting scammed by a con even third graders know is like, completely bogus? I would've hated to be the exec at that meeting:

"Um, we've suffered another setback...".

"What is it Wilson, are the Markets down another two hundred points?".

"Um, well, uh, no....".

"The Feds won't lower the prime rate?".

"Yeah uh, no. I uh, transferred some money. To my uncle. In Ethiopia".

Followed by the deafening roar of silence.

Ohhhhh, man. That is just ugly.

Great. Our banking system is attempting to rebuild our financial infrastructure by falling for internet scams.

I am so psyched as our leading corporate entities try and steer us out of the disaster they've created by relying next on the advice from The Magic Eight Ball, Rock, Paper, Scissors and that most sagacious of all founts of wisdom...

..."Dear Abby, recently the CEO of our bank decided to cut the prime lending rate...".

Feb 17, 2009

Monkey Takes A Bullet

HARTFORD, Conn. - A 200-pound domesticated chimpanzee who once starred in TV commercials for Old Navy and Coca-Cola was shot dead by police after a violent rampage that left a friend of its owner badly mauled…

Okay, that’s weird. And sad. Unfortunately we’re in a depression, so though I love monkey’s as much as the next guy, I’m laughing my ass off.

Funny thing is, I live like, 20 mins from Stamford. My wife and I were sweating out the economy last night when this story comes on the news. We were like WTF?

And you gotta admit, WTF?

And yes, before any of you closet Darwinists go ape on me, I know chimps and monkey’s aren’t the same thing, genetically. I salute your dedication to species differentiation with my opposable thumb.

Now, first things first—since when do chimps top the scale at 200 freaking pounds?

Hello, we’ve all seen those cute little chimps scampering around and they’re adorable and not a banana over 40 lbs, right? C’mon, they’re like the size of a four year old.

Clearly, this is a chimp with a chronically lowered sense of self esteem who’d turned to junk foods in an attempt to heal a wounded self image.

Which may explain the anxiety. And I quote “Conklin told reporters the chimp was acting so agitated that Herold gave him the anti-anxiety drug Xanax in some tea”.

Great. Overweight, image conscious chimp with a drug addiction. Which more than explains the drinking. And again, I quote “The chimpanzee…drank wine…logged onto the computer to look at pictures, and watched television using the remote control, police said”.

Just so I have the big pieces of the puzzle in hand here—obese, drug-addicted, alcoholic, TV watching slacker. Okay, so basically the chimp is me. They didn’t mention the online porn addiction, but then again, they didn’t have to.

I mean, you can’t make this stuff up.

Poor bastard never had a chance. He’s just doing what any of us would in tough times like these. He’s acting out. Can you blame him?

Dudes like 15 yrs old. Now I have no idea if chimp years are like dog years, but c’mon—nothing that weighs 200 lbs should be in a diaper. Especially if it can drink. And log online and read about the economy. Cuz we’ve all been there.

Starts with an after work cocktail, just to take things down a notch. You loosen up, have dinner, have more drinks. Tub with the kid, bedtime story, it’s 9:00pm when you leave the room and what’s left of your night is whatever you can jam in between now and 11:30pm.

Fill the glass, now you’re on drink number four. And feeling kinda groovy. But, what if after drink number four you looked around to notice you lived with a tribe of chimps? All of them yammering and poking at you to download another Tarzan clip from Youtube.

That’s our boy. Bottle of Merlot, some online poker, then suddenly it hits him—“I’m wearing a fcuking diaper? And what the hell is Youtube? And what’s with the humans?”.

So in the long run, I guess there’s more that separates me from chimps other than my awesome opposable thumb.

I can handle my Xanax. And my booze. And I have at least another fifteen years before I’m wearing diapers.

So until I’m sitting here typing away in a Depends, using a voice synthesizer to activate my keyboard…

…its Happy Hour.

Feb 10, 2009

Yes, You Eat It...


I’m still settling into suburbia here. Not that I don’t love it, I do. And I’m learning all the little things that mark you as one of the lawn mowing, Dunkin Donuts loving, neighborhood tribe.

Like, ‘mommy-banter’. A form of casual conversation that gains you entrance into the mom‘s circle (especially crucial if you’re a dad-dude). It’s the perfectly harmless little morning snippets of convo that go down between parents when you’re dropping you child off at school.

Its winter, so the weather’s always a simple way to wedge into the mom’s circle and spark up some well-meaning gab.

I’m a people person, so while hanging with the mom’s this morning I decided to kick off the first round of neighborly chat.

Dana: “Wow, it is so Frosty the snowman out there, brrrr”.

Niiice. Turn a holiday reference into a clever play on the weather and off we go.

Connie: “Oh, I know—just makes me want to curl up with my comfort foods…”.

Oh man, how easy is this? I may start a service for people who need a casual convo starter. I’d be like those little logs you use to get your fire roaring, but you know, I’d hang out at parties. Find a clique of party-mutes and kick things off.

Dana: “Hot cocoa, cinnamon toast…”.

Connie: “Mmm, soon as I get home I’m making my favorite…beer cheese soup”.

Dana: stunned silence.

None of the other mom’s say anything, so I’m not sure what to do. Though instinct is shouting in my ear that sticking my fingers down my throat and pantomiming spraying chunks all over my daughter’s classroom is probably not the preferred response.

I can feel the seconds ticking by, and now I’m getting nervous that she thinks I’m purposely not responding.

But wtf do I say, coz all I can think is “Did she just fcuking say ‘beer cheese soup’?. I do the math real fast—beer+cheese=soup. Sh*t. I got nothing. I take a deep breath, and manage…

Dana: “Hmmm, that sounds like something you’d make if you were from Wisconsin”.

It’s not much but it’s all I have, and at least for the moment I’ve keep the banter alive. I mean, these are the kids my daughter will be growing up with. If I fail the banter-test, I’m off the Island, the tribe has spoken.

Connie: “Oh yeah, mid-west style for sure”.

Phew, nice save. I figure I have to go for it now, really lean into it.

Dana: “Sounds yummy—what do you use, like Vermont cheddar?”.

Connie: “Velveeta”.

Dana: roaring, epic stunned silence.

Now I’m panicking, because essentially this woman just told me when the temp hits low digits she microwaves a bowl of cheese for lunch. With basically, a beer chaser.

I want to scream. I picture a hunk of Velveeta, slowly melting like the wicked witch into a puddle of orange chemical goo. It seems really hot, so I unzip my coat a little, I need air. And my chest feels suddenly heavy. I try and regulate my breathing like I learned in my wife’s pre-natal class. Now I’m sucking in tiny sips of air through my lips.

I take off my hat because now I’m in a full sweat. I smile weakly and slip a finger onto my wrist pulse—it’s racing. I’m going to stroke. Fortunately, one of the other mom’s chimes in…

“Oooh, good one. We always do meatloaf, with a ketchup glaze”.

I quietly wonder to myself how I came to this. I live in a place where ketchup and glaze can be used in the same sentence, and a bowl of melted cheese thinned with beer constitutes soup.

It’s all just so, new to me I guess. The giant SUV’s, the families of four and five kids, all the father’s working in finance, all the women having the exact same blonde hair with honey-toned highlights.

And after school snacks you can make by simply melting cheese in a bowl and topping it off with a little Pabst Blue Ribbon.

I’m not sure how to work my way back into the conversation. And time is working against me. If I don’t close the circle, she’ll know it. She may not acknowledge it, but she’ll never forget I abandoned her during the cheese-soup bonding.

Do I ask for the recipe? I can’t feel my legs any longer, how can I summon the motor skills to type a recipe into my blackberry? I don’t even know where the
‘v’ key is.

I jab my thigh with a pen, try to get the blood flowing and think of my daughter—I gotta man-up and make this happen, her futures at stake here.

Dana: “Sounds super-fast to prepare…”.

Dude, you are the freakin’ man. Phew, I feel my chest release just a little.

Connie: “Super-fast. You garnish it with popcorn”.

She may as well have said “Oh, and I have a penis”.

I’m frozen in a kind of half-smile, and I’m blinking too rapidly. It’s like my eyes can’t believe what I’m seeing so they’re trying to shut out reality by changing the shutter speed.

Like a fatal car accident caught on high-speed film all I can see is a little snowfall of popcorn, settling onto an orange lake of cheesy-frothy foam. Connie’s saying something else, but I can’t hear her.

A kind of suburban concussion grenade has exploded too closely and ruptured my inner ear. Connie’s laughing now, tossing her head back, honeyed-highlights flashing. The other mom’s giggling, trying to cover her mouth with a mittened-hand.

I blink. And watch the slow motion movie of my life unfold one frame at a time.

I say something like, “Gr…aha…blugher…baw”. It’s not really a word, it’s a language I’ve never heard. On my home planet, it must be some kind of goodbye, because I’m walking away on my frozen-legs, kind of jabbing one in front of the other hoping they’ll hold up.

Connie’s waving, slowly. The other mom’s smile, mouthing something I can’t hear. I hope it’s not “See you at lunch…”.

Back in the car, I rip off my jacket and gulp down fresh, clean air. I turn on sports radio, listen to football scores. Really, really loud. But I’ve done it. I’ve entered the inner-circle, the hallowed ground, the Stonehenge of school culture—the mom’s circle.

My daughter will have play dates, be invited to birthday parties and have sleep over’s at her friends homes. And I’ll just remind her to be polite, say ‘please’ when she asks for something and whatever she does, do not eat the orange soup.

Feb 4, 2009

The Power Of Ass



My daughter just got hammered by the flu. 102 temp, projectile vomit—poor kid was a hot boiled mess. A few things cross your mind when you see your little kitten wrestling the toilet-bowl like a truck-driver:

1. Poor little angel.
2. Jesus, I don’t want the flu.

The flu is bad. If you haven’t been bitch-slapped by it lately, pick up a six-pack, check it out. Reminds you why old people die from it. A cold is a bunch of unruly little germs having Spring Break in your system.

The Flu is Hitler.

Colds are impersonal, they’re frisky teenagers copping a feel with some of your white blood cells. The flu knows you by name, and wants you dead. And it will slowly raise your temperature until you lay in bed curled into fetal submission weeping like a special needs student who lost his juice-box.

My wife and I woke up the next morning and tore through the medicine cabinet. Funny how with a cold, I’m Mr. Natural. Sore throat? Sniffles? Here, try the latest organic, naturopathic remedy I just picked up—an herbal-psychic potpourri of Echinacea, Golden Seal, the imprint of Baby Jesus’ tiny handprint and the rainbow-aura of magic dolphins. Um, yummy. Taste the love.

But man, you say ‘flu’ and I break out the big guns. I’ll buy shit off the pharmacy shelves that guarantees pancreatic cancer in 4 out of 5 users, has no FDA approval, has clinically killed half of its trial-patients and carries a Govt warning label with a picture of a man’s head exploding after taking.

But if it says it’ll ward off the onset of flu, I’ll push you into traffic to get my box of it faster than you can say placebo. So as my wife and I sort through half-bottles of fairy-potions I’ve amassed over the years, we find a box of Zicam tablets.

“Oh…”, Ann says—like she just found my porn stash and doesn’t know how to broach the topic. “I forgot we had these…well, they’re pretty strong…”. That’s about the last thing I remember her saying before I awoke in a Latvian clinic with my spleen missing. More on that later.

Before she can stop me, and she tried, I popped a Zicam tablet in my mouth and started chewing. Chewing hard, to show my level of commitment. Chewing like my life depended on it, visions of little Nazi-uniformed flu cells raping my immune system.

And then, I stopped chewing. Because I was both crying, and gagging. ‘Cause what Zicam’s label doesn’t say is “Warning: Product Tastes Like Ass”. Point of clarification, I don’t mean ass in the college-kid, drunk, naughty way, like “check out that chick’s ass”. I mean ass, as in the working end of the noun.

Have I ever eaten ass? No, and I’ve never been poked in the eye with a sharp stick either, but I get the idea. I’m sufficiently knowledgeable with the general theory—sharp stick; hard, spear-like, capable of inflicting damage. Eye: soft-tissue, vulnerable, protect at all costs.

And to my latest vocab entry—Zicam. As in, it tastes like a full-blown, uncooked and pungent hunk of ass-meat. In your mouth. And though it’s a gum, its not really gum. It’s a weird alien hybrid. It starts like gum, kinda chewy and soft.

That’s just a ploy so you keep chewing. Cause you’re tasting butt, except the gum consistency makes you think “Gum can’t taste like rear-end, I’ll keep chewing…”. And then the tablet kind of breaks apart into fragmented mini-chunks of butt, each small chunk as fully potent as the whole.

Like those monsters, you cut their hand off, but the hand stays alive, separate from the body, right? Zicam’s the same. The tablet’s just a delivery system of sorts. The total assification of the tablet occurs upon breakage. Each fragment blooms into an orchestra-rich flavor symphony of sweaty ass-crack. And even if you gag, it doesn’t matter.

Zicam’s flavor-chunks kind of leech butt-flavor as you chew, coating your tongue and throat, and teeth and so-god-help-me, your life really, with ass. And then, like a drunken college grope-fest, it’s over as soon as it began. The tablets gone, broken up, dissolved and swallowed.

I’m standing there, kind of teary. I feel violated, like, I just woke up in someone else’s dorm room and can’t find my panties. I’m blinking, trying to find true North on my life-compass. My wife says “Chew one every four hours…”.

The last part echoes in my head like I’m on a ‘shroom trip “every…..four….hours….”. Now I’m feeling kind of nauseous. I have a stomach full of the flu Anti-Christ. My body feels really light and airy, like I’m lint just kind of floating around in space. I’m having an out-of-body experience. I’m Zicaming. My wife is really, really tiny now, because I’m floating at Space Shuttle altitudes.

Entire cities are like Lego-block projects below me, cars and people the size of a comma ending the sentence in which they live. And there, yes there—I can see little laboratories, and teeny-weeny little scientists in pristine white lab coats making Zicam.

They’re making billions of little Zicam tablets, and…and they’re laughing. The tiny scientists so far below me are, laughing. Because they’ve managed, after decades of frustration to finally get the upper hand on the flu virus?

No, they’re laughing because after years of frustration, they’ve finally managed to market a product that tastes like ass.

Does Zicam work?

Yes, it does.

Does it taste like ass?

You be the judge. Next time you feel the telltale signs of some plague-like virus slowly goose-stepping over your immune system, pick up some Zicam. Now, in all fairness you should know Zicam also makes a nasal swab.

And you wonder, ‘hmmm, nasal swab? Well, if the tablet tastes like colon, does the swab smell like butt-gutter, too?”.

I’ve tried the nasal swab too.

But I’m not telling.

I’m floating high above it all, and like my little scientist pals—I’m laughing.