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“So the Death Star is the woman?” Sam asked.

“Yes! Finally! Someone else finally gets it. I’ve been trying to say that for half an hour,” the stripper said. She had to be a stripper. I had been passively sitting at a table in the back room of the Laff Stop, sipping on a Jameson and watching this nuclear winter of a conversation for the past twenty minutes.

The Laff Stop was legendary. Mitch Hedberg, Joe Rogan, Ron White, Louis CK, and Doug Stanhope all recorded classic albums there. Sam Kinison’s piano sat behind a curtain in that room, unplayed for years by anyone other than his ghost. Bill Hicks worked out the ideas on that stage that would ultimately make him famous.

Open Mic Night happened in the front lobby of the club on Mondays while the comedians cliqued up in the main showroom, waiting for their turn on a five hour night. It wasn’t just the pros; Monday nights attracted an entire circus wagon full of freaks, all determined to take their shot under the spotlight and loft their strangeness into a sea of unfamiliar faces. It was one of those nights that found me interjecting myself into a conversation I shouldn’t have been paying attention to in the first place.

The stripper was dressed to kill – and by kill, I mean if you looked at her too long you would probably catch some disease capable of ending your life. She fell out of her clothes haphazardly, her untoned rolls of flesh crawling out of a ripped pair of jeans designed for a much younger, much thinner girl. Her makeup had been applied with a paintball gun.

She had wandered in like she was looking for crack and had somehow signed up to tell jokes. In an effort to alleviate her fears, someone had told her that I was a first-timer too, but was in fact too scared to actually go up. Instead of bolstering her confidence however, she used that nugget of misinformation as a weapon. The only thing more amusing to a table full of comedians than watching a hopeful comedian attack a veteran is watching a hopeful comedian attack a veteran and then prattle on about their own brilliant comedic theories, ideas, and jokes.

And that she did. In between firing shots at me, she would explain to anyone that would listen how she had put order to completely unrelated event, the most current of which was her mission to explain the sexual intent of George Lucas in the Star Wars trilogy. It was definitely the meth talking. She was a drunken plane crash, and I was unable to look away as her engine sputtered and failed and a plume of smoke shot out of the back end of her descending aircraft.

“You’re an idiot,” I finally said.

“You’re not even supposed to be back here. This is for comics!” she yelled. “Go back out front with the rest of the audience.”

“And please stop showing everyone your underwear,” I added, ignoring her comment. “It’s not attractive. At all. To anyone. Really.”

“You’re a dick,” she said. “You’re more than a dick – you’re a fucking asshole.”

“Dude, that’s the longest a girl has had a conversation with you before she called you an asshole,” Sam interjected.

“Shut it,” I said. “Her vagina’s still hanging out.” I was talking indirectly about her, which I knew was only making her angrier.

“Fuck him. Seriously, why is he still back here?”

“Because I want to learn to be funny like you,” I said.

“You don’t have what it takes,” she shot back.

“You mean a prison tattoo on my stretch-marked hip that looks like it was drawn on a Magna-Doodle? Then yes, you’re right.”

Sam interjected again, “I think what he was trying to say is that the whole idea just isn’t funny. It needs punchlines.”

“Whatever. He doesn’t know anything about comedy.”

“You’re right. I don’t know anyth- Jesus Christ! What happened to your feet!?” Whatever point I had been trying to make was forgotten. Her feet looked like they had been bound and beaten. Red marks wrapped around the sides and her toes were crunched into a twisted point. It was confusing.

“I had to wear six inch heels for a movie shoot today,” she said.

“Porn?”

“No. For your information it was about this party where the women are topless and -”

“So porn.”

“Asshole.”

“Whore.”

“Seriously. What do -”

“Seriously, what did happen to your feet? Your toes look like a T-Rex eating a pack of wieners.”

While normally content letting me pick my own fights, Sam could no longer keep himself quiet. “What’s worse than the Holocaust?” he asked. “Her feet.”

“For real. You look like you’ve been playing hackey sack with a bag of gravel. Is that frostbite?”

“Oh my god,” she said, staring at me with one of her crossed eyes.

“Here. Just take my shoes. You need them worse than me,” I said. I started to unlace them as she changed the subject.

“What were we talking about?”

“Star Wars,” Sam said.

“Right. So R2-D2 penetrates the Death Star with his metal ‘arm’ and then-”

“You guys really aren’t setting me up?” I finally asked, glancing around the table full of comics. “She’s real?”

“I know,” Sam replied. “I thought you were being Punk’d but you’re not famous enough.”

The stripper couldn’t handle the lack of attention. Positive attention anyway. “I’m STILL trying to make a point here!”

“Your feet STILL look like moldy ladyfingers.”

“Can we leave my feet alone?”

“Look, you wore the sandals,” Sam said. “You look like you were drunk and barefoot trying to outrun a weed eater.” The stripper laughed at his reply, exhibiting no anger at all. I was surprised.

“Really?” I asked. “Why doesn’t Sam get to be an asshole too?”

“Because he gets what I’m trying to say.”

“Uh huh. What exactly are you looking at anyway?”

“What?”

“Your eye. Looking all this way and that.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my eyes!”

“Just one of them actually. It looks like it just kind of gave up. It has a look of complete resignation.”

“Whatever, asshole.”

“Good one. You come up with that all on your own?” As I asked, another one of the pros came into the back room, excited.

“Hey guys!” Ed said. He was clearly suppressing a smirk. “I just killed with this new bit about Darth Vader being a big penis and how the Dark Side represents the feminine spirit!”

“Oh my god!” the stripper said. “That’s brilliant! We were just talking about that!”

“Shut up!” said Ed. “Seriously?” I kicked him under the table.

“Yes. See?” she said, turning to me.” You’re the only one that doesn’t get it, you dick. I could have you thrown out if I wanted to. Maybe you should go back up front until you have the balls to go on stage.”

“And you should get a pedicure. And an eye patch,” I said back.

“Actually, I think you’re up next bro,” Ed told me.

“Enjoy your first time on stage,” Sam added.

“Yeah. Good luck, asshole,” said the stripper. “Now. Where were we?” It didn’t matter. The comics were already up and headed back into the lobby, leaving the frustrated stripper sitting at the table by herself.

* * *

The problem with comedy is that it is impossible to ever really understand it. All the science in all the books in the entire world means nothing when it comes to what truly makes another human being laugh. Videos of people getting hit in the testicles by baseballs or small children is always hilarious, but why? We have no idea. A good joke is misdirection; a good comedian can take you by the hand and lead you down a road, and then suddenly change course on you to elicit a laugh. But again, why?

I have bits that I think are incredible but I can’t figure out how to get them across in a way that works. On the other hand, I have lines in my own set that consistently do get laughs but I’m still not sure exactly why. How does it all work?

It’s sorcery, if you ask me.

My goal that evening, as a supposed first-timer, was to bomb. There are nights when even the best comic can’t manage to make it work with his absolute A-game, so eating it in front of people on purpose should have been simple. In the few minutes before I went up I tried to think like a rookie. Just do set ups with no punchlines, I told myself. Leave lots of silence. Die, on purpose.

“So wow. Black people and white people are really different,” I said, and then moved on, giving no evidence in joke form. “So, uh, what else is going on?”

Every intentional nose dive brought more chuckles from comedians that knew me, contradicting my attempt to flat line. The laughs grew exponentially. Damn, this wasn’t the plan. I fought to keep a straight face as I stared out at the crowd. “Blank CDs suck,” I pretended to stammer. “Especially on road trips.” It was abysmal, yet somehow hilarious. I stared blankly ahead as more laughs came.

The stripper had migrated back into the room and I could see her glare from the stage. She was furious. I was a bit mad myself, that I hadn’t been able to pull off the ruse. My fellow comics had failed to play along. I was killing with non-jokes. Every misdelivered bit elicited an even bigger response. I was crushing. I couldn’t have done that well if I’d actually tried.

I finished the set to applause and wandered off to the back room again, followed by a few comedians and the stripper. “There’s no way that was your first time!” she said.

“You really don’t get it,” I replied.

“Seriously, how’d you do that?”

“I wouldn’t tell you, even if I knew.” And the truth was, I didn’t know. Even after a decade, comedy still confuses me. It works when it shouldn’t and doesn’t sometimes when I need it to most.

“You’re such an asshole,” she said.

As I walked away I could hear her voice trail off in the distance, still searching for an audience. “So has anybody else here seen Star Wars?” she muttered as the showroom door closed behind me.

I have to admit, I was not really a Joan fan. In fact, her “can we talk” shrillness used to make my shoulders tense when I would hear it. And don’t get me wrong, I’m all for brash, uncouth, in-your-face behavior. As a former New Yorker, even her accent didn’t get under my skin. I think it was a quiet desperation that I intoned, something underneath her poking fun at celebrities, bristling at housewives, and most of all, her self-deferential slant that gave me pause. I just really never tuned into her Late Show debacle, or her Joan Rivers Show on television, though it ran for five years. And then, just when I might have given her more credit, she started the heinous mother-daughter alliance for which she has become known since the 1990s: the red carpet pre-award hosts for cable channels like E! Entertainment and TV Guide Channel (yes, imagine that, even they have a channel!). There has also been several guest spots on TV shows I don’t watch, like Nip/Tuck, QVC Shopping Network, and Celebrity Apprentice in which her daughter, Melissa, appeared in the same season and lost. Joan went on to win. During all this time, Joan has had some, shall we say, adjustments, in the surgical arena. Whether you endorse this practice or not, it’s difficult not to judge someone that you only know through a TV image or in a magazine, and they appear so completely altered. Like a puppet, a shard of one’s former self.

Taking this all into consideration, I went to see the Joan Rivers movie on my recent June trip to New York. It was playing at the Malvern Theater, a great venue on Long Island. There were maybe five people in the audience. As I watched this documentary style movie unfold, many details of Joan’s life came into light of which I had no former knowledge. The falling out with her industry mentor Johnny Carson in 1986 over her move from the Tonight Show to a soon-to-launch Fox TV Late Show Starring Joan Rivers (he would never speak to her again). I recalled reading something about her husband Edgar Rosenberg’s suicide in 1987, but never saw what toll that took on Joan and their sole progeny, Melissa. Joan felt his demise was impacted by the fact that Fox wanted her to fire Rosenberg, and when she refused, they were both let go. Imagine, firing your husband from his job. Or losing your husband in such a horrible manner, eaten up by the same machine that feeds your family. That fuels your career.

More than anything, I saw the drive that Joan Rivers has, as a person, and as an actress. There is one shot in which she reveals a catalogue full of her jokes on cards. She whips out one or two from thousands of choices and reads it. And it’s funny. She’s a riot. But the irony here is that she wants to be taken seriously, wants to be treated as a serious performer. Twice she has had plays mounted about her own life. The first play did well until it hit Broadway, where it was panned by critics. Her last play, which is covered fairly extensively in the movie, revealed how vulnerable any actor is to the system. How skewed the relationship between performer and critic really is. I was amazed by her work ethic, and thought that for someone who is nearly 80 years old, she works harder than most Americans. Certainly harder than me.

I’m still unsure if I’m a fan of Joan Rivers. I love comedy though, and to see these talented young performers like Kathy Griffin, Margaret Cho, Sarah Silverman, the comedians of my generation, one has to wonder if they’d be as successful without Joan. Iconic, yes. Trailblazer, sure. She doesn’t want to be seen as that, though. She’d still rather be headlining any of their stand-up routines. Or in an Oscar role. Any day of the week.

My office smells like old snacks.

Apparently, this is what happens when you trade your corner office for a minivan.  I really miss the old digs: the custom-ordered swivel chair; the view down 56th Street from 40 floors up; space to “think.”  And all of this guarded by an assistant who sat outside my door ready to intercept anyone who might try to enter the inner sanctum uninvited.  It was luxurious, organized…peaceful.

The new headquarters are definitely a step down. The only amenities being a cup holder and lumbar support, and those came standard.

Sure there’s a 360° view.  But all I see are the backs of other people’s minivans with bumper stickers telling me their kids are “Student of the week”, “Citizen of the month” or just plain better than mine.

There is no assistant.  Unsavory people who need baths and tell bad “Knock-Knock” jokes come and go as they please.  They see my office only as a way station where they can empty their backpacks, track sand, and spill snacks while I shuttle them from activity to activity – a never-ending stream of “meetings” where their attendance is mandatory and refreshments are served.

I can’t take calls.

Meetings are attended by a brain trust of three elementary school age children who, like so many executives I knew, are sure their ideas are the best.   And the only intellectual activity that occurs here is an incessant stream of questioning that bombards me while I’m driving.   “Mom? How was God born?” “Mom? If I ate a sparkle, would I die?” and, “Mom? If I accidentally killed my sister would you still love me?”   There are no “right” answers to these questions. But they do get me thinking…

Office supplies are sprinkled about uselessly.   Stray socks, Legos, dried out magic markers, note pads, tissues, broken pencils, a year old cereal bar, and a diaper bag filled with all of the stuff I would ever need should I ever be in an emergency with a six month old baby.  My youngest are twins…and they’ll be seven this year.

Every day is “casual Friday,” there is no filing system, and the noise level is about 20 decibels over the limit necessary to think straight.

Moreover, I’m in my office from morning till night.

My latest meeting is at the park and all of my co-workers are with me.  I forgot to pack snacks, so we’ll probably share the old cereal bar.  But it’s a small price to pay.

I’d rather climb a jungle gym than the corporate ladder any day.

.

In 2005 I got a phone call to come to Shreveport and kill a dragon. Dragon slaying is a metaphor I adopted long ago – the origins of which are probably best saved for another story. Still, this was a mission. My friend Rachel ran the comedy club there at the time and thought I should come in for a particular weekend to “help her solve a problem”. She had called me more than a few times about it, actually, but that was all the information she would give me.

“So, can you do that week?” she asked me.

It didn’t make sense for her to be so determined about a specific date. I was already scheduled to be there in a few months as it was. “Why are you so insistent about this?” I asked.

She paused. “I need you to feature for Dustin Diamond,” she finally said.

Dustin is best known as the child actor that played Screech on Saved by the Bell, and by best known, I mean only known. “He’s going to be here that week and he’s horrible. I need him to sell the tickets and then I need you to make the people not sorry that they bought them.” It was sort of flattering I suppose. “He’s going to suck, and maybe if you’re funny in front of him people won’t feel so ripped off.”

Before this begins to look like I am blowing my own little air horn as a comedian, you need to understand this: Screech is the worst comedian you’ve ever seen. Ever. Take bad comedy, cube it, and then double that. The Holocaust was funnier. What compounded the problem was that, aside from being a brutally bad performer, Dustin was also known for being a notorious joke thief. In the world of stand up, originality is everything. It’s the sacred code. Take nothing, from anyone. Our jokes are our children.  That little fact automatically made him my enemy.

Still, Shreveport was my backyard. Screech may be a headache to deal with, I told myself, but my shows will be good. “I guess I’ll see you in two weeks then,” I told Rachel.

* * *

I arrived at the club for the first show of the week to find Dustin secluded in a corner. I walked over to say hello while he proceeded to ignore me and play with his cell phone. “Look, bro,” he said dismissively. “ I’m not your friend, I’m not going to be your friend. Sorry. My wife Jennifer handles everything. Go talk to her.”

“What do you mean, talk to your wife? I didn’t even want to talk to you. I was trying to be polite,” I said, and then walked off. We were working Wednesday through Sunday, so I had five days worth of this to look forward to. Apparently though, I was going to get to talk to his wife whether I wanted to or not.

For anyone that recalls Dustin’s character from the early 90’s, anyone that remembers seeing the nerdy little kid with the hiked up pants and the goofy grin, anyone that ever thought to themselves, “That poor boy will never grow up and marry a hot chick” – you were all correct.

Her name was Jennifer.  I feel a bit bad passing judgment, but she was hideous. She was built like the bottom half of an hour glass and her face was all mashed up, like she did a 100 yard dash in a gym that wasn’t quite 100 yards long. And her personality made her even uglier.

She wasted no time in explaining to me exactly how things were going to be, and she spoke every word with the saliva-filled lisp of a cartoon elephant.

“So what kind of material do you do?” she spit.

“Umm, I tell jokes.” I wasn’t sure what she was getting at.

“What kind of jokes?”

“The kind that make people laugh.”

“Like what?” she pressed.

“Like, I start with a set up, and then once I’ve put that out there, I generally toss in a punch line of some sort,” I said. “I have no idea what you’re asking me.”

“Well, here’s the thing,” she explained with the most elitist smirk a human being could possibly ever wear on their face. “Other comics have a tendency to watch Dustin’s act on the first night and then go up and do his jokes in front of him the rest of the week, and I hate to have those people fired.”

Guinness shot out of my nose.   Did she just – ? No. There’s no way. “Wait a second,” I said. “Are you… insinuating that I might steal one of HIS jokes?”

“It happens,” she hissed.

The hypocrisy was almost obtrusive. Her calling me joke thief on Screech’s behalf was somewhat akin to Richard Simmons calling someone a cocksucker. It was a black fly in your chardonnay or some other Alanis Morissette lyric. It was the pot and the kettle and the dish and the spoon all packaged into one nice neat little fruit rollup of irony, and it kind of pissed me off. Technically it wasn’t an accusation yet as nothing had really happened, but it was a great indicator that a storm was probably on the horizon.

The first show went as expected. I did a half-hour in front of him, and then about a third of the way through his set, people started walking out. “You are so much funnier than him!” they would say as they filed past me.

In all honesty, I hardly knew anything about comedy five years ago. I was okay, but nothing more. I wasn’t that good; he was just that bad. To put it in perspective, if you went to a nice restaurant and they brought you a ham sandwich out as an appetizer, you might not be too impressed. But, if they brought out your entrée and it was a big Bucket of Shit, then you would probably check to see if they could bring you another one of those suddenly delicious sandwiches. That’s what happened with us.

When I walked off stage the second night, Rachel met me in the Green Room. “You’re not going to believe this,” she said. She gave me a look that indicated that she knew I might overreact to whatever she was about to tell me. “Are you ready?” she asked, and then took a deep breath.

“What was wrong with that?” I asked. “I did okay, right?”

“Jennifer said you did one of Screech’s jokes and they want me to fire you.”

I laughed at what had to be a joke. “Shut up.”

“I’m serious,” she replied. “Don’t worry, you’re finishing the week obviously. I just wanted you to know.” People continued to leave in droves as we talked.

* * *

On Friday night we were scheduled for two performances. Jennifer lumbered toward me before the first show with a hateful look on her face. “So you’re still here?” she asked. I just smiled. “That’s okay. You won’t be by the end of the night,” she said, and waddled off.

For the third time that week, I finished my set and hung out in the lobby for the inevitable exodus of audience members. The people fled the disaster, this time going so far as to try to warn the crowd waiting for the second show as they left. Dustin stormed to the back room after his failed set.

I could hear the conversation growing heated in the office as the staff began seating the second crowd. I walked in intending to watch from the perimeter, and instead found myself at the center of the argument. “Fire him or we’re leaving,” Jennifer slurred as she pointed at me. She sounded like she had a wet dishtowel in her mouth.

“He hasn’t done anything wrong,” Rachel said, defending me.

“He’s doing Dustin’s jokes,” Jennifer fired back.

“Dustin’s not even doing Dustin’s jokes!” I interjected. I couldn’t keep quiet anymore.  “He’s doing Keith Alberstadt and Kinison and… do you want me to keep going?”

“Look,” Rachel said. “Nobody is getting fired. He’s not stealing any jokes, believe me. We’ll just have to work this out some other way.”

“Then we’re done here,” Jennifer said. “C’mon Dustin.” And with that, Screech stood up and followed her out the door like a puppy. She literally took his balls and went home. He left 250 fans of his sitting in the showroom ten minutes before show time, people who had chosen to spend both their night and their money to see him perform. It was a horrible thing to do, especially considering that there were no other comedians in Shreveport to cover his time.

“Oh my God,” Rachel said, stunned. “They really left. What are we going to do?”

“Start the show I guess? I’ll do as much time as I can. Don’t worry. It’ll be fine,” I said as reassuringly as I could. “And hey. Thanks for sticking up for me.”

* * *

We started the show on time. The only other act on the bill was the Master of Ceremonies, a hip-hop radio DJ named Flow, with long dreadlocks and no jokes. If it was my job to provide the comedy, it was his task to prepare the audience for the absence of their celebrity headliner. He failed miserably.

“Yo yo yo, check it out,” he said quickly from the stage. “Screech got sick as hell and had to go home, but you’re gonna love this next guy. Give it up for Slade Ham.” That was my entire intro.

The room became a roaring waterfall of conversation, everyone suddenly wondering what was going to happen. “Did we hear that right? Screech isn’t here? Wait, what?” It was incessant, even as I walked to the stage.

You learn early as a comedian that you have to capture the audience instantly. As I grabbed the microphone, my only thought was to get my first joke out immediately. Win them over quickly, no matter what. My words, however, were lost in the cacophony, just another inaudible buzz in a room full of confused voices. I desperately needed to change tactics.

I flagged down a waitress and ordered a round – a beer and a shot of James – and then I sat down on the barstool on stage and gazed out at the chaos. My drinks arrived and still I sat there, unmoving. Eventually the spectators grew curious, ending their conversations and slowly staring back at me. At least they’re paying attention now, I thought to myself. I shot my whiskey and stood up.

“So, you’re probably wondering what’s going on,” I told them. “I’m guessing you’ve figured out that Screech isn’t going to make it tonight. I’m sorry. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you’re much better off without him. You would only have been disappointed.

“I know Flow told you he got sick but that’s not entirely true, and I think you guys deserve the truth. He walked out on you. He knew you were here and he chose to run off. He’s a dick.”

“Why’d he leave?” a voice yelled out of the darkness.

“Honestly? He was doing that badly. He got embarrassed and he quit,” I replied.

A different voice arose from the back. “You’re lying!”

“Um, no. I’m not. He really did get embarrassed and that’s why he left.”

“You’re making that up!” the man repeated.

“Why would you say that? That’s exactly what happened,” I said back, and the response that came back was one of the funniest things I’d ever heard in my life.

“Because if ten years on Saved by the Bell didn’t embarrass that motherfucker, I doubt Shreveport could do it!”

It was met with uproarious laughter. “Fuck Screech!” he said. “Tell us some jokes, Funny Man!”

And on that note, the crowd and I bonded. I made it through the show unscathed, and no one left upset. It was a far longer show than I was capable of at the time, but we got through it. I haven’t crossed paths with Screech again since then, but I have occasionally run into a comic who has. “God, he’s such an asshole,” they’ll say. “Have you ever worked with him?”

“Let me tell you a story,” I always reply, “about this one time in Shreveport.”

Thank you, President Crow, for that generous introduction. I know we just met on the steps leading up to this stage, but you pretty much nailed me: I am a 30-year-old guy with an MFA who works with computers and constantly daydreams about having webbed fingers and toes for reasons he wishes not to disclose.

And I want to thank the entire ASU community for not inviting me here today. I know you were all looking forward to hearing President Obama speak, but he is off fighting crime and Liz Cheney’s hairstylist.

If you are sitting out there, sweating and fanning your face with today’s commencement program, trying to ignore the growing dampness of your colorful underwear, and you are wondering if I’ve ever even stepped foot in the state of Arizona before last night, then I want to tell you this: I never had a reason until now to check ya’ll out. I can think of 47 other states I’d rather visit than Arizona, so this is a total surprise to me too.

You are #50, Alabama

I’m going to ask several things of you today, graduates, with number one being that if this stack of cocktail napkins holding my speech is blown away, please retrieve them for me because I have my ATM pin number scrawled on each one.

Second, I’d like you all to stand up and turn around. Wave goodbye. Wave goodbye to your sorority parties, to your one-credit badminton classes, to your meal cards, to the drifter you humiliated, killed and buried on the edge of North Quad. Wave goodbye to the Junior class who will be taking your place next year, making your presence on this campus completely forgotten with their own antics, date-rapes, and football records. Wave goodbye to the person standing in front of you with their back turned even though they can’t see that you’re waving at them. If you secretly hated them, now is the time to flip them off. Give them the double bird if you like. Or you can shoot a bloody snot rocket onto their gown and act like it was an accident.

Turn around, Seniors. Take a seat. Get comfortable. Adjust your cap and tassel.

Wipe away your tears.

You are entering the real world, graduates. A real world just like the one you see on TV every night. Some of you will become a real housewife of… Phoenix (pause for applause), some of you will attempt to show your love for Brett Michaels through jacuzzi handjobs, some of you will consume broiled goat testicles simply to move on to the next round, and some of you will become so despondent that ABC will drive a huge bus up to your front lawn and tear the shit out of your house. If you are lucky, you will experience all of these things by the age of 30. If you are unlucky, you will experience all of these things after the age of 30, plus you will have lost your legs in a tennis accident.

The economy is bullshit right now, guys. Total bullshit. A few of you are going to find jobs with your family business after they fire a long-time employee to make room for you, but most of you are going to have to move in with your parents who have moved in with your grandparents who have moved into their neighbor’s roofless tool shed. You will not have running water or an outlet to charge your iPhone. But you will have each other, a push lawn mower, and a degree in sports marketing.

Hope you enjoy visiting high schools.

But do not despair! (shout seven times)

Do you control your own destiny? Yes. Of course you do. You can choose to rewrite a popular foreign film. You can deep fry a rat’s hindquarters and then sue the fast food restaurant of your liking. You can model for American Apparel. You can bootleg your Netflix queue, or you can trick a professional football player into investing in an imaginary product like invisible life preservers.

There are a couple more things you can do but they are ones I am saving for myself. By the way, meet me after the ceremony if you’re interested in making a shit-ton of cash with nothing more than your face and a tattoo needle.

Lastly, I ask that each and everyone of you try to find someone to validate my parking. Ten dollars an hour, my ass.

Congratulations on your graduation, and Godspeed on the road ahead. And please, can someone please Godspeed over there and grab that napkin?

MADRID, SPAIN-

Two months ago over a hundred cows were set up one night in Spain capital. Just like that. One day the corners are simple, everyday Spanish-capital corners and the next, every other one is adorned with a myriad  of fiberglass cows painted every sort of design and color imaginable.

This naturally makes the tourists smile and sparkle and snap their photos standing next to these fake plastic  cows.

They clearly don’t read or care about the sign at the bottom of each cow that lists the artists’ name, the title of the piece and the little label that reads in capital letters: PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH THE COW.

Most of them touch the cow.

Some of them ride the cow.

Some of them oblige their children to sit on the cow and frown.

According to the Cow Parade website, it is the largest and most public art event in the world.

An estimated count puts about 100 million people seeing this public “art” throughout the world.

Dublin, Sao Paolo, Chicago, New York, London, Buenos Aires, Tokyo and Milan are just a few of the more than 50 cities that have hosted the fiberglass bovines, each herd of them painted distinctly by the country’s own artists and later are auctioned off for charity. Apparently they’ved rasied over $20 million dollars since 1999.

Over 2500 cows have been made since it started a decade ago and no two are identical.

Celebrity painters of cows include David Lynch, Ron Wood (from The Rolling Stones) and Radiohead. Oprah Winfrey, Elton John and Ringo Starr all own one.

This is all hunky dory, but I keep asking myself:

Why cows?

Why now?

The website answers the first one:

This is a popular question. Simply, the cow is a universally beloved animal. The cow represents different things to different people around the world-she’s sacred, she’s historical, she connects us to our past-but the common feeling is one of affection. There is something magical about the cow that transcends throughout the world. She simply makes everyone smile.

Does “she” make you smile? When I think of which animals make me smile I tend toward little bitty kitty cats and puppy dogs, maybe bunny rabbits. Hell, even pigs spark a grin across this face. But cows? Not even in the top five. Not unless I’m really hungry and she comes out juicy and a little pink on the inside.

The website also explains that the cow is the perfect animal on which to paint because of “the form, flexibility, and contiguous breadth” of it.

While I don’t doubt that the contiguous breadth of a life-size fiberglass cow can make it a good candidate for painting on, I don’t see how fiberglass models of cow bodies can be seen as flexible, especially when compared to, say, a canvas, which is unarguably more pliable.

In an effort to get a gain an accurate overview of what this annoying art movement provides Madrid, I went cow hunting one day. In total, I shot about 25 cows, not all of which made this post.

At least here in Madrid, three different forms of the cow are possible.

The standard and most frequent cow, standing on all fours:

The cow standing on two legs:

bathing in a tea cup?

Suffice it to say the verisimilitude of these cows is not to be taken seriously.

Nor, as I said before, are they to be touched, which tourists did time and time again in my cow hunt.

The effects of the multitudes touching these cows only leads to the the inevitable rubbing-off of the cow’s painted outer layer, otherwise referred to–by some–as art.

While the vast majority of the cows were average at best or underwhelming…

A handful of them stood out as exceptionally rendered:

Across the street from the Prado, the curators at La Caixa Forum, a relatively small and trendy museum, decided to put out some Rodin sculptures in front. They’ve called it: Arte en la calle (Art in the street).

Half a dozen sculptures adorn the entrance area of the Forum.

I kept wondering why no one seemed to be looking at these true works of art. Because they don’t have any color? Because they were made in the image of man, instead of the other, the animal?

They were muted bronzes, intimating elusive notions just waiting to be discovered by whoever stood and pondered. They were trapped in space and time while people walked freely by, ignoring them, secretly salivating for the next grouping of colorful cows which they could touch and take a soon-to-be-forgotten photo in front of and maybe show to a few friends when they returned home, maybe not.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was a maleficent ex-Vegas lounge singer with an overactive middle finger that ultimately caused him to get kicked off Survivor, Project Runway, and Dancing With The Stars all in the same day.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was a hangnail-ridden, hackneyed herpetologist with a knock-kneed, nitroglycerin-swiggin’ alter ego, brawlin’ like Kid Rock at a Georgia Waffle House.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was a kinkajou-kicking schmuck, whose highly boasted Proustian split personality was merely a pimple-ridden protuberance on the left butt cheek of the blues.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was a clap-traperous, flimsy-assed gypsy with a Sisyphus boulder for a crystal ball, and who could read tealeaves about as well as he read the New Yorker—that is to say not at all.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was a hazardous waste dumping demagogue, pumped so full of bad feng shui and Demerol that he kept mistaking North Peoria for the North Pole, and Satan for Santa.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was a gas huffing, NyQuil chugging rabble-rouser who’s yelled for every bar band from Boise to Bangor to play “Free Bird,” all while Twittering, playing Twister, and twiddling his fingers.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was a bilgewater-brained bigamist with mescal-chugging, Mesolithic tendencies and nowhere near the brains and savvy of Obama’s future dog.

Happy a happy holiday season anyway, y’all.

August 12, 2008

Mr. Statler and Mr. Waldorf

Shady Sunrise Retirement Home & Gardens
Room 22
Terrace Pass Road
Naples, Florida 34102

Dear Mr. Statler and Mr. Waldorf:

This letter is to serve notice of your eviction as residents of Shady Sunrise Retirement Home & Gardens.

In the past 18 months, you are guilty of:

i. Having a variety of items delivered to the manager’s office, then hiding behind the ficus in the lobby (and laughing) as the manager explained to the delivery person that he did not order a pizza, call for a taxi, or request a male Strip-A-Gram.

ii. Two (2) fires that resulted from candlelit séances in your room to summon the spirit of John Denver.

iii. Your infamous “Prank-Call Mondays,” where you telephone every Chinese restaurant in the greater Naples region to ask about their side dishes, only to say, “What kind of a dump serves fried lice?” before laughing and slamming down the phone.

iv. Inviting your friend Rizzo the Rat to use our kitchen as a mating ground—a disgusting prank that resulted in two rather time-consuming and embarrassing visits from the health inspector.

v. “Hiney-Pinch Wednesdays.” (Which, despite what you say, the female nurses do not enjoy.)

vi. Raiding the prescription-medicine closet to acquire ingredients to assist one Dr. Bunsen Honeydew in his quest to invent a longer-lasting form of Viagra.

vii. Referring to every female staff member as “pig” and every male staff member as “frog.”

viii. “Nurse-Chase Fridays.” (And though your friend Animal is banned from our premises, his shrieking cries of “Wo-man! Wo-man!” will, no doubt, forever echo in the minds of the five nurses who cited this weekly event as the reason for their resignations.)

ix. “The Colostomy-Bag Incident” of September ‘06.

x. Hosting countless late-night “beer bashes” in your room that not only broke the “no visitors after hours” and “no animals in room” rules but also resulted in approximately 53 slip-and-fall lawsuits—a tedious and costly ordeal that we feel could have been avoided had your friend Mr. Rowlf the Dog considered his leaky-bladder condition and therefore not attempted to drink his weight in beer.

Surprisingly, these offenses are not what troubles me most. When you gentlemen entered the sales office 18 months ago, you were hesitant about buying a unit, reasoning that our spacious rooms would be a big change from the theater balcony where you were currently residing. In an attempt to make this transition easier, I arranged for you to have a coveted “balcony room” overlooking the pool—much to the chagrin of poor Mrs. Weingartenbaum, who was unceremoniously relocated to a unit overlooking the dumpsters. Then, in spite of my efforts, you blatantly disobeyed our community’s balcony bylaws by calling out to poolside visitors with comments that were rude and distasteful.

Here now is a mere sampling of your antics from a single day, May 13, 2006, as recorded by your fellow residents.

7:30 a.m.

When Mr. Nichols was stretching before his morning laps.

STATLER: Do you think it’s right for a man of his age to be swimming?

WALDORF: Sure … with the fishes!

9:42 a.m.

As Mrs. Needlemyer was floating in the pool.

STATLER: Waldorf, quick! Call Sea World! One of their whales is swimming in our pool!

WALDORF: That’s not a whale! That’s Mrs. Needlemyer. Can’t you tell the difference?

STATLER: Of course. Silly me. Whales aren’t nearly that big!

2:27 p.m.

While Mr. and Mrs. Donagee were relaxing in the hot tub.

STATLER: Have you ever seen so many wrinkles in one place before?

WALDORF: After looking at those two prunes in bathing suits, I doubt I’ll ever see so many again!

Lastly, there is the issue of our Saturday-night revues in the community clubhouse. These performers work very hard to entertain our community, yet you repeatedly interrupt their acts with insults and wisecracks. Just this past Saturday, you spent the entire night mocking Timmy DuPonce’s tuba solo and Laurie Endicott’s tap-dancing routine. Gentlemen, these were children from Sabal Point Elementary School! And, just for the record, nobody was remotely amused by your comments that “Timmy should’ve played ’solo’ that we couldn’t hear him” and that you’d “seen better tap-dancing by bartenders.”

Not surprisingly, when I attempted to address these concerns with you on March 15, you called me a “frog” and laughed hysterically. Just so you know, the members of this community find your particular brand of humor to be rude, disrespectful, and far from funny.

You have three days to leave the premises.

Sincerely,

Irving J. Tomlinson
Representative, Executive Board

P.S. Don’t even think about pulling that stunt with the colostomy bag and bridge table again.

 

If you’ve spoken with me over the past several years, then you would know that I care deeply for the Cleveland Cavaliers franchise.

It’s just one of the many annoying things about me: I totally dig NBA basketball and I obsess over the Cavs.

That’s all I’ll really say about that because I don’t want to scare anyone away who isn’t a sports fan.

But I would like to share the story of me getting booted from the 19th birthday party of one of the most popular persons in the world right now.

Maybe you’ll be into hearing about that.

LeBron James, the superduperstar of the NBA and basketball savior of Cleveland, turned 19 on December 30, 2003.

That night I was in Cleveland Heights drinking beers and eating wings with my buddy, Henry. We were watching and screaming while the Cavs battled the Indiana Pacers on a smeared television screen overhead.

The bar we were at, for an awful reason given by the manager when I asked him twice to turn the juke box off so that we could hear the game, blasted “It’s Raining Men.”

“We only turn the TV sound on for football games,” he said from behind the counter.

The Grease Soundtrack started up.

“But there’s a crowd of dudes over there all wanting to hear this game and you’re playing this… this bullshit?” I asked with my arms up over my head.

“We only do it for football.”

“You’re a complete idiot,” I told him. “I’m never coming back here. Ever.”

He whipped a towel over a shoulder to show me he didn’t care.

So Henry and I bounced as soon as the Cavs fell by three points.

On our way down the stairs, Henry’s phone rang for the seventh time in the last seven minutes. This time it was a friend from college whose father owned a few bars downtown.

He listened for a minute, grabbed me by the shoulder, and then started pounding on my back while repeating “Are you serious?” into the phone.

And just like that Henry and I were on the VIP list for LeBron James’s 19th birthday party down in the Flats.

Picture two white boys in leather jackets pacing back and forth in front of a club called Kaos while hundreds of African Americans waited impatiently in line.

Picture Henry clapping his phone shut, a side door popping open and a head sticking out. Then a hand waving the two white boys over. Then my Pumas disappearing before the jeers got too out of control.

Picture Henry and I following a guy named Bobby through a series of checkpoints where huge men with walkie talkies attached to their heads were told to remember these two white faces, to let us go wherever we wanted, to not worry about us because we were friends of the boss.

Picture the back bar, rectangled and dark and where the action was, stocked with a long buffet table and circular tables.

Picture LeBron’s mother Gloria sitting on a bar stool and me setting up shop right next to her and smiling. Then picture me immediately standing back up to do my routine where I pat myself down to be sure that I had everything: keys, phone, wallet, and my (non-digital) camera.

LeBron wasn’t there yet, and so Henry and I milled about and ate skewered food and drank a couple rounds of free drinks.

“Check this out,” Henry said.

On one of the tables was a large birthday cake frosted with the entire Cavaliers roster. I pulled out my camera and took a couple of quick shots of it.

But then Henry took it too far and grabbed a fork, holding it inches above the cake like he was going to dive right in. I took a quick picture.

“Hey! Get over here, guys!” we heard.

It was the owner, the one responsible for the party, the guests, the cake. Henry knew him well and jumped over to shake his hands.

“What do you guys think you’re doing? Don’t do things like that. Come on.”

Henry explained we were just having a good time. I was introduced. Small talk. Walked away.

We went to the main bar, but not before making prolonged eye contact with the bouncer to be sure that he remembered that we were allowed back in the VIP area.

After circling the dance floor twice we headed back.

I made conversation with the woman who was to sing happy birthday to LeBron at midnight. She went by the name of Mocha and had been approached by someone for this gig when singing karaoke the previous week.

I wasn’t too impressed, and so I did the only thing I could think of and I took Gloria James’s barstool after she got up just so I could give it back her.

Then they all started to show up.

Dujuan Wagner was first to come through the back door, dressed in a huge brown sweat shirt and showing off a large sparkling chain that hung from his small neck. He was Cleveland’s top draft pick the year before but hadn’t been playing much because of bad knees and a troubled kidney. His entourage created an instant presence.

Next to come in was DeSagana Diop, another injured Cavalier and one who I heckled whenever I got the chance from the stands. The dude was the 8th overall pick in 2001, and a complete disaster on the professional court. I bit my tongue when I saw him, drawing blood.

Then it was Maurice Clarett, the Ohio State University running back who would end up behind bars in 2006 on a myriad of charges and who would headline sports pages for months. As always, Clarett was wearing a Bob Marley T-shirt. I put my hand on his thick shoulder when he got close and I lied and said that I went to OSU. I couldn’t get over how short he was.

And then came LeBron James: flanked by two diamond earrings and two beefy security guards with shaved heads. Henry and I giggled like school girls discovering a hated classmate’s diary, and we tried not to stare at this man-child who was already worth $150 million.

Over the next hour Henry and I talked to a large woman who worked security for the Cavs and whose neckline dipped close to her stretched belly button, three semi-hot girls with large hips and wandering eyes for celebrities, and one of Henry’s coworkers.

When LeBron walked out into the main bar, we followed.

And when LeBron paraded past me in his white suit I patted him on the shoulder and wished him an unnoticed birthday wish.

Mocha sang from the deejay booth and Henry and I retreated back to VIP.

I told Dujuan Wagner, after getting my picture taken with him, that we needed him to get healthy and back on the court.

LeBron sat down at his family’s table to eat some cake and to sign some autographs.

I pulled out my camera and focused, but before I could take a picture a man from the table put his hands up. LeBron’s mother spoke to me: “Why don’t you ask? Why don’t you ask first and maybe he’ll let you take a picture.”

Many people stared. “Of course,” I said. “I’m really sorry. I totally understand.”

I was completely embarrassed. I was embarrassed like I was standing on a train platform with my fly down this past Saturday afternoon:

Finally, around 2 a.m., I thought it would be a fine idea for Henry to stand 15 feet in front of LeBron’s table and for me to take a picture with the superstar in the background.

Henry smiled.

The flash went off.

A short black man in a fur coat pointed at me.

And the party just stopped. It stopped as if I had accidentally backed into a million dollar statue and it fell onto a priest in deep prayer.

I was instantly grabbed by both of LeBron’s security guards who demanded the film. One snatched the camera out of my hand and attempted to open it. While the man struggled comically with the simple back latch, I pleaded for him not to open it as I had pictures from a friend’s wedding on there. And pictures from Halloween. And pictures of my family. And pictures of me and Dujuan Wagner. And that the picture I just took wasn’t of LeBron but of my buddy just standing there having a good time at a bar.

After threatening to smash my camera on the ground because he couldn’t figure out how to open it, I relented and swung the back open. My film was ripped out and crinkled and thrown to the floor in front of everyone.

“That sucks,” is all I could muster.

The security guards walked back over to LeBron who, get this, held up his fist for them to bump. LeBron James gave these guys ‘rock’ over taking care of business, over taking care of Greg Boose and his impossible-to-open ordinary camera.

Before I could shake it off and the party could resume, another man got a hold of my armpit and pulled me over to the owner. Henry followed closely behind. I pleaded innocent, but we were asked to leave. Immediately.

The Cleveland Cavaliers are going to the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history this year.

LeBron James will be on one of the world’s largest stages.

Even though I now live in Chicago and Henry’s in Manhattan, I’ll be watching and screaming like I always do while the Cavs battle the San Antonio Spurs on a smeared television screen overhead.

And when I see LeBron heading to the sideline during a timeout and bump fists with any of his teammates, I’ll instantly remember the night when he locked eyes with me and had me thrown out of his party for taking a picture that no longer exists.

Go Cavs!

Andy Johnson introduced me to Dorothy last year.

Dorothy and I have recently become good friends.

She asked me if I wanted to try speed dating and I agreed.

“At the least, it’ll be an adventure,” she said.

“Or a decent TNB post,” I replied.

On Monday, it was an idea to chuckle at.

On Tuesday, I told her my feet were getting cold and I wasn’t so sure.

But she had already bought her ticket by that point and there was no possible out for me.

Wednesday was pure back-n-forth torture, on both behalves.

“Allright, we’ll go,” she said, “but if it’s lame, we’re outta there.”

Dorothy’s feet got really cold on day of the event (Thursday).

Part of this was due in part to the fact that the bar was named Nietzsche.

In theory, this is a good name for a bar.

In practice, it’s one of those pretentious, “hip” names that signifies nothing in relation to the actual bar.

The front glass of the windows read Nietzsche: Art and Drinks.

If you’re going to try and be creative in naming a bar, name it after a character or concept created by said person and maybe throw some kind of title in front of it:

Baron Übermensch

Señor Zarathustra

It carries much more allure despite the fact that more people will definitely not get it.

Not too far from this bar is another one named Kafka.

(Sigh.)

Dorothy told me that she had used Friendster in the past and thought it was a worthwhile service.

Inside the bar, we were greeted by Robert, the suspicious, British host of the event who insisted on calling himself Roberto.

He handed us our sheets.

He explained how it works:

“Each sex gets a sheet with the other sexes’ names on it. The men will be the movers and the women will be the sitters. After your seven minutes are up, mark a YES, NO or MAYBE next to their name. If you mark a YES and she marks a YES, then you will be put in contact with each other. If either party marks a NO, then no info is exchanged—regardless of what the other person put. If you both mark MAYBE and/or YESes, then the info is offered and you are able to contact each other. Any questions?”

“Where do we get our free drink ticket?”

There were 15 men and 12 women and, as a result, I had to sit the first two rounds out.

Roberto introduced me to a man-eating, blond German tree who just happened to be there supporting her friends but not participating.

She was an interpreter that spoke grammatically perfect Spanish with a portly accent.

She’d been in Spain for 18 years.

“¿De qué parte eres de los Estados Unidos? “ she asked me.

“Ohio.”

She said her son was studying in Missouri.

I looked down at my watch.

I don’t wear a watch.

Without doubt, there was a palpable feeling of desperation in the air.

People smiled excessively as if to cover up their nervousness.

Some people drank quickly in order to loosen up.

Others sat and stood around trying to appear interesting or interested in their papers.

My first four women were Spanish, Spanish, British and American, in that order.

The conversations sort of aimlessly began and wandered accordingly.

One was an English teacher who looked about 10 years shy of her golden years, another was a translator and another had just graduated from Santa Barbara and had been here for two months.

“Why did you move here?” she asked me.

I gave her standard answer # 2: “I had a tough time with the political climate.”

She looked at me hard, her face expressionless.

“I mean I really just wanted to get outside of the cultural American bubble for a while, you know – the media, the reality TV, etc and see it from the outside–maybe get a new perspective on things.”

“I know what you mean,” she said nodding in agreement, “That’s kinda why I came here as well. I was like, ‘I gotta see what else is, like, you know, out there.’”

For some stupid reason I added, “And now that the Dems have just won back congress, maybe they’ll have enough cojones to impeach that bastard before his term is up.”

Her silence strengthened her stare.

I wasn’t sure which side of the fence she was on, nor which nerve I hit.

(She could’ve been a sensitive Democrat.)

Roberto patted me on the back, “We’re going to take a 15 minute intermission.”

Dorothy and I reconvened for catch-up and a quick assessment.

According to Dorothy, all of the Spanish men there were in I.T.

The one guy who she was considering giving a MAYBE had a bad case of halitosis and was probably 10 years her senior.

She also had this sneaky suspicion that he was the one guy on the website who was married and was looking to have multiple, NSA affairs.

The other anomaly was that their website said this going to be 25-40 night.

I had already spoken with a woman who was definitely in her 50s and the Santa Barbarian could not have been more than 23.

Up to that point, we both chalked up nothing but MAYBEs and NOs.

“Have you asked them your question yet?” she inquired.

“No but I will after the break. Let me try it out on you first. If you could meet two people in the history of the world – living or dead – who would they be and why?”

Dorothy got camera shy and didn’t realize that the video on my camera only allows her 30 seconds to answer.

Her first reply included many uhhs, ummms, let’s sees and other dithering without answering the question at all.

After explaining the 30-second rule, she was able (just barely) to finish the question in time.

She answered Susan Lori Parks and Khedoori.

(After sending both videos to Dorothy for approval, she decided both of them were horrible and implored me not to post them–which I obliged.)

Little did I know that my first answers were the best ones I would hear all night.

Back to flash dating:

A Spanish Paleontologist who (literally) had sharp teeth chose Tolkien and the film adaptation but not much by Peter Jackson’s bizarre take on dinosaurs in King Kong.

She said she’d also like to meet Jesus Christ.

Two British women, both English teachers, picked Hitler as one of their choices.

One of them also chose Jesus Christ.

A heavy-smoking blonde Swede who rumbled when she coughed thought it would be great to meet Hitler and George W. Bush.

An Ecuadorian American woman who managed a division of Sotheby’s delivered some acerbic wit wasn’t afraid to use English expletives freely.

She said she’d like to meet Hugo Chavez and Picasso.

This one got a YES from me in spite of there being no physical sparks.

Finally, a Spanish woman–the cutest of all the participants, was my final seven minute slice.

We exchanged the obligatory euro double-cheek kiss and sat down.

She spoke perfect English.

“I lived in New York for five years and London for two, both times working in art.”

“Where do you work?”

“Sotheby’s”

“So you know the Ecuadorian American woman?”

“She’s my boss.”

I pulled out my camera.

“OK, so do you mind if I record you answering a question I’ve asked some of my other dates here tonight?”

“You’re not serious are you?”

Yes I was.

“Put that away.”

Then I fired the question at her.

“Oh, umm, that’s a good question. Well…I’d have to say that I would probably like to meet…Hitler and Jesus Christ.”

This was now, officially, a pattern.

I tried to act interested.

“Yeah, OK, I can see that. You must’ve read the DaVinci Code?”

“Yes. I loved it.”

This was not a good sign.

“Hmm,” I said, “If I were to meet Jesus I’d definitely want to know if he hooked up with Mary Magdalene and had a kid – among other things.”

“I’m Catholic.”

“Well…then I’d think you’d especially want to know the answer to that question.”

That was it.

I tanked it.

Couldn’t help myself nor could I bring myself to say anything else.

Maybe it was the relentless spirit of Nietzsche tunnelling through me.

Or the awkwardness of the whole event.

But two things are for sure:

There is little doubt politics or religion should never be discussed on the first date.

There is even less doubt that either subject should be breached within a seven-minute time span.

She got a NO on my sheet and I assume she gave me a bold NO on hers.

That was it, no more dates.

I had gone through 12 women, asked the question six times with Jesus and Hitler getting top honors.

We walked home.

Dorothy said she was exhausted, that the act of speed dating was exhausting.

“But you know, I think doing something like this is good for us—to be placed in a social position that makes us nervous because we are humbled. Do you know what I mean?”

YES.

“We tend to think pretty highly of ourselves and to be thrown into a situation where we have to meet a lot of other people in a short period of time and tell them what we think is most representative of us in that time—that’s a good thing. But I don’t think I’ll do it again. Do you?”

NO.

She wrote me an email the next day, further explaining her position on humility in speed dating.

“Part of the humility of speed dating is sitting down and waiting. The man comes calling, the lady awaiting her suitors- it exaggerates the contrivance of the whole thing. The lady gets to pick, but the man gets to move, not a lot of progress in 100 years really.”

Also in my inbox were three emails from the speed dating service.

Each one listed an email of the women who checked the appropriate boxes.

At the bottom of each one it read, “Are you going to waste one second waiting to email this person – your potential soulmate?”

MAYBE.

After three hellish summers in Madrid, I decided to do something different.

I went back home.

Home is Phillipsburg; Ohio, a suburb of a suburb of Dayton, which is famous for the birthplace of aviation (the Wright brothers grew up here), the Dayton Peace Accords (Serb-Croat conflict) and Guided by Voices.

Other than that, the place is basically the post-industrial plains.

After a ten year absence, it didn’t take long to become reacquainted with the demographic.

Though not everyone, it seemed like the average Daytonian likes trucks, Bud Light, shit-kickers, Cornhole, fast cars, Nascars, air conditioning, chain restaurants, George Bush, Wal Mart/Sam’s Club and Harley Davidson.

 

(my dad with his Harley Davidson Cruiser and Harley Davidson 75^th anniversary Ford Truck)

Oh yeah, we can’t forget God.

Dayton is lined with over 10 enormous religious buildings, representing the Christian, Judaic, Islamic and Bahá’í faiths—all of which can be seen from the highway.

My first weekend there I commuted to Columbus to see some friends.

Along the way I saw this sign.

The following two signs listed the 10 commandments, five on each.

Just after, I saw a member of Heaven’s Angels.

(I had to slow down to 55 mph in the fast lane, drive the car with my knee, get the camera on the passenger’s seat, turn it on, turn off the flash and balance it while snapping a photo of this angel cruising and touting his grey-painted cross with the crown of barbed-wire in its center, behind him.)

This was only an hour drive.

Parts of Ohio are pretty significant notches on the belt.

Concurring with my visit was my parents getting ready to sell their house, the one I grew up in.

Nearly all my childhood is located there.

My parents live on five acres that has two barns, an unused football-sized field, ample front and back yards and a modest pond.

As much as I tried to retrieve sacred memories of my childhood in my five weeks there, they simply didn’t come.

There was no windfall of nostalgic innocence or blissful memories.

Nothing stopped me and said, “This is where you came from and this is where you’ll found out where you need to go.”

Overall, all I was able to think of was this place in its own moment, which was in the hellish humidity of August in a warming globe.

Strangely, much of the time I was freezing.

With the humidity averaging 80-90% and the temperature in the mid 90s, I found myself shivering when I sat down to eat a meal in a restaurant, trembling at the grocery store and frigid if I went to a movie.

Due to this, I found a startling conclusion after a little investigation.

The largest source of greenhouse gases is electric power generation.

Air conditioners use around 1/6^th of the electricity in the US and on doggishly hot summer days, they can use up to 43% of the peak power load.

So as the environment gets hotter, we’re going to need a lot more air conditioners to keep the indoors cool.

This will, in turn, make the outdoors even hotter.

Most people I know there, my parents included, still don’t seem to think global warming is happening, or at least it isn’t as serious as the worldwide scientific consensus seems to lean toward.

I used to find this a staggering statement of blanket ignorance.

Anymore I just don’t care.

I’ve huffed and warned and whined for years about it and they just shake their heads.

They’ll have “none of it”.

Many of these people still think invadingIraq was a good idea.

But anyway, I didn’t go there to freeze my ass off while indoors.

I went there to get away from the stifling, dry-hell of the Madrileño summer I’d already determined I hated.

I came to get away from being landlocked and breathing stagnant, polluted air.

I came to feel the thunder and watch the lightening crack the horizon during summer storms.

I came to hear bullfrogs crooning and crickets fiddling their constant bows at night, near the pond.

I came to see how the homeland was doing amidst its polarized national psyche and to see how fearful the day-to-day was.