The Devil or Why Nothing is Your Fault

The Devil makes us tired.

The Devil makes us quibble even when we really don’t give a crap.

The Devil cons us into making stupid mistakes. This makes our blood boil so we end up doing more stupid things. This goes on until we are exhausted and have to go to sleep. If we are lucky this happens just before we go to bed so we can blame it on being tired. … But who made us tired in the first place?  Yes! Very good class.

The Devil has other people do things like steal the parking space that is rightfully ours because he knows this will make us mad.  And mad people do stupid things especially when they are mad for a good reason.

The Devil sends big crowds to Disneyland so that we have to wait behind them in order to get an apple fritter in New Orleans Square. This is guaranteed to drive us bonkers.

The Devil invented performance anxiety and hot, humid days.

The Devil is a Senator from one of the (surprise, surprise) red states who is constantly railing against Satan. (Just kidding, the Devil is way better looking than any red state Senators.)

The Old Equalizer for that Disadvantage in Upper Body Strength

I got a gun.  I’m the decider. I make the rules, now. You’re going to come to dinner when I call you.  Not in awhile or a little later or right after this inning or as soon as they call time out.

You have to throw away those jeans that show your butt like a plumber when you bend over and those t-shirts that let everyone see your gut when you reach up.  And you’re going to throw all your dirty clothes in the hamper as soon as you take them off.  Yeah, socks too, Bozo.  If they have holes toss them in the trash.  You can also ditch all your clothes that are age inappropriate or look like they come with a sign that says will work for food.

From now on you’re going to hear what I say the first time I say it.  You are going to do every errand without whining.  No whining ever. Not when something gets planned that you don’t like.  Not when something you want to do gets cancelled. Not when it rains. Not when we can’t find a place to eat lunch that you like.  You don’t get to have low blood sugar any more, Buster.

No sniveling even when you have the sniffles.  No moaning when one of your hundreds of teams loses the big game or series or has a player go on the DL.  Whatever the hell that is!

If you give me any trouble I’m going to use this little equalizer.  And I’ll plug you full of more holes than that underwear you still have from high school.  Now, go bring in the bags from Trader Joes.

The Sort of Amazing World of Bill Steinkellner

Though he is neither a movie star nor a singer of hip-hop, he is easily recognized by many high school and college types.

His laugh (often characterized as a high pitched cackle) may be heard in the background of over three-hundred televisions shows.  (Full disclosure: in half of these shows he has a financial connection to the final product.  In the other half he has only an emotional connection.  Still, analysis with highly sophisticated equipment has ascertained that this mirth is 100% genuine).

He has played over five decades of basketball. A game that most men leave behind in their late twenties to take up less demanding sports like bar-hopping, bowling and driving red sports cars.

He is the only UIC (don’t worry, most people have never heard of it) graduate to have one child who is a post-grad from UCLA and another attending Stanford at the same time.

He has witnessed over 5,000 improvised scenes in either a workshop or on stage. He remembers over dozens of them. He is quite partial to scenes in which urchins or gypsies appear – especially if at least one or more members of his family are in them.

He has written thousands of stories the length of a postcard.  Some day he vows to write something longer, but he has also promised to clean out those boxes in the basement. So far the spiders do not seem to be trembling.

The Mystical Pronouncements of Sri Krishna

I went to Sri Krishna, the Lord of Love and presented him with the age old question: what is love?  These are the pronouncements he presented unto me.  Use them as you wish but as always proceed with caution.

Love is when you drive from Santa Barbara to San Diego and back, the same day ,even if you wanted to stay home and play basketball.

Love is when the baby is sick and you stay up all night. The next day you are sick.

Love is moving all the furniture around until the whole room is perfect. (Even if all the couches and chairs are right back where they started in the first place.)

Love is getting a puppy even when all the reason in the universe is signaling to you that this is a big mistake.

Love is helping to make the bed even when it is one of those tasks that give you no satisfaction upon completion. (Absolutely none. Zip, zero zilch.)

Love is also a baby’s face, grumbling while you get up to take the dog out in the middle of the night then looking up to see your first comet, trick or treating in the rain, a thousand opening nights and a hundred memories taped onto the front of the refrigerator. You have to go through it all to have it all.

Then the Lord of Love laughed and went to play freeze-tag with the cows.

The Birth of a Great Scam Religion

I had just ducked out for a pack of smokes to recover from a nasty call I had just endured with my ex’s lawyer when a shopping cart came hurtling out of nowhere. Kazaang-whop-splat. That avalanche of metal on wheels made my head ring like a gong.

The world went all whisper soft like a good tissue.  Suddenly, I was outside my own body.  I was outside everything.  I was looking at this weird ass thing on the street and it was me. Oooooeee -oooee. A Tyrannosaurus Rex bomb blew up my brain. I was more out of it than Pluto which isn’t even a planet as we speak.

I was in the presence of  God. Even though someone had called 911 and EMT guys with Altoid breath were cutting off my best jeans.  I could feel God lifting me up.  Then he kind of checked my weight like you would with a package of ground beef if you didn’t have your glasses. Then God put me down, again. But not in a way to make you dizzy like you just stepped off a roller coaster. No, He placed me back on earth all gentle and baby like.

I could hear the faint choir of a million angels.  But it was hard to concentrate because the EMTs kept yelling what day is it? I knew what day it was.

It was the day of the Epiphany.  The day God chose me to lead the most wonderful religion of the 21st century– Om Sai Ram. The name comes from me trying to say “I’m okay” to all the people who gathered around me after that shopping cart almost offed me. But everyone else heard “Om Sai Ram”.

It was a fun thing to say like Bonzai or hocus pocus. It just went viral. Never underestimate the power of fun stuff to say.

Long story short. I got 5,000 disciples. (Most of whom make ends meet selling personal items on e-bay.) I’ve got the 101st most popular blog and trending higher.  And a deal with Dreamworks and Comcast. So, yeah Om Sai Ram, baby, Om Sai Ram.

 

Men or as Popeye Would Say “Mensk”

Most men like sports (violent ones, but we civilize it a bit by calling it “action”).

Most men like  action movies (any guesses why?).

Most men like John McCain (but we liked him better before when he hadn’t turned into the old guy next door who won’t give your ball back once it lands in his yard).

Most men like the police (unless we are pulled over by one).

Most men like Sarah Palin (at least they did in the early polling).

Most men know more about football than we do almost everything else in the universe combined (full disclosure: we know squat about the universe).

Most men like bright colors and things that move (I know what this obviously says about us – but what can I say?  I got nothing).

All men know that in any given situation with a woman, the man is right.  Even when we know they are right and we are wrong. We still feel we are right in our very bones.

Most men don’t want to fight.  Even when we get into a fight for no damn good reason.  We do, however, like to have been in fights and we will work it into any conversation.

Yet in spite of all these things, somehow we become portrait artists, concert pianists, poets, curators and Supreme Court Justices.

Ah, men.

The Passing Children’s Parade

Rocking and lullabies.

Changing diapers in airplane bathrooms.

Reading The Bad Babies Counting Book with someone adorable and mighty sleepy on your lap.

The ring of a busy-box bell.

Fifty Barbies– all stitch stark naked.

Fights over who got to press the hotel elevator button.  Soon followed by the fight over who got to push the floor number button in the elevator.

“Just what I always wanted” presents from Santa. (And a personalized note of thanks for the cookies and congratulations on an anything but naughty year.)

Spending a night at the zoo.  (Performing at the zoo is near the end of the parade.)

Paper plates and crepe paper with “Happy Mother’s Day, Mommy” scrawled on it.

A lot of beautifully sung Hebrew.

Big Bird, Elmo, Bert and Ernie all headed to Grandma’s farm filling the air with public domain songs.

A smiling, front tooth missing boy in a Cub Scout uniform.

But you can almost see it, again if you just sit at your laptop  and watch awhile.

Amazing Secrets of the Past Revealed through Gizmos from the Future

My goal is to live long enough for someone to invent a helmet with needles that sink into your amygdala to retrieve your long lost memories. (The needles will be painless but it won’t matter because your brain doesn’t feel pain unlike your poor heart which seems to get worked over more often than a drunk on New Year’s Eve.)

The memories will be the ones you can’t recall just by thinking about them.  Of course, they will be different than you might have thought.  Girls won’t be as pretty.  Your come-backs won’t have been as quick or as witty.  Some of your heroes will have feet of clay.  Your dad may not continue to glow in the misty mist.

But, who knows, some of them might even be better. Scientists claim that each time we remember it changes the memory. (So, why does my son get so bent out of shape when I tell a story for the tenth time?  It’s going to be different for crying out loud.)

Yep, I can’t wait to plunk down that magic helmet on my noggin. It will help me remember what it was really like to be a three year old speeding along in the basket of a bicycle while my dad pedals furiously through the streets of Chicago on a crisp Autumn afternoon.

Or maybe that one is fine just the way it is.

A Few Details That Were Left Off the Wanted Poster

A slightly mangled collarbone that was broken when he was 12. Harry smacked right into the school wall while riding his bike. It still bothered him when it rained.

A scar on his right palm that nearly blended with his lifeline. He fell on one of those thin metal hockey players in a game that was a lot of fun before the tumble. Some bleeding but no stitches required.  Good thing, too.  There was not a lot of money to squander on emergency room foolishness.

A tendency to run his hand across his forehead when socially ill at ease.

A sweet tooth.

A thirst for knowledge if the procurement process was not inordinately long.

A penchant for white socks.  (But not the over the calf variety.)

An agnostic’s view of the Almighty.

Hair that used to grow like a weed.  (Male pattern baldness was beginning to make strong inroads.)

A heart that’s been kicked around more times than an old mule.

When Folks Had More Kids Than I-phone Apps

NOTE:  ALL NAMES ARE REAL.

Ruth Ada married young but could not have children. Every year she ran a spook house that trick or treaters flocked to.

Viola Rowena ran off to be a dancer. She was never heard from again.  Not even the whisper of a rumor.

Helen Estelle put every cent she ever made into land and did quite nicely, thank you very much.

Marcella Edith scraped by each month by borrowing from Helen Estelle.

Warren Oscar got an okay job with the city.  In his spare time he struggled with the mysteries of the universe.  Don’t get him started on the illogicallity of a black hole’s existence.

Lois Elizabeth killed a man who attacked her.  But due to her poor presence on the witness stand she went to prison, quite unnecessarily.

Doris Elva fell in love with a free-loading bigamist but for the life of her she could only see his good side.

Mama was tired every day of her married life.