Longtime readers (and by longtime I mean this past weekend) know that I recently saw a Beatles tribute band called American English. The band itself was amazing, coming complete with dress and music from each era of the Beatles. I would imagine it was probably a lot like what it would be like to see a Beatles concert, sans all of the screaming teenagers. As I stood in the middle of the floor with about 40 other people, I looked around at everybody else. Anybody who was old enough to have seen the Beatles in concert would have to be well into their 50s at this point and in many cases probably pushing almost 70. And let me tell you something, most of the people in this crowd were not people in the 50s or 60s. Of course, the Beatles music is classic and timeless, but its still amazing to me how their music defies the generation gap and stretches across the limits of age, race, sex, money and political views.

But getting back to the generational aspect. The Beatles are just as popular with Generation Y as with Generation X. A portion of that can be attributed to Beatles Rock Band, but that has only been out for a year or two, but yet the Beatles were popular with Generation Y before the game came out. It certainly speaks volumes to the open mindedness of this generation. I know when I was growing up and even up to my early 20s, I had no interest in the Beatles. And the same could be true of many of the kids in my generation at the time. The Beatles and music of that era (like the Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Who, among many others) just wasn’t considered hip at the time as it was our parents music. Oh sure, it wasn’t my parents music, since my parents were born in 1930 and 1934, but it was certainly the music of other kids my age. But this generation overlooks all of that. Not only are they familiar with music of the 1960s and 1970s, but many of the songs that we grew up to like Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ On A Prayer“, Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar On Me“, John Mellencamp’s “Jack And Diane“, and many other songs of that era are still very popular with the younger generation. “Livin’ On A Prayer” seems to be played at just about every sporting event these days and people, even the younger people, go crazy when its played. Every generation gets ragged on by the previous generations for many reasons, especially music and each generation finds fault with the previous generation even with music, but in this case with this generation the music it where they find common ground with the other generations.

Long time readers (and by long time readers, I mean going all the waaaaaay back to the year two thousand and number eight, in December to be specific) might remember that I read a book called How The States Got Their Shapes. Well, the History Channel finally realized how hip I was and decided to get on the how the motherfucking states got their motherfucking shapes bandwagon. Now I do highly recommend the book and the program, I’m sure you will learn a lot from it as I did. There is a lot that is in the book that is not in the tv program and a lot that is in the tv program that is not in the book. To get the full effect you should watch and read both. But if you don’t have time to read it or have a phobia of televisions, I summarized each state previously and you are in luck, I’m going to re-post it here, mainly because I don’t have fucking time right now to do a real post.

·  Alabama- Got its crooked western border because nobody in the state was smart enough to draw a straight line.

·  Alaska- We really don’t need to know shit about this state since patriotic”first dude” Todd Palin is working so hard for Alaska to become its own country.

·  Arizona- Back in 1853, a 20 year old John McCain helped form the border.

·  Arkansas- A recent poll of Arkansans showed that they confuse Arkansas with Kansas. Not really a fact about their border, except to say that its no wonder how their southeastern border gets screwed by Mississippi.

·  California- The borders of California are not finalized because they are waiting for “the big one” to come and break them off and fall into the ocean.

·  Colorado- This state is basically the gay porn actor of states. Its so hung that it carries over and buttfucks Nebraska and shares a massive 4 way with Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.

·  Connecticut- They are pretty much the bitch of borders. Their borders have been whored with so much that one has to wonder if Connecticut has any self respect.

·  Delaware- See the thing with Delaware is that its got a size complex and therefore runs around saying “its not the size but how you use it.” Poor little Delaware. At least it has a thick shaft.

·  District of Columbia- Its not really a state but technically its not a city. It wants to be a full square but it got in an argument with itself and couldn’t finish. Really, it suffers from a massive personality disorder.

·  Florida- Homer Simpson once called America’s wang. It actually got its shape so that it could be used to fuck America up the ass for the 2000 election.

·  Georgia- Shaped like a really fat pregnant person which is kinda fitting what with the high rate of teen pregnancies.

·  Hawaii- Sure it seems all nice in simple,what with Hawaii being surrounded by ocean. But the interesting fact here is that the Hawaiian islands are just really large pieces of shit from a now extinct massive half dinosaur half spaceship.

·  Idaho- Got the size of its large panhandle after President Andrew Johnson lost a bet as to if he could deep throat a banana. He nearly choked to death and in the process had to scream as loud as he could “I da ho, I da ho!” and give Idaho a funny shape. Hence, we have a state with a really funny name made even funnier by being shaped like like a penis with infected testicles.

·  Illinois- On the surface this one is easy since a good portion of it is bounded by water. But the borders not bounded by water were determined when the governor sold them to the highest bidder. Since then, the borders of Illinois have changed 39 times as each governor has sold the borders to the highest bidder. Oh Illinois, you are about as pure as Dick Chaney’s soul.

·  Indiana- With Illinois’s borders constantly changing, it put Indiana in a constant state of flux. In the end though it was determined that Indiana would be best suited if it was shaped to look like it was spooning Illinois.

·  Iowa- Originally Iowa was to be a very short state, as they didn’t want people going from Minnesota to Missouri to kill themselves out of the pure boredom of Iowa. In the end though the Illinois governor threw enough money at people to make Iowa taller to help take attention off the fact that Indiana was trying to hump the shit out Illinois’s leg.

·  Kansas- I swear I’m not making this one up. Gold was found in the western part of Kansas. The people of Kansas thought having gold would be too much of a pain in the ass, so they let Colorado have the most valuable part of their land, hence Kansas evolved into the state it is today. I can see why they don’t believe in evolution in Kansas, after all if they are too damn stupid to keep their gold then they are probably too stupid to understand evolution.

·  Kentucky- Part of the northern border of Kentucky was created to make it look like it was eatin out Indian’s ass as it spooned with Illinois. But in true Kentucky fashion, it was born when Virgina fucked her brother, West Virgina.

·  Louisiana- This one is really kind of evolving even still today, as the Bush Abomination is doing everything it can to remove New Orleans from the map. As for its shape, President Thomas Jefferson thought it would be really funny if Louisiana kicked the shit out of Mississippi just like the red headed step child it is.

·  Maine- People think Maine was one of the original 13 colonies. It wasn’t. In fact, Illinois had even managed to bribe its way into the union a couple of years before Maine. Since then, Maine has been running around like it just got its fucking head lopped right the fuck off, which is what both borders look like. The western border kinda looks like a nice smooth blade and cut was made to behead it. On the northeastern border it looks like some drunk guy got to messin with the guillotine.

·  Maryland- The shape of Maryland was created by pure chance. One day Lord Baltimore got really really fucking drunk. Like, more drunk they he had ever been in his entire 12 year life. He got so drunk that he threw up and the shape of his vomit became the blueprint for the shape of Maryland.

·  Massachusetts- If Massachusetts kinda looks like a the drunk guy who passed out and fell at a party, its because it got its shape from a chalk outline of Billy Massachusetts when he passed out drunk at a party. No truth to the rumor that it was give the “Delaware Treatment” in which the victim is violated by Delaware’s long, thick shaft.

·  Michigan- People wonder why Michigan is split in half and is surrounded by water. It got that way because Congress was trying to keep those crazy motherfuckers secluded and away from the rest of the country so that they can’t fuck it up the same way they fucked up their own state.

·  Minnesota- The shape of Minnesota was heavily influenced by the fact that people from Canada are so dimwitted that they didn’t want to bother to learn how to swim across all those fuckin lakes. That is the primary reason why Minnesota now looks like the tall creepy kid from school who is leering at all the freshmen chicks with his over sized nose peeking out.

·  Mississippi- Everything was going great for Mississippi until Louisiana showed up and punched Mississippi in the junk. Now its forced to look like Alabama’s deformed, reverse evil twin, which is sorta fitting what with all the inbreeding in Alabama.

·  Missouri- Congress got so sick of the fucking corn in Iowa that they decided to piss Iowa off and give more land to help form Missouri. Ever since then, Missouri has been the worthless state that has to have everything shown to them instead of letting them figure shit out for themselves. If Illinois wasn’t around to bribe Missouri to shut the fuck up, then it would have no economy at all.

·  Montana- Although it kinda looks like a sideways Minnesota all hopped up on steroids, Montana got its shape because we wanted to give the paranoid backwoods fucks that live there as much room as possible so that they wouldn’t get cabin fever and start blowing everything the fuck up. The problem is that it didn’t work.

·  Nebraska- The only reason why Nebraska got its shape was to bore the fuck out of anybody who came within 3 states of it. 

·  Nevada- Ever the showman, Nevada wanted a sleek, sexy shape to help promote its prostitution business, but yet leave a jagged point as if to stab you in the back like a Vegas casino.

·  New Hampshire- The shape of of New Hampshire isn’t a mistake, it really is supposed to look like its doin 69 with Vermont.

·  New Jersey- Just because New Jersey looks like something that New York shit out after a really rough bowel movement, doesn’t mean you should feel sorry for it.

·  New Mexico- Originally they wanted it to be shaped like Old Mexico, but when congress realized that there was no state called Old Mexcio, they just said fuck it and decided to make it a near perfect square.

·  New York- At the time, the king of England was very insecure about his giant nose ever since he blinded his son by poking him in the eye with his nose. So he wanted to have a state that kinda looked like a rather large nose so that big noses would be hip. Nobody bothered to tell him that New York looks like its sniffing Canada’s ass.

·  North Carolina- In addition to a big eye gouging nose, the king of England also was abducted by aliens and probed with a metal rod up his ass and nose. Oh, and down his dick hole too. He was so traumatized that he shaped North Carolina like the space ship that took him.

·  North Dakota- The people of North Dakota were rather insistent on a shape that reflected just how fucking boring the state is. So they went with a damn near perfect rectangle. The only problem is that they aren’t the smartest people around which is why its a mis-shappen rectangle.

·  Ohio- At the time, one of Ohio’s senators, Billy Clevelandorcincinnatidoesntmatterbothsuck, was obsessed with orgasms. He wanted to Ohio to be in the shape of an orgasm. So he jerked off and the messy result was Ohio. They used the same method to come up with a winner for the 2004 presidential election.

·  Oklahoma- This might have been the toughest of all the states to shape and come up with borders what with tornadoes constantly bombarding the state. So they decided to just have the boarder follow the path of a few tornadoes that hit the state.

·  Oregon- At the time, congress was getting sick and fucking tired of shaping states. Every time they turned around, they had to come up with boarders and shapes for another fucking state. So they took a piece of paper, drew a line and it was the boarder of Oregon and Washington. So that’s essentially what Oregon is, the forgotten child.

·  Pennsylvania- The thing about Pennsylvania is that it really didn’t fit in anywhere, but they needed to make it big so that the long ass name could fit on a map. So they just picked a large ass piece of land and called it Pennsylvania.

·  Rhode Island- The citizens of Rhode Island were really pissing off the king of England at the time. So he decided to make them a tiny ass state. A state so small that it just looks like the pinky toe’s nail, the nail everybody hates. That is also how Rhode Island came to be known as the Pinky Toenail State. 

·  South Carolina- Legend has it the governor of South Carolina at the time thought it was an island. Nobody in South Carolina has ever been smart enough to find out if it is an island, therefore it has remained the shape of an island.

·  South Dakota- When South Dakota became a state back in whichever year that was, there was a big debate about how we could make the country even more Dakotay then it already was, as one big Dakota just wasn’t boring enough. So Congress split the most boring territory in half.

·  Tennessee- Many people wonder just how Tennessee became such a state whore. At the time, Tennessee was home to more hookers than any other state. So Congress decided to make it touch as many states as possible by giving it a long, impressive shaft like shape.

·  Texas- You know the saying “everything is always bigger in Texas?” Yeah, well that’s not entirely true. See, Texas is so big because many of the male citizens have tiny cocks. So to compensate, they made the state very very big and gave everybody guns. None of the surrounding states bothered to do anything because hey, would you want to piss off a small cocked asshole with a gun?

·  Utah- At the time, the whole country thought of Utah as a freak state, what with its funny fucking name and all those damn Mormons. So they decided to give it a freaky shape.

·  Vermont- Always a little “different” Vermont had a sick obsession with New Hampshire, so much that it wanted to mirror New Hampshire in every way. When it was pointed out that people in Canada weren’t smart enough to tell the difference between Vermont and New Hampshire if they were identical, Vermont was more then happy to jump at New Hampshire’s suggestion that they 69.

·  Virginia- See, Virginia’s shape is all in the name. Its a chick name, so they decided to shape it like a tit. Unfortunately, the only sex most of the residents had was with their own families, resulting in disfigured tits, hence a funny lookin tit state.

• WASHINGTON- Because of its flat out boring shape, its easy to overlook Washington, especially with it being all tucked away up there in the northwest. Of course Washington might prefer it that way, since it looks like its about to get fucked by Victoria, Canada.

·  West Virginia- In a desperate struggle to distinguish itself from Virginia, they decided to shape themselves like a giant ball sack. Unfortunately, its the shape of an elderly ball sack.

·  Wisconsin- The shape of Wisconsin represents its people more than any other state. See, Wisconsin is a bitch state; it used to be much bigger until Congress started stealing its land to give to all of the surrounding states. In the case of Illinois it was understandable because the governor of Illinois had spent a lot of money bribing people to get more land. But, the raping of Wisconsin continued on and on until it became the state it is today, just like how America takes all Wisconsin’s cheese. The residents of Wisconsin don’t care because they are all too preoccupied with the fuckin Packers.

·  Wyoming- Congress had to find a place to hide shit that they didn’t want anybody to find. So they made Wyoming the shape of Colorado to confuse people. Unfortunately, both the people who live in Wyoming are confused too as they think its Colorado, otherwise they would have left years ago.

Normally, every year I do an Earth Day post, but this year I’m a little late with it. But, better late then never. So everybody keeps saying we need to do various things to take care of the earth, being that it is you know, our only option when it comes to living. Oh sure, I guess the moon and Mars are options but that is only if we want to survive for a short period of time, like a day or so. Basically though we are stuck with the earth, for better or worse. And lately, its been fucking worse.

For centuries humans have been treating the earth like shit and taking advantage of it. And over the course of the past century or two, we have really been treating the earth worse than a 50 cent whore. And like any self respecting whore, eventually enough is enough. So now, the earth has finally decided to get even. Have you noticed that there seems to be an earthquake on a damn near daily basis. Ok, so maybe there have always been earthquakes somewhere in the world every day, but if that was the case then they went unreported. And then there was that crazy volcano in Iceland, Volcano Tom (let’s face it, the actual name is even too long to copy and paste) that erupted spewing ash over much of western Europe. I think its fairly obvious that this is the earths way of saying “fuck you motherfuckers, I’m REALLY mega fucking pissed and I ain’t not gonna done did take it anyfuckingmore!” And this is essentially the earth getting revenge on us for beating it half to death like the blue headed step child it is.

Ok, so of course I’m totally kidding about the earth getting even, hell that makes me sound like one of those whack job Jesus freaks that blames gays and feminists for hurricanes or terror attacks. It still does not change the fact that we need to take better care of the earth since it is indeed our only current option……………..although I hear Obama is building a hot suit that will let us live on the sun!

So I decided that I can do my part by making my humidifier leak to the point where I’ve got puddles in my utility room and a soaked carpet near the utility room. We just noticed the leak today and had to rig some sort of contraption to drain the water into the sink. Ok earth, I fucking get it ok, we need to conserve water.

Apparently though I didn’t get the message in time. Because now in the very room I’m sitting in, I just discovered that my roof is leaking! I don’t know how the fuck it is leaking, I just had the damn thing replaced not even two years ago. But yet here we are, the earth saying “pay the fuck attention to me!” Shit at this fucking rate I’m afraid to go to bed……………….I might wake up floating!

Still though people, take the fuck care of the earth…………..I can’t swim and if we don’t take care of the earth I will be having to swim to work by the end of the week!

Every year during the last Saturday of April the company I work for takes part in something called Rebuilding Aurora (its a town in IL) in which we do a bunch of work on the house of a poor person. Its the least we could do after taking so, so much from people. So yesterday was that day and rain be damned, we were going to work in and mostly outside the hizzy. Although it rained a lot the overnight, it was pretty much dry the entire day. I had the duty (heheheheh………………..I said duty!) of doing some landscaping in the front of the house with a group of guys. Now I don’t know the first thing about any sort of landscaping or doing any other handy man stuff. In fact, usually every year I just try to leave things in as equal condition as I found it lest I make things worse. Truth be told, I’m a disaster when it comes to stuff like this if it weren’t for other people to prevent me from fucking up. I just do as I’m told and nothing more because as I’ve learned with physical labor, if I do more, I usually make things worse. But yesterday I  just did a bunch of shoveling dirt and moving bricks and shit like that; in other words things that I can’t possibly fuck up. Even though I was only there for about 4 1/2 hours, my back, arms and legs are still pretty sore today.

Last night some friends and I went to see the Chicagoland’s premier Beatles tribute band, American English. Check out their website here:

http://www.americanenglishbeatles.com/

They really put on a hell of a show, going through the various eras of the Beatles and changing clothes after each set into the next Beatles era. One of the guys in the band actually looks like a young Paul McCartney. After they played, there was another band there called Person To Person and they came out and did a solid hour of collect calls. You can check out their website here:

http://www.thep2pband.com/

They actually were pretty good, especially for a bunch of old guys. The lead singer looks a hell of a lot like a friend of mine and is the youngest member of the group, probably about 40 years old. The rest, well they are all in their 50s and actually maybe even their 60s. Maybe because they were so old that they needed to play extra loud. Or maybe it was because we were standing directly in front of them just about 10-15 feet away that it was so loud. All I know is that when we left as soon as we got outside, we couldn’t hear very well. And there is still ringing in my ears.

I went for my annual physical today. I know most people don’t go for routine physicals and my doctor has told me I really don’t need to go every year, but I figure I’ve got the coverage for one physical a year, so I might as well use it. Also, its always good to get the cholesterol checked and do a test for diabetes, STDs and other things as well. I do like my doctor though, he seems like a good guy.

 I walked into the place and instantly they yelled at me saying that what I was doing was not appropriate. See, I figured the doctor was a busy guy and I know I didn’t want to waste his time so I decided to show up naked so that it would save time on me having to change into the stupid little fucking gown they give you. They didn’t see the logic or the time saving reasons for my being naked. Oh and I may have called his nurse a bitch.

So there I was in the little room with the nurse asking me questions, mainly about my testicles. She took my blood pressure and I slapped her on the ass as she left the room. So now I’m all alone with nothing to do waiting for the doctor. Should I masterbate again, because they really didn’t like it when I did that last year. Now being 8 in the morning, I was still kinda tired. So I laid down and started to take a nap when the doctor walked in. He scared the shit out of me so I took a Chinese star I found under the pillow and threw it at him. We’ll be right back after this brief commercial.

  People always tell him that they would rather sit in traffic for hours on end instead of spending time with him.
  Being around him is about as pleasant as getting a root canal.
  He is so annoying that Jehovah Witnesses skip his house when going door to door.
  He talks so much that there could be a pay per view event to remove his voice box.
  He is………………………………….
  THE MOST ANNOYING MAN IN THE WORLD!!!
   “”I don’t always drink wine but when I do, I prefer Boone’s Farm. Stay annoying my friends!”

So anywho, where was I? Oh yeah, the doctor walked in with a massive erection that he couldn’t hide. He said he had been waiting all week to give me a prostate exam! He then asked me how I was doing. I told him I wanted him to look at my rash. And I had some numbness in my arms. And my feel felt flat. And my belly button had gone from an innie to an outie. And I had gas. Really bad. I reassured him that I did not have an erection lasting longer than 4 hours, but for some reason he seemed disappointed in that.

Next, I explained to him that I had accidently ingested undercooked chicken on Monday night. I asked him what could happen to me, because so far, I had been fine. He said that I am a super human who can’t possibly be stopped. I guess pretty much, I’m invincible! Now if only I could get an erection to last longer then 4 hours…………………

Ok, so this is pretty much just a sports post. My favorite NBA team, the Chicago Bulls, are in the playoffs playing the game’s best team, the Cleveland Cavaliers. And with the Cavs, comes the league’s best player LeBron James. There was a time when I used to root for LeBron and I actually liked him. But, it seems with each passing year, he gets less and less likable to the point now where I can’t stand him. Oh don’t get me wrong, I hope the Bulls sign him in the off season, however unlikely that might be, but I still don’t like him. Sure he is the best player on the planet, yes even better than Kobe Bryant, but he has become so self involved and narcissistic that its intolerable. He also seems to think that not only is he entitled to pretty much win the championship, but he also seems to take this whole King James thing just a bit too literally. While he certainly expects players to shake his hand after his teams beats them, last year after being ousted in the Eastern Conference Finals by the Orlando Magic, he refused to shake hands with his opponents. Some people may not think its that big of a deal, but my thinking is that if other teams shake your hand when you beat them, than you should return the favor. I remember back in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the Bulls kept losing every year to the evil Detroit Pistons they still shook their hands, but after the Bulls swept the Pistons many of the Detroit players walked off the court and refused to shake their hands. I never forgot that and quite honestly many other Bulls fans never forgot that.

This just in, chicken tastes better when its fully cooked.

And then there is LeBron’s cockiness. Although he hasn’t done it yet this year in the playoffs, he always seems to be dancing around the damn court in a rather blatant attempt to show up the opposing team. There was a game earlier this year against the Bulls in which he seemed to be dancing more than the dancing bear from that episode of Tom & Jerry. He makes you want somebody to punch him or foul the fuck out of  him on a drive to the hoop. And he is also humble too. After hitting a last second game winning shot against the Magic in the playoffs last year, during the post game interview he spent several minutes extolling on how great of a shot it was. Speaking of interviews, one of his favorite things to say is “I’ve been quoted as saying…….” which really makes him look so damn full of himself. And while he is certainly amazing to watch and all of his accolades are very well deserved, there are many players who have been as good or better than him who at least publicly don’t come off as cocky or self indulgent.

Of course I might just have a case of sour grapes because he dominated the hell out of the Bulls in the fourth quarter of last night’s game, but I did feel this way before the series even started. He so good though, he reminds me a lot of Michael Jordan. Even though the Bulls played about as good as they possibly could last night through three quarters, they were still only tied going into the fourth and I knew that they pretty much had no chance to win the damn game and it was mainly because of Lebron Fucking James.

For the past two days, I’ve had Jay-Z and Alicia Keys Empire State Of Mind stuck in my head. I realize that the song was a hit about six months ago, but as we know, black people start the trends and make something popular and then a few months later, after the popularity fades, white people catch on because they are trying to be  hip. And then a few months after that, I finally catch on, but its usually only after the rest of the world has moved on to the next, next popular thing. I first heard the song at a piano bar back in February and I had no idea what it was, but it sure sounded good.

Nevertheless, the song is a wonderful anthem for New York City. It makes me want to go to NYC. I’ve been to New York once before, 12 years ago, and it was only for a few days; not nearly long enough. All I know is that it was amazing. Being from the Chicagoland area, I know I’m not supposed to say that New York is better than Chicago, but the reality is that it is. In fact, its not even close. I just remember making that turn into Times Square at 7pm on a Tuesday night and seeing just a sea of humanity of people, buildings, vehicles and bright lights. I’ve always been distracted by bright and shiny things and I guess it was a good thing I wasn’t driving. There was just so much traffic, and everybody and everything was cutting us off in every direction imaginable. There were cars, taxis, buses, bicyclists, cops, pedestrians and pigeons cutting us off from every direction; to the left, to the right, in front of us, hell even above us! The people were less than friendly, but I still loved it. Although we saw a lot of things, I don’t think we even got see the best of New York. We went to the Empire State building (I’ve got a picture of a toilet from the Empire State building…………….how many people actually have a picture of that? Then again, why would somebody have a picture of a fucking toilet anyway?), the Statue of Liberty, the World Trade Center, and we even ate at Mendy’s which was made famous by Seinfeld. It was the first time I ever ate at a Jewish restaurant and I remember ordering spaghetti and meatballs and when I asked for cheese they told me no because its not kosher.

Now all of a sudden, I really want to go back. There is nothing like New York. Its why everybody wants to go there. There are many songs sung about New York. Although I haven’t been overseas, I’d like to think New York is the greatest city in the world, but honestly, I don’t know enough about the world’s other great cities like London or Paris, to be able to make such a bold statement.

I’ve got the money to go, its just that realistically, I don’t have somebody to go with me. And without somebody to go with to cut down on some of the cost, its pretty damn expensive. Fuck it. I’m going to New York.

Or not. No, I’m not going. But I want to go. Damn I love to travel. I should get a job that sends me to all sorts of places, like New York or Washington D.C. or prison. Wait. Maybe not prison. I’m not saying I would want to spend tons of time away from home, but maybe a few days a week. That would be cool and a great way to see the world. Instead I’m stuck here where I have to struggle just to go to the bathroom! Traveling has always been a passion of mine. And every now and then, I get to a point in the year when I really get the urge and the itch to go somewhere. I love a nice, long road trip or even better a train trip. I just don’t think I’m going to be able to go somewhere this year for various reasons.

This might be a long post, but I will try to keep it as brief as possible. Then again, if I cram everything in, than it won’t be as good. That being said, I’m probably going to not retell the stories as good as I could and you probably shouldn’t even bother reading it. Then again………….fuckin read it damnit!

Friday I went to the Cubs game. We had bleacher seats, which pretty much is general admission seating. Still, it was a great day to sit in the bleachers, as it was only in the low to mid 60s out and had we been in the shade we probably would have froze our asses off, but being in the sun, it was actually pretty damn comfortable. There was this fat fucking guy sitting a couple of rows in front of us who had a bad habit of lifting up his shirt to show off his “mankini” every 5 minutes. What’s a mankini you asked? Well it turned out he shaved his stomach so that it was smooth but instead left the hair on his moobs (or man boobs, as they are so often called) so that it looked like he was wearing a bra or a bikini top, hence the term mankini. It might be funny the first time you hear it, but its way fucking old and annoying by the 15th or 16th time of him doing it. As for the game, it was a quickly played Cubs victory, 7-2.

After the game we went bar hopping in Wrigleyville. We started off by going to Murphy’s where we saw something that was about as funny and odd as can be. This guy in his mid to late 20s with a really bad mustache asked this thin, hot, young blond girl if he could draw a mustache on her with a Sharpie. She let him and for the next 10 minutes she stood still as he drew it on her and everybody in the bar, including the staff, laughed at the scene. She even asked him to draw a soul patch on her, which looked even funnier. I wonder if she knew that a Sharpie is a permanent marker?

After Murphy’s, we headed over to the Cubby Bear for a few before going to Sluggers. We got a table next to a cute young dude, his friend and his possible girlfriend. I don’t know what happened exactly but she wound up getting in a fight with some big dude. I should clarify, outside of them throwing drinks on each other and pushing each other, it wasn’t much of a fight. But her cute boyfriend was so sweet trying to play the peacemaker between everybody. I felt bad for him that his possible chick was so fucking nuts.

Speaking of nuts, I was standing there leaning up against a rail while this other drunk ass chick was dancing with her friend. She was pretty much falling down drunk, her back was towards me and she kept falling into me. I think she might have been doing it on purpose though, because next thing I know, she was shakin her ass in front of me and rubbing it onto my crotch. And for some reason, she kept turning around and making faces at me. I’m serious, actual faces. Then she put her head on my shoulder to which I said “I’m not very comfortable, I’m pretty much all bones”. She then turned around, made a face and grabbed my nose, kinda like how you would “steal” a kid’s nose. It was certainly odd. I wasn’t even making some sort of sexual reference, but instead being honest because, hey, I’m fucking skin and bones as some people would say.

Last night was my friend’s 40th birthday party. You all remember, her, I wrote about the gift I got her in my previous post. Well, up the stairs I came lugging in this huge picture frame, which was wrapped up (poorly I might add………..I wrap like shit………what can I say, I’m white!). I set it down and told her it was a book. We were there for about 45 minutes when she finally decided to open it. I don’t mean to toot my own horn (although I would if I could!) but she was totally blown away by it, she loved it. I took a picture of it, so you be the judge:

That is me and her and the much controversial gift. She loved it so much that she called this morning to tell me how much of an asshole I was! I don’t know if you can see it, but its her carrying an Irish flag with the Abbey Rd Beatles following her with Lake Michigan and the Chicago skyline in the background. There is a celtic boarder and on the outside of that, 40 things that people said about her.

So today was the Cubs game again. And once again, we were in the bleachers. This time, I brought a camera. And this time, unfortunately, they lost. But, you can still see pics!

That is the world famous Wrigley Field marquee. I should have gone to the end of the corner and taken a picture that didn’t have the stop light in the middle.

This was our view from our seats in the centerfield bleachers.

That is me, my brother’s sister in law next to me, my brother’s wife and my twin brother there on the end. Behind my sister in law is some  hot younger dude who my brother’s sister in law thinks was gay. Hmmmm………………I should have switched seats with her! I dunno……….something about the 20 year old Cubs jacket I was wearing doesn’t exactly scream gay now does it?

I have a friend who is turning 40 next week. Her husband is throwing a 40th birthday party for her on Saturday. I came up with an idea of a gift that I wanted to give her. I wanted to come up with a picture that has a drawing of her and a bunch of her favorite things surrounded by 40 reasons why we love her. To achieve this, I asked a bunch of her friends to each give me a reason or two as to why they love her. Now I don’t have an artistic bone in my body, so I commissioned a very good friend of mine to create this for me. My friend is always amazing and great at doing things like this and she knows what looks good or bad and what would be corny or cheesy or great. I gave her a little bit of an idea of what I wanted and then let her run with it. And run she did. My friend who is turning 40 lives in Chicago, is a big fan of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and is Irish. My friend making the artwork also loves the Beatles, so this was a natural for her. So her mind got racing and her creative juices got flowing and this is what she came up with: a different and unique twist on the Beatles Abby Road cover. The drawing is my friend carrying an Irish flag with the Abby Road Beatles following her in front of the skyline of Chicago. In the air is a tiny plane that has a banner that reads “Happy 40th Birthday” with the Rolling Stones famous lips and tongue logo. There is a celtic boarder and outside of that are the 40 quotes listing reasons why we love my friend. It turned out amazing, I loved it and I know my friend is going to absolutely love it.

Now here comes the part where I may or may not be wrong. On the back of the frame, my friend left a note talking about not only how much she loved making it, but how she thinks her friends are great. It was a really nice gesture. At the end though is what got under my skin a bit. She put a bible quote “Peace be within you.” My friend who made it is a pretty big Christian. I am not. And its not even that I’m just not a Christian, I’m actually an Atheist. Furthermore, my friend who is turning 40 is not big into religion as well. Truth be told though, I don’t think she is going to have a problem with the quote, I think she is going to be blown away by the whole thing and pretty much overlook the quote. But, it still bothers me that it is on there, after all this is a gift from me and it should reflect as much. Shortly after I saw it, I asked my friend to remove it and replace it with a Beatles lyric as I thought that would be more fitting. She didn’t agree. I asked her to please remove it and she refused. She told me that she usually puts that on just about everything she makes. I pointed out that in the nine years I have known her she has made a TON of things for me and not a single one of them ever had that quote on it. Of course, she knew I was Atheist and that is why she probably left it off. This of course, set off not only a debate, but also an argument about if it should be on there. I probably said something that I should not have said when I told her “remind me to never have you make something for me again.” Now of course, she is as she put it, livid that I took offense to her bible verse.

I should stress that she did work very hard on this and probably put in 15 hours of work. I do also fully recognize that as an artist, she has a right to add what she wants to make it her own. That being said, I have paid her to make a gift from me, so a part of me is going into this as well. Although I am quite certain I am overreacting, I also feel that at the very least she should have asked me first before she did that, after all, she called me and consulted me on every other aspect of the piece no matter how small or minor it might be. Furthermore, she knows me about as well as anybody and certainly she would have known that this would have irked me a bit.

Certainly the quote itself is not offensive in the least. It was not done with malicious intent, nor is the quote a bad thing to wish to somebody. For me though, the bible is an offensive book; me and the bible don’t get along. Sure, there are some things that one might be able to learn from the bible, but to be honest there is just so much horseshit in the bible that it leaves the whole thing devoid of any value. Over the years, I have not been shy in the least with her about my feelings of disdain for the bible and she has been very clear with me her support for and beliefs about Christianity.

So my question is, am I wrong to be offended or upset? Am I wrong to consider removing her note from the back of the frame so that my friend does not see the quote?

So in yesterday’s post, I mentioned about how I’ve got some fun smells in my house. Well today I had “The Man” come out and take a look in there for the source of the odor. He was supposed to be here about 8 in the pm but actually showed up early, about 7:40, which was surprising. So we spent 20 minutes inhaling my garbage can.

He spent about 5 minutes rummaging through the attic and came down and said that not only he couldn’t find anything, but he also could not even find an evidence of an animal being up there. That was good news, but where the fuck was the odor coming from? He looked in the crawl space and said he saw some standing water down there, which was not a shock to me, I knew that I had a leak in the crawl space. He said there is a very good chance that the water is actually the source of my odor.

So why is there a leak down there? Well for the first 5 years after my mother died, we kept her body in the crawl space. Until one afternoon the funeral director and his gang of merry men came crashing in through the windows and roof to remove her and take her back to where she belonged: in a traveling circus of dead people. It is widely believed that the leak was caused from either her trying to fight her way out of the crawl space or from the damage that the funeral director did when they went down there. I really don’t know though, I guess it could be from either or from any number of things.

Just kidding about whole keeping my mother’s corpse in the crawl space. If you don’t know by now, I’ve not only got a wicked sense of humor, but also an overactive imagination, which is how I come up with shit like having my mother’s dead body in the crawl space.

We actually kept her in the attic.