Author Archive

1. Form NoMother, NotAgain: Makes it illegal to sell a home with a desiccated corpse sitting in an attic rocking chair
2. Form #YouToo: Notifies buyer the home will be sold with an onsite Intimacy Coordinator who will ensure all sexual acts are entered into consensually
3. Form 666: Makes it mandatory to report if a house is located over a fiery portal to Hellish doom. This is more commonly known as the Amityville Advisory
4. Form No-Life-Story: Prohibits prospective buyer from writing a cutesy, sympathy-mining letter to the seller explaining how “it would be such an honor if you chose my husband (Pastor Caleb Musgrave) and our 2 children Caitlyn and Josh (who’s on the spectrum) to buy your lovely home for $50,000 under market price and carry on the neighborly principles you’ve…” blah, blah, blah.
5. Form 420: Seller must report if, in any room, someone spoke the phrase: “Wow man…it’s like the walls are breathing”
6. Form Powder Keg Alert: Discloses how many farts are trapped in the insulation. This way if there’s a fire, it gives first responders an indicator of the dwelling’s potential explosivity and the amount of fire suppression needed. Many real estate agents think this fart form stinks.
7. Form CV-19: Seller must report if the house ever operated as a Wuhan Wet Market
8. Forms #1 or #2: Seller shall advise buyer if anyone ever went to the bathroom in a room where there wasn’t a toilet
9. Form U-235: Seller must disclose if plutonium (or any other fissile material) was ever enriched on premises
10. Non-discriminatory Form: That irrespective of race, color or creed all will be given equal access to this property. More specifically, minorities will be given access to the property, they just won’t be allowed to buy it.
11. Form Caveat Emptor: This form urges that the Buyer Beware.

 

1. Let’s play “Dentist” and I’ll fill your cavities
2. Jesus may have died for your sins, but right now I’m dying for them.
3. I’d really like you to activate my streaming service
4. I like the way your teeth come together. Maybe we could too.
5. If I said you had a tipped pelvis, would you hold it against me?
6. As a matter of fact I am a gynecologist and I’m at your cervix madam
7. I bet I know your favorite number? – It’s Novocain. {Get it…numb-er}

1. Progress on the set. My Intimacy Coordinator used to direct me with a 10-foot pole. Now she uses a 6-foot pole. What’s next – a yardstick.
2. Worst pick-up line ever: “Jesus may have died for your sins, but right now I’m dying for them.”
3. What’s a foot to do? My stout toenails keep breaking my nail clippers: #keratinstrong #toejamfootball #thislittlepiggie
4. My dentist also operates a popular taco truck. He’s a real cavity-filler.
5. Where’s Marilyn McCoo these days? She was the 1970s Tyra Banks.
6. And Speaking of Banks. Could I be any less excited about that stealthy street artist Banksy? You’ve got dedicated artists spending thousands of dollars on Masters of Fine Arts programs, and this guy spray paints a “Keep on Truckin'” dude on a brick wall in an alley and suddenly it’s a National Heritage Site.
7. I’m not really white. I’m just choosing to be white. Some say gay people do this with their sexuality – that it’s a choice. Hmmm. I wonder if I could pray the “white” away.
8. Mt. Denali has gone from Mt. McKinley and back to Mt. Denali again. Remember folks. It’s just a mountain and will always be a mountain no matter what you call it. Then again see #9
9. What’s in a name? The United States had a Department of War from 1789 until 1947 when it was eventually changed to the less bellicose and more protective Department of Defense. Were we actively planning or seeking wars until 1947? 
10. Why am I just finding out now there’s Double Stuf Oreos? Damn it people. Keep me in the loop.
11. Was Zsa Zsa Gabor’s middle name Zsa? Asking for Boutros Boutros Galli.

In an unexpected twist, usually argumentative neighbors Sam Fields and Roger McCoy traded Barbs recently. Sam acquired Barbara McCoy (Roger’s wife of 21 years) and Roger received Barbara Fields (Sam’s wife of 23 years). The Barbs were traded at the request of the wives who could no longer stand their grumpy husbands.  

The Barbs’ issued a joint statement saying they didn’t think the trade was as much wife-swapping as it was strife-swapping.

In other news: It is now understood that whenever an elbow or a doobie issue a statement, it’s by definition a joint statement.

Sadie and the Tramp

Two of the most famous animals in the field of experimental psychology were Schrödinger‘s cat Sadie and Pavlov‘s dog Tramp. But what most people don’t know is that these two pioneering pets met and fell in love when Drs. Schrödinger and Pavlov attended a conference at the pet-friendly Grand Budapest Hotel in Hungary – or as Pavlov called it “The Buddha Pets Hotel.”

 

Whenever these eminent doctors traveled they often brought their pets with them – Schrödinger his elegant cat Sadie and Pavlov his mutt of a dog Tramp. That two animals from such different walks of life could forge a loving relationship is testament to the adage “opposites attract.” Schrödinger’s cat Sadie was a prissy pussy from Paris and Pavlov’s dog Tramp was a mangey mongrel from Minsk. Legend has it that their romance may have been the inspiration for Disney’s The Lady and the Tramp which featured canine love from opposite sides of the tracks.

 

 

Brief Bios of the Bygone Beasts

 

Schrödinger’s cat Sadie, a dainty calico, was the instructive feline that catalyzed Dr. Schrödinger’s theory about the paradox of quantum superposition. In quantum superposition, Dr. Schrödinger reasoned, a hypothetical cat unobserved in a closed box may be considered simultaneously both alive and dead – and its location uncertain. This was big news in the1930s. Not so much nowadays with all the cat videos, but back then quantum superposition was a big deal and we owe Sadie a great debt of gratitude for getting into the box and germinating Dr. Schrödinger’s “Eureka” moment.

 

The above is a quick cat’s claw sketch (as opposed to a thumbnail sketch) of darling Sadie. Tramp, on the other paw, was less refined and kind of an overly alarmist pooch – y’know, the dog who cried “woof.” By regularly pairing the ringing of a bell with a blast of meat powder on the tongue, Dr. Pavlov caused the poor slob to slobber like Niagara Falls. In fact, what Dr. Pavlov discovered was that even in the absence of food, Tramp would salivate like an open fire hydrant whenever he heard a bell ringing. This reinforcing psychological technique is called Classical Conditioning and for a time was the safest way to feed Mike Tyson.

 

Being born in the old Soviet Union, Tramp may have rightfully expected a short, brutish life – especially after being born the runt of the litter. And how fitting that was, since Sadie was also the runt of her kitty litter – so to speak. When Dr. Pavlov saw Tramp in the window of a “No Eat” animal shelter in famine-ravaged Minsk he knew if he didn’t rescue the lovable Tramp it would dog him forever. When the famine subsided “No Eat” shelters reverted to “No Kill” shelters. In any event Dr. Pavlov was attracted to the marvelous mutt and brought him home to his wife Seraphima, who took one glance at the bedraggled hound and exclaimed, “Great, dinner.”

 

“No, no,” countered Dr. Pavlov. “This animal will change everything we think about pairing conditioned stimulus (a bell) and an unconditioned stimulus (food) to produce a conditioned response (salivating). This conditioning is destined to become a classic. I can feel it.”

“So were not gonna eat him,” Seraphima asked? “OK. It’s borscht again.”

 

 

A Feline and Canine Entwine: Enter Zsa Zsa

 

Budapest resident and future glamor gal Zsa Zsa Gabor, then an 18-year-old underemployed Hungarian ingénue, was working at the Budapest Hotel’s Pet Day Care Center where she regularly superintended Sadie and the Tramp’s visits. The middle Gabor sister chaperoned and fed them with great care; even going so far as to conduct her own matchmaking culinary experiment. Zsa Zsa prepared and fed them a big plate of pasta consisting of a single long strand of spaghetti. She gave each of them an opposite end to chow down on. As they hungrily slurped and gobbled the spaghetti from each end it was only a matter of time till Tramp’s slobbering jowls met Sadie’s delicate whiskers. And when they did, it was kismet (actually it was more like kiss-met). When Sadie and the Tramp got to the end of their ropes his snout met her nose and after a moment of recognition, they nuzzled like long lost Eskimos. After Zsa Zsa’s romantic dinner Sadie and the Tramp were inseparable.

 

And there they’d happily commune. In the pet parlor of the Budapest Hotel where they would frolic with unbridled glee and mutual acceptance. Sadie would overlook Tramp’s torrents of slobber and Tramp would forgive Sadie’s penchant for being both dead and alive. Evidently location indeterminacy was no barrier to Tramp’s passion, and pools of drool none to Sadie’s. It seems when love is your unconditioned stimulus, it conquers all.

 

 

Incidents and Anecdotes

 

And in a curious sisterly coincidence, Zsa Zsa’s younger sister Eva (of Green Acres fame) would go on to do the silky, exotic voice of the bougee cat Duchess in Disney’s The Aristocats.

 

There was a noteworthy incident at the Budapest Hotel’s Pet Day Care Center one day when Dr. Schrödinger went to pick up Sadie and couldn’t find her anywhere. He was wracked with anxiety until he saw her little eyes just peeking out over the ö in Schrödinger. So cute he thought – there she was, hiding in an umlaut. Who else but Sadie could cloak herself in a diacritical mark? Amazing! Sadie was eerily adept at quantum superposition. In fact, Dr. Sigmund Freud, who was attending the same conference as Drs. Pavlov and Schrödinger, heard of the cat’s disappearance and wryly observed, “While it is possible Sadie may have been hiding above the ö, sometimes an umlaut is just an umlaut.”  

 

While being interviewed by Popular Quantum Mechanics magazine, Dr. Schrödinger was asked about Sadie’s little nighttime outfit resting there on the bed. He glanced over at them and replied, “Oh those? Those are the cat’s pajamas.” He pawsed and continued, “It kinda hurts me to talk about the cat’s pajamas. In fact, me ow.”

 

In Pavlov’s It’s a Wonderful Life world, every time a bell rang, an angel started to salivate. In Schrödinger’s “Wes Anderson” world every time a cat disappeared you didn’t know for certain if it was dead or alive. Could two animals from such different backgrounds bond together without driving each other crazy? No wait, that was the premise for Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple. Nope, it wasn’t that either. Their story was the basis for the unlikely pairing of another more recent Eastern European romance: The Lady and the Trump.

 

Dr. Pavlov was a Nobel prize-winner and was celebrated for being a self-made man. He had no choice. His parents never had sex. As the time passed Dr. Pavlov grew fond of Dr. Schrödinger and would tease his colleague by peering into Sadie’s litter box and observing, “Look! It’s Schrödinger scat.”

 

Years later when Dr. Schrödinger was asked about Dr. Pavlov’s experiments he famously responded, “Pavlov? Pavlov? The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

 

 

They Really Did Live Happily Ever After

 

Sadie and the Tramp were by now deeply bonded and this intense affection was recognized by Drs. Schrödinger and Pavlov who agreed to keep them together. They would summer in Minsk and winter in Paris. And although a litter of offspring was out of the question, it never stopped them from trying.

 

It was brave of Sadie and the Tramp to express their cat/dog love at a time when the mixing of the species was frowned upon. There were laws against this kind of co-mingling – especially in 1930s Berlin and the Deep South.

 

There was something greater at work here between Sadie and the Tramp. Something trite but true – that love conquers all. Now that may be a hackneyed phrase, but it also has the added virtue of being true. And I’m not hiding behind hollow clichés. If you’re looking for me, I’m hiding behind the é in cliché. I’m in a really good position. You might even say I’m in a quantum superposition.

1. What if George Strait was gay?
   We might say, “Boy, George isn’t straight.”
   Of course Boy George isn’t straight.

 

2. Looking forward to the sequel to “80 for Brady”… “30 for Purdy”

 

3. It’s been reported that for the first time in history, 2 gay men will be going head-to-head in a Congressional race. I dunno. Somehow I don’t think it’s the first time in history 2 gay men have gone head-to-head.

 

4. Did you hear about the Canadian lesbian….She went back to Victoria…British Columbia.
   1. Gay Australian He went back to Sydney
   2. Gay Oregonian  He went back to Eugene

 

5. If the volume of a sphere is 2/3rds the volume of a cylinder that encloses it,
   I definitely overpaid for my Xmas cheeseballs

 

6. I’m pretty sure he was born by a Caesarian Section.

           Why is that?

           Well, every time he leaves his house, he goes out through the window.

Make them a happy pair who go everywhere together. Like they’re inseparable or something.

 

Focus on Siamese twins Jack and Jacqueline Brooks who are born from different mothers. But how would that work?

 

Explain how they got “joined-up” at a Siamese Reassignment Surgery Center. A safe and nurturing place where individuals who identify as Siamese can freely and surgically express their inborn desires to be joined at the hip with someone they love.

 

In looking for the ultimate “hook-up” Jack and Jacqueline Private Messaged each other and I produce a transcript of their PMs

Jack: Looking for a life partner. Would you care to join me?

Jacq: Why? Are you coming apart? Just kidding. But seriously where would you like to be joined?

Jack: At the Siamese Reassignment Surgery Center in Pasadena.

Jacq: No silly. I mean where on our bodies would you want to be joined?

Jack: Oh. That. Well probably the tailbone so we could always dance cheek to cheek.

Jacq: OK. It’ll be great. We can come out at our Siamese Reveal Party.

 

Siamese Notes:

• Most all Siamese twins are Gemini
• Most live in cities like Walla Walla or New York, New York
• Siamese twins got their name from being more prevalent in the Kingdom of Siam (now Thailand)
• The proper pronoun to refer to Siamese twins will be “Yous Guys.”
• Story ends when we see a psychologist treating 2 sets of Siamese twins with split personalities and getting paid by 8 people.

Let’s begin by setting the expectation bar really low, and hope I can get under it.

1. I rub women the wrong way – I’m a Massagynist
2. Physicist Izzy Grissom insists his wrist is twisted, but it’s just a cyst that persists. That’s the gist.
3. My advice to the citizens of Moldova: Men, guard your catalytic convertors. Women and children, sell your platelets. And to all my mollusk friends: keep clam.
4. For obvious reasons, during performances at the High Wire Club, tipping is not allowed
5. It is said by people much smarter than me (and I’m sure there are some someplace) that curly fries are overblown.
6. The preeminent physicist Robert Oppenheimer was also a great chef, though in some of his dishes he did tend to over-plutonium a bit. I’m told he made the only Beef Wellington with a half-life and his fusion cooking was absolutely devastating.
7. I felt both full and empty after reading Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness.
8. The syphilis way to get an STD is to have sex

 

First, a Few Words on Rabbit Holes, Then Our True Story

Rabbit holes have gotten a bad rap lately and sometimes with good reason. Unwary rabbit hole-goers often don’t discover they’re lost in one of these time-wasting tunnels till it’s far too late; and the hole-goer wishes they could have that wasted time added back to their life. Of course it’s not this way with all rabbit holes. There is that rare rabbit hole one tumbles down and comes out the other side much elevated by the experience. And this is my true story of just such a rabbit hole  – of my disappearance into and emergence out of, an unforgettable once-in-a-lifetime rabbit hole located right next to Disneyland.   

 

 

We Begin in My Dim, Misty Past

 

I’ve been a rabid Syracuse University football fan since 1973 when as a 12-year-old some switch was activated inside me and I became enamored of this team located right there in my hometown. Much like puberty, it was found gold. My rabid feelings for the team were the good or nerdy kind of rabid associated with Star Wars and not the bad or face paint kind of rabid associated with storming the Capitol. Unfortunately, when I began following the Orangemen, they were at their gridiron nadir, prompting Sports Illustrated (the preeminent sports publication I subscribed to in the infinitely smaller media world of the early 70s) to publish an article entitled: When You’re Standing on your Head, Syracuse is No. 1. That’s how low the fortunes of these once mighty Beasts of the East had sunk. Syracuse University, the collegiate incubators of Heisman Trophy winner Ernie Davis and future NFL Hall of Famers Jimmy Brown, Floyd Little and Larry Csonka, were ranked a morbid #101^st in the country, but they were #1 in my little boy heart – a heart that still resides in this big boy body today. Suffice to say I followed my team with prodigious avidity and even tribal intensity depending on how much Tang I’d drunk that day. 

 

Cut to 1989 when I’m living in Southern California and Syracuse’s football fortunes have experienced a notable uptick. Following an undefeated 1987 season and a stellar 10-2 mark in 1988, the 1989 Orangemen stood at 7-4 and teetering on a bowl bid. But where might that bowl game be? It set my fertile mind turning and potential rabbit holes multiplying.  Due to being marginally employed, I had time on my hands and began exploring bowl possibilities Syracuse might play in. One bowl venue candidate was right down the road from my San Fernando Valley apartment – the Freedom Bowl played at The Big A (Anaheim Stadium) not far from Disneyland.

 

As was my penchant for idle exploration, I ferreted out a phone number and called them on a landline and, in the days before phone trees, spoke directly with one of the Freedom Bowl principals. I queried a Mr. Rob Halvaks as to their interest in inviting the mighty Syracuse University football team to their bowl. He said Syracuse was in the mix, but that their East Coast origins, might not be the best fit for a West Coast bowl game. In other words they were a Plan C at best. It was a pleasant and extended conversation that touched on a variety of college football related topics in which we were both most conversant.

 

Again having more free time than is healthy for a 28-yr-old to have, about a week later I called Mr. Halvaks again to see if the bowl landscape had changed. It had changed and the ‘Cuse was on the outs. He commiserated with me and even gave me the pre-announcement scoop, the Freedom Bowl had enticed the PAC-12’s Washington Huskies and the SEC’s Florida Gators to faceoff in that year’s bowl. We continued talking animatedly and, sensing my keen interest and understanding of college bowl games, he suggested I come down to the stadium for a visit – that perhaps I might apply my acumen to this post-season collegiate endeavor.

 

What the Freedom was happening here? WTF indeed. I was on the cusp of something previously thought unimaginable – an intimate window on the inside world of a major college bowl game and Mr. Halvaks was perhaps interested in me helping them out in some capacity. The possibility of my full-fledged involvement in a college football bowl game from an insider’s administrative perspective was bewildering. This supreme opportunity was a bucket list item I didn’t even know I had. It had magically populated my bucket in the flash of one phone call. Read the rest of this entry »

• I hear the Getty family is having Trust issues.

 

• You know you’re getting older when you’re watching Jeopardy and you don’t realize till the end that it’s Celebrity Jeopardy, because you don’t recognize any of the celebrities

 

• 

  How did something so simple get so complicated?
  Well, as they say in England, “Chex mate?”