"How's Married Life?" NASCAR, that's how.

At what point after the wedding date do people finally stop asking "So, how's married life?!"

Honestly, what do they expect us to say?

"Well, quite frankly, I'm sorry I ever got myself into this."

"There aren't nearly as many breakfast trays in bed as I'd believed there would be, but all in all, I suppose it's not that bad."

It's really taxing to keep coming up with clever, witty answers to this. That's what people expect when they ask this. They don't want you to simply say, "It's fine," or, "No complaints." They're hoping for complaints. Or at least some light strife.

These queries, I find, come most often from other married people, which is the strangest part. I keep wanting to say, "Well, YOU'RE married, you already know how married life is." 

For the most part, this cross-examination seems to come from people I don't see often, such as various friends or co-workers of my spouse, which is fine. I understand the concept of small talk among people who don't know each other well. At least they're not asking me about babies, which, at the first marriage-go-round, started AT the reception. 

But sometimes these investigations are also conducted by people who know full well that I was married previously. Yet they ask with a tone that suggests they're waiting for me to delve into a full discourse on how I had absolutely no idea that marriage could be so wonderful / happy / stressful / fucking annoying / crazy, or whatever other adjectives they might be hoping or expecting to hear.

Granted, comparing my two experiences in this faction of life would be something like comparing apples and monster trucks, but married life, if described in the general sense, can usually be put into the same common description - if you're a married person, you already know that there are little annoyances, and joy filled moments, and laundry to be done, and dishwashers to be emptied, and the like, and that overall, it's a decent experience.

Anything beyond that, people generally aren't going to ask about (or necessarily want to hear about), so isn't the common, implied description of "married life" enough to negate the question entirely? I believe every sitcom for the last 60 years has covered what married life is like.

So, how's married life? Well, my definitive answer is this: NASCAR.

Married life must be pretty good because having NASCAR on the TV doesn't annoy me (much), which is something I never thought I would say. I'm not saying I love it. But it doesn't annoy me. And if I can put up with NASCAR, well, I should be able to put up with nearly anything.

We're a hockey family, first and foremost. The NHLPA lockout was just the worst. There was no hockey for 3 1/2 months where there should have been hockey. A short (yet unbelievable!) season, and then 3 more months of no hockey. It's been just boring, with no sport to watch. But there's always NASCAR. And I mean that quite literally. There is always NASCAR. 

It's the longest "season" in sports, and I'm using "sports" in a very loose sense here, as I recognize fully that NASCAR is not, in fact, a sport (this is, admittedly, a marital point of contention). From mid-February to mid-November and with 2-3 races per weekend, I truly mean it is ALWAYS friggin' on.

I've learned a lot more about racing than I ever expected. I've really never had much interest in watching 40+ cars make eight left-hand turns a minute for 2 1/2 hours. But one of the corporate names that puts food on the table is on two of those cars, and appears during the commercials, so I learned pretty early on that this was something I was going to have to, at least, tolerate.

I've tried to force myself to tolerate a sport before. Football. I tried to watch it. I tried to learn the rules. A few of them stuck but for the most part, I still don't get it. Not because I'm a "dopey girl" or I can't grasp it. I could become an expert if I wanted to. But I don't. It's painfully boring to me and I have no interest in learning any more about it. I don't even like hearing people talk about it.  Which is the same thing I'm sure I once said about NASCAR.

And what I've learned is that NASCAR annoys me (and bores me) far less than football does, which is an obvious indicator of just how much I dislike football.

Football might have a little something going for it if there were crashes and smoke, but there aren't, so I have little use for it.

Even more unimaginable to me, that I would come to have NASCAR put on my television and not complain about it (much) is the fact that I'm being taken for the first time this weekend to a real, live race.

I don't know if I'm going to like it, hate it, love it or merely tolerate it. See at home, I can turn the channel (when he leaves the room) to something else, something decidedly more interesting, like the mating of Bulgarian tree weevils.

What happens after the first 5 laps when alternative entertainment isn't available? Do you just keep watching them make circles. Or, ovals, as it were?

"Holy shit, look, he turned left again! Oh my god, WOW, so did the guy behind him! It's like they KNOW!"

I receive terribly filthy looks every time I make a joke like that. I still don't know why.

I'm still trying to match up the names with the cars. Not because I actually care who drives what, but because I'm tired of the looks I get when I ask who won, M&Ms or Diet Mountain Dew. It's a stupid question in and of itself because Diet Mountain Dew* never wins.

(I've just made an inside joke relating to NASCAR and that scares me)

Sunday mornings in our home have included clockwork-like declarations that he has made his online NASCAR Sprint Cup Fantasy pick for the week.

"I made my NASCAR pick."

"Who did you pick this week?"

"Joey Lagano."

*blink* *stare*

"Home Depot, honey."

"Oh ok, good."

I didn't know that until just now. I had to look that up for the sake of the joke. I know who drives Diet Mountain Dew, 5 Hour Energy, Go Daddy and possibly M&Ms. That's it.

Oh, and Target. I know the Target car because I thought it was hilarious that it happened to be the Target car that crashed the hell into the jet dryer truck and blew it up at Daytona last year. 

In Soviet Russia, and in Daytona, you don't hit target. Target hit YOU.

That was probably the moment I knew that I could tolerate this silly-ass business, if I absolutely had to. Sure it's a little boring but once in awhile a tiny Columbian man driving a car with a huge bullseye on the hood might crash straight into a truck full of jet fuel.

I don't like that NASCAR is spelled with "all caps". You know what should be spelled in "all caps"? HOCKEY. Because any sport where 12 guys are paid to chase each other on skates and beat the living crap out of one another should certainly employ capital letters, exclusively. "Shut up, can't you see I'm watching HOCKEY?"

Nascar gets to be "NASCAR" because it isn't a word.  It stands for something. Non-Athletic Sport Created Around Rednecks, or something of that nature, I'm not completely sure.

I reserve the right to joke about it all I want (because, well, it's Nascar), but overall, I find it doesn't honestly bother me.  It's not my thing, and normally I enjoy a Sunday afternoon siesta if races are on, but he likes it, so who am I to say anything about it.  Clearly, it's a part of my home.  And that's fine.  Actually, it's more than fine because at least it's not football.  I know I have things that he doesn't necessarily care about.  But that's what you do.  You respect the other person's interests and you give them space to enjoy it.  Sometimes they might invite you to participate in their interest and you do it because that's just what you do for each other.  No question about it.  You DON'T put them down for liking something that you don't and you don't refuse opportunities to join them, because one day you will want them to join you in something, too.  I'm lucky to have the type of spouse that understands this as well.  He does things with me all the time that aren't necessarily his idea.  That's just how it works.  

You're a team. A partnership.  Their name is sponsoring your car for life, and vice versa.  That's the person that's always there when you have to pit for a tire change.  And you're the one waiting in their pit, no matter what they need.  Sometimes you crash into things (especially me... I'm so clumsy I should have a Go Daddy** decal on my ass - that was another inside joke, and a damn funny one too), and sometimes you need some new parts, but in the end, you make the necessary repairs and move on to the next race.

 "How's married life?"  

NASCAR, that's how.

-kc

Cliff Notes:

* Diet Mountain Dew - that car is driven by Dale Earnhardt Jr. who has won exactly 4 races over the last 3 Presidential Terms.

** Go Daddy - that car is "driven" by Danica Patrick, who, well...

The Ontario Monster

This may make me unpopular.  Hell, it probably WILL.

I don't care. I'd rather examine all possibilities and I am not a person who automatically believes everything I read.

So far in my travels, I have read the comments posted online and asked a few people for their opinions on the the story out of Ontario about the mother that allegedly received a hate letter about her autistic child, and I've yet to find a person who did not automatically believe these people were victims and that the writer of the letter should be tarred and feathered immediately.

Let's really look at this, because it's clear that an injustice has been committed.

Here is the story:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/08/19/ontario-family-shocked-when-they-receive-letter-telling-them-to-euthanize-autistic-child/

Or:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/19/karla-begley-autistic-letter-teen_n_3780378.html

Or:

http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/500069/20130820/shocking-hate-letter-autistic-teen-canadian-euthanasia.htm#.UhOb4tJOO6M

Pick you favorite source.

Now, personally, something is not seeming right about this to me (apart from the obvious), but that's not really what this is about. I will not disagree AT ALL that the writer of this letter is a monster.

But who wrote it and why? There are really only two possibilities: this is real or this is fake.  But everyone has immediately assumed that this happened the way it was reported.

Is no one considering the second possibility?

To be very clear, I am not saying this is a hoax, or that I believe this is a hoax. But I'm also not saying it isn't.

What I am simply saying is that I don't have enough information to make a judgement.  I only know what was told to me by the news and the interwebz, and I don't know that it's correct.

I have a problem with the fact that this letter was photographed and then posted to Twitter by a family friend for the world to see.

Why was this not taken immediately to police?  Possibly to the head of a neighborhood association, if applicable.  It sounds rather dangerous and threatening, doesn't it? Should it not have been brought to the attention of some higher authority right away?

If someone could be hateful and monstrous enough to send a letter like that, if someone could be THAT demented, is it not possible that someone could also be monstrous enough create it for some sort of personal attention or gain?

Let's not be sheep and let's not believe it just because the interwebz or the big glowing thing in our living room told it to us.

Before I even finished reading the letter, I searched Snopes and I then I checked to make sure this didn't come from The Onion, because it's so crazy and unbelievable.

Remember the girl who doused herself with acid and claimed she was attacked? "What kind of monster would do that to another person!?" we all cried. Hmm. Yes, what kind of person does that.

http://mynorthwest.com/926/2231749/Acid-hoax-perpetrator-seeing-self-clearly-for-first-time

The Manti Te'o hoax story?

People DO these things. Snopes was founded on the basis of people making shit up for no good reason.

Email scams, phone scams, door-to-door scams, the list goes on and on.

How many times have you heard or read about the countless scums who get online and create alternate lives with elaborate stories (the most common seem to be that that they have cancer, or some other serious or terminal illness) for attention, for money, or for whatever other twisted reasons they may have.

What about all of the celebrity death hoaxes recently. It seems as if just about once a week, someone (or several someones) with WAY too much free time decides to spread a rumor that some celebrity or another has grown wings, thus making things hell for several days for that person, their agents or PR teams, and of course their families. I personally know a family that this happened to recently. It's not funny, and it's very sick and twisted. It proves that just because you read it does not mean that it's true or that you are getting the full story.

I have also personally known multiple, yes, multiple, people in my life who have done such things. Maybe not as bad as this (that I know of, at least), but people who have certainly told sick, crazy lies for attention, sympathy and personal gain, and fabricated things about their lives and about themselves. And I don't mean your normal, "I'm 28 years old" type of white lie when they are actually 33.

I honestly hope this turns out to be a real letter sent by a real person.

That's a really weird thing to say, right? I know.

But I've already accepted the fact that there are sick, horrible people who do terrible things like this to other people, and that we're surrounded by people who are hateful, racist, sexist, ageist, selfish, you name it. It's terrible, but our past, present and future are full of that.

I have a much bigger problem with the kind of people that create lies for attention, personal gain, simply to hurt people, to receive sympathy (attention), to cover up other terrible things they have done or are doing, or whatever sick, disgusting reason they have.

To me, both possibilities here are very real and should be considered. I read that police are investigating and I hope they get to the bottom of this. If this was truly sent by someone in the neighborhood, or by someone who has some type of grudge with the boy's mother or someone in his family, then surely this person needs to be found out and punished for their action.

The hoax scenario is a an all-too-real possibility too, though.

To be continued if or when more details emerge.

In MY day...

Yep.  I'm one of those now.

You know... this guy:

"In MY day, we didn't have your fancy-schmancy iPhone.  We had an earwax yellow phone, with a wheel on it!  And you had to turn the wheel 7 seven times to call someone!  You know why you had to turn it 7 times?  Because in my day we didn't have area codes!  We all lived in one damn area code, And WE LIKED IT!"

I catch moments like this more and more lately, especially being around the littler ones in the family, with their iPods and iTouches and iWhatevers.  One of them has a Kindle.  I can't even deal with that idea. 

So this morning, I purchase some movie tickets (over the internet, of COURSE, who buys tickets AT a theater anymore!?).  Within just a second of clicking "submit" I received a text message with a link to a barcode.  I show up at the theater (or "picture show") later this evening, hold up my phone for them to scan the barcode, and then I go on in to my PRE-SELECTED seat and view the movie.

I mean, "talkie".

Where was this in "my day"?  Back then, you know, when I rode the CDA (Chicago Dinosaur Authority)  to see a movie, and had to transfer at Harlem Dirt Road (we didn't have avenues yet) to get there.  And then once we did get there, we had to wait in line - outside, mind you, no indoor box offices in my day! - and purchase tickets.  At the concession stand, popcorn was only $6.50 for a small!  You had to wait until you were inside the theater and find available seats.  If you got there late, TOO BAD FOR YOU, you were sitting in the front because you needed the light from the screen to find an empty seat, lest you end up giving someone an impromptu lap dance.

Now?

Now, you can view the seating plan online and pick your seats ahead of time. You can bypass the indoor box office, proceed to the concession counter, mortgage your home for some popcorn and sell your car if you wish to have a beverage, and go right to the seat that you want.  If some creep is in the seat you want, you have every right to tell him to move it or lose it, becuase you have a ticket that you purchased 10 hours beforehand that states that seat F7 is YOURS.

This very blog is even a testament to the change of times. When I comeplete this (and edit it 50 times - we didn't have this new-fangled OCD in my day either... you hand-wrote everything ONCE and moved on with your day), I will post it on Facebook, as always.

If this were way back yonder in the calendar, I would have to grow up, overcome fear of speaking in front of people and stage fright, develop a career as a stand up comic, get on the Tonight Show (...with Johnny Carson, by god!  In my day with have that "Jay Leno".  And we really DID like it!), deliever this material to you, get sued by Dana Carvey for stealing his act, and end up broke.  That seems like a lot of work.  But thanks to technology, and Al Gore, I can post this on Facebook with one click and Dana Carvey will never know about it because he isn't my Facebook friend (Want to know why?  Because I saw "Master of Disguise" and I am surprised he has any friends left).

Also, I managed to coordinate a movie outing with two other people without exchanging a single word. It took 4 text messages and a couple of clicks online, all in under 10 minutes.

In 1986, that would have taken 4 days.

So tonight we're going to see "Ted", with Mark Wahlberg and Seth MacFarlane.  Ted is a foul-mouthed drunken computer-animated teddy bear.  We didn't have that in my day!  We had E.T.

E.T. was played by a real person.  If they made that movie today, E.T. would be a pile of pixels voiced by Ashton Kutcher.  There were real people in the Howard the Duck suit too.  Today, Howard the Duck would be a pile of pixels voiced by... well... Ashton Kutcher.

I don't mind Seth MacFarlane, but come on, even if you want to use his voice, at least throw Warwick Davis in a teddy bear suit.  I'm paying good money here.

I've written about things like this before, the whole "in my day" theme, (see A, B, Start, Select, Up, Down ), but the more things change (by which I mean the older I get), the more it amazes me how we got along just fine without the "conveniences" we have now. 

Example.  About two weeks ago I had a call come in at work, an older gent, wanting a meeting room.  So I says to him, "no problem", I says.  Well, seems his group needed to conference call with two other folks in other states.  Seems reasonable, yes, sir, we can help you with that.  He asks me if there is a way we can set up a TV with live video conferencing ability to these two other states. First of all, this isn't the NBC Newsroom and we're not trying to talk to our correspondant in Jalalabad.  It's a freakin' hotel, and I have never heard of anyone wishing to 3-way live-video-conference via television set in a hotel meeting room before.

I told him to download Skype.

(No, seriously, I did)

This is one of my favorite things to both laugh at and be annoyed that I didn't have... two of my nieces, when away from their mother, will actually sent text messages to said mother with complaints and tattles.  * buzz buzz *   * tap  *  * select *    * read *  "Mom, she won't feed the dogs!"

This is both hilarious and grossly unfair.

In my day, I had to get up and walk around, sometimes all the way down the block to the neighbors' houses, and actually locate my mother or father in order to whine about something my sister was or was not doing.  These kids today don't even have to move more than a finger to annoy their parents and they don't even need to be anywhere near them.  Hell, they don't even need to make a sound!  I always thought I was a grade-A whiner because I could take a one-syllable word and stretch it into a paragraph. These lazy little punks can whine without even making noise!  (granted, I'm in favor of that, but still...)

I sense that one day, I will have a kid whining at me that she has to THINK in order to activate the television/satellite/cell phone microchip in her head in order to make a call and that it's too much work.

And I'm going to hear myself saying "Oh shut up. I have had to do everything you can imagine to make phone calls.  There was a time we had to use our finger to TAP THE SCREEN."  And she's going to look at me in horror.

Then she's going to close her eyes, think real hard, activate her instant brain message chip, and send a message to my chip to tell me that her brother is bothering her.

Boy, did Robert Zemeckis have the wrong idea of what 2015 will be.  If ONLY hoverboards were real and it wasn't so taxing to have to tap a small rectangle to call someone.

There are FIFTY?

I was looking at Cosmo online. This is a problem right away, I know, but bear with me.

Over the years Cosmo has taught me a lot... and then one day I realized that, in actuality, Cosmo has only taught me the same thing over and over, which tricks you into thinking you're being taught "a lot". And then I realized that the thing Cosmo has taught me over and over was that they only have two things to offer me... stuff I already know and stuff I would never do.

These are all real article titles that I got from their website. And guess what, all of these are the same damn article...

10 Cravings All Guys Have

28 Moves For Wow-That-Was-An-Amazing-Night

Best Kama Sutra Tips and Sex Positions

10 New Sex Positions To Try

The Cosmo Girl's Guide to Oral Sex

Hang on... that last one... um, what? No, don't read that article. Just don't.

(sidenote: if you're related to me, you probably should just stop reading right now, because I really don't need you staring at me in horror over Christmas dinner. Go read the one I wrote about infomercials instead. I promise, it's funny)

They are not going to tell you anything that's going to help you. Every article about that topic comes down to one thing... "have him drink pineapple juice."

I don't really know whether or not that one is true because no normal evening can possibly involve a woman approaching her man with glass of pineapple juice and saying "Here, I brought you a drink." (By the way, who actually keeps pineapple juice in their house as a habit to begin with? Unless a bottle of Malibu is on the same shopping list, of course)

If his reply is anything other than "What the hell for? Go get me a beer." then what you have on your hands is a man who knows what's about to take place because he has been reading Cosmo also, and that presents a whole other set of problems.

Here's the only guide to oral sex you need. Pay attention:

1) They like it.

2) They want you to do it. Probably a lot.

3) This is a perfectly reasonable substitute for regular sex.

4) They really would like more of this.

5) If you don't want to do this, you can probably distract them with a bottle of beer and a couple of shiny objects. Dangle some car keys in front of them or turn on some type of sporting event. Or a cartoon.

There, that's your list. Five simple points. And I probably could have stopped at two. Because I know better. Cosmo knows better too, but they are in the business of selling magazines, so they have to tell you that there are "20 things you never knew about some x-rated thing or another" or "70 things to try in bed" or "45 ways you know he's into you."

There aren't. Whatever number of things they tell you there are, divide it by 5, and that's your core set of information. And I'm being generous.

I've been onto the Cosmo peoples' tactics for years. Don't con me with "15 things to try in bed tonight", because I read that article six issues ago when you were calling it "10 ways to have a hot night." So don't make up five more things about 'surprising' him with a blindfold and feathers and expect me not to see right through the trickery.

Now once in awhile, they slip you one that's helpful or informative, like "Best Drugstore Cosmetics Under $25", or one that's a little entertaining, like "Supermodels Without Makeup" (I always look at those... "Hey, look, Claudia Schiffer looks like absolute dogcrap first thing in the morning too! Yay!" Kind of makes you realize they are just people like us. It's rather heartwarming!!)

Basicially, the rule - by which I mean MY rule - with Cosmo (or any of these publications, really) is this: Whatever is printed on the cover in the biggest, boldest font is nothing but recycled crap with a new title, and all it's going to tell you is to greet your man at the door wearing nothing but silver slingbacks and holding a Swiffer.

The one in the second biggest font, also recycled, is going to tell you, yet again, about G Spots and where, how, when and why to go looking for them. What they do not tell you is that it's like a hunter trying to shoot an invisible deer 1600 yards away.

The one with the font that's just slightly smaller than the G Spot font is going to give you 4, 6 or 8 "quick tips" for a flat stomach. It's always an even number with the exercise tips. And one of them is always "drink plenty of water". You know what, I'll give you the only tip you'll ever need for a flat stomach... wake the hell up from your dream. We are what we are. Oh, and drink plenty of water.

But this time, they came up with one that got me to click...

50 Great Things To Do With Your Breasts

And when I read that, I swear, I went like this:

"Whut?"

There are fifty? I can only think of about... three.

And you know good and damn well, if you've ever read even one of my posts, what I'm about to do.

I'm reading them as I go, and obviously for the sake of time and space I'm only going to pick the ones that make me laugh the most. But I can't imagine anyone actually doing at least 48 of these.

Go braless and wear a silk or combed-cotton tee—it'll feel amazing brushing against your skin all day

So, Cosmo, you're suggesting I choose the from two thinnest materials known to man and then go out - "all day", it says - without a bra. Good idea, thank you.

When you're lounging together on the couch reading or watching TV, guide his hand inside your bra and have him lightly scratch your breasts with his fingertips.

Well, then what am *I* supposed to scratch?

Clasp your hands behind your back and pull them away from your body, slowly rotating to the left and right to give the twins a nice stretch.

Stretch? Why, are they about to do yoga? So, boobaerobics, you say. Interesting.

Overheated at the beach? Slip an ice cube out of your drink, and glide it over your cleavage.

At the BEACH? NO!! Sorry, but I have a long-standing rule about not playing with ice and body parts in public. Call me a prude if you must. (Who does that outside of a Sex and the City movie?!)

Dare him to unhook your bra without using his hands.

Right. Most of them can't even do it WITH their hands. But yeah, go ahead and try this one. Report back in 4 hours.

Humid summer weather can trigger boob sweat and clog your girls' pores. Give yourself an exfoliating breast facial.

Now... this one isn't a half bad idea. The only reason I'm including it is to highlight the stupidity of the next one...

When you want to go purse-free, stick your ID and credit card in your cleavage.

I know people do this, I'm not particularly opposed to it. I don't do it because... well I can't. But the fact of the matter is they've just been so kind as to point out my boob-sweat, yet they're telling me to hide stuff in there. Great idea*.

*actually, it's a great idea for people who always want you to hold their stuff for them... "Could you please hang on to my phone, keys, wallet, cigarettes, sunglasses, extra beer cozy, flashlight, jumper cables, folding chair and 4 lighters?"... "No problem. They might be a little moist when you get them back..."

When you're feeling sore around your period, wrap a refrigerated raw lettuce leaf around each breast and hold it there until it wilts

WHAT?!?!

"Look, honey, my breasts can spoil food! Hey, wait, where you going...?"

Re-create a much comfier version of Madonna's infamous cone bra in the bubble bath.

9 out of 10 of you will admit to doing this, and the 10th one is a liar. Don't even...

Draw an attention-grabbing circle around your nipples using rhinestones and body glue for a special night in.

You lost me at "glue". Bedazzle your boobies? Try again, Cosmo.

Put temporary tattoos of his name around your nipples, and give him a peek when you bend forward in an undone button-up.

His name has 3 letters. I don't have that much room. Thanks for depressing me, Cosmo.

Work silicone bra inserts in a tank top for a day, and keep a tally of all the men who stare at your cleavage.

Anyone else see the same flaw that I see in this one? (god I hope so)

Prop up a mirror next to your bed, lie down on your back with your top half hanging off, and marvel at just how awesome your boobs look from a whole new angle.

I've owned them for years, Cosmo. Pretty much can identify them from all the angles.

For touchable tatas, use this do-it-yourself mask: Mix two egg yolks (a natural skin softener) with one cup of beer. Dab the mix on your breasts, and rinse after 20 minutes.

...your skin will be soft, but you'll smell like a beer-omelette.

Wait a minute... beer-omelette... um... hang on, I'll be right back. O.o

In all seriousness, I don't condone wasting beer, but for the opposite sex what you have here is a nice beer / boob combo, so I might have to call this one a draw.

And finally:

Make a donation to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation in honor of your boobs.

Now THIS one, I have done, and will continue to do. Finally they came up with a good one.

Save Second Base.

http://www.journeytothecure.com/

Here is the original article just to prove that I didn't just make all that up, as well as for your own facepalming pleasure...

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/advice/tips/things-to-do-with-breasts

"From my big beautiful warlock brain..."

I could hold back no longer. The time has come.


The time for... The Charlie Blog.


I could have done this 2 months ago, when he went batshit, but no... it became clear pretty quickly that it wasn't going to be a one-time episode of batshit. It was going to last awhile, so I wanted to have as much of the information as possible before proceeding. We haven't really heard much from Charlie over the years that wasn't scripted. Turns out, he was saving up all his batshit for one grand Mount Saint Helens episode of Super Batshit.

Of course, too many people either were never interested or are now burned out on The Charlie Show. But screw that, this is MY show now. :-P

But what to call it? After... what? A month or two? ...of the some of the most insane quotes you'll ever hear in your life... which one is a fitting enough title for my piece?


Among the contenders were...


"Duh. Winning." ~ The obvious choice. I love it, but it's everywhere now, and worn way thin.


"Boom, crush. Night, losers. Winning, duh." ~ Holds the core idea with just a bit more flair. Boom.


"I don't have time for their judgment and their stupidity and you know they lay down with their ugly wives in front of their ugly children and look at their loser lives and then they look at me and they say, 'I can't process it' well, no, you never will stop trying, just sit back and enjoy the show. You know?" ~ Sorry, Charlie (Baaahaahaaa!). Good, but way too long.


"I have defeated this earthworm with my words. Imagine what I would have done with my fire breathing fists." ~ This one intrigues me. He managed to get "earthworm" and "fire breathing fists" right into the same musing.


"I'm not wearing a golden sombrero." ~ We might have a winning winner, here. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. And I like that.



"I'm an F-18, bro. And I will destroy you in the air. I will deploy my ordinance to the ground." ~ What happened to the earthworm?


Nope. No good. Need a warlock reference. Not complete without a good warlock reference. And so there we have it.


Ahhh, Charlie. Where to begin? At the beginning, yes, but... which beginning?


I think I shall go the Pulp Fiction route, start in the middle, and work my out to each end. Royale with Cheese, anyone?


When the whole "Sheen Drama"... wait... which Sheen Drama? Well, the most recent one. Wait... which most recent one? I think I'll start with the weekend hooker bender in Las Vegas 2 months ago. So when the whole Sheen Drama began about 2 months ago, it made the news with an alleged report that the cast and crew of Two and a Half Men weren't for sure if he was going to report to the set after being holed up all weekend long in Las Vegas on a pretty serious durg, booze and hooker bender ("Hooker Bender"... you guessed it! Band name!). I remember reading that particular story on TMZ... (Don't navigate away! Stay here! Just right-click and open it in a new tab :-P )


(I'm not usually much about following all the celeb gossip, but I have to admit, when there's a good story going, TMZ certainly makes it interesting...)


Later came the stories of more partying and eventually hospitalization. Despite the jokes I have made and will absolutely continue to make, I don't find those things funny. I don't know him, and it may be a case where he needs a great deal of help, and in that instance, I hope for nothing but good health and recovery for him.


For the moment, however, Chuckie seems to be enjoying this ride and has taken the jokes made at him and embraced them, loved them (violently) and took ownership of them (all the way to the bank).


Make zero mistake... I sincerely laugh WITH him, not AT him.


When Warner Brothers/CBS put Two and a Half Men on indefinite hiatus, things got interesting. A now-famous radio show call-in rant to the Alex Jones Show followed by an open letter from Sheen posted on TMZ opened the floodgate to a parade of "What The Fuck?" that made Lindsay Lohan look like Rainbrow Brite.


We all watched in disbelief. Yeah, it was believable... we know he's been in a kerfuffle or two in his day, no surprise there. But this was a whole new amazing level of kerfuff.


The thing that, in my humbly-bumbly opinion, made it seem more bizarre than it probably was, was that much of this was coming out in print. You lose tone and context that way.


So when one reads a printed piece quoting Charlie Sheen's "rants" about fire breathing fists, earthworms, octagons, "Chaim Levine" and tiger blood... one is likely to deduce that Mr. Estevez has gone full-tilt mental.


It wasn't until he started showing up on every single talk show that would have him, and I watched and listened, that I realized that when you put those things back into context and apply his normal humor and smartassical (it's a word!) tone, you have Charlie doing what Charlie has pretty much always done... talking like a self-involved, smarmy bad boy.


Granted, the arrogance is still a bit much, but the tiger blood and the bitchin' rock star from Mars and all the other seemingly insane ramblings are really just a guy sitting there being an incredibly epic smartass.


Right around the time of his appearance on 20/20, I described the situation to a couple of people as the train wreck that just keeps rolling over and over, and just when you think the train is going to stop, it smashes into about 20 more things.


For my official stance, I think it's pretty sad and unfortunate that the whole cast and crew of Two and a Half Men have ended up without a job, at least for the time being, due to his behavior and subsequent mouthing-off. I can appreciate his statements about fighting for those people to be paid, et cetera, but fact is fact... he kinda started the whole thing. The execs took action. Would any workplace tolerate such behavior from an employee? Not likely, my friends. They did what they felt they needed to do.


In return, Charlie is doing what he feels he needs to do.


At the end of the day, that's all it really is.


The fact that he's doing it so publicly, I believe, it what has people so bug-eyed about the whole business.


Me, I'm doing what Chuck-o told me to do - "enjoy the ride" he said. I do realize that at this point, it's been in the news just a bit much, and there are much bigger and far more important issues going on at the moment with the earthquakes and tsunamis rocking Japan all over the map, and now the nuclear crisis.


But still, it's given me a lot of entertainment. The endless jokes and parodies have been enough entertainment for the rest of the year.


One of my favorites was a tweet from John Stamos on February 25th:


"contrary to the rumors, i am not replacing charlie sheen on two and half men. however, martin sheen has asked me to be his son."


My other favorite thing was Jimmy Fallon's parody:







Unfortunately, not everyone is enjoying Charlie's adventure quite as much. As I've come to learn, a certain orange, fuzzy inhabitant of the Hundred Acre Wood (no, I don't mean Snooki) is a few of bright shades of pissed off...

Additionally, a certain professional golfer feels he's had enough bad press in the last year and is ready to take action should Mr. Sheen choose not to cease and desist about his feline plasma...

But you have to admit, it's been an interesting ride. Mr. Sheen, formerly Carlos Estevez, has been acting since the age of 9, but most of us became aware of him in the mid-80s, through such films as Red Dawn or Lucas.


Personally, I first saw him in the role for he which he was denied an Oscar nod - the role of "Boy In Police Station" in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. And I will certainly admit, I would not have kicked Mr. Estevez out of bed for eating crackers back in the day...

Ooh la la... WINNING, indeed.


Ok, Tiger Beat moment over. And you know what, stroll down memory lane over too...

What was I thinking... we don't need a career recap. It's all moot. Ferris Bueller, blah blah, Wall Street, Blah bitty blah blah, Hot Shots, blah bitty bitty blah blah BLAH. Nothing he's done can possibly stand up to his current starring role in "Charlie's Whirlwind of Whatthefuckery". I'm starting an immediate movement to get this guy as next year's Academy Award host.

I've decided that, whatever we think of him and his behavior of late... we have to be honest with ourselves here... he is truly living the dream... the dream of being able to walk around all day, every day, saying WHAT THE HELL EVER YOU WANT to whomever you want, (so much so that you even lose your job doing it) and (STILL!) making a crapload of MONEY doing it! He's about to make 7 million dollars for doing just one month of live shows. Just Charlie in a chair on a stage for 90 minutes ranting about tiger blood and octagons. Let's look at this! $40 to $80 a head. 7 MILLION DOLLARS in a month. For sitting in a chair being a mental patient.

Batshit as he may be, the guy is a friggin' genius!

(hang on... wasn't that Clinton's campaign slogan?)

(if it wasn't, it should have been)

With this blog still in draft status, the tides have turned yet again, and I'm now reading that Chuckie wandered into Jimmy Kimmel's show last night for a little smoochy smooch and now today may be asked back to Two and a Half Men.

The dream continues!

Not only can he wander about freely, saying whatever he wants to whomever he wants, lose his job doing it, go on to make 7 million dollars in one month for nothing more than sitting in a chair on a stage for 90 minutes ranting about weird b.s., randomly march onto Jimmy Kimmel's set and kiss him full on, he THEN gets to go BACK to the job that FIRED him (no doubt with a giant raise).

Dear Charlie Sheen... go play the lottery. Seriously.

Dear Jon Cryer... I'm sorry.

Dear Emilio Estevez... just curious, do you have tiger blood, also?

Dear Jimmy Kimmel... get tested.

There can't be an end to a blog about a story with no end. So, as the cast of Lamb Chop's Play Along would tell you (if Sherri Lewis were here to help them do it), this truly is The Song That Doesn't End.

Yes, it goes on and on, my friends...

Power Windows, Rack and Pinion Steering and California Emission!

No, I haven't won a trip to the Price Is Right (damn it!). But if Rod Roddy were alive, he could tell you all about... I still don't really know what rack & pinion steering is, but I did eventually come to figure out why they were always yelling about "California emission" on that program. I was six, give me a break. Anyway... Most of us have been through the new car buying process at least once. As a matter of fact, until now, I had only been through it once. My first two cars were... wow. One of them technically wasn't even mine, as in it was not in my name, but (long story short) I paid for the damn thing, so ... MINE! Many of you know about that one... The [sarcasm] WONDERFUL [/sarcasm] 1988 Lincoln Continental. That car was such a great car to drive, honestly... when it was running, at least. It was roomy and comfortable and looked great... but it was hit or miss whether its insidey parts were going to cooperate or not. That was the car with the transmission that randomly decided, all of its own accord, on a cold December evening while it was parked at the (old) Brickyard (with it's steep, SLANTED upper level parking lot), that the "park" feature was optional. You see where this is going? Came out of the mall and... "wait, I KNOW the car was parked right here..." Yep. Car done went and toddled off all by itself. Slipped out of park all by itself (bypassed 'reverse', somehow - I still can't figure that one out) and went forward.... down the hill. Found it in a tree. (ok, I found it wedged up against a tree, a very tiny tree... uh, make that a very tiny tree which was also the ONLY thing that prevented it from smashing down onto the roadway below... but "found it in a tree" is a lot funnier...) Then came my official first car (as in MY name on title)... my 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais. We've all had at least one "beater"... well this was mine. So was the Lincoln, but this one was visibly a beater. Honestly, I wish I had pictures of this one. The backstory here is that my grandpa bought it used sometime in the mid-90s. When he passed, my sister got it. When she no longer needed it, I got it. I believe I became the owner of this vehicular nightmare right around October of 2000. It ran for me without issue (except for heat that worked only if it felt like it) until exactly October of 2001, when it died a swift death, luckily right in front of my parents' house, and not somewhere highly inconvenient... like on 294 or ... on the way to Arizona. Yes, it's true. I was about to dosomething as stupid as trying to drive that bad boy 1800 miles across the country. It wouldn't have made it 10. The universe intervened and killed the car for me less than a week before I was going to traverse about 7 states with it. The universe likes to teach me lessons in stupidity, I find. Anyway, a blog like this wouldn't be complete if I didn't give a brief rundown of this car. It was a piece of crap, yes, but it was MY FIRST piece of crap, so I do hold a weirdly special place in my heart for it. It was gray and it had Bart Simpson hair. By that I mean all of the paint on the roof, ALL OF IT, was peeling up in large spikey-looking points at a pretty rapid pace. And the glove box... By the by... has anyone EVER used that compartment to store gloves? I haven't. I throw them on the back seat. So why don't they call it what it actually is... the "5 year-old insurance cards--Broken Tire Gauge--Random Air Freshener--Owners' Manual I've Never Looked At Except When I Couldn't Set the #!*#@ing Clock--Collection of Extra Starbucks Straws For When Those Shipdits Forget To Give Me One (and I Forget To Ask)--Working Tire Gauge--Pile Of Chipotle Napkins--Visor Mirror That Fell Off And I Never Fixed--Random Black Sharpie--Expired City Sticker From Last Year (Because I Might Need It!!)--Unmarked CD That Isn't Even Mine--Errant Happy Meal Toy--What the Hell Is This Plastic Thing?--And Pen That Doesn't Write-Box"? Anyway, the "glove" box wouldn't stay closed, but there was a light in there, so I had to find a way to keep the hatch closed so the light didn't kill my battery. (p.s. 10 years after the fact might be a bad time to think of this, but why didn't I just take the damn light bulb out?) So, the glove box was held shut with a slide bolt. Then there was the back of the front (drivers') seat... the little lever to adjust the recline was broken, (or missing... I'm not sure) so the back of the front seat was MacGyvered in place by a strategically bent wire coat hanger. I don't quite recall if it came to my sister that way, or if the jerry-rigging took place while in her possession, but it definitely arrived to me that way. And it worked too! That is, until the day I took it to the Emission Testing station. Now... I have a question for people who work at places like Emissions Testing, Jiffy Lube, Discount Tire, or anywhere else where you're not driving my car more than 5-10 feet... WHY IN HELL ARE YOU TOUCHING OR MOVING ANYTHING?!?!?! You're not driving across the STATE, you're pulling my car out of the bay and giving it back to me! It's not your hooptie, ok? You don't need to be reclining the seat in a car you're driving for 6 seconds! (he changed the radio station too... THE HELL?) I'll tell you, I've moved a lot of cars that weren't mine, and I've never had to move on in and make it comfortable for me when I was only going to be driving it 40 feet. So Emissions Testing Dope screws with my MacGyvered seat, and would you care to go ahead and guess what happens JUST as I pull out into traffic... back of the front seat falls down, will NOT stay up no matter what I do, and I have to drive all the way home with no back of the front seat. Now, you might not know this, but as it turns out, the back of the front seat is a pretty essential piece of equipment for an automobile. So, the gentle passing of my Bart Simpson MacGyvermobile brought about the necessary purchase of a new car... this would be my first off-the-lot brand new car. Also spinkled into this timeline was my 1997 Isuzu Rodeo, the only SUV I've ever had (and the only sunroof I ever had!). I didn't have it long, but still worth mentioning for comedic purposes... and the comedy involved here was that I had this one in Arizona and it had leather seats. *That* was amusing on the first "warm enough for shorts" day... because in Arizona, there is no "warm". You go from "it's chilly outside" one day straight to "it's hotter than hell" the next day. And if you're wearing shorts and you forget the car has leather seats, you're in for a treat when you head out to the store. Ever try to hover over the seat while you drive? I've always wanted a car with heated seats, but that was a little more than I bargained for. But coming back to my poor little '02 Nissan... in 9 years, I can name just two things wrong with it... the color of the exterior and the color of the interior. Apart from regretting both, my little 2002 Nissan was a very great car. Ran well, no major issues, etc. But I'll tell ya, if you ever look at buying a car that isn't black or gray, or something dark and/or common and blendable... think long and hard. It didn't take more than a week or two before I looked at it and thought "Why in god's name did I buy a bright-ass green car?" And later on, after a very greasy, barbecue flavored doggie bag leak in the back seat, part two of that regret came into play, "... with a beige interior?!" Never again, said I. Still, I miss my little car! I even had an official travel mascot who sat in the passenger door handle... a tiny stuffed giraffe named Allison Janney. Well, now I have a new car and a new mascot... a small green (in memory of my '02) rubber duckie named Irwin. For safety purposes, this is not the actual Irwin, but a reasonable facsimile. I've not yet decided whether to post a photo of the car... it can't be all that safe, posting photos of what you drive on the big scary interwebz... but it hardly makes sense to write about it and not show it either. Well, let's carry on see what plays out... Ahhhh, the joy of a shiny new car. This time I said NO oddball colors and NO freakin' beige interior. I purposely went online and searched the dealership's inventory, and found that though they had a decent number of the same model on the lot, only one had the interior I wanted. So when I got there and they (upon seeing a woman arrive) wanted to show me a bunch of flashy shiny things, I said "I want to see stock number 11399." Then guy tried to talk me in to the shiny red one with the sport features, which kind of offended me. End story, when I left that lot, I left it driving stock number 11399. Not my first rodeo, Yosemite. Let's not try that trick again. But oh the fun and joy... and fear!... of having a new car. "Don't touch it!" "Hmm... better park way down there where there are no other cars or people... that's ok, I'll walk the extra 14 blocks, I don't mind." "Ok, I don't mind you looking at it, but please don't look too much.... you're getting eye-prints on it!" "HEY! Watch the floormats, asshole!" (The papers that they put on the floor at the dealer are still in it. Yes, I'm serious. And I'm about to install $20.00 Target floormats on top of the $125.00 factory ones. No, I'm not kidding. Don't worry, they match.) I can't wait until anyone asks me, "Mind if I smoke?" I'm gonna say, "Mind making the rest of the payments?" Investigating the interior has been fun. I'm still finding things I didn't know about! Granted, I could just read the manual, but the "manual" turned out to be an entire encyclopedia set. I took off the plastic and about eight books fell out (and even a DVD!!). With my '02, it was 5 whole years before I even touched the owners' manual, and that was only because I had to find out how to set the clock (after pushing every button on the whole car and still not being able to do it). "I know it says 'trunk release', but you don't know, it might work. Maybe it's hidden, like the 'easter eggs' on dvds...?". In my defense, at the time I lived where they don't have Daylight Savings so I never had to touch the clock. Now I have the same problem. The clock is four minutes fast and it's driving me bugfuck. I'm not going to start pressing buttons, though. I've chosen to simply accept defeat and look it up. This one has a lot more buttons, so it will take twice as long not to be able to figure it out. (epilogue: I started writing this last week and since then I had to change the clock for Daylight Savings anyway... looked it up in the manual... and the manual LIED. The button that the manual told me to press - "menu" - did not do a damn thing. The button *I* pressed - "clock" - ended up being the winner - go figure) Speaking of buttons! In-steering radio, CD and iPod control! (I did NOT base my purchase choice on said features, but since they were already in there... woo hoo!) And what's this business where you stop the car and it turns your volume down? I assume this to be a safety feature of some type... I don't know what that's called but the car needs to learn that it only needs to turn the volume down for me when I'm looking for an address. Another challenge... The speedometer and tachometer on my '02 were in the opposite position, but I was used to it. Now that I have a vehicle where these items are back where they should be, I keep looking at the wrong one. "Holy hell, I'm going 2200 miles an hour!" I think most cars now have an iPod/MP3 port, so that's not much of a boasting point... but when I plugged the iPod in, my iPod screen showed the Nissan logo and that's when I realized that the car and the iPod werecommunicating on their own. I'm not sure I approve of my devices being in cahoots with my car of their own accord. That makes me a little nervous. What if the car confuses the iPod with something else, like a GPS device and takes me to Clarksville, or thinks I want to go walkin' in Memphis? (Thank god I didn't download "Goodnight Saigon"!) Uh oh. Remind me to delete "I Can't Drive 55"... I don't need the iPod screwing with my cruise control! You know what? That wasn't funny. Seriously. Ignore that. It also has one of those outside temperature indicators that I don't ever plan to bother looking at. It's a black car, so it's always going to think it's 126 degrees in the summer anyway. And in the winter... does it even matter? It should just say "Witch's Tit" with an up or down indicator. Oh, excuse me, it's not a black car... it is "Super Black", according to the manufacturer. And "Obsidian" (which isn't even usually black... durr) according to one of the 14,000 papers I got at the dealer. Either way, I guess it's better than "Mystic Green". Ok, so ya want to see it? Sure why not... in the last week, I've noticed that I am one of about 14.8 million people just in my own neighborhood with this particular year, make and model, and one of roughly 8.2 million with this year, make and model in this color. Y'all ain't gonna find me all that easily. Here she is: Yes, she's a 'she' and no, she doesn't have a name. It's bad enough I named the duck. This is the obligatory "new car the minute you get it home" photo. I recently found the "minute I got it home" photo of my '02. And I said the same thing I said a week after I got it - "why the f#@k did I buy a green car?" And that thought is the main reason you don't see the "Blue Onyx" version in that there photo. And finally... the last and best thing about her...