So, my wish list on Amazon.com has recently surpassed 200 items.  Does this make me greedy?   Hell no.  Does it make me astute?   Rock on.

           Amazon Used is my friend.  I would surely buy it a drink if it was not inanimate, and make love to it if I was not married.  Buying things with a point and a click for a penny is fun, although buying things with a point and a click and a buzz on is dangerous.  Nothing like getting something in the mail 2 weeks later that you only ordered cause it sounded like a cool thing to have at 2AM one morn after 3 tall snifters of brandy.   You should see me watching TV, hearing someone on Fox News make an aside about a quirky tome, and running for the computer to add it to my Amazon "wish-list"  -  its the modern mans form of calisthenics.

            Most of my cohorts already know my affinity for the written word.  I read 3-5 books at a time.  Theres a book in the bag for the train, 2 books aside the bed, half a dozen on the coffee table, a heap in the bathroom, a couple dropped in the hall that we choose to not pick up, one in the car, a couple we keep at your house, and I am leafing through one now as I type this.  If a book piques my intererst  (and all it takes is a Civil War tie-in, a woman swinging a sword, a gangster with a catchphrase, or a baseball player from the 1880-1930 era)  I shall peruse said title on Amazon.   I will add it to my wishlist.  I will then purchase it when my pile of "to read"  books is under 30 piled up around the house, the price goes under $2.00 used which screams MUST BUY NOW, or I am bored at work.

                     Ah, CDs.  I am certainly entitled to purchase my CDs on the cheap.  Its not as tawdry as stealing them online, and it saves me the work of burning some in return for friends who send me some.  My CD cabinet currently holds upwards of 500 discs  (to say nothing of the same amount of "cassettes" I bought back in the olden days)  so I dont want to hear any hooey about not putting any money in the hands of the artist by purchasing hald my discs used from an 80 year old woman that owns a "shoppe" and stumbled upon this Biohazard disc at a yard sale.   Last night I just got a killler live disc from seminal Texas metallers Reverend for $1.11.   What did you do last night?    Unless you saved a life or had sex, I win.

                Ah, DVDs.  I got the ENTIRE SEASON ONE of AMC's Roller Girls  (yes, a reality show about roller derby - be jealous!)  for less money than I spend on a New York Post and a can of beer while huffing for the evening train.  "Im Gonna Git You Sucka"  may be tough to explain when it comes with a $16.99 pricetag and no "directors commentary"  but its easy to hide in the familial audit when its only $1.99.  Hey, are you aware Season 1 of Wonder Woman  (go Linda Carter!)  is now hovering around $7?

                   So right now I have a total of 98 books on the wish list (my first grade teacher would be proud), 35 DVDs, and 74 slabs of music.  I must admit that I am amused by the fact that although I want them all, I can keep this wish list running for another 30 years and many items will lollygag on it the whole time, unpurchased and untouched.   I enjoy the fact that when my wife must visit to purchase me a well-deserved gift, she must agonize over a couple of hundred items and 9 full scrolling pages to get it just right.   My wishlist is like a hedgecrop maze one must wade through, with the danger of getting lost or disgusted  (Lita - It Just Feels Right! book, anyone?)   at any time.

                     In sumnation, my wish list is bettter than yours, and I have to go now cause Femme Fatale with Rebecca Romijn can be had for 60 cents.  See ya!

So check out this imbroglio I found myself in yesterday morn.

Penn Station, the newstand a hop, skip and jump from the A,C,E station where I board my rail. Each morning I work out of the city I purchase my NY POST there. At other times I have bought periodicals, gum, and beer. I am there all the time, and they know me.

Long story short (but still long) - yesterday I was armed with two twenty dollar bills in my wallet. Nothing else. Not only did I need my Post, I did not need anything else. I also needed to break one of those 20s, as I was going to be taking a cab home (the girls were at a kiddie birthday party in the eve feeding goats) and cab drivers have more a need of exact change than newstands that service hundreds of people do.

So, as I was a regular who has spent much money there and exhibited the silly loyalty only a commuter can, I grabbed my Post and handed over the 20. Please understand I NEVER do this. I always pay with the quarter, or a buck. If I have larger, I will grab some gum or something. If I only have a 20 I may grab a mag. But I did not NEED anything right then, I had a couple of packs of gum in the bag already, and a pile of unread mags on the coffee table.

So the guy immediatly starts shaking his head - no way, he does not want to do this transaction. Me, being Mr Jolly, immediatly snap back some sort of fire. He starts acting like he has no change, which is crap. ONE ten dollar bill, ONE five dollar bill, FOUR singles, and THREE quarters would have done this. But I suppose my 25 cent transaction was not pleasing to the man.

Make a long story short, I remind him of all the mags and chewables and beer I have bought at that stand. I do so mixing in some colorful language. His buddy comes over, playing damage control, and wants to have me sold my paper. So the idiot goes and gets a ten and EIGHT silver dollars, and a quarter. I can appreciate a gag now and again, but I demur, and tell him to stick em where the sun does not shine, and to give me back my twenty. I then go on my way, leaving them with a shower of epitaphs.

Lets keep in mind that if I bought a bunch of stuff and it came to $20.25, and I paid with TWO twenties, they would have had no problem giving me change.

I plan on calling the Post circulation dept today to alert them that a busy newstand in Penn refuses to sell their paper unless a customer has exact change. I also need to find a new newstand now. Well, thats not true....on the way home yesterday I stopped by to grab a can of Coors Light and bought it from the same two guys.

So I leave and get down to Broadway and still need to break these bills. I go into a stationary there and buy a couple of lottery tickets, and tell the guy I am going to grab the Post (kept by the door) on the way out. Well, I figured for sure I would win something on these tickets, as it was one of those "unplanned stops" which resulted in a lottery grab. Those are always the most heartwarming stories, and it would have made all of this worth it.

But no, not only did I not win anything on the tix, but I also forgot to grab the Post on the way out.

At least I got my change. 

               I mean, you have GOT to be kidding.  What the Mets have been doing here is absolutely absurd.   Fun to watch, something I am going to save scraps of to bury in the backyard so someone digs it up in 200 years and has a guffaw, but its just loony.   Lets look at facts, and not more Sheriff Tom soapbox preaching.  To spit up a 7 game lead with 17 games to play is unprecedented, even in backyard drunken whiffle ball tourneys, or pregame stickball forays on the top deck of the Yankee Stadium parking garage when the guys swinging the stick are named Gang Bang Steve and Ignorant Evan, and not Carlos Delgado or Jose Reyes.

                       The last two nights I have done something I would never conciously do, and that is tune in a Mutt game over a Yankee game.  I never even did that when I had a fantasy pitcher going in a big spot, when I was drunk, when I was trying to get into someones pants, or when I could not find the remote and being held in my chair at gunpoint.  THIS is something that beckons to be seen.  In fact, I am ruing not DVRing these games, as the crowd panning the sullen folk over at Shea is something to be seen.  Ragged rally caps, ugly women with birdbath hair, little kids taking a break from being beaten up in school to take in yet another Met loss.  I have not seen Mr Met about (well, aside from posing on the back of Newsday on the verge of suicide)  as he knows if he makes an appearance even the femme Met fans will clobber him to a grisly end.  As if there is more of a grisly end than their matadorish wave of the red flag to let the Phillies saunter on by.

                      Couple of notes to the Met fans.  First, your team sucks.  Secondly, eh, you want to boo?   Over at Yankee Stadium we'll boo when the Orioles tag on a sacrifice fly to pull within 8-2 with one more out to go, and here you guys are too busy whimpering or buying another Frostie Freeze to boo the inane wackadoozle of a performance on the field that is making your team more of a laughing-stock than they always were, playing serving wench to the Yankees all these years.  Secondly, go shoot your PA guy, who is too busy playing the same songs we hear at weddings trying to spark the crowd, which is as out of place as an orgy in a nursing home.  "Everybody - dance - now!"   Uh, no.  How bout everyone go in the bathroom and stick your head in the toilet, than men kiss your boyfriends, cause your team is losing their what, 12th out of 15, to close out the year?   

                  I have heard a Yankee fan or two, probably drunk from celebrating yet another Joba strikeout or playoff appearance, mention as an aside they "almost feel sorry for the Mets."   Eh, that is grounds for tarring and feathering.  Don't lose the bigger picture here.  The Met fans are in pain.  That is never a bad thing.  Part of me wanted the Mets to make the playoffs and do the old "3 and out"  playoff shimmy, but at this point I dont want them anywhere near the playoffs.  It would be a black mark on the game at this point.  The team is an embarrasment. 

                    Willie Randolph is a former Yankee classic, but he has to be fired.  I am big on when something bad happens, someone has to take a fall .  If I spill a soda in the kitchen, I walk outside and kill a bug.   If that grating "Hey There Delilah"  song comes on the radio for the 10th time that day and my daughter won't let me change the station, I honk the horn and give whoever is passing at the time the finger.  So Willie has to go.  Of course, none of this is any of my concern or business as I am a YANKEE fan, and not a MET fan, but then again we all know being a Yankee fan makes EVERYTHING our business and concern.

                   OK, quick easy drinking game.  From here till the end of the weekend, every time Mets pitching gives up a run, drink.  Every time Mets go down scoreless, drink.  Every time the PA guy plays the Chicken Dance while the Mets manage to sneak someone into scoring position, drink.  Every time Keith Hernandez, in the booth, whines "the 86 Mets would never have done that", drink.   Every time they show an old man shaking his head, drink.   Every time they show a kid with paint on his face, drink.  You'll be drunk by the 3rd inning.

                   In sumnation, what a sickening display of baseball at its worst.   You cant see me now, Met fans, but I am shooting you a moon.  Yeah, waving that thing too.  Get away from the playoffs, you are tarnishing it with the stink of your team.  I wave my fist at you, and say, "why, you...."

                  It started innoucously enough.  A trip the market with the girls. I had not even been drinking.  I was not even wearing my T-Shirt of the pointing Uncle Sam proclaiming "I Want Beer!"  which seems to offend a lot of people for whatever reason.  I just wanted to buy some stick cheese.

                 The shopping goes uneventfully enough.  I got to leaf through some Archie magazines...do you realize they have what they call "pinup pages"  with Betty and Veronica posing in bikinis, splayed out on rocks and on towels?   Is this like preteen porn or something?   Who is this marketed to?   Well, aside from guys my age leafing through in the supermarket.

                    I am actually whipping up Chicken Roquefort tonight, cause thats how I roll.  Its long been a goal of mine to whip up a recipe using crumbled up bleu cheese.  So we garner the ingredients, I slip a 12 of Saranac Summers into the cart, and little Emma gets yogurt drinks she inexplicably loves.  Its been a good day.

                    Trouble ensues at the checkout counter.  When does it not?  I blame the "Get out of Debt!"  mini-books, that put the poor in a bad mood, if the food stamps they are holding have not already.   I also blame the Princess Di tribute books.  I mean, lets move on already.  We need to get the paparazzi to chase someone else so we can get some new tribute books for the Waldbaums checkout counter.  Oh, and dont forget the $3.99 impulse buy videos they have on line.  Forget the fact that I picked up the 1977 classic "Snowbeast"  on line that day  ("A long time ago people believed the legend of the Snowbeast was in fact a very true story....they may have been right!")  - they are a waste of space, time, and money.   That happen to look great on my DVD shelf!

                    So we have this discount card cause we have a relative who does a good job of pretending to work at Waldbaums, and we use it to get like $4.44 off of every $100 spent or so.  So we whip out the card, share some guffaws with the checkout girl, make sure the beer is in the cart, and start to head out.  But the checkout girl reaches out to hand me what I think is our card.   I take it, with a pleasant thank-you, and good afternoon.  It takes me an inkling of a smidgen of a second to realize, ahoy, she already gave my wife Dana our card.  A faux pas has been made!   A boner!   I hand it back, quite quickly.  If you turned to check to see if your tuna contained riboflavin, you would not have even noticed.

                               Weeelll....the creepy lady behind me sure noticed. It was her card, you see.  Instead of just chalking it up to a silly mistake and moving on -  you must pick your fights, after all, she makes a look like I spit on her, in an attempt to wipe the pee I just doused her off with.  I mean, I have not seen a look of disgust like that since I used the "they call me Fred Flintstone, cause I really make the Bed-rock"  line at McMennamins Bar back in 1991.  I did not care for that look of disgust.  I can get those simply walking down the street, I dont need it when I am trying to buy angel-hair pasta and sour cream for this special dish I am gonna concoct.

                          So I kindly turn and retort, "You know, if I knew you were going to make a face like that, I would have thrown your card across the store."   See, I am good with that opening remark, that really sets it off.   A talent.  So this lady, who is with her kid - the poor spanker -  starts yapping.  She could rust a nail with that screech.  Myself, the wife, and the daughter all head out, laughing. I added only one remark, and it did not contain any fun symbols like *^ or !@* or even a *(&*.    All I said was, "go stick your head in the sand."   Man, I'm getting old.

                       That did it.  We left the store under a cavalcade of epitaphs. We load the car, discuss the merits of getting pizza on the way home, and try to avoid the Crazy Cart Collector guy.  And then here comes this chucklehead lady, out of the store, all the way across the store, howling to high heaven as her poor kid is trying to cover her mouth.  She does not even know where we are yet, but she is figuring we are out there somewhere  (we were)  and she was going to get our goat  (she wasnt.)  "You bald piece of white trash!"  she yelled.  Fancy THAT.  Me, white trash.  Um....yeah.  I fit the bill.  Bald I will accept.   I am getting near to the point I can comb my hair with a sponge, but I will take a receding hairline over an ADVANCING hairline anyday....that would be creepy.  Fodder for those $3.99 videos at the counter.   Could have been worse...she could have called me fat.

                         I just laugh it off, but Dana - God bless her - starts howling right back.  Basically correcting her in the fact of who was the white trash here, this lady was practically leaving a puddle of it on the way to the car.  My wife could have beat her ass.  I would have taped it on my snazzy phone, too. 

                       Gets worse, believe it or not. Check out what this nincompoop did.  We are now on the road, driving from the store, and she ends up in front of us at a light.  The light turns green....AND SHE DOES NOT GO!  FOR A WHOLE TWO SECONDS!!!   Oh my, that just crushed us!   We did not even get a chance to honk, we were too amused.  Then she starts swerving back and forth in front of us, always a great thing to do with a kid in the car.  Keep in mind, its ME that is the white trash.   Finally we part ways as we merge onto the Wantagh Parkway, and we get to wave our fingers in the air at her, while Emma literally gives her a THUMBS DOWN from her car seat.  We are ALL laughing.  Except this lady, who is screaming like a banshee.

                           We win.  We always win.  We laughed about it all day, even mailed a relative we had not spoken to in a year to tell them the story.  I am even getting a blog out of it.  But most importantly, its obvious we ruined her day.

                         Sometimes its better to ruin a day, than to enjoy one yourself.

                 So a bunch of you know I had been sporting a sling recently.  As I am wont to say, a beer bottle pushed me down the stairs.  Well, could have been a woman.

             As part of my stringent rehab, recently I decided to extend my arm for something other than giving passing motorists the finger, or reaching into the fridge for a Saranac Pale, and decided to do a puppet show at work.  My puppet shows are a total escapade.  They have it all, maudlin drama, jolly dancing, and even sexual overtones.  I have heard them called a dichotemy of the human spirit  (even though they involve a small red dragon and a fuzzy green guy that says, KISS ME, I'M IRISH")   and a statement on such matters as racism, high gas prices, and the illegal downloading of music.  Yes, I usually do them in front of very drunk people who are full of it.  Oh, not only are my puppet shows called these things, but they have also been called boring.   What can I say.

                        So, I was at work pretending to work the other day, and a bunch of my coworkers were taking their second lunch hour of the day in a conference room directly behind me.  Theres this little window inexplicably high on the wall, too high to see out of, not that you would want a nice view of our cublicle culture, anyway.  I saw like 8 people shuffle in there, with various baggeries.  I heard burps and laughter.  I decided to put a stop to it.

                         But first I had to pee.  6 sugars in each cup of tea will do that to a fellow.  So I pee, do some stretching excercises, stop in the back sales area to tell a bawdy joke, and head back to the desk and the White Castle hamburger sort of window on the wall.  I grab my two puppets, nicknamed "The Fierce"  and "The Black"  from a Manowar song  (their crony "The Wicked"  was tossed out of a speeding car by one of my friends a few years back).  Its time to set this house on fire!

                        The Black (who, for some reason, is actually red, and is also a dragon, remember)  starts by doing a dance just over the window.  You know, basic puppetry 101.  Shuffle to one side, stand erect, shuffle to the other side. Bouncing along.  Standing erect again.  Well, not really erect, but I heard a blog is 10 times more interesting if you sneak the word "erect"  in there.

                           Now he is jumping up and down. I am taking care to not let my wrist be seen over the window.  That could not only ruin the puppet show, it could get me beaten up.  It is a foul offense.  I reach over with my other hand and grab "The Fierce", the Irish bearded guy with the sign.  He too starts to dance.  I am working a rythym now, like a sweaty lover coiled in the laps of ecstacy, or a man pulling feebly on a lawnmower that wont start.  The two puppets work in concert, they are like one.  This must stop.

                                They need to fight. 

                              And there they go.  The dragon, vs the fuzzy Irish guy. There is absolutely no noise coming from the room on the other side of the window, these folks are apparenly enraptured.  I am as good with a puppet as I am with a harmonica, or some jacks, it appears.   The fight goes on.  But its all just an excuse for the, uh...makeup sex.  Yeah, my puppet shows are like, these modernistic fables and tales of yore . True Homerian epics that have all kinds of twists and turns.  And it helps that The Black is actually not only a dragon but, um, a woman.  Yeah, its a woman. So the sex between the dragon and the Irish thing is like, um, well, its not as unnatural as it appears.  Cause, like, its a man and a woman, you see.

                            So they're having sex in like, 80 different positions.  Missionary, cowgirl, standing 69s, I even had a plastic gun that got involved.  Now its time for the grand finale.....that shuffling dance again.   Cant think of another way to end it, and, besides, its a Hell of a dance.   I have been trying to coax my wife into doing it with me at weddings for 5 years now, but no go, cause only I seem to drink at these weddings.

                              So, show is over. I take a quick glimpse at my watch, and 10 minutes have burned.  10 minutes closer to 5PM, whoo hoo!   What a puppet show.  My arms are weary, especially the one fresh out of the sling.  The puppets need a cigarette and a return trip to the top credenza, next to my Yankee Stadium snow globe that sort of exploded and has all this murky brown water in it.  Well, it kind of looks like the floor of the bleachers, that, I suppose.

                            Now its time for my reward.  Everyone to tell me how cool my puppet show was, and how fun I am to work with, especially when I come armed to work with stories like how I fell down the stairs and busted my arm.  So, like a kid at Christmas, I pull open the door to the conference room and...

                          ITS EMPTY! 

                          What the F...jumpin' jehosophat.  You have GOT to be kidding.  I just did this incredibly intense puppet show at this window for absolutely NO ONE.   It could never be duplicated, I tried a few new things during it that I am wary of trying again.  Plus those "sexual positions"   hurt my arm.  

                        I turn to the rear to find out where the Hell everyone went  (basically, a different conference room cause someone had spilled a soda all over and no one wanted to clean it up)   and I saw a Chinese delivery man who had snuck into the office and was dropping off menus scurrying away.  He gave me a look of what I guess is consternation....that is enough for me.  He must have seen my show.  And I think it scared the crap out of him.

                                 I win again!

So tonight is the second series finale to Seventh Heaven, which was rescued after last years purported finale. I missed part of that after planning a theme party around the whole thing, cause some idiot slammed into a pole with their car and knocked the lights out. Probably one of my friends, just to screw with me

People wonder why I imbibe in the discombobulations of such a staid sort of show. Well, folks, it cant be all pro wrestling and baseball, can it? They wonder how I can sit through now that the striking Jennifer Beil is long gone. Well, the girl that plays Jane is pretty cute...also, there are some nice acoustic guitar beds that open and close a lot of the scenes.

Some idiot went and scheduled this up against Mothers Day...looks like my wife is getting an earlier dinner than planned whipped up by this chef right here (completely regaled in my "I cook like I look...GREAT!"  apron) - sure hope she gets the dishes done in time for the show.....zing!  But I joke. I do the dishes around here. She rakes the leaves.

I missed like the middle 8 years of Seventh Heaven before picking it up again cause I was drunk one Sunday night and thought it would be funny. My wife and I love to watch the show for its positive messages, then break them down and laugh at them as the credits roll. The acting is wooden, the extras dont know how to do proper extra things like walk in the background of a scene or talk in the background of an eatery naturally, and the T-Bone and Ruthie storyline is actually very engrossing, and I am rooting for the little rapscallion in this one. Martin is a putz, even if in real-life he is going to play college baseball at Arizona State.

All signs point to a happy ending tonight (in the grand scheme of things the fact that it opens up an hour a week to do anything else is a happy ending) which leaves me with mixed feelings. Seventh Heaven fans are diehards, they spend a lot of time on message boards praying and weeping for the characters, putting on this grand facade, while all the while probably partaking in orgies and doing druggery. So a little bit of death to close the curtain on the show would have caused some water cooler wailing, I am sure.

So leave me alone between 7 and 8, dont be running into any poles around my house or calling in any bomb scares that may evacuate my street. I have been looking forward to this finale since, well, about 10 minutes ago. I have the wheat beer on ice, I believe popcorn is also in order, and an hour to share with the Camdens and all their zany sidekicks. Seventh Heaven, you will be missed, but you will always have a guy like me banging the gong.

Excelsior!

     Reprinted from my archives without permission...

I am one of those few fabled drinkers that gets calls from long-lost buddies on St Pats, wishing me a good one, like people get on their birthdays or on Christmas morn. My crony Ding Dong Dave just called me after many a year, and after we blew the dust off things he recanted a favorite Tom St Pats memory, the time I was roughed up by a female cop who I had just happened to have attended high school with.

I was quite the Irish rover that day. Green beer, a shot here and there, I think at one point I even took my beer soaked shirt and stuck a bit in my mouth to suck off the excess foam for a while. I sang Irish ditties, and danced a jig. I told every Irish joke I knew, loudly. With each drink i found the bagpipe more and more amazing. By the time I left the last bar, not by choice mind you, I decided I wanted to put aside my harmonica at home and forget about my allusions to playing the violin and learn the bagpipe. But those thoughts were quashed by a more pressing issue....an altercation inside your friendly West 4th Street Subway Station.

I approached the ticket booth cause these were the arcane pre-Metrocard days, and was chagrined to find a line. Its one thing to wait in line to buy Yankee tickets or pee on a grave, but not to buy a token to give you the right to pass out on the C train and ride back and forth from the Bronx to Queens all night. I decided to move things along, by saying real loud, "um, can we move along please?" Just like that. Only a little slurrier. And with more urgency. Oh, and with curse words peppered in there, too.

You see, heres why we had this line in the first place. Cause it was St Pats you had a lot of people that decided to take their alcoholism to the streets and not out of their cupboard at home or hidden desk drawer for a change, and you had people in the city for the first time solely to buy a plasic green fedora hat or a "Kiss Me, I'm Irish!" balloon. While I hated the idea of the line in front of me, I will admit it was a pretty line, with all the green hue decorating the people in it.

Amazingly enough I made it to the front of the line without having to flash dukes or even tell anyone that was too curious to face eyes front, but I could not leave it well enough alone once I came face to face with your resident token clerk. She was almost as unhappy enough to be working the booth that day as I was to have to stand in that line while already having to pee. We ended up in a verbal altercation, and I am not too sure what precipitated it. She may have simply said "Top of the morning to you!" for all I know. Still grumpy about the turtles-fornicating speed of the line, I had a few cracks for her, which I spiced up with an epitaph or two. All in a brogue tinged with as much cadence as rancor.

And then it happened. The schmoe behind me put thier hand on my shoulder. I cant have that, I dont like to be touched there except during the tender act of lovemaking. I sort of shrugged it off, as by now I was pointing at the lickspittle in the booth and telling her where to go, and exactly how to get there. It was to Hell, via way of hobbing my knob or some such thing.

By now my shoulder was being tugged and I was being led away. At this point I already had my token so I really did not need the booth anymore anyway. But as I turned I decided to shove whoever decided to take me for a waltz. I mean why not? I am a man, not a bag of chips to rustle your hands through.

It was only after I made my contact that I noticed the police uniform. Not just any police uniform, these duds just screamed Double-XL. It was a woman, or a reasonable facsimile of such, big enough to crush dreams as she walked. And she was not happy with me. But how many women were?

You ever see footage from the 1880s of little girls in dresses smacking a hoop in front of them on some prairie grass as they run? Well, she was that little girl and I was that hoop. And the cement was that prairie grass. I ended up on the cold subway surface, after having taken a right turn at the corner of upside down and a quick stop at on my head.

I knew I was in trouble now. For one thing, I still had to pee. For another, I had a cop standing over me, cursing, and there were kids around. And they were laughing. I envied them and their balloons. They had the whole night in front of them, and I had this female cop that had a Rosie O'Donnell visage snarling down from an Andre the Giant frame.

I started to get up but she must have been tired and chose to use me for a footstool. Hey, I like a little foot fetish here and there, who doesnt want a boot on the back of thier head now and then? This, though, was not my idea of that fantasy evening. She was quite the tease too, that firebrand, telling me to get up as she grinded a heel on the head. I think that is where I got my bald spot, from her boot.

To make a long story even longer, she picked me up, with help from her stereotypical cop buddy, as I was listless and drunk. I was led out of the subway station to the applause of those I regaled with my improv performance at the ticket booth. "Please tip your waitresses!" I remember saying to the guffawing minions. "Keep walking, motherf  - - - er" my new friends in badges snarled in unison.

I was put in the back of a van, which already had a couple of sullen sods, one wearing a Hawaiin Lei for some reason. I wish I could give you more details of the denizens in the cramped van (or at least make some good ones up) but my mind was in, "ah, crap. This is going to take some explaining" mode. I still had to pee but I think asking to stop at the Wendy's on the way was a bad idea. Didnt stop me from asking...I could have used a Frosty too. Obviously the trip continued sans Frosty.

The behemoth, now in the passenger seat with a shit-eating grin on her face (in place of the usual cake frosting usually on there) then hit me with the most sobering statement of the day (at least since one of the bagpipers told me, "no, the Chinese dont play the bagpipes as far as I know") when she said, "I can't believe we went to high school together."

My heart dropped and I burped and it tasted like beer. Normally I would try to burp again to taste more beer, but for now I had to put these words together in my cloudy and already prematurely balding head. High school together??? Oh, crap, I realized. It was Margie - - - -. My only memory of her was a comic one, sitting on her shoulders in a pool only 5 or so years before, playing chicken at a party at a mutual friends house. She was obviously pretty big even then if I was on her shoulders. She and I sure did have quite the relationship, huh? First I ride on her shoulders and then she sticks her boot on the nape of my neck.

I honestly dont remember much after that, outside of sitting in a cell almost as small as the bathroom in my apartment back then in Long Island City (although the cell was much cleaner). One of those cops that masquerades as a tough guy behind the other side of the bars from those he accosts came to visit and threaten to "beat me up" for HITTING A COP. I "hit a cop" now??? All i had done was shoo my arm away from her. If all the hot dogs she ate had the same idea maybe she would have never gotten that fat.

In sumnation, the charges were dropped. NOTHING came of it. I was left to stew overnight in a vain effort to scare me (I dont scare easily, I once lived in Albany, New York) and I think I visited a judge, but I am not sure. (I have seen so many they kind of all blend in together)

The moral of this story? There is none, cept maybe turn around to take a peek at who you may or may not shove in the future when they grab at your shoulder. And do your own research on bagpipes and who invented them and plays them before you ask a bagpiper that is not in the mood to answer any questions.

                Somewhere around the turn of the century, I bought a book.  This was nothing new, and has happened dozens of times since. But this was a grandiose purpose, one of those tomes you hold aloft and people say, "oooooo."   This was a behemoth of a book, no less than 1162 pages long.  It was the winded tale of the scion Robert Moses, who lent his name to a beach I used to drink on.  There are also bridges, causeways, apartment buildings, and possibly babies named after him.  Bands have sung songs about him, and women have called his name during sex, even with me, which is downright creepy.

            Since I bought this book, a lot has changed.  Me, personally, I met a beautiful woman, got married, had a daughter, and she is turning 4 next week.  But, despite the fact that I pick up this book quite often and escape into the clutches of the verbiage spun, I STILL HAVE NOT FINISHED THE DAMN THING.

            This is my zaniest book tale.  Even beats the fact that two different people died within a couple of weeks of taking possession of the same exact book I lent them  (if I ever try to lend you "Pillars of the Earth"  by Ken Follett run and don't turn back!)   Why has it taken me so long to weave my way through this monolith?   I do like the book.  Moses is a hardass. I even say that his crabby nature inspired me, although that is not true.  I was crabby when I thought Robert Moses was not crooked.  That was surely a wakeup call. I like his fashion sense, I believe he wore white fedora type hats.  Although I am not sure, the pictures are in black and white, so even yellow would appear white, I guess.  I think he wore white suits, but that may have been Tom Wolfe, or Ricardo Montalbon.

            Anyhoo, I am now on page 553.  Son of a bitch, not even halfway through.  Well, there's a goal to shoot for anyway.  But before you snicker, gape, or guffaw at my negligence, reading 553 pages of this book is like reading 10 books two times over.  The verbiage is intense.  To wit -  page 553 actually contains 47 lines of text.  To compare, Tug McGraw's "Ya Gotta Believe!"   has 34.  But more words are crammed into this Moses thing.  The pages are like the size of a skillet.  And there are flowery lines like, "framed in marble and granite and flanked by the tombs of dead heroes"  while McGraws offering says stuff like, "well, ya gotta believe!"

            I originally started reading this Moses book on the recommendation of a friend, who was always good with advice, although it was more along the "you gotta try this new Sam Adams flavor"  or  "that girl would knock you out if you call her that"    Well, I did, and she did. He recommended this Robert Moses book, and in retrospect I am starting to think it was as a way to keep me quiet for 5 plus years.

            This book weighs like 10 pounds.  I have been hit with books before, but never one this heavy.  Girls cant really pick it up.  I lose the "look at me, I am like refined"  factor of reading this book, cause it is too heavy to bring on the train, especially since I am forever falling asleep and dropping my books on the dirty floor.  This book may crash through the bottom of the car.  The Long Island Railroad has enough problems without me bringing this dumb book on there.   The 15 inch gap, anyone?

            I feel good, though, in that I can have conversations about Robert Moses and sound really intelligent about it.  I even make up some stuff, and people cant tell the difference between the truth and me spinning yarns.  Did you know Robert Moses was like this swimming God back in school?   I do.  He was like tight with Governor Al Smith and stuff, too.  And he costs me an extra 8 miles a day on the Northern State parkway cause he made it do a loop-de-loop to save the property of one of his wealthy friends.  But every single stone crossing over that parkway is different, so there!

            Anyway, at this rate I will finish this book by 2012 or so.  My daughter will be friggin' 9.  She may finish the book before I do.  I bought the book to work to read during lunch, but I always end up back into the sports section of the New York Post.  I'm such a guy.  Maybe I will start a book club and we can discuss a chapter a week.  Or make that a year. Well, at least I qualify as a Robert Moses scholar.  I dont think the guy who wrote the book spent as much time working through this as I have, and I still have almost 600 pages to go.  Go me!

There was the one year I caused quite a stir trying to walk back to New York City from New Jersey, through a friggin' tunnel.  For the life of me I could not find the PATH station, but I found the PATH easy enough.  It was that big black hole leading under the water.  There was a walkway on the side, I guess for those that caulk over leaks or chronic masturbators to duck into, and I figured that would lead me where I had to go. 

 I did not get 5 feet.  Hell, my smell of alcohol had yet to follow me into the tunnel, when a series of lights and bloops went off.  I have had many a light shined on me (one bar I frequented to loved to throw a spotlight on me when I passed out and another whenever I decided to dance to Greased Lightning)  but the bloop is something altogether.  There are people fleeing a bank they robbed that don't get the bloops I heard that day.  I was ordered to stop and stand still, and handled the stop part ok, but could not handle the stop-still.  I really had to pee.  Oh, Mom would be proud if she could see me that morning.  To make matters worse I was carrying a Sesame Street thermos of Cream De Menthe, which I thought was a liquor and not a mixer, to drink on the way home.  It was the only bottle still laying there that was not empty.   I am not sure what pissed the lucky cop who had to deal with me that morning more, the fact that I was planning on walking through a train tunnel, or the fact that I thought you could simply chug a thermos of Creme De Menthe. Oh, and it turns out the PATH station was about 175 feet to the left.

            Hey, changing gears, ever have one of these exchanges on New Years morning?

            Someone  -  "I'm sorry, but I am going to have to ask you to leave."

            Me -  "I'm all for it…..I don't even know where I am!"

            Some people ring in the New Year by kissing someone, or even making whoopee.  One year I actually rang it in being beaten up!   I guess it was a couple of minutes before the new year, and I was at a house, and I was cutting the line at the keg.  The exchange got testy and words were tossed around for genitalia that were not only rude, but had never been used before, and I was told later that I swooshed my plastic yard cup at someone, dousing them with a snake-like stream of beer, setting things off.  I wish I would have remembered doing that. It became a staple of mine in later years.  Anyway, the one thing I do remember about this one is getting the weakest karate kick ever, by some girl that was standing there by the beer, looking to get laid.   I calmly kicked her legs out from under her, then ended up in a pile of Prince Charmings coming to her aid.  They were looking to get laid too.  As the crowd counted down from 10 I was busy experimenting on new ways to turtle under a barrage of punches.  My experimentations were not successful – I think there are bits of me still on that rug.  Inexplicably, when it was all said and done, and we all missed the midnight toasts, none of us were kicked out, and we all ended up passing around a Yukon Jack bottle together before getting into another fight at around 2AM.    

            Another year I was on an "Extreme Wrestling"  kick, and I spent the hour before midnight asking other revelers to "get me to juice"  or to "hardway me"     A bunch of people were playing a rollicking game of beer pong, and I sauntered over and politely asked if they could "put me through the table."    They needed the ping-pong table to continue the game, but I was told that if I could find something suitable they would surely love to hurt me.  Outside in the back was a neat pile of freshly cut wood for the fireplace.  "Can you DDT me through that?"  I asked someone.  So I got spiked headfirst into this pile, sending wood everywhere, and cutting my head.  I was not done.  "Here, whip me with this"  I said, taking off my belt and offering it around.  Not one of my best years.  I ended up falling asleep on a chair in the garage that night, and woke up with about 20 people sprawled around me all over the floor.  I felt like Christ on high.  Sure made navigating my way to the bathroom, then to find another drink, in the morning pretty laborious.  Yes, people can call you an "asshole"  in their sleep.

            I spent one year, and one year only, in and around Times Square to "see the ball drop."   What a stupid thing to do.  I would rather do situps under a parked car.  I swear, we didnt end up within 7 blocks of the thing.  Could not see the ball, could not see a big screen with the ball, just saw asses and elbows.  And talk about prematurely ejaculating, the street I was on celebrated New Years SEVEN MINUTES too early that year.  I was on top of an ambulance with a bunch of people when the countdown started.  I guess someone was bored and simply decided to kick things off.  Problem is, everyone joined him.  We get down to zero, everyone cheers, I join a couple of other drunks in diving off the ambulance to a crowd that ends up dropping us to the ground, and bottles are passed around and a few wallets lifted.  A couple starts having sex on the roof of the ambulance while others pour drinks on them.  Everyone is jumping up and down and singing songs, and I am limping to the curb cause my knee is busted up from my ambulance dive.  I reach into my pocket for my now broken bottle of blackberry brandy and the guy next to me chuckles and says, "its not midnight yet."    "Yeah, you too, dude, happy new year."  I say, not getting it.  "Dude, its only 11:54"  he says.  I finally decide to check my watch under the 5 layers of clothing I am wearing (it was like 10 degrees that night)  and yeah, he was right.   I simply got the Hell out of there, cause I was not going to go through that cacophony again,  but before I left I looked one more time and there was now a all-hands-on-deck orgy going on on that ambulance roof.  By the time the ball dropped I was on a C train to meet some friends at a party I was told not to show up for until it was really late and the hosts would be too drunk to care that I showed up after all.

            I had a run of 4 years in a row where I just plain missed the midnight revelry as I fell asleep beforehand.  On one of those years I was up and about with as little as two minutes to go, holding out my glass for a refill of champagne.  Next thing I know I was off in a corner, shuffling away from the puddle my spilled drink had made, asking how much time we had till the ball dropped.  "Well, lets see"   some guy said, making a show out of checking his watch.  "About 364 days, 21 hours, and 11 minutes."   It became a running joke to see how close before midnight, and how soon afterwards, I would fall asleep and subsequently wake up.  Never asleep before 11:30, and never sleeping past 1, almost like my subconcious had it planned….problem is, by the time I woke up, most of the alcohol would be gone.  Between midnight and 1 is primo drink-scouring time, especially as the hosts start hiding what is left cause they wanted the likes of me the Hell out of there.

            One New Years morning I was kicked out of one place or another and made it back to my apartment with 40 cents in my pocket.  And nothing else.  As in "um, my keys are not in here"  nothing else.  Hmm.  This would be a problem, as my roommate was at his parents until God knew when that day, and it was barely 8AM when I arrived at my locked door and found out the joke was on me.  Again, I was equipped with a thermos (it was an Magilla Gorilla  one that time) and it had a couple of nips of blackberry brandy in it.  Well, enough to last me until 8:15AM.  I then proceeded to the 14th floor stairwell to plan my next move.  It was too cold to go outside, I had no money for booze or even a bialy, no cellphone to whittle away the time or find someone to help me, and I did not want to sleep cause sure enough someone would find me in the stairwell and call the cops on me.  As I was subletting, I could not prove I lived there. Hell, by the way I was dressed I could not prove I lived ANYWHERE.  As it was, my male roommate and I had to take our girlfriends out in the hall to make out with them, hoping the nosy neighbors would see and tell others so they would stop thinking we were gay, so no help or cover would be coming from them.  Folks, my roommate came home THIRTEEN HOURS later.  For thirteen hours I just sat there, reflecting on my life, on my foibles and my aspirations, and ended up changing nothing.  Cause the next New Years I lost my Goddamned keys AGAIN!

            My last years in my Long Island City apartment surely meant lost New Years Eves.  On one 3-day weekend 3 of us drank 183 cans/bottles of beer when it was all said and done.  We crashed a bit around 2 on New Years morn, and were up by 7 to get ready for football and call everyone to wish them a Happy New Year.  Yes, that was us calling at 7AM!   I remember we ordered a Domino's Pizza even though we didn't want one (eating absolutely anything ruins the buzz)  just so we could bribe the guy on the phone with an extra $20 to have the driver stop and pick us up some beer on the way.   At one point that weekend a wild fistfight broke out with me and I believe Big Tone Capone as the special attraction, causing my neighbors to huddle inside the rest of the day, scared to go out cause they thought I was being robbed or murdered upstairs, as they admitted later.  I guess it could have been worse, they could have called the cops...hey, wait a minute...if they thought I was being robbed or murdered why DIDN'T they call the cops??   Why, you.....(wave fist)

             I guess I just covered about 10 New Years Eves here.  That leaves another 10 or so since I started REALLY drinking uncovered.....you could just imagine the others, cant you?   Well, fill me in, cause I dont remember them. But I made it.  Well, I'm here, aren't I?  

             Happy New Year, and if you know whats right for you, don't invite me over!

              So the other night Supernatural is over, and I am too lazy to get off the couch to find the remote, so I decide to leave the local news on.  Forget the fact that I ended up getting up to get another beer and stepped on the remote on the way back, thats not conducive to our story.   Look, if you are ever in the need for a grin or a guffaw, watch the local news.  Its not the "Im horny so I'm going to look at Katie Couric's legs"  national offering, but it has its own innate charm.

               So we start off with a ditty about a kid who was "elevator surfing"  and ended up drips on the shaft ceiling.  Forget that two seperate crones who lived in the building were both identified as "Helen Williams"  and and they did not look to be relatives, so you know one of them was calling the newsroom later with a burr in the britch about being mistakenly IDd as the crazy cat lady down the hall.  The idiots also called the scene of the caper "the elevator shack."   Got to give credit to the pudgy 12 year old who sold his fallen crony down the river by admitting to the dirty deed of elevator surfing, smoking out the potential for a lawsuit.  As soon as the victims sister proudly crowed, "my brother would never elevator surf...he's too smart, he must have been pushed"  the kid is shown all cocksure in his Michelin Man puffy coat, crowing "yeah, we do it all the time.  We pull open the doors, get the elevator stuck on the floor below, and ride the roof."   Ok then.  Yeah, you can just file those litigious papers next to the K-Fed liner notes, we won't be needing that anymore.  And whats this "he must have been pushed"  hooey...what is this, a Sherlock Holmes mystery?

                     While this saga is unfolding, a crawler darts across the screen.  Folks, you cant make this stuff up.  It actually says, "kid ran over and killed by truck carrying....CASKETS!"   Yes, complete with the 3 dots and excalamation point.  Oh, and caps too.  When news interns run wild!   You could practically hear the "Dun Dun Dun!"  suspense music as you read the thing.  Then, come story time, they mention the word "irony"  in context to this story a dozen times, although this kid is probably going to be buried in a bucket and not a casket, taking a gander at that truck.  First off, my idea of "irony"  is being hit by a truck being driven by a guy that woke up deciding he was going to hit someone that day, with me being that guy.  Looks like Alanis Morisette is doing parttime duty in the CW news department when she is not complaining about men with that horse face of hers.

                By this point I was wanting to turn the news off and put on a tape of Hennig vs Bockwinkel circa 1986, but I was sold by the next crawler snaking across the screen.  "Man lights house on fire and walks into ocean."   Yup, just like that.  Apparently this dope got mad at his flapjack tossin' wife and lit his house on fire, then drove to the beach and walked into the friggin' ocean.  He has not been found, but hey, he made the news.  Got to give him style points at least, walking into the ocean like some mysterious wraith.  But he had too, otherwise this would have been just another boring arson story.

                     Look, I know all about the tragic nature of this family that got whipped up in the snow in Oregon and how the ending was not as nifty as that of your average Scooby Doo episode.   Lets get beyond the point of, oh, I dont know, why they were driving around there and at that time in first place.  So we see that night on the news that the autopsy results are in and -  surprise!  -  Jimmy Kim died of "hypothermia."    Uh, ya think?  I could have sworn it was heat exhaustion.  Or what about the possibility that he was - Dun Dun Dun! -  murdered!   I think this was an autopsy that could have been phoned in without looking at the body.  Also, as to him leaving articles of clothing behind as a trail for any potential rescuers  (good job there, by the way, rescuers!  way to go)  -  um, you ARE walking through the snow, perhaps your footprints would suffice?   If not, drag a stick for crying out loud.  Or, when all else fails, leave a trail of popcorn.  It worked for the Brady Bunch in the search for that elusive Tiki, did it not?

                    One of the main purposes of the evening news is to scare the crap out of you.  Tonights theme was the "arctic cold"  that was coming to New York for all of one day.  After a crisp but comfy afternoon, the temps plummeted all the way to....oooo!.....20 or so, and this was supposed to concern us although it was supposed to be back pushing 50 by this weekend.  So the gay weatherman ejaculates, "look at that frosty cold out there!"  as they show a shot of.....people walking down the street with coats on.  No, not a homeless man huddled on a grate under a heap of blankets.  Not pedestrians slipping on any ice that happens to be out there.  But a bunch of people walking around in coats.  Uh, its December in New York, you know.  That was a stretch, as much so as this whole last paragraph was.

                    There was other stuff, but after a while it all blends together.   I saw all of this in the first 10 minutes of an hour broadcast.  I am currently formulating the rules for a local news drinking game, which will have you taking sips and shots for things such as blatant attempts to scare  ("why its being made harder for cops to pull over drunk drivers, and how it puts a bullseye on YOUR back!"),  gay weatherman sightings, gratioutous use of exclamation points during crawlers  (elderly man hits nun with artificial leg!) and " drinks for the Hell of it."

                        In the interim, may I suggest -  dont watch the news, make some yourself!