Hey everyone. Sorry I’ve been so lazy with my entries, I’ve been training for the big race that’s coming around the corner faster than I could ever imagine. Carlo, my wonderful trainer and future BFF, asked me to slow down on using my wrists and fingers so not to risk an injury before the competition. I have to listen to what he says because he is donating a lot of time and energy to help me achieve greatness. There’s a reason why he constantly chants, “Bring it on! No time to start slacking off in this part of the game!…Let’s go fly us some kites!”. Upper body and arms, wrists and fingers, lower back, frontal abdomen, along with calves and a good set of powerful ankles and toes, are the keys to a solid two handed kite race. Carlo has been screaming that in my ear from day one…”Use your upper body and arms! Flex those fingers tight, Bobby! Drive that frontal abdomen forward! Go go go!!! Fly those kites hard Bobby! Push those ankles and toes to the finish circle!! First in kite, Carolina Boy!!! FIRST IN KITE!!!!”. Never in my life have I been pushed like this. Carlo brings out the best in me by using a combination of positive reinforcement and extreme scare tactics. For example, the very first day I met him, he held my hand and said…”It’s nice to finally meet you too. I feel a positive relationship beginning from this point forward.”, then he punched me in the stomach. As I lay on the ground fighting for my breath, he pulls me up by my hair and whispers into my forehead, “The waitress wants to take your order now. Remember, you are what you eat!”. So now I’m in tip top shape and ready to compete. The race is this Saturday in Central park. I still need to buy a good pair of kite shoes and an official two handed kite pant sweat-suit. Since it is a fairly new sport, most of the athletic stores don’t carry the right equipment. Most amateur two hander’s relay on the classic one handed kite race short and sport cap that can be purchased at any sporting goods store or local K-Mart. Carlo tells me that having the right uniform with colors that clash mightily with one’s skin tone will automatically push the competition to a different level. I chose lime green and yellow with splashes of pink and burnt sienna. And for my kite gloves I installed red Christmas tree lights and glued sparklers to my thumbs. When my fellow competitors see me with all my smoke and glitter skipping towards the winner circle, “They will bow out of the race like fish in a barrel.”, as Carlo likes to put it. He speaks from the heart and sometimes doesn’t make sense. Well, I need to go and pull the Chinese masseuse off my shoulders. I’m training with lead kite string in ten minutes. Don’t want Carlo scratching me again for being late….
Talk to ya soon!
Bobby
Here we go again! Cold as the dickens out there! A reported seven degree low in central park. Wow, I can only imagine how cold it was yesterday on 108th and Broadway! Talking to a guy named “Pipe Bong” in Central park the other day and he told me that since the first of the year, he’s received over eight and one half inches of snow on his home. He happens to live exactly four feet from the official weather station/ command center for three of the five major eye witness news stations in NYC. He gets a first hand look at the official weather even before it airs twenty-six times an hour on the news. I asked Pipe what it’s like to live so close to the command center and he bluntly says to me, “About yea high.”, as he hovered his right hand approximately nine inches off the ground. I repeated the question much slower and with more eye contact and I got approximately the same answer as before, give or take an inch or two. Turns out that Pipe wasn’t a very smart man and he didn’t understand my question from the get go. As we walked to the boat basin to check up on the ducks, Pipe told me a very serious story about his life and how he landed such a prime time spot to erect his home. He told me that a year ago he was drunk and got up in the middle of the day to urinate. He ended up urinating on the barometer and some of the other weather gauges, causing the temperature to rise from the earlier reported thirty-three degrees to a whopping sixty-seven degrees. Not ten minutes later “NEWS at 4:45, on Fox”, reported this sudden rise in temperature, causing major “uproars” in and around the viewing area. The Fox team sent a truck out to the weather Info Center and asked Pipe if he saw anyone tampering with the gauges. Pipe quickly sobered up and pointed to a pack of youth that were speeding down the road on bicycles. The Fox team was so pleased with Pipes honesty and bravery, that they offered him a tent and an air mattress and asked him to guard the premises for a weekly pay of X amount of dollars. (he couldn’t tell me the amount since it’s under the table)… Now Pipe is living large and has been alcohol free for eleven months now, doing his job and watching over the weather. After we did a once over at the boat basin, which is another of Pipe’s side jobs- “Making sure the ducks don’t shit all over the row boats.”, as he likes to put it. I asked Pipe how long he plans to work for Fox News. He stopped, took my hand and poked one of my fingers into a small hole on his puffy coat and said, “I put the extra feathers right in here.”. I repeated the question, this time much slower and direct. He then put my hand in his pocket and I felt what seemed to be a pocket full of feathers. I looked him in the eye and said, “Pipe, I think I get it now.” and we walked arm and arm back to his home to watch over the weather.
I love the winter wonderville that has taken the city by storm. What a beautiful time to live in NYC! I love it! Last year sucked donkey balls with the lack of snowy snow. Last season we had a total of six and three-quarter inches of that white stuff according to the meteorologist in my head. This is the same voice that once told me that El Nino was having an affair with hurricane Bob back in the early 90′s which caused numerous blackouts and flooding in the greater Wilmington and the Outter Banks areas of North Cakalackahoochie. My first experience with Storm Thurman, my alter ego, was back in grade school. I was a skinny eleventh grader with little to absolutely zero knowledge of the weather and it’s CRAZY patterns. For example, when my home room teacher asked Cathy Longersworth who the super hot meteorologist on channel twelve was, I screamed without any lack of confidence, “Thunder J. Stormie!”. I was totally right on the money with that one. Both Cathy Longersworth and Mr. Stapleton were like all over my shit from that day on. At that time I thought a Meteorologist studied space dust and rock, comets, shooting stars, strange white streaks in the sky, UFO’s, craters and catastrophic movies. Had no clue that they studied why we get rain and what not. But after that day in class, I developed supernatural meteoric powers that led me to a level of popularity amongst my fellow class-mates that was student class president worthy. I can still remember my speech…
“My fellow class mates… teachers… student councilors… kitchen staff… school security… janitorial crew… bus drivers… the people that FUEL those buses to get us to and from school safely and soundly… the parents that showed up…and Principle Squirrelbird, … thank you for your ears. I am here today to talk about the need for change around here! (pause) We need to have CHANGES! (pause) We NEED change! (pause. Then pull out a twenty from my wallet) I need CHANGE! I need change for a TWENTY DOLLAR (pause and look around the gym)……….bill….. (hold dramatic look)… Now do I have your attention? (begin folding money into a small eagle which is our mascot)… You’re probably wondering what the HELL…. I’m doing with this TWENTY DOLLAR BILL. That’s right Principle Squirrelbird! I said the word… HELL. (stare at him) Because it’s hot as HELL in this school due to a HIGH- PRESSURE- SYSTEM- OFF- THE- ATLANTIC-COAST- THAT’S CAUSING (light eagle with lighter) US TO BURN UP IN THIS AUDITORIUM!!…(throw flaming eagle into the air) We as Fighting Eagles are too hot to fly straight!… (pull out watering container and hover over the burning bird)… And if I’m voted to represent you people as student class president, I will do anything in my power to bring into this TRI-COUNTY AREA… (pause) A- LOW- PRESSURE- SYSTEM- FROM- CANADA-…. BRINGING A BAND OF SHOWERS AND COOLER TEMPERATURES TO (put the twenty dollar bill out with water) PUT A STOP TO THIS HEAT WAVE AND DROUGHT! (unfold chard twenty and point toward the direction of Dan Blakenheimer) Can you do THIS Dan Blakenheimer!! I didn’t think so….”
I didn’t win the election that day but I did win the heart of Suzy Stormie, the weatherman’s daughter. She and I eventually became prom king and queen after I predicted sunny and warm conditions for prom night and the following days there after. She later broke my heart at the Senior picnic and pumpkin pickin’ which was sponsored by J.C. Penny’s. I told all the girls that a warm front would bring unseasonably warm conditions to the area and that everyone should wear flimsy white t-shirts so not to burn up. I knew good and well that a northern slash eastern would show up that day, bringing a wet t-shirt contest to me and all my new guy friends that would go down in history as the best wet t-shirt contest of ’89! Those were the days!
For now, I simply try to just enjoy the weather as it comes. Don’t need to pull any fast ones for cheap thrills- not worth it. But I will leave you with this. A young boy in his 20′s was standing with me at the bus stop as the snow was falling at peak conditions. He said to no one in particular, “Comin’ down at a pretty good clip.” I look at him and say, “Ya know what they say about why it snows… It’s when God opens up a large package from UPS and all the packaging material falls to the earth… ” Then I looked up into the sky and said, “Keep on littering big guy, I don’t want to have to move my car!”. And then I watched the bus that I just missed drive away. What the heck! It’s snowing!
Not going out this week! My new resolution is to stop going out this week and to stay inside and write more diarrhea entries. I did a small Conan spot last night and I had to take off my shirt and act like David of David and Goliath. My stomach looks very bad. I’m not happy with my body. People noticed that I have an outtie belly button and that seemed to be the talk of the day. I find it to be kinda gross and unflattering but you know what, I need to live with it. That is my other new week resolution. Love my body for what it is. How many people can say they have an outtie? Hardly anyone. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with an outtie. When you think about it, I have a real belly button. It looks like a button and everybody else has a belly hole. Where’s the button to push? The fact is that the majority of people have a gaping belly hole that collects lent, sweat and other smelly objects that a real belly button normally repels. On occasion I get a build up of material around the button that creates what I like to call the circle of lent. This was made outrageously clear a couple of years ago when I was at this hip bar in the village. I was on fire talking to this girl who was all into my charm and wit and for some reason I pulled up my shirt. I think we were talking about boxer shorts and how men like to wear them so the ladies can peak at the cool name brands that are available on the market. Anyway, note to self, check in the bathroom for button lent before you remove your shirt under a black light. The infamous black lights that make everything white glow in the dark like a lent saber. My stomach was all dark and tan looking except for this half moon glowing from my belly button area. The girl just points and laughs causing a small gathering of drunken on lookers to cackle and stare. It was amazing to see. I dared other people to pull up their shirts to see what shit was glowing in their belly holes but nobody had the balls. I’m sure they secretly went to a hidden corner in the bar and discovered that they not only have a pile of glowing refuse in their gut just like myself, but it smells ta boot! My belly button smells as fresh as a freshly picked squash from the garden. Not everybody can say that? I need to go now and wash my stomach.