Monthly Archive for April, 2005

April 27, 2005

Published on 4/27/2005 in Dear Diarrhea. 0 Comments

Never had allergies like I do right now. Absolutely horrible for me. Mine eyes are itchy as hell and this morning Twillow the cat came into my room and slept near my head to make matters worse. I hate that I had to throw her out the window but I lost control with all the itching and scratching going on. Feels like I have poison ivy in my eyes. Speaking of poison ivy, I need to write another scene from my play soon. Hopefully I can do it before too long. Right now it’s just you and me and a little chitchat about mine eyes. I like saying it that way… “Mine eyes” “Mine eyes have an itch I just can’t scratch, dear Sir.” I wish I lived in the olden days right now just so I can say mine eyes a lot without sounding too patriotic.

It’s hard to believe that we have a subway system in this city. I know this is COMPLETELY off the itchy eye subject but I was just watching a few hundred people walk out of the Union Square station and it just hit me that in 1902 they started the first hole in the ground for what would be the start of one of the most convenient means of mass transportation in the world. Someone out there thought it would be good to build tunnels under the city’s infrastructure and throw some trains under ground so we don’t have to drive around and freak out about finding parking. I can’t stress that enough. It sucks big balls to find parking here in the city. I LOVE the subway when it’s working up to par. There is nothing like hanging out with all your friends and pounding an ass-load of alcohol and then drunkenly pop on a train home without worrying about getting a DEWIE. (That stands for DWI, which also stands for DUI… Either way, they both suck)

The closest I ever got to getting a DWI was when I was living in LA and I was driving back from a gathering in Hollywood and I decided to get a beer soaker-upper dinner from McDonald’s. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t really “drunk” at all, I was just probably on the other side of the very low blood-alcohol limit if I were to be pulled over. That’s why I chose to soak up some of the beer with a little greasy food from McDonald’s. Anyway, I was driving my 1969 Ford F100 through the Sunset Blvd McDonald’s drive-thru and if you’ve never been to that one, it is incredibly busy and in the middle of Hollywood and it was on a Friday night. So there was a long line in front and behind me and finally after I placed my order, as I pulled ahead another car length I accidentally drove the front of my truck through the menu board, putting about a two-foot hole completely through the brightly lit plastic menu. I know what you’re thinking! “Whoa whoa whoaaa… Come on, Tiger! Why do you want to go on and do that?” We’ll, that wasn’t the first time I had a little turning radius accident in that old truck. First of all it has ZERO power steering and it’s as big and strong as a tank. So anything I hit, be it a little love tap or in this case, what looked like a hate smack, my truck is going to win and whatever I hit was gonna loose. But after I did the damage, I had a long period of panic time to myself where I thought that I was doomed and when I got to the pick-up window there would be a couple of cops waiting for me. There was nothing I could do either. I was sandwiched between a horseshoe of cars waiting for what seemed like and hour to get to their food. It’s almost like sitting in the middle of a round booth at dinner with a table of sumo wrestlers that just got their appetizers. You ain’t movin’ for a while. I just knew I was screwed and there was no jumping over any curbs and leaving the scene of the crime because it was surrounded by walls from the other building. The car behind me was having a bunch of fun at my expense too. Just laughing their asses off. They knew I was gonna have to pay a pretty price for my actions. So finally I was one car away from my fate. I had it all planned out, just smile really big and the first thing out of my mouth was “I’m really sorry. I’ll try to pay for it in monthly installments…” I finally got to the window and I couldn’t believe my eyes when the lady just handed me my food and never knew what happened to their sign. There was NO WAY there wasn’t a cop waiting for me when I pulled away from the window. NO FRIGGING WAY!… And there wasn’t. So I quickly drive a block away and parked in this grocery store parking lot and ate my food about a hundred yards from my truck on a bench, waiting for the cops to locate my vehicle. I would be far enough away to duck for safety if that happened. I think by then, my blood–alcohol level was replaced by just blood-adrenaline. I personally think I sweated every ounce of alcohol out of my body after the incident but I still waited an hour to drive home. That was the closest I came to getting a DEWIE, I guess. Never came close to doing that again and I want to thank my old pick-up truck for the lesson.

So there ya go. A real life story about luck in the truck. Kids out there reading this, I was young and stupid at the time and it’s not cool to do what I did in any way, shape or form. NOT COOL!!! But I’m lucky to have stories like these to teach you how to STAY IN SCHOOL and DO THE RIGHT THINGS and ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR PARENTS and STUFF LIKE THAT. I should know, because I was a kid when I drove into the McDonalds sign… I was eleven years old…

Oh, and another thing kids, DO NOT FIB. You’ll end up writing journals like these and lying about your age.

April 19, 2005

Published on 4/19/2005 in Dear Diarrhea. 0 Comments

I’m in Union Square lying on a bed of fresh mulch and my fingers and palms are sticking to the wooden pieces and it made me think of where this wood came from. I’m positive it came from a tree or branch from somewhere in the greater five boroughs but why? What’s the story with these chips? Was it from a branch that fell last winter from one of the snowstorms? Maybe the little pile I’m sitting on came from a small tree that a drunken homeless person used for a walking stick slash trash poker. Who knows… Just by the look and feel of it I’m gonna say it came from a couple of branches from Thompson square park down in the East Village. Just a gut feeling but I think the mulch came about because a couple of squatters tried to make a fire during the blackout of ’04 and these branches that I’m sitting on were next in line for the fire but the lights came on in the city and that was that. Never got to illuminate those homeless kids that night but those branches have done a good job of settling to keep my butt dry and dirtless. Something for me to think about so I don’t solely concentrate on all the incredible looking people all out in the 72-degree weather… It is absolutely amazing outside and it’s giving me a case of the fever… Oh, I don’t know… A little illness I like to call SPRING FEVER!!! Must be a thousand attractive females that have passed by in the last hour. Everyone is out and about showing off their new bodies and the cool clothing that attempts to cover them. I, myself am wearing cute tan shorts with orange socks and a baseball shirt covering my upper torso.

Speaking of baseball shirts, I remember having one of my most favorite and special pieces of clothing removed from my life by way of my own stupidity. First of all let me describe the shirt that meant the world to me. It was an old-school baseball shirt that I accidentally didn’t give this guy back after he drunkenly left it in my car. I later asked him if I could wear it in a very casual “Ran out of t-shirts type of thing and I found this old beat up piece of horse shit shirt under all the crap and mouse droppings that was stuffed under the seat of my car and I was wanting to wear it and I’ll give it right back to ya”, that kind of deal. And he was like, “Yeah, sure. Just make sure you give it up before softball season. I don’t have many of those shirts left”… Many? Please… You just donated a shirt to… Oh, I don’t know…. BOBBY’S SALVATION ARMY AND GOODWILL DONATION DROP OFF CENTER!!!!

Anyway, it was old school off-white and shit with light blue sleeves that got to be extra faded after all the bleachin’s I done give it. (I’m sorry, the last sentence I was stuck in southern accent mode. It happens and it might happen again before too long, by god, if you don’t watch ye self!) Anyway, it was perfectly broken in and the best part, it looked really good on me and it was one of my girlfriend’s favorite shirts at the time. It actually was one of the shirts that sealed the deal with us… She doesn’t know this but I remember the confidence I had about myself and with her after I wore that shirt the first night we kissed. We were on maybe our second hang out date, we were shooting pool at Joe’s Bar in the East Village and I was looking good in whatshisfuck’s shirt that he just let me borrow forever, and she goes on saying how great that shirt I was wearing looked on me and then I remember whispering something very confident and funny in her ear and then she gave me the look. The look of, “Shit’s goin’ down after this little pocket billiards shenanigan that we’re doing. Game is ON!” And I attribute a lot of that to the shirt. The same shirt that I wore once a week and only on “just impress days”. Didn’t want to waste it on stupid everyday crap, stuff like not working and roaming K-Mart all day; unnecessary stench and pit stain damage for something like this old beauty. I think you get the point. I LOVED THAT SHIRT!!!

So this girl and I are in super love for close to two years and we decided to take a road trip across the country, camping and having a blast along the way. We saved the little money we had and I borrowed my mother’s Honda (Which I have now and it has over 250,000 miles on it. Not to mention a place in my memory lane with this story I’m telling now.) and we drove across the country. The second day on the trip, or better yet, the day after the very special first impressive day on the road, I had my baby and a couple other articles of clothing in a plastic grocery bag and I accidentally threw the bag away along with other trash bags at the campground dumpster on the way out. It hit me about five hours and several hundreds of miles later when I was repacking my bags that my shirt was missing… I freaked out big time when I retraced the retarded mystery and I indeed had THROWN AWAY MY FAVORITE SHIRT, ASSHOLE!!! Sooo friggin dumb!!!

The trip was pretty crappy after that. We got stuck in Vegas and gambled all of our money away. The old Honda had brake failure too… Just to add another excuse to be stuck in Vegas. But we just had enough money to get back home to New York. Never made it to California like we had planned the whole time. Never made it! The girl at the time got really sick on the way back to the city as well. It was awful and one of the most tense times of our relationship. And when we got back to the city, not long after that, we broke up for good.

Thinking about it now, I never really put two and two together! That shirt WAS the relationship! It started with the shirt to seal the deal and when I threw it away, I pretty much threw away the relationship! WOW… Never really put that together until now…I’m soooooo glad I can just blame the shirt for all the crap that I was accused of doing for those two years together… I feel better now. Almost like that confidence I had with that old baseball shirt… Maybe that has something to do with its replacement that is on my upper torso right this moment… Maybe, just maybe this is my shirt reincarnated and it found me again!!! That’s it! It all makes sense now!!! Just like the reincarnated branch that I’m sitting on right now… My shirt found me!!! I have him back!!!

Does this mean that I should start paying attention to all the beautiful women walking around looking all available and feverish? I haven’t had a girlfriend since that “girl” anyway, right? Maybe I should stop thinking about woodchips and baseball shirts and let the powers be… And that’s what I’m a gonna do, by god!!!!

April 8, 2005

Published on 4/8/2005 in Dear Diarrhea. 2 Comments

Let me start off by bragging a little and let everyone know that Eugene and I had a great meeting with OH, I DON’T KNOW… Comedy Central!!! last Thursday and it’s official, we got a record deal for the taping of Invite Them Up’s three year anniversary double CD slash DVD! (Which will be taped at Piano’s on Ludlow, b/t Stanton and Rivington on May 1,2 and 3rd.) I’m very excited about this! We worked really hard to get to this point and now in less than a month we will have an all-star cast of Invite Them Up regulars all on one stage for three nights in a row. This is a great rainy day for me today. It’s nasty as all get out right now but not enough to get this guy down… I just can’t wait to have such an awesome ensemble of talented people that I respect so much to be on OUR CD. YAY!!!! Well, that’s about all the bragging I want to do about that. I have some writing to do.

What do I want to talk about… Ummm? There are a few people from Vice magazine asking the guy sitting in front of me for his picture for them to make fun of in an upcoming issue. Vice is a local magazine that is extremely edgy to say the least and they have a section where they take pictures of people in the city and they make fun of what they look like or what they’re wearing. Poor guy has no idea what he’s about to get into. I want them to ask me to take my picture just to see what their pitch is.

VICE: “Hello, we’re from Vice magazine and we would love to take a picture of you for a piece we are doing about fashion. Are you interested?

ME: Suuuure! Were do I sign up?

VICE: Great! We just need a few pictures of you sitting at your table doing what you’re doing. Just act natural and maybe put this multicolored do-rag on your head.

ME: (Putting a Puerto Rican flag do-rag on my head) Is it weird that I’m not from Puerto Rico? I don’t want to offend anybody.

VICE: It’s fine. Trust us, it’s very fashionable and you look very good in it.

ME: Really? We’ll get your snap on then!!! YAY!!! I’m gonna be in a magazine!

VICE: Wait! Better yet… How about putting on this wacky swastika jumper-top on just for shits and giggles.

ME: Oh, I don’t know about that. That could really make people upset. You don’t think people will want to harm me after this comes out?

VICE: Noooo. It’s funny and edgy. Come on, put it on.

ME: Only if I can keep the do-rag and jumper-top?

They take a series of pictures. Slapping five with each other as the gullible Bobby sits there smiling for the camera.

VICE: Sure. You can keep it.

They take a whole bunch of pictures. They found their prize model.

VICE: Well, you were great! That’s about it. Thanks again for doing this…

ME: Awesome! That was a lot of fun. I don’t have any friends and it’s wonderful that you guys chose me for your magazine. Maybe someone will see this and want to hang out with me after this comes out.

VICE: Absolutely! Now one more thing, can you just sign this release form for us really quick?

ME: What?

VICE: Can you sign this release that allows us to use your photo in our magazine?

I pack all of my new props in my backpack. They hand me the release paper.

ME: No. I don’t want to sign it.

VICE: What do you mean no? You have to sign this for us to use your picture.

ME: (Walking out the door) Thanks for the props!

I would never do that but I’d love to take them for a ride… They’re taking a picture of a couple of women now and I’m just dying to see the issue when it comes out.

Anyway, I want to wish myself luck with the up and coming month getting ready for the taping. I’m really excited about the possibilities. Having our show in record stores all across this country of ours is a true step in the right direction. You guys can listen to me as much as you want in the coming months. Maybe my jokes and stories will be the thing that you go to sleep to. That or the thing that you wake up to.

Here, let me give you an example of what you have in store for the morning rise.

“What’s the thing about hunting dogs!? Crazy huh! I don’t hunt nor do I have a hunting dog but I do know what I’d name a couple female bird dogs from the same litter! Oh, I don’t know!!!! Maybe something like…. THE POINTER SISTERS!!! Ha ha ha haaaaaaa!!! Top of the morning to ya!!!”

Pretty exciting, huh! I don’t think I could go to bed to hilarity like that.