Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Confucious Say, Deux

If you are like me, each time you open that fortune cookie and read that little nugget of wisdom, you ask: “Hey is that Confucius or Shecky Greene?”

After dinner speakers, Borsht Belt comics, and shaving cream companies have been inventing Chinese proverbs for generations to the point where it’s hard to tell “Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think” (real) from “Passionate kiss like spiders web. Soon lead to undoing of fly” (false).

A year ago, in a feeble effort to generate reader interest, I ran a quiz that allowed you to test your knowledge of Chinese proverbs. Generous prizes were offered (false). Due to the enthusiastic response (false) and demands for more of same (false), here is the next installment.

So, pencils ready. The answers appear below the questions. Remember the words of Confucius: “Anyone who cheat on dumb quiz is real lame-o.”

1. When you hold a big Tea Party, old Shitz will always show up.
2. A deer in the road is beef in the wok.
3. If you can’t think of a lie, just say something stupid.
4. Fail to steal a chicken when it ate up your grain bait
5. Never bet against the eunuch in the Who Can Go Longest Without Sex contest.
6. A clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.
7. Fight a wolf with flex stalk.
8. Even a comb of purest gold cannot remove unsightly back hair.
9. Donkey’s lips do not fit into a horse’s mouth
10. One never needs humor as much as when one argues with a fool.



1. False. Although, old Shitz and his annoying little dog, Tzu, were not welcome in too many places.
2. False, but it could be real because a Chinese restaurant near here was closed down for serving road kill.
3. False. Actually, advise to candidates from the Republican National Committee.
4. Real. And obviously translated by the same guy who translates user manuals for Chinese made electronic devices.
5. False. The size of the Chinese population makes it apparent they never invented the Who Can Go Longest Without Sex contest.
6. Real, but Jerry say ALWAYS fear midnight knocking.
7. Real, but probably a little too deep for our shallow western minds.
8. False, but oh so true.
9. Real. Why do I keep getting a mental picture of Ann Coulter?
10. Real. And advise to candidates from the Democratic National Committee.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Lord Googoo

A publisher friend of mine recently told me that it was unlikely I would find employment at my age, and that I needed to “re-invent myself” and do something on my own.

Coincidentally, I read in the paper how Lady Gaga had been a semi-successful cabaret singer named Stefani Germanotta before she “re-invented” herself by taking off her clothes and imitating Madonna.

Say hello to Lord Googoo!

Show biz, here we come. I can already picture the first GOOGOO,GAGA TOUR. The name of the act says it all: one member in her first childhood, the other in his second; she strutting around the stage nekkid, and he trying to remember why he used to find that interesting.

I know what you are thinking: Jerry, in show business you need a shtick.

I’ve always been a big fan of Old Blue Eyes, so I am going to do a Sinatra act. I’ve already purchased one of those itty bitty Fedoras he used to wear.

I know what you are thinking: Jerry, you can’t sing. Well, neither could Frank in his last years, but that didn’t stop him from making a public spectacle of himself.

Just picture Gaga wiggling and caterwauling “I want your disease,” while I croak “that’s why the lady is a tramp.” Talk about your point/counterpoint, that’s it right there!

I am aware, however, that here in the 21st century, over-stimulated audiences need a strong visual component. While the sight of a tiny hat perched at a cocky angle on my enormous noodle is very cool, it isn’t enough, because as Frank once observed: “A funny hat can't upstage a naked lady.”

I was stuck for a shtick.

Then one day last week, while I was sitting in the Starbuck’s in Chester, NJ, a man about my age entered wearing clear plastic pants with little or nothing underneath.

This made such a profound impression on the four women sitting at the adjacent table that they successfully executed the rarely attempted quadruple frapuccino spit take.

When the coffee mist cleared, I realized he was onto something and I had solved my visual problem.

Picture this: at the end of our last encore, I, wearing my tuxedo with the clear plastic trousers, get up from the piano and walk to center stage where, with my back to the audience, I take Gaga’s hand and perform such a deep, gentlemanly bow that, if he didn’t have chronic post-mortem dry eye, would surely have brought a tear to Old Blue Eyes’ blue eyes.

Music fans, there are not enough defibrillator paddles on the planet to handle the ensuing pandemonium.

So the GOOGOO,GAGA TOUR is good to go-go!

I don’t know why I am SO excited.

It must be the plastic pants.

Friday, October 15, 2010

The Irritable Old Man's Facebook Rant

The irritable old man is an alter ego who takes the helm once in awhile after I have had a few too many glasses of wine the night before or attended a funeral. His opinions do not necessarily reflect those of my, er, regular ego.


I don’t get Facebook.

Two snot nose Harvard twerps come-up with a “social network” web site, undoubtedly to help them get laid, and now 500 million people are on board.

And they made a movie about these jerks’ lives. They’re twenty three freaking years old. Twenty three years! I’ve spent more time than that on the can and nobody’s making a movie about me.

Kathie suggested I sign up because our children were using Facebook to share pictures. Of course, it would kill them to actually send or email us a picture, so we have to go on an Easter egg hunt to find photos of what’s going on in their lives. And now that they suspect their parents are lurking about, they have stopped posting altogether

In the year or so I have been on, I have accumulated 38 friends, which is 37 more than I have in real life. I have another five hanging in limbo because I know they will annoy me.

One friend request was from a woman whose profile picture was a snap of her vagina. It might not be hers, but I am not going to do the research. I reported her to the twerps who are probably trying to date her as we speak. By the way, I’ve been out of circulation for awhile, but when did women start shaving down there?

Many of my friends are guys who were signed up by their wives and, hence, never go on. From time to time I am asked by the twerps to find friends for these lost souls. I have thought of brightening their lives by suggesting Lady Vagina.

Some other friends really started to annoy me so I blocked them. Send me a hug and you got blocked; ask me to join your Mafia Wars crew, you got blocked; tell me what you had for breakfast, you got blocked. My page was a pretty quiet place. Then they made it harder to block and I still haven’t figured out how to do it. Now my page is like a cocktail party full of people I don’t know all talking at once. And just like a real party, when I finally go to chime in,everyone has moved on. And I can’t even find the damn bar.

In the old pre-blocked blocking days, if I made a pithy, cogent comment it would stay on my page for weeks for me to revisit and enjoy. Now, in a heart beat, it is bundled in blather and shipped off to No-More-Posts-to-Show land.

I guess they made it hard because if everyone blocked everyone else ,no one would be talking to anyone.

And enough with the demographic based ads. I get it, I’m old; but I’m not ready to buy a cemetery plot and my prostate works just fine, thank you very much. And I am not voting for Sara Palin or “liking” Rush Limbaugh, so stop asking. Where on my profile does it say “stupid”?

Still, they say everything is going over to Facebook. For example, supposedly no one emails anymore. Gee, somebody forgot to tell that to all the Nigerians trying to con me out of my money.

Oh, speaking of money, those snot nosed twerps have made a ton of it from this. I have news for them though: if they skateboard on my sidewalk their moola won’t save them from a whup-ass.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

315 Elephants

As I was logging into my account at the gym the other day, a note appeared on the screen informing me that since I had been using the weight machines, I had lifted 2.5 million pounds, or the equivalent of 315 elephants.

I was thrilled and stunned. I quickly found Daryl, the trainer, and asked if this was based on Asian or African elephants. He gave me a look I am sure he reserves for one of his third grade students who has just asked if dinosaurs had boobs.

I, naturally, wondered what 2.5 million pounds would equal in chipmunks. As soon as I got home I Googled and found out that it would come to 20 million of the cuddly creatures. That’s the entire populations of Los Angeles and New York if those populations happened to be chipmunks!! And probably half the amount our cat dispatched in our front yard during her life time. Not that I would know this from personal experience but it is also equal to the weight of hoisting 20,000 Snuggie clad barmaids.

I know the trainers were just trying to boost my morale, but I wondered why they didn’t use a machinery analogy. I also learned that, since the curb weight of a Chevy Camarro is 3,769 pounds, I had hoisted the equivalent of 663 of the sporty coupes or three fully loaded 747’s.

Incidentally, 2.5 million is also the number of pounds I have lost and regained since beginning my exercise program and an underestimate of the number of peanuts I can consume when I really get on a roll.

However, I guess they went with an imposing beast analogy because they understand it appeals to something primitive in the male gym goer’s nature. In a hunter/gatherer culture, I would now qualify for membership in the Elephant Cult giving me the right to wear an elongated gourd on my penis and to lie around in a drunken stupor with the other cult members while the women gather food to feed the clan.

Some guys would be strutting around gym going “Is that the best you have, you lop-eared lummoxes?” I, however, remain humble in my pachyderm dominance. Though I have hoisted many a one, and while I toss them about like so many Snuggie-clad barmaids, I respect the gentle giants.

Though I am your master, Descendants of Dumbo, I raise my elongated gourd to you in a timeless salute of hunter to prey.