Annoying Things Parents Share About Their Children

My hand is raised on this one; I write about my offspring whether you want to hear about them or not. I enjoy teasing them (my daughter would call it “torturing.” She once tried to get a restraining order to keep me away from her when in the presence of her friends but lost because “tells embarrassingly bad jokes” is not a valid legal reason to grant one) and writing is just one more way to do it. Admittedly, most parents never taunt their biological children publicly in a blog by making vague allusions to unknown bastard step siblings that may or may not be real, so I can at least claim to be original. But no doubt there have been times while reading this blog when you’ve thought to yourself: “Why would I give a flying f*ck about the fact that The Captain has a child who depicts gruesome and twisted images in his driveway chalk art?” Then again, you probably just thought: “That makes perfect sense.” But you know what I’m talking about. Parents who just have to drop into every conversation the fact that little Johnny is captain of the football team or that little Suzy is captain of the cheerleaders and is dating the captain of the football team, conveniently omitting the fact that Johnny and Suzy are both their kids, unless you are from West Virginia, in which case it’s OK. But in light of the topic, I will not resort to the didactic style I am so in love with; this time, I will simply produce bullet points not with the aim of instructing but with the goal of making fun of all of the parents you and I know who waste our time bragging on their kids. So here they are: The Captain’s List of Annoying Things Parents Share About Their Kids!!

• “My Daughter is so stressed about writing her Valedictorian speech.”

o There are several ways to effectively respond to this and prevent the onslaught of boasting that is bound to follow. The first is a simple bit of sarcasm, something like: “Oh yeah, I can relate. My son is stressed about passing gym so he can graduate.” Not particularly clever or subtle, but shuts down the conversation nonetheless. Or you could try something a little more fun, such as: “Oh my god, I understand. My son is having the same problem with his speech.” This will elicit the desired response, “Oh, he’s his school’s Valedictorian as well?” But you’re ready with, “(LOL) Oh gosh, no. The clod doesn’t know a Valedictorian from a Vegetarian. His psychologist said the meds were supposed to take care of the delusions, like the one about being Harvard’s Valedictorian. I guess not!” And finally, I wouldn’t be The Captain if I didn’t suggest something twisted, like, “Well, it’s actually a speech he has to give to the Probation board on why it’s inappropriate to obsess over high achieving female students.”

• “My son’s Beemer convertible is in the shop again – I never should have bought him that car for his birthday; I should have gone with the Audi.”

o My reply might resemble: “I know. Kids and their vehicles – what a pain. I just got my kid some reflectors for his Schwinn – cost me ten freakin’ bucks! But I guess it’s worth it. Who wants to have to go pick him up at the ER at 3 in the morning when he’s out delivering his special papers?”

• “I’m gonna have to buy a bigger trophy case for junior!”

o My retort: “I think it’s supposed to be warm this weekend,” because it’s fun to witness the look of disappointment on the braggart’s face when I fail to take the bait and ask why!

• “Genie’s math teacher is way too hard a grader…blah…blah…blah…and those mean girls keep picking on her…blah…blah…blah…talked me out of pressing charges…blah…blah…blah…can you believe it?”

o In cases like this try, “I’m sorry, I was reading a text from my dentist – what was that?” and then walk away quickly without looking up.

• “My daughter really finds it annoying when total strangers walk up to her and tell her she’s beautiful.”
o My comeback would be, “I hear ya, nobody wants delusional junkies approaching them out of the blue.”

• “I hate it when I have to choose between my daughter’s piano recital and my son’s All-Star hockey game.”

o Throw them off balance with: “Lucky you; my choice is usually Juvenile Review Board meeting or Monday Night Raw – tough decision, I know!”

• “Biff is not your ordinary child.” Me: “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. You know, they do remarkable things these days with psychotropic drugs.” Or, “With a name like that it’s no wonder!”!

Believe The Captain when he says: For the record, my three children are all legitimate.

Yours proud of my kids, who have horns and graze in my backyard,

The Captain

Things You Should NEVER do on Facebook

I admit, I am not a big Facebook user; frankly, I’m not all that interested in the daily activities of my life, so why would anyone else be? I make an exception for those of you waiting for this high speed train of a life to derail, in which case, I understand. But I do love the stories about people who get in big trouble after indiscriminately posting incriminating things about their narcissistic selves on Facebook. I swear that high school photo of me and the monkey in the sauna on Facebook was all just a big misunderstanding and was the real reason I was rejected by Yale, a theory that some like to poke holes in, claiming that way back in that day the PC hadn’t even been invented yet, let alone social networking (we used to call this a Keg Party)…but once again I digress. So even though it is patently false to suggest that the monkey has been in counseling ever since, I feel that, having been a victim of Facebook tomfoolery, I can do some good by giving my readers some helpful advice about what NEVER to do on Facebook.

· Never post homemade videos of your minor surgical procedures on Facebook, especially root canals and colonoscopies.

· Never post in bold print on 37 separate occasions over a 36 hour period rumors you know to be untrue about your boss being a gay heroin addict with a bellybutton fetish on Facebook when 250 of your “friends” are coworkers, including your boss.

· Never post pictures of yourself engaged in the following activities:

o Felonies

o Select Misdemeanors, i.e. painting graffiti on the Police Station holding cell walls.

· Never fib about your Relationship status. People talk…

· Never pose as another person on Facebook without doing your due diligence…like knowing that they are a black belt in Karate or a Gold Medal winning Archer or the son of a mobster, or a pedophile. NEVER

· Never have just one Facebook page. Have one for your family, one for your coworkers, and one for your friends under an assumed name that no search engine can ever track back to your true identity – let’s call this your Vegas identity.

· Never try and secretly join Justin Bieber’s Facebook page. It will get out…

· Never click on the ad about the Chinese herbal aphrodisiac tea…don’t ask.

· Never assume your mother doesn’t know what Facebook is or doesn’t know how to pose as you and regale the internet with childhood adventures about your bedwetting, your tap dancing recital where you sang, tapped, and stumbled your way through “Who Ate the Chicken in the Chicken Chow Mein,” and your childhood obsession with Mrs. Brady from The Brady Bunch (all my friends liked Marcia and Jan, but I preferred a mature woman).

· And finally, NEVER poke your Grandmother…it’s just not right.

Believe The Captain when he says: What happens on the internet, stays on the internet.

Yours deactivating my webcam,

The Captain

Lies Our Parents Told Us

The Captain is no amateur when it comes to fibbing and fabricating, so I am eminently qualified to vouch for the veracity of those pearls of wisdom our parents liked to dispense whenever they decided to drop a life lesson on us. It’s kinda sad to think that our Moms and Dads lied to us, but, unlike the big one about Santa, most never came with some really cool gifts, just some unappealing prescriptions, such as “floss twice a day”. When I was a kid, I had trouble tying my danged shoe laces so there was no friggin' way I had the dexterity to grab hold of some slippery plastic thread well enough to reach inside my jabbering jaws and run it back and forth between the tiny gaps in my teeth that I couldn’t even see. Recently, my satanic dental hygienist told me that failing to floss could lead to a heart attack. I told her that if I was gonna give myself a heart attack I sure as hell wouldn’t do it with floss but with red meat and fried food. She didn’t think that was funny. As anyone with parents knows, there are many more where this came from. Let’s put them to rest once and for all.

· You need five servings of fruits and vegetables every day to grow up big and strong. Really? Then why is that it that 6’ 3” 220 lb. Bobby from down the street, who was raised on Pop Tarts and Tater Tots, was so much bigger and stronger than my skinny ass and would squish me like a bug every football practice and date cheerleaders and get athletic scholarship offers when I all I got for eating those goddamned apples was a little green worm and a seat on my pants??

· If you don’t go to sleep right away, the bogeyman with 3 inch rotting yellow incisors and a razor sharp bowie knife will slip out from underneath your bed to cut open your abdomen and devour your spleen and kidneys and then yank out your large intestine to wrap around your neck and squeeze the life right out of you. OK. Maybe only my parents said things like this, which explains a lot, but threats to get children to sleep are completely ineffective nonetheless.

· If someone slaps you on the back violently while your eyes are crossed, your eyes will stay permanently crossed. Nope. Me and the older boys in my hood must have made the little neighborhood kids cross their eyes a million times to test this theory. No permanently crossed eyes, just some redness and the occasional contusion; in fact, none of the little snitches ever had any difficulty with their sight as they were able to provide a visual ID each and every time their overprotective parents would put us in a lineup.

· Pretty girls like boys who are smart. But the smart boys all know the truth. Pretty girls like assholes.

· Swallowing a tablespoon of Cod Liver oil makes you healthy. In my experience, swallowing Cod Liver oil makes you vomit.

· Adversity builds character. For real? Adversity just plain sucks.

· Cheaters Never Prosper – unless you have the initials C.E.O. after your name, in which case cheaters prosper outrageously.

· Lying to your parents about that broken Ming Vase will only get you in more trouble. Of course, if you happen to be the favorite child, then it works like a charm, especially when you blame it on the Black Sheep of the family, right Sis?!!

· You can’t get pregnant if you do it during a full moon. True, unless you forget to use birth control, right Sis?! Btw, lying about having sex is not a form of birth control…

· You don’t need to get drunk to have fun. Could be true, I just wouldn’t know ;)

Believe The Captain when he says: My new title is The Captain, CEO (Chief Embellishment Officer).

Yours waiting for my bonus,

The Captain, CEO

The Homework Ate My Daughter

I love language, and most especially, the ambiguity and elasticity of thought symbols constructed of the randomly assigned collection of lines and squiggles we call alphabets. Language is a metaphor for The Captain: I love myself; I’m ambiguous and elastic in my thinking, especially when it comes to reality; and I am constructed of randomly assigned genes, which, when depicted on paper by scientists, look a lot like a bunch of lines and squiggles. I was recently reminded of this when I arrived home from work one day and went to greet my teenage daughter with a kiss and a hug. “Not now, I’m doing my homework!” Licking my wounds, I retreated, scribbling notes about the encounter to use for my blog. There was a time, not that long ago, when I would have been greeted with an enthusiastic “Hi Daddy!” to go along with a great big hug and kiss. What changed? Right then and there the perfect metaphor for this moment fell out of the sky and smacked me in my brain: homework.

Home and Work. Use these words separately and you have two separate thoughts. As I toil at work for a lifeless Insurance company, I long for quittin’ time, when I get to go home and relax after a full day of work. But as I was reminded by my encounter with my daughter, the world is set upon its head for children if you combine them to create a new word: homework, the bane of all students. After a hard day of texting and learning, students must come home and do their homework. All the unpleasant memories came rushing back like flashbacks after a blackout. Homework sucks the life and happiness right out of you.

I remember the rush of adrenalin when my 7th grade teacher taught us about child labor laws. I went straight home and told my parents that child labor laws prohibit them from making me do my homework, and ran up the street to share my revelation with my friends, who all joined me in the streets for a celebratory game of kickball! But the air was kicked out of me the very next day when I was called into the Principal’s office for a meeting with my parents and history teacher, who deflated me by explaining that child labor laws do not, in fact, apply to public schools. But I learned a valuable lesson that day. Children have no rights and adults are lying bastards.

So all these years later, now (debatably) an adult, as I sat there feeling sorry for myself, I experienced something strange and new. I believe the word for it is empathy. It wasn’t me (though, admittedly, sometimes it is); the homework ate my daughter! I realize that one day, my daughter will be regurgitated to me and the pleasant greetings will return. Armed with this new feeling and a new word, I walked gently up to my daughter, braced myself, and gave her a great big hug…and I think I caught a glimpse of the tiniest of smiles.

Believe The Captain when he says: Beware when home and work hook up.

Yours drumming up a game of adult kickball – because I can!

The Captain

You can't blame it on this guy!

God Does Not Speak to You

There has been a great deal of debate recently about God’s political preferences. I find these all very amusing. The Captain is here to set the record straight. God does not speak directly to you, or your priest or minister or imam, or your dog or hamster, and he certainly doesn’t speak to me; heck, even my mother doesn’t speak directly to me (and it took years for me to accomplish that one!). Since God doesn’t speak to me, how, you might ask, could I possibly make such a confident assertion? Fair question. The answer is elementary – deduction, that is. Here’s what I have deduced.

· Christine O’Donnell has become the poster child for politicians who claim that the almighty, like some down-on-his-luck street puppeteer who fell off the wagon, pulls the strings of her campaign for one of the most powerful political positions in the world – US Senator. You may assume that I am mocking this wiccan exile, and you’d be correct, but I love Christine O’Donnell. She is the perfect cure for writer’s block. So even though her conviction that God speaks to her seems genuine enough, how can I be so sure she’s deluded? Well, would a divine being deign to take time out of her busy day to try and explain the subtleties of healthcare, foreign policy, or the US tax code to such a ditzy, unemployed, pagan goddess who fibs on her resume? Based on her public statements, it’s obvious that these discussions have never taken place and that the divine voice she claims to hear is but a phantom of her un-medicated mind.

· The Scandal of Boredom. You’ll love this one because I just made it up. It is utterly scandalous to even imagine a divine being with first hand knowledge of the mysteries of the universe having the slightest interest in having a chat with such a lying, thieving,violent creation. Yeah, maybe God made us, but when a human produces a pile of crap that ends up in a swimming pool, what does he do? He runs away as fast as he can and denies he had anything to do with it; or at the very least, sticks around to watch from a safe distance the mayhem he created. There’s just no way an omnipotent, omniscient being wants to shoot the breeze with us. She’d be bored out of her mind – she already knows what we’re going to say to her and her surpassing knowledge means her musings have no relation to even the most brilliant human thoughts. There really is nothing analogous in the world. The closest thing I can think of is Albert Einstein trying to explain his Special Theory of Relativity to Sarah Palin…which gives me an idea. I think I’ll contact Palin’s press secretary to set up a national debate on science versus religion; I’ll hire an Einstein impersonator to come out on stage at the last second to take up the cause for science– it will be fun to see how long Mama Dizzy debates the imposter before figuring out that the real Einstein’s been dead since 1955. 2-1 she debates the full hour. But I digress…

· Finally, I think that when all is said and done, I must believe that God doesn’t speak directly to the world. Simply take a look at some of the notable examples from recent history of individuals with whom God has purportedly chosen to converse: Joseph Smith,Jr., who forbade his followers from consuming liquor (no benevolent deity would think of doing such a thing), the “reverend” Jim Jones, who single-handedly transformed Kool Aid from a popular kids drink into a national punch line (pun intended), or David Berkowitz aka Son of Sam, who randomly killed innocent people on orders from God via his neighbor's demon dog. The only conclusion one can reach is that God is one fucked up individual, and I’m not willing to accept that. Why God created a world that includes Christine O’Donnell is beyond my spiritual and intellectual scope. But I am quite sure that she gave me the capacity to laugh at silly people and the world is full of them, present company included. To that I say “Thank God!”

Believe The Captain when he asks: What if God was a mime?

Yours doing the moonwalk,

The Captain

The Captain for President!

There has been an exciting development in the world of politics that’s given rise to a secret ambition of The Captain. It seems that the job description for politicians has changed. For years, it was lying, corruption, hubris, lawyering and mercenary pandering. At the moment, however, to have serious political aspirations, one need only be a complete nutjob living in a fantasy world. Hello! So you, my Myrmidons, shall be a witness to history as yours truly declares publically right here in this blog my intention to run for the highest office in the land after Liquor Board Commissioner, the President of the United States of America. If I can figure out how to do it, I will create an online petition so that I can garner the signatures needed to be a write in candidate in the next Presidential election. Armageddon here we come! Unlike all other politicians, I will now set out to explicitly outline my political platform to create a more humorous nation.

· I know that I’m a political amateur, but it seems that most politicians fail to recognize a truly transcendent policy when they see one. Take “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” This is the cornerstone of my campaign and The Captain’s Golden Rule. Don’t ask me what I was doing this morning at 2 am and I won’t tell the world what I saw you doing. Idiotically simple - which is why I think I can actually win with it!

· Anti-Prohibitionist Movement. I am the self proclaimed leader of this grassroots movement which has a simple message for big government: Keep your hands off my booze!!! Now you and I both know that in reality there is no organized political effort to bring back Prohibition, but I have noticed that it is all the rage to invent political bogeymen to scare the shit out of ignorant voters to get them to vote for you. So I ask you. What’s scarier than a dry USA??? Exactly.

· Another thing in my favor is the fact that dabbling in bizarre anti-social or satanic rituals is now considered a political asset. I know I said that DADT is my Golden Rule, but I’m going to contradict myself like a good politician and tell anyone who’ll listen about my brief but memorable stint in college as a charter member of the Lovin’ Lucifers. Formerly, when people asked me about this, my response has always been, “I thought it was a joke, I swear!” But now that I’m running for office I’m like, “Yeah, I dabbled in the dark arts.”

· If I learned anything from the latest James Bond movie “Quantum of Solace” it’s that the precious natural resource of water is the ticket to cementing our future status as the world’s sole superpower, so I propose that we invade our water rich neighbor to the north, Canada. Plus, there’s nothing like a good war to stimulate our flagging economy.

· Campaign Slogan. What else could it be: Believe The Captain!

· Contest to name my Vice President! That’s right, I’m going to let one of my lucky readers choose for me. Funniest selection wins. Please submit your candidate along with a brief rationale about why they’d be my ideal VP. Post your entries in the comment section below or email your entry to thefloorcaptain@gmail.com.

Believe The Captain when he says: Believe The Captain!!!

Yours recruiting interns on Craigslist to work my campaign,

The Captain

Journey Through the Mind of a Teenager

I was chuckling to myself after hearing of another Corporate HR Seminar telling us how to live. This one was a workshop on understanding the mind of a teenager; so now corporations that stumble over the simplest problems of right and wrong (don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t steal) are going to give guidance on human development and the complexities of the human brain as it goes through a rapid and particularly tumultuous transition? That’s like letting my Uncle Al help me with my math homework using his patented “shot glass math” method, which, in all fairness, might have worked but for the tequila.

But as a former Social Worker who ran a shelter for Teens and as the proud and graying parent of two – count ‘em – two teenagers, I am qualified to create a road map for navigating the exciting but dangerous byways of the Teenage Brain. In the name of honesty, here’s what you see below: an article I lifted from the internet describing the parts of the brain. There were better written articles out there, but I really didn’t understand them, so I settled for this one and then wove in my commentary, only this time I did not color code my editorial additions because I wanted to preserve the tone and verisimilitude of a scholarly article whilst injecting the usual drivel, thus achieving an understated irony. Had I written this at 6 AM (meaning there is high likelihood but no guarantee of sobriety), it would have come out more like: I wanted it to sound like a serious article with some ridiculous passages. You can have fun guessing what I wrote.

The Hindbrain

This is the most primitive part of our brain and controls the teenager’s most primal instincts, such as survival, dominance, mating, as well as the involuntary functions like respiration, arguing, heartbeat, and wet dreaming.

· The Spinal Cord

The information superhighway of the brain; this is how you must enter the brain, but be warned: the spinal cord of a teen is the Autobahn of the nervous system – if you don’t move at the minimum speed limit, you could get swept up in a tidal wave of carnal thoughts and crash into parts of the teenage brain where no grown ups should ever get stranded.

· The Medulla Oblongata

Helps control the body's autonomic functions (things you don't need to think about to perform) like respiration, digestion and heart rate and, if I have a vote, arguing. Countless interactions with my teenagers have me convinced that they are never conscious of the fact they are arguing. If I try to convince them otherwise, I am confronted by piercing looks of incredulity. The Medula Oblongata (didn’t The Police have a hit single by that name?) also acts as a relay station for nerve signals going to/from the brain. But be warned that the guy who runs this part of the brain, just like your teen, likes his sleep. And conveniently for the teenagers, he’s always asleep when I ask them to wash the dishes, or do their homework, so that signal is never relayed.

· The Pons

Controls the level of arousal or consciousness and sleep. To move safely through this chamber, it is critical that you traverse it while the teen is sleeping; I once got caught there during arousal and I was like a mouse stuck inside a pinball machine. On the plus side, there are Red Bull vendors and Starbucks at every turn.

· The Cerebellum

Mostly deals with movement. It regulates and coordinates movement, posture and balance. During those awkward adolescent growth spurts, this place is filled with a ton of overwhelmed engineers attempting to run growth calculations on the fly with minimal success. Run the wrong equations and the teen can stub a toe or embarrass himself at a school dance.

The Limbic System

The Limbic System sometimes called the "emotional brain" or "Old Mammalian Brain" is the next brain to have evolved in the more primitive mammals about 150 million years ago. This is where our emotions reside, where memory begins and where these two functions combine together to mark behaviors with positive or negative feelings - in other words, a very dangerous place. It's where mostly unconscious value judgments are made. Information going through the Limbic System is filed under "agreeable or disagreeable". Makes sense. My mostly unconscious teens always think I’m being disagreeable, even when I’m saying “Good Morning.” In the name of fun, I respond by crooning a rather disagreeable version of “You Are My Sunshine,” which means I just sing in my regular voice. It also plays a role in salience (what grabs your attention), spontaneity and creativity. Located in the Limbic System are:

· The Amygdala

Its name is Latin for almond, which relates to its shape (Mom always called me almond brain; she must have been referring to the Amygdala). It helps in storing and classifying emotionally charged memories. Unfortunately, during the teenage years, Amygdala day laborers often go on strike to protest the overwhelming workload, as there is not enough time in the day to deal with the flood of emotionally charged memories that teens produce (on average, one every 3 minutes for boys and one every 13 seconds for girls, a ratio that is reversed for sexual thoughts). It plays a large role in producing our emotions, especially fear. It's been found to trigger responses to strong emotion, such as sweaty palms, freezing, increased heart-beat/respiration and stress hormone release. This is bad news for teens, who produce hormones like a goose produces shite, and who are prone to developing teenage crushes, leaving them to walk around panting and shaking in a feverish state, not the best way to attract a girlfriend or boyfriend.

· The Hippocampus

This guy is all about memory and a little about learning. Its primary role is in memory formation, classifying information, long-term memory. Like the RAM in your computer, it processes and stores new and temporary memory for long term storage. It's also involved in interpreting incoming nerve signals and spatial relationships. This is the one part of the brain with nothing to do in the teenage years. It really doesn’t get busy until its subject gets married and is forced to remember things by its spouse; also, it works overtime during a divorce as it is asked to rummage for useful dirt in all the junk that’s been stuffed in the back of the memory closet for years.

The Hypothalamus

It should be called the Hyperthalamus because it does so much. It's linked closely with the pituitary gland to control many of the body's functions. It monitors and controls your circadian rhythms (your daily sleep/wake cycle), homeostasis (making sure your body is running smoothly), appetite, thirst, other bodily urges and also plays a role in emotions, autonomic functions and motor functions. The original multi-tasker. Imagine trying to balance the appetite and raging bodily functions of a teen in only 12 waking hours. Get that man some Red Bull and Vodka.

· The Thalamus

The Thalamus is THE relay station in the brain. Most of the sensory signals, auditory (sound), visual, somatosensory (from your skin and internal organs), go through this organ on their way to other parts of the brain for processing. It also plays a function in motor control. It’s like Grand Central station at quittin’ time on a Friday.

The Neocortex

The last and most advanced brain to evolve to date is called the Neocortex, neomammalian or rational brain. We share this part of our brain with other higher level mammals like the primates and dolphins, although in humans the neocortex is the largest. It takes up 2/3's of the human brain. This is where we find the brain power to develop language, abstract thought, consciousness and imagination. Let there be no doubt, this is what grants us our status on the food chain and allows us to be human. All I can say is it’s a good thing this part makes up 2/3’s of a teenager’s brain, since teens produce so few rational thoughts.

The Neocortex is divided into two hemispheres, right and left. The right side of the brain controls the left side of the body and vice versa. Also the hemispheres are divided in terms of what kind of thought they process or produce. The right being more concerned with the artistic, spatial and musical, while the left is more concerned with the colder, linear, rational and verbal aspects. Located in the Neocortex are:

· The Frontal Lobe

This is the most recent evolutionary addition to the brain. If the brain had a White House it would be here. It is the true center for command and control in your body. The Frontal lobe is responsible for functions such as reasoning, problem solving, judgment, impulse control. This coupled with the fact that it's the last to develop when we are young adults, probably answers a lot of questions for many parents out there. It also manages our higher emotions such as empathy and altruism. This lobe is also involved in motor control and memory. Way back in the far left corner of every teen’s frontal lobe there is a small black electronic device with a handwritten note attached and four bored looking guys sitting around playing cards. After some inquiry, I learned the identity of the card players. Each was a department head for the Reasoning, Problem Solving, Judgment, and Impulse Control shops, respectively. They explained that the black box was a Brain Wave Jamming Device that made it impossible for them to send the necessary messages to the teen’s body. When I asked about the note, they chuckled wryly and told me to have a look. It read: “Let it never be said that the divine Creator doesn’t have a sense of humor. I have equipped each human brain with a similar box, which is hidden until the frontal lobe of the brain develops at the onset of adolescence, at which time it begins to scramble any brain messages you attempt to send, rendering the teenager a complete ass until such time as the device’s battery dies. Please note that I started installing Energizer batteries recently, so the life of the devices has been extended by 10 to 20 %. This is the real reason that adolescence extends well into the twenties for most young people today. Don’t believe all that hooey about societal influence. I find bungling adolescent behavior funny. Sue me. Oh, that’s right, you can’t; I have divine immunity. Oh well. Yours having a good laugh, God.”

The Parietal Lobe

The Parietal Lobe is involved in processing pain and touch sensation. It's where the Somatosensory (from your skin and internal organs – I swear I slurred/invented this word the last time I went binge drinking) Cortex resides. It's also associated with cognition (including calculating location and speed of objects), movement, orientation, recognition and speech. I couldn’t wait to give the Parietal Lobe Manager a piece of my mind and curse him out for abandoning me in high school in Algebra when I was stumped by all those stupid word problems with the two trains traveling at different speeds; before I could find a solution my trains invariably crashed and burned, along with my grades.

· The Temporal Lobe

The Temporal Lobe is involved in auditory (sound) sensation and is where the Primary Auditory Cortex and Wernicke's Area (language recognition) are located. This lobe is also involved in emotion, memory and speech. It is an utter failure during the adolescent years, since most teens are emotionally stunted, can’t remember to do the simplest things like bathing, handing in their homework, or feeding the animals. Plus, the only volume setting a teen understands is “about to go deaf” or, as so eloquently explained by Nigel Tufnel, legendary guitarist for Spinal Tap, the number 11, because, unlike most Marshall guitar amps which only go up to 10, Nigel’s goes to 11. And who is Wernicke and how come he has a part of the brain named after him? I want them to name a part after me. I’m thinking the Amygdala, because my brain is the size of an almond, my palms are sweaty, and I always had trouble attracting a girlfriend (I blame the sweaty palms).

· The Occipital Lobe

The Occipital Lobe controls visual sensation and processing. The Visual Cortex is resides here. Teen Gamers often have overdeveloped Occipital Lobes.

· Broca's Area

This part of the cortex controls speech, language recognition and facial nerves. Poor Broca has an especially tough time with teenage girls and the constant jabbering and face pulling and eye rolling and death glaring. Who’d he piss off to get this job?

· The Corpus Callosum

This is the neural bridge that connects the two hemispheres to each other, located centrally in brain. No doubt each gender would argue that the other rarely traverses the bridge into the left hemisphere, where reason and rationality prevail. Perhaps the bridge is out, the result of the constant wear and tear of the teenage years. Or maybe Broca finally went off the reservation and blew it up, transforming the Corpus Callosum into the Corpse Callosum, leaving the subject, as my teachers liked to label me, brain dead!

Believe The Captain when he says: If teenagers can think, then pigs can fly.

Yours thinking with my Hind Brain,

The Captain

Revenge of the Macaws

Perhaps there is no greater testament to the vanity and arrogance of humans than the popularity of TV shows showcasing homemade videos of embarrassing and humiliating tricks they force their pets to perform. The poor animals are given no choice and are unable to defend themselves from such predators, so The Captain, steadfast friend and champion of the underdog, is stepping in to right this wrong. I have written a pilot for a new lameass TV show called “Stupid Human Tricks: Revenge of the Macaws.” I will host the show along with a highly trained Macaw parrot, who will provide the color commentary as I parade out a bunch of wannabe reality TV stars who are willing to perform the most ridiculous human tricks just to get their 15 minutes of fame. Here’s the lineup for the world premiere!

· For all the innocent canines who fell prey to their junkie masters and the infamous peanut butter on the bridge of the nose trick, I will parade out an offending crack addict who was involuntarily placed in a detox box for three days (my lawyers assure me the kidnapping charges will never stick) with a packet of crack cocaine duck taped to his back right on the very spot he can’t quite reach with his shaking extremities while Manny the Macaw taunts him with a chorus of “Polly want crack?”

· Next, the 300 pound guy who would regularly shave his miniature poodle and put pink scrunchies on his tail will come on stage wearing only a pink thong and be required to pirouette through an obstacle course of Wendy’s triple cheeseburgers before being allowed to consume them, only to discover that they’re just stage props, punctuated by the exclamation point of Manny asking the audience, “Where’s the beef?”

· We have a special treat for Rufus’s hyperactive OCD owner who forced him to line dance wearing a doggie cowboy hat and stirrups; he will have to do his own line dance wearing only an itchy burlap bag. His partners? A group of Galapagos Tortoises in no hurry to bust a move!

· And as a grand gesture to appease all the poor monkeys who were ever made to dance for organ grinders, we turn the tables and give them each a Wall Street executive dressed as a bell boy, and send them all to Times Square to record them dancing for dollar bills. Manny will visit each CEO and serenade them with a sing-songy “Dance, Bitch, Dance.”

· And finally, Manny gets to star in his own segment; he will parade around the mall on the shoulder of his owner, who will be dressed as Captain Morgan and forced to approach strangers with baby carriages and say things like, “Ahoy, Matey” and “Shiver Me Timbers” until the Mall cops come and arrest him on national TV

Believe The Captain when he says: Be sure to hire extra security whenever you bring in a crack addict as a guest on your TV show.

Yours recruiting one of those hairless dogs to do a segment with Donald Trump,

The Captain

Shiver Me Timbers

Redneck Games

The Redneck Games – What I Learned: A Journey in Pictures

Every year, Rednecks from around the country gather to show their redneck pride by participating in the Redneck Games, which is like the Olympics minus the corporate sponsors and fit and trim athletes. Once again, due to a scheduling conflict (I had plans to shop for surge protectors), I was unable to attend 2010 games in person, but thanks to the modern miracle of technology, I was able to search the web for wonderful photos of this glorious event. Below is my photojournalistic journey into a world I’d hoped had disappeared decades ago: the 2010 Redneck Games!

Here are some little-known Redneck games.

This is Mud Skiing!

For obvious reasons, this sport, known unofficially as Statutory Rape, is a not-so-well-kept Redneck secret.

My personal favorite: Bobbing for Pigs Feet!

Goofy old Redneck Men

(No captions necessary)

Rednecks take to mud like pigs take to shit (I hope that's just mud)

I know! What's she doing with him??

The after-coitus-in-the-mud cigarette - I just pray to God it was with a human.

Like their simian cousins, Rednecks are masters of ingenuity.

Rednecks appreciate creature comforts. Interpret that anyway you like.

Redneck Yacht Club

Preparing for the Fireworks Show

Official Redneck Games Torch!

I always thought that the picture circulating the world wide interweb of the guy playing horseshoes with the toilet seat was staged; but Toilet Seat Horseshoing is apparently a competitive sport and toilet seats are a great for placing your ass...er, I mean ads.

I think she's got a flag for all fifty states and a spare just in case Puerto Rico achieves statehood.

I'd ask where that tongue has been except I'm pretty sure it was on that toilet seat.

So they use plungers for something other than sex!

Come to mama!

She looks normal. What's up with that?

This one's up for a CLIO

Haystacks Calhoun had a love child! Who knew or even thought it physically possible??

Redneck Hotness!!

(I will risk no captions below.)

They start ‘em young; the photographs below answer once and for all the Nature versus Nurture debate. Even the most outrageous human behavior can be nurtured.

(Warning: The images below may obliterate your fragile belief in humankind)

What? No mullet??

God gives each child a special talent.

What's that on the edge of the horseshoe?

Cute little girl in a Condedrate flag bikini - there are just too many mixed messages to address so I'll leave well enough alone.

I had no idea there was so much Confederate flag apparel.

There truly is someone for everyone.

There are no words...

We have this problem up north as well.

Nice bonnet.

Redneck Sandwich

Believe The Captain when he says: the South has little chance of ever rising again.

Yours wearing my American Flag Headband,

The Captain

First Born Off to College

Life is full of milestones, unless, of course, your latest milestone is death, in which case you’re toast; but I’m not dead, in spite of the many wishes to the contrary and despite the numerous forecasts of an early demise by the various unsolicited “professionals” who haunted my childhood – teachers and psychologists and tap dance teachers and the like.

Much to their horror, no doubt, I managed to procreate. And as I write this I stand at the threshold of another major milestone as the first born of my three legitimates is about to go off to college and significantly reduce my goddamned food bill. I admit I’m kind of excited, in a characteristically selfish sort of way. First of all, I’ll be able to afford to buy premium beer again with the money I’m not spending on the red meat needed to satiate the hunger of a 6’ 2” teenage boy. Eldest Son of The Captain (ESOTC) will matriculate at The Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington, DC, as an avowed atheist and Conscious Homework Objector, who is someone who refuses to do homework on principal, the principal here being it gets in the way of his social life. And yes, like yours truly, CUA uses the definite article in its official name, owing to the fact it ultimately reports up to the Pope, and maybe even the Illuminati or the Free Masons, or some other satanic entity, if the rumors are to be believed.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, I am looking forward to making the road trips down to DC to visit ESOTC. It’s about time for me to have a mid-life crisis, so the timing is perfect. I can’t wait to see the faces of the kids in the freshman dorm when they see me passed out in the dorm hallway in my Pro-choice T-shirt!! Who better to be an argument for abortion than moi? I’ll drag along my kid brother and our good ol’ boy friend Ron for good measure. I can see it now – three drunk middled-aged men rolling in laughter on the lawn of the national mall. “Look Ron, it’s the Washington Monument!” “No, it’s a giant Phallus!” corrects Ron. “What’s a Phallus?” I ask. “A giant penis!” screams Ron. Uncontrollable laughter follows. Imagine this scene repeated – 12 times, and still funny every time, until the Mall Ranger rudely demands that we move on.

Plus, in case you haven’t visited an institution of higher learning lately, you are in for a surprise. When I was in college, we joked about it being like a country club. Well, today, college is a country club. Even the smallest college will have the following:

· A full service health club and swimming pool, complete with rosy cheeked coeds adorning the pool deck;
· A food court – back in the day we used to have to drive to a mall to find one of these; now you just roll out of bed or pick yourself up off the pavement and you’re there!
· A Starbucks – kids these days actually go and drink non-alcoholic beverages and socialize in places like this.
· Free cable and wireless internet (OK, it’s not free to the parents) so kids can do research on the internet or, after all of their homework is done, view websites for mature audiences; is there a more mature audience than a dorm full of young men fresh out of high school?
· National acts that come and do shows on campus, saving students thousands of dollars in cab fare and bail money.
· A beer caddy and a condom dispenser in every dorm room (just kidding).

But you get the picture. It seems I was born a few decades too soon. But there is one thing that was better in my day – lack of technology. No cell phones to take incriminating party photos and no Facebook on which to post them.

Believe The Captain when says: Road Trip!!

Yours destroying those discolored Polaroids,

The Captain

This was my beer caddy.

Politics and Religion

Sex, drugs, and Rock & Roll are The Captain’s old standbys; whenever I can’t think of something to write about, I just go to a prostitute, drop some acid, and listen to Led Zeppelin. Just kidding. I can’t afford the first two and I only have Led Zeppelin on vinyl, which is badly scratched anyway, the byproduct of my adolescent “dark” period, which is a melodramatic way of saying I thought it would be cool to lock myself in my room, turn off the lights and play my rock & roll records. Even in the best of circumstances, it’s not easy to accurately land a phonograph needle on a black disk. Try doing it in the dark after 2 sixes of Genesee Cream Ale! But today is Primary Tuesday, when corrupt egomaniacs vie for the right to represent the Elephant or Ass in this November’s elections, so I am inspired to wade into this dangerous topic that Grandma told me never to discuss in polite company. But with no such company anywhere near me and the fact that Grandma was a rude and demented old bat, I have decided to try my hand at political punditry; but even the political seas aren’t dangerous enough for The Captain. I will not only cross the line, but will deface it with graffiti by writing about Politics and Religion in the same blog – nay, the same sentence! Here goes nothin’.

Shocking Political Behavior and Scandalous Secrets

· Brace yourselves: Barack Obama is half white.

· Stealing political signs is hardly news; whether you’re a drunken teenager or a political rival, pinching lawn signs in the wee hours of the morning is to be expected from time to time. However, the campaign manager for a candidate for Attorney General in waspish Connecticut has taken this tomfoolery to new heights. In broad daylight on the day before the Primary, he placed signs on a private citizen’s lawn on the busiest road in town - without the owner's permission. Later, still illuminated by the midday sun, he drove by the property and saw an elderly female removing his signs and went apeshit. He pulled over, rushed up to the old lady and violently ripped the signs from her arms, allegedly striking her in the process, all the while failing to notice the opponent’s campaign worker who witnessed the entire confrontation. The police were called, and despite his begging pleas to the contrary, the old lady pressed charges, bolstered by the witness statement of the opponent’s campaigner. Now, I don’t claim to be an expert on political campaign strategy, but I see several flaws in this guy’s approach. First and most importantly, he was sober. Second…well, let’s just say that criminal mischief is best managed after dark. And finally, always check for witnesses! What a tool.

· Brace yourself some more: sometimes, politicians tell fibs. Some of these fibs even approach the Captainesque in their creativity and outlandishness. There have been politicians who have questioned the validity of the citizenship of the President of the United States of America (the black half, at least), claiming he is an Islamic alien extremist from Mars who is stealing Kindles from the wealthy and redistributing them to homeless Martian children without health care, whose appearance on earth heralds the imminent approach of Armageddon or, at the very least, the return of Elvis, who some had accused of dancing like a black person. It’s true.

· Sad news: You know that Tea Party that was the inspiration for the numerous political groups that have recently adopted the name? Well, it wasn’t really a party after all. Even though Sam Adams played a role in the original event, he didn’t even bring any of his beer! Not a single ounce of booze was consumed. In fact, they didn’t even drink any tea. Again, I’m no Tucker Carlson, but I do know a thing or two about parties and that was no freakin’ party!! (Let me take this opportune moment to put in a shameless plug for my party, the Keg Party – read about it in my Prior Post).

Shocking Religious Behavior: Did you know that there are real religions out there that encourage sobriety for all, virginity for women, and abstinence for men?? And you wonder why fewer and fewer people attend church!!

Believe The Captain when he says: I may occasionally fib, or steal a sign, or even be half white and half white, but I am no politician. And I certainly do NOT abstain!!

Yours throwing a party with Sam Adams and the New England Patriot Cheerleaders,

The Captain

The Summer of Paint, Second Generation aka The Summer of Clubber

Eldest Son of The Captain (ESOTC) is unwittingly following in his father’s footsteps, spending the summer before he goes off to college painting; I say “unwittingly” because anyone with their wits about them would avoid my tracks like a fat rabbit avoids the tracks of a mountain lion. But he got a job painting the schools in town to earn money for college and as a bonus is learning some valuable life lessons - like the importance of getting a college degree so you don’t end up like Clubber, a 40 something townie who is the unofficial paint crew supervisor in spite of the fact he gets the same hourly wage as ESOTC and the two other college bound burnouts on the crew.

During the school year, Clubber, who lives at home with his mother and reminds one of an overgrown Oompa Loompa minus the tan, is a Hall Monitor at the local high school, from which he graduated 25 years ago; he apparently liked it so much he never bothered to leave. When he’s not sneaking a cigarette behind the shop wing or ogling the freshman girls, he’s the hired snitch for the Assistant Principal. But with all the little hoodlums on summer break, he’s the self-appointed paint crew chief and Master of the Universe. Some examples:

· Professional painters will always prep the surfaces, paint the trim, and then finish by rolling. Clubber, who ESOTC describes as a giant bowling ball with arms and legs and three holes in the head, is at least smart enough to know he has no business on a ladder, so he chooses to roll exclusively and let the young students do the grunt work of taping and trimming. He does demonstrate some creativity, however, as he sits on an office chair with casters to roll his way down the corridors, pun intended. The only problem is that he rolls ahead of the trimming, leaving his young charges with having to clean up the paint he splattered all over the floor (it’s way too fucking hard to roll a chair over a drop cloth, you know).

· He complains to anyone who will listen that his tax dollars have been squandered on a $230 piece of cleaning equipment for the schools (which will save the town money in the long run), ignoring the smacks-you-on-the-head irony that tax payers pay him to sit around and smoke on school grounds and leer at teenage girls, while occasionally providing witness statements to the Assistant Principal about fights he could easily have broken up.

· Will walk the length of a long corridor to take the elevator up or down a single story rather than take the stairs; rumor has it that Clubber hasn’t taken the stairs since his second senior year, which is about the time that Burger King introduced the double Whopper.

· One thing that clubber has grasped, though, is the municipal employee workplace culture; one day, because the crew ran out of tape and he was too lazy to drive 3 minutes to the hardware store to pick up some new rolls (there’s that word again), he instructed the 3 student laborers to “go hide in the library ‘til quittin’ time.” They get similar instructions when they run out of paint because Clubber has yet to grasp the concept of taking an inventory of supplies.

· Admittedly, Clubber has done an admirable job of preparing ESOTC for the working world by unknowingly modeling the behavior of corporate managers – talk a big game about stuff you really don’t understand, issue executive orders with little forethought, and then blame your underlings for your own stupidity. But ESOTC has figured out a way to diffuse the big guy: bring him food – lots and lots of it. And this doesn’t even dip into ESOTC’s earnings because he also works part-time evenings and weekends at a local Panera Bread, so he’s able to procure huge bags full of discarded product loaded with carbs and sugar which he brings to Clubber at the start of the day. Is it really OK to be an enabler for an obese middle-aged townie in a dead-end job? Who can say? But ESOTC’s work day certainly goes much better!

So thank you Clubber for preparing my son for the cruel, hard world, a place ESOTC can avoid for the next four years in college (so long as he actually completes and hands in his assignments in the same semester they are due). Please accept those dozen doughnuts I had delivered as my expression of gratitude.

So Believe The Captain when he says: Grab your chair and a can of spray paint and let’s decorate the Principal’s office!

Yours signing my artwork, “Clubber Was Hear!”

The Captain

What's In a Name?

Riding in a car loaded with teenagers is always fun, no matter your age. Take me for example (I always do – take me for an example, that is; someone once told me I was Narcissistic and I replied that he was a pessimistic spastic. I don’t know what the heck either thing is but my response sounded cool and rhymed), when I was teenager myself, in the dim and distant past, I took to heart the expression, “Idle hands are the Devil’s playthings.” Whenever I found myself in the back seat of a Ford Pinto with several other teenagers, I would always keep both hands busy. One had a beer can grafted to it and the other, like a snake hidden in the tall grass, would slither stealthily toward the teenage girls’ secret hiding places. So much for that expression. It appears that old Satan has all the bases covered (pardon the pun) as busy hands are also his playthings.

Today, the father of a teenage girl, I keep both hands on the steering wheel and one eye permanently on the rear view mirror spying the backseat ceiling, which is where I insist all male teen passengers keep their hands affixed. “Glue! That’s right Mister Guitar Hero, I’ve seen your hands in action. Keep ‘em glued to that ceiling or your band mates will be posting an ad on Craig’s List for a new guitar player!” If you are looking for a new and creative way to embarrass your teenage daughter, apart from having a pulse, I recommend this.

Thusly forced to engage their minds on intellectual pursuits, my daughter and her friends discussed the merits of band names. We started with the name for Guitar Hero’s band, The McLovins. I asked my young passenger (who is actually a very nice, very bright, and very talented guitar player – just in case his parents find out about this blog) if the name was a tribute to the Teen Movie cult classic “Super Bad”? Only indirectly, he explained. You see, his band’s You Tube Video was seen by a couple of stoned blokes on a Phish Fan site. One was like, “Dude, the guitar player looks like McLovin!” And the other was like, “Dude, the bass player looks like McLovin!” And then together, “Dude, it’s the McLovins!!” The video went viral and the band had its name. Check out the amazing jam band “The McLovins” here. http://www.themclovins.com/fr_home.cfm

We (I made them include me since they were in my car) all agreed that the topic of band names might prove fun.

We identified some as clever; some inexplicably cool; some stupid funny; and some clearly the brainchild of minds violently unhinged by drugs or reality Television. Here are just a few examples (feel free to submit your own names and editorial comments).


· Menace II Sobriety: A play on words with an alcohol reference, right up my alley.

· The Smith’s: Understated parody of other band names suggesting a need for anonymity due to a closet full of skeletons, such as ambivalent sexual behavior, designer drug use, or being a member of an ideal suburban family that spawned a serial killer.

· I Set My Friends On Fire: Enough said…until my oh so clever daughter said that it doesn’t have to be read literally but could also be a metaphor. I was gonna come back with, “that’s what my “girl” friends used to say about me back in the day, but then I remembered that I was in a car full of raging hormones and thought better of it, filing this thought in the back of my mind under the category: Share someday during Thanksgiving dinner when the kids are all grown up and out of the house.

· Gogol Bordello: A Gypsy Punk band name with a reference to a Russian novelist and a brothel. Esoteric literary allusion coupled with gutter talk – remind you of anyone??!

· Thrift Store Catastrophe: Reminds me of Daughter of The Captain (DOTC), who was born with style and a taste for fine clothing. Forcing her to shop for second hand clothes in order to save money results in a Thrift Store Catastrophe.

· Deuce Bag: This one is pure Shakespeare. A crude idiom with a nod to illegal drugs wrapped in a pun. I’m getting way too excited over this.

· Private Event: My imagination was off and running with impure thoughts about private events of a certain ilk when I realized that this was not the name of a band after all but simply a notice for a…er…private event.

· Goon Squad: This one makes the cut because of its breathtaking lack of wit and originality, no doubt the work of a bunch of high school burnouts with no future prospects.

· Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams: Drugs. Lots and lots of them. You know I looked up Slambovia to see if it’s a real place (hey, many folks still think Slovakia is a made up country, even some who actually live there). The question of the existence of Slambovia depends on your state of mind, with those in state of sobriety generally agreeing that it’s fantasy while those in altered states insisting they visit frequently. You choose. I already know how the Goon Squad will answer.

· Us Against the Archers: I don’t really know why I like this name; I just do. Let’s go shoot some arrows at something!

· Justin Bieber: Who the fuck names a band Justin Bieber? Must be a Disney band.

Eventually the teens grew tired of conversing with an adult – or maybe just this particular adult – and started texting each other and giggling. But I had done my good deed for the day and reconnected with the youth of America, extortion notwithstanding.

Believe The Captain when he says: All Hail Slambovia!

Yours sneaking off to see the Slambovian Circus ringmaster formerly known as my dealer,

The Captain

Gogol Bordello

If I Was a Celebrity...

I don’t know about you, but my favorite part about visiting the grocery store is waiting in the checkout line; this gives me time to peruse the tabloids for the media frenzy about the latest misadventures of the now grown up child stars or horny politicians. It seems that nothing will mess you up more than being the underage star of some lame eighties TV sitcom. Nonetheless, which one of us would turn down Fate’s invitation to become a celebrity and spend our days finding ways to make the front page of the Daily Star? Not me! Now I admit that, already being a blogging buffoon, this isn’t such a stretch for The Captain; the only difference would be that my silly and obscene antics would be real and not imagined. But I thought it would still be loads of fun to go through the exercise of planning my day as if I was Charlie Sheen or MacKenzie Phillips. So here we go, The Captain’s “Day with an Imaginary Celebrity.”

6 AM: Put on one of those Lone Ranger masks without the holes for the eyes, take a valium, and go to bed.

3 PM: Wake Up Call, which means having my hot illegal immigrant housekeeper wake me up by throwing a strike down my custom mahogany bedroom bowling alley wet bar. If that doesn’t work, she has been instructed to get out the forceps and the tequila.

3:30 PM Breakfast of Lucky Charms, skittles, and, to make it healthy, some appled-smoked bacon to get my daily serving of fruit.

5 PM: Place a call on my diamond studded Blackberry to a local T-Shirt shop to order 100 shirts that read: “Unattractive Groupies Need Not Apply.”

6 PM: Call my Personal Assistant to instruct him to set up a play date with Cory Feldman and a Michael Jackson Impersonator.

7 PM: Luncheon with hot E News reporter by the pool. Don’t forget to use my big boy manners.
8:30 PM: Go on Scavenger Hunt in neighborhood ravines looking for one of Charlie Sheen’s Mercedes and discarded prescription meds.

9:00 PM: Game of Spin the Bottle with MacKenzie Phillips, Margot Kidder, Robert Downey, Jr., Winona Ryder, Lindsey Lohan, Dana Plato, and those anorexic blonde twins. Share my scavenger hunt plunder. Prank call Johnny Depp and tell him it’s the 90’s and he doesn’t know what he’s missing!

9:37 PM: Call 911

9:38 PM: Call my lawyer.

10 PM: Order some Chinese, with a side of activated charcoal.

11 PM: Move the party down to the Home Theater Bunker Bar. Tell Lindsay Lohan that Britanny Spears is prettier than she is and duck. Put on Gary Coleman masks and revive Dana Plato. Strategically place shiny trinkets with hidden GPS chips throughout the room so you can track Winona Ryder after she leaves.

12 AM: Private concert with Justin Bieber, which is interrupted after ten minutes when Lohan mistakes him for Spears.

12:26 AM: Call Justin’s Mom.

1:30 AM: Ring for Alfred the Butler (his real name is Steve) and have him bring the Hummer around to get me the f*ck outta here. Just drive Alfred my man!!!!

1:31 AM: Paparazzi on Vespas in hot pursuit.

1:35 AM: Instruct Alfred to push the Batmobile button to release a gazillion Ninja stars from the secret trunk compartment into the Paparazzi’s path.

1:36 AM: Steve instructs me to sit down and shut up.

2 AM: Arrive back home to find Kidder and Plato humping an unconcious Downey, Jr, Phillips in the pantry, nose bloodied after inhaling 3 packets of Margartita mix, Lohan with Sheen in an arm lock, Ryder long gone, and a bill from the ambulance company that transported Spears. No sign of those skinny ass twins other than the 15 empty Oreo packages on the floor. Rush over to stop Phillips from trying to snort the crumbs.

2:30 AM: Go next door to hang with the eight kids who live there – their parents are never home. Spend all night talking about how their Dad’s a Playa and Mom’s a narcissistic publicity hound. Put the kids to bed and headed home – had to pull Kidder out of the pool again.

6 AM: Called the housekeeper – Lolita or Senorita or Margarita or whatever her name is – to come and tuck me in. I sleep, perchance to dream, though my reality is naught but a dream. It’d been a busy day as a Celebrity.

Believe The Captain when he says: Everything you read in the Daily Star is true!

Yours calling Kidder a cab,

The Captain

Friends from the Hood

Folk Songs from the Old Country

This past weekend, The Captain attended a family reunion for the Slovak side of the family. I’ll preface my remarks by pointing out that when I was a boy, picnic attire for the Slovak grownups in attendance was strictly formal – suits for the men and summer dresses for the women. Peasants when they lived in what was once called Czechoslovakia (yes, I spelled that without any help), they were often called “quaint” and “backwards” by the wealthy Bohemian tourists who headed east from Prague in search of some quiet time in the Tatry mountains. Well, based on their picnic garb, I gotta agree that they seemed to have it backwards alright. This created some difficulty during softball games for a young American boy in a T shirt and shorts and a glint in his eye. Do I slide into third and ruin Uncle John’s wool slacks or do I come in standing up and risk making the second out? Well, Uncle John could be a real mean son-of-a-bitch, so standing it was.

The story of Father of The Captain (FOTC) is a pretty cool one. Some day I may write about it at length in a serious vein with great pride and admiration. For the sake of this blog, here’s the reader’s digest version. He was youngest of three children living on the family farm with his Mom in the village of Mengusovce (population 700); his father had already been in the states for several years – in Torrington, CT, of all places – sending money back home to pay for passage to America for his family. My Uncle John was the oldest sibling, followed by my Aunt Sue and finally Father of The Captain, who reportedly was well acquainted with trouble and who had a habit of sneaking into the woods to visit the gypsy camps. Then came 1939 and the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, so my Grandmother decided she could tarry no longer and packed up the family possessions on a pony drawn cart and headed to Bremen to catch a ship to America. At the time, my Uncle John was 17, my Aunt Sue was 15, and FOTC 11. A year after the arrival, a fourth sibling was born in America – my Uncle Milan.

The transition to a new country, culture, and language is much easier for an eleven year old than for teenagers. Whereas my Uncle and Aunt never were able to completely shed their old country ways, FOTC assimilated faster than shit through the geese he used to force feed back in Europe. So growing up in Torrington, I was a normal American lad ( as normal as someone can be spending his formative years in Torrington).

In the subsequent years, people started dying, which happens. First my grandfather, then my Uncle John and then FOTC. My Grandmother outlived her two oldest sons, but just barely, as exactly one week after my father’s funeral, my Aunt Sue went to visit her in a nursing home; she’d brought her some Kolache (a Slovak pastry) leftover from FOTC’s funeral reception. It was a little dry and my Grandmother choked on it and died on the stop. I gotta say that I give my Aunt Sue a lot of credit as to this very day she has never felt even the slightest pang of guilt. God bless her.

So there was my Aunt Sue this past weekend, sitting next to me in a lawn chair. For the record, she was sitting in 95 degree heat wearing a smart polyester pant suit. She’s 87 now and walks with a cane and sometimes thinks I’m my father, which is really a bad thing because being me I can’t help playing along at times. It took a good twenty minutes to convince her that I was not her little brother and that I was just kidding about spying on her as a child when I caught her doing the nasty in the tall grass with the handsome gypsy rover. Please pray for my soul. Any way, as she watched the younger generations playing volleyball, she suddenly blurted out that watching us makes her want to sing. Of course, my younger sister heard this and, just like when we were kids and my older sister was in the same room, she started to boss me around, demanding that I get the video camera and record my Aunt singing her song. Someday I will be a man, but that was not the moment, so I did as I was told, as I spied my older sister watching me to see how I’d react.

So Aunt Sue began to sing a sweet folk melody in Slovak. Everyone gathered listened quietly, mesmerized by the simple folk melody. We all guessed that this was a lullaby that was sung to her by her mother. She ended and we all sat quietly, until yours truly opened his mouth and asked her what the song was about: a mother and her son, we were told, and we all, or at least some of us, envisioned a mother suckling her pure and innocent babe. But wait, there’s more… the son was in fact a young man and the song was a plea for him to sleep at home tonight. Confused, I asked for clarification. And Aunt Sue clarified. The son was apparently quite virile and was in the habit of cohabitating with numerous young village maidens and spent more nights in haylofts than in his bed at home. “You go dog!” escaped from my mouth and was not particularly well received, especially by Mother of the Captain, whose hearing is still sharp. I was dying to ask if this was a song that my grandmother ever sang to my father, but thought better of it.

Right about then my cousin Arnie, a 50-something virgin who lives alone, shot up out of his chair and he and his polyester slacks abruptly departed without saying goodbye. Never a dull moment at the Slovak family picnic! Now there are times when even the most strident atheist has to admit that there is an undeniable and mysterious balance and symmetry to life. And this was one of those moments, because no sooner had Arnie left than cousin Sharie, another 50-something virgin, arrived some 3 hours late, as she felt it more important to spend time with her flatearther Christian cult friends than her own flesh and blood. The void of a fifty-something virgin is not so easily filled, but there stood Sharie, filling it in all her glory in her freshly printed Christian retreat T-Shirt informing one and all that we’re a bunch of no good sinners and that Hell is anxiously awaiting our arrival.

And I did I mention that MOTC still has eagle eyes? She saw that I was about to open my mouth to comment and knew from years of experience that no good could come from it; she glared at me and gestured to my sisters to get ready to pounce. I looked MOTC straight in the eye, gave SsOTC a wink, and said…”Hi Sharie, nice to see you.” Oh, did I mention that the Slovak side of the family doesn’t drink? Some nonsense about the Devil’s brew. With my six-pack drained, it was time to go. But before I departed, I told my Aunt Sue that I would love to record her singing more folk songs. As I bent down to kiss her goodbye, she must have thought that I was her brother again because she whispered in my ear, “I’m so glad you never told Ma about me and the gypsies.” It was “gypsies” plural!!

Believe The Captain when he says: You go Aunt Sue!

Yours wondering if the Slovaks sang folk songs about birth control,

The Captain

The Quaint but sexually active village of Mengusovce, Slovakia.