I never realized that the Laughing Cow was a straight dude. We all know that straight men have discovered their "inner queen." They can fan the flames of their faggotry (thank you, Margaret Cho) better than most gay men. I mean, Liberace now seems butch compared to some straight guys. Anyway, I'm at the market tonight and in the corner of the dairy department is the Laughing Cow display screaming out to me.
And I'm still working through this. Not the Laughing Cow, but the loss of masculinity. Am I to assume that such a trend signifies a more open acceptance of diversity of people / styles / attitudes? I don't really see that. I still see people trying aimlessly to fit in. And for straight men, fitting in now is feminizing themselves. Gay or straight, I miss the masculine aspects that used to seem so natural to men. I know masculinity is not gone, I just miss its abundance.
But don't get me wrong, I'm liking the Laughing Cow and his sassy style. But what I prefer is a more masculine approach to advertising. Like Silver Palate's Oatmeal: Thick & Rough. That drives the point home and got me to notice. I think we have a new oatmeal. So move over, Mr. Quaker Oats.
Why I now like Pat. That's not her name but I'll call her Pat. Not that I can't tell if she is male or female like the Julia Sweeneycharacter from SNLbut she has one of those names that can be both male or female depending on how one spells it. Pat works at the Post Office and has a mullet. She looks like an upstate lesbian. That is not a judgmentalobservation, it's more of an archetypal description.
The issue with Pat started months ago when Richie and I encountered her for the first time. We had a package we were sending to an APO address (military post office) within the United States. Pat said we had to fill out a customs form. We said that it is domestic address. Pat said that it could be a foreign address. We said but look here at the address it is domestic. Pat said that it could be foreign. We said that if the address is in Alabama how can that be foreign? Pat said that it could be foreign. I said I could be foreign but I'm not. She didn't get it so we filled out the customs form.
The next package was going overseas and we had the forms all filled out and ready to go. On the form we had marked that it was a gift. Pat wanted to know what kind of gift. We said that it was media. Pat wanted to know what kind of media. We said it was a DVD. Pat asked how she could be sure it was a gift. We said "Your kidding right?" Pat said "No." We said, "Because we say so?" Pat said "OK". Pat started talking about a gift she knew a man got once. It was a metal detector used to find metal in the sand. And that he went on to retire and spend his days looking for rings and jewelry in the sand. As she told us this story she made numerous mistakes with the postage on our other packages and we had to point out her mistakes as she tried to somehow cover them up by making excuses that we were confusing her with our stories. A 5 minute transaction at the Post Office ending up taking about 20 minutes and we left scratching our heads trying to figure out what the hell just happened vowing to never go to Pat again. A few days later 2 of our packages came back to us with insufficient postage.....Pat!
Since that time, we have avoided Pat every time we go to the P.O. and have watched as people walk away from her window shaking their heads. But on Saturday I took a package in to buy insurance for it. The postage was printed and already applied at home so I just needed to buy the insurance and send it off. I got to the window next to Pat and the worker there was someone I've never seen. After I told her what I needed and gave her the insurance form all filled out, she told me it was the wrong form and proceeded to charge me for the postage. I told her to look at the label, it was already paid for. She said I have to pay again because the computer told her to charge me. Pat looks over and said "What's going on?". I think oh jeez, this is it, I'm going to lose it. Pat took one look at the package and in about 30 seconds I was walking out of the Post Office with my mission complete and Pat as my new best Post Office worker.So that's why I like Pat. The moral of the story....I don't know what the moral is.
I have so many ideas, thoughts, stories, memories, anecdotes and body parts swirling around in my head and scribbled on scraps of paper that litter my mid-century John Stuart desktop or typed on electronic Stickies that litter my iMac's desktop...
OK, can I start over, please? There was too much brand-name-dropping in that first sentence and we want this to be a commercial-free venture. Anyway, my point is that I have a lot to say and there won't be much of an order to it so let's just get started. The Ape is also blogging as I write this and my competitive nature wants to finish before he does.
So (oh, btw, I hate sentences that start with "So," so please stop me if I ever do that again), we slept all day yesterday and got up around 8pm. The wake-up time seems to get pushed later and later each day; maybe soon we'll be waking up the following morning, in which case...will we finally be on a normal human schedule? We had just enough time to feed our Facebook addictions (and our stomachs), shower, dress, and hop in a cab to go see our friend Susannah's show on Bleecker St. at 10:30pm. We got there just in time to find out that the show had actually started at 8 and had already ended. I swear the website said 10:30! (Oops, there's that dreaded exclamation point.) We were disappointed -- but not surprised -- because we have a history of this happening to us. We have Bad Clock Karma, as our SoCal friends would say.
In October, we were featured guests at the Bruised Fruits Halloween show at the Broadway Comedy Club. One of the improv troupe's members, the cute/funny David Hodorowski, had been a guest at our "comeback show" in August (more on how we came to stop and then start performing again in a future blog post...it's on one of my scads of Stickies, I promise). I had checked the Facebook event they'd created, which said the show started at 8:30am (I assumed the "AM" was a typo). We arrived at 8:15pm to find out the show had actually begun at 8pm and they'd been wondering where the hell we were (well, nobody said "hell" but I thought the story would have more punch if I made them seem pissed off).
A few years ago, a friend gave us tickets (great 5th row orchestra seats) to Jersey Boys on Broadway. He said he would leave the tickets at the box office window, and we arrived nice and early (7:30pm) but there were no tickets for us. As the Ape eloquently put it at the time, "WTF, man?" We waited around as the crowd filed in, calling Ticket Friend (and getting his voicemail) as the ticket-takers kept telling us how sorry they felt for us poor, pathetic ticketless tramps. We finally gave up as the curtain went up, and went to the gym instead to work out our frustration. Ticket Friend called the next day and wanted to know why we were at the theater at 7:30 when the show had been at 3. 3??!! We had totally forgotten about matinées. Who goes to matinées? He never said it was the matinée. As the Ape eloquently put it at the time, "Fuckin' 3 o'clock??" But even though we missed the show, we actually loved the fact that this happened to us, because we kind of got to live one of our favorite "I Love Lucy" episodes, where Lucy buys tickets to the big smash Most Happy Fella but doesn't realize until it's too late that her tickets were for the matinée. Here it is, in its digitally remastered entirety:
I think the Ape is nearing the end of his post so I'm going to publish mine. I win!!!
Tap, tap, tap, ahem....is this thing on? Man I feel like Mercury and Bowie: Under Pressure. Publish or perish. Is that what they say? Now what the hell am I supposed to do here? Vent, reveal my innermost thoughts, reveal my mindless thoughts or take on the world? Maybe I'll hit on all of them at one time or another.
All right so it's a new year and a new decade. As you know we had our traditional Chinese food on day 1. I don't care what anyone says, you can not have Chinese food leftovers. Cold pizza maybe yes but Chinese food has to be eaten when it's made.
Hey Richie, I don't think I agree with that Fitzgerald guy about exclamation marks. I think it's used to lighten up whatever you're saying so your words don't read as a "drag". That's how I use them.
Damn, it's late again. Ten minutes after finishing the dark chocolate Marcona Spanish Almonds and twenty minutes before finding something else to eat. Time to end this day. Am I supposed to sign off, trail off or just stop typing?
(Damn, I wanted to have a much cleverer title for our first blog post, but then again there's something to be said for simplicity and straightforwardness, right?) And what's with the exclamation point? "Welcome to the blog!" I always try to avoid those because, as F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said, "An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke." Then again, I do like my own jokes!
There is an awful Barry Manilow song blasting on my iTunes. I had the volume cranked up because the last song was Cher's "Just Like Jesse James," and you have to crank Cher up, especially if your downstairs 86-year-old gay-closeted-Republican-chainsmoking-bad-piano-playing neighbor ("Flubberace") is randomly banging on piano keys and you need to drown him out (while fantasizing about him actually drowning). But now it's Barry Manilow and it's a song I didn't even know we had. Let me check the title...OK, it's "The Kid Inside" from his album "Showstoppers." Wow, seriously sappy. Or is that sappily serious? Well, it beats random key pounding...but just barely. OK, now it's a Beastie Boys mashup so I'll turn the volume and the testosterone back up.
I want to thank (and dedicate this first blog post to) my Facebook friend Joseph DeSalvayon, who for the past year or two has incessantly nagged (actually, the word he and I use is "nudged") me to start this blog. Well, it finally worked. Well done, Joseph. You and I have a lot in common, because I always nag (I mean "nudge") Duane the Ape until I finally get my way. Over the years, it has started to take a lot less nag/nudging. It's like in the later episodes of "I Love Lucy," when Ricky would give in easily to Lucy because he (and we) by that point knew that he eventually would anyway, so why fight it? Of course, if it turns out that whatever idea I had was wrong or even disastrous, that's when I blame the Ape for not fighting back and for giving in too easily. Either way, it's a win-win for me-me. (I really hate the expression "win-win" but I've just decided that my cutesy "me-me" is far worse.)
The Ape is going to be co-writing this blog with me, on his laptop, from his perch at the kitchen counter where he can usually be found bent over, unselfconsciously (that's not a word but I like it) leaning all of his weight on one leg and thrusting his cute little butt out. I will often glance over to my left (from the desk) just to check it out, but I never let him know, sitcom-style (just like how you knew Mr. Roper on "Three's Company" was really attracted to Mrs. Roper, but he feigned disinterest to keep the upper hand).
I have so much to say but the Ape is waiting to take me for Chinese food, our New Year's Day tradition. He's flexing both biceps right now (or as he says, "I'm jus' stretchin'!!"), which I guess is my signal to finish this and get dressed. You do know I'm always completely naked at my desk, right?
