Burning Down The House!

Two years ago while my buddies and I were on our biannual pilgrimage up at Lake Erie, we all had a near death experience.

Some of my friends are schoolteachers. All of them graduated from Slippery Rock University. The SRU alumni began the biannual pilgrimages in the early 1990's and through the course of time added about an equal amount of us non-SRU alums. Us non-SRU pilgrimage members think that our SRU compadres can be a little scary at times. Let's just say that they are not the brightest bulbs in the batch and leave it at that. Us non-SRU alums refer to ourselves as the Geniuses as a running joke to their questionable education at the Rock.

Cupcake, our resident gym teacher, is also our scariest SRU alum. He is the sweetest guy in the world and for all we know, he very well may have a tested IQ of 150. But Cupcake does things at times that really makes you wonder.

One night, as fourteen of us were bedded down for the night in Irish's cottage, Cupcake decided to load the fireplace full of logs and partially close the flue. Well, he fully closed the flue. As we slept, the cottage filled with smoke and it is only by the grace of God that the local rag, The Evening Disturber, didn't run a headline that read "14 Killed By Sheer Stupidity!".

We all dodged a bullet that night thanks to two of our friends, Geniuses by the way, Highmark and Pimp-N-Playa, waking up and alerting the rest of us. I don't know whether there was a real chance of all 14 of us dying of asphyxiation, but we never did find out.

Cupcake's explanation was that he was looking to slow burn the logs all night, but we quietly suspect him of just being "a plain ol' Tard". Maybe he was trying to win the Pilgrimage deathpool and had one of the guys on the 2nd floor. Another explanation is that maybe Cupcake was still suffering the after effects of a concussion from an incident where he was umpiring a softball game for his Special Education girls. While Cupcake's attention was elsewhere, one of the gals swung the bat and knocked poor Cupcake out cold. Cupcake awoke with the girls standing around him wondering if he was dead.

Whatever the reason, God smiled on us that night and we were spared. The incident is forever recorded in Pilgrimage Lore and we try to monitor Cupcake when he goes near the fire or the Kerosene heaters.

When asked about the incident, Cupcake, in thoughtful reply, retorts, "Blah..blah...blah...zebracakes...blah...blah..."

Story Addendum:

Pilgrimage officials have now officially downgraded Highmark's role in the incident to "barely helpful". Full credit for saving all 14 pilgrimagers goes to my son, Pimp-n-Playa, who bravely fought through the smoke to rescue us while Highmark (possibly of Mexican descent), rolled over and saw it was not time to leave the cottage before the morning work commenced, and went back to sleep, according to eyewitnesses.

Devil's Playground, PA: Brother Marty Bowl Result!

Geniuses 6*, SRU Tards 3.




One of the biggest upsets occurred on Saturday, February 25th at 12 noon.

After 3 years of futile efforts on the football field, the Geniuses upset the heavily favored Tards in front of a packed 7th circle full of tortured souls.



On Satan's homefield, the Geniuses not only won the contest but dominated play entirely, forcing 5 Meersky turnovers while The Kraut and Pimp-N-Player both threw halfback option passes for touchdowns, Satan threw for three and rushed for the last score of the day. "Babyhands" Poppinfresh made a key interception and knocked down passes all day long and newbies, Patriot and T-Len were the recipients of many passes including 3 touchdowns between them. Patriot and Pimp also provided key interceptions and the Genius defense was stellar in stopping the vaunted Tard recievers, Cupcake the Cottage burner, Irish, Choder, Francois and the usually illustrious Hamdog. Pimp and Poppinfresh played the role of shutdown corners as they refused to give the Tards the downfield pass. This turned out to be the key to the game and the downfall of the Tards one-dimensional offense.



Hurricane gale winds swarmed the ballfield as many of the Tard passes were swallowed by their force. The winds miraculously died down everytime the Geniuses, especially Beelzebub himself, touched the ball. After three years of consecutive drubbings at the hands of the Tards (2003 Tards 7, Geniuses 4, 2004 Tards 7, Geniuses 1, 2005 Tards 7, Geniuses 4), the Geniuses finally achieved the holy grail, even if the game was held outside the traditional pilgrimage venue.

The Geniuses wore a daisy patch of their uniforms to honor one of their fallen teammates, SloppyRob, who earlier this month blew out his knee.Yesterday was a day of true heroes and flags are flying at half mast at Slippery Rock University!



Long overdue congratulations to the Genius football squad who played like true champions on this day.



*An asterisk has been placed on the final score due to Meersky's contention that the game be played to 7 in order to be considered an official game. Many observers and reporters have noted that this game could have been played to 20 and the final score would have been Geniuses 20, Tards 6.



It was that big a whitewash.

My Own Private Idaho

I've been divorced for almost six years and swore that I would never get married again. After dealing with the pain and loss of a divorce, I thought that I was too badly broken to ever take that leap again. I have been dating a woman casually for the past three months and I really like her company. We have hit it off very well and I could see a nice relationship forming. I can see this relationship fitting into a future marriage.

The marriage I'm speaking about though involves one of my best friends, Meersky. Meersky is a man's man but just enough of a bitch to make our marriage work. You see, one night we were talking about the benefits of same-sex marriage and we came up with a grand plan. Our lives compliment each other pretty well and we seem to be able to stand large doses of each other. We do just as much together now than most married couples do. This day and age with same sex marriages on the rise and becoming acceptable, why not just get hitched, share a house, a healthplan, chores, etc...

Neither one of us is homosexual, so this would be a chaste marriage but would involve no jealousy if either of us has involvement with a woman. Not exactly Brokeback Mountain but we could take advantage of the benefits of being married without all the hassle that usually accompanies it. We could sit in the living room watching TV and ignore each other without the random "Honey, what are you thinking?", coming into play. Our telephone conversations are legendary. We average about 14 seconds per call. We are both pretty handy around the house and are anal about keeping it clean. Consider it "Roommates with benefits".

Irish and many of our other friends might be a little put off that they'd be forced to buy us wedding gifts but we'd still be able to provide a central location for guys night out.

We can basically do whatever we want, whenever we want while enjoying the benefits of being married. I may ask him from time to time if I look fat in my "choo choo pajamas" but I think he can handle it. So, the way we figure it. It's a no lose situation. It's not like we have to actually prove that we are gay to get married. Hell, I would argue that we'd have just a little less sex than heterosexual couples after 10 years of marriage. With the divorce rates surging, I figure that marriages these days don't last much longer than the amount of years you stay with a roommate anyway. And Meersky is just dead sexy when he's all mad about losing or being cheated in sports. Ok, maybe there will be some sex involved.

Lastly, it'll give me a chance to have my son, Pimp-n-Playa move in with us and we can be a real family. I guess I'll have to go out and buy Pimp a copy of "Daddy's Roommate" to help him adjust.

Favorite Quotes: Part IV

"She's a Cancer..........like her mother!"
One of my favorite new quotes when people ask me when my youngest daughter, Kitty's, birthday is. I give the date and then her astrological sign followed by the epitaph about my ex. Coincidentally, her mother is a Cancer, so the quote is not necessarily derogatory.

"I don't believe in pre-marital sex.......I do, however, believe in post-marital sex."
I just came up with that one yesterday, when grilled by friends regarding my sexual relations with my girlfriend. A young Irish lass, Erie, was digging for clues and was disappointed when I uttered the first half of the line, and then started laughing when I finished the thought. Much to her chagrin, I'm not a big believer in the kiss and tell. Somehow, my newest quote will probably not dissuade her from future digging.

"I really couldn't give that information over the phone".
This line is meant to be used when standing directly in front of someone, when you really don't want to give an answer. It is guaranteed to cause a few seconds of confusion while you race ahead to change the subject. I've been using this line since I was about 15. It's usually good for a dumbfounded look or two.

So, there you go. A three-fer of Bluey originals.

Death By Snu-Snu (A Valentine Wish)

In one of my favorite "Futurama" episodes (Amazon Women In The Mood), Fry, Brannigan and Kif are sentenced to "death by snu-snu", where they are expected to sleep with all of the Amazon women until they suffer crushed pelvises and die. If life could only be so good.

I don't know a man alive that wouldn't welcome that fate.

Alas, we end up going to the grave with our pelvises intact. What a rip. Death by sex seems like such a prefered method as opposed to death by much too infrequent sex, nagging and guilt trips which seemingly are the cornerstones of marriage.

Men are built to go anytime, anywhere 24/7. Women are very different. There seems to be a whole biorhythm thing at play where the stars have to line up just right for them to feel the same way a man does. One time I asked my ex if she ever got an overwhelming feeling to have sex right there and then. She said that once she woke up at 3am and was really horny but didn't want to wake me.

"Didn't want to wake me!!! Are you crazy!!", I told her. "Wake me right the fuck up!! I don't care when, where, how or why, just wake me right the fuck up"

.I guess it's just nature's cruel joke that we're built so differently.

Death by Snu-Snu. That is my Valentine's wish.

Epilogue: My favorite Zap Brannigan pickup line: "I think the most sensuous part of a woman's body................is the boobies"

The Massachusettes Prune Exchange

One of the most enjoyable jobs I had when I was younger was working the graveyard shift at my local supermarket during the summers when I came home from college.

I worked the midnight to 8:30am shift in the non-foods department packing the shelves with toiletries mainly. I had a buddy, Jefe, that used to work in the aisle next to me and we would spend the better part of the night tag teaming the grocery department crew with a flurry of insults that would last the entire night. Even though the store was open 24/7, we would get on the intercom from time to time and harass the grocery boys who thought our jobs were a piece of cake compared to theirs. We'd do nothing to dissuade them from that opinion and made loud snoring sounds from our aisles to further get their goats.

The other thing Jefe and I loved to do was to make up and sing fictional jingles from the various products we would stock. One of my personal favorites was my "Flush with Fleets (enema)" jingle and I never gave up an opportunity to give a full rendition to the store. The grocery boys thought the two of us were nuts but did enjoy the entertainment (usually, until they ended up as subjects with impacted colons in the twisted jingles). One of my other favorites was "Get the Wax Out (with Debrox)".

One night, I was in the middle of my favorite jingle when I heard this voice of displeasure coming from Jefe's aisle. It wasn't Jefe's voice but that of a woman who yelled over the aisle for me to stop my "caterwallin". Of course, this only provoked the two of us to a rousing rendition of the Fleets song. Then the woman and two guys in tow walked down my aisle. They were not amused.

She was a fat goth chick with blue hair and all kinds of ugly, crammed into black leather and fishnet stockings, and her two boy toys were equally goth and pasty white and reminded me of Jack Sprat and his brother John. When we were done singing, she said that our singing was atrocious and that she should know good singing because she was the lead singer of the Massachusetts Prune Exchange!

"The Massachussetts Prune Exchange?", I bellowed out loud. "Holy shit! Can I have your autograph?".

She went on to describe to us how her band was on the cutting edge of punk and that we were nothing but a couple of working stiff jackasses who would never amount to anything. She was a star and should not have to suffer through our singing.

Jefe and I were crushed. She was right. We never amounted to anything musically although we did record a demo tape produced in Jefe's garage that included our version of "Louie, Louie", an improvisational 18 minute version of the PC Richards jingle and a various assortment of other silly and worthless nuggets.

The MPE diva was right.

We were a bunch of no talent hacks, but we didn't exactly let her leave without tormenting her until she left spewing a fountain of obscenity our way. I guess we were just a bunch of stupid kids in the presence of real talent.

By the way, If anybody knows where I can get my hands on some Massachusetts Prune Exchange LP's, please let me know. I guess the demand was so great, they just couldn't keep the stores stocked fast enough. I've never seen one.

Congratulations To The Steelers!

God knows it wasn't a super effort by either team and the officiating stunk (again) but the difference was that the Steelers made the few big plays necessary to win the game.

You can make a case that Seattle outplayed the Steelers, but Seattle could not finish drives (regardless of a few iffy calls by refs). Having a field goal kicker that can't split the uprights doesn't help. Oh, and don't forget what a horrible job Holmgren did at the end of both halves managing the clock. The Steelers played a solid defensive game and that helped carry the offense until the Steelers were able to get a few big plays (Parker's 74 yd run and Randel El's pass to Ward). This game reminded me of old school low scoring superbowls before all the glitz and hype.

And Thank the Lord I won't have to hear that fucking "Here We Go" song much longer. That has to be one of the most annoying songs in the world. Not only do I want to slit my wrists when I hear it, I'd like to have about 60 pounds of plastique strapped to my body to take out those stores that insisted on playing it 24/7 in a continuous loop (Walmart, Dick's etc...).

Maybe I'd get 100 slightly used MILFs in heaven if I did the deed for Allah.

Whoever thought that this song should be a fight song needs to be executed. I literally walked out of stores this weekend to escape it.

So Congratulations Steeler Nation and please retire that stupid song before I kill someone.

Oh, and my favorite commercial. The friendly football game in which some guy legislates some chick with a blatant late hit after she catches a touchdown pass. I laughed my ass off.

What does that say about me?

Pittsburgh Steelers 109, Minnesota Vikings 18?

Yep, I had a Superbowl dream last night in which the Steelers totally dominated.

The only problem was that they had just handed the Minnesota Vikings their 5th Superbowl defeat. There were no Seahawks to be found in my dream.

I'm not even a Steelers fan, so God only knows what the hell that dream is supposed to mean.

Jeffrey Forester Is Dead!

When I was younger and in college, I was pure evil. My best friend, Beukey, wasn't much better. We spent the better part of four years tormenting those around us at our small liberal arts college. Our pranks were legendary and admired even by the resident preists on campus.

Beukey's roomie, Applebutter, was a Laurel Valley, Pa. yokel, who was a good guy, and was an avid Three Stooges fan. When the college sponsored a Three Stooges retrospective (hosted by "noted Stooge expert", Jeffrey Forrester), Applebutter was beside himself with joy and got his tickets early. He was real big into the Stooges. Beukey told me about his obsession but I never let on to Applebutter that I knew about it. Neither Beukey or I could give a fig about the Stooges, so we devised an evil plan.

We employed our resident dorm priest (who was one of our biggest fans) to set the trap. The night before the big event, Applebutter came into the dorm and Father Joju played his role perfectly. He went to the bulletin board and wrote CANCELLED on the flyer advertising the event. Applebutter, seeing this, asked the priest what was going on. The priest told him that he wasn't exactly sure why the event was cancelled.

When Applebutter came into his and Beukey's room, he seemed out of sorts. I asked Beukey if he had seen that there was a small craft accident at the local airport. Beukey feined ignorance and I proceeded to tell him that some Joe Forrest guy was killed who was supposed to visit the school. Applebutter's ears pricked up and asked me to elaborate on what I heard. I proceeded to concoct a tale of a small plane crash that had happened about ten miles away at the local airport. All three occupants were killed and one was supposed to be visiting the school but I pretended not to know what for. I told Applebutter that I had seen it on the local news and that the guy's name was Forest-something. Applebutter was beside himself and proceeded to explain to us who he thought it was.

Applebutter was in tears and went back to Father Joju and said to him, "Father.... Jeffrey... Jeffrey Forester is dead!"

How the priest kept a straight face is still a mystery to me. Having felt bad employing a preist to my evil plan, we broke the news about the prank to Applebutter. I think he wanted to kill us both but was a good sport about it in the end.

God knows that was only one of many, many pranks we pulled on him with the most infamous being "The Light Bill".

That story, however, will have to be reserved for another day...

Oh and a shout out to my daughter, Loni. Happy 12th birthday sweetie! We just returned from the Pens-Senators hockey game tonight. 7-2 Sens :(