Mercury News | 08/03/2003 | Soldiers lived for his laughs

Awhile ago I had a brief rant about an article that challenged the notion that Bob Hope wasn't funny. I felt this article, originally written in 1943 by then-journalist John Steinbeck was very worth reading.

Ok, Ok, I'll admit it...

If you read my website (thank you to the three of you out there that have visited 103 times apiece over the last ten months), you'll know I'm honest. But it's not the whole story. I've got ten things I'd like to get off my chest. This is therapy for my oft addled mind.

1. I have had few recurring dreams in my time. Here's a taste of some of the memorable ones:
- It's been years since I've had it, but I used to have this dream that a couple of heavily armed men (machine guns, ammo belts, grenades, the whole nine) stormed my second grade classroom and held us hostage. I just cowered in the corner.
- Also from my youth was a dream that somehow my mom had driven my brothers and I into a deep and thick forest, and was outside cutting wood for some reason (no, my mom is not a lesbian). Slowly, in this flat forest, thick with trees, the car would slowly start rolling backward, gaining speed as it kept going and going, rolling farther and farther from my mom, who was furiously giving chase. There was usually a cliff and a moment waking up before the crash.
- I have always had, and probably always will have dreams where I am being chased, but my legs start to feel leaden, and completely give way underneath me, causing me to collapse in tears on the ground.
- There's this strange dream where I'm armed and trying to escape from what could best be described as a dimly lit industrial dungeon building in a forest. Shots are never fired, but the weird part is the ending. Did you ever see the movie "The Legend of Billie Jean?" It's that bad Helen Slater vehicle where she becomes some sort of teen martyr outlaw thanks to a well placed Pat Benatar song or two on the soundtrack. Anyway, if memory serves (and I could be WAY OFF on this), the movie ends with a couple of the main characters, including Slater's "Billie Jean," meeting in a small mountain town briefly, before again ducking under the radar living on the run. Again, I could be wrong. But that dream always ends with me meeting up with some random character from the dream in a small mountain town in the snow, buying a couple of ATVs with our money, and heading off our seperate ways. Strange.

2. I find Rosie Perez's voice sexy. And Fran Drescher's. I would totally pork Fran Drescher ("Dad, I think he's going to pork her." "He's not going to pork her Rusty, now eat." "I think he is dad." "He might pork her Rusty, now eat okay?"). I don't think Fran Drescher looks a day older today than when she played Bobbi Fleckman. Love her in that part.

3. Maybe it's because I love food so much, but I've got huge crushes on two TV cooks: Rachael Raye is freaking adorable, and Nigella Lawson is an utterly perfect older woman fantasy. She's beautiful, smart, and eats like a human being (not a chronic dieter). She's also replaced the late, great Bob Ross as the most soothing voice on television.

4. The funniest thing I've ever seen to this day is also kind of sad, so excuse my sicko, morbid sense of humor. Fox has/had this show called "When Animals Attack." In 1994 there was this elephant named Tyke at a circus in Hawaii. Inside the bigtop (they performed in tents, not an arena), the elephant got spooked and started freaking out. Sadly, his trainer was almost immediately trampled and died (not the funny part yet, asshole). So people are pouring out of the tent, and the elephant manages to find daylight on the outside as well. Somehow, cameras are in perfect position to capture the rampaging elephant chasing a lone man, running literally for his life from the multi-ton beast. Up ahead, the man spots an exit from the circus compound - a ten foot high chain link fence with a top-to-bottom gate wide enough to get a semi in and out. The bad news? The gate is closed. Good news? It's unlocked! The man fumbles briefly with the latch and swings the gate open as the elephant has quickly made up a lot of ground.

(OK, here's the funny part) If you're the man, here's where you go back to the videotape after the incident and realize your near-fatal flaw.

The man springs the gate free of its latch and crosses through to the outside. But inexplicably, he STOPS TO SHUT THE GATE, somehow thinking a chain link fence is going to stop a rampaging elephant. Before he can get ten feet away from the gate closure, the elephant bursts through the fence and runs square over the guy, trampling him and injuring him badly in the process. Thankfully, he didn't die.

I haven't been able to find this footage in ages. Still, to this day, the funniest thing I've ever seen.

5. I'll drop damn near anything this world has to offer me to watch a Detroit Lions game on TV. The first step, of course, is admitting you have a problem.

6. Even before the marriage went bad, there were three or four friends of my ex-wife's that I would have preferred to pork ("Dad, I think he's going to..." nevermind.) over her. I really should have tried, too.

7. The only really illegal thing, besides a single but large pot buy in college for sale for profit, that I ever really did was pretty bad. I'm not going to get into specifics, but let's just say that when you're young (much younger thank you) there's a certain block on your brain that connects poor logic together into some sort of semi-sensical approval for bad behavior. And yes, I know that stealing from the handicapped is completely and utterly wrong, and I'm probably going to burn in hell in the end. Whew. Thank god I'm an atheist. It was bad enough to where I'd like to make restitution at some point, however I know that there's a chance I could get sued or worse for it as well, so it'll just gnaw at me for years I guess. Maybe, when I'm able to financially, I'll send some restitution anonymously. Oh, and for those that know me, don't ask, I'm not telling.

8. There was a night, early on in dating my ex-wife, where I blew off hanging out with her in order to get an unbelievable blow job from a co-worker. I was supposed to be with my girlfriend (the ex-wife at the time) at 8, and didn't get there until 3 AM, as I had to go home and shower so I didn't smell like I had just gotten my rocks off. She knew about the blow job years later, but always thought it was well before her time. Um, no. And by the way, a 23 year old single guy is somehow supposed to be strong enough to turn down the blatant overtures being lobbed his way by his hot 40 year old co-worker? Nope, not in this lifetime. That was a top five blow job.

9. The line that sealed the deal in getting me my first blow job was "Either do it or don't." I still catch crap for that from a certain couple of guys. Fuck it, it worked.

10. I have a natural bias against people from America's South. You could put a Noble Laureate in front of me, and if he's got that slow Southern drawl, I'm automatically subtracting 20 IQ points from them in my personal perception. Yeah, I know, that's really bad. At least I can admit it. Actually though, there was this incredibly sexy girl from Texas I waited tables with in college who had the Texan accent, not the Southern, but it was close. I asked her out, and somehow she said "no thanks" in a way that made me feel just as good about myself as if she took me out, paid, fucked me, and followed me around for a week wearing a T shirt with my picture on it that said "I fucked this guy and it was phenomenal." Really. What the Southern people lack in diction and pronounciation skills, their women can more than make up for in charm.

Gael Fashingbauer Cooper: Test Pattern

I'm linking this for me for later. And no, it's not because of the Olsen Twins. But it's not NOT about the Olsen Twins either. Because, you know, it's ALL about the Olsen Twins.

I'm babbling.

CNN.com - Justices order removal of Ten Commandments monument - Aug. 21, 2003

Yeah. Damn right. It's irritating that one of our states' top judges feels that the legal decisions of courts higher than his don't apply to him. Shouldn't he, more than maybe anyone else, understand how the legal process works in this country? And shouldn't he, more than anyone else, hold himself to those ideals?

He should be booted from his seat. Or in it.

OK, I promised real-life stories from the track, so here you go...

I banked some karma this weekend. Sunday night, a small group of us from the show decided to go to the track (honestly, not my idea. really.) before going out to the party one of the cast was throwing nearby. A race or two into the program, I went to the Auto-Tote machines to place my bet back in a relatively deserted corner of the bar. I punched my numbers in, and noticed a slip of paper sticking out of the machine to my left. As no one had been at that machine at the time I was there or just before, and no one was nearby looking panicked, I swiped the slip and gave it a glance. Cash voucher for $105.40. I shoved it into my pocket and went back to my table.

When I got there, I conferred, on paper - not aloud, with my friends as to what to do with the slip. Although most considered it "found money," I am a firm believer in karma. Keeping that money without making an effort, however small, to return it to its owner would have been disastrous. So I let the woman at the desk know I had found a cash voucher, and if the owner could tell me where I found it and for how much, I would be happy to return it.

It burned a hole in my pocket for almost an hour. Then, a woman came up with a track official (OK, employee. She was wearing a green logo polo, is that not official enough?) and asked if I had her ticket. She told me where and how much, I gave it to her, and she shuffled off with a brief thank you.

And bought our table a round of drinks an hour later.

I really could have used a free $100. But, hopefully, the good luck I've banked will make up for it.

UPDATE ON "I KINDA MET A GIRL"

Girl dragged that NASCAR dude EVERYWHERE this weekend. I didn't ask her out, but did get an arrangement to call her to swap some books we were talking about. She's letting me read her favorite, I'm letting her read mine. Or, at least, one of mine. I have too many favorites to name but one.

That's where it gets a little difficult, by the way. What book do you lend to someone open to read just about anything you suggest? I could suggest something like Richard Wright's "The Outsider," which corresponds with the book she's lending me, "Freedom Road," in the sense both are about black struggle in the white world. I could go with my favorite book of all time, "A Prayer for Owen Meany," and that would work on two levels. First, I've read it probably a dozen times, and can talk about it on any number of planes. Secondly, it was made into a terrible movie, which allows me the possibility of getting her alone for the flick and being able to make flippant comments and jokes along the way. It's pretty bad. It's not a great book for a girl though, because it's one of those books that's really about the friendship between two boys as they grow up. As for recent books I've read, the book "Trials of the Monkey" by Matthew Chapman was pretty funny, but I find anything that kinda pokes fun at the religious right in the South kinda funny. It's not a great book, and with a first impression (with books, guy or girl, I want to make a good choice for a good impression) I don't want something that isn't just flat excellent to recommend. I also dig Camus' "The Stranger," and Huxley's "Brave New World" as possibilities.

I'll probably go with "Owen Meany." It's such a great book. And, I can flex my conversational skills best with that book in particular.

Next: More real life stories from the track, and a recap of my experience with the play.