Tuesday, March 25, 2014

"TO LIFT, OR NOT TO LIFT THE TOILET SEAT: THAT IS THE QUESTION "


               I am not here on a crusade or vendetta but I do feel he need to voice my opinion about  "Men's Bathroom Rights." A True Men's Suffrage, if you will. This has to do with the Hamlet like dilemma and decision all men face when living with a woman: "To Lift , Or Not To Lift"  the toilet seat.  
               Over the years, I have seen these male/female toilet wars spawn tons of bickering and heated arguments between men and women, and it makes some women absolutely FURIOUS. I can easily picture a woman slamming the toilet seat down, rolling their eyes, and  muttering "STUPID F###ING MEN!" under their breath with an angry sigh.
          I have heard several reasons why the yawning toilet seat has caused women to get so upset and the most common answer is because of the nocturnal shocking experience of plopping their butts down on the toilet, only to have the unexpected surprise of dunking their warm bare buns into ice cold commode water, all because they couldn't see the seat was up in the dark. My reaction to this with a head scratch is, why don't they turn on the bathroom light when they entered the bathroom? I have yet to EVER  pee in the dark unless it is outside camping,  which is a benefit and wonderful treat for all of us men. 
         First of all, presently, there are no urinals installed in any houses that I have ever seen, which is sexist and discriminatory in and of itself. We are forced to try to control a three-foot- long stream (which is very difficult to begin with)  and we were all trained to do this marksmanship standing up. No self-respecting man EVER sits down to go wee-wee. 
         Lifting the seat also has a long history behind it, as when we were all little boys, most of us all had little Vienna sausages that stuck straight out and had more trajectory power than a Ladder 51 fire hose. We were all trained  to control and wield this great power standing up after graduating from the potty chair. Lifting the seat was not only courteous, but it also gave us a little bit bigger target. If we managed to get most of it in the diameter of the toilet bowl, it was a special feat, no different than playing darts for the first time. When learning to play darts, a lot of them wound up in family pictures, and our misguided novice pee-pee streams were equally misguided and off-target. My first several times at going tinkle for the first time like a big boy, I wound up whizzing all over the water holding tank, mirror, toilet paper roll, the side of the bathtub, and sometimes incredibly, the ceiling. In time, as our Vienna sausages (some not all) became bigger and more Bratwurst shaped, we started to develop a slightly weighted German World War 2 helmet shape at the end of our penis, gravity at least helped to point our stream in the right direction. With tons of practice, we managed to get 98 percent of it in the toilet bowl.
               But the infamous 2 percent we don't get in the bowl is the main crux of our problem. Unlike a hose or a faucet that you can turn off immediately, we men cannot do that. It is what we men refer to as "The Shake."  "The Shake" is the last few remaining milliliters of wee-wee at the end, that are often unpredictable in volume and therefore are often in danger of missing their mark. It is these last few dribbles and  drops that are THE reason we lift the seat for you ladies. "The Shake" is a lifetime pursuit in agility, dexterity, skill, and perfect timing of several simultaneous activities at once: The proper placement of your fingers on your penis,  and then having to choose which method of shaking works best: Some men use the  "fast- jiggle" or "slow-wiggle" vertical flopping upward and downward movements. Others  kind of gently swat the German Helmet a few times with the back of their hand, and some men literally just flick it a couple of times with their finger like a mean kid would an ear lobe.
           Regardless of what  methods we use to perform "The Shake," we still have to have  the simultaneous skill to be relaxed enough to release those droplets and drop them into the toilet bowl on target while performing "The Shake." This is almost an unattainable feat and hence why most of us wind up, if we are considerate, using a little TP to wipe the rim of our mistake with the seat up. 
             Some men, if they drink too many beers, immediately regress to their first days of potty training. They will rock and sway back and forth like they are on a small boat in rough seas, and get maybe 50 percent or so in their intended target, regardless of seat position, so it could be much worse. But in case we forget to clean the rim, at least you ladies  will be ensured to sit down on a nice dry seat when you put it down.  If I were a woman, I would see this as no less chivalrous and considerate than a man opening up a door for a lady or ordering and paying for dinner. 
             To me it shows we were THINKING OF YOU before we used the toilet ladies! We are trying to protect your precious buns from the sting and wet of our Shake droplets. Our intention was never to have your buns splash into the commode water like a dunking machine. Our intention was to be considerate. 
             A friend of mine suggested a perfect solution to this. Every person, male and female, should put the seat down AND the lid down, that way, both men and women have to do a little work before and after.  I am not pissed any longer after getting this stream (puns fully intended) of consciousness out and right on target. 
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Thursday, March 20, 2014

A TRIBUTE TO KEN NORTON SENIOR, 6 MONTHS AFTER HIS PASSING

(I wrote this 6 months ago  but after  watching ESPN Classic Boxing made me want to repost in honor of Ken Norton Senior)

As a long time fan of the "Sweet Science," we had some very sad news in the boxing world with the passing of the legendary heavyweight champion Ken Norton Sr. I was very fortunate to grow up in a time where we boxing fans were so lucky to see the plethora of talent in the heavyweight division that was crammed into the early 1970's. Back then, there was no UFC, kickboxing, mixed martial arts, or 50 different channels for sports: Boxing was king, and I vividly remember
spending Saturday afternoons with my dad and brother Tommy, eagerly anticipating ABC's Wide World Of Sports Boxing. We got to see all the legends like Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Quarry, Holmes, Shavers, Young, Lyle, Bonavena, etc., with another legendary announcer Mr. Howard Cosell. It was a magical wrinkle in time for all of us pugilistic spectators. 
             Ken Norton was one of the very toughest boxers in the world, and how can anybody forget his three epic fights with Mohammad Ali. Norton took on all comers in that giant stable of 1970's heavyweights, and nobody had a tougher chin or bigger heart of a champion. After Ken Norton retired, I got to see his son, Ken Norton Jr. play against Tommy at UCLA , and with him as Tommy's team mate at the 49'ers. What a legend Ken Norton was and will always be. 15 bells in silence are ringing your honor today Mr. Norton. Rest In Peace and sincerest condolences to the Norton family. 


Tuesday, March 18, 2014

AN ENCHANTED EVENING WITH STEPHEN KING 9/25/2013



         I had one of those magical, once in a lifetime experiences last night that I will never forget, and it will always be much more vivid and clear in the deep memory archives of my mind than any HD camera or video recorder could ever hope to capture. (There were inconsiderate idiots that did that anyway, despite being asked to NOT use video cameras or iphones.)
      Your pal Theodore felt like I was in an episode of Fantasy Island, where Tattoo said "Zee plane!! Zee Plane"...Steeven Keeeng iz here" and then Mr. Rourke welcomed me to Fantasy Island by supplying me one of my Three Lifetime Wishes: I have only a few: To have an ice cold beverage with my favorite actor Jack Nicholson and discuss the virtues of all you lovely ladies; To hang out with my favorite rock musician Angus McKinnon Young of AC/DC backstage and sing some Bon Scott tunes unplugged; and to have coffee and talk books with my favorite author, Mr. Stephen Edwin King.
      I didn't get my wish to be with Mr. King one-on-one, but got the very next best thing. I got to hear him speak, read, and answer questions last night at the sold-out Chautaqua Auditorium about his new novel Dr. Sleep the sequel to his 1978 masterpiece The Shining. One of my biggest heroes was spotlighted front and center and was as close as if we WERE having coffee together in my living room.
      He was an incredible speaker full of awesome stories about his life from A to Z that were told with wit, wisdom, & humor. He was an absolute delight to hear about what makes him tick as a writer, dad, and husband, and he was about as down-home and unpretentious as they come. He only chose two cities for his book tour: New York City and Boulder Colorado. He chose Boulder (and this is old news to all you fellow "Constant Readers") because he not only lived in Boulder, but wrote two of his masterpieces The Stand (where the backdrop of that book was set in all the landmarks and streets in Boulder) and also The Shining (and the idea to write that was when he was snowbound at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, just an hour out of Boulder.) Both were written at his tiny apartment at Table Mesa and 42nd Avenue, and he said that he knew he had to return to Colorado if he was going to write a sequel to The Shining to get that "vibe". He was absolutely mesmerizing, captivating and awesome. I have read every one of his novels ever since discovering "The Shining" in 1983, and some several times.  (I am at the present time reading The Stand for the third time, all 1, 153 pages of it.)
      There was a time, that I HATED reading, as I looked at it as a pain in the ass chore one had to do in English class to do a damn book report on. All that changed when a very special GHHS English teacher introduced me to Lord of the Flies in 1982 that tuned up the volume of my reading interest. Mr. King just increased the volume to "11" as Nigel Tuffnell once said, and I learned that reading was not an enemy, but a life time friend.
     I have had a few moments like last night that were larger than life and as I said, more vivid than anything caught on DVD. They are magic moments that are intimate, one of a kind, and timeless in memory, mood, and perception. A few of mine were seeing my hero Jack Nicholson speak at a movie convention up close, seeing Julio Cesar Chavez enter through the ropes to box at the MGM while sitting ringside, and seeing my baby brother Tommy come out of the tunnel on his very first NFL game as Cleveland Brown in Indianapolis. Last night was certainly one of those magic moments very personal and special to me. What was REALLY nice was the fact the entire evening was $35.00, which included a copy of the book...I would have paid $3,500.00 to see this.  To add a nice "epilogue" to this enchanted evening, every person in attendance in the packed sold-out house received a copy of Dr. Sleep and it was said that there were only a handful of signed autographed copies of the book that a lucky fan might receive. I was one of those lucky fans and was like Charlie getting the Golden Ticket.
    Maybe the book gods were rewarding my almost obsessive Annie Wilkes-like loyalty to Mr. King for 30 years. What a perfect evening and what an amazing man. (Oh, and by the way,  Dr. Sleep was AWESOME...As of March 18th, 2014, I have read it twice.)