Remember the Jerky Boys?

Don't ask me what inspired me to write this post. It's just not worth it, because I wouldn't be able to tell you. At least, not without some unfortunate bit of extraneous food stuck in between two of my teeth.

You might find it difficult to stomach the fact that a pedant like me, with a Gilbert & Sullivan fetish big enough to give anyone with the last name D'Oyly Carte a hardon, (I'll excuse you while you go Google, um, that) is also a passionate fan of "The Jerky Boys," the moronic creation of Queens residents Johnny Brennan and his (apparently former) friend, Kamal, but, it's true.

I am.

Play "Tarbash, the Egyptian Magician" for me, or stroll down Memory Lane with me while listening to used car salesman Frank Rizzo expound on his salesmanship strategies to a potential employer, ("Look, you got this fucker, he don't know if he wants to buy-- this or that-- I push his face right in the fuckin' hood and I say, 'YOU BUY THIS FUCKIN' CAR, OR I'LL BREAK YOUR FUCKIN' HEAD!' Look, bring in a tank, I'll sell the fuckin' thing!") and I'm pretty much just putty in your hands.

Don't you want me to be putty in your fuckin' hands, Rubberneck?

I'm old enough that I can remember listening to "The Jerky Boys" on a goddamned Walkman (TM) while in the backseat of my father's Pontiac Bonneville on family trips to the beach, sharing the headset with my sister, the two of us howling until our stomachs cramped up and tears streamed down our cheeks.

It wasn't high comedy. Christ, it wasn't even low comedy. It was prank calls. But, if prank calls are the game, then elevating the game to a near-operatic level was what the Jerky Boys did. Creating twenty fleshed out characters, including the legendary Jewish stereotype, Sol Rosenberg ["my glasses and my shoes fell off and they shoved pinecones up my ass!"], that has made a popularity resurgence as Mort Goldman on "Family Guy" is no small feat. Johnny Brennan and Kamal created some of the most hilarious moments in telephone history. It's a shame that their relationship ended badly, though. Kamal wanted out in 2000, and, evidently, Brennan believed that this also meant that Kamal wanted his creative contributions (from 1989-2000) to be totally expunged from the history of the duo-- the Jerky Boys' website makes absolutely no mention of Kamal or the hysterical characters he created. Which is a pity. But I wouldn't expect less from two immature schmoes who were responsible for creating double platinum records simply by picking up the phone.

When my cellphone rings, and the number is unfamiliar, I never pick it up, and maybe it's because I grew up on "The Jerky Boys."

Either way--- leave a goddamn message, Sizzle Chest.

Look at Me: I'm Thankful (Again)

365 days ago, I let my small corner of the blogging world know that, on Thanksgiving Day, 2009, I was thankful for my undershirts.

Aren't I clever?

This year, I don't know what it is, but I'm not feeling especially clever. Or witty. Or funny. Or subversive. Actually, I don't know exactly how I'm feeling as I start to type this post, which is always a little dangerous, because I have no idea how this post is going to turn out.

And, honestly-- I kind of like that. It's pretty much the only risk I take in life. Besides speeding-- and I speed in a Volvo, so it's almost not even that risky anyway. Speeding in a Volvo is a bit like having bareback sex with a photograph of a prostitute.

Thanksgiving is a tricky time for renowned cynics and muttering bastards the world over, and I struggle with it, too. On the one hand, it's predictable and cloying-- inspiring some of us to pen odes to our undershirts. On the other hand, as a nation that takes everything, from its oxygen to its Blackberries for granted, a little dose of Rockwellism once a year couldn't really damage us too irreparably.

It wouldn't hurt this generation to bow its head and hold hands around that anachronistic thing called a dining room table-- not one little bit.

I've undergone a lot of changes between the Thankgiving of my 29th year, and that of my 30th. The smarmy, winking little brat in me wants to be funny and light this year, to poke holes in and poke fun at tradition and syrupy Little House on the Prairie idealism-- and the burgeoning adult in me wants to cry and hold my family, people who unbelievably seem to grow more distant and unfamiliar every week-- or is it month? I forget.

What I can't forget is that I am both the punk and the idealist, I am the smiling bugger and the thin-lipped grandfather-in-training-- always thinking, obsessing over what is right and what is expedient, and how to tow the line between the two. Or if I should. And what would it matter if I never decide to make the choice at all?

While I was writing this meandering mess, it popped into my head that I ought to be thankful for my sanity, a notion that has crystalized now that I work at a mental hospital. Sorry-- "crisis center," let's be politically correct, if we can stand it. I've now worked there long enough to see patients get discharged and re-admitted multiple times, and, even sadder, I've worked there long enough to see names from my ancient past, and not-so-ancient past, on the admitting sheet, and I have chatted with these gowned ghosts in the halls, and I know that, for one synapse misfiring, or not, it could have been me. Without the I.D. badge, without the keys. And that is enough to make anyone bow his brown-haired head at the dining room table.

Of course, I'm still thankful for my undershirts. Even the ones I've had to force myself to throw out between this year and the last.

Happy Thanksgiving, my dears.

I Guess That's Why These Crazy Kids Watch the Daily Show

When I worked my old job, a mere .3 miles away from my house, my wife and I got to spend lots of morning time together. We had a leisurely breakfast together, walked the dogs, and ensconsed ourselves on the couch to be lulled into a state of idiocy by Meredith, Matt, Al, and Ann.

The Today Show was a mindless routine for the two of us, and by far the most enjoyable part of the show occurs at around 7:14am, when Ann Curry is finished doing the 1.4 minute round-up of international and national newslettes, ending with a story ripe for bawdy, either just shy of the line or just over it commentary by Al Roker.

But that's about as good as the Today Show gets. And it's definitely all downhill from there.

Yesterday morning heralded Tuesday, my coveted and oft-squandered day off. Getting the car's oil changed was on the agenda, and it's my firm tradition to show up at Soly's garage at 7:28am, in preparation for his military-like arrival at 7:30am. This 67-year-old mechanic with a bad shoulder and a bristle-thick gray goatee changes the oil while we talk and joke in the garage, thumbing our noses at litigious and logical rules designed to keep motorists out of potentially dangerous garages. In order to facilitate my punctual arrival at Soly's, I woke up with Mrs. Apron at 6:10am, and we enjoyed a little bit of our old Today Show routine.

I had heard, on the local news that comes on before the Today Show, a blip about a startling initiation of aggression by North Korea, firing 100 unpleasant projectiles into a South Korean island, killing two South Korean marines and wounding dozens of others. That this unpredictable, unstable, and volatile nation was showing its most unsettling arm-flexing since the Korean War was indeed troubling to me, and I expected the event to be covered with proportional depth by the Today Show.

Well, clearly, I'm an idiot.

What was the top story yesterday, covered for a full nine minutes?

The location of Prince Fucking William and Kate Nice Legs Middleton was just announced.

Westminster Abbey. Wow, right? Never saw that one coming, did you? I had heard it was a toss-up between there, BBC Television Centre, the apartment where Terry Jones lived in 1968, and a public lavatory two miles south of Piccadilly Circus.

I guess common sense won out that time. Good show, old chaps.

I don't know why I was so incensed and so surprised by the inordinate attention being given to an announcement that was such frippery, such fluff, such ridiculum, and not only that, but one that was a foregone conclusion anyway. I guess they chose Westminster Abbey because all of the Southern Black Baptist churches in England were booked on their desired date.

I joke, because that's what I was trained to do by scads of unwittingly reinforcing public school teachers, but it's really not funny. My father loves to refer, in his semibroken English, to America as "the dumbest fuckin' retard country ever" and he may very well be right, but, if we are, the news media deserves its fair share of the blame by sliding retard sauce down our throats and calling it medicine.

It's easy for me to get worked up over this generation's obsession with Jon Stewart's reinvention of "The Daily Show," turning it from the simple, funny, relatively innocuous show it was during Craig Kilborn's reign (remember that?) into a ferocious, self-important political whirlwind where comedy often takes a backseat to grandstanding, but there is a reason for its dominance over traditional news, and I acknowledge and accept that.

Our local ABC affiliate newstation, Action News, does a regular feature on Tuesday mornings on "Dancing With the Stars." And I always stare at the screen, dumbfounded, as people who call themselves "news anchors" sit behind desks wearing suits have the utter temerity and lack of dignity to expound on a moronic television show, and pretend that it's news.

Pass the remote. I want to shove it up somebody's ass. If North Korea doesn't blow us all to hell before I get the chance to do it, that is.

In Honor of November 23rd

Talk about the most dicked over day on the calendar.

November 23rd, you really are a poor, sick, pigfucked little bastard, aren't you?

There you are, stinking up the place like a three-day-old turd-- fermenting there on the sidewalk, of absolutely no good or use or worth to anybody with half a brain. It's really... sad is what it is.

You're utterly inconsequential-- do you know that? And I feel really bad about it, but I'm not sure there's anything I can do to combat the fact that nobody, and I mean nobody, cares about you. Well, no-- I correct myself-- maybe there are some people who care about you-- but they're only the people who can claim November 23rd as their birthday.

Like.... um.... Emmett Ashford-- Major League Baseball's first black umpire.

And, er..... Hjalmar Branting, Sweden's Prime Minister (1920-1925). Uh... okay?

And let's not forget about.... oh, God.... uh... three very prominent and talented musicians:

R. L. Burnside, composer of the hit song "A Ass Pocket of Whiskey" (a title which, I'm sure makes sense if you have imbibed a ass pocket of same). Let's, too, not forget about Kurupt, the gentleman who is responsible for such melodious gems as "For All My Niggaz & Bitchez," "Same Day, Different Shit," as well as the film, "I Accidentally Domed Your Son."

Oh, and Miley Cyrus. Happy Birthday, hon, if you happen to be intensely Googling yourself alone in your underwear today as I have done on so many of my own birthdays come and gone.

But, November the 23rd, you are a sorry sonofabitch, and not just because of the aforementioned birthditude, but because you are the forgotten about redheaded stepchild of days. You are sandwiched in between two days of such extreme noteriety that you cannot help but be ignored.

November 22nd is the day that John F. Kennedy got his skull blown apart in Dallas. I mean, compete with that at your peril. Like, unless you happen to be the day of the fucking moon landing or Pearl Harbor or the day that Ozzy Ozborne put in his contact lenses in under forty-five minutes, you're gonna lose. And then we've got November 24th, known nationwide as the single busiest travel day of the year. Every poor, sodding bastard with two nickels to rub together is getting molested at some airport or another, suffering through indignities and getting regrettable semis all so that they can suffer through another dry turkey and inevitable sibling regressions the next day.

So, today, on November 23rd, I want you to pause for a moment and honor this day. Take an extra long time in the bathroom, have another Oreo, check out some unusual porn, read a 19th century biography of someone with outlandish facial hair, think about tipping the ugly barista at Starbucks for a change, put on clean underwear, for Christ's sake-- because, Goddamnit, it's November the twenty fucking third, and it's Harpo's motherfucking birthday, too, so it can't be all that bad.

HIP HIP....

HOORAH!

HIP HIP....

HOORAH!

HIP HIP....

Jesus, is this really my life?

In The News...

Because I'm the gayest straight man you know (that's going to be the title of my autobiography, when I stop blogging and start writing that for the two people in the universe who would be interested in reading it) I have been doing a G&S operetta from Thursday - Sunday, and am only now emerging from the flighty Victorian ether of fairy dust and pretty wit.

On Thursday and Friday, it was awake at 5:15am, work from 7am-3pm, then a 6:00pm call, 35 minutes of being caked with age make-up, and an 8:00pm curtain. Saturday was a matinee at 2:00pm, a brief reception for our esteemed conductor, who has completed the G&S canon, all 14 shows, with our company, and then another show at 8:00-- Sunday, 12:00pm call, final 2:00 matinee, strike, cast party, and now home.

I'm very happy to be home. I'm fucking exhausted. If this blog is even mildly coherent, it will be a miracle. If it's ever been mildly coherent, well, that would, too, be miraculous.

Anyway, I feel that, for the past week or so, I've been remarkably out-of-touch. My readers, apparently, agree, as this week has marked one of the only entire weeks in My Masonic Apron history where daily posts have gone without a single, solitary comment! As we queers say in ever G&S operetta ever writ, "Oh, horror!"

I go back and forth about how I feel about comments. On the one hand, it's lovely to hear from people out in the great yonder, it's fun to see your pithy, supportive, sexual, semantic, and vaguely threatening queries, quips, and quibbles quaint. On the other hand, I write because I like to write, whether you're writing back or not, whether you're even reading or not.

(And I know if you are-- unless you're one of those shifty Google Reader types. Damn you and your covert, untrackable ways...)

One of the funny things about being at work and then at a theatre for 87% of your day and evening is that you have absolutely no idea what is happening out in the real world, because you have no connection to a radio, or to a computer, and, if you're a good boy, your goddamn phone is shut off, too. I, as you well know, am a good boy and so I am totally bereft of news of goingsons and hubbubery both local, national, and international.

Since I've missed so much of the news, and since so much of the news isn't actually news, I decided I'd just make it up.

In Philadelphia...

It was decided this past week by Mayor Michael Nutter that Philadelphia is identified by such an amalgamation of unhealthy foods-- cheesesteaks, sugary water ice, carbalicious and sodium-engorged soft pretzels, Tastykakes. To combat this trend, Mayor Nutter announced that the new official food of Philadelphia is going to be... Rachael Ray's breasts.


"For their age, they look pretty bangin'," Nutter said at a press conference held outside City Hall, "they'll represent Philadelphia as a taut, round, firm place to do business, and, like commerce and tourism in Philly-- they're great when covered with a little E.V.O.O."

In National News...

The federal government has decided to alter the term "Unemployment Rate" to "Americans on Extended Unpaid Vacation Rate" in order to boost national morale. Instead of an extension in unemployment compensation, every out-of-work American is going to receive a complimentary plastic beach chair and a pair of Ray-Bans left over from 1980s FBI surplus.

In World News...

In recognition of Kim Jong Il's impending retirement, on Saturday, world leaders across the globe held the first ever International Wear a Jumpsuit and Expect to Be Taken Seriously Day. To protest the event, Kim Jong Il spent the day in a Borat-style green body thong.

And now, traffic.

Honorable Ink

Yesterday, I went to get bagels this morning for my wife and I, because that's what Jewish guys my age do, apparently. We dress in brown corduroy pants, sweater vests, tool around in our Volvos and get bagels.

When did this happen to me? I don't know.

Anyway, as the raven-haired tartlette behind the counter rang me up, I noticed that she had a tattoo on her wrist. It was a short, Hebrew word, which I couldn't make out, because, while I can read Hebrew, I can't translate it, and I certainly can't do it when it is on a non-stationary wrist and upsidedown.

In case you didn't know, tattooing oneself is a defiance of some of the stricter tenets of the Jewish religion, so why any Jew would think it would be a good idea to get a tattoo, of something Hebrew no less, is a little beyond me, and it's a little annoying, too.

According to Jewish beliefs, tattooing the body is tantamount to desecration, and a Jew who performs this act may not be buried in a Jewish cemetery.

But that chick I saw walking along Fashion Ave in NYC did it-- Hebrew all up and down her arm.

Maury Povich, at least according to "Cash Cab", has done it-- a star of David on his wrist or something.

My brother-in-law, who isn't even Jewish to begin with, did it. Hebrew up and down his rather improbable bicep.

My wife warned me that I would come off as a hypocritical curmudgeon if I wrote a post about Jews behaving badly, seeing as bacon is my favorite food group.

"Yes," I said, "I acknowledge the point, however, I don't eat bacon for the alleged purpose of honoring the Jewish religion. I think these people who tattoo Jewish shit on themselves think that they're paying some sort of homage to our faith, when really they're just sticking their index fingers in the butt of Judaism."

"Nice," she said.

I'm a tremendous hypocrite-- I know that. I own that. I don't mind. But the things that I do aren't done for any other reason other than that I like bacon and saying "Goddamnit." I don't operate under any delusions that I'm being somehow respectful when I do it. If you're so proud to be Jewish-- walk around with a fucking yarlmuka on or grow your hair out into one of those ridiculous looking Jewfros.

Don't forget, you silly dumbshits, that it was the Nazis who tattooed us. Or, should I say, "Never forget."

Recollect Yourself, I Pray...

...And Be Careful What You Say,
As the Ancient Romans said, Festina Lente."

Thus begins one of my bits of lyric from the G&S operetta "Iolanthe," in which I am appearing this weekend.

"Festina lente" is, indeed, a Romanesque phrase-- old Gilbert was a man who knew his classics, and knew them very well. In the context of the 19-minute-long Act I finale of "Iolanthe" it is an admonition sung sternly by the Lord Chancellor. Literally translated, it means "make haste slowly," which is good advice, for those who know how to take it.

Speaking as one who's never done anything slowly, including drive, think, eat, react, study, speak, judge, blog, walk, evaluate, or make haste; you might think that festina lente might be my New Year's Resolution this year, or at least something I might have my wife screen-print on a t-shirt for me. Maybe. I don't really wear t-shirts, though.

Some people, I think, respect me for saying what's on my mind. This propensity, though, is a double-edged sword, of course because, while I often speak the truth and speak it earnestly, a fair amount of bullshit also tends to spew forth from my oral cavity, clouding an otherwise unoffending conversation with ridiculum and/or patent idiocy.

If you've hung around this particular locker room for longer than a week, you know what I'm talking about.

On Tuesday night, my wife and I were out to dinner with an old friend visiting from out-of-state. We were giving him a place to crash while he was on a brief business trip, and he reciprocated by taking us out for Thai food. It was a delectable meal-- complete with precious corncake appetizers to start and mango sticky rice as the subtle, pleasing finale. Conversation was light and appropriate, considering that I was at the table, punctuated by only the occasional awkward silence, which most conversations in the world are at one point or another.

During the course of the meal, I excused myself to visit the restaurant's restroom. On the wall was a poster for Thailand, featuring some hot chick dancing in some outlandishly-hued costume. Underneath her, it said, "THAILAND: Asia's Most Exotic Country." I wondered briefly how exactly one quantified that-- how do you figure out a nation's exoticness quotient when compared with other nations. Sure, Thailand is most likely more exotic than, say, Poland or Bulgaria, depending on your definition of "exotic," but is it more exotic, necessarily, than Indonesia or Singapore? Surely there are hot women dancing around in brightly-colored outfits there, too. I know there are in Indonesia.

Anyway, while I was peeing in the bathroom of this Thai restaurant, an idea popped into my head and I started cracking up. There's nothing that makes you feel more like a mental patient than standing at a urinal, holding your dick and laughing. I've seen mental patients do just that, and they look pretty crazy while they're doing it, so I must have, too.

I'm sure this happens to you, too-- an incongruously funny thought will materialize in your head, often at an inopportune time, and it's just really funny and you have to exercise all your willpower and knowledge of decorum to avoid sharing it...

Well, I returned to the table, composed, and I casually informed my wife and our dinner guest that Thailand is, in fact, the most exotic country, and I told them that I learned this from a poster made by the Thailand Tourism Board. Actually, I said, "Taiwanese Tourism Board" because I am an idiot. But I managed to keep the funny thought to myself and we engaged in some more polite, adult conversation while consuming our mango sticky rice. However, after we left the restaurant, immediately, after the door closed behind us and we were out on the street walking back to the car, I blurted it out.

"So, when I was in the bathroom, this great idea for a sketch popped into my head. So, it's an asian restaurant, right? And there are couples and people eating quietly at the tables-- it's a nice place, you know, dignified and what have you. After a few moments, a middle-aged businessman, conservative type, gets up to use the restroom. Well, he opens the door and there's this super-sexy geisha-type in there, in a kimono and everything, and she's like, 'Oooh, herro, big boy.' And it's implied that they do whatever two consenting adults would do in a restaurant bathroom, and he comes back to the table, you know, like nothing happened. And this guy and that guy get up to use the restroom, you know, same thing happens. And then the camera cuts to a woman who gets up from her table to use the ladies' restroom. She goes to the door and opens it, and there's this enormous gorilla in there who screams, 'GRRWWWOOAAAAHHH!' and he attacks the shit out of her."

Festina.

Fucking.

Lente.