To All The Girls I've Loved Before

If you're anything like me, you're just not a very good boyfriend. Never have been.

I bring this up because it's mid-January and that means I'm working on putting to together Sonja's Valentine's Day Mixtape. Last year's tape, 12" Of Red Carpet, was my favorite in theory. It turned out to be my least favorite in practice. It took me a long while to figure out why. Ultimately, I came to realize it was because I didn't make it specifically for her. I intended to, but I made the cardinal mistake of asking for input from my friends. This usually ends badly for other reasons, but in this case I was literally overwhelmed by the number of great recommendations they had for what songs need to be on any good romantic mixtape. I wanted the finally mixdown to be under 80 minutes. If I recall correctly, they offered over 100 songs. As it turns out, there's an awful lot of ways to tell somebody you love them. But not all of those ways work in a way that makes sweet music together. The end result was underwhelming despite being not complete awful.

12" Of Red Carpet irked me so much that I'm actually doing it over again, this time the way I wanted to do it in the first place. While I normally would wait until February 14th to let her hear it, I broke a fledgling tradition and played the first five minutes of it for her the other day. Her smile told me all I needed to hear. It's going to be much better this time around.

The process of putting this mix together has had unintended consequences. I've found myself playing songs that are forever going to be associated with someone other than her, which has made me more reflective than I normally am. In August we'll be celebrating our 10th anniversary. Thinking back on the last 10 years and the woman I love lead me to think about the last 20 years and all the girls I loved before her. They may not still be in my black book or call log or in my heart anymore, but they are on my iPod. You can unfriend your Exes but you can't unfriend your memories.

Music is a funny thing. Once you associate a song with someone, you can never disassociate it. It's the Sharpie to Life's Great Yearbook. Sometimes the memories are happy, and they usually stay that way. Sometimes the memories are painful and they always stay that way. But if there's one thing I know for sure it's that memories without a soundtrack fade much faster than the ones that do.

Originally this was going to be the last paragraph. I was going to try to tie all this together in a succinct statement, something pithy and with a touch of wit. But that's not what's about to happen. What is about to happen is perhaps the worst idea I've ever had. It's dumb but honest and in a lot of ways I think that's really why I keep coming back to write new post from time to time: I enjoy the honesty behind everything I write. And this pretty honest stuff.

Shitty relationships are the fertilizer of future relationships. You have to have some in order to learn from but not too many so that you stop learning altogether. Not enough fertilizer means your next relationship will stop growing, too much fertilizer and your next relationship will just wither and die. And as with most things in life, timing is everything. Fertilize in the wrong season and what could have been a viable relationship will fail without fail. We've all had shitty relationships. This post is about why I'm grateful to the girls I've had them with, the songs I hear in my head when they cross my mind and the lyrics that will always belong to someone other than my favorite girl.

The list is simple: Names and certain details will be redacted to protect the innocent (no kissing and telling for the most part), one song per girl (even though some have many), not every girl makes the list (you had to have made a lasting impact of some kind which I'll acknowledge) and the songs are to listed in random order which may or may not follow chronological order. So without further adieu, let's meet the girls who made the soundtrack that made me who I am today.

Nirvana // Heart-Shaped Box

She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak

I've been locked inside your Heart Shaped Box for weeks

I've been drawn into your magnet tar pit trap

I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black

Ah, yes. Without a doubt my favorite Blonde of all-time. That is saying something substantial. While I've told Sonja from time to time I've always had a thing for Blondes, that's probably not true. It most likely started with you. Funny thing is it had nothing to do with the hair; it was your laugh. I could listen to you laugh all day long. In fact, I spent considerable time trying to make you do so. And succeeding might I add. We had fun when we hung out, which wasn't nearly as often as I would have liked. And despite the fact that I had a thing for you, I'm not sure you ever noticed because you had a thing for complete and total douchebags. Or at least I thought they were douchebags, anyway. I might have just been hating. But even if they were all really great guys I'll always believe that none of them could make you laugh as easily or as infectiously as I did. From you I learned the importance of being able to make a girl laugh, how to maintain eye contact in the presence of epic cleavage, and that in order to get the girl you had to be a complete and total douchebag. I also picked up an appreciation of Grunge in general and of Nirvana in particular. And a thing for Blondes too I suppose.

Def Leppard // Pour Some Sugar On Me

Take the bottle, shake it up...

Okay, no need to over-complicate this one. You sat next to me in Chem Something-Or-Another. You're a looker, no doubt. But the best thing about you is strictly from the waist down: you have legs to die for. I mean, serious fucking stems. Christ. And the day you walked in late to class wearing the mini-est skirt ever made as we were discussing alcohols and sugars set off a 80's high school "Here Comes The Love Interest" slo-mo walk in my mind that will live in infamy. Lesson learned: the girl for me will have to have great legs.

Dave Hollister // Baby Mama Drama

Yeah... Look, some relationships are doomed from the beginning. This was one of them. Everybody knew it. Everybody but us. Our realtionship gave new meaning to the phrase "black comedy". Except it wasn't really that funny at the time. It's not really that funny now. But if there is one thing I loved about our hellish time together, it was the caustic banter that came from the fact that we were polar opposites in just about every way. THAT was funny. Like, I wrote an entire screenplay about it funny. Then I deleted it because I didn't want to think about you anymore. Which I suppose is perfectly natural. I won't act like there wasn't a reason we made it as long as we did because there was. But the constant cycle of falling out just to make up never did anything for me. I know you thought that me yelling at you meant I cared, but that's only because you weren't listening to what I was saying. If you had been, you would have known that what I actually wanted was for you to shut the fuck up because I didn't care in the least about what we were fighting about. Bad times. From you I learned that sometimes when everyone you know is telling you the same thing it may be time to reconsider what you're doing, that make up sex is pretty much the same as regular sex, that your girlfriend can't hate your friends and you manage to keep both, why guys act a fool on Maury when they find out they're not the father... I learned a lot of shit, okay? The hardest way possible. But they were good lessons to learn and they stuck.

Boyz II Men // I'll Make Love To You

...Or at least I tried to. You were my first. Everybody's gotta start somewhere, and you and I started in the worst way possible. Given how badly our first real try at sex went I'm surprised I ever tried it again. It wasn't quite a disaster, but it was worthy of a scene in a teen comedy. Who knew they even made unlubricated condoms? And how are you supposed to get those things off after you realize it's not going on any further? They're like the fucking skinny balloons clowns use to make animals out of. How people fucked before they made Magnums I'll never know. I can still remember the look of total sympathy on your face as we tried to pry that thing off of me. That meant a lot to me, just not at the time. At the time I thought I was going to have to call the fire department to free my junk. Bad times. And boy, we had our share of bad times. But we also had our share of great times, and for that you'll always have my gratitude. We learned a lifetime of lessons together, the what to dos and the what never to do agains that make being young and in love the best thing you can possibly be at the time. You taught me I had a long way to go to be the man I really thought I could be, that I really don't like fighting or arguments and that you never, EVER skimp on the condoms.

Tony Bennett // The Way You Look Tonight

Oh, but you're lovely

With you cheeks so warm

And your lips so soft

There is nothing for me but to love you

And the way you look tonight.

Oh you wild and crazy girls of Menchville High School. You had a boyfriend. I was kicking it with your homegirl. Things were pretty clear cut. And then came the day you told me you had to tell me a secret while we were sitting in class. I leaned over, you cupped my ear with your hands and then proceeded to lick my brain stem, my frontal lobe and everything else you could reach in there with your tongue. When I asked you to repeat what you just said cause I wasn't quite sure I understood you, you leaned in and licked until I... got the message. Then there was the time we were standing in front of the entire school for something or another and you started... Dammit you know what you started doing to me. All while standing right next to your boyfriend. We never talked about any of that afterwards but I never forgot about it either. You taught me how to get over my dislike of public displays of affection pretty quickly. That, and broads are scandalous. Both lessons stuck.

The Notorious B.I.G. // Gimme The Loot

Mixed chicks are fucking nuts. Strippers are tons of fun. We all make mistakes. Moving on.

2Pac // I Get Around

Despite what you may have heard occasionally the Underground does stop for hoes. Especially ones with British accents. And as it turns out only having one night in town is still plenty on time to study a broad. I learned that not wanting to get fucked in the loo and not wanting to get fucked in the bum are not the same thing. I learned that bruises hurt a LOT more in the morning. But most of alI learned the lesson that changed my life for good: I can tell that cute girl from Ann Arbor anything. Before I left on the trip I told Sonja I'd call once I got back. Once I got back, she was the first person I called. I told her all about the trip, didn't leave out any of the details and for the first time ever didn't lie to a girl that I really liked. It felt great. It felt natural. I instantly knew I could trust her with my actual unfiltered thoughts. And I knew I'd just found what I was looking for. Best one night stand ever.

Most relationships fail. That's not a surprise. The fact that we don't know how they're going to end is part of the allure of starting them in the first place. Once they're over we never know how they're going to affect the ones that we will have in the future. That's part of the reason we hate ending them. I don't have any great wisdom about why I stopped being the boyfriend no one wanted. For all the lessons I learned before we met, in the end the past 10 years didn't come down to any of them. It came down to luck. I was one phone call away from never meeting her at all. I was one keystroke away from never hearing from Sonja again after she went home to Michigan. I lucked out, then I won out.

And when it comes to being a boyfriend, I'd rather be lucky than good. It makes for a much better soundtrack.

Let's Make Up

If you're anything like me, you've never wanted to be yourself.

When I was a kid, I'd make believe I was a astronaut, or a ninja, or a game-winning QB. No kid goes outside to play the role of kid. We want to be someone else, and oppose someone else. Cowboys need Indians. Cops need Robbers. Game-winning QBs need Greg Robinson an opposing defense loaded with poor tacklers and safeties that will always bite on play-action. Or Greg Robinson.

The problem for most kids and especially only children like me was that there wasn't anyone there to oppose. I couldn't be a hero without a villain. So I made some up. Imaginary bad-asses who's sole purpose was doing some dastardly shit that I had no choice but to stop them from doing. Thus I learned the importance of completely made up things. They exist for no other reason than because we say they do, but we create them because we need them to exist even though they actually don't. There are a lot of people that don't understand that, but then again there are a lot of people that don't celebrate Sweetest Day either.

It's a great holiday. Who doesn't look forward to a chance to spend a moment, an evening or even an entire weekend showing the special somone (or someones... I see you, player!) in your life how much they mean to you? Why wouldn't you look forward to the third Saturday of October every year just like I do?

Because you're a jaded asshole, that's why. The number one reason people tell me they hate Sweetest Day is because it's a made up holiday. A Hallmark Holiday, as they like to call it. This is partially and completely false. Hallmark didn't create this Holiday at all. In fact, Sweetest Day actually originates from the modern cradle of national celebration at the time: Cleveland.

Back in 1921 a group of Candy Barrons in Cleveland needed a reason to sell more candy. They didn't have one. The Great War was still fresh in everyone's mind, banks were beginning to fail and Prohibition was in full swing, turning America's streets into the battlefields of a Not-So-Great War being fought on the doorsteps of people who had previously only seen that kind of violence in the headlines. The seeds of the Great Drepression were being sown. People were not happy. And unhappy people do not buy candy. They don't have a reason to.

So the Candy Barrons did what any enterprising American would have done: they completely made one up. Like most things that originate in Cleveland, it did not go as planned. Most cities failed to buy in to Sweetest Day, as chocolate is a poor substitute for the bootleg booze and Canadian whiskey most Americans wanted to get their hands on at the time. However through the efforts of Sanders Candy, one other city did catch Chocolate Fever: Detroit, which is where I learned how to celebrate Sweetest Day the proper way.

In my last post I talked about the growing sense of optimism here in Michigan and how in some ways that sense is directly tied to the success of the local sports teams. This week has only added to that success. The Lions, exiled for a decade for their last embarrassing perfromance on such a stage, put on a show for Monday Night Football during an electrifying win over Chicago. The Tigers, a banged up MASH unit of a team, is grinding their way through a tough series with a the defending American League Champion Texas Rangers with the sort of grit and resolve we all like to think the city embodies. The Michigan Wolverines are not only winning games, they have actually tackled people in the course of doing so.

Each of these teams have something to atone for in their own way. The Lions for being so pathetic for so long. The Tigers for having a history of not being able to finish the season as strongly as they started it. Michigan for not being The Program That Lived after the hiring of He Who Must Not Be Named. Those failures stung and left stains that we couldn't be sure would ever wash away. But the stains of those failures are being washed away, in wave after refreshing wave of progress. With every win the bitterness of the tortured fanbase here dissipates a little more, replaced by an enthusiasm tied to the realization that not only do we no longer suck, we're actually pretty good. How good? We don't know yet, but it's possible we are not only good, but the best of the best. Time will tell, but regardless of how things shake out this weekend is going to cap an epic yet exhausting 10-day run of sports the likes of which I've never seen.

This weekend also kicks off the beginning of the 60-day Occupy Detroit movement/demonstration happening downtown. I have no idea why these people feel as though Detroit needs to be occupied, but I'm all for anyone spending time in the city even if it's in tents. I hear that this whole Occupy Wherever movement is the left's answer to the Tea Party. I have no idea if this is true. I'm kinda numb to politics right now, mostly because I have a life I'd like to enjoy living until the next election in 2012. These Occu-Teas are clearly not anything like me.

If they were they'd be celebrating Sweetest Day instead of blaming one another for whatever it is they're blaming each other for, and they'd be a lot happier for it. A cursory look of Washington's approval ratings shows a lot of dissatisfaction with our leadership, and it's easy to see why. Bickering and childish antics make for wonderful ratings and terrible progress. And progress is the only way to improve what ails us as a nation. And if the Occu-Teas are both serious about what they want for our future, they're going to have to find a reason to start working together instead of against each other.

And if they can't, what better day than today to completely make one up. I think that'd be pretty sweet.

The 2 Minute Warning

I'm a Detroiter.

Wasn't born here. Didn't go to school here. Ten years ago I still called pop soda, had never heard of a coney dog and was an hardcore Washington Redskins fan that had enjoyed multiple Super Bowl and playoff victories. I thought the party store must have sold balloons or something. I had no clue how to pronounce Ypsilanti, Meijer or Gratiot (which turns out is our answer to Norfolk, VA). I didn't put an "s" on the the end of Ford. My feelings on the state of Ohio were completely neutral. I had driven foreign cars my entire life. I was a Virginian.

But not just any Virginian. I was from Newport News. Grew up there. Went to school there. My life revolved around crab season, hurricane season and tourist season. We didn't have party stores on every corner, we had churches (the houses of worship, not the chicken place). It was a great place to raise a family and a terrible place to grow up.

That's not to say that Detroit was completely foreign to me when I got here. Back in Newport News, we built things for a living. Ships to be exact. Not pleasure crafts, but aircraft carriers. Submarines. The things that kept America strong. It was our only industry really. The Cold War kept demand for warships high so you didn't need a degree to earn an honest wage. Just a strong back and a lack of options. Generations had moved to the end Virginia's lower peninsula seeking that opportunity, and as a kid I had no doubt it would be that way for generations to come.

Then the Cold War came to an abrupt end. Watching the Berlin Wall fall in 1990 I had now idea how profound of an impact it would have on my hometown. It seemed like it was a good thing. The threat of Mutually Assured Destruction was ending. Talks of an enduring World Peace didn't seem so far-fetched. The future was so bright I wanted a pair of Blu Blockers. Then the base closures started. Soon the Navy funding dried up. Without warning came the announcements that America didn't need us to build ships anymore. The future became a very scary place. That was 15 years ago.

Fifteen years later, I've watched that same pattern play out here in Michigan, my new home and one of the few remaining places in this country that still makes things for a living. The story of Detroit's decline was eerily similar to the one back in Newport News. At the time, America wanted SUVs so we gave them SUVs. Then Climate Change happened. And suddenly our SUVs weren't needed. Plants were closing. Banks weren't lending. The Big Three, already suffering the indignity of being called The Detroit Three due to declining market share were on the ropes and on the brink of a once unthinkable collapse. The future was a scary place. That was three years ago.

But that wasn't the only thing that happened here three years ago. Not only did we elect some black guy President of the United States, you may have heard the urban legend that Detroit had an NFL football team at the time. I'm here to tell you it's not just a rumor, it's a fact. Another fact? The same year that the automotive industry imploded into massive bankruptcy and job losses just so happened to coincide with the single worst season in the 48 year of the National Football League. Watching football was something that became an escape to many other struggling American communities at that time. Watching the Detroit Lions clusterfuck their way to an 0-16 record just made everything even worse here. To call our collective mood somber would be a massive understatement. Suicidal would be an understatement. I quit blogging and logged off Facebook because it seemed mostly pointless. There was no future.

Until eight months ago. Ironically for Detroit, things began to turn around during the Super Bowl of all things; a game that the Lions had never even come close to playing in. Throughout the game I waited to see The Big Three run ads for various new models that they desperately needed to public to buy. The Ford spot was forgettable. The GM spot for the Chevy Volt was a little uninspired. Then came the Chrysler ad.

In the days and hours leading up to kickoff, it's become routine to see advertisers leak their spots on You Tube and morning shows with an eye towards creating some buzz. Chrysler raised eyebrows by taking the opposite tact: they kept their commercial completely under wraps. The rumors were that it was two minutes long, making it the longest spot in Super Bowl history if true. The word was that is had cost anywhere from $2M-$9M, making it the most expensive spot in Super Bowl history for a company fresh off of a taxpayer funded bailout. It seemed ill-conceived and doomed to failure. I was expecting the worst. What I got two minutes later was anything but.

I praised it instantly. It was genius. It was breathtaking. It was more than I could have ever imagined a commercial could be in terms of its impact and ability to definitively capture the soul of a city. Not everyone agreed. Some people who know better than me told me it didn't make sense. That it wouldn't sell cars. That it wasn't even an ad for a car, it was more like of an ad for what was certainly the worst city on on the planet. That Detroit was a hopeless shithole incapable of making a relevant automobile and would always be a hopeless shithole incapable of making a relevant automobile because people that know better than me said so.

One of these people was from Newport News just like me. He had gotten as far away from the impending doom of the collapsing local hometown economy as he could as soon as he could, just like me. He was glad that he did, just like me. But unlike me, when he left he went someplace that wasn't anything like where we were from. Someplace where the people don't make things for a living. Someplace that made it easy to forget where we were from. Someplace far from home.

The Chrysler ad hit close to home. I stayed up until 4AM after the game was over watching it, breaking it down, trying to figure out what about it moved me. I wasn't the only Detroiter doing so, and I eventually did find a blog post that summed it up well through an apt comparison to the works Ezra Pound: image, music and meaning. Three elements that fit us perfectly. What city is more synonymous with all three than Motown? What other city in America has a modern story to tell like we do? What more unlikely place to tell the story of where we're from than during a game we've never been to? What better time to tell the world where we're going than from place we couldn't possibly dream of going at that time, at that moment? It was more than an ad, it was a two-minute warning of the coming renaissance. It was inspired. And boy did it inspire.

In the days following the ad, I spent more time talking about Chrysler and Detroit with everyone I knew than I ever had. Every time anyone asked me about, I said the same thing: That two minutes gave us our swagger back. That had to sound stupid to my out-of-town buddies who were only seeing more of the same from afar. But truthfully, things had started to change months before that commercial ever aired. The University of Michigan broke a two year bowl drought and posted a winning season. Small thing. Kwame Kilpatrick, our disgraced Mayor, was released from jail and quietly left town mercifully ending a long drawn out scandal. Small thing. The Michigan State Spartans won their first Big Ten title since 1990. Small thing. But most importantly, the Detroit Lions won their last four games of the season, including back-to-back road wins and a victory over the eventual World Champion Green Bay Packers. No small thing.

In the months following the airing of the ad, things have gone more than reasonably well here. Housing prices are up. The Big Three are adding jobs and shifts and reopening plants. The Tigers are in the playoffs. The Lions are undefeated. I'm blogging again. The UAW is negotiating new contracts without a hint of acromony. Well, maybe a hint but nothing like what we're used to. Small things. The mood is cautiously optimistic, which is better than it is in most places. Everywhere else in America seems to be slumping. Things here in Detroit seems to be clicking. We're not perfect, and yes we have work to do. A shitload of work. More work than I will ever be able to see through in my lifetime. But it's work we're willing to do. It's work we want to do. It's work we are going to do and do better than anyone suspects we can do. Not because we have a chip on our shoulder or because we've got something to prove. It's nothing like that. It's because going to hell and back is only the halfway point on this journey. Because tall tasks are no match for a tough town. Because it's what we do, what we've always done. It's because we were born to do this, and we've been reborn to do it better than it's ever been done anywhere.

We're Detroiters. And if you're anything like us, you're back.

The Real Man's Guide to Romance, Part 2: Burnin' Love

If you're anything like me, you care for your woman just as much as you care about the environment. Since you're still trying to figure out if that's a compliment or an insult, let me clear things up for you: yes, it is.

One thing that is not ambiguous is my love of pussy or my disdain for holidays that make me pay a price for my aforementioned love. But much like when Biggie went home with that broad that got dick from a player off the New York Knicks, I know how to make the best of a bad situation. I take lemons and make babies. Just not directly. So when the Holidays strike, I strike back like any Real Man would.

Such is the case with Styrofoam. It can't be easily recycled. It doesn't biodegrade. But it does make a very lovely fire. The same type of lovely fire that one might use to get some St. Valentine's Day ass. The type of fire that burns with passion, that burns white-hot, that burns with the aid of excellerants. That's right, Real Men. Nothing says "Bitch, take your clothes off NOW!!!" like a little homemade Napalm.

Now you may ask yourself "Why in the fuck would I want to make Napalm, especially for Valentine's Day?" If you have to ask, then this is not for you and you shouldn't read any further, Girlie Man. For the rest of you, it goes without saying that nothing sucks more than having to tend to a fire and a woman at the same time. Thus the genius in using a hot-burning long lasting firestarter like Napalm to kill one bird with an incendiary bomb is not only in it's Real Man Appeal, but it's practicality. You can save time and the planet all while getting laid. It's a can't miss proposition.

Unless you blow yourself up. Now, would a Real Man hesitate to post instructions on how to make Napalm out of styrofoam on his blog? No way. But a Real Man also would know how to make Napalm out of Styrofoam already, meaning if you don't know by now you're not a Real Man. If you're interesting in becoming a Real Man however, I am willing to do you a solid and point you in the right direction. Click here to take your first step in finding out how to make fire like a Real Man.

And that's will do it for Part II. If you're still alive for Part III, We'll take a look at how a Real Man pulls off a Romantic Dinner for two.

Bonfire Appetit!

The Real Man's Guide to Romance, Part 1: The Nameless Drink

***WARNING!!!***

The following is for Real Men only. If you are less than a Real Man, read no further.

Liar.

But since you're clearly determined to read on, know that I will not be held accountable for what happens when your eyes set upon the Truth contained in this passage.

Don't Say You Weren't Warned.

*** END WARNING!!!***

If you're anything like me, you ain't no punk bitch. No my friend, you're a man's man. In the tradition of Eastwood (Unforgiven, not Bridges of Madison County), Swayze (Roadhouse, not Dirty Dancing and for damn sure not Ghost) and Batman (the one without a Robin, not the one who kicked it with teen boys in spandex), you kick ass and leave the name-taking for those far more pussy than you're even capable of pretending to be. Your man-stank makes women ovulate. The sound of your voice gets broads so hot you violate the Kyoto Protocol every time you bother to speak to these hos. Women want to be with you and men want to be women so they can be with you, too. You're a Gangsta of Love'em and Leave'em.

But all that doesn't mean your ass won't be sleeping on the sofa if you don't make with the romance when your woman expects it. If you think the way Russia cut off gas to the Ukraine was fucked up, try skipping out on doing right by your lady friend on Valentine's Day. The pussy will freeze up faster than the credit market.

But just because you're more Rick Ross than Ross and Rachel doesn't mean you can't moisturize her situation and maintain your manly. You just have to know how to go about pulling that shit off.

That's where I come in. As the guy your girl most often thinks about while she's with you, I'm here you give you the upper hand you need to get her mind back to where it belongs: bouncing uncomfortably off of your headboard. Or your belly button. Or, if you're anything like me, her younger sister. So grab your composition books and sharpen your Sharpie, because if you follow my advice I promise you your relationship will be the same again. Ever.

The first step in improving your love life in getting her drunk. This is an Absolut must and can never under any circumstances be considered optional. To this end I am breaking my silence and offering you, noble reader a recipe that has been kept secret for thousands of days. But no longer. You make thank me properly when no one is looking.

The Nameless Drink

one part Vodka
one part Peach Schnapps
one part Blue Raspberry Martini Mix
one part Wildberry Pucker
Cranberry Juice

Shake first four ingredients over ice, pour into chilled glass and fill with cranberry juice.

Now let be clear about two things:

1. The quality of the vodka in question will have a direct bearing on the panty peeling effects of this soft drink. If you're serving this to get served, don't pinch pennies.
2. I've never actually tasted this concoction before, so I have now idea what it taste like. From what I've been (frequently) told, it taste like Kool-Aid. Take that for what it's worth.

So there you have it, Part I of the Real Man's Guide to Romance. What's Part II? I don't want to give anything away, but Here's a Hint: it involves Napalm. Seriously.

Spinal Crap

If you're anything like me, you were really looking forward to me being able to Twitter a running diary during the birth of my third and final daughter. I was ready. I had my iPod blasting the Launch theme from Armageddeon, my UMA BlackBerry was connected to the Hospital Wi-Fi, and I was still not completely sober from the wine pairings I enjoyed with my seven course meal the night before. It was on.

Unfortunately for all of us I was denied that opportunity when Pregatron proved to be impervious to painkillers. No amount of spinal blocks, anesthetic or Bullfrogs (which is a Raspberry Stoli and Lemonade for the uninitiated) could numb her up. So she had to be put under, which meant I couldn't watch the blessed event in the OR. The whole thing really upset Pregatron, which was made worse by the fact that I couldn't talk to her to calm her down. Stupid Modern Medicine.

But in it's own way it was cool. It was kinda old school. I was left to pace back and forth and wonder what was going on. It would have been nice if I could have had a pack of cigarettes and some scotch, too. And then just like in the movies I hear a baby cry and out the nurse comes with my little bundle of outrageous tuition and expensive ass wedding. It was cool. I might head across the river into Canada and bring back some Cubans for complete the deal.

I wonder if Pregatron's Doctor smokes?

Here We Go Again

Some of you may have wondered I haven't been posting anything to the blog lately, and for those curious few I have an answer: I've been busy. You see, today is Pregatron's big day. The Daughters of Destruction will be adding a third and final member to their ranks today, in about two hours or so. So for the past two weeks I've been preoccupied with putting the finishing touches on everything around the house in order to make room for one more reason I'll never be able to get out of debt.

Nonetheless, I'm here in the D getting ready for Episode III and I'll be making up for lost time and blog post all weekend.

Don't say you haven't been warned.