Better lock yah cah doors, TJ

Who exactly is this slightly overcooked, slightly over-middle aged gentleman who graces this blog, you ask? Well, this attractive specimen, TJ Simers, wrote the following article in the LA Times, "Grim Reality Series needs an Extreme Make-Ovaw":

"You know that business about being careful what you wish for, because you might be seen on Fox TV by everyone in the country, revealing the fact that almost everyone who lives in Boston is pretty ugly?

Well, you can bet it's no accident that Fox scheduled the premiere of 'The Swan,' featuring 10 'ugly ducklings,' for Monday night, after two days of World Series camera shots showing ugly people sitting in the stands at Fenway Park. You couldn't find a much better advertisement for plastic surgery and the need for dramatic makeovers than the first two games of the World Series."

If you'd like to show your, ahem, appreciation of Mr. Simers, you can write him at t.j.simers@latimes.com. My personal fave response, thus far:

"To TJ Simons, contestant #47 in the LA Times Search for The Next Big Writing Talent: GET OFF THE STAGE. NOW."

We BELIEVE in miracles

For once in my life, I'm officially speechless. I'll leave it up to you.

Best. Job. Ever.

Normally, I don't like my job. It pays well, and does involve using my brain. But, for the most part, Feh!

My complaint: Not enough hot chicks. You need hot chicks in the office because hot chicks make the day so much more pleasant. How can anything bother me when Sheila from Accounting is wearing her pants that tight? Exactly. Distraction, my ass. Hot chicks actually help to increase productivity and give me that extra step in my stride that normally I'd turn to recreational drugs for.

But things changed last week, when I hired... well, let's call her Sandy Wentuckle of East Boston, Massachusetts. Don't get me wrong, Sandy had the experience, the credentials, the degree. She also had an ass that looked like someone swiped the backside off a marble statue at the MFA and nestled it gently within the streamlined goodness of her skirt. It was eye candy, but it was the good kind of eye candy. The kind that actually got the job done, and made me look good.

And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, it did.

Yesterday, after a team meeting, as the rest of the group shuffled out of my office, Sandy stayed behind. Without warning, she casually shut my office door, trapping both of us inside, and told me she wanted to show me something, teeing it up with the caveat: "Just a warning, though... you might see some butt crack."

As my saliva glands shifted into overdrive, she undid her belt, turned around and dropped trou, showcasing a tattoo that extended from her left butt cheek to the small of her back.

"I got this on Saturday. What do you think?"

In the wake of that glorious real estate, my senses departed, and I was incapable of speech. I simply nodded, smiled, and uttered something that sounded like, "Fzsd."

She smiled, pulled her pants -- oh, to be born again as fabric -- back across her curves, and sashayed to her cube. I wiped my mouth and descended back into my chair. At least most of me.

Had I walked into a female coworker's office and pulled the same stunt, they'd be fitting me for prison garments. But for the hotness that is Sandy Wentuckle, a glowing review is in the mail.

She got the fat scared outta her

To those gentlemen who are tired of getting the Heisman every time they bust a move, I would strongly suggest The Grudge. It will have your ladyfriend crawling all over you faster than a bad rash. The plot makes no sense, the dialog is weak (what do you want, most of it's in Japanese) but I aint Roper or Fat Ebert so who gives a rat's ass. It serves its purpose of providing rampant squealing, grabbing, clutching, and squeezing action in a dark movie theater near you.

Holy Fucking Shit

I am so ecstatic. I am so emotional. I am so hungover. I am so freaking exhausted. Can all citizens of the Red Sox nation please have a national holiday? Pretty please?

Let's Hear It For The Boy...toy

Ever since David Lee Roth moaned about bein' hot for teacher, the older woman/younger man thang has been flying along the pop culture freeway. Gone are the days of "poor spinster Aunt Celeste, at least she's got her 5 cats," or settling for a future with Mr. Balding, Fat-Ass Beer-Gut bitching about dinner. Who needs marriage if I've got this to look forward to at 40? Sure, a little botox, lipo and a tummy tuck are in the cards, and yeah, my personal trainer, chef and aesthetician may have to put in a little overtime. But this MLF will be cruising the frat houses and varsity games in no time.

"We Have a Pool and a Pond..."

For years, I avoided the gym. Not out of laziness, mind you, as I'm quite a portrait of top physical conditioning. Rather, it's the desire to exercise without some steroid case sweating his balls off on a machine I'm waiting to use, or falling off a treadmill when some chick in spandex decides to do squats right in front of me (and what is up with that, by the way? Intentional, right?).

But on business trips, the hotel gym provided a majestic sanctuary -- clean, sparsely populated, and refreshingly troglodyte-free. At least until a recent trip to New Orleans, where I found, on my first and last trip to the hotel gym, a chick working out in cut-off jeans shorts and a guy with a 36-inch neck and a shirt that read -- I'm not making this up -- "Can I borrow your girlfriend?"

The only saving grace was that I saw the women I'm someday going to marry. Six foot two, about 200 pounds of rock-hard muscle, tattoos up and down each arm, and gluteal muscles that I could envision latching onto my nose and pulling every shred of skin off my face like a rubber mask. I've never dated a woman with bigger arms than my own, but after drinking in the glory that was this behemoth, I haven't been able to erase the idea from my mind.

Nonetheless, this week I'll be shopping for a home gym.

How I found religion

Before I start passing as the younger, only slightly more attractive version of Andy Rooney, I have to stop my usual rant and praise the magnificent creation that is a MAN. Glory hallelujah, c'mon let us adore him:

I love stubble. I love scruff. I love sideburns. I love the tanned nape of the neck below your buzzcut. I love callouses. I love the hard bulge of your pectoral muscle or your other, ahem, "pec." I love the cocky grin you flash when you spy my exessive admiration of your assets. I love how you stick out your chin and your chest when you're ready to rumble, only to shake hands and slap each others' backs minutes later after some unspoken truce. I love the scent of cologne, caught between the second and third buttons of your only clean shirt. I love your furrowed brow when you check out the game or the surf or the remnants of last night's party. I love your bullshit pickup lines and unbelievable excuses.

But most of all, godamnit, I love you, man.

These Things I Know Are True...

I miss Olympic volleyball...


...chicks dig catchers...


...and there is nothing sexier than a chick in a baseball cap or visor.

But mommy, I want to be a dude

What a pain in the ass it is to be a hot chick. You might think we just roll out of bed, shake out our hair and bam! We're Giselle. But that's a fucking myth, even if you ARE Giselle. It takes work to look this good, and don't let any stupid actress in US Weekly tell you otherwise.

Wanna know what's behind the curtain? Let's start with the shower curtain (after a 2-hour workout at 5AM): shave the legs. Shave the pits. Exfoliate. Shampoo. Condition. Hot Oil treatment. Deep cleansing gel. Facial wash. Then it's moisturize. Brush. Floss. Gargle. Apply foundation. Powder. Deodorant. Lipliner. I haven't dried my hair yet and I'm still naked at this point, while you guys are already eating dinner. And it doesn't help matters that satanic marketers feature yet another "must-have" beauty product in Anorexic Monthly magazine like fucking spray-on foundation for LEGS or an anti-aging ear-lobe cream.

With this grueling regimen, I've worked up quite an appetite. Too bad I can only eat things that have no carbs or sugar, such as water, or air. So now you have a "hottie" on your hands who's broke from buying products, dizzy from malnutrition, and really, really ornery. Oh, and guess what--I think I'm getting my period. (Guys, a little friendly advice: don't walk--RUN!).

So I ran into my ex last night

...with his new chick. The only possibly worse scenario I can think of is having my armpit hair removed with fireants. It caught me completely off guard; but,now that I think about it, even if I had been given, say, a two week notice, I doubt the experience would have been more "pleasant." Tell me, what would you prefer: being hit by a bus and dragged 1000 feet by your eyeballs, or to be told you have a flesh-eating disease that will commence its annihilation of your epidermis in 10 days?

So anyway, they walk up and puke their happy couple hairball into my lap, then look at me expectantly. Ooh, will she flip out? Will she try to act cool? I did neither. Instead, I leaned over and whispered to the bartender that these two lovebirds were so happy I set them up that they're picking up the tab--for the entire bar. Then I made like a banana and split.

Richard Branson, Eat Your Heart Out

As I mentioned a coupla posts back, I fly. A lot. And I'm constantly firing off missives to the CEOs of the major airlines, explaining how they can improve the overall experience for weary travellers. So what if my list goes no further than "lapdances and slot machines"? It's the thought that counts, as I see it.

Then, while reading through Vadergrrrl's page, I discover that my prayers have, in fact, been answered:

Hooters has its own airline.

Are they serious? Is it legit? Fuck, I wouldn't care if the plane ever left the ground. I. Am. There.

The website itself is a bloody riot. Among the advantages of flying Hooter's Air? "The same great flight crews plus two Hooters Girls on every flight!" And my personal favorite (cue Beavis and Butthead laughter): "Extra Leg Room."

Talk about a way to take the edge off flying. If Bin Laden himself stood up in the front row, brandishing an AK-47 and announcing he's diverting the plane to the Hoover Dam, I don't think I'd even bat an eyelash. Not while Missy and Brandy are playing volleyball in the aisle, anyway.

Folks, this is progress in my eyes. Splitting the atom? Satellites over Mars? Artificial hearts? Feh. Where are the overstuffed tanktops? The satiny orange shorts that can barely contain the curvaceousness? Somewhere along the line, this country lost track of its priorities. Thanks to Hooters Air, America's back on top.

My name's Ken. And I approved this message. Hi.

So he wakes up naked in a bathtub filled with ice...

Goddamn, I love urban legends.

Fly Me

If you've ever travelled by airplane on your own, you'll know this drill. You sit at the gate, waiting for the flight, and scan the crowd. After you pick out the potential terrorists, you start pinpointing the folks you really, really, really hope end up sitting next to you.

I know I do. And, as a dude who takes a lot of business flights, it's a nice diversion. It's also proved, at least for me, pretty fruitless, for the Gods of Airplane Flights have never chosen to smile on me.

Many an early morning and late night I've spent in the terminal, glass-eyed, pulling from a flat bottle of Coke and staring up from a dog-eared Maxim, silently praying to God and Sonny Jesus that the 19-year-old sorority girl in the skintight, faded Levi's ends up in the seat next to mine. I try to imagine what her perfume will smell like, what kind of gum she'll offer to share with me, what hotel room we'll end up in after I ply her with my inexhaustible charms.

But it never happens. Instead, find the nutjob with the "Vietnam Vets for Christ" T-shirt who's drooling into a tin cup, and that's my guy. All the time, every time.

The 400 pound electronics salesman? The drunken real estate exec just back from a conference in Dallas? The 8 year old with the Gameboy who's keeping a journal of all the interesting clouds we pass? Inevitably, they will all end up at my side. For three hours.

It's the worst kind of tease imaginable. Sitting there, fumbling with my seat belt, watching the beautiful women file in, one after another, and place their streamlined asses in seats that aren't next to mine. But when they hold the plane for the guy who was just throwing up in the Stuckey's restroom? That's when I dust off the seat to my left, because I know, dollars to donuts, that's his final destination.

God, whatever I've done to wrong ya, I hereby apologize.

Wood Chopper II

Once again, thank you, Madison Avenue, for destroying everything that I hold holy. Watching a Victoria's Secret commercial the other night, and just as I'm getting into "the groove," imagining six of the models showing up at my front door for a pillow fight, the unmistakably greasy mug of Bob Dylan appears on screen to topple even the sturdiest of hard-ons and leave me gasping for oxygen.

Who's brainchild is this twisted opus? Who was sitting in the boardroom and said, "Well, the gorgeous, thong-clad asses and ample breasts barely being contained by our lingerie are nice, but what this thing really needs is... Bob Dylan"? And could this person please be administered a hornet enema at once?

Folks, I sat back and took it like a man when they shrunk G.I. Joe from his stately 12 inches to a lowly 6. But this ain't gonna stand. You can't have this one, ad people. Give me back my T&A, and I like it refreshingly devoid of guitar strumming geezers. Christ, I can see that on the corner outside my apartment... but Naomi Campbell in satin and wings? That's magic that only TV can deliver.

you got a purty mouth

It may seem that I'll screw anything with 3 legs, but I do have my standards. The boys I dig ain't the boys from drama class --they have 5 o'clock shadow by 10 AM, calloused hands, creative tats and can throw down if necessary. Pretty boys are fine for The OC and the latest teen flick, but my rule is: if you look better in Cover Girl than me, be gone.

It's a man's world

From George Costanza and Susan to "The Mind of a Married Man" to "King of Queens" to "According to Jim" to "Still Standing" to "Listen Up!", Jason Alexander's new show on CBS, it seems the presumably male fantasy of a fat, balding, unattractive guy with a hottie, usually anorexic wife never gets tired. Hey, that's all good, but give us OUR fair share--I want shows about housewives with huge asses and more chins than a Chinese phonebook, happily ensconced with the likes of Antonio Banderas and Taye Diggs. Tit for Fat, baby!