House of Wachs

THE UPSIDE TO DUI

Just got back from a mission in St. Maarten, where George Stein and I go once a year to teach Judaism to the poverty stricken natives. If you're ever there, and see kids walking around in their copyright infringing ghetto wear and yarmulkes...that's our work. George and I are committed to getting the island's first synagogue up and running by next Yom Kippur. Please. Donate.

We stayed, of course, in George's modest home on the French Side.

Where crazy-eyed French-speaking guard cats prowl the premises and take no prisoners.

I bought this print for my wife out of love, and guilt that she wasn't on the trip.

Let me first acknowledge that it's a really lousy painting. It doesn't lift an emotional finger whatsoever. It's a painting with utterly no passion. Devoid of any inspirational markers. Revealing of no influences or perspectives.  It's not even good enough to be a children's picture despite the inherently low standards of children.

That's a wave in the middle. Not a seagull. They don't have seagulls down there, which is a bit of a shame since I like chucking rocks at them. But the beach is not rocky, but powdery, so it's just as well.

I paid $36 bucks for it because it happens to be a painting of an island on which I got it on with my wife during our honeymoon.

I persuaded her to go to the titty beach, which is so romantic and not creepy, coercing your new bride to go look at flabby old nude couples from Europe show off their raisins.

Well, I got aroused anyway. It wasn't the nudity, because much of it was the unfortunate kind. It was the idea of being able to run around completely nude in front of people and no one cared or laughed. It's as close to being invisible as one can get. It got me really excited.

Since nudity and not porno was allowed on the beach, we waved down a boat driven by a native with a giant package. For a small fee, he ferried us to the island in the picture above, about a minute away, where we went behind a rock ( on the right hand side) and got it on. Man, that was great.

Over the years, I never thought my wife could possibly have enjoyed it as much as me because it really is a man's pirate fantasy, and because I kept slamming her hip into the rock with every thrust, so she must have been banged into that rock about 4 times! Ouch!

My suspicions were confirmed, I'm sad to report upon my arrival. My wife hates the painting. I felt so terrible. And she made a wonderful warm bowl of cabbage soup for me, too for my arrival back into the colder weather of reality. She promised to hang it in our beach house when we get one, which is not looking all that good right now.

I might ask my Dad if I can put it in his beachfront mausoleum. That's class. Putting a print of where you first boned your wife in your parent's home.

Another busy week of What's Your Story? coming up, so I'm gonna go and look busy and sift through the week's parade of newsism, now.

MAKE ME WET

What is it Thursday? Only took me 3 days to recover from the past weekend in Las Vegas. Not bad for going to bed at 1pm last Saturday. After that refreshing nap/sleep it was off to the Palms Hardwood Suite for a 40th birthday party of a pal which lasted until 3am Sunday morning.

I've been to parties that had a basketball court, and I've been to parties in hotel rooms, but never to a party in a hotel room that had a basketball court inside it off the living room.

The entire hotel room is bigger than my home.

I think I did a pretty good job on attire for such a unique event.

The sporty sweater and tasteful jeans say: "I'm eager to have conversation and cocktails."

The sneakers and t-shirt underneath say: "But I'm ready to drain some 3-pointers if necessary."

What are the statistics on hotel rooms being broken into that have their TVs left on? I take it on faith that doing this deters criminals and degenerates, but I'd like to see the numbers to back it up.

I don't think it works if you leave it on any channel. A criminal is not so stupid to think that a Vegas tourist is going to sit in their hotel room on a Saturday night watching the hotel services channel or CNN when all kinds of funs are going on outside, so I put it on ESPN before I set off--LOUD--because it's more plausible that a degenerate gambler could be in the room catching up on college football.

Las Vegas, being a mecca for terrorists looking for a little fun before blowing up some building in the name of Allah, has some of the scrutiniest airport security in the US. The lines are snakes before they get on the plane.

I was detained at McCarren Airport briefly Sunday because the woman with the lip mole and heavy accent at the security bottle neck was confused that the "Lawrence Wachs" on my driver's license, and the "Larry Wachs" on my boarding pass didn't match up.

ME: Larry is a nickname for Lawrence.

HER: Yes, but they are not the same.

ME: It's like Bobby is short for Robert. BTW, you might notice that the face and the last name all match up.

HER: But one says Larry and the other says Lawrence.

LADY BEHIND ME: It's like Robert and Bob.

HER: Is this your wife?

ME: No. She's an American. Everyone knows this.

HER: I am American, too (but she said it like a vampire would).

...and zzzziiip....out comes the nylon barrier. Now, I've gone and done it.

She went to see her supervisor for some guidance on American nomenclature, came back with her tail between her legs, but no apology, and let me proceed for another 23 minutes of line before I could get out of Vegas.

Again, I must ask. Where's the danger in nicknames?

I must say a trip to the desert really gives perspective on the drought situation here in GA. I saw no one in Las Vegas praying for anything but a gambling victory or avoiding an STD. Water was not discussed at all despite the eternal drought outside.

I do believe in the power of prayer and faith. I don't know exactly the chain of events prayer touches off to yield results, but I have a notion that it's similar to the "monkeys with typewriters" effect. If you put enough minds to work meditating on a single problem, somebody's liable to stumble upon a solution.

But the Governor leading a prayer for water is really asinine. What are we?  Whoville? 

Praying for rain is the wrong prayer, too. I'd pray for grass and flowers that don't need rain or for the skies to open up and drop Purell and good red wine on us on Sundays. Maybe war on on Alabama and Florida. As long as we're throwing a Hail Mary, let's aim for the end zone, you people.

As a voter, I'm concerned when an elected leader uses prayer as a first resort to fixing a practical problem. Why vote? Just install gypsy fortune tellers or Creflo Dollar as governor. His rainmaking is legendary.

I could understand if we were being overrun with zombies. When that day comes, I will stand with the Governor, humble before the Lord. I promise you.

But water is everywhere. It's just trapped under regulation and politics. Is it that hard to make the case that an inedible mollusk in Florida is less important than a nice shower and shvitz for 25 minutes? That's what fighting is for. Prayer, in this case, communicates surrender to the obstacles and a neglect of reason.

Oh, wait! It rained a 10th of an inch last night. Sweet vindication from our Father! This drought will be over in just 7 quick years.

Hey governor! I'm tired of walking upright. How about another prayer?

ROAD TO RUINS

I've been on the road on a listening tour of the radio business and here are my preliminary findings:

Carrie Underwood is singing Before He Cheats which is a huge hit for the sexy broad but the more I hear it the more I am offended by it.

"That I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4 wheel drive,
Carved my name into his leather seats...
I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights,
Slashed a hole in all 4 tires...
Maybe next time he'll think before he cheats."

I'm put off by the woman's rush to vandalism. Is that called for? All he did was date someone that was not you. Not a pleasant thing, but what did Carrie Underwood do to make him search for loving elsewhere? We are not told.

Carving her name into the leather seats was a poor move in my opinion, and I'd like to hear the follow-up song, "Before She Pleads," detailing how she was jilted by a lesbian in jail while awaiting arraignment on vandalism charges.

The problem with these songs is that there are millions of angry women out there who hear them and whisper "you go girl" under their breath as they mini-van around town with your sugar-buzzed kids driving them nuts, and they get this deranged scenario in their heads that while they're dealing with the kids, you're having a holiday picnic complete with sack races at work. That's why when you come home and she's fishing for a fight, she's likely heard Carrie Underwood sing the prophylactic virtues of crazy.

I think it's a poor choice of song for Miss Underwood who is pretty and sweet and more suited to singing songs about single moms praying to Jesus to drive them to her parents house because she's not good in snow. Before He Cheats is good song, but more suited to that goofy looking Reba McIntire, redneck chick Gretchen Wilson, or some country music she-beast like that who you could see not only getting ditched for a hotter model, but also losing her mind and destroying property as well.

Bucky Covington is another one. He has this single out about what it was like growing up in the 50s but I don't think he's any older than 28. So who is he to say how the good old days were better?

I'm not naive. if you write Before He Cheats, and Carrie Underwood wants to record it, you'd have to be crazy to say no to the cash it's sure to bring in just because it's not a good artistic fit. I'm just saying to all those greedy starving songwriters, it's annoying to listen to.

I have to pee in Spartanburg, so I stop at a gas station in which no toilet is available.

"Ya gotta go over to the Waffle House," says the attendant.

"You don't have a restroom?"

"Naw. They's broken. Gotta go to the Waffle House." Sounds like a scam to sell waffles to me.

"What happened?"

Stupid question on my part because it gives him the opportunity to launch into a spiel about how the development has overwhelmed the sewer system in that town and how the zoning laws need to be changed, ad infinitum, which doesn't explain why the Waffle House next door has working toilets.

I don't have the time to hear a dissertation on smart growth and urban land use from the overnight Kangaroo attendant. So it's onto the BP a mile down the road. Thank god for the soothing voice of Gail Garmin coming to me live on the Nuvi 350 to guide me.

There I find working toilets, but they are occupied by an 8 and a 10 year old with colored Mohawks. Whoa, mom and dad, whoa! How is this going to help them gain a foothold in civil society? I'm going to write a song about these kids. Mohawk Gypsies in the Night...give it a flamenco, Chris Isaak, Doors feel with lots of Munsters-style bass. It'll be a hit, but only if i can get Baltimora to sing it. I don't want look stupid by selling it to the wrong artist.

Back in the car and scan again and the Delilah Show is on one of her 2 million affiliates. Delilah is very soothing, and I like soothing at night. I appreciate her soothing company in the car. Past 9pm I'm the kind of person that doesn't mind a little Air Supply in the car, but that doesn't mean I like a little sperm supply in the trunk. Get that straight.

I'm hearing a long distance dedication from a 32-year old likely virgin network technician with Asperger's  whose speech patterns are similar to Harvey Pekar's friend. Just the Two of Us is his dedication song and I get the feeling it's going out to a woman who has no idea he exists. But that's what radio is for; to be our portable friends who hold up a mirror to our hopes and dreams.

Scan to AM to catch the Braves circle the drain as predicted in these blogs some months ago. A news story comes on about how Nike is making shoes specifically tailored to the Native American foot which are alleged to be different from other races according to the report.

I was unaware that Indians had no access to comfortable sport footwear or that their feet are that much different from my own. Thank god for radio news. My concern is do we really want to open up that discussion in these hyper-sensitive times about the physiological differences amongst  the various races?

We've been down this road with Jimmy The Drunk Snyder, and Al Campanis. Nobody was happy with the outcome. Don't get me wrong. There are significant physiological differences amongst the various ethnic groups, but it's just that there are few people capable of mulling the topic and it's implications without someone getting uncomfortable and keying cars.

Now, a commercial for some local cut rate supermarket that serves the sub-Winn Dixie crowd. Bologna is on sale and the store owner who does his own spots pronounces it "ba loan a" as it reads instead of "baloney" as normal, non-shithead people would say it. It's only "ba loan a" when you're talking about the town in italy or Renee Taylor's husband.

Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls" comes on for the 3rd time this trip. I like the song immensely. It reminds of a time when that pain in the ass ingrate Harry Belafonte kept his ludicrous opinions to himself and entertained with pleasant Carribean-tinged melodies.

Scan to something called Charlie FM. I'll say this for Charlie FM. They will never make the mistake of playing Fleetwood Mac after Nick Gilder. Not like that moron Tony FM.

This is a symptom of the larger disease that is rapidly metastasizing into the lymph nodes of the patient called terrestrial radio. What a ridiculous business model. Talent is an asset, not a cost, people. If you want to be in the audio entertainment distribution business past 2012, may I strongly suggest to some analog transmitter owners to put down the free Heinekin at the trade show, and start looking for humans who can build franchises that the masses want, in order to save your enterprise. I should point out that labeling something with an abstract concept is not the same as having a genuine product with real human attributes that create customer loyalty for generations.

You would think that if they were going to go out in this fashion, they would at least put some imagination into the label by having a Disco Stu FM or, in the case of the local Dave FM, at least hire DJs named Dave. People often ask if i'll ever do mornings at Dave FM, and the answer is no, because my name is Larry.

Tell ya what, when I get home, I'm going to the local courthouse and get the forms to change my name to Larry FM. If anybody wants to name their station Larry FM, they'll have to clear it through me. And that'll be rough seeing as how I have some very particular ideas about how Larry FM should sound, and the cost of the rabbi alone to convert the station to Judiasm borders on the obscene.I don't want my name getting hijacked by a monotonous music loop trying to be everyone's Ipod. Nip this problem in the Bud FM.

Scan to a station on the left wing side of the dial playing some beautiful hymnal music. It's well after 11pm now and I'm really looking to relax. The music is so relaxing and inspiring that I'm narcotized by it to the point that I give no mind to four Red Bull and deadline-crazed FedEx semis who speed rape my car as they pass me with ill-regard, or that I'm listening to songs about Jesus on the wildly holy Jewish day of Sukkot.

I've decided that this is the music I want to die to. I don't know what the chances are of one being able to choose the music they hear when they die. It seems to me that window is very slim. But if I do find myself fortunate enough to set my demise to some kind of music, this would be the music I'll be selecting. I'll buy a DiePod and drift off.

Then the scan button finds the local rap station which features more than a few fellas who could use a good dose of Jesus in their lives if you ask me. From what I can decipher of the melody-free grunting, all these hooligans want is to find some money or to take some money or to spend some money. Rappers are the greediest sons a bitches you'd ever want to meet.  If I'm wrong and there is a rap song about earning or investing money, send it along.

The listening portion of my research completed, I arrive at my hotel room that smells slightly like throw up. It's sufficiently masked by a spray disinfectant but it doesn't completely conceal the fact that something once went wrong in this hotel room. Then again, I don't think it's possible to be in a hotel room anywhere where nothing unpleasant has ever happened in it. Too many people out there, myself included, don't take rented property as seriously as their own, and thus feel liberated in doing their fluid letting, binge drinking, gun play and gratuitous mutilation of coeds while in the confines of temporary quarters.

The lobby has a wonderful selection of soft drinks, snacks, dinner portions of Ramen, and low-end frozen foods such as the ironically named Banquet. But it's 12:30 AM in Charlotte, a small Atlanta, but really a giant Duluth, and I must fuel, so I select a Michelina Lite Mangled Green Peppers with Beef and Rice. The box says the meal is a "chef-inspired recipe," and it's a good thing they put that label on there.  Otherwise, I'd have wrongly assumed it was inspired by a fellow in the lumber industry. These meals are rich in anti-anti-oxidants.

Two morons in alternative rock concert t-shirts are talking outside my door about the Chicago Bears QB controversy. Why can't they talk inside the room? They must know from their own experience inside the room that hotel hallway sounds travel far. In fact, I don't think it's possible to hold a conversation in a hotel hallway without 10 rooms at minimum being able to hear you. Oh, and by the way. Grossman should have been benched last year.

I've come up to Charlotte, NC to spend some time with friends and colleagues at the NAB Radio Convention. It's like a shiva house for terrestrial radio. Clearly, something is dead and the people at the convention are rhetorically positive but realistically sad. The discussion groups and panels mirror an industry in free fall and the only real controversy is how long it will be before a radio transmitter and FCC license is worth nothing. The convention wisdom says 20 years. Sounds optimistic to me. I'm probably one of 10 performers in the joint, and the rest are there because they were invited to speak on one of the thin offerings of discussion rooms about content and talent. The business has practically devoted itself to selling selling.

The panel sessions at the NAB Convention are devoted to discussing the finance and ad sales side of the business and hand wringing about the manifold government-inspired dilemmas that have come out of the woodwork to swamp radio operators large and small. There's a room for the FCC indeceny jihad problem. They even had a breakfast with the FCC chairman Kevin Martin in which not a single person asked him the most important question. Why are you regulating our industry to death?

Unlike TV, the bulk of radio's non-musical programming is live, and the costs tied up in staffing and purchasing equipment for an internal watchdog regime are significant in relation to revenues. Even then, there is no guarantee that every F-bomb and S-word will be eradicated by the in house blue pencil squads, resulting in crippling penalties. And with an FCC or Congress unwilling to clarify what specifically is indecent, it's even more difficult to manage the situation properly.

The first to go are those costly and difficult to manage hosts who make up the primary reason these days why most people even bother turning a radio on or buying ad time. The fix must be in. Clearly, the heads of this industry have sold out their 1st Amendment rights in exchange for a short term government fix for their other growing profit-eating woes, such as the ability to prop up dying AM stations by putting them on FM frequencies and getting a few more years of cash flow before both AM and FM go the way of 8mm film.

Ironically, in an adjacent party room another hand-wringing discussion is going on concerning the new royalty fees that another dying greedy industry, the record biz, has proposed for broadcasters. This is getting darkly funny. Here's an industry that has insisted, in the face of better music delivery competition, that it can still be the consumer's #1 choice for music. Now, the music industry wants to tax them to the tune of as much as $7 billion dollars a year for the privilege of playing their previously gratis recordings. That's a fine corner the radio biz has painted itself into. Can't afford to do music, can't afford to do talk. The only solution is to buy some text to voice software and hire a lad to type Dixie Cup jokes and riddles into it for $25 bucks a day.

Other rooms are devoted to discussions on how to plow more millions of dollars into convincing consumers that HD radio, a dead on arrival technology, is worth spending money on despite having no advantage over satellite or the internet. The audio is sketchy, the programming offers nothing unique, and the receivers are big and costly. Good luck with that.

I meet up with my friend and former colleague, Perry Simon, who has won quite a following amongst broadcasters for his insightful and blunt assessments of the business and his spot on predictions of how things will play out in the future. I strongly suggest you read his take on the whole crisis situation, if you're into this topic and wish to get more girls at parties with your media knowledge.

Not that the preceeding paragraphs mean that all is bleak in the House of Wachs. Oh, no. I just signed a contract for my next broadcasting venture, and I will have full details on it within 2 weeks, so check back in often here.

THE BRIDGE IN THE RIVER...WHY?

Like most of you, I have been in a funk ever since that bridge collapsed in Minnesota. It's sad to think that the ride at the Cumming Fair manned by the woman with 8 fingers and a mullet is safer than some of our nation's overpasses.

I don't know much about bridges except that they help people get from one side of a hole to another safely and dryly, and this one in Minneapolis did not, and therein lies the problem as I see it. I'm more of a tunnel person, so if a tunnel ever caves, I'm your guy. But common sense can help even a bridge naif such as myself to figure out how to prevent future tragedies.

First, let's blame someone. That always a good starting point. Many years working in a corporate environment has taught me to fix the blame and then the problem.

As the great Borat once sang, in my country there is problem. And the problem is transport. Therefore,  throw the environmentalists down the well. Their fanciful and self-congratulatory scientistesque theories have successfully allowed people to die. At least those people on the bridge had clean water to plunge into.Yay!

Where do you think all your gas taxes and carbon taxes and BTU taxes and luxury taxes and all the other punitives of transportation freedom go? I'll tell you. They pave the road to hell by spending those dollars on things like bike paths for people going to gay marriage ceremonies, and light rail to take oldsters and junkies to get their government-funded preservatives. To road maintenence? Oh, honey! I have a bridge to sell you in Minnesota.

Here in Atlanta, they only recently figured out that we need to build more roads to swiftly facilitate the spread of illegals and the high skills they bring to such fields as cleaning and folding. But it's been rather slow in coming since any politician who runs on a platform of "more roads, less talk" will be confronted by a mob of insufferable peasant wannabes with ethanol torches threatening to go naked unless tax dollars are instead used to build a steam-powered mag lev peace train system that goes from one impoverished scary ghost neighborhood to another. It's hard to get even a golf cart path repaved these days without some controversy.

Since Minnesota is virtually Canadian in culture and politics, it would not surprise me that the "Rot in Hell, Road!" mentality is even more acute up there than it is here. They like their weather cold and miserable. They NEED their weather to be cold and miserable. If they don't have that, they've got nothing. Mall of America? It's a mall! Except in this one you walk past a rollercoaster on your way to Hot Topic. Yah, big whoop.

Global warming would kill Minnesotans carefully nurtured image as hardy, stoic Nordics of uncompromising inner warmth and soul; the luddites luddite. Garrison Keillor would actually get some laughs.

Well, caring about preserving caribou habitats and ice fishing lakes is very sweet and all, but it's a luxury you can afford only if you are willing to see other people die for the cause. It's sure as hell not going to reverse the corrosive effects of 8-9 months a year of road salts used to de-ice their bridges, which, if I recall my road signs correctly, always freeze before the regular road surface. Only money paid to men who can fix and maintain bridges with icky things like tar and concrete and metal can do that.

I would also ban the ceremony of christening bridges and ships by busting champagne bottles on them. It can't help. Step on a glass like the Jews do. Kick off a lifetime of married sex/driving on a corroded bridge. No difference.

There. Problem solved.

TO THE LEFT, TO THE LEFT

I ran out of my roll-on anti-depressant, so I hopped into the car to go purchase more.

Maybe it's my lack of roll-on at the time, but I felt it would be a dag-gummed shame to be sitting in traffic and not to document one of the many finer points of why traffic blows so often.

See the problem?

It's a very common problem, especially in the underdeveloped parts of overdeveloped ATL suburbs. Lots of traffic in both directions exacerbated by two opposing left turns with no traffic control device. The two left turners, one of whom is usually in a monster truck, have trouble seeing the oncoming traffic and are hesitant to turn.

In this case there's an added wrinkle. It's the Pavlovian condition brought about by years of social engineering by our nation's road czars called "Slavish Devotion to Yellow Line Syndrome."

Notice not a single person (except out-of-the-box thinker/rebel Larry Wachs) will cross the yellow line with their tires to get a slightly better angle to view the oncoming traffic. Hence, my left turn didn't come for another 7 minutes.

Why wouldn't anyone cross the yellow line? Well...because...it's a yellow line...and...uh....you're not supposed ta. It's the same thinking that makes a guy a road pariah for using the shoulder for travel on a crowded interstate.

"Asshole! I hope he dies," people wish when they see such a heathen. I say it too, but in truth, it's only a bitter acknowledgment that I didn't have the guts to make the move myself. I'm utterly trapped in a collectivist mindset that reveres the order of the painted line and refuses to admit that the shoulder could and should be used as a lane. In a nuclear crisis, I will not be amongst the survivors.

Not crossing the yellow line on roads is generally a good idea, but let's be a little less linear in our thinking out there, folks. This line is guarding NOTHING!

I purchased an extra roll-on to keep in the car when I got to the store.

WACHS BEACH DIARIES '07--CHAPTER 6

I get very little rest when I come to the beach, what with all the activities plus the putting together of the Wachs Beach Diaries, and for that reason alone, I look forward to driving back to Atlanta for 11 straight hours with my daughter's non-stop Mika tunes on CD, just to be able to sleep in my own bed for 8 straight without the aid of slumber enhancers and anti-inflammatories. We do that tomorrow. Actually later this morning.

I was all set for another restless night, when a knock came at the door. It was my mom's friend, Miriam, whom I'd promised to take to the new porn store across the street. I had forgotten. My mom would kill me for teasing her. And she was all ready to go with her cute little incognito outfit and strong odor of alcohol.

And although I'll remain a little sleepy for the folks along I-85 tomorrow, it was worth it. Here are some photos from our fun time together.

She bought my dad a gift. A thing that looked like a lighter, but when you pushed the button down a small penis popped out. Miriam thought it was a real lighter at first until the Romanian clerk explained to her.

"No, no. Ees no lightair. Ess jus a deeck. See?" And he flicked the joke penis in her face a couple of times. What a nice man.

So we bought it, and the penis broke after one use. Ten dollars. One laugh. My mom swore she would take the thing back and get a refund as soon as she found the broken penis. Try sleeping with that in mind.

WACHS BEACH DIARIES '07--CHAPTER 5

Although there is no real way to quantify it, just a gut feeling, I think this year at the beach is the least amount our family people have been pissed off at each other. There were a couple of minor skirmishes, like when my wife nailed my 7-year old nephew with two tennis balls in the back because he was throwing sand in her face repeatedly.  Dr. Mike lectured me a couple of times more that I shouldn't vote for Republicans because they got me fired twice, and the Democrats, who stand for freedom and liberty, wouldn't have allowed me to end up in this pickle, and all the rest of that noise...Good reasoning, Harvard boy. The market for 2004 nostalgia is not here just yet.

My mom lied to us 24 times in one day, Tuesday, by my sister's count. And that's only when they were in the same space together. I don't mind. It makes me feel less guilty when I raid her pillbox.

My sister berated her husband for hours about walking around in public while holding his bathing suit with the skid marks facing out. I agree he could have done more to conceal them, but the punishment did not fit the crime. You'd think he took a crap in the middle of the boardwalk on the sand Jesus the way she railed at him.  And really, given the fashions worn by most Ocean City people, I don't think most them would blink if he wore a shit covered shirt at the skee-ball parlor. Hell, we went to a nice enough restaurant last night and the table next to us was reserved, as it turned out, by a group containing two men in homemade muscle shirts.

But generally, we had more joy turning on the outside world.  Like the time we buried all our empty beer and soda cans on the beach and watched from the balcony as the metal detector guy dug them up in frustration.

And then this morning....

Our beach umbrellas were not set up today by the attendant, and my sister was pissed when she came down to establish our daily beach bivouac.

There, by the dunes, was a locked equipment box and an umbrella stuck shading an empty chair.

"I'm gonna have a word or two with this moron. Larry, let me know when he gets back."

Yes, princess. But the moron is a she and there she is.

All the more reason. My sister waddled her sassy ass up to the AWOL umbrella chick.

"Excuse me, honey. Our umbrellas were not set up today and I'd like to know why."

"I am so sorry, but, like,  I was being stalked by this guy, and I, like, freaked out and left because I thought he was going to, like, attack me."

"Well, why didn't you call the cops or something, sweetie? I mean, we pay money for these umbrellas and we don't have them today. It's just a haahrrible inconvenience, and incredibly irresponsible." I love my sister in outrage mode, as long as I'm not the target. Her vocabulary becomes that of a 65-year old Palm Beach matron dressing down her driver. Yesterday, my nephew shook some Coke and opened the bottle all over the carpet. "That's a haahribull decision, Charles. Honestly, I don't understand your decision-making process. It's ludicrous. Absurd."

Now she was really thickening it for the summer job umbrella twat with the Disney Channel scrungied hair. "Can you just explain to me why one creepy guy gives you the idea that you can just leave your post and inconvenience people?

"Well, he was like, really freaking me out, and, like, telling me he's been watching me since 9:20."

"I'm sure a lot of men have, honey.  Deal with it or become a nun. I don't care. I'm getting a refund or my umbrellas. Where is this stalker? Can you point him out? I'm gonna have a few words to say to him too."

"Um, I don't see him now. He had, like, a lime green hat on."

"Oooh, sweetie...."

She had encountered Retard Resnick in 1014. Every year for as long as I can remember, he has walked up and down the beach dragging his clubbed foot, atrophied hand swaying to and fro and chatting up anyone with a beach blanket with his slurred nonsense under his lime green baseball cap. Nobody really knows how he gets here, what his living arrangement is, or who's in charge of him. He's just there as is his right as an American, and that's that. It's a rite of summer seeing Retard Resnick on the beach. It wouldn't be summer without him.

"Honey, he's retarded. He's harmless. That's what retarded people do. They say things they can't possibly mean. That's no reason to not set up people's umbrellas that they paid for. That's called stealing."

"I'm so sorry. My boss is, like, going to freak out."

"That makes two of us."

WACHS BEACH DIARIES '07--CHAPTER 2

Welp, it's 07-07-07. And that means...jack.

We're in the car headed for dinner. My mother's phone plays "From a Distance" by Bette Midler. It represents how she sleeps with my dad, who snores poorly and eats smelly food often.

"I think it's embarrassing to have a ringsong on your phone past age 20, Ma."

"I have a song on MY phone," my wife says in rescue of my mother from my outrageous attack on the way her cell phone rolls.

"Well, that's because you're a retard, honey." I patiently explain. And a kiss ass, but I didn't say that to spare her feelings. 

"But I like Bette Midler, Larry"

"OK, but think about this, mother. If you put your favorite song on your cell phone, in this case, "From a Distance," you have to interrupt it's groove to answer the call. Isn't that an incentive NOT to answer your phone in a timely fashion?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing. Logic. Never mind. Answer the call. It's the second verse already."

It was my mom's friend from the condo, Miriam, who wanted to know where we were headed for dinner this evening. My parents are in all their glory when we show up. Everyone wants to know what they're up to.They get treated like celebrities, mainly due to the fact that my parents are still in their 60s, making them a hot young couple, and they don't purchase oxygen off that truck that roams the zip code and plays the theme from "The Sting." But when we're in town, their status goes up a few more notches. That's because my brother's a doctor, my sister married well, and they think I'm still on the radio because they don't remember so well and I lie about it to save time.

We pass by Ocean City, MD's first ever sex shop, boldly advertising Jenna Jameson rubber parts, DVDs, and anatomically correct mannequins showing off their bedroom fashion sense in front of a backdrop of tinfoil, just like in your bedroom. It's next to the KFC/Taco Bell, and the OLD PRO mini golf center, in the exact strip mall space where I used to play pinball games, and really sticks out amongst all the family shlock that lines Coastal Highway, which, for all it's years has had nothing racier than Big Pecker's Bar and Grill. 

15 years ago, some genius tried to get a lap dance club going here. Maryland's liquor laws forbade any sort of nudity with liquor, so the business plan was built on the premise that men, just coming off the beach, would pay top dollar to buy beer from cranky, less attractive women in full bathing attire. My plan would have included arson. 

"When did Ocean City get a porno store, folks?"

"Oh, you know who wants to go there? My friend, Miriam. Call her. She'd be thrilled if you took her."

The thought of her pastel peach nails wrapped around an adult novelty....purr. 

My mom handed me her Midlerized phone and I called Miriam and asked her out to visit the porno store. Her husband wouldn't take her and she didn't want to go alone. I'm doing a good deed. What would the Boy Scouts do? We always hear about how they help old women across the street, but they never say to where the old ladies are going. Probably to save embarrassment as the odds are strong that Boy Scouts in the past have escorted the elderly into porn shops that stand tantalizingly across the street from the old person's location. 

We haven't set a day yet, but I am certain it will be during a heavy storm. 

WACHS BEACH DIARIES '07--CHAPTER 1

Fireworks were cancelled here in Ocean City last night. Authorities cited dangerously high winds and shut them down, and rescheduled for the 5th. It just wouldn't be a true Independence Day without reliance on our safety authorities to get us through it. And as excited as I am about celebrating something as huge as being free from England, I can wait another day for the explosions. I ain't do nothin!

Although empirical evidence shows it was very windy, I have a suspicion the postponement had something to do with this news item:

Jackson scouts Maryland vacation homes

Too many innocent children around.

WASHINGTON - Michael Jackson has been hunting for real estate on Maryland's Eastern Shore as he searches for a vacation home, a publicist for the pop star said.

The self-proclaimed King of Pop visited the rural peninsula last week "for about 24 hours," but has not made a purchase, Raymone Bain told The Washington Post.

Jackson, 48, is not limiting his search to the Chesapeake region. He has since "gone up the coast" to look elsewhere for a vacation place, Bain said.

"He's always admired the properties on the East Coast because they have a lot of land," Bain said in the story published Wednesday. "Neverland has 3,000 acres — he likes privacy. You can't find as many properties like that on the West Coast."

Yeah, the western US is sooo overcrowded. And there are no more large parcels of land for sale next to the Ronald McDonald House. Go east, young man lover. Besides, the West already has Al Gore the Younger endangering children in his souped-up Prius that runs entirely on drugs.  Of course, the drug and speeding offsets that come as a bonus from Toyota for purchasing the vehicle, will ultimately vindicate the lad. I also personally believe he should receive a lighter sentence for proving that a Prius can do more than 70MPH.

But I feel bad for the Gores because it's probably very embarrassing to them, especially coinciding with Al's kick-off of that concert protesting people who refuse to live like the Amish, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who's wondering if Tipper had an affair with a Kennedy to produce a boy with such a sizable fun gene.

Meanwhile, commoners such as myself without access to the elite markets of Morality Credit and Loan, must drive the holiday highways with nothing but wits and cruise control to fend off the 40 cop cars enforcing independence all along the route to the Beach.

George Stein will be mighty proud of me. No tickets. On the toughest not-getting-pulled-over-for-speeding day of the year. (July 3). On the tough, state-long speedtrap known as US 58 in Virginia, which I have been unable to beat for 3 summers straight. It was getting to a point where the law enforcement authorities of SE Virgina were offering to pay for my gas, just to entice me to drive through their cash traps for another season.

I have to say that listening to classical music during the drive helped immensely, so thanks to all those composers. It is soothing, yet inspiring enough to keep the driver's attention for the extra hour it'll be on the road due to the observance of posted limits. I don't know the names of the songs or the composers. I don't know what the music is about other than some vague notion of the way things were going down in the 1700s. All I know is that classical music makes me feel like I'm driving in the opening credit sequence of a documentary about me and my life as a Viking poet, and I like that someone is finally telling my story on the big screen. It's about time.

Here's the top story in Shelby, NC on the day of this historic drive north:

 

A 5-year-old boy grabbed a rabid fox by the neck and pinned it to the ground during a family cookout, protecting six other children before his stepfather could kill the animal.

"I wanted to protect my little brother," said Rayshun McDowell, who battled the fox in the front yard of his home Sunday in Kingstown, a town about 50 miles west of Charlotte.

What a brave young boy! Reminds me of the time I killed a dingo with nothing but a sock filled with pennies after it tried to eat my sister. This was before the laws were passed banning children from playing with socks and coins as a rider to the bill banning pre-pubescent smoking passed on July 4, 1973.

The fox bit Rayshun in the leg, but the 61-pound-boy held the animal down for more than a minute.

"I looked out the window and Rayshun had the fox by the neck and was pushing it into the ground," said his mother, Shinda Linder. "I couldn't believe what I was seeing."

Rayshun's stepfather, Ryan Thompson, pulled the boy off the animal and kicked it. A neighbor fired a handgun three times but the fox continued to advance.

Thompson, wearing a cast because of a broken leg, said he used a stick and his crutch to beat the fox to death.

Hey, Michael Jackson! There's some great land you ought to check out in Kingstown, NC.

THE TRIBE HAS SPOKEN

Overall, I'd have to say that, although the day was warm and pleasant, it was disappointing.

I was strolling near the Late Show/David Letterman Theater when a barker yelled out that he had tickets for this afternoon's Dave taping.

"I'm in."

"Just one?"

"Yes."

"Excellent. That really helps your chances."

My chances?

"Answer this Letterman trivia question correctly, and you can be in the audience tonight."

"....ok."

Let's see...born on April 12th, Worldwide Pants, Paul, Will Lee, CBS in 1993..or...94? Redhead announcer...Alan....what the fuck...Colter? Replaced Bill Wendell. Ready.

"Who is the Late Night Carpenter?"

Oh, COME ON now!

"Biff Henderson."

"No, I'm sorry. I can't give you the ticket."

Oh, that is ridiclous. Who the hell knows the answer to that? How do you get a full audience every day with questions like that?

"Well, give me another question."

"Sorry, I can't."

"Just one more. Give me a Dave history question. I'm good with those. I mean, you can tell I watch the show. Just haven't caught those carpenter segments. Come on. Fire away. I'm ready. Make it easy. Let's go. Here we go."

"Sir, I can't."

"This is a joke right? Is this being filmed? Dave is doing one of his street bits, right?"

"No. This is not being recorded."

"Who's gonna know? Seriously. This is perfect for me. I'd make a great audience member. I have experience."

"We need to have integrity in this business."

Integrity? You're an audience grabber for the Late Show! What does integrity have to do with it? If Dave is such a scream, than why must he do the show in front of a rigged audience of fanatics who will laugh at him putting on his socks? How much integrity is that? Bahhhh! Point me to Conan's area.

"Come on, one more Dave trivia question.  Please. You don't understand. I have NOTHING to do all day. NOTHING.  Please. Let me in your show. I will laugh. I swear. I will participate fully if Dave asks me about a brush with something. I won't boo Al Gore."

"I can't, sir. I'm sorry."

Well, you just lost a viewer, Buster Brown.  And I was going to watch tonight, because I don't have to get up early tomorrow. Yeah, that's the other thing that was disappointing. FREE FM/NY, the station I've been working on the past 3 weeks, rolled out the tarp. Two rejections by CBS in one day. That stings. They're now back to being K-ROCK and they fired everyone. I guess CBS just couldn't bear the revenue drain anymore and the broken eggs all over the floor from recent events, so...that's that. It is what it is. Que sera sera, and whatever else people say when they need to swallow their frustrations. .

At least they did it classy. I was taken to Times Square where a video montage of my stint was displayed on the giant video screen with Daughtry's "Home" blasting away at a heartbroken crowd. The House of Wachs has been razed.

I'll hop on a plane back to the ATL tomorrow and see what fruit my labor here has borne. Who wants ratings?

Thanks to Mainelli, Chiusano, Oliveiro, and the gang for letting me on for more time than I expected. I had a very lovely and fun time and I am grateful. Fuhgeddaboutit!!!

WHATCHYATHINK?

I'm on the road and extremely busy trying to put things back together now that the eruptions at the end of 2006 have settled down, so my entries may be sparser this week.

I know. I was on a real roll there, looking back. I hope to bring some of that same insightful and brilliant snap to the NY,NJ, CT and internet airwaves by way of 92.3 FREE FM, all this week from 9-midnight except MWF, when I'm on from the end of whatever sports they have on until midnight. Do make an attempt to listen in.

I also drove for nearly 5 hours yesterday in the thick of that storm of the century that the northeast is experiencing. I'm drained. I have just now come to understand the demanding physicality of a NASCAR race. It was a complete NASCAR experience (yours for only $52.47 in gas and tolls), not just with the demanding driving conditions, but also my mother acting as a crew chief, calling my headset every 30 minutes.

"OK, what exit are you on?"

"138."

"Where's that?"

"Why did you ask?"

A cement truck made a stupid lane change at one point. He was in small danger of hitting me, but it's the principle, and I was bored  So I honked a lot and flicked my headlights at him, called him a nappy headed ho and gave him the finger, and made a big deal out of this minor transgression.

Not a whole lot of people were on the road at the time and, for me, the whole fun of driving long distances is pretending someone behind you is trying to kill you. Or else what's the point? Just fly then.

Sometimes I go to rest areas, and sit in a stall waiting for the gentleman (or lady) in the stall next to me to insert his penis (or her vagina) into the small hole that has been carved into the privacy divider, and when he (or she) does, I spit on it and abruptly leave, making him (or her) all mad and horny and I drive as if he (or she) were chasing me for breaking the code of the Middle-Aged Interstate Cruiser.

Cement Trucker had one of those 1-800-HOW-AM-I-DRIVING stickers on, so I called it to make him even angrier. Wouldn't he be surprised when the safety department calls his cell phone and tells him the guy in the gray car ahead ratted him out?

"Safety Nazis. Are you calling about insurance or to report someone."

"I'm calling to report someone."

"What was the number on the vehicle."

"3642."

"What vehicle was it?"

"A cement truck."

"What company?"

What the hell is the code number for then? It's like being told by a recording on the phone,that by punching in your account number, you'll help them to serve you better, and then the CSR gets on the line and asks for your account number all over again.

"What was he doing?

"He almost hit me. I think he's been drinking."

"What's your name?"

"Albert Pujols."

"OK, Mr .Poolhouse, we'll look into it. Thank you for calling."

"What are you gonna do to him?"

"Well, we have to investigate the matter first."

How does that work. Hey, did you make a bad lane change today?

"Make sure you call back if you see any good driving, too."

Why would I do that? Who has time to praise people for doing the expected?

"This is really a line for reporting drivers who do good things."

Wouldn't that create more BAD driving, because people would be on their cell phones constantly to praise others? What's wrong with the old system of minding your own business?

"Do you get a lot of calls."

"Not really."

I hung up because there's a maniacal cement trucker with a sopping wet pussy behind me, and I had to get a-moving.

BONFIRE OF THE INSANITIES

Overheard in the Bruster's ice cream line this evening:

Daughter: Daddy, why is that black kid wearing all white?

Daddy: His momma don't know nothin' about Labor Day.

The New John's Creek. A little Atlanta. A little Forsyth County. I was gonna ask what he meant, but I have enough social problems.

The grocery store is only a mile away from my home. Today, it took me 20 minutes to get there.

I get to the light at the subdivision exit and a truck is too big for the left lane, so it's blocking the left and right turn lanes, and nobody can get by. It's no one's fault really. Back in 1987, when the place was built, the thought of trucks making deliveries to homes was inconceivable, so they built turn lanes big enough for only car or two, or maybe a small horse and wagon. Regardless, the line of cars and trucks spills back about 4 houses from the entrance of the neighborhood as if we're at free cone night at the Douglasville McDonald's.

That clears up when the light turns green after I successfully scream at it for 3 minutes. But where's my grocery list? Stupid brain.  A car is in back of me so I go forward and drive to the next entrance down the street and circle back to my house. 5 minute mark. Got the list, but here come the school buses! Ready to gently restore the children to their natural habitats after another vigorous day of mind control experiments.

New twist on an old favorite. I'm behind one school bus with it's pussy STOP sign out, and this bus is facing another school bus with his pussy STOP sign out waiting for it's load of brats to disgorge. Not only is this surprisingly inefficient bus routing for a government entity, but the buses seem not to know who goes first. They're gridlocked in an ethical, political, and social quandry for what seems like an eternity. This seems to be unprecedented in modern school bus history. No one else honks at the buses for fear of incurring the wrath of the unimpeachable government bus drivers who will not move until a ruling is sent.

Finally, an ethics negotiator arrives in a Fulton County squad car and the situation is resolved and I reach the store after another 9 minutes, a half mile, and one short Korean woman who is scared to make a left turn until a pulse bomb from Kim Jong-Il stops the oncoming traffic and it is safe to do so. And then the store is out my wife's favorite cheese.

I get home, and go upstairs to unwind and my wife pulls me out of the shower, which she never does, even if it's someone eager to hire me, because she's afraid of catching me in an undignified pose, and she tells me that she got a call from some lunatic.

Last week I found this funny video on LiveLeak.com about this wacky racist woman with missing teeth who was accused of throwing roach powder at her black neighbor. She was even wearing a t-shirt on the news footage that said, "I didn't do it." Check her out. Great performance.

I looked up her number to call her and see if she would agree to be interviewed for the House of Wachs podcast.

No answer and I left no message, so nothing came of the story idea.

"She said you caused her to get a death threat. Then she hung up."

"I didn't even talk to her."

"She didn't say you made a death threat. She says you 'caused' a death threat."

"What does that mean? How do you cause a death threat without making a death threat?"

"Ask her."

Hey, thanks.

I immediately block this meth-mouthed nutbag from my phone. Based on her video performance, I surmise that she possibly did get a crank call from someone else and confused that with my name on the caller ID, thinking that I was the reporter from the TV station...I don't know. That's the thing with nuts...ya never know what's really going on up there.

For those of you who, like me, are laying low inside the home for long stretches, may I recommend a DVD you might like? OK, then. Treat yourself one night this week to "Material Girls" starring the Duff sisters, Hilary and Hailey.

Here's a rough outline of what it's about:

The Duff Sisters play Hilton-Lite cosmetics heiresses whose dad has died and left them his multi-billion dollar company. And to show that we all, even rich cosmetics heiresses, are just a mishap or two away from becoming homeless, the Duff Sisters lose it all in one day due to a series of disasters in the free market. Everything. Gone. Even security for Haley's marriage engagement press conference announcement won't let them in the door, because they are no longer on the list.

The movie was actually brilliant if you consider that the producers may have been trying to show us a post-Clintonian world where Congress has abolished the SEC, FDA, FTC and the rule of law.

If that alone isn't worth taking the risk that people will forever find you creepy and unemployable for renting the movie, then consider this. The most interesting thing in the film was the way Hilary Duff's weight fluctuates wildly from scene to scene. In one scene, she's breaking into a building to find out why she is homeless and broke 24 hours after owning the world's largest cosmetics company, and she's 15 pounds lighter than when she planned the break-in on her T-Mobile Sidekick in the scene before. I guess it's stressful for such a young person to attempt to re-establish contract law through thumb-typing. Probably would cost me a few pounds, too. OMG! Ths sux! L8 4 Van Mises mtg. PWNED! TTYL!

Through it all, I have some excellent news to end this blurb on a high note, in case you thought your hero's life was turning more sour than Hilary Duff's breath during severe ketosis. Just yesterday I closed a deal to play a small role in a major motion picture that is filming soon. I can't say any more than that right now, but I am very excited to have landed this. I'll try to give more details within 48 hours so keep loggin' in.

IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

I may be off the radio, but that is just such a small part of my influence in this town, that the noise of Wachs is still being heard unabated by all efforts to silence.

BEHOLD!

This ridiculous DOT sign that I pointed out to you a couple of days ago in front of Atl. Athletic Club facing southbound motorists on GA141:

Has been changed to simply..."NO U-TURN AHEAD."

The INS must have raided the crew after getting wind of that earleir sentence structure. Hey, amigo! Why not just send up a flare that bursts into the sparkly letters of "ARREST ME" next time?

The new sign guy left this one up, though:

It's soothing to know that when the DOT seeks to upgrade their personnel these days, they turn to your average American public school numbskull and it's amazing how today's immigration patterns have made our domestic mediocrities seem highbrow.

Nonetheless, the sign was changed immediately after your #1 Hebrew Milkman exposed it to the world thereby notching another in what will soon prove to be the beginning of a string of victories in 2007 for decency and for Wachs.

Oh, and while I'm besotted with my re-ignited media power, let me just remind many of you out there that, from here on out, anyone using the song "The Final Countdown" by synth-metal poodle 80s band Europe, as a hip comic reference...Knock it off. That free laugh coupon has expired. That also goes for anyone who says "Good times!" "not so much" and "threw up a little in my mouth." No more. People fear me. Stop it. I can make you disappear.

You can laugh if you want at the shabby-looking array of candles we selected for the Hanukkah Closing Ceremonies tonight at our home, but you'd be laughing at a genuine miracle, my most likely uncircumsized, pork-eating friend.

We ran out of candles and had to scrounge around the house for old candles so we could wrap up Hanukkah for another 10-13 months. Hence the bent one that we had to weld with a match to get it at an angle where the insurance adjuster could ethically pay our claim, and the Earl Anthony Shamesh riiiigght down the middle, Chris! Just like in the old country, our 6-day house supply of fuel for irrelevant energy lasted us 8. Thank you, Jesus...uh...I mean...the other one.

It's a miiiiracle! (miiiiracle!)

A true blue spec-ta-cle the miiiracle is YOU! (whoo!)

"It's a Miracle" by Manilow...It's the new "Final Countdown."

SMACK THE MONKEY

I went to the Cumming Fair recently hoping to get a glimpse of Bo Bice, but he didn't show up because he was ill. I'm not sure if the Cumming Fair is a fair or a carnival. Generally speaking, a carnival is a fair with a lot of carnies, and a fair is a carnival with a lot of fairies, but without access to police and medical records, I will have to default to the judgement of the Cumming fathers who named it a fair. I think that's fair.

I'm a little anxious because I signed up for the raffle put on by the Sons of the Confederates for a beautiful Winchester rifle. The drawing is at 6pm Sunday, and if I win, I will sell it for cash. If I don't win, they have my phone number. What was I thinking?

I'm not against the Sons of the Confederates and their heritage, but I don't go around dressed like my grandfather or Thomas Jefferson to express my opinion. It's a bit much. That war is done. Blacks having jobs and families and rights is not a fad. Let it go.

The Cumming Fairgrounds also has a new ski lift apparatus to take fairgoers across the grounds with a bird's eye view of the rabble below and the majesty of Forsyth County and it's watertower. It also goes right over the cage containing 3 tigers and periodically stops to let some fatty slide off without incurring a lawsuit.

My favorite exhibit is the Give the Monkey a Quarter for No Reason Booth. A guy has a monkey in a gay outfit that he drags around by the neck. I think that's cruel. Not the neck, the gay outfit. Why do we allow owners to dress animals in humiliating clothing? Why can't monkeys wear a t-shirt and jeans? The turquoise vest, sombero and chaps combo implies that the monkey has a sartorial sophistication that runs counter to his place on the food chain.

The sign behind him says:

"Give the monkey 25 cents."
"The monkey will not accept pennies, nickel, OR dimes."

I gave the monkey a penny. It grabbed the penny. I braced myself to be thrown out of the fair, or worse, have my throat torn open by a greedy monkey. Nothing happened. It put the penny in it's gay vest pocket and went to the next moron who gave him a Susan B. Anthony dollar in hopes of currying favor with the monkey.

Later, I observed the owner transferring the monkey's change to his own pocket. I wish I could be there at the end of the evening.

"You styoopid monkey...(slap slap). I tell you many time. ONLY QUARTERS!!! And what is this lesbian quarter? It is fake!!!" Then he flings the monkey across the room and locks the door, taking his food.

The local beekeeper sold me a jar of honey on the premise that the use of local wildflowers in the honey would help me get over my allergies when the local pollens are in the air. Sounds plausible, if you forget you're getting medical advice at a carnival and the funnel cake guy, 5 minutes before, claimed his product would result in a healthier prostate.

"The sting of these bees also help if you have arthritis," he claimed further.

Cancer? AIDS?

"I don't know about that. Mebbe some of them downtown Atlanta bees, but not mine."

Someone should alert Clay Aiken before he misses next year's fair.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

People have asked me at the radio station where I'm going for this vacation and I've answered, "Nowhere," which is not quite truthful. This week I've actually gone back to 2004. It's a tough adjustment sitting around the house, writing, watching TV shows, taking showers, eating frozen foods at all hours, and playing golf and hatching schemes that might not be kosher, all over again.

I even have a bloody eyeball from a rough night a couple of them ago. My mind is, but my body isn't geared currently for a 10am-3am schedule, and the sudden surge of High Fructose Corn Syrup in my diet  makes me unable to sleep without the aid of medications.

So, I'm all dehydrated from being too pre-occupied by endless pleasures to get off my ass and drink some water, which contributes to my bloody eyeball when I become restless at 2:45am because my sinuses are swollen from lack of water, and I cough and, BAM! There goes the Exxon Valdez in my eye. Birds dying, fish floating.on my cornea.

Then I go downstairs to drink a quart of water to fix that problem, which made me tired again, so I fall asleep and dream of peeing, which is why I wake up because I learned, at about age 10 or 20, it means you really do have to go in real life, and once you can master the art of differentiating dreams from reality, your bed won't be so light brown and embarrassing.

I get up a total of four times before the maids come at 7am and make me lock myself in my office where I gaze at solicited advice from readers as to how to fix my Fantasy Football team, The Fulton Jews, after an opening week loss. Thanks Bledsoe. Where is Jack Ruby when Dallas, and I, need him. If Bledsoe played any worse, the NFL was going to hold a bereavement draft.

I also stare in disbelief at the latest email I've received from Miss Kelly Brown. She's in for a good lecture on Monday's show. Oooooweeeee, is she dumb. It's not actually her fault. She's the result of generations before her dismissing the culture of courtesy and professional behavior for.....ever.

Later, some Jehovah's witnesses are greeted at the door by some Jew holding a pistol asking what they wanted. A few hours later, my neighbor pays a visit with his young son who's selling stuff to raise money for his underfunded public school system. Sally Foster wrapping paper is for sale. I guess they need to raise money for all the sex change ops their gonna give to boys to make the agenda complete. Whatever happened to selling chocolate bars and ammo like when i was a lad? Wrapping paper? Oh, does the top seller win a ceramic bruschetta tray?

My mistake. Did I say I'm vacationing in 2004? I meant 2034, when I'm 73.

Oh, and one more thing. September 11th did change the world forever, but so does every day, just not as dramatically. Knock that crap off by 2034, OK? Thanks.

STELLAR DWELLERS

Here are some lovely photos of today's show and Braves Baseball festivities, taken by former Doobie Brother Michael McDonald, whom we found hungry and scared by the side of US-192 on the way in to the stadium this morning.

Kyle Davies fails to appreciate the Wachs facial impression of the recently defenestrated American Idol, Kevin Covais.

Baseball and Dressing Properly for the Weather Guru, Eric Von Haessler, teaches young Kyle Davies a thing or two about life. "Kid, I know what it's like to work with Bobby Cox. Ya see what I have to work with everyday? This asshole Wachs had the nerve to drive 6 miles to a steak house AND grab the check for us last night. Jesus!"

"Dear MySpace,

Today, Fin and I talked to Jeff Francouer. OUR....KNEES....ARE....TOUCHING!!!! For, like, 10 minutes!!!!!! My left. His right. Fin was jealous, I could tell. LOL!!!!!!!!!

The only worse violation of The Code than "Touching Equipment" is "Asking a Player to Say Hi to Your Sister on Your Cell Cause It's Her Birfday."

Would it be a problem if I did an impromptu cup check, sir?

Sound won't suck tomorrow. No refunds if I'm wrong, though. I'm just acknowledging.

For those emailing, "WTF?"  There'll be no explanation forthcoming.  Read Dilbert or watch the Office and gain understanding.

THE ALPINE VIGILANTE RETURNS

Last day here at Ski Kafka and the War Between the Sliders continues.

It causes me some chagrin to note this week that abortion has been made a little less legal. This will result in more snowboarders being born. I'm calling on South Dakota to reconsider. Let a Sunbelt state do it. You've got more buffalo than people as it is. And I'm also calling on the leaders of this once great resort of Vail Mountain to reconsider adding more and better trained safety personnel who know how to mitigate a conflict as opposed to the current ones who are trained to inflame.

Snow Cunt continued to escalate her stalk campaign against us two days later. Word around town is she had been looking for Old Man Pickle Nose and myself, the Ski Avenger, every available ski hour in the past 48 so that she could command the Speech Patrol to revoke our passes for the crime of using foul language to explain safety tips to a 20-year old dyke who almost broke our necks. God!

She spotted us in the ganjola line and bee-lined it for the nearest Ski/Speech Patroller for continued harrassment. Her daddy, yasee, well, it turns out, "works for the mountain" and "knows the CEO of the resort personally," and blah de blah de "you're in trouble now" de blah de blah de blah.

Well, it also turns out that the Wachs name has way more political juice in the Vail Valley than the Snow Cunt family name does. Turns out that SC's daddy is a middle manager in Time Share Sales or something, and was told by his boss, the CEO Who He Knows Personally, to sharpen and wax his runaway daughter before they all got snowplowed out of the industry, because this Wachs fellow has been coming here for 30 years, dumbass.

End of story. But not really.

Incident deux:

The Ski Avenger is standing by sign on the top of a slope. Waiting for others to catch up. Boarder picks a line between Ski Avenger and the sign, approximately 6 feet of space, and blasts through going 35-40 mph. An accidental flick of the Ski Avenger's pole at the last second sends this young daredevil ass over tea cups down the slope for a cozy stay at the Meds Lodge. Say hi to Bode!

Incident tres:

Your humble Ski Avenger takes his first and only spill of the week, leaving a small yard sale in his wake over the uphill 30 yards.

Concerned young boarder standing near skis and poles left uphill kindly asks, "Dude, are you OK?"

"Yes. Could you hand me..."

"Cool." And off to the movable party he goes.

Cool. The opposite temperature of the Ski Avenger's legs and mood after walking back uphill the 30 yards at a 53 degree pitch to get his equipment that this most etiquette-minded of snowboarders optioned to let Ski Avenger handle.

So now you will understand...Incident 4:

T-shirt shopping in the village, and the Ski Avenger sees this shirt.

It's not paranoia when they're really after you.

The Ski Avenger believes that revenge is a dish best served smelly, and in keeping with that motto, Ski Avenger took the pictured shirt into the changing room in the back, lowered his ski jammies, cleansed his moist behind with it, and placed it back on the hanger and the rack. Happiness is knowing that somewhere out there is a snowboarder wearing your ass DNA on his cleverly stenciled chest.

Here's what my line of T-shirts will say:

The Ski Avenger is Born. Repaying the love since 2006.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH

It's a hobby/compulsion of mine to chronicle the various bloopers, bleeps, and blunders committed by our brave men and women in the TSA at Hartsfield/Crackhead International Airport whenever I pay a visit. Sometmes I go without any travel plans just to sit and laugh. There are fresh insults to common sense everytime I go.

Yesterday, the boarding pass checker was wearing a Members Only jacket. The feds must have sensed that Hasselhoff gets more respect than their luggage screeners and made the call. His co-worker had some intensely braided cornrows and looked more appropriate on a box of pancake mix than on the front lines of terrorism, but she was remarkably adept at making sure everyone is almost nude before going through the anti-terror magnatron.

But presently, I'm worried about another sort of infiltration. There is an insect swimming around in the toilet bowl. It's not very big and of a species that I cannot identify without a book (Bugs in Toilets for Dummies?). I'm concerned because it is energetically dancing amongst my leavings, and I'm not sure if it was there before I sat, or if it is something indigenous to my innards. Next time, I'll inspect the waters more closely before sitting.

Old Man Pickle Nose's rental here in Vail has WiFi! Ain't that something? So I'll be able to update from here after all. He likes to watch those CBS Sunday morning shows for people who like the idea of the NY Times, but don't enjoy reading. The TV is blaring now, drowning out all conversation and rational thought, as it most likely is in a million other 67-year old people's homes across America. Tonight, of course, is the Oscars, the great Soviet holiday, and CBS is doing it's cvic duty with one hard-hitting piece after another about the great artists who will be honored tonight in the greatest of artist colonies.

"Tim Burton is a Hollywood outsider," says one CBS documentarian. Really? The guy who has a movie a year in the multiplex? Imagine what he could do with his career if he mainstreamed it up a little.

"Robert Altman is a maverick," exclaims another salad tosser. I know that when I see a Robert Altman film starring Tim Robbins, I have a mental picture of a salmon swimming mightily upstream.

Short Cuts--The intersecting lives of LA residents.

MASH--War is bad.

Popeye--Robin Williams

That these films got made at all in the ridiculously GOP creative climate of Hollywood proves beyond a doubt the courage of Mr. Altman. Let's hope tonight's lifetime acheivement award will not quell his maverick-nicity, and he has the courage to tell America the truth about itself live on network TV.

A quart of water, a cup of coffee, and an Advil later, my brain swelling has gone into remission and has given me the courage to fight the altitude here and get some skiing done with Dr. Mike. Which body part will be damaged on this vacation? Tune in next time.

AHHH, SCREW IT

What was I thinking?

The Daily RG Show Recap has been halted after one day. That's gotta be a record of some sort.

"Shortest time for a regular blog feature?"

The blog is too long and scrolls other stuff off too fast, readers have been bitching how clumsy and unappealing it is, and the Porn Czar, apparently off the Adderall, has failed to send me the notes for Friday. So that ends that for now. Man, I forgot how good it feels to blame others once in awhile.

Note to self: Blame others more. Take responsibility less.

Laugh. See if I care. More ratings came back yesterday and they were quite good despite having more pretenders to the throne in the month of January. Keep it up people. I may be able to pay for my house after all.

I'm going to a place with difficult access to Wi-Fi or broadband. If only I had my geography doll handy to show you the place where net access won't be touching me. Really roughing it this trip. Not sure if the computer is coming along, so I'll leave you with a new feature of RG.com that may also last only a
day...we'll see.

Stuff I Found in My Drawer....

That's me in 1982 when I was dating a terrorist chick. Hey, when in Iran...
Dig what my anti-American follicles were producing.

Captions welcome.

Hosea Williams had some integrity unlike the other local civil rights clowns (McKinney, Lewis, Jackson) who took to politicizing and hustling long after the need for such activism had passed. I'll never forget what he told Eric and me shortly after first meeting him in 1998.

"Dr. King loved the pussy," Hosea told us. And that is something that keeps the dream alive.

More when I return, if not sooner. Enjoy the Vacation Tapes, and no whining. We'll be back next week with no breaks in the show until July. Not even Eric's tummy aches will stop us.

BRAVES FANTASY

I'm in the lobby of a troubled Best Western property in Kissimmee, FL. at a dirty glass coffee table because the only broadband is in the lobby, a car ride away. You can do dial-up in the room, but with phone charges, slow speed, and no dial-up provider to call my own, it's a lot to ask of a man living in 2006. I'll give it to the managers for gamely trying to keep the place attractive within the parameters of the revenue brought in from the$45/night rate. The table stacked with imported British chocolate bars such as Topic and Flake lead me to believe they do a good business with UK visitors to Disney who will accept the dated and cheap Americana strewn about the place.

This is the official hotel of Braves Heaven Baseball Camp. My toilet doesn't stop without a jiggle of the handle. Heavenly. For the next few days, I'll try to bring you all the color and pagentry of Braves Fantasy Camp 2006 from Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex just down the street. This is my third such camp, and I've yet to win it all. I'm hungry.

A lot of the other campers are filing in about now.

"I'm ready for a beverage," says one northerner as loudly as he is dressed in all Braves regalia. Hoo boy. Competition for the training room that one. I peg him to be an early DL. There do seem to be a few dudes who look as if they can play ball filing in,  but most look as if they didn't get the velcro shoes they wanted for Christmas. They will likely all be on my team. Never fails.

I'm going to attempt to break the 80mph barrier with my fastball at some point this week. There's money and pride at stake. I don't know what I'm capable of at 45, but my shoulder strength and my flexibility have increased greatly since I quit playing 3 years ago. Hip rotation and shoulder strength are the key components of a good fastball. The knots in my back are the only possible hindrance, so I must get to an ATM so I can grease the trainers early.

My battery runs low, because they got Wi-Fi in the lobby, but they ain't got no power outets. But they DO take American Express. It's everywhere you don't want to be. Time for the Four S and a nap before the welcome cocktail party at 7:30pm.

Weak in Review

First let me answer a question many people have been asking me this week:

No.

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What else happened this wild first week back from Sitonyourassland?

There it is, in all it's glory. The reliable AJD (Atlanta Journal of Dumb) and their miner league reporting. I'm sure they're pleased with the decision to excise it's later editions. The money saved was certainly worth the loss of credibility.

They weren't alone. Almost 200 newspapers did the same thing. Turns out only one miner survived due to his wise decision to eat the other miners.

"Whoa, Wachs. Where do you get that? That wasn't reported in the press!"

Exactly.

Here's my Ebay auction of one of the copies I have.

Going relatively unnoticed partly due to all the below the ground hubbub, and partly due to the fact that it's not very interesting, was Mayor Shirley-Girl Franklin's inauguration for a 2nd term. seen in the same paper that is a hot collectible.

This is now 32 years running for black mayors in the South's most enlightened city, and for 32 straight years the Mayoral limo driver goes without a tip.

Also, this week, scientists reported that they have a "conclusive" DNA test on a skull believed to be Mozart's. The result, positive or negative, will be revealed Sunday night on Austrian television, which is getting soooo good lately.

The DNA of the skull was compared to the DNA of the exhumed remains of the composer's meemaw and niece. Austrian scientists were clued into the possibility of a match when the skull was found resting next to Salieri's pubic bone.

Atlanta's busiest named airport was named the busiest airport in America this week, perhaps due to all the Katrina victims still lolling about the concourses. It's also America's most racist airport in my view, what with the tribute to Zimbabwe haunting the corridors between the T-gates and A concourse. While this certainly isn't the only place in Atlanta were the T and A is most foul, that doesn't make it less offensive. Why is this art relevant to Atlanta? And if it's so great why do they place it between the fast-moving electronic walkways?

Last I checked, Zimbabwe was involved in an ethnic cleansing of it's white land owners led by it's president, Robert Mugabe, whose last name sounds like a nickname for T and A. What do you expect from Hartsfield-Crackson whose dedication and devotion to it's DMV-style employees I've chronicled in previous writings? A little less condescension would be nice.

"Hey black people. Here's some art you're capable of enjoying. It's from Africa," is the message I get. I think black people would enjoy Mozart's skull next Salieri's pubic bone more.

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UPCOMING APPEARANCES

Jan. 14th--Superbowl of Motorsports, GA Dome. Tug of War in the mud during intermission. Regular Guys Show vs. listeners.

Jan. 28th-Feb. 4th--Atlanta Braves Fantasy Camp, Disney Wide World of Sports, Orlando, FL.

Feb 5th.--Regular Guys Superbowl Party, place TBA. Gambling, pretty girls, booze.

Feb.7th--Atlanta Magazine's "Best of Atlanta 2005 Awards," Cobb Galleria Centre, 7-10pm.

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The Regular Guys Archive Site is starting to come together nicely. I'm about 1/3 of the way through editing and reposting the blogs from the old Modblog-delivered site that was used prior to this one. Check out some classics such as "I, Consumer" by clicking the link to the right.

Hats off to Thanksgiving

Wachsgiving was fun and all to the usual point of enough already. The only lousy thing was the Northern-fried turkey. Nobody bothered to brine it before frying. Stupid Yankee Jews. Trying to be all rednecky chic. So condescending to us transplants.

My personal holiday death toll was officially 10 pounds gained. A little kick-boxing with my personal trainer, porn star Tabitha Stevens, will knock those off. Or not. I might just keep going for the fun of it and see how many pounds I can run up until the end of 2005. It'll be a tribute to a bloated, flabby year.

As opposed to past years, this was a relatively peaceful Wachsgiving. Only 2 controversies this year:

--I yelled at a kid in front of his parents because I believed he had rubbed his groin on my leg , or at best, snuggled up against me in an inappropriate manner, during football watching.

--My family was enraged when I told my 5-year old nephew that the police were coming because he was messing with the phones too much.

We'll discuss on Monday with my sister, who suddenly is an in-demand piece of ass of late here in RG Nation. Thankfully, we avoided a third controversy because of her quick thinking in flatly turning down my request for a handjob.

Old Man Pickle Nose still has no email address. He has broadband, but no email address. Doesn't like email. Doesn't want to be bothered. It's a ridiculous lifestyle he has. Abject Laziness is the only explanation for this phenomenon. OMPN is not a stupid man by a long stretch. He once belonged to MENSA. Don't know why he dropped out, but I'm often reminded that it was his decision, solely. In or out of MENSA, he certainly is smarter than the guys who go online, and, much to their surprise, find out that the 14-year old hottie is really a cop. THEY have mastered the curveball called email. OMPN has not.

This has led to some mind-boggling scenarios. Such as the time my brother-in-law had to buy a new computer on-line for OMPN because OMPN doesn't trust the internet yet with his credit card. I see his point. The internet still has nothing on the safety and security of a 22-year old wearing an ill-fitting Best Buy shirt handling the keys to your life.

Then, because OMPN doesn't like/have email, he made my brother-in-law give Dell his email address for the confirmations and service records, print out the emails and fax them to OMPN for safe-keeping. It's a dumber concept than homemade chewing gum!

My daughter's school is having something soon called Hats Off To Drugs! Day. I'm told the school still frowns upon drug use despite the use of the festive and tributary hat coming off.

It makes me uncomfortable like this does:

YAY! Cancer! That's the message I'm getting. And beavers love cancer! I'm getting that message, too.

And you can sure as hell bet that kids will think it's OK to take drugs after Hats off to Drugs Day at her school. And they're right, but they're not supposed to know that until they get older.

But even if my judgement is wrong about this, it still begs the question of what is the correlation between hat and drug use? Do the kids normally wear hats at school? I haven't seen it. My daughter would certainly remark upon it if, say, all the boys started wearing hipster fedoras in class, but she hasn't, so they don't. Hats on..hats off...drugs..I don't get it. The new Atlanta slogan makes more sense if I could remember it.