The Results Show

Financial guru Suze Orman was on Oprah recently. One woman in the audience stood up to say that she was at the end of her rope. Her husband had left her because of all their debt, she lost their house and she and her children had been put out on the streets. She was crying.

What did Suze say? Something soothing about how brave she was and that she wasn't a loser and that she could climb out of her debt. After my doctor explained what was wrong, mainly that I needed pins put into my ankle to fuse my foot because all the cartilage had disappeared, I gamely asked: "So it's bad?" I was really hoping that he had caught that episode of Oprah.

"It's bad." He said.

He said it was probably brought on by some sort of trauma. How much trauma does a foot have in the average week? Am I randomly kicking the shit out of trees when I walk around? Dropping bowling balls on it when I go bowling, which is never? Immersing it into a vat of cement and then using a jackhammer to fish it out? What the FUCK?

The recovery is 3 months. On crutches. Or a scooter, the doctor helpfully pointed out. I told him I lived on the second floor of a non-elevator building and how was I going to go up and down the stairs on a scooter and he said I should go up and down on my ass. Well, problem solved then.

Basically I'm going to have to steal a cart from Target and ride it around Los Angeles. Or learn how to walk on my head.

On the drive home I kept telling myself, "Shut up, it's not cancer. Stop crying, it's not life-threatening. Quit your whining, there will be pain pills and a handicapped sign involved."

And I will get to wear my pony skin boots again.

And no, my spectacular shoe collection had nothing to do with the state of my ankle. The state of my bank account, yes.

Thanks to everyone who emailed me and I'm sorry I didn't get back to you. I was literally speechless for about 8 hours after my appointment and if you know me, you realize that's actually one of the signs of the Apocalypse.

End of chat.

Two More Days Added Because I Can Do What I Want

The pet contest pictures were due by tomorrow but I'm extending it to Monday. I have been such a wreck over this MRI, the results of which I get this afternoon, that I haven't put together the order for the pics to be viewed. I don't think that makes sense but you know what I mean. My stomach is in the shape of a pretzel and wrapped around my neck.

First place picks either the baseball cap or the set of 6 blank notecards with envelopes.



Remember, all pics will be posted anonymously. You can enter as many times as you want.

I'm sitting here at my computer watching TV and they're discussing the movie Awake. Where the guy is conscious during his surgery. Terence Howard said this happens in one out of 8 surgeries. I'm afraid I'm going to need surgery on my foot. FUCKING great.

I think I'll add a third place prize for this contest. That will be you standing in the O.R. and making sure I don't wake up during my surgery.

End of chat.

Mailbag # 3

This is the third installment of anonymous snippets from emails I've received. Click on the label at the end of this post to read other excerpts from my demented intelligent friends. If you recognize your line and want to out yourself, be my guest.

Hee hee....well...I now know you are not perfect and can have typos. Wow. Not sure I can look you in the eye again.

I feel like the last kid to be tested on the rope climb in gym class. Everyone else has finished and is standing around, relieved, just watching me & waiting for me to give myself a crotch burn.

If you ever decide to do a show I hope you'll think of me for director. I won an award for directing a show but I can’t remember the name of the award.

Should I mention my book? Or is that whorish? I'm asking because I know that you are the arbitrator of all things whorish.

She has brought her 9 year old every day and I’m sorry but I don't spend that much time with my own kid. I go to work to escape kids and then I’m stuck with that kid...who's not even cute.

I am off to try and finish the first Harry Potter. Am I the only one in the world who just can't seem to get into it?

There is this thing in nature where newborn babies look like their father so the father doesn’t eat them.

Anyway, the main point of this was to email and admit to being an asshole. I have thought of calling you back every day. Retarded shit happens like it's literally too windy to use the phone.

And yeah, I like the Phillies because Who Am I If Not Being Chronically Disappointed By My Sports Team?

I'm just not sure he would have the balls to call her. And then they'd probably just have sex anyway.

I noticed you didn't post today and I got worried.

I bid low and got to perform at the house of this millionaire. I did great. They were happy. I should have asked for more.

Did you ever write so much that you start obsessing about remembering where commas go?

I mean, not everybody is going to like Andrew Dice Clay, but even the people who do like him would get a little freaked out if he broke character in the middle of his act and started talking about how much he loved the Joy Luck Club.

End of chat.

SAGITTARIUS

© Clayboys 2006

Best with: Libra, Aquarius, Leo, Aries and Sagittarius
Fair with: Pisces, Scorpio, Gemini and Capricorn
Difficult with: Virgo, Taurus and Cancer

Happy Birthday Britney Spears, Donny Osmond and Stalin

THANKS For GIVING Me My Own Room

I was invited to spend the holiday with McLoserstene's family, who live about 100 miles south of Los Angeles. I left late Thursday morning thinking there would be less traffic.
I was wrong.

Her family is not normal. But I guess you already knew that based on the fact that McLoserstene never allows her face to be seen on the internet.

This is their dog, Dali. This is their backyard, where they asked me to sleep.


This was the tablescape for Thanksgiving dinner. Mrs. McLoserstene has an obsession with fake food: coffee, pastries, pizza, olives, etc. It is always strategically placed in areas that would not invite suspicion so I spent 15 minutes waiting for others to eat first just to make sure that I wouldn't be the only one to die of Styrofoam poisoning.

The following day they drove me against my will to the Wayside Cafe for lunch. Patrons are encouraged to donate items to the restaurant as the Cafe is apparently too cheap to decorate. Thankfully there was so much to look at that I didn't have to listen to the McLoserstenes discuss the merits of chocolate Dr. Pepper over regular Dr. Pepper and why the egg salad was spilling out the sides of the whole wheat bread.Don't get me wrong, under other circumstances and in a different setting, I would have found those topics still boring fascinating. There are people in their town who have nothing to do so they bring their coffee cups to the Cafe and use them each time they visit. Little do they know that people like me will touch all the rims of those cups with leftover grease from my onion rings because I have nothing to do.

McLoserstene and I redid the family's living room. Mr. McLoserstene scowled a lot and Mrs. McLoserstene had to be surgically removed from her votive candle collection and fake ivy. Even though we told them we do this for a living and were doing it for free, they started drinking heavily.

Because after all, isn't that what the holidays are all about?

End of chat.

Thanksgiving, What A Dumb Holiday

All that cooking. All that cleanup. Stultifying hours with the family. Small talk that would kill a coma patient. Casseroles that dead people wouldn't eat. And not enough alcohol in the world to make you want to live another day.

And no gifts?

Dumb.

You have 9 more days to get your Christmas Pets jpgs to me.

FIRST PLACE PRIZE:

Kidding.

Geek Alert

New York Magazine has a section every week called 'Best Bets' and I found this listing and sent a scan of it to Howard, who lives in New York. When he was here in October, he was in a rental car with his cell phone. He called me from about 20 minutes away from my place and said to quickly give him directions because his cell phone was dying.

If you knew Howard you'd realize this is just his typical behavior. Charge your phone at your hotel at LAX, an hour away from L.A. proper, then get in a rental car and use your cell all day and then when it's almost dead, call your dinner date for instructions on how to get to her house and freak her out that she's all dressed up for NOTHING because your cell phone will die and you will be forced back to your LAX hotel while she'll have to call Pizza Hut.

Since I tend to be dyslexic with right and left, not to mention the two middle numbers of any string of numbers, I was talking slowly to make sure I didn't screw up.

"Q-Ball, talk faster." A lot of people over the years have called me Q, in reference to Suzy Q. But Howard has called me Q-Ball since I met him. He says it's because in pool, the cue ball breaks the pack. I don't know if that's a veiled diss or a passive-aggressive compliment. Either way, I'm Q-Ball to Howard.

"I can't talk faster, I'm trying to remember how to get you here."
"For God's sakes, you live here, don't you know how to get to your own place?"
"I do when the person I'm talking to is not yelling at me and you know, all MEAN and shit."

So when I saw this cell phone charger gizmo, I thought Howard might want it. He emailed me and said he was going to buy it but again, it's Howard, so it could be years before that happens. And yes, he made it to my house that night.

Anyway, I was just wondering if the whole world knows about this or if I'm just the last to know.

End of.....hello? I'm out of juice...helllllllo?? chat.

Dancing With The MRI

Today I had an MRI for my ankle but it wasn't in this machine. It was in a smaller one with an opening for my leg. I can't imagine going into one of the body MRIs. I'm not claustrophobic, but I'm sure everyone says that until they have one of those. It only took an hour and fifteen minutes and I read trashy magazines during the process. (Seriously, Angelina? How can you not like George Clooney?) During the set up, the technician said he had a hundred stories about the 'crazy' stuff that happens in his MRI cubicle. Once the scan started I asked him to tell me some and it turned out he had ONE story. I'm no math genius but 100 vs. 1 is really you just needing a hug.

He said he had a man in his 70's who warned him that he sometimes started to pee but he never knew when it was going to happen nor did he even feel himself peeing. Halfway through the scan the tech hears water and thinks he's going to have to clean up a pee-soaked MRI machine. It turned out to be the old man's water bottle. He had knocked it over and all the tech heard was the gushing liquid.

Real glad I chose standup as my profession because you know, stuff happens.

I took a sweater in with me because I haven't been into any doctor's facility that's warmer than 64 degrees in..... ever. And the longer you stay in one position, the colder it gets. I always keep sweaters, sneakers, and gloves in the trunk of my car. You never know when I'm going to be driving around southern California and a spontaneous snow storm/marathon/CSI investigation will break out.

I am totally hooked on Dancing With The Stars after having trashed it every year since it began. I started watching because I like Scary Spice because she and all the Spices can dance. To me, if you can't dance, well, there will be no sex. Ever. If you're a white guy, do the world a favor and take some lessons and lose the White Man's Overbite. If you don't know what that is, you're a white guy who can't dance. Girls, stop laughing.

In 1997 I was on a Canadian tour and because there's not a lot going on in parts of Canada (Hello Saskatchewan, love you anyway) we got our picture in the Calgary Sun with the Spice Girls. And even though they were mega famous at the time, somehow we got the top copy. So wrong.

And a radio station made us wear those tee shirts. Again, so wrong.

End of chat.

Elementary School Children Beware

For the twenty-seven people over 40 who don't know what NaBloPoMo is, it's a bunch of insane bloggers who decide to post every fucking day in November. I went to their website to see if I could find some funny non-mommy blogs to read and chose the randomizer to sort through the over 6,100 that are listed as this year's participants.

In the process I found a widget on one of them that, after entering a url, reveals the educational reading level of that blog.

This was mine:

It's nice to know that my world view has trickled down to those scary unique, outcasts special kids who are funny, swear, talk about Hollywood and bad relationships and have a sarcastic take on life. Or maybe I'm only comprehensible if you're 12 years old and know how to accessorize.

I was willing to take the hit until I loaded in some other urls and discovered these results:

Perez Hilton - Junior High School level
The Onion - High School level
Craig's List - Genius level
The Superficial - Elementary School level

So I guess it's true.

End of chat.

The Pot In Spain Grows Mainly On The Government Official

This is a satellite photo of the Strait of Gibraltar, where Spain and Africa attempt an Eskimo kiss with only 7 miles between them. It's also where the Atlantic Ocean (lower left hand corner) is separated from the Mediterranean Sea (top of the photo). It reminds me of how much trouble I got into when I passed through this part of the world.

I was traveling with a girlfriend in the south of France and we went down to Barcelona for a few days. I met a guy named Craig and he and I decided to go on to Africa while my friend went back to France. We crossed the Strait on a ferry and ended up in Ceuta, Spanish Morocco, at the northern tip of the African continent. (the red dot on the photo below) Spain still controls this city and has since 1580.

Craig was a smoker. I was not. He bought cigarettes over food and when I complained he told me cigarettes took the hunger away. And presto-chango I became a smoker. Thank God I quit, 12 years later.

Because Craig and I had little funds between us, we spent a few nights at youth hostels and then decided to sleep on the beach with a lot of the other tourists. I had a big leather bag that I’d bought in Paris. It had our passports, the top of my bikini, some silver jewelry I’d picked up in Spain and most of our money in it. The first night on the beach I had carefully dug a hollowed out space in the sand, laid the bag in it, covered it with a sweater and used it as my pillow. Craig and I went to sleep and the next thing I knew I was jostled awake. It took me a few seconds to realize the purse was gone.

Beach thieves are really smart. They wait until you’re moving in or out of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, the dream state, which is the deepest part of sleep. You know when you’re in a dream and there’s a car coming and you can’t move out of the way? It’s called Sleep Paralysis and it’s when the body is disconnected from the brain, leaving the body paralyzed. It occurs when you go in or out of REM and somehow these beach thieves know exactly when it happens. They lifted my head and stole the bag from under the sweater while my body remained immobilized. This also sometimes happens to me during sex. But I digress.

Craig and I went to the police and they put us on the first morning ferry back to Spain. And then we had to get to Seville, since that was the nearest consulate. We were in deep shit. With no papers, how were we going to get back into the U.S.? All I could think about was that I was the one in my family who always got into trouble and I was certainly going to hear about this for years to come. But I was also the only one in my family who had an interesting life since the rest of them were all chicken shits. Don't be a chicken shit with your life. You'll have nothing to talk about when you're in an old folks home drooling creamed corn down your bib.We arrived in Seville in the middle of the night and the consul was alone in this huge mansion that served as the consulate. If there were servants or a staff, we didn’t see them. The consul helped us get in touch with our parents. I have mercifully blocked out what my father said to me but I’m sure there were swear words involved.

“We can get you new papers, but you'll have to stay here a day or two until your backgrounds have been cleared to travel,” the consul said as he pulled out a joint, lit it and passed it to Craig.

The three of us took a few hits and within fifteen minutes I felt really sick. The kind of sick where you know something is really, really wrong. I went to the bathroom and emptied every part of my intestine. All 39 miles of it. I was gone for so long that Craig came looking for me.

“What are you doing in there?” he asked.
“Making breakfast, what do you think I’m doing?”

Men.

“Is there anything I can do?”
“I’m scared.”
“You’re high. That’s all.”
“It won’t stop coming out, I think I might die of evacuation of the bowel.”
“Yeah... again? Just high. And that’s not a disease.”
“You don’t know.”

A few days later Craig and I parted company at the Madrid airport. I flew into Dulles International in Washington D.C. and as I waited in the customs line, the kid in front of me asked if I was old enough to bring liquor into the country. I said that I was and he passed me a sealed box of Courvoisier. He cleared customs and then I cleared and when I looked up, two armed guards took my arms and told me to follow them.

I was led to a small room and interrogated for about an hour. Why was I smuggling drugs for the American boy? How did I know there wasn’t heroin in the sealed box? Why did I have a hand-carved ivory hash pipe on me? Yeah, that last one was tricky.

Both the kid and I were released at the same time. Customs had made many calls. My Dad was a Colonel in the Army AND worked for the U.S. Government. Oops. The kid was in the top of his class at West Point. Oops squared.

I stayed at my Dad’s house for a while and for the first few months his phone was tapped. I would talk to my friends and we could hear the little click that went off every minute without fail. After a while I started making fun of it and saying that the feds had stopped me for smuggling drugs and how dumb they were and oh yes, I COULD HEAR THE TAPPING.

End of tapping. And chat.

L.A. Sign Of The Times #29

McLoserstene #5

This is McLoserstene standing in my Hall of Fame, which is, uh, in my hallway.

Mementos of my career span every square inch of the space, only about a third of which is shown here. Whenever I feel like I should have done something normal, like get a real job, get married and settle down in suburbia, I walk into my Hall of Fame and it always makes me smile. I did shit, yo. Or at least I keep telling myself that.

I'd tell you why she's in this shot, angled like this, but she would kill me. It's like she's in the mob or something.

End of chat.

Let's Play Doctor

They're sure I have a bone spur but not totally convinced that is what's causing the pain. I have to get an MRI next Monday. Then I'll probably have to be shot out of a cannon to see if velocity+steel=what's wrong with my ankle.

I'm not a fan of doctors. Most have a shitty bedside manner and an even greater proportion can never agree on what's wrong with you. I always put on waterproof mascara before any appointment because like Barbara Walters, they will make me cry by saying that my obsicorium has rotted away and needs to be replaced with an Olivetti typewriter ribbon. Sometimes I meet a doctor at a party and start to tear up before I realize I'm not reclining on a table with a waxy piece of paper stuck to my ass.

When I went for x-rays, the lab technician put a lead protective pad over my reproductive region.

Ew.

I at first thought he was blind in one eye but I finally figured it out and thought how bad is all this radiation that they cover that area of the body as opposed to say, the brain?

Every room had a female patient in it. Woman after woman after woman traipsed up and down the clinic hallway. In an hour I saw only one man. As I was checking out I asked my doctor why there were so many women in his clinic. Was it our 4 inch heels with pointy toes? And he answered that it was because he was so good looking that women flocked to see him.

Sidebar: This is why I love LA. No matter what you do, what you look like is paramount on the agenda and can elicit a laugh. Save the comments; I'm shallow but I'm aware of it.

My doctor finally admitted that the only reason there were so many women and so few men was because men wait until the last minute, usually when it's too late, to see a doctor. I am SO half man.

So it might come down to surgery and it's times like this that I wish I was a celebrity. I've always said that the only airplane on which I would feel totally safe is Air Force One with Oprah on board.

When Alan Alda got a life-threatening bacterial infection he was in South America, in a very remote village. When he finally recovered and was back in the U.S. he was asked if he was afraid that the doctors in that part of the world would screw up and he replied, "Are you kidding? Be the guy who killed Hawkeye?"

End of chat.

My Annoying Christmas Pet Contest

The submissions have started to trickle in and you guys are a dark and disturbed bunch of people with one hell of an imagination. Me likey.

The contest is to dress your pet (live, dead, stuffed or virtual) for Christmas and send me the jpg before December 1. I will start posting them on December 10 and pick a winner before Christmas. I've added a second place prize and I'm guessing that due to the holiday pile-up at the Post Office, the winners should have the goods by March.

The photos must be original, not swiped from someone's website or Flickr.

Bed, Bath & Bombardment

Ever since I discovered that Bed, Bath & Beyond takes expired coupons, I started hoarding them because I can't believe how much stuff I need from that store. Really important stuff.

Like I didn't realize that without a DVD of an actual fire in a fireplace, I could not get through the winter. And even though we don't have a winter here in LA, you never know when it's going to dip down into the 50's and I'm going to want to curl up in front of my fire with an ice cold glass of lemonade.

I once had a friend over and I had the 'fire' going. After about an hour he turned to me and said, "Isn't it kinda hot in here?" I said I didn't think so and he pointed to the TV and said, "I'm telling you, it's that DVD, it's warming up the whole place." Hey, I didn't say he was one of my smartest friends, ok? I also was not aware that I could scoop avocado out of the skin with a utensil made just for that. All this time I've been using a spoon. Like some common redneck.

I have gotten some really kick ass things from BB&B. A Calphalon pot for my world-class chili, (secret ingredient is beer) a paper towel holder that holds down the towels so that when you rip one off, it's a perfect cut, every time. A hands-free automatic can opener that doesn't leave sharp edges. You can turn this baby on and leave the room and it opens the can while you do important things like yell at your neighbors for playing electronic music and offending the senses. I also got a 4 slot toaster that has dual controls for each side. And a huge drum of Oxi Clean for $9.99? Where else are you going to find that deal?

Apropos of that Oxi Clean, I kept it on the floor in the back seat of my car because it was so heavy that I kept putting off taking it upstairs. I park underground and have 20 million steps up to the pool area and then another 40 trillion steps up to my apartment. Eventually I had to valet my car somewhere and I decided to put the drum of Oxi Clean in the trunk so I wouldn't be mistaken for a housekeeper. And if you're a housekeeper, please don't write me. I'm an equal opportunity hater so it's just the luck of the draw that your profession came up this week. Next week I'm taking down lawyers. See how this works?

But I forgot I put it in my trunk. Then McLoserstene and I went somewhere and when we got out of my car I looked in the back.
"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit."
"What's the matter?"
"It's gone, it's just...gone."
"What's gone?"
"Those fucking valets will steal anything these days."
"WHAT IS MISSING?" she shouted at me. I ignored her and rushed to check my trunk.
"Never mind, it's in the trunk."
"WHAT WAS MISSING?"
"My Oxi Clean."

After she stopped laughing, which, p.s., took a very long time, she looked at me and said, "I thought you had lost your ovaries or your diamond shirt or something really important and it was your OXI CLEAN?"

I really think that's the first sign of aging. You freak out when your cleaning products are missing.

End of chat.

SINGLE, MARRIED & DIVORCED - Seventh Cartoon

"Men get gypped when we get engaged. We give you a diamond ring and you give us nothing."

"We'd like to get you something that means as much to you as a diamond means to us but we don't know where to find 19 year old virgins who understand football."

© Single, Married & Divorced

Jokes from the show Single, Married & Divorced starring Suzy Soro and Leslie Norris
Written by Suzy Soro
Illustration by Andre Noel

Na Blah Hell No

In the spirit of getting it to stop being supportive, I thought these topics might cripple help the thousands of bloggers who are making me feel guilty about not reading them every day looking for things to post for 30 straight days. Did I mention it was 30? In a row?

1. NaBlahHoMo – 30 days of pictures of Clay Aiken

2. NaBlahSchloMo – 30 days of posts by Hasidim

3. NaBlahCoMo – 30 days of Perry putting people into a CoMa

4. NaBlahD'oMo – 30 days of butler confessions

5. NaBlahDoh!Mo – 30 days of lines from a show that has jumped the shark

6. NaBlahEMo - 30 days of Fall Out Boy on repeat

7. NaBlahElMo – 30 days of puppet fisting

8. NaBlahAmMo – 30 days of shooting NRA members with their own guns

9. NaBlahSuMo - 30 days of making fun of fat Asians

10.NaBlahSloMo – 30 days of the same football instant replay

11.NaBlahGizMo - 30 days of annoying Gremlins’ references

12. NaBlahTitMo - 30 days of pictures from Juggs Magazine


End of Blah Blah Blah chat.

What I Did Last Night For Halloween

I handed out x-rays of my foot. Because I like a good party as much as the next person. And the kids love looking at creepy things. And I like looking at kids who I've just scared to death.

I only wish this house had been in my neighborhood when I was growing up and trick or treating. I would have toilet-papered it so solidly they'd still be finding pieces of it today, just like you find those miserable little pine needles off your Christmas tree centuries after the holidays.

The house is across the street from me here in the Hills and whenever I walk by, I always want to shout, "They're called gardeners, people. Look into it."