Big Ugly Man Doll

So there we were, me and the Human Tape Recorder on a Saturday morning attending her first guitar lesson.  These are free lessons from the local Guitar Center store, which they provide as an inducement to buy something a public service.  She brought the guitar she got for Christmas and, never being one to be left out, I grabbed one off the wall of the store and figured I’d learn a little myself. 

Since everything I know about guitars would fit inside a box to hold your guitar pick, with room left over, I grabbed the cheapest one I could find, in case I broke it.  I was amused to see the instructor walk in a grab one off the wall as well – with a $1900+ price tag.  It’s nice to know what you’re doing.  (Seeing that, I would have traded up a few hundred bucks, but I figured I wouldn’t fret about it.)

There were about 6 of us there for these lessons, and the old grizzled dude next to the HTR turned to her and complimented her guitar – which is very pretty, in addition to sounding great.  She mentioned it having been a Christmas gift, and he asked her if that was the one she’d picked out, had fallen in love with, etc, etc.  She gave him a little bit of a shy smile, and said, “All I asked for was a beat-up six-string…”

She can’t play it yet, but she’s no foreigner to great music!

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Do you know, in many parts of the world, when someone comes back from the dead, the community bands together and rolls up its sleeves to put a stake through their heart.  This is to prevent the spread of evil.

In other parts of the world, someone comes back from the dead and the community gathers to celebrate by pretending that rabbits lay eggs, in unlikely colors and in equally unlikely places, and then employing child labor to find these eggs, paying these children in chocolate.  This is also to prevent the spread of evil.

As Google would have us note, Cesar Chavez would have been 86 years old today.  If he comes back from the dead, I’m sure we’ll celebrate by boycotting grapes and paying children a living wage, but probably still in chocolate. 

Happy Day!

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Friday is once again answer time at the ManFAQ, and we will dedicate today’s ManFAQ to the manliest of men, Richard Griffiths, who died yesterday.  As a pompous, manly, and strong head of household, he was second only to Archie Bunker in his role as Harry Potter’s Uncle Vernon Dursley.  And so, as an actor’s actor and a man’s man, today it is in the memory of Uncle Vernon that I don my manly mantle as Sage of the Sexes, helping demystify the more malodorous gender for those of the gentler, as we add to the list of questions women have asked about men over the years.  Actual questions, posed by real women, and answered by a REAL man.  As Uncle Vernon would have said, “What could go wrong, boy?”

Question:  Do you really use the front flap of your tighty whities?   

Answer:  It depends.  There are those of us who never use the “frontal access device” to access our devices, simply because we tend to forget it’s there.  (The access, not the device.  We’re usually pretty aware of the device.)  Some of us do not like the sensation of thrusting the device through multiple layers of cloth – it’s turning left!  No, it’s turning right!  No, wait!  Imagine a double-gated bra and you’ll see what I mean.   Mind you, some of us will thrust that thing anywhere, and see this as less of a big deal.

Some of us tend to use the “frontal access device” when we need to be hands-free – sometimes, in this busy day and age, we’re otherwise occupied and need both hands to make sure we don’t drop the phone in the pool, if you know what I mean.  If I’ve got one hand holding down the shorts for Mr. Shorty to take his brief walk, and we can assume the other hand is against the wall holding myself up due to the near permanent state of exhaustion I’m in, then which hand is going to return your txt message or answer the phone when it rings?  Many’s the poor bastard who’s forgotten what he was doing and moved that hand away at the wrong time, causing the elastic to contract and firing the old hose straight up – no, sometimes it’s better to open those gates and let gravity do its work. 

Most guys also take this approach if there’s any chance you’ll walk in on them.  Usually, you’d be behind them, and this *might* give you the impression that they’re going commando today – which in turn might lead to thoughts of Hey Hey, since it’s already out of its cage…   You know where I’m going with this, right?  It never works, but we still think it. 

Now you know.  Please, feel free to comment!  Also, forward any questions you’d like answered to BUMD – at – biguglymandoll.com!  As always, your anonymity is guaranteed!

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I know, Friday’s answer time at the ManFAQ, and I missed it.  I was busy doing manly things, honest.  Anyway, once again I don my manly mantle as Sage of the Sexes, helping demystify the more malodorous gender for those of the gentler, as we add to the list of questions women have asked about men over the years.  Actual questions, posed by real women, and answered by a REAL man.  Like the man said, “What could go wrong?”

Question:  Why is the Pope always a guy?  Don’t you think they’d have figured out by now that a woman would do a better job?  

Answer:  Issues with the Catholic Church letting women be priests aside, since we know the “strict” answer to the question, let me tell you this.  The Pope is supposed to be the voice of God on earth, the vicar of Christ Almighty, and the right hand man of the lord.  He’s the one with the hotline to heaven, with his finger on the ineffable pulse and the Holy Spirit on speeddial.  He’s the only subscriber to the Almighty Twitter feed, with the angels, all the saints, and the heavenly hosts on his Facebook friends list.

The Pope is a guy because the church doesn’t trust a women not to let slip to the boss how badly we’ve screwed up.  They keep electing men to the position because they’re confidant that a dude will keep “kind of forgetting” to bring up the whole bit about clergy abuse, or the fact that they haven’t let women be priests for 2000 years, or all that Inquisition business, when the boss checks in every week.  We’ve got Papal monthly reports that go back more than 1500 years, and they’re all pretty much, “Yep, doing OK here, let me know if you need help with anything up there.”

A women would change things too much for their liking.

Now you know.  Please, feel free to comment!  Also, forward any questions you’d like answered to BUMD – at – biguglymandoll.com!  As always, your anonymity is guaranteed!

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So there I was on a Saturday morning before the Mall opened, at the Mall.  As  usual, don’t ask.

Is there any place more soul destroying than a decrepit old mall?  If there is, it’s that mall before the doors open and the lights come on. As I walk past the run-down furniture store – and yes, they sell run-down furniture – the lights go up on the jewelry across the way, the furniture, the early morning dance studios.  The music starts slowly and the salespeople come to life like plastic automatons of some bygone horror film, the circuit is closed and the rusty sales force creaks to life, again.  This ancient mall is a palimpsest of stories, the hopes and dreams of sales and vendors and con men, written and crushed out and rewritten until the walls themselves can tell the stories, money, money, sell, sell, fail, fail, fail. We should accessorize our thirst, dance, relax, the walls tell us, beaconing us in, come in, buy something.

There are two massage parlors, open early, for the discriminating shopper to get their freak on in the early morning before the roving bands of stroller-toting exercise moms take over the halls.  There is a “D&D Security Training Academy,” which doesn’t seem to feature anywhere near as many swords or dice as you would guess.

They have anchor stores. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the purpose of an anchor to drag along the bottom and impede progress?  Right.  They have two of these.  I think this explains a lot, really.

There’s a store called Columbia Linens.  Columbia is the poetic name used for the female personification of the United States – there are 35 places in the US with Columbia in their names, along with at least 5 songs, a university, and the odd space shuttle.  Linen, a textile made from flax, is valued for its marvelous coolness in hot weather.  In this store, Columbia Linens,  therefore, we should expect to find flax-based cloths that are either made in the US or printed with themes that might have something to do with the Americas.  Right?  No, of course not.  They don’t carry anything to do with the US, nor do they, in fact, sell linens.  Mostly they sell furniture of the Late Shitty period, and a lot of Far East knickknacks.  They do, however, have a display of Van de Graaff elephants, in front of a framed needlepoint rendition of Da Vinci’s Last Supper.

I mean, fucking electric elephants.  I’m sure someone asked their boss, “Hey, where the hell do I put this thing?” and got an answer of, “Um, put them in front of, Christ, I don’t know.”  Where else would you put them?

There’s a store called New York Fashion.  Here’s a pic.

Now, I’ve been to New York City, and I don’t remember seeing anyone wearing this.  Maybe I didn’t get to the right part of New York.  I tend to think of this as Los Vegas Fashion, but what do I know?

I love the serial entrepreneurs as well. There’s a place called Eyebrow Designer 21. Me, I would probably have given up on this idea after the failure of Eyebrow Designer 8 or 9, but this guy perseveres. Good for him.

So, the mall.  In the end I outwaited them and accomplished what I came for, and possibly more than that.  After all, I now know where to pick up a steady supply of Van de Graaff elephants, which I can sell for a stiff mark up while wearing my New York Fashion go-go shorts.  What more could a guy ask for?

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