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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
I watched sumo wrestling on ESPN this afternooon.
Why? I’m not sure, really. Perhaps NFL lineman asses just aren’t enormous or bare enough for me any more. I sincelrely hope that’s not the reason, but now I’m having trouble replacing so disturbing a thought with anything else. I’m hoping alcohol will do the trick. Lots and lots of alcohol.
Meanwhile, I was watching sumo, which is cool. I’m always interested in tuning in to events that are on the fringes of the American sports collective radar screen — sumo wrestling, trick-shot billiards, curling, Cleveland Browns football, that sort of thing.
(Okay, not that last one. Even Drew Carey couldn’t stomach watching that.)
Sumo, though, is cool. And it’s one of the few places where I can watch overweight foreign men trotting around in thong underwear without feeling all dirty. Lord knows it doesn’t work at the YMCA.
The most interesting thing about this match, though — yes, more interesting than jumbo warriors in ass floss; let it go already — was the commentary. Or rather, the lack of commentary.
It seems the sumo booth was manned by two gentleman. The first was one of those more-or-less anonymous ESPN announcer clones. You know the ones, with the pretty hair and the shiny teeth that remind you of your uncle, maybe, or that old roommate of the guy your brother used to know, if he’d shaved his pornstache and gotten a decent haircut once in a while. Pretty harmless, these guys — they’re just there to describe what you’re seeing and fill in the obvious gaps. They leave the really interesting bits of chitchat to the ‘expert in the booth’.
And therein lay the problem. The second announcer was a sumo wrestler himself — apparently quite an accomplished one, at that. He was approximately the size of a largish SUV, or perhaps a smallish Victorian house. He was a foot taller and several hundred pounds heavier than his partner, and appeared in the initial introduction to be deliberating over whether to eat the entire camera crew. Seeing as how many sumo wrestlers come from non-English-speaking countries, I imagine he was selected to provide color commentary because we speaks English very well.
He did not, however, speak English very much. Which provided a sticky situation for his boothmate. Their ‘banter’ went something like this:
Skinny Commentator: Well, here we’ve got a wrestler who’s had a lot of success in the sport in the past few years. You must have faced this guy an awful lot!
Sumo Commentator: …
Skinny Commentator: You, um… did, right? Face him a lot?
Sumo Commentator: Yes.
Skinny Commentator: And how was that?
Sumo Commentator: What?
Skinny Commentator: Facing him, there. In the ring.
Sumo Commentator: Hard.
Skinny Commentator: It was hard?
Sumo Commentator: Yes. Hard.
Skinny Commentator: I see. Well, he’s got quite a weight advantage on this next competitor. You were one of the bigger wrestlers out there; how was it for you facing a much smaller man?
Sumo Commentator: Hard.
Skinny Commentator: ‘Hard’. Great. Any special strategies you employed? Anything you’d do differently in that situation?
Sumo Commentator: No.
Skinny Commentator: No. Of course not. How about a bigger man? Anyone significantly bigger that you competed against?
Sumo Commentator: No.
Skinny Commentator: No. Similar-sized then, most of them?
Sumo Commentator: Yes.
Skinny Commentator: And how was that? No, wait — let me guess. Was it hard?
Sumo Commentator: Yes. Hard.
Skinny Commentator: All right, then, that’s just peachy. Another sake over here, please! Domo.
I suppose I can’t blame the big guy, really. Stringing multiple words together takes a bit of energy, and when you weigh nine hundred and eleventy pounds, you’ve got to conserve your reserves, I imagine. He’d hate to be winded and all tuckered out from gabbing next time he needs to take a tinkle, right? I’m guessing that’s an entire process unto itself for a dude so hefty; perhaps one involving a periscope, a tire jack, and a pair of salad tongs. But that’s only a guess, of course.
Apart from that, the wrestling was fun to watch. Any sport where a viable strategy for winning involves throwing a man to thr ground by his own wedgie is going to have entertainment value. Figure skating, just as an example, could definitely tap into a larger market with rules like that on the books. Spelling bees, too, maybe. I’m just thinking out loud here.
In the end, the truly disturbing thing — even more than the near-mute mountain of an announcer or the G-stringed behemoths slap ‘n’ ticking each other in the ring — was that a few of the athletes weighed in within a few dozen pounds of my own wieght. Granted, those were the leaner and shorter wrestlers — and none came all that close to my current mass — but the message was pretty clear: there but for a couple of extra microwave burritos go I. Plus, now I have an idea of what I might look like as a stripper.
And that’s the most disturbing thought of all. I’d better start with the alcohol now. Can I get that double sake over here, please? Domo arigato.
Permalink | 6 CommentsSo. eBay.
Until very recently, I’d resisted the shrill siren call of the world’s largest, grungiest, and often frighteninglest swap meet. Oh, sure — the wife sold a couple of our electronic trinkets that way a while back. And we got a nice deal on a dog crateback when our pooch was still a feisty little pup. But I’d never seriously given ‘the big E’ a good once-over.
Why not? I can’t say, really, but I suspect my reluctance involved a number of factors. First, there’s really very little merchandise that I’m interested in buying. I’m a simple man, with simple needs that can largely be met with an internet connection, a trip to the beer aisle of my local grocery store, and a small, shiny object to play with. Or a ball of string, perhaps. Even a good, strong rubber band will do. I’m not picky.
Then there are the pitfalls involved with online bartering. Shipping costs. Scam auctions. Identity theft. Not knowing where the thing you’re buying has been, what’s been done to it, or who might’ve been bent over it in the middle of some unspeakable act involving pencil shavings, bundt cake pans, and an industrial belt sander. These are considerations you must take into account, if you’re considering an eBay purchase. Or, for that matter, a table at your local Burger King. But I digress.
Mostly, though, I think it came down to two factors. First, I’m what you call an ‘instant gratification’ sort of guy. If I want something, I want it NOW, dammit, and I’ll pout my lip and stamp my little feet until I’ve got it. With eBay users selling — and shipping — from Europe and Japan and Australia and Arkansas and all sorts of other strange, faraway places, items could take a week or more to get here. That’s a hell of a lot of pouty-lipped foot stamping. I don’t know if I have the stamina for that at my age any more, frankly.
Secondly — and more importantly — I avoided eBay because their commercials are pretty stupid. Honestly, with the jingles? And the fat guy in the elevator singing, and women wearing ‘IT’ dresses, and the jumbled-up, technicolor logo… what are you, eBay? Virtual Old Navy? Get a damned grip on yourself. Tsk.
Finally, though, I decided to test the shark-infested, jingle-happy online auction waters. I need a cassette deck. A decent one, with the little RCA pluggy things in the back to hook to an amplifier. Otherwise, how will I ever hear my old tapes by the Waxing Poetics and the Rave-Ups and the Screaming Blue Messiahs and the Royal Court of China, and other bands you’ve never heard of in your life?
Whazzat? Buy ’em again on CD?
Honky, please. Most of these bands came and went before you could say, ‘one-hit wonder‘. Obscure, old, and short-lived — there’s no way I’d find these things on CD, even if they ever existed, which they probably didn’t. Honestly, most of these bands — not only have you never heard of ’em, you’ve never even heard of the people who have heard of ’em. Trust me; I asked around.
Besides, why buy a couple of dozen CDs or vinyl records at ‘rare and antique!‘ prices — through eBay, no doubt, since that’s the only chance I’d have to find the one guy left alive who knows who Not Shakespeare was — when I can pay thirty bucks for a cassette player, and rip ’em all to MP3 myself? If I’m going to put off ‘instant gratification’, the least I can do is save some dough, fer crissakes.
So, I’ve jumped into the fray. I’ve bid on three auctions so far — all for cassette players. Aaaaand lost each one. At the very last minute, by less than a dollar.
It seems I was unprepared for the competitive nature of full-time eBay-ers, who I now imagine sit at their computers nonstop, clad in grimy housecoats and bunny slippers, gnurled hands clutching the mouse and waiting for the ‘Ten seconds left in auction!‘ signal to swoop in and bid the farm on the latest tchotchke up for auction. Where in my case ‘tchotchke’ is a fricking cassette player that I can plug in to record my Beat Farmers tapes. And ‘the farm’ is twelve cents more than whatever my last bid happened to be. Fricking vultures. Cut me some slack, stingydrawers!
So, long story short, I don’t have a cassette player. Three times I’ve bid, and three times I’ve lost the five-knuckle mouse shuffle to some hairy-palmed git in Kalamazoo or somewhere, who’s probably piling their eBay shit next to the mounds of QVC swag and waiting for their turn to die. Now I know why it took so long for me to get involved in this nonsense — because I knew it’d turn into a game of cat-and-retard with these people, and I am not going to be the one left holding the drool cup and the safety helmet, dammit.
Game on, mother fuckers. Game. On.
Permalink | 7 CommentsI like a lot of things about my parents.
I like that they’re wishy-washy — or at least that they were, thirty-odd years ago, when they got divorced… and then remarried the next year. Apparently, they had ‘reconcilable differences’.
I like that there’s one of each gender, just to get both perspectives. Not that I have anything against same-sex couples, mind you. Feel free to bat for whichever team, from whichever side of the plate, and wearing whatever uniform you like, so far as I’m concerned. But it’s sort of nice to be able to make a tuna casserole and discuss the merits of the no-huddle offense, is all I’m saying.
I also like that they don’t live so close that they could unexpectedly drive past and see the stupid shit that I might be doing in front of the house, but also not so far away that I’d have to, for instance, rent the space shuttle to visit them. Delta Airlines and I have a route all worked out; the status quo is working out just swimmingly.
However, at this time of year, one of the things I like most about my parents is that they really, when it gets right down to it, have no idea what I want for Christmas.
Oh, they do fine, really. They know I have this penchant — really more of a fetish at this point, I fear — for striped rugby shirts. My wife is still railing against my fashion myopia — she’ll buy me sweaters, and pullovers, and turtlenecked contraptions, trying to drag my wardrobe into the new millennium — but my parents know its a lost cause. I like to think they sigh heavily as they browse through the American Eagle catalog, shrug their shoulders, and tell each other, ‘At least he’s not into the Goth clothes, dear.’
They also come up some appropriate doodads and trinkets — I dig hot sauces and hoppy beers, thanks for asking — that are much appreciated. But after that, they’re sometimes nonplussed, I think. We haven’t shared a house for nearly two decades, and my tastes change — except in shirtwear, apparently — as quickly as a fourteen-year-old girl’s with a Teen Beat subscription and a MySpace habit.
So most years, the presents from the ‘rents include a nifty gift card — to Amazon, or somewhere similar. Like this year, it was to Amazon. Which is almost exactly like Amazon, except that I put it in italics the second time. Amazon. See how that works?
What that means, of course, is that my Christmas season gets extended a few days. Plus, I get to open some goodies that I picked out myself. This year’s batch came in the mail today, and I couldn’t be gigglier if I had on boxers made of ostrich feathers and a snootful of nitrous. Huzzah!
On the other hand, it does lead to a bit of serious self-reflection, based on the merchandise I’ve selected. For instance, my father-in-law bought me a book this year. Nice book; I had it on my wish list. Serious, non-fiction book — eleven hundred pages long. No lie. I’m on page fourteen right now. Shaddup.
Meanwhile, one of the books I dug out of my Amazon — sorry, Amazon — package tonight was approximately thirty pages long. With pictures. Cartoon pictures. And in the very front, it had an otherwise blank page, on which was written in large, black letters:
THIS BOOK BELONGS TO:
___________________________________
Yes, hello there. I’m Charlie. I’m almost fwee years old. Mewwy Cwistmas.
Wanna see my wugby collection? You’ll wuv it!
Permalink | 5 CommentsI’m an excellent procrastinator. I often amaze myself with the outlandish, complicated nonsense I’ll do, just to put off doing whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing.
Take this weekend, for instance. I’ve known since leaving work on Friday that I need to put some slides together for a talk on Tuesday afternoon. Now, normally, I wouldn’t even dream of procrastinating over those until Monday night. After all, anything worth not doing until the last minute is worth not doing until the very last minute. I’d probably spend Monday evening organizing my sock drawer or something, and finally whip a few half-assed crayon drawings together on Tuesday morning, and be done with it. Wing and a prayer stuff, you understand.
But for this talk, I’ve got partners. Other people counting on me, see. Where ‘counting on me’ seems to mean ‘stand in front of the whole group and bullshit for an hour like a Bavarian burghermeister on election day’. They’re nice people, but they’re a tad shy when it comes to public speaking. So whenever that metaphorical bus comes sqealing into the station, I’m the one who gets pushed under it. Occupational hazard of having standup comedy as a hobby, I suppose.
Anyway, the upshot is that the slides need to be ready tomorrow, so that everyone can complain about them beforehand. It’s not a proper shared presentation until one person’s put the pieces together exactly the way he or she likes them, and then everyone else has had a turn shredding those plans and ridiculing everything about the work so far. This time, it’s my turn. And I’m so looking forward to helpful, friendly advice like:
‘You can’t possibly talk about that first. Move those slides to the middle.‘
‘The titles have to be all caps. No one’s going to listen if the titles aren’t all caps.‘
‘Dude. Blue backgrounds? Please. You’ll have to redo all these slides.‘
‘Hey, why am I listed third on the acknowledgements? I’m the one who told you about all caps, dammit.‘
So, that’ll be fun. Not quite as enjoyable as flaming bamboo shoots poked under my eyelids, but close. Yay.
Meanwhile, I’m putting off doing anything at all. And making quite a good show of it, too. I’ve kept myself very busy not doing any actual work. On Friday night, I spent my time acting — rather convincingly, I might add — as though there were nothing to be done at all. I ate. I watched TV. I slept. “Presentation next week?” I might be heard to innocently ask. “What’s a presentationnextweek?” Brilliant.
Most of yesterday was spent at the stadium, watching the Patriots game. Or just outside the stadium, freezing my testiculars off during four hours of tailgating. But even before that, I got in some really good procrastinating: I sorted mail. I ripped a few CDs. I worked a crossword puzzle. Those slides weren’t needed for another two days — what kind of boobjob would be spending time on them then?
That brings us to today. And honestly, I feel — I don’t mean to brag here, but Ireally, really feel — that I’ve outdone myself here. Oh, no one distraction was a masterpiece, to be sure. Watching football, doing laundry, blogging, reading, volunteering — that’s right, volunteering — to take out the trash… but taken together, that’s a solid twelve hours of not-doing-what-I’m-supposed-to-be-doing. That’s some hard not-work there, people. I feel as though I’ve deserved a nap, or maybe a bowl of ice cream. Possibly a nice sock drawer rearranging; that should kill another hoer or two.
In truth, though, the inevitable is looming. It’s a quarter after eleven, and I know where my slides are. Which is nowhere, which means that I’ve a long night ahead of drawing the wrong-sized boxes and the wrong color backgrounds and getting the fonts just the way that no one besides me can stand. Ah, the joys of the corporate world.
I’ll be having my bamboo shoot treatment now, pleaes. Table for one, in the inflamed eyelid section. Thankssomuch.
Permalink | 2 CommentsIt’s been a while since I copped out on writing anything original and posted about the Google (and Yahoo) searches that bring people to this page. But that’s what weekends are for, right?
Right?
Well, it is now, dammit. Don’t be a smartass. Let’s just do this thing:
From Tustin, CA. we get: list of wedgie techniques.
Well, fine. Here you go:
1) “Grip it and rip it.”
The. End. Silly left-coasters.
Next, it’s a music fan in West Bloomfield, MI searching for puffy nipples movies.
I’m with you, man. I dig that phat Puffy Nipples. I wanna see him in Hollywood, too. Dude can lay down a beat, yo.
Although, to be honest, I’m a bigger fan of DJ Areola. That’s just me. Word.
Then there’s the intrepid soul from Worcester, PA looking for info on Rachel Ray nipples.
Sorry, pal. I haven’t seen her show in a while, so I’m not sure how she cooks nipples. Though if I had to guess, I’d probably braise them. Just be sure to slather them in ‘EVOO’ first. Rachel would have wanted it that way.
A reader from Nashville, TN came searching for stripper convention.
Well, I can tell you a few stripper conventions, actually.
1. Never date the customers.
2. Bra comes off first, then G-string.
3. No granny perfume.
4. ‘No touching’ means NO TOUCHING.
5. Never buy your own drinks.
Hope this helps — happy clubbing, Nashville!
A guy (I’m assuming) in Southfield, MI asks Yahoo (and then me): who’s got the biggest boobs?
I’m afraid I don’t know, sir. Before the advent of implants, it may have been Dolly Parton. Or my aunt Frances. That woman could slap you on the head from across the room without lifting a finger. True story.
Now, who knows? They just keep getting bigger as the ‘guns race’ escalates. But I’ll tell you this — if the Guinness Book decides to find out, and needs a judge, I’ll do it. You know, in honor of Aunt Frances. God rest her cans.
Then there’s the rather verbose individual from Dayton, OH who asks Yahoo: where would i find t-shirts with sayings written on them?
I don’t think you’ve quite got the hang of this ‘search engine’ dealie yet, there, Dayton. You’re not ordering at the clown’s mouth at McDonalds here, and Alex Trebek isn’t making you answer in the form of a question.
Take it to Jeeves, numbnuts.
Speaking of questions, here’s one from a user in Vienna, VA posed to Ask.com: how many syllables are in squirrel?
Um…
But… I mean, how many could you possibly…
Like, ‘SKA-woo-RU-ill‘? I don’t think I get it.
What the hell are they putting in the water down there in Virginia, anyway?
Finally, we’ve got a queryer from Birmingham in the UK, delievered here via Google when searching for pimped panda.
Sorry. This really isn’t that kind of site. There are very few animals around here, and almost none of them are available for sexy parties. The dog cleans up nice, but she won’t put out. Poochtease.
Anyway, pandas are awfully hard to get your hands on, I would think. Maybe you should shoot for a nice squa-oo-ri-el, instead. I think I know a guy down in Virginia who can set you up.
Permalink | 5 Comments
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