The (Love) Life of Brian--Part II

In this installment, I explore the origins of my interpersonal dysfunction with the opposite sex (and people in general) in social situations…

Let’ s start way back at the beginning to give you a little background on how I evolved socially.  Even though I’m the youngest of three kids, I almost consider myself to be an only child because of the age difference between me and my brother and sister (who are seven and nine years older, respectively).  I was never all that close to them at all, and even though we still all live in the same city today, we might as well be on different continents, as I rarely see or interact with either of them now.  At a very early age, I basically had to learn to entertain myself because they were either at school or hanging with their friends or doing their Boy/Girl Scout stuff, and I was always home with Mom while she did her housework and such.  My stuffed animals, Matchbox/Hot Wheel cars, TV game shows, and Paul Revere & The Raiders records became my best friends up through age five and beyond—I didn’t even have what you would call a regular playmate or neighbor kid friend during that time, so I’ve been a loner almost from the get-go.  Sunday school at church, as well as Kindergarten and early grade school were awkward for me, as I suddenly had to get used to being around lots of other kids all the time—a form of culture shock, if you will.  Meantime, from about age five through eleven, I had a bit more interaction with my siblings, but when I finally started feeling a connection to them about the time I hit Junior High age, they both moved out and went to college—D’oh!

Don’t get me wrong—my family (Mom, Dad, Bro and Sis) are all good people, but are hardly what you would call social animals, therefore I was never properly taught to socialize when I was little, let alone encouraged to chase girls when I got older.  I never even got the clichéd “birds and the bees” lecture when I hit puberty, so I more or less had to figure things out on my own.  What’s worse, puberty—or I should say at least the “sexual awakening” part of it—didn’t hit me until I was damn near 17, so I was a couple years behind everyone else, it seemed.  Meanwhile, Bro and Sis didn’t date much (if at all) in their teens, so there was no example for me to follow, thus I remained the reticent, good little boy, just waiting for things to happen that never did happen.  Bro and Sis each essentially married the first person to come along that gave them the time of day after high school, and both marriages still survive today, although with mixed results, at best.

This is not to say that I wasn’t paying attention to girls while growing up.  There was one girl whom I met in second grade who was the first non-TV person I ever lusted after (Yvonne Craig as Batgirl on “Batman” was the first, followed by Emmy Jo on “The New Zoo Revue”), and she was my equivalent to Charlie Brown’s “little red-haired girl” (only she had light brown hair), but I was too shy and too awkward to do anything about it, even as we attended junior high and high school together.  I even have very fuzzy memories of swimming with her and some friends at an apartment complex in 5th or 6th grade, but that might’ve just been a wet dream of mine.  Get it—wet dream? [place rim shot here].  Anyway, what truly haunts me to this day is this girl’s older sister was in the very same Girl Scout troop as my sister, which often met right in our very own basement—an inside connection totally wasted!  All I can say is Sharon, sweetie, I worshipped you from afar—oh, what might’ve been…

I also had my eye on several cute girls during junior high and high school, but again, I was too shy to act on it.  Believe it or not, one of the hotter girls in my 8th grade class—picture a young Suzanne Somers with a brain—actually asked me out to a school dance once, and I just froze as if someone had notified me I’d been drafted.  As John Hiatt once sang, “I don’t know why the cry of love is so alarming!”  I wimpishly made up some excuse about already having tickets to a Kansas City Kings basketball game that night, or some such thing.  Just as well, I guess—I wouldn’t have known how to act if I escorted her to that dance anyway—and I have no doubt it would’ve ended badly.  Meantime, I’m sure Miss Rhonda and most of the girls at my school thought I was gay after that.  Trust me, Rhonda, if you’re out there reading this, it wasn’t anything personal and you were a gorgeous girl—I just wasn’t ready for the Big Leagues yet.  Oh by the way—I’m not gay, either…

Then one bright July day between 8th and 9th grade, I get a phone call from another girl at school whom I made it fairly well-known I had the hots for, a girl named Anni—picture Tiffani-Amber Thiessen crossed with Marisa Tomei (yeoww!)—asking me if I’d like to go out sometime.  Actually, I think it was someone posing as her playing a prank on me, but believe it or not, I actually presaged Mark Ratner in Fast Times At Ridgemont High by about four years by telling whoever it was on the phone that I was going to be “doing a lot of traveling” soon.  I cringe every time I hear that line in the movie now!  I never did confirm who it was that called me, because when school started again in September no words were ever spoken between us.  Anni—if you’re out there reading this and that was really you that called me, I apologize profusely.  You have no idea how much I regret not taking you up on your offer, nor how much I‘ve kicked myself for not doing so over the last 30 years!

High school was a total wasteland for me, socially, therefore I never dated anyone during that time, and I rarely even attended school functions (except the occasional Raytown South football or basketball game).  It never occurred to me that a few of those girls in class might actually like me, but then again, I hardly looked presentable—I was a fat slob, my hair looked like crap, I wore nothing but concert t-shirts or sports logo clothes, and my acne made my face look like a topographical map of the lunar surface.  No small wonder I didn’t attract anyone!  To make things worse, I just didn’t have the social skills, gift of gab (still don’t, sometimes), or even the ability to bullshit my way through a conversation with someone—it’s just not my style.  I’m a little better at it now than when I was 15, but I absolutely suck at small-talk—I’m more of a “cut-to-the-chase” kind of person and never properly learned how to schmooze. Not to sound arrogant, but it never ceases to amaze me how I can fluently string words together on this blog like a concerto, yet when it comes to social occasions, I often register on the ineptitude spectrum on a par with the likes of Bullwinkle, Fredo Corleone, Steve Urkel and Barney Fife!  To this day, I still need an awful lot of social lubrication (i.e., alcohol) to feel comfortable chatting someone up.  Or as my man Pete Townshend once wrote, “Have to be so drunk to try a new dance…”

Stay tuned for future installments, as I explore all my relationships with women (all three of ‘em!) and the trials and tribulations I went through along the way.  If you made a movie about it, you could call it The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, but unfortunately, that title’s already taken…

Big fat tires and everything...

OH, WHAT A TWIT!
Heaven forbid that Michelle Obama would even dare to look at Queen Elizabeth during her visit to merry ole England last week, let alone put her arm around her!  Don’t you just love it when the media gets a hold of something like this and runs amok with it?  Apparently, it goes against protocol for anyone to act human in the presence of Her Royal Haughtiness, so putting one’s arm around the bitch is strictly forbidden.  Never mind that HRH initiated the contact with Mrs. O.—what was Michelle ‘sposed to do, pull away from the Queen as if she had cooties or something?  No disrespect intended, but I have a news flash for all youse Brits out there—Her Royal Hiney’s shit stinks just like everyone else’s!  This whole monarchy crap is about as relevant today as a K-Tel Record, and should’ve been done away with decades ago…

THE HOUSE THAT A-ROID BUILT?
Even though it cost a king’s ransom to build, I have to say I’m fairly impressed with the new Yankee Stadium in Gotham City (click pic to enlarge), which had its shakedown cruise last Friday during an exhibition game between the Bronx Bummers and the Cubbies.  An egregious wrong has finally been righted with the return of the famed Yankee Stadium frieze ringing the roof of the ballpark, just like it did before the mid-’70s renovation, which relegated it to a cheesy plastic rendering above the outfield bleachers.  Another feature I like is the replica linescore board embedded in the outfield wall, similar to the ones used during the Mantle/Ford/Kubek/Skowron era.  The concourses look pretty impressive too, but then again, for eleventy-billion semolians, they oughtta be!

BLOW JOB! BLOW JOB! BLOW JOB!
A boot to the head to Royals reliever Kyle Farnsworth for serving up a grapefruit to the White Sox’ Jim Thome in the 8th inning on Opening Day, giving the ChiSox the 4-2 win, and wasting a fine outing by starting pitcher Gil Meche.  Farnsworth did the same crap with the Cubs, Tigers and Yankees, and I cursed the day the Royals signed this bonehead.  Yes, I know, one loss doth not a season make, but this is going to be a long year with him in our bullpen.

IOWA, WE HARDLY KNEW YE!
I was quite surprised (and pleased) to see the state of Iowa’s Supreme Court rule that their gay marriage ban was/is illegal.  Yes, we're talking God-fearing/conservative/corn-belt/Radar O'Reilly's Iowa!  But of course, all the right-wing religious pinheads out there are already declaring this as another blow to the institution of marriage.  Funny, but I don’t see where gay people have contributed to the divorce rate of 50% percent for first marriages, 67% for second marriages and 74% for third ones in this country, do you?  Seems to me this “institution” is imploding just fine on its own…

ARE WE UP-TO-CODE NOW?
Much hand-wringing has taken place in K.C. lately over the dress code adopted by the Power & Light entertainment district, which includes the new Sprint Center arena.  The code’s detractors claim it is racially motivated to exclude people of the Rap/Hip-Hop element.  What it’s actually saying to these people is “pull your freakin’ pants up, already, ya dweebs!”  The code also addresses skankily-attired females, but it sure didn’t prevent Britney Spears from performing at Sprint the other night…

CLASSIC OVERUSED TV/MOVIE CLICHÉ #14
When someone’s on the phone (pre-cellphone era) and their call gets disconnected, why do they always react by clicking the hang-up button and frantically uttering “Hello?” several times?  Like that’s going to bring the other caller back?  Pushing the button only guarantees you’ve been disconnected!

DA BLOOZ!
The end of the NHL’s regular season is fast approaching, and it’s been fun watching the St. Louis Blues launch a mad late-season dash to make the playoffs after a poor start to the season.  St. Lou was a regular fixture in the Stanley Cup playoffs for 25 years straight until hard times struck during this decade when the NHL labor stoppage all but killed the team.  Former NHL goalie and broadcaster John Davidson (not the hack nightclub singer of the same name) took over as team President a couple years ago and, unlike the NFL’s Matt Millen, has made the transition from the TV booth to the front office successfully.  JD has managed to round up a good core group of young players like Brad Boyes, Barrett Jackman, David Backes and Erik Johnson that could be the nucleus of a dominant team for years to come.  Best of all, it’s great to see the fans are responding by filling the seats again, just like in the glory days of the old St. Louis Arena on Oakland Avenue.  Now if only K.C. had a hockey team…

The (Love) Life of Brian--Part I

One topic I've rarely discussed on this blog is my love-life, mostly because there ain’t a whole lot to discuss.  I actually don’t mind being open about it, even though it’s a facet of my life that I’m not overly-proud of.  In my view, my history with the opposite sex is checkered at best, and rather pathetic at worst.  To give you an idea of exactly how pathetic, I’ll turn 45 in June, and to date, I’ve spent a cumulative total of a year-and-a-half in serious relationships with women.  That’s 18 months out of 45 years—barely 3% of my lifetime!  Now, I do realize there are lots of poor schlubs out there who’ve had even less experience than I have, but it still doesn’t sit well with me that this is all I have to hang my hat on.  I’ve only had three real relationships with women-folk in my life, each one lasting no more than six months, and each preceded and followed by lengthy dry spells without a significant other, including the current drought that’s approaching ten years, which just surpassed my previous personal record of nine.  And of those three relationships, the best one involved a beautiful woman who lived 1,800 miles and two time zones away from me, so even then I had to really go out of my way just to enjoy a brief spate of happiness with a female human being.

It’s certainly NOT that I don’t love women—I love women every bit as much as I love Rock ‘N’ Roll, T-bone steak, “Sanford And Son” reruns, beer and hockey—but I’ve either been too shy, too awkward, too short, too unattractive, too scared, too agnostic or too unlucky (or any combination of the above) to really get anywhere with a woman on a long-term basis.  I haven’t even been on a freakin’ date—let alone kissed a woman on the lips—in damn near ten years, so as you might imagine, I’m a tad rusty and I have a fairly big itch to scratch!  I also can’t help but wonder if all of the good women are already taken anyway and/or what the hell is wrong with me sometimes.  I don’t mean for this to be a pity-party here for yours truly—trust me, this series isn't all gloom-and-doom—but I really need to take this mental garbage out, so I appreciate your indulgence if you choose to read onward about what I think is a very unorthodox love-life…

I realize I shouldn’t compare myself to others, but it frustrates me no end when I see other people who seem to never want for a companion, like a good friend of mine who’s never been alone in the nearly 18 years I’ve known him—one relationship would end for him, and he’d find someone else seemingly without even missing a beat, kinda like those lizards that lose a leg and grow one back right away.  Am I jealous?  A little, but after years and years of dating services, personals ads, failed set-ups, complete whiffs on my part on secret admirer attempts, dashed hopes, numerous other dead-ends and disappointments and sheer indifference on the part of women I‘ve pursued, can you blame me?

Want a few examples?  At least twice, I pursued women whom I was unaware were lesbians...I once had a co-worker girl turn me down for a lunch date by saying, “I don’t really eat lunch.”...I was even desperate enough to pursue another co-worker chick who had hairier arms than I do, and still, I even struck out with her!...A cute girl in college once turned me down for a date because she was seeing a blind guy.  I repeat—a blind guy—D’oh!...I’ve also been blown off by women who deemed me too short (I’m 5’8”) and not cowboy enough for them.  Hey, I rode a horse once—Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker!...And I couldn’t begin to tell you how many women I’ve had my eye on who were hell-bent on getting married and having kids (not my scene—read on, folks), and one personals ad respondent even specifically wanted me to impregnate her with no strings attached!  Peter Wolf and J. Geils Band really nailed it for my love-life:  “I’ve had the blues, the reds and the pinks…I’ve been through it all—love stinks!”  Damn straight!

What sucks most of all is at this stage in my life, I find the window of opportunity rapidly closing on me to find someone new.  I know, I know:  never say never—but the odds of finding the woman of my dreams (or even a reasonable facsimile) are really stacked against me as I move through middle age.  I absolutely do not want kids (mine or anyone else’s), and the majority of the unattached women in my age group are divorcees with children.  While I realize that not wanting kids greatly reduces the playing field for me, it’s something that I am absolutely adamant about.  I’m not very good with kids (regardless of their age) and I don’t care to be around them, let alone take on the responsibility of raising them.  Call me selfish if you want, but give me credit for knowing my limitations when it comes to an important issue like this.

I ain’t really looking for marriage, either, which also hinders my chances.  I’ve seen too many friends, family members and co-workers get married and wind up miserable and/or bitter, to the point where I have to question is it really worth it?  Shit, I've watched my own parents merely put up with each other for the last 40 years, so If it comes down to a choice between being trapped in a loveless marriage or being alone, I’d much rather be alone—I’m already used to that, anyway.  I suppose I miss out on the bonuses in life thinking this way, but I also miss out on the pain and heartache that can suck the life right out of you.  Anyway, I can count on one hand the married people I know who are truly happy (Rose, Tom, Phil, and…um, well I guess that‘s it).  Even the thought of living together with someone scares me a bit.  You see, I’ve always been your basic loner, and I would have a difficult time adjusting to sharing my abode with another person, even say, a male roommate, let alone a significant female other.  When I “played house” with my long-distance girlfriend for ten days about ten years ago, it felt weird having someone else around all the time.  Don’t get me wrong—I absolutely LOVED her being here, but not having my own place all to myself felt very odd to me.

I’ve also come to the sobering realization that now that I’m in my mid-‘40s, I probably don’t have any business dating anyone under 30 anymore, so that narrows my options even further.  I’d prefer to be with someone who at least, as Col. Potter on “MASH” once said, “remembers the same Presidents”, thus anyone born during or after the Reagan Administration is pretty much off my radar scope now.  Just as well—I find the majority of today’s under-30 tattooed, cell phone-obsessed, overly-pierced, skanky Paris Hilton wanna-be generation of females to be shallower than shit anyhow.  Even worse, I rarely even meet anyone nowadays who remotely interests me personality-wise or attracts me physically.  I’m to blame for a lot of that because I don’t get out as much as I should, but it’s been years since I’ve even met someone who I’d even want to have a drink with, let alone who honked my proverbial hooter and made me want to ask her out.  Dating services/websites are a joke, singles events are demeaning, bars are a dead-end to me (including even my friend Phil’s band gigs), dating a co-worker is almost always a no-win situation, and the Internet is full of phonies and playas.  Ironically, the only truly-satisfying relationship I ever had was a chance on-line encounter, but I consider that to be just pure dumb luck more than anything else.  Lightning doesn’t strike twice, you know…

Stay tuned for Part II, where I trace the origins of my social dysfunction and initial failures with girls during Bob Seger's "awkward teenage blues"...