Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Year 11

Happy Birthday To This

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Playing Eric Smith’s book release party in November. One of my favorite non-blog images of the year, as captured by the keen eye of Daily News cover boy @MikeIl

An anniversary in three movements: Context, Accomplishment, & Gratitude.

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1st – Context

Philadelphia seems to be heading towards the apocalypse full speed ahead, much to the consternation of the general public (and the delight of my end-times obsessed best friend Gina).

First it was violent flash mobs. A few weeks ago it was a terrifying stories-high fire we could see from our office, followed by a week and half deluge of rain. Then, we had an unlikely earthquake. Now we’re worried about a hurricane.

It’s either a modern twist on a series of biblical plagues, or we are playing some sort of sick game of disaster Bingo with all of the squares filled with lyrics from “The End of the World as We Know It.”

I am waiting for the universe to call “bird and snakes,” or perhaps “Leonard Bernstein.”

AC in Collingswood last September, shot by Jay Donahue.

I witnessed the fire, rain, and earthquake firsthand, but not the mobs or the impending hurricane. I don’t know about them through traditional media. I have no idea when I last watched a weather report. I haven’t watched television news since 2004, and I generally don’t read the newspaper unless it’s running one of my ad campaigns.

I don’t need to. My social networks break news when it is relevant to me, regardless of if it’s the evening news.

That is life (and news) at the speed of Twitter. By comparison, blogs are the slow, galumphing cousin of social media, where we tweet at the speed of thought and voluntarily track our movements from bar to bar and report on whatever we’re watching or hearing.

And traditional media? CNN dot com didn’t have a headline banner up about the earthquake five minutes after it happened. Meanwhile, Twitter already had pinpointed the epicenter and estimated the magnitude.

Blogs can be galumphing, but at least they’re galumphing by choice. I tweeted about the earthquake, then I checked into it on FourSquare, before finally writing a blog post the next day on the train, when I felt like I had something to say.

Backstage at the Tin in September, shot by Gina.

I don’t own a blog to be fast. I’ve been there and done that, babe. I used to post 140-character bulletins four times an hour long before Twitter was a glimmer in Ev’s eye.

In fact, I started doing it eleven years ago today.

Where?

Here, on Crushing Krisis – Philadelphia’s longest running blog.

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2nd – Accomplishment

This is the first blog year where I have felt entirely like an adult for the duration.

It didn’t really have much to do with my impending 30th birthday, or even with E and I owning a house. It was more that many years of work and planning and practicing and acquiring are finally paying dividends in the present.

Dressed as Empire Records for Halloween, shot by our friend Tina.

A year ago today the biggest news was that we lived in a house, but it was eclipsed by the even bigger OMFG fact that I had been blogging for a whole decade.

This year the biggest news is smaller, subtler, yet it was the news that eclipsed CK, rather than the other way around.

I was published by our local CBS affiliate, and the bands I covered saw trickle-down articles as a result. Arcati Crisis added a drummer, and later a bassist, while I became the full-time bassist for Filmstar. I wrote songs for the soundtrack of a novel, and later played the book release party. I wrote an entire novel of my own in one month.

I listened to 200+ LPs released in 2010 so I could finally pen a fully-informed Best Albums of the Year list. I played a sold-out show supporting a musician who I adore. I swore on this very blog that I would earn my learner’s permit and then learned to drive. I got really serious about fitness and going to the gym(!), especially when it involved yoga, and am presently in the best shape of my life. I gigged in all but one month of the year, and had fewer and fewer complaints about my performances.

I was in two wedding parties, but the stupidest thing I wound up doing didn’t even involve me being drunk or at a bachelor party (or both). I finally, belatedly got my license. My blog quite unintentionally turned a profit on a feature I was writing for my own OCD entertainment. I finally implemented the EdCal I’ve been drafting for two years. I engineered a day of drum recording to break ground on my first ever multi-track full-band project.

Me looking snazzy and E in her wedding dress at Dorian’s Parlor, as shot by Gina Martino.

The beauty of those accomplishments is that their entire lineage is contained within this blog. We can trace my 2011 accomplishments back to their 2001 roots – writing CD reviews for our school paper, sleeping through production class, playing open mics while staring down my ex-girlfriend, making and keeping friends (that were later in our wedding), and flexing my OCD muscle on special projects.

The story of a year isn’t told only through its accomplishments. I did things for fun, too. I confessed my obsession with mopping. I summed up my life as a video game and then, ironically, turned Gina’s life into one. I made E tie me to a chair so I could work out plot points for my book. I fell in love with a weird-ass David Bowie vampire flick. I professed my love for unadulterated pop again and again and again. I taught Gina a guitar solo by singing like a Skeksi. I had a near-death experience involving lime popcorn.

I went to a nearly-nude live dancing girls club for the first time. I compared driving to a superhero learning to fly. I undertook a DIY landscaping project with E, against my better judgement. I started incorporating my comic fandom into the blog. I became a full-time older brother for two whole months, and loved it. I opined on the pitfalls of rock band sweat. I explained how I stay organized as a musician.

All that in a year in which I was pretty certain that I didn’t blog enough.

Being suave at Ross & Laura’s wedding in April, shot by Melon.

Whether I was a good blogger or not, I didn’t mention everything significant that happened to me. Not my hours of constant bass playing to get up to snuff for Filmstar, and subsequently buying not one but two more basses. Not finishing Version 1.0 of my song database, including programming a word cloud from scratch. Not my hard-won camaraderie with local musicians I adore. Not our first true Arcati Crisis rock show. Not finally feeling comfortable hanging out with our friends that have babies. Not our epic drive back from Jake’s wedding in Gettysburg and how I love having him as a weekly presence in my life. Not my first producer-for-hire session in my home studio.

Except, really those things live here too, because I tweet my thoughts all the time, and I archive my tweets at CK. Call it a concession to that omnipresent internal OCD Godzilla.

I simply cannot write words down without knowing they are going to be archived somewhere for posterity.

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Perpetrating utter madness at Gina’s bachelorette party in July, shot by Gudrun.

3rd – Gratitude

Eleven years ago today if I had told you – or, anyone, really – that I authored a blog, the reaction would likely be “a what?”

Last Friday I sat in the audience of an awards show thrown by a blog that gave awards to blogs, and whose audience was largely bloggers – or, at least, blog readers who also tweet.

On Tuesday we had an earthquake. In Philadelphia. Or, at least, I thought we did. A minute later I knew it wasn’t my imagination. Two minutes later I also knew they felt the quake in Arlington, Syracuse, and Toronto.

We are past the point of debating the purpose of a blog, or of Twitter. They’ve become so ubiquitous that their presence is assumed as a matter of course. Whether you’re working on a new corporate sitemap or a band page, you’ll hear the same pair of questions: Where’s the blog? Where’s the “Follow Us” link?

Last Friday @ The Geek Awards, shot by E.

No matter how much work I do to answer those questions in professional and personal settings all week long, when it comes to asking myself there’s never any doubt. Social networking has become more than a passtime or habit for me – it’s ritual, almost unconscious. Even when it’s hard work it’s as easy to do as breathing.

Thank you for making a conscious decision to be a part of my ritual, today and any other day you have read CK. Maybe you visit the site, or have me in an RSS feed, or clicked through from Twitter, or read via Facebook note.

I don’t really care how you got here. I care that somehow, against every possible odd and all of my procrastinating tendencies, Crushing Krisis sits in the first page of search rankings for “Longest Running Blog” … even if that’s only true in my fine disaster-plagued city of brotherly love.

Thank you for being a part of this marvelous thing that has tracked my progress to living the exact fantasy I pictured back in 2000, only as a way better singer and with a way hotter wife.

Thank you as a member of two actively gigging rock bands and as a solo artist.

Thank you as the holder of a brand new PA Driver’s License.

Thank you from a body that I feel comfortable inside of for the first time in thirty years of life.

Thank you times eleven years, or 4017 days, or exactly 1.182 million words, or to whatever numerical value you would personally ascribe to being happy and fulfilled 24 hours a day, seven days a week – and merrily blogging and tweeting all the while.

Thank you, and happy birthday to this.

10 posts from Year 11 on my 11th Anniversary

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This fine digital establishment will celebrate it’s eleventh birthday in three short hours, accompanied by the typical Inception-level-introspection of one of my anniversary posts. (If you have never read last year’s anniversary post, it is surely my favorite CK writing of all time.)

Before we get there, here are the ten posts I most adore from the past year – and why I adore them.

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As shot by E for the post "Bondage Is Progress"

10. Bondage is Progress

I hurried down our street, rereading what I had written on my laptop, only twice stumbling off of the sidewalk and into hedges. I unlocked our front door, flung it open, and announced to E:

Honey, I need to you to tie me to a folding chair and take pictures of it!

Why? Adding the writing of a novel to the already circus-like conditions of my life yielded some interesting results. What other project could possibly lead to me demanding photos of myself tied to a chair in the middle of a room covered with plastic drop sheets? And, would I ever think to ask for them to begin with if not for CK? I guess I could just leave pictures scattered around Philly, but without the context of the post I really do look like I’m about to become a murder victim.

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9. Music Monday: Arcati Crisis, Live @ Tin Angel

[Visit the post for a video playlist of our gig at the Tin Angel last September.]

Why? I didn’t make such a big deal about it at the time, but in retrospect this was a big watershed moment for Arcati Crisis. Not only did we stop beating ourselves (and each other) up about mistakes at gigs, but it was like a graduation ceremony from being an acoustic band before we delved into making drums a permanent fixture in our sound.

Also, we look and sound amazing in the videos in this post; the debut version of “Dumbest Thing I Could Do” is hot. (I discuss it further in another post.)

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8. Baby I Can Drive Your Car

(“Just think,” Nan pointed out with glee, “if we weren’t in [the Nan-Tank] that wall of water we just kicked up would have swallowed your entire car!”)

(I can neither confirm nor deny if that was followed by a subtle “yee-haw!”)

Why? @amanda_nan has a way of making everything we do seem blog-worthy, whether it’s getting lost in the middle of Manhattan or having a Harry Potter movie marathon. Usually I restrain myself, but here I swung from comparing my life to a comic book video game to trying to park the massive Nan-Mobile in blinding rain while all of our friends were drunk at home. Everything is a homina homina adventure with Nan.

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My 2011 Twitter profile pic, of my get-up for Ross's bachelor party.

7. Joining the Boys Club

You know, I can’t not be polite and chat for a minute if someone is nuzzling me with her breasts, and then I feel bad for taking up her time, and then I am obligated to fold dollar bills and slip them into improbably small straps holding together even more improbably small garments.

Why? This was a major milestone for me. Not because I learned firsthand about the clammy skin of a post-pole-dancing stripper, but because I did something that would typically make me uncomfortable and self-conscious and still found the fun in it.

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6. 2010 Recommended Albums Roundup

1. Sara Bareilles – Kaleidoscope Heart. A gleeful, big-voiced, piano-pop record not unlike what I expected from Kelly Clarkson fresh off of Idol.

2. The Black Keys – Brothers. Turns basic two-man blues stomp into a sonic wet cement that will fill up your ears and harden to stone, never to exit.

Why? In the past year I finally got accustomed to using CK in the way it has always meant to be used – as a vehicle for my intense crush on something in the world around me. Sometimes that can say a lot more about what’s happening in my life than yet more introspection.

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5. You Sound Like a Vulture (an Arcati Crisis adventure)

“Yeah, but if you keep the two that worked, and descend…” I started imitating her guitar with my voice, wailing a solo. “raw wah, whear wheh wah, rah weh wah,” I paused for a breath between phrases, “and then a lower ascending line.” I climbed back up the scale, “until it resolves!” I shouted, wheezing and wailing until I reached a bent note at the top.

I finished my performance and looked at Gina expectantly.

Why? 2011 has introduced a whole new level of insanity to Arcati Crisis as Gina and I try to figure out how exactly one manages to be a local indie rock star. We could launch a highly entertaining vodcast containing nothing but our inane between-songs banter without including a single frame of us actually playing, as exemplified by this post.

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4. & 3. We’ve Hit Claydirt & Where Dirt Means Dirt

So, when E proposed a plan for regrading our front lawn that began with, “find some free fill dirt from Craigslist,” I just nodded. I mean, first, she’s always right, but also, it’s not like we are going to break the front lawn, right?

I mean, the dirt is just dirt, but the offer must have something to do with drugs. He said he needed to fill in his yard before he put in an above ground pool, but “fill in the yard” probably meant “bury the evidence” and “above ground pool” was probably code for “massive bong.”

Why? Sometimes I try to write posts that are funny. That usually fails. Other times E and I are living a life so ridiculous that the funny just writes itself. Also, apparently I say “I mean” a lot.

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My first drive, shot by E for the post "The End is Nigh."

2. End With Me

This tune has a slew of references to the book, including some specific lines. The recording has plenty of rough edges, but it sounds right, and I’ll take rough and right over mannered and plasticine any day of the week.

(Okay, not really, but let’s just think that for the purposes of this post.)

Why? A connection with a co-worker over Twitter results in me audio-stalking a local author I barely know by writing songs for the soundtrack of his self-published novel and posting videos to my blog, one of which is by all accounts one of the best songs I’ve ever written.

No, there’s nothing strange about that. That happens on every blog.

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1. How I Got My License, or parallel parking is the mind-killer

You know how on Friends Phoebe doesn’t know the names of any guitar chords, instead calling them things like “bear claw” and “old lady”?

That’s exactly how I know how to park.

Why? Even as I was in the moment of having a panic attack while in line for my driving test I was composing this post in my head. The fact that I wound up volunteering to perform a Philly bump on the test and then illustrating the post with Burt Reynolds makes it all the more memorable.

How I Got My License AKA parallel parking is the mind-killer

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I am now a licensed driver.

I couldn't find a picture to appropriately illustrate a "Philly Bump," so for the purposes of this story we'll just have to pretend that this is a traffic cone JUST AFTER being Philly bumped.

I don’t know how to make this post any funnier than that. My wife, Gina, Erika, and all of my co-workers have already received their entire quota of comedy content for a single post.

I suppose I should put in a little more effort for the benefit of everyone who hasn’t spent more than 40 hours a week with me at some point in their lives.

For someone so obsessed with adult things like having a budget and a house and a two-digit amount of two-piece suits, my inability to drive labeled me as an eternal adolescent. I need a chaperone to go anywhere. In every meeting or social event I am someone’s little brother. And not even a useful little brother who is under 21 so can always be the DD.

Thus, time for a license.

The driving test itself was much easier than I had anticipated. I had been studying for it as if it was an GRE-caliber of challenge instead of a drive around the block. E has been grading me on every stop and turn for the past six months. I parked for over six hours in the weeks leading up to the test – just parked and reparked, over and over again in front of our house (which has lead to the neighbors asking E some interesting questions).

While the grading might have been overboard, the over-parking –> was strictly necessary, as my sense of spacial relations is… let’s say, “vestigial.”

More accurately, when the car is backing up I don’t seem to think there is any relation between where the back of the car is pointed and what I do with the wheel. So parallel parking is really exciting, like one of those carnival rides where the teacup can turn in any direction at any second.

You know how in the teacup there's the little center wheel, and everyone in the teacup futilely attempts to steer it against the gravitational forces at play, ultimately spinning directionless for the entire two minute duration of the ride? That's what parking is like for me.

To her eternal credit, E really tried to explain it. She tried to teach me tricks of the trade. She tried to explain the actual geometry of the car.

It was all for naught.

Instead, I taught myself to parallel park the same way I taught myself to play guitar and program in PHP, two other things that I understand logically in hindsight only now that I’ve been doing them both for over a decade.

The method? Mindless repetition until I have made up my own special Peter’s Guide To Parallel Parking that has no bearing whatsoever on the actual parallel parking process. You know how on Friends Phoebe doesn’t know the names of any guitar chords, instead calling them things like “bear claw” and “old lady”?

That’s exactly how I know how to park.

It starts with me repeating, “slow, deliberate, and strategic” over and over, which is like my parallel parking equivalent of reciting “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer,” until the parking has gone and only I remain.

Then there are a series of arcane calculations about wheel turns and the relative size of the curb in my rear view mirror. Then I park again. And again. We’re talking hours of nothing but parking.

Did I mention how incredibly patient my wife is?

I was reciting my parking mantra carefully under my breath on Saturday morning as my tester approached the vehicle, pausing only long enough to learn his name. Burt. Like Burt and Ernie. But probably don’t point that out to him.

Also not my test-taker. Actually, he was a lot more reminscent of the Muppet.

I managed not to break any traffic laws in the actual DMV parking lot (which I had been doing with great aplomb prior to the start of the test) and then we were at THE SPOT.

People had told me really encouraging things about how the parking spot would be big. Quite large. Rotund. They were fucking liars. The spot was tiny. I saw at least two people ahead of us in line fail just on the parallel parking. I was a little concerned it wasn’t even as long as our car.

When we reached the spot I went into my parallel parking Rain Man routine hardcore, hoping that Burt would be more afraid for his life from my behavior than from my actual backwards navigation abilities. He carefully instructed me that I had three “reverses of the vehicle” and then maybe retreated as far to the passenger side window as possible.

I restarted the mantra.

And then I parked perfectly in one move.

Just for fun I asked Burt if I should use a second move to give the orange cones a “Philly bump.”

He declined.

Where Dirt Means Dirt

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I don’t know if this is a universal experience in Philadelphia, but I spent my whole life up to this point living no more than two doors down from a drug dealer.

Visit Philly! Score some drugs!

No, seriously.

I don’t know if it was something about my choice in row homes or just something about Philadelphia, but there has been evidence of illegal narcotics distribution within a few hundred feet of my door in every place I’ve lived. Southwest, University City, West, South.

Mind you, if you are a drug dealer, or a drug addict – or, hey, even a drug mule! – I am not passing judgment on you. I can’t afford to alienate that (potentially wide) swath of blog readers. But, more to the point, what you do inside your house is totally cool. Me, I have my wife tie me to a chair in a room covered in plastic sheets, so you guys can just keep on keeping on. I’m just saying, it’s not like I’ve always lived within two doors of a police officer, or a gymnast. There’s simply something special about drug dealers.

This is maybe why I maintain a blanket approach of wary kindness to neighbors. I want to know their name in case I have to borrow a cup of sugar or talk to the cops about them, but I typically don’t want to go over for dinner or anything. I mean, you heard about the neighbor who offered teenaged me some crack to smoke, right?

When a neighbor stopped by our house to offer to cart away some of our dirt, perhaps you can understand why I immediately assumed it was code. I mean, the dirt is just dirt, but the offer must have something to do with drugs. He said he needed to fill in his yard before he put in an above ground pool, but “fill in the yard” probably meant “bury the evidence” and “above ground pool” was probably code for “massive bong.”

Right?

In this case, said neighbor showed up with an actual wheelbarrow to transport the literal dirt. I wanted to ask, “are you a drug farmer?,” because who else just shows up at your house with a wheelbarrow? Who even owns a wheelbarrow? Farmers, that’s who.

My neighbor was not a drug dealer, a drug farmer, or a non-drug farmer. He was a friendly guy who wants to put an above-ground pool in for his hilarious five-year-old daughter, who helped us shovel and then volunteered to plant flowers for E.

I realize I’ve now unwittingly befriended everyone within a two-house radius of our new house, and so far none of them have tried to sell us drugs. Which makes me wonder: is this real life?

(Although, to be fair, said neighbor did tell us about a grisly triple-murder that happened just down the block … but I have to think that’s way more common in Philly than even friendly neighborhood drug dealers.)

Next the world is going to try to convince me that if I leave our car unlocked no one is going to come by to pee in it.

It’s not going to work! I know that unlocked cars are the world’s urinal.

Joining the Boys’ Club

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I have never been “one of the guys.”

Except for live-nearly-nude-dancing-girls, apparently.

I don’t do a lot of typical dude things, like ogle women or watch sports. Most of my friends are women. Even in my dim memories of kindergarten, I surrounded myself with girls.

That’s not to say I don’t have any close male friends. We just don’t do dude stuff together, like … uh, I’m out gender stereotypes already. This is how little I am connected to my dudeness.

That said, I have found myself in the groom’s party of one of my longtime male BFFs and – unlike my wedding party – this one is a single sex affair. A fest of sausage, if you will. Which means not only am I in for some guy-on-guy quality time, but I was in for a bachelor party.

Prepared as I might be to drink other men under the table while watching sports (seriously, just try me), inherent in the looming bachelor party was a looming visit to a strip club.

I dreaded the concept. The only time I was nearly convinced to attend a strip club with friends I wound up having dry heaves before I could even get in a cab. I’m too little of a stereotypical dude and too much of a feminist. Paying to objectify strange, naked women is really low on my list of things that sound fun.

(To wit: my own bachelor party was a co-ed 80s prom entitled “Like a Virgin.”)

I can't deny it - I honestly did resemble him a bit on Friday. You know, with the unbearable hotness of me.

Yet, at a strip club is where I found myself on Friday night. Well, they had tops and bottoms on, so I guess it wasn’t a strip club. A pole dancing joint? Is that more accurate?

Hilariously, I turned out to be a live-nearly-nude-dancer magnet. E thinks it’s because I looked like Bradley Cooper in the episide of Alias where he pretends to be an Australian rock star.

She was probably right.

And, folks, point numero uno everyone failed to tell me about strip clubs? You might have to be careful how you touch the women, but they do not have any hesitations about how they touch you.

Yeah.

You know, I can’t not be polite and chat for a minute if someone is nuzzling me with her breasts, and then I feel bad for taking up her time, and then I am obligated to fold dollar bills and slip them into improbably small straps holding together even more improbably small garments.

The whole thing is ooky and disgusting slippery slope (not unlike a stripper pole … HEY-OH!)

After the first hour I was tipsy and having fun with the guys and alternatingly glowering at my cell phone in an attempt to ward off further elbow-molesting bosoms, having driven off the last woman by going on at great length about how my beautiful wife helps me select all of my fashion after she complimented my scarf.

I can't even contemplate the coordination it would take for me to be able to do this. I'm still working on mastering tree pose.

I felt another pair of breasts at my elbow (seriously, my elbow = SO POPULAR), and turned for my casual brushoff. This woman’s opening gambit was to ask me what I did for a living. When I said, “communications – marketing, really,” she exclaimed, “That’s my major! Well, really I’m journalism.” Which, as we know, I was too.

That’s when I started to have a little fun at the strip club. At first it was a room full of strange women, none of whom where even vaguely as attractive as my wife. As aerobic as their gyrations were, it didn’t feel much different than watching a class at a gym.

Then I actually took the time to meet one of the women – a perfectly sweet Italian girl – and give her advice on how database classes are going to help her if she ever has to do any direct marketing. And then I met another woman who was a fitness instructor and collected comic books.

You know what, I didn’t mind watching them dance. They were real people with great legs. And we kept chatting after they danced.

(Of course, there was still the inherent weirdness of having to tip a girl to have the sort of conversation I’d have at a networking night at a bar…)

Does this story have a moral?

I am one of the guys, even if I’m not a stereotypical guy. I can drink and carouse and have fun without being a chauvinist, so I need to get over my fear of “The Boys Club.”

Also, I was reminded of something important: attraction is context. My wife is more attractive than any stripper not only because she is smokin’ hot, but because she’s my mega-talented best friend. Similarly, I think my friends’ wives and girlfriends are beautiful. Why? I know them. They are not random pretty faces on the street – they are dynamic people with a myriad of skills and interests.

So are the women in a strip club – but you don’t really get the chance to hear about that (unless you keep tipping them). I guess most men are fine with that, but my not being fine with it doesn’t mean I am not a man, guy, dude, or boy.

Next up? I hear it’s traditional for us to kidnap the bride at the wedding and barter in liquor with the groom for her return.

That, I think I can handle.