...and Sometimes, The Horns Get YOU.

In a somewhat ironic twist given my last entry's Breakfast Club reference, I discovered today that long-time character actor Paul Gleason died of a rare form of lung cancer Saturday. You may remember Gleason as Principal Vernon from said movie.


By all accounts, Gleason was a Salt of the Earth kinda guy, which makes the asshole characters he always played even more memorable in retrospect. When your other most famous role ends with people cheering and laughing as you're anally raped by a gorilla, you know you've done a great job creating that prick bastard people love to see get fucked over at the end of the movie.

So if you want the Final Summation of the "real" Paul Gleason, read the obit. Me, I'd rather remember him as Vernon, the man who emblazoned on my impressionable high school nerd memory banks the fact that when one messes with the bull, one may indeed receive the horns. And yes, I did live in perpetual fear that the next time my own high school principal came into the room, he too would be cracking skulls. Cracking skulls, indeed, my friends, cracking skulls.


Vernon: Questions?
Bender: Yeah, I've got a question. Does Barry Manilow know that you raid his wardrobe?
Vernon: I'll give you the answer to that question, Mr.Bender, next Saturday. Dont mess with the bull young man, you'll get the horns.
Bender: That man is a brownie-hound.

Just Another Thursday

If you work for yourself, you know there's a discipline to managing your off-time. Look at what you do in the times you're not in front of clients, and that's who you really want to be. I'm in the technology industry, so a focused, forward-thinking person such as myself ideally is always learning some new technology.

Yeah, that's nice in theory. When my ass falls asleep from sitting in my chair, though, I know it's time to make sure Nomad does not become that Dull Boy.


So on this Just Another Thursday, I seek nature. Quiet, I figure. Little hike in the woods. Though I live in a metropolitan Midwest city that's high on the list of the Fattest In America, fabled state parks are just a 40-minute drive away. Elvis Costello's classic My Aim is True and Paul Simon's new Surprise CD's in tow, we're off.

Let's just say that there's nothing like the Reality of Nature to make the Idea of Nature barf. Grandiose visions of a 2-hour jaunt evaporated quickly as the hilly terrain reminded me how much I was not 22 years old anymore. I let my heart rate calm a bit, rationalized that was "good enough for the first hike of the year," and headed back toward home.

Still starry-eyed enough with the bucolic rural setting, I decided to cruise through a small town on the way back, where my downfall awaited: Bar trivia.

Maybe you're familiar with this game, if you've been in, oh I don't know, damn near any fucking bar in the country. You get this little game terminal where you put in a 6-letter screen name (Me, the drunken Irishman, usually I'm glossed as "Oyoyoy." Ask any Mick, it's a hooligan thing). Then there's a 15-question game, which usually consists of questions with 4 multiple choice answers, and as a clock ticks down your possible points for that question, choices are eliminated until it's pretty obvious what the right answer is. You can always get some points, unless you just plain don't answer (0) or you're too sloshed on Bud Light to change your answer by the time the right one comes up (-250). Keep this in mind.

So I'm in Redneckville that's just big enough to have a BW3, which I prefer in small towns because they have something on tap besides Bud and Coors ("If I can see through it, I ain't drinkin' it," like I've told countless bartenders through the years). I order up a Guinness-- in the pint glass, you moron, not that 22-ounce Pilsener travesty-- grab a game terminal, and...

...And no one else is playing. OK, to be fair it's 3:00 in the afternoon on a Thursday. Most of the people who would provide fair competition for me are probably smart enough to be holding down day jobs right now. So I hang around a while, post a decent score, and wait. About 1-1/2 Guinesses later, another game starts and "Rayv" joins the game. Through 7 questions, I am doubling his score.

Now there's not that many other people in the place. I look around during a break, and "Rayv" is a 12-year old kid with Coke-bottle glasses and a better than average bet to end up as "Most Likely to Harbor a Grudge About Getting His Ass Kicked by Knuckle-Dragging Classmates for 4 Years" once he got to high school.

Naturally my initial inclination is to turn up the heat, kick his ass, teach him that life's not soft, there's hard knocks, it's a rite of passage to beat your Dad at basketball, all that shit.

So of course that's exactly what I do. It's like Paul Newman said in Color of Money:

"That's the problem with mercy, kid. It just ain't professional."

Hey, you want to play in the Big Man's game, it's gonna take time. What would he have ever learned if I let him win? It would be like playing in Little League now, like my son did, where everyone gets a fucking trophy. Just for showing up. The kid who has superstar written all over him, who moves like an athlete (You know the kinda kid I'm talking about, if you've ever coached), he gets the same trophy little Horace with the One Good Arm who all he does in the dugout is try to keep the coaches from seeing his buddy snuck him in some nacho cheese without the nachos which he's now drinking out of a 16-ounce mug (Don't laugh, it actually happened. I made him drink all of it before he went out to left field the next half inning).
Anyway, the trophy thing is a huge load of crap and indicative of a society where we say we value diversity, but we manage to go out of our way to make everyone feel equal even when that's not true, and it rarely ever is. That's a column for another day, though.

I hang around, two more people jump in the game, and just to make it interesting I decide I'm just going to go with my first answer, so I'll either get 1000 points for getting it right before any time ticks off, or I'll get -250 for being wrong. Three questions later, after correctly knowing what singer sang the song the Stones took their name from (Muddy Waters), who fought at the Battle of the Nile in 1798 (Lord Nelson), and which Blake Edwards movie didn't feature his wife Julie Andrews (Mickey & Maude), I was home free, rednecks splayed out behind, gasping for air.

At this point, I am satisfied with my conquest but not drunk enough yet to get up on the table and proclaim "I kicked all your sorry FUCKING asses!" (Which I did do at a different BW3 in Pittsburgh in 2004, and I had been drinking for approximately 6 hours without eating and my Browns had just lost to the Steelers, and yes, I was asked to leave). I figured, pack it in, head home.

Then, as I'm getting up from the barstool, I see 3 more people join the game. It's like the gauntlet's been thrown. Now I'm wishing Sidekick were here, because if things get out of hand, it's not like either one of us would probably be able to drive, but he's a thick dude and does actual physical work and can back down most people just by his appearance. I told Sidekick once he physically resembled Cleveland Indians' slugger Travis Hafner, which I thought was a compliment but he didn't seem to think so. To placate him, I revealed to him that I'm often compared to the Breakfast Club-era Judd Nelson, not only physically but because I am a smart ass, and for all my brave talk, ultimately quite the pussy about fighting. (Which makes my table-top outburst from Pittsburgh all the more amazing to me as I look back on it)

OK, I've done this before. I can stay in control, just slow down on the GPH rate (Guinness Per Hour) and be f-o-c-u-s-e-d. No problem.

This one turns into a real tussle, though. Midway through, I'm down about 1500 points. Finally I figure out that a bald dude with a broken arm at the other end of the bar is the one who's winning. I hate him already.

Fate intervenes, though. His wife and kid come to retrieve him. Cute daughter, about 8, plops down on the barstool next to him, I picture her saying "Mommy says you're going to come home this time, Daddy. Please let it be true." Without really hearing what's being said, though, I see the conversation get more animated. She's really trying to make him go home!

Finally he gets so wired, he just plain doesn't answer 2 questions in a row. I catch up. There's a break in the game, he seemingly recovers. Broken Arm Guy's wife gets a soda and flounces down disgustedly in the stool next to him, stroking the daughter's hair to pacify her. I can imagine this scene has been played out two or three hundred times before.

After that, he's so rattled I jump ahead and stay there, and win. He almost throws the game terminal back to the bartender but remembers just in time he doesn't want to get thrown out and stalks out. I swear his wife was trying to stifle a smile. I figure I should get going before there's a tabletop incident, so I take off.


This would just be a normal story of my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder surrounding Bar Trivia and a tragic tale of my lack of self-esteem tied up in said OCD, except for one thing. On the way home, I stop for gas, and I see a gun store across the street. Usually my reaction to this event would be "There's a gun store, I am going the other way."

Today though for some reason I decide I should own a gun. Home defense? Clint Eastwood movie playing as I fell asleep last night? I don't know. So I finish gassing up, go park next to a low-rider Caddy with two bruthas in the back waiting for one of their peeps to score a firearm inside. Emboldened by liquor, I go in.

And immediately realize I am way out of my league. Shotguns with telescopic sights and probably GPS units for $1300. Glocks for $800. When I'm drunk, I'll safely spend up to about $200 that I don't have. Not $800 though. I'm trying to make sure I hit the Exit door before a salesperson either asks if he can help me or takes a potshot at me (Maybe they do that in gun stores, just to see who's awake, I don't know). And who do I see coming in as I'm leaving...?

Broken Arm guy from the bar.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that you can't go the wrong way down a one-way street to get to the highway and get away with it. It can be done when you're motivated.

Absurdities of Online Dating

Good day. I am the Irish Nomad, and today we are going to show you why so many women fail at online dating.

By way of background, you should know that the Nomad does not shock easily. Chris Daughtry tossed off American Idol? Not a blip on the Nomad radar. Spurs out in 7 games? Saw it coming. However, Nomad's Girlfriend dropped a potentially earth-shaking little fact out the other day, as I accompanied her on a hunting trip for new footwear before starting her new downtown job:
Women actually care what other women wear to work. They even talk to each other about it. Compliment each other. Sneer behind the backs of the fashion-impaired.

We don't care about this. Never has Nomad in all his work life pulled a buddy aside and whispered conspiratorially about the appropriateness of, say, another man's neckwear.
"Hey, didja get a load of Nestor's tie? Who told him to wear a Garcia with a plaid shirt?"

However, nowhere does the clash of Mars vs. Venus rear its head more strikingly than in the world of online dating. As a public service today, I would like to tell women why they fail at online dating. Most of this will seem like common sense, though sadly it is not. These are The Rules. Violate one and you may yet succeed. Violate more than one, and... Well, cozy up to cable, 'cuz you're gonna be watchin' a lot of Saturday Night Live. Alone.

Rule 1: Put A Good--- No, A Great-- Photo Out There (Because We Don't Read Your Profile)
OK, that's only partially true. We don't read your profile until after we're interested from the picture. And even then we still don't care what the last Barbara Taylor Bradford novel was that you read that got you all dreamy-eyed and moist. Seriously, we don't.


OK, that is your casino players' club card. You put more effort into blocking out your personal information than you did with the photo. While I appreciate a woman who's willing to gamble, there aren't enough free drinks in the house to make this one happen.

Now this I appreciate on a certain level. She's got brass ones just for putting this out there, and there's part of me that digs that dangerous vibe. The last thing I need at this stage of my life though is to be sitting at a Waffle House at 3:00 AM trying to figure out how to cobble together somebody's bail money. Ultimately, no, but points for... uh... not trying..?

This one I protected the innocent because she's pretty damn cute, but violated Rule 2:

Rule 2: No Other Guys In Your Pictures
Not your cousin, your brother who Bravely Triumphed Over Palsy, your dad, the guy you met "during that summer internship, and besides we only fucked that one time." Not even if you crop his face out, no no no. If we can see him and know he exists, we don't like him.
We are insecure, get used to that, because we are. It's why David Bowie (the Actor) stuffed his crotch. One giggle from you at our equipment can destroy us for a lifetime. So if we're going to make a crusade of pursuing you, don't insert competition before the game even starts. Even Hannibal crossing the Alps only had to deal with war elephants and Rome, there wasn't some other fucker there constantly chirping in his ear about how he fucked Carthage first, and what great BJ's Carthage gives. (Sorry, I was a liberal arts major, I gotta use that shit somewhere.)

Rule 3: If You Must Put Other Guys in your Pictures...
At least explain who they are. We assume the worst, that it was the boyfriend who was really good to you but you broke up because he had to enroll in the Peace Corps and you're pining away with fresh produce or a vibrator waiting for his return.
Go ahead and lie about who it is, even. We want to believe you, because we want to sleep with you. There's only one pussy between us, and if you go home that number drops to 0, get it?

Rule 4: Take It Easy on the Pets
I have a dog, I love her. Even Girlfriend loves her, outside of the dog's shedding. However, at no time did I ever in any profile post a picture of my dog. Girlfriend tells me that guys like pictures with their cars, motorcycles, etc. (This is understandable, but guys, stop it, really. We all know you're compensating for your... ahem... shortcomings...)
Women and animals, the attachment is different, perhaps because they share the burden of long years of male oppression. In any case, one picture of your pet? Lovely. We get it, you're sensitive, you value life and all its creatures and pets are healers and blah blah blah......
Enough already. Limit it to one picture. And not this one:

...because while I'm as big a fan as anyone of humiliating Mister Whiskers on a regular basis, again, it's competition. We want to sleep with you, and ideally we'd like to hang around until the morning, but if ol' Birthday Hat there is going to be hanging out on the headboard, sneak-attack batting my head while I'm trying to have attention paid to the morning wood, it ain't gonna happen.
Well OK, it would still happen, but really, lose the cat. Honestly. Shut the fucking bedroom door. No, really.

Rule 5: My Personal Red Flag Phrases
(Some of this is just my own preference, other dudes might dig this. For every object, action, or event, there is a guy somewhere who fetishizes it. Case in point: Symphorphilia, the act of being turned on by natural disasters. Check out The Fetish List for more. And watch where you stand in the next thunderstorm)

"Good Christian man": Sometimes it means just what it says, but usually it means "I'm afraid of independent thinkers and would rather not be challenged about my religious beliefs." 90% of Americans actually fall into this category of religious sheep-dom anyway, so don't feel bad.

"I have 3 teenage kids and I consider myself a mother first": You lost me at "3 teenage kids." But the rest of the sentence sealed it up by telling me where I'd stand even if we did sleep together. ("No," he stammered over his coffee cup, trying to tap the hangover off his temple, "I am not your new Daddy.")

"No baggage": Bring a 12' Ryder truck to the date. They have baggage like Tom Cruise has crazy.

"My hobbies include dining out": Eating food is not a hobby unless you're a restaurant critic, then it's your job. The 3 billion people in the world who make it through life on $2 a day don't consider dining a hobby, they consider it a way to keep from slithering off the mortal surface of the planet. Masturbating is a hobby for 97% of all men (and the other 3% are liars) but it's not going on our resume. Be more interesting than someone we'll remember as "that chick who ate food."

"Gee, I don't really know what to write": Not that sentence. Not ever. Go ahead and write it, but then immediately delete it. At least let me believe you possess basic editing skills.

"You'll always know where you stand with me" sometimes restated as "I always speak my mind": This is a simple failure to have tact. It is no more an asset than the lack of self love which causes you to do this.

"My friends tell me I'm [fill in positive characteristic]": This is wrong because no one's friends do this. Girlfriend even got me to watch Sex and the City, and they don't even do it on that show. If I sat down with my friends and asked them to list my positive qualities, first they would ask why, I would tell them I was filling in an online dating profile, they would call me a loser, someone would have to buy shots, and that would become my positive quality: "My friends tell me I'm good at pounding free Jager."

"I've never been on one of these sites before": Right. And you learned to give blowjobs like that from reading "Dr. Phil's Great Big Guide to Oral Sex". Whatever.

[Ridiculous Exclusions]: This one would mystify me except that I'm American, and I know Americans solve problems by looking very narrowly at a crisis, determining which one thing caused that particular incident and then eliminating that one thing. I call it "This Will Never Happen Again... That Same Way" Syndrome.
(September 11, for example: Airline security obsessively examined to the exclusion of the root causes of terrorism. Discuss among yourselves).
So women, in an attempt to protect themselves with TWNHATSW Syndrome, invent these ridiculous "single feature" exclusions. My favorite is one I saw recently with a TWNHATWS exclusion against baseball hats. Not the idea behind baseball hats, that most of us get way too much self-esteem from the sports teams we associate ourselves with, which is true, but just.... baseball hats. Perhaps she was hurt by Wade Boggs once upon a time, we may never know.

Rule 6: Be honest
The picture should actually be of you.
The picture should have been taken sometime this decade.
It should have been taken after any life changes which caused the color or basic nature of your hair to change, your weight to fluctuate by more than 10 pounds up or down, or any applicable sex changes.

I gotta go. If I spend any more time looking at Personals for research, Girlfriend is going to think that the Wonderbra and its payload that she's pointing at me isn't working anymore.

But it is. Oh, it is.