When I was six, I got a ‘Stretch Armstrong’ doll after much begging and cajoling of the parental unit.

I think Santa had fucked up that year and given me a v-neck sweater, so I blubbered and stamped my feet until my folks, out of guilt or exhaustion, finally conceded and allowed me a rare off-season present. They even chauffeured me in the dilapidated station wagon to my childhood mecca, Toys ‘R Us.

In his glossy box at Toys R’ Us, Stretch Armstrong looked like the answer to all of my action-figure needs. In retrospect, his black bikini briefs, golden locks, muscular physique and malleable rubber body made him the paragon of Turkish-bath-loitering Chelsea queen, but at age 6, Stretch was the answer to the void in my soul.

My GI Joes were in bad shape. Their fuzzy little afros looked post-chemo and most of their Kung Fu grip fingers were missing, like maybe Duke had gambled away his digits in drunken bouts of five-finger fillet. Their phalanges had been reduced to curled and lonely index fingers. In short, Duke and his team of Joes looked like Nam vets working at saw mills.

Alas, no worries! NEW Stretch Armstrong– with his helmet of blonde coif and fresh smell of packaged polyurethane — was going to remedy the existential angst brought on by the demise of my dolls. At six inches and bullet-proof, Stretch would be the toy to end all toys.

Although I usually would try to milk my parents for all they were worth whenever we entered a Toys R’ Us, this time I only had eyes for Stretch. I bee-lined, breathless, to the shelf in the back middle of the store, grabbed him on tip-toes, and held him aloft like a conquering hero as my hand-me-down ‘Garanimal’ coduroys happily chafed away until my arrival at the register.

My periphery couldn’t distract me. I didn’t even ask my pushover mom for one of those bouncy “superballs” that I would normally want and then get home and throw against the wall, where it would immediately get lost behind a piece of heavy polyester furniture. Fuck that, I was on a mission.

I marched to the checkout line and my dad handed me a $20 bill so I could make the purchase all by myself. It was the first purchase I ever made and, more importantly, I think the single greatest moment of my life….

About three weeks later, that sucky piece of shit sprang a leak.

Thick jelly started oozing out from his armpits. It was red and viscous and it smelled like dead frogs.

When it first happened, I tried to delicately duct-tape the tears in the rubber, like some mini-MacGuyver. But the rips developed all over his body: his kneecaps, his groin, his shoulders. No matter how hard I tried, the end result looked like Stretch had been held hostage and beaten in the joints with a lead pipe. My Joes would watch in their perches, fingerless and silently smirking.

I continued to try, in vain, to make him do superhuman stretchy things, but he just wanted to lounge around and bleed through his Speedos. I eventually (and begrudgingly) put him in the bottom of an old wooden crate that would end up serving as a sarcophagus for the relics of many of my childhood disappointments.

When I think about some of the women that I fell for who ended up disappointing me, I experience almost the exact same blend of wistfulness and remorse with which I recall those childhood moments. Stretch Armstrong was no different. I actually think Stretch Armstrong was my first heartbreak. I don’t know what’s worse: the fact that my first heartbreak came when I was six, or that it came at the rubbery hands of a gay doll.

You never get your heart broken like you do when you’re a kid, but my most recent heartbreak feels pretty close. In some ways, it’s a similar story.

I fell in love hard with this woman. But somehow, within 7 months, she was quietly packing up her errant belongings in a matching suitcase set. We left our mutual memories in a few digital photos and a duct-taped box - one more sarcophagus for the relics of another adult disappointment.

I had met Adrienne last January 31st, 2009. Although we had corresponded for years, it was the first time I had laid eyes on her in person. She emerged from a yellow cab beautifully alabaster, six feet tall, in a black Valentino dress. She greeted me with soft brown eyes, beguiling lips, and impossibly long legs that looked like the answers to all my questions. Her raven coiffure and fresh female perfume were going to remedy the existential angst brought on by the demise of all my previous relationships. The first kiss that night was arguably one of the great moments of my life. It was supposed to be the kiss to end all kisses….

And then it sprang a leak.

My thirties seem to be zipping along.

It seems like I was 29 with “one more year of carefree living bro!” just days ago. I must be getting older because I watch the Jersey Shore with as much nostalgia as I do revulsion. When I hear Mike being mocked because he’s 27 and going after girls in their early 20’s, I find myself defending his whole ‘Situation.’

The problem with getting older isn’t the physiological slowing (that’s why God invented caffeine!), it’s the increasing awareness of the finiteness of things, people, and experiences.

That’s a fancy way of saying that I’m starting to freak about my parents dying.

Aaaaand I’m starting to think I need to marry a bitch so my mom can die with her Irish eyes smiling.

She’s “worried” about me. She’s worried that I will never meet a woman who is both willing and able to take care of me. Each year that passes she thinks that my chances are receding like my hairline. I’m the opposite; I think my chances are expanding like my waistline.

This is why she worries: both of my brothers are doctors. And they’re both married to doctors. I know it breaks her little heart when my father does the family introductions at holiday parties: “Hey, this is Dr. Dawes, Dr. Dawes, Dr. Dawes, Dr. Dawes, and… Bill.”

My dad finds that intro hilarious. My mom is different. I’m actually mixed, even though most people can’t tell. I’m half-white, half-trash. My dad is caucasian and my mom has a mullet. Don’t laugh, it frames her tooth well. I’m kidding of course. She has dentures.

Both of my parents are making a little bit more of an effort with our relationship now that they are convinced they’re gonna be dead soon. My mom even made the ‘this could be our final Christmas together as a family’ threat last month. (Irony alert: Oy vey).

My mom has gone so far as to apologize for the drinking she used to do. Recently, she confessed: “Billy, I have to tell you something: I drank through the entire pregnancy.”

In typical Southern fashion, she tried to make it seem okay when she added, “But don’t worry, it was alllll top shelf shit…. Bailey’s Irish cream, as a matter of fact.” Apparently, when her water broke it was 80 proof. Although I don’t remember my infancy (I mean, I was wasted, how could I?), I’m assuming her drinking mean I didn’t breastfeed. Or, if I DID breastfeed, it was probably with salt and lime. I’m too embarrassed to ask.

My mom wasn’t really a huge fan of church but went every Sunday JUST for the communion wine. My dad went to get salvation, my mom went to get sloshed on the blood of Christ. Or, as she called it, the ‘Christini.’

My dad has never been as fun or as Irish as my mother regarding church. He tended to take things a little more seriously. I grew up reading Christian comic books (the Adventures of Jesus Boy!), listening to Christian Rock (oxymoron alert), and worrying about the physical pain of perhaps going to hell. It’s a real place in his mind, replete with imps and dinosaurs and firey fire lapping up the flesh of naked sinners.

He was so afeared for my soul that my dad even sent me to JESUS camp. As much as I make fun of it, that camp is where I finally learned how to pray from the heart. I remember the first time I was overcome with emotion and got on my knees to pray: “Dear Jesus… please get me the fuck out of Jesus camp.”

My dad also thinks premarital sex and masturbation are sins. Sins that, if accrued too much, could result in my reservation in Hades. Because of this, my dad tried to cockblock me with religious imagery all over my bedroom walls growing up. While most kids had posters of metal bands and hot pinups on the wall, my walls had Bible verses and a poster of a little yellow duckling in high green grass that said, “Only the meek shall inherit the earth.” In retrospect, I was giving myself a daily reminder that “Hey Billy, be a pussy. It’ll suck in terms of your lifetime, but you’ll get a slice of Heaven out of the deal.”

He went so far as to put a plastic Jesus on the nightstand right by my bed. It was a bobble head, so most nights Jesus was very disappointed. Sometimes, 3 times a night….

My dad fit the three “R”’s that are destroying, I mean embodying, America today. He was religious, Republican and racist. I know, I know, those words are basically synonyms, but there it is. My dad went to weekly racist meetings every Sunday called ‘Church.’

Ironically, from the crucible of this upbringing, my first serious girlfriend in high school was black. Plus, I grew up in a very racist area… called the UNITED STATES.

For religious reasons, my dad didn’t think I should ‘COMMUNE’ with a black girl. I remember thinking, ‘But dad, isn’t The Bible black?… And wasn’t Eve black? I mean, she was made from a rib.”

My dad eventually came around and opened himself up to the idea that racism is bad. Or at least only acceptable within a small circle of good friends. I mean, I can’t hope for miracles, can I? My mom stopped drinking and turned her energies on being the emotional center of the family.

Truth be told, although my dad is a Republican and a homophobe and a racist and religious, he is probably the best human being I know. He is an inspiration and an amazing man. I don’t know exactly how that’s possible but it’s true. My mom was also an incredible mom who showered and showers me and my brothers with love and support. I kind of feel like I have the best parents ever, despite the things I wrote… which are like 87 percent true. I mean, they raised my two brilliant and amazing Doctor brothers… and Bill….

My parents are going to read this, but I am posting it anyway with two fervent hopes:

My parents have a very good sense of humor.
So does God.

I’m in my teeny dressing room right now, daydreaming about my hot female co-stars (I won’t mention names coughallofthemcough), thinking about the personal irony of playing “Val.”

See, I have a “recurring role” on “All My Children.”  For those of you who don’t know what a recurring role is — it’s a character who’s on the show sometimes, but isn’t really good looking enough to be on the show all the time.  I know I’m a good-looking guy (my mom told me so), but apparently producers and writers think there’s only so much of “me” an audience can look at week to week.

Being a recurring character is actually kind of a great gig for an actor.  Sure there’s less fame and money, but it frees up time for cool things like picking my nose, jerking off, and watching Batman reruns.  You know, Tuesdays.

It ironic because even though I have a crush on my female co-star, I play a homosexual on the soap.  In the soap world, apparently, I’m not that great looking AND I’m not that straight looking.

Even though I’m not gay, when they made me the offer, I took it.  I don’t mean “I took it!” — I wasn’t Robert DeNiro method acting the role — I mean I needed the money, so… crap, that doesn’t sound right either… you know what I mean….

I originated this role 10 years ago in New York.  One thing I learned about the crazy world of soap fans is that the people watching take these shows very seriously.  They think YOU are the character.  So much so that I would get hate mail — letters sent to my personal home address every week saying things like, “Young man, you are going to burn in the fires of eternal damnation unless you change your goddamn lifestyle!”

After a while, I decided to write back:

“Dear Dad, I’m just acting.  I know you wanted me to be an engineer… Why don’t you love me?”

…okay, so Dave Dawes never did, in fact, write me.  But he’s very much a Red-stater, though, and very much uncomfortable with anything involving ass banditry.  Truth be told, I did, in fact, get a couple of letters from folks who, shall we say, jumped off the high dive into the shallow end of the gene pool (read:  also Red-staters).

I’m looking at my clothes in the mirror wondering why gay guys have to wear such tight clothes?  It seems like some shirts only come in a size gay.  What’s the correlation between tight shirts and loose buttholes?

I hope my co-star still gets I’m straight.  I’m torn about random people thinking I’m gay.  On the one hand, when straight people think I’m gay, it annoys me.  (Does that mean I should stop rollerblading around in cutoff denim shorts and tank tops?  Really?)  On the flip side, when gay men think I’m straight, I also get self-conscious:  “Am I getting fat?”

Speaking of getting fat, I joined CRUNCH fitness recently, where everyone seems to be gay or gay-adjacent.  Even the guys working  the juice bar.  It makes me a tad paranoid.  “Hmmm…. I’m gonna watch you make that smoothie… What’s that?  No, no protein boost! NO PROTEIN BOOST!”

The other day, I was doing bicep curls and this handsome guy was staring at me.  In my 20’s, when gay men checked me out, I’d think “Do I look gay?  Am I giving off a gay vibe?  Am I latently gay?”  Now I’m in my 30’s and when gay guy look at me, I just think “I still got it!”   So, I went from furious to flattered in about four seconds.

To be honest, for the briefest of moments, his stare turned me a little gay.  Not permanently, but for a couple puckers of my butthole, I felt “Faaaaaaaabulous!”  I went from working my bi’s to turning bi.  I started jonesing for a whistle and disco ball, and before you know it, I was configuring window treatments in my head.

As I left the gym in my tank top, freshly swollen biceps, designer smoothie in hand, I caught eyes with a hot girl entering, who, in turn, completely ignored me.  I realized that I must have looked gayer than a vat of Kevin Spacey to her.  Maybe I shouldn’t have tied the bottom of my tank top into a knot.  Hmmmmm….

But herein lies the rub:  How do you take care of yourself and look good for women, without doing things that might make you look like women make you go ‘Ew!’:

Let’s face it — everything a man does to LOOK better is pretty much gay:

1. Expensive haircut (over $50) — kind of gay.
2. Going to the gym — getting to be gayer and gayer.
3. Going to the spa and tanning — pretty goddamned gay there, buddy.
4. Manicure/ Pedicure — Tom Cruise gay.
5. Getting eyebrows waxed — extra gay with a side of penis.
6. Getting chest waxed — extra gay with a side of penis with man gravy poured on top.
7. Shopping at Banana Republic - you are doing “the walrus” on Adam Lambert and Lance Bass and singing Broadway show tunes while you read this sentence.

Shopping at Banana Republic might be the epitome of this paradox.  Their cashmere blends are shnazzy and just expensive enough to make you feel like you actually have a positive net worth.  But, you can’t walk into the store without tripping over a cock!  Plus, those v-neck wearing workers there are just so damn nice, that it almost makes you wish you were gay!

I mean, you ask a gay guy at “The BR” for a particular pair of slacks and he starts running around the store like Lamar doing the javelin throw in Revenge of the Nerds:  “Oh my God!  I think we might have JUST run out!  What size are you?  We have a similar pant in a slate gray and another chino version but that’s pleated, and I’m sure you only do flat front, so let me run into the storeroom and check and see, but if we don’t have it here, I’ll call over to our nearest location to see if they have it.  Since you’ve been so patient here’s a Caramel Frappucino, and a coupon for 20 percent off your next penis — I mean purchase!  I’ll be right back!  Sit down while Hector gives you a back rub!”

So why should I be offended if I get cast gay sometimes?  I mean, gay guys always look happy (hence the origin of the “gay” moniker — true story); they always dress well; and they always, and inexplicably, have tons of money — even though they only work in retail or Human Resources!  You know why?  They’re not spending money on bitches!  Eat it, feminists!

I mean, has there ever been a poor pole smoker?  Maybe, but when’s the last time you saw a gay HOMELESS person?  Have you ever been walking down the street and seen a guy jiggling a cup and shouting, “Spare Cha-heyyyyyyyyyyyy-ange!”

To make matters worse, almost everything a man does to make a woman happy is considered “gay” by other men:  Snuggling, cuddling, spooning, or any derivation thereof;  watching TLC programming or any show that has the word “makeover” in the title;  shopping ANYWHERE; listening.

At this point, there’s not much left for straight people.  We’ve still got fantasy football and murder; I think those are mostly our gigs, still.  Oh yeah, also nose-picking and Batman reruns.

So here I am, in my dressing room at ‘ALL MY CHILDREN,’ about to go on tape as Val, Erica Kane’s loyal and longtime gay assistant.  I have a little lip gloss, some make-up, a nice Ellen Degeneris coif.  Plus, a v-neck cashmere-blend sweater from the Banana republic.  I look fab.  But, in my mind, I get to go to the Fusion office and flirt with the beautiful and charming Stephanie…

… and ACTION!  Time to snap off the light and go to set…. Well, not ‘snap!’ off the light…. ‘turn’ off the light… you know what I mean…

I will soon be met with the biggest challenge of any comic on the road:

I will try not to get laid.

Some of you will not get that or, worse still, think me douchey for saying it, but that’s the truest thing I can write about being on the road.   If you are on the road and seeing someone or attempting to see someone or have “standards” or waiting for the Penicillin to clear up that drip, there’s a very difficult and unsettling conundrum with which you have to wrestle.

I call it the “pilgrim’s paradox.”

On the one hand, the second you walk into a big, empty, lonely hotel room, you instinctively want to hump anything with a hole.

On the other hand, do you really want to jeopardize something good in your life and/or possibly deal with a slobbering drunk stranger and risk disease, or even worse, talking.

I don’t get presented with this all the time.  I mean, there are shows where almost everyone in the room hates my guts.  However, there are other shows where I’m convinced that if vaginas were detachable, I’d look like Bill Murray at the end of “Ghostbusters.”

Why is it so easy for male comics, a very subpar-looking bunch, to get laid?

First of all, in every comedy club —  for some obscure reason that no one has been adequately able to explain to me —  there exists a two-drink minimum.

“What?  You wanna laugh sober?!  Well then, I think it’s time for you to leave, ma’am….”

As a result of this arbitrary mandate, you get a lot of women who “don’t usually drink” ordering ginormous cocktails that they nonchalantly chug like cherry sodas because of the distracting sparklers, bamboo umbrellas, and teddy bears attached to them.  They think “yum, fruity!” and keep ordering, occasionally asserting (between languid draws on skinny straws) the following drunk girl mantra:   “Geez, I don’t feel a thing!”

After the third drink, they will stand up and experience a slightly re-matrixed configuration of gravity.  They will giggle and stumble and haphazardly hover over the seat when they pee.  By the middle of their fourth drink, they will realize they hate their boyfriend, who invariably just doesn’t “listen,” and they will want revenge.  And it turns out you made them chortle twice because something you said is just “soooooo fuckin’ true!”

They will then swiftly down their 4th to the dregs and that is when they approach you… a horny, intoxicated velociraptor, swirling a glass of ice cubes and bad intentions.

Mostly there is absolutely no temptation, as these stories from my 20’s will surely attest….

Story #1:

There was a girl in Chicago, a friend of a friend.  She kind of flirted with me before the show and she was actually kind of hot and fun.  And sober.

After the show, not so much.  She staggered up to me with a newly wandering eye, smiled, and grabbed the whole of my left butt cheek with velicoraptor claws.  This, of course, was in front of her 3 other friends, who laughed knowingly.

I was being treated like a piece of meat…. Finally!

I thought I’d love this reversal of gender roles, but, to be honest, my asshole puckered and my ears reddened.  I tried to laugh it off as if it was all just goofy horseplay, while deep down, my soul looked for ‘a happy place.’  Then she leaned into me, pinched my ass with tight finger forceps, and whispered with fiery breath, “I want to fuck you.”

Then she took a couple steps back and, with her good eye, winked at me.  That’s right, she winked.   In case I missed the subtle fragrance of innuendo she was wafting my way, she figured she’d remove all doubt and clear up that ambiguity with a wink.

“You want to fuck me?… Hmmm, meaning what?…. Oooooh, you’re winking… I get it!  Fuck, as in fuck fuck!  Ah-hah!  I thought you meant “fuck me” as in over pull me over in a police cruiser and give me a DUI!  Noooowww I get it!”

A few minutes later, she came in for a kiss on my mouthal area right in front of her friends.  I leaned back and said, “Why do I get the feeling this isn’t the FIRST time you’ve done something like this?”

Her friends erupted in knowing giggles again.  I almost expected a red flag to literally pop out of her vagina.

All of a sudden, this nice lady vehemently contested: “I never do this — I swear to God!”

“What, throw yourself on a comic?” I asked.

“No, throw myself on the opener.”

Somehow, I wrested myself free and went back to the hotel where Sportscenter and its ubiquitous theme music was dutifully waiting for me:  “Duh-nah-nah-DUH-nah-nah!”

Story #2

In Boston, I got 3 and 1/2 offers for threesomes.  Considering that I spent much of my masturbatory youth praying to Beelzebub to provide me with a delicious threeway, I just couldn’t imagine putting my happy into any of those horribly aggressive Southie Mouthies.  The accent alone made my penis wanna retreat behind my lungs.

One girl who offered a threesome opportunity wasn’t a Southie, but she was one of those confident fat girls whose mother apparently told her she had a “pretty face” growing up.  She had an enormous color dragon tattoo running along down her arm and back.  I think tattoo parlors should have a rule:  if you’re over 200 pounds and shorter than 5′6″, the only dragon tattoo you are allowed to have is Puff the Magic Dragon.

I told her I wasn’t down, at which point she called me “gay.”
I quipped, “If I hang out with you any longer, it might turn me gay….”

“DUH-nah-nah-DUH-nah-nah!”

Story #3

Maybe the reason I’m hesitant about hooking up with strangers may harken back to my FIRST experience hooking up with someone after a show.

And I mean IMMEDIATELY after a show.

I actually got head IN a comedy club (for legal purposes, I will call this club the “Laff Factorial”).

I’m not bragging — this girl was drunk!  And not just drunk, like “puke in the hair” drunk.  And not just her puke, I think other people’s puke may have been mixed in there too.

After the show, she aggressively grabbed my hand and said “Let’s go!”  I said “No, no, no!”  but I kind of jogged after her because she was pretty.  I faked resistance, all the while I’m sprinting after her with aerodynamically-shaped hands.

She led me up some stairs, took me into a little vestibule, and instantly dropped to her knees.

I said “No!” but I sort of shimmied off my Levis to help out.   I had never received hallway head before, and I found myself very unclear about what to do with my hands.  Do I interlace the fingers behind my head and “Calvin Klein” it?  Do I put my hands on my hips in a Peter North porn star pose and say bossy and dirty things?  I honestly don’t feel like I have the experience or equipment to justify that pose… So, do I just hit the “I’m a little teapot” stance?

In the end, I decided to put my hands on the crown at the top of her skull.  I looked for the place where there wasn’t any puke and planted my palms.  This will work, I thought.

And then….

Her hair moved.

Her whole scalpage area just… shifted.  Just a bit.  Enough.

For a second, I froze like a deer getting head in headlights.

I remember thinking… “Please have CANCER!”

That’s the first time I’ve ever wished that on anyone.  I was literally wishing that she was post-Chemo.   Probably not good karma to be thinking “cancer” and “please, please, please” at the same time, is it?

I was freaked out.  So I left IMMEDIATELY…

IMMEDIATELY after I came.  I mean, I’m not a quitter!  But I also wasn’t going to stick around like the Scooby Doo gang and try to figure out that mystery!  I think I almost knee’d her in the Adam’s Apple trying to get my pants up.

Anyway, I haven’t seen shim since.
—————————————

I have slowed down considerably since then.  I’m safely in my thirties now and I’m starting to think about finding someone who might put up with me for the long haul.

But, until that day, I might have to learn to like baseball, the most boring sport in the world that also, coincidentally, has the longest season.  That way, I will actually look forward to the day where I might enjoy a plethora of baseball highlights…

“DUH-dah-dah-DUH-dah-dah!”

People often ask: “Bill, how do you find material to write about every week?”

My answer: “Easy. I keep fucking up.”

For better or worse, my life is a veritable treasure trove of fuckupedness. If my life turns out to be a legacy of ‘what not to do’s,’ I guess I will have to content myself with the fact that at least it’s a legacy. Despite the amount of metaphorical shit I have stirred, I can honestly say that the maelstroms I create are never inspired by malice or ill will, and my latest sphincter-puckering predicament was no different….

Last week, I began shooting a reality show pilot about dads who do standup comedy. I was “cast” as counterpoint — the cock-swinging, younger single guy who lives with no strings, has frivolous road sex, and never ever has to wear pants with pleats.

The setting was a pseudo –“Poker Night,” where we cast members were supposed to gather around a card table and fake friendship for about four hours while nerdy tech guys tip-toed behind us with HD cameras in an attempt to capture the “reality” of the shooting-the-shit exchange. So it was a quasi-reality show; think “The Hills” but with man-boobs instead of surgically-enhanced perky ones.

First off, I didn’t know any of the comics. I didn’t even recognize any of them, which is not to say they aren’t awesome comedians with thriving careers and stellar acts. I simply didn’t know shit about them. However, at ACTION!, we were supposed to be old pals playing our usual Tuesday night game of Texas Hold ‘Em telling tales about wacky wives — except for me, who, as counterpoint, was supposed to regale these 5 older men with sordid stories of bitches and road ho’s.

The production designer brought out a mini-bar and placed it right next to my left elbow, as if to say, “Bill, being hammered will help you get funnier.” I’m a consummate professional, so I proceeded to lube my esophagus with booze. Truth be told, I don’t hang out with married people (because they are profoundly boring and/or miserable) and the idea of talking about Pampers, parties at Chuck E. Cheese, and Ikea excursions was giving me existential angst, not to mention heebie-jeebies. The amber glow of Jack Daniels in the soft studio lights began to look like some sort of salvation. I unscrewed the black cap and, while ‘married talk’ ensued, I sipped with Jack in silent communion. Unknowingly, a couple of the elements for a perfect storm were already in place.

Ten minutes into filming, Jack started whispering things in my ear like, “Bill, how about you talk about sex and masturbation like an adult?” So, sure enough, when the cameras wheeled towards me I started slurring about threesomes and sex with strangers in hotel rooms, trying my best to play the role of the carefree cocksman. It didn’t feel like me, per se, but my avatar in this faux-reality world was 24, whimsical, and bulletproof.

Destiny for disaster kicked up several nautical knots when the cameras suddenly honed in on an older, subdued African-American comic who began to talk about his family. In a very beaten and laconic voice, the man went into detail about his problems, saying that his son was allergic to 70 different things or foods or substances.

“That’s weird, I didn’t know your son was Jewish,” I said, as Jack laughed hysterically.

For a brief nanosecond in that darkened room, propriety held the collective breath of the cast and crew. In that moment of suspended animation, if I were observant and sober, I may have been prescient enough to see the gale in the corner across from me turning into one tropical motherfucker.

“Look, I don’t know you,” the older black man murmered under his fedora, the hint of a shadow flitting across his weathered features.

Suddenly, the funny fat Fred Flintstone comic in the room let out a guffaw. Suspense was broken, everybody laughed and slapped the leather rim around the green felt, and large white veneered-teeth slowly parted the older black man’s lips into a dubious grin. If the fifth of Jack hadn’t been so tantalizingly near my left elbow beckoning for a refill, I might have noticed that his eyes remained cold, even in the frame of his crooked smile.

Whatever, we were busting balls! Old buddies at a card table, right?

Another man started talking about his daughter maturing faster than his son, and how their nipples are different now that she’s beginning to hit puberty.

“Oh yeah, I totally noticed that!” I yelled out, as I saluted my rocks glass of Jack to nothing. Silence. Then laughter. Perfect. I was on fire.

The conversation danced around the table for another 40 minutes. TiVo came up, Monday Night Football, wives double-knotting their sweats before bed, and of course, birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese.

“Speaking of Chuck E. Cheese, do you ever get birthday anal from your wife? Is there such a thing?” I interjected.

A very mellow comic on my right with dreads and glasses responded dryly, “Look, after 10 years, you can’t ask to change the script like that, trust me.”

“And I guess if you’ve been married for 10 years to a wife that loves anal, you’ve got a whole other mess of issues, don’t you?” I was on my 5th drink. Hey, Mr. Daniels thought is was hilarious.

Unfortunately, the female director didn’t. She popped into the room and gave a ‘general note’ about the ‘tone’ of the conversation, perhaps targeted just a smidge at myself. She felt that things should be calmer and maybe a little more family-oriented. Well, I thought, I guess I can’t segue into my abortion jokes now.

With the new low-key directive, the older black man, who had been quiet for a while, finally found an opportunity to insert some of his dulcet tones into the equation. He bet into the small blind and began:

“The other day, I went to the Target to get a toy for my kid –”

“THE Target? What’s with the ‘The?’ You ARE Jewish, aren’t you? And from Long Island apparently,” I quipped, Whiskey Balls in full effect. “Let me guess, your kid is allergic to TOYS!”

The older comic looked at me sideways while the other comics roared (comics love a well-timed callback) and, within seconds, the dialogue was miles away from the older black man and his toy shopping at the Target. The older black man sighed and sat there impotently, his story nipped in the bud.

I looked at him and felt bad. Poor guy. In drunken grandiosity, I decided that I had to navigate this ADD-addled crew back to his story.

“Okay, back to the Target. So, you were buying a toy for your retarded kid…”

I took a sweet sip of my best friend and soul mate Jack and waited for another couple of laughs before the story began again.

“Oooooooffff…”

It was Fred Flintstone, expelling air from his lungs like he’d been punched.

The older black man looked down at his hands, both his wrinkled and laminated ones, and then turned his gaze slowly towards me.

“Like I said, you don’t know me,” he said coolly and softly.

I didn’t. I also didn’t know what to say, so I laughed a little to myself.

His mouth moved silently for a little bit. It was unclear if he was going to start the story again or continue the same train of thought.

I sipped my Jack and Coke. Yummy.

“You don’t know ME!” the man reiterated, this time standing up and taking a rocks glass in his hand.

“My son is DISABLED!!!” he yelled, his voice in some twilight vibrato between a cry and and a scream. Suddenly, he threw his rocks glass against the wall to his right, shattering it.

My body, as is often the case, was way ahead of (and more saavy than) my mouth. My hands went into the air like I was being held up, and I leaned away from him in my chair in a completely submissive position.

“I’m so sorry, I had no idea,” I said.

There are 5 comics in this room — all with kids — and of course, the one kid that I called ‘retarded,’ just so happened to be, you know… handicapped. Damn you, Jack!!!

“I should jump across the table and put my boot in your ass!” he bellowed, rising to his full angry black man height.

“Hey man, I’m sorry, I really didn’t know what I was saying,” I repeated. “It’s just –”

“I should beat your fucking ass!” He stretched across the table, trying to figure out the calculus of getting to me and perhaps lodging some sort of shoe up into my anus.

At that point, the executive producer came over and ushered me out of the room. As I left, I repeated the mantra, “I’m sorry, I had no idea….” over and over, over my shoulder to the apoplectic and trembling man.

CUT! I was pulled into another room as the older man gathered his belongings and left the set without a word.

I left shortly after, without fans on the project and CLEARLY, without a job anymore.

I shuffled dumbly back to my beat-up Honda in the late Burbank nip.

How did I do this again? I’m such a damn fool! I thought.

But Mr. Daniels had his own lucidity on what happened. He knuckled up and help coalesce my thoughts into a slightly stiffer resolve:

If I get fired because of THAT! Because of one word resulting from one small error in judgment… well, that’s just fucking re…

grettable.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! YOU’RE GETTING FAT!

This Holiday Season, I learned something special: I’m getting fat.

This realization hit me like a ton of lard when my friend and mentor, Jamie Masada, owner of the world famous Laugh Factory said, “Hey buddy, you’re getting fat.”

After saying that, he pointed to Dane Cook onstage and said “You need to try to look like that, buddy.”

“Wait? Are you telling me Dane is richer, famouser, funnier, AND fitter?”

Jamie simply nodded.

I looked down towards my stomach. In my one-beer-in repose and in the darkened light of the comedy club, my belly was protruding ominously.

It was like ‘The Jaws Shot.’

If you don’t know what ‘The Jaws Shot’ is, let me explain: there’s a scene in the film ‘Jaws” where Police Chief Martin Brody (portrayed by the still breathing Roy Schieder) sees a shark attack in the water. The director, a young upstart by the name of Steven Spielberg, decided to steal a camera effect popularized by Alfred Hitchock, where the camera quickly dollies out, while the lens simultaneously zooms in on Roy’s freaked out face. The background shrinks away behind him, but Roy’s weathered and freaked out face remains the same size. Mr. Spielberg did it so well that the Hitchcock shot henceforth became known as the Jaws shot (take note, Mencia).

The effect, also known as a Dolly Zoom, gives the sensation of a sort of vertigo, a feeling of unreality that says to the audience this dude is having a ‘disturbing realization that is causing him to reassess everything he had previously believed.’ (Gee thanks, Wikipedia!)

That unsettling vertigo is what happened in my mind when I looked down and saw my gunt, my fupa, my stubborn lump of ‘What the fuck is that?’

I knew there was a semi-situation down there but I was always convinced I was one giant dump away from a flat stomach. I was CERTAIN I was always just one titanic turd away from the abs I had back in high school! I mean, I won Best Body for Senior Superlatives (true story), I’m not fat — I’m just post-meal, right?

Granted my stomach never became flat, even after the most fiber-and-peach laden log. Whenever I took an especially impressive bm — you know, the ginormous kind that makes you feel lonely afterward? — I would immediately swivel to the mirror and check out the six pack… which became I two pack…. which became a ‘flat stomach’… which became a ‘problem area.’

My first step was to go to one of thoese fancy organic food stores and start taking crap-inducing supplements like Apple Cider Vinegar tablets and Green Tea pills, and wheatgrass shots. All this stuff allegedly makes one… what’s the technical term?… oh yeah, ‘shit your face off,’ as one health food hippie informed me. After two months of poo that smelled and looked like bails of wet hay, it was clear that bigger dumps doesn’t equal flatter stomach. It only meant more public dookie dances to the nearest toilet. Wheatgrass tends to sneak up on ya.

Finally, even after my mom concurred with Masada, I decided to (shudder) join a Gymnasium.

Mind you, I hadn’t belonged to a gym. Ever. I used to teach yoga, which kept me fit, until I had the startling (and yes, somewhat Jaws-shot-ish) realization that I fucking hated it. I jumped headlong into MMA until two broken fingers and a broken nose later I realized maybe it was time for me to be a goddamn grown up. Hikes in Runyon Canyon were good ways to have quasi-dates with health-conscious chicks, but alas, they didn’t make me gutless.

Luckily, the visual of my pregnant stomach was enough to propel my lazy ass to walk through the doors of Crunch! fitness and sit down with a manager director and discuss my ‘goals.‘

The managing director, my friend Amita Balla, convinced me to work with a personal trainer to meet said goals and somehow, I found myself handing her my credit card to complete the transaction. And yes, handing her the credit card to pay for a personal trainer induced another Jaws shot in my head.

The next day, I found myself sitting next to my new trainer, Bruce, in a little side office with gadgets and scales and pseudo-scientific looking charts and papers.

“What are you here for?” he asked.

“I’m getting fat,” I said.

“So then what are your goals?”

“Uh, to not be fat?”

“Anything else?”

“A six-pack would be nice as long as it doesn’t turn me gay,” I dryly quipped.

Bruce looked at me like a dog tilting his head at the sound of a mysterious squeaking.

“I’m kidding,” I said. “But boy this place is pretty gay. They should change the name to Snap! fitness. What about those dudes on the machine where they open and close their legs? Are they bi? It’s like straight-gay-straight-gay-Brad Pitt-Kevin Spacey.”

He laughed about as much as a young, straight African-American man is gonna laugh at anything homosexual-related, which is admittedly not much.

“Is there a chance I’ll be on the elliptical one day and Adam Lambert is just gonna run up and make out with my face willy-nilly?”

“I don’t think so,” Bruce semi-chuckled, as he awkwardly went back to the computer grogram of ‘goals’ to type in my stats.

I was trying to use humor to distract myself from the claustrophobia brought on by the proximity of treadmills. Plus, I knew he was about to measure my body fat and the mere concept of him pinching my fat with forceps gave me severe agita. I decided to take a left off gay street onto race road.

“And what about these white dudes here with the tribal tattoos. I’m like ‘Really? What tribe are you in, Trevor? And who’s your leader, Ed Hardy?’ Haha. Get it?”

“Okay, stand up. Let’s see what’s going on here,” Bruce said, apparently not getting it. “Face towards the door.”

I felt like I was in prison. Bruce took the stainless steel pinchers around my body — my arms, my gut, my butt, and my upper back between the shoulder blades.

He then sat down, did some rudimentary calculations.

“Wow,” he said. “You’re at 20 percent body fat.”

I blanched, visibly and audibly. I probably would have reacted better if he had told me I had HIV. At least that would make sense to me.

“Really? Are you sure?”

I mean, he was a young black guy — I couldn’t be utterly convinced of his mathematics.

“Yeah, according to this chart.”

“20 percent fat? But aren’t humans like 80 percent water? That means the part of me that isn’t water… is fat?”

Finally, he laughed at loud. Fat jokes. I should have known. The problem with that was I was being completely serious.

“It doesn’t work like that,” he said, “You’re not separated into fat and water.”

“So then it’s like a venn diagram, and some of my water is fat? Is that what ‘heavy water’ is? Either way, all I am is liquid and lipids. It’s fucking disgusting!”

“Well then, let’s get to work!”

And with that, Bruce stood up in a very positive, personal-trainery type of way and walked out of the medical examining room/janitor closet into the cacophony of spinning wheels and clanking steel.

This is going to suck, I thought… But then I looked at my 2nd trimester tummy and followed with a heavy (no pun intended) sigh….

To All the Bitches Out There…

Lately, I’ve been Internet Dating. And by that, I mean I’ve been dating the internet — last night, I totally fingered Yahoo. I almost banged Google, but you know how hard it is to fit a penis into a USB port?

Okay, that’s goofy, but in a way, it sums up my frustration with ‘dating’ in LA. It seems like nowadays, with the quasi-intimacy of facebook, ichat, and skype, all I do is have cyber-relationship where my ‘date’ and I message each other, watch the same youtube clips, and send each other emoticon’ed exclamations.

Pretty soon, it’s gonna be animated flowers and long e-walks on the Laguna Beach website. Will a woman be happy with a cartoon engagement ring?

Whatever the case may be, getting face-to-face with someone you haven’t thoroughly cyber-stalked is a rarity. Even when a date is set up, something invariably happens. Los Angeles seems to be the only town in the world where “Oh, I flaked!” serves as a legitimate excuse as to why someone shows up late or not at all.

All that aside, that’s not the REAL problem. The real problem in LA is the actual date. The reason these dates are usually awful is because they involve WOMEN.

Okay, that’s not really fair. The truth is men and women want completely different things out here from the start. Women will want to date a guy multiple times, and if it really goes well, they will then want to f@#k. Men will want to f@#k a girl multiple times, and if it really goes well, they will then want to date. And therein lies the rub.

Because women are testing both our ‘wallets’ and our personalities, they will want us to take them on a fancy dinner where they can ask us stupid questions at our financial and personal expense.

How do I know this? Because I’ve been dating in LA! So the following list is, mostly, for the ladies. Just a quick mirror up to, what I find to be, pretty shittastic behavior.

So, without further adieu, here are the TOP 10 WORSE QUESTIONS women ask men on FIRST DATES based on my personal experience since moving here in February (note — this doesn’t represent 10 first dates, some of these inanities were asked on the same date):

10.“How many women have you slept with?” While it is a valid question if you are out with a drug-using sex worker, it never does any good, and you will never get the truth. Whatever answer I tell you guys, double it. If the guy is wearing an Affliction t-shirt, triple it and add Herpes. If he’s Persian, you probably already have Herpes.

9.“What do you think of me?” and it’s retarded step-sister “Are you having a good time?” Hello, needygirl.com! Just assume he likes you and he’s doing swell! He won’t tell you anything bad, so it’s a pseudo-question that is really just you desperately fishing for compliments. Ask him if he thinks your jeans make you look fat while you’re at it.

8.“Do you believe in God?” At some point it might be nice to know if he is a high priest in a Satanic cult or a … shudder… Scientologist…. but save it for now. It’s an argument in the making. Worse still, a boring argument that won’t result in great hate sex.

7.“Do you like children?” Do I really need to explain why? Guys are still trying to decide how much booze they need to imbibe to get the courage to make a move on you. The idea that their buzzing sperm could result in a child should be avoided for at least… well, forever.

6.“What happened with your last girlfriend?” I killed her for asking annoying questions.

5. “Have you ever fooled around with a man?” Thanks for calling me gay!

4. “Do you believe in love at first sight?/Do you believe in fate?/ Do you believe in destiny?” Run for the goddamned hills if any of these are ever asked! I get the chills just writing it.

3. “What are you thinking?” Any guy who has had a long-term relationship before has 47 Samsonites full of luggage they carry around with them revolving around this loaded question. Stay away from it unless you want to witness him have a PTSD nam-style flashback or seizure.

2. “What type of car do you drive?” OK — guys: if, on the off-chance, you didn’t pick the girl up and she actually asks this, you are allowed only one feasible response and that is: “Oh, I have a black rape-van.” When she says, “Whaaaat?” Your response is “Sorry, a black non-consensual-sex van. The ladder in the back is to get a better view of playgrounds.” From now on, that’s the answer. Okay, guys?

1. “Do you ever want to get married?” Combine all of the horribleness of the above questions to form the ultimate first-date cockblocker on the planet. I’d rather hear about your yoga class and your kooky cats than to field that quagmire of a question.

When all is said and done, I’ve been trying to stick with my motto, which is BE MYSELF.

And yes, sometimes that is sort of vulgar and offensive, which can be a turn-off to some bitches.

And YES, when I pull up in my busted-up Honda that sounds like drunks midgets are fucking in the engine, I find that sometimes women in LA find that “Myself” apparently isn’t good enough to bring home to mama.

But that’s okay with me.

I think I’m gonna hold out for a non-gold-digger who can appreciate a car with character and a good old-fashioned fart joke.

CHOLO COMEDY

My heart was flopping around like a Sunfish in my chest cavity. Damn, I’m belted in Gracie jiu jitsu! I fantasize about putting vatos in flying heel hooks like a teenager dreams about twilight trysts with vampires! Why in the hell is my heart pounding like this? Don’t look at that table!

“Um… okay… Hey, my name is Bill… I’m white…. okay, moving on….”

My logical left brain kept trying to rotate my body counterclockwise, away from the seething mass of testosterone and tattoos.

“Hey, motherfucker!”

“Fuck you!”

What? Were these cholos directing their epithets towards me? Why? I couldn’t understand it. I guess I can be pretty offensive to Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, and any other variant of pigmentation on the planet, but I had barely said a word yet…. Was I about to get jumped onstage… again?

***********************

Offstage, about 5 minutes earlier, I had arrogantly planned to verbally lacerate the table of three rowdy and disrespectful cholos. They had not only been loud, but they had made thinly veiled threats to the two previous comics, terrifying half the audience in the process.

Not only were these dudes empirically scary-looking, but the symmetry of their positioning alone was daunting. At the head of the table farthest away from the stage sat the most colossal cholo. He looked like a Latin Jabba the Hut — a Jabba el Cabana, if you will. Flanking him on either side were two stoned-faced and rail thin thugs, faded prison tats on skinny necks, faces ravaged with either chicken pox or knife scars. To add to their mysterious gargoyle-like stillness, they had black baseball caps with ruler-straight brims pulled down low over their eyes. They looked like MLB pitchers hiding their tells in the bottom of the ninth.

From the safety of the wings of the club, I visualized myself getting onstage and acting out he following scenario:

“Hey guys, let me ask you a question…. You got any guns?”

“Nooooo.”

“You got any knifes?”

“Noooo.”

“Then shut the fuck up!”

The collective reaction, whatever it might be, would be immediate. Everyone in the audience (sans the three amigos) would guffaw and cheer. Or their collective sphincter would knot up tighter than an ice road trucker’s lug nuts.

Jabba was drinking a fruity blue drink, so then I would follow it up with this:

“Look at you, your face says ‘FUCK YOU!’ but your drink says ‘FUCK ME!!!’”

Then the audience would explode and I would be body surfed out of the room in celebration after such a swift dismantling of this awful heckler.

I cockily smiled to myself as I hid in the confines of the comedy club curtains.

Suddenly, Manny, the comic onstage, said something that didn’t resonate well with Jabba and I saw it…. a uniquely Mexican phenomenon — the “thousand yard smile.”

See, whenever you make most race-oriented jokes, the litmus for your standing is usually clear: a smile. Having spent my entire adolescence in a predominantly black school, I learned that once you get an African-American man to laugh, things are pretty much cool. You chuckled at my ‘Once you go pale, you never have to post bail’ joke? Awesome. Now please laugh louder to cue the uptight white people to laugh.

However, for many Mexican-Americans, the smile is a much more nebulous mode of expression.

For example, one night I was doing a 1:20am spot in Times Square. In the front row, there was a group of thick Mexican-Americans, plaid sleeves folded over their chests.

I went into my bit about the debatable ethnicity of Adam and Eve:

“Eve definitely wasn’t white — a white Eve would have said, ‘I don’t think that apple’s organic!’ …. and an asian Eve would have eaten the snake!” The cholos roared. Hey, it’s not that funny, but people seem to love to laugh at Asians, particularly Asians.

I was certain they’d love the tag:

“I’m not sure about Adam. Maybe he was Latino, fellas…. I mean, it was the perfect garden — somebody had to trim the hedges!”

Crickets.

The Latinos kept smiling, but their eyes stopped dancing, becoming beams of fixed and scary intensity. One of the guys in the front row, smiling Cheshire-wide, started in: “Oh, yeah, that’s real funny, Gringo. Hahaha. Yeah, we’re landscapers. Maybe you can make me laugh even more after the show in the alley.”

Why are you smiling? I thought, as I looked at him. It suddenly struck me that he wasn’t smiling at all, he was baring his teeth.

I shook off the comment and finished the show, but I closed up certain that I was going to be flattened into a tamale. Like a man, I hid in the bathroom afterward.

Remembering that moment, I studied the way Jabba was eyeing Manny at the end of his set. Jabba had the exact same pissed-off expression, that “thousand yard smile”….

The MC whisked Manny offstage and then, almost instantaneously, ushered me on.

I took one step onstage and the arrogance immediately flew out of my body (apparently it went outside to smoke filtered cigarettes and discuss Sartre). The bright spotlights from the grid overhead bore down on me as I made my way to the mike stand. Everything was making me feel very, very… white.

“Um… okay… Hey, my name is Bill… I’m white…. okay, moving on….”

“Hey, motherfucker!”

“Fuck you!”

I flinched. I shouldn’t have said I was white, I thought. Was that racist of me?!

After my slight recoil, I glanced over at the table and noticed that the two skinny cholos were standing up and furious! And they were facing… each other?!!! Huh?

“Fuck you, cabron!”

There was a shove. The two cholos were fighting!!! Skinny cholo #1 slapped skinny cholo #2 in the face. Jabba stood up to mediate and/or referee and the three went off to the far side of the club, throwing furniture out of their way as they did.

“Anybody in a relationship here?” I asked everyone and no one. Maybe I was asking the universe. I’m not sure.

Groups of people started to quietly but swiftly flee the scene.

“I actually just got dumped by text recently. I got it while I was driving…”

I slowly sat on the stool onstage and looked out into the confused and semi-paralyzed audience members remaining as fisticuffs ensued in the wings.

“…She was in the passenger seat.”

One heavyset white girl 4 rows in tittered. That was all I needed. A modicum of validation was all I need, even as the slapping and yelling transpired not 20 feet away from my right ear.

More people got up to leave.

“She was right there!… She should have at least called like an adult.”

Another lone titter in the blackness.

Damn, I thought, a huge smile on my face, I love this job….

Hooters Girls

He was a big, black guy. That may sound like a bland description, but, in fact, the phrase ‘big black guy’ is potent and ubiquitous enough to induce fear in about 87% of all white people because, when used in a story around the watercooler, it usually precedes somebody getting hurt. So when said big, black guy approached me angrily with a clenched fist, I had to rethink my Jaeger-bomb-loosened lips’ word choices… once again. He raised his hand. There was going to be a bar fight….

As Dane Cook might say, let me ‘Tarantino’ this story a little bit.

On the last day of my tour for I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL, I met up with Tucker Max at the Sandbar in Salt Lake City. After almost 2 months of continuous bars in contiguous states, I was probably, admittedly, at the end of my tether with women. Well, not just women, a certain TYPE of woman: specifically, sluts.

If you visibly blanched at that word, I don’t blame you. It’s a mean word and should only be applied to sluts, and their subset, skanks. (nota bene: A skank is a slut without money or class. How can a slut have class, you ask? Ask Angelina Jolie.)

When I arrived at Sandbar, Tucker was surrounded by three HOOTERS girls. I’m not exactly sure what it means to be a ‘Hooters girls,’ because the motley crew of 3 women — a little Mexican, a hippy bleach blonde, and an impossibly tall and busty brunette with, perhaps, an adam’s apple — didn’t seem to measure up to any discernible standard. unless slut is a standard. Well, technically, they work for tips, so they’re more like whores, but that’s a completely different discussion that might devolve into a debate on Capitalism.

I took a deep breath and introduced myself with a smile and a handshake. These three ladies had been sending MMS boob pic texts to Tucker all night in the finger-crossing hopes of being one of the thousand women to bone him, so my presence wasn’t really much concern to them anyway. The bleachie and the tranny were doing figure eights and peacocking for Tucker. Intermittently, they would walk away and text to ‘seem’ unavailable, but they’d swoop back and shimmy for Tucker then drift away, etc, etc.

Why did I come? I thought…. I have no interest in being in a bar in SLC late on a Tuesday and I definitely have no interest trying to convince a HOOTERS GIRL that i’m worth the walk back to my motel.

“Hey, you should buy me and my friend a shot.” It was the little Mexican girl, flashing a cute little smile that I instinctively knew had served her well over the years.

“What are you talking about?” I said, sincerely confused.

“Buy me and my friend a shot.”

“No. Are you out of your mind? I’m not some douchebag getting a boner because you’re talking to me. Why don’t you buy me a shot?”

That’s when I noticed her engagement ring.

“Holy shit! And you’re engaged. You are, in a nutshell, why men HATE women; trying to get me to buy you drinks when you’re engaged? Ugh.”

She coquettishly bit her lower lip and flipped her hair in that packaged shy way. For some reason, it angered me. Not because I almost fell for it — but because I couldn’t help but flashback to an alternate 22 year old BILL DAWES that would have fallen for it and ended up alone with Herpes 3-5 days later.

That’s when I noticed the tats and piercings on all three of the HOOTERS girl. I couldn’t help but notice the tats and the piercings on all these girls. It made perfect sense that they had them. I’m not saying that all tatted girls are sluts, but I’ve never seen the Chinese symbol for ‘Abstinence.’

However, I have noticed that message of the tattoo is almost always inversely proportional to how messed up the woman is.

A nice Christian sorostitute trying to break free from mom and dad might get a tattoo of a sexy panther or a dragon or maybe a scandalous Betty Boop pin-up tat. Look at me, I’m wild! she says to the world.

This engaged woman had a tat of a cross on her neck and sundry symbols of peace and enlightenment. Right away, I knew she was horribly damaged.

Often, when I see the girl with a sentence wrapping around her torso that says something like “peace and love and everlasting happiness in a rainbow of kittens and butterflies and puppies in a bed of roses,” the following conversation ensues:

“When you get that?”

“Oh, after my first abortion.”

Sometimes, the tats are a map of molestations, and the stories sound like a crazy game of Clue. “That was my Uncle in the living room with a Candlestick…. I’m not ready to talk about with happened with Professor Plum..”

At some point, drinks served their purpose and lubricated the cranky wheels of conversation and the little Mexican started talking a lot. Suddenly, she informed me her dad was an Indian chief

“Wait, you’re not Mexican?” I asked.

“No, I’m half Cherokee.”

“Be honest, you’re just saying that to be cool. I get it — you moved to Salt Lake and decided to reinvent yourself as some Featherhead Pocahantas because you didn’t want people to think you’re Mexican.”

“I’m not Mexican.”

“Tell your face that.”

“What does that even mean.” She was dumb. dumb enough to accept a small pox blanket and a bottle of booze for 50,000 acres dumb? Hard to tell.

“The closest your dad came to being an Indian was banging another Mexican dishwasher working at an Indian casino.”

Without warning, the girl started crying.

After much apologizing, she told me that her dad was in fact an Indian chief who had been horribly murdered ten years ago to the day. She even opened her purse and produced a wrinkled newspaper article detailing the horror. I felt like a speck of fly shit on a mound of horse dung. I bought her two shots. I made her laugh. I listened.

We had a nice hug and then I went to the bathroom… which is where the trouble started. The little Indian told her friend bleachie who told busty brunette who, in turn, told ‘big black guy.’ By the time I did my shake and shiver and walked back into the bar, there was a veritable posse about to run me out of town — the only thing missing was the torches.

The big, black guy was in my face first, hand raised, ready to strike. So I did what any man would do in that situation. I lied.

“What’s happening?” I said.

“You disgraced the memory of this poor girl’s father by making fun of his death.”

“Oh no, that wasn’t me, that was my friend — he’s outside. Let me get him.”

In the brief moment of confusion, I was outside on the patio, then outside on the sidewalk, then crossing the street, looking over my shoulder the whole way.

I promised, in that instant, NEVER to insult a woman, even unintentionally, ever again; the fission reaction they can set off with their tears can lead to the Enola Gay of beatdowns.

So never again… until the next time.