I live with a coyote. That’s what the Native Americans called people who sneak up and scare you or make prank smoke signals or put their icy hands down your loincloth -- all crimes committed by my sweetheart, Patti. I am sleeping with the enemy.
Patti claims little responsibility for her terrorism. She figures that if she is standing behind you for 10 minutes while you cook a meal and finally turn around and scream, that’s your problem. Never mind that she poses like one of the creepy twins from The Shining.
“Play with us, Jason. Forever and ever and ever...”
Patti definitely has the patience of a coyote. She is willing to wait however long -- behind a door, under the bed, holding the Downward Dog asana. If she could hover on a chord like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, believe me, she would.
Patti likes it most when I go into karate mode like Mr. Furley. It’s so good to her that she jumps up and down like a girl at the circus. One time she turned to me for a high-five!
“Yeah, honey,” I say. “That’s great. Do you know where I put the Xanax?”
Then she reenacts the whole thing, holding her face like The Scream. “This is you. Here. Look.”
I myself do not share the prankster gene. I don’t even have the nerve to throw a surprise party. So it goes.
Patti, on the other hand, will go through the trouble of parking her car around the corner so I think she’s not home. Then I’ll settle in for a bath and eventually come up for air, and WHAM -- The Shining. She may as well write in steam on the bathroom mirror.
Patti, mind you, is an otherwise gentle woman. She takes her tea on the porch and requires a certain amount of slow-dancing. It’s just when she howls at the moon. Ouw-ouw-ouwooo!
One night I was playing guitar in the SUV, our only sound-proof room, when everything started to shake. Once. Twice. On three, I called Patti to see if she felt the earthquake, when I heard her phone outside the car. I knew it to be my call by the circus-music ringtone. I opened the back to find Patti rolling on the ground, laughing so hard that it came in dry heaves.
“I got it on camera,” she said, waving her phone. “I’m gonna post it on Facebook.”
Patti is now onto wet willies, especially at bedtime. Last night she gave me a deep willy and said, “Don’t wipe it ... Don’t ... Dooon’t ...” And I didn’t wipe because that’s the man I’ve become.
I can only assume that Patti does these things because she likes me, the way Regina Walker liked me in third grade when she ratted my hair with Hubba Bubba.
Patti’s crowning moment came last Halloween at Magic Mountain’s Fright Fest, where zombies jump out at every corner. It would be ... Coyote Paradise. Patti laughed so hard that security came over to make sure she was all right.
“Yes,” she said, doubled over. “It’s just that ... Grrrrr.” Patti was mocking a sound I had made after a psycho jumped out of the tree with a chainsaw. Good times.
I’m afraid that Patti is addicted. What’s next? Wedgies? Nipple twisters? The Dutch Oven? All I know is that I tiptoe around the house and sleep with one eye open, spittle in my ear, watching the moon for any sudden changes. Ouw-ouw-ouwooo!
A Humor Blog by Jason Love
Friday
Thursday
Owed to a Friend
I want you to meet my friend Dylan, a full-color cartoon living in a black-and-white world. You’d think that society couldn’t handle a guy like that, but it turns out that society has no choice. There’s no law against laughing too loud or singing in lobbies or changing your clothes on the street. Wait -- there may be a law against that last one.
And while some people cannot, in fact, handle the man, the rest of us are attracted like moths to his light.
Last week I pulled up beside Dylan at a stoplight. Instead of waving as you might, Dylan opened his door and ran over to say hi.
“Hey, stranger!” he said, banging my car. “You don’t write, you don’t call…”
Dylan’s Labrador, Leopold, who considered himself Dylan’s brother, got out of the car and also ran over. The driver behind gave us the stink eye, and Dylan, sensing the the pressure, said goodbye and demanded that I call or else he’d order an air strike.
The light turned green while Dylan chased his dog around the car, a couple of Keystone Cops. Drivers honked and grumbled and otherwise played their parts. Dylan finally muscled Leopold into the car, smiling like a man who can appreciate an unplanned dog chase.
He owns six cars, but Dylan chose to drive a rusty Cadillac ragtop that belonged on Sanford and Son. Dylan said it’s a classic, but I, a layperson, called it a piece of duker. The top didn’t close, passenger door stuck, and oh yeah, there was a giant happy face on the hood. This is the car that Dylan insisted we drive to the beach.
Halfway through the canyon, the engine started to lose important-sounding parts. To address the situation, Dylan turned up the radio. Smoke began to trickle through the vents.
“No problem,” he yelled. “We’ll run the heater to cool off the engine.”
Flames now.
“Okay,” said Dylan … pausing for comedic effect … “We may have to stop.”
Dylan lifted the hood to release a column of smoke. Native Americans could read it from miles: “Oh, white man screwed.” Dylan took off his shirt and whacked at the flames, jester to the gods. Then he looked at me and shrugged.
“Don’t sweat the small stuff,” he said in a Mexican accent. It was Mexican today. The day before, he did British. “Today, amigo, we surf!”
Dylan turned to solicit a ride from passers-by, not by sticking his thumb out but by standing in the road. Moments later, we bounced up and down on a pickup en route to the beach, our Cadillac smoldering yonder. Dylan called a tow truck and asked them to give it a proper burial. They were happy to do it, and would that be Visa or MasterCard.
These things happen every time I see the guy. You might find Dylan playing basketball with the guys at the car wash. You’ll catch him parked the wrong way on a residential street, chatting with the meter maid. When he leaves a voicemail, it’s always in song. Last time, Jim Croce:
“Operator, would you help me place this call … you see my friend has become just a little bit flaky…”
I’m not saying the guy is superhuman; I am just suggesting that we can, by one man’s example, break free from the stares and become who we really are. Or Dylan will order an air strike.
And while some people cannot, in fact, handle the man, the rest of us are attracted like moths to his light.
Last week I pulled up beside Dylan at a stoplight. Instead of waving as you might, Dylan opened his door and ran over to say hi.
“Hey, stranger!” he said, banging my car. “You don’t write, you don’t call…”
Dylan’s Labrador, Leopold, who considered himself Dylan’s brother, got out of the car and also ran over. The driver behind gave us the stink eye, and Dylan, sensing the the pressure, said goodbye and demanded that I call or else he’d order an air strike.
The light turned green while Dylan chased his dog around the car, a couple of Keystone Cops. Drivers honked and grumbled and otherwise played their parts. Dylan finally muscled Leopold into the car, smiling like a man who can appreciate an unplanned dog chase.
He owns six cars, but Dylan chose to drive a rusty Cadillac ragtop that belonged on Sanford and Son. Dylan said it’s a classic, but I, a layperson, called it a piece of duker. The top didn’t close, passenger door stuck, and oh yeah, there was a giant happy face on the hood. This is the car that Dylan insisted we drive to the beach.
Halfway through the canyon, the engine started to lose important-sounding parts. To address the situation, Dylan turned up the radio. Smoke began to trickle through the vents.
“No problem,” he yelled. “We’ll run the heater to cool off the engine.”
Flames now.
“Okay,” said Dylan … pausing for comedic effect … “We may have to stop.”
Dylan lifted the hood to release a column of smoke. Native Americans could read it from miles: “Oh, white man screwed.” Dylan took off his shirt and whacked at the flames, jester to the gods. Then he looked at me and shrugged.
“Don’t sweat the small stuff,” he said in a Mexican accent. It was Mexican today. The day before, he did British. “Today, amigo, we surf!”
Dylan turned to solicit a ride from passers-by, not by sticking his thumb out but by standing in the road. Moments later, we bounced up and down on a pickup en route to the beach, our Cadillac smoldering yonder. Dylan called a tow truck and asked them to give it a proper burial. They were happy to do it, and would that be Visa or MasterCard.
These things happen every time I see the guy. You might find Dylan playing basketball with the guys at the car wash. You’ll catch him parked the wrong way on a residential street, chatting with the meter maid. When he leaves a voicemail, it’s always in song. Last time, Jim Croce:
“Operator, would you help me place this call … you see my friend has become just a little bit flaky…”
I’m not saying the guy is superhuman; I am just suggesting that we can, by one man’s example, break free from the stares and become who we really are. Or Dylan will order an air strike.
Friday
Wine-Tasting
I owe a lot to wine. From all accounts, it played a major role in my conception.
Unfortunately, I’m not much of an expert. When a waiter brings the wine list, I go with “eeeny meeny miny mo.” Otherwise you run the risk of waiters raising an eyebrow or making French sounds through their noses.
They promised that I’d be safe at Bodee’s, an 11-star restaurant “nestled into a remote country location” (translation: somewhere near Middle Earth).
I spoke to Christopher Watson, who has rubbed spatulas with top cheffing dignitaries and is personally in charge of everything digested at Bodee’s. Chris and I conducted research in the “fern grotto” (translation: patio), where Chris lined up the wines white to red.
“So what kind of wine do you like?” he asked.
“I dunno. Whatever tastes most like Kool-Aid.”
Chris rinsed with, and spit out, a mouthful of rosé. I myself am principally opposed to spitting out alcohol, so I finished his glass. Think of the starving children.
Chris asked me to swirl the glass, which is where I drew the line. There would be no swirling and no poetic faces.
“The swirling,” he said, “opens up the wine. Reds are especially tense out of the bottle.”
I was drinking and learning at the same time. Just like college.
Chris wedged his nose into the glass the way a linebacker does an oxygen mask. That’s why wine glasses are so big -- to fit your snout.
We started with my favorite wine, the “voigner” [pronunciation tip: don’t use any of the actual letters]. Chris pushes voy-NYAY on chardonnay junkies when they want to get a little crazy.
“My job,” says Chris, “is to help you discover your preferences. If you’re into Kool-Aid, do you prefer Sharkleberry Fin or the Great Bluedini?”
Chris recommends reading Wine for Dummies … unless you’re a complete idiot, in which case read The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Wine.
We graduated to red wines -- The Dark Side -- starting with my favorite, the pinot noir. Pinot noir lived in obscurity before the movie Sideways, which I am required to mention by law. Sideways is about how scumbag men really aren’t scumbags when you compare them to wine, as you can easily tell by the movie’s title.
Chris explained the difference between red wine and white. I’ll spare you the physics and say that red wine does not necessarily come from red grapes; the color comes from tannins in the skin.
“The tannins,” said Chris, “also intensify your hangover.”
Which I verified the next morning when I found myself bickering at the phone long after it stopped ringing. So it goes.
“This next wine will be your favorite,” said Chris, pouring a sauvignon blanc. “It has a nice, peppery finish.”
Pepper is not something I look for in a wine. In fact, it’s not something I look for on food. Yet this bottle, Rock Rabbit, was the kind of wine that made you skip dinner. It felt almost nutritious.
If you do eat, white wines go with white foods (fish, pasta, chicken), and red wines go with red foods (beef, marinara, more red wine). What is the favorite pairing of 11-star gourmet chef Christopher Watson?
Peachy Canyon zinfandel and peanut M&M’s.
That was my favorite, too, until we tried Rutherford Hill, the house merlot. Merlot is a “dry wine,” which means that if you spill it on your clothes you’ll need dry-cleaning.
Chris and I swirled our way to the Bordeaux, named after a busty seventies actress. No, that would be the Barbeau. Ha! You wouldn’t believe how funny that was after six glasses of wine.
“This is not the merlot they’re talking about in Sideways,” said Chris. “It’s good merlot.”
I struggle to describe the Bordeaux. Chris had already taken the obvious choice -- smoky herbal dusk -- so I had to stick with poetic faces.
We finished with Conn Creek Cabernet, the “youngest” bottle and definitely my favorite. I always thought that wine had to ferment for decades, but what do I know. My grandfolk’s from Kentucky.
“We consume so much wine as a society,” said Chris, “that you can’t find a six-year-old chardonnay. Most wines are designed to be consumed quickly.”
And boy did we consume quickly. The bottle read “12% alcohol by volume,” which had something to do with how loud we were getting. Chris cut me off when I started to shout for Barbeau.
I was not only sideways but upside down and backwards. I had, however, learned something. Wait for it. Wobbling. Whereas my motto on wine used to be “quantity, not quality,” I now feel comfortable walking into any snootsy restaurant, looking that French waiter directly in the nose, and ordering my favorite wine -- whatever they recommend.
Unfortunately, I’m not much of an expert. When a waiter brings the wine list, I go with “eeeny meeny miny mo.” Otherwise you run the risk of waiters raising an eyebrow or making French sounds through their noses.
They promised that I’d be safe at Bodee’s, an 11-star restaurant “nestled into a remote country location” (translation: somewhere near Middle Earth).
I spoke to Christopher Watson, who has rubbed spatulas with top cheffing dignitaries and is personally in charge of everything digested at Bodee’s. Chris and I conducted research in the “fern grotto” (translation: patio), where Chris lined up the wines white to red.
“So what kind of wine do you like?” he asked.
“I dunno. Whatever tastes most like Kool-Aid.”
Chris rinsed with, and spit out, a mouthful of rosé. I myself am principally opposed to spitting out alcohol, so I finished his glass. Think of the starving children.
Chris asked me to swirl the glass, which is where I drew the line. There would be no swirling and no poetic faces.
“The swirling,” he said, “opens up the wine. Reds are especially tense out of the bottle.”
I was drinking and learning at the same time. Just like college.
Chris wedged his nose into the glass the way a linebacker does an oxygen mask. That’s why wine glasses are so big -- to fit your snout.
We started with my favorite wine, the “voigner” [pronunciation tip: don’t use any of the actual letters]. Chris pushes voy-NYAY on chardonnay junkies when they want to get a little crazy.
“My job,” says Chris, “is to help you discover your preferences. If you’re into Kool-Aid, do you prefer Sharkleberry Fin or the Great Bluedini?”
Chris recommends reading Wine for Dummies … unless you’re a complete idiot, in which case read The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Wine.
We graduated to red wines -- The Dark Side -- starting with my favorite, the pinot noir. Pinot noir lived in obscurity before the movie Sideways, which I am required to mention by law. Sideways is about how scumbag men really aren’t scumbags when you compare them to wine, as you can easily tell by the movie’s title.
Chris explained the difference between red wine and white. I’ll spare you the physics and say that red wine does not necessarily come from red grapes; the color comes from tannins in the skin.
“The tannins,” said Chris, “also intensify your hangover.”
Which I verified the next morning when I found myself bickering at the phone long after it stopped ringing. So it goes.
“This next wine will be your favorite,” said Chris, pouring a sauvignon blanc. “It has a nice, peppery finish.”
Pepper is not something I look for in a wine. In fact, it’s not something I look for on food. Yet this bottle, Rock Rabbit, was the kind of wine that made you skip dinner. It felt almost nutritious.
If you do eat, white wines go with white foods (fish, pasta, chicken), and red wines go with red foods (beef, marinara, more red wine). What is the favorite pairing of 11-star gourmet chef Christopher Watson?
Peachy Canyon zinfandel and peanut M&M’s.
That was my favorite, too, until we tried Rutherford Hill, the house merlot. Merlot is a “dry wine,” which means that if you spill it on your clothes you’ll need dry-cleaning.
Chris and I swirled our way to the Bordeaux, named after a busty seventies actress. No, that would be the Barbeau. Ha! You wouldn’t believe how funny that was after six glasses of wine.
“This is not the merlot they’re talking about in Sideways,” said Chris. “It’s good merlot.”
I struggle to describe the Bordeaux. Chris had already taken the obvious choice -- smoky herbal dusk -- so I had to stick with poetic faces.
We finished with Conn Creek Cabernet, the “youngest” bottle and definitely my favorite. I always thought that wine had to ferment for decades, but what do I know. My grandfolk’s from Kentucky.
“We consume so much wine as a society,” said Chris, “that you can’t find a six-year-old chardonnay. Most wines are designed to be consumed quickly.”
And boy did we consume quickly. The bottle read “12% alcohol by volume,” which had something to do with how loud we were getting. Chris cut me off when I started to shout for Barbeau.
I was not only sideways but upside down and backwards. I had, however, learned something. Wait for it. Wobbling. Whereas my motto on wine used to be “quantity, not quality,” I now feel comfortable walking into any snootsy restaurant, looking that French waiter directly in the nose, and ordering my favorite wine -- whatever they recommend.
Thursday
Twisted English
For most of us English is a sentence (buh dum bum). In school we learned the basics followed by their 6,534 exceptions. We discovered, for instance, that i goes before e except after c, then immediately took off to SCIENCE.
In sixth grade I entered the Wildwood Elementary Spelling Bee and in the final round misspelled lenient, which does not, for the record, end in -ant.
I cried myself raw on the merry-go-round, shouting at the heavens: L-e-n-i-E-n-t, l-e-n-i-E-n-t. My shrink still enjoys the irony.
In the wake of that sinister day, I pledged to memorize every word in the dictionary, beginning with the a’s.
“Audacity, noun. Unreserved impudence.”
Flip flip flip.
“Impudent, adjective. Impertinent disrespect.”
Flip flip flip flip.
“Impertinence, noun…”
In high school they make us diagram sentences that seem friendly enough but which are, beneath the surface, crawling with “prepositional phrases” and “subordinate clauses.”
Example: All people must have been laughing.
In eighth grade, “all people” is the subject, and “must have been laughing” is the verb.
By tenth grade, “all” is an adjectival modifier, “must” is a modal auxiliary verb, and “have been laughing” is a contusion of the lower occipital lobe. Wait, that's next period.
The problem is that English has so many unnecessary, unneeded, needless words, and let me explicate why: Our founding grammarians had a sick sense of humor and are even now snickering in the distance. How else can you explain the pronunciation of colonel?
But they were the ones waving quills, dammit, and if a word is misspelled in the dictionary, how do you know?
So they brainstormed new rules…
“Let’s have ‘grammer’ end in -ar. That’ll really make 'em feel stupid.”
When they finished with spellings, our twisted forebears gave each word numerous -- sometimes contradictory -- meanings.
Match, verb. 1. To fit together, be in harmony 2. To pit in opposition against.
Then they moved on to pronunciation, which would depend, of course, on context (the part of the country you’re from).
Example: Don’t project on my project unless you effect my affects, and by that I mean my personal belongings.
And it’s just this sort of thing that makes people speak Spanish. To this day, I say “amen” both ways just to make sure the prayer counts.
They, the grammar sickos, considered adding another s to “misspell” but were far too subtle-with-a-b. They enjoy it most when nobody knows the word arcane and phonetic begins with “ph.”
So what happens? Kids stop judging books by their covers and start judging them by the movies instead. At Christmas my nephew unwrapped Catcher in the Rye and asked, “Where do you plug it in?” So it goes.
Other signs of language decay can be found in this perfectly acceptable use of text grammar: LOL BTW luv 2 chat but CUl8er :P
We’ll diagram tomorrow.
Advertisers have their own rules, which include lots of verbing.
“Staples is the best place to office.”
“How to California in 30 Days.”
Note that California is an intransitive verb, so you couldn’t say, “Go California yourself.” You could, however, engage in Californication according to noted grammarians, The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
I personally feel that it’s immoral to put our children through English when grownups are running around using office as a verb. Think of all the time we slumped over those big blue English books of death. Those years could have been so much funner!
All I’m saying is that we could stand to be a little more l-e-n-i-A-n-t.
AY-men and AH-men.
In sixth grade I entered the Wildwood Elementary Spelling Bee and in the final round misspelled lenient, which does not, for the record, end in -ant.
I cried myself raw on the merry-go-round, shouting at the heavens: L-e-n-i-E-n-t, l-e-n-i-E-n-t. My shrink still enjoys the irony.
In the wake of that sinister day, I pledged to memorize every word in the dictionary, beginning with the a’s.
“Audacity, noun. Unreserved impudence.”
Flip flip flip.
“Impudent, adjective. Impertinent disrespect.”
Flip flip flip flip.
“Impertinence, noun…”
In high school they make us diagram sentences that seem friendly enough but which are, beneath the surface, crawling with “prepositional phrases” and “subordinate clauses.”
Example: All people must have been laughing.
In eighth grade, “all people” is the subject, and “must have been laughing” is the verb.
By tenth grade, “all” is an adjectival modifier, “must” is a modal auxiliary verb, and “have been laughing” is a contusion of the lower occipital lobe. Wait, that's next period.
The problem is that English has so many unnecessary, unneeded, needless words, and let me explicate why: Our founding grammarians had a sick sense of humor and are even now snickering in the distance. How else can you explain the pronunciation of colonel?
But they were the ones waving quills, dammit, and if a word is misspelled in the dictionary, how do you know?
So they brainstormed new rules…
“Let’s have ‘grammer’ end in -ar. That’ll really make 'em feel stupid.”
When they finished with spellings, our twisted forebears gave each word numerous -- sometimes contradictory -- meanings.
Match, verb. 1. To fit together, be in harmony 2. To pit in opposition against.
Then they moved on to pronunciation, which would depend, of course, on context (the part of the country you’re from).
Example: Don’t project on my project unless you effect my affects, and by that I mean my personal belongings.
And it’s just this sort of thing that makes people speak Spanish. To this day, I say “amen” both ways just to make sure the prayer counts.
They, the grammar sickos, considered adding another s to “misspell” but were far too subtle-with-a-b. They enjoy it most when nobody knows the word arcane and phonetic begins with “ph.”
So what happens? Kids stop judging books by their covers and start judging them by the movies instead. At Christmas my nephew unwrapped Catcher in the Rye and asked, “Where do you plug it in?” So it goes.
Other signs of language decay can be found in this perfectly acceptable use of text grammar: LOL BTW luv 2 chat but CUl8er :P
We’ll diagram tomorrow.
Advertisers have their own rules, which include lots of verbing.
“Staples is the best place to office.”
“How to California in 30 Days.”
Note that California is an intransitive verb, so you couldn’t say, “Go California yourself.” You could, however, engage in Californication according to noted grammarians, The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
I personally feel that it’s immoral to put our children through English when grownups are running around using office as a verb. Think of all the time we slumped over those big blue English books of death. Those years could have been so much funner!
All I’m saying is that we could stand to be a little more l-e-n-i-A-n-t.
AY-men and AH-men.
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