muggings.

I hope I never get mugged. Partly because I’m really ticklish. If someone jabbed a gun between my ribs, I’d have a hard time not giggling. And if there’s one thing that would really ruin the whole scary, life-threatening ambience that a mugger is going for, it’s giggling. Everyone knows how awful it feels to be laughed at. The mugger would probably take it really personally—hurt feelings, etc. I imagine that since the mugger turned to mugging in the first place, he’s already susceptible to low self-esteem. I’d have to explain that it’s not him that I’m laughing at. “No, no, you’re doing a great job. I am very, very scared. Terrified even. I’m just really ticklish. Hey, here’s my wallet.” But of course, despite my numerous attempts to reassure him, he wouldn’t believe me. His pride wounded, his fragile ego shattered, he’d scamper off and probably not even enjoy the drugs he would purchase with the cash from my wallet. His day would be totally ruined. And I’d feel awful too.

painting tips.

Angela and I spent some time painting the living room recently. I learned a lot from the experience. For instance, I learned that applying a layer of calk along the edge of the blue painter’s tape can actually do more harm than good. That dang calk peeled our drywall right off. Additionally, I learned that 90% of a paint job’s success is in the preparation. Any bozo can slap paint on a surface. The real art is in how you tape the plastic tarp to the baseboards. And perhaps most importantly, I learned that just because a building has an extravagant, every-color-of-the-rainbow paint job, that does not necessarily mean that it is a paint store. Also, I learned what a gay bar looks like.

I think making gay bars look just like paint stores is cruelly deceptive. It's like putting anti-freeze in a Mountain Dew container and sticking it in the refrigerator. To the casual observer, the two look virtually identical. Confusion and the disastrous consumption of a toxic fluid not meant for ingestion (by which I mean Mountain Dew) are at risk of occurring. Similarly, regarding the paint store/gay bar situation, what you have is one of two potentially uncomfortable situations:

1. A fellow in old, paint-speckled cargo shorts, tennis shoes and a faded college t-shirt asking the Freddy Mercury look-alike behind the bar where he keeps the paint rollers, or,
2. A costumed cowboy in skimpy leather chaps, thoroughly disappointed to find nothing but a closed, empty, disco-ball-less paint store on a Saturday night.

Personally, I’d prefer if neither ever happens again.

keeping agreements.

If someone says to you “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you,” and you really, really want to know whatever piece of information that person possesses, the only good response is to say “Okay. It’s a deal. You tell me, and then kill me. That’s how badly I want to know.” Ninety nine times out of a hundred, you’ll find out that the person you’ve been talking to really isn’t very serious about keeping agreements. I guess people just don’t value being your word the way they used to.

fame.

I want to be famous. But not for the reasons you’d think. Assuredly, I do not seek the material wealth that so often attends fame. Oh no. Besides a few pieces of vintage guitar paraphernalia, a wardrobe full of adequately long t-shirts and a pantry’s worth of salty snacks, there are almost no material possessions that I deem worthy of aching for. Also not my motivation for apprehending disgusting amounts of fame: inclusion within Hollywood’s ranks of shallow, collagen-injected, megalomaniacal A-list society. Almost without exception, celebrities make me want to pull my hair out. I can hardly stand them from hundreds of miles away, much less up close. Really, when it comes down to it, there is only one aspect of fame that could claim my heart—the paparazzi. More than anything, I want a herd of paparazzi constantly at my boot heels, snapping pictures, rummaging though trash bins, and splattering my sunglasses-clad visage all over their grocery store tabloids.

Before long, the obsessively gimmicky media would morph Angela and I into one person—Clangela Melzhardison, or ClaMel for short—and simultaneously initiate the pregnancy, adoption and break-up rumors. Two weeks later beach photos would surface, complete with sprawling captions that discuss the cellulite dimpling all over my right buttock. The soulless leaches would follow me everywhere—the drycleaners’, the Post Office, Arby’s, wherever—all the while producing ridiculously over-bolded yellow headlines from the minutia they collect and distort. “Clint Takes Dress With Suspicious Stain to Drycleaner.” “Is Clint the Unabomber? Seen Carrying Package.” “What A Gyp!” Says Clint of Arby’s Prices.”

Then, with my vast wealth (not the object of my fame but a likely eventuality), I’d turn the tables. I’d begin a campaign of my own to trail a few select paparazzi. I would photograph them in their element (which, among other things, may very well be them photographing me) and publish those pictures along with my unfounded and inflammatory conclusions about the paparazzi in my own weekly grocery store checkout magazine entitled ThemWeekly. Huge block letters would crowd the cover. “Carl Forgets to Remove Lens Cap! Slipping into Senility???” “Tony Goes Back For Seconds! Extra Holiday Pounds Seem Inevitable!” “Sheila Forgets Parent-Teacher Conference!”

Soon thereafter, I’d exit my Los Angeles area loft, dressed in most recognizable attire except for my face, which would support the classic fake nose and moustache combo. I would casually proceed to my day’s affairs as if fully confident that my disguise was impenetrable. And when the bulbs started to flash, I’d act utterly shocked to have been recognized. Then, I’d probably run out of ideas for ways to mess the paparazzi and turn my attention, as many celebrities do, to a charity work. With the ungodly clout that I as a celebrity would possess, I’d establish and perpetuate ridiculous non-profit causes like “Kill the Whales” and “Kill the Whale Killers” and “StuffingtonCor: Providing Teddy Bears to Everyone.” I’d wear a t-shirt that says “Save the Tuna” and explain that everyday millions of tuna are caught in the nets of fisherman intending to catch tuna. What a shame.