MY PROSTITUTION CONFESSION

The eyes of the entire world have been on Elliot Spitzer after it was revealed that he spent over $80,000.00 on prostitutes. (Side Note: If I spent $80,000.00 on a prostitute, I better not only get laid, she better build me a friggin house.)

Since it’s probably only a matter of time before the hot spot light of national attention is focused squarely on me (in my personal little megalomaniacal fantasy) I thought it would be prudent to be proactive and go ahead and reveal my one and only (I swear) encounter with the sordid world of prostitution.

The year was 1993. I was singing with a 120 voice men’s chorus at the time and we were getting ready to take a three week concert tour in Latvia, Estonia, and Russia. Prior to the trip we were warned that one of the side effects of the burgeoning capitalistic economy in Russia was a very thriving market for prostitution. (Don’t you love it when we take our American values overseas?) We were told that as a large group of foreign men traveling together, we should be prepared to be propositioned.

We were not disappointed. The hookers were as thick as…well…they were as thick as hookers at a Shriner’s convention.  During a trip up an elevator in one of the hotels we stayed at, a woman crept up behind one of the guys in our group, reached around him, and stuck her hand directly down his pants. So much, for dinner and drinks first.

Two weeks into the trip, I remained un-propositioned and it was beginning to affect my self esteem. However, that all changed when we arrived in St. Petersburg.

A bit of background information is needed to explain the rest of the story: We were told not to drink the water there. Bottled water was not as prevalent as it is today, so we drank a lot of soda. However, the only soda we could find in Russia was Orange Fanta. Many of us returned from Russia with a slight orange tint to our skin.

One night I was lying in my hotel room about 1:00 a.m. unable to sleep because I was very thirsty. I didn’t want to drink the tap water so I decided to get up and go downstairs to the bar to get an Orange Fanta. I walked up to the bar completely unaware of the other patrons. I ordered my soda and turned around to leave. That’s when I noticed that I was the only man in the room. There were at least 30 scantily clad working girls gathered around tables in the bar. None of them were talking and every one of them was looking directly at me.

In the subsequent 15 years, I’ve told this story many times. When I get to this point in the story, the punch line is always; “and a dozen Orange Fantas later I finally made it back to my hotel room.” But that’s not really true. It was actually two dozen Orange Fantas later before I made it back to my hotel room. Ok…that’s not true either. You might think it would be provocative to have 30 women staring directly at you, but trust me, it’s not. I can say without any hesitation that it is the most terrified I have ever been in my life. I’ve heard women talk about being looked at like a piece of meat. I may not know what that’s like, but I do know what it’s like to have women look at me like I’m a giant American dollar sign.

What I actually did was grab my Orange Fanta, run as fast as my little legs would carry me back to my room where I crawled under the bed, sucked my thumb, and cried for my mommy.

My son has heard me tell this story many times. When he was an undergrad, he spent a semester in Russia as a foreign exchange student. What did he bring me back from Russia as a gift you ask? A bottle of Orange Fanta with Cyrillic writing on it, of course.

(If you didn’t see that coming then you haven’t been paying attention)

I’ve kept the bottle of Orange Fanta proudly on my office book case since then to remind me of my undercover trip through the seedy underbelly of Russian prostitution.

I’m happy to report that I’ve been prostitute free since my return to the states. We don’t seem to have many prostitutes here in Oklahoma. I’m sure they exist. In fact, they say that in Tulsa all of the prostitutes congregate on 11^th street. But I don’t think it’s true, because I’ve driven up and down 11^th street very late on Saturday nights for hours at a time and I haven’t seen a single prostitute. However, a friend I met there named Trixie wanted me to give all my readers a “shout out.”

Now that I’ve gone ahead and made my prostitution confession public perhaps I can avoid the media circus that has been visited upon Mr. Spitzer. That is as long as no one finds out about my trip to Spain with the same group in 86.

HAPPY 25th BIRTHDAY TO THE JORDANMEISTER

My son’s birthday is the day after St. Patrick ’s Day. I believe this to be a huge cosmic joke resulting in Jordan having to spend every birthday of his adult life with a hangover.

Tomorrow my son turns 25 (Jordan, please remember that green beer only tastes good going down.)

This seems completely impossible. Even as I type this, my fingers are having a difficult time putting together that particular combination of “2” and “5.”

For me, this can only mean that death is imminent, but that’s ok, because I can die a happy man. I can die a happy man because my son has become everything I have ever dreamed he would be and a thousand things I didn’t have the imagination to dream.

His childhood couldn’t have been easy. Growing up a minister’s kid is not a walk in the park. All eyes are on you, and they never look away. When Jordan was five we became house parents at a home for unwed pregnant teenagers. Between his fifth and eight birthdays, Jordan lived with approximately 80 pregnant teenagers.

The chances of him being mentally and emotionally stable now are so small they cannot even be calculated, and yet, astonishingly, he is.

When Jordan was eleven he stood by my side through my divorce, and through me leaving the ministry. For much of that time he had to be the adult. He kept me grounded and whether he realizes it or not, he really saved my life. That’s a lot for an eleven year old to handle.

Since then he’s accumulated an accomplishment or two along the way. Allow me to brazenly and unashamedly brag:

• During his senior year he was nationally ranked in the top ten high school debaters in the United States.
• He graduated from Baylor with a 4.0 GPA and was named outstanding graduating senior in the University.
• He is currently teaching at Baylor while he finishes his PhD in neuroscience.
• He is happily married to the world’s greatest Daughter in Law and he is a very good husband.
• He runs marathons to raise money for blood cancer research.
• He is the hairiest human being on the planet meaning he possesses more testosterone than Chuck Norris.
• He brews really great beer.

My favorite thing about my son may be that he is an even bigger smart ass than I am, and while it may be an odd thing to say, this truly warms my heart.

So happy 25^th my son! And remember Jordan, drink lots of water and take two aspirin before you go to bed tonight.

Here are few current pictures of the Jordanmeister:

WHO KNEW THERE WERE SO MANY TELEMARKETERS ON XANGA?

Based on the feedback I got from telemarketers on my last post about telemarketers, I am the biggest dick in all of Xangland.

Just to be clear, they don’t think I have the biggest dick, they think I am the biggest dick.

So before I go on, please allow me to state for the record that I now believe that all telemarketers are imbued with the reincarnated spirit of Mother Teresa,  that they are essential to the survival of our planet, and that they smell like Honeysuckle after a summer rain.

I also have begun to live by the words of the ancient Chinese philosopher How-my Phone-ring who said; “Ignorant and slothful is the man who turns down the offer for a free siding appraisal.”

Don’t believe they think I’m a dick? Allow me to quote from some of the responses I received:

“Wow…You are a dick. Why don't you try being a little more patient? …Oh yeah, and please don't have kids. If you already have kids, God help them.”

“I take offense to everything you have said in this post. I myself am a telemarketer. I am a human being. I am not vile, nor am I a scum-sucking leech, residing at the Mariana Trench level on the scale of basic decency…If you would rather pay my tuition so that I don’t call and "annoy" you, I will gladly accept… Otherwise, I would appreciate you not acting so offensively next time.”

“Be nice. There are people who have died and now reside in the 7th circle of hell, and their crimes were being mean to telemarketers, so now they must spend eternity making cold calls. Learn from this.”

“Hey Dude, I’m a telemarketer and I think I should let you know that it might not be wise to open any packages that are left on your front porch for the foreseeable future.”

Ok, I made up that last quote, but it’s apparent that I offended a lot of people, and that really wasn’t my intention.

I don’t object to telemarketers as people. I’m sure there are many wonderful people in the telemarketing profession, but I do object to the industry as a whole. I feel very strongly that unless you know me personally, calling my home to try and sell me something is a violation of my privacy and is ethically wrong. And my opinion about that isn’t going to change.

With that being said…to all of the telemarketers out there that I offended, please accept my apology…

…and please stop leaving death threats on my answering machine.

TELEMARKETERS: HUMAN OR NON-HUMAN? THAT IS THE QUESTION

I got in trouble with my wife the other night for the way I answered a phone call from a telemarketer:

Caller ID: Service Master Carpet Cleaning Service

Me answering phone: “Thanks for calling but we have dirt floors”…click.

Now, come on…that’s kind of funny, isn’t it? My wife didn’t think so. In fact, she implied that I was being a complete horse’s ass.

Whether or not I was being a horse’s ass is really dependent on whether you think telemarketers qualify as human beings, or if you think they are vile, sub-human, scum-sucking leeches, residing at the Mariana Trench level on the scale of basic decency.

Although I tend to think of them in the later category, I know in my heart that they are just people who are trying to make a living by calling obnoxious people like me. That’s why I don’t scream or curse at them, or threaten to hunt down their families and assassinate everyone gangland style. Rather, I try to find creative ways of expressing my frustration with receiving 42 phone calls every evening.

I’ve employed the tried and true method of saying “Yes, I’m really interested, would you mind holding on for a second while I grab a pencil so I can take some notes?” and then setting the phone down and going back to watching TV just to see how long they will actually stay on the line. But that’s only fun so many times before it becomes cliché.

On many occasions I’ve picked up the phone and in my best Don Pardo voice said; “Congratulations, you’re the 10^th telemarketing call tonight! You’ve won a chance to interview for a real job!” 

Ok…perhaps I am a horse’s ass.

I’ve put our number on do-not-call lists. I’ve patiently and pleasantly thanked them for calling and then asked them to remove our name from their files. I’ve even made up sob stories to make them feel bad; “I’d really like to purchase your product, but since I’m a quadriplegic and attached to a respirator after the explosion in the mine, I can’t really reach my wallet to get to my credit card right now.” And yet the telemarketers continue to call in larger and larger numbers.

Obviously, I could turn the ringer on my phone off, but my wife’s mother who lives nearby is not in the best of health, and we don’t want to miss an actual important phone call. I’ve also thought about just dropping our land line and using only our mobile phones. That was until something happened the other day more horrifying than an IRS audit…I got a telemarketing call on my cell phone. It was one of those where there isn’t a real person on the line, but a recorded message instead. I’m sure the call was generated by a program that dials consecutive phone numbers, but the point is that the last bastion of telephonic privacy has been breached, and I feel as violated as a newcomer to a maximum security prison who makes the mistake of bending over to pick up the soap in the shower.

I can’t run, I can’t hide. They’re like zombies in a George Romero movie; clawing at the windows and doors, trying to find a way into my home until I break down and buy the damn porcelain cow figurines or the UFO insurance.

My wife suggests that I should be careful because if I keep continuing to be a jerk, someday, telemarketers will be the only phone calls I’ll ever receive, and that I just might appreciate the company.

In the meantime, this is the greatest prank ever played on a telemarketer:

http://howtoprankatelemarketer.ytmnd.com/

THREE A’s OF BEING MIDDLE AGED

MIDDLE AGED ASS

I’ve noticed lately that a lot of young women are wearing shorts or sweat pants with the word “PINK” plastered in large letters across their ass. I’m sure that if you’re under 25 it probably is pink but I don’t understand why you would feel compelled to advertise that. I think I’m going to market a line of sweat pants for middle aged men like myself that has “SAGGY” printed across the ass, or perhaps, “COTTAGE CHEESE.”

MIDDLE AGED ARITHMETIC

Speaking of being middle aged, I have an age related math question for all of you math whizzes out there. I was thinking yesterday about the fact that I turn 50 this year and my son turns 25. While the half century and quarter century marks are great milestones for us, it does bring up an interesting conundrum. Every year prior to this, I have been more than twice as old as my son. This year I will be exactly twice as old as my son. Every year from this point forward I will be less than twice as old as my son. I like to think this means that my son will be aging at a much faster rate than I will from now on. Doesn’t that make sense?

MIDDLE AGED ANGST

And speaking of turning 50, I’d like to ask for your feedback concerning how I should celebrate my 50^th birthday. I hang out with a group of three other guys at church. We are all within a few months of each other in age. When we all turned 45, we went sky diving together. We’d like to top that for our 50^th birthday celebration.

We all saw the movie “Wild Hogs” and thought it might be fun to rent Harleys and drive from Tulsa to Vegas and back. However, we were discussing who each of us most closely resembled in the movie and the other three unanimously (and very quickly) declared that I was the William H. Macy character “Dudley”, so I’m not sure I want to hang out with them anymore.

Plan #2 is to go white water rafting in Wyoming. Whatever we do, we want it to be a desperate attempt at reclaiming our youth while putting our aging bodies in mortal danger.

Any suggestions?

HONEY BUNNY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND

A couple of months ago I was assimilated into the collective. Yes, I can admit it…I opened a MySpace account.

Since that time a veritable bevy of hot, sexually curious, 22 yr old nurses/students/actresses/waitresses/massage therapists have flooded my inbox with requests to be my friend. Honey Bunny is only the latest in long line of sultry vixens lined up for a slice of Cold Skivvies.

And really, you can’t blame them. Perhaps it’s the way my stomach creeps seductively over my belt like Jell-O oozing out of pantyhose, or maybe it’s the way my eyebrows stand straight up like possessed party favors. Perhaps it’s the sunlight-like yellow hue of my toenails, or maybe it’s just the way the moonlight glistens off my bald spots that makes these women want to rip off my shirt and run their slender fingers through my luxurious back hair.

I don’t know what it is, but it’s apparent that this schoolgirl is hot for teacher.

One of my friends here at work had the nerve to suggest that these girls aren't interested in me at all and if I clicked on their profiles I would be re-directed to porn or adult dating sites. Is that not the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard? I know the truth, he’s just jealous that Honey Bunny wants me to be her Pooh Bear.

Crap, I just clicked on Honey Bunny’s profile and I was taken to desperate_horny_middleaged_men.com. Man, that really takes the inflation out of everything that was...well...inflated.

Actually, on this Valentines Day and every other Valentines Day I thank God I’m not out there searching for Honey Bunny. Even though it may be old fashioned, and even though it may be passé, I am very glad to be able to define myself as a “very happily married man.”

I’m fortunate to have found a smart, beautiful woman who has the grace (and courage) to overlook the expanding waist line and the bushy eyebrows and all of the other rough edges and love me for who I am.

That’s worth more than a million Honey Bunnies.

Happy Valentines Day babe.

 SUPER TROOPERS

I’m a very happy man. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol has started issuing tickets for driving at, or below, the speed limit in the passing lane.

All I can say is praise Jesus and it’s about f*#%ing time!

The OHP (that’s “trooper” to you) explained that emergency vehicles have been having a tough time getting down the highways in Oklahoma because of the dildos parking their cars at the speed limit in the passing lane. (Ok… they didn’t actually use the word “dildos” but it’s appropriate).

It’s really pretty simple. If you don’t want to ever exceed the speed limit, no one is forcing you too. Just please stay in the right lane so that those of us who are hell bent on dying in our vehicles at 100 mph can get around you.

One of the local TV stations interviewed the first few people who got tickets and as you can imagine, there was a huge outpouring of righteous indignation.

“I don’t understand! I got a ticket for driving the speed limit?!?!? This doesn’t make any sense! It’s my duty as a citizen to drive slowly in the passing lane to keep other drivers from speeding!”

I’m not making that comment up. The “interviewee” was an older gentleman in a land yacht (obviously) who was turning some very interesting shades of red. I hope he didn’t have a heart attack though, because the ambulance wouldn’t have been able to get to him because people just like him are driving too slowly in the passing lane!

If I could find a trooper I’d kiss them right on the mouth, and I’d do it at 90 mph.

Now, if they’ll just start giving tickets to people who stop at the end of expressway entrance ramps I’ll be an even happier man.

I’M COOLER THAN YOU BECAUSE I LISTEN TO “CRADLE OF FILTH” AND YOU DON’T

I have a confession to make. I despise people who think they are superior to other people because of their taste in music. I first ran into this type of person when I was a music major in college. These were the guys who would stay after music theory class and endlessly debate the subtle nuances in the styles of various 20^th century composers. They would roll their eyes and display intense pity if some poor student declared that they liked something the other students had determined was passé. These people are pompous weenies.

After graduating from college I discovered people who act the same way about their tastes in popular music. These people are also pompous weenies.

One of my favorite movies of all times is “High Fidelity” with John Cusack and Jack Black. Oddly enough, the reason for this may be that their two characters epitomize the type of people who make me want to beat my head against the wall. When John Cusack asks Jack Black who his musical influences are and he replies “you wouldn’t recognize them, they’re mostly German” I’m suddenly back in music school listening to the theory geeks posture all over again.

Music is an intensely personal thing. Most of us identify most closely with the music of our youth. My high school and college years were in the 70’s so I still enjoy Credence Clearwater, the Eagles, Iron Butterfly, etc. In fact, I once caused my father to go into a near homicidal rage because I played “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” 37 times in a row. I did not grow up in the era of rap music so most rap music makes me want to put a bullet in my head. However, there are millions of people who do like rap and that’s OK (just please pull your pants up.)

I’ve noticed a trend recently in books, blogs, movies, etc. where more and more esoteric pop-culture references are made while the writers wink at their audiences with smug self righteousness because of their obvious coolness and disdain for the masses. I don’t know if this is a marketing ploy, or if people have no other means of pumping up their self esteem, but the trend pisses me off.

All I can say is (and I can’t stress this enough) these people are pompous weenies.

My theory is; if you like it, listen to it. I don’t care if your favorite album is “Mister Rogers Sings the Blues,” if it floats your boat, I’m cool with that. I’ve also found my musical tastes changing over the years. For example, as a teenager I would have never listened to Johnny Cash because my friends didn’t like him and my father did. Now I find that I’m fascinated by his voice. It’s kind of shame I missed out on years of enjoying his music because of what other people thought.

My son bought me an IPOD and loaded it down with music he thought I might like or would enjoy being exposed too. I hadn’t heard 80% of it before and I’m like a kid in a candy store nibbling at all of it. Most of it I like, some of it I don’t, but I’m not letting my peers or any music critic tell me what to enjoy.

I referenced “Cradle of Filth” in the title because it’s a band one of our former foster children listened too. I didn’t care for the music, but you’ve got to admit, that’s a great name. I hope to someday start a rock band called “Discernibly Turgid.”

So…enjoy what you enjoy, hate what you hate, it’s all good.

However, if you ever found boy bands to be irritating, you’ll get a kick out of this…

RANDOM STUFF

Does anyone else find it odd that Fat Tuesday and Super Tuesday fall on the same day this year? I suppose this means that there will be lots of drunken people at the polls; which may, or may not be a bad thing. However, since Lent begins the next day; I fully expect any of you who vote for Mitt Romney on Tuesday to repent on Wednesday and spend the remainder of Lent flogging yourself daily.

I had third row tickets to see George Carlin last Friday. He began by mentioning that he had just turned 70 (69 with one finger up his ass, as he so poetically put it) and I’ll have to admit, that from 20 ft. away he’s not looking so good these days. He only did an hour’s worth of material, but hey, he’s 70 years old so I gave him a break. I really wanted to buy one of the “Simon Says Fuck You” or “Jesus is Coming, Look Busy” T-Shirts in the lobby, but I can’t wear them to work, and the only place I ever go socially is church so I passed.

I discovered by reading my son’s Facebook page that I have a Grand Dog. His name is Deputy Chip. Grand Dog shower gifts may be sent to me directly.

On average I take about 40 round trip flights a year. I thought I had encountered every possible travel nightmare imaginable. However, on the way back from a short vacation in Utah last week with my family I entered the seventh level of airline hell. Here is the abbreviated story: Snowstorm…delayed at gate…start to take off…warning light…back to gate…fix problem…de-ice plane before second take off….de-icing fluid in the electronics…hour of diagnostics…missed connection in Las Vegas…running from gate to gate on standby…discovering (after not getting on five consecutive flights) that they had inadvertently dropped our name off the standby list…beating the ticket agent to death after discovering that they had inadvertently dropped our name off the standby list…catching last flight out to Phoenix…Phoenix to Tulsa flight delayed by four hours…getting ready to land in Tulsa and the navigational beacon goes down…diverted to Kansas City for more fuel…sitting on the ground in Kansas City for two hours while they de-ice the runway in Tulsa…arriving in Tulsa 22 hours after taking off in Salt Lake City.

Three round trip flights to Utah - $1,200.00. Having 20 books full of free drink coupons in my carryon because I’m a frequent flyer – priceless.

THE TWO FACES OF JORDAN

I’ve written often about my son. He is a neuroscientist at Baylor University and there is no parent on the planet more proud of their child than I am. Here is a picture of Jordan in his lab:

Here is a picture of Jordan on the weekends:

Hey, even neuroscientists have to unwind.