Irrational Exhuberance

look at that handsome devil. just sitting there presiding over his final Federal Open Market Committee meeting, counting the minutes until quitting time.

bet you a quarter point rate hike that somewhere in washington tonight, andrea mitchell is getting a major workout.

A Long Way To Go For A Link

once upon a time, i was a dating man. i mean, i really loved to go on dates.

some dates went well. some dates even went very well. one date even lead to a wedding a few short years later - followed soon after by children and a mortgage. dates like that were the exception, not the rule.

but among the dozens of drinks, dinners, cups of coffee, laps around ice skating rinks, concerts, park lunches, and rollerbladings through central park, there are two dates that stand out from all the others like sore thumbs that have been amputated and left to float in half-filled jars of cloudy, stinky fluid.


one was the night i took this girl i had been seeing for a couple of weeks to see the blue man group. when the lights went down and the blue men started making eye contact with the audience, she grabbed my arm tightly and leaned into me.

i thought this was a good sign.


little did i know that this girl was gripping my arm in fear. somehow, despite a terror that became increasingly evident, she managed to keep calm for the next two hours...until the finale of the show. that's when the blue men go apeshit and start whipping toilet paper around in a strobe light to the pumping sounds of KLF and when she stood up screaming and ran out of the theater in a panic.

the other date was slightly worse than that.

i should begin by saying that at this particular point in my life, i had just gotten my first job, pulling down $375 a week as the entertainment tonight Phone Bitch - a handle coined by my then co-worker edward 'brothers mcmullen' burns (said the name dropping star f'er). i was living alone in a tiny one bedroom on 77th and 2nd and i was still physically able to run 5 miles a night around the reservoir. life was good. my confidence was high.

now, one of the perks of being ET Phone Bitch was the hookups you'd get from the producers who were constantly being offered free tickets to things around town. one afternoon, i went along on a shoot at the public theater when my friend peter interviewed one-eyed boxing legend Michael Olajidé about choreographing the boxing scenes in a new play called 'blade to the heat' that was being directed by george wolfe. they put on a demonstration of the big fight scene for us and when the lights went down and the congas started playing and the smoke began to rise as the boxers pretended to beat the shit out of each other, only one thing crossed my mind. "this is going to really impress whichever lucky girl i bring down here."


i don't remember the name of the lucky girl who got the call - but i do remember it was our first date. i also remember the look on her face when, within the first 5 minutes of the show, it became apparent that this particular production was about the life of a gay, closeted boxer. i also recall the look on her face when 5 minutes after we realized that fact, one of the boxers stripped down nude and took a shower onstage - one that seemed to last forever and that appeared to focus solely on this man soaping up his genitals.

i should say that i personally had no problem with the play's subject matter - and i doubt that this girl did either. but in hindsight, maybe i should have researched just how many uses of the c word there would be, or how many gay makeout sessions would be performed or whether or not there were any blood-soaked stabbing scenes before i decided to make 'blade to the heat' the centerpiece of my romantic overtures.

later that night, when the last soapy boxer's penis had been put away, i took my date to dojo for dinner - on eddie's advice. for those of you unfamiliar with this place, as i was when we sat down, dojo is basically a vegetarian coffee house where the most expensive thing on the menu is four dollars. you can imagine how well that went over. especially when the waitress accidentally poured an entire pitcher of lemonade over this poor girl's shoulders in the middle of our meal.

and optimistic (naive?) me...i still hit the binaca big time as i chased her out the door.

and why do i bring these stories up today of all days?

because this short film by bob odenkirk made me laugh out loud over and over as i watched it this evening. please clear 12 minutes and dig in.

And May God Continue To Bless Simonmetz.Blogspot.Com. (Applause.)

loyal readers, family members who i have successfully guilted into reading everyday, guy who called me a kike in the comments a few months back, random self-googlers, horny belgians, the real simon metz and matthew labovich: every year, by law and by custom, we meet here to consider the state of simonmetz.blogspot.com. this year, i stand before you with the solemn hope that copying, pasting and rewriting the President's 2003 state of the union address - as i have done here - will provide you with a modicum of entertainment and at the very least you will forgive me for tricking you into reading this far into a truly belabored concept when i probably should have just taken the night off. i mean, staring at a blank template for 35 minutes is probably a sign that you just don't have it in you, pal.


(applause.)

in all these days of promise and days of reckoning, we can be confident. in a whirlwind of change and hope and peril, our faith is sure, our resolve is firm, and our union is strong.


(applause.)

writing this blog has many challenges. i will not deny, i will not ignore, i will not pass along my problems to other bloggers or to my patient wife (applause.) or to my children. or to whichever one of my neighbors printed out a page from the california DMV website listing ticketable offenses and stuck it to my front door the other day so i would get the message not to park in front of the the hydrant directly in front of my lawn anymore.


(applause.)

during the last four months, we have seen what can be accomplished when we work together. you have met my children - whether you wanted to or not - and when i wasn't trying in vain to make a political statement or tell a dumb story from my youth, i have shown no hesitation in trotting out my two unsuspecting sons and describing moments from their lives in detail. moments that may have struck me as funny or charming or cute because i'm their father, but that may have appeared embarrassing to you.


(applause.)

to protect our blog, on friday night we personally called the national center for missing and exploited children to report the IP address of the perv who did a search for 'nude kids' and ended up reading about how snow day at pre-k turned into a brief naked 4-year old uprising. (applause.) to insist on integrity in american business we passed tough reforms, and we are holding corporate criminals to account. (applause.)

some might call this a good record; i call it a good start. tonight I ask you to join me in the next bold steps to serve our fellow citizens.

today, the gravest danger facing america and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. these regimes could use such weapons for blackmail, terror, and mass murder. they could also give or sell those weapons to terrorist allies, who would use them without the least hesitation. they could also bankrupt the CBA, embarass themselves trying to coach the indiana pacers, and then singlehandedly destroy the new york knicks with terrible trades, retarded contracts and overall ineptitude. yeah, i'm talking to you, fuckface.


(applause. chants of 'moe! berg! moe! berg!)

yeah! yeah! that's what the fuck i'm talking about!

(slams down microphone, howling feedback emits from speakers)

A Thursday Deuce, Y'all

(an important note...i revised a few of the words in this post about 24 hours after i originally put it up due to the overwhelming number of hits i received from people all over the planet who were searching for the word that is the reverse spelling of the word 'edun'. i mean, i want more traffic and all, but not thanks to horny one time visitors from malta, pakistan, and malaysia to name just three countries which have appeared out of the blue in my site meter over the past day.

the truth is some of the word combos featuring 'edun' that people used to get here were downright scary. as in, use the worst part of your imagination. yeah...that fucking horrifying.

interestingly enough, though, after you read the second half of the post, you will find that complaining about increased traffic due to cheap keyword stunts is rather ironic for me to say tonight.

thanks, mb)

yesterday, i was alternately too lazy and then too busy to plop my swollen ass down and put something up here. but now, after 24 hours of stomach-churning guilt and red-eyed regret, i'm making it up to myself by double dipping today.


but i've got to warn you. i've really got nothing special on the brain. in fact, i'm going to begin - as i have so often - with my bread and butter; my fastball, if you will...a story about one of my kids.

(sure, i could force something about hamas winning the palestinian elections or the alito showdown or the fact that i'm going to philadelphia on sunday for a grand total of 20 hours (top secret details to come next week.) but why exert myself? you know?)

(by the way, how 'bout a hand for the double parentheticals there, folks?)

anyhow...

yesterday was snow day at the boys' pre-k. that's the annual extravaganza when they bring in some special effects guy or something with a snow machine to blow a few inches of the white stuff around the yard so poor, winter-weather-deprived, sun-soaked californian children can frolic in the type of environment their east coast breathren take for granted for 30 minutes or so before it turns into a series of expensive puddles.


as you'd expect, despite the brand new boots, mittens and whatnot that were purchased just for the occasion, after a few minutes of snow-angels, snow eating and snotsicle sleeve smearing, all the children were soaking wet. and ab being ab, the moment the class was brought back into the classroom, my man stripped down out of his wet gear, peeling off every single sopping layer until he was standing there in the classroom totally (edun). and since my boys were bred from birth to be born leaders, not followers...as soon as he was (edun), every other kid in the class fell in line and began to make themselves comfortable as well...and before the teachers realized it, they were left with a classroom full of (edun) four year olds.

in other news, michael jackson is busy planning snow day at neverland ranch.

(cue rim shot)

but you knooooow...

i was pleased to receive a few comments and an email today from matthew labovich, one of the west hills day-campers about whom i wrote a few weeks back. apparently, my man did a little self-google sometime today (nothing wrong with that) and ended up discovering my tiny memory of a moment in his life captured forever here on The Metz. i can only imagine the look on his face as he read my stupid little blah blah blah about a dirty song he sang when he was, like, 6 years old.

now, to me, what's really cool about this happening is that this is probably the fourth or fifth person about whom i've written something random or dumb, who then ended up reading about themselves on the site after self-googling. and when you consider the incredibly limited audience i actually have (i like to think of it as exclusive), it becomes evident that an alarmingly high percentage of people who actually end up here at The Metz have done so through a self-google. which means that, in theory, if i put up a bunch of random names - old lost friends, missing prom dates, long vanished nursery school comrades in arms - there's a distinct possibility that person will someday be up late at night with a few beers in them and decide to search for themselves on the internet.

and that's when i'll get 'em.

and so...

MAX TOPF
MICHELLE PFEFFER
ALLISON JONES (ROAD RULES)
VINNIE RUBINO/VINCE RUBINO
HEATHER BORDEN
DR. DAVID WOLK

oh, and SCARLETT JOHANSSON


please, lord.

This Is A Test, Part Whatever 2

from what i've seen, vlogging is about as self important as you can get. and i want in. i think.

that said, tonight i decided to do a little experimenting with my iSight and youtube embedded video.

ab and i sat down to record a test message, and despite plenty of rehearsal, he decided to go off script.




4 years old and he's already cheapening himself with dick jokes.

This Is A Test, Part Whatever

this is just me trying to get my flickr up to speed.

should this work, and should you click on me and my man up there, you will arrive at what will, in time, become a repository for evidence, starfucking, random shots of the boys, and photoshopped jpegs of my friends that will ultimately make them mad.

if you see a grotesque individual, please note that they are surely much more handsome than they appear here.

except for william hung.

You Think You've Had A Bad Couple Of Days?

sorry.

(photo represents how life has treated my friend lately)

you're only the runner-up in the shit-end-of-the-stick sweepstakes - thanks to my boy javier.

dig in and let's all welcome my friend to the blogosphere. he could use the love.

And When Chuck's Hype Man Was Pumping Everyone Up Before The Big "Happy Birthday Jam", He Had The Nerve To Claim He Is "Everyone's Favorite Mouse"

george santayana once said "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

moe berg says "i wish i remembered something about my very rare visits to chuck e. cheese as a child before we took the boys there this evening for a birthday party." i might have been prepared had this been the case.


now i know why my parents were so against ever taking my brother and me there back in the day. i personally witnessed three pants-pissings and one pants-shitting, in and around the communal slide/tunnel/maze in which my children were playing.

i felt worst for the one kid who was running desperately to find his parents amid the maelstrom, clutching his weiner in vain, trying hopelessly to stem the flow of pee pee that had already soaked through his jeans. the look on his six-year old face will haunt me forever.

if you ask me, there isn't enough purell in the world for what i've just been through.

great party though. damned good cupcakes.

From Art Linkletter To Henry Ford (or "It's OK, I Can Joke Like This Because I AM Jewish"

some of you have known me for a long time. some of you only know me by what i write here. but regardless of who you are, i think it's safe to say, if this isn't your first time on The Metz, you already have some idea of the type of person i am, what i do for a living, and what i like and dislike.

my children have known me for 4 years - give or take a year or so of actual waking human cognizance - and tonight i finally found out what their real impressions of me are.


tonight was daddy night at the boys' nursery school, and as part of their daddy night project, they created sketches of my face, complete with glued on hair, and a little essay that summed me up for all the other daddies who were in the house.

here is what they said, verbatim...

"MY DAD WORKS AT THE OFFICE AND HE NEEDS TO GET MONEY. HE LIKES TO EAT SALADS AND CHICKEN. MY DAD DRIVES A BLACK CAR." - jb

"MY DAD GOES TO THE OFFICE TO MAKE FOOD. HE LIKES TO EAT TURKEY, BURGERS, AND SPINACH. MY DAD DRIVES A BLUE CAR." - ab

-----

i also went to a bris today.


seriously. enough is enough. why do mohels always feel the need to do what basically amounts to dick jokes for the assembled crowd? we get it. you're doing penis surgery. leave the pee-pee ha-ha to dave attell.

and jeez, once they start with the blood sucking...is there anyone who wouldn't rather be somewhere else?

I'm Only Posting This Because I've Always HATED "Mustang Sally" And Today I Feel A Little Guilty

somewhere in america, dan aykroyd isn't feeling so funny today.

NEW YORK - Wilson Pickett, the soul pioneer best known for the fiery hits "Mustang Sally" and "In The Midnight Hour," died of a heart attack Thursday in a Reston, Va., hospital, according to his management company. He was 64.

From Shat to Shat: An Illustrated History

once upon a time, i wanted to be a psychologist.


until i got a c minus in statistics.

then, i thought i wanted to be a lawyer.


until, through what can only be described as a twist of fate, shortly after making this rash decision, i wound up as an audience member for the taping of the 39th episode of late night with conan o'brien.


it was november 4, 1993. the guests were jane pauley, peter mcwilliams, and matthew sweet.


suddenly i thought i wanted to work in tv.

then, somehow, against all odds, and after recalling all my lawschool applications, i actually got a job in tv. and on the first day of that job, one of my assignments was to procure biscotti for william shatner.


this afternoon, nearly 12 years later my fruitless search for that celebrity pastry, i found myself in william shatner's office commiserating briefly with The Man Himself about the pain of kidney stones minutes after producing an interview regarding his latest triumph for tomorrow's show.

sometimes all you can do is sit and shake your head.

1.21 Jigawatts! 1.21 Jigawatts!

despite the bad news that seems to perpetually surround us and an endlessly full bowl of steaming, horrible predictions about what the future will ultimately hold for mankind, for the most part i tend to believe that we'll all get our shit together eventually and somehow create a nice place for my kids' kids to live someday.

until i start thinking about time travel.


ok, follow me for a second here...

if time travel is indeed possible - and we're all only waiting for the day to arrive when future physicists finally figure out how it all works and actually create a practical use for it - isn't the lack of any appearance from future time-travellers a bad sign? i mean, if you think about it...doesn't the fact that no one from the future has ever shown up mean that mankind will never reach that point somewhere down the line when we figure it all out? and wouldn't that in turn mean something will happen that prevents us as a species from getting there?


jesus. sometimes i think i smoked way too much weed in college.

Moules Frites

thanks to the mlk holiday, traffic here at the metz was lighter than normal all day - which i didn't think was actually possible.

normally, that would discourage me, but not today. that's because today i had a history making event. today, That Special Someone paid me a visit.

let me first preface this by saying that anyone who takes the time to read what i am writing here has a special place in my heart. however, no matter who you are, starting today, you take a back seat to That Special Someone...

the horny belgian looking for a hooker in the northern french city of metz.

and how fitting it happened on martin luther king day. i, too, have a dream - and today it came true.

Crumbpicasso

at work, i've become somewhat legendary for my doodles during the afternoon meeting. some of my co-workers have even been known to commission something special for themselves once in a while, if they see that i am particularly inspired.

today, i spent most of my sunday at the office and, during a break, found these gems among the old legal pads stuffing my drawers and photographed them with my phone. since i haven't thought of anything special to share word-wise, today we're going to let the art do the talking.

"bald"

"feef"

"worried about topf"

"fire head gummy smile"

"font in wheat"

"the mess"

these are, of course, all available for purchase.

A Pair Of Beefs

today i heard a muzak version of norah jones' 'don't know why' when i was put on hold during a phone call.


yes, someone somewhere decided that the original version of that unbelieveably decaffinated song actually needed to be toned down even further and given the full on kenny g treatment.


to me, the sickest part wasn't that a song that isn't exactly known for getting the blood pumping could actually be neutered further. the sickest part was that the music i was hearing was a radio broadcast - which means that some program director out there in la made an executive decision that the already famously languid grammy winning version of 'don't know why' just wasn't languid enough for his listeners.

speaking on behalf of everyone who isn't using an iron lung... we can handle it. give us the hardcore shit next time.

and speaking of hardcore shit...

to those of you who think that going to a place like benihana for a little chop-socky show with your hibachi-grilled meal is fun, think again.


and to think, if it wasn't for the putrid smell of burning grease and choking cloud of thick, black meatsmoke that chased mrs b and i out of that very same benihana before we could sit down to eat the only time one of mrs b's friends actually convinced us to go there for dinner...it could have been me.

Bibbity Bobbity Boo, Indeed

recently, the boys have been making a little bit of noise about how much they'd like to go back to disneyland. unfortunately, there's one big reason i can't take them back any time soon, despite the terrific time we had when we went back a few months ago.

that reason is the woman in the picture below.


her name is fairy godmother and she has a very creepy job.

now we all know that part of the fun of going to disney is interacting with the oversized characters who walk around the park. there's nothing like watching the look on your kids' faces when they see donald or mickey or goofy in the flesh for the very first time...



...and it's always a kick helping your kids hold a successful one sided conversation with a mute, huge-headed guy-in-a-costume.


me: jb, say hi to mickey.
jb: mickey, i'm three years old. i go to school.
mickey: (nods head vigorously)
jb: i have a brother and a mommy and a daddy.
mickey: (extends arms and leans weight back in classic 'oh, isn't that terrific!' manner)
me: thank you, mickey.
jb: thank you, mickey!
mickey: (nods head vigorously, walks away to overjoyed crowd of japanese tourists)

but when the time comes that you and your brood bump into fairy godmother, all bets are off.

on our visit to the park, mrs b and i sprung for a character breakfast, which gave us some pretty powerful character interaction bang for the buck. and since we got to the restaurant well after the morning rush, the guys basically had a private audience with everyone. like, captain hook would sit down for a visit, and tigger and minnie mouse would stay in a holding pattern by the buffet waiting for us to send hook away so one of them could sit down for a minute or two. character after character, one after the other...they all came over for some vigorous head nodding and very emphatic silent gesturing. best of all, thanks to their inability to speak, mrs b and i drove the conversation and could basically send the characters away whenever we got tired of them and not feel rude about it in the least. too much pooh? just say 'thanks for visiting, pooh...but ab and jb have to eat their pancakes' and after a few back pats and head nods...no more pooh. it really was great.

and then fairy godmother sat down at our booth for a chat. complete with her vocal cords.

that meant we had to have an extended conversation with a stranger who was under strict corporate orders to pretend that she was a fairy with magical powers. only, she kind of just half-followed the script. like, she'd ask where we come from and when we told her from la, she'd talk about how the 5 can be really bad if you hit it at the wrong time, and then a moment later she'd ask if we'd seen gusgus the mouse sneaking around by the omelette stand.


the creepiest part was that, to the boys - who, incidentally, have never seen cinderella - after a parade of supersized cartoon characters and giant animals, this woman was just an old lady in a blue schmatta talking about pumpkins and pixiedust and magic mice. she'd tell them how important it was to eat your breakfast because you'd never have enough energy to dance at the ball if you didn't, and they'd just look at us like 'who the fuck is this lady?'


the answer is...i have no idea. and i don't want to know. that's why we're going back to legoland.

Boy, Does She Love Pokemon

i feel sick and i can't lie to you anymore.

with all the outrage and disappointment surrounding author james frey and how he probably exaggerated and invented vital parts of his best-selling oprah endorsed memoir, 'a million little pieces'...

...i've been doing some soul searching...and i've come to a conclusion.

the time has come to tell you the truth about myself. i figure it's the least i can do after earning your trust and i don't want to risk any future embarassment by keeping this charade up for another moment.

for the past three months or so, i've been painting a picture of myself as a youngish, happily married dad with two adorable sons, a lot on his mind, and a pretty cool job he loves going to.

but it's simply not true.

i mean, it's bad enough i write this thing under not one, but two pen names, but when i really look at what i've been selling you, it's enough to make me powervomit into a plastic bag, poke holes in the bag and then place it on my car seat and go for a nice long drive.

here's what you need to know.

i've been married three times
i work as a waiter at buca di beppo
i don't have four year old twin sons
i do have one daughter
she's 8 and she loves pokemon


god, i feel so much better now. the truth really does set you free.

oh, and if you haven't clicked that pokemon link, do yourself a favor and dive right in.

Sweep The Leg! (Part II)

after earning their orange stripe back in october, the boys have completed 10 more impressive martial arts tasks and advanced on to their yellow stripe.

and so, i now present...

the ten things jb and ab had to do in order to earn their yellow striped belt at little dragons karate:

1. demonstrate five proper stretching techniques
2. single punches into double time punches
3. knock over sparring dummy with forward high kick
4. reverse roll down inclined slope
5. memorize home phone number
   
6. recite "one smart fellow, he felt smart...two smart fellows they felt smart...three smart fellows they all felt smart" out loud without error
   
7. dissect owl scat
   
8. reassemble owl scat
   
9. flush bible down barnes & noble toilet
   
10. change drunken baby chimpanzee's diaper

congratulations, boys! daddy's proud of you.