Dear God...

Dear God...

Hi.  It's me, Dave.  From New Jersey.  Dark hair, kinda short, brown eyes?  Yeah, both of them.  Uh huh...that's right, the guy with the weird pickle/tree tattoo.  How's it hangin'?

Excuse me?  No no, you're right; I haven't been flossing as much as I should.  Um hmm...yes...I know.  Listen, G, that's not why I'm reaching out.

I just wanted to reach out to thank you for this year's bumper crop of Republican presidential contenders.  Especially Michele.  Yeah, Bachmann.  As a left-wing liberal Democrat and armchair humorist I have to give you your props for really coming through big-time with that one.

No, really.  I mean here I am going around openly questioning your existence when--BAM!--there you are making your presence known beyond all doubt.  No one could ever believe for a second that such an incredible dream-team of GOP presidential wannabes and tire-kickers could have "just happened" without the intervention of divine providence.  Oh, and that whole "Jesus-dying-for-our-sins-for-eternal-salvation" thing?  Yeah, thanks for that, too.

What's that?  Okay, okay!  Enough with the flossing already!  Geez, since when did you become the point man for the American fucking Dental Association?!?  Yes, I know they're the only teeth I'll ever have.  Don't go getting all Old Testament frogs-and-locusts on me, alright?

Anyway, I am SO looking forward to sitting back and enjoying your show these next 17 months.  First you whet our appetites with Sarah Palin: cat-lady crazy, shoots wolves from helicopters and an IQ that would make an enviable pro golf score. Oh, and that winking thing?  Nice touch!  Okay, so Sarah's not yet officially a candidate but we both know she didn't rent that stupid bus just so her husband could get a job driving it.

Then you lull us all into a nice, cozy stupor with Mitt "Almost Exciting Enough To Be Amish" Romney: charismatic as a box of Q-Tips and looking like he just stepped out of a pajama ad ripped from the 1978 Sears Christmas catalog.  All that plus he's a Mormon!  Then just when we're about to nod off--ZING!--you deliver unto us the money shot:  Michele.

Michele...she might actually turn out to be more "Palin" than Palin:  Lexington & Concord in New Hampshire.  Abolitionist slave-owning founding fathers.  A nationally televised seven minute reply to the President's State of the Union address delivered in its entirety to the wrong camera.  Bizarre, McCarthyesque implications of congressional anti-Americanism.  Rumor has it that Politifact.com has had to add on a second shift just to keep up with her.  All this and it's not even 2012 yet.  OMFY, it's like a political junkie's wet dream!

Then there's The Donald, Newt, Ron "Fountainhead" Paul, Godfather Cain and Rick "Please Don't Google Me" Santorum.  And don't think for a second that we haven't noticed Rick Perry warming up in the bullpen, you sly dog.  It's the wedding at Cana all over again; it just never stops!  My cup truly runneth over.

Look, I know I haven't been in touch a lot lately but I swear to God--er, You--that I'll try to do a better job with that from now on.  Honest.  Excuse me?  What was that?  Yes, that and the flossing.  You do know you're fixating, right?  Gonna start calling you "Rainman" if you keep this shit up.  I'm just sayin'.

No, I mean it.  From now on I am totally on board the Yahweh Express, pinky-swear.  I mean after this bountiful feast of oddity and ineptitude which you have so graciously placed before me, I'd have to be a putz not to be on board, am I right?

Where there was darkness you gave me light.  When I was hungry you fed me.  And when I was fearful and anxious about a potentially boring 2012 presidential campaign you gave me Sarah, Michele and their Merry Men.  I am not worthy.

Thanks again, Big Guy, and let's not be strangers, okay?  Maybe head on over to Benedict's for a little waffer and wine?  Take in some Handel or a little Gregorian chant sometime soon, just the two of us?  Yeah?  Faaaan-tastic!

Hey, no kidding, it's been great chatting.  You take care and I promise I'll work on the flossing, okay? You know, you're way cooler than the Jehovah's Witnesses say you are.

Ciao...

Dave

PS:  John Wayne from Waterloo!  Stop it, stop it, You're killin' me here!

"Thou shalt not forget to floss."

Sarah Palin's Top 10 Moments in American History

10)  Louis Armstrong walks on the moon
  9)  Roe vs Wade grants women right to vote
  8)  Final episode of M*A*S*H brings peace to Korea
  7)  Lee surrenders to Grant at Lincoln's summer home in Gettysburg
  6)  Stock car crash of 1929
  5)  Thomas Edison invents Declaration of Independence
  4)  United States nukes Germany during Berlin Airlift to end WWI
  3)  Columbo discovers America
  2)  Randy Jackson defeats British at Battle of New Orleans

  1)  US wins Cola War

Randy Jackson: Patriot

Top 10 Least Popular Housewarming Gifts

10)  Proctor-Silex shower toaster
  9)  Donald Trump scowling lawn gnome
  8)  Poison ivy trellis
  7)  Orkin gift card
  6)  Freshly baked liver meringue pie
  5)  Gary Busey welcome mat
  4)  Framed Anthony Weiner collage
  3)  Provolone scented candles
  2)  Mariah Carey shrieking smoke detector
  1)  Spam log

"Fiiiiiiiire!"

Top Ten Signs That Newt Gingrich Might Not Be Serious About Running for President

10)  Campaign HQ now on Lido deck of Aegean I

  9)  Constantly whines about grueling noon-2pm campaign schedule

  8)  Recently caught texting photo of bloated stomach to Elisabeth Hasselbeck

  7)  Not crazy about Secret Service code name:  Ass-Face

  6)  Campaign financed entirely by sale of "Ex-Wives vs. Ex-Campaign-Staffers"
       chess sets

  5)  Using hip new AM radio technology to reach out to America's youth

  4)  Has taken to wearing Speedo and Crocs to press conferences

  3)  White House gift shop out, Tiffany’s in

  2)  Refuses to fellate Roger Ailes

  1)  Running mate: Charo

Newt Gingrich hard at work preparing for GOP presidential primary debate 
(moments before being wrestled back into the sea by members of the 
Marine Mammal Stranding Center)

Franklin's Sad Decline

In his later years, it was not unusual for Benjamin Franklin to be found wandering the streets of Philadelphia naked, reeking of urine and shouting obscenities at random passersby.  Were this in fact true would it not be a fascinating historical tidbit?

Presidential Finger-Crossing

More than anyone else, who hopes that Sarah Palin enters the 2012 presidential race?  My guess would be Barack Obama.

...and maybe Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert

Where Does Taft End and the Buffalo Begin?

Not only is William Howard Taft the only US President ever to have served as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, he's also the only President ever to have been photographed riding a water buffalo. 

Taft riding his favorite water buffalo, which he adoringly named "Lunchy"

Amaze Your Friends!!!

Did you know that the word “scrotum” appears the exact same number of times in the Bible, the Tanakh and the Koran?  What're the odds?

And You Thought *You* Had No Life

The Klingon Bible Translation Project is just that: an effort to translate the Holy Bible into Klingon. What are the odds that anyone working on this project has ever known the love of a woman?

Trekkers: Making Civil War reenactors seem cool by comparison since 1966

Persistence Plus

Gene Shalit’s successful television career is irrefutable proof that looks don’t matter and that anything is possible if you 1) work hard 2) believe in yourself and 3) enter into a pact with Satan.

"Hail, Satan!"

His Friends Called Him Danielle

Despite how he's commonly depicted, American frontiersman Daniel Boone actually detested coonskin caps.  He did, however, simply adore lace cammies and frilly housecoats.

From the new Barbara Bel Geddes Collection

Which One Is the Secret Identity?

You never see Chaz Bono and John Goodman together at the same time.  Think about it.

John?

Chaz?

For The Ladies (Some Free Insight Into Men)

Unless we're trying to get you in the sack or get out of the doghouse, no straight man will ever compliment you about your shoes.  Ever.  If he's telling you how much he likes your shoes there's a very good chance that at one time or another he's tasted cock (and if he asks where you got them then rest assured he enjoyed it.)

Sorry ladies but the only time we notice you're even wearing shoes is when they're A) mis-matched B) clown-like C) fuck-me pumps or D) reek of dog shit as you're about to get into our car.

"Nice shoes."

No Accounting for Taste (or Lack Thereof)

By age 60, most people have lost half of their taste buds (thus explaining the continued popularity of Sanka, mincemeat pies and Old Country Buffet.)

Avram Douchinsky: World's youngest Sanka drinker

Perfectly Boring Baseball

A perfect game in baseball is one in which the pitcher pitches the entire game without allowing any player of the opposite team to reach first base by any means.  Thus--by its own admission--baseball attains perfection when absolutely nothing happens!

Baseball: America's Naptime

Carded

When the hell did "getting carded" go from being asked for my driver’s license to asking to see my AARP card?!?

Healthcare, Slots and Engelbert Humperdinck Along the AC Expressway

A few weeks ago I went to the beach with my son.  It was an impromptu kinda thing, very father/son.  After a morning of kayaking and not yet wanting the day to end, I looked at Tim and said, "Beach?" to which he replied, "Sure" and that was that.  We already had a bag and two towels from our kayaking excursion so after a quick stop at RiteAid for two bottles of water and a can of Krylon SPF 950 we were on our way.

Mothers, I've noticed, rarely do such things with so little planning.  Sure, with Mom he'd have been better prepared, might have eaten better and come home a bit less pink but with me he got there two hours sooner and was spared having to schlep 150 lbs. of beach gear in a grueling, Shermanesque march to the sea.  But that's not what I want to talk about.

As we tooled down the AC Expressway with the windows down and the iPod pushing our Polks to their limits I began to notice the billboards.  Each as big as a house, they sang a siren song of easy money, scintillating entertainment (holy shit, Engelbert Humperdinck is still alive?!?) and...healthcare.

Now I've journeyed that back ribbon of asphalt a million times but for the first time I began to notice that there seemed to be almost as many healthcare-related billboards as there were for the casinos.

They were no less commercial than the signs advertising The Borgata, Harrah's, The Taj or Caesars and no less brazen in their efforts to entice.  Only instead of catering to our greed or our affinity for has-been crooners they appealed to our fear of pain, disease and the ravages of age and time.

A few had pictures of smiling nurses, some of whom seemed kind and matronly and others who didn't appear old enough to drive a car, much less attend to the needs of the sick and infirm.  Others showed masked physicians ready and waiting to practice the Art of Hippocrates.  Still others touted their latest techno-miracle-gizmo-life-saving-thingamabob.  Each vied for my attention and--of course--my healthcare dollar.

The folks on the signs looked so competent, so friendly, so earnest and eager to help.  To care for me, to ease my pain and soothe my fears.  But all for a price.  I couldn't help but notice, though, how no mention was made about those without adequate means to feed the beast.

I'm not going to debate the fact that medical professionals are worth their weight in gold tongue depressors.  They go to school for many years, often incurring staggering debts in the process and enter into a field where people's very lives are at stake.  These people work without a net and deserve to be respected and very well compensated.

No, what bothers me is that healthcare in our beloved country is an industry.  Not a service, an industry and far more often than not decidedly for-profit.  To me that just doesn't seem right.

I firmly believe that some things are simply too important to be profit-driven and market-directed.  Police and fire protection, for example.  Both are paid for by our taxes and administered by--horrors!--The Government.  The Big, Bad Government.

To those who complain that the government can't do anything right and that less government is always preferable to more government I say this: strike a blow for smaller government and refuse Medicare or unemployment benefits the next time they're offered to you.  Ditto for those pinko public defenders.  Get into a little scrape with the law and can't afford legal representation?  Then I guess you'd better brush up on your jurisprudence, only don't go to a library because they too are a service of The Government.

Mail back those Social Security checks (oops...can't do that since the US Postal Service is government agency,) represent yourself in court and stand up to our incompetent, do-nothing government.  And of course you'll also want to stock up on garden hoses lest you find yourself unprepared when your home goes up in flames.  Fucking government!  Who the hell do they think they are trying to protect, anyway?

Police and fire departments protect our property and our safety.  Both are provided for by the government via our tax dollars and few would question that both satisfy basic rights of citizenry.  Yet for some reason when it comes to protecting not our property but our health--if not our very lives--it's no longer considered important enough to be a right offered without question and universally, a right earned not by the size of our bank accounts but by the simple fact that we are Americans.  Tax dollars for dowsing a smoldering meth lab?  No problem.  But public funds for kidney surgery or to correct a child's cleft palate?  Quick, call Rand Paul!

You want to jump-start our moribund economy?  How 'bout this: tomorrow we announce that every employer from coast to coast no longer has to saddle themselves with health care costs for their employees.  You think freeing up a few hundred billion dollars a year might spark a bit of economic activity?  Truth be told, I've never quite understood why it was that employers were ever involved with our health insurance in the first place, any more than they're involved with our home, car or snowmobile insurance.

Look, I'll be the first one to tell you that I'm no genius and God knows I don't have all of the answers.  But I am a tax paying citizen of the United States and as such I would happily pay more in taxes as long as it was for something meaningful and important.  And what could be more important than guaranteeing the health of every last American citizen?  Medical care simply shouldn't be something that some citizens can afford and others cannot, any more than income or personal wealth should be a factor when your house is on fire.

There are some things that only government can do, things that by their very nature are purviews of sovereign nations.  Things like coining currency and providing national defense, for example.  It's easy to complain about our government but for all its faults government can be a place where people come together for the common good.  To take care of not only our country as a national entity but of each other as individuals as well.  To that end, what more important role could the government have than to ensure that none of its citizens should ever want for a basic level of healthcare?  Isn't that the "life" part of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?"

I'm not saying that the government should actually be in the position of providing healthcare but at the very least it should ensure its availability to every citizen in need and do so in an economically sound manner beyond expecting the poor--including the working poor--to descend upon emergency rooms for routine healthcare matters and possibly bankrupt themselves in the process should they require a hospital stay.

By all means, those with the financial means to afford an additional level of care beyond the minimum should be welcome to avail themselves of it but there should be a minimum standard of care--real care, good care--that is offered to every American citizen and paid for communally, just like we do for national defense.  How we care for the least of us says much about who we are as a people.  Hell, I'm an atheist and even I can recognize the wisdom of Matthew 25:40!

So what's the answer?  I truly don't know.  Medicare for all might be a good place to start, if not a single-payer system then at least a viable public option.  Yes, we live in a capitalist society but that doesn't mean that everything has to turn a profit.  Some things are just too import to be left to the whims of the market.  But then again, what would we do with all of those empty billboards?

Med Money

Mona Lisa Alopecia

The Mona Lisa has no eyelashes or eyebrows. It is believed, however, that the carpet does indeed match the drapes.

No brows or lashes but more back hair than Ed Asner

Crocs are a Crock

I hate Crocs.  A lot.

Crocs are not clothing.  Crocs are not attractive.  Crocs are neither fashionable nor natural.  Crocs are made of plastic, as are bed pans, douches and Donald Trump's hair.

Crocs are not for anyone over the age of nine and adults who wear Crocs deserve merciless public ridicule if not flogging.  The only thing worse than wearing Crocs is wearing Crocs with socks.  And rhyming.

Croc-o-philes who are able to form coherent sentences frequently swear that they only wear them because Crocs are so damned comfortable.  But so are water shoes and pink fuzzy slippers yet most of us still somehow manage to refrain from wearing them to the grocery store or beyond the confines of the trailer park. 

Perhaps most unforgivable and aesthetically offensive of all is when grown men wear Crocs.  It's no coincidence that these tend to be the same guys who 1) adorn their pick-ups with truck nuts 2) can't recite the alphabet without singing and 3) consider Chris Farley to have been a comic genius.  These men are hopelessly out of touch with reality and constitute the most compelling argument to date in favor of euthanasia.

In short, I hate Crocs.  A lot.

Thank you.

Crocs: A curse upon civilized humanity vomited forth from the fiery bowels of Hell

The Words They Are A-Indecipherable

After months of exhaustive research, I have discovered that in all of Bob Dylan’s collective works there are exactly 119 intelligible words.  This is two fewer than James Brown and one more than Yoko Ono. 

WTF?!?

That's Seven Minutes More Than I'd Have Guessed

It takes the light generated by the sun 8.5 minutes to reach the earth.  This is approximately equal to the quantity of “Fair and Balanced” content found in a single week of FOX News.

Sean Hannity: Will bloviate for food

Florida On My Mind

The term "young native Floridian" is an oxymoron.

Walter and Marsha Dillwhipple toasting your good health with cool, refreshing Geritol

Parker Stevenson Can't Tell Them Apart

The average female Asian elephant weighs approximately 9,000 lbs. This is equal to 39 Kirstie Alleys. Elephants are, however, widely believed to eat less and be better dancers.

Bitchin' kankles

Stuporman

Did you ever notice in the old Superman TV show and movies how Superman would stand idly by as bullets bounced off his chest only to duck when the bad guy threw the empty gun at him?

How Do They Know This?

A goldfish supposedly has a memory span of three seconds.  How the hell did anyone ever figure this out?!?

Irish Trivia

Although not widely known beyond the shores of the Emerald Isle, the correct response to the traditional Irish greeting, "Top o' the morning to you!" is "Go fuck yourself."

Especially When The Water's Warm

Public drinking fountains are almost always found in close proximity to rest rooms.  Now I know that makes sense because of the plumbing lines and all but am I the only one who still finds it--you know-- kinda icky?

Cheers!

H2Go!

Research shows that drinking 16 oz. of ice water requires the body to burn 17.5 calories to warm the water up to body temperature. The recommended daily intake of water is 64 oz. (eight 8 oz. glasses). Thus, the body will burn 70 calories if this amount is consumed as ice water and another 942 calories squirming and sprinting to the bathroom all day. 

As of June 19, 2011...

44,800:  The number of results that come up if you Google “Michele Bachmann Batshit Crazy."

Mom, Did I Ever Tell You?...

(Originally posted on Facebook, Mother's Day 2011)

Happy Mothers Day, Mom. You knew how much I loved you but did you know how proud I was to be your son?

Did I ever tell you, Mom, how I was always so eager to introduce you to my friends, my loves, to anyone I cared about?  How I couldn't wait for them to meet my gracious, beautiful and loving mother?  Being your son made me look good.

You always knew just what to say to make things right and put people at ease.  Throughout my life, you were always my one shining example of how people should be treated.  Kindness, grace and compassion personified.  So often I'd ask myself, "What would Mom do or say?" and then it would come to me.  Yet another of your many gifts.

Life has gone on and the days continue to pass into weeks into months into years.  But the world without you in it just isn't right.  You were taken too soon--too terribly, terribly soon--and those of us left behind continue to suffer the in the vacuum of your absence.

Thank you, too, for the gift of my beloved sister, without whom I never could have coped with your loss.  She's all I have left of you and I promise to love and care for her as you would have wanted.

Happy Mothers Day, Mom, and thank you for making me all that I am or will ever hope to be.  You gave me life.  You taught me love and respect.  You gave me a family to cherish.  You were our world and now you're gone and nothing will ever be the same except for the adoration of those of us who keep you in our hearts today and always.

Your loving son,

David

Top Ten Signs That the End of the World May Be Near

10.  Hallmark introduces new line of “Rapture” cards
  9.  Morley Safer replaced by Charlie Sheen on 60 Minutes
  8.  People are actually buying "Baconnaise"
  7.  ABC debuts Dancing with the Recently Resurrected
  6.  Doritos newest flavor: Bodacious Brimstone
  5.  George W. Bush pronounces “nuclear” correctly
  4.  At dinner my fortune cookie said, “Don’t bother”
  3.  DMV employee smiles and wishes you a nice day
  2.  No more Oprah but at least 9 different versions of The Real Housewives
  1.  Two words: President Trump

Baconnaise: The preferred condiment of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Top 10 Laundromat Pickup Lines

One of the joys of apartment living is the weekly trek to the laundromat.  If there's one thing I love it's trudging once a week to a place where the cleanliness of one's clothes is dependent on the quantity of one's pocket change and where having a full set of teeth is considered gaudy excess.

On the bright side, it does allow me some time to catch up on things like email, light reading and sharpening certain specialized social skills.  Which brings us to today’s message, brought to you by new and improved Tide® laundry detergent.…now 25% less environmentally toxic!

Top 10 Laundromat Pickup Lines

10.  My mother has that same thong.
  9.  Your sheet stains tell me you're someone worth getting to know.
  8.  The water’s not the only thing here that’s hard.
  7.  I’m wrinkle-free, pre-shrunk and low-sudsing.
  6.  Is that a roll of quarters in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
  5.  You’re a beautiful woman and that’s not just the bleach fumes talking.
  4.  Does this smell clean to you?
  3.  I know a great way to get the wrinkles out of those sheets.
  2.  I could really use a good fluffing.
  1.  Let’s front-load.

"Fluffing?  Allow me to explain..."

My New Blog

Greetings and welcome to my new blog!  My name is Dave and like most people who enjoy writing I'm an attention whore.  I'm not proud of it but it's the truth so there's little point in denying it.

For years I've fancied myself as something of a frustrated writer.  I've always enjoyed writing and have at times been told that I have a talent for it.  Being an attention whore, that was all I needed to hear.

I've had a handful of articles published over the years, all of which appeared in numerous mortgage and real estate trade journals.  Zzzzzzz... Other than that my writing tends to be (supposedly) humorous observational drivel and the occasional Top 10 list.

I have no idea how this whole blogging thing works but I've been encouraged to start doing so by a good friend who--God bless her--enjoys my writing and has an interest in what I have to say.  I worry about her.

I've been posting a daily "World According to Dave" on my Facebook page for about a month.  I've done so 1) as a means of disciplining myself to get back into writing, even if only modestly and 2) did I mention that I was an attention whore?

My plan is to take my thoughts and my Facebook postings and put them on my new blog, then continue by adding new blog entries that I'll then link to Facebook.  Or not...I'm easily bored.  I just figure that if Tyra Banks can have her own talk show then I sure as hell can have a blog.

To those of you who choose to follow along, thank you but don't expect much.  If I were really any good I'd probably be writing for a living.  If you're not pleased with its content just remember that it's free and you get what you pay for.

Thanks for stopping by.  I'll be here until Thursday.  Try the veal and don't forget to tip your waitress.

Once you go bronze turtle you never go back