Chinese boss
When I was in my twenties, I worked at an Italian restaurant that was owned by two Greeks. Most of the kitchen help was from Senegal. If it sounds like the Tower of Babel, it was. Anyway, the guys from Senegal were very nice and I became friendly with a few of them. One day, the owners were interviewing a man for an open manager's position. He happened to be Asian-American. One of the Senegalese dudes kept laughing when he saw him. I asked him what was so funny. He said,in his broken English, "Chinese boss! Chinese boss!" I have no idea why he thought that was funny, but when I think about it today, it makes me laugh.

Connect the dots
The tragic death of all those soliders in Iraq could have been avoided if not for a small group of men who now hold power in this country. And I'm not just talking about the 20 who were killed when their helicopter was shot down over the weekend. I'm talking about the hundreds who died and the thousands who were injured. And when I'm talking about the small group of men who hold power, I'm not talking about George W. Bush. He had no thoughts about foreign policy when he was running for President and the only thoughts he has now are the ones his advisors place in his empty head. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Perle are among the handful of conservatives who drove this country to Iraq. They've been planning it for years in their group "Project for a New American Century" and 9-11 gave them the chance to follow through on their dreams of taking down Iraq. Too bad all those American kids had to die for the greedy desires of a bunch of old men who only soil their hands when they count their money.

My family vs. the Entemann's Corp.
You know how all these lard asses sue McDonald's because they didn't know that the triple-bacon cheesburger was fattening? ("It is?," said one obese McDonald's lover. "This is an outrage!") I'm going to sue the Entemann's Corporation over the stuff they sell. I've been known to eat a box of the rasberry danish thingy that is like a foot-long. My wife told me she ate a whole box of little Entemann's donuts the other day. She's skinny so she can get away with it. Damn you, Entemann's, damn you!

Lame Ass
I know there are only like three people who know about my blog and I'm such a lame bastard for not posting all week. Uhhh, my kid was sick. How's that? Actually, one good thing about having a kid is you can use him to get out of stuff by saying, "The baby's sick." That's not to say there aren't like a million other good things about having a kid, but that is just one. But he was actually sick. So I'm back, posting on this lame ass blog. To my three friends who know about it, thank you for being patient. And did I mention my kid was sick?

Last night's debate
The Democratic debate was on Fox last night and was hosted by the Black Congressional Caucus. I'm still trying to figure out Fox' diabolical motives for hosting this debate. Actually, the "reporter" from Fox was probably the fairest of the reporters. Gwen Ifill from PBS asked a bunch of questions that bordered on rude and the other panelist, an anchor from a local Detroit station, threw some bombs of his own. He seemed more interested in promoting his views than asking questions. He was impressive in a professional newsman kind-of-way and had this awesome moustache that was jet black even though his hair was salt-and-pepper. It was a pretty raucous debate with the crowd cheering like they were at "Showtime at the Apollo." As usual, Sharpton got in the best one-liners and Lieberman acted like a genuine turd. My boy Clark held his own, but to be honest, I thought John Kerry did better than everyone else. Kerry actually looked well-rested. Since he normally looks like an extra from the "Thriller" video, that's not saying much, but he definitely seemed livelier than usual.

Body hair
My post-concert report: I went to the Paul Weller concert on Friday night. He used to be in The Jam and the Style Council and he has a cult following. On the way there, my friend Craig, who was driving, kept picking at the hair in his ears. Not that it's very long, but he kept at it, and when he would get ahold of one, he'd yank it. He kept this up for about 10 miles until I felt like killing him. At the concert, I itched my nose and felt a hair coming out of my nose that seemed to be the size of a piece of licorice. I tried to subtly yank it, kind of noodling around my nose until I could grasp it. Finally, I got it and yanked it out. It was about an inch long. I know this is all disgusting, but I share it for this reason: maybe when you reach a certain age, you should stop going to concerts.

Old man at a concert
I'm leaving work shortly to go to a concert in Boston. When I was a kid, I would have been thinking about who is going to buy the beer and where we were going to go after the concert. Now, I'm hoping I can get home and in bed by midnight. I remember going to the Live Aid concert in Philly; I guess the year was 1984. That was the whole "Feed The World" thing organized by Bob Geldof. We weren't thinking about feeding the world. We were thinking about having fun. We piled into a car, drove to the stadium, partied like rock stars and then drove home. I used to go to so many concerts. My first concert? The Bee Gees. I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen. In September, I got a call from my old boss who had two free tickets to Springsteen at Fenway Park. I couldn't take them because my wife's birthday was the same day. It kind of killed me, but on the flip side, I got to spend the day with my wife and kid and you know what? That kind of rocked too.

Accidental bad parenting
Two nights ago, I decided to cut my hair at about 10 p.m. I keep my hair really short, about 1/2 inch at the most. I was going into the bathroom with the electric razor and my wife said, "That's not such a good idea. The baby's sleeping." Our five month old son's room is right next to the bathroom. I said, "No problem. It won't wake him up." And the razor didn't wake him up. It was the sound of a small metal wastebasket falling off the sink that woke him up. I put the basket there to catch the hair and it fell from it's four foot perch to land with a crash to rival a small bomb. Of course, it was followed by much screaming from the baby. This morning, I decided to bring a little toy I bought in New Orleans to work with me. It's a small, hand held thing with buttons. When the buttons are pushed, Mr. T's voice come's out. When I picked up the toy, I accidentally hit a button, of course, right when I was walking by my sleeping son. The next thing I knew, Mr. T growled, "QUIT YOUR JIBBER-JABBER!" (There are six different Mr. T sayings on the toy.) That's what a sleeping baby wants to hear, of course. The next thing I knew, "WAAAAAH!" I'm not a bad father, but I guess I am as dopey as most other Dads.

My Republican friends
I was leaving my job yesterday with a friend of mine who is a Republican and I happened to run into another friend of mine who is also a Republican. I introduced them, saying "Just so you don't think I have only one Republican friend." and one of them said, "If you want to keep paying higher taxes, go ahead." It's sad but true, but all these people ever think about is taxes. And the funny thing is since Bush cut so much funding to states, cities, and towns, your local taxes are going up thanks to GW Bush. That is way too complicated for most these people. Oh yeah, enjoy the $222 you got back. Your kids and grandkids don't mind paying for it.

Watching MTV and VH1 is good for you
I have about six tons of brain damage from watching all those reality shows on MTV and the "I Love The 70's...80's" shows on VH1. Last night, I watched "I Love The 80's", "The Real World" and started to watch "Newlyweds" before I realized how brain dead I was becoming. I started to actually care what happened in these shows! That's when I went to bed. I'm all finished with these shows. I will never watch again. (By the way, if you happened to see the end of "Newlyweds", let me know what happened.)