Live From New York

It might come as a surprised to you, but I have some experience in television. For example, I was on The Popeye Club when I was in 1st Grade. The Popeye Club was a show on WSB-TV (in the 50’s and 60’s) that featured “Officer Don” and Popeye cartoons. Officer Don’s sidekick was “Orville the Green Dragon”. There was no attempt in teaching children anything other than to sit around and wait on the next cartoon.

 I was not able to capitalize on my appearance on The Popeye Club to make television a career. Apparently there is some rule about if you are hideous looking you can’t be on TV. However, I have watched a lot of TV in my life, enough to be voted into The Couch Potato Hall of Fame. So I was thrilled when my wife announced we had tickets to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon even though I had never watched it and I get Jimmy Fallon mixed up with Seth Meyers.

 Before we went to the taping of Late Night, we took the tour of The NBC Studios. This is a hit and miss affair. We were taken to one studio-the studio which tapes Dr Oz. This is an historical studio because it is where the original Late Nights with David Letterman and Conan O’Brien were taped. Dr Oz is okay; the times I’ve seen it he seems to be really interested in feces. Maybe I just happened to catch “Poop Week”.

One thing I did notice is that the pages at NBC look nothing like Kenneth on “30 Rock”. Most of them are very attractive young ladies who button only one button on their shirts. This is just scientific observation.

 Our Late Night was a pretty good show. First we had great seats-in the middle of the third row, right above the cameras. The Late Night band is The Roots, which has a tuba player. It is an incredible band. Tina Fey and John Slattery were the guests. Tina doesn’t look like she eats. My wife has tagged John Slattery as her next husband.

 We may live in a relativistic post modern world, however, if there is one constant it is that you cannot use your cell phone inside of a NBC studio. Somebody two rows down from us was texting during the show. I’m not sure what was so important that you couldn’t turn off your cell phone and watch Tina Fey eat a piece of fried chicken (they had a fried chicken contest-you had to be there). The Enforcer Pages (the ones that button their shirts) went all Abu Ghraib on this person and threw them out of the studio

On Saturday morning, we got up early and went to the Fox Studios. My wife loves the Weekend Fox and Friends crew and we met Alison, Dave, and Clayton. My wife was interviewed as part of the “After Show” for their website regarding the topic “Prom Prices”. If you have any high school students at home, you know a “Prom” can cost anywhere from One Billion Dollars to One Zillion Trillion Million Dollars. Lori hit the question out of the park while I was bringing sexy back in my blue Georgia Southern t-shirt. I’m surprised I wasn’t offered a show called “ALAN!” on the spot. (It would feature me wearing my various college t-shirts complaining about Obama.)

Saturday afternoon, we had tickets to Huckabee. Before the show started, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee came out and shook our hands. Then they took us to a holding room which had snacks. Huckabee, like his preacher pedigree, opened the show with a short homily. Then he interviewed two women, a guy, and Dolly Pardon. It was a taped interview with Dolly. She is at the point in her career can make breast jokes in front of an ordained minister. At the end of the show, they gave us a copy of Dolly’s new CD and a dinner for two at Cracker Barrel.

We were back at the hotel when the show came on. I saw myself on TV. Somebody texted me and as I was answering him  I was shown again, looking like the King of Goober City. Then I was texted a screen grab of me clapping. Soon, I was all over Twitter and Facebook. My fifteen minutes of fame.

Somewhere, Orville the Green Dragon would have been proud.

First We Take Manhattan

My wife (Queen Lodi of Brookmont) and I took our vagabond shoes and celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary in New York, New York. Neither one of us had been there before. We wanted to see if we could make it there because if we did, we could make it anywhere.

We stayed at a nice hotel in Times Square. Imagine the population of Atlanta, Georgia. Then imagine that population on a football field. That is Times Square on a Friday night. Yet, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, unless you count a grown man dressed as The Statue of Liberty. I didn’t see any spit or puke the entire time. I heard the bad Anglo-Saxon word for “making sweet love” just once, which surprised me because I thought it was the official New York Swear Word.

The one word I have never associated with New York is “polite”. However, the people were polite and friendly. In most of the customer situations we were in, they actually seemed like they cared. Maybe they sent all of the rude ones to live here in Atlanta.

Funny thing happened at the hotel. The young lady, who checked us in, saw us and said, “Hey”. “Hey” is Southern speak for “Hello”. This young lady was from Lawrenceville, Georgia (another nearby Atlanta suburb) and was a recent graduate of Georgia State University. You have a hard time finding anyone from Lawrenceville in Lawrenceville, much less in New York. I thought she might have been an aspiring actress or dancer. That’s why everyone moves to New York, right? Nope, she majored in Hospitality. She said she lived in the Lower Upper East Side or the Upper Lower West Side. She might live in Brooklyn or she commutes from Lawrenceville (I don’t know; I get lost when New Yorkers explain where they live.)

She gave us a lesson in Manhattan geography that was quicker than a New York minute. It is important to realize New York is nothing like Atlanta, because the names of the streets actually make sense. For example, the portion of 52nd street going east is called East 52nd Street. 52nd Street going west is called West 52nd Street. In Atlanta, the portion of the street going east would be called Peachtree Road Street Avenue or Upper Peachtree Street Ferry Road. The portion of the street going west would be called Peachtree Circle Street Road or Alpharetta Peachtree Parkway Boulevard. But the locals would call it: The Four Lane.

Walking is probably the best way to get around Manhattan. Driving is not recommended for anyone that is human, or least, is not getting paid to do it. Driving in Manhattan is real slow and every driver uses their horns to express their innermost thoughts, which are vulgar. In Atlanta, horns are used to either expressing greetings or “we are going to crash and both die in a fiery explosion”.

Of course, you can use The Subway. If you are as mentally challenged as we are, you might want to think twice about it. I knew we would have trouble with The Subway, because we’ve had trouble on MARTA. Once, when our son was five, we took the MARTA train to downtown Atlanta to eat at The Hard Rock Café. Coming back on MARTA, we somehow got on a train that did not go to our stop,which I assure you is almost impossible to do. After a good ten minute lecture from the MARTA Man advising us that we were in a restricted area, we finally made it to another MARTA train that went to our station. It was one of those messes I hope the boy doesn’t bring up in therapy, although he probably will.

Anyway, we wanted to get on the 1-2-3 train, but we went down into the hole of the N-R-B-D-E-I-E-I-O train. Fortunately, we didn’t get on that train. I think it went to Lawrenceville. We left that hole and went and found the 1-2-3 hole. However, it was the hole for the train going in the opposite direction we were going. We left that hole and finally found the correct 1-2-3 hole. After that, it was easy and we became experts on riding the subway, as long as it was the 1-2-3.


Next: Our fifteen minutes of fame.

Easy Rider

Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Lookin' for adventure
And whatever comes our way
Yeah Darlin' go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space - Steppenwolf


One of the difficult things about blogging is sometimes it is difficult coming up with a topic. I’m sure you have noticed. However, last week, the Lord presented to thy funny bond servant Alan something too good not to write about-University of Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino and his motorcycle accident.

Here’s what we thought happened. Petrino showed up at a press conference that College Football coaches hold to discuss the exciting spring practices wearing a neck brace and sporting some pretty nifty abrasions on his face. In true Petrino fashion he said, “What neck brace and abrasions?” Actually, he admitted that he was in a motorcycle accident.

Here’s what he left out. He had a passenger that was a new employee. This new employee was a hot, blonde 26 year old former volleyball player for the University of Arkansas. Oh yeah, Petrino explained, he didn’t tell that part of the story because he didn’t want to hurt his family because there was an “inappropriate relationship”. “Inappropriate relationship” is a nice way of saying Petrino and the employee were doing the Honolulu Hula.

I never thought Petrino would ever be involved in a sexual scandal. Not that he was above doing anything wrong. The man is what psychologists refer to as a “total turd”. He is well known for jumping from job to job while lying to the face of his employers, players and fans. He took the job as head coach of The Atlanta Falcons after signing a contract with The University of Louisville and then left the Falcons before the end of the season when the Arkansas job was offered.

Petrino getting involved with a younger woman never entered my radar. The man is sort of plain looking, unlike Mark Richt, who, you have to admit is a striking man even if he does still part his hair down the middle. If I looked like Mark Richt, I would be a total mess. I would use my good looks for evil. That’s why God made me like I am.

Of course, what Petrino does during half time is not any of my business. However, he is an employee of the State of Arkansas and he may have disgraced that fine state. The state in which the flagship university has a pig as its mascot. The state which gave the nation President Bill Clinton, who spent a good part of his second term trying to explain what is and is not sex. The state which gave the nation Wilbur Mills, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee in the early 70’s, who got into a fight with a stripper.

This incident has spawned a massive amount of new jokes (most of which a Baptist Deacon cannot print in family humor blog) and a couple of songs. It has also caused a certain amount of blow back from the Razorback nation. Sports radio talk show host Andy Hodges posted a mild joke about Petrino on Facebook and someone responded by quoting the Gospel of John (“ye without sin cast the first stone”) and begged Hodges to leave “our coach” alone. I looked on the roster, and I didn’t see this fellow’s name on it at all.

Which leads me to believe that Petrino will keep his job. He has won a lot of football games, which covers a multitude of sins,including lying to your boss. If he had a losing record, he would have been fired last week. Just expect to hear a lot of giggling when he tells his team that they need to step up and show some character.

Love and Marriage

Pretty soon, my wife and I will celebrate our 26th wedding anniversary. I guess that means that it “took”.

This probably comes as a surprise to some people. There were those back then who thought I had definitely out kicked my coverage and Lori took on a hopeless building project. While I did out kick my coverage with Lori, I’d say she’s done pretty well with her project.

In any event, I think I can now give people the benefit of my wisdom regarding marriage. Boy, if you look at the statistics, my wisdom couldn’t hurt. You don’t have to be Tammy Wynette to know that half of all marriages end in D-I-V-O-R-C-E. That’s with a record number of couples are living together before marriage, which was suppose to solve that problem. My mother used to say these couples were “shacking up”. You don’t hear that term anymore.

As long as I am here, let me advise you of something that will prevent me from ever directing a major Hollywood motion picture. I believe marriage is between a man and woman. I know - call me a weirdo.

I’m going to direct my attention to the men out there. It is obvious that of the two genders, the male of the species is what most scientists refer to as “a total retard” when it comes to marriage. There are various theories for this. The most commonly accepted is that men are retards and they cannot help themselves. The following should help my brothers in arms.

1. What ever you do, DO NOT and I repeat DO NOT have sex with another woman while you are married. Women find this objectionable. Even if this woman is Jennifer Aniston and she tells you that you need to make sweet love to her to keep her from dying a fast painful sudden death. By the way, no judge is going to believe that Jennifer Aniston was after you.


2. Do not ever argue with your wife. She will, almost always, be right, because she is smarter than you and uses this organ in her body called: The Brain. You might want to Google to see what this organ does instead of Googling “Nekkid Pictures of that 'X-Files' woman”.

3. Never have any opinions. You will find the pain in your head will go away once you agree with her.

4. When your wife is pulled over for a speeding and she tells you that she was not speeding and gives you a ten minute explanation of how she knows she was not speeding, just listen to her. Do not say, “The jails are filled with innocent people”. Trust me on this one.

5. For some reason, women that have the regular “time of the month” forget to buy their products and will remember they need their products at the most inconvenient times such as 1:00 A.M. Christmas morning or the day you are inaugurated as President. Just do as she says and go get it.

6. She expects some help with the kids. This means changing diapers. I had a friend of mine named Grover (really), who said he got to where he could eat a chicken salad sandwich and change a diaper at the same time. By the way, he’s been married much longer than I have.

7. She will bust a gut worrying about the kids. Lori has worried about every aspect of our son’s life. I mainly worried about his batting average.

8. If you ever feel the need to critique her looks and/or body, look in the mirror, buddy.

9. The amount of time she will talk about her hair: 400 hours (in a week). Time you will talk about your hair: 30 seconds (during the span of a 50 year marriage).