A Frank Invterview with Larry

Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Larry the Moyle to talk about his craft.  For those of you who don’t know, a moyle is a person who performs a bris, or circumcision, common in the Jewish faith.

J:  So, Larry, tell me, how did you get into the field of religious circumcisions?

L:  You know, I think it really started for me as a kid.  We didn’t have much money growing up, so we ate a lot of potatoes.  Something about peeling those potatoes came so naturally to me.  Before long, I graduated to beets, then zucchini and carrots.  My mother always said I could peel the shell off a raw egg without breaking the yolk.  (Laughs)  But I never dreamed it would turn into a career.

J:  Yes, it’s probably not in the top ten answers at Career Day, right?  What did you want to be when you were a kid?

L:  An astronaut.

J:  I can see the similarities.  You both carry specialized equipment, have little room for error.  Neither one of you can breathe in outer space without one of those masks.  Astronauts train in zero gravity, you train in zero foreskin.  Speaking of, can I ask what you do with the, um, leftovers?

L:  Well of course I offer the option of parental storage.  But it’s not very popular.

J:  I can’t imagine why.  Have you considered some sort PR campaign to rejuvenate interest in foreskin preservation?

L:  No, I don’t think that’s a good idea at all.  Besides, what would become of my garden?

J:  What do you mean?

L:  You asked what I did with the discarded foreskins.  I plant them in front of my house.

J:  A foreskin garden.  Very zen.  And how many would you say you assembled there?

L:  Hundreds.  Thousands, probably.  I’ve been doing this for 30 years.

J:  Interesting.  And do you water these foreskins?

L:  Ha, yes, I’ve never heard that one before.  And the foreskins take root and grow into giant penis flowers, right?  And if I didn’t properly trim and weed-whack, my house would be completely overgrown with them, and I’d have to call the National Guard to bring the Jaws of Life to rescue my wife and I from our penis prison!  By the way, what is the sound of one hand clapping?

J:  I don’t follow.

L:  That’s about what I think of your joke.

J:  Okay, let’s switch gears a bit.  Has anybody ever come to you years later, looking for their foreskin?  I mean, like one of those stories on TV where the abandoned kid hunts down her birth mother?  And, follow-up question, do you have a standard return policy?

L:  No.  That’s a ridiculous question.

J:  Last question.  I think all my readers want to know if you have nightmares, and if so, what are they like?  I mean, do you ever dream of all the foreskins you’ve buried over the years one day busting up through the dirt of your garden, assembled into a Superskin, bent on vengeance?  Kind of like The Blob  meets Night of the Living Dead?  I know that would keep me up at night.

L:  Okay, I think we’re done here.

Just Kidding

Ah, but I kid.  Did you ever wonder why we say ‘kid’ to mean gently torturing someone?  Actually, pretty self-evident when you think about it.  Kids are like your own personal torture machine.  Unfortunately, your machina de tortura  is much like a chickpea fart:  You can share it with others, but they are not always happy to encounter it, and you have to live with the guilt of having created it.

I’m not sure ‘kid’ does the parade of sorrow a baby truly is full justice in a purely lexical sense.  Like masking vis-à-vis duct tape, it’s just not strong enough.  People say ‘Just kidding’ so casually, e.g.

A:  Dude, I’m digging that Captain Kirk tie.

B:   Really?

A:  No, man,  I’m kidding.  It’s fucking lame.  If you harbor even a remote hope of offline intercourse, please consider incinerating it.  Just trying to help here.

Kind of jerk-ish, but only real a-holes use if to mean something closer to the true harsh reality that is a child:  

A:  You know, I was just thinking that we should be more than friends.

B:  Really?

A:  Nah, I’m just kidding.  Come on, are you serious?  You remind me of my little sister.  Ol’ Pegleg.

One of the most common uses is probably in the often exasperated declaration of disbelief, ‘Are you kidding me?’  Consider:  Man comes home to find his Chuck Taylors, X-Men collection and assorted plastic-encased action figures strewn about the front yard.  His girlfriend stands in the upstairs window, smirking.  ‘ARE YOU KIDDING ME?’ he screams.  The window is closed, and now so are the blinds.  I don’t think she’s kidding, friend.  Stop kidding yourself.

And then there’s the often rhetorical, self-addressed, muttered opinion on a given situation, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’  For example:  You get into a road rage scenario that involves you tailgating, honking, generally going berserker, and throwing out names you wouldn’t call someone who slapped your own mother in the chops.  Five minutes later you meet your blind date at the restaurant, your waiter appears.  It is the driver you harassed.  ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ you say to no one in particular.  Yeah, I’d avoid the Cream of Potato today, too.

My favorite one though is the one you might be wondering right now:  ‘I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not.’  Well, I’ll be kidding for the next 18 years, I can tell you that.  'To kid' as a new verbal meaning.  Could make life a little easier.  ‘Hey man, you want to go out tonight?’ ‘Nah, I can’t.  I’m kidding tonight.  But I don’t have to kid tomorrow afternoon.  Let’s get a burrito.’

Bubstoke, the Legend of Tarzan

Abandoned at birth, raised in the forest by friendly brown bears who inexplicably didn't devour him, Bubstoke learned the ways of the brown bear.  He earned their trust and their loyalty, and they treated them as one of their own.  He learned and adopted their lifestyle, and he was generally a happy man-bear.  But that was all about to change.

One day while out in the river trout-fishing with his best friend Larry, shots rang out.  Larry went down in a heap, leaving Bubstoke to fend for himself for the first time.  Alone, confused, and scared, Bubstoke ran as fast as he could, but as aforementioned, he was in a river, so it was challenging.  Some animals he would later recognize as "men" came out of the bushes.  They looked at him curiously.  But before he could attack, a much smaller shot rang out, and the men pulled a tranquilized Bubstoke out of the river and into civilization.

Bubstoke had this terrible nightmare.  He dreamt that he was with his buddy Larry, having trout tartare on the riverbank, when...wait a minute.  As he opened his eyes, he was surrounded by men in masks.  He roared his mightiest roar, but the men only smiled and shook their heads.  They did not retreat.  Enraged, Bubstoke showed his claws and prepared to dice them into filets.  But instead of running, the men laughed.  'Why do they scoff at my might?' Bubstoke soliloquized.  'Don't they know I have dingleberries in my fur bigger than them?'

When the laughing subsided, the men tried talking to Bubstoke and asking him questions, but it was no use, since he only spoke brown bear.  Finally, one of the men had a grand idea.  He grabbed a small hand mirror from the counter and showed it to Bubstoke:

And our story begins here...

Talking to a Brick Bub

Bub’s conversational skills aren’t exactly developing at the rate I had hoped.  His vocabulary is minimal, his grammar weak at best and his intonation?  Don’t even talk to me about intonation.  Nuff said.  Consider Exhibit A, a recent dialogue:

B:  Hey Daddy, I want to put that in my mouth.

J:  No Bub, that’s Daddy’s crossword puzzle.

B:  What’s a crossword puzzle, Daddy?

J:  Shut up, Bub.

This conversation clearly highlights a few deficiencies.  First off, he is obviously completely narcissistic and self-centered.  It’s all about him, his mouth (A), and getting things (B) into it.  I am merely a vessel of transporting B into A.  I tried to confront him about this:

J:  Now how do you think that makes me feel, Bub?  Being your mule.  Your pawn.  Your day laborer.

B:  Um…wait, wait.  Let me think about it.  No, I have no idea.

J:  Angry, Bub.  Unappreciated.  You know what?  Congratulations, this is going in my blog.

B:  What’s a blog, Daddy?

J:  Can it, Bub.

Secondly, there’s not even a remote sense of cognizance of the most basic of social graces.  No pleases, thank-yous, not even a hello.  We discussed, of course:

J:  Bub, I need you to say please and thank you once in a while.

B:  Please and thank you once in a while.

J:  Don’t be a smart-ass, Bub.

B:  What’s a smart-ass, Daddy?

J:  Zip it, Bub.

Thirdly, he’s obviously not very bright.  If look at Exhibit A in detail, you will no doubt recognize that I am obviously holding the crossword puzzle, ergo, he has already seen what it is and yet then he asks what it is.  Oh well, another MENSA bubble burst.  I'm sure it won't be the last.

Al-Crya

This little scuttlebutt is up to no good.  It’s written all over his face.  He’s a miniature Mr. Burns, minus the overbite.  Notice the eyes, wide with the hedonistic knowledge of others’ impending woes.  The hands clasped in absolute diabolicism, fingers oozing sorrows.  Excellent.

There’s only one heartbreakingly stark conclusion to be drawn:  My son is a terrorist.  We have it on solid intel that he has been moonlighting as a single agent for several months now for the world’s tiniest faction, a splinter cell known as…Al-Crya.  

Though we haven’t yet ascertained his overall mission objectives, we can report his general modus operandi based on recent brazen attacks.  Though not overly powerful in his own right, his strategy seems to be based largely on crying and the natural attrition it incurs.  Winning the war on terror one scream at a time.  

There’s no discernible pattern to the attacks.  He has terrorized every hour of the day equally, and I can tell you from first-hand experience, there is a feeling in the air here, a kind of buzz, that this radical new strategy might just be working.

In a recent video on al-Jateara, he told supporters that the Al-Crya takeover was a marathon, not a sprint.  When asked what a marathon was, however, he said simply, ‘Meehhhhh.’

He also made cryptic reference to possessing the ‘keys to the palace,’ though when asked what a palace was, he answered only by defiantly spitting his fikey onto the hardwood.  Chilling imagery indeed.

It’s a hard reality for a parent, birthing and then subsequently harboring a terrorist.  ‘These colors don’t run’ only because they can barely crawl.  We fly our flag at half-guilt.  We celebrate Dependence Day.  But we get by.  Somehow.

But we can tell no one.  He would surely only redouble his efforts and increase the insurgency.  He claims he once cried for 42 hours straight on a dare.  He’s already stated family members are high-profile targets upon visitation.  And in a recent, harrowing announcement, he has threatened that at his next diaper change, he will unleash a veritable wee-had on anyone within a three-foot radius.

3-D Bubtacular

I don’t get 3-D, I really don’t.  Let me clarify.  I understand the concept itself, and how it “enhances” such theatrical barnburners as Jaws 3-D and Captain Eo, but am I completely alone here in thinking that 3-D was not built for the home market?  You can only ever have 4 people watching television at any given time, and they all have to wear those stupid glasses!  

How awkward is that when you walk into your friend’s house to watch the game find four dudes squished on the couch, looking like Corey Haim circa 1989?  ‘Can I get you a beer, man?’  ‘No, I’m good.’  Then walk right back out.  Seriously, this is the worst technology idea they have tried to push on the hapless consumer since Blu-ray.  Or remember that brief HD DVD phase the preceded Blu-ray?   I do.  And it was a dark time.

But 3-D is big now, it’s huge, it’s hot, it’s an overblown excuse to charge three more dollars at the box office.  You ever watch a 3-D movie that was clearly made for the medium in regular ol’ 2-D?  Then there’s always that odd moment where something is supposed to be flying at you and you’re supposed to duck but then you realize your flat-ass TV screen just blocked it. 

  

They do this on purpose of course.  The Man, I’m talking about.  They figure the more times you see what you’re missing in puny, pathetic 2-D, the more layers of good judgment and rationale start to chip and peel away from your consumer psyche.  

I recently saw Piranha 3-D on DVD and had one of those moments when the vicious little bugaboos tear a man limb from limb, leaving only his, um, unit, suspended inches from my would-be glasses for several seconds until it is chomped down by another beast.  Damnit, it is working.  I did want to see that in 3-D.  I wonder if Best Buy will throw in a free Blu-ray player if I buy one?

You know, technology moves so fast, though.  That’s why I’ve invented 8-D.  It’s pretty simple, brilliant.  You watch a movie, a TV show, whatever, and basically your living room is the center of the action, the stage.  A character enters stage right, they actually enter your living room.  There’s no need for a screen, because you’re sitting in the middle of it, surrounded by the players.  Pretty sweet, right?  Okay, so it's mildly derivative of Total Recall, but when Jim Cameron tries to patent this in ten years, I’ll sue his ass off.  Just sayin.  How else is Bub gonna pay for college?

Anyway, in the spirit of the current 3-D mania, it has been discovered that Bub actually does look better right in your face.  No additional eyewear or surcharges are required.  Enjoy the show.

The Stupid Question

It can happen on a sunny walk, in the grocery store, or at the doctor's office, but it always seems to come out of left field, a low blow to the SAD (Stay At-home Dad) ego.  There are subtle variations, but they can all pretty much be summed up here:

'Awww...that's so cute.  Giving Mommy the day off work?  Well, I think that's just grand.'

Now, I don't want to go on a rant here, because I don't even know where to start.  Never mind--I'll just start swinging wildly here in my blinding rage and see what connects.

First off, I'll thank you not to talk to me like I'm a Pomeranian.  I'm a man.  A man versus baby.  Learn the difference.  Secondly, how presumptively ignorant are you?  I mean, what year is this, anyway?  Thirdly, there's really not much cute about it.  Try coming over for a day, see how cute that is.  On second thought, you're weird.  Never mind.  Fourthly, I could use a day off myself, thank you very much.  And only I call her Mommy.

So, how do I even go about beginning to think about how to respond to this?  Depends largely on my mood, I suppose, which character I channel to field the question.  A light sampling:

Dice Clay:  Yo, work this.

Paris Hilton:  Like, what's this, like, work thing?

Yogi Berra:  Sometimes a day off is better than a day on, trust me.  And sometimes to get one off, you first have to get on.  But before you can get on, be sure not to get off, 'cause that'll definitely get your day off on the wrong foot.

Drew Peterson:  Mommy took several days off, heh heh.  And they got nothin' on me.

George Carlin:  Well, what exactly is a day off?  Don't mean to cut you off, but you're putting me off, so why don't you take off before I kick off and really start sounding off!  Your efforts to call me off will just piss me off and I'll keep going off until you offer to pay me off with a sum I can live off and you can simply write off, ya jack-off.

Dave Chappelle:  Mehhhhh.