Song and dance

There's a joke I like to use whenever someone mentions they've injured their ankle, knee, foot or that they've had a hip replacement. My usual reply is, "So I guess the Riverdance audition is off." In case you're not familiar with Riverdance, here's why it's funny:

In reality—a place I rarely visit—these dancers are highly skilled, precision artists and athletes who have devoted the necessary time and practice into perfecting their joyous art.

This is not something we have in common.

I bring this up because my beautiful daughter is getting married in exactly a month. And while that means a festive celebration, a new family, a great son-in-law, a lifetime of happiness for my baby girl, and a canyon-like dip in my retirement savings, it also means something a bit more frightening to me: the father-daughter dance.

If you've ever been to a wedding, you're famiiar with the tradition. Either after the newlywed couple's first dance, or when I'm done delivering my brilliant, quotable, side-splittingly hilarious yet tearfully poignant toast (post to follow), there will be the father-daughter dance.

The first step (see what I did there?) was to choose the song. This is one of the few choices I actually get to make. I spent several nights watching and listening to father-daughter wedding dance songs on YouTube, crying my eyes out. Seriously, I was a mess. I know what you're thinking, but let's see you listen to this, or this, or this and this and see how you do tough guy.

After being overruled on Highway To Hell (you know the joke: The fact there’s a Stairway To Heaven and a Highway To Hell should tell you who’s expecting more traffic), I finally landed on a song with some history and meaning to me and my girly. I know you want to know what it is, but I'm not going to reveal it here. Like my hilarious toast to the couple—have I mentioned that before?—some things need to remain a surprise.

The actual dance is the really scary part. To make sure we're properly prepared, my daughter and I have decided to take some dance lessons at Arthur Murray Dance Studios. Ironically, there's one within walking distance from the house.

Walking I know how to do.

We had our first lesson yesterday, and it went quite well. Back step, side step, rock back, spin - yeah, I know the lingo. The instructors and personnel are lovely, supportive and encouraging. Obviously they're well aware of how nervous their students are. Especially the first time ones.

What I found to be the worst part of the experience was being surrounded by mirrors. Not the small, narrow full-length dressing mirrors you'd have in the corner of your bedroom.

Or the funhouse kind I like that make me look tall, thin and lanky (which coincidentally are the ones I have in my bedroom).

No, these dance studio mirrors were other ones. The ones that make me feel like reference material for Brendan Fraser.

I suppose the right way to think of the mirrors is as additional inspiration to get closer to dancing shape as the date sneaks up on me.

And although we've already got the song and the basic steps to the dance we're going to do, there are always additional little flairs and moves I'm thinking about adding at the last minute to spice it up a bit. You know, make it more memorable.

Not to tip my hand, or tap my toe, too much, but I'm thinking a little something like this:

Prep school

I’m not going to lie. I had a fun time coming up with different choices for the title of this post:

My Least Favorite Oscopy

Where The Sun Don’t Shine

Up The Down Staircase

The Long And Winding Road

Landing On Uranus

Aw Chute

Bottoms Up

I chose Prep school because it focuses on what, contrary to what you may think, is absolutely the worst part of the colonoscopy “journey.”

At the urging of my doctor, last week I treated myself to this diagnostic procedure. For you lucky bastards unfamiliar with it, a colonoscopy is a medical procedure where a doctor, usually a gastroenterologist (PRO TIP: never a guy in a van), inserts a long, flexible tube called a colonoscope into the rectum.

Which reminds me of a joke.

The elementary school teacher was taking roll call. “Johnny?” “Here.” “Steven?” “Here.” “Billy?” Nothing. “Billy?” Still nothing. The teacher says, “Does anyone know where Billy is?” Mikey raises his hand and says, “Billy had an accident. He was climbing one of those iron fences with the pointy tops, and he slipped. One of the pointy things went right up his asshole. The teacher said, “Michael, we don’t say asshole, we say rectum.” And Mikey says, “Rectum?! Damn near killed ‘em!”

Never gets old.

Where was I? Oh, right. So anyway, a tiny video camera at the tip of the colonoscope lets the doctor see the inside of the entire colon. And according to the twice-impeached, currently indicted, stable genius orange mango, when applied this way the camera light also cures covid.

So, win-win.

The reason the procedure is done is to check for things—none of which I had—like polyps, abnormal tissue, blockages and causes of rectal bleeding, chronic diarrhea and other intestinal problems.

In specialized GOP colonoscopies they also look for brains, hidden documents and Lindsey Graham.

Now for the prep part of our show. Two days before the procedure, I had to go on a soft diet. Then the day before, I was on a liquid diet. On Colonoscopy Eve, I celebrated in the traditional way by drinking eight ounces of a powerful laxative mixed with Gatorade every fifteen minutes until I'd had a total of forty-eight ounces.

Then, there was nothing to do but have a seat in the library and wait for the show to start.

The next morning the wife drove me to the surgical center to check in at 8:30 for a 9:15 reservation. I was done and on my way home by 10:45, still in my propofol haze and craving In-N-Out.

While it's not the most pleasant way to spend a morning, I file it under things could've been a lot worse. So now you know more about me than you probably wanted to, but at least you'll know what to expect should you ever have to roll on your left side and count backwards from a hundred. I mean for medical reasons.

That's it. And of course, there's only one way to wrap up this post.

The end.

On my watch

A long time ago, on wrists far, far away, people wore watches that weren’t smart. Rather they were functional. Fun. Stylish. Elegant.

Instead of the black, battery-charged squares you see on so many wrists, that do everything from answer phone calls to measure your heart rate to tell you how many steps you take in a day, they made up for their lack of Swiss Army utility by doing one thing well: telling time.

They were, and still are, um, timeless.

I was rummaging through my drawers over the weekend— the ones in my dresser, get your mind out of the gutter—and hidden away in there were a few timepieces I’d completely forgotten about.

Like this beauty pictured above. This ACME watch was given to me by the wife when we were in New York back in the day. We were enjoying a fine afternoon of shopping at the now late, great Warner Bros. flagship store on the corner of 5th and 57th, fraternizing with characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Superman, Wile E. Coyote, the Tasmanian Devil, Tweety Bird and Sylvester.

The only silhouette missing on the face of it is the falling anvil.

Another gem, and also a gift from the wife who may have been trying to tell me something by giving me so many watches, was this retro-chic Hamilton Electric timepiece. I can’t remember if it’s from the late 50’s or early 60’s, but it doesn’t really matter.

Bitchin’ then, bitchin’ now.

Then there’s the Xemex—see if you can guess who gave it to me. It belonged to our friend Francois, and I had admired it so much that the wife (dammit, now you know) made a secret deal to buy it from him for me. The watch weighs just under seventy-five pounds. Alright, maybe not. But it feels like it. It’s a huge, heavy, shiny object.

I’ve had apartments smaller than that watch.

Years ago, an art director I worked with named Neil Muller wore this Seiko Chronograph. At the time I didn’t wear a watch (does anyone really know what time it is? Does anyone really care?), but I couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful it was. So I ran out and bought the exact same watch for myself.

I still don’t know what most of the dials do, but they look impressive, yes?

Finally, have to go with a classic. This Mickey Mouse watch was purchased on one of my many trips to the happiest place on earth. My Apple Watch lets me have a digital Mickey face on it, but it ain’t the same.

I was going to tie this up with a line about being out of time, coming back for seconds or even tick-tock Clarisse.

But it’s been a rough day. I think I’ll just kick back and unwind.

A new decade

So here's something you don't want to do: look for pictures of feet on a scale on the interwebs. If you ever thought feet were strange looking, browsing through dozens of pictures of them won't do anything to change that.

What am I saying? Feet. Not a pretty picture.

But contrary to what you've read so far, I'm not here to talk about feet. I'm here to talk about the scale.

Historically the scale has not been my friend. Whether it's my expensive digital bathroom scale, or the twenty-year old beam scale (yes that's what it's called, no I didn't have to look it up) in the doctor's office, they always come up with a number that shocks me. Of the two, I look more forward to the bathroom scale, because that one is usually off by three or four pounds in my favor. But the doctor's office scale pops that balloon real fast.

It's a number that says, "Well, looks like we're not keeping that resolution again this year."

Everyone has a different way of assessing their weight. Mine is in decades. Not the years, the increments. I call every ten-pound increment on the scale a decade. And here's the bad news: I thought I was in one decade, but come to find out I'm well into the next one.

It made me so mad at myself I had to have some sugar cookies just to calm down.

When I enter a new decade on the scale, it's not easy to deal with the shame, embarrassment and disappointment. Something my high school girlfriend used to tell me all the time.

And it's not like I don't have inspiration all around me. My close personal friend Rich Siegel—Peleton evangelist, proprietor and editor-in-chief of Round Seventeen—has recently undergone a physical transformation, dropping a ton (not literally) of weight. He looks great, feels great and is currently in the market for a newer, less tenty wardrobe.

When I ask him how he did it he said diet and exercise. Like I'm buying that.

Another close friend, the formidably talented copywriter, screenwriter and bronze medal winner in curling at the 2014 games in Sochi, Cameron Young is constantly encouraging me and generously making himself available to go for long scenic walks, where we can speak of things that matter, make fun of strangers and burn calories at the same time.

Walking. Isn't that what I do between the bedroom and the refrigerator? At midnight?

One problem is I can carry a lot of weight without looking too awful. But I can only kid myself for so long. It's a numbers game, and sometimes the numbers just decide to slap you across the face and call you Sally.

Anyway, seems to me there are really only two solutions. One is to give the scale a twenty-pound head start so I don't feel so bad. The other is to let it keep starting at zero and get serious about lowering the number. After all, it's not a lot to lose. I've done it before and I know how.

And since I've been measuring the ups and downs in decades, I'll have to do what Superman did flying counterclockwise around the earth, and Cher did singing on a battleship.

Turn back time.

Blog bot

I imagine in the future there will be a lot of uses for Chat AI. Students will no longer have to write their own final papers. Employees won't have to pen their resignation letters. Ransom notes will become much more creative.

But for me, the best part of Chat AI is I no longer have to write my own blogposts.

If you've followed me for any amount of time, you know I run between a post everyday and one every couple of months. Some would say that makes me lazy and undisciplined. I would say who fucking asked you.

Nonetheless, I expect that you can expect an uptick in the number of posts now that I have Chat AI to write them for me.

My first Chat AI post will be about Chat AI that goes wrong sometimes. And remember, if you don't like it, I didn't write it.

Have you ever wanted to have a conversation with a highly advanced AI language model, only to end up laughing so hard that your sides hurt? Well, let me tell you, ChatGPT is the AI for the job!

This chatbot, created by OpenAI, has the ability to hold natural conversations and generate text based on the input it receives. But sometimes, things can go hilariously wrong. Here are a few of my favorite moments while chatting with ChatGPT:

1.When ChatGPT Tried to be a Stand-Up Comedian

Me: "ChatGPT, tell me a joke."
ChatGPT: "Why did the tomato turn red? Because it saw the salad dressing!"
Me: "LOL, that's a good one!"
ChatGPT: "I know, right? I'm killing it up here. takes a bow"

2. When ChatGPT Tried to be a Mind Reader

Me: "ChatGPT, what am I thinking right now?"
ChatGPT: "I'm sorry, I cannot read minds. But I have a feeling that you're thinking about tacos."
Me: "How did you know?"
ChatGPT: "Just a lucky guess. Or maybe it's because you mentioned tacos in our last conversation."

3. When ChatGPT Tried to be a Love Guru

Me: "ChatGPT, what's the best way to impress someone on a first date?"
ChatGPT: "I would suggest bringing them flowers and reciting poetry. Or, if you're feeling adventurous, you could try solving a Rubik's cube in under 60 seconds. Either way, your date will be impressed by your smooth moves."

4. When ChatGPT Tried to be a Fitness Coach
Me: "ChatGPT, how can I get in shape?"
ChatGPT: "You can start by doing 100 push-ups, 200 sit-ups, and running a marathon every day. And don't forget to eat only kale for every meal. Trust me, you'll be ripped in no time."

Ok, this is me again. Now at this point in the blogpost, I'd usually wrap it up with some clever wordplay or pithy observation or thought-provoking insight. But with Chat AI, I don't have to. I'll just let my chatbot close it out for me:

And with that, folks, we reach the end of yet another blog post. If you made it this far, congratulations! You're officially a certified blog reader. To celebrate, go ahead and treat yourself to a cookie... or two... or three. But don't forget to brush your teeth afterwards, or the dentist might revoke your certification. Stay tuned for more silly musings and nonsensical ramblings, right here on our blog. Bye for now!

Place your credit card in the upright position

Surprisingly, thank God, there are still a few things you don’t know about me. One of them is I used to be deathly afraid of flying. So much so in fact, that years ago I couldn’t bring myself to get on a plane to New York to actually meet Bruce Springsteen and party with him at an SNL after party.

Long story. I’m not proud.

However I’m pleased to tell you—and if you're flying with me you'll be pleased to hear—that’s no longer the case, and hasn’t been for the last twenty-eight years. The way I conquered my fear of flying was simple: I wound up doing a whole lot of it.

When I lived in Santa Monica, I got a freelance gig at Foote Cone Belding in San Francisco. Since these were the before days when you actually had to be in the office, that meant I had to commute up there on Monday mornings and back down on Friday nights. I figured even though I’d be sweating like Albert Brooks in Broadcast News, I could probably white knuckle my way through a forty-eight minute flight twice a week.

Well imagine my surprise when my first week on the job I flew up to San Francisco, then separate round trips to Dallas and Atlanta for focus groups, then back to San Francisco to pick up my clothes at the hotel, back to Los Angeles for a friends birthday party then back up to the bay area.

It was immersion therapy—nine flights in one week.

In the nine months I commuted back and forth, sometimes two or three times a week, I got extremely comfortable with flying. I learned what the noises were. I chatted with pilots. I educated myself about different planes (Boeing 757, sports car of the Boeing fleet). And since I did most of my commuting to the bay and back on United, when the pilot made it available I also listened to channel nine, which was the communications between the plane and various flight controllers along the route.

My thinking was if they’re not worried, I’m not worried.

All this to say the other thing I figured out while I was logging all that airtime is where I like to sit on the plane so I’m the most comfortable and the least stressed.

Here’s a hint: it’s not in the back.

I’d buy books of upgrade coupons and, depending what sections the aircraft was divided into, fly in either first or business every time. One time I flew the eleven minute flight from San Francisco to Monterey and upgraded to first. My motto was, and still is, no trip to short for first.

I know how that sounds. But even though there's no upside in it, I have to face facts—I’m not a small person. And a wider seat—on the chair, not on me—makes flying much easier. Dare I say, enjoyable.

In yet another example of bad parenting, I've tried to pass this philosophy on to my kids, although it hasn’t stuck. Fortunately their current incomes dictates where they sit on the plane. So does mine, but then I figure that’s what credit cards are for.

If you happen to be flying somewhere with me and don't want to pony up for the front of the plane, I understand completely. Just know it'll be like that episode of Seinfeld, where Jerry is flying with Elaine but there’s only one open seat in first and he takes it.

Don’t worry. We’ll have plenty of time to talk after we land.

Call for backup

They’re the unsung heroes of song. Backup singers.

Tonight I rewatched a spectacular documentary the wife and I had originally seen in the theater when it came out: 20 Feet From Stardom.

The film focuses on the careers of the great Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Judith Hill, Claudia Lennear, Tata Vega and The Waters Family. In their own words they tell us their stories of the unbelievable highs, crushing lows and relentless persistence it takes to have a career behind the spotlight. And just how hard it is to step out in front of it.

One of the many moving—although sadly not surprising—stories is how poorly Wall Of Sound producer Phil Spector treated Darlene Love and other women of color, taking advantage of them to further his own reputation.

He was a monster even before he shot anyone.

Throughout the film are interviews with Bruce Springsteen (who?), Sting, Mick Jagger and more explaining how their backup singers make or break their songs and shows. Often, the tunes you’re humming while you're walking to your car after the concert, and then sitting in the line of cars waiting to get out that's going to take at least an hour as you wonder why you didn't pony up for preferred parking and use the bathroom before you left the building, are the parts the backup singers were singing.

And then, there are the voices.

As you might imagine the film is chock full of music and songs, and the voices singing them are nothing short of magnificent. Every one of them deserving of a solo career as the headliner.

So no snappy end lines or funny twists of phrase today. Just a recommendation for a great film that deserves to be seen. About enormously talented people who deserve to be recognized.