So — my original post sans hint was a bit… shall we say, improbable.  Who could simply guess a name in my head?  I did, however, get some pretty good guesses.

I decided to give you all a hint — one which I felt might likely give it all away rather quickly. And I was correct — it took someone all of three minutes to guess the correct answer from my hint.

So – what was the name in question? What did the hints mean? For at least one of you, the hints were a type of quaero totus lacuna, which is Latin for “copy what I put on the blog to help people out into Google and look for something remotely relevant.”  But for those of you who got it right off the bat, you knew that these three “hints” were actually the first few lines of dialogue of the repressed peasant in Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

Direct YouTube Link

The first among you commoners to guess “Dennis” was Avitable.  He gets the t-shirt expressly made for the crew of The Wolfman. Coming to theaters this November.  Kudos to LeSombre, whall, Finn, and Janelle for also coming up with the correct name.

I must, however, give honorable mentions to the following individuals for some dreat guesses:

• B. E. Earl guessed that I would be named Romulu He cleverly took into consideration the Wolfman movie flair I was giving away. He chose Romulus over Remus because Romulus is the name of the town where the Detroit airport happens to be. Or something like that.
• LeSombre guessed “Joseph” for a variety of reasons, most of which escape me aside from that it means “he will enlarge.”  Oh really… ::whistles::
• NYCWD and Cissa Fireheart both chose the name “Sam.”  Cissa cited a fact that, on this day in history, Sam Houston led a Texan army to independence in San Jacinto. And Samuel Clemmens (aka Mark Twain) died in 1910 on this day. Dawg just chose it because he knows that I don’t eat ham. (Jury is still out on the green eggs.)
• Dave2 was close: taking a page out of one of the best TV sitcoms of all time, he decided to delve into the quintissential hottest supporting character from that show.  And he guessed Skippy — based on Alex’s buddy and Mallory’s geeky somewhat stalker Skippy Handelman on “Family Ties.”
• Hilly just thinks that I should be called “Dick.”
• Iron Fist thought that my name might have to do with the Jewish holiday which falls today called Yom HaShoah. Which is Holocaust Remembrance Day. Way to keep it light…
• MySpaceBarBroke and Miss Britt both decided on “Sir.”  Both of these lovely ladies are younger than I am; SpaceBar is incredibly sweet and respectful towards me. She always has been. Britt, on the other hand… well, she’s also been very nice to me, I suppose.  But she called me old.

• Finally, another tip of the hat to Dawg who took the “37″ reference to the other movie which references it: a wonderful film called Clerks. Kudos to you on this one; yes, I’ve aged all 37 years in a row.  I’ve decided that I will bestow NYCWD with a package of snowballs (yes, the confectioned donut treat and not the other stuff) the next time we meet in person.

Today was really amazing for me.  I began this blog slightly over a year ago and was new to this specific blogging community.  Since then I’ve become close to many of you.  Thanks for all of the birthday wishes and for being such a great community.

But wait — there’s more! While I’m revealing answers about stuff, why the heck not give you the answers to that 80s music quiz on my blog about three weeks back?  Here were the snippets; see if you can hear them now that you know what they are:

Download: MP3 OGG

“Head Over Heels” by the Go-Gos and “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel.  Nat and Hilly identified the Go-Gos, but the Billy Joel intro was a bit tough for you all. Don’t the two intros go quite well together, though?

Download: MP3 OGG

Many of you (Faiqa, Janelle, Hilly, B.E. Earl, Sybil and my brother) got The Fixx’s “One Thing Leads To Another.”  Nobody got that the eerie piano chords belonged to the intro for the Boomtown Rats’ “I Don’t Like Mondays.”

Download: MP3 OGG

Yes. “Obsession” by Anomotion. Practically everyone had that one.  The other? “Oh Sherry” by Journey frontman Steve Perry. Yankeebird got that in the round before the last one in which four songs were on top of each other. Go Yankee!

Download: MP3 OGG

A few of you got “Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats. Nobody figured out the opening organ slide to “Hip to Be Square” by Huey Lewis and the News.

Okay — let’s hear them all together one last time!

    Download: MP3 OGG

Now do you hear each of these eight song?  No? Only me?  Okay…

A quick tip of the hat to my brother who calls himself, affectionately, Shiny’s Brother. I prefer the name I’ve given him in the blogosphere, Captain Awesome. I especially like it because I can almost feel him cringe at the thought of me calling him that. And imagining him in a tight superhero suit with tights and a bright orange codpiece and all.  Yes, he continues to be an inspiration for me, and he really had a lot to do with my obsession for 80s music.  Thanks, CA. Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the sky.

And now, for no good reason whatsoever, here is a picture of someone’s butt. With a full color tattoo on one of the cheeks. Of a unicorn. A very special unicorn. One with rainbows. And a swastika armband. Spreading the rainbow-clad, unicornial message of white power.

On the other hand, you’re probably not interested. Tell you what — if you’re reading this in your feed reader and you actually want to see it, click through for the full blog post.  If you’re not, I certainly don’t blame you.

… and you thought I was kidding…

Thanks to my friend Becky who brought this to my attention from this website. This was truly the best gift I received all day.

It’s my birthday today.

So — yay!

But this year I’m going to involve a bit of a twist: I have a contest in mind.

You see — now that it is April 21, 2009, I can be called by a different name. In fact, I have a name in mind. It’s a relatively common English male name.

Guess it. And tell me specifically why I chose this name to suit me today.

Winner gets a fantastic prize:  Benicio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins are starring in The Wolfman, slated to come out this November. If you’re the first to correctly guess the name I’m thinking of — including, in full, the explanation of why I’m thinking of this name today — you’ll get an official Wolfman crew shirt. It’s a long sleeved black T-shirt.  You can request any size you wish, but all I have is an adult medium.

Good luck!

EDIT: I realized this morning that guessing a name from thin air is pretty much close to impossible. What was I thinking? So I’ve decided to provide you with not one, not two, but five three clues. The name corresponds to these following qualities:

• Man.
• I’m 37.
• I’m not old.

Hopefully this will help a bit. Good luck!

Which, I suppose, was one of the elements which led up to my mom finding this big-ass grocery bag full of condoms in the summer of 1993 amongst my stuff.

I suppose this warrants an explanation: The previous two summers were spent on campus at the University of Maryland as an orientation advisor. This was a combination paid job (albeit not very much — but it did come with some free room and board) and academic experience (there was a three-credit course as a prerequisite) which had me doing more than just giving tours of campus: we were assisting as academic advisors and peer leaders in many different aspects of student life.  We also talked to the incoming students about certain resources on campus which could help them out in a bind. And made them aware of some of the aspects of independent living that might require them, to, um…

Oh, screw it. We showed them a movie about AIDS and HIV and talked about safer sex. And then passed out free condoms, courtesy of the University Health Center.

I already had a standing relationship with the Health Center coming into this — as I was already a peer educator regarding issues of sexual health, sexual communication and sexual assault awareness.  And because of this, I was good friends with Mary, the gatekeeper of the free condoms. Instead of just going to the Health Center to pick them up for each subsequent orientation program, Mary just gave me an industrial sized box and had me divvy them up for the other orientation advisors during their “let’s pass out free condoms to anyone who wants them” sessions.  Which I did.  There were always plenty; this was a very, very big box.  And it turned out that there were a good several hundred extras at the end of the summer.

So I kept them. Passed them out to friends during the school year. Hell — used a few myself. (Yes, they were in bulk packaging, but they had a recognized name brand.)  And in moving my stuff back home at the end of the school year (as I would be out of the country all summer), a bag of them happened to come home with me.

… and was found by Mom a few weeks later.  Who brought them up in conversation with me at that time.

You see, my Mom and I had a truly wonderful relationship — one where we could have possibly talked about anything and it would all be okay.  Or at least both of us felt that we were progressive enough that there would be no subject taboo enough to bring up.  But it was more of an understanding rather than one which was actually used in practice, as we discovered on an eerily awkward car trip one fateful August day.  She brought up the condoms. I laughed and told her about the peer education stuff I had been doing with them. She laughed. We were laughing. It was very casual, care-free. And then I made some comment about how having this supply saved me some money in the long run. She laughed. I laughed. We were laughing some more. And then we spent a good thirty-five minutes in the car not saying word one to each other.

I suppose she was cool talking about such things with anyone. And I was cool talking about such things with anyone.  We both had no problem with the subject matter.  We just didn’t feel like continuing the conversation.  The conversation between us was kind of like getting store-brand ice cream: there’s really nothing wrong with it. In fact, it’s all good. But after partaking of it, in hindsight, you realize that maybe it would have been better if you went in a different direction.

I brought up the conversation with my mom about the bag of condoms when I was chatting with my dad’s girlfriend. I was going through some of the old boxes — this one happened to have old emails and pictures of women with whom I had relationships during my college years.  It was weird seeing a box of my past — memories of who I was in my late teens and early 20s. How I looked, how I acted, and how I treated other people was still a work in progress towards where I went with it a decade and a half later.  There were certainly memories in that box that I wasn’t proud of, and others which I wish I had brought with me along the journey to the present day.

Much of this I choose not to share with others — whether on this blog or in person.  I don’t think anyone would have a problem hearing or reading it.  Perhaps I don’t want it to cloud what people think of me in the here-and-now. Either way — it’s a choice I have made on a case-by-case basis: some things I share, some things I don’t.

I’ve been wrestling with this recently as I’ve gathered more people who are closer to me in real life who follow my blog and/or Twitter.  In my blog’s  previous incarnation I kept things carefully guarded so my identity remained a bit of a mystery. But now? Things are a bit more open. My Dad follows me on Twitter and has read my blog. So have other relatives who have known me since I was an infant, as well as others who have known me on a far less intimate level.  Can I share everything here? Do these people really want to hear about my big bag of condoms and my prophylactic usage in the early ’90s?

Probably not.

But I’m going to post this stuff anyway.  Some of it may cloud your already pre-conceived constructs of me.  It may make for awkward periods of silence. That’s fine. Besides — most of the stuff I write will still (hopefully) be funny, and it’s always okay to laugh at something which may be rather inappropriate.  Please read (or refrain from reading) what you’d like. I’m totally cool with that.

But I must warn you: if hearing about the bag of condoms made you a bit skittish, you’re probably going to be queasy once I blog about the cabhinet full of dildos…

Thirty-five years ago this coming August we moved into the house in the picture above.

I don’t think I have any real memories of that day. I do have these flashes of me hanging out with mymom upstairs while lots of men came in with lots of our stuff, but those could be fabricated memories as an amalgam of life experiences. (For example — I remember when our piano was delivered several years later.) I was two at the time and still a bit cloudy as to what was going on around me.

The picture above was taken about four years after we moved in — either by my brother or me. That was my Mom’s car — the four-door ’72 Dodge Coronet which seated six (three in the front, three in the back). When my parents purchased the house it came with that wonderful wooden paneling which was the appropriate shade of ’70s green.  The carpeting inside matched quite well — bright oranges, yellows, greens and pinks in the shag rugs. Patterned linoleum in the front hall and kitchen.

Throughout the years there were many cosmetic changes made to the house on the inside and out.  It truly was home for me — as I had lived there from age 2 until I moved out for college. And then? I still had my room (which ultimately became shared space for my Dad’s office). Our engagement party was there.  Av’s bris was held in the dining room. And that was after I had moved out. The point of it is — even though I was no longer living there, it was always home for me.  I can’t remember the house where I lived in Pittsfield, MA for the first two years of my life; this was truly my first home. And it remained my home for the next three and-a-half decades.

When my mom died in 2006, I slowly came to the realization that the house would not last forever. It was a big house for just my Dad to live in — even if it had a lot of room for people to come and visit.  When my Dad found his wonderful girlfriend, someone who also had her own empty house after her children were grown, it was quite apparent that they would want to start this chapter of their lives in a place together. A place which was new. Both houses had wonderful memories, but their new place would be about newer memories.

Her house sold more quickly than my Dad’s did.  Putting a house on the market in the middle of 2008 was not an easy task. Keeping it on the market through the ensuing recession was even tougher. Especially as the value of this home (and all homes) plummeted rapidly. He had to bring the price down. And in that climate, nobody was biting. It was tough and depressing.

Several hours ago the house was officially sold.  To a nice couple. With twin babies. They had been looking at it for months now.

It is no longer my home. I gave my Dad my keys on Saturday.  I no longer have a working alarm code.

I do, however, retain memories.

That wall never changed, although the wood paneling in the room had come and gone. So had the giant 22″ TV that sat embedded in the wall until the early 80s. I think, throughout the 35 years I remember this house, that the fireplace was used maybe once or twice. If even at all. (Again, possibly manufactured memories).

There was a lone bedroom downstairs, the other four being two floors up.  This was our playroom. And then our office (when both my brother and I went into the bar-mitzvah tutoring business in high school). Eventually it was a guest room. I remember painting the whole room when I was in high school.  The picture in the corner?  I made it in first grade. It’s lived there for quite a while…

My room. Used to have clunky green and brown windowshades and bright orange shag carpeting. I shared it with my brother until I was about six; he moved out into his own room next door.  I did a lot of homework here, and I avoided even more homework here as well. During my map-geek pahse, I had an entire wall covered with a gigantic map of Montgomery County, MD. I would have open-door days when I was happy. And I would slam the hell out of that door when I was upset.  I installed my own phone jack in that room, a project I really was proud of. I was ten.

Our backyard.  We had a swingset when we moved in — which all but rusted away within ten years, so we got rid of it. We also had a picnic table for some time. And this amazing weed-like plant which would grow almost to the second story of the house every summer! We would cut it down every fall and use it as s’chach for our sukkah. There were parties. My brother and I would play frisbee and soccer out there.  Our next door neighbor’s dog would ultimately run laps around our yard.

This house and I had a great run together. Thanks for the memories, 2015…

If you know my last name, you know that it’s unmistakeably Jewish. My Dad is from Brooklyn. My parents brought their two kids up in a very positive Jewish environment where we were active in our synagogue.  My brother and I attended a Jewish day school, Jewish summer camp and were active in Jewish youth groups. We even found our own Jewish communities in college — and both of us spent time working in Jewish communal professional positions thereafter. When my hair is long enough I’ve got the “Jew-fro” thing going on. I’ve been to Israel three times. I think Jon Stewart is pretty amazing, Pat Robertson scares the shit out of me, and I know a guy who knows a guy who can get you fine, retail merchandise at great, wholesale prices. I speak Hebrew, love onion bagels, and get proud of the fact that someone like Ron Jeremy, of all people, is also a Member of the Tribe.

Now that we’ve got my credentials out of the way…

Over the past few days, some of you may have read some heated discussions on blogs and on Twitter regarding sending Christmas cards or simply expressing Christmas greetings to people who do not celebrate the holiday — in one case, it was another Jewish person expressing her opinion on the subject.  She brought up a very solid point which, in my opinion, was lost in the barbs and drama of the verbal rumble: There are some traditional Jews who may get offended when they receive Christmas cards. I certainly don’t think this applies to everyone who identifies as Jewish, and I also think that there’s quite a bit of gray area regarding context of the expressed Christmas sentiments. In certain circumstances, I think it’s quite rational to be offended by such things.

Let me tell you about the time I received a Christmas card in the mail and was highly offended:

It was December of 1997. I had been working as a program professional on the University of North Carolina campus for an organization called Hillel. For those of you who are unfamiliar, think of it as a Jewish student resource center who provides support and programming on religious and cultural levels. It was my first time living in an area without an overwhelmingly large Jewish population. I had just spent a year working with the Jewish community at Princeton University. Not exactly a huge Jewish population, but it was, after all, New Jersey.  A far cry from North Carolina, where (at the time) Jewish students made up a tiny fraction of the entire campus population.

We had wonderful relationships with the other religious and cultural organizations on campus. We were an integral part of the umbrella group which oversaw all of the campus ministries. I became very good friends, in fact, with the Presbyterian minister. We were all on each other’s mailing lists. We knew about each other’s events and sent invitations out. And when Christmas came along, we would receive a whole bunch of Christmas cards from those working in these organizations. They were all very kind-spirited and happy — expressing warmth and friendship.

I enjoyed getting these cards. They weren’t a means to shove someone else’s religion down my throat; rather, they were a way of expressing someone else’s traditions during a very happy holiday. I found nothing wrong with it.

My beef was with someone not affiliated with our Campus Ministry association –  a woman who had her own following of students and faculty as an independent minister in the campus community. Let’s call her Samantha.  She was very friendly and outgoing. But, at the same time, she was very demanding and not, in any way, afraid to speak her mind about her religious beliefs — even in inappropriate settings.  In my position, I had learned to be as universal and all-encompassing as possible, able to listen to the beliefs of others and hoping that they felt comfortable talking with me without feeling the threat of intrusiveness. Samantha did not take the same approach — reminding me, at campus functions where we would see each other and attempt to remain cordial, that I was doing the whole religion thing wrong. That it was a shame that I had been “brainwashed” by my parents to believe in something which didn’t jive with her beliefs.  I was still young and playing the nice guy role — I should have been more assertive and let her know that what she was doing, on a constant basis, felt like nagging and made me feel less than comfortable.

When I got a Christmas card from Samantha — it was very creepy. And condescending. The motive behind it was part of a pattern — that the way I was living my life and choosing my belief system was totally wrong. And it was perfectly fine that she had this belief. What wasn’t was the constant badgering to try to recruit me to her side.

It’s certainly not the motive of the overwhelming majority of people who send Christmas cards. However, I feel that I was justified in being offended by it. And by her constant patronizing blabbering about how much she and God love me and how much she just wants to make sure I’m on board for eternal salvation.

So — what did I do when I received the card? I rolled my eyes. Planned my revenge — a card of my own back to her! Maybe a “return to sender” on the envelope! A bag of flaming poo on her doorstep! In the shape of a nativity scene!

And after two minutes of that? I was done. I threw away the card and went on with my life.

(And then I blogged about it a decade later.)

I continue to receive Christmas cards quite often. And why not? Some of them are generic from organizations I support or vendors of services which I consume. We have friends who take adorable pictures every year and care to share this tradition and their greetings with my family. Do I expect them to hit the printers with an entirely different template without a Christmas greeting asto not offend? Of course not. I don’t even mind if they don’t cross out “Merry Christmas” and replace it with a creative spelling of “Happy Hanukah*.”

And let’s bring that holiday up for a moment: Hanukkah is not the “Jewish Christmas.” Nor is Christmas the “Christian Chanukah.”  It happens to be a relatively minor, eight-night holiday which falls at the end of the month of Kislev – a Jewish month that usually begins in November or December. Because of the way the Jewish calendar works, Chanukka may begin as early as Thanksgiving weekend or as late as a few days after Christmas. (This year happens to be one of those where Christmas will fall on Hannukkah — or vice versa.)  During certain years on Christmas eve, I hear some people tyrying to be sensitive to my beliefs by wishing me a Happy Chanukah — even though the holiday has long since gone.  It’s a bit disconcerting to hear false assumptions like that being made.  But hey — at least an effort is being made, right?

But with all that — it’s still quite a minor holiday. It’s not analogous to Christmas. It just happens to fall around the same time. The presents and the cool gambling game for children came much, much later — mostly as a reaction to Christmas being celebrated by, at the time, the majority of the Western world.

I know where I live. I’m in a country which is overwhelmingly populated by those who celebrate Christmas in one form or another. Some of them are Christians, some of them are not. We’re not fooling anyone when we suddenly change the name to a “holiday tree” or “seasonal ornaments.”  They’re about Christmas. The modern observation of Christmas (which may or may not have been gleaned by pre-Christian traditions, depending on who you ask). And that’s fine, too.  I love Christmas. I love the lights up on my neighbors’ homes. I even love some of the music. Tinsel is cool. And so are form-fitting santa suits on busty lingerie models. What’s not to love?

But I love it all as a spectator. (Except, perhaps, for the busty models part.) And that’s good enough for me. If I don’t join in, it doesn’t mean that I’m devoid of good cheer. It doesn’t mean that I’m mean-spirited if you don’t get a Christmas card from me. I’ll be like the grandma who takes her kids to the park: I’ll just sit here and be happy watching you celebrate. And get loopy off arthritis medication.

You know — people equate Hanukah with that one dreidel song. Which is sad, really: there are so many more songs which encompass the Chanuka spirit. The following is — well, it’s just another dreidel song. But it’s very cool. And apparently it’s performed by some members of Incubus. Have a listen:

Direct YouTube Link

_____

* It’s a Hebrew word. There is no correct English spelling. If you feel inclined to write it in Hebrew, it’s חנוכה .

I still smile at the nickname I gave you, my brother, when I decided to create a blog name for you that would be quite funny. It’s not that I don’t think that you’re awesome; it’s not even that you don’t think you’re awesome. It’s that you simply wouldn’t be the type of person who would go around self-declaring as “Captain Awesome: Hero charged with spreading awesomeness and curtailing all that is sub-awesome.” The blog never took off, but the nickname stuck. (I should mention that this nickname was in place way, way before it was co-opted to the future brother-in-law on NBC’s “Chuck.”)

Anyway — you’ve been my big brother for a good 36 and a half years now. That’s not an easy feat; you’re the only one who’s been able to do it. And you’ve stuck with it for quite some time, even though I certainly didn’t make it easy on you. (Apparently I was a biter.)  But you were my trusty companion through thick and thin as we were growing up. I remember when you taught me the Periodic Table of the Elements by heart as per Tom Lehrer. I recall the exquisite game we used to play in our family room which involved soccer-like rules but was played with a 70s style sofa and wood paneling as goalposts.  And I remember when you misled me, getting me to listen to “Good Lovin’” by the Young Rascals for the first time by telling me that it was a song by the Meat Puppets.

And although our bond as brothers never ended, I’m writing to recognize the wonderful happenings exactly fifteen years ago today when you got married to a wonderful person whom I shall creatively nickname Captain Outstanding. (This usually raises some questions from friends of mine who often wonder if captains can get married to each other. The answer? Yes.)

I first met Captain Outstanding when she happened to be visiting the DC area on a field trip from the summer camp where you were both working. Maybe I had met her before for a fleeting moment, but this was the first time we really talked. I was impressed that we got along so well after only a few hours! From that point forward it was really nice to see the both of you whenever I could,  and I was overjoyed at your announcement that you two were getting married.

And the wedding itself! Wow — quite wonderful. You made me your best man — a role so memorable and exquisite for me for which I appreciate you. (So much so, in fact, that I decided to pass you over at my wedding and make you neither a best man nor a groomsman.) It was a beautiful ceremony, and I appreciated that you let me sing at it as well.  And, of course, it was also quite memorable the way that I was able to meet Captain Outstanding’s sister for the first time! (I was running around the hotel in a crazy frenzy — and found myself apologizing to a complete stranger in the elevator who was, in fact, sister to the Captain.)  It’s great that you have a two-volume video chronicling the event; I’m waiting to see if you do a special edition remastered DVD with outtakes as an anniversary commemoration.

I’m not sure if you were aware of this at the time, but your wedding came right after a pretty bad breakup for me.  And the wedding, at the time, was just what I needed, or so I believed. Because it gave me a grand opportunity to flirt heavily with many of the guests in attendance who were (a) unrelated to me and (b) under 50. I needed a self-esteem bost and I was granted with an opportunity to have a great time.

Fifteen years later you, my two favorite captains (behind, of course, celebrity captains Picard and Crunch) have a wonderful and vibrant home with three awesome and outstanding children.  For me, it’s never a feeling of obligation to get together with you guys because you’re family. It’s more than that. We get along extremely well. We enjoy hanging out together.  True — we’re a few hours apart and very busy which makes this not happen very often.  But when it does? It often feels that all is right in the world.

So — congratulations on a wonderful fifteen years. I hope you have the opportunity to celebrate it well. And I wish, with 100% of my heart and soul, the best to my sister-in-law, Captain Outstanding. And I wish you well, Captain Awesome, with 99.46% of my heart and soul as well. Because I still think you were a bit of an ass about the whole Meat Puppets disinformation tactic.

Love to you and the family,

– Shiny

No — seriously. Let’s make this all about me for a moment. Let’s talk about my hair.

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with my hair for a long time — but most swaying on the “love” side. As far back as I can remember, people would compare my wavy, dark hair to that of my mom.  While my brother’s hair was always straight, mine simply wasn’t.  Which would always seem to bug me because it was so difficult for me to get every single piece where it was supposed to go.

It was, however, much straighter back then. For instance, take this picture:

In this case, it was short enough that it didn’t matter. Besides, nobody was focusing on my hair because they were too busy being fixated on my groovy Sears Toughskins* brand slacks.

But life went on and I got older. I wanted to wear my hair slightly longer. Which is where the waviness set in. But sometime around when I was 12, my hair seemed to change almost overnight. First of all, the brown color seemed to disappear altogether, leaving me with hair that appeared jet black. And I noticed that my hair was somehow transposing from wavy to just plain curly!  It was 1984. I was 12. And people started asking me if I had gotten a perm.  Which really, really boosted my morale as a pubescent boy whose body was already doing weird enough things that made me defensive enough about my sexual identity.

I decided I wanted my hair long. Like — David Coverdale from Whitesnake long! But also David Coverdale from Whitesnake blond, and I knew my parents simply weren’t going to let that happen. But they did let me grow out my hair a bit — as long as it looked neat enough to remain presentable.  That was perfectly fine by me.  Especially since I really only wanted it long in the back anyway! (I probably didn’t look too closely at the Whitesnake publicity photos.)

It was the late 80s. And although it had not yet been as affectionately named, I was going for the mullet.

That’s what I did all the way through high school. Shorter on the sides, party in the back.  I was gong for the Dennis Miller of SNL’s Weekend Update look. And I did pretty well with it.

College was my next milestone. The summer after my freshman year I decided to lop off the back and try keeping the front long — with the sides extra-short. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision I made as I had a job on campus over the summer which entailed walking around campus giving tours in sweltering heat.  It wasn’t so difficult for me to decide what to do hair-wise — I went to the same woman who did the hair of the other guys in the summer orientation office.

(This was my headshot for my regular column in the independent college student newspaper I used to write for. It’s an actual image file from one of the first instances when I ever used a scanner! This was still the early 90s when scanners were cool.)

Since then I’ve experimented with different hair lengths quite a bit. 1996 was the year of Hurricane Fran which swept through my North Carolina neighborhood, knocking out power to my home for quite a while. Since the bathrooms at my home had no outside-facing windows, it was the perfect excuse not to shave for a bit. I had experimented with the mid-90s goatee before, but this time I had license to march through the awkward whiskers stage and produce real facial hair. More often than not for the past 12 years I’ve gone with some combination of facial hair.

Here’s a random picture of me from 2006 when I was growing my beard out quite a bit:

… and here’s how I looked after I shaved. But not completely:

See why I usually go for the facial hair nowadays? I feel like there’s too much of a Jon Lovitz resemblance otherwise…

Last week I passed a pretty interesting milestone — one year without a haircut. I decided last November that I would, at age 36, grow my hair out for Locks of Love, an organization which accepts hair donations in order to manufacture wigs primarily for children and young adults who are undergoing medical treatments which result in hair loss.  One needs to donate a minimum of ten inches of hair for the organization to accept it.  I’m getting pretty close to the minimum — hopefully I’ll reach it by November.

Here are two pictures I took this past weekend:

Here’s how I see it: I’m still at the tail end of that window where the vast majority of my hair is still brown and still covering much of my head. I’ve already started to get the receding hairline just a bit, and I wanted to get with the Locks of Love program before my hair started to do the 80s incarnation of Phil Collins. My beard has started to get its own patches of gray; I’m sure my hair isn’t so far behind. And I have a feeling that 8-year old kids going through chemo don’t want to look like David Crosby this early in the game.

Say — if I get just the right about of gray in the beard and I shape it into a goatee — I could probably be “The Dude” (from The Big Lebowski) for Halloween, couldn’t I?

Or maybe I’m stretching the whole long-hair thing a smidge…

__

* The next logical question after the appearance of the word “Toughskins” is usually “Did you wear the normal sizes or the Husky sizes?” I wore normal, but I probably could cross-over into the Husky sizes if my mom wanted to compare my weight to that of an Alaskan hunting dog.

*ring*

Hello?

Hello, Mr. Shiny? This is Ms. Schedule. I’m your son’s Kindergarten teacher.

Ah, yes! How are you? How did the first day of school go for him?

Actually, that’s why I’m calling. We have some things to discuss.

Oh no! How is he? Is he okay? Did anyth…

Relax. He’s fine. He’s in the other room playing with an inordinate amount of Legos.

Thank goodness! I was scared there for a moment! So the day went okay after all…

Mr. Shiny — we need to talk.  There are some issues about…

But wait — you said that he’s doing fine?

Mr. Shiny, let me be clear: the problem is you.

Beg…. Beg pardon?

It began when he entered the kindergarten classroom.  The shirt he was wearing — pretty obvious that you got it from Target.  And khaki cargo shorts? Do you really want his aspirations to reach as far as being a contestant on “Deal or No Deal?”

His clothes?  He’s — he’s five!

You know, all the other five year olds had wardrobes from Armani Kids and Brooks Brothers, Too. You can’t start too early caring about your kid’s future…

So this is all about his clothing? I mean, that’s pretty trivial, isn’t it?  It’s not as if he’s causing trouble…

He raised his hand and asked if he could go potty today.

So? That’s great, right?

Potty is a word for infants, the proletariat and reality show contestants. We call it the restroom.

He’ll learn.  He’s five. FIVE! Were there any other problems?

Not unless you care that he doesn’t eat sandwiches…

Why would I care that he doesn’t eat sandwiches? I mean, we do care. Life would be easier if he were eating sandwiches. But right now? He’s starting a new school. There are a lot of new changes in his life. Why not let him become acclamated to sandwiches when he’s ready?

You know Mozart? He ate sandwiches when he was five. You know what else he did when he was five? He composed The Magic Flute.

Are you saying that we’re stunting our son’s intellectual growth because we’re not pushing him to eat sandwiches?

I’m saying that sometimes you have to think about what’s important in life. Einstein’s parents didn’t give him Finding Nemo snacks; they actually cared about their son’s future.  And you need to do the same with Adam.

Adam? Wait — our son’s name is Avi…

Wait — you’re not Adam’s dad?

No.  Avi’s Dad.  Who is Adam?

Your kid is the goofy looking one with the glasses and all the hair?

Yes!  How did he do today?

Oh — total nightmare.  He was crying for half of the day. Kicked three teachers. Threw food at lunch. His knowledge of obscenities in five different languages is shocking yet unique. A total monster.

Yikes!

Kid was dressed to the nines, though. He’ll go far in life…

Flashback: Memorial Day Weekend, 1999:

socKs and I were celebrating a belated honeymoon. We started in San Francisco and proceeded to drive down to L.A., then to Vegas (staying in a skanky hotel in Bakersfield on the way), and then on up to Fresno and Santa Cruz and back to the Bay area.  We hit Las Vegas — both of us for the first time — on Memorial Day itself, and we were planning to stay for a few days after. Which was great because everyone was leaving after the holiday weekend.

We were walking down the strip and found a small booth near one of the hotels advertising cheap show tickets. We didn’t have any evening plans, so we inquired.  We were quickly asked if we were married. When we said yes, the woman behind the counter exclaimed that it was our lucky day! We could get show tickets for free! And to one of the longest running not-so-family friendly shows on the strip!

Alas, there was a catch. In order to get the tickets, we needed to catch a shuttle from our hotel the next morning which would bring is to a high-rise condo right in the middle of the strip for a sales presentation which would take a few hours. It was your classic timeshare situation — first, a pumped up warm-up guy. Then, a short film featuring has-been actor Robert Culp. And then a representative took the two of us to an office personally and tried her hardest to make a sale. When we presented all of our excuses and told her repeatedly that we weren’t interested and that we just wanted our tickets, she proceeded to drop us very quickly, allowing us to fend for ourselves to collect our tickets and find out how to get out of that high-rise building.

The show, by the way, was Les Folies Beregère at the Tropicana — possibly one of the cheesiest shows I’ve ever seen on stage. (And I’ve seen Oklahoma! in Hebrew.) It was lots of showgirls dancing in showgirl outfits pretty far away. Oh — and boobs. Some of these women had likely been with the production for a long time, because my perverted mind remembers quite a bit of sagginess.  It was hosted by a sexually ambiguous guy with a mediocre toupee, and it featured the comedy stylings of Argentine brothers Mario and Daniel. I just visited their website and … well, this made me crack up. I know — I’m evil…

All in all — we got what we paid for. And we knew we wouldn’t fall for this ever again. Ever. Again.

Present Day:

On our way to our rooms at Bally’s Hotel and Casino we were engaged in conversation by an official looking guy who was wearing a name badge. We mentioned our ten-year anniversary — and he whisked us over to someone else official looking at an official looking desk in the hotel. Her name badge associated her with Wyndham Resorts.  But she looked like just another hotel employee.

Thirty seconds into her spiel we looked at each other and knew exactly what would happen:  she wanted to offer us free show tickets! But the ante was upped: she gave us a choice of shows. Hell – we could even get George Wallace tickets! (She explained to us who George Wallace was: “a very funny comedian whose show is clean.” She made sure to emphasize that part. We must have looked like the fucking Osmonds.) But we already knew our answer: We had show tickets for the next night. Already paid for.  We would have to smile and turn her down.

But then she attempted to entice us with gift certificates to restaurants on the strip. Over $100 worth. We hesitated a bit, but we still turned that down. I mean, we’re not the type that comes to Las Vegas for the food. We weren’t interested in spending $125 on a dinner for two.  We declined.

And then she offered us $100 in casino chips.

Look — I know that $100 isn’t much money anymore. And that we’d have to sit through a presentation and spend some of our precious few hours in Vegas doing something we didn’t want to do. But still — we could do this early in the morning. If we slept in and missed it, so be it. We would have to put down a fully refundable deposit of forty bucks, but, again, we could get that back. Might as well keep our options open, right?

Due to the time change, we were both up by about 6:30 anyway. So we went downstairs, hoping to get into the earliest possible sales pitch so we could get it over with. We had originally been scheduled for a group presentation at 9:30 at Harrah’s, but we got into the 8:30 instead. It wasn’t a group presentation, but what difference would it make?

The shuttle brought us — ourselves and two other couples — to Harrah’s Hotel and Casino right down the strip. The driver instructed us to go up to the second floor and find the Wyndham office — right across from the Toby Keith Restaurant.  This in itself was likely a bad sign.  I mean, huge pictures of Toby Keith everywhere. I’m sure I brushed against him a few times on my way in. You know — just to keep him on his toes. (I don’t particularly like Mr. Keith after seeing Shut Up and Sing, the Dixie Chicks documentary.)

We were brought into a waiting room where we needed to fill out paperwork. We had already discussed what information we would provide and what we would decline to answer.  One of the sheets was an additional sweepstakes form you could fill out for the chance to win a trip to Hawaii! And — as a bonus — if you sold  our five of your friends and provided their names and phone numbers, you could get a free Las Vegas hat! And for fifteen names? A Las Vegas keychain!  We didn’t really hate anyone that much, so we just smiled and told the receptionist that we wouldn’t be filling that out.

She looked at us as if we were insane. Why give up the chance to get a brand-spankin’ new Las Vegas hat?  We had a plan if she was going to get difficult — and that plan was to get up and leave. She didn’t want that, so she let it slide.

We were introduced to an ethusiastic, charged up guy named Ron. He reminded me of a retired baseball player — which, in fact, was exactly what he had done before working for Wyndham. (Minor league.) Right from the start he tried to make as many connections with us as possible. We were from DC? He used to live in DC!  We’re Jewish? He has only the utmost respect for Jewish people! We have a son? He has two sons!

We got into the pitch a few minutes later — in a large, cafeteria type room. Other sales associates were sitting across from couples, trying desperately to sell them this magical product. The room was brightly lit. People sounded excited. Ron was very excited. He introduced us to the floor manager when he came by. He introduced us to another associate who was from our area of Virginia. (Kind of.)

I still didn’t know exactly what he wanted to sell us.

Turns out it was this: instead of a traditional time-share, Wyndham is selling a “deed” with a number of “points” attached to it.  The points are redeemable for hotel and resort stays at their hundreds of properties worldwide.  A set allowance of points is granted every year forever. The point-values for properties never goes up. The cost? A one time fee (which would require financing) plus a monthly maintenance fee which would rise about 1.5% every year.

He took us on a tour of their property in Las Vegas, right off the Strip. Really beautiful. We saw some apartments which had four bedrooms in them.  And this was just one of the hundreds (thousands?) of properties they had!  That being said, i still wasn’t getting a straight answer about how much this would cost.

We returned to our table in the cafeteria area. We were getting tired and had already overstayed the two hours we were told the pitch would be.  I was starting to get a bit short with Ron. He was a nice guy and all — but this wasn’t personal. I wanted him to make an offer so I could figure out if it was worth it (I assured him I would keep an open mind).

From: http://flickr.com/photos/jasoncscs/

Here’s what they were trying to sell us on: Vacation for 10-15 days with them per year. We’d get the appropriate number of points for the hotel stays at their resorts on the most part.  Cost: $200,000. We could finance through them. Oh — and an additional $60 a month for life — which would eventually go up.  And did I mention closing costs?

We simply don’t vacation that much.  And when we go out of town? We stay with family and friends. We don’t need four-star accommodations. And we certainly don’t need another mortgage in this market. And considering we’re also paying tuition?  The answer was no.  It’s simply not for us.  I smiled and let him know that it simply wasn’t our lifestyle. No hard feelings.

I started getting visibly pissed off when he brought over someone else and started questioning the way we weren’t prioritizing our vacations well enough.  It’s when I told him specifically how much I anticipated spending on vacations during a regular year. If they could offer something which would even come close to that amount, I would consider it. Otherwise? We’re done.

We were done.

An exit interviewer came to our table to survey us about our experiences. We just wanted to leave, but I decided to be cordial and answer his questions.  Until he got to one which became a continuation of the sales pitch. I interrupted him and told him that we were done.  He kept talking and I talked over him.  We got out of there with our deposit back. And coupons for $100 of free chips down at the casino.  socKs immediately redeemed the coupons at the cashier. And immediately took it in cash. We were done. True, the morning was gone, but we were a C-Note ahead. We celebrated and had lunch at Chipotle.

The scary thing was seeing this room full of couples — I may be overgeneralizing here, but I’m pretty certain that many of them don’t make as much money as we do. (Not that we’re even close to rolling in it!) Yet every so often we would hear a glass clinking in this large cafeteria. And as the room became quiet, we heard a sales manager congratulating the newest member of the Wyndham family who decided to sign up. And they’re going to vacation in beautiful… Tucson!  And then lots of applause by everyone in the room.  I completely understand what draws people to say yes in such an environment. I observed the psychological tricks they were playing to get that sale.  I just feel bad for these folks who, most likely, don’t know what they’ve gotten into.

$100 in exchange for about two hours of our vacation. And, I guess, our souls.  Was it worth it?

This picture was taken at about 6:30 in the morning on Sunday.  We had just boarded the plane to go home after staying in Vegas for the previous 40 hours.  That may not seem like a big deal to those of you for whom Las Vegas is only a couple of hours in the car, but keep in mind that we flew several hours and through a few time zones on Friday only to return to the airport early Sunday morning.

We even flew through Phoenix. (Which, by the way, is a lovely airport. Free wi-fi and everything. Although we didn’t have more than a few minutes between flights to enjoy it.)

It was a weekend of indulgence for us — we’re nearing ten years of marriage and wanted to go someplace special which could bring us physically and emotionally far away from where we were. We were leaving the five-year old with his grandfather for the weekend — a first for us, as we hadn’t been away from him (both of us at the same time, at least) for a weekend ever before.  And we had frequent flyer miles to spend — especially since we didn’t know how long they’d actually be worth anything.  So — if we’re going to go, might as well go in style, right? First class!  Not something we had done before, and not something we were likely to do in a long time. And if we’re going to fly first class, a connecting flight really isn’t such a bad thing.

Las Vegas was awesome — a virtual oasis of … well, it was an oasis. Like most other tourists, we didn’t see anything aside from the Strip. In fact, the picture above really encompasses it well:  Just a bunch of magnificent buildings you can see from the runway at McCarran.  I’m sure there’s a lot more Las Vegas has to offer than that. But hey — forty hours!  Let’s concentrate on these six blocks…

Amazingly, we had a great time — even though we didn’t do many of the things that Sin City is known for.  In a place where pretty much anything and everything is legal and encouraged, we abstained from quite a bit:

* Neither of us gambled a single cent this time around.
* Neither of us enjoyed a cocktail of any sort.  In fact, the only alcohol we had was beer. A bottle for each of us. Light beer. Domestic.
* We didn’t attend any stage shows which featured nudity of any kind — pole or no pole.
* We didn’t eat at any all-you-can-eat buffets.
* We did not engage in any group sexual activity involving five or more people.

I know, I know. It seems rather prudish of us. But we still managed to enjoy ourselves. And although we didn’t gamble, we came out well ahead of where we thought we’d be.

A few thoughts about Las Vegas which, by the way, is Spanish for The Vegas:

(1) There is always an opportunity to gamble. We didn’t even get off the plane before we saw our first bit of excitement: the flight crew announced that the seatbelt light would go off when we stopped, but that they requested that we all stay in our seats for just a few moments as some airline personnel boarded. We thought that this might have been due to a passenger who may have been sick who needed to get off the plane first; we’ve seen this happen on flights before. But no — the door opened and two LVPD officers got on the plane and moved towards the back.  Since we were in first class (I love saying that!) we couldn’t see what was going on, but eventually they came back up from saying “Nope, that’s not him.”  Oh well — Welcome to Vegas!

As soon as you enter the airport terminal you’ve got slot machines.  Loads of them. Flashing. Ringing. The artificial sound of coins rushing down a non-existent slot which has since been replaced by a ticket dispenser. I can understand why people get addicted to them — the notion that there’s a jackpot just in reach which could change one’s life.  The concept that others are winning; why shouldn’t you win, too?

And even if you don’t play the slots? You can do what we did — and gamble with the ground transportation to the Strip.  We decided arbitrarily on one of the shuttle bus services (all of which charged $6.50 one way and $12.00 round-trip to the Strip hotels). We happened to pick the slowest one — which took upwards of 30 minutes for a shuttle to arrive and another 25 minutes for it to leave for the hotel.  (In our case, Bally’s — right at the center of the south side of the Strip.)

… which put us into a long line at the hotel lobby at around 5pm. On a Friday. When everyone else was checking in. We waited behind a bunch of biker enthusiasts from Italy who knew very little English. When we arrived to the check-in desk, we were given some news: our room wasn’t ready yet.

But we could take a bit of a gamble! We were told we could upgrade our room to a suite for $25 more a night — and it would be ready.  We decided we might as well. After all, it was a special occassion…

We got up there and couldn’t get in our room. The card key wouldn’t work.

Then came a good forty-five minute ordeal which involved hotel security, the front desk, the manager’s office and a guy who had checked out of the adjoining room but was still in there. Since the rooms connected, our room had been deadbolted. But they were going to leave! Eventually.

Whatever. I asked for a new room/suite; we got one three floors below.  Once we were in and had our keys it was already close to 7pm. We had been traveling for 12 hours at that point and were just looking for a place where we could shower.

I called the manager’s office again and expressed my concerns. And I asked that the upgrade fee for the suite be waived. Twenty-five bucks times two nights.  The manager-on-duty quickly made it so. Not bad — a bit of inconvenience, but a room at a suite rate!  Things were looking up.

(2) Nerds rule the world — and Las Vegas. We booked our trip because of the time we had available to us as well as the time my father could take Avi for the weekend.  So we had no idea what stuff was going on in Vegas that weekend. All we knew was that we wanted to see Cirque du Soleil’s Love, their show set to Beatles mashups.  And for Friday night? We could see Penn and Teller again, perhaps, but it wasn’t in stone.

And then I randomly stumbled upon something when going online to the website of one of my favorite podcasts, coverville.com: Apparently, in celebration of the 500th episode of the podcast, host Brian Ibbot put together a Coverville 500 Cover Party! (with an exorbitant cover charge — but there were some nice donated prizes.)  And it was going to be not only on the weekend we were in town, but at our hotel!

Only later did I realize that it was a party associated with that week’s New Media Expo — which had a lot of folks from the blogosphere, the podcastosphere and other facets of new media (mediasphere?).  Oh — and people in Star Trek costumes. Conventions seem to bring them out in full force, apparently. I can’t imagine a conference of chancellors of rabbinical schools continent-wide without at least one Ferengi in attendance asking about Semicha...

(True story: while we were waiting for hotel security to figure out what they were going to do in the room mixup, we overheard an announcement on their radios — a warning of sorts that an event would be occurring downstairs. And to watch out for people dressed in Star Trek uniforms. Them folks can be dangerous!)

But anyway — the New Media Expo sounded like something fun to do if we had time to kill on Saturday. And there were a few people in town I knew whom I could chase around and possibly see.  No matter, though –  we had a Coverville party on Friday night! Which began at… 7:00!  Quite early for Vegas…

The crowd was pretty much what I expected — bloggers, podcasters and significant others.  Some folks were making conversation at the tables scattered about the room. Some were rapidly Twittering messages every thirty seconds. Others were snapping pictures and video. And almost all were drinking overpriced beverages.

There were several acts that evening. Let’s just say that the show went on for five hours,  The two highlights were software engineer turned singer-songwriter Jonathan Coulton, and final act Richard Cheese and Lounge against the Machine.

Coulton was great, starting out with his cover of Baby Got Back (which I placed on my list of top cover songs of all time).  The guy simply connected and blew everyone away. Some of the favorites were played, such as Code Monkey and Your Brains. In fact, there’s video of Your Brains taken from last Friday:

(Direct YouTube Link)

Kind of gives more of an idea as to the crowd, hmm?

Oh — if you look closely around 4:36 of the video at the right side of the screen, you’ll see socKs and me! I’m wearing what looks like a cream color short sleve shirt but is totally washed out by the yellow light, and socKs is right next to me wearing the green shirt.  We didn’t rush the stage like some of the other folks. Perhaps that was a good thing.

Although it isn’t the best ettiquette, we snuck out for dinner during the next act, Chance and the Choir.  But we came back in time for the headliner, Richard Cheese with two thirds of Lounge Against the Machine.  He’s been pretty adamant about not allowing unauthorized pictures or video being posted on the net, but you can hear most of his stuff and even see a clip or two with the proper search terms.  The guy was hillarious.  He came out into the audience many a time and had us all laughing hysterically.  Sadly, Mr. Cheese will be retiring in mid-2009; I hope we get the opportunity to see him live once more.

All in all – a wonderful evening. Cheaper than Penn and Teller tickets. Got to meet a few folks as well. We were exhausted afterwards and went to bed way before 1am.  Yes, in Vegas.

Tune in Tomorrow: and find out how we were literally given free cash for selling our bodies and souls to the devil!