Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run

McDonalds announced they’re going to put books in the kid’s Happy Meals. Not sure about three of the books they chose: “Obesity Schamesity,” “Fun with Diabetes” and “Artie the Friendly Arterial Disease.”

Bruce Jenner and Kris Jenner are splitting up. It’s not all bad news, Kim Kardashian has arranged for sponsors to pay for an $18 mil. divorce ceremony. 

In London, firefighters had to free a man whose penis was stuck in his toaster; and the English wonder why we think they can’t cook.

Starbucks now has a combination donut and a muffin called a duffin.  Good thing they didn’t combine shortcake and a tart, that would make a Shart. 

The Golden Boy of Winnetka

About 20 years ago, one of the greatest athletes I - or my high school - had ever seen, died when he got drunk and fell off his roof at age 35.

About 18 years prior to that, he was the golden boy of a 4,000 student suburban Chicago high school, New Trier (Nee) East. He ran like a deer, was fluid as he could be and had ungodly confidence and swagger. 

Football, basketball or baseball, he was one of those athletes who was just fun to watch, like Johnny Castino before him. When he played he seemed to defy gravity, which would later prove tragically ironic.

It was a snowy Friday night after the golden boy had starred in a winning basketball game; most of the crowd was still lingering in front of the big brick gym trying to get a handle on where the best party would be. 

Down the one-way street comes the golden boy in his forest green Camaro he got for his 16^th birthday.  By his side the most beautiful cheerleader. The golden boy was spinning out in the snow, doing donut after donut with, as always, supreme confidence in his ethereal skills, to the wild cheers of the adoring crowd. (I like to imagine he had Springsteen's "Born to Run" blasting on the radio, but I cannot vouch for that)

In retrospect, spinning a car in a snowy street in front of a big crowd was wildly reckless, but the golden boy was above such a banal reproach.

In high school, guys, especially jocks, have one job: to look as cool as they can. At that moment, I remember I laughed out loud at how cool the golden boy seemed. That was it. That was as cool as it got.

The golden boy was not big and tall, in fact, he was fairly thin and a little short. Good looking with thick brown curly hair. What? He was. (Picture a very young Steven Tyler) 

He was wildly popular and his parents were well-to-do with a modern house right across the street from the Baha’i Temple. The golden boy and his adoring older brother, his most ardent fan and promoter, threw a lot of parties. Wild parties. Must-attend parties. First-time-your-pal-Lex-picked-up-a-naughty-girl-at-a-party parties. 

But I digress.   

The problem with the golden boy? He was about as sharp as a golden bowling ball; to be blunt, he had a default expression that brought to mind a Labrador retriever. He ran with an equally dim tough-guys-wanna-be's-in-leafy-suburbia crowd, resplendent in their jackboots, torn jeans, long-hanging key chains and sleeveless flannel shirts. All the hot girls loved them, though. 

Bad boys and all that.

With his connections and dad's cash, the golden boy got into a small Wisconsin liberal arts college, but his smallish stature caught up with him and I don’t think he played sports.  Like a lot of gifted athletes, working out did not hold any appeal and that also caught up to him. Soon he dropped out. To his credit, he got his degree later at a college in Chicago.

Ran into him a few times afteer that in North Chicago-area bars and he was always nice and complimentary about my former football skills.  Though more times than not, he seemed pretty hammered. The expression: "Drowning his demons," sprung to mind.

The last time I saw him, he had a slight black eye. Then, after I moved to San Diego, I didn’t hear anything about him until gravity caught up to him with a vengeance. No wife, no kids. Nothing.

Like a great chalk sidewalk drawing covered by the snow, he has left virtually no trace besides an obituary. It seems horribly unfair. (Which is not to say how many times a name appears in a Google search is the measure of a good life. Look at Osama bin Laden and Honey Boo Boo)

But on that one snowy night, with the golden boy spinning his shiny sleek car in circles with his gorgeous girlfriend next to him - the one with the prettiest long, wavy blond hair you can imagine  - the crowd going absolutely wild and, in my mind, anyway, the Boss whaling; 

"Strap your hands 'cross my engines" ... 

There are as many ways to measure success as there are people who achieve success. One measure of success is having bright, shining moments in front of your friends when they were still young and pure of heart. The golden boy had more than his share of those moments. They don't last, you can't put them in the bank or on the shelf, but they are real. 

Well, hell, I guess he did leave a mark after all.

We loves ourselves some us, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Firefighters had to be called because a man caught his penis in a toaster; he’s not welcomed back at Target anytime soon either.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was embarrassed when he tried to light the Olympic torch, but a gust of wind blew it out; how ironic is that? Putin can’t stand flamers.

Bruce Jenner and Kris Jenner are splitting up; no word on who gets custody of the plastic surgeon.

Bruce Jenner and Kris Jenner are splitting up; a broken marriage can be hard on a post-menopausal woman who’s had a lot of work done. And besides Bruce, it will be hard on Kris too.

In London, firefighters had to be called because a man caught his penis in a toaster; trying to have sex with a toaster is so weird. The coffee maker, sure, but not the toaster.

A report claims singer Sheryl Crow witnessed her then-boyfriend, Lance Armstrong, doping and, after they broke up, told federal prosecutors. Apparently she couldn’t wait to break his ball.

Starbucks now has a combination donut and a muffin called a doffin. How fat and lazy have we become when we can’t choose between either a donut or a muffin?

Starbucks now has a combination donut and a muffin called a doffin. This is the perfect food for a Slobglutton.

Did you hear OJ Simpson has gained 100 pounds in prison? Turns out there is a reason: OJ got the lead role in the prison’s theater production of “Big Mama’s House.”

Since you asked:

Time to clean out the man-cave. We have some serious man-cavia to crush tonicht. Dahhhh Bearsssssssssssssssssss. Going to rock that man-cave like Speaker Boehner is rocking that Seventies-old-guys-trying-to-look-hip haircut.  

B.J. now

Bruce Jenner, circa 1980, before Photoshop

The main story continues to be the one that sounds catastrophic, but actually has no effect on our day-to-day lives. But enough about the Kris and Bruce Jenner split, the US Government is still shut down.

In the weather, yesterday it was hot, now it is cold, it was hot, now cold. I feel like Kris Jenner looking at old Olympic pictures of Bruce.

22 years of marriage gone, which is a shame now that California has passed same-sex marriage.

Kahdeesh.

Look, nobody really cares if Bruce Jenner is gay or not. By becoming a reality celebrity whore, you lose your right to whine about a lack of privacy. That includes your questionable sexuality.

The problem isn’t if Bruce Jenner is gay or not, the problem is what an utter four-faced phony humorless tool Jenner is. One of his best celebrity friends was OJ Simpson.

Neil Patrick Harris is gay and I would never, ever, ever make a mean joke making light of NPH being gay. He's honest, funny and appears to be a great guy. Nothing to joke about. 

Because I cannot stand to watch it again, go to YouTube and look at the Jimmy Fallon/Bruce Jenner interview/spat. It is so awful. It is Jenner, maybe the most humorless man on the planet, trying to be funny. He actually pissed off Jimmy Fallon. Jimmy Fallon is arguably the nicest guy in television. Jimmy Fallon is nice to everyone. Nobody, but Bruce Jenner, can piss off Jimmy Fallon. Donald Trump cannot piss off Jimmy Fallon.

 All you have to know is that embarrassing spectacle is Bruce Jenner trying to be funny. The real Bruce Jenner is the one at the London Olympics that angrily threatened the nicest guy in the world, Jimmy Fallon, not to do jokes about his impossible-not-to-joke-about face.

Kris Jenner, who seems nice compared to Bruce, had to apologize to Fallon and was utterly humiliated by Bruce’s angry and hurtful remarks to Fallon. At one point Fallon said to Kris we'd like to talk to Bruce more and she shot out:

"No you don't."

Kim Kardashian has a hard time hiding what a hump-nozzle she thinks Bruce Jenner is, but even she thought Jenner could only improve his horrible image by going on the “Fallon” show and advised him to do so.

As Kim usually is, she was horribly wrong.

The Decathlon community in the US is very tight. Nobody I have heard of in it has anything nice to say about Bruce Jenner. When Jenner had his impressive, but-steroid-aided, win in Montreal, he had a golden opportunity to really boost the Decathlon's status in the US. He did virtually nothing except promote himself.

My point is, when it comes to making nasty jokes about Jenner, like OJ, Trump, Paris, Kim Kardashian and Kanye, the gloves are off. The sky is the limit. 

That is not true of all joke topics. Charlie Sheen seems like a good guy, and you don't want to get too mean to a good guy, as messed up as he was. As clueless as she is, there is a piece of Lindsay Lohan that seems kind of sweet. So going too hard after her would smack of bullying. 

A lot of good comedy, ala the Farrelly brothers, comes from one comedian trying to out-do the other. And then knowing when you’ve gone too far.

Ben Stiller’s character in "Something About Mary" has a date? What should he do before the date? Relieve himself through masturbation. Is the joke over yet? No. He unknowingly ejaculates into his hair. Is the joke over yet? No, Cameron Diaz sees it and, thinking it is hair gel, applies it to her bangs. Is the joke over yet? Nope, her hair stands straight up. Should she hit something with her stiff bangs and they break off? Nope, that is going too far.

Conan O’Brien mentioned this theory when he was the head writer at “The Simpsons.” There was a friendly competition to see how stupid they could make Homer. At one point even Homer’s brain can’t take it anymore and leaves Homer’s head and runs out the room.

So Jenner’s dubious sexuality can be used. His face can stop bullets. His divorce is fair game. The fact that he is an utter-crank nozzle just makes it that much more fun.