Happy 89^th birthday to Hugh Hefner. You can tell Hef is getting up there. There is a stair chair-lift on the steps down to the grotto.

They are scrapping the DIRECTV Rob Lowe ads. Here were some of the last suggestions for Rob Lowe’s alter ego;

“Shirtless, Dentally Impaired Florida Meth Addict” Rob Lowe.

“Emotionally Castrated by a Kardashian Woman” Rob Lowe.

“The Last Justin Bieber Fan” Rob Lowe.

“I Took Too Much Viagra” Rob Lowe.

And finally;

“Rich Old White Guy Nobody Knows Running For President” Rob Lowe.

Pearl

OK, Madonna, I give, I give, I give. After thirty years of arm pulling, I admit I like you, Madonna. And I think I know the deep-rooted psychological reason why.

Madonna reminds me exactly of the coolest girl in my high school class, Pearl. Pearl was so cool she pulled off having the name Pearl. Pearl was born a 28-year-old brash, stylish artist. She had all the sass of Madonna long before Madonna. Pearl was a dead-ringer for “The Addams Family” Mortisha, with scary-beautiful blue, blue eyes, alabaster skin and jet-black hair.

Pearl’s hair was styled uniquely as well. She had jagged bangs with shoulder-length hair in back. Trust me, it worked.

And a drop-dead gorgeous, dancer’s body. Pearl’s body was so gorgeous you could tell it was gorgeous through her torn jeans – way ahead of her time – t-shirts and high-top converse sneakers.

When I was a sophomore, people thought I was a lot cooler than I was. We had a great football team and I scored 22 touchdowns that year. So, yeah, I was the man. And I had Roger Daltry-wanna-be long blond hair.

The full truth was I was shy as hell and tried to cover it by acting tough. And dumb.

That year I sat next to Pearl in history. Initially I stood for everything she was against. She was cool, I was a jock. She smoked. I did not. She had had sex, I had not. (I was not certain she had sex, but she sure look like she had)

Our history teacher was a world-class bung-hole who had an ugly, scraggily beard and he reeked of body odor. We called him Mr. Stew-reek. A classic case of a teacher who became a teacher to get back at the kids who were mean to him.

Stew-reek's power trip included making people stand when they answered a question. That fear of suddenly having to stand is why I tried to limit looking at Pearl. She did not wear a bra, and her inordinately large nipples/areolas almost popped through her thin t-shirts.

Sitting next to Pearl, it was a constant war against my hormones. One Spring afternoon, I was losing that war badly.

Out of nowhere, Pearl blurted to me:

“You have a hickey.”

What Pearl mistook for a hickey was actually a scar on the side of my neck from a biopsy of an enlarged lymph node that turned out to be benign. But I did not correct her. She gave me a bemused look like there may be more than I thought to this dumb jock.

Did you have those mall-cop wannabes who patrolled the beaches in the summer looking to hassle kids who were drinking or making out? Did you ever wonder what kind of world-class crank-bag would want to do that job?

Our history teacher, Mr. Stew-reek, was that guy.

One Spring day it was hot, and our a-hole teacher refused to open a window. Stew-reek's body odor took on a whole new dimension bordering on chemical warfare. He was also a morbid little creep who loved to lecture on and on about human carnage and disease. At one point he was going into disgusting details about the giant piles of rotting-in-the-sun corpses from the Civil War, and I said under my breath:

“And yet they didn’t stink nearly as bad as you do.”

Pearl heard this and laughed out loud so hard (Pearl had a great laugh) and so long Stew-reek sent her to the vice principal’s office. Pearl was so cool, she did not care. She spent as much time at the vice principal's office as the vice principal. 

Before she was sent to the vice principal’s office, Pearl gave me a look I will never forget. It was a bemused, shocked, horrified and delighted look that seemed to say;

“Holy crap, the big, stupid jock is actually funny.”

Pearl and I hit it off famously from that point on. Before, I was scared to death of her, but she was so nice and so out of my league, I could relax. When I can relax I can be funny. Charming even. (That’s is why the nerves associated with stand up comedy was always kind of a fight for me)

It was near the end of school that year and it was senior ditch day. Most of the cool seniors did not go to class and drank beer down at Elder Lane beach. Because she was so cool, as a sophomore, Pearl got to go.

Afterwards, the coolest of the cool kids decided it would be funny to come back to school half in the bag. So did Pearl.

There I was, in front of my locker, which happened to be outside of our history class. I remember putting my books away when someone grabbed me and spun me around. Suddenly, I was face-to-face with the colossally beautiful, cool and now fully-buzzed Pearl.

Pearl did not say a word. She just grabbed the back of my head with one hand and my ass with the other and thrusted herself on me. Her tongue flew to the back of my throat and she tasted like Cool cigarettes – of course - and Old Style beer.

This was my first French Kiss. Sacrebleu.

As she kissed me she ground herself against me with a vengeance. You could hear people in the hall gasping with shock and or giggling. After one minute of sheer bliss, she stopped and looked down, delighted at the carnage she had wrought.

And then she just sauntered off leaving me an emotional husk of my former self.

Part of me likes to think, if given the chance, Madonna would do that too.