Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid

Tumbling Dice ~ The Rolling Stones

The song on Bruce's car radio on the way to Dave's party

Dave's party was on a night just like this

Dave’s Party

Tonight is a beautiful, warm San Diego Friday early evening. It reminds me of a beautiful, warm Spring Friday early evening back in Illinois, my junior year in high school. 

As pretty as the sunset was, I could not enjoy it because I was feeling so sorry for myself; I had heard of the big party, but I wasn’t invited. So I was staying home. Again.

Hell, even my parents were getting ready to go to a party.

All I could imagine were all the cool kids getting dressed up and ready to go have a blast. Whereas I was going to drink Seven-Up and watch an old movie on WGN in the kitchen on our tiny TV.

As a junior, my social stock had soared due to being the starting tailback on the football team. And I had gone out with a few great girls. But I just didn’t get invited to the cool parties. The final, but crucial step to cool.

It was on this night when my really popular friend, Bruce, who was also a junior starting at safety on the football team, pulled up in front of my house in his parent’s faux-wood paneled, forest green Ford station wagon. He honked the horn. I went outside.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“O’Brien is having a party. Let’s go.”

Dave O’Brien was the cool senior who threw all the great parties.

“Yeah, I know. I can’t go. I got . . . stuff to do.”

I was too embarrassed to tell him I wasn’t invited. 

“Shut up and get in. You’re going.”

As a friend, Bruce was good like that. 

In sixth grade, it became clear to Bruce I did not know what the four bases of sex were. So as not to embarrass me in front of our friends, at recess, he ran around the bases pantomiming the sex acts: kissing at first, feeling-up at second, etc. 

For years, when someone said they got to second or third base, I had to have Bruce run the bases in my mind to remember what was what.

After clearing it with my parents - who seemed a little too delighted I was finally going to a party - we drove to Dave O’Brien’s house. The Stones' "Tumblin' Dice" came on the radio. There was also a rolling stone in the pit of my stomach.

Finally I couldn’t take it anymore, the idea of being humiliated and kicked out of the party was too much.

“Listen, Bruce, I can’t go.”

“Why not?”

“. . . Dave didn’t invite me.”

Bruce looked at me funny and then started laughing. It was the same laugh Butch gave Sundance when Sundance told him he couldn’t swim.

“You idiot, he doesn’t “invite” anyone, it’s all word of mouth.”

“Really?”

In my mind parties had mailed invitations, or the host asked you in person. At the very least they called you on the phone and invited you. It never occurred to me that, once you were told second-hand about a party at school, you were invited. 

All I could think about was all the parties I had missed due to my prudish invitation standards.

Dave O'Brien’s parent’s house was a beautiful stone Tudor mansion on a private lake it shared with four other estates. The tall trees were strung together with lit white lanterns and there was a band playing in the gazebo by the lake. 

The thump of a live bass drum is one of the greatest sounds on earth. It goes straight to your soul. 

As we walked up to the house, out came Dave O’Brien. Uh oh. What if Bruce is wrong? What if Dave kicks me out? Dave started running toward us. Oh crap.

Dave gave both of us a hard handshake and a slap on the back.

“Bruce, you brought Kase. Damn, Alex, I was starting to think you didn’t like me. You never come to my parties. Come on in inside, let me get you guys an Old Style.”

And just like that, suddenly, and without any warning, I was one of the cool kids.

The rest of the night was;

"Whoa, finally, there you are, Alex."

"Where you been hiding, Kase?"

"Yeah, AK, we thought you had some secret woman tucked away."

Later that night, I made-out in the basement with a gorgeous girl named Maggie, a wildly popular senior cheerleader with long brown hair who smelled like Chanel perfume and Marlboros, but when I kissed her, she tasted like strawberry lip gloss, Old Style beer and heaven.

Maggie did not make me a man that night. But she did show me that being a man was going to be a hell of a lot of fun. Let's just say, in my mind, Bruce had a nice jaunt on the bases. In fact, I think Maggie and I invented a new base, but now is not the time. 

(The next week, Maggie's boyfriend came home from Dartmouth, and I was tossed aside like so many empty Old Style tall-neck bottles. But I did not care. And, yes, I mentioned Old Style again)

Before the night of Dave's party, I would have believed I was Batman before I would have believed I was a cool kid. 

The moral? 

Don't let anyone, your mom, Oprah, Dr. Phil or even Ellen, tell you otherwise: there is simply nothing better than being a cool kid in high school. 

It is the best. 

They're going to make a gay version of "50 Shades of Grey." It's called "50 Shades of Heeyyyy." 



In Florida, a couple passed out drunk in a dumpster and had to be rescued when the dumpster was dumped in a garbage truck. Folks, that’s what they call a Florida Hayride.

The Korean Air executive who had an air rage tantrum over nuts not being served in a bowl, was sentenced to a year in jail. If she didn’t like how they served her nuts on a plane, wait until she finds out how they toss a salad in prison.

Firefighters are warning couples ahead of “50 Shades of Grey” to be careful with kinky sex. Have a handcuff key available, do not fully insert objects and, whatever you do, do not trust that crazy bitch, Madonna.

Shep Shap Sheppy and The Shippy Shap Schoops, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

With five arrests since the Super Bowl, the NFL is on track to shatter their yearly average of 50 arrests. At that point the NFL will stand for Nefarious Felon Larcenists.

On “Family Feud” a normal looking mom was asked; “Name something a doctor might pull out of you,” and she said; “A gerbil.” Congratulations, Madonna, you are no longer the most embarrassing mom in the country.

Tiger Woods announced he is going to take a leave of absence. Oh no, did he lie about getting shot at in Iraq too?

Tiger plans to relax and take a low-paying cubicle job that will give him a chance to enjoy hours of commuting in heavy traffic.

Jackie Robinson West Little League team has been stripped of their National title for breaking the rules. Officials became suspicious when their cleanup hitter was this huge kid named Shmalex Shmodriguez.

The movie “50 Shades of Grey” opens this weekend. Or as guys call it: foreplay.

Bruce Jenner's November Baja truck crash.

Since you asked:

Bruce Jenner ain’t near out of the woods on this car crash.

New photos and videos have emerged that might put him back in the path of being charged with vehicular manslaughter for reckless driving and following too closely.

Bruce’s penchant for speeding and reckless driving is well known. That is why the Kardashian P.R. machine had the excuse “The paparazzi was chasing him” spring-loaded before Bruce even got out of the car. They knew something like this would happen.

Bruce recently crashed a dune-truck in the Baja 1,000. This brings the number of Bruce’s crashes to too many. He used to race – and race very recklessly, like Baja – in every celebrity car race there was. Usually either doing pretty well or crashing.

His numerous road-rage incidents against the paparazzi have been well-documented.

From the second he won the gold medal in the Decathlon in 1976, Bruce Jenner has been constantly playing with toys. And playing hard. Jets skis, sailing his catarmaran, flying his Bonanza single-engine plane, skiing, playing celebrity tennis tournaments. 

Rick Telander’s “Not the Bruce Jenner I Knew” “Chicago Sun Times” 2-10-15 article mentions how Bruce has been emotionally castrated by Kris being reduced to merely playing with toy planes in his backyard. He also sadly polished the motorcycles Kris won’t let him ride.

Although I am not a psychologist, what has become painfully clear is Jenner, the man/boy with the Peter Pan complex, constantly playing with toys, was actually a tomboy who really wanted to grow up to be a woman.  So he put off being a grown man as much as he could.

Sadly, Bruce Jenner’s life of recklessly playing with toys to avoid his life may have cost someone their life.