2012 OFFICIAL Americana Awards "The Weight"

Belinda Carlisle - Heaven Is A Place On Earth

Do you remember when making out with someone in high school was the greatest thing you could do?


When I was in high school in Winnetka, Illinois, when I  was kissing a pretty girl who smelled wonderful and her hair was soft, and her skin was smooth, that was heaven. 

Heaven. 

And, miraculously, she wanted to kiss me back. It was fervent hope there was purpose to our insane world. 

Betsy, Jeanie, Katie, Mimi, Michelle, Tami, Karen, Priscilla - yes, her name was Priscilla - Laurie, Kathy, Sally, Becky, Betsy - yes, there were two named Betsy - Kim, and Sarah. 

Thank you. My love for you is eternal. You are forever in my dreams. 

And I would just like to thank Michelle one more time. The words strawberry lip gloss, front-clasping bra, ZZ Top and dancing tongues spring to mind. 

It is National Intern Day. You can bet Bill Clinton is not taking this lying down. 





Tom Arnold has vowed to take down Donald Trump. So apparently they’re making a movie together. Or Arnold is willing Trump his career.






Vandals untied Betsy DeVos’s $40 mil. yacht. Betsy named the yacht Floaty McHouse.

Betsy pronounces yacht as yachit. 

Betsy named her yacht Yachty McYachtface. 





The latest trend is people jumping out of moving cars to record the Drake “In My Feelings” challenge. This trend is so stupid and dangerous, they are suggesting they eat Tide pods instead.





They’re going to make a reboot of “Frasier.” Frasier is older. In the first episode, Frasier complains there is no kale in the salad at the Early-bird Special. 

This is great news, I heard about on my pager.

That is unless Kelsey Grammer posts a racist tirade on Twitter.






In a German prison, a pedophile serial killer electrocuted himself to death when he masturbated with cables attached to his nipples and penis. Police said they did not suspect foul play. Really? Play cannot possibly get fouler than that. 

Nobody was charged with the crime.

The man really was revolting.

Authorities are keeping the press current of the situation.

His cellmate was shocked when it happened.








Since you asked:

I’m afraid an apology is owed to Britt McHenry, the pretty, blonde ESPN announcer caught on a video in a foul-mouthed tirade to a parking lot attendant.

You see, it was not a regular parking lot attendant Britt was blasting, it was a towing lot attendant. This weekend, good friends shared their experiences with the evil Satan’s minions that are tow-lot attendants.

One friend went to pick up their car on a Friday and they announced they were closing early at 3:00 instead of the normal 5:00. And then charged them full price for the entire weekend, $500 for both Saturday and Sunday. $1,000. 

Towing companies are the lowest scum on the planet. They are trained to induce wrath from people already upset about being towed so they can claim they were verbally abused and charge them another day. 

The great Steve Goodman who wrote “Go Cubs, Go” wrote a song “The Lincoln Park Pirates” a legendary filthy dirty towing company. At a rock concert at Chicago Stadium, Lincoln Park towing hid a “Tow Away Zone” sign behind a tree in a parking lot near the stadium. They towed the entire parking lot and many teenage kids got mugged walking in the neighborhood.

One time in La Jolla, my car got towed for having out-of-date tags. The tags were out of date because I did not have the smog certificate. So to get the tags updated, I had to get the car smog-checked. The cashier at the towing company would not give me the car until the tags were up to date. No matter how many times I tried to explain to her I needed to go get the car smog-checked before I could get new tags, she would not let the car go.

So, I apologize, Britt McHenry. You were actually too nice to that towing company parking lot attendant. 

They are righteous scum. 

You Can Beat a Marty Party 

For a long time, I gave my much-planned but procrastinated fitness program the cute name: Cleaning Up Before The Maid Comes. 

You know when your house is so messy you’re embarrassed for the cleaning person to see it? Like that. 

But after our UCSB track reunion, and I saw how fit my friends are, and I saw, well, a picture of me and my gut, my fitness program is now officially called,

“Clearing Out Debris Before the EPA Sends in Guys with Hazmat Suits.”

For years I have labored under the belief I was an aging fit guy who had a gut to lose. After this weekend, I can see my fitness has taken a serious turn for the worse. 

At 59, I’m a fat guy.

So the good news is I am really attacking this now. The first week of “CODBESGWHS”  is devoted to getting back to hiking with Wally, my dog who also has put on pounds, for three 30 minute hikes and one 60 minute hike, all with huge hills. 

In addition, this week I added planks for one minute after the hikes. (Push up position on the elbows and holding one minute for abs)

Next week, I had ab curls and push-ups and burpees. Also, Saturday, I am going back on the water to stand up paddleboard. 

If I can.

The goal is to do about 3 hours of good cardio a week with one or two SUP sessions thrown in. And three calisthenic days. Later I will add free weights.

Also serious cutting down in food and wine. That is the key. No more late night popcorn.

Last week, I went to my college track reunion as a first time truly fat guy, I notice we fat people joke a lot about being fat. That isn’t because we think it is funny. It is to get ahead of a potential insult. Usually, only genuine assholes pile on when someone jokes at their own expense about their weight. 

It’s called getting ahead of the problem.

There is a guy who is a friend of a friend whom we see at their parties. I’ll call him Marty because his name is Marty. We also went on a couple of ski trips with Marty to Deer Valley/Park City. 

But I was never crazy about Marty. Later I heard Marty screwed over some people on a business deal and I was not surprised. Marty is a self-impressed dick. 

One time my friend and Marty and I decided to walk our dogs together. Before the walk, I made a crack to Marty and my friend about needing the walk to help lose my gut. Marty then piled-on, 

“Oh yeah, I can see it’s really getting rid of your gut.” He was being sarcastic. 

To give you an idea how much I hated Marty for saying that - and I didn’t really like him in the first place - a month later when I heard Marty was getting divorced because he allegedly beat his wife, while obviously glad his wife was fine, I could not be happier for Marty's misfortune.

A month after that, when Marty got arrested for beating his girlfriend - heard she is also fine, bruised but fine -  I could not have been happier for Marty's misfortune.  

That is how much people hate people who make jokes about their weight.

For a long time, I jokingly gave my gut a name: Joe. It was a college friend’s nickname for guy’s guts, as in "That guy has quite a Joe." Guys named Joe tend to have beer guts. 

Now I have decided to change Joe’s name to Marty. Because I hate Marty so much, I will get rid of him sooner.

Weiner, oh Weiner, oh Weiner duh boop, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers


Ivanka Trump’s clothing line has been shut-down along with Donald’s line of steaks, vodka, and his casinos. The Trumps could not sell booze, meat, gambling and women’s panties to Americans.

Stormy Daniels is getting divorced from her porn-actor husband. If these two sweet, well-adjusted kids can’t make it, what chance do we have?

Donald Trump is looking forward to his next meeting with Vladimir Putin. Because everyone on Grinder knows, the second date is when the fun stuff happens.

Swimmer Ryan Lochte has been banned for a year after posting a picture of himself getting an illegal intravenous shot. The number of Olympic medals Ryan has is 12. The exact same number of his IQ score.

Normally, Ryan colors his hair blue. This time his career is what he blew. (Works better speaking the joke than reading it) 

In Reno, a skunk ran onto the field at a minor league game. Animal Services captured the skunk and charged it with impersonating the Baltimore Orioles. 




They're going to make a "Deadwood" movie. For those not familiar, "Deadwood" was an HBO show about a hot, dirty western mining town where everyone defied physics by not getting dehydrated while sweating heavily and drinking only coffee and whiskey.  

And if they edited out the word c*cksucker, the show would be a two-minute skit. 



In a Queens Hooters in the early hours, Lamar Odom was involved in an altercation that ended in gunfire. (Nobody was shot) Not trying to tell Lamar how to live, but rarely does anything good come after the line: in a Queens Hooters in the early hours 



Since you asked:

Of all of the select untalented and yet famous comedians, from joke thieves like Dane Cook, Carlos Mencia and Amy Schumer, to just the lottery-winning-lucky untalented, Pauly Shore - who had a boost from mommy , Mitzi - and sitcom lottery winners, Michael Richards, Jim Belushi, Dane Cook and Tom Arnold, the most undeserving of her fame and wealth was Roseanne Barr.

At a time when Mitzi Shore and Rodney Dangerfield were bending over backward to only help women comedians - that is why Jamie Foxx changed his name so they assumed he was a woman and gave him stage time - Roseanne Barr benefited the most because she was the first to be a white-trash housewife. 

To be fair, Roseanne had a solid 20 minutes of material from ten years of struggling stand up. She made the most of an HBO special and then got her show. It was a success despite it being famous for being a toxic environment due to Roseanne and her sewer-hole for a mouth and the personality of a fat, rabid hyena. 

But not as cute as a fat, rabid hyena. 

But anyone who saw her in person, as I had the misfortune to, in the mid- '80's knows just how vile and disgusting Roseanne truly was. 

It's nice to think that there is a talent reckoning due to the dead-ends of the careers of Dane Cook, Jim Belushi, Pauly Shore, Michael Richards, Roseanne, Tom Arnold. 

But the truth is they were on top for over ten years. And unless they spent the money like M.C. Hammer, they should be fine.

When you see someone with talent, like Marc Maron, make such a comeback after self-imploding, and the talent and hard work pay off of Iliza Shlesinger, Judd Apatow, Natasha Leggero, Keegan-Michael Key* and Jordan Peele, it makes you feel there is a smattering of justice in comedy.  

Not for everyone, but a smattering of justice. 

*Dear Hollywood Actors:

For the love of craft services would you please stop using three names? Nobody can remember three names. The guy who is huge from "American Pie" who played Stiffler, nobody but his agent can remember his name, Seann William and Mary Scott. Only a few more can remember a really talented guy, Gordon-Joseph Love-It-At-Levitt. 

What about Sarah Jessica Parker, you say? Well, yeah, she is a huge star and those are easy names to remember. Unless you are planning to have the most popular show in the US for ten years, drop the third name Seann Michael Douche-bag Keegan Homer Mathias Skank-Nozzle.


For me, the greatest feature of all of these Donald Trump scandals is seeing the professional Trump ass-kissers thrown under the bus, like Steve Bannon, Anthony Scaramucci, Hope Hicks and now Michael Cohen. 


But none of these will bring the raw and delicious schadenfreude that will result when the bus-tossing happens to Stephen Miller, Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the latest to get chapped lips from smooching Trump’s 50-pounds-of chewed-bubblegum fat tuchus, Rudy Giuliani.  

Make no mistake about it, these people are going down, and they're going to go down like Kanye on Kim on Kim's birthday. 


"Westworld" did not just jump the shark. The shark humped a mechanical shark and they had a baby shark who jumped them and then ate them, but they turned out to be still alive through the miracle of a time machine. 

Re-read Rick Reilly's 2004 account of playing golf with Donald Trump in "Who's Your Caddy?"  

It had many insights. Reilly said golf is like bike shorts. It can reveal more of about a man than he wants. 

“He took the world’s first gimme chip-in,” Reilly said. At one point, Trump, after taking a number of second shots, told Reilly to “make sure you write that I play my first ball. You don’t get a second ball in life.” In life it may or may not be true that a person gets a second chance; and yet, as Reilly wrote, on holes 1, 13 and 17, Trump did indeed get a second ball.

Other insights included that Trump twisted the truth like origami every 30 seconds. The price of building his golf course went up four times in their three-hour round.   

Reilly said Trump was like that high school liar who said his aunt was Farah Fawcett. He said a six-year-old can see Trump has to lasso the conversation back to him every 15 seconds. He said Trump lied, Trump cheated, but Trump was fun. 

But one day was more than enough.