31.8.06

Prego and the Feminine Mystique

There was one of the few episodes of Northern Exposure I watched in which Dr. Joel
Fleischman asked the sage-like Chris Stevens "What do women want?"

His response: "They want the same things we do only in prettier colours."

I guess that's evident in this Home Depot colour swatch from Disney. It seems that our little princesses are indoctrinated early on in their affinity for footwear. This is shortly before they are trained in the art of holding one's blouse whilst bending over to pick up your belongings -- a completely necessary maneuver, since if you're 18 or 180, we will attempt to sneak a peak at yo' bid'ness. (Keep them legs crossed, too.)

Apparently our affinity for great breasts stems from biology, where somewhere in the nether-regions of our minds a little voice says, "Jesus. Those mammoth mammaries could conceivably feed 20 children until adulthood."

Physical attributes aside, there are inherent differences between the genders that are inexplicable by non-scientific types such as myself. A few years ago, for example, a friend's toddler waddles into the kitchen towards her uncle. She spots him, throws her arms up in the air and says, "Hold me."

My friend turns to me and says, "Boy, they start that sh*t early, don't they?"

Apparently, they do. It's some kind of protection thing, especially after coitus, but sh*t, baby. I've got to get up for work in the morning.

There are many other instances where the hes and shes don't see eye to eye. A few years back, when my wife and I first moved in together before we got married, we got back from the grocery store. Keep in mind that I'd never lived with a woman besides my mother and sisters. When I unpacked the groceries, I looked at the cold cuts and decided to make myself a sandwich. That's just how we roll. My wise friend Jay once said, "That's how you know you're a guy. When you like stuff like snakes... and helicopters... and sandwiches."

It seems women like sandwiches, too. As I sit next to the "Someday-to-be-Mrs. P" and take a bite, my eardrum is pierced with a shrill, "You didn't make me one?!" followed by a diatribe of indignance that came from left field.

"Uh... I figured if you were hungry you'd have come into the kitchen instead of plopping down to watch TV." My pragmatic response fell on deaf ears as her demeanor changed from zero to livid in about 38 seconds.

For monts thereafter, whenever she started what I construed as an irrational argument (98% of them), I'd simply say "Sandwich. Sandwich." I guess that was just a feeble effort to thwart the inevitable "venting" that the fairer sex needs once in a while. There's no stopping it, gents. It's like trying to shield yourself from a tsunami with a Titleist™ golf umbrella.

They can blame it on all the syndromes they want (they f*cking corner the market on them), but in their wake they leave a weak man quivering or an even weaker man swinging at them.

The inexplicables abound, yet even the strangest idiosyncrasies are explained, usually. On a night out, for example, your wife or girlfriend might decide to go to the pisser at the bar, place her purse in front of you and say, "Watch this for me, would you?" I'm not much of a conspiracist, but I equated it with a little territoriality. The female animal, marking her territory with a $200 Burberry (further proof of my lack of understanding), ensuring that all the other female predators in the bar don't pounce on her man-bone.

Hot Female: Ooooh. Unattended stud.
Hot Female #2: Ta-ken. Look. There's a Burberry in front of him.
Hot Female: F*ck it. I'm moving in for the kill.

I maintained this theory for a while until I asked a friend's girlfriend about the 'purse-leaving' stratagem.

"So nobody steals it."

I'm convinced she was simply being a good soldier, just giving name, rank and serial number. Maybe under duress, if I wielded a hefty telephone book, she might have cracked.

"Yes, Prego. You're riiiiiiight! You're riiiiiiight. We're staking our claim!"

Then there's the sh*t I just have no explanation for. No man does.

As I walked in downtown Chicago with a female friend, my eyes were drawn to some off-the-chart hotitude. "Whew. I like."

My female friend replies, "Pregoooo. She's wearing nude pantyhose." As if this somehow should diminish my desire to pounce on some kibbles.

What the f*ck does nude pantyhose have to do with anything?

As with any crazy male/female conundrum, I usually get a second opinion from a female such as my sister Zilt (as crazy a specimen, if there ever was one).

Prego: Zilt, what's the deal with nude pantyhose?
Zilt: (aghast) Oh my god. Chick-a-to-wah gah!*

* (Cheektowaga is a Buffalo suburb, known for it's pink flamingoes on the front lawns, crustily hairsprayed coiffs and general détritus blanc cheekiness)

So nude pantyhose is apparently tantamount to 70s bush on a string bikini? I was left bewildered with that one, particularly knowing that it's a removable garment. Perhaps they're just fuzzy dice in a t-top Camaro or a more tasteful vehicle. Either way it was the tip of the iceberg of what I don't know about women.

We don't always have such differences of opinions, the lasses and I. Yesterday I saw two cute girls talking at the supermarket -- one of them slightly more visually striking than the other. As I grabbed my Sapporo and made my way back I saw that they were walking pretty damn close to each other. "Man... They're lesbians!" I quickly decided to walk down their same aisle in hopes they decide to show some affection. Sure enough, right in front of the cereal they decide to have a tender embrace. "Woo-hoo!"

Lame-ass comic Paul Reiser quipped on lame-ass show "Mad About You" on men and our voyeurism where lesbians are concerned:
"They're girls, it's fun and I agree with both of them."

Unfortunately our society isn't as forgiving when the fellas want to get huggy. As far as tolerance towards male homosexuality, we're still in the Mesozoic Age. It's not like it'd yield the same reaction from me as the ladies did. I won't go tying any gay males to a lamp post to beat them senseless. It'd be more like, "Hey guys. One of you have change for a twenty?"

But girls? I get it. I really do. I got it when I saw the lady with Cerebral Palsy making out with the business lady while holding on to the walker. I got it when the two punk rock chicks made out with each other at the Buzzcocks concert. See? Some things I do get.

The sandwich? Nude pantyhose? Purse dropping? "Hold me?" I'm still working on my baccalaureate. Sh*t. Sometimes I still feel like I'm in third grade.

Mrs. P asked me to go buy her a pregnancy test today. Where the f*ck do they keep those, anyway? Near the tampoons, since it's a cooch thing? In the baby section, since that's what it's going to result in? Near the toilet paper, since it involves piss? Well, I finally found it near the festering 'chocha' ointment, for some reason.


Hopefully it's positive. Hopefully it's a girl. Maybe a daughter can help me figure all that crap out. I doubt it, though. She'll probably just drive me to utter a phrase all fathers dread:

"You're not leaving the house like that. You look like a hooker."



Or if I'm lucky, she's a lesbian.

Siskel and Roper Gave it "the Finger"

My friend Skip and I were swilling a couple of wobbly pops Tuesday night when some goofy comedy came on. It was some POS called Without a Paddle and, despite increasing crapitude as the film progressed, we watched the whole thing. There was enough comic genius thrown in to warrant one sitting, but that's about it.

About halfway through the 'film', Skip laments, "They don't make movies like they used to... Like Easy Money..."

I begged to differ. I said, "Yeah they do, Skip. It's just not about us anymore. In a few years all the little f*ckers you see around us are going to say, 'They don't make movies like American Pie anymore.'"

Every once in a while you have to sit down, crack open the cranium, plop the grey matter down on the mantel and sit down for some crappy Hollywood viewin'. There's a goddamned crapload of it, that's for sure. I usually reach for the comedies, since they lend themselves to mindlessness.

Joe Wack of Hairshirt fame hosts this week's . In an ode to Cliffhanger, the Sly Stallone vehicle that he considers the "Sh*ttiest Film of All Time," he invites you to pay homage to what you consider the worst movie ever - so crappy that you watch it over and over again and mire in its grandiose crapulence.

So what is it? Beaches? Red Dawn? Youngblood? Boys on the Side? It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World? Hangar 18? My brother still breathes fire about that one.

Get your tickets, walk over to the snack bar and make your way up the sticky aisle of Hairshirt Cineplex. Boo and hiss to your heart's content.

27.8.06

Saturday Sunday Night Four-Play! - Volume 6

It's a nice feeling to have survived another wedding. Actually, they'd be a little more fun if the music didn't suck so much ass. It rained men, we were family and we had friends in low places, but I felt for the poor souls going home with whiskey d*ck and nothing to put a little sizzle on the home fires.

That's where this week's featured Four Play! artist would have come in handy. Froggy lounge lizard Serge Gainsbourg would be an inspired addition to an otherwise vapid wedding DJ repertoire. His quirky and jazzy pop tunes would spice up the cocktail hours before the coup de grace "Je T'aime Moi Non Plus" (his steamy duet with 60's tart Jane Birkin) sends the guests home ready to tear off a piece off of post-wedding ass.

Sh*t... it was banned on a handful of European airwaves for a reason. Erections and creamed panties might have had something to do with it.

Mr. Gainsbourg died in 1991, but his Euro-trash legacy lives. Homme-boy is infamous for appearing pickled on a French TV show with a pre-druggy Whitney Houston and telling her that he "wanted to f*ck her." I might have tried the same line on the missus, but she was more drunk than I. Damn...

Anyhow, for those of you familiar with Monsieur Gainsbourg, here's a selection that might make you go blow the dust off of your CDs. New to Serge? Sacre bleu!

Pour votre plaisir.

Wake Me At Five
Initials B.B.
Sous Le Soleil Exactement
Je T'aime... Mon Non Plus

26.8.06

"Prego Will Be Out of the Office Until...

I' ve been carted off to a "friends-in-law" wedding in Lake Plaid, NY. It's actually a good time so far. I'm on my way to a night of watered-down Manhattans and shitty over-cooked ziti noodles. I just finished the jesus part of the day... the only other thing that could chafe me today is the obnoxious wedding DJ. If I hear the "Electric Slide" tonight, I'm definitely going to have to "crop dust" the dance floor. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it's passing gas, then walking around spreading the aroma.

Sunday Afternoon Four-Play tomorrow, so keep the cobbles and panty-hamsters on ice. In the meantime, pop by Sereena's for this week's roundtable - this week's topic, the 'perfect song'. Something I'm not likely to hear tonight at the reception.

Alright, pinches... I'm off to smile politely.

20.8.06

Saturday Night Sunday Morning Four Play! - Volume 5

If you have a bottle of Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais around, hide it tonight unless you want to refer to your next-born child as the 'whoops' baby.

Yeah... Chris Isaak's got that effect. At least I always thought so. If I were single and entertaining a lady, he'd be the first CD I reach for. Barry White might work if I were entertaining a hooker and Kenny G would work on the pimply banker chick your friend set you up with, but for sheer smoothness, you can't beat Mr. Isaak.

He's the kind of artist that deserves to be huge but flies under the radar, which adds to his appeal. I'd hate to be as sick of one of his gems as I am about "You're Beautiful" or that insipid "Bad Day" song (not that I cared for either of those klunkers to begin with).

You might remember him from such videos as the one with Chris and the hot chick romping topless at the beach with sand all over her b-cup titties. He's got that soaring vocal range that sends the cat out of the room when you try to sing along... so don't, but...


Enjoy.

Pretty Girls Don't Cry
Two Hearts
Don't Get So Down on Yourself
Can't Do a Thing to Stop Me