8 Days of Bah Humbug!

One great thing about being out of school is that we get to catch up on movie night and eat pizza (instead of studying like crazy or collapsing like zombies like we've done for the past month). Last night we watched Dreamgirls and then regrettably, The Reaping. I don't really recommend watching completely different genres in the same night.

Especially when you've been eating cheese.

I had a cheese dream about Eddie Murphy with pin curls being attacked by giant grasshoppers. Weird.

If I don't have anything to do with my hands while watching TV (like quilting or beading), I fidget. I pick at my cuticles. I twirl my hair. I rub my chin and try to pull out one of the two chin hairs I have growing on the left side with my fingernails if either one have had the audacity to grow back since the previous movie night.

Yank. Ow!

Did I get it?

Nope. Still there.

Yank. Ow!

And so on.

Yeah, this is what passes for entertainment at the Attila house!

So last night I picked and twirled and then finally rubbed my chin.

Hello.

It felt like I had a little piece of velcro stuck there!

I went in the bathroom and looked, which is a highly difficult maneuver requiring two mirrors (the spot is just UNDER my chin).

eek!

There were 5--count them 5--(ok it was more like 7 but this is my story and I'm sticking to 5 because it will fit in my song) little whiskers in a little patch sprouting out of my chin.

What the hell?

Did the two chin hairs I thought I had sprout double or triple hairs when I pulled 'em out? Or did I really have 7--er--I mean 5 all the time and I just thought it was the same two because I was yanking one out every week?

At this rate, I think I'm going to look like Kim Ayres in no time!

Gak!

On the fifth day of humbug, Santa left for me...

5 chin hairs,
4 exploding Snapples,
3 open tubs of frosting,
2 dead pens,
and a lump of coal for under my tree.

9 Days of Bah Humbug!

Well there was good news and bad news.

The other night I gave hubby a foot massage.

I guess that's a miracle in itself, because his feet scare me. They're pointy at the top, and his toes are so long and curled that they look like they have an extra toe-knuckle. Plus each toe is growing it's own little bush. ew.

But he's a wonderful guy, and he's been pretty stressed out since we opened a second office. I wanted to do something nice for him. So I bit the bullet and gave him a kick-ass foot rub.

Ok, I admit it. I was trying to score some extra "nice" points from Santa.

I woke up the next morning, and as I was messing around in the bathroom I noticed something bad. My wedding ring wasn't on my finger. I remembered taking it off before putting lotion on my hands so it wouldn't get all gunky. After that...nothing.

Went to retrieve it from the ottoman, but it wasn't there. Or on the floor under the ottoman. Or under the chair, or on the chair.

I spent 45 minutes hunting it down. Big Kid helped me. Did I put it in my pocket without a second thought? Did it fall out? Where did I go and what did I do after the foot massage? I re-traced all my steps. I tore the couch apart.

Oh crap. Did Little Guy see it and say, "hmmm, sparkly jewelry!" and take it to school to give to his girlfriend?

Finally I called Hubby just in case he had moved it and put it somewhere safe and forgot to tell me before he left for the office. My heart just sunk when he said he hadn't.

A very short time later he was at the house to help me look (guess the thought of replacing it scared HIM). He walked 5 feet into the room next to the Christmas tree, bent down and picked the damn thing up. I swear, Big Kid and I searched that area at least five times.

What is that saying----you can't see the forest for the trees? Guess our eyes missed it next to all that shiny paper!

So I don't get to put that incident in my song. Thank heavens.

On the other hand, I was looking for a drink, and asked Big Kid what happened to the case of Snapple we got at the grocery store the other day.

"I left it in the trunk of your car for Little Guy to bring in."

High altitude. Freezing temperatures. A warm day, then a refreeze. Rut row.

I got to spend the next 30 minutes cleaning Snapple chunks out of my trunk. But the box held, so I didn't have to pick any glass pieces out of the carpet.

LOL

What's your weekend look like?

On the ninth day of humbug, Santa left for me...

4 exploding Snapples,
3 opened cans of frosting,
2 dead pens,
and a lump of coal for under my tree.

10 Days of Bah Humbug!

I love to bake, although I'm not a natural baker. Unlike Rootie or Flamenco Mom, who make it sound (and look) so easy, I really have to work at making stuff look good.

So when my hubby asked me to make some things for the open house at the offices next week, I was game. Everything that doesn't look perfect will still taste good unless I burn it to cinders, and the guys will scarf 'em up. Plus I was roped into making a few dozen cupcakes for Little Guy's choir party this week.

I figured I could get my baking skills warmed up on those.

I'm one of those people who have to plan ahead, so I made sure I had a few boxes of cake mix and those tub thingys of frosting in the pantry. I bought them a couple of months ago, and like Velveeta, the expiration date is decades away. Not really. But sort of. Eggs? Check. Oil? Check.

Hubby was going to be away all day Sunday for the Bronco game, so I figured Sunday would be cupcake day.

Little Guy got out the big bowl and we set to work. 49 cupcakes baked, cooled and ready to frost. He got a tub of chocolate frosting off the lazy susan and opened it up.

"Urk!"

What?

He showed me. The foil that keeps everything nice and fresh was peeled back under the lid. About a third of the frosting had been scooped out of the tub.

What the....????!!!

I set it on the counter and got out another tub. I had a fairly good idea (I'll bet YOU do too) who the culprit was, but decided to deal with him later.

The next tub was vanilla cream cheese frosting. The foil was loose and I lifted it up. A couple of spoonfuls were missing.

Now I was getting REALLY pissed off. I took the third and last tub off the lazy susan. And yes, the foil was loose. There were actually FINGER MARKS in there from where the frosting had been scooped out.

My entire stash of frosting was ruined.

I hollered for the Big Kid to get his butt in the kitchen.

I wrote about Big Kid's late night forays into the pantry last spring.

Around that time, Big Kid scarfed up a pound of raisins I bought for a recipe in the dead of night. He had a massive panic attack when the undigested whole ones rehydrated and came out all gray and puffy in his poo the next day, because he thought a parasite or an alien was laying eggs in his digestive tract.

He finally said something after his third turd attack (they don't call it colon blow for nothing!) and I had to sift through his doody to get to the bottom of it. Pun not intended. ("No I am NOT GOING TO CALL THE X-FILES!! Aliens didn't lay eggs in your intestines! THERE AREN'T ANY X-FILES IN REAL LIFE, YOU DOOF!")

I showed him the frosting. Did you do this?

"Oh that. Yeah. But that was weeks ago." Like it doesn't count if I don't catch it in say---a week.

WTF were you thinking?

"I was hungry."

Why didn't you put it in the fridge after you opened it?

"Because then you'd know and you'd yell at me."

Why didn't you eat a whole one instead of opening a new one?

"It was different days. The opened ones were probably yucky. I might get sick."

::sigh::

On the third day of humbug, Santa left for me:

3 opened tubs of frosting,

2 dead pens,

and a lump of coal for under my tree

11 Days of Bah Humbug!

It's time to sit down and send out all the yearly Christmas Cards. Not only for friends and family, but for all of our business associates and clients.

Why not just run them off on the computer? Because when you own your own business in a small town, the personal touch just means so much. Truly.

Except I can't find a &^%$#!!! pen that works!

I buy ball point pens in black and blue by the bag. But whenever I need one, they've all disappeared. I've looked in the junk drawers (yes, we have more than one). Little Guy has a supply in his locker and in his backpack. Hubby swears he didn't take them to the office. Big Kid? Pick up a pen? Actually write something down? Hah!

He answers the phone, and then tells me 4 days later that the cable guy was going to come 3 days before between 1 and 5, when we weren't here.

We have this neat ceramic pen holder thingy that Little Guy made in art class a few years ago. Every time I clean and find pens, pencils, etc., I put them in there.

But when I actually NEED a pen, what do I find?

2 green pens that Big Kid accidentally bought at the campus bookstore, thinking that they were regular pens. A weird wood-shaped pen that doesn't work, but I can't bear to part with because we bought it as a souvenir the first time I met my birth-famiily in person and we all traveled up to Cheyenne, Wyoming for the rodeo. Several promotional pens that have NEVER worked but have also never found their rightful place in the garbage can. An unsharpened pencil that bears the name "Bubba's Big Balls" whose origins mystify all of us. And a bunch of little screw-drivers that we use to unlock various household doors when somehow they manage to lock by themselves.

I found 2 in my bookbag that I used in class, but both of them are completely dead. I tried to unclog them using a lighter, but only succeeded in melting the plastic holding the ball point in. Argh!

Dorky Dad once wrote a post about how his house is a pen magnet, but I swear mine is the opposite. Is there a black hole for working pens somewhere out there next to the black hole for single socks? One that's next to the black hole for nail clippers?

Maybe there's a portal in my house that beams them over to the woman above who has a monstrous ball point pen collection.

If that's true, then I wonder who in the hell got beamed all my missing tampons, because I can never find the one in my purse when I desperately need it!

So I'm off to town to buy more pens.

How's your day going?

On the second day of humbug, Santa left for me
Two dead pens
And a lump of coal for under my tree

-----------

Here's my latest on Disaboom if you have half a mind to go there. Or just half a mind. ;-)

12 Days of Bah Humbug!

I don't like to say unkind things about other people's children, but sometimes I can't help myself. First of all, I believe that all children are beautiful, despite the fact that every single one of 'em looks like Uncle Fester or Al Roker when they first come flying out of the hatch.

But I guess I expected all the gorgeous peeps---you know, supermodels and celebrities---to have equally as uber-beautiful children and am often surprised at how ordinary and often quite--uh--undernary their children turn out to be.

I was standing at the supermarket check-out the other day, looking at the rags and contemplating this when it suddenly hit me.

Those poor things must have inherited Mom and Dad's REAL noses and chins!

I know, I know, going straight to hell for that one!

On the first day of Humbug, Santa left for me....

A lump of coal under my tree.

Yippee Skippy!

The semester is finally over, and I got A's in my classes. Whew! I WOULD have spent the weekend recovering, but true to form, Big Kid had a few straggling assignments and I had to be vigilant and crack the whip to make sure he got them in before the cut-off date.

Why does he self-sabotage? Every semester it's the same. He does well until the last 2 weeks of class. Then he just refuses to do any more, and it's a daily battle. These last few assignments could make the difference in a whole grade, but he doesn't want to hear it.

But now we're both done, and he'll probably get his grades later in the week.

Yesterday there was a shooting at the church my Little Guy's girlfriend and her family attend. The reports have been unclear. Some say 2 dead, some say 4. They haven't released any names.

I didn't feel comfortable calling the family up (don't know them THAT well) to see if they were all ok. I'm not sure what the etiquette would be in that situation. "Hello? Glad it wasn't you?" Point is, somebody's dead and no doubt the family would be grieving either way. I don't want to bust in and be all National Enquirery. So I just kept the Little Guy away from TV reports and I'll call his teacher this morning.

I know I've been a horrible blog friend, but now I've got some time to visit and see what you've been up to. I can't wait!

ATM

From the Department of "You've Got Waaaaay Too Much Time on Your Hands"...

Time. Just doesn't seem like I've had nearly enough of it lately. Between my job(s), my kids, school and getting ready for the upcoming holiday season, the days have been flying by.

Thankfully, I have only ONE MORE exam left and I am done, done DONE for the semester! I can't tell you how much I've appreciated your continued good wishes. I've been a bad blog friend, but it's just because I've been so darn tired. I'm sorry. :-(

With time being fleeting, I read an article the other day that I just haven't been able to get out of my head.

Remember Leona Helmsley, the "Queen of Mean"? A few months ago when she passed away, she left her dog 12 million dollars, while cutting out a couple of her grandchildren for personal reasons.

Suffice it to say, bizarre as her will was, I fully believe that she had every right to do whatever she wanted with her money. She allegedly left 6 to 12 BILLION dollars to a charitable trust, and after the doggie dies, whatever is left will go into the trust. On that scale, 12 million is peanuts.

What I find incredibly weird is that as of now, the dog has received 20 to 30 kidnapping and death threats.

WTF?

First of all, do these imbeciles imagine the dog can read? Doh!

Secondly, do they think the dog would care? If it's like most dogs, I imagine all this pup cares about is what bed in the mansion it can sleep in and what's for dinner. Or maybe whose ankle it can bite next since it's too little to be sniffing crotches.

And what would the letter-writer gain by killing a poor little doggie? Do they think that the 12 mil will automatically show up in their bank account if they successfully commit poochicide? Or do they just walk around being hateful all the time?

I think that a person who has enough time to stew about some stranger leaving her dog a fortune for care and upkeep, and then actually sits down to put a pen to paper to vent about it has WAY TOO MUCH DAMN TIME ON THEIR HANDS!

...or needs a vacation in a nice soft hotel room with a sportscoat that ties in the back. Seriously.

Oh, by the way, the above picture is of a generic Maltese dog in disguise. Never let it be said that I provided an identifying picture for someone who doesn't wish the dog well.

You nucking futs.

Off Our Back Deck...

Sometimes words are completely inadequate.

Hope you're having a great week!

ATM

Bad Idea #125---Gettin' Your Coyote Ugly On...

This being the holiday season, I thought a cautionary tale about the effects of drinking too much demon eggnog might be in order.

Ever hear the term "Coyote Ugly"? Not the forgettable movie, but the term. It comes from the idea that a coyote stuck in a trap will chew it's own paw off to escape. In the same vein, it's a description of the "morning after" when you wake up next to the [koff] babe you picked up at the bar the night before.

You're so horrified that you'd rather chew your own arm off to get away than wake him/her up.

Bad, bad eggnog!

So this guy (who wasn't named in the article) in Winnepeg was so drunk that he broke into a couple of garages and rooted through some stuff. A concerned homeowner called the police, who eventually found the guy passed out in somebody's boat, with his Coyote Ugly by his side.

Except that his date wasn't alive.

It wasn't even human.

It was a stuffed dog.

"He was lying there with his genitalia exposed next to the stuffed dog," said Crown attorney John Peden. "While the police report doesn't describe it this way, the dog might be appropriately characterized as now being anatomically correct, as opposed to its condition before he removed it."

Gak!

Ok, I have to admit, I laughed hysterically when I read that.

The guy's defense attorney explained:

"All (his offences) involve being drunk, usually drunk as a skunk."

The authorities actually had to take a DNA sample in their investigation of the plush po-po perp.

Yes, I can't help myself. I'm still laughing hysterically.

Of course the article quoted a psychologist who talked about stuffed animal fetishes, which made this seem ever so creepy. I found it when I was looking for a picture of a stuffed dog.

So let that be a lesson to you!

If the Elmo you bought your kid for Christmas starts looking like a Tickle Me George Clooney...

Put the eggnog down!


Here's my latest on Disaboom, if you feel like dropping by!

Happy Turkey Day!

I know you've probably gotten this in email, like I did, but I still wanted to put it up! Hope you have a wonderful day, and don't burn that bird!

Yum!

Quit Yer Bitchin'!

Sorry I haven't been around lately---between the Big Kid and I, we had 9 papers and 3 exams due this week. I'm not going to whine about it---ok, maybe just a little bit. Yesterday I felt like my eyeballs were staring at the inside of my skull.

But whew! It's done. There's only about 3 weeks left of school, and the last big hurdle will be finals. I can't even complain about Ms. Bigmouth that much. The professor realized a couple of classes ago that we weren't even half-way through our objectives and has been hurtling through the material. When she tries to stick her 27 cents in, he shuts her down pretty effectively. She's been reduced to trying to correct his Latin two or three times a class. Ex-partay, anyone?

So while I've been feeling like a big crybaby, an article caught my eye this week.

It's from The People's Republic of Boulder. If you aren't from Colorado, that reference will probably fly over your head, unless you watch South Park. No, it's not the one about gay cowboys eating pudding. ;-)

Anyway, the Boulder Valley school district has decided that starting in 2010, there will be no more high school valedictorians. There were too many complaints from the non-winners (or I suspect, their parents). They've decided that recognizing high achievement (like class rankings) fosters "unhealthy competition".

Ok, fer pete's sakes, "unhealthy competition" is Tegwin, Zaq, and Hunter pulling their pants down and competing to see who can light the biggest fart. And filming their heinie explosions to send to Jackass.

"Unhealthy competition" is Madyson, Irelynd, and Dilyn keeping a book to have a record in a contest of "who can blow the most players on the football team" (this actually happened in our little burg several years ago).

How are our kids going to learn to compete in a global society if Mumsy and Daddy insist that "everybody" has to be the winner? And what's the point of buckling down and doing well if your hard work is going to be unrecognized?

Sheesh.

How I Feel About Football Season

Film + Faith--Oh God!

I was supposed to participate in RC's Film + Faith blogathon earlier this week, but my back wasn't cooperating and I didn't get to post in time.

He's graciously allowed me to submit it late!

First and foremost, I have to confess that I have a real problem with organized religion. I don't have a problem with other's participation, I'm not going to advise or advocate one over another or insist on none. It's just my own journey, as I think it should be for us all.

When I was a kid, we were originally members of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. Quite a bit of fire and brimstone there, and I thought God was a very very scary old geezer who was going to send me straight to hell for wishing my older brother would eat a bug in his sleep and choke on it. In my mind, He wasn't accessible to me. I couldn't relate to Him as someone I could confide in, confess to, ask forgiveness from, or thank for my blessings. He knew all my secret bad thoughts and would "get me" in the end.

Although we were members of the Lutheran Church, my mom was pretty broadminded in our religious instruction. She thought it was fabulous that my Jewish kindergarten teacher taught us about Hanukkah, the dreidal and the song "Hava Nagila" (oddly enough, this came in handy years ago when karaoke was in its infancy---I was a DJ in a number of clubs in the city---that's how I met my current husband--and a middle-aged woman with her elderly mother had scoured the area to find a show that not only had the song on it's playlist, but someone who'd sing it with the mother. So they'd visit this rather seedy little club twice a month, drink a club soda, and we'd do a duet! ;-))

But yes, I'm digressing. Nowadays, if a kindergarten teacher in a public school did this, there would be indignant screaming all around!

Mom also sent us to different churches for summer day Bible Camp as well. Maybe she was looking for a break (which I get), but also I think she understood that the Bible Camp in our church was pretty damn grim. My favorite was the Baptist camp. Their message included uplifting music that just made my heart sing! Over the years we went to Catholic Bible school, Presbyterian Bible school---a huge variety of faiths.

When I was 10, the movie Oh God! came out. What a revelation! Instead of scary Santa, George Burns was God! It made me start thinking.

Jerry Landers (played by John Denver) says: But I don't even go to any church!

and God (played by George Burns) says: Neither do I!

Huh? What a concept!

My mom was active in our Church. Our minister would tell her over and over again, "Hope (not her real name, but she has one that is equally as religiously appropriate), I don't know what we'd do without you! You have a true calling to our faith!"

When my dad ran off with one of his employees (I loved him to death---he was a great dad, but a total shit as a husband) after 24 years of marriage around 1978, Mom found herself at odds at the age of 46. She had a graduate degree (worked as a teacher while putting my dad through college to his doctorate), and felt she had a calling and asked our pastor to mentor her.

He completely slapped her in the face. "We hardly allow women to become pastors", he sneered. "What makes you think we would allow DIVORCED women to do so?" Like it was HER fault my dad was a dog and couldn't keep his dick in his pants.

Big first blatant strike against organized religion for me.

But my mom was a champ.

She basically said "f*ck you" and got her Masters in Divinity as a United Methodist minister instead.

The odds were against her. Out of her graduating class, there were very few posts available, and not many churches were willing to accept a 40+ divorced woman as their first choice. She ended up as an interdenominational protestant circuit preacher in a small farming town. She'd drive 100 miles every Sunday to do three services in three towns. One of the services she held was in the basement of a hall, and the entire congregation consisted of one family, 6 members in all, who'd be there every week.

I went and lived with her my junior year in high school (my brothers and I had moved in with my dad to stay with the school system we'd grown up with when she was posted). I was appalled at the small-town patriarchal system that was ingrained in the citizenry itself. There was a new power facility being built (a 2-3 year endeavor), which brought a large number of new people from all over to the area. Mom was new, and actively worked to help these people feel like they could find a home in our church, and tried to make it truly interdenominational. She was pretty successful (increased the membership by about 40%).

The old folks didn't like it and tried to have her fired. They wrote letters to her bishop. They held secret meetings just for this purpose. They didn't approve of having a "woman" minister. They didn't approve of the improvements or changes she was implementing. Their efforts didn't work, but it hurt her terribly. She'd come home and cry. The politics disguised as "faith-based" can be loathsome when spewed by supposedly-Christian people.

It was another strike for me against organized religion. Although it hurt my mom a lot, I volunteered to work at my job at the local bakery on Sundays. I couldn't bear the hypocrisy of being pleasant to these people who were nice to my Mom's face on the Sabbath but were scheming behind her back. I simply couldn't "turn the other cheek". I wanted to punch them in their sanctimonious mouths, and had to remove myself.

Essentially, this ended my tolerance for the behind-the-scenes political bullshit that happens in church that can only be realized if you've actually been there, done that. Over the years, we've attended a few different parishes, but at the slightest whiff of anyone approaching us with the "us against some other faction of members" I've yanked us out, lock, stock and barrel. It might not be really fair to the kids, and I've had some guilty feelings over it.

So it comes back to Oh God! and how the message affected me as a person and a Christian.

Do I have to confess my sins to a priest, or wear magical underpanties, or speak in tongues to reach the stairway to heaven? All of that foolishness is a result of organized religion, in my opinion. I don't do any of those things, and no, I don't think that George Burns is God, but it helped me clarify a lot of things in my mind and in my heart.

I don't have a problem with an atheist message, or an agnostic one either. To each his own. I can profess my faith without pushing it on others.

Bottom line, Oh God! helped God be accessible to me. Instead of being a formidable and punishing presence, I can think of Him as being benign and loving. I can pour my heart out when I talk to Him---articulate my fears and follies, thank Him for every blessing in my life, ask Him to watch over soldiers and people who've had tragedies and my children, etc.

"I know how hard it is in these times to have faith. But maybe if you could have the faith to start there, maybe the times would change. You could change them. Think about it. Try. And try not to hurt each other. There's been enough of that. It really gets in the way. I'm a God of very few words and Jerry's already given you mine. However hopeless, helpless, mixed up and scary it all gets, it can work.

If you find it hard to believe in me, maybe it would help you to know that I believe in you."

For me, that's it in a nutshell.

As a postscript....after 6 years in that small town, over the years, my mom went on to be posted as a minister in several other small parishes (she wanted to live closer to her children)---none of which had ever had a woman minister. After she moved on, they all specifically requested a woman to replace her, which really made her a pioneer. She retired at the age of 70 a few years ago.

I'm so very very proud of her. She's such an admirable woman.

Gah!

I did it again, although I'm not sure how.

Threw my lower back out, that is. Why does it always seem to happen in the same spot?

Anyway, it's been excrutiating to sit for even short periods, so I've been AWOL. Will be back in a couple.

In the meantime, I was supposed to participate in RC's blogathon---Film + Faith. I had a half-finished post about how the movie "Oh God!"---which I watched as a kid---really changed my perception about how I viewed my faith. George Burns as God.

If you have a moment, drop by and read the entries. Really interesting stuff!

Life's a Stage

Is this guy for real? Does he regularly eat big steaming bowls of stupid for breakfast?

That's what I've been asking myself for the last day after reading about the verdict in the Vincent "Don Vito" Margera trial.

On Wednesday, Margera, 51, whose claim to fame is from the MTV show Viva La Bam (about his nephew Bam Margera) was found guilty of groping two underage girls (12 and 14 years old---and not the women pictured) at an autograph signing at a Colorado skate park.

"Big Boob," he said to the 12-year-old.

His attorney claimed that, "her client may have been obnoxious and vulgar but said he was acting according to the character that his fans loved and expected to see."

Oookay. I don't know on what planet I'd "love and expect" to see a slovenly old creep grab little girl titties, but maybe that's just me.

He's also charged with 12 counts in breaking conditions of his bail, which will be heard in court in December. 12 counts? Wonder what he did? Offer a 10-year old a bite of his salami sandwich?

After the verdicts were read, Margera threw himself on the floor and flailed around, knocking down his attorney in the process.

"Jesus! I can't spend the rest of my f------ life in jail! Just f------ kill me now!"

"I can't stand up! My legs! My legs! I can't move," he yelled as deputies tried to calm and subdue him.

"I didn't f------ do nothing. You can rot in f------ hell!"

"I can't move. I can't move," he shouted as deputies surrounded him and the astonished jury looked on.

"I can't get up!" Margera said. "My legs are broke! Help me. Help me!"

It took four deputies to carry him out of the courtroom. All the evidence that was left of the scuffle was a lonely little Hershey bar on the floor.

At the initial incident:

"When two female police officers arrived at the mall parking lot to arrest him, Margera called them "psycho lesbian b------" and thought he was being "punked."

During the arrest, Margera claimed his arm had been broken, prompting a visit to an emergency room. He was cleared and taken back to the police station, only to be returned to the emergency room when he complained he couldn't breathe and was having a heart attack."

I've never seen the TV show that he was on---in fact my original interest was piqued when the incident occurred simply because it happened in the neighborhood where I grew up---but it makes a person wonder.

Is that guy so clueless and histrionic in real life? Was the whole incident a part of his "schtick"? In a world where 4-year-olds get suspended from school for kissing other 4-year-olds, did he think that it was ok for his "character" to grab the breasts, butts and thighs of young girls?

Stupid or creepy, take your pick, I guess. His family must be so proud.

Sheesh!