I've Been An Idiot For An Entire Year!

Believe it or not, April 27th marks the 1 Year Anniversary of I Am An Idiot. Actually, I don't know why you wouldn't believe that. I don't gain anything by lying about it. I can tell people I got into Harvard (which I sort of did), or that I read "Guns, Germs, and Steel" (which I so didn't), but that's usually to impress people. You're here out of your own volition, so you've already formed your own opinions about me (that I'm a charming a**hole, perhaps?).

So tonight, on a very special episode of I Am An Idiot, let's take a look back at some of the most memorable moments. Maybe you missed some.

And the award goes to:

Longest Blog Entry: Fear Has A Name My very first entry, coming in at a whopping 1,295 words (1,293 too many)

Laziest Blog Entry: The one with this photo...and only this photo. See, I didn't even have to post a link! You don't bring coffee to Brazil, do you?

Most Disgusting Blog Entry: The one about eating your own placenta. Read that again.
Most Likely to Embarrass Me: Choosing this moment to say Roxy looks just like me...
Most Likely to Embarrass Leni: I'll take Perineum Massage for $800, Alex.
Most Likely to Embarrass Max: Landshark.
Most Likely to Embarrass Roxy: It's a tie between Summoning a Dolphin or The Dishwasher

Best Photo: Look, she has her mother's bulging forehead veins when she gets angry.

Best Description: "I awoke this morning to what sounded like a wet Harley Davidson trapped under a pile of egg noodles. Now, when I say "awoke," I mean, jolted out of bed. It was Roxy pooping in her diaper. If you can imagine loading a shotgun with tapioca pudding and firing it into a fat man's armpit, that's kind of the sound I'm talking about. Like if you could tap a fire hydrant to put out a burning building, except that the fire hose sprays under-cooked scrambled eggs, and the burning building is made out of baloney."

Most Commented On: The Chocolate Cake Prank or The Folded Towel
Entry For An Audience of One: I was the only one who liked this one (read the product description...you'll see why)

Most Offensive Title: Can You Call Your Baby A F**king A**hole?
Most Offensive to Other People: What do people have against hairy balls, anyway?
Most Underappreciated: "."
Best Use of Photoshop: Tie between the following...

Best Man Vs. Baby: District 9, baby. Hands down.
Joke I Am Proudest Of: "The scroll-down menu on the left is for Artists, so you can look up any number of bands you think would be magical in Tribute Form. Like a Penis Cake, only one that plays the saxophone. That's right, I just made you imagine a Penis Cake playing the saxophone. Suck on that, Bloggers!"

That wraps things up, I guess. Thanks to everyone for their support. I really appreciate it. And let's look forward to Year Two, because, that's when things get easier, right? Right? Hello?


Rodney

The Mating Call of the North American Laz-E-Boy

What I do for a living exists in the magical world where Glorified Furniture Mover and Handyman meet, go out a few times, then somewhere around the fourth date, when they're both feeling a little adventurous, drop some E and wind up taking home a Sherpa who looked good at the time but Holy Christ did somebody turn back into a Pumpkin right after sunrise.

Set Dressers are Jacks of All Trades and Masters of the Irritable Bowel. We move boxes of different sizes and shapes, rig sconces and sinks, lug couches up three flights of stairs before being told "No, I think I like the cream colored chaise after all." Think of the longest flight of stairs you have ever climbed in your life. The longest. Do you have it? Good. Now double it, and imagine bringing a piano up it. With only one other person. Who has only one arm. Which he is using to text.

A healthy percentage of them are also sexist pigs. Take Jimmy, the guy who never smiles. He's in his fifties, overweight, unshaven, disinterested, and dishevelled. The kind of guy who looks like he owns a van and season tickets to whatever toilet is closest. Or whatever is closest to a toilet, if you take my meaning (appearance, not proximity). "This hotel planter should work out fine..." If an old, beat up, frumpy armchair came to life and decided to brush the potato chips off of his lap (but probably not) and head out to work holding a hammer, that would be the guy I'm talking about. A couch with a hammer.

Today, Jimmy complimented a nice young woman walking past by pointing to her breasts and saying "Perky, perky." I s**t you not. This is the company I keep. Hollywood in all of its glamorous glory.

I eat lunch alone, btw.

Four Fried Chickens and a Coke

Thinking 'Bout Somethin'

HANSON | MySpace Music Videos

Because I Think It's Awesome (and it's not the Trolololol guy again, don't worry)

You Know, I Gotta Be Honest With You, Sir...I'm Not Really A Welder

That title comes from my favorite joke, by the way. It's a pedophile joke. But just as you could never convince me that Justin Bieber is preferable to listening to Snooki singing Karaoke to a Jackhammer in an empty aluminum garbage can, I am at a similar disadvantage when it comes to wanting to share the joke that accompanies that headline. Some people just believe these jokes to be in horrible taste and no amount of creative blogging is going to get them to appreciate it. Like putting ketchup on your eggs. I can tell you that you're disgusting for doing it, but that will never stop you, Brooklyn, will it? So what's the point? This is the humor equivalent of me putting ketchup on my jokes, I guess, and you not liking it? Maybe? Wow. I really butchered the s**t out of that metaphor...I'll just move on. What are the implications here?

Let's not pull any punches: I think some jokes about kids getting molested are funny. Not the practice (important distinction), or The Practice (I don't really watch TV), but the jokes.

So what jokes do upset me? Knock-knock jokes. Try this one Max told me on the subway platform.

Max: Knock-knock...
Me: Who's there?
Max: N-train.
Me: Um, "N-train" who?
Max: (smiling) Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

What the hell does that even mean? And that wasn't the end of her set, either. She had jokes about the R and W trains, as well, each with an even more cryptically nonsensical punchline.

But I've gotten way off track, here. We were talking about Pedophiles (I'm sorry, Paul, this is a terrible lead in). Another blogger (Big Daddy Paul) wrote a post (here) about warning his son Malcolm about creepy men in vans, despite the fact that Malcolm would be way too chatty for a Child Molester to tolerate for long. "You know what? What do you say we forget the whole thing, and I'll just drop you off at home, pal, okay? It's just an old shack, anyway." But it's really pretty hysterical.

So go there. Right now.

And if anyone out there actually does own a van, or a dark blue sedan, maybe there's room for Justin Bieber...

Can somebody pass the ketchup?

Hello, Angels (Not You Kate Jackson...And Not You Jacklyn Smith)

Driving down the L.I.E. and finding it free of traffic is a bit like riding Haley's Comet into 1981, scooping up Cheryl Ladd and maybe an old Star Wars Death Star playset before your Dad throws it out even though he leaves you the little green rubber monster from the Trash Compactor that isn't too terrible to play with in the bathtub but only if there are lots of bubbles. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make with the L.I.E. thing is that it's extremely rare. And when, if it ever, happens, no sooner do the words "Wow, I can't believe there's no traffic" leave your mouth before you round the bend into an endless sea of break lights.

Because you jinxed yourself. That's why I never told anyone about my hopes for Cheryl and I to finally be together (even though the chances are slim). And that's why I stopped writing about Roxy's sleep problems. I didn't want to f**k it up.

It's been a few weeks now (3 or 4) that we've been plying Roxy with enough solid food per meal to put Taco Night at the Jolie-Pitt's to shame. She's like a robot designed for one thing: consuming food. Or a Desitin-scented land shark. And I've actually had to ask my Mother-In-Law at times who the plate of food in her hands was for: Her or Roxy. She eats that much.

But I dare say it's working. She either sleeps entirely through the night or wakes up twice (11:30 PM and then 4:30 AM). And I didn't want to say anything because I keep expecting it to go back the somnambulistic water boarding I've been suffering from since June of '09. But it hasn't.

So what's my problem? I'm lonely. She may finally be getting some sleep, but me? I'm still waking up in the AM at 1:30, 2:30, 3:45, 4:22, and 5:17, looking for things to do.

Any suggestions?

And By "Thank You," I mean, "Shove It Up Your A**"

Max had her friend Ileen stay over Saturday night. And while I would have loved to let them simply run around and destroy Max's room (their usual agenda), they had asked us several times (257, in fact) to take them bowling.

So we drew straws; I lost. Off to the local lanes with Max and Ileen did I go, leaving Leni to enjoy a sleeping baby and an empty house by herself. And had Roxy not been there, a very slow gas leak, as well. A leak that would have eventually reached several birthday candles suspiciously aflame on the window sill. But I digress.

The first two games went reasonably well for Max; she won both. The bumpers were up, protecting the gutters, bestowing upon both girls the unfettered opportunity to break any local league records. They didn't. Even with bumpers, 11 year-olds are terrible bowlers. Ileen almost decapitated a woman at the snack bar; Max sent the ball careening into an adjacent lane, knocking down 3 of some other guy's pins, and then his Father-in-Law. And while the man might have appeared to be a good sport, in the cartoon of his imagination he overhanded the ball back to Max, leaving a Max shaped hole in the wall.

Then, things took a turn for the worst. Max lost Game #3 and I made the mistake of telling Ileen she did an amazing job. Honestly, Ileen bowled a 160, which was more than even I've ever bowled. But this was the problem. Max's feelings were hurt, past the point of no return, and so she began to sulk, and huff, and sneer, and be nasty. And no matter what I did or said could change the fact that she had bowled a sh*tty game. And by congratulating Ileen, I had confirmed that fact. Rubbed her face in it (her words).

"What," she snapped.
"I was just wondering what was wrong," I said.
"Something's gonna be if you don't stop looking at me like that," she snapped, again.
And in the cartoon of my mind, I was also making a Max-shaped hole in the wall, as well, beside of which lay a shallow, smoldering funeral pyre for a dozen American Girl dolls (who have been asking for it since Christmas...Pick up your f**king shoes, already!).

I tried to defuse the problem on our way to the car, but to be honest, by then I didn't care. I was too angry;, she seemed too spoiled. I'd sat through 2 hours of kids' bowling and the only "thank you" I'd received was a big F-You because I'd congratulated her friend. So I did the only thing I could think of to retain some sense of self, some parental authority. To reclaim the smallest modicum of what it meant to be a man, I re-established some ground.

I played John Denver the whole way home. And not some "Thank God I'm A Country Boy" bulls**t. I played "Shanghai Breezes." I played "Rocky Mountain High." And then, just when she couldn't take it anymore, "Perhaps Love."

I guess sometimes their embarrassment is "Thank You" enough.

Man Vs. Baby: Alice In Wonderland in Disney 3-D

Me: It's the same freaking thing.

Roxy: It is not.

Me: It is too.

Roxy: They're not even in the same hemisphere.

Me: Roxy, this [holding up washcloth] is the exact same thing as this [holds up same washcloth], the one you put in your mouth all the time.

Roxy: You're telling me the one you shove against my face to wipe food off of it is the same as the one in the bathtub? How can it be two places at once?

Me: [more frustrated] It can't. Look, you're still Roxy, here, in your highchair. Just like you're Roxy, there, in the bathtub. Nobody's defying the laws of Physics, here.
Roxy: Poppycock! This washcloth tastes like s**t. The one in the tub tastes delicious. But, what, I'm supposed to chalk that up to ambience?
Me: You're not making any sense. They are the same washcloth. I don't know why you're turning this into such an issue.
Roxy: Because you're rubbing a cold, wet, porcupine across my face and I don't f**king like it.

Me: But you like it in the bathtub, that's what I'm saying. You're making a huge deal out of nothing.

Roxy: Really? When you were little, if I offered you a stack of broken Oreos, or one, single, perfectly symmetrical, untarnished Oreo, which one would you have chosen?

A beat.

Roxy: Come on, which one?

Me: How broken?

Roxy: Exactly. How broken would it have to be before it was inedible? Cracked?

Me: Probably.

Roxy: What if it was missing part of the cookie?
Me: An abomination.

Roxy: Good. Now we're getting somewhere.

Me: Let's, uh, let's just get to the movie. No one wants to hear about this.

Roxy: About the fact that you refused to eat asymmetrical food? Fine.

Me: You ate poop.

Roxy: Yeah, and you swallowed marbles and loose change. Are we done?

Me: I liked the movie very much, thank you. Despite it's shortcomings.

Roxy: Yes. Shall we list them?

Me: Please.

Roxy: Anne Hathaway.

Me: Punching her card in at Burton's House of Light Colored Wigs For Miscast Brunettes.

Roxy: Johnny Depp.

Me: Same? I hate to say it, but for the first time in his career, Johnny Depp buckled under the weight of his prosthetic make-up. He just seemed flat.

Roxy: Crispin Glover.

Me: Seriously, what was up with that guy? I've never seen someone in so much need of a Flux Capacitor.

Roxy: What did you like about it?

Me: Helena Bonham-Carter. The production design. You really can't go into a Tim Burton movie with any expectations other than it will look spectacular. And it did. It was exquisite to look at. I enjoyed mostly everything except the breakdancing at the end.

Roxy: I was trying to end on something positive.

Me: Oh, fine. How about, "I love you, Roxy."

Roxy: I love you too, papa.

A Riddle Wrapped In A Conundrum Surrounded By A Poopy Diaper

Imagine Liza Minnelli drunkenly trying to get ready for a date without a mirror. She tries to apply lipstick to her face, but in her compromised state, accidentally snaps the top of it off. Still determined to get ready, she smooshes the lipstick across her mouth, onto her nose, across her cheek, down to her chin, and gets it all over her fingers.

Imagine Liza is really Roxy, but keep the whole trainwreck-lipstick image fresh in your mind.
Imagine Leni and I are arguing and I don't notice Roxy has tipped over the Diaper Genie.
Now, and I don't think you'll need a Mensa membership to solve this puzzle, see if you can guess what the lipstick is? I'll give you a hint: it's an earthtone. Like the color of dirt.

If you've skipped ahead a few steps, you've already guessed who the worst father is, because you're reading his blog.

Buck Angel!

Yesterday I made a joke about Buck Angel's website being obscene (here). Regardless of your sexual proclivities, his website should strike you somewhere between "pour some bleach in my eyes, now!" or "I don't underst...now how in the...wow, wow-wow-wow, that's...that's kind of hot."

And rather than send casual readers of my daddy-blog to a very, very, very NSFW website, I left off the link instead of sending you into the Internet Pornoverse unarmed.

Well, consider yourself warned. He found me on Twitter and wrote "Hey, if you're going to talk smack about me, at least put a hot link to my site! :)" Personally, that was one of the most awesome things that's ever happened. It totally made my day. So fair is fair, Buck. Here it is:

http://www.buckangel.com/index.html

Thanks!