A little Christmas cheer from my buddy Jack Daniels

I don't know why this stupid bird made me laugh for a good 10 minutes today, but I got a kick out of it, and now you're looking at it, so there!


The DJ actually got someone to be Santa. I thought it was going to be corny as hell, but everyone loved it.


Here's some proof for you non believers that I actually went and saw a musical on Broadway. For the record, this was taken before the "no pictures" warning came over the loudspeakers.


Anyways, my father organizes a Christmas party for his fellow truck drivers at UPS every year and this was the first chance I've had to attend. I heard that a bunch of tractor trailer jockeys were going to show up to an open bar and buffet dinner and thought I was going to be surrounded by a bunch of ridge runners with foul language. What I got was totally different. My mother tried to tell me that these men make a lot of money and it won't be the Elk Pig Roast I was expecting, but I didn't believe her. Instead of work boots and Hank Williams concert T's they all came in wearing suits with their dressed up wives and clean cut faces. For the most part the night was full of "wow, Bruce, you said he was big, but shit!" and talk about everyone's kids. I spent most of the evening going between the bar for my new favorite drink, Jack and Coke, and the table my mom was sitting at. She doesn't know any of these people and has said year after year she wanted me to go to keep her company, so I did.

Now I would like to take a minute to thank the bartender for her lack of drinking knowledge or alcoholism. I haven't decided which is the reason why every jack and coke I received was 99% jack, .5% coke and .5% ice. I am pretty experienced with the booze, but I was choking on those drinks all night and loving it. I hadn't eaten all day, and after 2 of them I was ready for a nap. I had a couple more before the night was over and it made being forced to be the cowboy from the village people for the obligatory YMCA of the night almost acceptable. I would ask for the drink and watch her make that awful glass of poison and it hurt to witness let alone drink. I have been drinking these wretched glasses of death recently because I know I have a problem drinking too fast and too much and the fact that I can't stand the taste beyond a small sip at a time slows me down to a point where I can have a drink in my hand all night and not make a fool of myself. Thank you, Mr. Daniels.

So the night went really well for my father even though only about 2/3rds to 3/4ths of the people he thought were coming actually came. For whatever reason he has a very hard time getting people who make a shit load of money to cough up 50 bucks to have a relaxing night of holiday cheer with their co workers. They all work funny shifts and communicating to all of them at once is really hard, but he has been working on this since last year and a lot of guys were just being douche bags. My father was so happy and having such a great time that I had to be proud of him. I've never seen my dad as a dancer, but he was on the dance floor bobbing his head and clapping for most of the night. They even got him into a funny hat for the YMCA performance. I looked up and one of my dad's friends was bringing me a cowboy hat and I was like, "no fucking way" but then I saw dear ole dad with a sailor hat on and realized that I had to stand by the man who pays for the roof over my head. He even grabbed my mom and dragged her out to dance to the slow songs. It was then that I was made a little uncomfortable. It wasn't' my mom and dad acting like humans that freaked me out, it was my father's single friends telling me all about myself when I've never met them. They wanted to know all about football and sprint and everything else in my life. Then they dropped the bombs about how proud my father is of me and how he would stride into the office with his chest out every time I called home or had a game or did anything at all. I know my dad loves me and is proud of everything I do, but he is not an emotional guy. He is from the old school where men are men and don't show any emotion whatsoever. It was just weird to hear from at least 20 different people how over the top proud my father is of me. I know I do some cool stuff from time to time and I have had a pretty successful football career thus far, but I didn't realize that every single truck driver in the tri state area was made painfully aware of how proud my dad is. I have always hoped I was making my family proud, but hearing how well I've done makes me want to try so much harder. All of a sudden I had this feeling of obligation that I had to earn the praise I've been receiving. To me I'm just doing things that need to be done. To my dad I'm kicking ass and taking names. As I said, I've always known he was proud of me, but now I am learning the extent and it feels good, but has the added "pressure" of having to keep up the good work.

The party was supposed to be over at 11, but the DJ and the bar stayed open until 12 and it wasn't until well after 1 that we finally got cleaned up and pushed the last few guys upstairs to the bar. I was feeling pretty good besides being way too full of expensive foods and was happy that the event my father looks forward to for most of the year went off without a hitch. On the way home I checked and I had 16 new messages in my voicemail box. I only listened to 2 of them, the others were calls I avoided and knew exactly what they were. This was also the time when I wanted to tattoo my face with the words, "If you know I'm busy on Friday and Saturday leave me the fuck alone on Sunday. I will not wake up for you or anyone else until I'm good and damn ready." I had agreed to go see a Broadway show at 3pm and was OK with waking up at noon to get there, but one of the messages I listened to was a change of plans. The new plans were to get to Hoboken at 10am where we would have brunch. If there was any way I could have injured myself badly enough to be in the hospital or could have been abducted by aliens or something so I could have slept in today I would have gladly accepted it, but I had no way out and had to be there at 10.

I don't know if it was the glasses of Jack I was drinking or the enormous amount of meat I ate at dinner, but I didn't sleep more than 30 minutes last night. I was so overstuffed and disgusting that I rolled around like I was on fire and trying to put it out for the few precious hours I had to rest. I "woke up" at 9:00 and walked to the bathroom to get showered in my boxers. I looked at myself in the mirror and I looked like I was wearing a bandoleer. My blanket has buttons on it for whatever reason and I must have been laying across the buttons before I got up. I got a kick out of how silly I looked, but I still felt like shit. I finally got showered and dressed, realized I was too sick to leave, and layed on the couch until 10 avoiding at least 10 calls from the people I was supposed to be meeting an hour away. Turns out they were trying to tell me to not hurry because they were running very late, but if I had to explain my tardiness while laying on my back and hoping not to puke my head would have exploded from pure rage. I got to Hoboken around 11, we went out for pizza, and then to NYC for the afternoon showing of Wicked. Now I love Broadway. I was a theater minor in college and have always appreciated a good show, but I was sick, exhausted, and sweaty from walking across Manhattan in my sweater and jacket. I know you're thinking, "why did this dumbass wear a jacket if he was sweating?" Simple, it was cold. I sweat when I do things in the cold, but making myself more cold doesn't help. It just feels weird to be freezing and sweating and there is no way it's healthy, so I kept the jacket on... And go fuck yourself for questioning me, fucking stupid anonymous reader. GO TO HELL! [note from the author: I have been salty all day. Don't take it personal.] To add to my frustrations I am twice the size of the average play goer, so it's a tight squeeze in the seats. To add to THAT the woman next to me had an ass that resembled the death star. Her enormous rear was pouring over into my personal space and because I have so little choice of where my body goes in those little chairs I was pressed up against her disgusting ass the whole show.

Physical discomforts aside, Wicked was a good show. I like going to movies and shows with no prior knowledge of what they are about and I had absolutely no clue what Wicked was going to be like at all. In fact, I didn't even know what we were seeing until we got there. I truly believe that is the most enjoyable way to do it. As it turns out, Wicked is A... Damn it, I forgot the perfect word. I took a class called Jewish Interpretation of Scripture in college and one of the things we studied was called ______ or stories based on the Old Testament aka The Hebrew Scriptures... MIDRASHIM!!!! I knew if I talked it through in type I'd remember. This play is basically a MIDRASH (or story inspired by) The Wizard of Oz that tells the story of the "Wicked" witch of the west. It starts out with the people of Oz rejoicing because she's just been killed with a bucket of water and Glinda the good witch of the north being questioned about being her friend. She begins telling her story about Elpha (I don't remember how to spell/say it. It was a strange name, cut me some slack) and the rest of the show is a flashback until the very end. I won't give away the story because it really was an interesting take on the original story, and if I like going without even knowing the name of the play, why would I ruin it for you? This was a musical, and I didn't particularly like the opening musical number, so I was expecting another Oklahoma. I REALLY didn't like Oklahoma because I thought it was poorly written, but that's another story. After the first musical number was over and the exposition phase of the play was completed it really picked up and was fun to watch. The characters seamlessly transform from teenagers going to a bording school in Oz to the very recognizable characters of the good and wicked witches by the end. The cost of the ticket was paid back in full by the last song before the intermission called "Defy Gravity" that was so moving and so well performed that I was sad when it ended. The two main characters had such amazing and appropriate voices that even if everything else was left out, the music would have been worth the trek into NYC. I especially enjoyed the fact that all the characters from The Wizard of Oz were present but you didn't know who was who until it was made perfectly clear. This included the tin man, scarecrow, cowardly lion, and wicked witch of the east, all of which were just normal characters until a plot twist made them the way we all remember them. Wicked basically filled gaps in the original tale in a very creative and original manner. Overall, it was a very good show. Wasn't exactly "timeless" due to some very current events style language and humor, but just because this isn't my favorite musical of all time doesn't mean that I didn't like it. In fact, I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys musical theater. It was well worth my time.

One of the main characters was played by one of the ex-members of New Kids on the Block, which I found humorous. He did a great job and obviously had found his post NKOTB nitche, but his best line came after the show was over. After they all took their bows and listened to the roaring applause of the crowd they started trying to get donations for some charity that all of the Broadway shows were raising money for. They showed examples of all the merchandise that was for sale including a stupid cook book that had recipes inspired by the play. Then the New Kid got up and auctioned off the most valuable thing they had to offer; a role in the play. They were actually going to fit the person for a costume and have them be a part of a show. All the money they donated for the opportunity to be on Broadway was going to a charity, so it was a tax writeoff, but I had no idea how much money was about to change hands. The part went for $20,000. It would have kept going up, but two women were each going back and forth until someone behind the scenes came out and stopped it and told them they both would get a part for 20Gs each. Holy shit. Anyways, the New Kid started the bidding with this line, "The bidding will start at 5 thousand dollars. I know there's money in here. I can smell it. I used to be rich. I know." Then someone shouted out that he wanted to hear some NKOTB and the whole cast started singing and he did the dance that everyone wanted to see. He's a great sport about it and I enjoyed seeing him up there not being all uptight about having been in the first shitty boy band.

After the show everyone else was going out for dinner and drinks, but I thought I was going to die of exhaustion, so I just took the path back to Hoboken and went home. I had to call my grandma and tell her all about the show seeing as she's the one who brought me to my first show, "Cats" when I was 10. Of course she's already seen it, but it is always fun to talk Broadway with her. She is 86 years old and still goes to 3 shows a year. I WILL tell you her whole deal sooner than later, but not tonight. I'm trying to keep these entries at a reasonable length, but I have a hard time not being "detailed."

Tomorrow it's off to Fairview to pick up computers and registers and clear out my desk. It's going to feel so good to be done with office work for a while. Just keep your fingers crossed that my store sells stupid crazy phones and I make wheelbarrel loads of money so I don't have to go back behind a desk for a long time.