Startling Revelations

Hello again everyone. Intros be damned, this post is long enough as it is. Settle in. Off we go. Oh, actually, wait a second. For some reason, this site has been acting up, and I can't always control the spacing between paragraphs. No idea why...Alright, you've been warned. Nooooow I can say off we go...So, ummm, off we go:

I. MANDATORY BIN-LADEN NOTES

I like to add levity to almost all situations - good, bad, peaceful, violent, offensive, touchy, etc. - and so with that in mind, I say we have a little fun with what should henceforth be considered a national fucking holiday. Ready? Here we go:

- MENDENHALL NEEDS TO AMEND-ENHALL (GET IT?!?!) HIS TWEETS.

In case you have been doing your best Bin Laden impression by living under a fuckin' rock for the past few days, you've undoubtedly come across what Pittsburgh Steelers running back and recent Super Bowl loser Rashard Mendenhall had to say about all this via Twitter. To paraphrase, he said that we should not celebrate Bin Laden's death since we don't really know his side of the story, and that we'll never reeeeeally know what happened on 9/11 because it's just so hard to believe that airplanes could actually cause buildings to crumble.

I'm not making this up folks. This is what he said, and in no uncertain terms. I guess you could say that he doesn't fumble over his words like he fumbles the fucking football in the end zone during the Super Bowl (zing!). Apparently, this absolute buffoon believes that all the internet broadcasts of Bin Laden relaying his direct intentions over the years do not accurately convey "his side of the story." And apparently the abundance of video footage of the planes smashing into the World Trade Center and the awful aftermath just isn't conclusive enough to determine "what really happened." Ya know what, thousands on facebook and other social media have already said it in far more creative a style than I have the ability to employ while I'm this worked up. Rashard Mendenhall - you have hereby (far) surpassed Brett Favre and his adulterating, cock-photographing habits as the most deplorable human being in the history of the NFL, if not all of professional sports. And one final note, anyone caught wearing his jersey from here on should be shot in the head twice and dumped into the ocean.

- SURVEY: WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE SAID?

If you have even a passing interest in commenting on this post, I urge you to do so primarily by answering this question: if YOU were the military officer/soldier who - for lack of specific detail - broke down the door and put Osama Bin Laden in your crosshairs at point blank range, what would your specific/choice words have been? I mean, I can't imagine anyone in their right mind who would NOT want to say something epic, dramatic, or 80's/90's Schwarzenegger-esque to Bin Laden's face seconds before sending him to the other side. Then again, maybe some of you would be too amped up and excited to think on any coherent level at that point and would just instantly cap his sandy ass.

Personally, I can't decide. Part of me would want to say something as profound and enduring as Neil Armstrong did when we landed on the moon. But, as alluded to above, I bet in an effort to do so, I would inevitably collapse into Shwarzenegger or Stallone voice and end up sounding cheesy and ruining the moment. For example, if I burst through the door, put him in my sights and shouted either "Prepare for justice!"/"Justice...at last!", or "You brought America to its knees. Now we're back on our feet, so you can read the words on the bottom of my boots when you look up at me from HELL!" (note: that sentence is to be said with the exact same inflection/emphases as Friar Tuck from the Kevin Costner Robin Hood movie just before he pushes that evil witch out the window), or if I shot him first, stood over his corpse and said "I just red, white, and blew you away, asshole!", or "No dialysis machine can save you now, motherfucker!" See? All of those sound like they're trying to be awesome, but I'm thinkin' they actually sound wholely stupid.

There's a part of me that would want another soldier to shoot him; someone who knew a victim of 9/11 on a personal level just so he/she could say "This is for (victim's name), you son of a bitch!" That would work. That's good. But I feel like it wouldn't completely encapsulate what all of America would want to say to him given the opportunity...

And so I'm left confused/undecided. And I come to you, my diminutive readership. What would you say to Osama Bin Laden before killing him? What would be the best approach? Would you scream it? Whisper it in his ear? Would you shoot him in the feet and knees a bunch of times first and rhetorically and sarcastically ask him "what's the matter? Is the wittle tewwowist baby gonna start cwying?" before finally ending it? Would you even have used a gun, or would you have slowly pressed your bayonette (do any guns still have those?) into his stomach while making unflinching eye contact with him at so close a range that you can actually feel his beard against your face while you smile like the fucking Joker, just so he can see how much you're enjoying it? I think that would have been pretty neat.

Actually, I have decided at least that much for myself - I wouldn't have used a gun. I would have used a blade of some kind. And I would have done it niiiiiiiiiiiice and slooooooooow. I'd want him to see what most of his internal physiology looks like strewn about the floor before the gray-rain curtain of this world rolled back for him.

Your thoughts are highly encouraged here.

- BACK TO FOOTBALL FOR A SECOND

Remember when a bunch of Eagles fans abandoned the team in favor of the Pittsburgh Steelers because they just couldn't support a franchise that employs Michael Vick? HA! What do you have to say for yourselves now? Your quaterback is a rapist and your running back is an abject disgrace of a human being. Have fun with the black and yellow. You deserve each other.

- THE UNFORTUNATE TEMPORTARY NATURE OF THINGS

It's a shame that the sense of fierce patriotism currently coursing through my veins and through those of so many other Americans these last few days is ultimately fleeting. A few weeks from now, the American flags that are once again flapping in the Spring breeze will be folded up and placed back in the trunk in the basement, the stickers on the bumpers of the cars of the commuting American workforce will be either peeled off or replaced with a "Philadelphia Flyers, 2011 Eastern Conference Champions" sticker or something like that, gold-trimmed "USA" pins will be taken off our lapels, national anthems at sporting events will once again be echoed in the stands with the usual disinterested monotone, and everything will go back to the comfortable way it was before May 1st. In other words, I'm glad we're celebrating this, and I bet we'll remember what happened every May 1st for many years, but I'm just saying - wouldn't it be nice if people were this overtly proud ALL the time?

II. DESPITE WHAT MY BROTHER TELLS ME, I'M NOT ADOPTED...

In fact, I can say conclusively that I am indeed the biological offspring of Anne and the judge. I know this because my parents have recently taking a liking to regaling me with detailed stories about their sexual encounters in the early 1980's. Relax, I'm kidding ('Nice to see you haven't lost any of your, ummm, charm.' Thank you). Actually, though Bill (my older brother) occasionally still insists that I am the product of my mom's mysterious relationship with the mailman, I know I'm really the fruit of the judge's loins because with each passing day - and at a much more accelerated pace over the past year - I am noticing that I am undoubtedly transforming into my old man. Sadly, this is not exactly what I had in mind when I always said I wanted to be a transformer.... It's fucking crazy, but it's noticeable in all aspects of my daily life. Allow me to illustrate with some examples:

- Laughter: I used to make fun of people who snort when they laugh, so you can imagine the fun I've had over the years at the judge's expense since he never actually "laughs;" he only snorts. The louder and more rapid the snorts, the more amusing/funny he finds the joke/situation. It's weird... And wouldn't ya know it, over the past six months or so, I've noticed that when I'm laughing really hard, I occasionally experience snorting fits, sometimes so violent that I sound like a congested pig trying to ram lines of cocaine up his snout...That's right.

- Snoring: If this were an Olympic sport, the Mazzola house would be a gleaming, golden beacon of victory. Again, it used to be funny to me that I could hear him snoring in his room. Now, you might think that this is no big deal as many people can hear others snoring in their bedrooms. Yeah, well what I didn't tell you is that I could hear him snoring while I was still down the block playing basketball and he was passed out in the living room watching "Horatio Hornblower" (again) on A&E or some shit... Predictably, for about a year now, I've occasionally woken myself up to the unfortunate sound of my own "labored breathing," as the judge likes to put it. When this happens, I typically whisper "I can't fucking believe this just happened again," and I pass back out immediately. Ironically, passing out immediately is also a habit mastered by the judge.

- Phantom head-itchiness: This goes hand-in-hand with the snorting laughter in a way, but I think it's sufficiently funny to warrant its own section. In other words, when the judge launches into pig-junky laughter time, he also routinely starts to aggressively scratch the top of his head. Not because he's befuddled, but seriously just to give his left hand something to do while laughing. With that in mind, I've never stopped laughing so abruptly as I did the first time I realized I was doing this as well. While I can't remember what I was laughing at, I can remember feeling my eyes widen as they tend to do when you experience a shocking realization, and I remember slowly removing my hand form my head, bringing it down in front of my face, and just staring in disbelief at my open palm. This singular act really made me start to feel like maybe, just maybe, the mailman wasn't involved in my conception at all....

- Hobbies: Recently, I've discovered that there aren't enough crossword puzzles on the fucking planet to satisfy me. In related news, guess who else would love nothing more than to have an endless supply of crossword puzzles at his disposal?...

- Mannerisms: Speaking of crossword puzzles, and really any intellectually stimulating activity at all that can be done sitting down, the judge loves to bounce his legs while doing them. You know what I mean; it's the same action the proverbial grandpa does when he's bouncing his young grandson on his knee. Yeah, that. He does that. Sometimes just the left. Occasionally just the right. Most of the time it's both, and when it's both, half of those times he alternates right and left, and the other half the legs are bouncing in exact synchronization. Now, I've actually been doing this for quite some time - I can even remember a time in grade school while taking a test I noticed an irritating squeaking noise. It wasn't until several minutes later when I couldn't stand it anymore that I looked up to find that my foot was bouncing on one of the legs of the desk in front of me, causing the noise. So I've had plenty of years to come to grips with this one, no problem.... The part that gets me now is that the judge, when thinking hard, and sometimes simply when reading, will put the tips of four fingers (all except the pinky) of his left hand on the top left corner of his forehead and keep them there indefinitely. Typically, there's a pen wedged between two of these fingers, and the hand is only removed so to write in another crossword puzzle answer. Naturally, I now find myself doing the same thing, albeit occasionally with my right hand instead of my left. By the way, in case you were wondering, while sitting here thinking about writing this blog post, both my legs are bouncing in unison at a furious rate, and when I take a minute to proofread the paragraphs I finish to ensure they're worded they way I like - thereby giving me a chance to remove my right hand from the keyboard - you betcha, four fingers right on my fuckin' forehead. And lastly, the big one....

- Argument Style: Now, one could fairly suggest that this is something that is just as likely assimilated via a lifetime of direct communication/interaction as it is a product of genetics, but I think the fact that our faces become contorted in exactly the same way, our involuntary hand motions are identical, etc. strongly suggest the latter. Either way, the similarities here are almost eery. We both get loud without realizing it, we are both absolutely relentless when we feel the need to be ('AKA all the friggin' time'), and we both have that annoying tendency to persist until the opposing party acquiesces, shuts down, or otherwise admits defeat - even if we're wrong, which is an almost unfathomably rare occurence. However, the judge's win percentage in the sport of playful debate has dipped considerably in recent years as yours truly has become equally proficient at it. In other words, the proverbial student has long since been the master. Still, despite this, the judge will inexplicably engage in debate with me when I pay he and Anne a visit, and....well...long story short, that's why his win percentage has declined.

A final note here, I realize that this lengthy blog item has essentially amounted to one light-hearted and ringing endorsement of my old man, which is a sweet and tender idea. The only problem is that I'm not nearly that sweet and tender. With that in mind, allow me to point out that I'm way better than the judge at everything from crossword puzzles to accurately quoting Lord of the Rings to raining justice down upon the wicked. I just choose sometimes to afford him the luxury of self-confidence, which is why he remains in the eyes of many a scholarly and sometimes intimidating pillar of knowledge and justice. That's right, you all can thank ME (and Bill to a degree as well, but I see/verbally squash the judge more frequently these days) for your lofty opinion of him. If I were to remind him that he's not even on the same intellectual plane as me, it would crush him. Like Gandalf did to the balrog, I would smite his ruin upon a mountainside.

And so that's how I know I'm not adopted....Actually, wait, all I've done is confirm that I know who my old man is. And since I'm becoming so much like him, I haven't even noticed that I'm not becoming more like Anne in any way. Shit, suddenly I'm not so sure Anne is my real mom. Dammit!

III. QUICK HITTERS

- "Wunderkind" is a word I could seriously do without. First, it just sounds stupid, and if you say it with any kind of regularity, I'm betting that you're stupid as well. Second, and just as frustratingly, there are so many dumb people in the world who will hear this word said aloud for the first time, convince themselves that the speaker of the word must have said "wonder kid," misunderstand this phrase as an acceptable conversational term, and will then proceed to sound like a shmuck for an indefinite amount of time. And that just fuckin' irks me. Real bad. Like when people say "let's play it by year" or something like that. There isn't a word in existence that adequately conveys how much I want throw people off a cliff when this happens.

- I recently had a sore throat, so I took Chloraseptic for the first time in my life ('Really? First time ever?' Yes, that's what I said!). It wasn't until several minutes after I used it that I read the directions on the bottle; specifically the part that tells you to "spray once" and "not to swallow." I really wish I had read that beforehand, because then I possibly could have avoided spraying five/six times, swallowing it, then stomping, quickly fanning my face with my hands, and making incomprehensible whining/baby noises like Buddy the Elf when he tries the fruit spray. Because that's EXACTLY what happened.

- I am such a pathetically loyal Philadelphia sports fan that I realized if I had both a Delorian and the sports almanac from Back to the Future, I'd go back in time and STILL bet on the Eagles to win the Super Bowl. Ya know, just in case. Like I said, pathetic.

- Am I the only one (other than Jenn) who watched that show "V" on abc? Ya know, the one about alien lizards that disguise themselves as exceedingly sexy women? Sounds like such a cerebral show, I know... I think Jenn and I might be the only ones who watched it religiously though, honestly. Either way, the first season just ended with a pretty serious cliffhanger, but unfortunately it looks like the show isn't going to be renewed, leaving me with an irritating bevy of unanswered questions to which I would really like to acquire some sense of resolution lest I eventually claw my eyeballs out wondering what would have happened ('You'd seriously wonder about this?' Yes, I would. Otherwise, how are we gonna know what to do when the REAL aliens invade?) So, with this in mind, a plea: if you've watched the show - hell, even if you haven't! - please submit to me a possible resolution so that I may eventually convince myself that whatever you say is indeed what would have ultimately happened. I just need something. Help me. Whatever you say I won't get mad, for "I am of peace...always."

- During a pre-game tailgating "block party" before a recent Flyers game, I asked a woman on stilts if her boyfriend likes to go up on her. I thought this was funny.

- I don't often remember my dreams, but I do regularly seem to recall that I have trouble running during them. Why is that? I mean, I've had dreams where I'm walking, jumping, driving, having sex, having sex while walking/jumping/driving, etc. So why can't I run? Is there something to all that? What does it mean? Does it mean that I should learn to slow down? Does it mean that there are some things I don't like in life that I can't outrun? Somebody tell me....And no, I have not had the dream where I'm falling.

IV. AN EPIC STORY

One morning, Gregor Samsa awoke to find that he had transformed into a giant bug. Realizing that whatever events could possibly henceforth transpire would make for a wildly overrated story that's so saturated with thick and unnecessary symbolism that you could actually choke to death on it, Gregor stayed in bed and decided to hold his breath until he died. THE END!

V. THERE'S A HIPPO IN MY BEER







Take a look at this picture. This was my view of my glass of Sam Adams Noble Pils. When I looked at it, I saw the head of a hippo. Can you see it?




VI. GOD IS A SQUIRREL
I don't want to sound like a dirty hippie trying desperately and in vain to appear psychologically liberated, overly free-spirited, or abstract or anything, but I had a (very sarcastic, almost frivolous) conversation recently about what comes next when we die. Both myself and my partner in dialogue - I think it was Bill, and I think we were on our way to a Sixers game - agreed that its overwhelmingly likely that no religion has it exactly right, and that whatever comes next (if anything at all) is probably so far different and beyond what we can comprehend that it's almost ridiculous to assume we, as humans, can ever acquire even a moderate understanding of it...

...But ending the conversation there, while perhaps logical, just isn't any fun. And so we kept talking. First, Bill wondered aloud, "Yo, seriously how fucked up would it be if the Muslims end up having it right? And when we die, we're addressed by a spirit who calls himself Allah, and the Quran is 100% correct, and there are all these dark-skinned virgins waiting for us, etc?" We laughed at this thought, and we both agreed that if presented with this afterlife, we'd both say something "Are you fucking KIDDING ME? Islam had it right the whole time? Hahaha, that's crazy! Get the fuck outta here! What's next, you gonna tell Han shot first?" (If you don't get the reference, go watch Star Wars). And then we'd laugh a lot both at our apparent ignorance and at the complete mind-fuck that awaits all our friends when they die. Then, I guess we'd go to a mosque in downtown heaven somewhere or something, or grow a big, gnarly beard, or go ride a camel, or learn why all crazy Muslims have three names - one of which is inexplicably always Aziz or Bin, - or whatever else Muslims do every day.

Taking it a few steps further, while Islam is just an objectively bonkers institution, I suggested that it would be just insane if God turned out to be a giant celestial squirrel in outer space. Imagine that for a second. During your mortal life, you inevitably wonder to a large extent about what the afterlife is like, what heaven is like, what God is like, if there are angels, if you'll see deceased loved ones again, etc. And you probably do so for at least a few minutes or so every week. Then you die, aaaaaaaaand woops, God's a squirrel. How would you react? Would you get angry and say something like "Jesus, all that fucking time stressing and wondering what comes next, and you're a fucking SQUIRREL IN SPACE!? Son of a bitch!" I bet that'd be a natural reaction.

After that, and after your head stopped spinning, I bet it'd be natural to ask questions like "Are you always a squirrel in space, or do you only appear that way for now to remind us newly deceased people that all of our earthly endeavors were/are "nuts" (zing!) in the grand scheme of things?" And if God replies that he simply always has been and always will be a squirrel, what do you do then? Do you just accept it and float around space with him forever? That'd be crazy, right? It's fun to think of things like this, and it's good for you too, because whatever you think comes next, I promise you you're wrong. So you're better off preparing for the unexpected/insane/unbelievable. Just don't say I didn't warn ya....Squirrels, dude. Squirrels.

Then we got to the Sixers game and got kinda drunk. Oh, and the Sixers won. Fuck Lebron James.

VII. DISNEY WORLD

I just got back from Walt Disney World, and I can say with no hesitation that it was one of the greatest five-days periods of my life. I'm not going to get incredibly sappy on you here. Just suffice it to say that if you were there as a child, it's worth going back. Also, if you just so happen to go there with somebody you love, it's that much better. You just gotta trust me here.

I'm not going to get into detail about what rides were cool, what sucked, which parks and attractions you should hit first, etc. I'll just tell you that the atmosphere there is such that you will find yourself helplessly, though gratefully, and relentlessly trying to, nay, forcing yourself to conjure the Disney memories from your childhood that you had previously believed were long gone and lost forever. And upon seeing/hearing/doing something that actually allows you to successfully re-remember one, you're then immediately greeted with a feeling of pure euphoria, exactly like the first time you lived it, if only for a period of time so brief that it feels like half of an instant.

In other words, to me as an adult, there may not be any objective appeal to the idea of a large series of fountains in Epcot Center that randomly spit out arking, snake-like bursts of water, but when I walked by them on Monday morning, put my hand in them, and saw a couple of actual six-year-olds playing in them, there was a moment - again, too brief to really describe - when I actually felt like it was 1989, and I welcomed the sense of uncorrupted happiness that suddenly washed over me as I remembered when I was the six-year-old boy playing in that very fountain, proudly sporting my brand new Donald Duck baseball cap and everything.

I don't know why it's so amazing/compelling, but it is, and definitively so, that all these years later, that same fountain is still right there doing the same exact thing. And so is Space Mountain. And so if the giant golf ball thing. And so is Muppet-Vision. And so is the monorail that takes you to the Contemporary Resort so you can have lunch with the characters. And so are the Mickey-shaped breakfast waffles. And so is Main Street USA in the Magic Kingdom. And so are all the other details you remember that once collaborated to bring you the best time/feeling of your life. Like they're all frozen in time. Actually, that's kind of what it's like when you're there - frozen in time. Perhaps that's why it so often felt like no time had passed; like I hadn't grown up at all. So many times I found myself just as enraptured by the enormity of it all as I was way back when. The only difference is that this time I didn't need mommy to hold my hand while daddy told me where to go and when I'm allowed to take a bathroom break....Well, that, and also this time I could get really drunk at all the different countries in Epcot.

And when it came time to go, I was just as upset as I was in 1989. Not because I had to go back to work, but just because I simply didn't want to leave it all behind again. Still, I managed to peel myself away and head back home, comforted by the fact that I know I can go back again, and everything will be as I left it... exactly as I left it. And I'll get to be six years old for a third time. I can't wait.

If you think this last bit here makes me soft, I humbly suggest you go fuck yourself.

Alright, that's all for now. 'Til next time, Rashard Mendenhall is a douchebag.

Dago out.