Weiner 'n' tweets

You’d think a guy eager to keep his blog fresh with timely observations about any national silliness would be all over the Weiner tweets.

But, right there, you just read part of my reluctance.

Just typing Weiner tweets feels unseemly.

I can’t get my hands around the Weiner tweets -- and I just don’t want to.

Is is a right wing prank? It certainly seems to be. Rep. Anthony Weiner -- and I’m relieved his parents didn’t call him Peter -- is an inviting target. He’s Sen. Chuck Schumer’s former spokesman, he’s a self-righteous and often whiney liberal and, hey, his name is Weiner.

Hacking his twitter account and posting a picture of his excited namesake inside his underwear would seem a natural, one I’d applaud as juvenile fun.

But I don’t know what to make of his many non-denial denials. It’s bizarre. If he wants to keep the mini-scandal percolating along he’s doing what can only be termed a swell job (I’m not touching that one either).

I know the idiot press in D.C. is loving it because it gives them an opportunity to pretend they’re witty. Indeed they are, but only to one another.

I think the rest of America just doesn’t care one way or the other.

There’s a whole lot of people out there who have no idea what Twitter even is. So they don’t care.

Then there’s a whole lot of people out there who use smart phones and Twitter to post naughty pictures of themselves for the whole e-world to critique. So they don’t care either.

Weiner’s said his political ambition is to become mayor of New York City and this will do nothing to derail that goal.

And I think he’d be a great Gotham mayor. He’s colorful, intelligent and his heart’s in the right place even when other bodily parts of him are not.

Here’s a dozen of my recent tweets from 8days2amish:

• Time doesn't fly. It drives a Maserati down the Autobahn, oblivious to the brick strapped to the accelerator.

• If some people suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome then it stands to reason that those of us who do not enjoy cheerful bowels.

• The Simon & Garfunkle song "The Sound of Silence" is 3 minutes and 4 seconds of titular contradiction.

• Hawaiians complaining about high gas prices. What? Has Hawaii run out of hammocks?

• Just wondering: will the change from incandescent to compact fluorescent have any effect on light years?

• Not only is Buddy Guy a blues legend, he also has one of the greatest names in history. Who wouldn't want to be friends with a Buddy Guy?

• Older gentleman friend told me he'd be unable to meet tomorrow because of scheduled colonoscopy. "Bummer," I said and wished I hadn't.

• Avid spankers are the only people on earth whose ambition involves repeatedly hitting bottom.

• It took a while, but today I finally saw a watched pot boil.

• Rick Santorum saying John McCain doesn't understand interrogation is like saying Eskimos don't understand snow.

• I think Obama Mideast speech would have more soulful impact if delivered dressed like Nat X, the old Chris Rock character from '90s SNL.

• Maybe the Rapture did occur and there were only like five or six Christians deemed worthy of saving.

• My great dread for the future is all the kids will think it's quaint when we say, "I remember when all the TVs had just 1,000 channels."

• Rhode Island isn't even Rhode Isthmus.

• Red Sox play White Sox tonight. I'll root for neither team. I don't cheer for underwear.

• It's better to be cool than cold, yet most people strive to be hot rather than warm. It's all very mercurial.

• Spouses who fake sleep to get out of either household chores or late night sex are bulldozers.

• Butcher tried to sell me cured ham. Told him I wanted ham that'd never been sick. He looked at me like I was crazy. He must've had sick ham.

• Enjoy a relaxing Sunday! That's not a tweet, but the sentiment is twue.

Talking to nudists about Casual Fridays

So I’ve been yammering on the phone with nudists all week and I can’t get a satisfying answer to one burning question: What do nudists do on casual Fridays?

It turns out most nudists -- even those toiling in nudist professions -- wear clothes to work. It must mean every wage earner needs a place to shove their keys, their cell phones, etc.

Well, a comfortable place.

It doesn’t seem right. But I guess even those who are always nude couldn’t possibly dress down any further without shaving.

Four days after I wrote a story about my disdain for being surrounded by unshapely people in skimpy swimwear, I’m writing an msnbc.com travel story celebrating people who wear nothing at all.

And, hey, until the phones all transmit hi-def visuals, I’m into it.

So if I talk to a female representative of the American Association for Nude Recreation in Kissimmee, Florida -- and I love that a nudist organization is located in a town with “Kiss” in its name -- I can let my imagination roam.

I can imagine she’s about 29 with the body of an Olympian volleyballer without all the pesky tan lines. She’s certainly a free spirit, open-minded, loves Barack.

I’m thinking phone sex could break out at any minute and the day’s been a bit of a bore so that might be fun.

Of course, the nudists all stress that nudity has nothing to do with sex.

I can’t wrap my head around the notion. It goes against everything I’ve ever stood for, not to mention lay down with romantic aspirations for. 

But true nudists make a point to distinguish themselves from swingers, swappers and other randy danglers.

“If a man starts getting aroused, he needs to wrap a towel around himself, lay down on his stomach or leave the area,” she said. 

It turns out the only thing nudists are truly interested in raising is awareness.

“We’re all born nudists,” said an elderly California gentleman, a retired physician. “Being nude has physical, spiritual and emotional benefits. The doors and walls all disappear and pretty soon we’re all playing like kids again.”

He recalled a story about how a man he described as curious was in the room with his naked wife -- and curiosity is the go-to emotion for most any man in a room with any naked woman.

“He said he felt uncomfortable because she was naked and he found her attractive. I said, ‘Well, would you be attracted to her if she was wearing clothes?’ He said yes. I asked, well, how is this any different?”

At this point, I wonder if he was forced to retire from the medical profession for gross incompetence.

I can see a mighty big difference between a woman wearing clothes and one not wearing any.

Let me modify that: I’d enjoy seeing the difference between a woman wearing clothes and one not wearing any.

But given the morality standards at a typical nudist resort he has a point. He says accepted behavioral codes are enforced and a nudist resort fits somewhere between church and a bar in regards to sexual mingling.

I was surprised to learn there is a thriving nude cruise industry. All the top cruise lines have devoted big ships to nude-exclusive groups involving hundreds of passengers.

It’s been going on for 20 years.

Traveling nudists is a niche market I’d never considered. I asked if they packed as much clothing as non-nudists and was disappointed to learn they do.

You’d think an increase in traveling nudists would cut overhead bin burdens by 85 percent. Why pack beach or dinner duds to visit to a nudist resort?

The conversations were uniformly lively, if uniform’s a word you can use to describe people without clothes. I can now say that while I may not be a nudist, I’ll certainly embrace them. Well, most of them.

I didn’t want to end the calls on a downer topic that, to me, is of even greater philosophical interest than what a nudist wears on casual Fridays:

What do you see when you look in the coffin of a dead nudist?

I contend if you see a cheap suit then you’re looking at some body who’s lived a lie.

Expense accounting the national spelling bee

In keeping with my week-old pledge to add more to the mix, this is a timely Spelling Bee rerun from 2009. The stats page told me somebody was peeking at it and thought I'd toss it up in case anyone is interested in how generous I am with other people's money.

As many Americans watched last week’s National Spelling Bee and wondered how children could correctly spell so many polysyllabic words and why most of those that do look like Mumbai extras from “Slumdog Millionaire,” I had more altruistic thoughts.

I wondered how the hundreds of children whose lives I altered for the better are doing today. I wondered how many of them have gone on to to be doctors, educators or noble philanthropists. I wondered if any of them remember me in their prayers.

You see the annual National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., has for more than 20 years been a hallmark event in my life. It’s an annual commemoration of two weeks in consecutive years when I did more good on behalf of my fellow man than the sum entirety my misspent life.

It was my first experience with an expense account and I learned something illuminating about myself.

I’m a hell of a lot of fun with someone else’s money.

I was a rookie reporter at the now-defunct Nashville Banner, and there’s a perhaps coincidental pattern of places that can be described as now-defunct that once entrusted me with the company loot.

I vividly remember the top editor approaching me while I feigned industriousness by carrying on a pretend phone interview into a dead receiver. I said a polite goodbye to the imaginary subject, set the phone down and looked up. Yes, boss?

“The guy who’s covered the National Spelling Bee for the past 10 years is sick of it. We want you to fly to Washington, chaperone our entrant and write stories about the bee,” he said.

The Banner building had no windows. One editor described days there as similar to being on board a submarine during a long voyage beneath the Arctic circle. I was always thrilled to get outside and enjoy the sweet Tennessee sunshine. That’s why I was so crushed by the boss’s offer.

I’m sorry, I said, but I just can’t afford to fly to Washington and stay in a hotel myself, let alone pay for some poindexter spelling champ.

“Idiot,” he said, “the paper pays for everything. You’ll have an expense account.”

It was a watershed moment in my life. As I’ve truthfully said many times, my idea of a splurge at the time was pizza with pepperoni and sausage. To think that I was going to be let loose in a glamorous city with ample bags of someone else’s money was like some kindly bandit had cut me in on the spree following the bank holdup, an analogy you’ll see is rather apt.

I remember checking into the Capital Hilton and finding a fully stocked bar brimming with dozens of top shelf little bottles of hootch.

Eureka! I thought. I shoveled them all into my suitcase, figuring housekeeping would assume I was a thirsty guy and would re-stock the next morning and we’d begin repeating the procedure for the next five days. And that’s exactly what happened. I didn’t know that each tiny bottle carried a $3 to $5 fee.

With a crisp $20 and bright smile, I became best friends with Pierre the hotel concierge. Over the course of the week, I had a dozen or so conversations with Pierre and every one of them included some form of the line, “Say, Pierre, where can I find the best (lobster, steak, cigars) in town.”

My father was vicariously thrilled with my experience. He called to advise me to attend the Kennedy Center premier of The Caine Mutiny Court Marshall starring Charleton Heston Henry Fonda. Pierre expertly secured me one of the scarce tickets. And this was cool -- President Reagan and wife Nancy were there, too!

My balcony seat was directly above Reagan’s box. I’ll never forget the moment he entered. More than four thousand people rose, turned toward me and began wildly applauding. From my perspective, it looked like they were looking right at me.

I felt so overcome with warmth, I couldn’t help myself. I waved and took a little bow.

Really, after four days on the expense account, word could have gotten around and they may have been applauding for me and not Reagan. As a representative of the Banner, I felt it would have reflected poorly on the institution if I was a cheap tipper, even if the pious old prick who owned the place was a notorious cheapskate.

All the while, I filed a bunch of fun stories about our contestant to cover my rear. It was one of those rare and wonderful occasions where I could be professional for about two hours each afternoon and still get away with being excessive fun for the remainder of the sleepless days and nights spent enriching hardworking bartenders and wait staff at various posh establishments.

As good as the stories were, nothing endeared me to the Banner staff more than word about my stupendous party expenditures.

The color drained from my editor’s face when I handed him the total.

“It’s breathtaking,” he said.

It was the first time anything I’d ever done had been compared with the Grand Canyon.

Oh, it’s not that bad, I said.

“It cost less to cover the Super Bowl!”

After that, they wouldn’t let me out of the building to cover a barn fire. It looked like my spelling bee run would end at one.

Then three weeks before the next year’s bee, the girl who’d been designated to go abruptly quit.

I sat down at my computer and instantly composed what was the best thing I’ve ever written in my life. It may have been the best thing anyone’s ever written.

Because I convinced them to risk the company solvency to let me go again. I didn’t do it because I enjoyed living the high life on the company teat. I didn’t do it because I was hankering lobster at Harvey’s or prime rib at The Palm.

I did it because Pierre’d sent me a Christmas card saying his son was going to need braces.

We’re numb to stories of idealists who leave heartland homes and go to Washington and become jaded cogs in the corrupt system.

I’m a guy who can always say he went to Washington and made a real difference.

The True Adventures of a Money Repellent's lost wallet

I’d already scoured the house about 15 times when I thought it was time to dissect the dog.

Maybe my wallet was in there, the only place I hadn’t already looked.

But that would be messy and, man, I’d look like a really bad father if the leather wasn’t in there.

So I put the knife back in the drawer and as I’d done for much of the previous hour told myself, “Think, idiot! Think!”

Then it clicked.

I’d had the wallet and a two-page printout of a news story with me when I went to buckle the girls in Val’s car before they departed for school.

I dimly remembered setting the wallet and the papers on the trunk. I walked along the driveway. Nothing. I looked along the yard. Nothing. Then there down the street, I saw a sheet of white paper pinned to a jagger bush along the road.

It was the second page of the print out.

My wife and I pay the bills together, but our finances are totally separate. It’s worked for nearly 15 years of marriage and has prevented Valerie from dissecting me to learn if I have a brain.

We couldn’t be more different about money.

She’s very careful with her money. I contend I am, too, but in a more Buddhist sort of way.

I consider having gone nearly 20 years without a real job or steady paycheck an amazing achievement. Sure, plenty of other people have done that, too. But most of them don’t have homes, families, or fat and happy scrapbooks with memories from great vacations.

I’ve come to the conclusion I’m a fun magnet, but a money repellent. And that’s how I deal with life.

Life will allow me lots of fun and friendship if I understand it’s never going to allow me a lot of loot.

So you can sense the difficulty of informing her -- someone who sort of shouts “Boo-yah!” when her checkbook balances to the penny -- that my wallet and $125 cash were gone.

I’d spent the previous day on a South Side frolic with a friend from New York City, the one who was hosting me in Manhattan the day I nearly died from dim sum.

He’s one of the cheapest people on the planet, but also one of the most entertaining.

So I always carry more than the usual amount of cash when I’m going to see him. The sum was what I had left.

Squandering money on cheap friends of dubious character is one thing. But just setting it free on the breeze was very upsetting.

To me, too, sure. Then there was this.

I have an unshakeable faith in my fellow man. I really do.

I was confident someone would either find it and turn it in intact or we’d find it along the side of the road.

Guess what happened.

“Some guy found it and returned it,” she said later over the phone. “He said there was $5 in it. He left a note and a number.”

It was a guy from a nearby road crew. The wallet had ridden the rumble seat for nearly a mile before ejecting.

My initial theory was that finding my wallet inspired an unusual ethical conversation amongst a group of young men whose usual chats center on how many Jager bombs it takes to get women to start removing their clothes.

I speculated they said, hey, let’s return the wallet and tell the guy all that was in was the five.

But after talking to Phil I believe he told me the truth. He said they found the wallet splashed on the side of the road. Its contents scattered. That means I believe him when he tells me two $50s and a $20 blew away and only a $5 remained.

Really, being such a money repellent, I’m surprised the bigger bills didn’t vanish and the measly $5 didn’t magically turn into three quarters and four cents.

“I never even thought of keeping it,” he said. “I saw your driver’s license and just drove it right to your house.”

I asked Phil for his address. I’m going to send him a check for $25 along with a little note to his kids advising them  their Dad’s a good man and to listen when he tells them about the difference between right and wrong.

As for the bills, who knows?

I can only hope they blow around the globe until they’re seized by a good man, a family man, someone who is as conscientious as he is generous.

Someone like Phil.

So the best I can hope for is that maybe one day Phil and I will meet in a friendly tavern and we’ll hit it off. Maybe he’ll buy me a beer or two with some of the money that was once in my pocket and flew around the world into his.

Thus ends another episode in my life as a fun magnet/money repellent.

Who knows what adventures today will bring?

I’m sure my poor wife will find it thrilling.

Playing skyline Scrabble in Pittsburgh

I gaze upon the spectacular skyline of Pittsburgh and think of board games. Not Monopoly, as you might expect or other pastimes involving skyscrapers and property values.

Nope. I think of Scrabble.

I think how can I take all these massive letters littering the view and string together some words to express my contempt.

Travel experts routinely include Pittsburgh among the list of the most beautiful cities in the world. It also does well in literacy rankings.

It ought to. You can’t stare at the photogenic city without being forced to read the names of all the corporations intent on making their names even more ubiquitous.

There’s UPMC, BNY MELLON, HIGHMARK, K&L GATES, CITIZENS BANK, FEDERATED and on and on and on.

Of course, it’s mostly done in that ANNOYING ALL CAPS style that never fails to tick off us connoisseurs of subtlety.

Where did it all begin?

Blame PNC Park (more evidence of disgraceful corporate naming shenanigans).

It’s the jewel-like ballpark along the north shore banks of the Allegheny River and home to the Pittsburgh Pirates -- and let’s save picking on them and whipping boy owner Bob Nutting for another day.

When the park opened in 2000, architectural critics immediately hailed it as the most beautiful in America. Magazines featured lavish hitter’s eye view pictures from home plate.

It dazzles still. There’s the diamond, the lush outfield, and soaring in the background across the river the mingled mix of old and new, brick and glass, rustic and refined that combine to make the city’s dynamic skyline.

The park is magnificent enough to be a popular site for elegant weddings. I attended one of them -- best of everything always to Howard and Mary! -- and I couldn’t have had a more splendid time.

The food was sumptuous and the appointments exquisite. And as for the view from the club level lounges, well, Will and Kate should have had it so good.

In 10 years, the vista has become the second most photographed spot in Pittsburgh, second only to the sublime shot of the city from atop Mt. Washington.

But whenever you point a camera at anything in America today there’s always bound to be a marketing guru ready to spring into the viewfinder intent on waving the name of some insurance company to spoil the scenery.

That’s what happened in Pittsburgh. Because of baseball and its designation to host often high-profile events like the G-20 in 2009, the city is frequently featured in the national news.

That’s good. I want people everywhere to know why I love Pittsburgh.

But in an age that exaggerates the importance of name recognition over accomplishment -- think Charlie Sheen or Donald Trump -- corporate overlords sensed opportunity.

They instigated a rash of placing their neon names atop once majestic skyscrapers Pittsburghers already instinctively knew.

It’d be like if our neighbors got BOB and SUE tattooed on their foreheads to remind us of their existence.

And where do they get all these giant letters?

Is there a big letter store somewhere you call and place an order?

“Yeah, I need an M, an E, two Ls, an O and an N sent over to Grant Street. What’s that? You’re running a special on Qs? I know a VP over at COMQUEST. Let me see if he’ll go in with me. OK?”

I imagine delivery of all these letters coming down the interstate on the back of a trailer would look like some PBS learn-to-read special or maybe a page from the colorful children’s book, “CHICK-A-CHICK-A BOOM! BOOM!”

I’m always tempted to tinker with the sign lettering down at the local elementary school so instead of a cheerfully educational slogan about reading it'll say something like, “WE ROAST CHILDREN HERE!”

But the obnoxious corporate branding of the city I love has me thinking of something more monumental.

I’m going to get a helicopter and surreptitiously maneuver it around the city until I can fix some of the massive letters together in a sign that reads: “THIS LOOKS REALLY CHEESY!”

I’ll just have to be careful I don’t inadvertently contribute to the problem by stringing the letters up atop a building that houses Kraft Foods.

Noah at the wave pool

It was a bit unsettling to be at a popular area water park standing in line behind a man with “Noah” tattooed on his left shoulder.

Could this be the Biblical patriarch who saved humanity from the Great Flood? Did he come to a water park to see all he had wrought?

But I concluded this was not that Noah.

From all the depictions I’ve seen that Noah would have worn a long robe. I’ve never seen any scripturally-derived paintings of Noah sipping a Pina Colada from a coconut on the ark’s Lido Deck in an old Hebrew Speedo.

Perhaps tattoo Noah was a supporter of the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation (NOAH), the support group for people dealing with that perplexing skin condition.

That would have been surprising, too. Like so many park patrons, his skin was lobster pink.

This Noah wasn’t even wearing any SPF 15.

You do a lot of thinking standing in line to enter a wave pool called Wowabunga!

In this sea of humanity, there’d be much more humanity than sea. I think if people were sentenced to endure what me and multitudes did yesterday the ACLU would file a class action suit.

But if people pay $32 and wait in line to do it, they for budgetary reasons convince themselves they’re having fun.

Well, I sure wasn’t.

I don’t like being amidst that many people when they’re fully clothed.

We’re taught that fashions come and go, but that immutable fact doesn’t seem to apply to swimwear.

It just keeps getting skimpier and skimpier even as our bodies get more and more expansive.

We’ve shed all our humility, but not our love handles.

Now add wave pools to the mix. They’re wonderful fun, but the ocean motion causes already flimsy garments to come undone and reveal parts of the body that should only be seen by paid medical personnel.

What would it take for the full-body one-piece to make a fashion come back? Would unsightly sunbathers don one for a fee, say if we all chipped in?

Doubtful.

Since it doesn’t look like the old one piece is ever going to make a stylish return, then perhaps we’ll have to consider legislative alternatives.

Revealing swimsuits, both male and female, could only be sold with a prescription from a qualified physician.

There’s a reason why most acts of human conception take place in the pitch dark. Seeing what we all look like in broad daylight is a turnoff obstacle to romantic coupling.

Yet there’s something about a public pool that encourages us to let it all hang out.

I have to think if Noah were around to see all he’d wrought he’d be dismayed.

He’d at least have to reconsider what he’d done, that maybe mankind, once so full of promise and vitality, wasn’t worth preserving.

Maybe he’d let the animals go two-by-two to populate the planet, but he’d think twice about unleashing man on a world still bewitched by water.

Sure, lions, hippos and elephants can all act like real animals.

But no one’s ever had to endure watching them adjust a thong after a Wowabunga wave unsettled their goodies.

Thanks, vets! Happy Memorial Day!

I’m giving into the warm inertia of holiday laziness by not posting a fresh Memorial Day story.

If you’re interested in reading one of those, you can do so here from 2009 (serious) or here from 2010 (silly).

But I just don’t have it in me today to conjure another one of those.

I feel sort of guilty about that.

Right now brave Americans are ducking bullets in some of the most inhospitable places on the planet. They are away from their heartsick families, their recreations and all the fat relaxing I intend to enjoy today.

They can’t play with their daughters or take them the new wave pool at Idlewild Amusement Park as I’ll be doing.

They can’t sit in a hammock and sip a beer, toke on a stogie, and listen to the Pirate game, which I have scheduled for 7 p.m.

If they’re digging any holes in the ground, it won’t be to plant flowers and tomatoes and other vegetables like we’re going to do today as a family. No, if they’re doing any digging it’ll be for protective purposes.

They’re in hostile war zones fighting to protect my freedom of speech and I’m too lazy to even exercise it.

But I will take time to say my prayers and be sure to include ones that God will protect them, their families and all the men and women who’ve ever served so I can enjoy such a splendid little life in the greatest and most exuberant country the world’s ever known.

Thank you, vets. Happy Memorial Day.