Perfect matches for imperfect people

In the future, newborns will be implanted with forehead bar codes that can be scanned with iPhone apps to eventually reveal things like name, astrological sign, political disposition, cereal preference and current level of sexual arousal.

And, dammit, guys like me will still struggle to get laid.

I’m so far removed from the horny dating scene that I should be restricted from ever commenting upon it. Yet the topic is irresistible to veteran social observers like me.

Everywhere we look we see loneliness, divorce, heartbreak and longing. Much of the social networking designed to facilitate getting together instead foils the connection. A quick Google search indicates inclusion in a nerdy Star Trek Facebook group and a cold, texted break up message quickly follows.

That’s why I’m fearful of the folly that believes there’s any way to get two people together that doesn’t involve the introduction of lots and lots of liquor, which is how I wound up married with two children lo these many years.

I believe sobriety is a major obstacle to happiness and that judicious amounts of alcohol are a necessary lubricant to an any enduring marriage.

But, clearly, we are on the verge of a day when our cell phones will be able to pinpoint with GPS accuracy the exact location of Mr. and Mrs. Right.

And you know what that means. It means we’ll soon hear the lovelorn lament that’ll go something like this, “Yes, he was handsome, wants kids, has nice hair, is a Ron Paul libertarian, likes pina coladas and getting caught in the rain and, yes, he is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, but his eyes just aren’t the precise shade of robin egg shell blue I’m looking for in a mate. Maybe something better will come along.”

Yes, with every technological matchmaking, the infernal pickiness quotient rises ever higher.

This is frustrating to men like me who consider ourselves perfect as is, multiple mustard stained shirts and all. I’m lucky in that I found a woman who apparently isn’t even the least bit picky.

I mean there’s not many women out there who’d settle for a chronically underemployed worm farmer/writer whose idea of a splurge is a pizza with pepperoni and sausage. Clearly, I hit the matrimonial jackpot with Valerie.

But because I am perfect, I understand it’s not always about me.

Sometimes it’s about guys who are just like me.

The more that is known about guys like us, the less desirable we are to the opposite sex, not to mention countless prospective employers. In fact, it's true of all of us. The charm of distance and mystery of innocent discovery are vanishing fast.

So I’m advising single guys interested in long-term relationships to do like I did: go find a suitable mate, ply her with liquor and get down to matrimonial business before technological advances render you undesirable before you even open your mouths.

And, girls, you’d better start either purchasing some hearty stain remover or get used long stretches of lonely.

Soon, and you can count on it, the technology that’s supposed to bring us together will ensure none of us ever wants to get near one another.

For Boss fans only: A Springsteen career retrospective

While many other writers are triumphantly engaged in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), in which they try to in 30 days write 50,000-word novels, I will write about what it’s like to listen to 318 consecutive Bruce Springsteen songs in chronological order over 23.5 hours.

I’m not like other writers.

And Springsteen, 60, is not like other artists.

He’s in the midst of an historic run of shows that will play to more than two million fans. What’s stirring a lot of fan interest is how he’s including entire albums in each concert. So fans in Philly one night may see a set that includes “Born to Run,” while fans the next night might hear “Darkness on the Edge of Town.”

It got me to thinking which album of his I’d most like to hear. So last month I decided I was going to listen to every Springsteen song in order.

It was so much fun I might do it every six months.

He’s that interesting. Even when he sucks -- and suck he does -- it’s still a worthy effort.

So for hardcore Springsteen fans, and I know you’re out there, here’s a career critique from a fan who’s been there since near the beginning. Feel free to scan or skip.

And if this winds up being, gadzooks, in excess of 50,000 words (and it might), I’m going to slap a title on it, call it a novel and try submitting it to some beleaguered agent for publication.

• Greetings from Asbury Park, 1972 -- His first words on his first album are gibberish: “Madman, bummers, drummers and Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat . . .” But it has a catchiness that pays off with the euphoric touchstone line about Mama telling him never to look straight into the sights of the sun, “Whoa! But, mama, that’s where the fun is!” Even better is the defiance of “Growing Up” and the shocked menace of “Lost in the Flood.” It’s surprising what a nifty little roadmap to his career this 9-song, 37-minute album hints at. It has the highs -- some of these songs (“Growing Up,” “Blinded by the Light” and “For You”) are still concert staples. And there are the puzzling lows (“Mary Queen of Arkansas,” “The Angel”) that leave fans scratching their heads. I’d like to listen to this with the now 60-year-old Springsteen and hear what he thinks of what the 22-year-old kid did. I think he’d like it. He should.

• The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle, 1973 -- He’s playing this in its entirely at Madison Square Garden on Saturday. I’d give a limb to be there. When fans talk about his greatest albums, this one’s rarely mentioned. It should be. It starts out with the now solidified E Street Band braying like stallions eager to bust out of the corral. From there it’s an almost Sgt. Pepper like performance of exuberance. It may be a sacrilege to legions of frat boy fans, but the least interesting song of the bunch might be concert staple “Rosalita.” And it’s a meaty bunch. The shortest song, the title cut is 4:31 with “New York City Serenade” clocking in at 9:36. It’s such a rich, jazzy joy. The best here are “Incident on 57th Street” and the aforementioned “NYC Serenade.”

• Born to Run, 1975 -- I keep needing to be reminded that “Born to Run” precedes “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” As great as they are, there is nothing in either of the two previous albums to suggest that this glorious sort of crescendo would happen so quickly. It would be like the Rolling Stones releasing, “Between the Buttons” and “Out of Our Heads,” then -- Boom! -- “Sticky Fingers.” “Born to Run” is one of the greatest albums ever recorded. “Thunder Road” plays like an opera and even the lesser tracks (“Night,” “Meeting Across the River”) are gems. The masterpieces (“Backstreets,” “Jungleland”) are legendary. The title cut never feels old. It’s still as fresh and remarkable as the first time we heard it. They could have all quit after this. Bruce could have gone all bald and paunchy and none of it would have mattered. These eight songs ensured immortality. The album ends with the audacious crescendo of “Jungleland.” Springsteen knew he’d made a masterpiece and he punctuated it thusly.

• Darkness on the Edge of Town, 1978 -- I was flattered to be asked to contribute a blurb to a “The Light in Darkness,” the fine new book commemorating the release of this album. Here’s what I wrote:
“Listening to “Darkness on the Edge of Town” for the first time in 1978 did more to accelerate my 15-year-old adolescence than any human biological factors. Like Bob Dylan once said about the first time he heard Elvis, this record “felt like busting out of jail.”

The songs had a tethered fury, a striving that made me want to run away to an adult world where I wasn’t even sure I could survive. But it was a promised land I knew anyone with a spark of spirit or adventure was destined to enter and have his character forged. There would be dangers, illicit pleasures, cowards and heroes and these songs made me want to test myself to see where I’d land.

How so many songs of grim despair can still sound like triumph is a puzzle I’ve yet to unravel.

The same songs that had me wishing as a boy I was older, today, more than 30 years later, make me feel forever young.”

My favorites? “Racing in the Streets” and “The Promised Land.”


• The River, 1980 -- Bruce and the band find their groove here and cling to it a bit to tightly. “Ramrod,” “Cadillac Ranch,” “You Can Look . . .,” “Crush on You”) all, despite their fury, are a bit redundant. They come across as caveman stomps and concert fillers that do little to move the ball up the field. The hit single, “Hungry Heart,” is joyful, and happy romp that features lyrics about the sin of a man who abandons his family, an odd pairing. He for the first time indulges a country bent on songs like “Wreck on the Highway” that he’ll thread throughout his career, much to the consternation of fans who want his music to cling to the Jersey beaches and highways. The best songs here are “Sherry Darling,” the title cut and the sublime and mesmerizing, “Point Blank.” This 20-song collection also marks the last time he engages audiences with a long form song, the 8:33 and somewhat forgettable “Drive All Night.” It is the last time he includes a real stretcher until the ill-conceived “Outlaw Pete” from earlier this year. This has always been one of my favorites, but it doesn’t hold up as well as I thought it would.

• Nebraska, 1982 -- He misses in his effort to channel Woodie Guthrie, but winds up nailing Johnny Cash. Still, this isn’t the Bruce any of us pay to see. Conversely, the title song, “Johnny 99” and “Seeds” a B-side from the same sessions have really stood up in concert over the years. But the unwelcome coyote howl of “State Trooper” had us wishing for the old Bruce. We were about to get him in spades.

• Born in the U.S.A., 1984 -- Even then, perhaps in reaction to the subdued reception of “Nebraska,” this seemed like it was Springsteen’s attempt to be gargantuan. Here he makes writing gigantic and enduring hit singles seem effortless. “Glory Days,” “I’m Going Down,” and the title song remain fan favorites. But I’d love to hear the decision-making process and band input about why they included “Dancing in the Dark,” to this day the worst Springsteen single ever released. The song’s an oddball on this album -- on any non 90’s album, really -- and a betrayal of any fan who caught the E Street fever with “Born to Run.” The colossus is “Born in the U.S.A.” It’s a great song dulled by now a bit by repetition. With a lesser artist, this often misunderstood song could have become his “Achy-Breaky Heart,” his defining song. Not Springsteen. But he proved here how commercial he could be. So, congratulations, you’re gargantuan. Let’s move on.

• Live Box Set, 1986 -- This massive nearly four-hour three-disc set loses some coherence in that it spans 12 years and the venues run from clubs to stadiums. I love “Fire,” a Springsteen song made famous by, yikes, the Pointer Sisters. The oddly subdued “Thunder Road” kicks off the bunch that goes on to include all the usual suspects. “Growing Up” live shows why it is the ultimate Springsteen concert experience, and hearing the moving soliloquy preceding “The River” remains among the most moving experiences in rock listening. The collection is best as an archive, rather than a true concert experience. Best left in the time capsule for long stretches.

• Tunnel of Love, 1987 -- His second curveball to fans in five years, but this one dazzles. It remains among the top two or three of Springsteen “solo” experiences. It has a snappy start with “Ain’t Got You” and leads into a string of country-tinged songs that tasteful Nashville artists are still covering. “Spare Parts” is a haunting rocker -- I’d take this over a couple dozen songs like “Ramrod.” “Brilliant Disguise” and the title song are great evocative numbers, but the gem here is “One Step Up.” A musical and lyrical waltz, it’s so beautiful it shimmers.

• Human Touch/Lucky Town, 1992 -- I’ve argued that Tom Petty is a better song writer than Bruce Springsteen because Petty’s had one really bad song (“A Wasted Life” from 1982’s “Long After Dark”) while Springsteen’s had one really bad decade. It was the 1990s and this simultaneously released pair starts all the stinkin’. This is the best he could do after seven years on the sidelines? They’re terrible. What was he thinking? Were Clarence, Little Steven and the rest of the E Streeters busy? These two include 24 songs with 16 throw aways. The title songs are good, as are “Cross My Heart,” “I Wish I Were Blind” and the lovely “If I Should Fall Behind," but the rest is dreck.

• In Concert MTV, 1993 -- A county fair bingo-playing chicken could have selected a better set list. After being away for so long, he’s really trying to shove the new stuff down our throats. It says something about the goodwill he’d earned that this period didn’t cause legions of fans to desert him for good. Best here is a surprise ass-kicking version of “Light of Day.” The rest sound like they were performed by a Bruce Springsteen tribute band at some highway Holiday Inn.

• Greatest Hits, 1995 -- Normally, I’d be infuriated by a greatest hits album arriving amidst the creative desert through which he’d been leading us. But here he includes four unreleased, unheard songs, three of which instantly earned “greatest” status. They are “Murder Incorporated,” “Blood Brothers,” and the epic “This Hard Land,” a song I’d include among his best ever.

• The Ghost of Tom Joad, 1995 -- It would be really cool to be sitting in Springsteen’s basement and hear him play these songs for just you and maybe four of your friends. Instead, it was another major release that demanded fans shell out the bucks just to see what he was up to. It’s another sleep walk that lacks any mystique. There are no best songs. No standouts. No compelling tales behind the bleak music. No pulse. This is his worst.

• Tracks, 1998 -- After the long hard slog of the ‘90s, this seems like a bit of a valedictory, a reminder of why he’s so indelible to our musical DNA. Early gems include “Thundercrack,” “Santa Ana,” and “Zero & Blind Terry.” How songs this stellar went unreleased for so long is a mystery. It includes some great B-sides like “Be True,” and “Wanna Be With You,” and the ragged beauty of “Hearts of Stone.” “The Wish” is so lovely it always makes me smile and feel like coming home. It becomes less and less interesting as it meanders into, yep, the 90s with keyboard-driven songs like “Janey Don’t You Lose Heart” and “Sad Eyes.” Still, a great way to enjoy this is put all four discs on random and have a party. It’s like walking into a friendly bar with a really great juke box.

• 18 Tracks/Chimes of Freedom, 1999 and 2000 -- Two lesser collections, mostly rehashes. Chimes includes a great live version of “Be True” and the Dylan song that rings with a righteousness the way the title hints it ought to.

• The Rising, 2002 -- This was a disappointment to me when it came out because I believed it was destined to seem like the product of a time capsule that would not resonate within 10 years. Listening to it nearly 10 years later and I see I was wrong. It sounds like a great rock album. Released in response to 9/11, songs like “You’re Missing,” “Waiting on a Sunny Day” and “Into the Fire” still stir a raw visceral feeling in my gut. But if I were an 18-year-old kid just getting into The Boss and unaware of its poignant inspirations, I think I’d love this album. Tragedy is laced into the lyrics, but many of them could today seem to apply to a busted romance as much as a national tragedy. Plus, perhaps out of a sense of national obligation, this album marked the first time Springsteen’d reunited with The E Street Band in 18 confounding years. It was such a tough time for the country and having them back together making music was more comforting to me than all the tough “Dead or Alive” talk coming out of the White House.

• The Essential Bruce Springsteen, 2003 -- That’s a pretty audacious title for someone with a backlog as deep as Springsteen. But it’s appropriate if for no other reason than one stunning song: “American Skin (41 Shots).” Originally included on a live album (one I didn’t purchase out of “live” fatigue), this raw song examines the true life/death story of West African immigrant Amadou Diallo who was gunned down by New York police in a tragic misunderstanding. The police were furious with Springsteen for his contention “that you can get killed just for living in your American skin.” The mother’s lament to her son that he understand the need to be polite, never run, and will keep his hands in sight is devastating. It’s hard to listen to this without a hanky handy. The haunting refrain “41 Shots” is repeated 41 times throughout the song.

• Devils & Dust, 2005 -- Like the sublime “Tunnel of Love,” he again figures out how to do minimal with muscle. This is a lushly produced collection with all the bells ‘n’ whistles, not to mention the cellos, fiddles and trumpets. The title song’s great as is the lovely guitar/organ interplay on “Maria’s Bed.” But as “solo” projects go, this one’s just a warm up to the joy that was to come just 12 months later.

• We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, 2006 -- Just watching the video of “Jacob’s Ladder” made me want to drop everything I’ve been doing these past few decades and go out and learn how to play a tuba. I showed it to my young daughters and said, “This is why you want to play music in a band.” It is utterly joyful, as is the rest of this landmark album. Amazingly, this slapdash collection of bar tunes is among his very best. It’s the one to play at parties. It’s one of our greatest American musicians leading a band in some of our best American songs. Like the companion DVD done live in Dublin, he’s done something here that is completely separate and distinctly Springsteen. It’s so rich, so celtic, yet so utterly American.

• Magic, 2007 -- This kicks off with a quartet of songs with a Jersey vibe that feels more like home than any Springsteen album since “The River.” After so many detours, this is a welcome band effort and reaffirmation of what drew us to Springsteen in the first place. On the surface, it all feels like good scrappy fun. The happy music, again, decoys lyrics that show how fearful he is for America that’s engaged in a misguided war being fought under a man for whom he cannot conceal his contempt. Mixed in with darkly critical songs like “Living in the Future” and “Your Own Worst Enemy,” are happy ditties like “I’ll Work for Your Love” and “Girls In Their Summer Clothes” -- and I just love the latter. It’s pure sunny magic.

• Working On A Dream, 2009 -- If the 20-something Bruce Springsteen knew the 50-something Bruce Springsteen was going to write something as awful and hokey as “Outlaw Pete” in 2008, he’d have killed himself to spare his legacy the shame. At 8:01, it’s the longest song he’s released in 20 years and one of his worst. But what do I know? I enjoy the equally hokey, “Queen of the Supermarket.” The title song has a euphoric joy he clearly felt at the outcome of the 2008 presidential election. There’s a string of happy and optimistic songs led by “This Life,” “Kingdom of Days” and “Surprise, Surprise,” -- and wouldn’t it be fun to hear Gomer Pyle sing that one? The best news about this collection, his fourth in five years, proves he’s riding a creative crest that doesn’t look like it’ll be soon spent. This is his fourth album in five years and they’re all keepers.

• Wrecking Ball, 2009 -- A surprise gem that has me hungering for Boss v. 2010. He’s singing about the demolition of Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands, but it’s clear to me he’s also singing about himself.
“I was raised out of steel here in the swamps of Jersey, some misty years ago

Through the mud and the beer and the blood and the cheers, I’ve seen champions come and go

So if you’ve got the guts, Mister, yeah, if you got the balls, if you think it’s your time then step to the line and bring on yer wrecking ball!

Bring on yer wrecking ball! Come on and take your best shot, let me see what you got and bring on yer wrecking ball!

America’s been through some difficult times. So has Bruce and his music. But with this song, America’s most articulate musical chronicler shows he’s not going down without a fight.

With him leading the way and back on track, neither will the rest of us.

So, there. That’s about 3,100 words to kick off my NaNoWriMo. Only 46,900 to go!

"Look, ma! No hands!" A pilot's story

I have yet to write United Airlines complaining about mistreatment during a recent free flight because I’m fearful they might respond with another free flight.

And I don’t think I could take that again.

The airline industry is today thrilled they can scapegoat Northwestern pilots Richard Cole and Thomas Cheney for using personal lap tops while they should have been devoting their full attention to the confounding sorcery required to keep 350-tons of tin aloft.

Their high profile carelessness allows airlines to boast they’re working hard to ensure pilots stick to business.

We’re already seeing declarations from airlines execs saying, in essence, “Fly with us! Our pilots turn off their personal entertainment devices the same time they tell you to turn off yours!”

And that, in our worst industry, is a now selling point. We’ve all spent the past year beating up on the beleaguered auto industry. But most of us like our vehicles and we love to drive.

Nobody likes the tedium of commercial flight, although I never dreamed that disdain would extend to the pilots themselves.

But I guess selling pilots who actually pilot is better than telling customers who’re already paying more than $275 to fly roundtrip from Newark to Atlanta, “Want to tote along an overnight bag? That’s gonna cost you.”

Same goes for snacks and pillows. Want ‘em? They’re gonna cost you.

Maybe I’m just sour from being marooned on the Greater Pitt tarmac for three infernal hours last month. Every 30 minutes or so, the pilot would come on and say , “It’ll be another 30 minutes or so.”

That’s a special sort of hell because we’ve all heard stories of those situations lasting for much longer. The toilets overflow, the kids cry and you collectively wonder if pack mule would be an easier way to get to Albuquerque where I was headed for a freebie travel story.

Upon landing, one of my fellow passengers bragged he pried a free night’s lodging, meal vouchers and a free flight out of the gate attendant.

I got squat. I told him I’d get home and write a letter demanding equal compensation. Six weeks later and I still can’t find the motivation to do so.

I’m worried they might agree to my demands and the awful cycle will resume.

The whole episode expands my I’d-rather-drive distance from about five hours to nearly 10. That means if I have to get to, say, Nashville, New York or Charlotte from Pittsburgh, I’d prefer to just hop in my car and drive.

There’s no oppressive security. I can take as many bags as I want. I can stop to eat when I feel like it. I have crystal clear coast-to-coast satellite radio reception.

Plus, the car has a trusty cruise control function for long stretches of interstate. Understand, just because it says cruise control it doesn’t mean I can pull out my laptop for a diverting game of Donkey Kong. I still need to focus.

That to me is the most surprising aspect about the Northwestern episode: how unnecessary actual pilots are to maintaining the folly of flight in today’s airplanes.

Whatever did happen in the cockpit that day, it’s clear the plane could have done just fine by itself while pilots Cheney and Cole were having a smoke break out on the wing.

It’s remarkable. Name me another occupation where the essential activity mindlessly rumbles on in the absence of the paid employee.

Mines need miners, high-tech prisons still need guards, and trash haulers have yet to conceive a way to get the garbage to just leap up into the stinking truck.

Even the humble act of blogging requires some engagement. For instance, if I were to just quit blogging right now, here’s of what you’d see:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

But typists understand that even in that nimble simulation, I needed to engage in the act of tapping out period/space bar/period/space bar/period/space bar, so I was applying more concentration than the pilots entrusted with valued first class passengers and all the faceless rabble back in coach.

So, really, how long will it be before the airline industries seize on this new cost-saving feature that will have us yearning for the good old days when the humble basics were all part of the ticket.

“Want a pilot with that flight? That’s gonna cost you.”

A Happy Sprawlidays survival guide

For the past five nights, I’ve had a recurring nightmare that every trick or treater coming to my house was either dressed as Kate Gosselin or was actually Kate Gosselin herself.

She moves in with me. She brings her eight kids. Jon starts showing up to go through my drawers looking for money he can claim is his.

Worst of all, instead of having to ride herd over just two children through the week-long Mardi Gras of tooth decay that is what Halloween has become, I now have her brood and they’re asking if I’m going to be their new daddy.

I wake up in cold sweat.

I wonder if tonight any of the Gosselin children will dress up as the Gosselin parents. And I wonder if Gosselin neighbors had the puckish audacity to trick or treat at the Gosselin home dressed as the Gosselins themselves.

I’d do it myself but I’ve been consumed with trying to keep pace with just the latest example of what I’ve been calling the Sprawlidays.

Halloween used to be just one night. Now it consumes a full week even for those of us who are resistant to its pressures.

It’s everywhere. You can’t turn on the TV without seeing some juvenile talk show host or news caster dressed up to salute yet another holiday we’re determined to wrench from the kids.

It’s oppressive. We’ve already had about six kiddie costume functions in the community, at school and at church (the last has me for the first time wishing I belonged to one of those uptight fundamentalist sects that disdains the celebration because it prudishly considers it “too pagan”).

I’m sure I’d be a whole lot less curmudgeonly about Halloween and the other hollerdays if we could condense the crap out of them.

That’s not going to happen.

But because I don’t want my daughters to know I’m a mean, hate-filled misanthrope until they start dating boys, I’m going to try and focus on the positive. Here’s a short list key dates that’ll help me get through this annual unwelcome spread of enforced good cheer when mostly everyday I’ll feel like telling the good-will-toward-men crowd to just buzz the hell off.

• Nov. 1 -- Happy April Fool’s Day in November! I invented this holiday and I’m already looking forward to the malicious fun I can spread on Sunday. If we can have Christmas in July -- we do and it’s superior -- there’s nothing that say we can’t have April Fool’s Day in November. Enjoy!

• Nov. 25 -- It’s the night before Thanksgiving and that can only mean one thing: “3rd Rock From The Sun’s” Thanksgiving episode. I have the DVD for every episode of this hilarious show. Every night before Thanksgiving we watch the episode about how the aliens learn about Thanksgiving. It’s pure genius.

• Nov. 26. -- This day starts with the traditional playing of Ray Davies’s 2006 song, “Thanksgiving Day.” It tries hard to be cynical, but gives in to the sentiment of the one holiday that doesn’t have something infuriating about it (if you can avoid all the in-laws).

• Dec. 9 -- It’s Val’s birthday. Yes, it’s inconvenient for me having it smack dab in the middle of the sprawlidays -- and I suspect her parents planned it that way to add diabolical havoc to my already frantic calendar. But we always enjoy a nice meal out and it’s fun to give her the special treatment of which she is so deserving. Plus she usually goes to spend one day with her dad and takes the kids, an event I’m excused from attending that was addressed in numerous negotiated peace treaties.

• Dec. 18 -- I turn off the computer for the week and turn my office above the bar into a community wrapping station. Anyone can come in and we can wrap gifts together, drink beer and swap complaints about the holidays. This is the third year I’ll give my friends this option. If this year just one of them accepts my hospitality, he’ll be the first.

• Dec. 19 -- My Mom’s birthday. See what I have to go through? But she, too, is deserving of special treatment. Happily, her idea of a special day is us dumping the kids on her while we go out to dinner and movie. A Christmas miracle.

• Jan. 2. -- The day when we can all look forward to a string of pressure-free holidays like President’s Day and Groundhog Day. My friend/bartender/office landlord Dave and I invented this one. We celebrate it by not acknowledging it even exists.

Until then, I’m going to scrape by each day relishing the daily barrage of news involving Jon & Kate. God help me, I still can’t get enough of it. I read every word.

Now, that’s scary.

Bad men wear beards

I’ve discovered a second male puberty and I’m smack dab in the middle of it.

The first male puberty happens when boys are teenagers. They become awkward about their appearance and begin to grow funny hairs in places that surprise them.

The second male puberty happens when men like me, aged 46, become awkward about our appearance and begin to grow funny hairs in places that surprise us.

I’m not complaining. I had a good run. I gave ‘em all hell between my two puberties. Now I’m eager to just get on with it.

Parts of my still lingering hairs are gray and parts are the brown of my youth. Mix ‘em up and I guess my hair is a color you could call bark.

I’d like to see the question settled.

See, I’ve always striven to be defiantly uncaring about my appearance, but my raging vanity keeps getting in the way.

This happened when, as is my custom, I changed my blog/Facebook picture the same day I changed the oil in my car.

As I’ve explained, this makes perfect sense. By tying the picture change to regular car maintenance -- every 5,000 miles -- it keeps my mug current and reduces the glamor shot stress we all endure selecting a picture once every two years or so.

This oil change occurred when I was ramping up for a winter beard. I had a beard last winter in preparation for my driver’s license picture, a bit of quadrennial performance art I indulge in to try and make myself appear more challenging to weary police officers who’ll be engaged in arresting me over the next four years.

I enjoyed last year’s beard because we’d had a harsh winter. Having a thick, unkempt beard was like walking around with a hoagie strapped to my face. It kept me warm in the wind.

So I thought I’d grow one again this year. And that’s what I’ve been doing for the past three weeks.

But the reaction to it in my new picture unsettled me. Facebook reviews were universally harsh. One guy pointed out that the the right is whiter than the left -- and he wasn’t making a political observation.

Alas, I’m concluding I’m just not a beard guy. Beard guys are mostly evil -- you know, like Santa Claus.

I was at a bowling alley yesterday -- and that right there is near the top of the list of sentences I thought I’d never write. But my wife had volunteered as the responsible adult needed to chaperone the kiddies at the local lanes.

But because she is a responsible adult, she has other responsible adult things to do. She needed a suitable replacement. When she couldn’t find one, she reluctantly turned to me.

Me going meant I’d miss Happy Hour talk about the great Steeler victory over the Brett Favre-led Minnesota Vikings. But I had my beginner’s beard going and that knocks about 75 IQ points off any man.

I tried but couldn’t think of an intelligent way to argue it was more important that I go to the bar and talk football than it was to keep a sprawl of 8-year-olds from dropping 15-pound spheres of multi-colored polyurethane on each other’s toes.

See, beard guys are stupid -- you know, like Abraham Lincoln.

I decided I wasn’t a beard guy when I looked around at the sampling of other fathers who showed up a full 90 minutes after I did to retrieve their offspring.

One by one, I stared at the mostly bearded faces. What I saw convinced me I’d never be a beard guy.

Because beard guys, at least the ones in my mostly redneck corner of the world -- and this may sound a bit critical -- are all slack-jawed morons.

They dress in camo, kill what they eat and believe President Obama’s a Muslim tourist.

And I'm just not that kind of guy.

I’m above all that. I’m an enlightened and thoughtful gent.

I’m not one of those ignorant hick beard guys that goes around wearing hate on their faces.

You know, like Jesus Christ.

Make me sick

I’m writing this in the big box book store where I plan on rushing up and putting a big sloppy kiss on the first stranger I see with nasty flu symptoms.

I’m going to swab their throat with my tongue and hope to inhale a virus that might lay me low for about seven good days.

I’m aching to be sick.

I don’t want N1H1, flesh-nibbling virus or, heaven forbid, anything venereal in nature.

I just want something that’ll force me to lay in bed for a week incapable of operating any machinery more complex than the remote. I want a Bubble Boy-like existence where my family, their faces worn with concern, bring me nothing but hot chicken soup and and the latest DVD requests and then scoot.

And I want my Mommy.

There is so much talk of disease and illness in the news today and it just makes me sick to know that none of it will probably wind up making me sick.

I never get sick and I think my good health is killing me.

Because of the silly way I earn my living, I never do what anyone would consider real work. No set hours. No real obligations.

The ironic trade-off is, because I never work, I’m never off.

My mind is always racing to think up a new book project -- one that might, gee, actually sell. So when other people are home hours after punching out, I’m sitting in my basement tapping out query letters or polishing manuscripts.

I don’t know what it’s like to enjoy uninterrupted down time.

Plus, I’m a father of two young girls and the husband of one slightly older one. The trio has a whole host of pesky expectations of me that keep me from ever getting any satisfying couch time (and I should have seen that coming when I got mixed up with that gang).

Getting good and sick would change that.

They say God never gives us more than we can handle. If that’s the case, then He must think me a sissy.

I never get sick. Well, I mean I never get infected.

I get sick, but it’s always on purpose.

I have a theory that every man, woman and child on earth is proportioned the same amount of pain and you can’t do anything to duck it.

So some people are cursed with weak immune systems. And let’s be clear: I’m talking about garden variety illnesses here; not the catastrophic injuries always befalling innocents.

That’s just blatantly unfair and if God ever grants a press conference, I’m going to pin Him down on that one. Why I’m so healthy while some young mothers are stricken with exotic diseases that orphan babies is a cruel abomination.

I’m talking here about people who catch every cold, every flu and miss weeks of work every year for dainty health reasons.

Those are the people I envy -- and certainly not because they have actual jobs, an occupational situation I’ve for 17 years avoided like the plague.

I never catch anything that would leave me blissfully bedridden. Still, I understand the need to get my portion of pain so I make sure at least every couple of months or so I over-imbibe.

I get good and ripped, thus insuring the near-death experience known as the hangover ruins my weekend.

That balances the books on my otherwise healthy existence. But the problem with a good hangover is it generates no sympathy from my wife. She believes being hungover is no excuse for laying in bed all day watching John Wayne movies when I feel totally incapable of doing simple household chores like brushing my teeth.

The hangovers are tough on me, sure, but if I didn’t have them then I’d probably have to achieve my pain portion by whacking my thumb with a hammer. And, say what you want about hangovers, but they’re at least fun when you’re out earning them with the boys.

So I’m looking to get good and sick.

Ah, I spy an approaching carrier! Runny nose, watery eyes, a faint sheen of Blistex on the full, pouty lips to appear presentable when any doctor would certainly order sensible bed rest.

Little do they know their respiratory system is about to be attacked by the scruffy looking guy stationed behind the laptop at table 15.

I admit I’m feeling a little sheepish about what I’m about to do. He looks like a nice guy.

I just hope he’s a good kisser.

Have a cow, man; just don't choose the sex

A recent report shows that any parent eager to pre-determine the sex of their offspring ought to pause and consider the cow.

Yes, in what is surely an indicator of what’s to come for mankind, dairy farmers have for the past three years been given the opportunity to select the sex of their cattle. They got to tinker with the divine selection ordained by God and Mother Nature that had previously set the balance at roughly 50-50.

Here’s basically how the new draft went: girl, girl, girl, boy, girl, girl, girl, boy, girl, girl . . .

Of course, dairy farmers interested in producing more milk would want to breed more milk producers. What they didn’t foresee was that the result would be, duh, too much milk.

Understand, they didn’t make their selection based on charity. Their calculation wasn’t designed to end starvation by making more nutritious milk. They don’t think like that.

No, they thought the way oil men think when they do their drilling. They thought profit. Nothing wrong with that.

But this time they thought wrong.

“It’s real simple,” said Hartford, California, farmer Tony De Groot, told The NY Times, “we’ve got too many cattle on hand and too many heifers on hand and the (milk) just keeps on coming and coming.”

Thus the retail price of milk is down 24 percent in one year.

I suppose to assist the always beleaguered farmer we could all start washing our vehicles with milk, but I’m satisfied I already do plenty for the farmer.

I eat three meals a day. Sometimes I even over-eat. Plus, I pay taxes that go to farmers who accept the money with the stipulation that they do something other than farm. I understand the basic economic function behind that maneuver, but I’ve never grasped people being paid not to make food in a world where so many other people really need food.

It would make much more cultural sense, for instance, if someone came along and paid me not to write. That I could understand. Really, on many days I look back at these musings and am surprised it hasn’t happened yet.

Maybe my indifference for the plight of the farmer stems from my early days as a young news reporter. Every summer, it was my job to write the annual unhappy farmer story.

If it had rained more than usual, I’d call my local farmer and he’d say: “Too much rain. Lousy summer for farmin’.”

The next year, I’d call back after a long stretch of sunshine and that very same farmer would say, “Not enough rain. Lousy summer for farmin’.”

I knew even then that challenging a farmer’s hallowed wisdom was like being mean to Cub Scouts. It just isn’t done.

But I had to restrain myself from asking why he didn’t think of becoming an accountant, a shoe salesman or engaging in some other pursuit involving room temperature indoor work far from bucolic pastures perfumed with manure.

So today the National Milk Producers Federation is paying farmers to send herds to slaughter. Since January the program has culled more than 230,000 cows nationwide.

That’s probably upsetting to the people in the beef industry who see their prices artificially depressed. It goes without saying how upsetting it must be to the doomed cows themselves.

Once again I’m morally chagrined that the occasional steak is toothsome enough to make me resist the vegetarian option.

That brings us to today when soon the same sex-selection techniques will be offered to ovulating moms-to-be.

To go into the unintended consequences here would be so monumental that it might inspire a movement to pay me to stop writing and I’m unprepared for that sort of government-imposed leisure (I remain, however, open to offers).

In short, if parents select boys over girls, it’ll be good for football, but bad for peace.

If it’s the reverse and girls dominate, it’s bound to to be bad for traffic and good for people who produce programming for the Lifetime Channel.

The lesson can be summed up in the tagline of an old commercial from the 1970s that promoted artificial Chiffon butter over the real thing:

It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.

And that’s no bull.