Warning: Story contains eight Schwarzeneggers

I’d vowed to be productive yesterday afternoon, but instead watched “Zombieland” for the 14th time.

I apologize to my family and friends for my personal failing, any embarrassment this indiscretion may have caused them, and request the media please respect our family’s privacy.

I’m always mystified when people who throughout their entire lives court the spotlight ask it be shut off when they finally do something that’s truly interesting.

I woke up this morning wondering who would play Schwarzenegger in the eventual rom-com about Schwarzenegger and concluded the logical choice would be, gee, Schwarzenegger!

He’s already shown it’s a role he can convincingly pull off.

I’m not surprised, but still disappointed at the men-are-pigs theme dominating coverage of the Schwarzenegger love child story.

How could he?

He could because he trusted two women with whom he was closer than any others -- that we know of, so far -- to let him get away with it.

There’s never been any nuance to Schwarzenegger’s lusts and ambitions. With him, what you see is what you get.

In a cringe-inducing clip that’s making the rounds, Maria asks voters in 2003, well, who are you going to trust -- someone who’s known him 20 years or someone that’s known him 30 seconds?

Take all the interns, production assistants, and staffers who’ve claimed they were groped by Schwarzenegger and combine all the unpleasant seconds they’d spent with him it might well add up to 20 years.

So I’ll trust the mauled masses and again wonder why no CSI lab technician has yet to develop a court-approved method for dusting breasts for fingerprints.

Unless it’s a quickie Vegas wedding, most every couple that’s ever married knew exactly what they were getting. We know the flaws, the virtues, we know how a spouse is going to react in a crisis and the human weaknesses that will lead them to cause one.

We know the circumstances that lead them to drink too much, what kind of sidewalk puppy they’re apt to bring home, and if they can be trusted alone with any smiling bridesmaids.

So an enduring modern marriage is as much about love as about how much we’re willing to overlook.

What did Shriver have to gain by being with Schwarzenegger? Power. A platform. Prestige. And eventual Oprah deification if the scoundrel ever embarrassed her by showing his true colors -- and, wow, that happened faster than any cynic would have predicted.

So I feel no pity for her. To me, she’s always seemed his match in her hunger for fame. And entrusting him alone in the Sacramento governor’s mansion while she and the kids romped between multiple L.A. homes seems an unwise matrimonial strategy.

I save all my pity for the kids and for beleaguered Kennedy historians who must explain a family tree that’s increasingly all forked up.

And there’s been not a shred of sisterly criticism of the domestic either. I guess she was married, too, and was bound to be buddies with Shriver. Still, her motives are easier to understand.

The romantic in me hopes she is a dark-skinned illegal who so loved the real Schwarzenegger she was willing to conceal deep in her heart a painful, yet joyous secret so that one day she and her governor lover could live free of society’s judgements.

And if this were a movie, that’s exactly what would happen.

Governor falls head over heels in love with willing domestic (J-Lo?). They have a precocious love child (Beiber?) and the governor wins re-election when he Brady Bunches two wives and the whole grand group to celebrate the joys of blended family living.

For added authenticity, film the whole shebang in Utah.

So I think there’s plenty of unseemly blame to be spread among the sexes and it upsets me I had to type the head-hurting name Schwarzenegger eight times to explain it all.

Yes, men are indeed pigs. But only because so many women are sheep.

America's got talent ... Not!

I may not be the best writer, but I’m probably the only writer who can do 10 Army regulation pull ups and juggle.

Not at the same time.

Not yet.

That’s not all. I can take a wet towel and twirl it like a goombah in the window of a pizza shop, I can finger flick a bottle cap at a target 30 feet away and dent the bullseye, and I can play an armpit concerto of the Beach Boys song, “Barbara Ann” whenever the humidity cracks 80 percent.

What I can’t do is fix a leaky faucet, apply jumper cables to a dead car battery without electrocuting myself, earn a decent living, or be a role model to anyone whose blood alcohol rate ever even accidentally descends below .08 percent.

Of course, no one ever gushed, “Cool, man!” when I did any of the latter and the crowds still go crazy when I do the pizza towel so don’t blame me for logically following the positive reinforcement.

That makes me right at home here in America, the land of the unquenchable thirst for moronic diversion.

I see “America’s Got Talent” is returning May 31. I’m unlikely to watch, but I can guarantee the show would rate better than any show called, “America’s Got Kids Who Score Better in Math/Science Than Other Countries!”

Of course a show with that premise could never be confused with a reality show.

We’re too infatuated with celebrating trifling talents at the expense of encouraging cerebral or muscular pursuits American lives and families could really use.

It was unfortunate this nagged at me in the least likely place for me to do anything about it.

Yes, it was the Sunday church talent show. About a dozen kids brought their trombones, fiddles, harmonicas and other “talents” to the church basement to prove the America of the future won’t lack for off-key entertainment.

A group of impressionable youths who really needed to hear a strong dose of Simon Cowell-style criticism got only love sonnets from Paula (I stopped watching Idol when Cowell vamoosed so forgive the dated references). 

First up were two 10-year-olds -- only one of them actually attends our church -- playing a sort of dueling trombones routine.

It was awful.

Truly, I wanted to stand up and say, “What . . . the . . . bloody . . . hell . . . was that? (I did so love Simon). First of all it was pitchy. Second, that a 10-year-old Lutheran trombonist would feel the need to import a Catholic one to double up on the bum notes is sonic sacrilege. You are a disgrace. I’d advise you to stop watching the Disney Channel, forget your dreams of musical stardom and get used to wearing sensible shoes. The world’s always going to need waitresses, honey.”

Instead, I rose from my seat and clapped like the pair had connected on a long Steeler touchdown pass.

The little Lutheran was my daughter, Josie.

There were dancers, toy train collectors, a karate kid, and a trumpet player so intent on impressing he started the same song four times before he played it to his satisfaction.

It was perfectly fine the first time and I hope that kid doesn’t grow up to become my heart surgeon.

The very worst was a little 4 year old who with trembling hands raised a harmonica to her lips and immediately began what seemed an impersonation of a cigar store Indian.

She had the same look on her face I imagine I’ll have when probe-wielding aliens land on my unkempt front lawn or when my wife tells me it’s time to get a real job.

She was petrified.

It was pathetic. Clearly, she is the daughter of overbearing parents who’ll feel like failures if their daughter doesn’t exhibit at least one show off talent.

Disgusted, I was ready to launch into my speech about how the country could do with a lot less preening show biz aspirants and a lot more worker drones.

Instead, I rushed to the stage and lifted the little girl in my arms as she buried her tear-streaked face in my shoulder.

“It’s all right, darling,” I whispered. “You don’t have to play. Daddy’s going to take you home and teach you how to do the pizza towel twirly thing.

“And then everything will work out just fine!”

A very touchy subject

I first noticed the alarming trend in a burger joint where I ran into an old buddy. He was with his teenage daughter and I was in a hurry and by myself.

We’ve known each other for about 15 years. Been to games together, played a little golf, drank a lot of beer.

He’s a damn good guy and we’re friends, but it’s not like I’d dash into a burning building to save his butt if he owed me fewer than $20.

That’s why I was so surprised by my reaction to seeing him.

I couldn’t keep my hands off him. I slapped him on the back. I squeezed his shoulder. Gave his arm a friendly rub.

Guaranteed, he’s dated girls for six months and not gotten that much action.

And I can’t explain why I did it. It’s not like he’s even all that good looking.

I’m becoming more touchy-feely and I feel like hitting myself for it.

It wasn’t just this guy either. I’m tossing my arms around guys who until recently I wouldn’t have voluntarily sat next to without first donning HAZMAT gear.

So far, the grabbiness hasn’t extended to the fairer sex. This is probably because I understand the ground rules are different with women.

Me grabbing any woman the way I’m grabbing men might send mixed messages that would lead to me either infuriating the woman or instigating some sly reciprocal grabbing that would justifiably infuriate my wife.

I can’t explain it.

Sure, I’m going through this difficult time with my mother and it’s making me more empathetic to my fellow man. I see stoics and wonder if they’re having some below-the-surface difficulty and could use a soulful hug.

That, I understand, is what some trauma can do to a person. But that can’t be it.

The Steelers losing the Super Bowl was traumatic, too, but I didn’t run around the bar suggesting me and the boys engage in a great big group hug to ease the sting.

And hearing Republicans say nice things about Obama has been disorienting. But I’m reluctant to hug any male Republicans for fear they’ll either legislate something discriminatory or announce they’ve been living a lie and want me to move to Vermont with them and start tending blueberry patches.

My father was maybe the most touchy-feely man who ever lived. He was like Barney the Purple Dinosaur with a 16-ounce Budweiser.

He would put peoples’ faces in his hands and pull them closer to express fraternal affection.

And he was widely loved. No one seemed to mind he couldn’t keep his hands off them. I always thought he’d have made an outstanding pickpocket.

Me, I’d recoil from his constant touching. I’m ashamed of it now, but I felt we were so close he didn’t need to keep touching my arm to get my attention.

That was before I became a father. Now I have a better perspective of his eagerness to touch something so dear to him.

I have two little girls and I can’t keep my hands off them.

I tell them the ingredients to any good and loving relationship are simply, “Play, tickle, cuddle, kiss, hug.”

And they’re very affectionate. They still crawl up onto my lap to watch movies and just giggle.

That’s fine with me. I hope play, tickle, cuddle, kiss, hug remain part of our lives for years and years to come.

I just don’t like the thought that I may one day be exporting those intimacies to all my buddies.

So now, in addition to my other troubles, I have this new me to worry about.

I may not like this new guy very much, but of this I am certain:

He really likes you.

Why'd bin Laden dye his beard?

It’s been a week and I’m still riveted by all the bin Laden news. I want to know everything about how he lived and how he died.

I wish I could say my focus is on the historic implications of it all, but my shallow nature is getting the better of me; I’m consumed with an aspect of his existence that will soon be lost to history.

The man dyed his beard.

The vanities of powerful men and their infatuation with their own hair endlessly fascinate me.

Take Donald Trump. His hair’s such an obvious punchline I’ve never really given it much thought.

But it is now so in our faces it must be addressed.

First, the color. Or colors. Parts of it have a reddish cast. Then there are blond streaks. Some sweeping waves are pumpkin-shaded. When the TV lights hit it, it seems to shimmer like a trout just lifted from the creek.

Trying to describe it is like explaining algebra to fourth graders. It makes my head hurt. 

It’s like a combover done by an octopus. It goes in every direction all at once. I imagine if viewed from a traffic helicopter it must look like one of those sprawling Southern California interchanges where five major interstates noodle together and head to 10 different parts of Los Angeles I have no interest in visiting.

I guess it works for him. He’s rich and famous, has a beautiful wife and throngs of pitiful idiots who think, gee, now there’s a man who’d make a great president.

But every generation of Americans needs its Trump, or at least guys like Leno and Letterman certainly do. They fill an essential role of appearing to have all the answers in a complicated world where people yearn for bombastic simplicity. In the end they all burn-out, embarrass themselves or their followers momentarily come to their senses and move on to the next loud-mouthed charlatan.

It’s just fortunate for all the people who’d like to see President Obama re-elected there is a surfeit of these men and women and they are right now leading the GOP straight over an electoral cliff.

But the vanity of bin Laden surprises.

He was a man who self-righteously believed his violent brand of Islamic fundamentalism would sweep the globe (wrong), that the Middle East would crumble under his repressive vision (wrong), and that Americans were too weak and distracted to finish a war he started (wrong).

I can understand Trump’s eagerness to appear Beiber-like in an American culture obsessed with youth, but what motivated bin Laden?

Was it an eagerness to appear virile to his four young wives?

Couldn’t be. My sense is these women weren’t like many American wives. They seem to lack sass or the spousal fortitude to taunt an aging hubby about graying hair, a beer belly or his inability to please them in the conjugal way.

But there was nothing to suggest any “Desperate Housewives” thing going on in the secretive Abbottabad compound. It’s doubtful any of these girls would leave bin Laden to fool around with Ahmet the beguiling pool boy.

Maybe, even with all his hatred for modernity, he’d absorbed certain aspects of American culture that insinuate youth reigns supreme.

Maybe he thought he needed to appear as one of them to inspire the suicidal youth he’d send in waves to their doom. I’ve yet to see a martyrdom video featuring a Santa Claus beard.

The clips we’ve seen show him watching old Al Jazeera tapes of himself, but maybe they’ll release one showing him watching The Disney Channel and shows like “iCarly” where everyone over 25 are imbeciles.

Or maybe we’ll see a clip of him becoming silently animated when the Keith Hernandez/Walt Frazier “Just For Men” hair coloring commercials circulate.

Either way, his vanity confounds. Maybe this sheik had a rebel James Dean streak in him.

If that’s the case, it’s not wild to speculate bin Laden’s last mortal thoughts dealt with, not what had been done, but with what was to be.

“Although this is the end I die at peace, assured my funeral will be tumultuous with comely maidens swooning over my fair features and young holy warriors attesting how I fought aging and crusading dogs with equal vigor.

“And, no doubt, legions will stand in line for days to admire my still-youthful face.”

Wrong again.

A Derby Day re-run for the roses

I woke up this morning fired with the ambition to start this day, as I always do, by blasting “Dead Flowers” by the Rolling Stones and writing a mini-book review of Keith Richards’ “Life,” which I’m suggested they should rename “Life Wasted” or “Wasted Life.”

But it wasn’t going smoothly and I got sidetracked with house chores, play time, etc.

“Dead Flowers” is a first Saturday in May tradition because the song, a dandy, alludes to Kentucky Derby Day, one of my favorite sporting traditions of the year.

So instead of writing something fresh, I thought I’d trot out this short thoroughbred-themed post from last year about how the Triple Crown would benefit if just one of the races features jockeys weighing in excess of 340-pounds.

And then I’m off to have a snort of Mint Julip down with some buddies at The Pond before racing home to watch the festivities with my darling girls.

My pick: Pants on Fire. No lie.

Enjoy the race!

For the good of the sport, The Triple Crown needs one race where the jockeys are jumbos.

I’m proposing that horse racing alter its rules so the Kentucky Derby today is run, not by elfin athletes, but by king-sized couch potatoes who weigh no fewer than 340 pounds each.

See, The Triple Crown races are among my favorite sporting events. Combined they conclude in under 7 minutes.

The Super Bowl has interminable commercial breaks that endure that long.

I want one race to take as long as the Super Bowl. I want to be able to invest a full afternoon in watching the ponies sluggishly trot ‘round the track with the occasional need to stop to graze or access a convenient water trough for quenching swigs.

A 340-pound jockey would ensure this. Note that the weight wouldn’t include the cooler full of beer each jockey would be allowed to strap to the saddle.

The weigh-ins would be priceless viewing. Instead of traditional colors, each jumbo jockey could wear a shirt promoting his -- or her -- favorite saloon or bowling alley.

There’s not a tavern in the land that couldn’t field three or four bar regulars worthy of consideration. I’m drinking buddies with tons of guys who’d qualify. Or to be more accurate, I’m buddies with about five guys who if thrown together in one big sack would weight one ton.

And 340 is a good weight. It’s ample enough to meet today’s obesity standards, but not so much so that many jockeys could make it without dietary supplements. Thus, pre-game rituals might show plus-sized jockeys scarfing down buckets of The Colonel’s chicken in order to make designated weight.

The spectacle would flip on its head the unhealthy anorexic trends that ravage traditional diminutive jockeys obliged to starve themselves to meet the required 126 pounds.

In fact, much of the pre-race hype could be devoted to another rising American pastime -- competitive eating.

“And Frank, representing The Outdoor Inn in Queens is going double fisted with a Whopper with triple bacon and the dangerous extra cheese pizza that was blamed for the unfortunate cardiac arrest of Tubby Tom at last year’s weigh-in! But Pam from The Smilin’ Hog Bar-B-Q & Foam in Biloxi is coming on strong with a stack of baby backs dripping with the home team sauce, now available on-line and in Piggly-Wiggly’s all across Dixie.”

Of course, nothing would match the excitement of the moment when the loads are loaded into the starting gates.

“And they’re off!”

Or not. I speculate that with a 340-pound jockey on its back, many of these thoroughbreds wouldn’t even budge. And wouldn’t that be exciting!

“Not one horse is moving! Not a one is able to manage the first step! But wait! The no. 4 horse is staggering out of the gate! She’s taken four steps . . . five . . . Oh! No! The filly’s collapsed!”

Given those dynamics, it’s likely the 1 and 1/4 mile Derby at Churchill Downs would take about three hours, rather than the usual two minutes.

The final “sprint” down the homestretch would allow gamblers plenty of convenient time for bathroom and smoke breaks before the action got down to the wire.

Some animal rights activists might protest that the entire spectacle might be cruel to these huge beasts.

They might say they are not fit enough for the race and the exertion could kill the dumb animals.

And they have a point.

But there’s an easy fix for that.

Just have ‘em all read and sign waivers before the race.

Tweet of the Week from 8days2amish: "Just learned bin Laden's full name is Osama bin Muhammed bin Awad bin Laden. Give him four more bins and he could be a Dollar General store."

When black men spike balls

We are witnessing a fascinating sociological phenomenon where a president many Americans despise because he’s black is taking flak from these very same people for not acting black enough.

President Obama doesn’t want to release the photos of bin Laden’s ventilated head.

“We don’t trot this stuff out as trophies,” he said. “We don’t need to spike the football.”

Good enough for me. Besides, I’ve already seen the rendition of the assault by the genius Taiwanese animators at Next Media Animation who not only envisioned every aspect of the secret raid, they posted animated insights of what happened to bin Laden when Satan welcomed him to hell.

(The uproarious video was removed for confounding reasons of cultural sensitivity, but check out their stuff).

Many of the people right now screaming for releasing the gruesome pictures to convince radical Muslims bin Laden is really dead, are the same Americans who refuse to believe the authenticity of the Hawaiian birth certificate of the man they’re imploring to release the real pictures.

It’s classic twistedness.

Releasing the picture has become another issue upon which to gauge or belittle Obama’s manhood.

Sarah Palin, god love her, injected the word “pussyfoot” into the debate.

Interesting historical aside: The origin of the word “pussyfoot” tips its hat to Prohibition. 

It was the nickname of  W.E. “Pussyfoot” Johnson (1862-1945). He was a staunch prohibitionist who used underhanded -- maybe underpawed -- methods to further his truculent and, I say, brain-dead opposition to Demon Rum.

Comment that a man named Johnson was the inspiration for a word featuring what is now an anatomical vulgarity will be left unsaid.

I’m no football historian, but I think you can trace the touchdown spike back to a black man known as White Shoes. That would be Billy “White Shoes” Johnson, who played professional football for the Houston Oilers in the mid-1970s.

Whenever he’d score a touchdown, and he often did, he performed a spike-punctuated gridiron version of soul singer Rufus Thomas’s dance, the “Funky Chicken.” 

Since then, the football spike has been elevated to an art form by diva receivers like the peerless Chad Ocho Cinco -- and, hey, Happy Cinco De Mayo, fair readers!

My favorite was his “Lord of the Dance” impersonation. This gold-toothed, 6-foot-1, ebony-skinned gazelle for just a moment convinced me he was a plucky little leprechaun.

I thought it was marvelous, but stoic traditionalists were outraged. 

They want flashy African-Americans to play football and attract that demographic, but when they score points they want them to act like pro golfers do after they’ve sunk a long par putt.

The men who are now running the NFL (and that’s “running,” not “ruining,” although the words are right now interchangeable) have even instituted penalties aimed at curbing what they call “excessive endzone celebrations.”

They might have even tossed a penalty flag on the euphoric crowds that gathered outside the White House on Sunday evening.

They are men who look and probably act like John Brennan, Obama’s chief counter-terrorism advisor. He’s a 55-year-old New Jersey kid who’s spent 25 years working with Republicans and Democrats in the CIA.

He looks like the mirthless kind of man who if he got into a staring contest with Dick Cheney dinosaurs would re-evolve and start devouring fast food joints before either blinked.

He’s pictured in that already classic photo of tense Situation Room where the current Decider and his team where watching the drama play out in real time (and I can’t wait for the movie).

He came close to chortling in admiration when he described Obama under pressure. Here’s what Brennan said: 

“There was nothing that confirmed that bin Laden was at that compound and therefore, when President Obama was faced with the opportunity to act upon this, the president had to evaluate the strength of that information and then made what I believe was one of the most gutsiest calls of any president in recent memory.”

Brennan, who looks like a man who favors salty talk, was probably sanitizing his true feelings.

What he’d probably meant was Obama has balls.

And that brings us back to the picture and another sound reason why Obama will not be goaded into releasing it.

A man who’s already proven he has real balls will wisely conclude he has nothing to gain by spiking imaginary ones. 

Mom's sad decline

I was more shocked than ashamed when the casual thought floated across my mind that I could solve a lot of our mutual problems by just pressing the accelerator and running Mom over.

Thirty seconds previous she shot me a vicious look and snarled that I was a cruel and indifferent son. She said I’d tossed a bag of sacred family treasures into the trash and just couldn’t wait for her to die.

She was only half right.

And, get this, I’m the good son. I’m the one stationed at the apartment where she’s lived alone since Dad died in 2004. I’m the one who takes her grocery shopping and to get her hair cut.

I’m the one who never loses his patience with her.

“Yes, Mom.”

“That’s right, Mom.”

“It’ll be okay, Mom.”

Two weeks after she no longer has the cognitive power to recognize it, I’ve finally become the properly mannered son she’d worked so hard to raise.

We’d spent the entire afternoon culling through stacks and stacks of papers. There were form tax letters from 1998, stacks of long expired coupons, and print outs of old e-mail jokes with punchlines involving Monica Lewinsky.

It was trash, all right.

I’ve written previously about my 78-year-old mother’s deteriorating mind. As recent as October, I accompanied her to the doctor for tests to determine if her forgetfulness was a charming aspect of her personality, as it had always been, or an indicator of something more serious.

She passed all the tests (she on her own took the same test with two other doctors) and scored no worse than 27 out of 30.

Then two weeks ago, it was like someone threw a switch. Over-night, she became obsessive/compulsive about salt shakers, paper clips, refrigerator inventory and, with an evil assist from the corporation I now loath, doing business with Verizon.

As with many seniors (and even much younger sentients) the promises and allures of our nation’s cable company advertisements can be confusing.

Verizon does them all one better. They dispatched a salesmen into the building where many old people live and had him knock on doors. It was three weeks ago when my mother’s sunny persona was still dominated by kindness and an eagerness to oblige.

He persuaded her to sign a long-term contract. Satan’s contracts for the souls of old bluesmen are less binding.

It took my brother considerable trouble to get out of it. Still, Verizon wasn’t finished. They followed up with service calls and persuaded her to set up another appointment.

They call weekly to gain access to her apartment. I tried to cancel and was asked for her confirmation number.

I explained she’s elderly, dysfunctional, and her apartment is littered with illegible notes on a thousand scraps of paper. 

“I’m sorry, we can’t cancel without the confirmation number.”

As she held steadfast to that policy and refused my request to speak to a supervisor, a red veil descended before my eyes. My voice dropped to an icy hiss.

“Do you have elderly parents?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then you should understand the situation I’m dealing with here.”

She hung up on me.

Let me make this clear: I do not wish to kill anyone or encourage the killing of the Verizon administrators who target confused and elderly people for profit.

But if I was walking down the street and saw someone killing one of those people, I would stop to watch.

I’m not even a month into this. I miss putting my kids to bed. My income, a trickle at best, has ceased.

My grandfather, who my mother is beginning to resemble in appearance and explosive temperament, lived to be 97.

My mother is 78.

Selfishly, seeing my mother turn so bad, so quickly, is like hearing a corrupt judge in a Turkish court sentence me to prison for drug charges of which I am innocent.

I wonder what is going to happen to my life over the next month, the next year, the next five years.

As you may have guessed, I’m firmly in the pull-the-plug camp, as is my mother, who keeps stressing to me reminders that she wants her body donated to science.

My need to ensure power-of-attorney privileges and living will specifications keeps getting bumped down the agenda as I run from doctor to doctor seeking to ease her frazzled condition. I keep recalling reruns of Terri Schiavo and imagine a day when I’m besieged by yapping strangers praying for a motherly miracle.

I think of all this and know someday I’ll feel guilt about the day I thought, man, I could end her suffering and mine by just gunning the accelerator and putting the dear old girl down.

I know I’ll pay for all my iniquities.

I already am.

Not killing her is killing me.