Why We Suck (14 page)

    So the mom remains clear of mind and strong of body.

    So your breast milk is full of the nutrients the baby needs to build its necessary immune system.

    So when the kid graduates from high school you can be in the audience with a digital camera and a tear in your eye instead of sucking on an oxygen mask from your high-end Stephen Hawking-designed wheelchair.

    You have kids when you are young because their lives become your life. That's what a mom is meant to do. You don't have kids because your life is almost over and there's nothing to watch on TV and you've shot all the imaginable cover ideas with every single celebrity still alive.

    To make matters worse-four years later? Annie Leibovitz decided to have MORE kids. Twins. When she was fifty-five years old. Only this time with the help of some fertility drugs.

    And a surrogate mother.

    I guess Annie forgot she had a vagina.

    

    This business of surrogate parenthood reached its peak for me when I turned on The Today Show one morning to see Lisa and Brian Switzer. They had tried for eight years to get pregnant-many, many times. No luck.

    When that didn't work-they tried fertility drugs. Many many times. Ninety thousand dollars' worth. Still no luck.

    They reached the point where the final doctor they saw said to Lisa-no doubt in the nicest way possible-"your uterus is just not up to the task."

    Ouch.

    So they then approached Brian's sister and she agreed to carry their baby to term-until she was hit by a drunk driver and suffered back injuries that didn't paralyze her but left her unable to physically deal with a pregnancy.

    Once again-if there was no bad luck, they wouldn't have any luck at all, right?

    Wrong. Here is where I would pose this question-what does God have to do? Write you a personal note? Hit your tits with lightning? Set your dick on fire?

    Maybe He just doesn't want you to have a child.

    Do the Switzers get that message? No. Do they reconsider what God's plan for them might be? Adoption? Working with special-needs kids? Helping Augusten Burroughs's weird blabbermouth brother?

    No no no no.

    They deem it must be time to Rent-A-Vadge.

    But not even an American vadge.

    Apparently a uterus in the United States of America-just like everything else here-costs more to rent. So the Switzers have outsourced a uterus in India.

    I believe this is the point at which buying a Chinese baby starts to serve its purpose. There may be as many as a billion kids over there waiting to be delivered to the wide streets of America and renamed from Wang Chung to Colleen or Ida or Louisiana Switzer-as difficult as it may be to grow up different even in the confines of your own house, it's gotta be better than your parents basically purchasing a pussy from overseas just because it's cheaper.

    I mean-you may not look like your adoptive parents but at least you're already here on earth.

    But then again-this is America. Where we get whatever we want whenever we want it. And if it's not here to be got? Let's buy it from one of those immigrants overseas who we don't want living inside this country's confines. Basically-we don't want your kids coming here-unless we get to buy them.

    And this is all a legal process that somehow fits within the confines of our Constitution.

    Thomas Jefferson is not only rolling over in his grave right now, he wants to donate some semen.

    American Vadge. Good name for a band.

    As is Wang Chung.

    Lisa Switzer may have been unable to have a baby even if she had started out trying when she was eighteen years old. And you have to give her credit for not stopping in her quest to be a mom. But passing the sperm of her puffy white husband Brian through an egg implanted in an Indian woman has all the potential of producing another kid who looks "different."

    Different from its parents when it's dropped off at school.

    Puffy? Maybe. White? Probably not.

    The bullies and the mean girls and everyone else in between will be lining up to make fun.

    And America is already full to popping with kids who don't like the way they look and moms who freak out because they are so concerned about it.

    

    

    Let's face it-kids in Africa and many other piss-poor places are concerned with one thing and one thing only-are flies food? But here in America-the land of plenty-it's all about looks. Kids here get inundated with reasons to hate themselves-skin too dark, nose too big, legs too thin. Magazines, TV, more magazines, more TV-even on the Internet-kids are shown how not beautiful they are and how easy it will be to fix that problem. And moms buy right into it.

    Get this through your thick skull-it's okay to hate yourself. Your nose your legs your ass your tits etcetera etcetera. Chicks-moms in this case-seem to think that hating parts of your own body or the way your voice sounds or the way in which you run or dance or sing or whatever is a sign that they have somehow been robbed at birth and therefore have a God-given birthright to have it fixed or somehow praised into the positive by other chicks who will tell them and their kids how perfect they are. Bullshit.

    There has always been an unwritten rule among men and boys-nicknames are applied by everyone other than yourself. Women don't understand this. Women call each other by their first names-Ellen and Annie and Steph. Guys call each other by their last names almost from the moment they meet. Then-after they start hanging out-nicknames get invented. In a woman's world, if there are two Ellens in the same group of friends or co-workers-they refer to each as redheaded Ellen or Ellen Insert Last Name Here. Among men-redheaded Ellen would become Red or Carrot Top, shortened to CT or Carrot. Or she'd be Redbush. Or Helen Reddy. Forever. You know the much maligned freaky-looking redheaded prop comic called Carrot Top? That ain't a stage name. He got that moniker in the school yard five seconds after his parents dropped him off on the first day of kindergarten. (If you think Mick Jagger would not have been called Niggerlips if he had gone to grade school in America, you just ain't living in the real world.)

    And to break it down even further-among men any physical inability or shortcoming would eventually-on the ice or the playing field or in the workplace-be part of the nickname process. A guy who can't run very fast becomes Pokey or Fatass or Snail. Or the opposite-Speedy or Bullet or Jackrabbit (if his given name is Jack). The unfortunate guy with glasses gets the classic Four Eyes or Xray or Ray Charles (Ray for short). A guy with no left leg becomes Righty.

    A buddy of mine knew a kid whose brother was sent to Vietnam in the sixties and only a couple of days after landing there was killed in the line of duty. When the news reached home this kid's reaction was to shake his head no over and over again. For days afterward he walked around shaking his head no. After a few weeks it appeared he was going to do this forever. One day he was walking down the other side of the block-lost in his own thoughts and shaking his head no over and over and over again. That was it. He was nicknamed No No Johnson and even after he got over the loss of his brother and stopped shaking his head he was still called No No. Picking up teams for street hockey? I'll take No No. Going down the railroad tracks to drink beer and smoke cigarettes? Go tell No No. Heading to the beach for a weekend trip-who's driving? No No's got his dad's car. The guy is now in his forties and STILL answers to that nickname at barbecues and golf outings and pickup hockey games.

    I've got a friend who's a terrific hockey player-he basically drank his way out of a career on the ice-but clean and sober and in his thirties he's good enough that Cam Neely-who's in the Hockey Hall of Fame-skated a friendly outdoor ice game with him a couple of winters ago and said "that guy's great with the puck." And a guy who gets a hefty mixture of respect, admiration and fear from everyone he plays with. He never even got a nickname-that's how good he was. When guys can't even think of a nickname for you, it means you are pretty much physically and mentally flawless. This guy is from outside Boston and has a thick Massachusetts accent and sometimes the other guys might bust his balls about it, but that's about as far as it went.

    Long story short-he recently took a puck to his left eye and temporarily went blind-when I say temporarily I mean he eventually gained his vision back, but for the three or four months during which he couldn't see out of that eye but kept on skating you know what his nickname on the ice was? Lefty. And when we started calling him that he started answering to it. With a smile. He finally had a nickname and one-considering the circumstances-that was also funny. Lefty. Girls wouldn't even think of UTTERING that nickname.

    We got a guy named Steve we all call Stavros because he looks like he's Greek-even though his childhood nickname was Zippo because he used to set everything on fire, and we also call him Sniper because he can put the puck behind the goalie like he's a Lee Harvey Oswald and the net is John F. Kennedy sitting in a limousine.

    We got three Jeffs and a Geoff-so all four had to become last-name nickname guys but one Jeff's last name was too long and sounded like a Polish guy who ran an Irish bar so we shortened it from McCluskey to Clucker.

    When his brother joined up a few months later we boiled it all down to Cluck 1 and Cluck 2. We got a guy named Josh who owns a bike shop but was easily confused with another Josh who was friends with another guy named Mike so now we got Bike Josh and Josh Who Knows Mike.

    I play hockey with another guy whose name is Jonny. The first time he played with us, instead of using white hockey tape on his hockey socks, he used postal tape. The kind that comes in a big wide roll that the U.S. Post Office uses to seal up large boxes when they ship them. His nickname that night became Postal. It's what we have called him ever since, on the ice and off. I don't even know the guy's real last name. None of the guys do. He's Postal. When he calls on the phone he says Hey it's Postal. When guys run into him at the mall they say Hey I ran into Postal at the mall. If he snapped and shot sixteen people at work and it was on the news, I'd call up a mutual friend and say Postal just went postal-turn on CNN, they got it live.

    If there was a guy on a hockey team whose penis was accidentally sliced off and he continued to play and undress in front of the other guys, his nickname would soon become Dick. Or Ballsack. Or Barbie. And eventually he would answer to that name. Because that's what men do.

    I find it hard to imagine women calling a friend who had suffered through breast cancer Titless. Or Nipples. Or Lefty.

    When I was growing up-based on the spelling of my name-Denis became Penis which became Penis Man when I went to college. I also got DeeLeerious, D, Learjet, Queerjet, Peen and Pennis. My brother Johnny was called Jumpin' Jack Flash and Kiwi. Which is what everyone still calls him. Kiwi. The reason why involves a long story about him and his friend Mike who everyone calls Pete. Which is another story. Everyone calls my brother Kiwi, including my wife my kids his wife his kids and both of my sisters and their kids. My sister Ann Marie's husband Neil went to high school with me-he was a hockey player who was a very flashy skater. His nickname became Blades. My sister-Blades's wife? No nickname. My sister Betsy? No nickname. My wife? Ann? Leary? No nickname.

    Most women discard the nicknames their boyfriend/fiance/husbands have in favor of-you know the drill-not even the shortened version of the guy's real name. A guy the guys all call Steve is called Steven by his chick. Bobby becomes Robert. Max is always Maximillian. Formal. Serious. Unfun.

    It's the same avoid-reality-at-all-costs crap you notice in women's basketball. Listen-in men's sports the coaches are predominantly guys whose faces reflect the game they played. Football coaches have broken noses and bad knees and the ones who don't are short or fat or both. Baseball managers are generally speaking bowlegged and beer-bellied. Hockey coaches have scars all over their faces and fake teeth. Basketball coaches are goofy-looking lanky-assed giants who are almost always wearing ill-fitting suits. And when you watch a game on TV many of the male announcers will mention just exactly what the coach looks like or the coach's nickname or how badly said suit looks. Phil Jackson looks like he failed the audition for a Frankenstein movie because he looked TOO freaky. Bill Belichick looks and dresses like he's two dollars away from being homeless. And every male announcer-and quite a few female broadcasters-remark upon this during every basketball and football season.

    Ever hear anyone on broadcast TV mention the paucity of attractive female coaches in all of girls basketball?

    Nope.

    Any nicknames or mention of oversized skirts or makeup that seems to have been applied with a six-inch brush?

    Nope.

    Most of the women who coach women's basketball teams look like dykes. As do many of the players. Don't like to hear that fact? It's true. Just ask a man who has no interest in sleeping with you. The LPGA is the other sport chock full of lesbian lookers-it should be called the Lesbian Professional Golf Association. Even the MEN'S golf tour-minus Tiger Woods and maybe seven other guys-is jam-packed with men who look like lesbians. Let's be honest, Phil Mickelson is ten more pounds and two man-tits away from being mistaken for one.

    Look-I have no problem with lesbians owning any and all collegiate and professional female sports-it just yanks my chain when we all continue this unspoken agreement not to mention it. We carry on this bullshit approach and pretend they are all so feminine and pretty and dainty and guess what-most of them absolutely ain't. Which is fine. I'll pay them the ultimate compliment-I play hockey and I'm glad I don't have to play against most of these girls because I think they would kick my ass. Hey-there's fighting in hockey.

    I take the same approach to female athletes as I do with guys-and I play with and against some girls on the ice from time to time-everyone is expected to do their job. Otherwise-get off the fucking ice. I would do the same with famous female athletes if I was an announcer. For years I have claimed that the reason Randy Johnson-one of the world's ugliest human beings and one of baseball's most dominating pitchers-has had such an overpowering ability to strike out the other side is not necessarily his fastball-it's his face. I think once he comes out of his wind-up and turns the full frontal toward the plate, batter after batter has to avert his gaze. THAT'S how ugly this guy is. He looks like Big Bird from Sesame Street would if he got hit with a frying pan coated with cooking grease. For years now John Daly has arrived at golf courses around the world looking like a beached whale just back from a four-day bender in the Vodka Tonic Sea. Hair askew, armfat dangling, shirt barely big enough to tuck into the too-tight pants. All I'm asking is the freedom to say the same thing about an aging, overweight lesbian pro golfer without getting dirty looks from girl golf nuts.

    The bottom line is that one day there will be a professional football team which will have a defensive line dominated by four giant gay men-due to genetics, performance-enhancing drugs, workout regimens and the increasing openness of our society, it's only a matter of time-and once those guys start winning, the moniker The Four Fags will either become a nickname amongst themselves and their teammates or the way opposing coaches respectfully refer to them during pregame war plans or both. It's the way men are. It's the way men compete. It would just be nice if women did the same thing. Call a crazy point guard from the UCLA Women's basketball team The Witch From The West. Nickname the feisty left wing from the girls USA Olympic Ice Hockey Team a bitch on wheels. Tits Akimbo (can't tell which direction she's going), Vadge On Fire (unbelievably fast), Look Away Lindsay (ugly as sin)-these are nicknames just waiting to be applied.

    Flat-chested women go out and get balloon-size fake tits. Guys go to the gym. Fat girls subject themselves to years and years of endless dieting before finally throwing in the towel and getting liposuction. Fat guys go to the gym. Gals with huge noses gaze at themselves in mirrors and shop windows and any other available reflective public surface until finally getting the honker hacked off and replaced by one of a suitable size. Guys just grow a mustache. The chinstrap beard was invented by a husky guy trying to reduce the size of his neckfat. We hate to go to the doctor. We go to the barber instead. Big ears? Leave a little more on the sides. Women often accuse men of not telling the truth or being emotionally dishonest. Meanwhile, the odds are the woman you have just met is not the woman you will see in the bedroom. Once she removes her padded bra and compressive-waisted panty hose and false eyelashes and fake nails, you might be looking at someone other than who you were attracted to. If guys get fat, we just buy bigger pants.

    Women have some insane system of numbers when it comes to sizing clothes-6, 8, 4, 2 etc. And even then they seem to have no idea what size they really are-size 10s are constantly trying to suck themselves into size 8s and size 4s are always doing insane acrobatics and extreme yoga positions in changing rooms across the country in vain attempts to fit into size 2s.

    Guys know our sizes. We have small, medium, large and extra large. Except of course when it comes to our cocks. Then we are all size large. Which reminds me-why is it whenever plus-size chicks are in denial about their weight, they always claim that their tits got bigger? That's the equivalent of a fat guy claiming that all the fat from the burgers he's been scarfing went right into his penis-which would really be a lie because for any guy the first sign you weigh too much is almost always the same: you wake up one morning and cannot see your penis.

    By the way-someone-usually a chick-has to tell a guy he's fat/ugly/ smelly. Even though his guy friends may have nicknamed him Slim/ Handsome/B.O., he still thinks he's attractive to SOME chick SOME where. Guys don't look at any aspect of themselves as a detriment. No arms? Play soccer. No legs? Wheelchair basketball. No sane chick will have sex with me? They got available hookers on Craig's List. Click on a couple buttons and they come right over. Is this what Al Gore had in mind when he invented the Internet?