Dick Summer Connection

Big Louie explains what to do about nutty cell phone drivers in today’s podcast at www.dicksummer.com/podcast.

I love sitting here in this big, comfortable, manly , black leather poppa chair. It’s in my living room. In my house. Which is on a road where the town guys just put a new sign. It is a sign that has struck terror into the hearts of everybody in the neighborhood. Especially people who have to get to work, and people who tend to have weak bladders. The sign says, “Detour.” Getting where you want to go is tough enough these days. As it says in my book, Staying Happy Healthy And Hot: “Out on the road, you’ve got to compete with people driving at speeds ranging from sonic boom to car wash—and all you want to do is get to work. You’ve got to be cunning to survive. Of course, Big Louie, his own bad self, has some advice for surviving in today’s traffic. For example, Louie says, “Never pass a driver who’s on a cell phone. Neither that driver nor you have any control in that situation. Wait till he creams the truck ahead of him, then pass briskly on whichever side has less debris.” 

The word detour has a completely deceptive sound to it. It sounds like, “Hey, wouldn’t you like to take de tour we’ve got set up for you? We’ll take you to some of the lovely scenic places you wouldn’t otherwise get to visit.” I wanted to send an Email to the town guys to tell them, “No. I don’t want to take your tour, but my spell checker wouldn’t let me use some of the words I wanted to use to explain my feelings on the subject.

You’re trying to get somewhere in a hurry, and the town guys put up a sign that says, Hey…you’re going to take de tour whether you like it or not. And they put a couple of saw horses the size of elephants across the road to see to it that you do what they tell you to do. I never liked being told what to do in the first place. Or in the second place for that matter. The TV commercial says, “Call Now!” No. I’m not going to call now. I have a hang up about calling now. “Have a nice day.” No. I have other plans. “Swipe card.” No I have my own card, I don’t need to swipe yours. “How are you?” I have 15 minutes to live, how are you? “What can I do for you?” Drop and give me 20 push-ups. “What’s your pass word?” Joe Namath. When people tell me what to do, I remember the immortal words of Big Louie, the Chief Mustard Cutter of the Louie Louie Generation. Louie always says, “Why be difficult, when with just a little more effort you can be impossible.”

Detour. Guys around here have places to go, and things to do. We don’t have time to do de tour. If you drive less than 50 MPH around here you are considered double parked. It can be a little dangerous. I’ve seen plenty of accidents around here. Mostly in my rear view mirror. I’m a native New Yorker. There are several of us around here. When you see 2 cars double parked around here you can always tell which one was parked by a New Yorker. His is the one parked on top. Detour.

Dick’s Details, a bunch of totally un-important stuff for you to stuff in one ear, so you can squeeze the important stuff that’s making you crazy out the other ear, and you can be a little less crazy while you try to get around the detour. Walruses, raccoons and gorillas have a carefully placed bone called a baculum which makes it un-necessary for them to worry about ED. They never have to worry about ED. That’s why you never see them driving a small sports car convertible wearing a silly hat. If you haven’t been watching tv commercials lately, ED is nature’s way of saying, “No hard feelings guys.” If the answer is S&M&M what is the question? The question is in the new podcast. The smart guys in the white lab coats have just issued a beauty. It says, “Drunk ants always fall over on their right side.” Have you ever seen a drunk ant? I assume they mean insect ants, not your mother’s sister. Some guys have way too much time on their hands. Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.

Details is also an interesting word, like detour. As in de tails of certain mammals are sometime quite attractive. Debunk is what they toss around in Washington. Debrief is what lots of current pop stars do on their music videos. Detour. One of the things I really hate to see is that the school busses now have to go way out of the way to pick kids up and leave them off. It’s tough enough on a kid having to go to school. Going back to school is different from going to away college. Going to away to college has a lot to do with parties, and girls, and beer, and girls. Many of my friends didn’t want to send their sons to college, because when they thought about what they were doing, they wanted to go back themselves.  Going back to school is different. When you go back to school they teach you the three Rs. Reading, writing and ‘rithmatic. I got in trouble with Sr. Mary Knucklebuster when I pointed out that only one of the three Rs started with an R. My handwriting was terrible. But that was on purpose. I couldn’t spell, but my writing was so bad you couldn’t tell.

Actually, Sr. Mary Knucklebuster and her associates did a pretty good job of teaching…I think. They taught that you should play fair, or at least fairly fair. Don’t hit people, even to take their soft, warm oatmeal cookies. Tell the truth if you really want to confuse people. Remember, I went to school in Brooklyn, so one of the important things sister taught was always put things back where you found them, even if you have to break back in to do it. I went to an all boys High School and College, and as a result I have become a man with decades of experience in not having a clue to what women are thinking. But I have sincerely been trying to learn, and I’ve come up with some points that you guys might find useful. When a woman says, “I’m fine,” she’s not. “No desert for me,” means she’ll be finishing yours. “I’m having my hair done” means “I want to look pretty for you.” If she stops doing that, try to figure out why. She’ll fake an orgasm, but that’s better than faking a headache. Some women will actually read your horoscope every day. If your woman does that, keep her close to you. Gently lift the back of her hair and kiss her on the neck. Bring her flowers. Don’t wait for her birthday. Don’t wait till you screw up again. Bring her flowers. There’s a story about a guy who did that in the current podcast.  It’s called, Not Again

Been there, done that, just like that guy. Often. Way too often. She never gave up on me. Flowers are good. Flowers are beautiful. A beautiful woman should have beautiful things. Bring her flowers. And when they start to wilt, go get her some fresh flowers. Do that, and she’ll never give up on you. She’ll never stop being beautiful. Not Again is from my Night Connections 2 spoken word CD. If you like it you can just keep the current podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, just check out the Night Connections 2 icon on the home page.

Detour. An elderly lady stopped me at the hardware store yesterday. She said, “Are you from around here?” I said, “Yes, why?” “She said how do you get through that detour.” This is true. I said, “You really can’t.” She said, “But I did last night, and I just don’t remember how I did it.” I asked her which was her car. She pointed to a kind of beaten up old Chevvy. I asked her where she got that big dent in the front bumper. She said, “I really don’t remember.” This is a true story. Detour. Descriptive word. Take de tour, like it or not. Wouldn’t be too hard to find a descriptive word for that lady too. How about dentist ?

Did you ever eat a thick club sandwich by sticking part of it up your nose ?  Here’s what happened.

“Why” you will ask, “should you never fly Virgin Airlines ? For the startling answer go to www.dicksummer.com/podcast 

I “Outed” my Lady Wonder Wench for sticking a sandwich up her nose in this week’s podcast. Here’s her reply:

Why do I use so much ketchup ? Because the best way to practice safe eating is by always using a condiment. Lots of explanations like this in this week’s podcast.

Find out how a certain dainty lady was able to get her mouth around a five inch club sandwich by using her nose in the current podcast.

In my book, Staying Happy Healthy And Hot, Big Louie says, “Women have more table manners than guys, because they’re not as hungry as we are.” I have nothing against manners, except that they slow you down when you’re trying to eat. Women like manners. And they have found ways to remind us of our manners. For example, they sometimes wear short skirts. Have you ever seen a guy climb a flight of stairs ahead of a woman wearing a short skirt ?  For more important observations like this, check out the current podcast.

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the current podcast. Actually a bunch of funny things happened this week. Not big belly laugh things, just funny stuff. My Lady Wonder Wench and I were at our favorite diner yesterday, and we both had club sandwiches. One of the things we like about that diner is that you never go away hungry. These two sandwiches came out…and they had to be about four or five inches thick. I have a pretty big mouth, so it wasn’t a huge problem for me, but My Lady Wonder Wench has a more…lady like mouth. She also has manners. Especially table manners. So I was watching to see what she was going to do with this four course meal between some slices of bread. What she did…and I’ll bet lots of ladies do this…is…she tilted the sandwich down, and bit off the lower part of the sandwich first. And then, just as she was about to bite the top part of the sandwich, the voices in my head all said…”Hey…she’s eating the part that she just stuck up in her nose.” One of those voices must have said that so loud that she heard it. She had a typical Wonder Wenchy reply. She said “You must have been a gifted child, because your mother certainly wouldn’t have paid for you.” Then she criticized my use of ketchup…which she considers excessive. I happen to like ketchup, so I told her, “The best way to practice safe eating is by using condiments.”  That’s when she gave me “the look.” Every guy with a woman in his life has seen “The look.” It’s a non verbal way of saying, “You must have slipped into the gene pool when the lifeguard wasn’t watching. Millions and millions of sperm, and YOU were the fastest?”

In my book, Staying Happy Healthy And Hot, Big Louie says, “Women have more table manners than guys, because they’re not as hungry as we are.” I have nothing against manners, except that they slow you down when you’re trying to eat. Women like manners. And they have found ways to remind us of our manners. For example, they sometimes wear short skirts. Have you ever seen a guy climb a flight of stairs ahead of a woman wearing a short skirt ?

Women have a relationship with clothes that I will never understand. When I like a shirt, I sometimes wear it several days in a row. Why not ? If it passes the sniff test, I say that wearing it a few days in a row gives it that comfortable, “broken in” feeling.  You can wear pants several days in a row, what’s the matter with wearing a shirt several days in a row?  When I wear a shirt several days in a row my Lady’s eyesight improves to the point that she can spot stains so tiny that guys would need the Hubble Space Telescope to see them. She’s like that. I think she can see germs. I walk into our living room, and it’s comfortable. She walks in and starts picking stuff up and dusting stuff that looks fine to me. Picky, Picky, Picky.  Several buddies of mine have told me their wives do that too. I get this bizarre picture of walking into a party wearing a day old shirt, and all the wives gather around me to point at my shirt, and ask my Lady why she lets me walk around looking like a slob. I’m not a slob. I’m a guy. Well…maybe I’m a slob too, but it’s being a guy that’s causing the problem here.

And while we’re on the subject, I’ve often wondered how come a woman who has nothing to wear, never has enough closet space? Don’t get me wrong. Unlike some dreary drone husbands I like to see my Lady dressed all girly and frilly. Some dreary drone husbands can’t seem to understand why their wives want a new dress just because the one they have is too long, and the veil gets in their eyes. Guys like that have a big sex fantasy. They fantasize that their wives aren’t fantasizing about somebody else when they’re having sex. To find out about the Dreary Drones, grab a copy of my new book, Staying Happy Healthy And Hot. Among other things, you’ll learn why wearing a turtle neck sweater is like being strangled by a really weak guy all day.

Dick’s Details…a bunch of totally un-important stuff for you to stuff in one ear, so you can squeeze the important stuff that’s making your life miserable out the other ear, and you can be a little less miserable for a while.

The smart guys in the white lab coats tell us that we can live without our large intestines.  However, I’ve become quite fond of mine over the years. If the answer is “Incorrectly” what is the question. I’ll tell you in a minute. Giraffes can go without sleep for weeks at a time. I guess they just keep necking all night long. I used to do that. And…7,000 to 8,000 new insects are discovered every year. 7 or 8 thousand. It probably depends on how many picnics you have. Oh yeah, if the answer in “Incorrectly” the question is “What word is always spelled incorrectly.” I never said I was grown up. I only said I learned to act like a grown up. Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.

We had our annual air show at my little airport this week. Lots of wonderful flying, and some really funny stuff this time. The ace of base at my little airport is an airline pilot by the name of Matt Chapman. When he’s not flying his airliner into JFK, or LAX,  Matt is usually flying aerobatics in his personal plane…an Eagle 580. It’s a hot little plane, and Matt can do spins, and loops and a maneuver called a Headache…because it can give you one just watching him do it. Matt’s the kind of guy you want at the controls of an airliner if something goes wrong. You’ve probably heard about how automation has gotten in the way of airline pilot’s basic stick and rudder skills. Not Matt’s. You should see his stick and rudder skills. I asked him after he spun and looped and Headache-d his way through his performance if when he gets on the airliners’ speaker system and says, “This is Capt. Matt Chapman,” has he ever noticed that some passengers who have seen his aerobatic performance insist on getting off the plane. He says he’s always afraid to look. I’m a pilot too. Nothing like Matt, and my plane is nothing like Matt’s either. His is a hot little one seater. Fast. My plane is a four seater. Not very fast. In fact I am sometimes concerned about bird strikes. From the rear. My plane is a lot like the plane in this story from my Night Connections spoken word CD. The woman in the story…slept every night…for years…wearing a shirt the guy left behind. I know another woman who did the same thing…in another story. This one is a completely true story…and I am very glad that is still being told.

Just Enough is from my Night Connections spoken word CD. If you like it, you can just keep the current podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, just go back to dick summer dot com, and check out the Night Connections icon on the home page.

There are lots of funny flying stories. There’s one that says “Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing. If you can use the airplane again, it’s a great landing.” There’s something to that. After all a landing is basically a controlled mid air crash into a planet.  There’s another one that says, “The difference between a bird and a human pilot is that if a bird could sweat, it couldn’t fly. A human pilot sweats lots of times when he’s flying. That’s why there’s a propeller on my plane. It keeps me cool. It stopped on me once when I was landing, at night…in the rain. You should have seen how sweaty I got. My buddy Al went flying last week. Row 25 seat C. He always sits in the back of the plane. He says he’s never heard of a plane backing into a mountain.  In my book, Staying Happy Healthy And Hot, Big Louie says that some airlines are badly named. Virgin Airlines for example. Who wants to fly in an airline that doesn’t go all the way. And some people have a problem with pilots. One guy at a party once asked me if I knew the difference between God and a pilot. And before I could answer he said, “The difference is that God doesn’t think he’s a pilot.” He had a point there. It’s true that pilots tend to talk about women when we’re flying, and flying when we’re with women.

My Lady Wonder Wench has a wifely statement that kind of puts a stop to too much macho. She says, “Pilots have to take a physical to get a license. Not a mental” I have tried to explain to her that I’m a very smart pilot. I always check the train schedule before I fly through a tunnel. 

Here’s the opening of this week’s podcast. If you like it, go to www.dicksummer.com/podcast for the rest.

I was sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in the living room trying to think of what happened in my life this week that you might find interesting, and some of the voices in my head said, “Nothing happened this week.” Then I remembered hearing an old Coca Cola jingle on the radio that said, “Nothing beats the taste of Coke,” and all the voices in my head said, “Wow…”nothing” must be powerful stuff. They’re telling me it even beats the taste of Coke.” Think about it. Sometimes when I’ve done something really dumb, and my Lady Wonder Wench gets very quiet…for a long time…I ask her, “What’s the matter” she says, “Nothing.” And all the voices in my head get together in four part harmony and sing a line from the Star Spangled Banner. The one about “The rockets red glare, and the bombs bursting in air.” That “Nothing” stuff is pretty powerful stuff. It reminds me of a story in my book Staying Happy Healthy And Hot… available at Amazon.com. Part of the story goes like this:

“There’s a snapshot in my head that I think I’ll frame and keep somewhere very close to where I live. My Lady Wonder Wench and I were taking a little walk in the park across the street from our hotel, and we saw an old guy sitting on a park bench. He was doing nothing-just sitting—not even reading—just sitting. As we walked past, I noticed a brass plaque on his bench. It said, “In memory of Amelia, my wife and my best friend. She’s saving me a seat now.” I didn’t let go of my Lady’s hand for quite a while. My Lady Wonder Wench has told me that her face in the mirror doesn’t look at all like the face I see when she’s lying on her pillow in the first light of dawn, slowly opening those soft blue eyes and turning the whole world the color of a Summer sky. That’s the face I’ve seen for all these years, smiling and crying, and eating lobster on vacation, and cheering for the New York Mets. I know she has no idea how beautiful she is. It’s fascinating, looking carefully at your own face in the mirror. It’s like meeting somebody who knows you, but you can’t quite remember him. I was thinking about that when we were walking in the park and we saw that old guy sitting on the bench lost in…nothing. His eyes were wide open, but it was obvious that he was seeing a face the rest of us didn’t know about. A face he’d seen waking up on the pillow next to him in the morning for a lot of years…his Amanda…smiling and crying, mybe cheering for some baseball team, and now she’s saving him a seat right next to her—just like he asked her to do.”

That “Nothing” is powerful stuff.