Good Night

I am sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable, warm, black leather poppa chair in my living room in my bedroom slippers and my black bathrobe with the word Wiz embroidered in gold thread script on the left side, enjoying a real fire in the fireplace, and the sight of my Lady Wonder Wench dressed in her red Beatles Forever sweat shirt, a pair of pink sweat pants that respect and prioritize curves, and a pair of big, old, beaten up fuzzy slippers. It's a good life. A much better one than some guys have. For example, an email just came pouring in from Proud Podcast Participant Bruce. It says: Just got off the phone with a friend who lives in Long Prairie, Minnesota. She said that since early this morning the snow has been nearly waist high and is still falling. The temperature is 32 below zero and the north wind is increasing to near gale force. Wind chill is -59. She says her husband has done nothing but look through the kitchen window and just stare. She says that if it gets much worse, she may have to let

I'm sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room, and I'm a whole lot better than I was last week when even with my most manly manipulation, I couldn't open a jar, and my Lady Wonder Wench did it. She said she wiggled it. The jar lid I mean. That obviously cut manly me to the quick. But when I mentioned it to you, most of you were very supportive. You made me feel better. A couple of days ago I stopped whining, and by this morning my tears had pretty much dried up. So I feel manly again. Ready to use a chain saw again...fly my airplane...use the tv channel changer. Ready to fight the biggest challenge men face today, excess humility.

I am a completely manly man. I have explained that in my book Staying Happy Healthy And Hot. Manly. I use a chain saw. I take out the trash. I fly an airplane. I kill spiders. I have fathered whole schools full of children. I open doors for my Lady, and help her in and out of the car. I occasionally spit and scratch and pick my teeth. I never ask for directions while I'm driving, and I always know a shortcut that the GPS never heard of. I am the Louie Louie Generation answer to Tarzan. I was a beach lifeguard when I was a kid. I do thousands of one arm pushups every hour. I am a fourth degree black belt in judo, karate, and kickboxing. I have my own big, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room, and I sit in it tall, and straight and proud. My hormones are intact and constantly over active. And I am in total shock at something my Lady Wonder Wench did today. It has to do with Motts apple sauce and it cut to the very core of my manhood.

Really Kool people have very chilly chops. Sarcastic smiles only. No belly laughs. No wonderful, warm, wide "WOW-s" because that's not cool. Looks like Mother Nature has decided to get Kool. I don't like Kool...not Mother Nature's kind, nor the "chilly chops" people kind. I wrote about it in my book Staying Happy Healthy And Hot: "I like getting hot. Getting hot has gotten me into a lot of trouble in my life. It's left me with scars from fights and scars from love affairs, and it's gotten me fired from radio stations and damn near gotten me killed a couple of times trying to do some crazy things that simply couldn't be done—not by me at least. But you know what? It's worth it. It's definitely worth it. Heat is neat. Happy, healthy and hot."

I'm sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable black leather poppa chair in my living room having survived another New Year's celebration. You too, I see. I've been trying figure out why we make such a fuss about New Year's, and I think I've got it. New Year's is a time when we give ourselves a chance to re-boot our lives. By the time we get to December most years, control, alt, delete doesn't work that well any more. We've got things so screwed up that the only way to make any sense of what we're doing is just to re-boot our whole lives. Start over. Do everything from the beginning again. Do everything like it was the first time.

I am sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable black leather poppa chair in my living room, just hoping I'm not disturbing you. Because I have just realized why the two weeks during which most babies are born in America are the last week of August, and the first week of September. That has to be the answer to the eternal question, "What are you doing New Year's, New Year's eve." So as I said...I hope I'm not disturbing you. Actually, as Big Louie, the Chief Mustard Cutter of the Louie Louie Generation always says, "If you still have some moving parts left...move 'em."

I guess the Christmas cards have all been sent by now. No? Whoops. You're hoping for a little snow, right? You've had enough already? You're still a big fan of Santa tho. Aw come on. What do you mean you got crushed at Wallmart ? You can order my book Staying Happy Healthy And Hot right at www.amazon,com How's that for a quickie plug. But hey...Christmas is coming, and that means Santa is not far behind. Again. One more time. And I love it.

It's time for Christmas Stories Part 2. Christmas "Once upon a times." I love 'em. There are lots of stories about Christmas in my book "Staying Happy Healthy And Hot" (available at Amazon.com...a shameless plug.) Because I was on the radio for so long I guess, I couldn't help but put some stories in there about songs that were one hit wonders...Christmas songs by composers who never had another hit. You'll hear my favorite recording of The First Noel. It's by my son David. You can't buy it, but it's here in the podcast. You'll also hear the tail of the "Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse"...mouse.

Some of the stories I'm going to tell you for the next couple of weeks I've told you before. So I guess you could say they're old stories. But Christmas is an old story too. Christmas is a happy, musical, smiling, crying, laughing, jolly, holy old story that will probably never get old..

Sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room reading some of your Christmas story emails, is beginning to make me feel like one of those department store Santas. Here's one from Proud Podcast Participant Ellen F. Part of the note says, "I live in Manhattan, and watching the magic of Christmas unfold is about my favorite thing. I especially love taking my children to see and enjoy the Rock Center Christmas tree." That twanged a memory nerve in me. I worked at NBC Radio for years, and every Christmas season, I walked right under that tree to the station which is in the RCA building, right next to the tree. Some nights, my Lady Wonder Wench came to the station with me.

It's almost time for "Mr. Story Man" to arrive. He's kind of a magic guy. He shows up here every night, dressed in a white fedora hat, wearing a bathrobe that says "Wiz" on the left side, and wearing crazy Caribbean bedroom slippers. My Lady Wonder Wench lets him help her get undressed for bed. I sometimes actually envy him while I'm just sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair. I wish I could get my Lady Wonder wench to think I'm as interesting and sexy as she admits he is when he takes her back to "Once upon a time" with his stories. He only stays for about ten minutes most nights. But those are the ten minutes just before she goes to sleep...the ten minutes before she starts to dream...about once upon a time. And she spends those ten minutes with him.

I got busted today on the Amtrak to New York City. It wasn't my fault. She protruded into my attention span, startled my hormones, and momentarily stirred my testosterone soup. It was momentary. It's gone now. Pffft. It was your typical momentary merely mental quickie. You guys will understand. I hope my Lady Wonder Wench will understand. Guys have no control over these things. And it's not fair that this is a problem only guys have...I don't think women have this problem. Or worse yet, maybe they do, but just not with me.

I am sitting here in my big, comfortable, manly, black leather poppa chair in my living room, and I'm booted up. I'm booted up, not my computer. My right foot is booted up to knock off some of the agony of de-feet. My feet. Remember the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat? I don't know about the thrill of victory, but I sure know about the agony of de-feet. De-feet started hurting a few days ago. So, I went to the doctor today. He put on his most serious face and poked my right ankle, looked up at me and asked "Did that hurt?" He had to look up at me, because when he poked, I instantly found myself looking down on him from the ceiling. He said, "hmmm." I hate that when a doctor or an automobile mechanic pokes something and says, "hmmm." "Hummm" is usually an expensive and painful word.

For those of us who are proud members of the Louie Louie Generation, the Pimple People are easy to spot. As I told you in my book Staying Happy Healthy And Hot, they walk around with nails stuck in their tongues, texting instead of sexing, and wearing their jeans so low that when the walk away they can leave us looking at dirty crack. Although age is not the most important factor for Pimple People Hood, most of them are young, so you can excuse them for not having a clue. But I'm sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room after a fascinating trip to our favorite diner. A couple of things happened that I really need to tell you about. One of them involves waiter's thumbs, and the other involves running headlong into a Dreary Drone Crone.

I got mooned the other night. It was cloudy, chilly and dreary out. And in the house, there was screaming about waving the white flag of surrender all over the TV news...so I turned it off. The quiet was sounding just fine. Then all of a sudden, a brilliant full moon burst out of a break in the clouds, and poured into the skylight over my big, comfortable, manly, black leather poppa chair in our living room. It actually startled my Lady Wonder Wench. She was sitting across the room from me on the couch. I think she felt that cool moonlight touch her soft, lovely face...she made a very quiet sound...and smiled.

I've been spending a lot of time this week, sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable black leather poppa chair in my living room, thinking about some lessons learned at the Wedding of the Century, when our Cassie married her Dave. All of a sudden, we were two families...in a way...becoming one big family. All of a sudden, we were all in this together. Some funny things happened. And some interesting things that got me thinking about men and women happened too.

I am collapsed in utter exhaustion...here in my big, manly, comfortable black leather poppa chair in my living room. We just got back from our grand-daughter Cassie's wedding. What an ordeal. It has to have been the most spectacular pageant since the super bowl. She was gorgeous...although I think she is a little young to get married. I figure a daughter or grand-daughter should be at least in her mid-thirties before she even considers marriage, because if she starts planning the wedding when she's 35, she'll be almost ready for Social Security when the actual wedding occurs.

An Email from Proud Podcast Participant Tom P got me thinking, as I'm sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable black leather poppa chair in my living room. Tom's a thoughtful guy, He gets other people thinking, and he's very definitely a member of the Louie Louie Generation. He says "If I win the Powerball tomorrow, I know what I'm going to do with the money. I'm going to jump on the bed. My grandmother was right, I would break it. But jumping on the bed was fun, and if I won the jackpot, I would be able to afford a new bed. I will not, however, be reckless. I'll take the bed outside before I jump on it, because I wouldn't want to bump my head on the ceiling." That's the kind of Louie Louie guy reasoning that sometimes gets us an eye roll, a deep sigh, and an occasional night sleeping on the couch from our closest female associates. For a Louie Louie Generation Guy, Tom is reasonably mature, until he finds a piece of bubble wrap. But I think he's got a point. I mean besides the one we all love on top of h

I've told you in my book, Staying Happy Healthy And Hot (available at Amazon) that the thing that makes Louie-Louie generation guys the bedmates of choice for so many supermodels, and other beautiful and successful women is our gentlemanly charm, our poise and grace, and the fact that some of us have paid off our nice cars, a house, and maybe a boat or airplane. So if you are a guy struggling to overcome the severe limitations of being young, in this podcast, you'll get the top 20 list of specific things you can do to help you acquire a little more grace and charm, in your struggl to achieve full fledged Louie-Louie Guy hood.

Where the heck did it go...the lazy, crazy, hazy, days of summer...and the under the boardwalk nights, watching the fireworks...and making some of our own...and the most beautiful girls in their Summer dresses...and walking in the soft Summer sand? Thjere's still some time left, but as Big Louie says in my book Staying Happy Healthy And Hot (Available at Amazon.com): "Life is like a giant roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes." Time to grab your share of Summer loving...while there's still a little Summer left.