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Blog postI started watching another HBO series — “My Brilliant Friend.” It’s set in Napoli, Italy in the 50s. Being 99% Italian (1% Dark Chocolate M&M) myself, I recognized my family in the scenes. My elderly aunts cooking and fanning themselves while wearing mumus, occasionally yelling at their lazy husbands. The younger women exhausted by raising litters of children.
But, the thing that struck me most was the anger, especially from the males. Maybe this was an ethnic thing. Italians were -
Blog postYears ago, my baseball buddy was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Basically, one day we were playing pregame catch, a month later he was dead. It shocked me just how fast things unraveled.
I went to visit him near the end. He was in bed, vaping some THC to kill the pain. The first thing he said when our eyes met was, “Ain’t this some shit?” It was.
And here we are in another bowl of shit. I’m healthy (enough), but this virus has changed the world. I keep thinking I’ll awaken -
Blog post“Hey, aren’t you that artist who paints sunsets?”
“No.”
“Wow. You look exactly like him. I forget his name.”
“George Clooney?”
“No, silly. I’m not trying to hit on you or anything. Wait. I’ll look him up. Oh, here he is. See?”
“All right. He’s a handsome fellow, and he’s not me.”
It was a picture of some 50ish guy with a baseball cap and goatee. We’re about as rare as winos at a winery. I’ve tried trimming and shaping my goatee to be unique. I’v -
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Blog postWhile sampling wine I struck up a conversation with two ladies. This was an attempt to overcome my introversion. I quickly discovered that one was single and the other was living with her man. I dove right in and asked the single one out. She responded by saying she has someone she’s kind of interested in.
Hey, at least I swung.
The other woman began unloading on me about her current relationship. This happens a lot to me — the available woman is not interested but the unavail -
Blog postI don’t know if it’s worse that people are spending hours balancing a broom on its end, taking photos, and posting to Facebook, or that I’m wasting time seeing and reacting to this silliness. We must be bored. We must need another election, deadly virus, or storm to keep us occupied.
Maybe mate scarcity is the cause of boredom. Are hitched people less bored? I can’t remember. I was hitched in 2000 and unhitched in 2013. Marriage should reduce boredom. Sex takes longer when you’re not -
Blog post“Where’s the damn book?”
“Buddy, I’m squeezing the final words from my brain. It’s like getting one more dollop out of the toothpaste tube.”
“You promised. You said it would be done by the end of the year. That means today.”
“I’m on it.”
After working a long shift behind the bar, I want nothing more than to sit quietly in front of someone else’s bar while cradling my bourbon with one cherry. College football on TV. Lasagna. Bulleit. Bliss.
Ever notice h -
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Blog postWe men have all been a bit creepy from time to time. My creepiness has given me a keen sense of identifying someone excessively creepy and potentially dangerous. I’ve assumed most women see these guys coming and avoid them. Still, others seem oblivious.
A young and stunning wine server poured my sedation yesterday. You see, I can tell you she was young and stunning without being creepy. If I told her, that would be slightly creepy — not because I’d be lying — because it may appear tha -
Blog postI heard my friend Buddy describe someone as, “About as fun to talk to as a sore dick” last night. Buddy’s a bit older than I am and he’s from the South, so he has different idioms. As a writer, I appreciate these more than most and think about the origins. Could this have originated from a woman who was talking to a sore dick perhaps post blowjob?
“This is no fun, Arthur.”
“Alice, you were a bit toothy.”
“You didn’t seem to mind at the time.”
“I didn’t want to -
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Blog postI’m at what I consider to be the third stage of my sexual life. I’ve gone from fuck-anything to fuck-often to fuck-it. This likely applies only to men so my lady friends may not relate nor appreciate my honest depravity.
When I first hit puberty I was aroused easily and easily confused. Heck, a bra listing in the Sears catalog on the back of the toilet would get we wedged under-seat. Impromptu wood abounded. All I could think was how to hide it, where to put it, and how to make it go -
Blog postI’ve never been cut off at a bar by anyone except my own stomach warning me that the next drink would cause an embarrassing reversal of my gears of ingestion. Yet, as bartender and bar owner, I’ve cut off many.
This is one of the most difficult things to pull off because I’m attempting to reason with someone incapable. Usually, I suggest a water or appetizer before proceeding.
“Hey, let’s mix in a water. Always good to hydrate.”
“I’m not running a marathon, and fish fu -
Blog postThis is the conversation starter of the season. I’m a talented conversation ender. My response is, “I have nobody to buy for. Just me.” This response is met with either pity or envy. Those who assume introversion causes loneliness pity. Those who have gone further into debt by checking off all of those recipients envy me.
I used to send Christmas cards. It’s easier to text. I used to send gifts. They morphed into gift cards. Now, I buy me some wine and I’m fine. Don’t get me wrong. I -
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Blog postGuess what washed up on a California beach in large numbers this week. Yep, penis fish. Thousands. I mean, they’re not actually called penis fish. They’re urechis unicinctus, but penis fish is more fun. To be fair, they could be called tube fish, sausage fish, or finger fish. What fun would that be? Nobody is clicking an article about sausage fish. Click the penis. Click it.
Many things around my house could be made more clickable if I described them with “penis.” I have a dozen penis -
Blog postAs I first watched the infamous Peloton ad, here were my thoughts:
Dang, she’s hot.Wait. What? He bought her an exercise bike. OMFG! This isn’t going to end well.Oh, stop it. She must be faking. There’s no way she’s this happy about it. What meds is she on?Her eyes — she looks abused. Is this some Fifty Shades garbage?Every single ad agency and Peloton rep who approved this ad must be fired. Even if my woman asks me to buy her an exercise bike, gym membership, or fucking cookware, I w -
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Blog postTwo lovely ladies walked past as I was checking in at the gym. The gorilla behind the counter had to chime in.
“Caught ya lookin’, huh?”
“What?”
“It’s cool. My girlfriend catches me all the time and gives me shit for it.”
“You see my girlfriend here?”
“Naw, man. It’s cool.”
“The way I see it, I admired the ladies. If they interpreted that as a stare, it’s on them. If they found it creepy, that’s on them. I didn’t ask one out. I didn’t whistle. I -
Blog postI just read a headline (click bait) about a man masturbating outside a grocery store who was arrested and continued spanking his monkey (in the article they call it “self-love”) while in custody. First, why didn’t they cuff his hands behind his back? Second, were the arresting officers uncontrollably aroused? Third, how could this story be creepier? Oh, many ways.
When you have a resting BAC approaching 0.08% and an overly-active imagination, you think of how to do odd things. Yes, I’ -
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Titles By Phil Torcivia
