April 2006 – Mom Gets Equal Time

Posted by Jeff on 4/01/2006 11:58:00 PM
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In early March, we here at Team Last Call found ourselves in a real bind.

See, Team Last Call's band was getting ready to head out on the road to unleash devastating amounts of rock and roll on the unsuspecting nation. The problem was, we ran out of time to write our Last Call column.

But who was there to help us out in our time of need? Our mommy.

Team Last Call can always count on our mommy. She's caring, intelligent and lots of fun. Granted, she's a little misguided when it comes to politics in fact, she's a staunch Republican but we're not about to sit here and make jokes about it. Because senility is no laughing matter.

So without any further ado, here is Team Last Call's mommy:


Hi. Jeff's mom, here. No, no, don't get up. I'm sure there are many people who are more famous. Like don't press me here, Bucko. I'll think of some later.

It is a little known fact that being funny is genetic. I am living proof, as I got it from my son. But do I get my own column? Noooooooooo. And why is that, you ask? It is because we Republicans never get equal press. Unless you watch FOX, which would be appropriate, because I am, after all, a fox.

>Now, I know Jeff better than any of you. I was even there when he was born. He came out looking like all babies do, rather like Hillary Clinton. That is to say, obviously, a small chest, large chunky thighs and the attitude that the world revolves around you. There is a difference, however. A baby's diaper is a smaller size.

It could have been worse. He could have looked like Bill Clinton, with a nose large enough for its own zip code. Plus, we would have had to separate him from all the girl babies within cooing distance. But enough low blows. Oops.

Well, we took Hillary, I mean Jeff, home. Immediately, he started to do these annoying things that I'm sure other babies don't do. Like make noise. He was already showing signs of being a Democrat, as he would make a lot of noise without really ever saying anything. I should have known.

His repertoire was rather limited. President Poopypants would eat, pee, poop, re-eat, re-pee, re-poop. The good thing was, his talent for producing so much of poop quality was good practice to be a Democrap (typo).

But no, I didn't catch on. I fed his little idiosyncrasies, like his continuous demand for the breast. But enough about Bill.

Then things worsened. He played constantly with his "Welfare Can Be Fun" video game. His favorite movie was "The Horrors of Al Frankenstein." His favorite book was "Nancy Pelosi And Other Tales From The Crypt."

Sometimes he would stiffen up like an Al Gore doll; his eyes would roll back and he would coo stuff like, "Pick me, pick me!" I personally thought it was rather unflattering and made him sound like a booger. Jeff also started playing his guitar rattles. This, I have to admit, was appropriate, since being a rock star makes you an expert in politics.

Before long, he was holding press conferences and doing weird things like Jesse Jackson impersonations. He was telling the whole world how other families are better than ours and how his family leaders needed to be replaced. Maybe it was the starched diapers. We held family elections, but our relatives in Broward County, Florida, couldn't get the hang of the ballots. Seems they required a third-grade education.

So, as fate would have it, he eventually became a Democrat. Which also comes back to genetics. He couldn't help it. I think his great-great-great grandfather was a mass murderer or something. Every family deals with this at some point.

Do I sound bitter? Nosireebob. It could have been much worse. I could have been the mother of, say, Teddy "Chappaquiddick" Kennedy. Or John "The Traitor" Kerry. Fortunately, our last name begins with "R," so we skipped that whole "last name begins with 'K'" curse thing. That's where that old adage originated: "Feed a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Name him something starting with 'K,' and he will never develop morals." Don't blame me. I didn't make it up.

If you are reading this, it probably means I have gone to the great White House in the sky. Jeff is now feeling guilty, and is hoping to make up for his misguided politics by printing this article.

We here at Team Mom will admit to copying Jeff's style. And his ideas. OK, and his lines. But we are not too worried about him suing, as he knows we could cut him out of the will. He would miss out on the $35 and the George Bush calendars.

Before you get the wrong idea, I love Jeff more than life even more than chocolate. We get along even better than Harry Belafonte and Hugo Chavez. He is the best son in the world. This is true, even though for Christmas he bought me Teresa Heinz Kerry's book, "I'm Rich & You're Not. Loser. Hiccup."

But how did Jeff become one of "them?" I have no idea. It couldn't have been the dresses, because he gave them up years ago. Maybe it was the constant constipation, which cut off the blood supply to the brain. But my best guess is that he just wasn't paying attention during our discussions on family vacations. In our Hummer.

Hugs and kisses,

Mom

P.S. Don't be writing me any protest letters, or you will be grounded for your natural lifetime. Or till John Edwards is smart. OK, I'm being redundant.

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March 2006 - A Load Of Blarney

Posted by Jeff on 3/01/2006 11:55:00 PM
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St. Patrick's Day is just around the corner, that special time of year when we all take a moment out of our schedules to celebrate the conversion of the pagans in fifth-century Ireland. By which I mean throw up green beer in the back of our friend's car.

St. Patrick's Day is celebrated in more countries around the world than any other holiday, which Team Last Call knows is true because we read it on the internet. We also read that Hurricane Katrina was caused by a Russian-made electromagnetic generator that the Japanese mafia used in order to avenge itself for the Hiroshima bomb attack (www.weatherwars.info). Just so you know.

Considering that St. Patrick's Day is the single most popular holiday on planet earth (as we recently learned), it's amazing to think about how little we Americans actually know about the "reason for the season." With every other major holiday, you at least have a vague idea about what you're throwing up about. We know that Thanksgiving, for example, is held to commemorate the day the pilgrims invented cranberry sauce, after which they invited all of the Indians over to their house to feast and trade goods. After which they killed them. Then there's Easter, named after Easter Island, which is where Jesus discovered a rare breed of rabbit that lays plastic eggs filled with M&Ms. And Christmas, which of course is Santa's birthday. And don't forget Election Day, that special time when we Americans celebrate the fact that we live in the most hated country in the world by re-electing the man who made us that way. Hooray!

But the story behind St. Patrick's Day remains a mystery. St. Patrick himself is quite the elusive character. You're about as likely to find a believable account of his life as you are to find someone at a Larry The Cable Guy concert who's still got all of his original teeth. According to the internet (or as Team Last Call likes to call it, the Truthnet), most of what we do know about St. Patrick is highly questionable anyway – including the assumption that he was Irish. He was actually born in England in the year 385. Or in Scotland in 373, or in Wales in 402, depending on which Truthnet site you're reading. One site (www.stpatsmadison.org) also states that St. Patrick invented the monkey wrench and introduced the world to calculus. If we hadn't found it on the Truthnet, we never would have believed it.

Incidentally, while we were conducting our research – by which we mean when our interns were conducting their research – Team Last Call also stumbled across a rather disturbing news report about how space aliens are using e-mail pornography to seduce Earth women, a practice that astrophysicist Dr. Paul Winterhoof says is just the first step in what is actually a massive conspiracy to mate humans and extraterrestrials (www.weeklyworldnews.com). We just sort of felt a responsibility to share that with you. That's just the kind of people Team Last Call is made of. The kind that ends a sentence with a preposition.

While St. Patrick accomplished a great many things during his time in Ireland (or Scotland, or India, depending on which Truthnet site you're reading), he is most celebrated for driving all of the snakes out of Ireland, a feat that would be even more impressive had there ever been any snakes in Ireland to begin with. Not that we're trying to discredit St. Patrick. Team Last Call is as pro-St. Patrick as the next guy. We're just saying that taking credit for driving the snakes out of Ireland is like taking credit for driving all of the three-toed, double-jointed, fire-breathing half-dragon-half-gorillas out of Pennsylvania. Because according to the Truthnet, those never got any farther west than New Jersey.

Some scholars theorize that the "driving the snakes out of Ireland" thing is an allegory that church leaders developed to illustrate the success St. Patrick had in converting pagans into believers. Which is something that's hard to joke about, so we'll just leave it alone. But what we will joke about is how a holiday honoring a religious saint has evolved into a day when people put on green plastic hats, drink themselves into oblivion and wake up in the neighbors' bushes with three dozen strands of Mardi Gras beads around their necks. But let's not drag the Bush twins into this.

Here's an interesting factoid: according to the Truthnet, green is actually not a very popular color in Ireland. In fact, it's considered downright unlucky (www.nationalgeographic.com). Legend has it that children who wear too much green are in danger of being kidnapped by leprechauns, who are tiny little men in tiny little suits who like to prance around under a rainbow, kind of like an Irish version of Ryan Seacrest.

Our final – and, I might add, most shocking – discovery on the Truthnet was that people in Ireland like to drink (alcoholism.about.com). A lot. Which we're thinking has something to do with their belief that tiny little prancing men will kidnap their children if they wear too much green. But we could be wrong. Anyway, as they say in Ireland, Erin go bragh! (Gaelic for "Ireland go bragh!") Have a safe and happy St. Patty's Day!

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Interview with Aerosmith's Joe Perry

Posted by Jeff on 3/01/2006 12:13:00 AM
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Time flies when you’re having fun, even if that fun has lasted for 35 years.
“God, it seems like yesterday when we were still struggling to get gigs!” says Joe Perry, on the phone from between stops on Aerosmith’s massive winter tour with Lenny Kravitz.
Maybe it was the fact that Aerosmith is enjoying a huge renaissance right now, or maybe it was because it was Valentine’s Day, but Perry was downright gushy during our conversation, opening up about everything from the band’s breakup in the ’80s to the new live album (Rockin’ The Joint) to the uncertain future of the biggest rock band in American history.
“I’m just not ready to trade in my guitar for a set of skis yet,” he laughs. “I can get enough skiing in on the side at this point. But I don’t know if any of it equals what it feels like to get up onstage and have all the cylinders pumping.”
From arena tours to rumor wars, Perry talks about why life in Aerosmith is anything but the “same old song and dance.”

Team Last Call: The last time we talked you were touring for the blues album [Honkin’ On Bobo], and now you’re out supporting a live album. It seems like you guys are just having fun right now trying some things that you’ve either never done before or haven’t done for 25 years.
Joe Perry: Well, because of that big single we had with “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing,” I think that overall we’ve gotten this rap that we kind of sold out or mellowed out or something. And any Aerosmith fan that’s been to one of our shows knows that that isn’t true. If you come to an Aerosmith show, it’s a rock band. We’re carrying on the tradition of the electric guitars and the singer and the drummer and the bass player kicking ass. We play a lot of different kinds of music, but our meat and potatoes is hard rock.
I think that aside from what it did for our own creative process – doing Honkin’ On Bobo was a great way to reconnect with our roots and what we are live – it also gave everybody a chance to see what we spend 90 percent of our time doing – rock. Then doing the live record, again, that drove the nail home.

TLC: That’s interesting that it was a reaction against the perception of you guys going soft. Because when you listen to the live album, it even shocked me how hard it rocks, and I know the stuff!
JP: That’s good. We can play a lot of different kinds of music, but rock is where we live. Those other songs are offshoots. It was one of the most amazing times in our career when [“I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing”] went to number one. We never had a number one single before. But like I said, if you come to the show, you’re gonna hear that one, but you’re also gonna hear “Train Kept A Rollin’” and all the other stuff that makes us what we are.

TLC: I was just reading in the new Rolling Stone about how classic rock is making this huge comeback.
JP: This tour has definitely been the biggest tour we’ve done in many years. The fans are just loving it and it’s just been great.
There’s just overall a whole new generation of kids who are really interested in seeing the roots of this music and listening to some of the bands that are actually responsible for bringing it to where it is now. That’s why they come out to see the Stones and U2 and Bon Jovi, the bands that started this stuff. The Stones with the Beatles were the quintessential rock stars, then we kind of were the next generation after that. We went from the Stones and Zeppelin and then we took over and took the thing another step in the ’70s. And we’re still here doing it, so it’s a chance for people to really see the real deal.

TLC: The interesting thing with Aerosmith is that you’re also constantly making new music that keeps you relevant, which is something that you can’t say about some other bands in your caliber. What’s the trick for that?
JP: We just keep trying. We’re still excited about it. We certainly do live what you would call a rock and roll lifestyle, but we didn’t get into it for that. We got into it because we loved to make music together and we realized what a miracle it is to have that and have some success and have fans.

TLC: Steven said that the next album might be a White Stripes kind of thing …
JP: I’m not sure. We’re all thinking of having it be as organic-sounding as possible, getting back to the “band in the room playing live” aspect. We have to have that in this next record. We have to meld that in with the party feel of when we were doing Honkin’ On Bobo. So that’s the mountain we’re gonna climb next. Because we still haven’t made our best record.

TLC: That’s like the mentality of a new band …
JP: I think that’s what’s kept us going all this time. That, and the fact that we like fast cars, and they don’t come cheap! [laughs]

TLC: You made some comments recently about Aerosmith being closer to the end than the beginning, and how the number of shows you have left to play is finite. As soon as you say anything like that, of course, people start getting concerned. Do fans have any reason to worry at this point?
JP: No, but if you start looking at our ages and just physically how much longer we’re going to be able to do the kind of shows we’re doing – we are definitely not 25 years old. When you’re that age you think it’s gonna go on forever. I’m pretty practical about it. I love doing this, but I know there’s gonna be a time when there’s gonna be a last show. We’re closer to that then we are to the beginning when we first started playing. I do think about the fact that we have a certain amount of shows left and how we’re gonna make the most of it. We only have so many left. I can’t tell you right now if that means this is the last tour. I mean, we have plans. We have kind of a rough three- to five-year plan, but never in my whole career has that played out the way that you plan it.

TLC: I don’t think anyone would blame you if you wanted to hang up the guitar and enjoy some of those fast cars that you worked to buy …
JP: Yeah. But you know, doing what we do – it’s the dream. When we were all growing up, we had this idea that we wanted to have a band. I can speak for the other four guys – we all love doing this.

TLC: Does it ever blow your mind when you’re up there that you’re still rocking with these same five guys 30-plus years later?
JP: Yeah, it does. It does. It’s really amazing.
When you have it as big as we did in the ’70s and you lose it all, you better believe those lessons sink in and sink in hard. You don’t forget ’em, and they’re just as strong today as they were then.
The band fell apart, and when the band got back together in the ’80s – that was it. When you have lost everything and then you get it back by some miracle of the grace of God or blind luck, you don’t ever take it for granted again. So no, we don’t ever forget that. That’s what keeps it going.

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February 2006 - Potty Party

Posted by Jeff on 2/01/2006 11:54:00 PM
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Team Last Call has been struggling with some major plumbing issues lately. And that's not slang for anything.

Actually, we're having more of a house-wide crisis. We've got a broken porch light, we've got a busted handle on our front door, we've got clogged spouting, we've got a major leak in our basement, and we've got insulation in the attic thats disintegrating faster than Britney Spears' sex appeal.

These things are tedious and aggravating, and we've been meaning to take care of them for several months now, but despite our best efforts, we can't quite seem to reach any of them from the couch. And if you think we're about to miss an episode of "Passions" just to replace some handle on the front door, so that our guests "don't have to walk around the back of the house" and "get dog crap" on their shoes and "track it all over our carpet," then you've got another thing coming.

If Team Last Call were a superhero, these problems would be like shoplifters - they're annoying, but none of them are really worth the attention of a crime-fighter of our caliber.

None of them, that is, except for one.

Every good superhero has an archenemy. Superman has Lex Luther. Spider-Man has the Green Goblin. George Bush has the word "nuclear."

And now, Team Last Call has one of its own: the upstairs toilet.

Our upstairs toilet has been running for several months now. I guess we'd better go catch it ha ha ha ha! Sorry.

But in all seriousness, that toilet has been the very bane of our existence. It's what we in the superhero business call "an evildoer."

The toilet troubles began with a little trickling sound coming from near the tank. It was irritating and persistent, like Ryan Seacrest, but it was way too little to pose a real threat. Like Ryan Seacrest.

But over time, that trickle developed into a raging river, with whirlpools and rapids and everything. It got to the point where we were afraid to come anywhere near the toilet for fear that we might be sucked into the current and deposited somewhere in the middle of the Susquehanna.

Before long, it became apparent that our toilet had been possessed by the devil. It developed this supernatural glow, and every time we got near it, it would start growling like a dog with rabies. Then it started doing this thing where we'd wake up during the night and the toilet would be sitting in the middle of our room, just staring at us, and every time we'd wake up it would be a little closer to the bed, until eventually it was sleeping beside us and hogging all the covers, which we really hate.

Then the toilet started getting just flat-out weird. Before long it was strutting around the house in its underwear like it owned the place, borrowing our favorite shirts without asking, watching all of our DVDs and then putting them away in the wrong cases, drinking the last of the milk and then putting the carton back in the fridge. And then it would walk around whistling "Man! I Feel Like A Woman" by Shania Twain as loud as it could, when it knows that we hate that song!

The toilet was evil. Pure evil. We didnt know if we should attack it with a sledgehammer or put it in a suit and tie and make it CEO of Halliburton.

We realize that we might be exaggerating the situation a little bit. It's sort of a bad habit of ours. But that toilet is the devil. In fact, we can hear it right now, just drip-drip-dripping away. Somehow, it knows that were trying to write an article.

You're probably wondering why we don't just march in there and fix the toilet ourselves. It's probably just a matter of a loose connection with the hose or a kink in the chain or something.

Frankly, we're scared. Besides, if we had any actual mechanical skills, we wouldn't be writing articles about toilets for a living.

The other option, of course, would be to call in a plumber. The problem there is, plumbers cost money, and in case we neglected to mention it before, we write columns about toilets for a living.

Besides, there's a third option we haven't explored yet: holding it.

Team Last Call has been holding it for weeks, and we think it's really teaching that toilet a hard lesson.

Because if you think about it, toilets are only as important as we allow them to be. They sit there all smug, with that little smirk that says, "Sooner or later, you'll come crawling back. You always do." They're just so conceited.

We say it's time we stop letting these toilets boss us around. We don't have to take their bullying sitting down, as it were.

It's time that we took the power back! Join me! Join me in the revolution! Together we can ... oh, man ... I'm sorry ... can I use your bathroom?

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January 2006 - 10 Steps To A Better You

Posted by Jeff on 1/02/2006 11:54:00 PM
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It’s January, the dawn of a new year.

January is a time of hope, a time of new beginnings. It’s a time to reflect on the previous year – the lessons you learned, the friends you made, the memories you created. It’s also a time to think about how big your ass has gotten.

That’s right, it’s resolution time, that special time of year when we stop to take a hard look at our lives and realize that we are terrible, terrible people. Each year we tell ourselves that we’re going to turn our lives around. This is the year we’re going to start exercising. This is the year we’ll finally get around to scooping out the litterbox. This is the year we’re going to quit smoking once and for all. Or at least for a week. Whichever comes first.

Team Last Call thought long and hard about what kind of resolutions we should make for 2006. Yet despite our best efforts, we were unable to come up with a single thing. We live a relatively clean life. We have good manners. We wear really fashionable corduroy jackets. And let’s face it, we’re cute as a button. There just really isn’t much to improve upon.

So what we decided to do instead is to make a list of resolutions for other people. That way, we can still do our part this year to make the world a better place. And let’s be honest – you and your love handles could use the help.

It is Team Last Call’s hope that everyone can approach this column with the right attitude, which is the attitude of “Team Last Call is always right.” It’s not our aim to offend anyone. We hope we don’t come across as being judgmental or anything. It’s just that you have really bad taste, and we’d like to help fix it.

Resolution one: Get rid of your Hummer. As Team Last Call has touched on so many times before, driving a Hummer is for turds. If you don’t want everyone to think you’re a turd, then don’t drive a Hummer. It’s that simple. Turd.

Resolution two: On another car-related note, it’s time to take the silly spinning rims off of your wheels. Nobody thinks they’re cool but the guy who sold them to you, and that’s just because he works on commission. Surely there is some better way you could put that $2,000 to use. Like by feeding the poor, for example. Or by donating the money to the Women & Babies Hospital. Unless you hate babies. It’s OK if you do. If that’s the case, just leave the rims on. That way we’ll know for sure.

Resolution three: No more high-fiving in public. High-fiving is something that frat boys do after one of them lights a fart. It’s cheesy and primitive, and usually means that you were born with the mutant chromosome that makes you wear your hat backwards and listen to rap-metal. So basically, you need to find a new way to express your happiness. However, in the event that a high-five becomes unavoidable (ie. you just made out with Eva Longoria), under no circumstances are you to attempt a high-ten, which is never OK.

Resolution four: Listen to better music. As I write this, the number one album in the country belongs to Nickelback. Do you have any idea how disturbing that is? That’s like giving Vin Diesel an Oscar for Best Actor, or electing a ham sandwich as the next president of the United States. Actually, that might be an improvement … But anyway, we’ve really got to raise the bar a little bit when it comes to the albums that we Americans are buying. One good rule of thumb is that if the music is really, really terrible, you shouldn’t listen to it.

Resolution five: Stop having sex with Paris Hilton. If you’re one of the many, many people who have slept with the hotel heiress – and statistics show that most of you are – it’s time to stop. If we all work together to keep Paris from having sex, thereby cutting off her only real contribution to society, then maybe, just maybe, people will stop caring about her and she’ll finally go away. Together we can make a difference.

Resolution six: Stop putting chairs in the street to save your parking space when it snows. Not only is this obnoxious, but I can only throw your lawn chair up into a tree so many times before my arm gets sore.

Resolution seven: Stop watching NASCAR. I’m sorry, I know everyone’s entitled to the pursuit of happiness, but I think there should be a legal limit on how excited you’re allowed to get by watching cars drive in circles. If it’s the circular pattern that attracts you, you can bring a six-pack of Natural Ice over to my house and watch my dryer spin. I’ll only charge you five bucks, and you won’t even need earplugs.

Resolution eight: Clean up you’re grammar. Nothing gets under an English major’s skin more than when you don’t talk good. It’s real annoying. Plus, I’m sick of other countries saying us Americans aren’t edumacated. I mean, if we’re so dumb, then how come we got more bombs than you? Now who’s the dumb ones? You’s guys, that’s who.

Resolution nine: Stop going to wet T-shirt contests. These contests are tacky and sad and are like a breeding ground for high-fives, which were clearly outlawed in resolution three (see above). Plus, once you sober up, you’ll realize that most of the women who compete have mullets and horse teeth. Which is hopefully the meanest things I’ll say all year.

And finally, resolution ten: Read our Last Call column at least once a day. Four out of five doctors agree that not only can Last Call help to reduce the risk of heart disease, but it is also an effective treatment for STDs, which you’ll need after your little tryst with Paris Hilton. Also, tests have shown that reading our competitors’ columns results in the growth of excessive back hair. As much as we hate to say anything negative about our fellow journalists, we feel like you have a right to know.

Well, that’s about all the resolutions we’ve got time for. Drop us a line and let us know how your new lifestyle is working out. Good luck.

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December 2005 - All I Want For Christmas

Posted by Jeff on 12/01/2005 11:52:00 PM
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About nine months ago, one of my closest friends tried to convince me that he and his wife were going to have a baby by the end of the year.

I recognized immediately that it was a joke, and the way I knew it was a joke is because babies can't hold their liquor. Not only that, but they're terrible at video games and it takes them forever to work their way through a piece of beef jerky. And that's why, for my friends and me, having a baby is simply not an option. A baby would threaten everything that we, as a group of young, spirited and most of all, flatulent males, hold dear. By which I mean Guys Night.

Because everybody knows that Guys Night and babies do not go together.

First of all, when you're in the middle of a heated competition to see who can fit the most M&Ms up his nose, you can't afford to lose your focus because some baby is shrieking his head off in the background. Just because the baby decided to poop his own pants doesn't mean that he should ruin the night for everyone else. I mean, look at my friend Patrick: he pooped his pants hours ago, and is he sitting in the middle of the floor crying about it? No! He's outside grilling burgers and throwing horseshoes like a real man!

And secondly, no one, and I mean no one, can defeat Sauron's army of orcs and banish the One Ring into the fires of Mordor with a baby in his arms. I'm sorry, but there's just no way you can execute Aragorn's Wrath of Numenor attack move with one hand - not to mention the Orc Bane! I mean, please! While you're at it, why don't you just march into Shelob's lair without activating the light of Erendil? Loser.

So needless to say, when my friend started flapping his lips about babies and fatherhood and responsibility, I didn't buy it for a second. Between playing rock and roll and watching football, most of us barely have enough free time to change our socks each week. Making one of us responsible for the welfare of a whole other human being would be like putting someone who can't even pronounce the word "nuclear" in charge of the deadliest military force on the planet.

I tried to explain all of this to my friend, but he kept insisting that he and his wife really were going to have a baby. I felt bad for him, because I could tell that he really believed it. It was cute, in a little-kid-leaving-milk-and-cookies-for-Santa kind of way. So I just let it go, figuring that sooner or later my friend would realize that having a baby wasn't even in realm of possibility. It would be like a pig flying, or Nickelback writing a good song.

A few months passed, and I didn't give the issue any thought. But then, by early fall, I started picking up on a few signals that made me suspect my friend was right about having a baby. Just little things, like how he painted one of his rooms blue and set up a crib. And how his wife started waddling when she walked, and how her belly puffed up like she was trying to smuggle Emmanuel Lewis around under her shirt. And how someone threw her a baby shower. And how she totally had a baby.

When I first got news of the baby's birth, I felt a little conflicted. I was excited for my friend, but I just wasn't ready for a baby. I needed time. But did my friend ever stop to consider my feelings? Did he have the decency to consult with me before having a baby? No. Evidently, I'm not even part of this equation. Evidently, anyone can just run off and make a baby whenever he feels like it, without any regard for how its going to affect his friends and/or the integrity of their booger-flicking contests.

And that's when it occurred to me that the booger-flicking contests might be a thing of the past. Maybe it's time to grow up. Our whole group of friends is hovering around the 30-year mark. We are old. We have passed our prime. We are like shriveled old raisins floating numbly in the breakfast cereal of life. It's time to accept our fate.

Full of melancholy and regret, I trudged into the hospital to see this new baby, this living symbol of the mundane adult life that loomed on the horizon.

I found the hospital room, rapped on the door and pushed my way in to meet baby Owen.

And there he was, a baby boy, a picture-perfect baby boy with glistening eyes, a wispy patch of hair and these impossibly small hands, his tiny fingers wrapped around his mother's thumb, his little heart bravely thumping away inside his tiny little frame, all warm and fragile and miraculous. He was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen.

I knew immediately that I had to have one. Babies are like iPods - you have to actually hold one in your hand before you realize how meaningless life is without them. They're even better than Guys Night.

There are definitely a few logistical problems I need to work out before I get a baby, like how I'm going to keep my Jack Russell from eating it. And I need to find somewhere to keep it. But then again, babies aren't that big, so finding storage space shouldn't really be a problem. I'll just clear off a shelf somewhere.

And then I guess I kind of need to run the idea past my wife. I definitely need her on board if this baby thing is going to work out. Either that or I need to get my own uterus.

Until I get it all sorted out, feel free to send any extra babies you've got lying around the house to the Fly Magazine office, attention Team Last Call. It would make for a really great Christmas gift, and I'm pretty sure babies are tax deductible. Unless they're not. I don't really know.

Anyway, Happy Holidays from all of us here at Team Last Call.

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Clay Aiken interview

Posted by Jeff on 12/01/2005 12:14:00 AM
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When Team Last Call tracked down American Idol alum Clay Aiken in late November, the spunky singer was one week into his annual Joyful Noise holiday tour.
Maybe it was all the eggnog, or maybe it was the fact that he’d been sitting on his butt all day doing interviews, but Aiken had more energy than a toddler with a sugar rush. He giggled, he bounced, he talked at about a thousand words a minute. In other words, even after selling millions of albums and becoming one of America’s biggest pop stars, it appears that Clay Aiken is still the same lovable goof we first met three years ago. There’s something strangely comforting about that.
Team Last Call took the opportunity to pick the animated Aiken’s brain about his holiday tour, his pet goat, and what it’s like to be the world’s least likely sex symbol.

Team Last Call: So, by this point in your career, have you gotten used to the lifestyle that comes with being a pop star?
Clay Aiken: Strangely enough, yes. It’s not something I ever thought I would get used to. When I first started doing it, it was like, “Oh wow! An interview! A signing! Yay!” Now an interview or signing is like, “Oh, god …” [laughs]

TLC: [laughs] Well, let me ask you the same question you’ve been getting all day then: What can we expect out of the Joyful Noise Tour?
CA: We did the Joyful Noise Tour last year. We did a full-orchestra run with a 30-piece orchestra onstage and sang the songs from the Merry Christmas With Love album.
I didn’t want to do the same thing that every other artist who does a Christmas tour does. During the holiday season you can pretty much pick any day in most cities and go see some artist’s Christmas concert. [laughs] So I was trying to figure out a way to make it different, to maybe string all of these songs together with some type of dialogue, or figure out a way to make the stories connect. It changed from me talking to having someone else do it, to having characters do it, to having specific characters doing it. It became a storyline, really.

TLC: Do you feel like you’re able to wrap your head around everything that’s happened to you so far?
CA: Yeah. It took a while. I don’t ever want to get to a point where I can wrap my head around it all. If I ever get to that point, I think it’s time to quit. Every day there is something new and different and there’s something exciting.
There are plenty of times I could stop and say, “Wow, look at what I’m doing now!” I could stop right now and think, “This is completely different,” even though I have done 55 interviews today. [laughs] It’s still something I wasn’t doing in North Carolina two years ago. I have to be thankful for it. It becomes a little more routine and you become accustomed to it, I’m sure like any job. When I was a teacher, the first time I did it was much harder than the third and fourth times. This is kind of the same way.

TLC: Another thing that’s changed is that you’ve become this full-on sex symbol for a lot of people!
CA: That part scares me! I haven’t wrapped my head around that. [laughs] That just frightens me. I’m worried about America’s taste! [laughs] That’s probably something I’m not ever going to quite get. It’s flattering, so I won’t complain, but I’m baffled.

TLC: In a position like yours, everybody’s so interested in your personal life. Suddenly I’m reading things about you, everything from stories about your childhood petsto speculation on your sexual orientation and everything in between. Does that weird you out?
CA: It’s tough. At the very beginning of the process, it’s quite a shock. You don’t understand why people are asking these things. I had a goat – who cares? And I didn’t tell anybody that. There are times that I look on the internet or read a message board and they’ll know things about me that I didn’t know. [laughs] “I never told anybody that! How did they find out?” So at first it’s a shock. And then later on it’s not as shocking but still upsetting. And then after a while, it’s just like having a gnat in your nose. You just want to kill it. [laughs] It becomes unfortunately a negative part of what you do, and you need to kind of live with it. But if you could get up your nose and kill it, you would do it. [laughs] It’s not so easy sometimes.

TLC: You’re almost becoming as known for your humanitarian work as you are for your music. Why is that so important to you?
CA: I kind of came into this not necessarily wanting to or knowing how to be a celebrity or whatnot. I mean, I was a teacher! And I made a promise to myself as I did it. “If I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna try to be something other than self-serving.” I think that every single person who’s in this industry and who’s a celebrity and making money off the public – I make my money directly from the public – has the responsibility to pay them back in some way. I think each person in my position is a role model whether they want to be or not. Somewhere out there are kids who look up to you. And some people take that seriously, and some people don’t. To me, I don’t understand why people don’t take it seriously.
UNICEF does amazing work. I thought I was a worldly person, and then I started working with them and realized I don’t know as much of my world as I need to. And if I don’t know as much about my world as I need to, then many, many, many people don’t. So I’m thrilled to be in a position to be able to talk about it. And so I’m gonna.

TLC: Do you think about the kind of things you still want to achieve in your career?
CA: Everything that’s happened so far has been because I’ve kind of been available to opportunities. I don’t like to set plans. It’s kind of a strange thing to hear come out of a teacher’s mouth, but I don’t like to set goals because I think when you set specific goals you end up losing sight of other opportunities. I had the goal of wanting to be a teacher. I wanted to continue being in education for a long time. Had I made that a hard, fast goal, then I would not have had the opportunity to do this now.
We do want to have an album out in the first half of next year, and then we want to make sure we can go out on the road again at some point. But other than that, I kind of just let what happens happen. Let go and let God.

TLC: So if somebody wants to put you on another TV show and make you the world’s most famous dancer or something, you can do that next!
CA: [laughs] I said I’d be open to opportunities and I’ll take a look at them, but just because I’m looking doesn’t mean I’ll do ’em!
*Reprinted from Fly Magazine

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