Between you and me, my wife didn’t really take turning 30 all that well. And when I say “didn’t take it all that well,” I mean she freaked out like a vampire caught in the sunlight. Shrieking, thrashing around, trying to bite through my neck – the whole deal. It was like living under the reign of Caligula, but with fewer beheadings.
I’m exaggerating, of course. There were at least as many beheadings.
Death and carnage lay all about. On the scale of natural disasters, my wife’s birthday ranked somewhere between the black plague and the giant meteor that killed all the dinosaurs. It was a full-on crisis, just a few horsemen short of the apocalypse. The only reason you didn’t hear about it on the evening news was that it got edged out by round-the-clock coverage of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ engagement. But it still got more coverage than the death toll in Iraq.
It’s been several months since my wife’s birthday, and I’m honestly still a little nervous to broach the subject. That little vein in the middle of her forehead is just now starting to swell back to its normal size.
When I first told my wife I was going to be writing about her birthday for my next column, her head started spinning around in circles and blood came out of our walls. Then she started talking backwards Latin and flinging large pieces of furniture around the room with her mind. Our poor little Jack Russell still hasn’t stopped shaking. Of course, that could just be because he’s a Jack Russell. And because I fed him a bag of espresso beans.
I realize I’m probably coming across as mean and insensitive. I mean, what kind of jerk talks this way about his own wife? This kind of jerk. Because the truth is, my wife thinks this kind of crap is funny, which is why she married me in the first place. Well, it was either that or my love handles and enormous forehead. I’m not really sure.
Actually, that brings us to the real reason why I’m writing about my wife’s 30th birthday: our marriage. Frankly, I’m starting to get a little worried about being the man my wife needs in her life now that she’s becoming a mature woman. Because 30 is the mark of adulthood, of responsibility. My wife is growing up, getting all reflective and sophisticated, yet I continue to be a mental toddler – which is good in that it qualifies me to be the leader of the free world, but bad in that it makes me an immature, bumbling idiot.
Assuming for a minute that it wasn’t my enormous forehead that reeled her in, the best thing I’ve got going for me is the ability to make my wife laugh, and I’m concerned that I might not always be able to do that the way I can now, short of taking off my clothes.
The fact is, I will never, ever stop laughing at flatulence. I’m a 29-year-old man who can be reduced to tears just from someone pretending to pass gas. The old hand-in-the-armpit, the old mouth-in-the-elbow – they get me every time. I’m an addict. I’m a toot-aholic. I’m hopeless.
So what if – I can hardly even bring myself to type this – but what if there comes a day when my wife no longer appreciates a good fart joke? Because unfortunately, my ability to produce them in bulk is pretty much my only marketable skill. The jokes, I mean.
What if my wife just plain outgrows me? What if her needs change? What if she starts to desire a different kind of man, one who knows the difference between a wrench and a screwdriver and can find the little thinger on your car where the oil goes without having to ask for help?
I did manage to grow some chest hair recently, which I think is a positive step towards manliness, but for every “good” hair I grow, an “evil” one pops up in places you don’t even want to know about. It’s a losing battle.
My wife is now spending large quantities of time “taking stock of her life” and planning out things like her career and her future family. As in, she’s planning on making actual babies, like the kind with the sticky little hands and scabby little knees that are always vomiting and pooping and getting lollipops stuck in their hair.
This presents a problem, in that I am nowhere near being prepared for parenthood. I have enough trouble changing my own underwear, let alone someone else’s. I still can’t even say the word “nipple” without giggling uncontrollably.
I need to do some growing up, is what it comes down to. And I need to do it quickly, before my wife’s biological clock starts chiming. I don’t want her to do anything rash just because I’m not good at things like “handling responsibility” or “remembering to put on pants.” I run to the mailbox every day to make sure there isn’t a package addressed to my wife from David Crosby.
Deep down, I know I can handle a child. I’ll be fine as long as I can just manage to stay at least one full day ahead of the baby developmentally. At least until it turns 7 or 8 and starts running around the house making fart noises, at which point I will be stuck in a perpetual state of shooting milk out my nose.
The day my wife outgrows my immature potty humor will be a dark day indeed. But I will cling to the hope that we will never see that day. I will keep the faith. I will not yield to the darkness. I will pass gas into the face of despair.
Meanwhile, I’m going to do my best to do some growing up of my own. Yes, I’m going to be a new man. A mature man. A responsible man. And I’m going to start right now by fixing the toilet upstairs that’s been running since June. Can you hand me that screwdriver? What? Oh, sorry. I mean wrench.
And so, in an effort to help you, the Last Call reader, avoid certain incarceration, Team Last Call is proud to present Part Two of our hard-hitting exposé on Ridiculous State Laws: Montana through Wyoming.
Breaking a state law is a lot easier than you might think. In fact, you might be inadvertently breaking one right now, jeopardizing the very freedom that so many French fries have been named after.
For example, if you happen to be reading this column in South Bend, Indiana, and a monkey just walked up and sat down on the bench beside you, and without giving it any thought you casually handed the monkey a lighted cigarette, then you, my friend, are in direct violation of Indiana state law.
Don’t beat yourself up over it. It’s a mistake anyone could make. I mean, who among us hasn’t handed a lit cigarette to a monkey from time to time? Team Last Call is just trying to make the point that there are some very wacky laws on the books that most people don’t even know about.
We know what you’re thinking: “Team Last Call is silly! Some of these laws are hundreds of years old! The cops don’t even enforce these laws anymore!” Go ahead. Laugh all you want. Just don’t expect Team Last Call to come bail you out the next time you’re arrested in Boise, Idaho for fishing while perched on a giraffe’s back.
Before we get started, Team Last Call would like to respond to a few fan letters that came in last month: Yes, all of the state laws we’re writing about are real. No, we didn’t make any of them up. And yes, we are serious about the promise we made to stop making fun of people who drive Hummers, regardless of the fact that their short tempers and Yoda-sized genitalia make them an easy target.
And now, to the laws:
Apparently, in Montana, it is illegal to leave a sheep in the cab of your truck without a chaperone. Sheep get lonely too.
In Hastings, Nebraska, hotel owners are required by law to provide each guest with a clean, white cotton nightshirt. It’s also written that no couple may have sex unless they are wearing the nightshirts.
If somebody shoots your dog in the state of Nevada, the law makes it totally OK for you to hang that person.
Please try to remember that when you’re in New Hampshire, it is completely illegal to ride a camel on the highway.
If you’re in New Jersey, please note that it’s illegal to slurp soup. There is also a law that makes it illegal to wear a bulletproof vest while committing a murder. So please, if you’ve got to kill someone, take off the vest first.
Females are strictly forbidden to appear unshaven in public in New Mexico.
In New York, the penalty for jumping off a building is death. Well, yeah.
It’s actually against the law to sing off key in North Carolina. Also, the state asks that you refrain from using elephants to plough your cotton fields.
In North Dakota, it is perfectly legal to shoot a Native American on horseback, provided that you are in a covered wagon at the time.
If you happen to misplace your pet tiger while in Canton, Ohio, be aware that you have just one hour to alert the authorities. Also, please note that you may not parade your goose down Main Street in the town of McDonald. And in Toledo, throwing a snake at another person is frowned upon.
In Oklahoma, violators can be arrested for making ugly faces at a dog.
In Hood River, Oregon, it is illegal to juggle without a license. And in Myrtle Creek, there is a law prohibiting a man from boxing a kangaroo.
Pennsylvania also has its share of weirdo laws. Did you know, for example, that it is illegal to sleep on top of a refrigerator outdoors? Also, you may not sing in the bathtub. And in Danville, it has been decreed that all fire hydrants must be checked one hour before all fires. Think about it.
In Rhode Island, it is considered an offense to throw pickle juice on a trolley.
The state of South Carolina would like you to know that horses may not be kept in bathtubs.
In South Dakota, if there are more than five Native Americans on your property, it is legal for you to shoot them. Note to Native Americans: Never vacation in the Dakotas.
It is illegal in Tennessee to use a lasso to catch fish. And in Memphis, it is illegal to give pie to fellow diners. However, it’s perfectly lawful to gather and consume road kill.
In Texas, it is against the law to milk another person’s cow. In the town of Kingsville, there is a law against two pigs having sex at the airport. And another thing you should know when you’re in Texas: While it’s legal for a chicken to have sex with you, it is not legal for you to reciprocate. No matter how much it might hurt your chicken’s feelings.
A husband is responsible for every criminal act his wife commits in his presence in the state of Utah.
In Vermont, it is against the law to whistle underwater. It’s also really, really hard.
In Virginia, women are required by law to wear a corset after sundown.
Here’s a good one: All lollipops are legally banned in the state of Washington. Also, if you’re in the town of Wilbur, you can be arrested for riding an ugly horse. And in Seattle, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon longer than six feet. Like a cannon, for example.
On a positive note, in West Virginia, it is perfectly legal for a man to have sex with an animal, provided that the animal does not exceed 40 pounds. Er …
The town of St. Croix, Wisconsin, prohibits women from wearing anything red in public.
And finally, if you’re vacationing in Cheyenne, Wyoming, please be aware that it is illegal to take a picture of a rabbit during the month of June.
Well, that’s all the weird laws we could dig up. If you know of more, just jot them down on a postcard and send it to: Team Last Call, c/o Pennsylvania State Penitentiary, cell block six …
Did you know, for example, that in Chicago, Illinois, it is illegal to take a French poodle to the opera? Or that in Massachusetts there is a law that specifically prohibits you from transporting a gorilla in the back seat of your car?
Clearly, these are mistakes than anyone could make. For all you know, you might be inadvertently breaking the law as we speak! All it takes is one little violation to land your butt in jail and ruin your entire vacation. One minute you’re casually parading your goose down Main Street in McDonald, Ohio, and the next minute you’re locked away in a five-by-five-foot cell with a guy named Hogfat.
To save you from certain incarceration this summer, Team Last Call made it our personal mission to dig up the weirdest state laws in existence, some of which have been on the books for hundreds of years. By the time we were done searching, we had compiled such a large list that we had to split it into two columns. This month: Alabama through Missouri.
Keep in mind that these are actual laws that are still in effect today. We couldn’t have made these up if we tried.
If you’re planning a trip to Alabama, please be aware that there is a law on the books that specifically makes it illegal to wear a fake moustache that causes laughter in church.
In Alaska, it’s a crime to feed alcoholic beverages to a moose. So you can cross that one right off your list.
We’re very sorry to report that it is against the law to hunt camels in the state of Arizona.
It is a crime to mispronounce “Arkansas” while in Arkansas.
In California, a woman can be prosecuted for driving a car while wearing a housecoat. Also – and I can’t stress this one enough – it is completely illegal to drive more than two thousand sheep down Hollywood Boulevard at one time. If you find yourself in a situation where driving sheep down Hollywood Boulevard becomes inevitable, please try to take them in smaller batches.
It is unlawful to lend your vacuum cleaner to your next-door neighbor if you live in Denver, Colorado.
In Connecticut, there is a law preventing you from walking across the street on your hands, and you can forget about walking backwards after sunset. Also, if you go to Hartford, the law clearly states that you may not educate dogs.
In Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, whispering in church has been outlawed.
In Sarasota, Florida, it is illegal to sing while wearing a bathing suit. Also – and this is one of our favorites – somebody in Florida found it necessary to specifically make a law prohibiting sexual relations with a porcupine. Seriously.
If you live in Acworth, Georgia, you are required by law to own a rake. And in Jonesboro, it is actually illegal to say, “Oh, boy.”
In Hawaii, you could be thrown in jail for placing coins in your ears.
Riding a merry-go-round on Sundays is considered a crime in Idaho. Also, in Boise there is a law preventing residents from fishing while perched on a giraffe’s back. For real.
As it turns out, Illinois is a treasure trove of craziness. For example, in Urbana there is actually a law on the books making it illegal for monsters to enter the city. There’s also a law specifically preventing anyone in the state from giving a lighted cigar to a dog or cat. In Eureka, it’s illegal for a man with a moustache to kiss a woman. In Chicago, the law forbids a person to eat in a restaurant that is currently on fire. In Evanston, bowling is strictly forbidden. It’s also illegal to fish in pajamas, in case you were wondering. And here’s the best one: In Champaign, Illinois, it was evidently necessary to make a law decreeing that an individual may not, in fact, pee in his neighbor’s mouth.
In Indiana, bathing is prohibited during the winter. And just so you know, if you’re in South Bend, Indiana, it is completely illegal to make a monkey smoke a cigarette. Please try to control yourself.
In Iowa, kisses may last for as much as, but no more than, five minutes.
It is illegal to put ice cream on cherry pie in Kansas.
When you’re in Kentucky, it is forbidden to transport an ice cream cone in your pocket. And in the town of Frankfort, it is against the law to shoot off a policeman’s tie.
In New Orleans, Louisiana, you may not – I repeat, may not – tie an alligator to a fire hydrant.
The state of Maine kindly asks you to refrain from stepping out of an airplane while it’s in flight. If you do, they’ll arrest you. Or at least, they’ll arrest what’s left of you. Also, keep in mind that in Waterville, it is illegal to blow one’s nose in public.
You’ll be thrown in the slammer if cops catch you swearing while inside the city limits of Baltimore, Maryland. It’s also illegal to take a lion to the movies.
The state of Massachusetts has a law making it illegal to eat more than three sandwiches at a wake. Also worth noting is that, when you’re in the city of Marlboro, detonating a nuclear device is frowned upon. But on a more positive note, in the town of Newton, Massachusetts, the law states that every family is entitled to one free hog, courtesy of the town’s mayor. Bonus!
Walk softly in Michigan, where it is legal for the blind to hunt.
If you are in Minnesota, please keep in mind that the law expressly forbids you to cross the Minnesota-Wisconsin border with a duck on your head. Also, it’s illegal to eat a hamburger on Sundays in St. Cloud.
In Bourbon, Mississippi, we’re sorry to say, you may not hold a turtle race at the airport. But in the town of Truro, it is still perfectly legal to kill your servants.
And finally, in Kansas City, Missouri, it’s OK for children to buy shotguns, but toy cap guns? Illegal!
Well, that’s all of the bizarre laws we could fit into this month’s column. Coming up in September: Montana through Wyoming! Until then, do not – we repeat, do not – participate in a boxing match with a kangaroo in Myrtle Creek, Oregon. Trust us.
Our faithful readers are sending in letters by the truckload asking questions on a variety of summer-related topics, such as “What’s the best way to keep cool this summer?” and “What’s this year’s hottest trend in beachwear?” and “How would you like it if I tore your arms off and stuffed you into a mailbox?”
Yes, I’m afraid that Team Last Call has also been the recipient of some good, old-fashioned hate mail. At first, Team Last Call was very upset. For the life of Team Last Call, we just couldn’t figure out what we were doing wrong. But eventually, we realized that virtually all of the hostile letters were coming from a single source, a small constituency of readers known as “Hummer owners.”
This neat group of people has been writing little love notes to Team Last Call ever since we published our annual column on Hummers last March. We’re not sure if it was because we called them bed-wetters or compared their vehicles to a four-ton Viagra pill on wheels, but something definitely seems to have struck a nerve.
We at Team Last Call are taken aback by the Hummer owners’ angry response. We certainly meant no offense in our columns. Team Last Call would never deliberately ridicule Hummer drivers or the various insecurities that compel them to drive a truck the size of a river barge. Like tiny genitalia, for example. We would never make fun of that. Or impotence. Again, not funny.
The last thing we want to do is make the area’s Hummer drivers feel bad about themselves or their ethically retarded vehicles. Yet, despite our best efforts at remaining neutral, Hummer drivers all across the midstate have made Team Last Call the focus of their unstable rage. Regardless of the fact that we had literally nothing to do with their being born with only one testicle.
It’s like you can’t even characterize a group of people as greedy, wasteful, obnoxious, environment-hating pig-dogs without them getting all huffy.
Actually, huffy would have been OK. We could have lived with huffy. Huffy would have been a vacation compared to the reaction we’ve been getting, which falls somewhere between “totally freaking crazy” and “Courtney Love.”
One Hummer driver called us Nazis. Another compared our persecution of Hummer drivers to the persecution of black slaves by white slave owners. Others psychoanalyzed our columns and determined that we are all, in fact, a bunch of raging homosexuals, which is going to break my wife’s heart. One particularly upset Hummer driver said that we were hate incarnate, which up until that point we had always assumed was Bill O’Reilly.
But what’s really been creeping us out are the threatening letters. Some of them talk about what the Hummer owners would do to us if they ever caught us walking alone in an alley on a dark night. Others list various things they would like us to do to ourselves, most of which would require us to be double-jointed. Almost all of them end with some variation of, “Your a awful riter.”
Many of the threats have come from a certain Harrisburg-area bar where evidently a lot of Hummer owners congregate. I guess it’s like a Hummer club. They probably sit around all day just talking about Hummers, washing and waxing their Hummers – maybe even trading Hummers. Yep, they probably sit around all day just swapping Hummers back and forth. First one guy will give the guy beside him a Hummer, and then that guy will give a Hummer to the guy beside him. It’s a very tightly knit community.
We admit that all of the attention we’ve been getting lately is flattering, even if it is in the form of grammatically questionable threats. But it’s not really the kind of recognition Team Last Call was hoping for when we started our column. We were imagining something more along the lines of internet fan sites and television interviews, as opposed to e-mails telling us to “take a long walk off a short pier,” which is only a clever threat if you’re trying to make us die of boredom.
Despite their lack of creativity, the threats have actually been kind of scary. In the words of Toby Keith, it seems that we’ve “rattled the big dog’s cage,” and now the Hummer drivers want to “put their boot up our ass,” because “it’s the American way.” Of all the ways a person could die, we never thought ours would involve getting run over by a four-ton automobile with Yosemite Sam mudflaps and a sticker in the back window that says “Kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out.” If the actual vehicle doesn’t kill us, its tackiness surely will.
And so, in an effort to not be murdered, we at Team Last Call are ready to call a truce. We solemnly swear to do our best not to talk about your comically small genitalia, as long as you do your best not to overcompensate for it by driving a vehicle with the gas mileage of Mount Rushmore.
Obviously, we can’t promise that the occasional joke won’t slip through the cracks. Like, “How many Hummer owners does it take to screw in a lightbulb? None: they’re too busy ‘off-roading’ their way to a gas station to fill up their 8-mile-per-gallon tanks.” For example.
But seriously, Hummer drivers, as far as Team Last Call is concerned, this is the last column we will ever write about you and your turd-mobiles. We’ve said what we needed to say, and the ball is in your morally bankrupt court. If you choose to continue driving your Hummers around, therefore condemning yourselves to purgatory where you will spend the rest of eternity questioning what it was that made you want to drive a vehicle so obnoxious and mind-bogglingly illogical that it made everybody on heaven and earth hate you, then that’s your decision, and we respect it. We’re not here to judge.
There she was, a spoon in one hand, a bowl in the other, whizzing through our neighborhood at 40 mph with the steering wheel pinched between her knees.
She was obviously crazy. Not the harmless kind of crazy that makes people buy Toby Keith albums or get excited about watching cars race around in circles. I’m talking about the kind of crazy that leads to people biting off other people’s ears during boxing matches or trying to privatize social security.
I decided that I couldn’t keep quiet about it. No matter what the consequences, I had to let this woman know that her behavior was simply unacceptable.
So I turned to her and said, “Honey, can you please not eat cereal while you’re driving!”
But my wife wouldn’t listen.
Remember how in Driver’s Ed. class your teacher always instructed you to drive defensively? It’s because he knew that one day you’d be sharing the road with my wife.
Whether she’s putting on her stockings or trying to balance her checkbook, you can be sure that at any given point while she’s driving, my wife is performing at least one other task that requires the use of both hands and usually a foot or two. I’m pretty sure I once caught her in the middle of a yoga pose while she was driving us to the mall, although I couldn’t prove it.
You know how when people are bowling they do that little dance to help steer their ball away from the gutter? That’s me whenever I see my wife driving down the street, only in my case, the gutter is the oncoming lane of traffic and the pins are the neighbor kids. She is to a highway what a tornado is to a house of cards. If she were a professional wrestler, they’d call her “Royer the Destroyer.”
Riding passenger in my wife’s car always makes for a rather transcendent experience. Watching kitties bounce off your windshield really has a way of putting the rest of your problems into perspective. The fact that I have no clean underwear for work tomorrow, for example, seems like much less of a crisis as my wife and I are plowing through our neighbors’ trashcans or taking out a rhododendron bush.
Whether we’re speeding the wrong way down a one-way street, turning a curve on two wheels at 70 mph or ripping off our bumper as we back into the garage, I can just sit back and relax as what I thought were my biggest problems simply melt away.
There is one small problem that won’t go away, though, and that is the fact that, thanks to my wife’s rather relaxed approach to driving, our car looks worse than Michael Moore in a pair of Daisy Dukes. From the scrapes running the entire length of the car to the ominous poodle-shaped dents on the hood, this vehicle is in sad, sad shape. Any day now, I expect it to follow Vin Diesel’s acting career right into the Cosmic Crapper.
On a good day, the car moves with all the enthusiasm of a fat kid who just got picked for the skins team in gym class, which is a subject I know a thing or two about. It’s really a minor miracle that it even starts at all. Although, once you get that car rolling downhill, it’s a force to be reckoned with. Just ask our neighbors’ cats.
The only thing that looks worse than our car’s exterior is our car’s interior. I’m not sure what happened in there, but it wasn’t good. If I had to make an educated guess, I’d say that at some point a grizzly bear and a mountain cat must have broken into the car and had a wrestling match in the front seat in a vat of pudding. I mean, there are actual chocolate stains on the ceiling. But I guess that’s what happens when you take a speedbump at 70 mph with a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles in your hand.
So basically, we need a new car. The problem is, I have a hard time justifying going even deeper into debt just so my wife can have a new, more luxurious vehicle with which to terrorize our neighbors’ mailboxes. Although, for as much time as she spends in her car waiting for the cops to fill out accident reports, she might as well have reliable heating and air conditioning.
When the subject comes up – which is only as often as my wife hits something with her car, by which I mean daily – my wife swears that things would be different with a new car. She’d be careful, more responsible. No more backing into our garage when the door is closed. No more sideswiping old ladies walking down the street. She even promises to steer with her actual hands. Which is comforting, if not entirely believable.
I don’t know. Maybe I should be more trusting and just get the new car. Then again, her current car was new when we got it, and now it looks like it’s been trampled by elephants. If we get another car, how do I know that she won’t just get bored with it three weeks later and start using it to knock coconuts out of trees or something?
It’s a real conundrum. Until I get it all sorted out, all I can say is, watch your back. My wife is on the move, and the Wheaties are missing from the cupboard.
His name is John. He’s a boxer, a drug addict and a Vietnam Vet.
Her name is Caroline. She’s a poor white trash girl living a dead-end life.
The two meet at a state fair, fall in love and run off together in search of a happier life. Then they get stuck in a dark gambling town. Then John has a drug relapse. Then their relationship falls apart. And the story just goes downhillfrom there.
Downhill is a familiar direction for Aimee Mann. Often cited as one of the finest songwriters of her generation, Mann has a knack for picking her way into the middle of a tragic story and finding the little bulb of humanity that makes it tick. Her new concept album, The Forgotten Arm, which details the adventures of John and Caroline in a dozen technicolor tracks, is no exception.
“I’m more into the in-depth profile than the short vignette,” Mann says with a wink from her studio in California. She sounds animated, a little mischievous, and overall nothing like the gloomy girl she’s made out to be. In fact, for someone who’s given nicknames like “Ms. Misery,” Mann sounds downright chipper.
“Truly, most of my friends are comedians who think I’m kind of funny. I mean, somebody of my circle of friends has got to think that I’m a reasonably entertaining person to be around,” she protests. “But I don’t know. I always hate when people go, ‘No, no, I’m really funny! Trust me!’”
In all fairness, The Forgotten Arm is much more than just a mood-crushing story. It’s a masterful, sweet, slow-rocking album that offers redemption in its own weird way. It’s also her most intriguing release since the 1999 soundtrack for “Magnolia,” another fine tale of misery and salvation.
The majority of The Forgotten Arm was recorded live in the span of about a week, which gives it a more open, more summery feel than most of Mann’s recent work. “The themes on this record can be kind of tough themes, and I wanted the sound of the record and the vibe of it to be kind of a bright and fresh and sort of spontaneous feeling, like a more optimistic feeling,” she explains.
One of the main themes concerns that longing everyone gets from time to time to throw everything he owns into the trunk of his car, hit the open highway and start a new life somewhere where the grass is greener. It’s a great American storyline, something for which Mann has a real weakness.
“I really see the pathos in that idea, that people have a life that they’re unhappy with, and they have a desperate hope that by changing their location, that they can change their life somehow. And of course it never works,” she laughs. “I totally know it can’t work. But still, when I think about it, I’m like, ‘Aw, really? Can’t it? C’mon! Mexico, totally different country – surely that would make a difference! Sombreros and margaritas! It’s gotta be paradise!’”
It’s the kind of daydream that sounds very romantic until you’re actually out on that highway, broke and hungry and running on fumes. “Until you have an upset stomach and a flat tire and the two of you are fighting in the front seat about whose turn it is to drive!” Mann giggles.
You’re doomed to fail, but you try anyway, because failing is better than doing nothing at all: there’s the crux of The Forgotten Arm. Not exactly feel-good material. But Mann throws in a surprise at the end by actually giving the story a kind of resolution, if not a happy ending. The sun is poking through the clouds, and you can almost hear Mann squinting in the light.
“I tried to write a happy ending. I don’t think it’s a sad story,” she admits.
“But who’s really cheerful anyway? Who really writes cheerful, happy songs?” she whines, betraying herself with another giggle. “Besides that song ‘Walking on Sunshine’ by Katrina and The Waves. That was my peer group when I was in ’Til Tuesday! I remember she was beating us on the charts!”
These days, the only beatings going on in Mann’s life take place in a regulation boxing ring. The petite songstress recently started sparring as hobby, which sounds cute until she lands a right hook on your face. As it turns out, Mann has a natural gift for boxing, and it’s become her favorite off-stage activity. So go ahead, call her “Ms. Misery” one more time to her face.
“I had met somebody that I became very good friends with, and he was a boxer, and he kind of gave me a casual boxing lesson. And he was very encouraging. He was like, ‘You’re a natural!’ So I had enough encouragement to actually start taking lessons for real,” she explains. “I sort of based some of the character of John on him, because he’s also a drug addict, and he had relapsed, so I was kind of trying to deal with that a little bit.”
The Forgotten Arm (named after a boxing move), like all of Mann’s albums, was released through her own label, SuperEgo Records. Because of that, it will sell only a fraction of what it potentially could on a major label – but the fact that she gets to maintain complete creative control, plus the fact that she makes a ton more money than she would with a major-label deal, makes it a pretty good tradeoff.
“I think if I was on a major label and getting a gigantic promotional push, to me that kind of pressure makes you sort of uncomfortable,” she says. “There are certain artists that to me are almost like athletes. It’s very sporty almost. Like Britney Spears, she’s like a sports figure almost. She gets out there and she dances and she sells it and she does a million tours. She appears everywhere and she’s all dressed up. It’s very sporty. It takes a lot of muscular energy that I just don’t have.”
Even after all of the boxing lessons?
“Well, the boxing is like, all I want to do is fight,” she says guiltily. “I never do all the conditioning stuff that they tell you to do. I don’t do any of the rope work. All I want to do is spar. It’s terrible. I just want to get to the good part!”
Once you’re done throwing up, listen to this: It appears that the young man’s nose-skewering technique just might become a trend. People all across the nation have started jumping on the “pierced eyeglasses” bandwagon. Apparently, the fact that they need to have an extra hole drilled into their heads with a power tool isn’t much of a deterrent. Let’s just hope these people never have a problem with their pants sagging.
The development of pierced eyeglasses is a major breakthrough in the world of body piercing. Suddenly, not only can your piercings be fashionable, but they can be functional too. Just think of the possibilities!
Are you tired of walking out of the house without your wallet? Why not attach it to a big chain, and then connect that big chain to a big ring, and then put that big ring right through your tongue! That way, it would alwayth be thwinging right in front of your fathe. It’d be nearly impothible to forget.
Are you constantly spilling coffee on your shirt during the morning commute? Why not just pierce your nipples and mount a little cup holder onto the studs! We can call it the Nip & Sip.
Are you always embarrassing yourself by leaving your baby behind at places like the laundromat and grocery store? I’m calling the cops.
I myself used to have a few body piercings, although that was back in the olden days when they were just for looks. Like mink coats, or Jessica Simpson.
One day when I was 18, I decided that I simply couldn’t go on living without having my own bellybutton ring. That decision now ranks up there with the day I tried to stuff 20 marshmallows in my mouth and the day I tried to snort a line of salt, which were the same day.
I’m all for being frugal, and I agree that there are some things that you definitely should go price-shopping for, such as cars, groceries, or, in Donald Trump’s case, wives. But if there’s one area where you really don’t want to be cutting corners, it’s body piercing. Trust me. I mean, if you look long enough, you can always find some dude who’s willing to pierce any part of your body in the back of a van for $5 and a sandwich, but that’s not always the best solution.
When it comes to piercings, I like to live by this simple rule:
If it’s in an office, pierce that orifice.
If it’s in the back of a van, get a medical plan.
And here’s another rule: If the guy’s name is Luke, run.
I found Luke in a Harrisburg phone book after calling about a dozen other places. It took him about 10 rings to answer the phone, and another two minutes to catch his breath, and then another two minutes to remember that he had placed an ad in the yellow pages about body piercing. But the fact that he was the only piercer who could schedule me that same day – and the fact that he was about $20 cheaper than every other place I had called – made him my go-to guy.
All I could think about was how proud it would make my parents that I was being so responsible with my money.
One hour later, I was on my back in a sticky leather recliner while Luke, sweating profusely through his yellowed undershirt, chain-smoked and searched around in a drawer for a clean needle.
Once things were all set, he drew a purple dot on my belly with a marker and got out the “needle,” which was actually a hollow metal tube approximately the same size around as Michael Moore.
Then Luke looked at me and said, “Grip my thigh.”
“Grip what now?” I said, sliding back in the chair.
“Grip my thigh,” he repeated.
I didn’t get it. “Why do I need to grip his thigh?” I wondered. “What’s the big deal? I’m just going to lie here and relax, and he’s going to numb my belly and pierce it and holy crap that’s a huge needle and why hasn’t he used any anesthesia aaaaah!”
And just like that, Luke plunged the needle right into my belly. I looked down at the giant tube jutting through my skin. Then I threw up. Then I passed out. I should have gripped his thigh.
When I woke up, in addition to a splitting headache, I had a brand-new ring running through my belly. And probably several communicable diseases.
I was awfully proud of that ring and kept it around for several years, showing it off like a battle scar to everyone I met. Until the day I looked in the mirror sideways.
Apparently, my belly didn’t get the memo that the rest of my body had decided to stop growing. In the six or so years since I had gotten my piercing, my belly had expanded from a normal, boy-sized tummy to a bulbous mound of jiggly, wiggly pudge. Suddenly my bellybutton ring was less like a cute little accessory and more like a giant flashing beacon perched on top of Mount McPlumpy.
No matter how many layers I wore, you could still see the ring parading around under my shirt like a mouse under a rug. It was like having a tiny circus barker strolling around on my belly with a megaphone, calling one and all to witness the freakishness poking out over my belt. “Step right up,” it said, “and behold the pudge!”
Further complicating things was the fact that my piercing had more infections than a Kid Rock groupie. Every other week, my bellybutton would swell up like a ripe tomato. It looked like I was constantly trying to smuggle a poodle around under my shirt.
And so, with great sadness, I had to say goodbye to my precious bellybutton ring. All I have left to show for it now are two little holes. Which, now that I think of it, would be an excellent place to mount that cup holder …
