A woman met a man in a bar. They talked; they connected; they ended up leaving together.

At his place, he showed her around his apartment. She noticed that one wall of his bedroom is completely filled with soft, sweet, cuddly teddy bears. There were three shelves with hundreds and hundreds of them carefully placed in rows, covering the entire wall! It was obvious that he had taken quite some time to lovingly arrange them and she was immediately touched by the amount of thought he had put into organizing the display.

There were small bears all along the bottom shelf, medium-sized bears covering the length of the middle shelf, and huge, enormous bears running all the way along the top shelf. She found it strange for an obviously masculine guy to have such a large collection of teddy bears, but she was impressed he was so open about showing his sensitive side.

They shared a bottle of wine and continued talking and, after a while, she found herself thinking, ‘Oh my God! Maybe, this guy could be the one! Maybe he could be the future father of my children?’

She turned to him and kissed him lightly on the lips He responded warmly. They continued to kiss, the passion built, and he romantically lifted her in his arms and carried her into his bedroom where they ripped off each other’s clothes and made hot, steamy love. She was so overwhelmed that she responded with more passion, more creativity, more heat than she had ever known.

After an intense, explosive night of raw passion with this sensitive man, they were lying there together in the afterglow. The woman rolled over, gently stroked his chest and asked coyly,

“Well, how was it?”

The guy gently smiled at her, stroked her cheek, looks deeply into her eyes, and said:

“Help yourself to any prize from the middle shelf.”

Two:
• one to screw in the light bulb,
• and the other to hold his penis — er,  mother — THE LADDER!

Blue Ridge, Georgia:

Harvest on Main Restaurant has their own organic greens and herbs on site, progressive fusion cuisine with local artisan cheeses, heirloom produce, charming gay waiters… and a gun rack.

Serenity in the Mountains is a world-class destination spa with beautifully appointed accommodations, all the most luxurious spa services, obligatory new age spa music… and fly fishing prints on the walls.

Our room was stocked with a wide variety of treats including a box of freshly baked empanadas. That’s what they looked like to us, but apparently we were wrong. When we asked about local shopping, the owner said, “Oh y’all should go to Mercer’s. That’s where we got yer fraaaaad paaaaas.”

Somewhere along Hwy 400 north of Atlanta:

Cherokee Music. I have no explanation. We met young thin Elvis inside.

Brasstown, NC (population 240, Opossum Capital of the World):

My sister, Pam, teaches jewelry-making and enameling at the John C. Campbell Folk School near there, where one can also learn to be a gentleman blacksmith or take one of four classes on broom making. I witnessed the weaving of some fine baskets out of pine straw. I swear, when I lived in Atlanta we used it for mulch. But it’s a pretty setting.

Sadly, we drove by but didn’t stop at Clay’s Corner, where they ring in the New Year with the annual “Possum Drop.” I understand more than 5000 (people, not possums) showed up for it last year. Eat yer heart out, Times Square.

Next time you think your hotel bill is too high, you might want to consider this:

My husband and I were traveling by car from Seattle to San Francisco. After a looooong day on the road, we were too tired to continue, and decided to take a room, sleep for a few hours and then get back on the road. When we checked out four hours later, the desk clerk handed us a bill for $350.00.

My husband exploded and demanded to know why the charge was so high. He told the clerk although it’s a nice hotel, the rooms certainly aren’t worth $350.00 for four hours.

The clerk told us that $350.00 is the ‘standard rate’. He insisted on speaking to the Manager.

The Manager came out, listened and then explained that the hotel has an Olympic-sized pool and a huge conference center that were available for us to use.

‘But we didn’t use them,” he said.

”Well, they are here, and you could have,” explained the Manager.

He went on to explain that we could also have taken in one of the shows for which the hotel is famous. “We have the best entertainers from New York , Hollywood and Las Vegas perform here.”

“But we didn’t go to any of those shows.”

“Well, we have them, and you could have,” the Manager replied.

Eventually we gave up and agreed to pay.

He wrote a check and gave it to the Manager.

The Manager was surprised when he looked at the check. “This check is only made out for $50.00.”

”That’s correct. I charged you $300.00 for sleeping with my wife,” I replied.

“But I didn’t!” exclaimed the Manager.

I said, “Well, too bad, she was here, and you could have.”

The Rabbi listened to their story, stroked his beard, and made the following suggestion: “Hire a strapping young man. While the two of you are making love have the young man wave a towel over you. That will help the wife fantasize and should bring on an orgasm.”

They went home and followed the Rabbi’s advice. They hired a handsome young man and he waved a towel over them as they made love. It didn’t help and the wife was still unsatisfied.

Perplexed, they went back to the Rabbi.

“Okay,” he said to the husband, “Try it reversed. Have the young man make love to your wife and you wave the towel over them.”

Once again, they followed the Rabbi’s advice. They went home and hired the same strapping young man.

The young man got into bed with the wife and the husband waved the towel. The young man got to work with great enthusiasm and the wife soon had an enormous, room-shaking, ear-splitting, screaming orgasm.

The husband smiled, looked at the young man and said to him triumphantly: “You see, you young schmuck? THAT’S how you wave a towel!!”

Share your transcription poetry!

The first officer who accepted asked that he be measured from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. He was measured at six feet and walked out with a bonus of $72,000.

The second officer who accepted was a little smarter and asked to be measured from the tip of his up-stretched hands to his toes. He walked out with $96,000.

The third one was a non-commissioned officer, a grizzly old Chief who, when asked where he would like to be measured replied, “From the tip of my dick to my testicles.”

It was suggested by the pension man that he might want to reconsider, pointing out the nice big checks the previous two officers had received. But the old chief insisted and they agreed providing the measurement was taken by a Medical Officer.

The Medical Officer arrived and instructed the chief to “drop ‘em,” which he did. The medical officer placed the tape measure on the tip of the chief’s penis and began to work back.

“Dear Lord!” he suddenly exclaimed, “Where are your testicles?”

The old chief calmly replied, “Vietnam.”

(This one is true in the sense that I really did deliver this just as described – and paid the consequences…)

I walked in the other day and slammed my purse on the table. “Goddammit!”

My family jumped.

“What happened?” groaned my husband, no doubt imagining our insurance rates going up.

“I got a ticket!” I moaned.

“Oh no! What did you do?”

“It really wasn’t my fault! I was drive down the street and of all things, a bird hit my windshield. Bam! Just like that! But then its wing got stuck in the wiper blade. It was awful. The poor thing was flapping around and I couldn’t get it off. So I started the windshield wipers and it goes up and down. I’m trying not to crash. Finally it came free, sailed over the top of my car and right smack into the windshield of the police car that was just behind me. That’s when he pulled me over.”

“What?!?” My husband was really steamed. “That doesn’t make any sense! What did he give you a ticket for?”

“Flipping him the bird,” I said.

But there’s no denying that video is the current killer app on the Web. And now the killer app is in the hands of the 500 (million) pound gorilla.

Now, for the first time, you can attend live video virtual concerts directly on Facebook. It’s through a new app called StreamJam. If you’ve drunk the Facebook Koolaid, head over there and get the app. Then, at 5 pm Thursday, July 29th at 5 pm, click on the StreamJam icon or go here. Or even watch it right here on this blog if you like (Yeah I know it doesn’t really fit the space here).

You’ll enter a virtual club where you can schmooze it up with others in the audience, heckle the performer (yes, I’ll see the messages) and see live video of yours truly on the virtual stage.

“You know, a pumpkin is soft and squishy inside, and there was no one around here for miles. At least I thought there wasn’t,” he stated in a phone interview.

Lawrence went on to say that he pulled over, picked out a pumpkin, cut a hole in it, and proceeded to satisfy his need. “I guess I was just really into it, you know?”

Patrol officer Brenda Taylor pulled over and approached him.

“It was an unusual situation, that’s for sure,” said Officer Taylor. “I walked up to (Lawrence) and he’s…just working away at this pumpkin.”

“I just went up and said… ‘Excuse me sir, but do you realize that you are screwing a pumpkin?’”

“He froze and was clearly very surprised that I was there, and then looked me straight in the face and said, ‘A pumpkin? Damn… is it midnight already?’”

My own family left Ukraine (it still feels odd to me to leave off the “the”) in the 1920s. I have no family pictures at all from those days. I look at the scene in the image here and wonder if my grandfather’s village looked like that. Likely, it did.

One thing my friend and I agreed on, looking through the pictures is that the architecture, technology, cleanliness and organization seem to equal or surpass the US at the same time. And just look what happened under Communism just a few years later. “Look at pictures from the USSR from the 1950s,” said Rob, “and they’re all hollow-eyed, frightened looking. They killed the spirit of those people.”

It wasn’t like that. At first. I remember the stories my grandfather told me of his childhood in the small Ukrainian town of Ilinytsy. He remembered marching in the parades after the revolution, carrying signs and yelling, “Hurrah, Lenin! Hurrah, Trotsky!” As a Jew, it wasn’t until the tsar was overthrown that he was allowed to attend school. His mother proudly ran a collective kitchen for the Communist party.

It didn’t last long, though. Chaos followed – Mensheviks, Bolsheviks.

“We didn’t know when we went to bed if our money would be any good when we got up in the morning. Some of it was printed on such poor paper you couldn’t fold it without it crumbling.”

Eventually, his father left the Soviet Union and made his way to Toronto, where he tried to earn enough money to send for his family. It took over ten years, working in the tire business. Family legend has it that he sold a set of tires to Micky Katz who never paid up. All that time my tough little grandmother was sole support of seven children. To make ends meet, she and a neighbor set up a still and sold bootleg whiskey. One of my grandfather’s brothers, five years old, got into the whiskey one day and was found passed cold. Later, in the US and for the rest of his life, he earned a living in the liquor business.

Such memories are stirred up by a few old photographs of strangers!

And when will we see pictures again, showing such strength and pride?

This was the technique used to create a music video for my song “Moon Falling Down” filmed and produced by IdeaJuice Studios. The video was filmed in part in the INSPIRE Space Park, a well known and awe inspiring build in the Second Life virtual world.

When my son was young, maybe six or seven, he came to me and wanted to know how the moon stays up in the sky? Why doesn’t it fall down and hit the earth.

Being a sadistic parent, I told him, “Honey, actually the moon IS falling down ALL the time. It just keeps missing… as long as you’re good.”

Mostly true!

But little did I know what revenge he would wreak a few years later for that little lark. When he got his learner’s permit…

Song Moon Falling Down available for download here.

The Mistress

A middle aged husband and wife were having dinner at a very fine restaurant when this absolutely stunning young woman comes over to their table, gives the husband a big open mouthed kiss, then says she’ll see him later and walks away.

The wife glares at her husband and says, “Who was that?”

“Oh,” replies the husband, “she’s my mistress.”

“Well, that’s the last straw,” says the wife. “I’ve had enough, I want a divorce!”

“I can understand that,” replies her husband, “but remember, if we get a divorce it will mean no more shopping trips to Paris, no more wintering in Barbados, no more summers in Tuscany, no more Jaguar in the garage and no more yacht club. But the decision is yours.”

Just then, a mutual friend enters the restaurant with a gorgeous babe on his arm.

“Who’s that woman with Ted?” asks the wife.

“That’s his mistress,” says her husband.

“Ours is prettier,” she sniffs.

And in true, small town style it’s celebrated with music, a parade with home-made floats and kids on trikes decorated with crepe paper streamers, fatty food, beer and general excess.

This year’s Derby Days Festival kicked off with a night of live music, headlined by the Nowhere Men – a local Beatles cover band. The city certainly knows its demographic! Look for me in the parade Saturday morning.

The first surgeon, from New York, says, “I like to see accountants on my operating table, because when you open them up, everything inside is numbered.”

The second, from Chicago, responds, “Yeah, but you should try electricians! Everything inside them is color coded.”

The third surgeon, from Dallas, says, “No, I really think librarians are the best, everything inside them is in alphabetical order.”

The fourth surgeon, from Los Angeles chimes in: “You know, I like construction workers, those guys always understand when you have a few
parts left over.”

But the fifth surgeon, from Washington DC shut them all up when he observed: “You’re all wrong. Politicians are the easiest to operate on: there are no guts, no heart, no balls, no brains and no spine – and the head and the asshole are interchangeable.”