Author: The Captive Lion

I can’t lie. I’m loving life. I’m loving LIFE. LIVING. The act of breathing. The little sacs in your lungs called alveoli. The word alveoli.

It’s all so up and down, mysterious and monotonous, wonderful and wasteful. There is no getting your head around the whole thing. We are all just guessing. But when you add it all up it’s pretty darn good to be an Earthling right about now. I mean think about it.

Doesn’t it feel good every morning to wake up on the densest planet in the whole solar system? I think our gravity is just about perfect. We actually get to experience what it’s like to jump, run, and fly. How many other gravities give you all three in a breathable atmosphere? (OK, probably an infinite amount do but c’mon, everyone knows that “infinity” is a copout science answer at the moment.)

I’m just saying it would be so corny if everyone bounced around all the time like they do in those movies from the moon. It would be like life was one big blooper reel. No thanks. I’ll pass. I really do think a decent gravity makes for a decent planet. Without a good, solid, and manageable gravity, a planet will never go anywhere in this universe.

And I gotta say I’m loving being third from the sun too. I can go out and get some sun rays on my pasty animal skin and it doesn’t burn me to a crisp or sear my eyeballs. It’s like the planet gets that warm and toasty, fresh out of the dryer feeling everyday. And us. We’re golden. We are the sun’s footloose and free-willed deli rotisserie cooking so slowly we pay to speed it up.

But if we were further out and it was a lot colder, think of how many things we would never get to do. Skateboarding is probably out. Surf rock… out. Wind chimes… out. This list goes on and on and includes other things like malaria, Dunkin’ Donuts (ok, the franchise still exists but the menu is drastically altered), and hypothermia (in a cold world, we would first and foremost discover a cure for hypothermia). So third from the sun in this case is a first rate existence.

And yet as good as we have it, we also know the other side of the coin all too well. We know the pain and struggle of being a downtrodden life-form. We know what it feels like to be in the minority. We will never have the sheer numbers of the insects, for instance. They outnumber us a zillion to one and have fought off all our diabolical chemical warfare plots. Don’t even get me started on plants.

But as land-walkers, we are even further down the planetary hierarchy. Will we ever have the political clout to rule over 71% of the planet like our water-born Napoleonic friends—the whales. They make the brief reign of the Roman Empire look like a skid mark on the underwear of time. We are so out of our element on this planet, we might as well make our houses out of fire and only live in burning rainforests. It’s would be as rare as breathing air and living on dry land. Perhaps one day we’ll be able to amicably shake hands with our underwater cousins, but until then I’m loving every second of what we have. We are on the greatest planet I’ve ever been to, that’s for sure.

• not hiding under the pile of dirty laundry in my closet
• not in the Netflix envelope
• not at the bottom of this Jameson bottle
• not on milfhunter.com
• not under the rock i crawled under for the last month
• not playing hours of halo 2 on xbox live
• not vacationing in the bahamas alone
• not in the furniture someone else left out on the street that i brought up and furnished my apartment with
• not walking down the street, looking all cute, waiting for a random stranger (me) to say hi
• not waiting twenty extra minutes to sit in the front car of the Cyclone roller coaster at Coney Island
• not catching a glance of me walking around the apartment naked, pausing at length in front of the windows
• not in line at mickey d’s ordering off the dollar menu
• not on the other end of a telemarketing call
• not in a perfume-scented fan letter to Scarlett Johansson or Avril Lavigne
• not behind the counter impressed i’m buying 24 rolls of toilet paper and an 8 pack of oscar meyer hotdogs
• not at the laundromat folding my pit-stained white tees
• not in the random playlist on my ipod
• not in the macrumors.com forum customizing her avatar
• not on casual encounters on craigslist
• not in the fat knocked out of my george-forman-grilled boca burger
• not in the deep recesses of my depressed mind

Seriously, I’ve looked everywhere I can think. What else is a guy to do?

Well, I had one of those days recently. You know the days where you are walking down the street, trying to impress your friend with your ability to assign a celebrity likeness to a complete stranger. Like you spot some random person and then whisper to your friend, “Solo, don’t look behind you… unless you want to get Val Kilmer’s autograph.” Then your friend looks and they either see some resemblance or they don’t. But what makes this game fun is that either way, lookalike or not, there are only positive outcomes of this game in my experience such as:

1. Friend notices some resemblance and gets a slight chuckle.
2. Friend notices some resemblance and verifies that it is, in fact, Val Kilmer. We both chuckle.
3. Friend disagrees with my choice for assigned celebrity lookalike and comes up with a better one. I chuckle.
4. Friend looks and sees that I had nothing. There was no resemblance whatsoever. So why did I make them turn around and look? So I could turn it into a “got you to look behind you for no reason” type of gag? Really, that low? You are correct. I know it’s not rocket science humor but 1 out of 5 times it does deliver minor chuckles.
5. Friend vehemently disagrees with my choice and friendship is ruined. No one chuckling this time. Rarely happens.

But just the other day, I finally found a new outcome to this comedic routine that isn’t positive.

Solo and I were walking down the street and I saw this guy from like 200 yards away and he is so far in the distance that he is really small and I can’t really tell much about him but his shape. But I, being an old pro at this game, make a gamble. It’s technically too far. The game should only be played within a reasonable distance. But I’m ballsy. I call it out. Bill Murray. Step by step as we get closer I can only think to myself what a fool I was. This was not a Bill Murray. This was anything but a Bill Murray. This Bill Murray was more like a Ted Danson. And we all know that a Ted Danson is nothing remotely like a Bill Murray. So I questioned myself. What had gone wrong? Where did I screw up? I know it was a long distance call, but I’ve made hundreds of those. It had to be something else. Soon Solo got a look at the guy and adamantly clarified for me what I already knew. This was no Bill Murray. I was “way off.” It was a harsh criticism that I took to heart.

So I knew I had to be honest with him. I confessed that my internal Bill Murray radar has been on the fritz lately. It’s acting all haywire. This was the last straw I told him. I would take in my malfunctioning Bill Murray radar and get it fixed ASAP. It might be difficult to find a shop that can specifically target my Bill Murray radar, as all my other celebrity radars are still working correctly, but there has got to be someone here in NYC that specializes in Mr. Murray. Maybe I need a lock of his hair to recalibrate my radar. Maybe it’s diet related. It’s true I haven’t been getting my recommended daily dose of Caddy Shack quotes or Groundhog day montages. Or just maybe his career has shifted gears so many times, everyone’s radar is off. I could just be the canary in the mineshaft on this one.

I’m just thankful I have friends that are willing to point out my horrible mistakes. They make me a better person.

Dear Netlix Queue Stalker,

It has recently come to our attention that Netflix registered user, InternetZillionaire, requested that you be served with a Netflix Queue Restraining Order for inappropriate use of his current Netflix movie queue. In his complaint, he supplied the following anecdote to justify his actions:

“Mackenzie and I were coworkers in real life. Over time we became friends in real life. One day I thought, hey, we are both Netflix customers so I should add her as a “friend” on the Netflix website where we can recommend movies to each other, send messages back and forth, and generally extend our friendship into the virtual world. But then I quit my job and moved far away. Mackenzie and I didn’t communicate as often. We drifted apart, naturally, the way friends drift when they are focused on other things. No animosity, just a slight drift. Weeks go by with no communication then I get an email out of the blue from her. She’s curious to know if my recent rental, Denise Austin’s Fat-Blasting Yoga, is really BLASTING away the fat. I already felt stupid enough getting a dvd with that title and then she throws it back in my face! I tried to come back with a corny joke about the dvd not even coming with a laser gun, but we both could sense the humiliation in my stilted, brief email response. Things just haven’t been the same since. I want to get back at her in some petty way for thinking I could take the joke. Doesn’t she know by now that I can dish it out but can’t take it.”

The Netflix Queue Restraining Order has the following stipulations:

1. You cannot surf within two clicks of InternetZillionaire’s Netflix movie queue.

2. You will only be able to view your other friends’ queues if you register with the Netflix Queue Abuser Rehabilitation Plan wherein you meet in a chat room with a Netflix Queue Rehabilitator and go over the Netflix Queue FAQ. Q by q.

3. The small purple “friend” icon that currently appears next to your name and movie suggestions will be replaced by a small graphic of a blood-stained knife with the word “Backstabber” underneath it. This is a permanent change. No undoes.

4. Once in a while, just to mess with your head, we will send you a video of Robin Williams doing spontaneous improv on some talk show. At first, you will laugh. But soon, you will beg for mercy. As if mercy could wipe those heinous memories away.

5. Two words. Late fees.

6. Because of the specific details of your offense, you will have to live with image of an ex-coworker doing yoga to a stupid dvd in his living room. Probably in his underwear because it gets so hot in there. And then you will be forced to answer the timeless quesion, “Could he be any more of a loser?”

This restraining order will be in effect on your account for two months as this is your first offense. If you get a second offense, things get a bit uglier. We immediately give up your account info to the NSA where they will begin a full analysis of your terrorist threat potential. It will suck. They will dig up all kinds of dirt on you. Dirt you thought you got out from under your fingernails in the late 1980’s. Guess what, they’ve got that dirt. In a jar. In a closet. In a lab. And they will get it out if they want to. So wise up now and save yourself a lot of hassle.

In bed, I like to make my lover laugh. In my world, laughing and having sex are a dish best served stuffed within each other like some sort of love-making turducken. So I like to have a line that I think really gets the ball rolling. Something that can relax us both, let the guard down, and start the open flow of communication. Sometimes I’m a bit vulgar, sometimes a bit shy, once in awhile I pretend to be awkward or inexperienced, but usually I’m just dry and sarcastic. The trick here is to be funny, perhaps even edgy, but not cross the line where you take your lover out of the mood. I unveil my line (usually in some spontaneous accent) and wait for a reaction.

“Ok, I’ll be the man and you be the woman this time.”

“Pay no attention to the graham-cracker crust on it. American Pie was on TBS earlier and all we had was no-bake cheesecake.”

“Can you recite all 50 states off the top of your head? I need to know if I have a geography fetish.”

“Be gentle with me tonight. You know how dry it gets in the summer. It’s the height of chaffing season.”

“Do you mind if I call you Anikin?”

“Tonight, everything is fair game. Nothing is off limits. I need some new stories to tell to the guys back at the office.”

“I’m all thumbs down there. In a good way.”

“Have you ever heard the expression, “He dances like he has two left feet?” Well, replace dancing with sex and replace feet with testicles and then you will begin to understand my world.”

“Word on the street is that you like it from your man in the way only your man can give it to you. Yes, word on the street is awfully vague these days.”

“You’ll note my socks are in currently in the rocked on state. Mission control, can we get a status countdown on rocking my socks off?”

“I’m so excited! I’ve already pictured this like a thousand times today.”

“I assure you that no matter what happens I would like to think it can get better. And in this arena, I will practice like a dog to get better. ”

“There will be a 15-minute intermission. Feel free to visit the restroom or buy a snack in the lobby.”

“Bryan Adams should be here right now writing a song about this moment.”

“You are so beautiful that even if we had never met before today I would still be having sex with you right now.”

“I feel like the luckiest man in the world tonight. Except that tonight I’m having sex with just you and he’s probably got a whole harem of you’s.”