Dick Summer Connection

Mondays are a miserable way to spend one seventh of your life.

For most of last night my house was making noises. I heard the first one while I was sitting in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in the living room reading Billy Crystal’s new book. It’s a good book by the way. Proud Podcast Participant Carole M said “get it,” so I did. She has a way of saying things in a very convincing fashion. I should ask Carole to send all of you Emails telling you to get my book, Staying Happy Healthy And Hot. Amazon would go nuts trying to keep up with the orders.

But back to the noises. They’re not big bangy things. Just little tick tock things, and they seemed to be coming from all kinds of different directions. I heard another one just a little while ago and I was thinking maybe I could record one, and one of you would be able to tell me what it is. They’re just little tick-tock sounds, but they got kind of spooky last night. I was just sitting there reading and my Lady Wonder Wench said…”Somebody is throwing things at our front door.” I heard those little ticks, but I wasn’t paying much attention. But that comment got my attention.

It’s one thing for some tick tocking going on in general, but I draw the line at somebody tossing a tick tock at my front door. That’s an act of aggression. I leaped from my chair and marched over to the door in my most manly fashion…and peeked out the window. Nothing. I turned toward my Lady, and in my deepest and most manly voice, I said, “Don’t be afraid. There’s no one there. And besides…I’m here to protect you.” I like saying that even when it really doesn’t seem like there’s anything out there with big red eyes, fangs, and an AK-47. But you know…you never know. And Louie Louie guys like at least pretending we’re powerful warriors because it allows us to look serious and important. It’s the one thing that stops women from laughing at us.

And when they stop laughing, some women…the honest ones…will admit they want a powerful man in their lives. Lois Lane loved Superman. She didn’t even see Clark Kent. He was a vulnerable, honest, powerless…nice guy. Women don’t want a powerless nice guy, even when he’s vulnerable and honest and caring. If there’s going to be some kind of male-female sizzle he’s got to have some kind of power. Physical, financial, spiritual, emotional…or some other kind of power. Even if it’s just the power to make people laugh. Like Billy Crystal.

“There, didn’t you hear that?” she said. And I did. I said, “That’s coming from the fireplace, not from the door.” She said, “No it’s coming from the door.” I heard it again. It was coming from the door. It was time for my power image to flash into the darkness. I was seriously considering grabbing my shotgun. But instead I grabbed my ego, my Killing Bad Guys With Just Two Fingers for Dummies book and my flashlight, and walked outside to look around. I did a quick power flash around the house and the driveway. Nothing. The garage doors were closed. But I did hear that noise…and worse yet, my Lady heard it. I knew I had to project a flash of power image to her, because I am a big fan of male-female sizzle. I was seriously considering climbing up on the roof to look around, because that really was the most likely place to find whatever was causing the tick-tock sound. But the last time I tried climbing up on the roof to clean the gutters, I grabbed the gutter to pull myself up, and it came loose and I landed up with a broken gutter and a very sore fanny.

I realize that I was fortunate to hit on my fanny, because fannies are somewhat padded, usually covered in public, and…friendly. The fanny is one of the very few body parts that has a nick name. I suppose you could call it your seat of power. It is the subject of an enormous number of diet and exercise books, and the object of considerable contemplation and delight when you are following certain fannies which are attired in tight jeans up long flights of stairs. Without fannies, the jeans industry would collapse. Fannies work hard to give us a comfortable place to sit. Some of them look so nice they have been responsible for traffic jams. Your fanny is your most faithful follower. A fine fanny is a friend forever. However landing on your fanny while trying to climb up on the roof is not the best way to project the flash of power that seems essential to encouraging the warmest male-female sizzle.

You’ve got to put things in perspective. A stray un-explained tick-tock every once in a while isn’t much of a threat. But an un-explained tick-tock fired at your front door in the middle of the night gets your attention. It’s like un-explained foot steps, or a far off shout, or a flicker of somebody’s face in the corner of your eye…in the middle of the night…it’s manly flash of power time.

Dick’s Details Quiz. All answers are in the current podcast.

1-   Where do renegade body hairs like to grow?

2-   How can you tell if there are parties in some houses in Norway?

3-   How do you know if you’ve had too many facelifts?

Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.

Little tick-tock sounds on your front door, footsteps you can’t explain, something that sounds like a shout…they’re different in the middle of the night. The middle of the night is quiet. And the quieter you get, the more you can hear. There’s a story in the current podcast from the Bedtime Stories Personal Audio Cd. It’s called I Miss You.

It’s about a guy who left a woman because he had to. When he told her he was leaving, she just said, “Whatever you want.” He wanted her. He thought he had no choice. He had to leave. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t forget. Especially in the quiet of the night…he kept hearing her say “Whatever you want.” I think you can’t ever really stop loving somebody. Leaving them is just like turning off the radio. The station is still there. And you can’t stop knowing it.

I Miss You is from my Bedtime Stories Personal Audio CD. The recording was unusual. It wasn’t done in a recording studio. It’s actually an air check of a show I did a long time ago. In fact it was done the night the picture on the front of my book was taken. It was a night when my Lady Wonder Wench was far away.

If you like I Miss You, you can just keep the current podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy check out the Bedtime Stories icon on the home page.

That flash of power thing is a guy thing I think. It’s part of the same hormone that makes us take league softball seriously. But maybe there’s more to it. Maybe it really does make my lady feel safe when I tell her I’m here to protect her…even when it’s just from a little tick-tock sound at the front door. If nothing else, it’s an honor, and it makes me very proud that she lets me be her manly man. And I just love it when she sizzles.

Big Louie says no more (appreciable) snow around here. Check out www.dicksummer.com  There are those who are skeptics. Like my Lady Wonder Wench who says:

 As for snow in the forecast:  let me tell you a small story that took place a looong time ago.  Louie Louie’s chief Lad went on national radio and announced that there would be no more snow, so take off your snow tires.  And I, of course, immediately bet him ($35,000 which at that time was a LOT of $$) that he was wrong.  Needless to say, when the telephone rang itself off the table the next morning, it wasn’t to say HE was right.And I (we) bought a house with the money I won.  HA!

Some things went “Bump in the night” last night. Houses always make noises, but when you can’t explain them, and your wife says “Somebody is throwing things at our front door” the bumps become goose bumps. I’m going to do Sunday’s podcast about this.

I have to comment on “The Lad’s” latest podcast about the potholes. 

If this were a perfect life, there would be no perfume in magazines, newsprint wouldn’t come off on your fingers, dogs would walk themselves in the snow, and algebra would really come in handy every day. But it is not a perfect life. So all that stuff happens…and doesn’t happen. This winter has been part of this less than perfect life. But I’m telling you the snow part is Over. No more snow. (Don’t fight with me if we get a dusting. I’m talking about SNOW. Pilots note the kind of snow I’m talking about as SN+) 

How do I know this?…you will ask. Big Louie the guy in my book told me. Ok. Laugh if you want. But you wait and see. The next SN+ isn’t going to happen till next Christmas. 

Big Louie, his own bad self, the Chief Mustard Cutter of the Louie Louie Generation assures me that there will be no more snow in the North East until next December. You may mothball your snow blowers, and swap your shovels for rakes and hoes. (The garden kind.) Whew. That was some winter. 

On the way out the door to become, “Snow Blower Man.” If you have a few minutes for a friendly arm around the shoulder, a few laughs, a quick shocker kind of story, and some funny facts, give our podcast a listen.

I am sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair trying to calm down after an hour of hurtling down the hideous, hol-ey, highway outside my house. I mean that highway is hideously hol-ey. You can get seriously hurtled hurtling down that road these days. It’s hard to tell whether those are potholes in the highway, or sinkholes. Some of them look like the craters of newly formed volcanoes. I am a manly man. I eat rocks and I chew on metal. Well…salt is a rock, and I suck on zinc tablets when I’m getting a cold. As a matter of fact, I keep my stash of chocolate chip cookies on the shelf just over the zinc tablets, because I’ve heard that there are no calories in cookies that you eat over the zinc.

I’m sorry. My brain is still spinning around trying to find where it’s hooked up to my mouth from swerving around the potholes…that’s the only explanation for why I’d say something like that.

Hit one of these potholes, and you won’t just bust an axle and blow a tire. Hit one of these suckers, and your whole car gets busted, and the crash and your naughty words echo off the pothole’s walls as you free fall half way down to Australia…or China…I could never figure which one. Forget that Olympic sport…I think it’s called the Slalom…you know…you zoom down the mountain and zig zag between flags…it’s much more dangerous hurtling down these holy highways right now.

It’s enough to make us seriously consider some drastic measures. Like walking. They say walking is a good way to lose a few pounds. But I’d be careful about walking when we have so much wind. If you lose weight by walking, but the wind pushes you backward, you might gain those pounds right back. Probably not.

My brother John and my son David have lost a lot of weight by becoming vegetarians. David said to me, “I don’t want to eat anything that had eyes.” That does give it quite a perspective. But I wonder…there are some things we eat…who knows if they really had eyes. Hamburger for example. It’s supposed to be ground up beef. But did you actually see the beef as it went through the grinder ?Just because some hairy, heavy set guy holding a cleaver, and wearing a blood stained apron says it came from a cow…how do we know for sure? It could be something that had no eyes at all. Just a handful of hamburger helper. Or ground up soy beans. Or ground up ground for that matter.

I think the labels they put on stuff at the grocery store are interesting too. “This product contains no more than 0.23 percent of hydrolated noxium sulphate. Huh ? What is that stuff ? If the stuff on the label is stuff I recognize like salt, or water…ok. But if it’s stuff in some language I don’t understand, like the hydrolated noxium sulphate language… I figure that could be the kind of stuff that causes concern on the part of mamma lab rats, and they don’t let their kids eat it. I’ve even seen stuff written in letters that look like a forest of leafless trees silhouetted in the moonlight, on some distant planet which is about to go to war on Star Trek. I see stuff like that, and I very carefully put the package down, and flee in terror.

Dick’s Details Quiz. All answers are in the current podcast.

1-How can single guys get nice women to marry them?

2- Why do Big Louie’s Lads get away with not doing laundry?

3- Where are there impossible interstate highways?

Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.

Some things that happen to you on the road are even more dangerous than hitting a giant, car crunching, person eating pot hole. Like being hit with a phone call. The kind of phone call that hit the guy in the story called It’s Not Your Fault in the current podcast.

It’s Not Your Fault is from the Night Connections 3 Personal Audio CD. If you like it, you can just keep the current podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, just check out the Night Connections 3 icon on the home page.

You’ve got to be in good shape to survive hurtling down the hideous holy highway, because you never know when a giant claw is going to reach up out of that pothole, and grab you by whatever you’ve got hanging down. And when you get to the Louie Louie Generation stage of life, there’s usually something hanging down. So remember, white bread and sugar will kill you within ten minutes. Read the small print on the TV commercials for the medications you’re taking. Like the ones where the smiling grandfather is fishing with his kid while the voiceover is saying things like “Some side effects have been noted like dry mouth, navel lint, and death.” And for God’s sake be sure you get your minimum adult daily requirement of all the veggies you hate.

I have often wondered, “Who is this minimum daily adult.” I have this image of a small person dressed in golf pants and hat, who before he worked for the government…he was a poet who was translating the King James version of the bible into Rap songs. He is now kept in a special FDA approved facility and fed things with names like riboflavin. Since r.i.b. spells rib, that should really be pronounced rib-o-flavin…which brings into question exactly who this Flavin is and why do we need to know about his rib. Riboflavin.

And thinking over this whole podcast and blog, I have come to the conclusion that it’s time for another serving of rocks and a quick emergency bite of a chocolate chip cookie, eaten over the zinc, because my brain has not thoroughly stopped spinning from zig sagging down the hideous, holy, highway, and things have clearly become un-clear. And as Big Louie always reminds me when I’m doing these podcasts, “Your listeners time is precious. Waste it wisely.” And I have just looked out the window…and it is snowing again. Good. Maybe it will fill up some of those potholes. 

Sunday’s podcast will be about hurtling down the hideously hole-y highway outside my house. I’ll bet you have one outside your house too. It can be a truly hurt-full experience because you never know when a giant claw is going to reach up out of that pothole, and grab you by whatever you’ve got hanging down. And when you get to our Louie Louie Generation stage of life, there’s usually something hanging down. You’ve got to be in good shape to survive. So remember, white bread and sugar will kill you within ten minutes. And read the small print on the TV commercials for the medications you’re taking. Like the ones where the smiling grandfather is fishing with his kid while the voiceover is saying things like “Some side effects have been noted like dry mouth, navel lint, and death.”