Neanderpundit

The world is full of them, and I’ve known my share.

years ago, i had a friend who was a staff photographer for one of the big CHicago papers. He also moonlighted as a crime scene photographer, and I got to help him, from time to time, at the latter of the two gigs. During that time, trust me, I saw some things I’d rather unsee, if I could.

Anyway, this was one cheap bastard, and a man after my own heart. IN 1981, thanks to Jimmah, Gas prices were nuts and diesel was the way to go. Cheap Bastard had recently converted his furnace from oil to natural gas, and still had quite a few gallons of fuel oil in his tank, He drained them out into watering cans, and unwilling to waste, poured the fuel into his 1981 Olds 98 diesel.

The diesel ran fine.

Home heating oil was still pretty cheap back then, so he decided to keep getting it filled. The oil guy was tickled to have the extra business, and the olds ran fine on the kerosene. So well, in fact, that Cheap bastard, who had experienced trouble with the diesel starting cold, decided to just leave the sonofabitch running all the time. To my knowledge, other than to change oil and filters, the Olds never got turned off from 1981 to 1984. At idle, it barely used any fuel, and diesels being coldblooded bastards anyway, it made more sense from a “start quickly and leave” standpoint.

Not one to let a car sit and idle and not benefit from the power, Cheap Bastard built a battery of batteries, and plugged them into the Olds’ charging circuit when he slept, and a power invertor yanked juice from the batteries to run lights in the house. AND he got a fuel allowance from work.

A cheap bastard, and man after my own heart, in many ways.

with a friend, who expresses her concern about a date that she thought had gone quite well, but which ended up in him not calling her back.

So I reminded her that men and women are build differently, (which she, of course, knows) and that there’s no rules except those which apply to the person in question. In other words, Men follow a certain set of rules, except when they don’t. I suggested she call him, and she said “I can’t do that, I have pride”.

Sheesh.

OK, let me back up here, a moment, and talk about the differences between men and… no, fuck that. Let’s talk about men; I am one, and on that subject I have some knowledge.

When a man is 18- well, at 18 few males are men, yet, but you get my point. When a man is 18, his testicles pretty much do all the thinking. This is true to a greater or lesser degree in all men, but at 18 the need is strong. You can tell an 18 year old who desperately needs to get laid, by his complexion. Nuff said. Reminds me of the old Buddy Hackett joke:

When I was 17 I had acne so bad it disgusted me. A guy I worked with said “You need to get schtupped”. I thought it was, like, a cream, or something. So I went to the old yiddish drugstore, waited in line, asked the pharmacist “Can I get ‘Schtupped’ in here?” he said “Not even mit a prescription”

Anyway, to a teenaged catholic kid who was not horribly attractive, and a little chunky besides, with more than the normal amount of shyness around women, there were two choices: Have sex with someone (not bloody likely) or rub one out now and then (a sin, but less of one than (gasp!) sleeping with a woman!!!).

Suffice to say I had no problems with acne.

Now, at 18, a guy who is in the habit of rubbing one out now and then, will damned sure do so early, late, and often. An amazing amount of time is spent doing that instead of socializing, at that age; ask anyone who plays or played Dungeons and Dragons. There’s that moment when you’re on the second floor of a building and you see one of the office girls across the street having a smoke, and you drop what you’re doing and rub one out, not because you’re interested in her, but because she’s there.

At that stage in every man’s life, you might not be able to sleep the night through without smacking one off, and single men will rough up the suspect first thing in the morning well into their 50’s- why waste that morning wood?- but as time goes on, you see the interstices between interest and activity lengthen,so at some point you say “call Nora and get laid? What, is it september already?”. Thankfully those days are in my distant future, but still.

Anyway, back to my phone conversation:

“Why not call him?”
“I can’t do that, it takes HUGE balls to do that”.
“So grow some balls”
“I can’t. I have pride”

Pride, m’lady, is something that you, as a hot broad, can afford. When you’re ugly, hairy, and 390 lbs, you make the goddamned phone call and find out if you’re still on or it’s over, so you don’t waste three weeks wondering, you can just move on if need be.

Sheesh. It’s a wonder we ever accomplish anything at all.

I was thinking, literally, a few minutes ago, how it was coming up on a year since Acidman died.

Sure as shit, I went to his site and there it was.

Go.

Sorry I missed your day, Aman. We hardly knew ye. We miss you, you grouchy old bastard, and hope wherever you are, there’s loads of single malt and no rehab.