I may have mentioned this in the past, but in case anyone has forgotten, let me say something about jogging in the cold weather: it's blowjhinsky. Even with the new gloves I bought on Amazon (wore them to work too, but they were sweaty from the run -- yech).

And just one more thing, this time about the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center -- a big fat Al-Roker-type of obstruction standing in the center of the plaza waiting to get lit. Yeah, they're throwing the switch tonight, and throngs of people have gathered from miles around. What a disaster. What's wrong with people? When I see a crowd, I go in the other direction. Tonight, as we pushed toward Grand Central trying to get home, we passed multitudes of idiots trying to press into the growing, howling mob.

Are these the same people who stand outside the Today Show studio in the 12 degree cold, holding signs and giggling, waiting to touch the cloak of some fat-bastard weatherman? Can't they do that stuff in Brooklyn where they won't be such a nuisance?

Happy Sunday! (hey, that's almost like the album we got from John called the Happy Mondays. Ree, Kristie, Stefanie and myself listened to that cd as if it was the only piece of fine art readily available to us. Ok, well I guess that's why we listened to it).
Going to NY was a fun experience, thank you to John, Alane and the mungchins for hanging out with me for 6 days. It was great. On my flight home I had a gargantuan insulated lunchbox that we put the cherished bagels and cannolies in. While waiting to pre-board, I unzipped the cooler just slightly to slide a napkin in to add extra padding to the treasures inside. As I zipped it up and stood up straight I smelled a cloud of onion farts permiating the lobby. Who cares, it was breathtaking onion farts. FYI: Those Stew Leonard's bagels were devoured in no time, as well as the 15 cannolies.
Right now my mother and father are at the Kravitz Center in Downtown West Palm Beach to see a Motown Christmas special. MariaRose is studying and Jenia is in the living room making pretty awesome music, I must say, with his new mixer/turntable toy he bought today. He just mentioned to me that he can't wait to use the microphone.

Okay, the turkey sandwiches are starting to make me sick. And speaking of sick, I hear they've been serving warm slices of Roto-Pie down at Spumoni South. A la mode. Yum yum, eat 'em up!

I see there's snow in the Omaha weather forecast.

In honor of the Thanksgiving, I think it is important I return to an integral chapter of the Encyclopedia Mastandrea: eating. It has been said often, a Mastandrea does not simply ingest and digest for physical and cellular nourishment. Eating is love. Like any sucessful marriage or relationship, it requires dedication, hard work, patience, and mutual respect. So with that I pay tribute to the legends.

Cauliflower Balls---A rare and innovative delicacy developed by Joe Fatone Sr. in November of 2004. One begins the preparation by mixing cauliflower, eggs, breadcrumbs, pepperoni, and shrimp until it is moist and pliable. The mixture is then molded it into a spalding-sized ball and then fried in a shallow pan of olive oil. The results are breathtaking. I nominate the man for the Nobel Prize in Physics and Chemistry.

Eggplant Lasagna---Its been a while since I've experienced this exotic dish, Big Vin pioneered this update on the standard lasagna back in the early 1990s. Vin's eggplant parmigiana is of mythical proportions in its own right, bake it inside a lasagna and what you have is the beginnings of a religious movement. Who is the more Almighty Creator, the one who started the Big Bang or the one started the sauce at 5am. You be the judge.

Vin Stuffing---I'm not sure what the ingredients are in this masterpiece, and I'm not entirely sure I ever want to be told. According to rumor there are turkey gizzards involved, and if thats the case, I have new found respect for the spleen and gall bladder.

I will continue on with this sometime soon, all this talk has made by hungry as hell. Think I'll call the Kahuna and say thanks for giving us......vin stuffing.

Tonight I made stuffin' muffins using leftovers from yesterday's dinner. Worked well. It's probably the only useful tip I've ever gotten from Rachel Ray on Food TV. I know of a few guys who have the hots for her; I just find her annoying (though not quite as irritating as the fake-Nigella minx we watched last week when we were in Brooklyn).

From what I've heard of Thanksgiving at Steve Fatone's, had a midget inadvertantly shown up at the table he would've been devoured as readily as an herb-stuffed mushroom. And that would leave the checkout at Publix sorely understaffed.

That was Orlando. I still haven't heard about Thanksgiving results in Montgomery. Or in Omaha.

I did speak to Joe Nebraska yesterday morning, and over the yelling of the crowd I asked him to guess where I was.

"The parade?"

That's the great thing about being from New York: despite all the small town parades all across the country, when someone says "the parade" you know that can mean only one parade. I told him to guess again.

"The game?"

And that's the great thing about having gone to Xavier High School: there may be hundreds of football games scheduled for Thanksgiving day, but say "the game" to one of us it can mean only one game.

Since I'm still obsessing over Thanksgiving memories, I've asked Andre to join the blog. Hopefully he will share the tale of his being at the 1983 game, dressed in a bearsuit, mixing it up with the Fordham Ram (who walked the sidelines at yesterday's game, leading Mojo to ask us: "what's that goat doing there?")

In any event, it may be some time before we hear from Andre -- his brother is getting married this weekend, and I'm sure it'll take some time for the bif fella to recover.

Ok, just a quick observation, but I would say that coming home for Thanksgiving is necessary travel. This speaks volumes about many things, however that is for another entry.

Today as a Christmas gift, I took my folks to the Radio City Music Spectacular. I let them pick the show and this was their choice. Things were going as well as could be expected since we were seeing the 10:00 am show and it was a fairly cold day to be walking. We sat down in our seats and the show was going well until the appearance of the... MIDGETS!!! It never occurred to me in a thousand years that midgets would be in the show. I knew it was a Christmas show, thereby the possibility of elves--but c'mon, who would think midgets and the Rockettes would share a stage. It's kinds cruel if you think about it. Now, not only did these midgets have a speaking roles--they danced. There is something particularly disturbing about midgets shaking their "tail feathers" so to speak.

In addition to dancing, they put the midgets in snowmen costumes. Why they needed snowdwarves is anyone's guess. What was even weirder about the snowdwarves was they were on ice -- during the show they have a miniature skating rink where a regular sized couple skates a routine. So these snowdwarves are on ice -- and I swear they were not on skates. My mom has now weighed in and says she too thinks they were skateless. My dad says that it may be physically impossible for midgets to ice skate. (Note to Joe: check with the Publix midget about this.) So there were slip sliding snowdwarves.

Anyway, besides my tiny friends, the show was really pretty enjoyable. The living nativity was pretty cool, and I liked it even better when I found out that the animals stay at Radio City and get walked early mornings in Rockefeller Center.

Here's another entry for the Encyclopedia Mastandrea, something that floated up through the pangs of Thanksgiving nostalgia and the torture of excessive storytelling I've subjected Alane and her parents to since yesterday's game at Fordham.

It was Thanksgiving 1984, and my brother and I came home to Brooklyn -- unannounced. My brother had pulled this trick before, but this was my first semester at college, so I was new to it. I got in sometime late morning on Wednesday, in time to see Vito before he left for work. He was both suprised and annoyed, in his Vito way (he really didn't want us traveling unnecessarily). I stayed at the house briefly and then ran out to catch up with some friends. The highlight of the day's schedule would be the informal reunion held at my high school, a Thanksgiving-eve tradition that was strong at the time but is now defunct.

At Xavier, I saw Andre and Joe Nebraska, who had since gotten into town. I asked him if he saw Vito, but he hadn't -- he'd already left for work. Fine, a new item for our schedule: we'd surprise him when he got home from work.

So we spent some time at the school; then we followed Andre to a party at the Armenian church on the east side, and then the three of us went back to Brooklyn. We were sitting in the kitchen in the wee hours of the morning when Vito got home. From the way we were all sitting, he saw me first -- no shock there, he already knew I was in town. Then he saw Andre, and despite the full beard he had grown, he recognized him, went over and shook his hand and said hello. Then Joe, who had been sitting by the heat pipe and was also sporting a full beard, stood up to present himself. Vito turned to him, shook his hand and said hello.

Andre and I looked at each other, a little confused -- for hours we had been predicting a more melodramatic reaction from my dad.

So Vito started unloading the cake and other stuff he'd caried home and my brother hovered. Had my dad even recognized him? We weren't sure what had just happened until a few seconds later when Vito took another look at Joe, leaned forward and squinted...

"Aw shit," he muttered, a reaction more in line with what we expected. But the delay and the double-take -- unimaginably funny. Andre fell into a fit of laughter that lasted a week to 10 days.

We stayed up a while longer and in retrospect it's surprising that Joe Nebraska and I made it to The Bronx at all the next morning (though if I remember correctly, we got there late -- late enough that we didn't need to buy a ticket, something that meant a lot in those days).

It's the oldest hight school rivalry in New York City, or so they say. I haven't been to the Xavier-Fordham Prep Thanksgiving game in exactly 20 years. I dragged everyone out of bed early this morning to get down to Rose Hill. Good turnout in the stands, and it's still a hard-fought game. Rain threatened, but the temp was around 60 -- very comfortable. We stayed until halftime to see the X-Squad exhibition -- they were sharp. We were in the stands near where the drill team was grouped, and as they were uncrating their weapons I yelled over to one of them "What is the nomenclature of the 1903A3 Springfield?" Without hesitation (and without a breath, it seemed) he spun off the whole thing. I used to know it; to me it is long forgotten. Just as their drill ended, a storm cloud let out a few heavy drops. It was short-lived, but we were heading out anyway. As the sun re-emerged, we made our way to the parking lot. Now we're home and the turkey is in the oven. Lots of memories, not the least of which was the mini-brawl we experienced last time we were there -- with Xavier winning the game and wanting to ring Fordham's victory bell. They didn't like that, but we rang it anyway, causing a good-natured little fistfight that you'd never be able to get away with in this day and age.

When I met Guido in 1986, he had an audio cassette that he played often. It contained, among other music, a series of strange cuts from Yellow Magic Orchestra ("Japanese Gentlemen, Stand Up Please!"), followed by "Da Da Da" by Trio. Hearing it always put me in the mind of the "Da Da Da" music video which I had seen years earlier as between-movie filler on Wometco Home Theater in Brooklyn. It was a strange video: just a kooky Euro-old-old-man-barroom scene (not unlike that Cafe Noelle bar in Amsterdam where Oakley had them play "Der Vlieger" for us) but the visual always stuck with me. And I haven't seen it since those dark days of early adolescence (and over-the-air pay-TV). Haven't seen it until tonight, that is, when I found a clip of it online. Yup, just as strangely entertaining, even some 22-or-more years hence.

But not quite as entertaining as Mojo Jojo, who stood over me earlier this evening with his toy horse (you know, the traditional horsehead-on-a-stick toy of yore). He held it over me with the horsehead turned away from me and uttered: "Poop, poop poop."

Yup, he thought that was pretty funny. Maniac.

I was standing in the kitchen drinking chocolate milk (soy) and eating a piece of chocolate chip cookie (Whole Foods) when the call came in. Wow, Marlena was in some serious emotional distress. She sputtered out her tale (tail) of woe and pointed back to the scene of the tragedy. I could see she was suffering badly; I found it supremely entertaining.

Upon entering the room of bad water, I saw that the situation was not nearly as dire as Marlena supposed. The toilet was indeed clogged, but not hopelessly so -- the water level had already returned to normal. The floor was only a little wet. And it was reassuring to see that Song Airlines, despite its financial difficulty, still serves roasted peanuts on its flights from West Palm to La Guardia.

Minimal plunging effort freed the obdurate turd -- this was nothing like the intergalactic dark matter that emerged from Mojo back in March. That ten-pounder couldn't be plunged -- it had to be dynamited first. No, this one was easy.

Having slayed the offending offal, I returned to the living room to find Marlena wallowing in denial. She asserted (yeah, asserted) that it was just a wee bitty little turd, and not even a lot of paper -- how could that have happened? We immediately declared that testimony non-credible. We recalled that before Marlena even ventured to the bathroom she announced that she hadn't crapped in four days; she was also interested in selecting a book to bring with her, as this effort would likely take some time. I took down from the shelves a thin volume of poetry; she rejected it, opting instead for a thicker volume of epic saga.

In fact, from behind that closed door, I thought I heard her yell: "Who does number two work for?"

In short, whatever she launched was no meager morsel. But as for Steven's question, I'm afraid the visible evidence was inconclusive. I considered sonar testing, but was afraid the added salvage time would only invite further disaster -- the longer the bathroom stays out of commission, the longer my boys are a puddle risk. That's just how it is.

Evening,
My final comment on the afore mentioned hellish incident will be about that of the size, the font, if you will. It was the size of a Publix prepackaged sausage link that they keep in their meat department, you know, the standard small ones. My bowels haven't been the same since, a small sausage link is insufficient.
But anyhow, today we went to see the Polar Express in IMAX3D. This was awesome considering anything in 3D requires everyone to wear gigantic two-tone glasses and be serious. This was the first time the boys had gone to the movie theater and they were psyched. John Paul ate popcorn and drank fruit punch throughout the entire duration of the feature. Joseph, on the otherhand, was horrified by the movie. Whether it was due to the piercing train sounds and 3 dimensional characters reaching out for him or by Tom Hanks hauntingly playing all of the characters in disguised voices, no one can tell. He was so disturbed he changed seats and sat on Alane's lap to bury his head in her shirt. He wanted out and he was ffurious.
As we walked out of the movie I noticed John Paul's shirt was drenched with punch, yet it sounded like he drank every drop. I thought I could hear his beverage stream down his esophagus and pass his epiglottis. I guess not. He didn't seem to mind.
Lastly, Alane found the 4 million elves in this film to slightly spook her. They had stubble and detailed midget-like hands.

First off, thanks to Marlena for returning to blog to a territory so close to every Mastandrea's heart....and colon. So lets get right down to business.

Was the toilet clogged by the paper or by the log?
This is a very important question and the guilty party is being very sketchy on details. Three inches may not be an enormous length for a log, but it would be a spectacular diameter. A turd of such impressive girth would certainly clog the pipe and cause a backflow. If this is actually the case, be not embarassed, BE PROUD. Be thankful there was a house of witnesses to such a historic event!

Oh, how I love discussing crap.

hello
This is a very sad post. Let me say my side of the story first, before John turns it into a tall turd tale. Here it goes: I made a comment that I hadn't gone cockasheda in 4 days upon entering the bathroom. After a poor attempt to eliminate I flushed down a 3" cockie. Then the worst of worsts happened to me. The badwater rose up rather than down and overflowed there toiletbowl area. I flipped the lid down before the boulder poured out and screamed. This is everyone's nightmare, real movie material.
I ran outside shutting the door on John Paul, who then started to cry and hated me for 10 minutes. Ran into the kitchen and cried to John, being clueless of how to rectify, for lack of a better word, the situation. Well, he went in there and was a real trouper... poo poo all gone.
Unfortunately I'm still blushing so bad that I can be mistaken for a human-lobster hybrid.
I'm very sorry John. This one's for you, John the King of Johns.
Love,
Marlena PS: Reader beware: Don't believe a word he says.

Today, Marlena made the obligatory pilgrimmage to Stew Leonard's. It has been a whirlwind adventure: we drank key lime pie wine; we watched Laibach videos; we told golden tales of one-armed bricklayers; the boys went to school. John Paul had gymnastics. We have photos. Of the boys' heads. One is in a sack. See left column link.

Alane made chicken wings tonight -- yum! Got home and they were on the stovetop, just out of the oven. The boys wanted to start eating immediately:

Alane: They're still very hot. Let's wait a little.

Mojo: Mommy, you're fired.

We don't watch NBC, so I don't know where he picks this stuff up. I suppose I'll be sent to the boardroom next.

Last night my disillusionment with life was made complete: reclusive author Thomas Pynchon "appeared" on The Simpsons. This wasn't a cool appearance (like Joey's). Pynchon had a bit part. His character wore a paper bag over his head. And his few lines consisted of self-deprecating humor. Unfunny humor -- commenting to Marge that her dessert was "V-licious."

That's it: I'm burning my tattered and dog-eared copy of Gravity's Rainbow (what the hell, I already gave away my hardback Mason & Dixon, that bomb).

Now, had he performed a modernized rendition of the Disgusting English Candy Drill, now that would have been funny.

A one armed bricklayer? This is new to me. He must move very quickly. Does the one arm have anything to do with the cement truck?
My dad somehow found FULL MONTY and he gets the job done. I told my dad to have him sign a waiver. I do not need him rolling off the roof into the pool and blaming my dad. He is a really respectful guy so I resist the temptation to make fun.
I emailed John the original Gagalis's picture. I would like to see it on this blog.
Speaking of Gagalia theres is a black midget that bags groceries and takes them out to your car at the store near us. I was telling him about Alanes fear of small people on my last publix excursion and he offered to help her face her fears. He said he would drive home with you guys on your next trip down. All he needs is a flight back. He may need a car seat I am not sure on the rules. 24 hours with little mo will do you both good. I have his card for future reference. We made need him at our new years party. You never know. He told me he can juggle but he meant his women.
I am not seeing any new words. Work on it.

The best part about the one-armed bricklayer is why we remember him. It's not because of his unfortunate deformity -- that alone is barely remarkable. We remember him because he pissed someone off. Pissed him off over 30 years ago.

Cultivating annoyance for that many years is a signature Mastandrea achievement. The fact that a man with one arm had hired himself out as a bricklayer -- that fact was merely a prop in a greater morality play.

And, as ever, history repeats itself.

So it was that I was walking to my office one morning this week, alone in my thoughts, listening to The Clash through the headphones of my mp3 player. Walking ahead of me with great effort was a man with terribly turned-in legs and feet -- he wasn't using crutches, but clearly each step was a struggle. And yet he maintained a healthy pace. He was dressed for office work and was clearly on his way to his job. I felt embarrassed to have even notice his disability. Surely, he wasn't thinking about it, even as he threw his weight back and forth, lumbering ahead with each labored step.

"More power to him," I thought, and settled back into my morning fugue.

The song on my mp3 player changed: it was now the Magnificent Seven. I listened to the bouncing bass of the song's opening. And I watched the man ahead of me as he walked. He was walking to my music. Walking exactly to my music.

That's pretty much where I lost it, accepting at once through tears of irrepressed adolescent laughter that for all the trappings of dignity that I carefully cut for myself, I am at bottom just a very bad, bad person.

Morality play? I'm going to burn in hell.

It occurs to me after reading Joey's post about the handy-man that the Mastandrea family and in-laws must be some of the most charitable folk to walk the planet--first the one-armed brick layer and now the newest addition to the group. How does this family manage to locate these people? I know there can't be a special phone listing for them. It must be some kind of Mastandrea radar...

I agree with that assessment of the Haynie Lane nightmare house. It resembled the CAMP Crystal Lake house from the Friday the 13th movies. I offerred pat a 10 if he ate a pickle out of the fridge. He declined. In one of the rooms I stepped back and stepped on a full foil wrapped baked potato on the floor. In another room there was an alter set up in the closet with some gateway and hand written scrawl in another language. Entrance to the BIZZARO WORLD. There was one other thing that confused me.
Something Steve left out.

HAIR- One dog and one cat could not not possibly have created the amount of hair that covered this home. And as far as I can tell most of the furniture was damp. Chairs do not perspire. It was moist and covered in hair. It looked as if there was a hair hurricane and then it rained but only inside the house. Have you ever carried a wet hair covered couch. I burned the clothes i wore. That stink was infectious. I think the house had an infection.


What steve was not present for was my last visit. The house has been gutted out and we went on a tour. Darrell pointed out where he believes the waterbed broke and leaked through the ceiling. I wonder if that was a BAD water bed. We checked out the water sysytem. Or lack of. I removed the filter and there was a solid block of dirt in it. That filter is to remove sand and sediment. Our house filter is changed once a year and its clean, a few bits of sand and pebble is all. I could not see the filter. I dumped it out and and was not surpised to see no water at all. Bone dry. Black bath tub was the least of thier worries if they were drinking that stuff. Nasty. Astonishingly enough the house retained its stink. I was confused. No rugs tile or wood and most of the sheetrock torn out and yet this place could still generate a stink like no other.

Anyway I will be on the look out for Rabbi Marley. I haven't seen him yet.
Be on the look out for The Full Monty he will be working on the roof.

I need to return to Joey's previous entry about moving the Hell House of Haynie Lane, because I think I can break down the experience itself into some broad themes.

1. Strange Colors. How does a bathtub become blacker than tar? According to Darrel the water filters were failing. Now, I don't claim to know much about science but if the water is doing that to the porcelain, what the hell was it doing to this poor woman's body? Anyway, I have my own theory; I'm convinced the stains were left from a bath-tub cremation. I also must mention the living room walls, which were caked so thick with green mold, that it appeared to be growing broccoli and green squash. ( And not the kind you see in the produce section, but the giant mutant strain that Uncle Lenny cultivates in his 40th St. garden)
2. Deformity. Each animal residing in this house posessed a physical abnormality: a labrador with some sort of tracheotomy which prohibited it from making any audible sounds other than a cough was being followed around by a cat missing a portion of its skull. And of course, as Joey mentioned earlier there was the most adorable tail.....missing a cat.
3. Odor. A decade of accumulated dirt, mold, and fecal matter produced an indescribable smell; the distinctive scent of an entire colony of e.coli. It surprises me that none of the house pets were missing a nose.
4. Yarn. I have never seen so many spools of yarn in my entire life. Every wall unit, bureau, chest or armoir we moved was overfilled and erupting with spools of yarn, which would inevitably fall out and drag under our feet while we were loading the truck. I can only assume this woman was sewing a quilt to cover Alaska. As a bonus, the yarn wore the special house scent, so in Joey's possession they transformed into WMDs. (I think Heidi may still be suffering from Gulf War Syndrome)
5. Irony. I counted four vacuums and three lawn mowers (one of which she insisted on us moving to a townhouse which had no lawn) . The grass and shrubs were three stories high and the carpets needed the cleanup crew of the Exxon Valdez.
6. Wagers and Dares. Examples: "Pleeeease, Jessica. I will give you 15 dollars, all you have to do is put this woolen hat on your head" or "Pat, I dare you to press your face into that daybed mattress ". Needless to say these continued throughout the day without a single acceptance....until Darrel scooped up the cat tail with his bare hands and chased his daughters around the house. (And for this he is King)

I must admit I'm glad I partcipated in moving day at the Hell House. We had a lotta laughs, and after all a little Legionnaires Disease is good for you once in a while.

In other news, a few days ago I witnessed a Reggae Hasidim on the UPN network. He sings like Marley, dresses like Rabbi Moskowitz. I encourage everyone to keep their eyes peeled for this rising star. I don't know his name yet, but my prediction is he going to make it big. Mazel Mazel. Good things.

Did I say Florida was a strange place.......

So Mary has made it to Spumoni South. She will watch over the property. As I pulled up in the driveway today i observed the driveway being sealed with blacktop by a man with a strange walk. He is referred to as the FULL MONTY. He is a handicapped handi man. It fascinated me. He looked at mary and said, " You can clean that up with some clorox and a hose". Amazingly enough the mans honesty and polite manner trumped my immediate need to make a joke. He rolled out the sealant and gave a bid on sealing the roof. My dad is out in his wheelchair surveying the work being done. he is out there bargaining from the chair.

I have unearthed a picture of the original Le GAGALIA. Watch your email......

In other local news preparations are being made for the decorating to begin I know how much John misses hanging lights and untangling and changing bulbs as he once did in Staten Island
but first a plan has been hatched for the look. El Duce has spoken.
Stay tuned....

Shtroopiad-to walk or carry oneself in an uncoordinated or unbalanced manner.
Too much Busch can make billy shtroopiad.

Yes, Floridians are newly portrayed as very interesting people these days -- ask Maureen Dowd at the New York Times. Her couch is sweating. I'm still enjoying last week's election. People are taking it so hard! I've actually had to calm some folks down: remind them that the world isn't going to end. That the stuff they heard from Michael Moore (who?) and Dan Rather (what's the frequency?) and others was nonsense specifically designed to scare them silly. Their real beef is with them. Yeah, beef. Like the stuff in that woman's refrigerator.

So I must confess that I am happy the election is over. I am quite tired of every person I run into blubbering on about who they are voting for of these people have problems remembering to wipe but they will argue domestic policy till they stop breathing. It fascinates me how someone can argue about something so vehemently and yet they pulled up their mutandes without a single wipe. Saving trees? We know, we can smell you from our driveway.
Its a weird place....Florida. If we could just harness hurricanes and send them where we need a good cleansing wind I would have sent it to Haynie Lane in Jupiter Farms. Me and Steve decided to help Jessica's dad move a divorced women out of a big house he had purchased in Jupiter Farms. I thought it would be a few chairs and a couch. I enlisted Steve because the mighty soup can Pat has conveniently broken his right thumb. He was voting early. So we walk in this house and the scent alone was enough to kill cancer. There was an indescribable stink in this house. I lift the first couch with Steve and its wet. Couches do not perspire. We lifted it up and there is a cats tail under it. We have no idea where the cat went but he forgot it. Whatever we moved left a stain on our clothing and scar on our brain. My brother made the comment" How could you get out of that shower clean?" He referred to a bath tub that was black with stains. We kept daring each other to eat things from the fridge. I am pretty sure that a fridge should not smell like dirty clothes. So eating from it was not an option. The dog was so filthy he couldn't bark. He just groaned. I dunno. But i know that my dad went by there and he wants the statute of mary that was in the front yard. I wonder if it smells? Its not going in my car.

Nice work, America. It makes me smile when I imagine James Taylor hugging a sobbing Leo DiCaprio and softly singing "you just call out my name..." in his ear. My apologies to the staunch Kerryites such as Stefanuch and Vito, lets remember that before we are Republicans or Democrats, above all we are BARESE. So lets try and stay focused on our ultimate mission:
"A Government of the Barese, For the Barese, Tutti Barese". Thank You.

Now for the important stuff:

New Words for the Encyclopedia Mastandrea:
1. Baloney-Spiccoli- I'm not sure I even need to define this one. Obviously, a reference to the male reproductive organs, and can be applied in a variety of contexts.
2. mumble folks mumble Kerry mumble mumble- not sure of the definition, but we all heard Bruce Springsteen say this 500 times the past month.

Business calls, I will return.

Da boyz are very excited about seeing Marlena. They asked if everyone could come -- and then they launched into a tangent:

Cookie: We'll bring BazzukaJoe and Frylock into our workshop. The four of us will build a giant robot.

Mojo: And I'll put a butt on it.

Alane: That's a Mastandrea thing.

I suspect that's correct.

I subscribe to The Economist, and I generally find it factually informative and analytically savvy. But endorsing Kerry for president? Pure European idiocy. The rationale? In part:

...on social policy, Mr Kerry has a clear advantage: unlike Mr Bush he is not in hock to the Christian right. That will make him a more tolerant, less divisive figure on issues such as abortion, gay marriage and stem-cell research.

What horseshit -- only a non-American could possibly think that Kerry's preferred policies on social issues won't be extraordinarily divisive. Bush in hock to the Christian right? What about Kerry in hock to the anarchist left?

Morons.