The Boys

 

These are The Boys. That is Harry on the left and QD on the right. QD eats to live and Harry lives to eat. Neither of them are what you would call sveldt. Harry is always hungry, and QD, not wanting to be unsociable always eats with him, although never as much. Our computer sits on a table in the living room that also has QD's basket on top. Normally, if I am on the computer, QD is in his basket, watching me.

 

Best Line Of The Evening

It used to be if you wanted to see a woman's ass you had to open her panties. Now,if you want to see a woman's panties you have to open her ass.

RTL

RTL

Most of the time, since no business thinks its important to make sure that they have enough coins in the cash register, you get Chicklets instead of coins for your change.

RTL

No one says, "Please" or "Thank You".

Nobody knows to cover their mouths when they yawn. When someone does yawn you get an amazing view of their dental work and tonsils.

Reasons To Leave

People who don't hold the door for you.

People who don't know to say, "Thank You", when you hold the door for them.

Quick Note

If you are watching a performer or a group and someone says either, "Put your hands up" or "Make some noise", you know right away that there will be very little music involved.

My Son, Brandon

 

Brandon was born on November 3, 2012

 

He is a sweet little boy.

 

 

Reasons to Leave

I made an offensive joke a long time ago that started, "Why do Dominicans always drive with their bright lights on? Because they have them. Why do Dominicans always honk their horns while driving? Because they have them." I won't finish the joke now.

I Thought I Was Done Blogging, BUT......

I haven't written anything here in about 6 months. Periodically I think about posting and then it just goes by the boards. I was in Santiago this week and while there I met with two friends. One, Evan is a guy I met about 8 years ago. He owns an English language school in Santiago. Evan has always been talking about leaving the DR, but his business kept him here, although he was gone for long periods. When we met he told me that this time it was for sure that he was not coming back. He is leaving the school in the hands of two trusted employees and he will "monitor" the business from the US.  The other friend, Sal, has been my best friend for the past 36 years. Sal was my business partner and he is my daughter's Godfather. Sal was the first to suggest that I might find the DR to my liking. He has been working here for almost the last 20 years. He, too, is leaving the DR forever. For the past 5 years he has been commuting to the DR spending 10 days here and 4 days at home, which is an amazing amount of travel.

Both Evan and Sal have basically the same reason for leaving. They just can't handle the people here anymore. They can't handle the lack of consideration,ignorance, and rudeness of the Dominicans, just to name a few reasons. No matter how the reason is expressed, it all comes back to the people. They both have met and become friendly with some of the few wonderful Dominicans, but for the most part they just can't handle it any more. The only difference between them and me is that they can leave. I can't.

So I decided while driving back to Bavaro that I would start to chronicle the many things that the three of us find so offsetting. I figured that maybe I would just make a quick entry and run. For example, I might just post under the title Reasons to Leave. In fact that's what I am going to do. I will start with my next post, right now.

A True Story

Today, Massiel and I were driving and listening to a CD that I had made of only Billy Joel songs. Good Night Saigon came on and I got to thinking about the Vietnam War and my brief brush with it. I then told this true story to Massiel:

I quit going to college after 3 years. I was attending NYU, not doing particularly well and hating it. I broke up with my girlfriend and decided that I really needed a change. I moved to Boston.  I previously have written about my time at the Playboy Club in Boston. This happened while I was living there, but before I got the Playboy job. Back in those days there was a draft and everyone of age had to register. The war was immensely unpopular. There were draft resisters moving to Canada, people burning their draft cards as protest, and doing whatever they could to avoid the draft. I had no strong anti-war feelings but I also knew that I did not want to be in a war. As long as you were a student you retained a 2-S classification which made you exempt from call up. However, if you stopped going to school you were reclassified as 1-A and eligible to be called up to serve. Sure enough while in Boston I received notice that I was being called to take my physical at the Mount Vernon (the city where I had registered) Draft Board. I wrote and appealed to have the location changed to Boston. They agreed and I waited for the new notification for my physical. While waiting I decided to go to a psychiatrist. Through a friend I found someone who I was told might be willing to help me with my Army problem. Shortly after mty first visit I received the notice directing me to the Boston Draft Board for my pre-induction physical. I went to the shrink for the second (and last) time and requested a letter confirming that I was undergoing psychiatric therapy/counseling
. At the Draft Board office there were about 25 others who had been called we were directed to a waiting bus that drove us to the nearest army installation, which might have been the Naval base (I'm not sure). We all were put through a battery of tests all of which I passed with flying colors, except for rhe hearing test. They put earphones on over your ears and played a high pitched sound and asked you to tell them at what point you could hear it. I figured this would be an easy test to fail so even though I could hear the noise I kept saying that I couldn't. After three or four attempts the person administering the test turned the volume up so loud that I almost jumped out of my seat. He said, "Oh you heard that. Good, you pass". That was as close as I came to failing anything. All the tests were complete and they brought us into a room and someone, I can't remember who, explained to us that we were all going to be classified 1-A and that our induction notices would we coming to us shortly. He then said the words that didn't change my life (as going into the Army would have). He said, "Do any of you have any reason why you cannot serve?" I whipped out my letter and gave it to him. He excused himself and went to go to show the letter ro someone and when he came back he said something to the effect of, "I'm sorry but you can't serve. We are going to classify you as 1-Y." Not know what that meant I asked him and he replied that they would be calling women and children before they would call me. I was fortunately able to restrain from showing my joy and left with the others.  I still remember the present that I bought myself to celebrate my good fortune. I passed a Men's Clothing store and saw a tie in the window. It was about 5 inches wide, bright pink with large yellow polka dots. I don't know when I lost track of that tie but for years when I would come across it I would remember how lucky I was to be alive.

What My Life Has Become

So I write this beautiful kiss ass post about how wonderful my wife is and we are in bed reading it and she tells me how nice it was that I wrote it and when I say, "OK then, blow me" she blows air on my face.

The Truth

I think that it was either Miss Baldwin, my third grade teacher, or Mrs. Lipton, my fifth grade teacher, who once wrote on my Report Card that, "Joel would be a wonderful student if he would stop trying to be the class clown". I couldn't help myself then and I still can't. If I think of something that I think is funny, I can't help myself. I have to say it, and often the more people I tell it to the better. I am not a mean spirited person and very rarely say anything about someone that is meant to hurt them. This is to set the record straight regarding my June, Graduation Month post.

I have been with a lot of women in my life. I have been married 4 times and had many girlfriends. Of all those women (see, my sense of humor wants to take control right here and add "and the few men") I have only been with one for whom my love and affection has grown every day. My wife Massiel is that person. She has been a good sport about many of the things that I have said and written about her. She is such a great person, bright, intelligent, and funny that I consider myself to be a very lucky man to have someone so wonderful caring about me. And she does care, both about and for me. I always tease her about this, but the truth is that I could not ask for a woman to make me any happier than Massiel makes me. I call her names all the time and she takes it. I tease her all the time and she takes it. Actually, she not only "takes it" she seems to enjoy it.

I am writing this because I want all my thousands of readers to know how lucky I am to have the most wonderful, clever, honest, smart woman in the world loving me.

Thank you, Babe.


Joel

Still Waiting

I have been a fan of Rock and Roll since the early 50's. I remember that when I lived in Mount Vernon I had a radio in my room and at night I could listen to Rock and Roll from Cleveland and Buffalo, two hotbeds of early RnR. When I started to earn money I began to buy records. i started with 45's and graduated to albums. At some point I probably had 5 or 600 albums. Then one day I heard about 8 track tapes. I am all in favor of new technology so I put an 8 track in my car and started buying 8 tracks recordings. Of course, I didn't only by new tapes, I also bought copies of many of the albums that I already owned. Then a couple of years later cassette players came out. These were smaller and more importantly you could advance them to the song that you wanted to hear. They gabe the listener much better control, so of course I started by cassettes and once again I started duplicating records and 8 tracks that I already owned. I had 3 of the same album and probably had 399 titles in triplicate. I felt really stupid buying the same thing over and over again, but if I wanted to listen to the music I liked there was no other choice. And then one day CD's came out. Hey, screw them, they are not going to get me to buy the fourth copy of something. I am smarter than that. I decided to wait for the next "newest, greatest way to listen to music".  That was probably 20 years ago and in that time I have probably bought less than 50 CDs. I am still waiting for the new technology.

P.S. My ex-wife, Bonnie, still has about 300 of my original collection of records and now claims that they are hers.

Words To Live By

Everything happens for a reason but sometimes that reason is that you are stupid and make bad decisions.

I Just Don't Get It

Exactly what is the idea of being tattooed? Is it to desecrate your body as much as possible? Is it to put so much ink on your body, like your arms, for instance so that they look dirty from a distance. My good friend Sal has a couple of tattoos. The first one he got was on his bicep. It says MOM. As he tells it if he hadn't put that there and had come home with a tattoo his mother, or father would have beat the crap out of him. He put "MOM" in the heart for self protection. I met Sal in 1974 and shortly after that he got his second tattoo of a parrot on his forearm. I hate tattoos, but somehow I really liked this one. To this day it looks fresh and clean. Then when tattoos became all the rage he was driven to getting a new one. This time it is on his calve and is of a panther clawing his leg. He thought it was very cool, until I showed him a waitress with the same design. That took a lot of wind out of his sails. Back in the day, the idea of a tattoo was to separate yourself from others. Today the idea is to be like the others.

Hey Where Have You Been and Why Am I Back

A gambler calls his bookie every day for 25 consecutive days to place a bet on a basketball game. He loses all 25. The 26th day he calls the bookmaker, who by this time is starting to feel sorry for the player. The bookie says, "Why not do something to try to change your luck? Why not bet on Hockey?"
"Hockey?" replies the player, "What do I know about Hockey?"

How Come?

As we, ah... if only there were a we, are aware, I am the funniest person that I know. I am probably the funniest person that most people know. Today as I was driving I was thinking about the dream that I had last night. It's subject was not relevant but what I did find very interesting was that there was no humor involved. It involved nothing funny. This is not unusual. In fact, in thinking about all my dreams, which I often remember when I wake up, none of them are funny. None of them contain glimpses into to my sense of humor, with its characteristic one liners. How could that be?

The Wonderful Thing About Always Being Funny

Because I am always saying funny things to people I have discovered that I can tell someone the truth, which they may not really want to hear. The good part is that when I say the truth about something I don't like the person just starts to laugh and says something like, "Oh, your so

The Worst

I have started to deal with a lot of them. Russians are the worst.

And Another Thing

I have a problem with my prostate with all its accompanying problems but I still can't understand how people using a urinal can miss so much and wet the floor like they do.

I Should Have Been A Doctor

Just a statement of fact.

Man Size

Last year I posted a picture of a mannequin in a store window that had the biggest boobs I have ever seen (on a mannequin). While shopping at a store in Higuey I came across her male counterpart.

Sorry Babe, Sometimes I Just Can't Control Myself

Full Moon, Empty Head