HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY ROCKEFELLER

Rock 'n' Roll.

I think that's going to be my new greeting for everyone, replacing the tried and true "Yo, wassup?"

Somebody stops me on the street ... "Do you have the time?"

"Rock and roll ... it's 11:35."

And then that person will walk away saying they had just asked the coolest guy in the world what the time was.

Or they'll think I'm a mildly retarded guy who's managed to escape his assisted living facilities for a few hours.

Uno or the other.

So I'm just thankful to be alive after October has now ended.

October (or should I say ... ROCKtober?) has now turned into my 3rd busiest month each year behind December and April.

Because people love throwing Halloween parties and school homecoming dances and fall weddings and they all manage to fall in October.

I did 17 parties in 30 days.

I'm worn out, Chipper.

This year I decided to be a scary clown for Halloween.

I was trying to emulate the great Sid Haig from "House of 1,000 Corpses".

I forgot that some of y'all are scared of clowns.

Boy ... do I ever feel bad right now for exploiting your deepest fears for my own personal amusement.

Shame on me.

(tee hee!)

So here's me at one of the Halloween parties.

Now, there's several noticeable differences between the two. Most notably ... I'm not really bald and my bald wig is beginning to curl around the ears.

Also I don't think Sid used the "Rotting Zombie Teeth" that cost $6.99 from Party City for his role.

And the clown outfit is just a wee bit too jolly.

But the cool thing was ... people left me alone all night long.

Usually, a Halloween party entails people dressed up as wizards and hobos riffling through my CDs and seeing how many they can steal from me when my back's turned or thumbing through my book of songs to find "the perfect song" and starting with Abba's "Dancing Queen" because it's the first fucking song in the book. And as soon as that's played they'll do the same thing again except this time it will be AC/DC's "Back In Black" because ... you guessed it ... it's second.

So anyway, I wore that outfit for five consecutive nights, creeping the shit out of people from realtors to sorority sisters to an inner-city high school.

Let me tell you something ... you want to put the bling-bling wearing gangsta thug wannabes on check?

Dress like a scary clown.

Those little mushmouth bastards treat you like a hardened judge when you dress like that.

On Thursday we had a quiet dinner out at Pizza Hut, his favorite restaurant.

It was there that we gave him his birthday present ... the Nintendo DS and four games.

He was somewhat excited and confused since he specifically demanded Magnetix since a kid can never have enough Magnetix collecting dust in their closets.

But these were new games that he could actually hold and he seemed to be accepting them.

And ... then ... we ... got ... home.

The Nintendo DS was left on the breakfast table as he made a beeline to the computer to continue playing the same computer games that he's mastered months ago.

It's all about familiarity with him ... doing familiar things makes him happy and calm.

New things he has to take in small doses until he figures out how they work and then he lunges head first into them.

Friday he had a party at school.

Saturday he had a party with Susie's family while I worked.

And yesterday he had a party at the movie theater with all his friends.

Let me give you all a piece of advice.

If you've ever thought about having a children's birthday party at a movie theater ... gouge your brain out of your head with an icepick through your ear.

We asked Andrew a few weeks ago what he wanted to do for his birthday.

We were running out of time to reserve the usual spots and were hoping to try something different.

He mentioned taking his friends to seeing "Bee Movie".

I knew it'd be expensive, but it's my only kid and they only turn 7 once and plus, since the Nintendo DS and four games sucked so freakin' hard as a gift ... I had to make it up to him somehow.

So we printed up invitations and gave them to the 24 kids in his class.

Sadly, Andrew's best friend Clay couldn't make it.

Apparently, Clay has a wee bit of a problem with bees.

He's terrifuckinfied of them.

I was not there, but from the teacher's account, he opened up the invitation, saw Jerry Seinfeld dressed as a bee inside and freaked the fuck out in the classroom.

We're talking "clawing the walls in fear" kind of meltdown.

Clay is five years older than Andrew ... yes ... he's 12.

And he's in serious need of a depussification.

So 13 kids did decide they wanted to come.

We had put in the invitation that the kids' tickets would be paid for along with popcorn and a drink ... but any parents and siblings would have to pay their own way.

Parents said "no problem".

I'm not sure what the siblings said, but I'm guessing they didn't give two shits either.

So Susie goes to church yesterday morning leaving me with specific instructions to drive to the theater, buy 16 tickets (13 for kids, 3 for us) and come back home to put the goody bags together.

I drive to the theater at 11 a.m.

Box office doesn't open until 12.

I drive home, put the goody bags together, drive back about 12:05.

By 12:15, the line is into the street. There must have been 200 people waiting in line.

I panicked.

What if I bought tickets for the kids but by the time the parents got there with the kids, it'd be sold out and there'd be no room for the parents and they'd leave with the kids?

So I'm going over the scenario in my head, trying to figure out exactly how many tickets I need to buy to make sure everyone gets a ticket that needs one.

I come up with the number 30.

13 for the kids, 13 for the parents, 3 for us, one extra ticket just in case.

I finally make it to the front of the line and say "30 tickets for the 1:30 Bee Movie".

"All children?" the minimum wage slave behind the window mumbles.

"N-n-no," I stutter. "Half kids. Half adults. Half monkeys."

I get 30 tickets and then start freaking out because I'm there, Susie and Andrew are in church and out of these 13 kids, I might know two of them. The rest of them I've never met.

So Andrew's birthday party could be walking right past me and I'd be oblivious to them.

Finally Susie gets there and starts pointing at all these people gathering in small clusters outside the theater.

I feel like the worst daddy there because nobody knows me and I don't know them but they all act like they were college roomies at one time towards each other.

We tell people to go inside and save seats as the three of us stay outside and hand out more tickets.

Finally, I'm ordered to go inside and start getting popcorn and drinks for everyone.

And I'm told specifically to get the Kid's Combo.

Newsflash dear ... there is no Kids Combo listed.

You can get a combo with two popcorns, two drinks and a box of candy.

Or a combo with a hot dog, nachos, popcorn and gastrointestinal disorders for days.

But no kids combos.

So I buy 13 small popcorns with 13 bottles of water.

One hundred and four dollars.

One hundred and four dollars on popcorn and water.

Think what all YOU could do with $104.

I spent it on popcorn and water for 13 kids whose name I didn't know.

Tickets were $180.

So we're knocking on the $300 door for this "party" where the kids aren't allowed to talk, there is no birthday cake and Andrew decides he doesn't want to sit with the other kids because Clay's not there.

Clay the Bee Freak.

Aaaaaand ... the movie sucked harder than a whore with a lung condition in a blow job contest.

The theater was deadly silent throughout the film as ... just as I had imagined ... there's only so much "bee" humor you can mine out of the life of a bee.

You get past all the bad puns the first five minutes of the film. After that it becomes an environmental lawsuit drama that went buzzing over the kids' heads.

Quite possibly the dullest movie I've ever seen ... and I've seen Paris Hilton's sex tape, so I know of which I speak.

Anyway, Andrew got a bunch of toys he'll never play with, all the kids got Pez Dispensers with Bee Movie characters on them (sorry kids!) and Daddy pooped $300 away for the "party".

Never. Again.

Mark dem words.