HANGING WITH SINATRA'S GHOST

For those of you who actually spend your free time doing constructive things rather than parking yourself in front of a television set drooling with your chins resting on your chests for three hours a night, it's a reality show starring famed chef Gordon Ramsay as he whittles down a group of wannabe chefs to just one person who then receives their own fancy gourmet restaurant.

This Ramsay guy is without a doubt the meanest motherfucker on television.

I don't think it's an act. The guy is naturally vicious.

He made grown men cry, picked fights with his restaurant's customers and called his blonde female customers "bimbos" to their faces.

Susie loved the show while I was rather uncomfortable watching it. I only thought I could handle watching a guy pick on people for an hour.

But apparently, I have a smidgen of decency somewhere in my body that allows me to feel pity for those suffering this guy's wrath.

That doesn't mean I'll stop watching the show.

It just means I'll watch it while squirming like I have a shit-covered lizard roaming around in my undies.

He stretched out in my recliner with the player on his chest and watched "Monsters,Inc." last night while squealing in unbridled bursts of joy.

It was almost enough to make him forget that he had part of his ear sheared off by an alcoholic trailer-trash hoochie mama on Saturday.

Almost.

Yes, my "vacation" is just around the corner. We leave on Saturday and come back on Thursday.

I'm sure many of you are impressed while thinking to yourselves "Lucky Uncle Bob!! He gets to go to the vacation hotbed of America, Hot Springs, Arkansas!!!"

According to my Dad, at one time Hot Springs really WAS a vacation hotspot.

That "one time" was in the '50s and Dad says people like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin would unwind in Hot Springs.

Then again ... maybe he's thinking of Las Vegas. Dad's not doing so well lately as he grapples with his dementia.

We're going for Susie's Dad's family reunion.

Her dad has seven brothers and sisters who all have children and grandchildren of their own so we're going to be with about 125 people all week including every in-law imaginable with the exception of my mother-in-law who's divorced from Susie's dad and has no real reason to attend the family reunion except to be extremely uncomfortable for a week.

Which is what I plan on being.

The good news is that they want me to bring my DJ stuff ... most notably my Karaoke stuff because ... from what I've been told about two billion times in the last two months ... "Dad's family loves to sing!"

Oh, great big FUCKIN' whee.

This means every night I'll have to set my shit up somewhere and let 125 people take turns doing karaoke.

And ... for those of you who have never read my stuff before ... I DESPISE KARAOKE.

Sooo ... is this a vacation or a prelude to an eternity in Hell?

Me go with the latter, chump.

Anyway, I know there's got to be at least thousands of you who are concerned with the upkeep of my lawn because the last time I wrote about it a few months ago, it looked dead and the other neighbors' yards were really taking off.

Well guess what, Bait Breath?

Guess who has the thickest, greenest, lushest, most wonderfully manicured lawn on the street?

That's right.

Your goddamned Uncle Bob.

I feel like an idiot because I just can't take my eyes off my lawn lately. But I've put an awful lot of hard work into it lately ... every spare minute that I don't find myself in front of the TV watching some new wretched Reality show is spent out in the yard pulling weeds and edging sidewalks and driveways to perfection.

I'm a freak.

I know, I know.