THE BALLAD OF UNCLE BOB AND BIG GUY

I am HORRIBLE with people's names.

Seriously bad. It's been a fault of mine ever since I can remember.

Yet another case in point...yesterday the Suzemeister, the Andymeister and myself are at the grocery store, stocking up on red meat and candy because they are my lifeblood.

This grey-headed guy and his white haired woman are coming our way down the aisle. I barely notice them because they look old and I find it best not to make eye contact with old people because they usually wanna talk about how much their joints ache or some shit like that if you make eye contact with them.

(By the way...my knees are KILLING me! More on that later...)

So anyway, I'm staring at cake mixes and hoping the old people just pass without pinching Andy's cheeks when the guy says "Uncle Bob?? Susie??"

This leads me to believe that the old geezer knows us. Either that or he's a damned good guesser when it comes to reeling off people's names.

Susie does the old "HEYYYYYY!!" that women do when they haven't seen each other in forever. I say "Hey big guy!" because that's my standard greeting for people who I have no fucking clue who they are.

I look at the guy and he looks vaguely familiar. His front teeth are horribly broken, chipped or missing. His gray hair hangs in ringlets to his shoulders.

He asks if this is our baby (no, you dipshit...we borrowed him to go grocery shopping with because it's soooo much easier to go shopping when you're lugging around a pissed off baby). We tell him yes and introduce him to Andrew. He walks away. We walk away.

Thank God my wife knows my codes. When I say "Hey Big Guy!" she knows I have no idea what the person's name is.

"Ray," she says.

"Fill me in," I say as we keep walking.

Ray and I were bouncers at a bar back in the 80s. Ray and I were damned close, going out afterwards to other bars, he came over to the house one time and showed me how to cook ribs. He dated one of Susie's good friends and when the friend broke it off with him, he pined for her for several months afterwards, turning him from a stocky bouncer to a sniveling crybaby in a matter of days.

Oh.

THAT Ray.

It really does blow my mind that I can forget so many chunks of my past like that.

After she briefed me on him, I wanted to go find him in the store and say "Ray! Ray, Ray, Ray! How've you been, old pal?!?" and get caught up on his life.

But I didn't.

I think it was the whole fucked up teeth thing that helped me make my decision.

Watched about a gazillion movies yesterday. Or at least pieces of a gazillion movies.

Wait...change the number "Gazillion" to "Four".

Which is still a lot of movies for me.

First...I watched the first hour or so of "Fright Night".

Man...that is one great movie. For those of you who never saw it (I think that number will be small, the movie's been around forever), this teenager is convinced that a vampire has moved in next door. As it turns out...yep...the guy is a creature of the night. It's up to the kid to kill him.

Very well made flick. Lots of humor, creepiness and decent special effects for the mid-80s.

Second film..."Loser".

I didn't really pay much attention to this one because it was pretty cookie-cutter in its presentation and Andy was wanting to play "Change your face, Daddy" for about 90 minutes (IT's a game where I cover my face with my hands and when I remove my hands I have a different expression from when I had previously laid my hands on my face. Most of the expressions are silly ones. Andy loves this game and laughs really hard when it's just me smiling naturally. I guess that's because he's shocked that my face hasn't changed permanently from the constant distortion and that makes him laugh with relief).

Anyway...the film coulda been better.

I tried to watch "Bring It On" which was kinda cute (I LOVED the cheer at the beginning of the film), but coupled with "Loser", these two films made me realize that maybe I'm getting a bit too old for teen comedies, because I'm beginning to see them as being too predictable.

Will the losers get together at the end of the film?

Duh.

Will the cheerleaders win the competition?

Double duh.

Although...I didn't see the end of "Bring It On" so don't spoil it for me.

Fourth film..."What Lies Beneath"

This movie shoulda been called "Why'd They Make It?"

You've got some pretty big name talents here with Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer(STILL hot as hell!) and Robert Zemeckis directing.

Yet, this was just your typical little ghost story. No big thrills or chills. The typical "killer won't stay dead" finale.

I guess I expected more.

Maybe this is why I don't go to the movies anymore. I always expect more out of my cinema fare.

Actually, this is why I like offbeat independent fare like "Welcome To The Dollhouse" and "The Tao of Steve/Uncle Bob". Those movies are different and not as predictable as your regular $100 million plus flicks.

That's my two cents.

Take it for what it's worth.

Which is...two cents. Sheesh. Pay attention, dude.

So I mowed the yard yesterday.

Went outside at 9:30 a.m. and was hit with a thick wall of heat.

My plan was to mow, trim, edge, clip, prune and bag.

I mowed.

Forty-five minutes after getting all the mowing done, I was about to collapse. The heat was intense and I thought I was seriously going to pass out.

I went back inside, stripped the sweaty clothes off of me and stood there naked which pretty much repulsed the wife.

"It's soooo hot out there," I said. "I'm going to finish the rest tomorrow."

I got in the shower, turned on nothing but cold water and brought by body temp back down to around 102 degrees.

Got out, got dressed, went to the den and collapsed in my recliner.

"Turn the weather channel on," I said. "I have to know what the temperature is out there...the temp that almost killed me."

She turned on the Weather Channel.

81 degrees.

"That must be a mistake," I said. "It has to be 91 out there."

Nope. 81 degrees.

"Well what's the heat index? Because it feels like 110."

Heat index...86 degrees.

Okay.

I'm officially a heat puss now.

In my defense...there was NO breeze...NO clouds...and the grass was still moist with dew and when the hot sun is beating down on dewy grass, the heat from the grass can kill a man or at least a pint-sized dwarf.

Susie went outside to get the mail as I sat in my recliner, scratching my head and wondering if I had just imagined that stifling heat.

She came back inside and reported that it was "nice" out.

Thanks for the update, amateur meteorologist. Now go push a lawn mower up and down a hill for 45 minutes and give me the same report.

Sheesh.

Seriously.

I thought I was go' die.

That's it. I wanted to go into detail about how my wife is the absolute WORST at picking the correct checkout lanes at grocery stores and Walmart, but she's up, the kid's up, the dog's barking, the TV's going and I'm sitting here babbling about nothing in particular.

So we'll save the checkout lane story for another day.

A rainy day.

A rainy day that won't be as freakin' hot as yesterday.

Damn.

I'm telling you...it was HOT.

I don't give a shit what the TV and my wife says.

HOT, I'm tellin' ya.