The Predicament of One All Too Liberally Lubricated

Dear Ms. Bad Advice,
 
I have a most embarrassing problem:  I sweat. A lot.

During the winter, I can control things with liberal applications of antiperspirants, dressing lightly and keeping the windows opened. But the warm weather is right around the corner and once the temperature hits 70 my underarm sprinklers turn full on.  Really, it’s ridiculous. 

I bring several changes of clothes with me whenever I go out and sometimes I even carry a wet umbrella with me so that people will think I was just in a sun shower. (Don’t ask from where I collect the moisture for the umbrella.)  But mostly, I just stay indoors — alone — as much as possible.  Needless to say, this problem presents some obstacles to having any kind of meaningful relationships in my life.  I have no love life at all.  In fact, the last time I had sex was on New Year’s Eve … of 2000!   Conditions were perfect: She was drunk, it was cold, everyone was a little moist with champagne and we’d all just survived the Y2K scare. 

Help me, Ms. Bad Advice!  I can’t wait until next millennia’s New Year’s Eve for a little loving. With global warming, my love life might be over forever.
 
Signed,
 
Wet in Wisconsin

Here comes the rain again ... .

Most Unholy Wet,

Ms. Bad Advice admits to squandering countless hours ogling the well-oiled physiques of well-built adult male models in fitness magazines and printed materials aimed at the [ahem] ‘gay’ demographic, and while you might think that the ‘eau de le gym locker’ scent that certainly accompanies that look would be a turn-off — you would be wrong. Pheromones, my dear boy, are (to paraphrase Freddy Mercury) “what make the rocking world go ’round.”

Of course, it’s a fine line between ‘scent’ and ‘stink’. You seem to have crossed into the later’s territory, what with your squirting like an uptown fire hydrant on a summer day whenever the weather inches above freezing. The musky scent of a male can be a turn-on to any woman; outsized perspiration stains under the arms of a fine dress shirt are a distinct turn-off.

So what to do about the water works in your case? Well, the first thing we could do is severely limit your H2O intake. Limiting yourself to, say, a glass of water every few days and eating raw sea salt would go a long way towards drying you out some. And if those nasty bodily secretions have no medium for seeping through your pores than you shouldn’t have to worry about offending anyone with your nasty smell. Of course, that does leave you susceptible to dehydration, severe weight loss and (probably) death in the long term. But some girls dig a dessicated, emaciated, totally odor-less soon-to-be-dead guy. They’re the ones with unhealthy fixations on zombie movies and television shows, but, hey, beggars can’t be choosers, right?

While you’ve still got some life in you — if not all that much water which life sort of depends on — go out and pretend every day is New Years Eve 2000. The energy you expend having all that sex will almost certainly hasten your demise, but for someone who sweats as much as you (and for whom the Darwinian prerogative seems to be decidedly working against) I don’t see that as a bad thing.

It’s either that or wear a wetsuit on a constant basis. Come to think of it … .

Six of one,

Ms. Bad Advice

Happiness In Slavery

Dear Ms. Bad Advice,
 
I have a very successful law practice, a large comfortable home, a loving wife and two teenage children.  I seem to have it all. 

But sometimes, I feel like leaving it all – just walking away into the forest, pitching a tent near a stream where I would live off the land and getting in touch with myself.  What do you think I should do about these feelings?

 
Signed,
 
Conflicted in Connecticut

Place dominant hand on frontal lobe and stroke vigorously.

Dear Conflicted,

Put bluntly, you’ve already pitched a tent — in your head — and you’re very liberally stroking that illusion-based mental erection into a bloody stump. You’re not conflicted about being successful. You’re conflicted about how having now achieved that success you can run like hell away from it all and still feel good about yourself.

Ms. Bad Advice is here to tell you that turning away from material success and pursuing the life-draining practice of “getting in touch” with yourself always ends in either: A)Death from starvation, or; B)Long-term stays in psychiatric wards where you are inevitably medicated back into becoming a wage slave. Getting in touch with yourself means getting the hell away from everything you’ve brought into your life and people who now depend on you for maintaining their own lifestyles. Henry David Thoreau had no immediate family and a very small social circle. Essentially he was a well-written homeless person. You don’t want to aspire to that. It just turns you into an internet quote machine for touchy-feely types a hundred years after your squandered life and ultimately meaningless death.

Now, if you want to take the Jesus route (renouncing family and all material wealth, then embarking on a messianic tour of the hinterlands of the Middle East) you’ll find that even less fruitful. Your missive is soaked in delusion and that’s always the perfect breeding ground for ‘savior of the world’ types. Yup, you’re probably closer to tossing the keys to the Porsche, putting on a robe and a pair of slippers and wandering the streets of Hartford yelling, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand!” There, I’ve put you ‘in touch’ with the histrionic martyr that you’ve always wanted to be instead of slogging through 500-page legal briefs detailing the distribution of wealth among the already obscenely wealthy or arguing the utter lack of guile and corruption of some enormous corporation whose industrial practices are poisoning the poverty-stricken masses. Sorry, rabbi, but you chose the road more travelled and now you’re just going to have to live with it.

Because nobody likes to see their loved ones nailed to a cross dying VERY slowly from blood loss, oxygen deprivation, and exposure to the elements. Come to think of it, that will get you ‘in touch’ with yourself right quick (i.e., “I’m fucking dying and it fucking hurts and I really don’t understand why I put myself in this position and I’ll do or say anything to get myself out of this mess RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!!”).

Poor you — you have a life to die for, a happy marriage and two loving, well-adjusted kids. But you just want to go live in the woods and eat Spam out of the can and ponder the meaning of it all. How terribly boring and selfish. Grow a pair, get back in the game, and stop reading Deepak Choprah books. When you want to ‘get in touch’ with yourself, go to an Oriental massage parlor and ask to lend a hand during the ‘happy ending’ portion of the session. You want nature, mow what’s got to be your very expansive lawn.

So very bored with this ‘self-discovery’ thing,

Ms. Bad Advice

Climb Every Mountain

Dr. Ms. Bad Advice,
 
I am a 17 year old girl trapped in a boy’s body.  I have known something was wrong with me for as long as I can remember and my parents knew it too.  Good old Dad’s response was to beat me stupid when I did something “girly” and when that didn’t work, he left.  That was 10 years ago.  Mom has always been pretty supportive – until now.
 
I need to start looking like the person I really am.  I wan’t to get boobs- nothing flashy, just a modest rack that says “Female” to the rest of the world.  My problem, Mom refuses to help me pay for the surgery.  I can’t believe it.  She has always been at my side and now, as I take this, the biggest step of my life, she is a no-show.  I know she loves me so how can I convince her that I need her now more than ever.
 
Signed,
 
Tit-less in Tucson

As God intended them to be.

Dearest Titless,

Here’s hoping the ‘person you really are’ isn’t named Floyd, has a flowing red beard, an apocalyptic case of teen acne, a generously inflated stomach area and an enormous penis swinging between his legs (going a long way toward explaining dad’s ‘disappearance’). That wouldn’t change your quest for higher profile feminity, it would only add to an already significant cosmetic surgery bill that neither mom nor anyone else seems willing to foot for you.

Budding young lumberjacks don’t make the best raw cheerleader material no matter how talented the surgeon you choose might be. You may end up with a perfect pair of breasts yet still be condemned to a lifetime of flannel shirts and manual labor as well as a significant cosmetic surgery bill. And you wouldn’t even have the solace of a good Friday night drunk with the rest of the lunkheads, put off as they would be by the outward evidence of your personally conflicted but outwardly obvious non-gender neutrality.

But, if you’re “a 17 year old girl trapped in a boy’s body” that’s petite, already a little wide in the hip area, and sporting soft, feminine facial features then things get a little easier. While mother may be reluctant to foot the bill for a pair of breasts, there are literally oodles of older men (even older men in the Tucson area) more than happy to go that extra financial mile. For a little something in return. Sorry to say, Titless, it’s a world of quid pro quo and boys who would be girls have to engage in some pretty rigorous commerce. Being in Arizona, there’s no shortage of truck stops and public men’s restrooms — places a would-be girl such as yourself can get a little nest-egg started pretty handily. Stay away from law enforcement types, though. Not that they’d be inclined to arrest you. They’d be among the group expecting freebies. You don’t get Anna Nicole-style titties giving it away my dear.

If this advice puts you off in any way, just think of George Michael. While his jaunts in men’s rooms the world over hasn’t exactly sold him many records of late, it also hasn’t decreased his public visibility nor his economic bottom line. If you want to look like Barbra Eden any time soon then you’ve got to heed the advice of gender-bender wunderkind RuPaul: “You gotta work it girl!”

See you in the gloryhole,

Ms. Bad Advice

A Hairy Situation

Dear Ms. Bad Advice,

I’m recently separated and just started sleeping with a 24 year old (one of the ones who doesn’t wear promise rings). My only complaint with the relationship is that she doesn’t shave and it’s a bit like a ’70s porno film down south if you know what I’m saying.

Should I ask her to get a Brazilian wax? How should I proceed.

Signed,

Horny In Huntsville

Like this. Only ... down there where the good stuff is.

Herr Horny,

Now Ms. Bad Advice is well aware that negotiating the forest through trees can get a little tiresome and off-putting. It’s almost certainly not your genitals sending complaint signals up to your synapses so much as it is your face. There’s two reasons for that: First, because you’re a doll and indulge your non-promise ring wearing woman (or is it a boy — you didn’t exactly specify) with what I’m sure is the most scintillating of oral attentions, and; Two, your eyeballs just plain don’t like the look of a shag rug on such modern architecture.

I’m so there. Personally, Ms. Bad Advice plucks all of her own pubic hair one nasty strand at a time with a pair of tweezers. Largely because she’s got lots of free time and a genuine need to keep a very close eye on her vagina. It’s been known to get her into trouble. (We’re talking three years of criminal prosecution ‘trouble’ simply because physically stunning wasn’t exactly of the legal age of consent. Imagine!)

Still, a Brazilian wax can not only be expensive (and I’m assuming you’ve been gentlemanly enough to suggest footing the bill), it can be downright painful. And for first timers — like the boy/girl you’ve taken to playing hide the sausage with — it can even be traumatizing. A far easier and less caustic approach is this: Take your young paramour to dinner — someplace reasonably priced with plenty of distractions (you’re going to need them). When your date’s not looking lace his/her chicken shaag with 750 miligrams of thorazine. By the time you’re ready to pay the check you’ll literally have putty in your hands. Then it’s back to your place where you’ll have carefully laid out the razors, combs and tweezers. All you have to do then is let your inner-artist speak. Forget a Brazilian, you can etch out a portrait of Donald Duck just above your date’s junk and think of all the good times that will bring the two of you!

Still, the well-coiffed hairy pubic area is making a very big comeback in the niche web porn market. You may be putting the kibosh on a kink you haven’t given full time to mature. Ms. Bad Advice has seen bushes that would put Richard Roundtree’s ‘Shaft’ era afro to shame and found herself just the slightest bit titillated. You may be letting contemporary prejudices take you away from a good and richly erotic thing.

But I make no judgments. At least not on Saturday mornings. Do you what will, but remember — it’s guaranteed to grow back.

Saving the world one bush at a time,

Ms. Bad Advice

A Rose By Any Other Name …

Dear Ms. Bad Advice,
 
I hope you can help me.

Over the last several weeks, I have noticed that my friends are avoiding me.  I speak to them on the phone but they always have an excuse for not getting together.  I have also noticed that people do not sit close to me in public places.  I am beginning to think that I may have B.O.  I don’t think I smell but I can’t think of another explaination.  I shower regularly and wash my clothes so I don’t know what else to do. 

Please help me.
 
Signed,
 
Isolated in Long Island

Eau de le morte.

Dear Isolated,

Just spitballing here, but what exactly is it that you’re ‘showering’ in? And are you using bar soap or laboratory grade sulfur? The point being that traditional body odor (your pedestrian “BO”) isn’t usually enough to drive people away from you in great numbers. They usually point out to you that you’re getting a little lax in the hygiene department, that it’s starting to take its toll on their olfactory glands, and that it’s time for you to get with the rest of the societal ‘wash, rinse, repeat’ program. Friends (and even casual enemies) will reliably do this without much prompting — outside of your rank odor.

Again, I’m going purely with the hypothetical but I think what may be your problem is zombiefication. Yes, Isolated, you may have in fact died some time ago and come back as a flesh-eating, card-carrying member of the walking dead. It’s all over popular culture these days — why wouldn’t strike down some clueless young suburbanite like yourself? That smell may not be body odor at all but the ever increasing noxiousness of cellular putrefaction. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

Should this be the case (and it almost certainly is), I suggest you seek out those friends who’ve been avoiding you of late and … eat them. Should the taste of human flesh strike you as particularly desirable then you’ll have your answer. If not, then you’ll be rid of the fake friends who left you alone and desolate after choosing bargain brand bath soap. Either way, you come out of it … clean! (Sorry — couldn’t resist!)

Getting a jump on the coming zombie apocalypse,

Ms. Bad Advice

‘Straight’ Eye For The Queer Guy

Dear Ms. Bad Advice,

Back in grade school I was best friends with a guy named ‘Billy’ when a new kid named ‘Kenny’ started at our school in the middle of third grade.  Kenny and I really became good friends but he just couldn’t get along with Billy.   He made fun of him all the time.  Kenny became really popular with the other kids at school and before long I began to pick on Billy with them.

Fast forward to junior high school and now every guy is following Kenny’s lead and calling Billy a ‘fag’ and ‘queer’ — including me.  Now, none of us had ever actually been with a girl but we were all pretty sure that we didn’t want to be with a guy when it came right down to it.  It turned out, though, that wasn’t the case with Billy.  He knew pretty early that he was different and he thought that our early friendship might develop into something  – if only he could get me away from Kenny.  With the promise of a lot free pot and beer one Saturday afternoon, he did just that.

I’m not saying exactly how the afternoon went but I will say that I didn’t have my first orgasm in a girl’s mouth.

After that day, I just ragged on Billy worse than before and even beat him up once when he tried to talk to other kids about our afternoon together.

Fast forward 25 years later and Kenny’s dead from cirrhosis, I’m an out-of-work cabinet-maker and Billy’s a super-successful interior designer.  I’m also divorced and have started frequenting some bars that aren’t exactly heterosexual women friendly.  I’ve seen Billy having a really great time while I just get drunk and stumble home to masturbate to “Mad Men” or “Justified”.  I want to approach Billy and apologize but some  really deep-seated childhood fear keeps me from even meeting his gaze.

What should I do Ms. Bad Advice?

Sorry And Confused,

Unsure In Witchita

Dream a little dream with me ... .

Dear S & C,

Ms. Bad Advice is truly impressed by your stalwart heterosexuality.  In an age of metro-sexual boundary-blurring, it’s wonderful to come across someone as wonderfully comfortable in their sexual identity as yourself.  No amount of childhood guilt, loveless marriages, or financial ruin is going to sway you from your manly-man hankering for straight up vaginal intercourse.

Sure … .

At the rate you’re going, it won’t be long before some state trooper puts the cuffs on you for exposing yourself in a roadside men’s room or for offering him a hand in draining the last drops of urine from his night stick.  But you’re so deep in denial that surfing gay internet porn is your idea of combing the web for off-beat news stories.  It’s sad really.

Let’s face it — you should have been bonking (or been bonked by) Billy (or someone just like him) for a very long time now.  Your little encounter as young men was no “one time exploration”.  It was an earmark of who you are fundamentally.  Buddying up with Kenny and indulging your need to punish yourself by beating on Billy was a young man’s foolhardy mistake that’s probably more a sign of the times you grew up in than anything else.  Instead of being an ahead-of-his-time gay teen you decided to be a bullying, faux-hetero who was destined for 20 years of misery and sexual confusion.  Now you’re at the ass-end of that era and you’re wondering where it all went wrong.

Ms. Bad Advice suggests that the next time you run into Billy at the club you offer to return the favor he paid you back in your teens.  Stop trying to be a horribly confused evangelical preacher or Republican representative.

Safe sex is best sex,

Ms. Bad Advice

Reverse Psychology

Dear Ms. Bad Advice,

I am a gentleman of late middle age and I have recently met a woman who I really like.  We seem to have a lot in common and I enjoy the time we spend together.  The problem is that, although she is a very good-looking woman, I feel absolutely no sexual attraction to her at all.   Several times, she has intimated that she would like to take our relationship to the next level but, so far, I have been able to put her off without incident.  I’m starting to feel guilty about this.

Should I tell her the truth and risk losing the companionship of someone I really care about and enjoy being with or should just break it off now before I waste any more of her time?

Signed,

In Like In Seattle

Love ... and its discontents.

Dear Like,

There’s nothing more displeasing to Ms. Bad Advice than a man who plays hard to get.

So we’ve hit middle age and decided to shelve the whole Darwinian drive toward procreation for that wonderfully nebulous state known as ‘friendship’, have we? What a refreshing new way to indulge a mid-life crisis. How terribly gallant of you … and how terribly boring, not to mention inconsiderate. You’ve lubed up this “very good-looking woman” with your witty banter and ‘friendly’ flirtations, and now you’re going to punt a yard from the end-zone? Attracted or not, you owe this woman a good ravishing. Truth be told, you owe mankind as a whole a solid roll in the hay with this woman just to keep the ‘War of the Sexes’ simmering.

How a good-looking, personable woman fell for a namby-pamby, “I just want to be friends”, verging on mandatory retirement age cretin like yourself is beyond me. But the simple fact is that she has. And you need to return the favor by acting like a typical high-school sophomore with an erection and the good fortune to find a drunken cheerleader who thinks he’s as adorable as her favorite stuffed animal. Get in there, man, and do your country proud!

Or do the ‘adult thing’ and have me sic Vietnam Bob on your dithering mature posterior.

Petulantly,

Ms. Bad Advice

Now Really, “Inside Man” Wasn’t All That Horrible; “Deja Vu” on the other hand … .

Dear Ms. Bad Advice,

For obvious reasons, I need to keep my identity a secret.  Still, I find that I am in need of your sage advice and professional direction.

I’m one of the most successful African American actors working in Hollywood today: I’m an Oscar winner, enormously talented (even if I have to say so myself), and damned smart.  Oh yeah, I’m a handsome sonofb**ch, too.  I’ve got everything Sidney Poitier had and a bag of chips.

I am …

bad

ass.

In the best way possible.

Still, although I’ve got an uber-successful career going and am dropping bombshell box-office hits faster than Lady Gaga drops platinum records, I’m saddled with one truly annoying problem.  Hollywood — in all its infinite, bombastic stupidity — feels compelled to saddle me in everything I do with the ‘white actor’ flavor-of-the-day.  If it’s not Clive Owen then it’s Russell Crowe.  For chrissakes, they only pity-f**ked me with an Academy Award after doing a movie with Ethan Hawke.  Ethan – ‘Skinny-A**, No-Talent, I Pout A Lot & Try To Put On The “Tough Whiteboy Thing” Far Too Often For My Own Good’ – Hawke!  I mean, how low does a brother have to sink?

(Although, I have to admit, working with that crazy-a** whiteboy Christopher Walken was some funny s**t.  Motherf**ker can DANCE, too!)

So, I turn to you Ms. Bad Advice.  What do I have to do to get a starring vehicle that features me as a lead AND DOESN’T come with the prerequisite fey honky thespian that can’t hold a candle to my mad skills?  I’ll even settle for sharing top-billing with a white ACTRESS to get out of this rut.  I just did a flick with John Travolta, for [g]OD™’s sake!  Yeah … we both went to the bank with that one.  But still … John Travolta?!!!  I had to share a marquee with ‘Vinny Barbarino’ and I’m a billion times a better actor than him.  ([g]OD™ — I don’t even think what he … does … actually qualifies as ‘acting’.)

Help a brother out here, Ms. Bad Advice.

Helpless In Hollywood,

Wenzel Dashington

Not The Author of This Letter.  Really.  We swear.  Sincerely.  YOU’VE GOT TO BELIEVE US!!!

 

Dearest, dearest, DEAREST Helpless,

It took Ms. Bad Advice nearly a week to get over the titanic case of the vapors that followed directly from her receiving your e-missive.  So — apologies for the late reply.

That said, you have turned to me for advice (while I, on the other hand, might have turned to you for something … more tangible [wink-wink, nudge-nudge!]) and a girl’s got a job to do.  In this case, she feels especially compelled to the best job possible.

While Ms. Bad Advice will admit to noticing a certain melanin deficiency prevalent in the coterie of colleagues you’ve shared the screen with of late, she has to admit that that has not kept her lascivious and lustful eyes from taking in a cerebrum full of you manly wonderfulness.  And, yes, the Aussie bruiser can be something of a bastard … but Ms. Bad Advice has to add (in the interest of full disclosure) to enjoying some rather colorful, Jungian dream-time romps with him as well.

And now you’ve got another Hollywood blockbuster set to release with yet another whiteboy ‘flavor-of-the-day’ Chris Pine (or, as younger readers of this blog might know him as, the dishy new ‘re-booted’ version of Captain James Tiberius Kirk from “Star Trek”).  Seems much like they did with another ‘should’ve been A-List solo leading man’ Morgan Freeman, the great minds in La-La Land are hedging their bets with your magnificently magnificent magnificence.

In short, they’re making sure that there’s salt on the table when they serve up your pepper.

Let’s be honest here, “The Great Debaters” and “Antwone Fisher” were solid pieces of cinema.  And also notable for the almost complete absence of significant white-meat co-stars.  Don’t know if you saw the box office receipts on those two, but Ms. Bad Advice has it on good authority that they weren’t exactly what ‘you people’ (tee-hee!) ’round da way’ might call, “making mad money.”  Lots of Hollywood ‘members of the tribe’ (Ms. Bad Advice simply calls it as she sees it!) lost their shirts on those two.  Having gone down that road with Ving Rhames, they aren’t about to make the same mistake twice.

Ergo, enormously-budgeted Hollywood vehicles starring you and [fill-in-the-blank] white guy.

Ms. Bad Advice wishes it were a different world — a place where an actor of your talent and charisma could simply carry a film on his own.  But, let’s face it: Sidney Poitier had to deal with it and that man could eat your lunch when it came to both talent and charisma.  Being a male African-American millionaire admired by whites, blacks and Latinos alike beats the hell out of being a plain old male African American.  Those guys usually end up co-starring with Mexican Mafia or Aryan Brotherhood types in super-max penitentiaries more often than not.  ”People” magazine does not give a hoot about their marital difficulties or how hot they look in the latest Armani blazer.

Eat the crow they keep serving you and laugh all the way to the bank, young sir.

I have a dream:

One of these days Hollywood may make a “Shawshank Redemption” with a reversed color balance.

But I doubt that dream is going to come soon in our life times.

 

Getting down with her bad self,

 

Ms. Bad Advice

 

 

 

Yet Another Hanging Curveball

Dear Ms. Bad Advice,

Where’s the meaning in it all?

Existentially challenged,

Fuzzy Dunlop

Baltimore, MD

If it was up your a** you’d know where it was!

Dearest EC,

Congratulations!  You have the distinction of being the first angst-ridden cartoon character to have turned to this blog for advice.

It’s probably no coincidence that the very same day our crack team of personal advisers here at GBA is  joined by a … rapping corpse, your woe-laden missive comes to us over the Inter-Tubez.  When it rains, it pours — especially when it’s raining human fecal matter and you picked that day to leave the house without an umbrella.

But I digress … .

It’s hard not to be glib and answer with something along the lines of, “The ‘meaning’ of it all is in the dictionary, silly!”  Or, “It’s all about the Benjamins.”  Or, “Meaning, shmeaning.  Go find yourself a good woman/man/shemale and settle down already.”  You see where I’m going with this, I’m sure.  With a name like ‘Fuzzy’ you’ve probably spent the entirety of your existence being taken somewhat less than seriously — if not altogether regarded as a complete waste of genetic (never mind spiritual) material.

Ms. Bad Advice knows your pain.  Ms. Bad Advice has sought the elusive answers to the impenetrable questions.  Ms. Bad Advice has walked the long, lonely road without destination, without purpose.  Ms. Bad Advice is here for you.  She is here to gently suggest to you, “Grow a pair, nimrod.”

As John Stuart Mill (yet another in a long line of Victorian Era British “greatest good” mongers) is rumored to have said to Søren Kierkegaard (wildly masochistic Danish Christ fetishist) upon a chance meeting of the two outside the Vatican: “Put a bloody cork in it with all this ‘faith’ and ‘meaning’ nonsense already, you effete Saxon!”

Indeed.

It is a cold, hard, unforgiving world where compassion and searching will either get you buggered or a spot on Oprah’s “Reading List”.  There is no happy medium, and the VAST majority of those stuck with the ‘compassion and searching’ hang-up can’t stop getting buggered long enough to write something down, get it published, and then somehow draw the fat/thin/fat African American lady oligarch’s attention.  There’s only one Eckhart Tolle in this world — and thank [g]OD™ for that infinitely small favor.  Don’t even get me started on that Deepak Chopra pipsqueak or the small army of “The Secret”-peddling baboons.

These are not people who have found “meaning” and are just desperate to clue you in on it all, bringing solace and ease to your fragile heart.  They are hucksters looking to sell you something AND bugger you.  Repeatedly.

Because that, my poor, lost little lamb, trumps ‘meaning’ any damned day of the week.  And by “that” I mean: Money, Sex, Continued Attention and Adoration.  You think Jesus died on the cross for your sins?  The man/Son of Man has been making bank for more than 2,000 years.  He took Judaism and made it a genuinely marketable commodity (i.e., a billion and half adherents worldwide beats a measly few hundred million sons and daughters of Moses in my book any day).  Even if you don’t believe in him, don’t give a rat’s a** for his teachings, aren’t aligned with any of the thousands of denominations based in the Christian doctrine, or are any flavor of Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jew, or a damned Zoroastrian — you STILL have to deal with the guy’s inescapable presence in every day life.  Jesus is the original (and still champion) when it comes to ‘brand marketing’, my friend.

Too bad he just couldn’t figure out how to take it all with him when he was resurrected body and soul into heaven.  (I know, I know … seven seals, four horsemen, three sixes, raptures, wars, plague, all-around nastiness just around the corner when he comes back to cash the check he wrote two millennia ago.)

So, EC, “the meaning” is where you left it: In the irrational decision to hold on to a name like ‘Fuzzy Dunlop’.  Get thee to an attorney forthwith and begin proceedings on legally changing that handle of yours.  Try something like, “Stone Coxon” or “Flint Tuvguyavich” or even “Popeye T. Sailorman”.  Just don’t go with “Carrot-Top”; unlike ‘Eckhart Tolle’, one ‘Carrot-Top’ in the world is one too many.

And should someone even hint to you that he or she has ‘found the meaning’ in it all, beat the crap out of that person and take it from him or her.

Then feel free to bugger away.

What a wonderful world that would be.

Toodles,

Ms. Bad Advice

Good Parenting And Petty Larceny

Dear Ms. Bad Advice,

I recently had the misfortune of confirming the suspicion that my new step-son has been stealing money from my wallet.  I put a small red dot in the corner of a twenty before tossing my wallet on the night stand one night before turning in with the missus.  Come morning, while I was in the shower, junior left for school.  Needless to say, I checked my wallet while drying off and found the bill gone … along with a few unmarked others.

The kid’s just into his teens and maybe up to some run-of-the-mill bad-boy stuff or just plain ‘acting out’ as they say on those television shows.  My new wife and I have only been married six months and we couldn’t be happier.  So far, I’ve kept her in the dark about this.

I think it’s important for me to put a stop to this behavior.  But I don’t want to torpedo my already shaky relationship with the kid and I don’t want my wife feeling uneasy or hurt.

How do you suggest I handle this?

Sensitive In Seattle,

Mel Tegman

Alan Alda, eat your misogynistic heart out.

Dear Sensitive,

Well, aren’t you just a darling?  A little too fey for Ms. Bad Advice’s lascivious taste-buds, but a genuine sweetheart nevertheless.

If you’ll pardon moi’s frankness, Sensitive, you may be in need of re-awakening your inner Islamo-Fascist … or Old Testament literalist.  (‘Tow-May-Toe, Tah-Mah-Tah’ as the Gershwin brothers put it.)  While Ms. Bad Advice’s hand is forced by the lily-livered nature of today’s politically correct climate (not to mention state and federal laws against child abuse, torture, and assault) to not actually advise you to heed the letter of the Q’uran (“As to the thief, Male or female, cut off his or her hands: a punishment by way of example, from Allah, for their crime: and Allah is Exalted in power.”) or the Old Testament (“If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head.”) in this matter, neither can she prevent you from looking to those sources for … suggestions.

While Ms. Bad Advice knows that those texts are largely full of poppycock, they are remarkable shorthand for getting one’s ‘devoutness’ to the Law of God across to those unruly, undisciplined kids of today (and ‘Pro-Choice’ types).  Leaving your wallet overnight resting on a Bible opened to the passage quoted above (the wonderfully light-hearted book of Leviticus, 20:9 … in case you were a little rusty) underlined in red ink or highlighted in neon yellow may get the young man to think twice about tempting step-dad’s ire.  Slaughtering and offering up a lamb or two in sacrifice in junior’s presence will certainly convince him of the firmness of your belief.  Just be sure to leave the choicest cuts for the family dinner and the wife may even look the other way when it comes to reconciling your newfound ‘faith’.

But if you insist on indulging your inner girly-man, then Ms. Bad Advice offers up the following: Take the cash out of your wallet before retiring each evening, stash it away someplace safe (e.g., taped into a plastic baggie and submerged in the toilet reservoir), and then re-fill your wallet with counterfeit bills.  Underworld types among local Asian communities are excellent places to find purveyors of funny money in exchange for virtually pennies on the dollar — depending on how big an investment you’re willing to make.  (As to how Ms. Bad Advice has gotten this information, she respectfully pleads the fifth.)

Junior’s probably too set in his delinquent ways to stop now and almost certainly too unrefined to notice the difference between real and counterfeit bills.  (The Chinese are such natural artisans … and sticklers for detail!)  It won’t be long before he’s passing those bills off in a very conspicuous way and drawing the attentions of federal authorities.  Fingering you as the source for the counterfeit bills won’t make all that convincing a defense in family court.

It’s a win-win for all parties concerned!  You and the new missus get at least six months of ‘alone time’ — rekindling the spark that brought the two of you together in the first place; Junior gets to learn his lesson the hard way (or learns how to be a more discerning criminal) in some juvenile detention boot camp; and you’ve got that extra spending money for the weekend.

Enjoy the savings!

Ms. Bad Advice