Category: Funny Business

I want a Batmobile and, according to Moneysupermarket.com, it’s going to cost $18 million to get it.

I’m not asking you to give me the money … I’m merely asking that you believe with me that I’ll get it. And I believe the best way for that to happen is for you provide it.

Sound familiar?

It kinda is.

Recently, prosperity preacher Jesse Duplantis garnered plenty of attention when he said the Lord told him he needed a $54 million airplane to spread the good word.

And he makes a point of telling his flock he isn’t asking them for money (wink, wink), he’s just asking them to believe he’ll somehow come up with the necessary cash.

And he probably will, because ol’ Jesse has already got a pretty good gig going thanks to his pay-for-pray business.

The Cajun-spiced pastor lives in a 25-room house with a pair of two-car garages and has already had three jets at his disposal while running his lucrative “ministry.”

I guess while it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God, Jesse figures if his plane is fast enough it can just strap the camel to the roof and blow right on through.

The sad part – aside from this guy being a shameless con – is that so many people are willing to be conned. I won’t be surprised at all if he gets enough money to score his cool jet, allowing him to stretch the reach of his gospel while stretching his legs and enjoying a cocktail in his spacious cabin.

And he’ll tell you that by helping him enrich his life, it’ll enrich yours.

(Spoiler alert: It won’t).

Still, I have to give Brother Duplantis a bit of credit for inspiring me to chase my dream, which brings me back to the Batmobile.

While there have been many rides for the Caped Crusader over the years – all outstanding in their own way – the one I want is the Tumbler. This is the sweet vehicle which was introduced in the movie “Batman Begins.”

It’s a prototype armored military tank designed as a bridging vehicle. It has state-of-the art weaponry and the ability to boost into a rampless jump.

Why do I need it?

I don’t.

But I want it because as much as I enjoy tooling around town in my 2013 Honda Accord, nothing would be as cool as commandeering the Tumbler.

Now, before you get nervous, I have no plans to use its weapons. There’s a slight chance I could fire off a short-range missile if the car in front of me refuses to immediately move forward when the light turns green, but beyond that, those features would go unused.

Also, I would not utilize the rampless jump; that would be showing off.

And I’ll be honest … me getting a Batmobile probably won’t benefit you at all. It’s a two-seater, so my wife would be the primary passenger and, most likely, only human rider besides me.

Other times I’d use the extra seat to transport my critters to the vet, or to store groceries.

See, while it’s important for Jesse to be able to fly nonstop from New Orleans to New Guinea, it’s important for me to be Batman.

I’ve come to accept the fact that I’m much closer to the Dork Knight than the Dark Knight, but having a Tumbler would make YOU think I’m Batman and, really, that’s all that matters.

So how can you help this happen?

Probably the easiest routes to take are 18 million of you sending me a dollar, or one of you sending me 18 million dollars. Doesn’t matter to me either way … work it out among yourselves.

However, those are hardly the only ways to put me in the Tumbler.

The makers of the vehicle could read this and send me one as thanks for all the great publicity I have given their product.*

* Dear Tumbler makers, if you decide to do that, please include the deluxe Sirius XM package.

Legendary Pictures, makers of Christopher Nolan’s Batman movie trilogy, could do the same. *

* Dear Legendary Pictures, if you decide to do that, please include the deluxe Sirius XM package as well as the butt-warming feature on the driver’s side.

Nolan himself, a man of great means and talent, could buy the Tumbler for me.*

* Dear Chris, if you decide to do that, please include the deluxe Sirius XM package, the butt-warming feature on the driver’s side, and a written explanation of how Bruce Wayne was able to escape The Pit and make it back to Gotham in The Dark Knight Rises.

I’m anxiously waiting to see how all this plays out. And if you decide to help me out, send a DM via Twitter and we can work out a payment schedule.

Then again, maybe I should just ask Jesse.

He seems to know how to get the most bang out of someone else’s buck.

Note from the Editor/Spouse:  Do not, I repeat, do NOT send him money to buy a Batmobile.  He already possesses tiny replicas of said vehicle, which much to my chagrin, are displayed throughout our home.

 

 

 

 

I try not to feel old, but I’ve reached a point in my life where I can’t help it anymore.

I’m 57 and a half, which is a really high number (especially when you add the fraction).

And having lived this long, I now have to make a choice about how I want to spend my remaining years.

Do I exercise and watch what I eat, or do I cease to give a rat’s arse and simply enjoy myself?

Four years ago I went for my annual physical and was told that my cholesterol levels were too high. If I couldn’t bring them down naturally, I’d need to take medication.

I wasn’t crazy about that plan.

I’m not much of a pill-popper, and I’d forget to take them, anyway.

So, the option was to “eat healthier,” and I was starting to think I needed to do that anyway because I had put on a lot of excess weight.

The weight gain bothered my not because of the spare tire around my stomach; I’m not a body snob. People come in all shapes and sizes and if you’re happy with how you look, that’s all that should matter.

However, my face couldn’t handle the expanded flesh. It’s cartoonishly round, and any extra weight alters my appearance dramatically.

In the early stages of weight gain I resemble a squirrel storing nuts, which is kinda cute in a Hanna-Barbera way.

But I knew I had to make a change when Mary and I went to a Yankees-Braves game and were accosted by one of those ambush photographers who takes your photo the minute to walk into the stadium.

When I saw my face in the picture, I looked like Elvis Presley.

And I’m not talking about the young, cool, handsome Elvis who took Natalie Wood on motorcycle rides and wowed her with his quivering lip, but the old, sweaty Elvis sitting on the Jungle Room john at Graceland.

Thus, I was inspired.

Not only did I start walking several miles each day, I ate the “right” foods. There was no bread, no cheese, no chocolate and no sweets, and since I was a vegetarian, meats were already out of the rotation.

By the time I went for my physical a year later, I had dropped nearly 40 pounds and my cholesterol was at a healthy level.

But …

I had taken things too far.

True, I didn’t look like “Last Call Elvis” anymore, but instead I looked like an underfed Steve Buscemi, with slightly better teeth.

I was painfully thin, which caused my neck to wrinkle and make me appear much older than I actually was.

So, I decided maybe it was time to relax my diet a bit.

I started eating biscuits again and, damn, I had forgotten how good biscuits were.

And then instead of steering clear of the bakery at the local supermarket, I started spending some quality time there – at first, just sniffing.

But then I noticed that strawberry cake slices were there for the taking, as was sourdough bread.

And cinnamon rolls?

Yep … I dove into them like Jabba The Hut (assuming Jabba The Hut ate cinnamon rolls. If he didn’t, he was a dumbass).

I also discovered something called lemon squares. Other than lemons and graham crackers, I’m not entirely sure what they’re made of, but whatever it is, it’s sexy good.

Next thing you know I’ve put 20 pounds back on, and I like it because my face is somewhere between Elvis Presley and Steve Buscemi. I call it the Elvis Buscemi face, and I’m damn proud of it.

Sadly, though, my cholesterol has once again started to rise, which means if I want to avoid pills I have to start controlling my diet again.

And that leads me back to the beginning of this column.

At 57 and a half and happily married, I no longer have to go on dates or seek out mates, so perhaps I shouldn’t be overly concerned with my appearance.

And as for staying in tip-top shape, is there any real point anymore?

I’m pretty sure if a professional soccer team was interested in signing me, they’d have done so by now.

Hell, if I choose to sit on the futon all day and snack on Twinkies dipped in pure grain alcohol, I should get a pass, right?

On the other hand I do want to have quality of life in my “golden years,” so hopefully there’s a way I can make this Elvis Buscemi thing work.

To that end, I’ll now sign off, put on my walking shoes and try to put in at least three miles this morning.

But I’m not going to promise that later on I won’t eat a biscuit.

Or a cinnamon roll.

Or a lemon square.

Maybe just the lemon square.

 

For years, I’ve tried to figure out why I have such a crippling fear of snakes.

Now I think I know, and I blame it on George Pal, Tony Randall, and Arthur O’Connell.

Pal directed the 1964 movie “7 Faces of Dr. Lao,” Randall starred in the title role (and as several other characters, as well) and O’Connell – well, that bastard was the face of “The Serpent,” a stop-motion creation which scared the hell out of me then and scares the hell out of me now.

The snake was huge, it talked in Randall’s voice, and it gave me nightmares for years.

Check it out on YouTube. In the search box type in, “Dr. Lao snake,” and feel the terror.

Before I delve deeper into my phobia and why it has been triggered again, though, it should be noted that Randall showed a lot of range in this very clever motion picture.

And Pal, of course, gave us such cool films as “When Worlds Collide,”  “The War of the Worlds” and “The Time Machine.”

(And when I reference “War of the Worlds” I’m talking about the original starring the guy who played Bat Masterson, and not the remake with Mr. Scientology and that pale kid.)

And I feel bad calling O’ Connell a bastard. He was a two-time Oscar nominee, played in some good Westerns and seemed like a likeable fellow … right up to the point where his face appeared on a snake.

But considering the movie came out in 1964 and I saw it on TV as a kid – most likely in the late 60s – that’s probably why snakes scare me so much.

I bring this up now because last week I was cutting grass (which is something I usually enjoy) and as I was making the turn and heading back toward the house, I saw Mr. No Shoulders slithering across the yard and exiting through a gap in the wooden gate. He was anywhere from 12 inches to 32-feet long and black or brown or magenta. I didn’t get too close because, you know, it was a snake.

I basically just froze for a few seconds before I resumed mowing, and then the rest of the day I was jittery and fearful that some reptile of the suborder Serpentes with the face of a character actor would attack me.

I told Mary about it and she said it was probably just a rat snake. That didn’t make me feel any better because I’m not overly fond of rats and I don’t even want to think about a rodent/serpent hybrid. That would be absolutely horrible.

Silly?

Maybe.

That doesn’t make the fear any less real.

And don’t tell me the snake being more scared of me than I am of it.

That’s bullshit.

I’m quite sure that if looked down and saw a snake touching me, I’d simultaneously pee, crap and puke – which would serve as the undercard to my massive heart attack.

And if a snake saw me touching it … ah, that’s ridiculous. You can’t touch something when you’re running away from it – and why on earth would I want to touch a snake?

I truly hate that I feel this way.

No snake has ever harmed me in any way and I’ve really, really tried to accept the fact that they do more good than harm. They help keep our ecosystems working through their own version of pest control, which means you might occasionally find them spraying your basement with chemicals and/or checking wood for termite damage.

Still, I’m horribly creeped out by them and yesterday when I cut grass my head was on a swivel because I expected to see another snake.

I didn’t, but I will … maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow.

However, it’s bound to happen.

And I swear, if it has the face of Arthur O’Connell, you can bury me right there.

Just bring some clean shorts so I can go out with a little dignity.