Greetings Mouthketeers:

This was a week I really should have been on vacation or in a state where I should not have gotten out of bed. During this week I learned my friend’s dog passed away, learned another friend’s transgendered cousin committed suicide and hung herself, heard an old friend’s elderly dad had fallen, found out a book agent began pitching our clients to media without including us in the negotiation; and this week was the week a bat flew into my home at 5am and fluttered around me in my bedroom while I naked in my bed and screaming…as if I was a woman.

The bat story is worth detailing. It’s not a good feeling when your house alarm goes off at 5am, and it’s even worse to get a call from the alarm’s dispatcher telling you the motion detector in your living room is where the alarm was tripped.

I sleep in the buff (TMI); but imagine contemplating the notion that someone is walking up your stairs ready to murder you; only to learn that the violator is a bat, fluttering around you in your bed, while you are butt naked to the wind. (Thank God I wasn’t sitting naked on the terlet when this creature decided to freak me out.)

This is a true story.

The sounds that came out of me when this bat violated my space was only equal to the sound of a woman giving birth—only there were no stirrups to strap me into. Instead of taking a breath and remembering that bats are harmless little creatures who simply carry diseases; I launched an all out screaming campaign in the hopes this bat will fly back to whatever cave he came from. (Where were my neighbors during all of this? Were they afraid if they called the cops I would have pulled a “Henry Louis Gates” on them??)

So, I called the police. They gave me the name of an animal control service—who unfortunately wasn’t opened 24 hours-a-day. As I screamed down the hall to the guest bedroom, shutting the doors behind me as if the attacker would find me again and try and tussle my hair (did I tell you I’m bald?), I decided to boot up the laptop in the hopes of finding an around-the-clock company who will rescue me and put me and the bat out of our misery.

Jim—who lives in Connecticut—but owns a company called New York Bat Control (or something of that ilk), was kind enough to take my call, and talk me off a ledge of fear.

Two hours after my call, Jim arrived in his company uniform—looking as if he was Kevin Costner in that baseball movie he starred in. Sadly for me, the sun was rising just as Jim’s truck had pulled into the driveway, and if you remember anything about bats, they hide and sleep (upside down) by day, and flutter around by night. Needless to say, after an hour of bat hunting with a pair of rubber gloves and a flashlight, Jim did not find the intruder.

But Jim charged me $400 and the promise that he would meet me at 10pm (for free), and catch the bat when it woke up from its power nap.

Jim kept his promise and showed up, and found me sitting in my car refusing to go into my house. Jim asked me to open the door, which lead into a pitch black living room, and as I peaked through the panes of the old looking colonial window, I could see Jim doing a bat dance with the flashlight—and I could see the bat dancing to the beat of Jim’s song.

Frankly there was no music, but trust me when I say Jim and the bat gyrated to a tune I never heard of at any disco—and sadly the dance ended in about three minutes when Jim grabbed the flying mouse (uh, b-a-t), and broke his neck. (I know, I know, I asked Jim to let the bat go back to the wild but for some odd reason Jim said that the town wants all captured bats killed and tested for Rabies.) So my 15-hour saga with the bat ended on a high note.  (Boy I wish the stories of the dog that died, the woman who committed suicide, the agent who spoke out of turn, and the elderly man who fell would have had a happier ending; but when it comes to capturing bats, Jim is now on the top of my list of vendors I will definitely use in the future!) 

Bat behavior and bad behavior is not tolerated; however there’s gotta be some moral to the story, right?  What I also learned from Jim was that earlier in the morning he saw a coyote slithering in my yard, and reminded me to never let my dog off a leash—or on the deck without supervision because there will be a tragic ending.  I would have never learned about how to protect my dog if it wasn’t for the bat; and although the entire week was chock full of human bats circling me as if I was Dracula, deep down I knew there was going to be a brighter day at the end of this tunnel of sadness, drama and insanity.

Today is my company’s retreat, and I’m firing up the BBQ and grilling some chicken burgers for the staff. If the party is overshadowed by thunderstorms, I will switch gears, book a massage for my employees at the local day spa, and treat everyone to lunch at the state’s most critically-acclaimed smokehouse.

Darkness will eventually turn into light—and all I will need to do is take a breath and look toward the future.

Hey, wasn’t Teri Garr hysterical in “Young Frankenstein”?

Peace.

The Mouthinator.

The Mouthinator Pet, Pop Culture, entertainment

Greetings Mouthketeers:

True Story:  A year ago I was on the train from CT to NYC, and by the time I arrived at Grand Central Station, I got in a cab and rushed my butt to an emergency room.  I had a severe case of diahorrea and was dehydrated.  TMI?  Please read on.  As I lay on the gurney in the emergency room, the IV drip loaded with electrolytes, didn’t drip, and unfortunately I didn’t know I was shriveled up like a prune until six hours later–when I was ready to be discharged.  I was charged for the drip that never dropped,  I met a doctor for 30 seconds who asked how I was, walked away, charged me $2,500 for her “care” and to this day I’m still paying the emergency room bill.

I am not one of the 46 million people who live without healthcare.  In fact, I’ve offered a plan to my staff for years.  In order to keep monthly premiums down though, I signed up for a plan, which includes a $3,000 deductible and doesn’t cover emergencies.  Did you hear me?

Threeeeee   Thousssssssand   Dollllllllar   Deductttttttttible. 

I think my case of the runs cost me over $5,000 that day. 

You can call it socialism, mechanism, Buddhism, realism . . . Who cares what the label is . . . Whatever you wanna call it:  Call it a National Healthcare Plan, which I strongly feel America needs.  Many of you thought you would forget the fact you worked in a boring job because you believed your benefits were special; however, if you read the fine print . . . you might as well quit your job because you have the same stanky benefits as I do. 

We need a plan, and we want Obama to put it in place; because up until this date, no President has done so.  Puhleese people.  Anyone who believes Pussoir Palin and her evil antics, swearing that Obama’s plan is going to allow “Big Brother” to prematurely end grandma’s life is on steroids!  Remember, y’all.  Palin doesn’t read any newspapers so why should we believe she’s read any part of Obama’s healthcare proposal?  Perhaps she bought the plan on tape and is listening to it in the car as she whores herself across America, posing as a Republican?  Didn’t the evil Republican crowd “leave the building and go onto talk radio?”  Palin kills moose, quits her role as governor, isn’t up on the news, is an insult to women, speaks way out of turn and obviously didn’t educate her children about the Alaskan wild geese and the bees. (Remember her unwed teenage pregnant daughter?) 

Most likely Palin can afford her healthcare.  This plan won’t be for her.  It’s for all the nice people, the people who work for a living, read this blog and for those who don’t hate.

Vote for a choice . . . and this time . . . it’s a choice for a cheaper kind of healthcare with better benefits.

Hey did you know in real life Dr. Kildare was gay?

Peace.

The Mouthinator

The Mouthinator Health, Politics

Greetings Mouthketeers:

I was going to write about the late and most interesting, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, (was her husband’s first name, Sargent, or was he a sergeant in the war?) …Then I was going to send a shout out to my client, New York Times best-selling author, Mary Jo Buttafuoco, and the success of her book, Getting it Through My Thick Skull … (Wait until you hear who wants to sue her. . .) Then . . . right before blogging this evening I opened up my iPhone and wondered, “How the hell did I get 200 emails from 6:42-11pm, and why do I feel guilty going to bed without answering them?”

I’m pissed.  Yes, I’m the one who spent $625 to have an IT person reconnect my iPhone to the Mac to the PC, etc., etc.  But I hate the whole thing.      

As Bette Midler said in “The Rose,” “Where is everybody going?”  I truly believe the downfall of our society is Facebook, Twitter, Blackberry and iPhone, because at the end of the day, the act of maneuvering all these electronic devices is sucking the daylights out of us, and if you look back at the content of your tweets, and emails, and wall messages, you might notice that nothing you’ve read or written today is uber interesting and you certainly won’t cure cancer with the content produced in any of your profiles.  Sure, you confirmed a reservation or two via email, “friended” a friend you never liked in the first place on Facebook . . .  but at the end of the day, what does it really have to do with you and your life?    

Throw that Blackberry in the garbage and use the iPhone as a flashlight the next time you loose your keys in your knapsack.  That’s right; just use the phone as a flashlight.

Seriously, I can see the value in instant messaging when you’re in a hurry, but I don’t understand what is the importance of important issues anymore?  Have you turned into the person who is scrolling up and down your inbox while you’re in an elevator, simply because you’re playing ‘catch up’ with your device?  Should my evening be a big bust simply because the mobileme.com server hasn’t downloaded another 100 more messages in my inbox yet? 

Puhleese!  Give me a Princess rotary phone any day, because I want your number to call you and say, hi.  You got that right:  Take a breath, and call. It would be nice to hear your voice.

Does anyone remember Ernestine the telephone operator on “Laugh In”?

Peace.

The Mouthinator. 

The Mouthinator Lifestyle, Pop Culture, Technology

Greetings Mouthketeers:

I nearly upchucked my bagel and lox yesterday when I heard the news that allegedly, Sarah Palin is moving to Hampton Bays, New York, the town where my family has lived since 1986! Fact? According to Dan’s Papers, the local rag of the South Fork (known for forgetting to fact-check), the dummy ex-governor with a big mouth, a lot of kids and not much of any kind of experience, moved in on August 1^st! Is that chick gonna shop at my family’s King Kullen, use the terlet at the local Starbucks and go to the local movie theater? Get me outa here!

Well, it won’t be the first time, Dan’s Papers has (hopefully), made a mistake, but it isn’t the first time fancy-schmancy people have lived in Hampton Bays, the “poor” Hampton—the town where people who work and don’t need to be “seen”—live.

There are six things you need to know about Hampton Bays: One—the Hampton Bays Diner is the worst Greek Diner in America and I wouldn’t even invite Sarah to brunch there; Two—Barbra Streisand rented a house across the street from my mother for a summer; Three—the fabulous reporter and host, Jane Velez-Mitchell, spent her summers there as a kid; Four—a gazillion publishing execs live there too; Five—it’s the town where all of the debris from TWA Flight 800 was collected; and Six—if Sarah Palin moves in town I am going to tell my family to move to Canada!@#$ You got that right, Mouthketeers! That woman is a danger to Long Island because she’s gotta gun, and there are a lot of ducks, rabbits and deer romping around in the woods.

Out of all the hoods in the country, why on Earth is Palin plotzing in my family’s hamlet? Couldn’t she have moved near those corrupted rabbis in New Jersey instead of my sleepy town in Long Island? Unless she’s rehearsing for a summer stock version of “Annie Get Your Gun,” she don’t belong in this neck. Doesn’t she realize there will be Jews and gays and people who read the New York Times living around her corner? Sure, there are most likely a few KKK living down our streets too, but in my book, “Plottin’ Palin” is as mean-spirited as those weirdos in white.

Let’s put this in plain English: Sarah Palin is a quitter. Hampton Bays is a working class town. There is no room for Barbie doll, politics-as-usual, bigoted moose hunters.

Will Rush and Beck move to a manse in Hampton Bays too?

“Tear down that wall . . .” –Ronald Reagan

Peace.

The Mouthinator.

The Mouthinator News, Politics, Pop Culture