Beer Frame

I got on Twitter about a year ago and I may be wrong, but I think it’s reached it’s peak. If you don’t know about Twitter, it’s a pretty simple concept, there’s a status bar and you can update it as much as you want, but you can only use 140 characters.

I used to post things once or twice a day, now I pretty much just promote this website there. I was just on my page there and looking at some of my old “Tweets,” and thought I’d share them with you. Ready, set, Twitter:

Yo Ho Ho: Pirate speak or a greeting when Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie show up at your door?

I just heard Oprah's on Twitter now. Does that mean we all get a free car? If so, I'm selling mine, I don't have a driver's license.

Twitter, MySpace and facebook: The trifecta of time-wasters.

This just in: Rikki just lost that number. Steely Dan: bummed.

Sites blocked where I work: MySpace, facebook, Twitter and all porn sites...so what do they expect me to do for eight hours there? Sheesh!

Catchphrase that would be used by Chef Boy R Dee if he was president: "Yes we Cannelloni!"

I'm going to get a big salad at the deli, from the man who speaks no English there. To get the proper ingredients it's almost like charades.

Invented new drink: Tomato Juice, Gravy and Beer. It's a Rosey Greer. And it's delicious.

I'm wondering if orphans are repulsed or attracted to Dad's Root Beer?

The best thing about online porn is your family can't find it after you die.

I live on 16th Tweet. Right here in New York Twitty.

I'm whistling through life with a mouth full of crackers.

Okay, enough of that, my beer’s empty. Now it’s time to walk away from the computer and over to the refrigerator.

Cheers,

Marty

Apology to Joey D.

Joey D. is a friend of mine and a co-worker. He's a great guy and can always be counted on for a laugh at work. He's also been a great commentator and supporter of this website and I appreciate it and everyone's support immensely. In one of my first Condensed Gossip posts, I made fun of Britney Spears and Joey D. politely asked that I not do that anymore. So I stopped, hey, there's plenty of celebrities to make fun of out there, if a friend and a loyal supporter of this site makes a simple request like that, why not!

Well, last night I just couldn't resist putting up another Britney joke and now Joey has demanded an apology. So Joey D. this is for you!

Joey, I hope we're still friends and for once I'm not joking here, I truly, from the bottom of my heart, want to tell you how very, very sorry I am that Britney forgets to put her panties on all the time.

(I'm KIDDING!)

Daily Video

The History of Mountain Dew

Earlier I posted an ode to my favorite morning drink, diet Mountain Dew, so I thought it only fitting that today’s video is the official history of Mountain Dew. So without further adew (oof!), roll ‘em!

Yahoo, Mountain Dew!

Ode to Diet Mountain Dew

I’m not a coffee drinker. When I turned twelve, I remember sitting at the kitchen table at breakfast time and my dad said to me, “You’re getting to be a young man, you want to try a cup of coffee?”

Up to this point my beverage of choice for the a.m. was grape juice. I didn’t and still never drink milk because when I was around four, my brother Tom told me that milk came from a cow’s stomach and I refused to drink it, despite my parents trying to force that crap down my throat. My mom finally took me to the doctor and the doctor said as long as I ate things like cheese and ice cream I should be fine. I liked cheese, I liked ice cream, so the dreaded white beverage never passed through my lips again.

But anyway, I digress, as I so often do. Getting back to that fateful day, I felt good my dad was acknowledging my maturity and I told him I’d love to try coffee. I just told him not to put any milk in it.

My dad brought me over a cup, told me to let it cool and minutes later I took a sip of this strange, dark-colored elixir that grownups couldn’t get through the morning without. I had it in my mouth about two seconds and ran over to the kitchen sink and spat it out.

“That stuff is gross,” I told my dad while wiping my mouth off.

My dad just laughed and said I’d acquire a taste for it later. But I can be stubborn when it comes to my taste buds and I vowed never to drink that vile fluid again and I never have.

I stuck with grape juice till my freshman year of high school. That’s when I started drinking beer, mainly on the weekends. I’d wake up with cotton mouth and a hangover and started drinking Tab (we always had diet soft drinks in my house) after I discovered the carbonation helped the cotton mouth and the caffeine helped the hangover. In 1982 I switched over to diet Coke and that was my morning drink for years.

I can’t tell you the shit I have taken through the years for not being a coffee drinker. A look of confused amazement always sweeps over someone’s face when I tell them I’ve only had one sip of coffee in my entire life. I always ask them, “Did you like it the first time you tried it?” And the answer is almost always, “Well, no, I acquired a taste for it.” Which I just do not understand at all. Maybe if you drank goat saliva every day for a month that shit would taste fine as wine in the summertime, but I don’t think I’ll be trying it anytime soon.

I’ve also had people counter with, “Well I bet you didn’t like beer the first time you drank it either.” And no, I didn’t. But I did discover that if you drank enough beer, you not only acquired a taste for it, you also got fucked up out of your gourd. You drink too much coffee and you just get jittery and weird, like Floyd the Barber on crack.

So for decades I would greet every morning with a few glasses of diet Coke. Then about three years ago, I woke up, realized I was out of diet Coke and dragged my razzled, frazzled, hungover, Chinese-eyed self to the Duane Reade on 14th Street. I slogged in and headed straight to the soft drink aisle and found the diet Coke. But next to that I gazed upon a lovely vision: A two liter green bottle of diet Mountain Dew. Remember how in the Monkees when Davy would fall in love his eyes would get all twinkly, that’s what happened to me at that moment.

It seemed to be calling out to me: “Take me, Marty, wrap your lips around me and drink me down.” I grabbed the bottle, came home poured it over ice and it was then that I realized I had discovered the nectar of the gods!

I’ve drank diet Mountain Dew almost every morning since. I’m drinking it right now and I thought I would post an ode, to my sweet (albeit sugar free) diet Mountain Dew!

An Ode to Diet Mountain Dew
By Marty Wombacher

Oh diet Mountain Dew,
I love you!
I love you for your caffeine,
I love you because you are green,
I even love Martin Sheen.
Especially in Apocalypse Now!
I also liked him in that one movie
With Sissy Spacek where they
Drive all over, killing anyone in
Their path. I can’t think of the name
Of it, but it was really a fucking good movie!
I never have seen the West Wing though.
I have seen about ten minutes of
His son Charlie’s show, Two and a Half Men,
And that show blows dinosaur chunks!
How does that get better ratings than 30 Rock?
Sheesh!
Anyway, getting back to you,
My sweet (albeit sugar free) diet Mountain Dew,
I love you,
I truly Dew!
----------------------------------

beer frame

Earlier today I was over around Union Square Park and thought I saw Britney Spears getting in a cab. She had a baseball cap and sunglasses on but it looked just like her. Somebody in my neighborhood told me she owns an apartment on Union Square so I walked up closer. She was wearing a really short skirt and as she got in I saw she was wearing underwear, so I knew it couldn’t be Britney. (Sorry, Joey D. I couldn’t help myself!)

But anyway, it got me thinking about some of the celebrity sightings I’ve had in New York. Here’s a few.

Ed Begley, Jr. This was my first celebrity in New York way back in July of 1993, when I had just moved here. I was walking up Amsterdam Avenue near 76th when I heard some weird noise and I looked up and it was Ed Begley, Jr. on one of those electric scooters. As he zipped by, I thought, Ed Begley, Jr. My first official New York celebrity sighting. What a motherfucking gyp!

Sean Lennon This was in the summer of 1998 and my friend Clare had come to town to visit me. Sean Lennon’s first album had come out that week and I anxiously bought it, because I’m a big John Lennon fan. I couldn’t wait to hear what his kid’s songs were like. I bought it at Tower Records, came home put it on and it sucked monkey lungs. It was horrible! The kid apparently got all his talent from Yoko. So anyway, Clare and I went out with my friends Alex and Matt who are both musicians. We started talking about how the Sean Lennon album sucked so bad and we started making fun of Sean Lennon and goofing on him. The next night we met some friends at a pizza place in Soho and the subject of Sean Lennon came up again and we started goofing on him again. Around midnight, Clare and I were walking towards my apartment and a kid who was with two young girls, skateboarded right into me. He fell down and the girl’s rushed over to see if he was okay. He apologized and as we walked away, Clare was laughing and said, “Did you seen who that was?” “Yep, Sean Lennon!” I replied and we both cracked up laughing.

Jason Alexander This was also in the summer of 1998, right after Seinfeld went off the air. I think Jason Alexander was doing a play in New York at the time. I was living on the Upper West Side and there was a deli two doors down from me where I bought my beer. The deli is small and set up railroad style so the aisle is small and one person standing looking at shit can clog the whole joint up. The beer was in the very back cooler and as I walked back I saw a dark-haired woman standing and directly in front of her was Jason Alexander all hunched over looking at the potato chips. They were blocking the aisle and I couldn’t get my fucking beer. I waited a minute or so, but Jason must be a goddamned potato chip connoisseur, because he was taking forever, looking at this bag, then another bag, Jesus fucking wept! Finally I cough and say, “Excuse me.” He looks up tiredly like “oh we go with the autograph bit, again” and said, “Yeah, what do you need?” I counter with, “I want to get some beer back there, can you get out of the way please?” The woman, who I assume was his wife chuckled a little as Jason Alexander scooted forward and I got my beer. This story needs this for the ending.

Matt Dillon and Cameron Diaz I think this was in the summer of 1997 and my friends LN and Traci were in town. They met me at my apartment and I believe a rerun of the MTV music awards was on my TV and Matt Dillon was presenting one of their fake awards to someone. Traci said, “I love Matt Dillon!” I told her I saw Matt Dillon all the time and that he lived in my neighborhood. So we go out to get lunch and there’s a street fair going on at Broadway and 74th street. We wander over and we’re looking around and standing at a wheatgrass juice stand sampling shots is none other than Matt Dillon and Cameron Diaz. I poked Traci in the arm and said, “Check that out,” while pointing to the stand. “Oh my God! I don’t believe it!” She yanked her camera out of her bag and asked if we could go over and see if he’d take a picture with her. I told her we’d wait till they weren’t in the middle of something and ask then. So after a few minutes, Cameron Diaz was at a booth looking at purses and Matt Dillon was just standing on the side walk looking bored. I grabbed Traci’s camera and said, “Let’s go.” So we marched over and camera in hand I walk up to Matt Dillon and say, “Excuse me, Matt, my friend Traci is here from San Francisco and she’s like your biggest fan. Could I take a picture of the two of you? It’ll just take a second.” An angry look washed over his face and he started screaming, “No pictures, get that camera away from me!” I waved him off and said, “Hey I was just asking, you don’t have to fucking yell.” He stood there fuming and LN, Traci and I went to lunch and we talked about what an asshole he is. I mean I know it’s a hassle having strangers come up and ask for an autograph or a picture, but if you go into show business, it kind of goes with the territory. What a fucking asshole. Although I have to admit I still love the movie, Drugstore Cowboy.

Larry King This happened on the same day as the Matt Dillon encounter. After he yelled at me, we went to lunch at an outdoor cafe and were chatting and waiting for our lunch to come (I don’t know what we were talking about, but LN was probably being mean to me as usual). All of the sudden Traci’s eyes got wide and she said, “Oh my God, look who’s coming down the street!” And it was Larry King and his wife. And if you think Larry looks bad on TV, you should get an eyeful of Larry in person, in the cruel light of day, whew! He’s a craggly, waggly, scraggly mess! His wife looked stunning and she was prancing along as Larry carried all kinds of shopping bags and had a big scowl on that scary looking puss of his. You know his wife married him for his money, but she has to look at him nude and probably have sex with him when the Viagra kicks in, so I say she’s earning every stinking penny she gets! (I called in and got on the air once on the Larry King show and it’s a chapter in my book, The Boy Who Would Be A Fire Truck. The website Splice Today excerpted it and you can read it right here.)

Davey Johnstone Davey Johnstone has played guitar for Elton John for years. When I was a kid I was a big Elton John fan. I followed his music from Tumbleweed Connection to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. After Goodbye Yellow Brick Road I felt his music went downhill and I stopped listening. So while a lot of people would have no idea who Davey Johnstone is, I do. In the winter of 2002 my parents came to visit me. We were out to dinner at Ruth’s Chris steakhouse in midtown, having a few drinks and enjoying dinner. We were seated at a table in the bar, because back then you could still smoke in bars in New York and my mom smokes. Right in the middle of dinner an older guy with long blonde hair past his shoulders wearing red-tinted, wire rim glasses and a suit walked by our table and sat down at the bar with a good looking woman who looked young enough to be his daughter. I mentally thought that this guy looked like an old man version of Davey Johnstone. After he walked by my dad laughed and said, “Geez, did you see that weirdo?” I laughed and we continued on with dinner and drinks. About ten minutes later, the hostess walked up to the weird looking guy and said, “Mr. Johnstone, your table’s ready now.” He and the woman got up and they walked by our table again and were seated two tables away in the bar. He or she must’ve been a smoker as well. I also realized it had been years since I’ve seen a photo of the guy, so naturally he looks a lot older. I told my folks that he was Elton John’s lead guitarist and that he had been with him way back before Elton John was very famous. We laughed about the young woman he was with and I said she was probably a groupie. Soon we were done with dinner and we stood up and I said I’d get the coats from the coat check. My dad said, “I’m going to go over there and say hi to him.” Now my dad’s a big jokester and I thought he was kidding. It’s kind of a rule not to bug stars in New York (see: Dillon, Matt), but you really don’t bug someone when they’re eating. I laughed and said, “Yeah, right,” and went to the coat check. I assumed my folks would meet me in the lobby. Well I get there and they’re not there, they’re standing in front of Davey Johnstone’s table! Immediately I flashed back to the Matt Dillon episode and I ran up there to escort them away from what I thought would be an angry rock star. Instead I heard my dad saying to him, “Now you’re one of the originals in Elton’s band, right?” He was parroting what I had told him and Davey Johnstone was amazed that this 70something-year-old knew who he was and his history. “Yeah, that’s right, are you in the business?” Johnstone asked my dad as I walked up. “Oh here’s our son, now, Marty met Davey Johnstone,” my dad said as Johnstone stuck out his hand. “Hi, nice to meet you,” I said as I shook his hand. “Likewise,” he said smiling. “So what are you doing in town?” my dad asked him. He told us they had played Madison Square Garden that week and Elton wanted to stay in New York for the week for a little vacation for he and the band. Then he asked where we were from and my dad told him they lived in Peoria but I lived in New York. Then he started asking me all about New York, where I lived, isn’t it hard to find a place, etc. After about five minutes I had to say, “Well, listen it sure was great meeting you, but we have to get going,” or we’d probably still be there talking to the guy! We laughed about it later and realized he probably hardly ever gets recognized and he got a big kick out of it. And so did the woman, she was beaming at him. I’m sure they had some fun later on in his hotel room. So, Davey if by some miraculous chance you’ve stumbled onto this via the internet, there’s no need to thank me. Just send me a gold album or something I can sell on eBay.

And now it’s time for my favorite celebrity sighting, another can of Budweiser.

Cheers, see you back here at the crack of noon,

Marty

Daily Video

The Quitter

Here’s a video of “Tricky Dick” Nixon resigning before he got booted out of the White House. There was rumors that he was talking to the paintings on the wall his last few nights in the White House as he became increasingly unhinged. The one person who truly hated Richard Nixon with a vengeance was Hunter S. Thompson. Here’s what he wrote after Nixon died in the June 16th, 1994 issue of Rolling Stone:

“If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.”

Ha ha ha! That’s fucking great, and now watch the video to further kick Nixon around. Take it away, Tricky Dick!

Well, I Guess I Am Guilty After All.

I Love

Mustard!

If you're easily offended, just don't look at this.

Don't say I didn't warn you!

There's a new section on the Show

I'd blather on about it, but you can check it out here.

Morning has broken...

All over my head. Blah!