You’re not going to win this one. The replacement refs are here, and there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of progress being made between the NFL and the League of Extraordinary Officials Who Can Actually Figure Out Where to Spot a Ball Within Eleven Minutes. But this doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy football. Don’t get mad, get glad. Here’s how:
My life long best friend just went through a divorce over the last two months, his wife left him, his kid, the house, all of it. She just up and walked away, and the guy is now facing a personal crisis. He doesn’t know how he’s going to make ends meet, how he’s going to raise a little girl, or what life is going to be like as he moves into the future.
I remember those feelings very well. I experienced the same sadness, loss, disorientation, and loneliness when my relationship with my baby’s momma fell apart and I got sole custody of my daughter. But when I went through it, I didn’t know any other man with custody of his kids, I didn’t have anyone I could talk to with a similar perspective, no one to encourage me, tell me to keep my head up, and offer advice to me.
So I sat down and wrote a letter of encouragement to my life long friend, the brother I chose, to help him out. I posted it on his Facebook wall, and then proceeded to get numerous comments from people telling me that I needed to post what I wrote somewhere visible, so that other men in our situation could have the chance to benefit from it too.
I don’t know if what I wrote is really that good, I have a hard time judging my own writing, but I’m following the advice of a bunch of people who don’t even know me, so here it is.
To all you single dads out there, read it, and like my buddy, remember that you’re not alone, that it will get better, and that your life has made a gigantic turn for the better, my friends. –Mike
10. Your New Year’s kiss left smudge marks on your mirror
9. Your wife’s resolution was to give up you
8. You recently invested all your money with some Italian guy named Ponzi
7. You’re Michele Bachmann
6. You accidentally watched that new TV show about two dudes in dresses
5. You just woke up from your 2010 New Year’s Eve party
4. You started the new year with ten fingers and toes – now, not so many
3. You can still hear that firecracker someone set off near your head on New Year’s Eve
2. Last year your company went paperless; this year they’re going peopleless
1. You’re still writing “2011” on all your death threats
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
So it’s that time of year again. The leaves on some of the smaller plants are beginning to change colors, the nights are getting longer, and the summer heat is finally dissipating. Football is on TV and on the mind of every old man down at the local coffee shop in the morning talking about his grandson. My pumpkin patch has already produced ripe fruit. Fall is certainly right around the corner.
It’s time to start thinking about what you’re going to wear for Halloween.
Recently a friend of mine decided to sell the antique Indian headdress she kept in a Perspex box in her house. I was baffled by this decision as it was a thing of great beauty and she did not need the cash. But she had made up her mind: she was moving house and the headdress had to go.
I asked how she had acquired it in the first place:
“My grandparents picked it up at a train station in the 1930s,” she said. “They used to travel around the South West and the Indians would come to the platforms to sell things. So they bought the headdress. They probably didn’t pay much for it, either.”
It was, apparently, a Navajo war bonnet, a headdress of great symbolic power. [Read more →]
10. The rats have gnawed through your garden hose, making it impossible to hose down the hallway
9. Your living room’s leaf pile dates from three autumns ago
8. The producers of Hoarders thought your place was just a little too much
7. Your heating vents are clogged with Frito crumbs
6. Even Jehovah’s Witnesses won’t come inside
5. The Health Department has you on speed dial
4. When you go in the kitchen, your spouse uses Raid to provide cover fire
3. You have so many dust bunnies, the legs of your bed no longer touch the floor
2. You’ve misplaced two of your children
1. Your refrigerator has a wet hacking cough
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
10. The ‘corsage’ he pins to your dress his handmade from Bounty paper towels
9. He takes you to the prom in the basket of his Schwinn
8. Every time he starts dancing, concerned chaperones place a wrapped spoon in his mouth to prevent him from biting his tongue
7. He wants to be home by 9:00 so he can catch the rerun of Fringe
6. He claims he’s suffering from ‘Bieber Fever’
5. He’s wearing a cardboard Burger King crown
4. His tux was ‘borrowed’ from his dad’s funeral home business
3. When he asks you if you want to catch a bite somewhere, he displays his collection of coupons
2. He keeps calling you “Mommy”
1. You’re both wearing the same dress
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
10. He delivers his speech without moving his lips, thanks to his little ventriloquist’s dummy ‘Muammar’
9. Her first name is Snooki
8. His speech is laced with crude double entendres and Polish jokes
7. He can’t emphasize enough the many incredible advantages of buying a ShamWow!
6. His claim to fame: He played Epstein on Welcome Back, Kotter
5. She goes on and on about how Barack Obama’s birth certificate has to be a forgery
4. Before he goes on, he asks the principal if he wants a little ‘nose candy’
3. He claims to have deciphered the “secret language of kitty cats”
2. He begins his speech, “If life hands you lemons, you should squeeze the juice directly into the wounds of your enemies.”
1. He spends an entire hour blathering on about his tiger’s blood, Adonis DNA, and fire-breathing fists
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
10. On your paper “What I Plan To Do After Graduation,” your teacher wrote “Guess again”
9. Your final paper in Music class was entitled “Why Justin Bieber Is the New Mozart”
8. The last time you picked up a book, it took you the better part of the afternoon to find all the Waldos
7. It’s bad enough you had an affair with a teacher, but the shop teacher?!
6. In Geography class, you identified the Ivory Coast as “two brands of soap”
5. In your high school yearbook, you were voted ‘Most Likely to Be Unable to Tell His Ass from a Hole in the Ground’
4. You were caught out on the football field, sticking a suppository into a hole in the ground
3. In Chemistry, the only elements you could name from the periodic table were Neon, Freon, Dione, and Leon
2. After years of instruction, you still talk into the wrong end of the telephone
1. The only history you learned all year long, you learned from Glenn Beck’s Classroom of the Air
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
10. A gift certificate to Scepters R Us
9. The latest CD from Prince
8. Gold bricks
7. An English-American dictionary
6. An athletic cup to protect the crown jewels
5. The illusion that their family still has some power
4. A nightie from Queen Victoria’s Secret
3. A sobriety test for the future Princess Kate’s personal driver
2. Something to read on the throne
1. Nothing (what could you possibly get them that they don’t already have?)
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
10. You don’t care who you get your shamrocks off with
9. You keep going up to strangers and saying, “Ire me; I’m kiss-ish!”
8. You think a tube of toothpaste is astronaut food
7. You keep wishing someone would drive the snakes out of your head
6. You wonder how you wound up with a lower stomach tattoo that says “Kiss My Lucky Charms!”
5. You’re now thinking Sarah Palin is Presidential material
4. You can actually see leprechauns
3. You make Charlie Sheen look like Justin Bieber
2. You wonder how you wound up with a bent shillelagh
1. You spend the entire night doing your Linda Blair impression
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
Sometimes our celebrity brethren need to feel the white hot sting of my bitch-slap o’ advice so badly, I have trouble even typing. This, friends, is one of those times. Our girl crush Scarlett Johansson, who, until very recently, was married to Ryan Reynolds, People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive, may be hooking up with — guys, y’all might have to sit down for this – Sean Penn. Ohhhh, it hurts. [Read more →]
There really is nothing worse than having someone tell you how you are supposed to feel, except maybe having someone blow an emotion right down your throat like a horse pill. This is probably why sentimentality in art has become, over the years, such an offensive sin. But the shame of it is, it seems that some artists have confused sentimentality with the mere presence of emotion in art. These people have allowed the fear of being sentimental to sterilize their work. [Read more →]
A student of mine just said she has “writer’s block.” It got me thinking about something I rarely consider.
I’m not sure how to say this without sounding smug or arrogant, so I’ll just say it: I have never had an issue with writer’s block, nor will I ever. If you have dealt with creative blocks, I don’t mean to be offensive or condescending. It’s just that I believe that writer’s block is a myth and that once we believe in the myth, it can take us over and drive our creativity into the ground, becoming real to us. I don’t believe in it; therefore, I render it impotent. Consider this the reverse of that scene in Peter Pan where the kids clap for Tinkerbelle to show they believe. Together, we can kill the mythical creature that is writer’s block by simply not clapping. [Read more →]
10. You’re just waking up from your 2009 New Year’s Eve party
9. For Dancing With the Stars, you bet your life’s savings on Michael Bolton
8. Both your cholesterol and your children are way too high
7. When the airport’s full-body scanner tried to scan you, the screen cracked
6. You’re still Bernie Madoff
5. You’ve started a brand new week by reading a lame Top Ten list
4. For Christmas, your wife gave you that new STD iPhone app
3. You’re a Democrat
2. You’re not in the top two percent wealthiest Americans
1. You have a pre-existing condition
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
‘Tis a new year, kids, and I am excited about the work I have ahead of me. I have a feeling 2011 is going to be a busy one for Meg Boyle, Patron Saint of Celebrity Advice. Thankfully, there is enough of me to go around (and if I keep eating the way I did over the holidays, there may soon be even more me to go around…).
But which wayward celebrity will end up needing my advice the most, I wonder? Let’s take a look at some of the nominees for Potential Hottest Mess of 2011… [Read more →]
10. During your physical, they found traces of blood in your alcohol
9. At AA meetings you begin: “Hi, my name is… uh…Wait, I know this as well as I know my own name….‘Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday, dearrrrr…’”
8. You keep claiming you’re “as jober as a sudge”
7. You make Lindsay Lohan look like Susan Boyle
6. The room is spinning faster than a hamster wheel
5. You’re wondering how you wound up with a chest tattoo of Cloris Leachman
4. You have toilet seat bruises all over the back of your head
3. Your idea of cutting back is less salt on the rim of your Margarita glass
2. You keep falling off the floor
1. You think Sarah Palin would make a great President
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
Fun fact about Meg Boyle: I was a huge fan of E!’s reality show “The Girls Next Door,” which documented the high-larious hijinx of Playboy Magazine founder Hugh Hefner and his three barely legal, barely natural girlfriends (note: I speak of the original, awesome “GND”, not the weird, twin-tastic reincarnation). Those who were also fans of the show know well the bitter pill that long-suffering “#1 Girlfriend” Holly Madison – who genuinely seemed to love The Hef, or so it seemed to this viewer – had to continuously swallow every time Hugh brushed off her long-held desire to marry him and have his children. Eventually, Holly followed the sound of her ticking biological clock right out of the Playboy Mansion as we fans shed a single tear for what might have been and then promptly forgot that the show ever existed.
But! Now! News from the InterWeb: Hef! Gets! Engaged! The man who said “marriage isn’t part of my puzzle” proposed to his 24-year old girlfriend on Christmas Eve, which also happens to be one day after Holly’s birthday. Fans, join me now in a rousing chorus of “Aw, hell nah!” Poor Holly. All those emotions she must be feeling right now! Who ever can she turn to for advice on how to cope with this heartbreak? Lucky for you, Holly dear, I have a lot of experience finding out that the dude you left because he wouldn’t commit has miraculously changed his tune for the very next chick he laid eyes on. Come crawl into Auntie Meg’s lap, Holly; I’m about to share with you my five-step plan for dealing with hypocritical ex-boyfriends, a five-step plan I like to call Dancing It Out with Meg Boyle. [Read more →]
Right now I am at hotel computer in Connecticut freezing my ass off. The automatic doors are broken from the wind last night, so there is a steady breeze that chills the lobby and the computer lab down the hall. I spent yesterday morning going to LaGuardia in a snow storm, and yesterday afternoon and night returning from LaGuardia in a blizzard. The worst part is that I have a bad cold and little money. Why should you care? Because my story is the story of the people you see on the news who you are glad to be not. And you just might learn something. [Read more →]
Generally speaking, everybody hates Christmas. I mean, everybody loves Christmas; it’s just that Christmas is kind of horrible. C’mon, you know what I mean! Wah, Wah! Buy me a gift! I want a present! God, mom. Give it a rest. The good news is, I’m here to make everything about Christmas easier. If you’ve been waiting until the last minute to buy the person you love the greatest present in the world, you’ve found the perfect gift guide. If you’re Jewish, close this page and go eat a matzoh or something. [Read more →]
