"Titty Bars Are Evil..."

It must be Blast from My Past Week. Some higher power (probably FoxNews or Microsoft, but definitely NOT God, because She doesn't exist, and if She did, She would have been far more subtle, contradictory, and incomprehensible) has decided that this particular week I should have to be inundated by a slew of unpleasant memories, solid reminders of my past failures, and thrust into a series of circumstances where some of the people who have disappointed me (or I them) the most in life should all suddenly renter my little world at the same time, and conspire to drive me absolutely insane.


It's like my life this past week has just leaped out of a Lifetime Made-for-TV movie. They (whoever the fuck 'They' are) say that things happen in threes. Part 1 was the by-chance encounter with an old girlfriend who bored me with her religious douchebaggery, and Part 2 of this unfathomable journey began late last night with a phone call from a someone I had wished, at the time, would be a girlfriend, but who had other ideas (and probably a whole lot more sense).
 
I have not seen nor spoken to Jenny (not her real name) for, oh, I gather, seven or eight years now. When last we met, she had just gotten married, popped out a kid, and moved in with her male-model husband (Joey Squadooch, not his real name, either) into a 4,000' square-foot suburban Art-Deco monstrosity in rural New Jersey. The romance had been whirlwind, the wedding a hastily-organized operation, and I'm beginning to think Jenny might have already been pregnant when they took their vows.
 


Jenny used to live in the same apartment building I did, in the unit directly above mine, and we became friends because we used to commute into Manhattan with one another, and then usually meet each other on the way home. We were the two youngest people in our building, and so this, naturally, entailed that we would hang out a lot together. In fact, there was a signal we used to have when one of us had nothing to do, and just wanted to hang out, assuming we hadn't come home together; Jenny would stamp her high-heeled boot on the hardwood floor above me three times in a certain place, or I would go out on the terrace and give a whistle. What usually followed was take-out and Sangria on the terrace, and a bunch of laughs. I made a killer Sangria in those days.

Anyways, Jenny and I never became an item, mostly because I wasn't her type. She liked the pretty boys, and although I was cute-as-all-hell when I was younger and thinner, I wasn't quite up to her standards (to give you some idea, Joey always reminded me of a young Andy Garcia. How the hell do you compete with that?). Oh, I think we might have come close a time or two to actually doing something both of us might have regretted later, but it never happened. Oh, and Joey was super rich, and stood to inherit his father's (probably Mob-connected) business, despite the fact that he was dumber than a fucking stump. If you took an x-ray of his skull, all you'd find would be a nomad camel caravan fighting through a sandstorm to make it's way up the next dune.
 
An original thought and a cold drink of water might have actually sent him into a coma. Now, before you start assuming that this disparaging of Joey is due to jealousy, let me set you straight; it isn't. he was actually a pretty nice guy. It's just that you instinctively knew after 30 seconds of close personal contact that his parents had mostly wasted their money on that expensive Catholic School Education, and that every D-minus was probably followed with an expensive gift to "build his confidence". Joey didn't really need to be smart, as he stood to inherit his money, and besides, they paid others to actually run the company, I'll bet.
 
Be that as it may, I was genuinely pleased when Jenny and Joey married. They made a nice couple, and they were obviously happy. Good people deserve to be happy, I've always thought.
 
It wasn't long afterwards that I fell into the real depths of my madness, which caused me to cut most ties I had to old friends, leave my hometown, and seek a peculiar sort of solitude wherein I chose who to associate with, and just how much of them I could stand, and then withdrew -- often for long periods -- when I'd had enough of them. Things were going to get progressively worse from there, but that's another story. I lost touch with Jenny and Joey, and truth to tell, it wasn't as if they went out of their way to maintain ties, either. I figured I'd never hear form either again, and that was just fine.


And then I get this phone call. Don't know how she found me (Jenny, if I recall, was some sort of telecommunications specialist before she became a mother-housewife, so that's probably how) because this number ain't listed, and it ain't even under my name. After the initial "Wow, imagine hearing from you? How are you, Sunshine?" bit was all over, the real reason for Jenny's call became all too clear.

Jenny and Joey are getting divorced. That's too bad, I say, not really meaning it, and truthfully, not really caring. She had looked me up, I think, because she needed yet one more person to vent and cry to, and having exhausted the ears and drenched the shoulders of her family, circle of friends, casual acquaintances, business associates, people she met once on a Carnival Cruise, her Congressman, Pastor, Dentist and Pool Cleaner, it was time to dig really far into the past and relate the whole sordid tale to someone who hasn't been in her life for almost a decade. Everyone must suffer Jenny's pain, and there's still one more human being on this planet who hasn't heard the whole, sordid story.

Where people get the idea that I'm the one to unload their burdens on is beyond me. Maybe I used to be good at this sort of thing, but not anymore, I don't think.

Anyways, it seems the central factor in the soon-to-occur demise of JennyJoe, LTD is a... titty bar.

Ah, finally...an area where my monolithic expertise comes into play! Now it all makes sense!
I'm not proud of this. In retrospect, it was probably one of the first and earliest indications that something was wrong with me, and that those issues needed to be faced and fixed if I was ever to become a halfway decent human being. I cannot tell you how many evenings, or how much money, I've lost inside those places, but I was young, and stupid, and an alcoholic back then. Suffice to say, eventually the whole experience just grew tiresome, boring, predictable, and lost its allure, eventually. It always does. It has to.

Women, especially married women, do not understand the attraction the Jiggle Joint holds for some men. It's a combination of all of our baser desires, a one-stop-shopping experience for the braindead. Under one roof, a man with no impulse control and more cash than brains finds everything he could want: booze, naked chicks, the anticipation of sex, but mostly, the illusion of control.That's what brings 'em in, you know; it's a place where Men exert control over a woman, and usually in a way that he would never think of doing with his Good Lady Wife or significant other. Its a simple transaction: I have money, the Dancer (misnomer) has tits, and there is no obligation. She becomes, for a short while, your trained seal. That this unnatural arrangement is all a farce goes unrealized -- the one with the real power and control in this situation is really the Whore. She's there to separate you from your wallet, and you'll be happy to let her do it. Especially when you're drunk.
 
Even if there is...ahem...association outside the confines of the bar, it's almost never serious. It can't be: you know what She is, and She definitely knows what you are. While this suffices so far as one-nighters (and maybe even serial one-nighters) are concerned, it can never, ever be the basis of a lasting relationship because the basic foundation upon which that is built upon -- trust, respect, truth,mutual goodwill -- doesn't exist. It's wholly a physical and mental exercise. It's really about two simple things; you get a fuck buddy when you need one, and she gets an ATM machine when she needs one.


Ladies, here's a simple truth; Men are stupid. Oh, we can design spacecraft, fly airplanes, build skyscrapers and invent a variety of labor-saving devices, but when it comes to Mr. Winkie and our wired-by-biology urge to fuck (or to at least THINK we can fuck) everything that moves, all bets are off. Most men go through a stage in life where they would willingly and eagerly slither naked on their bellies over broken glass and hot coals, with the American Flag jammed in their asses, to get to the Titty Bar. Most men will grow out of this stage by about age 25-28, or so. Some take a little longer, and some, sadly, never do. When men in their later years (say, mid-30's to early 50's) start frequenting Topless Bars, it's almost never about sex -- it's always about reestablishing some measure of control over their lives, or about reliving their Glory Days (although what's so glorious about getting pants-shitting drunk, dropping a couple of C-notes to NOT get laid, and then waking up in a puddle of your own vomit smelling like the perfume counter at K-Mart, and risking multiple STD's is beyond my capacity to remember).  
 
So, Joey is frequenting Titty Bars, and Jenny caught him. Or rather, Jenny caught Joey doing the nasty with some skank he met in a Titty Bar. This requires a divorce...and my advice. After all, I'm the Titty Bar Expert and I can, she assumes, tell her exactly why it happened, and then have the courtesy to sit still long enough to have my ears ravaged by her plaintive wails of "I was a good wife, wasn't I? Didn't I give him everything he wanted? What's wrong with me that he has to mess around with sluts? Titty Bars are Evil..."
 
Like I know what goes on in your house? I haven't talked to you in eight years. But, Jenny was a good friend, and I wouldn't mind if she re-entered my circle of friends, so I can't let her down. I tell her the truth; your husband is a dipshit. He's done what he's done for reasons that are easy to explain, but the initial urge came from somewhere that only you can figure out. Somewhere, he's lost his ability to manage some aspect of his life, probably with you, and the reaction was not to talk to you, or work out your differences, but to go to a place where he was (falsely) assured that he could reestablish control over a relationship, and pork a scifooza with no strings attached. In a convoluted way, he's reestablishing his manhood, or at least what he thinks is his manhood. The sad part is that this ain't the way to do it.
 
This sort of sin is unforgivable. Even I, a person lacking in anything you might consider normal human feelings, even I understand that a Line Has Been Crossed. Honestly, if I were married, even with all the shit I've done in my life behind me and knowing that I've often given into my more ridiculous impulses, even I wouldn't cheat on my wife. I figure if I had wanted to marry you, I couldn't find it inside even this iron-bound heart to actually do that.I figure that having asked for your hand in marriage, I must have really respected you at some point. There's some places even this jaded Lunatic just won't go to.


So, I told her to go get her divorce, and to make certain that her lawyer rapes him for what he's done, but never for a second believe that you did something wrong (unless, of course, you actually have!); The Boom-Boom Room is just Men being Boys being Pigs. That's not an excuse, it's just a truthful observation. We're sick, sick, sick animals who often need strong (not domineering, just strong) women to keep us on the straight-and-narrow. That is, after all, your job.


Women are right in this regard (Damn, I can't believe I actually wrote that!): Men don't communicate their feelings enough. And by that, I mean they don't talk to their bitches when they really should, and even if they do, they aren't always honest and free with their feelings. Because Men don't talk, they usually end up speaking with their actions, and as we all know, Actions Speak Louder than Words.

And are far more hurtful. Especially when your actions are played out in a public parking lot in front of your wife, and the mother of your two kids, who has had to hunt you down because you didn't come home. She's been publicly humiliated. This is the absolute worst thing you could ever do to someone.


Oh, and one final note to Men everywhere: Never, ever buy a vehicle with a GPS-tracking system that your wife can access from her iPhone. Yep, there's even an app for that.