Thoughts of a Common Man

I may have already won about 600 million dollars. I don't think I want it. Can you imagine the people that would want to talk to me? I don't want to talk to them. Can you imagine the people who'd be asking me to lend a hand? I'd be harrassed from morning through noon to night. No freaking thank-you. And since I've been handed a lot of crap that I don't want recently perhaps the lottery gods, who are more likely to hit me with falling airplane parts than bless me with the winning ticket will bless me with the chance to be eternally bothered until I go completely off the rails. I'm 30 seconds off that pace anyway. Yet I listened to the news in the middle of Thursday night... The first anchorman (and did you hear Ron Burgundy is back) told me that her coworker was off tonight before starting in on her newscast. "I'm Melinda, Robert is off tonight." Why the hell do I care if Robert is off? Rubbing it in? "Mega-Million-Man...

At the beginning of March I was lucky enough to secure a doctor's appointment with a neurosurgeon to discuss my back, leg and groin pain. I battled through, circling the date on the calendar, and going to therapy twice a week, dealing with traction, sleeping fitfully, but working through it. The doctor would see me and fix me, right? It was a bit of a letdown. I showed up 15 minutes early for my noon appointment. A pretty girl asked me to fill out forms. She seemed concerned with how I'd been feeling. "How do you feel?" she asked. "With my hands," I said, raising my eyes to Grandpa. I didn't see her again until 1:35 when I asked her if it was going to be much longer. "They're running behind." That really isn't an answer, but I sat quietly. After all, this was the day I'd been waiting for! At two o'clock, two hours after my scheduled appointment, I was stirred from my resting spot and brought to another room. ...

That's some story out of Sanford, Florida, huh? If you've been living under a rock a skittles-carrying, iced-tea drinking, hoodie-wearing black child was walking around in a neighborhood, talking on the cell phone and staying out of the rain. A neighborhood watch guy was watching him closely and decided that Trayvon looked like trouble. Zimmerman called 911, was told to stay put, called the kid a fu%&*ng coon, got out of the car and chased the kid down. A scuffle ensued and Trayvon was shot and killed. If you haven't heard the 911 call, don't listen to it. Hearing that kid scream, "Help me! Help Me!" is bone-chilling. The watch guy hasn't been arrested yet because there seems to be a backwards ass law on the books in Florida. There are 16,000 murders in this country every year. This one struck a cord. Trayvon is black. Geraldo came out and said that the hoodie was as much to blame for the murder as the guy who pulled the trigger. I read a F...

This back injury is so freaking weird...and frustrating. I laid low on Sunday. (As low as a Fazzolari can lay), and I felt better. I did my bends and stretches and really congratulated myself on being ready for the work week. I had a lunch meeting. Just five hours after getting back to work. "You have a real hitch in your getty-up," my lunch partner said. I wanted to explain to him that it was because an hour into the freaking work week my back and groin were aching so freaking bad that I wanted to rip the whole shabang off...which would have been a hell of a trick...and throw it in the dumpster. Do they amputate backs? Whatever. On with the day. We all have problems, right? Suck it up and tough it out. Shut your whiny mouth. Got dinner ready. A pretty good steak. Grab the ice pack. And there was just one other thing I really needed. "What can I do to help?" My beautiful wife asked. There was one thing...no more One Tree Hill! No more Desperate Hou...

There's something really cool about being in a room filled with people who share your blood. It's just comfortable, you know? On Saturday those of us with Fuzzy blood gathered together and while there were a couple there that were not blood-related they are so loved, and so ingrained into the goings-on that there are no illusions, no apologies, no awkward moments. Weiser-Fuzzy, Fuzzy-Weiser...what's the difference, really? Everything just fits. The occasion was my brother Jim's 44th birthday. Brand new sausage served as the focal point. It had been Grandpa's recipe, then Dad's, now ours. Jim is the man who gets the job done for us. But Saturday we helped out. Corinne made a batch of sauce that could have been served in the finest of Italian restaurants anywhere in the country. Old country or new country, besides. I chipped in with about 40 stuffed peppers. It was another handed-down recipe. John, Mom and Dana brought the salads and desserts. A perfect se...

So Dick Cheney has a brand new heart to poison. But man, it's a tough crowd. The Twitter land was alive with tweets about the fact that this life-saving procedure involved replacing a heart that attacked the man five times beginning at the age of 37. Now that he's 71 some people are questioning the sensibilities of giving a man his age a transplant. Now that Cheney has his heart maybe they can get W his brain. One article that I read questioned whether or not Cheney was bumped ahead of others on the list who had: A). Been waiting longer or B). Had less available cash to donate. Either way...he's still a relatively young man. The new heart may allow him to live anywhere from 5 to 12 more years. Even knowing that is the best of all case scenarios is a little scary. Don't you want more than 12 years, no matter what age you are? As quickly as time seems to pass... I hope they threw his old heart into a volcano. I don't know if there was ever a man so polariz...

It occurs to me that we are forced to eat a lot of shit in life. My advice? Just shovel it in. Do you ever run across people who tell you all of their problems when you see them? "I couldn't get to sleep last night! I went to bed early enough, but I kept thinking about how busy I am and every time I drifted off, I'd wake up. Man, I'm tired!!!" What do you say to that? And the complaints don't stop there. "I've been working so hard. It seems like all I do is work. I get up, go to work, work, then come home, and work some more at home, and then I go to bed and I can't sleep because I'm anxious about work!" Yeah, we get it...it's called life! And there are piles to shit to eat on a daily basis. "My boss is an asshole! Nobody likes him. All he thinks about is himself and he doesn't do anything all day and I do all the work and he gets paid the big money and then I work some more and then I go to bed and I can...