McDonald’s is the official restaurant of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics!

And they’ve been the official food provider for the previous 7 consecutive games! What an honor for our athletes!

I’m not sure why I didn’t discover the association between McDonald’s and the Olympics earlier. It makes perfect sense.

I’ll break it down for you. There are four main reasons why McDonald’s is the obvious choice to be the official restaurant of the Olympics from now until the end of time…

1 – Of course, it’s the food of choice for elite athletes around the world!

Just take a look at this official press release from US Olympic team. But just in case you’re rushing out the door for that healthy McNugget and don’t have time to read the whole thing, I’ll give you an excerpt:

“Athletes continue to tell us they love our quality food when training or celebrating wins at the Games, and it’s one of the reasons we’re proud to be the only brand serving them as the Official Restaurant of the Olympic Games,” McDonald’s chief marketing officer Mary Dillon said.

See… They actually eat the food while simultaneously training! AWESOME!

2 – McDonald’s has tons of money to spend at the Olympics.

Thanks to the brains in the McDonald’s corporate headquarters, they expertly save money by underpaying their employees. See here! Or just read the quote below – that Big Mac is waiting for you and it won’t eat itself!

“British Columbia has the lowest minimum wage in Canada at $8 an hour. It has been frozen for eight years. However, McDonald’s in the Lower Mainland use the so-called training wage to lower starting salaries to as little as $6.35 an hour.”

“Training wage.” I wouldn’t have thought of that. It’s pure OLYMPIC GENIUS AWESOME!

3 -The food has secret ingredients that give you super-human strength.

Yeah, you heard me. You eat at McDonald’s and you become super-freakin’-human!
If you don’t have to rush off to accept your gold medal on an Olympic podium, you can read the full ingredients list for McDonald’s food.

But just in case they’re waiting to play your anthem, here’s a sampling:

Chicken McNugget

Chicken, water, salt, modified corn starch, sodium phosphates, chicken broth powder (chicken broth, salt, and natural flavoring (chicken source)), seasoning (vegetable oil, extracts of rosemary, mono, di- and triglycerides, lecithin). Battered and breaded with water, enriched bleached wheat flour (niacin, iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), yellow corn flour, bleached wheat flour, modified corn starch, salt, leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, calcium lactate), spices, wheat starch, dried whey, corn starch. Batter set in vegetable shortening. Cooked in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, (may contain partially hydrogenated soybean oil and/or partially hydrogenated corn oil and/or partially hydrogenated canola oil and/or cottonseed oil and/or sunflower oil and/or corn oil). TBHQ and citric acid added to help preserve freshness. Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an anti-foaming agent.

Umm… did you catch the last 2 ingredients?!

The first preserves your “freshness!” Now we know the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s secret.

And the other keeps you from “foaming,” I presume, at the mouth when you become a super-human-incredible-hulk-attack-dog!

That is AWESOMENESS SQUARED!!

And get this… In 2002, someone actually tried to sue the fantastic restaurant chain and the judge came to McDonald’s defense when he said:

Chicken McNuggets are a “McFrankenstein” creation of various elements…”

He obviously recognized the pure animalistic effects those golden poppers can have on the human body.

4 – Last but not least, McDonald’s is GREEN!

Yup. They reduce, reuse and recycle whenever possible. Just look at this picture…

Those toothpicks are whittled from the same club that was used to force the “unusually large breasted” chickens into the “grinder and mechanical separator” that turns them into the delicious food of champions. That’s FOOD-OF-THE-GODS AWWWWWWWESOME!!!

In conclusion…

You suck McDonald’s!

You suck the sadness from the world and your golden arches light the way for the human race to be the best it can be.

Just kidding. You suck.

But I’ve decided to move this post to the head of the line.

I’ve shed some tears lately and I don’t cry easily or often. The last time I can recall this rare occurrence was on January 27th, 2007. Over the month leading up to that date, as a birthday gift to myself, I broke up with my girlfriend which was a year overdo, I packed a duffle bag, sold everything else and let everyone know I decided to move to LA. On Janaury 26th I threw myself an awesome going-away party at Orchid Lounge in New York City and still drunk the next morning, I boarded the 9:00 am Jetblue flight from JFK to Burbank. I was a free man, on a new adventure, setting out to do what I love and do best, act and write.

On the flight, they showed my favorite movie, Rudy.

What a perfect movie to see on this trip into the next stage of my life. And this is when I cried. I pulled my maroon MIT hat down to hide my face and I watched Sean Astin being carried from the Notre Dame field. He achieved such greatness against all odds. I could relate and I cried full of a thousand emotions.

The next time I truly cried was on Valentine’s Day, February 14th, 2010. Just a couple of days ago. And I cried twice.

The first cry you may think was because I am so in love, which I am, and because I got to spend a beautiful day with Anna, which I did.

But it was for a different reason.

My dad’s sick and my mother is having a very hard time with it. The whole family is, really, but my mom gets it the worst because she is with him every day. It’s hard to see someone you’ve loved for so long slowly turn into a different man. And when I called to wish them a Happy Valentine’s Day, it turned out to be a particularly bad day.

What made me cry, though, was when my dad took the phone and he explained to me how he felt in his own words, as best he could. He took his time, finding the best words he could think of, and he talked. And I could hear how hard he was trying. And through his pained speech, I also heard how hard he ALWAYS tried to do his best and be his best for the family.

Throughout everything, his two-time battle with cancer and now the dimensia, my dad has never lost one thing – his sense of humor. As you can see in this recent picture with Anna where he’s trying to bite her! Although he does not speak up as much as he used to for fear of saying something incorrectly, you can tell that when he does talk he still has his awareness and extremely witty sense of humor. Even at my dad’s worst, he is an example of what I aspire to be.

The second time I cried that day was while watching the Olympic men’s mogul competition. Skiing, Seth, Really? Damn right.

Of course I was already on the emotional edge because of my family, but add to that my being in Canada, watching the Canadian Olympic games, engaged to a Canadian and, the cherry on the cake, hearing the inspirational story of Canadian, Alexandre Bilodeau.

Alexandre’s greatest inspiration is his older brother, who has cerebral palsy. The doctors did not expect his brother to walk past the age of 10 and he is still walking at age 28! With a role model like that, Alexandre refused to ever quit and pushed himself to the limit. The result? Alexandre nailed his mogul run and took home the first gold medal Canada has every received while hosting the Olympic games.

And I cried. I cried for Alex’s story, I cried for my dad, and I cried for myself.

And that cleansed the system, which I really needed. It’s time to start writing again.

I’ve got Olympic curling on in the background, too. Something tells me nothing in this sport is going to inspire me nor make me cry. But these days, you never know.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=F83C4upLNIs

Or check out his other article/video.

According to studies, over 71% of U.S. wealth is concentrated in the hands of only 10% of the population, with the bottom 40% of the population owning less than 1%.

I’m an artist, so believe me, I’m in the lower range of American earners. Recently, I was faced with the age old question, “How the hell do I pay my fucking rent?”

I had no ideas, no plan, no job prospects. So, just like Oprah preaches with The Secret, all I needed to do was put my thoughts into the universe, envisioning myself with money, and I would get what I ask for. So that’s what I did. But JUST in case The Secret didn’t start the money rolling in, I proceeded to sack my office hoping to find some shit to eBay.

Well guess what happened, folks. Not 2 hours later, I got what I wanted -- in the form of Brazilian money.

I realized in that moment that Oprah and I had so much in common. She used The Secret and got a role in The Color Purple. I used it and found old Brazilian money. We’re both so blessed -- we must be twins!

Anyway, back to the money… You see, I used to collect foreign currency. My dad went on many business trips around the world when I was younger, and he would bring back coins or bills for me from every country he visited. I happily stuffed them into shoe boxes or put them in photo albums. The other day when I was searching my office, I found all the money from years ago. I had Italian liras, British pounds, Israeli shekalim, Mexican pesos… the list goes on and on. But I realized my dad struck gold without realizing it when I found over $600,000 in Brazilian money.

I don’t know if you noticed in the scanned image of the money to the right, but there’s a $500,000 bill in there, right in the middle. Then there are two other $50,000 bills. With all that money, who cares about the $200 bill?! Not me! Immediately after uploading the image of the money for this post, I smoked the $200 in celebration of the other $600,000.

Ok, that’s a lie. I’m Jewish, of course I care about the $200.

And I don’t smoke.

A quick search for Brazilian to U.S. currency conversion showed that $600,200 Brazilian reais are worth $347,883 U.S. dollars!

That’s right, bitches. I became an instant hundred-thousand-aire thanks to my dad… and my being a pack rat. I called the nearest Amex travel agency to see how soon they could exchange the money and to make sure they had enough cash on hand to cover it. There’s no way I was taking a check. You can’t spread a check all over your bed and roll around naked in it, now can you.

The first question they asked me was if the money was new Brazilian reais or the old currency.

“Old currency?” I asked. Shit, there’s an old currency? The bills did look pretty old. I looked closely and saw these weren’t even reais, these were CRUZEIROS! What they hell are those?

I told Amex I’d get back to them as I had to do a little research.

WARNING: HISTORY LESSON APPROACHING
Although Brazil is known for churning out supermodels, barely there bikinis and awesome waxing techniques, it apparently is not known for churning out strong currency. Here’s a history on Brazilian inflation and its effects on the value of their money:

• 1900 -- 1930: Money was called reis meaning “kings”.
• 1930′s: Money changed name to mil reis meaning “a thousand kings”.
• 1942: Currency had devalued so much that the monetary note changed to the cruzeiros, meaning “crosses”, at a value of 1000 to 1. i.e., they dropped 3 zeroes. You’ll be hearing that a lot more.
• 1967: Cruzeiro becomes cruzeiro nuvo and 3 more zeroes are dropped.
• 1970′s: While the Brazilian economy was growing at 10% a year, inflation was running anywhere between 15% to 300%.
• Mid 1980′s: Inflation peaked at 2,000%.
• 1986: Cruzeiro becomes cruzado (crusade). 3 more zeroes are dropped.
• 1989: Cruzado becomes cruzado nuvo. 3 more zeroes are dropped.
• 1990: To avoid confusion (is that possible?) the cruzado nuvo is renamed cruzeiro with no change in value.
• 1993: Cruzeiro becomes cruzeiro real. 3 more zeroes are dropped.
• 1994: Cruzeiro real becomes the real (royal), worth 2.75 old cruzeiros reais

A 1960s Cruzeiro was, in 1994, worth less than one trillionth of a US cent, after adjusting for multiple devaluations and note changes. The overall impact of hyperinflation: 1 (1994) real = 2,700,000,000,000,000,000 pre-1930 reis.

Conclusion:
$600,000 of my money comes form the 1990 batch of notes. The $200 bill comes from 1981 and therefore is worth much less. $0.000000073 USD to be exact. In all, the money I have is worth a whopping $126.840000073 U.S. dollars. That is if the banks would even buy it, which they won’t.

Fuck you very much, Brazil.

My only hope for this money is that it will be worth something as a collector’s item one day. Currently, I can sell them all for about $50 USD. Not quite what I need for rent.

As my father gave to me, so I shall pass it on to my offspring.

For rent, I’ll just have to trade in those British pounds I have. And at least my U.S. money is still worth something… for now.

Anna found Daisy in Chinatown, Toronto. She was undernourished, had ear mites and a bad gash on her nose. Anna took her, cleaned her up and made her a part of the family. You’d think she’d recall her rough street walking days and be thankful for every day she gets to lead a life of leisure. Au contraire! Now she acts like show owns this place and everyone in it. And you know what, she pretty much does. Here’s a short list of what she’s done and continues to do:

1) Daisy loves to eat plastic and cellophane until she throws up
Everyone has their vice.

2) Daisy loves to run outside and eat grass until she throws up
Ok, she has two vices. You’re probably wondering why we don’t stop her from going outside. If you saw how much she enjoys the outdoors, you’d let her out, too. I’d rather clean up the puke than see her unhappy.

3) Daisy doesn’t clean herself so well after she poops
This one might be because she’s a few pounds overweight. We’ve put her on a diet, but until that kicks in, we have to cut her bum hair once a week to make things more comfortable for her.

4) Daisy knocked my hard drive over and killed it
This happened when Anna and I first started dating. So I played it cool.

5) Daisy spilled red wine on my laptop and killed it
This happened later in Anna’s and my relationship. I wasn’t as cool.

And for the piece de resistance. Or perhaps I should say the PEEce de resistance…

6) Daisy pees in 6 different parts of our house!
The carpets have been replaced and we’re FINALLY ready for house parties again, but we have to keep a close eye on her. Honestly, we can’t take our eyes off her EVER. If we do, she is sure to pee somewhere again.

Don’t worry, she isn’t sick (we took her to two veterinarians), but it actually would be easier if she WAS sick. That way we’d give her some meds and the problem would go away, done deal. But now we’ve got a behavioral problem which is much harder to deal with.

It started soon after we moved to our new apartment in December, 2008. Daisy had never done anything like this before, but she’s obviously a “pro” because when she started peeing, she started full force. At first only I could smell it, near the workout room in our apartment.

I foolishly suggested the odor was from Anna sweating when she ran on the treadmill.

I was quickly informed by words and the insulted look on Anna’s face that no amount of her exercise could ever produce any type of foul smell. She then told me I was probably smelling my upper lip. We’re very mature in our family.

Soon Anna started to smell it, too, and we figured out it was cat pee. We didn’t know which of the two cats was doing it, so we laid a trap. We put down plastic bags where we found the pee and we set up a camera. Yup. we had to spy on our cats. We felt a little dirty doing that, but it had to be done. And it’s not nearly the dirtiest thing we do.

After one night, we watched the tape back: Daisy come up to the camera, smelled it, knocked it over and then the battery went dead. We’re obviously not pros at this.

The next day, as I was setting up the camera again, the craziest thing happened. Daisy walked in the room, looked at me, smelled the floor, turned and peed on the bag. Right in front of me! No friggin’ shame. Not trying to hide a damn thing. It broke my heart.

The next seven months were filled with plans, schemes and cleaning products.

Here’s some of what we tried, including the costs.

1. Two vet visits. $600.
2. We bought a truckload of Urine Off. It’s a cleaner with enzymes to break down pet urine odors. It usually works, but you have to use a lot of it over time. Approx. $100.
3. We also tried an industrial cleaning service $150.
4. We found out the carpet was too far gone and then had it replaced. $400.
5. We went away on vacation, she peed on the carpet more so we bought more Uring Off. $100.
6. We bought the book, Twisted Whiskers. Notice a resemblance here? $13.50.
   
7. We bought a room divider at Pier 1 to keep her out of the breakfast nook. $200.
8. We bought another room divider at Home Depot to keep her IN the living room when we’re both in there watching TV. It’s really a garden fence, but it’s the only thing that will fit in the space. $30.
9. We bought her bladder medicine and herbal remedies. $75.
10. We bought soothing lavender diffusers. $75.
11. We hired a cat whisperer to adjust her aura and to realign the energy balance in our house. $100.

GRAND TOTAL: $1,843.50

This got me thinking…

Per pound, the Million Dollar Baby was worth $5,882, assuming she weighed in at 170 lbs.

If you add up the money for vet visits, food, litter, toys, etc. and multiply that out over Daisy’s expected lifetime. Then add in all the damage she caused and the cost of the peeing fiasco, you know how much she’s worth per pound?

$5,863!

That’s right folks. Daisy is the Million Dollar Baby!

And she’s worth every penny. Damn you, cockfog!

I grew up with two parents that loved each other immensely. They never divorced and they helped each other through some really difficult times. That helped shape my relationships in a positive way, but it sort of messed me up, too. Lots of high expectations for what a relationship should be… But that’s not the point right now. I’m sure I’ll touch on that more in the future, but for now, just know my parents loved each other and I learned a lot from watching them.

I learned a lot watching my sisters, too. I have two older sisters and they always got into bad relationships. It was the typical situation – they liked the guys way more than the guys liked them. And the guys treated them like shit. You see, my sisters were in constant relationship cockfogs. They either didn’t realize they deserved better, or the mystique of the “cool guy” overwhelmed them, or they just wanted to settle down so badly that they tried to fit a square boyfriend into the round hole of what they truly wanted and deserved. Whatever the reason, I learned from their relationships. I learned how not to treat women.

From my dad, I learned how TO treat women. He was a complete and utter romantic. He would do absolutely anything for my mom from the moment he met her. In other words, he was in a cockfog over my mom.

In the house where I grew up, we had boxes of poems and songs he wrote for my mom. We heard the story of their courtship many times – never getting tired of it.

Dad and mom met in college. Dad was sitting in the back of a lecture hall waiting for the first class of the semester to begin and my mom walked in. Now, my mom actually noticed my dad first, sitting all by himself, and she recognized him as the guy she had a long time crush on. So my mom marched straight to the back of the classroom and plopped herself down in the seat next to my dad. Rows and rows away from anyone else in the class. She quickly realized something… since she had forgotten her glasses that day, the man she thought was her crcush turned out to be someone totally different. Someone she was not nearly as attracted to. But she didn’t have the heart to change seats, so they sat together all semester.

My dad took this as a sign… she was the one.

Semesters came and went and my dad attempted to weasel his way into my mother’s heart. He constantly changed his class schedule to be in all of mom’s classes. He often stopped by my grandmother’s house while my mother was out and wait for her to come home. It got to the point that my grandmother would invite him in and they would talk for hours until my mother arrived. This went on for years until they graduated from college and lost touch.

After college, my mom traveled the world for several months and soon after returning from France, she ran into one of my father’s friends and casually asked, “How’s Jerry?”

This was immediately reported back to my dad and it was another sign for him – game on! He called my mom and asked her out. My mom decided to finally give my dad a shot and they’ve never separated since.

Growing up, I could close my eyes and I always saw myself with someone, married with kids. I knew I was meant to have a family. I knew I’d make a great husband and father, but I could never see who that person was. No solid idea of what I was looking for. I went through years of crazy dates and relationships that lasted much longer than they deserved to. I was fitting many square girls into my round hole, so to speak, until one day I realized that maybe it just won’t happen for me. Yes, I COULD be a great husband and father, but that doesn’t mean I’m GOING to get married. Love at first site exists – it happened for my dad – but statistically it’s impossible that it exists for everyone. And the more I thought about it the more comfortable I felt with the fact that it just may never happen.

It was actually a huge relief. Now it was easier to end relationships when they deserved to be ended. Easier to be single. Who needs to date when you’re okay with being alone?

Then I met Anna.

And it was just like my dad’s story. I saw her and I knew she was someone I had to meet or I would always regret passing the opportunity. I finally asked her out, after a few weeks of scoping the situation, but she wasn’t available. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because over the next year and a half, she and I became close friends. I got to know her better than anyone I had ever dated. I would do anything for her – I was deep in a I-know-we’re-friends-but-it-would-be-great-if-we-were-more cockfog.

Then one day, something changed for us. Most likely because of the beer and tequila we had over Mexican. We just looked at each other and we knew we wanted to spend our lives together. And from that moment on we were truly inseparable. After one week, I told her over tapas in Santa Barbara that I was going to ask her to marry me one day. And she told me that she would say yes. (This was coming from someone that never wanted to get married.)

One year later I proposed on the Malibu cliffs. And she said yes.

The whirlwind, amazing romance continues still for us. And I’ll write more about it in future blogs, for sure.

I learned a lot by trying to find love, giving up and then falling head over heals… I discovered the cockfog. It’s everywhere.

Now Anna’s in a cockfog for me. It’s typically the only time when a cockfog is good… when it’s evenly shared. I hope everyone gets that lucky.

But until then, enjoy reading the rest of the blog. I promise it will not all be mushy, gushy stuff.