Memorial Day with The Fellahs

Short Bus: “Say, Lil Bear, here’s a question for ya…did you NOT mention to Husky that we, you know…aren’t skinny dipping?”

























Xmastime, Lil Bear, Husky, and…my pursed, creepy gay lips. Ugh.
Ohoh...Husky spots somebody else eyeballing the popsicles in the freezer. Shits about to get FOR REALZ.

























“That better be a candy bar in the water, Xmas!!”
Short Bus knows the truth.

























Xmas and Lil Bear play another rousing round of “Look, We Have Hot Dogs!”
Husky: "I really gotta get a new gang.”


























“Which one of you mothafuckers got my Newports wet?”

The Manny Tapes

I've mentioned here several times how batshit The Short Bus is for buses. We can't stroll down the street without him flailing around in the stroller screaming "bus! bus! bus!" and pointing. Sometimes even at an actual bus. But I've noticed that while he squeals with glee as we near a bus, actually being in a bus does nothing for him. As we approach the bus he's like a teenage girl at Shea in '65. Or me at a Hardee's. A kid in the candy store "busbusbusbusbusbsusbusbubs!!!" Then the second we're actually aboard the bus, nothing. He's looking around thinking "what the fuck happened? Where's the bus?"

Poor dude. Spends all day dreaming and obsessing about buses, then the second he's inside of one, he's bewildered and has no idea how to even enjoy it. Man.













"HAHAHAHAHA!! Sounds like you if you ever get laid, you stupid fat fuck!!!"

The Manny Tapes

Short Bus is adding words to his vocab everyday, including people's names. "Mommy." "Daddy." "Luke." "Sarkozy." Eeeeeeeeeeverybody's name, he can say. Except, of course, mine. What does he call me, his closest of companions, his bosom buddy? The guy who spends every day in the trenches with him? His big buddy, his protector?

"Rats."

Christ. I can't fucking win.













"Hahahahaha! Well, you spread disease, you steal food and you have a centimeter-long dick, shithead!!!"

Curious

Spending a lot of time with a little kid means you’re gonna be spending some time with Curious George. We all know the books; just a bunch of “follow George around while he has fun/explores/gets in trouble” etc etc. Whatevs. And now there’s an animated show on PBS with Curious George, which The Short Bus goes apeshit over (pun, of course, intended.) So we’ve been watching it for awhile now, and I’ve just started to notice that every episode, George has a fucking J-O-B. What the fuck is this? When did this start? The Man in the Yellow Hat is getting squeezed by the economy too? Who was the wizard at this board meeting: “Yeah, okay, we’ll do a show with Curious George…but the bastard’s gonna have to pay his own fucking way.” I looked it up, and here’s some of the jobs George has taken:

Grocer
Window Washer
Zoo Keeper
Dog Sitter
Door Man
Architect (sorry, Godsy…but it’s true.)
Train Master
Stain Remover
Plumber’s Helper
Curious George Takes a Job
Curious George Takes Another Job

Jesus christ. Now, what about people who actually have these jobs – gee, must be a good feeling that some cartoon is saying “not only could a monkey do your job, but one who is, sorry to say, a bit of an idiot.” Unreal. And in these days of such strong feelings re: illegal immigrants coming in and taking our jobs; really, is this the time to be saying “hell, we didn’t even bother giving your job to a Mexican, we skipped right over him and gave it to a fucking monkey”?

Hey, PBS hates Americans!!! Propagandist bullshit!!!!!!

The Manny Tapes

One great thing about being a Manny is there's always a jug of milk around. Is there anything better than ice-cold milk? I could live off the shit. And of course I scarf half the fucking gallon myself every day, and then I feel bad and try to cover it up for when the bosses come home. Shit ain't cheap. I'll tip the jug forward so it looks like there's more when you open the fridge, for instance. One time I greeted Short Bus' moms at the door, FURIOUS cause I had "dropped the goddam milk on the floor, spilling the shit everywhere. Dammit, me!!!!" And of course I still try the ol' "i dunno, but BOY does this kid guzzle milk! it's unreal!" Of course they know he's only supposed to have one big cup of it during the day; they can glance at the 1/2 gallon that's missing and know that "gee...that looks like more than 8 ounces missing..." Hey, they're not retarded. Caught up in a midget-pony German porn ring yes, but retarded? Nyet.

Ah well. Hey, I love milk. Makes me more of an American, dammit!!
















"HAHHAHAA!! Why don't you just suck some out of your big man-tits, you fat fuck?!?!!! YEEEEEEEEESS!!!"

Seriously

Is there anything more comical than baby shoes? Maybe the socks. Looks like the Greyhound Bus with a side car. (But sexier, I hope?)

Just Another Friday Morning with Lil Bear & The Short Bus

Preparing the fellahs to take over Xmastime after my inevitable sailboat drowning death. “…and if you wanna post a picture of Gordon, you go to this folder here…well. I guess they're all Gordon folders...”


















Great. Mamalizza found some rum. Nap time, boys!

















“Do it again; it’s not dead yet! Do it!” (cue Stand by Me)


















Xmastime has just offered to babysit Lil Bear for a few hours. Lil Bear's face says it all. Hmm.

















Turns out Xmas is actually busy, can't do it. Lil Bear collapses into Mamalizza’s arm with relief. Asshole!!!!

















I see the McDonald’s cup of “diet Coke” has landed on the floor. Have another one, Mrs. Abdul!!

















The fellahs!!!

















Somehow, the fellas instinctively knew they should look away from the screen when Xmastime started Googling “two cups girls.” Good for them.

















“I’ll take ‘Pictures that Eventually End Up as Evidence' for $1200, Alex.”

















Shootin’ off some emails to a few ex-girlfriends. “Don't worry, they’ll never look up the IP address of this computer!” The boys light up cause I just typed the “I was bout done with you anyways!” quote from Footloose.

The Manny Tapes

A LIST OF THINGS WITHIN A THREE FOOT AREA THAT SHORT BUS TRIED TO GIVE ME WHILE I REPEATEDLY ASKED HIM TO HAND ME THE REMOTE, WHICH WAS ABOUT 4 INCHES FURTHER THAN I COULD REACH, SO I COULD TURN DOWN THE TV AS THE BABY HAD FINALLY FALLEN ASLEEP IN MY ARMS IN THE RECLINER:

bus
car
another car
snowmobile
Elmo
a monkey in pajamas
fire engine
truck
cement mixer
another monkey (no pajamas)
football
truck
bus (again)
snowmobile (again)
bus (again)
Elmo (again)
snowmobile (my head explodes)

ie every single thing in sight except, of course, the fucking remote. Christ.














"Hahahaaha!! You had another kid? Aren't you supposed to lose weight afterwards, you fat fuck?!!?!?!"

Manny Crack

Seriously. I need help. Is it socailly acceptable to schedule one's own intervention?










and for those of you who saw the title of this post and thought you were getting a shot of my ass...shame on you.

(getting camera out)

The Manny Tapes

Short Bus waves goodbye to things, but never says hello, even though it's the same arm motion and "hi" seems as easy to say as "bye", one would think. Somehow I feel there's a George Jones song in there somewhere.

The Manny Tapes

I've noticed that whenever I'm strolling around with Short Bus, about 85% of black guys that walk by look at him and give a little smile, or a "wassup little man" or some such. At worst, they at least notice him. Very nice. But I have yet to see a fucking white dude be distracted from his Gang of Four b-sides alternate takes playlist to even glance at the kid. Fuckwads. Or is this some social commentary on their part, disgusted with Short Bus' very existence since only people on the Upper East side should have kids, and even then it should be adoption. Fuckwads.

The Manny Tapes

Unfettered and without a whole tv dinner to clean up down below, I'd guess I can change a diaper in about 11 seconds. Tabtabdiaperoffwipepowderdiaperdiaperontabtabdone! Luckily for me the boy knows this and, refusing to see me rest on my laurels and settle into complacency when he knows that someday this may become an Olympic event, on a daily basis he tries to make this little process as mind-blowingly difficult as possible. Let's be honest - this should be the one thing he knows how to do by now. Several times a day, every day since he was born he gets changed. He knows this: "if I just lie still for about 15 seconds, my body will be free of my own urine and feces and I can go back to enjoying whatever I was enjoying (most likely watching the Manny act out scenes from Barbara Cartland novels.") But no. Thankfully he knows he has a job to do, which is to make sure my skills stay sharply honed while under duress.

First comes the shaking and screaming and crying. Cause he has to pretend, of course, that he's never had this done before. Like Marines going through the obstacle course with machine gun fire over their heads, he makes sure I have a high-pitched shriek going into each ear to disorient me and drive my blood pressure up so that blood squirts out of my hair. Sweet!

Then comes the rolling from side to side. This is usually when I have one tab of the diaper off, so as to make getting the second one off as difficult as possible. He'll roll as quickly as possible to one side, seeming as if he wants to jump off the changing table. "I can't live like this, I'm breaking out!!!" Of course he doesn't actually wanna jump off the table, but my having to react fast will only help me in any qualifying contests. So now I gotta grab him and get him on his back again. But before his back touches the table, now I hafta make sure that no shit went flying out and is lying there, waiting to be made into a pancake by his back; therein me missing it and spending the next 3 hours repeating "did you shit again? jesus...did you shit?" constantly checking every 45 seconds and of course I see nothing in his diaper, and miss the lurking shit on his back. The veritable sock against the side of the dryer, if you will.

So now I got the bad diaper off and gotta get the fresh one on. Basically a repeat of the above, except that during the rolling flip now he desperately tries to hide one of the diaper tabs so I have to dicker around for it. All, of course, while having my ears pinned back by his shrieking.

Luckily (again) for me he's added a new move to his repertoire so as to not let me get too cocky. Since he's gotten longer, he can actually reach me with his legs while lying down ont his particular table. So usually once the fresh diaper is on and I start to put his pants or onesie back on, he'll straighten out his legs and heel-kick me in the stomach. And he's long enough now that if he catches me off-guard, it actually pushes my arms back and I may drop whatever I have, such as the last snap in a 9-snap outfit, therein pulling all the other snaps out and making me start over again. Joy! Or, sometimes, the tab on a diaper. Once I pass this last bit, my test is over. The second he's all snapped up and I start to pick him up from the table, miraculously the crying stops, his face is dry and once again his face goes from "ohmygod Godzilla is outside the house!!!" to "pork belly futures, down an 1/8th I see, hmmm...."

So I'd like to take a second to thank the boy for never taking it easy on me. It's like he always says, "To reach one's summit in the arch of triumph, you really smell like a bag of dicks today Manny faggot!" Sigh.














"Hahahahaa!! Kicking your stomach?!! I'm trying to get to your nuts, you fat fuck!!!"

Short Buys Lit

This is my favorite Dr. Seuss picture, straight outta One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Jew Fish. Kills me lookin at it; it's a little kiddie book and yet this fish has his ears pinned back, apparently determined to fly like a bat outta hell until he hits somebody. Lookit those eyes for fucks' sake, gleefully looking for some pregnant woman to plow over (dark rings too...up all night on a coke bender?) He's hurtling along so fast that the fucking car, which I notice is shaped like a torpedo, is actually leaning forward for chrissake. Wow. And to top it off, it looks like he's got a cigarette in his left hand. Awesome.

Babies and Cats

I've noticed that there are two ways that babies are like cats. For one, just like when a cat feels compelled to go to another room, any room, the boy is the same way. The second any door opens up, he is in full sprint, deperate to get to the other side. And when the door is shut in front of him he pitches a fit, laying down crying and flailing. I'm like dude - everyone you know is on this side of the door. We feed you and change you and love you all day, every day. But no, he's GOTTA get somewhere else, no matter what! Cracks me up every time. I would never do it, but sometimes I think I should say fuck it and let him go out, walk out the house. Follow him into the street, where he'll be sitting in the cold amongst broken glass, no food in sight and basting in his feces. "Hmm" he'll think "this kinda sucks. Maybe I should stay inside."

Of course, my fear would be him saying "Well, this is still better than hanging out with your sorry ass all day, Gordon Ramsay ass-sucking faggot."

Also like cats, babies can be complete assholes. We joke about how aloof and jerky cats are, but babies are the same way. Someone can come up to the boy cooing and smiling and yammering bout how cute he is, and he'll just look at them and, more often than not, simply turn and walk away. If I do that, I'm a complete asshole. But babies? "Awww, lookit him go! attaboy!" Like a cat (and unlike adults) he doesn't even pretend to remotely like you, he doesn't do the polite dance. "Not interested, see ya fuckface!"

Baby Delivery

Heeeeeeeey, you know what I fucking loooooove? When a delivery guy comes to the door and rings the bell. And if I don't INSTANTLY spring the door open, if a nanosecond goes by, he really leans into it and rings the motherfucker again. And again. Thanks guy! Maybe I should hang in the doorway like a fucking bat in case you come by so you don't hafta wait 6 seconds for me to walk all the way across the room to get to the door? But I guess you do need those extra rings to make sure you wake up the baby and get the dog worked up into a nice, freakishly loud barking frenzy, right? Fuuuuuuuuck.

My Godsons

The one disappointment I have in Lil Bear and The Boy is that they're the only 2 males on the planet who don't think farts are hysterical. I'll let fly a roundhouse to the senses, and instead of howling laughter will be met with blank stares. Disappointing. I guess their thinking is "congratulations on breaking wind, old man. I just shit myself, so..." I look forward to the day they start laughing their heads off at farts. And Yo Mama jokes. IE my whole canon.









"YESSSSSSSS! Another good one, Godfathah!"

Fireside

The Manny Tapes

Heeeeeeeeeeeey, let's hear it for the fucking octogenarians that are always in front of me and the boy when we're going up the stairs in the subway. I'm carrying the entire stroller, plus him, plus whatever I've picked up from the store etc, and I always seem to get right behind some fucker mmoooooooooooooooseying their way up the steps, going slow so they can soak in every second before they shuffle off this Earth. Fuck!!!!!















"Hahahaha!!!! Maybe if you weren't hauling your fat ass around too it wiouldn't be so bad, you fat four-eyed motherfucker!!!!!"

The Manny Tapes

Every day I feed the boy in the morning, then we goof around for awhile, and then I put him down for a nap. He usually sleeps about two hours, then he gets up and we do the exact same routine again. It dawned on me today: I wonder if he thinks that's two seperate days? Great. No wonder he laughs out loud every time he watches me get paid - he thinks I'm getting half as much as I really am!


















"Hahahaha! You broke ass motherfucker - I should get paid for having to hear your fucking bullshit everyday, faggot!!"

The Manny Tapes

Putting the kid down for his nap is a lot like taking the dog to the vet - kid's completely clueless about what's happening until the very last second.

Every single morning at about 10:30 I grab a big ol bottle of milk, hoist him into the easy chair with me and wind him down. Within minutes he's guzzling the milk and rubbing his eyes, starting to slowly drift into the ether of sleep.  After a few more minutes I get up and start carryng him upstairs where his bedroom and crib are. Now, as I said, this is the EXACT same every day. Yet at no point has he figured out what this series of events lead to; I can read his mind what he must be thinking each time:

"Oh boy, that milk was great! Hey, where's the Manny taking me....hey, up the stairs!  Great! Hey look, the hallway upstairs! This is awesome! Where we going - aquarium? Zoo? Meeting my buddy Luke? Hey, we're in my bedroom now! Great!  This is awesome! Wow, my crib! Looky here! We're going to my crib, alright!  Alright, now we...hey, wait a fucking second...he's lowering me into the crib!  What the FUCK is happening??!!  Oh shit, it's naptime!  FuuuuuuuuuccckK!!!" at which point he flips out bitching and screaming.  Until of course 30 seconds later when he's face down, fanny in the air sleeping.















"Hahahaha!! Yeah Xmastime, I'm really 'sleeping', you stupid fat fuck! Now get the fuck out!"

The Manny Tapes

I always thought if I ever had a kid or was involved in the day to day rearing of one I'd be one of those guys that remembers every stage perfectly: you did this at 3 months, you looked like that at 6 months, you lent me $10 at 7 months blah blah blah.  But it turns out I'm the opposite: I can't remember what the kid did or looked like yesterday, much less 6 months ago. I look at him now and it's like well, that's how he's always looked and always will. Bam, right there. There he is.  I remember the last meal I gave him and I know what the next thing I'll feed him is, but that's it. His mother will come home and ask what he ate earlier in the day, and my brain freezes. "What the fuck...did he have....rosemary flan with tempered pomegranite drizzle...?"  Same thing with any activities we do; I know we've gone around the city on a couple of adventures just this week, but I have no idea what they were. I'm sitting here scratching my head "what the fuck...where'd we go on Monday...I have no idea...which day was my dance recital?" Is this normal? I usually have good recall re: shit I do on a daily to yearly basis. Maybe it's a survival thing, you're hyper-focused on the kid's present state and that's it? Or am I just a fucking idiot?

The kid's amnesia is at least a lot funnier. Typical case is today. He's in his plastic chair with tray combo chowing away at lunch when all of a sudden, fuck that!  Blows up into a rage, smacking the chair, howling. Has to get the fuck outta the chair, and now. I pull him out and he gives the chair a look that tells me he expects me to throw it off the roof while afire, never to be heard from again. Dude looks like he's possessed; I half expect a priest to walk through all of a sudden "get rid of that chair!" And maybe stop for a make out session (say, why don't they make the whole plane outta the stuff they make the black box with?) So I start to take him over to the living room to play and goof around when I'm like shit, I gotta take care of something real quick in the kitchen. And I don't wanna leave him alone in the living room for that long, so I step back into the kitchen. What am I gonna do with him? Obviously he now hates the chair forever and will never sit in it again. I'm looking around; I guess I could just let him on the floor, but of course that's covered with the 40 pounds of food he tossed while "eating" a minute before. I'm standing there thinking when GUESS WHO all of a sudden is like "heeeeeeeeyy, look! a shiny, plastic chair!  that I can sit in! this is great!!" and practically hurls himself outta my arms and into the chair, where he has the time of his life for the next twenty minutes. This, mind you, about thirty seconds after he was acting as if the chair had popped him in one of his nuts. Go figure.















"Hey Xmas, guess what I DIDN'T forget? That's right,
get the baby wipes you stupid fuck!!  hahahahahaaha!!!!

The Manny Tapes

When a kid turns one year old, his job description changes from "lovingly accept food with wide-eyed gratitude and love" to "throw as much food around as possible." So for a while now the boy spends most of our meal breaks tossing the shit everywhere. And nowadays he barely bothers to even notcie what the fuck he's throwing: "...peas pasta grapes check check check, let's keep this shit moving....(toss toss toss)" And now this morning he's learned hey, he doesn't hafta blindly just toss the shit around, he can throw the food AT someone!!

I have a college degree. I served my country. And now I'm standing here as blocks of cheese bounce off my forehead and pieces of canteloupe stick to my clothes. The boy is howling with laughter cause a grape just hit my eye. Dignity 1, Manny 0.








"Hahahahaaha!! I can't miss, you pathetic fat fuck!!!"

The Manny Tapes

Another funny thing about babies you realize is here we are, the human race. Have dominated the planet like no other species in it's history, are at the absolute top of the food chain. We have no natural predators. We are, to be sure, the tits. But is there a species wherein a newborn is more helpless? A gnat has a kid and BOOM! baby gnat's flyin round looking for food. You lay a human newborn down on the ground and it just lays there til it dies, completely helpless. At no point does it think to itself "I don't think anyone's coming, I better figger out a way to get my own cable hooked up...."  Just lays there. Literally cannot do anything to ensure it's own survival. But when it grows up, it can potentially rule the Earth. Ain't that sumpin.






"Hahaha!!  I've fallen and Xmastime gets paid $8 a day to get me up, that fucking loser douchebag!!!"

The Manny Tapes

One funny thing about watching a baby crawl around on the floor is when they trip. Which, even as I'm watching it occur, I have no idea how this happens. On all fours motoring around; next thing you know, face down in the carpet. Yes, I could riff on that sentence for about another paragraph, but I'd like to keep a post clean, for once. Like trying to figure out who's buying all these Nickelback albums, the crawling trip remains a mystery. And while I'm not a tuff-guy Manny - usually any sign of upcoming crying and I'm Sir Hugs-a-lot - when he "trips" while crawling and looks up at me, firing up the waterworks, I'm like oh HELL no, I can't get on board with soothing you for this. Almost as bad as when my Grandma broke her hip while sitting in a chair. Man. Baffling.






"Hahahaha!!  Xmas, you WISH you could munch some rug, you fucking faggot!!!"

The Manny Tapes

Yesterday while wheeling the boy around in his stroller we rolled up beside an old man being pushed in a wheelchair. I saw his little head wheel to the right to stare at the old man for a few seconds, then I could read the kid’s look of relief perfectly: “oh, thank God...I thought I was gonna hafta learn how to walk! This is AWESOME!!!”









"HAHAHA!!  Keep pushing, you fucking douchebag!!"