Month: September 2019

Before I get into today’s expose’ on my silly quirks- In last week’s anti-barefoot blog I forgot to list one weird memory from almost 40 years ago.  In my local newspaper’s police reports page, there was a guy who was arrested at a local park for trying to get young boys to remove their shoes so he could smell their toes!  I knew of this guy but not personally and at the time he lived just two blocks from me.  I even sent that news story into Larry Lujack’s Police Beat bit on WLS.  Larry tried to sound serious when reading these stories but the toe sniffing tale cracked him up big time!  I wonder whatever happened to that foot freak.  Did be become a podiatrist?  Maybe he manages at a Foot Locker store? Who knows? 

On to this week’s previously scheduled blog-

We’re all individuals.  Everyone has their specific tastes, likes, hates, ways we do things and ways we’d never do things.  An episode of ‘Friends’ showed quirky Ross Gellar would never exit a hotel room until the very last minute before check-out time. Ross was determined to get every penny’s worth out of the room rental fee and would take home all possible items he could like towels, soap, other bath items, pens and paper, mints at the front desk, etc. 

Now here are some of MY personal quirks.

 I have not vomited since early February of 1991.  That’s 28 and a half years and still going pukeless. I remember my last heave because it occurred when I was producing the Murphy in the Morning radio show at Q-101 and a bad flu bug hit me hard.  Right before we got on the air at 5:30 a.m. I rushed to the restroom and got sick. After a few minutes of recovery and clean-up I tried to soldier on.  Twenty minutes later I had to make another urgent sprint to the toilet to hurl. It was obvious I had to leave the show and go home early.  It’s the only time in my radio career that I ever had to leave like that.

I always sleep with my television on.  Even if I wake up in the middle of the night, I may take a wiz but when returning to bed the tube stays on.  This has been my habit ever since I first got a TV in my bedroom at age 10.

Forget that I’m a 58 year old man, I never ever use a tablespoon to eat anything, . Cereal, oatmeal, soup, peas, mashed potatoes, etc. are only eaten with a teaspoon. A table spoon seems just too big and almost desperate to me.

I cannot eat breakfast at home or anywhere else AFTER I’m dressed for the day.  Maybe I’m worried about spilling food on my clothes but it just can’t be done.  Even when staying at hotels, if there’s a breakfast buffet to enjoy, I eat in shorts or sweats & T-shirt then go back to my room to shower and dress for the day.

When getting my hair-cut, I keep my eyes closed throughout the whole process. I’ll only open them when it’s time to check out how the near finished product looks.  This stems back to when I was a kid and my father (who owned a beauty shop) would cut my hair.  When my bangs got too long and dad snipped them off, some hair would drop into my eyes and face. I didn’t like that so I just took to keeping my lamps shut and have done ever since.  Brittany, my regular stylist at Sport Clips must think I’m nuts but that’s o.k.  I still talk and remain social during my hair-cuts.

When traveling in my car I leave my driver’s side window at least partially open.  Even in the dead of a freezing winter, the heater can be blasting warm air but I still need at least an inch of open window happening.  I’m not normally claustrophobic but in my car I do need that burst of open air at all times.

Cubs pitcher Jon Lester has a physical/mental block about throwing a baseball to first place.  I don’t have that issue but for the life of me I can only put my shoes on starting with my right foot. I’ve tried to put on my left shoe or slipper or sock first but something stops me from completing that task. 

When opening mail I use a pair of scissors and neatly clip off the edge of one short edge of an envelope and pour the contents out in my hand.  Just ripping open an envelope with my hands is not going to happen.

With my wallet, my money is always arranged with the small bills (in order) in the front and facing the same way.  I hate getting change in bills handed to me upside down, backwards and in willy nilly order. Also, I never use a money clip.  What’s the point of a money clip if you have a wallet?

This next quirk is for convenience sake but I prefer to see all my movies during the first showing of the day. Number one, it’s cheaper but also there’s less of a crowd and fewer people rudely talking or texting during the film.  Plus I like walking out of a theater to my car and still having lots of daylight happening. Woody Allen talked of this in “Crimes and Misdemeanors” saying catching movies in the daytime feels like playing hooky.

Finally there’s the issue of attraction to the opposite sex. Number one, I am NOT an “ass man”.  Never have been, never will be. A woman’s rear is the last thing I even think about and our culture’s fixation with butts completely escapes me. (Blame that butt focus on Jennifer Lopez or those idiotic Kardashians, I guess) Obviously a woman’s sense of humor and intelligence are top issues for what I’m attracted to. As far as looks go, I have a penchant for women who have pronounced facial features like a defined jaw line and profile.  Think of Law & Order’s Mariska Hargitay or actress Rene Russo.  This attraction no doubt stems from the first women I ever knew in the ‘biblical’ sense had that kind of facial appearance. 

Now the trick is to find some woman crazy enough to put up with my stupid ass quirks.  Good luck with that one! 

NEXT WEEK’S BLOG- 25 years ago- Remembering one of the worst weeks of my life.

Most people who know me or have read my blogs are aware of how gross I find bare feet.  From the back heel of one’s two lower extremities to the tips of even the most neatly trimmed and slickly painted toenails, feet are God’s poorest creation.  Even so called ‘nice looking feet’ are not something I want to see. Veins, bony insteps, crooked or stubby toes that look like mini-cocktail weenie sausages turn my stomach.  I don’t even want to get in to how smelly they can be when wedged into leather shoes for a good part of the day. 

I think my foot phobia is rooted in the constant over-exposure of bare feet I’ve witnessed for decades.  I used to read People magazine every single week and over the years I noticed most celebrity profiles would include a gratuitous photo or two of the star in bare feet; the purpose being they have that ‘at home’ look.  I recall one particular shot of Harrison Ford wearing blue jeans and a dress shirt but he failed to put on shoes. Why the bare feet Harrison?  What the hell? These rich folks can’t afford a $150 pair of Nikes or even a $6 pair of socks? Folks, it’s a modern era, why does everyone want to walk around like they’re the Goddamn Flintstones?

More over-exposure comes from folks (mostly women) who feel the need to wear toe bearing flip flops up to the time the first snowfall of the season happens. And in March when the air temperature climbs to just over thirty degrees these same women are breaking out those flip flops in anticipation and hopes of an early spring.

Then there are the ridiculous selfies people take when lying out on a lounge chair showing off their bare tootsies in the foreground with a swimming pool or lake in the background.  We get it! You’re relaxing in warm weather. This constant display of bare dogs just bred itself into disdain for me and disdain became disgust. 

Speaking of disgust, back in my WLS radio days I remember when a corporate boss named Norm Schrutt came to the station for a visit. He was about to take control of the whole operation and in the first hour of being in our offices Schrutt was parading around in his suit but also bare feet!  I don’t know what happened to the guy’s shoes or socks but I found that behavior to be weird and yes, gross.

In my country radio days I got to hang out with the lovely Deana “Strawberry Wine” Carter a couple of times. She was a friendly and sweet woman with loads of talent.  However, for years when Deana performed live in concert she did so in bare feet.  Come on Deana, what was wrong with sporting a nice pair of cowgirl boots?  The good news is I saw a recent TV appearance pic of Deana and she was wearing shoes.  Amen!

Writer-Director Quentin Tarantino is a well known foot fetish person. He’s talked about this in interviews and has displayed his fixation in movies like “Pulp Fiction” when John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson are talking about the intimacy of foot massages. More recently, in Tarantino’s new movie “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” many of the Manson following hippie chicks are seen lounging around their filthy commune in equally filthy bare feet. Brad Pitt picks up a hitchhiking girl who climbs in, peels off her sandals and props her dirty toes on the car dashboard. She then presses those dirty feet against the car’s windshield.  Why Pitt didn’t throw her out at that point is beyond me.

I’ve also never understood the women’s fashion of the so called ‘peep toed’ shoes.  When I see a woman wearing those styles it looks like they’ve outgrown their footwear and a rebel elongated toe or two has pushed through the leather tip of the shoe.  Women might think those kicks with a hole in them are cute but to me they look low rent and lame.

I hate to harp on just women; at least they TRY to make their dogs look good with pedicures and other treatments.  Men on the other hand can often be cited for neglecting to give their toenails even an occasional trimming.  Last year I was at a health test screening event and sitting in the waiting area we were required to take off our shoes and socks.  I did this and then noticed the man next to me was sporting long thick yellowed toenails.  Quickly I turned my head away as if I just saw a dead body. The guy’s big toenails looked like large sized Frito’s corn chips.  Avoiding throwing up on the spot was an attainable goal, but just barely.

One fellow barefoot phobic person is WGN Morning News co-anchor Robin Baumgarten. She’s made this clear during countless stories and on camera discussions.  I remember a show segment where they featured a guy who prepared sandwiches with his bare feet. He used his curled up toes to pile up bread, meat, pickles and mayo. When the sandwich was complete a show staffer grabbed it and took a bite. Robin was about to wretch as was I.  Another time, Around Town reporter Ana Belaval was doing a live shot from a hot yoga studio with men and women in a sweaty room doing moves on their mats while in their bare feet.  Just before Robin said it out loud I thought, “Ew gross, lots of bare feet in there!”  Great minds think alike right? 

My song parody pal Al Flash and I even came up with a Robin foot phobia parody to the old song “Bare Footin’.”  Check it out here.

All this talk and sharing of video and photos of feet is making me queasy,.I think it’s time I go lie down, and I’ll keep my feet under the covers.

NEXT WEEK’S BLOG– My foot phobia isn’t the only chink in my personal armor.  I’ll share a few more of my quirks, but they won’t be gross like this posting was.

The news of singer Eddie Money’s passing, while sad to hear also brought a sly smile to my face.  That smile comes from a short chat Eddie and I had back in the early 90’s when we had him as an in studio guest on the Murphy in the Morning Show at Q-101.

At all radio stations where I worked, one of my tasks as producer was to record promo announcements or so called I.D.’s from any celebrity we had in for visits.  Over a twenty year period I sat across a studio recording board from countless famous people. Everyone from Peter Frampton, Jerry Seinfeld, Evel Knievel, Bo Diddly and Cindy Crawford to Brooks & Dunn, Dolly Parton, Sam Kinison,Dennis De Young, Trisha Yearwood and Glenn Frey and many more.  Most of the promo liners were written by me so I got to ‘collaborate’ with lots of big time names.   But I digress. Let’s get back to one former New York Police trainee named Eddie Mahoney who left a career as a potential cop and morphed into singer and classic rock radio staple Eddie Money.

After Eddie’s on air interview with Murphy, I escorted him into a production studio and had him record a couple of show promos for Murf and Q-101. Once the quality of those tapings was checked out I usually had a little time to talk with the celeb on hand and with Eddie there was a memory to share with him.

I told Mr. Money about an insane 1978 New Year’s Eve I had at age 17 down in Fort Lauderdale when there with four buddies. What Eddie got from me was how one of his songs was the kick-start to all the fun we had that night and I owed him for that.  My story to the singer lasted just a minute or two but I’ll share with you more of what went down.  It happened over forty years ago but the events about to be described are permanently locked in my memory’s hard drive.   

We rang in the New Year at a bar called The Ocean Mist Lounge and after the countdown to 12 midnight the first song the club D.J. played for 1979 was Eddie Money’s hit “Baby Hold On”.  I think it was a dance mix because the song and our dancing went on for much longer than just the three minutes thirty of that cut.  

Since it was New Year’s, there were plenty of kisses to share with the women in this club.  And these were WOMEN; women in their early and mid to late twenties. Here my pals and I are these goofy clueless high school seniors mashing mouths with any lass who looked good in their Gloria Vanderbilt designer jeans, spiked heels and halter tops. Sure, I had kissed a few girls (again, girls my age) in the past on a couple of dates but this make-out marathon was a whole new ballgame.

There were other songs being played after “Baby Hold On” but it was that tune that launched me into a non-stop game of tonsil hockey with total strangers of the feminine gland.  Our partying took us out to the main drag of Fort Lauderdale and then things kicked into an even higher gear. The street was jammed New Year’s partiers and it seemed like every other car that slowly idled by us was loaded with three or four lovely honeys ready for some intense lip smacking.  So who was I to turn them down,.right?

We curbside Casanovas kept up the spit swap silliness with the Florida hotties for a couple of hours. (We may have done more than kiss but let’s keep this a PG-13 blog, O.K.?) One van I didn’t notice slowly rolled past us and my pal Dave Potter calmly reported, “That girl didn’t have any clothes on.” I sprinted to catch up to the van and sure enough the side panel door to this vehicle was open and inside sat a naked woman. Of course we had to exchange Happy New Year’s pleasantries and I just about died laughing at the craziness!
There was more fun to be had during our week in Fort Lauderdale (I came home with T-shirts from several of the bars we drank at) but that first night, launched at midnight by Eddie Money’s “Baby Hold On” was the lynchpin to the whole deal.
So Eddie Money I hope you rest in peace. You’re aces in my book. One of your early hits gave me an experience that will stay with me until I leave this earth. When recalling December 31st, 1978 with a giggle and smirk like the Delta Frat boys in “Animal House” after their toga party, I also think of another of your songs that is fitting, “I Wanna Go Back.”

NEXT WEEK’S BLOG- The Rationale Behind My Barefoot Phobia.

This week the Elmhurst Independent was kind enough to print my farewell to the 2019 swim season at East End Pool.  For those who don’t get delivery of that paper, here’s what I wrote. 

Another season of swimming at East End Pool has ended and we are all left wondering where did the summer go?  The brutally cold polar vortex infused winter we endured this year made the 2019 summer swimming sessions a beacon of hope to look forward to.   

However, from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day, pool goers were under a constant threat of cooler temperatures and rain which made us appreciate the few warm sunny days we got.  There was the three day run of ultra hot humid conditions in July, but after that stretch afternoons in the mid-eighties’ with little humidity almost seemed cold! Still, we adult swim ‘Regulars’ persisted. 

In the 2005 movie “Fever Pitch” Jimmy Fallon plays a school teacher and Boston  Red Sox season ticket holder who sits with the same fellow fanatics for every home game. While courting Drew Barrymore, Jimmy introduces her to these folks and says, “They’re my summer family.”  Well that perfectly describes me and my fellow swim regulars at East End Pool.  

Sadly we lost some of last summer’s regulars, one moved out of state to be closer to her grandkids, one had to move to a nursing home and another passed away.  We missed these good people and yet there were new friends who became part of the family and we’re always ready to welcome more. 

There’s something soothing about the communal gathering in the waters of East End Pool.   It’s a daily social event and a great thing to look forward to during my teacher’s summer break. While getting in some exercise we share news on what’s going on around town and there’s the banter about everything else from baseball to reviews of new movies and concerts.   I only wish our time in the pool could last longer than a little over three months.

As usual, the staff at East End did a fine job in keeping up the pool and providing a fun and safe place for people of any age to enjoy. 

So now the gates are closed, the water will be drained and we’ve got almost nine months to wait to get back into East End Pool.  Like many others, I’m hoping for a less wicked winter and a warmer and sunnier 2020 season. I look forward to more time spent with my summer family.

NEXT WEEK’S BLOG– EXPLAINING MY BARE FOOT PHOBIA.