You Can Drink All the Liquor, Part III

Are you ready for the country?

Just one more day and I'm off with son Brandon to the Central American nation paradise known as Costa Rica!

Am I ready in body, mind, and spirit? Well,  frankly I'm about as ready as Snooki is to star in a West End production of Coriolanus. 

I've not been on vacation for five years.  My bathing suits have cuffs.  My suitcase is so old it doesn't even have wheels despite the fact that wheels had already been invented when I bought it.  I haven't been on a plane since the movie they were showing was National Treasure.   Even Nicholas Cage makes fun of that.

So it's time at last to get my act together because I'm taking it on the road. And it's a  pretty long road, with a stopover in Charlotte North Carolina to boot.

First, I need to attend to my toiletries. I require medication for nausea, constipation, diarrhea, malaria, weltschmerz,  performance anxiety (in my case, anxiety that I'll never get the opportunity to perform), and fear of being seated next to Ted Nugent. 

I must also pack an extra pair of contact lenses and all the various shampoos, conditioners,  root lifters, and other Hair Helper products I use to create the illusion of hair in gullible people. Through a mix of prescription and over-the-counter drugs and various and sundry sundries, I will become a flying Rite-Aid.  All that's missing is a flying pharmacist. 

Then, there's the matter of clothing.  Virtually everything you wear has to be sprayed with something called DEET to protect it from being dive-bombed by Costa Rican insects the size of Kirstie Alley.  It is important to follow the instructions on the can label which warn you to never EVER let the spray contact your skin or you will rapidly dissolve like Nosferatu touched by the first rays of early morning sunlight.  Curiously enough, nothing on the label promises that it will work half as well on the big ass bugs seeking to establish military beachheads on your butt.

To protect the top of my head from burning like the most resolute and unrepentant  sinner in a painting by Hieronymous Bosch, I'll also need a floppy broad-brimmed hat and a boldly colorful bandanna. Coupled with the new sunglasses I bought several weeks ago, I'm sure to strike the image of the far and away least cool 60 plus year old rock star ever to be written up in Wikipedia.

Finally there's the experience of a Central America sojourn itself.  Just imagine:  Me - someone who feels like he's returned to the state of nature whenever I have to fetch a wiffle ball out of the neighbor's azaleas - communing with over 10,000 indigenous species of flora and fauna  in the rain forests of Costa Rica.

I'm actually pretty cool with respect to virtually all of that flora and fauna except for two types of fauna you may have heard something less than favorable about over the years known as crocodiles and snakes.  Fortunately the guidebooks all say that visitors to Costa Rica should be just fine as long as they avoid those areas in Costa Rica in which crocodiles and snakes are known to congregate, those areas being more specifically described as Costa Rica.

Luckily my friend Carrie Bailey,  a wise and experienced world traveler, has been helping me to overcome these anxieties. Carrie provides the kind of tough love that makes me want to work diligently to oust my fears despite the fact that my efforts to use our time together towards maneuvering her into bed have proven totally fruitless. Thanks to Carrie's wise ministrations, crocodiles and snakes will not give me to dread just as long as screaming aloud remains prominent on the itinerary.

And so, I bid adieu to my loyal readership (I believe your name is George) for just a little while.

One more thing:  I'd very much like to bring you all something back from Costa Rica.   If you think of it, please tweet me your T-shirt size.  I probably won't buy you one,  but I'll be very excited thinking about the T-shirt sizes of my women followers when I'm on the plane.

Okay, have a good couple of weeks.

I guess I'm ready ....    

 Yep!  I'm ready!

The Kardashian Kard

Feeling anything, Mr. President?

Thought not!

Just when it seemed like President Obama was on a bit of a winning streak with his Libyan strategy working out as smoothly as a scriptwriter's dream, Fate has intervened to hand the Republican presidential hopefuls a brand new card.

The "Kardashian Kard."

"It is an outrage," Rick Perry declared  late last week, "for this President to state that he doesn't 'like it' when his daughters watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians!"

What don't you like, Mr. President?  Upstanding members of the American 1% making money the old-fashioned way  --- through personal contacts, superficial attributes, and unmitigated hype?  Or would  you rather throw yourself in with the rabble 99% who work by the sweat of their brow, that is, whenever they can find any brow to sweat in?"  

"And this President shows his socialist stripes," chimed in Herman Cain, "when he says  his daughters are prohibited from watching television during the week unless it's for school!

Without TV blasting morning , noon, and night seven days a week, how is America's next generation going to learn the jingles and catch-phrases of American capitalism? Who's going to obnoxiously push parents to buy the sugary drinks, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, Count Chocula Cereal, and pizza, pizza, PIZZA! that fuel the engines of the American economy?

Who are you, sir?  The Tiger Mom?"  

"The reason this President has made these ludicrous statements about the Kardashians," Michele Bachmann tweeted, "is because he personally has no physical attraction  whatsoever toward Kim Kardashian, if you know what I'm tweeting!" 

I'll bet Barack Obama has never once cracked open a People or an Us Magazine with a Kim Kardashian photo spread,  creased it firmly at the page with  the sultriest, hottest, lowest cut photos going, and propped it strategically against a pillow --- just as every red-blooded, Jesus loving, gun toting American male from sea to shining sea has done no end of times!

I, Michele Bachmann, would never associate with a man like that, and until this President's out of office, I'm simply going to stare ahead blankly!"

Will the Kardashian Kard prove successful for the GOP?  President Obama is taking no chances. 

Next Thursday he welcomes Snooki to the White House for an official visit.

Word is he's working feverishly on Rosetta Stone, Jersey Shore Edition so when she arrives, he can greet her in her native tongue! 

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