Lessons Learned From John Edwards

I was so very wrong about the shamed politician.

I never see famous people. Wait. I’m lying. I saw JP II when he was here in 1979. I was 11, and my grandmother took me to his mass on the Parkway. He got near us, and church-lady Beatlemania broke out all around me. Then, when I was a teenager, my mother made me get Frankie Avalon’s autograph at the Italian Market Festival. He was really excited. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I had no idea who he was, so I hugged him and said I was a big fan. There was also Alice Cooper in the Cleveland Marriott. He was serenely eating an omelet and reading the paper, not in full make-up.

Look! Confident, Employed People in Their 20s

Alert the anthropologists.

Middle-aged people and their someday-you’ll-see-what-I-mean advice can really get on your nerves when you’re young. Do you think we don’t see you rolling your young eyes with all that smooth skin around them, or we don’t hear your sighs, and even your whispers of “Blah, blah, blah,” to your giddy little friends? We’ll talk on anyway, for your own good, so that you know what to do with your directionless lives. Mostly because of what we didn’t do with ours. Once in a while, the intelligent, well-raised ones among you will listen, not just to be polite either, and occasionally they’ll say "you're right!"

Advice for the Class of 2012: Don’t Fear the Wienermobile

Because you can’t drive a hot-dog truck when you’re 40.

To the Class of 2012, I have a small, but memorable, piece of advice: If you’re offered the opportunity to travel the country in the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, take it. Your bourgeois friends will tell you to get an internship at an advertising agency or a TV station, like everyone else. Your parents may respond with the predictable guilt trip that they’re not putting you through college so you can go gallivanting all over god’s green earth in a hot-dog car. Ignore them all. Just get in that giant mobile meat stick, floor it, and don’t look back. I wish I had.

Cinco de Mayo Is Not Another Reason to Get Wasted

We can turn anything into a drinking game.

Let me see if I understand this: Some of us would like our government to put up a fence to keep Mexicans in Mexico, maybe even post sharpshooters along our border with them so they know who’s boss, yet we’ve turned the anniversary of one of their wars with another country into our beer-drinking holiday. Like we need another one. Cinco de Mayo is a much bigger deal in the U.S. than it is in Mexico. In fact, they make no deal about it at all. Leave it to us to turn a six-degrees-of-negative-historical connection into a fiesta.

My Enema Shop Is Open for Business

Convince women they’re worthless as is, and make millions!

I’ve been wracking my brain for a business idea, and I finally have it: prenuptial enemas. Persuading the bride that she’s merely a healthy dump away from getting into her dream dress is Advertising for Dummies. Maybe you smell poop, but I smell my beach house.

Every Small Town Wants to Be a Cultural Mecca These Days

But there’s a Philly spirit that the hinterlands can’t mimic.

I never thought I’d hear a deejay say this: “Van Halen is about to take the stage, so come on out. Tickets are still available at all price levels,” but I did, and I became instantly indignant because the show was in Reading. What else could anyone in Reading have to do on a Monday night? Go see Van Halen. You never know when their last time around will be their last time around. Eddie looked like he’d disconnected himself from the blood transfusion machine five minutes before the show started in 2007, and he was wearing capri pants. I was a little worried then, mostly about the capri pants, but the show blew my head off, but it was in Philadelphia—where concerts are supposed to be.

Your Teenager Is Probably a Foul-Mouthed Tramp

Though that would be your fault.

Since I’d want to know, pronto, if my son’s reply to being asked for his homework was, “Suck my dick,” my policy as a teacher is to volley this sort of thing right back to parents. Initially, when handling such issues, my accounts were generic, like that the student used “unacceptable” or “obscene” language in class. Soon enough, giving verbatim reports were more worthwhile for everyone, especially me. If I had to hear it, so should their parents. A ninth-grader actually did tell me to suck his dick when I asked for his homework, and I called his mother that same afternoon and told her.

Match.com Fails Greek Goddess

Digital dating horror stories.

My sister describes her co-worker Celia as “Greek, in a goddess kind of way.” No one needs to see that everyday at her place of employment, especially not my very short, very pregnant sister, Vicky. Celia and Vicky work in marketing together at Godiva Chocolate in Manhattan, where everyone indulges in as much product “research” as they can stomach, including Celia. While she sounds like the type of chocolate-eating supermodel women love to hate, my sister likes her a lot. According to Vicky, Celia is kind, funny, smart and beautiful, one of those “whole package” people, so it's curious that her dating life sounds like a Punk’d marathon.

Pink Slime Isn’t the Most Disgusting Thing You’ve Inhaled

Spare us your outrage.

If you’re willing to eat a hamburger that costs a dollar, should it perturb you to find out that you’re getting more of the cow than you think you are? You can trust the government this time, though. They swear. The USDA says that once the butchered cow carcass debris is scraped off slaughterhouse floors and pressed into itty-bitty pink slime meatballs, the meatballs are fumigated with ammonia, so you won’t get E. coli, making the product that plumps up your ground beef “safe and nutritious.” They prefer to call it LFTB, lean finely textured beef. It almost sounds healthy. Makes you want to supersize your dollar burger, and then start panting until someone finally gives you a belly rub because this is also the recipe for dog food.