Clareified

“I know you love me like a brother/but I just noticed you’re one hot mother.”-Jamie
“Why would you listen to Karol? It’s like you never learn” -JCN

It was quite the night. My Scrabble punching bag ™ was playing a gig at Arlene’s grocery down in the Bowery. (Incidentally, why would anyone think a grocery store was a “cool” motif for a bar? Seriously, hipsters, keep this up and I may just start hating you guys more than hippies. And I hate hippies. And the French.) Anyway, so I insisted that Karol and I go. I put my foot down and said emphatically, “Jamie is our new friend and he bought us pizza and dammit, you will get out of your house and drive to Manhattan to pick me up or I will beat you with my shoe.”
Oops…well, I said it or Karol said it - point is it was said and we were there.
I showed up to Karol’s place on time and as usual she took her normal 34 minutes in getting her butt downstairs. And when she arrived, she was wearing a yellow and white cheerleading outfit.
“Umm…so…what’s up Kar…you got a pep rally after the show? Is um Danbury Prep playing their rivals in McManerberry and you’ve got to cheer on the football team…are your pom poms in the trunk?”
Seriously. A 30 year old in a cheerleading outfit! Honestly.

“What? I look cute. I don’t even need pom poms.”
Uhh…I don’t know what that means…and I’m not going to ask.
When we got to the bar the whole Wall Street game was there. Wendy said Karol and I looked pretty.
I assume this is because I am Wendy’s personal ATM at the poker tables and when she sees me, she sees a pile of money that she can spend later.
We headed downstairs to the stage to say hi to Jamie before he went on, but we were too late.
His band consists of two singers and a drummer and he also plays guitar.

I don’t remember the first song, but I do remember him saying “ok and our next song is about making sweet sweet love to your best friend.”
And then doing a set that would make Dawson and Joey blush.
“I want what’s under your sweater?!!!!!” Good lord, my virgin ears.
He then did a “mashup” of some Led Zeppelin song and My guitar is crying by the Monkees because they have the same notes. They evidently did this to avoid being sued for royalties by Paul McCartney.
Halfway through the mashup, Karol started singing along and I was like “how do you know the words to Jamie’s band’s songs? Did he give you a CD?”
And then she was all “how do you not walk into walls…that’s the Beatles.” Oh yeah, I didn’t mean Monkees, I meant Beatles above.
It was Pauly Walnuts 40th birthday and so Jamie sang a birthday song for him. I expect that in the upcoming 34 days, I too will have a birthday song performed for me. Else heads will roll.
I was dragged outside to take glamour shots of the 30-year-old cheerleader and we met one of Jamie’s lovely extra special lady friends.
“Oh, you’re Dawn and Karol!”
She said.
“Uh oh….don’t believe a word he says about me, though what he says about her is no doubt totally true,” we each said simulataneously.
Not our first rodeo.
Evidently, poor Jamie has been staying up nights memorizing Scrabble words. I’m guessing he’s trying to lower the amount of points that I whomp him by. It’s cute.
My night of bar hopping and band watching over, twas time to celebrate the 31st year of my dear dear friend, assface.
When I was cajoled into going to the concert, my dear dear friend stupid girl I went to high school with, told me that the concert place was close to the bar F-train had chosen for his shindig.
But as we left the concert, she then told me that the bar was in Chinatown/Little Italy area.
I got in my car and it suddenly started to rain cats, dogs and giant flying squirrels.
I couldn’t see or hear anything except buckets of water — it was very disconcerting because I had grown used to the sound of Fisch screaming in the passenger seat “I don’t want to die,” like a little old lady as I drive in that kind of weather. Really, it’s the little things that you miss.
Anyway, after um floating around Chinatown for twenty minutes, I called Kaz…but got no answer, so I called the birthday boy himself.
“Are you melted too,” he answered.
“No…where in chinatown is this place?”
“It’s not in Chinatown, noob.”
Ohhh…stupid Karol.
I finally find the bar buried beneath a French restaurant in Soho.
F-train is sitting at the bar with JCN, Zo and an Asian guy, we’ll call him…AG.
I bought the birthday boy a drink and we relocated to the couches at the back.
Moments later, the funniest person I have met in ages, bursts into the room and says “Jesus, mother of God, ” could you have picked a more obscure bar on a shittier night for this?
We’ll call him Johnny Badhair because he asked us too and we always do whatever funny men tell us to.
Johnny regale us with tales of following a chick out of the subway because she was wearing an extremely short skirt and a white baby T-shirt and had no umbrella.
“She lost me though…I think her scum-bag-ometer went off.”
Johnny was a writer but he said he was currently retired.
“Although, I’m supposed to turn in some pages in a few weeks, i bet their going to pissed when they hear I’m retired.”
My favorite…ok…well…it’s hard to pin down a favorite Johnny story. But I told him about this documentary which follows a guy around as he tries to visit ever Starbucks in America.
Johnny then says: “I don’t drink coffee, but my last girlfriend did and every morning I’d have to go down and get her a cup of some vento mocha bullshit, which I could never get right.”
“Dude, you’re a writer…why didn’t you write it down?”
“I’m a writer…not a secretary.” (Oh, speaking of which, the receptionist from F-train’s office came and F-train told me that she was a comedienne who knew Charles Star. To which I responded…oh, she’s a comedian? Does she like answer the phones at the office in a funny way? Like “whasssssupppp?” This made me laugh. It did not make anyone else laugh.)
Anway, so Johnny is like “yeah I could never get her order right and the guy at the counter would look at me like I was retarded because I couldn’t order this coffee and I’d tell him…look, I’ve never had a Starbucks and he looked at me and said “man, you’ve gotta try it because once you have one, you won’t be able to stop.”
“Why would he think that was a good thing, he sounded like a crack dealer…so I told him that and the look he gave me, you just knew he was going to spit in that coffeee…but I was like, whatever, it’s for my girlfriend. You can do whatever you want to it, I’m getting laid just for bringing it to her.”
He had me giggling the whole night, at which point F-train said “well, it looks like you’ve found a new target audience, Johnny.”
“Yeah, drunk girls…next time I ask my agent where I’m playing, if he says an AA meeting, I’m going to be all NO WAY!”
(Now, point of information, I was not drunk. I’d been drinking pepsi and seltzer water the whole night, but I was also buying F-train Jameson’s on the rocks the whole night…I assume this was the confusion…or it was incessant laughter…)
Meanwhile, F-train is desperately trying to get me to call him an assface, so I’d have to start my 24 hours all over again.
“Hey, you know Johnny exclusively dates black women…so you might actually have a chance there, Dawn.”
“Fuck you, as…F-train…Happy Birthday!”
Then he was crying because Kaz was in California and Charles had a show and Jim Tockery was at a concert and Mary was in DC and his boyfriend didn’t come from California.
“No one came…waaaa.”
“Yes, but I’m here!”
“You’re 3/5ths of a person.”
“Fuck you as…F-train…Happy Birthday!”

F-train’s birthday party.
Johnny then told us that his dad had like 40 guns. And that he worked for the postal service.
“Yeah, anybody breaks into that house is getting shot 415 times and my father won’t even have to reload….he has a sawed off shotgun with a splatterglass…which basically just says I want to see the look on your face before I blow your head off, but I don’t want to get any of it on me.”
Again, funny as hell.
He made the comedienne girl want to smash a glass over his head though when he told her that he thought Charles Star was funnier than she was.
And even when he said “I’m just kidding,” she looked like she would still deck him.
Anyway, it was getting late — I can tell this because F-train was slightly bent over and trying to have his “every 6 months” make out session with the Australian girl at the bar.
At which point Curt says “6 months? Every other guy I know has a monthly make out session with her.”
“Wait, that girl has made out with you? When you touched her before she looked repulsed, like she wanted to reach for her rape whistle,” Johnny interjected.
“I guess that’s why F-train only gets some every 6 months.”
At this point I had taken out my car keys and was basically waiting out the moments until the F-train birthday forcefield evaporated at midnight.
“Hey, you’re driving,” Johnny asked me. I thought he was lookng for a ride.
“Yeah, where are you headed?” I casually asked.
His eyes widened.
“Um…you think that’s a good idea?”
“Huh?”
“Umm…you’ve had a lot to drink…”
I start to laugh even more hysterically than before.
“That was just pepsi.”
The clock hit 12:01 and I turn around, point at F-train and say very loudly “YOU SIR, HAVE THE FACE OF AN ASS. To wit: Asssssfffaaaaccccccceeeeeee.”
This causes Johnny to say “really? She’s sober?”
And then I laughed some more.
I ran to my car through the rain and made a note that birthdays planned on one day notice may not be such a good idea from an attendance standpoint, but sometimes, just sometimes, they can still be funny as hell.

Oh my GAWD. This took FOREVER!!! But with assface’s birthday safely done away with it….the totally awesome fantabulous Dawn Summers birthday season begineth!

DAWN SUMMERS’ BIRTHDAY SEASON OF LOVE AND ADORATION

6/30-7/1 Maryland
7/7-7/8 New York
7/14-7/15 Montana
7/20-7/22 California
7/27 -IHO tournament birthday season invitational

Oh and in case you forgot, I have a wishlist for all your shopping needs.

And yes, people who are constantly getting lost with me in my car…that navigational system is still on it.

We also take cash, checks, credit cards, fun gadgets and gizmos, anything Clay Aikeny, Beyonce Atlantic City concert tickets, the Wii, one on one time with Oprah Winfrey, a seat in Congress or an invisible plane.

Oh and in order of awesomely awesome things that are totally and completely free, Dawn Summers loves:

1. Clareified Comments.
2. Links.
3. IHO comments, especially to the extent that it results in my posts having more comments than Karol’s posts because…um…we hate her.
4. Myspace comments.
5. Flickr comments.
6. Getting sheep thrown at us on facebook. Requires the superpoker application. Hint. Hint.
7. Tips to stories about animals attacking people.
8. Funny, poignant posts about how awesome Dawn Summers is.
9. E-mails, e-cards, daily happy birthday wishes from now until August 1.
10. Playing Scrabble with people who are worse than she is. Especially those named Jamie who will never never never beat her. And Alceste because he thinks lordy is a word. And Chugarte, Lola, Polo, Rick, pearatty, Mr. Pearatty, Fisch, Grubette, F-train, JCN, Kaz…um…what? We like Scrabble.

Other Birthday Season F.A.Q

When is your actual birthday? El ocho de Julio
Why do you have a whole season? Because.
How old are you going to be? 29
Really? Shut the hell up.
What happens to people who forget your birthday? Umm…have you ever seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer…Season 6? The third to last episode? “Two to go?” Yeah. That.
Are any other birthdays or holidays allowed to be celebrated during your birthday season? No. Except for the Fourth of July because well, America is as great as I am. Apologies again to my little sister Smokey for having her birthday relocated to November. And to the Jakes for their lost anniversary.

NEW YORK - Usher is expecting bigger things than a new album — the superstar announced Wednesday that he and fiancee Tameka Foster are expecting their first child together.

This would be the first child for the R&B crooner/actor, and the fourth for the recently divorced Foster.

Ewww…what’s Usher doing with a chick that has three dirty babies?

“That’s the last time I worry about your ass being dead. Next time, I go straight to celebrating.” - Karol

My gift to you is to go a whole 24 hours without calling you assface in print or public.

There are those things you want that are worthless if you have to ask for them.

“Yes, it’s a school night. No, I don’t want to know how much it’s going to cost for you to arrange a last-minute flight from LAX to JFK. That’s *your* problem.” - F-train on how much he cares about giving adequate notice to his invited birthday party guests.

In case you guys were wondering why “assface” was my very special nickname for him.

“You’re going to be a complete Obama maniac,” Karol said when I was deciding whether to spend an obscene amount of money to go to a fundraiser for the junior Senator from Illinois.
Gosh, I hope so.
I mean I love Dennis Kucinich…although that he’s got a trophy wife now kinda takes away the quirky little engine that couldness that really sold me on him the last time around, but let’s face it “I did not bankrupt Cleaveland” just doesn’t win elections like it used to.
So, I was in the market for a “VC:” viable candidate.
A woman for President. I chuckled. Another Clinton for President. HAHAHAHAHA… stop it, you’re killing me.
Yet another throwback to the ’04 presidency AND his wife has cancer…uh…President of Hope College in the other America, maybe but not my guy.
Though still hotter than New Orleans in August.
I didn’t want to be the black chick for the half black guy, but then Oprah went and all endorsed him, so what was a sychophant to do?
I entered my credit card numbers on the obamanyc site, kissed dreams of my 2007 World Series of poker championship goodbye, threw on a pair of shoes and headed out to meet the man, the myth and the legend at the Hammerstein ballroom on Friday night.
There was a line which snaked up the avenue.

So, of course, I assumed this could not be the rich people’s line. I walked to the front and very politely asked to be ushered away from the masses and straight to the VIP lounge.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
You’ll see why that’s funny later. For now, however, suffice to say, I was referred to the back of the snake by the index finger of the volunteer at the door.
Ok. Cool. Obama keepin’ it realz.
I noticed that he had the Canadian vote locked up.

I finally made it to the front of the line and checked in with a spirited blond woman.
“How much did you pay?” she asked.
I told her and she pointed me to a woman holding a list at the end of the table.
A yellow band was affixed to my wrist. I also saw blue bands and red bands.
I formed the line for the elevator up to the VIP suite.
HAHAHHAHAHAH…again…in a minute.
The elevator was crowded. Both blue bands and yellow bands were allowed inside. Red bands hit the stairs.
However, only yellow bands could enter the promised land.
I was shocked to find myself in a plain, medium sized beige room with low ceilings. There were no chairs or windows and a half dozen Obama ‘08 placards and a dozen or so helium filled balloons passed for decorations. Wait…and the four vases filled with flowers. I remember these because when I went to rest on the ledge after two hours of standing around in the poorly un- ventilated tomb…er…VIP lounge, my eyes started to water and shut as they began to trigger some sort of allergic reaction.

There were only about 11 other people in the room when I first arrived. I went toward the bar to grab a drink. I paused when I caught sight of the cash register.
Ap-cray.
Oh well. It’s a fundraiser not a…umm…whatever the something that involves Dawn having access to an open bar would be called…casino is the only word coming to mind.
I formed the line and figured I would get some water.
“Is this it,” a well dressed woman in front of me on line turned around to ask.
“Huh?”
“Is this it or is Obama going to come in and greet us?”
“Oh…um…I dunno…I thought there would a greeting.”
There. Better. DAMN. WELL. BE. A. GREETING.
How could there not be a greeting? 15 people pay to stand around in a tomb, you greet them.
Politics 101.
The line moved excruciatingly slowly. Although, to be fair, whenever I have to wear shoes instead of sneakers excruciating pretty much describes everything. I waited for the woman’s husband or boyfriend to dig through his pockets for enough cash to pay for her vodka cranberry and his beer.
Finally. It was my turn.
“I’d just like a water.”
“We only have bottles.”
Bastards.
$3.00

For this:

Bartender wouldn’t even give me the bottle.
I left the tomb and searched for a seat.
I walked out onto the main floor where the other bands were located.
The room was jumping. I’d decribe the musical selections as 70s soul…a bunch of Michael Jackson post boy band pre Thriller and some Marvin Gaye.
There were hundreds of people milling about.
This is where you could just feel the excitement. I mean I didn’t talk to anyone, but um…they felt excited.

That sentence came out wrong.
I found a seat by the guard and texted with pearatty and alceste. I would periodically stick my head in the VIP lounge. It was almost full by 9 o’clock. Word started to spread that Senator Obama was on his way. I made my way back inside. And not a minute too soon.
The handlers shut the doors.
And turned up the thermostat and sealed all the entrances with duct tape. At least that’s what it felt like.
Imagine you and 100 of your closest friends and no way out.
Some dude introduced himself to me and started prattling on about really finding a candidate that he could get behind.
A woman near us mentioned that she’d seen the Senator speak when she was a senior at the U of Chicago during his failed run for the Congress.
“I thought to myself ‘the skinny guy has something’ and now look,” she said all proud of herself for identifying talent early.
They said some other stuff but I was trying to list in my head all the words I could make with the letters AEINSST and I kept missing one. However, I must have looked like I listening intently cause I could feel that crease in my forehead becoming more pronounced.
I ended up talking to another couple — the man of which said he learned about Senator Obama by reading parts of his first book in the bathroom.
He was going to ask the Senator to sign it.

I assume he wouldn’t mention where it had been.
At 9:20 I bitterly texted Alceste that the Senator was still not there. Though I must have lost at least sixteen pounds standing in the sauna in my suit.
My shoes were history.

Finally, I saw a rush to the door AND it opened.
Obama! I mean Barack! It’s him!
A handler stood on top of one of the speakers to tell us to stand back and indicated that we’d get a chance to meet the Senator later because he was running late.
WHHAAAAT?
But never mind all that. The Senator had arrived!
He switched places with the handler.
And thanked us.
“I know it’s hot,” I remember him saying.

He looked good, but he was flustered. He apologized for being late by saying “you know how it is. Days like these the last event always gets screwed.” He might not have used the word screwed.
But yeah, I know how it is. The last time I ran for President, I was always running late for my last event.
He jumped right into his stump speech and I turned on my video camera.
You know, so I wouldn’t have to listen.

But he definitely said something about healthcare, and the war…the wrong war or the badly executed war or the really hot, sweating needing air and free water war.
He then promised to “give a big long speech” in the other room.
He thanked us and stepped down. Everyone applauded.
I felt my left eye shutting down from the flower allergens.
Everyone pushed toward him.
He stepped back up on the speaker and said “I’m so sorry, but Ben Harper has got some great music ready for y’all and he can’t really get started till I get out there, but there is a place at the front reserved for you and I promise to shake all of your hands after the speech. I promise I will touch each and every one of you tonight.”
Seriously.
He was then ushered away and we were taken to our special section in front of the stage…but behind the ropes. I eyed the “VIP seating” up in the balcony that I had paid for…but decided to stay for my Obama touch. Plus, I was going to ask him some hard hitting questions.
The first speaker is head of the Brooklyn for Obama group. He told us about how his life changed on February 10th, the day Obama announced he was running. How he finally got up off his couch and realized he could do something to change this country. He went to obama.com and started a blog. About Obama. And we could all do the same because Obama has put his campaign in the hands of the people.
Us.
And our blogs. I call this the get off your couch and get on your computer action plan.
He then introduced Ben Harper.
Ben Harper walked on stage wearing jeans and carrying a guitar.
I took my shoes off again.
I can’t remember the lyrics to his song, but my desperate text to Karol said “Hippie black dude on stage playing the guitar and singing about peace on earth.”
The next text, five minutes later said “he’s skat bebopping now and believes there’s a better way.”
Ten minutes later the text merely said “Kill me.”
The crowd was also pretty distracted. I heard one woman in the crowd tell her friend that she thought there would be more cute black guys.
Ben then said something like “this next song,” and I cried. The problem with the word next is that it implies that not only is there another song coming, but since he didn’t say last, that there’s at least one more song coming after . In this case. Two.
Ben then said “There is a void out there right now. A void for the greatest leader in American history and I believe that role will be filled by Mr. Barack Obama.”
Then Senator Obama appeared from the wings and took his place in front of the giganticest American flag I ever saw and the weirdest replica of the Statute of Liberty that I’ve ever seen.
(In the middle of his speech, he pointed to it and said “that is the symbol of America. And the French gave it to us, so don’t bag on the French that was a pretty cool gift.” I’d like to say that this is not where he lost me. I would. I really would.)

He talked about an America where we’ve come to expect that some kids just can’t learn and that contrary to its name millions of kids are getting left behind. He said we need to turn to allies and enemies in the region to work our way out of Iraq as carefully as we recklessly got into a war which should never have been authorized. He talked about a single mothers and her child with asthma. He did not call me and my mother by name though. Which, you know, kinda rude. Just walking around stealing people’s stories without credit.
He said that America needs to tell her that we care. Her government cares.
He harkened back to his well received speech at Selma last Winter and said that when his colleagues in the Congress praised him for talking about African-American history he said “man, you don’t get it. That’s not African-American history, it’s American history.” This was a huge applause line.
I would have applauded too, but my shoes were in my left hand and my camera in my right. And the one time I forgot — he said something like “how you don’ New York?” and i heard my heel hit my lens. D’oh. Note to self.
Anyway, he talked about his first night in New York as a student at Columbia and how he slept on his bags in an alley in Harlem because his housing didn’t work out. And that the next morning he washed his face in a hydrant stream next to a homeless “brother.” It was a very striking image and you just hope and pray it’s all true so that we don’t have a classic “oh my favorite song as a child turns out to be a song that wasn’t written till I was in college” incident later on in the campaign.
He then seemed super duper impassioned about gas mileage and getting us to 45mpg in 5 years.
“This can happen by the end of the next President’s first term…by the end of my first term.”
I chuckled…he doesn’t even believe it.
And I couldn’t tell if the audience believed either.
There was applause and is speech was good. But it didn’t blow me away. There were no goose bumps like during his speech at the convention. (Though he did have a –”This crowd tonight is like the one I saw in Iowa…there were black folks and white folks and…” he goes blank and people in the audience help him out “latino folks” he answers old time religion style “yes, latino folks.” Someone else calls out “asian folks” and he again answers “yes, asian folks.” He picks up the rythym and goes on about “straight folks and gay folks, old folks and young folks, but especially young folks.”)
At the end, he got a standing ovation.
I have mentioned that there were no seats, right?
As promised, he came down from the stage and headed for us behind our ropes.
“Thank you so much for your support.”
People start telling him their names.
He shakes their hands and “says thank you Paul. Thank you Andrea…Good to see you again, Jim.”
He gets to me and I make eye contact.
This is my big moment. Make me stand around waiting for hours. IN SHOES. I’ll show you.
Senator, my name is Dawn Summers. do you really think you can beat a Mccain or a Giuliani or a Thompson? Do you have enough experience to be President? Didn’t you make a commitment to the people of Illinois that you’re breaking? Is it true your friends call you Barry? Seriously, you admit to doing coke??? IN WRITING?? What were you thinking???
Yeah.
Or else I said something like:
“Hi.” Followed by a ridiculously huge grin and intermittent giggling before he moved on to the next outstretched hand.
Sigh.
So Dawn Summers isn’t quite ready for primetime.
But I have a blog, dammit. And I know how to use it.
Bottom line, yeah, Obama touched me. But he didn’t, you know, touch me.
Primary ‘08: A continuing series.

(If you would like to see more posts like these leave comments. Otherwise, I’ll tell you more facebook stories.)

- Rosie O’Donnell says she’s out of the running to replace Bob Barker as host of “The Price Is Right.” O’Donnell, a superfan of the CBS game show, said on her blog Friday that she had a “nice lunch” with the show’s producers.

Now, if I call her one crazy ass mofo, I am protected from a libel suit because of that whole ‘truth is a defense’ thing…right?

What does Peter No Pants aka Peter Donut Stealer have against pants?