Author: Andy Labis

By:

The Dude on the Right
As much as I like the
American Idol auditions, thankfully they are almost over as Feb. 13 brings
all of the contestants to Hollywood, and if all goes well, the return of my "Abdulisms
of the Week," or whatever I decide to call them.  I’m also almost sick of
the Super Bowl coverage
and can’t wait for the game to be over, even though the Chicago Bears are one of
the teams in the game.  And with the weather we are supposed to have in
Chicago on Sunday, wouldn’t it be so much cooler to have a Super Bowl game here,
with a game-time temperature of about 3 degrees (so much cooler, get it?),
rather than the game being playing in Miami with temperatures in the upper 60’s,
maybe with some rain.

Thanks for listening and your comments.

That’s it for this one!  I’m The Dude on the Right!!  L8R!!!

By:

The Dude on the Right
The last couple of days have brewed a cornucopia of blog ideas, ranging from
smoke alarm batteries, to a dream where I was eating human stew, to another
dream that included a fight resulting in two dudes falling from the top of the
Hancock building in Chicago, to yet another dream of my neglecting someone
else’s baby. But nothing is occupying my mind right now more than what tie I
should wear to the Sweet Sixteen party of my favorite niece (and her friend),
and now, after watching
“My Super Sweet 16” on MTV, how the hell can my niece
and her friend’s party ever top that of Cher (and no, not that Cher), especially
since I don’t think my niece is going to get a new Jaguar as a present.

On to my first dilemma – what tie to wear? In the photo included with this
blog I’ve narrowed it down to seven ties. From left to right, I start with the
colorful and swirly tie, which might have worked back in the early nineties, but
damn, for whatever reason, boring stripes seem to be back in style (I did like
the swirly and colorful era because when you spilled something on your tie, it
blended right in). Up next is my red, “power” tie. The problem here is I’m going
to a Sweet 16 party and not a job interview. Now there’s my Daffy Duck beach
party tie, which would be perfect if I knew if the party had a theme, like a
beach party (and don’t get me started, yet, on the Mardi Gras theme Cher had for
her party on MTV), and it was probably the favorite tie I would wear when I was
in my Radio Shack manager phase. I could reflect back to my high school days
when the rebel dudes would wear their ties with a big, ol’, fat knot (the 4th
one from the left), but if I did wear that tie, along with the humiliation of a
39 year old dude being seen like that, my mom would disown me.

Up next is another of my favorite ties, but sadly it’s after Christmas so a
“Grinch Stealing Christmas” theme tie probably won’t work, and then comes my tie
which only works if you wear it on one of two days, January 8th (The King’s
birthday), or August 16th (The King’s deathday). Any other day and you just seem
like an Elvis kook. Sadly, the seventh tie is the one I sent to the dry cleaners
today, because unless the theme of my niece’s party is “Be a Slob With Your
Food!”, “Get a Job!”, “Fun at the Beach!”, “Remember the Early Eighties in High
School”, “Christmas a Month Later!”, or “Elvis. ‘nuff Said!”, I’ve got to stick
with the boring, dark blue tie, that matches my suit.

But my choice of tie is nothing compared to my worrying about how my niece
and her friend’s party will compare to Cher’s.

Thanks to my buddy Stu Gotz, who mentioned the show “My Super Sweet 16” on
MTV, I decided to watch it. It was Cher’s party, and she has been known to throw
the coolest parties, and supposedly her Bat Mitzvah was legendary. Her theme was
Mardi Gras (thankfully none of the girls seemed to know what you had to do to
get beads because that would be just wrong), and she was ready to just die
because the float she was supposed to ride to her party looked like crap a
couple of days before said party. Then, of course, was the car shopping, where
she pretty much wanted a Jaguar, and not the $30,000+ version, nope, she wanted
the
$90,000+ version, and would die if she didn’t get it. So the party starts,
she arrives via a magic trick (which, of course, she was totally worried it
wouldn’t work because she would be so embarrassed), she does some dancing where
her pants kept falling down (didn’t she at least rehearse in those pants prior
to the party?), and is worried about what her friends will think about her dress
that is pretty revealing.

I know my niece didn’t have a Bat Mitzvah, so she doesn’t have that party to
compare it to, and aside from the fact I’m not sure if my niece will be arriving
on a float, if the party has a theme, if she’ll be doing a spotlight dance where
her pants fall down, and I’m assuming my sister and brother-in-law won’t be
getting her a $90,000 car as her gift, I’m not sure how my favorite niece’s
Sweet 16 party can stack up to Cher’s. But as her Uncle, I just pray to Little
Baby Jesus that my niece doesn’t wear a dress that was skimpier than the outfit
of a stripper named Destiny I remember seeing years ago in Las Vegas. Cher wore
that dress.

And I still have to try to figure out what tie to wear, and why the hell I
had a dream where I was eating human stew.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!