Official Home Of BIG Ben Kennedy

When is the last time you stood in a room full of recovering drug addicts? While you were there, did you have to try and make them laugh?

Back in the summer of ’07, that was me, at the Columbian Center in Severna Park, MD. I was performing stand-up comedy at a Narcotics Anonymous fundraiser.

The show was a first for me, and I remember having an alright set. It wasn’t bad it was just not my usual good time. I think that “alright” was an adequate description.

But I’ll never forget that show, not because of the sub par set, but because it did bring about a reunion.

My father and stepmother were in recovery in my youth, and they used to take in meetings around Glen Burnie and Severna Park all the time, and I had even been to the Columbian Center in my childhood.

However, in the years since my dad and half brother passed, I had lost touch with my stepmother Laura. It may have been inevitable that we’d grow apart losing the only relatives that connected us. I do know that on my part, I carried a lot of guilt for my father killing her son, and as odd as it may sound, for looking like the man.

I know it’s not my fault, I mean, he was my father, but I’m sure you understand.

As the night of the show approached, a small part of me thought, “I wonder if Laura is gonna show up to this thing?” Well, my question was answered, as I walked in and saw her sitting there with a big smile on her face.

“No way! I heard you were doing comedy, but I didn’t know you were on this show tonight!” she said.

We caught up a little before the show, which may have taken my mind off of my job that night. Maybe a little bit. Basically what I’m saying is it’s her fault I ate shit on stage that night, anything to take the blame off of myself, right? Actually, I remember over thinking the room and feeling like I couldn’t possibly relate to anybody. Even with a woman sitting in the audience who knew me since I was 7 years old, I still felt that way.

Mentally, I was defeated before I even opened my mouth.

After the show, Laura and I talked some more, and she invited me for a late night bite at Double T Diner but I had to decline. I was pulling a back to back that night, so I had to get over to Glen Burnie for a fundraiser at Arthur Slade Regional Catholic School. We did trade numbers, and talked a few times in the following months.

But in the back of my mind, in that spot that is always needy of approval, that wanted to show people from my past that I was doing great, hung onto that bad set, and thought that I had let Laura down. Never mind the fact that she had told me over the phone that my CD was hysterical, and she believed that I had found my niche in life. I still obsessed over that moment in time. I imagined Laura talking to my stepsister and the rest of her family, and saying, “I was at the Columbian Center and you’ll never guess who I ran into, Ben. He’s trying to be a stand-up comedian, and I saw him perform. It was cute.”

That conversation probably never took place, or maybe it did, but I wanted redemption. It felt like it was something bigger than me at this point.

Maybe that’s why six months later when I was approached to perform stand-up at the Narcotics Anonymous Convention in downtown Baltimore, I took the gig.

Why would I take this show after the last one for NA didn’t go that great? Didn’t I learn my lesson? It didn’t matter. I needed redemption. I needed to prove to Laura that I wasn’t just doing “good” these days, I was doing perfect. I was doing the kind of perfect that you can’t shut up about for weeks or even months.

So there I was, at the beautiful Waterfront Marriott, in this huge ballroom, with close to 100 drug addicts looking at me, my stepmother Laura is in the audience, and I’ve got the microphone in my hand. What have I done? Remember how the last time went? What in the fuck was I thinking? Redemption? You need to learn to let some shit go, big time Ben. You are going to prove nothing more than the fact that 100 people silent is far more deafening than the 45 that made it out to the Columbian Center six months ago.

With all of that going on in my head, here’s how I open my show:

“I want to tell you a personal story before we get into this. My father and stepmother have been in NA since I was a kid, and I grew up very much in the culture. I even used to go with them to their NA meetings all the time. I know that sounds odd, but it was “Dad’s weekend in the custody agreement”, and he needs to take in a meeting, so now I’m running around the Industrial Arts building of GBHS pissing off the janitor.”

They laugh.

“At 7 years old, I never understood what “meetings” were about. I told my friends that everybody gets together, cries, and drinks lots of coffee.”

They laughed even harder.

“I also remembered at the end of every meeting we’d join hands and say “The Lord’s Prayer”. At the end of it, you guys had a put a little message in, and it would be like, “…For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, For ever and ever. Amen.” And then we followed it with “Keep coming back, it works if you work it!” I used to love that.”

“Now cut to me, at 7 years old, at church, on Mom’s weekend, and we’re saying “The Lord’s Prayer” and when we’re done, I’m the only one yelling, “Keep coming back, it works…”

My mother said, “What was that?”

“That’s the way it goes. They’re doing it wrong.””

And that’s when I was met with an eruption of laughter and applause, and we rode that wave through my entire set.

It turns out I did learn my lesson, and in turn had my redemption. But it wasn’t just showing my stepmother I was great, like I thought. I was showing her that I remembered her getting my dad clean, and that their recovery and she herself were a big part of my life. I had been around this since childhood and I’ve heard the stories of the anonymous, even when I was supposed to be “playing with my sisters”. It was those stories that made drug addictions “real” to a 7 year old. So real in fact, that I believe that that may have been the reason why through heredity, tragedy and all life has thrown me, I’ve never went down that path.

And the very least I could do was to give something back.

Don’t give them a cheap joke to start, give them a story. Let them know that I took away something from their lives, their stories, and their past, even if it was memorizing “their version” of “The Lord’s Prayer”.

I want to thank you brave souls for having me into your world again after all these years, for allowing me to help you forget about life for a while, and for reuniting me with Laura.

And I’m really glad I didn’t give up on comedy with NA, because you guys really know how to have a good time! And you really know how to drink coffee. Cups and cups coffee. Oil drums of coffee.

And as for Laura, I was reminded of this time in our lives, because on New Years Eve of ’08 I got a phone call from her while I was at work. She asked me what I was doing for work these days, and when I told her I was delivering appliances and electronics for a large retail chain, she asked if I was happy. I told her, “I like the job, but it definitely isn’t where I saw myself at 30. But then again, I could be a janitor at an elementary school cleaning up vomit everyday.”

She gave me a grossed out laugh, and I laughed as well. We talked and laughed for another half hour, until she was late for work. As I talked to her I knew that even though I’m not doing stand-up these days, it doesn’t mean I’m not doing great. And even though we’ve lost so much, we still have more than most. And I know she knows that. And more importantly, I know that.

I never had to redeem myself I just had to be myself. And for the people in my life, friends, family, and even those I haven’t met yet, I know that will be enough.

How’s that for doing great?

Here’s a gift for you! It’s a Christmas song I recorded in the year 2000 called, “Santa Claus Just Hit On My Hon”.

Also in this post are the lyrics, and some funny facts about the song.

Enjoy!

Santa Claus Just Hit On My Hon (Click on white square to play song while reading lyrics)

Santa Claus Just Hit On My Hon
by BIG Ben Kennedy

You’d better watch out,
the fur’s gonna fly.
What’s it all about?
Well, I’ll tell you why

Santa Claus just hit on my HON!

(Hon is a Baltimore term, which is short for Honey, or Honeychild. In Bawlmerese, the language of Baltimore rednecks, it is pronounced “Hawn”. You say it like you would say “dawn”, but with the same inflection as you would say the word “coin”.)

I went to the mall,
with the wife and the kid,
went up to Santa,
and guess what he did.

Santa Claus just hit on my Hon.

He looked at her once,
he looked at her twice,
and then that naughty said,
“Oh don’t you look nice!”

Santa Claus just hit on my Hon.

My son got in the picture,
With my wife and I to both sides,
And then Santa’s hand slipped,
down off her hip,
and rested right on her backside.

I should let it slide,
It probably was a mistake,
But three years in a row,
Is more than I can take.

Santa Claus just hit on my Hon.

LET’S GO SANTA!!

(A lot of stuff takes place during the fight, and I’m not going to list it all here. I will tell you one of my favorite parts is Santa’s first line, “Fine, if it had to come to this, then I’m going to show you some of my North Pole Style!” If you have any questions about anything you think is said here, email me and I will gladly tell you.)

When the police arrived on the scene,
They said I was a jealous goof. (Forced rhyme for proof!)
But ‘til the day I die,
I wasn’t telling a lie,
‘Cuz see I have the photo proof.

(Now, no video was ever made for this, but if it had been, you would’ve have seen that the two people I was talking to were cellmates in the County jail. This debuted on FM radio in Baltimore, MD and dialogue was cut to keep the song around the radio friendly 3 minute length. Oh, and I’m sure you can tell, but every voice, including Santa and the cellmates in the song are performed by me.)

So, that was the tale,
of Christmas Eve night,
when me and Santa Claus,
got in an alley fight,

BECAUSE!

Santa Claus just hit on…

I SAID! (I know it sounds like WASSAID!, but I was trying to bring the rock.)

Santa Claus just hit on…

Santa Claus just hit on…

my…

Hon.

(Note how my voice trails off in a pathetic warble at the end. Note only am I not a professional singer, but at that time, I smoked a little over a pack of cigarettes a day.

The song ends with the Jingle Bells instrumental, which is a tribute to my favorite Christmas classic, “The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)” by Nat King Cole. Only my song would never become a classic, not even a Baltimore one.

But hopefully, you’ve found some enjoyment out of it.)

Merry Christmas everybody!

Most days when I come home from work, I immediately take my shirt off. Actually, I very rarely wear a shirt in my house. I like to think I’m embracing my recent move to the south with open arms. Open bare arms, and a bare torso. So today when I got home from work, I make with the usual routine and dispense with the shirt.

My wife takes a look at me.

She’s probably thinking to herself, “Damn, he is so sexy. I’m the luckiest wife ever. When Benjamin goes to sleep tonight you’re dead, big daddy!”

“What’s that on your stomach?” she asks.

I look down to find the small red mark that she sees just above my belly button.

“Oh, I burned myself cooking breakfast this morning.”

“How did you do that?”

I might as well tell it here. It happened while I was making scrambled eggs. I had just finished turning the whole pile of scrambled eggs over, and went to tap the spatula on the side of the pan in order to clear it of the stuck-on bits. That’s when one of those little bits flicked back at me and landed right above my belly button.

Did it hurt? Well, judging by the pasty pale Irish skin of my stomach that has never seen the sun for reasons of pasty pale Irish skin burns too easy, or I’m not trying to blind others with sun glare off its ultra whiteness, or I’m just too fat for that, then yes, I would say it hurt.

And it would’ve hurt a hell of a lot more if it would’ve hit 6 inches lower. Yes, not something I picked up since my move to the south, I tend to be a morning nudist. Make that just about anytime I’m home alone. And on a side note, most of the time the only chance I get to write is when I’m by myself, so, well, you can figure it out.

Don’t get all creeped out. Just think of my writings as the naked truth.

I’ve been this way for a many, many years. I’ll never forget when an ex-girlfriend tried to scare me out of my indoor nudist behavior when she asked me, “What would you do if the house was on fire, run outside naked?”

I started to disrobe and head down the steps for the front door, but she stopped me in the doorway, leaving me halfway in and halfway out in more ways than one. I’m sure the neighbors saw us, but they never said anything. Maybe they thought she was trying to get my fat ass unstuck from the doorway and were simply sparing me some unnecessary embarrassment.

I’m sure you’re now wondering why I would be okay with streaking my front yard, but not taking my shirt off at the beach. It’s simple: With my shirt off, I have man boobs. With all my clothes off, I still have man boobs, but people seem to be preoccupied looking south of my Equator and never really notice. And if alcohol is involved, my denim and cotton confines might be gone before you get to the party.

“Hey, glad you could make it! Beers are in the cooler, liquor’s in the fridge, and BIG Ben is naked around here somewhere.”

“Right on!”

As for cooking in the nude, maybe I feel safe because it’s a glass top electric range. Being a man of 6’ 2” tall, an open flame gas range might put me in danger of cooking a hot dog by accident. But cooking on the glass top electric range, all I have to watch out for is water boiling over, spaghetti sauce splatter, or in the case of this morning, renegade bits of egg.

Well, the wife and son should be back from the store in a little bit, and I’m in the mood to pan fry some french fries.

Right after I throw on some shorts.

The other night, I was watching “VH1’s 100 greatest child stars”, or as I like to call it, “VH1’s Let’s get a bunch of former stars and obscure NY stand-up comedians and have them say the same thing just with their own personal touch on it”.

And it’s annoying as shit.

“I never understood Punky Brewster. Two different color shoes? That insults my fashion sense!” - Some gay comic

“I never understood Punky Brewster. Two different color shoes? That might have worked in the hood, because brothas wouldn’t be able to figure out which one to steal.” - Some black comic

“Punky Brewster! When I was a kid I wanted to be Punky Brewster! Now I look at her and realize I just want Punky Brewster. Two different color shoes? Maybe that was early code that she likes it both ways, and I actually have a shot.” - Some lesbian comic

“I tried to look cute and do the two different color shoes, but it didn’t work for me. Maybe it was because I was a boy, or maybe because that was all I was wearing.” - Some “I’m so pathetic” white comic

“I remember I dated a guy who loved Punky Brewster, so I would dress with the two different color shoes and pigtails, and he loved it. Then I realized Punky Brewster was like 8.” - Some female comic

See how easy it is?

I’m going to take this discussion in a slighty other direction right now, because there’s a personal connection to this part: Please people, demand more from your comedians. Demand more from your TV shows. Stop listening to what people are saying is funny, and ask yourself “is that funny?” You won’t be a party pooper, you’ll be a person who demands a little more out of comedy. Then maybe that will catch on, and comedians will have to work harder for a laugh, forcing them to do more than just play to stereotypes and yell, “Duh, duh duh!” or “Get R Done”.

After the weak fall off, you’ll be left with the best. You already chased Dave Chappelle away, give the next intelligent comic a little more shelf life.

Sorry. I’m off of my soapbox. Where were we? “VH1’s 100 greatest child stars”, got it.

So as I was watching the show, they started profiling the 90’s pop group Hanson. Do you remember that little trio of brothers?

“MMMBop, zay, bah, dah, doo wop, badooweedop ba, doo wop…” Hey, like you knew what the hell they were saying!

Remember how all of us thought that the lead singer Taylor, was a girl? The worst part was, with his unisex name, that arguement could never get solved. Well, apparently it’s been solved. As I continue to watch the VH1 special, it turns out Taylor, is now like 6′ 1″, married, and has 4 kids. He has 4 kids, and he’s only 25. It’s like he heard all the shit we said about him being a girl, and his testosterone grew, and grew, and now he takes it out on his wife’s uterus year after year. See what we did? He’s only 25, he still has years ahead of him. Lots of baby making years. His poor wife! We should be ashamed of ourselves.

But as I watched, I wondered this: When Taylor Hanson is watching the Disney channel with his ever growing army of kids, you think he ever looks at the screen and thinks, “Man, if we would’ve been born just a few years later.” Or does he think, “Jonas Brothers? Hannah Montana? They wouldn’t even exist if we hadn’t of kicked that door wide open.”

Being a father with the Disney factory of pop stars invading my world, I think the latter is so true.

Seriously though, I don’t care what you say, “MMMBop” was so catchy, and you know you were singing it! I’ll admit it, I sang it all the time! It was when I sang it at playgrounds that I got the light show to go with it. And loud sirens. And shiny metal bracelets. And a new place to sleep that night.

It really is too easy.

I would like to meet the person who invented “touch screen” games.

So I can kick the shit out of them.

Only problem is, I’d have to stop playing the damn thing long enough to confront the electronic crack dealer. They are addictive, aren’t they? I used to work as a bouncer at a bar in downtown Baltimore years ago, and I know I easily blew ¼ to 1/3 of my pay in that bar top temptress.

Just to be clear, I am still talking about the touch screen games. I know a bar top temptress could be something different, but in Baltimore, I didn’t bring home anyone from the bar, let alone anyone you’d spend ¼ to 1/3 of your paid for. I would never want to take a piss the next morning and look down to find my dick floating in the bowl, that’s all I’m saying.

But when it comes to the inventor of the touch screen games, truth be told, I’m just jealous. Why? Because that person was a smart enough to create a game where all you have to do is touch a screen. Then, they put them in every bar in the world. Shit, even drunk people can touch a screen! And to add insult to injury, they rub their genius in my face by proving that I’m just another monkey fascinated with bright lights, music, and the ability to affect things by touching them.

I realize all of this one night as I watched 3 drunk assholes try and find the differences between 2 photos. Come on guys, you couldn’t find your car in the parking lot right now, yet your drunk ass is gonna find the one extra polka dot on a woman’s bikini clad tit.

I think they should put “Dance Dance Revolution” in all the bars. We all know drunk people think they can dance, we just have to make sure everything is padded and then let ‘em go! People would volunteer to be the designated driver just so they’d have the sober mind to operate their camera phone.

Personally, when I play touch screen games I tend to get sucked into “Power Trivia”. Well, any trivia game really. Why I think I’m remotely smart after 5 shots and 7 beers is beyond me, but I still play. But tell me something: How come as soon as I’m on a roll, the game wants to ask me who won the Oscar in 1936? Would anyone who could answer that even be alive? And if so, would they be in a bar at 85 years old? I call bullshit! Cheating ass game!

But I wasn’t going to let this game get the better of me, I’m smarter than you! I have a cell phone, and I know one person who might know the answer! But my Grammy said if I drunk dial her again at 12:45am, I’m out of the will.

Damn. You win for now “Power Trivia”!

Well, unless my Grammy wills me thousands, in quarters.

My cell phone rings. It’s Nat.

I answer, “Hey! What’s up?”

“I was just thinking about when you were at the Burger King by my house, and you changed that Burger King marquee that said “Try our Angus Steak Burger” to say “Try our Anus Steak Burger”” He pauses to laugh out loud. “Do you remember that?”

I’m laughing as I say, “Of course! Do you remember that big rig honking its horn as it drove by and giving us the thumbs up?”

And we laugh.

I’ve received a lot of phone calls like this in the past few years. Nat is one of my very best friends, and the past few years have been weird for both of us. I became a husband and father and moved with my family to SC, while he became a touring musician with his roots still planted somewhat in MD.

For last year and a half, he was playing bass in a band that has been all over the world and opened for acts like Candlebox, Tesla, and KISS. He’s seen places I’ll only read about in books, met people I’ll only see on TV, and done things I may never read about in magazines. He was living the rock star dream.

But he still finds the time to call me and reminisce. And I will always take his call, because through all the jokes and reminiscing, I know it’s his way of telling me that he misses me. He’ll never say the actual words, but I get it. And I miss him too.

We met our senior year of high school, when I was in the school play with him. I was pulling out of the school, after play practice when I saw him walking home all by himself. I remembered when I had to walk to and from school, and it sucked. I pull up next to him and say, “Hop in.” And I give him a lift home.

The next day, I came up to him at play practice and asked him, “How are you getting home after practice?”

“I’m walking.”

“No.”

“I usually walk.”

“Try again.”

“You’re taking me?”

“You got it!”

The next day after play practice, I couldn’t drive him home. I had somewhere I had to be after school. I went to another person in the play and asked them if they could take Nat home. They said, “No problem.” Later when I ran into Nat, I asked him once again, “How are you getting home after practice?”

“Uhh, you’re taking me?”

“Actually, no.”

“Oh.”

“But I talked to John, and he’s going to give you a lift.”

“Really? Thanks!”

He looked at me almost amazed that someone he barely knew would be so concerned with his well-being.

We’ve been best friends ever since.

And even though technically we were about 18 years old at the time, and were supposed to be “adults”, we still say we “grew up together”. It causes people to believe that we’ve known each other since childhood, but to look at us, you would find it just as hard to believe we hadn’t.

Nat and I were inseparable. It’s not just that we hung out all the time; literally, my official residence for years was his bedroom floor. I was paying rent on my own place, with my own bed, and I never stayed in it. I used to say it was a storage bin with a kitchen and bathroom in it. We even worked at jobs together, 3 of them to be exact.

We also created cartoons, made funny home video skits, sang songs at an acoustic night at various local bars around Baltimore, even one summer going to the city hall of the Maryland beach town of Ocean City and getting street performer permits and playing Boardwalk with an open guitar case.

I’ll always remember the smile on Nat’s face while he counted our tally for the day and said, “You know what’s funny? I was just playing guitar and singing, and look.” Showing me his half of the money as he continued, “At least I know I’ll never starve.”

If Nat had a thought, I could bring it to life with words. We always dreamed big, and would find ourselves laughing at how far we would let our imaginations carry us. We would start projects that were impossible, and when it inevitably failed, we would say it got lost in “Nat and Ben’s Bermuda Triangle of Ideas”. Sadly, I think the plane needs to actually get off of the ground before it can get lost in the Bermuda Triangle, but we kept the term anyway.

We laughed all the time and we laughed loud, often to the point of tears. Some nights we would get to laughing so hard we swore that his dad was going to throw him out due to lack of sleep.

We also shared many of the other kind of tears. The women in Nat’s life could always make him cry. Whether it was that he loved them or just loved being in love, when it ended it always hit him hard. I remember calling one girlfriend in particular after she cheated on him, and they got back together, and telling her, “Do you know what it feels like to have the shoulder of your shirt soaked with your best friend’s tears? Break his heart again, and I’ll kill you, nothing personal.”

The “Break his heart again, and I’ll kill you” line was from one of my favorite movies called “Clerks”, but I don’t think she knew that. She probably honestly thought I’d kill her, and I was cool with that too.

Nat and I had the kind of friendship that, while it was overflowing with creativity, also seemed to find harmony in our differences, of which there were many. Where I exercised common sense; he threw caution to the wind. He was a little too skinny; I was a little too fat, but I guess that worked out in that there was no stealing of girlfriends. While I was boisterous in crowds, he almost appeared shy. His hair was sculpted, and his clothes matched. My hair was dirty, and I was wearing what you saw me in yesterday. In our personal lives, I was accessible while he was more private.

The latter caused me to almost act as a representative for him. To this day, I’ll still get asked, “How’s Nat?” even though I’m now in SC and Nat is back home in MD.

While I’ve been missing him so much over the past couple of years, the time apart did give me chance to step back at look at our friendship in a new light. And I came to this realization: Nat and I were the human version of a cat and a dog.

Much like a cat, Nat is pretty, and his hands flow when he talks. There’s a gracefulness about him, but being that I’m not really a “cat person”, literally, not metaphorically, I also found myself rooting for his more klutzy moments and his feline way of still trying to look cool afterwards. Also like a cat, he’s a finicky eater, he isn’t plenty with affection, and could ignore you in the same room.

I, like a dog, am oafish, big and always a little messy. If you take your eyes off of me for a second, I’ll probably knock over your prized possession, but you’ll forgive me. I’m also always a little too loud, I thrive on affection, I love being in the company of others, I will eat anything, and am fiercely loyal and overprotective.

With so many things that we don’t have in common, our friendship is almost contradictory. It’s almost like we were supposed to be enemies, but instead turned out to be the best of friends. Also, to see us in public almost doesn’t make sense. Nat looks like a rock star, and I look like a middle-aged family man, yet we’re the ones laughing the loudest at the party. It’s like a real cat and dog, when you see them rolling around and playing together it’s fascinates you, because you thought that they were sworn enemies.

In the few physical altercations that Nat and I have been in with each other, which were never serious, always just playing around, it started off like this: Nat runs his mouth, while I just sit there, then he pounces on me before getting thrown to the ground in one swipe.

Gee, where have you seen that happen before?

People seek out Nat and they wonder how he’s been. Nat could be playing music at a bar with a $15 dollar cover, and people we haven’t seen since high school will show up and trade phone numbers, and hug up on him. Where I, on the other hand, a stand-up comedian for 8 years, would be throwing a free show the next night, with free food and booze, and nobody I know shows up.

For the longest time, I took it personally. I resented Nat, I was angry at my friends, and I couldn’t figure out why nobody seemed to want to be around me like they wanted to be around Nat. I guess fortunately for Nat, people seem to find satisfaction in earning a cat’s affections, while unfortunate for me, a dog can be easily taken for granted and just as easily ignored.

Just like at a free comedy show.

No one is to blame, and I now accept it, because it is just who we are as people.

He got the bed, while I slept on the floor.

We were the cat and the dog.

But Nat, literally, or metaphorically, just might be the only cat I’ll ever love.

When I was a kid, I was in love with game shows. I especially liked The Family Feud, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, Card Sharks, Jokers Wild, and of course, Press Your Luck. Well, actually I was more a fan of the little red Whammy from Press Your Luck, but weren’t we all? I remember when they had the Michael Jackson Whammy! Man, I used to get so excited for that one!

Don’t judge me. I was 5. And you loved MJ back then too.

But one game show in particular will always mean a lot to me. Maybe it was because my Grammy and I watched it everyday before I went to afternoon Kindergarten. Maybe it was because it was always there for me when I was home sick, or when we were on Winter break and Spring break from school.

Whatever it was, I could always rely on it every weekday, 11:00 am, on CBS.

The Price Is Right.

I remember as a kid I always wanted to go on that show and meet Bob Barker. Both of my grandfathers died before I was born so Bob Barker was like the grandfather I never had. I’ll never forget being a kid and trying to wrap my brain around the season when Bob stopped dyeing his hair. He didn’t let it go gradually gray he just stopped with the Grecian formula on summer hiatus, and BAM! He was pearl white! I remember asking my mom what happened, and why he got so old so fast.

Remember when you were a kid you didn’t see wrinkles, false teeth and other signs of aging, pretty much gray hair was the true marker of old and young.

Not only did I want to meet Bob Barker and play some cool ass games for cool ass prizes, but mostly I wanted to go on the show so I could be the first contestant to walk to Contestant’s Row.

“Ben Kennedy, come on down!” And I just strut. Play it real cool.

But no, if I got on there I’d probably do we all would do and lose my ever loving mind, run in the wrong direction, then in the wrong direction again, then run on down, my fat all giggling on national TV.

Then we get down to Contestant’s Row and Bob Barker asks us for our bid.

And we turn around.

You look to your loved ones in the audience for their bids? And we know who they are because you all have on matching t-shirts with stuff on it like, “Dundalk, Maryland loves Bob Barker!” or “Gamma Alpha Upsilon thinks Bob is the man!!”

My favorite was when people showed up with pictures of their dogs and cats on their shirts with the message, “We spayed and neutered our cat and dog because of you Bob”. Now, if you’ve watched more than one episode of TPIR you’d know that at the end of every episode Bob Barker says, “Help control the pet population, have your pets spayed or neutered, goodbye everybody!”

Somehow I think that parading pictures of your nutless pooch on your shirt is not what Bob had in mind.

But still, you came with a posse, and they are going to help you win! So you be sure that anytime anything is asked of you, you look out to them in the audience.

Let me tell you a secret: They don’t know shit. The Price Is Right audience has never benefited a contestant, ever. And even if they do know, what makes you think that their jealousy of you isn’t causing them to sabotage your chances at getting on stage?

After consulting your brain trust behind you, you turn back to Bob and exalt, “One dollar, Bob!” Now you couldn’t have come up with that bid yourself? The lowest bid was by the blue hair next to you who thinks that inflation is out of control or she is in the year 2319 because she just bid $2000 on a set of his and her Mickey Mouse wristwatches. I think $1 was a safe bid.

So you get on stage with your $1 bid, and you get to play a pricing game.

I swear I know every game ever played on that show. And when Rod Roddy screamed “A new car!”, I knew the contestant would be playing a good game like Dice Game, 3 Strikes, 10 Chances, or Lucky $even. Every now and again the car was the prize for Money Game or Any Number, which while boring, I’d still watch.

However, when Check-Out, Check Game, Hi Lo, or that unbelievably boring, stupid, but it’s a classic so they felt the need to still put it on every damn episode Clock Game came on, it was time to go to the bathroom or make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

When I was a kid I liked Cliff Hangers. That was the one with the little man with a pick ax heading up the ruler covered mountain. Why did I like it? It wasn’t for the awesome music I’ll tell you. That yodeling soundtrack probably haunted all of those losing contestants dreams for years. And yes, I said, “all of those losing contestants” because nobody could win at that game. And I, being a child couldn’t be happier because that meant the man was going to fall over the edge! Awesome!

The contestants tried everything to win that game. I liked it when they would ask questions. “Who makes the toaster?” “How big is the toaster?” “Does it have bagel wide slots?”

Ask Bob to ask Rod anything you want, you’ll still guess low and watch that little man take all 25 steps and go over the edge on the first prize. Thanks for coming all the way to California for this, see you at the Showcase Showdown.

My favorite game on the Price Is Right was of course, Plinko. They gave you a free chip, and then the guesses to get the other chips were easy, so you were guaranteed to be dropping at least a couple of chips. Still, these contestants, who are now facing the audience, still look to them for advice as to where to drop the puck.

People, if you didn’t know, Plinko has no magic spot to drop the chip at. It’s really a game of chance. You’re going to drop that chip and it’s either going to Plink down to 0, $500, $10,000, or fall out of the board and roll down the hallway to As The World Turns. Drop the damn thing already!

The Showcase Showdown, or the “Big Wheel” as most of you know it, was my other favorite part of the show. I used to turn my bike upside down, put piece of cardboard in the spokes and mark prices on pieces of tape along the rubber tread, and then let the neighborhood kids each have a couple of spins.

If only I had a 12 x 12 board and a bucket of nails, I would have made a bitchin’ ass Plinko board too.

It might be an understatement to say I was a fan.

Yes, I said was. Sadly, when Bob retired in 2007, I retired from watching the show too. It’s not that I don’t like Drew Carey, I think he’s one hell up a stand-up comedian, and though our paths never directly crossed in my 8 years in stand-up, I’ve heard through people in the biz that he’s a very awesome guy. But when I tuned into an episode in ‘08 or 2008 A.B. as I call it, I finally got the reason why my so many elderly, my Grammy included, have subscriptions to Reminisce Magazine or Reader’s Digest, and still watch television shows like The Andy Griffith Show and I Love Lucy in syndication: There’s a definite power of nostalgia.

It just doesn’t feel like it used to when I was curled up in a blanket on my Grammy’s couch, because I was sick, or the baseboard heating was on it’s last leg. It doesn’t feel like days off of school, or summer vacation anymore. It’s still The Price Is Right, but it doesn’t look like, sound like, or feel like the show I want to go on anymore.

And it also kind of saddens me that I won’t get to share the show that I loved my whole life so far with my son. There’s really nothing pop culture wise that I can share with him, unless I pop in a DVD or VHS of “Wayne’s World”, or “Back to the Future” from my collection. I guess Bob Barker retiring after I became a dad really reminded me that I’m getting old and nothing lasts forever. I don’t even get to feel like a child from 11:00am until the Noon news anymore.

With the way fads come and go, I know they’ll be some things I can share with my son someday, but who knows, maybe he’ll become a fan of the Carey hosted The Price Is Right. I can see it now, he’ll go on and on about the show and I’ll spout off, “Well when I was a kid, The Price Is Right had…”

I’m going to get old. Shit.

I’ll tell you what though, if I look out in the yard one day and see that he’s built his bicycle into a Showcase Showdown, I will build him that Plinko board.

You know, so he can enjoy it, of course.

Isn’t it great how a song can take you back to exactly where you were when you heard it for the first time?

I like to spend my Sunday mornings listening to music, both current and classic. And every now and again I’ll come across a song that acts as my personal DeLorean back to the early 90’s, when I was a teenager.

I got to thinking about summer romances and high school romances. As I looked back, I started to laugh at the fact that we ever called them “romances”. Did we even know what romance was?

The arguments were so overblown, the song you chose as “your song” was the cheesiest piece of shit that ever wasted studio time, and the girl/guy you left them for/got left for was nothing more than the same person in different clothes.

And what the hell was “dry humping” about?

I know they called it “puppy love”, but something about it sticks with you. For me, I think it was because it was the most powerful emotion I had felt in my young life to that point. I fell in love like I do everything else in my life: big. I loved making the girls in my life feel adored, beautiful, special, and important.

Believe it or not, I have a problem with to this day. I treat every woman the same, from co-workers to friends to our waitress at the restaurant. Even ex-girlfriends know that they can call me and I’ll make them feel just as adored, beautiful and special as they used to with me, even though their current man/fiancé/husband should be that person in their life. I have never had a “type”, she just has to be a woman, and I’ll always try to make her day. People have labeled me as a big flirt, but I honestly just love to make a woman smile.

But thinking back to that young love, I began to miss those feelings that came with the anticipation of that first kiss, when and where to have your first kiss, Homecoming, the proms, bragging to your friends about how far you’ve gone, asking your cousin about his experiences so you can sound believable when you brag to your friends about how far you’ve gone, holding hands, but mostly, just the fact that nothing else mattered in the whole world.

Your parents couldn’t stop you, your friends couldn’t understand, and you were going to be together forever. You were in love. I miss that kind of love. That all consuming, ridiculous, blind, and running full speed into a jet turbine love. As long as you were holding hands with them while you were doing it, you knew you’d be just fine.

I get that feeling with my wife, especially sometimes when we kiss, and I have to catch my breath. Or that feeling I get when I hug her and I feel like I should let go for fear of squeezing until ribs crack because I get what I can only describe as feeling “bunched up”. I wish I had a better term, but I think that works.

And sadly, it’s gone. Something usually brings us back to reality like our son, the phone, the commercial break being over, or the sound of a fart.

But tell me, why can’t we love like that now? Your make-out sessions as a teenager couldn’t be interrupted by the Apocalypse. Is it the lack of hormones? Is it a sign of age? Do we just not have the energy for puppy love anymore? Is it because of all of our responsibilities that make us feel we need to stay grounded? Is it not possible to love like that because we’ve been jaded by love before? Is it because deep down inside we know that a love like that never lasted then, so why would it now?
But just like that, the song ends, and my journey to the past is over, much like those puppy love relationships I was taken back to.

And I think deep down inside, I knew it then too. That’s why I fell so hard, so fast, and so big. My mom and dad split when I was 3, and couple that with the unhealthy amount of TV I watched as a kid, and I think I knew a too young of an age that love doesn’t last.

What about now? Why even be in a relationship? Why get married?

Now, we grab our moments when we can. We can’t afford to shirk responsibilities and the world around us for longer than that.

After the song was over I walked over and grabbed my wife, spun her around, put her back to the counter, and kissed her in the middle of the kitchen. And there it was: that “bunched-up” feeling. Maybe I understand now what that feeling is. Maybe it’s that blind, all-consuming teenage love trying to come though an older body that life, stress, and age have had their way with.

Then we break away from our kiss look to our side and see Benjamin smiling up at us, before rushing up for a family hug.

And what I mistook before for “reality” coming in and taking us away from our old familiar feelings, may be quite the opposite. Maybe we need those moments to feel young again and reenergize our souls to make it through the realities of everyday life.

Well maybe except for your workday. I think Marijuana was meant to help you make it through that daily task, and yet, most employers require pre-employment drug screens. Just doesn’t seem fair.

Wow, I really took this story in a different direction, didn’t I?

Maybe it’s because my computer just shuffled to “Sweet Leaf” by Black Sabbath.

With the holidays approaching, my credit card company sent me a letter in the mail that read, “We would love for you to be in debt to us for the rest of your life!”

Actually, it was more of those “blank checks”, but that’s how I read it.

The letter tried to make it sound so great, “Do your holiday shopping or just pay some bills… on us!” Wow! Aren’t you guys just so great? You finally crunched the numbers and realized that you were making obscene amounts of money, almost legal robbery, and decided to give back at the holidays?

Not quite. I read the fine print: To be paid back at 21.65% APR, and separate from your credit purchases.

So you were going to charge me over $1 on every $5 I spend? You are a regular Santa Claus! Take your fake gesture in its pretty little red and green envelope, fold it into an origami porcupine, and shove it straight up your ass.

What did I do with the blank check? I made last my last credit card payment with it. They called me at my work within 48 hours, and they were pissed. Then three days later I got another one, so I did it again, complete with another phone call.

I know that it’s an automated process that sends these checks out, so I’m having a blast!

I figure if I keep trying, one day one of those checks is going to slip through, and all hell will break loose.

And while the credit card company glitches onto itself, it will topple in a domino effect that will spill over into our whole monetary system. Our government will lose its wealth and in turn all the wealthy assholes that occupy it. There will be a trickle down effect through all economic and social classes would seem never-ending.

And then, and only then, can Neo and I bring down the Matrix.