An American Asshole in Paris

Part Un: The Louvre

When visiting Paris, you have to visit The Louvre. If you don't, when you get to customs they won't let you out. So, I went to The Louvre. It's an incredibly big museum with incredibly long lines.

After the three hour wait for tickets I headed straight to the Leonardo Da Vinci wing to see the Mona Lisa.

Me and six busloads of Japanese tourists. Sadly, that's the closest I got to Mona. Her smile really is enigmatic, I think. Seriously, do you think I would let down my loyal reader and not fight my way through 600 stubborn Japanese tourists, all steadfastly obsessed with taking a picture of a picture that is housed behind an inch of scratched and glare-y bulletproof glass when they can easily download a perfectly good jpg off the internet?

What the guidebooks don't tell you about the Mona Lisa is that it's pretty small. Here's the Mona Lisa actual size.

And it's postmarked Genoa, August 15, 1505. Turns out Leonardo was commissioned to create a two lire stamp by Francesco del Giocondo and the Mona Lisa was born.  Disappointing? A bit.

My favorite Da Vinci painting at The Louvre is considered a minor work. After the overwhelming success of The Last Supper, Leonardo started pumping out all kinds of sequels. Did you know that after dinner, Jesus and a couple of the boys broke out the cards and chips and played Monday Night Baseball and Mexican Roll Your Own until the wee hours?

Da Vinci's The Last Card Game is a Late-Renaissance masterpiece. But Leonardo's true genius isn't displayed in his use of perspective, the fullness of the folds in the robes or the subtle expressions on the faces of the players. It's in the details.

If you look carefully under the table, you can see that Our Savior Jesus Christ is slipping Apostle Paul an ace of clubs.  Hilarious! I will defintely wear sandals to my next poker game.

A Short Break From The Louvre To Discuss My Socks

I was the only person in France that was wearing white, calf-length socks. Despite these socks, 127 French guys stopped and asked me directions, in French. After I fumbled out a "No parlyview frances," they'd counter with an "Allemand?" I'd say no, American. Realizing that an American in white, calf-length socks could never possibly know where anything is in Paris, they'd apologize and move on. Here are my socks in Amsterdam and London.

The Dutch and English took one look at my socks and never, ever, mistook me for a native. What's with the French?

Back To The Louvre

A lot of you guys don't know but Leonardo was not just a great painter and sculptor, he was also an engineer and inventor. The Louvre has one of his greatest inventions.

The first urinal.

Apparently, Leonardo also invented ping pong. Guy was a regular Rensaissance man.

Sometimes when you go to an art museum you learn something about world history that has absolutely nothing to do with art.

Look at the carefully carved hair on the back of this guy, let's call him David since I have no clue who he really is. I have that same patch of hair on the small of my back. I find it embarassing and ridiculous. When I'm at the supermarket topless, I'll walk around awkwardly carrying the basket full of groceries behind me so as to hide this patch of hair. When I was like 22 and had a date with a chick to the beach for the first time, I reached around and shaved it off.

Not Leonardo's peeps. That patch of hair is thick and luxurious. It looks like David's prep team, shamppooed, conditioned and styled that bad boy. You'd think that a statue of David with a big bush of back hair would be my favorite statue but you'd be wrong. This one is. I call it Ladyboy in Repose.

Yup, that girl is packing some nice mudpuppies and a schlong. Funny thing, see all those guys taking photos from the wrong side? I was the only guy in The Louvre that figured out that androgyne was French for transvestite hooker. They're all taking a photo of a sleepy woman taking a lie down.

Bottomline, is The Louvre worth waiting three hours for tickets, getting knocked down countless times by dozens of Japanese tourists -- when the Mona Lisa is no bigger than a placemat?

Yes. Why? One word, penis. When you walk around The Louvre gazing at all the tiny penises you feel really wonderful about yourself.

And you know that look your girlfriend/wife/twitter friend gives your penis after watching online porn? Take her to The Louvre and she will shiver with satisfaction the next time you drop your drawers. Thanks Leonardo!

Rejected Daily Mail Online Comments

Another Post Courtesy of the Daily Mail - I kid Rupert Murdoch a lot when we see each other at the Friar's Club but his rag does supply an endless assortment of crap for my blog.

When you really, really need to see celebrity nipples poking through skintight blouses there is only one place to go on the web, The Daily Mail Online. Now there's another reason to visit The Daily Mail, a new game for killing time at work. The goal is to get as many red down arrows as possible when you comment on their articles.

You'd think it would be easy. The Daily Mail is just like the New York Post except it's targeted at toothless limeys instead of toothless eye-ties. Work some pro-ObamaCare into your comment, maybe a gay marriage doesn't really hurt anyone, and those red arrows will start piling up, right? Right? Wrong.

The problem is the censors. I initially thought it was a filter or a computer algorithm that searched on keywords.  But it's not.  Rupert Murdoch must own warehouses full of Indians looking for inappropriate comments.

Here are some examples.

'I thought Malibu was supposed to be glamorous???': Victoria Beckham and Tana Ramsay sun themselves on beach beside a construction fence.
My Comment: The cops probably put up that fence to keep the rats off her cadaverous body. While you're in the US go to McDonald's and eat a Big Mac and an extra large fries.  Girl, you need to gain a few pounds!

The sexy woman formally known as Posh Spice and currently known as the chick married to Beckham is notoriously skinny. Here's a photo of Victoria Beckham shaking the hand of a woman that eats food.

You have to admit that Posh looks like a contestant on Survivor:Biafra. If it wasn't for the implants, she could hide behind a No. 2 pencil. Why was this comment rejected? I didn't use any bad or suggestive words. I was mean to a British woman that married a beloved footballer.

Here's another example of a rejected comment.

'Like 50 Shades of Grey for kids': Furious parents get book that teaches 11-year-olds about masturbation removed from school reading list
My comment: Maybe Kelly-Ann should homeschool her sons. Learning from a book can never replace hands-on training from your mom.

Mom with big boobs bans book in Queens -- because it contains, wait for it, masturbation. My comment, while suggestive, is pretty fucking subtle.  I happen to love the book the bitch banned so this was personal.

I do get some comments posted. Here's this week's winner.

 

 

Bieber's beauties: Stunning brunette waitresses who 'went home with teen pop star Justin, 19, following his Hampton brawl are revealed'
My comment: Why settle for Selena Gomez when you can get two for the price of one? This guy is my hero! Rating ▼  453

Defending Justin Bieber while dissing Selena Gomez is comment gold.

Paula Deen rejects Dancing With The Stars offer in wake of N-word controversy
My comment: Sometimes grossly overweight racists are light on their feet -- Bristol Palin is a perfect example. Rating ▼  34

When I got this one through I thought it was money but the results were disappointing. Is there no rightwing British nutjob love for cute, little Bristol and racist, mama bear Paula? No, there isn't. I don't want to give away trade secrets but Daily Mail Kardashian love is more ample than all their booties and breasts combined.

Khloe Kardashian's marriage rocked by new infidelity claims as lawyer alleges she had 'six-week summer affair' with Lamar Odom
My comment: When you are the ugliest Kardashian, you have to make compromises. Lamar may be a serial cheater but he's rich and handsomer. Khloe, give that man of yours a hug and bake him some cookies. Rating ▼ 124

I'm thinking of holding a contest. If you can get more negative ratings than me in a week you win an extremely rare UncleMelon t-shirt. Stay tuned for details.

Throwback Thursday - Bruce Klein's Bar Mitzvah

It's a damn shame, but they don't have Bar Mitzvahs at the Playboy Club on 59th Street anymore. That's my old friend Bruce Klein in the photo. Is that a Kosher salami in his pocket or is he happy to be finally finished with stupid Hebrew School?

I left that affair with a blue velvet yarmulke with gold trim, a bunny tail and the phone number of Miss Theresa Grisanti, formally of Carnarsie.

Directions from Kourtney Kardashian's Right Nipple to her Left Nipple

The other day I got lost traveling from Kourtney Kardashian's right nipple to her left nipple.  Don't laugh.  When traveling by tongue, there are a whole lot of confusing intersections and turns.  Thank Google for Google Maps!

Here's a helpful closeup. I think I got lost when I hung a left at that large pulsating vein instead of continuing straight onto the smaller arterial connection.

And because I know you will ask, here's a really big version you can use for "medicinal purposes."

Texas! Where a bunch of dead kids isn't a tragedy, it's an opportunity!

Texas! Wide open for business!

All week, every other commercial on New York City radio is Texas Governor Rick Perry telling us how great Texas is for business. No taxes! No health and safety regulations! No pesky lawsuits! Tons of illegal immigrants eager to be exploited!

Then he shows up in Connecticut to do some serious poaching. Now, I'm sure that there is nothing Governor Rick Perry enjoys more than killing a bunch of deer on an Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary but that's not the kind of poaching we're talking about.

Rick Perry was attempting to lure away Connecticut's gun manufacturing. Twenty children and six staff members shot dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the state dares to enact gun control measures?  Rick Perry is rightfully disgusted.

Texas! Where a bunch of dead kids isn't a tragedy, it's a business opportunity!

Jesus Christ Superman

Zack Snyder's Jesus Christ Superman The Musical. Soon to be a major motion picture.

When I was in yeshiva, the nuns told us that Superman was Moses and Rabbi Tuperman said that Superman changed his name because he was a self-hating Jew like Spiderman, Ironman and Rabbi Tupperman.

Interesting fact I learned on NPR, the Man of Steel was originally going to be called Steelman but it sounded too much like Steilmann.

New NBA Logo

New NBA logo proposed by Eric Stangel.

Based on the funniest play in the first game of the Pacers Heat series. You have to admit that it is much more dynamic and action-packed than the old logo of Jerry West leaning slightly to the right. However, it doesn't really capture the crux of the play, Battier nailing Hibbert in the nads.

Adding an ouch helps. This exercise proves two things. I stink at photoshop and creating logos is harder than it looks.

Endnote

Anybody who has ever played a game of basketball on a playground knows that Shane Battier is full of shit.  Anybody who has ever played a game of basketball on a playground has gone to the hoop with the sole intention of kneeing the other guy in the balls. It almost never happens by accident.

It usually occurs when the game is getting chippy and everyone's tired.  It was one of my "go to" moves. I have performed it in industrial leagues in Huntington and my old home court at the  playground on E. 15th Street.

If I ever tried it with Roy Hibbert, I would nail him slightly below his knee. I have a vertical leap worse than Jason Kidd.

Did I ever tell you about the time Woody Harrelson and Storm Phillips showed up at our lunchtime game at the 14th Street Y? I did? That was some righteous weed.

The Hot Horny MILFs of the New York Times

This morning at 7:00 AM I visited the New York Times website just like I do every morning.  I've got my coffee, my whole day in front of me and all the news that's fit to print. This morning I also got an erection.

99.9994% of the websites I visit with the hope of gaining an erection and then losing it. The New York Times usually falls into the other 0.0006%.

The homepage was running an animated image of various attractive, older, moms. First an image where the woman looks slightly bored, distracted or maybe disappointed. Then the image would flash to a photo of the same woman in the throes of a mind-bending, life-changing, chip the paint off the ceiling, screaming ORGASM.

Also, they were naked. Mostly off screen but definitely naked.

The article that accompanied the image was about a new drug that apparently causes every woman to experience really, really good ORGASMS.  I didn't read it because the vast majority of my blood was not in my brain.

By the time I thought of this bit, the animated image was removed, replaced with a static image of Cathy from West 87th Street looking unsatisfied.  I think the editors at the New York Times must have found a 25 year old writer yanking one out in his cubicle and realized their error in judgement.

I searched in vain for the animated image buried somewhere at the New York Times site using my considerable computer hacking skills* but came up empty.  However, I was able to find the following image. Go ahead, click on it. That's 2048 x 998 pixels of smoldering, Upper West Side MILF-iliousness. I'm assuming it's for all those Times readers that can't find their reading glasses.

These photos beg the question, "Don't the libidos of black and latino woman shrivel up and blow away when they hit middle age?"

Apparently not.

Here's the actual article. If you manage to read it, please let me know what it's about.

*That means Google Image Search

Van Gogh Painted Red Stuff

This is pretty cool. The most famous paintings by Van Gogh looked very different when he actually painted them.

Turns out that the red paint he bought was like the cheap stuff you get at WalMart not the classy stuff you get at Michaels. So the blues used to be purple, and the reds and pinks have turned white. That blanket must not be red. I bet it's something like burnt sienna.

The good folks at Shell Oil Company did the research. I'm not sure why this increases the cost of gasoline but I'm sure it does. Thanks Shell Oil!

I Invent a New Game at Work - Day 5 - Game Over!

It's over. Kelly Clarkson completed her second encore and has waddled off to the bottomless buffet. The guy that cleans the men's room has replaced the battered and broken pink thing in the urinal with a brand new one.

Time to begin a new.

Another great thing about the game is that you don't need a ball, you don't even need two balls, you just need a full bladder, focus and good aim. No referees, no timekeepers, no coaches, just the guy that cleans the men's room and you. Speaking of the guy that cleans the men's room I discovered an interesting fact during my extensive research on the internet that took five minutes.

The guy doesn't replace the whole thing in the urinal. He has to remove the crumbling old urinal cake and insert a new cake into the white, netty thing. I find this gross. I'm sure the guy wears gloves and is extra careful but yuck.

Back to the game.  Please feel free to play the game where you work. I put up some flyers and I'm planning to start a young professionals league.  Just imagine the boys in Shipping facing off against the suits in Marketing. Fun times, I'll take plenty of photos.

Remember, never fear the pink splatter.

The George W. Bush Presidential Library

An exclusive, first photo of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

The collection includes the only book George W. Bush ever read, The Pet Goat.

Seriously, a U.S. president that boasted that he didn't like to read, a president that couldn't be bothered to read the Aug. 6, 2011 Presidential Daily Brief entitled bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US, is getting his own library. Only in America.

Wouldn't a sports bar be more appropriate? Welcome to the The George W. Bush Presidential Sports Bar and Lounge. Pull up a chair and let's all watch Fox News and some football. Neck ties and jackets are mandatory, Mr. Senator!

I Invent a New Game at Work - Day 4

It's Day 4 and we're entering the last frame, the final stretch, crunch time. The game has been a nail-biter but believe me, it only gets better. After two visits that included the processing of my morning coffee and a bottle of Diet Pepsi, the pink thing in the urinal looks like this.

I know, yesterday a teeny, tiny breakthrough.

Today, a vast gaping chasm reminiscent of  Kim K's kanyon. Thank you thesaurus.com and thank you Kim Kardashian. Just when you thought it was safe to pee into the little puddle all hell breaks loose (Obviously there's another Kim Kardashian reference there but I'm not going for it).

I've been trying to be careful but I had an awkward moment today in the men's bathroom at work. Some guy caught me taking a picture of the urinal. I have to use the flash because they like to keep it kind of dark in there I guess so it's more romantic.

The guy gave me a "What's up?" as he hesitated to pull down his zipper.

I'm pretty quick on my feet so I ran like hell. Nah, I'm kidding, I just came up with a lighting response, "Just taking a picture of my dick for instagram."

He chuckled and asked if I would take a picture of his dick for his facebook page. Then we took a picture of our dicks together, exchanged @ signs and promised to tag each other.

The game, bringing dicks together since April 2013.

Back to the game. So, did I win? It's a game. There is a winner and a loser. I'm not just competing against the pink thing in the urinal, I'm also competing against all the guys that pee into that other urinal.

The other urinal cake looks all smooth and pink and glistening, untouched by male bodily fluids of any kind, like it was just removed from it's packaging, virginal, if you will allow me to wax poetic.

Winner and still champion, me.

 Later in the afternoon the pink thing in the urinal looked like this.

Where there was only one drainage hole, now there are five. This is when the goal of the game changes drastically. The leaker stops trying to increase the gap and starts trying to break the pink thing up into as many small pieces as possible before the guy that cleans the men's room changes out the pink thing.

Speaking of the guy that cleans the men's room, it appears he made a rare midday appearance and twisted the urinal cake approximately 30 degrees counter clockwise. When this happens I like to imagine my boss' face set at 65% transparency.

It's fun because you can imagine that your boss is spinning in the urinal, perhaps because you tried to flush him down.

More about the new game I invented at work tomorrow!

I Invent a New Game at Work - Day 3

Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! You know, if a Mexican guy was announcing the new game I invented at work.

While it's not called a goal, in my new game it's just as exciting. It's called the breakthrough and if Tim McCarver were announcing the game he would provide a lengthy explanation riddled with errors that the term breakthrough derives from the mining or tunneling industry.

Breakthrough - that exact moment when the digger breaks through the material and forms a small hole. Sadly, today's tunneling industry prefers the term "hole-through."

So today we have breakthrough, the exact moment in time when the warm stream of piss has dissolved through the urinal cake exposing the slightest glimpse of the beige porcelain hidden below.

Until you have played the game it is hard to appreciate the feeling you get when the mere puddle of pee becomes an actual hole. An equivalent experience in baseball might be when you swing as hard as you can and hear the satisfying crack of Zack Greinke's collarbone when it hits squarely with the ground.

For the record, that is not my pube. While I do not shave my crotch, I do keep my bush high and tight with the same trimmer I use on my sideburns, beard and chest hair. I do not own a pube longer than 3/4 of an inch.

Also for the record that is not my boss. It's ex-hedge fund manager and convicted felon Michael Steinberg. When I'm peeing I sometimes like to mix it up and replace my boss with other despicable characters.

Zack, the guy that sits in the cubicle next to me, was disappointed that I didn't use an actual photo of my boss. He thinks I wussed out.  I explained that I'm pretty sure that posting a photo of my boss in a urinal soaking in piss might get me fired if some anonymous guy named Zack ratted me out. Zack wants my cubicle because it has a window.

I have three plants that will not die for lack of sun. It's two plants more than I am allowed to have based on the size of my cubicle. I'm serious. From a policy document entitled Keeping Workplaces Clean and Safe, "no more than one potted plant for each 100 square feet of floor space and that standard shall be enforced..." Sadly, my workspace is way less than 100 square feet.

Soon after I received that memo, Human Resources did an actual audit. They noticed I was two plants over my limit and told me to give them the plants for redistribution. I said, "I'll give you my plants when you pry them from my cold, dead hands." Surprisingly, they didn't shoot me and I still have my plants.

Back to my boss. My boss is way too stupid to be a hedge fund manager but he's just as evil. He kind of looks like a 50-year old Goober Pyle or Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber. A 50-year old man with bangs? That's my boss!

So while you're peeing if you try to imagine Jim Carrey with a lot of wrinkles, a slight mullet, big watery eyes and the ugliest fucking tie worn without irony, you can be just like me.

My boss owns that exact tie and wears it once a week. I found it by googling "ugly tie contest." It's a lame version of the Looney Tunes characters as rappers. I asked him about it once, very delicately. He laughed and blamed his kids but you can tell he really likes it and thinks it makes him look hip and "with it."

Have I mentioned that my job sucks worse than Karl Rove with a mouthful of broken glass?

Back to the game. Now that we have breakthrough the action gets crazy. Can I break up the urinal cake into little pieces before the guy that cleans the men's room replaces it with a new one? Stay tuned. More game info tomorrow.