I do believe you're trying to seduce me, Mrs. D.

1st time efforts rarely result in triumphant returns. This rule of thumb can be applied to an assortment of situations, but we'll just get to the nitty gritty and say that in my case it was sex. All the awkwardness of an uncomfortably packed elevator, plus post-coital confusion, in less time than it takes to toast a pop tart. Truth be told, in less time than it takes to unwrap a pop tart. Her name was Danielle. She was a highly sexualized woman 5 years my senior who had embarked on a conquest of sleeping her way through the 89110 zip code, which she almost succeeded in doing, if you exclude the elderly and children. She was 19, which really begs the question of why would a 19 year old want to sleep with a 14 year old anyway? My knowledge of sex and associated skills were limited to the love scenes I'd seen on Days of Our lives, which I'd watch with my mom when I got home from kindergarten and Magnum PI. I remember how my mom would go on about his mustache and its magnetic powers. I couldn't get past those awful shirts he'd wear in every episode.

Still, Danielle wanted me to want her, which I kinda did. She had enormous boobs, and the only bare boobs I had seen prior to Danielle's belonged to my 75 year old grandmother who I regrettably walked in on while topless and my mother, again with much regret. I was too young to fully grasp or appreciate the concept of an STD, the gift that keeps on giving, so following a friend, who followed another friend didn't seem as dirty then as it certainly does now. But I found myself alone with Danielle on New Year's Eve 1993 after having smoked a festive amount of weed and my inhibitions were on holiday.

We talked for a little bit, then started fooling around. I tried and failed to take off Danielle's bra, my approach less debonair and more kid opening a Christmas present. She saw that I was struggling with the bra and she did the coolest thing a girl/woman/confused man can do and that is undo the bra with one hand behind her/his back. You'd have thought Danielle's last name was Copperfield and she had just made something vanish as I was really that impressed and really that naive. After the bra trick she asked me what I wanted to do and I said I had no clue what to do. I could have figured it out, I suppose, but I was naive and confused. So she walked me through what comes so easily to rabbits and Mormons, yet somehow mystified me.

The beauty in how long things lasted lies in the truth of how long things lasted. People love to embellish about these types of things as its far more palatable. I say fuck that, dear reader. It was about 5 seconds later when I realized I knew nothing about nothing and all I could think of was being home. Danielle knew it was my first rodeo and she did something that was nice. She wrapped her arms around me and said "It's ok". I never forgot that.

Being 14 I hadn't the faintest clue how to react to my subsequent emotions and thoughts. Was this relationship legally binding? Is she pregnant? If so, what kind of father would I be not knowing how to fist fight or change my own oil, let alone work for a living? So I avoided Danielle for a while till she wrote me a letter explaining how I was an asshole. I later apologized for my behavior and we became friends again. Shortly after, she moved to an apartment on Maryland Parkway to start working her magic on UNLV's student body and it's students bodies.

I lost contact with Danielle till recently when a friend told me she was on Facebook. Not looking to revive anything, or drudge up the past, but only say hi, I contacted her. To my astonishment, she had no clue as to who I was, not even a hint of recollection. I guess the adage of "you always remember your first"does not apply to the deflowerer. I attempted to explain who I was to her and that I wasn't on a "what does it all mean" trip, finding myself playing ex-girlfriend bounty hunter as to explain my present day actions or mistakes. I simply wanted to say hello. And she couldn't remember me, my name, those ravaging 5 seconds or the subsequent awkwardness. She told me she was a school teacher somewhere in the Midwest, a mother of 12 and a married woman. She explained to me that she had long forgotten about most of her past in Las Vegas and apologized for not remembering who I was, but she hoped she was "good for me" that night. And that was that. I had been reduced to a notch on a headboard that had been worn off by the shifting scales of morales and time, which is fine. And here's to you, Mrs. D.

Grandma Freteluco: Enabling cross dressers since 1922

Grams Freteluco was buried yesterday in the small Northern Arizona town of Flagstaff, home to many a woman with flowing locks of underarm hair and avid John Denver listeners. I left Flagstaff in 1988 so my experiences with my Grandmother after that were lessened but I always had a memorable time whenever I was with her. Years later I would come to realize that limitless youthfulness of hers wasn't fueled by an uncontainable exuberance or lust for life, to quote Iggy Pop, but rather good ol' fashioned brandy in copious amounts. She was a great grandmother. I'm not sure if there's a rating system for grandparents or if the quality of a grandparent is contingent upon how much slack they give up to the grandchild, but Katherine was pretty good. At age five, I took up the hobby of cross dressing and my efforts were met with a wrinkly thumbs up from Grams. I preferred her pearls as they really completed the "granny motif" I was going for, not Ru Paul or Milton Berle drag as I didn't want any of Grams' elderly neighbors getting any ideas in their senility addled minds. When I realized that enormous bras and panty hose weren't for me, I quit. Eventually I would resume dressing in drag, but only for Halloween as when you're a cheap bastard of a teenager as I once was, the prospect of buying a costume seems silly compared to wearing a female friends clothes for a night. Anyways, Grams was the sultan of the soup, the proprietor of the endless old folks home block party and could be counted on to send me five dollars for my birthday. She's buried in the vicinity of my grandfather Nicholas and while they divorced forty something years ago, they now have plenty of time to catch up on missed episodes of the Simpsons together (assuming there's tv, electricity and basic cable where ever they are) and bone up on their abilities to craft a wicked haiku. Or whatever it is you do when you're dead. Hail hail Katherine Freteluco.

Oh Billy Ray, why did you reproduce?

After opening a birthday card the size of an LP record, I seriously believed the crew of To Catch A Predator was going to come through the door as I felt pervy just holding a birthday card with Miley Cyrus' 13 year old visage on it. To hear the 20 second loop of "The Best Of Both Worlds", searing the eardrums of the unsuspecting victim, reminds me that yes, the hell spawn of the man that blessed us with the Achey Breaky is hard at work polluting the pop culture waters, but also that somewhere there's a little girl that really digs this music. And that's all that matters.

So a pregnant woman, a spider bite victim and a shoplifter walk into a bar. Stop me if you've heard this one.

Upon realizing my eye wasn't going to return to normal without medical assistance, I found myself waiting for CAT scans and thus, in a CAT Scan waiting room. Waiting in this room were 3 individuals: a man in a wheelchair, his female companion and a white girl in a shirt long enough to obscure what short shorts she had on. They all looked at me and assumed I had been beaten severely, it was just a matter of who was going to voice this observation first. I tried to make small talk with the white girl who was fidgety and twitchy as all fans of meth are. Unfortunately, she was sitting to my right and my right side was most certainly my worst side at that moment so to entertain any sort of jailhouse-esque "What are you in here for?" conversation was probably not what she wanted to participate in with someone looking like I did at that moment. Surprisingly though, she responded with a sinister and creepy "Ho ho ho, female problems." Then she turned her head to resume watching Jay Leno. Then she turns back to me and says "What the hell happened to you?" Spider bite I say. Enter wheelchair bound man. He had not said word one up to this point when he says "Hell no that's not a spider bite, it looks like someone beat the fuck outta you." I assured him that that wasn't the case and that some bug assaulted me in my sleep. He said he'd seen his fair share of spider bites and what I had looked like a case of saying the wrong thing to the wrong person and not a spider out for vengeance. I had to wonder what brought this wonderful man on wheels into the hospital and he explained that he was running towards a wall, jumped over it not knowing the ground on the other side was significantly lower and broke his foot when he landed. I was curious as to who or what he was running from to necessitate leaping over the wall in the first place. He declined to elaborate. He then told me that he initially felt terrible for having to visit the hospital after an exercise in such stupidity, but he felt much better after he saw me. He actually told me that. His female companion chuckled at his every witty remark like Wheel Chair Man was with the bastard son of Richard Pryor. My favorite moment was when a nurse came into the room to explain to the girl with the short shorts that the hospital would be unable to perform any x-rays on her on account of her being pregnant, This was news to the girl and the rest of us in the waiting room. I smiled a big toothy grin, so happy I was for her. If only she could have seen the twinkle in my eye from beneath the huge shiner resting on it.

I could have been a contender

The day before my birthday that just passed some rat bastard bug decided to have a taste of my eyebrow while I was asleep. I awoke to what I thought was a zit with a nasty temperament, only to have my eyelid begin to droop down to my cheek bone ala Rocky Balboa. As I began to resemble a byproduct of incest more and my old funny looking self less, I decided I needed to go to the doctors office to get an educated assessment of my optical malady. I saw two doctors and two assistants and they all started with something along the lines of "Who did this to you, or Who'd you piss of? I would have liked to have told them I was in a bar and got into a brawl in a place where there's sawdust on the floor and guys with bullets crisscrossing their chests sit at the bar talking of the nefarious acts they do for money or women. In just sounds more impressive than a god damn bug bit me. Or maybe i stopped a hold up at a Jason's Deli but not before the robber pistol whipped me. And as a reward the workers at the deli gave me my lunch for free after I regained consciousness. Nonetheless, it really just came down to a a bug and me. Bug one, Luke zero. I'm not leaving the house for a few days as I'm getting lingering looks from people that scream "Damn, who got a hold of you?" However, i went to Radioshack yesterday, and the guy that helped me had what appeared to be 10 percent of his conjoined twin remaining on the side of his head and I immediately felt at ease. I had hoped that what could come out of this is the bug bite could affect me eyesight forcing me to wear glasses thereby enabling me to realize my dream of wearing the kind of glasses worn by Elvis Costello or serial killers from the 60's. The doctor said not to plan on getting and prescription glasses anytime soon, but to get used to looking like I was married to Ike Turner for the rest of the week. I said that wasn't much of a consolation prize. I told him the glasses would offset what will surely be a head void of hair in the future and that I didn't have the gall to attempt the award winning, gravity defying come over my uncle has sported since the early nineties. He said he was sorry to hear about my uncles blue ribbon winning come over, but my Elvis Costello weren't in the cards, for now. I left his office and the receptionist looked at me and started to giggle while asking me how my day was going. At least she didn't ask who did this to me.

Luke, I could be your father, but we need to do a paternity test first. So it's a strong maybe.

In observance of the fast approaching Fathers Day, I tried to assemble a short list of songs that pay tribute to fathers. I discovered that a good number of songs recognize that some men love to haul ass out of their respective domestic situations. Papa was a rolling stone, Gone daddy gone, Papa's got a brand new bag, etc...not very flattering. So I''ll just tell you about my pops. Charlie Freteluco is a Marxist, and an avid Sam Cooke fan. He adheres to all rules established by the Catholic church and often times finds himself in the confessional telling someone he says the word fuck too much and comments on every woman's bottom he sees. Even the big ones. He is an old country western movie aficionado yet, surprisingly, he was not thrilled when I duped him into watching Brokeback Mountain. Even as I am making my way to 40, my dad still asks if I'd like various women for a new step mom. He had 10 kids, and probably would have had more but he said 10 was a good number. He could start a sports team with 10. His litmus test of how strongly he dislikes someone is when he says "I wouldn't pee on them if they were on fire." I assured him the likelihood of his ever seeing an enemy engulfed in flames, while having a near-bursting bladder was decidedly low. I asked if he would pee on someone he liked? Her said I was being silly and to knock it off. We were both in a bar in Flagstaff, AZ and as a joke, my dad asked a woman to dance with me. I danced with girls in Middle School, stepped on a lot of toes, reviled in the prepubescent awkwardness of it all. But I had never danced with a grown woman. He asked some woman who was noticeably older than me to dance with me and I was not thrilled in the least. I told the lady my hips and feet were inherently white, and that dancing was not in the cards for me. She said she wasn't getting shot down by me. I didn't like how that sounded. So I danced with her to the song that plays in La Bamba when Richie Valens dies. Its an instrumental number called Sleepwalk. While we were dancing I quickly noticed that the bar was filled with Hells Angels members. I'm not sure if they carry cards, but lets assume they do, so these were bona fied card carrying Hells Angels. They didn't seem violent, they weren't brandishing weapons or doing doughnuts on their bikes in the bar. But there was a ton of them in this bar. I always wanted to act out the scene in Pee Wee's Big Adventure where he knocks over the bikes then saved himself with an impromptu performance of the Tramps Tequila. So call yer pop's on Fathers Day.
Your Pal, Luke

There is a mix tape for every occasion.

I loved the mix tape. Consider the mix tape another antiquated piece of years gone by swept under the rug of life by the relentless onslaught of technology. I make a mix cd every Christmas season, but it's not quite as charming. The more seasoned mix tape producer could walk the tight rope that is the difference between over self-indulgence (perhaps a 10 minute Sonic Youth song) and pandering (pop songs, mostly). I was a miser of a little kid and tried to recycle my mix tapes, often times after my mom had made her own mix tape with assorted Latin band and oldies numbers on it. One time I went to a girlfriends house in a last ditch effort to keep our relationship together and I knew I had to have an assortment of songs that screamed "this man is in pain. His misery star burns bright and true and his eagerness to wallow in it with the help of Robert Smith knows no end." I didn't realize that when you record over a cassette so frequently the songs that were recorded over will eventually bleed through. So as I was attempting to convey the urgency and emotional investment in the situation, the unmistakable sound of a Mariachi bands horns and oompa oompa bass parts come crawling out from beneath the emotional wreckage of Dramarama's ode to desperation and gateway to stalking "Anything, Anything, Anything". Did my lo-fi mash-up of Latino drinking music and 80's one hit wonders kill the moment? Absolutely. Did she break up with me? Oh yeah. But she did make out with me right before we broke up, which was a distant, distant second best thing.