I came to St. Louis, MO to visit my family over the July 4th holiday weekend.  It’s always nice coming home.  Before I arrive I always have lofty goals of writing, catching up on sleep, exercising, basically rejuvenating myself before I return to the daily urban grind.  Instead I just wind up overeating and watching Asian porn.

My mom tells stories by starting every sentence with, “I said…,” “Then she said…,” “And I went…,” and “I’m going…”  You’d think with that level of detail I would be able to follow, but I still don’t know who said what or where they went.

Missouri is known as the “Show Me State.”  They should amend this to, “Show Me Your Passive Aggressive State.”  Everywhere I’ve gone I’ve witnessed moments of passive aggressive awkwardness.  My brother said to my mother, “I guess I’ll just wait for coffee.”  I heard somebody say, “Wow, that’s a great parking spot, I was going for it, but I’m glad you got it!”  Probably my favorite is the bus signs all around the neighborhood, “Service terminated due to lack of funding.”

There’s no place like home.

I don’t have a dad. Well, that’s a lie, everybody has a dad. Even though I do think there’s a real possibility that I got here by immaculate conception.

My mother was probably drinking a Fresca during the hot July month in 1982, perplexed as to why she gained so much weight over the past couple of months. Whip, bam, boom, out popped the H. Actually, if you talk to my Mom, I didn’t pop out, but rather was pulled out kicking and screaming, in the process breaking three of her ribs.

My parents divorced in the late 80’s, I lived with my father for a couple year’s thereafter, until he decided that I should live with my Mom. He was around for a couple of years after that, but then in 1996, he disappeared. I know he moved to Germany, and the one time I spoke to him in the year’s since he was living in Virginia.

I’m not sad over his absence, I have a wonderful step-dad, but I can’t help but wonder sometimes what he’s up to. I think I’ve come up with a pretty good list of possibilities:

1) He’s the guy who puts the lovely chocolate mint on our pillows at hotels.

2) He’s hunting down Osama bin Laden.

3) He’s Rachel Maddow’s personal assistant.

4) He’s the cab driver that stops for you the moment it starts to rain.

5) He’s a Fresca delivery man.

I think the latter option is more likely than the others.

Wherever he is, he should remain a mystery. I like thinking about him every time I drink a Fresca rather than actually have him in my life.

Unless he’s a millionaire and needs to get rid of some dough. I’m just saying, I got a one-man show that isn’t going to pay for itself!

Watch as I learn the most important question I will have to ask during my trip to Buenos Aires in July, “Do you have a Fresca?”

Many more videos to come in the weeks ahead as I learn Spanish, figure out what to do in Buenos Aires, and learn the Argentine way of life.

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I went on a 6 mile run this morning, culminating in a jump over a fence.

This Cinco de Mayo is bittersweet in light of the recent events in Arizona. I’m convinced they passed that horrible piece of racist legislation just so that the police fould make bookoo bucks in overtime pay today. Lame!

And now, the unofficial Mexican ambassador to the world (even though she’s really Spanish), CHARO!

And now a “WHO KNEW!” moment: Charo’s full name is María Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Moquiere de les Esperades Santa Ana Romanguera y de la Najosa Rasten.

You’re welcome.

Whenever I had friends over as a kid, they’d look around my room and come to my wall of VHS tapes and CD’s. They were impressed with my action movies and Led Zepplin collection. Luckily they didn’t ever want to partake in any of them, or else they would have found the secret contents of what were behind the sleeves.

And it’s not what you’re probably thinking (at least with the VHS tapes).

For example, if they wanted to watch Die Hard, and put in the tape, they would have found the film Steel Magnolias conveniently left at the dramatic emotional breakdown of Sally Field.

Maybe they would want to listen to the Greatest Hits of Bob Marley.  They would have been surprised that Bob sounded an awful lot like Whitney Houston.

BTW - I practiced over and over the moment that I would one day be able to say to somebody, “You got a, you got a, way the you’re makin’ me, feel I can, feel I can, do anything for ya baby.”  It’s gonna happen… someday.

It’s amazing how the things we like can also be the same things that give us shame.

Naturally it got easier to be more open with my “sissy” artistic tastes, but not always.  Even today, among a bunch of homo’s, there’s a lot of shame in some circles for liking Madonna or Lady Gaga, etc.

And to that, I give you this, and kindly say, “Get over yourself and have some fun!”

Let’s bake!

I really do like the people of San Francisco, I swear!

I vlogged a log.  Check it out.

As a former Mormon, let me share a little secret about Mormons: we really don’t give a hoot about Jesus.  He’s great and all, was very popular, a great marketer and people person, but the J in our Big J stands for Joseph Smith.

You see, to many Mormons, Jesus was just a good party promoter.  He “worked” as a carpenter, but let’s be honest, that was just a front to chat it up with people about his link to God.  Can you name one thing he built?  Thank you.

If you think about it, he kind of did what most people do everyday, hang out on Facebook.  Except his was a more organic Facebook, with actual pokes and verbal comments.

My mom puts it best, “Jesus is like Jay Leno, he never did a hard day’s work in his life!”

This past weekend I was uncontrollably sweaty.  I don’t know what caused this constant state of moistness under my arms.  Friday to Sunday evening, wet.

I clearly remember the first time I noticed sweat under my arms.

It was my first day of 5th grade (but everybody else’s second, my family was still on vacation for the first day of school).   I wore a maroon Arizona Jean’s Company T-Shirt that day.  That morning I noticed sweat dripping down from my armpits.  “What’s going on,” I thought?  To conceal the sweat, I began to stuff the shirt into my armpits.

Well, lunchtime eventually came and I had to stand up from my desk.  As I stood, the wet, stuffed remnants of my shirt cascaded down leaving me with two very large circles of sweat.

Great first impression.

I’m still a sweater, but I’ve since learned ways to conceal the sweat: wear black!

Have you heard of the new fad in social networking?  It’s called FourSquare, and it’s basically a more interactive Yelp.  How it works is when you’re out and about, you jump on FourSquare and check in, maybe write a little thing about what you think of the place.  Then your friends get a pop up on their phones letting you know where you are (weird!), and what you think of the place (who cares!).  The more you visit a place, the more points you get, resulting in you eventually becoming Mayor of a particular location (and owning that shit!).

Being a social networking slut (follow me on Twitter), of course I use it.  I’m often distracted by where my friends are visiting (one friend makes a daily trip to the bakery.  no judgement, I swear!), and enjoy catching them in little white lies (”I swear, I really have a sensitivity to gluten, I just go to that bakery for the coffee!”).

In my case, my check-in’s paint a unique and well rounded lifestyle.  Of course I have many points from comedy clubs, I’m very high up in attendance at Crunch gym locations, and I hold my own with the FourSquare bar lovers!  My day job is at a very popular AIDS service location in New York City.  It’s a wonderful job, I love it, and I check in there daily.  I’m so close to gaining Mayor status!

So what does this say about me to somebody who doesn’t know me?  Essentially they see me as an incredibly physically fit comedian with an alcohol problem who may or may not have AIDS.

Maybe I should rethink this FourSquare thing?