Pack Your Suitcase And Pretend You've Been Out Of Your Town.

None of you have traveled. I have though*. So below is a list of places I’ve been to. I didn’t include ALL the places – especially local – because I don’t have all day here. You know?

And I didn’t cheat and include cities I’ve driven through. And either should you. Once you finally travel somewhere.

Philadelphia, PA
New York, NY
Danbury, CT
Stamford, CT
Rome, NY
Ocean City/Sea Isle NJ and more
Atlantic City, NJ
Wilmington, DE

Washington, DC
Baltimore, MA
Ocean City, MA
Nags Head, NC
Duck, NC
Virgina Beach, VA

Nashville, TN
Memphis, TN
Louisville, KY
Atlanta, GA
Orlando, FL

Chicago, Ill
Muskegon, MI
Minneapolis, MN
Boise, ID

Dallas, TX
Austin, TX
Corpus Christi, TX
San Antonio, TX
Seattle, WA
Las Vegas, NV
Reno, NV
San Diego, CA
Los Angeles, CA
Burbank, CA
Long Beach, CA

North America (not US)
Piedras Negras, Mexico

Overseas
Stratford-Upon-Avon UK
Oxford, UK
Frankfurt Germany
Milan, Italy
Hong Kong
Xiamen, China
Shenzen, China
Guangzhou, China

*The main reason for this post is for when I lose my memory and I want to remember where I've been. And for historians.

Huh? Crazy Thing A Little Black Kid Asked Me Once. Downingtown.

Here's a crazy thing that I was once asked that I still can't figure out.

I guess I was about 23 and at my older sister's for Easter. They had our family over, then after we ate some of the neighbors from the complex came in for drinks.

So I'm standing on their small patio with a few people just sipping my drink and chatting.

Then one of the neighbor's kids - a little black boy about 5 - made his way toward me, stood there for a minute, looked up at me and asked, "Are you a boy or a girl?"

I just stood there like, "WTF?"

"Uh...I'm a boy."

He just said, "Oh OK." Then turned and walked inside.

Everyone just cracked up. I have no idea why he thought this. I was wearing a suit for God's sake. I don't have a high voice. No idea other than my younger sister and I kind of look the same and maybe he saw her inside and got confused. Or maybe he thinks all crackers look the same.

Or maybe he was just a dumb kid. I don't know.

Editor's Note: I was asked the identical question when I was 5. But back then I had huge curls. Oh yeah. And I kind of looked like a girl.

Do You Want To Know What I Look LIke? Lookalikes.

I love finding lookalikes for people I know. The best is when I find a lookalike and there IS a resemblance but it’s a total insult.

My friend Flare and I have always cracked up when we’d see lookalikes of each other. We’d be at Exton Mall back in the day and if he saw a lookalike of me he would go up to the person, look really confused and look back and forth at me and the lookalike and say, “Wait….Zibbs, is this you…or is…what the…wait a minute...” The person would have no idea and would just look all nervous and walk faster to get away.

Then when I’d point out a lookalike of Flare, he would actually go up to the person, and put his hands up mime style or begin to comb his hair. Then he would say, “Oh my God I’m sorry, I thought this was a mirror.”

I even have a scrapbook I started years ago called, “The lookalike file.” When I see a lookalike of someone I know I clip it and put it in the old lookalike file. The best is when the reaction to a lookalike is cracking up then the person says, “Oh my God you’re mean.” Whatcha gonna do?

Well on the subject of lookalikes, here are some people I’ve been told I look like:

Errol Flynn – My aunts used to tell me that all the time. I’ll take that though. Good looking chap.


Eminen – This one is complete bull. Someone from Twitter said I look like him. I think it’s because of how my hair looked one day.


The adult Chistopher Night aka Peter Brady – Some chick told me this recently. She did say, “But I mean that in a good way. He’s a good looking man.” So I got that.


Dan Marino – Some photographer at a photo shoot told me this once. He was like, “You look just like him.” First and last time I heard that. I guess I do kind of see it on this one.


Weird Al – This was because of my cheesy mustache in college. Total insult.


Napoleon Dynamite – My oldest sister said “that’s you in 8th grade.” Hmm. Well I do think I had a suit like that. Except I never danced with a girl in 8th grade at a dance. I was too busy holding the wall up.


And someone recently said a combo of The Hoff and Anthony Bourdain. Kind of insulted by the Anthony Bourdain since he's way older but whatever.

So who have you been told you look like? Come on…don’t be

Super Embarrassing Story. Disney and Ukrainian Lady.

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And Then You Got The Frito Bandito. Commercial

I was gonna post the Big Fig Newton commercial but embedding was disabled. Jerks.

So you'll have to settle for the Frito Bandito commercial. Anyone remember this? And I was the proud owner of the Frito Bandito eraser. So there's that.

This One Time At Gillian's In Ocean City. Scrambler.

This may sound mean but I’m stating the facts.

Years ago while vacationing with the family in Ocean City New Jersey we went up to Gillians Wonderland Pier with the kids. Gillians is on the boardwalk and has rides for the tots.

We’d usually get our happy hour in, then fill up a water bottle with booze to sip on during the time we had to spend at Gillians. Well, I would bring the booze water bottle but the others were babies so they didn’t. Well, I think my friend Debbie later did. I forget.

Actually that part of the story doesn’t even matter. Here’s what does. We’re standing at the “Scrambler” - you know, that ride where you sit and it looks like a giant spider? And it spins and stretches it’s long legs?

So I’m standing next to the ride operator and every so often when one of the cars swings over for the split second near us I could hear someone saying, “Stop the ride.”

Then it would go away. Then, “I gotta get off!”

Then it was gone.

Well it turns out that there was a retarded man in one of the cars that obviously wanted to get off. And the ride operator - a eighteen year old kid - was just looking at him. And kind of smiling. In a demented way. As if saying, “You can ask me to stop the ride as many times as you want Pal but it ain’t happening. Because I’m having too much fun torturing you.” It was so obvious he heard the dude screaming to stop the ride.

It’s the kind of thing where somebody should have stepped in but…you know… the management office was all the way back there and all so….

And here’s what’s even funnier, I look on the other side of the operator and the retarded man’s family is leaning up against the gate. And they’re laughing. Hysterically. I mean roaring with laughter.

The car would approach, “STOP THE RIDE!”

And a family member would yell, “Nope! You wanted to go on it!”

This went on for a good five minutes or so. There’s no real ending to the story. He didn’t throw up or anything but I just saw a picture of a scrambler and remembered the story. It’s pretty wrong don’t you think? Funny. But wrong.

Paaaartayyy!! Crazy Weekend Highlights At Penn State.

I usually hate walking into a bar with friends when it’s wall to wall 21 year olds. We usually just turn around because you feel like an old fart*. Usually …..

The exception was this past weekend. I went up to Penn State with a few friends to see a band. The band we were supposed to see was on Saturday at 9:30 so we thought we’d go into town and “walk around, maybe see if there’s a Penn State sporting event happening so we ‘stay out of trouble during the day’”, as Bill said. Well THAT didn’t happen.

As we drive into town we see hundreds and hundreds of college kids walking around wearing green. It turns out there’s an event called “State Patrick’s Day” and it’s a HUGE all day party.

So we park our car near the fraternity that my two friends went to and decide to go inside. We walk in the door – this is at 12:30 in the afternoon - and there are literally 200 drunk college kids in the frat house. DJ blaring music. People dancing on tables. A dude passed out drunk on the couch. Another dude walked past me, tripped up the steps and fell into the wall head first.


The dude in the hat on the table is my main man

Basically. It’s insane. It’s what you’d expect at 2 AM on New Year’s but it’s barely past noon.

Now here’s where it gets really nuts. We of course stand out like sore thumbs because we’re not wearing green. AND we’re the age of their Dad’s. Or their really, really, really, really older brothers. So they start coming up to us and ask who we are. My friend’s says, “Alumni.” As soon as they say that everyone goes crazy, “What? You are? Let’s parttttyy!” And we basically become celebrities. Everyone wants to party with us. People randomly come up to meet us. We’re laughing our asses off at the absurdity of what’s happening. The entire time laughing and saying, “Is this really happening?”

We roam upstairs and there are people in every room. We get high fives from everyone as we walk own the hall. We’re handed random bottles to drink from as we pass. We walk into an upstairs game room. 30 heads look at us in shock. Bill says loudly, “Don’t worry, we’re not cops. We’re alumni.” The crowd cheers.

I could go on and on about some of the crazy things but it would make for a really long post. (Plus I likes to keep private). Two highlights were that four lovely ladies came up to us and said, “Can we party with you?”

“Well of course you can my dears.” And we proceeded to not only party….but Par-TAY** Here they are***:



The other really crazy thing was that two curvy coeds (sounds hot huh? Trust me…it was) pulled me out on the dance floor to shake it. Being a good sport I went out to shake my groove thang. And we’re dancing. Then they’re dancing around me. Slinking really. Then they both start bending over and start GRINDING on me. Just as I’m about to grab the hips of the one I remember what my one friend said earlier, “Could you imagine if the cops raided this place and the first thing they see is us? With all these underage kids?” Reality sets in and I exit the dance floor. Seconds before I was violated.

Well that’s all I’ll get into here but it was a craaaazy weekend. And I honestly came THIS close to getting up on the main dance table but thought, what if I slip off and break a hip? Buzzkill.

* Plus they’re not mature enough to really grasp my sophisticated ways.
** Whatever THAT means.
*** God Dyyyyyyaaaaaaammmmn!!