Sex ed? Really? And meet the Globo Gym Purple Cobras...

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Recently Will Faour, age 10, went through sex ed. In the fifth grade. They had a night where the parents were to join their children and see what their kids had learned.

Will, of course, told me they had been discussing puberty.

Hah.

Maybe I am an old prude. Maybe I am naive. I was expecting something like Sammy the Sperm meeting Elaine the Egg. Together, they created Ed (Eddie or Edna) the embryo, who became Fran the fetus. Hey, just need to drop this off and get back to my Roman orgy

Or maybe I was expecting Spanky the Stork. I don't know.

Instead we got diagrams. Very descriptive pictures. Discussions that included the words anal, oral and vaginal. Masturbation. Wet dreams.

Yes, kids know more at a younger age, but now I have visions of a little group of fifth graders having a Roman orgy, dressing as Spartans and discussing whether or not to go oral, anal or vaginal.

Even I was rendered speechless. All I know is if you see a serious looking little woman with a dvd wanting to talk frankly about sex, run like hell.

Or join the orgy. Your call.

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Whenever I visit a new gym, new stories often follow. Tuesday was no exception.

We are filling in from 3-5 this week for Carl Dukes, which gives me a nice two-hour window to hit the gym nearby. I belong to a gym that has locations all over Houston and stays open all night.

(You want more than that, advertise with me, gym owners).

So the one closest to the station does not have a basketball court. That's usually enough to send me further up the road. But since time was limited, the plan was a quick weight rotation, a little treadmill time and back to the station.

However, as soon as I walked into this place, I knew something was wrong.

I had stumbled into Globo Gym.

The plastic surgery-supported supermodel behind the front desk glared at me with that, "who invited you to this club?" look. She ran my card twice to make sure I really belonged.

When the machine actually accepted it, she tossed it back at me, not even looking at me.

I had walked into the world of the beautiful people on their lunch break. Needless to say, everyone else in the gym gave me that same, "what the hell are you doing here?" look -- at least the ones who could spare a half second to look down their noses at me.

Other than occasionally amorous old ladies, I like the other two gyms I usually go to. I play basketball with some good guys, and I don't ever feel self conscious. There are a lot of policemen, firemen, shift workers...just good hardworking folks who like to work out and talk sports. My kind of guys.

Average Joe's Gym kind of guys.

At this place, the people were clearly in a rush. No one was even remotely friendly. I kept expecting to see White Goodman show up on a giant screen and say, "Amber, work those abs! Tiffany, feel the burn!!!"

"Who is that old dude over there? Go back to the Meyerland gym, loser."

"Fred, you don't look like this guy. You should hate yourself." -- White Goodman.

As an aside: Do all women try to look exactly like each other in the gym? At the other two places, every woman (except Estelle) is blond, wears a baseball hat with a pony tail, light blue leotards, white shoes and usually a pink and white top. There are dozens of them. At this place, they were all brunette, black leotards, black shoes and a gray top. No hat. Is there a Female Law I don't know where everybody who looks like has to congregate at a certain gym? There were at least 20.

Meanwhile, as if I weren't feeling out of place enough, the locker room had a V.I.P locker room.

Nicer lockers? Really? That's it? You feel the need to pay for nicer lockers? The beautiful people truly have to separate themselves from other beautiful people?

Not only that, the VIP room had a glass door so the second-class beautiful people could see inside and long for the days they, too, could get in the V.I.P. locker room.

I pressed my nose against the glass, whimpering. The best of the best ignored me. I think one actually called security. We are the Globo Gym Purple Cobras. And we will, we will rock you!

I quickly left, fearing Lazer, Blazer and the other Purple Cobras would come and take me away.

I was, frankly, afeared.

But I am no longer.

You are not afeared of me???

I have news for you, beautiful people. I am here all week. I will be there every day. Get used to it. Quit looking down your nose. There are more of me than there are of you, and I will start bringing friends.

Go watch the end of Revenge of the Nerds. Go watch the end of Dodgeball.

We win, hot people. You should be afeared.

Um, how much is that V.I.P. locker room?

Just Tweet me, baby...Let's get random

Please click on the ads. You will help support a degenerate. And please check out my sports takes on the Examiner site. Tell your friends about that. I get paid per click, so help me out. I promise to make you laugh here at some point.

I apologize for not posting much lately. Between the Examiner blog, updating the 975 Web site every day, working on some writing projects and this Twitter thing, I have fallen behind. Or maybe the clown bit just scared everybody. Either way, sorry.

Every now and then, it's fun to go totally random. No planned takes. No ideas that evolved from being drunk and watching movies. Just go with some generic thoughts as they pop into my head...

1) Am I the only one who doesn't quite get Twitter? Yes, I am on there, and it is helpful for touting the blogs and what's happening on the radio. But I am not real prolific. What all am I supposed to write?

I am simply not that interesting.

Fred is sitting in the studio at work playing online poker? Fred is going to the gym? Fred is mixing Jack Daniels with Jager shots, which is a colossally bad idea? Fred is sick of that freaking poker face song? Fred is probably glad he didn't go to New Orleans because he would have gotten Dana and Mindy arrested? Fred is considering putting up a Twitter update but doesn't know what to say?
Tweet me, baby.

2) I like Bart. Bart stalks me and wants me to die. I appreciate his honesty, whoever he/she is. Maybe if I send Bart some naked pictures he/she will leave me alone. Or just laugh so hard that he/she will cease to hate me. Regardless, it's nice to be hated.

3) I like Canadians. (*-One in particular I like quite a bit). Nice folks. Very friendly. Our little pets to the North. But why do you guys have such American Envy? We're not mean. We're not arrogant. We don't start wars with other countries just for the hell of it. We leave that to our government. The rest of us are pretty cool.

*-gratuitous reference to Virtual Val.

4) Did you see they are re-making Footloose? Really? We can't do my version of Road Warrior, but they can remake Footloose? Why not Flashdance? Why not Dirty Dancing? Please, Hollywood, enough already.

5) Speaking of movies, Rip Torn has apparently really become Patches O'Houlihan. All that's missing is the hookers in the room.

6) Does it seem like Michael Vick got out of prison awful fast?

7) It's about time C-squared got on Facebook.

8) Brandy is blogging again! All is right with the world!

9) Poker really is life. Been in a life funk for a year and my poker suffered. Suddenly I'm happy, and hands hold up. Weird.

10) Finally, a joke on the difference between men and women...
A man is driving up a steep, narrow mountain road. A woman is driving down the same road. As they pass each other, the woman leans out the window and yells, "PIG!"
The man immediately leans out his window and replies, "Stupid!"
They each continue on their way, and as the man rounds the next corner he slams into a pig in the middle of the road.

It's time for a movie remake...check out this cast

OK, so no one liked the clown killers. You are no longer allowed to complain about clowns to me. You had your chance, and you blew it.

Please click on the ads, and for sports takes check out my examiner commentary.

I love really clever cover versions of old songs. I prefer bands that take a soft song and just rock the hell out of it. The Ataris' version of Don Henley's Boys of Summer, for instance. Seether's new version of Wham's Careless Whisper is a Freddy-type remake.

Oddly, I hate movie remakes. There are too many, they aren't clever, and in fact they are often just weak attempts to capitalize on an old movie's success. It shows how little creativity there is in moviemaking these days. The Longest Yard remake was an absolute disaster. Planet of the Apes. Poseidon.

Bad ideas, all.

But thanks to a little Evan Williams and AMC on a Sunday night, there are some movies I would actually like to see remade. No. 1 on that list? Road Warrior. Don't ask me why, but the entire cast popped into my head while I was watching it. After that, I had a few other ideas...

Movie No. 1: The Road Warrior.

It was light years better than Mad Max, which was pretty good, too. I mean, who can forget the Toecutter? But I am thinking big budget, blow-up-a-lot-of-stuff, high-dollar, super special effects. My cast:

Max -- Christian Bale. He would need to be kind of a scruffy, John Connor-type in the role. He doesn't have to talk much, but his character needs to dance on the edge of sanity, much like his Batman.

The gyro captain: Steve Buscemi. Who could be better? Goofy, slightly dangerous, kind of like his character in Fargo.

Toadie: You remember Toadie: "YOU! You can run -- but you can't hide!" Vin Diesel would be perfect. You need bald, you need mean, you need an anti-hero. I'm thinking a Riddick-type character.

The Lord Humongous: John Cena. Originally, I was thinking Diesel for this role, but Humongous wears a mask, and you need Diesel's face in the movie. Cena will be a towering, menacing presence.

Papagallo: Ed Norton. Norton could play any role anywhere. But I am thinking a combo Worm in Rounders and American History X after he gave up on being a skinhead. Papagallo is a leader, but he is tricky and deceitful at times. Norton could handle this beautifully.

Diretor: Michael Bay. I want a Transformers/big screen/military feel to the last run to freedom. Lots of stuff blowing up, lots of bodies and arms and legs.

Rewritten screenplay: Me. I would stay loyal to the original, but I would have a longer stretch at the beginning when Max is on his own, with a few more kills and explosions.

OTHER MOVIES:

FLESH GORDON: Remember the rapist robots? Yeah, we need better special effects. Mark Walhberg as Flesh Gordon. (Well, his Boogie Nights character).

IT: I get to play the clown.

TRON: Imagine what we could do with special effects. And how about this for an updated cast:

Kevin Flynn/Clu (originally played by Jeff Bridges) -- Tom Cruise. Yes, he has gone completely weird, which is why he is a perfect fit.

Tron/Alan Bradley -- Jason Statham. He is more of the badass in the film, so Statham is a good fit.

Yori/Dr. Lora Baines -- Halle Berry. Just because I can.

Ram: Ashton Kutcher. It is time for him to get past "Dude, where's my car?" Plus, his Twitter hits alone will get people to pack the house.

Sark/Ed Dillinger/Master Control program: John Malkovich. Just be Cyrus the Virus from Con Air in a sci fi setting, and it will be perfect.

KRULL: Liam Neeson could reprise his role as Kegan.

Wait a minute....Why do I get the sense you people haven't see any of these movies? Check out IMDB and get back to me. ..

It's time for you and the clowns to make up...(OK, that was bad...)

First, please remember to click on the ads. They pay for this drivel. Also, check out my sports commentary at Examiner.com.

OK, almost every one of you has an irrational fear of clowns. I don't get it, understand it or support it.

Clowns need love, too. Especially evil ones. Think about it: what would Poltergeist be without the clown? What would It be? What would Uncle Freddy be without this wonderful alter ego?



Yes, even Sparkles needs love.

However, since you all hate clowns, we have found the place for you. You can thank those French Canadian folks for this:



This is part of a series of clown hatred. Click here and you will see even more.

Folks, it is time for this irrational fear and hatred of clowns to stop. They are people, too. (Well, some of them). They are important contributors to society. Without them, there would be no small cars with 30 clowns shoved inside. No balloon animals. No giant red shoes or bulbous noses.

No Sparkles.

Maybe we should educate you.

Did you know that all forms of clowns are descendants of the white-faced clown, who used white makeup?

Did you know that many clowns take two hours just to get ready for a performance?

Didn't know that, did you? See how much trouble they go to for you to hate them?

Don't worry. I am not angry with you. You are all sick. You have something called coulrophobia -- the irrational fear of clowns.

We are going to work past this.

Let's try something... How could you fear this guy?

Without him, there would be no Oscar for The Dark Knight. There would be no reason to live.

So I am asking nicely, please, get over your fears. Embrace your inner clown. Accept Sparkles as one of your own. Let me make him my permanent Facebook profile.

Only then can we stop the madness. Stop the hatred. It's time to stop the abuse of clowns in our time.

If not, we are going to fight back. We're not going to allow you to continue to treat us like second-class performers.

Auguste clowns, unite. Circus clowns, sign up. Hobo clowns, join us. Rodeo clowns, we need you.

The Day of the Clown is coming. When it does, there will not be a safe balloon animal anywhere.

Be afraid, haters.
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Here's another blog for those of you who like horse racing. It's all about MC Gelding.

And drop by Brandy's place and say hi and give her some ideas.

And click on the ads!

One way to cure road rage; in Calvin we trust...maybe not this time

If you read the last post, you know how bad Houston traffic is when it rains. When it doesn't rain, drivers are just as bad.

So there was a road rage incident on the way to Sam Houston Race Park on Saturday, but it had a happy ending.

Sort of.

Saturday was a long day -- early seminar at Gulf Greyhound, followed by a long drive north to be at Sam Houston. It was roughly 2 p.m. on 290, not too far from SHRP, when a red Ford truck (you never see THOSE in Texas) swung over in front of me, almost putting me in the concrete wall.

Once I recovered, the road rage inspired anger began to rise. The ears turned red. The low growl came up in the throat.

But since it was Derby Day, a religious holiday, we let it go.

Until he almost hit the car again, this time swinging over a full lane without looking. He sped up, heading for the exit toward Sam Houston.

This time, the anger took over, and the Honda was roused into action. As we drew alongside and I was about to drop an F-bomb, I saw why the guy was struggling with his driving.

He had the Racing Form spread out across his steering wheel. He was handicapping while driving on the way to the track.

Instantly, the rage was gone.

Whoever you are, red truck dude, you are my kind of guy. Yes, you were irresponsible. Yes, you almost killed me.

But it was a good cause. I mean, who can really hate a true degenerate like that?

Hope you had the winner, pal.

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Props to three people who had the winner of the Derby:

1) My mom, who loves jockey Calvin Borel. She talked about the horse all week. Thank God she didn't listen to her idiot son.

2) Virtual Val, who liked the horse for some other inexplicable handicapping theory that I refuse to listen to until Preakness week since I am still steaming. But my guess is Val is Canadian. The horse was 2-year-old Canadian champ. Good things rarely come out of Canada, but this time, one plus one equals 50-1.

(Don't get mad, Canadians. Until you do something about Celine Dion...sorry, that's our image of you).

3) Scotty the Genius. Not sure if it was Scotty or me who coined the phrase "In Calvin We Trust." I will take credit for it. Scotty will have to settle for being greatest handicapper in the history of the known universe.

Calvin Borel has been on almost every long shot winner I've ever had. He has been one of my favorite riders for almost 20 years now. Delta Downs. Fair Grounds. Sam Houston. Oaklawn. Churchill. The defunct Ellis Park. Louisiana Downs. Turfway. Calvin has won huge races for me at all of those tracks. He even won a big race for me once at Jefferson Downs.*

(If you don't know Jefferson Downs, you are either under the age of 30 or not a true horse racing degenerate).

Regardless, we've been saying "In Calvin we Trust" for years.

When he got away at 50-1 -- the second longest shot in Derby history -- I didn't. Growl. Snarl. Grumble.

It was an incredible ride, typical Calvin rail-skimming brilliance. He was also aboard Oaks winner Rachel Alexandra, who won by about six miles, so it was a big weekend for the young man.

In the last three Derbies, Calvin has a first on Mine That Bird, a third on long shot Denis of Cork, and a win on Street Sense. That record stacks up with anybody. (Yeah, I had Street Sense. Hoo boy. He wasn't 50-1).

From now on, we blindly trust no matter what.

Congrats to everybody who won. You guys are much smarter than me.

Except for one guy.

Sam Houston track announcer Michael Chamberlain is the most underrated announcer in the country. Other than an affinity for Jerry Baily, bad handicapping and weird yellow corduroy pants, he is a good guy.

At our seminar, he didn't even mention the winner. Then he spent five minutes saying how much he hated Pioneer of the Nile, who finished second.

Walking out, he showed me an 8-16 exacta ticket he had bet.

Because that is his birthday.

Buy some new pants with it, pal.

So I have learned my lesson if I want to be successful...In the Preakness, I am betting a 12-18. Even if there are only three horses. And betting Calvin.

And I plan to handicap the race while driving. Maybe then I will get it right.