Happy New Millennium

By Sullyman the Third

Sullyman The Third wants to take you on his funny rollercoaster ride – to his bathroom cleaning shift inside a busy fast food restaurant; to his exhausting run-ins with famous rock star legends; to his backyard New Year’s Eve bash as neighbors in inappropriate costumes arrive; to his visit with U.S. government officials after being declared dead – knowing full well he’s got no working brakes. In his debut short story collection of humor, Happy New Millennium, the New York-based author takes a look back after turning 50 and tries to make sense of his multi-decade situations alongside a wide range of personalities and events. Happy New Millennium is a welcome compilation of humor for those looking for anything in 2020 to laugh at – namely, Sullyman The Third.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664123137

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Copyright © 2020 by Sullyman The Third.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 08/12/2020

Xlibris

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Contents

Humor, Fame and Pain in a Short Story Vein

Thoroughly Meddling Millie

With Love from Valencia

One McMoment to Go, Hold the McTraining

Harry Chapin, Pete Seeger and Annie Somebody

Pete Townshend’s Response in Two Parts

The Dangerously Late Late Late Bus

I’m Doing the Dishes

The Magnetic Mr. Mallahan

So How About Paul Newman

Miscasting Call in Hollywood

We’re Talkin’ Red-men… Glass, Mullin and Looie

One Flyin’ Hawaiian

Duck Duck Goose Gets Cooked

Intermission Interlude

Poor Mrs. Bacciagalupo

Leaving My Mark on Wall Street

Water, Water, Everywhere

No Talking About the You-Know-What

Shortly After Working

The Dim Bulb Zone

Happy New Millennium

Larry Kudlow Before and After Kapeesh Called

Don’t Tempt Fate

Wine, Women and Song with Roger Daltrey

The CYO Ultimatum

A Pig and a Bat

The Sax Appeal of Tony Snow

Border Interrogation at Niagara Falls

Their Dog

Resurrection Works Best on Wednesdays

Watchouttahere for the Nogum

Final Thoughts from Dude Jr. in the Arena

Epilogue-a-mundo

Hats off

Of course it is slightly nuts to begin a collection of humorous stories by first mentioning how pissed off I get whenever I have to listen to someone ranting and raving at a party in order to seek attention. Having lost her father to cancer at the age of ten, my wife Mary Pat helped her struggling mother co-run their household during her high school and college years and had plenty of reasons to constantly complain about life. Instead, the former O’C rolled up her sleeves and took her communication skills and managerial abilities into a travel industry that enabled her to be a reporter, editor-in-chief and eventually publisher of a publication that would later create an opportunity to start her own successful travel consulting firm. Back at home, Mare embraced a nearby parish and its elementary school where our two kids would attend and she did everything from working recess duty to becoming school board president. Therefore, it makes sense that this empathetic leader, optimistic spirit, world traveler, family linchpin, industry expert, cancer survivor, loyal friend and Irish supermom with a contagious laugh deserves this book’s dedication because my bride is as anti-bitch and anti-limelight as they come.

Humor, Fame and Pain

in a Short Story Vein

Greetings!

Ah, ‘the end of the world’ slated for December 21, 2012 based off some nutty ancient Mayan calendar did not happen on that day. Sure, in 2020 the United States inhaled a nasty whiff of Revelation during what I’ve been calling ‘our B.A.R.F. (Biological Armageddon Rehearsal Failure) moment’ as Americans lost their way on not understanding what a virus is all about. Still, it was good to know that the conclusion of humanity had not occurred back on that winter day so 2013 could arrive as scheduled and unleash some personal milestones of mine.

Let us first start off with my 50th birthday, shall we? Yes, I shockingly made it an entire half-century later with my semi-athletic body intact while having successfully raised a pair of non-bratty children with my wife while doing tons of cool things in music and Wall Street but never spending a single day in prison. Not too shabby!

That same incomparable year also became our 25th wedding anniversary, which was completely separate from my insane 20-year original music rollercoaster ride, 15 years after putting a down payment on the home I’ll be removed from in a body bag, a mere decade since my bass guitar was heard reverberating live in New York City alongside my favorite rock legend singer and a very quick five since we officially cut that umbilical cord in order to let our first born become a college frat boy away from our homestead.

In light of such timeliness, however, it made perfect sense in that following year for this former finance guy, current songwriter and budding humorist to begin readjusting my trajectory and start bringing together a smorgasbord of funny stories before I lost any more brain cells to this chronic Guinness habit of mine.

These very chapters began coming together rather haphazardly, with memories flowing out of my clogged-up brain during random writing sessions in my comfy basement music recording studio. Eventually amassing a healthy amount of material a few years later, at the end of 2019 it was time to get this sucker into some sort of fighting shape.

Editing these final pages while folks did their daily pandemic social distancing walks past our house every four minutes, an amusing thought popped into my head:

Getting through life is like getting through a gyro.

How incredibly semi-profound! Seriously, I really do love those lamb gyros but think about it for a moment: those yummy meat pleasures you’ve purchased from a street cart? They are always loaded up the wazoo with both familiar and unfamiliar items but we always dive right into these Greek sandwiches without much hesitation. Sometimes the gyro is grossly unmanageable while other times you’ve got that thing under control. Regardless, you will probably inhale the entire friggin’ meal because you’re that hungry and in such a hurry to be somewhere else that you probably won’t remember what had given you such explosive diarrhea later on until it’s too late!

But that’s life, am I right? EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED! You don’t what’s lurking around every corner but you make turn after turn after turn until you can’t turn anymore. That is exactly what you’ll find inside this scrumdiddlyumptious book.

Staying with my brainless food visual if you can, I have prepared a half-century’s worth of living by slicing one literary course in half while adding in my questionable homemade observational seasoning.

The first course of this book will take you back to my high school and college days before reality takes hold. The second course is a tad bigger, focusing on life after getting hitched and those delectable situations that often follow.

Do keep in mind I sprinkled in a few passages intentionally out of sequence, mostly because I never pay much attention to cooking instructions. Also, some tasty well-known names that look familiar are clearly exploited while most of the unappealing, lesser-known folks will have proper pseudonyms attached for obvious legal reasons.

Try your best to enjoy my lighthearted heap of recall as I enter the third turn in life’s very sloppy horserace. Since I am the only cook working inside this comical little kitchen, for anyone in disagreement on how these anecdotes have been prepared for mass consumption, all I can say to them is…eat my shorts! Correction…eat my gyros!

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Standing outside a Barnes & Noble bookstore one bitterly cold January morning, might you have any idea what dawned on me at that moment? That maybe one day a real estate mogul doubling as a casino owner would find time to host a reality TV show and parlay that media platform into becoming President of the United States of America?

Nope! It was the size of this store! This traditional brick-and-mortar retail behemoth was two entire floors of hard covers and paperbacks along with an unappetizing eatery space where B&N employees strangely allowed its customers to both eat and handle (and also take back and forth from the restrooms!) any brand new printed material within their store without ever forcing them to pay for what they had just handled with their hands…for free!

Can you say community spread? I knew you could!

For it was at that very moment, dear comrades, when I came to the sobering realization that trying to get just one lukewarm human towards buying a new product (like the very same one you are currently reading) inside these gargantuan reading rooms would be next to impossible. How exactly would I strategically whore my middle-aged body out onto the information superhighway traffic jam and effectively con an entire unsuspecting public into buying my little funny book? Now remember, kids…

Lesson #1: Much of what happens in life is luck and timing; one day you’re nobody and the next you’re in a car accident with the Pope.

So the answer to that earlier question is I DON’T KNOW but I went ahead anyway, self-publishing this thing with the hope that maybe divine intervention might get me a little extra visibility.

But as we are at the starting point, like the Rolling Stones sang back in ‘68, let me please introduce myself: I officially entered history somewhere in Brooklyn as the last of the boomers and into the uncertain hands of a nerdy nephrologist (my daddy-o) and a tantalizing schoolteacher (my momma) only a few weeks before President Kennedy’s assassination had officially ended America’s innocence once and for all.

Hot cup of coffee! What a glorious time to arrive here on Planet Earth!

Although my parents were considered opposites when they chose to marry, each of them climbed out of their humble Long Island upbringings to merge as one to raise both me and my younger brother. After several years at the cramped garden apartments in Valley Stream, we eventually settled into a quaint, three-bedroom house in nearby Malverne surrounded by Haberwitz, Saleman & Goldstein – not a Jewish law firm, of course, but a lovely group of welcoming neighbors that was more than tolerant every time our Catholic family unveiled miles of obnoxious Christmas lights to really brighten up the cul-de-sac every December.

Ah, those fleeting childhood moments! Searching for our runaway golden retriever Rusty! My mother’s chaotic Cub Scout meetings! Playing inside indestructible refrigerator boxes! Dad’s car windshield getting smashed while playing catch! Yeah, the good times and bad times and plenty of average times sandwiched in between like the rest of us in dear ol’ suburbia. Just remember, kids…

Lesson #2: You can pick your nose but you can’t pick your upbringing.

Personality wise, I was a relatively happy-go-lucky kid who excelled in most sports and got pretty decent grades in my classes with my undiagnosed short-term memory issues making me crazy. But since my parents were well-educated, they kept at me at a very early age toward doing more cerebral things, such as having me read out loud The New York Times upside down to complete strangers on the Long Island Rail Road. Call me a baby nerd but whether it was statistics off baseball cards, multi-volume children encyclopedias or stolen Playboy magazines, I became a juvenile information sponge that helped push my way through those early learning days.

Making people laugh with all the knowledge I had accumulated over time was one way of survival, as I couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t get into trouble for goofing around. With a smirk entering the unconventional artsy Waldorf School, my elementary school days with the talented Mrs. M. or Mr. L. at the helm had this quirky artsy curriculum that worked wonders for this funny little geek.

I mean where else could a smart ass like me discuss Norse mythology at length while also knitting a wool scarf during recess and NOT get bullied by anyone? Although remember, kids…

Lesson #3: Learning how to crochet still takes a backseat to learning how to divide numbers so don’t skip over the three ‘R’s; just ask any executive job recruiter that specializes in arts and crafts.

Instead of bumbling onward with my groovy Waldorf classmates into ninth grade as I had originally planned…BA-BAM! I was unexpectedly told after Thanksgiving break I would soon be attending an all-boys Catholic high school in the coming fall. And a Merry Christmas…to me?

Starting fresh out of the gate at this very imposing institution felt more like getting pushed out of a car at 60 miles an hour. I needed math tutoring immediately (as I could barely handle long division), knew very little about my faith (having no clue as to how many Jesus stories I had to absorb) and there were zero girls to socialize with (major emphasis on the word ‘zero’). I kept mumbling to myself at 6:30 a.m. every morning I woke up: what awful crime did I commit to deserve such brutal punishment?

At a majestic five-foot-one and a beefy 109 pounds dripping wet, making the freshman soccer team did help in meeting a complete new set of weird acquaintances. More important to me was also getting my mother to drop off a couple of the neighborhood upperclassmen after practice so I’d be exempted from the morning bus freshmen hazing rituals of pot smoke blown in our faces, supplying coffee and donuts and other lovely coming-of-age abusive moments.

Being in a religious environment did teach me how to effectively say my heavenly prayers and I took full advantage of that exhausting ritual. So I prayed I would grow facial hair so I wouldn’t look like a ten-year old (well, God did fail me here). Then I prayed I would snag a laminated fake ID in order to sneak into the local bars (I think the Virgin Mary gave me the ‘thumbs up’ here and there). And I really prayed that my ‘sober’ phone calls home would work in order to pass out at a friend’s house after a late party ended (thankfully, Jesus always gave his blessing on this matter). Because remember, kids…

Lesson #4: High school is more like full-time work and its awful conformity. Instead, pray super hard that your world will be more like your elementary or college days of constructive dreaming.

When it came time to look at higher education options, I had to rely on my shaky street smarts. Turned out that my moronic guidance counselor left this critical decision up to me, as he didn’t give a crap where I was headed as long as it was Catholic.

To be fair to the clueless advisor, my interest in becoming a musician was increasing rapidly so much so that I was debating whether taking the college route even made any sense. I was much more excited about buying records of my favorite rockers at a ludicrous pace (with some help from Columbia Record & Tape Club sending me 13 records for only a penny!) than anything else. With a creative transformation clearly underway, what the hell was I supposed to do with myself?

Somehow, I stumbled my way into St. John’s University, a nearby private university my mother had attended that pretty much accepted any Catholic high school graduate with a pulse and a check. Although I probably should have gone away to school and tried the dorm world I had heard so much about, I instead chose to commute on some of the most crowded roads in America every single morning.

Fortunately, SJU was super easy on the brain, the Manhattan music scene was just a drumbeat away and the much-needed co-ed atmosphere of four more years of not having to keep up with the Joneses gave me a hedonistic window along with learning a few skills as well as unknowingly meeting my future game changer.

Armed with my Peter Frampton-ish long blonde hair and the gift of gab, it felt good to be going somewhere that allowed me to enjoy life and graduate on time while supplying me with a rather ineffective bachelor in journalism degree that did aid in my initial struggles to find a job but eventually steered me into a lucrative career within the financial services industry by day and performing as an indie rocker in the music industry at night while trying to co-mold two kids into productive human beings.

Great Caesar’s Ghost! What an awful run-on sentence! See how well the B.S. in BS paid off? Regardless, since I’ve completely worn you down to the bone without having shared a single story, it’s time to have a chuckle or two at my expense as I share now what I believe is the most important lesson in life. So remember, kids…

Lesson #5: Never – and I mean NEVER – attempt to melt a year’s worth of super thick ice inside your freezer with a poorly positioned space heater.

Thoroughly Meddling Millie

Growing up on Long Island, I had always been close to my four grandparents.

Much of it stemmed from having both sets only a few minutes away from me and I just happened to be the first spoiled rotten grandchild on both sides of my family and received an overabundance of baby worship in the process. With my parents’ parents residing comfortably in their small, efficient suburban homes purchased back when much of the region still had plenty of deer and dirt, I never ran into trouble with any of them.

Never in my early years, that is!

As this high schooler became more corrupted with new life experiences as the Seventies rolled into the Eighties, three out of my four grandparents knew I was anything but a saint. I was becoming a bit of a concern to them as I was beginning to resemble some of the local derelicts in town that hung out all day and night by our town’s train station.

Oh, I was indeed testing their levels of patience as each grandparent – the gruff comments coming from retired newspaper laborer Frank, the tedious explanations with former bank examiner John Sr. and the abrasive rants of homemaker Olga – shared their particular grievances with me but in their own unique Depression-era style of communicating.