When I was a young kid my father gave me few pieces of advice to help carry me through life—of which I am glad since he passed away when I was barely entering my teenage years. It’s fortunate how he intuitively knew what to impart upon me and equally amazing that a husky lad whose head was already buried deep into books and heavy metal had even listened.

One was to treat everyone the same—whether it be the sanitation worker or the president: with respect. And also, that most people’s dignity is worth the effort to preserve; which is why I refer to anyone a few years older than me as “sir” or “ma’am. Or I say “please” and “thank you” for even the slightest consideration someone shows me. I also shake hands and make eye contact upon meeting someone, even though my germaphobia is screaming at me to avoid contact.

My dad also told me to tip people well, especially if they deserve it, since those people depend upon it. To this day, I tip gas station attendants, and do not go out of my way to use slack service as a reason to short shrift waitstaff. Acquaintances make fun of me behind my back, I realize, and some even get angry, as if I am calling them cheap or trying to show them up.

It’s wild, when you think about it. We have become a culture that treats the showing of respect as a sign of subservience. I used to date a girl who would get angry when I said “sorry” to homeless people for not giving them money, or when I took the pamphlet that someone was handing out on the street corner, only to discard it in the next corner’s trash bin. She was a dick and I ditched her. We’re talking fifteen years ago.

My dad, who was a 6-4, 300-pound man, also told me that violence begat violence and to try and settle disagreements peacefully, by understanding why the other person is so angry. Whether it is a crappy home life or a dead-end job. Yet I am exceedingly thin-skinned when someone appears to be taking advantage of friends of mine. In recent years, it has only happened twice and both times I pulled the person aside and quietly threatened them so viscerally that they immediately backed away, but not before I offered my hand as a way to let them save face.

One time that didn’t work, and I humiliated a guy and, no bullshitting, I still feel bad about it.

I was at a concert in the Beacon Theater in NYC with two friends and it was a quiet acoustic affair, which was punctuated only by the pack of people behind us. Three couples. We had asked them to stop making noise, but the guys were very drunk. I asked this particular guy very nicely and he began kicking my friend’s chair. Again, I tried to old tried-and-true, “just calm down, buddy” but to no avail, despite his girlfriend’s pleadings. I felt bad for her.

Finally, he kicked my friend chair one to many times and I wheeled and said, something in a low voice to the effect of when the show was over I was going to do some really bad things to him. He was looking down and I uttered the famous line (that my friends still love repeating, because it embarrasses me so) “look at me when I’m talking to you, you little fucking runt.”

He wouldn’t and sat silently the rest of the show, and as the show ended, he got up and ran out. I let him go because I got my message across.

The fact that I still feel bad for him is a credit to my dad. And, when I stop and think about it, the fact that I was twice his size is a credit to him, too.

I have a friend of a friend who everyone claims is such a riot. He’s so unbelievably funny— that’s all I hear from everyone. For years now. How he should write for TV or even be on TV.

Then I have dinner with the guy and he is like Robin Williams, which is to say, rarely even entertaining, but more often than not, cringe-worthy and annoying. I spend five minutes in his presence and I want to tear my ears from my head, sauté them in olive oil and eat them—all to prevent me from ever hearing his weak impressions, his abysmal observational commentary, and his rapid-fire delivery, which grates on me like no one I have ever met.

And yet people are always telling me how we would get along so well, because we are both “funny”. When I hear that, I feel like taking a vow of silence.

To me, what makes a person funny is his or her ability to make fun of his or herself and to ridicule others, and not in a showy way. In a string of asides. I would rather make one person laugh than a whole table anyway. I believe in quality and not quantity.

I know plenty of funny people. They aren’t exactly yuk-yuk funny, but they have the ability to see the absurdity in life and comment on it wryly, rather than (and I try and use the following term often) “ham-fistedly.” And when I go out with them, I laugh and laugh and come home with my sides aching. Because, while I am very particular about what I think is funny, I really like to laugh, for sure.

Yet, in seeing GG’s positive reaction to this fountain of unfunny comic stylings, I have a feeling that I will have to suffer this friend of a friend for far longer than I should have to. He is, after all, a nice person too. I hear.

Recently, one of our mutual friends even suggested that we should even go so far as to rent a beach house with him next summer.

For once I couldn’t stop laughing.

I know it’s late. I know you’re weary. I know your plans…don’t include me. Still here we are, both of us stuffed like pigs. Let’s make it last; let’s find a way…..

Hey, kids. So, it’s 11pm on Thanksgiving and everyone with half a brain is asleep. Ahem. I am restless, mentally, and so I decided to write a little bit. Hope you don’t mind.

What is it about Thanksgiving that prompts us to eat like rabid animals with hollow legs? I have eaten so much that my belly looks like one of those African kids with the distended bellies. Except mine is filled with pumpkin pie and not…bits of grain and dust or something. I’m not sure which, does anyone have Clooney’s number?

Let me just say that I am not proud of the preceding analogy, but I promised to mock someone less fortunate within 36 hours and I was up against the clock. Don’t judge me: I am feeling very vulnerable right now.

I would ask you to hold me, but let’s face it: your arms aren’t nearly long enough.

It’s Thanksgiving Eve. I have just gone out for burgers and beers in East Providence, RI, and over the course of the past two hours, have heard from five friends of mine through IM, DM, email and text, that have had the same message: I am missed, appreciated, loved, etc.

It’s a good feeling because I really love spending time cultivating relationships and, above all of my material objects, I treasure those relationships the most. And, within the last year-and-a-half, I am far more open to making friends than I have ever been in all my years.

I’m not an easy person. I know that. My moods lighten and darken, sometimes within the same hour. I am complicated and wound easier than a hemophiliac fishing around in a knife drawer. I don’t shut the fuck up, when I know I should do so.

I also hold some grudges, but take pains to pretend that I don’t. But I’m also generous with my time, and super supportive and always happy for my peeps’ success. I love giving advice and am willing to be the crutch when someone needs a boost.

So when I sit here watching Glee with my most-awesome wife and superb mother-in-law and father-in-law, and my friend Mikey who flew in from the UK to accompany me to Minnesota for the weekend Vikings game, I feel blessed and lucky and, yeah, super thankful.

I know this is corny-as-hell, so I promise to make fun of someone far less fortunate within the next 36 hours.

You can thank me later.

I was sick today and watched about seven hours of ESPN. What I saw was this: some women in tight, shiny shirts and a bunch of guys with flashy suits and bad haircuts screaming over each other about “choke jobs” and how some guys “make plays.”

The funny thing is, I think I can speak for the majority of people who watch the channel, when I say this: shut your damn mouths, big-headed folks.

We watch to see highlights. We don’t need announcers to explain what we are seeing. I, personally have watched about 35 years of NFL. I can identify a blown coverage, or when an over-pursuing D line is susceptible to a screen pass. It isn’t rocket science; if it were men wouldn’t watch. But the broadcasts are still filled will all sorts of visual do-hickeys. I have friends who are unable to find the down-and-yards amid the clutter and I have gotten the imaginary blue and imaginary red lines mixed up. On occasion.

Fox News has assembled what looks like the gayest panel of men ever appear together under one roof (with their pants on): Jimmy, Howie, Strahan, Terry and Curt. Which isn’t to say that I don’t invariably watch it, but it does mean they should stop harassing that weather tramp, even though their hearts aren’t really in it.

And it’s as if ESPN has become the sports version of the Statue of Liberty: collecting huddled masses like NFL Primetime’s Coach Ditka, Tom Jackson and Keyshawn Johnson, yearning to be paid for making fun of each other’s suits and avoiding saying anything even remotely interesting.

By the same token, if they get to antagonize me with their blathering, we expect them to at least know the rules of the games they are calling. I mean, right?

On Saturday, for example, I was watching a college football game, and I saw a player catch a pass on his 32 yard line and sprint toward the goal line. He was on the two and was hit and fumbled the ball out the back of the endzone—which is a touchback, and the rule says that the opposing team gets the ball on the 20-yard line. I’ve known that since I was old enough to distinguish between Wisconsin cheddar and Vermont cheddar.

The announcers were immediately dumbfounded as to what the ruling should be. One guessed that was an incomplete pass, despite the guy having run 30 yards with it. The other one thought it was a safety before admitting that he didn’t know the rule.

Didn’t; know the rule? Uh, that’s like a bus driver not knowing how to operate his blinkers. But I guess in their world; where you are fighting to keep viewership, by fighting each other for airtime, and wearing clothing whose colors and patterns are fighting themselves, you can excuse them for not knowing the rules.

But I just can’t, not as long as they won’t stop talking, even a little bit.

I read Vanity Fair every month and I am usually overwhelmed with loathing at the questionnaire at the end. The celebrities they interview always spout such canned answers, trying desperately to appear profound. I mean, how often is Andre Agassi profound? That’d be never.

So decided to complete the questionnaire myself, and it wasn’t as easy as I thought. Because, as humans, we struggle to make ourselves look good. I decided instead to be honest. I figured I already looked good.

Okay, that wasn’t exactly honest. But the following is, I promise.

What is your current state of mind?

Content with a helping of fearful

Which living person do you most admire?

My brother John

What is your greatest fear?

Being buried alive, by a mile

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

I am way too sensitive.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Disloyalty

What is your greatest extravagance?

Tickets/trips to sporting events

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Honesty, disguising itself as piety

Which living person do you most despise?

Rush Limbaugh

What talent would you like to have?

X-Ray vision

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I would be able to forgive and forget. I can’t do either much.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

A happy marriage, certainly

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Seeing my friends lose their jobs

What is your favorite occupation?

I like to write a bit.

What do you most value in your friends?

Loyalty is at the top of my list.

Who are your favorite writers?

Kurt Andersen, JRR Tolkien, Richard Price

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?

Ignatius J. Reilly

What is your motto?

Just shut the fuck up once in a while, okay?

GG is ready. Truth is, she’s been ready for two weeks, when her friend Mel called her with the news that she had purchased advance tickets.

Tomorrow is Twilight: New Moon with her girlfriends. First yoga, then tacos, then Edward Cullen. She will come home all flushed with excitement and within fifteen minutes, she will undoubtedly bemoan herself as being “queer.”

I think the whole thing is charming actually. I don’t consider it to be juvenile, despite the fact that the movie is catnip for thirteen year-old girls and 9/10ths of my gay friends.

I read the first book, while GG was away. She had hidden them specifically because she didn’t want me to. But once when she was away for the weekend, I call her at her mother’s.

“You’ll never guess who I’m hanging out with. He says he knows you,” I said.

“Who?” she replied.

“Edward Cullen,” I replied.

“PUT THAT DOWN!” she said.”You ARE NOT to read Twilight.”

“Well, I just finished it,” I said.

“And?”

“And I thought it was a nice story.”

“And?”

“And what? I just told you it was a nice story.”

“You obviously have more of an opinion than that. Out with it.”

“Well, since you asked, I think the menu at Popeye’s is more cleverly written.”

And I did think it was pretty atrociously written. But I also think that the author has crafted a tale that is as old as the hills: hot, brooding stranger falls for plain jane and risks life for forbidden love.

I definitely do not discriminate against brainless entertainment. I like my fair share of bad television, and when I’m on the beach I read all kinds of crap mystery novels, which will flee my memory about the same time I finish them.

And so for that, I can respect that most of the adult women I know are preparing to swoon. I look at it like this: as long as no one tries to bite me—and I can hear the disappointment ricocheting from coast to coast— I say, who cares?

The guy who writes the Popeye’s menu, perhaps. He may have an ax to grind.

1) Seriously, still no cure for cancer?

2) Nicole Richie is famous for what exactly?

3) Wait: are we all of a sudden cool with Iran squashing its women?

4) Let me get this straight: that blind guy is still the governor?

5) So…uh…why does anyone get a say on gay marriage again?

6) I’m confused: Rob Zombie is rich, and Maynard James Keenan isn’t?

7) Is this swine flu thing really gonna kill tons of Americans—or are we gonna luck out like with the killer bees in 1980?

8 ) Does Taylor Swift actually have eyes in there?

9) If you shot Jon Bon Jovi up with extra douchebag hormones, could he be any more of a douchebag?*

10) Why does the sight of our city being buried in Purell make me smile widely?

*This is rhetorical. Clearly, the answer is ‘no’.

Maybe I had my fingers in my ears at the time and didn’t notice: but when the hell did Glee become the best show on television? And how on earth does a television show that features largely insipid cover “mashups” sung by a bunch of earnest fresh-faces appeal to a mega-curmudgeon like, say, me?

Well, for one, Jane Lynch is heroically crazy as Sue Sylvester, as great a character as has ever appeared on television. Last week she had a scene with a retarded girl that was so profound, I rewound it four times and watched it over, stopping just before the retard hits her with a giant rubber chicken. Okay, I made that last part up, but you get the idea.

Here’s another reason it is popular: everyone can sing—from the faux-cripple nerd to the background-hogging smiley Asian chick that pretended to stutter because, uh, I didn’t actually catch the reason. But the gay kid is great, the jock is good, the cheerleader is pretty so she appears to be a better singer than she really is, and the brainy Jewish chick? What a set of pipes on her. The songs may be cheesy as hell, but she seems to sing the fuck out of each of them. Holy smokes.

So I suffer through the canned song-and-dance numbers that my wife lurves so much, until they get to those small well-written scenes that really depict high school life as it is: a freakin’ mess where kids and parents sleepwalk around each other. The other night, the scene between the jock, his ma and the cheerleader was really superb.

But those songs? They gotta go, for sure. I’m going to write a letter to the producers and give them just that advice.

I’ll keep you posted.

Hip-hop has changed so much in the past fifteen years that I can scarcely remember when it was socially relevant and exciting and anything more than the professional wrestling of music forms that it is today.

Every time I look at a rap magazine cover, it excites me in the same way that going to the DMV gets my juices flowing. Glorifying excess is so over, and what we are mostly left with is a bunch of heavy lidded, crummy tattooed morons and soulless “throwback” groups whose names end with a ‘Z’ and who wear Cazals and primary colors like they invented the look.

But more than decade ago, there was room for several hip-hop magazines—The Source, XXL, RapPages, EgoTrip (I know it was a hybrid, but I loved it so)—to exist. Hip-hop had not yet taken over the radio, but had certainly shunted rock music to the side, in terms of creativity. Nineteen ninety-three left many of us breathless.

Yet over the years, as the genre grew and white kids began to closely align with its cartoonish aspects, the magazines changed to reflect what was selling, which was great for the business, but death for the art form.

Because the fact remained: 80% of the people who purchased the music couldn’t have cared less about how Ice Cube was articulating black rage in L.A. after the Rodney King verdict—they liked that he simulated machine gun sounds and called them “cracker”. Much to the older generation’s horror the great Rakim became a t-shirt; a name check for youngsters to appear to be down. (I feel like puking, even writing those words.)

Much of today’s commercial rap is a terrible mishmash of bragging about units sold and $300,000 pinkie rings. And, as the white kids who provided the rocket fuel to bring it to such heights have migrated back to rock, or have grown up into jazz, the art form that the government was once afraid of has become toothless, its current ungainly pillars being forced to do bids because of stupidity and laziness.

Yet into this maelstrom comes RESPECT., a new hip-hop magazine that is either a suicide mission or a counter-intuitive stroke of genius. Judging from its premiere issue, the magazine appears to hearken back to the earliest days of XXL, and that was nice to see, on a purely personal level. And after spending a little bit of time with it, I really think it’s swell—filled with so many iconic images, thoughtful writing and some really inspired design. It is a really professional hip-hop magazine that doesn’t think the world began with Lil Wayne. I think the format is inspired and courageous, and non-commercial in a “fuck it” kind of way that I like so much.

RESPECT. is the brainchild of executive publisher Jonathan Rheingold, one of the two guys who created the XXL franchise—regardless of what you’ve heard— and the staff is an amalgam of industry vets like editor-in-chief kris ex, art director Paul Scirecalabrisotto and photo editor Sally Berman.

It also features the towering figures of music photography. Names like McBride, Mannion, Watts, Clinch and Lavine. Real superheavyweights who were fortunate to be involved many of the genre’s most iconic (and aped, unfortunately) images. Over the years, these cats really pushed hip-hop imagery with their sumptuously elegant photographs. The premiere issue, which went on sale today, was stuffed with them.

I had seen the premiere issue last week and told a friend who worked there that a lot of people are rooting for them. Because for magazine folks, RESPECT. represents hope for both the future of magazines and hip-hop itself.

If they can pull that off they are certainly worthy of my subscription. So far, they already have my respect.

Buy a copy. Save print magazines.