My 03.07.2012 "All Over the Map" from Arkansas Weekly

My "All Over the Map" from next week's Arkansas Weekly:

I bought some new shades.

And, if I say so myself, I look damn cool when I wear them.

Mid-‘70s Peter Fonda cool.

And these aren’t some high dollar sunglasses. These aren’t Ray-Bans or Oakleys. I bought them for less than twenty bucks at the discount store.

You know you’re cool when you rock in a pair of generic sunglasses.

So, I’ve decided I’m going to wear these sunglasses all the time. Outside. Inside. Eating breakfast. Eating lunch. Eating dinner. Watching TV. At the movies. Visiting with Mom and Dad. Shopping. Shaving. Doing my P90X. Knitting. At the dentist. At bridge club. At fight club. (Oops. Shouldn’t have said that. Not supposed to talk about fight club.) At the bank. Even at work.

See.


Pretty cool, huh?

I’ll even start wearing them in church. And, no, that’s not disrespectful. I saw Stevie Wonder wearing sunglasses at Whitney Houston’s funeral, and that was in a church. So...bam.

Really, I don’t think it’s odd to begin wearing my pair of sunglasses all the time. Look at Jack Nicholson. He wears sunglasses at the Oscars and the Lakers games.

Or The Blues Brothers. They wore sunglasses all the time. Or George Michael. He wears them constantly. He probably even wore them when he was arrested in that Beverly Hills rest room.

Wait. Never mind. Scratch the George Michael reference.

***

If you look closely at my picture, you’ll notice I also have a toothpick in my mouth. The toothpick compliments the glasses, and don’t tell me it doesn’t. So, in addition to wearing the sunglasses all the time, I will now also start having a toothpick in the corner of my mouth.

I’ll nibble on it, or slowly twirl it around with my tongue. And when I’m talking to the ladies, I’ll occasionally touch my toothpick and roll it with my thumb and forefinger.

That will show I might be interested in what the ladies are saying to me. Or I might not be interested. The ladies will never know. That will keep them off guard. And curious.

Always keep the ladies guessing, gentlemen. That’s a little tip I learned from Shep, the elderly fellow who used to pick me up at the playground when I was a kid. We would drive around in his van and eat ice cream, and he would always offer advice on how to be a smooth operator when it came to the ladies. I never asked for the advice. I mean, I was around eight. In fact, now that I think of it, I never asked Shep to pick me up at the playground, either. Don’t get me wrong. Shep was a nice man even though he occasionally drooled on himself. He always had plenty of candy and ice cream. We would listen to Mitch Miller on the 8-track as we drove around. And for some reason, he always wore an old rumpled raincoat. Even on sunny days. I guess that was his trademark look -- just like my sunglasses and toothpick.

So, I’ll start wearing the sunglasses and twirling the toothpick all the time. And maybe I’ll add a cowboy hat. And not a conservative cowboy hat. I’m thinking of a cowboy hat with the crinkled brim and a rattlesnake hide wrapped around the top.

And you know what would look even better? A full length men’s fur coat. And I would simply leave it on my shoulders. No sleeves for this master of disaster.

So if you see a guy, say, in the grocery store, wearing some damn cool sunglasses, a cowboy hat with a crinkled brim, and a full length men’s fur coat on his shoulders, it most likely will be me.

I’ll probably be leaning on my cart, listening to some foxy fellow shopper eagerly telling me all her secrets as I slowly twirl my toothpick with my forefinger and thumb.

And I may be interested in what she is telling me.

And I may not be.

Because my eyes will be hidden behind my shades, and she’ll never know.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how I’m gonna roll.

Shep would be proud.