Go, Speed Dater

According to the dictionary, the word “fiasco” originates from the Latin word for “bottle.”

How that word grew to become synonymous with a complete failure, I don’t know, but “fiasco” is the only way to describe what happened to me on Friday night.

I signed up for a night of speed-dating at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, one of my favorite places on earth, which would be followed by a concert by the Brooklyn Philharmonic.

I’ve gone to speed-dating events in the past, and while I never met the future missus, I always had a good time. You flirt, you joke around, you nosh on some pretzels, it was always fun.

That all came crashing down on my head last night. I didn’t meet anyone I would allow to feed my goldfish—if I had goldfish—let alone date. All I got was cold from the damn air conditioning.

I don’t know if the stars were in the wrong alignment or maybe some sorcerers put the whammy on me, but whatever it was, I could not connect with anyone last night. Nor did I want to.

It was horrible; a disaster, I felt emotionally drained and physically ill. I don’t know why they call this business “speed-dating” because it seemed to go on forever.

The promoters talk about having 12 dates and they were right. I had 12 bad dates, one right after the other.

The people were freaks. There was some woman who smelled like a musty attic; there was a young brunette who did her best to play a dumb blond, and a woman who kept looking over my shoulder while pretending to talk to me.

On top of that, the guy in front of me was so slow in getting up off his ass that he was eating into my date time.

Half the people I met were “artists”—playwrights, freelance writers—until it got down to specifics and it turned out that they all had day jobs.

Every three minutes a bell would go off and we had to change seats. I got so sick of hearing that damn bell, I felt like a hamster looking for a food pellet.

There was a pre-date mixer where we all corralled in this small area on the second floor—right near the rest rooms, which, as it turned out, seemed quite appropriate.

That’s where I met the musty attic woman. We engaged in some harmless chitchat until a man with a cheap toupee horned his way into the conversation.

It got to a point where she started talking him and pretty much ignored me. I’m never sure what to do in these situations.

I wasn’t really interested in her, so Rug Boy was really doing me a favor. But should I give ground-—whatever the hell “giving ground” means?

I saw Rug Boy talking to another woman later that night during an intermission in the concert. I was tempted to bum-rush his conversation, but, of course, I didn’t. I just got the hell out of there.

It’s been said that the only one who got rich during the California Gold Rush was the guy selling the shovels. I think the same could be said of the singles industry. The happiest people are the ones running these things.

Putting males and females together in one room and hoping they mate may work for cattle and hamsters, but not for people.

Groin Theft Congo

Looking on the bright side, at least I don’t live in the Congo, where the cops busted 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises.

The victims said the sorcerers touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear. Damn, where’s Harry Potter when we need him?

“But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent,” the local police chief told Reuters.

They didn’t know their penises were still there? I may not use mine as much as I like, but I know where it is. It’s kind of like parking your Ferrari in the garage.

As you can imagine, all this penis-snatching has been the source of a lot bad feeling. Ten years ago 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death in Ghana by angry mobs.

Hey, don’t beat those penis-snatchers. Make them go to speed-dating events and they’ll repent their evil ways before you can ring that stupid bell.

Down in Chile, they’ve got the perfect antidote to penis-snatching. The mayor of a Santiago suburb has been handing out free Viagra to senior citizens declaring “an active sexuality improves the overall quality of life.”

I used to wonder where I would go when I retire, but I think I found my little slice of paradise.

Jimi Hendrix apparently didn’t need Viagra, if you believe the people trying to sell a tape of someone they claim is the rock icon having sex with two women.

How does that three-way business work anyway? Do you have sex with one until someone rings a bell and you go to the other one?

The managers of the Hendrix estate say the tape is bogus, but the company peddling the tape stiffly supported their product, citing the approval of Cynthia "Plaster Caster" Albritton, who, they say, is “famous for creating plaster molds of the penises of rock stars, including that of Hendrix.”

A plaster penis mold? I wonder who some of her clients were. Jim Morrison? Mick Jagger? The Archies?

Does Cynthia do civilians? I can’t think of a better present for the holidays. That’s a gift that keeps on giving and you don’t have to move to Chile.

FDR didn’t have to leave his home either. An article in Newsweek described a scene in 1931 where Roosevelt, who had lost the use of his legs to polio, had three doctors look him over to see if he was healthy enough to run for the White House.

The doctors gave him the thumbs declaring that he had “no symptoms of impotentia coeundi," which sounds like an opera singer now that I think of it.

So FDR really had nothing to fear below the belt but fear itself. Too bad Cynthia Albritton wasn’t around back then.

A new biography about Roosevelt looks into the many loves of FDR. I must say that it bothers me that a guy in wheelchair was getting more action than I am. But of course, I don’t have to deal with Hitler or the Depression.

I've decided I’m going to take a break from these singles events. I’m going to follow the old bit of advice about doing what you enjoy and meeting people under normal circumstances.

I’ll find my special someone yet. And when I do, Cynthia Albritton will be the first one to know.