I Wanna Buy Your E-Book... (But I Don't Have a Kindle)

...Lenny rolled his eyes, turned to Jimmy, and changed the subject. “We’re running out of time.”
   “Then, let’s just get the bracelets,” Jimmy said.
   “There’s gotta be something cheaper,” Lenny said.
   “The guy said Valentine’s Day is a jewelry holiday.”
   The words ‘valentine’ and ‘jewelry’ piqued Vic’s curiosity. He pretended to read his magazine while he listened. It didn’t take long for him to put two-and-two together. “So…you boys got yourself a couple girlies.”
Lenny cringed. Cool lingo was another one of ‘Vic’s things’. Unlike the fist-bump, Lenny thought that ‘Vic-ism’ was stupid.
   “I remember my first V-Day with the girly,” Vic said.
   “Nobody cares Vic,” Lenny said.
   “Stacy O’Brien,” Vic smiled—he enjoyed the sound of her name.
   Lenny stuck an index-finger in each ear. “We’re not listening to you.”
   “She was hot.”
   “La-la-la-la-la-la…I’m not listening to you-hoo-hoo,” Lenny sang out the words.
   “Whatever you do,” Vic cautioned. “Don’t do what I did.”
   Lenny froze—even with plugged ears, he heard what Vic said.
   After some tense silence, Jimmy asked, “What’d you do, Vic?”
   Vic smiled a wry, knowing smile. He leaned in toward the boys as if he were about to tell them a secret. Jimmy and Lenny leaned in too. Vic let them stew a little. Then, he whispered, “Red panties,” and howled a thundering belly laugh.
   Jimmy blushed. Lenny bit his lip and said, “Valentine’s Day underwear…how very-creepy of you Vic.”
“Come on Jimmy. Let’s ride to Sealfon’s and be done with it,” Lenny said. (The little flip-flopper now seemed ready to kiss-away the bulk of his life-savings.)
   “Hey?” Vic said. “Was the guy at the counter named Sultan?”
   “Yeah,” Jimmy said. “You know him?”
   Lenny winced, sensing a trap.
   “Yeah, he’s captain of the soccer team,” Vic said. “His family owns Sealfon’s…a real smooth-talker too. How much he gonna getcha for? Fifty bucks?” No answer came. “More?”
   Lenny’s face turned beet-red. He gave Vic the evil-eye. “Come on Jimmy. This is just a big joke to him.” Lenny moved toward the door. Jimmy followed.
   “No really…I wanna know,” Vic said to their backs.
   Jimmy whirled around. “Ninety-nine ninety-five,” he blurted out.
   “OUCH!” Vic clutched his heart like he’d just been stabbed. Then, he pulled the imaginary knife from his chest, and pretended to die. Lenny wished he had, for real.
   “See why I didn’t want to ask him for help,” Lenny said. Jimmy nodded. The boys walked away, but halfway down the hall they heard Vic yell, “It’s okay with me if you wanna be...THAT GUY.”
   Lenny stopped short; Jimmy bumped into him from behind. They exchanged whispers. Then, a feeble voice echoed down the hall. “What guy?” It sounded like someone trying not-to-sound scared.
   Vic appeared at the doorway and yanked his hands from his pants-pockets—the white lining stuck up like rabbit ears. “Broke guy who spends all his money on his girly,” Vic said, miming a crying face.
   “Thanks Vic. As usual…you were NO HELP!” Spittle flew from Lenny’s mouth.
   “Jewelry for V-day…impressive,” Vic said. “Can’t wait to see how you top that for her birthday.”
   Lenny let out a rebel yell. He charged his brother, and unleashed a flurry of punches to Vic’s stomach. “WHY-ARE-YOU-TORTURING-US?” Vic absorbed a few blows, laughing. Once he had enough, Vic grabbed his little brother’s wrists. Lenny huffed and puffed, and tried to wriggle free—he was trapped.
   “Whoa-lil’-bro, calm down,” Vic said, letting Lenny go. “I’m just trying to help.”
   “How is being a big fat jerk helping?”
   “I’m just saying,” Vic said. “Spend a hundy on Valentine’s Day…then you gotta spend more than that on her birthday. You don’t want her thinking you’re downgrading your gifts…do ya?”
   Neither boy answered.
   “What you don’t realize lil’ bro,” Vic continued, “It’s not just Christmas, Valentines, and birthdays. Whatever you buy now sets the bar for every other present you’re ever gonna get her. And there are a million gift-giving occasions.”
   “Liiiiiiiike what?” Lenny said, sensing more of Vic’s baloney coming.
   “Like anniversaries.”
   “We’ve been going out…like two weeks,” Lenny shot back. “Why would I be worried about something that’s a year away?”
   “I said anniversaries…plural,” Vic calmly corrected his petulant little brother. “Girls don’t just celebrate anniversaries once a year.”
   Lenny chewed on his lower lip.
   “They don’t?” Jimmy said.
   “No Jimmy…they don’t,” Vic said. “Girlies your age are anniversary crazy. You got your first date… first kiss… first day you met. And they celebrate ‘em every month. That’s a lotta gifts…don’t ya think?”
   The boys looked like someone just stole their baseball card collection. Jimmy crossed his arms and stared at the floor. Lenny plopped down into a kitchen chair, mopey and bitter.
   The room was dead silent, except for the hum of the refrigerator; they all sat there listening to its buzz. Suddenly, raindrops splattered across the kitchen window; in an instant, it was pouring again. Since Lenny was too-stubborn to ask his big brother for help, Jimmy did, “What should we do Vic?”

Book is available for purchase after October 8, 2012.

Fantasy Football: The First Online Social Network

August 31, 2011 by JOHN KELLY KEENAN in Fantasy Football

My buddy Hoss calls fantasy football Dungeons and Dragons. “I’ll trade you my warlock for two of your sorcerers!” He often jokes in a high-pitched voice when the subject comes up. To him: Fantasy football is a time-sucking annual geek party that rears its nerdy head every fall. He just doesn’t get it!

The fantasy football haters might argue, that at best, we are pseudo-fans. Just the other day Texans’ running back Arian Foster tweeted about his injury, “4 those sincerely concerned, I’m doing ok & plan 2 B back by opening day. 4 those worried abt your fantasy team, u ppl are sick!”

WELL THAT’S A HELLUVA THANK YOU!!!

I would think a little gratitude wouldn’t be too much to ask for honoring you with the top pick in my draft! (How dare you!)

Sure it brings in fringe fans! But it also gives the fans of crappy teams something to root for late in the season when their perennially pathetic teams are phoning it in and making plans on whether to hold out for training camp next year. Before fantasy football, December Sundays in Detroit were meant for Christmas shopping, shoveling snow, or cleaning out the garage; they certainly weren’t for watching the Lions get their arses handed to them by the Vikings thus securing next year’s number one pick!

Excuse the rant – that’s not my point anyway! My point is… there’s something Arian Foster and my hater-friend don’t get. There’s a reason why fantasy football is so important to Americans and it has very little to do with football - WE’RE TALKING MAJOR SOCIALLY SIGNIFICANT THINGS HERE!

Do you have any idea how many women play fantasy football? The answer is A LOT! I looked it up; according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, thirty million people played fantasy football in 2009. That is nearly the entire population of the state of California and that was two years ago! Depending on who you believe, anywhere from 12% to 25% are women. That means between 3-7 million women duke it out with the boys on a weekly basis.

Think about that for a minute!

That’s Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs every Sunday – a kind of battle of the sexes intertwined around America’s most testosterone-driven game. A weekly tug-of-war with women winning their fare share and talking trash to the guys who find it hard to swallow that ‘they were outwitted by a girl.’ The only question; Will he pull the… ‘she was lucky’ card. (And boy o’ boy watch the message board explode if he does!)

I remember when my good friend Cara won the championship in her first year! (Oooh! How that rankled a few of the guys!) Another dear friend of mine, Suzanne, had Tom Brady in his record setting year of 2007. She kicked butt all season long. I’m sure it was a point of contention, because unlike Cara, she wasn’t much of a football fan and only did it to be part of the office circle! (Now she’s got her pink Chargers shirt and knows the names of the players! That’s a new fan born!)

My favorite situation though is the old spouse vs. spouse head to head matchup, the week when husband and wife face each other, especially with something on the line late in the season. Would love to be a fly on the wall listening to their conversations, especially if the hubby gets the beat-down from the old lady. (Oh that would be priceless!)

Fantasy Football has made Sundays a truly co-ed experience. Now, I’m not trying to say women weren’t fans before fantasy football, I’m just saying it’s been a game changer; the desire to participate and be part of the group has brought a lot of women into the tent and made them fans. It’s a fun game and now more than ever, women are playing and playing well. That’s pretty special:

AND THAT’S NOT EVEN THE MOST POWERFUL THING IT’S DONE FOR AMERICANS!

The most significant phenomenon fantasy football has done in my life and I’m sure countless others is:

It’s helped keep friendships alive:

I’m 42 years old. Many of the people I play fantasy football with I’ve known since college. As many of us know, after twenty years, even good friends have a way of growing apart. Many of us live in different cities and different states. As families have sprouted up and commitments have grown, it’s become very easy go long periods of time without talking to the old buds, but then there’s fantasy football to the rescue every year – bringing us back.

The fantasy football draft is one of the most sacred times of the year – not just because we get to choose our teams. I know that, for a couple of hours each year, the whole gang is online together – picking our players, typing away in the chat room, shooting the bull on the phone while we await our turns. It’s a reconnection our busy lives and the great distances between us rarely afford – and it doesn’t end there.

Over the course of the year, there’s message board smack talk, the ‘let’s get it on’ texts before our head to head matchups, and the granddaddy of it all, the victory phone call after securing the win! It’s not just that it gives us a reason to interact, but it gives us motivation to actually do it. How many times do we say to ourselves, I need to give this or that friend a call, but fail to do it because we’re too busy, or too something, to make the effort. It’s funny how a big victory over an old buddy can break down that barrier lickety-split!

More than anything fantasy football has become an important social element in our society – a yearly re-birth of friendships now woven into the fabric of our culture – dominating our Sundays and bringing us all together.

So, as Arian Foster blasts the fantasy football community for being concerned about his injury… as my buddy Hoss cackles at the ‘geeky-ness’ of it all… keep in mind all the good things that fantasy football has brought us.

Clarence the angel told George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, “No man (or woman) is a failure who has friends.”

Fantasy football is not just a game anymore.

It’s a tie that binds friends together! And that’s a pretty cool thing if you ask me.

http://www.johnnypromo.com