Guest Post - Mr. Morning Sunshine Himself

In today's edition of I'm On Vacation And You're Not, you'll be hearing from Denver radio personality and my pal, Mike Casey. Mike is the early morning/drive time host guy at 99.5 The Mountain and a not-half-bad writer. I would have said he was a completely good writer, but you'll notice in his post that he felt obligated to mention that I am older than he is, so eye for an eye and all that. His blog entertains me on a regular basis, and very often chronicles the adventures and wackiness of my younger son, who hangs out with Mike's kids. 

The best part of getting him to guest post was that he's inherently lazy (or really super tired from getting up at 3 AM five days a week maybe) so he's always trying to get ME to write stuff for HIM. But who got who to write for them first? Huh? Who is more clever? Huh? (Mike - it's Me. I'm more clever.)

A Sidenote: I've always wanted to be a DJ. When I was growing up, I memorized song titles and artists and even used to play a game with my younger sister called "Who sings this?" wherein I would give her five seconds to tell me the band currently playing or I'd punch her. Turns out, however, you can't have the voice of an 8 year old boy with a wicked sinus infection and introduce Depeche Mode records. Dangit.

Enjoy.

An offer to guest post from my pal “Little Girl Big Glasses”?  Wow.  What an honor! The pressure has been durn-near all-consuming.  I haven’t slept a wink since I got the invite.

Okay, maybe I slept a wink.  But no more than that.

Hmmm.  How best to properly use this hallowed venue to communicate some nugget of wisdom that I have gleened over lo these many years?  (Fewer “many years” than “Little Girl Big Glasses”, it should be noted.)

Here goes.

Anne and some of her friends put together a monthly book club a few years ago, and last night, the gals decided they’d invite their spouses along so we could get an up close and personal look at this women’s book club phenomenon.

Here are a few quick observations on that subject:

1.     From what I can tell, the key to the success of your book club does not depend on which friends you ask to participate or which books you decide to read but rather on the quantity and quality of the wine you provide when it’s your turn to host.  I don’t claim to understand women’s book clubs but if you switch the wine out for beer, this is an idea I can get behind.

2.     I love Sports Illustrated as much as the next guy, but do not try to convince your wife’s book club that it should be a considered “a book”.  They will mock you for this and then you won’t get any h'ors d'oeuvres.

3.     Guys: Don’t think for a second that actually READING the book is a required part of book club participation.  I suspect that the real point is for your wife to stick you with the kids for the night while she tosses back some vino with her friends.  Once you understand that everything gets easier.

4.     For a woman’s book club, when it comes to choosing a book, you can either consult the New York Times best seller list, or just pick the latest offering from Oprah’s Book Club.  At least this way you know you’ll get a good cry and a “spiritual cleansing” out of whatever you read.  Apparently, this is desirable.  Guys, on the other hand, would prefer to avoid crying all together.  ESPECIALLY in a group setting.  Unless of course their team loses the big game.

5.     Book clubs hosted by women seem to revolve around an excellent selection of wines and h’ors d’ouevres and bonding over the shared emotional experience that comes from the power of the written word. If guys hosted book clubs, they would revolve around a lukewarm keg of beer, a stale bag of chips, red plastic cups, and a two dollar cover charge.  We may be the simpler of the two sexes, but you gotta admit, we’re incredibly efficient.

6.     I think women’s book clubs intentionally choose books that revolve around at least one of the following three subjects:  romance, intimacy, or chocolate.  I think they pick books like this so they don’t have to worry about the men in their lives taking their books into the john with them.

7.     If you are a guy and you get invited to a meeting of a women’s book club, do not stand up and say “Hey, anyone mind if I put on ESPN?  I gotta check the stats on my fantasy football team.”  Women, especially those who read books, will not see the humor in this.

8.     Here’s a rule of thumb for guys everywhere: if your wife or girl friend invites you to a meeting of her book club, whenever you feel the urge to talk about sports, talk about your kids.  Whenever you feel the urge to talk about politics, talk about your kids. Whenever you feel the urge to talk about the stock market, talk about your kids.  If you don’t have kids, talk about someone else’s kids.  If you don’t know anyone with kids, just sit down, shut up, and don’t say anything the entire night.  This is your only hope for survival.  Trust me on this.

9.     Given that men do most of their reading in the bathroom, I figure the only way you could make a men’s book club work would be to rent about ten porta potties, set them up in the backyard, and assign each guy a throne to work from.  Sure, it’d make the discussion part a little more difficult but most guys have already made up their minds about a book within the first 3 pages anyway.  So what’s there to discuss?

10And finally, when it comes to book clubs always remember, as Groucho Marx once said, “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend.  Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”