Christmas Miracle

I had a little mishap with a gold filling when I was 15. You see my childhood was peppered with many memorable things. Summer trips to Wildwood, sneaking Virginia Slims out of my mother's purse, laughing at the way Hispanic people said "pistachio", winter trips to Wildwood, and eating those little chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil. And, like most kids, I had my fair share of cavities. But unlike most kids, all my fillings were gold.

Now during one of those trips to New Jersey's land of magic, thrills, and unprotected stranger-sex under the boardwalk, I bit down hard on a stale deep-fried Zebra cake, and knocked out one of my gold fillings. At the time I was riding the Teacups with Sally Vesuvio, the hottest broad in school, and I wasn't about to pull out my bloody filling, especially if I had any hopes of kissing her and feeling her ample manigots!

So I did what any reasonable kid my age would do. I swallowed it. And when the ride stopped, she threw up on me. Goddamn Teacups. But, she felt really bad so she let me look down her shirt for a count of eight mississippi. It was dynamite.

So after a busy Christmas season, and a special extended Christmas Eve mass where my daughter Jenette's CCD class reenacted Mary's entire 21-hours of labor during the birth of Christ complete with her botched C-section, and successful O-section, my family and I sat down to a delicious 7 fishes dinner. Shortly after dinner I made my way up to the bathroom and prepared for a peaceful 15 to 45 minute BM while catching up on why Esquire chose Kate Beckinsale as the sexiest woman alive. Shortly after they convinced me, I stood up and this is what I found sitting atop the mound of Christmas aftermath. (see above)

It was a friggin' Christmas Miracle! The Dentists told me I would never chew with that tooth again. They were wrong. I beat science! And I'm happy to announce that I am having the tooth re-implanted in my gums behind the tooth that replaced it so many years ago.

And in case anyone is wondering, yes, I will in fact have one extra molar on the right bottom side of my mouth. I'll be sure to chew any and all dried sausage on that side.

A Soft Drink that fell on Hard Times

Anybody remember 7up Gold? Well I do. It had such promise. Such potential. Released in the spring of 1988 with great expectations, the most regal of all sodas quickly lost it's fizz. This is what happened...

As you can imagine, the prospect of a Gold soda excited me so. So much so, that due to an insider tip, I went in and bought a thousand shares of 7up, specifically the 7up Gold shares, in late 1987. I wasn't interested in any other 7up products, just the Gold ones. Everything was looking good. In my mind, it was a can't miss! But I should have paid attention to the warning signs of failure. Here's what went wrong:

1. The taste.

To start things off, it tasted like someone backwashed a cinnamon apple jolly rancher into a can of caffeinated ginger ale. I was there for the one and only taste-test marketing session and I knew just by looking at the test panel, something wasn't right. First of all there was an old lady who had lost the sense of taste well over twenty years ago, sitting next to a kid who had recently burned the inside of his mouth on some pizza, and a Mandarin Chinese man who didn't know how to say "Tastes Bad" in english. They really thought they had a decent demographic spread. 

I should have spoke up...but I was so sure...

2. The can.

Look at the design here. There's one overwhelming flaw. The color. It should be black, not red. Everyone knows that! The color that goes best with Gold is always black. (Look at my friggin' blogs!) Here are some other obvious examples of gold going best with black:

Watches-

Iphones-

Black People-

3. Homoerotic advertising.

Here's the biggest nail in the mausoleum. The commercials. Take a look at this:

Is that the gayest shit you've ever seen? I mean I got no problem if you're a dude and you want to do another dude, just don't do it in a 7up Gold commercial! There's like one shot of the chicks, and the rest is these two jaggoffs acting like a-holes and paying a homeless guy to deliver to them what should be a premier soft drink product! It's all wrong!

And then to finish it all off, you got one guy exploding his can all over his own face while his partner reaches in to get a taste and then licks the precious fluid off his finger! And again, no broads in sight! Super-homo stuff going on here. Straight people drink soda too you know! 

Combine all that, and you've got one doomed product.

Rest in Peace 7up Gold.

P.S. If anyone is interested in a few hundred boxes of unopened 7up Gold, please email me at gusmusterino@gmail.com or leave a comment below.  My goal is to someday be able to park my car inside the garage.

Anyone have any other products they thought/wished had made it but didn't?

BEST FRIGGIN' BLACK FRIDAY EVER

Now although I am Gus Musterino, and gold is my passion, it doesn't mean that I'm rolling in it. Especially now with how the weather is. I mean the economy. And I'm sure the weather has something to do with it too. Plus, I gots a few daughters, so the holiday season can be killer. But this year I scored big time.

I woke up at 1:00 am, like a goddamn champ, Friday morning and camped out in front of the Ed Hardy store on the corner of Reed and Blanton across from the Chili's. Although there were still at least thirty people ahead of me, and it was so cold the urine froze inside my bladder, it was completely worth it. I got all my daughters done in one day with the Ed Hardy three for one skirt sale. Each skirt matches one of my daughters personalities. Check these out:

This one is for my daughter Adrienne because she's the poet in the family.

She writes poems and prints them out on fancy paper from AC Moore. They're friggin' beautiful! So that's why I got her the skirt that says, "Love Kills Slowly", because that's poetry right there. I wish my own words conveyed half the beauty Mr. Hardy's does.

See what Ed Hardy did here is genius. He took something scary (skull) and combined it with something not scary (roses). This is called juxtaposition. That's like taking a grizzly bear and putting a human baby in it's mouth. They offset one another and make you think. Why is the baby in the bear's mouth? And then the answer dawns on you: Society. See? Makes you think. My daughter Gianna likes to think, so this one's for her.

This one I got for Franchessca because I can never understand what the hell she's talking about and I couldn't understand what this was a picture of so that seemed perfect.

This is a rare E. Hardy release for my daughter Raquel. Part of the infamous "TATTOO" line, the story behind this design is that originally it had a picture of a tiger with the body of a mermaid wrapped around an anchor with a rose behind it that was giving birth to a baby Velociraptor swinging a samurai sword. Underneath it said, "Teach a man to fish", but at the last minute he decided to get rid of all that and just let his name say it all....."ED".

Very classy sir.

This one is for my daughter Mimi. I don't know her that well, but I figured this skirt would give us something to talk about.

Brittany gets this one because according to the Japanese, tigers represent

invincibility. And if any of my daughters is gonna live forever, it'll be Brittany because all she eats is Luna bars. Those things are packed with vitamins and essential girl hormones. If you're a chick, I suggest buying in bulk.

Jennette gets this one to wear on Sundays' when she teaches CCD.

The rest of my daughters are getting ten month gift certificates to Hollywood tans. And I got my wife some heels and a new beach chair with the entire cast of "Twilight" on it.

Anybody get any deals like mine? Better ones, or...?

Fallen Star

Can we talk about something for a second? It's something that's been bothering me for years. A question I wish I knew the answer to but have been hesitant to ask. Not sure if I'll like the answer. But I need to know.

What ever happened to Michael Keaton?

I mean really. For those of you born after 1995, you might not even know who I'm talking about. And that in itself is truly a shame. Go rent Batman Returns immediately. It's the one with Catwoman in it. Me-ow.

This man is one of the greatest actors of all time. Don't argue with me, it's true. Poise, charisma, presence, he's got it all. And comedic timing? Are you kidding me? Has anybody seen Beetle Juice? Tim Burton needs to make another movie with Michael if he ever wants to get his career back on track. Fuck this Johnny Depp shit. Michael stands a majestic 5' 9" and has more sex appeal than that Chocolat hack any day. And by the way Johnny, Chocolate is spelled with an "e".

That being said, I know he has popped up here and there over the past decade, but how did this guy lose his leading man status? Multiplicity was about the funniest movie I've seen since My Cousin Vinny. Now Multiplicity isn't as uplifting as the story of an underdog blue collar italian american working his way up the judicial system to win the case and save the day, but it's still hilarious. Oh yea, and Michael's pretty damn scary in Pacific Heights. If you haven't seen it, I suggest going out and buying it from Wal-Mart. They got this big bin of 5 dollar movies. You may have to search while, but it's in there, trust me.

Me and my wife's favorite thing to do is re-enact the scene from Multiplicity where Michael's character Doug has already made three other clones of himself, and Andie Macdowell goes from room to room and bangs all of them thinking they're the same guy with a crazy sex drive. But they're not! That's what's so hot! And my wife's gotten really good at acting like she doesn't know I'm the same person when we do it. Sometimes I even think I'm a different guy. Especially when she calls me names that aren't mine.

The point is Michael Keaton needs to come back. He needs a nice meaty lead role in a movie where he maybe plays an aging wrestler who has heart problems and an estranged daughter. It could be called "The Grappler" or "The old guy in the ring that deserves a second chance at life".

Are there any actors/actresses you love that fell off the face of the earth?

A Classy broad with Styles to boot

You know who has great style? Lady GaGa. But you might ask, isn't she a dude? Well I'm here to settle this misnomer once and for all. The truth? I don't know.

BUT, it is a high possibility that the rumor that Lady GaGa is a man was started by Christina Aguilera as a smear campaign against Lady GaGa with the intention of slumping her record sales.

It's a shame what pop stars will resort to these days in order to surpass the competition.

Although, I have always felt bad for Christina especially after the smear campaign Brittany Spears' started against her in the late '90's where Brittany tried to get everyone to believe that Christina was Spanish. A rumor like that will kill your career! Look what happened to Lou diamond Phillips!

I mean Brittany Spears even went as far as to CG in Christina's mouth to make it look like she's singing spanish things in some of her videos. Now CG isn't what it is today, so it's still obvious Christina isn't one bit Hispanic, thank god, but can you imagine if they did that shit today? The next Transformers movie might be entitled, "Transformers: Rise of the Machines who ride their bicycles on the sidewalk".

To prove my point, here is the actual sabotaged "Come on over" video. Just keep reminding yourself as you watch it that Christina has no ethnic credibility whatsoever, because the editing here may trick you.

My favorite part about this version? Nothing. Except for the fact that it's in a different language so it's harder to get stuck in my head. Makes me glad I got an "F minus" in Spanish when I was in high school. Beuno failure.

BOYCOTT LOCAL CHANNEL 24...maybe

So in case you don't know, either because you don't have the illegal cable hook-up Garret Teetsman down on Boysenberry lane offers for a flat $30 fee, or because you passed out after multiple rounds of lemon drops at the 2009 Miss Hooter's of Biscayne New Jersey after party the night of November 10th, my commercial never aired on Local Channel 24.

Isn't that some shit?

So for the past week I've been calling over to Local Channel 24 which is run out of the basement of the local community college. Not the one my daughter Denise goes to, it's another one. Their rival.

Rival community colleges. Weird. Without a mascot or any sports teams, at pep rally's do they just hold up signs that say their school has the more challenging liberal arts classes? If so, TAKE THAT South West Biscayne Community College.

Anyways, their media department has been avoiding my calls.

So I went down there and talked to the nice girl behind the desk and let her know who I was and what had me in such a state of anger and limited temperaments. Well she recognized me right away (turns out she's in the same court appointed road rage class as my daughter Adrienne) and told me she'd been waiting to see my commercial and she was sad it hadn't aired. When I asked her if she had spoken with the head of the visual media department there, she told me she's weirded out by that guy because he smells like sour cream potato chips and wears t-shirts that say creepy stuff like "Analog Ready" and "Dead Kennedy's".

So then I described to her how incredible the commercial was and she told me that she really likes the commercial on TV with the nice old man that teaches people how to turn their PCs on and type sentences in Word with his mail order computer lessons.

So I told her I agreed, he's an extremely classy guy, the only problem is he needs more style. Then after about another fifteen minutes of talking about related topics, she pointed me down the hall to the media department. I made my way down the hall, knocked on the door, and a small round balding kid in his early thirties answered the door sipping a monster energy drink through a bendy straw.

"Can I help you?" Sluuurrrrp.

"Yea you can help me! You were supposed to show my commercial on Nov. 10th between the hours of 12 midnight and 2:17 am!"

"Oh yea, we were gonna, but instead we showed ten hours of Akira Kurosawa films, which actually means we only showed about one and a half of his films. We did so because it is the 60th anniversary of his film 'Stray Dog'. But i guess you didn't know that now did you?"

Slurrrrrrrrrrrp.

"Well I don't A-Care-a Kurosawa how many years it's been! What about my commercial?!"

(Ok, I didn't really say that, but wouldn't that have been good?! Next time.)

"Sir the films of the greatest Japanese filmmaker of the past century are far more important than a commercial spot promoting the exchange of money for one's personal gold possessions. Plus your tape was sent over from our rival school, and that just doesn't fly here."

SLUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRP.

"Now you-"

SLURP.

"My turn?"

"Go ahead."

"Thanks. Now you listen to me Geek Squad! You're gonna show my commercial or I'm going to have a word with the Dean!"

"We're actually between Deans."

Slurrp.

"Sip it again kid and you'll have to have that straw surgically removed from your sinuses, sure as my name's Gus Musterino."

Slur-

"Wait, you're Denise Musterino's dad?! Oh I'm so sorry Mr. Musterino! I-I didn't know! I promise I'll show it! For a week straight! At 8 o'clock pm! Prime time!"

"Ok then. So when should I look for it?"

"The week after Thanksgiving. Our school is shut down until then."

"That works. And by the way. You really do smell like sour cream potato chips."

"I know."

And that's it. Turns out that the media kid has a fairly large crush on my daughter Denise from the last time they had a pep rally, and as gross as that is, it worked out in our favor this time.

So be on the look out for me and my daughter Denise's commercial airing on Local Channel 24 at 8 o'clock pm the entire week after Thanksgiving!

But if for some reason it doesn't show, then you should totally boycott Local Channel 24. They're a bunch of fagoles.

One word.

Gold-Bluetooth.

Guess who's getting it!