Sid Stein Is Exposed to Processed Sugar and Lives to Tell About It

I had a date recently. She was quite clever. Before meeting me, she discovered this blog on her own. Kudos to her! When we met, she was concerned that I would write about her. I promised I wouldn't. You may be thinking - never trust Sid. He doesn't keep his word. Well, my dear readers, my date actually pre-approved this entry.

As much as I would like to write about my date, I will say this. Before I traveled back to Albany, about a 2 hour trip, my date handed me a bottle of water and a bag of delicious chocolate chip cookies. I was touched. At some point on the way home, I thought - gee, those cookies are damn good. I wish I had a few more.

Having My Baby

Well, it finally happened. After weeks of trying, Samantha, the cute, short, pudgy young lesbian adorned with a Chinese "lucky cat" tattoo on the right side of her torso, is finally "having my baby." No, she’s not pregnant. I didn’t sleep with her. She’s a lesbian. We did something even better. We sang a duet at Bomber’s on Wednesday night. "Having My Baby" by Paul Anka. It was a thing of extraordinary beauty and mirth.

I know. Most people familiar with the song simply groan when they remember the lyrics. In our modern society of legalized abortion protected constitutionally by the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade, "Having My Baby" is anathema. Consider the following:

[Paul:]
The need inside you
I see it showin'
Whoa, the seed inside ya
Baby, do you feel it growin'
Are you happy you know it
That you're

[Both:]
Havin' my baby

And don’t forget this verse:

[Paul:]
Didn't have to keep it
Wouldn't put ya through it
You could have swept it from you life
But you wouldn't do it
No, you wouldn't do it

[Both:]
And you're havin' my baby

You may be wondering why I was so anxious for Samantha to "have my baby." The answer is quite simple. As some of you are already aware if you have been reading my blog, the stage at Bomber’s, located on the second floor of the building, overlooks Lark Street in Albany. There is a big window behind the singers. Really, it’s the entire wall. That’s a big window! And what is across the street from Bomber’s? Planned Parenthood! America’s original eugenics laboratory. http://www.plannedparenthood.org/get-involved/donate.htm

Samantha readily agreed to sing with me even though she was only somewhat familiar with the song. She’s just 21, after all. I told her that the female part wasn’t that big, that she would nail it as soon as she heard the song and that I would help her in any case.

I waited and waited for our turn. Greg, the deejay, hates the song. He told me so. I knew he would let me sing it though. That’s what friends are for.

Finally, I hear Greg announce - Samantha and Sid. We got up on stage and I was blissful. I had wanted to sing this song for weeks, but Samantha hadn’t been around. Last night, the stars were properly aligned.

We sang to each other as if we were deeply in love. Samantha likes drama as much as I do. That’s why I waited for her before performing the song at Bomber’s in front of a bevy of young, beautiful girls and their boyfriends. It was even funnier that I am so much older than Samantha. 28 years separate us. It was awfully nice of this young lesbian to accommodate me with my parenting aspirations. I was in good voice. I knew I would be. No way was I going to ruin this once in a lifetime opportunity. And as I hoped, Samantha sang her part to perfection. We gazed into each other’s eyes as we sang. It was so beautiful. And as I said before, little Samantha is a bit pudgy. She has somewhat of a belly. So, at the proper moment, as our eyes met, I reached out and touched her belly as I sang:

The need inside you
I see it showin'
Whoa, the seed inside ya
Baby, do you feel it growin'

I felt like I was in heaven. My dreams of parenting realized as I stood singing across the street from Planned Parenthood.

The song ended but I continued. I couldn’t help myself. I was caught up in the beauty of the moment. Of course, what came out of my mouth was typical Sid Stein.

"I really didn’t want her to keep it. I tried to get her across the street to Planned Parenthood but she just wouldn’t go. No doubt I will have Family Court to look forward to. I’m sure she’ll file a petition for child support. What a pain this is going to be! Let this be a lesson to you, kids."

As an aside, I feel I should tell you a little bit about Samantha. You may find it cute. She was at Pinto and Hobbs some time ago, standing near me at the bar. All of a sudden, she screamed with delight as she noticed a plastic Chinese "lucky cat" sitting among the bottles at the bar. A Chinese "lucky cat" is some sort of Buddhist good luck charm. Basically, it’s a gold colored chubby cat molded in a sitting up position. One of its paws is raised and can wave if you give it a little push. You can find them in any Asian store. They are made of cheap plastic. No doubt, they are made in China. Samantha screamed when she saw it because she has the exact same cat tattooed on the side of her torso. She lifted her shirt up high enough for everyone to see. It’s not an elaborate tattoo. It’s just a minimal drawing of the cat. It looks like something a kid might do. On Samantha, it occupied a lot of space on her small body. After she wandered off, a friend and I discussed what her cat might look like in 20 years. We came up with two possibilities. One - a roadmap. Two - varicose veins. What the hell was Samantha thinking? Whatever she was thinking, she is sweet and I am in her debt for helping me with the song.

Sid Stein Considers Hiring a Bodyguard

While I was still writing my book, "A Little on the Side," I made a decision to self-publish after consulting with an English professor I met from the University of Chicago. She explained that more and more people were doing it because the process had become much simpler during the computer age. She felt that the subject matter of my book lent itself well to the idea of self-publishing. Heeding her advice, I attended a seminar about self-publishing. I learned a few key things at the seminar. Publishing houses leave the majority of the publicity work to the author, especially to new authors. Also, by self-publishing, the author retains complete rights to the book which enables him or her to make more money per book. I was sold.

The seminar I attended was actually quite helpful. The materials provided a step by step guide about how to self-publish. I supplemented that information with a book I purchased separately. Self-publishing turned out to be a little harder than I anticipated, but it was an interesting process. For the most part, even though I was learning as I was going, the process went smoothly, except for one thing. The cover. Operating on a shoestring budget, I didn’t have thousands to spend to hire a graphic artist with years of experience in preparing computer-ready art for book covers. So I asked around town and settled on a relatively new graphic arts firm. I had a vision for the book cover. The firm told me it wouldn’t be a problem. They could do it. A couple of weeks later, they emailed a mock up of the cover to me. It didn’t look anything like what I wanted and incorporated copyrighted images stolen from the Internet. Not good, I thought. Idiots!

I had to find someone else. I did fairly quickly. The sister of an accountant who worked for my father was a graphic artist. I met with her at Starbuck’s and gave her an idea of what I wanted. After several attempts over the course of two months, it was clear that this woman had no business being in the graphics art field. She was clueless about what a printer needed. One evening, after I hadn’t heard from her in over a week, I called her from a bar where I was about to see some friends perform. As I was asking about the status of the cover, she gave me the dimensions she used. Totally wrong! Another idiot! After two months, I was back to square one. In the back of my mind, I felt that she didn’t have her heart in the project anyway. I don’t think she liked the subject matter of my book. Not too many young women do.

I was pretty frustrated at this point. I couldn’t do the book cover myself. Indeed, it was the only aspect of the project with which I needed someone else’s help. I explained my sad tale to an acquaintance of mine. He’s a musician who is the sound director for a local theater repertoire company. He said he knew someone who could do the cover. Someone with whom he had worked in the past. He warned me about one thing. The guy was very shy.

And that’s how I met Joe at the Daily Grind on Lark Street. My friend was right. Joe was shy. Still, he seemed to know what he was talking about and quickly said he had a few ideas. He asked me to meet with him a couple of weeks later.

We met at the Daily Grind again. They make a good cup of coffee there. Joe didn’t order any. He’s not a coffee drinker. He suggested it for a meeting because he doesn’t drive and it’s in the neighborhood. By the way, even though I think it’s a good place to get a cup of coffee, I was not very impressed by the coffee beans I bought there for home use. Go and figure.

Joe presented me with four possible covers. I liked them all except for one. WOW! I had a choice. I wasn’t able to choose on the spot, so I told him I would think about which one I liked the best and would get back to him soon. Finally, it seemed like my cover would get done.

I walked out of the Daily Grind happy. It was a sunny day and I had three possible covers to choose from. How to decide? Although there was one design I favored, it was an important decision and I wanted an impartial opinion. As I walked down Lark Street to my car, an impartial opinion presented itself in the form of a funky looking young woman standing outside a used bookstore. She looked very artsy and was adorned in tattoos.

I approached this young woman of about 30, introduced myself and asked her if she wouldn’t mind offering her opinion. She was hardly taken aback by this request from a complete stranger and agreed to look at the covers. She liked the same one I did! Very good, I thought. Affirmation!

It was very fortuitous that I met Karen at all. She was only standing outside at the time because the bookstore she wanted to visit hadn’t opened yet. She was waiting. I wasn’t in a big rush myself, so I stayed to chat with her a while. As it turned out, not only was Karen able to render an impartial opinion, she also was able to give me an educated one. She was an artist. I checked her out a bit. She was cute, but too young for me. Too young for me means that, most likely, she wouldn’t be interested in dating an older man. I later learned how right I was. She liked younger men. We had a very pleasant conversation. She told me that she was in the process of opening a flower shop and invited me to stop by when she did. I thanked her for her help and off I went.

Now that I had a cover, I became consumed with getting my book printed. Joe not only did the cover, but he also formatted the text for the printers. Things went smoothly at this point and my book became a reality soon after.

In the course of my travels through Albany, I noticed that Karen had opened up flower shop. Curious about her shop, and even more curious about Karen, I stopped in. Gone was her funky attire. Nary a tattoo showed. Maybe none at all. Karen looked sweet and sophisticated in her new shop. In her new role as a florist, Karen was transformed. She was conscious of the fact that her street kid friends would not be represented well among her new clientele. With added responsibilities and a business to promote, Karen was suddenly much more mature. I liked the new Karen. She seemed calmer and looked much softer than her street persona.

I discovered that Karen loved to chat. She was even amenable to debating the pros and cons of my book, "A Little on the Side." Not only that, but she offered to sell copies on consignment. A business relationship was forged. And a friendship.

Karen’s shop was on my way downtown, so I would stop in every now and then to chat and check up on my book sales. I also learned a few untidy details about her personal life. Karen liked to discuss them. And discuss them. And discuss them. Her life was in turmoil. Her husband was a brute and she wanted a divorce. Apparently, those truck-driving men lose their appeal at some point. To complicate matters, she was in love with a college student ten years her junior. And if that wasn’t enough, her husband suspected her of having an affair. She was! He was right about that. The only problem was that he suspected she was having an affair with an older man, not a college kid. So what, you ask? Well, for whatever reason, Karen’s husband was convinced that she was having an affair with the same guy who wrote "A Little on the Side - The Married Man’s Ultimate Guide to Cheating or How to Save Your Marriage." He had seen my book displayed at the store and that was enough evidence for him, despite her denials. I told you he was a brutish truck driver, right? To be honest, it’s not like I wouldn’t sleep with her. She is young and cute. But as I said before, she liked younger guys. Karen suggested that I use the name Stuart if her husband ever popped into the store while I was there. Stuart? Where did she come up with that? Hell, if it would save my neck, she could introduce me as Osama bin Laden.

As you might imagine, I didn’t stop into the store without calling in advance. I wanted to make sure that the guy who might know the whereabouts of Jimmy Hoffa’s body wasn’t going to come around. No way did I want to end up in the swamps of Jersey for a crime I didn’t commit.

Some time passed. Karen’s husband didn’t seem like he would pose any problem. I was Stuart now. Karen and I were clear on that.

It was February and I was planning on having a book signing at Noche, the new hip, swank lounge in downtown Albany. In conjunction with the book signing, I made arrangements to appear on the radio on Valentine’s Day. I thought it would be funny to discuss my book on the Hallmark holiday of love. It was easy to get the radio gig because a friend was one of the show’s hosts. He told me they would cut a promo and run it during the day before my appearance on his show. I was grateful. Publicity is important when you are trying to sell a book.

Everything was set. Monday night, the day before my spot, my friend emailed me. Actually, he forwarded an email to me. Not everyone was happy about the fact that I was to appear on the radio, least of all, Karen’s husband. Although he didn’t sign the email, it was apparent that he sent it. I don’t think it’s necessary to share the expletive laden details of his missive, but I can summarize it for you. Basically, he couldn’t believe that "The Wolf" (the show’s primary host) would have someone like me on his show. He even included that I was f%#&ing his wife. The tone of the email was irate and moralistic. I found the moralistic aspect quite humorous because "The Wolf" is a typical shock jock in the mold of Howard Stern. The angry tone of the letter was a cause of some concern to me and my friend. After all, it’s not hard to find the radio station. That’s public information. I emailed my friend that Sid Stein could not and would not be intimidated. Yeah, right.

The radio show went great. It was very funny and we all had a good time. Callers were up in arms about my book, but that’s what made the show so funny. At the end of the show, "The Wolf" thanked me for coming, even though he thought I was "despicable." Still on the air, the female host suggested that I should consider hiring a bodyguard before going to my car. I joked that I already had one. I didn’t, of course. I don’t even know where you hire them. I live in Albany. Who has bodyguards here except for maybe the Governor, and I had already pissed them off. (see my post entitled "Sid Stein vs. The State Police)

My friend offered to walk me to my car but I declined. However, I clearly remember the moment I had to leave the building. I got to the glass door, looked around as much as I could and spotted my car in the lot. I knew that once I was outside, no one could help me. They were all busy on the radio. If Karen’s husband was out there, I was a goner. Be brave, I told myself. And RUN to your car. I opened the door and made a beeline for my getaway vehicle. No one was outside. I guess the truck driver was out trucking around. Sid Stein was safe for another day.