Translator
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  | ||||||
Wondering What I’m All About?
I’ve had this site up for over two years, and recently set about re-designing it, just to change it up. As I was going through the pages I realized, there’s no bio. WTF? How could I have all this humor, all these posts, and not remember to describe myself? Well, I’m not one to sit around doing something when idleness is called for, but idle can wait until tomorrow. Today, I give you some background…
I grew up in a suburb of Chicago, and attended Hoffman Estates High School. It was a fairly new school at the time, without any real type of school history, especially in athletics. I had always been a natural athlete, and played basketball and football my first two years, but my passion was baseball. For three years I was a varsity starter, including a game I played drunk my junior year. My senior year, I pitched the school’s very first varsity no-hitter (I had pitched the first non-varsity no-hitter as a freshman), and for the most part, REAL athletics ended upon my graduation. To this day, when I go back and look over the Hall Of Glory or whatever the fuck HEHS calls it’s photos of athletes, it gripes my ass that they’ve never even recognized something which can’t occur again. Anyway…off to video games, um, I mean, college.
College just wasn’t my thing. At Eastern Illinois University, I would attend the first day of classes, decide I was too smart for the class, and never return. My problem was I didn’t bother actually dropping the classes, thus, I received quite a few “F”s and eventually flunked out…twice. Around this time I learned how to hustle bowling. Did you know there was such a thing as a bowling hustler? Neither did I. I never saw Paul Newman lugging a bowling ball around in The Hustler. I learned the art from my roommate at the time, a guy named Mike. Together, we traveled the US, making money, drinking, and pretty much doing whatever we wanted. Mike eventually grew up, and now owns a very successful bowling bag/accessories company. I forgot to grow up, and headed out to Hollywood. Between college and Hollywood, I’ve had the following “occupations”: Heavy equipment salesman, blackjack/roulette dealer, strip club dj, adult magazine editor/publisher, laser spa owner, computer repairman, website developer, and game show contestant.
There’s quite a few details I’ve left out, which will make for some interesting posts as time goes on. For now, I write for film/TV, mostly comedies, and a couple of months ago I started the STFU Show on the Internet, with a most wonderful person, adult film star jessica drake (she insists her name not be capitalized). It’s a podcast, meaning, a show recorded for the Internet, similar to a radio talk show without the FCC crawling up your ass about language, content, etc. As we’ve received excellent feedback thus far, I truly believe this can be my method of livelihood for years to come. Each show, we get funnier, and recruit more listeners. And it’s so convenient for the audience. They can listen when and where they want; pause the show, rewind, fast-forward, whatever.
In the meantime, I post my (short) opinions on Twitter (@lacomedywriter), and my long, drawn-out diatribes are reserved for the show. So I guess my blog will be for the tweener content, or for shit we just didn’t get to on the show. One thing is for sure…I’ll never, ever, Shut The Fuck Up! RB
The Meaning Of Friendship
It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, and the reason is, I’ve been real busy finishing off a script, and because I’ve been Tweeting. But having all this time to think, I couldn’t help but laugh at one of my true stories of youth, and felt it was time to share.
I hear all kinds of ditties about what constitutes friendship. I’ve heard the one about how a “true friend” will help you dispose of the body, etc. While that may be true, it’s really, really unlikely that it will ever come up in your life experiences. I, however, have a story which might happen to anyone and, hopefully, you’ll do just as I did some 20+ years ago.
My best friend John and I decided to drive cross-country from Chicago to Los Angeles for a little vacation. It wasn’t really a vacation…we had this wild idea to try out for Wheel Of Fortune, and figured we’d put in a little R&R while there. I had a 1985, two-seat, mid-engine, MR2, which, for a long-ass drive, was only slightly better than taking turns pulling a rickshaw. Anyway, we made excellent time, and decided to stop in, of all places, Flagstaff, AZ to party and bed down for the night. It was the middle of March, and while the rest of Arizona was enjoying 75-80 degree weather, Flagstaff was cold as shit, and still had plenty of snow on the ground. We found a cheap motel with two double-beds, and set off to see how the town partied. Well, Flagstaff sure knew what it was doing. John and I drank, pretty heavily, and I picked up a local woman with seemingly no moral padlocks whatsoever. She had a tattoo near her groin, and plenty of alcohol in her, so she met my minimum standards. There was only one problem. John and I were such cut-ups that I knew he couldn’t be in the bed next to me, or I’d spend the whole night laughing instead of playing “locate the labia”.
The solution to me was obvious. I’d take this little trampolina to the room, while John slept outside. Surprisingly, John didn’t put up much of an argument. So, for the next half hour I had my way, while John sat outside in a car with seats that didn’t recline, the lightest of jackets, and a dusting of snow falling all around him, as the snot froze in his mustache. Picture John Candy in Planes, Trains, & Automobiles.
I must admit I felt a little guilty. After all, John and I had split the cost of the room. So, once I was done I walked to the door, looked out, and motioned for John to come back in. I also gave John a sign that it was “his turn”. John immediately jumped into his bed, and I told the girl, “Hey, show John your tattoo”. She stumbled from the bed, and stood naked in front of John, so he could get a good look. John was sharp enough to know a green light when he saw one, and grabbed her hips, pulling her to the bed.
Now, I know this doesn’t sound like such a great friendship story so far, but here’s the friend part. Behind Flagstaff’s finest I was doing my best Marcel Marceau, trying to let John know, not to kiss her. You see, only moments before, I had decorated her uvula, and decided John had suffered enough for one night. I must have pantomimed some kind of puckering motion, wildly pointing to my mouth and waving “no”. Then, as if this acting wouldn’t get me that Emmy, I held the back of my own head, while bobbing up and down, mouth agape like a striped bass proudly mounted on a wall. Whatever I did worked, for when she went to kiss him, John performed a reversal that would have made Brock Lesnar proud. He had his way with her, I got some much needed alcohol sleep/coma, and most importantly, the woman slept in John’s bed.
The next morning she rose and went on her merry way. She didn’t want our phone numbers, didn’t want us to stop on the way back, it was perfect. And John and I continued on to LA for our wonderful adventure. During that trip we also ventured down to Tijuana, but that’s another story…
I’ll Do Your Bitchin’ For You!
Thanks for stopping by. I’m Rick Bailey, aka The Bagman, and I’m launching this series of posts/podcasts to entertain, and maybe even inform you, of all the lunacy that engulfs our daily lives. There’s plenty of shit that’s fucked up about life today, and I’ll be pointing it all out. I’ll also be telling you about things that are incredibly funny, but often overlooked. Nobody will be spared…friends, relatives, lovers, enemies (especially the enemies), and people I don’t even know, such as politicians. If you have any comments, feel free to register and drop me a line.
About me: I’m a single screenwriter living in L.A., originally from a suburb of Chicago. During a less-than-brilliant college career (and I do mean career…seven colleges in all), I majored in Donkey Kong, with a minor in Pac Man. To my knowledge I don’t have any kids, and most people like me. Those that don’t? Well, fuck ‘em. I probably wouldn’t like them either.
http://stfushow.com