NOTE: This blog entry is subtitled "This is Going to Piss A Lot of Parents Off."

I had the pleasure of seeing Bill Cosby’s show at the F.M. Kirby Center on Saturday night. I’ll always think fondly of him for his kind-looking eyes, beleaguered father and husband and joke delivery as much as I fondly recall watching “The Cosby Show” reruns as my family ate dinner when I was growing up.

When I think of seeing him in person this weekend, I will always recall the couple who thought it was a good idea to bring a baby in a bassinet to his show — to his 9 p.m. show to be completely clear.

I openly admit that I am not a parent. No, I have no right to say what a parent should or should not do with his or her child. Having said that, I pride myself on being pretty damn logical in the ways of the world, thus bringing a teeny baby to a sit-down theater show is very high on the list of Things To Probably Not Do As A Parent.

Maybe the babysitter canceled at the last minute. Maybe, despite its diminutive size, the baby is a really, really big Cosby fan, or maybe the parents are just completely ignorant to the mantra “Children should be seen and not heard.”

It started making that piercing cry babies do, and after about five minutes (and a call out from Mr. Cosby), the father finally walked up the aisle toward the lobby. Only, he didn’t go through the doors — he stopped right behind our section and stood there cooing “Shh.”

Hooray for you that you are a parent and you have what I am sure is a beautiful offspring. However, I was not there to hear your child. I was there to hear Mr. Cosby, as were the other 1,710 people in attendance.

It wasn’t until several people — myself included — threw several scathing glances in his general direction did Daddy Dearest and baby finally exit the theater. Did I mention that this was after nearly 10 minutes?

I don’t think I am being cruel or “a kid hater” writing this. I know parenthood is one of the greatest, most fulfilling things humans can do. I’m just saying that there is a time and place for your Ethans and McKennas. When they are a tiny baby who might be frightened by loud laughter surrounding them, next to people who paid their hard-earned money to laugh at a legend’s musings, is not one of them.
 

I’m not going to lie to you. I ate like an elephant over Easter weekend. I’m not proud of it, but I sure as hell enjoyed every bite of homemade goodness.

A little more than a year ago, I wrote a column about my New Year’s resolutions. I thought putting them — quitting smoking for good, going to the gym three times a week, eating better — out to our readers would make me stick to them. That having them printed in a paper with more than 100,000 readers would hold me accountable.

Not even close. I started 2009 the same weight I started 2008. I ate the same unhealthy things. Gym? Hell no. The only thing I stuck with was quitting smoking, so at least I have that.

This year, I vowed like always to do those same things, and I’m happy to report that four and a half months into 2009, I’ve finally found something that works for me: exercising in the early morning in the comfort of my own home, at my own pace. And while watching lots of early-morning infomercials.

In January, I acquired a magical contraption called the Air Climber. It’s a stepper with billows you pump (like a pair of Reebok Pumps, for those of you old enough to remember those) before you start stepping. It came with resistance bands you can attach for extra burn, plus DVD workouts, but I’ve yet to embrace them as much as the stepper itself. I’m still doing baby steps, no pun intended, before moving on to the big-girl workout. I am up to level four now, and it’s a killer.

For the first time in my life, I’m really sticking with exercising. Whether it’s the Air Climber, a yoga routine from SELF magazine, Pilates or walking around the track near my house, I’ve been really good about doing at least something every day. In fact, today, this 17th day of April, I’ve already have 12 days of exercising behind me this month, not too shabby methinks. 

So maybe I am 15 months late on my 2008 resolutions, and maybe I do, on occasion, like to indulge in good food a little too much, but I wouldn’t change a thing now. I don’t know what I was so afraid of all those years, liking myself? Finding a balance between my love of food and my health?

I’ve really made a lifestyle change and made time to stick to it, and it really wasn’t that hard. I’m proud to say that for the first time in a really long time, I like what I see in the mirror.

Here’s the link to the Web site for my beloved Air Climber. Check it out, maybe it’ll help you too if you’re struggling to stick to whatever health-related resolution you have. www.theairclimber.com

(That may or may not have been a plug to try and get me on its next infomercial. I’ll never tell.)
 

I still have dial-up. Let’s just get that out there in the open.

It is slower than molasses. I usually curse — a lot — as I wait for pages to load, and God forbid I want to open another browser. I don’t know why I don’t just get high-speed already, and believe you me, it’s something I think about every single day as I sit at my cluttered desk at home. Especially since I am such a dinosaur that I still have a home phone number because of said dial-up.

In our office, I am surrounded by iPhones and Blackberrys, but even my cell phone is the base model. I can text. I can make calls. Isn’t that what a cell is for? But I admit I do long to be able to scour the Interweb from my phone, especially if I’m waiting at a doctor’s office or something, or don’t want to be chained to my laptop, what with the slow connection and all.

So if you haven’t guessed by now, I am not the most tech-savvy of persons. I don’t really need, nor want, any of the gadgetry most people can’t live without. iPod? Nah. iTunes? Nope.

I can assure you that I will never be on Facebook. I have MySpace, and that’s enough for me, much to the chagrin of most of my friends. I have my own personal blog. That’s about as wired as I need to be.

When the Weekender did a cover story on Twitter (read it here: www.theweekender.com/cover/Tracking_the_Twitter_trend_02-24-2009.html), I scoffed at the idea of another social networking site. Doesn’t it just sound like yet another distraction and yet another pain-in-the-ass-to-update site?

But soon after the article ran, there I was creating an account after watching the tutorial on the site. And here I am, nearly a month later, not sure how I lived without Twitter. I absolutely love it. I love having to be short-winded (you can only Twit in 140 characters or less). I’ve made some great contacts thus far, personally and professionally.

It’s inspired me in my other writings: My personal blog, which I updated less than weekly, has grown, and I love having this new creative outlet. I’m journaling and writing my haiku/tanka poetry more — my creativity has just snowballed, and I am so blown away by that.

Sure, Twitter falls under the category of TMI sometimes, but I think it’s a great outlet for someone like me, and it was the shot in the arm my inspiration needed. If you haven’t checked Twitter out, I highly recommend. See my page at twitter.com/nikkimm33. Follow me if you’d like, I’d love to have you on board.

If not, go Tweet yourself, in 140 characters or less.
 

If I minimize the Internet windows open on my computer, I am going to see something incredible: my background photo. It’s no ordinary photo, mind you. I had to scour Google images for quite some time to find the perfect image of one “Magnum, P.I.,” and I assure you, this one is scrumptious.

“Magnum,” which ran from 1980-1988, was played by the always tasty Tom Selleck, who was my first childhood crush. It had a great theme song (that I recorded on a cassette tape on a behemoth boom box), a great setting (Hawaii), a sexy car (red Ferrari 308 GTS) and most importantly, Selleck’s ’stache.

That mustache bewitched me and still does to this day.

I firmly believe that, these days, not enough men sport furry upper lips. If ever elected president, this will be among the laws I put into place. (Other important laws include outlawing any straws that aren’t the bendy kind and making more men wear hats. And tasering people who drive slow in the passing lane.)

Every time I see my background, I smile. And blush a little because I want to touch that ’stache. I want to give it a nickname and have been racking my brain for the perfect one since I found the picture last week.

Without further ado, I present the photo to you.


 

Yesterday morning, I left my house unnaturally early for a Wednesday to head to 98.5 KRZ to cover the Spotlight Lounge event, which gives listeners a chance to sit in on an intimate mini-show with a national recording artist, and then have a meet and greet. This month’s band was Thriving Ivory, who then went on to play Tink’s in Scranton last night.

After the band played, and fans were getting ready to head to the room where the meet and greet would happen, one fan asked for singer Clayton Stroope’s empty water bottle.

Everyone kind of chuckled and gave the guy a weird look — including me — as Stroope rolled the bottle down the table. The guy said he’d sell it on eBay after he had the band sign it.

As I stood there taking pictures of some of the fans with the band for our Web site, the water bottle got me thinking. So much so that I felt bad about thinking the guy was weird. Haven’t we all got stories like that?

Here’s mine:

March 9, 1991. The F.M. Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre. I was 13. Thanks to my older brother, I had grown up on hair metal, but there I was, sitting in the front row with my best friend, my brother and his girlfriend at the time for someone I was uber-obsessed with: Vanilla Ice.

I’ll wait.

I was so excited to be at the show, and even more so to be there in the front row. I can still see Vanilla Ice’s silver pants as he hopped around on stage performing songs from his “To the Extreme” CD as me, my best friend and the shrieking girls surrounding us sang along word-for-word.

Into those silver pants, the “rapper” had a white towel tucked to wipe the beads of sweat from his face. At the end of the show, most of which is a blur to me now 18 years later (egads!), he tossed that white towel up into the air and everyone clamored for it.

My best friend and I leapt up as high as we could and … snagged it.

I cannot even explain how excited we were! It wasn’t that one of us got it and the other didn’t — it was both of ours.

After my brother took us home, she and I put on “Havin’ a Roni” (our favorite song from “To the Extreme”) and ceremoniously cut the towel in half. That towel hung on my wall for eons, right next to one of the many pictures of Bret Michaels from Poison.

We all know what happened to Vanilla Ice, but back in 1991, all I know is that I knew his entire CD by heart — it was completely different from the other music I was listening to at that time.

And you best believe I can still sing “Ice Ice Baby” in its entirety and do the beat boxes from “Havin’ a Roni.”

All you have to do is ask — but I refuse to do it sporting silver pants.
 

About the Author

Nikki M. Mascali interned at the Weekender in 2005 and is proud to have been the paper’s oldest intern. She became the staff writer/designer in 2006 while still obtaining her journalism degree from Luzerne County Community College, which she received in 2007.

Nikki has written about a variety of topics, from a local dominatrix to Larry the Cable to Soulja Boy, Slash and Shinedown — and everything in between. She represents the “she” view for the “He Said/She Said” with Eric Petersen of Froggy 101.3 in the paper and on air at 5 p.m. every other Wednesday. She also attends the monthly KRZ Spotlight Lounge for photographs and exclusive interviews with artists like Plain White T’s, Matt Nathanson and Hinder. See her every Monday on the Weekender homepage in the Weekly Dose video with Editor Michael Lello.

Nikki has a never-ending love for Twitter (follow her at www.twitter.com/nikkimm33), Steve McQueen and Gerard Butler movies, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and eating, hence the reason she’s our food writer. She thanks you for reading her blog because she’s that kind of girl.

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