Joe Ditzel

Joe Ditzel Has Some Problems

Joe
Joe Ditzel

Joe Ditzel Gift Guide

For my birthday last year, a couple of relatives said to me, “I didn’t know what to get you, so here is a gift certificate.”

To eliminate any doubt about what to get me, I have created the Joe Ditzel Gift Guide. I welcome any of these great gifts:

* Ferrari F355 Spider Convertible- $140,000. If you buy this car for me I’ll thank you with a coupon for a free Jiffy Lube. Every body needs a good Jiffy Lube now and then.

* Tour of American Strip Clubs- forget the Bike Ride Across Iowa or the African Safari for adventure vacations. I want to tour America’s Finest Strip Clubs with a big stack of 20’s.

* I’ll start with the Cheetah III in Atlanta. Round of Golf with Arnold Palmer, Jack Nucleus and Alice Cooper – as a golfer it is my dream to play golf with Arena and Jack. As far as Alice, I want a chance to win back some of the money I spent from my paper route on “School’s Out” and “Billion Dollar Babies” in the 70’s.

* Case of Makers Mark Bourbon- Makers Mark has the greatest ad slogan ever: “Tastes expensive. And is.” Makes Jack Daniel taste like bourbon strained through old socks.

* Hair- my hair is receding from my temples and meeting in the middle, leaving an island of hair in the front. If you look close, you can see Gilligan and the Skipper waving. I look forward to your gift of a case of Rogaine.

* Heidi Klum.

I’ll add to the list as I think of things. However, you do not need to wait until my birthday to send me any of these items.

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Health
Joe Ditzel

13 Week Medical School

Another group of medical researchers just determined that a high fat diet is NOT linked to a higher risk for cancer. I never know what to believe. Still, if I get sick, I’m happy I can be sick at this time in history. I’ve been reading about the history of medicine and we don’t know how good we have it.

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Sports
Joe Ditzel

Spanked

Here is some advice: never go on a golf date.

It seemed harmless enough. I play golf. She plays golf. Let’s play golf, I suggested. We could get to know each other and, if love didn’t strike, enjoy a day on the links. Right?

Wrong.

My first drive hooked left into the long stuff. I eased the cart up to the ladies tee for her drive. She took a few practice swings. This is when I heard the first alert of my MALE EGO DEFENSE WARNING SYSTEM: she had the best tempo of any golfer I’ve ever seen. I should have driven back to the car right then, complaining of dizziness and old war wounds.

Her pre-shot routine is careful and un-hurried. Then she takes the club back low and slow, ending with the club well behind her head. No way she can get back to the ball from there, you think. You’d think wrong. She hesitates at the top for what seems like hours. Then she eases the club back down and inside, gently brushing the top of the grass into a perfectly balanced finish. You could set the atomic clock to her swing.

The ball sailed down the middle, curling to the left at the end in a slight draw. When I hit a golf ball, it jumps off the clubface in a panic, like someone jumping out of a burning building. When she hits, the ball seems to leap gracefully from the club, like a figure skater gracefully throwing his partner in the air in a tight spin.

We found my ball in the rough. I hit a respectable shot to the back of the green. We drove over to her ball in the fairway. Again, she took her time. She didn’t seem to know that golf is an anxiety producing sport. Golf can rip your heart out! No one over told her. She was as cool and calm as the beer in the cooler. She surveyed her shot and took another beautiful practice swing. Easy. Balanced. Perfect. I hate her.

Her 7-iron carved a perfect divot as the ball headed for the green. Her golf balls were her friends. My golf balls hate me. They do mean things to me because I hit them as hard as I can. She was nice to them, patting them on the butt with her perfect tempo. In return, they were nice to her.

The ball was tracking right at the pin. No fade. No draw. RIGHT AT THE PIN. WARNING! WARNING! I heard my MALE EGO DEFENSE WARNING SYSTEM go haywire.

I remember watching news reports of the Gulf War. They put video cameras right in the nose of some missiles. Norman Schwartzkoff would stand next to a TV while we all watched from the view of the missile as it locked on a building. Seconds later you could see right in the window of the building before it blew up. If there was a camera in her ball, you would have seen the camera looking down at the green as the ball hit the top of its arc. The cross-hairs would be trained spot-on the flag. Then the green would rush into view, filling the screen as the ball slammed back to earth.

It bounced once, hit the flag, and dropped next to the hole. Easy birdie.

Hello.

I’m about to get spanked.

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Sports
Joe Ditzel

Members Only

The U.S. Senior Open is scheduled to be played at the Des Moines Golf and Country Club July 8-11, 1999. I look forward to attending that event. I want to see the great golfers. But mostly I want to find the member that got me in trouble when I worked there as a busboy in high school.

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Cars and Traffic
Joe Ditzel

Nobody Walks In L.A.

I used to live in San Francisco. San Francisco is a walking town. People are serious about walking. The favorite business shoe style for men is black Gucci’s with Vibram soles. Women wear high heels with actual mountain climbing cleats in them. In addition, many people carry walking sticks along with their briefcases. It helps with balance and is useful in poking tourists who stand in your way in small groups bent over maps looking for the Coit Tower.

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Uncategorized
Joe Ditzel

Wordsquatters

I played the message again.

“Hello, yes, this is John Wanker. I have just read your humor article entitled “Through the Nose”. I am informing you that I own a company called Through the Nose. Your title is infringing on my trademark.”

What? This guy has a company called Through the Nose and the title of my humor column is infringing on his trademark?

It’s getting so you can’t use common words and phrases without violating some creep’s trademark. First the dot coms took over the language because you can’t start a web-site with a cool dot com name. And all those are snapped up by cyber-squatters.

Now everyday words violate a trademark.

I guess I have to eliminate these potential titles then:

Pass the Salt Please
I Took Three of Them
Take A Little Off the Sides
Do You Have This in Size 10?
Move Your Ass, This is the Passing Lane!
Thank You for Seating Us Near the Kitchen
No, It Fits Fine, I’m Returning It Because It Is Ugly
Are You Going To Eat That?
The Green is 110 Yards Away, I’d Use Your Driver
What Is It Going to Take to Put You In This Car Today?
You’ll Like Her, She Looks Like Mariah Carey
65? Are You Sure This A School Zone?
I Didn’t Vote For Him
Its Three Hours Long Which is 2 ½ Hours Too Much
He’s Dumb, But He Can Sure Hunt Ducks
That Toupee is Natural
This Model Has Ocean Views
I’m A Really Good Cook
The Cops Over There Are Really Redneck
Again?
You Better Run, You Punks!
No, It Looks Really Good On You
This Will Last Forever
You Have Got To Be Kidding

And let’s don’t forget:

I Always Hated Your Family

And

Get Down Off Of There!

My guess is that very soon people will get copyrights not just for common words, but for common sounds. Every time you eat delicious food and say, “Mmmmmmmm”, you will be violating the copyright of the Mmmmmmm company of Tulsa.

If you make fake explosion noises like “Kerperssch” you will get an angry call from the Kerperssch company based in Auckland.

Have you ever started to sneeze and then burped at the same time? It sounds kind of like,”AaaaaaahaaaaBUUURRRPPPPP!”

Well, get out your checkbook. You owe royalty money to the owner of the sneeze-burp trademark- the AaaaaaahaaaaBUUURRRPPPPP company headquartered in Akron.

You don’t want to see their logo.

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Family
Joe Ditzel

Ditzels Through History

I’m tracing my family tree. I feel that the history of each family is the real history of the United States. I want to find out why my ancestors left Germany in the 1880’s to settle in Dayton. I want to learn first hand the sacrifices they made. Plus I want to see if there is any hidden treasure they left that rightfully belongs to me.

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Family
Joe Ditzel

Ditzel Mobile

My father was, how do you say, frugal. When it came to our family cars, he was at his “frugalest”. When I was in high school we had a 1965 Mercury Comet. We pleaded for a newer car. It was embarrassing to pick up girls in this car. The doors were as heavy as a door to a safe. If the door didn’t close on your date and kill them, they cut their knee on the 8-track tape machine hanging down from the dash.

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