Author: Brian S Griffin

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Quoth the ChatGPT: Nevermore, Dude.

Based on the following instructions to ChatGPT, I was provided a poem.

Instructions: Create a poem in the style of Edgar Allen Poe about the Cuban Missile Crisis

Here is the poem:

Cuban Missile Crisis Poem

By ChatGPT

Amidst the fear and dread of war,
A crisis loomed upon our shore.
The missiles of the Soviet foe,
Had Cuba firmly in their hold.

As tensions rose and nerves wore thin,
The fate of nations hung therein.
The world held its collective breath,
Awaiting news of life or death.

In darkened rooms, with heads bowed low,
Leaders weighed their every blow.
For one false move, one careless word,
Could mean the end of all we've heard.

In cities far and wide, we prayed,
For peace to come, for fear to fade.
But in our hearts, we knew too well,
That peace and safety could not dwell.

For in this time of great unrest,
Our very lives were put to test.
And though we hoped for brighter days,
Our world was trapped in warlike haze.

Oh, Cuban Crisis, dark and grim,
How close we came to the world's end.
May history serve as warning still,
To choose our words, to temper will.

It is not a good poem. It is does what I asked it to do. It is like a framed velvet dogs playing poker hanging in the basement of a really boring suburban home. I could see a really advanced AI cranking out a bland formulaic sitcom script. No one would watch it unless that is all that is in TV. Like when all Communist Russian TV had was literal propaganda on TV, so the ignorant masses watched. They had nothing else to do, but stare at the wall, screw, or die. Communism is the great hope for AI creativity.

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Holidays at the Movies

When you have the need to use up some vacation time, but still need to work the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, that leaves the week before Christmas as the better fit for time off around the December Holidays.

Before my parents past away, I nearly always spent the Holidays with them. That meant leaving Cincinnati and going to Florida. I would need to find a way to make the time pass in Florida with just me and my parents. They lived near the beach, but not close enough to go there every day. I didn’t and still don’t play golf. They loved golf. I could have some conversation with my Dad, keeping it somewhat intellectual, but that was not easy. Topics of conversation tended to be limited and sparse.

My Dad passed away 10 years before my Mom, so most recently it was just me and my Mom for the holiday. That would be an even greater challenge. As families go, we were better than most at getting along, but that likely had to do with figuring out how to get along more than having a lot in common. As a surprise baby, the age gap and lack of having any kids left the areas of conversation lacking even more with my Mom than my Dad. Talking politics was out. Getting a lecture about how I should go about finding the right girl to date seemed to always lead back to me going to church. I was open about being non-religious, but that didn’t stop my Mom, so that conversation tended to go poorly and I would avoid it or just shut it down if it started up.

Movies were the area we could relate.  My parents were both Depression era babies, so they came of age in the 1950s, but were most certainly NOT part of the Rock and Roll generation.  Their taste in music harkened back to the pop music of the pre-Rock era: Jazz. While my Dad was more into older Jazz (Swing and Dixieland), my mom liked the music she would see in the movies.  She loved the movies.  She loved the movies of her youth and before.  So the 1930s through the early 1960s.  She liked movies after that of course, but the Golden Age of Hollywood drew her in. On this I fully can relate.  I love old movies, especially of that era.

This connection meant that at the Holidays we would be able to talk about movies and old Movie stars and which ones she thought looked ill. My taste in the old movies didn’t cross over completely.  I tended to like John Ford movies or other big classics.  She liked the musicals and romances.  She liked some of the Bogart movies, so that was one place we found common ground. 

This year I’ve made a conscious choice to watch at least one movie a day during my vacation.  I’m not limiting it to old movies, but the majority are and the newer ones take place in the past, so I’m looking backwards across the board.  As I get older I am falling into he cliché of looking back.  After Fifty that is just something people should have expected from a nostalgia centric guy like me.  Also, they should have expected that I would have a list of Movies.  I like lists and if I can create a real one of the movies I’ve seen this week, that gives me a little bit a sense of accomplishment.  I’ve not done much else productive, except maybe getting to the store before the storm hit and getting the holiday meal ingredients all in tact.  Anyway, here’s what I’ve watched. The only order is when I watched them, no other elaborate concept. All but the two from 2022 are ones I had seen before at least several times or in some cases dozens of times.

  1. Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) – Monday started off with the George Clooney nostalgia for Murrow and the 1950s.  The cast in this is amazing. This picture is well crafted, based on history, but takes some license as good literature should.
  2. It Happened One Night (1934) – On Tuesday I was just astonished at how good Claudette Colbert was. This movie has more sexual tension than you could have had on screen at the time.  They pushed the boundaries as much as they dared and made a delightful romantic comedy in the process.
  3. Mister Roberts (1955) – Wednesday’s movie is special to me because it was a movie my Mom got for me at the library to watch as a kid.  Now, for the people younger than me, back in the very early 1980s, this was a rare thing.  My Dad was an elementary school principal and a perk he took was that during summer break or on holidays, he would bring home the electronics at the school.  VCRs were the first things he would bring home.  This was not a VHS or Betamax, those were not something readily available and certainly not yet affordable.  This was the ¾” cassette player.  There were no video stores around either, but the local public library had a selection of a few movies and Mister Roberts was one of them. Our selections were limited, but I remember watching it then 40+ years ago.
  4. Holiday Inn (1942) – Thursday morning I purchased Holiday Inn.  This was won of my Mom’s favorite movies at the Holidays.  She enjoyed Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby.  This movie had the humor and romance that she loved.  It is actually a really funny movie too.  The romance part is a bit corny, but the dancing from Astaire is brilliant and the music is iconic Irving Berlin.  This is one of my personal holiday favorites that I consider a must rewatch each year.  It had been a while since I watched the whole thing, however, from the start.  I had to buy it as it wasn’t streaming anywhere and I was not going to bank on it being aired on linear TV anyplace.  It is an old time movie that is not popular anymore.
  5. Top Gun: Maverick (2022) – Thursday afternoon I ran across a new movie streaming that I had not seen yet.  Going to a movie on Christmas Day was something I started to do with my Mom when cooking dinner was a big deal for her.  She would still do our traditional Christmas Eve dinner, but on Christmas Day she didn’t like cooking.  In the past she had volunteered at her church helping them serve dinner to over 1,000 people every year.  My parents and I did that for well over a decade.  She finally was willing to give that up, but didn’t want to cook, so going out to dinner and a movie on Christmas Day became our thing when it was just the two of us.
  6. The Quiet Man (1952) – Friday morning’s below zero temperatures were made warmer with the John Ford classic filmed in Ireland, showing off the grand colors of the country.  My DVD version is not the best, but it still shows the emerald green of the trains and grass and the red hair of the gorgeous Maureen O’Hara who I would certainly marry if I lived in her era.  The movie is complete with one of the best fight scenes ever filmed and there is even a call out of Cincinnati. The score (soundtrack) is also perfect. Ford often used characters to sing (in a natural way as opposed to a musical) in his movies and the songs were often folk songs adding a traditional salt of the Earth sensibility, but in an approachable and inviting way.
  7. The Maltese Falcon (1941) – Friday night’s feature was truly what dreams are made of.  Yep, this Noir classic, arguably the first noir film, made Bogart into a star. This was John Huston’s directorial debut, and it was a masterpiece. 
  8. White Christmas (1954) – Christmas Eve morning had a movie I watch every year.  It is a Christmas Eve movie must.  Christmas day is too late.  For me this is a very sentimental movie and this year was no exception. I think of my father when singing “We’ll follow the old man.” I think of my Mom when I sing along, in harmony, to White Christmas. We were a singing family and I find it impossible not sing along during this movie. It is a corny movie and I am sure the pretension of some artists would dismiss this movie as archaic and hokey. It is, but that does not take away anything from the simple joy it brings.  Also: This movie is NOT a remake of Holiday Inn, as I have read and even heard on a BBC quiz show recently.
  9. To Have and Have Not (1944) – Early Christmas Eve: dinner and a movie. Just a damn good movie.  It is unrecognizable from the Hemingway novel, so don’t be surprised by the humor.  Lauren Bacall is so young in this, her first movie.  You’d have no clue she was about 19 years old during filming. Stunning, powerful, beautiful, and funny. You could tell Bogart was smitten with Bacall from the start.
  10. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) – To me this is the movie to watch the evening of Christmas Eve and that is in part thanks to NBC airing it every year for decades.  I am of course watching it on NBC, not via streaming.  The commercials suck, but that is part of broadcast television that actually has a rhythm I can appreciate. Depending on whether I went with my parents to a Christmas Eve service or not, I wouldn’t always get to see all of the movie. We’d have our traditional beef fondue for dinner and that usually was later at 8, so it was on in the background usually. If you can’t appreciate this movie’s story, you don’t have any sense.
  11. Casablanca (1942) – A Christmas morning treat.  This is my favorite movie of all time and I can watch it over again at anytime, and often I do.  I could just listen to it for the score, but the dialogue is what I love most. I love the words so much. They make me smile.  They are crisp and smooth and rough at the exactly right the times.
  12. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) – I saved this one for Christmas day.  I was being sentimental again.  One of the last movies my Mom and I saw together was Knives Out, the first in what likely will be a longer series, so this one seemed fitting. It was a very entertaining film.  I could have used another twist, but that’s just my preference.

I think I’ve been avoiding watching a lot of movies. I used to be a regular movie goer, but over the last 5 years or so I’ve had little interest in going into the theatre, unless I was talking my Mom. Some of that is that a large percent of movies don’t interest me. Some of that is me getting older, some of that is the decline of the movies. They are still well made from a production perspective, but there seems to be this mix of being 100% fandom endeavors or just exercises in contrived expressions lacking on being entertaining. I watch movies to be entertained. My brand of entertainment is more on story and the script and less on imagery and experience.

I feel like my Mom would get how I feel, but our generational difference would find different reasons for not likely the new. What I think we both wanted were movies to make us feel good. The simple movie, like White Christmas, would make her feel good. A happy or satisfying ending is what she wanted where they all lived happily-ever-after or the good guy beat the bad guy. I like to feel good with characters with more depth, but I can see myself starting to long to just be entertained. I don’t need a gut wrenching experience where I am meant to see other’s experiences. I’d rather have a story, with good characters, a good plot, and some depth. As I am getting older, I will keep on looking back for that in movies and my Holiday Movie choices will be rewatching many of the movies I’ve seen over the last week. I am set in my ways, but they are ways I respect and embrace. It is a way to remember my parents and their influence on me. I am better for having watched movies with my family, especially as an adult. It is part of me and I like having a something to embrace when I am alone on the Holidays.

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With Deference to Shylock

I can’t understand what the Hell you are saying. Are you trying to kill me or just imprison me? I get that you have an agenda, but there is just one action you want, with no plan for what comes next. There is fire in your eyes, aggression in your voice, and your hands move like they want to strangle everyone who disagrees with you.

What makes you special?

Yes, you are different. Yes, people hate you. People hate me too.

Oh, sorry, every word from my mouth spews an inconvenience. I am not sorry that offends you. I don’t pray to the gods you demand, so I am not permitted to exist other than as a servant. I should just obey. Take my punishment for crimes I didn’t commit. Existence to you is a crime.

My kind is the cause of every woe you care to assign to us. We caused the past. We threaten your present and your future. We are human beings just like you.

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What Are We Doing Here?

What’s my point? What is this site supposed to be? What are you trying to do?

Answer: a little bit of a lot of things.

Value: a little bit.

Relevance: not much, but it beats doing nothing.

The goal here is to do some writing and publish it and maybe a few people will read it. Maybe no one will read it. Getting readers isn’t the goal. Writing is the goal.

Simplistic, I agree, but something I want to do, so it gives me a frame to focus my mind. Having a little focal point or maybe several focal points, gives one a point or purpose or value or relevance. So I guess I am just trying to exist and leave a mark. Still working on it, so be patient.

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The Richard Mullen Show: Transcript #5434

This is a rush transcript of Episode #5434 of the Richard Mullen Show.  Today’s show was special coverage of the 2013 Cincinnati Mayoral  election. Guests included Tom Luken, the Mummified remains of Boss Cox, and a very perky Zombie Journalist.

RICHARD:  I am so very excited today to have a balanced panel of political observers joining me, who can help shed some light on what happened Tuesday in the election of Mayor. With me today are three local news hounds who really all match up well.  First I have an award winning Zombie journalist who has been following every word the two candidates have said throughout the campaign. Second I am joined by an esteemed Republican spin master, Boss Cox’s Mummified Remains.  Finally, I’m able to get an equally relevant opinion from sometimes Democrat Tom Luken.  Gents let’s get right to this, tell me what happened.

ZOMBIE:  Traaaainnnnsss

BOSS COX: (Muffled) Subway

LUKEN: If I can translate for my two colleagues: The evil Streetcar was defeated with the help of the living dead.

RICHARD: Fascinating, tell me  more, Tom.

LUKEN: Well, Richard, it has been a long known fact that vampires, or the Undead, have been residing in Cincinnati for some 200 years.  They finally got organized and were trying to take over the city by means of the Streetcar. Tuesday night we finally drove down to the neighborhood I tried to wall off from the rest of the City years ago, the so called Over-the-Rhine, and we literally drove a stake through the heart of the head vampire, thus rendering all of the lower blood sucking minions powerless.  Our key allies were the living dead, like my friend the Mummified remains of Boss Cox and the Zombie Journalist masses. The undead hate the Living Dead.  They hate the fact that the Living dead are mindless and are damn happy being that way.  They don’t need to be forced to do new things, like build livable cities.  I mean damn it, they are living in the city just fine now.

BOSS COX: Grrrrr

RICHARD:  What a story.  Tom, who was able to bring the living dead to your aid?

LUKEN: Richard, through the vision of Mayor-elect John Cranley, we got help from our Conservative and bible loving friends like Charlie Winburn, COAST, and Chris Smitherman and we dug deep into the past and long since been buried and put out to pasture.

RICHARD: What an election strategy, relying on old dead things to get votes.

LUKEN: Old things can still vote and all we need to know is what we need to fear, then vote against that fear.  John Cranley helped us find what we needed to fear and that fear was the inner city core of Vampire-run neighborhoods.  We have succeeded in pushing back myths about new ideas and thoughts, like the crazy notion that the Earth revolves around the sun.  It was a close call for us, but I am confident that we can send this Over-the-Rhine neighborhood back to what it was supposed to be, a dumping ground for all the fears and people we didn’t want in our clean neighborhoods.

RICHARD: I don’t know what else I can say to follow-up on that, so I’m just going make it the final word of the discussion.  I mean who could possibly disagree? I want to thank the Zombie journalist, the Mummified remains of Boss Cox, and the vampire slayer himself, Tom Luken.  Join us next time when we talk with Catholic bishops on the recent number of mysterious murders that many are blaming on monsters and demons.  Who honestly could believe in that type of thing?

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The Richard Mullen Show: Transcript #497

This is a rush transcript of Episode #497 of the Richard Mullen Show.  Today’s guest was Gregor Philpotter, author of My 21 Years Living in a Cave.

RICHARD:  Can a man know himself well enough to spend 21 years living alone?  Is human contact over-rated?  Is Masturbation really enough? My guest today can answer those questions and much more.  Please welcome Gregor Philpotter to the Richard Mullen Show.

GREGOR: Thank you, Mr. Mullen.

RICHARD: Tell me, do you still live alone?

GREGOR: Actually, no, I no longer live alone, I found the perfect person to spend the rest of my life with and am very happy.

RICHARD: Great!  How long have you been out of the cave?

GREGOR: Well, Sharon and I moved in together nearly two years ago, and were just married three months ago.

RICHARD: Congratulations! That is wonderful!  I’m perplexed, however, how were you able to meet her?

GREGOR: Well, I’m happy to say that we met using an online dating service.

RICHARD: I am profoundly surprised, but also impressed.  I didn’t realize how advanced your cave was.

GREGOR: I lived like anyone else did, I had the internet and television.

RICHARD: That must have been expense to set up.

GREGOR: Not really, it was the standard cost, noting special

RICHARD: Wow, you must have gotten long term deals.  Anyway, tell me about the dampness.  How did you deal with that?

GREGOR: In the summers it could get a little humid, but I wouldn’t feel a thing, I used my central air all the time.

RICHARD: A/C?  Seriously?  I’m thinking the electrical set up must have been a nightmare alone, but duct-work too?

GREGOR: Yeah, it was all pretty standard.

RICHARD: Haha..for a cave.  That’s a good one.  Seriously, are you secretly wealthy?  Or was this really more of an old  bomb shelter you grandfather built in the early 1960’s?

GREGOR: It was actually a rehabbed 19th Century structure.

RICHARD: How did you manage to never leave?

GREGOR: Well my “cave” as it were, left me no choice.  I had locked myself in.

RICHARD: How did you eat?  Did you have stockpiles of food?

GREGOR: What?

RICHARD: Did you have stockpiles of food in your cave?  This is why I brought up the bomb shelter idea, it was the only way I saw this as possible.

GREGOR: Wait a second, you think I lived in an actual cave for 21 years?

RICHARD: Ah, yes, Gregor, that’s what your book is about…

GREGOR: No, actually, it isn’t.

RICHARD: Ok, it about more than just living in a cave for 21 years, it is about how you coped with living in a cave for 21 years.

GREGOR: Have you read my book?

RICHARD: Oh, of course I did….

GREGOR: Really?

RICHARD: Ok, I’m sorry, I lied.  I try to read as much of any book a guest has written as I can.  This time I just did not have time.  I played in a celebrity Tennis Tournament last night and just didn’t have the time.

GREGOR: I see…

RICHARD: So I read the synopsis my assistant wrote for me.

GREGOR: Well, I don’t think your assistant read the book either if he/she thinks after reading the book I actually lived a cave for 21 years.

RICHARD: I apologize Gregor, on behalf of myself and my entire staff.  We are not perfect and can make mistakes.

GREGOR: I understand.  I just thought someone would have read the press kit my publisher sent along.  It has a three sentence description of the book which makes it clear what the book is about.

RICHARD: Well, again, sorry about that.  Guess we all had too much to drink after the celebrity Tennis tournament last night.  You see, I won, and I promised to take my staff out drinking if I won.  I keep my promises.  I promise you now, the chance to tell us, what is the book My 21 Years Living in a Cave by Gregor Philpotter, from Southgate Publishing, about?

GREGOR: Richard, it is about my living with and then conquering my fear of intimacy.

RICHARD: So, there was no actual cave?

GREGOR: The cave was a Metaphor.

RICHARD: Are you sure it wasn’t a simile?

GREGOR: Yes, I am sure.

RICHARD: Ok, well, we are almost out of time, so I wish to thank Gregor Philpotter author of My 21 Years Living in a Cave available now in paperback from Southgate Publishing.  Just to make everyone at home crystal clear on the topic, Gregor did not actually live in a cave.  Please ignore the links to spelunking and the Stalagmite blogs on our website next to his picture.  We apologize for any confusion.  Please join us next time.

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The Richard Mullen Show: Transcript #467

This is a rush transcript of Episode #467 of the Richard Mullen Show.  Today’s guest Lorn DeLusted, shared his thoughts on life and culture in the Cincinnati Metro area.

RICHARD: When you want to know the pulse of the City, there is only one person to ask: Lorn DeLusted.  His off kilter viewpoints are a regular fixture here on the Richard Mullen Show.  I don’t think I could have found all of my younger mistresses without his help. Don’t tell my wife about that, though, its just between friends. Lorn, what outlandishness to you have for us today?

LORN: Uncle Dick does like him a liter of young ladies….

RICHARD: (laughing) I better update any new viewers out there to Lorn’s reference to my nom de guerre, Uncle Dick.  When I go out clubbing, I am always careful to not give my real name.

LORN: And I am sure you always wear a condom!

RICHARD: Only if she makes me!  (Laughter) Well, on to this weekend.  What will be the hotest spot?

LORN: April is indeed a cruel month!  I had to search high and low for the must be seen at event and I found it.  I won’t give out the address, but I will say there is a certain woman with a certain amazing house with an amazingly cavernous pussy…opps…I meant basement.  Wendy K. is throwing an invitation only clothes optional party at her house up a Ravinous hill.

RICHARD: Oh, I can tell you stories about Wendy K.  Let me just say, that Nathanael West must have been thinking of her when he wrote the line “A lollapalooza–all slut and a yard wide.” Those were the days Lorn, young Hollywood.  God how I miss it.

LORN: For you slacker viewers out there, they might be happy to learn that a new website is coming out to tell you exactly where to find free beer.  It only asks you for the emails of everyone you know, so it is a bargin.  Last week I ended up at this really big Westside guys house way out in Cheviot.  You would have thought I had boobs for the way he kept staring at me.  I was lucky I came with my loyal slavegyrl Mishella.  Never go to any party without a tall muscular man in a miniskirt.

RICHARD: Good advice for everyone.

LORN: I can’t tell you how many times it saved me from talking to some boring architect or designer.  I mean, who cares about drawing!

RICHARD: I can barely draw stick figures.

LORN: I had to sit through a lecture when trying to finish the nine flights of wine this woman bought me.  She so wanted to take me home with her, but I was only into her for the free drinks.

RICAHRD: What a card you are, what a card!

LORN: She would have been good in bed, but I don’t like women who wear jeans to a wine bar.  If you can’t show off your legs while drinking wine, then you are just poor white trash.

RICHARD: Hey now, poor white trash are people too.

LORN: They are, I know…I’m sorry…they give good head, I get it, I get it.

RICHARD: What big events are coming up this summer?

LORN: Well, there will be a weekly champaign crusie on the Ohio for anyone who knows Bobby D.  He has a large boat to make up for his small penis, and the ladies love him for it and his money.  The Ladies like money!

RICHARD: This is what I keep telling my accountant keeps when he asks where all of my money goes.

LORN: If you want to get laid, you have to had paid…the checks all night long.

RICHARD: Lorn, you know it, damn it man, you know it all too well.

LORN: I’m think we need another weekend in Mexico.  Hot tubs full of hookers,  a gross of sex frisbees, all the blow your money can buy, and we can even bring your wife.

RICHARD: Hold on, hold on. You had me up to the wife part..(laughter)

LORN: She likes to party too, or so I hear….

RICHARD: In her youth, she was known to show up naked at biker bars, but who didn’t?

LORN: I’ve hear stories even you don’t know.

RICHARD: Really? Well TMX would pay you a mint for them.  Then you would be buying me the blow!

LORN: A good scenester never buys the blow, at least not with money.

RICHARD: Another lesson for the book?

LORN: It may be, still working on that.  It would have to pass many legal hurdles.  Not all of the friends are as forgiving as you.

RICHARD: You are too much. My guest has been Lorn DeLusted sharing this weekend’s coolest events in Cincinnati.  If you find a way to join the fun, remember to not take photos of anyone snorting coke.  It is just a big social no-no.

LORN: If anyone does have photos like that, I’ll buy them!

RICHARD: What a card!

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CincyFringe Review: Rodney Rumple’s Random Reality


The Performance Gallery is the standard for the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. They have been here every year and they make the standard for Fringe because every year they do a completely unique show.  This year's Rodney Rumple's Random Reality takes the group in vastly new direction.

If you take a hunk of Where the Wild Things Are, add in plenty of Alice in Wonderland, and top it off with a hilarioius Men Without Hat's video homage, and you get an idea of the fantasy created.

It feels like a children's story written for adults.  Adults who watched MTV in the middle 19880's will cackle with glee at the Safety Dance video.

Seriously, if you haven't seen the video before, watch this before going to see the show:

I throughly enjoyed this light narrative.  The acting is, as usual with Performance Gallery, excellent. Derek Snow steals the show as the Bully.  The writing is interesting.  The direction, by Regina Pugh, I believe makes this show.  It is a surreal spectecal.  It is out in weeds, but it never falls off the edge.  It teeters, mind you, but never goes over the cliff of sense.  Go see it.

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The Richard Mullen Show: Transcript #458

This is a rush transcript of Episode #458 of the Richard Mullen Show.  Today’s Guests were Dalia Winters and Todd Lang, co-authors of  the book Save Me a Slice, The Guide to Pizza.

RICHARD:  Peperoni…Mushrooms…Sausage…are what I want on my pizza.  If there are two people in the world who know Pizza better than my guests, Dalia Winters and Todd Lang authors of a tasteful read: Save Me a Slice, The Guide to Pizza, then point them out.  I hope to learn everything I can about pizza in about 8 minutes. Later we’ll be prank calling pizza orders, but first let me ask: Thin or Thick crust, what should I have?

TODD: Always go with thin crust, you don’t need the extra dough to cloud the flavors.

RICHARD: Dalia, do you agree?

DALIA: I…I…I…really am sorry, but I need to say something.

RICHARD: That’s why you’re here.

DALIA: I’m sorry, but I just can’t go on any more. Todd, I hate to do this right now, but we can’t date any more and to be honest, I’ve been cheating on you, again.

TODD: What?

RICHARD: Todd, it would appear Dalia has been cheating on you, again, and I am guessing by the fact that she is taking off her ear piece and is walking away, that she may be leaving you.

TODD: Dalia, what are you doing?  Where are you going?  Is this another sick joke?

RICHARD: Todd, I’m sorry but my producers are telling me that Dalia just told them that this is no joke, you just got dumped live on television, on the Richard Mullen Show to be precise. What kind of pizza goes with a broken heart?

TODD: It’s…

RICHARD: Yes, Todd?

TODD: Oh, God, this can’t be happening. Not Today.  I thought we had worked it out.

RICHARD: Worked what out?

TODD: She told me she had stopped seeing Chris six months ago.  I..I…I don’t understand. (crying)

RICHARD: Todd, what do you suppose made her cheat? Does it have anything to do with Pizza?

TODD: (crying) No, I, don’t know. (crying)

RICHARD: Were book sales going well enough?

TODD: Well, Chris’s last report said sales were doing well.

RICHARD:  Chris is?

TODD: Our Agent.

RICHARD: And your girlfriend’s new lover?

TODD:  Old and new lover, apparently.

RICHARD: Well, once a cheater always a cheater, they always say.

TODD: I should have known, I suppose.

RICHARD: Well, at least you have pizza.

TODD: Yeah, I guess I’ll always have pizza.

RICHARD: Who needs love when you can have deep dish! Thank you for your honestly, Todd.

TODD: I think I need a drink.

RICHARD: You might just want an entire bottle.  Todd Lang has been our guest along with his ex-girlfriend Dalia Winters. Both are co-authors of the book Save Me a Slice, The Guide to Pizza, which is #747 on Amazon’s best-selling non-fiction list. Oh, late word from one our producers, on her way out of the studio, Dalia also told the producer that Todd has a really small penis, not that this matters in the Pizza world, but I thought I would just pass it along.

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The Richard Mullen Show: Transcript #445

This is a rush transcript of Episode #445 of the Richard Mullen Show.  Today’s guest was Chuck Krontz, self-proclaimed “King of Unrequited Love.” His new book, The Myth of Love, is now available in paperback.

RICHARD: Do you love someone, yet they have no idea or they just don’t care?  Our guest today is the self-proclaimed King of Unrequited Love and will share his thoughts on love and what it all means. Chuck Krontz, welcome to the Richard Mullen Show.  What is love?

CHUCK: Richard, love is a myth.

RICHARD: Yes, your book makes that clear, and it’s a great read, by the way.  What makes you the King of Unrequited Love?

CHUCK: Well, I have tallied the most women who I have loved, but who never returned that love.

RICHARD: That is a bold claim, how many women are we talking?  3 or 5 or maybe 9?

CHUCK: Try 87 women.

RICHARD: 87? Good God Man, that is a huge number!  I give you the crown, no questions asked, well, just a few more questions…(laughter).

CHUCK: Of course.

RICHARD: How did you fall in love with so many women, yet have none of the 87 love you?

CHUCK:  It was dumb luck and well, I get over broken hearts very quickly.

RICHARD: How many of these women did you date?

CHUCK: Only a small portion, maybe five or so.  Most Unrequited Love goes unsaid.  I would say only half of the women I’ve loved ever had any idea I had any type of feelings for them.

RICHARD: Have you ever been married?

CHUCK: Only in my mind, Richard, Only in my Mind.

RICHARD: (Laughter) Hah, yes, of course!

CHUCK: In all seriousness, no, I’ve never been married.  Not even been close.

RICHARD: How did you meet all of these women?

CHUCK: Well, some of them I didn’t really know.

RICHARD: Didn’t know them?  What do you mean?  How do you love someone you don’t know?

CHUCK:  I have spoken to all of them. There were many different types and situations.  Sometimes I’d fall for the barista at my local coffeeshop, that happened more than once.  Sometimes it was a bartender or waitress.  I’ve fallen for my college room-mate’s sister.  I’ve been in love with female friends over the years, off and on.  My hair stylist is an amazing woman.  Then there were a few professors in college.

RICHARD: I think our viewers get the picture.

CHUCK: Do they?  I once fell in love with my girlfriend’s best friend.  That was a thorny minefield.  I ending up telling my girlfriend how I felt. That ended things quickly. She and her friend never talked to me again.  Funny part was I never loved my girlfriend.  Only a handful of women I dated, the five I mentioned before, were women I actually loved.  Dating is the part of love that is the biggest hindrance to actually finding love.

RICHARD: But I thought you said love was a myth?

CHUCK: Well, that’s a gimmick to sell books.  It’s not really a myth, it is just so rare.

RICHARD: You really think it is rare?  I am in love with my wife.  Most of the people I know are married and in love.  How is it rare?

CHUCK: Well, the question was asked in lyric long ago “Why do fools fall in love?” The real answer is that question is that too many fools think they are in love, but they really are not.

RICHARD: I see. So, how do you tell the difference between love and false love?

CHUCK: Well, most of the time it is not real love, it is Unrequited Love, of which I know all about.

RICHARD: You mean both parties of most marriages don’t love each other?

CHUCK: Correct.  Someone settled on someone or maybe both settled on each other and were too scared of being alone.  Why do you think there are so many divorces?  When you settle, odds are it won’t last, unless you settle when you are over age 50.

RICHARD: Food for thought.  One last question: Will you ever fall in love?

CHUCK: Well, I’m 47 years old. I’m not dead, but the odds are against me. All I can do is hope and keep my online dating profile up-to-date.

RICHARD: Chuck Krontz, author of The Myth of Love, now in paperback, has been our guest.  Thank you Chuck, and I hope to have you back again.

CHUCK: Thanks Richard, it has been fun.

RICHARD: Tomorrow night, join us for Betty Nixon, on the plight of the single women in today’s dog eat dog Business world.  Chuck, do you want her number?