V19 N4

Undertow
Terry O’Brien’s legendary column... social satire, shameless plugs — and general self-indulgence
Welcome to March of 2021, a year
that so far has me looking back
on the calm stability of 2020 with
gauzy nostalgia. It’s nearly spring
which means only one thing —
Karen Mirabile season. Karen is my accountant
and delivers tax miracles unto me every
year. If you like your accountant, you can keep
your accountant, but you should definitely
switch over to Karen at Cape Bookkeeping. For
every new client I refer, she guarantees another
$10,000 in my return and can do the same for
you! (Promises made in previous sentences may
not be real, but Karen is great.)
Weekly Beard & Weight Watch: The problem
with writing my column on Saturdays
instead of Sunday is that I tend to have a few
(5) adult beverages at my TNT gig at Exit Zero
Filling Station and indulge in a little rock star
debauchery at Wawa or Chen’s Garden, wherever
Tim steers us on our way home. (Yes,
we carpool. Yes, Wawa burgers are legit.) This
tends to skew the numbers when I step on the
scale, so what had been a “feeling pretty good
about myself” 237.5 on Wednesday became a
“WHY TERRY! WHY ARE YOU SO FAT AND
STUPID!” 238.5 on Saturday. This may have
been accompanied by some tears and the wagging
of an angry finger in the mirror. Okay, that’s
an over-dramatization. I was bummed, but I
am, in fact, in a very good state of mind. As I told
EZFS neighbor David Dee, who, along with wife
Fay, always asks after my well-being, I’ve got
Undertow to keep me accountable to you, the
most intelligent, discerning, best looking readers
on Earth. The beard? Eh. I’ll give it another
week or two and see how I feel. It’s possible I’m
just not a beard guy.
Speaking of the best readers in the world,
Jim Faulkner, wife Lisa and daughter Hannah
popped in to EZFS for some dinner and TNT, but
this paragraph is about Jim, who buried me in
such effusive praise about my singing and writing
that he is now the clubhouse leader in the
World’s Friendliest Stalker Open. (Wendy and
Randy Redelico, you better get back down here
and shower me with praise and cash…) Jim is a
lovely man with a lovely family. I’m just not used
to people being nice to me. I married an Italian.
Then there’s Kevin and Janet Perusing of
Oakland NJ, simply one of the nicest couples I’ve
encountered in my days as the “T” half of “TNT”.
He’s always ready with a smile and a handshake,
she lights up every room she enters. Which is
why it pains me so to make fun of them, because
as polished as they seem, on the inside they are
dirty, pinko, commie Grateful Dead hippies
Thank you, Alyssa! (Last name unknown,
her dinner receipt just said “V”.) I WILL continue
saying what I want (or at least as much
as I can slip past my editor) for as long as I
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March 4, 2021 EXIT ZERO Page 19