Snyder, N.Y.—This week Albert Gilipolas of Snyder gently pleaded with his twenty-five year old son, Albert Jr. to stop going out into the world like some cowboy asshole. The elder Gilipolas was hopeful he would be able to avoid this conversation and his son would naturally come to understand that all this rootin-tootin, line-dancing cowboy nonsense was turning him into a giant asshole.
But, things came to a head when he saw son, who is still living at home finishing a masters degree at UB, working out some moves in the family garage prior to a night out at Big Texas Niagara donning a cowboy hat, an oversized yahoo belt buckle and a pair of shit kickers. It was then Gilipolas knew things had gotten out hand and it was time for an intervention.
“I feel like such a failure. How did things go so wrong?” asked the elder Gilipolas. “When Albert Jr. was growing up our house was filled with Rachmaninoff, Brubeck, Radiohead and other eclectic sounds. How does he go from these elegant artists to this stupid Luke Bryan bullshit that doesn’t even rhyme:
Shake it for the birds, shake it for the bees
Shake it for the catfish swimming deep down in the creek
For the crickets and the critters and the squirrels…
Hey Luke, I took, I don’t know, like thirty seconds and came up with this:
Shake it for the birds, shake it for the bees
Shake it for the catfish swimming deep down where no one sees
For the crickets and the critters and the squirrels in the trees…“
It’s still stupid but at least it fucking rhymes.”
While Gilipolas was really upset about his son going out into the world like some “Hee Haw,” reject, minus the sequins, there were other asshole things he needed to address as well. Like the fact that he wears too much cologne—fruity cologne that makes him smell like mango peach sherbet. And that he talks too loud—people are constantly looking for a volume knob on the side of his head to turn his voice down. He also told his son how proud he was of him for pursuing a masters degree in philosophy, but explained that nobody gave a shit about Spinoza and his modern conceptions of the self and universe and he should stop talking about him incessantly.
Albert Jr. took in everything his father said, furrowing his brow occasionally. When he was done, his son looked down at the floor and after a long pause asked his dad for his truck keys and fifty bucks to go to the bar.
The older Gilipolas was pleased, taking this as—message received. The one down side was he forgot to bring up the constant dirty towels on the bathroom floor and the fact Albert Jr. always ate all the leftover pizza in the fridge—which was the biggest asshole move in the world ever.
“Next time,” he said to himself. “Next time.”
