If you're Farrah Fawcett, you are pissed right now.

Two reasons:

1) "Thanks for stealing my dead celeb thunder, douche."

2) "For the rest of everyone else's lives, every time anyone pictures me, they'll picture Michael Jackson, too."

"... and get your Gatti's pizza--"

And why I'm a slave to the international consumerist conspiracy

There are certain questions that have obvious answers. Of course, I'd like a cupcake. Of course, I'd like a cold PBR. Of course, I'd like to go to the Astros game with you.

And of course, I'd like to sing the jingle in a Mr. Gatti's commercial.

Until I ran into her at Kathryn's birthday party, I hadn't seen my friend Lauren since probably ninth grade. We had a lot to catch up on, such as how each other's Y2K celebrations were, and how things had been since we'd gotten our drivers licenses. So we made plans to meet up at Jo's Coffee Shop on Congress the next day to fill each other in. Not 20 minutes after I showed up, we were approached by a four-person camera crew, who took one look at the two of us and thought to themselves, "These are the exact types of people we want to help us sell Gatti's pizza."

Obviously, though, they didn't think too highly of our ability to sell. Lauren's lines were cut to "twenty-two, twenty-two," while mine got cut short by, as John put it, "the rappers." And the only person whose entire rendition of the song surived edit in its entirety -- the guy with the Mexican flag guitar at the end -- is maybe the biggest douche bag in the state of Texas, "right now, riiight nowww."

But whatever. I'll take it, man. I'd never been on a commercial before. I'd gotten some face time on Charlottesville local news a couple of times, and was on CNN International shaking hands with George Bush in Tanzania, but certainly no one had ever asked me to sing for them on camera. Naturally, I was stoked on popping that cherry. I can't tell you how many calls/text messages/Facebook posts I got about it, with most stories following a similar line: "Dude! I was at this bar with my friends, and all of the sudden I was like 'Dude! I know that guy!'..."

Clearly, I'm going to tell everyone I know about it. Being in a Gatti's commercial is the greatest thing ever. And 99% of people agree. But there is one who doesn't.

The same girl who told me that sports were all about "nationalism and war."

Ahhh, Lindsey. Lindsey, Lindsey, Lindsey. When will you stop giving me fodder to write about?

First go read about the incident from a few weeks back, when I was trying to watch Game 6 of the Rockets-Lakers series in peace on my front porch.

Now you're ready for the update.

About two weeks ago, after the first confirmation that the Gatti's commercial had been spotted by some of Lauren's friends, I was telling the story to all my neighbors, and I was excited: ME! ON A GATTI'S COMMERCIAL! THIS IS THE GREATEST THING EVER! Everyone agreed: Yes, this is the greatest thing ever. You! On a Gatti's commercial! Please tell us more.

These are the types of environments in which haters love to hate: when everyone else is excited.

"But that's just ... consumerism," came the barely audible voice. Lindsey speaks very, very quietly, like you're listening to a song on your computer with the headphones plugged into the jack, only, the headphones are sitting on the table. I could tell she was making some type of revolutionary statement, but I couldn't pick out the words. So I asked her to repeat herself.

"That's, like, consumerism."

Still, couldn't hear. One more time, I told her.

"You're just like, feeding the cycle, and numbing their brains so they'll want to buy pizza."

Oh, God. Here we go again.

"Lindsey..."

"That's just ... consumerism," she said, cutting me off.

I took a sip of my beer and rolled my eyes. Everything inside of me was screaming, "Let it go, dude. Just let it go. Just let, it, go."

But I just couldn't do it.

"What in the world are you talking about?" My voice was getting agitated, a la the time she implied that watching the Rockets-Lakers game was akin to going to a Nazi Youth rally. "They're trying to run a business! They want you to know, 'Hey, we sell pizza. Come buy some. From us!'"

You know those people who like to make ridiculous comments that they know will rile people up, and how they just don't listen, to anyone other than maybe Alex Jones? When you come back at them with some sort of demand that they explain their ridiculous comment logically, they just spit back more ridiculous comments that don't relate at all to your request. It's like they're not even processing your words. Their brain shuts off, and all they remember are the dogmatic mantras of wannabe revolutionaries, with buzz words such as "nationalism," "conspiracy," "truth," and, my favorite, "consumerism."

"I just don't like, want to be a part of that ... just the ... it's consumerism."

We were at a restaurant at the time, by the way. And she was consuming things.

"Have you ever ordered a pizza?" I asked, trying to end this debate before it really even started, with a walk off grand slam.

Lindsey looked rather uncomfortable in her seat. I don't know if she just doesn't learn from past experiences, or if she thought something had happened to me since the Rockets lost Game 7 that had changed my personality, from one that calls out people on their revolutionary bullshit to one that doesn't. But she was certainly a sad sight to behold as I unleashed on her, so offended was I that anyone dare not to think that me being in a Gatti's commercial was the greatest thing ever.

"Yeah..."

"Okay!" I threw my arms up in the air, like I'd just made field goal. "You're a consumer!"

It should have ended there. But it didn't. She continued to whisper anarchic comments to herself, as she clutched the debit card she was going to give the waitress, so that she could engage in consumerism. I couldn't hear anything she was saying, but it doesn't take a deaf person to read someone's lips when every third word is "consumerism."

"Let it go, Bayless," the angel on my shoulder said. "Let it go."

But I couldn't.

"How are you going to pay for the food you're eating right now?" I asked, thinking that maybe this would open her eyes to the massive hypocrisy that embodies her existence.

She showed me her debit card.

"Okay. Consumerism."

She bashfully looked down at the table, and kept muttering things about consumerism.

"Did you make your own clothes?" I asked. Silence. "Did you weld together your bike frame?" Silence. "Did you.."

"It's like, numbing their brains," she said, in the meekest act of defiance possible, yet still defiant.

The best part about Lindsey's theory that I help numb people's brains by singing the words, "and get your Gatti's pizza," on TV, in exchange for a coupon for a free pizza, is that I'd bet that her own brain has been numbed by doing massive amounts of synthetic drugs. The girl is a walking, talking example of why you should just say no to things that don't grow from the ground.

"Well Lindsey," I said, "you'd be happy to know that in exchange for doing the commercial, I got a coupon for a free pizza. So it's the exact world you'd want to live in: the barter system, where the currency is food!"

The end.

Barton Springs, books on the Balkans, and boobies.

To the handful of devoted readers, I apologize. I stare at a computer screen for a living. When I come home, the absolute last thing I'm trying to do is stare at it as a leisure activity as well.

I do have a lot of stories, though -- that hasn't been the problem.

Like yesterday, at Barton Springs.

Barton Springs is my favorite place in Austin, and certainly one of my favorite places in the world. It's my memory of childhood summers on the Guadalupe River crossed with a neighborhood swimming pool, with a New Deal era public works project emanating from every slab of concrete and blade of grass on the lawn that rises above it. The water is cold, perfectly cold. Living in a sun colony like Austin, it's the perfect antidote for loving to ride your road bike every chance you get. Sure, it costs $3 to get into the nice section, but you could always try to sneak in, or get a friend to come stamp you with some spit and a reverse, prolonged high five.

Plus, there's always the section on the other side of the chain link fence, which has less than half the depth as the yuppie part, thanks to the dam that separates the two. That section is waist high and free to all. It's full of dogs and their owners, most of whom call their dogs perros. I call that side the swine flu section.

I prefer to go to the pay section, because it's nicer, you can sit on some grass rather than rocks, the water is dive-able, and there are more hot girls around than a sunny day in Belgrade, Serbia.

(Okay, maybe not that many. But there are a shit load. Trust me. And they're all in bikinis.)

Barton Springs is my favorite place in Austin.

But I hardly ever go there. Why? Why don't I ever go there? It's like going to college and not taking advantage of the free CD's and DVD's you can rent from the library. I live maybe a five minute bike ride away, and the final leg of that ride -- the part that takes me flying directly into the Springs' back side parking lot, and right up to the entry gate -- exists in the form of a hill that bombs so hard I wouldn't be surprised to find out gets me going at speeds of up to 35 mph. (I totally pulled that number out of my ass, by the way. But I do fly down that hill.)

All this, and I take advantage it maybe 1.5 times per week.

"Screw it," I said to myself yesterday. The cop out I always have is, "Oh, I'll only be able to go for an hour or two if I cruise over there after work." I like to read books when I go to the Springs, so the free-after-9 p.m. deal doesn't really appeal all that much to me. "Three bucks wouldn't be worth it," I tell myself.

"Screw it." And I pedaled past Kinney, past the base of that hill, and right towards the front gate.

It's my favorite place in Austin.

Okay, so I'm sitting there. No one is really around -- maybe three people, total, on the entire expanse green grass (which is actually a pile of brown dirt at the moment, but it's usually green grass). Everyone else is in the water, down by the diving board, and I am reading a new book I got on the Balkans, sitting by myself, leaning up against a tree.

This is the part where I see the sexiest girl at the whole place walking up, looking like a complete gangster, when she stops, maybe 20 feet away from me, drops her bag, looks around like a person who is in a very familiar and comfortable place, and proceeds to take off her top.

Aaaand she's not wearing a bra.

Suddenly my 600+ page epitome on Balkan history from 1804 to 1999 isn't so interesting. Stories of Ottoman pashas and Serbian peasant revolts don't exactly do the same thing to my kurac as the sight of a very beautiful, very topless babe chilling right in front of me, totally at ease with the fact that I'm clearly staring right at her breasts, like we're in Europe or something.

For all you Serbian speakers out there, you know what I was thinking: Zelja mi je pusta da ti svrrrrrsim u usta! (Sorry, I can't get my format to get the Z or the s right; I know it's slightly misspelled.)

I look over at the 40 something year old dude that was sitting even closer to her than me.

He's pretending like nothing out of the ordinary is going on.

I look back at her; she seems to not even notice me.

My eyes quickly avert back to the pages of the Balkan book. It is a mammoth: 662 pages if you count everything up until the glossary, notes and bibliography; 726 if you count it all. I pretend to read a few more lines: "Are the former Ottoman provinces of Bosnia and Hercegovina excluded from the Balkans because they were annexed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1908, before the Ottoman collapse?"

The answer: boobies.

"It was not until the end of the Great War that a new layer of meaning was imposed on the term. 'Balkanization' was first used by journalists and politicians not to describe the political fragmentation of the Balkan peninsula but the emergence of ..."

Boobies.

"... several small new states to replace the Habsburg and Romanov empires. It would have been just as accurate to label this process the East Europeanization or even the Balticization of Europe."

Or you could call it boobies.

No matter how hard I tried to read -- 732 pages if you also included the introduction;740 if you count the series of maps at the beginning -- all those words just ran together into one word, repeated over and over again: "Boobies boobies boobies. Boobies."

I mean, it's not like these are the kinds of boobs that you see and think to yourself, "She's got a nice ass, though." No. They are the kinds of boobs you see and think to yourself, "Nice, Bay-LESS!"

They are perfect. But now she's walking away. And I'm stuck there, in the dirt, with a few blades of grass, some irritating, solitary ants, and my Balkan history book -- 734 pages if you throw in the acknowledgements.

Boobies! Nooo!

Never have I been less enthralled with the Balkans. Like I could concentrate on Selim III. Who cares about that dude? I stared vacantly at the page, staring at the same line for about five minutes, while an entirely different vision was being played out in my mind.

After about ten more minutes of this, with ants periodically picking away at my toes and inner thighs, and no sign that the sexy mystery girl was going to return, I packed up to leave. In half an hour at Barton Springs, I read maybe ten pages. That's 10 cents a page -- and most of them were read during the first 20.

The sun was setting anyway, I thought to myself.

And that's when I saw her again.

And she's doing yoga, now.

Standing with her back to the pool, I was able to confirm that yes, they also look good from the profile.

They look even better once she turns around and looks me in the eyes as I walk by: I'm pretending to be casual, while she really is casual. This is your chance, Bayless! But how? How do you approach a girl like this? I briefly consider using the line, "Hey, I'm topless, too!" while looking all surprised, as if we had something in common, but then lose the nerve. I mean, it would be hard enough to get the balls to approach a girl that much more badass than yourself when she's just chlling, but while she's doing yoga?

You can't. You just can't do it.

By the way, I've passed by her little spot in the shade of the corner by now, and she is standing on her hands and feet, back arched, boobies pointing towards the heavens. This means that her eyes are pointing back away from the pool, which in turns means that she can't see me come to a complete stop, turn around, gawk for about two full seconds, commit the image to memory like I'm saving a file, and then walk on down the path, shaking my head to myself at how incredibly badass any dude must be who snags her.

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"Naw man, you CAIN'T! You cain't!"

That's what the jovial, semi-ghetto black dude yelled back at me when I told him this whole story at H-E-B 30 minutes later, while we both waited for our deli meats to get cut.

"You cain't approach uh girl like dat. You cain't!"

He gave me daps. His friend, who was working behind the counter, gave me my turkey, and my cheese. And I thought about those boobies, and if I'll ever have a chance to approach the girl whose body they belong to.

Safi sana, bwana.

As every passing day becomes one more day since I came back from Tanzania -- the one year anniversary lurks around the corner -- my fear of forgetting my Swahili grows bigger and bigger. Siwezi kusahau... I worked so hard to learn it. What will I do to impress people in conversation starters if it ceases to be true that yes, I am a white boy who speaks no other foreign languages besides some random African one?

I don't play guitar. I'm not related to anyone famous (sorry, Mom, you're not famous just yet). I do look like the kid from "Stepmom," but that's not exactly a conversation starter. The easiest thing to do is just try my best to remember Swahili.

And so, I regularly hold conversations with myself. In the car and in the shower -- those are the two most frequent locales.

"Oya, mambo vipi?" "Yo, what up?" I ask my imaginary friend. He's a cab driver in Austin, and I can tell he's from Tanzania by the music he's listening to in the front seat.

"Ah! Unaongea Kiswahili?" he asks, a ridiculously large smile taking control of his face, and beaming at me through the rear view. "Ulijifunzaje?" "How did you learn it?"

"Bwana mimi MBONGO MWEUPE -- niliishi Tanzania kwa zaida ya mwaka."

"Kweli? Sehemu gani?"

"Arusha."

"Ah! Aisee mimi natoka Arusha -- Ngulelo."

"Kichaa -- mimi nilikaa Tengeru kwa miezi sita kabla ya kuhamia mpaka Kijenge Chini."

"Kijenge Chini? Karibu na --"

"Impala."

"Ndiyo, karibu na Impala! Ah! Safi sana bwana, safi sana."

Sorry, I forgot you were there. I was just talking to my friend -- he's from Tanzania.

I love when people say "safi sana bwana" (say it with me: sah-fee sah-nah bwah-nah). I always use that in my make believe conversations. It means "very clean, man" in the literal sense, but it's more akin to being like, "nice, man."

You should see me when I get into these conversations. They can last for upwards of ten to 15 minutes, involve lots of hand motions and fake laughter, and can get pretty deep. They are real conversations. When I tell people that I do this, they usually look at me the way you'd look at someone if he admitted to liking the song "Mmm Bop." (I know this because I've told people that I like "Mmm Bop.")

"Cool man..."

So you could imagine how excited I was to get woken up this morning at 6:15 with a phone call from a non-U.S. number.

I thought I was dreaming, I was so tired, and so confused to be seeing that country code show up on my screen.

2...5......5?

255!

"Oya!" I screamed, though still asleep. "Mambo vipi?" It was like clockwork.

"Niaje??" a familiar voice came through. It was Bariki Mdogo, 'Little Bariki,' my wannabe thug friend who looks like an eight year old in a 16 year old's body, but who is actually older than me.

"Bariki Mdogo!" I love that guy. He was with Hunter, who moved back to TZ the day I moved to Austin. I am jealous of Hunter sometimes. I mumbled something about being too tired to speak Swahili, and then, just as I was getting ready for a long talk, the phone cut out.

When conversations get cut off in Tanzania, it's not because of a bad connection. It's because the few dollars of credit you can afford to buy that day -- or week -- have run out. No one talks on the phone for more than a few minutes in TZ.

It's a lot cheaper to just talk to your friend in the shower. Much more safi sana that way, bwana. Very clean.