This Week's Separated at Birth (2/18 - 2/24)

* Mr. Sweatin' to the Oldies himself, Richard Simmons, looks strikingly similar to Three's Company actress Audra Lindley. Perhaps the impotent Mr. Roper (Norman Fell) would have preferred Helen if she swapped her housecoat for Simmons' rhinestoned red tank tops and red short shorts.

BACK LOG: What Irritates Mr. Erzblock This Week (2/11 - 2/17)

I heard of Roy Scheider's death this morning from a tinny sounding bathroom radio as I was showering this morning (Monday) at my lady friend's apartment. As I was just about to soap up my crotch, I heard, "And the actor Roy Scheider has passed away at the age of 75," which caused a long frown to blanket my face as my forearm braced my forehead on the shower stall's tile. Hours later, as I sat in the teachers' lounge at work grading papers that I've been holding onto for several months too long, a coworker of mine walked up to me and exclaimed, "Hey, did you hear that SCHNEIDER died?" Immediately, I thought of Pat Harrington, ONE DAY AT A TIME's loveable handyman Schneider; I asked, "Schneider died? Pat Harrington?" All my coworker could utter was "No, the guy from JAWS," as if I was the crazy one. I didn't even bother to tell him that he didn't say the name correctly, but his faux pas got me thinking about the many idiots who've made this mistake over the years, pronouncing the legendary star's surname as if it were the more common SCHNEIDER. Now I was raised in a good Christian household, reared by a mother who always told me to refer to a person by his or her proper name (first or last); if I tried to call my best buddy Anthony by the name "A.J." or Mrs. Hoover, my second grade teacher, "Mrs. H," my mom would smack me from here to kingdom come. I know that the former SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE alum Rob Schneider didn't help Mr. Roy Scheider's cause any, but that doesn't excuse such mistakes. Here's my advice to all of you mispronouncers: Take a deep breath before speaking, conjure up an image of JAWS's Chief Brody, and remember that Scheider is like no other; therefore, his last name does not include an "N."

BACK LOG: What Irritates Mr. Erzblock This Week (2/4 - 2/10)

I thought I wasn't going to be irritated this week because I received a prescription for a new medication from my doctor. This pill was supposed to make me less irate, but when I went to pick up the prescription, I noticed that the plastic cap on the medication--the easy-off cap I've come to know for the past couple of decades--was usurped by an inferior topper that was covered with instructions on how to open it. "It's not like I got any kids at home," I told my pharmacist when he sold me the whole safety song. Apparently, the old caps are hard to come by because of pharmacies' fears of being sued, but that doesn't help me! I've never procreated (not to my knowledge) or adopted for that matter; since I won't know the comfort of having my own loving, biological brood doting on me in my old age, I think I've earned the right to having comfort in the form of an easy-to-open cap on a prescription vial.

This Week's Separated at Birth (2/11 - 2/17)

* For a woman who had so much money, the deceased Leona Helmsley (a.k.a. "The Queen of Mean") wore her make-up much like Jack Nicholson's Joker from the memorable Batman film. Helmsley, who dropped out of Brooklyn's Abraham Lincoln High School, looked more like a beauty school dropout with her clownish lips, heavily arched eyebrows, and abundant eyeshadow.

BACK LOG: What Iritates Mr. Erzblock This Week (1/28 - 2/3)

I was watching the SAG Awards last night (That's right . . . the awards show that became popular because the Golden Globes were cancelled), and I WAS angered over these cackling queens and failed models who fawned over each celebrity, asking, "Who are you wearing?" When did it become popular to word a question in this manner? Unless someone, like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE's Leatherface, is wearing a designer's flesh, this question shouldn't be asked. What the heck's wrong with the simply inquiring, "Who designed your outfit?"

This Week's Separated At Birth (2/4 - 2/10)

* Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy, the lucky Kennedy boy who's had the fortune of living a full life, looks strikingly similar to The Brady Bunch actress Ann B. Davis. In these pictures, which present both at identical 11 o'clock angles, one cannot deny their similar noses, full sets of choppers, and protruding chinny chin chins. Kennedy's and Davis's hair are also coiffed in a similar fashion. Also, if Davis were not raising her eyebrows, you would also see that they have nearly identical brows!

Father Looks to Son to Tend to Porn Stash

The loss of a close loved one is often a trying time for family and friends; those closest to the deceased are reluctantly caught up in making all the traditional arrangements: writing up an obituary; planning the wake and the funeral; reserving a room and laying out the dough for the repass. Hopefully, when all's said and done with the will, you won't find yourself in the red. Let's not forget the grieving process, the getting acquainted with the idea that you'll never see the deceased on this earth again.

With all this going on, no one wants any more responsibilities than he or she needs to tend to, but this may not be the case for Peter Blanchon, a married father of two whose father is closely approaching Death's door. The request Blanchon received whe he, his wife, and two children visited the elder Blanchon, Louis, at his home in Sanibel Island, Florida this past December was "shocking."

Blanchon stated, "My dad poured us each a Maker's Mark on the rocks after my wife and kids left the house to do some grocery shopping for him. He took me into his bedroom, told me he had something to show me, and I was shocked when he opened up my mother's old closet."

* Peter Blanchon's visit to his father's Florida residence may have added one more responsibility to his plate upon his father's death.

What Peter soon saw inside the walk-in closet, a room that ceased belonging to Peter's mother soon after her passing in 1997, was an enormous amount of pornography on paper: every issue of Juggs, including the debut August 1981 issue; many copies of On Our Backs, the first women-run erotica magazine; and a host of foreign publications like Knave and Razzle (England), Lui (France), and Lemon People (Japan).

* One of the magazines in Louis Blanchon's porn collection, the debut of Juggs from August '81, including one of Mr. Blanchon's favorites: an article on breast masturbation.

According to his son, Blanchon, a retired principal at a prestigious New York City private school, "was desperate that I take care of the scores of boxes." Blanchon recalled, "My dad told me that he cherised these magzines--more so for the articles than the pictures--and that he could never share this passion with my mother, a straight-laced Baptist." He added, "For many years my dad even rented a garage for his collection from an elderly woman, visiting it every now and then to pour over the magazines' words. Ironically, these magazines, which my mother never knew about, had a lot to do with the success of their sex life. I mean my dad is the Kama Sutra. I never knew this before."

* Blanchon with his grandson Michael this past December, perhaps telling him about the birds, the bees, and prostate stimulation.

All Louis Blanchon wants, upon his death, is for someone to bring his collection to the residence of James Primdire, the manager of the Publix supermarket where Blanchon gets his groceries and prescription medications. Apparently, when Blanchon once asked Primdire why his store sold no pornographic magazines, an instant relationship was forged as the two men started talking about their shared passion for the written word within these mags; this materialized into bi-weekly meetings at Cleo Lee's, a local coffee house.

Primdire, however, wants no part of raiding Blanchon's closet. "Lou has taught me a lot about sex and other things, like how to remove red wine stains from my carpet and clothes and how to cook with charcoal. He's been so good to me. I just couldn't bring myself to enter that closet. It'd be too hard, considering the realtionship we've forged over what's in there."

* James Primdire (center), the Publix manager who became good friends with one of his store's patrons.

Before leaving Florida, Peter Blanchon accepted Mr. Primdire's address and cell phone number from his father, knowing how much this would mean to him, and somewhere on Coral Lane in West Palm Beach, James Primdire is cleaning out a room.