DATING MANDY Update: Barry

October 30, 2003 | 4:39pm

I confessed that I have had issues with my name and that I’ve finally learned to embrace it. But our little Amanda got stuck with "Mandy" and it’s not a coincidence that Barry Manilow had a song named Mandy. "Kiss me and stop me from shaking…" he wrote that about a dog! He wrote that about his Mandy. Our Mandy is named after his Mandy, i.e. our Mandy is named after a dog! Shocking, but true. Let the hate mail begin.

Why stop the childhood trauma there though? Her dentist would sing, "Oh Mandy, you came and you gave without taking...please kiss me and stop me from shaking…" then he’d hum a the rest. Only later in life did she find out that he was humming this, "oh I need you today oh Mandy." Fuckn’ perve. Needless to say she has some permanent scarring and still has to be sedated for regular teeth cleaning.

But look at her now!

She’s gorgeous and she’s dating a man NAMED Barry. We like Barry, he looks like this.Isn’t he cute? I love the glasses, did I tell you I had a thing for glasses? I also have a thing for Orlando Bloom, Alias the TV show, jolly ranchers, slings, and edible jock straps but more on that later. Let’s take a look at Barry’s highly classified Yahoo! personal ad:

Arn't you really just looking at the pictures anyway? Funny, athletic, poor speller, who was lured into creating a profile. I travel quite a bit, however I also have long periods of free time. I am currenty enjoying a break "back home" so I can spend some time with my family… mostly my niece. While she is a great companion and a lot of fun, her 9:30 bed time leaves me lots of time to play on the internet... and read dreamy personal profiles. So, I have become inspired to search for more than the disposable relationships that have been my routine. Not that I am on a wife hunt…just someone who doesn't run out of interesting things to say after a couple of conversations.

What I love is that for the following categories, his response is "I'll tell you later."

Body Type
Occupation
Income
Religion
Attend Services
Political Views

He doesn’t have to tell you the answers to these questions, you can find out the answer to yourself when you pick him up from his parent’s house because he ain’t got no job and he suggests you drive him to his Southern Baptist church on your first date. But then again his ad also says he speaks Spanish and has a graduate degree in something. So I’ll put my own judgments aside and turn to Mandy’s view of this Kentucky stud.

So now it’s time for today’s kink, known as Mandy on Barry!

The date was fantastic! It was everything I had hoped for…he didn't show up weighing like 300 pounds and he wasn’t bald. I figure I'm about due for one of those dates anytime now.

We went for dinner and drinks. There was an episode where he lost his ID I brought that situation quickly under control. We went to Tootsie's (famous bar on Broadway known for country music) and drank PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon for those not familiar with this beer).

On the way back to the car, we passed another honkey tonk and I heard the lead singer say, "any Tom Petty fans out there?" Well, of course I had to high tail us in reverse and the band played "Free Fallin," which is one of my favorite songs of all time. The band wasn't so great, although we did get some kicks out of making fun of the bass player and the guitarist solo. Nothing can compare to the real Tom Petty, but I took it as some cosmic sign that we were supposed to be there, in that moment and I don't get so into that cosmic bullshit speak. So it was really cool.

Mandy, I love you. Good luck, I hope your on-line pimping has done its deed. There are so many fish in the sea and so many women in the brothel. Now let’s turn this blog back back to its author/creator/director/web programmer/designer: the beautiful, obviously talented magnanimous guy that is me.