I know that sounds kind of shallow and self-serving, but my current crop of buddies just ain’t cutting it.

For example, I was supposed to go see the Joe Jackson Band with Bugs, Daffy and that guy from the NRA, Elmer. But Elmer and Daffy got into an argument about whether or not it’s duck season, and we ended up spending all night at the emergency room having Daffy’s beak reattached. Some fun.

Then there’s that retired navy man from down the street. He and I used to catch all the shows, like Pearl Jam, Papa Roach and Indigo Girls, but he’s got… Well, how can I say this? He’s got this flatulence problem from eating too much spinach. Or maybe it’s sweet potatoes. He’s always mumbling something about “I yam what I yam.” Makes me wonder what he’s smoking in that corncob pipe of his.

And my pets aren’t much better. Like my canary. I swear, if Tweety says, “I tawt I taw a Faster Puddytat one more time, I’ll feed the damn bird to the cat, myself.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ve tried to work out my issues with my friends, but it’s like talking to a brick wall. Like last night when I was having a couple of brews down at Moe’s Tavern with my buddy from the local nuke plant. He used to be such a cut up, always making me laugh whenever we went to a show like Kenny Chesney or Fairport Convention. I don’t know what happened to him, but now he’s just a shadow of his former self, and he spends most of his time drinking and trying to recapture past glories. That is, when he’s not scalping Rolling Stones tickets in order to pay his bar bill.

I could go on. Like my neighbor, Wiley, who’s completely paranoid and claims the ACME mail order company is trying to kill him. Or the couple upstairs, Boris and Natasha, who bragged of having connections with some promoter named “Mr. Big,” who could score us some primo seats for Phish. But they ducked out on the night of the show. I guess they went hunting. All I know is that there was a message on their answering machine saying that they had to go kill “moose and squirrel.”

Yes, I think it’s time for a change of scenery. Time to get some new friends. People who love music as much as I do and won’t shout out something stupid like “Yaba daba doo!” during the guitar solos at a Bon Jovi concert, and won’t howl like a wolf at Cher’s costumes.

As you can see, my friends can be so Mickey Mouse at times, a real pain in the old behind. But that’s only the half of it. When it comes to my friends, do you know what really bothers me?

I just wish they weren’t so two-dimensional.