THE JO-TEL … illegal blog downfield

Regular readers of the Jo-Tel might already be familiar with my friend from Oak Park and Jouseguest Tello. Despite an uncanny resemblance to Raph (they don’t so much look like each other as they are like funhouse mirror images of one another in their mannerisms, but Tello, who is Italian, is often mistaken for Mexican while Raphael, a Mexican, is often mistaken for an Italian.), Tello is more like the Puma in that he is involved in a improportionately (is that a word?) large number of my best stories from Chicago.

Like the time he gave Rachel Perry a lap dance in his living room. Or the time he put his semen on some [redacted] that he sold to a dude he didn’t like. Or his many miraculous escapes after being pulled over while egregiously flaunting the laws of the road, each more amazing that the last. Or the time he used to carry around a stick of sneaker white in his pocket, just so he could hook up his Air Force One White on Whites with a quick freshening at any and all times.

As with the Puma, there are so many good stories when you try to remember them all, your mind locks up like the jaws of a famished crocodile on a supple Wildebeest. You see … I’m making a point. And if I had to guess, I would say the point is that if the Puma is the undisputed king of doing extremely stupid shit and coming out scathed, then Tello is the undisputed king of doing extremely stupid shit and coming out unscathed. Like for instance, nobody once kicked his ass during the white Air Force Ones era.

But I think the most told Tello story, and also one of the most illustrative examples of my point, is the story of his audition tape for Fear Factor, and since I can’t possibly say it better than Jonah did in an email this week: “the video that he forcefully popped into VCRs whenever there were single girls present in the room, when he was between the ages of 22-24.” Well finally, in what I can only assume was a moment of comedy slump-busting desperation (we at the Jo-Tel can identify. In fact just this weekend I found several well-worn, tear-stained copies of Hey! Crackhead in between some unpaid bills on Hip E.’s desk), Tello has finally put this shit on Youtube. The Big House video is cool, if only for the accomplishment. Amateur by current Jo-Tel standards in the nudity department, but cutting edge for its time. You just wish they had filmed more of the actual breaking and entering. The tree jump, however, is classic.

There’s a slight fear that you might have to know Tello to find this as epic as I find it. Hopefully not though.

Also, as the post explains, he made it on Fear Factor. Which is another pretty good story.

-PETE