I need some advice.

Whenever my roommates are sitting in the living room watching TV, I do this thing to gross them out. I’ll walk into the room (wearing mesh shorts) and stick both hands down my pants. Then I’ll take my penis (henceforth called “my bird”) in my right hand, and smack it repeatedly against the open palm of my left hand, which is facing downward (all this is going on in the shorts; nothing is exposed). The result is a loud slapping noise, which completely grosses my roommates out. It goes like this:

[me running into living room] “Guys, check this out!” [sticks hands down pants, makes slapping noise with bird]

Now, I think this is hilarious, and I do it at least three times a week.

My roommates, however, say that this is masturbation. I completely disagree. We argue about this as if we were arguing about who the greatest 3B of all time is (Mike Schmidt), who the best “Friend” is (obviously Ross), and what famous person would we most like to sleep with (Lindsay Lohan, Heather Graham, Salma Hayek, and Tina Turner all at once).

I say it’s not masturbation. In my book (and my book on this is huge and has lots of pictures and some of the pages stick together), masturbation is self-arousal for pleasure. I am not arousing myself when I do this, nor do I gain any sexual pleasure out of it, aside from the pleasure of seeing my roommates squirm and go, “You’re fucking disgusting dude.”

They say it is masturbation. According to them, any self-manipulation of the genitals other than aiming to pee is masturbation.

I just don’t buy it. This is totally not masturbation. I think they keep saying that it is so that I’ll think, “Geez, am I really jerking off in front of my roommates?” and stop doing it. This has backfired big time, and I’m doing it at least once a day now. That, and my other favorite thing, which is walking into the living room with a part of my scrotum exposed between my fingers saying, “Hey guys, do either of you want a piece of Juicy Fruit? I chewed it up a bit, but it’s still got some flavor. But it tastes like bleu cheese and smells like bacon that’s been left on the asphalt of a New York City street for four days in July, so I don’t know if you want any.”

So what do you think: is this masturbation?

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While we’re talking about my roommates, last night I asked them,

Me: “Does your heart beat really, really fast when you piss?”
Brian: “Um, no. And I don’t think that’s a very good sign.”
Me: “Really?”
Ben: “Yeah, you might want to talk to a doctor about that.”
Me: “Well, I know I’m in worse shape than you guys. But next time you piss, can you just see if your heart rate increases as your pissing?”
Brian: “So does it just increase when you piss or it is a lot faster?”
Me: “Oh god – it beats so fast you can see my man-boobs shaking, the area where my neck connects to my chest pulsating, and my vision gets blurry.”
Brian: “Yeah, I don’t know about that…”

And of course, every time the pee they forget to check.

I’m enough of a hypochondriac to know a little bit about medicine, and I know your heart’s supposed to beat faster when you get up from your chair, or take a shower, or wait for the subway – but while pissing?

Please tell me this is normal before I check myself in to the nearest emergency room. Lie if you have to.

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I have been cursing (or swearing or cussing) a lot lately. I really like to say instead of “fuck”, just “F”. As in, “Then the stripper was like ‘That’ll be $40′ and I was like, ‘What the F?’”

But one runs into a problem when trying to write the word “fucking” this way. See, technically, it’s supposed to be spelled f’ing or f’in’. As in, “I was f’in’ this hot broad last night and then she turned out to be a f’in’ dude! But I kept going because I was like, ‘Eh, what the F?’”

However, I’ve also seen it spelled effing, which I completely despise. Though phonetically correct, there is no “e” in the word “fucking”, asshole.

So, heretofore I am going to occasionally spell fucking f-ing.

Yeah, I know it’s not funny, but fuck you.

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I work in my department with only four other people, and we all share a secretary. He’s really more of an assistant, but whatever. What are you, a fucking Narc?

Anyway, I ask this poor guy so many questions in the course of day that he must hate me. And these questions have nothing to do with work in the least. It can be anything from simple things like, “Is it raining out?” (even though he sits in a windowless area) to random shit like “How do you say, ‘I want you’ in French?” though to my knowledge he doesn’t speak French.

I don’t know why I do this, but I’ve found that in corporate institutions some of the most intelligent people are secretaries. So I therefore take it upon myself to ask him questions like, “What’s the capital of Zaire?” and “Who were the original ‘Charlie’s Angels?’” and “How do Hispanic guys get their beards so thin and straight?”

Great, just what I need: another enemy at work.

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Four hot dogs is NOT an acceptable dinner for a 25 year old man. Well, it’s not an acceptable dinner for anyone really, but it struck me recently that from Monday to Wednesday I had the same meals every day: breakfast was oatmeal, lunch was peanut butter and jelly and soup, and dinner was hot dogs and mac and cheese.

So now I have the genitalia AND the diet of an 8 year old. Sweet.

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Speaking of terrible diets, I probably go through at least a bottle of pepto a week. Seriously, I should be their spokesperson, or at least get some free shit, since I spend more annually on pepto-bismol than I do on haircuts, underwear, or soap.

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Some music:

- “Push Th’ Little Daisies” Ween
God, I fucking love this band. Sure, some of their stuff is a little too out there for me, but for the most part they fucking rock. And they are from just outside of Philly! Yay!

- “Moon Dreams” Miles Davis
This has to be one of the most relaxing songs of all-time. Whenever I hear it, I think of my grandparents slow dancing together. I have no idea why, and yeah, maybe that’s the lamest thing I’ve ever written, but I guess what I’m trying to say is that I really want to slow dance to this song.

Moving on…

- “Year Of The Rat” Badly Drawn Boy
This jerkoff recommended a Badly Drawn Boy song to me last week, and I’ve been listening to his shit since. At about 2:40 into the song, when Damon and the kids sing “One plus one is one” together over and over again, well, it’s just really, really purdy.

- “Have To Explode” The Mountain Goats
Another band that was recently recommended to me, this time from Nic in Colorado. I wrote about their song “No Children” last Thursday, but this one is also very nice. I like it because it is very, very sad and about love. Sad about love is right up my alley. So is mescaline. But I digress…

- “I Got A Man” Positive K
I’m gonna make a bold statement: this is my favorite late ’80’s/early ’90’s dance-rap song. I mean, what can top it? A duet in which a guy is trying to kick it to a girl. My favorite part:

Girl: “My man buys me things and he takes me out.”
Positive K: “Well you can keep your man ’cause I don’t go that route.”

Amen brother. Amen.

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Finally, thank you for all the ideas about tooth pain remedies and the well wishes. I’m not sure if you people are really nice or just really, really bored. Something tells me it’s the latter.

But I’m happy to report that since I’m eating Aleve like Pez I’m feeling pretty good. And in about 26 hours I’ll be able to do some serious self-medicating, so things are looking up (for the most part).

We (as in the royal we) may have a serious problem: my wisdom teeth are hurting like a mother fucker.

On Monday, I noticed something wasn’t right in my mouth (other than the obvious herpes sores and that chunk of carrot cake stuck in there since ‘98). Yesterday, the pain got a lil’ more intense. Last night, I couldn’t sleep because my jaw began to hurt. And this morning when I woke up, my jaw (and penis) were throbbing, although it didn’t stop me from having some mozzarella sticks for breakfast.

I’ve been through this before. In November of 2002, I had two of my wisdom teeth unceremoniously yanked from my jaw. Prior to getting them out, every year or so I’d go through some serious “keep me a awake at night” pain, but, as I fear dentists more than I fear black people, I would suffer through it, and with the help of painkillers I stole from my dad or bought on J-train, it would eventually go away.

But then it became too much, and didn’t go away. One day during my suffering, I was sitting at the lunch table and asking co-workers about what dentist they go to, as I needed to see a dentist first before going to the oral surgeon’s to get my teeth out. My friend Luq said, “Jay, you’ve got to go to my dentist. She is really, really smoking. Not only that, every girl that works in the office – receptionists, aides, whatever – are all smoking hot.” I figured that if I was going to have to see a dentist and experience some pain, I might as well see some attractive ladies.

Not a good idea.

I got to the office, and Luq was right – it was crawling with beautiful women, all wearing that sexy medical outfit. Not surprisingly, the waiting room was full of Wall Street-type guys, guys who give off that “I spend at least $25,000 a year on the sex trade” vibe.

Soon after I was called into an office and asked to sit in a chair by a gorgeous Persian dental aide. I explained the situation: my whole mouth was killing and I couldn’t eat or sleep or get in any fights and my god you are beautiful (well, I don’t think I said that part out loud).

She asked me to open up and took that little poker thing and started poking around. This was intensely uncomfortable. Since my teeth were so sensitive, every time she poked that thing into my mouth (get your mind out of the gutter asshole) my body would involuntarily spasm in pain. Before long I was covered in sweat, because I was trying so hard not to let on that the pain was murderous (because she was so, so hot), and looking in my white dress shirt like I had just been in the unsexiest wet t-shirt contest of all time.

She finally (!) pulled away, and gave me one of those “I pity you, you weak, weak man” looks. She said, “Ok Jason, now I’m going to clean your teeth. If you want, I can put a numbing gel on your teeth, so it won’t hurt.”

Even though in that dentist’s chair I was a sweating, slobbering mess of a man, my man instincts kicked in. A hot chick was taking pity on me because I couldn’t handle pain. I responded, doing my best Chris Farley in “Tommy Boy”, “Do you know where the weight room is?” impression, saying, “No, no. That’s fine. Whatever.”

And as a result, I don’t remember much of the next seven minutes, because I was slipping in and out of consciousness because of the overwhelming pain. I’ve been beaten up, had bones broken, been hits a by cars, but nothing – nothing – hurt worse than that cleaning brush buzzing in circles around my gums and teeth. When I think of it this day it still hurts, and then I have an orgasm.

When she left, the worst was over. I didn’t even mind that the dentist was not an attractive woman, but a middle-aged Jewish guy, because the hot one “had an emergency”. I’m guessing that means the Persian dental aide grabbed her in the hallway and say, “Best stay outta there. He’s a big one and awful sweaty. Also, I think he’s still crying.”

And the wisdom teeth removal wasn’t that bad either. I had ponied up a couple of extra bucks to be completely knocked out, but since I’m fat and my body for whatever reason doesn’t take anesthesia well, I didn’t lose consciousness. I was surprised to see what a violent process it was…it was kinda like me trying to pull a hero under from under the body of an obese sleeping hobo. Only the oral surgeon didn’t use as much foul language as I usually do when grabbing the sandwich. Guess we were just raised differently.

But anyway, now I’m getting that familiar throbbing, but I promise you I will not go back to that damn dentist or her hot assistants. My hope of hopes is that with just the right combination of vodka, cranberry juice, a few shots of Jagermeister, the tooth pain will go away. Just like the unhappiness. And the loneliness. But I digress…

Leave it to the Japanese, when they’re not making weird cartoons or, um, whatever else the Japanese do, to take the humanity out of cuddling.

My favorite line: “It keeps holding me all the way through,” she said [of the pillow] in her home outside of Tokyo. “I think this is great because this does not betray me.”

Ms. Suzuki, congratulations. You’re the craziest bitch I’ve ever heard of (and considering my female friends, ex-girlfriends, and lady hitchhikers I’ve picked up, that’s quite an accomplishment).

I have written before about my dad (see here and here) My dad is awesome. And I don’t mean this in the “I’m 8 years old and I think my dad is the coolest because he can throw a football real far and he can beat up your dad” kinda way.

My dad is awesome because he can beat up your dad, and I mean that in the “I’m 25 years old and seriously, my dad would kick your dad’s ass” kinda way. You see, my dad is a real man. Until he got hurt, he had been working as a mechanic and longshoreman since he was 17, regularly pulling 80 hour weeks, always exposed to the harsh seasonal elements, always coming home covered in grease, smelling like a mix of cold, smoke, and Brut, and often wearing those mesh hats that hipsters loved to wear a year or two ago before they went the way of Zubaz pants, Reebok Pumps, and using protection when you make love (seriously, who does that?).

Some other things you should know about my dad:

- He has four tattoos: an Irish boxer (with his nickname, “Mugs”, under it), an Irish bulldog, an Irish flag, and a skull with a knife through it
- He has a moustache
- He wears a giant Celtic cross around his neck at all times
- He owns at least five times as many sleeveless shirts as he does ties (possibly even ten or fifteen times as many), and wears them exclusively from about May 20 until September 20 of every year
- He used to ride a motorcycle
- He wears “Terminator” style sunglasses
- His idea of fun is taking apart an engine and putting it back together
- If anything is wrong in your house (plumbing, electrical, um, whatever else), he can fix it, or he knows someone who can do it “real cheap”
- He reads books about serial killers, watches only sports, the news, and the History/Discovery channels, and loves horror movies
- In an average day, he smokes two packs of Marlboro Reds, has ten cups of coffee, drinks a gallon of whole milk, and eats a half a stick of butter
- He has been stabbed (seriously)
- When he was 18, down the Jersey shore, he dove into a foot of water (not knowing it was so shallow – also, he was drunk). He kept drinking, drove home, slept, woke up the next day and drove 90 miles back to Philly. At that point he told his mom, “Mom, I think I hurt my neck.” Diagnosis: broken neck. The doctor told him if he had turned his neck just one degree further, he would have been paralyzed for life.

And then, ladies and gentlemen, there’s me. To say that I’m the complete opposite of my dad is not entirely true, since we are roughly the same size, although I’m pretty sure my dad can bench press more than 60 pounds.

Some things about me:

- I’m terrified of bugs. Not grossed out, but “run away squealing and yelping” terrified
- I’m also scared of thunder, most dogs, and night time
- I cry at least three times a week, usually over a pastry that has gone stale
- I also cry at movies, while listening to music, every time I get an email, and on Wednesdays and Fridays
- I have won maybe 3% of the fights I’ve been in, and that one victory came against a 14 year old blind spaniel-terrier mix named Fritz
- “Scary Movie” was one of the most terrifying 90 minutes of my life
- “Grease” is among my top five favorite movies
- I regularly listen to music by Wham! and Janet Jackson, I really like that “Invisible” song, and I own both “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Jesus Christ Superstar” soundtracks
- Every time I use a hammer, I wind up hurting myself or someone else (usually me)
- If I have so much as an itch, a paper cut, or a mosquito bite, my intense hypochondria kicks in and I have to be physically restrained from going to the nearest emergency room
- At least once a week I have to alter my dinner plans because I can’t open a jar of spaghetti sauce
- I barely know how to pump gas, and from ages 16-18 I would just open the hood of my car and just spray the gas all over the engine

I know that my dad is proud of me and all, but I don’t think that he ever envisioned his first-born son turning out this way. Sure, at a young age, my dad taught me how to fight, played up the whole “If anything happens to me, you’re the man of the household” thing, and instilled in me a love of sports, so much so that my two childhood idols were Hulk Hogan and Mike Schmidt.

But then something went terribly, terribly wrong.

I don’t really know where or when (that’s what therapy is for), but here I am: a mildly successful transplanted New Yorker who spends most of his day thinking of jokes about masturbation to put on the internet and who would rather read a book about the theme of purgatory in Hamlet than go to a car show.

So you get it: my dad and I have always had a good but dichotomous and healthy if not hilarious relationship.

But last night, for the first time in my life, I actually did something that I’m sure would have made him proud. I did something manly and I succeeded in doing it. And no, I’m not talking about bringing a woman to orgasm, because we all know that the whole “woman can have orgasms” thing is just a myth. No, I did something much more manly: a built a desk.

[Well, I didn't actually "build it" - I put it together. But you get it.]

You see, when I decided I was going to start taking grad classes, it basically gave me an opportunity to spend lots of money. I thought to myself, “Well, if I’m going back to school, I’m going to need a computer.” Two weeks later, my $2600 super-duper laptop arrived. Then I thought, “Well, if I have a laptop, I’m going to need to convert my expansive VHS porn collection to DVD. This way I can have a break to watch porn when I’m getting stressed while writing a paper.” I’m still working on this one, but we’re well over the $200 mark with the conversion. And finally, I thought, “If I’m going back to school, chances are I’m going to be meeting a lot of new women, so I’m going to have to start drinking a lot more and just generally spending a lot more money.” I haven’t really figured the relationship here, but so far, so good.

Oh, and also at some point I decided I needed a desk.

So I ordered the desk, and in early August it arrived. It arrived on a Saturday, but I was rushing out that day, so I put the gigantic box in the foyer of my apartment. There, it proceeded to collected dust and draw the ire of my roommates (“Are you going to move this huge fucking box or what?”) until last night.

I should note that I stink at this shit. I absolutely stink at putting together things. This is because, like most guys, I have an intense aversion to instructions. However, unlike most guys, I have no preternatural understanding of mechanics and how things work. Also, I have no patience and am a quitter at heart.

It appeared that this endeavor was doomed from the start. But I was determined. First, I got a little high. I find that really there’s no downside to this, and getting high helps in pretty much every situation (except when trying to cover up a crime – trust me).

Then, I opened the box and spread the parts all over my room.

Of course, in doing this I lost the bag of screws, which was kinda an important component. Faced with this obstacle, I did what I thought was best at the time: ate a huge piece of chocolate cake and spent the next hour downloading Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam songs and writing emails.

But then I pulled myself together, and, as luck would have it, I found the bag of screws (it was, of all places, under my pillow).

So I hunkered down, ripped off my shirt, blasted some Bad Company, and finally, for the first time in my life, I was my father’s son. All I needed was the bandana and the Marlboro Red hanging out of my mouth, and you would have confused us. I threw aside the directions, worked solely by instinct, hammered and screwed and cursed away, and, about 45 minutes later, my desk was complete.

Needless to say, it was one of the top five accomplishments of my life. I mean, I was getting myself turned on while I was putting the desk together, working with those tools, and being all manly.

And the result? The desk is beautiful. I used it last night, and it seems to work. And sure, it’s only a matter of time until I slip into a drug-induced manic depressive rage and destroy it with my bare hands after discovering that one of my roommates ate my leftover macaroni and cheese, but until then, it’s simply glorious. Glorious.

And Dad, if you read this, which you won’t, or if we talked on the phone about anything but sports, or if we talked in person besides anything other than sports or “Are you getting bigger?”, then you’d know I did this for you.

But don’t get spoiled, because I’m pretty sure this is a once in a lifetime thing. Actually, this is definitely a once in a lifetime thing.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam. Who’s your favorite Cult Jam member? Mine was Alex Mosley. What a talent. What a fucking talent.

[Warning: posting may be a little light this week, as it is the end of the quarter and therefore Uncle Jason is very busy at work. I will try my best, but, as we all know by now, my best is most often not good enough.]

1) I had 10 Double Stuf Oreos for breakfast, and for the third time in five weeks I actually had to get off the subway in the middle of my morning commute to go to Hunter (where I’m taking grad classes and which is en route to my place of employment) to poop. Apparently, though delicious, 10 Double Stuf Oreos are not good on the stomach at 7:15 in the morning. Who knew? Suffice to say, I won’t be having 10 Oreos for breakfast any more. Or at least until tomorrow. God they are delicious.

2) After relieving myself, I got back on the train and was standing on the crowded subway when I noticed a lot of women looking in my direction. My first thought was, naturally, “Oh my god – do I have a boner?” I didn’t, so then I looked next to me and saw this “dreamy” French dude reading Camus’ The Stranger looking all dreamy and such (I’m not sure if he was French, but he looked like a Frenchie and the book was in French). I spent the rest of the ride straightening my posture, flexing my guns, making sure that I looked my finest for any lady that approached me and said, “I wasn’t looking at that nancy Frenchie – I like real men. So why don’t you take me to the nearest train station bathroom and have your way this me? But please, no ass play.”

Alas, this did not happen. Although I see most of a girl’s boob later on the train. Good stuff.

3) As I was walking to work I was approached by a co-worker, a buddy of mine. Again, I had an embarrassing I-Pod moment. He asked what I was listening to, and I stumbled and said, “Nothing”. In reality, I was listening to Liz Phair’s “Hot White Cum”. And no, I don’t think this makes me gay (well, it probably doesn’t). And please, don’t look up the lyrics to the song, which you can find here. I mean, guys like this song, right? Or does it make me gay? Can someone help me out here? It’s such a damn catchy tune, aside from all the “give me your semen so I can cover myself with it” talk.

Damn.

[And lastly, not a morning note]

I have to say I’m getting pretty excited about the Philadelphia Eagles. I didn’t see the game however, as I was treated to the craptacular Giants-Browns game. Christ – I’ve seen flag football games at the Special Olympics that made for more exciting football.

Anyway, the Eagles are getting me all riled up. But, I know that in the end, I’m going to get hurt. And then I’m going to hurt someone else. And then I’m going to jail. So you can see how I don’t have much to look forward to.

And now I’m all bummed out. Fuck.

It’s Friday, so that means I’m filled with an excited energy now that the weekend is upon us. My credit cards are burning a hole in my wallet, practically screaming, “Jason, take us out and use us to pay for drinks for women way out of your league! Then you can curse us in a month when you get your statement! Or maybe get high and give our wonderful numbers to the charming lady on the other end of the phone so she’ll tell you how much she loves fisting!”

I didn’t go out last night, so I’m feeling pretty good. Rather than tell you what I did (cleaned my bathroom and bedroom, made dinner, watched TV, killed two Puerto Ricans – the usual), I’m going to answer some of your emails. This also works well with my whole “laziness” thing.

The first email comes from Phil in Chicago. He writes:

Porn: I fancy myself somewhat a fan, albeit not obsessed (not that I don’t respect you). My question – who is/are your favorite actresses? And more importantly, why?

Wonderful question Phil, and one I am aptly suited to answer. First, I would use caution when using the word “actresses”. When your only responsibility is to show up on a set and have some guy cream on your face in front of a camera, I don’t know if you can be called an “actress”. “Starlet” is a much more appropriate word, and it encapsulates all the glitz and glamour that is porn.

I’ve been watching porn since the age of 13, when my family began stealing cable, thus making my adolescence a lot more interesting with three full-time 24-hour porno channels at my disposal. Most teenage boys would murder their siblings to be so lucky, and I know two who have. Poor bastards.

In addition, I’m fascinated by the porn industry, because it is a money making machine. A few of my friends are starting businesses and investing their money in all sorts of ventures, but the thing is, to me there are three things in which you can invest to optimally maximize your returns: titties, booze, and gambling. Pay a girl $5 an hour to strip for you, take half of what she makes for each lap dance, charge $10 at the door, and have a bunch of schleps chugging $10 watered-down vodka tonics all night. Open a bar, buy your booze wholesale, so that your bottle of Absolut costs you $6 but you get $115 worth of vodka tonics out of it, all while paying bartenders $2 an hour to serve them. Open a casino, and for every $20 you take in, pay out $1, because gambling, whether anyone in the industry will admit it or not, is an addiction.

[I know this is way oversimplifying, and I'm forgetting the monumental expenses and pains of licensing, real estate, etc and the tremendous amount of capital you need to start something like this, but you get the point - jerkoff.]

I guess what I’m trying to say is that in many circles I’m considered an expert in pornography (and yes, believe it or not ladies, I’m single – shocking, I know). Here are, in order, my top 5 favorite starlets:

1) Celeste – I think I like Celeste because she was in the first porn scene and I ever saw, and consequently I developed an attachment to her. It also helps that she’s extremely hot and has gigantic (but tasteful) fake breasts. She has retired, but she’s still my #1 all-time favorite.

2) Chasey Lain – So hot that the Bloodhound Gang (who, by the way, suck) wrote a ballad to her. She also had cameos in “He Got Game” and “Orgazmo.” Also, really, really hot (why do I have a feeling I’m going to be saying that about all of these women?).

3) Kira Kener – Is it natural to be Asian, 5′4″, 110 pounds, and have natural super enormo-boobs? No, but that’s why I like Kira Kener (Asian fetish notwithstanding).

4) Jenna Jameson – Just because you have to. A tremendous talent and the face of the porn industry, she retired recently but will live on in perpetuity through her films, website, books, etc.

5) Briana Banks – Many consider Briana the “new” Jenna. She broke into porn as Mirage, a lower-level starlet. Then she went and got the most giant fakest boobs available, and she’s risen to the top of the industry. She’s still very active, and (gulp) 21 years old. I mean, wow.

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The next email comes from Jeff from Denver. It’s not really a question, but an interesting story which also introduces a new term.

Don’t mean to sidetrack you, but I was perusing some of the archived postings on the blog because, well if I actually gave a shit about my job and did any work, I’d have to kill myself…right after I annihilate every last mother in this glory hole.

Anyway, the post on May 10th about maintaining the upperhand after you breakup with a girl. So, this girl and I split many years ago, and I was crushed. I was out with a coworker a couple of weeks later getting completely blotto on various concoctions when he starts asking me what the fuck is wrong. I recant the story of my lost love, and provide him with her name and where she grew up and went to school. His jaw drops and beer starts shooting out of his nose much like I imagine Edison would have looked after inventing the light bulb, or the visual of what in some circles is a “love making” technique commonly referred to as the Angry Dragon. (If you don’t know, look it up) He then asks me a series of questions obviously clarifying a suspicion he’s formulating. At the end of this interrogation and after he calls an ex girlfriend of his in Wichita, Kansas of all places, he confides in me that this chick, before I started dating her, is the same chick that he went to college with, and is the same chick that, in front of a bar full of chanting on-lookers swallowed her pride and that of a lucky young man to the delight of everyone present on a dare. Not even a bet!

Wow! I mean I knew she was a freak, and to be honest, that’s the main reason I was so broken up about our sudden parting, but that’s hilarious.

And seriously, if you don’t know what the Angry Dragon is you have to look it up. You of all people will get a kick out of it.

Wow. Lot of emotions there. I don’t know if this technically qualifies as the Upper Hand, because, although you have the Upper Hand because you can forever say, “Remember when you blew a dude in front of a bar full of people?”, you actually dated her.

This reminds me of a story from college. There was a girl that we went to school with that was, for lack of a better way of saying it, a complete and total promiscuous slut. This girl slept with everyone (well, except me). At least three of my friends slept with her, but about nine of them caught a beejer.

To look at this girl, you’d never realize that she was a freakazoid nitro-turbo slut. And one day, probably while under the influence, I realized something: this girl is going to leave college and have the opportunity to totally reinvent herself. She can move on, leave her slutty past behind, and marry a guy who has know idea that her nickname throughout college was Hallway (as in, “throw the hot dog down the hallway”, as in, her vagina is so loose making love to her is like throwing a hot dog down a hallway).

In this story, the girl blew a dude in front of a room full of people, but managed to hide it (to an extent) and start a new relationship with some poor unsuspecting chap. A tremendous story, and an important lesson: never date a girl who you haven’t spent all your time with since puberty. Because she may have blown a dude at a bar in front of a bunch of people.

And also, the introduction of a new term: the Angry Dragon. I had heard Cleveland Steamer, Dirty Sanchez, Arabian Gas Mask/Roman War Helmet, etc, but never the Angry Dragon. Though I think I will lose forever my female readership if I write what it is, you don’t reap rewards without taking risks. Therefore (cover your eyes those who don’t want to be grossed out), the Angry Dragon is when a man ejaculates into a woman’s mouth, then karate chops her in the neck, causing the semen to shoot out her nose, just like an Angry Dragon.

[Give it a moment.]

My official stance: no comment. Aside from, who the hell thinks of this stuff? Oh wait, people like my friends and I. Right.

*********************************************

Another story comes from a reader in Memphis, who writes after reading yesterday’s post:

A friend of mine once got drunk and stupid, as was his wont, and sent a long, vicious e-mail to his ex-girlfriend. You know the form: “I hated fucking you, please why won’t you come back, I hope your vagina rots out or something, God I’ve never loved anyone like you, etc.”

The problem: He mistyped the e-mail address by one letter, and it went to HER MOTHER instead.

He had an e-mail from the ex in the morning, tearing him a new asshole. I’m pretty sure that episode squashed any chance of a reconciliation.

Um, yeah, I’d say so. As a matter of fact, I can’t think of anything worse to squash a chance of reconciliation than an email to your ex’s mom telling her you hated fucking her. Well, maybe a homicide, but that’s about it.

*********************************************

Finally, our last email was one that piqued my interest the most. It’s from Zana V., who hails from “a very small village about 20 miles north of NYC.” She writes:

Rumor has it that you are involved with someone and you are not willing to admit it. Care to comment on this?

Ah, one of the major trappings of “celebrity” – the press is starting to intrude on my lovelife and rumors are swirling.

I knew this would happen eventually. As the site has been growing in popularity (all through word of mouth – thank you tons and please continue to pass it on), I’ve noticed the paparazzi trailing me wherever I go, taking pictures of me in compromising positions, shooting me when I’m drunk, getting pizza at 4am, or beating up a dog. I think if you look hard enough on the internet there’s even a picture of me sleeping quietly next to a pantsless hobo.

Sure, maybe I have been club hopping with the guys from “That ’70’s Show” recently. And maybe last week Tom Sizemore and I got in a duel that resulted in his death. And perhaps I threw a pile of dog shit at Ben Affleck on Tuesday while he was lunching with Jennifer Garner and yelled in a Boston accent, “You fahkin’ douchebag!”

But, alas, I am not involved with anyone. However, if anyone would like to be involved with me, please email me immediately. I have some plans this weekend, but I will surely blow them off as long as you promise that we will make love and it’ll cost me under $100. I would prefer someone that’s STD-free, but if not, well, that’s fine too.

So write immediately. Do it now. Operators are standing by.

[Have a good weekend.]

I am universally-recognized as the king of leaving drunken messages on the voicemail of an ex. I have had years of practice at this, since pretty much every relationship I’m in ends in me being dumped and, in my opinion, mistreated or wronged. Also, in case I haven’t mentioned this already, I like to drink a little bit.

Everyone wants passion in a relationship. Whether it manifests itself in fucking or fighting, isn’t passion what it’s all about? Doesn’t everyone secretly desire a love so grandiose and overwhelming so as to obliterate their life and their rationality? Who hasn’t read about the disastrous and insane relationship between F. Scott and Zelda and thought, “Well, that’s some of the craziest shit I’ve ever heard, but it still sounds kinda cool.”

Generally speaking, I can not offer a woman happiness, financial security, reliability, love, respect, honesty, manners or good hygiene, but I do have lots of passion (this is because I am insane). However, this passion usually only appears after the relationship is over. And when I’m drunk. And when it’s after 3 in the morning. Damn.

My work in leaving crazy messages has inspired countless others to elevate their game past the “I love you and miss you” or “Why did you dump me?” standard messages to much more creative missives on the voicemails of their exes. Actually, I have no idea whether or not this is true, but, I’m guessing it is.

My own work includes such messages as:

- “Hey baby. It’s me, Jason, the guy you dumped last week. I’m drunk and I wanted to tell you that I wrote a poem for you. Do you want to hear it? Ok, here it goes: ‘You’re a whore.’ Did you like that? Because I had a lot of fun writing it. I hope a pack of wild dogs attacks you in Central Park while pigeons shit on you. Have a good night.”

- “Hey, it’s me. Listen, I just had a thought, and I realized that you should probably get checked for STD’s. Because I cheated on you – a lot. I bet that stings, doesn’t it? Well, if it doesn’t, maybe this will: you’re a whore. I hope you get hit by a car and then the car explodes. Also, someone pees on you. Have a good night.”

- “Well, can’t say I’m not surprised you didn’t pick up. It’s Jason, it’s 4:41 in the morning, and I was just thinking about you because I just threw up. And I realized that this throw up reminds me of you, because like you, it’s ugly, it smells, and it gives terrible blow jobs and is obsessed with its weight. Also, if this vomit had a reputation, it would be the reputation of a whore, just like you, because you’re a whore. I hope that you eat nothing but tofu and you still gain fifty pounds. Have a good night.”

Also, one night, in the middle of a particularly vitriolic spasm, I left three, count ‘em three, messages for an ex, each message five minutes long. Why three messages at five minutes each? Because the voicemail lady kept coming on and saying, “I’m sorry, but you have reached the maximum amount of time allowed for a voicemail” and hanging up on me. Apparently, I had more to get off my chest, so I kept calling back. Very nice.

Where am I going with this? I few posts ago, I asked for music suggestions, and you guys really laid it on me. I am very grateful, and I’ve liked a lot of the stuff. Keep ‘em coming, but if you send more, don’t send me 50 songs at a time. I appreciate the effort, but it’s a little overwhelming. Send a handful that I absolutely need to listen to, and, if you want, let me know what you’re wearing or send me a picture of yourself having sex with three dudes at once.

One reader, whose name or location I can’t mention because he did not list them like I have been asking you to, sent in a suggestion for a song called “No Children” by a band called The Mountain Goats. I had heard neither of this band or of this song, so I figured I’d give it a download and check it out.

The lowest form of blogging (I still despise that word and all its incarnations) is when people post song lyrics. There are so many things wrong with it but I care not to list them, because I don’t want to sound too much like a hypocrite since I’m going to post some lyrics in a minute. I just wanted to say this to cover my ass.

This particular song is about a husband and wife ending their marriage bitterly. Very somber theme, with very somber lyrics, but it’s delivered in a pop-folk way that makes it kinda humorous and sad at the same time. The singer sings in a very chippy bright tone, and it makes you kinda feel happy. Guitars are happily strumming away, and you’d think it’s almost a children’s song if you listened just to the music. Then you hear what he’s saying, and you think, “Damn. Now that’s fucked up.”

And this guy, well, he’s pretty good. A small sampling:

I hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow
I hope it bleeds all day long
Our friends say it’s darkest before the sun rises
We’re pretty sure they’re all wrong

I hope it stays dark forever
I hope the worst isn’t over
And I hope you blink before I do
And I hope I never get sober

And I hope when you think of me years down the line
You can’t find one good thing to say
And I hope that if I found the strength to walk out
You’d stay the hell out of my way

I am drowning
There is no sign of land
You are coming down with me
Hand in unlovable hand

And I hope you die
I hope we both die
[instrumental break]

Well.

“I hope you die/I hope we both die” blows me out of the water. Good lord. As much pain and unhappiness as I’ve wished every ex, I never thought of saying, “I hope you die. Hell, I hope we both die.” That is some serious pain right there. And god help me if I don’t think it’s funny as hell.

Again, I don’t throw the term “genius” around often, but it think it’s appropriate here.

And now, I want a girlfriend. I want a whirlwind romance and a soul-shattering break-up, just so I can leave this on a voicemail in the middle of the night after a bottle of Ketel One, three Heinekens, and a joint. I contemplated leaving calling my exes from way back and leaving this message, but since I haven’t spoken to them in months, it might be a little weird.

So if there are any crazy women out there, email me asap so we can start dating. The sooner we fall in love, the sooner, you’ll get to hear:

“Hey babe, it’s Jason. Listen, I think ending our relationship was a good idea, and while we’re on the topic of good ideas, I’ve got one: I hope your children are ugly, and at least two of them are retarded. I know that’s not an idea per se, but you are whore, so I figured, you know, whatever. Also, I hope you die. Actually, I hope we both die. This way, we’ll get to hell at the same time, and I’ll be able to torture you for all eternity. That is, if you can stop blowing dudes for just one fucking second, because, as I have noted, you are a whore. Have a good night.”

Today is a crappy day, and I’m feeling kinda down. And in sooth, I know not why I am so sad. It could be a combination of things (tired, very busy at work, broke, stopped taking anti-depressants, etc), but it also could be because today is my one year anniversary at my current position at the firm. Though I started at the firm in July of 2001 shortly after graduating to become a legal assistant, I moved to my current marketing/pr/financial research gig one year ago.

Being a legal assistant is a thankless, difficult job. You deal with attorneys who are only a few years older than you, who you definitely would have picked on in college and not let into your parties. They are mostly uber-nerds who crumble under the pressure, and, since you’re the only one who’s “under” them, you often get berated and brow-beaten for things that are beyond your control, or take the heat for mistakes that you didn’t make, but instead were the result of bad directions given by a young associate who at the time was trying his/her best to hold back tears because the mid-level associate just bitched them out.

Of course, most of the times that I got yelled at I completely deserved it. I learned pretty quickly that I wasn’t going to succeed as a legal assistant, so rather than work hard and be the best I could be, I gave up immediately and focused my energies on different things, like fantasy sports, seeing how long I can spend on the toilet pooping and reading before an attorney would come in the bathroom to find me, and, of course, eating all the cookies I could possibly eat at team meetings.

But I’ve moved on to much greener pastures. I no longer pull eighty hour weeks, or get calls from attorneys at 5:24pm on a Friday asking me to come in for 12 hours on Saturday and 10 on Sunday (because, you know, it’s the Lord’s day). I’m usually here from 9:30 – 5:30, but sometimes I’ll stay late if I don’t think I can make the long subway ride home without beating off first.

No longer do I share a small office with an officemate who I’m pretty sure spent most of his time plotting to poison me, since I completely disregarded his presence every time we were both in the office by talking loudly on the phone with friends about such personal topics as girls I want to fingerblast or the nasty shit I just took or how my officemate is a total dick. Now I have my very own office, although it is an inner one and its only window looks out on the cubicles stationed out in the middle area. But I disregard the presence of this window much like I disregarded the presence of my old officemate; I can be plainly seen all day by co-workings picking my nose, sticking my hand down my pants, and, when hungover, putting my head down on my desk. It got particularly nasty over the summer when I insisted that I be allowed to be shirtless or at least sleeveless in my overly warm office, but I was ultimately overruled and reluctantly forced to leave my tank tops at home.

Yes, the new job is much better, but there are a few things I miss about being a legal assistant.

1) Overtime. As a legal assistant, you get paid overtime at time and a half rates after 35 hours. And, since your base salary stinks, the overtime is where you make all your money.

The result? A culture of glorious laziness. An example:

Lawyer: “Jason, can you come up to my office? I need to you make a copy of this 30 page deposition transcript.”
Jason: “Ouch – 30 pages? That might take a while.”
Lawyer: “How long is a while?”
Jason: “Well, the copiers are having problems, so I’d say I can get you that by tomorrow morning.”
Lawyer: “It’s 11am.”
Jason: “I know – I can’t believe it either, but we’re having some major copier problems.”
Lawyer: “Just come and get it.”

Then, the legal assistant can take his/her sweet time with that copy, stay late to get a free dinner up to $25, and even get a ride home after 8pm.

And this overtime gets exploited big time. People may or may not get drunk at work after hours. There may or may not people who come in on weekends hungover and watch DVD’s or take practice LSAT’s, GMAT’s, or GRE’s, all the while collecting $30/hour. Not a bad gig. I mean, it doesn’t have the perks of being an internet quasi-celebrity, like hate mail or risking your job by taking time every day to write about how much you love to drink vodka, but it’s still not bad.

2) Carefreeness. I don’t know if that’s a word, but by “carefreeness” I mean that being a legal assistant really doesn’t matter and everyone eventually learns that and thus stops giving a fuck. For most, being a legal assistant is just a glorified temp job; people do two or three years, then move on to school or another job. After they leave, they’re probably not going to come back to the same firm as an attorney, or need anything other than a recommendation from someone that they worked with, which they can usually get from the one cool attorney they’ll meet during their experience.

The result? The eventual shirking of responsibility. Sure, at first, everyone cares about what they do, but there’s quite a backlash in this profession, because so many get so worked up over so little and it gets very old very fast. As one legal assistant put it when recently getting yelled at by an attorney, “Jesus Christ – we’re not saving lives here!”

By the end of my tenure, I was so burnt out that I may or may not have stopped returning calls and emails, and spent my days instead sending my resume to just about every job site on the internet, writing emails to girls I had hooked up with in college but hadn’t spoken to since, and thinking about which McFlurry I would have for breakfast the next day: Oreo or Butterfinger. (Butterfinger always won. You haven’t lived until you’ve had 16 ounces of vanilla ice cream swirled with crumbled up Butterfinger bits for breakfast. Simply gorgeous.)

3) Social element. By far, the best thing about being a legal assistant is your co-workers. What you have is a group of 60 or so people who are all the same age, come from similar college experiences, and have the same goals in life (well, most of the same goals – I know that many of my co-workers wanted success, whereas I wanted salt & vinegar potato chips). From that 60, a smaller group of 25 or so arises and will go out for drinks together.

And, more importantly, when drinking together, they hook up. Good lord. Everybody makes out with everyone, and it’s wonderful. And of course, I can no longer cash in on this, because I’m “not a legal assistant” and a little “creepy” and I “look like I’m 30″ so the new younger legal assistants keep their distance. Wisely so.

And now I’ve been working for three years, and I haven’t had the word “assistant” in my job title in one year. This is a huge step. I feel like I’m growing up. Maybe I should stop concerning myself with getting high and watching “Dumb and Dumber” and starting learning about wine, going to museums, and donating money to starving kids in Guatemala or wherever.

I suppose that’s why I’m feeling down (in addition to no more antidepressants). But I have to realize that all things considered, I have a good gig here at work. No long hours, decent pay, and most of the time I can stand what I’m doing. And no one asks me questions like, “Jason, why is there blood all over your pants?” after I’ve gotten in a fight over lunch and had to take a man’s life, or “Jason, why are you soaking wet?” after I got hopped up on goofballs and jumped in the East River because I thought I saw a sexy bitch of a mermaid.

And those times, like today, when I’m a little stressed out at work? There is a dingy little pub less than three blocks away where an Irish barmaid with less teeth than toes will serve me a pint of Bud for only $2. A better stress reliever, I can think of none.

Every morning, when the radio function of my alarm goes off, I wake up to Spanish radio. I don’t know why I started doing this, but every time I hear that Puerto Rican DJ spouting off rapid-fire Spanish, it sort of gives me a chuckle. I like to pretend just for a moment that I am Miguel, a recently arrived immigrant from Colombia, who is waking up in his small Bronx apartment to head to his job bussing tables at the Friday’s in Times Square, when I’m actually just a debaucherous pseudo-frat yupster contemplating a quick morning jerk rolling around in his exquisite 600 thread-count sheets (and no, this doesn’t make me gay, it just proves that I take sleep very seriously).

I’ve been doing this for over a year now, and I think I’m actually starting to learn Spanish. I took a few years of Spanish in high school, which consisted of us making jokes, watching Destinos, and fantasizing about our hot math teacher. Thus, I’ve retained nothing, save for the masturbatory fantasies of the math teacher.

But I’ve noticed that when eavesdropping on Dominicans in the subway, or listening to some of my co-workers, or when heading to Spanish Harlem to buy some pills at 5am, I’m actually starting to understand most of what they are saying.

I don’t know where I’m going with this, but I think the point is that subliminal learning just may work. So now I plan on falling asleep to a slide show of pictures with dudes with giant penises. I’m hoping that this will encourage mine to subliminally grow. I know that it sounds far-fetched, but I’ve tried pretty much everything else, and something’s gotta give down there. Seriously, I don’t even know if mine works. Stupid tiny penis.

************************************

Is there any better season than fall? Especially in New York City? The relentless summer heat has subsided, sports are in full swing with the start of the NFL, NBA, and NHL (maybe not that last one) and the baseball playoffs, and all the kiddies go back to school, thus filling the bars with underage girls who simply don’t know any better than to go home with some creepy guy who calls himself an “internet quasi-celebrity”.

I mean, ain’t it just grand?

************************************

I thought of a few more dealbreakers:

1) Any guy who still wears his college class ring and is my age. It’s slightly better for older guys who do it, but there is no reason that a 25 year-old should be sporting his class ring. I mean, are you serious? Let it go man.

This is an off-shoot of the dealbreaker of anyone who cares too much about their college. I don’t understand people who constantly talk about their alma mater, follow all their sports, join alumni organizations, read the alumni magazine – good god. College was good for one reason: the lack of any and all responsibility. Now that we’re out, we have responsibility. Now college is good for two things: 1) being on our resume; and 2) asking us for money.

Just stop it already.

2) Any guy who wears a chain or necklace. Jewelry? Really? Do you really need a necklace? At what point does a guy say to himself, “Hey, that guy’s wearing a necklace, and it looks really cool. I’m gonna get one. On a side note, I am a total douche.” C’mon.

3) Any person who frequently uses any Instant Messenger expressions. You know these: lol, ttyl, bbfn, etc.

You gotta let these go. Especially the “LOL” one. “Laugh out loud?” Can a joke really be funny if it derives a “LOL”? What the hell is the joke about, enterprise application integration software (and yes, I just took that phrase from the internet)?

Now I’m all riled up. Not in a “some stripper just rubbed against my crotch for three songs” kinda way either.

************************************

About dealbreakers…start thinking of some, but save them up. When I first asked you for your dealbreakers, I had just started the site, and readership consisted of my roommates, my brother, and some girl I wanted to fuck. Now, readership has exploded to include my roommates, my brother, some girl I want to fuck, and some guy I work with.

So soon I’ll put out a call for more of your dealbreakers, and we’ll have an ultimate list. To this day, I still get several emails a week about dealbreakers, some of the pretty great. This is a golden opportunity for me to sit back and let you do all the work, so get ‘em ready.

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Two sports-related items:

1) Ok, I feel a little better about the Eagles defense based on their performance last night against the Vikings. Not entirely on the bandwagon, but pleased nonetheless. The officiating was terrible, but hell, my team won. So shut up.

2) Curtis Martin fans: ENOUGH WITH THE EMAILS. No matter what you say, he’s not going to rush for 1500 yards. If I have to hunt him down and shoot him in the legs, he’s not going to rush for 1500 yards. Trust me.

************************************

Related to last night’s game – what’s the deal with these new Coors Light commercials? These commercials brag about how Coors Light is cold-brewed and shipped in refrigerated train cars, as opposed to its competitors Miller and Bud, because Coors “know[s] [we] like cold beer”.

Yes, I do like cold beer. But why do I give a shit if my beer is shipped in refrigerated train car? As long as it’s cold when the bartender hands it to me, or when I take it out of my fridge, or when I peel it out of a dead hobo’s hand, I’ll be ok.

You know what is important to me? The fact that Coors Light tastes like a mix of carbonated water mixed with my piss after I’ve had 15 Bud Lights (seriously, it’s very similar). So focus less on the “cold brewing” shit, and more on taste.

************************************

This week at my firm (and firms all around NYC) new associates are joining the rank and file of attorneys here. This usually means nothing to me, but this year it has some significance, because this year is the first crop of new attorneys that graduated undergrad in 2001, the same year I did. So for the first time, there will be attorneys at my firm that are my age.

All I can say to them is, my god I feel sorry for you. Part of the reason that I got turned off from law school was working here at a major NYC firm. You see, we hire only the best of the best. That means, if you work here, you are considered a “success.” Maybe it’s me, but the $125K starting salary notwithstanding, I don’t consider “success” working 100 hour weeks for the next 6 years in a fixed and brutal hierarchy “success”.

While these new attorneys spent the past three years in law school, going there straight from college, pouring endlessly over torts and civ pro just to be able to get into a firm like this, in the past three years I’ve:

- eaten around 200 pounds of nachos
- drank probably 100,000 beers
- gotten in 3 fights
- made out with 100 girls (ok, 4 – tops)
- spent $30,000 at bars

But man, you guys are in for some shit now. Good luck sitting in the office until 3am on a Saturday night, preparing a memo that will probably be read by you and you only. Enjoy the money, because otherwise, you’re fucked. And the best part is – it’s the rest of your life.

What the hell were you thinking? Have you ever met an associate at a mega-firm who said, “I am happy”? I certainly haven’t, and I’m much more popular than you, and as a result know more attorneys.

************************************

A random sampling of songs you should download:

- “Theologians” Wilco
Wilco is cool. So cool, they’re almost un-cool. But I don’t care. This is a kick-ass band and this is the best song off their new album “A Ghost Is Born”, which is only a step or two behind the venerated “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”.

- “Heatwave” The Who
Great remake of the old Motown song, with John “I died in a Vegas hotel with a hooker and $1000 worth of cocaine in my system” Entwistle laying down a fat bass line.

- “Let’s Get Married” Al Green
Is there anyone cooler or more smooth than Al Green? I dare you to think of one. If you don’t like Al Green, or at least appreciate what he has done, I can’t be friends with you. Non-negotiable.

- “Unbelievable” EMF
Just kidding!

- “You Don’t Know Me” Ray Charles
If I had discovered this song in high school, when I spent 80% of my day pining away for attractive women who were way out of my league and thought of me as nothing more than the friend to talk to their boyfriends about, I may have killed myself. Because Ray nails the theme of secret unrequited love better than anyone else with this song. I mean, wow.

- “Shout At The Devil” Motley Crue
Crue’s first big hit. Makes me just wanna start punching people (although that may also be the cocaine).

And if you haven’t read “The Dirt”, which is the story of Motley Crue, you have to read it. Even if you hate the band or the music – my god, these guys could fucking party. Hard.

Juxtaposed with…

- “O Holy Night” (Yes, the Christmas song)
I’m going to say something, and it may sound strange, but I’ve thought about it for a few days, and I believe it’s true.

This is the most beautiful song of all-time.

Before you click out of the web page and vow never to read anything I write again, let me clarify here.

I don’t like it because it talks about the birth of Christ and I love Christianity and Christ and blah blah blah. It’s the music that I like. I don’t want to sound like one of those douchebag musicians here and pretend like I know what I’m talking about, but some of the changes in the song are really interesting, and like nothing I’ve ever heard before. Also, to sing this song, you have to have a set of pipes. I should know – I sang it last night for my roommates while doing the mangina. Not for the novice.

I’m not a psychologist, so maybe it does have something to my latent Irish Catholicism, which is now buried under years of mortal and venial sins like coveting my neighbor’s wife, taking the lord’s name in vain, and, oh yeah, murder. But I’m telling you – it’s a really cool song (musically) if you listen closely to it.

[So I've pretty much lost you, right? You're never coming back again, eh? Well, it's been fun.]

[Any music suggestions to me are always welcome. Please do me a favor and put "music suggestions" in the subject line, if you do send any. Much appreciated.]

Ugh, Monday. Not only is it the first day of the week, but it’s my longest too – I come into work early, since I leave early for class, so I’m running on all cylinders from 8:45am – 7:30pm (by “running on all cylinders” I mean “checking the internet and my fantasy football teams”, “zoning out pretty hard core from about 2:30 until 4″, and “dreaming about boobies in class”).

But let’s focus on the weekend instead, shall we?

What you need to know:

Friday night = crap.

Saturday night = good.

Many lessons learned.

If you want, you can stop reading now. Because that’s basically the entire point of this post. So there. Don’t say I never did anything for you, and now maybe next time when I ask you for a $600 loan to pay off some gambling debts, you’ll give it to me. Dick.

Let’s start with Friday (you really can skip down to Saturday, because nothing much happened here, and I am still bitter and angry and a little tired because of it).

My friends came to town on Friday. They are some buddies from Philly, and I was greatly looking forward to their arrival. They had promised me an exciting and riotous time. One thing stood in the way of our good time: the fucking rain.

You see, we had tickets to the Yankees game on Friday night. I continually checked the forecast whilst (awesome word) at work on Friday, and it called for rain starting at 3pm on Friday and continuing until 3pm on Saturday.

As it became apparent that they would call the game because of the rain, I began to hope that the rain would come on time, and the Yankee game would be called before I dragged my fat ass up to the Bronx and got soaked. I don’t do well in the rain – when my abundant yet luxurious body hair gets wet, it adds about forty pounds to my body weight, and makes me tired.

But since god and I are no longer on speaking terms after the whole El Paso 2001 fiasco, though the sky was dark and cloudy, the rain didn’t come until we had settled in at the game. In the middle of the second inning, there was a rain delay. The rain was coming down in buckets, ruining my fucking hot dog (Yankee Stadium, by the way, has the WORST hotdogs in the world – and you know that coming from me, this means something) and making everyone grumpy.

The delay lasted a short while, and the game soon resumed. However, it started raining again, this time much harder than the first, and there was another delay.

At this point, we were at our breaking point. We were all tired, soggy, pissed off, and one of us had accidentally taken a Xanax because he thought it was an Excedrin (Ben, I’m looking in your direction). We figured that the game would be called, so after 45 minutes of the rain delay we all decided to leave the stadium.

When we got home, it was still pouring. We were patting ourselves on the back at what a great decision we made – beating the mass of people that was surely streaming out of the stadium, as it was plain to see that with rain this hard the game would be cancelled.

Except it wasn’t cancelled. Since my buddies are degenerate gamblers, they get ESPN through their cell phones and that tipped us off that the game was actually going on.

And so it was an awesome game, and we missed it. We didn’t even get to see it on TV. We checked every ESPN channel and YES, not realizing that the game was on CBS. So instead of being at one of the more exciting games of the year, we sat in my apartment drinking Coors Light, watching Cubs vs. Reds, and getting scoring updates through cell phones.

Not good times.

Of course, my friends (and roommates) said I was the mastermind behind the decision to leave, and thus broke my balls big time about it. I took it in stride, because I was pretty fucking drunk and didn’t think I’d remember much of it anyway.

My friends left disgusted the next day, and I don’t know if we’re ever going to speak again. Which is fine with me, because now that they’re out of my life, I can focus more of my energy on what I love most: kicking ass and breaking hearts. And looking out for number one. And eating Cheez-Its. I recently rediscovered them, and they are dynamite.

************************

Saturday was much better. After my buddies left, my roommates and I started the boozing, as we were going to my buddy Kyle’s going away party.

The party was in Brooklyn, a terrain I rarely, if ever, venture into. However, Kyle is a good friend, another person leaving the city and thus leaving me to my own devices, so I figured I would make the trip out there. Also, I’ve kinda had a crush on him for about a year now, so I was hoping he’d have a little too much to drink and one thing would lead to another, and, well, you know.

And Brooklyn, god darn it, was actually pretty cool. Maybe it’s because it’s fall and I am happy, and I live in the Upper East Side so there are sections of Palestine I’d rather live in for some cool nightlife or people. But still, I was very pleasantly surprised.

Sometimes at bars, when I’m feeling like things are stagnating with my drunkenness and I want to up the ante, I’ll drink a vodka on the rocks. I try not to do this too often, because it turns me into a rambling shell of a human being who will pay upwards of $2000 for sexual intercourse.

But I had quite an epiphany on Saturday, and I’m gonna break it down real nice for y’all:

Bud Draft: $4
Amstel Light, Guinness, Vodka Tonic: $5 (each)
Ketel One on the rocks, which contains the same amount of vodka as 2 or 2.5 vodka tonics: $6

As a man of reason, I realized then and there that it was my duty to start drinking vodka on the rocks at every bar I go to for the rest of my life. It’s just a sound financial decision.

The problem is that I only drink at one speed, regardless of what I’m drinking. By my estimation, I probably have 2.5 to 4 drinks an hour (the official results will be published in the New England Journal of Medicine sometime in the fall of ‘05). I don’t realize that having 4 vodka rocks compared to having 4 Bud Lights will affect me differently. This is because when I’m drinking, I’m thinking of other things, like, “Good lord – look at the rack on that chick!” and “I am going to eat so much fucking lunchmeat when I get home.”

So surprisingly, the rest of the night is a bit of a blur. But I know that I had a good time, and I know it ended at a Ray’s Pizza with a slice of plain and a slice of pepperoni. Also, my roommate Ben and I joined forces for an astounding $16 Taco Bell order. I mean, wow.

************************

So it was a very up-and-down weekend. What lessons did I learn?

1) I hate my friends, and my friends hate me.

2) I’m going to drink a lot more vodka rocks when I go out.

3) Brooklyn really isn’t that scary.

4) I will miss Kyle.

5) I love lunchmeat.

All I can say about Ray Lamontagne’s concert last night was “wow”. What a moving performance. When he did “Burn In My Skin”, I completely broke down. He actually stopped playing and came over to console me. Later, we made love. It was magical.

Actually, believe it or not, none of that happened. The show was cancelled because Ray was “sick”. I’m taking “sick” to me that Ray realized he was about to play for 80 people in a bookstore and was like, “Fuck this. Hey, who’s that fat kid jerking off by the General History section?”

Needless to say, the six people I brought to the show with me were not happy. However, we recovered and regrouped fairly well, and headed to a local watering hole to get drunk. There I sat through barbs like, “Dude, that show was awesome – I’m so glad I came all the way from Brooklyn for it” and “You were right – Ray is a really good performer. I liked when he did – Oh wait, he didn’t do anything. There was no show. Thanks, dick.”

Apparently, Mr. Lamontagne ignored the cardinal rule: do not fuck with Jason Mulgrew. From this day forward, I will do everything in power to tear him down and make him unhappy. I guess no one told him that I hold grudges like a mother fucker, that I have an uncle I haven’t spoken to since 1986 when he ate a Chipwich that I had saved, that one time I punched a fellow little leaguer because his nickname was Fat Chops, which was always my nickname, that because of a previous bad experience with a brunette I refuse to date women with dark hair, that I have very little to do besides make other people as unhappy, ornery and celibate as I am.

…

I’m just kidding! I’m actually a happy, well-adjusted person! Sure, I spend 50% of my time thinking of jokes about retards, but that’s totally normal! I love life, and have a normal libido that hasn’t been transformed into ravenous, almost criminal lust due to watching too much pornography! Seriously!

…

I learned that it’s not good to talk about my upcoming weekend plans in this space. This is because if I say something like, “You guys, I’m gonna get so fucked up this weekend and do some crazy shit” and I go out to an Irish pub to cry in my beer, I have nothing to write about and I look like a loser (as if I don’t look like a loser already).

But I am actually afraid of this weekend. I am afraid for myself, my liver, and anyone with a vagina within twenty feet of me. The reason? I have three friends coming up from Philly, two of which I wrote about when they duped me into passing counterfeit bills one night. I spoke to one of them recently, and it went:

Friend: “Dude, you’d better be ready for this weekend.”
Me: “I’m tired. I wanted to take it easy this weekend.”
Friend: “No, fuck that. We’re gonna go crazy this weekend.”
Me: “Great.”
Friend: “I’m serious. You see that website that you have? We’re going to get a friggin’ sitcom after this weekend because the shit we do is gonna be so crazy.”
Me: “We’re gonna get a sitcom?”
Friend: “No, not you – us. We don’t need you.”
Me: “Thanks.”

We’re supposed to be going to the Yankee game tonight, which I pray will be canceled before my fat ass goes to the Bronx. I can think of nothing I’d rather do than sit in the rain for two hours on a Friday, when I could be out spending my pay on vodka tonics.

But otherwise, the weekend is open, and I’m going to pull a Cerrano and say, “Bring that shit to me, man!” My friends have promised me a crazy weekend, so I’m going to sit back and let them do all the work. Unless we’re at a strip club, because then I won’t sit back. On the contrary, I will sit up and be very creepy and touchy-feely. God I love strip clubs.

[Anyway, have a good weekend and do something good you lazy asses. And remember, I love you. I'm not lying. I really do.]

It’s funny. When I’m at a bar, at a coffeehouse, at a bookstore, or at the grocery store, I can’t pay a woman to talk to me. Well, that’s not true – I can and have paid women to talk to me. One time I gave my friend Holly $68 to stand next to me at a bar for three hours and smile. For an extra $10, she said she’d give me a high-five, but I was all out of cash.

I’m getting off the subject here, but the point is that I can’t get you women to talk to me or send me pictures of you naked, but you have no problem at all voicing your opinions when I write a post or two about sports. Good god – I write two NFL Predictions posts and suddenly I’m NOW’s public enemy number one.

I’ll tell you what: since it’s my site, I’m going to write about whatever the hell I want. I’m a guy, and guys like sports. Therefore, I may write about it sometimes, but very infrequently. If I were a woman, I’d write about women things, like boobs, menstruation, and, you know, whatever else women talk about – clothes or fashion or hair or whatever.

Furthermore, I’ll have you know that several male readers liked the posts, and gave me some excellent feedback. Since it’s becoming apparent that those of the feminine persuasion are not going to put out for me because of this site, maybe I should switch teams, make this site about strictly sports, and have so much man-love Freddy Mercury would blush.

(Ok. I’m not that desperate. Yet.)

Anyway, ladies, I’ll keep the sports down to a minimum, if you take it easy on the hate mail, and send me some pictures of your boobs.

I don’t think I’m asking for that much.

Love,
Jason

Over the past two nights, I’ve answered every email that I’ve gotten recently that required responding. No, it’s not the coolest way to spend my evenings, but I had really dropped the ball recently, and needed to catch up. Since the beginning of the month, I’ve gotten hundreds and hundreds (seriously) of emails, and I loved and cherished each one, except the one from Ted from Oakland who sent me a picture of his scrotum. I neither loved nor cherished that one, although I did kiss the computer screen when the picture downloaded. But in my defense I had had way too much to drink (two beers) and was very lonely and curious. Moving on…

I figure if you take the time to write to me to tell me about your recent break-up, to give me some of your own personal dealbreakers, to share your favorite Will Ferrell skits, to give me your own sports insights, to give me ideas for posts, to tell me how I rock and/or suck (the most popular), or just to say hello, then I can take the time to write back.

But there is one thing that I can’t do. For some reason, some of you have been sending me stuff to read. Not book suggestions, but stuff (essays, short stories, etc) you’ve written for me to read. I really don’t know why – usually if I read more than a paragraph my head starts to hurt and my vision gets blurry. I’ve learned this with my recent excursion to grad school. I can’t read two sentences without my mind drifting off:

What I’m reading: “Batu received the news that the Great Khan Ugedey had died in Mongolia on December 11, 1241. Mongol politics prevailed over Mongol strategy, and Batu ordered the withdrawal of his whole army from Hungary, through Bulgaria and Moldavia, back to the south Russian steppes.”

What I’m thinking: “God, I fucking love Chinese food. I wish I could go to Dim Sum more often. But it’s really intimidating, since I don’t know what’s going on, with all the Chinese being yelled and everything. It’s good to go with a Chinese person, like Marie. Marie was quite a little piece – probably like 80 pounds, tops. Man, I’d split her in two. Oh yeah, what a sexy lil’ thing, I’d – ” [stops reading to masturbate]

What I’m reading: “In 1200, Bishop Albert found the town of Riga at the mouth of the Dvina. The inhabitants of the region, Lithuanians and Letts, were converted, though with difficulty, to Christianity.”

What I’m thinking: “God, how many more pages do I have left? This sucks. Christ, I really need to get laid. Maybe I should try a personal ad? Uh-oh, look who’s waking up! Let me put this book down for just one – ” [stops reading to masturbate]

The point is, I am not a good reader. I don’t mean that emails should be limited to 250 words or anything, but I mean that you shouldn’t send me separate word documents containing stories you’ve written, or paste these stories or essays into the body of the email, because I can’t read them. Really, I can’t – I just can’t focus for that long.

Aside from that, I am an asshole moron. I don’t know if you guys are looking for comments or what, but I am not very smart. Here’s what my comments would consist of, regardless of whether your work was about the fall of apartheid, Canada’s welfare system, how you got your license, or why girls are better than boys:

Comment #1: “Good, but needs more anal.”
Comment #2: “I don’t understand any of this.”
Comment #3: “So so. Spice it up with some anal.”
Comment #4: “Wait – who’s doing the what now?”
Comment #5: “Sucks. Add a lot more anal, maybe a threesome.”

**********************************

So I don’t mean to sound like a dick, and I’m sure you’re wonderfully talented, but please, leave the essays and short stories for class. Or pay me. Bitch.

In conclusion…

Emails: great – keep them coming
Stories/Essays: not good
Anal: hilarious and good
Me: hungry, and a little tired and cranky, but looking forward to Ray tonight.

NFC East

Home to some of the greatest coaches in football, and my favorite team, the Philadelphia Eagles. After three straight losses in the NFC Championship, the Eagles made an uncharacteristic splash in the free-agent market and acquired Terrell Owens and Jevon Kearse, who both looked excellent in the season opener against the NY Giants. Too bad they still can’t stop the run and I’m currently listed as their third running back.

Five things:

1) I don’t think we’ve seen the last of the McNabb-Owens combo. T.O.’s presence greatly opened up the passing game, and I had an erection every time McNabb dropped back to pass.
2) How can anyone be a NY Giants fan? Their biggest star is a homophobe who so far as been a disappointment in the NFL, their coach is widely considered a dick, their quarterback is an ultra-Christian who is both one of the most annoying and perplexing athletes ever (as in, what the fuck happened to you?). It’s going to be a long year for Giants fans.
3) Bill Parcells, I don’t know if you realize this, but your quarterback is Vinny Testaverde. Is this some sort of joke? And 50 pass attempts? 50? Are you trying to make his arm fall off?
4) Does anyone else not give a shit about Joe Gibbs being back in the NFL? Christ – I turned on ESPN the other day just in time to catch Chris Mortensen blowing him, while Steve Young and TJ gave each other handjobs off to the side. Get over it already.
5) I miss having Arizona in this division.

Predictions:
Philadelphia 12-4
Washington 9-7
Dallas 9-7
NY Giants 5-11

NFC North

The remnants of the old black and blue division. Some very interesting teams: Green Bay is a perennial threat, the Vikes are explosive, Detroit could be interesting, and Chicago, well, the had The Fridge and Sweetness at the same time.

Five things:

1) Did Brian Urlacher say to himself, “Well, my NFL career is going really well and I’m making a lot of money – more than I’ll ever spend. However, I’m still going to endorse every fucking product that exists.” Seriously – how many commercials is this guy in? Is he that hard up for cash? I think I saw him in Soho at Broadway & Houston handing out flyers offering men’s designers shoes at discount prices.
2) Brett Favre just won’t go away. Brett Favre is good. Very good. And I have a weird love/hate thing with him. However, I look forward to the day that the Pack stinks again. I just don’t want anyone in Wisconsin to be happy, since I used to date a girl there, and she cheated on me.
3) Ah Detroit…so much potential. Two problems: Joey Harrington will never take you anywhere, and Charles Rodgers’ bones are made of dry wall. Too bad.
4) Randy Moss is a terrible person. You’d think that the collective will of millions of people wishing he would fail would work. Nope.
5) Is there anything better than watching a Bears-Packers game at Lambeau in mid-December? Very cool.

Predictions:
Minnesota 12-4
Green Bay 10-6
Detroit 9-7
Chicago 4-12

NFC South

Dirty South in the house! What a strange division. You have Michael Vick, but you also have Jake “Man Did I Get Lucky Last Year Because I Really Stink” Delhomme. You have a former Super Bowl champ, and former NFC champ, and yearly chic pick who always blows it, and the “most exciting athlete in sports.” Still, I don’t really care about this division.

Five things:

1) What does Jim Haslett have to do to get fired? Did I miss a week of ESPN in which he and Larry Bowa got tenure? Can someone help me here?
2) Forcing Michael Vick to learn the West Coast Offense is like forcing me to go on a diet: a bad idea, and in the end, four people will die.
3) I am so glad Tampa Bay sucks. I am so glad John Gruden will have a rough year. And no, I’m not bitter.
4) Carolina…nothing tells me you’re going back to the Super Bowl. Let’s chalk last year up to an “everything just came together for us” year. And again, I’m not bitter.
5) “Deuce McAllister” is the coolest name in the world.

Predictions:
Atlanta 10-6
New Orleans 9-7
Carolina 8-8
Tampa Bay 5-11

NFC West

Ladies and gentlemen: the bastard child of NFL realignment. What a boring division. San Fran lost its superstars, St. Louis went from electric to “eh” in two years, the Seahawks are from Seattle, and, oh yeah, the Cardinals. I mean, wow.

Five things:

1) I went to BC. Matt Hasselbeck stunk at BC. Also, he is really bald. Whatever he is taking, I want some of it. Please.
2) How about how far the Niners have fallen? Tim Rattay at the helm, throwing to Cedrick Wilson and Eric Johnson, and passing off to Kevan Barlow. I just got really sad all of a sudden.
3) Marshall Faulk got his mojo jacked by Father Time. Still a very good player, but no longer the stud he once was. He must get sick of hearing fat guys who play fantasy football say “Priest is the new Marshall.”
4) Arizona…wow. They still have a team? And Denny Green is supposed to make them good? Unless Denny Green has wizard-like powers, it’s going to be a long, hot, lonely year in the desert, even with Anquan (hurt) and Larry.
5) I think this division has the weakest fan support in the NFL. There are probably less than one hundred people who consider themselves Seahawks or Cardinals fans. San Fran fans abandoned the team when they lost Jeff Garcia, and there was that big sale at FCUK. St. Louis, I’ll give you a pass.

Predictions:
Seattle 11-5
St. Louis 9-7
Arizona 6-10
San Fran 5-11

Now, onto the playoffs…

AFC

First Round
New England gets home-field, and KC gets the other bye. The wildcards go to Tennessee and Denver. Indy draws Denver, and their offense is too much (even with Champ picking Manning off four times). Baltimore gets Tennessee, and the Titans stack eleven men up front, daring Boller to beat them. Result: Jamal Lewis has 8 yards on 62 carries, Boller is 1-14 for 7 yards, and Steve McNair gets murdered by Ray Lewis in the third quarter, but still finishes with 2 TD’s.

Second Round
Indy goes to KC. Both teams decide to on-side kick after every possession after the first quarter, and Indy pulls out the victory, 86-81. Tennessee goes to New England, where Tom Brady is just much better looking than Steve McNair, and the Pats pull out the close win.

Championship Game
In a rematch of the season opener, Indy comes out strong against a slightly over-confident Pats team. Then Indy realizes that Peyton Manning is their quarterback and subsequently the collapse, and NE comes back to take the victory.

NFC

First Round
Philly gets home-field, and they and Minnesota get the byes. The wildcards go to Green Bay and Washington. Seattle draws Washington, and takes care of business easily, even though Dan Snyder gives Mike Holmgren $800,000 to throw the third quarter . Atlanta gets Green Bay, but Favre shows young Vick how it’s done. Then Vick gets laid by eight strippers at once.

Second Round
Seattle goes to Minnesota and beats an overrated Viking team as Culpepper fumbles eight times and Randy Moss drives over four women during a half-time beef jerky run. To the delight of the Philly fans, Philly trounces GB, I pay for sex, and Brett Favre retires.

Championship Game
Philly fans are salivating, thinking this is finally the year. Then Shaun Alexander runs for 500 years and 5 touchdowns. I kill myself, and whoever is within twenty feet of me, only after burning down three city blocks, a church, and a school.

Super Bowl

New England versus Seattle. Seattle starts out strong, as Holmgren’s first fifteen scripted plays result in ten points. Seattle scores another quick touchdown when Corey Dillon turns the ball over as he stops in mid-run to punch a Seattle defender in the face.

Massholes every where are on the edge of their seat when Tom Brady plays the second half without his helmet on to inspire his teammates with his handsomeness, and NE scores two quick TD’s.

The score remains 17-14 until there are two minutes left and NE is driving down the field. They get stalled around the Seahawk’s 30, and with time winding down the bring in their money kicker, Adam Vinatieri. The kick goes up, and with time expiring, sails wide right, because you just can’t have that many happy endings.

The Seattle Seahawks are the Super Bowl Champions. All fourteen Seahawks fans celebrate, and immediately set up a chat room to discuss the game and the roll-out of the newest Windows product. From hell, I start crying, because I know that there are no fans more deserving of a championship than those in Philadelphia, and I know it’s not going to happen for a long time.

[Warning: if you don't like sports, stop reading and come back tomorrow. I needed to get some shit off on my chest, so I wrote a post about how I have a crush on my roommate Brian. But then I scrapped that, and decided to be overly manly and wrote about sports. So there.]

I don’t often write about sports. I’m not really sure why, since I love sports. If I didn’t have football, baseball, basketball, and hockey (in that order), I would certainly become a murderer, since I would have more time on my hands than I’d know what to do with, and would naturally focus my energy on destroying those around me, before ultimately destroying myself after an eight-day, four-night cocaine-fueled hijacking spree through the Rocky Mountain region. There’s no doubt in my mind that when I was eventually shot dead by the Colorado State Police, I would NOT have pants on. No way.

Anyway, the thing is, in many ways, I hate sports. Watching a game in which a team I have a vested interest in is playing is usually a miserable experience. This is especially true of the Philadelphia Eagles. Football is definitely my favorite sport to watch, but come Sunday afternoons when the Eagles are on, you wouldn’t know that if you saw me. Spending three hours of your afternoon trapped in a windowless apartment with a massive hangover, sitting on the edge of your seat crippled with anxiety as you swear and sweat your way through a game, well, it’s really not that fun.

Since I am your token unathletic fat kid who may or may not have given a handjob to a Lhasa Apso in fourth grade, I’ve taken quite a shine to fantasy sports. Fantasy sports, for those unfamiliar with them, allow a person to be the general manager of his own fake team, by drafting players, trading players, deciding which players to play, etc, all the while accumulating the statistics for his/her fake team of the real-life players. Usually a bunch of buddies get together and create a league, in which the talk shit about each other and each others’ girlfriends (or lack thereof) and brag/bitch about their jobs and ask when other members of the league are finally going to come out of the closet.

The result of playing fantasy sports? A marked increase in each participant’s interest in sports. Prior to playing fantasy baseball, I would care very little if Shawn Chacon got a save in this week’s Rockies game. Now, whether or not Shawn Chacon gets that save determines whether or not I am going to make dinner for my roommates or attack my roommate Ben in his sleep with a hammer because he drank the last of my gatorade.

Where am I going with this? I’m am trying to brace you all for the greatest NFL predictions in the history of mankind. I know, I know – the NFL season started last week, but I’m only finally getting around to this now. I have a lot going on, what with, um, all the stuff I do at work and, um, all the volunteer work I perform.

One caveat: I’m going to post records, but they will be mathematically inaccurate. Meaning, if you think I’m going to sit here and make sure that all the records even out to .500, well, you’re sadly mistaken. Jerkoff.

AFC East

Home to the reigning Super Bowl champs, the New England Patriots. I’m glad they won last year, because everyone knows how much I love Massholes and how I live to see them happy. But with two Super Bowl victories in three years, that whining about the Red Sox is getting less and less understandable. At any rate, five things you need to know about this division:

1) Tom Brady is dreamy.
2) Chad Pennington sounds dumber than a retard after a bottle of Jack, but was actually a Rhodes Scholar finalist.
3) Buffalo is cold and Drew Bledsoe is a douche.
4) Ricky Williams abandoned his team in Miami because he’d rather do drugs.
5) Miami will get the first pick in next year’s draft.

Predictions:
New England 12-4
NY Jets 9-7
Buffalo 5-11
Miami 3-13

AFC North

If one were to pick a list of four cities in the US I’d rather eat my own shit for life than live in, this is the list (apologies to readers in those cities). Subsequently, I have the same level of interest as living in these cities as I do about their footballs teams.

Five things you need to know:

1) Ray Lewis murdered a guy. This is not a joke.
2) Jeff Garcia, even if he were to win the next five Super Bowls, will forever been known as “that gay quarterback.”
3) Hey John Kitna, good job being Comeback Player of the Year and leading the Bengals back to respectability. Now you can have the bestest seat on the bench.
4) Is anyone else tired of the Bill Cowher act? We get it – you have a moustache and you yell. Guess what? Your team stinks.
5) Jamal Lewis may go to prison for a long, long time. This is not a joke.

Predictions:
Baltimore 10-6
Cleveland 7-9
Cincinnati 6-10
Pittsburgh 5-11

AFC South

Now we’re cooking. We’ve got two great teams in the Titans and Colts led by last year’s co-MVP’s, and two teams that I’d rather watch my parents have sex than watch play against each other in Jacksonville and Houston.

Five things:

1) Peyton Manning definitely has a vagina.
2) Steve McNair could definitely beat me in a fight.
3) Byron Leftwich definitely has the name of seventeenth century British baron, not a 24 year-old black dude.
4) David Carr will definitely never be a winner.
5) Aside from Ray Lewis, the last dude I’d ever want to meet in a dark alley at 4am after too much to drink is Edge (have you fucking seen that guy?).

Predictions:
Indianapolis 11-5
Tennesse 11-5
Houston 8-8
Jacksonville 6-10

AFC West

A stellar division, with some very enjoyable football teams. As a side note, how could Eli Manning turn down SD for NYC (and yes, I know the Sports Guy talked about this)? I know NYC is cool, but if I’m a star athlete and can get any girl I want, I’m going to be dead in two months from seven different STD’s. But before I died, I would much rather be in San Diego than New York City (and he’s probably not even in NYC, and is instead somewhere in NJ – ugh).

Five things:

1) If given the job full-time, I’m pretty certain I could rush for about 800 yards in Denver’s offense.
2) Can anyone appreciate how sick LaDanian is? He caught 100 passes last year! Holy shit balls!
3) While we’re at it – “Hi, I’m Priest Holmes, Fantasy Football God.” On the other hand, when he’s getting laid, do women scream about, “Oh give it to me Priest! Fuck me Priest!” I know that’s what I screamed in 1989, but the circumstances were a little different.
4) Rich Gannon went to my high school, and I really hope he gets good again.
5) I wish I knew Al Davis personally, and I could bring him out to bars with me. Now that’d be some good times.

Predictions:

Kansas City 11-5
Denver 10-6
Oakland 6-10
San Diego 6-10

Tomorrow, we’ll tackle the NFC and the playoffs.

1) Saturday Night Live – The Best of Will Ferrell – Volume 2
Still no Neil Diamond skit, which is a travesty on par with the break-up of Wham! or the fact that Rod Stewart has still not been knighted by the British crown, but pretty fucking hilarious nonetheless. It includes the Terry Ganter karate skit at the end of the DVD, which one night made me laugh harder than I ever have in my life (the fact that I had smoked $40 worth of pot didn’t hurt either).

2) Ray Lamontagne “Trouble”
I pimped Ray a while ago, and saw him a few months back, but finally his cd “Trouble” is released today.

Get this cd. Trust me. It’s some really, really good shit. Rolling Stone calls him “the backwoods Van Morrison.” I call him “a great performer with a cool beard.” This is one of the reasons why I don’t work for Rolling Stone.

Also, for those in NYC, he’s appearing at the Housing Works Used Book Cafe on Crosby Street in Soho. Tickets are $15 are still available and can be purchased by phone. If you’re looking for a good way to spend your Thursday night, this is it. I’ve been there for readings (god I am so fucking cultured) but never for a musical performance, but it’s a pretty cool place.

And if you don’t want to go for Ray, hell, I’ll be there! Feel free to come by to meet me and feel an unconscionable level of disappointment, as I try but fail to make clever jokes and observations, and sweat profusely while doing so! Watch me squirm as I try to fill our awkward silences with jokes about such unfunny things as cancer and genocide, and sweat even more! And just when you didn’t think it couldn’t get any more awkward, be displeased and uncomfortable when at the end of the night I say to you (regardless of your sex), “So, do you wanna give me a handjob or what? I know of a Wendy’s nearby that has a fairly clean restroom, and afterwards I can grab a Junior Bacon Cheeseburger and a Frosty.”

These are the days of our lives my friends. The days of our lives.

[A series of messages to those I affected during my weekend in Boston]

Everyone I didn’t call while in Boston,

I’m sorry. I really am. But you know that I’m not very good with that whole “calling” thing, and my phone didn’t have reception all weekend, because Sprint is the worst company in the history of America. I think if you gave me enough cocaine I could build a better company in forty-eight hours with a hanger, some peanut butter, scotch tape, and a lock of hair from a virgin and it would have much better reception than Sprint.

Also, I was drunk pretty much the whole time I was in Boston. I don’t think an hour passed from the moment I got off the sex bus to the moment I got back on that I wasn’t drinking something alcoholic, in most cases from a can. Or a bottle. Or from a leaky zip-lock bag.

I firmly believe that because of these reasons I should be absolved of any responsibility for my lack of effort to hang out with you all. Sure, you may talk behind my back or send me angry emails calling me a bad friend, but you can take comfort in the fact that I had a miserable Sunday, hungover as a mother fucker, shaking and sweating, rocking my vampire look*, as my body was yelling, “Hey, we haven’t had a Busch Light in over two hours – what the fuck is going on? Get on it chubby!” and having conversations with my friends like:

Me: “For some reason, my left eye really hurts.”
My buddy Joe: “That’s because Mark hit you in the eye with that baby tomato. He fucking nailed you. Don’t you remember?”
Me: [light bulb going off] “Oh yeah…what a dick.”
Joe: “Yeah, and then you tried to stab him with a fork, but you missed and you guys fell into the table and knocked all the food over, then you started crying.”
Me: “Yeah. I’m pretty sweet.”

And

Me: [walking out of bathroom after morning piss] “That’s kinda weird. I don’t have any pubes any more.”
My buddy Bill: “Yeah, that was awesome last night.”
Me: “What do you mean?”
Bill: “You know, last night at the tailgate when you said you’d shave your pubes if Don gave you the last hot dog and when he did we went back to your brother’s dorm and you actually did it. And then you started crying.”
Me: “I don’t remember that.”
Bill: “Trust me, it was awesome.”
Me: “Well, it sounds pretty fucking awesome. Besides, they’ll grow back, and now my bird looks huge and juvenile at the same time!”
Bill: “Nice.” [Bill and I high-five]

Anyway, I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you next time. I promise. For real.

[*My friends joke that I look like a vampire when I'm hungover: my skin gets as pale as a sheet of paper, and my lips turn dark red, almost maroon. Not my finest look.]

***********************************

Hot girl from The Harp on Friday night whose names escapes me,

I wanted to thank you for talking to me at the bar and letting me practice my “game” on you. You made me look very cool in front of my friends, because it is not often that I talk to hot girls at bars, as instead I spend my time talking to dudes, the bartender, and myself (after enough drinks), and usually we talk about sports, boobs, and minorities.

I wish you didn’t have a boyfriend, but since you do, I hope he dies. Well, I shouldn’t say that, because it’s not like you said to me, “You know, I really would go home with you right now, but I have a boyfriend.” If you had said that, I would certainly be in Suffolk County right now, awaiting arraignment for murder two.

But thanks again. And you have honey in your hips. That’s the highest compliment I can possibly give. Trust me.

Come to NYC. We can take walks in Central Park, got to the top of the Empire State Building, and maybe fool around a little bit. It’ll be fun (for me).

***********************************

Steph,

I’m sorry that I repeatedly called you while drunk. Please know that I didn’t do this to try to seduce you, since that’d be weird, since I made out with your sister a few times. I did so only to a) get you to come hang out and have a beer; and b) bring some of your friends for me to hit on. So you can see I did this for your benefit and your benefit only.

I’m sorry that I called ten times between 1am and 2am and had the following conversation with you, only learning the very last time that you were asleep, and had been asleep for some time, and I kept waking you up:

Me: [finishing beer #82] “Steph, can you hear me? It’s Jason.”
Steph: [through terrible reception] “Taslalkh…akahunan…aigapingapni…”
Me: “Listen, we’re in my brother’s mod. It’s 15c. Come down and bring some friends.”
Steph: [more bad reception] “Iofhnokv…oiangoiaengaih…aklsfjwgfaoij.”
Me: “I’ll see you soon, ok? 15c.”

My bad. But I still would like to meet some of your friends. Please have them email me.

Thank you. I owe you one.

***********************************

My brother and all his friends who are currently seniors,

One word: semen. Five words: enjoy college while you can.

Because it’s all downhill from the moment you pack your shit in your parents’ car and drive away from that school. Welcome to a world of responsibility, in which drinking until 4am on a random Tuesday is no longer consider “cool” and a “good time”, but rather “an indicator of alcoholism” and “the first step to losing your job.” A world in which getting a freshman chick drunk and bringing her back to your place to take pictures of her when’s she passed out isn’t “awesome” but “illegal.” A world in which you have to wake up every day and doing something you dislike for eight hours (sometimes more), all the while knowing that this is what the rest of your life is going to be like.

[Good lord – now I'm depressed.]

The point: have a great fucking time. Drink at least one hundred beers a week, because you don’t have anything better to do. Try to hook up every time you go out, because you’ll never be around so many drunk, consequence-free women. Destroy your place, because you can only get in trouble with housing, not the law.

God I wish I was in college. Can I go back and get a BA again? Is that possible? Would it be weird to have on my resume:

Boston College, Class of 2001, Bachelor of Arts in History
Boston College, Class of 2008, Bachelor of Arts in History and Communications (Communications being the biggest joke major in the history of majors)

I think I should look into this.

[I think this is going to work. The wireless on this bus is very slow. And "Alex and Emma" and "Chocolat"? Really? C'mon!]

In my life, I have made a goodly amount of bad decisions. For example:

Decision: Leaving the Lower East Side to move to the Upper East Side.
Result: Three months (so far) in a neighborhood devoid of any character or coolness, but with plenty of little dogs, disgustingly happy young couples, and old people.
Lesson: I am an asshole who is easily manipulated by shiny things, like his own bathroom, central air conditioning, and doormen in funny uniforms.

Decision: Not cheating on girlfriend when at Oktoberfest in Munich.
Result: Turned down opportunity to partake in easy, drunken European sex and despite this much to my surprise was dumped basically as I got off the plane, thus wasting a week of sexual debauchery with a slew of Polish, Czech, German, and Italian girls who had no idea what a terrible person and impotent man I actually am.
Lesson: Cheat whenever you have the chance, because you’re probably going to get dumped anyway.

Decision: Shaving chest in 2000.
Result: Having to shave chest every morning since, as chest hair grows one to one and a half inches every night in sleep.
Lesson: Do not shave what is not supposed to be shaved. Seriously. Don’t fuck with this.

I think now we can add another to the list: the decision to go back to school.

I wrote about grad school before, and at the time I was very happy. This is because when I went to the school to pay my bill, I saw that the campus (I use the term “campus” roughly, since it’s in the Upper East Side of Manhattan) was crawling with attractive female undergrads, many of whom seemed impressionable, or at least willing to show a little skin to a moderately-incomed and somewhat successful grad student/internet quasi-celebrity.

I maintained this positive attitude when I went into my first class, “Russia to the 20th Century.” Some of you old school readers know that I am obsessed with Russia, for no apparent reason other than the sexy, sexy accent. I never had taken a class in Russian history before, but since leaving college I’ve read a few books and figured I’d give this one a try.

Well.

The good news is that there are some attractive women in the class and the material is interesting.

The bad news is that the professor is about 160 years old and completely bat-shit.

I don’t mind old professors. In fact, I usually like them. I’ve always had a special affinity for that old school, “This is way I’ve been doing it for years, because it works damn it!” style of teaching.

But this guy – wow. He’s an old guy, with a very slow manner, speaking and moving very deliberately. He started the class by handing out the syllabus, which in the lower left corner was dated, “01/27/81″.

Professor Old made this syllabus when I was one and a half. And he’s still using it.

That’s fine, I thought to myself. Sure, it’s pretty funny, but hey – I’m not going to test his knowledge. And it’s ok that the three texts were using for the course each had their last print run in 1961, when my dad was in first grade. That’s ok too. After all, he’s not going to tell me which is the best synonym for beating off, so I’m not going to tell him what texts to use.

But as we got more into the class, well, hilarity ensued. He told us that he didn’t want any eating or drinking in the class, which is understandable. But he went on about this for fifteen minutes, explaining in his slow, monotonous manner that, “The building…like much of…New York City…is infested…with rodents” and “the carpet…is a repository…for dirt…and food particles…which attract vermin…which is why…we also have…a tremendous insect problem…in this building.”

Mmm…nothing like insects and vermin to get you all settled in and ready to learn! We students sat uncomfortably, shooting glances at each other, using our eyes to say, “What the fuck is this guy talking about?” Well, that’s what most were using their eyes to say; I was saying, “I want to take you in the pooper” with my eyes (and crotch).

The highlight came when he went up to the map to show us where Kiev was. That would have been fine, but one problem: he didn’t know where Kiev was. Well, at least not right away:

Professor Old: [standing in front of map] “The center of Kievan Rus was Kiev, which is located…[raising hand to point to Kiev, stumbling] Which is located…[hand still dangling in front of the map, he stops speaking for a good eight seconds, as the students' eyes widen and a few start having a panic attack] Kiev is located…[hand is in front of map, searching for Kiev, finally finding it after a total of twenty seconds in front of the map] right here.”

[Class breathes a collective sigh of relief]

Then he spent the next two hours droning on: “The Verangeans…sailed from Scandinavia…in the north east…in the ninth century…” as the whole class quickly scribbled down every word.

But I’m going to keep the class, because at least the reading is enjoyable. There’s only a mid-term and a final in the class too. When I heard this, part of me was like, “Awesome! No papers!” Then another part of me was like, “I wonder what it would be like to blow a guy?” Then still another part of me was like, “Isn’t the point of graduate study to refine your researching and writing ability? How can we do so without a research assignment?”

I really shouldn’t complain. But it’s just my nature.

My second class is Intro to Legal History, or should I say, was Legal History. I wasn’t very interested in it, but I wanted to take two classes, and this was only one open.

(How did this post get so long? Jesus.)

This class, unlike the Russian one, had many adults in it. One of them was actually a lawyer. He/she didn’t make him/herself known, but I’m guessing it was the bitch who echoed every thing the professor said under her breath. It was very annoying…she quietly was finishing his sentences and answering the other students questions. It made me want to stab her in the fucking throat with my pen, but instead I thought about boobies and I calmed down.

Our first assignment was about two-hundred of pages of reading, which of course I waited until the night before to start. But as I was reading this terribly boring shit, I had an epiphany. I thought to myself, “What the hell am I doing? I am a grown man! I have a job, a nice apartment, and hours upon hours of the finest free pornography the internet has to offer downloaded on my computer! I don’t have to read this shit unless I want to!” And I didn’t.

So I dropped the class. I learned something very important at a very young age: “If at first you don’t succeed, stop wasting your fucking time, quit, and go do something else.”

The best part was that even though we only had one class, I only get half of my money back. Which is good, because it’s not like I could have used that $400 or anything. On Tuesday night I robbed my local Taco Bell at gun-point for $88, which I spent at the very same store two hours later on the mother of all Taco Bell orders, yet my school just extorted me out of $400. Sweet.

Decision: Going to grad school.
Result: Significant loss of money, limited intellectual stimulation, having to do “school work” for the first time since, well, ever.
Lesson: I really need a fucking hobby. Really badly.

[Have a good weekend.]

I’m not sure if there will be a post today (aside from this one, jerkoff). The reason is that I’m actually off today, currently anxiously awaiting the arrival of a delicious bacon, egg & cheese bagel, getting ready to travel to Boston.

However, I am going to Boston via Limoliner, or as my friend John calls it, the “sex bus” (I’m not sure why, since there’s no sex on the bus, just business people on their computers and cell phones, and some douchebag [me] listening to his I-Pod with his eyes closed, mouthing the words to Marvin Gaye songs as sensually as he possibly can).

Anyway, the bus is supposed to have wireless internet. If I can figure this out and get this wireless, then there will be a post. If not, then I got nothing for you.

Just a heads up. Because I love you. If you don’t hear from me again, have a great weekend and have sex. Do it because you can, and I can’t. And cherish it, because one day you might wake up and not have sex again for a long, long, long, long time, and it’ll make you so crazy that you’ll start a website about your lack of getting laid (among other things), because you lack of lovin’ makes you so delusional that you think, “Yes, maybe if I establish myself as an internet superstar, women will want to sleep with me” when all women want are guys with muscles, guys with money, and, I don’t know – NOT internet quasi-celebrities.

Ok, that’s enough. I have to fucking pack. Guess I should have done this last night, instead of getting wasted by myself. Asshole.

The following email comes from Chera of Mechanicsburg, PA. For some reason, I got really into this (I have no idea why). She writes:

In the August issue of Cosmo they have an interesting article about “Sex Tips from Men”. As a man with many words, views and comments, I am interested on your take… I didn’t notice anyone of them mentioning BBQ, hot dogs or sundae smothered on the ladies bodies so I was safe to assume that you were not one of those surveyed.

Excellent topic for discussion. Like I said, I got way too into this. Below I’ve taken the sex tip given by a man to Cosmo, and given my take on it.

Here goes:

“I love when you are cuddling next to me, completely nude, and I feel the softness of your pubic hair on my hip.”
- Oh jesus – a little graphic, eh? So that’s what kinda party this is? Alright, bring it on.

“If I’m sitting in a chair and zoning out, come on over and straddle me. Your body in my lap will perk me right up.”
- Really? You’re kidding me! A woman sitting on my lap is a good thing? Is that why I spend 18% of my yearly income at titty bars? Quick, call CNN!

“I love when a girl gives me that God-I-want-you gaze, especially if she shifts her eyes downward after a few seconds, then glances back up one more time.”
- Douchebag. What, are we in the movies or something? (Maybe this is jealousy, as any “I want you” gaze directed at has come from blood-shot cracked out/drunken eyes of a hobo).

“When you give me a hello kiss after a long day at work, don’t hesitate to grab my package. It’s like Hel-lo…”
- Ok, that works.

“Be playfully aggressive. Throw me against the wall and go at it — like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct.”
- Again, another good one. You’d better be strong though, because I am pretty fat.

“When you grab my arms, hold ‘em over my head and lick around my armpits. I’m putty.”
- I think I just threw up.

“Instead of just diving right into sex, spread a bedsheet between us and grind over me. The heat from your body and the softness of the fabric feels incredible.”
- Dude, you gay?

“Dribble some sparkling wine over my nipples and lick it off slowly.”
- Or I could just drink it. And I wouldn’t lick it off my chest unless you want a mouthful of hair with that sparkling wine. Just an FYI.

“Run your tongue around the perimeter of my belly button. The fact that you’re just inches from my most sensitive spot has me drooling with anticipation.”
- I’m not “drooling with anticipation” when a woman does this. I’m thinking, “This poor girl. God, she is really fucked up. How many cosmos did she have?”

“Lightly caress the sensitive webbing between my thumb and forefinger. It’s a lusty pressure point.”
- Yeah…um, I’d rather take a blow job personally, but whatever works for you.

“Getting naked with the lights on is underrated. A big thrill of sex is fully exposing ourselves to each other.”
- I guess this depends on who you are having sex with. I usually keep the lights off, and keep my partner blindfolded. Just to be safe.

“Finger sucking is almost as good as sucking me down below. And here you can use your teeth.”
- I respectfully disagree. Asshole.

“Spell out naughty messages across my entire body…my legs, arms, chest. If I guess right, you act out the message.”
- Doesn’t that seem like a lot of work? When I’m having sex, it’s usually when I’m so drunk I can barely work a toilet, let alone guess dirty messages written on my body. Also, whatever a woman would spell out I’d guess the same thing: “anal.”

“After sex, trace your nails over my inner thigh. You have no idea how much it preps me for round two.”
- By “round two” I’m assuming we mean “turkey sandwich, heavy on the mayo” right?

“I really like to concentrate on the act of sex and save the intense kissing for before and even after.”
- Here’s what I am concentrating on: 1) “I can’t believe I’m having sex right now!” and 2) “I’d really like some lo mein after this.”

“When we’re changing positions, give me an oral sex break. It lasts mere seconds, but it’s unbelievable.”
- There we go – finally another good one.

“When I’m thrusting, yell, “More, More!” It’s such an ego stroke.”
- I also like when women yell, “I know you’re just on a gaining cycle right now!” or “Take me now, you internet quasi-celebrity!”

“When I’m about to reach the brink, tell me to pull out. Then bring me to release in your mouth.”
- Good lord I am blushing right now.

“Run the condom packet down the trail between my stomach and privates. It’s a terrible tease that feels great.”
- Condoms? Who said anything about condoms? What the fuck?

“Squeeze my biceps and triceps while we’re doing it missionary-style. It makes me feel like a strong, macho man.”
- Don’t do this to me. I’d probably say, “Um, yeah, I’m going to start going to the gym again next week.”

“Who says that men don’t like after-play? Once I’ve come, run your hands over my body lightly… definitely lightly.”
- Then go get me a pizza.

“Moaning is great, but when you talk dirty and really let me know what I’m doing to turn you on, that really turns me on. It not only fills me in on what you love most, but it also just sounds so damn hot.”
- Talking dirty is hard. My steez:

Girl: “Tell me what you like.”
Me: “Um, everything? You know, whatever really. It all works for me.”

or

Girl: “I really want to fuck you.”
Me: “Um, I believe the feeling is mutual. Meaning, I really want to have sex with you as well.”

[Editor's Note: These exchanges are fictional. Obviously.]

“The next time you’re going down, go way down. Suck my toes and massage the soles of my feet.”
- I can’t express the horror I’m feeling right now.

“Explore the “tain’t,” which is slang for that little patch of skin below my testicles. You know, “tain’t his arse, tain’t his balls.” Apply pressure there with your fingers, and I’ll be eternally grateful.”
- Alternatively known as the grundel or choat (also spelled choata, choad, or choada), this deserves its own post. This is like the male g-spot. Unreal.

“Go down on me in the shower. There’s nothing like the feeling of a warm mouth around me while the warm water’s rushing down.”
- Oh yeah? Ever drink fifty Miller Lites and have a good bowl of French Onion soup? It’s comparable.

“Try sticking my penis through the hole of a glazed doughnut. Then nibble around it, stopping to suck me once in a while. The sugar beads from your mouth will tingle on my tip.”
- Wait a minute – did I write this one? On second thought, I wouldn’t have written this, since I think it’s a bad idea, as I would most certainly steal the doughnut and eat it myself. Then, I’d probably like it so much that I’d abandon the sex altogether to go get some more.

God I fucking love doughnuts.

“Sip champagne, then take each of my testicles into your mouth. Makes me tingle like crazy!”
- I wonder if the same applies to Budweiser…

“A sexual act is 10 times hotter when we’re watching porn, and they’re doing the same thing onscreen.”
- The last three tips have involved booze, doughnuts, and porn. Now we’re getting somewhere.

“Take your panties off, throw them in the freezer, then caress my body with them. Don’t laugh. It’s actually awesome.”
- But please, keep them away from my ice cream and vodka. Please.

“In a cab, climb onto my lap (facing me), then stick your left leg over my shoulder and your right leg out the window. It’s a little awkward, but it feels so good, we won’t care.”
- Your girlfriend is a whore.

Does she have a sister with low self-esteem?

I love your emails. I really do. They’re pretty much the only thing that keeps me going, as I have no constructive habits, no cool friends, and certainly no girlfriend. I have your emails, and maybe an occasional woman I can stare at on the subway. Oh, and drugs. I have those too.

The other day I was feeling down and was about to take out a full bottle of Vicodin to end it all, but then I thought, “No, I can’t leave my readers like this. Since I get death threats when I only post once a day or post something crappy, if I killed myself and never posted again they would probably exhume my corpse, stick it in a chair, parade it around the city as people threw mozzarella sticks at it. Then they’d sit it on the top of a hill, where men of all ages would line up to piss on it, while all my ex-girlfriends would be getting railed by eight dudes at once while everyone cheered them on.”

Still, I took the Vicodin. Turns out my roommate Brian had taken the pills and sold them on the black market, replacing them with jelly beans. So that’s why I’m here today.

Anyway, onto the emails. This first email comes from Keith Owen from Wallingford, CT:

[Your site] is some of the most time consuming enjoyable drivel I have ever read. When I get fired within the next couple of weeks, I will have you to thank, as I sit here with Pepsi flying out of my nose every so often while I read your site.

We are a generation of office workers who would rather surf for porn and then write about it than actually work…and I think with your quasi-celebrity status, you are just the man to lead us into battle. I’m not really sure who the battle would be against, and we would most assuredly lose because of our indifference and laziness toward anything and everything…I’m not sure where I’m going with this anymore.

Anyways, good shit…keep it up…I hate my job anyways.
-Keith

(By the way, that friend that told me about your site, she has nice voluptuous boobs, I would know, I dated her for 4 years. I can hook that up. Bear in mind, if we ever became friends, I would win every argument)

I would gladly lead us into battle, but will do so on one condition only: we have some sort of happy hour afterward. Or at least a drink special. And, as leader, it’d be nice if I could drink for free.

And as far as your friend, my email address is in the box on the upper right. And since I don’t have much interest in losing every argument you and I have for the rest of our lives, this will be my last piece of correspondence to you. Thank you.

*****************************************

Next, Pepe from New Haven, CT chimes in about my post of Tuesday:

Doesn’t this contradict your theory about how the worse you treat a woman, the more they will like you? It seems that this dude just secured himself all the sex he could ever want for all eternity. And that’s more than you can say. Not a bad move if you ask me. Now excuse me, I’m going to go to the gym and shoot that chick who likes to stretch a lot…

Um, ok, you got me. I should point out that when I made that post on Tuesday, I had smoked a joint before work, and I obviously can’t be held responsible for anything I do high. But good observations – now if only the rest of you were as smart as Pepe.

*****************************************

Some of you send me some pretty funny stuff, but recently I got something that really made me laugh out loud. A Woman Who Prefers To Remain Anonymous from Arlington, VA (you’ll probably figure out why in a second) writes:

My mother works in a dentist’s office and is constantly trying to hook me up with patients. She even told me about a really cute guy who saw my picture and thinks I am very pretty, but he has AIDS. I don’t if it’s worse that your parents think you are gay or that mine would rather see me dead in a few years, rather than being alone.

Wow. I mean, just when I thought I couldn’t take my mom asking me if I’ve met someone anymore, WWPTRA goes and blows me out of the water. All I can say is good luck, and godspeed.

Maybe we should start dating? You know, to kill to birds with one stone?

[Part 2 to come shortly]

I know, I stink. You’ve been checking my site, and I haven’t been holding up my end of the bargain. I don’t mean to make excuses, but yesterday was very busy, and we had those technical difficulties today (maybe you could tell because I posted the same entry ten times), and now I’m so sad, I just want to go home and cry (and masturbate).

But I promise, I’ll make it up to you. Tomorrow, there will be such glorious posts, you won’t even know what to do with yourself. Seriously, you’ll probably get so excited, you’ll commit a crime.

And anyone who knows me knows that I don’t make promises I can’t keep. Well, that’s not true; I make promises I can’t keep all the time.

But this time is different. I promise I’m going to be a better man, starting tomorrow.

Trust me.

(And I don’t mean that in the “Trust me – I’m sterile, so we don’t need to wear a condom” type of way)

“What the fuck? I will fucking strangle you, asshole!” says commuter Jason Mulgrew

When I woke up this morning, it was raining. When I got to the subway, I learned that this apparently “super” rain somehow managed to destroy the entire NYC transit system.

I am so pissed off right now, I don’t know where to begin. Because of problems from the rain, it took me two hours to get into work this morning. It normally takes 45 minutes.

My biggest question is: why? Did I miss something? Did a hurricane hit the greater New York area last night? It wasn’t even raining that hard when I woke up, and it’s since stopped. So what happened to essentially bring mass transit to a halt in the largest city in the US?

Not only was the commute long, but the trains were packed, and people were very, very angry. I overheard one guy say, “This is the worst day of commuting I’ve had in my twelve years of living in New York City.” This means something, especially since this city has survived a blackout and one of the biggest terrorist attacks in history. At one station, I tried to switch trains, hoping another subway line would be better. I found that not only was the platform packed with people, but the stairways leading to the platform were packed as well. Unbelievable.

I never thought I’d look at another human being and think, “So help me god, if you don’t let me on this train, I will murder you with my bare hands and fucking eat you right here in front of all these people.” I really think this should be a part of training for US Special Forces. Just before going into battle, they should load about 60 on them onto a subway car, make it go four stops (a half mile) in 45 minutes, all the while have people pushing, shoving, and grunting as they move in and out of the car. Then, let them out of the car, give them guns, and just let them go out. We would have the greatest empire the world has ever seen if we did this.

I’m still at a loss. I don’t know if the trains are allergic to rain, or they’re made of suede, or whatever, because they couldn’t function properly in what seemed to be standard rainfall.

At any rate, my morning is ruined. I was supposed to be here at 9. I got here at 10:35.

I dare anyone to come into my office and ask me for something. Because I will attack. And you don’t want that.

[FYI: And now blogger is having techinical difficulties. I've been trying to post this since about 10:50, and it ain't working. Real fucking sweet. Worst day ever.]

This is a pretty interesting article, and by “interesting” I mean, “Holy fucking shit.”

My favorite line: “This does not mean the relationship has irretrievably broken down.”

Um, dude, I’m pretty sure it does mean that.  Because, you know, they’re dead.  And even if they’re together in the after life, I’m pretty sure she’d break up with him in heaven (or wherever), because, you know, he shot and killed her and all.  I could see her forgiving him for lying, or cheating, but my limited experience with women has taught me that they’re going to be really pissed at you if you shoot and kill them. 

Just an FYI.

God, I am so fucking exhausted.

And it’s not because I went to the gym this morning, or went for a brisk run in Central Park before work, or got up early to go volunteer at my local soup kitchen.

It’s because I got drunk last night.

And it was fucking glorious.

My friend Abby had a “I quit my job so yay for me” party last night at a cool bar in Soho. My roommate Brian joined me at this party, because, well, it was at a bar, and bars have booze, and Brian loves him some booze.

This party had all sorts of wonderful people in attendance: Abby, the estimable Ericka, Don Fiedler of Slack LaLane and his lovely girlfriend, Irene, among others. I also had the opportunity to meet some readers, Carolyn, Kerri, and Steve.

Meeting Carolyn and Kerri (and Steve) was an epiphany for me, as it gave me great succor to see that not all of my readers are either a) stoners; b) unemployed; c) ugly; or d) morbidly obese (not that I have anything against those people; I am a, c, and d, and it’s only a matter of time for b).

Two things about this meeting:

1) I need to clear something up: I can date girls who smoke. I wrote that I couldn’t marry a woman who smokes. This doesn’t mean I can’t date a woman who smokes. Please read the language more carefully. Carolyn said something like, “It’s too bad you don’t date girls who smoke, because we both smoke.”

At that point, as Carolyn is attractive, I was ready to retract everything I had ever written, said, felt, or thought and sell my infant cousin into slave labor to prove that I am ready, willing, and able to date a girl who smokes. Shit, if she’s hot enough, I’ll date a girl that’s a murdering, cannibalizing, Nazi-sympathizer who has a dick.

Whoa – sorry – I didn’t mean to write that “has a dick” part. Damn.

Anyway, so really, it doesn’t matter. Forget all the stuff I wrote about who I can or can’t marry or whatever. I’ll take anything. Please help. Please.

2) Kerri’s first words after meeting me were “You’re not, like, obese.”

This echoes a sentiment expressed via email by Jennifer Perkins, of Ann Arbor, MI:

Hello,

I have been reading your website all day today at work and I have to say that it is pretty damn funny. I have a question though – when you make fun of yourself are you like being serious or do you like really think that about yourself? I looked at your friendster profile and I have to say that you aren’t bad looking and you’re not like totally fat. Anyway I was just curious.

- Jennifer

“You’re not, like, obese” and “You’re not like totally fat” have to be the two greatest compliments I have ever received. So therefore, I am formally inviting Jennifer, Kerri, and Carolyn to move in with me – this weekend. Give me a call as soon as you read this, because we have to rent the moving van as soon as possible. I guess this means I’m going to have to change my sheets, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make as long as you all promise me that we’ll live in a gorgeous and Bacchanalian foursome for the rest of our lives (well, until I die at 27 from a pork overdose).

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But I was proud of myself: knowing that I had a meeting “first thing” this morning, I kept my composure, drank at a steady pace, and still had a good time and got a nice drunk on. I managed to make it home by about 1:30 or so, and ate two slices of pizza in under thirty seconds.

Brian, however, was not so lucky.

Brian recently got a job in at celebrity news show as an associate producer. This is huge news for him, because now he can tell women he’s a producer on a TV show, when really all he does at work is send me emails like, “God, I can’t wait to get fucked up this weekend” or “God, I am so fucking hungover.”

Brian’s been reporting to work at 6am, and finishing at 4pm. So, during the week, he has to get up at 4:45 in the morning to go to work. Therefore, he usually doesn’t go out during the week.

Well, last night he went out. And this morning, instead of waking up at 4:45am, he woke up at 9. Ouch.

He had eleven missed class on his cell phone, and we had three messages on our land-line. The first was from his receptionist:

“Hi Brian this is Linda. I’m just calling to see where you are because you were due in at 6 and now it’s 7:30. Please call when you can.”

The second was from his boss:

“Brian, Tom here. I’m wondering, frankly, where you are. It’s 8:15. Call immediately.”

The third was from his friend and co-worker Tina:

[whispering] “Brian, please call me as soon as you get this. I’m worried about you. What’s wrong and where are you?”

Fortunately, Brian made it into work, but the three-year contract he was supposed to sign to work for this show will now remain unsigned for two weeks, as Brian is now on probation.

I would like to congratulate Brian for being himself and keeping it real. Just when things were starting to come together and he was getting a taste of success, he jeopardized it by getting wasted and oversleeping by four hours.

So I am going to dedicate tonight’s drinking to Brian, and I hope that you all can find it in your heart this weekend to have a drink for my craptacular roommate.

Have a happy and safe Labor Day weekend, and save me a hot dog.

(Seriously, I don’t have any plans, and may just show up at your barbeque)

As I have written before, I was never one for grades in college. Sure, I did ok, but I was very opposed to the whole “working hard” thing, as I viewed college more as a life experience than an academic exercise. So I took advantage of this life experience by getting drunk and peeing on the T, watching “The Big Lebowski” three thousand times, and sleeping until noon every day. And sure, I still had intellectual interests, but those interests were limited to fantasy sports (Statistics), deciding how I could tell potential employers that I was a worthy hire when I really should be in prison (Marketing/Rhetoric), and figuring out how I could most wisely spend the $75 a week I made and still get my fill of booze and nachos (Math/Economics).

Senior year I was particularly guilty of the “senior slide.” Once I got my job offers in January, I pretty much closed down the shop, and focused in my remaining semester on trying to screw up as many female friendships I could by repeatedly asking for sex. It was not my finest moment. Not quite as bad as freshmen year when I was caught masturbating in my dorm’s laundry room, but pretty bad nonetheless.

My course load in senior year was all fluff. In the second semester, I had all my classes on Tuesday, and only one on Thursday.

It was in this semester that I took a writing course with my buddies Joe and Dan. Knowing that the class was going to be a bit of hard work, and hearing that the teacher was a ball-buster, we took the class pass/fail. This meant that all we had to do was show up with pants on (with our genitals in our pants), and we would pass.

This course was taught by Steve Almond. I’ve given some props to Steve before on this site, as he is a pretty bad-ass writer (if you’re looking for something to read, you should check out his stuff: My Life in Heavy Metal is a collection of lusty and heart-wrenching short stories, while Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America is fascinating in the “I can’t put this down” kinda way, but the absolute worst book to read if you are on a diet).

Steve was also a pretty cool teacher – coming into class hungover, saying “Fuck” all over the place, asking one time after class if we knew how to “score”, because he was really feening for some hashish (ok, I made that last one up).

For these reasons, Steve and my buddies and I struck up a friendship. We respected him because he was an established writer and a fuck-up, thus giving us hope. He respected us because though we were taking his class pass/fail and doing miserably academically, we were pretty funny.

Fast forward to the present. As I have written before, I’m going back to grad school. The catch: I’m not officially in. Since I didn’t make the application deadline, I can take courses for credit, but I still have to officially apply, at which point credit will be carried over.

And I need two recommendations from professors attesting to my academic ability. This is a problem. When most students were visiting professors at office hours, I was playing Whiffle Ball and drinking Natty Light. Most professors I had barely learned my name, and I preferred it this way.

I thought to myself, “Why not ask Steve for a recommendation? You’ve been pimping him out to everyone you know, and he knows you’re not a total ass. Besides, it’s not like I need a good rec – just a blurb saying something like, ‘Jason Mulgrew is capable of study at your institution. I do not believe that he will murder anyone. On campus, at least.’”

So last week, I emailed Steve:

Steve-O:

How are you? How is fame, celebrity, etc? Looking forward to starting up another semester?

Speaking of semesters (nice segue), I’m heading back to school this fall. It’s just part-time, for my MA in History here in NYC at Hunter – something to do while working, so then I can work and have the degree and either teach or shoot for the Ph.D. Anyways, I’m currently “non-matriculated”, which means I was too lazy to officially apply. So I’m applying now. And I need some recommendations.

As the only teacher that I still keep in contact with, didn’t alienate by making a sexual pass at, or doesn’t think I’m totally incompetent (not sure of this last one), I was wondering if you could whip one up for me. Nothing special – the form is really short, and it’s Hunter, so I’m pretty sure that my “stellar” history grades will get me in, even if your only comment is “douchebag” (if you went to Hunter, my apologies). Anyway, if you have time to do one, send me your address, and thank you in advance. If you don’t, no worries.

Anyway, hope all is well and talk to you soon.

I thought that this was pretty much in the bank, until I got Steve’s reply the next day:

jdog –

yup yup. i hear you. here’s the prob: you took my class pass/fail. also, despite yer brilliance (and i mean that, yer a smart fucker — i read yer on-line shit), your performance in class was average (really, slightly below) because you sort of blew it off. and that’s not what i wanna tell these folks, but i’d be dutybound to be straight about your “academic performance in my class.” are you feeling my pain?
besides — i taught you some crazy english shit. i’d find history profs if you can.
does this just fuck you up terribly?
i hope not.
xo
s

Hilarious.

The thing is, I completely understand every point Steve makes. What’s even more funny is that I never thought about it like that. It never occurred to me that yes, maybe a recommendation for graduate study in history should come from 1) a history professor; 2) a history professor whose class I didn’t take pass/fail; and 3) a history professor whose class I didn’t take pass/fail and did well in.

So I wrote Steve and told him no worries, and that I agree with his assessment, and that there are no hard feelings (although when I’m up in Boston next weekend I’m definitely going to steal his car).

But now I’m faced with the task of calling professors I had three to six years ago, who barely knew my name, to ask if they can give me a recommendation. I will be sure to keep you apprised of the conversations like:

Me: “Hi, Professor Morgan?”
Old Ass History Professor: “Yes?”
Me: “Hi, my name is Jason Mulgrew. I’m a BC alumnus, a former history major, who took your ‘US 1912-1945′ class in the fall of ‘99.”
Prof: [clearly not remembering] “Um, yes?”
Me: “Well, how are you? Are you married? If so, how is your wife? If you are both capable of conceiving and have done so, how are your children?”
Prof: [hesitating, confused] “Can I help you with something?”
Me: “Well, I know you’re busy so I won’t keep you, but I am applying for my masters and was wondering if you might have the time to write me a recommendation.”
Prof: “I don’t know who you are.”
Me: “That’s what I figured. Ok, thank you for your time.”

Repeat for every member of the history department. Good times. Good times indeed.

See the little envelope in the line below this post? You can click on that and send a link to a particular post to anyone you wish. It’s a cool little feature.

For example, maybe you read my Kobe Bryant jokes and thought, “Man, this guy is good. My friend Liz would definitely sleep with him if she read those jokes. I should email them to her.” Well, just click on the little envelope, fill out the info, and email away.

But please, do not email Liz if she has any STD that I can catch. Not that I have anything against those with STD’s (my brother has both herpes and HPV), but, like I wrote before, I’m clean, and I want to stay that way.

Thank you for your cooperation.

[These jokes only work if you picture Norm Macdonald delivering them on the old "Saturday Night Live" Weekend Update]

The judge in the Kobe Bryant case has dropped a felony sexual assault charge brought against Bryant, after the prosecutors in the case filed a motion for dismissal. [Turning aside and speaking into little tape recorder] Note to self: book ticket to Eagle, Colorado immediately, since rape is now legal.

OR

The judge in the Kobe Bryant case has dropped a felony sexual assault charge brought against Bryant, after the prosecutors in the case filed a motion for dismissal. When reached for comment, Bryant said, “This is awesome. I raped that woman and completely got away with it. Nice.”

[I mean, can someone give me a job as a comedy writer already? That shit is gold, baby - gold!]

I’m happy to report that at about 3:30 yesterday, The Battle of Normandie Court came to an end, and the General was finally defeated.

He was a worthy opponent, but when the smoke cleared, it was I who was left standing, empty bottles of Pepto-Bismol at my feet, taco in my hand, basking in glory.

But this is not the end. We will meet again soon, and I will be ready. Oh, fried globules of chicken in a tangy sauce, I will master you yet.

You son of a bitch.

…

It’s good to be back. And thank god it’s September.

**********************************

One additional note about Monday’s post: I have never understood belligerent drunks. I feel like something must have happened to them in their childhood for them to get drunk and be hostile. All I want to do when I’m drunk is 1) make out and 2) eat (usually in that order, the second coming after I have tried but failed in the first).

I had a roommate in college (who now is two days away from getting married – wtf?) who used to get wasted and try to start fights with me. The next day, I’d say, “Dude, what was your deal last night? You came into my room at 4:45 in the morning, punched me in the face while I was asleep, and ran out as I chased you down the street.” His reply: “Dude, sorry. I blacked out.”

I think psychologists need to devote more time to the black-out drunk. I don’t know why this isn’t already so…what you see is pure and undisguised “being in action.” Does anyone else find this fascinating?

Maybe I just need a hobby.

**********************************

I am purposely not writing anything about the Republican National Convention going on here in NYC, because if you want to read about it you can do so at the thousands of other blogs covering it. But one thing deserves mention: is it me or does Jenna Bush look like every girl I got drunk at a bar on Commonwealth Ave and brought back to my dorm and fingerblasted? You know, kind of cute in that “I’ve got a nice buzz going” kind of way, a little bit o’ pudge to her, looking like she’ll put just about anything in her mouth after three Miller Lites?

Jenna (because I know you are reading this), did you spend any time in the Boston-Brookline-Brighton-Alston area from 1999-2001? Because I think I may have given you mouth babies.

**********************************

If there is a god, he will make Deion Sanders’ comeback an embarrassment.

Lord, I’ve never asked for much, but please smite Deion Sanders, possibly my least favorite athlete of all-time, and possibly the most egocentric bastard in the history of sports. I know he’s all born-again now and you definitely like him better than me, but c’mon – throw me a bone here. I’ll make it up to you.

And what’s all this talk about the Ravens making a Super Bowl run? Are you kidding? Jamal Lewis is facing ten years in federal prison, and last time I checked Kyle Boller stinks. These guys are supposed to beat the Pats, Titans, and Colts?

Yeah, right. Next you’re going to tell me that there are black doctors and that women can have orgasms. Whatever.

**********************************

Speaking of embarrassments: Lenny Kravitz, you STINK. Maybe if you stopped focusing on being pretty and selling out, you could create something on par with Mama Said, which, by the way, came out in 1991. You know what else came out or was big in 1991? Marky Mark, C+C Music Factory, and Color Me Badd. So that’s how long ago that was.

Lenny Kravitz = stink. I’m sure he could care less, as he is probably having sex with eight lingerie models at once right now, while I am in my stuffy office going over financial data. But that’s not the point. I don’t know what is the point, but that’s not it.

**********************************

A random sampling of songs you should really download:

- “I Hardly Ever Sing Beer Drinking Songs” Johnny Cash
The antithesis of the whiny “My woman left me and my dog died so I is fixin’ to get drunk” country song. God I miss Johnny Cash. Never knew him personally, but it was good to know that he was there, being all genius and pissed off.

- “You’re Fit But You Know It” The Streets
Recommended by a reader after my suggestion of “Miracle Man”. Guy gets dissed by girl who thinks she’s hot shit. Classic theme, but surprisingly few songs on the topic. Extra points because it’s brought to us by a nerdy cockneyed Brit.

- “Mother” John Lennon
Intense. When Paul McCartney was off prancing around on stage with his wife singing about his “band on the run”, John Lennon was kicking ass and taking names. Just piano, bass, some drums, and a lot of intensity. Do NOT listen to this song if you are under the influence of narcotics and have had problems with your parents (not that I have, besides the whole “I swear I’m not gay” fiasco of 2000). Seriously.

- “Sugaree” Jerry Garcia Band
Terrific song. If you like the Grateful Dead, you’ll like this. Even if you don’t like the Dead, you’ll like this. Trust me.

- “Ms. Fat Booty” Mos Def
Great fucking jam, and I love the sample of the old Aretha Franklin song. Extra points for the line: “Ass so big you could see it from the front.” That’s my kinda woman.

- “Beautiful” Christina Aguilera
Ah, Christina. Not only is she a slut, but she also has a message: “we” are beautiful, even if others call us ugly.

Well.

I don’t think you’re ugly Christina. In fact, if I had my choice of any pop diva to spend the night with, or the day with, or even fifteen minutes in the back of a Chevy Lumina with, it’d be you.

Britney: sliding down the slippery slope to white trash, and will be sucking dick for cheeseburgers by my 30th birthday.

Jessica: unconscionably attractive, but probably has only had one “d” (dick) in her life. That whole “I’m dumb and I was a virgin until Nick” thing doesn’t exactly scream “I know how to take care of business in the bedroom.”

But Christina…my goodness. Any woman who can sing like that but decides to dress like a Turkish pirate whore constantly is alright with me.

- “Anna Begins” Counting Crows
This was first recommended to me by reader Sindia, who I am hopelessly trying to seduce with charming but often inappropriate emails (but there’s one catch: she’s actually met me, which doesn’t bode well for me).

At first I thought, “Counting Crows? No thanks – I’m actually a man, and straight.” But after a while the song grew on me – I mean, doesn’t everyone sort of want the type of relationship described in the song, one to come in and totally obliterate and obfuscate their entire life?

[Whoa - sorry. Apparently, I had removed my testicles prior to writing that last sentence. I'm put them back now. My bad.]