August 20th, 2008

the move
Jason posted on May 31, 2005

Last Thursday I wrote about my upcoming weekend move to Little Italy.  Friday night, before I went to bed, I shut my computer down and would not check it again until late Saturday night. However, from the time of my Thursday post until the time I packed up the computer on Friday night, I got emails from you all covering the following:

  • several emails from Chipotle fans (including how asking for two tortillas can get your burrito “at least 30% larger”)
  • “Dude, did you see the Paris Hilton Carl’s Jr. add?”
  • a transcript of an IM conversation two people had about me (both guys, nothing sexy, mostly saying that they feel better about themselves because I suck so much)
  • a woman who sent me very uncomfortable pictures of her that made me blush
  • “I’m moving to NYC and would like to move in with you and Brian” (a guy)
  • a girl from South Dakota telling me “nothing’s funny in South Dakota”
  • a shitload of emails from people telling me their favorite restaurants in Little Italy
  • tons and tons of spam

And that’s all well and good. But do you know what email I did NOT get from anyone after my “I’m moving to Little Italy this Saturday” post? Something like:

  • “Hey, you shouldn’t move to Little Italy on Saturday because every weekend in summer they shut down the whole fucking street and it’s blocked off and impossible to move your body let alone a 17′ U-Haul and there are tourists and Chinese people everywhere and it’s a total clusterfuck.  So move in during the week when it’s less crowded.“

Yeah, so thanks for that everyone.  I know well enough now not to ask you people for money, sexual favors, recommendations, blood, etc, but to not send me a heads up on this?  Ouch.  I’m sure at least a handful of people who read this knew about the Little Italy shutdown, and nothing?  Thanks.  Thanks a lot.  Let’s just move on before I say something I might regret.

When my family and I went down to the new place on Friday night to drop some stuff off, I noticed the street was blocked and there was some sort of street fair going on.  I thought to myself, “Sweet mother of god, I hope this is just a Friday night thing, because if not I’m just going to flip the fuck out.”  I saw a cop nearby and approached her and my worst fears were realized: every Friday night, and from 11 to 11 on Saturday and Sunday the streets of Little Italy are blocked off.  Fuck.

(I bet you thought I was going to say that my worst fear was getting attacked by blood-thirsty and lusty werewolves.  Well, though still my worst fear, it doesn’t really work here, so I went with the streets being blocked off.  Just roll with it, ok?)

The good news is that in addition to being kinda cute, the cop was very helpful and said that if we could get there early enough it’d be ok for me to move the barricade and put the U-Haul outside my door.  Like I mentioned before, my new apartment is not on the main street (Mulberry Street) of Little Italy, but rather on an intersecting street, so though still crowded it’s not nearly as bad as Mulberry, which has sidewalk tables and vendors galore.  And no, I’m not going to tell you which street I now live on, because I don’t want you showing up at my door at all hours of the night to see if I’m really as bad as I say I am.  Of course I’m not.  Assholes. 

And so we (or more specifically, Brian) got up at 7am on Saturday to get the U-Haul truck.  I rolled out of bed at 8am and decided to tackle the most important thing first: ordering bagels and coffee for everyone.  I can say without reservation that this was the most helpful thing I did all day. 

Not surprisingly, the move was a nightmare.  I have to admit though, it wasn’t as bad as I thought.  After being in Little Italy Friday night and seeing the look of pity on the cop’s face when I told her I was moving in on Saturday morning, I expected the worst: traffic, crowds, heat, and of course, ninjas (or are ninjas Japanese?).

But that’s not to say that it wasn’t bad.  Though there weren’t any ninjas, there were tons of people everywhere.  Not only were there a lot of people, but I’d say the crowd was 60% tourists, 40% Chinese.  I love tourists as much as the next New Yorker - if it wasn’t for their spending, the city wouldn’t be as prosperous, and if it wasn’t for the proclivity of their womenfolk to get scared and confused so easily at 3am in the basement of a Lower East Side bar, I’d never get laid - but non-New Yorker crowds lack the perspicaciousness and (dare I say) tenacity inherent in New Yorkers.  Meaning, while I’m standing behind a couple from Missouri carrying a 75 pound couch sweating my balls off, six minutes away from heat stroke/heart attack/total physical collapse, they’re strolling along, looking wide-eyed at the shops and restaurants, taking in all the ”majesty” of Little Italy.  Excuse me but GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY BEFORE I PUNCH YOU IN THE FUCKING THROAT.  And welcome to New York City. 

The Chinese crowds were similar to the tourist crowds in their passiveness to my situation, but for different reasons.  While a tourist couple from the Midwest might not get out of my way because they’re clueless and content to amble along, a 60 year-old Chinese lady doesn’t move out of the way when I’m carrying an air conditioner because, hey, fuck it.  She’s thinking to herself [translated from Chinese], “I don’t speak English, I’m old as shit, and I was here first.  Just because some fat kid with tits behind me is whimpering because he’s too weak to carry a 5000 BTU air conditioner doesn’t mean I’m going to get out of his way.  Man, I can’t wait to get home to make some really smelly food that will stink up my entire building.”

And so the story of the move was of carrying heavy objects through indifferent crowds of people.  The good news is that Brian’s dad and brother made a guest appearance so that there were a bunch of us carrying stuff and we made relatively quick work of it.  It’s funny, I write “we made relatively quick work of it” now, with the benefit of hindsight, in an air conditioned room, comforted by the knowledge that it’s over.  If you had asked me at the time if we were making “relatively quick work of it”, I would have stared at you, pulled down my pants, shit in the middle of the street, pulled up my pants, stared at you, and then walked away.  Or something like that. 

Though the heavy lifting part is over, it’s still not over over.  My living room, bedroom, and bathroom are filled with boxes as we continue to figure out what to do with all the crap we have.  Making it more difficult is that fact that we moved from a very large apartment with two bathrooms and oodles of cabinet space to a medium-sized apartment with one bathroom and not-so-much on the oodles of cabinet space.  Translation: I’m going to be living out of boxes until at least Christmas. 

But my bed, internet, cable, and refrigerator are all set up, so I’m happy.  Also, I was on the subway platform at 9:22 this morning and was at my desk at 9:33.  I think I can deal with spending twenty minutes a day on the subway.  That’s not going to be a problem. 

But if any of you have any downtime over the next couple of days, please let me know.  Maybe you can come over and help unload some of these boxes, meaning I’ll lay on my bed and bark orders while eating a pizza and you’ll do everything while I occasionally hit you with a piece of wood.  Any volunteers?  (Please not all at once - I don’t want my inbox to crash)

brian’s move, admin
Jason posted on May 27, 2005

My brother and my roommate Brian are a lot alike.  They are both built the same, which is to say in much better shape than me, and so I hate them equally.  They are both are uncomfortable around me.  They are both are terribly unsmooth.
 
But there is another way in which they are similar that drives me crazy: they are almost too laid back.  For example, my brother and I shared a room in The Bahamas this past summer.  On the day we left, we were to be ready to board the shuttle to the airport at 1pm.  I’m the type of guy who gets up three hours before, takes a long shower, diligently packs, eats, and takes his time to make sure things are done and everything is in order - which is what I did on this day.  While I was scrambling around, my brother was sleeping off a hangover.  He finally got up at about 12:50, threw his shit (which was scattered all over the room) in a bag, and got on the shuttle.  This kind of shit drives me crazy.   
 
Don’t get me wrong - I think I’m a pretty laid back guy myself.  But sometimes, when shit has to get done, I get a little crazy about it.  Maybe it’s the 6th grade overachiever in me, the one I managed to kill over the years with Budweiser, marijuana, and malaise, coming out, but I’m not sure.  My enemies and former lovers have said quite a lot about me - I’m a terrible driver, I have a huge ego, I pee the bed, I’m incapable of any real emotion besides “fuck” and “eat”, etc - but everyone who knows me knows that I take care of business.  Always.  Maybe it’s because I’m a little anal-retentive, but whatever.  When charged with a task, it will get done.  Most likely poorly, but done nonetheless.

Take for another example our upcoming move, which is tomorrow.  I have been preparing for this move for over a month.  In late April I started cleaning my room and bathroom.  In the beginning of May, I started packing non-essentials.  Over the past few weekends, I have out of town friends with cars visit, and so I’ve done a few trips to the new place to move said non-essentials (Brian and I have actually had the key to the place since May 15 or so).  Last Friday night, I went straight to the new place after work and spent five hours cleaning every inch of it - we’re talking on my hands and knees with a bottle of Fantastik and a scrub brush cleaning, absolutely fucking going to town.  The past week little by little I’ve packed up, and by last night the only things not packed or left in my room are a day’s worth of clothes and some necessary toiletries.  I even packed up toilet paper, thinking that if I poo between now and tomorrow, I’ll just hop in the shower and rinse off.  You know, like they do in Europe.
 
While I have been madly packing up, Brian has yet to do anything.  It’s not entirely his fault; he’s been away a few weekends when I moved things and his work has been crazy and thus he hasn’t been able to get down to the new place.  But as of midnight last night, as I retired to my room for my ”Thursday 12am Self-Love with Briana Banks” session, Brian’s room looked like it had been ransacked by crackhead looking for drug money (or by me looking for my fucking Briana Banks tape).  And he was not at all concerned. 
 
As of right now, my parents are on the way up to NYC.  When I get home in a few hours, the moving starts in earnest.  Everything has to be packed up and we’ve got to finally do it.  Ra-ra-ra - it’s on.
 
And yet I know that there’s an 80% chance that Brian is shirtless right now, standing in the middle of his disheveled room with Led Zeppelin blasting out of this computer, smoking pot and wondering where to begin.  And it gives me a near embolism. 
 
God I hate moving.
 
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Two admin notes:
 
1) There will not be a post on Monday, as it’s Memorial Day here in the US and thus I have off.  The holiday was started in in 1866 and was originally held on May 5.  However, Civil War-era dudes quickly realized this was Cinco de Mayo and moved the holiday to the last Monday in May so that they could drink all the tequila and Corona they wanted and not have to worry about honoring veterans.  Memorial Day is more known now as the start of summer, the first weekend when tons of a-holes head to a beach near you to carry on and yell.  I would be among these a-holes if I didn’t have to move and the weather wasn’t March-esque.  But rest assured, I wouldn’t go to the beach.  There are just too many problems with that to list.  Anyway, definitely no post on Monday.
 
2) As of about 8pm tonight, Site Guy Brendan will be out of the country, leaving US airspace and flying over the cold, dark Atlantic.  He’ll be gone for a week or so.  The point?  If the site crashes, I’ll may not see y’all again for some time.  Brendan gave me a little tutorial last night on what to do if the site goes down, but it was like trying to teach a St. Bernard to read the New York Times.  If the site is down, come back in a few minutes.  If you come back and it’s still down, come back again later.  If it’s still down when you return, I’m not dead, and I’ll be back later.  Promise. 
 
(But hopefully that won’t happen)
 
[Have a good weekend]

over
Jason posted on May 26, 2005

First, the good news: it’s over.  I have found an apartment and - hallelujah - Jason Mulgrew is returning to downtown New York City.  Saloons hide your spirits and fathers lock up your daughters, because it’s on.  I’m back and I have some catching up to do. 
 
No more 50 minute commutes to and from work, no more $22 cab rides from bars at 4am, no more thinking to myself, “Well, I could go out tonight, but the bar is 87 blocks south, and I’m here on my couch eating slices of cheese getting high and watching ‘Friday’…looks like I’m not going out tonight!”  From this point forward, everything is better.  Except I think I have diabetes.  I ate a whole carrot cake last night and either fainted or had a seizure.  But that’s not important right now. 
 
Goodbye Upper East Side and hello…Little Italy.  I know, I know - it’s not as hip as the Lower East Side or as sophisticated as Soho or as trendy as Tribeca, but I can walk to all those places in ten, five, and fifteen minutes, respectively.  I’m less concerned with the name of the neighborhood and more concerned with the fact that for the first time since I lived in “Where the hell are we again?” Brooklyn (Bay Ridge) I have a living area large enough to accommodate a dining room table or a second refrigerator dedicated solely to beer and mayo and it will take me 18 minutes door-to-door to get to work.  Joy.  So try to bring me down.  I dare you.
 
But let’s backtrack a little here.  As usual, I’m all hopped up on Red Bull and lunchmeat and I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let’s take it from the top.
 
I can’t express what an incredible pain in the ass looking for an apartment in New York City is.  Aside from death, heartbreak, and a severe wound to the genital area, I can think of nothing worse.  And we’re talking severe genital wound here - think less of “My bird got stuck in a door jamb” and more “One thousand bees stung my scrotum and someone punched me in the face and also my dog died.”  I guess that last one includes death, but you get the point.
 
The problem is simple: everyone wants to live in NYC.  Everyone.  Every asshole with a dream and a willingness to overpay comes to the Big Apple to make it.  So as a renter, you have this in mind when you’re viewing prospective apartments and you realize that if you like something, there’s no time for indecision.  You can see an apartment at 1pm, discuss its merits with your roommate for an hour, call the broker to say you’ll put in an application at 2:30, and it’ll already be gone.  To say competition is intense is an understatement.
 
You know who else knows that everyone wants to live in NYC?  Landlords.  Thus they can charge whatever the hell they want because they know some idiot will pay it.  My roommate Brian and I saw about twenty apartments over the past few weeks and most of them were so egregiously overpriced that there was nothing to do after viewing them besides getting drunk.  I’m serious, we’d finish seeing some shit-hole, look at each other, and say in our best Walter Sobchak voice, “Fuck it dude - let’s get some beers.”  
 
[And don't email me telling me that's not the exact quote.  I know he says, "Let's go bowling" but there are no decent places in NYC to bowl and there are lots of places to get beers.  And don't email me telling me to go to Bowlmore, because that place sucks and it's super expensive.  Thank you.] 
 
My personal favorite apartment was a two-bedroom gem on the sixth floor of a walk-up in the heart of Chinatown.  This apartment featured such amenities as…a hallway!  A 4×4 kitchen!  A bathroom with a dead cockroach in the tub!  And two “cozy” bedrooms - one 10×8, one 8×7!  All for the low, low price of $1800 a month!  Sure, there was no living room and no a single closest in the whole apartment, but at least it was on the sixth floor and the building smelled like stale Chinese food and cat piss. 
 
That was the worst one that we saw, but there were other comparable apartments.  I won’t bore you with the details not because I care about boring you, but because reliving parts of this experience sends me into epileptic fits that end only in some sort of ritual cutting.  Bad, bad stuff.
 
So when Brian and I saw our future home, it was a revelation.  A giant living area, one large bedroom (for me, paying more), one smaller bedroom (for Brian, paying less), new hardwood floors throughout, a new kitchen, a new bathroom, and only one floor up.
 
And the location - yowza!  I can now walk to work in the same amount of time it takes me to ride the subway to work!  As mentioned above, I’m also within walking distance of all the areas I go out, and my monthly cab expenditures will go from about $150 a month to around $40 or so a month!  I will actually have a social life again!  Can you tell I’m excited about this??? 
 
Of course, there are drawbacks.  Little Italy is essentially one street, Mulberry Street, that runs from Canal to Houston, less than a half mile long.  This street is filled (and by filled I mean “overcrowded to the point of a fire hazard”) with tourists shopping, eating, and buying t-shirts that say “Welcome to Little Italy” and “Italian 4-Eva”, as well as all “The Sopranos” merchandise you could ever want.  The good news is that my apartment is not on Mulberry Street, but rather on one of the less crowded cross streets intersecting Mulberry.  Believe it or not, this makes a big difference. 
 
And I love Italian people.  I really do.  75% of my diet is Italian food, and they have beautiful women in Italy.  But sometimes I’m not so hot on the way they celebrate their heritage.  I’m not so sure their ancestors would approve of all the hair gel, eyebrow waxing, and horrible suits, but this is coming from someone who’s great-grandparents came from Ireland and Poland, so I guess I really shouldn’t be judging here.  I’m just pointing this out because I find it comical that I’m moving to a building that is painted the colors of the Italian flag.  And yes, I’m serious.
 
What’s strange about Little Italy though is that it is completely surrounded by Chinatown.  Like I mentioned, Little Italy is one long street.  If you go one block west or east, it’s like you were transported to a market in Beijing (apparently, there’s an old joke that says, Q: What’s the worst thing about Little Italy?  A: The Chinese).  The contrast is that startling. 
 
[I want to stress that I don't consider living among the Italians and the Chinese a drawback.  We here at jasonmulgrew.com are and have always been very tolerant, mostly because we're looking to do the rainbow.  The drawback is the crowds that take over the area.  Sadly, I'm going to have to keep my curtains closed when I get out of the shower, lest I go back to jail on yet another obscenity charge.  Stupid laws.]
 
But that’s really the only complaint I have, and I think I can deal with crowds.  Of course I realize that every major decision I’ve made in the past 25 years has been a bad one, so I wouldn’t be shocked if my blog entry of August 8, 2005 is titled, “Why I hate living in Little Fucking Italy” followed by one on September 23, 2005 “I am so fucking sick of Italian and Chinese people” and another on October 2, 2005 called “I killed a Chinese couple last night.”

Right now, everything is wonderful.  I envision myself eating dinner at the restaurant below my apartment, talking easily with the waiters and staff, who have become my friends and know me as “The Beast from Upstairs”.  Perhaps I will find myself a nice Chinese girlfriend, and our love with blossom like a flower despite the fact that her parents despise me because a few weeks earlier I shook down her live-in aunt for $240.  Every night I will alternate between chicken parm and General Tso’s chicken for dinner, and I will die in three months a well-fed and happy man. 
 
However, the bad news: I actually have to move there this weekend.  The truck has been rented and some things have already been packed, but it’s going to be a doozy.  I’m not sure where we’re going to park a 17′ foot U-Haul in the crowded streets of Little Italy/Chinatown.  Adding to the aggravation is the fact that parents will be involved, so I’ll have my mom yelling about how dirty my place is and my dad shaking his head in disgust as I’m not strong enough to carry any pots or pans.  Ugh.  So Ben, Brian and I are determined to wake up early Saturday, drink a couple of Red Bulls, and jump head-first into a big pile of cocaine to kick-start the day.  Wish us luck. 
 
[I'm just kidding Mom and Dad, I don't do hard drugs.  I only make the cocaine jokes because the people reading eat it up.  They fucking eat - it - up.  I assure you that if you see Ben, Brian and I acting strangely - Brian stopping suddenly to do push-ups, Ben screaming at the top of his lungs about how "fucking unbelievably strong" he is, and me going on and on about how I "own this town" and how my poop is the size of a mini-van - I assure you it's all because of too much caffeine.  Mostly.]

search words, dogs, stool, Chipotle, friends, frequency, music
Jason posted on May 24, 2005

A source of endless enjoyment for me is a particular function of my site counter which lists search terms entered into google, yahoo and other search engines that brought people to this site.  Here are some of my favorites from the past 24 hours:

 

- dangers of masturbating a girl with a champagne bottle

- ultimate douchebag

- dry skin penis

- ben and jerry heart attack

- hot jobs for 14 year old girls

- boobs and hot dogs

- boy urethra insertion with sharp metal nails [ouch!]

- Pedro Martinez sex fantasies

- masturbation heart

- dental general anesthetics fetish

- Peter Cetera Chicago baseball incident

- sexy biracial guys

- i’m in love with a guy whos ten like me

- asian guys losers boring nerdy dorky

- how to tell if a guy likes me and is not using me for sex

- shirtless pics of Marlon Wayans

- feminine musk and pubic regions [wow!]

- get an STD from a handjob

- samples of flirty emails

- the hottest 14 year olds

- penis skin cracks

- women fucking themselves with everything [snap!]

- Mexican feet pics

- powerful peeing

- cocaine tiny penis

 

If I had to pick a favorite, it’d have to be “masturbation heart”.  Doesn’t that sound like a messed up Indian name?

 

White Man: “I come in peace to you and your people.  Here - take these blankets.”

Indian: “Thank you, my white friend.  My people and I will use these blankets for warmth and assume they will not destroy us.  My name is Hardened Spirit, this is my brother, Brave Eagle, and over there in the corner performing fellatio on that husk of maize is my brother-in-law, Masturbation Heart.  We call corn ‘maize.’”

White Man: “Thank you for your welcome.  You are a wise man, Hardened Spirit.  Would you like some of my whiskey and poker chips?”

Indian: “Yes, very much so.”

 

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I was on the phone with my Dad recently and we had this conversation:

 

My dad: “Yeah, Megan (my sister) wants a dog.”

Me: “What?  Megan can’t get a dog!”

Dad: “Well, that’s what she wants.  A family down the street is giving away a dog.  A puppy.”
Me: “Really?  Do you think she’ll take it?”
Dad: “Nah.  It’s a shepard mix and it’s got these huge paws.  That’s how you can tell how big a dog will be, by the paws.  It’ll be too big for her.”

Me: “Yeah, I guess she wants a little foo-foo dog.”

Dad: “Tell you what, I might take that dog.”

 

This is horrible, horrible news.  My parents are divorced, and when I go home to Philly, I stay at my dad’s.  This is because my mom tends to yell at me a lot for walking around without pants on and because my dad constantly has pizza in the fridge.  So it’s a no-brainer really. 

 

And I like dogs as much as the next guy, but I hate big dogs.  Absolutely hate them.  I know what you’re thinking, “He’s just afraid of dogs!  What a wuss!”  Well, that’s true.  I readily admit that I am afraid of any animal over 100 pounds that is a carnivore and has over forty teeth/fangs.  But while we’re admitting things, I have to tell you that I had sex with your mother last night - without a condom.  And it was awesome.  So suck on that for a while.

 

I never understood the allure of big scary dogs.  Sure, there’s the protection element, but that’s kinda bogus.  Getting a big scary dog to ward off intruders is like [I thought about a comparison for like three hours and couldn't think of something, but trust me – it's bogus.]

 

Deciding to get a big dog is like thinking to yourself, “Hmmm…let’s see.  What’s the most efficient way to make every guest in my home uncomfortable for the next twelve or thirteen years?  I got it – I’ll get a Doberman!”  I remember growing up and going to play Nintendo at friends’ houses who had big dogs and it was some of the most miserable experiences of my life.  Sitting ram-rod straight as the boxer or rottweiler would come over and sniff me, all the while I just gaped at its huge dangling balls, frozen with fear and passion.  Weird, weird times.

 

And so if my dad gets a big dog, I will not be around to establish a bond with it, as I only go home to Philly once every two months or so.  The result is that by Christmas, the dog will have grown into part-dog/part-werewolf and will not take kindly to an intruder walking around its territory eating Tostitos, spilling crumbs everywhere, and generally being disagreeable/hungover.  Thus a very tense time for yours truly. 

 

The moral: don’t get a big dog.  I’m not saying everyone should get poodles, but think about how uncomfortable guests in your home will feel with a 150 pound beast sniffing around his or her genitals.  Stick with medium dogs.  Please.  Or else we can’t be friends. 

 

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I made a purchase recently that I never in my life thought I’d have to make.  I bought stool softener. 

 

Veterans of this site know that pooping has never been a problem with me.  My poo problems started developing in college, when my roommate and former star of “Average Joe: Hawaii” Bill Hansen and I joked that by drinking too much and eating everything we could touch, we killed whatever part of our body makes the poo hard.  Many times after a good poo I’d look in the toilet bowl at what appeared to be iced tea with chunks of lettuce (no doubt from Taco Bell soft tacos) floating around in the bowl.  And yes, if you’re keeping score at home, I am single.

 

But lately something’s happened.  I’m not sure exactly what, but it seems like my large intestine has been turned into a cement mixer.  Pooping has been a battle that was left me sweating, bruised, and bloody.  Hence the stool softener.

 

And let me tell you – these puppies work.  I mean, wow.  A few capsules too many and I might have to tie a bucket to my ass.  Yowza. 

 

Anyway, I guess I should talk about something else, but buying stool softener was a first for me and I wanted to share it with you.  Don’t judge.  Assholes. 

 

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I have fallen in love with Chipotle.  For those not familiar, Chipotle is a chain of burrito places.  Think Taco Bell with class and on steroids.  Giant fucking burritos served in a building that has actually passed a city health inspection without an exchange of oral sex.  A novelty here in New York City.

 

This new found romance could not have come at a worse time: though I have written at length about my imaginary battles with my heart, I am convinced that I will have a heart attack any day now (perhaps even before you finish reading this) and the average Chipotle burrito has about 1100 calories and 50 grams of fat.  Cruel, cruel fate.

 

Of course, I could lessen the fat content by laying off the cheese, sour cream, etc, but then it wouldn’t be the same.  In order to try to make the relationship work without compromising its dignity, I decided to order burritos differently.  Before I would say, “I’ll have a carnitas burrito with pinto, cheese, sour cream, and a little bit of lettuce” and be extremely satisfied.  However, after I’d feel very guilty and have shooting pains in my left arm.  Not good.

 

So I decided to try ordering the burrito by saying, “Hi, I’ll have a carnitas burrito with pinto beans.  But can I get just a little bit of rice, cheese, and sour cream?  Just a little please.”  I figure by doing this I could cut at least 80% of the calories and fat of the burrito.  I’m not sure if this is exactly right, as I’m not a dietician, but I’m pretty sure it’s close. 

 

But there’s a problem: the burritos are made very quickly in assembly line fashion.  That is, one person puts on the rice and beans, another adds the meat, another the cheese, etc.  So though I’ll ask the person taking my order for my “lite” burrito, I find myself racing down the line asking people to lay off on swathing the whole thing in cheese and sour cream and of course this never works.  I have yet to get a completely lite burrito (sometimes I’ll wind up with a little bit of rice, but a ton of cheese and sour cream, other times a lot of rice, but hardly any cheese, etc).

 

The point?  It’s totally cool, because at least I tried.  The biggest part of dieting is effort.  When I go to Chipotle I give it my all and try to order my smaller burrito.  If that doesn’t work out because the burrito is made too fast or the people making the burrito don’t speak English or because I didn’t actually tell them to go easy on any part of the burrito in the first place, I can eat all 1100 calories and savor every last one, knowing that I tried my hardest and that’s all that matters. 

 

I love dieting. 

 

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The long-awaited, much-anticipated (not really) ”Friends of Jason Mulgrew” page is in the works and will be up shortly.  This page will be links to other blogs.  Just an FYI, there was a screening process involved here.  I didn’t offer links to just any blogs, just those I thought were good or funny (or otherwise paid and/or fellated me). 

 

At any rate, it will give you guys some extra reading material now that I’m turning into a deadbeat.  Look for it soon.

 

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Speaking of being a deadbeat, surprisingly the reaction to me not writing every day was been pretty muted.  Because I have a huge ego, I thought I’d get a ton of angry emails replete with cuss words and pictures of flat-chested women.  Not so.  Maybe because I have pretty much stopped returning all emails that don’t involve a) interview requests or other opportunities for me to whore myself or b) naked pictures, but whatever. 

 

And for those who have complained, you’ll get used to it.  Not writing every day has given me time for all sorts of different things, and of course I’ve wasted this time by looking at other internet sites and fantasy baseball.  Oh well.

 

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Six Songs:

 

“Tyler“  The Toadies

Best song about murder – ever.  Probably.  Seriously, I used to listen to this in high school and get chills.  Looking back, it was probably just the hormones, but it’s still a good song.

 

“November Rain”  Guns ‘n’ Roses

As a GnR fan back in the day, I don’t know what rocked me more: when the band released “Patience” or came out with this song.  Probably “Patience”, because I remember thinking, “Oh my god - Guns ‘n’ Roses did something slow?  And it’s cool?  What the f?”  But this song - I mean, wow.  I remember being in high school, fighting with my high school girlfriend, locking myself in my room and blasting this song on my headphones.  What an epic.  And then I’d go masturbate for the fifth time that day.  Damn those were some good times.

  

“Sexy Sadie”  The Beatles

This is my favorite song of all-time.  I’m serious.  In case you were wondering, now you know.  It’s just perfect.  I don’t really know what else to say about it besides that.   

 

“Show Me Love”  Robyn

Freshman year of college, I was in love with Robyn.  What’s not to love?  She’s Swedish, blond, can sing, and has giant boobs!  If I had heard that she could steam a mean kielbasa (not a sexual reference), I would have flown to Sweden and married her on the spot, with or without her consent.  That’s just semantics, really.

 

“The Widow”  The Mars Volta

Russell in NYC recommended this one (I think).  That’s what I like to see: intensity from Puerto Ricans.  Like that’s not scary at all.  Not at all.  I think this band stinks otherwise, but I dig this song.   

 

“Sunday Mornings”  Maroon 5

I hate myself for liking this song.  If I were coming down from a five-day bender, took a half-dozen bingers (bong hits), was shot with a tranquilizer dart and had one arm tied behind my back, I still could beat up every guy in this band at the same time.  But god damn do I want to skip through the streets of Manhattan when I hear this song.  And I would do just that if I wasn’t so top-heavy.  Damn. 

love, lust, and betrayal: the Abreu-Machado story
Jason posted on May 20, 2005

[FYI: This is NOT about sports.  Just keep reading.  Trust me.]

 

Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Bobby Abreu found himself in an interesting predicament recently.  His fiancée, Alicia Machado, a former Miss Venezuela and Miss Universe, was filmed on a Mexican reality tv show having sex with another man. 

 

Well.

 

I do not advocate violence against women.  Not ever.  And I’m not going to joke about it here.  If you were comb over this site, you would not find one single joke about it (go ahead - I’ll wait).  I abstain from this mostly because it’s not funny, but also because if I’ve learned one thing about women in the past 25 years, it’s that they do NOT like jokes about violence against women.  If I’ve learned two things about women in the past 25 years, it’s that they do NOT like jokes about violence against women and asking women you meet at bars “You’re on the pill, right?” is NOT going to get you laid.  But I digress…

 

But re: jokes about violence against women.  Your coolest girl friend, the same one who will laugh hysterically when you talk about shitting your pants or having sex with fat chicks or and catching an STD from jerking off in a garbage disposal, will cringe at the first mention of any sort of violence against women.  It just doesn’t go over well.

 

HOWEVER, I have in the past on this site joked about murder (it’s cool - I can joke about it because my uncle was murdered).  I think murder should be divided into two categories: Bad Murder and It’s Still Bad I Guess But I Can See How It Happened Murder. 

 

Bad Murder would cover all senseless crimes.  These are the kind you see most often on the news: random killings, whether premeditated or not, born out of greed, anger, or insanity.  These are not good.

 

On the other hand, like its title implies, It’s Still Bad I Guess But I Can See How It Happened Murder is slightly different.  These are the types of situations where a man’s wife is murdered and the man kills the murderer, or when a boy’s father is killed before his eyes by a gang of Turkish youths in Bereket in 1982 and over twenty years later after training every single day the boy travels back to Turkey to find and destroy his father’s killers and along the way falls in love with a beautiful Turkish barmaid who happens to be the daughter of the leader of the Turkish gang who killed his dad, the result of which is a complicated web of honor vs. passion and love vs. revenge the likes of which the world has never known and will win me an Oscar in the year 2010 when I finally finish the script, an award I will receive posthumously as in September of the previous year I will have died, having choked on a gyro I was eating while riding a horse.  You know, that kinda thing. 

 

And if there was ever any legitimate excuse to murder the crap out of another person, an example of It’s Still Bad I Guess But I Can See How It Happened Murder, seeing your fiancée fucking another guy on national television has got to be pretty up there. 

 

Getting cheated on is one of the worst feelings in the world.  First and foremost, there’s the betrayal.  The jolt of ”I loved her - how could she do this to me?” that makes you feel like you’ve been shot in the stomach.  After that comes the self-doubt, the “She cheated because I’m not good enough for her or for anyone” that starts slowly at first but then pervades every aspect of your life.  Finally, there is that delightful combination of cynicism and baggage that will stay with you for months or even years to come (”I’m never falling in love/trusting a woman again”).   

 

The point is it’s really, really bad.  But in the case of Abreu and his fiancée, it’s even worse, because there are three extraneous circumstances here:

 

1) It’s on TV!  I’d imagine that watching your fiancée have sex on a reality tv show is pretty bad.  If it were “Survivor”, it would be bad, but not so much.  At least there’d be some fame involved for you and her, meaning her whoreishness would be displayed in front of the whole country and you’d probably get some SERIOUS pity pussy.  If it were “Temptation Island” or one of those second rate shows, it’d be a lot worse.  Not enough people watch it for you to get any real pity pussy, but it’s popular enough that every person in your life would know you as ”the dude whose fiancée banged some other dude on a crappy reality show.”

 

But watching your fiancée have sex on a Mexican reality show?  What the fuck?  Mexicans have reality TV?  I thought all they did down there was mug unsuspecting Spring-Breaking gringos and deliver food to each other’s houses?  What’s the show about, escaping north to take the jobs that not even black people will take (smooth, El Presidente)?  What’s worse, the show is called “La Granja”, which means “The Farm”.  So your fiancée decided to bang some dude on TV and she picks a reality show in Mexico called “The Farm”.  Ouch, baby.  Very ouch.

 

2) The video is easy to download.  Immediately upon hearing about this story, I set off in a search to find the video.  And oh boy - I found it.  And oh boy - wow.  I can’t put it on here (I don’t even know how to put pictures on here), but you can download it easily by searching for “Alicia Machado” and “la granja” and “sex” via Limewire or whatever file-sharing software you have. 

 

Since I can’t put it on here, I will endeavor to describe it.  First, it’s one of those night-vision dealies that Paris Hilton made so popular.  The screen is split between the scenes from the reality show on one side and women watching the scenes on the other.  Think something like two women on the Mexican version of “Oprah” watching the night vision sex scenes, gasping in horror on the right side of the screen.  On the left side, which is larger, the sex scenes are displayed in all their glory.

 

I should tell you right away that there is NO nudity.  Sad, but true.  But fortunately, that does not mean there isn’t any sex.  No sir.  Basically the hidden cameras (which are not exactly “hidden” because these people know they are on a reality tv show and thus being filmed) capture two people in bed rolling around.  This is Ms. Machado and some guy from Mexico or one of those Mexico-type countries.  At first it’s sort of playful and nothing’s going on.  They are under the covers, so you can only see their heads and maybe an occasional arm or two.

 

Then it cuts to later in the video and you see the dude on top of the girl doing some SERIOUS humping.  At this point, the two women on the right side of the screen watching the video begin gasping in horror and shock.  You can’t tell if the couple is naked because like I said they’re under the sheets, but there’s some very intense humping going on.

 

Then the video cuts to the woman on top of the man, and there’s more humping.  She’s laying parallel on top of him rather than perpendicular so again all you see is heads poking out of some blankets, but you can also hear heavy breathing and panting.

 

In the final scene, we cut to an overhead shot.  The camera is on top of the bed, on the ceiling looking directly down (again, this is all in that green night-vision stuff).  The man and the woman are completely covered under the sheets, and now they are REALLY going at it.  The pounding intensifies until you hear some final gasping groans/grunts/moans, and (the body shape of) Ms. Alicia Machado, fiancée of Bobby Abreu, collapses on her man under the blankets.  The couple throws the blanket of their heads - probably so they can get some air - and makes after-sex talk.  Since Spanish is a language built to be spoken at warp speed and I only have a crude understanding of it, I could only gather Alicia saying something like, “My god - I like that” while the dude laughs to himself.  End of video. 

 

[I would be laughing to myself and feeling pretty good too, since she's extremely hot.  Here's a picture of her.  I mean, wow.]

 

3) Latin men don’t take this shit well.  Latin men (and women) are very, very proud.  I know this not because I have a lot of Latin friends, but because I’m making a guess that feels right.  Also, one time on Howard Stern, B Real from Cypress Hill was being interviewed and when Howard asked about why his relationship with Carmen Electra fell apart, he said something like, “I’m a Latin man and I couldn’t take it” (meaning the jealousy etc).  And I may have totally made that up, but whatever.   

 

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

 

Now, most men in this circumstance would resort to something destructive.  Some would hit the bottle in an effort to drink away their pain.  Some would retreat into a shell and shun their friends and loved ones.  Some would go on an arson rampage, burning down hotels whose names start with the letters “K”, “L”, and “T”.  Some men opt for a Detroit Divorce (when a man whose wife is cheating on him kills her lover, kills her, then kills himself).  I know I would probably do the one about burning down the hotels.  I just fucking hate hotels. 

 

But what is extraordinary about the Abreu-Machado is not the ridiculous circumstances under which the infidelity occurred, but how Bobby Abreu reacted to it.  His only comment to the media was no comment, except to say that the relationship was over.  And then he took all his aggravation out on the baseball field.

 

Since this story broke in the beginning of May, Abreu has been on an absolute tear, the hottest hitter in baseball (with all due respect to Tino Martinez).  Since May 1, Abreu is batting an astounding .448 (with an on-base percentage of .560) and 11 homeruns and 26 RBIs in only 17 games, including 9 homeruns over a 10 game span.  You don’t have to be a baseball fan to know that this guy is kicking some serious ass.  Pre-cuckold Abreu was batting .261 with only 1 homer and 7 RBIs in 24 games.  I guess there’s nothing like your fiancée fucking some dude on tv to really kick your game into high gear.

 

And the good news for Bobby is that though this fiancée did cheat on him on TV, a) he’s still a star baseball player; b) he still rich; and so c) he can probably get a lot of hot women.  I guess if something like this is going to happen to you, it’s not as bad if you can go out and crush the baseball and then come home and have sex with three gorgeous women on a big pile of money. 

 

And so what have we learned:

 

1) Mexico has reality tv and an umemployment rate of 3.3% (compared the US’s 5.8%)

2) Alicia Machado is a whore, but I would still marry her because she’s super, super hot

3) Bobby Abreu is a strong man who I would probably not fuck with

4) The internet, where any video clip is just a click away, is a wonderful place

5) I really need a hobby

 

Have a good weekend.

 

[This story was originally broken by Ace Cowboy over at Slack Lalane, who also sent me the link to the original news story in philly.com.  Many thanks to Ace.]

springtime love
Jason posted on May 19, 2005

This past Monday, I took the day off, for no other reason than because I could.  One of the great things about my job is that I get a ton of vacation (27 days this year!) and I don’t use them for anything special.  I never take more than a week off at at time and when I take a week-long vacation, I do so around a work holiday (i.e. going to London for a week during the week of President’s Day, going down the shore for a week the week of 4th of July, arranging all court appearances right after federal holidays because judges are more lenient after days off, etc), so this way I get nine consecutive days off (including weekends) but only use four vacation days.  I know, I know - I’m super fucking smart in addition to being good with animals and babies.  Also, you’ve already stopped reading because that was the most boring, belabored paragraph in the world.  Christ. 
 
I also don’t take the seemingly obligatory two weeks vacation around Christmas and New Year’s.  It seems like everyone in my office and everyone in corporate America takes these two weeks off to spend time with their kids, who are home from school, and be with their loved ones around the holidays.  The good news for me is that my family is only a short train ride away in Philly.  Also, after twenty-five years of co-existing our relationship is strained so much that spending fourteen days with them (especially around the holidays) is about as appealing as attending a herpes convention and is generally a recipe for disaster and arson.  Instead around Christmas I spend most of my time in NYC eating Indian food and feeling very, very alone.
 
And so I used one of my vacation days randomly on Monday and I learned and important lesson: spring fucking rules.
 
My favorite seasons are the moderate ones: spring and fall.  Fall is good because 1) it’s the best time for sports, with the baseball playoffs and football, basketball, and (usually) hockey starting; and 2) summer is over, so that means no more calling my loved ones and telling them I love them each day because it’s more than likely that at any moment I’m going to have a heart attack or heat stroke (curse you body hair and beard!). 
 
But spring is bestest.  I don’t want to sound all Carrie Bradshaw, but there’s nothing like spring in New York City (I know it’s hard to believe, but I promise you that at least 80% of me is straight).  It’s hard to explain, but the city comes out of its winter hibernation and really comes alive and blah blah blah.  More importantly, women are everywhere (!).  And they are wearing less clothes (!!!). 
 
I’m not sure why, and I don’t have any numbers on this, but it seems like while walking around this weekend and on Monday I saw four times as many women as I had in December through March combined.  It was glorious, absolutely glorious.  I won’t do my best Bukowski impression and write about all that “leg” and “flank” that becomes exposed by the warmer temperatures because I’ve never been a leg man.  Shit, I have legs (and good ones at that).  Instead, I’ll talk for a moment about something dearer to my heart: boobies.
 
[Those who know me reading this right now are thinking, "Um, dude, you kinda have boobs too."  To them I say, "Don't fucking do this to me now, in front of all these people.  We'll talk about this more when we get home."]
 
I’m not sure if Monday was National Cleavage Day, but good LORD.  I was out and about walking around town at 1pm, and after two hours of taking in the boobie parade, my increasingly strange and aggressive behavior began attracting attention and frightening those around me.  By 4pm, I’m pretty sure that a detective from the Sex Crimes Unit was following me around, hiding behind trees and hot dog carts, making sure my leering stayed PG-13.  It was that bad, and by “bad” I mean “awesome.”
 
I know I’ve written about this before, but you women can’t understand what kind of effects the spring and your spring wardrobe have on us guys.  This is probably because it doesn’t work both ways.  Take me for example.  I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I kinda have a weight problem.  In the cool weather however, I am able to disguise my obesity under sweaters and jackets and so my true body shape isn’t revealed.  One might even say that I look “big” as in “muscular” sometimes.  A story: I once made out with a 35 year-old British chick in a pub in Dublin in the winter.  I kept my coat on the whole time and she thought I was a bodybuilder (I swear I’m not making this up).  As we got drunker, we talked about her coming to visit me in NYC so that we could go jogging in Central Park together (she was a real fitness buff), when in reality I’ve never jogged in my life and the very thought of jogging gives me chest pains.  Fortunately (for me), by the time she realized my true corpulence she was twenty gin and tonics deep and I was just about finished.  Mulgrew: 1, 35 Year-Old British Chick: 0.  Surprisingly, we never spoke again.  Such is life, and love.
 
But when the temperature rises, my fatness is exposed.  I’m constantly tugging at the t-shirts I wear so they don’t look painted on.  Sweat leaves its mark on my armpits, as well as the ring of my neck and the small of my back.  Any guise of muscle is exposed as fraudulent, as my big chest, which can double as “pecks” under a jacket in January, are revealed as the man-boobies they are in a t-shirt in June. 
 
But it works the opposite way for women.  When it’s winter and you’re bundled up under layers of turtlenecks, blouses, and, I don’t know, whatever else women wear, we men are denied access to your shapely forms.   For four months, glorious hienies are hidden by long coats, legs wrapped snugly in jeans, and cleavage covered with scarves.  Ugh.
 
But then, in spring - rebirth!  Life!  Legs!  Boobies!  Joy!  I don’t even have words to des