The latest batch of pot I’ve been smoking reduces me to a 14 year old.  When I smoke it, it feels like the first time (it feels like the very first time): I get light-headed, my mouth gets dry, and I get the munchies – all symptoms I have not felt in years.

Last night, I was feelin’ kinda blue for no particular reason at all, and sat down at my computer to dick around and listen to my monumentally suicide-inducing "Sad as Fuck" iTunes playlist (and I know that "monumentally suicide-inducing" doesn’t make much sense, but if you heard this playlist, you would understand completely).  I had already been drinking some fine red (red) wine and decided, since it was Thursday night and all, to smoke a bowl or two.

What happened next, I can’t explain, but I was up until almost 3 in the morning smoking pot, drinking wine, listening to the "Sad as Fuck" playlist, and (saddest of all) playing computer solitaire.  I was so fucking incredibly high and sad that when I looked at the clock and saw it was 1:48am, I did a double take (albeit a very slow double take).  Then I played solitaire for another hour before going to bed.

(I had a 9am meeting this morning and was so stressed out about it that I woke up at 6:30 and came into work early.  Since I was in early, I decided to treat myself to a sausage, egg and cheese bagel and a large hot chocolate.  The effect these had on me was similar to when a bear gets hit with a tranquilizer dart.  I slurred my way through the meeting, dark circles under my eyes, sipping diet coke, fighting to make my mouth say what my brain wanted it to say and move my body the way my brain wanted it to move.  Now, I’m contemplating banging my head against a wall in the bathroom and going into my boss’s office to tell him that I fainted in the bathroom and need to go home, because I really need a nap.  Jason Mulgrew: Champion Employee.)

The point is that I enjoy drinking so much that I forget the simple joys of pot.  Just a couple of bingers can transform you from a successful 27 year old man, enjoying his fine Chilean wine in his downtown Manhattan two-bedroom apartment, into a groveling mess of emotions, practically weeping at his computer, hunched over playing solitaire, and trying to figure out the easiest route to marriage.  Or threesome. 

(Stoners: I know a "binger" is technically a bong hit but I enjoy the word so much that I use it to describe all types of pot-hitting.  So please don’t email me and call me out on it.)

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Speaking of my apartment, I’ve begun to decorate it – only nineteen months after I moved in!  Since my old roommate Brian and I moved in, the walls of the apartment have been completely bare.  In June, when Brian moved out, I figured I’d start putting up some pictures or some shit.  Shockingly, that never happened.

Two nights ago, I got all manly, busted out the tape measure, hammer, and nails, and went to town.  Now I have a painting hanging in my bedroom, another above the TV, and four framed prints from this site hanging in my living room.  I got a new coffee table for Christmas and was going to put that together, but I don’t have a flathead screwdriver.  Heretofore, I had been using a boxcutter as a flathead screwdriver, but I had a premonition that if I were to use it on the new coffee table, the razor would break as I was tightening a screw, fly off, and strike me in the eye.  And as cool as I think eye patches are, I’m not ready for one at this point in my life.  At least, I don’t think I am. 

Anyway, the point is that I’ve want this poster in my apartment (don’t worry, I’ll get it framed and classy).  It’s from a Fellini movie called, "E La Nave Va", which, translated from the Italian, roughly means, "Rhino in a Boat."  I really like the poster, because to me, it’s symbolic: I am the man in the boat rowing, desperately trying to get somewhere, but I can’t, because I have this big fucking rhino in the boat (the rhino representing, of course, Oreo cookies).  It’s sold out everywhere or no longer in print, but if any of y’all find it, lemme know.  I love that fucking poster.

(And Oreo cookies.)

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Look, I’m very happy that the Eagles have made it this far into the playoffs.  After the Tennessee game, I, like everyone else, thought the season was over.  Instead, the Eagles, winners of their last six games, bounced back and gave me something to root for.

But, as a gambler, I am obliged to tell you this: if you have a mortgage on your home, you should bet that mortgage on the Saints this weekend.  The Eagles looked like a JV squad against the Giants, who are arguably the worst playoff team in NFL history.  I won’t disparage their play last week any more, but with the Eagles playing like that, All Pro corner Lito Sheppard out, all the "Go New Orleans/Fuck Katrina!" sentiment, and most importantly, Deuce and Reggie, I don’t see how the Saints aren’t giving 8.  Instead, they’re giving 5.  Unless Westbrook and/or Garcia have career days (and I mean that in the most superlative sense, as in, games of their lives), I don’t see how New Orleans doesn’t win by at least 5. 

Please don’t think I am any less of a Birds fan because I say this.  While driving to Philly recently, I was alone in the car and "We Are the Champions" came on and I got so carried away thinking, "You know what? Maybe this is our year!" that I – no lie – starting crying a little bit in the car.  But Philly fans are a pessimistic, wounded bunch, and I refuse to get my hopes up only to get crushed again.  Typically, I’m not the type of person to settle or leave well enough alone, and if the Eagles lose on Sunday, I will NOT be satisfied (since the game is on Saturday night, if the Birds lose, I’m pretty much guaranteed to get in a bar fight and/or fall asleep in a public bathroom), but with perspective, maybe I will be content even with a loss to the Saints.  Maybe. 

(God, I get so fucking stressed out just thinking about this game.)

(I’m already sad about it even.  Let’s just move on.)

In other news, just a quick question: how the F do the Los Angeles Galaxy have $250 million to sign David Beckham?  And I don’t mean that like "how do they have the cap room?", but rather, how do they have enough money, period?  I’ve never met anyone who watches MLS, let alone has been to a game or has bought its merchandise.  And yet ONE TEAM has a quarter of a billion dollars to sign a player?  The equivalent would be me, as an eight year old in a house in which food stamps were used, coming down on Christmas morning to find a card with $190,000 in it.  What gives here? 

Can someone explain this to me?  Because if this is the way money works, I’m heading out straight from work to buy a building, because, hey, fuck it.   

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This is nice, although I might take some umbrage with being compared, looks-wise, to a cheeseburger.  However, the Freddy Mercury comparison more than makes up for it.  I’m blushing, actually.

(And that is a very bad picture of me, taken in December of ‘04.  Just for the record.)

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I listen to music probably, I’d say, six hours a day.  Most of the time, it’s through headphones, as I’m commuting to work, sitting at my desk, walking around the city, shaving my legs, etc.  For the longest time, I had been rocking the iPod headphones, but was looking for a change.  My interest slowly gravitated to Bose headphones, basically because the Bose Corporation thinks it’s the Greatest Thing That Ever Happened to Life.  Every one of their ads has the word "breakthrough", "revolution", or "unprecedented" in it (I think I even saw one ad with "scrumtrillescent" in it).

So, sucker that I am, I went out and dropped $100 on a pair of their in-ear headphones.  The fancy name for these headphones is the "Bose In-Ear Headphones with Triport Acoustic Headphone Structure," but they could really be called the "Jason Mulgrew Is Going to Get Hit By A Fucking Car Headphones."  See, the headphones go in your ear but come with these little rubber-like attachments that go on the end of the earpieces, so that you’re essentially clogging your eardrums.  In a way, this is great, because it allows for total immersion into the music, catching each melodious note from Mr. Otis John Redding or each saucy snarl from Ms. Lita Ann Ford.  Conversely, the earphones block out all external sounds, like, for example, cabs beeping at you in the middle of Second Ave as you run across to the falafel place before it closes or fellow subway passengers squealing in horror as they watch a homeless guy stand behind you and jack off, while you listening to those geniuses from the British Isles, Messrs. Liam and What’s-His-Face Gallagher.   

On the whole: good buy.  When I first started listening to them, I was blown away by the depth and clarity of the sound as compared to my one year old iPod headphones.  So maybe their ads are onto something…

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Six Songs

"Inmates"  The Good Life
Like "Good Houses" from last week, I was driving into NYC and this song came on the radio station of the College of Staten Island.  This surprised me, since I assumed that the radio station of the College of Staten Island would play only trance music, interrupted by the occasional ads for hair salons, gyms, and Herpes medications.  I only caught the last line ("I can’t be your prisoner/Oh no"), but got home, googled that lyric, downloaded the song, and was pleased with it; it’s one of those intensely personal break up songs in which the singer (a woman) really drags her ex through the mud.  I like her style and would like to have a drink with her. 

"I’m Going to Stop Pretending That I Didn’t Break Your Heart"  The Eels
If the title alone isn’t enough to make you want to download it, then something’s wrong with you.

"I Don’t Love You Anymore"  Teddy Pendergrass
This song has been played at almost every wedding I’ve been to, and while I certainly admire its grooviness and dance-inducing-ness, the title says, "I don’t love you anymore."  I mean, c’mon people.  This is not a happy song.  Let’s not play it at weddings.  Bars and clubs – fine, but take it off the wedding playlist.

"Midnight Train to Georgia"  Gladys Knight and the Pips
I often wonder what it would be like to have The Pips singing back up for me for a day.  What I love most about this song is that they’re singing back up, but not repeating Gladys’ words; they seem to be improvising their own words around the lyrics, adding "No no" and "Uh uh" and just basically riffing.  In my case it could be like:

INT. DELI — LUNCHTIME

Me: [to man behind counter] "Can I get a #3, no mayo?"
Pips: [singing] "You better believe that there’s no mayo – uh uh."

INT. BAR — NIGHT

Me:[to girl at bar] "Why don’t you just come home with me?"
Pips: [singing] "He’ll try to put it in the butt – oh yeah!"

A boy can dream. 

"The Chokin’ Kind"  Joss Stone
[Said in snooty, hipster way] She was so much better when she was unknown.

"There Ain’t Nothing About You (That Don’t Do Something For Me)"  Brooks & Dunn (mp3 not available)
Great song, but what I especially like about it is that you can bastardize almost every word in the title with a grossly exaggerated Southern accent: "Thar ain nuthin’ ’bout choo, done do sumpin’ fer me."  You know, I think I could do reasonably well in the South.  I once went to San Antonio for work years ago and had a ball.  I also got so drunk that I called my girlfriend at the time and compared myself to Nietzsche.  God, I was such a weirdo.  Wonder why that relationship didn’t work out?

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Have a good weekend.  Pray for me and the Philadelphia Eagles and the whole city.  Please.