sadness, links, a lil’ music
Jason posted on May 30, 2007

Some of you may have already seen this, but Ace Cowboy over at Slack Lalane has called it quits.

This is a sad turn not just for the blog world in general, but for me personally.  Ace and Don Fiedler began Slack three years ago just after I started this here website, and since then we have had a symbiotic relationship, offering our views (usually laced with casual racism and sexual innuendo) on sports, politics, religion, and the world in general, wrecking havoc on the internet.  And now, no more.   

While I appreciate Ace’s fortitude and grace in quitting while he’s ahead (whereas I will only stop writing this kicking and screaming and wetting myself), I lose a piece of daily entertainment.  Slack was, aside from Deadspin, the only blog that I read every day.  And now it is gone.  Sadness.

Ace, I wish you much luck with his new (well, not that new) venture Hidden Track.  You are a magnificent son of a bitch in the truest sense of the word, and I will miss your internet friendship and insight greatly.  God bless.  Go with God.  Godspeed.

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Speaking of blogs, we’re reorganizing some things around here, including our links section.  If you want a link on this site, please email me with the word "link" in the subject line.  You will have to link this site back and there may be a quiz involved, but it shouldn’t be too difficult.   

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

Finally, because it’s a slow day, here’s a lovely clip of my boy Ray Lamontagne and Damien Rice (who I strongly dislike, mostly because a friend worked for him before he got famous and he was a monster dickhead), doing a cover of one of my favorite Bee Gees songs.  While I still think the original is better, it’s an interesting cover choice and an enjoyable version. 

[youtube]cEVQZiTTcF4[/youtube]

(God, I have such beard envy of Ray.  That is a real man’s beard, not the George-Michael-after-too-many-cherry-cokes look I have going on.  Crap.)

the power of the uniform
Jason posted on May 29, 2007

Believe it or not, in my junior and senior years of high school, there was a significant amount of discussion in my house about whether I should apply to the US Naval Academy.

My uncle is a career navy man and a fairly big wig who assured me and my family that it would not be too difficult to get in.  I had the grades (or close to them), and since I was one of the few people in my neighborhood and Philadelphia in general who could read above a tenth grade level (just kidding, neighbors and Philadelphians!), getting the required congressional recommendations would probably not have been too much of a hassle.  Adding momentum to the idea was that the Naval Academy is practically free, which was important since my family figured we could spend about $3000 a year on my college education (not a lot of colleges cost $3000 a year, even way back in 1997).  All these factors, combined with the fact that I’d make my grandfather, a World War II vet, and my father, a Real Man unlike his Son Who Likes To Read and Fears Bugs, finally proud of me, made the idea of at least applying to the Naval Academy compelling.

But ay, there was a rub, namely my inability to do a single push-up or even look at a flight of stairs without getting short of breath.  At that point in my life, I could barely get through a masturbation session without stopping mid-jerk to take a quick cat nap.  (Indeed, the fact that I even used the phrased "cat nap" proved that I wouldn’t make the best military man.)  All the running, yelling, getting told what to do, and running really turned me off.  And the required service after graduation (four years?), well, let’s just say I wasn’t prepared to sign the next eight years of my life away at the age of 18, especially when the bulk of those eight years would involve a tremendous amount of exercising.       

So instead I didn’t apply to the Naval Academy and sent applications to a crapload of Jesuit schools and a few others, praying that one of them would deliver a nice financial aid package.  You know how the rest of the story goes: after Boston College came with a generous offer, I went there, had a spectacular time, got a job in NYC after graduation, toiled for a bit but then became an international phenomenon, almost had a threesome, and now live such a luxurious lifestyle that I actually pronounce diamonds in three syllables (di-uh-monds).  Seeing how my life turned out, with all its fine linens and expensive cheeses, I never regretted my decision not to apply to the Naval Academy.

Until this past weekend, that is.

The past seven days have been Fleet Week in New York City.  From my understanding, the purpose of Fleet Week is two-fold.  First, civilians get a chance to explore battleships and aircraft, which are docked and, um, parked (?) in various places in the city.  Second, sailors and Marines get to hang out and enjoy NYC - and sleep with pretty much whatever women they want without so much as having to buy a drink or even ask a name. 

While I didn’t check out any military cruisers or planes this weekend, I witnessed first-hand the great "enjoyment" these sailors and Marines had in New York City.  My buddy Jeremy had a friend in town for Fleet Week, a Marine named Booker, who rolled with a whole group of Marines, with whom we hung out this weekend.  And, ladies and gentlemen, if I am not joining the Marines, I am at least getting myself a short hair cut and investing in some dress blues.  Because, well, wow. 

The phrase "shooting fish in a barrel" would not apply to how easily these Marines were able to pick up women.  Instead, it’d be closer to the fish jumping out of the barrel into the Marines’ hands.  And then fucking them.  And the fish also give them some money.  Something like that.  I’m not real poetic.  Let’s just move on.  

Women attacked our new Marine friends as soon as they entered a room.  It was legitimately unsettling how quickly women would approach and touch these guys; I had only seen such bold displays of female aggression in strip clubs or in those fantasy sequences I play in my head in which I’m the warden in an all-female prison.  All they had to do was show up and stand in one place and shortly (and I mean within seconds) they’d be surrounded by women. 

Early on, I thought that this might work to my advantage.  After all, there simply weren’t enough Marines to go around (in our crew, at least), and by being buddy-buddy with them, maybe that would make me more attractive to these women; perhaps they’d think I was a former Marine, or that I hung out near Marine bases, or that I least could lift more than 40 pounds over my head.  If not, again, odds were in my favor: my buddies Jeremy and Brian and I were hanging out with four Marines, and at least a dozen women were around these guys at all times.  Even if each Marine could handle two women each, that left four women for me, Jeremy and Brian - and Brian’s eyes are usually closed just around midnight, when the booze catches up with him.  Statistically, I had a real shot.

But no.  Not even close, actually.  I was way out of my element and completely out-classed.  Typically, I go to certain kinds of bars (dives) to meet certain kinds of women (loners).  This weekend, Jeremy, knowing he couldn’t take his Marine buddy to our dark, basement bars of choice, we bit the bullet and went to all sorts of douchey bars, including the infamous Sutton Place, which I have decried as the single worst bar in New York City.  On most nights Sutton Place could double as a stop on the Long Island Railroad, so full is it of gelled-out over-tanned meatheads looking to fight and dolled-up over-tanned Barbie dolls looking to fuck.  The night we went was no exception, but our Marine friends, real men who shoot people and fight for freedom, thrived, putting to shame the normal clientele of guidos, who can list the top five bestest suntan lotions on the market and spend 80% of their lives pretending to be Tony Montana or Tony Soprano. 

Meanwhile, I have an internet diary and a day job at a law firm.  Jeremy works in the "music industry" and is actually physically afraid of most women.  Brian works at an entertainment news show and, as mentioned above, his eyes were closed just after midnight.

So we saddled up to the bar, occasionally glancing over our shoulders to check out one of our new Marine buddies making out with a girl with $8000 boobs.  Make no mistake; it was not jealousy that we felt.  Well, ok, we felt some jealousy, but for the most part, we were happy for our Marine buddies.  I have made almost a second career out of watching men who are not me make out with women at bars, but never before have I seen a group of guys so deserving of some heavy petting with loose Long Island girls. 

[Honesty compels me to report that I did play a small role as potential saboteur, buying numerous shots for the Marines, hoping that they'd get so drunk they'd pass out and be unable to tend to their now-riled up ladies' needs, at which point I'd step in and say something like, "Yep - they've had too much to drink. Greenies. I remember how drunk I got during my first Fleet Week. Of course, I'm no longer in the Corps, as once you say the lives of 1000 children you get a honorable discharge and free access to fighter jets 24 hours a day. Say, you girls like wine?"]

I spent a good portion of Saturday, the day after our night at Sutton Place, laying on my couch eating jello with my fingers.  Do you know why I did this?  Because I could.  Do you know why I could do this?  Because men and women like Jeremy’s buddy Booker and his friends are out there fighting for my freedom, making it possible for me to live a slothful - yet entirely and 100% awesome - life.  So as I looked over my shoulder at my Marine friends at Sutton Place, I smiled.  I smiled for my new friends, who were enjoying themselves with some lovely ladies, smiled for myself, as I would surely masturbate to the scene at a later time, and smiled for my country, knowing it was in good hands.      

(Now can anybody score me any sort of military uniform?  Inquire within for sizes - I’m not posting my measurements all over the internet.)  

sunday
Jason posted on May 23, 2007

On Sunday, I spent most of the day laying around in bed, recovering.  Then my buddy Jeremy asked me to join him for dinner at our favorite Mexican place, Festival Mexicano in the Lower East Side.  Ever hungry because of my weight problem, I agreed to join him.

I’ve written before about Festival Mexicano.  It is one of those delightful places that sacrifices things like following health code guidelines and hiring exterminators for the sake of providing excellent and authentic Mexican food at reasonable prices.  Read: eat at your own risk.

And though whenever I eat there I need to be taken home in one of those special cabs that have a toilet in them, I had never experienced much greater gastrointestinal distress than immediately having to poop as soon as I put my fork down.  But as someone who has a lifetime of experience with an excitable colon, this does not phase me much and this mild discomfort is worth it for their delicious food.

Jeremy and I started with our standard appetizers, the bean quesadilla and the beef (picadillo) nachos.  However when the order arrived, the waitress dropped off the bean quesadilla and the bean nachos.  I hate sending back food at restaurants (dealbreaker for me, ladies: be a bitch to waitstaff and/or send back food), but I love those beef nachos - and we already had the bean quesadilla!  Since whenever Jeremy and I go on our little "dates" he invariably plays the role of woman/bottom, it was up to me to do something about this mistake.  I very nicely called our Mexican waitress over to our table the next time she passed and very nicely explained that we ordered the beef nachos, not the bean nachos.

For whatever reason, she did not take this well.  She looked at her pad, looked at the nachos, then looked at me.  We had a mini (four seconds?) staring contest before she looked back at the nachos and angrily picked them up and walked back into the kitchen.   

She never said anything during our little stand-off - probably because of the language barrier - but she sure was shooting me daggers; little, pointy Mexican daggers that were probably lifted off the back of a truck.  I didn’t know what I did to deserve this; I was totally nice about the whole thing and apologized profusely, even though she was the one who made the mistake.  Maybe she was having a bad day.  Maybe she thought I was being sarcastic.  Maybe she was upset about the oppression in her home country of Mexico (or some other Mexico-type country).  Whatever.  I just wanted my fucking beef nachos.    

My fucking beef nachos were shortly plopped onto our table.  You could tell by looking at them they the beef had been inserted under the layer of cheese, rather than a new order of nachos created. (The nachos at Festival look kinda like these, and it was plainly clear that the cheese on each individual chip was lifted and the beef inserted underneath.)  Understandable, I suppose, since I don’t like to waste food, but this seriously affected the quality of the nachos, which sucked.  Still, that did not stop Jeremy and I from devouring them before moving on to our chicken burritos.

Our plan after dinner was to go to Circuit City in Union Square so that I could make one my Rash Hungover Purchases: a 42" inch plasma television.  Actually, this purchase was somewhat thought out, since I had researched TVs and had been thinking about buying a plasma for some time.  However, I could not pull the trigger until I was hungover enough to believe I was a millionaire.

(Of all the traits I could have inherited from my father - cigarette-eating, tattoo-getting, punching people in the jaw when they’re not looking, etc - I got his carefree attitude towards money.  Growing up, my dad’s motto was, "What good is money if you can’t spend it."  Maybe this is why we were on food stamps.  Whoops.)

After we finished the meal, I felt that old familiar urge - Festival’s Revenge, we shall call it - and had to poop.  But I rode out the storm; I stood up, walked around, and felt better.  I could have pooed in the bathroom at the restaurant, but not even I could make that happen.  The only place grosser than the restaurant that serves you food that gives you the shits is the bathroom in the the restaurant that serves you food that gives you the shits.

Feeling better, Jeremy and I hailed a cab and started off toward Union Square.  In the cab…things fell apart.

My face became flushed and I could feel beads of sweat developing on my forehead.  My stomach churned, groaned, tightened.  I sat nearly doubled over and grew short of breath.  I needed to find a bathroom immediately.  This was no normal Festival’s Revenge.  The poo cometh. 

As Jeremy cringed in horror and sat as far away from me in the cab as possible, I redirected the cabbie from the Circuit City on the south side of Union Square to the Barnes & Noble on the north side.  I know that Barnes & Noble and its bathroom very well.  It would more than suffice.

I threw money at the cabbie and told Jeremy I’d call him when I was done and raced up the escalator.  I thought the bathroom was on the second floor but when I reached it, saw that it was now women’s only and men’s room was now on the third floor.  Up the escalator, stomach and buttocks clenched, I went.

When I closed the door to the bathroom stall, my pants barely hit my ankles before the first blast came.  "Blast" is the most appropriate word that comes to mind; it was like shooting a pump action shotgun out of my heinie.  It was sharp, sudden; had I not been in so much pain, I might have applauded its sheer force.  Before I could properly appreciate the power of my bowel movement, the second blast came.  I can say with certainly that this blast lifted me off the toilet seat - perhaps only two or three inches, but my body was definitely airborne.  Crashing back down on the toilet seat, the third blast came, though it was not strong enough to be called a blast in itself.  Rather, this was the remaining refuse jarred loose from my colon, seeping out of my heinie like water out of a drainage pipe.  I heard someone using a urinal say, "Wow."  Yeah.  Pretty much. 

It was over in seconds, but it felt like much longer.  I sat on the toilet seat, head lolling to the side, breathing heavily, sweat dripping from my forehead down my face, trying to get control of myself.  I suddenly had a surge of great respect for my ancestors.  I cried a little.             

Once I regained my strength, post-poo I felt great.  I rejoined Jeremy on the first floor of the book store, invigorated.  We left the store and walked across the square to the Circuit City to pick up my new TV.

But it was not meant to be.  We arrived at the store at 8:04pm.  It had closed at 8pm.  My poo cost me the opportunity to get my dream TV.  Not your ordinary Festival’s Revenge.

Little did I know that this was just the beginning.  I went to bed at midnight but woke up only a few hours later to experience one of those unique "throwing up while shitting" scenarios known as the gargoyle.  Repeat.  Repeat.  I actually called in sick on Monday because I didn’t think it would be a wise move to sit at my desk with my ass on a trash can.  The 24 hours after that meal at Festival was 24 of the most trying and physically difficult hours of my life. 

Now, I don’t like to throw around the word "assassination attempt" freely, but I believe an attempt on my life was made by the staff of Festival Mexicano. 

[And not just my life - Jeremy also called in sick on Monday, suffering from similar ailments (leading many of our friends to suggest we spent the day fooling around, which, certainly, would have been nice, but not when I was feeling so poopy).]  

Needless to say, this will seriously affect my relationship with Festival Mexicano.  I love that place (still can’t use past tense) and it will be very difficult for me to not eat there.  But, difficult as it may be, I have to take a stand.  I was almost murdered, for Christ’s sake!  And yes, "death by nacho beef" is probably the way I want to go, but I have at least two good years left in me.  That Festival Mexicano tried to rob me of those two remaining good years, well, that really gets my goat (which, incidentally, I think they also serve at Festival).  So that’s it - no more Festival Mexicano.  It just has to be that way.

(At least for the next two weeks.  C’mon - everyone deserves a second chance.) 

saturday
Jason posted on May 23, 2007

On Saturday, I had a terrible hangover, went to see Ricky Gervais do stand-up with my brother (he was very funny), found a small bag of cocaine on Bleecker Street, meet up with a bunch of other friends, drank many liters of German beer, nearly got into a fistfight at a bar and was asked to leave, then went home and had sex until almost 7am. 

So I did pretty much what I do every Saturday.

(One of the things mentioned above is not true.  Please feel free to guess which one.)   

friday
Jason posted on May 23, 2007

Indian food terrifies and delights me.  I like danger, I like the unknown, and I like food.  A meal at an Indian restaurant combines all three.

Friday was my friend Corinne’s birthday and to celebrate eight of us went to a restaurant on India Row in the East Village.  We did this a few months ago and had a ball; there is something to be said for eating food you can’t pronounce, drinking a ton of cheap wine, and having an Indian man call you "my friend" over and over again and rub your back for just a little too long.

I have a friend who exclusively dates Indian men, and though she did not attend this dinner, I asked her advice about what I should order, as she knows how afraid I am of unknown foods.  She replied via email with a list of the safest of safe Indian food: korma, tikka masala, garlic nan, etc.  Her email, though helpful, proved somewhat useless, since we ordered "for the table."  This is a phrase that gives me pause me when eating unfamiliar cuisine with a group, for two reasons.  One, I have rather strict tastes.  For example, I can’t eat anything spicy, I dislike 80% of vegetables (a number that jumps to 97% when Cheez Whiz is not involved), and won’t eat any foods handled by a man with a moustache (long, incredibly painful story).  It seems like when people order for the table, the table winds up getting all manner of dishes that frighten and disgust me, like spicy octopus (with grilled vegetables) or chicken feet (with grilled vegetables) or grilled vegetables (with grilled vegetables).  Meanwhile, I find myself standing near the kitchen, bribing the waiter to bring me some cow-derived meat or at least a few extra pats of butter. 

This relates to the second reason I don’t like ordering for the table: I am fat.  Therefore, I want food.  A lot of it.  When I find something I like in an ethnic dish, I want it for me and not to share.  In this case, it was korma, creamy delicious korma.  I think I have had korma before, but after trying it on Friday night, I want to marry it, or at least have a torrid affair with it that ends only when one of us is killed in a tragedy of epic portions (I’m thinking of some sort of duel or Titanic-like boating disaster).  Korma was one of the few things I liked (really liked) during our meal and though I tried my best not to bogart the korma, it was inevitable.  The korma was mine, all the korma.  But really, my friends should expect this from me.

The good news is that everyone got very drunk very quickly.  The best part of these big Indian meals is that they have cheap wine that they just keep pouring and pouring and pouring.  Things quickly accelerate. 

Not only that, but Brian upped the ante by bringing a bottle of Disaronno to the Indian restaurant.  My friends and I have a private joke about Disaronno, which basically revolves around how stupid/erotic the commercials are (I won’t get into it, since it’s totally not worth explaining and it involves me pretending to have too much Disaronno and slowly stripping to that song "Dancin’ In The Moonlight").  But none of us had ever actually had Disaronno - we just liked to make fun of it.

Well, let me tell you something: Disaronno is delicious.  It’s an amaretto-type drink that tastes like the juice from a jar of maraschino cherries - at least, that’s what I thought after all the korma and nan and wine and such.  We all had a little bit, then, taken as I was with it, I had a little more.  And then a little more.  And then the rest.  I’m not ashamed to admit it: I love Disaronno.

We were at the Tile Bar, also known as the James Fucking Iha Bar, also known was WCOU Radio, by 9:30pm.  Normally, we get to this bar around 1am, after sitting and drinking in my apartment for several hours.  To be there so early…well, we weren’t prepared.  Any by "we weren’t" I mean "I wasn’t."  At least I was still drinking the Disaronno.   

There are times when you’re out with friends, hanging out, having fun, thinking it’s another harmless evening, when unbeknownst to you the Perfect Storm of Drunkeness is gathering around you.  There I was: already half in the bag with a belly full of korma, cheap red wine, and Disaronno, after an especially hellish end of the work week, feeling very sexually aggressive, and, simply, things fell apart.

Just after midnight, I was so drunk that I asked my old roommate Brian to walk across the street with me so that I could get a Red Bull and "some air."  I can’t explain the depth of the irony of this statement.  Brian is usually the one blacked out, acting like a zombie, smoking cigarettes in the bar and drinking other people’s drinks; I’m the one who’s usually together, talking to some poor, trapped woman, asking her if she’s ever heard of the internet and/or if she’s into failed TV writers.  Me asking Brian for help sobering up is like saying to the late Jeffrey Dahmer, "Dude, I need some advice because trying to stop murdering and eating gay men - think you could help me out here?"   

It was about this time that my cell phone came out, a development that resulted in dire consequences.  Let’s just get this out in the open right now: Ladies, please don’t give me your number.  Ever.  Just make out with me and then give me a fake number.  This is really the best option for everyone involved.  I’ll save you the trouble and tell you now that I am not "the one," so really, there’s no need to communicate with me after that initial make out session (not that many want to, but worth mentioning).  Giving me your number will only result in embarrassment and awkwardness for both of us.  Just trust me.      

When I woke up the next day and checked it, my text message log read like the plotline of an episode of "Dynasty."  So many complicated and tangled romantic situations aggressively brought to the fore, issues and grievances that were best left unsolved unceremoniously and intoxicatingly addressed; I was basically giving away the Upper Hand and my dignity across the board.  Astonishing.  And remember, this is someone who is so used to texting/sending/leaving "next day apology" texts/voicemails/emails that he had his lawyer draft a proper form response, and even I was appalled at what I did Friday night.  Just…wow.

[Sadly, I can't get into specifics.  We're gonna need a couple of weeks to let this settle.]

I don’t recall leaving the bar.  Corinne was staying at my place that night (she’s living out in NJ temporarily) and she later told me I walked up to her and said, "I need to go home."  I left.  She came home later and found me asleep on the couch listening to - wait for it - the Phil Collins version of "You Can’t Hurry Love" on repeat on my iPod speakers and eating - wait for it - pie (I have no idea where the pie came from).  Honestly, I don’t have a girlfriend.  Amazing, I know, but true.  I can’t believe it either.  

Disaronno…you are a jealous and rageful bitch, you are.        

pics (cc’s b-day)
Jason posted on May 22, 2007

Please enjoy some pics from my friend Corinne’s birthday party this weekend.  Explanation to follow.

great moments in parenting, volume one
Jason posted on May 16, 2007

[youtube]ceNf-11-ddI[/youtube]

favorites: girl, booze tour, food
Jason posted on May 15, 2007

1) Sarah Shahi, the girl who played Sonya on Sunday night’s "Sopranos" (which I won’t get into, by the way, since I’m still not ready to talk about it yet), is the most beautiful woman who has ever been created by god, man, animal, mad scientist, or psychotropic drug-induced hallucination.  No…words…sex crime…imminent. 

(She is also on "The L Word," but since I have a penis that is technically intended for women - though there is admittedly scant empirical evidence to back this up - I do not watch that show.  But I will start.  Tonight.)

I was thinking about this the other day, and of the eight or so girls who could be considered semi-girlfriends* of mine (god, what an illustrious and exclusive list that is), not a single one had brown eyes, and most had light hair.  This is odd, because I’ve never thought that I had a particular "type" I was attracted to - aside from, of course, profoundly boobied.  And yet my romantic history says otherwise.  Not a single brown-eyed dark-haired girl in the lot.  Hmm. 

But I have been going through a serious brunette phase as of late.  Meaning, I’ve been leering especially criminally at brunettes that I pass on the street lately.  And Sarah, I have been reintroduced to you at the wrong time.  I say "reintroduced" because I remember the Maxim spread that you did way back in 2002.  That nearly put me in a home (I can’t remember which kind of home), but I made it.  Barely.  This time, it might be different. 

So Sarah, I mean, I don’t even know what to say to you.  I’m not quite at the "Oh yes - we will be together" point just yet, but that should happen sometime this weekend, probably after that first bottle of wine at my friend Corinne’s birthday dinner on Friday.  So you should probably get out of town for a little bit.  Just trust me on this.  And good luck. 

(*"Semi-girlfriend" is defined as all official, boyfriend-girlfriend relationships, as well as other relationships that meet certain criteria, including but not limited to "We’ve never been on a date but we’ve been sleeping together every three weeks for a year," "I spent $3500 on you in four months," "I liked you quite a bit and everything was going well but your brother and I got in a fistfight and that was pretty much it but at least we both can agree that he’s a drug addict," etc.)

2) In less than two months: the 9th Annual Flood-Mulgrew Quasi-Celebrity "Drink Until You Shit" Tour. 

We will hold the annual bar crawl Saturday, July 14 in North Wildwood, New Jersey.  We’re still discussing specifics, but y’all should book your hotel rooms and start saving for the t-shirts now.  Two years ago, we got 30 shirts and about 50 people attended.  Last year, we got 80 shirts and about 120 people attended.  This year, we’re getting 300 shirts.  It’s going to be a true drinking spectacular.  I don’t really know what this means or entails, but I’m guessing it will end with me in the Wawa at 3rd & New Jersey just after 3am ordering a hot turkey sandwich, then forgetting I ordered and ordering another hot turkey sandwich.  Neither will go to waste.

(Also, I don’t seriously expect any of you to attend, but you’re more than welcome to.  It’s basically an all-evening/night drinking tour in which a lot of people who pronounce water "wudder" will get blind drunk and complain about their local sports teams.  We may however, depending on the turnout, have shirts for sale on here, but that would require me trying to make money from this site, something I am really not good at doing.  I’ll keep you posted.)

3) If you want to see me at my happiest, check out the picture on my MySpace page of me eating creamed chipped beef.  Sure, it’s a little terrifying, but that’s love does to you. 

(God, I miss creamed chipped beef.  I seriously think it may cause me to move back to Philly one day.  I can’t wait until I finally reach the day when I say to myself, "You know what? Fuck it. Time to go home, gain 70 pounds, and get a dog. I’m done. Thanks very much.")

fame and everything else
Jason posted on May 14, 2007

Last night I had my annual brush with celebrity and Hollywood elite, the UTA Upfronts party at Marquee.

For those of you - like myself - not in "the industry," the networks announce their fall schedules this week in NYC.  This is a big deal in the entertainment and advertising industries; in entertainment, writers, directors and actors learn if they’re going to be making $30,000 a week or will be unemployed for the foreseeable future, and in advertising, ads are bought during this time for the upcoming season.  Or something.

I was invited to this party because I am a client of UTA.  Also, as some of you may remember, I had a show in development with a Major Network that was, sadly, passed on.  This made this year’s party especially bittersweet.  If things had worked out, it would have been my show that was announced for the fall lineup today, a development that would have spiraled me into an orgy of cocaine, fireworks, vodka, and, um, orgies.  But because I can’t write anything that doesn’t directly refer to my baby penis (which, apparently, is not fit for discussion on network television), instead of shaking hands and getting congratulated I’m sitting in my office with a miserable hangover and a pathetic excuse for an erection.     

(And a baby penis.)

I brought my friends Brian and Jeremy with me to this party and the theme was "Well, I had a good run."  Since the show is dead and the book is not-so-slowly turning into "Chinese Democracy," I don’t think Uncle Jason is going to get too many more invites to parties that Lindsay Lohan, Zach Braff and Bob Saget have attended in the past.  We left for the party with this attitude, determined to celebrate not the passing of my career, but rather the fun (and overtly sexual, if expensive) ride that it involved.  Also, there was an open bar.  So we pretty much had to take advantage of that.

And boy, did we ever.  I’ve been off vodka for some time now.  I had to stop because I used to drink so much that I’d find myself having conversations in fluent Russian with various figments of my imagination (my miniature horse Ron, the Mexican busboy from the Dorchester Holiday Inn named Reggie, the late Jeff Buckley, etc).  But when asked by the 9.4 bartender/seductress what I wanted to drink, I had to go with the ol’ standby: the vodka tonic.

Maybe it was the environment, or the fact that I was high and pretty freaked out by the "Sopranos" episode that I watched before leaving for the party, but those vodka tonics tasted delicious.  Also, schmoozing really makes a guy thirsty.  All the hugging, hand-shaking, cheek-kissing, bathroom-masturbating activity really got me riled up.  And when I’m riled up, I drink faster.  And when I drink fast, I say to myself, "Fuck it - I’m staying out all night and calling in sick tomorrow."   

The party was a blast.  This was my third UTA upfronts party and definitely the most fun, probably because I knew the most people at this one: agents, friends, producers, executives, drug dealers - even my old co-writer Eric was there.  I tried to spend my time equally with Brian and Jeremy and my other "industry" friends, splitting time and making introductions when I could.  But when talking to Brian and Jeremy, we occupied ourselves with two main activities: 

1) A good portion of the night was spent trying to decide if I was the shittiest person there.  "Shittiest" in this context meaning either "has the worst career" or "least belongs at this party" or "hasn’t had a sustainable erection in nine weeks because he’s becoming overly critical of women in order to mask his own deficiencies."  Brian and Jeremy are surely shittier than me (in those first two departments), but the competition was limited to those on the guest list only, not their invited guests.

The answer?  I think I was indeed the shittiest person there.  It’s hard to say, because it’s not like Brian, Jeremy and I recognized everyone and knew of all their accomplishments, but judging on a number of factors based solely on appearance (clothes, attitude, confidence, tanness, likeliness of having had a threesome, etc), I was definitely at the bottom of the barrel (my scores: crappy and ill-fitting, defeated, zero, pale as a sheet of looseleaf, not even close).

2) We also spent a significant of time staring at the beautiful women at the party.  I’d have to check the records, but I don’t think the phrase "Holy crap - look at that girl!" has been uttered more times in a four-hour period than it was last night.  There is something disarmingly sexy about the aspiring actress type, possessed, as they are, of that delicate mix of abandon, desperation, and insanity that only a lifetime of hearing "You’re beautiful" can imbue; the very opposite of the word "inviolate," they are.

And I totally fucking dig it.       

I will promise you this, dear readers: When I make my career comeback and garner my modicum of fame sometime in the next twelve months, I promise that I will marry the most beautiful girl that agrees to go on a date with me.  Six weeks later, we will divorce.  It will be terrible, and I will be institutionalized for a brief while for trying to remove my genitals with a tree branch at my neighbor’s barbeque.  However, the pain from this divorce will inspire my greatest work, "Cuts Like A Spoon: Love You Like A Monkey and Other Tales from the Bottom of Everything," which will be celebrated, critically and commercially, until my death in a bizarre hotel fire in Monte Carlo in 2009.  After my death, it will be discovered that I had been a practicing Nazi since 1987 and I will subsequently be erased from the canon of American literature, my contributions to cinema, culture, and the art of love-making pushed aside and buried.  All, it will be said, because of a beautiful woman. 

That is my promise to you.  Promise.

As for the party itself, I won’t get into the specifics of what happened, lest someone have me killed (just trust me on this).  I got in at 4am and ate (conservatively) two pounds of salsa, taking care to remove my dress shirt before doing so. (A move that proved very wise, as when I woke up this morning my undershirt was streaked with salsa stains.  And yes, again, I am single.)

I told myself several times between the hours of 2am and 4am that I would call in sick, and when my alarm went off at 7:45am, I started typing an email to my boss telling him I would not be in.  But when I finished, I couldn’t hit "send."  I don’t know what came over me – I’d rather not think about it, honestly – but for the first time in my life, I was unable to willfully slack off at my job.  This…this is not a good development. 

And now here I sit at my desk, swaying and sweating and staring at the clock, praying for 5:30pm to come at 4:30pm (or perhaps…now).

But in a way, I have a feeling of pride.  I partied hard last night, saw old friends, felt alternatively cool and inadequate, stared at some beautiful women, and got a handful of stories I can’t tell for at least six months until the statute of limitations runs out.  Tonight, I am going to get Thai food, eat a sundae, take a Xanax, and sleep for thirteen hours.  Things are looking up.

Right now, I have to get back to thinking and plotting and creating. "Cuts Like A Spoon" isn’t going to write itself, after all.

thursday morning
Jason posted on May 10, 2007

When I woke up this morning, my bathroom, kitchen, and half of my living room was covered in toilet water.

Not, I’d like to point out, shit water.  There were no flotillas of feces in this new sea that was created while I slept.  Of course, I would not exactly call this water "clean," but if I had seen even one little turd floating around my bookshelf or my bar area, I would have calmly walked downstairs, out of the building and into a cab, never to return again, to restart my life in a poo-free apartment. 

As I stood there, half-awake at 7:45 this morning, I could hear the toilet continuing to regurgitate, could watch the water flow like a wave against a dock, out of the bathroom, rippling the water in the kitchen, expanding the water in the living room, like high tide rising in the bay.

This was going to have to be taken care of right away.

My "super" is an Italian man in his mid-fifties who drinks wine all day and night at the Italian restaurant below me.  I do not have his number or know where he lives.  When I moved in and asked for this information, he said in his heavily accented and broken English, "You come here.  I always here" (meaning the restaurant).  It was now 8am and the restaurant was closed.

However, on some mornings I run into him as he prowls the streets of my Little Italy neighborhood, yelling in Italian and flirting with the Chinese women walking about, who seem equal parts bemused and terrified by his advances.  Of course, as luck would have it, he was not to be found this morning.  But because this is Little Italy, several middle-aged Italian men are always sitting outside the restaurants that line my streets, smoking cigars and listening to sports radio.  With nowhere else to turn, I asked them if they had seen my super.  They said that he was still asleep, but they gave me the break I needed: they told me where he lived.

(It’s a very weird neighborhood.  Just roll with it.)

And so to his apartment I went.  I knocked on his door twice and got no response, though I could hear rustling inside.  I started ringing the doorbell.  In the middle of the second ring, I heard that familiar Italian accent: "Who is it?"

"Uh, it’s Jason from next door.  I have a big problem - my toilet is overflowing."

My super answered the door.  Naked.  Balls-ass naked.  Obviously disturbed from sleep.  Obviously hungover.  Very, very obviously naked.  Thankfully, he had the decency to shield the lower half of his body behind his door.  Thankfully. 

(In a related story, I will never again have a problem with premature ejaculation for the rest of my life.  You know, if I ever want to have sex again.) 

Thus began my first course over the day in linguistics.  I consider myself good at languages; in high school, I took Latin and Greek and Spanish and all the AP and SAT II tests that came with them, easily passing out of my college language requirement.  At one point in high school and college, I could find a bar and a bathroom in eight languages - really all you need to know when traveling.  So though my super barely speaks English and I know a total of ten words and phrases in Italian - "There is toilet water all over my fucking apartment" not among them - I thought we would be able to communicate without great difficulty.

Wrong.  I spent a solid eight minutes convincing a naked 55 year-old Italian man hiding behind a door that my toilet did not need plunging, that it was a bigger emergency than that.  I don’t think at any point in this conversation he understood what I was trying to say, but he did understand that I was not going to go away unless he came with me.  He said he’d be ready in a minute. 

I realized that our discussion was a waste of breath when we entered my apartment and my super saw the giant pool of water slowly enveloping my apartment and (I presume) cursed in Italian.  Finally, he understood.

As mentioned, I live above an Italian restaurant.  As in, directly below me is an Italian restaurant.  This toilet water presented a clear and present danger to the day’s business at the restaurant; if the toilet kept vomiting, eventually the water would leak down into the restaurant, which I assume would not be good for business. 

My super, after he finished cursing, shouted, "Gimme da phone!"  I handed him my Treo; it was like handing a monkey a copy of War and Peace.  Realizing we were going nowhere fast, I took the phone from him and asked him what number he wanted me to dial.  In a matter of seconds, he was on the phone, yelling in English at who I guessed were the plumbers, saying they needed to get here right away.

To their credit, the plumbers showed up only five or so minutes later.  I assumed they would be Chinese, because, well, everything within five minutes of me is either tourist (I knew none of those were coming), Italian (they don’t work) or Chinese.  However, they were Russian.

Thus began Linguistics II: English as a Foreign Language for Everyone Except You.  My super tried to explain what was happening to my two new Comrades, who looked at him with glazed over expressions that said, "More vodka, please."  Russians do not fuck around, and rather than try to engage in a discourse with this Italian man who only a few hours ago was on his fifth bottle of wine and only a few minutes ago was standing naked behind a door talking to me, they spoke to each other in rapid-fire Russian and headed over the toilet.   

One of the Russians stayed in the bathroom with his tools while the other Russki came over to where my super and I were standing. 

Thus far, the highlight of the morning was, obviously, seeing my super naked.  But this Russian wanted to get in on the competition and so started asking me about my bowel movements/toilet adventures.  I can’t repeat his line of questioning because my head was spinning and the whole thing was a blur, but essentially he wanted to know if I was regularly depositing brown babies into the plumbing system or if I counted among my hobbies "Flushing beach towels down my toilet."

Things got really blurry after that point.  There was the super, trying to talk to the Russians, there were the Russians, working and talking to each other, and there was me, packing (I’m leaving after work today for a long weekend in Philly). 

I gathered my bags, wrote down my cell phone number and gave it to my super, and told him that I was going out of town, that I would be back Sunday, and that this needed to be fixed and cleaned up by then.  In a rare moment of clarity between the two of us, I distinctly remember him saying that the apartment would look exactly as it did before.  Twice.  He said that twice.  Unshowered and beaten, I left for work, hoping that everything would be resolved and cleaned up.

I guess I’ll find out Sunday night when I get back home.

I think this is a good weekend to get out of New York City for a while.

the vh confession
Jason posted on May 9, 2007

My name is Jason Mulgrew.  And I prefer Sammy Hagar to David Lee Roth.

Do not misunderstand me; I do not make this pronouncement rashly.  Indeed, this is the resolution of a debate that has waged in my head for over 20 years.  Few things have caused me such befuddlement and agitation, sleepless night after sleepless night, because I knew that eventually this day would come.  And, secretly, I believe I always knew my choice would be Sammy Hagar.     

I do not want this to be interpreted as a knock against Mr. David Lee Roth.  I recognize and appreciate his talent as a singer and a songwriter, and on a personal level, I both love and am in love with him.  While in Van Halen, he created some of the most memorable songs of the decade of the 80’s, and enjoyed a lifestyle filled with bimbos and booze that made every red-blooded American male envious.  He is bawdy.  He is hilarious.  He is fun.  So no, it is not because of any deficiency on the part of Mr. Lee Roth that I prefer Sammy Hagar.  It is something deeper and within me - and beyond us all.  

By examining each man’s catalog of hits, we get closer to the reasoning behind my choice.  Mr. Lee Roth’s songs include "Runnin’ With The Devil," "Jump," "Dance the Night Away," "Everybody Wants Some," and "Hot for Teacher" - true party anthems that celebrate the decadence of the times and the lifestyle that David Lee Roth embodied at the height of his fame.  Alternatively, some of Mr. Hagar’s biggest hits include, "Why Can’t This Be Love," "When It’s Love," "Can’t Stop Loving You," "Don’t Tell Me What Love Can Do," and "Love Is So Amazing (I Love It)*."  The picture is coming into focus.   

[*Not the title of an actual Sammy Hagar-penned Van Halen song, though it certainly could be.]      

The main reason that I prefer Sammy Hagar is that in my heart of hearts I feel we are kindred spirits.  While, like Mr. Lee Roth, I enjoy women with fake breasts and bleached hair and the taste of cheap whiskey, Mr. Hagar and I are both in love with love.  And this makes all the difference. 

Though I have the scarred and sinewy body of a warrior, I have the soul of a Poet.  I observe; I internalize.  I feel.  I consider Neruda and Lorca friends.  I lunch with Catullus and Horace on Thursdays.  Auden, I know personally; I sail with Eliot. 

With all due respect, the lyrics that Mr. Lee Roth wrote during his tenure with Van Halen read like drivel penned by the only Beta Theta Pi fraternity brother at the University of South Florida with a GPA over 2.8.  In contrast, Mr. Hagar’s words transform us; they take us away from the monotony of our everyday lives filled with car payments, job stress, and questionable sexual encounters, and deliver us, wrapped in a blanket of dandelions and raspberries, to a world where Love is King and Love is All. 

If Pablo Neruda were alive today - and he had frizzy hair, and he loved tequila, and he could not drive 55 - he’d be Sammy Hagar.  Their words are nearly indistinguishable, their obsession with the natural simplicity of love identical.  I invite you to try to tell the difference between their poetry:

In the moist night my garment of kisses trembles
charged to insanity with electric currents,
heroically dividing into dreams
and intoxicating roses practicing on me.

Upstream, in the midst of the outer waves,
your parallel body yields to my arms
like a fish infinitely fastened to my soul,
quick and slow, in the energy under the sky.

and

There’s a time and place for everything, for everyone
We can push with all our might, but nothin’s gonna come
Oh no, nothin’s gonna change
And if I asked you not to try
Oh could you let it be
I wanna hold you and say
We can’t throw this all away
Tell me you won’t go, you won’t go
Do you have to hear me say

I can’t stop lovin’ you
And no matter what I say or do
You know my heart is true, oh
I can’t stop loving you

Which is passage belongs to Neruda and which to Hagar?  I wish I remembered the answer.  After reading those words, I have forgotten it, so moved was I by their brilliance, their temerity.  They are so brave.  I don’t know what to think, really.  To be honest, I don’t know where I am right now.  I’m a little frightened. 

It is this love of love, finally, that compels me to choose Sammy Hagar over David Lee Roth as my preferred Van Halen singer, frontman, soul.  While I regret that there has to be a "loser" in this equation, I do not regret the decision itself and am prepared to stand by it until my last breath.  I understand that Mr. Lee Roth may be hurt by my decision, but I will continue to support him in all of his endeavors.  It is my greatest hope that our relationship is not too negatively affected now that I have come to this Greatest Conclusion. 

As for Mr. Hagar, I am sure that he is pleased.  But giving him this smallest pleasure is the very least I can do, as he has given me so, so much more through his Art.  Because of him, and his words, and his voice, I am more of a man, more a human being.  I am more alive.  I am more.  I am more.  

"How does it feel when it’s love?  It’s just something you feel together."

Indeed, Mr. Hagar.  Indeed.    

man weekend
Jason posted on May 8, 2007

Below are six reasons why this was a particularly manly weekend.  Since Friday night was rather low-key - aside from the $29, 42 minute cab ride from my place to the Upper West Side and the "Philly"-style hot dog at 3:30am - let’s start with Saturday morning.

1) Breakfast
I make, arguably, the world’s greatest breakfasts.  This is one of the few traits I inherited from my father.  Growing up, before my parents’ bitter and terrible divorce that left me sexually and emotionally impotent but with a decent sense of humor and a love of R&B smooth jams of the mid- to late-eighties, I remember my dad making big breakfasts of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes, toast, etc.  Of course, he was usually on something while making these breakfasts, but the end justifies the means.  And those breakfasts were dynamite.  

While I didn’t inherit my dad’s ability to get tattoos or his predisposition to getting stabbed while drunk, he did pass down his breakfast-making genes to me.  But it was during the end of my college career and in those first few years after college that the student surpassed the master, I think.  I perfected the art of breakfast out of necessity; I had to give which girl that spent the night at my dorm/apartment something positive to take away from the experience.  And because our society does not consider six solid minutes of inept fingering "positive," I had to make my ladyfriend of the moment a decent omelet or some nice fluffy pancakes to make up for my horrible bedroom performance.  Nay, I had to make her an incredible omelet or some handsomely fluffy pancakes. 

Many things have changed about me since those days, but I am still terrific at making breakfasts (I grew so bad an digital-genital manipulation that I had to retire from it in 2005, lest someone or something get hurt).  On Saturday I woke up and, feeling inspired by Cinco de Mayo, I decided to try something different with my breakfast: I took a trip south of the border and whipped up some huevos rancheros.

Now, since I try to limit my association with Mexicans as little as possible, I’m not exactly sure what goes in huevos rancheros (which, if I’m not mistaken, means "eggs for poors and seriously it’s like 140° out here").  I made my standard scramble with some fresh mozzarella cheese (very Mexican, I know) and added some salsa to the mix.  Once the eggs were finished, I added a dollop (ok, more than a dollop) of sour cream on my plate to go with my English muffin and chocolate milk and I was set.

And oh my god.

I can never, ever make these eggs again.  I don’t know exactly why, but I do know that I’m afraid of what might happen if they were to fall into the wrong hands.  I don’t even want to talk about them anymore, lest you guys get any ideas.  Some day, probably some day soon, I will wake up next to a lovely women from Mexico or one of those Mexico-type countries and she will say, "Mr. Jason, can you make your huevos rancheros para mi, por favor?"  And I will say, "No."  Then we will make love.  And it will move mountains.  And then I will give her $15 to cover the cab fare back to the Port Authority.  Because it’s the least I can do.      

(By the way, I hate the word "fingering" and don’t think I’ve ever used it before, either in writing or speech.  I had the word "finger-blasting" in there, but thought it was too cheap.  Yes, these are the editorial decisions I make on a daily basis for the sake of my art.  How noble.)

2) Guinness and tequila
In order to enjoy the Cinco de Mayo, the Kentucky Derby and later the Mayweather-de la Hoya fight, my buddies Pat and Mike and I decided to meet up to start boozing at 3:30pm on Saturday (we were later joined by my buddy Brendan and Site Guy Brendan and his new fiancée Liz stopped by for a bit).  So we went to Professor Thom’s in the East Village where we sat in a bar all day long, drinking Guinness and tequila and for all intents and purposes ignoring the fact that it was 75° and sunny outside.  

There is nothing quite like a day load.  Really, getting drunk during the day is one of the finest pleasures in life.  Don’t get me wrong - nighttime drinking is excellent, too.  There’s nothing wrong with me and my buddies sitting in my apartment until 1am, watching VH1 Classic and drinking every last drop of alcohol in my fridge, and then heading out to ignore women, but the daytime load…it’s special.

…

You know, I don’t really have a joke here, except to say that I drank a lot of Guinness and tequila on Saturday.  And the way they affected me was interesting.  Usually, I drink Guinness to enjoy a beer, to ease me in to a nice, long drinking session.  Alternatively, I drink tequila if I’m preparing to fight a bear or run head-first into a parked car. 

So the combined effect was a near bipolar condition; one minute, I’d be wistfully recalling old high school memories, the next I’d be in the bathroom trying to rip the urinal off the wall, convinced it robbed me of $20.  Really, one of the weirdest drunks I’ve felt in a long time.    

3) Gambling and horses
As I’ve mentioned here before, I had a tremendous NFL gambling season.  The Gambling Gods smiled upon me and rewarded me with a very lucrative season, another reason I’m convinced that the Philadelphia Eagles will go 6-10 next year, complete with a Donovan McNabb nervous breakdown and tear-filled press conference.  But tomorrow is tomorrow, and I happily accepted the cash that I won over this past season, which I spent on various trinkets, fine linens, and vodka tonics.

But since the football season ended, I have been downright bad at betting.  My college basketball bets, save for a few, were embarrassing.  Despite being naturally gifted at fantasy baseball, when it comes to betting on baseball, I would be better served using $20 bills as beat rags.  Terrible, just terrible. 

But of course, one has to make wagers on the Kentucky Derby.  I decided that I’d only bet $50 between four bets: one horse to win for $20, two horses to win at $10 a piece, and then one $10 trifecta.  I know nothing about horses or gambling on them, so I arbitrarily picked the horses and the trifecta and called in the bet to my buddy Pat.  

After a little while, I started to get a strange feeling about the trifecta.  I didn’t share this with anyone, but I got a little tingling and thought I might be onto something.  As the horses lined up, I had a buzz.  This trifecta was going to come out.

And I was right!  The horses that I had in the trifecta finished 1-2-3!  One problem: they finished 1-2-3 at the bottom of the field.  That is, instead of coming in 1st-2nd-3rd, they came in 18th-19th-20th.

And the beat goes on…  

4) Men "fighting" each other
After staying in Professor Thom’s for about four hours, we went to nearby O’Hanlon’s, another dark, basement bar, for another four hours for more Guinness and tequila (and pizza!) before heading to my buddy Pat’s apartment to watch the fight.  

If you haven’t seen it, I’m sure you read about it, but it was a horrible fight.  Bill Simmons absolutely nailed it in just about every way in his post about the fight, which mostly discussed how boxing squandered an opportunity to win back a mainstream audience because two guys fought like they were trying not to mess up their make up (as one of the guys watching the fights with us said, "Christ - my parents have had better fights than this!").  The only word that I can think of is despicable.   

Of course, after ending a long day of drinking with such a disappointment, my only recourse was a lot of pizza and some drunk sleep.

(I know - something different.)

5) Cock rock
Sadly, I did not get a banjo this weekend.  I had every intention to do so, but couldn’t pull the trigger.  I went to three different music stores and the cheapest banjo I found was $320, not including tax, which would push it to around $350.  I was hoping I could find one for around $250.  Again, no one spends money more foolishly than I do, but $350 for something that will most likely be under my bed in three weeks (with my art supplies, my juggling set, and that boy I adopted from Zambia or Arabia or wherever) is a little much. 

But spending $300 for a new amp, well, that’s not a problem.  I haven’t had an amp for my electric guitar in years, due to an unfortunate series of events.  Tired of playing my electric without amplification, I picked up a decent lil’ Fender amp.  I am blissfully ignorant of all things technical when it comes to guitar gear, but I can tell you that this amp has some built-in effects and is 65 watts.  65 watts is a little much for someone who will be living in apartments in NYC for at least the next six or so years, but bigger is better.  As is louder.  To give you an idea, when playing on my new amp my volume level is just over 2 and it’s almost too loud for my apartment.  If I were to put it up to 10, I would be evicted in a matter of minutes.  The Chinese, they hate loud noises.  

But let me tell you something else, friends - I still got it.  Like I said, I haven’t played my electric in years (aside from a brief flirtation with the music of Huey Lewis a few months back that I shan’t get into), but I was messing around with the Allman’s "One Way Out" and when I was done, I noticed I had peed myself.  Only it wasn’t pee.  And it was stickier than pee.  And it smelled kinda like bleach.  Yeah.  That good.  

Which means one thing: I will soon be starting a rock band.  I imagine this band will consists of me (lead singer, lead guitar, lead bass, lead ukulele), and my friends Brian (guitar, vocals, cigarettes, blacking out), Jeremy (guitar, vocals, HPV), Corinne (bass, vocals, back up blacking out) and Lauren (piano, vocals, back up cigarettes).  We always said that our lil’ group of friends is like Fleetwood Mac because of our incest and drug abuse - now it’s time to make the dream come true.   

(Also, we’re going to have to think of a band name.  Thinking my music career was over, I foolishly gave away my favorite, "Muslim Ron and the Juggernauts.")  I’m thinking I’ll go with Larry Awesome and the Pillheads instead, since that sums us up quite nicely.  But we’ll work on that.)

6) The Rocket
Roger Clemens can suck my ass.

I have tried, to the extent possible, to remain neutral in all things Yankees, particularly all things Yankees-Red Sox.  I am Philly through-and-through when it comes to sports, though I went to college in Boston and have lived in NYC for the past six years.  Back in the day, I leaned toward the Red Sox, if only because my friends who were Yankee fans were unconscionably annoying; it got very old very quickly hearing "Count the rings!" every time we went out to bars in Boston (97-01).

Then just when I thought I knew annoying, the Sox won the World Series.  I was happy when they did, since as I come from a city of perennial losers, I am glad when any championship-starved fanbase wins a title.  But the unbelievable tide of Masshole pride was too much for me to bear, and I found myself siding slightly toward the Yankees.

But this Clemens signing pretty much seals the deal.  The Yanks are 6 games out of first, so what do they do - drop $26 million on a 45 year-old pitcher to come to the rescue.  This is just another mad money move by the Yankees, looking for a quick fix by throwing cash around (I won’t point out that such moves haven’t worked for them in the past; which is to say, where are the titles?).  Adding to my disgust was the "drama" on the announcement, with Clemens sitting in Steinbrenner’s box, pretending to be Jesus Christ, saying, "I’ll be talking to y’all real soon."  What a dickhead.  And I thought Curt Schilling had the biggest ego of starting pitchers over 40.

I suppose I should be a little happy.  If this works out, the city is undeniably more interesting and alive when the Yanks are doing well, especially come playoff time.  If it doesn’t work out, the NY press will be up in arms and once again we will see that money can’t buy you love.  I mean, championships.  Can’t buy you championships.

But I’m not happy.  You know why?  Because my teams suck (here comes the self-serving rant).  The Flyers and Sixers are not even on the road back to respectability (and I use "respectability" loosely).  The Phillies will finish the season within three games of .500 and out of the playoffs and will make a very tepid splash in the offseason.  And the Eagles…good lord.  I don’t think I have enough pepto in my office to seriously start thinking about the upcoming Eagles season.  Really, for all involved, let’s just go there.

What do Yankee fans get?  An owner willing to grossly overspend for a middle-aged pitcher because he wants to win.  And he can afford it.  I mean, fuck.

So there it is: anger, jealousy, disgust, self-loathing.  I love sports.       

[Also, I read this post over and have no idea what's so "manly" about these six topics.  Sorry about that.]

congrats, contact, nass, mrs mcgreevey, sports, music
Jason posted on May 4, 2007

Some very big news for everyone here in the jm.com family: Site Guy Brendan and his girlfriend Liz have gotten engaged.

I don’t know much about the specifics, since I got a text message from Brendan last night that said only, "Engaged."  I assume that that means "engaged to be married" and I assume it would be to Liz, but, again, I can’t confirm that for sure.  But I can’t fault Brendan for his brevity; I imagine when I get engaged I won’t even tell me friends via text message (though of course they don’t have text messages in Ecuador).

If Brendan and Liz are indeed engaged, I congratulate them both and I am very happy for them.  I know Brendan has been planning this for some time, and I’m sure he did a perfect job with the proposal (just as I am sure that Brendan and Liz will be very happy together for a very long time).

And if Brendan and Liz did not get engaged, well, let’s just hope someone tells me before either one of them reads this. 

(So if anyone can confirm or discomfirm, please email me asap.  Thanks.)

***********

Every day (weather permitting), I walk to and from work.  And almost every day, no matter what time I leave, I pass the same girl.

She’s about my age and always walking in the opposite direction.  She’s tall and thin; she looks kinda like Katie Holmes but with lighter eyes (either green or blue) and slightly chubbier cheeks.  She dresses well.

When I first saw her, I thought she was cute.  I still thought she was cute after we kept passing each other, but she’s not my type.  I don’t know if you guys have picked up on this, but I kinda like boobies.  And this young lady would be flattered if I compared her boobies to two rolls of scotch tape pressed against her chest.  Read: I do not leer at this woman in the same way that I leer at most beautiful women I pass on the street.  Come with the boobies or don’t come at all.  That’s what I always say.

Still, it’s kinda weird seeing the same person almost every day on the way to and on the way home from work.  Sometime during the second week of consistently seeing her, I decided I’d give her a smile.  We occasionally made quick eye contact when we passed each other, so I thought a smile would be a nice way to say hello.  Again, though while I certainly would have sex with this woman (I mean, she’s there and she moves by herself, thereby meeting my two qualifications), I would never approach her or ask her on a date or anything.  Smiling was my way of being a friendly neighbor (or at least, fellow New Yorker).

So earlier this week, during our brief moment of eye contact, I flashed her my best "I’m not a creep (really) and I’m just trying to say ‘Good morning’" smile.  She seemed unphased, except that she broke her gaze off maybe a nanosecond earlier than she normally did.  Fine.  I can deal with that.

I didn’t see her on my walk home from work that day, but the following day I saw her on my way to work.  As we approached each other, I got that non-threatening smile ready and fired it off at the appropriate time.  However, she didn’t look at me.  Oh well.

Saw her on the way home.  Didn’t look at me.  Saw her the next morning.  Didn’t look at me.  Saw her on the way home that next day.  Didn’t look at me.  Since she saw me smile at her, she hasn’t looked at me. 

Thanks.

Listen, sweetheart, I’m sorry.  I won’t smile at you any longer.  Instead, I will scowl when we pass each other, or perhaps I will gnash my teeth like a wolverine or, better, a vampire.  I apologize for making you uncomfortable by simply smiling at you, sending you into a deep and profound terror based on the fear that I might approach you.  Perhaps, next time we pass each other, I will approach you, if only to explain that I was smiling because sometimes it’s nice to smile, not because I’m using you for my masturbatory fantasies and/or picking out the names of our children.

Otherwise, have a good day at work.      

***********

Something I should have addressed before posting the pictures from the wedding earlier this week: Nass.

Most of my college friends call me Nass.  It’s sort of a long, boring story, but basically "Nass" is a contracted version of "No Ass."  Because:

1) I physically have no ass.  Seriously.  I have a back, then legs.  No ass to be seen.  It’s really quite amazing.  My body is a marvel of science.

2) At the time this nickname was bestowed upon me, I was getting no ass.

For whatever reason, Nass stuck and this is what almost all of my college buddies call me to this day.  So there.  Nass.

(Yes, I know – not nearly as good as the HD nickname explanation, but it’s really out of my hands.  At least now you know.)

(And no, you cannot call me Nass.  Sorry.)

***********

Am I alone in thinking that Jim McGreevey’s ex-wife, Dina Matos McGreevey, is hot? 

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been a little lonely lately and for whatever reason am developing a thing for older women, but I am very attracted to her.  It could also be because she’s been wounded; I’ve always been very good at being the rebound guy who is nice and always ready with his shoulder to cry on but who will also love you like a mighty Cossack ravaging the sweet peasant girl on the steppes of the Caucasuses.

But something is definitely aflutter in my groin when I look at her.  If anyone can put me in touch with her, please email me asap.  I’d like to take her out to dinner.  Wearing my Cossack uniform.  You know, just to see what happens.   

***********

Two sports-related notes:

1) The MLB Extra Innings baseball package is changing my life.  It’s on my TV every night when I go home, where I’ll spend an evening watching usually about three games.  The Phils, of course, are a staple, but I’ve found that I’ve become a fan of the Cleveland Indians.  This isn’t (necessarily) because they are winning, but because I have CC Sabathia in all three of my fantasy baseball leagues, Grady Sizemore in two of them, and Hafner and Borowski (and possibly others) in at least one.  Then I’ll flip back and forth to a third game that I find most compelling (i.e. if a pitcher of mine is pitching, if it’s a close game, if I’ve made love to a woman in the city the game is being played in and I hope to see her in the stands, etc).

But I could not recommend the package highly enough.  Like I said, every single night I’m watching three baseball games.  It’s fucking glorious.

2) A lot of you have written in asking what I thought about the Eagles draft and my answer is: I really don’t know.  I don’t get into the draft too much, as I’m not a big college football guy.  Therefore, any opinions I express and purely visceral and without much intelligent basis.

That being said, why the fuck did they draft a third round QB in the second round, with their first pick of the draft?  I thought our shuttling of Garcia out of town (which I agree with, though it could have been handled a bit more delicately), was all about assuring McNabb that this is his team, has been all along, and for the foreseeable future, will be.  And then this?  I’m not a sports psychologist, but knowing how delicate the collective sports psyche of the city of Philadelphia is, as well as how tempestuous the relationship has been between McNabb and the fans and the front office has been, well, it just doesn’t seem like a good pick to me.

However, I do have a bit of faith in the Eagles front office when it comes to drafts, and perhaps this Kolb s.o.b. will be a solid player. 

(That was me lying and trying to convince myself.  Thank you.)    

***********

Six Songs

"It’s Your World"  Gil Scott-Heron
I’m thinking of starting a playlist called "Strut Like The Mother Fucker You Are."  This song would be the first on that playlist.  When it comes on my iPod while I’m walking around the city, I transform from hungover overweight guy who spent the morning crying in the shower to the Incredible Hulk of Funk and Cool. 

"We Used To Vacation"  Cold War Kids
Unique.

"Ruby Don’t Take Your Love To Town"  Kenny Rogers
Seriously, Ruby, don’t.  No one wins when that happens.  Probably my favorite song about a crippled Vietnam vet who shoots his trollop wife. 

"The Crow"  Tony Trischka
Guess what I’m getting this weekend!

[youtube]1jn3KCZEqxc[/youtube]

Yes, I’ve conquered the guitar (I can play at a 4th grade level), I’ve conquered the bass (I own a bass), and I’ve conquered the ukulele (I can play "Something" by The Beatles and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" like that big Hawaiian guy named Israel), and now it’s time for my next challenge: the banjo.  I saw this on Letterman last week and it blew my fucking mind.  I got the album off iTunes about two nights ago and have been rocking out to it ever since.  If after watching the clip I have to tell you it’s great shit, well, something’s wrong with you, friend.      

"How Much Fun"  Robert Palmer
Speaking of albums that are currently rocking my balls off, I splurged and bought Robert Palmer’s "Sneakin’ Sally through the Alley."  I’ve been a huge fan of the "Sailin’ Shoes-Hey Julia-Sneakin’ Sally” medley since I first heard it years ago, and consider it one of my favorite songs.  But this song, from the "Sally" album, reminds me of what it feels like to be drunk and in love.  If I ever go on a date again, I imagine I will listen to this song while showering and getting ready in order to pump myself up.  Then, of course, the cocaine.  That gets me pumped, too.

"You Are Too Beautiful"  John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman
A friend of mine’s dad recommended this song to me, and I can’t remember what superlative he used when describing it; it could have been something like "the most beautiful song ever recorded" or it could have been more specific, like, "the greatest marriage of vocals and music etc."  Both could apply, I think.  This is on my all-inclusive "Smooth Jazz USA" playlist (nine hours, 80+ songs), and every time it comes on, I sit back, take a listen, and sigh.  Wonderful song.    

[Have a good weekend and a happy cinco de mayo, Kentucky Derby, and Mayweather-de la Hoya fight.]

wedding recap
Jason posted on May 3, 2007

Love. 

(And luxury.)

That’s what it was all about this past weekend in Boston, where I traveled to celebrate the wedding of my friends Joe and Danielle.  And friends, it was magical.

The Date
Before I get into a description of the wedding, I must give a huge thank you to my date, my dear friend Johanna.  I am not an easy person to travel or spend a weekend with, what with my casual racism and spending upwards of three hours a day in the shower and my barely (barely) legal sexual aggression, but Johanna was a real trooper and held up very well.  Sure, we had some rough stretches - it got pretty ugly on Friday morning when I learned that the Cracker Barrel in Sturbridge, Massachusetts did not have creamed chipped beef and some pepper spray was not quite employed but definitely bandied about and threatened - but we pulled through.  Somehow.

And what thanks did I give her for being such a wonderful date?  How ’bout morbidly embarrassing her in front of 150 people?

(Explanation to follow)

The Grooming
The first "official" wedding activity was at 1pm on Friday afternoon, when the groom (my buddy Joe), his dad (my buddy Joe’s dad), the best man/better man (me), and the two other groomsmen (my buddies Bill and John) planned to get haircuts and shaves.  But because Bill got stuck at work and John sucked across the board in the groomsman category, neither of them could make it.  Instead, our friend Griff, in town for the wedding from Seattle, joined the three of us.

Around Christmas, I was complaining of the nastiness of my beard and how if I tried to grow it long I looked like a Canadian meth addict who also really, really loved pudding.  Then my favorite and loyalist reader of this site Lisa wrote in and suggested I treat myself to a nice beard trim at a old school gentleman’s barber shop.  I thought it was a tremendous idea, but didn’t pull the trigger because I was intimidated.  Even though I have always loved luxury, I couldn’t quite bring myself to walk into a fancy barber shop and get the male equivalent of a spa treatment.  That indicates a level of concern in one’s appearance that I simply am not comfortable with.  So I remained looking like a Canadian meth/pudding addict.

But Joe’s wedding provided the perfect excuse for a nice beard trim/hot lather shave/haircut.  Though the barber shop, State Street Barbers, was certainly gentlemanly, it was not stuffy.  I walked in wearing a t-shirt and jeans and was promptly offered a beer (!).  I was introduced to my barber, a guy nicknamed Denver who was only a few years older than me, and we got started.

I say the following as a man who, if possible, would eat hot dogs every night for dinner, but the whole experience was awesome.  Again, it was not at all what I thought it would be; instead of being stuffy and making me feel poor, Denver was a cool dude who shot the shit while he gave me the best haircut I’ve gotten in years.  He also had a bunch of tattoos, which made me comfortable. (Though I don’t have any tattoos, my dad does. Also, once I had sex with a girl with a lot of tattoos, and it was pretty sweet.)

Then my beard was trimmed, I was shaved up and looking spiffy and ready to go.  I now plan to go to this place every time I’m in Boston to get my haircut there.  Supercuts has officially lost a customer.   

It was a great thing to do the day before the wedding, the day of the rehearsal dinner.  Just a couple of gentlemen who enjoy luxury and luxurious things, paying other men to make them handsome.  The way life should be.          

The Hotel
Joe’s wedding is probably the last time I’ll ever be a best man; my brother is bisexual and increasingly leaning toward that big fat 6 on the edge of the Kinsey Scale and Brian may never get married, as the damage the booze has done to his sexual organs is irreparable (never mind that we’ll probably have a falling out before then, since he recently declared that I am carrying out a "steady and consistent character assassination" upon him on this site).  Since this is my last go-round as best man, I wanted to splurge a little bit on the hotel room.

I decided that we would stay at the Park Plaza.  I wanted to stay at the Four Seasons, where the wedding was held, but didn’t book my room until the special rate had expired and $600/night was a little out of my reach.  It was possible through Expedia to get a standard room at the Park Plaza for $200/night, but I wanted a little more than standard.

So I dropped, um, considerably more for a "Concierge Level Tower Room" at the Park Plaza.  I had no idea what this meant and didn’t bother to read the description of the room, probably because I was very tired or hungover.  But this fancy room was a major bargaining chip in the negotiations Johanna and I had about her attending the wedding with me; while I could not promise that the experience or my company would be very pleasant, at least we’d be staying in a nice hotel room.

Unfortunately, "nice" is a highly subjective term.  On the one hand, the room was perfectly nice – it had a marble bathroom, dual showerhead, good view, etc.  On the other hand, it was exactly the same as the other rooms that Griff and his wife Katie and my buddy Kyle stayed in.  The difference was that my room cost significantly more money than theirs.  Why?  Apparently, the extra (substantial) amount of money got me (and Johanna) 24 hour access to the concierge (because we needed that), priority reservations at the hotel’s restaurants (every meal was planned), a room on the top floor of the hotel (so we’d be the first to die in a fire), and bathrobes (because Johanna really needed me to walk around in a robe all weekend saying, "What? It’s natural and beautiful. Man is meant to walk around in a robe. With nothing on underneath. And the robe should be loosely tied. Just embrace it. Would you like some wine?").

I mean, no one loves spending money unnecessary as much as I do, but my love of frivolous spending is surpassed only by my love of hotels and luxury.  To have spent all that money and not have a properly matching luxurious hotel room, well, it got me a little upset.  But of course, I was not going to let it get me down on such a celebratory weekend.

(Fucking Park Plaza cocksuckers.)

The Rehearsal Dinner
The rehearsal dinner on Friday night was held at the BC Club in downtown Boston.  I had never heard of this place before, but I learned that it’s a place where BC alum, mostly rich Massholes, get together in dinner jackets to drink scotch, eat fine foods, and discuss serious and intelligent matters in horribly thick Masshole accents.  I can see a table full of rich guys who grew up in Natick and Framingham saying, "That fahking Chavez dude - what the fahk is his fahking problem?"

The place itself is very classy, though.  The dining room was on the 36th floor of the building, looking west over Boston from downtown, so it w