man weekend
8 May 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.]
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.]
