books, bets, music
Jason posted on September 28, 2007

Six Books (That I’ve Recently Read)

Clublife  Rob the Bouncer
It may sound cheesy, but I am so damn proud of Rob for writing this book.  Not because I didn’t think it would be good, but I didn’t think it would be this good.  I know Rob put everything he had into this book and all of his effort really paid off.  If you like his blog, you’ll love his book.  If you’ve never read his blog, you’ll love his book.  And quick, enjoyable and fascinating read.  Fucking A, Rob. 

The Blind Side  Michael Lewis
This one was an airport purchase from the author of Moneyball.  I had read an excerpt in New York Magazine or the New York or one of those asshole magazine with "New York" and enjoyed it very much. It’s the story of a giant, orphaned black kid taken in by a rich white Memphis family and trained to be an NFL left tackle.  I love the history of the game and the evolution of the position moreso than the heart-wrenching story, but it’s still a recommended read. 

Eye Contact  Cammie McGovern
Wow, this book stunk.  This is another airport purchase that turned out to be chick lit in disguise; the back cover talked about the a little girl gone missing, and, dang it, I couldn’t resist.  I wanted to stop reading halfway through but had to keep on keeping on to learn who dunnit.  While I shouldn’t give this away [SPOILER ALERT], isn’t bad mystery writing if the guilty person is a character introduced only 50 pages before the end of the book? 

The Catcher In The Rye  J.D. Salinger
I hadn’t read this in about twelve years.  I’m glad I reread it.  Pretty fucking solid. 

The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint  Brady Udall
Bro, you’re a great writer.  Your sentences are long and lovely and passionate.  But, please, please, just tell the story.  I stopped reading this book after 70 pages.  Frustrating. 

(Not That You Asked)  Steve Almond
My ol’ writing teacher’s latest effort.  I’m only 60 or so pages in, but it’s gonna be a good one, I think.  Also, Steve is only a reading tour across the country right now and will be reading in NYC this Monday October 1 at 7pm at McNally Robinson Booksellers at 50 Prince Street (conveniently in my ‘hood).  For full dates, click here.

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

Six Bets (That You Should Make Even Though Your Friends Will Think You’re Crazy)

Rams (+13) over COWBOYS
This line opened at +11, then moved to +13 by Thursday.  That means that people were loading up on the Cowboys.  The number one rule of gambling: most people are stupid.

CARDINALS (+6) over Steelers
This is my lock of the week.  Like the Rams-Cowboys line, this line started at +4 and was +6 two days later, so the same logic applies.  Not only that, the Cards are 3-0 against the spread this year.  I feel like the Cards are a good enough team with a bad enough reputation to go something like 13-3 against the spread this year.   

FALCONS (+3) over Texans
My weekly contrarian pick.  More people are betting on the Texans than any other team in the NFL this week, so I’ll throw a couple of bones on the Falcons.  Not too much, but just enough so that if it works out I look like a genius. 

MIAMI (-4) over Raiders
My weekly "No fucking idea" pick.  Of all the games this week, this has betters most divided - almost exactly half are taking the Dolphins and the other half are taking the Raiders.  Every week, I’ll throw a couple of bones on the most closely confounding game.  I couldn’t tell you much about either team but I’ve always been a fan of Ronnie Brown and was glad he busted out last week.  Alternatively, I’ve always not been a fan of Daunte Culpepper, as he has slaughtered many a fantasy team.  So F his revenge.   

PANTHERS (-3) over Bucs
The three most confusing teams in the NFC - and possibly the NFL - are the Seahawks, Panthers, and Bucs.  I have no idea if these teams will be in the playoffs or will each finish around 6-10.  I don’t even know why I’m recommending the Panthers here, over than the simple fact that I think David Carr is pretty handsome.   

BENGALS (+7) over New England
Two reasons: The collective boner over New England simply can’t get any bigger than it is right now.  Seriously.  If I have to read one more article about how the Patriots - proven cheaters - are the perfect combination of the mystique of ‘72 Dolphins, the defense of the ‘85 Bears, and the offense of the ‘89 Niners, I’m going to strangle myself with my authentic vomit-soaked Donovan McNabb Super Bowl XXXIX jersey (at least I now know why the Pats picked up all those blitzes).  Second, Cincy is one of the few offenses in the league that could potentially hang with the Pats.  Nevermind that Rudi Johnson is out and nevermind that I’m actually their second-string strongside linebacker - I’m going with Cincy to cover in a shootout.   

Predictions on Predictions: I will go 4-2 this week.

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

Six Songs (That You Should Download and Enjoy)

"Kiss Them For Me"  Siousxie & The Banshees
For three reasons:

1) This song is about Jayne Mansfield, who is Mariska Hargitay’s mother, who is on one of my favorite murder shows.  That’s kinda cool.

2) I really can’t think of a line that makes me more mushy inside than, "Nothing or no one/Will ever make me let you down."  And the way it’s delivered by Siousxie…it just gets me.

3) About two or three weeks ago, I was out in NYC with a bunch of friends and this song came on the jukebox.  A lovely lady in our group, after hearing the above line, said, "God, I love that line.  I know this is really corny, but I’d love to get that engraved on the inside of my wedding ring someday." 

Um, I think I’m in love. 

"Who Are You"  Tom Waits
Speaking of love:

"How did your pistol and your bible and your sleeping pills go/
Are you still jumping out of windows in expensive clothes?"

I’m not smart enough to know what this means, but it makes me very upset and sad.  This song scares the fuck out of me. 

"Two Steps Behind"  Def Leppard
If I were to get married tomorrow, this would be my wedding song (the acoustic version, I mean).  Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.

"Make It Last"  Montrose
Awesome 80’s metal whose lyrics read like my autobiography. 

"Tell It Like It Is"  The Neville Brothers
I love the live version of this song.  It’d really cool if I had more 40-something black friends.  Or rather, any 40-something black friends.

(Not the best version of this song, but the only one on iTunes.)

"Barracuda" Heart
Let’s get you a lil’ riled up for the weekend:

[youtube]xyR-HmJS2qQ[/youtube] 

You know, I’m a 100% booby man, but there is something to be said for the slender chick with the bangs who both scares you a little bit and turns you on a lot.  I think I’m moving out of my brunette phase sadly, but the bangs really do it for me.  I was googling around to find a hot picture of Anne Wilson and found this nugget: "Ann Wilson is the voice of the band Heart and possesses a uniquely sexy, powerful voice that could stir a eunich."  Ok.  Eunich.  Sure.     

[Have a good weekend]

la notes
Jason posted on September 24, 2007

I’m in LA for about the third time in four weeks and as I continue to spend more time here, I can’t help but be confused – confounded, even – by this city.

- After several nights out at clubby/loungey/chic bars, I begged my friends to take me to a real dive bar. So on Saturday night, they did. Well, at least they thought they did.

A dive bar has very few requirements: no frills, cheap beer, decent music, and ugly people. This bar had the first three, but not the last one. Not by a long shot.

A bar can not be a dive bar if its patrons have teeth so bright and white that you could spot them on the ocean floor from a schooner above the waves. A bar can not be a dive bar if its patrons wear shirts that cost more than my last three pairs of dress shoes combined. A bar can not be a dive bar if its patrons can each either bench press 250 pounds or run a marathon in under 4:30. A bar can not be a dive bar if its patrons are more likely to order a Jagerbomb than a pint of draft beer. I’m sorry, but thems the rules.

On my last visit to LA, my mom asked me why I wanted to get back to NYC so badly. I told her I missed my stuff, pizza, and ugly people. My friends and I, God bless us, are not easy on the eyes. We have poor taste in clothes and bad hair, we do not work out, our eyes are bloodshot from excessive boozing and our fingers are stained from nicotine, and more than a few of us actually smell. But this is part of our charm. It’s also part of the reason that we’re going to have to marry each other or at least do each other if we have any desire to procreate.

(I’m guessing most of us are sterile or barren anyway, so the point is kinda moot.)

I do not like walking into a room and consistently being in the bottom 3% of attractiveness (and I was one of People’s 50 hottest bachelors for Christ’s sake, though I’ll be the first to admit that that was a total fluke). I’m not saying that I’m attractive in NYC, but that percentage increases at least to the bottom 16% or, on a good night, the bottom 19%. At any rate, I don’t think of my attractiveness when I’m out in NYC. I’m mostly thinking about getting my next beer and wondering what Prince does on a day-to-day basis. But while out in LA, I’ll look around at all the fake boobs, the tans, the white teeth, the fit people; and then I’ll look at myself, with my scraggly beard and my crappy clothes, looking all chubby and coked out, and it makes me sad and, worse yet, impotent. Or that could be all the coke. Whatever. I’m not a doctor.

The point is that the LA social scene is, for lack of a better description, really something else. Over the past two-plus years, I’ve been out here maybe a dozen times and I’ve yet to find a place that I feel comfortable drinking in or even one that reminds me of the places I frequent in NYC. I didn’t think I was asking much of LA in this regard – nothing fancy, cheap beer, good music, some ugly people – but I guess that I am. So my options are two-fold: I can either hit the gym, hit the beach and start brushing my teeth with regularity, or I can drink in the bathroom of my buddies’ apartment. I’ll have to think about this one.

(The good news is that it’s a nice bathroom.)

- From the kick ‘em while they’re down department, time for two horribly overused clichés but entirely legitimate complaints: the bagels and pizza here are really, really bad. I had a "bagel" the other day for breakfast that tasted like a cardboard box that was used to ship ass. I had late night pizza over the weekend that was so greasy and bland that I actually cried in the cab on the way back to my apartment. Life is not worth living without decent bagels and pizza (and dive bars).

- But there are some good things, though. I really like my morning drive to work. Getting up at 5:20am is a fate nearly worse than death, but there’s something pretty dang cool about going out to the car in the pre-dawn light, turning on the windshield wipers to clear off the dew, tuning into the Adam Corolla show (which is supremely entertaining), and taking off for work when 90% of the population is still asleep. There is a peacefulness to this that I can not find in NYC, where no matter how early I wake up, there are two dozen 100 year old Chinese ladies screaming at each other outside my apartment door.

- Another good thing: After driving around town during previous visits in "economy" rental cars that are only slightly larger than most desktop computers, on this trip I’m rocking a Chevy Blazer because they didn’t have any smaller/cheaper cars available. I’m not a truck guy – or even a car guy, really – but there’s something to be said for riding high and dominating the road, laugh manically, throwing garbage out the window, feeling like you could crush all of the other cars around you. I’m getting hard just thinking about this. Seriously. And it’s pretty awesome. It’s just too bad I’ll never own a car as long as I live in NYC. Whoops.

- There is something inherently wrong and possibly even evil about waking up at 9am to watch football. The Eagles game (which was lovely) was over by 1:15pm, which on a normal Sunday in New York City is just about the time I’m first cursing the Eagles and saying to my friends, "Drinking this beer is making me die a little bit."

My LA friends say that the benefit of getting the games early is that they then "have the whole day in front of you." This may be true, but understand: Sundays are for football. That’s how it is. You are grossly overestimating me if you think I have something to do on Sunday besides waking up at 12:15pm with a hangover, making bets, then eating and drinking and watching football for ten straight hours. This is what Sundays are for, nothing else. What am I supposed to do – go to my yoga class? Hit the driving range? Meet with my book club?

Sheesh. Football at 10am. Shit ain’t right. Shit just ain’t right.

- Last night, I spent an hour on the beach in the early evening dipping my feet in the water, looking out on the hills, and watching the sunset. It was incredible. Even more incredible was that the beach was completely empty – I was the only person I could see on the entire stretch of beach. Again, clear skies, warm water, sunset – and not a person around. When I asked one of my LA friends about this, his answer: "Sometimes we’re over the whole beach thing." I don’t know if he speaks for all LA people, but that makes me sad. That beautiful beach I stood on in Hermosa last night made the one I summer at on the Jersey shore look like the yard of a Brazilian prison. It’s a shame, really, that no one else was there appreciating it.

- After spending said time on the beach, I went to Chili’s for dinner with some friends. And it was awesome. I had never been to Chili’s. And I couldn’t be happier about how the experience worked out.

- Tonight for dinner, I’m going to the Olive Garden. I have never been to an Olive Garden. I couldn’t be happier about this, either. I’m not going to lie – the suburban livin’ element of LA is definitely intriguing to me.

- I’m taking a red eye back to NYC tomorrow night and going straight into work on Wednesday. If you don’t think I’m going to break the record for "most diet cokes consumed by a man with a beard in a seven hour span," you are sorely mistaken. My Wednesday night after work will consist of Sea Thai, a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Oatmeal Cookie Chunk, a murder show, a Xanax, and twelve hours of deep, uninterrupted, narcotically-induced sleep. I couldn’t be happier about this.

how to: music organization
Jason posted on September 19, 2007

No doubt, the question I get asked most frequently when I meet readers of this site is, "Jason, where do you want me to come?" The answer to that one is simple: on the floor, if possible - I just washed my sheets. No doubt, the question I get asked second most frequently when I meet readers of this site is, "Jason, you have incredible taste in music, but how do you organize your music?" That answer is a bit more complicated, but fortunately does not involve any ejaculate errantly landing on my night table.

(Most of the time, at least.)

I’ve recommended hundreds of songs to y’all over the course of the site (just search "Six Songs" in the archive box if you don’t believe me), but I never really got into the best way to store music on your iPod and iTunes. I realized recently that this means that I’ve only been getting you halfway there, because how you arrange your music is just as important as the music itself (this is not true, but bear with me). So for your gratification and to learn you a lil’ bit, here are four of the best ways to organize your personal music collection on your iTunes-based iPod or similar mp3 player.

By Theme
This is the most obvious way to organize music on your iPod, by creating playlists of similarly-themed or similarly-sounding songs. This is a method that I employ with such adroitness that when I think about the perfect playlists I create, I arouse myself. Since the concept is simple enough and doesn’t require additional explanation, below are some examples playlists from my iPod to help further illustrate the idea:

- "Executive Pump Up Mix" — My primary workout mix that ranges from heavy stuff like Black Sabbath’s "Supernaut" to lighter fare like Maroon 5’s "Makes Me Wonder." I know it’s a strange mix, but really, whatever it takes to keep me moving on the treadmill, I’m willing to try.

- "I am a middle-aged black man" — Everything ranging from (more obscure) Otis Redding to Solomon Burke to Curtis Mayfield to Gil Scott-Heron. If you’re black, and in your 50’s, you would like this playlist.

- "Let’s Make Out or Something" — formerly titled "Mood," this is my make-out mix. Yes, laugh if you want, but it’s legit. I recently bedded a ladyfriend who I warned about this playlist before putting it on. She laughed. Her response, a few songs into it: "Ok, this is actually a pretty good playlist." This list contains less-popular (you won’t find U2’s "One" or "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel) mood-enhancing songs like "One By One" (Billy Bragg and Wilco), "You’re Only King Once" (Beulah), "Bubble Gum Years" (Gomez) and "Post-War" (M. Ward), to name a few.

- "New" — Boringly titled and not exactly theme-based, but necessary nonetheless. This is purgatory for any new songs I’ve downloaded, many of them via your recommendation (keep those music recommendations coming, by the way).

- "Sad as Fuck" — If you want to wallow in self-pity, this is your list. The title says it all. Songs like "All My Little Words" (Magnetic Fields), "Valentine’s Day Is Over" by Billy Bragg (the live version with just him and the guitar) and Jeff Buckley’s cover of Dylan’s "Momma, You’ve Been On My Mind." Tread carefully.

- "What? I’m Drinking and Washing My Balls" — The mix I listen to when, well, I’m drinking and washing my balls, getting ready to go out. Similar to "Executive," but without the anger: "Even If You Don’t" by Ween, "Slaveship" by Josh Rouse, and "Time Bomb" by The Format are prime examples.

- "Whiskey, You Son of a Bitch" or "To Hell With You, Woman!" — Pretty much everything ever written by Ryan Adams and George Jones.

Chronologically
This idea is the simplest, but if you’re OCD, it may drive you to murder.

This method was the one I employed on my old PC before I switched all of my music over to my new Mac. I had five basic playlists, representing each of the most recent decades: "60’s", "70’s", "80’s", "90’s" and "00’s" (note that the "60’s" playlist included everything pre-1960 as well). The advantage of this is that you essentially have lil’ radio stations on your iPod. New music in "00’s", oldies in "60’s", high school memories in "90’s", etc.

The disadvantage, which is great, is that this type of organization requires a ton of work. On my old PC, I had roughly 7000 songs - and I organized every last mother fucking one into these categories. This was, as you might imagine, a long and laborious process. Not only that, particular artists gave me fits. For example, I have a Marvin Gaye box set that contains 80 songs from the 60’s to the 80’s. Do you know how stressful it was for me to properly categorize each and every one of these songs? It took me literally weeks to put that bad boy into the proper decades.

(Have I mentioned that I don’t have a girlfriend? Just checking.)

As mentioned, I abandoned this method when I switched computers. Simply, I couldn’t live with the stress of having un-chronologicalized songs on my computer. I was actually losing sleep over whether or not "Can’t You Hear Me Knocking" by the Rolling Stones was 60’s or 70’s (it was released in 1971).

If you have only a small amount of songs that range in eras, this is a good way to go. But if you have over 3000 or so songs, good luck and godspeed.

By Rating
My friend Lauren introduced me to this style of playlist and I think it is highly effective, user-friendly, and most importantly, fluid. iTunes has a built-in feature that allows the user to rank songs on a star system, one star to five stars, both while using iTunes on the computer and when the song comes on the iPod itself. This last part is key. If a song comes on your iPod while you’re walking around Soho, making women uncomfortable by staring at them, breathing heavily, and rubbing pantyhose on your face, and you think, "Damn, this is a great song," with a few clicks you can rank it as a five star song. Then, when you get home and sync your iPod to your iTunes, that ranking is transferred to your iTunes. Fucking sweet.

I use the rating style religiously, mostly because of this fluidity. While it does require ranking each and every song on your iPod, it’s much easier than organizing songs chronologically precisely because you can do it on the fly (whereas you need to be at your computer to move songs into chronological playlists).

I have playlists that are based solely on this star rating system.

- "Fuckin’ A Right" — This list contains only five-star songs, a rating I am very stingy about handing out. I have 8000 songs in my iTunes library and only 75 have five stars. These are songs that I not only find myself listening to every time they randomly come on my iPod, but usually make me weep with delight, rage, or sadness. Fuckin’ A right. Random sampling: "Victoria" by The Kinks, "He’s Gone" by The Grateful Dead, "Ain’t That Enough" by Teenage Fanclub, "Death Letter" by The White Stripes.

- "Seriously Good Shit" — Four and five star songs. There are currently 1417 of these bad boys. To be a four star song, you have to pass one test: If I were driving in my car and this song came on the radio, would I turn it off? If the answer is "no", you get four stars. Random sampling: "A.M. 180" by Grandaddy, "Prison Sex" by Tool, "This Guy’s In Love With You" by Herb Albert, "New Amsterdam" by Elvis Costello.

- "Good Shit" — Three, four and five star songs, totaling 3681. This list is quite a mix because it contains genuinely good songs as well as stupid songs that are worthy of a listen and songs that everyone knows. Examples of these include "Here I Go Again" (Whitesnake), "Pretty Woman" (Roy Orbison), and "All She Wants To Do Is Dance" by Sir Don Henley. Random sampling: "Every Picture Tells A Story" Rod Stewart, "Voodoo Lady" by Ween, "Talk Talk" by Talk Talk, and "Someone Else’s Bell" by Squeeze.

I have no playlists for two and one star songs, because I do not include these on my iPod at all. I don’t like my iPod filled with clutter and shitty songs, so getting that three star rating is really key for a song.

[…]

[I just read this post over and I realize that I sound like a complete, obsessive-compulsive maniac. At least I’m almost done. And if I can help one person – just one person – better organize their music, then it’s worth it.]

[And screw you for judging me.]

By Number of Plays
What better judge of how much you love a song than by how much you’ve played it? This is another organization technique that I employ, breaking songs up into playlists by how many plays they’ve had. It’s all relative depending upon the user, but I have a playlist called the "25+ Gang," which features 56 songs that have been played at least 25 times on my iPod and iTunes. Complementary to this list is the "15+ Gang," which has 156 songs that have been played, um, at least 15 times. This is an easy way to organize music because you only have to periodically sort songs by play count and move them into their respective lists, and as mentioned, there are few better barometers for how much you like a song than how many times you’ve listened to it. There are two problems with this, however.

The first is that songs in certain playlists will be played more often than others, not necessarily because they’re your favorite. For example, I make out a lot. When I do so, I play my "Let’s Make Out or Something" playlist. Therefore, songs on that playlist are played more frequently than other songs, just because I’ll put that playlist on, make out, pass out, and let the list play through and repeat. So the songs in that playlist accumulate play counts more quickly than others based upon their placement in that playlist. Dig? The same goes, to a much lesser extent, to my gym playlist. I wouldn’t consider "Someday" by The Strokes one of my favorite songs, but yet it’s been played 38 times because it’s good a song to run to.

The second caveat is that some songs suffer from what I’ve just right now decided to name the "Sooner Or Later" syndrome. "Sooner Or Later" is a tremendous song by the band Marah that ends with over a minute of an organ outro. Typically, when the song proper ends and the organ outro begins, I’ll skip to the next song, thus robbing "Sooner Or Later" of a play count (off the top of my head, another rocking song with a long outro is Ted Leo’s "Timorous Me," which ends with over forty seconds of screeching feedback). By listening to most of the song but skipping to the next song before the song has played through, I’m hindering these songs inclusion on these play count-based playlists, and thus compromising the integrity of the playlists themselves.

(The most played song on my iTunes? "Echo Park" by Joseph Arthur with 78 plays.)

******

I hope these ideas are helpful to you. If not, at the very least, you have learned something new today: I am borderline obsessive compulsive. And I have learned something new today: Perhaps my borderline obsessive compulsive is related to my functional impotence, specifically how I can only get erections at funeral. I’m gonna think about this one for a bit.

“about a third of people interviewed said they wished they’d waited…that’s probably a low number”
Jason posted on September 17, 2007

I am having just about the shittiest day ever, but this video has completely turned my day - and possibly my life - around.

[youtube]2aKQMZ_HTb8[/youtube]

Man.  Sucks about those homosexuals dying around 39 or 42 years old.  Also, sucks about that 17% of condoms that fail.  I really gotta make sure I wear two of them from now on.  

(There is really so much, much more here, but I’m so overwhelmed I can’t even think right now.  God bless America - I bet this guy really like that "This is our country…" commercial.)

(I have to admit though, it’s a pretty fucking catchy tune.  There’s a 90% chance my friends and I will be singing this in a bar this weekend.)

wkuk
Jason posted on September 12, 2007

I don’t know why it’s take me so long to tell you this - probably because of my laziness - but "The Whitest Kids U Know" is one of the funniest shows on television.

[youtube]Ah7ApyeyneY[/youtube] 

"Eh…about 4."  So simple, yet so genius. 

My buddies and I found this show on the same night one of us found a small baggie of cocaine on the street (it was truly a night of great discoveries), and since then I have tivoed and watched the whole series.  Next to VH1 Classic, it has become a staple of pregame drinking in my apartment and with my friends.  I hope that you have Fuse, because if you don’t, you’re really missing out.

If you don’t know, now you know.   

lost sunday
Jason posted on September 11, 2007

I won’t talk about the Eagles’ loss on Sunday.  Not ready to.  Maybe never will be - at least without wanting to stick my erect penis into my desk fan or other bladed (but dull) moving object.  So I will talk about a different kind of loss, one that leaves me feeling only slightly less rageful.

[I would like to point out, however, that while the special teams was atrocious, the offense looked pretty fucking bad, too.  I don't know if I believe the hype about Green Bay having a "great" defense, but I know I'd like to see less dropped balls and a higher completion rate for Donovan McNabb.  Two more games like 15 for 33 for 184 yards with one TD and one INT and things are going to get really uncomfortable in Philly.  I mean, fuck.]

[Also, Washington is a terrible matchup for the Birds.  The reason why they only gave up 40 or so yards on the ground to Green Bay is because someone only slightly more athletic than me was running the ball and Green Bay does not have a good o-line.  The reverse is true for the run-happy Redskins with Clinton Portis, who looked very good in the Miami game, and Ladell Betts, who also looked pretty good.  That being said, the Eagles home opener, on Monday night, in Philly...c'mon: Eagles 38, Redskins 20.]

Part of the joy of football season, and really part of the joy of many seasons (holiday, wedding, etc) is the perfect excuse it affords for getting drunk.  Drinking and sport go hand and hand and back to time immemorial.  Classical pottery depicts scenes of Roman men drinking wine while watching chariot races, Etruscan men drinking wine while watching others wrestle, and Greek men drinking zima while watching other men make love to each other’s genitals, mouths and hands.  The precedent for drinking while watching sports goes back thousands, if not millions, of years.     

My first two or three years in NYC, I watched Eagles games in my apartment with my otherwise apathetic roommates.  I had some buddies who were Eagles fans and occasionally we would get together for a big night game or playoff game at each others’ apartments, but for the most part I caught all the games at my place.  This was fine with me, in large part I was able to have a few beers during the game and possibly even attempt the Sunday 50, which long-time readers know is the competition to consume any combination of 50 beers and wings on a Sunday during football season (i.e. 35 wings and 15 beers, etc).  Overeating and overdrinking on the Lord’s day is what makes football awesome.

A few years ago, I realized that I knew quite a bit of Eagles fans that lived in NYC.  One of these fans, my buddy Pat, told me that he and a bunch of guys got together to watch Eagles games at a bar in Murray Hill called Red Sky.  I cringed when I heard this, because I had been to Red Sky on a few weekends in my younger days and knew it was an incredibly douchy bar; it catered to an equal mix of the young Banana Republic Murray Hill crowd and the standard Long Island guido type.  At the very least, it was not a sports bar.  I relayed my concerns to Pat but he assured me that the fact that Red Sky was a douchy bar actually worked to our advantage.  The bar was well-equipped with TVs, had good food, and cheap beer on Sundays.  But because it was a weekend douche bar, no one went in there on Sundays.  Another friend knew the manager of the place and he basically opened the bar just for these guys to watch the Eagles game on Sunday.  The result was that there were 20 or so Eagles fans, most of whom I went to high school with, in their own private bar for Eagles games.  My fears allayed, I told Pat I’d see them all on Sunday.

Thus began a glorious run for my Eagles fan friends and I at Red Sky.  Like Pat said, the bar was completely empty except for my friends, and the Eagles would be on the large projection TV (with full sound) as well as numerous other TVs throughout the bar.  Every Sunday during football season, I followed the same wonderful routine: wake up at noon with a crushing hangover and be at the bar by 12:30pm; gather with friends and make our bets for the day; cringe when drinking the first beer; smile when drinking the third beer, as it tasted like Love; eat a shitload of chicken fingers and/or nachos during halftime; get solidly buzzed throughout the second half; celebrate/cry over Eagles game and bets; make bets for 4pm games; poop; get serious about drinking during 4pm game; go to Upper East Side for Irish music after second game; poop; return home around midnight and try to eat couch and/or kiss roommate; kinda poop but nothing comes out.  I could do these things ever Sunday for the rest of my life and I would be the happiest girl in the world.       

Therefore, I was greatly looking forward to this season’s football watching with my friends.  I sent an email early last week to my friends Pat and Mike to make sure that we were set for Red Sky for the season, as we never had an official arrangement with them.  They assured me that we’d be fine, that we’ve been going there for years, etc.  So I was ok with this. 

Then it all fell apart on Saturday night.

I was out with Pat and my buddy Mike and a bunch of other friends on that night, drinking WAY too much at a pretty cool, rather unknown bar in the LES.  We spent the night pounding beers, talking about the upcoming season, and telling our best bar pooping stories.  Around 2am, Mike’s friend Matt, who was to bartend at Red Sky for the Eagles game the next game, came into the bar.  As soon as Mike saw him, he said, "Are you ready for tomorrow?"  Matt said, "Oh yeah - I have to tell you something about that…"

Apparently, the owner of Red Sky had made some sort of deal with the Washington Redskins Club of New York, wherein they’d bring 100+ people to the bar in exchange for drink specials.  Just like that, we lost our Eagles bar of the past four seasons.

As Pat, Mike and I freaked out, Matt tried to calm us down, assuring us that there probably wouldn’t be that many people there, that’d he said the say the sound was broken for the Skins game and would put the sound on for our Eagles game (how we would do this or explain it to the Skins’ fans, he wouldn’t say), that everything would be fine and we should just come anyway. 

As I was drunk, and as I am wont to do when I’m drunk, I got fired up and didn’t want to hear any of this.  For one, I am kind of an anal person who likes things planned out.  That I emailed my buds nearly a week in advance to make sure things were ok and to learn at 2am the night before the game that they were not, well, that did not sit well with me.  Secondly, only the following things are important to me: boobies, onion rings, the Eagles.  Really, that’s it.  I don’t even include blowjobs on that list, because it is those three and everything else is a distant fourth (also, I have great difficulty getting off to blowjobs and can count the number of times I’ve done so on one hand, I think).  If you fuck with one of these three things, we are going to have serious problems. 

[And we lost the bar to Redskins fans, no less!  I have a particular problem with Redskins fans, and not just because DC is the worst city in America.  Skins fans are a passionate but incredibly uninformed bunch.  Of course, I only know two Redskins fans - my agent and my old college roommate.  I remember in college how nuts my roommate was about the Redskins, but when I asked him who their starting running back was, he'd stare at me blankly for a few seconds, then say, "Redskins rule, dude" and spit his dip into a solo cup.  A few weeks ago, I was sitting in my agent's office and he was talking about how the Skins have a legit shot at the playoffs.  I said no way and suggested we go game-by-game on their schedule and each write down what we thought would be a win and what would be a loss.  So he brought up their schedule on his computer and read each game aloud, him jotting down W's and L's from behind his desk and me doing the same from his couch.  When he finished reading, I told him that at best case I had them at 7-9 and asked what he had.  His reply: 14-2.  My biggest regret in life is that I will never again have those three minutes back that I wasted trying to have a reasonable discussion about football with him.]   

The next morning I woke up and made my phone calls to my Iggles fan friends.  The plan was to go to Red Sky to see what it looked like, but I decided to get a back up plan in place.  I called Third and Long, a fratish but divey bar near Red Sky and asked if they were affiliated with any football team.  When they said they weren’t, I asked if they were willing to put on the Eagles game for 20 or so Eagles fans.  They said they would.  That, my friends, is how you take care of business.

But you can guess how the rest goes: I got a call from Mike while I was still in the cab en route to Red Sky saying that the bar was packed with Skins fans, that it wasn’t even worth going to.  So myself and my 20 Eagles fan friends watched the game from Third and Long.  It was not ideal, since there were no seats, no food, and no sound for the game (sweet).  But at least it was on the projection screen and they had beer.  At that point, I would have watched the game projected onto a dead dog’s back.  And of course, I got to see the Eagles suck like the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked, thus concluding a terrible Sunday. 

My previous sole goal in life was to create a bionic child with a woman with reproductive organs made of steel and hair that smells like cinnamon.  But that goal has been pushed aside, for I have a new purpose in life: to find a new suitable Eagles bar.  I’m not sure how I’m going to go about this, but I aim to find a bar somewhere in the 20’s or 30’s that is not affiliated with any team, has a room to give us or is generally slow on Sundays, and has food for me and my Eagles fan friends (yes, I’m aware that Town Tavern is a big Eagles bar, but that place is too packed).  If you have any suggestions, please let me know.  Because considering our lack of a home base, how bad the Eagles played, and how much money I lost on Sunday, it might be a long, long season.   

high school seniors, for your consideration
Jason posted on September 5, 2007

Where I was going to go to college depended entirely upon one thing: money.  Early in the process, my family sat down, had a long talk, and figured we could spend only X – a small fraction of what college typically costs – on my annual college tuition.  We then stayed seated for a very short talk about my sexual preference, which may or may not have left my dad "in shambles."  After our talks and once my dad stopped damaging property, I applied to eight or nine colleges, all in the Northeast, many Jesuit like my high school, thinking I not only had a good shot to get into all of them, but also a very good chance of getting a luxurious financial aid package as well.

The first school I heard back from was St. Joe’s University.  I considered St. Joe’s a safety school and figured it would give me a substantial aid package, if not a full ride (not that there’s anything wrong with St. Joe’s; it’s just that I was really fucking smart at the time – now, not so much).  I hastily opened the envelope and was distraught – maybe even devastated – to learn that, while I was accepted to St. Joe’s, their financial aid package left much to be desired.  If my family could afford to spend X a year on tuition, St. Joe’s was expecting me to pay 4X.  Um, yikes.

This sent me into a panic.  As mentioned, I considered St. Joe’s a safety school – and I was going to have to pay that much to go there (???) (!!!).  Logically, I concluded that my other non-safety schools would offer even less aid than St. Joe’s, which would mean that I’d have to take a job with one of my uncles for a few months and hope that something worked out the next academic year.  Or we would have to sell my little sister to a wealthy Thai gentleman.  Both options made me sad (the former much, much more so than the latter). 

About a week later, relief arrived in the form of an envelope from Boston University.  BU was a mid-level school; I figured I’d get in, but wasn’t sure what kind of money they’d give me.  Still, I was interested in the school, in no small part because the hipster-ish girls that I saw on the campus when I visited seemed like they’d give some vicious head if you bought vinyl or could say something reasonably intelligent about art.  When I opened the envelope, I saw that the good people at BU brought it – not only did they offer me a full ride, but I think I remember something about weekly Turkish bath treatments if I so desired.  Go Terriers.  F the Hawks.

A week or so after that, my whole college application process was over.  Boston College was on the upper end of schools I applied to, and I visited there with some high school buddies during senior year and had a blast. [Little known Jason Mulgrew fact: The person who bought the keg for the party that my friend's brother, at the time a junior at BC, threw for us that weekend: Liz Hasselbeck (nee Filarski).]  When the BC offer came and they were just a tad shy of what BU was offering, my family had another lil’ pow-wow, determined that we could swing it, and I sent in my deposit that week.  Fortunately, this time there was no discussion of my sexual preference.  However, there was still some property damage on the part of my dad.  It’s a disease, really.

The rest is history: I went to BC, dominated, was thrown out of housing two of my four years, was sued once, was almost personally responsible for a chlamydia outbreak in Rubenstein Hall (I couldn’t have done it without you, Erin), and still managed to get a job right out of college that paid me more than either of my parents made (God bless those halcyon days of 2001 when all one had to do to land a good job was to keep his pants on for the duration of the interview).  And sure, maybe now I’m a shallow and terrible person – I can’t even use the word "man" – who spends most of his time sitting in his shower, thinking about how maybe murder isn’t so bad, still questioning not only his sexuality but now the placement of his genitals on his body (maybe they’d look better just above my belly button? on my right shoulder?).  But all things considered, I’m ok with how I turned out after I made the choice to go to BC, a decision I based 95% of on economics.

But as I went through BC and now that I’m out of BC, I realize that there is an important factor in college selection that never entered my mind as a high school senior (nor was it a factor for any of my buddies).  Most high school seniors pick their college based on a number of variables like financial aid, prestige, location, academic majors, study abroad programs, alumni connections, and how easy it is to score coke.*  But now that I’m older and wiser, I’d like to add another factor near the top of that list: the importance of a decent athletic program.

[*Best school to score coke: Babson College. Trust me.  If it was 4am on a Tuesday and you needed a gram of coke, a brick of M-80's, and a monkey who could do your dishes, you could get it within the hour from someone at Babson.  Good lord.  No wonder they're "ranked #1 among all business schools for entrepreneurship."]

Make no mistake – I am no great fan of college sports.  I’ve written several times that I don’t care very much about BC sports.  This is based mostly on jealousy.  While at BC, I found it difficult on Saturdays to root for the football player who lived down my hall.  This is not only because he was a dick with the mental capacity of a meatball sub, but also because he was sleeping with all the white women in the whole goddamn dorm.  As I still have difficulty convincing white women to sleep with me, I still do not particularly root for BC athletes.  I can really, really hold a grudge.    

So it is not for the thrill of the competition that I extol the virtues of a decent athletic program (though of course that is a major plus for many).  My "love" of BC athletics is much more self-centered: Several times a year, BC athletics afforded me – and as an alumnus, still afford me – the opportunity to get embarrassingly drunk, often to the point of soiling myself, in a nearly consequence-free environment, while eating meat pulled from several different animals, slathered in sauces that will remain on my face, neck, hands and chest for up to a week.

I will not claim that tailgating at BC is like tailgating at Tennessee or LSU or West Virginia.  The monster tailgating that goes on at these schools is just one of several advantages they have over BC, among them offering a more varied roster of courses ranging from "English 207/Communications 202: That Get ’Er Done Guy Is Real Dang Funny" to "Sociology 409: So What If She Is Your Cousin – At Least You Ain’t a Jew."  But BC tailgating, though modest, is not without its charms.  All the elements are there: a campus packed with all types of vehicles, which in turn are packed to the gills with cheap canned beer; the smoke and scent from hundreds of grills wafting through the air; thousands of drunk fans, ranging in ages and rabidity; two buddies who will drink too much and invariably share their first homosexual experience after the game.  Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweetest of all.  

When I first got to college, I took this tailgating for granted.  It was a part of campus life, just as normal as going to class, eating in the dining hall and shamelessly masturbating in the shared bathroom.  I mean, whatever, you know?  It wasn’t until late in the first semester of my freshman year when I went to visit some buddies at Fordham University that I realized the importance and fun of tailgating for football games.  While there, I saw a Fordham football home "game" that was not quite as bad as a Special Olympics event but not quite as good as a celebrity football game for charity.  The "stadium" was mostly empty – girlfriends, family, perverts and drifters constituted the large majority of the fans, and it seemed they were only vaguely aware that an athletic competition was going on (not that I blame them).  Worst of all, my friends did not tailgate for the game.  Instead, we scored some coke from this spunky little Dominican guy who lived in the South Bronx.  It was awesome in its own way, but it was not tailgating. 

From that point forward, I realized how lucky I was to go to a school with a decent athletic program.  Not that BC is by any means a powerhouse, but what’s somewhat unique about the school is that it boasts good sports teams all year long – the football team is typically good for 8 or 9 wins, the hockey team is consistently nationally-ranked, and the basketball team is a tournament mainstay.  Sure, football is the only sport that features good old-fashioned tailgating, but any excuse to gather with friends to get drunk and increase your possibility of having unprotected sex is welcome in my life. 

Now, as a BC alum, tailgating has taken on a new angle, representing a mini yearly reunion for classmates.  Each year, I’ll go to two games – usually, like the past weekend, the first one of the season, and later the best match up of the season – and there I’ll run into old friends, recount stories from college, catch up on each others’ lives, and avoid eye contact with the girls (and guy and snake) I gave chlamydia.  If not for these tailgates, I wouldn’t have the opportunity to measure up old classmates and women who refused to sleep with me, and repeatedly point out to them that while they may live with their spouses in the suburbs, I live in New York Fucking City and have you heard of the internet?  Because I’m on it and I’m awesome.  That’s how I roll, homes. 

It is the friends I’ve made and these tailgates - not the education I received, not the connections I’ve been able to make, and certainly not the $4000 I was fined for myriad offenses that I had to pay before I got my diploma – that make me most glad I went to BC.  Six years out of college, I know:

- Knowledge is fleeting – I was a history major who studied Tudor and Stuart Britain, but yet every time I’m at a bar quiz night or watching Jeopardy and a question is asked about Henry VIII’s wives or even where Britain is located on a map, I get it wrong. 

- School reputation matters less the more one is removed from college – the only thing that matters in the real business world is how young the chick your banging is and how much your tie cost. 

- STD tests…man, they get old really quickly.  The inventor of the home STD test is going to be a rich man.  One more disapproving glare for my doctor’s secretary because once again Uncle Jason woke up with something new down there and I’m just gonna flip out. 

Once college is over with, you’re left with a very expensive piece of paper and some fond memories.  For me, tailgating represents a large part of these fond memories.  In addition, tailgating now allows to me relive some of these memories, albeit with much less hair on my head and much more hair on my back (nothing makes you feel young again like peeing next to your buddy’s truck while his wife screams "What are you doing? You’re splashing all over the tires!").  Therefore, dear high school readers, I urge you to learn from my experience and take into consideration your potential college’s athletic program.  Years from now, you’ll thank me. 

[Probably in person, because it's more than likely that I'll be with you at the tailgate, complaining about the toughness of the hot dogs and asking where the relish is.  One tip: make sure you have a lot of cool ranch doritos on hand.  I get pretty irritated when I don't have them.]