the return of the hot whopper
Jason posted on December 19, 2007

I was in LA last week (thus explains the lack of posts; please blame the 5:15am wake up time and the two hours a day in traffic and the impossibly good-looking and fit people - none of these things make me want to try to be funny, but rather sit quietly by myself in Target, eating hot dogs, which, sadly, is a very good summary of what I do out in LA).  But the trip was terrific.  It was the first time I’d been out there since the writers’ strike, so I had absolutely nothing to do "professionally" aside from drinking milkshakes and/or beer with some buddies who are on strike.  It was the best time I’ve had in LA in a long time.

Until the flight home when I got a Hot Whopper. 

(Story time!)

After graduating college in 2001, me and two buddies - Joe and Dave - took a 17 day trip to Dublin, Northern Ireland and Copenhagen.  Our buddy Bill was a bike tour guide in Dublin for the summer, so we’d spend the bulk of our time there, but would shoot up to Northern Ireland to visit my uncle’s family (my aunt married an Irish guy) and then over to Copenhagen to see some women who were actually good-looking.

On the red-eye over, Joe, Dave and I sat together and as we were finally landing, Dave said that he was feeling some weird pain in his head.  No sooner had he said these words when he doubled over in intense pain, unable to even speak.  He couldn’t explain and we didn’t bother him, hoping he’d get over it.  After we landed, he felt slightly better, but he could only say, "This is the worst pain I’ve ever felt…I’ve never had a headache like this," wobbling around the airport, clutching his head.  We thought one thing: what a pussy.

And we continued to call him a pussy for several days when his "headache" severely limited his sociability in Dublin.  There we were, in one of the drinking capitals of the world, and Dave could only sip his beer and wince at the loud noises, ultimately retiring early each of those first few nights.  Rather than being sympathetic, this made us very, very angry.  This was a once in a lifetime trip, we said, so get over your little fucking headache, you pansy.

Dave’s headache was only relieved when we went to Northern Ireland to visit my uncle’s family, and my uncle’s mother took Dave to her local doctor for some codeine.  Under the influence of codeine, Dave was able to deal with the pain and thus was able to stay out drinking with us until last call every night, and the pain eventually went away.  The lesson as always: Painkillers. Wow. If they can’t make your life better in some way, you’re already dead (or you’re Hugh Hefner, Tom Brady or Justin Timberlake and are all set in the whole "good life" department). 

We continued to break Dave’s balls about his headache after it subsided, but he didn’t even want to talk about it.  Back in Dublin he was fine, and the night before we had an 8am flight to Copenhagen, we drank until, well, just about 8am.  The flight to Copenhagen was only a little more than an hour, but while in the air, I felt something strange in my head.  "Did you guys feel that?" I asked, feeling like the plane had suddenly dropped.  Joe and Dave said they hadn’t, and I said, "I feel…uncomfortable."

What happened next was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life (that did not involve showing my genitals to a woman and/or subway car full of people).  Suddenly, my face exploded; it felt like someone had put a balloon inside my head, pushed a button, and immediately expanded it as far as it would go.  The pressure in my head - above my eyebrows, under my eyes, and near my temples - was nearly literally crushing; I honestly felt like my head was going to cave in on itself, unable to take the strain of all this pressure.  Like Dave had, I doubled over in my seat, clenching my body so hard that I began to shake.  I could do nothing but hit the stewardess call button, in the hopes of getting some water or perhaps a gun to end this pain.  I lost all control of my facial fluids; tears, snot and drool were pouring off of my face, so that when the stewardess finally showed up and I recoiled from my fetal position and asked for water, she did a stutter step, so alarmed was she by my red complexion, bloodshot eyes, and face covered in tears, snot and drool.  As I convulsed in my seat, I hadn’t said a word to Dave and Joe, who were looking on in a concerned manner, but seeing me Joe blurted out, "Oh my god - he’s turning into a fucking werewolf!"

I collected myself a little bit by drinking the water, and through the mucus (in my throat and on my face), I garbled out the words, "Dave, give me the codeine!"  Dave was taking a perverse joy in the moment, as I finally was experiencing what he had, what we had called him a pussy about, and he said no.  Never in my life have I been so close to murder than I was at this point and would have killed the entire plane full of passengers and various heads of state to get that codeine.  I think that Dave realized this and he gave me some of his magic pills. 

Soon, but not soon enough, the pain relented.  We talked about what happened all the way into the city center, where we stopped at a nearby Burger King and delighted in the fact that we’d get the first Whoppers of the day, fresh off the grill and nice and hot.  So it was that in that Burger King in the middle of Copenhagen that we were able to give a name of the most intensely painful experience of my and Dave’s lives: the Hot Whopper.

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

For the rest of the trip, I recovered and, as you might guess, visited a prostitute to celebrate.  My first call when I got back to the States was not to family or friends, but rather to my doctor, to find out exactly what the hell had happened.  He told me that it was a sinus block or a sinus attack or something and that it’s a fairly common thing that can range from "mildly uncomfortable" to "I’d cut my dick off to make this stop."  His advice was that one hour before boarding I should use a nasal spray like Afrin to make sure my nasal passages are free and clear, especially if I was flying with a cold.  

Since that time, I’ve been more likely to fly without a shirt on than without my Afrin.  Every flight for six years, dozens of flights, I’ve used that Afrin religiously.  Until, that is, Sunday, when I forgot my Afrin, was late for my flight, and couldn’t find any in the terminal.

I was nervous, but hadn’t gotten a Hot Whopper in so long that I wasn’t overly concerned.  Besides, though it was snowing quite a bit in the Midwest and on the East Coast, my flight left on time, and no one was sitting in the middle seat between me and a hot girl.  Not only that, I recently fixed my computer’s DVD drive, so for the first time in weeks I was able to watch a movie on my laptop.  For the first 5 hours and 21 minutes, it was the best flight I’d ever had.

And then we started descending.

And then the Whopper, she cometh.

I felt it immediately, just like I had before, that uncomfortable feeling like the plane was rising and falling, starting small, then growing.  Though we were officially in our final descent - everyone was seated and strapped in - I jumped up from my chair and into the overhead luggage compartment.  Though I didn’t have any codeine, I did have some Bayer, and taking it was the only thing I could think of to try to ebb the inevitable Hot Whopper tide. 

It didn’t work.  The Whopper hit.  Unlike last time, which was focused on my eyebrows and around my eyes, this one stayed on the right side of my face.  It was like being hit with a jackhammer; I could almost feel the bones of my skull straining not to crumble under the pressure.  What’s more, my teeth experienced a blinding pain, real seeing-white-light-type pain, shooting, stabbing pain that I had never felt in my mouth before; imagine sitting in a dentist’s chair with a cavity in the back of your top row of teeth, and imagine your dentist sticking a pick directly on this cavity, then imagine him viciously ripping you out of this chair by the cavity with his pick.  I’m not ashamed to admit that when this part of the HW was occurring, I was whimpering, actually whimpering, so much so that the girl next to me asked if I was ok (read: I probably wasn’t going to F her in the bathroom once we landed).

I could do nothing to stop the pain without the codeine, so I sat in the back of the taxi from the airport, trying to will myself out of it.  Whenever something hurts, I think of my dad.  He’s had his neck broken, been stabbed, lost most of his teeth when he was hit in the face with a piece of wood, and now has seven herniated vertebrae and can’t walk normally until 2pm everyday, until his body loosens up.  Meanwhile, I’m afraid of thunder and people with dreadlocks.  So I sat in the taxi, telling myself, "You pussy - get over it! It’s just a Hot Whopper! Be a man for once!"  As you might guess, this didn’t (and usually doesn’t) work.  Somewhere, my dad shed a single tear.  Or smoked a cigarette.  Whatever.  God, I’m ashamed.     

I got home and retreated to the shower, and by the grace of God (and further proving my theory), the steam of the shower, along with slow controlled breaths, helped ease some of the pain.  That I was home and that the Bayer was maybe kicking in helped, too.  After about an hour, since it was now 2am, though I was still hurting, I figured I could try to go to bed. 

Then a funny thing happened when I stepped out of the shower: I noticed my nose was bleeding, a thick rivulet of blood running out of my right nostril down my moustache.  I wiped it, rolled up a piece of toilet paper, stuck that up my nose, and started getting ready for bed.

But soon, that piece of toilet paper was saturated.  So I rolled another.  And I unpacked my bag a little bit, waiting for my nose to stop bleeding.

Soon, that piece of toilet paper was saturated.  So I rolled another.

Soon, that piece of toilet paper was saturated.  So I rolled another.

By about the fifth piece, with no sign of my noise stopping bleeding, I did the ol’ pinch method, timing myself as I held it for ten minutes.  This didn’t work, since as I was doing this, blood continued to come out, unencumbered by my pinch.  So then I decided to ice my noise, knowing cold is the answer for many an injury.  I timed myself as I held the ice on my nose for ten minutes.  Still bleeding.

I’ll spare you the suspense and tell you that I was up until 11am the next morning with my nose bleeding profusely, so badly that I actually had to call out of work sick.  By the time it stopped the next morning, I had pinched and iced several times, going through a box of tissues and a roll of toilet paper, and had covered my shirt, my pillowcases, my sheets, my magazines, and the pages in the second half of Steve Martin’s "Born Standing Up" with blood.  I couldn’t sleep lying down, because I would feel the blood going back in my throat, and I’d nod off at 6am or so while sitting up and wake up to find my moustache, mouth and goatee covered in blood, looking like I just got beat the fuck up.  I had had a bloody nose before, but nothing ever close to this.  

But, praise Jesus, it did stop, just before noon.  I took a nap for a few hours and then spent Monday is a groggy state, still feeling out of sorts, the pressure still clogging my head a bit.  Not only that, but my teeth were hurting badly now as well, something like a cavity or a wisdom tooth feeling.  Not good.

Three days later, I still feel out of sorts.  My nose hasn’t bleed any more, but my teeth are now bleeding (sweet).  This morning, I woke up at 4:58am and couldn’t get back to sleep because my teeth were throbbing.  I did, however, clean my apartment at this time.  Which was nice.     

And still, something is not right - in my head.  From my right ear to my right nostril, I feel like someone has lifted up my skin, stuck their hand under it, and is holding my skull in a death grip.  I can’t sleep, I’m woozy, and ten times a day I stop whatever I’m doing, rub my face in an exhausted and exasperated manner, and say, "Oh man."  I’m taking decongestants, but I might as well be popping tic tacs.     

The bottom line: I am fucked up right now.  I mean, I am a shell of man.  My week, and potentially my holiday weekend and beyond, has been ruined by the ruinously ruinous Hot Whopper, which shows no mercy.  I can’t sleep, I can barely chew, I’m constantly tired, and every morning I hock a loogie with so much blood in it I have to check to make sure it’s not a piece of brain.  Not good for me right now.  Not good at all. 

The morale: For the love of God, please use Afrin.  Don’t even get within 50 miles of an airport without it in your pocket.  No, this post is not sponsored by the makers of Afrin, but I am a man with great hate in my heart - and I still wouldn’t wish the Hot Whopper on any one of my numerous enemies.  All I can say is that  one minute I was smiling wide, happy to be home, refreshed after a great trip to LA, and now four days later I’m a complete physical and mental mess (more so than usual, that is). 

The Hot Whopper.  Heed my warnings, friends.  And take care.

(And happy fucking holidays.) 

december dinner: jojo
Jason posted on December 11, 2007

Last week, Nicole and I had our monthly dinner at JoJo on the Upper East Side.

I was excited for this because Jean-Georges Vongerichten is not only my favorite NYC restaurateur, but also my second favorite Frenchman (a distance second behind Guy de Maupassant, who was made insane by syphilis and began telling people he was the younger wealthy son of the Virgin Mary, which is just about the craziest and awesomest shit I ever heard).  And sure, I’ve only eaten at two of his (Jean-Georges’) places, Mercer Kitchen and Perry Street, but the food was excellent at both and the latter is among my top five restaurants in NYC.  Also, I just feel so cultured saying his name: Jean-Georges.  Jean-Georges.  Croissant.  God, I’m classy.

[Side note: One of the funniest times of my life involved a random night in college when a bunch of my buddies and I were high and went to our local IHOP, in the middle of the night and in the dead of the New England winter.  We ordered from the poor waitress by saying, "Yes, I'll have the country omelet and on the side, I would like a...CROISSANT!", screaming "croissant" in our loudest and most awful and obnoxious French accents, each guy trying to out-do the one before.  The rest of the table would burst into the uncontrollable laughter of the stoned, real tears-pouring-out, grabbing-of-sides, saying-"I can't breathe! I can't breathe!" laughter as the waitress went from one of us to the other, each of us ending his order with a thundering faux-French CROISSANT!  And yes, I got laid more back then than I do now.  So I ask: Where is the justice, people?  WTF?]

What you need to know about JoJo, aside from that it’s Jean-Georges first restaurant and is so named because "JoJo" was his nickname is a child, is that’s a beautiful converted townhouse.  That means it’s very small and intimate.  That also means that if every month at dinner you find yourself defending your theory about how you believe that when you’re drunk, your sperm is also drunk, and therefore you and your sperm can’t impregnate anyone while drunk since, I mean, the sperm has to work and find the egg and all, this is not the restaurant for you.  Also, it’s filled with UES old people - men in their 70’s in bowtie and women who put on so much lipstick you feel uncomfortable around them.

Nicole and I sat down and she ordered a vodka drink and I ordered a bourbon.  I should have taken it as a sign when I was brought my bourbon, which cost $12, and saw that it was probably measured out by a teaspoon.  Honestly, I have accidentally snorted more bourbon in the course of a night than the amount they gave me for $12, and I could easily wring more bourbon out of my work pants than was in this glass.  I was tempted to scream "Oh my god - look over there!", pound the bourbon quickly and ask, "What is this, some kind of joke? I mean, you bring an empty glass? I want to speak to your manager!"

We started with the special appetizer, some leek-type flaky tart with some type of cheese, and the sweet potato ravioli with marjoram and balsamic brown butter.  Both were excellent and complemented each other perfectly; the flaky pastry and cheese going perfectly with the warm sweetness of the sweet potato, encased in arguably the most delicate pasta I’ve ever had (seriously).  Say what you want about J-G’s portions, but Nicole and I were blown away.

We finished our drinks and ordered a bottle of wine and our entrees.  Nicole went with the lobster, poached, with lemon risotto and caramelized fennel and I got the short rib vinaigrette, with carrot puree and hon shimeji mushrooms.  We split a side of chick pea fries.

Again, say what you want about J-G’s portions, but the mother fucker really brings it.  I tried only a little bit of Nicole’s dish due to my aversion to all foods with lemon, but the lobster was silky - smooth, delicate but fleshy, buttery, rich.  Decadent.  When I tried it for the first time, I actually blushed, because it felt like I was doing something I shouldn’t.

Here’s all you need to know about my short ribs: They were so tender that I didn’t have to cut them; instead I merely looked at them, shook my fist in an angry manner, and said, "Yoouuuuu!!!" and they immediately feel apart into perfect pieces.  The vinaigrette was rich and maybe (maybe) a little (a very little) salty, but the quality of the meat was breathtaking - literally, I stopped breathing for four minutes while eating.  I can’t remember eating any meat of any kind as tender as those short ribs, which were easily the best ribs I’ve ever had.

Now is where I say something about the sides, but as mentioned, I didn’t try Nicole’s lemon risotto (I like lemon in my drinks only, thank you).  My mushrooms were good, I guess, but were in a small portion and I could have eaten all of them by pinching them between my thumb and pinkie and picking them off the plate.  The carrot puree was good, but again, it was the size of about one-fourth of the amount of cream cheese an average person puts on a bagel.  The chick pea fries were nice, but there’s only so much you can do with fries, I think, and they were basically used to sop up the vinaigrette that came with the short ribs.

Next came dessert, and after mulling it over, Nicole and I went with our standard: the warm chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.  I know, it’s a total p-ssy move, but it’s a guaranteed delicious dessert; you can’t fuck up warm chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream at an expensive restaurant.  And we were right – the cake was spectacular, it’s warm chocolate gooey center oozing out over the spongy cake, which was paired each bite with a dollop of ice cream.  But again, I could have eaten four of these things.  Splitting such a small dessert between two people could easily end some friendships, but Nicole and I managed (and by “managed” I mean I rub the chocolate cake on my beard as soon as we got it and Nicole then didn’t want any).

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

Here’s my final verdict: JoJo was delicious.  Absolutely, 100% no doubt about that.  But – and maybe this is my not-quite-luxurious-enoughness talking – if I drop $300 on a meal for two, I want you to have to roll my ass out of that restaurant.  I want some sort of pulley and/or slingshot system needed to help me up from my chair.  I want to have to take a Bayer to prevent a possible heart attack.  I want, while telling the cabbie my address on the way home, food to roll lamely out of my mouth, because there was just no room left in my body.  And hell, for $300, I want all this – and leftovers to take home.

(I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a fattie, but I’m not that much of a fattie.  I think.)

So if you’re a 65 year old banker, rich, or have a small appetite, JoJo is the place for you.  Otherwise, while it’s still a very good restaurant, there are a number of other options I would choose.  And Jean-Georges does not have to worry about falling from his number two spot on my list of favorite French people.  Although he might want to get syphilis, just to be safe.  

suck, bets, music
Jason posted on December 7, 2007

Six Reasons Why I’m Not Good (Life in General edition):

1) I have been washing myself with handsoap for the past four days.  Since this began when my regular soap ran out five days ago, I have walked by numerous Rite Aids, Duane Reades and other pharmacy-type stores, and each time thought to myself, "You know what? I should get some soap."  But each time, I immediately dismissed this idea, because I was either carrying rice pudding or rocking out to my iPod or, I don’t know, whatever it is I do when I walk around.

I predict that I will eventually get regular soap, but only three days after the handsoap runs out (the first and second days I’ll use shampoo, and then someone will make a comment about a "really strong Head ‘n’ Shoulders smell", then I’ll buy the regular soap).

2) I got my annual review this week at work, which was [confidential and potentially job-ending comments redacted].  My manager came to office to get me when it was time for this review.  When he knocked on my open door, I was standing over my chair, picking up a large chunk of jello that had fallen onto my chair - after bouncing off my lap - lifting it, and preparing to eat it.  Since my manager caught me, I did not eat it, and instead apologized and threw out the jello.

I was more upset about the discarded jello than the review.

3) My apartment is filled with static cling.  It’s everywhere.  Every time I walk by my couch, my shorts will pull toward it and when I’m in bed masturbating, I’m afraid I’m going to start a fire.  But still I have done nothing about it, because, frankly, I don’t know what to do and I really don’t care that much.

But it’s also on my jacket, which is a problem.  It’s a problem because I walk a lot, usually with my gym bag on my shoulder, and my iPod in my pocket on the same side as the gym bag.  Twice a day while walking, I’ll shift the gym bag, so it rubs against the coat and the iPod headphones, and this will send a small surge of electricity through my headphones and into my ears, causing me to scream "Fuck!" at various points in Chinatown/Little Italy/Soho.  For such a little shock, it’s not only surprisingly painful (I mean, it’s shooting in my ears, after all), but also incredibly annoying, kinda like getting stung by a bee.  And yet this happens to me every day, at least twice a day, and I do nothing to stop it.  And I probably won’t.    

4) My last time in LA, without getting too into it, I fell down a flight of stairs and landed on my computer, which I was carrying at the time on my shoulder.  I was late getting to work, so I got up, dusted myself off, and went on my way.  When I got to work, I turned the computer on and was relieved to find that nothing was wrong with it and it worked fine.

I didn’t realize what was wrong until the plane ride back to NYC when the DVD in my DVD drive would not come out when I pushed "eject."  I tried everything: pushing the eject button, dragging the DVD icon into the trash, ejecting through the file menu, even trying to pry the drive open with a plastic knife.  Nothing. 

This happened almost two months ago.  Since then, I’ve taken a number of train rides during which I could really have used a working DVD player.  This Sunday I leave for LA and I still haven’t gotten it fixed.  The worst part?  The DVD that’s jammed is "An Inconvenient Truth."  I will be watching "An Inconvenient Truth" (which I got from NetFlix) for as long as I have my computer.

5) Prior to this morning, you could have killed a cockroach in a corner with my toenails.  Goodness gracious.  They looked like the toenails of a llama and were simply fierce.  And to be honest, I only cut them this morning because I didn’t pick up my laundry yesterday (worked until 10pm, which was great) and I’m down to my crappiest socks, which are worn at the toes, and I was concerned that my toenails would pierce through the socks like bullets through a practice jersey.

6) I usually walk to and from work, but recently it’s been so cold that I can’t make the 28 minute walk.  This is a shame, because I love the walk - it gives me time to think, time to prepare for the day, and time to rock the fuck out.  This morning, after not making my walk for several days, despite temperatures in the 20’s, I decide to say "F it" and walk to work.  Not a good idea.

It’s the afternoon and I still can’t feel several of my toes.  I blame this entirely on the fact that they didn’t have my long toenails to shield them from the cold.

I mean, fuck.

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

Six Bets

It’s official: I’m the worst gambler in the world.  Great year last year, witness-protection-inducing year this year.

So I’m not going to make any bets this week, even though I can only improve on my 3-15 record (not sure if it’s exactly that, but it sure feels like it).  I will only say that Browns seem like free money to me, and the fact that the Eagles are giving 2.5 makes me chuckle a little bit, but that’s it.  Good luck and godspeed. 

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

Six Songs

"Drive My Car"  Two Gallants
The intro sounds like being fucked up and having sex in winter on the cold sand below a (still open and operating) boardwalk amusement park.  The rest of the song is pretty good, too.

"Red Rabbits"  The Shins
I’ve pimped this song before, but it’s worth doing so again.  And I’ll say the same thing I said last time: This is a key song on my “Let’s Make Out or Something” playlist, not because it’s romantic (I don’t even know what the hell this song is about), but because it’s genuinely disorienting.  But it’s not disorienting in a creepy way (you know, like the way that I typically make out); it’s got an ethereal quality to it that’s quite soothing.  I’ve never heard anything quite like it, and I strongly recommend you give it a listen, if only perhaps to email me to help me figure out exactly what I’m trying to say.  Fun fact: This is the second most played song on my iTunes.  The first?  See answer below.

"You Only Live Once"  The Strokes
Party song.  Perfect.  When I hear this, I need either get my hands on a beer or start dancing in under two minutes, or else things will get ugly.   

"Every Time I Try"  That Dog
I know they’re a bit girly (and by that I mean, a lot girly), but I love this band and its sound; songs that are either catchy (like this one) or very sad, with gorgeous harmonies, piano, strings, and electric guitars.  They’ve been broken up for a long time, but more people should know about them.    

"Loving You"  Paolo Nutini
Acoustic-based jam about doing it that’s easy to play and sing (not as good as Paolo, but still).  If this doesn’t put you in the mood, I mean, you probably have no genitals. 

"All That I Want"  The Weepies
Another re-pimp, but a perfect saccharine-sweet love song for the holidays due to its liberal use of sleigh bells.  I hope that it snows before Christmas so that I can curl up with a pint of ice cream, listen to this song, then switch to whiskey and water, put on “Love Actually” and sob like a mother fucker.  I love the holidays. 

[The most played song on my iTunes is Joseph Arthur’s “Echo Park.”]

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

This weekend is the last weekend that I will spend in NYC with my friend and old roommate (for four of my six years in NYC), Brian, before he moves to LA after the New Year.  Many of you know Brian, as I’ve written about the antics we’ve shared over the years so much that, with apologies to Site Guy Brendan, he’s probably the second main character in this here blog.  I will more properly eulogize his time later, but, without any having any expectations for a great or wild weekend, I will say this: I think we’re going to drink a lot of beer this weekend.  Wish us luck.

[Have a good weekend]

“what can I get you?”
Jason posted on December 6, 2007

I think that I could be a professional guest bartender.

Not a bartender, mind you, but a guest bartender.  The guest bartender has, arguably, the greatest job known to man, as I learned over Thanksgiving when I guest bartended in Philly at my local bar back home, Mick-Daniel’s.  My responsibilities on the night I guest bartended included:

- Arriving to work at 7:30pm

- Drinking casually while working

- Watching sports while working

- Talking to drunk girls while working

- Eating six mozzarella sticks while working

- Serving beer and (easy) drinks to my family and friends, with a stranger or two thrown in for good measure

- Telling the other bartender (in this case, my buddy David, who has a lot of bartending experience) what hard drinks/shots he has to make because I have no idea how to make them

- Telling the other bartender that he has to fix the registers because I mistakenly rung up $97.50 for three bottles of Miller Lite on the register by the door and the one by the front is on fire a little bit

- Eating four chicken fingers

- Finishing work at 11pm

- Getting drunk for very cheap at place of employ for three hours after work

The best part: I don’t what to say exactly how much I made (for tax purposes and all) but it was more than I make an hour at my real job - and it was cash!  Usually when I’m done working, I have to wait for the 14th or the 28th to roll around, then I have go to the ATM, and only then I can take out the money I need to buy pot.  With guest bartending, I get paid immediately when I’m done working, I make one phone call and step outside my work and boom - I’m getting high in an alley within minutes!  It’s genius!

[Alright, I have to calm down here.]

[Also, I love smoking pot.  I haven't done it too much lately and think I've forgotten how incredible it is.  You get an A+, marijuana, an A+.]

My shift, fortunately, went without any major disasters.  I arrived at 7:30pm and was given the rundown by my buddy Brian - where the beers, liquors and glasses are; how to clean the glasses; how to work the registers; etc - and when David showed up just before 8, we were ready to go.

My first order came from three girls, maybe two years or so younger than me, who wanted two Miller Lites and a Coors Light.  Like a pro, I slid open the freezer or fridge or steel container with the slidey lid that holds the bottled beer, put the three beers before them, popped off their tops with my bottle opener, and smoothly said, "That’s $9.75."  One girl gave me a $20, I rung up the order, made change, and gave it to her.  I was now officially a bartender.   

Soon, my friends and family started filing into the bar, included both of my parents and my brother and sister, and an unprecedented ten of my cousins (I have, I think, 30-35 total cousins).  The drink orders got more varied, but were nothing I couldn’t handle: bottle of Yuengling, pint of Smithwick’s, vodka soda, even cherry vodka-sprite-cran (!). Through it all, I handled the drinks orders professionally, with grace and aplomb, saying "Go fuck yourself" only once to my buddy Wick who seriously wanted a Tom Collins.   

[It was good to see my dad there at the bar, who, prior to a dinner I took him to in NYC last month, hadn't had a beer in 15 years.  Being at the bar for the my guest-bartending gig was the first time he'd been in a bar in 17 years, and he drank approximately 14 beers that night.  The next day, before I left to head back to NYC, my dad bought a case of Miller Lite, saying, "I forgot how good beer is."  So it looks like I'm responsible for making a 52 year old gun owner whose already on a steady regimen of painkillers start drinking again after 15 years of sobriety.  Um, whoops.]

[He's proudly up to eight guns now, by the way, as he's bought two more in the last five weeks.  I think one more and we've officially entered "arsenal" status.  Way to go, dad.] 

As the evening progressed, the bar got more crowded, both with strangers and friends.  But rather than get frazzled, I felt myself getting more steady on my feet; if anything, I was doing worse in the first half of the shift when the bar wasn’t as crowded and I was watching college football and chatting with what people were there.  Toward the end, I went from one customer right to the next, filling drink orders, gaining momentum and confidence.  Also, the bar has Red Bull on the gun, so I basically had the equivalent of twelve to sixteen cans of Red Bull during the shift.  Which would explain why my hair started falling out toward the end.  But I digress.   

But though I had fun (and got a little bit drunk), the best part of the night, aside from the 4am French onion soup and broccoli puffs at the Oregon Diner, was when I finished my shift at 11pm.  That’s when things start getting crazy at the bar, as more people started filing and patrons got drunker and drunker.  This is the reason why I could only ever be a guest bartender: I have neither the athletic ability or the stamina to move that quickly, nor could I possibly contain my jealousy and rage at having to give out hundreds of drunks in a night while only being able to have two or three.  That, moreso than the lack of agility, would be the major dealbreaker for me.  

Still, I hope to guest bartender again at some point, probably when it’s tax time and the IRS comes calling.  If you have the chance to do so, I encourage you to try it.  Free drinks, mozzarella sticks and chicken fingers, while making three figures in less than four hours…well, that’s the American Dream realized, right there.  This spreadsheet stuff is for chumps.    

water, a history
Jason posted on December 4, 2007

I have always had an unnatural, if not downright creepy, obsession with falling water.

When I was a child, during rainstorms I would take my mom’s car keys and escape from the house, so that I could sit in her car, alone, listening and watching the rain fall on the windows around me and the hood above.  After my mom put the kibbosh on that - because, you know, it’s pretty fucking weird - I’d settle for sitting on our outdoor porch while it rained, in warmer weather smelling that "rain smell" - the oil rising from the asphalt in the street as the barometer drops just before a rainstorm in the city.   

But this obsession was not limited to rain.  Growing up, we only had one bathroom in our house, and many times when my dad would shower, I’d knock on the door and tell him that I needed to come in to go to the bathroom.  From behind the shower curtain he’d shout for me to come in and I’d sit on the toilet, pretending to go to the bathroom, listening to the water hit the shower, breathing in the steam.

As I grew older, I stopped doing these things - because, you know, they’re pretty fucking weird - and my love for rain/falling water only manifested itself in constantly wishing for rain while I slept so it would tap-tap-tap on my window and/or air conditioner and taking extremely long showers.  The next chapter in my love for falling water - and creepiness - would not be written until the day after my 21st birthday.

My 21st birthday fell on a Monday in the middle of July between my junior and senior years of college.  I was living in a disaster of an apartment with some friends in Brighton, MA, an apartment from which we would be evicted four weeks later, working at the Boston College library dusting books and checking fantasy sports with my buddies Joe and Jon.  On the day of my birthday, our boss, a wonderful Russian man named Michael, knew it was my 21st and so dismissed me, Joe and Jon at noon so that we could grab some beers.

It is customary to have 21 drinks on one’s 21st birthday, but I made it clear to all my friends that I was not going to do this.  Instead, I made it my goal to have 42 beers - double the amount, but no shots or hard alcohol of any kind.  Given a full day, I figured I had a shot at 42 beers, but didn’t stand a chance against 21 beers, shots and drinks. 

The three of us spent the day on Harvard Avenue playing pool, before heading back to my apartment (I was maybe 12 beers in) to grab some dinner.  That summer, I slept on a mattress that was so uncomfortable it was the equivalent of sleeping on 500 sets of keys every night, so Joe, whose best man I was this past April, considerately bought me a new mattress pad and egg crate for my bed (he probably got sick of me complaining every morning at about how poorly I slept and how much my back hurt) and gave it to me during our little mid-load break.  After a dinner which I can only assume consisted of ramen or pasta, we were off to MaryAnn’s, the unofficial dive bar of BC that at the time offered $1 draft beers.  Though attendance was sparse (it was a Monday and I am very unpopular), this is where the wheels quickly came off.

Suffice it to say, I did not reach my goal of 42 beers.  Ten minutes after getting to MaryAnn’s, I was doing shots.  Thirty minutes after I got to MaryAnn’s, I was doing shots with Tabasco sauce in them.  Sometime between forty-five minutes and four hours (no recollection) after I got to MaryAnn’s, I was being led out the door by my arm. 

The next thing I remember was waking up in my bed, which was thoroughly soaked with urine.  The egg crate and mattress pad that Joe had gotten me for my birthday, that I had put on my bed only hours before, was now less an egg crate and mattress pad and more a sponge saturated with my urine.  I’ve peed the bed a few times before while drunk, but this was exceptional.  I think that I must have pissed the bed not once during the night, but several times, and never woke up once, spending the night rolling around in my own urine, occasionally adding another layer of pee during the night/morning. 

My hangover, as you might imagine, was gargantuan.  After cleaning myself up with a quick shower, I sat down in my living room alone, as all my roommates were at work (I didn’t make it in that day and didn’t call out sick; Joe and Jon explained the situation to our fortunately sympathetic boss Michael).  I sat in a chair with a newly opened gallon of water and the chocolate cake that the girls who lived below us had baked me for my birthday (what sweethearts), and ate the whole fucking thing in one sitting.  It wasn’t a giant birthday cake that you see at kids’ 5th birthday parties, but maybe an 8×8 square one, yellow cake with chocolate icing.  And it was delicious.

The cake filled my belly with something aside from alcohol, but I was still feeling miserable.  I took aspirin, but it didn’t work.  I tried to sleep, but couldn’t because my head was pounding.  I sat for a while on our shitty deck, but the July heat and the stench of the garbage pile below the deck made me wretch.  Faced with no other alternatives, I chose the only option I could think of: the bathroom.

I had showered quickly when I woke up, but I was still in a haze and, you know, covered in urine.  So it was not exactly relaxing.  With nowhere else to go and no one home to disturb me, I headed back to the shower.  I stripped down, turned the water on ice cold, and stepped in, away from the stream of water so as not to get wet by the icy water.  I stood there, dry, the cold water bouncing off the floor of the tub and onto my feet, with the bathroom window next to me partially open, the summer air warming the chills that the water gave me.  I grew tired and more than a bit dizzy standing there, so I sat down - not in the tub, which I shared with six other guys and so was covered with a fine layer of spooge, hair, and HPV, but on the ledge of the tub, and I put my head in my hands.

I sat there for over an hour and in that time, my condition greatly improved.  Listening to the water, taking deep breaths, closing my eyes, half the time feeling chills for the water and the other half feeling blasts of the warm air from the window, I could almost feel the hangover leaving my body with each passing minute.  Despite the unsanitary condition of the bathroom (seriously, HPV was everywhere), this act of "showering" was incomparably cleansing, restorative and relaxing.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but the Fantasy Shower had just been born. 

Since that day, I have spent a ridiculous and probably unhealthy amount of time in the shower.  I continued to take Fantasy Showers (so named by my roommates because I was in a "world of fantasy" alone in the shower for an hour each time) to combat hangovers, and each time I emerged from one of these showers I felt better by leaps and bounds.  When I moved out of that apartment and into our senior year dorms, I shared a bathroom with only one other person, my buddy Joe, of egg crate/mattress pad fame, and I kept our tub squeaky clean so that instead of sitting on the ledge during these Fantasy Showers I could actually sit in the tub, with the showerhead shooting at my feet and the water draining, leaving my body above my shins completely dry.  Before long, the Fantasy Shower was no longer just for hangovers and soon I had a stereo in the bathroom and was listening to music and even reading books and doing homework in the shower.

(I told you it was creepy.)

Now, I still take Fantasy Showers.  Every morning, I wake up at 8am and spend forty minutes in the shower, sitting down and reading.  At night, I may hop in as well to do a little more reading (I edited most of the manuscript of my book in the shower).  Many times, however, I won’t feel like getting into the tub and will turn the water on but will sit on the ledge of the tub or on the bathroom floor or on the toilet, just chilling and listening to the water, breathing in the steam from the hot water in the winter and getting chills from the cold water in the summer.  It’s not uncommon for me to spend two hours a day in the bathroom with the shower running. 

(I mean, you can’t say I didn’t tell you it was creepy.)

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

My buddy Brian, who I lived with for four of my six years here in NYC and is my go-to guy, my rock, my constant drinking buddy, is leaving NYC and moving to LA shortly after the New Year.  This is a crushing development, both personally and socially, and one that I may not be able to recover from. (In the last two months, of three of my closest friends here in NYC, one is moving to LA, one I’m no longer speaking to, and one asked to be removed from my email list. Sheesh.) I’ll discuss this in greater detail later, but since Brian’s weekends in NYC are numbered, we (his friends) are making a conscious and deliberate effort to spend as much time with him as possible; we’re treating him like he’s a terminally ill veteran from whom we’re trying to record memories of the war before he kicks the bucket. 

So on Friday night, my friend Brendan and I joined Brian for some beers after his work threw him a goodbye party.  Brendan was extremely hungover from the previous night’s festivities, and I was feeling run-down from a busy work week that left me legitimately sick for the first time in awhile.  But hey, Brian’s leaving, so we pulled it together and headed up to midtown to meet him for beers.

I consider myself someone who has a fairly high tolerance when it comes to alcohol (I don’t mean to brag), but there are some nights when after three or four beers, I am acutely aware that I’m much drunker than I should be.  I don’t know if this is because I’m just "off" on these particular nights or if my liver is transported back in time to 1989, but it doesn’t matter.  Friday night, after my third pint of Smithwick’s, I could tell that it was gonna be a rough one.

Though nothing eventful happened during the night - it turned into the three of us doing a pub crawl through the terrible bars of the 30’s and 40’s on the East Side, during which time I text messaged just about everyone in my phonebook - I got drunk.  Bad drunk.  "How did this happen?" drunk.  Dropping my phone in the bar bathroom, spilling beer on myself, spitting and slurring while I talk drunk.  Not my finest moment.

When the bars closed at 4am, we headed down to the LES to cap the night off with some pizza/beef patties/frankie and cheeses/chicken rolls from Rosario’s, as Brian is trying to get his fill in before he leaves.  Brian got his first and Brendan and I watched him literally run out of the pizza place and into a cab, without saying goodbye.  Brendan lives in Hoboken and asked if he could crash at my place, which I agreed to.

By the time we got to my place, the food was almost gone.  I don’t recall the specifics of eating, but in short order Brendan was passed out on my couch and the food had been destroyed with extreme prejudice.  I knew that Saturday was going to be a big day - we had plans to drink all day long in Hoboken, capped off by my friend’s birthday party there - so I desparately didn’t want to be hungover.  Even in my drunken state, I knew if I sat down on the couch or laid down in my bed I’d be passed out in no time.  So in order to keep myself awake so that I could let the aspirin work and drink some water, I turned to my old friend: the shower.

My bathroom is very small.  Standing in it, you can touch the toilet, sink and tub from the same spot without moving.  When you open the door, before you is the sink, not two feet away; left of the sink is the toilet and to the right of the sink is the tub, all practically stacked on top of each other.  On this night, I didn’t feel like stripping down and actually getting into the shower; I was so drunk that there was a greater than 60% chance that had I done that, I would have slipped and broken something in my genitals.  So instead I turned the water on - nice and hot, since it was so cold out - and sat down on the bathroom floor with my back on the door, to let the shower and steam works its magic and help me prevent a hangover. 

Several hours later, I was awoken by Brendan, now awake and wanting to take a piss.  The sun was up and both me and the walls of the bathroom were soaked with condensation; my hair was matted to my head, my shirt was wet, and, still drunk, I had no idea where the fuck I was.  Brendan was banging on the door, shaking it and thus my body, saying, "Dude, what the fuck are you doing in there?" (He told me later that in the seconds it took me to respond, he thought I was dead.) I had passed out on my bathroom floor, with the hot water running, for a little over three hours.    

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

I am 28 years old.  I have a successful career and a job title with the word "Senior" in it.  For my second career, I travel back and forth to Los Angeles, where I stay for ten days a month, making me effectively bicoastal.  I have a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan, more or less in Soho, in which I live in alone.  I have an office in this apartment, decked out no only with my cool Mac and all the proper accoutrements but also with five of my guitars hanging regally from the walls.  I watch DVDs with my Hi-Def DVD player on my 52′ plasma television from the comfort of my new furniture.  Jean-Georges Vongerichten is my favorite NYC restaurateur.  I have a foreign cleaning lady.  I shop at Dean and Deluca.  I drink expensive bourbon.  I am a Medallion SkyMiles member.  

The point: Under no circumstances should I be waking up on my bathroom floor at 7 in the morning with the shower running.  There is no excuse for this.  This is not what people like me do.  This is what heroin addicts do.  The only reason I think I didn’t choke on the steam and die was that the bathroom window was cracked a little bit, letting in the cold air and preventing the bathroom from becoming a complete sauna.  Dying, drunk and covered in sweat on my bathroom floor with my shower water running, would have been a most unglorious death, if only for the absence of a prostitute, a mound of drugs, or a small fire, or the fact that I was not wearing high heels at the time.   

Or is it this: No matter what fancy stuff I surround myself with, no matter how much I spend on expensive food or drinks, and no matter how hard I pretend, I can not escape who I am; the college kid who peed himself several times in the middle of the night on his 21st birthday, the child who would hide in his mom’s car listening to the rain; or the guy who, this weekend, may choke to death on a beef patty on the cab ride up to the Rub ‘n’ Tug by MSG. 

(I at least hope I make it into the Rub ‘n’ Tug before I kick the bucket.  I know for a fact that they have a sauna there.)