Articles Archive for Year 2008
Last week, in the first round of the playoffs, my team was up by 28 points on my opponent after Sunday’s games. I felt pretty good; though I didn’t have any other players going in the Monday night game (Tampa Bay at Carolina), he only had one guy, his third WR, some shitdog named Antonio Bryant. In the three games prior, Bryant averaged four catches for 57 yards, and had one touchdown in that span, which is an average of nine points per week. Again, I was up by 28. He only had Bryant, against Carolina’s tough D. I felt good. The feelings I had were good. Good, good, good.
But then, guess what happened? Bryant had an incredible nine catches for 200 yards and two touchdowns in the Monday night game – for a total of 34.97 points.
Result? I lose. Shitdog Bryant has the game of his life and I’m done. Sweet.
League #2
In my main league, I snuck into the playoffs as a #7 seed and promptly knocked off the #2 team last week. This week, facing the #6 seed, I was down 26.6 points after the Sunday games. Yikes. However, he had no players in last night’s Philly-Cleveland game, whereas I had both McNabb and DeSean Jackson. McNabb and DeSean versus Cleveland…that’s a yummy match-up. All I needed was for each guy to have an average game, and I’d win.
McNabb came out firing and DeSean had 70 yards receiving in the by the end of the first half. However, both McNabb and DeSean threw interceptions, costing me four points. However (again), with 12:41 left in the 4th quarter, I was down only 3.36 points – basically, if DeSean had 20 more yards receiving from McNabb, I would win. I felt good.
But then, guess what happened? With that 12:41 left in the game, nearly a full quarter, both McNabb and DeSean were benched. Gone. Dunzo. Done for the game. So no 3.36 points. So I lose. Sweet.
POSTSCRIPT: In this league, I drafted Torry Holt in the 5th Round. And every week, I stuck by him, starting him week after week, dealing with those lovely 3-37-0, 5-23-0, 3-28-0, 1-5-0 (!) and 3-30-0 games he had sprinkled through the season.
But finally, with the conference final game looming, I couldn’t take it any longer. I thought Indy would explode against Detroit and so I picked up Anthony Gonzalez to start in place of Holt. I was kinda right – Indy scored 31 points. However, Anthony Gonzalez had one catch for six yards. That’s 0.6 points. Torry Holt, on my bench for the first time after fourteen weeks starting, had four catches for 64 yards and a touchdown. That’s 12.4 points.
Again, I wound up losing by 3.36 points. 12.4 is greater than 3.36. So I lose. Sweet.
League #3
In my buddy Kyle’s league, which I have played in for many, many years, I had probably my greatest fantasy football team ever. During the regular season, I went an amazing 12-1. The second place team was 8-5, and I had nearly 1250-something total points to 1110-something points of the second highest-scoring team. Just good ol’ fashioned dominance.
You can probably figure out where this is going: In the first round of the playoffs, facing the #8 seed, a team I scored almost 250 more points than during the regular season, I lost, 108 to 100.
But then, guess what happened? Every single top seed lost – #7 beat #2, #6 beat #3, and #5 beat #4. The best four regular season teams all were finished after the first round, while seed 5, 6, 7 and 8 moved on. In all my years of fantasy football, having competed in literally dozens and dozens of leagues, I’ve never seen all four bottom seeds advance in the first round of an eight-team playoff. And this just had to happened in the year I was 12-1 and all but planning on how best to spend the $1000 first prize.
League #4 (not cruel – yet)
I’m still alive in this league, and had a bye last week (for some reason, these guys do their playoffs 15-16-17 instead of 14-15-16). This week, I face my agent Joel, who finished third in the regular season to my second. I contemplated changing my team name to “Dead in the Water” in this league, because after a pitch meeting about a year and a half ago, Joel and I walked out of said pitch and felt terrific and slam-dunkish about the prospect of the pitchees buying my idea, so much so that when I asked Joel what would happen if they didn’t buy the idea, Joel said, “Well, you’d kinda be dead in the water, but you don’t have to worry about that.” At that very moment, right there on the lot, Joel’s cell phone rang and it was the pitchees – passing on the idea. Joel was shocked and then couldn’t stop apologizing to me about it, saying that I wasn’t “dead in the water” and yada yada yada (fortunately, the writers’ strike happened the next week and killed pretty much everyone).
(Actually, the writers’ strike was kinda unfortunate, but you know what I mean.)
To this day, Joel feels bad about the “dead in the water” comment (in as much as an LA agent can feel bad about anything), and making this my team name might just be the psychological advantage I’d need to get past him and face his fiancée Liz, the number one seed, who handed me two embarrassing losses this year. However, both because I am a nice guy and because I don’t want to anger the karma gods, I’m sticking with the name I’ve had all season, Knorben Knussen.
Would anyone like to guess what will happen this week?
To be honest, there’s not much actually going on in Century City. Aside from the buildings that house these businesses, there are no bars to hit after work or no cool little coffee or sandwich shops or whatnot. There is, however, the Century City mall, a large outdoor mall that has tons of stores, restaurants, and, of course, a food court.
At this point, this food court is my lifeblood, for two reasons. One, the lunch options nearest to my office are severely limited, consisting of a terrible sandwich shop, a terrible sandwich shop, and whatever I bring for lunch. The mall, which is about a fifteen-minute walk from my place of business, has about ten different options, from Greek to Mexican, and each is high quality. So that’s nice.
Second, the mall is quite literally overflowing with beautiful women. Now, where I live, an area called the South Bay, is also filled with beautiful women. However, the women in the Century City mall are quite unlike the women in my neighborhood (or town or city or whatever they call it here). In the South Bay, with all due respect, we’re dealing with super hot just-graduated sorority sisters exposing their midriffs and pounding Jager bombs (not that I have a problem with any of this). In Century City, we’re dealing with supremely hot professional women in skirts and other dressy clothes who probably earn more money than I do and make me seriously contemplate, “What would I get if I walked up and grabbed her boob? Any prison time at all? A fine? Probation? It just might be worth it. God, I bet that boobie is so nice.” So needless to say, I try to get to the mall and food court once a week, both for nourishment of the stomach and nourishment of the loins.
(I really have to start incorporating the word “loins” into my everyday speech. “So how are you?”/”Fine, but my loins are just killing me – I think I slept on them wrong or something.”)
My go-to food at the food court is the same here as it was back in New York. At the South Street Seaport food court, it was found in the Chinese food station. Here in the Century City food court, it’s found in the “cutlery”-type station. That food is honey barbeque chicken shreds. Or maybe it’s teriyaki chicken shreds. Either way, this is what it kinda looks like (and I’m pretty sure there is no “shred” in its title). While I fully understand that this chicken is culled mostly from the beak and the ass of the chicken, I also fully understand that this chicken is delicious. Further, it comes with two sides. Options for the sides include rice, noodles, broccoli, vegetable medley, corn or whatever. However, I go with what is easily the best option: mac and cheese. Not only that, when the Asian woman is scooping the mac and cheese and asks me what other side I want, I say, “I’ll just take the mac and cheese, please”, which leads to an awkward exchange in which she tells me that I get another side and I say that I’m fine with the mac and cheese and she asks if I want double the mac and cheese and I reluctantly (though secretly joyously) say that yes, that would be fine, as I look around to make sure none of the attractive women are watching scoop after scoop of mac and cheese get piled into my little to-go container (I always bring the food back and eat it in my office, since there’s no way I’m going to sit among a sea of hot women stuffing my fat face with a pound and a half of macaroni and cheese and sauce-covered chicken ass).
This is what I got today at the food court, in addition to a diet lemon snapple (not for diet reasons, obviously, but because I prefer the taste). The woman bagged my food container and the snapple and I was shortly zipping back the office, eye-sexually-assaulting every woman in my path.
Because I was eye-sexually-assaulting all these stunningly beautiful women, it was a few minutes before I realized that my food was leaking. When she packed up my food, the woman at the register haphazardly threw it in the bag with the snapple, so that when I grabbed the bag, instead of lying flat, the to-go container essentially stood up and cheese and chicken sauce started leaking out and into the bag. Crap.
Still in the mall (but again, it’s outdoors), I stepped to the side of one of the main walkways to a little plant area, which had a ledge about gut-high, on which I put the food to try to get a hold of the situation. I reached in to grab the container and of course, got the cheese and chicken sauce all over my hand. And of course, I was given one single napkin with my food, about the size and thickness of a single sheet of toilet paper. So this is what I had to work with as I stood there cleaning the sauce off my hands, the food container now half-open on the ledge before me. I would never, ever eat in this food court for fear of looking like a fat fuck in front of hot chicks, and now here I was, orange and brown sauce on one hand, dirty napkin in the other, food container half-open, displaying food that looked slightly better than throw-up but slightly worse than dog food. Crap.
Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone and had a flicker of recognition. I saw her before she saw me, but there was only a brief moment before I heard, “Jason?”
Katherine. Wow.
Also: Katherine. Wow. Crap.
Katherine is – easily – one of the most attractive women I’ve ever made out with (I mean, easily). We met years ago on one of my first trips to LA at a party through a friend of a friend of a friend (or something like that) and had hung out for the rest of the time I was in LA, but I didn’t return to west coast for a few months after that and we sort of lost touch (even though I may or may not have sent her a drunken text message maybe a year after we lost touch, which, surprisingly, was not returned). So since that one week, we’ve had no contact (aside from our MySpace and Facebook “friendships”). However, it was Katherine who was instrumental in my falling in love with LA all those years ago. The logic was simple: in only a short time in LA, I was able to locate a beautiful woman who was willing to make out with me on a consistent basis. Therefore, if I moved to LA, I could find all sorts of beautiful women to make out with me on consistent basises.
(Can someone please make the “talk about your all-time backfires”-type joke here for me? It’s just too painful to have to do it myself.)
(And really, I honestly have no explanation why Katherine ever even made out with me in the first place, aside from there was some sort of contest between her and her friends to see who could hook up with the guy who’s as far under their leagues as possible. Without even seeing the other entries, I can tell you that she won. Easily.)
And so there standing before me, after years of not seeing each other, was Katherine* (*not her real name). Of course, she looked terrific, all pretty and well-dressed and with hair that probably smells like cinnamon or candles or heaven. I didn’t know if I was happy to see her, seeing how good she looked, or if I was sad to see her, seeing how good she looked.
But I can tell you that she was probably not wrestling with the same question looking at me. In addition to the bag of cattle feed I was trying, unsuccessfully, to clean up and clean off my hands, I haven’t gotten a haircut since early October and haven’t trimmed my beard in at least a week. Not only that, I was wearing what is probably my oldest shirt, as I haven’t done laundry since I got back to LA early last week. In short, my fastball had no movement and was hovering in the low 80’s. Not my best stuff.
As she approached launched into a hug, I was at least able to quickly close the lid to the food. I obliged the hug, saying, “Hey – good to see you!” as I still held the fucking napkin in my one hand, and my other had still had fucking food on it, both hands not touching her back as we were locked in the hug. As soon as she pulled away from the hug, I offered a weak “Sorry – got some spillage here” before jumping into, “So how are you?”, trying to deflect the attention away from my overall Supreme Fat Chopness.
Katherine is doing fine and works in the area. She got a new job since the last time I saw her and is almost certainly making more money that I am. And, in case you were wondering, her hair smelled more like candles than cinnamon, perhaps a candle of the “ocean breeze” variety.
Meanwhile, nervously tossing the napkin back and forth in my hands, fretting about the fat boy smell emanating from the to-go container, I seemingly could answer no question correctly. Am I still doing TV stuff? (No, not really.) Did my book come out? (Long story, but no, not yet.) Do I live in the area? (No, all the way down in Redondo.) Do I like living in LA? (Ohdeargod, no.) I wanted to blurt out “I WON MY FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE!” just to prove that my life was more than a series of mistakes, L’s, and whatever the hell it was that was all over the napkin, which, bless her heart, Katherine only looked at three or four times.
After the pleasantries had been exhausted, Katherine gave me her card and said we should do lunch someday. This is a very popular way to end a conversation with someone in Los Angeles, although occasionally “drinks” or even “dinner” is substituted for “lunch.” As I have no business cards, I took hers with my good hand and said that would be a good idea. As she walked away, she didn’t turn back to look at me. If she had, she would have seen me checking out her butt, then shaking my head, then turning and trying to clean up my feedbag.
This is the (hopefully only current) trajectory of my life. Once, Katherine and I were lovers. Now, as she walks away, I’m left to wrestle with Grade D chicken and fake mac and cheese.
(Which were both delicious, by the way.)
************
Many years ago when I lived in the Lower East Side with my buddies Ben and Brian, there was a Dunkin’ Donuts/Baskin Robbins near our apartment (on Houston on the east side of Avenue A) that would we would frequent, mostly on weekends in the early afternoon, mostly when hungover. You might be surprised to learn that we were incredibly gluttonous at the DD/BR, often getting coffee or tea, as well as a bagel or bagel sandwich, and maybe a donut or two thrown in there. As tempting as a sundae was – and believe me, it was always tempting – we as a group made a collective decision that we could never get a sundae with our breakfast foodstuffs. Not for health or any such reason, but because we knew that the day that one of us finally caved and ordered a sundae with his breakfast, he’d walk outside and run into his ex-girlfriend. We decided it would be easier to explain away running into your ex at a gay club (“Here with friends”, “Here to gay bash”, “Writing an article about it”, etc) than to explain away eating a sundae – with Dunkin Donuts – for breakfast.
But today, I got the sundae, and I was summarily punished.
The lesson? Don’t get the sundae. Learn from me. Don’t be a fat fuck in public.
[Queue the NBC PSA “The More You Know” music.]
And sorry about being MIA, but this should hold you over for a lil’ bit. Be back shortly.
There’s going to be a Big Announcement soon, but I’d rather not get into it at this juncture (however, if you read through the Glamour.com interview, you can probably guess what it is). I had some vacation days to burn and some work to do on this project and so I took last week off, hoping to spend it in seclusion down the Jersey shore, cut-off from the world, being alone and reading, writing, showering and drinking (or some combination of all four).
But the week was – and really there are no other words for it – a complete waste, because I was unable to perform in certain of these capacities.
Normally when I go down the shore to work, I basically stay up until 5am or 6am getting bombed and working.* After many visits down the shore to do just this, I had only recently figured out the perfect combination to keep me optimally drunk and also optimally productive.
(* Editor’s Note: I will never, ever use the term “writing” to describe what I am doing, since stringing together a bunch of run-on sentences about how little my penis is and how messed up my youth was is only writing in the bare minimum sense of the word. So instead we’ll go with “working.” Thank you for your understanding.)
For several trips previously, I had experimented with whiskey. All great writers drink whiskey, so if I aspired to be a great writer, I too should drink whiskey while working. However, rather than bring out the best of my ability, whiskey only made me tired and crave a blowjob and then get really, really sad. Many of the mornings after my little whiskey binges, I would look at the last edited word document on my computer and find something like:
The nighth [sic], she was dark. Dark and coold [sic]. The night she was dark and cold and alive with fear and loathing (in Las Vegas, or somewhere else, or somewhere whole).
I am so alone
So whiskey was out.
Then there was straight beer – just lining up the cans of Bud as I ripped through some work – but that plan was also flawed; there are only so many cans of cheap domestic beer that a man can drink before wanting one of three things: pizza, titties or sleep. So beer all night long was a no-go, too, since every beer night ended up with me either eating or masturbating and then falling asleep on the couch for a good five or six hours during a “break” to “clear my head”.
But then finally, I figured it out. My old roommate Brian and I went through a period where we drank a lot of vodka crans. Maybe it’s not the most manly drink (I mean, it is red and all), but if you make it strong enough to burn the hair in your nostrils, no one’s going to call you out on it. The only problem with the vodka cran is that it has a limited appeal – after a few I get all heartburny and full of sugar and bleeech. There is only one alcoholic beverage that I can drink practically without end, without getting too tired or lonely or hungry: Guinness. There were Sundays during football season in NYC that I would drink Guinness all day, from 1pm until midnight, and still, I was certain, I could fly a plane if pressed into service. Despite its thick texture and heaviness, Guinness makes me feel sexy, alive and ready for anything (anything hopefully involving pizza or titties).
So the perfect combination is two large pints of vodka crans, followed by as many Guinness as can be drank (drunk?). The two strong vodka crans will get me quickly where I need to go, feeling all buzzed and brilliant, and the Guinness will level me off, keep me right on that feeling all night, adding a little but taking away nothing. This is how we roll.
But it was all for nothing this time around, thanks to my athlete’s foot.
I wrote recently that I have athlete’s foot. But really, to stay I have athlete’s foot is like Clay Aiken saying “I have gay” – this athlete’s foot has spread to the rest of my body, threatening to consume me, to literally almost eat me alive – it practically is me at this point. I’ve been dealing with a rash not only on my feet, but on my entire upper torso. I have worn deodorant only once in the past three weeks, since my armpits are alight with inflammation, and have been wearing my glasses constantly, because some of it had spread to my face (the glasses covered up the splotches of disease around my eyes). So as you can imagine, I am crushing a lot of p-ssy right now. It’s amazing. So much ass. So, so much ass. Love it.
To combat the athlete’s foot, I am on these strong anti-fungal pills that apparently are working my liver overtime. I was warned that if I drank on these pills, best case scenario would be yellow eyeballs, worst case scenario would be abdominal pain followed by liver failure followed by death, that last part being kind of a bummer.
So dutifully, I did not drink on the pills. That is, until Site Guy Brendan’s wedding, where I got absolutely shitcanned and have no recollection of the last 1.5 hours of the evening (really morning, since we did not leave the bar until it closed). After SGB’s wedding, I headed down the shore to start my lonely work odyssey, and, having not died of liver failure after SGB’s wedding, I was emboldened and confident that yes, I could indeed drink on these pills.
(Now this is my bad, here: I was supposed to take the pills every day, which meant that my last day of pill-taking would be on SGB’s wedding. However, I have a lot on my mind and forget to take them a number of times, probably every other day. So instead of being pill-less and healed on the day of SGB’s wedding, I still had about half the pills left and could not wear deodorant, instead putting the deodorant on the outside of my undershirt. Which worked out surprisingly well, truth be told.)
But then, sometime around 1am on the first night down the shore, my mania took over. In the middle of that second lovely vodka cran, I was convinced I was having abdominal pains. In under two seconds, I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, looking deep into the whites of my eyes to look for any discoloration. About a minute later, I was gingerly pressing on my stomach, trying to locate the source of the intense pain I was sure I was feeling. Then I think I cried a little bit. Either way, I was done drinking for the night.
The same scene more or less repeated itself the next two nights, after which I gave up completely on drinking. There are many ways I envision of myself dying, all more or less involving a hotel fire, but dying alone down the shore because I had two vodka crans and athlete’s foot is not one of them. No sir. That = weak.
Thus, the most important element in my creative process – getting bombed – was out of the question. But even if I were able to overcome that single obstacle, another had prevented itself: the presence of the internet.
I love going down the shore in the winter because I love being alone. I love being at home alone, I love having meals alone, I love going to bars alone, love it love it love it. There is nothing quite as refreshing for the soul and the mind as cutting oneself off and speaking about two dozen words in an entire week, most of which are to waitresses, bartenders, and Wawa employees. Really, for as social as I consider myself, I am pretty certain that I could live like this forever.
But in order to attain this aloneness, I must go to extremes because I am weak, due to my complete lack of willpower and extremely short attention span. For example, in college, all of my papers were done not by bits at a time in my room, but in one intense 5am to 9am session in the library on the day they were due. Further, when I was on deadlines either for the ol’ TV show or for the book’s old publisher, even though I lived alone in NYC, there were only two ways I could get work done: by checking into hotels in the city, not paying for internet access, and leaving my cell phone in my apartment; or, if I stayed at my place, taking my both wireless router and other internet-related devices AND my cable box, unplugging them, and dropping them off at a friend’s apartment for the night. Both options essentially forced me to do what I had to do and sure enough, it would get done.
That’s why the shore had also been so great for this. My cellphone barely worked down there and I had no internet – not even dial-up. No internet, no good cell reception, and a liquor store, two bars, a diner, and a Wawa within walking distance – this is how Uncle Jason takes care of business.
But it appears that someone in my aunt’s condo complex has finally modernized and installed (unsecured) wireless in their home, wireless internet I was able to use freely and regularly. The result? A near-criminal amount of cyber-stalking of ex-girlfriends and girls I’d like to make my ex-girlfriend on Facebook, coupled with an unreasonable amount of fantasy sports research.
So an equation:
(Unlimited internet + being alone for five days)/no drinking at all = zero productivity
Therefore, I wasted five vacation days, five vacation days I could have spent traveling or recovering from surgery or even doing nothing but having fun doing it, as opposed to doing nothing and constantly thinking, “I should really do some work, but there’s another episode of ‘Law & Order’ coming up – why is TNT trying to destroy me?”
*************
Now I’m in NYC, then going to Philly for Thanksgiving, then coming back to NYC before flying back to LA on Tuesday night (12/2). A little over two weeks after that (12/19), I’ll be on a plane again – I’ll land in Philly at 10pm on that Friday night and go straight from the airport to a pub crawl, then leave for NYC the next morning for a holiday brunch and spend a few days there, then back to Philly for the holidays (I know that was boring to read, but trust me, it’s going to be much, much worse to live through it). Somewhere in there, I have to finish the book for the new publisher, which I thought would not a problem at all, until suddenly some family members (who shall remain nameless) had problems with the content of the book, problems of the “If this goes in, we are no longer on speaking terms” variety. Which is great. Happy holidays.
(I’m going to ask each of you to buy several copies of the book when it comes out, not for my own personal gain, but so that I can buy gifts and trinkets to smooth over any suffering relationships after it comes out. So start saving up now. You have a little over a year, so I’d recommend stashing a dollar a week, which should be enough to get you three or so copies.)
So there it is. For as much as I wish you a happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday, please wish me luck. I’ll need it.
(I’ll also need to do some serious catching-up on the drinking front, but one day at a time.)
From the “Ol’ Judgemental Me” File:
I got bumped up to first class on my flight out of LAX the Thursday before last, which meant that I got to go through Successful People security. This didn’t matter too much; I left LAX in the middle of a Thursday afternoon, so the airport was almost completely empty.
As I was standing in line, waiting to go through the metal detector and feeling full of myself and proud of my accomplishments (when really anybody can get bumped up if they give Delta buckets of money every year like I do), I noticed out of the corner of my eye the gentleman behind me in the security line, who was short and was wearing pink sunglasses. I turned away from him, now looking straight ahead, and thought to myself, “Who the hell is this short douchebag wearing pink fucking sunglasses in the middle of the airport?” He then answered his cell phone and had an accent, so, my curiosity piqued, I turned to get a better look at the d-bag.
The douchebag was Bono.
So yeah, Bono can probably wear pink sunglasses in the middle of the airport. I don’t have a problem with that. Sorry about that, Bono. Carry on.
**************
From the “Only in South Philly” File:
After complaining about needing something to read while alone and reflective down the shore, an NYC friend recommended a book to me (something by Bill Bryson, who I think is eminently readable). But alas, I didn’t have time to get said book in NYC, since I had a train to catch to Philly.
I got to my dad’s house late that night and the next morning, woke up determined to get the book. However, seeing as I haven’t lived in my neighborhood since 1997, I didn’t know of any bookstores around. So I went online to Yahoo yellow pages, entered my zip and searched for “books.” There was only one hit in 19148, a zip code that encompasses a large part of South Philly, including my Second Street neighborhood, and is home to over 48,000 people.
The one bookstore hit was Show & Tel Adult Center and Bookstore.
The lone bookstore for 48,000 (!) people in South Philly, in the neighborhood in which I – and the rest of my giant family – was born and raised, is also a strip club and sells dildos.
I honestly don’t even have a joke here. So I’m just gonna stop.
Weddings are always special. It’s great when two people who are in love make a promise to spend the rest of their lives together, barring divorce. It’s even more special when a close, personal friend is getting married to someone that you know well. Over the years, I have watched Brendan and Liz grow together (in Brendan’s case, physically, especially around the gut) and getting to know Liz has been a true joy; I can say without exaggeration that she is cooler than at least 60% of my other friends’ girlfriends/wives. And now, after a long, long, long courtship, they’re finally (finally) tying the knot. I am honored that they have asked me to be a guest at their wedding, to witness their celebration of love, and to eat a lot of steak. On a personal level, I’m glad that Brendan and Liz are getting married now because I have been on medication and unable to drink for two weeks. The medication runs out on Saturday, the day of their wedding, so I am going to get absolutely shitcanned. Throw in the fact that this is a mini-reunion for me, since I haven’t seen many of my Boston-based friends who will be in attendance since July, and that I’m returning not only to my old city of NYC but to the very first neighborhood that I lived in when I moved to NYC (Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where SGB is from) and boy…do we have a recipe for disaster.
(I mean, love – a recipe for love.)
At any rate, I will be bringing my camera and provided I am physically able to operate it, will be taking pictures and later posting them on here somehow. Of course, I won’t be able to ask SGB how to do this, as he’ll be on his honeymoon, so it may be a while. Whatever – I’ll figure it out. The important thing here is love and friendship. Love and friendship and the sweet, sweet taste of beer again after two long weeks without it. Wow. But if you have the time, please send Brendan some congratulations at brendan_at_jasonmulgrew.com. What a joyous time.
************
Now that I think about it, I guess it is worth saying that if this here site somehow dies or goes away anytime over the next two weeks, it’ll come back eventually. Promise. Because even if calamity were to befall us, I don’t think Brendan’s going to rush to the nearest computer on his honeymoon to fix a problem. I don’t expect a problem – and as I said, I’m on vacation and with very limited internet next week anyway, so I will likely not post again until Thanksgiving week – but I’m just saying.
************
About my little illness, I’ve learned an important lesson: do not fuck with athlete’s foot. See, I got a bit of athlete’s foot in July. Naturally, I did nothing about this. Then came August. Then came September. Then came October. It was in October that I noticed that my athlete’s foot had taken over my entire right foot and had spread to the left. Naturally, I did nothing about this. Then I went to Vegas, where I both drank and wore shoes almost 24 hours a day. Then I went to Philly for the Phillies win, where I both drank and wore shoes almost 24 hours a day. When in Philly, I noticed that certain parts of my body – my neck, armpits and hands – were getting pink and itchy. By the time I got back to LA, I noticed certain parts of my body – neck, armpits, chest, arms, hands, and parts of my legs and even my face – were now a color that I’d call “enflamed red” and were being eaten alive by something. Fearing that this enflamed red and itchiness would spread to and attack my penis, causing it to look like a red Jolly Rancher, I panicked and finally did something. After assuring my new doctor that no, I did not drink that much, I was put on extra strength antifungals and advised that if I did drink alcohol over the course of taking the medication, my eyeballs might turn yellow and my liver might fail. So there’s that.
But the good news: It’s getting better. We still have a little bit of irritation, but we’re down to a soft pink color and maybe only 10% of the original coverage (also, my bird was spared and, thankfully, was not attacked). I still have not drank, put on deodorant or even put in my contacts for almost two weeks, but the light…she is at the end of the tunnel. My goal is to be 100% clear for Brendan’s wedding Saturday and then, it’s on. So please send some good healing vibes my way, since having my liver fail would really put a damper on the wedding.
(Probably.)
************
Thanks are due to:
1) All those who suggested music. I’m still working my way through your emails, but I set up a “reader recommendations” playlist when I started going through your recs, and that playlist now includes 276 songs. Apparently, many of you like Fleet of Foxes, Bon Iver, Kings of Leon and the Black Keys, by far the most popular suggestions. I’m intimately (wink wink) familiar with the last two, but don’t know much about the first two – yet. So thank you and keep them coming.
2) All those who signed up for the monthly email. Again, for better or worse, the days of me posting four times a week are gone. Now I that I live out here in LA, I just don’t have the time, between my much longer commute, greater work responsibilities and all the time I spend looking at NYC apartments on craigslist and planning my return to that great city. My goal is to steadily post twice a week and then once a month, starting next month, send out the monthly email, which will consist of a longer post that will not be otherwise found on the site (so if you want to read it, you gotta sign up). Of course, your email will not be shared with anyone yada yada yada.
************
This is the part where I’m supposed to recommend new music, but honestly, I got nothing. Of course, I could recommend something – surely I can pick six songs out of my library to pimp out to you – but the whole point of Six Songs is to pimp songs that, at that very moment, are rocking my brains out. Since I’m still in the early stages of working my way through your recommendations, nothing’s rocking me just yet. And rather than force it, I’m going to take a pass this week. I will have a long, lonely time down the shore with just me and the computer (and a case or two of Guinness, a liter of vodka and a half-gallon of cranberry juice) ahead of me, so I’m sure I’ll have Six Songs ready to go when I get back.
************
Finally, one quick note:
God,
Do you remember the whole “I win” thing? You know that was a joke, right? Because I don’t win. You do. Always. And no, I’m not just saying this because things have been going really well for me lately – the Phillies won the World Series; Obama is the next president; I got a very good review at work; I had a nice lil’ Glamour interview this week; I’ve been bumped up to first class the last three times I’ve flown, including tonight; etc – and I feel like I’m due for a come-uppance, perhaps in my plane plunging 35,000 feet from the sky over Omaha this evening. I just wanted to say thanks, praise You, and let You know that no matter what I write at 5:15 in the morning after the greatest night of my life, You win.
Here’s wishing me safe travels,
Jason
[Have a good weekend]
Because I tend to ramble, two questions (and some of my answers) were edited for length. Also, I was told the KKK reference below would not fly, but would not compromise my artistic integrity. The questions that were left out are below.
(More later)
Do you have any gripes about women wearing makeup (i.e. you end up with lipstick all over your mouth, mascara on your pillow on overnight dates, etc.)?
Who do you think are the top three most beautiful women in the world?
So “beautiful” to me is the whole package. Looks are, of course, tremendously important to someone as shallow as me, but there are other intangibles in there as well. So here goes three I’m digging at the moment:
- Alana de la Garza: Actually, you know what? Forget everything I said about “intangibles” before. Alana de la Garza could openly be the Grand Wizard of the Louisiana chapter of the KKK and I’d still want to marry her. Good lord. It’s getting to the point that I can’t watch Law & Order anymore, as I’m afraid of what might happen.
- Jenny Lewis: Goodness gracious. I could be watching a gastric bypass surgery being performed and if “The Frug” came on, I would get an erection and, most likely, collapse. I’m getting dizzy just thinking about Jenny right now.
- Minka Kelly: I’m sort of down on her now that’s she’s become the latest member of Derek Jeter’s rogue’s gallery – I mean, the Yankees didn’t even make the playoffs, Minka – but there’s no denying she’s something special. Also I once had brunch at a table next to her dad, who used to play guitar In Aerosmith. True story.
Wait, I need a fourth, a wild card:
- Cia Leigh Cherryholmes: A family-oriented country girl who plays the banjo like a rascal and has a voice as clear as a bell – a gorgeous, extremely appealing bell that I would like to kiss as soon as possible. Hearing her sing makes me want to spend the holidays in the Smokey Mountains eating pumpkin pie in flannel pajamas. With her, I mean. Although alone might also be ok. Whatever, really.
If I’m ending up with lipstick all over my mouth or mascara all over my pillow and I’m complaining, you officially have permission to punch me in the face. “Man, this girl’s make up ruined my pillowcase!” is right up there with “No, I don’t want extra cheese” or “I would prefer if we slept together for the first time while we were sober” on the list of things I’ve never said in my life.
Good question. First, you have to understand something: Adriana Lima is pretty much the hottest thing that God has ever made. I mean, it’s not even really that close. But while she’s tremendously hot, I look at her and I think, “What the hell would I talk to Adriana Lima about?” Again, she’s unbelievably hot, but after we’ve touched upon “So, you’re from Brazil, right?” and “So, you’re a model, huh?”, I mean, that’s about all I’d have.
1) Please sign up for the “monthly” email list. I know you’ve heard this a thousand times, but I’m going to start relying on this list and using it a lot more going forward (which is to say, just plain using it). Obviously, now that I live in LA and have essentially lost two hours of my day (LA commute: 2.5 hours a day; NYC commute: 30 minutes a day), I’m not posting as much as I have in the past. Also, I hardly ever go out here and am miserable, which sort of doesn’t give me a lot of material. But at any rate, one of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2009 is to send out those monthly emails, which will contain posts that will not otherwise be found on the site. So sign up, please.
(One of my other big resolutions: Travel. Once I get a full slate of vacation days in the new year, my goal is to take a bunch of long weekend trips here out west that I couldn’t normally take from NYC. So Seattle, San Fran, Austin, Denver, and others are all in my plans for 2009, as is another cross-country drive, this time through the middle of the country. So look out.)
2) Because I spend so much time in the car, I am always looking for new music. Please please please send me any music suggestions to the same old address (jason_at_jasonmulgrew.com) and I will be your best friend. I’m a rut musically and need some guidance.
3) For those who live in the South Bay (Manhattan, Hermosa, Redondo and the surrounding area), my roommates and I need a cleaning lady. If you can recommend one that won’t rob us while we’re out and/or kill us in our sleep, we’d be grateful.
4) Site Guy Brendan is getting married in a week, so I’ve been unable to ask him for anything for the past, oh, three months. You’ll see above that it says I’m “28, bipolar and hungry.” I’ve been 29 since July 17. If you can send me and updated banner with “29″ in it to make SGB’s life easier, I’ll give you a link to whatever you want. Otherwise, please don’t email me saying “Dude, you’re 29 now.” We’ll fix it at some point.
Now that the begging is out of the way, let’s move on.
************
Just two thoughts about the election and I promise I won’t speak again about politics until 2012:
1) I, like most reasonable people, was saddened that Prop 8, the ban on same-sex marriage in California, passed here in California, by a 52.5% to 47.5% margin. People here in LA are up in arms about this, demonstrating all over the place, and their anger is justified. The country is at war, my 401K is in the drain, and I probably won’t be able to get a mortgage if I wanted – but I’m really go to prevent two people who are in love from getting married, just because their gennies match? Really? If for no other reason, gay marriage should have passed here in CA because, I mean, do you know what kind of parties gay people throw? Are you kidding me? The residents of Cali were just robbed of some fabulous wedding parties featuring a lot of Madonna and Duran Duran and cute little cupcakes and people with great hair and impeccable taste in clothes. This is a travesty in and of itself.
However, I can’t say I’m entirely surprised that Prop 8 failed because of – you guessed it – Mexicans and Mexico-type people. You see, for every gay-loving liberal person in California, there is one Catholic Latino who cleans his/her house, one Catholic Latino who does his/her dry cleaning, one Catholic Latino who takes his/her order at Jack in the Box, one Catholic Latino hanging outside of Home Depot hoping to help install new shower doors at his/her house, one Catholic Latino to change his/her oil, etc. Even if only half of those Catholic Latinos are registered voters, there’s still a lot more Catholic Hispanic people in California then there are those who love gays and hope they can marry. Combine these Catholic Latinos with a propaganda campaign that stressed the “Your kids will be taught about gay marriage in school!!!!” and the fact that those many people opposed to Prop 8 – young people – are not as well-registered (poor phrase) as they should be, and you get 52.5% Yes, 47.5% No.
The only silver lining – if we can even say there are any – is that gay marriage will pass in California – and not just eventually, but soon. Mixed-race marriages were only approved in Cali in 1948, so the state is a little slow to respond, but gay people will be able to marry (and have wedding parties with little cupcakes and such). Why, you ask? Because for gay marriage not to become legal would be retarded. Just 100% retarded.
(How’s that for political analysis?)
2) There was a tremendous response to my “election eve” post on Monday, both from Democrats (theme: “Preach, brother!”) and Republicans (theme: “Ur an asshol”) alike. However, there is one thing I regret writing in that post, inasmuch as a person can regret writing anything in an internet diary: When I wrote that I had probably out-earned the ex’s dad who said his taxes went it “dishwashers” and their families. One reader, in an email titled “farewell to your blog”, called me out on it: “There is nothing more douchy and Manhattany than a guy who has to prove himself better than another by comparing salaries.”
This is absolutely true and I admit, a d-bag move on my part. BUT, though I could have articulated it better, I still stand by my point. This guy was equating success with monetary value, i.e. my success has made me wealthy; now, I pay a lot of taxes in order to finance the existence of poor, unsuccessful people, who strive only to be dishwashers. I was turning around his logic and saying that I was someone who was on welfare (for a short time) growing up and aspired to be more than a dishwasher and, to some extent, have succeeded. As such, I have probably paid a similar amount in taxes as this ex’s dad because of my earnings recently (maybe not last year, but likely in 2006 – what a glorious, magical year, thanks to NBC, DreamWorks, and DK Publishing). If you want to throw down and say your wealth subsidizes bums, I’ll point out that as a former bum, I probably paid more in taxes than you did last year. Me = HNIC. You = Not HNIC.
One last point: I think that there are two misconceptions about the welfare system:
a) That every tax dollar goes directly to the welfare system. I can’t find any firm numbers on this, but it simply ain’t true. We live in the greatest country in the world and it costs money to keep us at Number #1. Things like infrastructure (everything from roads and bridges to police and fire), defense and education don’t come cheap and they, like welfare, are also paid for by you, John Q. Taxpayer. So every last penny of your tax dollars does not go straight from your paycheck into the crack pipe of the project dweller.
Which brings us to the second misconception:
b) That every person on welfare is either living in an inner city project eating KFC or living in the middle of nowhere and building a meth lab. Look guys – I watch just as much “Cops” as the rest of you. Of course, someone is paying for crack with their welfare money. Of course, someone is buying cough medicine to make meth with their welfare money. But c’mon – this isn’t always the case. Not to get all Oprah on you guys, but in the case of my family, we were doing just fine – we took vacations down the shore, I got lots of He-Man stuff for Christmas, and things were great. Then my dad got laid off, and boy, did that change some things: my parents divorced, my athletic career ended before it began, I picked up both a sense of humor and a weight problem, etc. The point is that there are a lot of hard-working people who are or were once on government assistance. Just please keep that in mind.
And now that’s it. No more politics until 2012. Promise.
************
Six Songs
(Many songs can be heard on mixwit)
“Poke” Frightened Rabbits
Gorgeous song, an immediate addition to the “Let’s Make Out or Something” playlist. So pretty and sad and complex and haunting that you probably won’t catch the line “Or should we kick its cunt in and watch as it dies from bleeding.” But it’s there. Oh, it’s there. And that, my friends, is romance.
(Note however that these guys are Scottish – they used the word “cunt” like we would say “thanks” or “awesome.” I think they even name dogs “Cunt” over there. So it’s not a big deal to them at all.)
“The Company I Keep” Drive By Truckers
Because sometimes I feel like shit, too.
God, I wish it got cold out here (in Southern California). One of my favorite things about winter is that it’s whiskey-drinking season. How the fuck am I going to drink whiskey when it’s only 68 degrees at night? The other night it was a little chilly and we have a fire pit in our backyard, so I poured myself some bourbon and went to sit out by the fire. However, we were out of lighter fluid and I couldn’t get the log to catch, so I grabbed some junk mail and lit that on fire and threw it in the pit. Not a good idea. I was sitting there with my bourbon for maybe two minutes before I was coughing on the smoke – apparently, lighting mail on fire causes a LOT of smoke – and was back in the house in under five minutes, filling pint glasses with water to throw on the fire to put it out. Total, total disaster. I guess I’ll just have to get my fill of whiskey this winter when I’m back on the east coast. But man, do I miss a nice glass of whiskey on a cold night.
“Red Satin Dress” Cherryholmes
Three things about this song:
1) Bluegrass is awesome. Really, anytime I have my iPod on “shuffle” and a solid bluegrass tune comes on, a) I can’t turn it off; and b) I immediately feel better hearing it.
2) “The Sweet Princess” is a great name for a frontier tavern.
3) So the girl in the red satin dress is the devil, right? Am I getting that right?
“Dandy” The Kinks
So the guy in this song is gay but playing straight, right? Am I getting that right?
“Lily and Parrots” Sun Kil Moon
I had to have recommended this before, but it’s worth nothing that few songs make me want to rock harder than this. That’s really saying something.
(And it’s only one of 102 five-star songs out of 8500+ on my iTunes. Actually, about 550 of the 8500 are still unrated, so there still may be more five-stars lurking out there, but I think I’ve caught them all.)
“How Can I Tell You” Liz Durrett
This week, because of daylight savings, it’s now dark when I leave work. This means that my commute home, which before was “juuuust bearable” (about an hour-fifteen to go 17.6 miles), is now firmly entrenched in “completely unbearable and homicide-inducing” – apparently LA people don’t know how to drive in the dark. I wrote before that when I moved to LA and started doing this commute, I learned how and why parents beat their children, why couples get divorced, and why so many kids grow up hating their parents – because few things can ruin a person’s mood than a long, bad commute home, and this mood is then in turn taken out on those around the bad commute person.
(The good thing: When I move back to NYC next year, I will never again say, “Oh, I don’t ever go above 23rd Street.” Christ, at this point I think I could live in Rhode Island and be ok with commuting to NYC.)
So when I have a bad commute, I try to mitigate its effects on myself, my roommates and my friends (for some reason, Friday evening is always the worst drive, even though Friday morning is the easiest). After a long, slow, blood pressure-raising drive home, I will pull into my driveway, turn off my car, and sit in the car, listening to this song. I know, I know – it makes me sound like a crazy person, just sitting there in the dark car, head back, eyes often closed, listening to this chick cover Cat Stevens – but I need a few minutes to decompress, to take deep breaths, and to calm down, lest I go straight into my house, put my fist throw a wall, grab a beer, and lock myself away in my room.
These are good moments, in the car listening to this song, completely shutting off my anger and letting the calm flow over me. And now, whenever I’m at work or on a plane or cleaning my room and listening to the iPod, when this song comes on, I completely shut down – it’s like someone is putting nitrous through the vents: I hear it and get calm, sleepy and quietly content. See you later, stress.
I’m not sure it’ll have the same effect on you, but if you’re looking for a chill-out/stress-reducing song, try it out.
[Have a good weekend.]
I’m going to be magnanimous here and not gloat. Believe me, I had every intention to do just that – to talk about how my faith in this country and in the citizens of this country has been restored by a good ol’ fashioned ass-whuppin’ (349 electoral votes to just 163, when the previous two elections went 286-252 and 271-266), or about how fans of Larry the Cable Guy and trucks with hemis are having a rough day while fans of racial tolerance and bachelors degrees from accredited four-year colleges are very happy, or whatnot.
But no – I’m not going to do it. This is mostly because I was so surprised by the vitriol spewed from McCain followers via Facebook status, so much so that I decided that I should not stoop to that level. However, just for fun, three of my favorite status updates of (I presume) McCain supporters/Obama haters that I saw either during the election or immediately after were:
- “_____ is disgusted at the college liberal fucks who are voting for obama….letting homo’s, poor ppl, and scumbags run wild….wake up hippies”
- “_____ is waiting for someone to go John Wilkes Booth/Lee Harvey Oswald on Obama”
- “_____ is sad for all the beautiful babies who will be murdered before they have a chance to make it out of their mommy’s tummies”
I mean, yikes. It’s worth noting that all three of these people are college graduates, and all three were immediately de-friended.
Anyway, it goes without saying that this is a great day for America. And – at the risk of being called a cop out – that’s all I’ll say about that. To the point: I’m sick as shit and have been pretty much wiped out the past two days. First, I have such a bad case of athlete’s foot that both my feet are wrapped in gauze (one foot has it much worse than the other). I have only myself to blame; I’ve had some form of athlete’s foot since July, but now it’s out of control. When I was hanging out with my doctor buddy last week, I showed him the foot and he responded with a sincere, heartfelt “Oh my god.” A few days later, my sister nurse asked me to never show my foot to her again, saying it looked more like a burn than athlete’s foot. So there’s that. Secondly, because of my neglect of the athlete’s foot, I’ve developed some sort of rash in several parts of my body, including my chest, neck, armpits, arms, hands and face (especially around my eyes). No idea what that’s about, but I’m guessing I’m not getting laid anytime soon with little red bumps on my arms and hands and what appears to be birthmarks developing in splotches all over my face. And lastly, I have a head cold. This is by far the least problematic of my three ailments, except in the morning. Invariably at some point during my morning one hour twenty minute commute, I will work up a loogie the size of my thumb, attempt to spit it out my window while the car is moving, and fail miserably, resulting in said loogie either flying back and hitting me on the shoulder or missing the window completely and landing on the inside of the car door. Not the best part of starting the day.
(By the way, this is the first time in my entire life that I’ve written the word “loogie” and had to google it to get the spelling right. Apparently, there are two camps: loogie and lugee. Didn’t think I’d learn that when I woke up this morning.)
So as much as I’d like to rise to the occasion and write something about a watershed moment in American history or dawn of a new era or “yes we can” – or even rant about the lunacy about Prop 8 passing here in California – Uncle Jason just does not have his good stuff right now. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day, but for right now, I’ve got to get back to limping and scratching and spitting. But even though I’ll continue to be disgusting, like most of you I am now and will continue to bask in that warm glowing warming glow, knowing that for once, we got it right. We got it right, folks.
Now comes the hard part.
But you know what: the guy was in a cage for five and a half years. A cage! Five and a half years! Have any of you reading this spent any time in a cage? Didn’t think so. Neither have I, but I can’t imagine it’s any good. Also, does the term “straight talk” mean anything to you? After years of BS from politicians, McCain’s always told is like it is, never pulling punches. And he’s a Maverick, which means he plays by his own rules, nobody else’s, not even his own. Most importantly, he’s Country First ™; all the time, Country First ™. America, America, America. John McCain. Straight Talk. Maverick. Country First ™. America. McCain.
So I actually kinda personally like John McCain. Aside from the cage thing, he’s pretty much lived a great life: born into wealth and privilege; got into college and numerous sweet jobs because of his dad; married a model and when she got ugly, married another richer, younger, more attractive woman; and ultimately attained power, wealth and prestige. Five and a half miserable years, sixty-six and a half (!) terrific ones. Doesn’t seem like a bad trade-off to me.
But as much as I admire the guy for Living the Life, I can’t vote for him for president. The reason is simple: I have a brain. Also: I care about this country.
Before we continue, a disclosure: I am not quite a “raging” liberal, but I’m not too far off. Call me crazy, but I prefer when gay people are treated as human beings, not slightly better than slaves or dogs. I also think that if a woman is raped and impregnated by a stranger or, say, by her dad, she should have the right to choose whether or not to have the baby; I can be Irish Catholic and still realize that my personal/religious beliefs should not be forced by law onto others (nuts, I know). Universal healthcare would be nice, I think, as would maybe figuring out how to wrap up all this war stuff going on. Most important to me, I believe in the welfare system and the concept of government assistance. I once dated a girl whose father hated paying taxes, saying that all his tax money went to “dishwashers” and their several (presumably brown or brown-ish) children. I had to bite my tongue, because one of the most beloved pastimes of my youth was beating up my little brother and forcing him to go to the grocery store when my mom asked me to go to the store, since I didn’t want any of my friends to see me paying for groceries with food stamps. We were not brown (or even close to it) and neither of my parents were dishwashers, but we were on public assistance back in the day. However, I think we turned out fine – I’m pretty sure that I made more money last year than this ex’s dad (if not, I almost certainly out-earned him in 2006), my brother is a first year student at UVA Law, and my sister, a newly-minted nurse, graduated in the top 3% of her class. Each of us at one time or another paid for milk with food stamps, then later got scholarships to our respective high schools and colleges (which led or will lead to profitable and successful careers), and five years from now we will pool our money to buy the sickest beach house the Jersey shore has ever seen, which I will promptly burn down during a failed suicide attempt after my second divorce. So you lose, ex’s dad.
(Well, I guess the beach house ultimately loses, but you know what I mean.)
It’s hard for me to argue how one should not vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin, since it seems to me to be such an easy choice. It’s kinda like a beautiful woman (or man) walking up to you and saying, “Look, I’m going to either bite off a large chunk of your face or give you a hot, steamy kiss – which one do you want?” Everyone I know – and every sane, rational person – would pick the kiss, although I do realize that there are some sick, demented fucks out there who would take the face-biting.
(I might also add that when someone says “I’m a Republican”, they’re essentially telling me they’re either rich, churchy or dumb. Please find me a Republican who doesn’t fit into one of those three categories and I’ll give you $1. Good luck.)
(Note: Children of the rich, churchy or dumb count here as well. I’m sure I’m going to get at least one email from a Republican who’s a teacher and poor, but whose dad owns half of whatever county he/she lives in. Just wanted to clarify.)
And I realize there is nothing that I can say right now about the election to change your opinion. After months of constant media coverage, the election is tomorrow. You know who you’re voting for. It’s go time. No turning back. It’s on. Like Donkey Kong. Etc, etc, etc. Still, here’s my short, last-minute pitch:
Not to be Debbie Downer, but America is in trouble. Our role as leader in world diplomacy is in jeopardy, as we are mired in two wars, both with no end in sight, neither of which has caused us to be held in very high-esteem by the rest of the world. Over the past eight weeks, our financial infrastructure has crumbled, seemingly getting worse and worse with each click of the “refresh” button on CNN.com. The national debt, at $10 trillion, is at a 53-year high (it was on its way down at $5.7 trillion when Bush II took office). From July to September of this year, the number of households that received at least one foreclosure notice was 766,000, an increase of 71% when compared to the same period last year (according to something called RealtyTrac). Gas prices, now dropping, were at an all time high three months ago, the same time Exxon Mobil recorded a then record-breaking $11.68 billion in profits (the record was broken just this past quarter, with news of a $14.83 billion profit).
In short, things are pretty fucked up. So here are two main reasons why you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden:
1) The life expectancy of the average American male is 75.15. John McCain is 72. If elected, he’d be the oldest elected president in US history. At the end of his first term, McCain would be 76.
Do you know what we did when my grandpop turned 72? We took away his car keys. Sorry, grandpop – no more driving. You’re just too old. And unlike John McCain, my grandfather did not spend five-plus years of his life in a cage in Vietnam. Nor did he (presumably) spend his most of his life eating caviar drizzled with truffle oil at Washington high society functions. By 76, my grandpop was down to one foot and was regularly calling both me and my younger brother “Justin.”
So if John McCain were elected and – God forbid – anything should happen to him, the leader of our country and the entire free world would be a woman who went to four colleges in four years, is a few short years removed from being the mayor of a town of 6000, and – let’s just say it – is really, really, really dumb (A Short List of Things Sarah Palin Does Not Know: What EBITDA stands for; If North or South Korea is the bad one; Any Jewish, black or gay people).
Nevermind that John McCain proved himself a one of the world’s greatest hypocrites – a man who truly believes in “Country First” would never choose such a blatantly unqualified running mate only to stem the tide of the press that the opposing party was receiving – Sarah Palin, even with her one semester studying General Studies at Matanuska-Susitna College, is not qualified to be Vice President of the United States. If you’d like to argue this point with me, I’d be happy to engage in a debate with you – provided the institution has reasonable visiting hours and you find the time to stop riding your unicorn and talking to pixies for just a few minutes.
2) In July of this year when Barack Obama spoke in Berlin, Germany, some 200,000 people turned out to hear him speak. Two. hunna. thousand. John McCain’s camp immediately jumped on this, inferring that Barack Obama was a “celebrity.” This made no sense to me; so it’s a bad thing when people – people anywhere – are motivated by and have a stake in the political process? Really?
At the end of the first debate, Barack Obama said that his father came to America to make it, “because the notion was that there was no other country on Earth where you could make it if you tried. The ideals and the values of the United States inspired the entire world.” So my question: Do you guys think that people still feel this way about America? I don’t exactly travel abroad a lot, but I don’t think America is viewed as the great beacon of hope that it once was, this bastion of freedom and equality. In the world’s view, a vote for McCain/Palin is a vote for four more years of the policies that have divided the world diplomatically and nearly crippled it financially. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying we should do whatever foreigners say. If the Brits said, “America, you gotta get rid of hot dogs”, I’d tell those limey bastards to stick it where the sun don’t shine because I’m American and this is America and we don’t crap from nobody and “U-S-A! U-S-A!” But after eight years of decline by nearly every conceivable political measure, it’s time for a change. The best thing to come out of the Republican leadership in the past eight years has been Will Ferrell’s impression of George Bush – and he left SNL in 2002. If we fail to take this opportunity to move this country in a new, more positive direction, we will have only ourselves to blame.
************
George Bush “won” the presidency in 2000 and 2004 because he was able to mobilize the vote of the evangelical Christians by playing upon fear, fear of a Godless nation (first), fear of an enemy that was misunderstood (second), and fear that the morals and values of the American people were being undermined on all fronts (both times). Let the election of 2008 not be decided by those who are afraid, but by the young, by the angry, by the determined, and by the hopeful.
Vote Obama/Biden.
The good news: As I said before, the Phillies are going to win the World Series. I have no doubt about this and haven’t since they got into the playoffs, even calling a Phils WS win on here. Because I moved as far away from Philly as possible, God is going to bestow the city of Philadelphia with its first world championship since 1983, when I was four years old. God and I have been feuding on and off for years now, and this is His way of really one-upping me. You have to admit, He’s good. So Philly fans, you have that going for you.
Secondly, the Phillies, pound for pound, have the better team. The Rays have pop, we have pop. The Rays have speed, we have speed. The Rays play great defense, we play great defense. The differences:
1) The Rays have homefield advantage. True, four games will be played at The Trop and only three at Citizen’s Bank, if the Series goes to seven. But can I ask you a question? Would you rather have four games in front of crowd filled with people who think Evan is Eva’s little brother and think it’s good when the batter hits the ball far, even if it’s for an out? Or would you rather have three games in front of a crowd of rabid, obese, championship-starved people, whose franchise has one championship in 126 years, who not only know about baseball and the team but will also you follow you into the parking lot and brain you with your little cowbell after the game? I’m ok with the latter, thanks.
2) The Rays rotation is deeper. Kazmir, Shields, Garza and Sonnanstine is a good, deep rotation. But when I look at those names, I see 2a, 2b, 2c, 3a. The Phillies have a much thinner rotation, led by Cole Hamels and followed by Brett “Who am I going to be today?” Myers, Jaime “I’m apparently trying to sabotage the playoffs” Moyer and Joe “Nobody seems to notice that I’m pitching pretty well right now” Blanton. But here’s the thing: in a seven game playoff series, deep rotations with B or B+ starters don’t get it done – rotations with one or two aces do. Cole Hamels is an ace. Cole Hamels can go 1 and 4 and 7, if necessary (not buying Charlie Manuel saying he won’t start Cole on three days’ rest). I’ll take Hamels two or three times in a seven game series (with a quality start or two from Myers or Blanton) over B+, B+, B+, B, thanks.
3) The disparity in bullpens. The Rays bullpen, seemingly a source of relative strength for the team all year, seemed to hit a wall in Game 5 of the ALCS. Watching Dan Wheeler on the mound, dangling there, I mean “deer in headlights” doesn’t even work there. Of course, David “Superman” Price closed out the game in Game 7 and could be their closer, but the guy had five major league appearances on his resume prior to the playoffs. Yeah, he looks like The Truth, but what happens when he’s on the mound in the Bank with the game on the line? And this is even if he’s closing – Joe Maddon has said he’s going to be used almost exclusively to get Chase Utley and Ryan Howard out. Aside from Price, the TB bullpen appears to be held together by duct tape at this point. Meanwhile, the Phils had the second-lowest bullpen ERA in the league and a closer who went 41-41 in save opps during the season and is 5-5 so far in the playoffs. Huge advantage here for the Phils.
4) We have experience. Last year, when the Phillies got to the playoffs, it was their “happy to be here” attitude that helped in their undoing. I don’t think this team will feel satisfied with a WS appearance, but rather only with a WS victory. Tampa Bay’s hopes rest on a 24 year old starter who’s spent his entire career playing for absolutely terrible teams; a 24 year old who started playing CF just this year and had 9 home runs during the regular season; a 23 year old 3B who, well, he looks pretty great; and a 23 year old set-up man/closer who’s pitched a total of 14.1 innings in the major leagues.
5) Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins. Anyone else noticed that the Phillies dismantled the Brewers and Dodgers without a single home run from Ryan Howard? Anyone else notice in the last three games against the Dodgers, Howard went 6-12 with two walks and most importantly, zero strikeouts? Did you guys know that Jimmy Rollins is hitting .243 in the postseason so far? See that leadoff home run in Game Five against the Dodgers? These two are beyond due. If you had told me before the playoffs that the Phillies would go 7-2 with Howard and Rollins batting a combined .250 with two home runs and five RBI between them, I probably would have placed several bets with you.
Finally, the last reason for optimism: my entire life I’ve been your typical pessimistic Philly sports fan, predicting doom at every turn, realizing that ultimately my teams would let me down. When the Eagles lost the Super Bowl in 2004, I quoted Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who after the assassination of JFK said, “To be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart.” The misery of the Irish is sooooo a hundred years ago; the misery of the Philly sports fan is more alive now than ever before. But this year, straight from the get-go, I’ve eschewed pessimism and anxiety and have sat back and enjoyed the ride, a ride which will only end with a parade down Broad Street. Which brings us to the bad news…
The bad news: If the Phillies are in a position to win the World Series title, I am going to Philadelphia. I know, I know – I probably should stay away. In the post linked above, I talked about how in 2001 I left Loserville Boston and moved to Titletown NYC and almost single-handedly reversed the fortunes of those two cities. It was only when I made the decision and began making arrangements to move to LA than did the Giants win the Super Bowl. Hell, in 2006, I flew from NYC to Seattle to root for the Seahawks in the Super Bowl, so desperate was I to be in a city that wins a championship – and we know how that turned out.
The point: essentially, where I am, championships are not. However, as a die-hard Philadelphia fan, I can not allow myself to (potentially) sit idly by in Los Angeles, a city I hate with the passion of a thousand burning suns that are on fire really bad, while my city erupts into a championship orgy. I can’t do it. I have to be there if this might happen.
So here’s my thing – I’m in New York City right now for a work thingee. On Thursday night, I am flying back to LA (I will miss Game Two, but there is nothing I can do about it). On Friday, I am driving to Las Vegas – my first trip ever to Vegas – for my buddy/old roommate Brian’s 30th birthday. I am scheduled to return from Vegas to LA on Monday.
(By the way, Vegas suggestions welcome. We’re staying at the Hard Rock.)
Therefore, I will be in Vegas for Games Three (Saturday) and Game Four (Sunday) and in LA for Game Five (Monday). If the Phillies are up 3-0 after Saturday, I am flying from Vegas to Philly on Sunday morning. If the Phillies are up 3-1 after Sunday, I am flying from Vegas to Philly on Monday morning. If the Phillies are down or 2-2 or whatnot, I will return to LA and play it by ear.
There are a lot of variables at work, but this much I can assure you: if the Phillies are in a position to win the World Series title, I am going to Philadelphia. This is going to happen. I have the vacation days to burn, 112,000 Delta SkyMiles at my disposal, and above all, a relentless desire to finally see victory, real, live victory.
(Having said this, I will take full responsibility if the Phils lose when I am in Philly. I promise.)
Prediction: Phillies in six.
(You can hear some of these songs on mixwit, but mixwit really let me down this time ’round and I wasn’t able to locate and add some of these to the playlist. Sorry.)
“Problem Child” AC/DC
Another kick-ass AC/DC song that I’ve discovered lately. I swear, I feel like a teenager. My buddy (not Site Guy) Brendan has been extolling the virtues of AC/DC pretty much since I’ve known him, and I’ve always brushed him and the band off – sure, as a red-blooded, beer-swilling, tit-loving American male, I love “Shook Me All Night Long” and “Thunderstruck” and the like just as much as the next guy. But I never thought of these guys are “real” rock, but rather almost like (but not quite as bad as) Aerosmith. Then I recently was reading a book about Guns N’ Roses (which should tell you all you need to know about how my level of intellect has dipped since moving to LA) and read that in their early days, they used to cover a song called “Whole Lotta Rosie.” I downloaded this song – since I am still spending at least 2.5 hours a day in the car and you guys haven’t been recommending too much new music to me – and was bloooooown away. “Whole Lotta Rosie” is just about the hardest-rocking song I’ve heard.
And then there’s this one. If there’s an award for “Best Opening Line of a Song,” may I humbly submit the following Bon Scott nugget: “I am hot/And when I’m not/I’m cold as ice.” After the first solo, the chorus comes back with a shaker in the background and Bon screams, “Just watch your step!” I don’t think I’ve ever been closer to rapture than I was when I first heard this song. This whole AC/DC epiphany for me is on par with discovery Led Zeppelin at 11, Jimi Hendrix at 12 and Elvis Costello at 16; I thought that this level of musical phanaticism was reserved only for youth. Guess I was wrong.
“Hammond Song” The Roches
Can something be at once creepy and soothing? This song has to be as close as possible, especially when you realize all three members of this group are sisters, even the one with the extremely deep voice. Just three sisters, one with a really deep voice, singing in harmony over acoustic guitar and minimal other sounds/effects. I don’t know if it makes me want to fall asleep or go batshit crazy and throw an unopened can of Diet Dr. Pepper through my office window.
“Blue” The Jayhawks
Similarly, just two dudes singing about how sad they are, and possibly asking each other to “stay behind.” Um, where do I sign up?
“Valentine’s Day Is Over” Billy Bragg
Incredibly depressing song, founding member of “Sad as Fuck” playlist.
“I Beg Your Pardon” Tom Waits
This song reminds me of New York. It also reminds me of cold weather; I want to sit somewhere high up in December and look out at the frozen city from across the East River and drink this. In a related story, it only took me about 28 years, but I think I like Tom Waits.
“Fashion Coat” The National
When they make the movie about my life, they’ll explore three central themes: my relationship with my dad (him as Real Man, me as mezzofinook); my unquenchable thirst for success juxtaposed with my unwillingness to do any real, actual work to make it happen; and my near-constant involvement in complicated, long-distance relationships. Toward the end of the movie, my character, played by whoever Meatloaf’s son is, will say at the end of an argument to his long-distance girlfriend, played by (hopefully) Zooey Deschanel or (more realistically) Nikki Blonksy, “Everywhere I am – it’s just another thing without you in it.” Then my character, again portrayed wonderfully and faithfully by Meatloaf’s son, will walk out of the door without saying a word. Then the next scene will be a shot of a hotel engulfed in flames and firefighters fighting to contain the blaze, and then a voiceover from a 1010 WINS saying, “Sad news tonight from Leeds, England – a massive hotel fire has claimed the the lives of 13 people, included among them author, raconteur and cad, Jason Mulgrew. Mulgrew was in Leeds reportedly to buy cocaine and authorities believe he may have started the fire while creating a tuna melt, but this has not been confirmed. Repeat: Jason Mulgrew, author, raconteur and cad, is dead.” Then there will be this picture with the caption, “Dedicated to the Memory of our Sometime Friend, Jason Mulgrew: 1979 – 2011.” Then “Hammond Song” will play over the end credits.
Let’s start the bidding now. I can start on the screenplay this weekend – I have some free time.
[Have a good weekend.]
On paper, the Phillies appear to be the superior team. They won the NL East and finished 92-70, good second-best in the National League. They boast the last two NL MVP winners in first baseman Ryan Howard (2006) and shortstop Jimmy Rollins (2007), and if second baseman Chase Utley’s hitting hadn’t slowed as the year progressed, he might have joined them this year. They have great team defense (Rollins won a gold glove last year, Utley should win one this year); lots of speed on the base paths (Rollins and CF Shane Victorino combined to steal 83 bases, despite missing 25 and 16 games, respectively); lots of pop (four different players with at least 24 home runs, including Ryan Howard’s 48 home runs, tops in the NL); a legit ace in Cole Hamels, a #2 starter in Brett Myers who can be brilliant, and a “crafty veteran” as their #3, Jamie Moyer, the 45 year-old who led the team with 16 wins; a lights-out closer who did not blow a single save all season; and, perhaps most importantly, home field advantage for the series.
The Dodgers, on the other hand, don’t look as sexy on paper. They won the NL West, universally recognized as the worst division in baseball this season. Their regular season record was 84-78; four teams in the NL Central finished the season with a better record (so essentially the Dodgers spent most of their year playing crappy teams and still didn’t garner an impressive record). Their full season leader in home runs was 25 year old Andre Ethier, with only 20 homers. Their best pitcher this year was Chad Billingsley, who went 16-10 with a 3.14 ERA but is just 24 years old. Their closer (Saito) was hurt during the year and has returned without the same stuff, so their playoff closer is Jonathan Broxton, also 24 years old, a moose of a power-pitcher who has dominating stuff but has been known to bleed like a hemophiliac when cut. All this…meh.
(For a terrific and much more thorough statistical analysis of the two teams, go here.)
However, the Dodgers have four things going for them: 1) Manny Ramirez, who since joining the team 53 games ago has put up a video game-like stat line of 17 home runs, 53 RBI, a .396 average and a .489 on-base percentage; 2) manager Joe Torre, four-time World Champion with the New York Yankees and widely considered one of the wisest and most-respected managers in the game; 3) the return of their lead-off man Rafael Furcal, whose speed at the top of the lineup and defense from the shortstop position makes this team much more threatening; and 4) the fact that they not only just swept the Chicago Cubs, far and away the best team in the NL during the regular season, but absolutely handed their asses to them and then went home and fucked their wives. Seriously. It was a bloodbath.
For these reasons, the Dodgers are the trendy pick to beat the Phils and advance to the World Series, and the majority of media members are saying they’re going to win. They’ve got the even-keeled manager, the super-duper star, the momentum, the huge media market, and as I write this at least two Fox executives are masturbating in their offices about the potential ramifications of a Sox-Dodgers “Return of Manny and Torre to Boston” World Series.
But here’s the thing: the Philadelphia Phillies are going to win the National League Championship. Then they are going to win the World Series. Because it must be so.
Time for some history lessons.
There are thirteen US cities that have teams in all four major sports (baseball, football, basketball, and, still but for not too much longer, hockey). They are Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Fran, and Washington, DC. (Note: We’re talking metropolitan areas, so SF has the Warriors in the NBA and the Sharks in the NHL, etc.) Below is a list of these cities with the last year in which any one of their teams won a championship and the team that won it:
Atlanta* — 1995 (Braves)
Boston — 2008 (Celtics)
Chicago — 2005 (White Sox)
Dallas — 1999 (Stars)
Denver — 2001 (Avalanche)
Detroit — 2004 (Pistons)
Miami — 2006 (Heat)
Minneapolis** — 1991 (Twins)
New York — Giants (2007)
Philadelphia — 1983 (76ers)
Phoenix — 2001 (Diamondbacks)
San Fran — 1994 (49ers)
Washington, DC*** — 1991 (Redskins)
* Only had all four sports since 1999
** Only had all four sports since 2000
*** Only had all four sports since 2005
Looking at that list, Philly has the longest championship drought of any team with four major sports teams, having won their last title in 1983. You may look at this list and say, “Yeah, well, the Twins or Redskins in ’91 aren’t that far behind – that’s only eight years. Then the Niners and Braves aren’t far beyond those guys, with their last wins in 1994 and 1995. Doesn’t seem to be that much of a difference.”
Do you want to know the difference between 1983 and 1991 or 1994 or 1995 is? MY ENTIRE FUCKING YOUTH. The last time a Philly team won a championship, I was four years old. I didn’t get to enjoy it, because I’m not sure I could even wipe my own ass at the time. Instead, I came of age when the Phillies (save for 1993) blew, the Eagles were tempting but always a disappointment (then later a downright disgrace), the Sixers were hot-cold (meaning warm and cool, cold, colder) and the Flyers, while pretty solid in my high school years, still didn’t bring home any championships.
Here’s another way to look at this. The following is a list of total seasons since any of the sports teams won a championship.
Atlanta* — 34
Boston — 2
Chicago — 11
Dallas — 34
Denver — 29
Detroit — 14
Miami — 8
Minneapolis** — 30
New York — 2
Philadelphia — 100
Phoenix — 27
San Fran — 54
Washington, DC*** — 12
* Only had all four sports since 1999
** Only had all four sports since 2000
*** Only had all four sports since 2005
Looks a little different, doesn’t it? San Fran is closest to Philly, but when I was a kid and I was praying that Randall Cunningham would not get sacked again, they had Joe Fucking Montana and his Hall of Fame back-up, Steve Young, which is like choosing between a million dollars and a blowjob or a million dollars and a blowjob.
This kind of stuff I take personally. It infuriates me, and in some subconscious way probably explains why I get my best erections at funerals and why I follow women in malls to get a smell of their hair. For essentially all of my life, Philly fans like myself have sat idly by, watching other teams and cities take home championship after championship; teams like the Marlins, Angels, Buccaneers, and Hurricanes (of Carolina – apparently it’s an NHL team) have all won championships in recent years – I think I have more friends than those teams have fans (and I am not a very popular guy). Still, Philly fans are some of the most loyal in the country, if not the world. Personally, I dare not list the things that I would give up for a Philly championship, but let’s just say that one of these things rhymes with “best spectacle.”
But what I would give up for a Philly championship is all moot now, since this is the Phillies’ year. Here’s why.
I went to Boston College. I started in September in 1997 and graduated in May of 2001. During that time, the Boston sports scene was abysmal. Drew Bledsoe was at the helm of the Patriots, which is kinda like me becoming the editor of The Economist; I’m not a total half-wit, but it ain’t gonna go well. The Wikipedia entry for the Celtics is broken into a section for 1993-2001 and titled “Tragedy and Decline,” so that should tell you all you need to know about that franchise at that time. And lastly (because I’m not counting the Bruins), the Red Sox were getting worked year-in and year-out by their hated rival the Yankees.
In July of 2001, I moved to New York City, home of the World Champion New York Yankees, who had won the last three World Series and four of the last five. They appeared to be on their way to their fourth in a row when I set up shop in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. But then a funny thing happened: Mariano Rivera was on the mound and with one blooper, the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees in Game 7, a game I watched from my bedroom in Brooklyn, and the Yankees lost the World Series. Since then, the Yankees have not won a World Series.
Two hundred miles north and a week before this Yankees loss, Cement Feet Bledsoe got knocked out of a game and a sexy beast of a youngster named Tom Brady entered the game at quarterback for the New England Patriots. Brady led the team all the way to the Super Bowl, but the game seemed a formality, as the juggernaut St. Louis Rams, champions of two years ago, were 14 point favorites. But then a funny thing happened: New England won 20-17 on a last minute field goal and that Tom Brady guy was named MVP.
This set off a chain reaction, a feeding frenzy for Boston teams that saw six championships – three in football, two in baseball, one in basketball – since I moved away from the city. To recap:
Boston
1997-2001 (me in the city) – no championships
2001-2008 (me not in the city) – six championships
In August of 2007, I did a three-week stint in LA, working out of my firm’s LA office while pitching a new TV show idea. The show idea did not take off – there were offers, but nothing that I thought were in my best interest (once you sell a TV show idea, the buyer owns the idea forever, so they’d better pay you in more than buckets of clam chowder) – but I loved my time in LA. It was great to get out of my cramped Chinatown/Little Italy area, I was hanging out with friends I hadn’t seen in a while, and making out consistently. I hearted LA.
(Re: hearting LA – Um, whoops.)
In December of 2007, I made a decision: I was going to move to LA. I figured that I was almost 30, that I had been visiting the city for years and enjoyed it, so if I was going to “start over” somewhere, this was the best time and LA the best place. I wasn’t sure how the logistics would work out with work and all, but for me, it was a done deal: sometime in the next few months I was going to LA. So I started making arrangements.
At the time when I made this decision, the New York Giants were 7-4, but just about ready for one of their late season collapses, led first and foremost by their shaky quarterback, Eli Manning. They made it to the playoffs and beat the Bucs (in a game I cared so little about I barely watched it) the Cowboys (but the game was more a case of the Cowboys choking than the Giants rising to the occasion), and the Packers, improbably after missing a few field goals, to make it to the Super Bowl against the undefeated New England Patriots, 13 point favorites. But then a funny thing happened: the Giants won 17-14 on a last minute touchdown and that Eli Manning bum was named MVP.
************
The point: Every time I have left or have decided to leave a city, a championship has followed in my wake. Even when I left Philly to go to college, the Philadelphia Phantoms won the Calder Cup (hey, it ain’t much, but the Mulgrew Curse had to start somewhere). Now while I haven’t exactly “left” Philly per se, I did move as far away from Philly as I reasonably could (my ass wasn’t going to Tokyo or London or whatnot).
Add to this the long-standing feud I have had with God since the mid-80′s – I punish him by not dying and maintaining an unreasonable level of success despite a lack of both talent and an adult-sized penis, he punishes me with constant Philly losses – and it’s the perfect storm: The Philadelphia Phillies are going to win the 2008 World Series. There simply can be no other outcome. The Phillies are going to win the World Series and I will watch their victory in my shitty home in Los Angeles, alone, drinking canned beer and crying in my living room, lamenting the fact that I am here on the west coast where sports are about networking and being seen, while all my family, all my friends, all those I have cheered with and suffered with through the years are back in Philly, where it matters, where it’s everything. And I will weep and continue weeping for a long time, both for the end of the long-suffering misery of Philadelphia sports fans everywhere and because at that very moment, watching the team celebrate, sitting alone on my couch, seeing my cell phone buzz and fill with voicemail of joyful howls of victory and “Man, you should be here’s!” I will finally realize – God: W, Me: L.
(Go Phils)
I know I’ve been doing a lot of “random thoughts”-type posts, but here are only five thoughts about my time back east that I’ve tried to make beefy:
Philly-love
Here’s the thing I’ve always thought with Philly: I’d never settle there. Never, ever, ever. I love my family, but I like them being just far enough that they can’t stop by unexpectedly. I love my friends there, but I like making an occasion out of seeing them (i.e. “Mulgrew’s home – let’s party!” or “Let’s go visit Mulgrew in New York – and party!”). I love the food there, but I like having arteries that are only 40% clogged, as opposed to the 85% clogged that they would become if I were to spend any significant amount of time in Philly.
In short, I love Philly at arms length. I like knowing it’s there, close by if I need it, but when living in NYC and in Boston (during college), I liked knowing it was down there, and I was up here.
Maybe it was because when I got there I was homesick for just about everything, or maybe I’m just getting older, but after this most recent visit, for the first time I could see myself moving back to Philly. Yeah, it gets ragged on a lot, but it’s an hour from the shore, an hour from the mountains, two hours from NYC and two hours from DC. It’s the sixth-largest city in the US, is walkable and compact, and has a burgeoning arts scene, loads of restaurants (and BYOBs!), and four major sports teams complete with a rabid fan base. Not only that, do you know what $400,000 will get you in Manhattan? A studio apartment in Yorkville with an additional $900 a month in maintenance. Do you know what $400,000 will get you in Philly? A sweet two-bedroom apartment in the most hoppin’ part of the city, right downtown, or a home – a real-life, actual home with a lawn and stuff – in the suburbs (I won’t point out that for $1000 a month, you can get a sick – yes, sick – one bedroom apartment; nor will I mention that people in my neighborhood – two miles from Center City, Philadelphia – pay around $450 a month for their one bedroom places). Finally, personally – and this is definitely the age talking – there is something to be said for keeping those who have known you your entire life close by.
Though being back there made me appreciate the city of Philadelphia in a whole new light, I’m not sure me going back there will ever happen. There are no big law firms in Philly (as if this blog didn’t already make me unemployable for the rest of my life), there’s no way I’m commuting on Amtrak to the tune of three hours a day (probably four door-to-door) and at the cost of $1100 a month (for a monthly Amtrak pass – I have friends who make the daily Philly-NYC commute), and lastly, I am simply unprepared to take the physical steps necessary to extend my life expectancy past the age of 36, steps that the increased consumption of meats, dairy and various fried foods would necessitate should I return to Philly. Still, it’s funny to see something you’ve known all your life in an entirely different light. Amazing what a little distance can do.
NYC-love (but different)
I can’t say anything more about my time in NYC than it was spectacular. Absolutely, bravo, 100% spectacular. Though I missed a couple of friends and by some incredible fate did not eat at Rosario’s once (more on this later), I went out every single night (every one!) and experienced just about everything that I love about NYC:
- I walked to and from work every day, enjoying the new, crisp weather in the mornings as I trudged 2.4 miles from the West Village down to Wall Street. Kingsley Amis wrote, “Anyone who walks up Fifth Avenue (say) on a sunny morning without feeling his spirits lift is an asshole.” Replace “Fifth Avenue” with “Sullivan Street in the fall” and I am totally on board with that.
- On Monday evening, I did something I haven’t done in ages: hit up a normal, pub-type bar to have some beers, all alone. You all know that I am a simple man: give me a beer in a pub-type bar and leave me alone, and I can sit contently for hours and hours. In LA, I don’t do this, both because I drive everywhere and because I haven’t found a single pub, even a lame pub. But on Monday, I walked through the East Village, stopped at Dempsey’s (really a charmless place, but it hit the spot) and polished off a few beers while I was waiting for my take-out from Sea Thai to be ready. I enjoyed my beer session so much that I actually left the bar, picked up the Thai food, and returned for a few more beers. I sat there, all alone, for almost three hours total, just loving life.
(When magic happens, you have no right to push it out the door, you jerk.)
- I saw and hung out with friends – lots of different groups of friends. In NYC, I have those friends I met in high school/are from Philly, my college buddies, buddies I’m friends with through work, people I met during my time in NYC outside of work, etc. This is different than LA, where I can list my best friends: 1) My buddy/old NYC roommate Brian; 2) my iPod; 3) my roommates Mark and Selena; 4) my iPhone; 5) Longing and Desperation (tie). I know other people in LA, but geography dictates we will never hang out – an NYC buddy suggested that I hang out with his friend who moved to LA the same time I did, and when she and I discovered over gchat that she lives in Silver Lake and I live in Redondo, we determined that we have a better chance of hanging out when we’re both back in NYC than we do while living in LA. We weren’t even joking.
But in NYC, one night it was dinner and drinks with Nicole (origin of friendship: college), the next dinner and drinks with Pat and Tracy (OOF: Philly/high school), the next some beers with Jeremy, Tim and Rachel (OOF: NYC), etc. So much variety, so much catching up, so much more fun that playing pool on the iPhone for three hours on a Thursday night.
- I actually watched a sporting event with other people who care about the team I’m rooting for. On Sunday, we had planned to get the band back together and head to Ship of Fools, our home base for Eagles games last year, but at the last minute we were able to snag a private room at Public House in midtown which would show both the Eagles and Phillies games. There, surrounded by 35 other Philly fans (our crew combined with two others, all friends or friends of friends) we watched the Eagles’ season end before our very eyes and our Phillies continue their improbable march toward the World Series. A magical day that was, for the most part, loads of fun.
(Seriously, though: the Eagles are done. In that division and that conference, you’re going to need 11 wins to make the playoffs. The Eagles have three losses already, two against division rivals, with two games against the Giants, at home versus Dallas, and at Washington still to come. Looking at this team the past three weeks, do they look capable of going 9-2 the rest of the way out – or even 8-3, which would put them at 10-6? No way. No way in hell. This season, and probably the McNabb era in Philly, is over. Mark my words. I hope I’m wrong, but mark my words.)
(Go Phils – more on this another time.)
Best hosts ever
For almost my entire time in NYC, I slept on a couch in two-bedroom apartment, on the sixth floor of a walk-up building, in a living room that is, generously, 7′x10′. Me, a giant, bearded, snoring man who, every night when he went to bed, had at least four beers in him. And yet not once – not once! – did my friends Jeremy and Meredith, my wonderful hosts, complain. Sure, Jeremy did once mention how much hair I was leaving all over the bathroom, but that’s ok – I deserved it. Of course, when you’re as hairless as a baby it’s easy to say that a few chest/back/beard/pubic hairs left around are an “unbelievable” amount, but still, I took his constructive criticism and worked on it. I can never repay them for their hospitality, although I tried my damnedest with cupcakes from Crumbs.
Sickness at the end
On Sunday night just before 10pm after the games and then some, I stumbled out of the new Brother Jimmy’s around 31st and 3rd (don’t ask). It was then, in my not-quite-drunken-stupor-but-probably-can’t-unwrap-a-condom state that I realized I had had neither Rosario’s pizza, which I ate drunkenly just about every weekend during my entire tenure in NYC, or Katz’s, the be-all and end-all of Jewish delis – both of which are within two blocks of each other on the Lower East Side. Once I got my bearings, I hailed a cab and was en route to the LES. On my last night in NYC, this was going to be fixed.
I stopped at Katz’s first, because it was close to closing time, and got my standard: pastrami, Swiss and mustard on a hero. I figured I would save this sandwich for lunch the next day and eat the Rosario’s that night, since the sandwich would keep and since Rosario’s, like penis, always tastes better after a dozen beers.
When walking to Rosario’s, I realized my problem. I had gotten a hotel room for Sunday night. I did this because I knew I’d be boozing all day Sunday and the following day I’d have to work a full day and then take a 6.5 hour flight back to LA right after work. After sleeping on a couch all week, I pricelined a hotel and got one for $100. Good investment, I thought.
But the catch was that the hotel room in which I was staying didn’t have a fridge. Therefore, I had nowhere to store the two-pound pastrami sandwich I was holding in my right hand. So I could eat the sandwich that night and forego the Rosario’s – there was no way I could eat both (this is not mine, but an actual sandwich from Katz’s), or throw the sandwich out. The former it was, since there was no way I was throwing out a perfectly good $17 sandwich.
So there I was, living the dream: 10:30pm, filled with Guinness and PBR, laying in bed in a hotel room in midtown Manhattan with my shirt off, the AC blasting, baseball on the TV, eating a giant pastrami sandwich. If a woman had come into the room and started blowing me, I would have immediately had to take out a gun and blow my brains out, since my life would never get any better from that point forward.
But this nirvana was not meant to last. I feel asleep around midnight and woke up at 2am with intense, double-over-worthy stomach pains. I immediately jumped on the toilet, but after several contractions, there was nothing in the chamber. I tried to go back to bed but was shortly up again, dealing with more contractions. My beautiful brown baby was finally born at approximately 4:16am (four pounds, nine ounces), and was eventually joined by a sister and two brothers, but the net result was that I was up from 2am until after 7am, in pain and pooping. Therefore, at just about 6:30am I emailed my boss and said I wasn’t going to come in. He’s a smart guy, and I’m sure he thinks I was just hungover, but this…this was no hangover. This was someone’s revenge; this was personal.
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression…
The last time I returned to LA from visiting the east coast, I was overcome with rage about my move to LA. Why did I move to this terrible city? Why did I leave all my friends and all that fun back in NYC? What the hell was I thinking?
But my return this time was different. Because I took something important away from this last trip to NYC: it’s still there. It’s still all there, all the bars, all the restaurants, all the friends, all the good times, all the beers – everything is just where I left it. And I know now that I can go back at any time and pick up right where I left off (literally – I landed at 11:30pm on a Thursday night, took a cab straight to the bar, and was out until 2:30am).
In the meantime, I have to try to make the most of my time here in LA – because it will be short. I don’t know what this means and I’m sure it will ultimately backfire and piss me off/make me hate LA even more, but that’s for later. For now, I have to accept the decision I’ve made and make the most of it. I’m a grown-ass man and this is what life is about: accepting your fate and dealing with it, whether it’s a the end of your team’s season, eating a pastrami sandwich that makes your butt kill itself, or moving across the country and away from your friends and family.
But here’s the thing about last night’s Eagles game: It was disgusting and the very reason that the Philadelphia Eagles are the Philadelphia Eagles. Seriously, it pretty much perfectly summed up the Philadelphia Eagles of the past ten years.
- The Eagles were favored and lost outright.
- Earlier in the day, their main rival (the Cowboys) lost, showing a hole in their armor and not exactly putting the Eagles in the driver’s seat, but in a prime position to make a statement both in the division and the conference. The point: huge, huge opportunity.
- One of our stars was out due to injury.
- The opposing team turned the ball over four times – and we still lost.
- We made a below-average opposing QB look like an above-average QB.
- Our defense stopped the run all game, but when it absolutely needed to make a stop – the last drive of the game, giving up that first down – it didn’t.
- Suspect play calling – four run plays from inside the two?!? – cost us the game.
- We lost to a team we should have beaten.
This is it. This is Philadelphia Eagles football: a blown opportunity to express themselves as an elite team, an injured star, not taking advantage of turnovers, a bad QB looking good against us, a great defense that didn’t come through in the clutch, bad play calling, and losing to a team that on paper, we should have smoked. These are the Eagles that I’ve been watching maybe not all my life, but in the Andy Reid era. And this is why, not matter how much hope this team gives me, no matter how great they look one week or over a series of games, or no matter how many times I say, “If they’re healthy, not many teams can beat them,” when I go to bed at night, when my fat, bearded head hits that pillow, I know that the Eagles are not a championship team. At least I’ve been a fan of this team long enough to recognize this, and maybe one day I will no longer whip myself up into a frenzy of hope each time McNabb throws a 60 yard laser or the defense picks up its fifth QB sack.
Maybe, but I doubt it. For now, facing two losses in not only the best division in football, but perhaps the best division in football in years, we can only look to next week against the Redskins. Should the Birds blow that game, at least I’ll be at Ship of Fools with a dozen friends, drinking myself into a stupor – it is not inconceivable to think that God invented beer for Philly sports fans.
However, I did find one, which I have back-dated and can be read here. I guess I could have not back-dated it, but I’d rather stay true to the time it was written (early August). Anyway, there you go.
I’m leaving for NYC tomorrow and then will be in Philly over the weekend, before returning to NYC all next week (I’m flying back to LA on Monday, October 6). I am so happy about going back to NYC and the east coast that as I type this, I’m peeing my pants a little bit. Anyway, on to the point: you probably won’t get another post this week – I’ll touch base again when I’m settled in NYC.
Though it’s early, have a good weekend.
1) I’m telling you, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to football starting at 10am. After 28 seasons of watching the first game start at 1pm, my internal clock is all of out whack on Sundays; when I’m watching the first game, I crave nachos and Guinness, even though it’s 10am; when the second game rolls around at 1pm, I feel a little drunk and horny, even though I’ve probably had two beers and have not experience erotic penile stimulation in many months; halfway through the “night” game, it’s 7:15pm in LA – and I feel bombed and exhausted and in need of bed. I just don’t think this is going to change.
2) I couldn’t be happier about New England getting blasted by the Dolphins. Last week, Randy Moss said something to the effect of “Y’all better recognize – the Patriots are 2-0.” Well, we all recognize that a) the Jets gave you that game; b) Matt Cassell stinks.
But you know what fans of the Pats should be thinking right now? “Meh.” Between the Red Sox, Celts, and Pats, all I’ll concede to you is “Meh.” A Boston fan dealing with a potential “lost” Patriots season is like the Sultan of Brunei learning that one of his fifteen hot virgin wives went on a retreat to “find herself” and now doesn’t want to fuck his overweight ass anymore. “Meh.”
3) I know I might take a lot of flak for this, but to me, it’s not even close: Burger King’s breakfast options and food far surpasses McDonald’s. I mean, have you had the sausage egg and cheese croissant? And the tater tot-style hashbrowns of BK far surpasses the hash brown brick of McDonald’s. Yes, the Egg McMuffin is wonderful, but pound for pound, I’ll take Burger King for breakfast over McDonald’s any day.
4) This sums up my fantasy football season thus far: I have four leagues. This week, I played against the guy who had Ronnie Brown in three of them. I’ll go 2-2 this week, but I also played against Michael Turner twice in Week One (and I have him in one league). Just a tough opening schedule for Dragulas/What Are You From?/Knorben Knussen/Nass.
5) Three teams I’m not buying into: Washington (can’t get the memory of that first terrible game against the Giants out of my head), Tennessee (media darlings right now with the run offense and good defense, but…meh), San Fran (yeah, just not ready for J. T. O’Sullivan to be a playoff quarterback).
6) Three teams I am buying into: Buffalo (why not?), Atlanta (not saying they’re a playoff team, but they’ve already exceeded expectations and a seven win season isn’t out of the question), Denver (man-crush on Jay Cutler detailed last week; they’ve already beat SD once and have four games total against KC and Oakland, so you’ve already banked five wins right there).
7) MJD: Sorry I doubted you. It will never happen again.
8 ) My roommate Mark got some Omaha Steaks package recently, and included in the package were some hot dogs. My roommate Mark does not like hot dogs. Guess who does? This guy right here. I consumed three of these astoundingly delicious hot dogs whilst watching football on Sunday and boy…if you own stock in Omaha Steaks, it’s going to go up – rapidly.
9) I’m officially excited about the Eagles. Last week, all offense, little defense; this week, all defense, little offense. God help the league if we should figure out how to get both going at the same time. I don’t really know what to say about that game. The defense looked better than it has in ages and maybe the Eagles are catching up with the rest of the league and realizing that long gone and the “stop the run, and you will win days.” In today’s NFL, strike the sheppard and the flock will scatter (or something like that): hit the QB early and often and your chances of victory are greatly improved.
10) Not that this should be taken as Bible, but after last week’s games, Dr. Z’s power rankings went: 1) Dallas; 2) Pittsburgh; 3) Philly. So the Eagles lost a nail-biter at Dallas and absolutely destroyed a good Steelers team. Again, take it for what you will.
11) Oh, and B-Dawk: Sorry I doubted you. It will never happen again.
12) LJ Smith…man, you are bad at the game of football. I think when he got surgery on his knee last year, they also removed his hands and replaced them with breasts.
13) I have an old-school Randall Cunningham Eagles jersey that I’ve been wearing for two or three seasons now while I watch games. I’m not going to stop wearing it, but it’s one thing to rock it in a crowded bar with five or six of your buddies in similar regalia, and quite another to wear it sitting in your living room alone while screaming “C’mon baby!” and “FUCK!” about every twelve minutes. It’s already gotten weird looks from my roommates and their friends – there may be some sort of intervention around Week Nine.
(I even actually did a load of laundry on Sunday morning so that the jersey would be ready for the 1pm (PST) game. Normally, I would have just worn it dirty, but it was at the bottom of my laundry bin and it was a particularly active week in the “masturbating into old boxers” department, so after a week on the bottom of in the laundry bin, in the dark, in my closet, with all the load-cradling boxers, well, let’s just say I could almost see little bearded faces asking for cream chipped beef in the mesh of the jersey. So yeah, I needed to wash it.)
14) A friend of mine, a lady, recently joined an internet dating site. She’s only been emailing with gentlemen so far, but her first “date” was a coffee date scheduled for this Sunday. When I heard about this on Sunday morning, I said, “Let me get this straight: This guy, who you met on eharmony, wants your first date to be coffee on a Sunday afternoon during football season? Like, while actual football games are on? Do you really want to date a guy who’s willing to forsake a Sunday full of football to meet a girl he met on the internet for coffee?” I was joking when I said this – though if I were a chick, a prerequisite for a guy would be that he has to love sports – but then my friend went ahead and canceled her date because of what I’d said.
In the long run, I’m sure I saved her a lot of trouble. Ladies, if a guy wants your first date to be during a football Sunday or a major sporting event, just run away, right away, and save yourself the trouble of learning about his secret relationship with his co-worker Hans eight years from now.
15) Two things from my fantasy football preview that made me look like a genius:
- Cleveland stinks. I told you. To be honest, I can’t even brag about this, since I’m not sure how anybody with a basic knowledge of football could look at that Cleveland team, look at all their overperformers in 2007, look at their schedule, and say, “Oh yeah – playoff team.” I will be surprised if they win more than five games.
(And I love the city of Cleveland and its fans. I’ve even been looking at apartments in Cleveland on craigslist in my spare time, thinking it would be a good fit for me, as I am chubby and like cold weather, beer and cheap real estate.)
- I told you that there was value to be had in the backfields of Seattle, Houston and Cincy. I have Julius Jones (140 yards, 1 TD this week) on two teams, Steve Slaton (116 yards, 1 TD) on all four, and Chris Perry (74 yards, 1 TD) on two. I’m not saying these guys are going to finish among the top ten in RBs, but if you took my advice, you have some pretty good RB3s or RB4s right now.
16) I did so little this weekend that on Sunday, not only did I leave the house only once, only to go to Burger King, but I honestly don’t think I even looked in the mirror one time. I’m totally serious about this. There could have been a finch leaving in my bird and I wouldn’t have seen it. There’s “letting yourself go” and then there’s what I’m doing. I haven’t decided if it’s really impressive or really sad.
17) In addition to leaving the couch on Sunday from 10am until 8pm only to cook a hot dog and poop (twice), for $7 more a month, my roommates and I recently got 50 more DirecTV channels, including Biography and ID (“Investigation Discovery”). I have watched more murdery shows over the weekend – including but not limited to three episodes “Most Evil”, biographies of Andrew Cunanan, John Wayne Gacy and BTK, and several old murder-related “Datelines” – than I have in the past four months. It was probably my best weekend out in LA yet.
(And for the second weekend in a row, I did not shave once, rocking a neck beard from Friday morning until Monday morning. A full neck beard, a dusty 96 Lincoln Town Car, and feet black from not wearing shoes [I would say that I wore shoes for maybe two hours from the time I got home from work on Friday until the time I got ready for work on Monday morning]. Should I just sign up for the Sex Offender Registry now? I mean, I have the time now, and there’s a chance I won’t later.)
18) My old roommate and the only guy friend I have in LA (who I actually see more than once every two months), Brian, works in the entertainment industry for a celebrity news show and has for years. So he’s seen in fair share of celebrities, since that’s part of his job. The most beautiful woman he’s even seen in person? Faith Hill. I could see that, but she’s a little too wholesome for me; I like my women with a bit of desperation in their eyes, you know what I mean?
19) I am really tempted to write something about some other Philadelphia sports teams, but I dare not, lest I jinx them.
20) For a year I lived at 95th and 3rd in this tremendous monolith of post-college milieu called Normandie Court (“When You’re Out of College but Not Ready For the Real World: Normandie Court!”). That year, from the summer of 2004 to the summer of 2005, I worked some long hours and would take the 4-5-6 train from way downtown all the up to 96th Street, and at least twice a week, always about 8:30pm at night, I’d stop in the corner pizza place and get a slice or two to take home for dinner.
The service was terrible and the wait interminable; after working for ten hours and taking the local train for 45 minutes, all I wanted was my two goddamn slices. In theory, the whole thing should have gone down in three to five minutes, but in practice, I’d wait for at least ten, usually longer.
As those hot August nights, when the heat from the open pizza ovens was enough to make me swoon in my Banana Republic khakis and my Brooks Brothers button-down, would bleed into September and its first cool breaths of autumn, I’d stand there in the pizza place, staring at that TV, always tuned in to the Yankees, catching ten or more minutes of the game. They mostly seemed to be at home at these times, so I’d see the black of centerfield as the pitcher took signs from the catcher, the blue padding of the backstop, and the thousands and thousands of New Yorkers clad in their finest Yankee hats and jerseys.
And as someone who grew up with a passion for sports but whose sports teams lacked any pedigree or any great sense of history (think: 10,000 losses, snowballs at Santa), I felt two things. Jealousy: All those fans, rooting for that great team, a threat every year to bring home another championship to their overflowing trophy case, just another accolade to add to their legacy. Something like pride: Four miles north from where I stood in that crappy, slow-poke pizza place, Yankee Stadium, all those fans, all that history, all there and right at that moment as I waited for my regular and pepperoni slices, alive – I’d swear I could feel that stadium shake when Jeter blooped and single into center.
This is how I’ll remember Yankee Stadium: waiting for my pizza, watching that little TV, and realizing how lucky everybody is.
This wasn’t always the case. Nothing could be worse for me than your standard Monday, once the alcohol has been completely removed from your system, your bowels are essentially decimated from a weekend of bad/binge eating, and you face five straight days of work.
But now, Friday is the new Monday for me, because another weekend in Los Angeles represents another weekend of wasted opportunity. Whereas six months ago I’d be sitting at my desk in my office in New York staring at the clock on my computer, chomping at the bit to get out of the office and into the wild, now I’m actually spending extra time at work, because why not? At least I can wait out the traffic.
(I actually do have something kinda cool planned for tonight: I think I’m going to sit in my parked car outside my house and drink beers. Just to switch things up a little bit, since both my spot on the couch and my chair in the yard are getting seriously strained. In the car, I don’t know, maybe I can pretend I’m on a stake-out or something. That might be cool. And I can still listen to the radio, which is nice.)
I’m 29 years old, in the prime of my life, rich, handsome, and not even a little bit well-hung – and yet I’m going to treat the next year of my life like a prison sentence. I should probably pick up a copy of the Koran tonight to speed things up.
Happy Friday. Monday’s just around the corner, and that means another week in the books. Can’t wait.
******************
A couple of things before we get to the music:
1) If any of you live in the South Bay-area and have a cleaning lady, please pass her information on to me. I share a bathroom with a girl, and despite being the one covered in hair and possessing a penis, I am the much (much) cleaner one of the two of us. Also, my other roommate – potentially both my roommates, really – doesn’t understand that you must rinse off dishes before you put them in the dishwasher. There’s nothing quite like opening the dishwasher after it’s been run and having to re-wash half the dishes because of caked on debris. Because of this, I almost exclusively use plastic utensils, drink out of keg cups, and do not cook, but I’m starting to feel guilty about that.
(Not because of the environment, but because I keep still forks and spoons from the sandwich shop in my building.)
2) Some blogs you should check out (if you haven’t already): Amish in the City, Cajun Boy in the City (no relation to Amish), East Village Idiot, Midwesterner’s Guide to NYC, and Redacted. Also, I wrote about this previously, but Slack is back (joy!). I’ve also added these to the right, with the other good reads.
3) I forget what three was. If I had to guess, it was probably either another complaint, something about football/fantasy football/the Eagles, or how I’ll be in NYC next Thursday (and in Philly Friday or Saturday). Whatever one it was, I can assure you you’re not missing anything.
******************
Six Songs
Muxtape is dead; mixwit is alive. All songs can be heard there, with a couple of extra ones.
“Hellodrama” What Made Milwaukee Famous
If I could start a band, it would be a five or six person group with at least two women in it. Our sound would be described as Fleetwood Mac having an orgy with Sly and the Family Stone while the Arcade Fire plays drunk. I could share vocal duties and play either guitar or bass (I’m very talented).
However, if I created a side project that allowed me to delve into my nerdy side and really bring out my Elvis Costello-meets-Weezer influences, this would be what our first single would sound like. It’s strange; I really like this song, but when I first heard it, my reaction was not “Man, that’s a great song” but rather, “Man, that sounds exactly like something I would write if I had any musical talent.”
So listen and tell me what you think of my fictional side project that’s a band in real life. If think we/they have a real future.
“The Only One” The Cure
I’ll tell you, I really do have to be in the mood for them, but sometimes, there’s just nothing better than The Cure. This song also makes me miss London – I was due for a visit in 2008, since I go every two years – but I miss so many things right now that London can’t quite make the list. Sorry. Just really backed up right now.
“Three Days From Now” The Ladybug Transistor
When I was in high school, I used to play a lot of video games (shocking for someone who was smart, had tiny circular John Lennon glasses, had long hair that naturally “flipped” at his shoulders, was 240 pounds and wore a cape, right?). My radio station of choice while playing was the Princeton University indie station, which I believe was 103.3 on the dial. One day, I heard only a fraction of the song, and remembered the lyrics, “Don’t want to get stuck inside/looking at your dry eyes/I want it to look like you are crying.” I never heard the song again. Twelve or thirteen years later – two weeks ago, to be exact – I remembered the lyrics, googled them, and it turned out to be the Ladybug Transistor song “Stuck”. Good song, but this one is better. To my surprise, the band is terrific.
We all find new music in our own ways.
“Divine” Sebastien Tellier
You’d better believe that this one is on heavy rotation when driving around in the car. I don’t even know what to else to say.
“If Your Mother Only Knew” Rahzel
Maybe it’s just me, but few things give me as much joy as a large group of black people exclaiming “Oh shit!” and the like in surprise and joy. I mean, have you watched the reaction of black athletes during the slam dunk competition or the home run contest or when someone gets punked? I can’t name many things that make me happier than their reaction. I sideswiped a parked car on a crowded Venice street a month after I moved to LA and when I first hit the car, there was a large black family walking back from the beach who screamed “OH SHIT!” and laughed and clapped just as I crunched it. I mean, I had just literally hit a car and still was happy, because I saw how much joy that African-American family got out of some chubby white kid with a beard smacking the shit out of a parked car.
The point: in this “song”, when Rahzel starts doing the beat and the chorus at the same time, this is a genuine, African-American “OH SHIT!” moment. Listen to it, and I promise you won’t be able not to smile.
(It’s the second “untitled” song on the mixwit. I can’t figure out how to rename them.)
“Elephant Gun” Beirut
This is what it’s going to sound like when I finally lose my mind. Only there will be more wild animal noises when that happens.
[Have a good weekend]
My response, which I’ve spouted a thousand times, is always the same: What the fuck do you think I have to do on a Sunday? Seriously, what else is there for me to do on a Sunday but sit there, get drunk, yell and watch football? Do you think I’m going to say, “Sweet – it’s 4:15pm. The games are over and I still have time to go pick out a new comforter!” No way, bro. Football is about waking up hungover from a late Saturday night, quickly showering and catching a cab to a bar where your buddies are, and spending the next six to nine hours eating wings, drinking and talking about sports and boobies, only to return to your apartment bombed and heartburned to pass the fuck out.
This is not how I watch football in LA. There is no late Saturday night, since I’ve pretty much given up on going out around here – I’ll go out when I’m back in NYC, but in the meantime, I’d rather stay in and save money so that when I return to NYC I have enough money to buy a slave for my new apartment. I don’t wake up late or hungover, since it’s hard to do that when your weekend nights are spent sitting in your yard drinking beer by yourself, staring at the fire pit and weeping silently so your neighbors don’t hear you. And I don’t take a cab to meet my buddies out, since the “Eagles bar” that they go to is all the way in Santa Monica, which means if I want to drink I have to pay about $120 in round trip cab fare, or otherwise spend six hours nursing four beers (sounds sweet, right?).
(While we’re here, I used to be a baseball fan. I say “used to” because all the teams I want to watch start their games at 4:05pm. I work until at least 5pm, which means the earliest I’m home is at 6:15pm, or right around the 6th or 7th inning of a Phillies game. So instead, I get to watch a lot of Mariners, Giants, A’s, Dodgers, Angels and Padres games. There are 30 teams in Major League Baseball. Of the 30, I can’t name many that I’m less interested in than the Mariners, Giants, A’s, Dodgers, Angels and Padres. Even the good ones are boring; before Manny, it was “Russell Martin – James Loney – Derek Lowe: Dodger Fever, Catch It!” and “The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in Southern California: Seriously, We Won the World Series a Few Years Ago. Swear.” Continually being forced to watch baseball played by the Mariners, Giants, A’s, Dodgers, Angels and Padres is like continually being forced to watch porn featuring 300 pound people having sex. Your curiosity might be peaked at first, but then you’ll feel disgusted with yourself and what you see, then you’ll get sad, then you’ll just lose interest in the whole thing altogether and forget why the real thing even interested you in the first place.)
However, I have to admit that my own personal football set-up could be worse. In my living room, we have a 60″ or 62″ HD television. It is, without exaggeration, the largest TV I’ve ever seen in a home. We also have DirectTV and the football package, so we get every game. Even when the games stink, there is something called “The Red Zone Channel” which flips to any game when any team gets in the red zone – it’s like watching football on speed. So not bad. Not bad at all.
But here’s how it works. My roommate Mark will watch football on the big screen in his bedroom. I don’t begrudge him this, since he does not have a laptop and needs to use the computer in his room to stay up to date on his four fantasy football teams. As someone with four teams myself, I totally understand. So I sit in the living room watching football alone. However, sometimes I have a guest watcher or watchers. This weekend, it was my other roommate Selena and her friend Sarah. While I watched the games, they sat on the other couch discussing all manner of things, from engagement rings to hair coloring to, I don’t know, periods or dolls or whatever it is women talk about (I sort of zoned out). If they hadn’t made some wonderful caprese for me (and later a lovely dinner), I surely would have injected something into my neck that maybe wouldn’t have caused me death, but at least temporary unconsciousness.
So that’s what I’m looking at for the rest of my football Sundays: alone on the couch, laptop on lap, checking fantasy teams and talking to myself (or to girls about “What Guys Really Want”). To that end, here is a random collection of twenty thoughts from football on Sunday and last night:
1) Vince Young, you stink. You were a great college quarterback, but it was apparent that you were never going to be great in the NFL, with your low arm slot delivery and your inability to read (not defenses, but words). Still, you could have been a more than serviceable pro quarterback, but now we can add crazy to your stinkiness. Titans fans, I feel for you (good thing you live in a such a cool city and state). There is no greater sin than being blessed with an extraordinary ability and wasting it because you are a whiny bitch.
2) Maurice Jones-Drew is absolutely killing two of my fantasy teams. Thanks for the touchdown this week, but 92 total yards in two weeks? I liked him this year because he’s only 23 years old with two years under his belt and Fred Taylor’s 32 years old with a lot of wear on that body. Something’s gotta give eventually. Instead, Jacksonville loses two of its starting o-lineman, Garrard’s thrown more picks in two games than he did all of last year, and the RB combo of MJD and Fred Taylor’s been good for 97 yards in two games. Yikes.
3) My roommate Selena asked me why the player was waving when the ball was kicked to him on a punt. I explained that he was calling for a fair catch, which meant that he was signaling that he would not run the ball and would down it when he caught it, but the other team then must not hit him while he catches the ball. She said, “Awww” and added that it was a “nice promise.” This is how I’m going to spend my Sundays for the 2008 NFL season.
4) If you’re in a survivor pool, it might be wise to pick against KC and St. Louis every week. I think that St. Pius Prep might get three against the Rams and five against the Chiefs.
5) Further, it’s fair to say that USC could win the NFC West, right? That’s not even a joke. The division, however, certainly is.
6) I don’t think I can recall a game in which the offense played with less zest and the coaching, um, coached, with less real, actual knowledge of the sport of football than in Washington in their loss in the opener to the Giants. Therefore, this week, if I owned a home, I would have bet it on New Orleans +1 at Washington. I could not believe this line when I saw it earlier in the week, and further couldn’t believe it when it didn’t move by Sunday. When lines don’t move, that’s bad – it’s like Vegas saying, “Fuck you – we know what we’re doing, so if you think you’re hot shit, bring it.” New Orleans was up 24-15 by the end of the third and I was cursing bloody murder that I didn’t bet on the game. As soon as my rant ended, Washington scored. Then scored again. Final: Washington 29, New Orleans 24. What do I take away from this? Both Washington and New Orleans stink. And I stink at not-gambling.
7) If I had to pick an AFC team to root for, it’d be the Jets. They remind me a lot of the Eagles: usually pretty shitty; green uniforms; rabid, overweight fan base. When they got Favre I was a little less of a Jets fan, but with that lil’ acquisition they went from “unwatchable” to “alright, I’m in.” The game against New England this week…very, very frustrating. A winnable game, marred by suspect play calling (you have BRETT FAVRE! Why would you run three times from inside the five?). I’m not going to provide any insight that you haven’t read elsewhere for this game (or any game), but it bothers me that now New England’s thinking, “We’re ok with Cassell!” when they should be thinking, “Thank god the Jets let us off the hook!”
8 ) Jay Cutler is The Truth. Wow. I had a little bit of a man crush on him before the season – laser rocket arm, great mobility (he ran the option his first two years in college), diabetes, a name that reminds me of chicken cutlet – all things I look for in a football player. The Raiders game affirmed by crush and now we’re entering the danger zone. Six TDs in two games in a weak division….30 is very much in the discussion.
9) Seeing Cutler on the sidelines, my co-watcher Sarah asked why all quarterbacks wear hats on the sidelines, and I could offer no explanation. Then we discussed men in their 20′s and 30′s wearing hats and surprisingly, we all agreed on many points. First, hats are ok only at sporting events; otherwise, it just looks like you’re hiding hair loss. Second, there is no excuse for a white man over the age of 25 wearing a backwards hat. This is so awkward that it’s embarrassing – it’s ok if you’re coming back from a long study season in the college library, but you got to let it go once you finish your last bio final.
(I subsequently discussed this with a New York-based female friend to see if this was just a west coast bias, but she agreed: a backwards hat on a 25+ white guy is as much as a dealbreaker as “wearing jean shorts.”)
10) It was a fumble. If it had gone against the Eagles against, say, the Cowboys, I’d be in jail right now, three quarters of the city of Philadelphia would be on fire, and every person named “Hochuli” would be wiped off the face of the earth. Thank goodness it happened in San Diego, where fans of the Chargers responded to the game-deciding bad call by throwing their Abercrombie and Fitch catalogs across their rooms and having another white wine spritzer – easy on the spritz.
11) On Monday night, I watched the national anthem being performed and thought to myself, “Is this me or is this terrible?” Maybe it’s because I’m old-fashioned or maybe it’s because I’m racist, but I like a nice, normal rendition of the national anthem, not one filled with dips and trills and the like. So this pop songstress gets up and oversings the hell out of it and when it’s over, GETS BOOED. I never thought I’d have even a modicum of respect for Cowboys fans, but I did right then and there. If this is possible, the whole Mid East puzzle can be sorted out.
(Seriously, it was the worst rendition of the national anthem ever, save for star-duds like Carl Lewis and Roseanne. You can see it here. Poor quality, but you can hear it. Which is not a good thing. You can’t, however, hear the boos, which is a shame.)
12) Speaking of Cowboys fans, I know that Philly fans are not exactly exemplars of sophistication, but at least we don’t have gun racks in our pick-up trucks and vote Republican. Good lord – as they scanned the crowd at Texas Stadium, I couldn’t help but think two things: “These people have not studied Latin” and “These people hate – and I mean, hate – Barack Obama.”
13) My whole thought going into the Eagles-Cowboys game was that an Eagles loss would not be devastating. We’re talking about a team that went 8-8 last year going into Texas Stadium for its last Monday night game against a team that went 13-3 last year and after Week One had the best Vegas odds to win the Super Bowl (the Eagles were also without their top two WRs, but saying that’s a handicap is like saying me going into a pie eating contest with my shoelaces untied is a handicap). So I could deal with a loss, as long as it wasn’t a blowout.
Wrong. Tough loss. Tough, tough loss.
14) At one point, Tony Kornheiser said that Andy Reid dealt with a “horrifying tragedy” when his two sons got arrested last year. Um, isn’t what happened to Tony Dungy’s son – you know, when he killed himself – more of a “horrifying tragedy”? Two adult sons getting arrested for drugs and guns is not a horrifying tragedy; two adult sons eaten by wild dogs would be a horrifying tragedy. C’mon, Tony.
15) Speaking of Tony, in emails today my buddy (a Jew) and I decided that we hadn’t realized it until last night, but TK is one of the Jewiest Jews that ever Jewed. He also reminds me of an ex’s dad (my roster of my ex-girlfriends reads like a “Greatest Hits” of the female names of the Old Testament). God love him (or rather, G-d love him).
16) I’m not sure why Andy Reid didn’t tell the corners to jam TO at the line in the first half. This strategy has worked in the past: get up on him, rough him up, disrupt his timing. Instead, they sat back and let him run like a gazelle in the open plains and were so devastated by his big plays that they completely altered their defensive game plan in the second half, abandoning their aggressive (and very successful) pressuring of Romo and instead switching to a prevent-like defense, thus allowing the Cowboys to pick up small chunks of yardage at a time. THIS was the key to the game, because unlike the McNabb/Westbrook fumble in the fourth, this was preventable. Don’t abandon the blitz, keep the pressure on Romo, body up TO and let them beat you with Whitten. Instead, they kept their LBs off the o-line, gave Romo plenty of time, and though they took TO out of the game, still they couldn’t stop Barber and Whitten.
(Also, I don’t want to admit this, but B-Dawk…not looking so great. That’s all I’ll say about that, out of respect.)
17) That’s the thing that Andy Reid has never appreciated with WRs – a great one will make you alter your game plan. A stud WR will force you a blitzing team like the Eagles into a cover-2 or cover-2 type scheme, which is not how they play their game. As much as I hate to admit it, TO was the key to that game because he did just that and forced the Eagles to NOT play their game defensively in the second half. Dallas 41, Philly 37.
18) I’m not a sore loser (well, maybe I am), but let’s just say I wouldn’t feel too great with Romo under center in a game that matters. Like, for instance, in the playoffs. Where he’s 0-2.
(Nice fumble in the end zone, pretty boy. See you at the Linc on December 28.)
19) The game itself was magnificent, as much as an Eagles’ loss to the Cowboys can be magnificent. One thing that you can take away from this game, brilliantly put by Jaws or TK: How many teams out there are better than the Eagles or Cowboys? I know I’m biased, but if you don’t think they’re two of the top six teams in the NFL, you’re just plain wrong.
20) DeSean Jackson…don’t do that again.
Hey Jason, been reading your blog for a long time, big fan and all that (disappointed that you can’t post as much since you’ve been in LA). I just wanted to write you to say thanks for a post that you wrote near the end of last year saying that guys should get their girlfriend to do an Engagement Ring Dossier. I showed it to my girlfriend (who also reads your site) and convinced her to do one back in December, and the past month or so I went and picked out the ring and everything based on her specifications, proposed last night, and she absolutely LOVES the ring. I’m sure you already knew the dossier was a good idea, but I just wanted to confirm it to you. A real world application of the ERD that worked, and my girlfriend and I will be forever in your debt (which means if I ever meet you in real life I’ll buy you a drink or two).
(If you want to relay this on your blog to show everybody how great you are feel free, just leave out my name please)
I posted this mostly because, well, to show everybody how great I am, but also because I took such flack from the women-folk for the Engagement Ring Dossier.
The idea, to refresh y’all, is simple: When it becomes apparent that you and your lady friend are going to eventually get engaged, ask her to put together an “Engagement Ring Dossier.” The ERD will include everything a man who knows (or should know) very little about jewelry needs to know to buy his love her ideal engagement ring; everything from her ring size to size or clarity/quality preference to pictures to type of cut should be included in there. Upon the receipt of the ERD, it should never be spoken about again, under the assumption that sometime in the next year or so you are going to use the ERD to purchase the ring and propose.
I think it’s a brilliant idea because:
- I don’t want to be the guy who goes shopping for a ring with his girlfriend. This is, to sound like a California girl, so totally lame. After all, how many genuine surprises do you get or get to pull off in your life? Isn’t getting engaged and finding out the sex of your baby about it (not including any STD test results)? When I hear of couples spending Saturdays going ring shopping I want yell at them for their lack of originality and spontaneity. Then I get a little sad, because I’m alone. So, so alone.
- I don’t want to pick out an engagement ring for my girlfriend all by myself. I’m not really into looks. Don’t get me wrong – the most important characteristic of a potential mate of mine is how attractive she is, but for me, I don’t own a lot of nice clothes, my car is caked in dust because it hasn’t been washed since before we drove it cross-country, and I didn’t shave once this weekend. The point: as far as I’m concerned, it’s a fucking ring. Without guidance from a woman, I imagine the most important criterion for my ring purchase is how much it’s on sale (i.e. the jeweler pulls out a ring made of PVC and coral and says, “This usually goes for $10,000, but I can give it to you at a discount for…” and I yell “Sold!” before he even gets the price out).
(PS – I actually came out to my car this morning to find someone had written “Wash Me, Asshole” in the dust on my trunk. I wrote “No” below it.)
While I thought my ERD idea would be immediately lauded as one of the most significant intellectual developments of the 21st century…um, nope. Various people expressed the sentiment, “Even the most sane and normal girl in the world would get whipped up into a frenzy at the idea of her boyfriend asking her for engagement ring information.” Another said, “From a neurotic female perspective: if someone ever approached me using this method I would immediately think any romantic moment, or even unromantic moment for that matter, was a potential marriage proposal.” Another (from a woman):
Three things that will piss a woman off more than anything is 1) having to wait for a surprise, i.e. knowing your man is going to propose. A word of advice, never ever mention the M word until you are popping the question; 2) picking out their own engagement ring. We don’t ever want to know how much you spent on the ring even if it is 3 times your monthly salary; and 3) having to tell you exactly what we want. We expect you to know what we want and when we want it.
The following is from a dude, but he more or less summed up a number of things:
Women can’t handle [the ERD], and you will encounter two reactions: One, the girl will get freaked out, awkward, and the end of relationship clock will begin to tick immediately. It’s only a matter of time before that shit reaches zero. Two, the girl will get WAY too involved in the idea. I want to stress WAY TOO INVOLVED. Dossier? Try the Oxford fucking English dictionary of engagement ring shit. There’ll be recognizable stuff, like Tiffany’s, but then she’ll throw stuff in there that you’ve never even heard of, like elaborate custom-made rings worn by dessicated virigins who will think of England on their wedding night, or some weird red diamond ring nobody on earth could afford except Bill Gates. Then, once you have the ERD, come the jokes. After a while she’ll get tired of waiting for you to ask the question, and will start dropping none too subtle jokes about rings, purchasing, how lonely her finger looks, how every other woman she knows has been engaged twice, and how she really feels the need for security in her life and “can’t wait around forever.”
This is all silly. Silly, silly, silly. My rebuttals:
1) I guess I assumed that the woman that I’ll be proposing to and those women that should use the ERD are, for the most part, sane. Maybe this is naive on my part, but the thing I don’t think y’all picked up on is that I’m not talking about giving the ERD to a girl you’ve been dating for four months. I’m talking about a relationship in which both parties have spoken about marriage and are closer to a wedding than a first date, if not chronologically (using this word incorrectly), then emotionally. I don’t see a problem with going to a girl I’ve been dating for a long time, who’s met all my family, with whom I’ve vacationed and talked about marriage and the whole nine yards, and saying, “Look, you know I want to marry. Probably you. But here’s a fun idea – I want you to have the most possible input on your ring without you actually picking it out yourself, because I want it to be a surprise” and then explaining the “fun” concept of the ERD. Again, maybe I’m being naive, but I don’t see the harm in that.
2) If a woman gets way too involved in the ERD, fine. It’s kind of a big deal, so I think I can do a little work on my part to distill any great volume of information and work with a “diamond guy” to figure out the most practical and most desirable ring for my lady. Too much information in this case is better than too little.
3) I’m not saying that the woman presenting the ERD should include financial requirements or parameters (i.e. Rule XIV: The should should cost at least $8,567 but not more than $12,511″). But an issue that should be resolved in the ERD would be: would you prefer a larger, less clear diamond or a smaller, cleaner/shinier diamond?
4) The most valid point of those mentioned above is that any moment, romantic or not, might be the moment for the proposal once the ERD has been handed over. But let me ask you something, ladies: If a guy took your ERD and said it would take some time for him to save money for the ring, and then didn’t propose in the next, say, six weeks, wouldn’t your suspicion of “OHMYGOD HE MIGHT PROPOSE TONIGHT!” wear off after a few weeks? From my perspective, if someone said to me, “Some day, say in the next year, Jenna Jameson is going to follow you from work into your parking garage and blow you,” yeah, I’d be out of my mind in anticipation at first. But then, after the first month of no Jenna, I’d stop icing my balls before I left work. Then after the second month, I’d stop looking over my shoulder as I walked to my car. By the third month, it’d be in my mind, and sure, I’d still keep masturbating to the idea, but I’d get used to it, knowing one day it’s going to happen and going to be awesome, but I can’t constantly think about it. And then the one day, when it did finally happen, it would still be the greatest day of my life. So ladies, would the same apply to the ERD?
(Again, I’ll be the first to admit that I know very little about the female psyche, but still, I gotta be close on this one.)
Anyway, I am very happy for [NAME REDACTED] and his new fiancée. Honestly, it’s just about one of the best emails I’ve ever gotten, not just because it shows that I am right (so totally right) because lil’ old me, writing an internet diary from a couple hundred miles away, probably with my shirt off, was able to play a small role in the advancement of two people’s love. That’s a nice feeling, like apple crumble a la mode. Which is delicious. Like love.
(Also, did I mention I was so totally right?)
“Whole Lotta Rosie” AC/DC
I am sitting at my desk right now (Friday afternoon, 3:52pm) listening to this song and I’m fairly certain that something, somewhere nearby, is going to explode. As I write this, I have testicles; this may change any moment, however, as they are in the process of being rocked the fuck off. Hearing this, I wish – desperately, well beyond the realm of patheticness and “quit your whining, already!” – that I was going back to my apartment on a fall or winter evening, to rip (and I mean, rip) through a half-dozen vodka crans, enjoying the company of two or three or four of my shittiest, drinkingest friends, before hitting any of the 400 bars within a $10 cab ride of my place, then talking to no one but each other, then leaving the shit bar at 4am to get pizza, maybe send a text message or two, and definitely wake up the next day at 1pm with a hangover and a willingness to do it all again in a few hours.
Instead, I’m going to Target after work to get paper towels and new bedsheets. Then I might make some burgers and have a few cans of Bud Light. I will be in bed by 12am – if I’m feeling dangerous – and awake, on my own volition, before 9am. Tomorrow, if I’m feeling up to it, I’m going to get my car washed.
******
So to answer your question, dear readers, yes, I am alive. But barely. Los Angeles is killing me in a way that I never thought it would. I always thought I’d rage against the dying of the light (literally, and specifically in a hotel fire somewhere in South America, one of the shittier countries like Uruguay or French Guiana). Instead, I’m casually strolling into it, with a bag from Target in one hand and my third-best Los Angeles friend, my iPod, in the other.
New York City, you are officially on notice. Vengeance, thy name is September 25 through October 6.
[Have a good weekend.]
The third component of fantasy sports is much more prevalent in fantasy football than in baseball or basketball, and this is the very reason that I like football least. That component is luck. No matter how much research you do, how much you know about players and coaches and offensive schemes, it all comes down to one number: 16. There are only sixteen games in a fantasy football season (and many leagues hold their championship game in Week 16, as starters on playoff-bound teams are often rested in Week 17, thereby reducing their season to fifteen meaningful games). This is a very small sample size compared to 162 baseball games, 82 basketball games, and however many games they play in hockey (if that sport’s still around). On any given week, anything can happen: Tom Brady can go without a touchdown, the Bears could score 42 points against your defense, Stephen Jackson can leave a game after one play. Here’s a statistical study of six weeks in the life of an NFL running back to help illustrate the randomness of fantasy football (carries – yards rushing – touchdowns – fantasy points; I’m leaving out receptions to make it as uncomplicated as possible):
Week 1: 30 – 296 – 3 – 47.6
Week 2: 11 –45 – 0 – 4.5
Week 3: DNP
Week 4: DNP
Week 5: 15 – 116 – 2 – 23.6
Week 6: 14 – 3 – 0 – .3
That’s 47.6 points, then 4.5, then two DNPs, then 23.6, then .3 points per week for the guy who will most likely be the #2 overall pick in your league: Adrian Peterson. No one will disagree with you if you say the guy’s a beast, but his talent does not often result in consistent and positive fantasy points.
While Peterson is an extreme example, this is the case with all football players. Guys will have great games, guys will have stink-bombs, guys will play ok – and there’s nothing you can do but let them play out their full sixteen games. Compare this to baseball, where I can tell you that Kosuke Fukudome is a must play at home (where his OBP is .411 in 58 games versus .326 in 54 games on the road) and Ryan Howard could be benched against lefties (he’s batting .186 in 188 ABs against lefties compared to .271 in 266 ABs against righties this year, with career splits of .221 and .308) and you see what I’m getting at. For the uber nerd like myself, football is frustrating because of its small sample size and strong reliance on luck, and because quite often these factors result in losing to girls. Which sucks.
(Hear me now: I’m not saying luck isn’t involved in fantasy baseball or basketball. For example, talk to the people who took Carl Crawford in the first, thought they had a gems in Robby Cano and Travis Hafner on the right side of their infield, and just knew their three-headed monster of Bedard-Harang-Chris Young would K them right to their league title. It’s just that you’re able to overcome injuries or poor performance a lot more easily in baseball because there are 162 freaking games.)
Still, that does not mean that my research for football, for all its potential meaninglessness, is any less fervent or thorough. I approach football just as I approach baseball, and actually usually play in more football leagues per season (four this year) compared to baseball (one I care about more than my family, one I don’t really care about, and one in which I merely consult on the draft and trades, leaving the day-to-day operations to my partner). It is precisely because of the fact that it’s only sixteen games that fantasy football is the most popular sports – anybody can put together the team and everyone has a chance to win, which is not the case for other fantasy sports.
Alright, let’s start with the general tips, then get on with the rankings.
1) Do your research. This may seem obvious, but if you wing it, you’ll lose. Sure, anyone with a fundamental knowledge of football can navigate through the first few rounds, but what happens in Round 8 when you’re looking for a 3rd receiver and are deciding between Chris Chambers and Santana Moss?
(Actually, they’d be pretty solid third WRs.)
At the very least, visit the fantasy sections of ESPN, Yahoo, and CBS Sportsline to get a general idea of two things: what statistics players put up last year and where players are being drafting. Yeah, odds are good that Peyton Manning will have around 30 TDs and he’s a high pick, but what about a guy like Phillip Rivers? Where’s he being drafted in relation to Jay Cutler or David Garrad? Can you get those guys in the 12th round, whereas you’d need to draft Peyton in the 2nd?
Go into the draft with some stuff printed out with last year’s stats. That’ll give you a cheat sheet to look over during the draft. Additionally, I like to highlight certain guys I like, making notes on the side. Do whatever makes you comfortable, but you should have a little bit of paperwork to refer to during the draft and to keep you grounded.
2) Lie and manipulate. If you are in a league with friends, constantly engage them in conversations before the draft. Feel them out about their battle plans, who they like, etc and reciprocate with information that is entirely false. The important thing is to be sincere and seem honest. A good way to do this is by saying stuff like, “You know, I don’t even know if I should tell you this, but I think last year was not a fluke for Big Ben and see him getting even better” when you secretly think that there’s no chance in hell he throws for 22 TDs, let alone the 32 he threw for last year
Say you have the 5th pick in the first round, and your buddy has the 4th. You really, really want Joseph Addai, but think your buddy at 4 is going to take him. The solution: talk up another player. “Dude, I love Stephen Jackson. The Rams have drastically improved in the offseason and he’s motivated with that holdout. But c’mon – don’t take him, dude. I’m calling dibbs on him.” There’s a chance that your buddy at 4 will then take Jackson in the hopes of screwing you over, and you’ll get Addai. Remember, the other owners in your league are just as soulless as you are, just much, much dumber. The point is, NEVER show your true hand. Flaunt your fake hand constantly.
3) Know your scoring system and positions. Football leagues often times have different scoring rules and settings. Are QB TDs worth four points or six? Are there points awarded for receptions? If so, how many? Do you start two QBs every week or just one? (I personally think you’re not a man unless you’re in a two QB league; why should the most important position in the field be relegated to secondary status in leagues? Would you draft Earnest Graham before Drew Brees in real life?) Is there a WR/RB flex position? How many bench spots are there?
These are all important questions that can drastically influence the way you draft. Drew Brees is a late second round pick in a two-QB league. Reggie Bush has a lot more value in a PPR (points per reception) league; Michael Turner, he of 11 career receptions, does not.
4) Don’t panic, and start or stay off the waves. Countless mistakes are made during the draft because the manager was panicking. Don’t be that dude. When your pick is on its way back to you, be sure to have at least two choices ready. This way, if the guy ahead of you takes the player you wanted, you don’t make a rash decision and end up taking a kicker in the 5th round.
A good deal of draft panic derives from position runs. This happens when a number of players of the same position are selected in a row, causing owners to think, “Holy crap! All the [QBs, WRs, TEs, etc] are going! I have to get one now!” The result is that they wind up with a not-as-good player, because they jumped on the wave too late.
My advice is to either stay off these or start them. I usually stay off rather than start them, just because it’s easier. But say you’re in the fifth round, and the guy a few picks before you takes Donovan McNabb. Then the next guy takes Matt Hasselbeck. Then the next guy takes Derek Anderson. Then it’s on. You’ll see a flurry of managers selecting QBs that shouldn’t be selected. In this situation, I would back off, take a RB or star WR, and wait a few rounds before taking a serviceable QB (Eli, Cutler, Garrard, etc).
Runs or waves most often happen late in the draft when people pick kickers or defenses. I usually completely ignore these, preferring instead to take a third RB or another QB. Which brings us to…
5) Fuck tight ends, kickers, and defenses. There’s something to be said for having Antonio Gates or Tony Gonzalez, but if you don’t get them in round 4 or 5, forget it. In a 16 round draft, I won’t take these three positions until rounds 12-16. And even then I don’t put much thought into it. I’d rather pick up a different defense every week and draft a backup RB with starting potential than take the Minnesota defense in the 8th. And this year, TE is very, very deep – it’s possible to grab a guy like Todd Heap or Owen Daniels several rounds after Messrs. Whitten, Gates and Gonzalez are gone.
6) Know your enemy. When you’re picking, it’s important to know who the guys around you already have on their teams. For example, say you have the 8th pick in a 10 person league. It’s the 3rd round, and you’re really looking for a QB, but you see that a nice WR has fallen to you. Check to see who the 9th and 10th owners have. If they already have a QB, take the WR with your 3rd round choice and then get the QB on the wrap in the 4th round, following the logic that if the guys picking after you already have a QB, they’re not going to take another one. This knowledge is key.
(This sounds confusing, but it’s not. Basically, if you’re deciding between two positions, look at the people picking after you to see what they need.)
7) Think “best available.” I’m all for filling out your roster positions, but at the same time I adhere to the principle of “best available,” meaning take the best available player, regardless of position. For example, say by the 4th round I’ve drafted two quality RBs and a decent WR. In Round 4, if I see another very good RB who I think has lasted too long, I will take him over a WR that I like, even though I’ve already drafted my two starting RBs and need another WR. Sure, it means that I have one RB too many, but it also means that my competitor won’t have this RB on his team. It’s a wise decision to draft best available because it means a) you’ll have trade bait and b) it’s offensive by being defensive.
This strategy is especially important this year, due to the unprecedented number of RB by committee (RBBC) situations. Previously, it was recommended to go RB-RB in the first two rounds. But this year, by my count about half the teams in the NFL will be spreading their carries out among several RBs. This, combined with the emergence of Tom “God” Brady and the incredible season of Randy Moss and the other talent at the top of the WR pool, means the RB-RB approach may not be the wisest course of action this year.
8 ) Handcuff, handcuff, handcuff. Spend the last few rounds making sure you draft the backups of your marquee players. Players get hurt and their backups step up and often times play well (especially in the case of RBs and, to a lesser extent, QBs). Some must-have handcuffs this year include Jacob Hester (SD), Ray Rice (Bal), Chester Taylor (Min), Ladell Betts (Was) and Lorenzo Booker (Phi), to name a few.
So there are your tips. Now onto the positions.
[Note: We will assume that this is a standard scoring league – four points for QB TD, six for others; no ppr; etc – with ten teams playing head-to-head, the position break-down being: QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR, TE, K, DEF. Lists will be broken into tiers, followed by an explanation, followed by players I think are overvalued (i.e. players I think who are going higher in drafts than their performance this year will merit) and players I think are undervalued (um, the opposite over overvalued).]
QUARTERBACK
1 Tom Brady, NE
2 Peyton Manning, Ind
3 Tony Romo, Dal
4 Drew Brees, NO
5 Carson Palmer, Cin
6 Ben Roethlisberger, Pit
7 Matt Hasselbeck, Sea
8 Donovan McNabb, Phi
9 Derek Anderson, Cle
10 Jay Cutler, Den
11 David Garrard, Jax
12 Matt Schaub, Hou
13 Eli Manning, NYG
14 Marc Bulger, StL
15 Philip Rivers, SD
16 Jake Delhomme, Car
17 Brett Favre, NYJ
18 Kurt Warner, Ari
19 Aaron Rodgers, GB
20 Jason Campbell, Was
21 John Kitna, Det
22 Vince Young, Ten
23 Jeff Garcia, TB
24 Trent Edwards, Buf
In a two QB league, Tom Brady is your sixth overall pick, and Peyton, Romo and possibly Brees should all be gone by the start of the third round (as of this writing, I’m not concerned about Manning’s injury and am convinced he’ll play Week One). In a one QB league, you have a lot more freedom and can grab a premier signal-caller later. But be wary – you do not want to end up with Jeff Garcia as your starting QB. According to Yahoo standard scoring, eleven of the top twenty in total points last year were QBs. In order to run with the big dogs in your league, it’s important to get a top-ten QB, so while you can wait a little bit before drafting one, don’t get too cute with the QB position.
Overvalued: As alluded to above, Big Ben is not going to throw 30+ TDs this year (if any of you would like to make a side bet on this, my email again is jason_at_jasonmulgrew.com). Following my “never pay for a career year” advice, I also wouldn’t be thrilled if Derek Anderson was my top QB. I’m not so sure Cleveland is as good as last year’s record indicates and am not a fan of any of the guys in that offense this year. Their inter-conference division is the NFC East and they have games at Jacksonville and against Denver, Houston and Indy. No thanks. I think you have a Jets fan in your league and I think he’s going to take Brett Favre before you do, and I think he’s going to get 24 touchdowns, 23 interceptions and 3800 yards.
Undervalued: “In the past five years, I’ve thrown 26, 22 (in 14 games), 24, 18 (in 12 games) and 28 TDs. I’m bald, kinda dorky, and play in the Northwest, but every year I get drafted way later than I should. My name is Matt Hasselbeck.” Carson Palmer threw a career high 20 INTs last year and could have a nice bounce-back year (he threw 18 INT in his rookie year, but only 12 and 13 in years after that). If you’re a gambler, sixteen games of Donovan McNabb is a top three QB. Marc Bulger shouldn’t be your starter, but you should draft him (he was the #3 QB in 2006 before last year’s injuries and is worth the risk). Schaub is healthy and could be sumpin’ special. If I have to read one more puff piece about Jason Campbell and Jim Zorn, I’m going to consider them legally married.
RUNNING BACK
1 LaDainian Tomlinson, SD*
2 Brian Westbrook, Phi*
3 Adrian Peterson, Min*
4 Joseph Addai, Ind*
5 Stephen Jackson, Stl*
6 Marion Barber, Dal*
7 Clinton Portis, Was*
8 Frank Gore, SF*
9 Marshawn Lynch, Buf*
10 Larry Johnson, KC*
11 Ryan Grant, GB*
12 Maurice Jones-Drew, Jac
13 Willis McGahee, Bal
14 Reggie Bush, NO
15 Willie Parker, Pit
16 Edgerrin James, Ari*
17 Michael Turner, Atl*
18 Thomas Jones, NYJ*
19 Jamal Lewis, Cle*
19.1 Brandon Jacobs, NYG
20 Laurence Maroney, NE
21 Ronnie Brown, Mia
23 Earnest Graham, TB
24 Darren McFadden, Oak
25 Matt Forte, Chi*
26 Lendale White, Ten
27 Fred Taylor, Jax
28 Chris Johnson, Ten
29 DeAngelo Willams, Car
30 Jonathan Stewart, Car
31 Ray Rice, Bal
32 Ricky Williams, Mia
33 Selvin Young, Den
34 Rashard Mendenhall, Pit
35 Kevin Smith, Det
36 Justin Fargas, Oak
37 Felix Jones, Dal
38 Julius Jones, Sea
39 Maurice Morris, Sea
40 Chris Perry, Cin
41 Steve Slaton, Hou
42 Chestor Taylor, Min
43 Jerious Norwood, Atl
44 Rudi Johnson, Cin
45 Ahman Green, Hou
A “*” indicates an RB that will not be splitting carries or involved in a running back by committee situation. The simplest way to view these rankings is that the first tier are the sure things and should be the first five picks in your draft, the second tier is the almost sure things and should be gone by the mid-second at the latest, and the third tier is where it starts getting dangerous – these are high-ceiling RBs, but face committee situations (Bush, MJD, Jacobs, Maroney), injury concerns or old age (Johnson, McGahee, Edge, Lewis, Jones) or are limited experience guys (Grant, Turner).
My strategy is that, depending on the size of the league, I like to walk out of a draft with 4-5 RBs. I’ll try to grab at least one guy from tier one or two above, at least one guy from tier three, one rookie and one handcuff to my top RB. This way you cover all your bases: you’ve got two starters, a back-up/handcuff, and a rookie who just may surprise you.
Overvalued: Call me a homer, but give me the #2 pick and I’m taking Brian Westbrook. I may eat my words, but to me he’s more a sure thing than AP, and a sure thing is what you’re looking for in your first round pick. I’m down on Barber a bit – his physical style and the fact that he’s never had more than 204 carries in a season means that Felix Jones, a favorite of Jerry Jones, could be involved in the running game way more than people think. Here are five guys I would rather not draft:
Larry Johnson – KC stinks and so does their o-line. LJ is coming off major surgery and is older than people realize (29). Could be great, but too much of a question mark.
Ryan Grant – GB caught lightening in a bottle last year with Favre having a career year and their defense playing great, and I don’t think they can repeat their performance. This could come back to haunt me, but I’d rather not be bothered with this guy or his team situation.
Brandon Jacobs – Too much going on it that backfield with Ward and Bradshaw.
Laurence Maroney – One dimensional back in the system that does not favor single, dominant RBs (Corey Dillon’s monster 2004 being the exception). The signing of Lamont Jordan – to go along with Sammy Morris and Kevin Faulk – doesn’t make Maroney any more appealing. He’ll go higher than he should because New England scored 15,000 points last year.
Darren McFadden – Someone’s going to take him way before I’m ready to.
Undervalued: I almost don’t want to say this, since I’ve only had one of my four drafts this year, but where are people shitting on Willie Parker so much? Yeah, he only had 2 TDs last year, and yeah, Mendenhall should see some goal-line carries, but this guy is going way, way later than he should be. I’m not necessarily saying he’ll return to 2006 form (1494 yards, 13 rushing TDs and 3 receiving TDs), but is it much of a stretch to give him 1300 yards and 8-9 TDs? And this guy is being drafted as the RB19?
I also previously liked Thomas Jones, but now that Favre’s on the team, he may be a bit overvalued. Other guys I like and think are being undervalued are Lynch (beast), McGahee (stock has dropped due to injury, but the talent is there – just be sure to grab Rice as your handcuff), and Edge James (expect another quiet 1200-7 season), to name a few. Of the rookies, I’m loving Chris Johnson, mostly because Lendale White likes mayo more than football, and Felix Jones, for reasons stated above.
One last thing: there is real value to be had in a few choice backfields (in order): Cincinnati, Houston and Seattle. Someone’s going to rise up and be a very, very good RB on each of these teams, so watch them closely. If I had to guess, I’d say Perry, Slaton and Jones.
WIDE RECEIVER
1 Randy Moss, NE
2 Terrell Owens, Dal
3 Reggie Wayne, Ind
4 Larry Fitzgerald, Ari
5 Braylon Edwards, Cle
6 Andre Johnson, Hou
7 Marques Colston, NO
8 T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Cin
9 Torry Holt, StL
10 Chad Johnson, Cin
11 Roy Williams, Det
12 Plaxico Burress, NYG
13 Anquan Boldin, Ari
14 Santonio Holmes, Pit
15 Calvin Johnson, Det
16 Anquan Boldin, Ari
17 Steve Smith, Car
18 Jerricho Cotchery, NYJ
19 Wes Welker, NE
20 Roddy White, Atl
21 Donald Driver, GB
22 Brandon Marshall, Den
23 Nate Burleson, Sea
24 Lee Evans, Buf
25 Laverneus Coles, NYJ
26 Dwayne Bowe, KC
27 Marvin Harrison, Ind
28 Hines Ward, Pit
29 Chris Chambers, SD
30 Santana Moss, Was
31 Greg Jennings, GB
32 Ted Ginn, Mia
33 Anthony Gonzalez, Ind
34 Joey Galloway, TB
35 Derrick Mason, Bal
36 Reggie Brown, Phi
37 Bernard Berrian, Min
38 Javon Walker, Oak
39 Mushin Muhammed, Car
40 Patrick Crayton, Dal
Oh, wide receiver – the bane of the fantasy manager’s existence and certainly the hardest position to predict. Once you get back those top 25-30, who will make up the bulk of your league’s WR1 and WR2, you might as well pick out a hat if you’re trying to find the ideal WR3 and WR4 for your team.
The easiest way to circumvent this? If you’re starting three WRs, grab two from the top 25 or so listed above, or even higher. In a one QB league, I’d be inclined to draft some combination of three RBs and three WRs in the first six rounds, eschewing the higher profile TEs (more on this later) and the top half dozen QBs to make sure I’m loaded at those two positions. And this year, considering the decline of the single RB and the rise of the RBBC, I’m personally going to be focusing my efforts more on landing two big-time WRs. For example, I’d feel more comfortable after three rounds with Westbrook, Reggie Wayne and Andre Johnson than with Westbrook, Brandon Jacobs and Earnest Graham, as in the first scenario I’d use many of my later picks to grab high-ceiling rookie RBs or RBCC guys
Overvalued: Steve Smith. And not just because he’s serving a two game suspension. Here’s an email I sent to my roommate Mark, a huge fantasy football guy, just this week:
“You know what? I’ve never been a big Steve Smith fan. If you look at his career stats, he honestly had ONE great year: 2005, when he had 103 catches, 1563 yards and 12 TDs. Otherwise, in the three productive seasons around that (03, 06, 07 – he was hurt in 04), he’s averaged 85 catches, 1100 yards, 7-8 TDs. Numbers for a good WR2, but not for one of the first five WR off the board. He gets by totally on name rep – the Mighty Mite stuff and because he’s brash – and this year, with the two game suspension, there’s no way I’m getting him, since he always goes higher than where I’d take him.
I’m telling you, Steve Smith as WR1 is a myth. Now watch as he goes for 1600 yards and 16 TDs this year.”
I’m down on Braylon Edwards because he’s on the Browns, who I think will be quite bad. Down also on Chad Johnson (injured and typically scores in bunches), Plaxico (SB hangover for the whole team), Roddy White (crappy QB on bad, bad team), Dwayne Bowe (same), Greg Jennings (Favre hangover).
Undervalued: Everyone raving about Calvin Johnson and not talking much about Roy Williams – this could be the year he vaults into the top ten or higher. I love Anquan Boldin, whose upset essentially because his teammate Larry Fitzgerald makes oodles more money than he does. I’ll be targeting Donald Driver, Nate Burleson, Hines Ward, Ted Ginn and Mushin Muhammed in all of my leagues (I bet I’ll end up with at least two of these guys on every team I own).
TIGHT END
1 Jason Whitten, Dal
2 Kellen Winslow, Cle
3 Tony Gonzalez, KC
4 Chris Cooley, Was
5 Dallas Clark, Ind
6 Antonio Gates, SD
7 Jeremy Shockey, NO
8 Tony Scheffler, Den
9 Owen Daniels, Hou
10 Todd Heap, Bal
11 Vernon Davis, SF
12 LJ Smith, Phi
13 Ben Watson, NE
14 Heath Miller, Pit
15 Alge Crumpler, Ten
16 Dustin Keller, NYJ
17 Greg Olsen, Chi
The tier system looks weird with only Shockey by his lonesome in the second one, but hear me out. This year, the cream of the crop is very good. To land one of those top six guys, you’re going to have to use a pick in the first six rounds. Each of them produced between 150 and 126 points, which to put it in perspective, would put them around the same value as WR15 to WR25.
Shortly after the Big Six, Jeremy Shockey should be taken. Count me among the Shockey believers – he couldn’t have landed in a better offensive system and as a complete dickhead, he’d love nothing more to show up the Giants for disrespecting him – but since there are a number of believers, I’m guessing he’s going to be drafted before I’m ready to take him.
That leaves us with that third tier. There are a number of attractive options here that can be drafted rather late, from TEs returning from injury (Todd Heap, LJ Smith) to guys who can really separate themselves this year (Scheffler, Daniels, Davis) to those available at bargain-basement prices who could provide good returns (Crumpler, Watson, Keller).
Because it’s a short list, I won’t do over/undervalued, but here are some thoughts:
- I have Gates so low because I’m concerned about this toe. If I’m going to use a high pick on a TE, a position at which I start only one player per week and usually carry only one, I’m going to use it on the safest bet possible. You can overcome an injury to a RB or WR or QB because you’ll carry so many on your team. If you use a top six pick on a TE and he misses time, you’re in trouble. If you do draft Gates, I strongly suggest grabbing a mid-range backup like Crumpler or LJ Smith.
- I have absolutely no statistical evidence to back this up, but I think Chris Cooley could be gigantic this year.
- I have absolutely no statistical evidence to back this up, but I think Alge Crumpler could be pretty dang good this year. While Vince Young is no Michael Vick, he’s not too far off.
- I say this every year, but maybe this is the one time it comes true: you could do worse than LJ Smith very, very late as your starting TE. He’s a two-time Pro Bowler who got the franchise tag, coming off an injury with something to prove. McNabb has said numerous times in the media this off-season that he wants LJ more involved in the red zone. I’m not saying you should expect 1000 yards and 10 TDs, but you could get something like 600 and 6 or 7, which would put him right around TE7 territory. Not bad for a guy who, according to one site I visit, is on average going in Round 16.
DEFENSE
No rankings here, as I’m one of the most anti-DEF guys I know. I never take a defense before the last few rounds, because, unless you count special teams, too much of it is based on a fluke – a defensive touchdown is worth six points, a huge value, and defensive touchdowns are impossible to predict, even for ball-hawking, high takeaway teams.
For example, here’s the 2007 top five teams in takeaways. The number in parentheses represents how many defensive touchdowns that team scored.
San Diego 48 (5)
Indianapolis 35 (2)
Cincinnati 35 (3)
Tampa Bay 35 (2)
Detroit 35 (4)
And here’s last year’s top five in defensive touchdowns. The number in parentheses represents how many takeaways that team had.
Minnesota 8 (31)
Arizona 6 (29)
New England 6 (31)
San Diego 5 (48)
NYG 5 (25)
NO 5 (23)
What does this tell us? A lot of takeaways does not always equal a lot of defensive touchdowns, and a lot of touchdowns does not always equal a lot of takeaways. San Diego had over twice as many takeaways as New Orleans, but the same amount of defensive touchdowns. Picking a defense is basically a crapshoot, so I’d rather draft one later and use a higher pick not on San Diego, Minnesota or New England, but on a potential break-out WR4 or RB3.
Want more proof? Last year’s number one defense scored 200 points. Last year’s tenth best defense scored 146. That’s a difference of 3.3 points a game. Not entirely inconsequential, but does that 3.3 points per game make it worth drafting a defense in Round 11 as opposed to Round 16? Hardly.
So I recommended two strategies for drafting defenses:
1) The “Who Plays the Shit Team” Strategy. Every week, someone’s going to have to play against Chicago, Miami, Baltimore, Atlanta and Kansas City. Those are five teams that should not put up very strong offensive numbers this year. Every week, simply rotate whatever defense is playing against the guys, preferably one that’s playing at home (i.e. play Carolina when Chicago goes to visit them in Week 2). This will allow you to pick up a defense in the second to last round and use a higher pick on a potential high-ceiling or upside position player.
2) The “Seattle at Home” Strategy. Most fantasy sites have the Seattle defense ranked around the tenth to twelfth best defense, which means you should be able to draft them fairly late. Seattle is a very inhospitable place to play for opposing teams and last year the Seahawks only gave up 13.8 points per game at home. In 2006, the number was inflated because of some shoot-outs (20 points per game), but in 2005, it was down again to 12.8 points per game. Therefore, play Seattle’s defense whenever it’s home and sit them on the road. If you play this properly, you could potentially wind up with a top-five defensive numbers.
(Hell, combine the two strategies – Seattle at home all the time and then whoever’s playing the shit teams above when they’re away.)
KICKER
I’m not going to rank kickers, because under no circumstances should you take one before the very last round of your draft. Some fun with kicker numbers: Last year, according to Yahoo default scoring, the kicker with the most points scored 156. The kicker who was tenth in points scored 132 points. That’s a difference of 1.5 points per game. Can’t say this enough: kickers do not matter. Grab one in the last round.
************
That’s all I got for you. Good luck in your draft and should you win any prize money because of this, please remember who spent a week and about fifteen combined hours putting together the fantasy football preview you used.
I’m fine with this. Really. I’ve probably have written over a million words on this here site and have been doing this for a long, long time, so I can take anything dished out, as I focus not so much on the vitriol spewed by strangers but on the sheer luck that has enabled me to make an actual career of poop/fat/dick jokes, without much talent to speak of, with no training aside from a creative writing course taken pass/fail in the second semester of my senior year, and with an incredible penchant for long, run-on sentences and a near-daily misuse of semicolons; and colons.
Most of the time these attacks have come from people I’ve never met, but in some rare cases, they’ve come from people I know. For example, a pseudo-ex once wrote a post on her blog that my friends found particularly spectacular (my buddies Kyle and Ben continued to check on her blog for the very reason of discovering such nuggets). And while all of these attacks I’ve read with a grain of salt and actually found entertaining, this one hurt ol’ Uncle Jason – at least one part of it. It wasn’t when she called me a self-absorbed dramatic hypochondriac (guilty!). Nor was it the part about me wondering why women will only have sex with me while they’re blacked out (I can tell you that I spend no time wondering about that, since the answer is pretty self-evident). It wasn’t even when she said that I’d have a midlife crisis because of my insecurities about my hair loss and little bird and will ultimately get blown by a man, love it, and pronounce my homosexuality to the world (she’s a regular Nostradamus – it’s like Buster with the cheese wheel, so impressive that I’m not even mad). No, it was none of these that pierced my armor. Instead, it was when she suggested that I’d gain back all the weight that I had recently lost.
Back then, I had gone on a diet and dropped a bunch of lbs, going from 232.5 to 196 in exactly two months. It was probably the most impressive thing I’ve ever done in my life and immediately after my two month experiment was up, I made a solemn promise to myself that I’d never gain the weight back. While 196 was a little much (or rather, a little low), I’d allow myself to get up to a comfortable fighting weight, somewhere between 205 and 210, because if 75% of your universe of jokes is about how fat you are, it doesn’t go over so well if you’re 6’1″ and 196 pounds.
That was just about two years ago. After the diet, I stopped weighing myself and going to the gym five times a week, but adjusted my lifestyle to maintain that ideal weight. I walked about 3.5 miles to work every day and still hit up the gym every so often; changed my nutrition slightly, forsaking my bacon-egg-cheese sandwich/Reuben/chicken parm meal plan for a more reasonable bagel/cereal/chicken parm plan; and tried to the extent possible to reduce my late-night gorging (alcohol consumption was not restricted before, during, or after the diet). I did this for two years, using all the new clothes I bought while at my thinnest as my barometer – as long as they still fit, I was fine.
But then I moved to LA.
In case you haven’t heard this elsewhere, Los Angeles is not the most walkable city (walking being my main and favored form of exercise). For the past two-plus months, my daily walking consists of to the car in the garage at home, from the car in the garage at the office, reverse, then repeat. I live in the suburbs, so for miles in any direction, there are nothing but houses, with maybe a strip mall thrown in there somewhere. Even my walk to the beach – not that I go the beach, but there’s a decent cheesesteak place near there – about a mile and a half, is houses and houses and houses and houses and houses and then suddenly ocean. So I’m not taking the leisure walks here that I did in NYC, when I’d wander around Villages, staring at the beautiful women, gathering masturbatory material for later, and somewhere in there stopping for a cupcake.
Also, in case you haven’t heard this elsewhere, Los Angeles has got to be the fast-food capital of the world. Not only are there In-N-Out burgers seemingly everywhere, but on my drive to work alone there are two Carls Jrs, three Jack-in-the-Boxes, a McDonald’s, a Burger King, two El Pollo Locos, a Wienerschnizel, three Taco Bells (bestill my heart!), and something utterly frightening called Yoshinoya Beef Bowl. Worse, because it’s summer, many of these places are featuring specialty milkshakes. Carl’s Jr now has a Cap’n Crunch milkshake, which nearly put me into a diabetic coma after I ate it, and also a Banana Cream Pie milkshake that made me so sick a few weekends ago that I had to bring a pillow into the bathroom – around the fourth shit/vomit gargoyle I think I fell into anaplactic shock.
Back in the day right after I ended my diet, I went shopping with my friend Nicole. This was a big, big mistake. I spent about $1200 on five (yes, five) fancy shirts. I did this because when I am rich I will do whatever a woman says and subsequently I almost immediately regretted the purchase. I never really wore the fancy shirts (I bought other, less fancy shirts as well) and to this day, three of them sit in my closet with their tags still on. I just don’t really care about fashion – for the past fifteen years, my wardrobe has been determined by what’s on sale and in XL at The Gap/Banana Republic – and could not bring myself to wear douchey shirts from John Varvatos. “John Varvatos” sounds like the douchebag in college who drove around in a Land Rover and had a cell phone before everyone else.
But now that I live in LA, I’m required to up my douchebag quota, lest I be run out of town. So last week, I took one of these fancy-pants JV shirts out of the closet, pulled off the tags, pulled it on me, and…
It didn’t fit.
Like, not even close.
This was a shock. Though I wasn’t stepping on the scale every day, all of my other clothes fit just fine. Had these shirts shrunk from disuse?, I wondered. Or was it that the clothes I have been wearing have, like the earth’s crust, been slowly moving and growing to keep up with my ever-increasing girth? A sad thought, indeed.
So I decided that I’d get back on the diet train. Like a real, actual diet, with reduced calorie intake and gym visits and the whole nine yards. I spent over a grand for those d-bag shirts. If I wanted to, I was sure as shit going to be able to wear them. But before I was going away to skinny town, I was going to have a Fat Boy Heaven weekend.
To that end, if it was possible to overdose on bacon, I would have this weekend. Friday we had a small bbq at my house, at which I made half-pound cheeseburgers – with bacon and cheese cooked into the middle of them. The recipe comes from my friend (not Site Guy) Brendan and involves making little balls of crumbled bacon and shredded cheese held together by cooled and coagulated bacon grease (yum!). These balls are then placed between two beef patties, the beef patties edges are sealed off, and the burgers are cooked as they normally are. Each burger was about a half pound and was so delicious that instead of growling, my belly actually said “Bro, more burgers” for most of Saturday. On Saturday night I had grand plans but decided instead to stay in to have a Beers of World tour in my house. See, we have a beer fridge in my house. Yes, I live with two people and all of us are in our late 20′s and we have a beer fridge. Laugh if you will (I did), but this is very useful, as my roommates Mark and Selena like to cook and the main fridge is full with foods and such. This is new for me; my fridge for the past few years in NYC consisted of pizza boxes, cans of red bull and Budweiser, and various kinds of mustard. Because I’m desperate for a hobby, I’ve been buying different kinds of beer, the result being that the beer fridge now has about ten different kinds of beer in it. On Saturday night, I drank eight of these varieties (more than one bottle, in most cases). My hangover Sunday was…not good.
On Monday morning, after a final Sunday night meal of Thai (nowhere near as good as Sea) and Ben & Jerry’s (at least they have Oatmeal Cookie Chunk out here), I stepped on the scale. When I started my previous diet, I was 232.5. I went all the way down to 196. My skinniest shirt didn’t fit any longer, but most of my other clothes fit just fine. I figured I’d weigh in at about 217, 218, leaving my 10 pounds to knock off to get to my fighting weight and into my d-bag shirts.
The scale read 227.
Ugh. Not my finest moment.
Four hours later, I was signing up for a gym membership. Nine hours later, I was on a treadmill. Twenty-four hours later, my legs, I believe, are partially broken, or otherwise have been poisoned. Though not a doctor, based on my performance on the treadmill, I am currently not healthy enough for sexual activity. Just in case you were thinking of seducing me. Probably shouldn’t. My heart will burst.
Not only that, on my way out of my new gym, I was railroaded. I stood there, panting, sweating, waiting for my new ID card, when a trainer, a fit and attractive woman in her 30′s said, “Your picture came out good.” I said thanks and introduced myself and she did the same, saying “So you’re new here?” I went into my just-moved-here-from-NYC spiel and she said she was a new trainer at the gym. She then asked if I got free personal training sessions for joining and before I could answer, the guy who signed me up sidled up to me and said, “Yep – he actually gets two!” Before I knew it, the woman trainer had a book out, I had signed up for a free training session with her the following week, and she was telling about all the martial arts that she’s studied and how she’d like to try boxing with me.
Well.
Though I had already been penciled in for the session, I knew there was no way I was going to go through with it. Not because I have anything against women or women trainers – I’m sure that this woman not only knows her shit, but also could beat my ass – but because of my dad. My dad, all things considered, is a pretty liberal guy. I could come home with a black boyfriend named Felix and he wouldn’t bat an eye. Alternatively, I could come home with an eyepatch and one less arm and he wouldn’t say a thing. But being taught to fight by a girl…this would put him over the edge. My dad – the same man who’s been stabbed, has had all his teeth knocked out in various donnybrooks, who’s even been arrested for attempted murder – learning that his first-born son is being taught to fight by a girl. I almost want to erase this paragraph so he doesn’t get wind of it. Let’s just change the subject.
The point: I’m back on the health wagon and will be chubby no more. I’m happy that after only one day of dieting that featured two solid poops, three square meals, and the worst under-30 performance on a treadmill in Beverly Hills history, I’m already down to 224. As long as I stay away from those bacon cheeseburgers, I should continue dropping the lbs without a problem.
Self-absorbed? Sure. Unable to convince a woman with a blood-alcohol level under .18 to have sex with me? You bet. A gay-in-waiting? Come back in a few, but it’s likely. But a supreme fatty who squandered his greatest achievement and over a grand on shirts he can’t wear anymore? Not for all the Cap’n Crunch milkshakes in the world.
For those of you not in the know, creamed chipped beef is pretty much like it sounds. It is a creamy white mixture made primarily of whole milk and butter, made thick by corn starch to reach the consistency of pudding, with thin, small slices (chips, if you will) of dried, salted beef – something like bologna, but a bit saltier, not as pungent, and even cheaper. It is typically considered a breakfast food and typically served on white toast, home fries, English muffins or bagels. This is what it looks like. I admit, it’s not the prettiest thing in the world – I once dated a girl who could not watch me eat it (I’ll give you one guess as to how that relationship turned out) – but it’s delicious. Again, the main ingredients are milk, butter and beef. See anything wrong there? Me neither.
Also called “shit on a shingle” (or S.O.S.), creamed chipped beef was a staple in the military during World War II. I don’t know if this is when my grandfather discovered it or if he had eaten it prior to the service, but I know that growing up my dad and his nine brothers and sisters had creamed chipped beef for dinner once a week. My grandmother would make a giant cauldron of the stuff and I imagine her plopping it down in the center of the family dining room table in their small, three-bedroom South Philly rowhome, the kids lining up with a bowl and some white toast, and my grandmother ladling it out to each of them, soup kitchen-style. These are the types of beautiful memories borne out of the combination of dairy products and low-quality meat.
CCB is prevalent and readily available in Philadelphia. Every diner I know of has it, nestled somewhere on their breakfast menus in that netherworld between omelets and “from the griddle” (the pancakes, French toast and waffles neck of the woods). I can’t explain why CCB is all over Philly – it’s not the indigenous food that one thinks of when they think of Philly, like cheesesteaks or pretzels or scrapple. But then again, I can’t explain why cheesesteaks, pretzels or scrapple are considered Philly foods, except, like CCB, they are cheap and bad for you.
(Cheap and bad for me – sounds like the criteria I followed when choosing most of my ex-girlfriends. Zing!)
Just as I can’t explain why CCB is all of Philly, I’m even more confused as to why I haven’t been able to find it outside of the Philly area – anywhere. As I mentioned, it was a staple in the service during the war; surely WWII was fought by men outside of a 40-mile radius of Philly, no? And surely, some of these men must have gone back to their communities all across America and at some point had a hankering for CCB, right? I mean, I’m not talking crazy here, am I?
Well, apparently I am. I could not find CCB in Boston during college. I could not find CCB in NYC – 90 miles from Center City, Philadelphia – during my seven years there. A pseudo-ex even went so far as to write into New York Magazine or the New Yorker looking for CCB, and the magazine published her letter, confirming that nope, there was no CCB in NYC. I ask, where is the fucking justice? I’ve been all over this dang country and nowhere have I found creamed chipped beef on a menu outside of a forty mile radius of Philadelphia. Shit just ain’t right.
So I imagine my delight when I heard through a grapevine that a place in my new town of Los Angeles serves creamed chipped beef. Holy geez. Finally, something to do in this God-forsaken shit hole of a city – drive 25 miles into Hollywood alone on a Saturday afternoon to eat food that most people can’t look at, let alone eat. God, I’m living it up here in LA.
(Again, good decision to move out of NYC. Seriously, top notch. I think I’m getting a haircut soon, so I’m pretty pumped about that – should kill a solid twenty minutes. Maybe after that I’m repeatedly slam my arm in my car door. Why not, right?)
The place is called Doughboy’s (http://www.doughboys.net/) and, sure enough, CCB is right there on their menu, under the “egg stuff” as “S.O.S.” It reads a little fancier than the CCB I grew up with – I don’t think you can even find asiago bread in Philly (I had four breads growing up – white, hoagie, hot dog, burger) – but the key component, the “rich creamed beef mixture” was there. So a-driving to Hollywood I went.
What I say next might shock you, so both be warned and please accept my apology in advance: Minutes after being served this CCB, I decided then and there to give up on both God and Love – forever. No longer will I apply any sort of moral code to myself because I have been betrayed too many times by the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, and all their damned cronies. A man can only be pushed so far before being compelled to react to that which pains him with the ferocity of a wild animal (a wild animal who just drove all the way to Hollywood and who’s really hungry for CCB). I would have also given up on Life, but instead, as soon as the CCB was put in front of me, I promised to dedicate what life I have left to Destruction, Anger, Hate, Fuck, and, if I have time, Poo.
What sat before was not CCB, in the same way that I am not Madonna. Yes, Madonna and I are both human beings. And yes, Madonna and I have both gotten down with the brown on numerous occasions. But that – and our affinity for pointy bras – is where our similarities end. This Doughboys’ CCB was food. And yes, it was on the breakfast part of the menu. And sure, it looked bad for you. But I know CCB, and this…this was no CCB.
First, it was brown. No idea where this came from. Second, there were not chips of the salted beef, but rather crumbles of what appeared to be ground beef, similar to what one would find in a soft taco from Taco Bell. There should be no “third”, since I what I’ve just described already is far beyond what anyone would consider creamed chipped beef, but here’s your third: IT TASTED LIKE BALLS. Literally. Well, I can’t say “literally”, since I’ve never tasted balls (honestly). But I have smelled my balls many times – including several times today – and if I had to put that smell into food form, it would taste (and perhaps even look) like this CCB from Doughboys.
I fear that if I write much more about this experience my body will seize up and my eyes will cross because of all the rage. Suffice it to say, the rest of the experience was not pleasant. I tried to salvage the afternoon by perhaps buying some cake to take home, but the overwhelming condescension pouring out of the flamingly homosexual waiter/actor/hipster because I was overweight and unironically wearing a pub crawl t-shirt was too much to bear, so I paid the check and left. Adding insult to injury, I nearly shit myself on the drive home (Note to self: Some necessary purchases for the car now that we’re driving all the time – toilet paper; extra boxers and pants; firecrackers to throw at other drivers; towels to catch ejaculate on that long stretch along Aviation where average speed is 3mph).
So my CCB experience, like most of my experiences here in LA, was a spectacular failure. Also like most of my experiences here in LA, it involved a lot of traffic, a long drive, something that made me nearly shit myself, and a gay man who’s mad at me because I’m chubby and/or dress poorly.
Well, at least life out here is predictable.
I have made a tremendous mistake.
Moving from NYC to Los Angeles may not rank up there with, say, millions of Jews fleeing Russia into Germany after World War One to escape persecution (whoops!), but on a personal level, me moving to LA is much worse (hey, I didn’t know any of those Jews).
I honestly don’t even know where to start, how to express the anger and self-loathing that has built up in me over the past few weeks. So let’s just jump right in and try to make sense of it later. We’ll start with the least aggravating and move to the most aggravating.
My commute is homicide-inducing.
I am living in a lovely little beach community called Redondo Beach. I live in a house with two roommates, both people I knew before moving out here, Mark and Selena. My original plan was to move to LA and crash with friends until I found a place on craigslist, thinking that it would be easier to find a place here on the ground as opposed to over email and realizing that what very little I now owned could easily be stored in my Town Car. However, their third roommate, Chris, called me a week or two before I moved to LA and said he was moving out. I knew the area (a little bit), knew the roommates and the rent was ungodly cheap, so I decided to take his spot.
(Full disclosure: I’ve actually made out with Selena in the past, but so far we’ve passed through several weekends of me being drunk and living in the same house as her and I’ve yet to be removed from the premises in handcuffs. I am also pretty sure that I’m not being followed by detectives from SVU as they try to build a case on me, since for the most part my actions speak for themselves and no case-building is necessary. Rest assured that if anything should happen, Site Guy Brendan will let you know. Also, I’m innocent. Probably.)
Every other time I’ve visited Los Angeles I’ve worked New York hours; that is, 6:30am to 2:30pm LA time. Therefore, as long as I stuck to these hours, my commutes to and from work, no matter who I was crashing with and where they lived, were pretty easy. Also, the novelty of driving, something I’ve rarely done for that past eight years in NYC, made dealing with the commute possible. I was just happy to be in a car, listening to the radio, laughing at people who were honking at me while I drove slowly and confusedly through the streets of LA; me driving on these trips was not dissimilar to Balki driving through Los Angeles, straight off the boat from Mypos.
Now however I work LA hours, 9am to 5pm local time (read: the very peak traffic times). My office is 15.6 miles from my current home, not an unreasonable distance in the grand scheme of things; I would guess that the large majority of Americans commute farther every day. But in Los Angeles, at 9am and at 5pm, 15.6 miles is not so much a “reasonable commute” but rather a test of endurance and sanity and an exercise in pure white hot hate.
To travel those 15.6 miles in the morning, it takes me an average of 1 hour and 25 minutes. In the evening, the commute’s a little better – I can be home in about 1 hour 15 minutes. That’s 2 hours and 40 minutes to travel 31.2 miles every single day (well, five days a week). I start my work day with an hour and a half in the car, and I end my work day with an hour and a half in the car. Nearly 1/8th of my day is spent in traffic. Three hours of my life every day not only gone, but dissolved in a sea of metal, heat, and fumes; incompetent drivers, bad radio stations, and angry people.
It’s hard for me to quantify or qualify how slow and miserable my commute is, driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic, moving less than 10mph for 90% of the drive. I would like to invite all of you car-owners out there to take your car out for a spin, drive 12mph for 90 minutes, then report back about to whether you came home and beat your wife and kids or dumped your boyfriend/girlfriend. I’d really be interested to know, because after doing this commute for three weeks, I think I know why marriages fail and children grow up goth/sluts/theater majors – it is impossible for a rational, sane human being to sustain any reasonable level of happiness in such traffic. This unhappiness must then be deflected onto spouses or children and, long story short, this is a big part of the reason why we have "Girls Gone Wild" and 85% of all memoirs ever written.
(Not to mention, do you know how hard it is to change lanes in bumper-to-bumper traffic while driving a Lincoln Town Car? There are apartment buildings with better maneuverability than this car. The blindspots on it are so large that the sun itself could descend upon the earth and into the lane of traffic next to me, and if it wasn’t immediately to my left or right, I wouldn’t see it. When I do change lanes, I essentially look at the lane I’m going into, shrug and say “Meh”, and then blindly dart over. There is one point in the commute when I have to quickly pass over three lanes in only a short distance and I have so little idea if any cars are coming, I instinctively shut off my radio or iPod at this point, hoping as I blindly move the car to the right that if I’m going to hit anyone they’re going to honk, so their honking would alert me to either move back into my former lane, stop, or brace myself for impact. It is unquestionably only a matter of time before I kill a bicyclist. I’m so serious about this that for a moment I contemplated not writing that sentence, for fear that when it does actually happen, I’ll look even more like a monster. But you should know before it happens and hits the papers that it’s not my fault. Honest.)
In NYC, I used to walk to work. It would take me 28 minutes and I loved it – I got exercise, prepared for/unwound from a day at the office, and got to see the city coming to life in the morning and preparing for leisure in the evening. I loved each of those 28 minutes. Now, by the time I get to work I want to put my fist through my computer, and by the time I get home at night I want to jerk off, take a Xanax and go to bed. Los Angeles. Awesome. But even if I did want to do something when I came home from work, I couldn’t, because…
I am bored to shit.
Redondo is close to the beach. And the rent is cheap. So this is good.
But I am not a beach person. I am chubby, have no muscle mass to speak of, am so pale that parts of my body are actually see-through, and am approaching the time of my life when the hair on my back exceeds the hair on my head. So for me, living in Redondo to take advantage of the beach is the same thing as living near a poison factory to take advantage of the poison (“Well, at least you got the poison in Redondo, right?”).
But the cheap rent is key. A big reason why I moved out of NYC is that I simply couldn’t afford it any longer. I’m not poor – good lord, please don’t ever mistake me for a poor – but spending $2000 a month in rent and paying $1000 a month on top of that to live LA one week a month (flight, rental car, drinks for those letting me crash, occasional hotel room, etc) – is not going to allow for much savings. So now that I live in LA, my monthly “shelter” expenses have gone from $3000 to $700. This is a lot of extra money and I plan to save some in order to return to NYC and be able to afford a slave (wish me luck); the rest will go mostly to drugs and trinkets. In addition, I moved from a two-bedroom apartment in Little Italy/Chinatown that flooded with feces every six weeks to a three-bedroom, two bath home in Southern California with a yard. In theory, sounds great.
But you know what? It might turn out to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done. I could go on and on about how I live in the suburbs and it’s terrible, but here’s an attempt at being word-efficient (and name-droppy): Heath Ledger died one block from my old apartment; now, I can’t walk to a bar.
Look, I don’t think I’m very high-maintenance. It really doesn’t take much to make me happy. I basically need three things: meat, beer and music or sports (I would add boobies to this list, but we’ll get to that later). And much like your average house pet, it doesn’t take much to entertain me: some jangling keys will usually keep me occupied for hours. So really, I’m not asking for much here. Christ, one of my top five favorite activities is getting drunk on Amtrak trains, so you have to understand that I am a simple, simple man.
But I am bored to shit in LA. Absolutely, 100% bored to shit. I live smack in the middle of the suburbs. I shop at a supermarket. If I want a burger and a beer, I have to drive. Within one square mile of my place, there is nothing but houses – I mean this literally, no stores, no bars, not even any landmarks – just an endless sea of suburban houses. My closest friend is Brian, who is 12 miles away and – no joke – last time I was in his neighborhood, on his street, actually, I sideswiped a parked car so bad that I’m not sure I can ever go back (I’m not sure how many black 1996 Lincoln Town Cars with PA plates there are roaming around Venice). My favorite night in LA was a few weeks back when my friends had a welcome party for me at a bar in Santa Monica, which is 15 or so miles from my place. The cab there was $55, my bar tab was $170, and the cab back was $80 – I could have gone and fucked two black chicks in Vegas for about $40 more.
This is how bad it is: Since I have nothing to do during the week, I’ve been spending more time at work – just because I want to. I figure I could go home and do nothing, or I could get an hour or two closer to sleep at work and take care of some stuff. So what happened? I got a raise. I got a fucking raise that I didn’t even ask for, because since I moved to LA, I’m in the office at 8:30am every morning and never out before 7pm. While my bosses think this is because I’m working harder (and admittedly, I am doing more work), it’s really because I have so little to do at home that I prefer to be in my office – which is terribly, terribly sad for someone who used to start drinking red bull in his office at 4pm on every Friday so he could drink until 4am that night. And I got a raise because I’m just that bored and unhappy in LA. I don’t know if I’m proud of this raise or if I should immediately invest this extra money in a cock-fighting ring in my neighborhood or give the money to a local high school basketball star to shave some points just to make things a little more exciting. Honestly, it’s getting to the point that every time I pull into my driveway I’m hoping that someone is in the process of robbing my home – chasing Mexicans around my house would be a far better evening activity than another Will & Grace rerun on Lifetime.
(Hilarious show, by the way. That Karen is just too much!)
This boredom doesn’t end with the weekend, either. The bars in Redondo/Hermosa/Manhattan beach, well, they leave a little bit to be desired if you know how to pronounce “Dostoyevsky” and don’t know where your lat is. I really don’t think the people in these bars know if anyone’s making music besides Rhiannon and the Bravery and if the Pacific is the world’s largest ocean or just “Fucking awesome, bro. That ocean is fucking awesome. Seriously. Bro. Fag. Lat.” The most intellectually stimulating conversation I had was when me and Brian – a former Division I wrestler – were trying to decide under what conditions he could beat up Kobe Bryant (we decided that if given one year to train and provided with head gear and metal fangs he may just be able to take him – Brian’s a biter). I really feel like I’d be more at home in prison than in these bars, because at least I watch and enjoy prison shows; I’m not as well-versed in tan people high-fiving and doing shots of 180 bombs. So I actually prefer the work-week to the weekends, because on Saturday, I wake up, have nothing to do except for maybe getting an oil change, then just have to kill some time before going out and wondering what the hell I was thinking when I moved from NYC to this place.
Hear me out: I’m not saying that I was the King of New York or anything. It’s not like I was hanging out with Prince and banging various models after long nights of cocaine and clubbing. But NYC was perfect for me, precisely because I was lazy. I could sit at home, have a few beers with friends, and then go out to one of the 50 or so bars within a half-mile of my apartment. Or, I could drink alone, send a mass text message at 11:30pm, and then have at least three options of places to go, friends out in various parts of the city. Now, my social life is Brian or my (really quite wonderful) roommates; the rest of my friends are disqualified because they live too far away. And really, that’s about it.
(By the way, I really have no idea why I named Prince above. Just came to me. Seems like a guy that likes luxurious things and the like.)
I don’t even know if I necessarily need to cover this next point, but here goes…
I may never have sex again (for free).
There is nothing to be had for me in the boobie department in Los Angeles. The women here are so astoundingly hot, I’m speechless. I simply can’t describe it. Think of all the clichés that one might have heard about LA women, especially those who live in towns with names Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach, and they’re all true. There is so much blond and tan and boobie that I am at a loss for words (and this doesn’t happen often).
And none of it is for me. Absolutely none of these boobies are for me. After living here for two months, the only conditions under which I could ever see myself sleeping with any of the girls in these bars involves a chloroform-soaked hanky, a whole lotta bleach, and a sturdy shovel. Otherwise, it’s just not gonna happen.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but when I moved from New York to Los Angeles, I also went back to high school. See, in high school I was:
- reasonably smart
- relatively funny
- possessing a good knowledge of sports and music
I was also:
- quite overweight
- completely unathletic
- about as likely to find my way into a girl’s pants as a tampon made of shark teeth
Fortunately, as the years progressed, as alcohol became more available, and as women grew increasingly comfortable with the idea settling at the end of the night for the guy who might kinda look like a rapist but probably couldn’t overpower them, lo and behold, I began having sex – even (gasp!) fairly regularly. In college, and later in New York City, I learned that many a physical short-coming (pun intended) could be overcome with a few shots of SoCo and lime and a well-placed self-deprecating joke or mention of, you know, a book or a poem or something. These, I now refer to, as the Golden Years.
But now that I’ve moved to LA, things have reverted back to the old high school days. I am now:
- reasonably smart
- relatively funny
- possessing a good knowledge of sports and music
I am also:
- quite overweight
- completely unathletic
- about as likely to find my way into a girl’s pants as a tampon made of shark teeth
that is on fire and being carried by a werewolf
In Los Angeles, there is nothing that can overcome physical short-comings; no joke, no mention of something intelligent, nothing. If I actually did converse with these women, aside from me occasionally saying, “Excuse me, I’m just trying to get to the bathroom” and them replying, “Is that your penis you’re trying to show me, or do you have a baby in your jeans that’s trying to show me its penis?”, it would probably (hypothetically) go something like this:
Me: “About me? Well, let’s see…I spend my Saturday afternoons teaching Latin to inner-city African-American children. I started a non-profit devoted exclusively to saving and rehabilitating three-legged puppies. The most important person in my life is my mother. I was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 2006 and wrote just about half of Cat Stevens’ catalogue (I have perfect pitch and can play several instruments). I like to cook, go to church, vote democrat and I can make women have multiple orgasms by staring at them, counting to three, and snapping my fingers.”
Girl: [staring at bartender/volleyball player/guy who can squat a higher number of pounds than points he scored on his SAT] “I’m sorry – I wasn’t really listening. How many push-ups can you do again? Did you say that already?”
Me: “Oh, I forgot one thing – do you know God? Long story short, I beat him in ‘Jeopardy’ about six years ago and now I’m immortal. Seriously, I can’t die. Subsequently, last year He and I bet on the Super Bowl and I won again, and now every time a woman gives me a blowjob, He deposits $5000 in her bank account. I can’t believe I forgot about that. He thought of that one.”
Girl: [looking at friend standing behind me mouthing, “Is that John Candy?”] “So…is it like more or less than 50 push-ups? Just give me a number here.”
[Girl mouthes “I think so” over my shoulder back to friend]
So like in high school, I can do nothing but wait and hope that girls eventually get lonely or desperate or want to get back at their ex-boyfriends and/or accept a dare from their friends. Until then, like back in high school, it’s back to stripping down, lying down on the bathroom floor, and masturbating like a goddamn mental patient (four-five times a day). We’re going old school-style.
******
Things will change for the better here in Los Angeles, if only because they have to. But I realize in order for me to make things better, I’m going to have to work on them. That is, I have to either move or find a better route to work, I have to put more effort into my friendships, and I have to start taking steroids and using less big words. But here’s a little something you should know about me: I don’t like working hard. While we’re here, another thing you should know about me: I’m a quitter. So if I know myself, I’m not going to change who I am or what I like to do to make my life out here more enjoyable. Instead, I’m more likely to shut it down, retreat inward, and treat this year in LA like I would a year in prison: keep to myself, read the Koran, and maybe dabble here and there in getting raped – all so that one year from now when I get back to NYC, I can look back on my time in Los Angeles and say, “No matter what happened, I survived. I endured and lived to tell about it. And that counts for something. Probably very little, but something.”
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a date with the bathroom floor.
You know where this is gonna go, so let’s just get there. Together. Now.
Red-eyes are fucking terrible
Of all of the variations of hell that have been conjured up by the greatest minds, from Dante to Sartre, Virgil to Matthew, Milton to Plato, I think I’ve figured out a version that tops them all: Hell is a never-ending loop of nightly red-eye flights.
I took a red eye from Los Angeles to New York City, and while I could not possibly have been happier about being out of LA and in NYC, my happiness was tempered by the fact that I was so tired after landing that I couldn’t say for certain if I was actually in NYC, on earth, or just dreaming (or maybe none or all of the above). The only thing kept me awake at my desk on that first day in NYC (I worked out of the NYC office my first Thursday and Friday on the east coast) was my unnaturally rapid heartbeat, courtesy of the half-dozen diet cokes I’d consumed during the day to keep everything moving along as smoothly as possible.
Women can alter their menstruation cycles with a pill, thus preventing them from getting pregnant. We’ve been putting men, animals and, accordingly to conspiracy theorists, criminals on the moon for decades. A question that twenty years ago would take hours and volumes of encyclopedias to answer can now be figured out in under thirty seconds through Google. Ten years ago, I had to spend $15 to buy a CD for one song; now, I buy a CD happens with less regularity than I buy condoms. (Which is rare. Trust me.) One year ago, I thought I had downloaded every last bit of free porn on the internet. Then Redtube came along and made me a man. All this, and yet humanity can still not figure out how to make plane that comfortably sleeps passengers during an overnight flight while being cost-friendly at the same time.
Look, I’m not being delusional here – I’m not asking for a geisha girl stewardess to come in my private suite (with bathroom) on my flight from London to Hong Kong and stick various things into her body for my enjoyment. I mean, I know such arrangements exist, but I have neither the finances to afford them nor the desire to pursue them. Mostly because I like boobies and Asian girls don’t have boobies – and the ones that do have boobies are not so much interested in a chubby bearded Irish guy and tend to lean more toward the LA Clippers/My penis is so advanced it can vote-types.
But for $600, you’d think they’d make things a little more comfortable (and I sat in a reclining exit row!). I didn’t sleep at all on the flight, save for at one point when I looked at my iPod and say that it was 2:28am, then looked back in what I thought was a few minutes to see it was 3:13am, so I grabbed about a 40 minute block of unconsciousness. Otherwise, nada.
So I’m done with red-eyes. I always talk myself into taking them, thinking they’re the most convenient, and this time, I say to myself, I’ll fall asleep on the plane. And it never, ever happens – I may arrive conveniently in the morning, but then my whole day is shot because I’m so tired.
So no more red-eyes. They are truly, truly hell. And the best hell ever, really.
DUYS
Speaking of hell, North Wildwood, New Jersey, the shore town my family and my entire neighborhood has spent summers in for decades, is starting to change. It seems that the guidos that have for years inhabited the shore towns of North Jersey are being priced out and making their way down to South Jersey, particularly North Wildwood. This is a shame, really; for generations upon generations, North Wildwood has been the summer home for 90% of the families from my neighborhood in South Philly (Second Street). But those guidos, they’re like cockroaches. Dumb, drunk, tweezed, teased cockroaches. And once they take over, they don’t leave.
Despites the presence of an alarming about of guidos and douchebags in the bars, the 10th Annual “Drink Until You Shit” tour was another great success. Once again, no one shit (running it to three years in a row no one has pooped themselves on the tour, which is a shame), but we had around 100 people involved, wearing t-shirts and celebrating the drinking and shitting lifestyle. We had planned to name our friend Dan captain for the tour, not so much for his performance last year but as a lifetime achievement award for best embodying the spirit of the tour, but, true to form, Dan couldn’t be located. Like, for the whole weekend. I honestly don’t know if he’s been located since. So we had no captain this year.
For me, it was an up and down night. For the most part, I held it together, being in co-charge of the pub crawl and all and having to answer questions and be a good host. But once we hit the last bar, I really don’t remember much aside from sweating a whole bunch and, ultimately, making a turkey sandwich after coming home to find my little sister passed out on the floor of my aunt’s house. So she had a good night.
Every year, David (the DUYS co-founder) and I say it’s going to be our last year. The tenth would be a good one to go out on; it’s a nice number, and this year we lost a record amount of money on the t-shirts (since they were tye-dye and cost a fortune to make and we never make a profit anyway and we usually wind up getting too drunk to carry them any longer and so leave them in a bar). But with each passing year, I wonder if how we could ever put an end to DUYS. We’ve been around long enough that people know that the first Saturday after Fourth of July weekend is DUYS time, and seeing the happiness (and drunkenness) on so many people’s faces gives me great joy. So my prediction: there will be an 11th DUYS. Be sure to keep your July 11, 2009 open.
Bar domination, part one
One of the things I’ve often wanted to do is go into a bar in the afternoon, possibly even when it opens, and sit there getting smashed until it closes. I knew I would do this eventually, but I never thought it’d be because I couldn’t see my friends’ new baby.
My friends Joe and Dani had a baby. It’s a boy, but I won’t give any more details, since I really don’t want this child mentioned on here so early in his life; if that’s not the very definition of “damning,” I don’t know what is. The kid was born the Sunday, the day after DUYS. I got to Boston on Monday night and asked if they wanted me to come to the hospital to see the baby. However, Dani and Joe were (understandably) tired and suggested I try the next day, as they’d be out of the hospital and home. No problem.
It’s weird on a number of levels when your friends have a baby, but in this case, I was in town only for a short while – all the way from Los Angeles, without a Boston visit scheduled again until March 2009 – and I wanted see the lil’ SOB, but I also wanted to be respectful of their privacy – Christ, they just had their first kid two days prior, after all. So on Tuesday, after showering and beating off and having run out of things to do, I texted Joe, inquiring about the baby, and he gave me the hold sign – they were home but not feeling it at the moment. I decided the best course of action would be to head to near where he lives – Boylston Street by the Pru – and kill time until I got the green light to see the lil’ guy. Joe said he’d hit me back in two hours (it was about 2:30pm when he said this).
It was very hot on Boylston, so I had walked less than a half block before I sought refuge in a bar, a sports pub unfortunately named McGreevey’s on the far western end of Boylston. It was just after three and the place was empty. I had had Anna’s for breakfast (a breakfast of champions, if I ever heard of one) and wasn’t hungry, but figured a nice pint of Guinness and the paper would help me kill some time until Joe got back to me. It was about 3pm.
Three and a half hours and several pints later, I heard from Joe, who said they were still not feeling any visitors. By this time I was pretty well in the bag and perfectly ok to sit there, nice and cozy, at the bar. So I texted my buddies Bill and Nevin and Site Guy Brendan, and by 8pm, the four of us were watching the All Star Game, pounding pints with grace and aplomb and definitely more than a little fear and anger about our real lives, which prevent us from doing this all day, every day, all the time.
We drank and ate and drank some more and I sat on the same bar stool, getting up only go to the bathroom, from 3pm until 1:30am, when the lights came on and we were asked to leave. My bar tab was a shocking $277 (including tip). Even more shocking was that all during the drink-a-thon, the first three-plus hours of which I spent alone, I did not get a single buy-back, not one free beer. I don’t want to say any more about this, because I’ll get so angry that I won’t be able to type for the next several hours.
So despite the travesty of the non-buy-back, Tuesday was an exceptional day, the easily the longest I’ve ever spent in a single bar (I think). While not a true open-to-close day, I think I did pretty well.
(And because I drank Guinness the whole day, I was not hungover the next day. However, my butt…well, let’s just say it didn’t make it. Not a good scene.)
29
Back in NYC, my birthday on Thursday night was spent much like I imagine most of my birthdays will be spent for the rest of my life: steak dinner with some friends, followed by a few whiskey drinks, followed by an aborted masturbation session in the shower because it’s too damn hot and I’m full of red meat and rye whiskey. This is the truest, most sincere paragraph I’ve ever written in this blog.
There was nothing exemplary to report about the birthday, aside from the good company of my friends Jeremy, Meredith, Nicole and Brendan and another stellar steak (with foie gras butter!) from Dylan Prime. But here it is: another year has gone by and I remain threesome-less. I know, I know – I’ve been complaining about this since the dawn of time (or at least, the beginning of this website). And true, I haven’t really been trying to make this happen; I’ve adopted an insouciant approach recently, thinking that if I act too cool for school for a threesome, I’ll start having several a week.
But honest to goodness, a legit goal is to pull off a threesome before my 30th birthday. No idea how I’m going to go about this (aside from craiglist – “Chubby 29 year old sad and wants to fuck you and your friend or whatever. So sad inside.”), but I want to have a memory of three-way love to wank to after my Dylan Prime steak next July 17. Mark it down.
Bar domination, part two
On Friday afternoon, my buddy Mike had a half-day and suggested I meet him and our buddy Fran for drinks at 3pm at Pete’s Tavern. Never one to turn down such an offer, I agreed. In the cab, I was talking to my buddy Brian on the phone and told him I’d call him back in a little bit – I was going to have a few drinks and didn’t think it would last very long.
Whoops.
Mike and Fran and I hit it hard at Pete’s Tavern. Then our buddy Pat showed up. Then some of their buddies from work and my friend Meg joined the group. Then we moved over to 7B (real name: Horseshoe Bar) . I usually hate 7B because I feel like I’m in a bodega when I’m there: the booths are so close to the bar that they’re almost on top of each other, and things – the bar, the booths, the chairs – are packed so tightly together that if the bar’s even a little bit crowded, you’re better off peeing outside or under the table, because there’s no way you can get through everyone. But it wasn’t crowded on that Friday night and anyway we were rolling large, as my buddy Terrence and my brother, who was in town, met us out, as well as our friend Bryan.
You can probably guess how this one ended: my buddy Brian, who I told I’m call back shortly at 3pm, didn’t hear from me again until 5am, after a trip to Rosario’s after the bar closed. Brian didn’t answer since it was around 2am in LA and I’m told the message I left him consisted mostly of me chewing, sprinkled with a little bit of snorting, but hey – I’m a man of my word and I did call him back.
It was a glorious wonderful night. The only downside was that I was so crippled that the next day, Saturday night in NYC, I couldn’t even make it out. I guess this is what happens when you turn 29.
******
I’m leaving a number of things out, but I think you get the drift – I had a blast back on the east coast. And I look forward to doing all (or most of it) again in the fall.
(God, I miss NYC…)
Tonight, I’m off to the east coast. I’m taking a red-eye to NYC, will spend one night there, then Friday night in Philly, then Saturday night down the shore (for Drink Until You Shit), then Sunday night in Philly, then two or three nights in Boston, then I’ll close out the week and weekend in NYC. I’m flying back to LA from NYC on Monday night, July 21. This is not looking like it’s going to be a very relaxing vacation at all.
(As a reminder, my 29th birthday is Thursday, July 17. I assure you that any and all birthday gift donations – which can be made my clicking the “Make a Donation” button on the right – will be promptly spent on booze and/or in the pursuit of boobies. Thank you for your consideration.)
Therefore, posting will…well, posting probably won’t happen it all. Uncle Jason desperately misses the east coast and needs some time to get back to his former life.
However, some music before the break. These songs can be heard on muxtape, along with the last Six Songs.
Six Songs
“You Can’t Break a Heart and Have It” Black Francis
I have no idea if this song is new or old or whatever, but I’m guessing there’s a 92% chance that it’s playing at either Motor City or at 151 right now. Bet on it.
“Let Me Know” The Sunshine Underground
Starts a little slow, but then gets slammin’. You will bang on your desk or car or chair. Promise.
“Warwick Avenue” Duffy
I’m inclined to say, “Ok, ok – I know this is totally cheesy.” But to be honest, I don’t think it’s really all that cheesy. Forget for a second that this is the chick that sings “Mercy” and you’re left with a nice little pop ballad with all the proper elements: a sad songstress, some strings and some minor key changes, and a climatic resolution. And true, while I do feel a little gay because I don’t think anyone has given such thought to a Duffy song before, remember, this is a guy who spent much of 1997 seriously believing he was going to marry Baby Spice. So I’ve come a long way since then. So back off.
“Amie” Pure Prairie League
If this doesn’t want to make you grow a beard, have a drink of some warm brown whiskey, and sit around in a circle with some friends and some guitars and have a good old-fashioned sing along, well, we must be listening to different songs. This recently randomly came on my iPod and I hadn’t heard it years; I then listened to it about 15 times in a row.
“Country Girl” Primal Scream
Just for fun.
“Anything You Want” Spoon
“If there’s anything you want/Come on back ‘cause it’s all still here.” I’m pretty sure that in one Spoon album, you can find every emotion experienced in a drunken night: there’s loss and sadness and longing all over the place, but there’s also exuberance and fun and even sultriness. If they only wrote a song about eating pizza and getting grease on your new jeans or yelling at a cab driver when he says he doesn’t have change, I mean, it’d be downright creepy.
[Have a good week/weekend/week/weekend – and wish me luck.]
My old roommate Ben was (and still is) very allergic to bees. This was very disconcerting to me as his roommate, since every time went he carried an EpiPen which he could stick himself with should he ever get stung. I’m not exactly sure if getting stung by a bee would actually kill him – I think he explained this to me once, but I wasn’t really paying attention – but the fact that he carried this dang thing everywhere was enough to lead me to believe that getting stung by a bee would not be a very good thing for ol’ Ben; it’s kinda strange to live and drink with a buddy who at any time may be murdered by a common insect.
For most of my childhood, I was terrified of all bugs, mostly because they’re gross and icky and I had an absentee dad who never taught me that “They’re just bugs, pussy. Man, I can’t believe you’re pretty much already a gay.” However it was another male figure in my life, my Uncle Joey, who helped me overcome my fear of bugs one day in my early teens when I was walking around barefoot by the pool down the shore. He looked at my toenails and exclaimed, “Damn – you could kill a cockroach in a corner with those mothers!” I had never quite thought of it this way; my own lack of hygiene in the form of vampire-like toenails could easily dispatch that thing which I so feared. Therefore, there was no need to be afraid. I was cured.
(Note: Those are not my actual toenails.)
(And sorry about that picture, but it was just too good not to link to. Yowza.)
However in my 20’s, because of my experience with Ben, watching his extreme (and justifiable) fear of bees, well, I sort of became afraid of bees. I mean, if they could kill Ben, why couldn’t they kill me? Would it be that one day I’m just sitting there in Central Park, rubbing myself under a blanket with a pair of yellow cotton panties I found on the southeast corner of the Sheep Meadow, right by the 65th Street Transverse, when suddenly a bee stings me, then I have a seizure, then I die, right there, half-erect, clutching those little yellow cotton panties, dead, with the panties, the little yellow cotton panties, in my hand? I mean, this could happen, right? It’s not impossible. So even though Ben moved to Seattle a few years ago, and I’ve since moved to LA (away from Central Park and the Sheep Meadow and that glorious discovery on that glorious day), I’ve still harbored a fear of bees.
Fast forward to this morning. I was driving to work in the Town Car, listening to either Adam Carolla or NPR (I’m very versatile), with the sun roof open, enjoying the glorious Southern California morning sun. I was on that long stretch of boulevard known as La Cienega, about 50 minutes into my commute (so still at least 25 minutes away from work), when I felt something hit me on the top of the head. I assumed it was a leaf that had fallen from a tree and through the sunroof, and so I mindlessly brushed it out of my hair. Then I thought, “It felt a little harder than a leaf.” Then I thought, “Wait a minute – there are no trees on this stretch of La Cienega.”
I looked down at my feet and there, on its side but trying to regain its footing, was a bee. And not just a cute little bumblebee, but a giant, man-eating bee, roughly the length of my thumb, as thick as the head of a well-endowed man’s penis. I let out an audible yelp and immediately started using my left foot to crush this Monster Bee into my floormat. For several seconds, I blindly stomped, trying to focus on the traffic and the driving, but more importantly, desperately trying to kill this bee before it killed me.
As the car was moving along in bumper to bumper traffic, I could only look down for so long to see if I had succeeded. I shortly came to stop, as a light turned red a few cars ahead of me, and I finally looked down to assess the situation. I hoped to see the bee crushed into the mat, but instead couldn’t see anything – no dead bee, no live bee. I assumed that in the struggle I had moved the floormat and covered the bee and believed I’d find its crushed body under the mat when I got out of the car. Just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, I saw it: the bee was alive, very much alive, crawling along my right pant leg, heading down toward the hem on the bottom of my pants, prepared to go under and in my pants and directly up my leg.
At this point, panic set in. If I had yelped before, I screamed now, and, still stopped at the red light, threw the car in park, flung my door open, and threw the lower half of my body outside the door. Continuing to scream and yelp and maybe now starting to cry a little bit, I desperately swatted at my pant leg, trying to get the bee off my leg before it went up my pants and stung and/or ate a large chunk of one of my testicles. The whole process took maybe six seconds, but in the middle of the screaming/yelping/crying/swatting, the traffic light turned green and cars behind me started beeping at the chubby kid with the beard half-hanging out of his Hearse in the middle of one of the busiest thoroughfares in Los Angeles, shrieking and swatting at his leg.
Then I felt it: my hand hit something and when I took a quarter-second to look, I saw that the bee was finally off my pants. Quicker than almost anything I’ve ever done, I pulled my legs back into the car, put it in drive, and continued on my way to work, sunroof closed. Crisis averted.
The lesson? Close the sunroof whilst driving or face death by bug. Los Angeles is a dangerous, dangerous city.
Three quick things before we get to the music:
- WordPress is giving me fits. Big time. Apparently, WordPress, the platform for this here blog, has rolled out its newest version. And for the life of me, I can’t figure out why every single thing I post is just one giant blob of text with no line or paragraph breaks. I’ve been posting the same way for years and have only had this problem recently, so I have no one to blame but the new WordPress template. I feel terrible for Site Guy Brendan, who has more important things to deal with than me emailing him with subject titles like “Not a fan of WordPress” and “Grrrr…” So apologies for any tech difficulties that you might experience.
- Netflix users: Please help me help a dear friend out by adding the movie “Pool Party” to your queue. You don’t need to actually rent or even watch the movie, just add it to your queue. I won’t get into the specifics of how this can help (since I don’t really understand it), but the whole process took me less than 40 seconds and, as mentioned, would really, really help out some friends. Thank you.
(And if you want to watch the movie, by all means, go ahead. Lots and lots and lots of bikinis, which means it automatically gets a 7 out of 10 in my book.)
- The only blog I read on a daily basis was Slack Lalane, a blog started by my dear friends Don Fiedler and Ace Cowboy but run mostly by Ace (Donnie sorta took on a consulting role). When it died in May of 2007, a little part of me died with it. Right up there with ESPN, CNNSI, the NY Times, and CocksForMeAndYou.com, it was not only a daily read but a toehold in the blog world – reading Ace’s posts provided me a forum for commenting but also reminded me to, well, post on my own damn blog.
But now, Slack’s been reborn! Many of the original commenters have returned too (except me, since I don’t remember my blogger ID or password). If you’re looking for additional ways to help pass your work day, check it out.
God I’ve missed you, Ace, you magnificent son of a bitch.
************
Six Songs
(Once again, this week’s Six Songs can be heard on muxtape)
“Are You Lonely For Me Baby” Freddie Scott Excellent, excellent soul song that I can’t help but listen to at top volume. I really hope his lady meets him in Jacksonville. The poor guy sounds pretty broken up.
(Really, nothing else to say. A terrific soul/oldies song. I don’t know too many of them, so thought I should share.)
“The Jaunt” Poets of Rhythm Excellent, excellent cruising song if, say, you happen to regularly drive a black ’96 Lincoln Town Car through Hawthorne and Inglewood, California (neighbors of Compton and Watts, and only slighter nicer neighborhoods). There are a number of bad things about my car – the $65 a week in gas it consumes, the ginormous size that makes parallel parking very difficult in a parking starved city, the fact that it’s a conversation starter in bad way – but I feel pretty fucking bad-ass driving around in it, especially with a song like this blaring out of the windows and sunroof. With this song and that car, all I need is a pair of furry dice and a parole officer and I’ll be exactly like 97% of the Hispanic people in Southern California!
“Wake Up Alone” Amy Winehouse I downloaded this album when it first came out but them immediately disregarded it, basically to spite all the acclaim that it was getting from critics and my friends alike. My general rule is if something’s widely considered to be great, it’s probably actually crap. After a while and once the hype dies down, I will revisit this “great” thing and make my own determination. Usually, I’ll have been right the first time and the much-hyped album/movie/book/tv show will be crap. But I rediscovered this album a few weeks ago and boy, is it good. Not crap. Not crap at all.
And goodness gracious, this is a very, very sexy song. I’ve never thought of Amy Winehouse as particularly attractive; big black hair and tattoos usually send me running and hiding from a woman like a dog during a thunderstorm. But the part about 1:23 in when she sings “This face in my dreams…”, wow. For real, wow. I kinda swoon a little bit when it comes on, get all goosebumpy when those background singers chime in, feel all giddy and warm she trails that “…by the bed.” Very, very intense. During that part, and the whole song, really, I get simultaneously turned on and intimidated, like I’m scared, but I’m also hard. It is a very confusing feeling and one that I can’t recall ever having, but I can tell you this much: about five of my female friends have gone out as Amy Winehouse for Halloween over the past few years and I remember seeing them in person or later seeing pictures of them and thinking, “Bleeech.” But after listening to this song, you can bet there’s been some beyond creepy/borderline alert-Benson-and-Stabler perusing of various Facebook albums entitled “Halloween 2007!” Just a lot of confusion, and a lot of riled up. No one wins with that combo.
Man. I think I need a drink. No wonder she’s a drug addict.
“Tim I Wish You Were Born a Girl” Of Montreal Ok – this takes a bit of the edge off. There really aren’t enough songs about wishing your best buddy was a chick so you could marry him.
(For further listening, Of Montreal’s “Requiem for o.m.m.2″ is also highly recommended, and one of the cornerstones of a new playlist of mine called “Dance, Hipster, Dance!”)
“Tops” Rolling Stones I have no idea how I feel about this song: work of genius or complete fucking joke. Mick’s spoken word intro, following by singing – often in a high-pitched voice – about how he’ll take a girl to the top (not a euphemism for sex, I don’t think, but more like he’ll make her famous), perfectly matches the utter redonkulousness of the early 80’s Stones, when this song came out. If this wasn’t the very song that made people stop taking the Stones seriously, then it’s close. And yet still I’m recommending to you as a song you should listen to. Joke’s on us, I guess.
“Sucker” John Mayer You know, I’ve experienced first-hand the sexual peak of Jimmy Fallon, the sexual peak of The Strokes and the sexual peak of Justin Timberlake, but I have to think that John Mayer is blowing them all out of the water. Let’s discuss:
- People forget that Jimmy Fallon was just about the biggest thing in NYC in 2002-2003 (seriously, I can’t believe it either, but it’s true) and was the object of nearly every female’s desire. And yeah, I could see how he was kinda cute because he was funny and self-deprecating and all that, but he just wasn’t all that good-looking.
- The Strokes had two waves of hugeness in NYC – when I very first moved there and they were at the peak of the “undergroundness” and then once again when they hit it big with “Is This It.” And while few things like a hip rock band will so lather up a 20-something girl in the big city, like Jimmy Fallon, these guys don’t exactly strike me as lady killers. Also, six months after they were the awesomest, they were a sell-out, and have since been replaced by a half-dozen bands de jour (though admittedly, none were nearly as big as they were).
- Justin Timberlake: now here’s our first legitimate piece of man-meat. And while no doubt he’s a good-looking guy, fit, can dance and sing, and came out with one of the most incredible Upper Hands in history after his break up with Britney, c’mon – the guy was in the Mickey Mouse Club and N’Sync for Christ’s sake. Nice perm, dil.
- And in this corner, John Mayer. While no doubt he’s written his share of vacuous pop rock songs, there’s also no denying he’s a very talented blues guitarist. He gets bonus points from me on this because apparently his band in high school was called “Villanova Junction”, which is the name of a bluesy instrumental that Jimi Hendrix performed at Woodstock and one of my most favoritest songs ever, not to mention one of the most reliable arrows in my quiver when someone says, “play something on guitar for us, fatty!”.
(Don’t ask me how I know about the “Villanova Junction” thing. It’s not like I masturbate to John Mayer’s wikipedia entry or anything.)
Speaking of masturbating, as someone who’s over 94% straight, I have enough confidence in my masculinity to say that John Mayer’s a good-looking guy. Edgy with giving off any dangerous/strangle-you-during-sex vibe, cool without seeming contrived, seemingly comfortable either having a draft beer during a game or eating $200 sushi at Nobu. And yes, this is getting kinda creepy. So let’s just keep going.
Finally, he’s funny! (“If I can’t get the girl, why don’t I just tell her I’m John Mayer?”). And girls love funny! At least, that’s what they say on their match.com profiles! Yet when you send them a hilarious message introducing yourself, they don’t respond! Probably because you’re chubby and have a beard! And you’ve misspelled the word “queef” in the message! Twice! They’re probably lesbians anyway! Fuck it! You’ll see them in hell!
For these reasons, I have to think that John Mayer’s having the greatest sexual peak of my lifetime. I was pretty sure he could get any 18 year old piece he wanted after that “I want to scream at the top of my lungs” song, but now he’s playing more blues and banging Jennifer Aniston (or was – I’m still 94% straight, so despite now living in LA, I can’t keep up with celebrity gossip), so he’s pretty much indestructible right about now.
(I mean, I don’t think he was one of People’s hottest bachelors, but still, he’s not doing too bad for himself.)
Consider this your official (and perhaps final) reminder: The 10th Annual Flood/Mulgrew “Drink Until You Shit” Tour is Saturday, July 12, starting at 6pm at Casey’s at Third and New York in North Wildwood, New Jersey .
Yes, this is the big one: ten glorious years of shitting and drinking along the Jersey shore. My co-founder David and I believe the tour has come a long way since its inception. We wanted to create a different kind of pub crawl, one that best encapsulated the neighborhood that we grew up in (Second Street in South Philly). So we thought, what do Second Streeters like to do? Well, drink, of course. That is first and foremost a hobby of those in my ol’ neighborhood, right up there with Eagles, greasy food, and a slightly more than casual racism.
We envisioned the pub crawl being a night of extremes, of celebrating and drinking until we physically could not any longer. So then we thought, when or under what circumstances do Second Streeters stop drinking? Unconsciousness first came to mind, but “Drink Until You Pass Out!” is neither funny nor original. “Drink Until You Puke!” was another idea, but that, frankly, is kinda disgusting (and also seldom stops people from drinking). Then we figured it out – the pub crawl would be “Drink Until You Fight!” The idea of getting so drunk and rowdy that people would erupt in fighting like in those old-time Westerns was appealing, but practically speaking, it was extremely dangerous: 50 drunks walking around in t-shirts that boldly said “Drink Until You Fight!” would probably lead to some trouble. I’m not a cop, so that’s just a guess.
And now here we are – ten years later*, keeping the tradition alive on Saturday, July 12. I don’t expect any of y’all to attend, but last year we had about 150 revelers, including readers from up and down the east seaboard and as far away from Oklahoma (provided, he was in PA on business) attend, so if you’re down the shore and looking for something to do, come on down. As usual, commemorative t-shirts will be on sale and each bar will have drink specials (except the Number One tavern, since they never give us any breaks). Shitting is not required or even encouraged, but drinking sure is. Hope to see you there.
[* This is technically the fourth year we've done this, since we started at seven. Just roll with it and shut up and drink.]
[And shit. Of course.]
Last night I had dinner with my agent, Joel. Having dinner with your agent is a very LA thing to do, but I assure you, this was unlike most agent-client dinners. First and foremost, we did not speak about business or “the business” at all, since there is no business to speak of. Right now, I have about as much of a chance of getting an endorsement deal with Summer’s Eve than I do of getting a development deal with a network (and probably more desire to nail down the Summer’s Eve gig than the sitcom deal). So no bidness with the agent at this dinner.
(Just kidding, sitcom development deal givers! I work for cheap, so that email address is jason_at_jasonmulgrew.com! Also willing to take random household trinkets in exchange for cash! And I can be zany in a family-friendly sense and won’t write any dialogue liberally using the word “cockblood” this time! Thanks for your consideration!)
Second, this “business” dinner was different because my agent is my friend. I mean, though we started with an agent-client relationship, we have since grown into gen-u-ine friends. “C’mon, dude,” you’re probably thinking, “the guy’s an agent, so of course he’s going to make like he’s your best bud. I’ve seen ‘Entourage’. Agents are schmoozers.” Yes, that’s true – many agents are schmoozers. But here’s the thing: many agents are schmoozers because their clients make them and their agency a lot of money (see: “Entourage” example). I have been with my agent since December of 2004, only ten short months after I started this here blog, and I promise you that the money I’ve made him and his agency (UTA) is far, far less than the money he’s spent on me by taking me out to dinner and getting me boozed and once paying for something that he said was an STD test but was really some middle-aged guy taking pictures of me while I did jumping jacks without my pants on (I’m not sure if he expensed this, as I personally saw him hand the doctor/gentleman cash – I think there was also some sort of awkward high five involved, but I was pretty drugged up at the time). As a matter of fact, if Joel and UTA are not actually in the red for having me as a client, I would estimate that Joel has made approximately 13 cents an hour over the past three and a half years as my agent. Which is good hourly wage for most inmates, but not so good for most individuals with liberty.
So we went to this place called Rock Sugar in the Century City mall, which is located close to both our offices. It’s from the geniuses behind the Cheesecake Factory (I mean, have you tried their fried mac and cheese balls?), but it’s some sort of pan-Asian type place, which is fine with me, since I still long for Sea Thai in NYC (which I will destroy at approximately 7pm on Thursday, July 10, when I’m back in the city – God help those little Thai party boy/girls).
Anyway, one of the appetizers we got at Rock Sugar was these little short ribs, maybe slightly larger than my thumb. I picked one up and threw it back, apparently forgetting that ribs have bones in them. But, averting a crisis (and my possible death), I caught myself before the rib was jettisoned down my throat, removed the small bone from it, and repeated the throwing back process, sans bone. Delicious.
After a few of those (ok, only when there were none left), I started sucking the little stuck strands of stray meat out of my teeth. This sounds like a gross process, but I was discreet; it wasn’t like I was half-sitting/half-standing at the table, panting, and sucking my teeth so hard that I threw my head back over and over again. Real gentleman-like, I cleaned my teeth with my tongue. Delicious.
And then I realized something strange: didn’t I have more teeth than this? You know, back there, right side, upper row of teeth? Was I…missing one?
Sure as shit, I was. Because there was now a fairly sizeable hole in my mouth where a tooth was previously, I surmised that I did, in fact, loose a tooth. I looked down at my plate, at the small bones of the spare ribs, and it wasn’t there. I fished around in my mouth, and it wasn’t there, hiding in some dark crevice. Stranger, I wasn’t bleeding or in any pain. Stranger still, even when I (gently) bit on that first bone, it was on the side of my mouth opposite the missing tooth. This tooth had apparently had enough, said its goodbyes, and went gently into that good night, without nary a fight nor whimper.
Joel was amazed by this, and more than a little disgusted, but I carried on through the dinner unperturbed. As I said, there was no pain or blood, so as long as I chewed on the left side of my mouth, I was fine. We enjoyed the rest of the dinner and by the time I fell asleep that night and had grown tired of playing with the hole in my gum, I had pretty much forgotten about the lost tooth.
Fast forward to today: I’m sitting on the toilet, reading an article from the NY Times about a federal agent impersonator during my afternoon defecation (I read the Sports Guy’s latest during my morning defecation). It was a good poop: solid and hard, but not difficult to pass; my urine in the bowl a bright yellow-gold-green Colorado sunset color due to my multivitamin and omega-3 pills. I wiped a few times and, satisfied that I had met my standard quota of 80% clean, stood up and pulled my pants up. As I zipped up, I turned to admire my handiwork when I saw what looked like a piece of corn in the poo. I thought, ”I haven’t eaten corn lately.” And then it hit me:
I pooped the tooth.
Sure as shit (literally), what was before me, nestled snuggly in my otherwise unspectacular lil’ monkey tail, was not a piece of corn or any vegetable, but the tooth that I had lost, swallowed, digested and now, finally, gloriously, excreted.
I pooped the tooth.
I pooped the fucking tooth.
As you can imagine, my first impulse was to take a picture. To this end, I did not flush, leaving the poo in the bowl, thinking that I could quickly wash my hands and return to the scene with my cell phone, and no one would be the wiser. However, while washing my hands, I realized: I’m at work, I just shit a tooth, and I’m leaving the shit in the toilet bowl so I can take a picture of it? Really? This is not exactly something that you want coming up in the annual review (“Well Jason, you prepared a number of successful pitches for the firm, but there was that one time in July when Mr. Smith caught you taking a picture of your feces…”). Dejected, I returned to the toilet bowl, gave the tooth-poo one last look, and flushed. It was a bittersweet moment, but truly there was no other way. There was just no other way.
I’ve done a lot in my (almost) 29 years, but now I can finally say it: there has been human teeth in my feces. I have shit teeth. I have actually shit teeth. Finally, gloriously, I am a Man.
************
I’m going to try to post a something, even if it’s a little something, every day in July (that is, every day in July that I’m not on vacation). Blogging is unlike riding a bicycle or sex, activities one can never forget how to do (and in my case, still require help from my uncle to last longer than a few seconds and most of the time result in a skinned knee and some sobbing). Instead, it must be regularly practiced, lest one lose his or her touch completely. These two months have been transitional, busy, discombobulating, saying goodbye in May and settling in in June. So now I gotta get back on the wagon.
We’ll see how this works out.
Day 5: Wednesday, May 28 Tucumcari, NM – Sun City, AZ
Total Mileage: 634 miles
Today, we violated a universal rule of long-distance driving: though shall not eat dinner before sundown.
Well, maybe it’s not a universal rule of long-distance driving, but it’s certainly one of mine. You see, about two and a half years ago, I drove from Seattle to LA, alone and in a rented minivan. I was on "sabbatical" from work and was in Seattle for the Seahawks-Steelers Super Bowl and was planning on flying down to LA a day or two after the game. However, at the last minute I decided to cancel my flight and drive on down the gorgeous west coast of this great country.
It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, mostly because it was the first real taste of my future life as a homo drifter (editor’s note: homo is intentional and not the misspelling of hobo). But it did not come without its pitfalls. For one, Enterprise, from whom I rented the minivan (I wanted a car, but they didn’t have any left), never made it clear to me that I had to return the van to Seattle. When I returned the minivan to the local Enterprise in LA, I got a call from the Seattle Enterprise saying I had to bring the car all the way back up there. Long story short, I had to pay about a grand to get that settled and I will one day single-handedly destroy the Enterprise Corporation, even if it the last thing I do and it costs me my money, my life and my very soul. I’m not joking. Like, at all.
(Seriously. Please do not rent from Enterprise or support them in any way. You have my full permission to perform any sort of act of commercial-terrorism on them that you see fit, as long as you don’t harm anyone or get me in trouble. Godspeed.)
Another borderline disaster occurred on the first day of driving of this Seattle-LA trip. As night fell, I was speeding through the southern half of Oregon, rocking out and making great time, when I noticed that I was entering some mountainous terrain. It was dusk and I felt good, so rather than turn in with daylight left, I decided to keep on driving. Besides, the mountains were no more than big hills and there were hotels available just about every ten miles on the trip so far, so I could turn in any time I got tired. Onward and upward I went.
Big, big mistake. The speed with which the darkness descended on the evening was surpassed only by the sudden rise of the mountains – big, steep, regal, terrifying, "bring it, pussy" mountains – before me and my humble minivan. By this point, there was no turning back. I continued driving, gripping the wheel as we climbed up and into the mountains, telling myself I’d stop at the first hotel I’d find.
That hotel didn’t come for over two hours later. With nowhere to stop in sight – I was in the middle of a mountain range, for God’s sake – I drove on, just me and my minivan among the truckers, in the near total darkness, only feet away from the steep drop of these mountain roads. We’re talking movie-style shit: there was a guardrail six feet away from my minivan, and on the other side of the guardrail, was a descent that, as a city boy, I had never seen before – hundreds and hundreds of feet down a scraggly cliff. For someone who’s always thought he’s going to die a spectacular (read: spectacularly painful) death, this was not where I wanted to be – and I was duly horrified. Believe it or not, for as much as a pussy as I seem to be, I think I’m pretty unflappable when it comes to stressful situations; I’ve pitched to entertainment people with slightly less money than God but certainly more power than Him*, had a Philadelphia police officer draw his weapon on me (and my friends) as a kid, and even successfully ejaculated while getting fellated by a prostitute**, but this drive, those two hours in the dark driving on those windy mountain roads, was definitely the scariest moment of my life***.
[* Well, that worked out for me, didn't it? Looks like it's Hormel chili for dinner again tonight!]
[** If my future wife is reading this, this is a joke. Besides, as of four years ago, I'm totally clean. So there's that. Of course, the incident with the pro occurred approximately fifteen to eighteen hours ago, but that's really just semantics, isn't it?]
[*** If you still think I'm a pussy, read this. I'm talking about those same mountains.]
As a result, one thing I made abundantly clear when we started the Mulgrew Men Conquer America cross-country trip was that we should take as much advantage of the daylight as we possibly could. On the former trip, I had no idea there were mountains in southern Oregon (what am I, a fucking geologist?) and I was caught completely unprepared. I could have mapped out any potential mountains for our trip across America, but that seemed like a lot of work, something I am completely averse to. So instead, we agreed to follow the rule: drive as much as possible in the daylight, have dinner when it gets dark, and, if we’re feeling it, continue on for 30-60 minutes after that. There was no way that I was going to get caught driving in the dark through any mountains again.
But this plan was thwarted, like most plans, by Outback Steakhouse.
If my dad had it his way, he’d eat dinner every single night at Outback Steakhouse. Seriously, every single night. And he’d get the same thing: bloomin’ onion, Victoria filet well done, side salad with thousand island dressing, baked potato and two regular Pepsis.
When we pulled into Flagstaff, still 150 miles away from Sun City, our final destination for the day, I did not want to stop for dinner. It was about 6:30pm, which meant that if we kept on going, we could be in Sun City by nightfall, at which point we could stop to eat and for the rest of the night. But when the Outback sign loomed on the horizon, I should have known that my protestations would fall on deaf ears. In short order I was staring at a bloomin’ onion before my dad, him beaming at it like his newborn child (which he was about to dip in a thousand island-type sauce and eat).
We spent an hour at the Outback and were back on the road as the sun started going down. It was my turn to drive and, though usually I’d have no problem passing the buck to my dad after a meal, he had pulled a long shift right before dinner so I couldn’t in good conscience ask him to drive again. I also couldn’t ask my brother Dennis to drive because he drives very slowly and when he does he listens to Mars Volta albums that sound like pain in sonic form. So I was up.
Though apprehensive about driving at night, especially through the desert with its pitch-darkness, I felt ok. We only had a short stint to Sun City – by this point, 150 miles was nothing – and I could deal with darkness, just not mountains. But we were in the desert! I’d be fine in the desert and on this desert run and we’d be in Sun City in no time.
Except this wasn’t a desert run. For those of you like me who don’t live in nor have ever been to Arizona, here’s a nugget for you: THERE ARE MOUNTAINS IN ARIZONA. Big, steep, regal, terrifying, "bring it, pussy" mountains.
(Seriously, I had no idea about this. I mean, isn’t desert the opposite of mountains? What the fuck?)
Before we knew it, I was driving along in the increasing darkness, feeling the car rising and rising up and into the mountains (which, like those in Oregon, started out as merely hills). But I was doing ok; there was still some daylight left and c’mon – we’re in the desert. Deserts don’t have mountains. This was temporary and would soon pass.
Then it got darker. And then I saw this sign. Then it was all downhill – then uphill, then downhill, then uphill again, then downhill again – from there.
For the next two hours, I white-knuckle gripped the wheel, weaving slowly in and out of traffic on the mountain roads, hunched over the steering wheel, my face practically touching the windshield. There was a good deal of traffic, which I thought might make me more comfortable in a “We’re all in this together” kinda way. However, it made me even more anxious in a “If I’m going to hell, I’m taking all of you with me” way, as I navigated around big rigs doing 35 with their blinkers on and locals doing 75, most likely after having a few pops after work, now on their way home.
Making matters worse was that last time, I was alone. This meant that I was free to whimper and pray in peace while doing my mountain trek. Now however, I had my dad in the passenger seat and my brother in the back. Of the three, I am by far the least manly – and it’s not even close. My dad’s broken his neck and has been stabbed. He has seven herniated vertebrae in his neck and back and he can still beat up most bears. My brother was so obese as a child and then so fit as a teen that he wore the same belt he made his Communion in (in third grade) to his high school graduation (in twelfth grade); now he can probably bench press 300 pounds and got about a 229 on his LSATs. Then there’s me: no muscle tone to speak of, no great accomplishments save for a frigging website filled with jokes about how fat he is and how little his dick is, terrified of driving in the dark.
If there was ever a time to “man up” and prove that I’m not the bastard child of my mom and Elton John, this was it. I could legitimately feel the tension in the car between all three of us as we drove on these roads; casual conversation stopped and the car grew quiet, the mood slowly turning from family road trip to “my half-a-gay son is going to get us killed.”
I can’t say I succeeded with flying colors – I didn’t say “Watch this,” floor the gas pedal, and drive the car through flaming rings of fire, shooting at ninjas attacking the car, all the while getting head from some redheaded bimbo – but when after ninety or so minutes we pulled into a gas station at the bottom of the mountains, we were alive and in one piece (steering wheel soaked in my palm sweat notwithstanding). Though at one point I did point out, “This is why we should drive in the daylight as much as possible,” I gritted my teeth, took control of that gorgeous beast of a car, and guided us home, safe and sound.
Maybe this is why I think Sun City, AZ has the best tasting beer in America.
************************************************
Total Mileage: 694 miles
Having driven only 600+ miles the past two days, this morning we made a decision: no more fucking around.
And boy, we weren’t joking. Maybe it’s because I’m out of driving shape (and general physical shape, for that matter), but today was a true test – staring at the odometer, pouring on the miles, racing through Arkansas and then Oklahoma and then Texas and finally New Mexico. A four state run – and not a shitty four state run like PA-NJ-NY-CT, which you can pretty much walk - in one day. Holy shitballs.
The reason for this sense of urgency is that my brother needs to fly out of LA on Friday night to return to Philly for a bachelor party. And while originally we planned to arrive in LA on Friday (Dennis doesn’t have to fly out until 10:30pm), the more we thought about it, the more it might be nice to have a day to spend in LA without rushing to get him on a plane. So we changed our ETA from Friday and are now aiming for Thursday. Thus, four states and nearly 700 miles in one day. Considering professional truck drivers drive between 600-800 miles a day, 700 miles is not too bad for a bunch of pasty white guys who have seldom traveled west of West Philly.
Today we reached another important travel milestone: the comfortable silence. The first few days we felt the need to make small talk or listen to the radio or otherwise occupy ourselves with something other than driving or sitting. But no more. There was a 2.5 hour stretch that my dad drove while my brother slept in the backseat where he and I didn’t say a single word. Didn’t turn on the radio. Hell, I don’t even think I thought anything during this time. And this wasn’t road weariness or negative in any way; I was totally ok with it.
Because today was such a blur of miles and road, only two notable things to report:
1) 500+ miles in, just as night fell, we stopped for dinner in Amarillo, Texas at the famed Big Texan Steak Ranch. Conservatively two dozen of you guys wrote in recommending this as a near-mandatory stop along I-40, the road we’re taking for approximately 44,132 miles. But you needn’t tell me stop at something called the "Big Texan Steak Ranch", which was the inspiration for the restaurant in one of my all-time favorite movies, The Great Outdoors, staring the gone-too-soon John Candy.
(Actually, I’m not entirely sure the Big Texan was the inspiration for the restaurant in the movie, because in the film John Candy attempts to eat the old 96er, a 96oz steak, whereas the Big Texan’s steak is "merely" 72oz. So maybe there’s a place that offers a free, if eaten completely, 96oz steak. Whatever.)
Despite a month-long stint with vegetarianism undertaken only to prove friends wrong, I am a celebrated meateater who’s had many poems and songs (odes, really) written about his love of meat (seriously, google it). As the Town Car pulled into the parking lot, I felt confident about my chances, ready to dance.
That is, until we walked into the restaurant.
Just as you walk up to the area to be seated, there before you in a glass case sit a cellophane-wrapped plate with the 72oz steak on it. "Steak" is not really the word to describe it; "section" or "mass" or "shelf" is probably better. I’m 6’1" and about 210 pounds – not gigantic, but not small by any measure. This steak, the shelf of warm red meat, was larger than the mass that is my stomach. Honestly, if you "scalped" my stomach, shaved it down, covered it butter and grilled it, it would still be smaller than this steak.
(Is anyone else hard?)
So that was all it took for me to say "No thanks" and pass on the challenge. But as we were seated, I was given another reason to say no. If you want to try to eat the 72 ouncer, you have to sit by yourself at a raised table in the middle of the large restaurant, with a giant clock counting down from one hour (the time limit in which to eat the steak). If I could have attempted it quietly at my table, I possibly would have given it the old college try. But there was no way, after sitting in a car for nine hours, my fat ass was going to sit in the middle of the restaurant while everyone looked at the fat guy with the beard eating the steak. Good lord. Up until three years ago, when I finally became rich, I didn’t eat at all in front of women, and to this day I won’t touch a buffalo wing or go anywhere near a ham if a woman is around, because of self-esteem issues related to my weight and unkemptness. And you think I’m gonna eat a 4.5 pound slab of meat in front of a 100 people like the goddamn marshall of the fat chops parade? No thanks.
(Incidentally, the food was pretty solid. Unable to decide, I got a bbq combo with ribs, sausage and beef, whereas my dad and brother got steaks. Nothing spectacular, but reasonably priced, very filling, and I didn’t immediately shit myself. What more can you ask for in a restaurant in Texas?)
2) For all of you who wrote in to encourage us to stop at the restaurant, there’s one thing that none of you mentioned. After leaving Amarillo, heading west on I-40, there is nothing for a long, long time. After dinner, at which my brother and I had beers, my dad said he’d drive for another 30 minutes or so before stopping for the night. It took us another nearly two hours before we found a hotel, and by that time we had crossed state lines into New Mexico. It wasn’t a bad drive – the land was flat, the road well-lit, and there were many other cars around us – but we were surprised at the sheer desolation when we were seemingly coming across hotels every 20 minutes up until this very stretch of the drive.
So my advice: stay the night in Amarillo. Get drunk at the ranch. Possibly hit it up for breakfast the next day (the offer some sort of breakfast buffet that I can’t begin to contemplate, lest I repeatedly and continuously pee my pants, resulting in my death).
Tomorrow, another 600+ miles. Bring it on.
Original Departure Time: 12:00pm
Actual Departure Time: 1:30pm
Total Mileage: 358 miles
The amount of cigarettes that my father smokes is astonishing. It’s incredible. And when I say “incredible” I mean it in the most literal sense of the word – not believable. After spending three full days with him, I would guess that he spends 35% to 40% of his not-unconscious time smoking cigarettes. If it were not for restrictions in hotels and restaurants, I have little doubt that this number would rise to around 80%. If it were not for restrictions such as real life, my dad would drive a cigarette car, live in a cigarette house, and marry a cigarette woman. Cigarettes, cigarettes, cigarettes.
Certainly, while in the car, he is smoking over 90% of the time. In a way, it’s so impressive that it’s hard to be mad. It seems like he’ll finish a cigarette, count to 100, then light another. Repeat. Like, sixty times a day. Every day. On and on and on. Cigarettes, cigarettes, cigarettes.
While not a medical doctor, I cannot comprehend how a human being could inhale so much cigarette smoke over such a consistent basis and be able to actually live, let alone eat and drive and converse. I have probably smoked five cigarettes in my life, most of them at strip clubs (back when you could smoke in strip clubs) out of nervousness and fear of boobies. If I were to challenge my dad to some sort of smoke-off in which we’d go cigarette for cigarette, I would be dead in fifteen hours. And this trip is not some smoke binge for my dad – he’s smoked two packs of Marlboro Reds a day since he was 12.
I think it’s because I grew up with him smoking so much that I now despise smoking. I just don’t understand it, how someone can regularly put something that is essentially tar-flavored poison into their body – and become addicted to it (and yes, I know booze is poison too, but at least when you’re putting that into your body you’re getting better-looking, more charming, and much more likely to wake up with a semi-naked and ashamed lady next to you; all you get with cigarettes is yellow teeth and yellow fingers and a tremendously off-putting scent similar to a garage in your mouth, skin, hair and clothes). In a woman, I find cigarette smoking the second most undesirable characteristic after having a penis. I once casually dated a girl who, in the middle of making out with me, would stop to take cigarette breaks. Provided, making out with me is a stressful experience for anyone and I’m sure the whole time we kissed she thought and hoped and prayed for that cigarette until she couldn’t take it anymore. I did notice that on these breaks she’d shake while smoking, puff hard on her cigarette, and they say, “OK – I’m ready” before continuing with the unenviable task of making out with me. But still. Not cool.
Today, the cigarettes got to me. After last night’s looooong night in Nashville, both my brother and I were very hungover. Making matters worse, once we checked out of the hotel we drove to a nearby Cracker Barrel for breakfast, where I got the “Country Boy Breakfast” – a big slab of ham, eggs, home fries, grits and sausage gravy and biscuits. I could have saved the effort for all parties involved and immediately walked my plate into the bathroom and dumped it into the toilet, and then punched myself in the stomach three times. I had to stop to poop twice, and neither time was it a measured “Hey, let’s grab the next rest stop – no rush” but rather “Things are happening near my butt and they may happen to the car, so we should stop – now.”
And the weather did not cooperate. We had hopes of a high mileage day, but had to cut our drive short because it started raining sheets in Arkansas, heavy, deadfall rain hitting the car with such vehemence that it nearly shook the Lincoln. This rain and the fact that we’re spending seven hours a day driving 70+ miles per hour is now causing the cloth top of the Town Car to start to peel off. We attached three yellow cargo tie-downs (“the ratcheting strap-kind”) over the roof and through the car to hold the cloth top on. The car now looks like some giant bumblebee. Or just a hooptie. Whatever.
We pulled off of I-40 in a random Arkansas town called Maumelle to grab dinner and wait out the rain. We ate at a “sports tavern” called Razorback Pizza (which was actually quite delicious, in an Arkansas kinda way) but the rain did not cooperate and kept coming down. So we called it a night.
So the hangover, the pooping, the weather, and, of course, the cigarettes. Not my favorite day, but when you want to party in Nashville and eat the “Country Boy Breakfast” and drive a cloth top car in the rain and at high speeds, you have to pay the piper. The cigarettes, I could live without.
(Until, of course, I’m addicted to them by the end of this trip. As a matter of fact, I kinda want one right now.)
Original Departure Time: 10:00am
Adjusted Departure Time: 11:00am
Actual Departure Time: 1:08pm
Total Mileage: 303 miles
Nashville. Wow.
In a way, I feel kinda bad – so many of you guys wrote in with so many good suggestions for the city, that as we drove in, I was armed with a folder full of emails, your hints, suggestions and places to go highlighted on the pages, ready to be used to attack the city. However, in the long run, we wound up spending six hours on one block, the last two hours of which I can tell you about only in one word: Wendy’s. Or maybe three words: Wendy’s. For real.
But we’ll get to that. Last night, probably because it was the Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend, we had a difficult time finding a hotel. I don’t know if Abington, VA is a hotbed of activity over the holiday, but we used the Garmin to call several hotels before finding one with room, a hotel that no doubt has been featured in an episode of “The First 48” or “Unsolved Mysteries” at some point in its existence. If I closed my eyes hard enough, I could practically see the mustachioed homicide detective leaning over the stabbed body of the middle-aged crackhead between the beds.
Because I was the most pro-Nashville of the three of us and wanted to make Nashville as enjoyable and painless as possible, I booked a hotel in advance for us, a nice Marriott (with a pool!) near Vanderbilt. I figured a little splurging was in order, despite the impending hefty fine for my dad’s reckless driving ticket, to celebrate our first real, touristy stop on the tour. And splurging it was, since I had to book two rooms. As we did last night, for the duration of this trip, my brother and I will be sharing a room while my dad will get his own. This is both out of respect for my dad as the elder of the group, but also a practical matter.
You see, my dad occasionally yells in his sleep. A few weeks ago when I was home in Philly, I had come in from a night out drinking and was taking a piss upstairs in the bathroom next to my dad’s bedroom. It was then that I heard yelling, his yelling, gibberish floating out from whatever dream (or nightmare) he was having. I’ve heard this before and it always happens the same: I’m drunk, taking a piss; I hear him yelling in his sleep; it subsides; the next day I ask him about it and he has no idea; four hours later he says, “You know what? I did have a nightmare last night.” So hearing it on this night two weeks ago didn’t disturb me, but being in the same room as a 50-something 250 pound man while he’s yelling in his sleep is not something I’m interested in. Thanks, though.
(Speaking of thanks, I’d like to thank both my dad and God. For all the good traits that my dad and Jesus could have passed down to me – toughness, great mustache, calmness, not being scared of bugs and lightening, not being mezzofinook, etc – I get night terrors, as evinced by the night a few months ago when I awoke, thought I saw someone in my room, and jumped out of bed to tackle this person – only to slam myself into my closet. So thanks for that. I don’t need a mustache anyway, I guess.)
En route to Nashville, I texted my buddy Tom. I went to BC with Tom, where his exploits were so magnificent that I dare not write about them, lest I melt your brain and computer (not to mention get Tom immediately fired and make him permanently unmarriable). Tom now lives in the San Fran area, but spent two years in Knoxville and many a weekend in Nashville – and yet I forgot to ask him for suggestions about the city. So about 100 miles away from Music City, I shot him a random text looking for advice. He called me back immediately, saying that he happened to be in Knoxville that weekend visiting his lady and suggesting we meet up in Nashville for a night.
Now I realize that I say this as someone who experienced Nashville for the first time – someone who, when he asked his friends for suggestions for the city, specifically said he wanted the tourist experience – but Nashville was awesome. Four reasons:
1) The women. Good lord – I have to date a Southern woman. This is something that just has to happen, even if for a little while. They are the perfect antidote to the bicoastal blues. I’ve spent the past few months being intimidated by women in NYC (because of their coolness/aloofness) and women in LA (because of their bronzeness and the plastic in their boobies) and here are the women of the South, smiling, saying hello, chatting up the tourists from out of town, the two brothers driving cross-country with their dad, sipping their beers, smiling right on back. Just a lovely collection of ladies in those Nashville bars. I’d have to check on this, but I think it’s the first time I’ve ever talked to a woman in a bar without knowing she’s looking at me thinking, “So this guy obviously wants to fuck me. How should I go about toying with him/crushing his self-esteem before I go fuck someone better-looking/richer/more fit/on the Clippers?” Instead, we were treated to some good ol’ fashioned friendliness from the opposite sex. Just lovely, lovely, lovely.
Between Hillary’s run and the “Sex and the City” movie, I feel like all the women in my life have turned it up to 11 in the empowerment/aggression/in-your-face-you-go-girl-fish-needs-a-bicycle department. And while I’m all for women going out and getting it – I’ve openly stated on several occasions that I’m looking for a woman who’s both smarter than me and makes more than I do, mostly so I can take up smoking and start to gain weight professionally – sometimes you just want a nice, easygoing smile with your beer at the bar, you know?
So a Southern woman. I’ll take one, please.
[I’ve actually semi-dated two Southern women in the past. One of whom I met at just about the worst time in my life, when I was more concerned with things like seeing how many beers I could drink without getting up from the couch to piss than with, like, girls and stuff. The other was much younger than me and once sent me a text message confusing “right” and “write.” I don’t recall exactly what it was, but it was on the level of “thats write!” Not the best way to get into Uncle Jason’s pants, since half my text messages contain semicolons and paragraph breaks. But she ultimately won because she later blew me off in such a spectacular fashion that once the statute of limitations expires, I’ll surely write about it. Not my finest moment. Not at all.]
[And no, “much younger” does not mean eight. Just wanted to clarify.]
2) The cost. We went to dinner at some BBQ joint before hitting the bars. There were five of us – the three Mulgrews, Tom, and his lady, Kimberly. We each got an appetizer and main course and had maybe ten or twelve beers and another few cokes. The dinner, with tip included, was less than $200. $40 a person for all that food. I’ve ordered a goddamn cheeseburger and Manhattan for more than $40 in NYC. And even if I did it every day for the rest of my life, after coming of age socially in NYC, I will never get used to paying under $4 for a beer in a bar. Every time I ordered a round, I’d have $60 ready in my hand for our five drinks. And each time the bartender said “$21” or whatever, I’d reflexively look at the drinks she’d be putting on the bar before me to make sure everything was included. It just does not compute. It’s like kissing a girl for the first few times; you’re tentative, unsure if what you’re doing is right, more than slightly confused – but you realize you’re onto something good. And you want to do it again and again. I’m still in the “confused” part of my development – coincidentally, the same stage I’m still in with the kissing – but it will hopefully pass soon. Because I sure like it.
3) The dudes. (Bear with me) All I’m saying is that it’s nice to stand at the bar waiting for a drink and not have to compete with some meathead muscling you out and stinking like Drakkar and his girlfriend’s vag, which he fingered on the way into the city on the LIRR. Again, a simple “how you doing?” really goes a long way.
4) The vibe. No pretension here, among the drinkers at least, who were there to listen to music and get drunk. If everyone wanted the same thing when they went out and acted accordingly, the world would be a much nicer place.
And that’s about all I can say about Nashville. My brother, who is four years younger than me and still very much in his shot phase – not to mention in much better shape than I am – went on some sort of shot-ordering mission toward the end of the night and I vaguely remember the last hour or so, and then leaving and hitting Wendy’s. I vividly remember waking up this morning with a fairly significant hangover and finding a slew of hamburger wrappers on the side of my bed. There was also an empty chili container, which makes sense, since Wendy’s chili is among my top twenty favorite things of earth. There were, however, no cracker wrappers to be found, and since I consider crackers absolutely necessary for Wendy’s chili, I can only surmise that I put the crackers, wrapper and all, in the chili and consumed them that way. I’m 90% confident this happened.
Westward, we go.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines – the Mulgrew Men Conquer America tour is underway.
To refresh, here’s our deal: My dad, brother and I are driving from Philly to Los Angeles. We are leaving Saturday, May 24, and need to arrive by Friday night, May 30, because my brother’s catching a plane that night back to Philly for a bachelor party. En route, we’re stopping in Nashville (to get drunk) and Sun City, Arizona (to visit relatives). The whole trip is about 2850 miles, which we have seven days to do. Joy.
Our vehicle of choice for this trip is a 1996 black Lincoln Town Car. It is easily the largest car I’ve ever driven and if you’re looking for a new car and want something resembling a Hearse but without the whole carrying-dead-people stigma, then this car would be perfect for you (the cloth top really adds the extra funereal touch). Not only is it a tank that reminds people of death, but the gas mileage for the car is less than ideal, to the tune of 11mpg in the city and 20mpg on the highway; I will spend more on gas alone on this trip than I’ve spent on any vacation I’ve ever taken. Finally, upon moving to and settling into Los Angeles, this will be my everyday vehicle. So in a city where what you drive says everything about you, mine says, “I’m going to kill you and throw you in the trunk – or give you a ride to LAX. Whichever, really.”
(The car does not have a nickname yet, but I imagine it will. The only other car I’ve ever “owned” – a gold 1984 Mercury Lynx that was only slightly larger than my body and seated .8 comfortably and did not have a working speedometer – was nicknamed “Lucy” for reasons that escape me now. However, this was in high school and I did a lot of weird, unexplainable things in high school, for example growing my hair long and trying to gain enough weight to hit 240 pounds in order to win a bet with my dad. Remarkably, I was a virgin in high school. Seriously. I can’t believe it either, but it’s true.)
For a little background, here are some short profiles of the main participants of the MMCA Tour:
Name: Dennis Mulgrew, Sr.
Age: 52
Occupation: Nothing (former mechanic and longshoreman)
Likes: Cigarettes, weapons, peeing
Dislikes: Not smoking
Name: Jason Mulgrew
Age: 28
Occupation: Senior Business Development Analyst
Likes: Comfortable beds, long showers, cleanliness
Dislikes: Wildlife, ruggedness
Name: Dennis Mulgrew, Jr.
Age: 25
Occupation: Future law student
Likes: Napping, fitness, Spanish
Dislikes: Pretty much anything that’s not napping, fitness or Spanish
Now that you’ve been reintroduced to our main participants, let’s back-track a little. Prior to going on this trip, I had two concerns:
1) I was fairly certain that my dad was going to bring a handgun on this trip. I wrote about this before so I won’t go into it in great detail again, but basically he wanted the handgun both for protection and in case he wanted to get out of the car at various points of the trip to shoot things (i.e. cactuses, small rodents, big rocks and shit, etc). It took quite a bit of effort, but my brother and I were able to haggle him down from handgun to pretty big knife (we were stuck on “really big” for two days) and a club. Our basic argument was that if he brought the gun on the trip, how could he get it back? He couldn’t bring it on the plane back to Philly (lie: I think you can pack an unloaded gun in your checked baggage), nor could you walk into FedEx and have it shipped back to you (I think this is a lie, too). So before we even started the engine, we knew we were traveling handgun-less. I love it when people compromise.
2) I was concerned that my dad would stop every forty miles to pee. The last time my dad drove me to NYC (from Philly) about three weeks ago, he peed before we left, peed twice on the drive up, and then was practically kicking down my apartment door to pee once we arrived in NYC. The drive was completely free of traffic and took about two hours, so he went to the bathroom four times in roughly two and half hours, for an average of one piss every 37.5 minutes of travel. This is not a good average when you’re expecting to spend twelve hours a day in the car for the next six days. However, he is still my dad, and while I’ve been subtly suggesting some sort of funnel and Gatorade bottle apparatus, if the man wants to stop to pee every forty miles, we’ve got to stop the car every forty miles. This obstacle we’ll have to deal with as it comes.
Day 1: Saturday, May 24 Philadelphia, PA – Abingdon, VA
Original Departure Time: 10:00am
Adjusted Departure Time: 11:00am
Actual Departure Time: 1:08pm
Total Distance Traveled: 499 miles
The egregiously late start time was my fault (mostly). I got in to Philly very late the previous night after working until 8pm on the Friday night of Memorial Day weekend, which was great, and then throwing out nearly everything in my apartment and leaving the rest in my hallway with a sign that says “Free – Moved Out of Country.” I caught the last train out of Philly and got in just before 1am. Knowing it would be my last one for some time, I got a cheesesteak, which had such a sedative effect on me that it might as well have been a giant, gooey Ambein. I set my alarm for 9am, but was awoken by my brother at 10:27am when he walked into my bedroom and asked, “Dude, are you ready?” Whoops. After loading up the car and saying goodbye to everyone, we hit the road just after 1pm. Better late than never.
Since we wanted to stop in Nashville, our goal for the first day was to do at least 500 miles. This would put us within striking distance of Nashville on the following day (Nashville is 800 miles from Philly), with the goal of getting into the city sometime in the late afternoon to relax, have dinner and get shit-canned. The drive from Philly to Boston, which each of my dad, brother and I have done numerous times, is a little more than 300 miles. So 500 miles was an ambitious goal for the first day, but not unreasonable.
The first day of traveling, like the first round of a boxing match, is all about feeling each other out. Despite having the same DNA, my dad, brother and I are three pretty different people who haven’t hung out much together. Sure, I stay with my dad when I’m in Philly and I see my brother when I’m back home, but it’s one thing to make small talk and hang out for a few hours and another entirely to live every waking moment with these people in the confines of a smoke-filled Hearse. Would we talk? (A little, sure) Would we argue? (Probably not) Would we pretty much sit in silence? (Bingo)
As we passed quickly through Pennsylvania and Delaware and made quick work of Maryland, music was the discussion topic of choice between my dad and I, as my brother fell asleep 38 minutes into the drive. Prior to the trip, I had spent weeks crafting iPod playlists to listen to while driving with themes like Rock, Indie, Country, Rap, Oldies and Dirt Rock (comprised of songs by Motorhead, Iron Maiden, Eagles of Death Metal, Black Sabbath, White Stripes and the Black Keys, to name a few, and subtitled “This playlist will make you HARD!”). Of course, in the mess of the move and in the rush to get both out of NYC and then out of Philly, I forgot to get an iPod adapter for the car’s cassette player. So we listened to local radio stations. All day long.
My agent Joel, who’s done the cross-country drive three times, warned me that I would hear a ton of AC/DC, Lynard Skynard and Jars of Clay on the drive, but on this day, as we barely ventured out of the mid-Atlantic region, the music was eclectic and for the most part, bearable. As we listened, I learned many things about my dad’s taste in music, which I had previously assumed consisted only of Bad Company and Foreigner and anything you would hear in a mechanic’s shop or on comes free with those calendars of bikini-clad ladies laying over motorcycles. It actually wasn’t so much what was said but what songs were reacted to. For example, when Warrant’s “Heaven” came on the radio, my dad was moved enough to say “Oohh”, give a bit of fist-pump, and sing along (“Hey Now” by Tears for Fears elicited a similar response). When telling me that “Another Brick in the Wall” was his senior prom theme (St. John Neumann, Class of ’73), “Don’t Look Back in Anger” by Oasis came on the radio, and I had to spend the better part of an hour assuring him that it was not a Mott the Hoople song (he still doesn’t believe me and probably never will).
A few hours later as we entered Virginia, my brother, now awake, pointed out that the state has some of the highest traffic fines in the country and urged us to drive slowly. We dismissed this as him being overly cautious; my dad, who took the first shift, sped most of the way through his leg, a trend I continued in my shift, the third one, while my brother in the middle of us topped out at maybe 66 miles per hour in his second shift. We’re in a Lincoln Town Car, we’re a family, and we’re driving cross-country – it would be un-American to follow the speed limit. Fucking Commie brother.
Our first real stop, and thus our first taste of America outside of the Northeast, was at a gas station in rural, central Virginia. I bought what I lived off the first time I did a long-distance drive (from Seattle to LA): diet coke and combos. The woman at the cash register was probably the world’s shortest non-midget whose nametag actually read “Little Bitty.” I paid Little Bitty for my foodstuffs, wondered what her house looked like and what she looked like when she had an orgasm, and walked back to the car, where my brother was pumping gas. My dad followed shortly behind me out of the store flush with excitement. He was nearly delirious when he pulled out what he had purchased: another “pretty big” knife.
Yes, Virginia, in this state you can buy some pretty serious knives at gas stations and, though clearly in violation of the Mulgrew Weapon Treaty of 2008, my dad went and bought one for himself, a nice little vacation souvenir. Like many dads, my dad is obsessed with knives and other weapons (wait, what?). This is a man who carries a gun with him to poop and, say what you want about guns, but at least they’re going to get the job done. I don’t put much faith in knives, even though they’re shiny and cool, since a knife can be dropped, a knife can be taken away, and a knife can be plunged into oneself running away from a real threat (i.e. murderer) or a perceived threat (i.e. something that sounds like a bear but is really a raccoon or perhaps just wind). Nonetheless, the knife had been purchased and there was no way Little Biddy was going to give us a refund, so under the passenger seat it went with the first knife and the club, which is actually some sort of device used for hitting/checking tires.
We drove onward and enjoyed the hills of Virginia, my dad happily behind the wheel. We switched drivers every time we stopped to piss or for food, which was about every two hours or 120 miles. Because we had three drivers, for every two hours of driving, there was four hours of sitting. As a result, once you actually had the chance to drive, you were thrilled and wanted to open up the Beast of the Town Car on the open road and see what you could do. Now through a rotation and having sat for four hours, my dad was driving, doing 80 in and over the hills, seeing what the Town Car, loaded to the brim and weighing roughly 16,000 pounds, was capable of.
As we came down a hill, car on fire, my dad motioned to a brushy area and said, “That’s where they usually hide.” No sooner had he said those words than a state trooper, lights blaring, shot out from the brush and got behind us. I looked at the speedometer and saw 78. 78 in a 70mph zone was not too bad.
Sitting idly on the shoulder of the road, the statie, who was no more than 24, walked up along the passenger side, asked how we were doing, and asked my dad why he thought he was pulled over. “Because I was going a little fast” was his answer, to which the trooper replied a deep Southern “Yes, sir” and asked for license and registration. After reviewing the documents, the trooper explained that we had clocked us at 82mph in a 65mph zone (I was mistaken), and that anything over 80mph in the state of Virginia is considered reckless driving. Not only that, our windshield, according to the statie, was illegal. See, the top of the windshield of the Hearse/Town Car is tinted (naturally). On the windshield glass, there is a little line, one all the way on the left and one all the way on the right, 85% of the way up the windshield, that says something like “A1A.” Any window tinting below this line, like we have in the Town Car, is illegal in Virginia. Because that’s a law that really makes sense. Fucking Commie Virginia lawmakers.
This is when the pleading started. It wasn’t so much as pleading as playing dumb, which wasn’t so much playing dumb as telling the truth. My dad said that he had no idea about that law and had just bought the car, that we were a family driving across the country to move me to California, that we were coming down a hill and the car must have ticked up a few miles faster. The trooper said he understand and said he’d be back in a minute.
As we sat there, we assumed that we were going to get away with a warning. After all, it’s not like we were doing 95mph or the car smelled like pot or we were black. While not the all-American family, my dad has not been in jail for over 20 years, I have not taken any illegal drugs in over three weeks, and my brother is a future lawyer. This trooper seemed nice and reasonable and we’d be back on the road in no time. Totally.
We were back on the road in no time, but not without two tickets – one for the speeding and one for the tinting – and a summons for my dad to appear in court in Pulaski County, Virginia sometime this July at 8:30am. The statie, despite his Southern manner and kind, albeit a little crooked eyes, had dropped the fucking hammer on us. We were stunned and before we could say anything, the trooper wished us a nice evening and walked back to his car.
My dad and I sat in the front, unmoving, me stunned, him angry. My brother, ever quick, pulled out his phone and googled “reckless driving Virginia” and in less than thirty seconds informed us that reckless driving is a Class 1 misdemeanor – the same classification as a DUI/DWI charge – in Virginia, with penalties up to one year in jail and/or up to $2,500 in fines. We sat for a moment longer, my dad looking at the summons in his right hand. The summons still in hand, he turned on the ignition, shifted the car from “P” into “D”, pulled slowly back onto the highway, and said “Fuck it – I’ll never set foot in Virginia again”, crumpling up the summons and throwing it in the backseat.
Good plan, but it has only one slight problem. The future law school of my brother Dennis? The University of Virginia. Oh well. Those graduation ceremonies are always overrated anyway.
************
Shortly after, we pulled into Marion, Virginia and ate at an Italian restaurant there. I was up next to drive, but was so moved by how cheap the beer was – $6 pitchers (!), and a line about their cheap happy hour special, which I surmised must include paying people to drink their beer, since it doesn’t get much cheaper than $6 pitchers on a Saturday night outside of West Africa – that I had to have some beers. My dad, who doesn’t drink, said he’d continue driving on, so after dinner we did another 30 miles or so and settled into a murder hotel in Abingdon, VA. Exhausted, and possibly $2,500 poorer, we called it a night. Day One of the MMCA Tour, done.
It’s very hard to take this moving thing seriously. The fact that I’m moving out of NYC, I mean. On the one hand, I’d like to use a word like “epic” to describe it (if I may contemplate being so bold) . I moved here when I was 21 and now, about eight weeks shy of my 29th birthday, I’m leaving. That’s nearly eight years of living in this wonderful city, sucking it dry and using it up, while it sucked me dry and used me up, the two of us running on a co-dependence that may have been for the most part unhealthy, but at times, many times, bordered on rapture.
But it’s not like I’ll never be back. I tried, through work, to get a full bicoastal arrangement – I’d be based in LA, but would do two work weeks there and two work weeks in NYC every month – but that was nixed. As a consolation prize, I was told I could otherwise work out of the NY office whenever I want “within reason.” So yeah, I’ll be back. Hell, I’ll be back in July, spending two nights in NYC before heading down the Jersey shore for the annual Drink Until You Shit Tour (July 12, baby). And then again to catch an Eagles game with my buddies at Ship of Fools in September. And then again for Site Guy Brendan’s wedding in November, and over the holidays in December and January. So I’ll be back. Lots.
And this could also be the softest, easiest move that a human being has ever made. I’m moving to LA, a city I’ve spent 10 days a month in since September, where I have a ton of friends (including my former NYC roommate of four years) and where I’m even able to keep my same job (though I finally get an office with a window!). Yeah, the people in LA are very different than the people in NYC and I’m probably going to have to use product in my hair to fit in, and the environs are certainly different – no longer will I be able to walk to and from work or wear all my cute winter outfits – but at least I know what I’m getting into.
Not to mention that this LA move is temporary. I cannot see myself out there for longer than a year, a year which I will treat as a year of retirement or a long stint of rehab. I’m going to LA to get well physically, emotionally, mentally, professionally and financially – no more nights out until 5am, no more women smarter than me, no more watching twenty hours of murder/monster shows a week, no more performing the same exact job functions I’ve performed every day for the past five years, no more spending $2000 a month on rent. Then, once I’m better across the board, I’m returning to NYC to burn the mother fucking house down all over again.
But right now, I’m still moving out of New York City. It’s one thing to leave, even for long stretches at a time, but I’ve always come back. And this, I think, is when it will finally hit me. I’ve always gone through phases when I thought I wanted to move out of NYC. Boston was a main target; I’d go for a long time without visiting Boston and all my friends up there and I’d think, “All your buddies are there and it’s so much cheaper and you’ve been in New York for so long. Why don’t you just move up there?” Then I’d get to Boston and, with all due respect to that fair city, know instantly why I really, actually didn’t want to move there – because it’s not New York City. After a fun weekend, I’d take the Acela from Back Bay or South Station and arrive at New York-Penn Station, step out to take the great mess that is 32nd Street and 7th Avenue, hail a cab home, and sit back, awestruck by the personality, the life of the city, in the same way that I have been since the very first day I moved here.
That’s the thing I’ll miss most, when I miss it – the life of New York City. And it always gets me when I come back. There’s the trip from JFK, in a cab, into the city, a route that takes the BQE, which runs parallel to the island of Manhattan on the other side of the East River, giving you the postcard view: the skyline, lit up, burning brightly, and in there, two million human beings, two million people on an island of twenty-two square miles (!). In there, they are living, they are eating, they are drinking, sleeping, doing it – and in there too, somewhere, my bars, my restaurants, my walks, my friends, my life.
And even if I am going away for a little while – for just a little while, a year or so, in order to get well – that’s how I’ll still think of NYC. Life will go on, and the city won’t so much as shrug when it learns of my departure, but those streets and those buildings and those people will still be my life – my bars, my restaurants, my walks, my friends, my life.
And I’ll be back. It is only under this condition that I’m moving in the first place. Until then, wish me luck on my rehab. Lord knows, after almost eight years in this city, I’ve earned it.
(And I’ll have some pretty good stories to tell, too.)
************
If you’re ever feeling down or unappreciated, here’s what you do: tell all your friends you’re moving in a few week’s time. If you have friends that are worth a damn in the first place, they’ll band together, keep getting you drunk night after night, and make you wonder why you’re ever moving in the first place.
(But the female friends won’t sleep with you. No matter how much you beg and plead and say "It’ll be the perfect end to my NYC experience!" or "C’mon – there’s always been a little something between us!" or "Do you realize the only way I’m getting laid in LA is if pay for it? Help me out, why don’t you?")
I shit you not when I say I can’t recall as fun a time as I’ve had over the past few weeks (and this despite long hours and a very strong anti-job sentiment). I’ve gone out, I’d guess, 13 of the past 15 or so nights, both with friends that I’ve been hanging out with regularly for years and with people I haven’t hung out with in months. Everything is a haze and I think different parts of my body are either dead or dying, but what a tremendous stretch it’s been – getting home at 3am on a Tuesday; spending an hour in a friend’s office "resting" because of a tremendous hangover; randomly running into that motherfucker Iha on a Wednesday night at the Tile Bar at immediately calling my old roommate Brian in California, screaming into the phone "It’s been 15 years since ‘Cherub Rock’, Iha – might be time to get a real job. I hear the Parks Department is hiring"; hitting Rosario’s at every possible opportunity and unleashing such vengeance on their beef patties that if you didn’t know any better you’d think a gang of them murdered my family; etc. An incredible few weeks, really, which makes me realize how lucky I am to have such wonderful friends and such a voracious appetite for food, booze and sex.
(Why again am I leaving?)
************
My dad and uncle are coming up Thursday night to move me out. Friday, I leave NYC and head to Philly and on Saturday morning we’re on the road for our Mulgrew Men Conquer America trip. We’re stopping in Nashville, probably on Sunday night, and in Sun City, Arizona, sometime later in the week (the former to get drunk and the latter to visit relatives). I am nervous about this, but good nervous, like when you’re pretty sure you’re going to lose your virginity; anxious and looking forward to it just to get it out of the way, and excited to see what life will be like when it’s over. That’s really the best way I can describe it. Wish us luck.
************
If a man’s sex life is measured by the amount of left-behind women’s jewelry he finds in his apartment when he’s packing up to move, then I’m just below Wilt Chamberlain but slightly above Mick Jagger. Good lord. Here I am thinking that I haven’t really been getting laid, but the evidence in the form of these artifacts disproves this nearly universally held theory. It’s not quite the discovery of Tut’s tomb, but it’s pretty remarkable nonetheless. According to these findings, I have actually been getting laid or am keeping trinkets from my murder victims, many of whom have a penchant for hoop earrings and cheap brightly colored rings (apparently, I target only gypsies). With the earrings, rings and necklaces I’ve found in various places in my apartment, I could easily open a stand somewhere in Soho. But first, I feel like I should send an email out so these items could be claimed by their rightful owners:
Ladies and that Puerto Rican guy who dressed up as a sailor on Halloween in 2006,
I’m moving out of my apartment and have discovered a lot of jewelry that does not belong to me. If you think any of these items belong to you, please contact me. If you think I’m going to use this as leverage for us to make out again, you are absolutely correct.
Thinking of you,
Jason
PS – I am so lonely.
PPS – Seriously, if we could just talk, even for 15 minutes or so, it would really help me out.
Provided, most of the time when a girl spends the night with me at my place, she’s so anxious to get out of there the next morning before I wake up that she’s liable to leave behind her arm if it’s not attached, so losing an earring is a small price to pay for freedom from a captor who smells like cinnastix. And hey, it worked out for me – I got an ego boost and lots of free jewelry. Sweet.
************
As part of the process of moving, I called my doctor to get refills of my two prescriptions: Nexium and Xanax. The former I don’t use much anymore; since I lost the weight, my heartburn has all but ceased (still it’s a good prescription to have handy and honestly, I’ve probably gained 20 pounds in the past two months, gorging on some of NYC’s finest cuisines under the auspices of “I’ll never get [NYC food] again!”). The latter I still use, but mostly to sleep – I can’t comprehend how anyone can take Xanax and drink, since it just makes me sleepy and decreases significantly my ability to get an erection. However, in the middle of a stressful week, nothing beats a nice dinner, three good beers, a long fantasy shower, and a Xanax to take the edge off and send you gently off to sleep.
My previous prescription was for 100+ pills of .25 mg, a relatively small dosage. So I called the good ol’ doc for that and the Nexium to be re-upped and wouldn’t you know, the magnificent son of a bitch, God bless him, still prescribed 100+ pills but doubled the dosage to .5 mg. Looks like those morning drives in LA are going to be a bit foggy for Uncle Jason as the alprazolam wears off. I should probably start drinking coffee.
************
While we’re handing out blessings from God, a big one goes to my cleaning lady, Zoila. One of the most emotional moments I’ve had during the move came when I wrote her a thank you and goodbye letter, telling her I was moving and, well, thanking her for all her help. I cannot quantify the positive emotional and mental impact that she, in the form of her cleaning services, has had on my life. Every other Monday morning before going to work I’d look at my apartment, covered with empty beer cans, pizza crusts, full ash trays, and other remnants of the weekend, and feel terrible about myself and my station in life. Then I’d come home that evening from a hard day at the office (read: fantasy sports and personal phone calls) and find my place immaculately clean, immediately improving my mood, confidence and self-esteem. She was like my own like Mexican-type life coach, and I will miss her dearly.
(But seriously – if you live in NYC and need a cleaning lady, I can’t recommend her highly enough. Being a cleaning lady and cutting your teeth by cleaning my place is like being that 14 year old who f’ed his super-hot teacher – you’re pretty much considered an expert immediately and infinitely from that point forward.)
************
Six Songs (special Nine Songs edition)
A twist in this edition of Six Songs: thanks to a lovely site called muxtape, you can hear each of the Six Songs selections below in their entirety – along with a few other songs I added on there that I’ve been listening to lately, since you can have up to 12 songs on your mixtape. I love this site, but I’m sure it’s going to be sued into oblivion any moment (and sometimes it takes a while to load, so you have to be patient).
"Time To Pretend" Mgmt
If there’s an anthem for the past few weeks, it’s gotta be this song. Let’s have a listen to the first verse, shall we?
I’m feeling rough, I’m feeling raw, I’m in the prime of my life
Let’s make some music, make some money, find some models for wives
I’ll move to Paris, shoot some heroin and fuck with the stars
You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars
Um, where do I sign up – because that’s exactly what I pretend too. I’m not one to guarantee things often, but I guarantee that if you listen to this song at least once a day, every day for two weeks, your penis will get bigger and you will actually become bulletproof. Trust me. My favorite line is actually toward the end:
Our models will have children, we’ll get a divorce
We’ll find some more models, everything must run its course
I don’t know if my liking this line means I’m misogynistic and view women strictly as pretty things and vessels for procreation, or I like it because it rock and I rock. Probably a bit of both. I’m just saying – you want to be bulletproof, check the song out. That’s all.
"Two Headed Boy" Neutral Milk Hotel
Hands down (HD?) my single favorite song to play when in front of people messing around with an acoustic guitar and someone says, "Oh – play us something!" The pure amount of screaming and heavy strumming in this song is breathtaking; if properly and with enough vigor, I’m pretty sure you can get someone to punch you in the face to stop before you get to the two minute mark. Just tremendous.
"Alternative to Love" Brendan Benson
I’ve recommended this song before, but with the discovery of muxtape, I had to recommend it again. Simply: there is no way that anyone cannot not like this song. I mean, when that chorus kicks in ("Maybe I’m just damaged goods…"), some part of your body has to be moving (that is, if you have feeling in all parts of your body). I could listen to this song ten times in a row and be more than ok with that.
"Right Down the Line" Gerry Rafferty
This is the song that’s on when it’s 1977 and my girl and I are getting ready in our house in the Hollywood Hills to go out to meet some friends for drinks and cocaine at some hot new club at Hollywood and La Brea. Our life is wonderful.
"Outfit" Drive-By Truckers
Nice. Good song to listen to while moving.
"This Time Tomorrow" The Kinks
Also nice. Also a good song to listen to while moving.
"Fans" Kings of Leon
Y’all know I’m a sucker for anything about kings or queens (“A King and A Queen” by Okkervil River practically makes me weep every time I hear it), and this one’s got a doozy of a line: “Those rainy days, they ain’t so bad when you’re the king.”)
"Seems to Me" Joe Walsh and the James Gang
This is the musical equivalent of opening a can of PBR while not wearing a shirt. To hell with you, woman.
"I Thought I Saw Your Face Today" She and Him
You know, I made fun of this group – the hipster dream-team combo of M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel – both on here and so mercifully to my friends that it bordered on obsession. Then, I go and download a bunch of their songs and I’m so impressed by this one in particular that I am seriously willing to pay someone (a woman, hopefully) upwards of $200 to slow dance with me while it plays. So if you’re interested – or just hard up for cash – shoot me an email.
I pick my nose all day at work. In this regard, I’m like a 70 year old man and simply do not give a fuck. It’s been especially bad as of late, both because I am a slave to my allergies and because with this upcoming LA move, I’ve effectively doubled my responsibilities at work and thus have adapted a "Hey, if I’m going to work this hard for you, you gotta take me, nose-pickin’ and all." I really don’t give a fuck. I’m going to pick my nose whenever I want. Because I take care of shit.
About an hour ago, I was sitting at my desk, reading SI.com and really digging in – I must have had my right hand about halfway up my nose before I found what I was looking for. Nugget properly excavated, I transferred my treasure from my right pointer finger to my left, in order to flick my find into the garbage can on my left. Transfer complete, I moved my body sixty degrees to the left, still mostly facing away from the window but moving in its direction, allowing me to flick away into the trash can below my desk.
It took a couple of tries – this was a true goober, a real clinger with the consistency and density of the inside of a grape - but after a few fingertip rolls to dry it out, I finally flicked the boogie into my trash can. It was then that I angled my body even more to the left, toward the window, just to take a peak "outside." And there, maybe six feet outside my window, stood a co-worker, a co-worker who from the look on his face had seen everything, from the initial decision to excavate to the ground-breaking ceremony to the Great Exhumation to the repeated unsuccessful launch attempts. His expression said "I don’t know if I’m more disgusted or sad or did I really just watch him pick his nose?" Our eyes locked for a moment, then I looked away. Unsure of what to do next, I stood up from my chair, shuffled some papers on my desk, and walked over to my file cabinet.
Since then, I have been laughing so hard that I’ve cried on two separate occasions. Seriously. I actually started choking on my laughter at one point, so loudly that I thought someone was going to call the paramedics. What makes this especially funny is that I know this guy – we talk, we get along, we like each other. If I didn’t know him at all or we never spoke, I wouldn’t care. But I know him, not in a "let’s have beers after work"-type way but in a "we exchanges a little more than the standard pleasantries at the water cooler" way. And he just watched me pick my nose – and I mean seriously, in a borderline mentally-ill person type-way, pick my nose – for a solid three minutes. Count to 180 in your head right now – it’s a long-ass time. I’m 28 years old, have my own office, and am the perfect employee (at least lately), and yet at 3:28pm on a Thursday afternoon I’m leaning back in my chair, reading SI.com, and picking my nose like I don’t have a care in the world. Give me a raise already.
************
I guess this is my way of telling you that I’m alive. I have excuses, as usual: as mentioned, I’ve been doubled up at work; I’ve been trying to pack; I’ve been saying "goodbye" to various NYC friends; I’ve been traveling a bit (last weekend was my last in Philly; this weekend is, incredibly, my last in NYC). But I’m alive and reasonably well and trying to figure out the best way to deal with such a jarring transition. Wish me luck.
(More to come.)
(And if any of you guys want to help me pack, let me know. Please bring beer.)
In three weeks.
Sure, I had some idea that I wanted to get out of NYC for a while, but this was something I wanted to do sometime in 2008, not in three weeks. But certain opportunities have prevented themselves (boring opportunities that you wouldn’t be interested in), and so after seven glorious years, I’m moving out of NYC to Los Angeles.
(Yikes.)
(Also, just for a little while, maybe a year. Then I’ll be back.)
(But still, yikes.)
The reasons for this move I’ll get into another time, but let’s talk about specifics, since they are first and foremost on my mind (since, you know, I’ve got three weeks to take care of business). First, I have to be out in LA on June 2. I’m keeping my current job and working out of our LA office and that’s the day I start there full-time. Consequently, the Mulgrew Men Conquer America Road Trip, a cross-country drive that my dad, brother and I were planning for July, will now happen the last week of May; we’ll leave Philly on Saturday morning, May 24, drive the southern route stopping in Nashville and Phoenix and some other places along the way, and aim to be in LA by Friday night. So bring on the red bulls, lunchables and gatorade bottle to pee in!
In the meantime, I have three weeks to sell everything I own. I’m going to store my books, clothes, and all but two of my guitars, my Strat and my Martin acoustic, which will be coming with me. I’m not concerned about selling everything, I don’t think, because I’m sure I’ll be able to get rid of it or donate the rest. What bothers me is that I bought a furniture set for $1300 last year, which I will now have to sell for what, $400? I’m getting a little sentimental about selling my desk and desk chair, which, silly as this sounds, I’ve written most of the blog and the book at and on, and which I will sell to a stranger for $50. Sweet. Also, I have a 42" in high def TV that I bought last year for $1800. I can’t bear to sell this, so instead, I’m giving it to my dad to use as collateral because he’s giving me a car. "What?" you ask, "You always claim to be poor, but your dad’s giving you a car? You rich fuck." Hold on. My dad is a mechanic and lover of cars. He recently purchased a – wait for it – 1996 black Lincoln Town Car ("Presidential Series," naturally). He loves this car as an "antique" and because it has only 22,000 miles on it. His plan was to hold on to it as an "investment" but we’ve worked out a deal: he’ll rent me the car for the year to drive while I’m in LA. He wouldn’t take any money, so instead I’m giving him my TV. It is this Town Car that we will also drive across the country ("It’s perfect," my dad says, "because it’s built for touring"). So in the most car-conscious city in America, where what you drive says much about who you are, and in an environment in which gas will be over $5 a gallon by year-end, I’m going to drive a bulking behemoth of a car, a gas-guzzling monster older than my second wife, normally the purview only of old men and car service employees. I don’t even have a joke here.
So there you go. I don’t know where I’m going to live, but I’ve been staying with friends since I’ve been going out there and will probably do so again, in order to look for a place while I’m on the ground. I guess I will have to post some "EVERYTHING SALE" craigslist ad soon, which I will link on here. And then, I don’t know…I think I have to go out as much as possible and eat as much as possible and touch as many boobies as possible until I leave (in 18 days).
(Yikes.)
************
Since this all happened, I haven’t been sleeping very well and also have been hitting it pretty hard, raging against the dying of the light, not going gently into that good night. I mean this kinda literally; I’ve been sleeping about four hours a night, falling asleep after hours in bed, waking up intermittently and checking fantasy sports and doing the dishes and ironing, and then going back to bed and waking up hours before my alarm goes off. Not good.
On Saturday, my friends and I planned to have a barbeque in Hoboken. This was canceled at the last minute, leaving me crushed, because these barbeques generally degenerate into all-day drinking sessions filled with talk of sports, music and girls we’ve done (or would like to do). However, my friends Jeremy and Meredith, roommates, called me to come over their apartment. I’d gone to bed at 5am Friday night and woke up at 9am Saturday morning, so if I wasn’t going to barbeque I wanted to nap. But they were insistent, so over to their place I went.
On the way there, I picked up a little something – six pounds and $70 worth of Italian meats and cheeses from a shop in Little Italy. If we couldn’t grill outside, maybe we could dine on fresh mozzarella, prosciutto and other delicacies indoors. I called Meredith and Jeremy and told them of my plan and they (well, Meredith) immediately ran out and grabbed wine and bread and olive oil and Campari.
So all afternoon, we ate our salted meats and fine cheeses and drank our Campari and wine. We talked, we laughed, we actually had intelligent conversation (I put this squarely on Meredith’s shoulders; had she not been there, Jeremy and I would probably have sat in silence staring at the TV and would only talk in order to alert each other of nice boobies outside). I was exhausted, all the salt and meat and wine really doing a number on me, so at 6:30pm I left their apartment – after I watched the horse I bet on die, right there on the racetrack (I should have known this was an omen for the night). My plan was to go home and nap, because, since at that point I already knew my weekends in NYC were limited and I intended staying out until last call at 4am. To do this, I’d need to recharge my batteries.
But when I got home, I couldn’t nap. I had a nice buzz and a full belly, but all I could think about was all the packing and moving I have to do, and I just laid there on my couch wide-awake. So instead of sleeping, I did what came naturally: I made myself a drink. Then another. Then I made and ate another (half) Italian meat and cheese sandwich. Then had another drink.
Jeremy and some friends, Lisa and Carly, came over to my place and we drank some more and watched VH1 Classic, which was lovely. By the time we left, I had had three vodka red bulls, a couple vodka crans and a number of Bud bombers. I felt like $40,000, completely better than I had when I first got home when I was tired and miserable and full. If I had two Saturday nights left in NYC, I was going to take advantage of them. That’s just how I roll. Tell your friends.
We went to Lorely, one of my old stand-bys, to meet a bunch of other friends. I talked to my friend Susie, who I hadn’t seen in years, and after she took off talked to my buddy Pat and his brother, who was in town for the weekend, and his buddy. It was a lot of fun, and long story short, Uncle Jason was getting a little tipsy – even for Uncle Jason standards.
I kept my promise to myself, however, and was there until close with Jeremy, Lisa and Carly. There was an argument with the bartender, who kicked us out even though we had half-full beers (he was right though, since it was well after 4am and we were the last people in the bar). There was talk of pizza and we left the bar. This is where the wheels came off.
Pizzaless, I walked home from the bar, which is only a few blocks from my apartment in Little Italy. I really had to piss. I have no idea why I didn’t just pee on the street; the area was deserted and I’m not above letting my bird get some fresh air. But for whatever reason, despite my increasingly angry bladder, I was intent on making it home to pee. And truth be told, I was doing ok with this – until I got into my apartment. As soon as my key twisted in my doorknob, my bladder and urethra, which had been working in concert to stem the tide of urine raging and raging inside me, simply gave up, exhausted. I was struck by that rare yet familiar feeling: I am going to piss myself.
I ran across my apartment toward the bathroom, throwing my keys on my coffee table and beginning the process of freeing my bird. Unfortunately, I had button-fly jeans on, so this added a layer of difficulty when a layer of difficulty was most unwelcome. Opening my jeans with my left hand and gripping my dick in my right, I kicked in my bathroom door like marshals executing a search warrant. As soon as I entered the bathroom, before I got to the toilet, I couldn’t hold it any longer and it all fell apart - urine streamed out of my bird, my thimble-like penis expelling a surprisingly forceful stream of urine on (at first) my curtain and my walls then (eventually) my toilet and the bowl of my toilet. Exhausted, relieved, I put my left hand on the wall ahead of me and let out a wail of ecstasy, shuddering, overcome with a feeling of pleasure, comparable to an orgasm achieved via threesome with Elisha Cuthbert and Christ. Joy; sweet relief. Sweet, sweet relief.
Having peed on myself and my bathroom, I did what an reasonable drunk guy would do at 4:30am – ate the rest of the sandwich I had made for dinner (after washing my hands, of course) (I think). Provolone, fresh mozzarella, prosciutto, genoa salami, pepperoni, hot and sweet soppressata, and sweet cappocola, piled high, filling me with enough nitrates and sodium to kill a four-hundred pound man twice. Once that was polished off, it was approaching 5am, so I did what an reasonable drunk guy would do at 5am - stripped down, grabbed a book, turned the water on and laid down in the shower to read. I read in the shower usually, sitting in the tub as though I were having a bath, but with the showerhead pointing at my feet and the water draining, so only my body below my knees gets rest. However, I don’t usually do this after such heavy drinking. On this night, I’m not sure how many pages or words I got through, but I fell asleep, there, in the shower, water running, book on my chest.
I wasn’t out long, but I was definitely unconscious. I woke up, drunker than ever, feeling sick – the steam and the meats and the booze…not a favorable combination. So I put on my clothes and as I was dressing, bent over the toilet to puke. After a vomiting session that left me feeling slightly better, I cleaned myself up and fell into bed, asleep before my head hit the pillow.
I woke up hours later on my couch. Completely, 100%, balls-ass naked.
I went back into bed.
************
My name is Jason Mulgrew. I am 28 years old. On Saturday night, I drank all day, consumed 6000 calories, peed myself and all over my bathroom, fell asleep in my tub with the water running, then vomited, then passed out, and then woke up in a different room than the one I fell asleep in, wearing no clothes. On Sunday, I was so hungover that I remained naked for most of the day, walking around my apartment hunched over in pain, dividing my time between the couch and the restorative powers of the shower, the water running, listening to it, breathing in its steam, reciting my incantation of "Oh god…oh god…oh man…please" over and over and over again, praying for relief. I did not leave my apartment, ate only Bayer and some reheated pasta, and was in bed by 9pm.
You want a reason why I’m moving to Los Angeles? Maybe I’m moving there to retire. Maybe I’m moving there because I can’t stay out until 4am every Friday and Saturday night, because I can’t afford $7 beers (or $2000 a month in rent), because I’m getting old enough where nights like Saturday result not in a funny story but a trip to the emergency room after my heart explodes from the cumulative effect and abuse from years of vodka, of red bull, of Bud bombers and PBRs, of whiskey served in fancy glasses, of steak, of cheese, of prosciutto, genoa salami, pepperoni, hot soppressata, sweet soppressata, and sweet cappocola.
But you know what? Fuck no. I’m not moving to LA for those reasons. Because I’m going to Philly next weekend, I have one more weekend in New York City, and a total of 16 more nights in the city that I have called home for seven years, the city that has made me.
Drinking too much, overeating, peeing, passing out in the shower, puking, waking up in a strange place. A better way to say goodbye to NYC, I can think of none.
One night down, 16 more to go.
I don’t care for such things, personally. Even though Nicole and I have been having monthly dinner dates at various nice restaurants in NYC for almost two years now, I wouldn’t say that I have good taste in food. I wouldn’t say that I have bad taste either, but a more appropriate description of my culinary palate would be junior high. If a junior high student loves it, then I love it. I like butter, I like cream, I like sugar, I like cheese, I like steak (not necessarily in that order). I’ll take a big piece of beef with a side of cheesy potatoes and creamed spinach, a generous pour of whiskey, and a giant piece of pie over almost anything else.
Usually, I like to case out a restaurant and study its menu the day of a dinner. I’m a planner and I like going in with a plan: I know what I want from the appetizer on through the dessert. I feel like this enhances the dining experience, since I can spend all afternoon and the early part of the evening fantasizing about that particular meal. What’s the quote – "the best part of sex is the walk up the stairs"? Looking at the menu, deciding what I’m getting, and thinking about it all day is my walk up the stairs.
But for Sfoglia, I couldn’t pick my meal in advance. This is not because I was without internet or temporarily unable to read, but because of what the hell is on their menu. Here’s a sampling:
affettati misti
olive oil poached fluke, red onion, sesame seed zabaglione
wild mushroom soup, crisp guanciale, vin santo cream
stinging nettle, crab rotolo in tomato
riso venere, steamed cockles, jalepeno, parsley
pasta sciue sciue
broiled orata, lemon marmellata
A couple of things:
1) I consider myself reasonably intelligent and well-read, and I have (at least) a working knowledge of Latin, Greek and Spanish and a little bit of Russian, and yet I can recognize maybe 40% of the words in those descriptions. 40% on a good day.
2) I believe "zabaglione" is not a food, but an Italian slang term for when a girl puts her finger in a man’s heinie while giving him a blowjob. "So she’s down there, right, sucking away, and then all of a sudden – zabaglione!"
3) Likewise, "guanciale" is slang for African-American penis. "She’s hot, and I really like her, but I can’t compete – she loves the guanciale."
4) "Pasta sciue sciue" is gibberish. I’m not even going to argue this. It’s like if I made "cheesesteak balki balki." Complete gibberish, but no one wants to call it out, lest they look unsophisticated.
This is what we were going into when we arrived at Sfoglia. I was not properly in the mood for dinner and might as well have looked at the menu blindfolded from all I was able to ascertain from it. Instead, I looked around the room: the eating area was small, definitely cozy, even rustic and charming. But again, I don’t care about these details – I would eat a pile of spaghetti and meatballs in a peep show booth. Really, whatever.
I started with the mushroom soup, basically because I am familiar with mushroom soup and I like every kind of cream. Nicole had the cheese plate, which I didn’t realize was on the menu, since it was not called cheese plate. Nicole won the battle of the appetizers, as her plate of three cheeses and homemade jam on gingersnap-type crackers was incredible – one smooth cheese, one moldy cheese and one cheese that was so good I can only assume it was made from clouds and the laughter of innocent babies. My mushroom soup was not shabby by any means, but my first remark after trying it was, "I don’t think I’m good enough for this soup." I realize it was complex and probably would be very critically-acclaimed, but I couldn’t appreciate it. I’m too poor, too dumb, too unkempt. Such is life, and we move on.
For the main course, Nicole got something that appeared to be broad flat noodles with a meat sauce that was not tomato-based. I got the "stinging nettle, crab rotolo in tomato" which I can tell you translates to "crab lasagna (more or less)." Again, Nicole bested me. Her pasta and meat sauce made my eyes water a little bit, because it was everything the mushroom soup wasn’t: so profoundly simple that I was moved by its delicious. When I ordered the crab, I envisioned huge chunks of crab meat and…well, I didn’t know what else to expect. Instead, there was no crab meat to be seen – there was crab essence in the ricotta-type cheese found between the noodles. Delicious, to be sure, but not breathtaking.
Finally for dessert, Nicole got the homemade mint chocolate chip gelato and I went with some parfait with coconut meringue and plum. Advantage: Jason. This is what I’m talking about – delicate, creamy, the perfect contrast between the meringue and the plum. Nicole raved about her gelato and made me taste it, and I was thoroughly disgusted. But know this: I hate mint. Hate it with the fire of a thousand suns and a million stars. If I went to my grocer’s freezer and saw only two Ben & Jerry’s options – Mint Chocolate Chip or Ron Jeremy’s Spunk ‘Scream made with Semen-Flavored Ice Cream and sprinkled with Moustache Hairs and Valtrex – I’d probably take the Spunk ‘Scream.
That concluded our night at Sfoglia. A good dinner, maybe even a very good dinner, but one that needs to be taken down a notch. (We get it – your menu speaks Italian. Just tell us what’s in the food, for Chrissake.) Save yourself the wait time on the phone go to one of the countless restaurants in NYC that deliver with they promise. Then cap the night off with some Spunk ‘Scream (if Oatmeal Cookie Chunk is not available).
1) Festival Mexicano (Rivington Street between Essex and Norfolk in the Lower East Side). This is a dive Mexican place with authentic Mexican food, but also with authentic Mexican hygiene standards. Their food is phenomenal and cheap – the picadillo nachos, piled with spicy ground beef with chunks of potatoes, may be the best nachos you’ll ever have – but every time I leave this place, I can’t walk the 15 minutes back to my apartment. Instead I need to flag down a cab, preferably one with a toilet in it, to accommodate the imminent explosions that immediately burst forth from my colon as soon as step outside the restaurant. Seriously, last time I ate here, I went home, pooped like a crazy person, and then looked down into the toilet bowl and saw a hand. No idea what that was about. Anyway, great food, but not for the faint of heart (or intestine).
2) Pio Maya (8th Street between Macdougal and 6th Avenue). This is a small place, which, unlike Festival, is very clean and colon-friendly. Also unlike Festival, which uses beef made up of a mix of cow, horse and kidnap victim, when Pio Maya says "beef" they really mean "steak" – and steak of surprisingly high quality. No need to eat at your own risk – sit down, relax and enjoy. (And then walk home – no need for the toilet cab.)
3) Agave (7th Ave, a few blocks north of W 4th Street). Good food, good drinks, reasonably priced, and a good date spot because of its location. This is where I ate Thursday night with my friend Stacy (who sadly was not my date).
Another reason why Agave is a good date place is because the Mexicans, god bless them, make drinking fun. For example, you could take a date to an Irish pub, have burgers and fries and shepard’s pie, and then drink twelve pints of beer between the two of you. Or you could go to Agave, order dips and chips and things with fun names like "enchiladas" and "chimichangas," and sip margaritas, mohitos, daquiris or sangria. I ask you: which environment is more conducive to getting laid (as long as, of course, your date is not supremely racist toward Mexicans, which is most often not the case with me)? Also, the meal is much longer and laid back – start with some guacamole and margaritas, work on those for a while, more margaritas, then the entrees and maybe a pitcher of sangria, and before you know it, you’re drunk and your hand is down your pants.
This is pretty much exactly what happened with Stacy and I on Thursday night (although my pants were too tight to fit my hand down them). We started with guacamole and margaritas, each had two of those, and then ordered our entrees and more margaritas. I went with the beef machaca enchiladas, slathered in a delicious sauce and covered in mushrooms and cheese. I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I have no idea what Stacy ordered. I was so drunk by the end of the night that I don’t remember what it was, and even looking at the menu didn’t jog my memory. I blame this on the two pitchers of sangria we split, which I’m guessing I drank at least 72% of. Whoops.
The real fireworks didn’t start until well after midnight, hours after Stacy and I had parted ways. I went to bed that night with a heavy buzz and a belly full of Mexican, feeling terrific and loving life. At around 4am, I woke up with a sharp pain in my belly that made me sit up in bed. I stood up and immediately doubled over, unsure if I had to shit, throw up or if I had been stabbed. To be safe I ran to the bathroom and fell on the toilet. And then it came:
The Gargoyle.
For those of you unfamiliar with it, a gargoyle is a traumatic and very personal event during which a person shits and vomits at the same time. I had only done this once before, my freshman year of college, after eating Beef Wellington from the dining hall on Upper at Boston College. I was struck so suddenly that I couldn’t even make it to the communal bathroom in the hall and instead opened my dorm room window and vomited, pooping myself more and more with each heave (our room was in the back and faced away from the quad). I’m tempted to say that thankfully, I was wearing sweatpants at the time so the mess was minimized and limited to my legs and thighs and not my room, but there’s nothing to be thankful for when you’re in that situation. The gargoyle deserves no gratitude under any circumstances.
On Thursday night, I was at least sitting on the toilet when the gargoyle struck. Also adding to my luck was the fact that the bathroom trash can was not one foot in front of me, so as the first eruptions came from my heinie and my mouth, I was able contain them (within reason).
Dear reader, you must understand that the gargoyle is so much more than just pooping and puking at the same time. It is also incredibly painful; it feels as though someone has stuck their hand inside your stomach and is gripping up and shaking around your intestines. I’m not ashamed to admit that whilst I gargoyled, I cried. The poop, the puke, the pain – it was too much for this man to bear.
(If you’re interested in the inventory, what was being released from my body was about two liters of margarita and sangria, a pile of guacamole and chips, the enchiladas, and a few beers that were consumed after the dinner. Making matters worse, I had had lobster and corn chowder for lunch. If you’ve never thrown up lobster and corn chowder, I would not recommend it. Not at all.)
Though I spent the rest of the night taking turns throwing up and puking (and cleaning out my trash can and bathroom), the gargoyle only struck once, only the second time in my life. The next day – or rather, two hours later – I called out of work, because I was too exhausted to drag myself out of bed. Also, though I was certain there wasn’t much left to expel from my body, I dare not run the risk of the gargoyle hitting me at work. I am a veteran of colonic wars and routinely have to duck into public or bar bathrooms to vacate my bowels, but even someone as experienced as I am would have little hope of not pooing his pants if the gargoyle swooped in while I sat at my desk, writing personal emails or making personal phone calls.
Now, fully recovered, I look back on the gargoyle with respect; like any traumatic event that involves pooping, I feel like I’m a stronger person because of what I went through. Sure, I may stay away from Agave for awhile, but I have emerged from my most recent dance with the gargoyle a better person, albeit a better person who will probably be eating mostly at Pio Maya for the next few weeks.
I also wanted to do it for two reasons: 1) It would give me focus, as I’d have to write something every Monday; and 2) I’d only have to write something short, anywhere between 200-600 words. Length – at least in words - has never really been a problem for me, and the average post on here runs about 1500-2500 words (to give you an idea, you’ve read 199 words already). So sure, I could bang out 200-600 words once a week on dating to help a friend out. Besides, I kinda get off on giving advice to others on something I know so little about. I don’t know…something about influencing the masses in an area in which I’ve had marginal success and in which I lack any real, workable knowledge kinda gets me hot. Don’t judge.
So last week, I sat down at the ol’ Mac, banged out the following and emailed it to Kate:
******
In this year of choices, I humbly submit myself to be your Neighborbee dating columnist.* I believe I have the necessary experience, desire and gumption for the position. More importantly, I also have the complete lack of shame, the abundance of free time, and the irrational belief that somehow this gig may result in me having a threesome to be a successful dating columnist for you, the reader. With your help and support, I can be the best dating columnist in the world, because I:
…am the Best of Both Worlds
I was born in South Philadelphia in 1979. Shortly after, my father began what would be an impressive career in fighting the law and losing. Therefore, I spent my childhood overeating and memorizing every word to "Grease." Later in my adolescence, once I became aware of the function of my penis aside from being something ornamental that pee comes out of, I served in the role of Gay Best Friend Who’s Not Really Gay and Wants To Get in Your Pants to numerous female friends, a role in which I continue to serve in various capacities to this day. Though my first concert was Paula Abdul (with Color Me Badd opening), my second concert was the Grateful Dead. At this Dead concert at the age of 13, I saw my first real-live boobie, and since then I have dedicated my life and a substantial portion of my financial assets to finding the perfect woman and the perfect boobies, a mission that has seen some minor successes and major failures in various bars, restaurants and parking lots in New York City. Let’s go there. Together.
…have broad Geographic Expertise
I have lived in New York since I graduated college in 2001, living in various parts of the city from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to the Upper East Side to my current home in Chinatown-Little Italy, or as I call it, Chilita. For the past several months, I have been bicoastal, spending one or two weeks per month in Los Angeles, duly studying the relationships and sexes there. Few other dating columnists can claim such versatility; it’s like being able to speak English and Spanish. And really, how many people can do that?
…am Educated
I’m educated enough to form complete sentences, but not too educated that I’ll use big words like recapitulate or dyspeptic or, you know, other big words or whatever. For you numbers people, I scored a 620 on the verbal portion of my SAT, which is the highest of all of my friends. So that’s saying something right there.
…have Sexual Proficiency
I have navigated successfully through the musty realm of lovemaking over six times. I am adapt at several sexual positions, including missionary, me just laying there, and "I’m too drunk to get this condom on, so I’m gonna go heat up some pizza." My Patented Foreplay Technique follows three simple rules: 1) Start kissing; 2) Count to twenty; 3) Stick it in. Critics in both the US and abroad have compared my lovemaking to "forty seconds of life-changing thrusting, then a noise that sounds like a bear falling down a flight of stairs, then a request for a high-five." References available upon request.
…am Dedicated
I am scheduled to write this column once a week, and I promise you that at least every other week you will get a column. That’s my word.
To recapitulate, I dyspeptically look forward to working with you in order to make this as successful a venture as possible. As a matter of fact, you are a key cog in this machine, since I’m pretty much already out of ideas. So if you have dating questions, need love advice or a place to go in NYC, or just want to send an email to a stranger, email me at ______@____.com.
[* I already got the gig, so technically there's no choice involved. So let's just try to make the most of this.]
******
Some of the jokes you’ve heard before, but c’mon, I’ve been doing this for over four years, so I have to repeat myself sometimes. But overall, I was pretty happy with it. As I suspected, the hardest part was whittling down the word count. In the big picture, however, I was a little concerned. I have no desire to share my dating experiences on the internet – at least as they happen in real time. I have a statute of limitations that must expire before I can tell any stories about any hook-ups or dates I’ve had, all of which I make anonymous, and I find those who write about their boyfriends and girlfriends or dates in general…well, I’m kind of embarrassed for them. With technology the way it is, you can’t ever erase this shit, and most relationships are not worthy enough to be forever etched in internet history (and yet I have no problem writing about doing drugs, shitting myself, or jerking off into empty Pepsi cans – I don’t know if this is ironic or just stupid). But whatever – I envisioned the column being more about me answering emails and suggesting places to go rather than sharing details about my own life:
He said for $8, he’d rub my bird - for an extra buck, he’d lick his lips while doing so. I stood up from the toilet and asked him to my place, but he said he was most comfortable there in Penn Station. The rest is a blur, but I woke up under the Cross-Bronx Expressway with ejaculate crusted like glaze in my beard and a doll’s head in my pocket. The doll’s head was black. Someone had shit in my sneaker. Dating in NYC is hard.
Kate confirmed receipt of my email and wrote back almost immediately, saying that she loved the piece and it would go as is, thus immediately cementing herself as the best editor I’ve ever had. On Monday (yesterday), she emailed to say that it had been posted to the neighborbeeblog, and I whipped up a quick post directing you all over there. Done and done. I was officially, for better or worse, a dating columnist (however an amateur one, since there was no pay involved, so I could still qualify for the Olympics).
Eight minutes later, I got a frantic email from Kate. She said that she had just gotten into a fight with the people who own neighborbee, who were horrified by my column and felt it was "inappropriate." Kate said that they don’t want any mention of "sex acts, boobies, penis, etc." She had to take the post down immediately. Kate was supremely nice and apologetic about it, saying she didn’t think it would be a problem and offering to argue on my behalf to get me on the neighborbee team, if I still wanted to write the column. I respectfully declined, pointing out that I am what I am, which is more or less only sex acts, boobies, penis, etc, and couldn’t effectively contribute if every week I had to write about dining at Tavern on the Green and discussing Proust with some New England-bred, Ivy-educated banker lady I met at a "Young Republicans For Not Change" banquet at the Four Seasons. (I also pointed out that my next column was probably going to be "Five Books To Keep On Your Bookshelf That Will Help Get You Laid", so it was probably best to cut our losses now).
And thus my opening salvo was also my swan song as a dating columnist. About now is when you’d expect me to lash out against the neighborbee people (that’s kinda what I expect too), but I harbor no ill will toward them or their site. It goes without saying that Kate is still sound as a pound in my book – how can I be mad at anyone who sings in a Meatloaf cover band anyway? And there’s no real moral or lesson here; just a simple story about the shortest job I’ve ever had.
Jason Mulgrew
Dating Columnist
April 28, 2008 2:59pm – April 28, 2008 3:07pm
(If you’re keeping count, that was 1653 words. A little on the short side.)
I had dinner Wednesday night with my dad and brother and one thing is apparent for this trip: there is no way that my dad is not bringing a gun. Like, none (none more black). I know I joke about my dad and his love of guns, but my brother and I spent a significant portion of the dinner trying to explain to him why a firearm on a cross-country drive is a bad idea. He wants one both for protection but also because he likes the idea of getting out of the car at various points across America and shooting things, like trees or cactuses or prairie dogs. My argument, which I believe is very sound but fell on resolutely deaf ears, was that the risk of bringing with the gun far outweighs the rewards - shooting a tree somewhere in Arkansas is not worth spending a night in jail in Texas after we’re pulled over for speeding and the police officer sees my dad sleeping on his .357 like it’s a pillow. Once when my dad left for one of his many smoke breaks during dinner, my brother turned to me and said, "You know we’re wasting our time, right? He’s probably just going to say he’s not going to bring one and hide it." So that’s great.
(Speaking of my dad’s frequent smoke breaks, here’s a scene: We’re in my apartment getting ready to leave for dinner, which we do after my dad finishes his cigarette. We walk down the stairs and out the door and boom – my dad lights up another cigarette. He had just put one out not fifteen seconds earlier and knew we were going to hail a cab to go up to the restaurant. And he knows that I live in Little Italy, where, one a warm spring Wednesday evening at 7:45pm, cabs are everywhere. So then we have to wait for him to finish another cigarette, his second in less than ten minutes. I mean, really? We’re talking Marlboro Reds here, not crack. Good lord.)
************
I’ve been spending a lot time at work lately, which means I’ve been spending a lot of energy on ways to entertain myself at work.
1) A big part of my job involves marking up presentations and handing my mark-up to our design group who will then input my changes. For these presentations, we (analysts) take care of the substance, they (the design group) handle the style.
While my mark-ups mostly consist of notes and edits handwritten directly on the presentation, many times they will include riders that I will email to the design group in the form of a Word doc. These riders are emailed in Word because they’re usually too long to write onto the presentation. So I’ll email the design group, say "See attached Rider 4a", and they’ll pop open the Word document and find an incredibly boring paragraph that says something like:
"The recent influx of capital from sovereign wealth funds in Asia into US financial institutions has vastly changed the market landscape…"
or
"In the past five years, private equity firms have played a significant role in defining M&A activity both in the US and abroad. Industry giants such as…"
Very, very boring – most of the time, I have no idea what it means. But lately, I’ve been fantasizing about sending riders that are slightly different. That is, I email my design group, say "See attached Rider 4a", and they pop open the Word doc. But instead of seeing the above, they see something like:
"I FUCK FOR CHEAP!"
or
"MY DICK TASTES LIKE BIRTHDAY CAKE!"
I don’t think they’d make those edits.
2) The bathroom on my floor at work is set up with only two urinals. So if you’re peeing at one and someone walks in, he’s going to pee next to you. I don’t really like this. Maybe it’s because I have a small bird or I’m generally a self-aware/self-conscious person, but I have difficulty peeing next to someone that I don’t know but that I do work with.
So I thought about it and there’s one sure-fire way to make sure that no one will pee next to you ever again: when you’re standing at a urinal pissing, stand there looking down at your junk in your hand, and mumble quietly to yourself, "Oh no…oh God…oh…oh no…oh…oh god…" with a pained, almost resigned expression, while you pee.
(The barely audible level and the pained, almost resigned expression is key. Generally, I think that if any guy is pissing and he notices something wrong with his dick, he may not say anything aloud, but his expression will be very alert and alarmed. By just sort of shaking your head and mumbling, man…that’s just messed up.)
I don’t know if you guys think this is funny, but I think it’s just the tops. Because of this, my plan has totally backfired. No, people aren’t now going out of their way to pee next to me, but now whenever I’m pissing at urinal and a guy comes up next to me to pee, in my head I start thinking about mumbling and saying "oh god…" and shaking my head, and immediately start cracking up and having to stifle my laughter. Really, turning beat red and letting out an occasional uncontrollable grunt of laughter while you’re peeing next to someone is kinda just as bad as the mumbling. Whatever.
************
Below is an intact email that I sent to my buddies earlier today. Only names have been altered to protect the innocent.
—–Original Message—–
From: Mulgrew, Jason
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 12:41 PM
To: ‘Pat’; Bill; Joe; Site Guy Brendan; Dr. Chris; Jeremy; Kyle; ‘Brendan’; Brian; ‘John’; Mike; ‘nevin’; Ben; ‘Bryan’
Subject: road trip!!!!
http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/24513
Anyone else want in?
(Really though – see you in hell, Aliza.)
************
It only took me about a year and a half, but I’m finally into Facebook.
I shouldn’t say that I’m into it – I may not be aging very gracefully or getting very mature, but I’m a little conscious about the fact that I’m almost 29 years old and actively using social networking sites made for teenagers and college kids. But fuck it – I only have about a year and a half left before it all goes to shit, so whatever.
The fundamental problem with Facebook is that by default everyone is private – you have to go out of your way to make your profile available for public viewing. I ask, therefore, how is one supposed to stalk members of the opposite sex without befriending them first? This was the best part of MySpace, which I’m visiting less and less, seeing as I’ve stalking pretty much everyone possible on that social networking site.
And when I think about it, I can’t explain the allure of Facebook at all, except to say that it’s different and new (to me – I’ve had an account for two years but only recently it seems like my long-lost friends and some of you have been hitting me up for friend requests, thus drawing me in). At any rate, if nothing else, it’s another way to pass the time at work. And I guess it’s a good thing that it’s harder to stalk on there than on MySpace.
(I guess.)
************
Our society is not shy about using the word "genius" to describe those of marginal talent or flashes-in-the-pan, often neglecting the true geniuses among us. The good people at Honey Bunches of Oats have been producing delicious cereals for a number of years, starting with their original Honey Roasted variety, which still stands up as an amazing cereal. In the last year or two, they introduced Cinnamon Honey Bunches of Oats and I was so moved that I wrote that all of you must try it, but only if you’re interested in life-changing cereals that make you appreciate yourself, others and the earth more.
But just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, recently the geniuses at HBoO have come out with a new cereal: Chocolate Honey Bunches of Oats. After my initial excitement subsided, I became skeptical: would this be an instance of too much of a good thing? I love HBoO and I love chocolatey cereal, but I also love having sex and pooping and wouldn’t necessarily combine them (I don’t think).
Well, leave your worries at the door, my friends – this cereal is the balls. It has the crunch, texture and sweetness of the original HBoO with only a slight (but glorious) chocolatey taste. But the best part – the chocolate cereal milk left over. Wow. Seriously, once more – Wow.
I tip my hat to the good people at HBoO, true geniuses. They took a delicious cereal in their original and improved upon it in the cinnamon incarnation, then improved upon it again with the chocolate incarnation. The only possible way they can improve on the chocolate cereal is "New Honey Bunches of Oats – With Real Diamonds!" It just can’t get much better.
************
Six Songs
"King of the Pavement" Joseph Arthur
Wow – this one got me. I downloaded this just on Monday and already it has 22 plays. It’s chilling, gorgeous and sounds like New York in winter. Though not a typical love song, I added this to the "Let’s Make Out or Something" playlist, but then immediately took it off because I don’t want what I do while making out to defile the beauty of this song.
(Also, Joseph is having a record release party for his second EP next Saturday, 4/26 at his gallery in Brooklyn. I went to the gallery opening and it was one of my favorite nights – and not just because of the open bar. I felt like a real New Yorker – without feeling like a douche - with all the art and interesting people around. And then Joseph and the Lonely Astronauts played a few songs, including one that rocked my life apart that repeats, "You can take everything away from me" or something like that. So yeah, next Saturday should be pretty good – and you get a copy of the EP at show. More info is here.)
(And no, I don’t work for him. But if he wants me to join his band, I wouldn’t object. My calendar is pretty much open for the next few months.)
"Mona" Quicksilver Messenger Silver
If you’re starting a playlist titled "Late 60′s Drug/Fuck Rock," it begins and ends with this song. I almost want to befriend someone named Mona so that I can scream, "Heeeyyyyy, Mona!" every time I have at least three beers. When I listen to this, I also want to grow my hair long, do a bunch of peyote, and do four people (notice the gender-neutral noun) at once. That’s fucking music, man. Totally.
"Come and Stay With Me" Marianne Faithful
Is that a harpsichord? I want one. Terrifically gorgeous song.
"Electric Feel" Mgmt
I want to either grind or strut when I listen to this song. I haven’t figured out which. Maybe both.
"These Stones Will Shout" The Raconteurs
Warning: I have a man crush on Brendan Benson and he’s one of my modern favorites, potentially top-five. Warning Two: When Jack White is on, he’s pretty much unstoppable. Most of this album, including this song, is unstoppable. When I first downloaded the album, I had to stop listening after three songs, and told my old roommate Brian is was kinda like when you’re getting a blowjob and you spooge (which is lovely) and the girl keeps going, trying to drain your dick like she’s some sort of spooge vampire, and you have to tell her, "Ok – that’s enough" and pull her off because all the overstimulation is too much and it doesn’t feel good any longer. That’s how I felt after three songs of this album – I had to take a break, recuperate, grab a sandwich, and in 30 minutes I was ready for more.
"Why Do You Let Me Stay Here" She and Him
Zooey Deschanel’s voice in the first verse is quite annoying, but it gets more palatable as the song progresses and it actually becomes a lovely little song. Hipsters must have flipped out for this shit when it first came out. Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward? Good lord. All they need is to have a show sponsored by Vice Magazine and Gawker Media featuring stand-up by David Cross and a reading by Chuck Klosterman and the entire Lower East Side might spontaneously combust, leaving NYC with a serious shortage of graphic designers, waiters/waitresses, trust fund-kid poseurs and total fucking pussies. I don’t even want to think about this.
(From the "Rock Bottom’s What You Make of It" department: Zooey’s older sister, Emily Deschanel, aka Bones, once appeared on an episode of Law & Order: SVU playing a cellist who was raped. You can tell a little bit from the picture, but she has INCREDIBLE boobies – and you know I don’t throw around capital letters like that unless I’m really serious. Anyway, in the episode, she’s getting changed and you get about a 1.5 second shot of her boobs (in her bra) and it’s fantastic. Since I have SVU on my Tivo list, this episode has attained "Save Until Manually Deleted" status, so I can look at that 1.5 second glimpse of Emily Deschanel’s boobs whenever I want. So there’s that. Yeah.)
************
Tomorrow night is the Gentlemen’s Drinking Tour. Fifteen dudes in tuxes, roaming around, getting blasted. Fathers, lock up your daughters.
[Have a good weekend.]
[*I watch "Wildboyz" or "Jackass" or other mindless but entertaining shows because I can't bring myself to watch VH1 Classic alone. I've tried, but it's extremely depressing to scream "Yes!" to no one in particular when the video for Def Leppard's "Photograph" comes on. Good lord. Why don't I just look at my parents' pre-divorce photos or troll MySpace/Facebook for ex-girlfriends' profiles while I'm at it?]
Brian was – and is – a true "glue guy." No matter the circumstances or the time of day, he was down for anything (and I mean that in the broadest, most gender-bending sense possible). But that doesn’t mean that Brian played second fiddle. This is a man whose roster of stories includes being bombed and chatting for an hour with a Catholic priest after stumbling into a church in Times Square post-day-drinking binge, and once after a work Christmas party, waking up in a co-worker’s bed, not realizing she was his co-worker, and being told that during the night he pissed on her floor. Also, the co-worker was a female bodybuilder. The point: Brian is no one’s Robin. God, I miss him.
Before he left for LA, I mentioned in his goodbye party email that he was leaving in order to pursue his dream: to become the real-life Dude. I didn’t realize how true these words would ring until the last time I was out in LA (two weeks ago) and I finally was able to spend a significant amount of time with Brian. While not totally transformed into El Duderino (I’m not into the whole brevity thing), Brian lives in a studio apartment in Venice in a complex with a pool and a hot tub, in which he regularly drinks beers after work. He has a bed and a lawn chair in his apartment and a 19" TV with the box that it came on as his entertainment center. And he drives an army-green Jeep Wrangler, often with the top down, always blasting Van Halen. So he’s definitely Dude-like.
[I'm ragging on Brian a little too much here. The poor guy had three weeks notice to drop and/or sell everything and move across the country for a new job, so it's understandable for him to take some time to get his shit together, which I have no doubt he'll do soon. And hey - last week, he got silverware. So he's on his way, baby.]
I especially get a kick out of Brian in the context of the LA bar scene, which I’ve written several times is packed with stunningly gorgeous people of both sexes who rarely have thoughts that do not involve the gym or coke. Brian and I were out in the middle of this one night, drinking our draft beer and reveling in the fact that we were easily two of the five ugliest dudes not just in the bar but possibly in the entire zip code, when I asked him what he thought of the city, particularly the bar scene and its people.
Brian’s always been a sort of poet-philosopher, with a habit of producing some tremendous rubrics of wisdom. There are several, but one of my favorites was when he told a girl I was dating – without a hint of irony – "To me, music is divided into two parts: before ‘Silent Lucidity’ and after ‘Silent Lucidity.’" I started our discussion on this evening, saying that I’m a statistically inclined person and therefore a big believer in odds. Yes, we are ugly, and yes, the women in LA are really hot, but if we keep trying, eventually, something has to break our way, with a result that at least partially involves premature ejaculation. Without risk, there is no reward, and without effort, there is no return.
Brian’s take was slightly different. Brian’s a sensitive soul and he mentioned, perhaps with a sigh, that he misses the women of NYC. Then he said, "The girls in New York, I mean, you want to have a relationship with them. The women [in LA], you just want to beat off to."
Bingo.
If you’re reading this right now from the village in Africa where you were born and raised and have never left, what Brian said explains everything you need to know about the women in each city. The women of Los Angeles are fantastically beautiful - in the literal, "fantasy" sense. You’ll see more fake tits on a Saturday night in LA on your walk to the bar bathroom than you’ve seen in your life (note: not including fake boobs seen on TV or the internet). Big boobs, deep tans, hard abs – these are the norms on the California girl. As a pasty, chubby, bearded Northeasterner, it’s enough to send me into paroxysms of bonerization. However, nam nulla venustas/nulla in tam magno est corpore mica salis. Their affectation ranges from off-putting to overwhelming to downright frightening. I’m generally not a fan of girls with hair so blond it’s white, balloons in their chests, and three-inch fake eyelashes – just as I’m sure they’re not a fan of me, since I don’t know how to do a squat but do know the difference between "who’s" and "whose" (I’m actually quite afraid of the squat machine or apparatus or what have you, much like a small dog is afraid of thunder). Instead, I prefer girls who are simplex munditiis, natural, simple in their charms.** "Charming" is one of the best words to describe the women of NYC, who have depth, intelligence and beauty. Also, there’s variety: "hot" girls in LA all look the same, that is, like pornstars. Rarely do you have a porn-star caliber girl in NYC, but you have girls who are hipster hot, preppy hot, waif hot, mom hot, etc. I admit, maybe I’m being so nice about the girls here because I’ve actually had sex while living in NYC city limits, whereas I’m going to have to head about 90 miles south if I ever want to have sex near Los Angeles. But I think I make some valid points.
[**Yes, I've written extensively of my love of boobs, and once when listing qualities I find attractive in a women I included a nice tan, hoop earrings, the ability to dance (at least a lil' bit) and a messy ponytail. Guilty as charged. But I like a natural tan, one that's acquired via a hard day's work plowing in a field; I think girls who have rhythm are sexy, but I think that 104% of the male population agrees with me; and I love the messy ponytail because it implies a both an insouciance and comfort with a woman's attractiveness. The hoop earrings, I have no defense for - I like hoochies.]
[And a quick disclaimer: There are, of course, many lovely and intelligent girls in LA, absolutely, including many of the people I've met. Yet I stand by what I've said, generally-speaking. There is an extraordinary number of women in Los Angeles whose cup size matches the grades they got during their five-years at [insert shitty state school here]. Them’s the facts.]
We explored this topic and bit more, but Brian’s pronouncement left little else to be added to the discussion. So we pretty much just got really drunk. Later, in a display of his versatility, Brian looked around the bar and the legions of meatheads, dozens of really pumped up dudes around us, and said, "I am astonished at the amount of high-fiving going on at this bar."
That would be bingo, part two. If I had to list the favorite things of the LA meathead, they’d be:
1) Pussy
2) Being totally fucking sweet
3) Lats
4) Tie: "Seriously, bro, my hair looks totally fucking sweet right now" and delts
5) High-fiving
If I had to rate the least favorite things of meathead guys in LA, they’d be:
1) Like, Broadway plays and shit
2) Not having Jager
3) The international section of The New York Times
4) The New York Times
5) Words
New York, is not, by any stretch, without its meatheads. As a matter of fact, the top five lists mentioned above could be directly applied to the NY meatheads. But what’s different about the LA meathead versus the NY meathead is actually something I find positive: their very lack of affectation. The LA meathead is the original beachbum. Sure, he has muscles and sure, he thinks Hiroshima is either a shot or that guy on "Iron Chef", but he also doesn’t give a fuck – hell yeah he’s gonna high-five, because high-fiving feels good. The NY meathead, the BENNY (Bayonne-Elizabeth-Newark-New-York) or BHENNY LI (Bayonne-Hoboken-Elizabeth-Newark-New-York-Long-Island)-type that travels to NYC bars on the weekend via bridge or tunnel and clogs the shore bars during the summer, is, like many of the females in Los Angeles, extremely contrived, his true self hidden under gelled spikey hair and his own deep tan. So while I agree with Brian that there is typically a tremendous amount of high-fiving going on in LA bars, at least the meatheads in LA have eyebrows, for Christ’s sake.
But finally, it was another poet-philosopher who also lives in Venice Beach, my buddy Niall, who put it all together. In order to appreciate Los Angeles, he said, you must "embrace the differences." Sure, in LA, you’re probably not going to be able to walk to fifteen different cool bars from your apartment (or be able to stop eating Oreos when you get home from bars because you’re disgusted with yourself and your appearance) or have a conversation with a girl that does not involve a show on MTV or either of those terrible "Housewives of…" shows that seriously make me want to eat poison and/or parts of my body to speed up my death. But you are getting year-round gorgeous weather, proximity to both Vegas and Mexico, relatively affordable housing, the all-around good vibrations of Southern California living, and if you keep trying, eventually a handful of fake boobie.
(See? It always comes back to math.)
Tom, thank you for your concern, but I’m happy to report I’m alive. Probably more alive than ever, actually (that’s not exactly true, but I’ve always wanted to say something like that). You see, not only have I been buried at work lately, but I had been preparing and then was engaged in the most perilous battle of my life to this point: Jason Mulgrew vs. The IRS.
[cue dum-dum-dummmmm music]
Here is the problem: I’m terrible with money. Absolutely, balls-ass terrible. Not only do I generally have no idea of how much is in my bank account (prior to last week, I couldn’t tell you if I had $50, $500 or $5000 in there), but I simply can not spend money fast enough, spending it like it’s on fire. And did I mention that I love food, I love drinking, I love traveling, I love gambling and I love impressing women in the hopes that, c’mon, just a little, just a little bit o’ boobie? All of this does not add up to financial responsibility (or, sadly, even a tiny bit of boobies).
Here’s the other part of the problem: in 2007, I got the remaining chunk of my ol’ book advance paid out to me after my ol’ imprint went away. The thing about getting a book advance is that it’s not taxed. Therefore, if you’re due $100,000, you get a check for $100,000 cold cash (note: I did not get this much – and you know I’m not lying, because if I did get that much, I would have been dead about six months ago). I guess that publishers assume that writers, who are supposed to be reasonably intelligent, have the foresight to put a portion of their book advance away for taxes. Um, whoops (see "I love…" sentence above).
I knew that my come-uppance would, um, come eventually, and from talking to various friends and people who are much better about money than me, I knew my only chance of not going to debtor’s prison would be to deduct as much as possible. For example, I also worked and got paid TV money from a network in California in 2007, and each time I went out there I was either working on the old show or trying to bust out a new one. Therefore, flights to and from LA, rental cars, even some meals, could all be written off. This, I liked.
Long story short, since the beginning of last week, I’ve downloaded and poured over every bank and credit card statement of mine from 2007, as well as every cable, telephone and utility bill. I spent hours every night going through these line-by-line, creating various Excel spreadsheets for my expenses, attacking this endeavor with a passion for research and statistics reserved usually only for fantasy baseball.
During this time, I learned a lot of terrible, terrible things about myself. For example, from the fall of 2006 until last week, my credit card company was charging me $40 a month for some credit protection thingee. I had no idea about this, since I haven’t opened a credit card statement since about 2005 (I have recurring payments set up online, and when I paid large chunks off, I’d do so online as well). So it was nice to flush $40 down the drain every month. Also, my cell phone bill was about $150 a month for the past two years. I changed it to a different plan – for $80 a month – because I wasn’t coming close to using all my minutes. Just between those two, that’s $100+ a month I was throwing down the goddamn toilet. I actually feel physically ill while writing this.
(You want a dose of reality and/or want to despise yourself for a few weeks? Take a random bank statement and add up how much you pay in dinners and bar tabs in an average month. Good lord. I think that if I didn’t go out to eat or go to bars for three months, I would not only solve world hunger, but global warming and autism would also be taken care of.)
After a week of preparation, I spent over three hours this Saturday, badly hungover, sitting in a dingy H&R Block office by Wall Street going over stacks of paper. I even brought my laptop, so that my "Master Expenses" spreadsheet would be more user-friendly. The accountant who helped me, bless her heart, was extremely patient, answering all my questions and putting up with my various neuroses and red bull-champagne breath (the previous night, I was out of vodka and so drank several red bull and champagnes – the only alcohol I had besides beer and white wine – while pregaming, and they were delicious and effective). After these three hours were over, we were still not finished – I had to return yesterday, the tax deadline, to finalize a number of things (I did, however, return to my apartment on Saturday and take a four hour nap, which was one of my all-time greatest).
But I’m happy to report that, even though I feared I would owe at least a few G’s and possibly double-digit G’s, I owe nothing. Yes, nothing. Between federal, New York and California taxes, I essentially broke even. Praise the Lord Jesus Christ. I can’t explain it. I don’t want to be able to. But I owe nothing. Even steven. Wow.
So as I write this on Wednesday, April 16th, the day after tax day, I am alternatively elated and broken. Elated because I managed to pull of a miracle and do not have to start sucking dick for cheeseburgers/my IRS fund (sorry, re-start). Broken because I learned what a wasteful moron I am and spent over a week under an incredible amount of stress, concerned that I was seriously going to prison or would have to fake my own death. Also, I’m probably going to get audited next year, which is really going to suck. So maybe I shouldn’t throw away all those "Insurance Fraud: Is It For You?" and "How To Disappear In Central America" manuals I bought.
(On top of that, I’m sick with a legit head cold and would have called out of work today if I wasn’t so busy. Also, my dad and my brother are coming up to NYC tonight for steak dinner. So I’m not out of the woods yet.)
But I’m alive, I’m whole, and I’m not going to jail or declaring bankruptcy. I plan on spending the next few days getting back to my normal, not-too-stressful life, and spending the next few weeks and months being a little more mindful of my spending – and even, perhaps, opening a credit card statement once in a while. I have a new lease on life, and I have to take advantage of it.
(Translation: All-inclusive trip to the Caribbean. And maybe a couple of baseball wagers. And a few balled up $20 bills thrown into the East River. Why not?)
The pub crawl is an American tradition that dates back to the time well before the Civil War – or, as the people in Alabama refer to this era, “[unintelligible gibberish, but they look really nostalgic].” In those days, land-owning whites would gather at the local watering hole on the third Thursday of every month to celebrate the fact that they didn’t have to do shit, because they had a whole bunch of black people to do it for them, and drink well into the night at many different bars. The very first of these early bar crawls was borne out of necessity. The day that slavery was introduced in America, the rich white newly-minted slave-owners got together at their nearby bar and got so drunk – since they didn’t have to go to work the next day, after all – that their local pub ran out of booze. So they went to another pub. When the liquor at that pub ran out, they went to another pub. Thus, the first bar crawl. They simply kept the tradition of the bar crawl alive because they had such great fun getting shitcanned and going back to their plantations. And this, long story short, is why today we have Terrence Howard, Tyra Banks, LeVar Burton and other black people with not-brown eyes.
Today, the origin of the modern bar crawl is forgotten, washed out by a sea of draft beer and spilled tequila shots (this is probably a good thing). No longer rooted in the idea of racial superiority, bar crawls have taken up a uniquely modern theme: let’s get a group of people together so that we can get drunk, have a good time with our friends, and possibly make out and/or do it.
[Actually, there is nothing “uniquely modern” about that. Or even anything either “unique” or “modern” – it’s quite the opposite, really. Just roll with it. I’m really into the word “unique” lately.]
Many years ago, my buddy David and I started what has since become America’s Favorite Bar Crawlä, our annual “Drink Until You Shit!” Tour in beautiful North Wildwood, New Jersey. There was already a well-established bike pub crawl in North Wildwood, but due to a problem stemming from my childhood obesity and resulting in a mildly disfigured penis, I can not ride a bicycle (I won’t get into specifics, but basically, part of my penis is inside-out). David felt that this made me feel ostracized, so he approached me with the idea of starting our own pub crawl – on foot. David, who has been my friend his first grade, asked me what I thought of the idea and I said I thought it was terrific. At the very least, the guys in charge of the pub crawls usually get a blowjob out of it. Which might be nice. Even with my partially inside-out bird.
Our first step was to think of a name for our tour, something catchy that would make both our friends and family alike want to participate in it. We settled almost immediately on “Drink Until You Fight!” David and I, and presumably many people who would join us on the tour, love drinking. In fact, we love it so much that there are only a few things that stop us from drinking once we get started, namely food, sex, a fight or the Law. “Drink Until You Eat!”, “Drink Until You Fuck!” and “Drink Until You Get Arrested!” do not really have the cache of the simple and effective, “Drink Until You Fight!” So fight it was. But then shortly before we were to get the bar crawl t-shirts made, a friend pointed out that we might be asking for trouble, what with traveling around in a pack of 50 very drunk mostly South Philadelphians wearing shirts that said, more or less, we’re not going to stop drinking until we fight. Stumped, David and I put our heads together and figured out another reason that would stop us drinking: pooing ourselves.
“Drink Until You Shit!” was born. Last year, we had about 150 official people, with several dozen more stragglers, and some of you guys came from other parts of the Jersey shore, DC, New England, and even as far away as Oklahoma to attend. Needless to say, it was a smashing success. This year, on Saturday, July 12, DUYS will celebrate its 10th anniversary. And sure, even though we started at the “7th Annual” so we had automatic street cred so it’s only been around for four years, I never thought we’d make it to the tenth year. It was been a roller coaster, but I am so damn proud of what David and I have built – with our bare hands and one and a half (presumably) normal penises – as DUYS is now an entity and a major event in North Wildwood. When I die – or more appropriately, if I die – I can look back at DUYS as one of the greatest achievements of my life. I could never imagine a better bar crawl.
Until today.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and as David and I were celebrated as geniuses for our bar crawl creation abilities, we grew hungry for more. Some men and women are comfortable creating one masterpiece and being content with it, spending the rest of their lives being lauded for their single accomplishment, yet having done little to prove that they were more than just a flash in the pan (Bill Gates and his lucky Microsoft idea comes immediately to mind). But we were not satisfied. We wanted more, but we didn’t know what that meant.
Until today.
[Sorry, I already used that.]
Ladies and gentlemen, we’d like to introduce you to a new bar crawl: The New York City Gentlemen’s Drinking Tour. Unlike DUYS, this is a smaller, more intimate bar crawl whose objective is to harken back to the glory days of the 1950’s New York City, when men were men, women were broads, and no one – and I mean, no one – wore condoms. There are few set rules, but tour participants are required to:
- Wear tuxedos
- Get fresh haircuts and shaves, after which not a small amount of aftershave will be applied
- Join in renting a limo (depending upon how many of us there will be)
- Barhop around NYC in said tuxedos and get bombed on Manhattans, Scotch, mint juleps, and, I don’t know, whatever else guys in tuxedos drink.
Do not think that I miss the irony: After creating a bar crawl in which at least one participant per year actually defecates in his pants, David and I have set our sights on the higher end and look to celebrate class and sophistication. Really, the aim of the tour is to get back to what being a gentleman is all about: drinking, womanizing, and general carousing. And since not everyone can be a true gentleman, whereas everyone can truly shit himself, this bar crawl is by invite-only, unlike DUYS. Being a gentlemen means being superior to other mortal men, so we’re looking to invite only our close buddies. We’re not sure how this night will end, and there’s a greater than 55% chance that at the end of the night there will be some mildly- to pretty-much-totally-homosexual orgy. So as I work to prepare the guess list, the question I ask myself as I look through my Outlook contacts is: Would I feel comfortable watching this man kiss a woman’s private parts? What about a man’s private parts? What about my private parts? If the answers are yes, yes and oh god more than you’ll ever know, then he’s invited.
Though the planning for this tour (like the planning for my cross-country drive) is only in its infancy, we at least have a date, Saturday, April 19. Spring in NYC is a lovely place to be, and besides that, it’s pretty much the only date that David and I have available (Passover be damned!).
More details will become available as they become finalized, but I have been so flush with pride and so in need of a goddamn drink that I had to share this tremendous news with someone. And since most of my friends are no longer speaking to me and my co-workers have moved beyond silence to open and random acts of violence, I turn to you. It is time to add to my legacy, and I am about ready to sing of this from the rooftops.
Two or three years ago, I drove from Seattle to LA (you can find more about this somewhere in the archives). At the time, I was on a leave of absence from work, a time which involved me spending ridiculous sums of money and destroying most of the relationships that I held dear. I was in Seattle, drunk, and planning on flying to LA the next day, when on a whim I said “Fuck it,” canceled my flight, and booked a rental car. In a related story, I kissed a dude that night. Whatever. You only live once.
This experience (the drive, not the dude kissing) was alternatively terrifying and exhilarating (actually, this describes both the drive and the dude kissing). Driving a minivan hungover through the mountains of Oregon in the dark, hopped up on diet coke and Lunchables: terrifying. Getting a minivan over 100mph on the barren stretches of I-5 in Northern California on a cloudless blue sky day: exhilarating. Pulling into random cheap motels in random towns like you’re a goddamn serial killer: exhilarating. Being unable to sleep in said random cheap motels because you think a serial killer is in the next room over: terrifying. Pulling over to the side of the road to beat off: always the right move. Always.
All things considered, even the thing about how Enterprise essentially extorted me out of about $1000 because they never told me I had to bring the rental car back to Seattle, the decision to make the drive was one of the best I’ve ever made. As a city boy, I saw a lot of our beautiful country, landscapes that I was only vaguely aware of from movies and specials about meth. And I learned a lot about myself and my life, like, for example, how to spend the next year-plus making mistake after mistake, financially, emotionally and personally. These are important things to learn. I guess.
Since then, I’ve been itching to get back on the road, to take a nice long stretch of time and see more of the country (like I did last time) and possibly engage in some consequence-free sexual escapades (unlike I did last time; I’m not a judge, but I don’t think hepatitis falls under the “consequence-free” category). I think I could be successful in only a few things in life, most of which have to do with making and/or eating onion rings, but I think I could be one of the top vagabonds in America. So take that to the bank, why don’t you.
A few months ago, my dad and brother traveled through North Carolina, Virginia and DC looking at law schools. After that, my dad, who’s out of work because of an injury, told me that his dream would be to buy an RV, take a few rifles and fishing poles, and drive around the country (I’m assuming he forgot to include 150,000 cigarettes on his list of things to bring).* It was about this time that the lightbulb went off. I have a lot of vacation days and want to drive across the country. My dad has all the vacation time in the world and wants to drive around the country. My brother, I’m not sure about his vacation days or desire to drive across this great land, but he’s going to law school soon and likes to travel. Yes, it might be fitting that the Mulgrew Men Go West.
And so in what surely will become the greatest adventure, the worst mistake, or just a low-budget/high-grossing movie, me, my dad and my brother are going to drive cross-country. We’ve yet to figure out the plot, but here are the characters:
DAD, early-50’s, mustachioed and tattooed; former stabee with a heart of gold; possessor old-school Irish Catholic values; likes Marlboro Reds and handguns.
JASON, late-20’s, effete and effeminate but aggressively seeking boobies; prone to lavish spending and fits of rage; likes boobies and thinking about, talking about or looking at himself. And boobies. Again.
DENNIS, mid-20’s, quiet and mysterious. Seriously, I barely know him. I think he has brown hair.
The planning for this trip is only in its incipient stages. For example, we’re not sure when we’re going to go (sometime before the fall though). We’re not sure what we’re going to drive (my dad’s truck? a rental car? an RV?). And, aside from driving from Philly to LA, are not sure where we’re going to stop (we were thinking about Philly to San Fran, but I’ve never been to San Fran and I feel like that route might be more mountainous; those mountains in Oregon seriously scared and scarred the shit out of me).
This is where you come in. No, I’m not coming to your house. Believe me, that would not be a good idea for either of us, especially if you have any animals that have a tendency to look like a pretty woman after a few drinks. I’ve done some web searching, but have found surprisingly little condensed and useful information about driving cross-country. Therefore, I’m open to any suggestions from those of you who’ve done the drive before. I can tell you this much:
- We’re planning on doing the drive in a little over a week, leaving Philly on a Saturday morning and arriving on the west coast on the next Sunday. So it’ll be at a reasonable pace, especially with three drivers, but we’re not looking to stop for a night every 250 miles.
- The only city that I want to stop at for sure is Nashville. I am dying to go to Nashville. I also took a business trip to San Antonio and had a ball there, so I wouldn’t mind seeing something cool in Texas. Basically, I’m a Northeast boy, just like my brother and my dad. Anything different from Philly, New York, Boston, etc would be sweet. Otherwise, I’m/we’re open to any cities. But since we’re stopping in Nashville and ending in LA, we’re not going completely out of way to, say, Minneapolis. We’ll stick mostly to that I-40 corridor, methinks.
(Another city I desperately want to visit: Montreal. I think I could do well there, for no other reason than a hunch. But Montreal is for another trip.)
- We are not an outdoorsy family, save for my brother. I spoke to a buddy last night who’s done the trip twice and he started talking about hiking and trails and stuff and I immediately stopped listening and was drinking a milkshake in under five minutes. The only outdoors stuff we’ll be doing is walking from the car to the hotel, to the restaurant, to the bar and to the bathroom. You can see and experience a lot of the country from 65mph or through the smoke and empty beers of your local watering hole. This is my kind of road trip, not a week spent sitting shotgun with a third-degree sunburn and scratching my mosquito-bitten legs. So when I say that I’m looking for suggestions about cool things to do, if your recommendation involves an action verb – running, skiing, hiking, walking, swimming, etc – please rethink it.
So while you chime in with any suggestions or hints, I’m going to get to work on the plot. Since already my dad has been adamant about bringing a gun on the trip – this is a man who carries a .22 when he walks the dog and probably to the bathroom and recently told me “I seen too many movies not a to bring something [a gun] on a drive across the country” – I’m guessing a major plot point will occur when the gun “just [goes] off.” So right now, we’re looking at something like “I Know What You Did Last Summer” crossed with “Easy Rider” with maybe a little “Deliverance” thrown in.
(So right now of the three, “worst mistake” probably has a slight edge.)
I suppose it figures that on what might prove to be my last night in Boston for a long time, my friends and I nearly got in a fight.
Before we go any further, understand: I am not a fighter. My career record in fights is probably 5-3 (being generous) or 4-3-1 (being realistic) or 4-4 (ok, so that’s what it is). Aside from that, there have been maybe just under a dozen group fights I’ve been involved in, skirmishes in the neighborhood involving ten or more dudes (usually a lot more) throwing punches at people they know, usually over some dude’s girlfriend or perceived slight. The best punch I ever threw was as a sophomore in high school and the last real punch I threw was maybe a year or two after college. Most recently, I’ve been reduced to breaking up fights, which are always more comical than dangerous, and involve me reluctantly putting down a beer, saying "Oh hell," trudging outside some random bar, and ultimately hoping some girl will fellate me because of my valor and peace-making skills.
So I am not, by any stretch, a bad dude. I admit it. However, and I don’t mean to pull the "where I’m from" card, but when I was an infant my dad was arrested for the second-worst possible felony, Non-Sex Crimes Division (you’ll have to buy the book for that story). Also, in separate incidents, my dad’s been stabbed and has had his neck broken, and if you meet him today, there is a greater than 92% chance that he’s carrying a gun on his person. My mom’s father, in addition to being the best dancer of the twentieth century, Chubby Irish Guy Division, and a man who ate a bowl of vanilla ice cream covered in crème de menthe liquor every night before bed, was a bookie and collector for the K&A Gang in Philly from after the war until his death in the 1980′s. My dad’s dad has at last count received last rites a whopping six times (not an exaggeration) and at 83 years old with two half legs and no feet, could still fairly easily kick my ass (not literally, of course, but he could beat me up). I have an uncle who, despite being in his 50′s, still gets in on average one fistfight a month. I have another uncle who we are pretty sure killed two junkies, two junkies who robbed, beat up and subsequently killed my 90-something year old great grandfather when I was a kid. This, I wrote about for the book, mostly on a lark, thinking that once this uncle read the chapter, he’d shoot it down (no pun intended). Naturally, he loved it. However, I pulled it from the book before I sent it out to my then-editor’s boss to read because, well, I implicated my uncle in two murders, which is probably not a good thing.
(This is what happens when your dad is one of ten kids and your mom is one of six kids and everyone is Irish Catholic and lives within a mile and a half of each other. And yet my brother is taking his pick of top ten law schools to attend in the fall, my sister is about to graduate nursing school with a perfect 4.0 GPA, and, well, then there’s me. I’m going to debtor’s prison – which is single-handedly being reinstated because of me – because every time a woman so much as bats her eyelashes at me, I buy her a Corvette. Good lord. I swear, as soon as I have this threesome, I’m getting a girlfriend because I just can’t afford being single. Seriously, if one of you guys in the Midwest could fix me up a nice couch to crash on for a few months, I would really appreciate it. Uncle Jason’s gotta close some bank accounts and lay low for a while. You won’t even know I’m there, honest.)
The point of all this is to at least say that after years of growing up in this environment, then going to a private high school with a lot of rich kids and college with a lot of blue-blood sailing or soccer/lacrosse-playing New Englanders, I know when people are ready to fight and when they’re all bluster. Growing up, "jawing" didn’t happen or went only as far as this:
Dude One: "Fuck you!"
Dude Two: "Fuck you!"
In high school and college, jawing went like this:
In high school and college, jawing went like this:Dude One: "Fuck you!"
Dude Two: "Fuck you!"
Dude One: "Well, you’d better watch it!"
Dude Two: "You’d better watch it too!"
[ten minutes later]
Dude One: "I’m serious! You keep talking, there’s going to be trouble!"
Dude Two: "Trouble’s my middle name!"
Dude One: "Well, my middle name’s ’Punch You in the Face,’ which is what I’m gonna do soon!"
Dude Two: "Oh yeah? Well, here I come! Quick – somebody hold me back!"
[thirty minutes later]
Dude One: "You’re lucky my friends are holding me back!"
Dude Two: "You are too!"
Dude One: "Well, then I guess we’re both lucky!"
Dude Two: "Yes, we are lucky – and privileged!"
[people slowly begin to disperse as the incident devolves into something like a near-homosexual mating ritual, I've been in my dorm room listening to Elvis Costello for the past thirty-eight minutes]
Some people can tell within five minutes whether they’re capable of falling in love with a person they’ve just met. I can tell within five seconds of "trouble" brewing whether there’s going to be an actual fight or a lot of talking shit. We all have a gift, this is mine.
I’ve written before that one of the differences between Boston and New York is that in the former, there is a palpable sense that you are being checked out and measured up by 90% of the dudes in the room when you enter a bar. This is because of the indisputable fact that Massholes are pricks and like to look hard and GO SOX!!! In NYC, the hipsters are too busy emoting insouciance and having existential crises to even wash their hair, let alone get involved in a physical confrontation with another person. On the Jersey shore, they do have BENNYs, the New York-equivalent of the Masshole, the acronym that stands for Bayonne-Elizabeth-Newark-New-York, the places in the greater NYC area that breed Jager-shooting, hair-gelled ginzos. In Manhattan, I would expand this to BHENNY LI (Bayonne-Hoboken-Elizabeth-Newark-New-York-Long-Island), but for the most part, the New York BHENNY LI’s are more concerned with crushing pussy than crushing skulls and will just as gladly leave you alone to hit on the 19 year old with the fake ID and fake eyelashes from Massapequa. But with the Massholes, look the wrong way and they’re going to say something and make you pay and GO PATS!!! AND SOX!!! PAPELBON!!!
I can tell you in one word what I did this weekend, which, as I mentioned, will be my last in Boston for many months: nothing. I arrived on Friday at 1pm and went to my buddy Dave’s house where a number of my friends had congregated, and then watched basketball, drank beer, got high, gambled, and ate Italian sandwiches (I brought up 9.5 pounds (!) of Italian meats and cheeses for the occasion) for fourteen straight hours. So basically it was one of the top ten days of my life. The next day, I woke up, ate Anna’s, got to Dave’s at 2pm, and set about doing the same thing. At midnight, my buddies Dave and Bill decided it might be nice if we went to a nearby bar for a friend’s b-day party. We were all stuffed with beer and pot and capicola by this point, but the bar was literally two blocks away and the birthday girl had sent out numerous invites, so we mustered up the energy and headed over.
When we got there, everyone there for the party was bombed, as expected. This was fine, but we had been drinking and eating so much over the past 36 hours that even though we had enough alcohol and nitrates in our system to kill a West African teenager of average build, each of us could not have only flown a plane, but actually given flying lessons. We had made our bodies so accustomed to egregious amount of intoxicants and unhealthy food that by the time late Saturday night rolled around, we were, for all intents and purposes, perfectly sober.
The bar was called Shenanigan’s, another charmless new bar like so many in Southie and Dorchester, built in the last few years to take advantage of the areas’ burgeoning young affluent white people population. Since he didn’t have cash, Bill volunteered to put our beers on his card. It was 12:10am anyway, so at most we’d have a few drinks and then head back to the comfort of Dave’s place. Bill went up to get a beer at the not-very-crowded bar, which was being serviced by three bartenders, and waited…and waited some more…and waited some more.
There were three bartenders working: one normal-looking guy, one guy who looked like a mid-30′s gay male model, and one chick who was a 7.5 but thought she was a 11. Eventually, after waiting several minutes and being given the "hold on" finger by both the GMM (gay male model) and the 7.5, the normal guy came over and gave us our beers.
Now – and I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before or not – but I like to go to bars. However, I hate crowded bars. Because of this, and because I’ve guest-bartended a grand total of one time in my life, I’m generally sympathetic when bartenders are busy, and I have no problem waiting to get served. However, this was not the case on this night. As I mentioned, the bar was served by three bartenders and was not very crowded – maybe the little dance area was, but there was certainly a more than manageable crowd at the bar. And these bartenders were regularly looking at Bill each time he went up, ignoring him repeatedly and coming over only when they could not possibly get away with not coming over to take his drink order. At first, we laughed at how incredibly ignorant they were being - particularly the GMM and the 7.5 – who seemed to hot/cool to serve former Average Joe 2: Hawaii contestant Bill (seriously, that’s him) – but after the second or third time, it got kinda old and we started to get pissed off.On the fourth go round, Bill went up to grab our round of three Bud Lights, and again had to wait, and again was given the "hold on" sign, both by the GMM and the 7.5. Then the lights flashed, signaling last call at the bar. After a little while longer, the GMM came over to Bill and said, "Sorry, can’t serve you – last call’s already been called."
Well.
Well.The night sort of slipped away from us all after that. Bill said, "Terrific – thanks a lot" and walked away. The GMM barked after him, "What’d the fuck did you say?" Then our friend Dave, who is 6’5", stepped in place of Bill, who is 5’5", asking what the problem was, and the GMM bartender backed away immediately. The 7.5 grabbed Bill’s tab, which was $45. Bill tipped $1.50.
I’m the biggest tipper I know – the second smoothest thing that ever happen to me when I was on a date and tipped the waiter so much, he came back to our table, thanked me for the generous tip, and offered to buy my date and I a drink – and yet I fully supported this move. Being busy and being apologetic is one thing; being willfully ignorant and disdainful is another. A bartender or bartenders who act like these guys acted should not expect a 20% tip when they are doing a piss-poor job just to spite a customer who they think, for whatever reason, isn’t as cool as they are. F that.
I was pissing when the yelling started. I came out of the bathroom to find Bill being told to get the fuck out of the bar by the GMM and Dave yelling back at the bartender. I knew, even as I was walking out of the bathroom and over to the scene, that there would be no fisticuffs tonight. Dave typically doesn’t have a problem with throwing down, but the GMM had already proved his meddle by immediately shrinking away from Bill after Dave stepped in. He was a bit more emboldened now, trying his hardest to sound intimidating, but he was still not moving from behind the bar. The normal-looking bartender looked on, concerned, and I immediately checked out the bouncers. One was probably more of a waiter and appeared to be the GMM’s lover, since he also had a high-fashion/$80 haircut look to him. The doorman was a baby-faced guy of about 5’9" who looked even more concerned than the other bartender; one of those guys who’s never been in a fight but applies for the job because he thinks to himself, "All I gotta do is check IDs – how hard can it be? And maybe I’ll meet some chicks!"
Among the senseless and moronic yelling, the three of us walked out and started on our way home. We were thirty feet out of the bar and in the direction of home when a wasted Irish guy, in his early to mid-40′s, stepped out of the bar. He just stood there, but called from behind us, slurring, "Hey, didya have fun tonight? Didya?" We ignored him and kept walking, and he continued saying stuff, but when we were halfway down the block, I got sick of his dumb drunk ass saying shit to us, so I stopped, turned around, and asked, "I’m sorry - did you say something?" Hearing this, the 40-something drunk Irish guy made a beeline for me.
And then my spidey sense tingled: This was going to be a fight. I got that familiar old feeling back: the tingling sensation that shoots from your neck down your spine; the immediate clenching of the body, teeth and fists; the standing just a little bit straighter and taller - all part of the initial wave of nervousness that gives way to genuine excitement. I stood there, unmoving, with my hands in my pockets as the guy marched toward me, still halfway down the block, his head slightly down, muttering under his breath. I know this is weird, but I felt like a kid again. While I don’t make it a habit to fight with drunk 40-something Irish guys, nor do I seek out physical confrontation in any way, I was almost giddy. I had said something and this guy had responded immediately. I kinda respected him for that. And I kinda looked forward to what might happen, since I knew that the absolutely worst case scenario would be that this guy would roll on me for ten or twenty seconds before my buddies broke the fight up. In the meantime, fuck it. Let’s see where this goes.
But before our little showdown came to a head, GMM and his full crew rolled out of the bar, ran up to hold back Drunky McDrunkster, and the war of words began again. This time, it was even more comical: GMM was the leader, yelling at us to get the hell out of here, and Dave was yelling back at him. Meanwhile, the drunk Irish guy was being restrained from me, as I still stood there with my hands in my pockets while he screamed, "He’s looking at me! He’s looking at me!" Then his girl came out, a fine Irish lass, and started crying. Then he fell while being restrained, pulling his girlfriend down on top of him. Then in the hubbub some local kid about 20 years old, presumably on his way home from the bars, came up next to me and asked, "You guys got a problem with these guys?" He told me that he was on our side, that he liked our odds (counting him, us four against those eight), and told me that he had knocked out three Boston firefighters after the Southie St. Patty’s Day parade the week before. I looked over, saw the drunk Irish guy writhing around on the ground, his crying girlfriend on top of him, three people trying to help them up, saw the GMM yelling and stepping back with each step Dave took toward him, turned to the Southie kid next to me, practically warming up for a fight, and saw Bill standing there, shaking his head, and realized that before I die I will write a poem about this scene, and I will title it: "it was a march night, it was, it was on broadway."
That was pretty much it after that. Me, Dave, Bill and our new friend went on our way, leaving behind our adversaries. We shook hands and parted ways with our Southie brother, went back to Dave’s house, got high, ate sandwiches, got higher, and it was 4am by the time Bill and I left (I was crashing at Bill’s place). The next day, I woke up late and hopped an Acela back to NYC.
Ah, Boston. Such memories. I probably couldn’t have asked for a more fitting send-off.
Personally, I think so many of my Boston friends are in relationships because the bars close at 1:30am up there, as opposed to 4am in NYC (bear with me here). The bars close earlier in Boston, which means less time for drinking, which means less time for serious drunkenness, which mean people are drunk enough to have the courage to talk to the opposite sex but not so drunk their eyes are half-closed and they’re spitting on the person they’re talking to. Whereas in NYC, by the time last call finally rolls around, most people are barely conscious and unable to tell the cabbie where they live, let alone deftly ask a boy/girl to meet up for coffee later in the week. This may allow for more drunken sloppy hook-ups (I’ve probably messed around with more women than all of my Boston buddies combined), but less long-lasting relationships (the most serious relationship I’ve had in the past seven years was with a sausage).* For example, on an average Friday or Saturday night at 1:30am in NYC, I’m sober enough to fly a plane. But by the time 4am comes, my fly is open and there’s a chicken bone and/or my keys in my beard. Things fall apart – dramatically – between the hours of 2am and 4am, which is why 90% of my NYC friends are single and 100% of my Boston friends are not.** The end.
[* Part or all of this sentence was a lie or true. Thank you.]
[** It could also be because my friends in Boston are better people than me and my friends here in NYC, but I'm not quite ready to concede that.]
That my friends in Boston have serious ladies does not make me jealous. Not in the least. If anything, it’s a warning: This is what the future holds, my dear, so rock out with your cock out (sometimes literally) before it comes for you. And it’s not that I dislike any of my friends’ girls. They are all wonderful women, and many of them are dating well below their league. I can count on one hand the number of times in my lifetime that I’ve had problems with my friends exes, and it each case it was not just me but many of my friends that thought the lady in question was a douche, and each time the relationship ended (and then we all said, "Oh thank god – she sucked").
To be honest, I’m actually thrilled that so many of my friends are so deeply committed. Not because that means more weddings – and more open bars – to go to. Nor is it because they’re happy and it’s good to see them happy – I like my friends miserable and on-edge, thank you very much. Why I’m pumped that my friends have serious relationships is because they are so used to playing house (and being required to play house) that when I visit Boston, I am The Excuse. The Excuse goes something like this: "Honey, I’d love to spend the weekend with you watching movies/going to your parents/having a dinner party/fixing up the place, but Jason’s in town and he’s moving soon and probably won’t be back to Boston, well, ever. So I really have to spend the weekend drinking with him, since you know he drinks a lot because he’s so lonely and doesn’t have what we have."
I am The Excuse. And I am totally comfortable with that.
On Thursday night, I drank on the train ride up to Boston and was picked up by Site Guy Brendan and whisked away to the apartment he shares with our buddy John in lovely Dorchester, Massachusetts. Brendan and I stopped to pick up sixers, me of Smithwick’s and him of Sierra, thinking we’d have a couple of pops back at the place and then call it a night (Brendan had work the next day, while John had spent the day running errands after having gotten laid off, and I worked all day).
What followed was arguably one of the more disgusting drinking nights of my life. After getting home, we eschewed our fancy beer and harkening back to old times, went right for the cheap stuff, which tasted delicious. Sometime later, I spilled a beer all over myself. Then it was Brendan’s idea to play beer pong. We didn’t have any plastic cups, so we filled their dining room table with half full pint glasses and two stein glasses and started playing. When we ran out of the cheap stuff, we switched to Smithwick’s. When that was gone, onto the Sierra. When that was gone, we switched to Harpoon IPA, the last beer they had in their fridge. It was around this time that I dropped another beer, this time on the ground and not on myself, for no apparent reason. It was also around this time that Site Guy Brendan casually stepped into the bathroom to vomit. It was around 4am when I heard a loud thump in the kitchen and walked in to find John sitting on the floor, like he just wanted to take a rest. Some uncooked hot dogs may or may not have been eaten. John hit the sack just after 4:30am and I feel asleep on the couch shortly thereafter with Site Guy Brendan sitting on the couch next to mine, drinking and watching TV. The next morning, Brendan, with the help of Jesus Himself, got up to go to work. John and I woke up at noon and I proceeded to spend three hours that afternoon showering (three separate showers) trying to shake my tremendous hangover. We counted 52 empty cans and bottles from the night before, not including the six beers I had on the train on the way up.
All three of us are 28 years old. Brendan is successful, a homeowner about to pursue his second masters degree, and is engaged. John, despite being laid off recently, is successful, has all those silly licenses that financial people need, is a homeowner and is in love. I, well, I am The Excuse.
That Thursday night pretty much set the tone for the weekend. Boston is always a boozy time when I go up there, but I can’t recall such a sloppy series of nights in a long, long time. Friday night I threw up in my mouth at two different bars. Saturday night I got hooked up with a cheap hotel room by a friend and fell asleep twice with the shower running – once at the end of a boozing afternoon, while I was sitting on the bed pre-gaming and watching "King of Queens", running the water to help calm me down; and then at the end of the night, while drunk and sitting in the shower reading a book.
It was a disaster. I feel like I should be ashamed of myself. And if the weekend was the first part of my "Later, Boston" experience, I might. I hoped to stay for the St. Patty’s Parade in Southie on Sunday, wake up early on Monday, and take the train back to NYC to make work. But when I woke up in that hotel room on Sunday (which was about 78 degrees), there was no way I could do anything but throw my shit in a bag and get the fuck on the train. Done and done.
But what I take comfort in, and the reason that I do not feel ashamed, is that I was not alone. My friends, separated (for the most part) from their girlfriends, also got disgustingly drunk. I won’t go into detail lest their ladies grow disappointed in them, but it was chaos, pure and utter chaos; men encumbered with the responsibilities of adulthood and relationships absolutely going batshit crazy with booze because they finally have a legitimate excuse to escape the doldrums of married life: Jason is coming up to Boston and he won’t be back for a lone time.* Finally, after years of searching, I may have found my life’s purpose: act as the primary reason for irresponsible behavior for non-single men everywhere.**
[* Until I go up again this weekend for 72 hours of NCAA watching.]
[** Easily one of the top ten most homosexualized lines I've ever written.]
I am The Excuse. And I am totally comfortable with that.
On Wednesday evening, I decided I was going to go to Boston for the weekend. I packed a bag, came into work today, asked for the day off tomorrow, and in a few hours I’ll be zipping up there on the Acela, crushing Bud Bombers (which, I learned only recently, you can buy and bring on the train – Bombers in Penn Station cost $2, whereas normal cans on the train cost $5).
You have probably figured out by now that I’m leaving the Northeast. I can’t say much more than that, because there are still a number of things to be worked out and it’s not even (close to a) definite yet, but it looks like ol’ Uncle Jason will be retiring to greener pastures soon enough. In the meantime, I’m intent on going on a pretty monstrous bender and maximizing my time here (in the Northeast). I was looking forward to a rowdy weekend when I sent some emails out yesterday and learned that five of my best buds here in NYC will be gone this weekend. This, compounded with the fact that a buddy of mine in Boston was recently laid off, made the decision easy for me. On Friday (tomorrow), he and I are pretty much going to find a bar at noon and then try to sit there drinking until close. Should we accomplish this, it will rank as one of the greatest achievements of my life. Whether that says something about my priorities/goals or the way I live my life, I leave for you to decide. However, I’m also going to Boston next weekend, over Easter, but I’m claiming that since these will be the last times I’m in Boston for awhile, this weekend is Part One of Two of my "Later, Boston" party. One weekend really isn’t enough.
So everyone is now officially on notice: my days in the greater Northeast part of America are numbered. I can promise you that I will not go out without a fight – they are going to have to drag me kicking, screaming, holding and spilling a can of Bud, and maybe even peeing myself a little bit, from this grand part of the country. It is on.
************
For about the umpteenth time, we’ve been having some email problems.
Here’s the short of it: you email me at the jasonmulgrew.com address, which then gets forward to my personal email. Therefore, I no longer log onto the jasonmulgrew.com email website. This latest problem arose because some olderheads in my ‘hood send me forwards, which can be very large, and then one of you sent me a song, which is very large. Because I check only my personal email for your emails now (since they’re forwarded), I hadn’t checked the jm.com account in a long time. And because of the forwards and the song, it was maxed out and kept rejecting emails or putting them into the spam folder. So if you sent me something, say, in the past two weeks, I may not have gotten it.
(Translation: Please resend any boobie pictures and/or pictures of your girlfriend in the shower sent to me during that time. Thank you.)
************
I have a question: who the hell is Tyler Perry?
I mean, I know who he is, because when I’m watching tivo’ed episodes of SVU from TBS, I constantly see commercials for his sitcom, in which he plays a half-dozen characters. It looks hilarious (sarcasm, much of it), and appears to be filled with the characters laughing at each other and then there’s a lot of threats to throw different people of the house. Recently he had a movie out called "Why Did I Get Married?" and ads were placed all over NYC. And now he’s got another movie coming out, "Meet the Browns," with ads everywhere as well. NYC officially has Tyler Perry fever.
What’s most impressive about all these ads and commercials is that they’re prefaced with "Tyler Perry Presents…" Do you know how much of a badass you have to be in Hollywood to get that line on or above a tv show or movie? The answer: extremely, extremely badass. Just-below-God badass. I-swim-around-in-a-room-piled-high-with-gold-like-Scrooge-McDuck-only-he’s-my-fucking-butler-because-I-can-afford-him badass. And yet I, as an average 28 year old white man, have absolutely no familiarity at all with Tyler Perry. And then I read this from wikipedia: 


"Perry produces a television show titled Tyler Perry’s House of Payne, which follows a working-class, African-American household with three generations of family within it. The show seeks to illustrate struggles with faith and love, as well as showing how to coexist with the generation gap. The show ran briefly in Spring 2006 as a 10 show pilot. After a successful pilot run, Perry signed a $200 million dollar 100 episode deal with TBS." (bold added)


In summary, I’m going to drop all you white jerks and focus on cultivating my African-American household-based humor. If Tyler Perry can get $200 million, I can probably squeeze $20,000 out of someone, which would make me 1/10,000th as good as him. I’m totally, totally ok with that.


************
I think the girl in this commercial is just about the hottest girl ever.
[youtube]ybSwzS9L2_w[/youtube]
I mean, I gotta say that it doesn’t hurt that she’s in a commercial that’s overflowing with images of cheap Mexican food, but I think she’s got honey in her hips. For sure.
(God, I love Taco Bell.)
(Honey, not so much.)
************
I hope you guys realize what an incredible guy Site Guy Brendan is. I don’t pay him anything, since I’m going to debtor’s prison and all, and when I did pay him, it was very little and mostly in the form of beer, but yet he still takes all of my frantic calls when something doesn’t post or I get a slew of MySpace messages from you guys saying your emails are getting bounced back/not answered. Also, for a guy who looks like Mr. Burns when he’s naked, he can really, really drink. God bless him. If you have the time, you should really send him a thank you note at brendan@jasonmulgrew.com.
(And no, I’m not saying all this because his brother is the sergeant in my home precinct in Chilita and I anticipate needing assistance – or at least favors – from the NYPD in my final weeks in the neighborhood. Not doing it for that reason at all.)
************
Six Songs
"Rise Up With Fists" Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins
[youtube]-Thz2SOKkGI[/youtube]
I think I am about 98% in love with Jenny Lewis.
"Rainy Day Woman" Waylon Jennings
I truly, truly believe that if I had some sort of ill-fated tryst with a Southern woman, I could become a country music star. I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.
"I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" The Ramones
This is probably my favorite Ramones song. What can I say? I hate the Ramones and love love.
(Although I’m starting to realize that I may not be suited to be anyone’s boyfriend, possibly for the rest of my life. I had a discussion about this – among the company of both male and female friends – and was told by both groups that I might need to seek help. To which I replied, "Help for what? For being too much awesome?" Dicks.)
(God, I’m so lonely.)
(Not really.)
(I think.)
"No One" Alicia Keys
My buddy Mark in LA has a keyboard. He doesn’t really play, but just has one. Last week when I was out there, I was over his place having beers with some friends and I started messing around with it (the keyboard). Though I don’t play piano either, I pretty much figured this song out (it’s really easy) and started singing along. And a little note for anyone who sings this song in public: the line is "people keep talking/they can say what they like," and not "people keep talking/niggas say what they like." Because I thought it was the latter. And it’s not. So I was told by everyone. So there.
"Let Your Loss Be Your Lesson" Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
I want to kiss her throat.
"Gila" Beach House
A recent addition to the "Let’s Make Out or Something" playlist. Although I’m not sure how long it’ll stay there, because in the middle of the song the singer sings "oh-oh-oh-oh-oh" over and over again, and it sounds mildly creepy and sexual. The only song that actually got removed from the "Make Out" playlist was Broken Social Scene’s "Anthem for a Seventeen Year Old Girl." Yes, the title is really creepy, but a ladyfriend I was bedding pointed out that it sounds like kids are singing, which is not what you want to hear while bedding. Of course, she could have been using this as an excuse, because once I plied myself from her to change the song, she threw sand in my eyes, temporarily blinding me, and ran out of my bedroom. And yes, I was sleeping with Mr. Fuji. Or maybe Mr. Fuji’s sister. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with the Asians, especially with the chubby ones. Anyway, this is a good make out song. For now, I think.
[Have a good weekend]
Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve been asking about it for weeks and it’s finally here: my 2008 fantasy baseball preview.
If you’re familiar with the site, you know what I’m going to do, since I do it each year. The following preview applies to roto drafts (fuck off, auction people) in a standard 5×5 category leagues: runs, rbis, home runs, stolen bases, and average on offense; wins, saves, strikeouts, ERA, and WHIP for pitching. I will confess that because in my two main leagues we use OBP instead of average and total bases instead of home runs, I may be biased a little bit and offer insight in line with that bias.
Before we get to the position-by-position breakdown, some general, timeless, and possibly extremely obvious rules about drafting:
1) Know your enemy. Certain owners have certain inclinations. For example, if you’re drafting with a bunch of guys from Boston, you can probably expect that Ortiz, Manny and Beckett (and Papelbon – especially Papelbon) will go off the board sooner than they should. Alternatively, you might know that some guys favor offense to pitchers, or don’t care about closers, or will stop at nothing to get David Wright on their roster because they have a man-crush on him (Site Guy Brendan, I’m looking in your direction). Knowing whom you’re drafting against, when possible, is important in determining how to draft your team.
2) Know your categories. This only applies to those that are not in standard 5×5 leagues (again, 5×5 meaning Runs, Home Runs, RBI, Stolen Bases, Average and Wins, Saves, Strikeouts, ERA, WHIP). Some leagues only have minor changes; for example, as mentioned above, my main league uses on-base percentage instead of average and total bases instead of home runs, which makes for a much better league in our opinion.
But what you have to watch for duplicative categories. For example, in another league I’m in, the categories are: R, HR, RBI, SB, AVG, and OPS. This means that power hitters should be especially favored in this league, for every time a power hitter hits a home run, it will affect R, HR, RBI, AVG, and OPS. That’s five different categories. I was even in a league once in which both strikeouts and strikeouts/9 innings were categories, so of course those high-K guys were doubly valuable.
3) Embrace the home run. Here’s something very simple that took me many seasons to finally realize: when in doubt, take the power hitter. You can’t think of home runs as a single category, since every home run directly results in one run, at least one RBI, and a help in average. Each homer affects four categories. Some people will get cutesy and draft speed guys (affects SB and possibly average and runs) or high average guys (will affect average and potentially runs and rbis), but let them. One home run is a guaranteed benefit for three other categories. If you have a lot of power, you will have a lot of HR, runs, and RBIs (and as long as your team isn’t full of Adam Dunn’s, then your average shouldn’t be too bad either). Let the other guy grab Carl Crawford, he who’s averaged 15 home runs and 80 RBIs the last three years, with his 9th pick; you grab Prince Fielder, with his 45+ homer/120+ RBI potential, with your 10th.
4) Embrace the K. I wrote a bit about this two years ago, when a reader took me to task for leaving Roy Halladay off my end of season Top 25 players (turns out that he stunk the next year and I was right). To recap, I wrote:
Few roto baseball players realize that having a pitcher on your team with a low K/9 rate actually hurts your team. To prove this, let’s take one of my leagues from this year. Each of the eleven teams maxed out their allotted 1400 innings. The person who "won" strikeouts, getting 11 points in that category, finished the year 1242 strikeouts. That’s an eyelash under 8 K/9. The person in the middle (earning a 6) averaged 6.9 K/9 and the person in last (getting a 1) averaged 6 K/9.
Roy Halladay threw 220 innings and struck out only 132. That’s only 5.4 K/9, well under the average for a typical last place finisher in strikeouts in any roto league. So if you draft Halladay, you’re putting yourself in the red for K’s. And as he will likely be your first pitcher taken, you will need to subsequently draft many high K guys, which might be difficult, as these guys typically go off the board faster than other pitchers. And if you pick up another low K guy – Wang (3.13 K/9), Garland (4.77 K/9) and Kenny Rogers (4.36 K/9) all finished in the top three in the major leagues in wins, but were downright embarrassing in the K department – you’re basically submarining your team and guaranteeing a finish in the bottom three in strikeouts.
The references are a little dated since it was two years ago, but the point remains the same. I don’t need to tell you that taking a pitcher with a high-K rate is better than taking one with a low-K rate; of course you’re going to take Carlos Zambrano over Derek Lowe. But what I’m suggesting is that it might be worthwhile to took a flier on a young, high-K guy with potential (Chad Billingsley, Yovani Gallardo, Dustin McGowan and my boy Ian Snell come to mind) over vets who will give you good stuff, but nothing spectacular (like Brad Penny, Lowe, Tim Hudson or Halladay).
[And I realize the contradiction here: in one point, I espousing the home run, as it affects four categories. In the next, I'm advocating strikeout guys, strikeouts being just one category. My defense is that you can't compare offense and pitching drafting strategies. I'm not saying that you should abandon the other pitching peripherals, but rather suggesting that if given the choice between two similar options, always take the K guy. Whereas in offense, I'm saying that you should almost forsake speed and go like a hawk from hell after power hitters. Dig?]
5) Know when to draft and when to pass. People forget that the most important rule of any fantasy draft, much like the most important rule of love, is that the right person comes along at the right time.
An example will help. I really like James Loney this year. I think he’s going to be terrific hitting in that lineup, possibly as good as a B/B+ Todd Helton (in his prime) – I would not be surprised with something like 100-28-110-2-.320, which are lovely, lovely numbers. Optimistic, yes. But not entirely unreasonable.
But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to take Loney in the fourth round of my draft, because I won’t have to take him then. I know (or rather, I’m confident in betting) that other guys in my league are not as high on Loney as I am, and will take guys like Konerko, Swisher, Delgado and a host of others not just ahead of him, but waaaay ahead of him. So instead of taking Loney early, I will wait on him until later in the draft when I feel it is the right time to take him. Until that time comes, I’m going to draft other guys I like, who I know are on my competitors’ radar screens, either because they’re highly ranked, highly touted, or they have said that they like that player.
So I will meet James Loney early in the draft, and though I may be enamored with him, I will have to let him go and set him free. If he comes back to me later, say in the 14th or 16th round, well, then it’s really meant to be. And we will be together. Forever. Or at least until the end of the season.
6) Early on, don’t go crazy on the young or the old. An immutable law of life is that young people need time to grow into their abilities, and as we get older, our skills decline. Applied to fantasy baseball, that means in the first five rounds of a fantasy draft, I will try – to the extent possible – to steer clear of younger, less experienced/proven players and veterans with years and years (and years) of mileage. Practically speaking, that means that I will generally not use any of my first five picks on Ryan Braun, Brandon Phillips, Manny Ramirez, BJ Upton, Curtis Granderson, Troy Tulowitzki, John Smoltz, and Felix Hernandez, to name a few. These guys are players who I don’t feel comfortable taking high in a draft and building my team around. While again, this isn’t a hard and fast rule – if Ryan Braun, who’s generally ranked as the 14th best player, falls to me in the 4th round, I’ll take him – I’m saying that all things being equal, I will stay away from this guys, take a similar, more-proven or not as old commodity, and let someone else deal with them.
*****************************
I’ll pick the top few at each position (based on Yahoo position eligibility), give a little analysis, and then name sleepers and busts. I realize that "sleepers" and "busts" are objective, but I’ll define a sleeper as someone whose performance will exceed his draft position and a bust as someone who won’t live up to his draft position. Since the tier system as recently become very popular, I will not just break down players by rank number but by tier as well. Let’s go.
CATCHER
1) Victor Martinez (Cle)
2) Russell Martin (LAD)
——
3) Joe Mauer (Min)
4) Brian McCann (Atl)
5) Jorge Posada (NYY)
——
6) Ivan RodrÃguez (Det)
7) Geovany Soto (ChC)
8) Kenji Johjima (Sea)
9) Jarrod Saltalamacchia (Tex)
10) Bengie Molina (SF)
11) Jason Varitek (Bos)
12) A.J. Pierzynski (ChW)
Analysis: Here’s the thing with catcher: if you miss out on one of those first five guys, you have a choice. You can either take an established vet, who’s got the starting gig and will almost definitely put up something like 50-12-60-0-.250 (i.e. Pudge, Johjima, Molina, Varitek, A.J. Pierzynski, LoDuca, etc) or you can take a younger guy with more potential – sometimes much more potential – but who may not even have the starting gig and will possibly split time or spend time in the minors (Soto, Saltalamacchia, Napoli, Towles, Suzuki, etc).
Ever since I started playing fantasy baseball, I was of the mindset of, "Give me LoDuca in the 21st, thank you very much." But just this past season, I’ve begun to alter my stance. If the average catcher’s numbers in a 12 team league (so we’re including the five big guys, as well as the shittiest of the bunch) is something like 50-10-55-0-.260, and you have a guy who puts up 70-20-85-5-.290, you have a big advantage over your competitors. In no other position is there such a great disparity between what the average catcher numbers are and what the average Big 5 numbers are. So unlike a lot of other fantasy experts, I think it is certainly worth it to grab a good catcher. The only catch (no pun intended) is that you must be careful not to do this too early. I would value the Big 5 (in a 12 team league) as follows: Martinez in the mid 4th, Martin late 4th/early 5th, Mauer mid 6th, McCann late 6th, Posada early-mid 7th. Those are rough guidelines, but I think it’s more than appropriate to grab one of the Big 5 in that draft position.
Sleeper: Geovany Soto was the Class AAA Pacific Coast League MVP last year, batting .353 with 109 RBIs. How can you not take a chance on this guy over someone like Johjima or Varitek? Sure, he may struggle and he doesn’t even definitely have the job, but the potential reward is too great to pass up. Of the more named stars, Joe Mauer’s injury history is really scaring people off, but this guy is a special player who won the batting title two years ago. Don’t let him fall too late – 24 year-old catchers who can hit .340 are hard to come by, even if they do miss games.
Bust: Russell Martin in 85 games before the All-Star break: 51-11-60-15-.306 (caught stealing 3 times). Martin in 66 games after the break: 36-8-27-5-.275 (caught stealing 6 times). I don’t pay too much attention to second-half surges, since come September the competition is for the most part weaker, as teams call up younger players, especially pitchers, to run them out to see what they’ve got. And while I’m won’t turn totally doomsday about second half slumps, I still place value in them. I don’t think Martin will be terrible, but if anything I expect similar or lesser numbers than those he put up last year. I know the SBs are key from the catcher position, but those taking Martin over Victor Martinez, who’s averaged 78-20-96-0-.307 and 149 games over the last three years, are crazy. Stone crazy. I’d rather pass on Martin and grab Mauer/McCann/Posada two or three rounds later. Worth mentioning is that though I think he’ll be fine, there’s no way Jorge’s putting up numbers like he did last year. But you should already know that. C’mon.
FIRST BASE
1) Ryan Howard (Phi)
2) David Ortiz (Bos)
3) Prince Fielder (Mil)
4) Albert Pujols (StL)
——
5) Mark Teixiera (Atl)
6) Lance Berkman (Hou)
7) Travis Hafner (Cle)
8) Justin Morneau (Min)
——
9) Carlos Pena (TB)
10) Derrick Lee (Chi)
11) Adrian Gonzalez (SD)
12) Victor Martinez (Cle)
13) Carlos Guillen (Det)
14) Garrett Atkins (Col)
——
15) Todd Helton (Col)
16) Nick Swisher (ChW)
17) James Loney (LAD)
18) Paul Konerko (ChW)
19) Alex Gordon (KC)
20) Ryan Garko (Cle)
21) Adam Larouche (Pit)
22) Carlos Delgado (NYM)
23) Chris Duncan (StL)
24) Joey Votto (Cin)
25) Mark Teahan (KC)
Analysis: Ah, 1B – the deepest of all positions. Really, as long as your starting 1B is one of those top 14 guys, you should be in good shape. Because of this, and because I’ll usually walk out of a draft with three or four guys who are 1B-eligible, I really don’t place too much emphasis on 1B. That being said, Ryan Howard, David Ortiz, Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder are all first round picks (maybe Fielder slides to early second), and everyone is the top eight should be gone by the early third round. Personally, if I’m walking out a draft with one of the top eight and then Loney and Teahan, I’m feeling pretty good about that.
Sleeper: Travis Hafner had a bad year last year and people are avoiding him like the plague. Especially if you’re an OBP league, do not let this guy slip too far – two years ago he hit 42 homers with a .429 (!) OBP. Konerko also had a bad year and is a tremendous value pick for as late as he goes. Alex Gordon was extremely hyped last year and has been totally forgetten this year, and I like Mark Teahan as well. People are all up on Nick Swisher, but maybe it’s me, because I just don’t see it. And of course, I talked about James Loney above.
Bust: Here are three people that I can guarantee will not end up on any of my teams: Albert Pujols, Carlos Pena, Carlos Delgado. Pujols is just about the only hope in St. Louis and everything I hear about his health is bad. They look like a 75-win team this year, so why not let him have whatever surgeries and/or rest he needs to protect his future? Pena had a monster year, but I’m not using any of my first six round picks on him. Just not. Don’t trust him. Can’t tell you why. Some people see Delgado as a value pick – bum hip and all, he’s still hitting around Reyes, Wright, Beltran, etc. Maybe, but not me. Again, I could be wrong about each of these guys, but given the depth of options are 1B, I’m not going to take them.
SECOND BASE
1) Chase Utley (Phi)
——
2) BJ Upton (TB)
3) Brandon Phillips (Cle)
4) Brian Roberts (Bal)
——
5) Robinson Cano (NYY)
6) Chone Figgins (LAA)
7) Ian Kinsler (Tex)
8) Dan Uggla (Fla)
——
9) Rickie Weeks (Mil)
10) Howie Kendrick (LAA)
11) Plácido Polanco (Det)
12) Dustin Pedroia (Bos)
13) Kelly Johnson (Atl)
14) Aaron Hill (Tor)
15) Jeff Kent (LAD)
Analysis: Call me a homer, and call me biased because I have him in my keeper league, but Chase Utley is so far head and shoulders above the competition that he rightfully deserves his own tier. Brandon Phillips put up incredible numbers last year, but Utley’s done it for three years now (and he missed 30 games last season!). I like Upton in his last year of 2B eligibility and though I think his average drops, I think 28-28 is a fair guess at his first full season. If Brian Roberts leads off in Chicago, he becomes more valuable. 2B is deeper than people realize; it’s only after the first three tiers that things get a little shaky. Do Weeks and Kendrick finally explode? Or is it wiser and safer to go with Polanco and Pedroia, from whom you know what you’re gonna get?
Sleeper: I have been on Rickie Weeks for so long, it’d be unfair for me to abandon him when he may actually put together a decent year. Kelly Johnson has a lot of potential for someone you can get very late in a draft.
Bust: Brandon Phillips. I’m sorry, but stop this train, because I’m getting off. Yeah, he went 30-30 last year, which is legit from the second base spot. But you’re talking about a guy who’s shown very little to this point in his major league career and who in 2700+ at bats in the minors hit 67 home runs and stole 107 bases. To put that in perspective, in his career year last Phillips had 650 at bats, so using this as a basis, an average season in his minor league career would look like 16 home runs and 26 steals – nearly exactly his numbers in 2006, his only other full season in the bigs, when he hit 17 home runs and had 25 steals. He may be a fine or even good and pull a 20-20+ season, but I suggest that if you have the 25th pick in the draft, please don’t use it on him. Take Lance Berkman or Mark Teixiera and grab Robby Cano three or four rounds later. Let Phillips be someone else’s worry.
SHORTSTOP
1) Hanley Ramirez (Fla)
2) Jose Reyes (NYM)
3) Jimmy Rollins (Phi)
——
4) Derek Jeter (NYY)
5) Carlos Guillen (Det)
6) Troy Tulowitzki (Col)
——
7) Rafael Furcal (LAD)
8) Miguel Tejada (Hou)
9) Michael Young (Tex)
10) Edgar Renteria (Det)
11) Orlando Cabrera (ChW)
——
12) JJ Hardy (Mil)
13) Khalil Greene (SD)
14) Jhonny Peralta (Cle)
15) Julio Lugo (Bos)
Analysis: Shortstop has, I think, the deepest talent pool of any position aside from 1B. The good news is that it’s also the easiest to manipulate. By that I mean that Ramirez, Reyes and Rollins all should be gone by the 9th pick in the draft. Jeter will go first after that, higher than he should, probably in the late 3rd or early 4th. Then Tulo and Guillen, in that order, shortly after. Then no one will draft a shortstop for a long, long time. Any of those guys in the third tier will put up terrific numbers and can be had as late as the tenth round or after. Seriously. I love the Dodgers this year and I think Furcal’s healthy and going to score a lot of runs. People are terrified of Tejada because of the Mitchell Report and because he was hurt last year, but he’s hitting in a ballpark practically built for him and is batting 5th behind Hunter Pence, Lance Berkman, and Carlos Lee. How does that sound? Michael Young, please take your 90-15-90-10-.310 and put it in the bank. And Edgar Renteria and Orlando Cabrera are terrific options that can be had in the 14th or later. Seriously.
Sleeper: Well, I kinda blew my load about the sleepers in the above paragraph. But one last thing: does anyone realize that Khalil Greene is playing in a pitcher’s park and last year put up a nice 89-27-97-4-.254? Those last two numbers ain’t great, but I’ll take the first three.
Bust: You can probably guess that I’m going to go after Tulowitzki. Look, I’m all for taking a risk with a young player, but when your options are a young guy like Tulo in the 4th or a steady veteran like Orlando Cabrera in the 14th, I don’t see how anyone can choose the former. If you go young, do it by drafting a guy like Soto, who can be had in the late, late rounds. So I give you the same advice I gave about Brandon Phillips: let someone else take him in the 4th and wait to get a proven proven guy 8-10 rounds later.
THIRD BASE
1) Alex Rodriguez (NYY)
2) David Wright (NYM)
3) Miguel Cabrera (Det)
————
4) Ryan Braun (Mil)
5) Aramis Ramirez (ChC)
6) Garrett Atkins (Col)
7) Chipper Jones (Atl)
8) Ryan Zimmerman (Was)
9) Chone Figgins (LAA)
————
10) Mike Lowell (Bos)
11) Adrian Beltre (Sea)
12) Kevin Youkilis (Bos)
————
13) Edwin Encarnacion (Cin)
14) Evan Longoria (TB)
15) Josh Fields (ChW)
Analysis: Very top heavy and thin, 3B is. Those top four guys will be taken in the first 15 picks, then it’s anyone’s guess: I’ve seen Ramirez, who’s typically always the 5th taken, goes as high as the early 3rd and as low as the late 5th. One thing that can be said is that the top 3 guys are as close to guarantees as you can get, but after that, because of youth/age or health concerns, it gets pretty shakey.
Sleeper: It’s tough to call anyone a sleeper, but two guys who are going much later than they should are Ryan Zimmerman and Chipper Jones. I think Zimmerman, who’s still only 23 (!), will show improvement this year and he shakes off his minor sophomore slump. In his last four years, Chipper’s played in 137, 109, 110 and 138 games, but hit 30, 21, 26 and 29 home runs, with very nice peripherals, and last year put up a stellar 108-29-102-5-.337 campaign. I’m not saying you should count on him for 150+ games, but if you grab him in the eighth and a young guy from that last tier in one of the final rounds, you’ll be in better shape at 3B than most of the teams in your league – and just might snag 30+ homers and a nice average in 162 games from the hot corner.
Bust: I love Ryan Braun and I kept him in my keeper league, but you simply cannot sustain a 1.480 OPS against lefties, even if your name is Ty Cobb or Ted Williams or Ron Christ, Jesus’ sweet-swinging lefty-hitting shortstop brother. I think he drops off this year, maybe not dramatically, but enough not to warrant your second round pick. 3B isn’t deep, but I’d be happy to take a more secure player in that round and grab another 3B later.
OUTFIELD
1) Matt Holliday (Col)
————
2) Alfonso Soriano (ChC)
3) Carl Crawford (TB)
4) Grady Sizemore (Cle)
5) Vlad Guerrero (LAA)
6) Carlos Beltran (NYM)
7) Ichiro Suzuki (Sea)
8) Magglio Ordonez (Det)
9) Carlos Lee (Hou)
10) Lance Berkman (Hou)
11) Curtis Granderson (Det)
————
12) Manny Ramirez (Bos)
13) BJ Upton (TB)
14) Alex Rios (Tor)
15) Bobby Abreu (NYY)
16) Nick Markakis (Bal)
17) Adam Dunn (Cin)
18) Torii Hunter (LAA)
————
19) Hunter Pence (Hou)
20) Corey Hart (Mil)
21) Gary Sheffield (Det)
22) Brad Hawpe (Col)
23) Eric Brynes (Ari)
24) Chone Figgins (LAA)
25) Chris Young (Ari)
————
26) Hideki Matsui (NYY)
27) Jason Bay (Pit)
28) Vernon Wells (Tor)
29) Andruw Jones (LAD)
————
30) Jeff Francoeur (Atl)
31) Nick Swisher (ChW)
32) Matt Kemp (LAD)
33) Juan Pierre (LAD)
34) Delmon Young (Min)
35) Shane Victorino (Phi)
36) Jacoby Ellsbury (Bos)
37) Kosuke Fukudome (ChC)
38) Josh Hamilton (Tex)
39) Pat Burrell (Phi)
40) Jack Cust (Oak)
Analysis: After Matt Holliday, in that second tier you’re looking at a couple of speedsters who are generally overvalued, a few guys with injury concerns, and two really fat guys who play in Houston. I love that there are a number of second OFs who are young and show a lot of promise, namely Upton, Rios, Markakis, Pence, Hart and Chris Young – the sky’s the limit and I love all of them, although I’m a bit concerned with Young’s similarity to Mike Cameron. A general rule I try to follow is that between your three starting OFs, you should ideally walk away with around 70 home runs and 60 steals. You get this any way you can – three 25-20 guys; two 30 homer guys who’ll steal 10 combined and one speedster, etc – you’ll be set.
(Also, I had to stop at 40 because I’m starting to get dizzy, but there are a number of other guys I like very late, namely Jeremy Hermida, Josh Willingham, Nate McLouth, Chris Duncan, Rick Ankiel, Michael Bourn, J.D. Drew, Mark Teahan, Lastings Milledge, Corey Patterson, and if anyone in that LA OF gets hurt, Andre Ethier.)
Sleeper: People who are going later than they should: Magglio, Manny, Torii Hunter, Jason Bay, Pat Burrell. People I lust after: Markakis, Pence, Hart, Kemp, Ellsbury, Hermida.
Bust: Something about trusting Vlad or Carlos Beltran to anchor my OF scares me a little bit. Neither Magglio nor Eric Brynes are going to repeat what they did last year, but Magglio should hit .300 with 100 and 100 and Brynes should still steal 35 with pop, so if draft them accordingly. Alex Rios is going very, very high for a guy with a low walk rate who hasn’t proved he’s more than a 25-15 guy.
STARTING PITCHER
1) Johan Santana (NYM)
————
2) Jake Peavy (SD)
3) Brandon Webb (Ari)
4) CC Sabathia (Cle)
5) Erik Bedard (Sea)
6) Josh Beckett (Bos)
————
7) Cole Hamels (Phi)
8) Justin Verlander (Det)
9) John Lackey (LAA)
10) Dan Haren (Ari)
11) Carlos Zambrano (ChC)
12) Aaron Harang (Cin)
13) John Smoltz (Atl)
14) Chris Young (SD)
15) Scott Kazmir (TB)
————
16) Tim Lincecum (SF)
17) Brett Myers (Phi)
18) Daisuke Matsuzaka (Bos)
19) Roy Oswalt (Hou)
20) Felix Hernandez (Sea)
21) Javier Vazquez (ChW)
22) Roy Halladay (Tor)
23) Fausto Carmona (Cle)
————
24) Rich Hill (Chi)
25) Kelvim Escobar (LAA)
26) Francisco Liriano (Min)
27) Yovani Gallardo (Mil)
28) AJ Burnett (Tor)
29) John Maine (NYM)
30) Chad Billingsley (LAD)
31) James Shields (TB)
32) Pedro Martinez (NYM)
33) Ben Sheets (Mil)
34) Oliver Perez (NYM)
35) Matt Cain (SF)
————
36) Jeremy Bonderman (Det)
37) Randy Johnson (Ari)
38) Chien-Ming Wang (NYY)
39) Ted Lilly (ChC)
40) Andy Pettitte (NYY)
41) Dustin McGowan (Tor)
42) Phil Hughes (NYY)
43) Ian Snell (Pit)
44) Tim Hudson (Atl)
45) Derek Lowe (LAD)
46) Jered Weaver (LAA)
47) Jeff Francis (Col)
48) Jon Lester (Bos)
49) Rich Harden (Oak)
50) Adam Wainwright (Stl)
Analysis: Counting the first two tiers as one, there you go: five tiers, take a pitcher from each. As I mentioned above, one of the most important things I look at for pitchers is their K-rates, particularly historically. For example, I’m down on Roy Oswalt because for the past three years his K-rate has declined. On the other side, I loved CC Sabathia last year because in the previous two years he decreased his BB-rate each year. If you feel like you like a particular guy, or if you’re faced with a choice of two pitchers, check out their last three years and look at the K/9 and BB/9. If that’s a wash, take the higher-K guy. If that’s a wash, grab the guy on the better team. A lot of fantasy experts say that wins are hard to predict, and I agree to an extent. But if a pitcher is starting 35 games for a team that wins 60, what’s a reasonable number of wins for that pitcher, 10? What about a guy getting 35 starts for a team that wins 90+? Isn’t 15 a real possibility? So does anyone want to bet me that Dice-K is going to have more wins than Tim Lincecum?
(For the record, I realized that I just completely jinxed Dice-K’s season for writing that. God would seriously mess him up just to spite me.)
Sleeper: Instead of traditional sleeper picks, I’m just going to tell you who I really like/who I think isn’t being valued properly:
Brandon Webb: You can beat that consistency; his team, which was good last year, is a year older and better; and he’s not “the guy” with the addition of Dan Haren, the return of Randy Johnson, and the improvement of Micah Owings.
Carlos Zambrano: He’ll finish second or third in the NL Cy Young voting this year
Brett Myers: People forget that this guy was one of the best second starters in the league before becoming closer. A lot of K’s on a hungry team.
AJ Burnett: Lots of K’s, little WHIP, little health. This guy gets 200 innings and he’s a top ten pitcher.
Chad Billingsley: I am so hard for this guy. Seriously. He really buy some mace.
Pedro Martinez: If you like 150 innings, 13 wins, 170K’s, 3.30 ERA and 1.00 WHIP, you’re in luck.
Jeremy Bonderman: Two years ago, very nice. Last year, hurt. This year, his lineup will score 1000 wins. If he’s healthy, 17 wins and very nice peripherals could happen, which is worth a shot in the 15th round or later.
Randy Johnson: Remember what I said for Pedro?
Ian Snell: The best fifth (or possibly sixth) fantasy starter possibly in the history of fantasy baseball.
Rich Harden: Last year he was considered sleeper. This year, I think people actually hate him and wish him ill. If you’re comfortable with your four other SPs, why not? And hey, if it doesn’t work out, you’ll get another roster spot when you move him to the DL on May 3.
Bust: Same as above – these are guys I really don’t like/are going higher than they should:
CC Sabathia: Matthew Berry, who is excellent and whose brother is a friend of mine and a true prince among men, made an excellent point: last year, including the playoffs, CC pitched 256 innings. Never before had he topped 200 innings. I’ll add something to Berry’s point: CC is 300 mother fucking pounds. Sometimes the lure of a $160 million contact from Steinbrenner & Co simply pales in comparison to the gnocchi at the clubhouse buffet.
Josh Beckett: The 20 wins last year were great and if there’s a guy I want pitching Game 7, it’s him. But you know he had a 5.01 ERA the year before, right? And you know he’s been plagued with blisters throughout his career? And he’s already hurt this year? And you’re gonna use your third or fourth round pick on him? Really?
Dan Haren: This guy collapsed in the second half, got a big contract, and now will miss out on foul territory roughly the size of Kansas in the Coliseum. The AL to NL switch usually always results in better numbers – this guy will be the exception. Maybe he won’t decline too much, but I don’t think he’ll improve.
Roy Oswalt: For reasons mentioned above.
Fausto Carmona: Gut feeling, but I don’t dig this guy. Do I always need empirical evidence?
Ben Sheets: This isn’t business – it’s personal. This guy has burned me for some many years that I think if I were to see him, it might get physical. And I don’t mean that in a good way. I don’t think.
Any of the young pitchers on the Yankees or Red Sox: Let you moron friends from New York/New Jersey and Boston draft these guys way, way higher than they should be drafted.
[One final note on starters: If you’re in a keeper league and keep four or more players, please, for the love of God, draft both Tim Lincecum and Francisco Liriano. Lincecum is like a hybrid of Billy Wagner and Brandon Webb and Liriano is Pedro Martinez the year before he won his first Cy Young. Just promise me you’ll draft them. Please.]
CLOSERS
1) Jonathan Papelbon
2) JJ Putz
3) Francisco Rodriguez
4) Joe Nathan
————
5) Francisco Cordero
6) Billy Wagner
7) Jose Valverde
8) Bobby Jenks
9) Mariano Rivera
10) Trevor Hoffman
11) Takashi Saito
12) Jason Isringhausen
13) Matt Capps
14) Manny Corpas
15) Joakim Soria
————
16) Joe Borowski
17) Todd Jones
18) Rafael Soriano
19) Brad Lidge
20) Eric Gagne
————
21) Huston Street
22) Chad Cordero
23) Brandon Lyon
24) Carlos Marmol
25) Brian Wilson
26) C.J. Wilson
27) Troy Percival
28) Kevin Gregg
29) George Sherrill
30) Jeremy Accardo
31) B.J. Ryan
Analysis: Notice I titled this section “closers” and not “relief pitchers.” This is because I draft these guys for one thing and one thing only: saves. That’s it. They can have a 4.98 ERA and a 1.46 WHIP, because they’re only pitching 60 innings anyway. As long as they give me 30+ saves, I won’t complain.
I won’t do sleepers or busts here either, because these rankings do not reflect closer ability or potential peripherals, but rather how safe their job is. This doesn’t mean that peripherals are totally disregarded, but if I draft a closer, I want to be as sure as possible he’s going to stay that team’s closer (barring injury). For example, Papelbon is the closer in Boston. It’s pretty safe to say he’s not going to get pulled from that role. Same with Putz and K-Rod, though I was tempted to put Nathan in the second tier because he’s a free agent after this year, meaning he’ll be a huge bargaining chip come trade deadline time. But because he’ll most likely be the closer of whatever team he’s traded to (if he’s traded), he stays in the top tier.
Francisco Cordero just got a huge contract to close. Billy Wagner’s not going to set up anyone, neither is Mariano Rivera. Jose Valverde was traded for to close. Bobby Jenks had a stellar second half, securing his role. Trevor Hoffman’s a borderline bum, but in what could be his final season, the all-time saves leader is not going to pitch in the seventh. Saito could be a steal at where I have him ranked, but the Dodgers are built to win if not now then soon, and Saito’s 38 and he has the 280 pound Jonathan Broxton throwing 101 in the eighth, looking like his daddy said to his mommy while they were doing it, “Let’s make us a closer.” And if not Capps, Corpas and Soria, then who?
After that, you’ve got two guys who pitch only slightly better than I do and a couple of fairly serious question marks (although Soriano might thrive in the role, I admit). I’ll bet that either Huston Street or Chad Cordero are traded before the deadline and might possibly not close in their new homes. And after those guys, it’s a guessing game.
I always try to walk out of a draft with two guys who I know aren’t going to lose their jobs, and then take a few late-round gambles. If you’re in a daily transaction league and are not on top of things, it’s worth it to take two or three closers who aren’t going anywhere. If you’re a stoner who watches Sportscenter at 2am after the west coast games finish and can pick up whoever will close now that Brian Wilson got hit with a line drive, then maybe you only need to draft one closer. Your call, homies.
***********
I’m going to bed now.
Late last week, in a 24-hour span, I got a letter from the IRS saying that my 2006 taxes were done improperly and that I owe them several (several, several) thousand dollars, took the first steps to bring suit against my landlord, and learned of one of the more ridiculous family developments just about ever. The stress of all this has been so great that recently I woke up in the middle of a night from a dead sleep, believed someone was in my bedroom, screamed "What are you doing?" and dove out of my bed and into the darkness to tackle this person, only to grab air and slam myself into my wall. So if you’re keeping score at home, that’s fractured ribs from a bachelor party and a hurt (let’s say, "partially dislocated" for effect) shoulder from having a nightmare and tackling an apparition. Whoops. So needless to say, this weekend I needed to blow off a little steam.
[By the way, we're going to have a Jerry Lewis/public television-style "Help Jason Mulgrew Beat IRS" fundraiser soon. Good god. I don't really have much to offer, and anything I'm able to offer you can probably get for cheaper during my eventual estate sale, but I will certainly be able to send you pictures of me in various stages of disrobing based on donation - and I work cheap. Alternatively, if any of you are wealthy and need an in-house blogger/fuck-up/masseuse/fantasy sports guru/poor musician/bearded guy, please contact me asap. In exchange for free rent, a monthly cash stipend or a large single donation, you can do pretty much whatever you want with me, but please, no greek.]
[And while we're here, ever since my dad started taking me shooting, I've been thinking of getting a gun, since it really makes you feel like a man. However, Exhibit A as to why I cannot get a gun is these nightmares that I have that now physically make me leap from my bed to fight something. The way my luck is, I'd buy a gun, finally find a nice lady to spend the night with me, and then in the middle of the night when she gets up to go to the bathroom - or more likely, spends two hours in the bathroom alternatively sobbing and vomiting - I'd be mostly asleep and shoot her when she walks back into the room. So I don't think I'm going to run out to buy that gun just yet.]
Fortunately, this weekend was a good one to blow off some steam, as my buddies and fellow members of my fantasy league, Iron Sheik, descended upon NYC from Boston, Jersey, Hartford, Atlanta and Chicago for our first-ever live draft. Joy.
My love for fantasy sports is well-documented. I love sports, but since God didn’t bless me with grace, athleticism or the ability to shower in front of other men without a necessary minimum level of GHB in my system, I never really played them growing up. But I am good at numbers, better at studying, and best as dominating opponents to feed my ego; in short, I’m an insecure nerd. In shorter: I’m the guy fantasy sports was made for.
But even more than that, it’s not just about the sports, but the camaraderie. There are ten guys in my league, one of whom I met for the first time this weekend, and if I were getting married, I’d invite all of them (since my wife will be rich, because somebody’s gotta pay these back taxes). Our league is like a social club, but without the drinking and the seeing each other; we have a common interest which we explore together year-round in the form of baseball, football and basketball leagues. And of course, it gives you something to do at work to kill time. Which is key.
On Friday night, it rained buckets. Though on Saturday night six dudes (including me) would be staying at my place, only my friends Joe and John made it in from Boston on Friday. It was a low-key night, as we were joined by our friend (not Site Guy) Brendan and spent the night in my apartment drinking, the torrential rain keeping us in. Brendan left at 3am and Joe and John and I stayed up until 5:30am, drinking and talking sports sports sports sports sports sports. So…awesome.
On Saturday, it was go time. The rest of the guys arrived via car, train or plane and at 3pm we met at the Sixth Ward in the LES to get the draft underway. Prior to the draft, I really liked the Sixth Ward (and the bartender Tina) but I had two concerns: one, there was no private room for us, but rather a back area; and two, the beer prices were a little expensive. Not necessary expensive by NYC standard, where $5 for a Bud draft is considered ok, but these guys were covering from all over the place. The draft figured to take several hours and we would certainly order food, so I was concerned that when the check came and I said, "It’s $1100," there would be an actual riot in the bar. But for the moment, I did not let it bother me, and a-drafting we went.
Eight of the ten IS members were there, two were not. Missing was Ricky, who’s a sportscaster in Austin and could not get away from covering UT. In his place we had Ace Cowboy, friend to all and former driving force behind Slack Lalane. Missing also was Site Guy Brendan, who for womanly reasons I shall not disclose, could not attend. In his stead was Don Fiedler, friend to all and named charter member of Slack Lalane. The beers were flowing, the giant draftboard was taped to the wall, the stickers (colored by position) laid out on the table, and the drafting began.
The technical stuff: This is the first year of our three player keeper league, so each team started with three guys from last year’s roster. Our rosters include 23 total players, and the position breakdown is C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, OF, OF, OF, Util, Util on offense and SP, SP, RP, RP, P, P, P, P on pitching. That’s 18 starters to go with 5 bench spots. We use standard 5×5 categories for pitching – W, K, Saves, ERA and WHIP – but slightly different categories for offense – Runs, RBI, Stolen Bases, Total Bases and OBP. I won’t argue the merits of using TB instead of HR or OBP instead of AVG except to say that a single and triple should not be counted the same and if we learned anything in Little League, it’s that a walk is as good as a hit.
Yours truly had the 6th pick in the draft. Also, because I so dominated last year and had such a deep pool of players on my roster, I was able to get three extra picks for the draft: one in the second (when I traded Erik Bedard away) and two in the fourth (when I traded BJ Upton and Chone Figgins away in two separate deals). Because of these extra picks, I forfeited my last three rounds pick (roster size is 23, remember). Below is how my team turned out. "K" stands for keeper and the numbers in parens are the rounds in which that I made the picks.
C: Joe Mauer (5)
1B: Lance Berkman (1)
2B: Chase Utley (K)
SS: Carlos Guilen (4 – 1st pick)
3B: Ryan Braun (K)
OF: Alex Rios (2 – 1st pick)
OF: Hunter Pence (4 – 2nd pick)
OF: Corey Hart (6)
Util: Chipper Jones (4 – 3rd pick)
Util: Torii Hunter (8)
B: Kosuke Fukudome (14)
B: James Loney (16)
SP: Brandon Webb (K)
SP: Carlos Zambrano (2 – 2nd pick)
RP: Billy Wagner (7)
RP: Bobby Jenks (9)
P: Aaron Harang (3)
P: AJ Burnett (10)
P: Chad Billingsley (11)
P: Ted Lilly (13)
B: Rich Harden (14)
B: Matt Capps (12)
B: George Sherill (15)
I won’t dissect the team too much – I’m doing my humongous fantasy baseball preview tomorrow, so I have to save my energy for that – but I’m happy with the team. It’s a typical Mulgrew team: don’t sacrifice the power categories for speed, try to draft a top six guy at each position, take a lot of high-K pitchers, and walk away with two closers who are very safe in their jobs. Every single guy on my offense is capable of 100 runs and 100 RBI, and every pitcher on that team averaged .8K/IP last year and did not have an ERA over 4 (it’s only one year, but still, that’s pretty solid).
The draft took nearly five hours, during which Tina served us beer and food and took care of us like the gentlemen we were. Needless to say, we got properly drunk. I was drinking cans of PBR the whole time to get that "sitting around the living room" feel going, and twice I walked up to the bar thinking I was walking to my fridge to get another one. My concerns about not having a room were forgotten immediately; the bar wasn’t that crowded and those who were there ignored us or looked at us curiously. And as for the bill…let’s just say that Tina is amazing and really, really hooked us up. We drank and ate so much I was concerned that I was going to have to personally subsidize part of the tab (hence another reason for the canned PBR), lest I be embarrassed to ask these out-of-towners for so much money. But it was affordable. Definitely.
After the draft, the local guys headed home, buddies Jon and Ryan stayed out with some friends, and me, Joe, John, Bill, Don and Ace went back to my place (after stopping to get pizza) to watch the Duke-UNC game and have some beers. After the game, Don and Ace went home and the rest of us went out to meet Jon and Ryan and we drank liters of beer until 5am (daylight savings time). Then we got more pizza. I had an incoming call from Bill at 6:27am, as I had just laid down to sleep and he was stuck in my bathroom. Fat bastard.
It was a solid fourteen hour drinking day that featured a five hour fantasy baseball draft, and not one, but two drunk visits to Rosario’s to get pizza/chicken rolls/frankie and cheeses/beef patties. I don’t think we talked about anything but sports, I don’t think a woman came within twenty-five feet of any of us, and I think I must have drank five gallons of beer. It was easily the greatest day of 2008, and arguably the greatest of my life.
And next year: Iron Sheik comes to Austin, Texas. Mark it down, and God help the beer and late-night pizza of that fair city.
Since I have been coming back and forth to California once a month for the past few months, my friends here in LA have been lobbying for me to move to Cali full-time. The reasons they give for living in Los Angeles are wide-ranging and not without merit. “It’s cheaper than in NYC, and you get much more for your money.” I can’t argue with this. $2000 will get you a barely livable one-bedroom in Manhattan but a full-fledged goddamned palace (almost) anywhere in Los Angeles. I could essentially move from an apartment above an Italian restaurant filled with 500 Chinese neighbors (in the remaining seven apartments) to a loft overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Marina Del Ray or somewhere in the South Bay. But you do have to get a car in LA, which is not only an added expensive, but a major hassle. So for me, the cost of a car and insurance – several hundo a month – and the mess of dealing with traffic equalizes the perceived lower cost of living in LA.
“Look at the weather! Practically year-round you can spend your morning at the beach and your evening in the mountains!” This is also true. But anyone who knows me, or even sees me, can tell that I’m neither a beach nor ski bum. I like the beach to the extent that I like to go out on a boat and sit there and drink beers and pee off the side. I like the mountains to the extent that I can go to a cabin and sit there and drink beers and pee outside in the snow. So trying to convince me to move to California by arguing the merits of the beach and the mountains is like saying I should stay in New York because there are plenty of opportunities for me to practice my Russian.
“Have you seen the women out here! They’re gorgeous!” Another valid point. But just as if I were to move to LA I couldn’t properly enjoy the beach and the mountains, I couldn’t enjoy the women here either. As I’ve said before, I like going out in NYC because, even though I’m no Steve McQueen, I can still feel confident that I got it going on, in my own way. Whereas when I walk into a bar in LA, I’m immediately in the bottom 5% or 6% in terms of looks – and I was one of People’s 50 Hottest Bachelors for Chrissake (three years ago, but not much has changed since then). I’m a big believer in odds – that eventually, if I keep going out and surrounding myself with beautiful women in an alcohol-filled environment, something has to break my way (read: my bird, two fake boobies, several weeks of one-sided regret in the aftermath) – but consistently being the third or fourth ugliest guy in the bar is not how I want to spend every Friday and Saturday night.
“There’s so much to do around here! Not just in LA, but in the surrounding areas!” This is not a bad one at all. Part of the reason why I love NYC is because I can be home with my friends and family in Philly in an hour and twenty minutes on the train, or getting bombed with my buddies in Boston in three hours and thirty-two minutes via the Acela. Once every five weeks, perhaps more frequently, I take advantage of this and am in either of these cities. But though I love visiting Boston and Philly, as I’m getting older, I find myself filled with wanderlust and seeking out new experiences and travels. And I know that Boston and Philly (and New York, even) will always be there – I’m not only 98% sure that I will settle and put down roots on the east coast, but I will always have friends and family and thus a reason to visit these cities. So if you want to convince me that LA is the place to be, this here is your strongest argument.
To that end, the last time I was out here in LA my friend Selena suggested that we go wine tasting, as part of the “Jason Mulgrew Experience Southern California Living” tour. Let’s backtrack a second: I like wine. I also like tasting things, preferably with booze, sugar or cream in them. And one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in 28 years on earth is that if a woman asks you to take a mini-road trip with her, drink (literally) all day long, and stay at a hotel, you say yes. Quickly, too, before she realizes what a mistake she’s made and changes her mind. So on Saturday morning, I got up early, headed over to Selena’s, and we were shortly driving on one of the 4412 freeways in Southern California out to a town called Temecula.
I had never been wine tasting before and consider myself much, much more of a beer person. To be honest, I only like to drink wine when I’m smoking pot. Otherwise, I could live without it. But for the reasons mentioned above, I welcomed the idea of wine tasting: something different, something fun, something with a girl who wants to spend the day drinking.
But the experience of wine tasting was totally, totally awesome. Even though I had to wake up early and take a potentially traffic-filled drive, the weather was great and the drive was scenic and traffic-free. Even though I was concerned that the tour would be filled with rich snobs who’d see right through my rich-and-yuppie veneer (“His combined parental income isn’t even close to six figures – let’s stone him!”), Selena and I met wonderful people. And even though I was far too full of wine and food by the end of the day to create some sort of awkward environment with Selena, it was still nice playing the rare role (for me) of “Date Who Doesn’t Fart Explosively, Freeze in Place, and Then Say ‘Somebody, Quick – Get Me Some Paper Towels!’” Four things I noticed about wine tasting:
- One thing that immediately struck me at the first vineyard was the incredible lengths that people will go to to create new and different ways to get fucked up. As I mentioned, I’m a beer guy. I like my beer like I like my women: cheap, American, and hissing when I crack ‘em open (please read this reference sexually, and not murderly). For this reason, I think I’m simple when it comes to drinking. But in reality, a lot of work goes into making that beer. The barley is planted, then harvested, then, I don’t know, put in a vat and the beer is made. Then it’s canned and shipped to my local bodega in NYC, which charges me double what the rest of the country is paying. Then into my belly and out my bird. It’s the cycle of life, and it’s beautiful.
Because I (obviously) know so little about beer-making, I was surprised at how much work goes into making wine. I thought that you grabbed the grapes, threw them in a barrel, stomped on them, and then drank up. Not so, my friends. It was at the first vineyard when we were drinking something called ice wine that I was struck by how much work goes into producing wine, especially just picking the grapes, which for ice wine must be frozen within a specific temperature range, and the lower the temperature, the sweeter it is (the more sugar it contains), and if the frost comes late, the crop will be lost, but if the frost is too long, then no juice can be extracted, then there’s a special yeast one must use, and on and on and on. Halfway through the explanation, I wanted to say, “Jesus, lady – you’re killing my buzz. Pour me a glass, take off your top, and put a smile on Uncle Jason’s face, ok?”
So as I sat there drinking this wine, which went through such a process that just hearing about it me tired, I thought that those farmers in South America had the right idea: cut a coca leaf from the soil, chew on it, get high. That’s what I’m talking about. When I’m getting messed up, I don’t want to think about how what I’m drinking has worked out more than I have. Give me a plant, light it on fire, and let the good times begin. I’m just a simple, simple man.
- Guys, a suggestion: get a bunch of buddies together and go wine-tasting. Only two types of people go on wine tastings: couples and groups of women, either for birthday or bachelorette parties. Every tour group had five or six couples, then a group of six to eight girls getting fucked up. There was not a single (or uncoupled) straight guy in sight at any of the five vineyards we visited. Not one. All you need is you and two buddies and you almost can’t lose. The only potential disadvantage is that the wine tastings end around 4pm or 5pm, which means you have to face a mortal enemy of mine in the realm of seduction: sunlight. But the sheer numbers speak for themselves: dozens of girls drinking all day and looking to have (consequence-free) fun versus zero unattached guys. I mean, c’mon.
(In a related story, I’ll be in Cali again next month and if any dudes want to go wine tasting, let’s do it. And yes, I realize how gay that sounds on paper. But trust me. Focus on the numbers. It’s almost a no-lose proposition, because at least you get drunk in the process for fairly cheap.)
I thought I was a genius when I suggested that my friends and I, instead of hanging around our pseudo-hipster bars and striking out with local girls, should start hanging out in touristy spots to pick up girls from out of town, looking for a good time. Of course, this didn’t work because, long story short, my friends and I are ugly. But I really think I’m onto something with this wine tasting thing.
- Temecula is a quaint little town with a main street fashioned and flavored by Old West influences. There’s lot of cowboy stuff for sale, which I could understand, but also a lot of motorcycle stuff, which was less understandable. But during the course of the day, I learned something else: Temecula = motocross. Or is it “motorcross”? Either way, it’s a stoner getting on a dirt bike and jumping off a ramp or mounds of dirt. Sweet. Apparently, this “sport” was founded in Temecula, and you can see mounds of dirt in the open spaces as you drive along the road and as Selena and I discovered later, every person in town between the ages of 13 and 30 not there for wine has that alternative/motocross look to them, like they listen to the Bravery and wear wristbands and wallets chained to their pants (for girls, it means dark hair with streaks of blonde or vice-versa).
(By the way, I have no idea what the Bravery is or sounds like. I’ve never heard a single song of theirs. It just felt like the right thing to say.)
I don’t mean to hate on motocross; if I lived in a place like Temecula, which seems lovely to visit for a day or weekend but rather boring to live in, I would probably be riding my dirtbike off a mounds of dirt too. And I won’t disagree that it’s impressive – you need balls the sizes of small moons to do this. But I don’t know if I’d call this a “sport.” Riding a dirtbike very fast over several mounds of dirt or off a giant ramp is cool and ballsy and there is a degree of athleticism involved, but I like my sports a little more complicated than this. If motocross is a sport, I’m going to invent a new one: At Houston and 2nd Ave, I’m going to hand you a bag of leaves on fire, and you have to run and throw it in the East River before it burns your hand off. That’s it. There’s your sport. Let’s call the X Games.
- The wine tasting wrapped up around 5pm, leaving me and Selena with a nice buzz and little else to do. The hotel receptionist directed us to a bar called the Barley House. So we cabbed it on up the road and were dismayed to see the bar was in the strip mall. Terrific.
However, this bar was pretty f’ing awesome. There we were, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, in a bar in a strip mall, and it had one of the more impressive beers lists I’ve ever seen, which was a welcome change from drinking wine all day. Not only that, but they have these appetizers called crispy corn nuggets, served with ranch sauce, that were amazing. Girls, you know how in high school or early college you thought you were having orgasms with your boyfriend, and then you started dating a new guy or f’ed a guy who knew what he was doing and you popped off for real for the first time and were like, “Yeah, ok – that’s an orgasm”? Well, that’s what eating these corn nuggets were like. That is delicious fucking food. That’s the only way I can explain it.
If you live in the area, I highly recommend this bar – the corn nuggets and beer list would be enough to keep me coming back over and over again.
(That’s another thing I like about LA – there seem to be a lot of low key “brewing company” type bars that I would never go to in NYC, because I’d look down upon those who do as tourists/meatheads/morons, but in LA are perfectly nice and have a diverse crowd of all types dining or eating there. I feel like every bar in NYC is loaded with so much association – hipster bar, frat bar, shitty sports bar, faux dive, meat market, dbag lounge/club, etc – that as soon as a friend tells me where he/she is going, I think, “Oh, no way.” So maybe it is time for me to move on. Or maybe I should just be less judgmental. Whatever.)
******
All told, wine tasting was excellent and not so much unlike a wedding. You go out of town, drink the whole time in as classy a manner as you can, keep your date company, meet other nice couples, take a shuttle to and from your hotel, and then pass out before any funny business can happen. Unlike a wedding, there’s no dancing and no love, which I always thought were overrated anyway, but you can wear what you want and it’s much cheaper than a wedding. Advantage: wine tasting. Finally, a significant reason to live in Southern California, one that relies not on my weakest asset (my physical in-shapeness and prettiness), but my best (my ability to consume alcohol and corn-products).
After five glorious and lonely days down the Jersey shore, I am back in New York City. And I am happy to report that the book…she is finished.
[Please note that “finished” is a relative term that can mean anything from “perfect” to “this is a mess and needs to be completely re-done, dick.” However, the large part of what I have to do is done. For now. And I’m really happy with that and really happy with the result. My parents…well, we’ll see. Now begins a process that could last days, weeks, or months. Keep your fingers crossed.]
Anyway, a random collection of thoughts from five days in seclusion, spent not shaving and drinking a crap-ton and on other myriad contemporary topics:
******
I am amazed at how regular my days were down the shore:
- Wake up around 12:30pm, go to Wawa to pick up the paper, then head over to the diner for creamed chipped beef with tater tots and tea;
- Come home and nap for two hours (2pm-4pm);
- Wake up, shower and make a milkshake (4pm-5pm);
- Read, dick around, study my fantasy baseball sheets (5pm-6:30pm);
- Go out, pick up dinner and booze, eat (6:30pm-8pm);
- Drink and work on the book (8pm-5am).
That’s it. Almost every day, exactly the same. And I could have continued with this schedule for the rest of my life and been totally fine with it. Not having internet is really freeing and in and of itself a mini-vacation; you’d be amazed at how clear your mind becomes when you don’t have access to Gmail, MySpace, Facebook, Yahoo fantasy sports, ESPN, CNNSI, craigslist and wikipedia. If these things hadn’t consumed 71% of my life over the past five years, I’d probably be writing my fourth book, own a home, have a good-looking broad for a wife, be driving a luxury sedan, and be in much better physical shape. Alas, as it turned out, I’m me: no home, wife, car; one not-yet-published book; and arguably the worst body of any 28 year old with excellent cholesterol. I do have several fantasy championships to my credit, so not all is lost. I guess.
******
NYC people: As I mentioned to a friend yesterday, do you realize that the rest of the world is paying $2 and $3 per beer, whereas I don’t blink when a bartender in NYC asks me for $5 for a pint of Bud? Where is the fairness in this?
I went out to a bar to have some dinner my first night down the shore and pints of domestics were $2.50. On a Friday night. Big spender I am, I then switched and had four pints of Smithwick’s at a whopping $3.25 a pint. A pint of Smithwick’s at the diviest bar in Manhattan will cost you $5, but it more likely would fall somewhere between $6 and $7. But down the shore, $3.25. Wowza.
Where do NYC bars get off charging so much for booze? Oh wait, because they can. One of my "if I were a billionaire" fantasies is that I’d open a bar in NYC that would:
- have a short IQ test at the door to restrict the entrance of morons and/or people from (parts of) Long Island and New Jersey, i.e. people could choose one of several categories – like literature, history, business, art, science, math, etc – and if they couldn’t answer 2 of 3 questions correctly in their chosen area, questions of not unreasonable difficulty, they wouldn’t get in (scores would be recorded so that you’d only have to do this once to gain entry);
- no one who can bench press over 250 pounds allowed;
- if you claim to be a “freelance [graphic designer/fashion designer/writer/producer/photographer]” but the only check you cash each month is one that comes from your parents, whose wealth and community standing are surpassed only by their disappointment in your bisexual and cocaine-based Lower East Side existence, you must drink elsewhere;
- if you are wearing a button-down shirt, that’s fine; but if two or more buttons are unbuttoned and you’re not wearing an undershirt, you have a better get chance of getting an audience with the pope than of admittance to this bar;
- hipsters would not be safe, but since they’d be harder to apply rules to than douchebags (i.e. all d-bags wear unbuttoned shirts without undershirts; all hipsters do not wear top-hats, though many do), there would be an Affectation Scale. If the doorman or staff member believes that you’re trying to hard to look cool or hip, you are out. I would be the final judge, as I would always be at this establishment, sitting at the end of bar, drinking pints of Bud in my pajamas.
In addition to the exclusion of people who fit the above description, another plus of the bar, the main one, would be that the music would be terrific (obviously) and VH1 Classic would be playing everywhere (duh), but that booze would be cheap, as cheap as possible to keep the bar from not losing money (I’d be a billionaire, remember, and would not need to make money). There’s just no justice in paying $5 for a pint of Bud when it costs that bar 30 cents. No justice at all.
(Also, the bathrooms would be spectacular – people would come from all over the world to poop in the shitters, they’d be that amazing. Trust me.)
(And hey, if every one of you donates $11,000, I could be a billionaire in a few days! If each of you donates $100,000, we could open this place this Saturday night! Let’s make this happen – together.)
******
Previously, whenever I’d write something, I would listen to jazz. For one, it makes me feel smart, which is very important for someone with so little self-esteem and zero confidence in his abilities. But secondly, it’s good music that does not draw your attention: a nice, fourteen minute John Coltrane song without words in much more conducive to getting work done than a two and a half minute White Stripes song, followed by a four minute Marah song, then four minutes of Joseph Arthur, etc.
However, my knowledge of jazz is limited and I’ve had the same jazz playlist for the past, oh, three of four years. And while it’s 80 something songs and nine hours long, it still was getting a little stale.
While writing the book for this second time, I made a breakthrough in the form of a new writing playlist called Weird Music. This consisted of songs primarily from four bands: My Morning Jacket, Midlake, The Arcade Fire and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs (I know – it could also be called “Hipster Highlights, 2003-2006”). But why these bands and this playlist works is because it’s ambient without being engaging. You can listen to it, appreciate it and know that it is good, but it doesn’t take your mind away from what you’re focusing on.
I have no joke here (sorry about that), but if you’re looking for something to listen to that will allow you to focus on other things will still maintaining a semblance of rocking out, throw together some songs by the bands listed above. “Weird Music.” You’ll thank me for it.
******
I swear to God that if I drink even four ounces of apple cider, I should do so either on or next to a toilet. Good lord. Is this just me, or is apple cider generally concerned a laxative? I bought a half gallon for 99 cents and consuming it may have permanently altered my digestive system. I mean, wow.
******
While down the shore, I only had internet through my work blackberry, which meant that I could read personal emails but not respond to them and could only be contacted at my work email. So essentially, I had no internet. Despite this, I was able to pull off some tremendous trades in fantasy baseball. This year, after eight years, my buddies and I are starting a three-player keeper league, naming our keepers this year. Last year, I dominated the league (not a brag; a statement of fact), so the result was that I had about eight guys that could have been keepers, among them Chase Utley, Ryan Braun (two who I knew I’d definitely keep), Lance Berkman, BJ Upton, Alex Rios, and three of the top six pitchers: CC Sabathia, Brandon Webb and Eric Bedard (I’m leaving off guys like Eric Brynes, Carlos Guillen, Jorge Posada and Takashi Saito, because, while their contributions were invaluable, they are not serious keepers in a three player league).
So what did I do? I sent BJ Upton to my buddy John for his fourth round (so seventh round overall) pick and Erik Bedard to my buddy Ricky, who’s a sportscaster in Austin, for his second round pick (so fifth round overall). Add in that I traded Chone Figgins in-season last year to Site Guy Brendan for his fourth round pick this year and I have seven picks in the first four rounds of our draft this year (one in the first, two in the second, one in the third, and three in the fourth). Yowza. And again, bear in mind that these trades were finalized after dozens of emails and hours of negotiations that went well into the night – I sent a announcement to the league about the Bedard trade just before 2am on Monday night/Tuesday morning – all while barely having internet and cell phone service, and writing a fucking memoir in North Wildwood, New Jersey, a beach town, in the last week of February.
The moral: I am awesome. Seriously. I can’t tell you how hard I am right now.
(By the way, I’m keeping Utley, Braun and Webb. I wanted to keep Berkman, but Ryan Howard, Hafner, Tex, Victor Martinez, Beltran, Magglio and Carlos Lee will be available in the draft – Howard and Magglio because we kicked out a guy who didn’t pay attention for about four years and he had Howard and Maggs on his team last year. With that much offense – I mean, with Berkman, that’s eight legit guys in a ten team league – it came down to Webb vs. Sabathia, since a number of people were already keeping pitchers. I chose Webb because of his consistency and because he’s much thinner, but it was a tough call. My logic was that if I kept Berkman and had an early pick in the first round, I’d grab Beltran or Hafner but by the time it got back to me in the second, all the top-flight starters would be gone and I’d have to go to war with someone like John Smoltz or Aaron Harang as my ace, when every other team had a legit, no-question-marks starter as their number one. And Smoltz and Harang would be best-case scenarios, considering how pitcher-happy the guys in my league are. If I made a mistake on any of my keepers, hopefully I can make up for it with my extra picks.)
(Have I mentioned how hard I am right now?)
******
I flew to LA last night, where I am today. What’s best: I flew first class, getting a free upgrade. Yes, all those miles flown and money that Delta extorted off me last year so that I can tell people I meet that I’m bicoastal is finally starting to reap some rewards (even though I’m essentially destroyed financially). And I learned something: flying first class (domestically) is really not that big of a deal. The seats are bigger, but sitting in an extra row is not that much of a step down; the food is free, but the “chicken” I had may have seriously damaged my intestinal tract; and the booze is free, but upon landing I had pick and drive a rental car. So it’s good, if it’s free. But considering my coach ticket cost $330 whereas a first class ticket would have cost just under $1100, it’s totally not worth it.
(However, compare this to when I flew first class to London on Virgin a few years ago, and coach looks like a holding pen for monkeys with bladder infections. Good lord. Virgin first class had a full-size bed and a smoking hot stewardess giving massages. Delta first class means you share the bathroom with 20 people instead of 80. I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth – if that’s even the proper expression – but remember when first class meant you were truly worth more than the human beings sitting behind you in coach? Sadly, those days are gone.)
******
The Eagles signing of Asante Samuel is an unequivocal and absolute fucking disgrace. It’s not even that the contract is gaudy, – even though it is, but at least it’s somewhat close to market value – but to give almost $60 million to a cornerback when they have more pressing needs is majorly, majorly upsetting to me. And while he’s had a good career, he was DOGGED in the Super Bowl and will forever be remembered as the guy who got beat on one of the most famous plays in Super Bowl history. Bottom line: it was man-on-man, Samuel on Tyree, and if makes that play, the game is over and New England wins (well, it would have been 4th and 5, but still). Also, if he had made that pick on other play, NE would have won. TWICE, in the sport’s biggest game, he had the opportunity to SECURE THE CHAMPIONSHIP – AND HE BLEW IT. And the Eagles just gave him $60 million. What the fuck.
Enjoy your $60 mil, dickhead. And welcome to Philadelphia.
(I am so enraged right now that my weekend is in danger of being ruined. Seriously.)
(Also, and I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been covered in the press ad nauseum, but did the SB teach us nothing if not that the key to a successful pass defense is a successful rush? And look how much Clements and Lewis helped SF’s secondary this year – oh wait, they didn’t at all. Jesus Christ. The only hope I have is that Asante gives the d-line an extra half-second to get to the QB and thus get the sack, but c’mon. I am SO SO angry right now. I can’t stop TYPING IN CAPS. Damn it.)
(Finally, I dare anyone to defend this move to me. It is indefensible. Sorry, there are two ways it’s defensible: 1) If this somehow springs us to sign playmakers on the offensive side of the ball; 2) If someone comes to my house and blows me twice a day, every day, that Asante Samuel is an Eagle. If one of these two things happen, I might be ok with this signing. Might.)
************
Six Songs
“Stuck Between Stations” The Hold Steady
I pimped this song fairly recently, but the line “She was a really cool kisser and she wasn’t all that strict of a Christian” really gets me. One, because I grew up in a Catholic neighborhood and around Catholic girls who didn’t put out (not that I’d know, since I certainly wasn’t the one pushing these limits). But two because how refreshing is it to kiss someone new and find that they’re actually good at kissing? Is it me or are others finding that as we get older, people get worse at kissing? Note that I’m not saying that I’m a good kisser, but at least I have an excuse: when I kiss someone, I’m usually almost clinically dead from alcohol and/or beef patties, so it’s a miracle that I can actually use my arms and legs, let alone successfully kiss a woman. As for sex, I gave up on trying to be good at that a long, long time ago – in college and shortly thereafter, sex was about working for it, trying to be good, and possibly even employing a laser light show to make the lady happy, but now I just kinda want to go to sleep and take my Bayer to prevent the hangover. But back to making out – I used to think you either had it or didn’t when it came to kissing, but now, with the frequency and seeming abundance of bad kissers out there, I’m thinking that once you get a little older, laziness or indifference or the awareness that this it’s merely a necessary step to pee-pee and peach time is making people bad kissers. Shame, really. Making out is so much fun.
“Stay Where You Are” Ambulance Ltd
I like this song.
“Parachutes (Funeral Song)” Mates of State
Might pretty, and yet slightly annoying.
“American Squirm” Nick Lowe
I don’t like the title, but if you can resist singing the “Deep deep, into the night” part over the “It goes on and on and on” outro while driving around in your car, you are a stronger person than I (I’m also pretty sure that Elvis Costello is singing these back-up vocals).
”Sway” Bic Runga
I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m totally captivated by this song right now. Also, the girl who sings it is very, very attractive. Which helps.
“Don’t Go Away” Oasis
When I started at college in 1997, I was determined to study abroad. I’d had an obsession with England since I had heard my first Beatles album a few years before, and my high school years were spent consuming every piece of music by the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Cream and Eric Clapton, and to a lesser extent the Rolling Stones and The Who. Considering my academic interest in Tudor and Stuart Britain, it was only natural that London would be the perfect place to study.
So I went about my research, but not by going to the study abroad office. Instead, using the magic of America Online, something very new and exciting at the time, I would chat with students in London to find out about their schools, their lives, and the city in general (I should mention that I did not drink my freshman year of college, which should explain much of the rest of this story). However, because chatting with male students would be downright gay, I only emailed/IMed with girls.
One of the girls I struck up a particular friendship was a girl named Amanda, who had just started at the school I would eventually study at, University College London. We’d shoot weekly emails to each other and if we caught each other online, we’d chat about the usual stupid stuff; me asking about London, the food there and the music, her asking about the US, New York City (even though I was in Boston), and TV shows; both of us talking about law and lawyering, which at the time we were both interested in.
In January, just about two months before spring break, I was approached by my friends Katie, Tracey and Katie. Through the STA Travel, they had found a spring break travel package deal to London that included round-trip airfare and seven nights hotel for some ungodly cheap amount, like $500 a person. They asked me if I wanted to go, and while my initial reaction was, “Um, totally,” I was reluctant to spend a week in a foreign city with three girls (Again, I didn’t drink at the time; if three girls asked me now to go to Europe with them for a week, I’d pack so much hash that we’d be showering together by the third day and would come back all four of us married). So I approached my friend Griff, who was always up for anything, to see he wanted to go. As expected, he said yes.
So we began to plan for the trip to London. I told Amanda about the idea and she was excited about the prospect of me coming to London and getting to meet me. Even though the internet and AOL was new at the time, I was a little nervous about this, about meeting someone from the internet (again, the 180 degree swing on this issue is amazing). I was concerned first and foremost about my safety – what is she was actually a British thug masquerading as a girl? – but my concerns were also driven by my penis: What if she was beat? In 1997, people didn’t have digital cameras and hundreds of pictures of themselves on their MySpace pages. I had a digital picture of myself, because one of the guys in my dorm and taken a roll of film and got the pictures put on disk, so I was in one of those with two buddies. But that was rare.
But Amanda and I had already been talking for two or three months by that point, so if I was going to be in her city, just about two miles away from where she lived, it would be horribly rude not to meet her, not to mention really bad karma. I didn’t know how I could come right out and ask her if she was attractive or ask her to send me a picture, so I preemptively sent my picture to her, under the guise of “This is what I look like, so you can recognize me!” Upon receipt of the picture, she made no comment on my appearance, but said only that she didn’t have a picture but would work to get one for me.
By this time, my friends were fully ingratiated in the situation and with the story, and this was universally decried as a bad development. No picture had to mean that she was busted. I tried to reason that lots of people did not have digital pictures of themselves, but this counter-argument fell on deaf eyes. She had to be beat, they said. No doubt.
Lo and behold, a week later Amanda sent me a picture of her – and it was one of the most disappointing moments of my young college career. Not because she was beat, but because the results were inconclusive. The picture was a black and white group photo that she had cut herself out of and re-pixilated, so the result was blurry pic. All the guys in my dorm gathered round to check out the picture and opinions ranged from “she could be hot” to “she could be fat” to “I think she has a lazy eye.” Just all over the place.
Nonetheless, Amanda and I kept emailing and eventually, my four friends and I headed to London. Our first day and a half was a complete wash and all of us suffered with jetlag (it was my first trip abroad, and the first for some of the others as well). On the third day, I got a hold of Amanda on her “mobile” and hearing her voice, feminine and accented, not only allayed my fears but also put a pitter-patter in my heart: she sounded cute! Like a Spice Girl even! Terrific!
Amanda invited me over to her dorm room the next day to hang out, and I asked if I could bring a friend along (and my 28 year old self interjects: “What the hell are you thinking? A girl asks you to come over to her dorm room and you want to bring a buddy!?! Jesus Christ! Why don’t you just show up in diaper for Christ’s sake!”). That next evening, Griff and I were walking around Bloomsbury, trying to find Malet Street.
After we gave her name to the desk person at the dorm, the air was rife with anxiety. This girl was nice, but I still had only the faintest idea of what she looked like. What if she was a beast? What if she was hot? What is she and I and Griff and her friend were gonna do it? Would it matter what she looked like if that was the case? Why am I sweating so much?
I heard “Jason?” in a soft, British accent and turned around and there was Amanda. And she was extremely, extremely…hot. Like, unbelievably hot. Like hotter than any girl I had seen in the whole city of London in the previous four days. When I saw her, I heard something fall to the ground and wasn’t sure if it was my jaw or Griff’s lifeless body collapsing behind me.
Amanda was short, maybe only 5’3” or so, but everything about her appearance was really very impressive. She had long reddish brown hair that hung thickly over her shoulders, and dark blue eyes and slightly mousey features that made her achingly, unbearably cute. But yet she had a body that made me tremble. She wasn’t dressed slutty, which only added to her appeal. She wore a gray sweater that seemed to say to me, “You have no idea what kind of magic is happening under here” and a skirt that still stands the perfect example of why skirts were created in the first place. Throw in the knee-high boots she wore that were all the rage at the time, and this, Lord, this was designed with me in mind. When I saw her, the only desire I had in that moment, which may well have been the only desire I’d have for the rest of my life, was to put my hands on her warm, bare, pale stomach. As a teetotaling, virginal, 18 year old college freshman, I was certain that I had found everything I’d look for and need in a woman. Check, please.
I don’t remember the thirty or so seconds after initially meeting her, but soon Griff and me and Amanda were in the elevator going up to her room, making awkward small talk. When Amanda stepped out of the lift before us and started to lead us down the hall, Griff and I did the typical guy thing, looking at each other behind her back and saying (silently):
Me: [mouthing] “HOLY CRAP!”
Griff: [mouthing] “Are you kidding me?”
Me: [mouthing] “Do you believe this? Do you fucking believe this???”
(She smelled like flowers, too.)
We arrived in Amanda’s room and she introduced us to her friend, whose name I can’t remember. However, her name could have been “Jason Mulgrew” and I don’t think I would have remembered it, so focused was I on Amanda. When we got into the room, a single dorm room with a twin bed and one chair, I was the odd man out and stood (Griff got the chair and the two girls sat on the bed). Amanda poured glasses of wine all around and since I was standing – and now drinking, which again, I didn’t do at the time – I took it upon myself to do some terribly awkward and terribly unfunny “stand-up.” This was not intentional, but rather a survival instinct: here we were, in this tiny room, drinking wine, and I was standing in front of this amazingly beautiful woman whom I’d been getting to know for months, completely unaware of how striking she was, and so it was time for me to “turn on the charm.” It started with a single joke, then turned into another, less funny joke, then soon I was monopolizing the conversation, glass of wine in my hand like a microphone, sweating and making joke after joke after joke, each one less well-received than the one before, each one making me all the more urgent to make another to make up for the previous bad ones; I was like a loser at the blackjack table, betting more and more on each hand, hoping to win back his losses. Griff was in hysterics (not so much because I was funny but because I was so badly bombing) and Amanda and her friend were polite, but, simply, I messed up. Needless to say, even in the long history of Unsmooth Moments in the Life of Jason Mulgrew, this was high up there.
Possibly because I’ve repressed the memory, I don’t recall how long we hung out in that room or how it ended, but I know it was a school night for the girls and it couldn’t have been more than an hour or an hour and a half. But I do know that when we walked out of there, it was with a promise to get together again and a heart full of love. I was in love. I couldn’t tell you a word that Amanda had said that night, now or minutes after I walked out of there, but it didn’t matter: I was in love. It was a done deal.
Unfortunately, so was the rest of mine and Amanda’s time together. I don’t believe she consciously avoided me (bless that ol’ repressing memory), but though we tried to hang out again, played phone tag, and even ended my nights in London with hour-long phone conversations, we were never able to connect in person. I went about enjoying the rest of London with Griff and the girls, but always my mind was on Amanda, seeing her again, giving her a ring to see what’s up, giving her a ring to marry me, naming our gorgeous and intelligent children. Sooner than I’d have liked, our last day was upon us and our group of five was on the train back to Heathrow. It was at Heathrow that the last scene of our classic love story would play out, in the form of a long phone call from the airport, waiting for the plane to board. We said our goodbyes, said it was nice to have met each other and bemoaned the fact that we didn’t see each other again. But we would talk soon when I got back to the States.
But that was, as they say, it. We emailed when I returned home and even spoke on the phone once or twice, but soon our correspondence dried up. Just about two years later, when I went to study at UCL, we emailed and I called her a few days after I landed, but we then didn’t speak again – not once – in the six months I was in London, even though I was going to the same school that she was. Whatever “moment” we had had certainly passed, and I never heard from her again.
I don’t think about Amanda and this situation often, since it was now eleven years ago. But whenever I hear this song, I can’t help but to do so; a maudlin love song about a relationship broken by distance, and an extremely popular song in 1997 – and one that Griff christened mine and Amanda’s song after witnessing our brief “love” “affair”. I know now, in my wise old age and with the benefit of years of experience, that I am a sucker for any sort of long-distance love or relationship; my romantic tombstone will someday read: “Here lies Jason Mulgrew, who oft confused inconvenience with Fate.” The tragedy built into separation is too much for me to resist, and I suppose that I like the idea of God keeping me from my beloved, as if the strength of our emotions is so great that He personally has to step in to keep she and I apart, that no less than His intervention could do so. But now I’m me, the 28 year-old, non-home owner, pissing away his money on high rent and booze, and Amanda is a memory, forever extant in the recesses of my mind, revisited in a song.
I am actively considering moving out of NYC. Bear in mind, I use the word “actively” very loosely, so this could encompass everything ranging from discussing my options with my friend/life coach Kyle and strolling MySpace for lady lovers in different cities. But I made a very serious promise to myself many years ago: I am going to marry whoever I’m dating when I turn 30. And after seven years in NYC of a practicing a scorched earth policy like it was goddamn banjo, I think I have to get out of the city if I hope to marry anyone that has all four limbs working and intact. Not only that, once I get married at 30, I will shortly thereafter have a child, as I am extremely fertile (I should really just write that red -$650 every year in my annual budget at the start of the year), so if I want to get out and live, I have to do so sooner rather than later.
Nothing’s set yet, but that’s your heads up. That being said…
It is on. This weekend, I am going down the Jersey shore, where there is no internet or even decent cell phone reception, to “finish” my book. Yeah, that one.
You know what’s a good scene? When you sell a book and then your imprint collapses. Whoops. So your publisher pays you out and releases you from the contract and gives the book back to you to re-sell. Then you decide to get an agent, since the last time you negotiated your own book contract, and it went something like this:
Editor: “So how much are you looking for?”
Me: “Um, I don’t know, maybe [a number that was later determined to be a small number, as told to me by my lawyer, TV agent, friends, family, passersby on the street and people I met in dreams]?”
Editor: “SOLD! Remember, this phone line is recorded and that was a binding oral agreement.”
So you get this agent and she’s wonderful and you tell her, “You know what? I want to really get into the manuscript and not necessarily do it over, but really get in there and make it perfect before we take it out to try to re-sell it.” And she totally supports you in that. And then you spend the next eight months eating pudding and writing several dozen words a week until you realize you have to do what you did last time to “finish” the fucking book: you must go down the shore in the dead of winter to get shit-bombed by yourself for five days and dance around in a condo alone at 5am with a glass of super cheap wine in your hand and not shave and bath only minimally and just keep getting drunker and drunker and drunker, so that when those five days have passed and you finally sober up enough to drive home, you turn on your computer and somehow, magically, the book is done. And then you think, How did that happen? And then you think, You know what? Whatever – it’s done and it’s gorgeous.
This is what I’m doing Friday night through Wednesday. I can’t wait. My beard is going to be HUGE and I’m going to consume a lot of creamed chipped beef and cheap wine. This is what we call, I believe, heaven.
Then I’m in NYC for one night before flying out to LA next Thursday night for a week, in order to try to pick up the shards of poison glass of my former TV writing career. The strike may be over, but there was a serious casualty that directly affects me. Namely, these days no longer exist:
[JASON in pitch meeting with NETWORK/STUDIO EXECUTIVE, 2005]
Executive: “So what’s your idea?”
Jason: “Well, it’s about – ”
Executive: “Wait a minute, you have a funny blog, right? Did I pronounce that right, blog?”
Jason: “Yes, that how your pronounce it and yes, I do have a blog. Anyway, it’s – ”
Executive: “SOLD!”
Jason: “What?”
Executive: “Blogs are so hot right now. Here’s $4800 in cash to start you off. Let’s fuck.”
[JASON and EXECUTIVE fuck on pile of rejected scripts written by stand-ups who’ve been playing nine shows a week for fifteen years straight and are considering armed robbery to feed their families.]
Instead, it’s now closer to:
[JASON in pitch meeting with NETWORK/STUDIO EXECUTIVE, June 2008]
Jason: “So the show follows –"
Executive: “Wait a minute – you’re one of those bloggers, right?”
Jason: “Well, I mean, I have a blog, but – ”
Executive: “Get the fuck out of my office.”
Jason: “What?”
Executive: “You people are no better than the fucking terrorists. And if you jerkoffs had one-one millionth of the talent of Raymond, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with. Why do you go back to Iran, you fucking terrorist? Huh?”
Jason: “I don’t under-”
Executive: “And don’t think I forgot about that $4800, which you have 72 hours to return to me or else. Now get the fuck out of my office before I rip your dick off.”
[JASON leaves the office and returns to the parking lot to find his rental car on fire, lit by a pile of rejected scripts written by stand-ups who’ve been playing nine shows a week for eighteen years straight and will seriously rob you, because their stomachs hurt and they’re looking for a purse to snatch.]
[JASON looks from his flaming car up at window of EXECUTIVE’s office, where EXECUTIVE is standing watching JASON and gives him a finger gun sign before closing the curtain and walking away from the window.]
So that’s gonna be fun.
On the following Thursday night (3/6) I fly back to NYC, and then next day, six friends will show up at my place and crash there for the weekend, all for the sake of our glorious fantasy baseball draft (see previous post). Then an Easter visit to Boston and wow. Just wow.
It’s on. And it starts in just about a few hours. Pray for me.
************
Six Songs
“Message of Love” The Pretenders
For the first 28.5 years of my life, I hated the Pretenders. For the past month, I haven’t been able to stop listening to them. I never realized how dirty and slutty they sound. It kinda makes me wanna F, even though they’re not talking about f’ing. I don’t think that makes sense, but I don’t care. I want to F. In lieu of F’ing, potato chips will be fine. Thanks.
“Damn This Foolish Heart” Stellastarr
Another band that I absolutely couldn’t stand until about a month or two ago. One of the bands I’ve always hated (and still hate and will always hate) is Interpol, and these guys were supposed to be the new Interpol, which is kinda like someone touting the benefits of a new form of penile cancer. So I stayed away. But just like I was with penile cancer, I found myself drawn in. This is just a fun rock song. Don’t hate. Just rock. If I did it, you can too.
“A King and A Queen” Okkervil River
God, this song gets me. I never really listened intently to the lyrics before, since the singer has a very mopey-sounding voice that is not conducive to the studying of lyrics. But then one day, probably when I was feeling sorry for myself, I googled them and – wow. Everything in that last verse just after 2:00 that starts with “So the best thing for you would be queen, so be queen.” I mean, wow.
(God, I am such a pussy. It’s getting kind of embarrassing, I think.)
“Grand Canyon” The Magnetic Fields
If I could have only five albums – defined as single releases that can be double or triple albums but not retrospective box sets – with me on a deserted island for the rest of my life, they’d be The White Album (The Beatles), Exile on Main Street (The Rolling Stones), My Aim Is True (Elvis Costello), A Love Supreme (John Coltrane) (to calm me down after I’ve killed something), and 69 Love Songs (The Magnetic Fields). I’ve thought about this for years now and this would be my five. This album is indescribable, so I won’t write anything else about it (I’m getting tired, too). However, I will say this about the song: it has so much going on sonically, but the lyrics read like a poem written by a seventh grader (a extremely intelligent, homosexual seventh grader who smokes Clove cigarettes and has serious depression issues, but a seventh grader still). So much of this album is so crushingly depressing, it makes me feel better about myself. Really, can you ask for anything more from music?
“Cold Hands Warm Heart” Brendan Benson
The complete opposite of crushingly depressing, despite its lyrics about the decline of a relationship. I can’t stop listening to this song: my favorite breed of catchy, harmony-filled rock.
“Fear of Sleep” The Strokes
If I had discovered these guys in college, my head would have exploded. Instead, I discovered them after college when I was living in NYC, and they conveniently became an object of intense hatred and jealousy for me. It’s hard to believe it now, but in 2002, the two hottest things in NYC were The Strokes (kinda believable) and Jimmy Fallon (seems almost like a joke now). Thus, I was not a Strokes fan and many times commented that if I was a trust fund kid, I too could probably write twelve solid songs in twenty-six years of life. But then they got less annoying and Jimmy Fallon is sucking dick for fries at the White Castle in North Williamsburg, so I’m not bitter anymore. I picked this song because, really, is there any worse insult than if someone were to say, “You’re no fun” and really, truly mean it? Most people can take cracks about their appearance, their surroundings/home/home cities, their jobs, their athleticism, and even their intelligence. But I’d rather be ugly, from Sacramento/Camden/Iowa, a semen handler, a terrible swimmer, and dumb than not be any fun. I mean, that is just a cold thing to say, let alone scream.
************
Watch this video.
Then watch this one.
I saw this one night while drinking at my apartment and there were tears in my eyes. So, you’re welcome. This should keep you occupied until I get back to civilization on Thursday.
[Have a good weekend/early part of the week.]
Yes, after eight years and 25 leagues together (baseball, football and basketball), the members of the esteemed Iron Sheik fantasy league, for which yours truly has served as commissioner since its inception, will gather together to draft their teams in person. No longer will we use the Yahoo javascript draft application or talk shit over a messageboard. We’re going to be sitting together, in a room, drinking beer and eating nachos and sports sports sports sports sports sports. Although it hasn’t happened yet, it’s already one of the top ten days of my entire life.
[Side note: The second greatest compliment I ever received was when a girl I was dating said that she loved how I was always in charge of things, how I was the one who took care of bidness. When I asked her what she meant, she said, “Well, I mean, you’re the head of your fantasy league. I can’t believe that that actually turns me on a little bit.” I really should have married her, but turns out she was really into black guys. Oh well.]
[The first greatest compliment I ever received from a woman was when I told a girl that I was dating that I had slept with Leslie Feist – and she actually believed it. Now this was pre-iPod commercial/”1-2-3-4” Feist, but she was still fairly well-known at the time. And the girl actually, totally, 100% believed that I had slept with her. (A week or so later she brought it up and I had to say, “You know I was kidding, right?” She didn’t.) I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a bigger ego boost than that: that a women that I was sleeping with – and who therefore was intimately aware of what I had going on in that department and generally in the field of romance – thought I was actually capable of sleeping with Leslie Fucking Feist. Unreal. Just unreal. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out between this girl and I because shortly after this she forgot that she had to breathe in order to live and so died. Oh well.]
[That was kinda mean. She’s still alive, is a very nice girl, and is very smart. And God bless her for thinking I did it with Feist. Again, unreal. I should really send her flowers or something. Needless to say that when I write that book that devotes a chapter for each woman I’ve slept with, she’s going to come off looking like a saint. Like a goddamn saint.]
I’ve done live drafts before. I do one every year with my buddy John, but it’s a league filled with 30- and 40-somethings from the Brooklyn neighborhood in which he grew up. And while it’s still a great time and something I look forward to every year, this draft, the Iron Sheik (IS for short) draft, will feature nine guys that I know and have known for years. Though I seldom see some of the guys in the league – I think I’ve seen my buddy Jon once in the past seven years, at our college reunion – these guys are like brothers to me. Only they’re not bisexual or extremely good at taking the LSAT, like my real brother (one and a half of those statements are true).
We’re having the draft here in NYC, where I’m the only resident. Three guys are coming in from Boston, one from Hartford, one from Jersey, one from Atlanta and one from Chicago (two guys, including our own Site Guy Brendan, can’t make it, so we’re going to have friends communicate with and draft for them during the draft). So I felt a great deal of responsibility to find the perfect location for our draft, which will be held on a Saturday afternoon. Not only that, I had only this past weekend to find a place, since I’ll be out of town the next two weekends, returning to NYC only the Thursday night before the draft. So on this past Saturday afternoon, I set out.
The perfect bar would have only a few things:
- A room that we could have to ourselves
- Reasonably priced beer and food
- An attractive waitress with a boomin’ body
- Wireless internet (though not necessary, and probably better if not available, since it would be a distraction and if I brought my computer to a bar I might as well throw it in the fucking river and save everyone the time and suspense)
I started my mini-bar crawl on the Lower East Side, since it’s the closest and most bar-filled neighborhood to my apartment. My first stop was the Blue Seats, a luxury sports bar that opened this fall on Ludlow Street. I read that they had two private rooms and when I entered the place, I was greeted by the manager, who showed me the rooms when I explained my situation. One room only sat eight and was cool, but too small. The other room, which supposedly sat 17, was much bigger, but still not ideal. It would fit 17 people sitting thigh-to-thigh, and anyone who’s done a fantasy draft in person can tell you that you need room to spread out, take your notes, and say terrible things under your breath about the other guys in the league. When the manager said he would need a $1200 (!) minimum purchase to give us the room, I balked. The search continued…
The next bar I stopped at was called the Sixth Ward, on Orchard Street. It was an underground bar (as in, below ground), which I like, since I like to pretend I’m drinking in a cave. So I stopped in for a beer to check out the place.
I left five hours later.
The place was rather empty and as I sat down at the bar, the bartender came up right away and took my drink order. She asked if I wanted anything to eat, saying that she had seen me looking at the menu outside the bar (or maybe she just thought, “Hey, here’s a ruddy-looking fat guy with a beard – get the fryers ready!”). I said no, explained the purpose of my bar crawl, and asked if they had a private room. She said they didn’t, and pointed to the back area of the bar, which, though not enclosed, could work, I thought. There were some booths and some tables that would allow us to spread out, and we’d be away from the main area of the bar. Not bad, I thought. Then I thought, this beer is delicious.
The more I thought about it (and, coincidentally, the more I drank), the more I could see us holding the live draft at the Sixth Ward. The place was slow and stayed slow through the afternoon; the bartender (who I learned was named Tina) said that this was typical of Saturdays, that Sundays were their big brunch day. There was a pool table in the bar, the food seemed pretty solid (Irish bacon-wrapped jumbo shrimp!), and the beer tasted good. When Tina said that they’d have a waitress on for us, I was sold (and drunk). We were having our draft at the Sixth Ward.
Then, as mentioned, I stayed for a few more hours, getting gloriously loaded by myself. At one point, Tina came over to me and said, “Those two girls sitting over there know you.” I didn’t want to turn around to look, lest I seem uncool, and as this was the Lower East Side and I am (incredibly, still) mildly known, I immediately assumed it was readers of this site and immediately assumed an awkward sexual encounter was imminent. I played it cool and said, “Nah, they probably don’t know me.” When she responded, “Yes, they do – they asked if your name is Jason,” I let out a chortle and had to shift in my seat to hide my erection. I mumbled something and just as I was about to faint from the excitement and the impending clunky orgasm, Lauren, my buddy Tom’s former ladyfriend, came over with her friend to say hello. Not readers. Friend’s former lady friend. Erection finished.
When I left the bar, I was bombed. On the walk home, I called my mom twice, 15 minutes apart, forgetting that I called her the first time. Yikes. But thanks to the power of water, vodka-free red bull, and a nice, long shower, I was able to sober enough to make something out of Saturday night (if you count destroying a beef pattie with cheese from Rosario’s on my couch at 4:30am as something).
The next day, I sent an email to my IS buddies, informing them that I had found a home for our draft. I said they place was cool, the food looked good and the bartender was totally on board with it. “So we got a private room?” they asked. Well, no. “Is it cheap?” Actually my pint of Guinness was $6. “Do they have wireless?” Um, no. “How many places did you check out?” I’d rather not say, but if I did, the answer would be…two in six hours.
Regardless of their complaints and general disappointment in me, I still think the Sixth Ward is going to be a good place for our draft. I don’t know of any bars in NYC with a private room, so there’s that. We’ll have an area to ourselves, which is kinda like a private room, so they only thing that we won’t be able to do in this area is say anything racist, which, for most of us, shouldn’t be that hard. And yes, maybe the beer is a little pricey, but this is NYC – everything is pricey. Besides, with two IS members getting married this year and another expecting a child this summer, this draft may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so splurge a little bit.
(Of course, if any of you have any better bar suggestions, I’m listening.)
(By the way, thanks for all the help with the slide guitar. Turns out, I just suck and wasn’t using the fingers behind the slide to mute the strings. Whoops. Just like me to be deficient at something and not blame myself but everything around me. “I suck at basketball? Well, that’s because the sport is flawed, asshole.”)
If I lose any sleep over these next few nights, it is not because I am disappointed in myself for not finding the perfect place for our first-ever (and perhaps only) live Iron Sheik fantasy baseball draft. Nor am I concerned about my friends, most of whom will be staying at my place for the weekend, trying to hurt me in my sleep because when we showed up at the bar for the draft it was packed with hipster and d-bags. No, it is because I am excited at the prospect of the draft, of seeing my buddies, of sports sports sports sports sports sports, and of seeing through a job well done. It’s these little things that make me happy.
Thank you one and all for the NYC steak place recommendations. While I’m surprised that so many of you suggested places that I explicitly asked you not to suggest (I mean, did you not read the whole post?), all told I must have gotten 15-20 different places recommended to me. What was interesting was that two places got by far more votes than the others – Del Frisco’s and Ben Benson’s and (Keen’s would be a distant third, I think).
So it’s going to be one of those two. I sent the links to the menus to my sister, who will show my dad for final determination. It’s hard for me to make the call, because my dad doesn’t eat seafood, salad or chicken, so this can drastically limit the options. Not only that, he only eats filet mignon and only well done, so places like Keen’s or Luger’s where you share a porterhouse would not work. Finally, I’m trying not to eat at chains that have franchises in Philly, like Morton’s or Ruth’s Chris or the like. God, I’m impossible.
But either way, I appreciate you taking the time to drop me a line and help a brother out. If you need anything, feel free to call in that favor. As long as nothing physical is involved, I’m your man.
************
Actually, since you guys were so helpful about steaks, for my guitarist friends, a question.
(If you don’t play guitar, you can skip this part. Seriously. Nothing to see here.)
I am trying to learn to play slide guitar. Specifically, I’ve been rocking out pretty hard to the White Stripe’s "Death Letter," a song which is actually easy to play (once you get the tuning right) and sounds mighty, mighty impressive. But the slide parts are giving me problems – not technically, since I know how to play them, but, um, sonically.
So my question is: what’s the best way to get that nasty distorted sound of my guitar when using a slide? The distortion on the other parts sounds good, but when I start to use the slide, it sounds messy, too jangly, and not tight enough. I understand this may be the fault of my guitar, which is a Fender "50′s Style" Strat that I bought fifteen years ago. I got it because its got a nice, deep clean tone that reminded me of "Little Wing," (I was extremely obsessed with Jimi Hendrix at the time) but played clean it sounds more like the intro to "I Only Have Eyes For You." Translation: It’s not exactly a shredder.
Is there are way to balance the equalizer (i.e. drop my mids) or play in a different pickup position (I currently play in the fourth position, second from top)? Should I use a glass or metal slide (now I’m using metal)? Or should I change my strings (I use .10 Elixirs, so they’re pretty light)? Or is it just not gonna sound that good with my guitar? Or am I playing it wrong?
Anyway, any help you could offer would be appreciated. I apologize if I got any technical stuff wrong – I’ve never taken a lesson and haven’t hung out with other (electric) guitarists since college, so what very little guitar tech stuff I knew has been forgotten and/or replaced by onion rings. Thank you in advance for your input.
(See? I told you you shouldn’t have read that unless you play guitar. Next time, listen to me. I’m only looking out for you.)
************
The Heath Ledger toxicology report came out last week and the findings were that he died of an accidental overdose after taking the pills because he was feeling ill and unable to sleep. Poor guy. Specifically, he had the following drugs in his system: oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam, and doxylamine.
Hmmm. Uncle Jason thinks some of those sound familiar.
Let’s see: oxycodone is Oxycotin. Check. Hydrocodone and diazepam are more commonly known as Valium. Check two. I didn’t know what temazepam was, but apparently it’s a sleep drug. Alprazolam is dear to my heart, but I know it as Xanax. Finally, I was also unsure about doxylamine, but it’s another sleep drug and is one of the active ingredients in Nyquil.
So if you’re keeping score at home, that’s an accidental overdose on Oxycotin, two kinds of Valium, two sleep drugs and Xanax. As someone familiar with this type of thing – you know, insomnia and feeling sick – I find it pretty difficult to believe that one could "accidentally" ingest this many narcotics if they’re simply tired or feeling sick. Though there was no indication of the amount of these drugs in his system, this cocktail, which we will call "The Heath," is some serious, serious shit. Again, Uncle Jason is pretty knowledgable about, um, insomnia and sickness, and a lil’ bit of Nyquil and a few glasses of wine is enough to put him out of commission for a good ten hours. Any one of Oxy, Valium or Xanax plus a sleep aid like Ambein or Nyquil could confuse a small elephant for up to six hours. All three of those plus two sleep aids…well, that elephant isn’t going to be eating peanuts any time soon. And by that I mean, ever. Because he’s dead. Real dead.
I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but if you take The Heath, remove the Oxys, and throw in a hooker, some rosary beads and a bottle of Tequila, you’ve got The Chris Farley. There is a saying in my neighborhood in South Philly. When someone dies young on Second Street, my Irish neighborhood, it’s because they either had an "aneurysm" or a "heart attack." When someone dies young up 30th Street, the other Irish neighborhood in South Philly but the one you’re more likely to hear about on Action News with the words "Stabbing" or "Shooting" or "Drug Ring" involved, they die of an overdose.
At least they’re not saying Heath Ledger died of an aneurysm.
[Author's Note: Since this post was put up, numerous readers/jerks have pointed out that hydrocodone is not Valium, but rather closer to Vicodin. My bad. I told you I only had experience in insomnia and feeling sick. Either way, the point stays the same.]
************
Norman Mailer is one of my favorite writers. But sometimes, as someone who himself is "trying" (read: owns a computer) to be a "writer" (read: writes fat jokes on his internet diary), he can be…not very inspiring.
However, what I find uninspiring most would be moved by: Mailer’s incredible talent for writing. Whenever I read his stuff, I find myself constantly discouraged. Numerous times while reading one of his books I’ll read a particularly awesome passage, put down the book, and rub my forehead, sigh, and say, "Jesus Christ." Perhaps an example about how much Norman Mailer is better than me would help.
How Mailer writes it (from An American Dream):
She was a handsome woman, Deborah, she was big. With high heels she stood at least an inch over me. She had a huge mass of black hair and striking green eyes sufficiently arrogant and upon occasion sufficiently amused to belong to a queen. She had a large Irish nose and a wide mouth which took many shapes, but her complexion was her claim to beauty, for the skin was cream-white and her cheeks were colored with a fine rose, centuries of Irish mist had produced that complexion. It was her voice however which seduced one first. Her face was large and all-but-honest; her voice was a masterwork of treachery. Clear as a bell, yet slithery with innuendo, it leaped like a deer, slipped like a snake. She could not utter a sentence for giving a tinkle of value to some innocent word. It may have been the voice of a woman you would not trust for an instant, but I did not know if I could forget it.
How I would write it:
She was pretty good-looking, real Irish-like. Her voice was something else. It was nuts.
I should probably stop reading Norman Mailer for a little while.
************
Six Songs
"Break My Own Heart" Reckless Kelly
Terrific ditty from a genre that Matt in Denver introduced me to called y’allternative, which is exactly what it sounds like. Even though some of the lyrics of this song take place in NYC, it still makes me want to be Southern. I really think I need to spend a year being Southern. I think I could pull this off.
"Carry the Zero" Built to Spill
I said it before, but if I had discovered these guys in high school, my head would have exploded. "I can’t be your apologist very long." Yikes. That line is perfect, for me.
"Dancefloors" My Morning Jacket
I guess these guys are kinda y’allternative, but I can’t say for sure, since, to be honest, I have no fucking idea what I’m talking about. "There ain’t nothin’ goin’ like the skin you’re showin.’" Wow. That line is perfect, for me.
"Breakfast in Bed" Dusty Springfield
What every man wants: a good mistress who asks for little in return and a good meal (in bed). Honestly, if every man had as good a mistress as this and then got a meal out of it, there would be no war, hate or murder in the world. Check out the song if you don’t believe me. God, does she sound extremely fucking sexy. Note to the ladies: If you sound like this when you sing, let’s meet. I’m pretty much free whenever, so let me know what works for you.
(Also, a highly recommended album is "Dusty in Memphis." I downloaded on the recommendation of a friend and it is exquisite. It’s almost worth it for this song and "I Don’t Want To Hear It Anymore" alone.)
"Jackie Blue" Ozark Mountain Daredevils
Just an incredibly weird song that sounds like the 70’s and cocaine and being lovelorn. Pretty much.
"Jealous Guy" The Faces
By far the best music purchase I’ve made in the last five years is The Faces’ box set, "Five Guys Walk Into A Bar." All I can say is, if you like rock, this box set will blow your fucking brains out. That’s it. That’s the only qualification you need to love this box set – to love, or even like, rock. Seriously. I cannot recommend it enough.
This song is especially wonderful. Sure, John Lennon wrote "Jealous Guy" and it was magical, the Song of Apology, what with his pained yet delicate vocal, his dainty piano and swathes of strings. It’s a beautiful song, it really is. But this song, about being sorry about being a jealous guy, was obviously written about Yoko Ono, since everything from this point in his career was written about Yoko Ono. And with all due respect, John, you had nothing to be jealous about with Yoko. No one is hitting on Yoko, or was when you were alive and with her. I mean, I’m sure she’s a great artist or whatever the hell it is she does, but c’mon – I don’t exactly want to jump in that bed.
So when I think about it, despite how beautiful the song is, I just can’t buy John feeling sorry for being jealous about Yoko Ono. For who? For what? It’s literally incredible. It’d be like me writing a song titled, "Titties – I Could Take Them Or Leave Them." No chance.
But on the other hand, this cover, done by the greatest bar band in the world, reeks of jealously, Scotch and regret. When Rod sings on this live in-studio cut, you can hear the remorse in his voice as much as you can smell the whiskey on his breath. I’d have to look this up to be positive, but I’m sure this track was cut after a particularly nasty row between Rod and whatever 10 he picked up two weeks ago after a concert and has been spending every moment with since, a really mollywhopper caused by the 10 talking to a guy after one of Rod’s shows, in which Rod was tanked off his face and called her a "cunt" and Ronnie Lane calm him down and say "What you say, Rod – I think that’s about enough, ain’t it? " while the 10 stormed away crying and Rod threw his Macallan Single Malt 30 Year after her.
Two hours after this was recorded, Rod and the 10 were back together again, and they’d spend the next three days fucking and drinking non-stop. They’d break up four days later and never see each other again. But in these six minutes, Rod was really truly sorry about being a jealous guy. This much, I can believe.
[Have a good weekend.]
This Sunday, I’m heading home to Philly for a night because I have off for President’s Day. Monday, the next day, my dad and I are driving back to NYC and will do our monthly dinner thingee. I turn to you on advice as to where we should go for a nice steak here in NYC.
"What?" you’re thinking. "You eat at some of the finest restaurants in NYC, chronicle your culinary adventures on here, and people regularly turn to you for dinner recommendations. And yet you ask us to recommend a restaurant – a steakhouse, no less – to you? What’s next, tips on which finger is best for digital penetration during masturbation?"
No, I won’t ask for that (because I know it’s the thumb, and I don’t stick it in there, but rather rub the knuckle on the butt, just for a little extra zing). But I’ve been to many restaurants and want to try something new, but for every good review I read about a prospective steakhouse, there’s always a bad one.
So I turn to you all. While there’s no way I can say that you have good taste – since you read this site and all – at least we may have similar taste. So tell me what your favorite steakhouse is here in NYC. It doesn’t have to be the $80 a steak kind or anything too fancy, but it shouldn’t be Sizzler either. And this is for my dad, so it shouldn’t be too chic. To avoid redundancy, please don’t recommend any of the following, which I’ve either been to, don’t want to go to, or won’t be able to get a reservation for this Monday at:
- Dylan Prime
- The Striphouse
- Peter Luger
- Spark’s
- Angelo & Maxie’s
- Ruth’s Chris
- BLT Steak
- BLT Prime
- STK (arguably the worst meal I’ve ever had)
I’m probably missing a few, but that’s all I can think of. Also, I’m starving now. So thanks.
Let me know at jason_at_jasonmulgrew.com. And your help is appreciated.
When I listed my three New Year’s resolutions over a month ago, I apparently I forgot to include a fourth: I resolve to lose my fucking mind.
[As for the other three, they're not going so well. God and I are on our worst terms ever, what with the Giants winning the Super Bowl and redtube crashing for three days last week; work has been so busy that I don't have time to grab a drink "after work", since I need to go home to iron shirts and curse a lot; and do you have any idea how hard it is to find women willing to participate in a threesome? Holy crap. And I was one of People's 50 Hottest Bachelors for Christ's sake! (A long time ago, and I'm easily the shittiest one ever, but still!) Do it for the story! My futile attempts at arranging a threesome really deserve a post of its own, so I'll stop here.]
My recent insanity (or, as I call it, crazy ballsness) is varied and vengeful, so we must break it down in order to more properly understand it.
Crazy Ballsness While Conscious
I blame this on Site Guy Brendan. At the end of last summer, because of myriad technical problems with the email ending in "@jasonmulgrew.com", Site Guy Brendan arranged it so that all the email I got to that address was automatically forwarded to my personal email on gmail, which makes it much easier to sort, find and respond to (using the "@jasonmulgrew.com", um, suffix or whatever). Terrific.
Let it be known that I’m a terrible emailer in the first place – my friends joke that I respond to emails with the speed and reliability of whatever came before the Pony Express – so getting back to your emails (or anyone’s emails) has never been the best part of my game. I’m sorry. If you must love me, you must love all of me.
So while the email system was much improved thanks to this innovation by SGB, as weeks and months went by, the system began to break down. I’m lazy and bad at emailing and as the emails kept coming in, I’d lose personal ones, forget to respond to important ones, and generally turned into a total flake whose preferred and almost exclusive method of communication was text message, employed only after 11:30pm, only on Thursday, Friday or Saturday nights, and only after attaining a blood alcohol level of .06.
And then suddenly, a few weeks ago, things changed.
I discovered that gmail has a "labels" system in their email. That is, you can apply a label to each email for identification and sorting purposes. I shouldn’t say that I "discovered" these labels a few weeks ago, because I always knew they existed, but I finally started using them. For example, my labels are Regular, for those boring old regular ones from friends and family; Reader, for those from y’all; Hollywood, for anything relating to my we’re-past-pathetic-and-now-into-desperate-territory attempts at something that will get me blown by two women (for free) (for the most part); and Junk, for shit from Delta and Expedia and creditors.
It started innocently enough. Each time I got a new email, I’d flag it with one of those labels. The order and lessening of inboxal chaos made me happy. And then more emails came in, and I added labels to those. More order made me more happy. More emails, more labels, more order, more happiness. My inbox was shaping up nicely.
But there was a problem. The labeling system worked great for new emails, but what about all the emails from the past? Surely they needed labels, right? Each time I got a new email and labeled it, the fact that there were thousands before those newly-categorized emails without labels made me than much…unhappier.
So I started going back and labeling old emails. I’ll spare you the tedium that has been borne out of my new obsession, but as of about six weeks ago, I had around 8000 emails, all without labels. Now about 5300 of these have labels. And I won’t stop until they’ve all been labeled. So whereas before I was bad at replying to emails, I now spend whatever time I would have spent replying to emails working on my Great Label Project. There are times when I think that this is the reason that God put me on this earth.
(Well, this and to create Reach Up for the Sunrise, an organization inspired by the Duran Duran song, that aims to "promote the contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals to art and culture, to support the advancement of new GLBT artists, and to spend a lot of time dancing around like a gay, like with twirls and everything.")
Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. It has become an obsession. I haven’t lost my job, lost my wife, or started sucking dick for cheeseburgers and computer access. Nor do I spend hours and hours doing this, but only maybe 30 minutes a day, usually while lying on the couch watching a rerun of The First 48. But still I don’t know why I’m so determined, so compelled, to get this done. When finished labeling a batch of emails, I feel accomplished, like I’ve just finished a marathon or eaten a shit-ton of pancakes. And when I don’t do it, well, it don’t feel right.
And this obsession has now spilled into another area near and dear to my heart: my iTunes playlist. I’ve written before that my iTunes is organized around star ratings. That is, five-star songs are the best and are included on a supreme playlist (only 87 of the 9018 songs on my iTunes have a five-star rating). Four-star are not quite as good and are lumped with five-star songs in my "Seriously Good Shit" playlist, etc. A month ago, over 2000 of my songs had no rating at all. At that point, I lumped these songs into an "Unrated" playlist, and now rate an average of 40 songs a day for proper categorization. I am a rating machine and slowly but surely, I will have nary a song without a star rating.
This, I admit, is a little crazy, but at least there is an objective benefit to my iTunes OCD: I’m creating better playlists, finding "new" music, and thus advancing my enjoyment of music and life in general. The gmail labels thing…I got nothing there. It’s helpful for me to keep track of emails, but I don’t necessary need to categorize emails from two years ago between my roommates and I about what kind where we should have our friend’s birthday party. And like I said, because I’m spending so much of my energy labeling these emails, I responding less and less to email, which is counter productive.
And then there’s the desire and the genuine feeling of discomfort knowing that, as I write this, there are emails in my inbox and songs in my iTunes without labels and ratings.
Fucking fires me up.
Crazy Ballsness While Unconscious
For most of my life, I have suffered from two nocturnal afflictions:
1) Sexsomnia. This is exactly like it sounds like. Years ago, an ex-girlfriend told me that I started feeling her up in my sleep, before I tried to make out with her. In the morning, I got the "Do you know what you did last night?" line and I thought for sure I had peed or poo’ed in her bed. When she told me what I had done, I had no recollection of it. But, whatever. I’m awesome, and I like making out and sleeping, so it’s only natural that I should combine the two. I chalked it up to a one time thing.
But it wasn’t. Over the years, I’d fall asleep next to whatever girl happened to be getting back at her ex and/or father at the time, and I’d wake up and we’d be doing it. I’m not talking like heavy petting here; we’d be doing it, like actual intercourse. In the midst of this, I’d suddenly come to consciousness, completely disoriented, grasp what was going on, and totally keep going. Because it was awesome.
[This wouldn't be an R, because for this sex to happen, the girl would have to acquiesce. Basically, I'd be asleep and start trying to be smooth. My ladyfriend would be woken up by this, would either think I was awake or I was doing my sleep sex thing (depending upon how familiar she was with me), and would either go with it or push me away. If she pushed me away, I'd wake up without knowing what happened. If she kept going, I'd wake up and be getting laid. Sweet.]
[Also, I think that ex-ladyfriends would go with it because I'm probably a much better lover in my sleep. While sexsomniaing, I don't speak at all. While conscious and having sex, my every move is peppered with talking, like "Geez, I'm sorry" or "Whoa - is that what it's supposed to look like?" and "I swear I just washed there."]
I don’t know what causes this. It’s not as though it would happen after weeks of not getting laid. In some instances, I would have sex only an hour or two before, then "wake up" and want to do it again (which is very impressive, considering it takes me 24-96 hours to recover between non-masturbatory orgasms; I only need ten minutes and a sandwich between beat breaks). And at first, it was kinda rare, but in my last serious relationship, it occurred maybe once every eight times my ex and I shared a bed. Weird? Yes. Awesome? Goddamn right. Anytime I can get right to the good stuff without having to use any foreplay or purchase any fancy dinner and do it while I’m sleep, well, that’s just fucking terrific.
(However, because of the sexsomnia I can never, ever, under any circumstances share a bed with a dude. Just not a good idea. At all. Talk about Russian roulette. Yikes.)
This sexsomnia affliction has no bearing on my current craziness, since I haven’t been sharing a bed too often lately. But I wanted to point it out to show that there is a precedent for crazy while unconscious. And also to show you that I’m more of a creep than you ever thought.
2) Sleepwalking. Typically, I’ve sleptwalked only when a) intoxicated and b) in a strange place. Also, urine would be a regular feature in my sleepwalking (i.e. I’m home over Christmas break, I get bombed, fall asleep and then sleepwalk to where the toilet would be in my apartment but where the hamper is in my mom’s house, and pee there).
Rarely if ever has there been instances of sober sleepwalks in the place in which I live. Until about two weeks ago.
One night about two weeks ago, I went to bed, on a weeknight, drug and alcohol-free, in my bed, under the covers, with the lights off. I woke up a few hours later in the middle of the night, with all the lights in my bedroom on. The room light and my night table lamp, both on. Big lights, shining brightly, me waking up at 4am. I have no idea how this happened.
A few nights later, I went to bed, again completely normally and sober. Just your average night in my comfy bed. I woke up a few hours later in the middle of night, laying on my couch in the darkness. On the couch, in the dark, in the living room, around 5am. I have no idea how this happened.
Two nights ago, I went to bed, all was normal. I was wearing boxers and a t-shirt, which is what I normally sleep in. I woke up a few hours later in the middle of the night, not wearing a shirt, not wearing any boxers, but wearing a pair of mesh shorts that were on my bedroom floor and no shirt. In a complete change of clothes, but still in my bed, in the dark. I have no idea how this happened.
So that’s three times in the past week that I’ve been doing something really weird in my sleep. Again, I admit, when I’m drunk, strange things happen when I "fall asleep" (see: falling asleep/passing out with apartment door wide open and falling asleep/passing out in bathroom with shower running). But sober? That is unusual.
************
The sleepwalking, combined with the obsessive-compulsive behavior with my email and my iTunes, brings me to only one conclusion: after years of holding it together with good vodka, fantasy sports, and constant exposure to pictures of boobies, I may finally be losing it. If this is the case, I can say for certain that I’ve had a good run, and will embrace my downward spiral into mental illness with open arms. Because, c’mon, everyone knew it was pretty much only a matter of time anyway.
("Reach up for the sunrise…Put your hands into…the big sky…")
A couple of thoughts about the Super Bowl:
- What kind of world do we live in when Eli Manning becomes the Super Bowl MVP? Holy fucking crap. The league leader in turnovers during the regular season, goat in NYC for the past four years, butt of just about every Giants joke (which all end "but your quarterback is still Eli Manning"), and the only guy in the entire NFL that I’m confident I could beat in a fistfight, goes on the road and beats Tampa, Dallas (and Tony Romo), Green Bay (and Brett Favre) and New England (and Tom Brady). If this isn’t a lesson in "anything is possible", I don’t know what is. In a related story, I’m now going to quit my job and spend the rest of my life blowing myself. If Eli Manning can turn himself into Joe Montana over five weeks, I think I only need four hard-working days to figure out how to S my own D. And once I figure this out, I really don’t need money or health insurance or the like. Fuck it.
- Because work is so busy, I couldn’t get the day off today, which meant that I couldn’t attend the Super Bowl party I usually attend in New Jersey (I would have crashed in NJ last night and needed Monday to recover). Therefore, I watched the game alone in my apartment (cue the violins). However, this worked out pretty well, since Site Guy Brendan was in town on Saturday night and we got very, very drunk, which resulted in such a bad hangover on Sunday that I called my sister (who’s almost a nurse) to ask her about the possibility of me not having a hangover but rather being afflicted with meningitis. I honestly don’t know what’s happening to me lately, but I’m getting tremendous, brain-bleeding hangovers. I had three Super Bowl party options in Manhattan, all thrown by close friends, all with lots of food and fun guaranteed – and one was even within walking distance. But still, I was confined to my apartment with my near-fatal hangover, even though I only drank canned and draft beer the night before (lots of it, but still). Also, though I feel asleep in my bed on Saturday night, I woke up on my couch at 7am Sunday morning, with no idea how I got there. Whoops.
- Steve Spagnuolo made himself a shit-ton of money last night. Good lord. The blueprint (which, might I point out, was first discovered by the Eagles) was simple: hit, punch, kick and possibly bite Tom Brady every single time he dropped back to pass. I don’t know enough about the logistics of defensive play-calling, so I couldn’t tell you if it was Spagnuolo’s defensive schemes, the Giants front seven playing the game of their lives/just wanting it more, the Patriots o-line turning into pussies, or the NE coaching staff not making adjustments to the Giants pass rush (you know, like the Eagles didn’t against the Giants when they gave up twelve fucking sacks and first-round pick Winston Justice played his way out of the NFL in a single game*), but any way you cut it, Spagnuolo walks out of this game looking like a genius. Kudos to that front seven and Spagnuolo (who, might I point up, is a Jim Johnson protégé), and good luck to Steve coaching the Redskins next year. Poo on the Pats o-line. Just poo on you.
[* Winston Justice is still in the NFL, but should not be. In the broad spectrum of individual choke jobs in my lifetime as a Philly sports fan - and believe me, there are many - there's Mitch Williams in Game Six, Andy Reid deciding to have his team stroll down the field with under two minutes to go in the Eagles-Pat Super Bowl, and then that performance by Winston Justice. In a way, his is almost worst, because sometimes closers hang curveballs over the plate and Reid is a coach and not a player. I don't think I've still ever seen a single worse performance by a professional athlete than Justice in that game. And yes, I'm still bitter about it. A lot.]
- Speaking of poor performances: Tom Petty – yikes. I know the guy was never much of a singer to begin with and he’s not known for his energy, but wow…I wasn’t sure if it was Petty up there or Bernie.
(Question: Have you ever met anyone who would describe him/herself as a "huge Tom Petty fan?" Petty’s one of those guys who, when you sign up for BMG in high school, you order his greatest hits cd as one of your eight initial free ones just because you can’t think of what else to order and you feel like you should. I guess "Wildflowers" was a decent album, but I don’t know anyone who owns a Tom Petty cd besides the greatest hits or "Wildflowers," has ever seen him live, talks about his music in public, trades any of his bootlegs, etc. Strange.)
- What’s worth pointing out is that every ball that Tom Brady threw over 15 yards was way off the mark – even when he wasn’t being rushed. I don’t know if this is the fault of his ankle or if this was because he was made so jittery by the ever-present pass rush, but it was frustrating to watch, even for a non-Pats fan. The "best" ball he threw over 15 yards was in the fourth quarter to Randy Moss, who was double covered and had to slow down for the pass, which was knocked incomplete. Brady was way off until that one scoring drive in the fourth when he seemed to put it together a bit. Strange.
- More of a general playoff note, but it’s ok if the Giants cut Jeremy Shockey, right? I’ve always thought he’s been terribly overrated, and Eli looks to have a good rapport and synergy with this Boss kid. So Shockey’s gone, right? Is there any reason to keep him around? Any?
- Note to the Patriots: Look, I know you guys are the Patriots, the Greatest Team Ever, Masters of the Universe, Pride of the Massholes, Cocks of the Walk, Fucker of Hot Bitches and Fucker-Upper of All Who Stand in Your Way, and All Around Geniuses/Superstars, but you guys had a lot of balls eschewing a 47 yard field goal attempt and going for it on 4th and 13 with a 7-3 lead in a low-scoring game in a dome. It’s a fucking dome! It’s probably 55 degrees and zero wind! And it’s 47 yards! And it’s 4th and 13! Not 4th and 5, but 4th and 13! Just an unbelievable decision, even without the hindsight of the Pats eventually losing by three.
- Note to Atomic Wings on Broadway: Look, I know that you guys were probably really, really busy for the Super Bowl. When I ordered my wings before the game started, I didn’t expect them to arrive in 30 minutes. Realistically, I assumed they’d get there in an hour or a little more. But almost three hours??? Three fucking hours for twenty wings? Again, I’m sure it was busy, but you guys didn’t think to bring in a couple more delivery guys or wing makers for Super Bowl Sunday featuring the home team? Maybe call Paco and Francisco at home at offer them $6 an hour instead of $4 to work some OT for the SB? Really? You thought you’d be able to handle it?
- One of my favorite plays in the game was on a pass rush by Kawika Mitchell from the middle linebacker position. I’m not exactly sure when it came, but the Pats were deep in their territory in the second half. The ball was snapped and Mitchell slightly turned his body, as if he was going to drop back to defend the pass. He then turned back and rushed the quarterback through a wide open lane in the o-line, and though he didn’t get a sack, he delivered a hit and disrupted the play, causing an incompletion. What’s remarkable is that his little fake, as quick as it was, was just long enough for the left guard and center to lock up on their men, allowing for that large hole in the line for Mitchell to rush through.
I’ve never seen anything like that before. It was kinda like play-action, but from a defender: a little fake causing the o-line to believe he’s defending the pass, and then shooting like a bullet up to and through the o-line. It worked so well and seemed so obvious that I wonder why more teams don’t blitz in this way. Just an excellent, excellent play.
- All the commercials sucked. Truly. I can’t recall a single one that stood out. How hard is it to come up with a funny thirty second commercial when you have a whole year to plan? Christ. Please, Big Company, send me a case of PBR and $80 and I’ll have five decent ideas for you in a week. Or two. Or longer. I’m not really good with deadlines. Which is why I work so cheap.
- In what we will call "The Play", when Eli broke those tackles and found David Tyree for that amazing completion, I have to admit that my first thought was, "You know, that looks a lot like a play that a guy I know used to make all the time."
- On Saturday night, I was out with some buddies and we were talking about who we wanted to win the Super Bowl. Obviously, I was torn. On the one hand, there’s the Patriots. When I was in school in Boston, prior to all the titles in the town, I liked the Boston sports teams, loveable losers like my own Philly teams. And then championships happened. And then 16-0 happened. So like the rest of America, I was rooting against the Pats, because Massholes are unbearable and often very, very dumb, and I don’t want them to be happy. Pretty simple, really.
On the other hand, there’s the Giants. Speaking of unbearable and dumb fan bases, you don’t get much more obnoxious and much less smart than Frankie from Long Island with the muscles and the hair gel verbally fellating Brandon Jacobs between Jagerbombs and talking about how big the tits on his girlfriend, who is from Jersey, are. Not only that, the Giants are obviously a hated division rival of the Eagles. Ugh.
So it was really a lose-lose situation for me as a fan. If the Pats win, Boston gets yet another championship and a truly legendary 19-0 season. If the Giants win, an NFC East rival is king, and the city I live in, filled with its shitty fans, gets a year to gloat. If possible, I would choose "c" – one of the two teams wins and I hit the lottery. You know, to make me feel better. But since that wasn’t an option, I went to my tiebreaker, as I always do in championships in which I have no vested interest: Which fan base deserves it more? Remember, my home city has the longest championship drought of any city with four sports teams – by far. I know intimately what it’s like not to have a championship, and, in short, it’s not awesome at all. So by default, I was pro-Giants. Terrific. Maybe I should start rooting for poverty while I’m at it.
But on Saturday night, my buddy Patrick said something that changed my perspective. He pointed out that if the Pats win, even if it does complete the perfect season, it would still be just another championship to them. The Massholes, he reasoned, wouldn’t be too obnoxious about winning, because they were so obviously supposed to win – the best team ever, going against the #5 seed in the far inferior conference, led by Eli Manning? C’mon. A Pats would win not equate to "WOW!" but rather "Duh." So at the point, even though I was leaning toward the Giants prior to this to stop perfection, I decided I would route for the Pats.
This allegiance lasted all of thirty seconds into the game. Almost immediately, I switched sides and rooted for the Giants. The Pats…I just hate them. I hate their arrogance, I hate their coach, I hate their fans, and I hate their gorgeous, gorgeous quarterback. And when the Giants started bullying these pretty boys, I ate it up. Even though I had a significant financial interest in the Pats winning (by 12.5), I was all Giants. And when they won, it was sweet, so sweet.
Thus marks the first and last time I root for the Giants.
- Finally, I got this email this morning from Eagles fan Dan in Overland Park, Kansas:
So, you finally get to be in a city when a team wins the championship and it’s the fucking arch-rival Giants derailing history. How’s that for a kick to the balls?
Yes, in its 25th year, I did break my streak of not being in a city that wins a championship. I was a four year-old in Philly when the Sixers won in 1983, which I have no recollection of. I was in Boston from 1997-2001, and just when I left, Beantown became Titletown, USA. Conversely, prior to moving to NYC, the Yanks were the biggest dynasty in sports. Two months after I arrived, they lost to the D-Backs and haven’t been back to the Series since. So I was beginning to take this me living in cities that can’t win stuff personally.
But lo and behold, the New York Fucking Giants win the Super Bowl when I maintain a residence in their city. Of course, they play in Jersey, so I don’t know if this counts, and of course, they win only when I’m seriously considering moving out of NYC, but the fact remains that their helmets say "NY" and so do my bills. Streak over.
And yes, they’re a division rival of the Eagles. But I have many Giants fans friends and I am happy for them. And more selfishly, I could say that during the regular season, despite getting beat by them twice, the Eagles were not that much worse than the Giants; again, Eli leading a 5th seed team to a championship shows that anything is possible. So there should be hope for me as an Eagles fan.
But the funny thing? There’s not. There is no hope for me as an Eagles fan. No hope at all. Now that my "streak" is broken, it means that I’m in no way bad luck. Instead, it means that the teams are root for are truly and fundamentally incapable of winning a championship. I can nothing to influence this, no matter how hard I try or how much I hurt. My dedication is futile. Hopeless. A lost cause. But at least now I know this, thanks to the New York Giants.
(I would like that winning lottery ticket now, please.)
- when your job is stressing you out so much that you’re contemplating changing careers into something more rewarding, like guy who gives people AIDS or someone who gets punched in the face for a living;
- when you’re too drained when you get home from work to do anything but lay on the couch, watch TV for an hour, masturbate to redtube during a commercial break, and then go to bed (also a pint of ice cream is usually involved in there somewhere, typically right before redtube);- when you’re starting to realize that spending almost $50,000 in rent over two years because you want to tell everyone you live in a "two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan" was probably not the most financially sound decision;
- when you’re thinking of ways to commit some sort of insurance fraud because Uncle Sam is going to put such a hurting on you come tax time that the only way you’re going to be able to get out of it is a) fake your own death or b) become a full-time fugitive, working as a carpenter somewhere in the Dakotas;- when any creativity that you may have once had in your body has been replaced by something that has the texture of warm vanilla fudge but is a sickly gray color and smells like a cross between a garbage fire and post-run balls covered in hollandaise sauce;
- when you realize you may have finally gotten all you can out of the five main jokes you’ve been beating to death for 28 years (I’m fat; My bird is small; I like to drink and be dumb; Women don’t like me; Seriously, my bird is small);- when it’s clearer and clearer that NYC just may be beating you;
- when you wake up at 5am stressing about this things for the third consecutive morning and can’t fall back to sleep so you lay in bed choking on the stifling dry heat in your apartment until you decide to get up and do the one thing you’re still and will always be good at: pooping;- when you’re late for work because it appears that your toilet may explode and spew Chinese people’s feces all over your bathroom and kitchen for the seventh time in five months and you must sit and watch and flush the toilet to "calm it down" so it doesn’t do this;
- when you walk to work and get caught in a rain and wind storm that comes seemingly out of nowhere, directly from God directly to you because He knows you’re miserable and still a good ten minute walk away from the office so hey, fuck you;- when the only thing you have to look forward to this weekend is one of your asshole groups of friends – the insufferable New Jersey morons or the can’t read/don’t care Massholes being heartbroken and possibly shutting the fuck up about their teams for four consecutive minutes, while you would honestly cut ten years off your life for an Eagles or Phillies championship, even though that means you would have died six years ago;
…[deep breath]
…you go and get an email like this
I had an adult-themed dream about you a few nights ago.Here’s what happened: My friend links to your site. I started reading it a few weeks ago and was devouring it, it’s hilarious – I’ve been on "jasonmulgrew.com" overdrive. I was really hooked after the entry when you two’ed in your pants at a Christmas party.
The dream started out in a bar. I was getting drinks with another friend, he abruptly got up from the table and left. Then, this large-esque man fainted/collapsed onto my table and the table flipped over. The man was, in my mind, the visualization of your friend/former roommate Brian.You came running out of nowhere screaming "we have to help! we have to help!" I started performing CPR on Brian, while you called 911 from the bar. We ended up in a hospital in Astoria, Queens. Turns out Brian’s appendix burst or something along those lines.
As dreams do, out of nowhere, we were outside of your apartment building, and you were asking me upstairs. You said, "Lauren, under no circumstances are we to have sex." We made out, things got trampy, and we did it. So, thanks.I hope this doesn’t creep you out, but it’s a pretty PG recap of only the SECOND X-rated dream I’ve ever had.
and it totally makes your day.(Thank you, Lauren in NYC, and thank you too, everyone else who emails.)
A few nights ago, I had such an incredibly explicit sex dream about a girl I did it with a few years ago that when I got into work the next day, I had to fight to resist the urge to send her flowers. The dream itself was awesome. I won’t get into details, because any details that involve me navigating semi-nude through the musty realm of lovemaking should never be gotten into. Although, oops. I just re-read that sentence and it’s already too much detail. Sorry.
Back when I was having trouble sleeping, I used to have extremely vivid dreams all the time that would fall into one of two camps: totally pee-your-pants scary nightmares or totally bonerizing incredibly real sex dreams (sadly, they never overlapped; i.e. I never dreamed of fucking a werewolf). This was at the peak of my hypochondria and when I was in therapy a few years back, and I suppose they derived from some sort of subconscious stress, but any way you cut it, these dreams have since subsided. The nightmares, I could live without; I used to wake up yelling or fighting and several times woke up to find myself ready to swing a pipe (that I keep under my bed) at something I thought was standing in my bedroom. So, not cool. Not too cool at all.
But the sex dreams…goodness gracious, do I miss them. I would wake up after having had one, lying in bed in that semi-conscious state, and be convinced that I had just had sex. (Author’s Note: These were not wet dreams; I’ve unfortunately never had a wet dream, since I discovered masturbating before my testes were even fully developed and since then have kept them on overdrive producing sperm for me to shoot into dirty boxers and/or paper towels, so I’ve sadly never developed the necessary reservoir of semen for a wet dream.) And the best part about these dreams was that more than half the time they would not involve former lovers, for which there was obvious precedent for fantasy fodder, but attractive women I had never even seen before. You really can’t get any better than that.
(Well, I guess you can, namely real, undreamed sex with attractive women. Unfortunately, that is not a viable option for me at the moment. So I gotta work with what I got.)
If we were in the same city right now, I have no doubt the lady I dreamed about would be the recipient of several drunken text messages (which she may get this weekend anyway, regardless of distance). Instead, it’s back to my new/old friend: redtube. Man. I can’t express what a tremendous asset to my life this site has been. It doesn’t get old. It just doesn’t get old.
**************
A number of you chimed in on the “is there any cheese in Asia food or what?” issue. Responses were divided into three parts:
- I forgot to include the cream cheese in some sushi rolls. Guilty. I don’t eat much sushi, so there. But like the cream cheese in crab rangoons, I’m not counting this. (Angie in San Antonio was first to point this out.)
- There is cheese in Indian food, specifically paneer. Ok, this I may be willing to concede, because I’ve eaten paneer before and it’s definitely cheese. However, India is the great sub-continent, so it’s not exactly the type of Asian country I was talking about; I was looking for China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, etc. (Lydia in Seattle called me out on the paneer before anyone else).
- Finally, while many pointed out that many Asians are lactose intolerant, Melissa from the Bay Area actually provided a reason for this, explaining that cows were not domesticated in Asia as they were in Europe, the Middle East and parts of Africa. No domesticated cows, no milk, no cheese, and lactose intolerance. There you go.
That argument holds some water, but the problem is that many foods make cross-cultural leaps, and cheese has not only been a part of but a staple in the European (and later American) diet for hundreds and hundreds of years. As an American, I typically don’t go 40 minutes without eating something with cheese in it, and I know I’m not alone (Michael Moore, I’m looking in your direction). So the question is almost how has cheese, which has been so prevalent in so many parts of the world for so long, not been introduced to the Asia? I understand that because of the cows cheese is not indigenous to Asia, but is sushi indigenous to America? Are French fries/chips/pommes frites indigenous to America/the UK/um, Belgium, I think? And though I only went to med school for one year, I think that a slow introduction of cheese in small doses would reduce the number of lactose intolerant Asians.
But the bottom line remains the same: except for the presence of cheese in Indian paneer and a schtikl of cream cheese in sushi and crab rangoons, there is no (significant) cheese to speak of in Asian food.
And my god, that sucks for them.
**************
This is just about the saddest commercial ever.
[youtube]_ODC5e3AEa8[/youtube]
Seriously, it’s just not even cool. After seeing this, there’s a 50/50 chance that this weekend I’ll get drunk, adopt a dog and name him Echo. Jesus. I want to call the Pedigree people and donate just so they stop showing this damn commercial – I’ll get tired of getting misty-eyed during reruns of SVU.
**************
This writer’s strike is really fucking me up. Big time. I’m accustomed to a certain lifestyle and doing marketing/pr/advertising for a law firm is not enough to support this de-luxe lifestyle.
And then there’s this. And also this.
I really picked a bad time to get into sitcom writing. Whoops.
**************
This week, Tuesday morning, 2:48am, my fever was 103.1. Why is it that I get sick every time I come to LA? Oh, that’s right – I wake up at 5:20am every morning, stuff myself with egregious amounts of caffeine to get through the day, eat only burgers and fried food for every meal, move only to and from my rental car, live out of a suitcase, and get more bombed than usual because I have nothing to say to people in bars because I’m too ugly/out of shape/much of a fan of reading and I have no idea what to talk to them about (“So…do you girls like crushing jagerbombs too, or is that just a guy thing?”). Yeah. That’s probably why I get sick every time I come out here.
**************
Six Songs
“Angels of Destruction” Marah
I can’t say enough about Marah – or even anything about Marah that hasn’t already been said. They are treeeeeeemendous, arguably to some and easily to others the best rock and fucking roll band working today (I’m in the latter camp). I admit, I can’t speak to the new album with too much authority, since I only downloaded it this week, but this song makes me alternatively boisterously happy and exuberantly proud that these guys are from Philly. It’s catchy without losing its edge and its lyrics are rock f’ing poetry, especially little throw-away lines like “I love you so much, now let’s get something to eat” and “Go ‘round the corner/And get your pop a bottle of beer.” This song is perfect. That’s it. It’s perfect. And I’m thrilled that I now have a song to start off every “Let’s Drink” playlist that I’ve ever created or will create.
I like a lot of modern music and a lot of things about modern music, but to me, there are two artists that are head and shoulders above the rest in terms of making music that matters: Marah and Joseph Arthur. I know “making music that matters” is a nebulous or even hippyish catchphrase and I don’t even know if I can properly explain what I mean, but as I put down my bong I’ll tell you that these guys are making art; they take their music seriously, they know how to best apply their talents, and their end results are often, for lack of a better word, profound. You would do yourself a great service to get very familiar with both Marah and JA if you aren’t already. Word.
“Made In the Dark” Hot Chip
This week’s entrant to the “Sad As Fuck” playlist. The only way I can describe it is that the whole thing sounds lonely, a piano chased by a slightly reverby guitar over the singer’s thin voice (it sounds like he either just finished crying before singing is about to start just after the song is over). He honestly could have been singing either about how rainbows are awesome or about how my mom is a slut and the only thing I would have noticed is how sad the song sounds.
(The album ain’t out yet, but you can find the song via Limewire.)
“Grace Kelly” Mika
My friend Nicole, bless her heart, is not exactly my go-to for new music. It’s not that she has particularly bad taste in music, but to give you an idea, I think it’s fair to say that the Justin Timberlake concert was one of her top five highlights of 2007. Nicole’s been telling me about Mika for months, about how I’d love his music because it’s “really gay and fun” and I’ve dismissed any and all Mika until about ten days ago. And I have to hand it to Nicole – she’s totally right. This is one of the gayest and most fun songs I’ve heard in a long time (I mean, it’s called “Grace Kelly” for Christ’s sake). Everyone compares this guy to Freddie Mercury, but I’d have to see him in a wife beater and a ‘stache before I give my final ruling, but this song sounds like something Freddie would make if the rest of the guys in Queen were away on vacation.
“Chicken Payback” A Band of Bees
I have no idea if this was written in 1965 or 2008. Absolutely no clue.
“In Quintessence” Squeeze
One of my top five favorite bands and I don’t pimp them out nearly enough on here. The album “East Side Story” is chock full of British pop-rock three minute goodies, but this one gets the nod here, if only for the “you won’t catch it unless you listen to it and then it’s fairly obvious” masturbation reference (“In the corner with his book and tissue/All he can do is pretend to miss you/Closes his eyes as he sees her body/Pulls funny faces and that’s his hobby”). Sweet. He’s talking about jerking off. Hilarious, but sophisticated at the same time.
“Oxford Comma” Vampire Weekend
This is, without a doubt, one of the worst band names I’ve ever heard. Seriously. I don’t even like to say it, because when I do, I feel like I should move back to the Lower East Side, start growing my beard out, become a graphic designer, wear sunglasses at night, shop at vintage stores, smoke long cigarettes, wear a top hat, and be a total pussy. If I were to ask someone what band they’re into at the moment and they were to say, “Vampire Weekend,” I’d have to consider punching them in the head immediately. “Vampire Weekend.” Fucking terrible. Christ.
But the good news: they don’t really look like hipsters, but rather just a bunch of nerds. So that makes me feel better about their name. More good news: their songs are wonderful, fun and perhaps even a little retarded. I think this one is the most unique, but I grabbed a bunch of their stuff was there wasn’t a bad one in the bunch (“Walcott” is an interesting one about escaping Cape Cod). I would add “dancey” into the description as well, so if you’re keeping score at home, that’s “dancey, wonderful, fun and perhaps even a little retarded,” which should be more than enough to warrant a listen.
[Have a good weekend.]
(Also, during the flight on my laptop I watched “The Godfather” for the first time. Um, pretty good movie.)
In a related story, while drinking cans of MGD on the plane for $5, and I realized something: MGD tastes like my childhood. I don’t really know what that means. I think it’s more appropriate to say that MGD smells like my childhood, since my dad and almost all of my adult relatives drank MGD when I was growing up (the exception being my Uncle Eddie, who drank Bud). But from that first sip, I was struck with nostalgia. What’s even more strange is that for one summer, the summer of 2000, my roommates and I went to Kinvara on Harvard Ave in Boston every week for $1.50 MGD’s and got absolutely shitcanned and every other visit would get in some sort of fight. But when I had the first MGD I’d had in years last night, I thought not of these more recent times, but back to when I was six years old. A lullaby, a birthday candle, the Peanuts Christmas special – these are things that may remind most people of their childhood. Not me. MGD. Now you know why I have so much trouble [insert psychological/emotional/genital deficiency here].
**************
Work right now: Wow. Ouch. Woof. Yikes. Mercy. Lordy. Yowza.
[That’s all I have to say about that at this juncture.]
**************
Don’t mean to be Seinfeldian here, but I mentioned this the other day to a friend and his mind was so blown he had to leave town for a while: Have you noticed the complete lack of cheese of any kind in Asian food? I mean, Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Korean, all other Asia countries – no cheese. None of them. I had further discussions with some buddies and the closest to “cheese” we could find in Asian food was the cream cheese in crab rangoons, but I’ve personally only had them in Boston, so I don’t feel comfortable saying they’re the exception. If you’re aware of any Asian dishes with cheese in them, please let me know. I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep until I get to the bottom of this.
**************
Seriously, work. Enough. Not cool.
[And that’s really all I have to say about that at this juncture.]
**************
Bets (Formerly Six, Then Four, Now Two)
After an impressive weekend last weekend in which I went 0-4, I had three different buddies call me and ask me for picks, so they could know how to bet (i.e. by going against me). Whatever. We all fall down sometimes.
San Diego (+14) over NEW ENGLAND
Look, the Pats have gone 2-7 against the spread in their last nine games (covering only against the Bills, who they beat 56-10 in mid-November, and the Steelers, who they beat 34-13 because that Pitt safety guaranteed a victory). San Diego is ready to party and though I think the Pats will win, I’ll take the 14 points.
GREEN BAY (-7) over New York Giants
Eli at Lambeau in negative degree weather just doesn’t sound good. I still don’t think these Packers are great, but I think the Pack can cover the seven.
Last week record: 0-4
Playoff record: 3-5
**************
Six Songs
“Mystery Achievement” The Pretenders
I’m warning you right now: If Jenny Lewis were to cover this song, I would never get an erection again. Not ever. It would simply be too much overstimulation for my penis and he’d say, “You know what? I’m done. That’s about all there is.” I guess what I’m trying to say is that this is a very hot, driving rock song that also made me pick up my bass guitar for the first time in about a year and a half. And again, if Jenny Lewis were to sing this, I would seriously flip the F out.
(Seriously, think of her singing this song. Wow. Erectionless. Rest of my life. Word.)
“Where Did I Go Wrong With You” Martin Sexton
This is a really sad song and was an immediate addition to the “Sad As Fuck” playlist, but it doesn’t really apply to my life, since I can pretty much pinpoint where I went wrong with every relationship I’ve had with a woman since puberty. There are only five main choices, really:
- Smothered the Crap Out of Her Because I Was Bored or Rich or Women Like That, Right?
- Don’t Really Care About Anyone But Myself and/or Finding the Perfect Crab Cake
- Completely Lost All Interest (also see: Got Tired and Needed a Nap)
- Seriously, At This Point I’m More Likely To Marry a Sausage Than a Woman
- All of the above
[Note: This only applies to situations in which I instigated the end of the relationship, not when girls dump me, which has only one explanation: “Oh My God, I’m Kinda Dating Jason Mulgrew. Wow.”]
Still, this mother fucker can sing. And sadly, too. I don’t really like to do this, because I don’t want to get your hopes up too much or make you disregard the rest of the song, but the thirty seconds from the three minute mark to about 3:30 just may be the smoothest section of a song that I’ve heard in a long time. It’s not quite Jeff Buckley’s Nerudian soul-explosion/mind-cry in that section of “Lover You Should Have Come Over” (the “My kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder” part), but it’s close.
[Sidetracking here, but ladies, if a guy wrote, “All my riches for her smile when I slept so soft against her” and “All my blood for the sweetness of her laughter” about you, you pretty much have to sleep with him, right? I mean, even if he had nubs instead of arms? I feel like I need to be a Big Brother to a kid so I can give him the heads up about this stuff. Also, so that he could be my alibi:
Chris Hansen: “And what are you doing meeting a 13 year old girl, Jason?”
Me: “I’m a Big Brother, and my Son, Frances, is friends with the girl.”
Chris Hansen: “Ok, but can you explain why you’re naked except for a sandwich board that says ‘Free Snake Rides’ but the word ‘Penis’ is before ‘Snake’ and is crossed out?”
Me: “Um, I borrowed it from a friend who gives penis rides?”
Chris Hansen: “And is that a footnote that says, ‘If the snake falls asleep it’s because he is tired and you must dance to wake him up but please sway, like real slow-like?’”
Me: “Hey man, it happens to a lot of guys.”]
“Sitting” Cat Stevens
When Cat’s angry, bro, you don’t want to fuck with him. I have no idea what he’s so mad about in this song, but it’s probably me. Whatever. I’m over it.
“In My Room” Beach Boys
I always forget about this Beach Boys song, and then I’ll be driving around (in Philly or LA) and it will come on the oldies station and I’ll say to myself, “Man, I forgot how awesome this one is.” That’s it. That’s the whole point of the story. Sorry.
“California Girls” Magnetic Fields
I just downloaded the new album last night, so I can’t speak to it with any great authority, but any song that features a line “They breathe coke/And they have affairs/With each passing rock star,” well, I’m buying. I also like the line, “They come off like squares/Then get off like squirrels” because California girls really are multiply-orgasmic. Not that I’d know personally; the closest I’ve come to a girl I’m with having multiple orgasms was when one of my ex-girlfriends thought she had an orgasm but wasn’t sure, and then eight months later she sneezed, but said it was a “really good one.” So that’s kinda like multiple orgasms.
“Hold On Tight” ELO
The song from the car commercial. I was pretty shocked this was ELO, since I thought for sure it was some hipster band. Way off. And kinda sad too, since I thought I was going to get all into the new band that did this song, since if I were in a band, we would write songs exactly like this one. We’d also have both guys and girls in the band and we’d be compared to a cross between Fleetwood Mac, Sly and the Family Stone and, well, Electric Light Orchestra. Interested parties should inquire within.
[Have a good weekend]
Breakfast: On a good day, a donut or bagel; on a bad day, half a baby
Lunch: On a good day, a salad – but even that’s filled with croutons, bacon bits and chick peas and slathered with Russian dressing. A bad day would be something with meat, cheese, bread and either mayo or honey mustard. And the other half of the baby.
Dinner: Good day – two words: Burger King. Bad day – one word: Baconator (which, by the way, is something that commands respect).
So needless to say, it’s quite a shock to the body, going from 3500 calories per day to less than 1400. Throw in daily visits to the gym – and not the easy kind, where I’m lounging around smoking cigarettes in the locker room, taking it all in – and it’s a small wonder that my body just doesn’t fail sometime in mid-week. Maybe it will eventually. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. That it doesn’t happen, I mean.
However, the diet doesn’t apply to drinking and restrictions are generally loosened on the weekends. By that I mean I can drink as much as I want, and instead of getting two slices of pizza and a chicken roll late night, I’ll get one slice of pizza and a chicken roll late night. That, I can handle.
On Friday night, I had planned to have friends in town visiting me, a married couple from Philly, Jimmy and Danielle, but they decided to come up on Saturday morning instead. I looked at this at the perfect opportunity to relax in my apartment, have a few drinks, and get things done. Because that’s what I do: take care of business. And drink. And really, very little else.
I fixed myself a standard vodka red bull to start the night, which went down smooth. Then I had a vodka cran for inspiration, to get things going, and for my kidneys. Then I switched to the beer and soon it was a full-blown one man party. It was about 10pm now and just as I was feeling an itch to get out (remember, the bars are open until 4am in NYC), the texts started coming and going. I had some buddies on the Upper East, in Gramercy and in the East Village, and my buddy Pat had some friends visiting town from Chicago. Ultimately, I decided to meet up with these guys in the West Village.
I was feeling pretty good and loose at this point, but it wasn’t until I arrived at the bar, the truly terrible Automatic Slims, that things started to slip. I beat Pat and the guys there, so as I stood awkwardly at the crowded bar by myself, I ordered a Bud and a shot of Jameson. For the record, I have never in my life ordered this combo. I don’t drink Jameson. I actually quite dislike it. But I remember doing my guest bartending gig over Thanksgiving and watching two patrons – one a guy my age, the other an older guy – order a shot of Jameson with each beer and I thought it was pretty badass. So set me up.
Though the bar was douchy, the bartender, bless his heart, poured me a "shot" of Jameson in a glass the size of a fist with a shot that was easily 6oz, a solid two mouthfuls. I like bourbon, but I prefer it on ice, and if I drink it warm, it’s usually in a Manhattan and usually being sipped. Drinking a room temperature giant shot of whiskey pulled straight off the speedrack was something that I wasn’t particularly ready for. I threw back the shot and the warm whiskey – which I did have to swallow in two gulps – nearly sent me into paroxysms of vomiting right there at the bar. For a decent three minutes, I stood at the bar, trying to act casual but choking back puke, wiping my watery eyes, and rapidly taking repeated sips of my beer to get over that dreaded "something is rising from my belly into my throat and soon it’s going to cause a big scene" feeling.
But Pat did eventually show up, along with some other friends. And we drank. More than a little. And quietly, secretly, I was getting very, very drunk. I often don’t really show my drunkenness. I can’t tell you why this is, but I’m not the fall-down-type drunk; my only inclinations when bombed are to a) make out; b) eat; c) stand there quietly; and d) all of the above. I’m much louder and boisterous on the journey to Intoxication than when I finally arrive; once I finally get there, I like to relax.
But this night was different than most because I had thought that I didn’t really drink that much. I mean, I drank a lot, but it wasn’t like I was doing jagerbombs all night or having some sort of pint drinking competition. In short order, I was really f’ing bombed. I’m not a doctor, but I think one has a higher tolerance with a fuller stomach. Like I said, I’m used to eating a ton of food on Friday (and every day of the week, for that matter) before getting drunk on Friday night. Instead, I had almost starved myself this week, so it was like every drink counted as two. And before I realized any of this, I was already totally in the bag. Whoops.
We stayed out until the bars closed, and after last call I remember grabbing two slices of pizza with the guys (and paying Pat $200 he’d been hounding me for all night, money that I lost on a bet to him). I remember going home, eating, and going to bed. That’s about it. Not much brain activity for ol’ Uncle Jason after about 2am.
The next morning, my alarm woke me up – I had set it for 11am to welcome Jimmy and Danielle, who I learned had not left Philly yet – with a tremendously bad hangover. Before I even left bed, I sent my obligatory "Wow" text message to the guys I was out with the previous night and set about determining when and whether I’d be able to get out of bed. Wallowing in my hangover was tempting, but I soon had to get up to pee (and also take some much needed aspirin). When I walked out of my bedroom, I saw it.
The door to my apartment was open.
I’m not talking “open” as in “slightly ajar” or “unlocked,” but rather wide the fuck open, three or so feet of open space between the door jamb and where the door hung at a sixty degree angle inward inside my apartment.
As I said, I was dangerously hungover, so my wits weren’t quite as sharp as they normally are, though I could see there was no sign of forced entry. I looked into my living room to assess the situation and saw that it looked very much like it had when I left it the previous night. I took stock: my laptop was sitting in plain sight on the coffee table, my guitars were still hanging in my office room, my big screen plasma – which is maybe two feet from the apartment door – was still there. So it didn’t appear that I was robbed. I then went into the bathroom and checked my heinie and I hadn’t been R’ed. Whew.
But still, this…this was bad. A few weeks ago, I passed out sitting on my bathroom floor with my shower running, which was not quite among the highlights of my life. But passing out with my apartment door open is, in my opinion, much worse. I’m actually a pretty bad mother fucker (in case I haven’t mentioned this before), so I wasn’t concerned with being physically harmed. The door to my building is always closed and locked so no outsiders could have entered the building, and the only people that live in my building besides me is a girl my age who lives next door, a 80 year old Italian woman who lives with her 50 year old son upstairs, and about 1200 Chinese people in the other five apartments whose average weight is about 104 pounds (and that’s the men).
However, I was stone drunk and passed out and my 42’ plasma TV was two feet away from my open apartment door for over five hours. My laptop, which not only contains my life but about fifteen hours of porn scattered over 300 clips, was in plain view. A few grand in instruments hung in a room, whose door was also open, eight feet from the open apartment door. All of this could have been removed from my apartment in seconds and without a sound. On top of that – this is going to sound terribly racist, probably because it is – my friends and I have a joke that anything left in the large landing outside my apartment door is immediately confiscated by (I presume) my Chinese neighbors and either used as is, fixed, or turned into devices for cooking fish, frogs, and vegetables that don’t look like normal vegetables but like things grown on strange planets and/or taken from coral reefs. For example, my fridge broke, so I moved it to the landing. The next day, it was gone. Same with my couch (although that wasn’t broken; I had just gotten new furniture). My old neighbor put broken speakers on this landing, and they were gone almost immediately. I’m pretty sure I could put a crate filled with empty shampoo bottles and popsicle sticks on that landing, and it would be used to cook up this mother fucker in under three hours.
But by the grace of God, and maybe because I’m the asshole and they’re actually good people, I was not robbed of my possessions by Chinese neighbors. I had gotten very drunk, passed out with my door wide open and nothing had happened to me, my stuff or my butt. Whew.
Of course, I did not remember leaving the door open, but wondered how it could happen. I wasn’t so drunk that I passed out with my shoes on and my contacts in; I came home and ate pizza and took my aspirin and got ready for bed, all activities that would have me walking past my apartment door. Not only that, I had picked up laundry that day after work and somehow managed to put sheets on my bed when I came home drunk. That’s right, I essentially made my bed while bombed but somehow forgot to close the door to my apartment, which, I must stress, is maybe sixteen inches from my bedroom door. For this, I have no explanation.
(Also, who am I? I’m almost 29 and I’m passing out with my door open? This would be ok in college, but not at my age – every time I’ve told this story, I haven’t gotten any “Dude, that’s awesome!” comments, but rather, “Man, that’s not right.” Jesus.)
But I do have blame: the lack of food in my belly. Had I been properly caloried, I would not have gotten so drunk and not have left my apartment door open (not to mention wouldn’t have had as bad a hangover). So therefore, in the interest of my health and personal safety, I must amend my diet: I need to consume at least 3000 calories on any day I go drinking. Losing weight is important, but ensuring that my stuff isn’t robbed in my drunken slumber is much, much more important. Bikini season be damned.
But I am starting to realize that women at the gym are not so much impressed by what a the guy on the treadmill is watching. In fact, I think women at the gym are more impressed with a guy who doesn’t start spitting up blood three minutes into "running" on the treadmill. Thus the resolution: No more BBC World News at the gym. Just stop with the spitting up of the blood.
(Again, luck needed, so please wish me it.)
************
I really want to put the whole Hot Whopper thing to bed, but I thought this email, which had the subject line "Afrin overuse = cancer," was worth posting:
Wouldn’t sing this shit’s phrases very much. My dad got addicted to the stuff to keep his nose open. Seems the more you use it, the more you need to use it because of the swelling it causes with overuse. He developed cancer in his nose as a result. Non malignant thank God.
So, um, use Afrin only as directed. And remember, I am not a doctor. Thank you.
************
Do me a solid: check out and vote for my friend Bryan’s video (his name is Bryan Master and his song’s called "Moments Like This (Don’t Come Along For People Like Us)" – the one on the top right). Good guy, good song, and good reason – a record contract at stake - to take fifteen seconds out of your day to vote. Thank you in advance for your help (and if you pass it on to your friends, double thanks and a firm, clammy handshake from yours truly).
************
This article from the NY Times is about the music people listen to while working out, and how important music scientifically can be to working out. It also has probably the most unintentionally (or intentionally, for that matter) funny lines I’ve ever read in the NY Times:
"For a high-intensity workout like a hard run, [Dr. Karageorghis, an associate professor of sport psychology who has studied the effects of music on physical performance for 20 years] suggested Glenn Frey’s "The Heat Is On.’"
Yes, that’s right – the good doctor suggests "The H is O" to really get the heart pumping during a run. Wow. This guy has a PhD in sports psychology and recommends arguably the worst song of the 1980′s – and subject to one of the best SNL skits ever – in an article in one of top five most circulated papers on earth. Good lord. "The Heat Is On?" Really? This guy didn’t have any "hip" friends he could’ve run that choice by prior to the article being published?
I don’t even know if we need a Six Songs section. "The H is O" is really all you need.
************
Bets (Formerly Six, Now Four)
Seattle (+7.5) over GREEN BAY
I think Seattle stinks on the road. I think Green Bay wins this game. But I think Seattle covers.
NEW ENGLAND (-13.5) over Jacksonville
If I have to read one more story about how Jacksonville is the worst match up for the Patriots and about how tough they are, I might throw up. David Garrad on the road vs. Tom Brady at home. The Pats win and win big.
INDIANAPOLIS (-9) over San Diego
Gamblers seem pretty split on this one, going slightly in favor of Indy (52% to 48%). I watched the SD game last week (I actually watched all the games, missing only a quarter of NYG-TB) and I don’t really see it. In the understatement of 2008 so far, Indy, at home, is tough.
DALLAS (-7.5) over New York Giants
The homepage of si.com right now has a picture of Tony Romo being sacked by some Giants under the headline "Recipe For Disaster." I mean, how could you not pick the Cowboys after that?
Playoff Record: 3-1
Regular Season Record: Go Fuck Yourself
************
Six Songs
"Live And Learn" The Cardigans
I have little doubt that this song would be perfect for some sort of chick flick featuring a young girl in her early 20′s coming of age. Just as she’s acing her studies at her prestigious New England college and preparing to apply to med school, her parents are suddenly killed in a tragic accident and she must leave school to care for her two younger siblings. Leaving her boyfriend, friends and the intellectual community behind, she returns to the Midwest to be with her family and examines the fractious relationship she had with her mother, whom she only sought to please, and while caring for her brother and sister and reconnecting with her past – that same past she tried to escape my burying herself in her studies - she learns about what love and happiness is in the process. We’ll call it "Brooksville," named after the girl’s small Midwestern hometown, and the tag line will be "Sometimes What You’re Looking For Is Right Where You Left It."
There’s your movie. I’ll take my $50,000 development fee in small bills and/or hoagies, thank you.
"You’ve Been Loved" Joseph Arthur
Beautiful, little, older Joseph Arthur song. I always listened to this song and assumed it was a love song, since it’s so damn pretty and repeats "You’ve been loved" over and over again, but I looked at the lyrics online and…um…I don’t think it’s a love song ("It’s always hard to admit/Most days you feel like you don’t exist/Temptation sneaks past your fists/Until the devil won’t let you resist" – yikes).
"Walk" Pantera
Major gym song. I actually get a little afraid when this song comes on my iPod at the gym, because it pushes me into overdrive and is over five minutes long, which is too long for me to maintain any sort of frenzied pace; two minutes, I could do, but not five. If you read about me having a heart attack on the treadmill at the gym, this is the song that’ll do it.
"Don’t Feel Right" The Roots
Another major gym song. Listening to that bass drum makes me want to by a drum set. And also be a better dancer. I should probably just focus on the drum set.
"Underwater" Tegan and Sara
I’ll tell you, I really have to be in the mood for Teagan and Sarah. There are times when a song of theirs will randomly come on my iPod and I’ll immediately change it, possibly even with an utterance of disgust. But when I’m in the mood for their special brand of girl pop-rock…I mean, look out. This song came on my iPod yesterday and I actually started singing along in my office and listened to it about eight times in a row. Right now, I think it’s a wonderful little song ("I would go to jail with only boys just to prove I was as tough as you"); two days from now, I might think it’s garbage.
(Well, maybe not "garbage" – that’s a little strong. But you get what I mean.)
"The Way You Make Me Feel" Michael Jackson
Sometimes I think that if I got rich, I would spend all my time and energy making and starring in parodies of music videos. This would be undoubtedly, unequivocally, be the first one on my list.
[youtube]gafREioIYn8[/youtube]
I mean, the intro alone makes me pee my pants a little bit - I would look great in the purple shirt, white undershirt, and white belt – not to mention the whole "gang rape" feel of the first half of the video and the "breakdown" scene with the fireplug in the backdrop, punctuated by not-so-masculine screams…they should subtitle this video "Seven Minutes of Heaven."
God, I miss Michael Jackson.
[Have a good weekend]
My dad has been out of work hurt for several years now and spends most of his time with our dog Lucky, smoking Marlboro Reds in his chair and watching every show on the History, Discovery and National Geographic channels (he also likes some of the shows on A&E). He’s not a shut-in – he leaves the house several times a day, mostly to go shooting – but I’m trying to make him see how ideal his situation is. He’s 52, can’t work for the rest of his life, has some money (because he can’t work for the rest of his life) and his only expenses are cigarettes, some bills and food for the dog.
In part because I want to show him the light, and in part because I want free steaks regularly, I have suggested that his retirement plan should be to find the best steak in New York City. My dad is a serious meat-eater, if we define this as someone who eats only filet mignon and always eats it well, well done (yuck). But whatever his limitations or proclivities, he loves him some steak. I love me some steak. I’m his son, and I live in NYC. So the NYC Great Steak Chase makes perfect sense for everyone involved.
So far, we’ve only eaten at one place, Dylan Prime. I wrote about this when I took my dad and my brother there for my dad’s birthday (I’d like to take this time to again thank my brother for getting the surf and turf – hey, $80 for an entree isn’t bad, right Dennis?). The food was so good that I’m convinced that my dad cried in the shower after the dinner. Oh wait, that was me. My bad.
Despite the delicious meal, it was tough to get my dad to come back up to NYC. My family is from Philly, actually in the city, which is the sixth largest in the US. Still, my mom and dad and other relatives view visiting NYC, which is a two hour drive from Philly, like going to the moon. It’s is a BIG DEAL to come up to NYC, as evinced by my dad’s giant suitcase (which would have been suitable for a week’s stay and not one night’s) and wide-eyed look as we walked around my neighborhood. Of all the things in the city, the thing he is most impressed with is how the lights on the avenues are timed, so that a car can drive for up to two dozen blocks without hitting a red light. This totally blows his fucking mind. I think he would be less impressed with me turning myself into a giant dragon that shits mansions than he is with those traffic lights.
But for the most part, my dad was pretty composed and street savvy on this short visit. He arrived about two hours before we had the reservation, and after "unloading" all his stuff, he determined that we needed to get a can of coffee. I don’t drink coffee, but the only place to get a can of it within four blocks of my apartment I figured would be the Chinese grocery store two short blocks away from my place. But I wasn’t sure, because when I say "Chinese grocery store," I mean straight-up, shit-ain’t- in-English, I-can-identify-only-23%-of-the-stuff-in-here Chinese grocery store. I tried to explain this to my dad, but he was undaunted and walked into the store, still smoking a cigarette. We found where the coffee was shelved, but their variety was limited and did not include his favorite brand (Folgers, I think). Then he began pacing around the store saying, "They gotta have more coffee somewhere," me trailing behind him saying, "I think that’s where all the coffee was, dad, and you’re just gonna have to pick." I could see him getting agitated, a 6’2", 250 pound man in a jeffcap and leather jacket with a large Celtic cross hanging from his neck in a store filled with tiny Chinese people. Just when I thought he was gonna flip, he went up to a random Chinese girl about my age who was shopping and asked, "You know if they got Folgers in here?" In unaccented and perfect English, she said, "I’m sorry, I don’t know" and could not have been more offended that this big white guy chose her as "Chinese person that will do even though she doesn’t work in the store" to ask about what the store sells. I mean, she was completely disgusted and my dad couldn’t have been less aware of it. This short exchange between my dad and this girl, who was more white than I am and probably speaks better English than I do, was priceless. It’d kinda be like me going up to Nelson Mandela and saying, "Hey, is there a KFC around here or what?"
Defeated, we returned to my apartment with Nescafe or something and sat down to watch TV. We were watching "Jeopardy" and my dad told me about how he was watching "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" (another of his favorites) and the question was something about how the band the Doors, another favorite, got its name. I knew the answer and told him from the book The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley, telling him that Huxley was this really smart British dude who took acid or mescaline and wrote about it. Then, the floodgates opened, and my dad went off about his psychotropic drug experiences. In the next ten minutes I learned that my dad hated acid, but loved mescaline and THC and no, they didn’t have mushrooms back then. My personal favorite was a story about how the second time he took acid he and his lab partner, a nerd, had to remove a chick’s eye from an embryo in biology class. That experience, he said, turned him off from acid right then and there. Makes sense.
Then it was off to dinner at the Strip House. I wrote about this place before and got nearly the exact same thing – both of us got the lobster bisque, both got the 14 oz filet (his well, mine medium), and we shared the crisp goose fat potatoes, the creamed corn, and the creamed spinach - and it was as awesome as I remembered; honestly, it’s a top five or six steak, the best creamed spinach I’ve ever had, and the creamed corn is so unique it’d be on my list of the Top Ten Things I’ve Ever Tasted. So yeah, that’s pretty good.
Strip House is moderately fancy, but it seems like most of the people who eat there are either bankers in the 50′s or salesmen/traders in their late 20′s/early 30′s from Long Island or New Jersey; in short, lotta assholes in the room. This didn’t bother either me or my dad though, as we talked the night away (between stuffing our faces). Also, I knew that none of the guys in the room were going to be assholes to us, since my dad took out the six-inch pocket knife he carries in a case on his belt and used it to cut the small rolls of bread, since at that point we only had a butter knives on the table. Watching my father take a knife off his belt to cut rolls, with that trademark Celtic cross glimmering off his sweater, while the douchebags at the table next to us talked about how excited they were about getting to the Hamptons this summer…well, it made me feel like I wasn’t alone in the universe.
At the end of the meal, we got the cheesecake to take home and nearly had to be rolled out of the restaurant. We had a late reservation so by the time we were back at my apartment it was almost 11:30pm. We watched this week’s tivo’ed episode of "SVU" (wow) and then I went to bed, my dad deciding to stay up to watch TV and sleep on the couch (I offered him the bed, but he sleeps on the couch at home).
So the second steak dinner with my dad is in the books. When I asked which he preferred, the Strip House or Dylan Prime, he said he’d need time to think about it but both were excellent. Next up: I’m not sure. I just hope the places has sharp knives (and make sure a can of Folgers is in my apartment).
So instead, let’s focus on what 2008 holds. I’m going to keep it very simple this year and go with only three resolutions, all of which (I think) are very attainable.
1) Find a bar. I am jealous of my friend Brendan, who lives in Hoboken. Not because he lives in Hoboken – Lord, the idea of being jealous of someone because they live in Hoboken is laughable – but because he has a neighborhood bar. Somewhere between once a day and once a week on his way home from work, Brendan will pop into his local bar, relax, chat with the bartender, have a beer or two (or several more), and then head home.
This, to me, sounds like heaven. To get home from a hard day of work, to alleviate stress by sitting alone at a bar, sipping a pint of good beer – I have an erection as I write this right now. Well, now it’s gone. Wait – it’s back. (I don’t type fast enough to keep up with the mood swings of my penis.)
The problem is that I do not live in Hoboken, which has a bar seemingly every 20 feet, but rather in Chinatown/Little Italy, which, I would argue, has fewer bars per square block than any other neighborhood of Manhattan. And what bars there are are either grossly Italianized dives that cater to tourists or strictly for local Chinamen. So I’m out of luck.
However, there is hope. Every day, I walk to and from work in the Financial District. There are plenty of bars in the Financial District, but part of the point of a "neighborhood" bar is a place that I can drink at and then stumble home, without needing to take a cab or walk 25 minutes. So I turn my sights to a new area: Tribeca. There are a number of shitty dive-like bars in Tribeca on the west side of Broadway, an locale that I rarely venture into.
Thus my #1 resolution: Find a bar in Tribeca near my apartment that I can hit after work, get a little soused alone, then walk home from. Maybe it says something about my ambition or alcoholism or misanthropy that this is my main goal for 2008. Or maybe it says I’m awesome. I think we all know the correct answer.
2) Get religious. As many of you know, God and I have been trying to destroy each other since 1994. To be honest, I don’t even remember what our initial feud was about - I think it started at a barbeque at my Uncle Mikey’s house in Jersey – but it’s been a back and forth battle throughout the years. On the one hand, I’ve risen from a poor, chubby, possibly homosexual child and teen to an adult with a lovely apartment in the heart of New York City, furnished with books and nice things. Me 1, God 0. On the other hand, I just went three days with my cable shut off because I couldn’t pay the bill and shortly before writing this post googled "medical experiments in NYC" to see if I could get paid for ingesting pills or otherwise sacrificing my body. God 1, Me 1/2. Also, I’m pretty sure only one of my testicles works anymore. God 2, Me 0.
But something is happening in my heart – and I don’t mean physically or biologically (I think). I’m starting to think about life and wondering if there’s more to it than drinking cans of Bud and watching "Jackass" and "Wildboyz" and using a blog as leverage to score naked pictures of readers of said blog (many of these pictures are not exactly tasteful, either).
And while I haven’t started attending Mass or anything, I – and I don’t even know how to write this without sounding weird – have been spending more time in churches. There are a lot of open churches of all denominations around city, including the areas of my weekly walks. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been stopping in these churches, checking them out, sitting down for a spell, just totally hanging out. I don’t know why. I think that it’s clear that I’m either approaching a mental breakdown or a newfound interest in religion. Since I’d like to stave off the mental breakdown for as long as possible – only because hearing about it would cause about six of my ex-girlfriends to say, "Ah ha! I could’ve told you that was coming!" – I think I’m going to figure out religion and what I think about it. I haven’t approached God yet about burying the hatchet and I don’t know exactly what I’m going to say to Him, but I hope He’s not a dick about it, which is really a 50-50 possibility (He can be kinda stubborn and vengeful).
3) Have a threesome. Every year, this is a resolution. And so far, nada.
But c’mon – this has to happen for me eventually, and 2008 is as good a year as any. The reason? Previously, I’ve been sitting around, doing nothing, hoping a threesome would fall conveniently in lap, that one night I’d be out at a bar and two girls would be drunk (and poor) enough for me to convince them into it, or one day an email would pop up in my inbox from one of you saying that you live in NYC and your friend is visiting from California and the two of you would be interested in a night in a swanky hotel room filled with Cognac and expensive booze and plush robes and wildflowers from Asia and the finest pornography the hotel has to offer so yes, let’s get together from some fun, in the nude, drunk as mad monkeys, all three of us, because the physical manifestation of love is magic, and magic is wonderful, and what’s the big deal anyway because it’d be a good story, something you could say you did, and above all, in conclusion, to recapitulate, making out is fun.
But this has yet to happen. And as the days go by, the odds of it happening are only decreasing (unless I hit the lottery or otherwise become rich and famous – without committing a felony). If I want to have a threesome, I’m going to have to actually work for it. I haven’t quite figured out how I’m going to work for it, but I do have some ideas. Of course, none of them are very good and most involve a secret "love elixir" that I have been unsuccessfully trying to develop over my lunch break for the past eight weeks, but the point is that I’m trying and not just wishing.
I’m convinced of one thing – and tell me if I’m wrong here - if I had one willing participant, one girl willing to do it, I am pretty sure that I could get another girl fairly easily. If we’ve learned anything from the "Girls Gone Wild" series, it’s that women, plied with enough booze to kill a donkey and with moderately-serious daddy issues, will do certain things that didn’t think they were capable of. Also, humankind and history is filled with the examples of "I’ll do it if you do it" behavior:
[Plains of Africa, 150 million years ago]
Homonid One: "Look at Josh over there, walking upright. What a strange guy. He kinda creeps me out."
Homonid Two: "I don’t know, Ron…maybe Josh is on to something."
Homonid One: "What?"
Homonid Two: "I mean, my hands are getting pretty chipped up, using them as feet and all. And my back is fucking killing me. Maybe walking upright is not such a bad idea."
Homonid One: "Man - sorry, ‘Nid – I don’t even know who you are anymore, Steve. When did you get so freaky? And does Sarah know you want to try this?"
Homonid Two: "All I’m saying is, just try it. If you don’t like it, you can always go back to quadrupedal locomotion."
[Homonid Two (Steve) stands and walks a few feet. Homonid One (Ron) stands a walks a few feet next to him.]
Homonid One: "Yeah, this might work."
Homonid Two: "I think so."
******
[Town hall near Boston Harbor, 1773]
Sam Adams, Masshole Leader: "…And that’s the plan."
Masshole One: "Hold on – just hold on one fahking minute, duhd. Yaw saying that we’re going to dress up as Indians, board the ship, and drop all the fahking tea into the Hahbah. Right? Is that what yaw saying? Because if it is, it’s the dumbest fahking idear I ever heard."
Masshole Two: "Now wait a minute, Sully. Think about this for a second. What better way to say ‘Fahk You’ to the Tea Act then by dumping tea into the hahbah? And dressing up as Indians, in addition to being a generally fun idea, will give us not only a disguise but if people see us, they’ll blame in Indians. Lastly, go Sox."
All Massholes: "SOX!"
Masshole One: "I guess you’re right, Tom. Fahk the Tea Act, fahk the British, and fahk the Yankees! Let’s get out those headdresses and hit the hahbah! DUUUUUHHHHDDDD!!!!"
All Massholes: "DUUUUUHHHHDDDD!!!!"
******
[Germany, 1936]
Guy One: "Man, I don’t know about this whole ‘Nazism’ thing."
Guy Two: "Actually, I think it’s pretty good."
Guy One: "Really? Even the all that stuff about killing the Jews and Gypsies?"
Guy Two: "Well, the Jews, I got nothing against them – I mean, have you gotten a blowjob from a Jewish broad?"
Guy One: "Oh yeah."
Guy Two. "Yowza."
Guy One: "Barukh ata – hey yo!"
Guy Two: "So yeah, Jewish girls give good head – no doubt. And yes, the Nazis are anti-Jew. Fine. But let me ask you this: When was the last time you met a good Gypsy? Huh? And the Nazis have a lot of other very good pro-Germany policies. You talk about world domination built from a master race and I’m not only listening, I’m signing up."
Guy One: "You know what? You’re right - I’m gonna sign up too. I have a feeling this is going to work out real well. Besides, I bet some of the girls in the master race will give some pretty mean blowjobs."
Guy Two: "Totally."
******
Spot me just one woman who’s willing to have a threesome, and I’ll show you a Jason Mulgrew, locked in a bathroom in the penthouse room of the Union Square W Hotel, desperately tugging on his flaccid penis, screaming, "C’mon! It’s showtime! Don’t do this to me! You asshole! C’MON!" as two drunk women make out on the bed outside the bathroom. I can promise you this.
(That email address, once again ladies, is jason@jasonmulgrew.com. Thank you for your consideration.)
************************
I feel that 2008 will be a year of great change. I will move, since I can’t afford a third year of living by myself in a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. And I’d like to say that, as this is my 30th year on the planet, I’d like to possibly get a girlfriend, but that not only sounds terribly pathetic but is also a pretty big goal; perhaps I should start smaller with a resolution, like to actually try when I kiss a girl and view it as an activity in and of itself, rather than something to do for a predetermined amount of time before putting my hand on her boob. Baby steps.
Otherwise, booze, religion and sex. That about covers my goals for 2008. Wish me luck.
Second, before we get to football picks (so, you know, you can bet against them) and music, two quick emails about the Hot Whopper that I thought were worth sharing. The first is from Steve and was sent immediately after the post was put up:
I hate you. Before today, I was perfectly content getting on a plane, but now every time I fly I’m going to be paranoid as fuck the entire time. Not only have I never gotten a hot whopper (awesome name by the way), I’ve never heard of this happening to anyone before; ever. And as I’m taking practically the same route you did in two days (LAX to EWR… from Jersey, live in Los Angeles now), I’m doomed to get a HW. You see, I’m that guy things like that happen to. You know what I mean.
And if this doesn’t happen to me, I’m still fucked because I won’t be able to think about anything the entire time I fly for the rest of my living days. Way to ruin my life, punk.
God forbid what happens if I actually get one of these and then serendipitously run into you and recognize you in New York City over the next two weeks… that is not a threat, just me expressing how painful you made that experience sound. Good descriptive writing. But I still hate you.
Steve’s was a pretty common reaction – that I essentially ruined flying for everyone by putting the fear of the Hot Whopper in them. I understand where Steve and the others are coming from, but hear me now: If my post prevented even one of you from having a Hot Whopper, then it was worth it. As I learned since the last Hot Whopper, mostly from you guys and stuff I’m going to make up right now, some people are prone to HWs and others are not. All you need to do to prevent the HW is a shot of Afrin in each nostril one hour before flying. That’s it. So while I understand Steve’s frustration, he and the others who felt the same way must understand that the pain of the Hot Whopper is excruciating, and our awareness of the HW needs to be raised so that we can prevent it.
What, you think the guy who first told people cocaine was bad or there was such a thing as AIDS was well-received? C’mon, people.
This second email comes from Bob from Philly, which I got just yesterday:
I read your hot whopper story and after nearly two weeks of no posts – i was sure you had passed away.
you see, i had a hot whopper landing in Split, Croatia this past summer. In the last minute of our descent it started – and i REALLY thought i was dying. after all, how could i live 35 years without a similarly horrificly painful experience? i figured this is what people must feel like right before a brain hemorrage. it’s the kind of pain that makes you want to punch yourself in the eye – not knowing why. plus, i was landing in a former Communist country on a former communist airline (Croatian Airlines) and the planes would have definitely dated back to fascism - and it wouldn’t be suprising if some communist mechanic made a mistake 20 years ago repairing the cabin that was finally killing me. the piercing pain was so bad i could not speak and explain to my fiance what was going on. it lasted about 5 minutes after we landed…residual pain lasting for another couple hours. it was so bad i felt panicked. luckily it slowly subsided.
then i thought – if you died and we both had hot whoppers – "am i a ticking timebomb?" of course i’m kidding – but the thought did cross my mind.
glad you’re alive.
Bob was the other side of the coin: those who have gotten Hot Whoppers in the past. Bob’s story was like many others, a descent in a plane leading to a head explosion. And Bob makes a point that my buddy Dave, who had the original Hot Whopper, made after reading my post – he honestly thought he was dying. I can vouch that the pain of the HW is far different and far more intense than any other pain I’ve experienced, and so it wouldn’t surprise me if I was having some sort of brain aneurysm or hemorrhage. I was relatively "calm" after my first Hot Whopper in 2000 only because Dave had gotten one a week prior. If I had no knowledge of the HW and was sitting on a plane and it landed, I surely would have cried and scrawled out some death letter between the tears, snot and drool, and perhaps would have even had a self-induced heart attack out of fear.
So while I’m sorry I had to scare many of you, I’m glad that I wrote the Hot Whopper post. In the future, just try to be cautious and carry Afrin. And if you do get a Hot Whopper, at least you know what it is and that you’re not actually dying – just in for a tremendous amount of pain and discomfort. Godspeed.
(Happy New Year!)
******************
Here are some picks for this weekend’s games:
(6) Redskins (+3.5) over (3) SEAHAWKS
Though I think Seattle is a great city and I look forward to returning there in the spring to defend my West Coast Wine Drinking Competition title, I’ve been down on the Seahawks all season. Also, I still feel kinda guilty for all the Sean Taylor jokes. The Skins have had to play the Cowboys, Giants and Eagles six times, while the ‘Hawks played the Cardinals, Nashua Catholic High School, and a team comprised of six Japanese tourists, a couple of dead guys, and me and my brother six times.
(4) STEELERS (+2.5) over (5) Jaguars
Is there anyone that likes the Steelers in this game? Seriously? Anyone? Everything that’s been written has been about how great Jacksonville is playing and how handily they’ve beaten the Steelers, whose defense has been atrocious recently and who’ve lost their star running back. But what happens is the Steelers go up early?
(5) Giants (+3) over (4) BUCS
The Bucs are another team I’ve been down on all season, and since I called him a "first round exit waiting to happen," I have to stick to my guns. The Giants are 7-1 on the road this season, which may be meaningless, but playing in Tampa is not like playing in Lambeau to begin with.
(3) CHARGERS (-10) over (6) Titans
Everyone likes the Chargers here. Easy to see why.
As for the rest of the postseason:
Divisional Playoffs
(1) COWBOYS over (6) Redskins
(2) PACKERS over (5) Giants
(1) PATRIOTS over (4) Steelers
(3) Chargers over (2) COLTS
Conference Championships
(2) Packers over (1) DALLAS
(1) PATRIOTS over (3) Chargers
Super Bowl
Patriots over Packers
Fucking Massholes.
******************
Six Songs
"Too Many Teardrops" Nick Lowe
Nick Lowe is rocking my world right now. I’m in love with this song, which is about catchy, poppy number about crying over a girl, because it has this incredibly odd and oddly placed line: "I’m a tad turned on/In the long dark night." Every other line is about sadness and crying over a chick, but this guy slips in about how he’s kinda turned on? Huh? If you can’t find this one, try "Marie Provost", "Half A Boy and Half A Man" and "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass."
"I Can Sing A Rainbow – Love Is Blue" The Dells
It’s the mother fucking Captain Noah song!
"One Plus One Is One" Badly Drawn Boy
I’m pretty sure there’s never going to be a "Behind the Music"-type show made about my life, but if there is, I would like this song to be playing as we trace my downward spiral into pot and porn addiction through a series of poignant black and white photos, depicting me smoking from a bong amidst a crowd of hangers on; a view from the back of me sitting at my desk masturbating to red tube; a close up of my face holding a joint and looking confused; a shot of me on top of a woman, making love to her, looking at an open spread from Oui magazine, since that’s the only way I can ejaculate; me naked in the tub with another joint with a glass of red wine and a revolver sitting on the ledge of the tub – you get the point.
"Hotel Room" Richard Hawley
British, baritoney, sad, 50′s sounding, cool.
"Custard Pie" Led Zeppelin
Probably the most perfect guitar solo I’ve ever heard. Nasty and dirty and kinky and fucky.
"Shine Sweet Freedom" Michael McDonald
As we head into the weekend, please take the time to watch this video, one of my favorites. All hell breaks loose just after the two minute mark. Wow. I wish I had buddies like these.
[youtube]VM14eXNONh0[/youtube]
[Have a good weekend]
Mitt Romney’s got a Harvard JD/MBA and founded Bain Capital, and so he’s made more money that your dad and all his friends combined. Rudy went to NYU Law and recorded a record 4,152 convictions and 25 reversals as US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. McCain went to the Naval Academy (I’m assuming his daddy had something to do with that, but the guy lived in a cage for five and a half years!). Fred Thompson has a JD from Vanderbilt and was awesome in Law & Order.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton went to Wellesley and Yale Law and in addition to being pretty intellectually badass, emerged from a very difficult personal and professional scandal because of her husband’s lustiness - much respect for brains and balls. Barack graduated from Columbia and Harvard Law, and, I don’t know, from what I’ve seen is a pretty charming black guy (though I’d like to see him pack on a few more pounds). John Edwards has a JD from UNC and, let’s just say it, is dreamy.
Last night’s Republican winner, Mike Huckabee, went to Ouachita Baptist University and has no advanced degrees. I don’t mean to be a snob about this (even though that’s how it’s going to come off) and I wouldn’t vote Republican if my father was running as a Republican and/or the GOP platform suddenly changed from "Down With Gays and Reading, Up With Jesus and Ain’t Reading" to "Free Handjobs for All Mulgrews," so I guess it’s moot anyway. But there’s no way I’m voting for a presidential candidate who went to a school that I could get into if I took every test in high school left-handed and after several major hits from a nitrous balloon. Not that I’m particularly smart (because that ship sailed in about 7th grade) or that the college I went to (Boston College) is exactly Ivy-covered, but I feel a little more comfortable knowing that my president at least did better on his/her SATs than I did. Call me crazy.
There are major flaws in this argument, namely that perhaps Huckabee got a scholarship to Ouachita Baptist or wanted to stay close to family or loved Jesus too much (he was a minister, after all) to go anywhere else. These are possibilities. Also, our current president went to Yale and has an MBA from Harvard and, well, that hasn’t exactly worked out for us, or, you know, the world and the next few generations of inhabitants of the Middle East. And sure, Mike Huckabee has accomplished much in his life and was governor of Arkansas for 11 years, even though being governor of Arkansas is like being a lifetime achievement award winner at the Special Olympics (and yes, I know Bill Clinton, who I’m a fan of, was governor of Arkansas, but he was also a Rhodes Scholar). But there’s no way that I can in any way support an Arkansan who was a minister and went to Ouachita Baptist University as President of the United States. I mean, wow. I think I just blew my own mind.
Disclaimer: I’m a liberal New York Jew. And no, I’m not Jewish but rather Irish Catholic, but there’s very little difference anyway. I measure success by things like wealth, educational background, and attractiveness of significant other. My world revolves around the Northeast, and people from other parts of the country who do not have breasts scare me a little (actually, non-Northeasterners with breasts scare me a little, too). But here’s the thing: I still only hope that there are enough people out there like me to prevent what happened in 2004 from happening in 2008. Not like me in the sense that last night I drank four Sam Adams Cherry Wheats, beat off twice, and watched five tivo’ed episodes of "Family Guy," but like me in the "having reasonable and reasonably intelligent political ideals" sense. Call me crazy. And if this election unfurls like the one in 2004, I may just be driven mad.
In the past twelve or so days, I
- said a final goodbye to my old roommate and friend Brian, who recently made the move to LA. This goodbye consisted of going to dinner with a friend and then meeting Brian and some other friends at a bar, shitting at said bar, shitting again at the bar, then leaving the bar to go home so that I could poop and vomit and lay on my couch with a wastebasket next to me, as the pooping and vomiting zapped me of all strength and I needed to make sure I would make a mess on my couch. When I apologized to Brian the next day for my lameness the previous night, he said my goodbye was "exactly like [he] envisioned it." Pretty much.
- celebrated Christmas in typical Mulgrew family style (read: gambling and drinking until 4am) and tried to break the record for most kielbasa sandwiches consumed in under two hours (I only got to four, which is kinda sad). Best gift: cash, as always. Second best gift: a delay pedal for my guitar from my brother that records and plays back up to sixteen minutes of music. Goodbye productivity, hello tremendously bad guitar "compositions" with names like "Stars of My Heart" and "When I Sing, I Sing Songs Like These Love Songs (Which Stand Before You, Prostrate, Iridescent)" and "You Are Art/I Am You."
- spent a night at a random Holiday Inn Express along I-95 in a whirlpool room eating an "Oreo Explosion" sundae I got to go from the local Friendly’s. I don’t think this one requires additional explanation, but all three of these things – Holiday Inn Expresses, hotel rooms with whirlpools in them, and sundaes from Friendly’s – are vastly, vastly underrated. Sitting in that whirlpool and eating that sundae while Beck’s "Scarecrow" was playing on my iPod speakers…I mean, that was pretty much the high point of my life. Also, I think I just figured out why I’m single.
- spent a day and night in Boston, tooled around the city, got a haircut, ate at Abe & Louie’s steakhouse (which, aside from the top ten crab cake and maybe the best dessert I ever had – the special blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream – should really change its name to "Abe & Fooey’s", since that’s what you’ll be saying when you walk out of there, due to the downright embarrassing sides and ok steak), and spent five hours drinking scorpion bowls and watching karaoke at Hong Kong bar in Faneuil Hall. I miss those fucking scorpion bowls.
- spent two nights at a country club on the Cape celebrating the love and wedding of my dear friends Molly and Nevin. The wedding was awesome; perfect location on a sexy country club, good friends, good band, good food, good booze – really, that was how you throw a wedding. And I learned something: Since my family has no money, unless my bride or bride’s family has money (which I pray every night is the case, as "Lots of Family Money" is inching closer to getting put above "Working Eyes" on my list of traits in an ideal mate), I am probably getting married in someone’s yard. My mom is one of six kids, my dad is one of ten, and I have lots and lots of friends, so for me to even have a B- wedding, it’ll cost about $438,000. So I’m just getting married in a yard somewhere. Fuck it.
- spent ten hours in a car in the rain returning from the Cape. During this trip, I stopped at Friendly’s for a second Oreo Explosion sundae (this time I added marshmallow, which was arguably my best decision of 2007). Except for nearly falling asleep at the wheel several times, I did not mind the drive one bit.
- was so consumed by teeth pain for my entire vacation from the Hot Whopper I got almost three weeks ago, sleeping in two or three hours stretches at a time and being as zombie-like as I’ve ever been, that on New Year’s Eve I made an emergency visit to my former Philly dentist, the wonderful and talented Dr. Alten. I explained the Hot Whopper to him and how I’d been completely out of it since them, sucking down Orajel toothache powder like it was pixie sticks. He checked out my teeth, took some x-rays, and confirmed the worst: I’m a pussy. Actually, he didn’t say that, but rather that my teeth were fine and my pain was being caused by my sinuses. So to recap, I spent over two weeks barely sleeping and in a great deal of tooth and sinus pain, all because I didn’t use Afrin before a flight. I’m heading out to LA in a few weeks. You can pretty much guarantee that I’m getting a bottle of Afrin surgically attached to both hands.
- met my friends’ new baby, born 12/28, who officially has a cooler haircut than I do and could probably beat me up. Seriously. He’s got like a lil’ Euro mullet in the back, with a little bit of hair hanging over his ears, and these kind of Caesar-cut bangs. It’s amazing. And he laid there the whole time with his fists in the air, ready to fight (his father once nearly choked me to death, so the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree I guess). I’m so amazed by the whole "friends having babies" phenomenon that I’m speechless – I honestly don’t know what to say. It’s just…wow. If I think about it too much, I kinda want to escape to the Holiday Inn Express with a sundae.
- celebrated New Year’s Day with a lovely Mummers Parade. I thought the parade this year was excellent, even though the three hour delay threw me off quite a bit. And this was – by far – my most sober parade of recent memory, which I have no explanation for. I will have to work harder next year to get drunker.
- returned to New York City and came home to…(wait for it)…find my bathroom and kitchen covered in dried feces and dried toilet paper. For the fourth time in six months, my toilet exploded. Sweet. At least this time, they (my landlord or super or whomever) seemed to have "cleaned it up"; instead of coming home to find actual toilet and waste water lapping slowly into my living room, all the water was gone, hence the dried t.p. and poop. I dropped my luggage off, went to the Italian restaurant owned by my landlord below my apartment, and shortly a fine young Mexican or Mexican-type gentleman was in my apartment, "cleaning" the rest. I then spent two hours and went through an entire bottle of pine sol cleaning the place – exactly what I felt like doing when I got home for a not-very-relaxing vacation and badly hungover. I’m now contemplating suing my landlord. On the one hand, I’m pretty sure it’s not cool for a tenant to have Feces Kitchen & Bathroom Expo four times in six months, each time being reassured the problem has been fixed. On the other hand, if I take legal action against my landlord, I’m pretty sure he’s not going to let me re-up my lease this summer. And that means one thing: Brooklyn. There’s no way I’m finding a two bedroom apartment in Manhattan – downtown Manhattan – for under $2000 a month, which is what I have now. So do I stick it to these goddamn Eyetals for making live in a shit hole (literally) and sue them or do I suck it up, hope it’s fixed, and stay in Manhattan for another year? Decisions, decisions, decisions…
- because of the guilt over the Thai food and the tooth pain, got out of bed and decided to learn how to play the chorus of Living Colour’s "Open Letter To A Landlord," which is one of the more ridiculous and ridiculously performed songs of the past thirty years. When the singer, Corey Glover, sings the line of the chorus, which go, "Now you can tear a building down, but you can’t erase a memory/These houses may look old and down, but they have a value you can’t see," you can literally feel his soul splitting on the record; he is really pissed, pained even, about those houses being demolished. I then spent an hour or so playing along to the chorus and laughing to myself and maybe even doing a little bit of singing and possibly some crying. Then I masturbated to redtube, which is just not getting old, and went to bed. This all went down between 4am and 5am.
…
Also, I think I again just figured out why I’m single. But though not very relaxing, at least I had a great vacation.