Articles Archive for April 2008
Last week, I was approached by my friend Kate, who’s editing a new blog called neighborbeeblog. Neighborbeeblog is supposed to be a NYC resource, with details about what to see and do and wear in NYC - pretty much like TimeOutNY, but only on the internet. Due to some tragic error in judgment, Kate asked me to be the "dating" columnist for the site (apparently, their original choice, Josef Fritzl, became indisposed and was no longer able to make the commitment). After asking if she was serious and learning that she was, I agreed to do it, even though I might as well write the "Menstruation" column for as much as I know about dating.
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 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.)
First and foremost, thank you for all the suggestions that you guys provided me for the forthcoming "Mulgrew Men Conquer America: World’s Worst Road Trip" extravaganza. I’m still trying to process all of your hints on routes, cities, hidden gems, and must-sees, but each email has been duly noted and separated into a special folder. As I mentioned, we’re still only in the beginning stages of planning this trip, but I won’t hesitate to ask more pointed questions of those of you who wrote in with specific suggestions and towns.
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 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.]
When my old roommate Brian, with whom I lived in NYC for four years and hung out with for six, moved to Los Angeles in December, he almost single-handedly destroyed our little social circle/happy family. When Brian left, his roommate and our friend Corinne disappeared to New Jersey. Around the same time, another friend of ours got laid off with seven months severance (!) and I rarely hear from him now – our last contact was an email I received from him at 3:30am on a Tuesday telling me he was writing a song and asking me for a chord that would make his song/chord progression sound more "up." And our friend Jeremy is rising in the music industry, which means he’s almost constantly at concerts or parties or the like, featuring bands that 99.9% of the population has never and will never hear of, as he desperately searches for the next Strokes. The result? After years of sitting in my apartment with these guys (and a rotating cast of others) watching VH1 Classic and pregaming until 12am, now I’m drinking Bud bombers alone and watching tivo’ed episode of "Wildboyz" until I realize how pathetic I am and force myself to go out.* Yes, it is a glamorous life I lead.
[*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.)
[*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 from Port Jefferson, NY wrote me yesterday and said, "You haven’t posted in so long that I just scoured the obituaries fully expecting to find your name in there."
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?)
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?)
Among my limited talents, and despite my incredible soul-enhancing modesty, I count first and foremost my uncanny ability to organize and execute bar crawls as something that makes me uniquely awesome and desirable to women and homosexuals.
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.
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.
One of the good things about my job – and believe it or not, there are several – is that I get a lot of vacation days. One of the good things about my job this year is that because I didn’t use all my vacation days last year, I have a shitload of them this year (30, to be exact). Faced with the mandate that I must use all of these days, and being unable to afford a European vacation, unwilling to go on a tropical/beach vacation that requires shirtlessness, and not allowed to make every week a four-day work week (I asked), I’ve been contemplating for some time what to do with this time off. And recently I’ve figured it out: Great American Road Trip (With Family!).
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.)
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.)