a big announcement and its immediate aftermath
5 May 2008
I lot of stuff happened a lot of quickly last week, and here’s the basic gist: I’m moving to LA.
In three weeks.
Sure, I had some idea that I wanted to get out of NYC for a while, but this was something I wanted to do sometime in 2008, not in three weeks. But certain opportunities have prevented themselves (boring opportunities that you wouldn’t be interested in), and so after seven glorious years, I’m moving out of NYC to Los Angeles.
(Yikes.)
(Also, just for a little while, maybe a year. Then I’ll be back.)
(But still, yikes.)
The reasons for this move I’ll get into another time, but let’s talk about specifics, since they are first and foremost on my mind (since, you know, I’ve got three weeks to take care of business). First, I have to be out in LA on June 2. I’m keeping my current job and working out of our LA office and that’s the day I start there full-time. Consequently, the Mulgrew Men Conquer America Road Trip, a cross-country drive that my dad, brother and I were planning for July, will now happen the last week of May; we’ll leave Philly on Saturday morning, May 24, drive the southern route stopping in Nashville and Phoenix and some other places along the way, and aim to be in LA by Friday night. So bring on the red bulls, lunchables and gatorade bottle to pee in!
In the meantime, I have three weeks to sell everything I own. I’m going to store my books, clothes, and all but two of my guitars, my Strat and my Martin acoustic, which will be coming with me. I’m not concerned about selling everything, I don’t think, because I’m sure I’ll be able to get rid of it or donate the rest. What bothers me is that I bought a furniture set for $1300 last year, which I will now have to sell for what, $400? I’m getting a little sentimental about selling my desk and desk chair, which, silly as this sounds, I’ve written most of the blog and the book at and on, and which I will sell to a stranger for $50. Sweet. Also, I have a 42" in high def TV that I bought last year for $1800. I can’t bear to sell this, so instead, I’m giving it to my dad to use as collateral because he’s giving me a car. "What?" you ask, "You always claim to be poor, but your dad’s giving you a car? You rich fuck." Hold on. My dad is a mechanic and lover of cars. He recently purchased a – wait for it – 1996 black Lincoln Town Car ("Presidential Series," naturally). He loves this car as an "antique" and because it has only 22,000 miles on it. His plan was to hold on to it as an "investment" but we’ve worked out a deal: he’ll rent me the car for the year to drive while I’m in LA. He wouldn’t take any money, so instead I’m giving him my TV. It is this Town Car that we will also drive across the country ("It’s perfect," my dad says, "because it’s built for touring"). So in the most car-conscious city in America, where what you drive says much about who you are, and in an environment in which gas will be over $5 a gallon by year-end, I’m going to drive a bulking behemoth of a car, a gas-guzzling monster older than my second wife, normally the purview only of old men and car service employees. I don’t even have a joke here.
So there you go. I don’t know where I’m going to live, but I’ve been staying with friends since I’ve been going out there and will probably do so again, in order to look for a place while I’m on the ground. I guess I will have to post some "EVERYTHING SALE" craigslist ad soon, which I will link on here. And then, I don’t know…I think I have to go out as much as possible and eat as much as possible and touch as many boobies as possible until I leave (in 18 days).
(Yikes.)
************
Since this all happened, I haven’t been sleeping very well and also have been hitting it pretty hard, raging against the dying of the light, not going gently into that good night. I mean this kinda literally; I’ve been sleeping about four hours a night, falling asleep after hours in bed, waking up intermittently and checking fantasy sports and doing the dishes and ironing, and then going back to bed and waking up hours before my alarm goes off. Not good.
On Saturday, my friends and I planned to have a barbeque in Hoboken. This was canceled at the last minute, leaving me crushed, because these barbeques generally degenerate into all-day drinking sessions filled with talk of sports, music and girls we’ve done (or would like to do). However, my friends Jeremy and Meredith, roommates, called me to come over their apartment. I’d gone to bed at 5am Friday night and woke up at 9am Saturday morning, so if I wasn’t going to barbeque I wanted to nap. But they were insistent, so over to their place I went.
On the way there, I picked up a little something – six pounds and $70 worth of Italian meats and cheeses from a shop in Little Italy. If we couldn’t grill outside, maybe we could dine on fresh mozzarella, prosciutto and other delicacies indoors. I called Meredith and Jeremy and told them of my plan and they (well, Meredith) immediately ran out and grabbed wine and bread and olive oil and Campari.
So all afternoon, we ate our salted meats and fine cheeses and drank our Campari and wine. We talked, we laughed, we actually had intelligent conversation (I put this squarely on Meredith’s shoulders; had she not been there, Jeremy and I would probably have sat in silence staring at the TV and would only talk in order to alert each other of nice boobies outside). I was exhausted, all the salt and meat and wine really doing a number on me, so at 6:30pm I left their apartment – after I watched the horse I bet on die, right there on the racetrack (I should have known this was an omen for the night). My plan was to go home and nap, because, since at that point I already knew my weekends in NYC were limited and I intended staying out until last call at 4am. To do this, I’d need to recharge my batteries.
But when I got home, I couldn’t nap. I had a nice buzz and a full belly, but all I could think about was all the packing and moving I have to do, and I just laid there on my couch wide-awake. So instead of sleeping, I did what came naturally: I made myself a drink. Then another. Then I made and ate another (half) Italian meat and cheese sandwich. Then had another drink.
Jeremy and some friends, Lisa and Carly, came over to my place and we drank some more and watched VH1 Classic, which was lovely. By the time we left, I had had three vodka red bulls, a couple vodka crans and a number of Bud bombers. I felt like $40,000, completely better than I had when I first got home when I was tired and miserable and full. If I had two Saturday nights left in NYC, I was going to take advantage of them. That’s just how I roll. Tell your friends.
We went to Lorely, one of my old stand-bys, to meet a bunch of other friends. I talked to my friend Susie, who I hadn’t seen in years, and after she took off talked to my buddy Pat and his brother, who was in town for the weekend, and his buddy. It was a lot of fun, and long story short, Uncle Jason was getting a little tipsy – even for Uncle Jason standards.
I kept my promise to myself, however, and was there until close with Jeremy, Lisa and Carly. There was an argument with the bartender, who kicked us out even though we had half-full beers (he was right though, since it was well after 4am and we were the last people in the bar). There was talk of pizza and we left the bar. This is where the wheels came off.
Pizzaless, I walked home from the bar, which is only a few blocks from my apartment in Little Italy. I really had to piss. I have no idea why I didn’t just pee on the street; the area was deserted and I’m not above letting my bird get some fresh air. But for whatever reason, despite my increasingly angry bladder, I was intent on making it home to pee. And truth be told, I was doing ok with this – until I got into my apartment. As soon as my key twisted in my doorknob, my bladder and urethra, which had been working in concert to stem the tide of urine raging and raging inside me, simply gave up, exhausted. I was struck by that rare yet familiar feeling: I am going to piss myself.
I ran across my apartment toward the bathroom, throwing my keys on my coffee table and beginning the process of freeing my bird. Unfortunately, I had button-fly jeans on, so this added a layer of difficulty when a layer of difficulty was most unwelcome. Opening my jeans with my left hand and gripping my dick in my right, I kicked in my bathroom door like marshals executing a search warrant. As soon as I entered the bathroom, before I got to the toilet, I couldn’t hold it any longer and it all fell apart - urine streamed out of my bird, my thimble-like penis expelling a surprisingly forceful stream of urine on (at first) my curtain and my walls then (eventually) my toilet and the bowl of my toilet. Exhausted, relieved, I put my left hand on the wall ahead of me and let out a wail of ecstasy, shuddering, overcome with a feeling of pleasure, comparable to an orgasm achieved via threesome with Elisha Cuthbert and Christ. Joy; sweet relief. Sweet, sweet relief.
Having peed on myself and my bathroom, I did what an reasonable drunk guy would do at 4:30am – ate the rest of the sandwich I had made for dinner (after washing my hands, of course) (I think). Provolone, fresh mozzarella, prosciutto, genoa salami, pepperoni, hot and sweet soppressata, and sweet cappocola, piled high, filling me with enough nitrates and sodium to kill a four-hundred pound man twice. Once that was polished off, it was approaching 5am, so I did what an reasonable drunk guy would do at 5am - stripped down, grabbed a book, turned the water on and laid down in the shower to read. I read in the shower usually, sitting in the tub as though I were having a bath, but with the showerhead pointing at my feet and the water draining, so only my body below my knees gets rest. However, I don’t usually do this after such heavy drinking. On this night, I’m not sure how many pages or words I got through, but I fell asleep, there, in the shower, water running, book on my chest.
I wasn’t out long, but I was definitely unconscious. I woke up, drunker than ever, feeling sick – the steam and the meats and the booze…not a favorable combination. So I put on my clothes and as I was dressing, bent over the toilet to puke. After a vomiting session that left me feeling slightly better, I cleaned myself up and fell into bed, asleep before my head hit the pillow.
I woke up hours later on my couch. Completely, 100%, balls-ass naked.
I went back into bed.
************
My name is Jason Mulgrew. I am 28 years old. On Saturday night, I drank all day, consumed 6000 calories, peed myself and all over my bathroom, fell asleep in my tub with the water running, then vomited, then passed out, and then woke up in a different room than the one I fell asleep in, wearing no clothes. On Sunday, I was so hungover that I remained naked for most of the day, walking around my apartment hunched over in pain, dividing my time between the couch and the restorative powers of the shower, the water running, listening to it, breathing in its steam, reciting my incantation of "Oh god…oh god…oh man…please" over and over and over again, praying for relief. I did not leave my apartment, ate only Bayer and some reheated pasta, and was in bed by 9pm.
You want a reason why I’m moving to Los Angeles? Maybe I’m moving there to retire. Maybe I’m moving there because I can’t stay out until 4am every Friday and Saturday night, because I can’t afford $7 beers (or $2000 a month in rent), because I’m getting old enough where nights like Saturday result not in a funny story but a trip to the emergency room after my heart explodes from the cumulative effect and abuse from years of vodka, of red bull, of Bud bombers and PBRs, of whiskey served in fancy glasses, of steak, of cheese, of prosciutto, genoa salami, pepperoni, hot soppressata, sweet soppressata, and sweet cappocola.
But you know what? Fuck no. I’m not moving to LA for those reasons. Because I’m going to Philly next weekend, I have one more weekend in New York City, and a total of 16 more nights in the city that I have called home for seven years, the city that has made me.
Drinking too much, overeating, peeing, passing out in the shower, puking, waking up in a strange place. A better way to say goodbye to NYC, I can think of none.
One night down, 16 more to go.
In three weeks.
Sure, I had some idea that I wanted to get out of NYC for a while, but this was something I wanted to do sometime in 2008, not in three weeks. But certain opportunities have prevented themselves (boring opportunities that you wouldn’t be interested in), and so after seven glorious years, I’m moving out of NYC to Los Angeles.
(Yikes.)
(Also, just for a little while, maybe a year. Then I’ll be back.)
(But still, yikes.)
The reasons for this move I’ll get into another time, but let’s talk about specifics, since they are first and foremost on my mind (since, you know, I’ve got three weeks to take care of business). First, I have to be out in LA on June 2. I’m keeping my current job and working out of our LA office and that’s the day I start there full-time. Consequently, the Mulgrew Men Conquer America Road Trip, a cross-country drive that my dad, brother and I were planning for July, will now happen the last week of May; we’ll leave Philly on Saturday morning, May 24, drive the southern route stopping in Nashville and Phoenix and some other places along the way, and aim to be in LA by Friday night. So bring on the red bulls, lunchables and gatorade bottle to pee in!
In the meantime, I have three weeks to sell everything I own. I’m going to store my books, clothes, and all but two of my guitars, my Strat and my Martin acoustic, which will be coming with me. I’m not concerned about selling everything, I don’t think, because I’m sure I’ll be able to get rid of it or donate the rest. What bothers me is that I bought a furniture set for $1300 last year, which I will now have to sell for what, $400? I’m getting a little sentimental about selling my desk and desk chair, which, silly as this sounds, I’ve written most of the blog and the book at and on, and which I will sell to a stranger for $50. Sweet. Also, I have a 42" in high def TV that I bought last year for $1800. I can’t bear to sell this, so instead, I’m giving it to my dad to use as collateral because he’s giving me a car. "What?" you ask, "You always claim to be poor, but your dad’s giving you a car? You rich fuck." Hold on. My dad is a mechanic and lover of cars. He recently purchased a – wait for it – 1996 black Lincoln Town Car ("Presidential Series," naturally). He loves this car as an "antique" and because it has only 22,000 miles on it. His plan was to hold on to it as an "investment" but we’ve worked out a deal: he’ll rent me the car for the year to drive while I’m in LA. He wouldn’t take any money, so instead I’m giving him my TV. It is this Town Car that we will also drive across the country ("It’s perfect," my dad says, "because it’s built for touring"). So in the most car-conscious city in America, where what you drive says much about who you are, and in an environment in which gas will be over $5 a gallon by year-end, I’m going to drive a bulking behemoth of a car, a gas-guzzling monster older than my second wife, normally the purview only of old men and car service employees. I don’t even have a joke here.
So there you go. I don’t know where I’m going to live, but I’ve been staying with friends since I’ve been going out there and will probably do so again, in order to look for a place while I’m on the ground. I guess I will have to post some "EVERYTHING SALE" craigslist ad soon, which I will link on here. And then, I don’t know…I think I have to go out as much as possible and eat as much as possible and touch as many boobies as possible until I leave (in 18 days).
(Yikes.)
************
Since this all happened, I haven’t been sleeping very well and also have been hitting it pretty hard, raging against the dying of the light, not going gently into that good night. I mean this kinda literally; I’ve been sleeping about four hours a night, falling asleep after hours in bed, waking up intermittently and checking fantasy sports and doing the dishes and ironing, and then going back to bed and waking up hours before my alarm goes off. Not good.
On Saturday, my friends and I planned to have a barbeque in Hoboken. This was canceled at the last minute, leaving me crushed, because these barbeques generally degenerate into all-day drinking sessions filled with talk of sports, music and girls we’ve done (or would like to do). However, my friends Jeremy and Meredith, roommates, called me to come over their apartment. I’d gone to bed at 5am Friday night and woke up at 9am Saturday morning, so if I wasn’t going to barbeque I wanted to nap. But they were insistent, so over to their place I went.
On the way there, I picked up a little something – six pounds and $70 worth of Italian meats and cheeses from a shop in Little Italy. If we couldn’t grill outside, maybe we could dine on fresh mozzarella, prosciutto and other delicacies indoors. I called Meredith and Jeremy and told them of my plan and they (well, Meredith) immediately ran out and grabbed wine and bread and olive oil and Campari.
So all afternoon, we ate our salted meats and fine cheeses and drank our Campari and wine. We talked, we laughed, we actually had intelligent conversation (I put this squarely on Meredith’s shoulders; had she not been there, Jeremy and I would probably have sat in silence staring at the TV and would only talk in order to alert each other of nice boobies outside). I was exhausted, all the salt and meat and wine really doing a number on me, so at 6:30pm I left their apartment – after I watched the horse I bet on die, right there on the racetrack (I should have known this was an omen for the night). My plan was to go home and nap, because, since at that point I already knew my weekends in NYC were limited and I intended staying out until last call at 4am. To do this, I’d need to recharge my batteries.
But when I got home, I couldn’t nap. I had a nice buzz and a full belly, but all I could think about was all the packing and moving I have to do, and I just laid there on my couch wide-awake. So instead of sleeping, I did what came naturally: I made myself a drink. Then another. Then I made and ate another (half) Italian meat and cheese sandwich. Then had another drink.
Jeremy and some friends, Lisa and Carly, came over to my place and we drank some more and watched VH1 Classic, which was lovely. By the time we left, I had had three vodka red bulls, a couple vodka crans and a number of Bud bombers. I felt like $40,000, completely better than I had when I first got home when I was tired and miserable and full. If I had two Saturday nights left in NYC, I was going to take advantage of them. That’s just how I roll. Tell your friends.
We went to Lorely, one of my old stand-bys, to meet a bunch of other friends. I talked to my friend Susie, who I hadn’t seen in years, and after she took off talked to my buddy Pat and his brother, who was in town for the weekend, and his buddy. It was a lot of fun, and long story short, Uncle Jason was getting a little tipsy – even for Uncle Jason standards.
I kept my promise to myself, however, and was there until close with Jeremy, Lisa and Carly. There was an argument with the bartender, who kicked us out even though we had half-full beers (he was right though, since it was well after 4am and we were the last people in the bar). There was talk of pizza and we left the bar. This is where the wheels came off.
Pizzaless, I walked home from the bar, which is only a few blocks from my apartment in Little Italy. I really had to piss. I have no idea why I didn’t just pee on the street; the area was deserted and I’m not above letting my bird get some fresh air. But for whatever reason, despite my increasingly angry bladder, I was intent on making it home to pee. And truth be told, I was doing ok with this – until I got into my apartment. As soon as my key twisted in my doorknob, my bladder and urethra, which had been working in concert to stem the tide of urine raging and raging inside me, simply gave up, exhausted. I was struck by that rare yet familiar feeling: I am going to piss myself.
I ran across my apartment toward the bathroom, throwing my keys on my coffee table and beginning the process of freeing my bird. Unfortunately, I had button-fly jeans on, so this added a layer of difficulty when a layer of difficulty was most unwelcome. Opening my jeans with my left hand and gripping my dick in my right, I kicked in my bathroom door like marshals executing a search warrant. As soon as I entered the bathroom, before I got to the toilet, I couldn’t hold it any longer and it all fell apart - urine streamed out of my bird, my thimble-like penis expelling a surprisingly forceful stream of urine on (at first) my curtain and my walls then (eventually) my toilet and the bowl of my toilet. Exhausted, relieved, I put my left hand on the wall ahead of me and let out a wail of ecstasy, shuddering, overcome with a feeling of pleasure, comparable to an orgasm achieved via threesome with Elisha Cuthbert and Christ. Joy; sweet relief. Sweet, sweet relief.
Having peed on myself and my bathroom, I did what an reasonable drunk guy would do at 4:30am – ate the rest of the sandwich I had made for dinner (after washing my hands, of course) (I think). Provolone, fresh mozzarella, prosciutto, genoa salami, pepperoni, hot and sweet soppressata, and sweet cappocola, piled high, filling me with enough nitrates and sodium to kill a four-hundred pound man twice. Once that was polished off, it was approaching 5am, so I did what an reasonable drunk guy would do at 5am - stripped down, grabbed a book, turned the water on and laid down in the shower to read. I read in the shower usually, sitting in the tub as though I were having a bath, but with the showerhead pointing at my feet and the water draining, so only my body below my knees gets rest. However, I don’t usually do this after such heavy drinking. On this night, I’m not sure how many pages or words I got through, but I fell asleep, there, in the shower, water running, book on my chest.
I wasn’t out long, but I was definitely unconscious. I woke up, drunker than ever, feeling sick – the steam and the meats and the booze…not a favorable combination. So I put on my clothes and as I was dressing, bent over the toilet to puke. After a vomiting session that left me feeling slightly better, I cleaned myself up and fell into bed, asleep before my head hit the pillow.
I woke up hours later on my couch. Completely, 100%, balls-ass naked.
I went back into bed.
************
My name is Jason Mulgrew. I am 28 years old. On Saturday night, I drank all day, consumed 6000 calories, peed myself and all over my bathroom, fell asleep in my tub with the water running, then vomited, then passed out, and then woke up in a different room than the one I fell asleep in, wearing no clothes. On Sunday, I was so hungover that I remained naked for most of the day, walking around my apartment hunched over in pain, dividing my time between the couch and the restorative powers of the shower, the water running, listening to it, breathing in its steam, reciting my incantation of "Oh god…oh god…oh man…please" over and over and over again, praying for relief. I did not leave my apartment, ate only Bayer and some reheated pasta, and was in bed by 9pm.
You want a reason why I’m moving to Los Angeles? Maybe I’m moving there to retire. Maybe I’m moving there because I can’t stay out until 4am every Friday and Saturday night, because I can’t afford $7 beers (or $2000 a month in rent), because I’m getting old enough where nights like Saturday result not in a funny story but a trip to the emergency room after my heart explodes from the cumulative effect and abuse from years of vodka, of red bull, of Bud bombers and PBRs, of whiskey served in fancy glasses, of steak, of cheese, of prosciutto, genoa salami, pepperoni, hot soppressata, sweet soppressata, and sweet cappocola.
But you know what? Fuck no. I’m not moving to LA for those reasons. Because I’m going to Philly next weekend, I have one more weekend in New York City, and a total of 16 more nights in the city that I have called home for seven years, the city that has made me.
Drinking too much, overeating, peeing, passing out in the shower, puking, waking up in a strange place. A better way to say goodbye to NYC, I can think of none.
One night down, 16 more to go.
