I spent a loooong weekend in Boston last weekend and, I have to say, it was one of my favorite vacations ever. Sure, it wasn’t a “vacation” in the beach-and-umbrella-drinks sense, but you have to remember, I am a simple man. All I need is a few beers, a few friends, and internet access (if only to settle debates about Nick Markakis’s declining walk rate) and that’s all I need to have a good time (oh, and an Anna’s burrito or two – super steak, extra cheese, pinto beans, lettuce, no tomato, extra sour cream, no hot sauce, side of guacamole – doesn’t hurt, either).

This visit only strengthened what I’ve always thought of Boston: lovely city to visit, but I don’t think I could live there again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy I went to college there, because Boston is (with all due respect) a great training-wheels city. It’s small and accessible enough to get around and have variety, but I feel like I’ve been going out in the same four areas, to the same five to ten bars and eating at the same five to ten restaurants since I first got there in 1997. It’s fairly cheap in that you can find cheap eats (see: Anna’s) and cheap beers (Beacon Hill Pub is always a great, cheap bar), but it’s expensive enough to give you a dose of reality (i.e. rents are kind of expensive, $6 or $7 pints of Guinness abound). And finally, it’s got lots of culture and entertainment options, but 80% of these options are related to “What the fahk is wrong with Pahpelbohn?” and “Tawm Fahking Brady is gonna throw at least 60 touchdown this yeah.” So as long as I get a long weekend in Boston every two to three months, I’m perfectly content.

(Not to mention, have you ever tried to hail a cab in Faneuil Hall or Boylston or the North End at 2am in January? Not awesome. Not awesome at all.)

The occasion for the Boston visit was my buddy John’s marriage to his lovely bride Caroline (which was an awesome time), but otherwise I did what I always do in Boston: drinking, eating, carousing with old friends, etc. Without getting into the details of the wedding or the daily walkabouts/activities in Boston, some notes on traveling:

Virgin America…meh and kinda wow at the same time. At about 1am PST Thursday night/Friday morning, as the plane was somewhere over the Midwest, I was drinking an absinthe cocktail, watching “Fight Club” on Fuse, and dicking around the internet. This would not have been possible even two years ago, yet here we are. What a crazy world.

Other props to Virgin on its ordering system: instead of waiting for the flight attendants to come by with the beverage cart to order a drink, you simply click on your TV screen, add a beer and whatever else to your cart, “check-out,” swipe your credit card, and the order arrives about a minute later. That was pretty sweet (and likely the reason I got off the plane more than slightly drunk).

One fairly major knock on Virgin, however, is that the seats are significantly smaller than other coach class seats (at least, they felt that way). Maybe I’ve gotten spoiled on Delta because they always bump me up (or maybe I’ve gained a ton of weight and/or height), but I felt very cramped in the flights, both ways.

Overall, I probably would fly them again if I had to, based on the Wifi, absinthe, quick ordering, and the fact that the flight was under $300. But otherwise, I’m loyal to my friends at Delta. That’s just how I roll, son.

I’m probably getting a vasectomy. Look, I love kids. Really. They’re adorable, they’re funny, I just want to grab their chubby hamhock thighs and pinch them. But my god, I learned a lot about myself and my feelings for children on this trip.

(“I learned a lot about…my feelings for children on this trip.” That sounds pretty terrible. And no, I did not go to Thailand.)

The only reason that I want a child is to have some sort of legacy, so that when I die, it’s not totally over for me. This doesn’t mean that I would haunt the child (not necessarily, at least, although that could be a lot of fun), but just that when people who knew me when I was alive got drunk, they would tell my child stories about me, mostly starting with “My god, your father…what a strange, strange man…” and “Boy, he had a scrotum that looked exactly like a great, big chewed-up ball of Juicy Fruit.” In this way, you’re “alive” for at least a little while longer.

Actually, there’s also another reason: I’d like to have a kid to correct all the mistakes I’ve made in my life and/or create the perfect person (i.e. get them started on the piano at age two, learning Russian and Latin at age three, trying out for football at age four, hitting the weight room full time at age five, SAT prepping at age six, etc). When you have a child, you get to play God, to a certain extent. That sounds kinda cool.

But after this trip, I may forget about the whole legacy and playing God thing.

For one, it’s fairly obvious that when you have a child, you’re saying, “You know what? I’ve done all I can do in terms of me. I’ve peaked. Time to try to make someone who can hopefully do better.” Say goodbye to a social life, nice dinners out, spontaneous long weekends, getting bombed at a random Tuesday happy hour, having sex anywhere in the house you want, taking a Xanax or Valium and sleeping for eleven hours, spending whatever you want on whatever you want, smoking a bowl on the couch and watching “Wildboyz” for four hours, leaving loading guns around the home, etc. These are all things that you can’t do when you have a kid. Well, I guess you technically can do them, but you probably shouldn’t, unless you want your kids to grow up to be criminals or, for that matter, exactly like me.

I’m not hating on kids or those who have them. If anything, these feelings stem from my own incredible sense of selfishness and ego, so kudos to parents for, you know, not being incredibly selfish and self-involved assholes like me. And I do truly love kids; I’m the third oldest of around thirty cousins, so I’ve been around them all my life – and just when my aunts and uncles stopped having them, the oldest cousins started popping them out. And kids have always loved me – I’m like a younger, slightly more surly and much more apathetic Santa, but I’m right there with him with the jolly when I want to be.

I’m just amazed that when you have a kid, boy, that’s it for you, so I hope you had a good run. And I just can’t see myself ever wanting to trade the joy of hitting a happy hour for six beers, reading in the shower for two hours or banging out sick and heading to Vegas for a long weekend for being responsible for a child who’s around all the time and, by the way, for the rest of your life. Doesn’t seem like a hard decision to make to me.

[And what was really supposed to be the main point, before I went off on the above tangent, was that traveling with kids is either impossible for the parent or makes your fellow travelers absolutely miserable. It's summer, which is amateur hour for traveling, so there were a bunch of families on both flights, many of whom had never been in nor had possibly even seen a plane before. The parents feel into two groups: those that were completely frazzled and tried the entire flights to get the kids to sit still, keep their voices down, etc, in the hopes of not disturbing the other passengers, and those parents who basically said "Fuck it," ordered a glass of wine and a movie, and let their kids run roughshod all of the plane. Naturally, I'd fall into the latter category, but I'm telling you, if the woman I'm married to/living with/dating/met in the Target parking lot and specifically told me she was on the pill (twice) ever tells me that she's pregnant (and is going to keep it and expects me to help raise it), I'm going to smile, hug her, give her $5000 and then take a nine-month leave of absence from work and travel the world. Because there's no way I'm bringing a kid on a plane until it's at least 19 years old. Fuck that.]

I will never check a bag again. I was planning on going to the wedding solo, but then Selena surprised me with Bonfire, the five-cd box set of Bon Scott-era AC/DC, for my 30th birthday. That’s enough to get you a free ride to Boston in my book, so I made a few calls, changed a few things, and off to Boston we went.

(See? As I said above, it doesn’t take much to make me happy.)

(By the way, I’ve completely gone off the rails with my AC/DC obsession. This is the fourth such musical obsession of my post-adolescent life: first it was the Beatles, then Jimi Hendrix, then Elvis Costello, now, over fifteen years later, AC/DC. And this box set is truly, completely, 100% fucking awesome. There is a version of live “Problem Child” that, when I listen to it, I can actually feel my balls getting bigger. Likewise, once during the live “High Voltage,” I went to open my fridge and I ripped the door off and two planes dropped from the sky. I’m still working my way through it, but it’s only a matter of days before something like this happens. Honestly, I’m surprised this box set is even legal. It’s just flat-out dangerous.)

I travel a lot and have a very specific routine. First and foremost, I never, ever check a bag. Even though I just spent almost two weeks on the east coast, I only had a carry on and shipped the rest of my clothes to my office in NYC. Especially now with checked bag fees, this makes a lot of sense, since it’s a wash, cost-wise. And it also allows me to get off the plane, almost literally run to and be the first one in line at the cab stand, and be at my destination in the minimum amount of time as possible. I have packing and this routine down to a science at this point, and, to be honest, I’m terrific at them.

But when you have a situation in which a woman is going to a wedding, she’s going to need to check a bag. I figured that if Selena was going to check a bag, I might as well, too. When we landed in Boston, it was after taking a redeye on which I slept not even ten minutes. The very turbulent descent and landing was prefaced by the captain, who came over the PA and said, “Sorry for the early wake up call, folks, but I gotta be honest – it’s gonna be a really nasty ride the rest of the way.” When we landed, we saw that there was a torrential downpour going on. When we got to the baggage claim, Selena’s bag was the second to come down the chute. Guess who’s was the very last? Yep. That would be mine.

Because my bag was the last one, and because it was pouring, and because it was 6am on a Friday morning, we had to wait forever for a cab. Throw in a rapidly-wearing-off buzz and no sleep, and Uncle Jason was not a happy person.

And – fast-forwarding here – wouldn’t you know that it, a few days later after a longer flight back to the west coast on a plane that was more of a day care center than a mode of transportation, guess whose bag came off (literally) first? And whose came off (literally) last? Yeah. Selena is the first answer, I’m the second. Totally sweet.

Maybe this is God’s way of telling me never to fly with a woman again. Or maybe I should just not check a bag anymore. Whatever – same difference, really.

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

Lastly, two quick book recommendations for you:

- Blue Boy by Rakesh Satyal. I’ve pimped this before on Facebook and Twitter (which I’ve stopped using, seeing that Jesus Christ Himself would make me want to punch Him in the face if He posted hourly updates like “RT @StPeterRock just had eggos – sooo good! #awesomebreakfasts” – get over yourselves, people, no one gives a shit), but it’s worth mentioning again. Here’s my one sentence summary: “An endearing and hilarious coming-of-age tale of a precocious Indian-American child growing up in 1980’s Cincinnati who, because of his interests in make-up, ballet and Whitney Houston, believes that he is the latest incarnation of the Indian deity Krishnaji.” This isn’t a really good description (it’s actually pretty hard to describe in one sentence) and I read this book in the spring when it first came out, but I pimp it out here now because I recommended it to a bunch of my Boston friends and just this weekend, three that had read the book told me how much they enjoyed it. So there. Go on and get it.

- The Chris Farley Show: A Biography in Three Acts by Tom Farley, Jr. and Tanner Colby. Um, this one should be pretty self-explanatory. No major nuggets discovered or bombs dropped here – the guy was hilarious, he partied hard (like, real hard), he died – but a good, quick read nonetheless. I was surprised at how religious Farley was and to read about his decline was quite sad, but I walked away from it feeling like book didn’t serve him feel: he was an easily-influenced, kinda slow-witted guy with a very addictive personality who would do anything for a laugh and to please his father, who sounded like a case study in denial. Good read, but I wanted a little more; I just have to believe that there was more to Farley than how he was portrayed in the book. Whether or not that’s because he didn’t allow anyone too close to him, I don’t know. But I wanted a little more.

[Have a good weekend]

Apologies for the technical difficulties that the site has been having this past week. Hear me now: do not use iPowerWeb for your site hosting. They are terrible. This is the fourth time this month that the site’s been unavailable, and getting it back each time was an exercise in stress, aggravation, and white, hot hate. What an incredible collection of morons.

(As they pull the plug on the site in three…two…)

But the worst part about them is not their capricious servers or their poor customer service, but the fact that their email – my jason_at_jasonmulgrewdotcom email – is totally unreliable. I know this because for as long as we’ve been using iPowerWeb, every six weeks or so I’ll get an email from one of you that says, “Really? No response to this?”, and it’s a forward of an email that you had previously sent to me at the jm.com address that I never got. The host company pretty much randomly decides which emails that I get and don’t get. Awesome.

Now provided, I am not the world’s greatest email returner. Especially now with the iPhone, I can check my email anywhere, read it, laugh, and then completely forget about it (this happens a lot when I’m drinking at a bar, shockingly). But still, I have lost sleep over which emails I have missed. Think about it: my agent first contacted me at the jm.com email. People first contacted me at the jm.com email. Without tooting-my-own-horn/name-dropping here (I think we’re too late for that), even musicians whose songs I’ve pimped have written to me at the jm.com email. So what emails to the jm.com email have I missed? Offers for handjobs? Career opportunities? Invites to threesomes? Who knows. Almost worse, those who may or may not have sent such emails did not get a reply from me, and they must think I’m a total asshole (i.e. “Um, so I asked Mulgrew to be the judge of our dick-sucking contest, and he didn’t even reply!”).

[Pauses to collect self, lower blood pressure]

Anyway, sorry again for the problems. Site Guy Brendan and I have discussed moving off the iPowerWeb server and I said fine, mostly because I don’t even know what that means. But hopefully there will be no interruption in service again in the near future.

Thank you for your understanding.

I’m heading to Boston tonight for a wedding and long weekend (get back to LA Tuesday evening), so let’s talk some music before I go, shall we?

(And yes, this is me being somewhat lazy and harried because I’ll be out of the office for three days. Just lay off me, alright?)

Six Songs

“Written Invitation” The Whigs
I really like the sound/feel of this song. It’s a little too rocking to be called “ambient rock” (which reminds me more of Beach House or some Yo La Tengo), so let’s call this “Sleepy Rock.” Sure, there’s some drumming going on, but it sounds like these guys just rolled out of bed and recorded this song. Speaking of Yo La Tengo, I bought their album “I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One” back in college after reading a review that said something to the effect of, “This is the album you put on when you want to make out but don’t want to seem like you want to make out.” The same could be said for this song.

(Note however that this song would not qualify for my “Let’s Make Out or Something” playlist. The goal of the LMOOS playlist is to establish an environment or ambience that is conducive to making out without appearing too obvious or corny. Practically speaking, you would put on LMOOS when you are at least 75% sure that you’re going to make out, since it’s not too obvious but still a little obvious. This song, however, is one that I’d put on if I thought making out was 50-50 or even less – just some music to listen to while chilling at the apartment, whatever happens happens.)

(And yes, ladies, take note: if you are ever in my apartment and I put this song on, help me out and make the first move. I’m not feeling that strong.)

“While My Lady Sleeps” John Coltrane
Goddamn, this is just about the smoothest effing song ever. I wish I was classier, so I could appreciate it more. For some reason, it makes me miss winter and drinking really good Scotch. Also, I’m drinking the Scotch in a tuxedo. And I have great hair.

(I have a feeling that it could get really weird here and that’s not the place I want to go, so let’s just stop now and enjoy the song as is.)

“Weathervane” Absent Arch
Back in March, when I was in NYC for our annual NCAA tourney and fantasy baseball draft decadent-fest, we went to Paddy Reilly’s, an Irish bar in Gramercy, on the Saturday night after the draft. It had been a very long day – seven (!!!) hours of drafting, replete with pitchers of Coors Light and enough nachos to put most averaged-size moose into a food coma – and I didn’t think the prospects for a rousing Saturday night looked too good. Still, we were all in a great mood and decided to give it a try.

A few pints of Guinness later and the house Irish band jamming away, half of us were dancing, the other have enthusiastically chatting, and it turned out to be a terrific, terrific ending-at-4am night. Since then, I’ve been trying to get more into Irish music, but much of it, I’ve found, is inaccessible (maybe it’s just me, but I haven’t been able to get into all the rebel songs with the flutes and the like). Still, I love some parts of Irish music, namely the violins/strings, dancing, clapping, passion, etc.

The point of all this? While this song could not be classified as Irish or Gaelic in almost any respect, to me, it’s perfect: it’s got the stand-up bass as the backbone, the sing-along chorus, the strings, and, in the end, the clapping and dancing. Just perfect.

“This First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” Christy Moore
On the other end of the spectrum, there’s this song. No clapping or dancing, and Christy’s Irish accent is all over the place, but still, it’s perfect: a wonderfully Irish interpretation of a classic love song. Just the way he sings “heartbeat” makes me want to put one arm around my lady and the other around a delicious Guinness. Please don’t ask me to choose between the two.

“When U Love Somebody” The Fruit Bats
A harmless little indie rock song with about twenty words that makes you happy. What more can you ask for, really?

“Street Life” Roxy Music
I’ve never been really sure of the definition of a “guilty pleasure.” I think it means indulging in something that you are aware is bad for you, but you do so (and revel in doing so) anyway. So maybe this song doesn’t truly qualify as a guilty pleasure of mine, but I can’t count the number of times that, when this song’s come on the old iPod speakers and I’ve been drinking, I’ve said “Ohhh yeah!”, cranked it up, and maybe danced around the room a little bit. Maybe. Just a little.

[Have a good weekend.]

I never realized it before, but today is a very special anniversary for me.

Back in grade school and junior high, I took part in a school program called MG. “MG” stood for “Mentally Gifted” – I’m sure that now the program is called something bland and politically correct, like “Learning for Learners” – and more or less, one day a week I would go to the local public school with other nerds from local Philadelphia schools, public and private, and take part in “advanced” learning. While this might sound like we were tackling geometry, learning French or reading Dickens, it was much more of a developmental/life program. For example, we played the Stock Market Game, whereby we were given a certain amount of dollars and then learned how to buy, sell and track certain stocks that we liked (I was very bullish on TOY – Toys R Us – starting in mid-November, and was surprised that it didn’t quadruple like I expected around the Christmas rush). We also each became senators and argued the merits of Title IX on college athletics; I was Jason Mulgrew (D-MT) and was pro Title IX. In addition, we played a lot of Oregon Trail and got stuff thrown at us by the regular public grade school kids when we had lunch in the cafeteria. So that was nice.

(One thing that was cool: the eight grades of my grade school had, say, 600 kids. I think somewhere between three to nine were not white and of either Irish, Polish, Italian or Lithuanian descent. MG was the first time in my life that I hung out with any Jewish, black, Hispanic or Asian people. As you might guess, I hated it.)

(Just kidding – it was nice, and all part of the “development” process.)

Another thing we did at MG was take field trips. We hit all the Philly standards related to the Constitution and Betsy Ross and American history and blah blah blah, as well as Philly’s popular museums. But these were trips that I made with my regular classmates as well, so I didn’t find them that interesting. I liked the other trips, like when we’d visit local colleges (a bunch of eleven year old nerds getting a guided tour of Penn – no pressure there, right?) and when we’d go see, like, plays and shit. But there was one trip in particular that really struck me: when we visited a big-shot Center City law firm.

I remember only a few things about this field trip, which my MG classmates and I took when I was in fifth or sixth grade. But the few things that I remember were that there was expensive looking marble and wood everywhere; everyone was dressed really well and spoke to us very politely; we were served delicious hoagies from a party tray in the most stately-looking conference room I’d ever seen; and the offices were super, super air-conditioned.

And when we left the law firm that day, I had made up my mind: I was going to be a lawyer. People had told me before that I’d make a good lawyer, since I liked to read, talk and try to persuade people. But after visiting that firm, my mind was completely made up – I could certainly do that for the my real-life grown-up job, no problem. Sign me up, please.

As I got older and attended high school and college, I never really wavered from the idea of being a lawyer – not necessarily because I was so committed to it, but because nothing else popped up. Sure, as the memory of that field trip faded, more practical concerns about being a lawyer came to the forefront. For one, I was good at stuff like history, English and Latin, and generally sucked at math and science. Two, being a lawyer and going to law school provided an easy answer to “What do you plan to do with your life?” and give you an extra few years before entering the real world. And three, a law degree meant you would likely always have a job and also make a good living for yourself. It just seemed like an easy choice to me.

But there were two things that, as I prepared to start getting my shit together in college for law school applications, didn’t occur to my nineteen year old self, namely that law school requires a lot of student loans and a lot of work (the first year anyway). In order to attend college, I took out the max amount of student loans that I could. While in college, I was only vaguely aware that these had to be paid back eventually at some point by someone, so the idea of taking on another $100,000 of debt to go to law school didn’t seem like a big deal to me.

As for work, I’ve never really been a big fan of the whole “working hard” thing. If at first you don’t succeed, yeah, maybe you should try once more, but if you fail again it’s probably best to move on and find something you’re better at. Academically-speaking, I figured that GPA was less important that GPA:work ratio. For example, if one could get, say, a 3.5 by doing only the minimum work required, or that same person could put in 40 hours a week of studying and get a 3.8, which is better? If you said the former, you, like me, are awesome. If you said the latter, NERD ALERT!

(Now I admit that I’d always been kind of egotistical when it came to academics – which is funny, because if you’ve read this far in this post, you can tell that I’m not even very smart – so I sort of took for granted those things that came naturally to me and, along with my roommates who were of a similar mindset, celebrated starting a 15 page paper the night before it was due, snorting a bunch of Ritalin, and getting that shit done. To wit, a paper that my roommates and I kept on our fridge senior year – until we got kicked out of housing, that is – was a history paper I wrote for the professor that would have been my thesis advisor if I had stuck around BC for another year. I got a big fat B- and his comment read, “Jason – Stop exploiting your intelligence to serve your laziness.” I nearly wept. That man, at that moment, knew me better than the woman I marry will ever know me.)

But again, the work required in law school and the debt I would incur were not real concepts to me at that point in my life. I only knew that I wanted to be a lawyer forever, that it made the most sense, and that, in the summer between my junior and senior years of college, I should probably start getting my applications ready. In this mindset, on July 22, 2000, I went to the library with only a very mild hangover to take my first-ever practice LSAT.

The test was kind of a pain in the butt, particularly those stupid logic games things. Yet still, when I finished, I thought I’d probably done pretty well. Sure, this was the first LSAT that I had not only taken but also had ever seen, but I was good at these standardized test thingees. No big deal.

And then I graded the test. And just like that, my near life-long dream of being a lawyer was immediately scrapped.

It’s not that I “bombed” it, per se. I did fine, I guess. But ’twas my ego: I went in expecting nothing less than a certain score, a very good score. And when I saw that, shockingly, a had failed in achieving this score by a pretty good margin, well, forget it. Done. Over. All those years of thinking (but maybe never really wanting) to be a lawyer, scrapped because of four hours of that summer afternoon. Fuck it – if I wasn’t smart enough to nail the LSAT on my first try, then law school wasn’t for me. Time to move on.

Childish? Sure. Stubborn? Absolutely. An incredible example of laziness and lack of ambition? Oh, totally. Now’s the part where I’m supposed to say that it couldn’t have worked out better for me; that I have a 9 to 5 job that I like and pays me well enough to spend way too much on cans of beer; that I’m a writer now and I get, like, tons of blowjobs; etc. But that’s not the part that I’m interested in for our purposes.

What if I had gotten the score that I had hoped for? What if I had answer just a handful – maybe four or five – more questions correctly? What if I went with “B” (the correct answer) instead of choosing “C” (the incorrect answer) at the last second?

What would have happened is that I would have likely continued on that lawyer path. I would have taken another practice LSAT, sure, and maybe I would have gotten a lower score that next time, but if I had previously hit the benchmark that I wanted, I would have kept taking the practice tests, all the while gathering recommendations and transcripts for applications. I would have applied and gotten in somewhere, gotten the financial aid together, and gone to law school. Done and done. Lawyer Jason. Welcome to a totally different life.

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

Maybe I’m getting contemplative because I just turned 30 (indeed, I was reminded just this week of this LSAT memory by a buddy, because I took this practice LSAT only a few days after my 21st birthday, another “life-assessing/maybe-I-should-get-my-shit-together” birthday). But it’s amazing, those moments that at the time seem rather inconsequential that eventually turn into significant, life-altering events. Or better, those moments that if something had been just slightly different could have changed your life so dramatically. I’m not even talking about those that fall into the death or love categories, like “I was supposed to be on that plane that crashed but slept late” (something I shouldn’t joke about, since I’m taking a red-eye to Boston tomorrow) or “If I hadn’t spilled my drink on her, we never would have started talking.” Talking about this with that college buddy, it just sort of hit me that holy crap, if I had had just the smallest change in just a few questions, I would be something quite different than I am today. Shit is deep, man.

(And if you want a moral that’s not that deep, here you go: When in doubt, take the path of least resistance. It’s better to spend your time eating ice cream on the couch than working hard at something, since shit will just figure itself out in the end. Promise.)

The good thing about being as shallow as I am is that there’s not much room from introspection or reflection, aside from “I’m hungry” or “Maybe I should beat off tonight?” I have found that this faculty, or lack thereof, has come in handy lately, specifically today. For today, I am 30 years old.

I’m not going to get involved in some recap of my 20’s which, for the most part, were pretty good (I determine “goodness/badness” based on two factors: one is that I’m still alive and two is that I managed to sleep with at least one woman in there, so I guess I had a good run). Nor will I lay out plans for what will be my fourth decade on earth, as that makes me tired, and, let’s be honest, there’s no way I’m going to survive decade four. Instead, I’m going to tackle three promises that I made to myself that started with “When I turn 30…” and see how they’ve turned out.

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

“When I turn 30, I will retire from the blog.” True, when I started this lil’ internet diary when I was 24, I never thought that I’d still be doing it six years later – and more astonishingly, still using the same four jokes (namely, I’m fat, I don’t get laid, I like beer, and, um, I’m fat). But also true is that I thought my book was supposed to come out by the first publisher in April 2007 (whoops!) and now will come out from the second publisher in March 2010 (yes!). And also also true is that just a few days ago I was more or less told “Hey, fat chops – you wanna maybe think about posting more than twice a month? You know we’re actually going to want to sell copies of this book, right?” So I’m just gonna keep on truckin’, friends, and do my best to give you at least two a week, just like old times. Blog on.

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

“When I turn 30, I will marry whatever girl I happen to be dating.” I had said and written this numerous, numerous times in my 20’s, mostly because I feel that love is arbitrary and random; if you truly believe that God made one person out there just for you, and your life’s quest is to find him/her so that you can be together forever, please come over to my place tonight so I can burn you with cigarettes and break you down emotionally/psychologically (and also, get over yourself – God’s got better shit to do). As a society, we are too spoiled romantically and seek perfection in a potential mate, often to our own detriment. In short, as long you enjoy talking, kissing and laughing with a person – and they don’t beat you or steal from you while you sleep – you can probably marry them. So shut up already and just do it.

And while I thought 30 might be a good arbitrary age to settle down, now that I am actually 30, oh no. No, no, no. Instead, I think that no man should marry before the age of 35 and no woman should marry before the age of 30. Allow me to explain:

- The most important thing in life, if I may wax philosophical for a moment, is experience. It goes without saying that there are certain experiences that you can not have once you are married, from “I’m gonna go out tonight and blow two guys” to “I think I’m going to take a last-minute vacation to San Diego, because, well, fuck it.” Once you have committed to being married to a person, one part of your life – the selfish, awesome part – ends, and another – the long, slow march toward death – begins. Therefore, don’t rush into things.

(Speaking of experience, if I may really wax philosophical for a moment, the best advice I’ve ever heard and the advice I try to live by is: If you ever regret something, regret it because you did it, not because you didn’t do it. I have found over the years that this does not apply to infidelity, anything illegal, or snorting something you found on the street that you think is cocaine but, boy, whatever that is, it ain’t cocaine. Otherwise, it’s golden.)

- 35 is a good age for a man to be married mostly because, well, it’s five years away from how old I am now. That should buy me enough time to get my shit together.

- Women are the most engaging and wondrous creatures on earth and I swear, I don’t think they really hit their peak until they hit around 30. By that time, the crazy’s (mostly) out of their system, they know what they want and have a good idea how to get it, and they know how to work it and look terrific. I look at the women I’m friends with around my age and want to applaud them; I look at the guys I’m friends with around my age and want to suggest we start running together or take the next step and look into rogaine.

(Not to mention, while it may be awesome to sleep with a younger girl – and I’ve read that it really, really is – women become better lays when they get a little older. Again, from what I’ve read. This is purely an academic discussion we’re having here.)

- I think that, generally, anything greater than a five-year age difference is no good. It can get a little creepy, but also because in my experience, dating girls more than five years younger than me is a little more difficult. My family didn’t have a computer until I was a freshman in college, and I didn’t get a cell phone until I graduated college (I remember there was one guy who had a cell phone senior year at BC and we all thought he was an ostentatious d-bag). I don’t know exactly what this has to do with anything, but dating a girl that was in grade school when I was drinking in college…well, I just don’t think I have the energy to sustain that, unless the woman involved is really interested in the story about how that one night I was so drunk that I ate the pizza too quickly and burned the roof of my mouth over and over again. Five years or shorter works fine. There’s enough common ground there.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m not getting engaged tonight. Check back in five years.

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

“When I turn 30, I will kill myself if I’m still in LA.” This is, to be sure, very disappointing. I am a charming, well-liked man; I like to drink beer and partake in revelry; and my 30th birthday happens to fall on a Friday – and I have absolutely no plans to celebrate, neither tonight nor at any point this weekend. I have only two friends in LA that I could count on to show up at any birthday get-together that I might have, and one is away at a wedding and the other’s in Europe. Therefore, any sort of birthday “party” would be an exercise in shame and embarrassment, resulting in me promising the bartender that “No, some people are on the way, I swear – traffic’s real bad” before I slink away to the bathroom and escape out the back door. So tonight, on the night of my 30th birthday, I’m going to go home, watch baseball, drink beer and do laundry. The highlight of the night will be either if I play with myself or decide to walk down to the Coldstone at Pico & Westwood for a medium (hey, maybe large!) cake batter and Oreo mix.

BUT, do not feel pity toward me, dear friends, for two reasons: 1) I have just returned from a two-week east coast vacation, where I did plenty o’ celebration, and next week I’ll be in Boston for a long weekend for a wedding, where more celebrations will occur; and 2) in the next day or two, I’m booking a 2500 square foot two-bedroom suite in Vegas for the weekend of 9/19, where all of my buddies and I are going to celebrate a collective/joint 30th extravaganza (the idea is that me and two others will stay in the suite, but will tell everyone else to come out and book their own cheap rooms nearby; then they throw us a couple of bucks to offset the cost of the suite and they/we can all party in there all weekend). This should be slightly more than a little fun.

So based on these two factors, I’m fine with “celebrating” not-really this weekend. Well, I’m not totally fine – I did want that threesome, but that ship has seemingly sailed (for now – I’ll try again when the book comes out). But beer, baseball and ice cream or masturbation (I’m too old to do both – it’s kinda hard to work it out with a belly full of ice cream) is ok with me.

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

Otherwise, I have to say, I think I’m just hitting my prime, and I do not fear 30. Let’s the good times roll and happy birthday to me.

[And though the economy's in bad shape, that does not change the fact that I still love beer. I assure you that any birthday donations made via the link on the right will be promptly spent on alcohol or gambling-related pursuits. Thank you in advance.]

I have never felt less safe living in a city than I have living in Los Angeles.

Now, before we queue up Tupac’s “To Live and Die In LA,” this is not because I’ve lived in dangerous areas. My first year out here, I lived in a lovely little beach community called Redondo Beach. Judging by its tanned and juiced-up residents, I’m assuming that the two biggest crimes there were fistfights over which protein is the best and the occasional date rape. Now I live in an area called Westwood, close to UCLA, where the most exciting (and dangerous) thing in just about ever happened only a few weeks ago: Michael Jackson being rushed to UCLA Medical Center, about a mile from my apartment.

Compare this to where I’ve lived previously. I grew up in South Philly. I purposely left out “the mean, hard streets of” before “South Philly,” but it’s not exactly the safest place in America; I remember bringing a former lady home and to my neighborhood and she said, “My god, people don’t grow up like this – this is like a movie!”, I assume referring to the urbanity of the place (she grew up in the deep ‘burbs of not-a-real-city). I went to high school in North Philly, one of the most dangerous parts of America’s sixth-largest city and possibly in all of America. While I went to college in the suburbs of Boston, I studied abroad in London and lived in a sketchy area of Camden Town, where three of my friends’ dorm rooms were broken into and one was robbed at knifepoint. Finally, I lived in a bunch of areas of NYC, but walking home at almost 5am through the desolate, eerie streets of Chinatown (always drunk, usually with pizza, sometimes with my iPod on) was probably not the safest bet (not to mention that I was offered drugs by teenagers on bikes over two dozen times post-4am while living there, for whatever that’s worth).

And yet I never, ever once felt threatened or unsafe in these circumstances, which, though not Iraq-dangerous, where far more sketchy than the palm tree-lined streets and luxury car-filled garages of my LA ‘hoods. However, there are four reasons for my feelings of safety (or lack thereof) in LA (from least scary to most scary):

1) Suburban homes have various points of entry. Everywhere I’ve lived previously, there have been limited points of entry into my home. Growing up, there was the front door, the back door, and a tiny window that even a midget couldn’t pass through. Every place I’ve lived after that had had only my front door and windows that would require various degrees of flexibility and agility to get through. So pretty much unless you’re kicking down the front door or Spiderman, you ain’t getting in.

Compare this with my most recent residence, in Redondo Beach. I could have (and did, when locked out) hip-checked the locked front door and gotten in. We had a yard with sliding glass doors that one good thrust upward could knock off the track and allow for easy entry. There were large front windows into the living room, auspiciously (for murderers) hidden behind large trees. I was able on one occasion to pull myself onto the roof, which was flat and lead the way to the two large windows and into the two bedrooms (and remember, I’m about 210 pounds and have to take breaks when tying my shoes, as I run out of breath).

All this didn’t necessarily keep me up at night, but combined with the total quiet and near-complete darkness of the area (two things that are hard to come by in Manhattan), it was on my mind (usually after I had beat off and no longer had any desire to think about sex and needed something to fill the space in my head before sleep).

2) All (or most of) the really spectacular murders happen in the suburbs. Think about the crimes that happen in the city: muggings, rapes, carjackings, a drug-related murder or two. I don’t think that my drug use/possession paints a target on my back, I never owned a car while living in a city, and at this point, I don’t want to say that I’d welcome a raping, but, you know, if the chemistry’s right, who can really say for sure? As for muggings, I’m not the type of guy to resist someone who pulls a gun or knife on me. You want my wallet? Fine. I’ve likely got less than $40 in there, don’t carry credit cards, and have only a few hondos in the checking account. I also have a girlfriend upstairs, if you’re interested, but please, I have so much left to do on this earth.

Whereas what type of crimes happen in the suburbs? Abductions of women and children that end in sad discoveries in wooded areas, while people being interviewed say, “That kinda thing just doesn’t happen around here.” Murders involving weird shit like blood-drinking, crucifixes, people being put on display, and, if they’re really good, poop. Crazy shit that people in cities don’t think of because they’re too jacked up drugs and need to get that money to get high, not like your suburban murderers who maintain a normal family life and 9-to-5 job but step out after midnight once every few months to put on a Werewolf costume and kill a waitress leaving her shift at Chili’s.

3) I am terrified by the west coast homeless and most Mexicans. There’s a big difference between the homeless of the northeast part of the country and the homeless of the west coast, particularly Southern California. You feel bad for the homeless in the Northeast – it’s 90 degrees sometimes, it’s below freezing other times; then it’s raining half the time or snowing or sleeting or whatever. So it’s almost as though the Northeast homeless recognize this pity and play upon it – I’m homeless, please help, the weather’s terrible and I need a bed and a sandwich.

But when you think about it, is it really that bad to be homeless in Southern California? I mean, it’s 75 and sunny year-round, you can hang out by the beach all day, you get a great tan, you can buy about three tacos for $1, etc. I don’t mean to be (completely) glib here, but these elements have established much more of what appears to be a homeless culture here in LA. And unlike the “Brother, can you spare a dime?” homeless of the Northeast, the homeless of SoCal seem, many times (to me, at least), to be having a ball – all hanging out with each other, carrying on, partying, singing and drinking. There’s no meekness and much more aggressiveness. However, the homeless of both locations still have that “nothing to lose” mentality. Aggressive partying homeless with nothing to lose…um, no thanks.

As for Mexicans, I have to say, I love them. Love their food, love that they work hard, love that when a Mexican girl is hot, she is really, really hot. But I’m afraid of them mostly because they’re so little but so strong – like fire plugs with really bad taste in music, these 5′1″ guys who could beat you up with one hand behind their backs, then in three hours could dump your body in Tijuana and have your teeth sold off to the local school children to use as dice. God bless ‘em.

4) I experienced my first murder here. A month or two after I moved to LA, I was at the office, wrapping up the day. It was 6:30pm, and the smart move would have been to do another 20-30 minutes of work, let the traffic pass, and then zip home. However, I was beat that day and just wanted out, so I decided I’d fight the last of the rush-hour traffic and leave right then and there.

When I got home from work a little over an hour later, I got a building-wide email saying that there was an “incident” in the garage across the street and that those walking to their cars should be escorted by security. Whatever, I thought. I work in Century City, LA’s kinda-Financial District, and I assumed that a mugging had taken place. I put the blackberry down and didn’t think about it again.

The next morning, I drove as usual to the office, got there, turned my computer on, and opened my blinds to take in the view. My office is over 20 stories up and looks down at the parking garage across the street in which the previous night’s “incident” took place. But when I looked at the garage, it didn’t look like a mugging had taken place.

There was a significant amount of what appeared to be blood on one of the rails of the parking lot, and about a half-dozen crime scene technicians were swarming around an area where a car would have been parked. I walked out of the office and asked my co-worker what the hell had happened in the garage, and, wouldn’t you know it, a woman had been murdered. That’s a real “incident” right there.

I learned that the woman had had her throat slashed by an assailant, who fled in an SUV. This was very spooky to me, but what was even more spooky was that the attack had occurred at 6:36pm – about six minutes after I’d left the office for the day. More spooky: some of my co-workers had actually heard her screaming (they were even interviewed on the news about this). All this means that because of the location of the blood – which I could clearly see from my window – had I been in the office just a few minutes later, I would have actually watched a person get murdered.

Wowza.

(Seriously, wowza.)

They eventually caught the guy. And it turned out to be a murder-for-hire, not some crazy person going around slashing throats in the parking garages of Century City. Which is a good thing. But still…a liilllllll bit creepy.

******

As I mentioned yesterday, since my return from two weeks on the east coast, I have been sleeping like a goddamn baby. Last night was no exception. I started falling asleep on the couch around 9:30pm, woke up maybe an hour later, got up and shut off the TV and the lights, got into bed and was fast and soundly back asleep in no time.

An indeterminate amount of time later, I was shocked out of my deep sleep by the incredibly loud noise of a helicopter that sounded like it was preparing to land on my roof. It was, without exaggeration, the most jarring thing I’ve ever heard – for a moment, I honestly thought the helicopter was about to crash into my apartment. I quickly looked out the window and thought I saw the chopper’s spotlight pouring over the outside of my building. I jumped out of bed, and as I did so, I heard what sounded like a small dog letting out a single, high-pitched yap or a woman’s shriek abruptly cut short.

Now again, I was basically in a coma, jolted back to life by this helicopter. Helicopters in LA neighborhoods are not an uncommon scene; “ghetto birds,” they are affectionately referred to, and it usually means that some sort of high-speed pursuit suspect is out and running or some robbery has been interrupted. But when I woke up, I was in full “it’s go time” mode. Still half-asleep, the helicopter above made it sound like a war movie was going up, so I grabbed this back massager thingee that sat next to my bed and, shirtless and in only boxers, bounded out of my bedroom door into the darkness of my living room, thinking, in my half-conscious state, that there was very likely an intruder in my living room and that I was going to fuck him up something proper (whether or not I was yelling can not be confirmed nor disconfirmed at this time).

I burst into the living room and turned the light on, but no one was there. The helicopter was still circling overhead, not quite as loudly, but still very much nearby. Half-naked with the massager, I checked all the closets, in the process growing more awake. What the hell was going on? I wondered. There had to be a bad guy loose in the neighborhood – what about that spotlight? And what about the dog barking or woman shrieking? I heard that, for sure. Right?

Now fully awake, I put on the 11pm news, but it was about 11:45pm and it had just ended, so no dice. I looked at a few LA news websites, but nothing about “Suspect Loose in Westwood.” What the hell? The helicopter was still going strong – again, not nearly as close, but still there – so what’s causing all this?

Well, through Twitter and some other sources, I eventually figured it all out: Harry Fucking Potter was causing all of this. Apparently, there was a midnight showing of the movie at some famous theater in Westwood, just up the street from me, and people were lined up for blocks and blocks (and likely dressed up like the goddamn characters) and the helicopter was a news chopper, not an LAPD chopper, looking to get some footage. What the fuck.

The spotlight that I thought I saw could have been the light from a neighbor’s window (since I never saw the spotlight again). The dog-yelp/woman-shriek was likely just a dog yelping. The helicopter just happened to, at that moment, position itself direct outside my window, rousing me from my deep sleep. All over Harry Fucking Potter.

I was so jacked up that I was tempted to take my half-naked self and back massager out to the streets to exact some vengeance on the nerds – I was certain that it was going to be difficult to fall back asleep now, after all this adrenaline. But, true to form, when I lay back down, I was asleep in no time. And I was rewarded with another blissful night of sleep.

But man, Harry Potter. Scared the shit out of me. Fucking LA.

Holy crap – it’s a small miracle that I’m still alive.

And I’m not just talking about the extremely turbulent take-off I experienced yesterday as I left Philly (at this point I’m convinced that because of some loophole US Airways meets only airline standards for Bulgaria, not the US). That was merely the end of thirteen days of east coast-livin’ (and eatin’ and drinkin’ and not really sleepin’).

Really, it’s very difficult for me to write any sort of recap – even one of my horribly disjointed ones – because the trip itself was so disjointed: LA to Philly to NYC to Philly to the NJ shore to Philly to LA; a series of happy hours that turned into nights out, brunches that turned into day (and evening and night) drinking sessions; restless near-sleepless nights in hotels, motels, on friends’ couches and in old bedrooms; pizza and cheesesteaks, Mexican and Thai, pastrami and beef patties. Whirlwind, indeed.

But yet, my trip was a total fucking blast, and it left me convinced more than ever that, as I’m about to turn 30, I’m the luckiest (non-famous and non-millionaire) guy (who’s never had sex with more than one woman at a time) in the world. Here’s my best attempt at a something like a recap.

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

I’ve grown to miss Philly so much since my move to the west coast that over the past few months, I’ve seriously contemplated moving back there instead of back to NYC. And really, if my life were a series of visits to the Artful Dodger for drafts of lager, to the Oregon Diner for French onion soup/CCB (depending on the time of day), and to Tony Luke’s for whatever sandwich struck my fancy at that moment (chicken cutlet supreme? roast pork? chicken cheesesteak?), I’d be a very happy person. I’d also be a very fat person, so I don’t think that, in the interest of my health, moving to Philly would be a good idea. So NYC it is.

But still, I’m telling you, Philly is really a lovely city. I know, I know – I’m a homer. But I’m surprised by how much it’s changed over the past five or so years: there are some really nice bars and restaurants that have opened up, and there are certain neighborhoods that are drastically different from how I remember them. And did I mention that I went out for a beer one afternoon and managed to stay out for six and half hours getting bombed, mostly by myself? No? So I guess I didn’t tell you that my bar tab for that afternoon was $38? That is not a typo. When I got the check, I turned it over, half-expecting to read, “Meet me in the alley in five – and leave your gag reflex at the door” on the back. Two days later in NYC, I bought a non-fancy bottle of water and two rolls of toilet paper and it cost me almost $7. Advantage: Philly.

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

Part of the reason I thought about moving back to Philly as opposed to NYC is this cost of living, particularly real estate (what? these are problems that should be on a soon-to-be 30 year old’s mind). $300,000 can get you a legit home in Philly; $300,000 can get you a pretty good weekend out in Manhattan. While I hope – nay, expect – the book to sell millions of copies and make me rich (and hard) beyond my wildest dreams, on the off-chance that that doesn’t happen, I’ll never really be able to live, feasibly and long-term, in NYC, since I’m not sure I want to spend the rest of my life spending 65% of my monthly net income on rent. Sure, what I currently do 9-to-5 can provide me with a very good living, but I’ll never make the type of lawyer/banker/doctor money that one needs to make in order to live like I’d like to live in NYC (steaks, Manhattans, cabs everywhere, etc). Having realized this some time ago, I’ve made peace with it.

And then the Fourth of July happened.

I got to NYC on Saturday, the actual 4th. My friend Nicole was apartment-sitting for her aunt and uncle at their place in the West Village (they, like seemingly everyone else in NYC, were out of town for the weekend). Nicole said that I should bring some beers and come over to the roof of their place, where her and our friend Judy were enjoying some drinks.

Well.

Now, I’ve drank on my fair shares of roofs in NYC and usually always have a good time. But these roofs have all been of the no-fuss/we-probably-shouldn’t-be-up-here variety: just some tar, maybe a plastic chair, a radio of some sort, and a couple of friends hanging around, etc. But Nicole’s relative’s roof was like something out of a goddamn movie: plants and perfectly manicured flowers everywhere, lawn furniture that costs more than the furniture I grew up with, and expansive views of the Hudson and, later, the fireworks. Nicole, Judy and I sat on the roof for hours getting bombed and sunburned. Later, we were joined by friends for the fireworks, and ultimately, I ended up dancing at a bar/club (don’t ask, but a half-dozen-plus Bud bombers after several hours in the sun did quite a number on me).

After spending that glorious afternoon and evening on that roof, I made a decision: I want to make money. Like, big-time money. Sitting on a nice roof in the summer, crushing beers, looking at the river and laughing with friends, well, I could get used to that. Wish me luck.

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

On Wednesday night, I threw together a happy hour to celebrate my b-day with my NYC friends. I invited a bunch of people, but didn’t know what to expect: we’re talking about a mid-week happy hour in the middle of the summer, so I didn’t know if five people or forty people would show up. I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be much closer to the latter and I felt like the belle of the ball all evening long. And, not surprisingly, the happy hour turned into staying out until 3am, hitting Rosario’s just as it closed, and begging Sal to be let me in because “it’s my 30th birthday!” He gave me a free beef pattie and I almost wept. I am 98% certain it will be the best 30th b-day present I will get.

I miss my NYC s.o.b.’s and that city so much. I’m in love. I’m just in love, dammit.

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

The next day, likely still drunk, I spent several hours editing the copyedited version of my manuscript (kinda like the “speak now or forever hold your peace” version), hopped a subway to Midtown, walked into the HarperCollins building, and, hungover and unshowered, slapped the manuscript into the hands of my editor’s (incredibly accommodating) assistant and said, “Let’s print the mother fucker.” I felt like the cock of the walk, did I.

(I know I’ve been talking about the book lately, and it won’t even be out until March 2, 2010. However, there’s been a lot of exciting activity around it in the past few weeks, but now it will – and subsequently I will – be quiet for a while. Thank you for understanding.)

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

I spent a quick night in Philly before heading down the shore for our 11th annual “Drink Until You Shit!” bar crawl. Oh boy.

I’ll say this right now: aside from the disgraceful performance of my partner David, who was incoherent by the second bar, leaving me, once again, to do ALL of the work (not that I’m bitter or anything), this was the best DUYS ever. I’m serious. I’ve actually blushed at all the positive feedback I’ve gotten from everyone and, even though I’m thinking about a hostile takeover to remove David from being a named partner in next year’s tour, I’m greatly looking forward to it again. Some thoughts:

- Collectively, my friends and family had nine rooms at the unofficial DUYS headquarters, the North Wind Motel. It was amazing. On Friday night, because so many were arriving at different times, we wound up not going out at all and we stayed up until 3am drinking on the deck (we even had pizza delivered, rather than going out). I could not have imagined a better start to the weekend.

- I took a little while to get the tour going. We started at 3pm this year (as opposed to 6pm or 7pm – I forget – in the past) and not a soul showed up until 3:45pm. We wanted to leave Casey’s, the first bar, at 4:45pm, but we were instead there until nearly 6pm, collecting everyone. C’mon, people. Let’s be better at getting the show on the road next year.

From Casey’s it was off to the #1 Tavern, and, after that, things got a little fuzzy. Because of the shirts (which, if you’re my Facebook friend, you can see photos of), we had more stragglers than ever – people were stopping me on the street, buying shirts, taking pictures, and joining the tour on the go. Everyone was very nice. Or maybe I was just really drunk. Whatever.

- As for specifics of the tour, I can’t really tell you too much, as information is still flowing in. I know that there was a push-up contest in Flip-Flop’s, a public urination citation, and numerous make-outs and possible procreations. I can also tell you that unless I hear anything else, my cousin Eddie is in the lead for next year’s captain. The following day after DUYS, young Eddie was riding home with a buddy and thought he couldn’t breathe. They pulled over and called 911 and an ambulance took him off. While none of this is funny, it turns out that Eddie was/is totally fine: he was just extremely hungover and had some sort of hangover-induced anxiety attack, a hangover-induced anxiety attack that will cost my aunt, much to her chagrin, a whole lotta money. Eddie is now the first DUYS alum to be taken to the hospital due to a hangover. Good job, Ed – seems like you had a really good time.

(And don’t be pissed at me, Ed – your sister Lindsay said I could tell this story.)

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

On Sunday morning, I was so hungover that I spent a near-record two hours and eighteen minutes in the shower. My buddy BC, with whom I was sharing a room, thought I had died in the tub. Nope. Just recovering.

Later that night, back in Philly, I fell asleep at 10:30pm and woke up at 9:30am the next morning – because my alarm went off. I took the turbulent take-off flight back to LA in the afternoon and last night, I was in bed at 9:30pm and up at 7:30am. Twenty-one glorious hours of sleep in two nights, and I’m almost ready to do it again for Friday’s big 3-0.

(Almost.)

Earlier today, this site was down. The short answer why is that I didn’t pay the bill. The long answer why is because though the host company had a card on file to charge, that card was no longer active; a few months ago, I left my debit card in an ATM in a supermarket in Redondo Beach because I was in a hurry to beat the rush I saw developing at the Taco Bell across the street from the supermarket. Whoops. So I got a new card, the host company charged the old card, got rejected, and for a few hours, no site.

[This was made worse by the fact that neither I nor Site Guy Brendan had any idea what the hosting site's password is. I had to spent 30 minutes on the phone with a man who called me "Sir Jason" about two hundred times to get it fixed. What's funny is that all the security questions on the account are geared toward Brendan, so when I was asked what city I was born in and I answered Philadelphia, I was wrong (correct answer: Brooklyn, NY). The man then asked me what my mother's (but really Brendan's mother's) maiden name is, and I had to say, "I've got no idea - can I give you my social or address history or something?" The point: if this site every magically disappears for good, it's because I have really, really pissed off Site Guy Brendan.]

This was the first time I’ve been in the host deck of the site in a long, long time. Back in the old days, I was always logging in, in no small part because the host deck contained all the traffic numbers. There was a time in my life that I poured over this traffic numbers, analyzing swings in traffic, where they were coming from, and, ultimately masturbating over site hits until my penis cried “Mercy!” or I thought I hurt myself, whichever came first.

But now, five and a half years and well over a million words later, I don’t care as much about these things. Well, let me clarify: I care that y’all still keeping stopping by (remember, real-live HarperCollins-published book out March 2, 2010!), but I no longer get arousal and/or validation from it. I’m an elder statesman of this blog shit, for reals. Also, I more or less have no sex drive anymore. My previous 30th birthday wish was to have a threesome, but now it’s to be able to drink a beer after 9pm and not have to wake up three times during the night to piss.

(That 30th b-day is July 17, so mark your calendars.)

(And yes, I still have a lot of alcohol, drugs and money to throw around to make the b-day threesome happen.)

Yet being in the host deck also brought back another memory. See, the host deck is also where I find all the search terms entered into Google, Yahoo, etc that have brought people to this site. Years ago, a regular feature of the blog was a post in which I’d list all these strange and wonderful words or terms (a feature that was then stolen/borrowed/used by many, many others – not that I’m bitter). But again, I haven’t been in the host deck in a while, and so haven’t checked out these referrals. Until today, that is.

So before I get on that red-eye back to Philly tonight for fourteen glorious days on the east coast – including “Drink Until You Shit!” in North Wildwood, NJ on 7/13 – let’s take a stroll down memory lane, shall we? Below are real, actual terms entered by users of the web that brought those users to this site in June of 2009. In addition to learning that this site has become the world’s leading resource for getting out of jury duty, here are a few others in need of advice or information:

- cleaning lady sex [several variations, including "how to get brazilian cleaning lady to have sex" - good luck and godspeed, friend]

- sunburn swollen ankles

- indian bitches

- jason mulgrew gay [twelve hits - thanks a lot, guys]

- jason mulgrew cured from homosexuality [seriously, thanks]

- psychology of oral sex

- nervous poop

- kasey and october nude gymnasts [my new band name: "Kasey and the October Nude Gymnasts"]

- medical diaries on blackout drinking

- free sex gay beer [check, check, check, check]

- ways to get out of going to prison

- fat woman from jamaica fucking

- werewolf women

- olive garden get sued over chlamydia

- down with the brown and roethlisberger

- woman that want to fuck in sun city arizona

- how seduce coworker without actually hooking up

- girls fucking deodorant

- mark bulger penis

- roommate stink boxers [and also "smelling my roommate s boxers"]

- what is the best way to dispose of condoms secretly

And from the “You should probably talk to someone” department…

- should i let my friend reach down my pants and play with my penis if were in the locker room alone

- ok to dress like a woman

- third time having sex and still no pleasure is something wrong with me

- how do i calm my body so i can poop

- having an std conversation with your fiance

- my greek aunt masturbates me

- i had a threesome and now am so disgusted

- uncomfort in the genitals

- my bipolar boyfriend asks for handjobs even if i m not in the mood

- penile wounds teeth blowjob

- word keeping my dick in a tube straighten it?

(That last one: no. Trust me. And you’re welcome.)