11.24.2009

I Paid A Harvard Graduate $50 To Urinate In Public

11.24.09
5:18pm
I spent last weekend in Lexington, MA at Drew's house celebrating Will's upcoming nuptials along with six of Will's fellow Harvardians.
It was exhausting.
Friday afternoon, I headed up to the Upper West Side to meet up with Chhay, ninja poet, who was to drive me and some others to Lexington that evening. After a bit, we were joined by Lorenzo, a passionate man, to say the least. We then set off in Chhay's car to retrieve one Steven Aponte, who knows girls who do NOT do anal. Once we had him, Chhay's stern, British road marm directed us, unfailingly, to Lexington.
The ride was enjoyable from start to finish; although I had only met Chhay once, maybe, and Lorenzo never, we bonded over such things are rap music, strippers and the lack thereof and 2 Girls, 1 Cup.
We arrived at Drew's home around 10:30 or so to find that Chema (a Chicago policeman) had already arrived.
Soon after we arrived, Matt (who was, for some reason, referred to as Satan) joined the party.
Between 11:00pm and 6:30am, we enjoyed some exquisite barbequed meat products procured by Drew, more than a case of beer, a modicum of tequila, most of a bottle of vodka, most of a bottle of grape juice, two huge cup cakes, dozens of gummy multi vitamins, a can of whipped cream and a hell of a lot of reminiscing and general insanity.
Some highlights involved sneaking into the basement where Steven snuck off to get a whopping four hours of sleep and covering him in whipped cream...twice (and photo documenting the whole operation), Lorenzo getting shot a staggering five times, twice in a row at one point, by Chhay, Chema and Chhay discussing morality and the ability to kill anyone legally at any time as long as you feel threatened by them and Lorenzo's AMAZING love, respect and alcohol fueled rants regarding Will. At one point, we sat and listened for a solid twenty minutes while Lorenzo pondered, out loud, why he didn't hate Will. Not only was he white, but apparently (although Will has no memory of this) Will would constantly bring home hideously ugly women, or "minotaurs" as Lorenzo categorized them. He understood that he liked Matt because he was a Jew (not actually sure he was), and me because I was some giant from Middle Earth but not why he liked Will. He then decided that, whatever the reason, he did not just like Will, he LOVED him, and wanted to groom him with his tongue, straightening Will's copious amounts of back hair into ordered lines.
He concluded this beautiful, insane rant with the sentence "I love him so much, I would suck all the come out of him and spit it on his face".
That, my friends, is love.
Soon after that, Lorenzo offered Will $20 to let him set his leg hair on fire. The deal was, if the fire consumed Will utterly, Lorenzo owed him $20. He then amended the deal to offering him $5 for just the arm hair. Will politely refused and we decided it was time to get to bed right after Chema asked Lorenzo if he really thought he hadn't brought his gun with him.
About two hours later, we woke up to ready ourselves for six hours of paintball.
Yes.
Steve and Drew were clocking in at about five or so hours of sleep, Chhay and Matt three, Will and I (who shared a room) about two and Lorenzo and Chema, maybe, an hour, if that. We ate some breakfast (and gummy multi vitamins), donned our layers and headed to the field.
I have never been paintballing before (something about having no depth perception, getting hurt and paying for it, you know?), but, after I applied fogger to my glasses and the visor of my mask, at least I was only limited by my non-existent skills.
As an aside, video game skills do NOT translate into real life skills.
Surprisingly, I didn't get hit that much, mostly thanks to my armor rather than my stealth ability. I took down two people, Chema on the knuckle (sorry Chema, if you knew me better you'd know that was the definition of dumb, blind luck) and Will, in several places. He and I were facing a Mexican standoff, both pinned down by each others' fire. With about a minute left in one particular round, the firing stopped and I heard the rapid rattling of paintballs in Will's ammo tube and knew that he was making a run for me. He rounded the corner of my tiny hideout firing and I met him in fashion. No one's genitals were maimed, but it was a close one.
After a few rounds of just the eight of us (Will's friend John had joined us for the paintballing), another, much larger bachelor party jumped in. I believe the correct term for them was"Massholes". Once they left, we ate pizza and then squared off against some serious paintballers (read: teenagers with no jobs or future in the real world) who, even outnumbered by us, handed us our asses.
In the last round against them, I suggested we charge them while our unarmed man whose goal is was to touch the enemy's cone ran around way on the right. The idea was accepted and carried out. The round lasted about forty five seconds.
We then returned to Drew's to shower and, in my case, sleep for forty minutes, before heading out for dinner, a comedy club and bar hopping.
I woke up, took some more vitamins and dressed. Soon after that, Selby Chen arrived and Will was presented with fulfillment of a years-old dream: an a cappella rendition of Dr. Dre's "Forgot About Dre" with Drew fielding Eminem's chorus. It was a thing of beauty. Every lull from this point on would be filled with some snippet of this performance. Then we walked to the bus station and took a pleasant bus then train ride to dinner. We enjoyed machos, buffalo strips and some pretty solid burgers. Then came the "comedy club". Sadly, it was improv. Bad improv. Clean improv. And that was my fault for not doing more research. At one point, they were asking for a wacky thing that one of the hilariously skilled and underappreciated actors could have as a character trait. In the clearest thespians voice I could muster I said "irritable bowel syndrome". Mr. Improv looked me right in the eye and, at that moment, made a conscious decision to stop talking to our half of the audience. I did what I could.
After that on stage abortion, we needed alcohol. We arrived at John Harvard's Bar and sat for a bit, drinking and cogitating and then made our way to Grendel's Den, which was surprisingly and pleasantly well lit, even for my stumbly ass. Halfway through my first cider (they had cider at the bars in Boston!!!), Lorenzo brings over a glass of amber liquid and says, "Fucking drink this now! Do it! put something special in it." Now, I've never been raped and, something told me that drinking this glass, handed to me by this man would be a great way to get it done. After a moment, a woman named Flannery came over and told me this was a drink that she had created last night. It consisted of Original Sin cider and Bushmill's whiskey. She had named it a Poor Life Decision. I took a few sips and understood why. Flannery stood at our table for a bit, flirting with Selby who flirted back by informing her that he could remove her skull (he's a neurosurgeon) and whatnot and then it was time for us to catch the last bus home. Since I wasn't going to finish my Poor Life Decision, Chhay helped me out by chugging it in about three seconds. Ninja poet. There may have been more shenanigans, if any of us had gotten more than five hours sleep last night, but we hadn't, so there weren't.
While waiting for the bus, I paid a Harvard graduate $50 to urinate in public.
And he did.
Without hesitation.
While he did, some woman with a kid blew a rape whistle.
We were on the bus for a while where I was told that Scorpio was behind Chhay's dick, astronomically speaking, and eventually ended up at the stop, a quarter mile or so from Drew's. We got off and someone began urinating into a nearby bush. Up to this point, Drew had taken all this debauchery with a smile (the ratio of forced to genuine fluctuated depending on circumstances, but it was always present), but, at this point, he raised his voice for the first and only time all weekend, yelling: "This is the suburbs, you can't just pee on the side of a building!" We returned to Drew's and, since there had been no tits, female, anyway, all weekend, we ordered a porn on Drew's 62 inch HDTV. It was called "10 Breasts #3" and featured NO money shots. After two and a half of the vignettes and a few vitamins, we all pretty much went to sleep for an amazing eight hours.
We woke, ate cereal and vitamins and set out to play some touch football before Will and Drew left for the Pats game and the rest of us headed home. I felt composed mostly of broken glass and was planning on just reffing the game but then realized that I know nothing of football, so I became the swing QB for both teams. I did very well, disregarding who was on which team and just throwing really great passes. I was sort of a freelance QB. Yeah. Eventually, John showed back up and then a kid who had been reffing, Noah, joined the game. No one was covering the kid so I passed him the ball twice in a row and gained major yards. He knew the game better than I ever would...and he was ten. After an hour or so with the pigskin (people call the football that, right?) we headed to Anna Tacqueria and enjoyed super burritos and excellent guacamole before finally saying our goodbyes and heading home.
I am still sore, but it's a good sore.
I haven't been this manly in years or maybe ever, and it was interesting to see what normal guys do on the weekend.
I might even go paintballing some time.
Sadly, the only thing missing from this event was Phil.
There were some things that I could only bear witness to and not participate in, but it was all worth it.
The most important thing to remember is that I paid a Harvard graduate $50 to urinate in public.
And he did it.
Without hesitation.
*"10,000 Men Of Harvard" begins to play,softly, in the background, as the lights slowly fade*

11.18.2009

In NPO: Piñata, Erudite, Kaufman, Remy


11.18.09
3:12 pm
See what I said about November disappearing? We're more than halfway through already.
She. It.

Things have been kind of fucked recently, but they're getting better, for me at least, even though I really have nothing to do with it, so, yeah.
Moving on...

On the subway I noticed the resurgence of those Remy Martin ads.
You know, the ones where you see shadow draped figures looking attractive in the way that only drinking Remy Martin can make you look attractive?
The tag line is "Things are getting interesting."
I know what the ad people are going for.
But, surprise surprise, I get a different vibe from these ads.
I feel that this "shadow party" is peopled solely by teenaged girls and football playing college students with rich parents and good family lawyers.
I feel that the football playing college students drink a lot and often, making them immune to a tot or two of delicious, interesting Remy Martin, whereas the teenaged girls are rather new to this whole "drinking" thing and are just being introduced to this interesting new liquor, pardon me, liqueur, at this aforementioned "shadow party".
I feel that one football playing college student has just spied one of the girls looking drowsy and another already passed out on the couch in the living room of the renovated farmhouse that he and his other football playing college student buddies occupy (the one a good seven miles from anything that isn't a tree); he turns to another one of his football playing college student buddies, hits him on the shoulder and raises his chin in the direction of the pair of girls, now both passed out on the couch, and says those magic, Remy Martin words: "Things are getting interesting", to which his football playing college student cohort replies, while grabbing his crotch and squeezing rhythmically, "Yeah. We're going to rape the shit out of these unconscious, teenaged girls."
Every time I see those ads, this scenario snaps through my head.
Thank you, Remy Martin.
You make me think of rape.

Next up, just recently, the year long exclusivity deal between Netflix and Microsoft has ended, meaning that I can now watch all the Instantly Streaming choices on Netflix on my TV via my PS3.
This denotes a pretty huge shift in the Xbox/PS3 war, but whatever.
It's weird and super vicarious, but it's like I feel some sort of connection with the Sony brand, at least as far as the PS3.
When they do something better than Xbox, I feel victorious and vice versa.
Then again, this is the case with people who like sports.
Of the 8 million plus people in New York, how many should feel pride with the Yankees' victory?
Probably about...twenty?
But I digress.
Christina and I watched "Synecdoche, New York" this weekend.
If you're not familiar with this, it's the most recent of Charlie "Mindfuck" Kaufman's mindfuck movies.
It was great and just...mindfucky, but with a theatre twist.
Crazy shit.
The next day we watched "Adaptation" (probably the best performance in Nicholas "I'm So Broke I Have To Sell My Bavarian Castle" Cage's shit-stained career), which neither of us had seen in years.
It was equally, yet differently, mindfucky, more accessible though, which I think was the reason "Synecdoche" wasn't as widely accepted and enjoyed.
I highly recommend both if you like having your brain spun around in your skull.
Good times.

And, speaking of mindfuckery: I watched (also utilizing the time sink Streaming Netflix (a phrase that always reminds me of Bruce McCulloch's "screaming numbers" from his "Hangover Chronicles") feature) Guy Richie's "Revolver".
First he did "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" with a bunch of British no-names (no-names here in the U.S., at least) and it was great.
Stylish, funny, over-the-top, well made etc.
Then he did "Snatch".
Pretty much the same movie with bigger stars (including Brad Pitt's brilliant and hilarious homage to Benicio Del Toro's Finster from "The Usual Suspects"), bigger characters and bigger everything else.
Then people started complaining about how he was a one trick pony, only able to do a flashy, big, well edited, Cockney gangster movie.
Why they would complain about this is anyone's guess, maybe because most people are assholes...anyway, Richie listened to this anal chorus, married/fucked/whatever Madonna and made "Swept Away".
I did not see this, but, from what I can tell, it is laughably disparate from both "Lock, Stock" and "Snatch".
Miserably so.
"Revolver" came next and, at first, it looked like he went back to what he was best at: the flashy, over-the-top gangster movie, and I'm fine with that genre, so I dug it.
Then, in the last quarter, things get a little...Fight Club-y.
Not in a bad way, really, just sort of in a weird, wasn't-expecting-this-and-I'm-not-100%-sure-this-works kind of way.
But good on him for trying to find a way to reinvent the thing he invented rather than tucking his dick between his legs and making a rom-com called "Special Delivery" about Madonna falling for a paperboy who hides love notes in her Sunday Times.
Stick with what you know and grow inside of your genre.
We can't all be Ang Lee.
Thank Christ.
Then he did "Rocknrolla" which was like his first two, but more realistic and very solid.
See? Tweak and prosper.

And speaking of tweeking...while reading Under The Dome, the excellent new King book, I learned that "tweek" is what crystal meth addicts do, while "tweak" is what Alessandro Cortini and Chris Vrenna do.
Also in Under The Dome, I ran across one of the worst similes in recent memory.
"It came down on her, like unpleasant presents from a poison piñata."
I get the consonance and the alliteration, and the cadence is great, but "poison piñata"?
Stephen King isn't allowed to have similes that bad, not after 60 plus published books and who knows how many hundred published shorts.
I called Phil to tell him of this literary misdemeanor, but he was unavailable.
Perhaps because he has AIDS.
I'm not sure.

This weekend I shall be in Taxachusetts (ZING!) at what might be the most erudite bachelor party of the century.
We shall read Chaucer, Proust and the long out-of-print works of Jean Forteaux, the 13th century French minstrel.
Tres drole?
You bet your fucking ass.
There will, however, be strippers.
They will come out wearing business suits, strip down to slightly more form-fitting business suits and then discuss the overarching effects of the G8 summit before doing our taxes and playing the harpsichord.
Did I mention they will all be down and out Yale graduates?
Yet again: good times.

11.05.2009

Bacon! Bacon! Bacon! I'm makin' the moooves on a-yooooou....you'reBACON!!!


11.5.09
3:42 pm
Ah, bacon.
Sarah Vowell once referred to you as "the food of joy".
I concur.
Utterly and completely, I concur.
I wonder what one might consider the food of sorrow?
Perhaps Melba toast?
Cloves?
Cream of celery soup?
I'm sure it will come to me.
And speaking of coming to me.
This morning (earlyearly!!!!tooearlynononononononowaytooearlyearly!!!) I went back to Sound Lounge on Hudson to re-record some of the Method soap Cleaner Clean thing.
Just a bit, it turned out.
Got to see the 90% finished spot.
Pretty funny shit although they paired down a lot of the really funny stuff.
Should be up around November 18th on http://www.cleanerclean.com/, the Method soap homepage and YouTube.
I'll keep you updated.
And, I should add (because it's awesome and referred to in the title of this outpouring of esoterica), they had a cook at Sound Lounge.
He was making bacon.
Just...making it...in case anyone there thought, "Gosh, I'd like some bacon."
And I ate it.
And it was reeeeal good.
I'M STILL ENJOYING MY CAREER CHOICE.
FOR THE FUN, MONEY AND BACON.

11.02.2009

Tasty Beaver


11.2.09
3:24 pm
November always seems to disappear.
Thick weekend.
Blood and fetus clogged weekend.
I went as Stiffy the Priapic Clown for the party and, apparently, I am a bit more frightening in a clown suit with full make up, wig, shoes and squeaky nose and sporting (because that is what I do with them, I sport them) a ten-inch erection.
Go. Fig.
We had an excellent and mixed turnout with almost no surly douchebags.
The Machete Vignette was a total, blade-swinging success.
Gourds and apples alike were air-chopped.
And the bathroom....a reeling, roiling Nightmare.
It was a thing of beauty.
Here is some video shot by Darth Paul:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=195673793361#/video/?of=782173361
And next year?
Topping it.
Always topping it.
Then, Sunday, I ran in the New York City Marathon.
Ah...through the New York City Marathon.
I ran through the New York City Marathon.
To get to Brunch.
And a very fine Brunch it was.
I had arepas benedictos (eggs Benedict with arepas instead of English muffins) with a side of some of the greatest chorizo I've had since France.
And lots of coffee with lots of sugar and cream.
Then, I played a delightful game called Critter Crunch for several hours before delving deep into the 20th season of The Simpsons.
Man oh man have they gotten it right.
Nary a shit episode to be seen and I'm fourteen deep, people.
They have rekindled whatever it was they had.
Again, not as perfect and timeless and etc. as seasons eight and thereabouts, but sterling, excellent stuff.
AND, this blew my fucking mind: they redid the intro.
After twenty years, they redid the intro.
I believe this was spurred by the digital switchover.
Everything is now super detailed and just looks so much richer.
And I'm watching this on a flat screen, non-HD monitor from over five years ago.
Thoroughly enjoying every moment.
And this morning, I ate apple pie for breakfast.
Cue the Springsteen and they turn it off because he sucks blue collar ass. 

And there are now three more spots up on zapnewsapp.com, including Kitty Cam.
Go there and be soothed.

And finally, I just found out that tomorrow I have off.
COCAINE AND WHORES!!!!!!
WOOOO!!!!