Monday, October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween



Halloween on a Monday kinda blows. It's not positioned on the weekend nor is it midweek which could break up the monotony a bit. Most of you probably blew it out over the weekend, but several of you will throw on that costume one more time and limp out tonight and extend the party one more time. I tip my cap to you. I had a relatively tame Halloween all things considered but the LAPD did dispatch their riot helicopter to bust the party I attended...and I thought those Shingles raids in college were bad.

Eat some candy, watch some slasher flicks and if you do go out and rage your face tonight make sure you have enough money in your account for the rent check to clear in the morning.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Blown

I'm going to do something a little different today. I'm sure you tire from my countless rants about living the dream and blah blah blah. Anyway, aside from ranting I have also been working on a novel for about a year. I'm about 2/3 of the way done, I may have gotten drunk at some point or another and told you about it and maybe you were, maybe you weren't interested.

The premise is that a frat house mom is a drug dealer to pay off her dead husband's medical bills and the President and Treasurer of the frat let it happen as long as they can split some of the profits to help buff up the fledgling social fund. I decided to post a random chapter for your enjoyment, perhaps you will be interested and ask me to send you the finished copy when I'm done. Perhaps you will see that it still uses a lot of f words and takes place in college and you will think I am one dimensional, or maybe you will give me an idea that I will end up using and then I will give you special thanks on the back cover.

This is Chapter 14, John, the President is shopping for the party booze with his good friend David. He is shooting the shit with his buddy while they pick up party supplies, but also for the first time, trying to rationalize the actions that he is taking, enjoy!

I always enjoyed going to the liquor store with a a few thousand dollars and a shopping cart. In the past it was always house money, I would go with David and maybe another senior to pick up the party booze. Back then it was a bit scandalous, we were using money that we had technically laundered through sludge funds, but no one really cared. It was just a routine one had to go through when having an illegal fraternity party. Technically it wasn’t illegal to have a party, just to serve alcohol. But you would have to be pretty naive to think that a frat was spending $5000 on party decorations.

We had shelled out more than usual on decorations for the Fall formal, it wasn’t just a party after all, it was a date function. Usually it was more important to impress the girl you were banging consistently more than a handful of Freshman sluts. We filled the courtyard with sand and a pool, and we actually got a dj instead of throwing on an iPod with a playlist...the dj was always a waste anyway because that’s what he did, brought his itunes library and pressed play, whatever it looked legit.

That left us three grand for liquor and chasers...very little beer necesary at a date party. 100 guys in the house, a date for each, thats 200 people, which means we’ll need 50 handles and about 20 boxes of wine. 20 should be vodka, 10 rum, 5 whiskey, 5 gin, 5 jager, 5 whatever. and then just a ton of 2 litres. There are people that live in poverty all over the world and we just spent $2992.68 on booze.

Well that’s how it usually felt. This time it was drug money, we had accepted the advance from our senile old house mom who was selling cocaine, and I had gone along with it because I didn’t want to let me friends down.

It had been a few days and I had largely avoided Irma. It was now Thursday and I hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. I had vague knowledge of how her operation was working, but I thought it best not to ask questions. Our arrangement was more or less that we got a cut of her profits for allowing her to use our house as her base of operation. At the beginning of each week Irma would give me our cut during our weekly meeting in which we went over house matters. I suppose this was a house matter, we are supporting the bleeding finances of our social fund with drug money.

We also agreed that if I ever had to answer to anyone on our housing corp or with the university about our new influx of money, we had to come up with a long term plan. Anonymous alumni donations could work for a temporary fix, but at some point that would raise questions from the board. The university would probably leave us alone as long as we weren’t stupid, but the house would surely want that alumni money going somewhere other than straight to our pockets. I had to come up with an excuse fast.

In the mean time, I managed to get Meg to come to formal with me. I had decided that at least for a while, I wanted to keep her close to the vest. She was really the only one that knew our secret and if I dispatched of her too quickly, she could bring this whole operation down. I did kind of like her too, so I didn’t mind bringing her to the dance, however we both agreed the office was off limits.

David was busy trying to convince me that this whole thing wasn’t a big deal at all. There were rumors of cocaine dealers in every fraternity on campus, and most of the rumors were probably true. Even though there were big players out there moving pretty solid weight none of them seemed to ever go down.

“Who would believe that our house mom is selling blow? It’s propostrous. All the Long Island jews are much more likely to be doing that shit, and they’re also selling molly, tree, probably ghb so they can get eachother laid, we’ll be fine.” He would say.

It was a ridiculous thought, and if one of the campus dealers were going to go down it would probably be someone who was doing it bigger and had been doing it longer. Another thing we had going for us was that no one else in the house knew what was going on. Most fraternity drug dealers started by dealing inside the house and then eventually started compromising their morals and going on the outside, by then everyone knew. But, no one except David and me knew what was going on here. Heck we didn’t even know how it worked, I knew here drugged out grandson was involved somehow. Maybe Irma’s target market would be the high school kids or townies.
20 frats on campus, at least one dealer in all of them, plus the dorms and the countless gdi’s all over town. Maybe this wasn’t that big of a deal. Plus, they never go after the small dealers, it’s about following it up. The entire police force would go broke if they chased around every guy that had sold a couple bags.

My favorite part of buying all the booze for the party was the fact that you had to act like a spy on the way back. The don’t ask, don’t tell policy with the police and greek boozing was to keep it out of sight. That said, if you parked in the lot in front of the house and just paraded alcohol inside for 10 minutes, they were likely to say something. A few years ago some cowboy cops started checking SUVs with Greek decals to see if they were riding low. If they were they would assume that there were a lot of cases in the back and pull the guys over for some bullshit like speeding or a tail light. Then once they saw the booze, it was over. For this reason we had to take a back way to the house and if we had a tail, lose it before we got home, then we would call ahead and have the courtyard opened, pull the vehicle inside and shut the courtyard gate, it’s like being the Jason Bourne of partying.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

And then there were none


Does anyone watch Gossip Girl anymore? I understand it isn't as good as season 1...but neither was O.C. season 3, yet it's still adequate, and everyone will miss it some day when it's gone. That's neither nor there, but I have been keeping up because I don't have a TV and it's one of the few shows I can stream on my laptop. (Believe me, last night when I hopped in bed with my laptop I was fully ready to watch some exploding zombies in the Walking Dead but AMC is getting all cunty and trying to get me to buy episodes on iTunes...the nerve.)

Anyway, a main character on the show, wrote this book and it burned all of his friends, really made them out to the terrible people that they are, selfish, conniving, irresponsible, apathetic. Slutty, beautiful, spoiled brats. Now I realize, that the fact that everyone on that show is a page 6 trust fund baby, it's kind of like the Kardashians and friends just set in New York. But it got me thinking, what if I just turned this into a no holds barred tell all about everyone's inadequacies and flaws, and really threw around the juicy gossip. Would people care what a bunch of upper middle class white kids from the midwest are up to? Who's fucking who under wraps and who is developing what drug problem, who is moonlighting as a Craigs List scam artist? Probably not...I'll stick with the social satire. It's more fun and I get to keep friends.

Now that I have that asinine diatribe out of the way, it's fucking HALLOWEEEEEEEEK. This means Michael Meyers movies all day every day! This means if you are a male or a girl that works out twice a day you can start gorging yourself with candy starting now...I'm just kidding, everyone can start doing that, as long as they are ok with the consequences of said actions. Halloween parties will probably start Wednesday, people are probably already freaking out about their lack of witty Halloween costume ideas. There are probably a stack of Friday and Saturday party invites for Facebook events that you can't decide between, just use some social strategy and maximize your potential, but just know that you can never hit more than two in a night, and you are going to hurt feelings, but fuck it, we're twentysomething not 12 and if you don't get invited to that scorned acquaintance's birthday party I think we'll all get through it together.

I am going as a Mormon from Book of Mormon. There you saw it here first. FUCKING DIBS. ELDER PRICE, THIS GUY ME. Haha, now if you are caught wearing a mormon costume, even if it was an original idea people will assume you jacked the idea from me and you will also be identified as one of my faithful followers...I'm not sure what kind of social stigma that carries but, ya.

Here comes my dilemma. Any other normal Halloween, I would dress up 3 nights, get hammered all three and marvel at the cleavage of the fairer sex. Sure the past few years I have woken up next to a Britney Spears, The Bride from Kill Bill and maybe a cop (Note: this was probably because I always hosted the Halloween parties and they would get out of hand and people would just stay over, I am no self-appointed Halloween stud or anything...speaking of that, is my old house having a Halloween party this year? That was our staple) anyway Halloween is fucking great. I like the decorations, the fog, the costumes (especially the tacky ones,) the scary shit all of it...but then comes the curveball, Homecoming.

UGHHGHHHHHHHHHHHHH...WHY WHY did these two fantastic events have to be concurrent. This should have been an excuse for two killer weekends, but now they are all crammed into one. Truth be told, I probably won't make it back for Homecoming this year, which makes me very sad. I missed homecoming last year to go to the Bahamas, and even though I had a fucking blast there and didn't get arrested at the border I still felt a little unfulfilled, and by the time Little 5 comes around in the Spring I'll be twenty fucking five, and know not a soul there. See that's the thing, everyone is convinced that by your mid 20's it's time to grow up and stop doing crazy shit like bongs of Vodka or beer showers in the courtyard. Apparently I didn't get the memo, but that's whatever, I'm not going to be able to change that. And I think it makes it even doubly pathetic to fly cross country for the event to go party in a college where I now officially know nobody. I guess my brother still goes there but he's barely enrolled, not even the pledges I would sparingly haze as a Senior are still around, and who knows who lives in Shingles, Shambles, Stout, Superfrat...probably a bunch of geeds.

But that's not the case at Homecoming. Homecoming is for fucking me, you, all of us. Come home alumni, and pretend if just for a day, that you are back. Then make a big donation and go home. Ok, I'm all in minus that last part. But it probably won't even happen for me. I've got a lot of shit to do at work this week, and I don't know if anyone is going back, and I just got here, and surely there should be some fun Halloween party to go to in LA. Or fuck it I could drive to Vegas, I'm sure shit there is popping off.

What about your last minute travel arrangements you say? Hotels are booked, flights are probably expensive. Fuck that, I have my parents' credit card information and I'm feeling spontaneous. And honestly what's the worst case scenario, I end up hanging out with my old roommates' younger brother and crashing in the formal. I'm sure all the recent 2011 grads will be there, they rock.

Really, if I can be brutally honest with you, the only thing holding me back right now is my absolutely fantastic Halloween costume idea. I have a feeling if I spend the week at Homecoming I would be too obsessed with the idea of raging and/or chasing around a sorority girl in a Katy Perry costume that I will end up never getting the glory my costume deserves. Ridiculous, I know. But also shouldn't a trip back to the midwest be more substantial than going to Bloomington. I mean really it should be pretty low on the list. I haven't been to New York in 9 months, I could go visit my friends in Chicago, I could see my cat in Indianapolis. I could go somewhere new and fun like Austin. Really Bloomington should be pretty fucking low on the list. I'm old, I'm that guy, it's beginning to get a bit pathetic, I can always go to the Oaken Bucket game over Thanksgiving. That should make up for it...well it will be better than last year when I fell off the stage at Bear's and spent the entire tailgate in the trunk of my mom's trailblazer.

Ya, that's right Bloomington, you're boxed out for the time being, there are more important things to do, maybe spend that money on a bed for my room here, and stop sleeping on a mat. Maybe I could just spend that $300 on ballin in LA this weekend, and just do Halloween right. Or maybe after Softball on Thursday night, I order one too many Hennepins at Third Stop, get back to the Versailles chuck a few shopping carts off the roof, crack a few loko and then start surfing the most dangerous app ever created, kayak mobile. I book a flight to Chicago, I rage all night Friday, I convince someone at Beaumont's at 4am to take me to Bloomington in 3 hours. I sleep the whole way and have one more epic bender of a homecoming. Make it back to Indy Sunday afternoon, see all the people I need to see, eat one of my dad's steaks and take the 6am non-stop flight back to LA Monday morning arriving at 830am local time. Go to work on no rest, and then don my book of Mormon costume Monday, October 31st and wish this city a Happy fucking Halloween.

November 1st will be a rough day.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Killing in the name of

Workaholics is one of those shows that everyone looks at and says "Dammit, why didn't I think of that. Me and my friends are just as despicable as them...but funnier! And we drink more! And like God dammit! I totally wrote a pilot for this when I was in the frat!"

Ok, maybe that's just me and other fame craving industry wannabe's hopped up on stimulants arguing about the next great Gen Y sitcom. I admit, I watched the first season begrudgingly and thought about how much better I could make it. But then I finally gave in and realized that I can't bitch about these idiots getting famous when I don't even try. Now that I have come to terms with this I am really enjoying season 2 (and the guys are great by the way, I saw them at Cut Copy chugging whiskey and I'm fairly certain one of them had a oney)

Anyway, there was an episode a while back about how anything that is paid for by tax payer money is partially theirs. Using this sound logic they steal a wooden dragon from a children's playground at a public park. So I get to thinking, I pay my taxes, I should start claiming communal property for personal use, but I don't know how my lesbionic roommates would feel about me bringing home a jungle gym to our back yard (ever since they got rid of our awesome trampoline I am under the impression that they are allergic to fun)

Side note: I feel like I can pretty much have free reign to make fun of Lesbians, because I don't know any. Furthermore, I would argue that the Lesbian sub-culture is vastly different than the gay culture. Gay guys can roll with the "in-crowd" and be horrible, judgmental, mean people in their own right just like a straight person could be. In fact being gay is pretty much mainstream by now, everyone has a ton of gay friends...but how many yuppie cliques have a designated dyke...think about it. /endrant

So while I was brainstorming how to put this 'I own pretty much everything' principle to use I caught word that Gaddafi had been killed. Firebombed by NATO then shot to death in a sewage pipe with his son by Libyan rebels...fuck ya America! And while I can't take full responsibility for the doings of NATO, I'm sure at least one of those nickels I have spent on an aluminum beer can deposit has gone to NATO. Therefore I am a co-financier of high profile assassinations. And so are you! Some meated out SEAL team 6 badass may have pulled the trigger, but do you know who bought that bullet that tore into Osama's right orbital bone? You did. Our Grandparents paid for the Manhattan Project. Anything badass the American Government has done over the past 25 years we have all been a part of (except my main man Wesley Snipes, pay your taxes brah)

You don't necessarily have to be on board with all of this, but then you would have to abstain from owning land and purchasing anything, or having a job...you can't get around supporting badass American espionage, suck it you liberal hippies! Even like the biggest military failure in American history, The Bay of Pigs, 4 Americans died...compared to 176 Cubans...ya Fidel Castro is still alive all these years later, but that's a pretty disparaging difference, all international conflicts should play by the rules of team slayer in my opinion. (Halo joke #nerdmoves)

The moral of this story is military coups are awesome, government ordered assassinations are the tits and we are a part of all of this. How many bad guys has the American government killed since I was born, Probably over a million and there hasn't even been a significant war. Call me an accessory to bitches. Next time I am in a job interview you will see something new on my resume, "Co-financer to the destruction of the non-westernized world." It should at least be an interesting talking point.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Party like a frotstar

The title is completely unrelated, I'm not going to go on a rant about the gay community in LA or how their AIDS walk forced me to sit in traffic all day while I was trying to pick up beer for football viewing...but just Wikipedia the word "frot" I assure you it is the most hilarious entry on the site.

Now that we are in the full swing of Autumn, I thought I would put together a little checklist of sorts. Lots of my time at the Booze News back in the day focused on compiling witty top 10 lists and what not, something that I have gone away from in recent years. However, since you all have the attention span of an ADHD preteen, I've put together a nice easy list of the ten things you need to accomplish before December 21st.

10. Go to a tailgate. Bonus points if you go somewhere other than your alma mater. I realize that many of you moved away from your comfortable hometown and that a trip back to college just to get fucked up is quite low on your vacation list. But really, you needn't leave most major cities to find a D1 football team, a field, and a group of people to go get hammered with. You don't even have to go to the game, just drink outside in a parking lot or some shit. Chicago folk, go check out a Wildcats game and crush some Buff Joe's in Evanston before you head back. DC kids, go to a Georgetown game, New York...I don't know if they have college football in New York...maybe try taking the LIRR to Hofstra...maybe just skip to item 9.

9. Road trip. For whatever reason, fall is always the best time to take an impromptu road trip. Take a few days off and do something spontaneous. Maybe drive 4 hours to a cool concert with 4 friends, go to an away football game, Vegas, just get in the car and fucking drive, throw a dart at a map, break up the monotony of 55 degree weather and falling leaves. Go camping or some shit, be creative. Double x point multiplier if you combine this with item #10.

8. Plan and throw an awesome party. People tend to get a little lazy this time of year. The summer was so fun and exciting, day drinking, Sunday drinking, MIDWEEK BARBECUES! Now that it's not summer anymore and the sun sets early there isn't a whole lot to look forward to except an 0-16 Colts season and another 70 feet of snow. Even out here in LA, you can see it on everyone's face...I wish it was still July and the assistants were working summer hours. You know how to change that attitude? Throw a fucking bash. Invite 200 people on Facebook, spend over $100 on alcohol and decorations and hype it up for weeks in advance. If you are going to entertain just one time this year, go all in and make sure it's worthy of talk for the next 52 weeks.

7. Go to a hockey game. NHL games are fucking sweet, if you are in a town with an NHL franchise, check it out. I would suggest maybe coordinating this with some sort of party bus to and from the venue. If you have never spent time in Chicago you may not be familiar with party trolleys but I can assure you almost every major metro in the country has party busses that will drive you around for a few hours letting you get hammered and then giving you a ride home at the end of the night...safety first.

6. Haunted House. They are sweet, get a big group together you won't regret it. You can also go to an amusement park that does the whole Halloween theme. Roller coasters = awesome, Halloween = amazing. Haunted roller coasters with a bunch of scantily clad chicks in Katy Perry costumes revealing too much cleavage = for the fucking win.

5. Faux Thanksgiving dinner. Thanksgiving is a badass holiday. Black Wednesday, the actual feast, even the door buster specials can have merit. What can be painful is spending a forced 72 hours with extended family and hoping for no one to have a meltdown...remove that element, add your best friends and an unlimited supply of booze sounds like a great thing to do a week before the actual holiday...also there is nothing more badass than grilling up a 20 pound bird.

4. Do a bar crawl. Unfortunately Beadquest and TBOX are months and months away...but this doesn't mean you can't organize your own sweet bar crawl. Local bars may be setting them up centered around Halloween, but those are always gay. What I reccommend is... find the person who planned your Senior Fraternity/Sorority bar crawl and make that shit happen again. Costumes are acceptable, tshirts are encouraged, blacking out before 4 pm is required.

3. Read a book. I know it sounds shitty but it's way better than throwing in a horseshoe and playing NHL 2012 all night. Plus you sound so much more intelligent/appealing to the opposite sex when you can intelligently talk about the millennium trilogy or point out on a date that the trailer for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is actually based on a book about the aftermath of 9/11. I'm looking out for you readers, always have a trendy novel on you at all times, you never know what kind of convo it will strike up.

2. Go home for the Holidays. Going home for the holidays is great, it means you're off work, reunited with your old gang and hijinks is sure to ensue. There is nothing more I look forward to than going to back to Broad Ripple in November and December and taking $50 cab rides to Geist at 4 in the morning after a 4000 calorie burrito.

1. Don't let the fun die. I really hated school until I was about 17. Thus I hated the fall, I resented that baseball season was over, that I had 3 hour soccer practices, followed by a 2 hour basketball practice and then that shifted to 4 hour football practices and I would never do my homework and I would have nightmares about telling my parents about my bad report card, but then I would wake up and realize I still had to get it signed before I left for school and OMG IT WAS FUCKING HELL.

...But then I turned 18 rose to social dominance and entered a scholastic program that didn't reward idiots who tried hard, but smart slackers (Marketing, no homework, common sense, still get to say SPEA to all those inferior folk) Fall is the shit. The weather is mild, Oktoberfest is by far the best of the seasonal beers, Football gives you reasons to drink on Sunday and Monday nights and you get to fill your social agenda with the previous 9 things. Hoodies, jeans, sweaters, vests, SWEATER VESTS, it's great. So just because the sun sets at 5 or pontoon season is over, don't you fret. Fortunately the bar hours don't vary by season and if you have a few more layers to peel off that person you bring home at the end of the night, it should just build that much more anticipation.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Happy Jew Year

Many people may think that I have anti-semitic tendencies. And I assume that's fair. In the past I wanted to be a rapper named Aryan, for about 20 minutes I considered getting WASP tattooed on my shoulder, and I haven't always been the most understanding with the sons and daughters of Abraham. I think it all boils down to miscommunication and Hollywood stereotypes though.

As someone from Indianapolis, this is how it worked. You were either Protestant or Catholic, your parents were still married, and self loathing was definitely not stylish. I met my first Jewish person at the ripe age of 16, and I think by this point Hollywood stereotypes had taught me that anyone of Jewish descent was unathletic, had curly black sideburns and talked like there was a clothespin on their nose, and this stereotype probably rings true sometimes, but probably no more often than it does in any subsection of people. The truth is, I knew nothing about people of this faith, and I think that I passively learn to dislike anything that I don't understand, so that was that...that's how I used to feel, if you ever felt wronged by an off color joke I made or a hasty generalization about long island sluts going to SPAWTS and sucking black dude's dicks, please understand that was an attack on West Hempstead and not on your religion...

Because I was fucking wrong.

Jews are the shit. They really have it figured out. At the age of 9, I was pretty damn sure I was going pro in 3 sports. No one told me that it would never happen, everyone just encouraged me like it was a completely rational plan of attack for me. Meanwhile, the Drew Rosenhaus' of the world were busy befriending all the really good athletes and not wasting their time on JV. Or the fat unathletic Seth Rogens were perfecting their comedy or the thousands of bankers with names ending in stein and berg were doing multiplication tables or some shit, just getting a leg up on me.

Haters gonna hate, and I think that's all anti-semites really are. A bunch of haters, oh look at those people with better jobs than me, that went to better colleges, that have bigger trust funds...it's just jealousy. They are thinking how can nerdy little Frankie Horowitz have a hotter wife than I do? He either has a 16 inch cock or he is making 7 figures working at Goldman (which his father probably partially owns.)

Bringing me to my next point, nepotism. Nepotism is the fucking shit. You know who is impressed by "I came from nothing" stories? Fucking no one. Because the other people that "came from nothing" and made something of themselves are like, big fucking deal, so did I. The people that had their success handed to them on a silver platter are like "fuck you new money, go back to Brooklyn where you came from" and people that came from nothing and are still there can't afford internet to read about the inspirational story. Really, life is a crap shoot. If you are born into privilege you should never apologize for it. Every other human in the world had just as good a chance as you did of being born rich, they just weren't. And if your dad is going to get his golf buddies to write a letter of recommendation to get you a job that you don't deserve, you have my full endorsement because that is just how shit shakes down. My dad doesn't even play golf, or have the means to get me any sort of power job, but if he did I would totally let him flex his muscle for me. You know the people that talk behind your back "the only reason he got that job was because of who is dad is" ya those are the motherfuckers that didn't get the job and now work at the bar at Chili's on Tuesday nights.

Basically, I had this realization that Jews kind of stand for (almost) everything I believe in. (Except for the schlubby non-cocky non-agressive attitude, we need to work on that) They're rich, they're smart, they're well connected and oh ya, they fucking rage.

Think back to college, who did all the drugs? I'm sure everyone had a buddy in AEPi they would call if they were in a crunch for pot (among other things) if your dealer isn't black he's probably Jewish, the guy who is responsible for the overdose of...nevermind. They get fucked up, go out and spend all their parents money. And the best part is they don't judge you for any of your vices. I promise if you get caught having a blacked out cigarette at 3 in the morning, a Jewish girl probably won't give you shit for it. Really most of them came to college in the Midwest for that exact reason, to party. It's easy, it's easy to get into, and we can party really hard far away from our parents for 4 years.

Perfect example. Last weekend was Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashana and it's like some sort of feel bad for your sins and then it's new year. Whatever, everyone fasts for 24 hours. And then get's extremely drunk on an empty stomach (this could be an LA only rule since those over size 2 are ostracized...I'm sure food usually is involved) but anyway. Everyone gets really drunk and then there is some sort of honey and bread combination, fucking genius. I could eat that shit every single day.

Maybe Sammy Davis Jr. and Amare Stoudamire were onto something. Maybe being Jewish kinda rocks. Everyone was obsessed with Seth not Ryan in the O.C. Natalie Portman is America's sweetheart even after she had a bastard child. I hope this heartfelt apology can make up for my past ignorance, and I cheers you all to a sweet new year.

Friday, October 7, 2011

American Horror Story

First of all, if the rights to the title "American Whore Story" are still available, I would like to pick those up immediately. I'm sure that will make for quite the porn parody.

As I was watching the new FX show featuring a masturbating maid and Dylan McDermott's ass I found myself thinking, this is cool and shit, but the title of the show should be American Haunted House. The generic title American Horror Story indicates that this is the classic tale of horror in America. I would argue that most people aren't really afraid of retarded kids and ghosts. They have much more real fears like collections agencies and child support payments. If you think about it American Horror Story would have been an extremely clever title about the collapse of the U.S. economy. This is what real Americans fear, losing their jobs, their homes, sending their kids to public schools. In fact I could probably decide right now that I'm going to write a really smart piece on what scares us as Americans, but I don't think that would interest my predominantly upper middle class twenty something readership.

At the top of the list of worries for many 24 year olds worldwide are "will I have safe working conditions in the mine today" or "will my village get clean drinking water." That's not an American horror story though, that's third world problems...or West Virginia problems. Most gen y'ers meanwhile are worried about whether their dealer will pick up at 3 am or if they are going to be able to marry a doctor or lawyer before they turn 26. Everyone lives within their own microscopic universe of which they are their own center, which is totally fine, selfishness is your best virtue. If you're not going to get yours who is supposed to get it for you.

But think about it, what are you really scared of? Fear of rejection? The bar turning on the lights before you can close with that cute brunette? Failing to perform once you get back to her place? You could write American Horror Story as a sitcom that overdramatizes a bunch of white person problems and the hijinks that ensue while trying to solve them.

In the grand scheme of things it just isn't that big of a deal. When I think back to all the "shitty things" that have happened to me in the past year, they are all pretty laughable. My problems just don't fucking matter, and the shit that I'm scared of is probably some repressed undiagnosed social anxiety disorder that I can only kick after an agressive pre-game and some superlative compliments from my friends to get me going. But at the end of the day, my American horror story is taking a nap on a Friday night and waking up at like 2 am and missing the night. Seriously, I use a night light not because I am afraid of the dark, but because I am afraid of being too comfortable and missing out. Fomo is and always will be my biggest fear, and that's what we're all really afraid of. Because like death, tonight is the great unknown, you may have a loose idea about what it's going to be like, but until you show up it's a mystery. So cheers to the adventure and the means to buy cases of smart water. It's your life, live it without fear.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Life Insurance

This morning at 3, I woke up on a couch after a night of curbstomping the competition in trivia. Realizing that I hadn't slept at my actual house in a week I decided to drive back home to sleep for a few more hours. On the way home I listened to Mike and Mike (East coast feed it was 6am) on one of the commercial breaks there was a touching story about Lamar Odom. The story goes that he was raised by his single mom who was a prison guard blah blah blah she dies when he is 12 and he gets a massive paycheck because she had life insurance. Then he talks about how since he had life insurance he had the option to go play college ball before eventually going pro because there was plenty of money left to cover his expenses. (The commercial doesn't touch on the scandal where he accepted thousands from a booster) but anyway, he goes on to marry a threat level III humanoid and pops out 2 inter racial babies all because of the miracle of life insurance.

Ok so that recap was slanted towards my agenda. And although I assure you that Lamar Odom's Kardashian offspring with Nessy (The Monster of the Loch) will have plenty of reality tv money should he unexpectedly pass, I understand the value of a 32 year old man with 2 kids taking out a policy.

Moving on. The economy is in the shitter, but any smooth looking upper middle class male of any intelligence probably thought that his future was in finance. He took those accounting classes and studied hard in F305 thinking that he was going to be the next guy on Wall Street...and do you know what happened to all of these guys when they graduated? Oh you know this guy, you were kinda friends in college and they hit you up for some sort of networking meeting. You weren't sure if it was just a lunch or if they needed something...

Well let me tell you exactly what they are going to do...try to sell you insurance.

First of all, why the fuck do I need insurance? I am responsible for no one. If I go on a 1000 mg adderall bender and my heart stops, first person to call dibs gets my Xbox and collection of polos. Like honestly what the fuck do they train these kids at Northwest Mutual to say...

Trainer: So basically call all your friends and make them buy insurance from you, and if they won't buy any from you make sure they give you the names and numbers of 5 more people that you can pester.

Trainee: Excuse me sir, this is probably a stupend question...but why does a 23 year old single need life insurance.

Trainer: EVERYONE NEEDS INSURANCE.

But seriously, the best part is they sell you this thing called term insurance, which means if you die in the next 10 years it pays out and if you live, you're just out a few thousand dollars. In effect you are betting on yourself to die, and they are betting on you to live...pretty fucking morbid. I really can't imagine what goes through the head of someone who is about to call an old high school chum and say "Hey man, I passed my series 66! Want to buy some annuities?"

Not that there is anything wrong with actual investment managers, my dad does it, lots of really smart dudes do it. But they have a series 7 and at least have a strategy of growing your wealth. The business model is totally fucked, why make new hires target their friends to sell life insurance, what they really should be doing is spending their time at nursing homes, all the old people that have tons of money that they don't know what to do with. Not people like me who see an $80 monthly premium in 4 fifths of Jager that I won't be able to drink, it's a fucking joke.

Even if I did get life insurance and then got hit by a car while crossing Wilshire tomorrow, where would that money go? To my parents? So they could establish some sort of memorial fund in my name? Gay. I actually heard a very bad ass story about a marine who took a half million dollar policy out on himself before he went abroad. Sadly he dies, stipulated in his policy are that the beneficiaries must use the money to rage in Vegas hard for the next 10 years in his memory...now that, is what life insurance should be used for.

But I get it, it's a job right? Sometimes I begrugingly take these meetings because I feel so terrible for these guys. I've interned at an insurance firm, I've seen the daily morning meetings where they sold 0 policies and got 0 referrals. It's depressing, I literally would not be able to pull myself out of bed in the morning. I would rather work the drive thru at the McDonalds at 38th and College (maybe then I would need a life insurance policy)
And then asking me to sell out 5 of my friends, so you can go through this whole awkward song and dance with them, and then they forever hate me...Oh God, it's too much to handle. A word to the wise, if you give any of my info to some kid who works at a shitty Mass Mutual subsidiary, I will find you and stab you in the achilles.

In closing, if you ever go into an interview and are given a piece of paper to fill out 100 "potential prospects" walk out and call them Ponzi artists, you've seen Boiler Room, none of those fucks had a legitimate advisors license either, it's pretty much the same.

I realize that some companies provide life insurance for their employees, so if I name you as my beneficiary please take the 10 people I name in my will on the most epic adventure of a lifetime...in fact save a little bit to get all members of that excursion a policy too.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

So I guess this is growing up

I do this extremely weird and morbid thing where I set myself extremely low short term goals when I get excited about an upcoming event. Any by low short term goal, I mean the goal is usually maintain a pulse and my civillian freedom until that event occurs.

At my old job I often set the goal not to get fired before the following Friday, a goal I accomplished 104 out of 105 tries...only in corporate America would a success rate over 99% be considered an overall failure. Perhaps I aim my sights a little too low too often, but I saw the movie 50/50 last night and there is a scene where a hysterical (the sad kind not the funny) JGL calls his therapist and cries about how if he dies in surgery tomorrow he will have never been to Canada or told a girl he loves her...and I've done both those things so I'm doing just fine, and I don't have life threatening surgery for tomorrow. So my goal for the rest of the week is to stay alive and out of jail until Saturday because Blink 182 is playing the Hollywood Bowl.

Fuck yes! It's amazing how little has changed in the past 10 years, well for me at least. I'm a new person in a strange place (high school/California) the economy is shit, and my sole ambition is to make it to the weekend so I can rage with a bunch of teenagers at a Blink show.

Sure the motivation has changed, this time I will be blind drunk, I'll presumably be surrounded by 30 somethings and their young kids, causing an absolute scene, tripping over chairs and ultimately being removed, but fuck it. That music takes me back to a simpler time, backyard football, disabling home alarms in order to sneak out to meet girls and have makeout parties and riding bikes around the neighborhood, so excuse me if I want to spend my entire Saturday doing the same shit a decade later. Not worrying about protocol on whether or not to text that person you met over the weekend, whether or not you can afford next weekend's trip to vegas, simply worrying if you can sneak a small water bottle of your parents' liquor into the show and if finding a ride to and from will be an issue.

It's amazing how as you grow (most) people develop a filter. They understand when and with whom certain topics are appropriate. Courtesy and tact also develop during this maturation process. I would argue that I kind of miss the brutal honesty that comes along with being a kid. You only invited your friends to things, not worrying about the fallout from excluding a certain crowd and you would call anyone a cunt without fear of violating some social norm. It was the epitome of "not giving a fuck." It feels like socializing at this point is some stupid game that everyone has to play in order to win. I try to add some chaos to the situation and speak my mind most of the time, usually I get some sort of free pass for an unknown reason, but I like trying to turn the social climbing idea on its head from time to time and finding out what happens.

Back in the day you could become popular if you had one of the cool parents who would buy the parental advisory copy of Enema of the State and buy your tickets to American Pie, now it's all about your perceived value to others. I probably can't get you a job out in L.A. The most famous person I know in the industry would be a tie between a guy who had a guest spot in the tv spin off 10 things I hate about you and a guy who was 4th billed in a movie about saving some stupid fucking owls. That said, if I can survive the next 5 days, not get locked up for failing to register my vehicle in California and no family emergency beckons me to the midwest, I will be having the time of my fucking life on Saturday night and that's really all that matters.