Tuesday, November 29, 2011

DW-why?

People that have been reading since the Chicago days will remember I wrote a segment about party trolleys, which are essentially party buses with some character. Over the Thanksgiving weekend I took two separate party buses to and from Bloomington for the IU Purdue game, and even though one of these buses broke down on the way back to Indianapolis Saturday night (stranding me briefly in a ditch off of 37) I still considered the experience a success. So in honor of my favorite method of transportation I thought I would put together a top 10 list of why party buses are awesome and should be implemented into your event whenever possible.

10. DUI's are real. If you are anything like me, if you are going to any sort of exciting event you are going to drink heavily. And outside a mormon friend or a willing to please girlfriend, everyone in your party wants to do the same. And while it would be possible to elect someone to be the designated driver, that fucking blows for that guy, and what if they suddenly have a change of heart halfway through? Ohhhh but we'll pay for the gas, and we'll buy you pot for driving us...not enough. You may as well tell this guy, fuck you, you're a marginal friend and we're using you for transportation, you should just be happy we're letting you hang out. Party bus solves this problem, and everyone gets to have a good time.

9. Fuck cabs. SERIOUSLY FUCK CABS. WHo do these motherfuckers think they are? You can't squeeze four in the back? Your credit card reader is broken? You have the audacity to ask for a tip after you charge me $10 to drive me a mile? Cabs are cramped, awkward and you know these anti-american fucks are selling your iPhones on ebay after you drunkenly leave them in the back. Go bark in Swahili to your boys in Egypt on your own time, because I'll be on this comfortable coach bus taking pulls of whiskey while you take advantage of another group of drunk white kids.

8. Mobile pregame. Have you ever been on a fun road trip en route to some cool event and thought, "wow you know what would be great? If we could start boozing legally and not worry about having to pull over every 10 minutes for bathroom stops." BOOOOOM! Problem fucking solved. Even if your bus doesn't have a toilet, we've all been in the back of a school bus and peed into a water bottle and tossed it out the window...right?

7. Cost Effective. We haven't gotten to the modern luxuries of the 21st century party bus, but let me drop some math on you homey. Have you ever cabbed it to the airport in a major city? Chicago, New York, Los Angeles. It is $40 minimum. I can't imagine how much it would be to take that same cab to a concert venue in the boonies, but regardless it will suck massive amounts of cock. Sure a party bus costs $900 but when you get 45 people to split that, it's $20. You probably couldn't even drive sober to your destination on that much gas. And instead of worrying about driving, drinking, parking, you just worry about picking up a case of beer and boarding.

6. 45 fucking people. That is a party! Most pregames are like 20 people, and that's cool it's an intimate setting to get hammered and plant seeds with the chick you want to take home. It's also an economical way to intoxicate oneself prior to spending upwards of $150 at the bar. But when you get a party bus, things get knocked up to a new level. People view a party bus as a special event and usually rage extra hard. Probably to make up for all those stressful cab rides when they couldn't bounce all over the place taking beer bongs and rumplemintz shots.

5. No seatbelts. Party buses come in all shapes and sizes, but usually you have free reign over the entire vehicle as long as you don't get too out of control. This means dance parties in the aisles, moving around sections of the bus to talk to different groups of people. You could actually host an around the world party on a bus, with each quadrant of the bus having different specialty drinks. In fact, for the Big Ten bar crawl, each row of the bus could represent a school with different campus cocktails...I like where this is going.

4. To properly party you must stand. Most people sit all fucking day, doing data entry and when you sit, you are lethargic, when you sit you get tired, when you stand you are properly poised to RAGE. Think about all the cool drinking games, you stand. The sitting drinking games were the bullshit you played in high school because they were quiet and the parents wouldn't come downstairs. Have you ever done beer jousting? It's like regular jousting except with beer cans instead of lances. Ok Cool. Have you ever beer jousted while driving 70 mph down the PCH? Ya, didn't think so.

3. Pre-emptive win. When you see the army that shows up on the party bus arrive at the event. It is clear they have already won. They are having more fun than you. Oh, you had a few drinks at your house before the thing and then had your mom drop you off? These guys have puke stains on the side of the bus and 3 of the girls are already passed out in the back. They went hard, and will continue to experience this intense comradarie all day, you will not be able to break into their exclusive circle of awesome...unless you arrive on the same bus.

2. Bar crawl is over...now what? Well you either board the bus and continue the party...or you call a cab and wait 30 minutes? Try to drive home and end up in jail? Get a hotel near where the event was? Call a sober friend? Basically you are going to wait around and sadly watch the bus disembark and wish you were on their raging with the A team.

1. Because it's fucking awesome. Whether you find a way to bang a chick in the back of the bus, convince someone to actually use the stripper poll or use the abundance of room to take a nap on the way back to your place so you can rally later that night, everything about a party bus is far superior to everything not party bus. They are always full of debauchery, sleazy encounters with the opposite sex, lots of spilling of liquids and guaranteed memories. You ever see a facebook album of pictures taken on a party bus? Ya, you look on with envy because they are having such a rocking good time. Remember, a party is always better when you are moving.

I hope to see all you left coasters in Hermosa on Saturday and if we go way back but I don't recognize you, it's because I got a one hour head start on you and entered my blackout a little early, it happens, but at least I'm partying responsibly.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Thanksgiving stuff-ing

My mom visited me in LA last week, and while I'm sure you want to hear all about our Mother/Son bonding I just wanted to throw this out as an excuse for why I didn't post anything. We did do some cool shit though, I've decided that the best way to explore your city is to have someone come visit you for an extended period of time. Think about all the stuff you never do in the city you live in because you are like, "eh, I'll go some other day" and you never go. Visitors bring this out in you, there is a ton of great stuff in Chicago that I never saw because I was content to go drink at Bull and Bear on a Saturday at 9 am instead of perhaps the Chicago architectural river cruise. But whatever, that's neither here nor there, come to LA I'll show you some cool shit. I'm V.I.P. at the Laugh Factory now because of work, I had front row tickets to Tosh on Thursday (big deal alert.)

This morning I woke up and thought, "Holy shit, it's Thanksgiving week. I have a flight to Chicago tomorrow. Nice." Now I felt those emotions for a variety of reasons.

Reason A. I still get a huge thrill out of flying. I am like that poor scholarship kid you flew to interviews with in college that had never been on a plane before. I don't know why, I hate driving, traffic and delays...all or some of these are always present at airports, but that is always overshadowed by the sense of looming adventure. Almost every good trip starts out at an airport (roadtrips exempt) Whether you are slamming drinks waiting for your flight to Vegas, reading about an Italian winery you are about to visit or just deciding what magazine you are going to read or what in flight movie you may have, all provide excitement. So ya, I'm that guy that talks to strangers at the airport bar, and foursquare checks in to make everyone jealous that I'm going somewhere, but it's not because I'm a pretentious dickhead, I'm just genuinely pumped to be going.

Reason B. Chicago, Indy, St. Louis, Bloomington, LA. Those are my next 7 days...it's going to be an epic bender.

Now in the past, I have written about how amazing black Wednesday is, and maybe it's overrated and maybe I have this morphed sense of how excited people will be to see me back in town. I'm prepared to field a ton of questions about L.A. and blah blah but there really is no better feeling than coming home. You need to leave to realize the little things that you take for granted. There will always be a minimum of 5 cartons of cottage cheese at my parents' house and probably a 4 pack of rockstar and if I can't find someone to go home with at 3 in the morning and I don't have $200 cash to cab it to Geist (slight exaggeration) my mom or brother will pick me up, now that's what home is to me.

So why is a week in the midwest so great in late November? Well it's not. It's probably going to be miserably cold, rain a lot and I'll be ready to come back ten minutes after arriving. That said, this is like the one week in late fall that people will man up, brave the elements and roll to a bar to get fucked up. Everyone you went to high school with will be there, some of them will be married now or want to talk about their kids which is disgusting...

Sidebar: I'm sure there are people my age right now trying to find a babysitter for Wednesday night, so they can "go out and party with the old gang." Listen to me. It's not the same, it was different after you got married, it's even weirder now that you have a kid. If you really want to somehow celebrate the night go out to a nice dinner and order a bottle of wine, I don't need you judging me because you overheard me ask my brother's friends if he has an extra Adderall I can eat. Being married early doesn't make you more adult or better than anyone else. /endrant

Where were we...ripping shots in Ripple and walking to Usual? Wonderful, sounds like an excellent night, and what's even better than all the scandalous hook-ups that go down on Wednesday it is the collective hangover everyone will feel Wednesday. Honestly, who thought to themselves...you know what this holiday about eating and drinking needs? A MASSIVE HANGOVER. It was probably some skinny bitch who was like we should all go out and rage the night before Thanksgiving so once we gorge ourselves with carbs and meat we can just puke that shit up and go to bed. Whatever, you will get no complaints from me...the only problem I have is that usually I have to get up and drive 4.5 hours on Thursday morning and my parents want to "talk to me" because they haven't seen me in a while. No thanks 'rents, back seat, shades and angry birds for me.

However, I am probably not going to St. Louis this year because of last minute changes. It looks as if I'll be in Indy the whole time, so if someone is short on their turkey bowl roster, hit me up.

After seeing probably 3 movies and spending way too much time at the bar in Brothers, Saturday will gloriously arrive and I will go down to IU for the bucket. I've done my fair share of tailgating this year, but nothing will ever compare to a nice game of handle toss in the fields or the jubilant walk to Kilroys after the game starts. I'm so fucking excited for that and 12 long islands and some buff chick dillas. I don't even know if I'll stay the night or weasel my way into a car heading back north, but I don't even care because it's going to be a celebration of epic proportions.

Great. I've worked myself up into such a frenzy, that I won't be able to sleep tonight. I have a xanax but if I take it, I may miss my shuttle and then I'll be sad and depressed. Cold weather be damned, I am excited to see family and friends and eat like a fucking king and drink like a recovering alcoholic for 6 days. And maybe if I get lucky Wednesday night, there will even be some Thanksgiving stuffing.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Levels of Scary Monsters and Ghosts

Yep as of this evening I will be downloading garage band and locking myself in a hotel room in Venice until I have created a suitable mixtape to drop on some hipster internet music station. I will then let my hair grow impossibly long and wait for the phone to ring offering me 10 grand to play a sold out club in Los Angeles. Followng next will be my tour that sells out the venues across largest cities and campuses in America, watching my adoring fans sweat and roll on ecstasy while I simply press play.

I offer no indictment of the electronic dance music scene, and by no means do I think I provide any original thought by saying that it is easy. For every Skrillex, Avicii and Deadmau5 there are probably 1000 little Scandanavian kids putting out similarly dope beats, yet they are still working at their parents' bakery. I love the genre, I think there is nothing better than jumping around at a dark night club entranced by thumping bass and pretty lights.

I rarely discuss music on this blog because I know relatively little about it. I have 17 OAR cds in my car, one Strokes (hipster cred, I was totally playing Is This It in 2002) and I usually listen to AM radio. And while I do attend a ton of shows especially now in Los Angeles, I am almost always there for the party. A true music lover would go to a show sober solo and still have an outstanding time, yet I didn't even possess the courage to go see Blink 182 by myself at the Hollywood Bowl when they came just a month ago. (What happened to 90's nostalgia? I couldn't even convince anyone at RentaFriend to go with me.)

So while I sit here discussing the EDM nonsense, I don't understand the progression of chords or how to manage the interface of Pro Tools, I do believe that it is one of the most interesting sub cultures in society right now. People are often asking what is the "next big thing" in music. In the 90's it was boy bands, in the early 2000's there was a failed push to return to form with the classic rock band, the jam band thing in its current iteration has arguably been looming for 20 years, but this is really the first time a generation has adopted a theme song.

Why? Is it really that Gen Y doesn't care about lyrical storytelling anymore? Watching live music produced at a concert? Or is it really just about the drugs, getting fucked up and bumping around like an idiot? The music is catchy, it is fun, it jacks me up during a pregame. If I'm at a bar and one of those popular songs comes on I can't help interacting with it in some way, even if it is just a subtle head nod.

When I think back to when I started hearing music similar to this, it was called techno or house, think back to earlyish Daft Punk or Alice DeeJay, but over the years the lines were blurred between techno and mainstream with a heavy influence of more bass and now there are all these 20 year old European kids literally engineering the next chart topper in their bedroom. The real question is are young kids going to stop asking for guitars for Christmas in exchange for a higher powered computer processor that can handle their new intense DJ music programs.

The big guys in this game make roughly $60,000 on a show I would guess and they almost undoubtedly sell out. It's a great business model really, have a bunch of venues set up your tour for you, pop in with your equipment, press a few buttons, put on the facade of having a good time, you're out of there in under 2 hours. Meanwhile the rock bands that we grow up with are playing county rib festivals and dive bars in Fort Wayne. Many pop artists have either adjusted their sound to fit more inside the edm sound, while others are planning straight up collaborations i.e. Elle Goulding and Bassnectar.

Final question, is it really about the music, or has a generation of kids just defined this as the new standard in partying? It seems that party drugs and pills have become this generations marijuana. Our parents' Woodstock is our Electric Forest. Just 5 years ago Lollapalooza featured a rap/rock heavy line-up, this year there were 3 headlining djs and you had to drag people away from the Perry's tent. Rap is even drifting hard to the electric dance medium. Perhaps its a shift in music, perhaps our generation will find any excuse to get fucked up. Whatever the case, it's not going anywhere for the forseeable future, leaving you with 2 options drink the Kool-aid (it is really fun) or lock yourself in a room and emerge when you have created something better.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Social Experimentation

I've been slightly busy the past week or so pursuing some worthy literary pursuits. I've been churning out shorts, trying to write a new script and doing copious rewrites on my coke story (it's starting to sound too much like someone took the LS and Len Bias stories and tried to cram it into a made for TV movie)

I've also been staying up until like 3 in the morning watching episodes of Grimm and Once Upon a Time...god they're awful, but awful in a train wreck kind of way where I can't stop watching. So amid watching bad tv, exercises in futility involving my own writing and a 27 page deposition about some Pennsylvania man that diddles kids, I haven't had much time for the blog.

However, I do have a little social experiment I would like to discuss with you. Over the weekend I had like 6 hours to kill after wiffle ball until a dinner with friends. The obvious choice would have been to pick up a 12 pack of beer, post up on the couch and watch college football all day. Ill content to waste my Saturday afternoon I decided to take a drive. I drove south for like an hour and ended up in this lovely little town called Manhattan Beach.

Manhattan Beach is everything I want from LA. It has the beach, everyone wears swimsuits, flip flops, shirts optional, campy spring breakesque bars, tan, flowing blonde hair (LA girls = pasty with black hair), piers with illegal immigrants fishing, surfers, stupid little beach shops (where everyone steals shotglasses and Zippos from on high school spring breaks) It was honestly like a less trashy Panama City. This is exactly what I wanted when I moved here. T-shirts, beach and boogie board shops on the boardwalk. Ever since I got here everyone was like "you would totally love Hermosa, or Manhattan Beach is so your scene." Perhaps I'm that easy to stereotype, perhaps those southern beach towns are just all the good parts of LA (or what I as a midwesterner perceive to be the good parts) without all the bullshit that sucks.

So I didn't have a real point there, but while I was walking down the beach I saw dozens of fire pits, and people having raging beach parties. YES! How have I been here 3 months and not been to a fucking beach party? We drink in hotel lobbies and listen to house DJs every night, weak...beach party for the win.

I got to thinking, wow, I could blow off this dinner...how do I make these people become my friends, hence the experiment that I now propose to you.

My scientific method is a little rusty but I believe you start out with some sort of question, or topic for your experiment. We'll call this, "Are people inclined to party with a stranger if that stranger brings something to the table."

Goal: Meet new friends, party (Any time I'm alone I always have this fantasy that someone will see me and be like, that kid looks like he wants to have a good time, "Hey man, want to come with us to the sickest most insane party ever and have the greatest night of your life?") This is probably repressed emotions from wanting to be included in the "in crowd" in middle school, nights I would lay by the phone praying it would ring with someone inviting me to do something.

Moving onto the hypothesis: I hypothesize that if I wandered up to a random beach bonfire with a 12 pack of beer, I would be accepted with open arms and have a good time.

Note: I considered 6 pack, but any time you take a 6 pack to a party it is very clear that I BROUGHT THESE 6 BEERS FOR ME, I AM GOING TO DRINK THEM ALL, it's really the bare minimum you can ever bring to an event, it's tacky to show up empty handed, at least bringing a 6 pack you give the notion that you aren't a mooch. Conversely, most people bring a sixer to give off the facade that they contributed, and then end up drinking 12 beers and half of the Goose that someone else brought. Bringing a 12 pack people are like, "What a guy, he brought some to share" immediately this person is offered shots. Always go with the 12 pack, it's not like you aren't going to drink 12 anyway.

Procedure: I figured I would walk along the beach until I saw a group of like minded people, I had a 12 pack of a decent beer...I didn't want my first impression to be High Life. Remember I'm hoping that not only am I granted a bonfire party pass, but I'm fiending for the invite to the house party they are heading to later (if such an after party exists.) Once I found a group that looked fun, I would muster up the courage to approach and say something along the lines of, "Hey guys I brought some beer and my friends bailed on me, anyone want to hang out?" At that point you would have to be a pretty cruel soul to say "eh, fuck off guy, this is our party, go drink over there by the trash can and the seagulls...it's possible, but unlikely. Then I will slowly unravel my life story for them, tell a few of my good stories, find a common bond and just like that I gain acceptance.

Experimentation: I was walking down the beach and there were beautiful food spreads. A soccer ball eventually made it to my feet. Hey, this could be the perfect parlay into hanging out, I'll ask to join this soccer game. I looked up and realized it was just a Mexican family, mother father and four boys...no thanks. Every step I took I began to doubt myself more and more. Honestly who just cruises up to an established party and says, hey man I brought my own booze...but at the same time, this is character building, I hear plenty of stories about people going out by themselves and just striking up conversation with their neighbors, this is what makes people interesting.

Finally I saw it, a group of twenty somethings throwing a football. A girl tripped backward and fell on her face, and then got up laughing maniacally. A couple bros did a beer bong. THIS IS IT, I thought. I'm just going to go up there and give it my best shot, perhaps challenge them to a shotgunning contest or something. (Note: A great way to gain favor among a bunch of drunks is to do some sort of alcohol achievement. I was at a Halloween party a couple weeks ago and only knew 1 person there and he was busy munching his girlfriends twat so I approached the keg and did like a 45 second keg stand. I was the most popular guy at the keg the rest of the night) After pacing back and forth like 30 times I finally approached the camp fire, casually cracked a beer and then asked one of the guys if he knew the score of the Alabama/LSU game. Then one of the girls approached and said how did you do that thing with the lighter when you opened your beer? Aha! I had done it, I wowed someone with an alcohol related accomplishment. I was just about to spring the question, hey my friends took off, you mind if I kick it with you guys for a bit...when a ATV cop came and shook me down.

Are you retarded? No glass on the beach.

Sorry sir, I'm from Indiana.

Yah well are you allowed to have glass on your Indiana beaches?

Sir, we have cornfields.

Get your glass out of here, now.

Conclusion: Cops are assholes, even in cool ass beach towns.

I didn't have it in me to return to my potential friends at the bonfire after making the walk of shame back to my car in the parking lot so I just got in and drove home for another average night partying in a hotel lobby. Seriously, you would think we were in high school with the amount of hotel partying we did. At least in high school though we were ripping shots and trying to see how blasted we could get and not drinking 20 dollar martinis and trying to gossip about our insider industry knowledge. Seriously people in LA don't even try to hit on the opposite sex when they are out, it's almost a battle to see who can have the most interesting conversation, who is the best bullshitter about the "next big thing" that they may or may not be working on.

Conclusion 2: Out here you hear a negative connotation in someone's voice when they discuss the campy bars like Cabo Cantina and Barney's Beanery, the bars near the beach that specialize in serving 2 for 1 64 ounce margaritas starting at 3pm on a Saturday, as if getting shitty at a bar on a Saturday is something you need to justify. I'll justify it by calling it fucking awesome, and while I'm recovering from my hangover on Sunday you can write all your friends back home and tell them about your lovely Saturday hike through the canyon with your girlfriend and how you're really psyched about how healthy you've been eating lately...the avocados they're just so fresh. Yah, well so is my fucking In N Out.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

The Art of Racing in the Reign


Pictured: Oh Cool, just like a week until I can watch this stupid fucking movie about little poor British children fighting aliens.


Sometimes I feel like I take things for granted. For example right now due to my Starbucksesque internet speed at home I have 4 hours remaining until my iTunes rental is done. I've read so much Brett Easton Ellis today that I am starting to feel like one of his hollow characters that embraces total moral apathy and I have consumed enough Shiraz that my teeth will probably be permanently stained purple. Furthermore, I spent the last 2 hours wandering around Westwood and playing Chutes and Ladders with a stranger at a bar while I tried to decipher if Clarissa, the bartender, was hitting on me or trying to enhance her tip. Maybe she was just really impressed with my knowledge of Gin Blossoms, Deep Blue Something and Nine Days. (I mean with that kind of playlist, it had to be an epic night, right?)

All I wanted to do though was lay on a couch somewhere and lord over the TV. It would have been nothing short of a lovely evening, I would have had some Modern Family, American Horror Story and South Park.

Side bar: Tonight's South Park was supposed to be about Occupy Wall Street. I have no idea what the fuck occupy Wall Street is. I think in my head I have it played out like a bunch of hippies just like hanging out on Wall Street. It's not a big street, it's like a little side alley that juts south off of some bigger street and dead ends at whatever body of water that is that separates Manhattan and Brooklyn. Is it just a bunch of pissed off unemployed people hanging out all day? Are they at least having fun? Perhaps bonfires at night? Have open liquor laws been suspended. Now it starts to sound a little more fun. What the fuck is the 99% am I the 99 or the 1? Is the 1% the people who benefit from shady banking tactics? Anyway I don't know what's going on, I watched a video where this chick tried to describe it and then she called herself a "female bodied person, because there are some female bodied people that identify as men and using the terms men and women is discriminatory to transgenders." I immediately lost interest. Now people are occupying everything. I think people should just occupy a bar, and deal with the things that they themselves can control, like their BAC. End sidebar.

Nevertheless, here I am drinking my wine out of my tacky orange plastic wine glass talking about the subtleties of moving to a new place. It's very exciting, but I feel like I should have read a book on the flight over here called "Fuck ya! I landed, now what?"

Chapter 1. Every new person you meet is an audition.
WHOOOOA man so LA, I used an industry term. Seriously, I feel like very few people actually cherish friendships. It probably takes some sort of life changing event such as an accident to realize how important they are. I am a miserable friend, I lose touch within 30 seconds of being away from a person. Most of you reading this probably haven't heard from me since I left, and it's shitty I'll try to do better. I haven't had to like ask a cool dude for his number in so long, it feels so awkward, and especially in LA I'm afraid they will think I'm asking them out or something. But whatever, this is how one adapts to a new place, you have to start somewhere...I probably would have been much better prepared for this had I not grown up in Indianapolis gone to Indiana University and then moved to frat north immediately after graduation. But seriously, I have completely lowered my standards when it comes to someone I would hang out with, I used to set the bar so high and now I'll go kick it with anyone with a pulse, it's sad really, I used to consider myself a premium product, now no matter how much someone sucks I have to make a good impression so I get positive Yelp reviews as a cool guy to go out with.

Chapter 2. Enjoy your thoughts
I spend every day talking to ethnic business owners and trying to convince them that frat dudes have way more money than gdi's so you should buy into the Greek system and like ya, everyone will start coming to your store because the frat guys are trendsetters and shit. (This is pretty close to my actual pitch) I have no shortage of personal interactions on a daily basis. It's not like I am a computer programmer who was transferred to Spokane and I have to Skype with my mom every night and have her hold up the cat so I can smile. But I spend a lot of time in the car, eating lunches alone and my thought wander a lot. It's cool because I have a fairly inventive imagination. Sometimes I write little short stories based on a funny thought I had, or sometimes I shoot out a tweet. But at the end of the day, my Sundays-Thursdays are very similar to probably 95% of Americans, I was just under the illusion that everyone would live with their 5 best friends in a house together hanging out every night until they all mutually decided to marry their girlfriends and move in with them. Not always the case, there is this phase where you see your friends like 3 times a week and then just "relax" on the off nights.

Chapter 3. Find a handful of hobbies
Thank God I like to read and write and movies and sports, because I kind of loath being bored. Some people nap, I can't do that. Some people take Tylenol PM and go to bed at like 8pm, not my style (but, in cases I've wanted to do that I've realized Charles Shaw is much cheaper than name brand Nyquil) Maybe I'll get into cooking, or perhaps I should take some improv classes, or join a club because I just hate inactivity.

Maybe I need a dog, that would probably be a disaster, a cat? Eh, people already question my sexuality enough as is for my love of Glee and broadway.

Beta fish it is...my last beta fish was eaten by one of my roommates when I was away. Fortunately, we aren't in college anymore, so maybe this one will survive a weekend or two.

Whatever the case, LA rocks, I'm still trying to find my niche. I have a small crew, but it is slowly growing every day. I just decided to write this post so that people know that taking a leap of faith is bad ass, but unfortunately you don't always just fall right back in to the perfect social situation you left. That said, you always appreciate something a little more when you have to work for it, so maybe that's what I have going now. Maybe that's why after I finish this book, even if it blows a nine inch cock I will still be proud of it because of how hard I worked. The same way someone that likes to cook probably is thrilled when they see the reaction on someone's face when they taste their famous recipe.

One truth holds solid though...when I get back to Indy on Wednesday November 23, you better tell your parents, roommates, girlfriends, not to wait up, because it's going to be a late night.

Fashion Cents

The internet really is just a rabbit hole that can take you in any direction you desire. We've all gone on that Youtube binge until four in the morning or attempted to read every single article ever posted on cracked.com. Sometimes I will find myself at a Japanese torture porn website or I will find instructions on how to make a dirty bomb on Totse and not even know how I got there (I hope that reference doesn't put me on an FBI watch list, there was a rumor in the late 90's that anyone who downloaded the anarchist cook book was automatically added, but honestly how else was I supposed to figure out the ingredients for a Drano bomb.)

Rarely though do I ever read random blogs. Usually I find them just painful, especially if they are about a newborn or about how much someone loves their husband. But then again none of these people put a gun to your head and force you to read, so if that's how they decide to fill their time for 7pm - midnight, who am I to judge.

The more I read, the more I found that I have just been seeing the world in black and white. These blogs are fucking beautiful, and colorful, and they have all these cool layouts and suggest other blogs you might like...and then sometimes those blogs like you back and you post each other's shit, it's like this big fucking lovefest on the blog network, some memo I missed when I was busy preaching about why blacking out at noon is ok or something stupid like that. No one links to this blog, but that's probably because I've alienated almost everyone at this point, but they'll come around.

There is something called Pinterest, that is just a collection of cool stuff. Nice plants, art, food recipes, inspirational quotes...whereas my room in Encino looks like this:


Now let me give you an idea of what is going on in that picture. That is my plain ass desk that I sit at and work on my drug novel, my blog about an empty lifestyle of non-stop partying and occasionally send after hours work emails...One would think that this exact piece of furniture was in Heath Ledger's apartment when he was learning to method act the role of The Joker. Situated on that desk you will see (not all is visible) an empty bottle of 2 buck chuck and a couple empty beer cans called Simpler Times ($1.99/6 pack) There is also a stick of degree, a small bottle of Lawry's, the only piece of mail I've received since I've been out here (it's a singing card) and a copy of The Red Bulletin (The Redbull lifestyle magazine)

Pretty fucking depressing. Furthermore I sleep on a mat using a blanket as a pillow and a sheet as a blanket...prisoners live better than this. And this whole time I'm thinking, whatever, I'm in Cali, I just sleep here. Give me a solid internet connection and some Hulu I can lay on that mat for hours. Or so I thought, until I started seeing all these beautiful food blogs, and fashion design sites. Usually I get all jacked up about how hard I'm going to rage on a pay day Friday, but really, I've come to the realization that I have no assets. Sure I've got better memories than most, there's surely something to be said about that, but I have a bunch of empty white walls in my room and that makes me sad. Don't they put insane people in white rooms? I'm tired of blowing paychecks to rent alcohol only to piss it out 3 hours later and spend my hangover in my dungeon of discomfort.

I would like to applaud all the boring blogs out there with your abundance of pretty pictures, and shopping tips at CB2. I think about $200 in linens, perhaps a nice plant, a lava lamp and some retro posters could turn this hostel I live in, into something of a suitable home. Now that's not to say that I am going to change my midweek activities of either drinking a six pack or a bottle of wine and working on my writing...but I think it would just seem a little less pathetic if I kicked it up to some micro brew or a non 8 quarter bottle of wine, and from the comfort of a lazy boy perhaps, not this wooden thing that came from the one-room school house in Corydon, IN.

And once I have a cactus in here and perhaps a real mattress I will probably resume harassing people who take pictures of their cookies fresh out of the oven and link to cute wedding photography blogs. But for now, I would like to take the time to thank you for showing me the light...because there is more to internet blogging than attempting to type yourself 1000 words closer to the fountain of youth.