Thursday, December 19, 2013

Single Dude Gift Guide

Pictured: Surprisingly not me!

I found my keys! I found my keys! Sure it came after I called 45 bars, 3 cab companies, rented a car, forced my mom to overnight me the last known key, but alas…I found them, in my outdoor closet where I keep my potato cannon.

How did this come to be? Well remember my boss gave me a fifth of Patron the night before the fifth exchange? He also gave me 5 limes. I only used about 2 of them for my margaritas. Now that I found my cannon out of place I can easily put the pieces together. I came back from the bar crawl with destruction on my mind. If I'm not going to fuck something I am going to launch these limes to the fucking moon. Well somehow in my drunken stupor a lime got stuck in the ignition chamber and I must've pouted by throwing my keys in the closet and going to bed. I guess it's a happy ending because now I have 2 pairs of keys so I can resume blacking out sans catastrophe and also I finished the job last night and launched one of those limes to Mar Vista. Now, on with today's post...

I have a white elephant gift exchange for work tomorrow. The only rule is the item has to be worth between 10 and 20 dollars. I have no fucking idea what to get. I considered a bottle of booze but that could be considered tacky. I pondered something funny like a sriracha t-shirt, but now I'm leaning towards outrageous. For example, what if I procured an Xbox One box and filled it with just a fucking moonrock. Would people flip shit for the Xbox, thinking 'Hey one of the producers must've broken the rules, MUST GET THE XBOX'...only to find out that it was just full of one measly ecstacy pill. Furthermore, how would this person react? Well no Xbox but, hey, Drugs! This will be an interesting midnight mass! Can you imagine rolling your way through Christmas Eve service? The whole lighting of the candles during Silent Night would probably be wild. And then sprinting home to rip open presents and drown egg nog? An EDM Christmas, I demand it. When is Skrillex putting out a holiday album, this kid demands a rave.

So far as I can find an Xbox box gratis, an x pill would technically fit into the ONE rule of ten to twenty bucks.

(Don't worry I probably won't do it)

But this got me thinking, what are the best gifts to give and receive around the holidays. You likely will be exchanging with friends, family and coworkers (if you're not, you'll probably be exchanging your laptop with a pawn shop guy for a gun to blow your brains out.) I have already received some conglomeration of Starbucks cards (the de facto, booze, scratch off tickets and other assorted knick knacks.

I imagine tomorrow I'll probably get more gift cards and hopefully some cash from the producers, and then whatever I procure from the white elephant. I have a few strategies. First is the threat of violence. If me, the youngest guy on the show, gets something that he REALLY REALLY wants and flips shit over it, no asshole locations manager is going to steal it from me when it's his turn. Taking the cool gift from the underpaid PA is like taking Tiny Tim's fucking Christmas turkey. There is also the implied threat of violence. I could beat up every single one of my coworkers blindfolded, and there is also the air that I'm the "cool" assistant, that everyone likes to remain cool with.

I find it unlikely that I will be robbed even though the people in Los Angeles are awful human beings, (by the way I'm assuming everyone knows what a white elephant is, you pick a gift and open it, on the next person's turn they can either steal or draft a new gift) but in the event that I do get fucked over, that assclown isn't getting a script, call sheet or paycheck the rest of the season OOPS. Don't mess with the little guy motherfucker.

All bullshit aside, whether to go the thoughtful route, funny or practical, here are a few gift recommendations, from the Single Dude himself. Happy holidays everyone, and remember it is better to give than to receive (talking to you ladies, and yes I'm referencing blow jobs)

Oh and PS these will all be relatively cheap.

5. A framed picture
You ever have a buddy and notice he has a bunch of pictures of his life in his room and his office and you didn't quite make the cut. Does that piss you off a little bit? Me too! Fret no more my friends, the cheapest and most awesome way to celebrate a friendship with someone is to celebrate one of your most epic memories. I spent about 15 thousand dollars of my parents money abroad, most of it was spent well, traveling, seeing the world, doing once in a lifetime cool shit. They were not thrilled about my spending habits, but that year for Christmas, I blew up awesome photos of me and my friends traveling across the world. They are all over their collective offices. My brother has a year book photo of him in the 2nd grade on a shitty wall. We live in an era where scrap booking and developed film are dead, but trust me, everyone loves an awesome photo, you're basically giving the gift of memories.

4. Tickets to an event
Whatever you buy someone, it's going to probably suck, or they'll hate it. If it's a shirt, they'll never wear it, if it's a copy of the Boo book they'll give it away, humans just aren't good at giving each other gifts. (Unless you are going strictly off a Christmas list, if anyone wants to see my Christmas list, this is all I want $1000 this will pay for my Park City trip and a new pair of decent skis)
But even if you were to give the most awesome gift ever, you will never get to have fun with it, so here is the trick…Tickets to a game/concert/underground sex show!

Now you have to play this one coy, make sure it's an event their girlfriend would hate, because if you get your buddy 2 tickets to Book of Mormon, he's probably going to assume it is intended as date material for he and his significant other. However, you get your buddy 2 tickets to Zedd or Lil' Wayne, the implication is that you not only have secured a night out on the town with your buddy but the two of you are going to RAGE. Also, this person will likely feel weirdly indebted to you for buying them a 40 dollar ticket and pay for all of your booze and drugs in order to even the score. Trust me, you're coming out ahead on this one 100% of the time.

3. Movie screeners
As much as I love going home for break, it is boring as fuck. My family all have to work, leaving me without a car, stuck in my brother's dungeon of a basement. I will rely on other friends that drove home for the holidays to chaeufeurr (not even close on that spelling but fuck it) my lazy ass around. Most days I will probably just watch tv, read and write…oh who am I kidding, I'm going to get bum drunk by myself and watch movies.

But at least I'll be watching movies that are going to win oscars and haven't reached Indiana yet. As someone from LA with unlimited access to this shit, it's very easy for me to load them up on a few drives and maybe even use them as bait to get someone to pick me up all the way out in Geist.

"Hey man, pick me up and we can watch Wolf of Wall Street"

"But that hasn't even come out yet"

"I've got a screener, come get me at my parents' house"

*drives me to broad ripple, I leave*

"Where are you going?"

"Oh, I've already watched that 5 times, I'm going to Kilroy's, enjoy!"

Tricking your friends into driving you places, the real meaning of Christmas.

2. A non-committal fling
As we have covered at length that despite the egg nog, the presents and the beloved family time, the holidays can be pretty boring. Sure I'll make a shitty snowman and throw a lacrosse stick in his hands, call him BROman and get 50 instagram likes, but after that I'm kinda over the whole winter weather thing. I'm skiing in February I don't need Indiana slush. But the good news is that there are going to be a lot of other bored people…and what do bored people do in boring places? They get fucked up and bang! (This is why every person you know from the middle of nowhere had sex before you) There are lots of girls I have varying degrees of sexual tension with. Those varying degrees go from, "we both got drunk and she thought about it once for like half a second and then was so repulsed with herself that she puked" to "it's only a matter of time."

One time in college I had said tension with someone basically all 4 years, one night at Kilroy's she just looked at me and said, "tonight's the night." I immediately knew what she meant, we briefly discussed the terms of our shack, had a couple more drinks and then went back to my place with a PG-13 sleepover. It was wonderful.

I can't recommend this enough, if there is someone from across the country that is also spending the holidays where you are and you are both single and bored, it would be a great mutual gift to one another to spend a night together. When the dust clears you go back to New York, she goes back to Denver and it's never spoken of again, but a nice little holiday memory will always occupy the back of your mind.

1. Nothing!
There is always such pressure to get someone the perfect gift, but what is more perfect than your company. Perhaps you each go out and buy the other person's favorite booze and then meet at your favorite restaurant and then afterward go to your favorite pub. The holidays are about spending time with one another doing what you like to do most. If that means packing bowls on a couch watching Seinfeld, you pack the shit out of those bowls, if it means watching Jimmy Stewart NOT leave town EVER for the 10 millionth time with your family while a fire roars in the back, fucking do that! The holidays are not a time to get stressed out, I have never understood that. Ohhhh added financial strain? I used to care about presents, now I want like some goofy socks and an AMC gift card, I have more fun badly fucking up a recipe for bourbon balls than I do scheming about where I'm going to wear my Burberry quarter-zip first (Note to my mother: if you are reading this, which WHY please stop…do not return any Burberry quarter zips you may have bought me)

I treat the holidays as a time to chill out, clear my mind and rekindle old relationships (both with friends and old flames) it is supposed to be a time of bliss. You get to not go to work, sleep until noon and watch Rick Grimes tell Kiera Knightley he loves her with note cards…it's fucking great. So whatever you do these holidays, if you have had a break up, lost a loved one, just know that it's not a time to be sad, but a time to be thankful for the fucked up traditions of our wonderful country. We celebrate the most famous birthday by giving everyone a shit ton of free vacation, and we tell them to eat turkey, wear funny sweaters and tell them they can consume raw egg! (I KNEW EVERYONE WAS FULL OF SHIT WHEN THEY SAID NOT TO EAT THE COOKIE DOUGH)

But NO MATTER WHAT you remember these holidays…remember that nothing has changed, yes we are still friends, and I would love for you to drive out to Geist and pick me up. I'll give you 5 bucks for gas #highschool

Happy Holidays everyone!

P.S. We are making a FUCK ton of bourbon balls

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Decemberism

Last Saturday I started a hard bender, that should be ending about now…in the last 10 days, I have done 2 bar crawls, a rave, a fifth exchange an open to close, lost a set of car keys, lost 2 credit cards, rented a car and probably eaten about 2.5 meals that weren't late night pizza.

But before we get into that, a few things I wrote into my phone that I thought would be good thing to blog about.

1. Who the fuck wears ear plugs at a rave?
I understand, loud music is very hard on your ears. My good friend's father is a world renowned ENT doctor, he would shit himself if he knew that I consistently went to raves without ear plugs, but the problem is, ear plugs make you look uncool. The reason one goes to a rave is to get drunk, do drugs, dance and eventually make out with some equally fucked up sweaty chick.
This becomes much harder to do when you're wearing ear plugs, and can't whisper stimulating conversation on the dance floor such as "What's your name?" or "You got any rolls?"
I get it, you want to be able to hear when you are in your 80's but you will have much more respect from your grandkids if you are obviously falling apart due to years of hard living.

2. What type of dipshit streams a concert?
As previously mentioned, while "going to a show for the music man" is a bullshit line you will hear many a hipster say, it's not true. People go to concerts to party and hopefully have sex in a portopotty, even if you legitimately do not want to imbibe or roll your face off, you still want the pounding bass pulsing through your body and to feel the burn of the flames or the cooling touch of the co2 cannon. Watching on Youtube just sounds like a torturous way to induce FOMO on yourself. At best, it will just piss you off that you aren't there. You won't actually enjoy yourself while you watch a grainy lagging feed on your iPad, but you will make out the fact that some bro is 3 way kissing a couple sluts wearing nothing but pasties but you couldn't afford to buy tickets because you just paid a 6 month car insurance premium. This ends with you masturbating while you cry. If you can't go to the show for whatever reason, it's probably best to avoid it completely. Shut down social media too...people know that hash tag #coachella is guaranteed to get them a ton of likes, it's bound to be everywhere.

3. What the hell do extras talk about?
I work on a tv show and from time to time I spend extensive amounts of time on set. But I'm part of the crew, most of these guys are my friends and coworkers. We talk about our weekends, how the shoot is going or a movie we recently saw. But on certain days we will have hundreds of background actors. These background will have to pretend to be partying or doing some other sort of bullshit act, repeated takes, over several hours. But they literally meet each other a few seconds before the take. An AD will make a white guy stand next to a black guy and an Asian girl, so the scene appears to be "multi-cultural." There you go, that's your social pod for the next 3 hours.
I know what I would do, I would take this opportunity to attempt to nail as many chicks as possible. Here is my rationale. First of all, every extra is a pretty desperate person, they need 75 bucks in a bad way. Most extras are aspiring actors, but even the most delusional of them probably realize they won't be noticed in the background of a pool party scene demonstrating "acting talent."
Also you know that this person doesn't have shit going on. After they wrap the scene, most extras are going home and hoping to get another extra gig in a few days.

And you know what bored, desperate, poor, girls with no ambition are down to do? Get drunk and fuck. But most extra males are themselves pathetic, possessing no game they just start saying the alphabet when they run out of small talk. If they had any game they would at least be getting guest star roles. But still, I can't imagine how hard it would be to put up massive numbers by just taking a bunch of girls to shitty valley bars at wrap, its got to be better than going back to their parent's lower middle class Woodland Hills home.

These are the things that go through my mind when I'm drunk in a basement at my roommate's holiday party whilst A-Trak djs on stage.

So back to matters of importance.

What business does a 26 year old have taking a party bus down to Hermosa and blacking out in the name of the Big Ten? Well apparently not much. As much fun as I would love to claim I had on the crawl, I remember absolutely nothing. Literally, I pre gamed from 9am-11am at my apartment and then walked a couple blocks to get on the bus and remember nothing after that. During this time I lost a credit card and car keys.

Now if you have lost a credit card before you know it sucks, but only like 3 out of 10. Basically you are without access to money for the rest of the weekend. There is a new feature at some Chase banks where they will print you a new debit card on site, but it's just not pleasant. Going to the bank blows, there is always some sort of inherent judgment when I realize a personal banker is looking at my meager account balance realizing that I pissed all my money away the previous weekend and then lost my card. I honestly don't even understand how I can be considered an asset for Chase, I'm just glad they haven't fired me yet.

I started to see some activity on my card Sunday afternoon though so I immediately cancelled it. A few hours later I realized one of my friends had my card (and since all Chase Debit cards look the same, didn't realize it) we had apparently swapped during the mayhem of the crawl.

So whatever, I got a new card and life moved on. (Coincidentally I found an old credit card while tearing my apartment apart, previously thought to have been lost 3 months ago) Losing your car keys however is a 12/10 on the pain in the dick scale.

Oh don't you have a back-up set? Well as a matter of fact I had 3 back-ups, they have all been lost over the years in a similar fashion. So what does one do when you lose keys and need to drive to work?

Your options are as follows:
1. Have the car towed to the dealer and have a new key laser cut with a chip for $400.
2. Rent a car for 2 days and beg your mom to overnight the last remaining key.
3. Go get drunk to take your mind off it and then borrow your roommate's car Monday morning.

I initially chose 3, before finally resorting to option 2 Monday night. I must say, driving a rental car was lovely, I might just treat myself once in a while, or use them for dates. I imagine a girl would be very impressed by a man with a clean car, or even if she could clearly tell it was a rental. Most people that use rental cars are mature, it implies that they have maintenance done on their vehicle. I will simply drive my car until it no longer starts, at which point I will give it to NPR and ask my father to buy me a new one. (I might legit just take hand me down cars from my parents for the rest of my life or until I sell a script...so potentially the rest of my life)

But come Thursday, I had my new keys, I had my new credit card...I'm fucking back baby? How should I celebrate? By going to a rave on Venice Beach and staying out at Townhouse until 2 in the morning of course! Quasi-famous dj Atrak played the Snowglobe/Recess holiday party Thursday night and had an interesting array of free booze. The party was co-sponsored by Colt 45 and some sort of Four Loko-esque energy drink, so if that sounds like a good time, I assure you, it's an even better hangover.

This would of course lead into the Friday of the 3rd annual west coast fifth exchange. You know how this goes, each one of my friends buys a fifth of booze, wraps it and delivers it to our secret santa victim. I had a buddy that works in fashion so I of course got him skinny girl vodka wrapped in an Adam Levine cardigan (has his own line at Kmart now!) I received some Krakken rum and a kit of ingredients for dark and stormy (first time drinking that beverage, big fan!) Out of the 24 bottles of alcohol at the party, we drank about 23.5, and called it quits at 5am...just enough time to sleep until noon and then immediately start pre gaming for the Santa Monica Pub Crawl...

Ugh.

You would think that I had learned my lesson the previous week when I, you know, lost my life. But, fucking Paul Bird was in town, and after Ragegiving, he was ready for an encore. So we all dressed up in Santa outfits and stormed to Main Street. As with most bar crawls, I peaked entirely too early as I was making out with a pair of lipstick lesbians while we were still at our first bar. (It's tough to top that) But my real trouble started when we got to a bar that had a special on Fireball shots. My outfit was incredible, my dance moves impressive, my confidence at an all time high, but nothing can save me from myself. Instead of finding the hottest chick in the bar and directing her straight to my bed, I think I unknowingly stepped outside in a desperate attempt to stop sweating. I was not allowed back in. This is how people get separated on bar crawls, I would never see my team again.

Oof.

The next thing I knew, I had time traveled to Brentwood and I was again partying with Johnathan Martin, this time engaged in a heated game of beer pong. It did not end well for me. Again I resisted the urge to make him get on his face or do some elbows and toes on bottle caps because well, even if he was a bit of a pussy with that whole hazing thing, he is still about 6'7 300 pounds and seems to be a cool enough dude.

The weekend has to end at this point right? Nope, made it to a rooftop bar to pregame the Venice Canal parade and ended the night by drowning a couple bottles of Pinot Noir at Mao's, because the key to not getting hungover is to never stop drinking.

Yesterday was, to say the least, a struggle. But I've realized a few things to help you get through it. Never tell anyone at work a fucking thing, do not run with them in your social circles, and make sure your show has been cancelled before you black out at the wrap party. The key is to set a precedent that you are just a sickly child with bad seasonal allergies.

I currently don't have a voice, I can hardly move, but I set a precedent Friday that I was coming down with some sort of bug. I told my coworkers that I was going to have a holiday gift exchange with my friends and spend the rest of the weekend trying to get healthy. This way when I seem a step behind on Monday, it is because I am clearly recovering from my illness, not going through the various stages of withdrawl. God Forbid I call in sick on Monday, they will immediately think "ohhh he was sick on Friday" not, "That worthless piece of shit is too hungover to come in."

There was a costumes girl that called in sick yesterday, and I truly believe that she had food poisoning, but she set the stage that she was going to a birthday party Sunday and told the whole world how excited she was about it last week while we were at work. When she called in sick Monday with food poisoning, she didn't have a prayer. Everyone assumed the worst. Now it doesn't really matter in entertainment, everyone is a terrible person who drinks, does drugs and cheats on their significant other, but still.

One of the things that living a debaucherous lifestyle is to shroud yourself in a vail of mystery and deceit, no one outside my close circle gets to know who I really am, no one ever knows if I'm serious or joking, and when I make a deliberate effort to lie, I commit to that shit.

The storm is over now, the clouds have settled and the warm weather has returned to Los Angeles. I'll go home in a few days and do lots of wholesome activities in the midwest and when I go out a few times I'll humblebrag about how much better my life is to everyone just enough to make them subconsciously hate themselves. I'll probably go to Chicago for New Years and that's how my 2013 will end. I'll look back and say "Fuck, I'm still an unpaid writer working in a production office, when the fuck am I going to get real about all of this."

But then when you take a moment to stop wallowing in your own misery, I'll think about all the little vacations I took. Mardi Gras, Palm Springs, San Francisco, Vegas x2. All the wild and crazy shit I did last year are memories that will last me a lifetime. Why Am I in such a hurry to be successful. I have plenty of time to scrape by and be irresponsible and build my resume of fun stories I'll be able to use in my writing down the road. And it's not like I'm going into a sales office and making cold calls all day, I fucking drive to the Universal Lot and make tv...then I go home and lay on my couch with the windows open in December and watch tv while I smell the ocean.

There were a lot of bad choices that led to this point but I have to accept that there were probably a couple good ones too. Some people hide what they are or want to be, I've accepted that I'm just a single guy living the dream in LA that has an exaggerated misogynistic version of himself as an alter-ego that he writes with, and that's ok. I live hard and it's starting to get a little out of hand, but it's going to be ok in the long run, because I keep it real with you and I keep it real with myself.

That was a rough 10 days, and I am dehydrated...both physically and emotionally, but hey, that's why the Arrowhead guy delivers water 4 times a week, to put me back on the road to recovery.

Monday, December 16, 2013

Ragegiving part 2

Everyone has left for a sexual harassment meeting and I am in charge for the next hour. It's funny that I am the one person exempt from going (I did it on my last show, you get a year) because I think not a week later, I was violating some of those policies. Hooking up with a coworker is kind of like a bad snl sketch. In theory it's fucking amazing, why would I not want to spend the 13th hour of my shift banging it out in the copy room. Work and play concurrently, it's a win/win! Well the 10th iteration of the Californians wasn't funny either. So when the flirty girl at work starts batting her eyelashes at you, choose cheese instead and then go out that night and find some random slut at The Whaler in Marrrrrrina Del Rey (That's almost Long Beach man!)

One more thing on the Toluca Lake Trader Joe's. Gays, I'm rooting for you. I really really am. But after I have suffered an hour in the suffocating pretentious smugness of Burbank's worst…not the best time to ask me to sign a petition for anything. The midwest comes out in me and I just want to yell out to everyone. EAT BREAD AND RED MEAT AND FUCK CHICKS AGHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Enough of that…where were we? Ah yes, Beautiful San Francisco.

So let's just go ahead and skip to Saturday shall we? Friday was kind of a non-event, it climaxed in me and all of my friends chickening out on a rub n tug parlor. (One could argue there was no climax at all heyoooo) We ended up at some sort of booze less night club that literally has the mission statement "come here blacked out or sneak in your own booze, because we don't have a liquor license."

This place, cleverly named "The End Up" (OMG it's like the hangge uppe lollllz) was home to 2 major subgroups. Shirtless gays (to be expected) and Asians. Has anyone ever realized that almost every mid 20's Asian girl is a hard 7. They are small and cute, with no boobs or ass, but they're skinny. Literally they have a floor of 6 and a ceiling of 8, it's amazing. That is right in my wheelhouse. Watch, I'll marry an Asian. (Sidenote: LOTS of Asians in SF, you would've thought after the whole WW2 internment camp thing they would've GTFO, but apparently Silicon Valley pays THAT well.)

Wtf, we were going to skip this. Ok. Saturday.

Saturday started off like any other normal day, we were nearing black out drunk before noon at an Alabama bar in the marina district. "Crossroads" for those of you in the know. Anyone that knows how Saturday went down won't be surprised when I say I was standing on top of a table, doing key bumps, screaming War Damn Eagle! Much to the chagrin of all of the Bama fans. In most towns I would have been beaten badly, but I believe the San Francisco folk are a more socially conscious peaceful people. I think someone made a comment, "You can be as obnoxious as you want as long as your car has low emissions."

We stayed at the bar through the greatest game in college football history and into the USC game. It was at this point that there was a secret pact made behind my back.

"If we get Dave super fucked up and have hot chicks talk to him, maybe he will forget about the Pretty Lights concert."

Let me backtrack a little bit.

The whole point of this trip was to go to a Pretty Lights concert and roll balls.

My friends didn't see it that way. In fact, I was brought to SF on false pretenses. We will avoid the clubs, we'll get super drunk, eat chicken wings and then go to Pretty Lights. At this point in the trip, I felt like I was in charge. I usually am, just because I am the loudest and tallest in the group, little did I know this sabotage mission was in place.

Somehow, at some point in the day, people start feeding me shots, gorgeous blonds start approaching me. This never happens to me. It wasn't until it was in a cab heading to Ruby Skye that I knew it was too late. I had been sabotaged.

You can imagine what happens next. 3 bottles and a group of dick hungry sluts orbiting my table like some sort of unruly comets, just ready to armageddon into our table and steal all of our booze.

But that's why you do it, right? That's the idea in buying bottle service. You look cool, and hot chicks come hang out with you in exchange for the privilege of being behind a rope. Mark my words, if there is a fucking rope, there are people that want to be behind it. And when you're in the 12th hour of a bender you really begin to stop caring.

"Should we get another bottle? Just $200 more each!" Fuck it, why not? Maybe one of us will get laid.

A lot of what I tell you on this blog is made up for the purpose of telling a better story, but I shit you not I talked to a girl on the dance floor for 2 hours not knowing that the girl I was grinding on was from a different hemisphere and didn't speak english. Does it make me rapey that I just assumed she was just too drunk to talk and yet I continued to pursue?

Turns out she was Brazillian, also turns out Brazillians speak Portuguese and not Spanish. Lastly, when trying to pantomime your intentions to someone with which you have a language gap, putting your right pointer finger into a simulated hole made with your left hand is ineffective.

Also ineffective moves tried by me last weekend:
- I'm from out of town, what's fun around here? (Oh where? LA! Oh, FUCK LA)
- I'm locked out of my hotel, I have no place to sleep (sucks, I think I saw a park bench outside)
- I'm having an after party at my hotel room (oh really, you and who else)

My night comes to an end and I am financially and morally bankrupt. I made my way to a late night massage parlor and I was in such a pathetic state that the overweight Taiwanese masseuse/prostitute refused to service me. I didn't even know this was legal. Probably for the best though, I can't imagine the shame in failing to achieve an erection during a rub and tug and still having to pay full freight.

During my 10 hour drive home from Sacramento to Los Angeles (Yes it was a top 5 terrible day of my life) I had plenty of time to reflect on my trip. I realized the happiest part of my trip wasn't crawling around SF in search of hedonism, or torturing 19 year olds in the name of war re-enactment, or even the shot of vodka I took ocularly at the bar because I heard it would get me drunk faster.

The best part of the trip was sitting around the dinner table telling funny stories from years passed with close friends and family. Recounting all my misadventures from abroad and razzing on buddies about fat chicks they hooked up with once can be much more fulfilling that chasing a bunch of tail and trying to see how blacked out I can get the fastest.

Thanksgiving will always be one of my favorite holidays, and this one will be no exception…from the Vietnam War to being denied a happy ending in SF's underworld.

When you go as hard on the weekend's as I do, people look at you a little funny at work on Monday. What is this guy's real story? Why does he show up with a hoarse voice and mysterious cuts, why is he so quiet and out of it until 2pm…

Because that's when my BAC returns to 0 and I can be a functioning member of society again.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Ragegiving part 1

People may argue that certain parts of the Middle East, or a war concentration camp or possibly Cleveland is "the worst place in the world." But make no mistake, that distinction belongs to the Trader Joe's in Toluca Lake, California. This is not an affront to the Trader Joe's franchise in general, in fact I am a regular shopper at 33rd and Pico. I drink a bottle of 2 buck chuck every night I write and genuinely think that Joe O's are better than Cheerios. I am arguing that this specific Trader Joe's is far worse than the institution of communicable disease (can we just accept that EVERYONE has had someone close to them die of cancer and therefore it universally sucks and just know that the phrase "worse than cancer" is therefor inoffensive? No? Ok.)

First of all what is Toluca Lake? Toluca Lake is a community full of moderately successful studio folk who are too pretentious to admit they live in Burbank. They still live in the valley which is in itself embarrassing, but apparently it's less embarrassing when you live in the self proclaimed "Pacific Palisades" of the 818. By the way, it's not. It's a marginally nicer area than surrounding North Hollywood, Studio City and Burbank. But I digress.

The people that eat raw/vegan/gluten free in most areas do it because they think they gain some sort of competitive advantage from doing so. Maybe you live by the beach and think it will make you skinnier and thus more fuckable come summer. Maybe you saw a documentary on how slaughterhouses work and you get physically ill when you think about consuming meat. These motherfuckers do it simply so they can judge those who don't. You either grab a piece of bread and some guy says, "you know the human body wasn't built to handle gluten" or "ever since I gave up meat my colon operates so much better."

Well first of all thanks for sharing with me your shitting habits. I'm fairly certain the human ass wasn't programmed to have shit shoved up it? But that didn't stop you. Look man, I don't give a fuck what you eat but don't you spew your liberal bullshit at me about how you feel great ever since you started eating exclusively nuts. I'm sure I would feel great if I didn't drink 5 nights a week and engage in reckless behavior that resulted in varying bodily injury. So when I walk in with a bagel in the morning don't fucking ask me:

"Oh that looks so good, is it GF"

No actually it's GFY. Go fuck yourself loser.

Now let's get to what you really want to read about, how much blow I did in San Francisco.

Doing Thanksgiving with a friend's family is a strange experience. Of course there is a ton of drunken family drama and you want to pick a side and get involved, but it's not really your place. I limped into Sacramento after an extra debaucherous Wednesday night. I believe I drank about 30 shots of whiskey before finally waking up to find out I had again woken up alone, on top of a pile of my clean clothes staring at a note I had left myself before going out.

"Don't even think about passing out before you pack for NorCal faggot."

The shame of not being able to listen to a sober version of myself poured over me as I peered into my empty bag. (Note: this is a lie, because that would mean I unpacked after the Red Wedding)

So I threw a bunch of wrinkly clothes into a bag and ubered it to the airport, JUST in time to make the earlier Southwest flight. Only it turns out Southwest doesn't do standby flights so I had to buy a new ticket just to get on a plane 3 hours earlier. THANKS FOR NOTHING OBAMA.

(I did get mistakenly upgraded to business select though where I drank 4 cocktails in 45 minutes thus earning back 20 dollars from those greedy bastards)

Anyway flash forward to Thanksgiving dinner. I grew up in a family where I spent all of Thanksgiving getting scolded for how much I party.
"When are you going to get a nice girlfriend?" I suppose when I'm done railing out random sluts in bathrooms, that's when I'll settle down.

Eventually I go downstairs where I can freely drink my whiskey while playing Karaoke Revolution with all my 5 year old cousins and they don't give a shit. That is a judgment free zone. As long as I sing Miley songs with them, I can get as drunk as I want.

This family was not like that at all. We were required to take a shot between every course and then a shot after every person said for what they were thankful. All in, I finished dinner about 12 deep. But that was just the beginning. From there, the party moves to the garage and after about 60 games of Civil War and even more You Got Served, when everyone is good and blacked out and my phone is completely destroyed (ya thats why I haven't been answering your texts) then comes the real fun.

My friend has a younger brother and he invited his rag tag of friends over...then the old guys (us) and the young guys (them) do a re-enactment of the Vietnam War.

When I say a re-enactment of the Vietnam War, it is more like an all out brawl akin to the battle scene from Anchorman. People weaponize any available household object and begin to violently brawl.
There was blood everywhere, thousands of dollars of damage done, and I couldn't help myself thinking, "is this real life?" There was literally a trash can aflame in the corner and a 18 year old vomitting blood and crying.

I imagine this is partially what real war looks like.

We captured one of the Vietcong and our Marine buddy proceeded to water board him for information. What information you ask? It doesn't really matter, we were just torturing him until the Vietnamese side decided to surrender, which happened after about 5 minutes of bloodcurdling screams from a 19 year old. On a driveway. Of a 20,000 square foot home. In a gated community. Of suburban Sacramento.

Then in the spirit of the first Thanksgiving when the Pilgrims and Indians settled their differences over turkey and masked potatoes; we shook hands with the enemy and had drunken Thanksgiving dos in the garage.

Something about drunkenly eating leftovers amongst the carnage of the battle scene is supposed to signify a deep level of respect among the combatants. Needless to say a "peace pipe" was passed around the table and I immediately went to a room to pass out face down on the floor.

Unfortunately, a little later in the evening, Vietnam 2 broke out and I think my buddy broke a bottle over his little brother's head and I had to pretend to be asleep face down in the corner while my friend's mother berated him for 2 hours about how it's not ok to break bottles over your brother's head, even in the heated passion of war re-enactment. I've been tweaking on weed before. This was the worst. I remember stumbling through the house in between reality and dreams. One of my buddies was fucking an Asian in the movie theater, one had a face covered in blood and then there were the girls we had invited over, jaws dropped, unsure how to handle the animals that their high school friends had become. It was surreal.

I came out of a blackout in the corner, crying, eating leftover turkey, and trying to use my broken phone's Siri to call my ex girlfriend. It was equal parts horrifying and incredible. Thursday came to a close and my weekend looked like it was nearing rock bottom, but I think I can save it...Sure I'm 0 for 2 thus far on the trip. Black Wednesday and Thanksgiving couldn't have ended more pitifully for me. But you know as they say, 2 outta 4 ain't bad (do they say that?) Whatever, motherfuckers...I can turn this around.

We hadn't even departed for San Francisco yet. This was just the wholesome family holiday portion of the trip. What would happen when we got 7 bros in a hotel room in the marina district?
Will there be cable cars? Alcatraz Tours? Fun group photos on the Golden Gate Bridge?
Or...just a bunch of drugs, hookers and 48 hours of straight drinking?

FIND OUT TOMORROW in the thrilling conclusion to Ragegiving!