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| 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
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