Hanging by a Moment

Sometimes I wonder if it's all worth it. Everyone in L.A. is always one break away from having their situation drastically changed, whereas all my friends in the midwest are doing pretty good. But is pretty good enough? Most of the people I know are living in Broad Ripple or Lincoln Park (actually they are living in Wicker but I refuse to acknowledge this) they make about $50,000 and go to the new Kilroy's or Benchmark and it's a pretty solid existence. There's not much variance, except for the weather. Now I know that most of my readers just read those three sentences and are thinking "oh no, here we go, a tirade about how you are so much better than us because you live in LA and it's more exciting." Quite the contrary, if I could snap my fingers and have that life, I would probably do it.

I didn't come out here with a nap sack and a dream. I was transferred here, my plane ticket was purchased, my car was shipped, I was given a small relocation bonus to find housing. It's not the ballsy story that I would like to imagine it was. However, that doesn't change the nature of the beast. I used to describe this place as Groundhog Day. Nothing ever seemed to change. But that is mostly because it is sunny and 70 almost every day, in reality though, my life in Chicago was Groundhog Day. I would slouch through the week and start an epic bender every Thursday at 5pm that would last until about 1 in the morning the following Monday morning. I was miserable every day at work, I took naps in my car, I came in late and made up excuses and I got away with just scrounging by for 2 years. But there was no real change in my life from day to day. I hung out with the same people, did the same things and saw the same results. Now that was just the life of someone in entry level sales, I'm sure some of you have cool jobs and fly all over the world doing cool shit, but that was my Chicago experience.

In LA though you can be higher than high one minute and knocked completely to rock bottom in the next instant. For example, right now, I'm one good break away from being signed by a big agency, selling a tv show, becoming famous. But I'm also one bad break away from asking my dad for $500 so I have the gas money to drive home. No one can knock it for being uneventful, but it's so fucking stressful. In case you're curious, most of the people that make it in LA are trust fund kids that just live at home with their parents, and it's not even like they necessarily leverage a bunch of daddy's connections, they just have the financial means to wait everyone else out, it's like a war of attrition where eventually all of the midwest kids run out of money and have to go home and the local hills boy gets the job. That or you are a poor girl from the valley who has a bangin' body and becomes an actress (Marilyn Monroe) or you work odd jobs and just scratch by paycheck to paycheck, year after year while you stare at yourself on the mirror on a Friday night waiting for your ramen water to boil wondering why you are missing out on another Vegas trip and wondering if it's too late to move home and go make a real living wage at your dad's financial services company in Ohio.

But the one thing I will say is...there is a shred of hope. There's a chance that you'll get that phone call with the opportunity to pitch your script. And that's what people hold onto. I guess the only thing comparable in other industries is that you'll get promoted. But can being promoted be even close to as cool as selling a script and being the writer of a fucking movie (I honestly don't know I haven't sold a script and my last promotion was from 1st base to home plate umpire at Skiles Test Little League. My dad was the commissioner, this is also the last time I benefited from Nepotism.) Even though the chances of the tv show that you PA for getting cancelled are much higher than a low level UTA agent taking a chance on your R-rated pilot, the dream is alive because for the dreamers "pretty good" isn't enough. That's why people out here would kill for a receptionist position. There is no shame in pouring coffee, or wiping baby shit, as long as someone will pay you enough money to stop from having to sell your mom's car on Craigslist. Can you imagine what you would say to one of your friends if they were like, I got a new job, I'm a secretary. I make 10 bucks an hour and I'm working weekends at Coffee Bean. You might think, tough life. Out here that shit would get you a party, that small step is celebrated. Half the jobs people go for out here are a secretary's secretary. But a thousand other people would literally offer sexual favors for that gig.

I haven't formed an opinion on this yet. I can't imagine that everyone that lands that second assistant position will eventually rise to the top. There has to be some degree of wash out, especially with all these angry jews with little man syndrome firing people like they are blackballing an annoying pledge. And most of these positions won't make you famous. A 32 year old creative exec is going to make a comfortable living and he will rub shoulders with some influential people, but he is by no means famous. Quick how many executive producers can you name. Right? So not everyone is in it for the fame. There is money, but most of that money is concentrated very heavily at the top. So why the fuck do people do it. What is so great about entertainment that would make people belittle themselves to such drastic lengths. I have a fucking business degree for God's sake, I should be well on my way to a third promotion at a bank. And this is the only answer I can come up with...it's out of love. The people that make it out here and suffer and stick around long enough to see the fruits of their labor are in love with the movies. Accounting sucks. Sales sucks. Being an unemployed lawyer sucks. Is that it, are there any other industries that are ripe for college graduates? I don't think I know a single person that does anything other than one of those. I guess a couple people went the Dr. route, but that's it. You're staring at a computer screen, you're making cold calls or you're worried as fuck what you're going to do when those Freddie Mac letters start pouring in...

Or, you come to LA. You drive someone around. You fetch someone coffee. You write in your free time. You shop at the dollar store. You start having house parties. And it sucks just as bad as sales or accounting or going blind on a stack of litigation paper work. But if it does work out, you'll read screenplays for a living, write hours and hours of notes on shitty shitty material, one day you'll be brought in to a creative meeting, and one day you'll get to pitch a script and one day you'll get to visit the set and one day you'll go to a premier of a movie you helped champion. And if the movie bombs you'll probably get fired. But if that is enough for you, and you would rather do cocktails at the Beverly Hilton than take a client to a Cubs game, maybe it's enough. And it probably won't work out and you'll be back in your shitty midwest town and go to work for one of your high school classmates and it will be awkward for a bit, but you'll probably turn out ok and have a wife and maybe a kid and save up enough money to go to Disney World some day and your life will be pretty good eventually. But you're also only one phone call away from the dream and that's what makes it worth it.

Back in the Day: A Tribute to the Midwest Summer

I really appreciate science, it’s unfortunate that it was always so closely correlated with math. I was exceptional at verbal/writing but due to my distaste for math I never really got a chance with science. It’s too bad, I could be writing some superb science fiction instead of this. But science has been fucking with me over the years. I’m sure by now everyone has heard that Pluto is no longer a planet, and some time along the way they pushed the summer solstice up by a day? Was it not June 21^st? Fuck it, I guess it’s today. The longest day of the year (actual day, not just a really epic Friday night) is upon us. Even though most of us have been battling the heat for over a month, and for all intents and purposes summer begins at Memorial Day it’s actually here. For me, I count the passing weeks, months, years, seasons alike. Congratulations, you survived. It may seem unimpressive to stay alive for 3 months and then take a moment to celebrate it, but when you live life as wreckless and care free as us, you should take a moment to pat yourself on the back. And as I watch the sun set from the Venice Pier and I watch a Mexican father and son pack up today’s catch to take the bus east, I can’t help but get a bit emotional as I look back at what summer has meant and will always mean to me. So kick back and take a walk down memory lane with me as I reminisce on my favorite season, summer.

Whether or not you were a genius in school, the general consensus was that when you hopped off the bus for that final time in mid June it was a good thing. No matter what age you were it was off to a better life: baseball practices instead of homework. Backyard barbecues instead of mom’s inferior pot roast. The pool was open, the boats were in the water and people were generally happy. I will always equate my early summers to travel baseball. I spent every waking hour of my day with the same 10 or 11 kids from Skiles Test baseball league in Indianapolis. By day we would go kick the skit out of surrounding small towns like New Palestine and then we would order 12 pizzas to coaches house. The parents would get hammered and the kids would play 3 hours of kick the can. God, wasn’t that the best? You weren’t worried about whether you would close with a chick or be able to get your dick up later that night, the most important thing in the world was beating Matthew to the can.

Of course after a few hours of yard games and pool basketball the baseball dads would realize that it was midnight and they would get in their cars or boats (yah suck it North Shore, how many of your dads boated home after barbecues) and the kids would stay for late night dark tag and of course marathon multiplayer Goldeneye games that would often last until 7 in the morning. We’re still staying up until 7 in the morning, but for much different reasons. I think I’ll always miss these days the most. Not because I was better at hitting homeruns then than I am now (not a softball joke, it’s a sex joke) but because there was nothing better than showing up sweaty as shit bleeding out of the elbow and doing party of 24 dinners at O’Charley’s. No bill split drama, no toiling over what to order (chicken fingers and fries obviously) just good conversation with good friends and that game where you add a gross ingredient to a conconction and pass it to the person to your left and make them take a sip.

As we grew a little older we all started to notice girls. Remember the middle school “parent supervised party” looking back on this, god it was awful. Most of our female counterparts were in awkward phases and had interesting (in a bad way) looking bodies and we mostly hung out on the trampoline drinking soda and eating pizza while Chad conspired to take a girl into the woods and kiss her (and go up her shirt.) We were fearless back then though. Asking a girl or group of girls to flash you? Sober? Get the fuck out of here…that takes balls of steel. I think those 11-13 year old summers were intense. We were learning what it was like to comingle with the opposite sex, but we didn’t really know what we were doing. My roommate posed the question today, do you remember when you first started trying to get laid? No, I don’t. I just remember hanging out in basements in Admiral’s Sound trying to fit in and hanging out in closets making backdoor deals…”ok we’ll say we made out, but don’t tell the guys I let you touch my boobs. Deal.”

Something miraculous happened the summer after 8^th grade. The rebel of the group discovered alcohol and maybe at a bonfire one night he brought a waterbottle of some of his parents’ Skyy and everyone took one sip and for the rest of the night pretended to be belligerent. That’s how everyone was introduced to it, someone had an older brother, and we wanted to be cool. And sometime in that 8^th grade to Sophomore year range every group had very exclusive drinking parties, where everyone drank to get drunk. Sometimes it was during the day if you had a friend with two working parents, score. You wouldn’t do anything, maybe go swimming, maybe play pool…but it was new and exciting. Looking back, we treated it like a closed door drug. And do you remember doing “Hey Mr.” on the way to a party? I’m sure we all got scammed by a homeless man or two, but it was all part of the rush. Then when you showed up to the party there were always a few girls fiending after it like a couple crack heads. Tori will give you a blow job if you give us some vodka (everyone knows someone that either did that or was on the receiving end of it…now you can’t even get a blowjob for 5 tabs of x) This was the first foyer into recklessness.

Some aspects about it were still the same, lake houses, battling two tubes, summer vacations…but instead of quality family time as we grew up it was about how much alcohol were we bringing, where should we throw cigarette butts, which of the couples gets to sleep in the master bedroom. It’s all part of growing up I guess.

By the time we were upperclassmen in high school and entering college, summers lost a bit of their meaning. Sure it was extremely nice out and we got into our fair share of debauchery. We had party buses at Paige’s taking us to multiple nights of Dave Matthews Band at Deer Creek, and who didn’t love getting lost in the back row of the lawn and sucking face with some nameless Freshman. And afterward massive coed sleepovers! But now we had jobs, internships. Getting blacked out on the lake all day meant someone had to bite the bullet and drive back to Feather Cove or at least to the Chinaman at Geist market to restock. Whatever they don’t give DUI’s when it’s light out? So we resorted to start sleeping on the boat, but sleeping on a boat and driving straight to work the next day was often shitty. Thank god for working the late shift at Hillcrest Country Club.

I will always remember all of these memories, all of these people with fondness, whether it be a day at the rope swing, or going white water rafting with my football team and making the idiotic decision to brand myself so I look like a black guy in Omega Psi Phi. The sun is setting on my childhood, for many of you summer’s will soon revolve around your wives and kids as opposed to buying a shit ton of fireworks on July 4^th and blowing stuff up. As with many aspects of life, change isn’t always bad. Things can’t always be the same, but I will say, on this summer solstice, I wouldn’t mind ordering 12 pizzas getting hopped up on caffeine and plugging in the old 64.

Every idiot that grew up in California has “The Endless Summer” movie poster hanging in their room. Like they are trying to make a statement that summer in LA is all about surfing every day. The rich kids in LA don’t even live close to the beach and that movie was shot in Hawaii anyway. I feel like my childhood is more encapsulated by The Sandlot, even though it was shot in Utah and set in the 50’s that’s what it was like growing up in the Midwest.  I personally think that growing up in the Midwest suburbs, (especially Geist) battling 95 degree weather and deadly mosquitos was the greatest place in the world to be in the mid to late 90’s. So raise a caffeine free diet soda to back when we still held on to our innocence, here’s to the memories of a simpler time…now make these next 3 months count.

Broseph and the Incredible Seersucker Sportcoat

I remember when I first joined the working world there was a nervous excitement to receiving an email. Either it was going to be good/bad news from a client or a supervisor or it would be something fun from a friend suggesting an activity (perhaps inviting me to a Bulls/Hawks game) or it would at least be a hilarious recounting of an encounter with a gutter monkey on a drunken Sunday afternoon. Now I just assume it is one of 4 daily emails I get from Groupon.

I have come full circle with Groupon, at first I was bitter because I hated my job in Chicago and everyone there seemed to be happy and they had weekly happy hours. I badly wanted them to fail. Then I started using Groupons to save myself money and to try out cool shit that I would never pay full price for and I realized that they weren't all bad, but now I blame them for flooding my mailbox and I hate them again. Like to be honest, I really do want to go to Fiji but it isn't going to be an impulse buy thanks to a daily email, it's something I will spend at least a month planning. And yes the flight simulator looks cool, but in what world do you think it is reasonable that I drive 3 hours to go do something that doesn't involve oral sex? Lastly, I am not in HR why the fuck do I get introduced to Groupon Rewards...and I don't even know what Groupon Goods is. I just know that Groupon has trained me that 12 new emails when I wake up at 8 am is not something to get excited about.

But such is life, it's my fault for signing up for this bullshit in the first place. I still get event emails from Bloomington, Chicago, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and even places like New York where I bought a concert ticket once and am forever doomed to be on an email list. And while I could go on all day about the pathetic emails I receive and how I find it sad that the fun email chains I used to be a part of have died, I have captured your attention for a different reason today.

A little insight for you, I believe most writers ride an emotional roller coaster similar to the one that I do.  For example: when I am in the middle of writing a project, I think it is the best thing ever. I literally lie awake in bed dreaming about acceptance speeches, Hollywood Premiers, sleeping with models in order to cast them in my TV show and going on to be the biggest fucking bro in the history of famous people.   When I am in the midst of a creative bender, I look forward to getting home from work and writing with the same intensity I look forward to getting home and drinking on Friday afternoons...

...but then. You're all done. And it's like, what now. When is HBO going to call and say, "Oh my god that's the greatest pilot we've ever read." We're green lighting an entire season and we want you to retain complete artistic control. That doesn't happen. And even if the project is good, it takes months, years to gain traction and by then I'm usually over that whole story. The whole editing, rewriting, editing again, doing a third rewrite, that shit just is not for me. I write very stream of conscious and it's more akin to freestyle rapping or improv acting than it is scripted, because I assure you I do not use the backspace button. It's one of my crutches creatively, but nonetheless it is my style. Writing something awesome and not getting it rewarded blows, it's akin to writing a badass cover letter to your dream employer and not even getting an interview.

So when this happens I go into a bit of a depression, people send me notes on how to make what I have written better, but I kind of set the typewriter down for a couple weeks and do what it is when I am not writing. Drink, watch TV, stay up until 4 in the morning reading obscure Wikipedia articles, you know the normal shit that you all do.

This past week I was in one such rut and I realized that summer tv blows. While most people are probably out being active, it is stormy in LA and there is really nothing to do. I wish I was playing softball, or walking the beach but I'm holed up on my couch with nothing but reality tv and Seinfeld re-runs to watch. I decided to get caught up on Girls, I had watched it, lambasted it, but I heard it had gotten better. I was awake at 2am some night fairly recently and I watched the episode where Hannah's creative writing nemesis publishes a memoir, chiefly about the fact that her boyfriend kills himself.

I started thinking, I never really thought that I had enough darkness in my life to write a memoir, and most of the biographical accounts from my contemporaries are a bunch of kids whining about living with their parents and the economy not supporting the warped idea they had growing up about the real world. But looking back now at my decisions since I turned 21 my first day in Italy and where my life has at times spiraled out of control to, I have definitely ended up in some precarious positions and I think it's time to write the generation defining memoir of our time. So that's what's next. I tried to write a quasi-biographical tale about my time in Florence called American Vampires, my last project was quasi-biographical about my time in the frat, but it's after that the wheels really fell off, or at least shit got interesting. I've had a fairly interesting life thus far and it's time to be honest about what led me to here.

If you're worried that I may expose your deepest and darkest secrets, don't worry, everything will be changed just enough (it's funny the Tony award winning play this year was about a chick that writes a heavy hitting memoir exposing the darkness of her friends and family and they freak out) but I think I have to give it a shot, people say to write what you know so why not write my own story. And let's be honest this tale about a shameless social climber transforming into a fame obsessed Hank Moody wannabe probably won't ever get published...and if I have a better idea next week this will probably be scrapped completely. But for the time being it's going to be me, locked in my room trying to recall my misadventures and what it means to be lost and find your way...and the title of this post is completely unrelated, but would possibly make a solid frat tank.

Heaven Can Weight

I've always found dieting to be extremely annoying. Now I realize that I am tall and have lots of areas for my 4am burritos to go and if you are a chick or a short dude, you may not have that luxury. Furthermore as a male it is less important overall for me to be attractive. (If you are a fat chick, you're likely toast) I can compensate with things like personality, wealth or a massive dong. I'm currently 2 for 3 in that field and I had ramen noodles for lunch today so that should trim down the possible outcomes. (I'm kidding I have a shitty personality)

Living in LA I take that annoyance and multiply it by 100 (it's actually a law here that every item be printed with it's caloric content.) There is no season here where everyone can just get fat for a few months and wear sweaters, so it's constantly a dieting game. The only thing that's worse than someone dieting is when they bitch about their diet...or even worse try to make me feel bad about the way I conduct my life. Everyone out here is on Weight Watchers, it's such a fucking joke, if you want to be skinny do more cocaine, smoke cigs or just I don't know join a fucking gym. But for whatever reason, people out here would rather torture themselves constantly than spend 4 hours a week of moderate unpleasantry on a treadmill. Seriously that's all it fucking takes, if you go to the gym 4 times a week you can eat/drink whatever the fuck you want.

So the other day I'm at a bar and I order a long island. Why do I order it? Because it fucking tastes good and it has i think 6 shots in it and it will get me drunk quicker. Someone makes a snide remark, oh my god...that's like 7 points. Of course I don't know what the fuck that means. Points are usually a good thing unless it's points on a license or a golf score. Maybe that's why so many people fail at their Weight Watchers diet, because as Americans we are conditioned to want to get high scores...well maybe that's more of a video game culture, but all the fat asses trying to lose weight probably played a lot of video games growing up. I mean, I literally sit around with my bros planning on a good team dinner and I throw out, let's go get a fat steak and loaded baked potatoes, and I'm met with objections, "no, you know I'm really feeling like a salad." A salad? A fucking salad. What a gay dinner choice. Weight Watchers is turning everyone into herbivores and making our society turn on cheese. Since when the fuck is cheese bad? I mean I get it, I shouldn't eat McDonald's more than 10 times a week, I saw Supersize Me. But other than that, shouldn't these lazy fucks pick up a hobby? "Oh but there's no time to go to the gym after work!?!" But there is time for ice cream in bed and Sex and the City reruns...these people disgust me.

Ok so we're 3 paragraphs in and basically these are the topics I've covered. Fat people need to get skinny, dieting is gay and weight watchers annoys me. But I've said all this before on this blog, none of this is any surprise to anyone. The real revelation came when I looked into this cult that is weight watchers...for those on the outside you won't fucking believe this shit. It's like a alcoholics anonymous program. There are public weigh ins which would be akin to getting your bac taken in front of a bunch of other alcoholics. I thought that was just a gimmick for the biggest loser. Apparently not the case. Everyone on weight watchers is supposed to keep a blog that is meant to empower other dieters "It's just so hard not to finish the WHOLE PIE." Give me a fucking break. There are weight watcher approved recipes and if this doesn't take the fucking cake I don't know what does, you can find other weight watchers near you so you can call them in a moment of weakness or go out to portion controlled dinners together. So like a sponsor, but instead of calling them from a bar pre bender you call them from a Chipotle at noon on a Sunday. Laughable.

The whole reason for me looking into this was I wanted to know what the weight watcheriest way to get drunk was. Out of sheer curiosity I googled "how to get drunk on weight watchers using the fewest points" my hypothesis was that it included either shots, rocks cocktails or like vodka waters...so straight spirits. 

This was the first Google result:

                 How to get drunk on the least amount of PointsPlus

Written by fringedgentian on 12/7/2010 12:56 PM

I am kind of a big drinker, and so I always struggle to fit those happy hours into my Weight Watchers plan. A few years ago I created this spreadsheet, but now that we have changed to PointsPlus I have updated it with current values. The only thing that changed is that wine got a lot worse, relatively speaking. (And it used to be such a good deal!). I also found the numbers for chapagne interesting. Anyway, here are the results of my research:

Alcohol per WW point in different drinks

Please let me know in comments if you would like me to add any types or brands of liquor to this list.

Perfect! That's like exactly what I was looking for. Let's click on the link shall we?

Whoa, nice Spreadsheet bro. This cat must have taken K201. Wait a second...that link looks like something that I recognize...yep, that's a umail. Only an IU bro would cut the bullshit and answer the questions that we really care about.

But let's do some quick analysis. I suppose the stat that we care about most is alcohol per point. I believe that is the bang for buck ratio. Bacardi 151 takes the win at .28 ounces of alcohol per point. That makes sense, that is fairly similar to drinking pure alcohol, for the person that wants to black out before the end of their first cocktail. In 2nd place, is champagne with .266 ounces of alcohol per point. So if you are trying to get fucked up and keep those washboard abs maybe it's time to hit up that all you can drink mimosa bar. Sadly the least effective way to stay skinny and drunk is full flavored beer at a pitiful .12 ounces per point, but then again I'm a fucking dude and I am no slave to your Weight Watchers fascist point system. I can do what I want.

Let's take at the blogs...I'm sure there are really sad pathetic posts by cat ladies that mourn the loss of their gallons of cookie dough fudge brownies, but I am more concerned about the alcohol connection. I found this one "Diary of a Chronic Quitter" that's kind of a catchy title. I wonder if it refers to weed. This particular post is called "drinking my points."

Does it make sense to drink your points?   Swiming in a sea of indecision about this.  Since December a co-worker of mine and I have been discussing getting together to get drunk at my house.  We are going to watch Storage Wars.  How grand is booze and Storage Wars I ask you?  

He kept putting it off.  He has his son every end of the week and sometimes his ex-wife takes him for the weekend.  Well tonight is the night.  I don't drink that often and this guy drinks even less than I do.  I really want to consume a fair amount of alcohol.  I want to sort of swim in it.  

But WOW the points for alcohol.  This makes sense.  Talk about pointless empty calories

I am going to do it anyway.  I have (another) coworker who is lifetime goal on WW.  She grinned and said: "Are you going to drink all your weekly points?"

"Yes." Me, with a shameful smile.

"Good girl.  That's what I do sometimes"

So pomegranate vodka here I come!

But there is that little voice in the back of my head thinking about weigh in on Sunday and wondering if it will be worth it to splurge.   It is like a little gnome in there.  He sits and kicks his feet against my brain matter.  I try to ignore him but he just keeps mumbling and kicking.  

I must say I applaud her commitment to intoxication. I have not gotten fucked up and watched storage wars, but I assume it's a lovely way to spend a Wednesday evening. Also I got the distinct feeling she wants to fuck her divorced coworker, but that's neither here nor there. What I choose to focus on is the torment she is going to suffer because of this decision. A fucking gnome kicking her in the brain? Really? I thought this was America, where anyone could get drunk with a coworker watching reality tv and not have to live in a puddle of guilt and unfulfilled dreams. So what if she puts on a pound this week, isn't overall happiness more important?

I have changed my mind on this topic completely.

I don't know if you guys have caught on to my little blog format here. But what I attempt to do when I take on a controversial topic like women's image issues, i tend to take a really douchey stand at first, but then through my ranting and analysis I teach myself a valuable lesson, and become a better person for it.

I have heard of lots of diets. Off the top of my head I can remember the Atkins thing in which bread was the enemy and that gave us the lettuce burgers. Now there is this meat only diet which is basically what I do already so that one gets a thumbs up. I have heard of diets where you are literally supposed to go masturbate if you have a urge to eat. Those people must work from home a lot I guess. But if there is one overarching theme about dieting, it makes people absolutely miserable. So fuck the diet.

Yes, my mind reversal is about body image. If you want to get fucked up and keep a body mass index that puts you in the "overweight" range. Go for it. I only have to worry about the physical appearance of 1 person in the entire planet, that is the female that I am fucking at the time. Everyone else, go get as fat as you want. Order desert get whole milk in your coffee, it's worse than constantly torturing yourself by drinking diet soda and fat free salads. I don't want to live in a world without free refills and extra-large. Fucking Bloomberg wants to do away with Big Gulps? He might as well do away with freedom.  Let the rolls flow, maybe keep a shirt on at the beach? Or don't, just don't bitch when people stare. I appreciate an effort to better one's self, but not at the expense of a positive outlook on life. Ya America is fat, but we conquered the world, so we earned it. Order yourself a baked Alaska. Ya it's $40 but you can afford it. In fact opulence used to be associated with wealth. The poor were skinny, not quite sure when that flipped now I think of fat people as lower class, but that all changes today. Some of the happiest people I know are fat, some of the best comedians are fat. Belushi, Farley you know why they died? Having too much fun. I doubt you'll find many dieters as jovial as they were.

So make it rain boys and girls, yes you want fries with that and remember splenda is for pussies. And if you happen to be the girl that I am currently involved with romantically and I start buying you lots of bottles of Cooks don't take it personally, I have fun popping the corks.

Some Like it Hot II

I spend approximately 75% of my time thinking about words that would become funny with the prefix "bro." I woke up at 6am Friday morning and furiously scribbled a short titled "Brometheus" in my dream book. (Yes, I have a dream book. Yes it is weird. Yes you might be in it. No I'm not telling) Anyway, Prometheus, the character was a pretty fratty guy. He stole fire from the gods which is a pretty bold move, he's a bad ass...and I'm not sure there was any overarching connection between the story of Prometheus Bound and the Ridley Scott film that premiered over the weekend, but in my short a bunch of bros explore a nether world for alien life form but instead of like doing science and shit they just get fucked up and ask each other if they would bang an alien, even if it looked like E.T. and then the aliens come and fuck them up...I imagined it as a low budget horror comedy. Anyway, Brobible if you are looking for a creative exec to help you start a production company hollar at your boy.

That intro has nothing to do with the rest of the post, I just like to keep you guys cued in on my creative process from time to time...I hope it makes you view me as a more sympathetic character...some substance to add to the multitude of negative qualities that make me a raging asshole. Probably ineffective, but whatever. 

I'd like to begin today with an anecdote. For those of you who don't follow my excellent twitter feed (look to the right click that link and add me) Saturday I went on a float trip with some friends. I had been on several float trips before, but it had been a few years. I don't know why I don't look to make this a monthly tradition. It's king of like skydiving where you do it and have an amazing time but then you kind of forget how fucking rad it is. But unlike skydiving, float trips cost like 10 bucks, you get hammered and celebrate the pillars of which America is built. If you are unfamiliar let me break down for you exactly what a float trip entails. You drive, party bus, cab it to the middle of fucking nowhere. With you, you bring enough booze to kill a medium sized horse, some rope to tie tubes together and a ridiculous costume (optional.) Upon arriving at the setting of Deliverance you give some 14 year old with tribal tats 10 bucks, they give you a tube and you hop on a bus that takes you to the beginning of a river. You spend the next 5 hours floating at a medium pace drinking in excess.

Some of the more experienced locals will know all the right places to cliff dive, how to hit the rapids that you incur, but the most impressive is what toys they bring. Floating coolers, sling shots, and waterproof sound systems are just a few of the more brag-worthy innovations. The whole river Saturday had a bumping 90's soundtrack, in fact, most of the floatable rivers you will find are in such an off the beaten path type area that they don't have current music. I floated next to a few meatheads that played the entire Cash Money Records collection prior to the Lil Wayne Juvenile feud (the Back Dat Azz Up/I Need a Hot Girl/Get Your Roll On era) Most of the people I encountered were full on freak shows...and I don't know if it's because of the heat (you have to drive a bit east of LA to encounter this) or if it is just a crazy sub-culture of piercings and tattoos and meth, because these people were fucked up, but I must say the people watching was excellent. But I must say, I do really respect the "I don't give a fuck attitude, I am going to float, drink, smoke cigs and be fat." Oh yes, there was obesity...I thought Indiana was bad, but I really felt bad for the tubes...there must be a high inner tube mortality rate on that specific river.

But again, these people were happy...they were right where they wanted to be. I often toe a very fine line between all out sociopath and productive member of society. I want you all to perceive me as a little crazy, but extremely witty and interesting. I go to the gym even though I don't particularly like it because society demands that in order to be physically appealing I need to look a certain way. And look at me judging, I just ripped off two paragraphs ridiculing these strange river people. It was akin to going to the Indy 500 and being like "look at all these rednecks, they're ridiculous," while I'm wearing homemade jean shorts to be ironic. Yet they perceive you as a stuck-up white kid spoiling their party, they just look at you as someone else trying to have some fun.

What I'm getting at is I spend so much effort just trying to fit in, we all do. Yet the most care-free individuals couldn't care less how anyone views them. Sure I don't get the gauged ear thing, or the tribal tats (I can definitely fuck with their selection of late 90's hip hop though) but who cares, they probably don't get my obsession with the upper east side, north shore Chicago, brunettes with blue eyes or articles on Total Frat Move. I always talk all this shit about "going for it" or "seize the fucking day, you are young and awesome" (I will never say YOLO on this blog...but I did see several yolo tats on Saturday) but I really live a semi-conservative existence. I don't go for shit, I live in a comfortable apartment in Venice and write half-assed screenplays that I never send to anyone for fear of rejection. 

A perfect metaphor for how I actually live my life is how I golfed last weekend. I am a notoriously bad golfer, but I am capable of hitting great shots. I usually don't particularly care how I play as long as I can drink beer and not look retarded. My friends and I recently started the AWOL (always west of Lincoln aka the PCH) Cup. Each Sunday we play, the winner gets the AWOL Cup for the week and gets to choose where we have team dinner afterward. Since I am actually trying to win I golf like a massive menstruating vagina. I tee off with a 5 iron because even though I know it won't go 300 yards, it will probably go like 200 and straightish. I didn't pull out my driver once...because I am a huge pussy. I ended up shooting a 46 on 9, which is really bad...but it's on track to break 100 on 18 and it's probably about average for a non-golfer. But I didn't win because the guy who won was launching Woodsy drives onto the green while I was playing small ball like a bitch. Then again the guy who got last was also launching 300 yard drives but they also managed to go 200 yards out of play.

Going conservative will always get you to the finish line, likely in the middle of the pack, but it really doesn't put you in a position to win ever. I live in LA and work a 9-5...when put in perspective I may have a more interesting life than you if you are living in your parents' house still and you're working for your dad. That's fairly conservative too. It makes fiscal sense, you're probably prime for an early promotion due to nepotism, but it's also fucking weak. 

Do you think those fat fucks floating down the river bumping Drama's "Left, Right, Left" lay up in golf? No they fucking Tin Cup that shit, and a lot of those shots will go in the water, and that's probably why California has such a high population of homeless people. But I think I would rather be homeless after bombing a driver so hard that it would give an 80 year old man an erection (btw unrelated note, according to Glowfest playboy model Sydney Hef still has NO problem sporting wood) even if it ends up 3 fairways to the left. One of my constant self-improvement goals is to be less of a pussy, it's very difficult. It's easier to talk to your friends at a bar, it's easier to work for a company than to try to forge your own path. It's comfortable and we are all conditioned to enjoy that safety net. But this country wasn't built on playing it safe. You hear the stories all the time about someone selling all their shit and buying a bus ticket to Hollywood...and sure my story won't be as romanticized as that, but  maybe "Brometheus" turns into a Funny or Die video, maybe I get an MTV hosting gig off the success of the Glowfest TV show, or maybe I park my tee shot firmly in the bunker of failure and I have to drive my mom's shitty Cobalt back to Indianapolis and life in the basement with my brother...but aren't all those options better than a lifetime of playing it safe? I sure fucking think so...I'm going to get a tribal tat, what's the Chinese symbol for YOLO. (Whatever...)

Rant of the week: Sarah Jessica Parker ruins everything

I used to think that I was pretty hip with the times. And although my personal opinions are not necessarily shared by my entire generation, I have always thought that this blog gives a certain voice to at least a sub-sect of my constituents. However, as of late I’m feeling that my views are becoming more and more skewed. Whatever ad agency was put in charge of putting together a character profile of a typical twentysomething sure as shit didn’t interview me.

Like many of you I was surprised by the film remake of 21 Jump Street. I found Jonah Hill surprisingly charming, and Channing Tatum actually made me laugh a few times. One of the running gags through the movie is that James Franco’s little brother is the leader of the popular group and deals drugs…but he is also extremely socially conscious and open-minded. At the time I thought, “oh that’s so funny, the screenwriter is taking a shot at kids these days for being soft pussies.” But as I continue to evaluate my surroundings, it’s actually happening.

Over the weekend I got yelled at for throwing an empty beer can in the trash as opposed to the recycling. Are you fucking kidding me? I mean I’m not going to hate on recycling, I don’t want to destroy the planet, but come on.  This whole push for sustainability is kind of nauseating to me, and in California it’s the worst. Electric cars will always be lame, but I find them somewhat enticing because I would rather contract a non life threatening strand of skin cancer than continue to fill up my tank to the tune of 70 dollars once a week.

It’s becoming increasingly obvious to me that maybe I just don’t have a heart, but when a recent study showed that people were 70% more likely to purchase something if the company had a charitable element to it or a give, I almost choked on the veal I was eating (don’t even get me started on the 5 degrees of responsibly farmed meat at Whole Foods…I’m eating something that was once living, I don’t need a little biography on how it was raised and killed on the wrapper) Like really Tom’s shoes? It’s great that your product is currently hip and trendy and only costs about $40. I used to pay $120 for a pair of Jordan’s to achieve a similar result, social acceptance. But don’t think for one minute that the fact that you pay hippies to wander into African villages and dish out shoes to the local tribes has any effect on my decision. In fact if you offered a $35 NO GIVE product, I think it might become a best seller. I prefer my threads to be made in sweat shops if it will positively impact my personal bottom line. Those bro tanks at Urban could be sold for $10 less easily if they just exploited Taiwanese child labor.

I don’t know who to blame for the softness of our generation. It’s not like I’m a tough guy or anything, I watch Gossip Girl, Glee and basically anything else on the CW. Television is probably to blame. A bunch of girls in the Midwest grew up watching Sex and the City and they think life is supposed to mirror a day of Carrie Bradshaw. Take brunch for example. When did this become such a big deal? I used to remember two things about weekend brunch. When I was with my family, it was a way my dad could entice me to get out of bed and go to church. If you go to church we can go to Bob Evans or something (how Indiana is that.) When I was with my friends it was about racing to McDonald’s in time to catch the breakfast menu. (I secretly always sabotaged this mission so that we would arrive at 10:32 because I preferred their lunch offerings. I still do this.) Now though, it’s like brunch is a rite of passage. I understand it forces you to get out of bed and start your day, but really it’s just an excuse to put on oversized sunglasses and look hungover in a really sceney place. Ohh, look at that table, they look like shit. They must have had a wild Saturday night. Brunch isn’t about the 20 dollars you spend on scrambled eggs and one bloody mary (obviously you order alcohol at brunch so you can tell people about it later) it’s about talking about the fact that you went to brunch.

            “We were soooo hungover but then we did bloody’s at brunch at Flake. We saw Megan, Ally and Ariel they looked like shit, hahaha”

I miss the days when girls wouldn’t leave the house until they looked perfect, now they roll out of bed, throw on some yoga pants, a giant pair of sunglasses and an oversized t-shirt and roll to brunch.

You know when brunch works for me? Bottomless mimosas. I swear to god I have never once gone to a bottomless mimosa bar and let that bar profit on me. Here’s a little pro-tip. If you chug your drinks with enough tenacity the server will throw her hands up in defeat and bring you a bottle of champagne and a pitcher of OJ. But then again, that’s not brunch, that’s day drinking.

What happened to the dive bar? Everything that attempts to cater to young people these days is so nice and new and fancy. 12 dollar signature cocktails that look beautiful, impeccably garnished tapa plates…quick question, has anyone ever been served a plate of food and said “wow these portions are too large.” You know what you can do with leftovers? Throw them in the garbage? But these faggy tapa plates leave me craving 4am burritos…a situation in which everyone loses.

Once again, Carrie Bradshaw is to blame for this. It’s so hard to find a bar anymore that has 2 dollar pints, a juke box and a dart board. I’m sure this joke is worn out but if you are a bar pretentious enough to call your bartenders “mixologists” go fuck yourself. People are in such a rush to be older and more sophisticated, I just want a Beaumont on every corner with a dj that puts “Bangarang” on an endless loop.

Again living in LA, I’m probably jaded because of the over the top nature of many of the things I complain about. Even the fucking food trucks out here are a pretentious scene. 16 bucks for a lobster roll? No thanks you are a fucking concession stand on wheels. But it’s a thing you see. What did you do last night? I hit up the food truck lot. It’s more of a thing than saying, I went to pick up a lobster roll to go.

I don’t mean to be a curmudgeon, I just wish the world we lived in was a little less Thought Catalog and little more Bro Bible. Fortunately for me trends are cyclical, I live in Venice where dressing like a homeless person is sort of en vogue and I don’t really enjoy shaving or doing laundry so I’m doing just fine.

Happier

When I was studying abroad I wrote this manuscript (that's like saying I wrote a screenplay, but book version. If I say I wrote a novel that implies that it was published or anyone other then me read it. Not the case) called Happier. I think that I was really into Guster at the time, or I don't know I just liked that song. But anyway, the plot of the story was as follows. A timid non-risktaking guy at IU gets dragged to the quarries one day by his more adventurous, more confident frat brothers and he is afraid to jump, until this care-free, daring, beautiful babe calls him a pussy and convinces him to jump. There's your meet-cute, IU quarries bam. Anyway, they instantly fall in love with her making him less of a bitch, his forward thinking careful planning mindset gets her to think more of her future whatever, best qualities in the other. blah blah blah. They throw darts at maps and go on vacations and everything is super happy go lucky until a fucking freight train drives through the middle of the story. Her star quarterback brother and dad get killed in a drunk driving accident on a recruiting trip to Notre Dame. (I wan't really trying to make the story an allegory for Notre Dame being evil, but looking back...it plays)

Now with her world destroyed, the female lead spirals into a world of depression, alcoholism and prescription drug abuse, the male lead's family disapproves but the male lead thinks he can "save her" from all the tragedy and make her happy. They get engaged, they have good days and bad days and ultimately the female lead dies of a prescription drug overdose, it is left unclear whether or not it was intentional. But the main theme of the story is happiness, and how you can get it. The main character is lamenting back on their life together trying to figure out if he could have done anything different to make her happier, to give their story a different ending. He comes to the conclusion that perhaps in death she was happier than she could have ever been.

That's some dark shit right? Looking back on it, it's like a Nicholas Sparks novel. (In fairness to me I had no idea who the fuck Nicholas Sparks was in 2008) Zac Efron would be fucking perfect as the lead, and I could probably get some sort of executive producer credit when the film is made. Unfortunately, all 120,000 words vanished when I fried my old HP hard drive...which made me want to overdose on prescription pills, but whatever it was probably shit anyway.

When people would ask me what I was writing about and I would give them the gist of it they would look at me like I was upset, clearly only a tortured soul could come up with something that twisted. Or perhaps I had experienced tragedy in my life, no, in fact when I start writing things I don't know what's going to happen. I'm sure other people have outlines and storyboards and shit, I come up with a few characters and just start going.

In all actuality, I fucking it abroad. I fornicated with a bunch of east coast chicks from MASS (oh how I hated how they used that. Oh yeah well we're from IN and ILL, fucking retarded) I traveled every weekend to an exotic location, I lorded at nightclubs all over Europe and my parents paid the credit card bill when I got home. It's just that we didn't have cable tv or internet (or internet porn) so after I read the 3 English books at our school library, I was forced to do something creative with my time.

So why do I bring this up? I haven't thought about the project in probably three years. I honestly don't even remember the names of the characters anymore, and one of my funny plot points (they threw a dart at a map for a weekend getaway and it landed in Little Rock, Arkansas) was used in the movie Yes Man when they did the exact same thing and ended up in Lincoln, Nebraska. I was watching last week's suicidetastic episode of Mad Men and Don had a quote "Happiness is the moment before you want more happiness."

I realized that happiness is the most addictive drug in the world. This probably isn't a revolutionary thought, I think the Beatles had a song about it, it's probably one of the weird scenes in Across the Universe that I skip. But when I apply to the general feeling of "meh" of our generation I think it's easy to see why we get so disillusioned quickly. If I never knew what it was like to jetset around the world with house money, I wouldn't crave it today. People in the "greatest generation" were poor and worked three jobs and went to war and walked to school. I didn't deal with any of that shit. I went to Disney World and fucked around in college and well into my 20's.

But because of the experiences I was afforded I now crave more and more. Take a weekend for example. I'm certain that there is a group of people out there that go out once a month, and it's probably a big deal. Young parents get babysitters, some people go out to dinner and it's like a thing. It's special because it's rare. If I have a weekend where I go out to dinner both nights and go bar hopping both nights, but nothing unique or specifically memorable happens, I consider the weekend and unacceptable failure. That's because my tolerance for happiness has been pushed so far that the little things don't get me off anymore. I would literally need to go on a Hollywood bender with Nicolas Cage to even bat an eye. Oh jesus that sounds so pretentious, "I've done so much cool shit that it doesn't even seem cool anymore." But I hope you can look past my douchery and see the larger point.

People send me screenplays all the time and they're like "So it's a post college kid who like thought he was going to get a Wall Street job but didn't because of the economy and then got chewed up and spit out...it's a coming of age tale." Every disillusioned half-assed writer is telling their version of that story. HBO has a show about it. They've made movies about it. The story they don't tell, is that we are just privileged little shits and we whine about it. Had we not grown up in 3 car families with "emergency family credit cards" in our wallets we may be a little more resilient. Or perhaps we've just lost all of our endorphines because no one can see a live show anymore without popping a few pills.

Happiness is not a drug, it's an attitude. It's how you react to your present situation and whether you look to the future with excitement or angst. I'm more guilty than the rest at talking about things without doing them. I am still an unpublished author but I do what I can to improve my well being. Never be the pussy that's afraid to jump into the quarry. If you want something, take it. If you want to go somewhere, go. The how and why are just details, but if it will make you happier, it would be insane to let anything stand in the way.