Couch Surfing on 44s

Many places in the world have forgotten about Mike Jones. Not Texas. Swisherhouse still dominates that scene and so do confederate flag shorts. I'm not sure if I have ever shared this story on the blog before but I once got attacked in Gulf Shores, Alabama for burning a Confederate flag.

Let me explain. When I was approximately 16 I hit the peak of my random acts of violence. I set garbage cans on fire in my neighborhood, played mailbox baseball and was just a generally nefarious character. I started drinking that year and I think I dabbled in some light shoplifting. I'm probably more morally ambiguous now than I was then but raging until 7am routinely is a victimless crime, stealing police tasers from military surplus stores. Yes we stole lots of shotglasses, a pair of brass knucles a couple lighters and a taser. I'm not sure when we decided to burn an American flag, but we did because the North won dammit. Eventually a few locals that were quite a bit older than us surrounded my group and took their shirts off because I guess that's how southerners fight...I was drunk off Parrot Bay and feeling like a hero so I said something to their leader about him being unpatriotic. He took a swing at me which I dodged and in an instant sent 1000 volts through his neck. Haha, never fuck with a drunk 16 year old with a taser...unfortunately as he laid seizing on the ground I proceeded to get pummeled by his 8 friends...but by the time I was able to wriggle away their leader was still down for the count. I'll call it a draw.

Well that was an unrelated anecdote, but concrete story flow is overrated. Back to Texas, It was awesome, we raged. There was floating, float trips are less fun during a drought, but there was a rope swing...and a concert, and a 2:1 female to male ratio. But what I'm choosing to focus on today are the events that occurred after the party was over. On the bus back to Austin, I realized I hadn't booked a flight and I had pretty much maxed out the only credit card I bought, so I did the only thing imaginable and went to a Starbucks to sulk and think up tactics to get my mom to buy me a return flight. It's funny when you do things like buy a last minute one way flight, it seems super bold and spontaneous at the time, but when the dust clears and the party ends it just feels retarded.

Lucky for me, with my excellent Priceline skills I was able to sneak in a return flight back to San Diego with just enough cash on my person to buy the gas required to get back to Los Angeles. The problem was that flight was at 6 in the morning. It was 4pm. Now I've explored a lot of cities by myself. I travel alone sometimes when I want to relax/reflect/write. And usually I have a blast. No one wants to go exploring alone after 72 hours of perpetual partying. I know you no one likes the guy that tells you how many drinks he had and how he was "so fucked up and so hungover" but I was ya. I ate like a slice of pizza the entire weekend, I hadn't slept, I was in an unfamiliar city with dirty clothes a heavy bag and I just wanted a dark room to take a nap in. But I had a humid 90 degree park with uncomfortable benches and it looked like it was going to rain.

I had just about resigned to the fact that I was either going to sit on that park bench for the next 12 hours or I was going to have to go the airport and sleep in baggage claim (I've done it before.) I didn't know anyone that was in Austin, and the cheapest Hostel was out of my budget (rock bottom) but then I remembered this thing people used to talk about called CouchSurfing. It's exactly what it sounds like, you go stay on someone's couch...but they're a stranger. Interesting concept, as douchey as I appear in this blog and in person quite frankly most of the time, I have an uncanny ability to turn all that bullshit off and be a good dude once in a while. I generally like people and can usually find something in common with someone.

Of course I immediately doubled back to Starbucks and created a profile and started hitting up everyone in the Austin area. No success. There were some seriously cool people, well I suppose a social media account can make anyone sound cool. Dejected that no one had accepted my surfing requests I was resolved to go watch Magic Mike and then go to the airport and cry myself to sleep...then out of nowhere I received an email from a fellow surfer.

This was my original post:
Here's a fun story. I flew to Austin last minute for a birthday party in New Braunfels. We floated a river, it was amazing. However, I failed to book a return flight because I'm an idiot, this morning when I came out of my drunken stupor I realized that I needed to get back to LA somehow, flights were like severely expensive so I did the only sensible thing and booked one for tomorrow...at 6am...to San Diego...whatever I'll figure it out when I get to California. Anyway, I am at this Starbucks on 6th Street and I have nowhere to go until tomorrow morning and I'm out of money so a hotel is out of the question. 

Sure maybe that was slightly over the top. Perhaps a little intimidating for a last minute Sunday night. The person that ended of hosting me was a 25 year old girl that lived with her boyfriend and his dog. He was skeptical of the whole situation but consented. I took a bus to a fairly shady part of Austin and had a doubt or two. It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for some psychopath to make a fake account and use a picture of a cute girl to lure guys like me only to brutally hack them to death with a sword. Lucky for me she was awesome. Owned her own graphic design company and built gourmet cakes on the side. Myself, her and her boyfriend tossed back Shiner bocks all night while watching the typical Breaking Bad, Newsroom, Weeds line up. It turned out that my host had couchsurfed all through Europe and dated a guy that I went to South Padre with in 2007.

Overall my experience was life changing. People are good, people are interesting. Her boyfriend was nothing like me, he had video game controls tattooed to his arm and probably had a strong disdain for bros. But it doesn't matter. There is an ancient code of hospitality. The Greeks and Romans believed in it. If someone is passing through and you have the room, put them up you never know what could happen. You could meet a new friend for life, a significant other, or just have a great story to take home to your friends. My host was gracious enough to take me to the airport at 4:30 in the morning. I wouldn't take my brother to the hospital at 4:30 in the morning if he was bleeding out. And she knew me for 4 hours. There's a subculture of people who go...not necessarily people that travel, or people that always say yes. But people that just go. Sometimes it's scary not to ask questions, sometimes it pays to be a little cautious and keep your sense of adventure in check. But I say fuck it, it's about the journey, so I will sleep on a stranger's couch anywhere in the world and we'll probably have a good time. And if you're every around my neck of the woods, you needn't even ask.

Come Back to Texas

Remember when MySpace had the mini blog and you could select a mood/song combo to help get across your emotions? It would be like...

Mood: emo Song: Adam's Song Blink 182

Ugh today at school Joshua wouldn't listen to me tell him about this super deep dream I had last night. Shannon doesn't even know who I am. Why is life so terrible. No one understands me, I'm gonna like slit one wrist horizontally so I definitely look like I tried to kill myself but didn't. MORE HELLOGOODBYE.

That's what will always be my memory of MySpace, the melodramatic theatre kids being emotional. And veiled suicide threats. MySpace was the KING of veiled suicide threats, back when suicide was a thing. I know it's not funny to make fun of, and most people probably know someone who has at least "attempted" but suicide was seriously so 90's. So angsty...go see Spring Awakening, it's all about this gay guy trying to blow his load in Lea Michele and you see her tits but then everyone around him dies. Ok so that's a poor plot synopsis, but pretty much that's how it goes down.

Can you imagine if Blogger or Wordpress had that shit? Not that people actually read blogs anymore, get me a funny .gif of someone reacting. "When I'm super hungover." Cue: a clip from final destination where someone gets hit by a train. GET IT! IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE WHEN I'M HUNGOVER I FEEL LIKE I'M GETTING HIT BY A TRAIN. Whatever, people are idiots and have no attention span, it's like shining a laser pointer at a wall and making kittens chase it. But it seems unintelligent people drive social media, just check out the trending topics on twitter. #ONLYAFATBITCH LOLz.


But if Blogger did have emotions I would be fucking jacked and listening to some serious country music. Why country music you ask? Well 2 reasons. Country music, while not for me, is unbelievable party music. As soon as someone turns it on you can't help but find the nearest beer and chug it. And while it is gloomy as shit in Venice, CA today. In 24 hours I will find myself in the party capitol of the world: Austin, TX.


"What about Vegas, Ibiza, New Orleans????" 


Nope Austin.

No other major college campus integrates so seamlessly into a large metropolitan city as UT and Texas, so while 6th Street has a real Lincoln Park Chicago feel, you are a stones throw from Greek row...oh and their frats have pools, not that I'm going to visit college friends or anything but I imagine being a Longhorn would have been a lot of fun and at times a liability.

It gets better, Saturday, I'm going on a fucking float trip. I've blogged about float trips before, they are the fucking greatest. And did I add that I am going to Austin for a girl's 21st birthday party? Me surrounded by girls 4 years my junior who still care about things like how cool you were in college and how good your alcohol tolerance is? These kids will probably think I'm God.

But aside from the lakehouse 25 people have rented out in New Braunfels, the 6th street raging (at all the bars from my favorite Real World. Dizzy Rooster, check.) The float and a concert Saturday night, it really is good to get out of LA every once in a while. This place is great, don't get me wrong, but it is also soul sucking. Every day in LA I lose a little bit of my equilibrium. I lose sight of the big picture in life. When you hear enough stories about getting bj's from female PA's for a promotion, back room couch casting sessions you start to lose your sense of how the real world works. It's nice to escape once every couple of months to regain a sense of perspective.

And then when you get back you go buy some pot from a 7/11 and take a walk along the beach. That said, my perspective this weekend is going to be black. I've been to Austin 4 times and I have had the absolute time of my fucking life. I am going to consistently drink beers from 10am-5am all weekend, and ya I sound immature, and ya I should be focusing on other things. To be quite honest, blowing all my money on Texas this weekend is the most irresponsible thing I could possibly do. But sometimes you just have to say fuck it. I booked my one way flight on Priceline last night after a bottle of wine and I don't even have a plan on how to get back to LA. Do you know why? Because I'm awesome and one way or another it will work out. Winging it is for winners. I got a production assistant gig today, I'm a working member of the industry. So suck it, if anyone needs me the next 48 hours I'll be doing backflips off of canyons and teaching some southerners how to rage.

In Between Dreams

Do you ever have that dream where you are raining haymakers on someone but you can't get a good shot in? Either your punches are ineffective or you keep missing. It's the fucking worst. Following closely is the dream where you are trying to run, but your feet seem to be stuck in some sort of quicksand or some mythological force from Hyrule that is keeping you in your place. To make matters worse I often have the dream that I am trying to fuck someone up and I'm failing, I have some fictitious cinder blocks attached to my feet and then I fall off of something, and the whole way down I'm like "this is it...I'm going to die, I never even gave a chick anal...my life was a failure."

But then I wake up in a cold sweat frantically punching the air. I see that I have ripped my fitted sheet off of my mattress, assaulted all of my pillows, it's 4 in the morning and I'm unsure if I pissed myself or I am just that sweaty. I feel terrible for anyone that has ever had to share a bed with me. It's not even this new incarnations of night terrors, or dreams that feel so real to me that I can't tell the difference between fact and fiction. I snore like a baleen whale, I sleepwalk in an almost comical sense. Whereas most people stand up go piss in the closet and go back to bed, I go on epic journeys. Yes that's it...I sleep journey. My affliction has taken me to beaches, foreign countries and even prisons. (Speaking of prisons...I would like to report that Monroe County finally gave up on that warrant they had for me. They sent my mom a letter dropping all charges, basically because I persevered. Never did community service, never took the alcohol class, got away with it...because they are too busy trying to find that dead Smallwood girl to track down an LA blogger with an outstanding drinking ticket. Suck it bitches.)

Why are my dreams so fucking weird and real. Why do I wake up feeling as though I have solved all my problems (oh don't worry about losing your wallet, when you wake up everything will be ok) It's never fucking ok. Taking solace in sleep is the worst. It's like I live on Elm Street and my stress metaphysicizes (<-- invented word...I think I meant to use metabolize) itself and attacks me in my sleep.  

Anyway, I've narrowed it down to a few culprits. The first is the alcohol. I think that on any given week most nights I'm going through some sort of withdrawal and my liver is literally going through hell and back just to function. I believe my liver has formed a strategic alliance with my nervous system in which it projects its pain onto me while I sleep. It's a radical theory but the human body is a magnificent organism, stranger shit has happened. My 2nd theory is that subconsciously I want to be living in this crazed world of excitement. Every time I go to sleep it's like I'm transported into Total Recall, I live a fairly boring life Monday-Friday and maybe that's just not enough so my mind provides the necessary distraction from the monotony while my eyes are closed. I have a feeling if someone were to watch me sleep my eyes are going buck fucking wild while I'm under.

Solutions: I don't dream when I'm super fucked up. It's like my nervous system is too inebriated to trick me. Also I'm not stressed out when I'm drunk, I really don't give a fuck about anything except getting a burrito delivered to me when I'm drinking. So that's a reasonable way to fix my problem, but again, when I drink two bottles of Trader Joe's Cab alone watching Shark Tank I feel like a problem drinker.

Or maybe I should just embrace my Cloud Strife fantasies for what they are...dreams. If I'm so moved maybe it could be a story to tell some day. By the time I tell it I won't even be sure if it was real or imagined. Jesus I sound like I'm on an LSD trip...maybe I am.

America's Got Talent (But I do not)

I used to think I was better than most at most of the things I tried. This is not the case anymore. I thought back to sports and I realized, the last time I was even a starter in anything was JV Lacrosse Sophomore year. Then I thought, like o yah, I was a good rapper once. Then I realized I was the 2^nd best at an all white catholic school in Indianapolis. Ok not all white, we had 15 black people and I was cool with like half, remember I used to wear throwbacks and had massive cz rocks in my ears. If I went on America’s Got Talent, I would like to think that I have enough talent to get to the Vegas round at least. But I don’t, what am I going to do, write them a spec? Do a stand-up routine? I can’t dance or sing. I don’t have any real athletic talent anymore. Then I came to a really sad realization, my best skill, or the thing that I could probably beat most people at is stunt drinking. Not even drinking games, like I’m shitty at beer pong, but I could probably take more shots than the average American. I know it’s pathetic, but they did put through a guy who just gets kicked in the nuts a bunch of times so it’s not out of the question.

So I’m a slightly above average American in everything, but I’m not really good at anything. Let me expand upon the extent of my averageness. The company Nielsen, responsible for tv ratings selects one family per zip code or 30,000 people to represent them because it is cost prohibitive to put a Nielsen box in every house in America. They selected my family as perfectly representing everything in Geist. My dad has an average Geist income, I live in an average Geist house, and my brother and I are just average Geist kids. I represent everything that is 46236 on the extreme northeast side of Marion county on the southern half of Geist Reservoir. I suppose I’m decent at being tall, but I can’t even dunk anymore, thus it’s a waste of height. Although I do think I have an uncanny ability to eat junk food and not get fat because I have more surface area to hide said fat. But I am 25 with a business degree from a top 25 school and what do I have to show for it? My most valuable asset is probably my MacBook. In fact I am considering taking a Greyhound to Austin this weekend because it’s cheaper than flying. The fucking MegaBus is awful and it’s only 4 hours. Greyhound to Austin is 28. But there is a float trip in Austin this weekend and it sounds like fun, this is my commitment to partying.

Oh to struggle in LA. It’s like being a pledge all over again, but you don’t get to be in college and there is no bid week where girls are fed jungle juice and told to have sex with you. That’s my lot in life, if Los Angeles is a college, I am a Lamda Chi pledge…does not get much worse. The thing is, people think of California and they immediately think of famous movie stars, actors, Hollywood producers. In all actuality I would assume maybe 2% of people that try that are successful. I used to assume that all the people that did that shit were no talent ass clowns and they just got lucky, but then you see a guy on the beach shooting an amateur short with his camera that he took a reverse mortgage out on his house to buy and it really hits you. There are so many people here with so much talent and most of them will never reap the benefits of it. I think most people also assume that if you are in movies, you’re doing ok. I roll with a few “actors” who have been in a couple decent sized flicks and they are broke as fuck, on a good week get 3 auditions and don’t get shit, it’s like me with job interviews.

On the flip side there are the serial entrepreneurs. And to be honest like I don’t fucking get it, and initially this post was going to be about stupid fucking hustlers in LA trying to make a quick buck by doing any silly start-up, but once in a blue moon, they explode, make a ton of money and cash out. And it’s never the really good ideas, it’s the shit that sounds like it came out of a frat boy blow sesh at 4 in the morning. But whatever, don’t hate the player, hate the game. And I do hate the game, but for every guy that comes up with the idea (I invented in-app customer service for iPhone applications) there are a bunch of people that probably have a genuinely good idea that fails to gain traction. Then again there are a couple dorks from Harvard that got drunk and invented a website with pictures of chicks that live in their dorm and now they are billionaires. The Social Network is probably the worst thing to ever happen if you loathe annoying little middle eastern kids that always talk about their start-ups.

So if there are a lot of talented people out there and I find myself in a sea of average what is there to do? I don’t like working hard, I don’t really excel at stuff, I don’t like awkward encounters…I know, I’ll become a professional blogger! Unfortunately, that wouldn’t support my vices, you probably occasionally read your favorite bloggers talking about how little they make, I think Google Adsense pays like a penny per click. (I don’t monetize this but if I had I think I would have made about $200 to date) There just aren’t a lot of jobs available for people that like sleeping until noon watching a few movies, reading a script and banging out 10,000 or so words a day. That is unless you can sell that novel or screenplay, or gain enough traction with a short video to get signed and thrown in the writer’s room of some atrocious Spike TV show.

So the moral of the story is, there are talented people all around you. There are people at open mic nights that will blow your mind, but then they go back to their day job as a librarian and maybe I just haven’t discovered my talent yet. Maybe I’ll be a late bloomer. Perhaps I’m only a week or two from discovering that I can be one hell of a country songwriter. But I’ll find it, searching for one’s talent is not often an easy journey, but it’s an important one.

Fuck your birthday

It's Friday at 5 pm. That means I should probably fire up the grill, throw on a steak and find out if my dealer is in town. I sure am glad that I picked up these 12 beers so I can pop my shirt off and blast Third Eye Blind and catch a buzz while I cook this steak...who am I kidding, I'm going to throw it on for 30 seconds on each side and then suck the blood out of that raw meat like the American Vampire that I am. Jesus, I got burnt to shit on the 4th, I wonder if that diminishes the chances of me getting laid tonight. Whatever, it's dark in bars and the type of chicks I bring home are definitely not sober enough to discern hues of pigment. Oh shit, my phone is vibrating. I wonder what this is, maybe it's a like minded rager who wants to get absolutely butt faced in the next 15 minutes. Maybe someone came across last minute Dodger tickets in the all you can eat Dodger Dog section. Nothing better than going shirtless in right field, because I'm skinnier than all the Mexicans and it's just a matter of time before I slay a senorita in the handicap stall. Meh...a Facebook notification. Well, that's cool, maybe someone posted a funny video on my wall. That could give me a good Friday afternoon laugh. Maybe the chick from last Tuesday friended me so I can finally tell my friends what her name was...oh, no it's an "event notification?" 25th birthday dinner starts in one hour...ugh FUCK your birthday.

And not just your birthday, your going away party, your coming back party, fuck you. Oh, are you moving back home? Let's interrupt everyone's personal lives to celebrate your failure. You moved somewhere and couldn't hack it, so you're leaving...and yet you think you deserve a birthday dinner, a pre-going away pregame and then some sort of bar function. Oh and what you thought we were all going to chip in to get you a bottle because we are going to miss you?

Fuck that.

And don't even THINK about inviting me to the, now this is only for real close friends...last night was like the everybody dinner, this is the last supper. Listen here you self-centered prick. The only thing that makes me feel more uncomfortable than a black guy on the boardwalk asking me to buy his mix tape is a group bill split. 2 reasons, I always lose and I always underorder. The worst words in America, "Let's just split it." Fuck you, I ordered the chicken and you ordered the surf and turf and a bottle of Dom. Let's act like adults and the wealthiest person at the table takes the check. My family credit card got taken away after college so every time I get my ass dragged to a trendy restaurant I just see 3 letters APR.

Are we going to eventually get to the age where birthdays are no longer celebrated? Every day I fight a losing battle, I'm getting further from 21, further from society shrugging off an occasional indulgence in drugs, alcohol and drunk driving. At 21 that was kids being kids, at 25 it's well, ok. But at 26, 27, 30 it's like, grow up and get married you fucking degenerate. When are the women going to start lying about their age? That's what I'm excited about...people taking their birthdays off of Facebook and ending the wristband deals, the dinners, the celebration around it. I drink to have fun...I don't think it's necessary to have to celebrate the x anniversary - 9 months that your dad knocked up your mom.

But if you are going to carry out the ultimate in vanity and make yourself the center of the universe for an entire fucking weekend, for the love of god do something creative. I have been to great birthday parties and I have been to shit birthday parties. Remember when you were like 10 years old and everyone tried to one up everyone's birthday party? Nick had his shit at Chuck E Cheese, which was dope but then Sean shat all over Nick's parade and took the crew to the water park? If you are going to force me to throw loot towards some extravagance celebrating you, make me excited about it. You do want positive word of mouth do you not? A party bus is something I do not do every day. This excites me. A barcycle. A knighting at Medieval Times would be an A+ or even a cool concert. You know what is not an A? Dinner and Palihouse. $12 poolside cocktails with long names, "You know like I just wanted to go somewhere nice and we never do this, so it's my birthday, so why not?"

That's all fine and well but guess what. There are only 52 weeks a year, and most people choose an adjacent weekend, and I know more than 50 people. This means when people make a big fucking fuss about their birthday I am more often than not obligated to go to one of these shit events once a week. And don't get me started on the fucking people that drag it out all week, I fantasize about assassinating them. And I know what everyone is thinking. Jesus, if you hate it so much then just don't go. I would love to not fucking go, but I'm the only asshole willing to say this, and everyone else goes, and then if I am the only one that doesn't go there is a full fucking year of animosity about the fact that I didn't show.

I used to love getting Super Soakers and magic kits and shit when I would rent out Discovery Zone and go HAM for my birthday but then I turned 12. If you want to make me happy on my birthday bring me a handle of jager and a sense of excitement and set something on fire with me at 4 o clock in the morning. We can then have my birthday dinner at a diner while we call 411 and see if prostitutes deliver. That's all I ask. Until then, if you are going to have a lame ass fucking Facebook event telling me about your dinner and a bar plan on Saturday, yah, I'll be late for that. You don't deserve one weekend a year to feel special, unless you have the fortitude to plan something special.

Happy Birthday America

There are roughly 311 million Americans today. There are close to 7 billion people in the world. That is about a 4% chance. You could have been born a slumdog in Mumbai or a sewer kid in Romania, or 50 feet south of the American border and your life would be shitty, at least shittier than it is now. Even if you are a poor American, you still have freedom going for you. I also happen to be white and come from a certain degree of money, so I'm going to say statistically speaking I was given a better shake than about 99% of the world. If you think about it, being born at all is a miracle, if each of the millions of sperm are a horse and you have to pick that 1 in a million horse and then you are born an upper-middle class white male. Well, that's a good day at the office.

But I don't want to focus on how nice it is to have a dad that will pay your rent when you are in between jobs, or to know that you will never have to deal with annoyances like racial profiling, I want to focus right now on my favorite place in the world, the USA. I, like many consider the 4th of July to be the greatest of all holidays. Nothing is better than celebrating the birth of our nation that getting shit housed on beer and blowing some shit up. Christmas is great, you get presents but it's not really an American holiday, it's celebrated all over the world and the Jews don't even get to play. Halloween is fun, I appreciate the 2 days off work for Thanksgiving, but nothing quite bares the need to rage like a hot day in the middle of July that everyone in our country and our country alone can take ownership of.

Growing up I took for granted traveling to a foreign country and saying "I'm an American, I'm on vacation, let me in." Did you know that most people can't do that? Border patrol will tell you to go fuck yourself and go through the proper steps of acquiring a visa. That is not the case for Americans. The world has acknowledged our superiority. We can pretty much do whatever the fuck we want. We were the first country to stand up to the British empire and we've pretty much been dominating ever since 1812. There are rules and obligations to citizenship that I enjoy. I will serve on a jury if I am summoned, because that's just what you do. And if the draft ever did come back, I wouldn't fucking flee to Canada because America was found by badasses, and I will follow their example, hopefully next time around we won't let them slink back so quickly. And although I would prefer not to have an open door policy with our neighbors to the south, I must say. There is something pretty fucking epic about a pregnant woman sneaking illegally into America popping out a fetus and making that baby a citizen of the United States, forever, no one can ever take it away. I'm sure my fellow conservatives don't like that policy, but I appreciate throwing some chaos into the mix. It's like one of those obscure rules in sports that you don't often see, like the drop kick field goal.

But who wants to hear my views on foreign policy, fucking no one. So let's discuss what tomorrow is really all about. Equality. I try not to be a judgmental person and although I have frank discussions about race and creed I attempt to give everyone a fair shake regardless of background. I often fail, but tomorrow is the one time we are all colorblind. Black, white, gay, Jewish, yellow I don't fucking care because all I see is red, white and blue. I could march down the streets of Venice tomorrow in a red bandana, and I don't think one of the west side crips would shank me, because tomorrow we are all American...and nothing is more American than celebrating over 225 years of excellence by throwing a fucking rager.

So how are you going to celebrate tomorrow? By now everyone should have at `least one American flag bro tank...these will be an unoriginal choice tomorrow, but who fucking cares. Tomorrow isn't about winning a fashion competition it's about showing patriotism. Flip flops and a swim suit would also be a strong choice because if you aren't near a body of water tomorrow you're doing it wrong. A pool or a lake would be a strong midwestern choice, likely ocean if you are near a coast. Obviously making it to a fireworks show is a must, but you should also throw your own performance because it's so much more fun when you get to light the wick yourself. And if you find yourself scrambling to find a store tomorrow that will sell you illegal fireworks, don't worry...every group of friends has that one guy that drove to the state line 2 weeks ago and spent an entire paycheck on mortar shells and enough bottle rockets to have a wand fight (that's where you harry potter each other and shoot to kill. Dangerous, but fun) that lasts until the sun rises. Many people have oft associated the 4th with beer. And although beer drinking emerged as popular in Medieval Europe, I suppose their is nothing wrong with drinking a heavy domestic. But let me make another suggestion, can you and your friends take one shot for each year of American freedom? We did 235 last year between about 20 of us. It was the proudest I've ever been of my country

But whatever you do tomorrow, in between the 3 story beer bongs, the rare steaks and the backflips off the roof take a moment and appreciate how lucky we are. You had a 96% chance of being born anywhere else in the world, but you were born here where we make actors presidents and presidents buy baseball teams. The 4th falls on a Wednesday, many of you have a half day today tomorrow off, and it's back to work Thursday. If you can swing it, try to take Thursday off...if you can't just show up to work in a red shirt and if anyone gives you shit for being hungover accost them for being bad citizens. I suppose that's it. It's already close to 5 on the east coast, time to start drinking and if anyone is going to the rooftop party at 5th and Broadway in Santa Monica tomorrow can you bring those parachute army men? I always love getting drunk as shit and trying to catch them.

50 Shades of Black

Neither Christian Grey nor John Black would have sex with her.

I read a lot. Whether it be strange Wikipedia entries, fiction, or non-fiction books I usually do it so I have a reason to bring it up in casual conversation. I think it makes me interesting. Like oh my god he blacks out all the time he's such a degenerate bro...but he has read all of Ayn Rand? And just shared with me the meaning behind an India Pale Ale beer...and he watched the fucking tony's?

Ya...I'm multi-faceted bitch. But as much as I would love to say that I just finished Malcolm Gladwell's latest, I tend to be a whore for the bestsellers. Usually best sellers are good and that's why they're popular, and even if they are dogshit, it will at some point be a talking point. "How are they going to adapt The Art of Racing in the Rain into a movie? Will it be told through the vantage point of Michael J Fox ala Homeward Bound?" And while most of the best seller list is nothing short of stellar, once in a while there will be something miserable thrown in.

One such heinous read was this book I read last year on a 8 hour flight called A Reliable Wife. The whole book is basically about a rich dude who takes out a Craigslist Ad for some chick to fuck and keep him company, only it's in 1890's Wisconsin so he actually takes out a real Classified ad and both he and his son are fucking her and the son ends up dying...it's super weird. The plot notwithstanding, there are tons and tons of graphic sex scenes in this book. Being that I was on American Airlines flight 1201 with service to Helsinki, my raging (unintentional) boner was quite inappropriate. Accordingly I kept downing vodka tonics to try to inhibit my natural tendencies, but instead it made me question whether or not it would be ridiculous to ask a flight attendant to the lavatory to assist me in relieving myself. 

This was my first experience in the "mommy-porn" genre. It's a stupid plot, but there is a dominant male with a strange past and a submissive female and they fuck hard and often. So you can imagine that this 50 Shades of Grey thing is happening now and it's very much a similar story. I bought it, but I can't bring myself to read it. However, from what I have gathered there is this guy named Christian Grey (Oh how clever it's like a color and the dudes name, and it's in the title...I see what you did there!) and he must have a massive dong and some congenital defect that let's him fuck for hours and deliver the female an orgasm every time. But he is like this billionaire and has all these rooms in his house for his sex slaves and he's into s&m and bitches love him. And so does every woman in America apparently because these books are flying off the shelves. Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed are books 1-3 in the country right now, and based on the 12 pages I have read I can guarantee it's not because it is well written, it's because older women like to read, and they are horny.

I don't know if this speaks to the American male not being able to pleasure his lover or what, but you see women reading this book everywhere. And unlike men, they don't pitch a massive tent when aroused, but I know when I see a girl at Starbucks reading the book and then she gets up to leave her first step is to throw her soaking wet panties in the dryer and then she's going to bed with a vibrating friend. Seriously, I would like to see a 6 month sales report on adult novelty stores...I'm sure there has been a notable spike. But I surmise the root meaning behind this is that this style of writing is tapping into the female subconscious. Whether she wants to be dominated or feel this intense erotic pleasure, or maybe it just takes her back to a time when she was a little bit better looking and a little more risque. Besides most of the women reading this now are old, they don't have that body anymore, they don't experiment with different positions in the bedroom, it takes them back. Maybe it's just a book that makes ugly women feel sexual.

This gave me an idea. If women are so ready to escape into Christian Grey's sex dungeon and send their husband out drinking with his softball buddies so she can have an uninterrupted night with Danielle Steele (the name of her vibrator...also a notable author) there has to be a flip side of this phenomena. What do men like...what do men care about? Men like being bad ass. Men like drinking. Men like fucking hot chicks not because they'll remember that 3 to 26 minute encounter the rest of their lives but because they can tell everyone they know about it and get high fives forever. Men like being dick heads and they like being better than other men.

So while E.L. James put together a novel based on the concept of "hot, rich dude has lots of sex with virgins" I think I could put together a series of novels based on a bro who bangs lots of hot chicks, goes boating with his pals and gets girls to do inappropriate things with his putter just for the story. We'll call him John Black and name the novel "50 Shades of Black." I can just see it now. Men at the country club reading it in the cigar lounge. "Bro, how sick was it when he made those two chicks play tennis to determine who was going to get to swallow his load and then he made them both blow him and he facialized them anyway!" *High five* See this isn't high concept literature, I believe I have just tapped into the male subconscious the way that Erika Leonard did for women. Most 60 year old men, no matter how rich and wealthy they are, probably haven't gotten a good old blow job in a while, this lets them live out their perverse fantasies through a character. We'll also make him like a 29 year old dude that just goes out to the bars and gets super loaded and crushes chicks. Because old men, even if they are happily married, I'm sure just miss going out with their buddies, getting loaded and trying to pick up chicks. The longest relationship I have ever been in is like 6 months, but some nights I so badly just wanted to go out to a bar and prove that I still had it. Imagine if you have been married 20, 30, 40 years.

So what's the plot of my inverse 50 Shades...um, it doesn't fucking matter. Maybe at the end of book 1, one of John Black's slam pieces says she just doesn't want to be another gash he fills anymore (that's the end of book 1 in the original 50 shades series) only in my book the male tells her to get lost and goes yachting off the coast of Hong Kong with the New York ballet company (may have stolen that plot point from Dark Knight, sorry I'm picturing Bale circa the Patrick Bateman days for the film version's protagonist) Other plot points will include, crushing his rivals in real estate deals, beating his best friend in golf, bowling a 300 and being awarded key to the city...you know standard things that matter to the male ego. 

The problem of course is that men don't read. If they do it is probably an article in a very specific magazine like golf digest or cigar aficionado whilst they take a shit. And that's unfortunate because that takes a lot of the wind out of the sales of my idea. That's how you write a best seller anyway. Appeal to women, because women read...or have your book optioned into a movie so that snobs will hurry out to read the book only so when you see the movie, they can adjust their monocle and retort "the book was better." Fortunately though, now that I think about it, 50 Shades of Black doesn't really need to exist anyway. There is already a volume of fiction and a shit ton of movies loosely derived from the same set of character traits I have already defined...James Bond anyone? Although I would stick to 60's and 70's Bond he was much less respectful towards women.