It gets better

So this would have been timely a year ago, but I didn't have the idea until watching a Newsroom episode last week (a show that is one year behind on current events.) Anyway, hang in there and never give up, it's a great message not just for suicidal gay kids being bullied by fucking losers, but for anyone who has ever felt oppressed. 

Plausible Deniability

I'm not sure when blacking out stopped being cute and started being at best questionable. Despicable behavior that once earned you high fives in the frat kitchen now just makes my peers shudder. I honestly tell a story these days and offer up my fist for a pound, but my married coworkers just shake their head as if they now need to clean out their ears to clean out the filth that I just told them.

As I get older and older, the things that seem to matter to me seem to get more abstract compared to my age group. A normal 26 year old might get excited in a drop on interest rates in a 30 year mortgage. I get excited that my old dorm just got ranked the rowdiest in the nation by some bullshit blog. And while some may not feel nostalgia for the place they first hooked up with a minority, I think about that place still at least once a day. So congrats to Briscoe Shoemaker, and fuck your interest rates.

As I have oft stated, life is about doing what makes you happy. And although it might be a slight hindrance to quickly achieving my goals, I can't imagine a life where you don't go out and get fucked up with your friends to create fun memories (or lack there of) what I worry about sometimes is that I'm pulling a breaking bad and slipping slowly from social antihero to full blown villain. Allow me to explain.

Today at work someone got hurt, and my immediate thought wasn't, "gee that sucks, I hope she gets better soon!" It was fuck me, I'm going to have to stay late. Then I festered about how I wouldn't have time to get to the gym when I got home and my room would go uncleaned for another night, and I didn't take solace in this poor girl's misery until I found a way to use it to my advantage. I look like the hero for staying late tonight, a Tuesday, where there is nothing exciting going on. Now I can TOTALLY hold this over my boss's head and guilt her into letting me out early to get fucked up on the beach.

This selfishness is not isolated. My first instinct when I see a car crash is to think "wow, what a fucking dickhead that guy is. Now a ton of people are going to be late. I DARE a motherfucker to crash on the 405 southbound when I'm on my way home on a Thursday or Friday night. If is burning car didn't finish him off, I will put him out of his misery myself for delaying my drinking 20 minutes.

You can see how I am a tad nervous that my addiction to partying is spiraling out of control. I become increasingly irritable when I miss out on something potentially fun. Even though most nights are pretty average, I still have this idealistic vision in my head that I'm going to have the best night of my life every time I set out for the evening. Because despite my growing jaded cynicism I still have all the elements of an eternal optimist at heart.

All of this can lead to an empty search for happiness. Like how you would feel after an all night hook up with someone while the original non-clubby, slit my wrist version of "Summertime Sadness" plays in the background on repeat. It's awesome, but you leave in the morning feeling hollow.

Such was my Saturday. I woke up at 9am on 5 hours of sleep. (Not party related, I was on the late shift of work) and was dragged up to Malibu Wines. Now Malibu Wines is a lovely place full of lovely people, but it's also a place you can get tragically fucked up if you have a designated driver. So by 3pm I was about 3 bottles of Turtlerock Cab deep and I decided that a nap would be insufficient. SO upon returning to Venice I did the only reasonable thing I could think of...ordered 2 Domino's pizzas and switched to hard liquor.

Well you can guess where this leads, my last memory is chasing a dog around some strange apartment and barking at him, as drunks are wont to do. Allegedly, I would stay up drinking for a few more hours, see a bunch of people I know, embarrass myself in front of a few cougars at a bar and get kicked out by 12.

It would be fine if that was how the story ended but apparently I woke up zombified in the pregame house and attempted to find a bathroom at 4 o clock in the morning, causing me to knock on several locked doors and convince all the women living there that I had my mind on a little late night sexual assault.

I sleepwalk I swear.

Plausible deniability.

But what are you going to do? When you have to work on a Friday night and you double down on Saturday sometimes you bust like I did, sometimes you hit a fucking Black Jack.

The point is, you have to try. Because if I wouldn't have gone for the gold on Saturday I would've sat at work all week unfulfilled by my shitty weekend. Instead I laid on the couch shivering all day Sunday trying to fight my hangover, but I could at least be at ease with the fact that my weekend got an A for effort.

I don't know if I have a problem...maybe. I have no desire to drink now...or Sunday. Tomorrow I have to get to the gym or I'm going to get fat. But I have an inherent need to aspire to greatness at least twice a week. It doesn't have to be some crazy drinking bender or some rave with all the party drugs in the planet, it just has to be SOMETHING. Let's jump out of a fucking plane or climb a mountain. Find a big ass rock and back flip into a river.

I've often commented to people that I'm not much of a writer, just a decent storyteller. And while some people dream up crazy sci fi worlds, I'm incapable of that as well. So it's come down to the fact that if I want to tell stories, I have to live them, and hang out with people that live them as well. So I don't see my lifestyle as some terrible adult to child regression, I'm out there just trying to have a good time and maybe just acquire a few good stories along the way. Some of the best stories about you are the one's that people have to tell you, so I'll justify my Saturday night as a creative experiment, researching a fresh perspective.

And maybe some day, I'll look back on all of this bullshit and think about how self absorbed all of it was, living a nihilistic life in LA's in my 20's. What a fucking Bret Easton Ellis cliche, right? But at least I'll be able to say I gave it a shot, those mortgage rates can wait.

The Glowstick War

While some may say I haven't changed much since college, I would argue that I've come along way. I now eat fish, have my own bedroom and can be found most week nights in bed by a reasonable hour.

In fact, if you would have invited me to a Phish show 5 years ago, I probably would have pointed to my pink popped collar and said something along the lines of "The hippies lost faggot, why don't you just conform!" Then I would have stormed off to play some Eddie Money and engage in healthy debate about the true top 5 of Indiana University's sorority system.

And while I still have a penchant for the color pink, I've traded the Sperry's for some Chucks, the polo for some t shirts and I try not to use gay slurs unless I'm extremely intoxicated and I'm positive everyone around me is straight. Furthermore my taste in music has evolved. I've gotten fairly immersed in the whole electronic thing and pretty much abandoned all hip hop. When someone invited me along to a Phish show, my first feeling was general curiosity. I didn't really know what Phish or "Trey" were about. My idea of a jam band was a 17 minute version of "Crazy Game of Poker" or Dave ripping off a 20 minute "Two Step."

The concert was on a Monday night, and I was scheduled to work late so I did what any career-minded individual would do. I secretly left work to buy a ticket and then bitched about having to stay late until I was dismissed. (Don't try this move unless you are hands down the most popular person in the office.)

Armed with a 40 of IPA (not really a 40, probably more like a pint and a half) and one of those single serving wine cups from Shark Tank I set out for the Hollywood Bowl.

The Hollywood Bowl is really a magical place, if you ever visit, and they allow pregaming on site prior to entry. I slammed my white Zinfandel and guzzled down my large ale and started the walk up the large hill in which the large amphitheater is situated.

About a quarter of the way up, I could smell the distinct haze of marijuana. Half way up the hill I was stoned. And by the time I reached my seats I was on another planet.

When the band came up, it was a sense of jubilation. People dancing, smoking, drinking, having genuinely a good time. It's not the feeling of stress you get before going into a electro show, where you have 30 minutes to give yourself an all you can hoover buffet or 'how should I time when I eat this molly bro?' No this was just a diverse crowd that wanted to listen to some music and have an enjoyable Monday night.

The first thing I have to say about the music is that it was damn impressive. I had always thought that these Bonaroo type bands hopped around playing simple chords, singing about how great it is to live in a world with peace and love.

That is not the case.

These guys fucking shred.

By the time the end of the first act came I was about to finish my third spliff. Then these guys rocked a near perfect cover of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and my face melted. Like it was like I was in some drug induced trance where everything in the world was perfect. Ok so I kinda was, but we all know pot doesn't count. It's legal here.

Then they took a set break, not for themselves I'm sure, but for the audience to recover from what had just happened.

During the break you realize that to some people it's not just a concert, it's a culture. Some post dubstep molly popping tween shares his bowl with a hippy that has been following Phish around for 30 years. A guy bumps into someone whilst not looking, both parties spill their beers, instead of a fight ensuing they become best friends while waiting in line to snag another. These are just good people. It's not a culture of rage, it's a celebration of life.

You know that feeling of awesomeness you get when you're at a crowded event and the beach ball is coming right for you and you hit it back in the air? It's fucking great right? Like no way is that beach ball hitting the ground, not on your watch. That's how a Phish show feels...the whole time.

By the time the second act started I realized I was starting to see more and more flashes of neon go past my periphery vision. An old timer behind me kept saying "Wait for it...almost...not yet..." I kept thinking 'wait for what?'

I didn't have to wonder for long. After a particularly saucy guitar solo, they came in droves...by the thousands. Glowsticks raining from the heavens. The Glowstick war was underway. An old Phish concert tradition, towards the end of the show concert promoters will dump bags of glowsticks in all sections of the arena, fans will bring in hundreds of their own, and the result is a neon cascade flowing down from the very back row, all the way to the front of the stage.

At times it can be frightening, the sound of a Glowstick launched from W20 gets some speed by the time it whizzes by your ear in G12, but perhaps it's the adrenaline because by the time I was hit several times in the back and neck I had realized that this is what it was all about. Hanging out with 17,000 good people with a good buzz whipping a few plastic toys around like little kids while we listened to a great American band rock the hell out.

It was actually initially reported that there was one casualty during the Glowstick war, but upon further investigation, a glancing blow knocked a girl out of a trance and she sat down for a moment to realize how much fun she was having. That's all.

The Glowstick war was one of those rare instances where there were no losers, as oft is the opposite is ordinarily true about the institution of war. But this one was different. The Glowstick was was won by everyone.

As soon as it had begun it was over, for most another successful Phish show in the books. For me, an experience I would not soon forget. But I have to say, I totally get it now. There wasn't a single face leaving that show that wasn't locked in an ear to ear smile. And while I'm not going to throw away all my material possessions and devote the next 10 years to following around a band, it reiterates to me something that has become increasingly clear the older I become.

You have to do what makes you happy and if that includes riding a beat up minivan cross country to listen to some old guys wail on guitars every night...fuck it, you've got it all figured out.

Devolution Theory

Sunday leaving Vegas is a dark time for everyone. Even if you're a mormon and you spent the entire trip going to shows and laying by the pool drinking milk you feel like shit because it's 130 degrees in Vegas always and it is the only city in the world with 3 suns. And just imagine if you do enough blow to kill a horse and so much molly that you literally are devoid of endorphines. Compound the heat, the hard drugs and about 6 gallons of vodka in a 12 hour period, Sunday is a particularly stressful day.

Well I did some of that stuff listed above and I'm pretty sure I could have gotten through it. I mean a hangover on a travel day is going to suck regardless of the situation, and whether or not you are traveling in a vomit stained sport coat is largely irrelevant. However the lack of foresight to book a return flight home from Vegas is just unforgettable, because no one wakes up and sees that Sunday afternoon flight for $150 and thinks "what a deal."

Or at least I didn't...

See the past 24 hours had gone as follows. I went out hard Friday night because that's what you do on Friday night. I took a limo to the airport Saturday morning because, "hey, I'm a baller, I'm going to Vegas. Fuck it!" I arrive at the airport and run up a 100 dollar tab at a bar watching sportscenter by myself because "Hey, I'm a baller, I'm going to Vegas! Fuck it!" Arrive in town and drink, gamble, order prostitutes, buy outrageous amounts of bottles at Las Vegas superclubs and get denied entry to my own hotel room by my buddy because I was so blitzed that I attempted to bring home a 3...even adding the requisite 2 points for the vacation bonus, she was still under a 6...the requirement to slay in the group suite.

No, I would have had that 150 bucks for that plane ticket home but my buddy decided that we needed to pay $800 to move our table at XS over 20 feet. (Fucking Birdman) I don't even remember most of the night, I was rolling so hard I think I forgot to speak 90% of the time. But hey, Wolfgang Gartner! I don't even really know who he is, but I guess it was fun.

Fast forward to Sunday, I am now dreading my 6am call time at work on Monday and even worse I now have to take the 25 dollar bus to cut my losses on Vegas.

Bad idea. When you are depressed on a bus travelling slowly though the desert you have a lot of time to think.

A few of the thoughts that went through my mind.

I wonder if I have drank my weight in alcohol in the last year.

(The math: A gallon of water weighs roughly 7 pounds, assuming the density of hard liquor is of a similar density I would have to drink 30 gallons in a year to drink my weight in just straight up liquor. That's 60 handles in a year which is 5 in a month, I would have to be taking down a little more than a handle a week...while I might have hit those kind of numbers once, probably not anymore. However if you add beer into the equation, I'm sure I've pounded 210 pounds of booze through my system in the last year. How am I not a raging fat ass...?)

Have I done my weight in drugs in my lifetime?

(The math: This one is ridiculous. There are like 453 grams in a pound * 210 would be about 91,000. But this is the shit you think about when you are super depressed about your life and a Mexican child in front of you is crying. Honestly it was the worst public transportation experience in my life. The girls behind me were strippers that specialized in fetish, I almost asked them the going rate for a foot job because I've weirdly always been curious about that market, but I held my tongue.)

What could I have bought if all the money I ever spent partying, I magically had back?

Now this one is the one that really kills you, because you think about every ridiculous expenditure of your lifetime and realize you have nothing to show for yourself except a few glory days stories with your buddies.

Some things you could afford:
A down payment on a house.
A whole house (in Michigan)
An engagement ring
A year of tuition for your future child at a nice private school
A boat
A car
To put money into a 401k
Groceries at Whole Foods for a year
A year long trip around the world. (to be fair, a large chunk of my money spent partying in life was already in a world tour, but if I had it all back I COULD DO IT AGAIN!)

But...after all of this. After the 4 hour bus ride becomes a 9 hour bus ride because of dust storms, after the Quizno's at the rest stop runs out of Batch 81 sauce when you are next in line...after your roommate picks you up downtown at midnight and you have to be at work in 5 hours, there is only room for improvement.

I mean Monday sucks too...but you got through it. Tuesday sucks too...BUT YOU GOT THROUGH IT. I mean, I sit here typing on a Tuesday evening and there is a rolled up golf score card on my desk. It says I shot a 51 on 9. Not good. And that 51 probably included a few mulligans. But the point is, is it is rolled up because I was likely out of cash and I wanted to snort something.

This is not where I saw my life going when I was a little kid. I thought I would probably grow up to be an astronaut or a famous baseball player or something because I was like the 3rd or 4th best player on my all-star team. It all seemed very realistic at the time. But what I've realized is a Vegas hangover can really be a greater metaphor for life. It's super fucking fun, and there are some bumps along the road but the only thing that matters is you just keep fucking chugging on. I can gladly report that as of this writing, I am no longer hungover. I gave myself a haircut tonight. And I am going to go to the gym so that I look decent enough in the right cut of t shirt that girls will talk to me. And that's just what my life is now. It's a rinse and repeat.

I no longer dream about winning the lottery or marrying the perfect girl and popping out 3 perfect kids, I just know that my life is going to pretty much be me hanging out in Venice drinking on the weekends, feeling shitty on Mondays but plowing through it.

And the cool thing is, those endorphines start to come back eventually and you start to remember, hey if I just stick around long enough and keep not giving up I'll be a tv writer some day, some day not too far away maybe. And then I'll make like 8,000 dollars a week and I can buy all that shit that I could've bought with the money I spent partying.

But I did spend that money partying.

And it was fucking awesome.

And while a rationale person may think I'm devolving, I think my evolution is just beginning. If you keep pressing on everything always works out, that's like the first thing I learned in Kindergarten. In hindsight I should've just dropped the mic and started living my life at that moment. So while my Vegas hangover story is largely fictionalized and it's structure is blatantly obvious (you're supposed to feel sad and bleak in the beginning like you would in a hangover and then be jacked up by my positivity at the end, I could've been a fucking English major) just remember that Monday is always going to end, and you can dry clean that vomit off of your suit.

The 7 People you meet in LA

Man, it's been a fucking minute since I've written a blog. I feel like so much has happened since May 31st. I've been to Vegas, I've had my heart crushed, got a new job, 4th of July, 17 black outs, about $2000 dollars on drugs and i got a new pink swim suit from the Nordstrom Rack. It is Polo with a 3 inch inseam and has a bright blue horse. I am going to wear it to the beach every fucking day this summer and just be swimming in pussy. Nothing turns a girl on like a tall guy with pasty legs wearing short polo trunks the color of her sopping wet gash.

Ok too much? Let's pull it back a bit. But to be honest, I've missed doing this, so don't fault me for being a tad over eager, I just took an SK energy shot and feel like 50 cent doing sit ups on a pull up bar for no particular reason. So let's just skip the pleasantries and get right to the veiled references to naughty activities and just assume that we're all having great summers. (Summer is like the one time of the year I can't brag about how much better LA is than wherever you are because you have boats and lake houses and shit...but you also probably have a wedding every other weekend so instead of bombing off rope swings, you're sweating your ass off in a suit at an adult reception with kids...so fuck you anyway)

That said, wait did I say it, or do things in perentheses not count...whatever. LA is both the greatest and the worse place in the world. Geographically it is perfect, it is always summer, there is beach, mountains, desert, whatever the fuck you want, you can find it within an hour. There is a hot band playing every night at some sceney club and now that I am an NBC employee I can literally ride the Mummy at Universal every day for free. But the people are the worst in the world. I titled this post after that book the 5 people you meet in heaven, I could have easily named this the 7 people you meet in hell and the content would not really have changed. So without further arrogant droll from a 26 year old assistant that makes 10 dollars an hour (15 after 8 and 20 after 12!!!) onto the list.

1. The trust fund kid
These little cunts are everywhere in the city of angels although they tend to hover on the northern part of LA's west side. You would think that Hollywood producer must be the most common occupation in America with how many mail room whores read their scripts at the Bel-Air Bay Club on the weekends.  This particular demographic singlehandedly put scores of south central drug dealers' kids through college. Originally matriculating at Crossroads or a private west side high school near you, these kids will likely spend the next 4 years on the row at USC likely in Kappa, Tri Delt, SAE or Phi Psi and spending thousands of dollars at the 9-0h the one shitty bar on campus. Yay! Fight on! After hoovering every last amphetamine in University Park these kids usually go to a big 4 talent agency where they stick around just long enough so that they can say they "made it on their own" before daddy's golf buddy finds them a koosh job at a production company or a studio gig. What makes these people so awful? Nothing, I'm just really fucking jealous to be honest. My dad is a stock broker in Indiana. The only studio job he could get me is slanging residential singles on the North side of Indy.

2. The Bro
Oh these motherfuckers, where to start. I guess I'll start by classifying myself in this list. I am one, and yes I realize I am adding to the problem. The "Bro" originated from somewhere other than LA because he was interested in "the biz" he probably originates from the midwest or somewhere "back east" (back east is the vaguest fucking term in the world, but everyone uses it. It's as if they are certain California people didn't take 2nd grade Geography. If you're from New Jersey say so, Boston is also a city that people have heard of. I can understand if you're from Pennsylvania, no one knows shit about that state, but unless you're from Philly you're not ever a real east coaster) So these out of towners maybe got their parents to take a reverse mortgage on their summer home to actually send them to USC or UCLA, or maybe they went to their shitty state/liberal arts school and then moved here after. These shitheads know absolutely NOTHING about what they want to do, except they all watched Entourage and generally agree that Ari was a pretty cool dude. You can find these trashdicks most days conspiring to buy a bottle at noon at American Junkie, because "Bro how fucking baller would that be!" And in all likelihood if one of them has some molly there is some south bay slut that will indulge him in a blowjob later anyway, thus encouraging the behavior. You'll find these douche bags working a PA job, or maybe tending bar while trying to be an actor...they're likely going nowhere but it doesn't matter because they've still got plenty of time to slam beers and gun chicks on their 5 year college victory lap. Selling insurance in Highland Park will still be there after its no longer socially acceptable to finger girls on the dance floor.

3. The Hipster
Unfiltered cigarettes at 8 in the morning on sunset boulevard, but not the cool part...the part way the fuck east, where it hooks down and leads you right toward Dodger Stadium. You'll see these fuckwits reading the New Yorker and talking about how unjust it is that the Chavez Ravine projects were town down in 1960 to make room for a baseball park. Oh by the way, a great new gluten free vegan place opened up in Silverlake. "Oh, they take American Express, I hear a guy who worked at American Express called his buddy a "fag" once, so I can't support American Express or a restaurant that would honor such a payment method...by the way who is playing at the Echo tonight?"
I'm sure that once upon a time, there were people who believed in original thought, and liked the fit of pants that were a bit more slimming and possibly enjoyed the ambiant noise that comes along with spinning vinyl. But all those who emulate this lifestyle now are just fucking nerds. Dying your hair purple is not cool, being averse to deodorant and body grooming/shaving is just making you look homeless...and not in an ironic way. And I'll make a bold statement, mustaches are dumb. They're fucking stupid and the fad needs to die just like Alexander McQueen did 2 years ago, get over it. If you want to write your memoir move to New York and take the link to your black and white reel off of your resume, you're not fucking Woody Allen.

4. The Bitter Local/Valley Kid
You're just crowding their freeways man and jacking up their rent. See the bitter local has lived here their whole life and they are not happy to have you. But where the bitter local differs from the trust fund kid, is the trust fund kid is largely oblivious to your existence. (S)he lives in a nice gated community in Bel Air and doesn't routinely have to deal with the plebeians. But the bitter local lived in Venice for 25 years and now has had to move east of Lincoln into Mar Vista because you fucking bros and hipsters are gentrifying the area and causing the rent to skyrocket. Venice is literally about to explode into a race way because people you meet in LA (1-3) have essentially taken over. Similarly the valley kids hate everyone that moves to LA because when people get here they immediately move to Hollywood or Santa Monica and start shitting on the valley. Not only do these kids have to deal with 110 degree summer days, they are the quintessential red headed step child. The worst part is they were probably on the verge of some sort of economic break through to the other side when the Northridge earthquake of 94 took everything from them...because god forbid mother nature take a shit on something beautiful like Beverly Hills.

5. The guy that is full of shit.
"Ya, I've got a few things in development. I actually just sold a pitch to an independent production company, we're going into production soon," says the stupid cumstain who has been an unpaid intern at BenderSpink for the last 2 years. Any one of the prior mentioned people can also be this guy, like every bro thinks he is a writer now because websites like Bro Bible and TFM are hot and HEY I GOT DRUNK IN COLLEGE TOO. But it takes a special brand of asshole to run around shooting his mouth about how he has "sold a script" when in all actuality he got 100 bucks from his best friend's mom on Kickstarter. Like this doesn't even work on chicks, you tell some LA broad you're a film producer, that hoe is going to IMDB your ass on the spot and if you REALLY did meet with Appian Way about your Jaws on Mars script, you better be able to present Leo's number on the spot.

6. The club guy
So I'm going to take care of you ok? Just bring 72 girls to AV Friday night at 6pm and buy 2 bottles for 2000 each, I'll throw the 3rd in for free? You got me! I'm a douchey club promoter. The Hollywood scene is fucking awful, it is dominated by Persians and swarthy motherfuckers who must've come into family money by running cash only dry cleaners are something, but I can almost get on board with these dudes because I firmly believe that they realize they are a parody of themselves. It's the music managers that I just want to toss in front of somewhat quickly moving Prius. Just because one of your buddies had their World of Warcraft account suspended once and learned how to use Pro Tools, doesn't mean they are the sickest DJ in the world and need you to come on tour with them to manage their entourage full of lame high school friends. These people are just the scum of the Earth, and I am occasionally forced to be in their presence, they are more pathetic that a hip hop hype man, at least you know one of those n*ggas would shoot a motherfucker for you and hide the body, a DJ manager? He probably wouldn't even put hide your blow in his asshole.

7. The dude that is kinda sorta almost famous.
LA is full of people that were in that one thing once and every group of friends has their token guy. Maybe he did a somewhat memorable commercial spot, or had a supporting role in an Indie movie that one slightly more famous person was in. He gets recognized by 1 or 2 people like every 7th time you guys go out together, but he is still riding that minute amount of fame. Trying to score a free bottle at the club, seeing if he and 7 homeys can get on the list at the Emma Stone party. This will work maybe once annually, but the truth is, this guy is closer to being homeless and working in a coffee shop than he is to being VIP on a Playboy Mansion party.

8...Oh wait it was supposed to be 7...I have to do this last one though...but first how about a few that didn't quite make the cut.

-The person NOT in entertainment and hates when everyone else talks about it
- The PR girl
- The Stand up/Sketch comedy guy that thinks they're going to SNL
- The writer that doesn't write

8. The Struggling Artist
This guy has been gaffing non union shorts for the last 3 years to buy a 5D, hoping he'll be able to shoot some time soon, but just when he gets the money, the new model comes out, making his camera obsolete. He shoots EVERYTHING. But also paints, writes poetry sees himself as a REAL ARTIST. Maybe he'll go into documentary film making because like hey, it's not where the money is, but that's where REAL STORIES and REAL PASSION live. Did you see his film school final project? It won an award at the Beverlywood International film festival. Oh you didn't know Beverlywood had an international film festival??? Oh you didn't know it was a city...well it's not really, it's just a census diagnosed place south of Fox. Big Orthodox Jew population there. But the struggling artist doesn't care, because that is VALIDATION. That his years researching the underground performance art scene in downtown LA has been worth his blood sweat and tears. In fact there is an art walk this Thursday. Better believe he is taking ads out on craigslist looking for a crew that will work for free (Copy and credit tho bro and SOME CRAFTY will be provided) When he's all done, he's going to edit that shit himself. He'll probably shoot in black and white...naw fuck that, Sepia.

Rolling in the Deep: A night in the valley

In 1994, one of the most devastating earthquakes to ever strike southern California hit the small San Fernando Valley town of Northridge. It caused 20 billion dollars worth of damage and killed about 60 people. But that's not the whole story, just what Wikipedia wants you to know. Anyone that has seen the classic film Piranha 3d knows that earthquakes (underwater or otherwise) also release ancient monsters from the middle of the earth, as that is the only way to describe the type of people that you will find at the bar Dublins on a Thursday night in the valley.

But let's step back a bit...why did I find myself here at 11pm on a Thursday?

I mean is this really LA? I haven't seen that many American flags in 2 years as I did last night at the Cowboy palace. They have a fucking horse post in case people ride there. And that confederate flag? Was California even invented at the time of the Confederate States of America?

Well last night wasn't a typical LA night for me, I went to the valley...deep valley.

First things first, the valley is like Fishers, IN. Like Fishers there are the nice parts like Geist and a few of the golf courses but most of it is just shitty flat farmland with some aluminum siding track homes. So I head out to Granada Hills (Geist-y Fishers) to meet some friends for dinner at the Yard House, a nice restaurant attached to a mall. Indianapolis as fuck, it was like going to Champps at the Fashion Mall, suburbia at it's finest. However, after several yards of beer (the 3 foot glass thing) we decided to make it a scummy Northridge night as I demanded to see the bars my buddies went to in high school and college.

Things started innocent enough at some divey karaoke bar. Apparently it was the "place to be before the latinos took over" which is fine. This is the California equivalent of a midwest bar "getting a little too hood" which is just the pc way of saying black people took it over, it's ok, it's not racist, we're just having an honest conversation right now. The bar was dead so I quickly destroyed my friends at foosball, blew everyone's mind with a stirring rendition of "Basket Case" and took off.

Seeing that I was categorically unimpressed my buddies decided to take me across the street to the Cowboy Palace, pictured above. Now remember, I live in Los Angeles, the land of gays and movie stars doing cocaine in their VIP lounges. Imagine my shock when I walk in to see cowboy hats and line dancing. This bar was literally adorned with old hand bills for Alan Jackson concerts and white washed jeans. I even had a Coors original (the banquet beer! Neumann's favorite!) I watched some middle aged women eat peanuts and dance to the country western band, and even considered making a pass at the 2 cute Jappy girls sitting at the bar. "What in the fuck are you doing here?" That was literally going to be my pick up line. Perhaps they lived down the street, I guess not every cute Jewish girl in stretch pants is rich and from Beverly Hills. 

4 games of pool, 17 Garth Brooks songs and a handful of heavy beers later it was time to get super grimey. Time to go to a CSUN bar. Time to go to Dublins.

Now let me try to describe the typical student that goes to California State University Northridge. In the state of Indiana if you are normal you go to Indiana. If you are normal and kind of a loser you go to Purdue. Overachievers go to Notre Dame or out east. The kinda dumb kids go to Ball State (even tho its kinda a good school) and the fucking morons go to IUPUI. California is a bit different in the fact that 10 million people want to go to UCLA and only like 2% of the population can afford USC. So the average middle class folk end up going really random places. A lot go to one of the 3 San Diego colleges, some go up north, some go to ASU, some go to the Big Ten and I'm assuming the kids that got C's at their public school in Tarzana end up going to CSUN...that and every single illegal Mexican child trying to get that elusive college degree that puts you on that "real path to citizenship."

Honestly, it's like that hole that was dug in season 3 of Weeds that went to Mexico and the other end came up in the dressing room of Nancy's clothing shop. That hole is real. But it comes up in the bathroom of a bar called Dublins in Northridge, CA.

But it sounded like a GREAT idea at the time, go hit on all the senoritas at Dublins. My first immediate impression when I entered the bar was that it is fucking uncanny how much latinas love Pitbull. That motherfucker was on repeat all night. I got to the dance floor and there were 40 spicy Mexican chicks droppin dat ass over that new joint that samples "Take On Me" just sweating without apology. I don't know if any of you have ventured to a dance club with this kind of clientele but it is a full contact sport. I couldn't even order a drink without some pudgy little hispanic girl grinding on my thigh.

Eventually I was able to spot my intended target. 3 white girls that looked to have particularly low self esteem hanging out in the corner of the dance floor. I approached doing some of my patented dance moves and quickly won them over, but then the most incredible thing that I have ever seen happened.

During the song "I make it rain on them hoes" some Mexican dude through 20 singles in the air, hence making it rain. What happened next was indescribable. The bar melted into pure chaos as everyone on the dance floor started diving for the dollar bills like they were trying to catch a falling baby. Women screaming and punching, scrambling for one elusive dollar bill on the floor. Hair pulling, slapping, scratching. One guy broke a bottle over another dude's head to try to get a handful of crumpled ones.

I couldn't fucking believe it. A bounced blew past me muttering "not this again" as if the making it rain and scrambling for the mud and beer soaked dollar bills is a nightly occurrence. I felt ashamed just watching it. I would like to think if I was a stripper I wouldn't pick up a dollar bill if it was crumpled up and thrown at me, let alone dive on the floor at a bar where people can see and judge you.

A few minutes after the chaos the dj made an announcement asking people to please refrain from making it rain for the remainder of the evening. But in the madness I had lost my white girls. Dammit. By the time I rediscovered them I knew I was fucked. The only threat to a tall confident white guy trying to pick up white chicks at a bar is a swaggy black guy. No shame those dudes. They just sneak up behind the unsuspecting coeds and start rubbing that dick on their ass and to not appear racist the white girls have to just fucking deal with it.

It's funny, the Mexicans want to hook up with other Mexicans. The white dudes and black dudes want to hook up with white girls. So that usually leads to me losing out to a guy in a flat bill Bulls hat but then dancing with the Nikki Minaj wannabe sistas in the corner.

It's always a fucking blast.

So we drove back to our buddies house (driving intoxicated is SO valley) got some McDonald's drive thru, hit a bong and went to bed. Suburbia at its finest.

And that's what it's like to grow up and live in the valley. Sure you get a little bit more land for your money, the public schools aren't abysmal. But I gotta say, I think I would rather just suck it up and pay the 40k a year to send my kid to a private school so I can live in LA. That or tell my kid to just sack up and join the gang with the cool kids at Venice High.

Oh who am I kidding there won't be minorities left in Venice by the time I have kids?

Gentrification for the win.

LAX -> LAS

Few things are more LA than the Friday night drive to Vegas. Cram 4 dudes in a car with a handle of rye and a San Fran bag, 3 and a half hours later you're approaching the strip with a solid buzz and you're ready to check into the Cosmo and burn the town to ashes.

Or that's how it used to be. Vegas is now a town I avoid like the plague. Nothing good happens there. You spend thousands of dollars of money that you don't have on terrible things that make you feel like a horrible person. There is no look of shame quite like the Sunday guy leaving Vegas who lost 2 grand on the craps table then spent an additional 3 thousand on strippers and an 8 ball of baking powder. This guy is now 5 grand lighter in the pockets and probably didn't even get to shoot any ropes (depending on how classy the strip club was or wasn't) I've never been this guy as I have never in my life had 5,000 dollars. But I see this guy, you can see them sweating after they strike out with prostitutes coming up the escalator at Drai's, trying to get back to their hotel room before the sun rises, only to have to sleep on the floor for 45 minutes before his buddy with the car is ready to leave. This guy probably doesn't even get shotgun, and oh by the way the drive back to LA somehow takes 8 hours instead of 3, and the temperatures average 110 degrees.

I've considered exploiting this misery in the form of a Tumblr "Sunday leaving Vegas" it is literally a time devoid of happiness, all the endorphines that have been snorted up your nose are now leaking through your pores at an alarmingly gross rate. Vegas is the worst. I hate it and I'm never going back.

But.

Maybe it's not THAT bad. I mean any place you can drink up and down the strip and debauchery is encouraged can't be awful right? I mean I am a hedonistic individual, this should be my playground. So I digress, Vegas isn't all bad. And with a little strategy, you too can conquer Vegas.

24 Hours in Vegas...
I have a friend getting married in a couple months and his bachelor party is in Vegas. Classic bachelor weekend getaway. I didn't think I could swing it because the timing isn't great for me and my car's air conditioning died last week. A rational person would probably get the air conditioning fixed, but it's chronically 68 degrees where I live, so it would be easier to just avoid deserts. I was just about to send the email that I was flaking on the bachelor party (I had only committed to Saturday because anything longer than 1 day in Vegas is too much) and then, just to check out the landscape, I did one of my favorite things to do, drunkenly got on Kayak.

Most of the pain points of the Vegas trip revolve around getting there. I mean obviously you spend a ton of money, but if it weren't for the misery of driving there and back alone, I probably could swing it. So remove that variable. What's a flight to Vegas from LA like 200 bucks maybe?

30. 30 dollars to Vegas on Saturday.

You can't turn an opportunity like that down. I immediately booked without even looking at the times of the flight. I come out of my drunken haze yesterday and realize that my flight takes off at 6 am Saturday morning. Again, it would probably be best if I just stayed in Friday night, went to bed super early and set my alarm for 4 am and then went really hard Saturday to compensate for only having half a weekend.

But, that would be boring. So as it stands now my plan is to go out hard tomorrow night, when the bar closes I will convince someone to have an afterparty until 4 am or so and then head to the airport with 6 or 7 single serve shot bottles. This should ensure that I am allowed to keep drinking at a steady pace during the 2am to 6am alcohol blackout in the state of California and keep me pretty close to blackout status until I land in Vegas...at 7:30am.

This my friends, is when I have to make a snap decision. I can power through and do a straight 48, or I can try to wake my friends up and go crash on the floor or something. I'm thinking the straight 48 for several reasons...

1. The rest of the bachelor party is already there. And they were all division 1 athletes in college. I'm not saying that someone that drank sparingly in college is unable to rage for 4 days in Vegas, I'm just fairly sure that an adrenaline shot of a new arrival could inject new life. (Also I'm taking a shit ton of adderall)

2. This is a hybrid bachelor/bachelorette party. I don't really know what this entails at all. Are their like group dinners and then each group splits off to a different strip club? Do they get bottles together?
Don't know but I'm fairly sure that everyone probably pairs off at the end of the night and bangs it out, or at least that's what happened in the movie Bachelorette. None of the girls except the bride know me so I do have the "new guy" thing going for me, but if I can show up drunk and sustain for the rest of the day I'm sure that at least one of them will think that's awesome. It would be much cooler than showing up Saturday and promptly going to sleep.

I assume the rest of the day will be pretty standard Vegas. Get those big ass yards of strawberry daquiri, walk the strip, hang out at the pool, go to dinner, pregame really hard, go to some club, almost pick up a hot chick, fail, go to the casino until 4 in the morning, try to sleep, pis myself, wake up. Bachelor party over. I'm sure it will be awesome.

I don't have a flight back yet...I'll figure it out later, or maybe I'll fly back to Chicago. Or maybe I'll just get a shitty room in Vegas Sunday night and go see a show. It's going to be a benderific weekend, and it's probably fiscally irresponsible being that I don't have a fixed income right now, but I've never gone on an impulsive trip and then regretted it. I've NOT gone and regretted it plenty of times. Things work themselves out, so as long as I can hook myself up to one of those emergency Vegas IV drips Sunday morning, everything should turn out fine...and this should be the best bachelor party yet.