It’s four o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon and I’m anxiously awaiting my meeting with yet another disgruntled customer in the tragic pose I always find myself in before these weekly disasters: hunched over a bar, staring into a pretentious beer I can’t afford, wondering how I got here and how much this is going to hurt. While one hand swirls suds, the other is clenched and desperately in need of a cigarette. Alas, there will be no smoking. Heaven forbid I pollute my lungs while my blood pressure’s rising and the brews break down my brain cells.

I have never been a full-time smoker and I’ll probably never be like the dad who can’t walk his daughter down the aisle in that mortifying anti-smoking commercial, but I do enjoy the occasional puff after a long day breaking my back. At the end of each week when I’ve spent all of my money on taxes, bills, and the beans, canned corn, and iced tea mix that keep me nourished enough to repeat this cycle every two weeks, I’d like to think I’m due some kind of vice, lungs be damned.

Anyway, social smoking has been great to me. In high school, the kids who smoked cigarettes were also the same kids who were interested in the counter cultural music, books, and ideas that would come to be my greatest hobbies. They were intelligent and cool and smoked, maybe, because yeah, they wanted to be perceived as such. Some of them became my best friends in both high school and college. By endeavoring to appear bitter, crass, and intellectual, they succeeded. Think of it as The Secret…with a side of cancer…I know I do. In any event, my social life taught me one thing. Smoking is cool.

This continued well into college. At SUNY Albany, cigarettes were a great icebreaker when meeting girls and a great stress reliever during long nights spent doing papers. There was something psychologically gratifying and comforting about tobacco that fresh air could simply never duplicate.

Despite all the social beneficence cigarettes showered upon me, there’s always been that elephant in the room. Those things are fucking killers. Clearly. Different people have different tolerance for smoking, and that’s clear, but they leave you with lungs like leather. Still, some people smoke a pack a day for thirty years and get hit by a garbage truck. Some people smoke a pack a day for ten years and get tumors. At the end of the day, how bad are the consequences of this free decision made by reasonable, conscious adults and teenagers armed with all the facts? For comparison, imagine your shelf life if you drank 20 shots of whiskey a day, or ate 20 cans of tuna? Is it that bad?

“WORSE!” they’ll tell you.

Again. And again. And again.

They never stop telling you.

Here I find myself after 27 years, living in my own apartment(barely) and away from the grasp of my loving parents, in my sixth year as a full fledged adult in the United States of America, working ten hour days and coming home only to be bombarded with television advertising warning me about the dangers of smoking. Shouldn’t this crap be confined to the schoolhouse? After the age of 18, shouldn’t we be able to make our own decisions, after reviewing a decade of horrifying commercials telling us how bad cigarettes are and seeing for ourselves?

I think so, and I’m calling bullshit. Here’s some of my least favorite cigarette advertisements, and why they’re so incredibly atrocious.

Down the Aisle

How it Goes:

We are greeted  by a trailer for the kind of terrible movie people in relationships as dead as Michael Jackson go to see. A father must come to terms with the fact that his little girl is all grown up and he has to give her up on her wedding day. But WAIT…Trick-er-ation ensues! The shot pans out, and we see a father hooked up to an IV, a respirator, and all kinds of monitors. He can’t walk his daughter down the aisle, because he smoked cigarettes, and now he’s going to die!

Why It’s Crap: While the father might not be able to walk his little girl down the aisle at her wedding, it’s only because he worked the kind of backbreaking job makes a man need a pack of cigarettes a day and some suds that she’s paying for these nuptials! If not for daddy, she’d be married by a justice of the peace behind a gay man and his illegal immigrant friend and two idiots on a meth bender.  If anything, the sad spectacle of father, in wheelchair, being rolled down the aisle to give his daughter away, would make for a heroic profile in perseverance. And a much better film. As in Casablanca, cigarettes enhance the production.

Focus on the Positive

Film- In Michael Moore style a bunch of ethnically diverse, hiply dressed teens(lead by the indispensable light skinned black kid with dreadlocks- of course) walk into a tobacco building and start asking executives why they don’t tell people cigarettes contain arsenic. A musical breaks out. A bunch of kids who failed to make the cast of High School Musical take their anger out on the tobacco industry. We’re told to focus on the positives of cigarettes, and ignore all the health issues. We’re told that someone dies from smoking every 8 seconds.

Why It’s Crap- Cigarettes have warnings on the pack, and they’re meant for consumption by adults. Tobacco companies have to count on the government that they’re paying all those lawsuit damages to for law enforcement and education. But besides that, as a 19 year old adult in a society with public education who has spent the a dozen years in the school system and the rest of his/her waking life viewing advertisements telling them smoking is for losers who do it just to be popular. What part of “smoking causes cancer” tattooed across the pack don’t people understand. Anyone who grew up around a single person who died from smoking knows this. It’s a fucking terrible way to go. And they smoke anyway. After 18 years on this planet gathering information, you should know any of the lies perpetrated by the tobacco industry are crap, unless you’re a waterhead.

But that’s not all. For years we’ve been told that people smoke cigarettes because of “peer pressure,” because they’re desperate to be cool and fit in, and that’s wrong. Be yourself, be strong was always the appeal, and it was pretty damn resonant. Cool on your own terms. Great until 8^th grade; Then you get to high school, and you realized that if you’re not particularly wealthy, good looking, or athletic, there’s not much you have to offer the outside world and you better fucking smoke! After all, it’s one of the few avenues you have to make friends. So what does the anti-smoking lobby do?  Onnnnnly now, when it’s clear that smoking actually IS cool, do the anti-smoking advocates decide to dress their jackboot hipster tween cast up in the Urban Outfitters catalogue and put on a high school musical. “Quit smoking and you’ll be cool too!”

The moral of this story: “Don’t be a fruity tool. High School Musical is lame, and so is your health. Cigarettes are punk rock. Smoke cigarettes. Live fast, die young. Fuck it.

The Brazilian Dead Baby Ad

The Premise: Ummm…here

Why It’s Crap: Babies can’t smoke. Especially dead ones. DUH! Besides that, society can’t expect to account for the retards that still don’t know you shouldn’t smoke during pregnancy. But nature can, and does, as is possibly evidenced by this picture. If one less dolt who smokes during her pregnancy ends up NOT procreating….? I fail to see how that’s any sort of tragedy.

Look, cigarettes are bad for you, but so is life. Divorce is bad for you.  Taxes are bad for you. Booze is bad for you.  Whores are bad for you. A combination of these things is likely to kill you, although sometimes, a combination of these things will leave you feeling absolutely phenomenal (well, not taxes).  At the end of the day, if you want an occasional cigarette, have one, and if you decide you want to die hacking up the half of your lung that’s left, God bless you too.

You know, these days, I can remember strolling down stairs one fine hung over Sunday morning at the ripe old age of nineteen. Being a college sophomore and, well, Irish, I did what any fine young lad should do the night before: got shit housed.

I remember hearing my sister who was a few years out of college ramble on about how she had just been promoted, but work had gotten, “kind of depressing”. I sat there grilling about six pieces of toast thinking to myself “ I stuff bread in my stomach it will somehow absorb the alcohol and take the sharp pains out of my frigging head,” but, besides that, thinking to myself, “what the hell is this chick babbling on about? She majored in economics, what did she think she was gonna be? Indiana Fricken Jones?” I firmly set out to avidly avoid any corporate sell out career path and promptly skipped the business section of the course guide. Instead, I majored in history and criminal justice, thinking I could either go to law school, become an archaeologist, or perhaps gunfight with drug dealers. Something inherently badass was in my future.

Flash forward seven years later. Monday morning. 6 AM. Have to leave in an hour. Wake up, throw alarm clock at pile of magazines.

6:45. Finally roll out of bed. Look at Moneyball on the floor. Read two pages. Think about how this guy spent a portion of his life writing about baseball and I’m about to strap on my fag suit and best shit-eating grin to go to some place I hate. Promptly throw Moneyball at same pile of magazines.

7 AM. Time to leave. Log on to email. Read and respond to cute bartender who thinks I’m funny. Watch Youtube videos of sports fans fighting at games.

7:30. Running late. Go to get ice coffee. Look at obnoxiously long drive in line, and decide to wait in that and listen to radio instead of walking my lazy ass in.

Walk in to work late. Asked why I’m late. Respond, “because I didn’t get here on time”. Make peace with fact that this response will likely not advance my career. Sit down at cubicle. Toss homemade sandwich into top drawer, because I suddenly realize that I don’t even give a shit to put it in the fridge. Cold or disgustingly warm, the damn thing will suck anyway. Stare at Tom Brady and Jon Papelbon figures in cubicle for inspiration. Get depressed. Log in to system. Move papers I don’t want to work on. Realize I got notices that are virtually meaningless that I don’t even want to respond to; shred said notices. I then spend about an hour and a half clicking between my work screen and fantasy baseball wondering how the hell to save my team’s season when my two best third basemen are out for the year. Walk to the bathroom, stroll past “company guy” co-worker. He asks how I’m doing. I respond, “livin’ the dream”. He gives me awkward look and responds, “having fun, huh”. Look back with maniacal death stare and say in straightest face possible, “ALWAYS”.

Spend twenty minutes on the shitter reading sports transactions while pretending to take the Browns to the Super bowl. Return to work for about an hour or so. Give up. Start researching vacation packages to see where the Vikings lived. Run across “Viking Resort” which is essentially a sex club. Realize they offer a $7800 package that guarantees two women of your choice every night.

Realize there are bigger losers than me out there.

Re-energized. Do about another hour of work. Realize that I have this blinking red file that I haven’t looked at in three months and will probably get me fired if I don’t finally do it. Instead, go to sporcle.com and start quiz naming every NFL MVP ever. Slap myself so hard girl next to me hears it and asks what’s going on, did I screw something up? Respond with, “How the hell did I forget Eric Dickerson?” Fake an hour of work by moving things around and walking back and forth to the mailboxes. Go to movie and music store at lunch. Feel the awkward stare of the people my age making half what I do judging me for being a sell- out. Mentally agree and avoid eye contact. Go buy John Wayne movie since I realize I need to figure out how to get my nuts back. Return to work. An hour passes. Decide to rebound from my failure to name all the Batman villains in quiz by taking on quiz to name the top then rated TV shows in every decade since the 70s. Fail again. Refuse to believe Magnum, P.I. was not in the top 10. Get really pissed off when phone keeps ringing. Finally answer. Response to phone conversation goes something like this:

“Oh, let me stop you there, I can tell by the file number, that’s on the old system, and I can’t access that right now…Oh, I don’t know, I can’t get into the old system, for some reason I couldn’t log in today….No, I’m not sure what’s wrong, I haven’t actually asked anyone…well, I can’t say when it would be fixed, like I said, I haven’t even talked to anyone about it, so I’m not sure if its broke, could just be me….ya, ya, well, listen, why don’t you call back next week, I don’t want to tell you I’ll call you back and then forget or something”.

Hang up phone. Tell my friend, “Can you believe that bitch? She told me it was need to know information? Really? It’s frigging insurance crap. Need to know information involves your nuts, jumper cables, and a car battery”. Hear friend’s manager walk up behind me to inform us that they are monitoring phone calls. Thank her and tell her it’s been a pleasure working with her, because, “guess I won’t be around much longer”.

What the hell happened to me? I went into college all bright eyed thinking I’d actually do something. Instead I’m surfing the internet, developing office physique, and taking mediocrity to new levels. All while under the watchful hell of those goddamn fluorescent lights and that awful re-circulated air. I thought I was going to be Indiana Jones or something. How the hell did I end up here?

“25 grand is simply not enough money for me to get shot dead in some ghetto.  I will call ‘em back when they raise the starting salary back to a living wage.”

This is what I told my mother when I was fresh out of college, waiting tables for cash and a 3.30 an hour paycheck at a local greasy spoon and pretending to apply for jobs post-college.  I was twisting in the wind, failing to land publishing positions and uninterested in selling insurance, knives, or the Yellow Pages (yes, people still do that).  I had just taken the NYPD test because I figured it provided an opportunity to ward off my parent’s exhortations that I make a career decision pronto.  I simply wasn’t into it. As far as I was concerned, waiting tables and drinking Negro Modelos on the public beach at 3 o’clock in the afternoon after a day shift was all I needed in life, until I decided to write the next classic American novel. After all, it worked for Kerouac and Thompson.

Anyway, I could never be a cop. Cops get drug tested. Cops wear stupid haircuts. Cops berate kids on the beach just looking to have a good time for drinking a couple of beers and starting a bonfire. Cops are “that guy.” No one wants to be “that guy.”

Fast forward to 2009; I’m a salesman, like every coasting, middle class American male my age who never made a decision. I sling telephone systems and voicemail systems to small and miniature sized businesses in the five boroughs. Because of the recession most of my business has been the latter, and so I carry my demo set wherever it takes me in hopes of convincing customers to buy five to ten phones at a time from me so that I might be able to afford groceries this month.  Five sales a month keeps me in the black, and I’ve got two knocked out for the week, as I proceed with cautious optimism to the grimiest sections of Brooklyn to meet with some non-profits of note that have cash to burn in the immediate future.

Meetings one and two go on without a hitch and I’m soaring in my head. I realize that while the next month may be another one spent eating Chef Boyardee, spaghetti, and peanut butter and jelly, September will be prosperous. I will be able to go out regularly like I did pre-recession without bean counting, and maybe I will even develop a weight problem to worry about as a result. I never thought that would be welcome.  Things are looking up!

I quickly exit the subway station at Rockaway Boulevard and realize I’m not in Kansas anymore.  A short view of the landscape reveals a few crack heads and welfare moms. I am somewhat unphased, because I’m a 6-4, 200 pound man who has taken a beating or two in his lifetime and I carry a large screwdriver that I might use as a weapon should trouble approach. None seems to be approaching. I pull out my iPhone and discreetly begin checking the GPS, and in moments I arrive at my destination.

After a quick survey of job site 1 I begin searching for directions to job site 2 and I find them. I proceed west only to find a structural disconnect between the maps direction and the way the streets flow. I hold my phone up in front of my face and being proceeding like one giant sore thumb towards the intersection.  Somewhere, a “lost white boy” signal must have alerted the neighborhood.  Across the street, two elderly men sitting in front of a garage beckon me. “Say hey whiteboy, don’t be walkin over there, dem brothas is trouble” is what they say, and unfortunately, I continue walking , and what they say doesn’t register until one of the four fine young gentleman across the street screams “ayyo white boy, let me git a look atchyo phone.”

It is in moments like these when the shitpile that is my worthless lower middle class mid 20’s life reveals itself to me.  Here I stood on a corner in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn, outside of Crown Fried Chicken and across from a community garden built where no one felt it worthwhile to erect a building after the last one likely collapsed, demo phone kit in my bag. I am holding up an iPhone that I could never afford were it not gifted to me in celebration of my 27^th year of mediocrity on this planet and might as well be screaming “rob me, please,” and wearing a pink shirt that says “easy mark.” I am quickly, predictably, approached by four “urban youths” in doo rags and team caps whose only occupation seemed to be beating down white stiffs like me. So… I did what any red-blooded, 6-4 200 pound American male with an improvised weapon in his possession would do in the face of such odds…

I sprinted to the subway station 5o yards away and didn’t look back until I was safely seated next to a friendly looking old woman on the C train with the grandma glasses and the white knit sweater over her shoulders.  I called the customer and relayed the afternoon’s events to them. They were not sympathetic. “What kind of a retard stands on a corner in the ghetto sticking his PDA up in the air for all to see?” Needless to say I did not get the sale as a result of my inability to survey “Site 2.” Another wasted opportunity.

You can mock me for my behavior, and you could call me less of a man, and you’d probably be right.  I’ve been kicked around and my life hasn’t turned out the way I wanted. I have a job I hate and bills that I can barely pay, and I visit the bank of mom a little too often for my liking and I can barely afford to take my girlfriend out for ice cream. I haven’t authored the great American novel and I probably never will. This is nothing more than another sad event in what’s been a fairly underwhelming life, and I guess you can say I acted rather predictably; you can say all that, and you’d be right, but in the end, I can hold my head high knowing that I’m a man of principal, because I stood by my pledge:

“There’s just no way I’m getting shot dead in some ghetto for 25,000 a year.”

Photo by

Dear Julia,

I am sorry I made everything so awkward the other night when we were watching Rock of Love Bus and you were laughing and I tried to kiss you and then pretended like it was nothing before I kinda ran outta your house crying. I am kinda kooky like that sometimes…lol…

I understand and am totally cool with the fact that you don’t want to date me. Your friendship is as valuable to me as it is to you, and I sincerely mean that. Although it will be very difficult for me to sweep aside the way I feel about you and I know you’ve had a tough time getting over the emotional scars of your ex boyfriend, I will do what makes you happy. If you ever need anything or want to talk I want you to know that I’m totally here for you and down for whatever…no awkwardness here…I just want you to be a part of my life, whatever that means!

I just wanted to know something else… for myself. If I was a total douchebag, do you think you might consider dating me? Because, you’ve always said that what I mean to you as a friend is something you’d never jeopardize by dating me. So I’m just wondering, I guess, about the criteria here. I mean, I know your last boyfriend, Todd, was a real prick and he banged your sister and showed up drunk to your grandma’s funeral, but you DEFINITELY had sex with him…. soooo… I guess what I’m asking is if I were ever to do something kind of nasty to you, do you think that there’d be like, any hope of me getting to maybe kiss you, for like a second? I’m just kinda putting that out there, and if it sounds weird, forget it, I am totally cool with driving you to the mall and watching you shop like we usually do every weekend.

Julia, you are extremely important to me and I hope that everything works out for you in life. Like remember that guy Steve you called me about, that time who drove you home when you were blackout drunk that time and shoved your head into his lap? You told me what a prick he was as if that was a bad thing, but then like, two weeks later at Dave’s house you tried to swallow his dick whole in the laundry room, and then he never called you again. I really hope he calls you back. Not that I’m jealous or anything, but like, just floating another totally hypothetical question out there.

Again, if I am crossing the line, please let me know.

Anyway, if I were a real prick to you the next time you call me on the phone to “vent” about your shitty day and the “shortage of nice,single guys,” and said something like “bitch, I’ve got your nice, single dick right here…”

Would you touch it?

I would NEVER say anything like that, but I’m just slightly confused by your criteria.  What exactly do you mean by nice?

Julia, you are very dear to me, and we’ve been through a lot together. When Doug dumped you to go out with Heather and told everyone you were a desperate slut and you lost twenty pounds and I had to drive you home from all those parties when you passed out and made a fool of yourself in front of a dozen people because of what an asshole Doug was for dumping you even though you let him put it in your butt…never mind- what I mean is- I didn’t mind cleaning you up all those times, wiping away your tears,  making you dinner, or sleeping with you(in the most literal terms possible) when you felt alone or anything, because you’re my best friend, but I was just wondering…If I were to drop the pretense, quit this whole act, and treat you like the dirty whore you are, would you let me put it in your butt? I mean really??!! What does a guy have to do to get his dick wet??!

All my Love,

Your Best Friend Tom

Photo by Hugh_Jack@ss

Believe it or not, writing for a humor website leaves me with a little bit of free time, which is why I spend upwards of 100 hours per week watching television. I’ve always been a “watch TV for the commercials” kind of guy, and I’ve noticed that lots of commercials are highlighting their products in terms of the current recession. From E-Trade to Domino’s, it seems that reminding people how hopelessly fucked their nest eggs are is a surefire way to make some sales, despite the fact that Domino’s has nothing to do with bailouts.

This could mean that we’ll be seeing all sorts of zany industries and markets relating their products to our current financial shit storm. I’ve written up some commercial transcripts, to give you an idea of what this might look like…

Commercial #1

[Sad old man, sitting next to his sad old wife]: He took everything from us. We’ve got nothing left.

[Somber, serious narrator]: Bernard Madoff stole sixty-five billion dollars from the American people. For decades, Madoff conned hundreds into buying into his scheme, raping them of their 401ks.

[Woman]: He gained our trust, and then just…*sniffle*… just bent us over and fucked us. I’ve never been fucked so hard in my life. (Squeezes husband’s hand, giving him a small, bleak smile)

[Man]: How could a 70-year-old Jewish man fuck so many people so hard?

[Woman]: And to be able to fuck them every day for decades! He’s got more stamina than that colored trombone player I railed in the ‘30s! (Her husband gives her a quick, peculiar glance)

[Narrator]: You’ve already lost your children’s college funds, but at least you can hold onto your love life. If you want to be able to fuck people as hard as Madoff did, the solution is clear.

[Viagra Band]: VIVAAAAAAAA VIAGRA!

[Narrator]: Ask your doctor if Viagra is right for you.

[Man, smiling as he caresses his wife, who gives him a sultry gaze]: Now I’ve got a Ponzi scheme of my own (Both give a hearty laugh)… My penis.

Commercial #2

[Vince]: Hi, it’s Vince with ShamWow! In times like these, we’ve got to cut costs wherever we can, which is why the ShamWow is a great purchase.

Not only does a ShamWow keep you from spending cash every month on rags, sponges and paper towels, but with our new improved design, you can save all your toilet paper costs too! That’s right, the new ShamWow is so efficient that you can wipe your ass with it! I’m gonna show you a quick demonstration here; pretend this swatch of carpet is your asshole, and this cola is feces (pours generic cola on carpet swatch). See how the ShamWow picks that shit up? Then you just ring it out into the crapper. It sells itself!

This thing is unbelievable! You can use it on the kitchen, the boat, your bloody face after it gets bit up by a methed out whore, the RV, the car you’re living out of now that your house got foreclosed. Just listen to this testimonial from the CEO of a tech start-up:

[CEO]: My gutter-wine has turned me blind, so I’ve been known to spill from time to time, ‘specially when I get hobo drunk. Now I just use the ShamWow to clean up my spills, then I just ring it out over my mouth! It also keeps me warm a hell of a lot better than a pile of newspapers. And it’s made in Germany, so you know it’ll keep the rickets away.

[Vince]: I know in these tough times, some of you are all about making the right investments. Well I’ve got a great investment for you: ShamWow! We’ve sold so few of these that they’re practically guaranteed to be rare collectors’ items in a few years, so you can sell your ShamWow for some major cash. Call today and I’ll send you fifty of the fucking things!

Commercial #3
[Male voiceover]: Last September, we all learned just how quickly our finances can disappear, which is why we need an insurance provider that is there for us when times are tough.

[Rotoscoped woman]: I’m sick of all these insurance companies that are out of touch with what regular people need. I want an insurance company that understands what I’m going through during this financial crisis.

[Male voiceover]: At American International Group, we understand. We’ll be with you every step of the way as you try to escape financial ruin. We also can’t afford a longer commer- [Commercial ends abruptly]

Commercial #4

[Mildly attractive woman in her late thirties]: You know, my vagina is an awful lot like the economy: back in the ‘90s, business was booming. Americans, Swedes, Japanese; everybody was investing in it! But the bubble burst when I realized that some of my gentleman callers made some sub-prime loans, sending my vagina into an itching, burning recession.

I needed a bailout, and that’s why I turned to TwatGloss, the finest douche around! My vagina was collapsing, but now that I’ve pumped it full of TwatGloss’s patented witch-hazel solution, it’s back to its AAA rating! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go pick up some truck-stop stimulus packages, if you know what I mean!

[Jovial, game-showy male voiceover]: TwatGloss! It’s what you need to clean your recession!

All guys are assholes. Wait; comment if you’ve heard this one before.

Now, if we (as men) are to assume, for the sake of argument, that all guys, are indeed assholes, is it ok if we just kinda accept that and roll with it? Like, “ok, fair enough, but only because we don’t respect women because you’re all idiots”. Would that be a fair trade off? Because I’m kinda willing to negotiate an armistice in the battle of the sexes here.

Let me be pretty clear about one thing, it’s not so much that I have the balls to say these sort of things because I’m single, but rather, I’m single because I have the balls to say this.

A couple of months ago, I profoundly expressed my excitement and unyielding anticipation at another “Fast and the Furious” movie. This was much to the dislike of my mom, female friends, female coworkers, my one friend who refuses to come out of the closet, and anything else that has a vagina or wish they had a vagina.

The basis is the sheer “stupidity” of the films, which I find pretty gaddam appealing. What do I expect in one of these movies? Badass cars, short skirts, and fist fights. Let me tell ya, the new one hit on all three. Satisfaction guaranteed.

Now what I find odd about this whole situation, is the uproar from the same group that watch “the Hills” and actually saw “Sex and The City” in the movie theaters because its “such a good show”. What the?

Ladies, a collection of moderately attractive, “independent” women, living in a city with jobs well-paying enough to support their fashion gluttony isn’t any more realistic than Vin Diesel hijacking trucks.

The difference between me and women on this issue is not that I “just don’t understand it”, but rather, I’m self aware enough to understand that the shit I’m watching is just that, SHIT.

You know what’s unrealistic? Me having biceps like Diesel and abs like Ryan Reynolds. You know what else is unrealistic? Independent, self-supporting women. Now it’s not the self-supporting part that gets me, it’s the “independent” part. Every girl I’ve ever met has been just as emotionally needy as your average puppy from Michael Vick’s Petland. If they were really so independent, why the hell do they sit around bitching about relationships?

Well, you see, its because they can’t be alone. Most women are either in a relationship, looking for a relationship, or looking for another relationship as a way out of their current relationship. I’m not denying that there aren’t a good number of women who are single for a good amount of time. These are typically the ones with “standards”. Or as I like to say, every car dealership has that Yugo they just can’t sell.

The real independent women are the ones that understand “equality”. Remember now, you gals wanted equality. Ya’ll wanted to be big girls, work, vote, nail whoever you want, and live your own lives. I certainly think you have a right to it. What I don’t get is why the hell you keep wondering why guys don’t open doors, ask you out on dates, or buy you flowers anymore.

Well, once again ladies, equality. Ya’ll wanted it, ya’ll got it. Now we treat most of you just as good as our dipshit buddies. Ain’t it grand? Just remember, you fought for it, not us.

What’s that? You want romance? Chivalry? Flowers? Surprise dates? You want to be taken out for dinner? No problem sweetheart. Just remember, back then, we paid for dinner all the time, but half the time we ordered for you. You want to venture back to the good old romantic days? Fine, no sweat off my ball sack, but I get home at five, so a blowjob by 5:15 and dinner by 6:00 sweet tits.

The reality is that a large percentage of you have cornered yourself into an un-fulfilling situation.  You want all the benefits of equality but you really don’t want all the work.  Very few of you actually want to go to war or deal with any of the hardship.  As far as I know, women aren’t allowed to fight on the front lines (although right now anyone there might as well be on the front line).  Women still don’t register for the selective service system and it appears the only group that’s ever challenged the constitutionality of that was a group of men.  Sure as hell wasn’t any “I am woman hear me roar” in that courtroom huh?

It’s no secret why I’m single. As ya’ll so consistently point out, like all men, I’m an asshole. Unfortunately for ya’ll, I tend to be an asshole who’s able to win arguments with you. Yep, I’m that guy. The one who defies that “it’s ok for a women to be angry without explanation” philosophy. Half the time I’d be willing to bet that a good percentage of you start arguments just to see if there’s any spine in us. Hell, I’m sure it’s nice to see a little bit of passion once in awhile.

You see, the irony of the situation is that while I’ve pissed off an untold number of women, a good percentage of these women I’ve still managed to get in the sack, or, to be perfectly fair, they’ve managed to get me in the sack. Despite the overwhelming anger in the room, we’ve managed to have some mind blowing sex. Hell, the angry and crazy girls are the best. Especially the one that broke the lights in my ceiling that one time. Call me an idiot, call me an asshole, but ya’ll keep coming back to us.

Photo by Grenade

You know, a few years back, I used to write what I called The Hangover Update, a random posting sent to various friends that enlightened all about the current state of my brain and rectum after a night of spirits.  Consequently, when the film The Hangover came out, everyone felt the need to contact me first and tell me how hilarious it is so we could compare favorite parts.  Unfortunately, I’ve yet to see it.  Everyone repeatedly seems disappointed.  I’m not sure why.

It’s not that I doubt its inevitable hilariousness or the endless amounts of quotes I’m sure to expect, but rather, I just didn’t have the same initial level of excitement.  See, movies are supposed to have a certain level of escapism.  Which is why I like James Bond movies.  That is some over the top stuff I can’t even dream of living.  For most people, this is true.  With The Hangover, for me, not so much.  I’ll get around to seeing it, but man, I’ve lived it.  Ya’ll act like I’ve never woke up in a room at a place I don’t really know wondering who the guy passed out on the couch with the funions is. One time I even woke up naked on the floor hugging a box of Cheez-itz.  Hell, I’ve woken up next to people I don’t really even remember meeting, never mind the time I had to jump from a second floor bathroom window to avoid a nutcase with a machete sized kitchen knife.

Unfortunately, today is one of the worst hangovers of my life.  The sad part is that its 7:00PM on Monday.  I gotta be honest, the events of the last four days are somewhat hazy.  I do remember taking two days off to head down to Cape Cod for some last minute boozing.  Like any good hangover, it started innocently enough with me playing a game of home run derby while drinking.  Now, some people mean that they drink and do things by meaning they drink between plays, etc.  Not yours truly, who managed to not make a single catch in the outfield by refusing to put my beer down.

Flash forward many drunken hours later and halfway through my cigar I’m realizing that not only did I smoke my cigar backwards, but I have this massive burning pain in my right arm that travels down my right side.  Eventually, I realize that I did not in fact light myself on fire as I initially thought and decide that I must be having some sort of mild heart attack.  I use this diagnosis to convince some girl I barely know to let me lie down in her room.  When she informs me that I can, but she’ll be kicking me out of the bed when she returns due to its small size, I promptly decide to go to bed on her floor, by sticking my head half under the mattress and the rest of my body resembling Stephen Hawking’s natural body posture.  I can’t believe no one even took a picture.

Somehow at 7AM I decided it was best to wake up and get myself some coffee and the houseful of people who took me in some donuts.  I think I was the most popular random drunk guy to still be at a party the next day.  Rather than go home after, I decide the best idea is to start drinking, hit the beach, and enjoy the Atlantic Ocean.  I’ll sum up that day with a valuable lesson; buoys marking ocean travel lanes were not meant to be swam to, no matter how good of an idea it seemed at the time.

Realizing that all my clothes are now wet, I search my car for the only attire I have available, dirty jeans, a hideous Hawaiian shirt lying in my back seat, and a Whalers hoodie.  Realizing that a hoodie in 80 degrees is just too awkward looking while rocking a Hawaiian shirt, I decide to ditch that.  Somehow sticking with the party, we venture to the downtown bars.  As the night before slowly catches up to the rest of the party, they make an early exit.

Unfortunately for my liver, my addictive personality just won’t let me quit.  So me and the one friend willing to stay out, but not still drink, call in reinforcements.  At this moment, I’ll think this is a great idea.  Two hours later, I’m at a seafood restaurant/karaoke bar, being dragged across the dance floor collar first by two clenched fists containing the retard strength of ten men connected to a “Sabretooth” (think cougar, but older, uglier, snaggletoothed, and way more likely to bring you to an end).  Taking this as a bad omen, I quickly bail as soon as a female distracts her.

One would think this would be enough drunken shenanigans and bad omens for one weekend.  Most people would have called it a weekend.  But I wasn’t about to go out like that.  8AM rolled around and I promptly drive my useless ass back from Cape Cod, stopping only for breakfast and more booze.  At 2PM, I hit a cookout, figuring the best way to quench my thirst and wipe out the headache is to sit in the sun and start downing LandShark.  Somewhere along the line, I’m drinking tequila and some sort of sweet rum out a 24oz can of Monster.  At daylight, I’m still awake and in the garage with of my friends.  After we ran out of booze and decided we had too much tequila, we very wisely decide to head back to her place, both nervously swerving to the side of the road as the State Trooper passes us.

By the time I come to and start heading home, my head kills, my vision is blurry, and my breath is even bothering me.  Realizing this is gonna get rough, I stop at the ghetto mini-mall down the street, grab a sub, an energy drink, and more booze.  Despite the beautiful weather, I wind up watching Die Hard in a basement dreading the next day at work.

When I wake up today, I’m disgusted by the stench of vomit.  After realizing that I didn’t actually puke, my conclusion is that my room and clothes smell of such a strong mixture of liquors that I’ve started to associate it with vomit. I do my best to look somewhat sober and fall into my car late.  At this point, I realize that I left my clothes from the ocean in the trunk of my car and the smell of wet, saltwater soaked clothes in 80 degree plus sunlight has filled my car.  By the time I get to work, no matter how much cologne I spray on me, I can’t shake the feeling I stroll through the front door smelling like Courtney Love’s vagina.

As the day goes by, things don’t appear much better.  By 11AM I’m getting odd stares as I double-fist a large, black ice coffee and a red bull.  I figure it’s the best way to keep me from passing out and whacking my head off my desk.  Lunch doesn’t help.   The combination in my stomach of leftover booze, energy drinks, and coffee doesn’t help hold the chicken sandwich.  I feel like I have two midget sumo wrestlers in my stomach and I suddenly have no body heat as I break out into a cold sweat.  Running to the stairwell to head to the bathroom, I let out a fart so painful and with so much force it feels like a prison assault. It echoes up the stairwell.

As I sit on the bowl with my head in my hands, pure concentrated evil the likes of which have only been chronicled in Ghostbusters 2 comes out of my rectum.  It takes five minutes of reading hockey news printouts before I feel well enough to stand up.  I check to make sure that Vigo is not in fact in the toilet and stroll out of the bathroom leaving that place smelling like pre-sewage system London.  It takes two more hours of cold sweat and no body heat trying to hide the fact that I’m playing sporcle and not answering my phone before I finally come to the conclusion that I’m doing no one any good, shut my computer off, and leave my cubicle.

The fact that its 80 degrees out does nothing to warm my car.  The stench of the sea does nothing to help my stomach on the ride home.  Sitting outside in the sun all day did not exactly did not help.  I struggle to hold back the vomit reassured by the fact that there can’t possibly be anything left in my stomach after the nexus of evil I left in the toilet.

I head home, stop in a store, buy Stepbrothers on DVD without looking at the price, convinced it’s of the same quality as Godfather Part II. I grab a  pepperoni pizza, and spend the next four hours watching the movie twice and chugging Mountain Dew.

I sit here wondering: why it is, after I’ve completely lost my soul, dignity, and morality, that you guys think I’ll be impressed by a movie where they’ve lost the groom?

Awhile back I had one of the most surreal experiences of my  life. Being a life long Bruins fan, and the fact that they managed to make it past the first round of the playoffs, I decided I needed to see at least one playoff game before I die. I sure as hell wasn’t going to let that little thing called a ticket hold me back.

After spending hours at work failing to convince my alleged “diehard friends” to accompany me, I decided to fly solo and figure it out. Roughly twenty minutes before the puck dropped, I found myself without a ticket amongst scalpers willing to split up pairs.

I did what any diehard fan would do. I went to the infamous Penalty Box across from “the gahden”. Probably one of the few cash only bars left in Boston and the last refuge of the real fans. The ones who can actually name players behind Orr, Neely, and Bourqe. Gottta love a place where the door to the bathroom stall ends approximately ten inches above where the toilet seat sits. Women’s room too, but that’s part of another story.

So there I sat, broken hearted, drowning sorrows in two hands with Guinness and Jack Daniels. Down, but not out. I decided to bond with some A-rabs. Yep, that’s right. A-rabs. In an old ass, beat to shit hockey bar, three A-rabs just chillen’. Well, the situation just seemed to be too odd to ignore, so I bonded with them.

After a shot or three, they inform me they have an extra ticket to the game, and offer it to me for a couple bucks over face value. Feeling like this is Allah’s personal moment shining down on me, I promptly shell out cash, and proceed on my own personal Mecca to my seat, six rows from center ice. I then proceed to get absolutely shattered and quite loudly at that.

Somewhere along the line, I wanted to fit in with my fellow fans and opted to tie the plaid work shirt around my waist and buy myself a Terry “Tasmanian Devil” O’Reilly shirt.Unfortunately the only jeans I had in my car were ripped to hell and three years old. My hat, aged twice over. Consequently, I ended up looking like something thrown up by Seattle, circa 1992. Lord only knows what the sight of me, a fire lieutenant, and three A-rabs looked like on TV.

The next morning, the experience got even more surreal. Suddenly, I heard the phone go off and as I blinked my eyes open wondering where the stench of Jack Daniels was coming from (clearly my own aroma). The hangover hit me like a stampede of fat women charging a new Popeyes. I slowly recalled that I had agreed to go with the most recent ex to see the Dalai Lama at Gillette Stadium. Seeing as I had broken things off to “have some time alone and work on my drinking”, I imagine she was somewhat less than thrilled at the drunk who answered the door in a cold sweat, with a whalers hoodie, and a stench of liquor so bad I could fail a breathalyzer without actually blowing.

Despite this, I figured strolling to see the Dalai Lama at a football stadium after Allah getting me into a hockey playoff game was a good idea. The gods were shining down on me, but I was unprepared for what I was about to see.

I walked in to my own personal Simpsons episode, and the most surreal moment of my life.As we pulled up to the stadium, I saw a large blinking construction road sign that indicated, “Dalai Lama on the left, retail parking on the right.” After being directed to parking, I began my entrance into the stadium. Not only were they selling various books, clothing, and jewelry, but nachos and hot dogs as well. I wanted a t-shirt that said “Property of Buddha” or perhaps a foam finger that said “Lama Rama” or something of the like. Not since the sight of ATMs at Woodstock 99 have I seen unyielding power of commercialism invade a sacred event.

I even saw a fat woman leave half way through the Dalia’s lecture on freeing yourself from desire and material things, only to come back with a smoothie and fried dough.

Nothing like having the sight of the Dalia Lama wearing a Patriots hat interrupted by two fat cheeks waging their own personal war of yin and yang down the aisle as the buffalo that owns it goes back to her trough. The gluttony was yet to stop there.

The Lama, I must admit, is hilarious. The guy’s got a general upbeat outlook on life. He cracks a few jokes here and there and his mentality seems to be one of teaching people to look at themselves and be more tolerant. Nothing like watching a few yuppies and hippies ask him, “what one thing can we do to change the world?” and “how can we deal with all the bad things in this crazy world?” only get responses of “no one thing, world is really screwed up, many things” or “world not so crazy, we crazy, try to be more realistic and less crazy”. Of course I wasn’t completely fulfilled, I would have gone with a “lay off the fried dough slim tons and a shower wouldn’t hurt a few of you”. But hey, that’s just me.

The perfect ending to this unbelievably surreal experience occurred when I began making my exit from the stadium. As I strolled to my car, I witnessed a hippie, with prerequisite soul patch and accompanying douchebag ponytail, beep and raise his hands after jamming on the brakes of his rather large SUV to avoid running over a slim granola gal. Her response, the bird. Yep, the international “piss off” or “the highway salute”. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t what the ol’ Lama meant in his speech about tolerance and living in a more simple manner.

And right about then, I was reassured in my believe that there is no hope for humanity as a civilization or a primal, post apocalyptic species. I promptly went home, went back into my basement, threw out more of my possessions, loaded up on liquor, and passed out dreaming about Thunderdome.

I’m 27 and I spent the better part of my life in an upper middle class home surrounded by the rich and middle class alike. So it was with much chagrin that I embarked on this project known as adulthood, bill paying, and technology sales.

I had spent the first several years of my post-college freedom having a pretend college isn’t over pity party and I was left without the all important safety net.  I had traded a foundation for booze, bud, and adventure.

It was all worth it. For a month or so. Then the long haul set in. For four months I lived the dirt poor life. Here are the things I learned.

Cans Are Pretty Worthless
When my wallet was fat and the bills were nil, I threw back quality brews like Sierra Nevada and Arrogant Bastard. The idea of drinking the canned swill that made me wake up with a fuzzy head and a blanket full of swamp gas seemed as unacceptable as Larry the Cable Guy.

When my two week budget was reduced to two digit numbers, I quickly regained my affinity for the can, under the inane rationalization that somehow I’d be getting some value back for all the slop I was slugging.  All I got was a pair of man-tits, some saddlebags, and, after every wasted weekend, enough money to buy the Post and a cup of coffee on Monday. If the environmental lobby really cared about recycling and the poor, they’d put a 25 cent stamp on those cans.  You know that homeless schmuck on your block pushing the garbage can? He’s angling for two Double Quarter Pounder with cheese meals at McDonald’s, a coffe, and the New York Post. There are no Aluminum Astors.

Nutrition is for the Wealthy
Certainly this is a point that’s bound to be disputed by the Brooklyn art set, but after six years of working in restaurants and dining on expense accounts, it’s not so easy to transition to beans, sprouts, and cheap tea.  After scoffing at obese poor people for years I quickly began to understand the method to their morbid obesity. Fatty food fills you up like nothing else, and on the cheap side, it can trigger a catatonic couch ride where the only thing you’ll be doing is watching cable television(or the bastard ass channel guide if you’re unable to pay that bill, teasing you with some obscenely good movie schedule that only exists when you’re out of service!).  You can only eat tuna so often before you get sick of it, but those free donuts at your office can fill you up until at least 4 o’clock. The high quality cuisine of the poor man is peanut butter and jelly with bananas, and spaghetthi with store brand marinara. A Baconator washed down with a Slurpee is the dinner of kings.

Material Possessions Ship Well
When your paycheck isn’t cutting it and you don’t want to resort to the bank of mom, look to your possessions. My library lined the walls like asbestos in NYC elementary schools. When the bills came knocking, manila shipping envelopes stripped me of my books like Strip Tease stripped Elizabeth Berkley of her dignity. I shipped off 90% of my library. The only reason I didn’t ship it all was because people weren’t interested in copies of The Nazi Germany Source book or beat up copies of Tropic of Cancer. I was left with a collection more paltry than NYC’s public library. I don’t think I could have sold those books to the homeless as kindling; either way, I wouldn’t find out because my bills were paid for that month.

Your Parents Love You Again
When I moved out my parents saw right through the whole freedom and maturity thing. I wanted to drink without being asked if I planned on driving somewhere in the next century. I wanted to wake up in the morning and smoke pot while watching Sports Center. I wanted to fornicate loudly without being walked in on and utterly emasculated.

When I walked in to my parent’s house for a home cooked meal they knew exactly what was up. There was no money for booze and bong hits.  Women are not attracted to the gaunt fellow with his pockets turned out and the Natty he snuck into the bar.
All of a sudden I was mommy’s little boy again and my dad couldn’t wait for me to go to church with him or talk about how Hollywood is full of soft nancy boys. They knew I needed their bucks and so there I sat, watching Steven Segal movies and listening to the hot church gossip.

You Can Live on Twenty Dollars For Two Weeks…

Assuming you work in an office and have more than a half a tank of gas, it is entirely possible to get by on this paltry sum.  I had three days worth of one meal in my refrigerator, some canned beans, one can of soup, and a few boxes of spaghetti. Some dubious bread, some passable jelly, and a big jar of peanut butter.  That added up to two weeks worth of dinner.

I still had a job and a suit that separated me from the homeless methadone addicts outside of my office, and so I still had access to an endless supply of watercoolers.  My hunger lead to a quick discovery: a half dozen cups of water an hour is both an extremely cleansing and extremely filling experience.  For lunch, a banana downstairs cost 75 cents if it looked a little dubious, and that, coupled with the free flatbread that they hand out would get me on the train, in a malnourished slumber, at 6 o’clock.

My social life was equally as ghetto.  With my supply of cans and my bank account equally pathetic, I turned to old, reliable two for four dollar Budweiser 40 ouncers.  I would chug as much as I could and put the cap back on and re-fridge it for the next night. I couldn’t even afford the luxury of pouring a single drop in memory of my dead homies. Even worse, I’d follow up said blasphemy by being the skeevy guy who shows up at parties without bothering to ask “you want some money for this beer?” Nope. Just slugged ‘em back in the corner hoping my financial situation would improve before people started referring to me as Dirtbag Bob.

Ultimately I made my way out of the financial doldrums. A loan from a mom, a loan from my grandma, and a sugar mamma girlfriend who refused to accept Ritz crackers and Carlo Rossi on the couch as “a night out on the town” helped me get my sad little act together and now I can proudly say that I one day look forward to having a bank account more substantial than my nickle collection.

Anyone got a quarter to git me started?

Photo by doug88888

As I write this on the computer in my parent’s basement, still drunk from last night’s wedding, I have to wonder, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with me? The events of the last twenty four hours are not quite clear. It’s a little hazy. It started with me strolling into work, hungover.

You see, I recently moved. To avoid further shenanigans that have occurred over the last five years, I moved into a rather large apartment that was specifically not, “a party house”. We all agreed. Turns out, our definition of “a non party house” simply means not inviting thirty people from the bar. Instead, we rather quietly all drink together. It’s been less than a week and we have ten milk crates of empties we’re saving to recycle and buy toilet paper. Two roommates killed six thirty racks of PBR in six days. At this rate, we’ll pay the rent instead.

In my hungover state, I strolled to work with a fucked up back and knowing that I had a wedding to go to that night. I promised myself I’d only have one or two and take it easy. I left work and was double fisting by nine. When the song “Amazed” came on, I quietly mumbled, “fuck”. It’s that song that everyone hears at every wedding. The one that half of us have an ex it reminds us of. However, for the first time in five years, drunk as hell, I quietly listen to the entire song instead of pretending to go to the bathroom and think not of my ex, but some new girl I met. Realizing that to a drunk like me, this is scarier than approaching a Puerto Rican with a knife outside a bar at two am, I proceed to load up and get way drunker.

The bride, who, despite my alcoholism, has an apparently high opinion of me, attempts to introduce me to a bridesmaid, the one that looks like a model. I get so drunk I can’t even fake my dance, “the white boy” right. All I can think of is said new girl. This is not a good combination. I’ve got some gorgeous girl I’ve seen pictures of in a bikini in front of me and I’m thinking of some girl an hour away. Not good.

I pretend I’m drunker than I am to walk away for a second. Realizing I blew it with the hottest bridesmaid, I return to my table with two older women who have sat with me the whole night and have fallen in love with me in a kid brother kinda way. They promptly ask me what happened and I inform them of said fuck up. They agree to help me rebound and hook me up with a girl. I believe at least one of them wanted to hit me when they asked what kind of girl I like and I respond with “train wreck”.

At this point in my life, hell, I’ve dated nice girls and lasted all of two weeks. Some people are dreamers who want a picket fence. I’m a hurricane who wants another hurricane for the perfect storm. All things considered, I feel I deserve it, seeing as I have to be one of the most selfless and kind alcoholics I know. Within an hour last night I chased down two separate girls who were mad at their boyfriends and convinced them to reconcile. Somewhere along the line I woke up on a hotel room floor with no one in the bed and two bud light limes in my pocket. Not sure why I didn’t sleep in the bed or had bud light limes in my pocket, I don’t even drink that Mexican goat piss.

I woke up to some Spanish maid knocking on the door. Some people would be moderately embarrassed still being in the suit from last night and not having a change of clothes, but for some reason, black and Spanish women love me. As the hazy details of last night start coming into my brain, I quickly realize my car is two parking lots away and I’m about to do the second worst walk of shame ever (the first being my infamous two hour stroll through southie).

I realize I have two options. One, I throw my coat on, duck down, and avoid all eye contact with a rapid hustle to my car. Two, just say fuck it, throw the coat over the shoulder, and strut out, Travolta style. Thinking that my plans for the day include a going away party topped off with meeting up with two lesbians who promised me moonshine, I realize,” hey, would two attractive lesbians give a douchebag moonshine?”

Hell no. I must have some swagger. So I do it.

Toss the coat over my shoulder, crack open the door, skip past Rosalita’s cleaning cart, and strut out of that hotel, Stayin’ Alive playing in my head the whole time. Rather than avoid eye contact, I make a point of looking and smiling at everyone I pass by, as if my hangover shit smelled like kittens and roses. Old women look away. Young women laugh. Families move to the other side of the hall.

Five minutes and two parking lots later, I’m in my car realizing I could fail a breathalyzer just by driving past a cop and head to get coffee and a bagel. Finish said coffee, and crack another. It’s 2pm and I’m on to the party. I’m hungover, probably still drunk, and have lesbians and moonshine to look forward to.

Looks like I don’t need Jesus after all, because God definitely loves me.