Flop House

I’m not running a Flop House. I’ve already graduated from college. The novelty of waking up and having strange people passed out all over my house has seriously worn off. Don’t get me wrong, when I was still 20 I could pass out like a champion, but a funny thing happened when I graduated and started living on my own…I grew up. Call me crazy, but when I think about giving a set of keys to a buddy of mine so he can crash at my place, I give those keys to one person with the expectation that on occation he’ll drop by if he needs a place to crash. I don’t hand over a set of keys so he can show up, without notice, with a bunch of random dudes in tow, drinking beer and watching TV into the wee hours of the morning.

9:45, a.m. – Coming downstairs bleary-eyed, when all I want to do is grab a Vitamin Water and turn on SportsCenter suddenly becomes a lot harder when there are two people you don’t recognize (sic. know) passed out in your living room, both un-watching HBO on Demand. Guess I’ll turn the TV off, get that Vitamin Water and head back upstairs.
9:50, a.m. – Hmm, what’s that sitting on the burner on the stove? Oh, a plastic bag and a can of Red Bull, not exactly my first choice for where I’d like to see either of those things; but hey, it’s cool, I’m awake early and wanted to do some laundry today anyway; maybe in two hours when I’m back after going in and out they’ll be gone…HA!
11:00, a.m. – Heading out with my laundry now. It’s kinda funny; I’ve been up and down and in and out a few times and neither of these monkey’s has stirred. I can’t imagine the wonderful blissful sleep of sleeping in the apartment of the friend of your friend’s friend. Especially when he’s not even there…
11:15, a.m. – Oh, well Random Dude #1 has decided that while he’s okay with passing out in a strangers’ apartment, that maybe it’s time for him to head home and ya’know, sleep in his own bed, watch his own television and leave beer cans on his own coffee table.
11:45, a.m. – Guess I’ll go throw my stuff in the dryer and hope for the best. Hey, where’s the trash can? Oh, in the foyer; that’s an interesting place for it.
12:20, p.m. – Nothing like walking back into your apartment rain soaked; because holding a bag of laundry, a cell phone and an umbrella doesn’t really work; to see Random Dude #1 gone, but Random Dude #2 still comfortably splayed across the couch in all his boxer shorted glory. I know I like to talk a big game, but I’m not really a total prick. I'm not going to come start yelling that you have to leave so I can watch TV or maybe invite some of my friends over to watch Argentina kick the shit out of Mexico. You want to stay passed out in my living room all god damned day and essentially render the entire first floor of my apartment useless? Cool.
12:59, p.m. – I can just make out the sounds of heavy feet stomping around and faucets being turned on above the din of my air conditioner and blaring music. Do I sound like that when I walk around? I’m not exactly a big guy (about 6’1” 180), but I always wonder about the guys who are smaller than me who sound like they’re 300 pounds when they walk around.
1:30, p.m. – I’ve switched from Rock music to Techno. I find the heavy bass and reoccurring beats pretty soothing, especially at this juncture; 90 minutes from Argentina v. Mexico in the Round of 16.
1:39, p.m. – I think the carnage has abated. Yep, all quiet on the Southern Front. All the lights are on though, does that mean a pending return? Christ, I hope not.
1:50, p.m. – Well, that was fun! I hope every Saturday for the rest of the Summer will be just like this…

C & F

So I know I’ve neglected this site like the fat, retarded, red-headed stepchild with the lazy eye who has to wear the helmet and ride the short bus next to the driver so she can keep an eye on him, but I wanted to make sure that I got this one out of the way…
I was actually thinking about this the other day and it’s quite possible (considering how insane a Yankee fan I am) that George Steinbrenner was the one who smacked me on the ass after I was born. I mean, I can’t take my eyes out of my head like Alec Baldwin in “Beetlejuice,” but I’m sure there’s an interlocking NY back there.
To that end, I hate the Red Sox; I really, really do. I know I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t give a fuck about them considering they’ve won like 6 Championships to my favorite Yankees 26, but I still can’t stand them. I think maybe it’s the fans and the actual town more than the team.
Personally, if David Ortiz’s fat ass was alternatively striking out and hitting home runs in Yankee Stadium 81 games a year, I’d be happy. If Manny was packing Cannabis Indica chaws in his cheek while he strolled around left field in pinstripes picking the grass, I probably wouldn’t care. If Curt Shilling wanted to lower the average age of the Yankee pitching staff to 63, awesome! If Jason Varitek…let me stop right there, I’ll always hate that goateed motherfucker.
Aside from being a tiny city (with a tinier stadium) that’s hard to navigate and predominantly full of closed-minded (I’m not going to go so far as to call them racist, but some of them are pretty damn close) drunks, Boston just sucks. Sox fans, for the most part, are the loudest, most obnoxious, ill-tempered fans to be around. Yankees lose, Yankee fan gets mad, goes home, probably gets drunk. Red Sox lose, already drunken Sox fan looks for Yankee fan to start fight with.
For me, the kicker was going to a Sox – A’s game my senior year of college. My buddy Dylan (HUGE Sox fan, which makes our friendship even weirder) and I had seats right behind home plate and I had to endure hours of “Yankees suck,” chants and people saying, “Yawkey” or “Bah” or “Wicked.” In the bottom of the 9th the once beloved Nomar hit a walk-off home run, the capacity crowd of 25,000 went absolutely nuts and Dylan yelled “NOMAH!” in my ear for the next two hours. By the end of the season Nomar was a pariah, cast aside in a shocking show of classlessness. I, for the life of me, could never envision Yankee fans treating Jeter the same way. Although it’s not like Nomar showed up and delivered Red Sox Nation 4 Championships in 5 years either…
Now, in case you don’t know me, or couldn’t tell, I enjoy antagonizing people, it’s just my nature. So starting last year (as a matter of fact, the second to last game of the season, when the Yankees clinched the AL East against the Sox) I began my own little battle cry whenever something went wrong for the Red Sox; which depending on my level of drunkenness differs between a pop out to giving up a home run to a loss. I yell it as loudly and as proudly; as happily and as obnoxiously as I can, in the most grotesque parody of a Boston accent that I can muster…

LET’S ALL GO TO THE CASK ‘N FLAGON!

Joshua Tree

The following is from an e-mail my buddy Famous sent me this afternoon regarding our itinerary tonight. Here's what he had to say about Joshua Tree...

"Ive heard that place is just full of girls wanting to get romanced."

Street Fair

Nothing says Intestinal Parasite quite like a Street Fair…
So who’s with me? Hmmm…? So many tasty options, how can you choose just one? Maybe one of those little mozzarella and cornmeal sandwiches fried up on a grill? Perhaps a Cord Dog from the Carter Administration sold to you by a surly Italian woman from Bay Ridge? Or a tasty chicken burrito, don’t worry I think Paco started cooking the meat in the 90 degree sun around 8, a.m. so it should be good to go…extra sour cream please! I’ll take a scoop with a fly stuck in it. Sausage and Peppers? Why thank you.
Wait, where are the Port-o-Potty’s? The guys cooking this stuff don’t need bathrooms, not when there’re enough lemons and sugar to make even the saltiest urine extra tasty! Mmmn, quite tangy, just the way I like it! Personally, I think I’ll cut out the middle man and go take a bath in a mixture of chicken and cow’s blood while eating rancid milk like it’s cottage cheese…either that or go to Quizno’s. All the feeling of a Street Fair, without the nasty side effects like the tapeworm or dysentery. Problem is no one ever learns their lesson. You go to a Street Fair, eat a burrito or steak sandwich then spend your afternoon on the toilet doing your best impression of Jeff Bridges from the bathroom scene in “Dumb & Dumber” and then a month later, there you are; a big frosty lemonade in one hand and an Italian Sausage in the other.

Getting Pissed On

Most people, if they’re lucky, can make it through life and never get peed on…not once.
One night, a few years ago, I’m hanging out in the fairly upscale, moderately overpriced hotel bar of a popular Midtown hotel that will remain nameless. Over the years, I had perfected the art of underage drinking; which is to say, I knew the places that wouldn’t card you if you were willing to throw a little cash around; and by this time I had it down to a science. It also didn’t hurt that the first time I went there I ended up spending the entire night (in a totally non-gay way) with a famous Ralph Lauren model and became associated with him from then on whenever I went back to this bar (which is why I’m able to get away with some completely appalling things there, but those are stories for another day).
So at this point, I’d made myself known as a major “player” although no one who worked there was exactly sure what the hell I did. Was I an actor? The good looking friend of a famous model? Was I an agent? A model myself? That was for me to know and for the staff to ask not overly probative questions. I had become very good friends with several bouncers, bartenders (don’t ever date a girl who works at a bar you like spending time at, this should be fucking obvious, like not flipping a burger with your hand in a pan full of grease but I must like getting burned), and a few of the managers as well.
So a few friends and I are hanging out on some couches in a semi-private area drinking Manhattan’s or Grey Goose Gimlet’s (bottle service is for suckers) just enjoying the night and seeing if there are any girls worth talking to who aren’t going to try and charge me an hourly rate when we get to my apartment.
At some point, between frequent trips to the bathroom, I met a lovely young thing, let’s call her Mary, who was more than happy to have me buy her drinks while treating the bar, and her, like my own personal plaything. I’m lighting Dunhill’s before I get outside, making outlandish demands of the DJ, trying to convince Mary she saw me in Esquire, innocently picking fights then running to one of my bouncer friends at the first sign of trouble and downing Manhattan’s before our waitress has a chance to hand out all our drinks. After this has gone on for entirely too long, my little friend says she has to find her friend; at least I think she was her friend, it’s possible we just met this girl while standing near the bar. Even more likely – especially when you take into account the fact that Mary had seen me talking to the manager, cut the line several times and have the waitresses flirt with me by name most of the night – Mary came up to me to tell me there was a “friend of hers,” her words, not mine, that she was concerned about.
So I find this girl, who is sort of sitting, listless, on a couch or chair and decided maybe some water would do the trick. The problem was that, after I was able to rouse her out of her original stupor, and walked over to the bar, she could barely stand under her own power. Less troubling and slightly more amusing was that the whores occupying the stools seemed less than interested in giving up their seats. Preoccupied with thoughts of panty removal and other things concerning Mary, I’m not really paying attention when I turn around to the bar, leaving Girl X in the less than capable hands of Mary. Girl X does a limp armed, Looney Toon-style face plant right into the floor. Mary looks at me like a little girl who just lost her My Little Pony as I step over Girl X and seemingly make for the exit.
“Where are you going?!!?” Mary screams after me, as if it’s really my responsibility to take care of this piss drunk girl.
“To get Mitch.” I say. Mitch being one of the managers I had previously befriended just happened to be working that night.
Out in the lobby, I explain the situation to Mitch who looks at me and has the same reaction I would have had. “We can’t have some passed out bitch on the floor of our bar! Let’s get her out of here.”
Back into the bar Mitch and I go, greeted by Mary grinning like an idiot at the sight of me returning, and Girl X still face down exactly where I’d left her (don’t ever let anybody tell you New Yorkers aren’t nice), for all I know, dead. Mitch and I quickly assess the situation and then prop Girl X on her feet with one of us on either side of her. After discussing the best way to go about it, Mitch and I each drape one of her arms around our neck while hooking one arm under one of her legs, and proceed to carry her out in all of her alcohol poisoned glory.
We haven’t taken two steps when my right hand, which is wrapped under her thigh supporting her, begins to feel strangely warm. I say “strangely warm” because other than being inside a pocket, when in an air conditioned bar, surrounded by ice cold drinks, one’s hand should never…ever be warm. As we continue to walk, my hand gets a little warmer and almost instantaneously, Mitch and I look at each other…horrified.
“Is she…?” I manage?
“She is!” Mitch responds, incredulous. And I can tell part of him just wants to drop her on the floor and let her piss herself right there in the bar; but obviously, with a bar full of people, we can’t.
In a quandary, too far from the ladies room or the restaurant bathrooms, we carry her into the lobby and throw her into a wooden chair which has the look of being cut from a Baobab Tree. There she sits, refusing water or any other attempts from Mitch and I to offer her help or take her to a bathroom. Mary stands idly by, wringing her hands and shifting from foot to foot like a 15 year old whose prom date is 20 minutes late. After a few minutes, with the hotel still open and people still coming up the escalator seeing Mitch and I hovering around Girl X, Mitch decides enough is enough. Passed out or not, alcohol poisoned or not, breathing or not, Girl X’s stay at the hotel is over!
Mitch and I, with Mary as nothing more than a spectator at this point, carry Girl X over to a freight elevator where we take her down to the first floor, past the prep kitchen and out a side entrance where the doorman has a cab waiting for her.
“Okay,” Mitch says “Where’s she live?” We both turn to Mary, who has been so helpful up until this point.
“I don’t know.” Mary says.
“What do you mean you don’t know, I thought she was your friend?” Mitch asks.
“No, she was staying with other people, but I think they left.” Mary manages.
“Great,” says Mitch “just great.” Mitch and I look at each other. Obviously, with Mary in tow, taking Girl X home and dumping her in my shower (you thought I was going to say bed didn’t you. C’mon people, I’m not that bad a person) is out of the question.
All of a sudden, like a hungry Coyote watching a rabbit get its leg caught in a trap, this guy shows up who has obviously been watching this whole thing transpire and says,
“She’s a friend of mine, she’s staying with me.”
“Yeah?” Mitch says, “What’s her name?”
“Cristina.” The guy says, and at this point who gives a shit because it’s not like Mitch and I know her name and Mary probably doesn’t remember her own name so she’s about as much help as pedals on a motorcycle. Mitch gives me a look as if to say “his story checks out and I’m covered in piss, whatever” and Mitch, Mary and I went back into the hotel sending Girl X on her merry way.

Hypocrites man...

Hypocrites man, fucking hypocrites. More on this later, but suffice it to say...Speak your mind people. Don’t say one thing and then do another. Something bothering you? Talk about it, what are we, six? We gonna sit in the corner and bang our head's against the wall until teacher comes in and asks what's wrong? Problems don’t go away if you close your eyes and ignore them. Problems fester like rancid fucking meat in August; and unless you’re willing to sack up and take out the trash it’s going to continue to stink.