****.
Evil Bob Saget is the shit. We need to get Full House back on the air, but on HBO. Taylor Negron gets the line of the movie, and it's got nothing to do with the most horrifying joke ever told. Wendy Liebman's hot. Is she Sarah Silverman hot? Who can say? This movie's so funny, the following things are all funny: Andy Dick, Gilbert Gottfried, and a mime.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
QUALITY CONTROL:
"Go" (5)
"Futures" (6)
"Girl" (11)
15) Gwen Stefani, "Cool" (debut)
14) Gorillaz, "Feel Good Inc." (re-entry)
13) Nine Inch Nails, "Only" (14)
12) the White Stripes, "My Doorbell" (debut)
11) 50 Cent, "Disco Inferno" (15)
10) Ludacris feat. Bobby Valentino, "Pimpin All Over The World" (12)
09) Slim Thug feat. Pharrell, "I Ain't Heard Of That" (13)*
08) Ying Yang Twins feat. Pitbull, "Shake" (10)*
07) Fall Out Boy, "Sugar, We're Going Down" (8)*
06) the Killers, "All These Things That I've Done" (4)
05) 50 Cent feat. Mobb Deep, "Outta Control (remix)" (9)*
04) David Banner, "Play" (8)*
03) Pussycat Dolls feat. Busta Rhymes, "Don't Ya" (2)
02) Coldplay, "Fix You" (1)
01) Kanye West feat. Jamie Foxx, "Gold Digger" (3) [2w]
This post brought to you BAH: "Bound For The Floor" by Local H
9/2/05
The Friday State Of The Webmaster Address
I think all the obvious Katrina stuff's been said and by wiser folk than I. It's so Bushy I want to get in there with a Juan Deere and Brazilian that mother. So, let's put that horribleness aside for all both seconds possible...
ALBA: Payday.
BUSH: Smallest one ever. Ever ever. I just made my first down payment on a latte.
ALBA: Paying off most of the bank debt incurred from the Best Restaurant EVER.
BUSH: What I owe is mostly their service charges.
ALBA: Paying off the cell bill, the vast majority of it, tomorrow. It's a wonder they haven't cut me off. Or my thumbs, for that matter.
BUSH: Late with the rent.
ALBA: With two actual checks this month, by the time of the first I should be six-o-clock straight.
BUSH: Working only twice in three weeks, not entirely by choice.
ALBA: The good people at Borders. Unless they don't hire me. In which case they're dirty pigfucking finks. Finks, the lot of them!
ALBA: Back to school party at the Bitter End Sunday night. What do I like most? No charge? Schoolgirl outfits? Cheerleader outfits? It's a virtual tie and DOWN the stretch they come!
ALBA: ASR coming back to town this month, which'll be fun and might provide me with hook-up opportunities. 2 years, and still I have the SDCC Dream of hooking up with a hot girl who has to fly out the next night. Somehow...somewhere...somedaaaaayyyyyy...
ALBA: Possibly blending the tradition of Labor Day barbecueing with some TNL. I see your hamburger and raise you a Corona!
ALBA: From The Only Blog That Matters right now: Bush is here, bless his squirrely heart. I know, I promised I was going to bypass it. Sorry.
BUSH: It's September already?! Labor Day is MONDAY?! What the fuck happened?!
ALBA: Say Anything, even if it did almost make me cry for the first time in four years three times. I don't care, I've said it before, will do so again: only terrorists don't get at least a little choked up when Lloyd puts the radio over his head with "In Your Eyes". Are you a terrorist? Don't you have a heart?! All right then, stop mocking me. I'm not even really wanting to cry, it's dusty in here. Fucking...miniature ruler!
BUSH: Who's booking Celebrity Poker Showdown? That title is a third misleading; I'm getting excited by the preacher dad from 7th Heaven, for crying out Jessica Marie? You mean to tell me after Stealth went straight to airlines Jessica Biel's schedule was packed to the brim? H B O help a brother out.
This post is brought to you BAH: "Talking In Your Sleep" by the Romantics
ALBA: Payday.
BUSH: Smallest one ever. Ever ever. I just made my first down payment on a latte.
ALBA: Paying off most of the bank debt incurred from the Best Restaurant EVER.
BUSH: What I owe is mostly their service charges.
ALBA: Paying off the cell bill, the vast majority of it, tomorrow. It's a wonder they haven't cut me off. Or my thumbs, for that matter.
BUSH: Late with the rent.
ALBA: With two actual checks this month, by the time of the first I should be six-o-clock straight.
BUSH: Working only twice in three weeks, not entirely by choice.
ALBA: The good people at Borders. Unless they don't hire me. In which case they're dirty pigfucking finks. Finks, the lot of them!
ALBA: Back to school party at the Bitter End Sunday night. What do I like most? No charge? Schoolgirl outfits? Cheerleader outfits? It's a virtual tie and DOWN the stretch they come!
ALBA: ASR coming back to town this month, which'll be fun and might provide me with hook-up opportunities. 2 years, and still I have the SDCC Dream of hooking up with a hot girl who has to fly out the next night. Somehow...somewhere...somedaaaaayyyyyy...
ALBA: Possibly blending the tradition of Labor Day barbecueing with some TNL. I see your hamburger and raise you a Corona!
ALBA: From The Only Blog That Matters right now: Bush is here, bless his squirrely heart. I know, I promised I was going to bypass it. Sorry.
BUSH: It's September already?! Labor Day is MONDAY?! What the fuck happened?!
ALBA: Say Anything, even if it did almost make me cry for the first time in four years three times. I don't care, I've said it before, will do so again: only terrorists don't get at least a little choked up when Lloyd puts the radio over his head with "In Your Eyes". Are you a terrorist? Don't you have a heart?! All right then, stop mocking me. I'm not even really wanting to cry, it's dusty in here. Fucking...miniature ruler!
BUSH: Who's booking Celebrity Poker Showdown? That title is a third misleading; I'm getting excited by the preacher dad from 7th Heaven, for crying out Jessica Marie? You mean to tell me after Stealth went straight to airlines Jessica Biel's schedule was packed to the brim? H B O help a brother out.
This post is brought to you BAH: "Talking In Your Sleep" by the Romantics
8/23/05
Sinergy
ADDENDUM: Aaron's Photobucket is the hookup. Pictures AND words; will technology never cease?
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
It's the franchise, boy, I'm shinin' now...
--John Cena, "The Time Is Now"
It's been a while since I sat in this chair, in a blacked out room where this monitor I'm seeing my words on is the only light on in the joint. I feel oddly sleepy, and my body is more sore than anybody who believed Vince wasn't going to hold a grudge over Matt's head like the Sword of Damocles. Just the effort of leaning makes me groan out loud. The next couple weeks are going to be enamel-to-teeth tight.
But would I do it all again?
I better go back to the beginning and find out.
FRIDAY
If God is a DJ, life is a dance floor...
--Pink, "God Is A DJ"
So it's Friday afternoon. I'm buzzing hard and I haven't touched a drop of the sauce in days. My birthday is my birthday, and that's all well and good. Christmas lost its cache with me some years ago. I haven't been to Sin City in 10 years and not since I was legal. The plan is simple and yet faced with a deluge of possible problems: I want to make this the most fun I have all year. The. End.
Going into this alone would obviously leave me dead within hours, so along with are two of my best friends and better angels, Aaron & Ivan. I am relying on them to save me from myself when such a time comes. Whole paycheck out, off to the airport, plane go up, plane land safe.
Staying in the MGM Grand, and it took longer to cover from McCarron to there to check in. Friday traffic is bad everywhere; cabbies upping their fares with alleged shortcuts will make it worse, though I do amuse him with a couple "Viva Las Vegas" couplets and some of "Danke Shoen". We get asked for the first time if we have any reason for being here: 'cause Expedia's the hookup, holla if ya hear me. The MGM Grand is a class act, and if you think it's unusual I used the term class act, we pass a nice sized black and white picture of the Chairman of the Board Frankie S himself as we come to and from the escalators. Inside, Sofia Loren in her heyday and Bela Lugosi. Two beds, working TV, a completely out-of-place Bible, and a good view of the southernmost tip of the Strip. Excalibur, New Yorkx2, Rio in the distance and the Palms. None of these things capture our attention as much as the bathroom--not just because we're boys. Marble floors. Marble. I'm literally afraid to drip on the thing, and then something new captures our attention. The wall of the shower is marble except for this one square that has a big giant ugly metal bar in the middle. Why the fuck is this thing here--
--and that's when you realize your profanity's answered your question. It is easily conceivable, if one were of such a mind and so fortunate, that they could have their paramour hang on to the bar while they engage in intercourse under the shower.
The MGM Grand's thought of everything!
Bags handled, ESPN Zone for dinner (wasn't horrible, wasn't spectacular, no, Craig Kilborn was not my bartender), and back to the room.
I had intended to go to Studio 54 because I'm me and me not going to one of the best clubs in the world is like expecting mercy from a hungry pit bull while you hold a pack of ground meat. What surprises me is that Aaron & Ivan are also in; Ivan's virtual state of marriage and Aaron's almost-Footlooseian refusal to dance keeps me from hanging out with them a lot when it comes to the club. But we all change--I actually iron for the first time, no less. Downstairs, through the lobby.
No line.
No cover. (Remember that later.)
Was I suspicious? God, yes. Was I going to get all "Hey, wouldn't you rather take my money?"
...
Anyway, 54's nice. Plenty of disco retro sweetness early in the evening. Two-leveled, and plenty of seats, bars, and space. The dance floor's on the bottom floor and you almost walk right into it when you enter. It gets proceedingly packed. They head upstairs and why yes somehow I have found myself in the middle of the dance floor around a ludicrously hot blonde and some of her friends. They cheer me on from upstairs. People rappel from the upper level down, hanging from moons and a man and a woman doing a spectacular act with chains while hanging from the ceiling. Glitter falls seemingly on the hour. There's some acrobatics I capture on Natalie, and the thump keeps thumping.
And around 1, right as Ivan & Aaron remove themselves from the proceedings (AB, I was trying to get the blonde for you, I swear on a stack of Alba mags), 54 goes from the Best Club I've Ever Been In to The Best Club I've Ever Been In, Period, Underline, Exclamation Fucking Point!
DJ P does this. He opens for Snoop Dogg on Saturday but since that's in the evening and this is just barely morning he decides he'd rather open up a spot in my heart, my ears, and my head for the rest of the decade.
He played "Tipsy". Over Spandau Ballet's "True."
He played "Shout". Yes, by Tears For Fears. But Biggie's "Hypnotize" in the Brit's place.
He played "Africa". Yes, by Toto. Nobody moved. He put "Change The Game" over it.
He played "Jack And Diane". Except with the lyrics to "Planet Rock".
He played, in sequential order--prepare yourself--"Whole Lotta Love", "Back In Black" interspliced with "99 Problems", "Crazy Train", and "Let's Go".
That wasn't the highlight of the night. No, really.
The backbeat of "Eye Of The Tiger"...with the words for "Hollaback Girl".
I love all music, and I only stop for drinks and cuties. But on four seperate occassions when only the luckiest DJs get one, I actually stop and look at the booth. Is this happening? Am I actually listening to "Sad But True" with "In Da Club"? Is this only the second time in my short life, and the first back-to-front, that the Beastie's "Hey Ladies" comingles with "Ladies Night" by Kool and the Gang?
Needless to say, his shit is harder to get than Howard Hughes in daylight. That's why they've invented eBay. Find something, buy it, clear your schedule and listen. I--me--do not have the words to describe this. It was a mindfuck of the highest order, and if it'd been a concert it would be brawling with A Tribe Called Quest from last year for #1. Without speech.
That takes me to about 3 a.m., because that's as much as I can handle without my heart exploding. I find out the guys are still up and we hit the Strip. It's nice and cold, by which I mean "about 80 but the warm breeze is gone". We wander around aimlessly, because this is what happens when guys don't have rules. We get all the way up to the Wynn and tire out. We want to take the tram back. Got to wait until 6. It's 5:15. My offhand "we should stay up to see the sun rise" comment is up there with me taunting Suge Knight at this point. We can still bisect some of the distance and go to Bally's to catch the monorail.
We make it.
5:40.
Monrail begins operations at 7.
So it is. We make the 2...5...19...274 mile walk back to the MGM Grand as the sun breaks through, and it's really a sight to see other than the fact we're all about to fall over and die. We cap off at the Walgreen's down the block: I get a chocolate iced cream filled and a chocomilk.
Bed time is 6:45.
SATURDAY
Been dazed and confused for so long, it ain't true...
--Led Zeppelin, "Dazed And Confused"
As to be expected when one goes to sleep around 7 in the morning, it makes you sort of want to stay passed the fuck out until about the crack of 3.
We end up having breakfast around 5.
That sentence is never, e-e-e-e-e-e-e-eVER going to get old. Everything's a little off in the in-between time after that and going back to MGM, because I order a yard-long margarita. Cost less than 3 beers in the club, that's for sure. I drink contentedly, as more and more tequila gets in the closer I get to the bottom.
There's such a severe disorientation when you wake up smack dab in the middle of the day, especially given the nights that we had. That and the fact my blood type switches over to Sauza. Even at dinner, I have to have it between my legs and slurp it up (filth!) because to put it on the table keeps me from drinking it. I debate whether I want to go to Rain or not (I choose 54 again after the Mother-of-Holy-Fuck that'd happened) and the guys decide to go chop it up at the poker tables. The same poker tables right across from Studio 54.
It's night and day.
The line goes out, down to the entrance doors, and the same way in reverse on the other side of the doors up almost to the poker tables. Paid cover, waited an hour. A lot of the same music from last night. I move towards the floor. I run into a hot brunette named Jen, who introduces me to her friends Portia and Mona. It's going pretty well: we're all dancing and not really self-conscious, just out having fun and marvelling at the floor show when it happens. The music switches into the late 80s and early 90s groove, and into "Everybody Dance Now".
Everybody does. I wait and watch. And then I jump in with the Running Man.
Why? Because everybody loves the Running Man. Just typing Running Man makes me smile.
And it appears this is the move that tips the evening in my favor, as we all decide to break. They go upstairs, I hit the bathroom and follow them up after that drink in hand. Yes, I have heard I'm a good dancer. Yes, I came alone--my friends went to the poker tables. You're from San Diego, too? Get the fuck outta here! Everybody drinks. I hang out with them (and get hit on by a guy, but we won't count that) for the rest of the night, and hand them VIP passes to Tabu, another ultra lounge in the MGM grand on my way out around 3:30. (Luckily enough with the long wait in line, I got some for us guys too.) Inexplicably, I'm starting to crash, and the memories of the Strip Death March that was getting underway a day ago aren't far off.
Beginning to sober up, but upbeat, I close out a 12-hour day.
SUNDAY
They got that Southern cookin' that got them fellas lookin'...
--Ciara, "Oh"
We gon to elope to Mexico
Called up my mama said "I'm in love with this stripper, yo"...
--Wyclef, "Perfect Gentlemen"
Up around 1 this time around, and watch the Chargers actually slap around the Rams for a little bit. Like Las Vegas wanted to adopt the Cardinals as their team; nobody likes the Cardinals before this year maybe.
Off to Denny's, which takes too goddamn long to serve us and I skip out on getting an Oreo sundae I'm so disgusted. We had planned to go to the Hard Rock pool (should've, as it turned out, but hours earlier) but since it's so far off the path, we opt to hit our pool.
Pleasantly, it's only 3½ deep so I can't drown to death. I grab an inner tube and swim around the lagoon area. The MGM pool is like a bootleg Grotto and there are a few cute girls around, but as I feel both heated and cooled, the words of a wise Virginian come to mind: celebrate we will, 'cause life is short but sweet for certain. Sure, I can't always keep myself from running into some of the other occupants or hitting the walls, and I don't have a swimming technique down per se, but it just felt perfect. It was almost as relaxing as the Yard-Long Liver Destroyer Saturday, and sort of helped me work off the excess I'd built up. That's my diet plan: eat what you want, then dance for long periods of time like there's nobody watching.
Earlier on, Ivan had beaten us up to the punch and since he was doing well last night went back down to the poker room. While we were at the pool he chilled at the room, and he decides to head back down after I shower. I don't have a set plan because I'm thinking about Tabu later. Aaron's been scared off, and the buy-ins are too much for me with what I have planned for later on, so I'm out. We decide we'll root Ivan on, as I yell out "Terible! Terible!" and give off a mariachi yell. At least twice, then I figure between him texting us the pit bosses might think we're telling him his cards are terrible instead of referencing one of his poker nicknames and run the lot of us. Ivan gets a couple hands of luck but otherwise his small-stackedness keeps him from comping us all to Emeril's.
We go to Quizno's and mock Ivan for getting wheat bread that turns out darker than I am, and sure enough he starts feeling ill within half an hour. I get Amanda on the phone, who is staying at the MGM this weekend to come. How fortuitous for the both of us, as I'm almost positive I would've impregnated her at some point if we'd been in the same Vegas hotel at the same time. As Aaron & I bicker about which one of us would be making the drunken mistake (and I mean that in the best way possible, Amanda!) Ivan cops out, and we go downstairs. It's about 10:30 because we stop to watch the end of My Cousin Vinny. I'd told Jen & Mona around 10 to 10:30.
We wait.
More waiting.
That guy with a goatee--that's Tom Jones!
WHO!?
TOM JONES!?
WHO!?
Damn it, I just don't care who it is as long as the last name is Jones, do I? Anyway, we wait an hour and they don't show up.
It is at this moment I'd like to thank them.
Because Aaron's Plan B--taken from some sarcastic comments I'd made earlier in the week--is "What better day than Sunday to hit a strip club?" We taunt Ivan from downstairs until he coalesces to come down.
Sadly for us, or luckily depending on how hard we want to chase a life history of heart problems, we have to ditch our cameras.
Outside. We can take a cab.
Or, for $20, we can take a limo.
So, we're riding along in the limo when the driver mentions that despite what the doorguy said, we're going to Sapphire's.
Which, it should be noted on my taxes next year, is a restaurant. I have the receipts and the satisfied meal feeling and everything.
"Yeah," she says through the partition, "it's the biggest strip club in the world."
I make the Chandler Bing this-cannot-be face. And yes...
"In the world?"
"In the world."
We get there--by the way, a stone's throw behind Circus Circus...why?....why!?-- and I'm thinking I have exactly enough for a round of fun. We get a table about a row away from the floor and begin to sit down. We all get non-alcoholic beverages on the round I end up buying (Aaron a teetotaler, Ivan abstaining).
This is the point where you want to get the squeamish and holy out of the room and onto a lesser blog. G'head.
So a stripper sidles up to me (sidles, nice) and starts talking to me. But I have had this dream in mind since the trip first took birth and it's this: Aaron gets a lapdance before I do anything. Why? Because a lot of it's the fact he's my friend, and the rest of it is he's just a big nice guy and the dichotomy of suddenly having a woman getting naked on his person would just amuse me too much to not watch. Sure enough, as I talk, he comes back, and the cute black girl starts on him. Then a brunette starts on me.
The affirmative action programs get more strenuous by the day.
We get our lapdances and it's pretty good--well, Aaron didn't like his so much but I think what happened next and the fact it just sprung on him when he got out of the bathroom about 10 minutes into the trip sort of has coloured his view. I was perfectly satisified.
And about broke.
But that all flies out the window, along with the concept of linear time as it relates to a person having a past and a future, when Kelli (I changed that to an I so as to disguise her real name) alights next to us.
It must be said partially in vain and partially to explain that our table combined is younger than some of the guys in there. A lot of the old guys are up by the stage, and we're sort of lying back in the cut, obviously appreciative but not ostentacious. We're all pretty-decent looking, with the exception of me--that's right, I said it, I'm hotter than the Strip at 3 p.m. So in retrospect it seems a pretty obvious choice, but at the time we didn't realize we were about to make ourselves a new friend.
Figuring with the sort of live-one-die-fast-leave-a-beautiful-highly-marketable-corpse mentality I usually have steroided up by the fact I'm in Vegas, cream and cleared by me being in the World's Largest Strip Club, I decide we only have one chance to use the psuedonyms we've been working on all week. So I become Ron Mexico, Ivan turns into Raoul, and Aaron into...I want to say Steve. We all hail from San Obispo as part of a church group here to examine the level of depravity in such a house of sin.
Stripper: "Getting a lapdance isn't a sin."
Me: "Let us pray."
But we end up talking and talking, and eventually I end up going with our real names and our real story. I just wanted to be somebody else for a while. And that's about when it happens. We're sitting there talking about her being from Georgia, and me having relations with Georgia Tech connections, and up comes the waitress. Should I keep my tab open and throw a lapdance on there?
Sure.
But I have to be in for $60. Three lapdances. Way over budget. I know this.
I mean, I have a mid-140s I.Q.! I cook, I write so well I've won awards, I speak some Spanish, I know a little something about the power and the struggle and the love and the glory that is American history. I'm a connoisseur of fine music and books.
But I look at Kelli with the I and I can't see the future, hard. I have a dim sense of overage charges and cell bills. But so very dim. Kelli's really pretty; I think if I'm remembering earlier correctly Aaron said she had a Cameron Diazy thing going on. I'm sure if not, he'll correct me.
What happens?
Three guys. Three lapdances.
You only live once, I say to myself.
Things degenerate quickly and markedly from that, as Ivan and I have started drinking. I, being me, have decided things will go Aaron-Ivan-me lapdance wise. A greedier man would've gotten his first; a smarter man knows he gets the best stuff last. Aaron somehow gets the "Sexual Healing" update which is quite nice, as Marvin would've made me cry and/or try to elope. Ivan gets his dance and I watch absent-mindedly diverting between that and the stage. You have to keep in mind, this is why I didn't party weeks beforehand--the sense of delayed gratification to prolong the actual moment. You can't appreciate a good meal unless you've been starving, et al.
I got "American Idiot", incongrously. (We actually heard "Beverly Hills", "Du Hast" (no really), and "D'Yer Maker earlier.)
Here are things I thought about:
Baseball
Football
Chewbacca
Barney
London bombings
9/11
It was the most surreal moment of my life. I felt like I was living it and somehow watching it on HBO. What to say? What to do? How much can I touch (damn this town and the no-touch rule)? Wow, it's dark in here. I'll take it. How much is the rent? I'm not drooling on them, am I? Should I have quit smiling when she shoved me in there? Should I be trying conversation? Shouldn't I've taken Chris Elliot's advice and flogged the dolphin before this? Dear holy GOD, how is she that flexible?!
She gets her legs around her head. And my head. She wasn't facing me.
And I being me, choose this moment to snake my hand through and grab my Heineken and have a pull. THERE'S your fucking commercial, you crazy Dutch bastards.
So Kelli laughs and once she's done takes the one empty seat at the table as we wait for my card to come back. We're being oddly witty and funny, I think mostly to detract from the fact that you could've fried an egg off our heads. I know this is going to be my Most Rock Star Moment of the year. It's all going according to plan. So we actually talk about Ivan's relationship and how it shouldn't be affected by this, how hip-hop makes better stripping music (yes, that was my end of the conversation), how good she smells, her remarkable boob job (seriously, one of the best I've ever seen, would've raised pre-flop they were real...) and then she drops a new nickname on Ivan when I admit I wasn't sure how much grazing my hand could do:
Kelli: I mean, he tweaked my nipples hard before I started on you...
Me (turning to Ivan, aghast): You did WHAT?!
Now, I did catch a little bit of it at the end. I had made a "tuning in the station" joke that she laughed at right away, but I had no idea that the better angels of my nature could in fact be corrupted by my nature.
I think his stomach's all right now.
Eventually, we get her her money. And then Ivan pulls out his credit card. Kelli goes for another round. This is a one of the rare sequels that doesn't suck. I was hoping for a good song, and I get "Don't Ya". She loves it too.
These pants are going into a ziplock bag.
This shirt is going into a ziplock bag.
We're both singing along. In response to the chorus, before I can even stop myself (let's blame the firewater), I say I don't have a girlfriend. But when she looks up at me and says "Don't you wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?" my response is an immediate, heartfelt "GOD, yes."
And for being a good boy, it's Aaron who buys the next round.
It's this damn town, it gets e v e r y b o d y.
I can no longer listen to "Oh" without taking me to a special place smelling of citrus and triple-ply soft to the touch, but it's a tradeoff I'll suffer through. We talk a bit about Ciara and I throw down the Atlanta sign. "Georgia peaches", she says.
Georgia peaches.
Me: Before you start, I'd just like to say something. I'm RICK JAMES, BITCH! All right, go ahead.
Kelli (laughing): I love that sketch! Just don't do anything to mess up our couch.
Ivan (drunk, immediately): FUCK yo couch, nigga!
This is what I've learned with this weekend:
1) Therapy is bullshit. A yard of tequila? A good swim in the light of day? A lapdance? If it doesn't make you feel a little bit better about yourself when they're done, you might as well off yourself. Worse comes to worse, take 3 lapdances and call me in the morning.
2) I want Kelli, but in someone else's body with the same range of flexibility. And isn't that what I should want, a girl I can talk hip-hop to who's titties I can play with? Someone I can goof around with and slap her ass like I've caught her stealing from the cookie jar?
Oh, the last part: she kept shaking it at me. I didn't want to hurt her after what Ivan did, I knew her boobs were sensitive. And there are the peaches, begging to be sampled. What am I supposed to do, deny her a little fun with work? Out of the corner of my eye during the "Stairway" solo I find Aaron looking at me as if he's never seen me before.
After my crisis of faith, I found/find myself believing heaven is a state of mind rather than a final destination. And all I know is listening to Jazze pop the bottles 'cause we've got another hit, hit, hit as I swatted Kelli's ass and she salt shakered that baby at me, surrounded by my friends--that, to me, was heaven.
But we have to check out at 11. And it's 20 to 3.
Two and a half hours, gone.
I mention that if we don't leave here now, we're never going to get out. That's bad somehow, I just don't know how. My card gets eaten by the system or just says "Goddamnit, enough!" and Aaron covers my tab and we stagger out into the night.
Sleep didn't come easily. Just kept thinking about it. Just kept thinking about it.
This morning...yesterday morning at the checkout. No Spectravision. No movies. No room service. No extra charges.
The woman behind the counter says "You didn't do anything!"
And I just laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
4-Card Straight and Pinchy: we're taking Amanda to see Kelli next year.
Vegas, baby?
Damn right, Vegas, baby.
This post brought to you BAH: "Cannonball" by the Breeders
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
It's the franchise, boy, I'm shinin' now...
--John Cena, "The Time Is Now"
It's been a while since I sat in this chair, in a blacked out room where this monitor I'm seeing my words on is the only light on in the joint. I feel oddly sleepy, and my body is more sore than anybody who believed Vince wasn't going to hold a grudge over Matt's head like the Sword of Damocles. Just the effort of leaning makes me groan out loud. The next couple weeks are going to be enamel-to-teeth tight.
But would I do it all again?
I better go back to the beginning and find out.
FRIDAY
If God is a DJ, life is a dance floor...
--Pink, "God Is A DJ"
So it's Friday afternoon. I'm buzzing hard and I haven't touched a drop of the sauce in days. My birthday is my birthday, and that's all well and good. Christmas lost its cache with me some years ago. I haven't been to Sin City in 10 years and not since I was legal. The plan is simple and yet faced with a deluge of possible problems: I want to make this the most fun I have all year. The. End.
Going into this alone would obviously leave me dead within hours, so along with are two of my best friends and better angels, Aaron & Ivan. I am relying on them to save me from myself when such a time comes. Whole paycheck out, off to the airport, plane go up, plane land safe.
Staying in the MGM Grand, and it took longer to cover from McCarron to there to check in. Friday traffic is bad everywhere; cabbies upping their fares with alleged shortcuts will make it worse, though I do amuse him with a couple "Viva Las Vegas" couplets and some of "Danke Shoen". We get asked for the first time if we have any reason for being here: 'cause Expedia's the hookup, holla if ya hear me. The MGM Grand is a class act, and if you think it's unusual I used the term class act, we pass a nice sized black and white picture of the Chairman of the Board Frankie S himself as we come to and from the escalators. Inside, Sofia Loren in her heyday and Bela Lugosi. Two beds, working TV, a completely out-of-place Bible, and a good view of the southernmost tip of the Strip. Excalibur, New Yorkx2, Rio in the distance and the Palms. None of these things capture our attention as much as the bathroom--not just because we're boys. Marble floors. Marble. I'm literally afraid to drip on the thing, and then something new captures our attention. The wall of the shower is marble except for this one square that has a big giant ugly metal bar in the middle. Why the fuck is this thing here--
--and that's when you realize your profanity's answered your question. It is easily conceivable, if one were of such a mind and so fortunate, that they could have their paramour hang on to the bar while they engage in intercourse under the shower.
The MGM Grand's thought of everything!
Bags handled, ESPN Zone for dinner (wasn't horrible, wasn't spectacular, no, Craig Kilborn was not my bartender), and back to the room.
I had intended to go to Studio 54 because I'm me and me not going to one of the best clubs in the world is like expecting mercy from a hungry pit bull while you hold a pack of ground meat. What surprises me is that Aaron & Ivan are also in; Ivan's virtual state of marriage and Aaron's almost-Footlooseian refusal to dance keeps me from hanging out with them a lot when it comes to the club. But we all change--I actually iron for the first time, no less. Downstairs, through the lobby.
No line.
No cover. (Remember that later.)
Was I suspicious? God, yes. Was I going to get all "Hey, wouldn't you rather take my money?"
...
Anyway, 54's nice. Plenty of disco retro sweetness early in the evening. Two-leveled, and plenty of seats, bars, and space. The dance floor's on the bottom floor and you almost walk right into it when you enter. It gets proceedingly packed. They head upstairs and why yes somehow I have found myself in the middle of the dance floor around a ludicrously hot blonde and some of her friends. They cheer me on from upstairs. People rappel from the upper level down, hanging from moons and a man and a woman doing a spectacular act with chains while hanging from the ceiling. Glitter falls seemingly on the hour. There's some acrobatics I capture on Natalie, and the thump keeps thumping.
And around 1, right as Ivan & Aaron remove themselves from the proceedings (AB, I was trying to get the blonde for you, I swear on a stack of Alba mags), 54 goes from the Best Club I've Ever Been In to The Best Club I've Ever Been In, Period, Underline, Exclamation Fucking Point!
DJ P does this. He opens for Snoop Dogg on Saturday but since that's in the evening and this is just barely morning he decides he'd rather open up a spot in my heart, my ears, and my head for the rest of the decade.
He played "Tipsy". Over Spandau Ballet's "True."
He played "Shout". Yes, by Tears For Fears. But Biggie's "Hypnotize" in the Brit's place.
He played "Africa". Yes, by Toto. Nobody moved. He put "Change The Game" over it.
He played "Jack And Diane". Except with the lyrics to "Planet Rock".
He played, in sequential order--prepare yourself--"Whole Lotta Love", "Back In Black" interspliced with "99 Problems", "Crazy Train", and "Let's Go".
That wasn't the highlight of the night. No, really.
The backbeat of "Eye Of The Tiger"...with the words for "Hollaback Girl".
I love all music, and I only stop for drinks and cuties. But on four seperate occassions when only the luckiest DJs get one, I actually stop and look at the booth. Is this happening? Am I actually listening to "Sad But True" with "In Da Club"? Is this only the second time in my short life, and the first back-to-front, that the Beastie's "Hey Ladies" comingles with "Ladies Night" by Kool and the Gang?
Needless to say, his shit is harder to get than Howard Hughes in daylight. That's why they've invented eBay. Find something, buy it, clear your schedule and listen. I--me--do not have the words to describe this. It was a mindfuck of the highest order, and if it'd been a concert it would be brawling with A Tribe Called Quest from last year for #1. Without speech.
That takes me to about 3 a.m., because that's as much as I can handle without my heart exploding. I find out the guys are still up and we hit the Strip. It's nice and cold, by which I mean "about 80 but the warm breeze is gone". We wander around aimlessly, because this is what happens when guys don't have rules. We get all the way up to the Wynn and tire out. We want to take the tram back. Got to wait until 6. It's 5:15. My offhand "we should stay up to see the sun rise" comment is up there with me taunting Suge Knight at this point. We can still bisect some of the distance and go to Bally's to catch the monorail.
We make it.
5:40.
Monrail begins operations at 7.
So it is. We make the 2...5...19...274 mile walk back to the MGM Grand as the sun breaks through, and it's really a sight to see other than the fact we're all about to fall over and die. We cap off at the Walgreen's down the block: I get a chocolate iced cream filled and a chocomilk.
Bed time is 6:45.
SATURDAY
Been dazed and confused for so long, it ain't true...
--Led Zeppelin, "Dazed And Confused"
As to be expected when one goes to sleep around 7 in the morning, it makes you sort of want to stay passed the fuck out until about the crack of 3.
We end up having breakfast around 5.
That sentence is never, e-e-e-e-e-e-e-eVER going to get old. Everything's a little off in the in-between time after that and going back to MGM, because I order a yard-long margarita. Cost less than 3 beers in the club, that's for sure. I drink contentedly, as more and more tequila gets in the closer I get to the bottom.
There's such a severe disorientation when you wake up smack dab in the middle of the day, especially given the nights that we had. That and the fact my blood type switches over to Sauza. Even at dinner, I have to have it between my legs and slurp it up (filth!) because to put it on the table keeps me from drinking it. I debate whether I want to go to Rain or not (I choose 54 again after the Mother-of-Holy-Fuck that'd happened) and the guys decide to go chop it up at the poker tables. The same poker tables right across from Studio 54.
It's night and day.
The line goes out, down to the entrance doors, and the same way in reverse on the other side of the doors up almost to the poker tables. Paid cover, waited an hour. A lot of the same music from last night. I move towards the floor. I run into a hot brunette named Jen, who introduces me to her friends Portia and Mona. It's going pretty well: we're all dancing and not really self-conscious, just out having fun and marvelling at the floor show when it happens. The music switches into the late 80s and early 90s groove, and into "Everybody Dance Now".
Everybody does. I wait and watch. And then I jump in with the Running Man.
Why? Because everybody loves the Running Man. Just typing Running Man makes me smile.
And it appears this is the move that tips the evening in my favor, as we all decide to break. They go upstairs, I hit the bathroom and follow them up after that drink in hand. Yes, I have heard I'm a good dancer. Yes, I came alone--my friends went to the poker tables. You're from San Diego, too? Get the fuck outta here! Everybody drinks. I hang out with them (and get hit on by a guy, but we won't count that) for the rest of the night, and hand them VIP passes to Tabu, another ultra lounge in the MGM grand on my way out around 3:30. (Luckily enough with the long wait in line, I got some for us guys too.) Inexplicably, I'm starting to crash, and the memories of the Strip Death March that was getting underway a day ago aren't far off.
Beginning to sober up, but upbeat, I close out a 12-hour day.
SUNDAY
They got that Southern cookin' that got them fellas lookin'...
--Ciara, "Oh"
We gon to elope to Mexico
Called up my mama said "I'm in love with this stripper, yo"...
--Wyclef, "Perfect Gentlemen"
Up around 1 this time around, and watch the Chargers actually slap around the Rams for a little bit. Like Las Vegas wanted to adopt the Cardinals as their team; nobody likes the Cardinals before this year maybe.
Off to Denny's, which takes too goddamn long to serve us and I skip out on getting an Oreo sundae I'm so disgusted. We had planned to go to the Hard Rock pool (should've, as it turned out, but hours earlier) but since it's so far off the path, we opt to hit our pool.
Pleasantly, it's only 3½ deep so I can't drown to death. I grab an inner tube and swim around the lagoon area. The MGM pool is like a bootleg Grotto and there are a few cute girls around, but as I feel both heated and cooled, the words of a wise Virginian come to mind: celebrate we will, 'cause life is short but sweet for certain. Sure, I can't always keep myself from running into some of the other occupants or hitting the walls, and I don't have a swimming technique down per se, but it just felt perfect. It was almost as relaxing as the Yard-Long Liver Destroyer Saturday, and sort of helped me work off the excess I'd built up. That's my diet plan: eat what you want, then dance for long periods of time like there's nobody watching.
Earlier on, Ivan had beaten us up to the punch and since he was doing well last night went back down to the poker room. While we were at the pool he chilled at the room, and he decides to head back down after I shower. I don't have a set plan because I'm thinking about Tabu later. Aaron's been scared off, and the buy-ins are too much for me with what I have planned for later on, so I'm out. We decide we'll root Ivan on, as I yell out "Terible! Terible!" and give off a mariachi yell. At least twice, then I figure between him texting us the pit bosses might think we're telling him his cards are terrible instead of referencing one of his poker nicknames and run the lot of us. Ivan gets a couple hands of luck but otherwise his small-stackedness keeps him from comping us all to Emeril's.
We go to Quizno's and mock Ivan for getting wheat bread that turns out darker than I am, and sure enough he starts feeling ill within half an hour. I get Amanda on the phone, who is staying at the MGM this weekend to come. How fortuitous for the both of us, as I'm almost positive I would've impregnated her at some point if we'd been in the same Vegas hotel at the same time. As Aaron & I bicker about which one of us would be making the drunken mistake (and I mean that in the best way possible, Amanda!) Ivan cops out, and we go downstairs. It's about 10:30 because we stop to watch the end of My Cousin Vinny. I'd told Jen & Mona around 10 to 10:30.
We wait.
More waiting.
That guy with a goatee--that's Tom Jones!
WHO!?
TOM JONES!?
WHO!?
Damn it, I just don't care who it is as long as the last name is Jones, do I? Anyway, we wait an hour and they don't show up.
It is at this moment I'd like to thank them.
Because Aaron's Plan B--taken from some sarcastic comments I'd made earlier in the week--is "What better day than Sunday to hit a strip club?" We taunt Ivan from downstairs until he coalesces to come down.
Sadly for us, or luckily depending on how hard we want to chase a life history of heart problems, we have to ditch our cameras.
Outside. We can take a cab.
Or, for $20, we can take a limo.
So, we're riding along in the limo when the driver mentions that despite what the doorguy said, we're going to Sapphire's.
Which, it should be noted on my taxes next year, is a restaurant. I have the receipts and the satisfied meal feeling and everything.
"Yeah," she says through the partition, "it's the biggest strip club in the world."
I make the Chandler Bing this-cannot-be face. And yes...
"In the world?"
"In the world."
We get there--by the way, a stone's throw behind Circus Circus...why?....why!?-- and I'm thinking I have exactly enough for a round of fun. We get a table about a row away from the floor and begin to sit down. We all get non-alcoholic beverages on the round I end up buying (Aaron a teetotaler, Ivan abstaining).
This is the point where you want to get the squeamish and holy out of the room and onto a lesser blog. G'head.
So a stripper sidles up to me (sidles, nice) and starts talking to me. But I have had this dream in mind since the trip first took birth and it's this: Aaron gets a lapdance before I do anything. Why? Because a lot of it's the fact he's my friend, and the rest of it is he's just a big nice guy and the dichotomy of suddenly having a woman getting naked on his person would just amuse me too much to not watch. Sure enough, as I talk, he comes back, and the cute black girl starts on him. Then a brunette starts on me.
The affirmative action programs get more strenuous by the day.
We get our lapdances and it's pretty good--well, Aaron didn't like his so much but I think what happened next and the fact it just sprung on him when he got out of the bathroom about 10 minutes into the trip sort of has coloured his view. I was perfectly satisified.
And about broke.
But that all flies out the window, along with the concept of linear time as it relates to a person having a past and a future, when Kelli (I changed that to an I so as to disguise her real name) alights next to us.
It must be said partially in vain and partially to explain that our table combined is younger than some of the guys in there. A lot of the old guys are up by the stage, and we're sort of lying back in the cut, obviously appreciative but not ostentacious. We're all pretty-decent looking, with the exception of me--that's right, I said it, I'm hotter than the Strip at 3 p.m. So in retrospect it seems a pretty obvious choice, but at the time we didn't realize we were about to make ourselves a new friend.
Figuring with the sort of live-one-die-fast-leave-a-beautiful-highly-marketable-corpse mentality I usually have steroided up by the fact I'm in Vegas, cream and cleared by me being in the World's Largest Strip Club, I decide we only have one chance to use the psuedonyms we've been working on all week. So I become Ron Mexico, Ivan turns into Raoul, and Aaron into...I want to say Steve. We all hail from San Obispo as part of a church group here to examine the level of depravity in such a house of sin.
Stripper: "Getting a lapdance isn't a sin."
Me: "Let us pray."
But we end up talking and talking, and eventually I end up going with our real names and our real story. I just wanted to be somebody else for a while. And that's about when it happens. We're sitting there talking about her being from Georgia, and me having relations with Georgia Tech connections, and up comes the waitress. Should I keep my tab open and throw a lapdance on there?
Sure.
But I have to be in for $60. Three lapdances. Way over budget. I know this.
I mean, I have a mid-140s I.Q.! I cook, I write so well I've won awards, I speak some Spanish, I know a little something about the power and the struggle and the love and the glory that is American history. I'm a connoisseur of fine music and books.
But I look at Kelli with the I and I can't see the future, hard. I have a dim sense of overage charges and cell bills. But so very dim. Kelli's really pretty; I think if I'm remembering earlier correctly Aaron said she had a Cameron Diazy thing going on. I'm sure if not, he'll correct me.
What happens?
Three guys. Three lapdances.
You only live once, I say to myself.
Things degenerate quickly and markedly from that, as Ivan and I have started drinking. I, being me, have decided things will go Aaron-Ivan-me lapdance wise. A greedier man would've gotten his first; a smarter man knows he gets the best stuff last. Aaron somehow gets the "Sexual Healing" update which is quite nice, as Marvin would've made me cry and/or try to elope. Ivan gets his dance and I watch absent-mindedly diverting between that and the stage. You have to keep in mind, this is why I didn't party weeks beforehand--the sense of delayed gratification to prolong the actual moment. You can't appreciate a good meal unless you've been starving, et al.
I got "American Idiot", incongrously. (We actually heard "Beverly Hills", "Du Hast" (no really), and "D'Yer Maker earlier.)
Here are things I thought about:
Baseball
Football
Chewbacca
Barney
London bombings
9/11
It was the most surreal moment of my life. I felt like I was living it and somehow watching it on HBO. What to say? What to do? How much can I touch (damn this town and the no-touch rule)? Wow, it's dark in here. I'll take it. How much is the rent? I'm not drooling on them, am I? Should I have quit smiling when she shoved me in there? Should I be trying conversation? Shouldn't I've taken Chris Elliot's advice and flogged the dolphin before this? Dear holy GOD, how is she that flexible?!
She gets her legs around her head. And my head. She wasn't facing me.
And I being me, choose this moment to snake my hand through and grab my Heineken and have a pull. THERE'S your fucking commercial, you crazy Dutch bastards.
So Kelli laughs and once she's done takes the one empty seat at the table as we wait for my card to come back. We're being oddly witty and funny, I think mostly to detract from the fact that you could've fried an egg off our heads. I know this is going to be my Most Rock Star Moment of the year. It's all going according to plan. So we actually talk about Ivan's relationship and how it shouldn't be affected by this, how hip-hop makes better stripping music (yes, that was my end of the conversation), how good she smells, her remarkable boob job (seriously, one of the best I've ever seen, would've raised pre-flop they were real...) and then she drops a new nickname on Ivan when I admit I wasn't sure how much grazing my hand could do:
Kelli: I mean, he tweaked my nipples hard before I started on you...
Me (turning to Ivan, aghast): You did WHAT?!
Now, I did catch a little bit of it at the end. I had made a "tuning in the station" joke that she laughed at right away, but I had no idea that the better angels of my nature could in fact be corrupted by my nature.
I think his stomach's all right now.
Eventually, we get her her money. And then Ivan pulls out his credit card. Kelli goes for another round. This is a one of the rare sequels that doesn't suck. I was hoping for a good song, and I get "Don't Ya". She loves it too.
These pants are going into a ziplock bag.
This shirt is going into a ziplock bag.
We're both singing along. In response to the chorus, before I can even stop myself (let's blame the firewater), I say I don't have a girlfriend. But when she looks up at me and says "Don't you wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?" my response is an immediate, heartfelt "GOD, yes."
And for being a good boy, it's Aaron who buys the next round.
It's this damn town, it gets e v e r y b o d y.
I can no longer listen to "Oh" without taking me to a special place smelling of citrus and triple-ply soft to the touch, but it's a tradeoff I'll suffer through. We talk a bit about Ciara and I throw down the Atlanta sign. "Georgia peaches", she says.
Georgia peaches.
Me: Before you start, I'd just like to say something. I'm RICK JAMES, BITCH! All right, go ahead.
Kelli (laughing): I love that sketch! Just don't do anything to mess up our couch.
Ivan (drunk, immediately): FUCK yo couch, nigga!
This is what I've learned with this weekend:
1) Therapy is bullshit. A yard of tequila? A good swim in the light of day? A lapdance? If it doesn't make you feel a little bit better about yourself when they're done, you might as well off yourself. Worse comes to worse, take 3 lapdances and call me in the morning.
2) I want Kelli, but in someone else's body with the same range of flexibility. And isn't that what I should want, a girl I can talk hip-hop to who's titties I can play with? Someone I can goof around with and slap her ass like I've caught her stealing from the cookie jar?
Oh, the last part: she kept shaking it at me. I didn't want to hurt her after what Ivan did, I knew her boobs were sensitive. And there are the peaches, begging to be sampled. What am I supposed to do, deny her a little fun with work? Out of the corner of my eye during the "Stairway" solo I find Aaron looking at me as if he's never seen me before.
After my crisis of faith, I found/find myself believing heaven is a state of mind rather than a final destination. And all I know is listening to Jazze pop the bottles 'cause we've got another hit, hit, hit as I swatted Kelli's ass and she salt shakered that baby at me, surrounded by my friends--that, to me, was heaven.
But we have to check out at 11. And it's 20 to 3.
Two and a half hours, gone.
I mention that if we don't leave here now, we're never going to get out. That's bad somehow, I just don't know how. My card gets eaten by the system or just says "Goddamnit, enough!" and Aaron covers my tab and we stagger out into the night.
Sleep didn't come easily. Just kept thinking about it. Just kept thinking about it.
This morning...yesterday morning at the checkout. No Spectravision. No movies. No room service. No extra charges.
The woman behind the counter says "You didn't do anything!"
And I just laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
4-Card Straight and Pinchy: we're taking Amanda to see Kelli next year.
Vegas, baby?
Damn right, Vegas, baby.
This post brought to you BAH: "Cannonball" by the Breeders
8/19/05
KWBR: the Playlist
ROADHOUSE BLUES:
"We Belong Together (remix)" (7)
"BYOB" (9)
"Best Of You" (10)
"Hollaback Girl" (13)
15) 50 Cent, "Disco Inferno" (14)
14) Nine Inch Nails, "Only" (12)
13) Slim Thug feat. Pharrell, "I Ain't Heard Of That" (debut)
12) Ludacris feat. Bobby Valentino, "Pimpin' All Over The World" (11)
11) Beck, "Girl" (6)
10) Ying Yang Twins feat. Pitbull, "Shake" (debut)
09) 50 Cent feat. Mobb Deep, "Outta Control (remix)" (15)*
08) David Banner, "Play" (debut)
07) Fall Out Boy, "Sugar, We're Going Down" (8)*
06) Jimmy Eat World, "Futures" (3)
05) Common, "Go" (5)
04) the Killers, "All These Things That I've Done" (4)*
03) Kanye West feat. Jamie Foxx, "Gold Digger" (debut)
02) Pussycat Girls feat. Busta Rhymes, "Don't Ya" (2)*
01) Coldplay, "Fix You" (1) [2m]
This post brought to you BAH:
Hello, it's me
I'm not at home
If you'd like to reach me
Leave me alone
--"A Change Would Do You Good", Sheryl Crow
"We Belong Together (remix)" (7)
"BYOB" (9)
"Best Of You" (10)
"Hollaback Girl" (13)
15) 50 Cent, "Disco Inferno" (14)
14) Nine Inch Nails, "Only" (12)
13) Slim Thug feat. Pharrell, "I Ain't Heard Of That" (debut)
12) Ludacris feat. Bobby Valentino, "Pimpin' All Over The World" (11)
11) Beck, "Girl" (6)
10) Ying Yang Twins feat. Pitbull, "Shake" (debut)
09) 50 Cent feat. Mobb Deep, "Outta Control (remix)" (15)*
08) David Banner, "Play" (debut)
07) Fall Out Boy, "Sugar, We're Going Down" (8)*
06) Jimmy Eat World, "Futures" (3)
05) Common, "Go" (5)
04) the Killers, "All These Things That I've Done" (4)*
03) Kanye West feat. Jamie Foxx, "Gold Digger" (debut)
02) Pussycat Girls feat. Busta Rhymes, "Don't Ya" (2)*
01) Coldplay, "Fix You" (1) [2m]
This post brought to you BAH:
Hello, it's me
I'm not at home
If you'd like to reach me
Leave me alone
--"A Change Would Do You Good", Sheryl Crow
8/17/05
"Have You Ever Held A Man's Life In Your Hands?"
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click here to view the post.
8/16/05
Jessica And The Albaettes: August '05
IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S ME. I LOVE YOU, BUT I'M NOT IN LOVE WITH YOU. OH, THIS IS SO HARD...:
Kate Beckinsale (37), Christina Milian (38--Nick Cannon? Nick Cannon? Bitch, why don't you just fuck J.J.?), Kelly Hu (39), Leeann Tweeden (40)
40) Teri Hatcher (re-entry)
39) Pam Anderson (33)
38) Jessica Simpson (debut)
37) K.D. Aubert (debut)
36) Maria Menounous (30)
35) Elizabeth Hurley (29)
34) Esther Baxter (34)
33) Ali Landry (36)
32) Alyssa Milano (24)
31) Rachel Bilson (20)
30) Jennifer Walcott (32)
29) Monica Bellucci (28)
28) Jessica Biel (26)
27) Rebecca Romijn (16)
26) Lacey Chabert (25)
25) Mya (31)
24) Sarah Shahi (35)
23) Nikki Cox (27)
22) Halle Berry (23)
21) Kristanna Loken (17)
20) Summer Altice (debut)
19) Kim Smith (22)
18) Katherine Heigl (18)
17) Kitana Baker (21)
16) Adriana Lima (8)
15) Shannon Elizabeth (19)
14) Beyonce (14)
13) Sofia Vergara (15)
12) Carmen Electra (12)
11) Shakira (11)
10) Stacy Keibler (13)
09) Vida Guerra (10)
08) Jennifer Love Hewitt (9)
07) Salma Hayek (7)
06) Brooke Burke (6)
05) Josie Maran (5)
04) Trish Stratus (3)
03) Eva Longoria (4)
02) Angelina Jolie (2)
01) What's-her-face....Jessica...Alba, is it? Sure. (1)
This post brought to you BAH: "Shake Ya Ass" by Mystikal (no, really)
Kate Beckinsale (37), Christina Milian (38--Nick Cannon? Nick Cannon? Bitch, why don't you just fuck J.J.?), Kelly Hu (39), Leeann Tweeden (40)
40) Teri Hatcher (re-entry)
39) Pam Anderson (33)
38) Jessica Simpson (debut)
37) K.D. Aubert (debut)
36) Maria Menounous (30)
35) Elizabeth Hurley (29)
34) Esther Baxter (34)
33) Ali Landry (36)
32) Alyssa Milano (24)
31) Rachel Bilson (20)
30) Jennifer Walcott (32)
29) Monica Bellucci (28)
28) Jessica Biel (26)
27) Rebecca Romijn (16)
26) Lacey Chabert (25)
25) Mya (31)
24) Sarah Shahi (35)
23) Nikki Cox (27)
22) Halle Berry (23)
21) Kristanna Loken (17)
20) Summer Altice (debut)
19) Kim Smith (22)
18) Katherine Heigl (18)
17) Kitana Baker (21)
16) Adriana Lima (8)
15) Shannon Elizabeth (19)
14) Beyonce (14)
13) Sofia Vergara (15)
12) Carmen Electra (12)
11) Shakira (11)
10) Stacy Keibler (13)
09) Vida Guerra (10)
08) Jennifer Love Hewitt (9)
07) Salma Hayek (7)
06) Brooke Burke (6)
05) Josie Maran (5)
04) Trish Stratus (3)
03) Eva Longoria (4)
02) Angelina Jolie (2)
01) What's-her-face....Jessica...Alba, is it? Sure. (1)
This post brought to you BAH: "Shake Ya Ass" by Mystikal (no, really)
8/14/05
If You Want My Want My Want My Autobiography...
So after work tonight, Aaron & I went to a local Mexican eatery. What's better than a local Mexican eatery? A Mexican eatery playing "Let's Stay Together".
What's better than that?
A Mexican eatery playing "Let's Stay Together" with two hot brunettes in it.
What's better than that?
Them singing along.
I, of course, have been singing along since I set foot in the joint. We catch each other's eyes a few times and laugh but don't stop singing. The song ends and now I'm suddenly in the mood for the Reverend. "Let's Stay Together"'ll do that. The jukebox is over by them, so I roll over and hit it up. I hear the cute one in the Bryn Mawr baby-blue hoodie go "I know this guy's going to put on something good" and without looking up, I go "I'll be honest--I'm just going to put on some more Al Green." So I pick, pick, pick and go sit down.
"Here I Am (Come And Take Me)" is also loved. But it's when I--based off the fact I caught them dancing a little bit--begin to hear my second choice that the evening gets a little more fun.
"Bootylicious". So they try to get Aaron to dance, which is funny on so many levels, but then I am dared. I had decided I was going to have to move. They were of the belief I was not sufficiently prepared for their toast condiment, but in reality it was they who were caught off-guard by my marmalade substitute! They admit they were going to play this earlier but had decided against it. Sadly, they quasi-wrangle out the door before they get "Brick House" dedicated to them, but needless to say I will be keeping a closer eye out at my Benihana's, just in case.
So Aaron & I discuss my kevorka, and in a little while the topic of discussion via something that just came up via his blog is something I visited in the early days of the blog, back when it was Another Step Closer To Rollerball: if you were making an autobiographical CD, what 16 songs would you put on there? Aaron being Aaron (and having a seven-song head start in his head just off the past 48 hours) made a list. So did I.
If it was 18 I'd put Sade's "No Ordinary Love" on there. And I got rid of "Bad Reputation" by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, so per the rules I have one more replacement option before Sunday's over. But here, in song alphabetical order, is my CD:
This post is brought to you BAH: "Salt Shaker" live by the Ying Yang Twins & Lil' Jon
What's better than that?
A Mexican eatery playing "Let's Stay Together" with two hot brunettes in it.
What's better than that?
Them singing along.
I, of course, have been singing along since I set foot in the joint. We catch each other's eyes a few times and laugh but don't stop singing. The song ends and now I'm suddenly in the mood for the Reverend. "Let's Stay Together"'ll do that. The jukebox is over by them, so I roll over and hit it up. I hear the cute one in the Bryn Mawr baby-blue hoodie go "I know this guy's going to put on something good" and without looking up, I go "I'll be honest--I'm just going to put on some more Al Green." So I pick, pick, pick and go sit down.
"Here I Am (Come And Take Me)" is also loved. But it's when I--based off the fact I caught them dancing a little bit--begin to hear my second choice that the evening gets a little more fun.
"Bootylicious". So they try to get Aaron to dance, which is funny on so many levels, but then I am dared. I had decided I was going to have to move. They were of the belief I was not sufficiently prepared for their toast condiment, but in reality it was they who were caught off-guard by my marmalade substitute! They admit they were going to play this earlier but had decided against it. Sadly, they quasi-wrangle out the door before they get "Brick House" dedicated to them, but needless to say I will be keeping a closer eye out at my Benihana's, just in case.
So Aaron & I discuss my kevorka, and in a little while the topic of discussion via something that just came up via his blog is something I visited in the early days of the blog, back when it was Another Step Closer To Rollerball: if you were making an autobiographical CD, what 16 songs would you put on there? Aaron being Aaron (and having a seven-song head start in his head just off the past 48 hours) made a list. So did I.
If it was 18 I'd put Sade's "No Ordinary Love" on there. And I got rid of "Bad Reputation" by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, so per the rules I have one more replacement option before Sunday's over. But here, in song alphabetical order, is my CD:
- Back In Black - AC/DC
- The Boys Of Summer - Don Henley
- Crimson & Clover - Tommy James & the Shondells (though nothing against the Joan Jett cover)
- Don't Worry Baby - the Beach Boys
- Fight the Power - Public Enemy
- Five O' Clock World - the Vogues
- Flashlight - Parliament/Funkadelic
- Here I Am (Come And Take Me) - Al Green
- Juicy - Notorious B.I.G.
- Lithium - Nirvana
- Louie Louie - the Kingsmen!
- Man On the Moon - R.E.M.
- Once In A Lifetime - Talking Heads
- Sexual Healing - Marvin Gaye
- Should I Stay Or Should I Go? - the Clash
- Voodoo Child (Slight Return) - Jimi Hendrix
This post is brought to you BAH: "Salt Shaker" live by the Ying Yang Twins & Lil' Jon
8/12/05
State Of The Friday Address
+: 6 days, 19 hours, 6 minutes...
+: Preppy white girls singing "Get Low". That will never become unfunny.
-: I'm so close to being broke because of Vegas. Verizon is cawlin' me, as Lil' Jon would say. See, all they have to do is let me go to Vegas, clean up, and then get their money, but noooooooooooooo...
+: Raquel Gibson. And all my Alba clone jokes have finally been born! It's alive! ALIVE!
+: KMB coming back to blog, since that joke reminded me.
-: Everybody in the CSSA league who let Rob pick Harrison and Manning. It just happened last year, you dumbasses! Not only did it just happen last year, it happened ALL THE TIME!
+: Finally going over at pokerrom.com, turning 1k into about 6k last night. Nothing like making a Queen-high straight on the river to bust 3 people at once. Well, one thing.
+: My new clock. Simple yet a little pretty with the teal circle.
-: Missing my first time at Del Mar. I would go, Danny, but work pays and creditors know where I live. Bet on a black horse that seems to hate everybody else for me!
-: There's no more Radio Shack 3 blocks away from my house! I wanted to buy this adapter so I could take my old-ass TV and be able to play DVDs on it, but I guess not.
+: Aaron loaning me the Donnie Darko and first season Scrubs DVDs, one of which may go missing somehow magically in a way I know not.
This post brought to you BAH: "Harder To Breathe" by Maroon 5
+: Preppy white girls singing "Get Low". That will never become unfunny.
-: I'm so close to being broke because of Vegas. Verizon is cawlin' me, as Lil' Jon would say. See, all they have to do is let me go to Vegas, clean up, and then get their money, but noooooooooooooo...
+: Raquel Gibson. And all my Alba clone jokes have finally been born! It's alive! ALIVE!
+: KMB coming back to blog, since that joke reminded me.
-: Everybody in the CSSA league who let Rob pick Harrison and Manning. It just happened last year, you dumbasses! Not only did it just happen last year, it happened ALL THE TIME!
+: Finally going over at pokerrom.com, turning 1k into about 6k last night. Nothing like making a Queen-high straight on the river to bust 3 people at once. Well, one thing.
+: My new clock. Simple yet a little pretty with the teal circle.
-: Missing my first time at Del Mar. I would go, Danny, but work pays and creditors know where I live. Bet on a black horse that seems to hate everybody else for me!
-: There's no more Radio Shack 3 blocks away from my house! I wanted to buy this adapter so I could take my old-ass TV and be able to play DVDs on it, but I guess not.
+: Aaron loaning me the Donnie Darko and first season Scrubs DVDs, one of which may go missing somehow magically in a way I know not.
This post brought to you BAH: "Harder To Breathe" by Maroon 5
8/11/05
It's Getting Better All The Time (?)
Another Poker Night. Everything changes--people. Nothing changes--my game gets better and I lose a small amount of cash.
Tonight it was mostly Aaron's friends. An earlier start than usual, and we six were underway. Three hours later, it was over. Ironically enough on WPT Night, the cash game ended up breaking like a tournament.
My folds continue to get better. Mostly. I actually uttered the Jean-Robert Bellangian phrase "This is a great fucking laydown"--once with A/J and another time with pocket Jacks--and they both turned out to be great fucking laydowns. Anyway, things were going decently, until a point was reached after a couple eliminations I ended up all-in against Ivan.
Up against pocket Jacks with my 10/A.
Jack hits on the flop.
King on the turn.
And....queen on the river. Turn the bass up to 11 and start pumping "How We Do", I hit Broadway like Cats. Sadly, that is the highlight of the night, and it barely got me back up to the $10 buy-in at that. People get bounced. Six. Five. Ivan's out in fourth.
Down to three, and I'm horribly short-stacked, and get bounced. Then Aaron & his friend play head-to-head, and that's it. I make $5 for the third place finish, which bolsters me a little bit along with my improving play. I can only hope to an extent that the improvements pay off when we get down to doing the do in seven days and 14 hourish as they have in my dreams. Until such a point is reached I got to hope my online game improves, and keep solace in the quiet improvements that hopefully will lead to monster payoffs with more cash on the line.
Even though she's nowhere near WKIRGB, HAPPY BIRTHDAY LESLIE!
ADDENDUM: 20 minutes, two buy-ins. Lost with a Jack-high flush to a King-high flush and lost a full-house to a better full house. Fuck you, pokerroom.com.
This post is brought to you BAH: "Start Me Up" by the Stones
Tonight it was mostly Aaron's friends. An earlier start than usual, and we six were underway. Three hours later, it was over. Ironically enough on WPT Night, the cash game ended up breaking like a tournament.
My folds continue to get better. Mostly. I actually uttered the Jean-Robert Bellangian phrase "This is a great fucking laydown"--once with A/J and another time with pocket Jacks--and they both turned out to be great fucking laydowns. Anyway, things were going decently, until a point was reached after a couple eliminations I ended up all-in against Ivan.
Up against pocket Jacks with my 10/A.
Jack hits on the flop.
King on the turn.
And....queen on the river. Turn the bass up to 11 and start pumping "How We Do", I hit Broadway like Cats. Sadly, that is the highlight of the night, and it barely got me back up to the $10 buy-in at that. People get bounced. Six. Five. Ivan's out in fourth.
Down to three, and I'm horribly short-stacked, and get bounced. Then Aaron & his friend play head-to-head, and that's it. I make $5 for the third place finish, which bolsters me a little bit along with my improving play. I can only hope to an extent that the improvements pay off when we get down to doing the do in seven days and 14 hourish as they have in my dreams. Until such a point is reached I got to hope my online game improves, and keep solace in the quiet improvements that hopefully will lead to monster payoffs with more cash on the line.
Even though she's nowhere near WKIRGB, HAPPY BIRTHDAY LESLIE!
ADDENDUM: 20 minutes, two buy-ins. Lost with a Jack-high flush to a King-high flush and lost a full-house to a better full house. Fuck you, pokerroom.com.
This post is brought to you BAH: "Start Me Up" by the Stones
8/10/05
Where Surveys Go To DIE Get Filled
Whoop, here it is, thoughtcha knew...
This post brought to you BAH: boredom, and "I Walk The Line" as covered by Los Lonely Boys
This post brought to you BAH: boredom, and "I Walk The Line" as covered by Los Lonely Boys
8/8/05
It's Official: Jessica Alba Is Having The BEST YEAR EVER!
200 pictures.
And now, some poetry I have specifically written for the occassion.
I want to fuck you like an animal
I want to feel you from the inside
I want to fuck you like an animal
My whole existence is flawed
You get me closer to god
This post is brought to you BAH: my #2, "Don't Ya" by the Pussycat Dolls feat. Busta Rhymes
And now, some poetry I have specifically written for the occassion.
I want to fuck you like an animal
I want to feel you from the inside
I want to fuck you like an animal
My whole existence is flawed
You get me closer to god
This post is brought to you BAH: my #2, "Don't Ya" by the Pussycat Dolls feat. Busta Rhymes
8/6/05
KWBR: The Playlist
ROAD TO NOWHERE:
"Feel Good Inc" (10)
"Oh" (11)
"Blue Orchid" (12)
"Wait" (13)
"Just A Lil' Bit" (15)
15) 50 Cent feat. Mobb Deep, "Outta Control (remix)" (debut)
14) 50 Cent, "Disco Inferno" (6)
13) Gwen Stefani, "Hollaback Girl" (3)
12) Nine Inch Nails, "Only" (debut)
11) Ludacris feat. Bobby Valentino, "Pimpin' All Over The Wold" (7)
10) Foo Fighters, "Best Of You" (8)
09) System Of A Down, "BYOB" (9)*
08) Fall Out Boy, "Sugar, We're Going Down" (debut)
07) Mariah Carey feat. the Lox, "We Belong Together (remix)" (5)
06) Beck, "Girl" (14)*
05) Common, "Go" (2)
04) the Killers, "All These Things That I've Done" (debut)
03) Jimmy Eat World, "Futures" (4)*
02) Pussycat Dolls feat. Busta Rhymes, "Don't Ya" (debut)
01) Coldplay, "Fix You" (1) [6w]
This post is brought to you BAH: "the Last Song" by the All-American Rejects
"Feel Good Inc" (10)
"Oh" (11)
"Blue Orchid" (12)
"Wait" (13)
"Just A Lil' Bit" (15)
15) 50 Cent feat. Mobb Deep, "Outta Control (remix)" (debut)
14) 50 Cent, "Disco Inferno" (6)
13) Gwen Stefani, "Hollaback Girl" (3)
12) Nine Inch Nails, "Only" (debut)
11) Ludacris feat. Bobby Valentino, "Pimpin' All Over The Wold" (7)
10) Foo Fighters, "Best Of You" (8)
09) System Of A Down, "BYOB" (9)*
08) Fall Out Boy, "Sugar, We're Going Down" (debut)
07) Mariah Carey feat. the Lox, "We Belong Together (remix)" (5)
06) Beck, "Girl" (14)*
05) Common, "Go" (2)
04) the Killers, "All These Things That I've Done" (debut)
03) Jimmy Eat World, "Futures" (4)*
02) Pussycat Dolls feat. Busta Rhymes, "Don't Ya" (debut)
01) Coldplay, "Fix You" (1) [6w]
This post is brought to you BAH: "the Last Song" by the All-American Rejects
8/5/05
Craps And Handshakes
KISSES: For the fancy-ass belt buckle with the scrolling marquee--I will pause here so you can go back and read that--I'm to get from Hong Kong. They say 8-10 business days so I got to jump on paying quick so I can have it in Vegas. Once again, the Prince of Bling strikes the club!
PIMPSLAPS: The United States Postal Service, as apparently the MO for the Fantastic 4 poster is still in transit or got lost or something, and then asked "Is Japan different than Hong Kong?" when I tried to send out an MO for the belt buckle just now. I still haven't figured out the nicest way to say "Congratulations, you're a fucking moron."
PIMPSLAPS: I got to figure out a way to get this 20 to Hong Kong in the next 28 hours.
KISSES: Payday!
PIMPSLAPS: Overdraft charges!
KISSES: Two weeks and 40 minutes. The bird takes off. Mother. Fucking. VEGAS, BABAY!
PIMPSLAPS: Most of life. This is boring as monkey (™ Heat Man Enterprises, CEO Michael Renner, Esq.) waiting around for the Lost Weekend to begin.
PIMPSLAPS: I'm gonna miss SummerSlam, and I was quite looking forward to Matt Hardy catching Edge with a business end of an 18-wheeler.
KISSES: Poker Night sometime before we go. Truly an oasis. Even when it goes bad it's good, and when it goes great it's awesome.
PIMPSLAPS: Gardening. Construction. Car alarms. Shut the fuck up, the lot of you.
KISSES: Public Enemy's Greatest Hits. Even Aaron recognizes, and he's, like, Anaheim white. Heh.
KISSES: New season of Celebrity Poker Showdown! About fucking time, man.
PIMPSLAPS: Starting...about 3 hours after we land in Vegas. Bah.
KISSES: The way Peter Krause died on Six Feet Under has set a new threshold in 2005 for describing how good the sex was. "....and then I was all narm--narm--narm--"
This post brought to you BAH: "Save It For Later" as covered by Harvey Danger
PIMPSLAPS: The United States Postal Service, as apparently the MO for the Fantastic 4 poster is still in transit or got lost or something, and then asked "Is Japan different than Hong Kong?" when I tried to send out an MO for the belt buckle just now. I still haven't figured out the nicest way to say "Congratulations, you're a fucking moron."
PIMPSLAPS: I got to figure out a way to get this 20 to Hong Kong in the next 28 hours.
KISSES: Payday!
PIMPSLAPS: Overdraft charges!
KISSES: Two weeks and 40 minutes. The bird takes off. Mother. Fucking. VEGAS, BABAY!
PIMPSLAPS: Most of life. This is boring as monkey (™ Heat Man Enterprises, CEO Michael Renner, Esq.) waiting around for the Lost Weekend to begin.
PIMPSLAPS: I'm gonna miss SummerSlam, and I was quite looking forward to Matt Hardy catching Edge with a business end of an 18-wheeler.
KISSES: Poker Night sometime before we go. Truly an oasis. Even when it goes bad it's good, and when it goes great it's awesome.
PIMPSLAPS: Gardening. Construction. Car alarms. Shut the fuck up, the lot of you.
KISSES: Public Enemy's Greatest Hits. Even Aaron recognizes, and he's, like, Anaheim white. Heh.
KISSES: New season of Celebrity Poker Showdown! About fucking time, man.
PIMPSLAPS: Starting...about 3 hours after we land in Vegas. Bah.
KISSES: The way Peter Krause died on Six Feet Under has set a new threshold in 2005 for describing how good the sex was. "....and then I was all narm--narm--narm--"
This post brought to you BAH: "Save It For Later" as covered by Harvey Danger
8/3/05
It's Only Seventeen
- TEN YEARS AGO: About to start junior year of high school. Highly impressionable. Good boy.
- FIVE YEARS AGO: About to start junior year of college. Pretty cynical. Less good boy. Adjusting to the taste of adult beverages.
- THIS TIME LAST YEAR: Working for the Man. Had just gotten my friend Danny back in my life after a 12-year absence. Starting to make the Gaslamp Quarter and the party scene therein my home away from home.
- YESTERDAY: All my troubles seemed so far away....oh, wait. Uhh...watched some of the Chris Benoit DVD, did some writing, watched the local WSOP circuit event with Jesus winning with the quad Aces, talked about maybe having a poker night on Saturday with Aaron, watched Rescue Me, did some more writing.
- TODAY: Is the greatest day I've ever known...wait, no. Woke up at the crack of 11:30, watched the Garden State DVD with the Braff/Portman commentary, found out Chappelle's Show was dead (CHARLIE MURPHY! :( ), did this, and after that...*shrug*
- TOMORROW: Fuck if I know.
- FIVE SNACKS I ENJOY: Reese's Big Cups (mmm...gigantic peanut butter cups), salad with Italian dressing, Swiss Cake rolls, chips & salsa, carrot sticks.
- FIVE BANDS/SINGERS WHOSE CATALOGUES WITH WHICH I'M VERY FAMILIAR: Al Green, Led Zeppelin, Red Hot Chili Peppers, R.E.M., Nirvana. Yes, I just listed my five favorites of all time. Screw you.
- FIVE THINGS I WOULD DO WITH $100 MILLION: Get the fuck up out of here and live downtown or by the beach, donate $5 million to the local Boys & Girls club, buy my parents and brother a house on the other side of town, start a publishing house, take all my friends out for a good dinner and a club without them lifting a finger while riding between spots in a Hummer limo.
- FIVE LOCATIONS I'D LIKE TO RUN AWAY TO: Vegas (soon, my precious, soon), New York, Miami, Ibiza, Jessica Alba's shower
- FIVE BAD HABITS: Arrogance, sloth, lust, gluttony, greed
- FIVE THINGS I LIKE DOING: playing poker, writing, eating good food, bullshitting with my best friends, and shaking what my momma gave me.
- FIVE TV SHOWS I LIKE: Scrubs, 24, Arrested Development, Celebrity Poker Showdown, and Rescue Me
- FAMOUS PEOPLE I'D LIKE TO MEET: David Letterman, Jessica Alba, Kevin Smith (actually talk to in depth instead of the quick run-in from '03), Michael Wilbon, Tony Kornheiser, Jay-Z
- BIGGEST JOYS AT THE MOMENT: The prospective Vegas trip. The nice weather here. When the writing feels more like court stenography than dragging the Stone of Shame. The new Alba beach pics. Getting better at poker. The reaction the Running Man gets in the club.
- FAVORITE TOYS: The hearts of impressionable young girls. Oh, wait, I'm filling this out and not my friends. GameCube, the computer, Natalie my cell, the unbelievably superflous remote to my radio.
- FIVE PEOPLE WHO SHOULD ANSWER THIS: Rob, Aaron, Jen, Matt, and Jamie.
This post brought to you BAH: "Toxic" by Britney Spears (no, really)
8/1/05
Fun At Work
So, I'm trying to decide what was more so: the picture of the guy who looked like a suicide bomber London-style who in the recent past had been taking pictures of the building or the off-duty officer who said that coat check where I was working was the place he was most scared of someone sneaking in a bomb.
Good times.
This post brought to you BAH: "Best Of Me (Part 2)" by Mya & Jay-Z
Good times.
This post brought to you BAH: "Best Of Me (Part 2)" by Mya & Jay-Z
7/31/05
The P Bomb
So I went to see Rebecca for coffee, and it's official: I am rudder-less. She said her being into me more than I was into her wasn't going to work, I had kind of jerked her around, and she thought I was nicer.
That was two of us.
But, her parting words to me: "You're such a player."
What is that about? Should I try to mine that statement for something positive?
This post is brought to you BAH: "National Disgrace" by Atmosphere
ADDENDUM: HA!
That was two of us.
But, her parting words to me: "You're such a player."
What is that about? Should I try to mine that statement for something positive?
This post is brought to you BAH: "National Disgrace" by Atmosphere
ADDENDUM: HA!
| Your Ideal Relationship is Friends with Benefits |
 You're not looking for anything serious... just something hot! And you're little black book (or cell phone) always hooks you up. You want nothing more than friends with benefits. No strings. You also don't mind benefits without the friendship! |
7/30/05
I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself
Of everything I've ever said on the Net, everything I've read, and the thousand stupid surveys I've filled out, one from '02 or '03--I distinctly remember it being sometime during My Great Depression--told my story before I'd even dipped my quill into the ink.
52 to 48. That was how much love won out over lust. And that explained everything, and continues to now. Do I ultimately believe in the concept of love, of finding the recognition of self in someone else and having the cliche with the gated community/2.5 kids/dog/white picket fence/PTA meetings? Sure. But the 2 percent margin of error? That means a good pair of pants, hearing the right song, a stiff breeze, and it's all thrown into reverse. I shift from being the patriach bumbling in at 5:28 to hang my fedora on the stand and yell "Honey, I'm home!" to just wanting to hit, quit, and take them to IHOP. It's a large part to do with my inner turmoil, as if I'm in relationships all I see is the freedom I'm missing, and when I'm single, all I can think is how fast I'd throw this all down and bury it seven feet under if I had a counterpart.
There is a point to this, so let's get to it: I got Liz, but not enough to move in a different direction. I'm meeting Rebecca for lunch Sunday, at which point I expect to get dumped or, given the situation, the closest equivalent to.
With it being Liz's last day, I had to go and give it a shot. It worked, mostly; I turned her cheeks red, and she didn't seem horrificially offended about me making the move. The last club I want to go to in downtown she's been and loves, and upbraided me for being around so much and not going. So I promised post-Vegas (since the savings begin nowish) we would go in together. So that's something, probably.
As for the Rebecca thing, the guilt's been weighing on me the past couple of weeks. But I think due to my own arrogance and stupidity, it wasn't going to work. She was clearly more into me than I into her. And the galling part is nothing she did turned me off; I just saw an opportunity with Liz, and I met Leslie (because, really, psuedonyms undermine the whole idea of keeping things real; let us hope she calls not my bluff) while she was off at her brother's graduation, and there was trouble. She started staling off in my mind, I'd had a crush on Liz for months, Leslie's Leslie--it was just a big train wreck looking for a spot to crash. I feel guilty now, of course. I didn't get the whole full-shouted go ahead from Liz, so now of course I think about the cute blonde I could've had had I used some more foresight and intelligence. The problem with the potential of having everything, especially in my case? You remember the very recent past when did you not only have nothing, but nothing was going to be coming any time soon.
Now I have confidence, and hit a couple inches, and that's changed everything. The world brims with potential, and that's one of the up points of singledom--every moment could be The Moment That Changes Everything. Everything's more acute, you pay more attention, the brain's more alert and your eyes barely pause to blink. It could happen at any waking moment, and wouldn't it just be awesome if it did? As the DJ ripped through every old school track outside of "Whoomp! (There It Is)" and Humpty (seriously, this man played "Walk This Way" into that Quad City DJs song) I found myself preoccupied and grinding against a brunette. And that could've been it, I could've been talking about Nicole or Anna or whatever her name happens to be. It didn't work besides a good kiss, but I had to try to find out.
I'm not wholly racked with guilt over the Rebecca thing, though I do feel guilty. I wish I was a little more mature, or had better responses earlier in life, or wasn't such a giant twat, or had listened to everybody when they waved their arms and went "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!". Even moreso, I'd love to say this was some sort of brilliant plan of mine to absolutely clear the docket before Vegas. But it wasn't, I didn't, and here I am.
I had to know. Now I know.
Time to brood for 48 hours and then start from scratch, I guess...
We have met the enemy, and they is us--Walt Kelly, "Pogo"
This post brought to you BAH: "Be Yourself" by Audioslave
52 to 48. That was how much love won out over lust. And that explained everything, and continues to now. Do I ultimately believe in the concept of love, of finding the recognition of self in someone else and having the cliche with the gated community/2.5 kids/dog/white picket fence/PTA meetings? Sure. But the 2 percent margin of error? That means a good pair of pants, hearing the right song, a stiff breeze, and it's all thrown into reverse. I shift from being the patriach bumbling in at 5:28 to hang my fedora on the stand and yell "Honey, I'm home!" to just wanting to hit, quit, and take them to IHOP. It's a large part to do with my inner turmoil, as if I'm in relationships all I see is the freedom I'm missing, and when I'm single, all I can think is how fast I'd throw this all down and bury it seven feet under if I had a counterpart.
There is a point to this, so let's get to it: I got Liz, but not enough to move in a different direction. I'm meeting Rebecca for lunch Sunday, at which point I expect to get dumped or, given the situation, the closest equivalent to.
With it being Liz's last day, I had to go and give it a shot. It worked, mostly; I turned her cheeks red, and she didn't seem horrificially offended about me making the move. The last club I want to go to in downtown she's been and loves, and upbraided me for being around so much and not going. So I promised post-Vegas (since the savings begin nowish) we would go in together. So that's something, probably.
As for the Rebecca thing, the guilt's been weighing on me the past couple of weeks. But I think due to my own arrogance and stupidity, it wasn't going to work. She was clearly more into me than I into her. And the galling part is nothing she did turned me off; I just saw an opportunity with Liz, and I met Leslie (because, really, psuedonyms undermine the whole idea of keeping things real; let us hope she calls not my bluff) while she was off at her brother's graduation, and there was trouble. She started staling off in my mind, I'd had a crush on Liz for months, Leslie's Leslie--it was just a big train wreck looking for a spot to crash. I feel guilty now, of course. I didn't get the whole full-shouted go ahead from Liz, so now of course I think about the cute blonde I could've had had I used some more foresight and intelligence. The problem with the potential of having everything, especially in my case? You remember the very recent past when did you not only have nothing, but nothing was going to be coming any time soon.
Now I have confidence, and hit a couple inches, and that's changed everything. The world brims with potential, and that's one of the up points of singledom--every moment could be The Moment That Changes Everything. Everything's more acute, you pay more attention, the brain's more alert and your eyes barely pause to blink. It could happen at any waking moment, and wouldn't it just be awesome if it did? As the DJ ripped through every old school track outside of "Whoomp! (There It Is)" and Humpty (seriously, this man played "Walk This Way" into that Quad City DJs song) I found myself preoccupied and grinding against a brunette. And that could've been it, I could've been talking about Nicole or Anna or whatever her name happens to be. It didn't work besides a good kiss, but I had to try to find out.
I'm not wholly racked with guilt over the Rebecca thing, though I do feel guilty. I wish I was a little more mature, or had better responses earlier in life, or wasn't such a giant twat, or had listened to everybody when they waved their arms and went "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!". Even moreso, I'd love to say this was some sort of brilliant plan of mine to absolutely clear the docket before Vegas. But it wasn't, I didn't, and here I am.
I had to know. Now I know.
Time to brood for 48 hours and then start from scratch, I guess...
We have met the enemy, and they is us--Walt Kelly, "Pogo"
This post brought to you BAH: "Be Yourself" by Audioslave
7/24/05
KWBR: the Playlist
PUT A LID ON IT:
"Speed Of Sound" (13)
15) 50 Cent, "Just A Lil' Bit" (11)
14) Beck, "Girl" (debut)
13) Ying Yang Twins, "Wait" (3)
12) the White Stripes, "Blue Orchid" (7)
11) Ciara feat. Ludacris, "Oh" (15)
10) Gorillaz, "Feel Good Inc." (14)*
09) System Of A Down, "BYOB" (12)*
08) Foo Fighters, "Best Of You" (9)
07) Ludacris feat. Bobby Valentino, "Pimpin' All Over The World" (10)*
06) 50 Cent, "Disco Inferno" (8)
05) Mariah Carey feat. the Lox, "We Belong Together (remix)" (4)
04) Jimmy Eat World, "Futures" (6)*
03) Gwen Stefani, "Hollaback Girl" (2)
02) Common, "Go" (5)*
01) Coldplay, "Fix You" (1) [1m]
This post brought to you BAH: "Crazy Life" by Toad the Wet Sprocket
"Speed Of Sound" (13)
15) 50 Cent, "Just A Lil' Bit" (11)
14) Beck, "Girl" (debut)
13) Ying Yang Twins, "Wait" (3)
12) the White Stripes, "Blue Orchid" (7)
11) Ciara feat. Ludacris, "Oh" (15)
10) Gorillaz, "Feel Good Inc." (14)*
09) System Of A Down, "BYOB" (12)*
08) Foo Fighters, "Best Of You" (9)
07) Ludacris feat. Bobby Valentino, "Pimpin' All Over The World" (10)*
06) 50 Cent, "Disco Inferno" (8)
05) Mariah Carey feat. the Lox, "We Belong Together (remix)" (4)
04) Jimmy Eat World, "Futures" (6)*
03) Gwen Stefani, "Hollaback Girl" (2)
02) Common, "Go" (5)*
01) Coldplay, "Fix You" (1) [1m]
This post brought to you BAH: "Crazy Life" by Toad the Wet Sprocket
I Say Don't You Know, You Say You Don't Know...
There's an episode of the X-Files where no matter what Scully and Mulder do, a bank holdup ends up with everyone--themselves included--dying. Well, at least until the last go-round, otherwise the series would've ended much sooner.
I've had a bad night.
Started with work, which sadly in retrospect was the highlight of the day. So, after work, I have dinner and it suddenly occurs to me with the heat wave suddenly dying I might want a coat later. A coat I do not have. But I rationalize it away by figuring I'll be mostly inside, and will be sweating so much a coat will only make things worse.
I hit the club, and it earns a third strike. First two strikes on St. Patrick's Day, where I lost the World Title and instead of spreading a brunette sandwich got to watch my friend puke 10 Irish Car Bombs and her small intestine. But I chalk those off to a freak occurence. Despite the Clash's catchy tune, lightning doesn't strike twice, right? I sip drinks watching some 80-year-old guy hit on all the girls (which, quite frankly, was the best thing I'd ever seen in my life) and a guy who looks like he broke free from the Killers moving like a diabetic who hasn't gotten their daily dose of the insulin. It's not a matter of who, but of which, right?
Wrong. Despite that the floor was populated with more lanky uncoordinated white stiffs than have been seen in North America since the 1989 Milwaukee Bucks, I get shut out. Shut out. I never get shut out, but it happens tonight. Oh, and somebody steals my $30 retro Kangol hat, to boot.
So I head to the spot to see Liz and drown my sorrows in a fine hot chocolate.
No Liz.
Suck.
I lean against the wall for the bathroom, now mad I have to kill an hour or so here anyway until I can get home. I look inside to find out what the new flavor of the month is for future references and visits.
Fare Thee Well, one of those little whiteboards says.
Liz, 7/29, it says.
SUCK.
So there I sit in never-never land, and after the initial shock of it wears off I wonder if there's anything else I can be doing. Turns out, I can be checking my voicemail and getting a message from Rebecca inviting me to a party on the assumation I wouldn't be doing anything. Oh, and she Wants To Talk.
I cannot get home soon enough.
There are no cabs.
I start walking, and great, one's across the street at the 7/11.
Would anybody care to guess what comes next?
That's right, the cab doesn't go.
So he says about 15 minutes and I start walking some more, and since I'm black and it's about 4 in the morning I seriously doubt I'm going to get a shitload of cabs coming my way. My crush is disappearing, my almost-girlfriend's got me on the morphine drip, I threw an 0-fer in the club, and as I continue to walk it's about 50/50 as to whether I want to live to make it home or get shredded in a violent hail of gunfire.
The cab is fixed enough for me to get here.
That's comforting. Now all I have to worry about is watching my Quadrangle disintegrate into a straight line over the course of the week, if Rebecca still wants me, if I deserve it, if this club has become bad luck or if I should start putting up LOST: One mojo. If Found, Contact B. Rosser signs, and the fact my job highlighted my day just because of the lack of suck.
In semi-related news, that new Nine Inch Nails song is pretty sweet.
This post brought to you BAH: "Novocaine For The Soul" by eels
I've had a bad night.
Started with work, which sadly in retrospect was the highlight of the day. So, after work, I have dinner and it suddenly occurs to me with the heat wave suddenly dying I might want a coat later. A coat I do not have. But I rationalize it away by figuring I'll be mostly inside, and will be sweating so much a coat will only make things worse.
I hit the club, and it earns a third strike. First two strikes on St. Patrick's Day, where I lost the World Title and instead of spreading a brunette sandwich got to watch my friend puke 10 Irish Car Bombs and her small intestine. But I chalk those off to a freak occurence. Despite the Clash's catchy tune, lightning doesn't strike twice, right? I sip drinks watching some 80-year-old guy hit on all the girls (which, quite frankly, was the best thing I'd ever seen in my life) and a guy who looks like he broke free from the Killers moving like a diabetic who hasn't gotten their daily dose of the insulin. It's not a matter of who, but of which, right?
Wrong. Despite that the floor was populated with more lanky uncoordinated white stiffs than have been seen in North America since the 1989 Milwaukee Bucks, I get shut out. Shut out. I never get shut out, but it happens tonight. Oh, and somebody steals my $30 retro Kangol hat, to boot.
So I head to the spot to see Liz and drown my sorrows in a fine hot chocolate.
No Liz.
Suck.
I lean against the wall for the bathroom, now mad I have to kill an hour or so here anyway until I can get home. I look inside to find out what the new flavor of the month is for future references and visits.
Fare Thee Well, one of those little whiteboards says.
Liz, 7/29, it says.
SUCK.
So there I sit in never-never land, and after the initial shock of it wears off I wonder if there's anything else I can be doing. Turns out, I can be checking my voicemail and getting a message from Rebecca inviting me to a party on the assumation I wouldn't be doing anything. Oh, and she Wants To Talk.
I cannot get home soon enough.
There are no cabs.
I start walking, and great, one's across the street at the 7/11.
Would anybody care to guess what comes next?
That's right, the cab doesn't go.
So he says about 15 minutes and I start walking some more, and since I'm black and it's about 4 in the morning I seriously doubt I'm going to get a shitload of cabs coming my way. My crush is disappearing, my almost-girlfriend's got me on the morphine drip, I threw an 0-fer in the club, and as I continue to walk it's about 50/50 as to whether I want to live to make it home or get shredded in a violent hail of gunfire.
The cab is fixed enough for me to get here.
That's comforting. Now all I have to worry about is watching my Quadrangle disintegrate into a straight line over the course of the week, if Rebecca still wants me, if I deserve it, if this club has become bad luck or if I should start putting up LOST: One mojo. If Found, Contact B. Rosser signs, and the fact my job highlighted my day just because of the lack of suck.
In semi-related news, that new Nine Inch Nails song is pretty sweet.
This post brought to you BAH: "Novocaine For The Soul" by eels
7/23/05
Chutes And Ladders
The first south poker night was a pretty good success, full of quips and Krispy Kremes. I lost about $15 in three hands--my first $10 in the first two hands--but other than that, played the way I wanted to play. I think the inital $10 was just figuring out style. In the end I ended up down $7, turning a profit on my buy-back.
Joanna, on the other hand, quadrupled her original $10 and THEN some, and is banned from all future poker nights. Her, and her children, and her children's children! (For six months.)
This post brought to you BAH: "Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?" by Paula Cole
Joanna, on the other hand, quadrupled her original $10 and THEN some, and is banned from all future poker nights. Her, and her children, and her children's children! (For six months.)
This post brought to you BAH: "Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?" by Paula Cole
7/22/05
the Oft Imitated Never Really Duplicated Friday Night Lights Post
ALBA: You are looking live...
Yeah, it's so cute, it's so nice! And then you find it in bed handcuffing your sister! What the FUCK is cute about THAT, huh!?
Not pictured: Mr. Gates' yacht
Anybody know what the hell I was going for here?
My kingdom for a lightening of this shot, so I can use my dirty "Use the Force!" and lightsaber jokes. PLEASE.
And then one day they decided they'd just had enough of Grimace's shit.
Sure, it's expensive. But you want quality babysitters, you gotta pay.
Yarr. That's gonna replace the whale in my nightmares.
God to Mike Dupin: I hate you, and so does your mama.
Sardines somewhere look at each other and think "We're getting off light."
Get your philosophy from a bumper sticker...
Maggie Grace is in this shot, I swear.
"Look at this tubby fuck right here. Kate Beckinsale's in the hizouse and we're next to Mrs. Fucking Fields..."
90 degrees
180 degrees
270 degrees
360. Yeah, it was pretty busy on Saturday. Go fig.
Tenacious D(iane)!
"Where do they get those wonderful dipping sauces? Here? Ah."
Even Pac-Man has to wait in line sometimes.
We were actually both thinking of 11½, is the damndest thing. Also, Dupin sucks. Even more so.
This is not a good shot of Summer Altice.
Neither is this one.
The moral of the story: restraining orders suck.
He's on Crossing Jordan. I remember him as Astounding Andy from Night Stand with Dick Dietrick. I'm weird.
Deh deh deh deh deh deh deh deh deh deh deh!
It'd be cool, but at the Con every day is Halloween.
And if you think that mask is creepy, he's right around the corner from the women's bathroom!
Look at the fucking poser on the left escaltor. EIGHT MONTHS AGO, pal. Fucking biters.
"Our tech support staff should be back in a couple hours."
"No, we swear this time. Sorry about the last four days."
They call me white Moses, black Jesus...
ALBA: Aaron for the quick whiparound time and RT for the hosting priviligamijigs.
ALBA: Wedding Crashers, even if I like Rachel McAdams better as a blonde.
ALBA: Poker night tonight, and the club after work tomorrow. Good times/these are our good times...
ALBA: Payday!
ALBA: Under a month to fucking Vegas, baby!
DUBYA: I think it's high past time I quit jerking Rebecca around. Let's hope for forgiveness.
DUBYA: This heat wave. At least in Vegas I'll be drunk all the time and looking at skin, this is just annoying. I'm thinking of singing a CB4 song right now, and you know which one.
ALBA: David Banner's "Play". Good thing the Republicans are in charge, dirty songs to bump and grind on are getting raunchier and raunchier by the week, it seems.
ALBA: My poker nickname is now going to be the Dark Horse (thanks, Dule Hill, your check's in the mail). I need to buy a chess set and get the dark horse piece out so I can cap my cards in Vegas with it. I've always wanted one of those baubles.
DUBYA: This heat is really making me reconsider my stance on underwear.
DUBYA: In order to do Vegas up, I'm missing Anger Management 3 tonight. Everybody on Aftermath AND Lil' Jon. That's just gonna hurt.
DUBYA: Sweating.
ALBA: HERE! A good picture of Summer Altice to wrap it up on a high note.
This post brought to you BAH: "Freaks" by Live
Yeah, it's so cute, it's so nice! And then you find it in bed handcuffing your sister! What the FUCK is cute about THAT, huh!?
Not pictured: Mr. Gates' yacht
Anybody know what the hell I was going for here?
My kingdom for a lightening of this shot, so I can use my dirty "Use the Force!" and lightsaber jokes. PLEASE.
And then one day they decided they'd just had enough of Grimace's shit.
Sure, it's expensive. But you want quality babysitters, you gotta pay.
Yarr. That's gonna replace the whale in my nightmares.
God to Mike Dupin: I hate you, and so does your mama.
Sardines somewhere look at each other and think "We're getting off light."
Get your philosophy from a bumper sticker...
Maggie Grace is in this shot, I swear.
"Look at this tubby fuck right here. Kate Beckinsale's in the hizouse and we're next to Mrs. Fucking Fields..."
90 degrees
180 degrees
270 degrees
360. Yeah, it was pretty busy on Saturday. Go fig.
Tenacious D(iane)!
"Where do they get those wonderful dipping sauces? Here? Ah."
Even Pac-Man has to wait in line sometimes.
We were actually both thinking of 11½, is the damndest thing. Also, Dupin sucks. Even more so.
This is not a good shot of Summer Altice.
Neither is this one.
The moral of the story: restraining orders suck.
He's on Crossing Jordan. I remember him as Astounding Andy from Night Stand with Dick Dietrick. I'm weird.
Deh deh deh deh deh deh deh deh deh deh deh!
It'd be cool, but at the Con every day is Halloween.
And if you think that mask is creepy, he's right around the corner from the women's bathroom!
Look at the fucking poser on the left escaltor. EIGHT MONTHS AGO, pal. Fucking biters.
"Our tech support staff should be back in a couple hours."
"No, we swear this time. Sorry about the last four days."
They call me white Moses, black Jesus...
ALBA: Aaron for the quick whiparound time and RT for the hosting priviligamijigs.
ALBA: Wedding Crashers, even if I like Rachel McAdams better as a blonde.
ALBA: Poker night tonight, and the club after work tomorrow. Good times/these are our good times...
ALBA: Payday!
ALBA: Under a month to fucking Vegas, baby!
DUBYA: I think it's high past time I quit jerking Rebecca around. Let's hope for forgiveness.
DUBYA: This heat wave. At least in Vegas I'll be drunk all the time and looking at skin, this is just annoying. I'm thinking of singing a CB4 song right now, and you know which one.
ALBA: David Banner's "Play". Good thing the Republicans are in charge, dirty songs to bump and grind on are getting raunchier and raunchier by the week, it seems.
ALBA: My poker nickname is now going to be the Dark Horse (thanks, Dule Hill, your check's in the mail). I need to buy a chess set and get the dark horse piece out so I can cap my cards in Vegas with it. I've always wanted one of those baubles.
DUBYA: This heat is really making me reconsider my stance on underwear.
DUBYA: In order to do Vegas up, I'm missing Anger Management 3 tonight. Everybody on Aftermath AND Lil' Jon. That's just gonna hurt.
DUBYA: Sweating.
ALBA: HERE! A good picture of Summer Altice to wrap it up on a high note.
This post brought to you BAH: "Freaks" by Live
7/17/05
This Year's Con : Inside This Young Black Soul Is An Old Jewish Comedian Dying To Get Out
Nothing happened today. By the time I fully recovered from my hangover, it was all over but the shouting. As a result of that and buying Rob's birthday present with my break, Dupin gets to live another 350-odd days without Iyari Limon being The Message. Feel good about something, Mikey!
So as I come in, one of my coworker friends says she saw me last night post-Hooters pre-guest-DJ-dance-machine-sucking-face-with-what's-her-face and asks why I look so bad. I say I only got like 3 hours sleep. She says that's a shock. I explain my mom woke up my brother for the Sunday service around 6:15 and then I couldn't really get back into REMville. She and one of my other coworker older female buddies says I should've been there asking forgiveness. And I say "Me ask forgiveness? I don't care if I can't remember her name, she stuck her tongue in my mouth first." It gets the reaction, I go out to change on the high note.
All well and good.
Except my original line was "I forget her name--I think it started with H and ended with her tongue down my throat."
I think the latter's much funnier, but ah well.
And now for a week off. Time to decompose, play poker, and plot Vegas.
This post brought to you BAH: "Just Like Heaven" by the Cure
So as I come in, one of my coworker friends says she saw me last night post-Hooters pre-guest-DJ-dance-machine-sucking-face-with-what's-her-face and asks why I look so bad. I say I only got like 3 hours sleep. She says that's a shock. I explain my mom woke up my brother for the Sunday service around 6:15 and then I couldn't really get back into REMville. She and one of my other coworker older female buddies says I should've been there asking forgiveness. And I say "Me ask forgiveness? I don't care if I can't remember her name, she stuck her tongue in my mouth first." It gets the reaction, I go out to change on the high note.
All well and good.
Except my original line was "I forget her name--I think it started with H and ended with her tongue down my throat."
I think the latter's much funnier, but ah well.
And now for a week off. Time to decompose, play poker, and plot Vegas.
This post brought to you BAH: "Just Like Heaven" by the Cure
This Year's Con: Come For The Show, Stay For The Afterparty
This is going to be one of the hardest posts I've ever had to make, partially because that infernal I love you I love you I love you song has lodged itself in my medium lobe and mostly because I'm Paris Hilton sloppy drunk right now.
Let's see what survived the Heineken bombings!
So, in bad news, missed Charlize, Kevin Smith, Tenacious D (thanks, completely bullshit last hour switch!), and Clare Kramer. Sadly, I recognized Clare but it was about 3 seconds too late. She's a lighter shade of blonde now. And the Wedding Crashers girls, which was damn irritable because at where I assumed the end of the line was I assumed I would be able to burn my lunch break waiting and having the hotter than fuck Summer Altice do the Voicemail Message of Immortality. And then when I brought up the fact I didn't use my job to line-hop, I still got sent to the boonies! Fucking security bitches. I got a chainsaw with their name on it, I do.
What else? Saw Amanda, who is being hoed out by Uncle Walt and Poppa Mickey for the event. NARNIA NARNIA NARNIA w00t et al terra firma pax requiem. Whatever the FOCK that means. Uhhhhhh...oh, in the daily Fuck Mike Dupin newsbulletin I got Nicholas Brendan's autograph, which adds to the Hannigan pipeline I have going, with Julie Benz and Mercedes McNab on tap in hours. (Funny: in doing this post in my head I of course immediately flew to Donovan McNabb. I blame the firewater.) Oh, and I saw and got a shot of Maggie Grace. I could've gotten a one-on-one but that's what I get for not watching Lost. I know, shuddupp. Saw Gene Simmons and got depressed because from behind I thought he was Wayne Newton.
I think that's everything.
OH! The line for Stacy Keibler was way too long--but even hot without makeup. So hoorah.
So after the show I had a dinner at a establishment less known for food than the frontally blessed ambiance and hit the club. Went great per usual, and I apparently threw out my voice screaming out "You Shook Me All Night Long" and, now that I can recall it, "I Love Rock N' Roll" and "You Give Love A Bad Name" (oh, the pain, the shame) to a lesser extent. Anyway, I was putting the moves on this girl named Danielle but when I lost her I settled for making out with some cute blond named Melissa. I think it was Melissa. It matters, right? So that happened on about three or four occassions.
Best part of the late evening--besides Humpty and DITTY~!--was hanging around outside the club after being exhausted from dancing my ass off after the shift and a guy asking me if my To: Women From: God shirt was true. Cue Rebecca--FREUDIAN SLIP! PROBLEM! MESSAGE!--Melissa or whoever coming out and sucking face with me.
"Truth in advertising laws've gotten ugly", I tells him.
Good thing Liz wasn't at Fumari tonight.
And now, bed, so I can wake up, go to work, and comp my brother and one of his dork friends into the Con.
I'm such a nice boy.
This post brought to you BAH (no, really): "Finding Out True Love Is Blind" by Louis XIV
Let's see what survived the Heineken bombings!
So, in bad news, missed Charlize, Kevin Smith, Tenacious D (thanks, completely bullshit last hour switch!), and Clare Kramer. Sadly, I recognized Clare but it was about 3 seconds too late. She's a lighter shade of blonde now. And the Wedding Crashers girls, which was damn irritable because at where I assumed the end of the line was I assumed I would be able to burn my lunch break waiting and having the hotter than fuck Summer Altice do the Voicemail Message of Immortality. And then when I brought up the fact I didn't use my job to line-hop, I still got sent to the boonies! Fucking security bitches. I got a chainsaw with their name on it, I do.
What else? Saw Amanda, who is being hoed out by Uncle Walt and Poppa Mickey for the event. NARNIA NARNIA NARNIA w00t et al terra firma pax requiem. Whatever the FOCK that means. Uhhhhhh...oh, in the daily Fuck Mike Dupin newsbulletin I got Nicholas Brendan's autograph, which adds to the Hannigan pipeline I have going, with Julie Benz and Mercedes McNab on tap in hours. (Funny: in doing this post in my head I of course immediately flew to Donovan McNabb. I blame the firewater.) Oh, and I saw and got a shot of Maggie Grace. I could've gotten a one-on-one but that's what I get for not watching Lost. I know, shuddupp. Saw Gene Simmons and got depressed because from behind I thought he was Wayne Newton.
I think that's everything.
OH! The line for Stacy Keibler was way too long--but even hot without makeup. So hoorah.
So after the show I had a dinner at a establishment less known for food than the frontally blessed ambiance and hit the club. Went great per usual, and I apparently threw out my voice screaming out "You Shook Me All Night Long" and, now that I can recall it, "I Love Rock N' Roll" and "You Give Love A Bad Name" (oh, the pain, the shame) to a lesser extent. Anyway, I was putting the moves on this girl named Danielle but when I lost her I settled for making out with some cute blond named Melissa. I think it was Melissa. It matters, right? So that happened on about three or four occassions.
Best part of the late evening--besides Humpty and DITTY~!--was hanging around outside the club after being exhausted from dancing my ass off after the shift and a guy asking me if my To: Women From: God shirt was true. Cue Rebecca--FREUDIAN SLIP! PROBLEM! MESSAGE!--Melissa or whoever coming out and sucking face with me.
"Truth in advertising laws've gotten ugly", I tells him.
Good thing Liz wasn't at Fumari tonight.
And now, bed, so I can wake up, go to work, and comp my brother and one of his dork friends into the Con.
I'm such a nice boy.
This post brought to you BAH (no, really): "Finding Out True Love Is Blind" by Louis XIV
7/15/05
This Year's Con: Big Five
5) Kane is frightening in person.
I don't mean to say it as he's a bad guy, or terrorizing small children and whatnot. It's just he pops up out of nowhere wearing a WrestleMania 21 shirt and his ring gear from the waist down and I say "Kane! Hey!" and he says "Hi." But then he smiles at me and all I'm thinking about is how many times I've seen this look shortly followed by (fill in your favorite: attempted vasectomy through car battery, chokeslam, Tombstone). I literally almost crap myself because I'm thinking he's going to pivot and chokeslam me down to the parking garage with everybody looking down chanting "HOLY SHIT!" too busy to notice my spleem has escaped my body and I'm fucking dying.
I'm pleased to report Kane just went up the escalator. I was shook for a good 5 minutes after, though.
4) I now know what it feels like when doves cry.
So for the first time since last decade, I see my old friend Ray. We catch up as much as possible, and he mentions Queen Jessica showing up last year and how he missed it. I am also bummed with authority--
--later on, a conversation about 20 feet away from me and what I heard--
Boy: blah blah blah blah blah Four blah blash Jessica Alba
Me: [ears perk up]
Boy: blah blah blabbity blah blah blah
Me: [eyes narrow, turns away]
--and he then asks me if I like Jessica.
My hand shoots to my waist and I pull out Natalie and flip her open, where the cover shot of her GQ issue is the wallpaper. Ray whips off his phone, and the second picture inside the GQ...
...anyway, to quote Dave Attell, we catch each other's eyes, we both start laughing.
3) Lenient bosses rule...
Because I came in an hour late and was able to talk my way out of persecution because...
2) The starlets I want are never on time.
...I didn't meet Natalie Portman. A damn dirty shame, I was staking out the secret entrance, friends with security, Aaron was on the inside doing recon, I literally had them all set up like dominoes in a row. And she was late coming out, so three plus hours down the shitter (including one I was supposed to get paid for). It totally would've been worth it, of course. After making myself late, I had to see how far I could go and not get fired. I should've hung in another half-hour; she probably would've come out and I could've worked the maximum amount for 3 breaks.
But I'm still upbeat overall about the day...
1) To: Michael Dupin From: God RE: My opinion of you Text: You SUCK.
So as I'm fashionably late on my post, I'm just looking around. It's a big part of the job, what Vegas calls their jammers: any problems, you solve 'em. So as I'm scanning the lobby, I see a blonde.
And I'm like 85% sure.
So I call out, "Amber! Hey, Amber!"
And she turns and heads over to me and I do a double take and say "I didn't really think it was you!" But it is. She autographs my program--and Michael, poor Michael, this is the kicker:
The guy who takes the picture of me with Tara is WARREN.
To Butch:
[heart] Amber Benson
"Tara"
Awwww. You're looking at the bridge between Willow's girlfriends, in consecutive years no less. I'm dorking out quite hard right now.
Good luck getting to sleep, Michael. Hands that touched Alyson Hannigan touched mine, and the proof goes up next week.
I smell an ulcer coming...
This post brought to you BAH: "Never Been In Love" by Talib Kweli
I don't mean to say it as he's a bad guy, or terrorizing small children and whatnot. It's just he pops up out of nowhere wearing a WrestleMania 21 shirt and his ring gear from the waist down and I say "Kane! Hey!" and he says "Hi." But then he smiles at me and all I'm thinking about is how many times I've seen this look shortly followed by (fill in your favorite: attempted vasectomy through car battery, chokeslam, Tombstone). I literally almost crap myself because I'm thinking he's going to pivot and chokeslam me down to the parking garage with everybody looking down chanting "HOLY SHIT!" too busy to notice my spleem has escaped my body and I'm fucking dying.
I'm pleased to report Kane just went up the escalator. I was shook for a good 5 minutes after, though.
4) I now know what it feels like when doves cry.
So for the first time since last decade, I see my old friend Ray. We catch up as much as possible, and he mentions Queen Jessica showing up last year and how he missed it. I am also bummed with authority--
--later on, a conversation about 20 feet away from me and what I heard--
Boy: blah blah blah blah blah Four blah blash Jessica Alba
Me: [ears perk up]
Boy: blah blah blabbity blah blah blah
Me: [eyes narrow, turns away]
--and he then asks me if I like Jessica.
My hand shoots to my waist and I pull out Natalie and flip her open, where the cover shot of her GQ issue is the wallpaper. Ray whips off his phone, and the second picture inside the GQ...
...anyway, to quote Dave Attell, we catch each other's eyes, we both start laughing.
3) Lenient bosses rule...
Because I came in an hour late and was able to talk my way out of persecution because...
2) The starlets I want are never on time.
...I didn't meet Natalie Portman. A damn dirty shame, I was staking out the secret entrance, friends with security, Aaron was on the inside doing recon, I literally had them all set up like dominoes in a row. And she was late coming out, so three plus hours down the shitter (including one I was supposed to get paid for). It totally would've been worth it, of course. After making myself late, I had to see how far I could go and not get fired. I should've hung in another half-hour; she probably would've come out and I could've worked the maximum amount for 3 breaks.
But I'm still upbeat overall about the day...
1) To: Michael Dupin From: God RE: My opinion of you Text: You SUCK.
So as I'm fashionably late on my post, I'm just looking around. It's a big part of the job, what Vegas calls their jammers: any problems, you solve 'em. So as I'm scanning the lobby, I see a blonde.
And I'm like 85% sure.
So I call out, "Amber! Hey, Amber!"
And she turns and heads over to me and I do a double take and say "I didn't really think it was you!" But it is. She autographs my program--and Michael, poor Michael, this is the kicker:
The guy who takes the picture of me with Tara is WARREN.
To Butch:
[heart] Amber Benson
"Tara"
Awwww. You're looking at the bridge between Willow's girlfriends, in consecutive years no less. I'm dorking out quite hard right now.
Good luck getting to sleep, Michael. Hands that touched Alyson Hannigan touched mine, and the proof goes up next week.
I smell an ulcer coming...
This post brought to you BAH: "Never Been In Love" by Talib Kweli
7/14/05
This Year's Con: Baby Steps
There are way more one-hitters than no-hitters. And way more no-hitters than perfect games.
So for the first day ever at Comic-Con, I didn't meet anybody famous. Though I could've met Virgil! ("You said famous!") Iyari no-showed, which was mildly distressing, and I didn't get to break to see John Kricfalusi. Ah, well. I did, in the interests of fairness, get a shot with a smoking hot Leialike, so the day wasn't a complete wash. Yeah, the Force was with me...in my pants!
Classics are classics because they're always good.
Tomorrow & Saturday are the big star-gazing days, though it's going to be fun this weekend with the Padres back in the Litterbox across the street from the year the Con quite possibly breaks six digits.
And as my tired head hits the pillow tonight, a little voice will go "Portman, take me away!"...
This post brought to you BAH: "Megalomaniac" by Incubus
So for the first day ever at Comic-Con, I didn't meet anybody famous. Though I could've met Virgil! ("You said famous!") Iyari no-showed, which was mildly distressing, and I didn't get to break to see John Kricfalusi. Ah, well. I did, in the interests of fairness, get a shot with a smoking hot Leialike, so the day wasn't a complete wash. Yeah, the Force was with me...in my pants!
Classics are classics because they're always good.
Tomorrow & Saturday are the big star-gazing days, though it's going to be fun this weekend with the Padres back in the Litterbox across the street from the year the Con quite possibly breaks six digits.
And as my tired head hits the pillow tonight, a little voice will go "Portman, take me away!"...
This post brought to you BAH: "Megalomaniac" by Incubus
7/13/05
the King of Clubs The King Of Hearts
I'm sitting here thinking.
Three roads diverged in a snowy wood, and I...
Haven't picked one yet. But I'm getting there.
Saturday I was thinking of calling Rebecca. R's the one I met back on Memorial Day Eve and had the good date with, and the one who went off for a couple weeks for her brother's graduation.
This is where Liz and...ooh, I really don't want to name names on the third. For completion's sake and because I like the name, we'll call her Jessica...step up further in my mind. Liz and I start flirting as I through a random series of events show up at the hookah bar more often. Jessica I meet out of the blue at a party and we get along great, especially on the dance floor.
Rebecca comes back, and I pull the Swingers over the holiday weekend on her. Why? Because I have to. Better to be aloof than needy. Don't play the game, I just make the rules.
So I'm about to call Saturday afternoon and get into the whole casualask to Rebecca of what she's doing Saturday night and see if she would also care to frequent the club I'm planning to hit when Aaron comes up and tempts me with the possibility of seeing Jessica.
And what option does my 142 IQ take? Jessica. Duh. And she doesn't disappoint, as at some point I am sure my overt staring of her when I can get away with it is going to cause a Clark Kentian eruption of fire. Doesn't, thankfully. But I do forget to call Rebecca back for a day or two, or up until right nowish.
I go see Liz with the date question cocked and loaded in my mind. Despite that, I play some of my best poker ever. If only we were allowed to bet money in the City of San Diego I would be quite far ahead--folding good, making fold-inducing raises, figuring out Aaron & Ivan's hands by how much they bet on some occassions. In fact, things are going well enough I sort of go on autopilot pokerwise and start focusing on the Lust Parallelogram I've wandered into. I think of the date I had with cute and funny Rebecca, I think of probably-way-too-young-for-me-but-that-just-makes-it-better Jessica's legs, I think of Liz inches away and it's like If it weren't for my horse... except the scenery's a billion times better when it all goes six ways from Sunday.
Earlier on, Aaron & I order hot chocolate while Ivan foolishly reveals he bought his hookah elsewhere. Liz goes as far as to jokingly call it a betrayal while we immediately sell him out and make sure our beverages don't get spit in. So when he says hot chocolate and hands me a five for two bucks, I decide to take a break from the game action and get him a second hot chocolate.
So, I get back, and Liz brings the hot chocolate.
Aaron just paid me back for the first one, since he didn't have exact change. Superflous! So after some embarrassment, I just take it in. And then, after putting the straw in but not having any, I decide to get a refund. What's more, I decide to announce it to my friends.
My friends who immediately look at me as if I am dancing the fox trot on Elliot Ness' corpse.
But fuck them, I'll get to see Liz, which is worth it. Back to the front I head, and then I explain to her exactly what had happened and calmly ask for my refund.
She says to me but you bought it. I say, this is true, but I didn't have any of it, all I did was put in the straw. I rotate the glass a bit to show her the level of liquid has remained unchanged since she made it, and we go back and forth about the rebate on the chocolate, the possibility of germs, and my flash of idiocy. And she says something, and I smile and ask if you're trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson, and she says no with a yes smile and then I turn away.
It was really something, the look on Ivan & Aaron's faces when I walked back with the rebate.
And the hot chocolate.
It's a Spectorian Wall of Sound, whatthehowthedidyouholdherupwhatthehowtheareyoufuckingkiddingme for about two minutes. All I can do is laugh and deliver one of my favorite quotes by an African-American philosopher: I'm a hustla, baby.
Poker continues. I'm too busy laughing. They're too busy wondering if I am, in fact, Lucifer Hisself. There's a followup move I have to do, and it takes me a while to figure out what it is. Clearly, heart chess is being played here and she's made a move. But while I ignore the poker, I think of everything possible to say and/or do.
And when it closes, I thank her one more time, and tip her the money she gave me back. An "Aww!" and "Thank you" later, with another fetching smile, I'm out the door with the Dirk Diggler Power Kick.
Aaron thinks I should've pulled the trigger earlier, and I'm willing to bet Rob does too. But she took a step forward, and I met it. So the next move is the all-in, not this one.
I mean, if I was smart enough to wait until the end of the night to drop the tip, I'm not about to blow my goodfaith wad in that early a stroke.
As for Rebecca and Jessica...well, clearly, some things are going to be done on my part on those fronts. But all I can think about now is a certain beautiful blonde and that second hot chocolate that tasted like heaven-coated sweetness.
Chris Griffin was right: the best things in life are free.
Current music: "Until The End Of The World" by U2
Three roads diverged in a snowy wood, and I...
Haven't picked one yet. But I'm getting there.
Saturday I was thinking of calling Rebecca. R's the one I met back on Memorial Day Eve and had the good date with, and the one who went off for a couple weeks for her brother's graduation.
This is where Liz and...ooh, I really don't want to name names on the third. For completion's sake and because I like the name, we'll call her Jessica...step up further in my mind. Liz and I start flirting as I through a random series of events show up at the hookah bar more often. Jessica I meet out of the blue at a party and we get along great, especially on the dance floor.
Rebecca comes back, and I pull the Swingers over the holiday weekend on her. Why? Because I have to. Better to be aloof than needy. Don't play the game, I just make the rules.
So I'm about to call Saturday afternoon and get into the whole casualask to Rebecca of what she's doing Saturday night and see if she would also care to frequent the club I'm planning to hit when Aaron comes up and tempts me with the possibility of seeing Jessica.
And what option does my 142 IQ take? Jessica. Duh. And she doesn't disappoint, as at some point I am sure my overt staring of her when I can get away with it is going to cause a Clark Kentian eruption of fire. Doesn't, thankfully. But I do forget to call Rebecca back for a day or two, or up until right nowish.
I go see Liz with the date question cocked and loaded in my mind. Despite that, I play some of my best poker ever. If only we were allowed to bet money in the City of San Diego I would be quite far ahead--folding good, making fold-inducing raises, figuring out Aaron & Ivan's hands by how much they bet on some occassions. In fact, things are going well enough I sort of go on autopilot pokerwise and start focusing on the Lust Parallelogram I've wandered into. I think of the date I had with cute and funny Rebecca, I think of probably-way-too-young-for-me-but-that-just-makes-it-better Jessica's legs, I think of Liz inches away and it's like If it weren't for my horse... except the scenery's a billion times better when it all goes six ways from Sunday.
Earlier on, Aaron & I order hot chocolate while Ivan foolishly reveals he bought his hookah elsewhere. Liz goes as far as to jokingly call it a betrayal while we immediately sell him out and make sure our beverages don't get spit in. So when he says hot chocolate and hands me a five for two bucks, I decide to take a break from the game action and get him a second hot chocolate.
So, I get back, and Liz brings the hot chocolate.
Aaron just paid me back for the first one, since he didn't have exact change. Superflous! So after some embarrassment, I just take it in. And then, after putting the straw in but not having any, I decide to get a refund. What's more, I decide to announce it to my friends.
My friends who immediately look at me as if I am dancing the fox trot on Elliot Ness' corpse.
But fuck them, I'll get to see Liz, which is worth it. Back to the front I head, and then I explain to her exactly what had happened and calmly ask for my refund.
She says to me but you bought it. I say, this is true, but I didn't have any of it, all I did was put in the straw. I rotate the glass a bit to show her the level of liquid has remained unchanged since she made it, and we go back and forth about the rebate on the chocolate, the possibility of germs, and my flash of idiocy. And she says something, and I smile and ask if you're trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson, and she says no with a yes smile and then I turn away.
It was really something, the look on Ivan & Aaron's faces when I walked back with the rebate.
And the hot chocolate.
It's a Spectorian Wall of Sound, whatthehowthedidyouholdherupwhatthehowtheareyoufuckingkiddingme for about two minutes. All I can do is laugh and deliver one of my favorite quotes by an African-American philosopher: I'm a hustla, baby.
Poker continues. I'm too busy laughing. They're too busy wondering if I am, in fact, Lucifer Hisself. There's a followup move I have to do, and it takes me a while to figure out what it is. Clearly, heart chess is being played here and she's made a move. But while I ignore the poker, I think of everything possible to say and/or do.
And when it closes, I thank her one more time, and tip her the money she gave me back. An "Aww!" and "Thank you" later, with another fetching smile, I'm out the door with the Dirk Diggler Power Kick.
Aaron thinks I should've pulled the trigger earlier, and I'm willing to bet Rob does too. But she took a step forward, and I met it. So the next move is the all-in, not this one.
I mean, if I was smart enough to wait until the end of the night to drop the tip, I'm not about to blow my goodfaith wad in that early a stroke.
As for Rebecca and Jessica...well, clearly, some things are going to be done on my part on those fronts. But all I can think about now is a certain beautiful blonde and that second hot chocolate that tasted like heaven-coated sweetness.
Chris Griffin was right: the best things in life are free.
Current music: "Until The End Of The World" by U2
7/12/05
Work ChummmmmmmmmmmmmmmPs
My usual Saturday night I head downtown, across the street from work, and wander Fourth and Fifth Avenues looking for a good place to get up on the goodfoot, drink, and be merry.
What'd I do at work today?
Wandered Fourth & Fifth Avenues plugging the Comic-Con.
They said some people found it hard. I said "Some people need to try doing it every other Saturday with seven beers in them at 2 in the morning with two girls using you as a crutch to keep themselves upright."
Oh, and there was a metric shitload of hot hostesses out, including a really cute British girl with blue eyes working--where else--at a Mexican restaurant.
And I got off two and a half hours early.
BRING ON THE PORTMANIA!
Current music: "In The Garage (live)" by Weezer
What'd I do at work today?
Wandered Fourth & Fifth Avenues plugging the Comic-Con.
They said some people found it hard. I said "Some people need to try doing it every other Saturday with seven beers in them at 2 in the morning with two girls using you as a crutch to keep themselves upright."
Oh, and there was a metric shitload of hot hostesses out, including a really cute British girl with blue eyes working--where else--at a Mexican restaurant.
And I got off two and a half hours early.
BRING ON THE PORTMANIA!
Current music: "In The Garage (live)" by Weezer
7/11/05
That Which Does Not Kill Us...
August 16th: Sin City DVD
August 19th-22nd: Vegas vacation.
All I know is if I'm still alive on the 23rd, I'm going to be dizzy like a b a s t a r d...
Current music: "Popular" by Nada Surf
August 19th-22nd: Vegas vacation.
All I know is if I'm still alive on the 23rd, I'm going to be dizzy like a b a s t a r d...
Current music: "Popular" by Nada Surf
7/9/05
KWBR: the Playlist
First time for everything...
WHERE IS THE LOVE:
"Be Yourself" (14)
"Beverly Hills" (15)
15) Ciara feat. Ludacris, "Oh" (9)
14) Gorillaz, "Feel Good Inc." (13)
13) Coldplay, "Speed Of Sound" (7)
12) System Of A Down, "BYOB" (11)
11) 50 Cent, "Just A Lil' Bit" (6)
10) Ludacris feat Bobby Valentino, "Pimpin' All Over The World" (12)*
09) Foo Fighters, "Best Of You" (5)
08) 50 Cent, "Disco Inferno" (9)
07) the White Stripes, "Blue Orchid" (4)
06) Jimmy Eat World, "Futures" (10)*
05) Common, "Go" (debut)
04) Mariah Carey feat. the Lox, "We Belong Together (remix)" (3)
03) Ying Yang Twins, "Wait" (1)
02) Gwen Stefani, "Hollaback Girl" (2)*
01) Coldplay, "Fix You" (debut) [2w]
Current music: "Lucky Man" by the Verve
WHERE IS THE LOVE:
"Be Yourself" (14)
"Beverly Hills" (15)
15) Ciara feat. Ludacris, "Oh" (9)
14) Gorillaz, "Feel Good Inc." (13)
13) Coldplay, "Speed Of Sound" (7)
12) System Of A Down, "BYOB" (11)
11) 50 Cent, "Just A Lil' Bit" (6)
10) Ludacris feat Bobby Valentino, "Pimpin' All Over The World" (12)*
09) Foo Fighters, "Best Of You" (5)
08) 50 Cent, "Disco Inferno" (9)
07) the White Stripes, "Blue Orchid" (4)
06) Jimmy Eat World, "Futures" (10)*
05) Common, "Go" (debut)
04) Mariah Carey feat. the Lox, "We Belong Together (remix)" (3)
03) Ying Yang Twins, "Wait" (1)
02) Gwen Stefani, "Hollaback Girl" (2)*
01) Coldplay, "Fix You" (debut) [2w]
Current music: "Lucky Man" by the Verve
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