Well Whiskey Friday

It’s a dark and stormy night. Well, it’s more like just raining steadily. Many of my friends pretty much have better things to do tonight, some of it involving dressing up. I am bored.

This is the kind of night where I would kind of consider going out and drinking alone. And by would, I mean, very likely. The proliferation of cheap bars in my neighborhood makes it a serious leisure option for me. I’ve learned to take advantage of it. Being alone, yet out amongst people, is always an interesting thing to do. Sometimes you even get to interact and meet other people.

Other times you interact with no one. You get just drunk and take note of your observations. Like the Washington Wizards fan I saw at Redd’s Tavern last week. I had never seen one in person before, and he was really into it, living and dying with each possession, frantically calling his buddy when their star player went down. Such passion for a franchise I had only known for ridiculously changing their name from “Bullets” about a decade ago.

I’m not really looking for adventure and excitement tonight, but I guess there is always a tinge of possibility when you head out to a public house  and venture outside on a rainy night. Even if you do nothing, at least you can say you did something. So I’ll post this, and go, and I’ll report if anything interesting happens, which it won’t. Sometimes sitting around with your own thoughts is not necessarily a good thing. But I guess that is also what a television is for, right? Nah, not really, not in the age of the DVR, where I can catch with the shows I want to watch and zoom past the commercials I want to miss. Whatever happens to you when you’re outside can’t be altered and fast-forwarded through. That’s why you have to make good things happen when you’re out.

We shall see.

Sorry I haven’t been around very much of late. Despite the fact that things have slowed down at work, it seems as if I have had a really hard time sitting down and putting something down on this here blog. Many people with blogs usually get their blogging done at work.

Not me. No, no sir. My boss, a genial enough fellow, is paranoid about distracted workers. Even when I’m not on the internet, he would see me pressing Alt+tab in the course of cutting and pasting numbers whenever he walked in, and worried that it was internet use of some sort. Even though I expressed to him how silly I thought this was, I got with the program and stopped fidgeting as much, and have almost entirely cut out my internet use.

So, how has this increased my productivity?

I am now taking the longest dumps in the history of digestion. Armed with a steady diet of double espressos from the coffee machine, water, and my morning yogurt, I am taking at least three quality trips to the crapper a day. Now it’s not all crappin’, mind you. That’s where the iPod Nano comes in. Time flies when you’re listening to previously-listened-to-podcasts. You’d be surprised how well old episodes of the “BS Report with Bill Simmons” and “Pardon The Interruption” hold up. Especially if your, ahem, production is finished. So that kills time away from my desk. But, hey, at least it’s not the Internet!

Also, without the constant distraction of the Internet, I can turn to daydreaming and thinking. I have the ideas for my two new novels, have completely figured out just why exactly I had to end my previous relationship, and have finally come up with a wacky new scheme to get laid and possibly get a freelance magazine article out of it. But at least I’m not on the Internet!

So my boss feels better. And quite frankly, I am more productive! We’re all winners!

So, at my city-run gym there’s usually only one channel on the television sets, Channel 7, the local ABC affiliate. I’m not sure if the Disney corporation is paying off the staff at Metropolitan Pool or something, but that’s what generally tends to be on.

This is how I became familiar with the ABC News special “Live to be 150“, hosted by Barbara Walters. It’s a “news” special where she shares secrets to living longer. I guess the show surmises that with the aid of Barbara’s tips, you can live to the ripe old age of 150.

One-hundred and fifty.

Ugh. Count me as not excited.

Think about it. If you were a person who had done all the right things that Walters told you, and you were a spry 146-year old now living in Florida, that means you very likely would have retired in 1928 at the age of 65.

That’s a long-ass time to sit around playing canasta. Oh, sure, they’ll show you remarkable centenarians living full and active lives, breathing, dancing, practicing their craft, and even having sex.

Just really, really, really slowly.

Yes, I am being a downer about living to the ripe old age of 150. I don’t know if I want to be walking around when I’m 75 talking about how it’s the new 45. Do I really need yet another excuse to put off getting married and having children? How about the fact that I’m having enough trouble saving money for retirement as it is, now I’ll have to save for 80 years worth of assisted living? Let’s not even talk about the societal implications of Social Security and all the money that’s going to be in LifeAlert ads.

Look, it’s good to be alive. Really it is. I’m trying to enjoy it. But count me as  one of those who believes that we might be beginning to go too far in our quest never to die. Never suffering pain? That seems like a worthy goal. Eradicating unnecessary diseases? Damn straight! Helping those enough lucky enough to be blessed with life to live it to the fullest? Right on.

But hanging on to the rip old age of 115 so I can tell some 75 year old about how it was back in the day? How does this benefit anyone, really? Aren’t we, with our attempts to artificially lengthen life, kind of diminishing its value, in a way? After all you’ll have plenty of time to stop and smell the roses, provided your olfactory nerves haven’t collapsed from 100 years of greenhouse gases. There’s just something that seems ethically unnatural and selfish about this. As I said before, Barbara Walters and her tips have their way, there’s going to be a lot of social policy that’s going to need to be changed. A retirement age of 121, for starters.

Plus, let’s be honest, that’s a whole lot of years to be no longer current about musical trends. And for the music to be too loud. And to need your steak cut up and for your sciatica to quit acting up. Yeah, not exactly what I’d call quality time.

Well, unless I find a way to incorporate it into a new, warm-weather look, the final days of the humongous H&M scarf, affectionately referred to in some cirles as the Doctor Who scarf (for the sci-fi geeks), and as the Rent scarf in others (musical theater folk, at least the ones that don’t hate “Rent”) are upon us.

Today it was 60 degrees, and it’s only beginning to tick upward. It’s April, so I suppose  it’s only going to continue getting warmer. This weekend, I will probably try to incorporate it with a lighter jacket or something.

If it can’t continue, well, it was a good run. It didn’t get lost, it didn’t end up being made off with, and it didn’t wind up being used as a kinky sex restraint. Congratulations. This is the first scarf that made it all the way through a winter for me. For that, we’ll always have fond memories. It’s been real.

For the unfamiliar, I’d throw in a picture, but I’m too distraught right now….

…okay, my new camera phone sucks, and apparently sends pictures by Pony Express. Leave me alone.

(Ok, here’s one hastily taken from Facebook, courtesy of Ha Ha Sound. Snf!)

(Ed–It finally arrived! Eh, not so good.)

So I was winding down a long day by reading the Washington Post’s website when I came across this article reviewing the fourth hour of the Today Show. According to reviewer Robin Givhan, the fourth hour of the show seems to be a throwback to the olden days when men worked and women stayed home and took care of the house. Not sure when that was, might have been 1957, coulda been 1987, whatever. Here was the real point for me:

There’s a fourth hour of the Today show?!

I guess I could see the reasoning to try and keep the show going as long as possible, the venerable broadcast institution is practically an ATM for NBC Universal. But really, what the hell are you going to put on? Of course there’s nothing but weight-loss crap and extreme makeovers! After four hours, you’re pretty much out of news.

So, instead of creating a brand new NBC morning show called, oh, I dunno, “Crap We Think Women Might Be Interested In Instead of News”, they take the “Today” brand name, shuffle Matt Lauer, Meredith Viera, and Al Roker off to safety and leave Ann Curry to interview women on their “relationship deal-breakers”?

I don’t get this TV business at all sometimes. Why would you dilute your best product and stretch it out beyond belief, when really, in actuality, you’ve just put on an entirely different program? I mean, why not have a second hour of “Meet the Press”, except in the second hour, Tim Russert leaves and Dan Abrams interviews a Hollywood celebrity?

(Using the same Tim Russert interview techniques, of course: “But Mr. Stallone, we’ll put up this graphic. You told GQ in March 1996: ‘I wouldn’t embarrass myself by playing Rocky and Rambo into my 60s.’ What changed your mind, your conspicuous lack of hits over the next ten years, or human growth hormone?”)

Or how about a second hour of “To Catch A Predator”, but we replace Chris Hansen with Keith Olbermann in “To Date a Douchebag”, where they use an actor to play a $10 Bud Select-swilling jackass with a popped collar, who lures some unsuspecting clueless female back to his place. When he leaves the living room for a second to see “if he has any box wine left”, Olbermann busts in and drops some science on the young lady.

Keith: So you really thought, and let me read this right, ‘would you like to come back to my place to see my gooch’ meant that this guy was going to give you a night of quality lovemaking? Honestly. Do you even know what a gooch is? And you were going to sleep with him?”

Clueless female: Uh, no….

Keith: We have you on tape calling in sick for work tomorrow.

Clueless female: Dammit! (runs out of apartment)

Keith: (voiceover) What she doesn’t know is that the girlfriends she abandoned at the club to go home with our ‘chump’ are waiting for her outside the apartment. They are drunk, and boy, are they pissed.

You know, on second thought, if the fourth hour of Today is stuff like this, I think I’d be interested….

With the warm weather upon us, it is time to start getting ready for the fun season. One of my favorite activities in getting ready for the summer is coming up with new and necessary catchphrases. We’re just getting underway, but while I had a little downtime at work (thanks, by the way, to an unnamed big-ass consulting firm for continuing to stretch out my busy season and keep me away from Triviotic by continuing to delay our season-ending package), I thought I would share one of the most crucial with you.

Last year, based on an especially inane conversation held by New York Mets broadcasters Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez, we came up with the all-purpose awkward conversation changer: “So, nobody wears hats anymore.”

To refresh your memories or re-introduce you to the concept, here’s a sample conversation:

Girl: Hey, remember last year’s Fourth of July party? That was a lot of fun!

Guy: Oh yeah, I remember that party. That’s where your best friend hooked up with (realizes it’s her recent ex-boyfriend who she is still not quite over, and that she was not aware of this incident)umm…uhhh…

Girl: (suddenly suspicious) Who? Who’d she hook up with?!

Guy: Um, no one, uh, he was some ugly dude…I think he had a mullet, or something…

Me: But seriously, nobody wears hats anymore. What’s up with that?

See? Problem solved!

But trotting out the same old lines isn’t going to work. Gotta make it great in 2008, yo.

So this year, in honor of our now-sober comrade Wang Diddy, one of the first people I met in our drinking group, the change-the-conversation phrase is now:

“Who wants mojitos?”

After two hours or so of drinking, he would suddenly, and without warning, ask this very important question. And then he would buy a round of mojitos. But even more than being a free drink, it was always a sure sign that the evening was much too far gone. Which is why he probably had to give up the drink.

But, five years later, I miss the spirit of the phrase. Even if I have no intention of buying a round of mojitos. (Maybe once in a while, after I get my nickel-an-hour raise.) Point is, in 2008, here’s how the awkward conversation goes down:

Guy: So, has anybody here ever had a threesome?

Girl: We sort of did once.

Guy: Really? You and your boyfriend?

Girl: Actually, uh, you were sort of there.

Guy: What?

Girl: Well, you passed out on the couch, right, and my boyfriend and I got into it, and you weren’t making any noise, you were just out cold. So we thought it would be fun to do it in front of you while you were passed out drooling.

Guy: That’s messed up! But how is that a threesome? Did you do anything to me?

Girl: Actually, it was my boyfriend’s idea. Well, more like he made it an official threesome.

Guy: Oh snap, my belt was buckled wrong the next morning! Please tell me he didn’t do that.

Girl: Uh, well…

Me:That’s crazy! So, who wants mojitos, y’all?

Aren’t you looking forward to outdoor drinking already?

Another surprisingly short day of work led me to peruse Gawker when I read this briefly horrifying story. In the midst of the media gossip site cracking on an unbelievably awkward sentence on page six, they failed to grasp the substance of the news. Apologies to all that know of this story.

Allegedly, Dr. Pepper is promising everyone in America a free soda if Axl Rose releases his long-awaited Guns ‘N Roses masterpiece, Chinese Democracy. You know, that album 18 years in the making that is has men all across America over the age of 25 that still believe Guns “N Roses is still a relevant band foaming at the mouth. Waiting. Hoping, Praying. Thinking that this will be the rock album to end all rock albums.

Now, I am a fan of the band’s work from back in the day. I was a young lad many moons ago when “Appetite For Destruction” came out. I had the cassette. I listen to all two and a half of their albums all the time. When I want to bring down the house at karaoke, I always go to “Mr. Brownstone”. Really, gentlemen, this band takes me back to my youth like no one else, just like many of you.

But I got tired of seeing so many of my friends genuinely believing that Chinese Democracy would actually come out and rock order would be restored to the universe. For me, the dream died when I saw Axl Rose come out with Buckethead at the MTV Video Music Awards a while ago. This led me to make one of the most regrettable decisions of my life.

At New Finnerty’s in Manhattan, I heard this hopeful chatter from my pals, and I stood up and said: “Chinese Democracy is never coming out! If Chinese Democracy comes out, I will marry Alice!”

Yeah, that Alice. She appears to have taken this threat seriously, and appears frighteningly willing to go along with this.

Needless to say, I now have beef with Dr. Pepper.

Unless it’s some sort of hoax, which I am pretty sure that it is. (Because I have no choice but to believe that. )

Of course, I had to go by Arrow for Triviotic, East Village Idiot’s brand new trivia night sensation that’s sweeping the nation. Well, not yet, but I’ll cross my fingers that it does well. Anyway, our team finished second to some band of chumps called “In Kwotes”.

(Yes, I am openly trash-talking after a loss. I mean, if you learn nothing else from the NBA, right? I kid!)

For winning second place, we won a copy of Heavy Duty Trucking Magazine. Yeah, contain your excitement. This is clearly not one of the titles they’d be rumormongering about on Gawker. Still, it’s a prize, and it’s free, so I took it home. Here’s an online taste of this fabulous second prize.

So, what did I learn from this publication while waiting for the L train? (They are still persisting with this “service on one track after midnight” thing, even though I never see any work being done on the other one.)

• Debris from failed tires is really hurting the image of the trucking industry.
• Jack Schenendorf says that ‘Failure to act would be catastrophic to this nation’, apparently about the infrastructure of our interstates. Excuse me if I am not quite as worked up about it.
• Even conservative icon Paul Weyrich believes that raising taxes a little bit is necessary to keep the roads in shape.
• Our Transportation Secretary is named Mary Peters.
• These aggressive road salts are no joke. Corrosion needs to be stopped in its tracks.
• Some of the readers think the issue of driver fatigue is not getting nearly enough coverage.

Fascinating, huh. I learned so much about trucking, I’m inclined to go over to Layover.com, the online trucking social network, so I can chat about these issues. Okay, not really.

But as we tried to spin our second-place finish last week, “If you’re not trucking, you’re sucking!” I can’t wait for next week, when second-place will apparently be a copy of “Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning Weekly” and a free subscription to their podcast, “Hot Air.” If you show up next Monday, play to win!

So, I went home this weekend and my dad asked me if I was doing anything to help Barack Obama.

“I’m not a Democrat,” I reminded my dad.

My mother quietly started making fun of him in the kitchen. “Here he goes again. Obama’s his guy. Won’t stop talking about him.” I didn’t think my mother was a Hillary supporter, but she sounded less than convinced. Probably because after 34 years of marriage, if my dad’s for it, she’s probably against it.

So what does this mean to you, the voters? I don’t know. But I have to admit, I’ve never seen my dad this excited about a presidential candidate. Ever. I mean, my dad never stopped making fun of Jesse Jackson, so it’s not about skin color with him.

(Sample rant: “What has Jesse Jackson ever run? I mean, run for mayor of Chicago first or something! Why should he be President? Because he’s a preacher?”)

Why am I throwing this out there, you ask?

Well, my dad’s endorsement is just about as pointless as all the other noise I’ve been hearing for the last month or so as the Democratic Party Immolation Festival paves the way for the McCain Administration.

Issues? Remember those? Yeah, the campaign was kind of boring back then when that was the focus. It’s much better now that the focus is now on to nitpick both sides, looking for those “gotcha” moments, embarrassing photos, quotes from duplicitous surrogates and cronies going “sorry, was that offensive?”, relentless parsing of statements, irrational and stupid name-calling from supporters on both sides, and all around wasting everyone time by inflaming passions and relegating thought to the back burner.

And that’s why Well Whiskey Friday Sr.’s endorsement matters so much. He’s as cynical and hardened as any voter, waiting for something to rouse him out of his (occasional) gout-induced slumber. Barack Obama has done just that. My dad looks skeptically at any black person who runs for office, maybe more so than your average white guy. (Let’s just say there was many an expletive thrown David Dinkins’ way.) So you know Barack’s trustworthy.

So now I’ve added my two cents of nonsense into this. I feel like I am now an active participant.

As for Mama Well Whiskey, I suspects she secretly likes McCain’s sarcasm and short temper. Forget the first black person, or the first woman in the White House. I think she’s truly looking for one of her own to finally get in the White House. Sarcastic cranks of the world, unite!

I had a friend openly admit the other night that s(h)e was willing to continue a nowheresville relationship. When pressed upon as to why, it was because of fear that they would actually no longer have sex. Under these circumstances, you would think the sex was some sort of mindblowing production that dazzled the senses, tickled the spine, and tingled the nerves.

Nope.

This person just wanted to continue to have sex. No matter if it was any good, or even enjoyable.

At that point, I said, “Well, you’re just in it for the validation. If that’s all you want, that’s all you’re getting.” Then I went back to watching college basketball.

There was a time when I might have argued passionately to someone about the value of good sex over just sex. That if it isn’t any good, you’re just engaging in glorified Greco-Roman wrestling. Quality over quantity. But after meeting way too many human beings, I just don’t care anymore. People say that sex feels so good, but a lot of people don’t seem to care if it really feels good. It’s almost as if you’re in it to earn a stamp of approval, as if you’re collecting approval more than enjoying an experience in human connection:

“I’m attractive!”

“I’m funny!”

“I’m smart!”

“My workout is beginning to pay off!”

“Having weed available at my house was a good idea!”

“Someone loves this furniture!”

“I smell good!”

Thing is, I’ve always known this, kind of. But I used to fight the good fight for the actual physical pleasure of the act. But essentially crying uncle by taking refuge in Clemson-Villanova means that maybe I’m going to kind of acknowledge that maybe there isn’t anything wrong with that. Yeah, are some people settling for less than a four-orgasm, three-hour session that expands the consciousness in order to prove that their haircut was the right decision? Sure. But maybe that’s the reason you get a better haircut instead of going “hey, a little dandruff never killed anybody.”

So I can’t get mad. Doesn’t mean I’m ready to settle for less than a five-rope classic, but I’m not going to hate on anyone anymore for essentially cuddling, with gravy.