Issue #22 - "Chicks, Beer & SportsCenter" - January
2004
-Males in their early twenties approach each new
situation in life the same way we approach the new
issue of Maxim Magazine - first we look for the hot
girls, then we check to see if there is anything else
interesting going on, and when there's not, we go
about our day as usual. We are a simple species, yet
so often misunderstood. For instance, if you follow
entertainment news at all, you'll know that everyone
in Hollywood is freaking out because the highly
coveted 18-34 male demographic doesn't watch
prime-time television anymore. I'd venture to guess
that the reason for this is that Hollywood does not
place enough emphasis on our three primary interests:
chicks, beer and SportsCenter. This month, for the
benefit of confused women and befuddled network
executives alike, I'd like to take you on a journey
through the world of the twentysomething guy. I have
to warn you, though, it ain't pretty.
-Guys never order fancy shit off of a drink menu. If
it's not either clear or brown, we don't want it.
-Guys lose clothes when they get ass. Whenever a girl
leaves my place in the morning and asks for something
to wear, I always give her my most expendable shirt
because I know I'm never getting it back. It's like a
sacrifice to the hook-up gods.
-Guys hate it when girls ask us to guess how old they
are. Because in order to avoid any chance of
offending, we have to guess like twenty years younger
than we think the girl actually is. Last week I met
this chick at a bar and she asked me to guess how old
she was. I was like, "Uh, eight?"
-Guys exist in only two states - pre-ejaculatory and
post-ejaculatory. Ladies, pre is the time to ask us
for favors, have political discussions and meet your
friends. Post is the time to quit hogging the blanket
so I can get some fucking sleep.
-Guys don't like to pay you back promptly. I'm going
to see Chris Rock at the Garden in a few weeks and it
was just easier if I charged six tickets myself and
then collected the money from my friends. Of course,
my buddies are making it as difficult as possible for
me - they're trying to pay me all in quarters, writing
nasty messages in the memo section of their checks,
threatening not to pay until the moment Chris enters
the stage. It's really not fair.
-Guys aren't big on long-distance relationships. A
friend asked me why I don't get serious with this girl
I'm hooking up with in Philadelphia. I was like, are
you kidding me? I won't even date a chick on the Upper
West Side.
-Guys never pay more than twelve bucks for a haircut.
A few months ago, in a moment of weakness, I tried to
go to a fancy salon instead of my neighborhood
barbershop. The guy butchered my hair. I should have
known better when the stylist was wearing a fucking
beeper.
-Guys learned most of what they know about women from
watching "Real Sex" on HBO as impressionable
adolescents in the early '90s. Thus when sex does not
involve midgets, video cameras or fudge, we get
confused. Please cut us some slack.
-Guys don't do yoga. Guys do, however, enjoy watching
women in spandex thongs stretch suggestively. Thus,
merely watching yoga is still OK.
-Quote of the Month. Guys like to fight other guys for
little to no reason. A while back, I went to my
buddy's apartment to get hammered. Before we left the
building to go out, me and a couple of friends were
horsing around in the lobby and got yelled at by this
doorman with a wacky crew cut. Drunk and emboldened,
I responded, "Hey, fuck you Forrest Gump!" Just then,
another group of guys who apparently lived in the
building entered the lobby and heard this exchange.
One kid came up to me with his fists raised ready to
fight and actually said, "Hey, are you making fun of
my doorman's haircut?" Holding back laughter, I turned
to the doorman, apologized and gave him my stylist's
beeper number.
-Guys don't care if a girl's place is messy. A few
weeks ago, I went home with a girl and she made me
stand outside her door while she "tidied up." Honey,
in about twenty minutes I'm going to be
post-ejaculatory and couldn't care less if you lived
in a cave.
-Guys will watch any television show that involves
ranking. Top ten plays, fifty greatest movies,
hundred richest men, anything. Hell, one of my
favorite shows is "Around the Horn" on ESPN where they
argue about arguing about sports. And get ranked at
the end.
-Guys take tickets to sporting events very seriously.
When we get tickets to a big game, we are usually
faced with the dilemma of who to take with us. For
instance, if I score seats, my roommate usually
automatically has first dibs. But last time I got
tickets they were for a Yankees game. And he's a Mets
fan. However, he did take me to an Islanders game
last season. But I hate the Islanders. It's very
complicated. You know, I just got Knicks tickets and I
think I'm just going to take whoever pays me for Chris
Rock first.
-Guys feel uncomfortable talking about girls' you
know, um, cycles. Last St. Patrick's Day, after
drinking green beer in the middle of the afternoon for
five hours straight, I tried (unsuccessfully) to rip a
street sign down and badly gashed all the fingers on
my right hand. Not wanting to stop the pub crawl to
get band-aids, I struggled on, gushing blood. I think
some girl saw me turning blue because she gave me some
sort of maxi-pad type thing to wrap around my hand. It
quickly staunched the bleeding and saved the day. And
that's everything I know about tampons. And that's
fine with me.
-Guys don't really listen when other guys tell them
important information. I went on a family vacation to
Aruba last year. When I got back, I had 27 voicemails
on my cell phone, which was cool, except not one of my
friends had any inkling I was away.
-Guys are highly illogical. Somehow we are extremely
protective of our little sisters but have no problem
masturbating to Hilary Duff.
-Guys are easily distracted. I was talking to this
girl in a bar once and she mentioned offhand that her
grandfather invented the Chipwich. We kept chatting
for a while and then I was like, wait, did you say
Chipwich? The chocolate chip ice cream cookie? For
the next half an hour I bombarded her with annoying
questions about the novelty ice cream business.
Needless to say I don't know if she kept a kept a
clean apartment or not because I didn't get anywhere
near it.
-Guys are surprisingly resourceful. I don't cook. My
roommate doesn't cook. Our apartment is kind of
small. So when we don't know where to put something,
we just stick it in the oven because it's never been
used.
-Guys give up surprisingly quickly. My buddy Seth was
dating this girl for about a year when one day they
got into a huge fight over the phone and both hung up
in a huff. They never spoke again. That's it, no
discussion, no reconciliation, no break-up, nothing. I
was like, "Dude, you can't do that, you have to talk
to her, you went out for a year!" Seth said, "Why?
Forget it, we're through." I pleaded, "Seth, do it for
me, please. She had hot friends. Damn it, I need
closure!"
-Guys are really proud of their dirty, disgusting
baseball caps. I've been wearing the same beat up New
York Rangers hat for going on eleven years now. Once
the fire alarm went off in my apartment building. When
we evacuated, I took my hat but forgot my roommate was
fast asleep in the other room. Funny thing was I
think he was more angry that I didn't try to save his
old Mets hat.
-Guys will attempt to get anything delivered. I've
overhead friends on the phone trying to convince
flustered shop owners to deliver beer, liquor, porn,
video games and even food orders that totaled less
than two dollars...with tax.
-Guys also have no perception of when stores close.
If we're hungry, we believe someone out there should
be willing to provide food. Ever see a drunk guy
banging on the door of a pizza shop at 5:30am? It's
pretty sad. Of course, then he just goes home and
tries to get it delivered.
-In the end, the 18-34 male demographic is a
fun-loving bunch. We work hard and we play hard. But
despite what you may think about our lazy, lecherous
and illogical ways, twentysomething guys are still out
there, every day, changing the world. For instance, a
group of my fraternity brothers once took a trip to
Prague in the Czech Republic. Out partying one night,
they were dismayed to find the line to the bathroom
was wrapped halfway around the bar. Cutting to the
front of the line to get a closer look at the
situation, my friends were surprised to see that the
bathroom was not being used to its optimal capacity.
While the confused Czechs looked on, my buddies
entered the bathroom together and all took a piss -
one in the urinal, one in the sink and one in the
garbage can. The next day, they left the city to go
backpacking through Europe for a month. Upon their
return to Prague, they once again went out to the
local bar. After a few shots of absinthe, my friends
went to the bathroom, prepared to cut the long line
again. What they saw amazed them. The Czechs had
organized themselves into three short lines - one
leading to the urinal, one to the sink and one to the
garbage can.
-As always, here are some random things I've been
ruminating about lately...
-Ever notice that when you're sitting at a restaurant
and the waiter comes over to take your order, you
instinctively re-open and look at your menu even
though you know exactly what you want?
-I just got a new computer with a CD burn drive. How
come they sell blank tapes and floppy disks that hold
so little data in boxes of five but blank CDs that
each hold like half your hard drive only come in
packages of a hundred?
-As I've said before in this column, I do the vast
majority of my shopping online these days. One of the
reasons is that I hate going into stores where it's
not clear right away which stuff is men's and which is
women's. The worst is when you're looking at a
sweater and the salesperson causally comes up behind
you and tells you it's a woman's sweater. You're
always like, "Yeah, um, I knew that, it's for my
sister." And then you get the hell out of there.
-Why do women always make you switch tables at a
restaurant because they "feel a draft?" Forget the
fact that the draft is non-existent, why can't my mom
make the decision to switch tables right away? She
always starts complaining about ten minutes after
sitting down. So now that we've dirtied the napkins
and water glasses at this table, how about we all get
up, take our jackets, change waiters, bring our bread
plates and move ten feet away? And of course we all
need to look at the menu again even though we already
know what we want.
-When did everyone become so obsessed with candles? I
can't walk into an apartment anymore without being
besieged by twenty different burning aromas. And I
love the people who have candles but never use them.
There's always that lighter sitting neatly in the wax
tray, just begging to be used, but you can't be the
first otherwise everyone will know it was you who
stunk up the bathroom.
-Speaking of stinking up the bathroom, in my bathroom,
there is a can of air freshener with the scent
"Butterfly Garden." That's great, when someone takes
a shit and then uses the spray, it smells like someone
took a shit in a butterfly garden.
-Memo to the producers of SportsCenter: don't worry,
you're still my favorite show behind Seinfeld, but
could you please stop showing so much Kobe Bryant
trial coverage? If I wanted to watch court on TV, I'd
watch, um, Court TV.
-Memo to people who list Evanescence as their favorite
group: in the future, please limit your favorite
artists to those who have been around longer than six
months and have more than one overplayed song. Thank
you.
-Memo to people who use the word "metrosexual" more
than once a week: just because an idiotic buzzword
becomes popular doesn't mean you have to use it
excessively and, most of the time, incorrectly all the
fucking time.
-Memo to Old Navy: I swear to God if you don't take
those Fran Drescher/Lil' Kim commercials off the air
soon I'm going to go nuts. And while you're at it, do
you think you could make it a little easier to tell
the men's clothes from the women's?
-Memo to John Stamos: take a hint when not even the
people in your commercials want to use your crazy long
distance calling plan thingy. No wonder Rebecca
hyphenated - it's her escape clause.
-Memo to the women in my grandma's old-age home:
You're getting way too excited. It's just bingo. The
winner gets a nickel for God sakes.
-Memo to politicians and celebrities who are still
wearing an American flag pin on their lapel: yeah, um,
I think you can take that off now. Hollow displays of
patriotism strictly for personal gain are so 2003.
-Doesn't it seem like everything has an expiration
date on it these days? Beer, cheese, bottled water,
golf balls, playing cards. I'm worried that people
are going to start paying less attention to their milk
going bad when they see their tennis balls are safe
until 2011.
-I hate the Lakers, but I have to hand it to their
fans. Because Lakers fans will watch every second of
every game on TV. They could be up by 37 points with
sixteen seconds left in the game and my buddy Ryan
will be like, "I just want to see if Kobe hits this
free throw." I'm like, you have to be kidding me,
let's go out. Besides, they're replaying the game on
Court TV later.
-Have you noticed that you can't use a gold dollar
coin without either apologizing to the person you're
giving it to or being apologized to by the person
giving it to you? Hell, my grandma won one in bingo
and tried to give it back.
-You know when you get seated at a diner and one
person is in the booth and the other is in a chair? I
think which seat you choose says a lot about your
personality. For instance, I always choose the chair.
I prefer the ability to adjust my position in any
direction because I'm a person who likes to be in
control. Also, the booth makes my ass sweaty.
-I want to give a quick shout-out to Company E of the
131st Aviation Regiment, Alabama National Guard, who
are stationed in Kuwait and Iraq and have been reading
my book and column to get a little taste of home. You
guys rock! We're all supporting you back here. Some
of us are even wearing pins!
-I just signed up for this site Upromise.com so now
whenever I use my American Express card, a small sum
of money is automatically contributed to my two-year
old cousin Daniel's college fund. I feel good that
now when I go out binge drinking and wasting my
education, I'm actually helping Daniel pay for his own
education. And maybe one day he can waste it, too. I
know it's a dream, but it's my dream.
-Whenever I watch an old episode of "Sex and the
City," I can't help but wonder, how come the girls I
meet aren't this easy?
-The good thing about "Sex and the City" is that you
can, for the most part, watch any episode without
having seen the previous one. I rarely watch
continuous series. It's just too much like going to
church or synagogue - you have to be there at the same
time every week and people make you feel guilty if you
miss it. I'm like the guy who only shows up on Easter
- I only tune in for the season finale and pray I
didn't miss too much.
-And while we're on the topic of TV, just once I'd
like to see an episode of "ER" advertised that isn't
"very special."
-I hate when you stop the car so that someone can just
get out quickly and get something and they leave the
car door open because they're coming right back but
while they're gone they're either letting the air
conditioning out, the cold in, or preventing you from
moving when you're blocking someone's driveway, and
you have to struggle to do that awkward reach where
you attempt to close the passenger door while sitting
in the driver's seat and pull all your stomach muscles
and the only thing stopping you from driving off
without your stupid friend is the fact that his
goddamn door is open in the first place.
-I have absolutely no idea how to score bowling. Once
someone gets two strikes in a row I just give up and
order another pitcher of beer.
-And finally, as I said earlier, I don't know much
about women's um, uhhh, you know, cycles. However, a
while ago my roommate Brian and I were talking to a
few girl friends of ours and the topic came up.
Apparently, and again, this is news to me, when women
work together in an office for an extended period of
time, eventually their, um, cycles synchronize so that
they're all, you know, flowing at the same time. This
both intrigued and frightened Brian and I, but we
didn't think much of it. A few weeks later, we were
sitting on the couch in our apartment, happily eating
turkey sandwiches and drinking Gatorade (which
thankfully did not expire for another six years). We
started to reminisce about some of the hijinks that
have occurred in the two and a half years we've lived
together. The story about long-term period
synchronization came up and we both had a chuckle
about the ridiculousness of the notion. A moment
later, we simultaneously took the last bite of our
respective sandwiches, licked our fingers, took a swig
of Gatorade, leaned back on the couch and sighed in
perfect synch. Startled, we both looked at each other
and said, "Fuck me."
hen M. gets home from school, he immediately logs on to his computer. Then he stays there, touching base with the people he has seen all day long, floating in a kind of multitasking heaven of communication. First, he clicks on his Web log, or blog -- an online diary he keeps on a Web site called LiveJournal -- and checks for responses from his readers. Next he reads his friends' journals, contributing his distinctive brand of wry, supportive commentary to their observations. Then he returns to his own journal to compose his entries: sometimes confessional, more often dry private jokes or koanlike observations on life. 
f a journal may look at first like a simple recitation of events, the fact that readers can comment renders it deeply interactive. (On some sites, like Xanga, you can give ''eProps'' for particularly good posts -- the equivalent of gold stars.) Most comments are wisecracks or sympathetic one-liners. Occasionally people respond with hostility. The threads of comments can amount to a public miniconversation, in which a group of friends debates a subject or plans an event or offers advice. ''I need your help,'' one poster wrote. ''Yes, your help. You, the one reading this . . . what am i supposed to do when the dynamic of a once-romantic relationship sort of changes but sort of doesn't, and the next week i continually try to get in touch with the girl but she is either not there or can't talk very long, and before this change in the dynamic she was always available?'' A string of friends offered suggestions, from ''don't call her so much'' to ''confront her . . . what she's doing isn't fair to you.'' 
