happy new year~

 

courtesy of simon leung:

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."