March to the Sea

Having just told this story to Theresa House, self-proclaimed Reader of the Month and all around fan favorite, I will now share the events of last night with you, my internet family.

After having a really good dinner and five glasses of wine, I went to a bar in Brooklyn to have another drink. I succeeded. So far, it was all coming up Sherman.

When my compadres and I made the trip back to Manhattan, Ethan, Chris, Georgia, Jeremy and Nina wanted to get some french fries. Needing to relieve myself after a fairly heavy dosage of the jamba juice, I searched for the nearest urinal. The french fry place does not have one, so I change tenses and run across the street to Kiev to use theirs.

Jogging quickly across the street, I stumble, triping over a sudden drop in the road. I manage to stay on my feet and think nothing of it...I ignore the "only for customers" sign and use Kiev's restroom.

I join my friends back at the french fry place. They take their food back to jeremy and chris' apartment. Around 2 am, the party breaks up. I have to get my pillow and clothes from my car and will return to the apartment once I have my stuff.

Unfortunately, I forget where my car is, and this takes much longer than expected. I arrive back at their apartment about 40 minutes after I left. I call Chris, but it goes straight to his voice mail. I call Jeremy, but he's long passed out. I ring the buzzer...no answer. Everyone's asleep.

So, I call Nina to beg her to ask if I can crash on her couch, thinking this would probably be a better alternative to waiting outside the apartment or sleeping in my car. I'm still too drunk to drive.

Upon arriving at Nina's place, I immediately crash on her couch and fall asleep for about 30 min.

When I awake, I realize I am in extreme pain. My ankle kills. I try to walk, but need to lean on furniture to move anywhere. After trying to lie back down and writhing in pain, I decide to take a shower, hoping the warm water will help. I get out of the shower at 4:45 am and my ankle feels a bit better. But after lying down for another 30 minutes, my ankle feels even worse. I now can put absolutely no weight on it.

I decide my goal should be to get home, as soon as possible.

It takes me 10 minutes to descend Nina's one flight of stairs (she lives on the second floor). She lives with like 83 people, and none are awake to my knowledge at 5:30 am on a Saturday.

I manage to get outside with some of my stuff...I'm in too much pain to actually look back to see if I have everything. I get outside and hail a cab without moving...fortunately, this is NY, and there are cabs at all times on every block. I get the cab driver to drive directly to my car...and thus begin the most painful hour and a half drive of my life.

I can't put any pressure at all on my right foot and have to use my left foot to brake. Even pushing on the gas is painful. I frequently scream out in pain as I drive from the city through the Holland and to the Turnpike. My cruise control no longer works, so I've got to apply at least a little pressure once on the highway...I can't even move my toes without a jolt of pain.

I finally make it back home at 7 am and immediately take off my shoes and go to sleep. I get about 3 hours of sleep and check my foot...much better! I can now move my toes.

Over the course of the past few hours, it's improved steadily and I can now put some weight on it and walk around without having to hop or lean on walls.

That is all.

Am I the only person who thinks Mel Kiper's job is incredible? He's a millionaire...his fulltime job is to prepare for one day of the year by crunching numbers and watching a ton of film on a bunch of players so that he's qualified to criticize...I mean, what's better than being a rich guy who is paid to be a jackass? What a great job.

I watched seven hours of the NFL draft today.

Thank you and good night.

Went to a funk concert in NY this weekend...sat IN the band. There were a few seats on the stage at the club (Arthur's Tavern)...I sat, literally, right next to the drummer. At one point during a particularly ridiculous, up-tempo groove, I was tapping my foot fairly enthustiastically...and I kicked over the drummer's hi-hat.

The cymbal fell on the drummer, who maintained keeping time with one hand while catching the falling cymbal in his other. I tried to help him, since I was right next to him, but neither of us could set it back down properly. The drummer (named Scooter...we had a nice little chat after the song) held the hi-hat in one hand for the remainder of a Sly and the Family Stones tune while managing to get through the rest of the song Def Leopard style.

I like the word 'tune.' Sounds like I know what I'm talking about.

Had a rough day today because I missed the Boston Marathon. I really miss going every year. It was a great day--I always felt like the rest of the country was envious of Bostonians on that day. I still do, I guess, but I can no longer participate.

One day, I'd love to run the marathon. People do, I realize...I don't know how people do, but men and women of all ages get through it...it's a big lifetime goal of mine. But it involves training. And training involves getting up from my currently reclyning position. And I aintz doin' that.

This is a terrible and boring post, but to make it interesting, I'd have to think a little bit. And I aintz doin' that neither.

Family Guy starts again in May!

Go to this blog. http://worldmagblog.com/caffeine/.

Click on the 'Boom goes the dynamite' link.

Watch the three minute sportscast. Thank Adam Wienner for bringing this to my attention. I've now watched it five times tonight and, every time, absolutely lose it at 'Boom goes the dynamite.' It is my dream to do a sportscast with this living legend. This is an instant classic. I may transcript the broadcast for my own enjoyment, just to quote his unintelligible lines accurately.

And...boom goes the dynamite.

This shit's wicked retaaded.

[Add transition here].

I used to do that a lot when writing essays--the [add transition here] thing when I knew I should segue but didn't know how. One time, I sent the wrong version of a final paper to a college professor--a version that contained numerous brackets, including one that said [ADD MORE SHIT HERE]. My professor graded the paper as my final effort. In his explanation of my grade (a B-), he did admit that 'you seem to have many thoughts that do not end...[In] some areas, it appears you have not finished paragraphs.' True story, Hansel.

I just flew back from Michigan...and boy are my legs tired, since I had to sit on that plane for three hours.

It was a lot of fun. My friends Adam and Theresa showed me a good time for a few days, which was a very needed vacation from my everyday life. I like Ann Arbor a lot in the Spring. If I visited Michigan in April, I'd want to go there. If I visited in any other month during their school year, I'd want to kill myself...slightly wound myself...not go to Michigan. But it's a cool college town when it's nice out...people eating outside, an enormous group of college kids going to local 'hang-outs'...seems like I would have enjoyed myself if I went there--for one month, at least.

Man, it's hard writing this with the option of watching baseball on TV. My roommate Steve and I have purchased the baseball package for the MLB season, so we get nearly every game. The A's are on now and are losing 10-2. And yet, I still feel compelled to watch. I've never been able to see the A's play all that much, so I'm really looking forward to seeing them nearly every night this year. I'll be like one of those sports fans who roots for his home team! My dream...

Damn you Eric Byrnes. Fly out to end the 7th.

I've gotta get back in shape for the summer. I'm thinking about trying a diet for the first time in my life. I'm 100% sure I don't have the willpower. I was actually going to try and start today. I was in the shower, thinking, "OK...Today is the day I change my life forever. I'm gonna get in good shape and find a really hot girlfriend this summer and marry her and have two kids and cool big dog." So, no carbs today, and I'll get that.

I had four cookies, a piece of cake, four pieces of bread, some white rice for dinner, and then I poured a four-pound bag of starch down my throat.

So, I'm thinking tomorrow will be the day I start. And then...perfect life.

I'm gunning for three cookies tomorrow. I have so little will power, it's amazing. I honestly think that if I was hungry enough and had to choose between a life of happiness or an oven-hot chocolate chip cookie, I'd choose the cookie, with the hope of quickly taking the happiness too before the guy who offered me the deal had a chance to take it back.

[Now eating fifth cookie of day]. This cookie is great.

[Done with cookie]. I have zee buyer's remorse.

Bobby Kielty's up!

So I'm in Chicago for the next day before heading off to Michigan for a deuce, deuce and a half, before I have to be back in NJ on Monday.

I arrive at my hotel last night and am greeted by Cesar. There are three of us staying at the Oak Brook Renassaince Inn, about 25 minutes outside of downtown Chicago.

Cesar looks up our reservations and tells us to hold on for a second. We all look at each other because we know this can't be a good thing (I'm reminded of some comedian's line, 'my doctor told me he found something in my gallbladder. That's never a good sign--no one's ever been told, "I've found something in your gallbladder...and it's season tickets to the Yankees!!!).

Cesar does his best Orlando Jones imitation from Office Space as he tells us the bad news. In a total monotone..."I am sorry but your rooms are not available. We have transferred you to the Doubletree hotel and will pay for a one day stay and a long distance phone call." Needless to say, we weren't too pleased, seeing that we'd made reservations ('you know how to TAKE the reservation...you just don't know how to KEEP the reservation).

So, we go over to the Doubletree and we're given a room...and a warm chocolate chip cookie!! This place is awesome!

Then I see the room.

It hasn't been cleaned at all. Dirty towels on my bed and on the floor. Numerous glasses of cranberry juice and coffee in the bathroom and next to my bed. An empty bottle of scope lying in the sink.

But it's nearly 1 AM and the bed was made. So, I threw off the dirty towel and just went to sleep.

Good plan...until 1:45 AM. It was then that I realized I had fallen asleep in an inferno. The room temperature was hitting 82 on the thermostat...which, of course, was broken. I tossed and turned the rest of the night, sweating, until 6 am, when I had to get up for a day of meetings.

Many, many, meetings. But my job's great, really.

Now the Forrest Gump song is playing on the player piano in the background as I type on the keyboard in the hotel's top floor business center. But I've changed rooms and (I hope) will get at least three hours of sleep tonight.

Sorry for not updating the blog for a spell. I've been in the can. I hope I didn't miss nuthin'.

Yankees fans booed tonight when David Wells was pulled. They booed because they don't like David Wells. Red Sox fans also booed. They booed because Wells sucked tonight. Both teams' fans booing does not make sense.

The human race needs to develop another guttural sound to differentiate hatred from disappointment.

I recommend sticking with the 'boo' in cases of disappointment. The Sox fans, in this case, were right to boo Wells. He sucked. Boo! You suck!

Yankees fans should not boo. Wells didn't disappoint them. But they also shouldn't cheer...because cheering could be mistaken for 'I like you!' And even though the Yankees may have liked Wells in that moment, they do not 'like' him.

So, there needs to be a third alternative here. That alternative should be screaming a nasty word in German...SHIETZENHEIMER! Or, something to that effect--something that makes you think Hitler. That way, Sox fans could boo and Yanks fans could yell SHIETZENHEIMER and we'd be able to tell who's who.

Wow, did you read that post 'Ramble On'? It reminds me of that Zeppelin song...

That's kind of like the comment I heard while waiting in line at the supermarket this morning.

'Did you read Angels and Demons? It's just like what's going on now with Pope..."

A shocking coincidence, yes. Does it kind of weird anyone else out that millions of people must be thinking of Dan Brown today? There have to be a half million or so thinking, 'Don't let the camerlengo ruin conclave!' I say we just let Dan Brown be Pope. That way he can solve all the world's mysteries. 'Oh! The password was APPLE!'

Would anyone mind explaining to me why his books are so wildly poopular? Ha! I just wrote poop! Did anyone see that? I was trying to write popular, and wrote poopular! Did anyone see that? Ah irony, ah humanity. Poop!

Seriously, though, take my wife, please!

I was singing Sinatra's "I did it my way" to myself today and absent-mindedly sang "I did it Ebay." While I'm no sentimentalist, I do think it's a bit disconcerting when knock-offs potentially become the standard and originals go to the wayside. Do you think Stevie Wonder is ever pissed when terrible samplings of his old songs become wild successes and no one knows that he wrote the original versions? I think I'd be a little annoyed, especially when the popular versions are terrible. One time at a summer basketball camp, I received a great pass from Brendon Sullivan but missed an open lay-up. I remember he said, "Al, you're killing me!" I gotta think that's what Stevie's thinking about Will Smith and Coolio.

Could there possibly be a federal initiative to eliminate IM away messages that are just laundry lists of what the person is doing during the day? 'Class, lunch with Emma, class, library, dinner with the girls, movie with roomies, back at 10!' Look, in theory if we have your IM name, we're friendly acquaintances, fine. But trust me...nobody gives a fuck. Even your parents don't give a fuck. Just do whatever you have to do. Don't tell me about it. "I'm opening the peanuts now..."

So, how do you get a comedy writing job? What is the typical path one takes if he wants to write jokes for a living? I guess the Harvard Lampoon has quite a network set up...but assuming you're not in that (and I wasn't...those Lampoon kids are weird, dude. And by weird, I mean, constantly on coke), how do you break in?

You could be a stand-up comic, I guess--and maybe someone sees you in "the biz" and hires you for a job. But doing stand up seems like kind of a miserable existence until you hit it big. Then again, what isn't a miserable until you hit it big? Actually, my current job isn't--I enjoy the work and get paid well. But most jobs are pretty awful--for a long while, it seems.

What is it about our culture that forces people to "pay their dues"? I don't want to pay my dues. I didn't pay my dues in college and still got to go to the House Formal. Why should I have to now?

Perhaps it's because striving for further happiness is what life is all about. Perhaps it's what gives young people motivation to innovate and create. Perhaps it's becaue a lack of life experience makes younger people flat out bad at most jobs (or, at least, not as good as those who have a little age in their bellies).

Perhaps that's all a crock of shit. I don't know. What I do know is that this post better take a turn for the humorous, and fast, because I'm starting to get bored. Take it off!

Well, I've got a fantasy baseball draft to do, so I can't stay long (that's also the line I use whenever I get into an awkward situation with someone. 'Oh! I'm sorry! I forgot, but I have to go to my fantasy baseball draft.' It's a bit awkward when I say it in August, but it's usually fool proof).

I guess this didn't take a turn for the funny after all. Worst. Post. Ever.

Now that Jeremy has referred his cronies to this blog, I'm starting to feel an obligation to up my prose, to write about something meaningful, something serious, something...something...something in the way she mooooves...

Man, you'd think I was a Lampoon member based on this.