-You know you watch too much television when you try to DVR real life.  That’s exactly what happened the other day as I stood in my kitchen and thought I saw a bug scurry across the floor out of the corner of my eye.  I turned around too late, but as I did, I felt my left thumb instinctively jerk forward two inches – the exact motion I make to hit the instant replay button every time that weird black smoke flows past the screen in “Lost.”  It was a surreal moment, but not altogether unexpected.  After all, I’ve seen exactly one movie in the theaters this year, but follow 15-20 television shows every week.  What’s not to love about the small screen?  I don’t have to leave the house, I don’t have to interact with other humans, and I get to freeze-frame Kaitlin Cooper’s ass on “The OC.”  So curl up on the couch, skip over those commercials, and allow me to be your TV guide.

-You know what I’m gonna ask Santa Claus for this year?  An episode of “House” without rectal bleeding.

-The “Viewer Discretion is Advised” warning before “Prison Break” is possibly the most dramatic three seconds on television.  If I was a young, impressionable kid and saw that warning, there’s no way I would NOT watch that show.  FOX is a bunch of goddamn geniuses.

-It pains me to say this, but I think “Grey’s Anatomy” might have jumped the McShark this season.  Don’t get me wrong, I still never miss an episode.  But I used to be near tears at the end.  Now I just find myself wondering when they’re gonna show Izzie in a bra again.

-Los Angeles has the hottest fucking newscasters ever.  I mean, I haven’t actually watched the news since Yahoo was invented, but every once in a while I’ll mistime hitting play while fast forwarding through the commercials and land on a promo.  It’s like soft-core porn.  The female anchors aren’t even mentioning the top stories, they’re like promoting an investigatory report on suntan lotion while having a pillow fight with the weather guy.

-I’m pretty sure the brother in “Jericho” is just Peyton Manning wearing a fake beard.  And do you ever get the feeling that the guy who plays Randy on “My Name is Earl” is pissed that he’s probably going to have to act like a fucking idiot for the next six years?

-When Dwight mentions “Lost” in “The Office,” that’s almost too much for me.  I mean, how awesome is television when your favorite sitcom references your favorite drama?  The only thing that would top that is if they had to stop football practice on “Friday Night Lights” because the cops are chasing the guys from “Prison Break” across the field – right past the cheerleader from “Heroes.”

-In the end, I really love everything about television.  I love the fact that when I gave up on “The Nine” a few weeks ago, I just assumed everyone else would stop watching it too and it’d shortly be canceled.  I love that Ex-Girlfriend once wondered aloud to me how they get those great in-car camera angles in “Laguna Beach,” and I responded, “They can film inside your fucking blood platelets now – I’m assuming a spoiled chick’s Range Rover is no biggie.”  I love that when I appeared as a commentator on VH1’s “I Love the 90s” and set my DVR to record it, they replayed the series so many times that it exceeded my memory capacity in two days.  I love that every single preview for “House” calls it his “most bizarre case yet!”  But most of all, I love sitting on my couch for one to four hours each night and being taken away to other worlds.  Well, as long as those other worlds don’t include rectal bleeding.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Last week, as I passed through security in Miami International Airport, one of the screeners stopped me, picked up my clear, quart-size, plastic baggie filled with three-ounce gels and lotions, held it aloft to the horde of waiting travelers and said, “Now THIS is exactly how all of you should have packed.”  I kinda felt like a show-off, like in junior high when the teacher would use my work as an example to the class.  And you know what?  I liked it then, and I still like it now.

-This summer I bought a 50-inch HD plasma flat screen and mounted it on my wall.  It’s fucking amazing, and I named her Michelle after my first girlfriend in high school.  It may seem like an excessive purchase, but I’m paying her off in low monthly installments with no interest (the TV, not the girlfriend).  Though if the TV decides to dump me junior year and break my heart, well then I just might have to take her back to Best Buy.

-I’ve only had three girlfriends my whole life and for some reason they’re all making an appearance in this week’s column.  Weird.  Anyway, I got my college girlfriend’s wedding invitation in the mail the other day.  I knew she was getting married of course, but seeing the actual invitation kind of freaked me out.  I mean, that could’ve been me.  And there’s no way I would have picked such nice calligraphy.

-I want to give a special birthday shout-out to my Grandma Zelda, who turned 95 over the weekend.  She was born 11/11/11 – how gourmet is that?  Grandma is a pretty cool chick, though she makes a snide remark every time she sees me unshaven.  I could walk in the door holding an Emmy Award and she’d quip, “What, are you growing a beard or something?”  Grandma, I love you very much.  But your turning 95 has made me realize one very important thing: when I’m your age, I’ll still be paying off my fucking TV.

-I’m psyched to once again be spending the night before Thanksgiving rampaging through New York City with my boys, as we’ve done every year since we were college freshmen.  My history is a little fuzzy, but I believe that Thanksgiving Eve is actually a tradition dating back to when the island of Manhattan was first settled, when dudes would come from neighboring colonies to get really fucked up and try to nail any fair maiden that moved.

-The TV is broken above the treadmill in my gym, so the other day I was forced to watch “The Martha Stewart Show.”  But the episode was titled “Thirty things you should know how to do,” and number 30 was “How to iron a shirt” – which I don’t know how to do, so I figured the show might be interesting after all.  Not so much.  Put it this way, number 17 was “How to roast a turkey.”  What the fuck?  That’s 17?  What’s 3?  “How to install a fuel injection system”?  Hell, what I really needed was “How to change the channel.”

-And, finally, living in Los Angeles means that talk of television is pervasive.  People are just obsessed with TV and the TV business to an unhealthy degree.  Recently, I was sitting in a waiting room before an audition and the two other people there were discussing their televisions in excruciating detail.  The one girl was bragging about how big hers was, since it weighed 83.5 pounds.  And the guy was saying how he doesn’t trust the maid around his when he’s not home.  Feeling a little left out, I finally chimed in like, “Mine actually weighs 89 pounds.  I just got it and mounted that puppy right on the wall!”  They both looked at me in absolute horror.  And that’s when I realized they weren’t talking about their TVs.  They were talking about their dogs.  Fuck me!

HOME

-Stand-up has to be the only profession where people ask you if you’re working no matter where you go.  The week before I went to Spain on vacation earlier this year, about a dozen people asked me if I’d be performing there.  I was like, uh, actually I’m gonna be sitting on the beach the entire time sipping a drink with a little umbrella in it.  When tax attorneys go to Cabo no one asks if they’re gonna be filing W2s by the pool.  Alas, stand-up is an oft-misunderstood occupation – and we comedians like it that way.  Here’s a glimpse inside a job that requires balls of steel and deftly combines public speaking with mass alcohol consumption.  Hey, it’s a living.

-Frequently asked question: Do I get nervous before a show? Answer: Sometimes.  But there’s one thing that’s helped calm my nerves for years – the knowledge that I’m not gonna shit myself.  You see, when I step on stage, a shot of adrenaline courses through my body.  My hangover disappears, my hunger pangs subside, and most importantly, my bowels clench.  I usually drink on stage as well, which is both good for my nerves and gives me a head start on my hangover for tomorrow’s show.

-It amuses me when a comic asks the crowd how they’re doing, and upon receiving an unsatisfactory responses, exhorts, “Come on, you can do better than that!”  I always imagine audience members thinking to themselves, “Sure, I mean there are plenty of things in life we can all do better.  I can be a better person.  Read a book occasionally.  Volunteer.  Donate to Darfur.  Somehow yelling ‘Woooooo!’ even louder doesn’t really seem like a priority right now.”

-Frequently asked question: Have I ever bombed?  Answer: I’ve told some stinkers in my day, but that’s part of the journey.  I’ll never forget telling a usually reliable joke at Tulane about how much it sucks, when you’re in college, to brag to all your friends from home about how awesome your school is and how much you party, but when they finally come and visit…it’s the worst weekend ever.  I’ve never seen more confused faces.  Apparently there’s never been a slow weekend in the storied history of Tulane and they had no idea what I was talking about.  But that’s the nature of the beast.  One minute you’re golden, and the next you’re bombing worse than Dresden in World War II.

-At the end of last year, I proclaimed my goal for 2006 was to sign breasts after a show.  Almost anti-climactically, it happened at my very next performance.  Ten months later, with a bevy of breast-signings (and one ass-signing) under my belt, I’m thinking about adding another element to my shows, which already include a sea of chicks in wife-beaters and dudes so drunk they periodically yell out unintelligibly.  Here’s my new goal: streakers.  I want someone to fucking streak the stage during an upcoming show, right in the middle of my set.  I realize this stunt will most likely be performed by a guy rather than a girl, but I’ll take what I can get.  Just in case, no hugging allowed.

-Frequently asked question: Do I get drunk on stage?  Answer: I try.  I don’t think people understand how hard it is to get drunk when you’re walking back and forth for an hour with blindingly hot lights shining directly in your face.  Generally, I save my heavy drinking for after the show.  My fans on the other hand, don’t fuck around.  I once got an angry email from a reader before a show complaining that there was a two-drink minimum.  I initially figured he didn’t want to pony up the cash, but it turned out he was actually concerned that people might take “two drinks” as a suggestion rather than a minimum, and cut themselves off at two without drinking more.  My first thought was: Is this guy out of his fucking mind?  My second thought was: I love this job.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-If privacy on the Internet is such a big concern these days, why do web sites require you to answer the most personal questions in case you forget your password?  What was the model of my first car?  What is my mom’s maiden name?  I’m not telling you that shit!

-There is no reason to ever use the font “Comic Sans” unless you’re making a third-grader’s birthday card.

-Every year I wear the same thing for Halloween – my full high school soccer uniform.  Some say that’s dull and unimaginative.  I say, you try hooking up in shin guards.

-To me, the FedEx option that takes like five fucking business days to get there is like your friend who drives really slowly on purpose because he knows you have to pee.

-This quiz in Details magazine I saw recently showed you close-ups of faces writhing in ecstasy and you had to guess whether it was a porn star or a host on the Food Network.  I was a perfect 15 for 15.  I figure I either watch too much porn, or I watch too much Food Network.  Then I realized I don’t even get the Food Network.

-I don’t know one person who is not “crazy” at work.  When someone says to me, “Sorry, it’s just been crazy,” my instinctive response is always, “Yeah, it’s crazy over here too.”  But by “over here” I mean my apartment, and by “crazy” I mean I can’t find my shin guards.

-Election Day is coming up.  How can we be trusted to elect our leaders when fast food restaurants don’t even trust us enough to leave out the napkins?

-When a number pops up on my phone that I don’t recognize, I immediately Google the area code to determine where in the country the caller resides.  This knowledge allows me to not simply decline the call, but instead decline the call while exclaiming, “Who the fuck is calling me from [insert city]?”

-And, finally, performing tends to pervade every aspect of a comedian’s life.  We are expected to deliver whenever public speaking is required.  Sometimes, we go overboard.  Case in point: my never-ending, seventeen-minute Best Man “toast” at my buddy Brian’s wedding.  Sometimes, we lose perspective.  At my grandma’s funeral in April, my dad and I gave the only two eulogies.  When told I would go first, I protested, “Dad, I can’t open for you, I’m a headliner!”  But for the most part, us comedians aim to please, to elicit a response from you even when you don’t feel like laughing, and to receive instant feedback, good or bad.  No two audiences are the same and no two sets are ever identical.  Stand-up is inherently – and, wonderfully – unpredictable.  That’s why, every now again when I get off stage, I still check – just to make sure – that I haven’t shit myself.  Fuck me.

HOME

-During my five-year college reunion in May, I snuck into my old fraternity house, which at the time was being used as some sort of community service dorm.  As I wandered about taking pictures, a student approached and asked politely, “Excuse me, who are you?”  Instinctively, I turned around and yelled menacingly, “Who the fuck are YOU?”  The girl scurried off, but the incident made me introspective.  Here I am, twenty-seven-years old, with a relatively successful career, regular car insurance payments, and pillowcases that match my comforter.  Yet at the same time, I can’t drink one beer without drinking twenty, I can’t converse with a girl without trying to take her home, and I can’t even step foot in a fraternity house without immediately regressing into an asshole.  While college is many years behind me, vestiges of the experience remain deeply ingrained in my personality.  Welcome to the world of a recovering frat boy.

-Of course, I’m not the only one.  There’s an entire faction of twentysomethings out there who live seemingly mature lives – but only to the naked eye.  Take my friend Mike, a successful software developer in New York whose downtown apartment has actually been passed down for years to successive generations of graduates from his fraternity like an off-campus party house.  Or my buddy Justin, a writer here in LA who is looking to move to a new place – but has yet to find one big enough to fit his beer pong table.  Unfortunately for him, “Hardwood floor quickly soaks up cheap beer” is generally not an amenity typically found on craigslist.

-Recovering frat boys aren’t required to have ever been Greek.  In fact, they don’t even have to be boys.  On average, every other Evite I received from girls over the past year has been for some sort of elaborate, costume/theme party that reminds me of sophomore year.  If you’re a strong, independent woman in her mid-twenties who is still throwing parties entitled Pimps & Hos, Forties & Hos, or Golf Pros & Tennis Hos, you are most definitely a recovering frat boy.  Dressed like a whore.

-To me, the phrase, “Let’s grab a drink” is both the rallying cry and secret password of the recovering frat boy movement.  For some reason, no one uses that phrase until they’ve graduated college, and then they use it so frequently it becomes virtually devoid of meaning.  If you really think about it, you only actually grab a drink with about 10% of the people you say that to.  Of that 10%, most think you literally want to have a solitary cocktail and exchange pleasantries or discuss current events (these people are often married or lawyers).  The remainder – who you quickly recognize as kindred spirits – take “grab a drink” to mean “play beer pong and find that party where chicks are dressed as tennis hos.”

-Why is it, then, that so many of us, whether subconsciously or not, have adopted this quasi-Peter Pan lifestyle?  These days, it’s no longer, “I won’t grow up.”  It’s more like, “OK, I’ll grow up, as long as I can still throw up once a weekend.”  I think the answer is simple: because we can.  The world is changing.  Getting married in your twenties is no longer the norm – in fact, those unfortunate souls who do are now outcasts, scorned and shunned, spit on and kicked to the side of the road by the rest of us single folk.  And that means we now have more time to live our lives the way we want to and, most importantly, have evolved the ability to do so while still excelling in the adult world.  People ask me all the time how long I can continue calling myself a recovering frat boy.  Those people are usually sober and annoying.  And my response is always the same:  “Who the fuck are you?”

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-I had a doctor’s appointment the other day.  My doctor was tan.  Too tan.  I don’t know about you, but I want my doctor looking like he’s been cramped up in a dusty attic studying obscure medical journals all day, not like he just got back from the Caribbean.

-To me, trying to search for a rap song on iTunes is like trying to hack someone’s password – you need to make wild stabs at guessing just the right combination of letters.  I’m sitting there on iTunes like, OK, now how do I spell “the”?  Should I search “the” or “tha” or “thur”?  How about spelling “that”?  Should I search “that” or “dat” or “thattizzle”?  Safecrackers are impressive, but I’d like to see one of them spell a Snoop song correctly on the first try.

-Ever write a friend a check for money that they’re rightfully owed and then when you check your online account later and find out they cashed it right away you get a little put off and think to yourself, “Well now, they didn’t waste any time, did they?”

-Have you ever mentally allocated the same money to several different things?  Like you get a bonus at work and you’re like, “Awesome, well this pays my rent for the month.”  Then you buy six pairs of jeans and the new Sidekick and you’re like, “Well, I did get that get bonus.”  And then you wonder why the check you wrote your friend with the very same bonus money bounced, but blame it on him for trying to cash it so quickly.

-I went to a Padres game in San Diego during the heat of the playoff race last month.  Get this – the family behind me actually shushed me for talking too much.  I told them that if you shush someone in Yankee Stadium they cut off your lips.  They quickly got up and moved to one of the other 10,000 empty seats.

-I’ve been reading Time Magazine for many years.  But it really burns me that whenever they occasionally have an article about baseball or football, it’s always listed in the “Sport” section.  Mind you that’s “Sport” – not “Sports” with an “s” at the end.  What the fuck is “Sport”?  What, are you trying to be fancy or something?  Unless you’re covering badminton, put a fucking “s” in there and be proud that people like me are skipping directly to that page, damn it.

-I have been stalking a fly Predator-style through my apartment the past few days.  He’s so adept at eluding my rolled-up Time magazine swats that I’ve come to respect him as an equal.  But I have one question:  In my entire, several-hundred-square-foot apartment, how does the fly know to land every time right on the lip of my open water bottle?

-And, finally, I recently met this chick a few years older than me and we got to talking.  She mentioned that before moving to where I live, West Hollywood, she had lived in Malibu for ten years.  As she continued, I got distracted because, one, she had enormous fake breasts, and two, I realized that I have never done anything for ten years, let alone live in the same place.  I think that’s another important aspect of recovering frat boy culture: transience.  We are always on the move because we’re not ready to be held down.  This can be both exciting and annoying (who wants to keep finding room for that beer pong table?).  For me, though, it’s heartening to know that whatever city I’m in, I can always find friends and fans who like to work hard and play harder, often to the point of blacking out, sometimes while dressed as a golf pro or tennis ho.  To you I say, “Let’s grab a drink.”  Fuck me.

HOME

-Chi and Claudio, two of my buddies in New York, left me a drunken voicemail the other night.  They said that they miss me since I moved to Los Angeles.  Then, they listed the reasons why they miss me.  To paraphrase: “Things are way too calm around here.  When you’re around, Karo, it’s a fucking commotion, there’s chaos everywhere and shit gets destroyed.  OK dude we’re wasted, gotta go. (pause) You LA fuck.”  That might have been the nicest voicemail I’ve ever received.  And it struck me that twentysomethings value their buddies not for what they bring to the table, but for what they don’t – in my case, predictability, reason, and common sense.  In fact, if you truly examine your closest companions, you’re bound to find that they’re friends without benefits.

-When I have buddies come to visit for the weekend, I make sure to finish every last bit of work and run every single errand before they arrive.  Because I know that for the next 48 to 72 hours, every single second will be spent either feeding them, getting them fucked up, cleaning up after them, or occasionally napping.  After dropping them off at the airport on Sunday, I feel like I can rejoin the human race, until realizing that most humans would have provided their four friends with more than one pillow, towel, and bar of soap to share between them for three days.

-I met my buddy Chi when I was assigned the cubicle adjacent to his during my Wall Street days.  He’s Korean and from Los Angeles, and thus, we couldn’t have been more different.  But we became fast friends for two reasons.  One, we shared a common interest in getting blindingly drunk after work.  And two, I admired how he could get away with sporting a goatee and Diesel sneakers to the office (both against company policy) simply because he’s Korean and from Los Angeles and people were afraid to say anything.

-I hang out with my frat buddy Zach a lot in LA.  He kind of looks like Patrick Dempsey (aka “Dr. McDreamy”).  What’s odd is that in the nine years I’ve known Zach, never until recently have I heard so many girls comment about him – his popularity has mirrored the success of Grey’s Anatomy.  Zach has a girlfriend, but if they ever break up and Grey’s gets canceled, he may never get laid again.

-I will forever be amused by my high school buddies, the Triplets.  Triplet #2 and I went to Penn together, and Triplet #3 later transferred to Penn.  I’ll never forget when Trip 3 joined our frat as a sophomore yet already knew everything that was going to happen.  I yelled at Trip 2 like, “Dude, why the hell did you tell him all the secrets about the House?”  And he was like, “Karo, what were the odds that twelve months later my brother was going to apply, get accepted, transfer, matriculate, rush, and pledge the exact same fraternity?”

-The cardinal rule among my friends is to never misspeak, lest you suffer the consequences of hearing about it for the rest of your life.  For instance, I once heard someone ask Chi if he’d ever consider moving back to the West Coast and he replied, “Well, I do love Manhattan,” and then let this beauty slip: “But I miss the ocean like crazy.”  Oh sweet mother did we have a field day with that one.  What normal, well-adjusted person says that they “miss” the ocean, let alone “like crazy”?  From then on, God forbid Chi ever innocently utters the words “ocean” or “miss” and we’re all over him: “What did you say, Chi?  You missed the subway?  Do you miss it like crazy?  Do you want to rent Ocean’s Eleven and cry, pussy?”  Then, just to remind everyone that I’m originally from New York and he’s the one from Cali, I top it off with a pause and then, “You LA fuck.”

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Why is that when I tell someone what time I have to be at the airport and then ask them what time I should leave to get there, their first question is always, “When is your flight?”  Hello?  Were you not fucking listening?  I already did that math for you!

-The only thing worse than seeing someone with food stuck in their teeth is standing there going, “Still there.  No, still there.  No, still there.  To your left.  Wait.  Nope, still there.”

-I realized I haven’t done one of these in a while, so here’s a new list of people that irk, annoy, or otherwise piss me off.  People who fall asleep instantaneously on airplanes.  People who write letters to Sports Illustrated every time someone on last week’s cover loses a game, claiming there’s a “cover jinx.”  People who have their religion listed as an “interest” on their Facebook profile.  People on Myspace who complain about Myspace on their actual Myspace page.  People who include their home mailing address in their email signature.  People who send me – unsolicited, mind you – pages-long emails describing their vacations in depth and then get pissed when I don’t write that much back.  People who beg me for comped tickets to my stand-up shows then don’t fucking show up.  People who still don’t understand that domestic beers are twist-off and imported beers need an opener.  Any receptionist in any waiting room in any doctor’s office I’ve ever been to in my entire life.  People who don’t realize that, even though I have an NYC cell number, I live in LA and you just called and woke me up at seven in the morning.  And, finally, people whose work number pops up on caller ID differently than the number I have in my address book and therefore their name doesn’t show up in my phone when they call, so I’m forced to screen the call, check my voicemail, then call them back…and not only do I get their voicemail, even though they called me literally eight seconds ago, but I also have to hear that they haven’t changed their outgoing message since they went on vacation two months ago and if there’s an urgent matter during the last fucking week of July I shouldn’t hesitate to contact Mary at extension six.  Phew, that felt good to get off my chest.

-I have this sneaking suspicion that when people say to me “No worries,” they mean just the opposite.

-And, finally, my buddies and I have a running joke that we can easily take over one another’s roles within the group.  For instance, Claudio is the most unreliable, slowest-moving human on earth.  So if I show up fifteen minutes late to a pre-game but he’s actually on time for once, I become the “new Claudio.”  Likewise, when I rip shots, there’s a better chance than not that I will throw up violently.  Recently, however, I’ve been able to hold it in, while my old roommate Brian has been booting more than a bulimic at a buffet, and is therefore now the “new Karo.”  To me, the idea that each of us is so easily interchangeable means there really is no such thing as friends without benefits.  When someone isn’t running late or vomiting as much as they should be, someone else is right there behind them to carry the load.  Since I’m not Korean, nor wear Diesel sneakers, there’s little chance, though, that I’ll ever be anointed the “new Chi.”  That is, unless the next time I visit New York, I get drunk and proclaim, “Boys, it’s great to be back.  But I miss the ocean like crazy.”  Fuck me.

HOME

-Each year, there are a handful of occasions where I know ahead of time that I’m going to get drunker than usual.  These bloodbaths typically include my birthday and New Year’s Eve, as well as a few wild cards such as weddings, Yankees playoff games, and any instances of daytime drinking.  Before these events, it has become a tradition of mine to write the acronym “DBD” in black Sharpie on the back of my left hand.  This is meant to remind me during moments of severe inebriation not to say or do anything stupid.  In a sense, though, DBD is more than just a personal admonition – it’s a universal caveat for all those who believe that your twentysomething years should be a cherished time.  A time spent finding yourself.  Drunk.  And in the beds of strangers.  So the next time you go on a celebratory bender or just need to blow off some steam at an open bar, remember these words: “Don’t Be Dumb.”

-Sometimes, you just can’t help being dumb.  At my friend Christina’s wedding a few weeks ago, she had a clambake in lieu of a traditional rehearsal dinner.  Oysters and lobsters as far as the eye could see.  Unfortunately, I’m allergic to shellfish.  A dozen glasses of Pinot on an empty stomach later, Chris asked me to make a toast.  I grabbed the mic and, about halfway through, accidentally dropped an F-bomb on the crowd.  Little did I realize in my state of drunken euphoria that wedding speeches are actually not supposed to make babies cry and guests walk out.

-Sometimes, barriers are put in place ahead of time to prevent dumbness.  Chief among them is the policy of many resorts and hotels to keep the pool closed from dusk until about 8am.  I can’t tell you how many times while on vacation I’ve returned from a club with a bunch of people (or just one girl) and vainly attempted – while fully-clothed and shitblasted – to get in to the pool area and engage in what surely would have resulted in aquatic disaster.  The last time this occurred was my buddy Brian’s bachelor party in Vegas, and I responded by taking my dumbness elsewhere.  Stymied at the pool gate, I promptly turned around, stumbled to the roulette wheel in the casino, threw my cell phone down, and loudly announced I was betting it on red.  That’s when Triplet #1 turned to me and said, “Karo, you’re standing at a blackjack table.”

-Of course, I’m not the only dumb one.  For example, there’s Triplet #2, who once blacked out on the hallway floor right in front of his apartment.  When I asked him the next morning if he’d lost his keys or been locked out, he simply shrugged bewilderedly and said, “No.”  Or my buddy Claudio, who had a few too many Captain and Cokes and referred to the girl he was dating for only a few weeks as his girlfriend – right in front of her.  Claud didn’t remember what happened and she never said anything about it, so he just never brought it up ever again.  And then there’s Ex-Girlfriend, the girl I dated seriously for a year and a half until last summer.  A few months ago, she got slamhammered, then texted me to ask if I looked at other girls when we dated since her current boyfriend has a wandering eye.  Which would have been fine had her drunken text message not been the first time she ever mentioned to me she had a new boyfriend in the first place.

-I wouldn’t say I’m a bad drunk, just an inefficient one.  I tend to lose all short-term memory.  One night, my buddy Chi called me sixteen times to tell me where to meet him, but by the time each call ended and I put the phone in my pocket, I had forgotten the address.  Chi also likes to say that I’m a terrible person to tell your secrets to because I get drunk and reveal them.  But technically that’s not really true.  I usually get drunk and reveal my own secrets, which is actually worse.  I think there’s hope, though, for those of us who can’t even follow the simple advice written on the back of our hands.  Last month, when Brian called me hours before he was to be married and told me he was hungover, I took solace.  If he can be that dumb the night before his wedding, we all get a free pass to hit the pool at 6am whenever we want.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Have you ever been to a swanky club in the middle of the day when the lights are on and seen how disgusting it actually is?

-I recently spoke to my old boss from my Wall Street days.  He told me how his three-year-old daughter has learned to rip the bathmat from the shower, and throw it over the toilet to give her better traction when trying to climb up on it.  She also figured out how to pull the kitchen drawers halfway out and use them as makeshift steps to climb in to the fridge.  I was like, that’s not a toddler, that’s a velociraptor.

-I think hitting on a girl when I’m drunk but she’s sober is like trying to beat a team in football when they have your playbook.

-When I moved in to my new apartment, I bought a set of dishes and silverware that came with four of each piece.  A few days ago, I emptied my dishwasher and realized I only had two forks.  I turned my kitchen upside down but couldn’t find the other two.  Sure, they could have fallen behind the counter or been thrown out.  But losing one fork is an accident.  Two forks is a conspiracy.

-I’m always dumbfounded when in the movies one guy asks another guy if he’d like a drink, and then just pours him some generic brown liquor in to a glass with ice cubes.  And the other guy drinks it, no questions asked.  At what age do all men receive a memo declaring that they must accept and enjoy any brown liquor handed to them?  If a buddy asks me if I’d like a drink, that’s one instance where answering a question with a question is OK – that question being, “Well, what do you have?”

-My labor union, the Writers Guild, recently sent a postcard to my new address, asking me to confirm that the address was correct.  However, if the address is incorrect, the card states, please call to update it.  I’m not sure if I want my pension handled by people who don’t realize that if the postcard was sent to the wrong address, I’d never have received it in the first place.

-And, finally, I think that we all go through a series of drinking phases.  First we’re downing anything we can steal from our parents’ liquor cabinets or pound in the local park.  In college, we develop a taste for cheap beer, vodka in a plastic bottle, and liquor with gold flakes or cinnamon chunks floating in it.  After college, we become somewhat more refined (I don’t remember much of 2002 owing to a torrid love affair with dirty martinis), then more picky (these days, I pretty much only drink Goose on the rocks), until finally we’re older, more mature, and drinking generic brown liquor while rocking fedoras (or at least that’s what they seem to do in the movies).  But no matter what I imbibe to excess, the worst feeling in the world is still having someone say to me ominously, “Karo, you were wasted last night.  Do you remember what you did?”  And I think and I think, but I just can’t remember.  I glance at the “DBD” scrawled on my hand, then back up at my friend, who merely shakes his head and says, “Yeah, that shit didn’t work.”  Fuck me!

HOME

-I’m flying back East this week because two people I’ve known since childhood – my old roommate Brian and my doctor friend Christina – are getting married only five days apart.  The only way it could be more convenient for me is if they were marrying each other.  (I pitched that idea, but it got shot down for some reason.)  The only other wedding I’ve been to in my adult life was two years ago, so with two weddings this month and my Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends of 2007 already booked up, this marks the official beginning of the Holy-Shit-Everyone-I-Know-Is-Getting-Married phase of my life.  Clearly, I’m not emotionally prepared for this, as every time someone under thirty introduces me to their “husband” or “wife,” I do a double-take and ask if I heard them correctly.  As I navigate through the thicket that is my friends’ impending nuptials, I can clearly see a line being drawn in the sand.  There are twentysomethings who are looking to get married, are about to get married, or are already married.  And then there are those in no rush at all, who rock ill-fitting rented tuxes and try to bang bridesmaids.  In other words, those who have the desire to tie the knot (“the Haves”), and those who think they might have swallowed a cufflink with that last shot of open bar Jack.  You can call us “the Have-Knots.”

-To me, a wedding registry is merely an opportunity to say, “I like you guys this many napkins rings much.”

-In reality, when shopping from a registry, I almost always buy alcohol-related items (or “barware” as those fancy fucks at Williams-Sonoma call it).  The way I figure it, that’s the only way I’ll be able to partake in my friends’ usage of the gift.  Of course, I’ve never actually drunk anything from a flute or carafe.  But I figure as long as there’s an opening at one end, the beer will know where to go.

-At Brian’s ceremony, the groomsmen will outnumber the bridesmaids by about three to one.  The strangest part is that, since there are not enough chicks to go around, as Best Man I have to walk down the aisle by myself like a lost drum major in a marching band.

-It amuses me that, when planning a wedding, the bride and groom pay so much attention to details that no one else even notices.  Christina’s wedding is on Block Island, which is an island in between Rhode Island and Long Island, just off the coast of Bumblefuck.  Last week, she called to ask me what ferry I’d be taking to get there.  “Ferry?” I asked, “What ferry?”  “The ferry to the island!” she exclaimed, “You know, it was on page four of the Save the Date booklet we painstakingly crafted for your benefit?”  “Ohhhh,” I said, “That thing.  Yeah, I was using it as coaster.”

-In the end, I believe that marriage is the great equalizer of twentysomething life.  There’s nothing I enjoy more than watching a chick wait desperately for her boyfriend to get off his ass and propose already.  You have to understand, ladies, our entire lives since puberty have been predicated on waiting for you.  We’re always ready to hook up, but we don’t get blown or fucked until one of you decides the time is right.  But by tradition, the man alone decides when to propose.  This is the first and only time we hold all the cards.  So if your boyfriend has been beating around the bush about dropping the knee, don’t misinterpret it as cold feet.  It just takes a while to absolve fifteen years of sexual frustration.  Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it?

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-At least four girls I’m friendly with have gotten divorced, separated, or un-engaged this year – and most are understandably upset.  But the way I think about it, at twenty-seven, I can’t even fathom making a commitment of that magnitude in the first place.  So if you’re my age and have already broken such a commitment, well, that pretty much makes you like the coolest person I know.

-During my five-year college reunion in May, I wandered into the tent for those who graduated in the ‘80s and noticed an unusual amount of pretty gourmet chicks – which was surprising because that’s not exactly Penn’s forte.  Then I realized none of the nametags that the really hot women were wearing listed a Penn graduation year – these were actually the alumni’s wives.  Apparently, the Latin on my diploma reads “Bachelor of Science in Economics with a minor in Marrying Well.”

-My college girlfriend recently got engaged to my fraternity brother, who she dated immediately after me.  Like I always say, if you’re gonna lose in the playoffs, might as well be to the team that wins the championship.

-You guys are not going to believe this, but I swear it’s true.  My buddy Triplet #1 is dating… another triplet!  All six of them are fraternal, so unfortunately there’s little chance of someone accidentally getting slipped the wrong sausage.  But just imagine what that wedding party might be like some day.  Best Men and Maids of Honor will be tagging in and out of the ceremony like some sort of black tie WrestleMania.

-If you want to make an argument for the beauty of marriage, take my parents, married 32 years this fall and still going strong.  When I moved to a new apartment earlier this summer, my parents came out to help and I was able to observe them closely as we spent four straight days running errands while I futilely attempted to get them to pay for stuff.  What I noticed was that, after all these years, my parents are still looking out for each other.  My dad made a point to make sure that the air conditioning was strong enough to allow my overheated mom to sleep comfortably.  And my mom would suggest we take a break to eat because she knows just when my dad is about to get hungry.  After a while, though, I realized these were not entirely selfless acts of adoration, but rather long-ingrained defense mechanisms.  My dad wants my mom to be comfortable so that he can sleep without her tossing and turning.  And my mom wants my dad to eat so that he won’t get cranky and start aggravating her.  So in essence, I believe the key to a happy marriage is identifying, isolating, and mitigating what your spouse does to annoy you.  Well, that and uniting in the refusal to pay your son’s outrageous Bed Bath & Beyond bill.

-And, finally, in the time it took me to write this column and have my sister edit it for me, two more of my fraternity brothers proposed and I attended the engagement party of a third.  This shit is honestly getting ridiculous.  I need to take a break from the madness so in a few weeks my friend Marcia is flying out to LA and we’re gonna drive down to San Diego to party it up for Labor Day weekend.  Here’s the twist: she’s happily engaged.  To be clear, Marcia and I have never and – now that she’s engaged – will never, hook up.  (I’m proud to say she was my senior prom date but must admit I couldn’t close the deal.)  I have to confess, though, I do feel kind of strange about spending an entire drunken weekend with her.  I’m not sure if Haves and Have-Knots are supposed to commingle like that.  But let’s face it, her fiance doesn’t have anything to worry about.  This time around, I didn’t even qualify for the playoffs.  Fuck me.

HOME

-Over the years, I’ve received countless emails from female fans thanking me for providing them with insight into the mind of the twentysomething male.  This was never something I set out purposely to do and, quite frankly, if I represent the typical twentysomething male, our entire civilization is fucked.  Nevertheless, I began to consider the facts:  I am a twenty-seven-year-old single guy and possess the unique ability to communicate with tens of thousands of people at once.  Perhaps, if I was able to codify some of this so-called “insight” about my gender, I could provide a much-needed service to chicks around the world.  And that’s when I decided to create the Girls’ Guide to Guys – a handy hook-up manual from the dude’s perspective.  You can call it “The GGG.”

-Guys typically have unreasonable expectations.  It’s not unusual, when asked if a girl is attractive, for a guy to tell his friend, “She’s cute, but if she lost like, say, thirty-five pounds, she’d be slammin’.”  We actually believe that if a girl throws back a few Lean Cuisines, she can accomplish this feat.  On the other hand, we will steadfastly refuse to change anything – our weight, our hair, or our underwear – to satisfy a chick’s even slightest preference.  Our appearance is non-negotiable, no matter what the consequences.

-Guys learned in the late twentieth century that girls don’t actually mind one-night stands, they just don’t want it to feel like one.  That’s why modern man evolved the ability to “lay groundwork.”  Laying groundwork is as simple as initiating a series of texts or MySpace messages with a girl about seven to ten days before contact is likely to take place.  This, we believe, weakens the girl’s defenses by extending flirtation over a longer time period.  Groundwork is, in essence, the opposite of a booty call.  While a booty call is spontaneous – a shot in the dark fueled by alcohol, groundwork is pre-meditated and thus harder to brush off when it inevitably blows up horrifically in my face.

-Guys operate under the Code of AFS.  Ladies, if a guy has ever tried to hook up with you in a public place, or put his finger where it shouldn’t go, or asked if your roommate – who could use a couple of Lean Cuisines herself – wants to join in the fun, he’s merely following protocol: Anything For a Story.  Nothing whips a pack of males into a frenzy faster than hearing a compatriot’s hilarious tale of perverse debauchery.  The dirtier and more outlandish, the better.  The Code of AFS also requires complete disclosure.  Even if a guy promises a girl he “won’t say anything about what happened,” it’s a sure bet that story will spread to his friends faster than at breakfast the morning after a frat party.

-Guys can always sound interested.  No matter how dull her job, inane her jokes, or boring her banter, if I’m attempting to get in a girl’s pants, I can feign curiosity about whatever the fuck she’s talking about.  Guys do this because we’ve found that walking away glassy-eyed in mid-conversation tends to be a turn-off.  As a raconteur and someone who is generally inquisitive anyway, sounding interested is usually pretty easy for me (unless the girl is a doctor, which I have a thing for – then I don’t have to pretend at all).  But in general, if you’re a girl who works in law or event planning, or who makes asinine comments such as “I like the Mets and Yankees equally,” please be aware that every male you’ve ever spoken to in your entire life was faking it.  Just a heads up.

-In the end, The GGG will be beneficial to both women and men.  Some guys may posit that revealing the tricks of our trade destroys our competitive advantage.  On the contrary, I believe that the more informed a girl is, the more approachable she becomes.  And let’s not forget – chicks aren’t stupid.  By my calculations, girls are, on average, about fifty times more intelligent than us guys.  I was reminded of this fact a few weeks ago when I was telling my friend Christina how, by utilizing some of the aforementioned tactics, I totally had this girl in the palm of my hand.  To which Christina astutely replied, “How do you know she’s not the one playing you?”  Damn, I thought to myself…that’s a good point.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-The notion that girls cannot be trusted to tell you if another girl is attractive was proven to me several years ago.  I called my gym to schedule a massage and the receptionist offered me a choice of three female masseuses.  I asked her which one was the cutest and she replied, “Definitely Jennifer.”  When I showed up a week later, I found out that Jennifer was pregnant.  Very pregnant.  Like ten months pregnant.  Either the receptionist was fucking with me, or she didn’t realize that pregnant by definition means “not cute.”

-Next week marks my one-year anniversary of moving from New York to Los Angeles.  That means the statute of limitations on telling girls, “I just moved here” is about to run out.  More distressingly, it also means that it’s much more difficult to pull off the trusty “Let’s go back to my place – you can be the first person to see my apartment!” line.

-My friend Holly was driving up La Cienega the other day, dog in tow, when a bee got in to the car and sent both Holly and her dog into a hysterical panic.  As she swerved in and out of traffic while trying to simultaneously swat the bee and calm the dog, Holly decided that her next course of action should be not to simply pull over, but rather to call her boyfriend.  Her boyfriend of course could not understand a single word she was screaming, but even if he could, was helpless to do anything, since, after all, he was not in the car.  This, my friends, is why I am single.

-Longtime readers know that since I loathe speaking to actual humans, I try to buy as many necessities online as possible.  As such, drugstore.com is one of my favorite web sites.  And, as an added bonus, they often give you free samples with your order.  The only downside is that the free samples are usually lotions – lotions no normal man would nor should ever use.  Thus in the past year I have accumulated a stockpile of exotic creams and balms under my sink that will terrify the first girl that stumbles upon them – doubly so because she’ll assume they’re all recent purchases since I told her “I just moved to LA.”

-Ladies, does your boyfriend, husband, brother, son, or male co-worker constantly adjust his crotch area?  Well, guess what – we all do that.  It’s genetic.  It’s a package deal that came with our, uh, package.  Listen, if you want us to keep the toilet seat down for no good reason, we get to scratch our balls.  That’s just the way it’s gonna be.

-And, finally, as much energy as guys expend chasing chicks, we also spend a significant amount of time avoiding those we don’t want to see.  Most guys are quite adept at evading girls – which is not surprising given how so many of us seem naturally selected for the very purpose of repelling them.  When a girl I’ve been trying to avoid calls, you would not believe the shit I come up with: “Oh, uh, hey Jane.  Where am I?  You know what’s funny?  No one here knows the name of this bar.  And there’s no sign.  And none of the adjacent streets have signs either.  But you should—” and then I hang up mid-sentence (which gives it a feel of authenticity), shut my phone off, and pretend the battery died.  Women, of course, have a much more elegant method of avoiding certain guys – they don’t bother talking to them in the first place, a devious tactic I call “pre-emptive avoidance.”  And so, The GGG remains a working document for now.  In fact, it may only be considered complete, I lament, when it’s the girls, not the guys, who are begging, “Fuck me.”

HOME

-In the past five years, I’ve visited twenty-three states and six foreign countries.  It’s ironic then to admit that I absolutely cannot stand traveling.  I hate hotels.  I hate everything about airports and airplanes.  And I especially hate when people say to me, “So Karo, looks like you’re really racking up the frequent flier miles!”  What the fuck is that supposed to mean, huh?  Shut the fuck up!  OK, sorry, that may have been a little out of line.  But just the thought of packing a suitcase makes my blood pressure rise.  Sure, performing stand-up across the country and vacationing in exotic locales sounds fun in theory.  In reality, I think I’d prefer not to leave my apartment.  These days, though, it seems like I’m always going places…

-I’m not a big sightseer.  My rule of thumb is that if a plaque or monument cannot be read in the time it takes me to walk past it, it’s just not worth it.  I also prefer to go to museums by myself.  That way I can plow through all the cool and weird stuff without wasting time on extraneous shit like exhibits about birds and jewelry.

-Interesting Travel Tidbit #1: People always believe that their state has the worst drivers.

-Why do I put on sunscreen before walking around a foreign city yet never put on sunscreen in any American city that’s just as hot?

-I was at a resort in Spain last month that had a lending library where vacationers could leave the books they’d read behind for other travelers.  I made the point that the last people who need free books are resort-goers in Spain and that the books should probably instead be donated to underprivileged, illiterate children or something.  Unfortunately, my high school Spanish is a little rusty and the bartender I was talking to thought I ordered a pitcher of sangria.  After I housed it, I totally felt better about those kids.

-Interesting Travel Tidbit #2:  In London, they pay in pounds and drink in milliliters.  However, bra cup sizes are exactly equivalent to the American system.

-How come I can travel thousands of miles on a transcontinental flight in a state-of-the-art 747, but some teenager in a golf cart has to tow us the final ten feet to the gate?

-Why, when we finally get to the gate, does the captain always come on the loudspeaker and announce that everyone must remain seated until he turns the seat belt sign off – and then he turns it off two seconds later?  What, is he trying to be a dick or something?

-Interesting Travel Tidbit #3:  Flight attendants do not know how to fly or land the plane in an emergency.  I always wanted to know this, so I asked a flight attendant on my way to O’Hare a few months ago.  She told me that not only are they not trained, but that she’s terrified of flying and will be “praying harder than anyone” when we make our final approach.  In addition, she also said that no, I could not have another bag of mixed nuts.

-In the end, for me the horrors of travel are more than made up for by the people I’ve met along the way.  From large-breasted British chicks to drunken, rowdy fans in Chicago, I’ve always been welcomed with open arms.  They say life is a journey, not a destination.  But really it’s the destinations, not the journeys, that you remember most.  Or, like me, you can knock back a few thousand milliliters of cold beer and not remember anything at all.  Now that’s going places.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-It is impossible to walk out of Bed Bath & Beyond without spending five times as much money as you originally intended.  I went in there the other day to buy some stuff for my new apartment and ended up with several gadgets I didn’t even know existed.  In order not to blow my savings next time, I think I’m gonna have to put on blinders like an unruly racehorse so I won’t be distracted by shiny objects I have no use for.  All I needed last time was a plunger.  I ended up buying a mouse pad with memory foam and some sort of salt and pepper shaker set so complicated it came with a manual.

-I was driving up Fairfax the other day and a car in front of me kept drifting into my lane.  I honked like crazy, then noticed that it was a decrepit old lady who could barely see over the steering wheel.  This got me even more pissed off because there’s no way this fossil should be operating a motor vehicle.  I pull up next to her at the next light, look over, and – I swear to God – she pulls out a RAZR and starts sending a text message.  Fucking California.

-I’m a hardcore Bluetooth headset lover.  However, I only use the thing in two situations:  When I’m driving (so I don’t crash into text-messaging grandmothers), and when I’m on the phone in my home office (so that I can simultaneously Google the buzzwords my agents use because I have no clue what they’re talking about).  But I really don’t understand why people wear their headsets at the mall.  Seriously dude, the guy you’re ordering from at Panda Express in the food court doesn’t give a shit that you’re Bluetooth-enabled.

-I am honestly considering just buying a new George Foreman instead of cleaning it.

-Last July, the first 7-Eleven in Manhattan opened on Park Avenue South.  I was still living in New York at the time and went to the store with the Triplets on opening night.  I’m proud to say that I performed the first-ever slurpee kegstand in New York City history.  And then got thrown out.  The next week, on July 11th (7/11, get it?), they gave out free slurpees all day and kids came from miles around to join in the fun.  You know how in old movies they show little kids opening up fire hydrants in the streets of New York on hot summer days and frolicking in the water?  Yeah, it was nothing like that and they ran out of slurpee mix in like 45 minutes.

-And, finally, one of the stranger things I’ve noticed since moving to California is that when I go back to New York, I feel like I’m only visiting, but then when I return to Los Angeles…I also feel like I’m only visiting.  You know when you go on vacation and land in Florida or Mexico or whatever and you feel that warm breeze and smell the ocean when you first walk outside the airport and it kind of puts you in that vacation mood?  That’s what it feels like when I land back in Los Angeles after being away.  Plus, my new apartment has a pretty sweet pool and when I walk in lugging a suitcase and see a bunch of gourmet chicks laying out, it’s hard to remember if my vacation is over or just beginning.  But I’m usually snapped back to reality by a dirty look from a girl in a bikini.  Turns out I should treat chicks like I do museums and monuments – take a quick glance as I walk by, but never stop and stare.  Fuck me.

HOME

-I turned twenty-seven yesterday.  It was a great day because I got to spend the afternoon with my five-year-old cousin Daniel.  I’m convinced that, for the most part, the traits one exhibits as a little kid later express themselves in adulthood.  For instance, I can already tell that when Daniel gets to be my age, he’s gonna be both a ladies man and a troublemaker.  He may or may not still be obsessed with Spider-Man.  When I was a little kid, I was selfish, obnoxious, and whined a lot.  All of these are still true today.  I was also so overweight that if the ball I was playing with rolled away, I couldn’t move to get it.  Thankfully, I’ve dropped the baby fat.  For all intents and purposes, turning twenty-seven means that I can no longer reasonably resist being labeled an “adult” by society.  There, I said it, I’m an adult.  Now, if the ball I’m playing with rolls away, instead of being too fat to get it, I’m too lazy and just order another one online.  Adulthood has its privileges.

-Remember that feeling in the air at the first fraternity date party you went to in college, when all the guys were scrambling at the last minute to figure out who to ask, where to get flowers, and how to tie a tie?  I still get that feeling every time I go out on a Saturday night or buy someone a bottle of wine.  Life to me has never ceased to be like one big game of childhood dress-up.  Though the introduction of girls in thongs during my late teens was a much-welcomed addition.

-Girls my age have funny birthday parties.  I love that they wear a little party dress and crimp their hair and invite 500 dudes.  Like I do every year, this weekend I organized a mid-afternoon pub crawl through New York City for my friends in lieu of a birthday party.  There’s just something about drinking during the day that appeals to me.  I think it might be the drinking during the day part.

-Have you ever been about to wish someone a Happy Birthday, but before you could say anything they just happen to mention their birthday first, which sucks because you actually knew that and now you won’t get any credit for it?

-When your birthday rolls around, it’s tempting to start comparing yourself to your peers.  I recently noticed that alumni who are younger than me will sometimes submit pictures of their children to Penn’s alumni magazine.  Now I don’t mind if you’re already married and have kids – if you want to throw your life away, that’s your business.  But do you really need to include a picture of your baby?  Because the baby always looks like it’s fucking staring directly at me with that little baby smirk that says, “Karo, I’ll be Bar Mitzvahed before you ever even attempt to procreate!”

-You know how when you get on the treadmill, set the speed at which you’d like to run, and it starts accelerating, there’s always that brief in-between moment where the treadmill is going a little too fast for you to keep walking, but a little too slow to break out into a full sprint, so you’re kind of stuck in an awkward half racewalk, half jog for a few seconds?  To me, turning twenty-seven is like that moment.  Everything before my birthday seems so easy in hindsight.  Everything in the future seems so daunting.  But right now, I’m stuck in the middle, simultaneously running in slow motion and walking as fast as I can.  It’s scary, and uncomfortable, and exciting.  I guess that’s what adulthood is all about, though.  It’s time to stop dropping the ball.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Ever notice that in the movies when someone is rescued from a horrific explosion or gunfight, the first thing they do is give them a blanket?

-Why is it that when I call a friend to ask for a phone number, and they have to scroll through their cell phone address book to get it, they’re only able to recall and relay the number to me like two digits at a time?

-My American Express card expired and they sent me a new one.  It’s so fucking hard to get a good signature in that little box on the back.  The one I scrawled looks like such crap that even the most indifferent store clerks give me a hard time.  To add insult to injury, the new card doesn’t expire until 2010.  That’s just great.  I’m saddled with an undeserved reputation for bad penmanship until next decade.

-It bothers me that every liquor ad has a little line at the bottom that says, “Enjoy Responsibly.”  First of all, you can’t really enjoy liquor responsibly – that’s an oxymoron, like jumbo shrimp.  Furthermore, responsibility is subjective.  Two weeks ago, I visited Triplet #2 in London, drank too much, and threw up in his apartment.  That was irresponsible.  But I threw up in the garbage can, which was responsible.  But the garbage can didn’t have a bag in it, which was irresponsible.  And it was mesh, which is just plain gross.

-I want to give a special Father’s Day shout to my dad.  I stayed in my parents’ house on Long Island for most of last week, which was confusing for everybody because I sound exactly like my father on the phone.  I swear one time my dad called the house, I picked up, and he was like, “Wait a minute… me?”  I’ve also taken to calling my father “Pop.”  I don’t know where it started, but I think it’s fun and just like living in the ‘50s.  So, Pop, thanks for sharing Father’s Day with my birthday yesterday.  I know that kind of sucked for you, but I’m sure you know that when I was born twenty-seven years ago, you were given the greatest gift of all – the gift of life.  I’m also sure that you’re reading this right now thinking, “My son is full of shit.”  I love you, Pop!

-So I’ve noticed the new trend for girls’ jeans is to be extremely tapered and tight at the ankle.  I think it looks dumb, but then again, what the fuck do I know.  My only real concern is that they’re hard to remove while hooking up.  What I’d like to see next season is girls’ jeans that rip off like basketball warm-ups.  But I’ll settle for boot cut.

-And, finally, in my old age I’ve become disheartened by people who apologize for engaging in activities that society deems “nerdy.”  While both sexes are guilty of self-deprecation, I’ve found women are much more prone to it.  For instance, if I ask a girl what she does and she’s like, “I’m an accountant.  I know, pretty boring, right?”  Or if I ask a kid what he’s majoring in and he’s like, “Biology, Economics, and Statistics.  Yeah, I’m kind of a nerd.”  No, you’re not.  So many twentysomethings are unfulfilled these days that I think if you’ve found something you’re passionate about, no matter how dorky it is, you should be celebrated, not shunned.  I actually find girls who do nerdy shit pretty hot.  (Of course, it helps if they’re actually hot.)  Hell, I’m twenty-seven and still spend a few hours a week on the “Lost” message boards.  I guess what I’ve realized is that when my cousin Daniel gets to be my age, if he still loves Spider-Man, that’s OK – as long as he’s happy.  After all, if you’re gonna fawn over someone in tight pants, better it be a superhero in costume than a chick in tapered jeans.  Fuck me.

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-It’s happened to every twentysomething. You’re sitting in your cubicle Googling or MySpacing or doing just about anything to avoid actually working. Your email alert chimes and you instantly check it, only to find that it’s a mass email from a friend of a friend in a dire situation. He’s desperately reaching out to everyone he knows to ask for help. His problem? He needs an apartment – and fast. You of course delete the email as quickly as possible because it only reminds you of your last apartment search: long, arduous, and resulting in you paying $100 more a month in rent than what you set as your “absolute maximum.” This past week I searched for and found a new apartment. The process was as miserable as I thought it would be, testing my mind, body, and wallet. When it was over, I was exhausted, stressed out, and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. There’s no doubt in my mind that apartment hunting is hazardous to your rental health.

-Many apartments in Los Angeles don’t come with refrigerators – once you move in you have to buy one and install it yourself. You’re probably thinking, “What the fuck is the point of that?” I know that’s what you’re thinking because every time I was shown an apartment without a refrigerator I asked, “What the fuck is the point of that?” It’s like they just choose one appliance at random and decide not to give it you. Either that or there’s some unholy alliance between landlords and Maytag to try to drive up sales.

-I lived with my buddy Brian for three and a half years after graduation. Since then, I’ve resolved never to live with another human again, at least until I get married (and even that’s debatable). I just can’t stand having another human in my fucking personal space. Post-Brian, I moved in to a studio that was literally across the street from my girlfriend at the time. People asked why Girlfriend and I didn’t just move in together. Well, for me, the negatives outweighed the positives. The positives were that we’d both save money and get to spend a lot of time together. The negatives were that I’d have to kill her.

-Another drawback to living with your significant other is that the bedroom always skews girly. Triplet #3 lives with his fiancee and their apartment is modern and well-decorated. But once you cross the threshold into their bedroom, things get frilly and purple real quick. And I have a feeling it wasn’t Trip 3’s idea to buy 46 pillows for the bed, including a dozen of those cylindrical ones that serve no purpose at all.

-When I move out of my current one bedroom, I’ll be receiving that special door prize known as a security deposit. I think most people tend to forget they even paid a security deposit in the first place, so when they get it back, it’s like hitting the lottery. Except it’s like the lottery jackpot that comes the week after that unemployed welder wins $350 million so the prize money is reduced to only like a thousand bucks, all of which of course goes directly toward paying the security deposit on your new apartment, which, ironically, is about the same size as the unemployed welder’s place before he scratched off a winner.

-After I move into my new one bedroom next month, I will have lived in five different apartments in the five years since graduation. Each one has had its little quirks. Like the building in New York that completely renovated its roof into a beautiful sundeck – but neglected ever to tell anyone it was there. Or my current place in LA which requires you to walk through four hallways – each with a different aroma – in order to get from the elevator to my door. Sadly, my memories of each apartment are starting to run together – a sure sign that my rental health is deteriorating. Maybe one day I’ll get married and buy a house and live happily ever after. Until then, I’m content with a one-year lease, two pillows, a fridge, and my dreams.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-When I say, “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy,” what I’m really thinking is, “I hope this exact thing happens to my worst enemy.”

-The other day, I was on Crescent Heights Blvd. in West Hollywood when I saw a building with a sign taped to the wall. The sign read “Dry Paint.” Just think about how stupid that is.

-Why is it that most people cannot comprehend the “boarding by group number” process at the airport? Hey, grandpa, it’s not that fucking difficult!! Does it say Group 2 on your ticket? No? Then get the fuck to the back of the line!!

-Ever listen to a rap song on the radio and they bleep out words you didn’t even know were curses?

-I recently made the mistake of doing my grocery shopping online while I was really hungry. On impulse, I ordered some old school Mott’s applesauce snack cups. When they arrived, I noticed the package said they’re made from a “special Mott’s family recipe.” But on the other side of the package, the only ingredients listed were apples and water. Those bastards at Mott’s have been fooling us for generations!

-What happens if Shaquille O’Neal gets called for jury duty this week? I heard you can’t get out of that shit anymore.

-I’ve never been that good at basketball, but I think I know why. When I was growing up, there were bricks lining the driveway underneath my basketball hoop. When I hit a shot, the ball would fall through the hoop then hit the bricks at such an angle that it would always coming ricocheting back at my nuts. Now I unconsciously relate hitting a basket with groin pain, thus substantially throwing off my jump shot. I bet Pavlov never thought of that one.

-And, finally, it’s time for me to take a little vacation. What with my apartment search and all the, uh, emailing that I’ve been doing, I could use a break. This weekend I’m heading to London to hang with Triplet #2, who moved there last summer for work. Trip 2 and I actually studied abroad in London seven years ago, so it’ll be fun to relive our days of drunken vomiting on double-decker buses and other cultural institutions. I also remember trying to explain to a group of Brits that “calling fives” means you get your seat back if you come back within five minutes. They looked at me like I was fucking insane. After leaving London in worse shape than I found it, I’m off to Marbella. I’ve never been to Spain, but I do enjoy napping and rice, so I have high hopes. After Marbella, I’ll be swinging by New York to celebrate Father’s Day and my birthday before heading back to Los Angeles, packing up all my shit, and moving to my new apartment. It’s gonna be a whirlwind few weeks and I couldn’t be more excited. Well, except for the boarding of plane after plane behind goddamn idiots who can’t follow simple instructions and the grueling task of packing up an entire apartment. I wouldn’t wish those things on my worst enemy. Or would I? Fuck me!

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