New Year's Resolutions

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Go North, Young Man

This coming weekend I’ll be in Montreal to celebrate New Year’s. I know that I have a bunch of Canadian readers, so if anyone has suggestions about what I should do, let me know. Also, if any of them live in the area and want to come watch me and my rowdy posse of friends get drunk, shoot me an email. Extra points will be given if you happen to be female, attractive, and willing to sleep with me. Or at least steer hot, unsuspecting friends into my evil clutches.

I love road trips. And not just because authorities and women don’t know me by face. Well, ok, that’s partly it. Your friends are never more your friends than when you’re in a strange environment. Suddenly, your rag-tag assortment of drinking buddies are transformed into a team of fellow-conspirators, body-guards, and pimps. Amusing, because as soon as the doors close for the ride back, we’ll resume ruthlessly ball-busting, mooning, and undermining each other.

I like love the new sights, the new streets, the new experiences lurking behind every turn; like a woman revealing herself garment by garment. But I guess what I enjoy most is the unpredictability.

There are no preconceptions about what will happen. Saturday night has as much a chance of finding me clad in a suit and tie at a jazz club as it does of discovering me in jeans and a hoody at a seedy strip-club. Maybe I’ll be sipping Scotch on the rocks. Maybe I’ll be pounding Miller lite from the can.

No one will know until we arrive there. Honestly, would anyone be surprised if I got deported before Monday? I might start calling everyone Dudley Do-Right, asking how they like living in America Junior, and adding “eh” after every sentence. However, I do keep having this vision of tearing down the streets of Montreal, a hollering mob in fast pursuit, up to the American Embassy, screaming, “Sanctuary! SANCTUARY!!!” at the top of my lungs.

Whatever happens, three things are certain:

1. Alcohol will be had, though I will consume less than on my birthday. How sad is it that I have to promise to be more sober for New Year’s than I was for Christmas?
2. Cuban cigars will be purchased and enjoyed. Fuck you, American embargo.
3. The five-star hotel I’m staying at will have no idea what it bargained for. 4 AM calls to the concierge-desk for rope, a latex mask, and four gallons of astroglide are probably among the more printable things that will take place in those over-priced walls.

So again, should anyone decide to offer themselves as a guide, groupie, or pimp, we'll do shots in the Notre-Dame Basilica. The rest of you Cannucks: lock your doors, warn your daughters, and alert the Mounties. See you soon.

My Birthday Celebration

While there are a few qualities I enjoy about sharing my birthday with a major holiday, all in all it overwhelmingly sucks. Ever since I can remember, my friends have always had other plans when it comes to celebrating my birth. Turns out they feel as if they owe their loyalty Jesus. Traitors.

I spent most of Saturday afternoon alone in my room, reading Tucker Max’s book cover to cover, fully expecting to see no one but my family for the next three days. So when my phone rang that evening and I heard that my friends were assembling to drink, I was ecstatic. Finally, people would be around to celebrate my birthday and, more importantly, buy me alcohol.

What I had that night was a perfect storm of drinking mayhem. And I proceeded to annihilate all traces of decency, dignity, and vomit control in a hurricane of Vodka-sodas.

I might very well have been drunker on Saturday night than I have ever been in my life. The results were either hilarious or depressing, depending on which side you were on. But below is what I recall of the night. Keep in mind that most of the second half of the evening had to be traced together through eye-witness accounts, here-say, call-logs, and the allegations of a few thoroughly harassed bouncers.

I arrived at the bar at just about 10:15. After a few pre game drinks and a day of Tucker Max exposure, I was amped up like a ferret on Crystal Meth. My friends’ insistence on buying rounds, coupled with my inability to turn down drinks turned me from an aggressive drinker to a combative one. I downed about five pints of Vodka and Soda inside the first twenty minutes. I was full of holiday spirits. Provided they were vodka.

To prove this point, I launched myself into a group of drinkers. “What the fuck are you all drinking?” I bellowed by way of a greeting. “It's Christmas! If you pansies don’t do a shot with me right now, you’ll make baby Jesus cry!”

“Huh?” they managed. Given the sheer volume and intensity of my verbal assault, they did well to manage even that. I was lucky not to have been maced on the spot.

One of my friends tugged on my arm. “Dude, you have to chill out. You’re going to get tossed out before your birthday.”

I considered the possibility, acknowledged the likelihood and decided to ignore this sound logic anyway.

“Bar keep!” I barked. The entire bar turned. Maybe I was talking louder than I thought. “It’s a Yuletide celebration. What would Jesus drink?”

“Wine?” said the bartender after a pause.

“Vodka and Soda it is!” I responded. “And make it a man-sized drink, this time. What do you have that’s larger than a pint?”

I arrived back at my table just as one of my friends announced he was heading to the bar. “Who needs a drink?” he inquired.

“I do!” I proclaimed, waving my full glass as proof. I promptly downed the entire double of vodka and soda. This is my last clear memory of the evening.

Around 11:15 (or three doubles later), I decided that this establishment was incapable of picking any decent music without my supervision. I also became aware, briefly, that I was talking way too loudly, as people four tables over tried to shush me each time I opened my mouth.

Marching over to the jukebox I saw a table of four girls, only one of them even marginally attractive. They were engaged in some quiet, deeply emotional debate about their feelings. They held each other’s hands and smiled reassuringly at one another. What they weren’t doing, however, was paying any attention to me. A costly error.

“Listen,” I demanded at full volume, flinging myself into their midst. “It’s obvious that none of you will ever meet a man. Make yourselves useful and watch my drink.”

This witty remark somehow failed to win their undying love. I didn’t care. I deposited my drink in their midst and headed over to the jukebox, where I was appalled to find that the cost was a dollar a tune. In my alcohol soaked mind, this was tantamount to highway robbery. And if I was unhappy, others were going to share my discomfort. Unfortuntaley for them, the flab four were the people closest to me. Guns blazing, I threw myself back into their midst.

“A dollar a song!!!” I yelled at them before they could open their mouths and prepare for my second pass. “That’s like, 10 dollars a song. And I’m going to need every cent of that money to make any of you seem even slightly attractive.”

“Leave us alone, asshole.” Exclaimed the marginally fuckable one. I assumed she was the leader. Maybe because she was the only one able to stop eating cheeseburgers long enough to talk. Dimly, I recalled some militant group saying that respect was given to those who demanded it. Backing down was not an option.

“Honey, honey.” I said in a soothing voice. “It’s obvious you’re aroused and frightened because I’m way more attractive than you. Don’t worry. Maybe our kids will look like me.”

“I’m calling the bouncer.” She announced, leaving the table.

“Scrooge!” I shouted after her. “It's the season of giving! How can you be so stingy with your vagina? It’s not like you’ve been using it.”

Sensing I’d worn out my welcome (really, where did I go wrong?), I decided it was time to make a get-away lest the bouncer decide to take Shamu and the rest of her Sea World menagerie seriously. After all, I had been shouting non-stop for about an hour and a half. I downed my drink and sent my friend to get me another one. I remember nothing else of the night.

What you have to keep in mind was that it was still only 11:30 or so. I DIDN’T EVEN MAKE IT TO MIDNIGHT AND MY BRITHDAY. Among the more amusing actions that followed over the course of the next 30 minutes, and my subsequent inability to stay vertical, were (as recounted by my friends):

• Yelling sexually harassing comments at two women on my cell phone through use of the call-waiting feature. Fortunately, I did stop eventually: to vomit—WHILE THE GIRLS WERE STILL ON THE LINE.
• Inviting everyone in the bar to come on vacation with me the following weekend.
• Head-butting my sister in the stomach when she insisted we leave before midnight.
• Making up fake names and identities for strangers and introducing them to my friends.
• Getting kicked out of an Irish bar for being drunk.

I was well beyond shit-housed. The kicker of the story, however, was waking up the next morning, and deciding to attempt to drive home. Obviously, I was out of my mind, as I didn’t even know where I was…and still drunk. I always keep my keys in my right pocket, so instinctively, my hand shot down to retrieve them. However, I had supremely underestimated my level of inebriation. I struggled with my pants for about two minutes, before giving up and holding the pillow over my throbbing head in defeat. That’s right, folks. I WOKE UP TOO DRUNK TO WORK MY POCKETS.

Now that’s a fucking birthday celebration. Next year, I'm asking for a new liver and Motrin.

Rape Me: A True Friendship Story

Sometimes, you come across a situation where you just have to do something for a friend’s own good. They might protest, argue and curse you out, but deep down, they’ll respect you the more for it—especially once they sober up. Below is such a tale.

When Jack Saddle, my close personal friend, turned 21, I took it on myself to make sure that a truly epic night of debauchery was realized. The way I saw it, four things were needed to ensure an evening equal to this epic event:

1. Copious amounts of alcohol
2. A designated driver
3. Easily available women
4. An adversary

Number one was readily available at any bar. Just to be sure, however, we visited five different establishments. I was happy to take over the role of item number two. Number three was available—but only on the condition that I was ready take on the duties of number four, as well.

Allow me to explain. Jack dated a girl his senior year of high school who I periodically kept in touch with. After a falling-out that included Jack calling all of her college friends “dumb, white, rich brats,” the two had parted ways. Through my contact with the Ex, whom we’ll call Leanne, I knew that she was ready, willing, and drooling for the opportunity to jump Jack once more. Jack, on the other hand, was more or less completely repulsed by her personality. However, I was counting on two things:

1. Leanne’s truly spectacular breasts
2. Jack’s repeated inability to refuse spectacular breasts when drunk.

However, Jack could never know precisely what I was plotting in advance. The second he thought I was trying to get him to sleep with his ex, I knew he’d put up his guard and protest. So instead, I got Leanne to bring friends with her and we met up with them under the pretense that we were trying to set him up with one of the friends.

Around 1 AM, I surveyed my progress: Jack, after a truly heroic number of vodka-cranberries and Hennessey was chatting with the girls, while staring down Leanne’s blouse with an intensity that was bordering on creepy. Said curvy female was sending “fuck me” vibes across the table so loudly, I became seriously concerned that she was going to dive over the table and rape him. It was time to move to Phase 2.

Herding everyone into my car, I began to drive back to the friends’ house. Leanne asked if I’d drop her off first.

“Wait,” said Jack as we pulled to a stop. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

He got out of the car. I began to think that my plot would go off without a hitch.

“Ehren,” he said, coming up to the driver’s side window as Leanne beckoned him from her front porch. “Don’t leave me here.”

“I won’t.”

“I’m serious, Ehren. Don’t fucking leave me here. I don’t want to fuck her. Swear that you won’t leave me.”

“I swear.”

“You PROMISE?”

“I promise.”

“Ehren, I’ll seriously be pissed if you leave.”

“I won’t leave.”

I waited about 15 seconds after the door closed and pealed out like a stunt driver in The Fast and the Furious. I must have left two inches of rubber outside her driveway.

Three hours later I returned, threw rocks at their window, and started walking back to the car to wait for Jack to reappear.

"Three hours ought to be enough." I thought to myself. Obviously, I underestimated my friend's endurance.

Because at that moment, Leanne was bent over the couch in her front room, with Jack balls-deep inside her. Meaning both of them had a full view of me throwing rocks and my subsequent walk towards my car. Leanne probably assumed that I'd head home and meet up with them in the morning. However, she failed to take Jack's fear of abondonment and loathing of her personality into account. In his drunk, post-rape trauma paranoia (fueled by the fact I’d ditched once already this evening), Jack saw his one chance at escape and pounced on it. Leaving Leanne mid-thrust, still bent over the couch, he went tearing out of the house, pants around his ankles, screaming hysterically, “DON’T LEAVE ME, YOU BASTARD!!! DAMN YOU EHREN!!!NOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

Hastily arranging her skirt Leanne came pounding out of the house three steps behind, yelling after him, “Jack, it’s fine if you want to stay the night. Why don’t you come back inside and get your shirt?”

It’s hard to prepare for a Dukes of Hazard type get-away, while incapacitated by laughter. I did my best.

Jack hastily yelled, “No thank you” over his shoulder as he threw himself headlong into the backseat. For the second time that night, I pealed out of Leanne’s driveway, leaving her alone in the middle of her front lawn, with a very bewildered look on her face—not surprising considering a scant 20 seconds before she had been mid-coitus.

He climbed into the passenger seat and we drove in silence for about two minutes. I stole a glance over at him. The bleary, drained, relaxed and confused expression on his face spoke volumes. It looked as if he’d been molested by some 100-women harem, certain they'd never see another man again.

“Thanks” he finally said.

Hey, what are friends for?

***After speaking with Jack, I realized that the first version of this post, in which he came running out while peeing, was incorrect. Above is the true chronicle of the night.

Ehren Argues (Fruitlessly) With A Fanatic

For years and years I harbored the illusion that you could change someone’s mind simply by proving they were wrong. I guess it’s because I always tried to figure shit out for myself. So when I ran into ideas that challenged my beliefs, I’d try to look at them as analytically as possible and if they made sense, I’d adopt them.

I’ve since discovered that this is not a trait shared by everyone.

This country, I’ve decided, is no longer run by people of different political views. It’s run (and over-run) with people so far beyond hope, common sense, and compromise, that they’ve become religious fanatics. On both sides.

Ordinarily, I let politics lie because I end up getting so incensed at the candidates, that I almost induce a stroke. But every once in a while, I stumble across someone with a crazy viewpoint who otherwise seems so sane and articulate that I can’t help but stick my nose in. Because I keep thinking that maybe I can convince him if I keep showing him the other side in an intelligent, respectful, and humorous way.

Needless to say, I’m always disappointed. For example, a few months back I stumbled across the blog of a religious conservative. Every day he picks a new target, tears them a new asshole because they have an alternative opinion and ends with some statement like “John Stewart, why do you hate America?” Completely missing the point (in my opinion) that the whole point of the U.S. is that we’re supposed to have dissenting points of view. Because otherwise we’re a dictatorship.

Anyway, I couldn’t help but comment on one of his posts where he called someone anti-American because they didn’t agree with the reasons for the War in Iraq. We went back and forth over the place of civil disobedience and the market-place of ideas before he finally said, “After September 11th it is the duty of every true American to support our Divinely-Appointed President.”

That’s when I realized that no matter how much this guy read, at heart he would never be anything more than a crazy, bible-toting nut. The point of a debate is to prove your argument using logic and facts. And while you might believe Bush is divinely appointed, there’s no way to prove it. Personally, I think the fact that he’s possibly the worst public speaker since Dan Quayle is a shot to the whole “Divinely appointed” title, but that’s just me.

I check back at the blog every once in a while, just to see what the lunatic is ranting against this month. Today, it just happened to be the whole “Xmas” uproar about how using a contraction causes the land to whither, babies to die, and men to commit bestiality. Even though I KNEW there was no shot in Hell I would get him to change his mind, I couldn’t help myself. My favorite part about this blog is the more rationally I tear apart his ideas, the more he blindly gropes for wild religious statements he can’t actually defend.

Enjoy, and feel free to try to convince him of the error in his ways. Or else just say, “Fuck it” and come back tomorrow when I talk about Jack Saddle’s favorite birthday ever. Hint: involves nudity.

Foraging For Class

I do love my friends, but sometimes I really have to wonder about them. Beyond the attempted Statutory Rape, I mean. Who would have thought that trying to fuck a 14 year-old would have been a sign of sketchiness? Anyway, after years of exposure to them, I tend to forget exactly HOW out there they are…until some event or another makes the fact completely unavoidable.

For example, I had a friend who once supported himself for the better part of a year through the activity we liked to call “Dumpster Diving.” Essentially, he would swing by the dumpsters of local electronics, music, and computer stores after sundown and rummage through, looking for anything worth scavenging. He eventually got so organized, he wrote down the mass-trash pick-ups in the various neighborhoods in our country and used to go trolling through lawns and curbs the night before.

Whenever he found anything interesting, he’d throw it in the back of his station-wagon and lug it back home. Then he’d fix it up and sell it on eBay. I went on a number of excursions with him, and it was (provided you had a strong stomach) actually pretty interesting. As you probably guessed, though, the smells, sights, and over-all levels of classiness were not exactly “appealing.”

That wasn’t what led me to my revelation that he was a strange kid. It would seem that rummaging through trash is not a hobby that sets the ladies aflame. So my friend suffered a terrible dry-spell for about two years. Being the compassionate man that I am, I set-about doing my part to rectify the situation.

I had a friend who we’ll call “Katie” who had met my enterprising friend and, despite the constant exposure to human waste, found him, when showered, highly fuckable. That was all I needed to hear. The next time Katie came into town and I told my infectious friend, “Hey, do you remember that girl I introduced you to a while back? I just found out that she needs a place to stay Firday night...but I’ve already got plans. Is there any way she could crash on your couch for a night?” Game set match.

Saturday morning I got a rundown of the evening from Katie. Working her womanly magic, she managed to get her victim in bed and undressed before he knew what hit him. It was then that he tried vainly to protest.

“Look,” he said in a blushing way, she found absolutely adorable. “I haven’t been with anyone for a really long time. And I don’t know if I’ll be…I mean I might not…”

“Honey,” said Katie, flipping him over on his back in a deft motion. “You just lay back and don’t sweat it. This one’s on me.” Whereupon, she set about fucking his brains out.

I know some good, good women.

It all seemed to be going going to plan. Everyone knew Katie would only be in town for another two nights, and I figured my friend would take full advantage of her obvious availability. No pressure, no commitment, just a cool girl willing and eager to let him vent his long pent-up sexual frustration. Then I was reminded why my friends are completely bat-shit crazy.

The morning after their first encounter, he dropped her off at my house, had some breakfast with us, and left saying he had some things to take care of, but that he’d call her up later.

6 PM: no call
10 PM: no call
2 PM the next day: no call

Katie was a bit of a wreck at this point. She’d gone out of her to be as nice, gentle and non-threatening as possible and here he was jerking her around. I mean, when a guy’s gone two years without sex and he won’t call a girl back for an easy second go-round, it’s hard not to take that as a shot to her ego.

Finally, when she was out of earshot I called up my friend. “Listen, man” I hissed. “What the fuck? You told Katie you were going to call. She just wants to bang you once more before she leaves. Besides, she’s my friend. Just fucking call her so she doesn’t feel like a whore.”

Five minutes later Katie was beaming as her cell phone announced an incoming call from my friend. “He’s going to swing by in like 20 minutes.” She squealed, excitedly. “He said that he’s going to take me out.”

I waved goodbye from the front door as she skipped into his car, two blouse-changes and a fresh layer of make-up later. “You kids have fun.” I said. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do…or if you do, at least take pictures.”

I ambled back to the living room to start working on a guitar part for a recording session…and a twelve pack. I didn’t figure on seeing either again that night. See, two years without sex is a big thing for a guy. At that point, you’re officially a virgin again. Any girl who breaks a streak like that at least deserves to be bought a meal. And who knew if it'd be another two years before he got another oppertunity. I thought for sure he'd keep her up and busy all night.

So needless to say, I was surprised when she was dropped off about an hour and a half later, wearing a very puzzled expression.

“That was fast.” I said. “I didn’t think I’d see you again until tomorrow. What happened?”

“Well, he asked me what I wanted to do and I said that I didn’t know. So he drove me out to some stores.”

“He took you shopping?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” She answered. “He made me wait in the car while he rummaged through dumpsters.”

You know, if I had to think of one activity that would make a girl feel cheaper than never calling her back, I’d be hard pressed to come up with anything more degrading than dumpster diving. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the trash-picking that led to the two year dry spell. It was more likely the fact that the one thing he hadn’t pulled from a dumpster was some fucking class.


P.S. Brother, if you're reading this, you know I love you. That was pretty fucked up, though...but funny. If you're in town for the Holidays give me a ring. We'll slam some Nog together.

14 Will Get You 20

Everyone once in a while you get to see karma at work in such a way that it profoundly affects the way view the world. Suddenly, for a brief second, the curtain is pulled aside and you gaze with awe upon the precision and beauty of the universe’s intricate design. However, it’s not every day that karma uses statutory rape as its instrument.

My friends have never needed an excuse to drink. They’re the type of fellows that would celebrate the Norman Invasion with a three-day binge…provided they were sober long enough to look up the date in the first place. So when one of our gang announced a birthday celebration, my friends needed no further prompting.

The day began with cans of beer at 10 AM in the state park. It was June, so those of us who chose to wear shirts (an overpowering minority) were showing our high social standing and fine fashion sense with wife-beaters. The plan had been to go fishing, but honestly, I don’t remember anyone actually catching anything or attending to the lines. It’s always amused me how a bunch of dudes drinking down by the river is considered “loitering”—unless they happen to be doing it behind fishing poles. In which case it is suddenly a “sport.”

The drinking continued until about 9:30 at night, with only a brief halt for a wardrobe change and steaks, before the party was moved into New York. Somehow, we all managed to pack ourselves into two cars: my friend leading the way in his new 745i series, and me following in my considerably less flashy Honda accord. Both vehicles were filled to the rafters with rowdy, drunk, hollering guys, so as we approached a pair of ladies walking down the street, it came as little surprise when the car ahead of me slowed down to holler at them.

What was shocking was that the women didn’t immediately mace the driver and scream for the cops. My friends are generally nice guys…but after 11 hours of drinking in all-male environment, all bets are off. In fact, I was putting the odds at about 2:1 that everyone in the car would be wearing unsoiled pants at the end of the drive.

“What the fuck are they saying to these chicks?” I asked my passengers. The car had come to a dead halt, and the girls were leaning in to speak to the driver.

Then the girls got into the car. That’s when I realized the evening had taken a turn. “Holy shit!” I announced. “I think they just negotiated a price to gang-bang those two hookers!” The odds that everyone’s trousers would remain on for the duration of the trip had suddenly plummeted.

Two blocks up we arrived at the parking garage, and the boys introduced the rest of us to their conquests.

“Ehren, this is Crystal.” I gingerly reached out to shake the hand of a skanky-looking female. I was sure I had just caught 70 here-to-fore unknown sexual ailments.

“And this is Misty*.” And suddenly I was looking dead into the eyes of a girl that I knew.

Before I had a real job, I used to work as a music teacher at a day camp. The girl shaking my hand had also spent a lot of time at the place—as a camper. She wasn’t a day over 14.

“What the fuck are you doing getting into cars with strange men???” I barked, instantly reverting from sorry-my-friends-are-going-to-run-train-on-your-ass mode to protector of kids in my charge.

“E, don’t be a dick.” said my friend, completely missing the fact that I had a prior relationship with Misty…and that he would be doing serious 15-20 if the evening went the way he envisioned it. “I’m going to make sure nothing happens to this lady tonight.”

And with that he put his arm around the girl and they started off down the street. All I could do was collapse in laughter on the pavement.

When I finally regained breath, one of my friends came up to me and asked, “What the fuck is so funny?”

“It’s just that neither of them have any clue what they’re getting into. What he doesn’t know is that Misty is 14 years-old. What she doesn’t know is that he’s married with two kids.”

Karma is awesome.



*The names of both girls have been changed because they're embarrassingly under-age. For the record, I would have stepped in had things escalated. Turns out it wasn't necissary.

The Worst Part Of Insomnia Is The Fucking Lack Of Sleep

Seeing as how I’ve slept only 6 hours of the last 96 or so, a coherent post is completely out of the question. I mean, let’s face it: even when I am getting something approaching a normal amount of rest, I’m still barely cognizant. So I figured, “Fuck it.” As long as I’m being unintelligible, I might as well go all the way. So I’m drinking.

By the way, there’s nothing unhealthy about drinking alone on a Wednesday night to ease emotional pain is there?

Nah. Besides, I wouldn’t drink alone. The Lord counts as a person, right?

So here we go: the best I can manage being drunk and incapable of lucid thought. I’m not sure I’m capable of being cute and funny. Maybe I’ll have better luck tomorrow.

Each blink sticks my eyelids closed. It’s a sickly-sweet sensation that slides up my skull. I can’t sleep—so blinking will have to do. It’s my guilty pleasure, and my secret sin. Some people shoot heroin. I blink.

I’m clever. It’s not an admirable quality. It’s a hobby, like cross-dressing. It allows me to sneak by and fuck for money, all without exposing myself. Love me, without loving me and don’t kiss me on the lips…or heart.

Today I was accused of being a cold-hearted bastard by a woman who shared my bed once. Just because she’s incorrect doesn’t make her wrong. Maybe just unobservant. Because I don’t lie…especially to those who lie next to me. I’m a baby boy with a flame-thrower. A puppy with jaws of steel.

Lies. I’m nothing so calculated or considered. I’m a lake. When you blow on me and warm my surface, I distort the truth. But when you turn your back, I glass over and reflect the world back with perfect clarity. A mirror perfectly crafted by nature to depict every fault, flaw, and failing. And who the fuck wants to see that when it’s easier to be clever? Or a cross-dresser?

I read back on my words with nothing but contempt. Life is full of unfortunate souls unburdening themselves to no one in particular. And now I’ve become yet another. But here’s the damnedible part: I reflect back at myself. A never-ending series of mirrors, magnifying every fault back to myself for eternity…or till I crack.

Fuck this. I’m off to have another drink. Nothing else seems to help.

Ehren Makes Light Of The Holocaust

With the Holidays fast approaching, I realized that it was high time to make my list, check it twice and find out who was naughty and who was nice. Just like that other guy…what was his name? Oh yeah, Hitler.

Actually, I wonder what kinds of gifts Nazis gave each other at Christmas.

“Frau Smith, you remember that wonderful painting that Ms. Rubenbergstein used to own? Well I slaughtered her children in front of her then made a lampshade from their skin. Merry Christmas!”

Heartwarming.

I’m sorry, that joke was probably in poor taste. Is it too soon for Holocaust jokes? I mean, it’s been like 60 years. Jesus Christ…killers.

Ok, that joke was officially wrong. Especially given that today marks the end of the “Holocaust Deniers Conference.” Ordinarily, I’d question exactly how unbiased this gathering of the minds (and I use the word “minds” loosely here) is. But then I saw that it was held in Iran. And if there’s one country that springs to mind when I think of progressive, impartial, enlightened thinking, it’s Iran. I wonder if Mel Gibson attended.

I have a female friend who converted to Judaism. I know. I was shocked, too. Apparently, she felt that Christians just didn’t have enough guilt in their religion. Personally, I think she was just trying to mooch off my people’s coolness. At any rate, she happens to hail from a tiny town in West Virginia, which led to all sorts of hilarity involving her family and the locals. And by “hilarity” I mean “anti-Semitism.”

Among the more amusing (or disturbing) comments she’s been subjected to was this exchange at work.

Guy From Work: So, now you’re, like, a real Jew?
Newly Jewish Yenta: Uh-huh.
Guy: Wow…So, did you have to get circumcised?

I told her that she would officially become the most religious person I’d ever met if she did.

Weirdly, it always made sense to me that men who wanted to convert had to carve a section of their cock off, while women were spared the genital (or gentile) mutilation. Why? Because most Jewish women resemble each other, meaning unless you wanted to marry a woman eerily like your mother, you needed to make it easy for ladies to join the club.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know this girl when she converted or I would have at least known what to get her for the Holidays. See, the extreme Orthodox Jews only have sex with each other through a sheet with a hole cut in it. It was a slam-dunk that she didn’t have one yet.

On a side note, I don’t condone sex through linens. I mean, this one time I fucked an orthodox Jew with a bedwetting problem and she had rubber sheets. It was fun when she started thrashing around, but towards the end she really got lazy and just laid there. It was like having sex with someone who’d died of asphyxiation or something. When her bowels released, I knew it was time to get the Hell out of there. Crazy broad.

Yeah, since then I don’t sleep with other Jews. Besides, as a religious minority, it’s fun to fuck-over Christians for a change.

Ehren Issues A Retraction. I Suck.

I was thinking just now—I recant my entire previous rant. Seriously, I was looking back at it and I realized, “I’m not pissed off at that girl. I’m pissed off at myself.” She was trying to be nice, and I went out of my way to be a dick, not just to her, but to other people who care about me.

I have the tendency to bite my nails. And by that, I mean “I gnaw them until I bleed and they ache to touch.” Recently, I’ve been realizing what a fantastic metaphor that action is for my personality: self-consuming. Inevitably, I turn all my anger, criticism and discontent upon myself.

It goes through ebbs and flows. Most of the time, it simply makes me work hard. Lately, it’s been out of control, the point that I haven’t been able to sleep at night. It’s demoralizing to get up when your alarm rings, realizing that you just spent the last 7 hours in bed picking apart your flaws rather than sleeping. Today I woke up miserable and ended up turning all my misdirected criticism at an easy target, instead of the place it so richly deserved to go: on myself.

So after being a dick to this very nice girl, I then wrote and posted the last peice: whose ultimate purpose was to get more people to heap the criticism and anger on me I've been providing myself. Because, obviously, I can't even do that right. The whole fucking post was nothing but me pushing the buttons of other people so they'd lash out at me.

At any rate, that’s all shit that I’ve got to deal with. And while I’m all for rage-filled writing, it’s much funnier when the target actually deserves what’s coming. In this case, I was off-base. So basically, I want to apologize and I feel simply pulling the article down won’t do it.

Besides, this whole blog has always been about honesty. It’s why I post any comment left to me, even when they’re stupid or just trying to pick a fight. The last piece was a mistake. But it’s more honest to leave it and post an apology.

I was wrong. Sorry.

Won’t happen again, folks.

Still Alive...And Hating

I’ve heard it said that every strength is also a weakness. I’m beginning to think that’s true, especially when focused on the events of and following my company Christmas party.

First thing’s first, though. Yes, there was plenty of debauchery, flirting, and an inhuman amount of drinking. I never did meet up with Li’l Terrorist…though chances are good I left a number of incoherent, belligerently drunk messages on his voice mail. Jack Saddle, true to form, got thrashed enough to fight not only a bouncer, but also my date. This led to mixed feelings on my part. On one hand, it was hilarious to watch. On the other, it all but guaranteed me going home alone at the end of the night. A co-worker wrote a bit about the goings-on of the night (and about me), but if anyone cares to look, I’ve posted pictures from the evening here.

But on to the fun stuff...well, interesting stuff, anyway. My date for the night was a friend of a friend whom I’d flirted with over text message and via drunken phone call. Though my recollection of the night is hazy, I seem to remember that with the exception of the fight with my friend and a mix-up with a cab, she enjoyed herself. So I decided to find out whether she was planning on visiting my neck of the woods again soon.

Now, here’s where things take a turn and where I realized that my greatest strength is also my Achilles Heel. Jack Saddle once told me that the thing he admired most about me was my willingness to speak my opinion regardless of consequence, be they social or physical. When I inquired whether Ms.-I’ll-Come-To-Your-Party-And-Let-You-Buy-Me –Drinks-All-Night would like to get together again, she became evasive.

This was a tactical mistake. Because I think nothing of telling someone, “You’re too ugly for me to date” I assume that everyone has the balls to be upfront. So when I hear phrases like, “I’ve got a lot of work coming up,” “I just got out of a relationship,” and “I don’t know when I’ll be in the area again” I take them not as a kind attempt to spare my feelings, but as a sign that I’m not even thought highly enough of to be spoken to as an adult.

The fact that the stories were so weak is just an additional slap in the face. I mean, as long as we’re lying, why not come up with some amusing lies.

• “I can’t date you because I’m already married to the sea.”
• “Tomorrow I’m returning to my home-planet with information to enslave mankind.”
• “I no speak English.”
• “I’ve already been impregnated by the Lord. He’s HUGE and, frankly, I don’t think you’ll measure up.”
• “I’m really a man.”
• “I’d love to! But just so we get this out of the way now: I have herpes. How’s Friday at 8 sound?”

Maybe I’m out of line, but I just want to be treated with honesty. That’s all I ask. I lashed out at this girl in a way that was probably uncalled for: picking apart her every excuse and refusing to simply crawl off crushed and humiliated.

I’m looking back at it now completely unsure whether I was right or wrong. If I were really interested in this girl, the correct thing to do would be to let the issue drop and go back to being charming and funny until she gave me another chance. But it goes so against my nature to repress my feelings…plus, fuck that. Weak lies deserve nothing less than instant and shameless retribution.

She’s a nice girl, and I don’t carry any sort of grudge against her, but she’s got some work to do if she wants to repair the damage she’s done to my opinion of her. Then again, I suppose that she doesn’t really care. That’s sort of the point of all this.

OK, enough of me venting. Tomorrow I’ll be back with funny shit. Provided I don’t get an email that my New Year’s date is going to busy “Washing her hair.”

Nothing Today

Apparently, just because they pay me a salary my office thinks this gives them license to "boss me around." Losers. Between that, buying liquor, picking up women and wreaking havoc on Lower Manhattan, there's no time for blogging today.

I shall return tomorrow, however, thoroughly hung-over and equipped with many pictures and tales of daring misadventures.

If you're drinking tonight, have a shot of jack for me.

Ehren: Fascist Dictator Of Lunch Breaks

While I appreciate the saying “Seize the Day,” I feel that the phrase doesn’t quite capture my true level of intensity when it comes to getting shit done. I don’t so much "seize" it as much as I "drug it, bind it, throw it in my trunk, drive it out to the desert, penetrate it’s every orifice in ways that would violate all decency or feelings of self-worth, and leave it sobbing and broken on the side of interstate 50."

I’m not like this all the time—just when I’ve got something to do. Which is why I put out on the first date. Or at least rub one out in her soup when she goes to check her make-up.

Today’s lunch break was a good example of my “Rape the Moment” philosophy. Generally, I spend my lunch periods napping on the couch in the break room, or violating all laws of decency (and sexual harassment) joking with co-workers. Of course, there was that one super-productive day when I multitasked and did both. Let’s just say it involved a wet-dream in the break room.

Today, however, my eyes were on a prize far-greater than the mere dry-humping of a $3000 couch. Tomorrow night is my company’s Christmas party and, seeing as I make up a good portion of the company’s hardest-drinking department, the rumors were thick in the air. Let’s put it this way: we’re pre-gaming an open-bar event. That should give you an idea of the levels of depravity I fully expect to surpass tomorrow evening. Word is that we also have a VIP table at a club for afterwards.

I believe that anything worth doing is worth doing in style. And as I anticipate being fired first thing the next morning, really the only thing to do was look sharp as I destroyed my career binging on off-color humor, women, and Jack Daniels. It was with that in mind that I decided to go clothes shopping.

1:35: Get up from my desk and recruit two co-workers/fashion advisors. I’ve learned the hard way that I desperately require a babysitter when shopping. Shopping alone has led to such questionable decisions as FUBU shirts, blue velvet pants, and prescription welder’s goggles.

1:40: Arrive at a men’s clothing store that sports a huge sign reading “Liquidation Sale! Everything must go!” I’m Jewish. Lay off me.

1:41: I’m the only white man in the store. I resist the urge to demand the clerk “dress me like Jay Z's drug-dealer.”

1:43: I find a suit that looks pimptastic. My advisors let me know I’m not hallucinating.

1:44: The salesman fits me for the pants. I enjoy being felt up a little more than is appropriate. Such is the price when I skip my afternoon masturbation session.

1:50: I leave the store with a receipt for a brand new suit in my pocket and turn my attention to my date situation. The alternative is being molested by drunk women from sales as per last year. This is far less fun than it sounds, as the phrase “more loquacious than a cattle auctioneer and roughly as feminine” is shockingly accurate. It’s your word of the day, fuckers. Look it up.

1:52: I have successfully uninvited a girl I know is notoriously antisocial and now have plans with a hot Italian girl. I am mother-fucking Benito Mussolini: partly because of my ability to get shit done but mostly because of my sinister plot to defile and enslave the Italian people...or at least their women, anyway.

To put my lunchtime of kicking-ass into perspective, while I was out plotting an evening to set the progress of women back 50 years, my co-worker stood on line at a deli and ordered a sandwich. I won’t say whose time was more productive, but unless his sandwich had an ass that was so large, round and perfect that it made smaller asses orbit it, I’m guessing it was me.

“How was your lunch?” a co-worker asked, as I assumed my on-going project of turning a leather couch into a biological disaster.

“It was great!” I responded. “I bought a suit and got a date.”

“Sounds productive.”

“Yeah. It really makes me think of all the similarities: both are dark, on sale, and of course, I hope to be inside each of them for a generous portion of the night.”

Everyone In My County Has Brain Damage

I may be just an awkward white kid from the suburbs, but at least I have one saving grace: I KNOW that I am. I wouldn’t bother pretending that I’m a thug, or a club rat, or a prostitute/hotel heiress. What you see is what you get. It’s one of those qualities about myself I never really admired until recently.

Saturday was my friend’s birthday, and so, with expectations of drunken debauchery in my head, I drove into the bar area of my little suburban neighborhood. I must have been out of my fucking mind. Because apparently, I’m the only person in the county who realizes how fucking lame my county is.

As I pulled into a parking place, four girls stumbled across the road in front of me. The temperature was, conservatively, 34 degrees. Between, they had enough fabric to make one shirt that would struggle to conceal the torso of one of those starving african kids they show in the commercials. Which was ironic, because no one could ever have thought for a moment these girls were in danger of starving to death. Rather, they looked as if they had been force-fed butter, bacon, and congealed hog-fat around the clock for the last 20 years or so.

Really, the only hint I had that the beings weaving their unsteady way across the double yellow line in front of me actually had overies was the shitty make up that slathered across their faces. One of the girls had a belly shirt that was desperately fighting a losing battle with the enormous gut that was making a bid at consuming her blouse and too-tight pants leather pants. Seriously, if the lighting had been better, I guarantee I could have seen an outline of every wrinkle of her bloated vagina. It looked like Jaba the Hutt had gotten a make-over from a blind, transvestite prostitute.

Desperately trying to put the walking horror show from my mind, I headed off to the bar to meet my friends. Now, there’s a clear delineation, in my mind, between bars and clubs. Bars are places you go to get shit-faced on cheap beer and/or whiskey. Clubs are places you go if you’re into sipping champagne, looking bored, and wearing body glitter. I arrived at the agreed upon meeting point that was, in my mind, a bar. Why? BECAUSE IT’S IN THE MIDDLE OF ROCKLAND FUCKING COUNTY. The closest thing approaching a “scene” in 20 square miles was the 11th graders sipping stolen beer in their mom’s basement. That’s it. End of fucking list.

When I arrived there, however, there were two new features: velvet ropes and line outside. Never seriously entertaining for a moment that people would bother standing on line to get into a bar in the home of the world’s lamest night life, I proceeded to simply walk into the place—only to be stopped by a bouncer.

“You can’t come in.” he said.
“Huh?” I asked intelligently.
“Back of the line.”

It was only then that I turned my attention to the people waiting for admittance: hair-gel. Sunglasses. Leopard print pants.

“Wait, you people are actually waiting in line for a bar? You do realize that this is Rockland County, right?”
“Dude. Maxim is holding a party in there. It’s going to be rad.”
“And you’re hoping to over-power one of the maxim girls with your cologne? Jesus, did you use the whole bottle?”
“Man, whatever. This party’s going to be off the hizzle.”

That’s when I knew I had to leave. Because I didn't want to have to shatter his skull against the pavement. If the kid in front of me were any paler, he would have been in imminent danger of being mistaken for a snowman--provided snow men wear armani shirts open at the chest and bathe in Aqua Velva. Besides, I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was roughly as black and gangsta as Rick Moranis…of course, that was before the escalade piloted by a 23 year-old white kid drove by, blasting rap.

It’s then that I realized: apparently, I was the only person in town that night who didn’t think he was something he wasn’t. I knew I wasn’t a hot model. I knew I wasn’t black. Most importantly, I knew that I was in Rockland fuck County. And until the rest of you fat, brain-damaged white kids figure that out, I’m through with the night life.

The "Training" Of A Girl

Every once in a while you come across an experience that your mind simply refuses to accept. For example, every time I see an advertisement for a movie starring Paris Hilton. It’s like you’re watching it, but you can’t believe that someone would be dumb enough to think “Hey, this is a really good idea.”

Such was an experience I had a few months with a girl. Let me warn you: what you’re about to read is not for the weak stomached. I’ve been on dates with some fucked-up women before, but this tale takes the cake, platter and table-cloth of bad judgment. And this is from someone who’s been on a first date where a girl prattled on about her abortion party.

Now, the female in question and I had hooked up a few times—nothing too serious, but enough that she felt comfortable enough to drunk dial me at odd times and send me long, rambling emails. It was sweet. However, what was rapidly becoming clear was that she was interested in something beyond purely physical.

I respect that. But at the same time, I didn’t see her frequently enough that I saw any real harm in letting her know that the feelings weren’t completely mutual. Three hook-ups in a year do not qualify as a relationship.

I was at work one day when I got a phone call from Ms. I-Want-To-Date-You. She didn’t have anything approaching a steady job, so I was used to phone calls at strange hours. What I wasn’t prepared for was the story she launched into.

It seems that the night before she had attended a party. After walking around for a while and downing an obscene amount of Malibu, she began flirting with a guy she met. She was a fairly attractive girl with an insatiable sex-drive so as the cocoanut rum worked its magic on her insides, she decided to take matters in to her own hands as it were. She promptly led the guy upstairs to an unused room, stripped him down, and rode him like a theme-park ride.

None of this was especially disturbing to me: she and I weren’t exclusive by any means. I saw no moral reason for her not to have fun. But here’s where the story takes a turn.

Turns out that our hero, in her rum-addled state, had forgotten she’d invited a guy to the party as her date. Her date arrived only to find that she is suspiciously missing in action. By which I mean “being fucked like the South fucked black people.” At long last, someone mentions to our poor boy that they saw his date heading upstairs not too long ago.

Fortunately (or un depending on your point of view) Boy Number One had just finished up defiling the young lady in ways that would make a Bangkok hooker blush, and passed Boy Number Two on the stairs. Boy Number Two opens to the door to find our girl, nude, flushed, and spread eagle on the bed from an invasion that had made the Crusades seem soft and romantic.

“Wow!” he said. “Have you been waiting for me?”

“What did you do?” I asked. At this point I was completely engaged in the story.

“Well,” she answered. “I kinda felt bad. I mean I HAD invited him…and it seemed rude to have sex with someone else while on a date with him.”

“So?” I asked.

“So I fucked him, too.”

I let that soak in for a moment. “So you had sex with two different guys inside of 40 minutes?”

“Yeah. Am I a bad person?”

“Did either of them know?”

“Well, Guy Number Two MUST have known. I mean, neither one of them used protection.”

My stomach did a long, slow summersault and clenched like the asshole of a felon his first night in prison. I felt nauseous.

Now, I’m not one to throw a moral hissy-fit regarding anyone’s sexual behavior. Different people like different shit, and Lord knows I’ve done my share of weird things, some of which I’m not particularly proud of. But it is simply beyond my comprehension how anyone, ANYONE could think that this was a good story to tell to a dude you wanted to date. I mean, short of coming clean about an interest incestuous necrophilia, that’s probably the worst choice ever made. This makes Paul McCartney’s prenupt-less marriage look like a brilliant stroke of strategic planning.

As I struggled to keep my breakfast down, I realized she was still speaking.

“So,” she asked. “When will I see you again?”

“After you’ve been tested.”

Click.

A Communist Christmas

Sometimes I just have a way with words. Not necessarily a good way. But a way none-the-less. For example, a few weeks ago a girl asked me when the last time I had sex was. Without blinking I replied, “Wait—consensual, or non? Because I may have never had consensual sex in my life.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, more than a little shocked.

“All my sex is nonconsensual. Even masturbation. Just last night I molested myself. I said I wasn’t in the mood, but deep down, I knew I wanted it.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Maybe I should buy my cock a rape-whistle.”

On that note, with the holidays fast approaching, I was thinking of potential gifts to buy for people. Maybe that’s what I should buy for the various women in my life. Nothing says “I love you” like a rape-whistle. It’s thoughtful, practical, and the over-powering smell of their own fear will remind them of me.

Then again, I have been wrong before. I learned some valuable lessons about giving pepper-spray to women last year.

1. One squirt does not send my refried beans “South of The Boarder.” “Incapacitating” does not equal “delicious.”
2. Don’t give a girl a weapon she can use on you when you break up. Stupid poetic justice.

It’s not that I don’t care about my friends—I just don’t care enough to buy them individualized gifts. I mean, the Death Star mall near my house is absolutely unapproachable this time of year. I’m praying that I’ll be able to take one day off of work and get all my shopping done in one fell swoop—but deep down I know that’s not realistic. I’m going to forget someone and then they’ll send me a card and a gift, meaning my only recourse is to go to the mall AGAIN. And each time I enter that place, I die a little inside.

Last year, I made a New Year’s resolution to be less charming so I’d have fewer friends to buy gifts for this Christmas. A quick scan of my list suggests that I’ve failed miserably. I almost had a nervous breakdown last year: I’m not even joking. I flipped out and wrote a Kwanza Card rant against White Jesus…Christ, what the fuck is wrong with me? The good news is that in retrospect I realize that it was a bit immature. This year I've composed a much better card for coping with my Holiday stress. It’ll just be a blank, white postcard with no pictures or return address. Instead, typed in simple black letters, this heart-warming holiday greeting will appear:

Someone you slept with has been diagnosed with AIDS.

Festive.

Seriously, the only chance I have of avoiding a holiday rampage of biblical proportions is to mass-shop. In that vein, it occurs to me that I should make it a themed holiday: A Communist Christmas. “All people are equal brother! Only capitalist dogs buy individual gifts.”

So my ideas for “mass gifting” are currently:

• Soviet berets
• Vodka
• Life-Size wax replicas of Lenin’s corpse
• Iron Curtains
• A card redeemable for one KGB style “disappearing” of a family member, co-worker, or ex of your choice.
• Temporary Gorbichav “head-stain” tattoos
• Vacations to a Siberian “camp.” Said get-away features “enthusiastic instructors,” “lots of outdoor activity,” mass-graves, and free gruel! Participation is mandatory.

Texting

An episode of the Boondocks refers to text messaging as “Nigga Technology.”

"And you don't start trippin and shit callin me a racist cuz I don't mean 'nigga' in a disrespectful way. I'm mean it as a general term for ignorant motherfuckas'."
-G. Rummy (Season 1, Episode 11. 02/12/2006)

The gist of the conversation being that texting is Nigga Technology because

1. It doesn’t hook up to a printer
2. Nothing important has ever been typed by someone's thumbs.

This brings me to my current point. When I bought my current Cell phone plan I got zero stipulation for text messages. Why? Because it’s IN-FUCKING-SANE to spend 15 minutes typing out a message that would take two seconds to convey by calling. I’ve got THOUSANDS of minutes. Literally.

Thanks to rollover I currently have 5,670 unused minutes. Some people might take this as a sign that I’ve got no life. I disagree. See, most of those minutes have accumulated since my last break-up. So while you might see a guy with no social-life, I see 5,670 minutes of sweet, sweet, freedom. That’s 94 hours and 30 minutes I didn’t have to spend talking about feelings. That’s almost 4 whole days of not pretending to care about “my friend’s cousin’s boyfriend’s mom.” So don’t look on my unused minutes as an ode to pariah-ism. Look at it as a monument to my independence.

With all these anytime minutes, you’d think that someone would just pick up the phone. Nope. Last month I was charged an extra $70 for messages. $70. That’s roughly seven twelve packs of Rolling Rock. And when shit starts dipping into my drinking money it grabs my attention.

I’ve noticed that overwhelmingly, it seems to be females who enjoy sending me text messages. So either I have to learn to love cock, or start befriending women who’ve mastered the touchtone.

I have a couple theories why it’s the fair sex that predominantly dabbles in this Nigga Technology.

The first theory is that, in keeping with their nature, if given the choice, women overwhelmingly prefer to use their hands rather than their mouths. Which accounts for the dearth in quality blowjobs.

The second is that women are all but incapable of direct conversation. They don’t like calling up their friends, asking a question and then hanging up. If they’re going to commit to calling someone just to find out what they’re up to tonight, they first have to ask about their day, then their family, find out what they thought about the last episode of Desperate Housewives, bitch about that hot guy from the club who never called…then, 50 minutes later, they can finally find out that their friend has a full night of planned of watching Brad Pit movies and throwing up.

Texting is less confrontational than phone calls, so they have less guilt about just getting to the fucking point and moving on with their day.

Guess how many text messages I received last month from men: zero. And I know a whole lot of “ignorant motherfuckas.” Which makes me suspect, that as much as I enjoy the Boondocks, that they got it wrong: It’s not Nigga Technology at all. Texting is clearly the gadget of girls, the paraphernalia of pussies, and the belongings of bitches.

Foreign Flicks And Xian Hicks

Something about movies has been bothering me for years. Besides Brendan Frasier, I mean. Why is it that actors in films that take place in foreign countries all speak with British accents? It bugs the hell out of me.

Like in just about every single World War II move: the only people with German accents are the Nazis, who bark evilly. All the Jews and sympathizers have British accents. Even the French dudes speak like Michael Caine. When did that become a cinema standard? That’s my question. Who was the first asshole director to say, “What Jim? You can’t do a Russian Accent? Fuck it! Just talk like that Laurence Olivier cock-sucker. He’s from one of those ‘disputed-zone countries,’ right?”?

I’ll grant you, it’s hard to sound sexy, noble, or attractive through a thick German accent. The German language is a pretty powerful birth-control in its own right. I’ve been around Germans before: no matter what they’re talking about, it always sounds like they’re angry. Seriously, it’s a miracle those blue-eyed fucks get laid at all. “Did you ask me to take your bra off or to gas some Jews? Either way, I’m fully aroused.”


Enough about my movie rage though. Now it’s time for me to prepare for my HOLIDAY rage. With the end the annual gluttony celebration that is Thanksgiving, it’s time for our entire country to start driving ourselves into a frenzy in anticipation of Christmas. One of my favorite moments off all time came last year, as I watched a grown man of about 40 elbow a mom carrying a two year-old out of his way to grab a shopping cart. She flipped him off as the kid started to cry. Both were weighed down by bags that read “Happy Holidays” and “Seasons Greetings.” Ah, sweet irony.

Sometime last year, I became aware that Christians all over America were enraged at the contraction “Xmas” and the use of such multicultural colloquialisms as the ones listed on the shopping bags in the story above. Apparently they used it as proof that Christians were being discriminated against.

Look, we’re not being sacrilegious. Maybe we’re just lazy, ok?

I think they make a good point, though. I mean, honestly, what opportunity for advancement have White American Christians ever had? This is their Holocuast. Except, you know--not being rounded up into camps, gassed, or inconvenienced in anyway.

Fucktards. You're not Anne Frank, ok? You are to descrimination what JFK was to bullet-dodging. Do what you do best and find another culture to rub out. It’s early in the season, and I’m already sensing a sequel to last year’s nonsense. However, rather than flip out and threaten to desecrate a church like I did last year, I’ve devised a much more constructive outlet for my anger this time around.

Christians, as long as you continue to get your child-molesting, inbred, panty-wearing undies in a twist over supposed “religious insensitivity,” I will insist on referring to you as “Xians.” I don’t care whether you’re Baptist, Protestant, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, or Headupyourassians. Until you call off your dogs, you’re all just Xians gathering around the Xmas tree singing "We Wish You A Merry Xmas" while watching "Back to the Future" starring Xopher Lloyd and swapping Xina Agulara albums, Xian Slater films and bouquets of xanthemums in the name of your savior, Jesus X.

Happy Holidays, motherfuckers.

Thanksgiving or International Pimp Ehren Day

Today I overheard a number of young ladies gabbing excitedly about their evening plans. Boyfriends to see, boyfriends to cheat on, liquor to drink, girlfriends to stab in the back—the usual.

“So all of you are going out tonight?” I asked.

“Oh of course!” they responded. “It’s the biggest party night of the year!”

Honestly, I’m not sure I agree with that title. I mean, it’s going to take some serious debauchery to steal the belt away from New Year’s Eve. I don’t think we’re there yet.

Really though, when did this happen? It’s only in the last few years that “The Wednesday before Thanksgiving” really entered into my consciousness as a drinking holiday. And this is from a dude who keeps Southern Comfort in his trunk to celebrate flat tires.

“Why is tonight such a big deal?” I asked. “I don’t even like my family when I’m sober. The thought of facing them all while completely hung-over might be grounds for suicide.”

It was about four years ago that I first realized how fucking brilliant my grandfather was. Because he came in made a bee-line for the bar and parked himself behind a glass of Scotch for the remainder of the day, taking breaks only for Turkey. Genius. I’ve been celebrating the same way ever since and I’ve never looked back.

Because there’s really no way to coast through this holiday sober. I’ll be asked the five questions below at least 15 times tomorrow. Guaranteed:

• So, are you seeing anyone?
• When are you going to find a nice Jewish girl and settle down?
• Did you hear that your cousin/nephew/dog's friend's owner's landlord just got married?
• Just so you know: I don’t have any problem with gay people. Is there something you’d like to tell me?
• You know, there’s a very nice girl who works in my office. Would you like me to call her for you?

My family’s entire focus seems to be to expand until they dominate the globe. Which is strange, given what a weird bunch of dysfunctional fucks we are. See, I date plenty of women…but there’s a reason that none of them ever get invited to Thanksgiving. Nipple tassels don’t fit in with the dress code.

In all seriousness, I’ll probably have to turn down at least 10 blind dates tomorrow. Because if my family thinks they’re datable, I can be sure they’re no one I’d let within ten feet of me. Why? I’m related to the losers these people have married.

The last time my family tried to set me up with someone, the conversation went like this:

Dad: Hey, Ehren. There’s a girl I’d like you to meet. She’s the daughter of this guy I know from work.
Me: Ummmm…yeah, I’m kinda busy.
Dad: Look, I told her about you and she gave me her number.
Me: She gave YOU her number? What kind of social pariah is she?
Dad: She’s great. She’s into sports, movies, and hamburgers.
Me: So she’s fat?

At least my immediate family knows better now. Tomorrow, maybe I can educate my extended family with the help of the only person I’ll honestly be pleased to see: Mr. Johnny Walker.

Happy Anniversary, Bitches!

As a rule, I’m not a sentimental dude. I skipped my university’s commencement ceremony and I don’t do anything for my birthday. Hell, I would have skipped High School graduation and the Prom, too if I’d had a choice.

None-the-less today is my blogging anniversary, and while I don’t plan on getting all mushy on you, I thought it’d be nice to reflect a bit on the past year.

Over the last 356 days I posted 239 times, had sex with 7 different girls and destroyed 2 different transmissions. I’ve been single and desperate, single and pursued, and happily dating. My writing has gone from woefully rusty, to slightly less rusty, and occationally insightful or, at least, amusing. Honestly, the act of scribbling out my thoughts once a day (even if they’re not profound, well focused, or coherent) has been a wonderfully inspiring process.

I never really considered whether other people would actually read or enjoy the stuff I posted here. I started because I hadn’t done any creative writing in about two years, and when I began putting my thoughts onto paper, I realized how much I missed it. A year later, sitting down to write is still one of the most rewarding portions of my day.

The last thing I ever considered was what people would think of me, based on my blog. What you have to understand is that the things that I write about are the most crazy, depraved, or rage-filled thoughts or moments of my day. As a result, I think I sometimes get mistaken for being a complete fucking dick. The truth is I'm only a dick about 80-85% of the time, tops.

My audience has been wonderful. I used to be ecstatic when I got 100 hits in a month. Last month my blog was loaded 1,625 times. I’m on pace for 2,000 in November. My favorite part of this whole process has been watching this go from a monologue to a conversation. Thanks to every one who read, posted a comment, or passed my link to someone else over the past year. You people rock.

OK, I’m done being sentimental. There’s plenty more hate for the year to come. In the meantime, however, below is a list of my top ten favorite posts from the last year. Enjoy.

10. World Cee U Pee: Some of my favorite posts have come when I go off on random tangents and work myself up into a rage. It’s a classic rant that, to this day, I’m completely lost as to where it came from. Still...fuck the World Cup.

9. Nascar: Why Not Stay Home And Molest Your Sister Instead: There’s nothing like an ignorant northerner lashing out against a “sport” he doesn’t understand. And while he’s at it, why not take a few completely unnecessary swipes at people in states he's never visited?

8. International Fuck Men And Buy A Vibrator Day: For a while, my friend was grading my writing on a “Hate-o-meter,” spurring me to crazier and crazier rants. This post was off the scale. The Hate-o-meter never recovered.

7. What Would Jesus Drink? Religion has long been one of my favorite punching bags. Mostly because fanatics are the easiest to provoke and provide the most hilarious when they explode. Borat is based on this concept.

6. DVD Extras: Hollywood, look out. God knows what was going on in my life to get me this riled up.

5. Palisades Mall: Death Star of Suburbia: This post will always have a fond place in my heart. God, I hate that fucking mall. Also, fun (and totally uncalled for) swipes at teenagers, consumerism, and Barbra Bush.

4. Jerking Off For Jesus: I love this post because I had no idea what I was going to write about when I sat down. The whole thing developed as I went on with almost no effort involved. All the jokes came to me one after another, without any effort. I was crying with laughter while I wrote this.

3. Exlympics: This is a compilation of tales that happened to my friends, concerning their ex-boyfriends. If anyone ever doubts the craziness of my friends, they really need go no further than this post.

2. No-Doze: Legal Angel Dust: Despite what you probably think of me at this point, I really am very conservative when it comes to mind-altering substances. I’ve never even smoked weed. I figure I’m crazy enough without anything extra. However, if you’re looking for my one dabbling into the realm of drugs that left me absolutely, bat-shit insane, this is it.

1. Six Words That Instantly Command The Attention Of Any Man: It really wasn’t close as to what was going to be my favorite post of the last year. Lots of people have commented to me that they enjoy the way I tell little stories from my life. This is definitely up there in the weirdest events ever to happen to me over the course of my very strange life. The funny thing is it almost never made it to print. I sat on this story for about two months before finally just writing it down when I couldn’t think of anything else to post. My pain is your gain, so enjoy!

Thanks again to everyone. It’s been a crazy year. Here’s to many more.

Karma's Broken Condom

Halfway through my fourth pint glass of Vodka and Soda on Friday night, I looked up to see an unbelievably attractive redhead strut into the bar, along with a posse of friends. Freckles, button nose, and an enormous pair of perfect…eyes. If liquor equals courage, she was the reason that Irish men drink. Because she was hot enough to scare off any mere mortal.

Now, at this point, I’m sure you, the reader, think you have an idea about where this story is going. I mean, I’ve been drinking, I have little if any regard for tact or common decency, so it’s natural to think you have an inkling. I tell you now: you have no clue.

She was surrounded by a group, predominantly male, whom she seemed extremely friendly with. I did a head count, which, considering the amount of liquor I’d absorbed, took far longer than it should have: five guys in her group, two, plus my little sister in mine. Now while my sister is tough, she can’t weight more than 90 pounds soaking wet. So I concluded that incurring the wrath of this girl’s posse was simply not worth the potential blood shed, not to mention the tragic waste of alcohol. So I filed the girl away for future masturbatory reference, and went back to telling jokes.

Perhaps 5 minutes later, I glanced up to see the very same Irish goddess descending on me. When we made eye-contact she smiled and waved. I looked lost. In other words, my normal operating mode.

“Hi Ehren!” She said brightly, throwing her arms around me.

Now, I may not be great with names, but I rarely forget a pair of breasts. However, in this case I was completely lost. This girl was hot enough to be close to impossible to forget. Yet here I was: completely cluesly about the name of the girl wrapping her arms around me. In other words, the usual situation upon regaining consciousness every Sunday morning.

“Umm…Hi!” I said. Under normal circumstances, I’d be deft enough to introduce my friends so she’d drop her name…but I was still in shock from being approached by a girl I had already marked as a lost cause. And completely non-plused that I'd failed to remember meeting this highly fuck-able girl.

“How’ve you been?” she beamed.

“Good…”

“You don’t remember me?”

“Did I make an insensitive comment to you at a bar?”

“You dated a friend of mine, remember!”

And suddenly it all came rushing back. A few weeks ago, I wrote about a girl who decided to stop seeing me so she could re-up things with her ex-boyfriend…who just happened to be a compulsive cheater hooked on coke. The friend failed to be registered on my potential lay radar because:

1. The girl I was seeing was a hotty in her own right
2. The vision of Irish beauty standing before me was married, with a kid.

One doesn't get far with a girl by hitting on her married best friend.

"Of course!” I exclaimed, where-upon I went about introducing her around the table. “Doesn’t she look great?” I asked my friend. “You’d never know that she had two kids.”

“Actually, I’ve only got one” she corrected me.

“Well, he’s fat enough to count for two.” Honestly, I don’t know where this came from. Except I was suddenly ready to take out some of my unresolved feelings of rejection regarding my ex.

“So” I went on. “Is she still seeing that cokehead?”

“Uh…yeah. You didn’t hear?”

“I haven’t heard anything from her in quite some time.”

“She’s pregnant.”

“Jack,” I asked turning to my friend. “I know they have crack babies, do they have coke babies, too?”

It’s somewhat comforting to have an unmistakably confirmation that I was obviously a better choice than her “baby’s daddy.” I mean, I’m not hooked on blow AND I know how to operate a condom. Compared to this loser, I’m the catch of the fucking century. I’m Lenny Kravitz, Derek Jeter, and George Clooney rolled into one.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I’d like to once more go over the choices presented to this young lady a few weeks ago:

Ehren: funny, smart, educated, and holding down a steady job.
Ex boyfriend: high school grad, working various “part-time, and one-time jobs.” Cheated multiple times, lied constantly, and was hooked on coke.

Now she’s knocked up and relying on said addict. Goodbye, degree. Goodbye, freedom.

On the other hand, I guess I’m not that big a prize. I mean…I snore...sometimes. Also, there’s no added excitement of wondering if I had sex with anyone else that day.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s just coincidence. Then again, maybe it’s karma in the form of a dude who forgot to pull-out.

Man vs. Machine

As I lay in bed this morning, alternately flipping through bad movies and good poetry, I found myself reading Yeats’ “The Circus Animals Destruction” just as the movie “Stealth” came on. Maybe it was just coincidence. See, the poem is about the process of writing and how most ideas, including the good ones, were trash, at least at the start. Unlike, “Stealth” which was ALWAYS an enormous load of shit.

"Stealth" is about a super advanced airplane with artificial intelligence that becomes sentient. Naturally, it goes on a killing rampage and only a team of plucky pilots, whose ability to maintain perfect hair in the face of inconceivable G-forces is truly breath-taking, can bring it down. So basically, it’s every single movie ever made about scientifically altered creatures, or advanced governmentally funded killing machines. It’s “Jurassic Park” sans the special effects or watchability. It’s “Frankenstein” minus the originality.

Which brings me to my thought of the morning: why is it that when genetically perfect killing machines break free, they always go on a rampage? Why don’t they ever become unreliable drunks who crash kids’ birthday parties and have sex with the cake? Or start unsuccessful sex-toy franchises and spend the rest of their lives bitter, husks of their former selves, telling everyone, “Don’t talk to me like that! I was the greatest plane ever built, once.”? Or manufacture meth and hang out in swanky, Hollywood parties?

Seems like any of those ideas would be far more interesting. I guess I just wonder why things that are brought to life in movies are always evil. Right now, the one thing in my house I’m most frightened of coming to life and going on a rampage: my alarm clock. I mean, I already suspect that it’s malevolent. Especially mornings after Yeager shots. Think about it, it’d start waking me up at random times and making me late for work. I hear sleep deprivation is an especially cruel and effective variety of torture. Or, if it were a SUPER evil being, it could just start subliminally programming me while I sleep. Like one day, I’d just wake up and want to wear pink shirts with the collars up and listen to Lindsay Lohan albums. Now that’s evil. Sure, I could probably throw it out, but it would still be an incredibly weird and disconcerting couple of days.

I’ve decided that if (or in my case, when) I next make embarrassing phone calls to women while drunk, I’m going to use that as an excuse should I be confronted on it the next day.

“Ehren, you called me at 4:30 in the morning to ask if I would ‘dress like Janet Reno and punish you like you were big tobacco.’”

“I swear it wasn’t me. Listen, I’m pretty sure my cell phone has come to life and is trying to destroy my reputation through evil, underhanded plots in its attempt for world domination.”

The Nuremburg Break-up Defense

Sometimes, you just have to go. Everyone’s got their limit, and sooner or later we all come to a point in our existence when we have to say, “Fuck this. I’m out.” It doesn’t really matter whether it’s a job, a scarring sexual encounter, or a relationship: regardless of the consequences, we’ve reached our limit and there is nothing on earth that can make you stick it out for another second. This is a story about such an occasion.

I had been dating a girl for around a month and things were just not working out…for me, anyway. She was as happy as could be. I was contemplating suicide. Love is seeing someone’s faults and caring for them anyway. I saw her faults and wanted to strangle her with my shoelaces and leave her for dead in the trunk of a car at the airport.

She came from money, and, in the way that people who’ve been humored their whole lives do, tended to assume that anyone who disagreed from her was wrong.

“My friend is dating this guy who treats her poorly” I said one night. “It’s driving me nuts.”
“Well, that’s her mistake. There’s nothing you can do. You shouldn’t feel bad.” She said.
“Of course I should. She’s my friend. It’s my job to look out for her.”
“Well, you already told her how you feel. Fuck her. Cut her off.”
"She's my friend! I care about her."
"No. It's wrong to care about someone who won't listen to you."
“Well unlike you,” I retorted, “I know what it’s like to actually have friends.”

This was the pattern of all our arguments. I’d say something that was irrefutable: something about how I felt or what I liked, and she say, “Well, you shouldn’t. You’re wrong.”

After one such battle where she insisted that I liked punk music, I’d had it. I’d reached my limit. No more.

Now, there’s a certain ruthlessness involved in any break-up, particularly when you’re ending things with someone who has no idea that it’s coming. You have to completely repress all pity, look the cute, adoring, trusting puppy right in the eyes, and shoot it in the head when she trots up to lick your hand. It’s not the kind of thing I enjoy doing.

So I spent a day listening to angry music and looking at pictures of girls I hadn’t slept with. I wound myself up, preparing for the worst. I was the terminator. Pity wasn’t even in my vocabulary.

I met “Dead Girl Walking” at a local bar. “Don’t shoot until you see the whites of her eyes,” I reminded myself.

“I’m so glad you could see me,” She said. “I really need to talk to you.”

Suddenly, my day was picking up. Maybe she’d end things and spare me all the work.

“What’s up?” I asked, playing the part of the oblivious boyfriend. I’d been preparing to kill a puppy all day. If she wanted to take a shot at me, I was ready to act the part to the hilt. I began preparing to cry on cue.

“It’s my best friend.” She sobbed. “He was hit by a truck. Right now he’s in the hospital. They’re saying they aren’t sure if he’ll make it.”

Imagine for a second that you’re a turkey. The week before thanksgiving, you’re hanging out…gobbling, or whatever the fuck turkeys do, when suddenly the door to your pen swings open. You run to freedom. For the first time in your life, you breathe free air, feel un-caged wind on your feathers. It’s the single most glorious moment of your existence as, for an instant, you feel at one with creation. Then, the farmer lops your head off with a machete.

That was me. In an instant I was higher than a hippie at Burning Man, then in a twinkly of an eye, I was brought lower than a raver coming off a night on E.

“He was one of the only people who really understood me.” She went on, now holding me tight. “I just don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost him. Thank God I have you to support me.”

Now, this is where I realized I had two options:

1. Take one for the team, hold her tight, and try to salvage a relationship based on honesty, passion, and lots of hot sex.
2. Shoot Old Yeller in the head when he needed me most.

So I hugged her, ran my fingers through her hair, and then held her at arms length so I could look deep into her eyes. She wiped the tears away and managed a heroic smile as she looked at the one soul in this world she could count on for unquestioning affection, loyalty and support.

“I think we should see other people.” I said.

What the whole experience really taught me was this: I am far more ruthless than I give myself credit for. "I gotta do what I gotta do" was my rationale. Of course, that was also the Nazis said. It’s comforting to know that there will always be an opening for me in the “Ethnic Cleansing” business. Obviously, if I even have a soul it’s long since been condemned to Hell.

On the other hand, what else was I supposed to do? I mean, how long was I expected to date a girl I wanted to strangle? It was probably best to get out then. There’s really no good time to get dumped…although I’ll grant you that this was a worse time than most. Still, imagine how bad it would have been if her friend had died. I would have been forced to marry her.

Victory Is Mine...For The Moment

Do you know what that is? That is irrefutable proof that I am a sick, sick man. Since my recent defeat at the hands of a generously proportioned bartender, I’ve been plotting a way to ride victoriously through my next bar crawl. Mission accomplished. I’m breaking it in tonight.

Vodka in a sippy cup. I fully expect to be struck down by God after the first taste.

I think the only way to do it, is wait until three or four drinks in before I switch over. You know, give the bar an opportunity to adjust to my…”unique” personality. Then, I’ll order a round for a group of the hottest girls in the place, and slide over with my sippy cup. Check mate.

Really, in terms of conversation starters, it really doesn’t get much better than that. It’s pure gold.

Girls: Why are you drinking from a sippy cup?
Me: I’m up past my bed time. Will you tuck me in, mommy?

Or

Me: Because you haven’t offered to breast-feed me yet.

Or

Me: I stole it from my ex girlfriend. That’s the last time I date a girl in preschool.

You get the idea. Feel free to post up any other funny responses you come up with.

In other interesting news, my dear friend Jack Saddle who’s mentioned in the same story was invited to my company Christmas party—as my boss’ date. Meaning that there’s a good chance that my holiday bonus this year will come in the form of a pink slip.

Seriously, between my sippy cup, my boss’s potential evening with the sexual predator that is my friend, and my own propensity for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, this party could very well be the death-knell of my career. I guess that means I better go out in a spectacular blaze of failure. Sort of like Dale Earnhardt, only without being a dumb, inbred redneck.

And on that note, I must away. Time to take my sippy cup for a test spin.

Ehren: Parking Garage Vigilante

My office parking garage is officially on my shit list, joining such illustrious members as:

• My Space
• Paris Hilton
• Crabs
• Oil (the kind you put in your car, not the kind you rub on strippers)
• The rap music
• Men who wear body glitter
• Pants

The reasons for adding my garage are numerous. First, it reeks of urine. I don’t mean that it has a vaguely piss-tinged aroma, I mean if you breathe through your mouth you'll taste it for the next 20 minutes of your life. 5,000 bums, subsiding on nothing but asparagus, must be pissing in round-the-clock shifts to maintain that sort of scent saturation. I expect an outbreak of Botulism or the Hanta Virus any day now.

Next, because I rank somewhere between rancid milk and a fungal outbreak in importance to my company, I do not have a designated parking space. Instead, I’m left to fend for myself in a world of rich people who have no idea about common decency or basic physics. Allow me to explain.

Because I am retarded, I can only park in certain spots of the garage or I will literally spend 40 minutes wandering the urine doused caves, looking for my car. Don’t laugh, it’s happened before. My parking garage has "half floors," (2 1/2, 3 1/2, etc.) and not all the stairs or elevators go to every floor. This means that I am constantly fighting to get a spot in the “compact only” spaces directly across from the exit. Now, I drive an accord. Like all things Japanese, it’s a compact. Which is a nice way of saying, “Tiny enough to make a Jew laugh.” The douche bags in my building however, have absolutely no qualms about parking Escalades and Range Rovers in the compact spaces.

This is where a fundamental knowledge of physics comes into play. A compact space is roughly four feet wide. An Escalade is, conservatively, about 6,982 feet wide. You don't need a degree in astrophysics to work out a formula for parking. It goes something like this: move your over-privelidged ass down the line, P-Diddy. When you decide to come to grips with your whiteness and buy a real car, you can park in a compact spot. Until then, shut the fuck up, resume sucking Big Oil's taint and take one of the full size spaces.

How big a dick do you have to be to take up three spots with hideous fucking ride? We get it: you’re insecure about your penis size. Maybe you could start taking the handicap spaces too.

So today, after finding a Hummer occupying four spots, I began wondering: is there any reason I couldn’t just start cracking windshields? I mean, from the overpowering urine stench, I’m betting that the “security” is far from thorough. In fact, I may need to bring my own brand of vigilante justice to the garage, in the form of ten pounds of sugar, a key, and a sack of potatoes.

I know what you’re all thinking: why the fuck don’t you just get up earlier so you can get the good spaces before the rich douche bags do? Answer: What do I look like? Someone capable of rational planning and thought?

No, but because I don’t really want to be brought up on vandalism charges...again...I’m thinking that the REAL solution to this problem is to head down to Kinko’s and make a sign that reads: “Reserved for Ehren, Head of Grenade Launcher Development” then place it in the parking space closest to the door. I’d love to see the asshole that “accidentally” parks in that spot.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to wander around my parking garage until 10 o’clock tonight, in the vain hopes of stumbling across my car.