Underpants On The Outside

When you think about it, this blog is basically about me reporting one of three things:

1)      Stupid things I do

2)      Misfortunes that happen to me

3)      Hilarious things I say (note: actual sayings may or may not be hilarious)

Well, this is a number 3.  In fact, it’s a holdover from last week, when I had a surplus of insignificant stuff to talk about.

As some of you may or may not know, for the past two and a half years I’ve played in a Friday-night soccer league (team name: The Asthmatic Pole-Dancing Strippers.  Bet you can’t guess who came up with that one.) That came to an end recently, when it occurred to me that cool, attractive people tend to go out on Friday nights, and they had probably been trying to call me.

Last week was my final game.  Wonder Woman (speaking of cool, attractive people) wanted to go out afterwards, but was disappointed to learn that my game was scheduled for 10:00. I sensed her frustration.  (I am TOTALLY compassionate.)  I wanted to console her, as that could increase the possibility for sex when I got home. I tried to think of something to say to her, to reassure her that soon we’d be free to spend Friday nights together for the rest of our lives, something that would probably help out later with the whole sex thing.

…suddenly it dawned on me.  Seven words, which had always expressed one of life’s essential truths, yet had never been so entirely appropriate.

“Baby,” I said, pausing for effect, “don’t hate the player; hate the game.”

Have a great weekend, everybody!

 One of the things I hate about living in New York is receiving packages.  It’s not a big problem, unless you have a doorman, or, y’know… work for living.  In that case, when you receive a delivery notice, you have three choices:

• a. Sign it, leaving your neighbors a comfortable window of time to steal your big screen TV, iPod or digital camera.
• b. Take off work the next day, only for the delivery guy to show up at a decent after-work hour for the first time in human history.
• c. Helplessly receive two more notices until the package is stored at the nearest facility, which is located in the one part of Brooklyn that was also part of the Confederacy. But while it is far, at least it’s in a really bad neighborhood. Oh yeah: there’re no subways that go there and you don’t own a car.

As an alternative, a lot of people have packages delivered to their office, as I do. But then everyone wants to know: what’s in the box, and in this day and age, when almost everything is cheaper when ordered online, this can lead to some awkward situations.  For instance, what if you were an aspiring writer who had found a niche market writing material about, I don’t know, comic books, let’s say.  And let’s say you were working on a project that-

Oh fuck it.  My She-Hulk action figure arrived today, okay?  Yes - I ordered a doll.  In fact, I ordered three: two She-Hulks sand a Superman, which will be arriving next week.  THEY ARE FOR A PROJECT.  (I swear!) And if this project works out the way I hope it does, I should have some very good news in a month or so.

But no one cares about that, do they?  No.  They just want to make their little jokes.  (As you can imagine, they’re mostly of the “Show me on the She-Hulk where the bad man touched you” and “Jesus, what kind of sick shit goes on in that balding head of yours?” variety.)

On a different subject, in a few weeks I’m going to have two She-Hulk action figures and one Superman, all in good condition, which I will be looking to get rid of.  Anyone interested?  (Note: they may be a bit sticky.)

As some of you know, I work in the immensely gratifying profession of online ad sales. (I like to say that I ruin the Internet for everyone else.)  Sometimes this allows me to flex my creative muscles in fun and unusual ways, such as earlier today, when we were putting together a proposal for a brand of feminine hygene products.  You know, one that deals with a woman’s, um… “special time.”  We’re going to propose that they setup a profile on one of these newfangled social networks that we represent, but my co-workers and I were having difficulty figuring out how to thematically execute the profile.  This may or may not be because we have penises.   In any case, we were struggling, specifically with what to call the message board, when I was struck with what I like to call, “fucking genius.”  I looked up at my co-workers, and said…

“What about ‘The Commiseration Hole’?”  Then I laughed at my own joke.

Thank you, thank you. Enjoy the rest of your day.

 This is a fact: With the exception of girlfriends, I have never been seated next to an attractive woman on an airplane. Statistically this should be impossible, given how often I fly between Los Angeles and New York - there are always at least ten really attractive women on the flight. I know this because I watch them go by, me repeating in my head, “16d, 16d, c’mon, c’mon, please be in 16d…” But they are never in 16d.  Ever.

I mention it because on Sunday night Wonder Woman and I flew from Los Angeles to New York, and I missed my best opportunity to spend six hours next to a hot chick who, with the help of a little inclement weather, would be forced to sit next to me the whole time.  I was in seat 7E.  Her ticket said 7D.  But the gigantically fat man in seat 6D was happy to switch with her so she could sit next to her much-more-handsome-than-me boyfriend in 6E.   Motherfucker.

In truth, I have no misconceptions about what might happen.  I don’t imagine that somewhere over Omaha, Hot Blonde is going to sigh, rest her head on her hands, and say, “I really wish I could give somebody a handjob right now.”  And I also realize that I’m engaged to be married to an adorable, lovely woman, who- GODDAMNIT I WANT SOME ANONYMOUS HETEROSEXUAL ELBOW SEX!

Look, on every airplane, it’s inevitable that you and your next-seat rowmate are going to rub elbows.  And while it’s not nearly as fun as bumping uglies, that doesn’t mean it’s insignificant, as long as it’s an attractive female.  (Because when it’s a dude, you know it.  You can feel each and every arm hair.) If I had a hot woman doing the armrest fandango with me, I could easily waste two hours playing the mind game of, “Wow, that was really hot.  I mean, temperature hot.  Why is she so hot?  Or is it me… uh oh, am I sweaty?  No, I’m cool.  Did she notice when I just smelled myself there?  No. No, she’s hot because she wants me. I’m gonna touch her again… and now I’m going to go jerk off in the restroom.”  Unintentional caresses were the foundation of my sex life all through high school, and I have no problem kicking it old school for a few hours to kill time.  (It’s like looking through my dick’s yearbook.)

Maybe some people would consider my desire to be “cheating.”  I don’t care.  By getting engaged/married, I’ve essentially given up window seats on every flight for the rest of my life.  The least I deserve is some forearm fornication with an anonymous beauty.  And I would have got some too, if it hadn’t been for that considerate son of a bitch elbowblocking me.

I’m sorry, but I always thought the whole reason people purchase tickets with seat assignments is so that they sit in that actual seat.  That’s the type of lawless bullshit I’d expect from Russia, or Southwest Airlines.

Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules?

Yesterday, the beautiful people at Crave put up the latest of my Superhero Diaries.  Before you click through, though, be aware that when it comes to comic book references, this one has a high degree of difficulty. Essentially it’s about a character who is waging this secret war against aliens, pretty much by himself, from his small one-bedroom apartment. When I was reading the books, I couldn’t help but think that in real life, everyone would just assume this guy was bat-shit insane, which is the premise of the piece.   But when I was writing it, it occurred to me that while I’m proficient (like a motherfucker) at Half-witted and Obnoxious, Crazy isn’t really in my repertoire. Luckily I know a guy who doesn’t use toothpaste. 

Some of you may be familiar with friend, commenter, and extremely-large aquatic mammal OG, a.k.a. Occupational Government.  Others of you may meet him at the Wedding of Doom. (If you’re asking yourself, “who is this guy and why is he yelling at me?  More importantly, why is he yelling at me about pancakes?” you’re probably talking to OG, and he can smell your fear.)  And if there are one or two of you left, you probably don’t know me, and your lives are richer for it. (But please keep coming back to the Underpants.)

I could give no description of him that would do him justice, but here’s my favorite story about him: Among our friends, OG is notorious for his unwillingness to touch doorknobs with his hands.  He’ll hit them with his elbows, if need be.  Nor will he touch bathroom sink handles, or the levers on paper towel dispensers.  He is terrified of diseases, and because of it, watching him in a public men’s room is pretty damn funny.*  I asked him about it once, and in the process of explaining, he said, “Just wait.  We’ll see what happens when you go to take a piss right after John Q. Genital Wart got through in there.”  I almost fell out of my chair laughing.  But since that day I have not been able to use a public restroom without thinking of the name John Q. Genital Wart, and I have never again touched any surface in there with my hands (other than my junk.)

The reason I mention all this is because every time I got stuck writing this Superhero Diary, I asked myself, “What would OG say?”  Yet I would bet I didn’t come even close.  So I hereby invite anyone who knows him, as well as the phenomenon himself, to offer their opinions.

*And not gay. 

Hi readers.  Sorry for the long delay between posts - wedding planning has come to the point where the official slogan is “Y’know what?  I don’t fucking care anymore; I just want to go to sleep.”  (I actually brought up the idea that we could pretend to break up for a couple months as sort of a matrimonial “Undo.”  Wonder Woman was not into it, but let’s see how she feels by July.)

Amazingly, something happened to me this weekend that had nothing to do with a wedding: I nearly got into a fight.  And what’s really weird is that I hadn’t done anything.  No, really. (The story that is about to follow is long and not guaranteed to be interesting.  It is, however, the most exciting thing to have happened to me in some time.)

See, it’s not that unusual for people to get pissed off by the things I say.  Here’s what happens: I’m at a party and I manage to say two or three funny things in a row, then I become convinced that I’m the funniest person ever. Once I’m on a roll, I lose any self-awareness that might alert me when I no longer have something funny to say, and like Wile E. Coyote, I’m thirty feet past the cliff edge before I realize I’m in trouble.  Except with me the danger isn’t a cliff; it’s dick jokes.  (Or ethnic humor.  I’m multi-faceted.) But I always know when I’ve pissed in the punch bowl, and this time I know I didn’t say anything too bad. 

Here’s what happened.  I was at a graduation party for a friend of mine, and a woman a few seats away from me asked me about the wedding.  I start talking, and somehow get to my bit about how my vows are going to follow the theme of “Why not.”  I thought she received it well, because she offered an alternate suggestion of “I don’t have anything better to do,” which then gave me the idea of “Any other takers?”  I thought we were brainstorming, but apparently she really meant that in her opinion I was an idiot who really didn’t have anything better to do, because when I wasn’t looking she traded seats with her husband to get away with me.  For the record, I would swear on a stack of Torahs that I had not yet referred to my genetalia.

A little while later I start talking with Fran, a woman next to WW, who was probably in her fifties or sixties and had just become a grandmother a few days previous.  Naturally, I start flirting with her, because this is always a hit with the older ladies, and sure enough Fran loved it.  So I asked her if she was single, because I wanted to know what all of my options were. That’s when the first chick’s husband (to be known henceforth as “The Aggressor”, or “The Douchebag”) leans over and says, “she’s not one of your options.”   My retort: “Huh?”  I had no idea who this guy was, yet he looked very intense, and was obviously making an effort to flex his biceps under his t-shirt.   He repeated, “She’s not one of your options.  Just enjoy your meal,” so I fired back with, “Yeah, okay. Whatever.” (Since then I’ve thought of much cleverer things I could have said, like, “Why don’t you enjoy YOUR meal?”)

I couldn’t get the exchange out of my head.  It seemed like he and Fran knew each other; perhaps she was his aunt, and maybe he was just really protective of her, but did he really think I was hitting on her? And did he really think she’d take me up on it? If so, why’d he have to cockblock me? Total dick move.

The scientist in me demanded that I push his buttons a bit more, so I started listening to Fran’s conversation with WW for a good opportunity to jump in.  When I heard her telling WW to steal one of the centerpieces, I puffed up my chest, deepened my voice, and with a lot of fake aggression, admonished her to stop encouraging my fiancée to commit thievery.  I was extra careful not to swear or proposition her sexually, but even still the guy leans over and tells me that for “the last time,” I need to tone it down.  I ask him what, exactly, he wants me to tone down.  Everything, he says, because no one appreciates my humor.  I beg to differ, because if that were the case, I doubt my blog would have upwards of 30 readers…

I think my favorite line was when I pointed out that I was talking to Fran, not him, and he informed me, “If you’re talking to her, you’re talking to me.” It’s such a great tough-guy thing to say when you’re talking about someone other than a post-menopausal grandmother who is eighteen sheets to the wind and disagreeing with everything you say.  He really looked like he was going to hit me, except I know that anyone who takes themselves that seriously wouldn’t sucker-punch me.  He’d invite me to fight outside, and I’d RSVP with “Regretfully, I will be unable to attend.” (As you can see, wedding planning now controls every thought in my head.)

Just as soon as it began, the Douchebag grabbed his wife and the two of them stormed out of the party.  Meanwhile, Fran and I drank espresso and Sambuca ‘til the wee hours (but nothing happened, I swear), so it’s safe to say that I won that one. Even better, the confrontation completely elevated my status in the party.  I had started out as a marginal attendee, a friend at a family gathering where I knew almost no one, but by the end of the night I’m trading Goodfellas quotes with Uncle Charlie and everyone’s calling me “Fightstarter.” 

What a great night.  (AND I got some great ideas for my wedding vows!)

In theory, when I refer to the Greatest Wedding of All Time I should be talking about my own.  It’s still possible, I guess, but it’s going to take a lot in order to top the wedding I went to last weekend.  It seems so obvious now, but I never realized before what the two elements of a perfect wedding are: a donkey and a water slide.

The wedding was in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.  It’s a great town, where the only downside is the $70 cab ride to get there, although that also keeps the tourism below the point where they would have to build a Senor Frog’s.  There are enough ex-pats and retirees so that if you get lost you know you’ll run into an English speaker sooner or later, but the town still feels like authentic Mexico. (Except for the Starbucks.  And the Dunkin Donuts.  Okay, maybe it wasn’t really “authentic”, but there were several hot dog carts where you could buy corn slathered in mayonnaise that had been sitting in the sun for days, which one girl in our party referred to as “sex in a cup.”  That’s authentic enough for me.)

The best part of town was a house on the outskirts that some friends of the bride had rented.  For $900 per week, they got a three story house with two sundecks, a pool and a waterslide.  There were four girls staying there (one hot) and whenever we went over there they were in swimsuits and (true story, I swear) the hot one was making bacon.  Plates and plates of bacon. I’ve seen heaven, and no one believes me.

What was interesting about the girls staying at the heaven house was that every night they’d get drunk and invite me and my group of friends over, but they next day it would be painfully obvious that we were not welcome anymore.  (It was similar to the beer goggle phenomenon, except applied to our personalities. I’ve decided that they listened to us through beer headphones.)   One time they even left the house right after we showed up, hoping we’d take the hint.  Their plan might have worked if they hadn’t told us how to turn the water slide on.  Oh yeah, AND LEFT A PLATE OF BACON. Surprise surprise - we were still there when they got back.

And then things got even better. Immediately following the wedding ceremony an eight piece mariachi band showed up, along with a donkey carrying a bottle of tequila.  Again: this really happened. The donkey’s name was Benito. At first I thought the donkey was total bullshit - everyone called him “Benito the Tequila Donkey” as if he had some sort of tequila-based talent.  A more appropriate title would have been “Benito the donkey with baskets on his back which could fit a variety of things such as a bottle of tequila.”

The band, the donkey and all of the wedding guests then paraded around the streets of San Miguel in our suits and tuxedos drinking tequila from small clay cups on strings that had been hung around our necks. And while Benito exhibited no additional talents other than the ability to be walked on a leash, he gave the procession an air of spectacle.  We were celebrities; there were parents with kids by the side of the road taking photos.  We weren’t just a bunch of drunken white people who hired a mariachi band and decided to go for a stroll - we were people with a donkey. Make room. 

I figure Wonder Woman and I can top it if I can somehow arrange an appearance by Roy the Beer Gorilla.  The only tricky part will be convincing WW to make room in the budget, but the way I see it, it’s not like anyone is going to be looking at the flowers when there’s a gorilla walking around with a keg strapped to his back.

Okay, so I thought the footage from the Comic-Con would be up right now, but apparently the guys at Crave Online are still burning the midnight oil getting it ready. Surprise, surprise - I require a lot of editing. It sounds like it should be up tomorrow (along with another Superhero Diary!)  Unfortunately, by that time I will already be in the air.  I’m going to Mexico for the wedding of a good friend of mine, and between the sun, tequila and tacos filled with unidentifiable meats, I’m afraid I will be unable to post my incredibly hilarious Comic-Con recap until I return on Monday.  Hopefully somebody will be in a lot of suspense.

In the meantime, make sure to go to Crave sometime after Wednesday and see what they have up there, and I’ll be back soon, having been reminded of the ever-present nightmare of wedding planning.

I didn’t post last week, for which I should be flogged with something soft and not too painful. But where I’m not too reliable for regular or comedic material, I am incredibly dependable when it comes to excuses, so here goes.

First, I’m getting married. That excuses everything, starting with the blank open-mouthed stare I wear 24-7. Nothing can make a man want to be married more than the process of planning a wedding.

Second, I spent most of last week in the throes of my most deep-seeded social anxieties. The fanTAStic people at Crave Online asked me to cover the New York Comic-Con (Comic Convention) for them, and they wanted it done… on camera. [Ed note: Despite the title of this post, the Underpants will not be on TV at all, but “Underpants on the Streaming Video” did not have the same ring to it.]

The last time I did a filmed performance, I played Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (Yes, yes, I was a bottom. Have your laughs, you philistines.) And while I nailed the role - seriously; I killed - this was in sixth grade. There was a good chance I’d be a bit rusty.

My assignment was to provide coverage of any news coming out of the convention and conduct “Man-On-The-Street” interviews with the freaks and weirdos along with any creators who would talk to me for five minutes. To increase my legitimacy, my cameraman would bring a microphone with one of those cubes that identifies what station you’re from. Later I would learn these are called “mic cubes.” Go figure.

I was nervous because, modesty aside, I know I am funny from time to time, but as a writer, it doesn’t matter if it takes me a half hour to find the joke, and I have as much time as I need to edit all the instances of, “Uh, y’know… like… fuck…” that make up most of my small talk. That’s not the case if I’m on camera. Plus I’m bald and not all that good looking. Double Whammy.

But I wasn’t about to let this opportunity go by. I attempted to prepare, but the best idea for a question I had was, “How do you decide which onomatopoeia you’re going to use? Are you ever sitting around thinking, ‘Oh, this is totally time for a Kawhang!’?”  I don’t know why I was worrying with material as golden as that. [Ed note: Late into the convention, I was interviewing random fans when one of the cameramen suggested I ask “If you could be any superhero, who would you be?” First I thought he was asking me, so I said, “Easy. Batman,” but when he explained it again, I realized how perfect of a question it was, and how dumb I had to be not to have thought of it.]

The day of the convention (Friday) I woke up and spent a few hours preparing my body and spirit. First, I drank a lot of caffeine so I’d be talkative. Then I took some Immodium, because caffeine gives me the runs. Then I coated my nuts with Cortaid because caffeine also makes me sweaty and I didn’t want to get chafed. I smelled like ointment and coffee, but I was heading into an environment where I figured that would be the norm.

No matter how much I may consider myself to be a comic book geek, on the relative scale of geekdom I actually think I rate pretty low. I play Magic, but only a couple times a year. I read comics, but I don’t maintain an encyclopedic knowledge of what’s going on in them. I was on my way to the convention and I realized I already had an attitude of snobbish superiority and condescension. I did not think that would work out well for me. Luckily I was listening to my Ipod; at that precise moment a Belle & Sebastian song was immediately followed by They Might Be Giants. I walked into the convention center feeling cooler than absolutely no one.

I’ll end my intro there. As of this post they haven’t put the footage up yet, but as soon as they do I’ll be back with more recap.

 Wednesday night, Wonder Woman and I went to a wine tasting hosted by her alumni society.  I was pretty excited to go, because I’ve never been to an event like that before.  I went to school with 20,000 other people; needless to say, we don’t exactly get the gang back together very often.  I didn’t even go to my high school reunion, because I didn’t know when it was happening and none of my friends thought to let me know they were going.  (They did report back, however, to let me know that - and I quote - “only Asian chicks age well.” Thanks, fellas.) 

There were probably 25 people at the wine tasting.  They all had on name tags with their names followed by the year they graduated, except for me; I just had a blank space next to my name.  I arrived before Wonder Woman, and as I was standing about, trying to assume the stance of someone who attended a small east coast liberal arts school (feet at ninety degree angle to suggest fencing training; brow furrowed to suggest contemplation, reinforced by goatee rubbing) one guy came up to me and asked me if I was still in school.  To which I replied, “Nope!  Just here for the drankin’!”  (I really suck at small talk.)

Here is my impression of an alumni society gathering: no one knows each other, so people spend a lot of time talking about buildings.  That’s kinda it.  But that’s also how I heard that Wonder Woman’s professors would regularly invite students over to their houses for dinners, which I find fascinating, because I would not have been able to recognize my professors from less than three hundred feet away.  I bet that instead of A’s and B’s Wonder Woman’s grade was equal to the number of marshmallows her professor put in her cocoa. 

While I was excited to go to my first reunion, I was just as excited, if not more so, for the wine tasting.  No, not because I like drinking (though I do…immensely…) but because I don’t know dick about wine, and I appreciate any opportunity I have to learn how to be more condescending. I have good company: from what I gathered, the entire wine industry is based on people trying to sound smarter than everybody else.

The sommelier had laid out five different wines.  The first was a “sparkling,” which is what pretentious people call champagne that wasn’t made in Champagne.  Personally, I call it “Horny Fiancee Juice.” The second was a white wine. All I know about white wines is that when my friend John Law (who introduced me to the concept of a “sparkling”) drinks them, I get to make jokes about him being gay. The third was a rose’, which make white wines look like Ray Lewis, and the last two were reds of some sort. 

I asked the sommelier what the reasoning was behind the progression.  He looked confused.  I asked him what spectrum the wines covered.  More confusion.  I asked him what we were drinking these wines with each other, and he said, “Oh, I just thought they’d go well together.”  I mean, c’mon - TRY a little.  The least he could do is give me some long-winded explanation that involved the words “dry,” “full-bodied” and “tannins.”  I mean, shit, there had to have been an “oaky nose” or “hints of raspberry” somewhere, right?

Nope.  He told me that all of that was just meaningless fluff put out by wine makers; pure marketing.  Then he asked me what I did for a living; I told him I was in marketing.  He suddenly noticed two people with empty glasses at the other end of the table. (I really, really suck at small talk.)

It reminded me of the only other wine tasting I’ve to.  I wasn’t even twenty-one at the time, and my friend Big Game James was seeing (read: occasionally hotrailing) a hostess at a restaurant.  She and one of the waitresses had been invited to a tasting held by six or seven vineyards, and they invited Big Game, who in turn invited me. Then, at the first table, the girls thought it would be funny to introduce me as the owner of their place.  Here I am, twenty years old, in sneakers, and I’ve got a bunch of people giving me wine and kissing my ass.  I played the part, too: if I liked a wine, I’d ask the proprietor how much it would cost for a dozen cases, because I thought it would go great with the new lamb dish we were rolling out. 

By the last couple of tables I was hammered.  Each vineyard brought several wines with them; I am nothing if not thorough, and over the course of the afternoon my character had…evolved a bit.  I’d started out as a young, successful businessman, but by table four I was a significantly wealthy eccentric, a member of the nouveau riche with Silicon Valley millions.  My restaurant was merely one of my many expensive hobbies, and with my wealth I no longer felt the need to be constrained by societal norms.  To be clear: I wasn’t being an obnoxious dickhead because I was drunk; I was doing it because I’m a very good actor. 

That’s when one vintner told me that I had probably noticed his wine’s “chocolate aftertaste.”  Uh oh.  I looked at him and said, “Y’know, I gotta tell ya [one of the societal constraints my character rejected was proper English] I don’t know shit about wine.  I just know what I like, and my customers seem to like it too. [I was really on a roll.] Now a bunch a’ you [I gestured grandly, probably spilling wine] have mentioned some ‘chocolate aftertaste.’ But I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.  There’s nothin’ about this wine that tastes like chocolate.” 

The winemaker replied, “Do you notice that film that you get in your mouth after you eat chocolate?” I told him I did.  I did not mention that I find it disgusting. “Well, the wine leaves a similar film.”  I pointed out that it was quite a stretch to relate the flavor of chocolate to the nasty, sticky saliva feel it leaves in your mouth.  I did this by saying, “Really?  Wow.  That’s some bullshit right there.”  Big Game and the ladies suggested it was time to leave.  Good times, good times. 

Something tells me I’m not going to be invited to many more wine tastings…