Penned by an 11-year-old girl to a 12-year-old boy in 1996:
The boy is now a man who is happily engaged to another man. The girl is now a woman who hoards boxes of L’Oreal Red Copper #RR07, and wipes her tears on dead hamsters.
Is bubbling “i”s still a thing? Or vintage?
Lastly, “than.”
I love everything about TV.
The great educator.
We have the power to put absolutely anyone on TV and have them argue inane political points. What does the actor who plays Doctor Oz have to say about the mortgage crisis? What does the actress who plays Nancy Grace, an over caffeinated member of the PTA, have to say about a trial in Florida? We line up the wackos, shove them in front of a camera, and let the public decide if they like what’s said. We, the audience, pick our allegiances as if we were picking sports teams to root for.
What nutjob really identifies me as a person?
Over 8 million people choose the cranky, argumentative old man at the back of the church — playing the role of Bill O’Reilly — to capture the hearts of viewers everywhere.
Several million others choose the crazy bird man behind Circle K — in the role of Glenn Beck — to inform them of the ever-changing state of reality.
The problem is, these award-winning performers are being cast against type. They’re arguing about serious, life-or-death issues. They’re chimpanzees debating the moralistic cost of the post-industrial revolution. They’re arguing about the Debt Ceiling. They’re trying to convert you Steelers fans to Ravens fans. No one’s going to switch sides, here. When’s the last time you argued someone out of being a democrat/republican/conspiracy-theorist?
“Just cut public welfare spending and no one gets hurt!”
They try so hard. God bless them. I love to hear these maniacs fight to stay in character, back and forth. I especially enjoy watching their shows with judicious use of the mute button. Here is what I’ve learned by watching the Bill O’Reilly sitcom “The Factor” and Glenn Beck’s dark episodic drama, “Glenn Beck”:
a) Superhuman intellectuals (“liberals”) are out to murder, sodomize, and rob the hard-working american public – this is probably the result of illegal drug use and stand-up comedian Al Gore.
b) Bill and Glenn look like a goblin and an orc, respectively.
c) The price of chocolate is being manipulated by a nefarious secret society, headed up by a shape-shifting creature known as George Soros who drinks the blood of hedge fund managers.
d) Illegal aliens in America (aka the guys who work at Burger King) are plotting to take over the American economic and judicial system.
e) The man in charge of America was born on the continent of Africa, and this is a very bad thing.
f) Devout religious zealots are plotting to murder random civilians in a quest to acquire 40 virgins – they walk among you.
Not all of which are untrue!
But seriously, Billy, what’s your day-to-day life like? Do you wake up happy to be alive? Do you look over your shoulder on the way to Starbucks? Do you “keep an eye” on Miguel at Jack in the Box? (I would, because if he has any sense at all, Miguel is going to spit a gigantic loogie in your Sourdough Jack) Do you scan the television looking for demonic socialists propagating their left wing Stalin-esque agenda?
Sounds exhausting.
So I invite you and Glenn to come visit me in Venice Beach. I swear, none of that shit you’re terrified of is happening here. The only thing you have to watch out for is the crazy man near Radio Shack who smells awful as he mutters about the price of corn into a mailbox slot.
I MUST SAY, GENTLEMEN, I GENERALLY DISAPPROVE OF YOUR VULGAR LANGUAGE!
What really grinds my gears is the wanton cursing that goes on in these shows. They’re using the C-word again. The last time we got C-word crazy, millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians, Central Americans, Cubans, and North Americans died. Hundreds of screenwriters and directors and actors were censored. Not all of whom were C-words, most were just assholes (ex: Bay of Pigs).
GOD HELP US ALL if these circus performers ever start using the t-word. Because if the birdman and the goblin start accusing others of TERROR (definition: causing scary thoughts) then we’re really ass-backward and up against the wall. Who knows how many will die in the process. We’ll be OK if we don’t let the lunatics decide our next move.
OSAMA IS DEAD! It only took ________ innocent lives! That’s _____ less than the number of innocent people Osama killed or would kill.
I genuinely do not know the numbers. I am bad at math. I won’t even attempt to calculate an equation. It’s way more complicated than I understand. I’ll leave it to the more educated. I’ll argue about what I know best, words and lunatics.
The problem was never that we didn’t know things were fucked up.
The problem is that we don’t know how to unfuck things.
That’s okay to not know. There are smarter people out there. So Bill, Glenn, Jon, Stephen, Nancy, Anderson — all you bastards — be fucking nice when you talk about other people. Tone it down. Watch your mouth. We don’t know what to do about it either, and that is all right. Take one deep breath. Enroll in a sailing class, you never know what you like until you try it.
I just don’t want anyone to get hurt.
(Pease note that while most of the stuff in here are my ideas/thoughts, there are a few things I cannot take credit for–either friends or random pick-up artists said it first, and I simply made it a part of my repertoire. Ex: I don’t know who coined it, but the line “Are you single?” I heard from someone else; but it’s still awesome nonetheless.)
In light of the emails I’ve been getting from readers, along with some texts/emails from friends, I have decided to unveil everything about my approach to going out and picking up women. What I am about to write is the result of over a decade of experience, which includes several hundred hook-ups: make-outs, blowjobs, sex, rimjobs. But if I do the math on my number of rejections, it works out like this:
Take away the handful of months I’ve been in relationships, and I’ve been active in “the game” for about ten years. There are just over eight weekend nights–Friday and Saturday–in a given month. Of those nights, along with a random Thursday here and there, it’s safe to say I’ve hit the bar/club/party scene approximately five nights a month for the past ten years. These adventures were full of successes and failures, but let’s focus on my 0-fers. On a normal night out, I’ll get rejected by an average of 12 girls. Multiply 12 by five nights, and you get 60 girls a month that give me weird looks, tell me to fuck off, ignore me altogether, or call me creepy. Sixty girls a month multiplied by 12 months and that’s 720 girls in a year. Multiply that by 10 years, and I’m looking at the daunting figure of 7,200 rejections in my lifetime. And I’d say it’s probably more, but we’ll say 7,200 to be safe.
In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell wrote that to become an expert at something, you need 10,000 hours of experience. Because 7,200+ isn’t quite that high–nor do they count as hours–I’m technically not an “expert.” But that doesn’t mean I can’t offer something to all the single men out there wondering how a guy like me is getting chicks. Once again, my fuck-ups are your gain.
My good friend Baba said it best: “Dave, it’s not so much your game that gets you action. You’ve simply learned how to handle rejection.” Before heading out, I have come to accept the fact that I will get turned down by numerous women. I can offer all kinds of clichés about Michael Jordan missing the most shots, and Thomas Edison inventing the light bulb on his twelve-hundredth try, but until you’re able to understand that failure is a good thing, you’ll forever remain another frustrated masturbator.
The venue is almost as important as your mentality. I recommend only going to bars and clubs that have different sections–a hallway, a patio, a dance floor, a bathroom area, and generally a place with lots of corners where you can post up. It doesn’t have to be the biggest joint; it just has to have structure. Handling rejection here is a lot easier–because if you get turned down, you can move on to another area, and your mind has a way of convincing you that no one saw; you’re golden. If you go to those stupid bars that are one huge room (places like San Diego and Europe are unfortunately loaded with these rectangular arenas of flaccid dicks, dry vaginas, and dancing confusion), getting rejected is a huge ordeal because if a girl shoots you down, your mind annoyingly reminds you: “You just got royally shat on, and everybody saw, you loser.” There is a psychology to this one-big-room theory that probably goes back to the caveman days, but that’s just a theory (though I bet cavemen picked up more cave chicks in the woods than in the plains).
I’ve heard the case for a guy’s style going a long way with women, and that’s complete bullshit. If you’re dating her, I can understand having a deep wardrobe and nice shoes, but the rules are different for a basic night out. As long as you don’t look like a medieval Star Trek character, your charisma will override all. If anything, wearing designer shit will raise your chances maybe 4% and give you the benefit of the doubt if she’s on the fence about going home with you. If you’re new at this, yes, go out and get nice clothes to get this 4% boost. Just make sure that you feel comfortable and confident in whatever it is you decide to wear. I’ve worn the wrinkliest outfits known to man and still taken home a ton of attractive women (I still don’t even own an iron).
As for other miscellaneous issues, make sure you always have a condom in your wallet, and always bring gum (and start chewing it after your first or second drink). To avoid accidentally washing excess gum you left in your pants, thus fucking up your pockets along with your roommate’s dryer, I recommend having a couple sticks of gum in one of your wallet slips at all times (and don’t get the squarish chiclet kind; get the black 5-series gum–that shit is so everlastingly scrumptious that one time I passed out with it in my mouth and the next morning it still tasted good).
It’s amazing how many guys go out looking to get laid, yet don’t understand the dynamics of how the night works. They end up getting sloshed by eleven, which results in them slurring gobbledygook to a handful of girls, and then they wonder the next morning what went wrong. Time breaks down as such:
(Note: These times are for California only. +1 hour for Vegas. +3 hours for Europe)
9:00-10:00 p.m.- The place is usually empty, and everyone is sober. If you arrive in this time frame, relax, have a drink, and party with your crew. It’s very important to go through this “social warm-up” with your friends before talking to girls. It heightens your mood and prepares you for more animated interactions when you finally do begin conversing with women. Note: Unless you’re some sort of alcoholic outlier, I don’t recommend drinking until after 9 p.m.–college is over.
10:00-11:15 – The place will be full by eleven, but it’s still too early to start hitting on chicks. If you start talking to them now, you’ll have to hang out with them for over two hours before they’ll actually leave with you–plus they’re still sober and worried about being judged by their monkey-brain friends. Relax, keep drinking, blacklist girls who came with tough guys, and enjoy spending time with your entourage. Let all the douches and dorks hit on girls during this time. This way, when you talk to her later on, your awesomeness looks even more superior. It’s still okay to talk to girls at this point, but just plant seeds. Keep the conversation under three minutes, then high five them and tell them you’ll see them around.
11:15-12:30 — Primetime. This is the peak of the night, and the best window to meet girls, reconvene with any girls you’d talked with earlier, dance (if that’s your thing), get numbers, make out, and take women home. You should not be shitfaced at this point. A powerful buzz is optimal.
12:30-closing — If you’re still 0-fer at this point, you’ve probably blown it, but keep pushing. You never know; new chicks could show up. Either way, it’s perfectly acceptable to be hammered at this point–because there’s always a lurking 45-year-old hag who wants your whiskey dick in her garage.
Let’s say that you, me, and another guy-friend are at a prototypical bar or nightclub–with good structure. We’ve come here knowing that half our time will be spent shooting the shit, the other half talking to girls. Our entourage of three isn’t needy and won’t whine if they get ditched because you’re off talking to chicks; we can all handle ourselves. The guy-girl ratio is a solid 1:1, about 200 girls, 200 guys. Even though they just started blasting Ke$ha’s latest hit, the place is the shit. We’ve been making fun of people for the past hour and a half. The time is currently 11:15. We’re all on our third and fourth drinks and a heroic buzz is dancing through our systems, feeling the music, feeling the euphoria of our freedom. It’s time to begin.
Quick note: When I actually approach women, I never carry wingmen–because depending on a wingman to help your game is like bringing your private tutor into class on test day for motivation. They can’t help you; all they can do is sit there and stare. If you want a girl, go after her. Unless the situation blatantly calls for it (her friend wants your friend, or your friend wants her friend etc) the “wingman” actually hurts you in the long run, because before you realize it, you start depending on them for courage. Become a wanderer like me, and you’ll never look back.
The first 0-fer is always the toughest, but once you get that first rejection out of the way, you’ve ignited the engine. Nothing can stop you.
From all my years of people watching at bars and clubs, I’d say that only about 15% of guys actively hit on girls. Another 15% are in committed relationships and are there solely to drink and hang with friends. Then there’s the other 70% who are single and out with their friends, yet have an underlying desire to meet women and munch some serious rug. You can see it in their eyes. Sadly, these guys never even give themselves a chance. They hang around the group all night long, become mesmerized by the gogo dancers, watch sports highlights on the bar TV, talk about depressing topics like work and money, make a couple empty rounds through the bar, and then drunkenly return to their computers to masturbate to lesbian porn, ultimately crashing out, wishing they had abs of steel–as if that’s the problem.
Fuck that. Get out there and make something happen. Get rejected! What I do is I’ll spot a girl standing/sitting by herself, or a girl riding the caboose of her six-chick train snaking through the hallway, and I’ll speak in her ear. It doesn’t matter what you say, just say it clearly. If you need to repeat yourself, you’ve lost your power. Say anything–“Where’d you get those boots?” “Is that a mini cherry hanging from your belly button ring?”* “What’s going on with that necklace?” Anything. She is going to reject you. Who cares? You’re only using her as a tool to spark the fire.
*These were my first words to a super-hottie at the Flamingo pool this last weekend. We partied all day. We fucked later that night. Unfortunately she wasn’t crazy, so I can’t write about her.
When my naïve and inexperienced friends watch me hit on girls, for some reason they always ask me the same question: “What did you say to her?”
Not until the later part of my twenties did I realize that it doesn’t matter what you say, it’s how you say it. The cliché is true. If you talk confidently, like a man in control who doesn’t give a fuck either way of what happens, she’ll respond to you. If you speak like a seventh grader meekly asking out big-titties-Wendy to the dance, she’ll see a guy who feels unworthy, isn’t sure of himself, and has no idea how to please a woman. She’ll politely answer your question and then tell you she needs to find her friends.
But let’s assume you have your confidence, and we’re back at the Ke$ha-blasting bar. You’ve already gotten that first rejection out of the way and are about to wander from your group to talk to girls. But before doing so, picking which girls to hit on is a tricky process. I tend to stay away from girls who are in groups of three or more. Even if your dream girl is a part of that group, steer clear for the time being. Her friends are loaded with all kinds of negative energy–one of the girls is on her period, one is fat and jealous she never gets attention, one is having texting fights with her boyfriend, and one of them wants to get laid but doesn’t yet have a strategy. There are some “experts” I’ve read who have all sorts of techniques involving magic and fabricated mind games in order to engage large groups of girls like this. Fuck that; it’s way too much work.
The best girls to go after are the ones ordering drinks alone, or sitting down alone, or leaning against a post alone (if you’re in Vegas, watch out, most of these alone-girls are hookers). Basically any girl who is by herself gives you the greatest probability of success. She isn’t worried about being judged and is more inclined to be herself. Sometimes there are girls who are a part of a group but are sort of standing out of their circle of friends. Go after them as well. She’s not in the circle because she’s probably sick and tired of all the whining. You are a breath of fresh air in her world of bitchiness. Ask her, “What are your friends arguing about?” Watch her vent.
Again, it doesn’t really matter what you say. If you’re looking for actual examples, check out my picture blogI wrote a couple years ago. Most of the time when I hit on alone-girls, my line is “Why are standing here trying to act all mysterious?” Other times I’ll simply ask, “Who are you?” Or I’ll find something unique about their outfit and tease her about it. Never compliment her. Leave that to the frustrated masturbators. Real men make fun of women.
The opening line isn’t your make-or-break moment. Whether you can maintain your composure and keep the conversation fun is what matters. I rarely ask a girl her name because that’s what every other nerd is asking her. Names don’t matter until you program her number into your phone.
Some gems I like to ask girls in the middle of a conversation:
“What color are your eyes? Sorry, it’s dark in here.”– Notice I didn’t tell her I liked her eyes. I’m just asking her the color, making her prove herself to me, as well as showing that I care about details. After she tells me the color, I’ll reply with, “Oh, okay.” (She has to earn her compliments.)
“Did you used to have braces when you were little?”-This is as close a compliment as she gets. You’re implying that she has nice teeth and a nice smile without actually saying it, yet you still leave her to wonder if you even approve. If you came out and said, “I love your smile,” congratulations, you’ve just been pigeonholed with the other 5,000 guys who told her that. Be original; be mysterious with your questions.
“Is that your natural hair color?”-This one won’t win any awards, but it again shows you’re paying attention to details other than her tits, ass, and stomach. Girls like guys who notice and care about the little things.
“What’s up with the_______?”-Whatever is slightly confusing or strange about her outfit/shoes/accessories, comment on it–this can be used as an opener also. Make her defend herself. Make her prove herself to you, not the other way around. And besides, girls enjoy explaining their fashion idiosyncrasies.
“Are you single?”or
“Are you married?”Every other moron is asking if they have a boyfriend, but you’re not like other guys. The single question also has a much more confident vibe than the boyfriend question. Asking her if she’s married is also effective, because chances are she’s not (because you’ve secretly already checked her ring finger), and she’ll be happy to inform you of her status. Plus if she has a boyfriend, the married question gives her the opportunity hide this from you: “Nope, I’m not married (but I do have a kind-of boyfriend I’m not telling you about).” Immediately after asking this question, grab her left hand and bring it up so you can check for a wedding ring. You’ve now broken the seal to physical contact and hereby opened the door to other advances–hand-holding, waste-grabbing, shoulder-wrapping, butt-slapping, etc.
Final Note: Don’t be the one to ask all the questions, or you’ll come off as needy no matter how awesome your voice tone and confidence is. After you’ve done your share of question-asking, it’s her turn. She needs to prove herself with her conversation skills, so when you feel the time is right, allow for silence, and look around as if searching for something more interesting. If she’s into you, she’ll ask you a question. If she remains silent and sort of looks the other direction, move on. You aren’t her type; she was just being nice.
You’ve probably noticed that 90% of the time you buy a girl a drink, she’s gone within ten minutes. I’ve learned this the hard way many times, and I still flub up from time to time. This is a tough rule to follow, but an important one: Unless you’ve already made out with her, do NOT buy her a drink. If your drink is empty, don’t put yourself in the situation where you need to buy a new drink with her by your side; you’ll look like an ass if you get a drink solely for yourself. Either make her buy your drink and say you’ll get the next one, or wait ‘til she has to go to the bathroom and sneakily buy yourself a drink when she isn’t looking (if she asks where you got it, tell her a friend got it for you). Let all the desperate fartknockers buy them drinks, but not you. Buying her a drink communicates the following: I am like every other bozo trying to get into your pants, so please accept my drink as a token of my fake generosity. My balls officially belong to you; you own me.
There are a ton of books out there on body language–none of which I’ve read. If you’re a complete buffoon, go buy one–or just read the following that I’ve learned from countless hours of real experience. It’s simple really: Act disinterested in the beginning; start showing interest 5-10 minutes in, and after that it doesn’t even matter–if she’s still talking to you, she wants you. So when you first approach a girl, do not square your shoulders so you’re completely facing her. She might be squaring hers toward you, but you need to play it like you’re only staying temporarily, and at any second may get bored of her and leave. So keep your body facing away from hers and allow her to wow you with her answers to your absurdly intellectual questions. As the conversation progresses, gradually start to square your shoulders in her direction, but only if she’s earned it.
When either of you is speaking, always hold your eye contact. If her pupils are dilated, she’s attracted to you. If all you see is iris, she probably isn’t digging you, but don’t leave yet; there’s still hope.
Signs of interest:
-Dilated pupils.
-She plays with her hair or necklace.
-Her legs are crossed toward you.
-She’s smiling a lot.
-She squeezes/feels your arms, chest, or shoulders (she wants to feel your hot muscles).
-Her shoulders are squared toward you–even if she’s talking to someone else.
-While talking with someone else, she frequently glances back at you.
-She does a double take (when she sees you for the first time).
-She subtly ignores her friends when they leave the area or check to see if she’s “OK.”
-You take her hand; she holds it.
Signs of disinterest:
-She hasn’t asked you a single question.
-Her body isn’t squared toward you.
-Her legs are crossed away from you.
-Folded arms.
-She continuously glances in every which direction.
-She isn’t smiling at all, or if she is, it’s forced (she’s being nice).
-She doesn’t play with her hair when she knows you’re standing behind her.
-She “needs to find her friends.”
There are exceptions to everything, but really stay cognizant of the disinterest signals so you don’t waste your time. It always amuses me watching clueless guys hang around girls who obviously aren’t into them, and they sort of hover there like shadows until the poor girls have to lie and tell them they have a boyfriend. If she doesn’t dig you, accept your rejection and move on.
One of the worst things you can do is meet a girl, develop attraction, talk with her forever, and never make a single move. If you are one of these imbeciles, you are officially a “nice guy.” Time to change your ways.
Within the first ten minutes, you should have played the are-you-single card and brought her hand up to check for a ring. That first contact goes a long way. There are many ways to escalate things after the initial “touch.” One easy way is to dance with her, though I only resort to that if her friends are nearby. Do whatever it takes to get away from cockblockers.
Basically, if you sense her body language is positive toward you, she’s into you. Or if she’s still talking to you and hasn’t yet invented an excuse to ditch you, she probably likes you. At some point, grab her hand and be playful with it, or put your arm around her waist, or simply put your hand on the small of her back while she orders drinks. Depending on the girl, give her butt a nice smack or grab a chunk of hair from the back of her head–underneath and close to the scalp–and give a quick tug (Be careful with this one, and don’t try it until you’ve got some serious experience under your belt). Girls will actually get angry when they’re digging a guy, and he keeps asking her boring questions about work, never making any physical advances. Be a man. Take control.
Quick note: Skipping over the escalation stage is not an option. If you expect to kiss her, you need to have had some form of physical advancement beforehand.
Girls want to hook up just as much, if not more than guys. If she’s still with you, she wants it. Only problem is, it’s up to the guy to make it happen. A cheap way to get it done is on the dance floor. When your face gets close to hers and she doesn’t move, go in for the kiss.
Otherwise, if you’re simply chilling with her at the bar, or hallway, or table, or random corner, my move is as such: While she’s facing me, I’ll take her hand (or both hands) and wrap our hands around her back. Then I’ll pull her in. If her face stays in line with mine, she wants to make out. I move in. Done deal.
You don’t even need to do the hand move. Girls want the guy to take control–because she’s the woman and you’re the man. So if you know she’s into you, just grab her waist, pull her in, and start making out.
As stated in previous blogs, I have other go-to moves as well:
“One strategy that has yet to fail me is the post-bathroom kiss. After a bathroom break, either she’ll be waiting or I’ll be waiting. If I’m waiting, I’ll lean mysteriously against a wall, and when she exits the bathroom, I’ll grab her hand, pull her face in close, smile, remain silent, and start kissing her. If she’s waiting, I’ll exit the bathroom, walk up to her, smile, remain silent, and start kissing her. One hundred percent success rate so far.” The reason this method is so effective is because if you’ve done everything right up to this point, then five minutes away from each other in bar/club time is like two days in relationship time. She misses you dearly in that little trickle break and doesn’t want to lose you, so when you see her again (especially if she was the one waiting for you), she’s going to want your tongue down her throat.
Excerpt from Scandinavian Rampage: “There comes a moment in every one-night-stand when you can safely grab a girl by the hand and lead her out without resistance. Often times this window is disguised in the form of ‘Buy me another drink’ or ‘My friends are talking to some guys’ or a pouty face or a swift cock grab.”
There is no way to put this in writing except that you know when you know. If you’ve already gotten her number and have been chatting and making out all night, it’s time for you to do the decision-making for her–since most girls are incapable of such a task.
If it’s a situation where hotels are involved, I’ll ask her, “Do you have any beer in your room.” If it’s a situation where her house is nearby, I’ll ask her, “Do you have any wine at your place?” Other times I’ll simply take her hand, give it a good yank, and say, “Let’s go,” and lead her out–back to my place. As long as you don’t make it obvious that sex is expected, and you don’t make her out to be a whore, they usually follow along. If they resist, then you probably made the move too early; or she just doesn’t do one-nighters. Text her within the next two days and capitalize then.
Everything I’ve written is just a slice of the night scene dynamic. And the only way to get good at this stuff is to get out there and fuck up, over and over and over. You can read every book out there; you can listen to the best advice, or ask your experienced friends all the questions you like, but until you’re ready to start talking to real life women, you’ll never get anywhere. Before you know it those 0-fers will start to become 1 and 2-fers. It’s not about getting laid either, it’s about making a better life for you. I’ve found that the more I learn about women, the better I am in the dating world, and the more complete of a man I’ll be to my future wife. Most won’t admit it, but girls appreciate a guy who’s been with a lot of women–because he understands them, and more importantly, he knows how to act like a man when the time arises.
It’s a fun ride, the single life. And it seems every day I learn something new about the mystical chasm between man and woman. Our relationship is infinite…
As a child, did you think you were mentally handicapped and no one was telling you? I did.
In fourth grade, I received a scholarship to a fancy/expensive sleep away camp for my achievements in Hebrew class. In general I wasn’t a top student, and quit every extracurricular activity attempted. It seemed that I was much better suited for making Barbies and Norfin Trolls have sex behind the shed. Sure, I could grumble my Israeli Rs with the best of them, but didn’t believe I deserved an award for anything besides number of boogers collected on the wall beside my bed.
That night, the night I won the award, I slept beneath the watchful eyes of Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Devin Sawa like always, but was eventually shaken to consciousness by an alarming realization. I am mentally challenged and no one is telling me. Or I’m too mentally challenged to understand that I’m mentally challenged. It explained why I’d swallowed pennies as a toddler, couldn’t retain the rules of kickball and was convinced a giraffe had entered the house anytime my mom said “do you feel a draft?” This scholarship didn’t recognize my academic excellence, it rewarded me for being average against the odds.
I stayed up for hours, hugging my knees to my chest, recounting all the clues to my abnormality. For one, I was the only redhead in my class, and I sprouted my first pubic hairs (also red) in kindergarten. I showed them to my bumper bowling team in the back of my mom’s Pacifica on the way to a game. A loud “ewwwww” resounded through the family wagon, and I tucked them away with red (typical) cheeks and haste. At my 5th birthday party I commanded my friends to gather in the backyard and scream “surprise!” upon my entrance. Though the beginning of my plan rolled out with perfection, I scurried back into the house and wailed into the couch. It was more terrifying than anticipated. Around the same time, I decided that I loved my dogs so much, that I’d try to be one of them. So I proudly dropped to my hands and knees and shared a bowl of kibble with my beloved Australian Shepherd/Lab mix. It was salty and crunchy and annihilated my innards. I thought, what would Daisy do? So I swallowed a few handfuls of grass then soaked a hibiscus bush with vomit. It’s these types of poor decisions that proved I had a problem.
I purposely concealed any knowledge of my mental malady, mainly because I enjoyed the attention and also because I’d been taught that special needs kids are cool too. All the “I love yous” and the “I’m so proud of yous” that so often departed from my parents’ mouths were out of sympathy, and I didn’t want it to end. My mother would embrace me and sing “the most beautiful girl in the world, Rebecca Pardess, yes,” and everyone’s unconditional kindness began to make sense. I was special, different and could now sit out of P.E. with ease. I attended private school and went to a different synagogue than my friends. At the age of nine, I had found my true self.
Summer approached and my anxiety built around the reality of leaving for three weeks, knowing absolutely no one, in the “wilderness” of Ojai, California. Would the camp staff know of my disability? Or did all the campers share this same challenge? I knew I wouldn’t find out until I arrived, but the anticipation was torturous.
The day came — My first time at sleep away camp! My mom drove me to a parking lot where parents pushed their children onto yellow school buses. In my cut off shorts, white t-shirt, camel work boots, one blue scrunchy sock and one purple scrunchy sock, I embarked and sat next to a tiny boy with translucent skin and hair redder than mine. “He’s just like me,” I thought, then felt my chin quiver as my parents waved goodbye, smiling larger than I’d ever seen before.
After two hours of sobbing surrounded by raucous throughout what seemed to be the vessel of nightmares, we arrived at a large, hilly expanse of grass and a flag pole. I disembarked and before I could get my bearings, a brunette lady who I could have sworn was at least 48, but was actually 19, charged me, grabbed my hand and said “Hi Rebecca! Welcome to Camp Ramah!” and somehow, everyone started singing the same song. How did she know my name? Why didn’t I know the song? Just how many sunflowers were in her hair? Oh, right.
Entering the cabin full of strange girls, I had no idea what to do or say, par for the course for a person like me. With my head towards the floor, I sauntered to my lower bunk, near the cabin’s side door. I knew it was mine because it said so on a 3 foot long, orange strip of construction paper.
Being a conservative Jewish camp, we’d wake up and thank God for it. Then we’d eat, but first we’d pray about it. Then we’d pray after eating because we ate, and how wonderful that we could do such a thing. Before free time, we’d pray for the grass and having legs for running or something, then talk to God a little more before going for a swim because “he” made it possible for a rich Jew to buy acres of farm land, hire some other minority to dig a hole in it, fill it up with water and dunk a few chlorine tablets in it every few days.
And of course, we prayed before bed, which involved terrible hand holding and singing. At two weeks in, I still hadn’t found a clique. I was alone and felt like an outsider. I reasoned that life had dealt me this card, and I had to play it. Later that summer I’d be taking my first trip to Hawaii, and while discussing it with my bunkmate before lights out I asked, “Do they use American dollars there?”
“Are you stupid?!” she snapped. “What are you, a retard?” I was taken aback at first, but glad that someone had brought my impairment to light. That blonde, stocky girl with pit stains the size of pancakes may have been a bitch, but at least she acknowledged the giant giraffe in the cabin, and I wasn’t afraid anymore. Or so I thought.
That night, all 15 girls finally fell asleep, the cabin was quiet, the counselors snoozing in their nook off to the side. At 3 in the morning, suddenly roused by a scratch at the door, my eyes burst open as I was confronted by the treachery of the woods. It was a bear, no, a mountain lion! Wait, a buffalo! The creature scratched again, and with every frightened fiber in my 10-year-old being, I shot up, ran to a counselor’s bedside and screamed bloody murder directly in her rat face. She responded by shrieking ax-swinging hell back at me, and we promptly woke the entire camp from its summer slumber.
It was a cat.
In my three weeks at Camp Ramah, I managed to avoid making any lifelong friendships, get a bee sting by trying to feel the texture of an interesting rock and learn the trials and tribulations of life with a cognitive deficiency.
About a year after faking my ignorance of my “shortcoming”, I realized that extreme awkwardness and apathy did not mean I had a handicap. I then figured that many people with actual inborn challenges didn’t use them as an excuse to get out of kickball or be frightened by a nocturnal house pet, and that I was actually quite the ass hole.
(This happened last summer, but in the excitement of another upcoming Euro trip to Croatia and Russia, I am just now posting this…)
The time had come. Punchline and I had waited a year since our summer trips of ’09 to get back on an airplane, ditch the uncharacteristically cloudy California summer, and fly to the land of green landscape, midnight sun, no religion, expensive beers, and beautiful women: Scandinavia.
We arrived in Copenhagen on a Wednesday afternoon, tired and grimy from fourteen hours of flying. We’d each slept no more than two hours on the plane, so after checking into our hotel, we crashed with the intention of waking up around eleven to begin partying on the first of four nights in Denmark’s capital. There would be no wasted nights in Copenhagen, the second biggest party city in Scandinavia behind Stockholm.
We spent the days in Copenhagen exploring the city with its array of gardens, and we took a boat tour through the canals. The women were so hot that at one point while sitting alone on a bench, I decided to do a study on the next thirty blonde girls (which I assumed to be Danish) between the approximate ages of 18-35 who walked by. Eleven of the thirty were hot, an unbelievable ratio. Since I was sober, I was picky, too. Two friends of mine, Harrison and Axe, had been to Scandinavia and told me “one in every three girls is hot,” but I was highly skeptical and dismissed their absurd claims. Now that I’d seen it for myself, I felt like calling them up and giggling like a circus monkey. Scandinavia is the shit.
There are many theories on why Scandinavian people are so beautiful. One is that the Vikings were very selective in which women they fucked, only mating with the finest. Another theory is that in the middle decades of the twentieth century the countries incorporated a strict Eugenics program–prevalent mostly in Sweden and Norway–in which the government sterilized the mentally and physically inadequate. Whatever it was, Scandinavians–thought by many to be “some of the happiest people in the world”–had evolved well.
I’d come to Scandinavia expecting a total fuckfest, with chicks flocking to my darker features and California roots. Things didn’t start well. The first two nights were a total bust. We overspent on alcohol, couldn’t find a single bar with people over the age of twenty-one, and got continuously bad recommendations on hotspots.
I headed into the third night with a flashback of my disastrous 0-for-129 first week in Australia a year ago. After updating my Facebook status and informing everyone that I’d completely blown it so far, Harrison and Axe suggested I “lose the sleazy weirdness” and just talk to girls normally. I planned on taking their advice as Punchline and I hit up a popular club on the outskirts of town. It was Friday, so we expected a better crowd. To our dismay, the club was still packed with kids. I put it past me for a moment and began talking to girls “normally.” On one girl I used the line, “What are you drinking?” To another I said, “How’s it going?” And lastly, “What’s up?” They all failed. Nothing was working. I was never going to hook up with a single Scandinavian woman at the rate I was going. Punchline and I were out of there by two a.m.
The night was still young. Lacking options, we had the cab driver take us back to the kid-infested bar area where we could only hope for the best. Then I remembered something Punchline had researched earlier online. Though it’s hard to trust Internet reviews on clubs, at this point we had nothing to lose. Punchline had found a “30-and-up” club called “Nord.” The webpage wasn’t too sparkling so we assumed it probably catered to wrinkly grannies and geriatrics in girdles. Fuck it. “Actually, take us to Nord,” I told the driver.
Nord was perfect: hot Danish women, awesome music, and people our age. It was listed as “30 and up,” but they only checked IDs if you looked under the age of twenty-four. The majority of the people there looked between 27-35. Punchline and I ordered ten-dollar beers, and I approached the first attractive woman I saw: a 5’11 blonde dressed in all pink, big rack, slim waste, perfect skin–a 9 at least. I’d given up on being normal; I tried it, but it just wasn’t me. I stood in front of her, pointed to her feet, and began, “Are you American?”
She smiled. “No, why?”
“I’ve never seen a Danish girl whose toenails were painted blue.”
Five minutes later we were making out. Her name was Caroline. She was thirty-three and worked at a foster home. She’d come with a busty friend of hers, also a local. This was perfect for Punchline, who I snagged while he was mid-wander, and pointed out her friend to see if she was his type. “Yeah, she’s good,” he confirmed. I introduced the two, and Caroline and I left them behind and made our way to the dance floor.
After dancing, buying each other drinks (It’s actually normal for a girl to buy a drink for a guy out there), and making out a lot, it was time to escalate things. “Let’s get out of here,” I told Caroline.
“Okay, one second.”
Caroline walked over to her friend, who was cuddling on a couch with Punchline, and spoke in her ear.
Their probable conversation:
Caroline: “Hey, even though the match.com guy may still show, I’m going to go ahead and fuck this guy. Are you going to blow his friend?”
Friend: “Yes, big time. It’s too bad about your match.com guy. He was a hottie.”
Caroline: “I know. But this guy will do. Anyways, call me if his friend turns out to be a rapist or something. You know what happened with Wally and his scissors. Be careful.”
Friend: “I will. Have fun.”
Since Caroline had ridden ten miles to the club on her bike, we’d either have to ditch her bike or find a cab that could accommodate it. The fourth cab we tried had a bike rack. Things were falling into place.
The only setback with Caroline was that every kiss had a hint of chow mein in it. Whatever. We got naked immediately and had non-smelly sex, except when I kissed her and thought about Sriracha.
The next morning, she opened all the windows and walked around her house stark naked while she cleaned up the kitchen and made a fruit plate for breakfast. She lived in some sort of housing community, so at least seven different homes had clear access to viewing her naked body. The sliding glass door to her room was at least eight feet by eight feet in area, so when I fucked her that morning, I sensed a lurking pervert nearby filming us. His video is probably already uploaded onto youjizz.com.
I left just before noon and took a public bus back to the hotel. I walked into the room anxiously awaiting the details from Punchline’s night. I discovered poor Punchline had to hang around the club and dance and cuddle on the couch for at least an hour and a half after I’d left. He did finally have sex, but it was period-sex, and she was self-conscious about it. After they’d finished, at seven in the morning, she told him, “Now that you’ve tried a Danish woman, you must try a Norwegian woman and a Swedish woman, and then get back to me and tell me who was best.” Deal.
We met with our fifty-person tour–consisting mostly of Australians–the following afternoon. We scanned the room for chicks, and were disappointed to find only two of them were cute, though neither was my type. The fifty of us walked into town for an included dinner, but Punchline and I left early to freshen up and prepare for the night.
I’ve learned that when it comes to traveling, once you find a quality party spot, you stick with it. Getting cute and adventurous almost always ends in disappointment. When I went to Ibiza a few years ago with Vince and Jett, while walking the beach, a stunning Spanish girl handed us a flier on “The Biggest Club in the World.” Although we’d partied at awesome clubs the two nights before, we decided to give this place a whirl. The flier was right: The club definitely was the biggest club I’d ever seen, but it was also the emptiest. And we were stranded there because it was too far from anywhere else and no cabs lingered outside because they were outside clubs with actual people in them. When it comes to partying, always go with the sure thing.
Which is why Punchline and I returned to club Nord. The only problem was that our tour bus was leaving for Norway at 7:45 a.m., which meant I’d be sleeping maybe two hours tops. Punchline was exhausted and went home early, but he still had this to say: “Dude, this has to be one of the best clubs I’ve ever been to–the set-up, the music, the girls, just…amazing.” He was right. After he left, I began making out with a homely-looking girl, maybe a 5 at best. I ditched her when she started playing games. “You may as well just stop talking to me, because all I do is kiss,” she told me mid-make-out, among other shit. It was a lie, of course, but settling for her would be like settling for a plate of oysters at a buffet.
I ventured elsewhere, eventually spotting an attractive thirty-something blonde with a track-runner body. She was standing alone on the stairs above the dance floor. Without hesitation I approached and used my faithful line, “So why are you standing here trying to look all mysterious?” A few sentences later, she was dragging me onto the dance floor. Her name was Anja, and she worked in some sort of business. Ten minutes later we were making out. While making out with her, the homely-looking girl found me and began poking me. Gross. I can understand why girls feel the need to test guys, but when you’re a 5 in a club with 8s, 9s, and 10s, you hold onto any decent-looking guy willing to take the plunge. I grabbed Anja’s hand and led us away from Homely. Unfortunately, we ended up back on the dance floor, where we spent another thirty minutes before leaving to find a bike-rack cab.
When we arrived at her house, there were stuffed animals and toys all over the place. Her two kids were at their dad’s, so we had the place to ourselves along with her four dogs. While I’m a fan of dogs, I’m definitely NOT a fan of dog chicks. I can’t stand it when women kiss their dogs and let their dogs slobber all over their face. That’s exactly what Anja did…to all four dogs. She kneeled down and made this “Hoo-joo-boo-joo” noise and let the dogs have at it on her face. After she’d finished, her face was all shiny with saliva. “Whoo! They are excited tonight!” she yelled, and then walked into another room, which I hoped was a bathroom full of sinks. I stepped over the toys, let the dogs jump on me for a bit, and went to her room. I was afraid to kiss Anja the rest of the night. When she tried, I’d give her small pecks and then start kissing her chest to avoid the dried dog slobber. Even if she’d washed it off, it was still in my mind. After some foreplay, we fucked boringly in missionary for ten minutes before she let me switch positions. After finishing, I rolled over and drifted off to sleep. In my dreams that night, Dobermans chased me through fields.
I awoke to noises of Anja cleaning up her closet. I popped up instantly. “What time is it!?” I asked hysterically.
“Um, seven forty.”
“Fuck! I’m late. I gotta go.” I put on my clubbing clothes–jeans and black-striped shirt–in a flurry, kissed her goodbye, and took her business card (Note: I added her on a Facebook a few days later, and she sent me a message asking me if I wanted to take advantage of a business opportunity. I deleted her the next day. Who does that?). If I missed my bus, I’d have to find my own way to Norway (I still hadn’t even packed yet!). I scampered into the early-morning streets and frantically waved at occupied cabs. It took me close to five minutes to find an empty one. I threw myself across the backseat and told him my hotel name. The drive took an eternity.
The bus was parked across the street from the hotel, already crammed with passengers. I paid the cabbie, boarded the bus, ignored the irritated looks flung my way, and scanned for Punchline. He always had his shit together. “Dave!” I heard someone yell. It was Punchline.
“Oh shit! Is my stuff still up there?”
“Nah, I got it for you.”
I sat down. “Whew! Thanks, man. I owe you.”
“Don’t worry about it. So what happened?”
After telling him my story, I put my head back and drifted off, still dressed in wrinkled club attire. As it turned out, I wasn’t even the last one to board the bus. Some other moron had overslept worse than me, so I wasn’t the main asshole. Things worked out. I was on my way to Norway.
Though the most conservative and expensive of the Nordic countries, Norway was by far the most beautiful. Only four percent of the Norwegian land was flat, giving way to the mountainous terrain and world famous Fjords. On the bus ride, I’d gaze out the window for hours at a time and never get bored. The landscape was that stunning.
Our first stop was Oslo, Norway’s capitol and largest city. Since Sunday was a dud night anywhere in Scandinavia, Punchline and I stayed in and slept. Mondays weren’t much better, but our tour had planned a get-together at a bar in town.
The reddish bar was in a C-shape, with tables at one end, and a dartboard area at the other. Other than the fifty of us and a handful of dudes, the bar was empty. After a game of King’s Cup, I spotted a lone attractive redhead–the dyed-hair kind–sitting at the end of the bar by herself. Other than the girls on our tour, she was the only girl at the bar. Before I even had a chance to talk to her, a large bald guy who looked like the MMA fighter Fedor approached her. I continued to drink with my tour mates.
A few drinks later, I was talking with Punchline and a couple girls on the tour, when I turned around and found the redhead standing behind me, trying to get by on her way back from the bathroom. With my back still to her, I turned around and began. “Who are you?” I asked.
“What?” she asked.
“Where did you come from?”
“The bathroom. Where did you come from?”
“California. I like your hair. Is the technical color maroon or burgundy? I’ve never been able to tell the difference.”
“What? It’s red,” she affirmed incorrectly. “You’re from California? What are you doing in Oslo?”
Two things: First, both girls from Copenhagen asked me the same question after finding out I was from California. Scandinavian women have no idea how desirable and attractive they are, which works out perfectly for us travelers. Second, whenever talking to girls, I always try and stealthily bring into light my strengths. I never come out and say it; I find ways of getting them to uncover it. With its surfer culture and Hollywood atmosphere, California is world-renowned as a happening, fun, and beautiful land. So if I didn’t find a way to incorporate this information into the conversation, I was wasting my advantage. Back home, my main advantage is being a teacher. Since teachers are generally considered noble and trustworthy, girls are able find a comfort zone with me much quicker than if I was a businessman or something. Here in Scandinavia, I had both things going for me.
She led me outside to the smoking porch to get away from the bald guy, who she claimed she was using for free drinks. Her name was Mari, and she worked at a foster care home (another one). I became suspicious when I saw her phone had a picture of a dude on it. “Who is that?” I asked.
She looked down at her phone and quickly hid it from my view. “Oh, that’s my friend.”
“You’re not married are you?”
“No way. I’m only twenty-seven. But I told the Russian guy that I was married in case he got the wrong idea, so you’re gonna be my husband tonight.”
“Okay, Wifey.”
I liked her attitude. We returned to the bar to get drinks when the Russian poked his head in and began talking in Mari’s ear. “Hey! I want you to meet my husband,” she almost yelled.
The guy clearly sniffed out the lie. Suddenly I feared for my safety as this giant man with sinister wrinkles in his face glared down at me. “Hey,” I muttered. He spoke in her ear briefly and then stuck out his hand. I hesitated a moment, shook it, and he left.
“How many drinks did that guy buy you, Wifey?”
“Like three, but whatever, he’s gone.” She stroked her hair. “So, Hubby, are you going to make love to me tonight?”
“Of course, Honey, I love you.”
“I love you too.” She got up, gave me a kiss, and went to the bathroom.
Shortly after she returned, I asked if we could go back to her place for “a beer.” She rejected the idea–something about her fussy roommate. Instead she suggested the following: “Let’s go check out underneath the pier.” There comes a moment in every one-night-stand when you can safely grab a girl by the hand and lead her out without resistance. Often times this window is disguised in the form of “Buy me another drink” or “My friends are talking to some guys” or a pouty face or a swift cock grab. In this case, Mari had made the let’s-fuck signal loud and clear. I smiled, grabbed her hand, and led her outside.
There was no pier. We walked towards the water to some bench on a hill overlooking the harbor. “I love you, Hubby,” she told me.
“I love you too, Wifey,” I lied.
She took off her panties as I undressed and slipped the condom on. She then began uncomfortably riding me on the rickety bench. I couldn’t even get my dick all the way in while she awkwardly bounced. “Let’s try someplace else, Love,” I said.
She hopped off. “Good idea.”
We had few options. Down below were boats, and on the hill was a construction zone for what appeared to be a stone fortress, tractors and bulldozers everywhere. We walked in the direction of the tractors, settling for a semi-grassy area between a tractor and bulldozer. She lay on her back while I began muddily fucking her missionary. After five minutes of this I turned her over for doggie. Her naked back was caked in mud. I was able to keep my hard-on, however, and not think of poop, as I grabbed hold of her still white ass and began plowing.
With my pants down just below the balls, and my pant-covered knees digging sickeningly into the mud, we had to try something else. We stood up, and I bent her over the tractor and fucked her from behind, a prime example of John Deere’s finest. This was by far the best position given the quagmire that surrounded us. But we got bored of it after a while, so we found a grassier area by a tree and I let her get on top. With no tractors to protect us, we were now completely exposed to the main road some hundred feet down, but I doubted anyone would be wandering the Oslo streets at three a.m. on a Monday night.
Suddenly light was everywhere. I saw Mari’s bouncing boobs with creamy clarity. I looked right and saw a police van a couple hundred feet away blaring a spotlight in our direction. “Fuck! The cops!” I yelled. Mari jumped up and hid behind a tree. Still in the cops’ sight, I pulled up my pants and buckled up. It didn’t matter; the light turned off and the perverted cops drove on.
Now in the clear, we finished, got dressed, and said our goodbyes/divorces. Just before her muddy ass left, we had the following exchange:
Her: “I’m so glad I didn’t fuck that Russian guy.”
Me: “What? You were going to fuck that guy?”
Her: “Until you came along, maybe.”
Me: “I thought you were just using him for drinks?”
Her: “If you must know; I had to get fucked tonight.”
Great–I beat out a creepy old man to get in the pants of a Scandinavian trashbag who let me fuck her on a tractor. I need a girlfriend.
As I searched for a cab, my body felt disgusting, and the knee/thigh part of my pants were so brown it looked like I had pads on. Thinking back, that had to be the worst sex of my life. Anyone who actually enjoys sex in public or exhibitionism (or whatever it’s called) is a complete idiot. You end up rolling around in the mud like pigs.
The next morning we headed north to a small town called Voss, famous for their water. Idiotic celebrities pay extra for “Voss drinking water,” while I was drinking it out of the bathroom faucet. Two simple yet awesome things about Scandinavia was that all the tap water was clean (Anyone who paid for water was an idiot, though sadly I did this twice because I’m stupid; and both times I accidentally bought sparkling water, which is so awful it should be given to poor countries along with those Super Bowl shirts of the team that didn’t win); and second, all the hotels had free Wi-Fi, and since I’d brought my laptop, when I got horny I could take my laptop into the bathroom and rub one out in peace while Punchline chilled unsuspectingly on his bed.
The northern Norwegian cities were small, and since we were there Tuesday through Thursday, there was absolutely no nightlife. We came this north for the scenery and activities. One day we went white water rafting through the Stranda River. Another day while traveling through Lillehammer–home of the 1994 Winter Olympics (Tonya Harding)–we bobsledded down an actual run. The bobsled had wheels, however, so our sixty-five mph was only about eighty percent the speed of a real bobsled. Either way, I have a newfound respect for Bobsledders, especially Jamaicans. Those things are fucking scary. The last day we took a cruise through the Fjords, Europe’s version of the Grand Canyon, only painted with color. Unlike the Grand Canyon, the Fjords were surrounded by steep sides–not rocks and crap–carved by massive glaciers during the Ice Age and beyond. Unbelievable.
We departed early Friday to make our way south. We ended up at a small Norwegian city called Gjovic. It was a Friday, so I was expecting big things. There was a club one block from our hotel that was supposedly the best club in the town. Punchline and I pre-partied in our room to save money. Compared to America, alcohol cost double in Scandinavia, but in Norway it was close to triple. One hotel sold tap beers for fourteen bucks! No wonder I didn’t see any bums in Norway.
At this point in the trip, Punchline and one of the cute Italian-looking tour girls, Danica, were beginning to get lovey-dovey. They hadn’t hooked up yet (though from the looks of things, Danica wanted to fuck Punchline’s brains out); they held hands all the time and cuddled in the back seat. It was quite cute. Punchline ensured me that Danica wasn’t going to get in the way of him hitting on slutty locals. We’d see about that.
After several 0-fers, I began talking to a punky-looking lass with a tongue ring and blonde hair that was shaved on one side. Because I find asymmetric hairstyles attractive, I was drawn to her. I knew things were headed in the right direction when I found out she worked at a foster care home. This was getting so scary that I almost slipped and told her about the other girls. Instead I used my California mumbo jumbo, and we ended up on the dance floor, and eventually back at her place for wild sex. She was fun, normal, and conflict-free, so there really is nothing worth noting except that her fat roommate had passed out in the living room and left the same damn trance/techno/house (I can never tell the difference) song playing on repeat at full blast. Closing her bedroom door didn’t do much to muffle the noise. I actually liked that song too, but I grew sick of it after the fifteenth repetition. (I’d tell you which song it was, but I don’t know the names of any House songs, and I don’t know how to write the beat–here, I’ll try: Dee Dee Doo Doo, Dee-Da-Dee-Dee-Dee-Dee-Dee-Dee-Doo-Doo. Hope that helps.)
Meanwhile, back at the club, Punchline was making out all over the place with Danica. Boredom set in after a while, so during one of Danica’s bathroom breaks, Punchline wandered near the exit and saw one of the guys on our tour outside talking with two scantily clad Norwegian girls next to a pizza joint. Punchline decided to ditch Danica–and guaranteed sex–to join the trio. He ended up getting one of the girl’s Facebook info–giving her more incentive to post whorish pics to impress strangers–in addition to two tasty slices of pizza. Then he went home and crashed. He had this to say the next day: “Eh, I decided pizza was more important than Danica.” On to Sweden.
The first three nights in Stockholm were far from extraordinary. It didn’t help that we’d arrived just in time for Gay Pride Week (There were rainbow flags at every corner; even buses had them). Saturday we were too fatigued to enjoy the night and ended up in bed by two, a major disappointment for a Saturday night in Scandinavia’s party capitol. Sunday we stayed in and searched for hotel options since our tour was over. Monday was an 0-fer night.
Our stay in Sweden really began Tuesday. Punchline found a deal on travelocity in which we got double rooms for the price of one. In other words, we each got our own kitchen sized twin-bed room, and they were next door to each other. This was good because now when I brought a girl home, I didn’t have to worry about anything. But it was bad because when I got bored I over-masturbated and wasted way too much time. Another great thing about the hotel was that it was one block from a Mexican restaurant and a ten-minute walk to the bars and clubs. Perfection.
That night we walked to the club/bar area and found that none of the clubs were open, just a handful of bars. We glimpsed in each bar and didn’t see too much talent. We settled on a squarish outdoor bar that was only open three months out of the year–the other nine months it was too cold to function. After a couple beers, things were looking glum until Punchline began talking to a hottie who’d come to the bar alone. She was Punchline’s essential type–blonde hair, blue eyes, slightly curvy, giant rack.
I left them and wandered off on my own to find couples and chicks that had already been snagged by guys. I downed a couple more beers, scanned the bar one last time, and left. Just as I was about to head back to the hotel, I heard a chorus of laughter coming from another bar. I had to give it a shot.
I found what I was looking for: an attractive 42-year-old Swedish ex-soccer player lingering around a handful of loose friends. I approached the blonde mom and used my default line, “Who are you?” I wasn’t expecting much, but she bought us wine, and after some help from one of her friends who told her to “go for it,” (I’ve learned any time a chick’s friend encourages her to go home with a guy, it means that she hasn’t had sex in over six months) we were walking back to my hotel.
Everything was going well. I fucked her twice with only a five-minute rest in between sessions. I’d worked hard, so when I finished I wanted nothing more than to pass out in peace. That didn’t happen.
“I want you to tell me a story,” she begged as I lay facing the opposite direction.
“What? A story? C’mon, we’ve had a long night; let’s get some rest so we can have sex again in the morning.”
She persisted. “No! Tell me a story!”
My eyes were starting to close. “Let’s go to sleep.”
She stopped for a minute. Then, just as I’d begun sleeping, she started up again. “Come on! Tell me a story!”
“No. I’m tired. We must sleep.”
“NO! Tell me a story! Now!”
I nearly snapped. I was snoozing in peace until this “42-year-old” decided to act like a kindergartner after snack time. It wasn’t in me to release a thunderous fart and point to the door. Instead I was nice.
“Okay, fine,” I began. “Once there was this guy…and…and he went to sleep.”
She shook me. “No! No! No! Tell me a real story!”
“Sorry, sweetie, that’s all I got.” I sensed her give up, and I heard her turn over violently and sigh in annoyance as I passed out. I could understand how things with that third husband went badly.
A couple hours later, I was awakened to her kissing me and telling me she was leaving. “Bye,” I told her in my daze. Then I turned the other way and slept another seven hours. I’m assuming on her way home she stopped at the movie store and picked up The Princess Bride to fulfill the void left by me.
Punchline knocked on my door around noon just as I was waking up. I anxiously awaited his story. If he passed up sex for a burrito, I was going to kick him out of Sweden. “Yeah, she wanted it bad, so I gave it to her good,” he told me, then added, “Man, I’ve never seen a girl rub her clit that hard.” Punchline was back. Amazingly, our night went from a total bust, to a wall-to-wall to fuckfest. Never underestimate the passion of a traveler.
The next night we went to an outdoor club, where (no joke) seven out of every ten girls were gorgeous. Only problem was that the club was all college kids on vacation, and we went 0 for everything.
By the end of Thursday, we’d already done all the tourist stuff–we walked the bustling shopping streets, saw some monuments and museums, and took a ferry through the Baltic and Lake Malaren. Now all there was to do was eat Mexican food during the day, walk the streets for a bit, buy pre-party booze from the alcohol store (The Swedish government has strict rules on alcohol so that only a certain chain of stores can sell it), and then wait for the night.
After the college-chick tease from the night before, we were motivated to find a 30-and-up club. Punchline did some research online in hopes of Copenhagen-like success, but he found nothing. On a fluke Facebook conversation with my buddy Jason, he asked one of his Swedish friends, who happened to be online, for a club with an older crowd. “Golden Hits” she told him. And that’s where we went.
With its red carpeting and karaoke culture, Golden Hits reminded me of an old town Vegas casino. It even had a blackjack table downstairs near the bathrooms. Since it was Thursday, however, the bar was loosely packed with a late-thirties crowd, few of which were cute. We double-fisted beers and hoped for the best.
Midway through my second beer I began talking to a short forty-year-old blonde with hair extensions and heavy eye make-up. Before I even knew what hit me, she forced me to dance with her. After an hour of grinding to eighties hits with an occasional techno song, I realized that I was homosexual, and that Punchline was nowhere to be found. I assumed he moved on to another bar. Like me, when Punchline gets drunk he wanders.
Her name was Kate, and she claimed she worked as an escort, which was the biggest load of shit I’d heard all trip. One, she was too old. Two, her and her cigarette-worn body wasn’t hot enough (she was a 6.5 tops). I didn’t ask questions, however, and let her cling to her lies.
We ended up back in my room where I flopped on my bed while she stood awkwardly. She requested I open my laptop and play the Eminem song “Love The Way You Lie” on repeat so we could dance to it.
“We can’t dance in here.” I told her as I lay on my back, hands behind my pillow.
“Yes, we can. Get up.”
My suitcase and clothes were strewn all over my floor so there was no room for anything except maybe a slow dance. Also, after developing a mild case of musical claustrophobia with the punker chick and her fat roommate, there was no way she was blasting any song on repeat.
I got up nonetheless to show her how hopeless her aspirations were. We slow-danced pathetically to Eminem. I had to end it, so I told her I had to go to the bathroom. When I walked back in, the song had started over and Kate was dancing with herself, eyes closed, head lolling. I quietly sneaked onto my bed before she had a chance to snag me. “Kate, come lay with me.”
She slowly opened her eyes and sat down. I pulled her in for a kiss, but before I could escalate things, I had to turn off the song. I got up and closed my laptop with the excuse, “The battery’s almost dead.” Luckily, she didn’t see the charger sitting right next to it.
I returned to bed to make more fruitless efforts. I laid her down and got on top of her, but she was hopeless. She wouldn’t take any clothes off and actually said, “I’m sorry. I haven’t seen a boy’s privates in a year.” She sat up.
“What!?! That needs to end.”
I unbuckled my pants and waited for her to tell me to stop, but she never did. I whipped my lifeless dick out and let it flop sideways. She stared at it depressingly. I grabbed her hand and placed it on my beef stick, but it was like playing with a blow-up doll. I zipped up.
“Can we turn the music back on?”
“No. My battery’s dead.”
She lay back down. We made out some more, but it was going nowhere. Every attempt I made at touching her was thwarted. She wrote down her phone number and as a goodbye said, “I really hope you call me tomorrow.” She left.
The next day I knocked on Punchline’s door around one. It seemed every morning our wake-up knocks to each other were getting later and later. At this point, we’d been drinking so furiously for three weeks straight that we stopped getting hungover. And our tolerance was so high we were downing our drinks in five sips.
Punchline said he tried a couple other bars but hadn’t had any luck. Things would have to change that Friday, only they didn’t. We ended up back at Golden Hits for round two. The place had strangely expanded with two additional levels that weren’t accessible the previous night. It was crawling with cougars.
Before I even had a chance to hit on chicks, I ran into Kate. “I called you,” I lied.
“No, you didn’t.”
“I did, but I think I dialed an extra digit or something because everything started beeping and I thought I’d called aliens. So I hung up.”
“Huh?”
I had a decision to make. This was a Friday, so younger (by younger, I mean 30-35), hotter women were out looking for sex with sleazebags like me. If I stayed and talked to Kate, I’d be forfeiting that adventure for a 50-50 chance at sex. If I’d closed the deal the night before, it’d be a no-brainer: I’d say hi to Kate, talk politely for five minutes about how her day went escorting imaginary celebrities, and then I’d move on. But I hadn’t closed the deal, so my caveman instincts felt obligated to take another stab at it.
While Kate ordered us drinks, Punchline approached me and said, “Dude, ditch that chick. You gotta see upstairs. Fake boobs everywhere.” Giving into temptations, I accepted Kate’s drink and told her I’d see her back on the dance floor in a few. I followed Punchline upstairs.
I stayed upstairs for a short while, but after striking out with three floozies, I decided to throw in the towel and return to Kate. She had all kinds of excuses, however. Listen to this one: “I can’t go home with you because I need to escort a guy at a boat party tonight.” What a liar. So she paid the twenty-dollar entrance fee here knowing she’d have to leave in an hour? I couldn’t decide whether she was trying to impress me or shun me. In the end, I concluded she’d stepped on a rake when she was little and it smacked her in the head, which caused her to imagine things like the guy in A Beautiful Mind.
After a few more minutes of mindless banter she had a feel-sorry-for-me look on her face. I took it as a sign and grabbed her hand and led us out of there. When we got outside, she stopped me and gave me two conditions: One, we had to get food. Two, she refused to go to my hotel again–her place only. I accepted.
We found a Burger King a few blocks down, and she ordered a Whopper. She felt the need to impress me with her eating skills, so I watched in hilarity as she did a full hair whip with every bite. I’m sorry, girls, but there is no sexy way to eat a burger. Those Carl’s Jr. commercials aren’t provocative and make all their models look like sloths.
I couldn’t watch anymore. After scanning for objects in the store to distract me (At one point I read half the menu to myself), we cabbed it back to her place to find out one of her dogs had taken a shit on her living room carpet. Fuck that. I grabbed a beer from her fridge and waited on her bed while she cleaned up.
It took a ton of neck kissing, but I finally got her horny enough to where she let me fuck her. Not surprisingly, the whole room began stinking of fish. I breathed through my mouth and finished as fast as I could. Even though a fan was already on at max power, I told her it was too hot and had her open the window to air out the room. I’m used to bad smells, but a Ninja Turtle couldn’t sleep through this. The stench eventually left the room like a defeated poltergeist, and I passed out.
The next morning started off horrifically. Kate wasn’t in the room, which was good, but a smell still lingered. Then I found out why. When I went to take a leak, her toilet had a medium-sized turd in it accompanied by two wipes. I thought of flushing it, but forgetting to flush one’s dumps is unacceptable. She needed to learn (unless she left it on purpose as a sneaky tactic to get me to leave, which would’ve made her cooler). I peed on top of Kate’s hair-whipping burger excrements, didn’t flush, and hurried back to her room to get dressed. I had to get out of there.
Kate walked back in. “You’re leaving?”
“Yeah, I need to go to my hotel and pack.”
“I thought you didn’t leave ‘til Sunday?”
“Nope,” I lied. “The airline let us take an earlier flight. It leaves tonight.”
“Oh. Okay.” She handed me a notepad and pen. “Here, write down your Facebook info.”
I took a frustrating twenty-dollar cab ride back to the hotel and went straight for the shower. Fish. I still smelled fish.
Punchline and I went out the next night, our final night, but it was an 0-fer night, and the only chick who took an interest in us was a hag with a shaved head. We savored our last few sips of Scandinavian nightlife, and headed back with a long day ahead of us.
The next thirty hours sucked. After a gruesome blend of no sleep, nine-hour layovers, and shitty movies, we returned to LAX to a life of alarm clocks and deadlines.
And here I sit, almost a week removed from my travels. My body still feels like shit, I’m tired, and I can’t even remember the last time I ate a carrot. I gaze out my window at the blue August sky of California and feel a rush of nostalgia. Now in the twilight of my twenties, I can still feel the tingles of those special moments–table-dancing in Mykonos, skydiving over Gold Coast, Australia, the long drive in the Florida Keys, the first set of topless breasts I saw at that Spanish beach (and the chubby bunny that came with it), the bike ride through the Munich rain, the smiles of Punchline, ODR, Axe, Vince, Jett, KG, Baba, O-Dog, and all the people with whom I traveled. I can still see it. I can still feel it. In my memories, our ghosts live on.
Initially, I had my name as “Burner” on here because I wanted to protect myself from what I thought would be a crude portrayal of my life. Turns out my life is anything but, and now I can handle writing under my real name. Hello! My name is Danielle Bernabe.
Recently I joined twitter and with that came a lot of self reflection- Who do I think I am? Danielle Burner. Am I funny? According to twitter, I’m not funny. And what’s next? I’m guessing not much. With that said, I invite you to follow me on twitter @daniellebernabe.
Enough about me (for the most part).
In other, more significant news, I want to introduce you to Our Thursday’s new writer. It took me awhile to warm to the idea of another woman in the bathroom, and I think it’s because I’m not comfortable with another woman possibly overshadowing me. That’s how we think as women- irrationally.
However, Rebecca Pardess– a ginger, a drinker, a lover, a fighter, a knocker knocker out–has since smothered us with delight. The first time I met her neither of us paid much attention to each other. The second time, the same thing occurred. Same goes for the third time. The forth time, over turkey sandwiches, we discussed our love of writing, and although I am not gay for her (or anyone in that matter, except for Rosario Dawson), I became smitten by her honesty and courage to say the word “cunt” without remorse. She has tickled me and the rest of Our Thursday with her witty exposés and renderings of her everyday and we hope that she does the same for you.
Rebecca Pardess (@HeyBeccaHey), welcome. We look forward to your self deprecation and more importantly, bringing the juice that I cannot.
I dock at the Newport Beach “Watchtower”, an old home I rarely get to visit. It is July 4th, 2011 – 9am PST. Apparently, I’m grossly behind schedule.
I’m not the first one to arrive. There are hussies everywhere, vacationing prostitutes. Shirtless men with Viking hats playing games with ping pong balls. Parties in every other house. The native old people batten down their hatches as if a drunken flesh tornado were coming and staying the night — because it is.
Premature fireworks explode and fade, the product of itchy, impatiently excited young patriots. Sirens go off at random intervals, never very far away, reminding us all that somewhere very close, people are partying themselves into physical distress. An alarm clock message to all of us: Step up your game, citizen!
For big events, my friends and I like to call on a spirit animal. A spirit animal may take many forms depending on the event at hand. At Coachella 2010, I was white fox / lone wolf. At Coachella 2011, I was the laughing owl (Watson was an alligator). Today, Bill Hicks is my spirit animal.
Watson and I center ourselves and hold a brief huddle on the roof.
Our Meeting’s Digest: What is America? An ideal. A promise to strive for progression. A more perfect union, which lets go of the constrictive, antiquated past. America is an idea not bound to worshiping what was. It has been about worshiping what could be — the unwritten future. Which is why America finds itself in a constant battle to auto-correct itself like some super iPhone versus a monkey with amateur opposable thumbs. Three hundred years of cold ideological civil war. The product? Newport Beach Peninsula on the fourth of July.
There’s plenty more to do. We can’t do it alone. That’s what Bill Hicks is for. He can be our Jesus (fall guy + savior).
“Yes, we are wearing torn gym shirts with a man’s face plastered on them. Yes, we are disheveled. We’re aware that people everywhere are dancing, screaming, and painting their faces like savages, and yes, that is fun. But we’re just a couple of bored old souls up here drinking cheap beer with our chest hair out. Talking about time travel. We may spin some Radiohead later. Really, this is what we do. This is what we’re all about. Take a seat. Let me tell you about Hicksianity.”
Perhaps that’s laying it on a little thick. Everyone relax. Stay calm. Nothing to see. Just one pixel of Americana, here. One splotch in the national Rorschach. Move along.
We bathe in the sweat humidity and observe our surroundings. We overhear one conversation, over and over, from a different person each time:
“Wait… Hello? Where are you? Who are you with? I’m at the sand and… Wait, who are you with? Is Justin there? Tell Justin… Where are you guys? Come to the beach. Is this Justin? Hello? Can you hear me? I’m on forty… something. Come to the beach!”
Amateurs.
Watson and I attempt to deprogram the brainwashed masses:
“Relinquish your illusions of control! Extract yourself from the idealistic microcosm you have fashioned! Join the Megaplex of national pride. No segregation! Things like this are happening all over the country. You are a speck in the melting pot. Congeal! Congeal!”
Very little gets through.
We move to the beach. What looks to be a mushroom cloud lurks in the distance. Could be an imitator cumulonimbus. Can’t say for sure. 50-50. Tie goes to the good weather. The party must go on.
The memory movies are strong today. Summer camp, I came to this beach. High school, I came here cutting class to “surf”. College? I lived here, right in the heart of darkness, and I mimicked my surroundings. And now… I’m only an observer. Flashbacks left and right. A visitor from the future. When I was young, where was this me? Where is the me who will return again, older and wiser?
I keep whipping my neck over my shoulder, looking for a T-1000 or a stalking Jesus. Nothing there except busty 18 year olds. A miraculous relief.
The Nose radios in from close by. He’s en route. We are about to multiply. The Nose’s special abilities are strong, and very handy. He’s a master of sniffing things out and picking up scents. He’s the first to know about everything. Tip: Whenever you’re anywhere, listen to whatever The Nose says.
The Nose joins our team and immediately begins to replace words with “Raug”. Sentences are being vivisected left and right by his subversive nonsense. People continue to act as if they understand.
The Nose: “Raug Raug, want to hit the Raug and then Raug?”
Strange Local: “Raug!”
Parrot see, Parrot do. Put an infinite amount of parrots next to an infinite number of drinks and eventually, you get Shakespeare. Then satire becomes mainstream, and before long, The Nose informs me that “Raug” is very out.
Ideals: you last a lifetime. But Words: you are as impermanent as my music taste.
House to house, each party is blaring horrendous watered-down dubstep and heavy house. Each year, the music changes like the tide. A live-action car crash re-enactment of the awful trends we’re subjected to, care of Democracy. It dawns on me that watching and listening to music genres as they form/evolve/torture/die in the Tweens of the 2000s is like watching stars supernova in slow motion. Mini big bangs on fast forward. Fireworks in the sky, smoke skeleton tracers. Over and over, we all re-visit ourselves. Embarrassments and all.
And I’m in love with that. Swollen with true pride for our goop of mistakes yet-to-be auto-corrected. These are the cracks in the pavement which will be smoothed over, gussied up by The Editor of some ignoramus history book. These scenes will be deleted by memory and overlooked by newspapers. These fractures are ours, and no one else’s. Until they are erased, I pledge allegiance…
—
The above is an excerpt from The Psychosis Agent’s Field Reports – an episodic series about a young man driven completely insane by television. His bubble gum stories, which are psychotic quests for meaning in banal occurrences, have been published in several issues of Banana Journal.