Tag: humor

I May Be in Serious Legal Trouble

MY WORLD:

My world is a little baby girl right now (every living thing in the universe just rolled their eyes.  No Jimmy, I’m not kidding.  Even cadavers, and weird animals with no eyes.). Yeah, writing that first sentence made my skin crawl, but I promise to always be honest in this blog (tell us EXACTLY how much you owe in student loans then!) and that’s a totally honest statement.  I’m not writing it to sound like the sensitive, stunningly hot, surprisingly JACKED Dad that you’re thinking I may be (not thinking that) I’m writing it because I’ve been trying to think of what to write in this section and I don’t want it to ALWAYS be about our dumb baby who CAN’T EVEN FART WITHOUT CRYING YET!  Seriously, what if you cried every time you farted?  Actually, yeah.  If you’re reading this and you don’t have kids yet and are wondering “but Jimmy, now that you’ve been a parent for 4 seconds, what is parenting REALLY like?”  WELL, SINCE YOU ASKED!  If you’re wondering if you and your partner are ready to parent a newborn, try this: for the next 24 hours, every time you have to fart, start scream crying.  Every single time you feel a fart, you have to start huffing, and then have that constipated huffing sound VIOLENTLY turn into growling cries that last no shorter than 11 minutes.  After 24 hours, if neither you or your spouse has started cutting yourself, then you’re ready to be a parent!  Congratulations!!! 

Okay, that was a sidetrack.  (I hate you.)  My world is the little baby in my house right now, so you’re just going to need to bear with me and this section for a little.  For the sake of this dumbass blog, my wife is the VP of Ops, and my baby will now be referred to as “The Warden”.   I promise it won’t be all parenting stories.  Now, instead of complaining about the things a baby does (you just did that, though?  Oh, you think the readers won’t be able to tell that your “hypothetical” challenge was related to your daughter?  So you think your readers are dumb.  See this everyone? HE THINKS YOU’RE ALL IDIOTS!)  I’m going to write about how bad of a parent I am here.  I think you need to know the mistakes I’m making because there’s a chance that I shouldn’t be allowed to do this.  Like, legally.  I’m not a lawyer (then why do you have SO MUCH student loan debt?)

Last night, I think I almost popped the Warden’s head off.  Not…wait…okay, it’s not like I grabbed her head and was trying to rip it off (this is not going well.)  You need context (and YOU need a lawyer.)

So, the Warden was going El Nutso.  It was about dusk and, according to our calculations, she should have been sweetly resting in her swing thing so the VP and I could cook and drink ranch waters until driving would be a crime.  Surprisingly, our calculations were off.  (You just put ‘80085’ into the calculator, didn’t you?) The Warden alerted us to this miscalculation with the use of rage squirming and growl howling deep into the early night sky.  Like any fabulous parents, the VP and I both calmly took turns reminding the Warden that we could, in fact, hear her and that we would love to comply with any requests.  Unfortunately, the Warden did not have any demands.  She simply needed the world to hear her. 

The VP held her on her chest.  I cradled her gently and rocked her back and forth while singing her my new song, entitled “I love you, but you are being kind of a jerk.”  Then we put her in the rocking swing.  We put the sweet music on in the rocking swing!  The shusher machine (wut?) Yeah, we literally have a little machine thing that just goes “shhhhhhhh”.  So we put that on.  No dice.  Then the VP was all like, “well, should we sell her on the internet?” and I was like, “no, this is my baby!  And I love her!  And that love is worth more to me than the hundreds of thousands of dollars we might be able to get for her on the internet. Not to mention, I bet you don’t even know what website we could list her on!  Do you?!  Do you know what website we could put her for sale on?  What is the website?  What is it?  Yeah, but how do you spell that?”

I shut The VP’s laptop HARD, and told her “I got this.”  I took the Warden, who I love more than hundreds of thousands of dollars, into the other room as I went into “Daddy’s got this”-mode.

That’s when I almost popped her head off.  You see, I have recently been implementing this burping method that I saw on Instagram.  Now I know what you’re thinking, “you’re going to Instagram for parenting advice?”  Well, the portly woman in the video had white hair and spoke in calming tones so…uhhhhhh, yeah, I think she knows what she’s doing!

This perfectly legitimate burping method, includes me putting the Warden on my knee and then holding her cheeks with one hand, while my other hand works on her back to help her sit straight up as I rotate her around in small circles.  The idea is to expand her stomach, allowing her diaphragm (haha you said diaphragm) to expand and expel gas.  DAD OF THE FUCKING CENTURY, MUCH?!?!?!

However, the Warden’s violent wailings had an unforeseen consequence of forcing my brain to tell my body to something else.  You see, instead of my brain telling my other hand to go on her back, my brain told my other hand to go on the back of her neck.  So, when I tried to sit her up straight, my hands were basically ONLY HOLDING HER HEAD.  In short, I lifted her by her head and, look, she’s small and I think there was definitely a chance of it popping off.  Judging by her screams, against all odds, increasing in volume, it did appear that the Warden, too, thought her head was about to pop off. 

Now, I know the Warden is clearly at fault here for screaming me stupid, but…like, am I in any legal trouble?  Legally speaking, can I be charged with ‘attempted head pop’?  That’s not a charge, right.  It’s not, so, you’re actually the one on trial now.  How dare you accuse me of attempted head pop! Don’t tell me how to parent!  Nah nah nah, SAVE IT!  MY LIL BABY WARDEN’S HEAD IS STILL ON!  TELL IT TO THE JUDGE!  I’LL PUT YOU ON TRIAL!

(Are you fucking drunk? Or you’re just dumb all the time now?)

OUR WORLD:

You know that feeling when you’re in a small, shitty town and you go to a restaurant that you know is going to suck?  That’s what being a Bears fan this year, and most years, is like.  You’re super hungry and want a break from the gas station ‘Subway’, so you say something like “we should give Memphis Grill a shot!”  And instead of reminding yourself that there’s no goddamn way a place in Arkansas called “Memphis Grill” is going to be good, you dilute yourself into thinking this place was on the ONE episode of “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” that your fatass hasn’t seen yet.  Well guess what tubby (really going after your fat self here), just like every episode of Triple D, you’ve seen this Bears season before!  And just like “Memphis Grill” it’s going to make your stomach hurt and make you sad. 

But who wants to read about this sour meat NFL season Bears fans are about to chow down on?!?! That’s no fun.  So, the same way you convince yourself that Arkansas’ “Memphis Grill” is going to actually be good, let’s do that with the Bears.

The “you can’t mess up a hamburger that bad” possibility:  Justin Fields has dominated football games since he was a little kid.  He was the top recruit in the country out of high school, and then threw for a billion touchdowns at Ohio State.  He had one of the best, toughest performances I’ve ever seen in a bowl game against a Clemson defense that is probably all in the pros now.  I know the Bears suck at life, but they can’t mess HIM up that bad, right?  He can’t dominate every level of football, get to the league, look around Soldier Field and go “oh wait, I’m a Bear now, so I need to start sucking ass at playing football”.   RIGHT?!?! 

The “as long as you stay away from the seafood, you’ll be fine” possibility:  As long as we run the ball and play solid defense, we’ll be able to stay in games.  And if you stay in games, you can steal some? And if Justin Fields doesn’t realize he’s supposed to SUCK now that he’s a Bear, maybe he can actually win us a game or two?  As long as our defense holds up, we could surpise some people.  Hey, Eberflus-led defenses have been awesome in Indianapolis and it’s not like they’ve had superb quarterback play over the past few years.  And those Colts teams contended for playoff spots basically every year he was there.  So…hmm…

The “every town has a hidden little gem” possibility:  What if Darnell Mooney IS that dude?  I know he was drafted in a late round and has oddly skinny legs, but what if he actually does turn into a legitimate number one receiver?  His training camp highlights have been pretty sick.  Him and Fields seem to have some serious chemistry.  Cooper Kupp wasn’t a first round pick!  Is it that OUTRAGEOUS to envision Darnell Mooney as Cooper Kupp-lite?  If he turns into a legit number one, I could see Cole Kmet taking some strides and becoming an above-average tight end.  If you close your eyes and just say “Darnell Mooney becomes a LEGIT number one receiver this year,” the Bears offense has a chance to be not awful.

Okay, I’m exhausted.  That was mentally and physically exhausting.  But you better fuckin’ believe those are the little thoughts running around my head as we head into this NFL season. 

CAN’T WE GET LUCKY ONE TIME AND NOT HAVE DIARRHEA AFTER A BEARS SEASON?!?!

LETS LOVE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME: 

College football kicks off a week from tomorrow.  Next week, we should talk about what we’re all going to be doing and cooking and eating and drinking and wearing.  I might buy a new QZ.  IN FACT, I AM GOING TO BUY A NEW QZ!!!!

LETS HATE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME: 

The self-checkout lanes at grocery stores.  I will stand in line to have humans that are NOT ME scan and bag my groceries.  I can’t be the only one who gets big time anxiety when using the self-checkout lane and running out of space on the scale after I’ve scanned a bunch of items.  It’s like there is ZERO CHANCE I’m not going to get the error message on the screen saying “Please put your item on the scale after scanning.”  It makes me so mad I wanna hit the screen with a spiked hammer.  JUST MAKE A BIGGER SCALE AREA!

JIMMY COOKS:

I’m on a huge sandwich kick lately (lately? Okay pal!  Hey everyone, Jimmy JUST got into sandwiches), and I recently made one for my brother that was a HIT.  I stole the recipe from a restaurant I used to work at, but last I checked…that restaurant doesn’t have a blog.  Sooooooo, MY RECIPE NOW BITCH!  Here’s what you do:

  1. Find someone you want to impress with a great sandwich.
  2. Tell that person to sit back, relax, and strap it down.
  3. Buy a nice French baguette, prosciutto, brie, arugula, red onion, and mayo.
  4. Cut the red onion into thin slices.  Razor thin.  If you don’t cut yourself while cutting this onion, the slices aren’t thin enough.
  5. Cut the brie into triscuit-like squares (are rectangles okay? WHAT ABOUT TRIANGLES?!?!)
  6. Drizzle olive oil on the baguette and slightly toast it on a pan (on a pan? Why not a bowl?  Thanks for the tip!)
  7. On baguette, you’re going mayo, prosciutto, brie, arugula, thin thin THIN red onion (thin, as in the opposite of Jimmy)
  8. Give that person you’re looking to impress this sandwich.
  9. If this person^ is an attractive female, give her my telephone number and don’t tell her I’m married.
  10. Yes, you can put some Dijon mustard on there, but only if you hold up the mustard and say in your best French accent “pardon, do you have any grey poupon?” and then laugh hard like a real jerk until the entire room feels uncomfortable.

K, bye.

Have you done these fun summer things yet?

OUR WORLD:

I’m going to find out how many days until the local grade school starts back up, and then hang a MASSIVE banner counting down the days from my roof so that all the neighborhood kids are reminded that they have to go back to school in “13, 12, 11…” days.  Now, here’s the thing, I’m not going to do that because I don’t make enough money to buy a very huge banner every day.  BUT! One day, when I’m making the BIG BUCKS, I’d like to think that I’d do that because it would make my group chat laugh and that’s basically the most important thing in the world. (Yep, checks out.)

Unfortunately for them, kids are at the point of summer where it’s all about “back to school” and in the words of 11 year-old me, “ugggghhmmm,” (did you just try to type out the sounds you used to make when you started to cry?  That did NOT land.)  Now, are there kids who, unlike me, actually enjoyed school?  Kids who, unlike me, looked forward to seeing their friends every day?  Kids who, unlike me, had friends who didn’t create a game called “Jimmy rides a bike in front of me while I throw a football at him until I’m able to knock him off the bike”?  Sure, that’s possible.  But I suspect that most kids are dreading every day that moves closer to them having to go back into the buildings that make them learn and be self-conscious about every single action they take.  (But Jimmy, you’re still so self conscious that you refuse to shave your beard because you think it’ll make you look even fatter than you are now.)

Wait…I’m fat?

NOT NOW, JIMMY! (You are, though.  You are fat.) I SAID NOT NOW!

What I’m trying to get to is that I think we’re all entitled to celebrate the fact that we’re no longer kids and, therefore, we ADULTS still have a good amount of summer left!  (Yeah!  Suck it, kids!)  So, what should we do to celebrate the REST of our adult summer? (Adult summer? Like, sex stuff?) Here’s some suggestions from your favorite Old Bitch (Is that your nickname now?) I mean, Old Coach (then why did you write “Old Bitch”?) CAN I JUST WRITE THIS?!  GODDAMNIT!  WHATEVER! 

Here are 5 things you should do before it gets cold:

  • Drink on a boat while wearing something your spouse hates.

-Guys, wear that boxy, short sleeved button down where you leave all of the buttons open and your wife asks, “are you seriously not going to button any of them?”

-Lady women, wear…I don’t know.  Something that either makes your husband uncomfortable because it’s too revealing (Why do you have to know if Justin is going to be on the boat before picking your outfit?)

  • Listen to music that you’re kind of embarrassed that you liked in high school, while grilling with a cigar (yeah, and a drink).

-I’ll be putting my iPhone in a cup (JUST BUY A GODDAMN PORTABLE SPEAKER!) and playing early Fall Out Boy (the songs with the Pete Wentz screamo?  Neighbors will love that!) I’ll also be pretending to like the cigar I’m getting zero buzz off, while drinking a summery clear-drink like a gin and tonic that I AM getting a buzz off of.

  • Go get ice cream during work hours on a weekday.

-I honestly can’t remember the last time I went to an ice cream shop (Ice cream store? Ice cream parlor?  Parlour? Nope.  Impossible.  Moving on.)  It does sound really nice, though.  Right? Also, it’s super American.  Ice cream cones? Come on!  I’m thinking mint chip in a cone, but I won’t lie to you—I can’t remember the last time I had ice cream out of a cone and I’m nervous about the drippage!  (Slob.)

  • Seriously think about how sweet it would be if you were able to put a pool in your backyard and talk, in detail, about how you’d build it out.

-Look dude, you’re never gonna have your own pool.  That purchase is NOT IN THE CARDS FOR YOU, JACK! But, you can talk about how you would set up your backyard yard for a whole pool/outdoor bar set-up.  You know, like the chef guys on Instagram who make awesome sandwich creations on their awesome outdoor kitchen next to their awesome outdoor pool surrounded by their perfectly manicured yard?  (Know what they don’t have, though? A big rusty grill.  So…got ‘em there!)

  • Wake up early on a Saturday to walk to a local coffee shop and, while there, text your neighbor asking if they want anything, but what you’re really doing is letting them know that you’re better at enjoying weekend summer mornings than they are. 

-A super fun/white thing to do is spend way too much money at a coffee shop early on a weekend morning.  We’re talking scones, and coffee drinks, and a croissant!  Maybe another scone!  (A very cool 21 year old named “Cal”  just pulled your pants down in public, called you a small-dicked loser, and then took a crystal clear picture of you with his brand new iPhone.  Cal is actually the head of a fraternity and, suddenly, the entire frat is there now…also taking pictures…and laughing at you…and now they’re sending the picture of you with your pants down to all the girls they know.  You’re going viral.  The picture of 37 year-old you, with your pants around your ankles, holding an $11 Vietnamese coffee and 3 cranberry scones is going VERY viral.) Scone guy!  

MY WORLD:

The VP of Ops and I have a baby now. 

LETS LOVE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME: 

“Hacks” on HBOMAX.  I don’t want to put the effort in to remember the last 30-minute show that made me laugh hard, so I’m just going to say I can’t remember a 30-minute show that made me laugh this hard.  It’s funny, well-written, and pretty well acted (but you said the second lead kinda sucked.  You said!)  Watch it and let me know your thoughts on the second lead.

Oh, and Crocs!

LETS HATE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME: 

The LIV Golf Tour thing.  I’m going to write more about this sometime soon (what about the baby? Are you going to write about your baby?) but I don’t understand how any of this is good for the golf fan.  For the “it’ll give you more golf to watch!”-crowd, I’d like to ask you this: when is the last time a new format of a sport popped up that you then became a big fan of?  Anyone super into “The Big 3”?  How many times has the XFL failed now?  The PGA Tour, and the format they use, has been around for a hundred years because fans of golf like it.  Good luck to Patrick Reed, though, gonna miss rooting for him!

JIMMY GAMBLES: 

Very exciting news on this front!  My betting partner and I have placed college football and NFL futures bets!  Futures are fun because you can’t lose them immediately.  Also, when your NFL team sucks like mine does (go…uh….bears….) these bets give you something else to root for.  ALSO! (starting another sentence with ‘also’?  The return to this blog is going great!) If you get any of your futures bets right, you can brag about how smart you are, but if you lose, no one will remember when you told them that Kyrie Irving was going to win last year’s “Most Vaccinated”.  Without further ado, here are my three favorite futures bets for NFL/NCAAF:

  1.  Heisman Winner – Jaxson Dart (+6000)
  2.  NFL MVP – Christian McCaffrey (+15000)
  3.  NFL Comeback Player of the Year – MITCHELL DAMN TRUBISKY BABY!!!!

K, bye.

We’ve All Agreed We’re Never Going To The Gym Again

OUR WORLD: 

Yesterday it was announced that Illinois will move into Phase 4 of the “Yeah, whatever” reopening plan this Friday, which means that gyms will be allowed to reopen.  These gyms will be asked to limit capacity and do a bunch of weird shit that probably won’t help much at all, and the penalties for not doing this weird shit will be…nothing because how can you enforce any of this?  What I don’t think the government and gym owners have realized, though, is that conclusions are reached when patterns of behavior are altered.  And Illinoisans, by virtue of the 3 month long “don’t do anything!”-orders, have concluded that paying to go to a gym is a moronic waste of money and we will never do it again.

For people that do value working out and fitness (fuckin’ nerds) the past three months has been about finding other ways to stay in shape and, you know what?  They’re preferable!  While they do have workout equipment and locker rooms, a gym’s primary function is to put you in close proximity with people with who do things that annoy the EVER-LOVING SHIT OUT OF YOU!  Exercise? Yeah, an exercise in self-restraint, maybe.  Such as, “if the guy on the elliptical next to me doesn’t stop FaceTiming with his ex-wife, I will NOT kick the outside of his left knee and explode his leg.  I will NOT do that!  I won’t!”  And then, 6 seconds deeper into his FaceTime marriage counseling session, you reconsider and decide that maybe jail is worth it.

By now, we’ve all learned that we can run outside for free!  That push-ups and bodyweight exercises are effective, even though they may not look as cool as lifting dumbbells in front of a mirror.  You know what you were doing in front of that mirror, right?  (Uh…checking my form.)  Stop it.  You were admiring looking momentarily-yolked while hoping the girl who dates the better-looking, richer, more secure version of yourself, will walk by, catch that same view and…(I don’t know what he’s talking about, honey!  I swear, I go to the gym because they have the specific equipment I need to sculpt my traps!  I don’t even notice other people there, honestly!)

What else have we all been missing about going to the gym?  Well, how can you forget about how relaxing the steam room is, right?  You know, that small room where it’s hard to see but easy to smell?  That room where you walk in after working out with a towel around your waist, praying to LordBabyJesus that Terry “No Towel” Thompson isn’t sitting, spread-eagle next to the only open slot left.  Don’t worry, though, if “No Towel” is taking a day off, there’s sure to be the guy who thinks this room is meant for making new friends!  (I like making friends, though…)  Yeah because my idea of relaxing after a hard workout is sitting in a superhot, smelly room with the uber driver who is known for having “great conversations!”

Please don’t forget about the people who take naps on equipment you’d like to be using in between their 19 sets.  Just ask them if you can hop in for a quick set, right?  Nah, you’re forgetting this is the same person who is ALWAYS “I’m almost done.”

“Oh, so that’s a no?”

“Yeah, that’s a no.  Now please let me get back to my public nap while wearing a dry-fit shirt THANK YOU VERY FUCKIN MUCH!”

Yeah, but the treadmills with the televisions right on the front are really nice to run on, at least!  You’re right!  I especially love when the ONE CHANNEL I want to watch is currently scrambled so instead, I get to watch minor-league softball practice on ESPN3 while trying to figure out how to turn off the closed captioning.  Now, of course, you could simply go to the front desk and tell them that the only channels that aren’t having seizures are the ones showing “Big Bang Theory” and “Alf”, but you’re forgetting that the front desk employee is required to respond to that with a blank “why would I ever care about that?”-stare.  (I miss those stares!) 

And finally, before we decide to never walk into one of these rip-off palaces again, do me a favor and remember how great the Wi-Fi is.  Whenever there’s more than, I don’t know, ONE PERSON IN THE ENTIRE GYM, the Wi-Fi starts to sputter.  So as you’re shaking off the cobwebs from last night’s bender on the creaky elliptical, and juuuuust starting to vibe to that new Weeknd song, it stops and you see the spinny thing next to the little WiFi signal.  “Oh cool, I’ll just switch over to data now and run up my already overpriced phone bill!  JUST WHAT I WAS HOPING TO ACHIEVE ON THIS FUCKING ELLIPTICAL!”

You know that sense of pride and accomplishment you used to have when walking out of the gym?  It wasn’t from having just completed a workout.  It was from not hurting yourself or anyone around you while inside that building for the past 64 minutes.

Gyms re-opening? We’re good, but thanks!

Wait…what do you mean I have to call another number and send a fax and an e-mail and a carrier pigeon with a gimpy wing to cancel my membership?

 

MY WORLD:

Dieting is so fucking frustrating and stupid.  It is.  It is.  IT IS!  I have now gone one full week without eating any carbs, and I’m not back to my wedding weight yet.  And yes, I have been telling myself, “it’s just one week,” and “this has to be a sustained effort,” and “remember how tight last summer’s shorts felt when you tried them on 9 days ago?”  But, last night during an episode of “Ozark”, I saw the kids eating at a greasy hot dog stand, and I immediately stopped paying attention to whatever was happening in the show (Drugs! Guns! Scary!) and just started thinking about how much I love French fries.

Now, even the morning after, as I drink my blandass coffee and prepare for yet another day of zero exciting culinary experiences, French fries are dominating my thought pattern.  It does not help, DOES NOT HELP, that I weighed myself over the weekend and I was back at my initial weight even though I’ve been working out AND HAVEN’T CHEATED ONE GODDAMN TIME ON THIS DIET!  I’m eating fish and vegetables and zero bread or sugar.  I’m drinking water, carbonated water to try and trick myself into thinking it’s soda, white wine, and Michelob Ultras.  I haven’t had a craft beer in nearly 2 weeks now, and I WORK FOR A CRAFT BEER COMPANY.

Meanwhile, it appears that I have reached the age where whenever I run, the next morning I will feel like I was in a car crash.  The morning after walk down wood stairs is so painful that I have thought about crawling or just giving up completely and not leaving my bed ever again, becoming an ever-expanding blobman and telling my job “why? What’s the point anymore?”  I’m 35, not 90, but my morning walks around the house look like I’m trying to recreate a scene from an old monster movie where the monster can’t bend it’s knees and has a permanent pained facial expression.

So since running is so hard on my body now, I do the exercise bike in the basement.  I set up my laptop in front of the cheap bike I bought, and follow along to Peloton classes.  The instructors are normally really in shape which makes me think, “this shit works!”  And while I’m doing them, and sweating like a pigbeast, there’s no way that they’re not going to make me super shredded in no time!  But I swear to god, the second I’m done, and have caught my breath again, this demonic brain parasite flies into my ear and infects me with the “Yeah that was cute, but it wasn’t a run”-echo.  By the time I trudge my fat, sweaty ass back upstairs the coat of sweat may as well serve as a cloak of “yeah, but I didn’t run”-disappointment.

Am I being dramatic about all of this? Of course, but isn’t there enough awful shit going on right now that I shouldn’t have to also sacrifice eating food that makes me instantly happy?  Yeah, there’s the collapsing depression that follows, but what drug is better than a fried potato dipped in sugary red sauce (KETCHUP!)?  Or after a long day of working a job that now feels completely different and one thousand percent harder than it was 3 months ago, I get to treat myself with…the LaCroix of beers?  I swear, I could drink 18 thousand Michelob Ultra’s, and on Ultra number 17,999, while in the ambulance being rushed to the hospital for “wait, he’s drank how many beers?” I’d still be sober enough to know that Michelob Ultra’s taste like spiked, old-man fart water.

So the diet is going great and I can’t wait to attack the day and enjoy my snack of a handful of mixed nuts in a couple hours!

INITIAL “GREAT, NOW I HAVE TO DIET” WEIGHT:  202.6lbs.

LAST WEIGH IN:  I don’t want to put it in writing because if I don’t put it in writing, it’s not real.

LETS HATE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

That moment after talking to someone when you’d normally shake hands and now you don’t know what to do so you make some dumb air-five gesture and then want to kill yourself.

LETS LOVE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

 

K, bye.

Sports Documentaries & Strolls Down Memory Lane

MY/OUR WORLD COMBO: 

Let me get my sea legs back before you start judging me again. Admittedly, I’m very out of writing-shape…

Is becoming obsessed with watching documentaries a natural part of aging?  Are cool 17 year-old dudes who just got home from lifting in their friends’ garage, DURING A FREAKING PANDEMIC, asking their Mom’s to remember to DVR the Lance Armstrong documentary?  (Yes, there are a group of dudes who lift in a garage down my block and…would I be forever honored if they invited me one time? Sure. Is that so wrong?  IS LIFTING WEIGHTS WITH SOME COOL GUYS SO WRONG?!?!) 

Somewhere around the debut of “30 for 30”, or getting married, or realizing that saying I watched a documentary was as close as I could get to saying I read a book, I decided that documentaries were worth more than the average flick.  Maybe there just aren’t a ton of television shows you can watch and then brag about what you “learned” afterward.  “Last night’s Vanderpump Rules really taught me that doing cocaine in your late 30s just makes a person look like a sweaty lunatic.”

Or maybe, the more likely reasoning behind our new documentary obsession, is that it’s fun to relive the parts of your life that were happening parallel to some memorable national or local storyline.  (Is he done with this pseudo-philosophical rant, yet?  I know it’s been a while since he last wrote, but Jesus Christ GET TO THE FUCKING POINT!)  For those like me, constantly looking for a documentary to watch, I’ve got some quick takes on ones I’ve seen recently.  However, because I’m one spicy baby, I’m going to give you an insight into the parts of my life I got to relive while watching said documentary.  Hopefully, this will give you a better appreciation for what The VP of Ops has to deal with.  (What if this makes me really jealous of The VP of Ops, though?  Like, should I tell her how lucky she is to live with such a cerebral individual who pulls off the jeans and sandals look better than a 90s GAP model?!?!) 

THE LAST DANCE: DA MICHAEL JORDAN DOC

We all agree that we don’t need fancy names for documentaries, right?  Like, everyone just calls it “The _________ doc” no matter what the title is, right?  When you were talking to your friends about “The Last Dance”, there’s no way you weren’t just calling it “The Jordan doc” or “The Bulls doc”.  Great.  Just had to establish that.

Every once in a while, a movie or show or documentary comes along where you are POSITIVE it’s going to be great.  (Nacho Libre!)  The first few that come to my mind are: “The Dark Knight”, “The Departed”, and “Old School”.  Once you see the trailer, it’s a LOCK that, that movie is going to be awesome and you’ve already gotten defensive just thinking about anyone who would disagree with you.

That was The Jordan Doc.  Going into it, I was salivating at the thought of The VP saying ANYTHING the least bit critical of this doc.  There could’ve been an episode entitled “The One Where Michael Jordan Talks About How Much He Hates Women From Mississippi” and I would’ve shot The VP my patented “Don’t Say Anything Negative About Michael Jordan”-glare.

Fortunately, there was not an episode centered around Michael Jordan hating where my wife is from. (Phew!) Instead, there was the Michael Jordan version of everything that happened during the most engaging run the NBA has ever seen.  Spare me the takes about what Jordan embellished or, fuck even lied about, because who cares?  We all know what happened.  What we didn’t know was how Jordan’s mind worked while it all happened.  An insight into the mind of the most charismatic athlete of our generation?  Yeah, I guess that sounds FUCKING INCREDIBLE.

And it was.  How do you become the best basketball player of all-time?  When I was a kid, I’d watch Jordan in a game, and then go out into the driveway and shoot, and run towards the hoop like I had a shot in hell of dunking, and then go back inside and tell my parents that what I really needed was his newest pair of shoes if I wanted to play like Mike.  If only I had been able to watch this when I was a kid, I would’ve known that all I had to do was to manipulate any situation into a deeply personal challenge that was worth DYING FOR to overcome.  (Like that time The VP told you that chicken you grilled was “good” but you knew the way she said “good” meant it wasn’t that good?  And then you used that slight to motivate you to open up a Michelin-starred restaurant that you called “Still Think It’s Just “Good” Chicken NOW?!?!?!”)

MEMORY LANE STROLL DURING THIS DOC:

The most exciting time in my life was when Jordan began practicing with the Bulls again after his first retirement.  He hadn’t decided to come back yet, but there were news reports everyday about how his car was parked in the Bulls parking lot, and how he was practicing with the team.

I remember I’d run upstairs so I could watch the local news talk about this possible Jordan return on my shitty antenna TV.  When the TV would get fuzzy, I’d gently adjust the rabbit ears while saying prayers to God that sounded something like, “Dear God, please let me see Alison Rosati throw it to the Channel 5 field reporter standing in front of the Bulls practice facility!”  Every 5PM local news felt like a potential Christmas morning where the best present EVER was possibly under the tree.

Finally, that present came in the form of a fax that said “I’m back.”  Even now, the thought of those words makes me want to wake up jump on my bed and wake up my smelly wife while yelling “He’s back!!!!”

LANCE:  DA LANCE ARMSTRONG DOC

This followed up the Jordan doc in ESPN’s “Is This a 30 for 30?” doc-series, and I went in ready to dunk on anyone who wasn’t a Lance fan going into it.  Pre-conceived notions are the best!  (Try singing Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” but substitute “Preeeeeee-conceived notions” because that’s just what I did and I want you to UNDERSTAND MY LIFE!)  A guy raised hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research and inspired generations of people with the scariest disease you can get, but we have to hate him because he lied about taking drugs in a sport where…everyone lied about taking drugs?  What was I missing?  (Nothing.  You never miss anything, Jimmy.  You’re so smart and aware.)

And then…this thing happened where I watched the documentary and started having these “Uh oh”-thoughts. Like, when his first coach was talking about how much of a dick Lance was.  Or, when he left his first wife pretty soon after they had their first kid.  Or, when multiple teammates of his talked about how they were never given a chance to compete because everything was about supporting Lance.  Or, when his former team trainer talked about how Lance tried to ruin her life for telling a story about how she saw him use ‘roids… And “Uh oh, Lance is kind of a dick.”

Thankfully, I watched this alone, so I didn’t have to defend my Preeeeee-conceiveeeeeed notions.  If, like me, you think that overcoming cancer, raising HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars in cancer research (HUNDREDS!), and inspiring countless people who are fighting CANCER(!), gives you a free pass to act however you want in all other areas of your life, this doc puts that to the test!  I still think that the good heavily outweighs the bad with Mr. BikeMan, but get ready to cringe a few times and look over your shoulder scared someone is going to ask, “you still think that guy is a good guy?”

MEMORY LANE STROLL DURING THIS DOC:

Who didn’t have a Livestrong bracelet?  I remember the Livestrong bracelet led to a SERIES of unfortunate jewelry choices on my part.  I felt so cool and good about the yellow band, that I thought, “what’s better than one rubber band?” So I started wearing like 5…on each wrist…Then, THAT snowballed when I saw the lead singer of Coldplay wearing like 200 thin bands around his wrists.  (No Jimmy…don’t say that you…)  So I bought the exact bands Chris Martin was wearing and wore like 100 little bands around my wrists for a while! Like, more than a month!

Here’s a piece of advice that I wish ANYONE IN MY LIFE had given me when I was going through the “wear as much shit around your wrists”-phase of my life: Just because one of the biggest rockstars in the world looks cool in something, doesn’t mean YOU will cool in that same thing.  Especially when you’re a waiter who hasn’t had a girlfriend in over 4 years.

YIIIIIIIIKES!

LONG GONE SUMMER:  DA MARK MCGWIRE AND SAMMY SOSA DOC

I’m not going to lie to you because that’s the thing you write before you say something that’s somewhat revealing and/or surprising: I watched like 7 minutes of this doc.  (Honey?  Today’s Jimmyschair has a review about a documentary he hasn’t even really watched.  Make sure you don’t miss it!)  Unlike the Jordan doc, Da Sosa Doc had the feel of a surefire terrible movie from the start.  Like, you saw the trailer and thought you were in because that was a fun baseball summer, but then you woke up sweaty later that night and yelled, “I BET THEY’RE NOT EVEN GOING TO TALK ABOUT STEROIDS THAT MUCH!!!”

And from everything that I heard, they didn’t, and it sucked, and I’m happy I didn’t try to convince The VP that it would actually be good.  (What’s worse than standing up for a movie that your spouse doesn’t want to watch, only to have it be horrible?)  In case you haven’t heard similar things, now is when I suggest you listen to me and SKIP THIS DOC!

MEMORY LANE STROLL DURING THIS DOC:

The only Cubs game my Mom brought me to where it was just her and I, was during this home run derby summer.  She brought me to the game where Sosa hit his 60th homer (I think? Don’t google it and point out that he hit his 60th on the road or something…JUST GO WITH THIS)  If it wasn’t his 60th, it was somewhere around there because Wrigley went absolutely BONKERS when he hit it.  One of those few times I remember being at Wrigley and having a great time BEFORE booze was involved in these trips.

After watching an entire Cubs game in Wrigley SOBER (should a documentary be made about me?) my Mom and I got onto the train home and ended up sitting across from my little brother’s Godfather, Kevin.  What I didn’t know at the time is that Kevin was enjoying this game in the A.B. column and Kevin was BLITZED OUT OF HIS MIND on this train.  I remember wondering why his face and eyes were so red and why he couldn’t really talk.  My Mom covered it up pretty well because I didn’t think about him being hammered until recently, when I realized that almost everyone over the age of 19 leaves Wrigley not being able to walk or talk.

And now that a lot of my friends have kids, and I still don’t, I’m thinking that I may be on the Kevin path…Where my friends’ wife is going to have to lie to her kids about why Uncle Jimmy couldn’t talk that one time they saw him on the train.  Please, just tell your kids “he’s had a hard life.  Give him a break.”

LETS LOVE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

When you cook chicken breast and it actually doesn’t taste like the most bland bullshit ever.  We used some Trader Joe’s rub on chicken breasts last night because I’ve gotten PUDGY and I didn’t hate them!  But, you know what I do hate?

LETS HATE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

That thing that I just wrote about the chicken breasts.  Jesus Christ was that boring and lame AND I HAVE NO PERSONALITY ANYMORE NOW THAT I LIVE IN THE SUBURBS.  I LIVE A LIFE OF BLAH!!!!!!

HERE’S A SONG I LIKE:

It’s Time To Try Some Stuff

MY WORLD

Guys, it’s okay to look into your neighbor’s windows now.  (Deep gasp…. “Honey? Do you know where our binoculars are?”)  No, stop it.  I’m not talking like in the creepy Peeping Tom sense, I’m meaning like, if you can see into your neighbor’s apartment or house, it’s okay to just stare into there now.  It’s quarantine and there are only so many episodes of “Mad Men” you can watch while pretending that all you’re thinking about isn’t “Dear God, when can I look at MY FUCKING PHONE AGAIN?!?!”  (New nightly game in our household is watching the other one on the phone while “our” show is on and acting like you’re not super pissed and jealous about it.  Is there a more condescending question than, “Why do you need to look at your phone so much?”) 

Anyway, you can look into your neighbor’s window now.  As long as you’re sitting in your place, and you’re not using binoculars (“Forget it!  He said ‘no binoculars’. DAMNIT!”)  And the reason I know it’s okay is because that’s what I was doing for the 37 minutes prior to writing this.  What I did was, I sat down at my writing desk (it’s special because it’s white and…my laptop sits on it!) opened a blank word document, and then…stared out my window and into the apartments of ALL of my across-the-street neighbors!  Nothing too interesting, but there were a few instances where I’m sure this guy on the 3rd floor saw me, and I just didn’t try to hide that I was looking into his apartment.  Usually, I’d do the thing where I’d awkwardly look up at the ceiling and then leave the room, but not tonight…NOT IN QUARANTINE!  I’M LOOKING IN YOUR APARTMENT, BUB!  AND THERE AIN’T A GODDAMN THING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!

So voyeurism is a new thing I’m trying, and that got me to thinking: What else would I do or try now that I am so obscenely quarantinoed (“torpedoed” with the quarantine blues = quarantinoed)

SMOKING CRACK

I would.  If a drug dealer was riding his bike up and down my block yelling, “I’m going to give free crack to someone in whichever apartment building I stop in front of tonight!” and that drug dealer stopped in front of my apartment, where I just so happened to be looking out the window, and we made eye-contact, and he was like “You!  You want some free crack?”  I’d be like “Yeah.”  Of course he’s wearing latex gloves, and I would insist that he simply leave it at the front door to my building because of contactless pick-up and all.  But yeah, as long as he did that, and was willing to explain to me from the sidewalk up to my 3rd floor apartment how to smoke crack, I would do it.

There are just so few opportunities in life to justify smoking crack in your apartment, that I feel like passing up the covid quarantine justification, is a disgusting waste of a perfect excuse.  Also, we’ve all watched all of the drug shows and documentaries and news stories, and I’m sure, like me, you’ve thought “I bet I wouldn’t get addicted if I tried it.”  And you know what? YOU WOULDN’T IN QUARANTINE!  Unless the generous drug dealer decides to bike down your block again, but chances are he won’t because he’s busy spreading cheer to surrounding neighborhoods.  Free crack is one thing.  Free crack TWICE?  Dream on, weirdo!

And if you do it just once, in the safety of your own apartment under the horrified supervision of your southern wife, what’s the worst that could happen?  (Not a serious question, do not send me google articles about the first, and last time people smoked crack.  DON’T RUIN MY DREAM!)  Would explaining why you felt compelled to do this to your wife be uncomfortable?  Of course!  But what is she going to do?  Leave?  Where?  It’s a quarantine babe, ain’t nowhere to go!

In fact, I’m pretty sure smoking crack suppresses hunger, so I would make a health-based argument to The VP that would go something like this: “VP?  Hi, it’s me Jimmy.  You know I want you to find me attractive, right?  Well I know that you’ve noticed me eating 8 meals a day and snacking in between, and I can tell that my turbo-charged weight gain is really bumming you out.  So!  What if I told you I could ingest something that would suppress my appetite and cause me to lose a few lbs?”  As the VP would pretend not to be supremely disgusted by my newly explosive waistline, she’d say something like, “Oh stop…but what?”  That’s when I’d show her the spoon with the crack on it.

Now, would she be excited?  No.  I can’t imagine any wife is excited when her husband announces that he’s going to smoke crack in front of her.  BUT!  There is a chance that A) She doesn’t know that it’s crack on the spoon, or B) That if it does end up causing you to lose weight, she’ll justify the means to the end of your waistline expansion.  Obviously, there is a ‘C’ option that could take place where she calls her mom crying that “Jimmy is smoking crack!” but I think that’s unlikely because this is my dream AND what woman wants anyone to know that their husband is a crack smoker?

So, I’d end up getting to smoke crack without most of all of the negative consequences associated with smoking crack NOT during a quarantine.  The positives include:

  • Getting to finally see what all the “buzz” is about with this crack thing!
  • Can’t get addicted when you only do it once and have no chance to get it again…anytime soon at least.
  • Can’t get arrested at a time when cops have much more important things to do than bust a pudgy 34 year-old looking to “just try something crazy, man!”
  • Can’t lose your wife because the government says she is not allowed to leave the house.  By the time all of these restrictions are lifted, she’ll be laughing about you smoking crack!
  • It has to be a pretty kick-ass high, right?

Am I asking for someone to send me crack and instructions how to do it from the spoon thing?  (Like, can you use any old spoon or…is a spoon even involved?  Wait, no…I’d just need a pipe wouldn’t I?!?!)  I am not looking for someone to send me crack and instructions on how to do it.  But, yes, if it were sent to me I would smoke it…and, I would probably try heroin too now that I realize that’s the one you use with the spoon.  Either one.

HACKING A WEBSITE 

In normal-times, hackers suck.  They sit in front of their computers all day and just fuck with websites because they can, while we’re all out being COOL PEOPLE doing things like drinking shots with people you don’t like that much, and hiking.  However, when EVERY PERSON is sitting in front of their computer all day, aren’t hackers the coolest?  By default, they become top of the human food chain.  Well, since I don’t want to be at the bottom of that food chain, because the bottom…uh…DIES!  I’d like the opportunity to prove my worth by hacking a website.

I wouldn’t want to be a hardcore, governmental website hacker that gets hauled away by The Punisher.  No, instead, I’d like to be that like friendly, harmless hacker guy.  Like, hack into the TJ Maxx website, rename it “TJ Min” and make it so the ONLY product available is a bandana that says “Born to Ride” on it.  Everyone’s aunt, having just recently learned how to e-shop on account of quarantine, would be so excited to check out what TJ Maxx has to offer until… “How come all I can buy is this very very cool bandana?”  Then they’d buy the “Born to Ride” bandanas even though they don’t even ride!  SUCKERS!!!!

Most of the reasons why I would try these things during quarantine come back to me being able to tell people that I did that thing once, and this is no exception.  I’m imagining some dumpy dinner party I’ll be invited to a few years down the road, where I don’t really know anyone and am giving The VP half-smiles from across the room that she knows mean, “can we get the fuck out of here now?”  As I’d guzzle WHATEVER alcohol was available in between menacing half-smiles, some blob would come up to me and say, “Hey, I’m Blobbington, what’s your name?”  It would be at this precise moment, that I would bypass the typical introductions: “Don’t worry about my name, Blobbington.  I’m a hacker.”

Blobbington would try to chuckle off the “I’m a hacker”-thing to ease the tension, but I’d lean into it and give him a menacing “I’m not fucking kidding”-chuckle.  Then it’s awkward, but I’d have the power position in this interaction that I never really wanted in the first place.  “I’ve hacked websites, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.”  Then I’d finish my drink, hold out the empty glass for Blobbington to take, and yell across the room, “I’m leaving now!”

And I’d be able to do all of that because I tried hacking a website during quarantine.

DM’ING CELEBRITIES

I want to DM celebrities because getting celebrities to personally respond to me would feel like a real victory and I know that’s sad, but it’s true.  How many boring ass stories about someone’s celebrity sighting have you sat through?  How many have you enjoyed?  The answers to those two questions are: a billion! And zero!

Buuuuuuuuut, if I told you a story about how I DM’d Robert from “Shark Tank” about “how proud I am of you for being an advocate for the very short businessman community,” and he responded with “Thx” and a praying hands emoji, wouldn’t you enjoy that?  I bet you would!

Which celebrities would I most like to DM, aside from “Shark Tank” Bob, and what would I say to them hoping to elicit ANY sort of response?  I’m glad you asked!

  • Adele: “Can you palm a basketball?”
    • I really want to know. I think she can.
  • Scottie Pippen: “Be honest, do you think you were better than Michael Jordan?”
    • How many nights do you think Pippen stayed up thinking, “If Phil would just let me take the last shot, I’d be the star!”
  • Just saying “I love you” to all of my celebrity crushes in the hopes that one of them would respond, “I love you too.” Then I could show off and tell everyone that “Don Draper’s mistress from Season 3, episode 7 of ‘Mad Men’ loves me too!”

 

PODCAST TO LISTEN TO: 

Season One of “Up and Vanished”.  I listened to it on a road trip a while ago and I don’t remember details, but I remember it was engrossing.

MUSIC TO LISTEN TO:

A bunch of musicians have been playing live concerts from their homes during this quarantine, and I watched some of Pete Yorn’s on Instagram live.  That was good.  But I also just found that Dave Matthews plays a solo show on Yahoo and it’s recorded and I can watch it whenever I want.  So…yeah, maybe I’ll check it out.   Whatever.  I do what I want.

Here’s the link…I don’t know if it’ll work because I suck with computers, BUT I’M TRYING MY BEST!

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/dave-matthews-livestream-concert-verizon-pay-it-forward-live-234734706.html

TV SHOW TO WATCH:

I’ve been having a really hard time focusing on television shows, so I’ve been leaning more towards shows that I can enjoy without paying THAT much attention to.  One of the best for this kind of viewing is “Shark Tank”.  I feel like it’s on 24/7 and I always kinda’ enjoy it without having to really try that hard.

MOVIE TO WATCH:

The VP and I watched “Sicario” a few days ago and it was smart, intense, and cool.  I like those things.

K, bye.

Can You Put Out a Fire with Alcohol?

MY WORLD:

I now regularly eat hot dogs for lunch.  What used to be a once or twice A YEAR treat at a baseball game, is now an almost DAILY dietary staple (Almost daily means not every day!  That’s a victory!)  A few days back, I sent a picture to my friends of my hotdogs in the refrigerator and said “sometimes I just like to watch them sleep.”  Yes, it was a joke…but, was it though?  There have now been multiple days where I open the fridge around 11:45 (don’t lie, you know you consider lunchtime 11am now) and I just look at the hot dogs in my fridge.  Am I smiling creepily while humming “Rock A Bye Baby” in the direction of my Ball Park Franks?  No! (Is that a victory for you at this point?)  But I do look at them…and…yeah, dream of how good two of them would taste at 11:13AM on a Tuesday?  YEAH, MAYBE I FUCKING DO!

Peak levels of stress now include the phrase “only about a week’s left of relish in there.”  There’s a guy across the street from me who just sits in his window now and looks outside, and while I was eating a lunch dog (no need to say “hot dog,” THERE’S JUST NO TIME!) I caught eyes with him and raised my hot dog up to him like a “cheers!”  Yeah, that’s right.  I cheers’d a stranger across the street at 11:13AM on a Tuesday with a hot dog.  THEN! When he didn’t nod back or show any form of acknowledging my dog cheers in any way, I got offended.  And you know what? I just….

Guys.

Jimmy stop.

I made up the hot dog cheers’ing thing.

I didn’t make up the lunch dogs infatuation, but my brain is becoming so warped, that midway through writing about my lunch pups (is that funnier than lunch ‘dog’?  Yeah, it is.  Stick with it!) I actually did catch eyes with the guy across the street who looks out his window and I thought “next time I have a lunch pup, I’m going to cheers him with it.  That’ll brighten his day!”  So I will do that next time and report back re: his reaction to the lunch pup cheers.  (And you thought you had nothing to look forward to!)

Aside from lunch pups and asking the VP of Ops to waterboard me with IPAs, I figured that buying a house in the middle of a global pandemic/economic meltdown, while my job skates on ice thinner than that picture of you from high school, was a prudent financial decision.  (Just googled the word ‘prudent’ to make sure it meant what I thought it meant, and IT WAS CLOSE ENOUGH!)  The VP and I closed on our first house on Friday, while my heart attempted to close on my body simultaneously.

What should have been an exuberant, exciting moment for us, felt more like a red carpet event for the premiere of “Jimmy’s First Stroke in the Citywide Title Office.”  When asked by those nosey paps who she was wearing, The VP of Ops smiled and said “the same leggings I had on while eating Munchos this morning!” Meanwhile, I carried her purse and used it to hide the grease stain on my 2007 Cincinnati Bearcats sweatpants. It was quite the affair, indeed.  Fortunately, or unfortunately (who knows right now? Stay positive though because the super negative people are awful to be around…but it’s so easy to just…STOP!) I did not suffer my first stroke while signing the closing papers to our first house.

Instead, I kept my big leather winter gloves and big puffy winter coat on the entire time we were signing a BAJILLION pages while constantly reminding myself to NOT TOUCH MY FATTER-BY-THE-SECOND FACE.  If you have never signed closing papers on a house before, here’s what it’s like: ten million pages are put in front of you and you have to go through them, one by one, slow enough that the guy thinks you’re actually reading them, but you’re really just looking for the lines with your name under them so you can sign there and feel a momentary sense of accomplishment.  (I found my name!  Mom! Dad!  I found my name on the page!)  On page nine thousand, four hundred and seventy six, you’ll look to your spouse with blurry eyes and say something like “I no read,” before drooling and then slamming your head on the table while scream-crying “I DON’T THINK I’M MATURE ENOUGH FOR THIS MAGNITUDE OF A PURCHASE!” (That did not go over well with the guy in the office but, thankfully, he yelled at me to get ahold of myself while staying 6 feet away.)

Then, once you’re done signing page four gajillion, you’ll sit alone in a lame office while hearing the office person dude mumble things like “are you sure?” into the phone on their desk.  (Is who sure? Do I want them to be sure? I’m not sure!  Should I tell him I’m not sure?!  SIR! I’M ALSO NOT SURE!)  Eventually, he will come back into the room, still wearing surgical gloves, remind you to take the pens with you, and congratulate you in a way that sounds more like “can I finally go home now and cry into my pillow about the future of our country?”

Closing on our first house in the middle of Shitstorm 3000 felt like trying to celebrate a birthday in New York on 9/11.  “Uhhh…yay!”  As hard as I was trying to stay positive and act excited, all I felt was this overwhelming squeeze of the unknown.  (Squeeze? Strangle?)  But while I drove back to our city apartment with The VP of Ops, I kept telling myself one thing over and over and over: “we’re all in this together.”

And it’s true.  How many times has there been a situation that you’ve dealt with where LITERALLY EVERYONE YOU KNOW IN THE UNIVERSE is dealing with the same thing?  As terrifying as this is, no one is exempt.  And the ones that you’re thinking aren’t worrying about it because they seem the same as they’ve always been?  They’re just better at acting than you are.  I’ve never felt more connected to everyone than I do now.

I’ve also never enjoyed hot dogs more than I do now.

OUR WORLD: 

We’re all living in an excruciatingly elongated moment right now that will change the world forever.  The way we look at World War II documentaries and the Civil Rights movement and think “Jesus, I can’t believe that actually happened!” is what smelly fatsos will be thinking about the movies about Coronavirus that come out in 2056.  And while I’m sure those movies will focus on the most terrifying aspects of what is going on right now, I’d like to note some of the other byproducts that will probably be overlooked by PBS’ 2056, Six-Part Docu-series “Covid 19”.

Hangovers were confused for coronavirus

I was going to write something about how internet is officially the best invention ever, but then I was like “but what about booze?”  The person who invented or discovered booze had to have done so in the middle of some terrifying episode in human evolution.

I’m imagining it was some woman with a broken leg who just heard from her friend that dinosaurs exist. “What’s a dinosaur?” she asked, before hearing a T-Rex roar and squeezing a bunch of grapes harder than grapes had ever been squeezed before.  Then, because Mrs. ‘BoutToBeEatenByMegaYoshi didn’t want to waste the only juice she’d be able to reach until her bum leg became unbummed, she started sucking the ground where the grape juice ran for days on end.  By day 6, with her broken leg throbbing, she sucked the ground harder than ever before and…felt some relief.  A bit of the spins and, finally….peace!  Then she heard a rustling in the bushes and went back to freaking out that she was about to be dino feed.

Anyway, that’s basically how alcohol is working for me right now.  As day turns to night, and stressors multiply to the point of swallowing me, I pour a beer.  And then another beer.  And then an old fashioned.  And then a pilsner because now I’ve got to cool down.  And then just a smidge of whiskey because I don’t need the sugar. And then I’m snoring on the couch in the middle of the sixth episode of “Mad Men” we’ve watched tonight.

Mornings then become a fun little game of “hangover or Corona.”  The first few hours of every day are now set aside for chugging water and coffee and telling yourself not to google corona symptoms for the nine thousandth time this week.  By the time 3PM rolls around and you’ve come out of the hangover enough to realize that maybe you don’t actually have this terrifying virus, well, there’s only one thing to do:  Celebrate.

Home workouts that lasted more than 8 minutes were treated like Olympic training sessions

Not to brag (but maybe a little bit? Fine, yeah.  Check out this shit!) but I ran a marathon not that long ago!  I wasn’t a hardcore “look at me I go to the gym”-guy, but I did go to the gym and didn’t shy away from mentioning that if it came up naturally in a conversation.  “Oh, your mother got a haircut?  Weird you mention that because I had my personal best incline bench yesterday!”

However, since this whole “You should stay home and use this as the ultimate excuse to be a blob”-order has come down, working out has fallen to the back of my priority list.  I’m sure I’m not alone in this either.  Yes, it’s true that moving around and exercising makes your brain feel better, but when your job is hanging by a wet fingernail, you have asthma and YOU JUST BOUGHT A FUCKING HOUSE, getting a sweat in doesn’t exactly register as “something I should focus on getting done today!”

This means that completing a sponsored Instagram ad showing you how to do a 15-minute at-home workout without equipment, is the equivalent of completing a Michael Phelps training session.  I came across one of these smiley Instagram trainers imploring me to “stay active indoors!” yesterday and thought “he’s smiling, so maybe I should listen to him.”

So I followed his “workout”.  This was the kind of workout that I would’ve made fun of in my physical peak, but now I got two minutes in and thought “could The Rock do what I’m doing right now?”  (Yes Jimmy, The Rock could do Jumping Jacks for 2 minutes and 14 seconds).  When I finished the “workout” 11 minutes later, the thin layer of sweat on my forehead might as well have been an Olympic Gold Medal.  I went up to the VP of Ops acting more out of breath than I really was and said stuff like, “just finished a little workout” hoping she would swoon and ask if it was okay to tell her friends about her husband’s physical accomplishments.

She didn’t do that. 

Employees at restaurants are fucking brave

I think we’ve all maybe thought this for a while, but if this whole ordeal doesn’t drive home the fact that people working at our favorite “I’m getting something that makes me feel good”-institutions, are brave as hell, then get your dumbass brain examined.  Seriously, if you’ve been through a drive-thru or ordered delivery over the past few weeks and enjoyed the dopamine rush that comes from eating your favorite foods, make sure you take a second to think of the people that went outside, in public, around others, to make that thing for you and get that thing to you.

Fucking restaurant people are awesome.

PODCAST: 

The Bill Simmons Podcast with Pearl Jam from last Thursday.

MUSIC: 

The new album from The Weeknd and all of these Instagram Live concerts that bands are doing.  Here’s The Weeknd from SNL before the world blew up:

TV: 

Watching “Mad Men” for the first time.  If you’re looking for EVEN MORE inspiration to drink, start watching this show. 

MOVIE:

The VP and I watched “Catch Me if You Can” yesterday.  It’s worth it because it’s Leo and Tom Hanks, but was I blown away?  No.  I was not blown away.

 

K, bye.

What Not To Do At Weddings

OUR WORLD:

A good friend of mine is getting married in Colorado this weekend, and aside from waiting till the absolute last second to get my shit dry-cleaned, I’m going over what not to do this weekend while at this wedding.  (Wait, a 34 year old man needs to talk to himself about what he CAN’T do at a wedding?)  Listen, I’m not here to try make you think I’m cool (mission accomplished, bubba).  I’m here to help you avoid the wedding behavior mistakes that I’ve made and witnessed (mostly made, though) so that your friends aren’t talking about that time they found you drunkenly eating a sandwich lost in a random hotel hallway, looking like someone who belonged in a mugshot.  Next time you go to a wedding, make sure you don’t do the following:

IF YOU PLAY GOLF BEFORE THE WEDDING, AVOID GETTING PAIRED WITH THE AUSTRALIAN GUY.

This means you’re going to have to go to the golf course already armed with excuses as to why you can’t play with “Mike the Australian”.  Be fucking ready with these excuses, I’M NOT JOKING!  Because if they’re calling out the golf cart tandems, and they call “Mike the Australian” after your name then you’re in for a world of problems if you don’t have a “shit guys, my shoulder is really acting up” in your back pocket.  If, like me, you’re cocky enough to think that you can handle yourself while in a golf cart with a cool-accent-guy who drinks 24/7, then get ready to be IN TROUBLE.

Why?  Because whenever you’re in close quarters with an Australian guy, you want them to like you.  These people have the coolest accents in the world, and you’ll convince yourself that once you’re friends with an Australian, that some of that badassery-dust will rub off on you.  It won’t, guys.  You’ll just be the American guy who hung out with an Australian one time golfing at a wedding.  You won’t learn how to speak like that, how to act calm in the face of danger, or how to have every girl in a room thing you’re hot no matter where your hairline sits.  You’ll still be you, standing in the corner with your hands in your pockets because you forgot to cut your fingernails FOR A FOURTH STRAIGHT DAY AFTER REALIZING THEY WERE TOO LONG!!!  GODDAMNIT!!!

But once you’re in a golf cart with MikeTheAustralian, you’re going to forget all this and think to yourself “I think I’m about to be best friends with a guy who sounds like Chris Hemsworth.”  If you close your eyes, you’ll be able to convince yourself that you’re golfing with Thor.  The problems start, however, once the cart girl comes by and asks if you’d like anything to drink.  Uh….NO FUCKING DUH WE WANT DRINKS!  But while your boring, no-accent real friends are ordering Bud Lights and Snickers, you view this as your opportunity to prove how badass you are to your new Thor-sounding friend.  So you order two shots along with your beers, and before you know it, you’ve initiated a routine on THE SECOND FUCKING HOLE that whenever the cart girl comes around, you’re taking a shot with MikeTheAustralian.

I won’t lie to you guys, at first this is going to be really fucking cool.  Your loser American friends will be all “holy shit, they’re taking shots!” and be a little jealous from afar.  And Mike will be so excited that he’ll do something like slap you on the back, or grab your shoulder in that way that says “we’re gonna be lifelong friends and you’re going to be able to use an Australian accent one day because I’m going to give you the credibility to do it.”  You’ll start doing the things you do as you climb Buzz mountain, like laughing too hard at mean things, using a more gravely voice to make inappropriate jokes, and completely ignoring that it’s not even 10am, you’ve had 3 shots already and you’re supposed to be at a fancy dinner AFTER this round.  Consequences are in your fucking rearview as you lean forward, arms extended through the front of your golf cart, screaming “I’m king of the world!”

But you’re not king of the world; you’re king of the about-to-be-in-big-trouble-with-your-future-wife because, for some reason, she’s not going to find it funny when she has to dump water on you to get you to wake back up for the rehearsal dinner.  At that point, following a round of golf where you’re legitimately unsure of whether the number on your scorecard was the number of shots you took, or the number of golf swings you made, you won’t be able to explain that it was because you were paired with an Australian who you HAD to impress.  Nope, instead you’ll say something like “just took a lil sleepy nap!” And she’ll roll her eyes as she readies herself to go to the rehearsal dinner with the “keep your eye on him”-guy.

DON’T ACTUALLY FIGHT OR EVEN THREATEN TO FIGHT SOMEONE AT THE REHEARSAL DINNER.

Sometimes “fight guy” is cool.  Yeah, I know that’s an unpopular opinion, but sometimes when there’s an asshole in a bar and your group’s “fight guy” has had enough…it’s fun to watch him get all riled up.  Unfortunately, this does not apply to Wedding Rehearsal Dinners where “fight guy” will double as “he’s about to ruin the most important weekend of these people’s lives because he just got shushed”-guy.

You need to be aware enough that you could become this guy ESPECIALLY if you were paired with MikeTheAustralian earlier in the day at the golf course.  (This sounds very specific, Jimmy.  Like…)  Hypothetically speaking, IF you were paired with MikeTheAustralian at the golf course, needed your girlfriend to dump a bucket of cold water on you to wake you up after the round, and then, I don’t know, happen to get “shushed” for talking too loud during one of the groomsmen’s speech, you may find yourself in the middle of an uncontrollable rage.  Yes, we can all agree that being “shushed” is infuriating and that, in normal settings, it would justify throwing said “shusher” into an active volcano.  However, when you’re already the “keep your eye on him”-guy, and its a wedding rehearsal dinner, actions made out of rage are frowned upon.

Knowing this, I bet you’re just going to tell anyone with ears at that dinner that you’re going to “beat the shit out of Shush McGee”.  You’re going to tell all these people-with-ears this multiple times throughout the rest of the night thinking that this is your only alternative to NOT punching his face off.  The ears people aren’t going to think “wow, this guy is tough, but also has restraint.  I respect that.”  Not even close.  They’re going to think, “so, who here is going to tell security about this guy and his fireball breath?”

BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF AND MAKE SURE YOU’RE WEARING PANTS THAT FIT.

Surprisingly, this goes both ways.  Yes, at this point in MY life, I am officially NEVER in the “hey, these pants are too loose”-crowd.  But, I was there at one point in my life when I ran more often than I ate a family-sized bag of Tostitos Scoops.  If your pants are too big because you bought them when you were in a fat phase, but you’re thinking you can get away with not buying pants that fit, you’re going to regret looking like a bozo-the-clown in pictures with your big baggy dress pants.  They’re going to make you look shorter than you already are, and sloppier than you want to admit you are.  Spend the $40 at Nordstrom Rack and get a pair of pants that don’t gather at your feet.

Then there’s the other side.  The worse side.  The scarier side of this predicament.  The “yeah these are tight, but I only have to wear them for a few hours”-sized pants.  You’ll wear them out of a combination of not wanting to spend money on a style of pants you wear twice a year, AND not wanting to admit that you’ve put on weight since the last wedding you were at 14 months ago.  Guess what?  Calories matter, even if you’re standing while eating in the kitchen.  Don’t believe what they say, eating leftovers while standing in front of the fridge right before bed counts against your daily calorie total.

Now, you’re stuck at a wedding having to lean back in your chair, while keeping your legs straight so that your pants’ ass doesn’t burst in front of the bride’s Aunt Helen.  Getting on the dance floor means that you won’t even get to THINK about bending, and all of the great looking food and cake is just going to remind you that you’re a fatter version of yourself than you were at the last wedding you were at.  Not to mention, you’re friggin starving but have NEGATIVE space to spare around your waist, so eating anything other than mixed nuts is out of the question.

LETS HATE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

When you’re getting your haircut and the stylist asks how you want it and you have no idea what to say.  You want to be like “uh…shorter,” but you know she’s looking for more details so you just hem and haw until you feel like an absolute IDIOT.  JUST MAKE ME LOOK BETTER THAN I CURRENTLY DO!

LETS LOVE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

Whoa, just came across this little diddy and I lurvvvve it so so much.

 

MOM MEMORY OF THE DAY:

One time my Mom was dropping my friends and I off at the mall, and she was looking for a parking spot so she could go in and buy something for herself.  It was really crowded, so as she went up and down the aisles of packed cars, she got more and more frustrated.  Then she hit the rows of handicapped parking spots, all of which were empty…full rows completely empty.  Unable to find a spot, with snot-nosed dorks in her backseat, her anger crescendoed and she let out a “Jesus Christ, how many goddamn handicapped people are they expecting?!?!”

Sorry Mom, that’s a funny one.

K, bye.

I Sat Next to an NBA Superstar Yesterday and You Have to Believe Me

MY WORLD:

I sat next to James Harden at lunch yesterday.  Now, the reaction to that from the text message I sent to my friend groupchat, should have been “whoa, cool!”  Or, “no way dude, he’s so good at basketball!”  Or, “he has a big beard!”  Or, I don’t know, why couldn’t ONE FRIEND write something like, “hey Jimmy, even though it was blind luck that you ended up sitting next to the NBA MVP Runner-up, you should treat this as an accomplishment in your life, feel better about yourself, and expect to receive praise from others when you tell them of this accomplishment.”  WOULD THAT HAVE BEEN SO FUCKING HARD?!?!   But instead, all I got was “pic or it didn’t happen.”

So there I was, a 34 year old adult, contemplating how I could take a spycam picture of a 29 year old guy I’ve never spoken to before.  The situation went from exciting to terrifying immediately, and I basically stopped talking to the person I was actually having lunch with because I was so caught up in my brain about what I should do.  Some of the thoughts that went through my essentially useless brain, included:

-Do I ask for a selife?  Go up to him, say something like “huge NBA fan here, James!  Love watching you play!  Mind if I get a pic?”  

Yeah, that would’ve been a cool thing for me to do except uh…no it fucking wouldn’t have been.  I’m not a selfie guy.  I’m the guy who makes fun of people who take selfies!  THAT’S MY ENTIRE IDENTITY!!!  Although, yeah, I would ask to take a selfie with someone who actually IS a hero of mine (cough…Eddie Vedder…or someone who knew Chris Farley…cough) But then I started thinking of how big of a lie, that would be.

Okay, so I’m meeting James Harden for the first time and the first two things I tell him are FLAGRANT lies.  1)  I am not a huge NBA fan.  I like it, but I don’t really care about the NBA until football is over…and even then, all I think about is how “I miss football.”  2)  I actually hate watching James Harden play basketball.  If I was being totally honest with him (and isn’t honsesty ALWAYS the way to go?) I’d say “James!  Whenever I see the Rockets are playing, I loudly exhale and text my friends something I’m only half-joking about, like how I’d rather cannonball into an active volcano than watch you travel on every play before bitching to the refs that you were breathed on too hard.”  Wild guess here, but I don’t think he’d be excited about posing for a selfie with my fat face (you went to the gym yesterday, Jimmy.  Did you tell them yet?) after hearing that.

-I should pretend to be texting on my phone, while slowly rotating my chair to the right-where James is sitting-while I really have my camera up so that once I get him in frame, BOOM!  PIC TAKEN!

Clearly, I am not one of those people who have mastered the spycam technique.  (It’s because you’re a scared baby).  It’s not because I’m scared (it is, though) I just think that the risk of getting caught outweighs the reward.  So…shit, yeah I’m scared (my Dad just called asking for blood sample.  Something about “no son of his-“)  Can we think, for just a second, about what would happen if I DID actually get caught trying to take a spycam pic of James Harden?

The bartender had already told me “don’t be weird about it” when the guy I was having lunch with asked if that was, in fact, James Harden.  It was weird because I didn’t ask the question, but she looked directly at ME and said “don’t be weird about it.”  Of course, I calmly, quickly replied with a, “too late,” that drew some laughs but…like, it was too late.  I was caught in between staring and doing the “I”m not staring, I’m just drift-looking at the ceiling above your head James Harden”-thing.  Yeah, weird was accomplished.  So if after that, she caught the camera on my phone screen, there is a decent chance that she would have gently grabbed my arm, clenched her jaw and uttered a furious, “I fucking said not to be weird!”  Then, I’m the PROVEN weird guy who has to be touched to be believed.  She would probably be thinking “I have to touch this person to make sure that I’m not hallucinating that I’m witnessing an adult being THIS weird.”

And what if James Harden caught me?  (Can’t call him just ‘James’ because we’re not close enough friends) With how petty NBA players are, and how ready they are to air their shit on Twitter, is out COMPLETELY out of the realm of possibility that he would take my picture in retaliation only to post it on his Twitter with the caption “Chicago Creepo”?  Guys, that’s fucking possible and you know it.  YOU KNOW IT GODDAMN WELL!

Next thing I know, people are printing kitchy, graphic t-shirts featuring the pic Harden took of me on them with his caption underneath.  Then I’m walking down the street with The VP of Ops and people are whispering while staring at me.  So the VP curiously asks, “why are people looking at you and whispering?”  I pretend not to hear the question and just keep walking, until some girl starts laughing as she approaches me pointing and saying “you!  You’re the Chicago Creepo!”  Then I’m trying to explain that the reason a girl called me “The Chicago Creepo” is because I got caught taking a spycam pic of James Harden, but she won’t believe that.  No, she’ll go straight to “a girl pointed him out, so that must mean he was taking spycam pics of girls.”  So we’ll end up getting divorced, and any date I have with any girl after will be a terrifying “I hope she hasn’t seen that James Harden pic of me” experience.

-I could tell the bartender to buy James Harden a beer and tell him that it’s from me.  

So, I’m trying to pick up James Harden in a bar now?  Either two things could happen here: 1)  He could accept the beer, raise it for a “cheers” from down the bar and carry on with his lunch.  2)  He could decline the beer, in which case the bartender would then return it to me–but I didn’t want to drink during the day on a Tuesday, so now I’m just sitting at lunch with this beer/”James Harden rejection trophy.”  He’ll look over a few times to see what certified bozo-the-clown sent a Tuesday afternoon beer over to a professional athlete and I’ll catch him with a half-smile in an effort to convey “I’m not a weird guy.”  He won’t smile back, though.  Instead, he’ll look to the guy he’s actually having lunch with and say something like, “keep an eye on that dude for me.”

In the end, I convinced myself that doing nothing was the only option.  So I sat at lunch, pretended to listen to the guy I was having lunch with, and made the executive decision that proving I sat next to James Harden wasn’t worth risking my marriage/dignity/future.  BUT I FRIGGIN’ SWEAR HE WAS RIGHT NEXT TO ME WEARING A BIG HAT AND BIG FLANNEL SHIRT AND LOOKING FLYYYYYYY!!!!

OUR WORLD:

Continuing the theme from today’s “My World”, I’d like to educate my fellow early-to-mid 30s people on, aside from taking a spycam pic of James Harden, what other things you are no longer allowed to do.  Of course, if you’re one of those “I don’t believe in the word ‘can’t'”-people, then this section will read as a challenge.  But maybe, even those people can take a break from their life of posting inspirational quotes over their crossfit videos and actually contemplate whether “can’t” is something that they should incorporate.

-You can’t wear sweatpants in public anymore.

The sweatpants-wearing public has been fooled by the tapered (?) cuffed (?) bottoms of new sweatpants into thinking that those make it acceptable to go outside wearing them.  Yes, this was a “Seinfeld” bit 20 years ago, but the emergence of Lululemon (and imposters for those of us poors) has caused a confusion that has led to a sweatpants-in-public resurgence.  It’s like when you work out a lot and then think you can eat whatever you want.  Next thing you know, you’re too sluggish from all the chips to go to the gym anymore and you’ve put on 14 pounds.  Just because the hot mannequin guy is pulling it off in the store window, doesn’t mean that you and your puffy beer face can.

-You can’t go to music festivals and post non-funny videos of yourself there.

Was I the only one seeing people my age post Instagram stories of themselves wearing basketball jerseys and neon whatever while at Lollapalooza this past weekend?  They’re cringeworthy, and even though I hadn’t spoken to these people in years, I felt like contacting them just to see “is everything okay?”  Now, I’m not judging if you actually went–that distinction must be drawn.  There are bands at music festivals that we are still allowed to love (oh thank god Jimmy told me I don’t have to give up music!)  So you can go, yeah.  But while there, if you find the need to send any sort of video of the band on stage, or you in the crowd, you better be damn sure that it’s a funny video.  Because if that video says something like “all the feels” or is just of you doing some sway-dance moves that your drunk brain thinks are “actually pretty cool,” then you become THAT person to EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE.  One “look at me at this music festival” Instagram video after the age of 30 will cause: banks to never give you a loan; friends not to trust you alone with their spouses; and your parents to drink more.

-You can’t have dirty dishes in your sink when guests are over.

This one is deeply personal and, frankly, really fucking stinks.  Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was a goddamn crime to put a DISH in a SINK!  Unfortunately, I have been hit with one too many “you’re a slob, huh?”-looks from guests who see the plate I used at breakfast that morning sitting there in the sink.  Now, thankfully, there is a trick if you have a dishwasher, aka “the best hiding place in the world.”  Look, you don’t have to have every dish actually clean once guests arrive, they just can’t be able to see them without opening a SECRET door.  So do yourself a favor, jam every dirty dish or kitchen utensil you have into your dishwasher right before your guests arrive.  That way, when you’re giving them the grand tour of your 900 square foot apartment, you’ll get to shoot them a “bet you feel dumb for thinking I was a slob”-look when you get to the kitchen portion of the tour.

LETS HATE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

When you get your dog all riled up and running around your apartment, but then she accidentally jumps into a table and starts crying.  You grab her, almost start crying yourself because it’s your fault and you think you’re about to pay $2,000 at the vet because her leg “has to be broken if she’s crying like this.”  Only to have her, one minute later, walk around like nothing ever happened while you try to convince your wife that you weren’t crying.

LETS LOVE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

I really love this band and am reminded of it when their songs randomly come up on my Spotify mixes.

MOM MEMORY OF THE DAY:

Yeah, I know, this may be a bit heavy, but I’m always trying to be really honest in this blog and I think a lot about my Mom.  So, until I start gambling again (“I can’t wait!” said the VP in a shitty, sarcastic tone) I’m going to share some quick memories of my Mom.

When I was 15, my parents got me a 1984 Ford Escort hatchback to learn on.  They didn’t want me to learn on their much nicer cars, so they gave me this hunk of junk and DARED me to say anything negative about it.  Within the first week of having it, my Mom backed her Chevy Suburban directly into the driver’s side of my Ford Escort.  I was outside when it happened, and I watched like it was slow motion.  She left a massive dent in my car, while there wasn’t a scratch on the Suburban.  While I stood in the driveway watching, she rolled down her window and very matter-of-factly said, “we’re not fixing that,” before driving off.

K, bye.

“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” Takeaways

OUR WORLD:

The VP and I saw “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” on Saturday night (date night omg sahhh kewt!) and it was the brand of good that makes you want to buy a movie pass so that you can go every weekend.  Now, having had a full 24 hours to digest what I saw, I’d like to go over what stuck with me.  If you have yet to see this movie (I almost wrote ‘picture’ instead of ‘movie’ there in an effort to sound smarter than I am…then my brain was like, “hey, but you’re dumb.” So I went with ‘movie’.)  If you have yet to see this MOVIE, then I’d skip today’s “Our World”.  There will be spoilers because I want to write about the ending.  In lieu of calling this a “review,” I’m opting for the much snappier “things that stuck with me even after 24 hours from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”:

Brad Pitt is the coolest man to walk the face of the earth in my lifetime.

The first time Pitt walked on screen, the VP gasped, which was nice because it muffled my gasp.  When I looked over at her, her eyes were drooling.  (Crying?)  No, not crying.  Her eyes were panting, drooling, screaming “how is there a human alive who can look this good?!?!”  She didn’t utter those exact words, but she didn’t need to, her eyes told the story.  And I was with her.  I, on the other hand, wanted to start crying while shaking my head and frightfully asking the universe “how? HOW GOD? HOW IS THERE SOMEONE THIS HOT AND COOL AT THE SAME TIME?!?!”

The hair.  There needs to be a documentary about Brad Pitt’s hair because every time I see one of his movies, one of the first thoughts I have is “I want hair like that.”  Then, I’ll probably try to style my shitty whispies like Pitt for the week following the movie, only to realize that…uh…I’m not Brad Pitt.  His hair in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” accomplishes this feat again (where’s the “make my hair look like Pitt’s”-product?) Somehow it’s blonde and long and full and, even though he’s in his mid-50s, the lack of gray doesn’t come off as fake.  WHAT TYPE OF SORCERY IS AT WORK?!?!

I imagine Tarantino writing his character, Cliff Booth, and thinking “I need to write the coolest guy in any room he walks into…oh right, I’ll just think of Brad Pitt.”  I’m not even 100% sure that Tarantino wrote Pitt’s character, or if Pitt just showed up and Quentin was like, “yeah, just be you.”  What direction could Tarantino possibly have given Pitt in this movie?  “Brad, in this scene, can you do that thing where you strut in a natural looking way and then give that smirk that lets the entire universe know that you’re the coolest person ever?”

In the scene where Pitt’s character tosses Bruce Lee into the car, if you didn’t start laughing while saying “fuck yes” then you need to go to a therapist and ask “why do I suck?”

In the scene where Pitt’s character parkour’s his way from the ground to the roof, did you think for a second that he probably, actually can do that?  Maybe the reason I’m not into superhero movies is because Brad Pitt can make superhero things look natural?

In the scene where Pitt’s character tells “Squeaky” that a screen door isn’t going to stop him from seeing his old friend, did you try to think of a house with a screen door that you’ve been to?  That you could return to, pissed off but projecting calm strength, to flick said screen door and tell the owner that “this isn’t going to stop me”?  Yes, whoever you’re talking to will not understand what’s going on and, possibly, call the police, but just explain that you’re not trying to become Pitt’s character from “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”

Remember when you were a kid and you’d see a superhero movie and then go home and dress like the superhero?  This movie and this actor can give that same feeling to an adult.  Now, where can I find some moccasin boot things and a Hawiian shirt that, somehow, someway makes me look tough?

Who’s the next super villain Tarantino’s going to avenge?

Lately, it seems that the Tarantino recipe is to go back, find the greatest villains of all-time, and create movies with endings that kill these villains in the most satisfying way imaginable.  He kills Hitler in “Basterds”.  He kills slave owners in “Django”.  He kills the Manson family in “Hollywood”.  It’s a fantastic formula, that I’m worried I’m catching onto.  Like, will I instantly know what is going to happen in his next movie if it’s about another all-time villain?  Whatever, still worth it.

This formula got The VP and I talking after the movie, though, about what super villain would be next for Tarantino to kill in the most satisfying way imaginable?  Here’s what we came up with (and what I’ve come up with since because, honestly, The VP didn’t contribute all that much to this exercise…no offense, no offense!):

  • Osama Bin-Laden
  • ISIS
  • Mark David Chapman
  • Fidel Castro
  • Lee Harvey Oswald
  • Harvey Weinstein…wouldn’t THAT be something?!?!
  • Kim Jong Un

And, shit, I just remembered that The VP actually DID contribute to this exercise.  In fact, she came up with the BEST one: Yoko Ono.

Is Leo the last great classic-Hollywood star?

There’s something to that Hollywood guy who has gotten too big to ever return to television, who when you see on screen you don’t think of as human, but “star”.  It’s that indescribable quality that we’ve seen in Denzel Washington, Jack Nicholson, and, most recently, Leonardo DiCaprio.  Whatever movie they’re in you know is going to be fantastic because THEY are in it.

Quick, try this little exercise: think of Leonardo DiCaprio and then ask yourself to write the first word down that you thought of while thinking about him.  It’s “Star” isn’t it?  (Actually, it’s not Jimmy, so…fuck your premise and fuck you.)  It’s not that he’s the best looking person of all-time (we’ve gone over this, it’s Pitt) but it’s crackling charisma paired with an unmistakable knack to draw every eyeball in every room…ever.  That was Nicholson.  That was Denzel.  That is  Leo now.

But, who’s the next star of stars?  Again, The VP and I discussed:

  • She said that Timothee Chalamet guy from the gay bike movie with THE PEACH and I almost drove into wall.
  • I said Ryan Gosling and we both groaned like “yeah, I guess..like, if we HAVE to…” then we both scrunched our faces and shook our heads at exactly the same time because WE’RE SOULMATES!!!
  • Miles Teller kinda’ has a chance.  I guess?
  • Jennifer Lawrence
  • Michael B. Jordan but no because you can never be THE star of stars if you’re never going to be the most famous person with your name.

And the answer that we finally landed on is…that there’s no one.  Now, every star is television or internet based and so it’s over.  That’s it.  Pack it in.

LETS HATE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

When you eat like an absolute horse after working out because you’ve “earned it,” but then you go so far overboard that you start wondering whether working out is the reason you’re gaining weight.

LETS LOVE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

THIS STAND-IN FOR GAMBLING SECTION:

Still working on it.  Actually, I’m going to be honest, I haven’t been working on it and then I got here and was like “shit.”  So…yeah.

K, bye.

TV Shows vs. The Summer

OUR WORLD:

When it’s a beautiful day in the summer and your friends are asking you to play golf, ENJOY NATURE! (fuck off hippy) or meet up for drinks on a big, dumb patio and you pass that up to stay in to watch television, you know you’ve got an all-time show on your hands.  In normal-weather cities, like Chicago, standards for television shows go up in the summer.  With 2-3 months of not-jesus-christ-it’s-freezing temperatures, passing up those days to stay indoors brings on the type of guilt that results in involuntary “I’M NOT A LAZY PIECE OF SHIT!” scream sessions (especially unfortunate when these scream sessions take place inside your office.)  Incurring that type of guilt-complex outburst to watch some Michael Strahan gameshow is CLEARLY not worth it.  But have there been any shows this summer that are worth making your co-workers contemplate having you committed?

Let’s see….

BIG LITTLE LIES

Season 1 was fantastic with a capital FANTASTIC!  I was really getting into Season 2 when I listened to a Bill Simmons podcast that basically made fun of me for loving the show…SO I GOT CONFUSED!  How are you supposed to continue loving a show that your fave podcaster is kinda’ loving but also kinda’ making fun of?  (Here’s how…uh…don’t be such a windsock little bitch?)  I AM A GROWN MAN WHO IS TOUGH AND STRONG AND I….LIKED SEASON 2 OF ‘BIG LITTLE LIES’!!!! (Why are you crying then?)

There’s just no way to deny the acting performances in this show.  I’m always overeager to give all of the credit for a show or movie’s success to the writers, but with this cast, I think they could make the fine print of your electric bill entertaining.  (I never trusted that fucking meter!)  Early in the season, when Meryl Streep begins to make her presence known, I remember looking to the VP after each scene and saying “no, no SHE is the best actress on this show!”  Reese, Kidman, Streep, and Dern all took turns hoisting the “Best Actress on TV” trophy in between scenes of Shailene Woodley and Zoe Kravitz pretending to hold back tears because they’re tough, but not all the way because they’re DEALING WITH STUFF.  (If you want to see my best impression, ask me for my Zoe Kravitz in ‘Big Little Lies’ Season 2 face.  I’m incredibly proud of it.)

Now, if you haven’t finished it, I won’t lie, the ending doesn’t deliver in the way you’re hoping it will.  It’s not so disappointing that you should stop watching it now, but if you were thinking of skipping getting bombed outside with friends you feel comfortable splitting a check with, then I’d urge you to reconsider.  Season 2 is seven episodes, and episodes 3-5 pick up the kind of momentum that makes you say things like “I wanna be a big, little liar!”  But then you watch episodes 6 & 7, calm down, and explain to your wife that you’re not a liar.

Worth giving up big, dumb patio drinking time with friends? Almost, but not if that patio serves good margaritas with fat salt crystals lining the rim.

YELLOWSTONE

I’m not qualified to even really write about this show because (you’re a bad writer and nobody values your opinions) I’m basically a full season behind.  Think of this as more of a Public Service Announcement: if you have yet to start “Yellowstone,” you need to start watching it now before you’re a full two or three seasons behind and feel too intimidated to even start it.  I call this the “Breaking Bad Syndrome”–where you know a show is amazing, but get so far behind that you feel like you’ll never get caught up so…you just don’t, but you do lie to people and say “oh, yeah” when they ask if you’ve seen it.  Based on the first 6 episodes of Season One, “Yellowstone” is on the trajectory where in about a year and a half, most of the people you know will ask if you’ve seen it and judge you if you haven’t.  It’s not too late, guys.  Start now.

Think of this show as the cowboy version of “Succession,” where you trade some witty sarcasm for good fight scenes in dive bars.  Kevin Costner is here to remind you that he’s still the man you want to become, and his kids in the show look really fucking cool in their ranchin’ clothes (wait, this show has ranchin’ clothes?!?!)  Yeah, we’re talking full-on dusty cowboy boots, flannel shirts in the heat (how is this possible?), and cowboy hats that look like they were born to wear them.  After watching a few episodes, you’ll think about adopting this look, and then quickly abandon the idea once you realize that the jeans they were aren’t stretchy (once you wear stretchy jeans, you can never return to NOT wearing stretchy jeans.)

Worth giving up big, dumb patio drinking time with friends?  Yes, unless you have friends who are from Montana and say things like “I reckon'” without sounding ridiculous.

SOUTHERN CHARM

I’m going to be honest with you guys…the show badly misses T-Rav.  BADLY.  Now, does it make me feel good that I’m lamenting the loss of a probable-rapist from a reality show on BRAVO?  No.  It actually makes me feel horrible that I even wrote that, so I’m immediately taking that back.  Folks, please disregard the opening two lines in this section; I’ve only had 1.7 cups of coffee thus far, and everyone knows that I’m not my true self until I’ve hit the 2.4 cup mark (he’s right, everyone knows this.)  

What I’m trying to say is that this season of “Southern Charm”, while still entertaining in the way that a bag of chips is satisfying, it’s causing me to feel as bad as I do after gorging on a bag of Salt ‘n Vins.  This season, more than any before, I’m finding myself saying “I think these guys are just kinda’ sad losers, though…”  (Is Jimmy finally criticizing people who drink too much?)  The episode where Austin breaks up with Madison over the phone and then gets hammered with Shep and Craig on like a Tuesday night, played like an exploding “WE’RE ADULT DO-NOTHINGS!” neon.  And I hate that I sound like that friend who gets off on criticizing reality TV, but Shep is close to 40 and looks like damp dishrag every episode.  Craig, while still lookin’ LIKE A GODDAMN SNACK, has permanent Lindsey Lohan-voice, and Kathryn feels the need to constantly remind everyone in her vicinity that, no matter how big her house is, she’s still the number one victim in the world.

Listen, it’s still worth watching to make fun of stuff with your VP of Ops (yeah, you can use it, as long as you give me proper credit every single time you do.)  But the older and more responsible I’m forced to get, the more I feel myself resenting people who are given life on a silver platter, yet still complain as much as often as they breathe.  I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO FEEL SO STRONGLY AGAINST REALITY TELEVISION AND IT’S MAKING ME UNCOMFORTABLE!

Worth giving up big, dumb patio drinking time with friends?  Not this season, but if T-Rav makes a comeback then…NOPE, NOPE, STOPPING NOW!

MY WORLD:

The VP and I moved into our new apartment over the weekend.  Clarification: when I say that “we” moved, what I really mean is that we watched three men move all of our stuff and almost die of heat exhaustion while we pretended to do things not near them because we felt so guilty.  I know what you’re thinking, “but Jimmy, did you show all the movers the scar on your leg and talk about the ankle surgery you had?”  Uh, duh guys, what do I look like?  You really think I’m going to be silent while being emasculated right in front of my wife?  THINK AGAIN, BUBBAS!  (It was still weird when you used a bright, red marker to draw a circle around your scar tho…)

Anyway, we’re in to our new, bigger apartment now and besides pretending like I’m the mayor of box city, I’ve been fantasizing about how I could configure what will soon-be my office.  Yeah guys, this will be the first apartment that I finally have an office in, and I feel like Tommy Boy after his Dad shows him the mini-fridge in his new office.  Right when we moved in, I walked into the office, opened the door to it’s closet and said “I could put coat–or jackets–or pants in here!”  To which the VP responded, “anything, you’d like to keep out of the way.”  Then I bear hugged her before barreling into the kitchen for a victory beer.  (What did you even win?)

Now, I have to play this cool and say things to the VP like, “hey, this isn’t JUST my office, this is OUR office.”  But, between you and me, it’s my goddamn office and I’m probably going to install a lock on it that I’m never going to give The VP a key to.  “Wait, really? A lock?  That’s so weird!” Will definitely be something I say to her many times before changing the subject as quickly as possible.

I’m finally going to be able to put up all of the cool pictures that the VP of Ops has had “qualms” with in past apartments (what do you mean you don’t want the picture of Michael Jordan’s last shot as a Chicago Bull above our couch?)  But what else should I do with the space?  Here are some options, I’m mulling:

  • Multiple TVs hung on the wall
  • A fancy office chair that I can see how many times I can spin around in without having my feet touch the ground
  • A mini fridge
  • A fish tank that I can put numerous really weird-looking fish in and name all of them “Erin”
  • A phone connected to the landline that I could call from my cell phone whenever The VP and I are having a “civil disagreement,’ so when it rings, I can say, “sorry, I have to take that.”

I’ll keep you updated on my office construction, but please don’t tell The VP that it’s not hers and that she’s never going to be welcome in that room.  Thanks guys.

LETS HATE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

Getting to the age where you no longer feel comfortable not updating the address on your Drivers License whenever you move.  So now, moving ALSO includes a trip to the DMV.

LETS LOVE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:

JIMMY GAMBLES:

This section sucks right now and I know it.  Until football season arrives, I’ll try to come up with something better.

K bye.