Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Fantasy Football Week Ten Recap
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Week Eight - Fantasy Football
Friday, October 29, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
I've got a proposition for you...
I remember drunkenly walking around one of the evenings, looking around at all the family and friends gathered outside the lake house, the bonfire reaching into the night sky, and thinking... "Man, this is right out of a movie." It felt that way. It was comfortable. It was exciting. It was fresh... and it felt really fucking good to be out of Los Angeles for a few days.
Regardless though, the few days we had there passed far too fast... the mass amounts of wine we drank on our day long upstate winery tour now only a distant memory... and for some, perhaps still a tinge of a hangover head ache. For the folks from England, (whom my girlfriend and I are now proud to call friends, and even more excited that now we have people to hang out with when we go to Europe) I know it was an experience unmatched by other trips they've had, for they had the opportunity to partake in a legitimate American pastime... Kegs with accompanying red keg cups and moonshine. Man was that stuff awesome!
It might be my ignorance in thinking that parties and kegs go hand in hand, but this weekend I found that that was not the case. Many of my new friends had only seen the keg and red keg cup action during party scenes in films... and when the realization hit them that they were actually a part of something they've only seen in American cinema.. it was all over. LET THE PARTY BEGIN! And when my buddy Dave and I managed to grab a mason jar of moonshine from the local liquor store... the game was over. Within seconds the moonshine was being passed around like mad, hitting the lips and creating smiles on everyone who partook... save the few who when taking a drink gagged and almost threw-up... but none-the-less, the experience I had with these guys and gals from England was eye opening. I had a great time and I hop to be able to do it again very soon.
Prior to heading to Ithaca though, we had planned to meet with my girlfriends family on our way back to Los Angeles since we had a three hour layover at JFK. Which leads me to why my entry is titled, "I've got a proposition for you..." So, after some heartfelt goodbyes, and a mad dash to Syracuse to get to our puddle jumper plane that we were about ten minutes away from missing, we got to JFK. Here we were picked up my my girlfriend's mom and step-father and driven a very short distance to a small Italian restaurant in Brooklyn called Matteos... which some of you may or may not know was owned and operated by the Gotti family back in the notorious family's hay day.
So we arrive, meeting one of my girlfriend's brother's, her sister-in-law and nephews at the restaurant. Entering, we are seated at a large corner table. Before sitting though, I am pulled to the side by my girlfriend's brother who leans in and says:
BROTHER
I've got a proposition for you... a proposed trade... Something I think we can both be satisfied with in regards to the outcome.
Now, I'm standing there, kind of like... "What's he talking about?"... as my girlfriend is chasing her two nephews around the restaurant, who are now screaming and laughing crazily at the sight of their Auntie D. I don't know what to say... is he coming to me with some shady business deal in the Gotti's restaurant? Did I just get myself involved in a mob family? If I say no is he going to take me down into the basements secret room and beat the living crap out of me until I say yes to whatever deal or trade he wants to propose...? Crap... I need to get the F out of her if that's the case... so I say...
ME
Okay...
Her brother looks at me. Eyeing my every move, my look, my demeanor... then, with a smile, says...
BROTHER
I want to trade you Frank Gore and one of my other receivers for Brandon Marshall.
WHAT? I'm confused... I thought I was being propositioned in John Gotti's restaurant to whack someone, or embezzle money from the Teamsters or some rival mob boss?! That wasn't the case at all. It was only a trade proposition for our fantasy football league... phew! That's good. I really didn't want to have to kill anyone... or be killed for saying no.
Needless to say, we sat down for dinner and discussed the proposed trade, ultimately coming to an agreement that yes, this proposition does indeed work for both of us...
After an Italian style feast, in which I left the restaurant feeling like I was going to puke, we said our goodbyes and were driven back to the airport. And after six hours of listening the the fat guy in front of us snoring, we landed back in Los Angeles safe and sound.
It was a great weekend. Let's do it again... maybe next time I will be propositioned by the mob... you never know.
PLEASE NOTE THAT CREATIVE LICENSE WAS USED IN THIS ENTRY, BUT MOST OF IT IS COMPLETELY TRUE...
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
How We Met...
So, before I get started with telling the story of how I met my girlfriend’s family, I want to first tell you about how I met my girlfriend…
About four, almost five years ago… man, has it been that long already?… I started directing one act plays for a small theater company in Santa Monica. They were fun. A good exercise in directing actors, making quick but precise decisions, and sticking to those decisions until you see your work come into fruition that very same day. The experience was great, especially for a director who doesn’t get that much work in the business at the moment outside of doing his own projects. Needless to say, along with the experience of being involved in the continuous rotation of a one-act showcase, you get to meet a lot of new people. A lot of people who are like-minded… a lot of people who aren’t… a lot of people you don’t get a along with… and a lot you do, which, I am happy to say, that through the years many I now call my friends… and this is where I met my girlfriend… well, where I met my girlfriend before she was my girlfriend.
For three years, my GF and I were merely acquaintances, only seeing each other every third Sunday of every month. Just friends. The occasional drink and/or nacho or enchilada shared at the local Mexican food restaurant down the street from the theater that everyone went to after the one-act showcase was over. Now I must make mention that every outing like this was in a group setting and that those “shared” drinks and/or nachos, weren’t really ever shared… they were more like… passed down from the Waiter to the waiting hands of the rightful owner.
Then one Sunday, your typical third Sunday of every month, where every one from the theater company met to produce, act, direct these one-act plays, it hit me… kind of like a slap in the face, or some mentally retarded kid trying to play the trombone in my ear… regardless, it got my attention. I was standing at the entrance of the theater kind of day dreaming, thinking about whatever it was I was thinking about… I think at the time I was either hung over, or still drunk from the night before and thinking to myself, “Why the hell did I agree to do this today?!”… Anyway, I looked down from the blazing sun… it really wasn’t that hot, I just had the hang over sweats… and for the first time I saw my not yet GF… not as just an acquaintance who sometimes sat by me at the local Mexican restaurant eating chips and drinking margaritas, but as someone I might want to get to know better…
So from that point on I made myself visible. More conversation, more flirting... even though my flirting doesn’t really qualify as flirting... If I had to describe what my flirting looks like visually, I’d probably compare it to watching that lady on Youtube who fell off a platform while stomping on grapes. Incase you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a visual for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5utqi_QtRU
It’s pretty bad… right? When it comes to flirting, I live a life of embarrassment and injury, all the while sounding like a mixture of a bus horn and a walrus... are your ears ringing as much as mine are? Anyway, she never took notice of my attempts… even the time I asked her to a fake prom during one of our group gatherings at the random Mexican restaurant down the street from the theater. Here, let me paint the picture:
The night was in its adolescence… the moon cresting in the sky at about midnight. Mariachi music booms through the 1970’s speaker system of this small, rundown Mexican joint, it’s hiss and slither more ear aching than comforting. The orange hew of mafia lighting bouncing off the cartoonish murals depicting Spanish Independence light the patio in a dim, almost heavy fog… it’s hard to see… hard to concentrate on anything but the circus mural sitting above my head showing the all time favorite Mexican pastime, something comparable to the United States' affliction with Major League Baseball… the Tijuana Donkey Show…
Okay, okay… the donkey show mural wasn’t there, but it should’ve been… it’d be awesome… so where was I… Oh, right…
The orange hew of mafia lighting bouncing off the cartoonish murals depicting Spanish Independence light the patio in a dim, almost heavy fog… it’s hard to see… hard to concentrate on anything… it might be that at this very moment I’m starving and all I can smell is the essence of tortilla’s hanging in the air… but none-the-less, it’s hard to concentrate on anything… anything at all… but then my eye catches something in the distance… a brunette down at the end of the table talking about how she was never asked to go to her prom back in high school and how she would have loved to have gone. BANG!
Immediately I knew I had an in… no more falling off platforms while smashing grapes. It’s on… Fake or not, I knew I was going to ask this girl… this girl I had been acquaintances with for the last three years… to prom. After about an hour and half, four margarita’s, three baskets of chips, a four cheese chicken quesadilla and stomach ache beyond something I have ever felt before, I finally grew a pair… as the mariachi music swelled in a clatter of shakers, guitar and accordion, I walked over and asked… “Hey. Will you go to the prom with me?” My not yet GF looks up with her beautiful eyes, looks at me quizzically and says, “What?”
The music falters, stammers to an abrupt stop as if the bands lead singer ran out of stage and toppled off into the audience below… my ideal moment shattered by yet another bout with the lady from Youtube… GOD DAMN YOU!
Now if you ask my GF now about this moment, she swears that it never happened… but it did… and it went down horribly. But even though it did indeed happen, it surprisingly opened the door for a one on one drinks opportunity, which only took me about another nine months to actually make happen… but when it did, it went off without a hitch… well, there were a few hitches… one of which was the fact that my not yet GF at the time almost didn’t show up because at the time she had made a pact with herself to stay single and become the best salsa dancer in the world…
Thank God she showed… and after a few hours of conversation, three bottles of wine, lots of laughs and some scotch, I found myself sleeping over at her house because I was too drunk to drive… way to go alcohol! The next day marked the beginning of my non-single, not falling off of platforms and being embarrassed about it life… and a few months later, I made my not yet official GF, my official GF.
After dating for just over six months, I had yet to meet my girlfriend’s family… and she had yet to meet mine… but after that amount of time together, it was inevitable that it was going to happen…
Next up... the amazing weekend of meeting my girlfriend’s family for the first time…. BIG NIGHT!