Law School: Residual Career Path for The Directionless

Let’s say you are in your senior year of undergrad. You’ve been keg-standing it away for the past 7 semesters and now it is slowly dawning on you that your days of ice-luges and 19-year-old girls are over. The real world is calling you in from playtime like mom used to for dinner, and the only option staring you in the face is 45 years of waking up before the sun comes out and fighting traffic to sit at a desk. So what are you going to do? That sociology major may have come in handy for the eight guys on the football team being drafted in the first round, but most of the finer marketing firms and I-banks in your hometown don’t exactly fight over guys with a 3.1 and a major that nobody can describe. Including yourself. And you definitely don’t want the party to end, but how do you keep it going?

Or maybe you took some job out of college just to get your parents off your back, using your major less often than you use your VCR and complaining about it on a daily basis. It pays only slightly more than waiting tables at Chili’s, and even that is barely making the rent you split with your four roommates. It is beginning to dawn on you how impossible it is to get laid after college (at least by anything under 35 years and/or 200 pounds) without some serious loot. You need to start making money, and fast, or you may be dooming yourself to 45 years at an unrewarding job and an even more unrewarding sex life. But how do you go from making less than the guy serving you the scotch you drown your sorrows in to owning a condo, a flatscreen and a PS3?

Yes, kids, the answer is simple: Law School. Just watch TV, all those lawyers are rich and good looking. It seems like every lawyer you know is driving a brand new German car and dating a brand-new German girlfriend. What exactly do lawyers do all day? Who cares! They make money, that’s what they do. They have careers is what they do! Are they happy? Of course they are, look at all the money they’re making! How could they not? What’s that? I’m supposed to actually be interested in law? I’m supposed to want to research precedents and write appeals? Pshaw! I’ve seen Boston Legal. All they do is fuck hot divorce clients and smoke cigars on the roof.

Try working 60 hour weeks researching minute technicalities that, if you are successful, will free a likely-guilty child molester. Try writing 100 page appeals for some convoluted business deal that went wrong where neither party really deserves to win. And if you’re lucky, they’ll give you more work. If not, you’ll be fired. Sound like fun? If it does, then you are on the right path. Is the money good? I suppose, but then factor in that your new “friends” make a lot more than you so $5 pitcher night is not going to be so much their idea of a good time as the $14 martini bar. Oh yeah, and there’s that issue of the $140,000 you owe to that institution named on your JD.

Of all the people I know who’ve gone on to law school, you know how many I know who actually wanted to be lawyers? 1. And that’s my sister, who’s mother is a lawyer. And if her mom had been a street walking whore for a year, my sister would have somehow found a way to work that into her life plan. The rest? They just had nothing better to do so they took the LSATs. Maybe they will be successful and maybe they will live happy fulfilling lives. Or so they will tell you. Until then, it’s 3 more years of endless studying followed by several more years of endless workdays. Have fun with that, kids. You know where to find me.

Hialeah Just Gotta Be Different

Hialeah was recently rated the dumbest mid-sized city in America. Right behind Santa Ana, another city I lived very close to and has a remarkably similar demographic composition. But we will leave that alone for now. I’m not sure how exactly this study was done, but I think walking the streets and being offered churros, live chickens, rotten mangos and someone’s daughter all within 5 blocks of a store called “No, Que Barato” may have been the clincher for Dade County’s second largest municipality. If it weren’t that, perhaps the people conducting this poll just decided to try and drive somewhere.

Now, lets assume for a minute, and this is a hypothetical up there with “let’s assume Bush really did think they had chemical weapons,” but let's assume that all drivers in Miami knew what they were doing. Let’s pretend they all followed the rules of the road and did not learn to drive in a country where police are more concerned with how much they’re getting in drug kickbacks than they are with enforcing the traffic code. Assuming all this were true, Hialeah would still, without a doubt, be one colossal clusterfuck. Why? Because while the rest of Dade County is content to drive on its own little grid of Northwest this and Southeast that, Hialeah decided they wanted to be different. But not different like Coral Gables where they just throw in some random streets with names that sound like Pasta sauces, but they just upped and decided to change the street numbering right in the middle of the grid. Just for Hialeah.

So let's say Johnny Tourist from Oshkosh is driving north from the airport on Northwest 42^nd Ave, trying to get to NW 200^th St. He goes north a few miles and all of a sudden notices he is now on SE 8^th Ave. And the street numbers went form Northwest to Southeast and are now going down instead of up. And he has been traveling north the entire time. Johnny T from Oshkosh may get a little flustered, don’t you think? He may head back towards the airport, make a few errant turns and, WHAM! run smack dab into one of Miami’s most celebrated tourist attractions, the Car Jacker. So, even though he was going the right way the whole time, good old Hialeah decided to make him super confused and now if he is not lying dead in a pool of blood somewhere South River Drive, he has undoubtedly gone back to flyover country to tell his congressman that Miami is, indeed, a third world country. Thanks, Hialeah.

So what gives, Hialeah? Why you gotta be different? Would it be so fucking hard to number your streets like the rest of the county so I don’t’ end up driving for 45 minutes trying to find where to pick up my package? Would it kill you to respect the numbering system laid out by our founding fathers so that we could all get where we were trying to go easily? No, no, apparently it would. Hialeah is like the Quebec of Dade County. Not only do they not accept English as even an unofficial language, but they are constantly trying to secede from the rest of the area. Seriously, former mayor Raul “I’ll Punch you In The Face in the Middle of The Palmetto Expressway On Live TV” Maritnez tried to make Hialeah its own county. And not in that funny, ha ha way Key West tried to make itself “The Conch Republic,” but in a serious vain. Not sure what they’d do for tax revenue, as last time I checked industrial wasteland and street crime don’t exactly bring in the tourist dollars that South Beach does. And your typical Hialeah resident isn’t exactly living there to escape those pesky regulations they have in Coral Gables. Fortunately for them, and unfortunately for the rest of Dade, that measure failed.

So, Hialeah, for the love of God, if you’re not even going to reopen your trademark racetrack, have the decency to accept that you just more Dade County industrial sprawl. You are what people from Kendall drive through to get to Lauderdale. You are home to Pepsi and Holsum and Treasure Island, and while all good things they do not rate you your own street grid. Please do the tourists (you know, those people that actually bring money into the economy unlike you who just suck it out) a favor and stop confusing them. And do the locals a favor and stop confusing us too. Lacking GPS, you’re just inviting more bad things to happen. Or was THAT you plan for extra money?

Learning What It's Like to Fuck Yourself

It really is amazing the things you can learn on the internet. Today I learned there is a mathematical formula for beer goggles, the age of consent in Peru, how to make a Molotov cocktail and, oh, yeah, what it’s like to have sex with me. That's right, somewhere out there on the 'net there is someones account of having sex with me. White Dade. you can imagine my surprise while goign throught my usual internet motions of updating my fantasy football team and replying to death-threat emails when I stumbled upon a rather lengthy account written by someone I slept with a while back. Now, the funny thing about most sexual encounters, at least the random, arbitrary kind that I like to talk about, is that you really never know exactly what the other person was thinking. Like you are never quite sure whether or not they slept with you because of how you looked, what you said, how you smelled, or just because they’d done a few too many shots of Patron. Although I generally like to think that last one is never true. Rarely do you get any sort of feedback on your performance, and even less often do you get any sort of insight into your partner’s thought process. Oh, but that is why internet is just so much damn fun.

This is not something I am used to, having a girl talk about me in that way in a public forum, but I can’t say I didn’t find it at least a little bit flattering. Since she didn’t say anything particularly awful, probably figuring that at some point I would find it. So, thanks. But what I found especially interesting is that while there is some mention of me, the gist of the post is her talking about herself and her own perceived sexual inadequacies.

This girl had heard stories about a lot of the truly talented women I’d been with (many of which she thought were made up) and I guess felt like she didn’t measure up. Well, as any reader of this blog knows I haven’t exactly been re-enacting 9 ½ weeks in my bedroom of late, but even given my recently extremely low standards for excellence, she was actually pretty good. Of course this is not what she thought.

What I found most interesting was that this girl talked almost exclusively about her own sexual performance, and, more importantly, how terrible she thought it was. This is surprising because I often think performance is more critiqued of the male and not the female, and most girls don’t really think about whether they’re good or bad but whether or not they look good.

This was sort of an eye-opener for me. Do girls really pay that much attention to their own performance during sex, to the point that they more or less discount yours? Like, as I read this post, there was nary a mention of anything I did (and maybe that’s because I was terrible and she didn’t want to write about it to offend me) but more about why she thought she was bad. I really hope this is not the case. But I guess we are all really that self-centered ,aren’t we? And now I know that a lot of times when I sleep with a girl what I do is neither here nor there, and most of her memories will be of what she did and not me. Kind of sad, really, but at the same time kind of a relief.

I also learned that I am not only attractive but have some sort of confidence that’s totally hot. Now, the first part I understand. But the second? One thing I have never thought of myself as was “confident.” Like I pretty much assume girls are just talking to me to get free drinks, and even if they stick around it’s only because they think I look good. I remember calling the girl who wrote this thing for a second “date” and saying something like “Uh, yeah, is this too late to call you? I mean, I totally understand if you don’t want to come over since I said I’d call you a lot earlier. I hate when people do that to me. I’m sorry.” Not exactly brimming with self-assurance, is it? But I guess the way we perceive ourselves and the way others see us is often not the same thing.

But past all the talk about me, it really is amazing the things you can learn by surfing the internet. I never thought I’d get an honest account of the other side of having sex with me, but given that this is the information age I guess I shouldn’t’ be surprised. Happy Thanksgiving , everyone! Make sure you fill up on Turkey, Mashed Dick, dick sauce, Dick Pie, and whatever else your little hearts desire.

This is How Date Rape Happens

Before everyone attacks me for being that guy who blames the victim, before you automatically assume that I am that guy saying “she was asking for it,” before I lose what’s left of my female audience after the post on fat girls, let me just come out and say that I am 100% against date rape. I believe that no means no and when a girl says “I can’t have sex with you,” you should stop right there and respect her wishes. Go to sleep, go to the bathroom to finish yourself off, or go home, but accept the fact that it ain’t gonna happen that night. I try to apply this method during drunken, random hook-ups, but quite often a funny thing happens: After she says no, I’m not the one who keeps going.

Allow me to explain. Say I bring a girl home and we are both pretty wasted and I start trying to undo her pants. She says “No, I can’t.” Now, drunk, I admit I may from time to time ask why and proceed to nibble on her earlobe and kiss her neck seeing how far I can get. But should it become rather clear that her pants will not be making a crumpled appearance on my bedroom floor, I stop. I mean, I look at her, say “Okay,” and roll over to my side of the bed. Night over. But here’s where a lot of girls do some totally irrational shit that I really don’t understand.

As I am rolling off of said girl, still mostly clothed, and try to go to sleep she will say something like “But you know, I really want to.” WHAT!? You WANT to? Didn’t you just tell me you couldn’t? Why are you saying this now that my hands aren’t 6 inches from the promised land? So inevitably I take this as a sign that she wants sex and get back on top until, again, she says, “No, no, I can’t.” So again I stop and roll over and attempt to sleep since the sun is coming up and I have to be at work in two hours. But then a voice form the other side of the bed: “Wait, why are you being like that?” LIKE WHAT?! You said no. I’m stopping. Isn’t that what a guy is supposed to do when you say no? Stop trying to have sex with you? This happens over and over until finally she says “Do you have a condom?” and we proceed to get down to business. In essence, this girl just told me “No” multiple times, I tried to stop, and she kept pushing the issue until she said “yes.” Now, I don’t think any girl in this situation would cry “rape” but the problem is that not every girl acts like this.

Say that exact scenario plays out for a guy a dozen times or so then he gets to a girl who really does mean no when she says it. Being the morally upright and hypersensitive to rejection guy that I am, I’m still going to stop. But you think every guy thinks like me? You think every dipshit Neanderthal frat boy out there is going to stop when he has basically been conditioned to think “No,” means “Keep trying and eventually I’ll say yes?” Unfortunately, many of them won’t. And that, my friends, is when date rape happens.

Now, is it still the guy’s fault for not stopping when he hears “no?” Of course it is, that’s why I always stop when a girl says she’s not going to do it. But ladies, if you are going to tell a guy to stop you’d better be prepared to stop too. Like fully stop. Like no more kissing, no cuddling, no caressing. Like okay, we’re done, we’re going to sleep. If you don’t you are sending the wrong message. So I have to ask, and maybe some of you can fill me in on this, why do a lot of you insist on telling us you still WANT to have sex even after you say “I can’t” (and not “I don’t want to” but “I can’t”). Is it because you need to feel like we care about you or are attracted to you before you consent? Is it because you want more attention or more foreplay? Is it because you have some sick desire to be dominated and coerced into sex (not an uncommon fetish, actually)? Is it because you want us to want it more than you do? Or, and here’s my guess, is it because you don’t’ want to feel like a “slut” for doing it and can later go back and say “Well, he just kept trying so I finally said yes.”

To be honest, I’m really not as concerned with why girls do this as I am with the negative ramifications it may hold for a man’s future sexual partners. Whatever your motivations are in saying “no” but meaning “yes,” be aware that you may be setting some poor future girl up for a very unfortunate situation. My advice is if you are in bed with a stranger (rape fantasy role playing stuff is different, obviously) and you want to fuck him, just go ahead and do it without first feigning some sort of resistance. It’s really not going to make the end result any different. Similarly, if you truly don’t want to have sex with the guy? Tell him no and stop. And let him stop. You may want to keep making out or fondling or whatever it is you are doing, but it gives a very mixed signal. And in situations such as this, that is the worst thing you can possibly do.

If I Stole OJ Simspon's Mail, Here's How It Happened

We have this great website in Dade County that lets you look up people who own property here. All you have to do is enter their name and you get a street address, plot description, appraisal amount and often an aerial photo. This is immensely useful for placing liens, looking up friends to see how much their house is worth, and, you know, maybe to see where OJ Simpson lives. So say I might have been sitting around stone sober with a friend of mine at the computer back in the days before I had a blog, and say I may have decided it might be fun to see where the Juice was calling home these days.

Turned out that is was a ranch house with an enormous front yard and about a 200-foot driveway leading back to the street in Kendall. I did not learn this from an aerial photo, mind you. Lacking anything better to do midweek in December after school got out, we decided to drive by. Then we decided to stop. And get out. And maybe walk up the driveway to OJ’s door just to see if he’d come out. As luck would have it, the Juice’s Navigator was missing from the driveway, so we figured he must have been out on a late night search for the real killers. And by “real killers” of course, I mean strippers and cocaine. But as we walked back down the driveway, we noticed a mailbox.

Now you’d think a guy as nefarious as Orenthal James Simpson would at least have a mail slot, if not a whole separate P.O. box to keep bored college kids from coming by and taking his Carpet Cleaning coupons. But then again, I guess good decision making has never been OJ’s strong suit, and so it was he had a stand alone mailbox in his driveway. From the looks of it, the Juice had been out Real-Killer hunting for a while as his mailbox featured not only copious amounts Pizza deals, but a couple of back issues of The Flyer. In case he was looking for some used furniture or something. I look at my friend, he looks at me, and we grab it and run. I don’t think I have ever covered 200 feet in less time than I did that night, stolen mail in hand running to my car from OJ’s house. We could not stop high-fiving and laughing as we drove back to our Kendall Townhouse not three miles away.

It would have been cool enough to steal the mail of a Hall Of Fame running back turned non-convicted double murderer. There is something vaguely surreal about reading a piece of junk mail that begins “Dear ORENTHAL SIMPSON: Have you considered refinancing your mortgage? I’m Hector Padilla and if you call me now I can lock you in at a low, low rate of only 6.5%.” Or better still the offers to roll over CD’s in his children’s names (hmmm, hiding some assets are we?). But I do believe the coup de gras was when we got to the bottom of the stack of bills ($599 a month for that Navigator, 2 months past due) and found a massively thick envelope from the good people at Nextel. Addressed to one Orenthal J Simpson. Yep, we had OJ’s cell phone bill.

On the bill were not only about 20 pages of calls on the Juice’s phone, but also about 10 pages each for both of his kids. OJ, it seems, makes a LOT of calls between 2 and 4 AM. No idea who those could be to. It reasons, though, that a lot of the numbers on his record were to other celebrities, most notably golf buddy Lawrence Taylor. Did we have the patience to go through and find out who all these people were? Hell the fuck no. But the bill is somewhere in a box in my friend’s garage, so maybe someday when I’m bored. At that time, however, what we were in possession of was OJ’s cell number.

If you ever come in possession of the cell number of a notorious celebrity, let me tell you never give it to anyone. Because while you may keep it in your phone to show off to friends but only call once when you’re REALLY drunk on Cinco De Mayo (inviting an equally drunk returned call demanding to know who it was) your jackass friends may not show such restraint and eventually said celeb will change his number. Of course, it WAS Nextel, so he may have just realized, like everyone else with Nextel , that the service is shit and switched over. Regardless, if you look in my phone right between Novarr and Patrice you may see a number belonging to a guy with two initials that may look rather familiar. You may, that is, if I had done this. Which I did not. But if I had, that’s how it would have happened.

If Anonymous Has A blog, Then Who Can Really Be Anonymous?

Apparently, Anonymous has started a blog. This is a statement on par with “Me and my sister are both only children” since the whole point of being an anonymous commenter is that nobody can go over to your blog and harass you. There are bloggers who post anonymously since they fear retribution on their sites, and then there are your average, run-of-the-mill irate readers who just harass you because they lack anything more stimulating to do all day in their cubicle. And of course, there are bitter exes. Larry knows all about those. So this seems an odd paradox to me, an anonymous commenter starting himself his own blog.

Perhaps I should give you some background. Anon1, as he likes to be called, I believe first came to this blog as a result of my infamous Jenn Sterger post. He attacked me for being a loser, he attacked me for being a racist, he attacked me for being a blogger. I think he even told my mom she should have gotten an abortion. And I never edited him. As a result, he has kind of laid off me and focused more on attacking my readers. Not a nice thing to do, but I am never one to edit comments so I just sort of let it go. It got to a point, though, where he was writing more per post than I was. So I gave him a day to vent in the hopes of it curbing the hijacking of my comments box.

It seems to have worked, only now anonymous has decided that he has so much to say, he needs his OWN forum. And so he has. And, surprisingly, it’s not too bad. It basically comprises a lot of his rants against many of you in a simple, easy to read format that you need not scroll through 55 comments to reach. Not only that, but is actually an interesting insight into the mind of someone who likes to harass bloggers all day. I must say that he is dead wrong about not liking ass-play, but then again not everyone can be as fun and open-minded in bed as myself. It’s cool, Anon1, leave the freaks for me. I also especially enjoy his choice of background. Nice to see I’m influencing the young blogging minds already.

But here is the inherent question Anon1 raises by starting his own blog: Is he still Anonymous? I mean, unless you use your real name and post pictures, we are all pretty much anonymous. I agree to meet anyone who wants to, but still I would venture to say that 90% of you have no idea what I look like. And you’re not missing much. But the entire point of anonymous commenting, aside form not having to register with blogger or whoever, is that nobody can trace you. Nobody can contact you, and nobody can read your shit to see if you are even an eighth as talented as the people you are criticizing. So while I applaud Anon1 for taking his vitriol to his own forum, and opening himself up to a much wider array of criticism, I must also say that he really can’t lay claim to the name “Anonymous” anymore. His name now is kind of like KFC or UPS, it may have originally meant something in the beginning, but is now just a label for the product.

Anon1 has been kind enough to invite me over for Thanksgiving, if you can believe that. Between tat and Leo Sterger’s standing invitation for barbecue, I tinhk the lesson we can all learn is that as much as I may piss you off, or you may hate me, everyone loves me in the end. Sometimes it just takes a while.

How Fat is Too Fat?

I admit it: I have fucked some pigs in my day. I mean some serious pigs. I have won the belt on multiple occasions and am the current titleholder. And it looks like I may hold onto it for a while. When I'm drunk, and especially if I am drunk and depressed, asking me how fat is too fat is really a terrible question. Because at that point there are really no limits that I can honestly say I won't sink to. The last fat girl I was with was about 8 months ago and let me tell you it was quite awful. We're talking stretch marks, massive floppy tits and a gut that bounced around like a fat kid on the back of a schoolbus. Quite nauseating to say the least. But the scale of "Girls you'd hook up with if you were wasted and your girlfriend just dumped you" and girls you'd say "Yeah, I'd hit it" when she walks down the street are totally different things. To break that down even further, there are girls you'd have sex with and girls you think are attractive, and, again, they are totally separate entities. So, to answer all these categories I will break it down into how fat is too fat for each individual one.

Attractive Girl – Now, I am speaking on personal preference here, and my personal preference for girls is "Looks like she just got off a three week coke binge and still eats nothing but celery." Do I always date that type? No, but that's my ideal. The skinnier the better. That being said, I can find girls with some curves and meat on their bones attractive. Any girl with a muffin top or a "gunt" as some call it, is disqualified from this category. Excessive cellulite would also classify you as too fat for category one. A double chin, an ass that would be described as "sloppy" or pretty much anyone over a size 8 is more or less out of this one for me as well. Arm fat that reminds me of my relatives in Delray Beach would also make you too fat. If you are too big to buy the "cute" underwear at Victoria's secret, again, please continue on to category 2. This eliminates a LOT of Latin and black girls, and I'm okay with that. It doesn't mean I don't like them as people, or even wouldn't sleep with them, but I would definitely not say they are attractive. So, basically, all of the characteristics above would be "too fat" to be good-looking in my book. A celebrity example of someone "too fat" to be attractive: Dr. Torres (Sara Ramirez) on Gray's Anatomy. Too fucking fat for me. I'm convinced those underwear shots of her were airbrushed.

Girls You'd Fuck, Sober - Now, when White Dade is out at the Tavern on a Thursday night looking for someone to take home, a gunt and a muffin top is putting you at the top of the list. Why? Because you probably have lower self esteem and would more than likely validate yourself by going home with me. That, and I tend not to notice those things after a few pitchers. But even sober, a girl who is a little chunky or maybe can't quite fit into those Eva Longoria Juicy Couture tracksuits are still nice to take home. So she's got a little too much junk in the trunk? It'll look cool when you're hitting it form behind. So what if she's got a little gut. Just means she drinks a lot of beer. When you are talking about girls who you would have sex with, the standards are considerably lower. What would disqualify you from even being fuckable? An ass you could show a movie on would be one. Back fat to the point of folds is another. Looking like you are pregnant may just be too much for me without a couple of shots of 151 and/or a death in the family. Having to peel the thigh fat back to finger you? May be a little too much work for me. A good celebrity example of someone I wouldn't fuck sober? This one gets hard as most female celebrities have to be thin. So I'll go ahead and go with Rosie O'Donnell, when she first got famous. Now, no way in fucking Hell ever.

Girl you'd Fuck, Drunk – Only slightly lower than the last category, a girl you'd fuck drunk can probably have some back fat and is probably not too good looking. Like a face that could crack a mirror and a body that could crack a sternum. To be knocked out of this one you probably have to have a waddle and/or be fat and not white (white girls get 1 point automatically). An example of a girl I wouldn't fuck drunk? Lisa Lampanelli.

Girl you'd Fuck Drunk and Depressed – Girls who are too fat to fuck if you are drunk and/or depressed are most of the ones I use when I post pictures of fat girls. Because if I'm drunk, I'll let physical imperfections go. If I'm drunk and a girl I like has ditched me or blown me off, I'll take anything that makes me feel good. So if you are so hideous that I can't even bring myself to use you for self-validation, you've gotta be pretty fucking hideous These are the ones you look at and go "Retirement belt." As in if you hit that we give you the belt and you never have to fuck again to keep your title. These are women you'd call "morbidly obese" where you would really have to look to find the hole. Women you wouldn't fuck drunk and depressed can be hard to find as they usually don't get out much. In order to get one you really have to put in some effort. A celebrity example of someone I wouldn't fuck in this situation: The mom from "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" Yes, I know she's dead, but say when she was alive. Yeesh. Just thinking about it makes me squirm.

So I hope this answers most of your questions. If you need any clarification, feel free to ask me in the comments box or via email. Yes, I have fucked some pigs, but the scale of "too fat" is really a sliding one depending on what you are talking about. And hopefully, I never have to again.

DC Diary Part 1 - Bad Beginnings, Awesome End

You know the weekend is off to a bad start when the only car they’ll rent you is a minivan. With New Jersey plates. I’m not sure what about me just screamed “Castrated Jewish Husband” to the guys at the Thrifty Counter, but as I drove off the lot I had horrific flash forwards of myself driving through Livingston with two kids in the back on the cell phone with my bitch wife saying “Make sure you have the kids back by 7. We’re going to my mother’s for dinner and I am NOT being late again because you don’t know how to drive!” Which reminds me, I really need to make that appointment for my vasectomy.

Emasculating vehicle and all, I managed to make it to lunch with Ashburnite at a Chipotle near the airport. It is a sad, sad fact that whenever I am in a city that has one of these establishments, it is the first place I insist on going. I remember Heather saying to me once “How the fuck do you come to New York and have the balls to ask me where the fucking Chipotle is! What the fuck is wrong with you?” At any rate, not only was Ash nice enough to hook me up with a cheap hotel room at a very nice hotel, she also paid for my lunch. And I have nothing but goos things to say about peopel who pay for my lunch, especially at Chipotle.

I met up with Virgile Kent at a mall in suburban Virginia. Aside form being the first blogger I’d met with bigger arms than me, he is also one of the few people I know who drives more aggressively. How do I know this? Within five minutes of following him in my henpecked-husband-mobile, he runs a yellow. So, forgetting that I was in fact no longer in a city that applies Dominican Driving laws to its everyday commute, I followed him through. Apparently cops in Fairfax County? Not so willing to let four people go through a red like Miami-Dade’s finest. VK had to pull over into a lot where I was promptly given a citation for running a red (a concept wholly unfamiliar to anyone form Dade County) as the cop told me “Usually we let things like this slide. But not today.” Thanks, asshole. NO, usually you let things slide but you saw some asshole you thought was form New Jersey going through a light in your glorious southern state and decided to teach him a lesson. That’s what happened. Threw you for a loop with that Florida Driver’s license, didn’t I. Until he saw it was form Miami. I'm surprised he didn't pull me out and seach the car for cocaine and automatic weapons.

VK took me to a hipster bar called Science Club where we discussed some of the finer arts of blogging and more of the finer arts of capitalizing on your blog’s success, if you know what I mean. Then it was on to the fabled DC Bloggers Happy Hour. This event was a different experience than anything I had ever seen. First of all, I had no idea who anyone there was aside from my host and Ashburnite. Second, within two minutes of having my first drink, I was approached by two attractive young ladies asking me if I was White Dade. These girls were not bloggers, but rather fans who had come out to meet me. Wow. Again, if you’d have told me a year ago that would have happened I would have probably laughed and said “Yeah, right after I have dinner with the Easter Bunny and drinks with Elvis.” But sure enough, several other people, both male and female, came up to me and told me how much they liked my work. I got to meet David in DC, and I think I went on a brief tirade about the war and how everyone has it wrong, but I forget. I’m sure that’s exactly what he wanted to talk about anyway. I was also introduced to fellow UM alum Velvet, who left me the unforgettable comment yesterday " Nice to meet you. Please feel free to bring your hotness back to D.C. anytime you want. I almost slipped on the ladies drool on my way out the door Friday night. Um, at least I think it was drool..." Why am I still living down here?

A friend of mine from UM met up with me at the Happy Hour and was amazed at how many people knew who I was through this blog. “Why the fuck are you famous?” He asked me. “Because I’m fucking good” I told him as I took a shot of whatever shots VK had decided to pass around. It was about the fifth time he'd done this and it was only about 11. The night continued on at 12:23 as VK (best DC host EVER) got us on the list. Can’t say I remember much of the night after this.

DC Diary Part 2 - College Park is a Shithole and Drinks with DCB

Saturday, after about 4 hours of drunken sleep, I managed to find the Metro stop in College Park, take the train to my car in DC, drive to Fairfax then back to College Park all with only the help of a Rental Car Map. So don’t ever question my sense of direction. Ever. The Maryland game was fun, but I must say that every single student on that Campus looked about as happy as your typical Chain Gang worker. And boy did they take it out on us UM fans. I supposethey must be jealoussince, you know, they go to Maryland. Not only were we booed and screamed at for no reason pretty much all afternoon (which I could understand at a rivlary game like Florida State or even VA Tech, but Marlyand? Aside form that great Frank Reich comeback of 1985, there really ain't much you got on us), but poor Johnson got eye gouged by a fan after the game. The only highlight, for me at least, was getting to meet another fan (this one a UM alumna) at halftime. Apparently she wanted to see what I looked like after I “talked so much shit.” She seemed thoroughly disappointed. My friend Andy asked me who she was when I got back to my seat and I explained to him, to which his response was “Man, I gotta start writing a blog.” Miami lost 14-13, for those who didn’t see the score. The Maryland fans rushed the field after failing to cover the point spread. Class act you guys got going on up there, class fucking act.

I got a little too drunk at my cousin’s keg party in College Park on Saturday and was a no-show to meet up with YK and Roosh (aka DC Bachelor). So Sunday night Roosh went to the trouble to drive 45 minutes to meet me in Arlington for a pitcher of Bass. He gave me some great pointers on improving my content (like it needs improvement! HA!) and we discussed our various methods for meeting girls. Turns out he loves dark, Latin girls, and has no attraction at all to white blondes. Hmmm, sounds kinda familiar, huh? But I don’t see anyone calling Roosh a racist. Whatever. He’s a pretty intense guy, if you’ve ever met him, but a lot of fun. Turns out we also share the view of valuing experiences of possession, and not working to support consumerism. But that is waaaay too deep for this blog.

All in all, it was a very eye-opening trip. Despite the lousy car, the Miami loss and the ticket, it made me realize that there a lot of people who enjoy what I write who I never get to meet. And most of them are bored at work. Or law school. I also realized that college park is a complete shithole, and that my cousin Jill has more fodder to make fun of me at Christmas than she has any business having. Hopefully this is a strong beginning to year two of White Dade. Thanks again to VK for being such a great host, to Ashburnite for hooking me up with that hotel in Vienna, to my cousin for letting me use her couch, and to DCB for making the trip to Arlington on a rainy Sunday night. And everyone else who I am not mentioning, you know who you are and I’ve thanked you already. You guys managed to salvage a trip that would have otherwise been an unmitigated disaster. Thanks, and I hope you can make it down here soon.

F You And Your Blog

Anonymous commenters are nothing new to bloggers. Most are spiteful, some are scorned, but nearly all share the same characteristic: They flat out don’t like you. A few months back I did a fake interview (I know this must be crushing to you to realize that encounter was fabricated) with anonymous as to his motivations for being such a dick. But that was purely made up and so the real mystery as to why someone would spend all day insulting a blogger still remained. Well, lo and behold, one of my more virulent critics, in real life, actually offered to give my readers a little insight into the mind of a bitter, angry anonymous commenter. A lot of you hate him, almost none of you like him, but the man who calls himself ANON1 has been pretty steady ripping on me and my readers ever since the Jenn Srterger fiasco back in March. I don’t know this guy, I’ve never met him. I have never talked to him and he only communicates to me thorough an email address that looks to be from a nefarious fictional character. So the mystery remains. But for those curious as to why Anonymous chooses to spend so much time arguing with you, or with me, perhaps this can shed some light on his motivations…..

When I look at America, I see a lot of problems. Too many people driving with cell phones, too many people coming out of the closet and yes, too many people with blogs. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that people shouldn’t be allowed to have a blog but I am saying that 99.9 % of the people out there don’t really need one. With that said let me explain my thoughts behind the above statement.

True or False? Most people lead boring lives….True. So why the hell do they feel the need to post about them. Like anyone cares what you dressed up as for Halloween. What the fuck? Note to the world…If you dress up for Halloween, are over the age of 15 and are not related to me by blood I could care less. If fact, if you are over the age of 15 and still dress up for Halloween you should be beaten with Paul McCartney’s ex-wife’s wooden leg. But it’s not just the holiday posts; it’s the everyday posts and the commenting on comments. See example below…

“Blah, blah, blah…so today I decided to organize my McDonald’s fries into a peace symbol. This brought me to the realization that the war in Iraq is wrong and I hate President Bush. I spilled ketchup on the fries to symbolize the blood being spilt in Iraq…blah, blah, blah, blah…I am still rambling….blah, blah, blah…”

Now that is what an average blogger’s post looks like. Not the context, but the stupidity and lack of thought that goes into it. Let’s now examine typical comments.

ASSHOLE ONE SAID:

“Wow, what a great post. I too did that with my fries except I used pepper to symbolize the gun shot wounds. You are such a great person and Bush is not.”

MOM SAYS:

“Very good post my little baby. We are having meatloaf tonight so get home early. Make sure you fill dad’s car with gas also.”

THATGUY SAYS:

“Yeah, like way cool post. I wish we could all just sit around, smoke bowls and sing songs all day. This war is like totally not cool…”

Now the comments are bad, but most people take it one step further by responding to each and every comment:

MORONBLOGGER SAYS:

ASSHOLE ONE ~ You are too kind. Thank you for the words of support. With the help of you, me, Grandpa Steve, that bum on the corner, Oprah and Santa Claus we can defeat the evil Republican army.

MOM ~ Sounds good. Did you wash my underwear?

THATGUY ~ Wish I could but this damn kid I had won’t play by himself. Maybe you can come over after he is asleep.

My point is this people. No one gives a shit about your boring life. 90% of you are not funny, 95% of you are not attractive and 99.9% of you should not have blogs. Imagine if people spent less time on their blogs? There would be less people worrying about bills and more people getting laid.

Oh well, it could be worse. I could be a single mom stuck in Western Michigan. I’m ANON1 and you’ve just been P3WNED.

Welcome to Dade County

Welcome to Dade County. I don’t like to use the name “Miami” because “Miami” conjures up images of beautiful women, white sandy beaches and cocaine smuggling, not much of which occurs once you venture west of I-95. What occurs west of I-95 you may ask? Well, pretty much whatever occurs in any other major American city with one glaring exception: It all occurs in Spanish. I don’t mean a pocket here and a pocket there, or a charming little “Latin Quarter” we could put in the Fodor’s guide. No, I mean a whole, living, breathing 11th largest American metropolitan area going about all of their day to day business in a language other than the one written on all of their street signs (that is unless you count the names given to streets to honor campaign contributors, mayor’s brothers-in-law and local baseball stars). This is why being a Dade white person, or “American” as we are called here, is such a surreal experience. If you live in LA or New York or San Diego or Phoenix or any other American city with a “Latin Influence” as they so nicely put it in Newsweek, you may experience this when you venture into certain parts of town, but when you get back to Brentwood or The Upper East Side or Del Mar or Scottsdale, everyone once again speaks English and goes about their business in a manner you are comfortable with and used to.

Such is not the case in Dade County. You know how in some cities you may decide to lunch at your local Burger King and the guy at the counter speaks no English and you get really frustrated, but once you get your Whopper with Cheese you forget all about it and go about the rest of your day without this frustration again? Well, in Dade, that definitely happens at Burger King (based in Miami, actually) but it also happens when you get back to work and try and call a locksmith to fix your door. It also happens when you go the bank to open a checking account, make a dinner reservation, call your lawyer or get your car fixed. This is the price you pay for living in a city with 24-hour liquor licenses and 82 degree weather all year round. That and the hurricanes.

White people in Miami are referred to as “Americans.” PC politicians would love to say that “We are all Americans,” but if someone here says “Yeah, this American guy came in here last week and threw this big fit at my secretary because she didn’t speak English” they mean he is white. We are not so much a minority, but more of a novelty. Have you ever gone into a store or a bar in an “ethnic” neighborhood and realized you were the only white person there? That is what happens to me when I go to Nordstrom. Go walk around Dolphin Mall or Dadeland on a Wednesday and I challenge you to find four “Americans.” Drugstore? Absolutely. The DMV? Go to the English Only window in Hialeah and you’ll be out of there in under 20 minutes. Santa’s Enchanted Forest? May as well be called El Bosque Encontado de Santa Claus. Am I complaining? No. If you are American and you want to move to Miami, the county requires you to sign a waiver stating that you understand you are moving to a place that does not speak English, nor will it ever try and do so, and that you will not go into a tirade worthy of Michael Douglas in "Falling Down" when the guy at the deli counter doesn’t understand what “3/8 of a pound” means. If you can accept these terms, Bienvenidos!

The difference between Miami and other cities with large Hispanic populations is that in those cities, though there may be a lot of Latin people, the government and economy are for the most part run by Americans. I don’t necessarily mean whites, now, but Americans. In Dade, nearly all commerce and government is run by people from Latin America. This means that everything here happens pretty much like it would in El Salvador. Except the streets are a little cleaner. We had our mayoral election declared fixed a mere two years before the 2000 election debacle that made voting in Dade world famous. The fact that the U.S. presidency was decided by a voting process on par with the one that elected Daniel Ortega may explain the last five years a lot more easily.

What this has given me is a degree of empathy for minorities in other U.S. cities. If you are a Mexican living in Indianapolis, I would assume you experience many of the same frustrations we “Americans” experience here in Dade. If you are black and living in Orange County, I think you might feel much the same way we do. If you are Asian and living in Connecticut, again, welcome to the world of White Dade. Just colder. If you are white and live in ANY OTHER AMERICAN CITY (save for maybe El Paso, which doesn’t really count) you will never understand what it is like to have to live your life according to another culture’s rules until you move here. And not to Miami Beach or Brickell or Coconut Grove or anywhere else you’ve seen on the Travel Channel. Move to a numbered street in the triple digits and you’ll know what I mean. The point is in Miami we are a true minority. We are not oppressed since most “Americans” in Dade have money, but we have no real political or commercial power and live life according to the way the majority feels it should be run. This is why I don’t feel at all like a racist when I say that I am proud to be White or that I like doing White things. I like Latin people and Latin things too, but you should be proud to be what you are.