It was in the early stages of Chuck when:
In the late 1990s, as a youngster in grade school, I invented the flip ‘up in the front’ hair style and the iPod. Though other people like Steve Jobs and Carson Daily took credit for both of these things, it was I who truly first came up with each concept. Growing up with my grandparents I was introduced to the hair style ‘up in the front’ look while I watched 50s and 50s style TV shows like Leave it to Beaver and Happy Days where predominate characters in each had the hair due exactly like a young Chuck Marks. So obviously, I didn’t “invent” the hair style, but I re-introduced it to youth of the 90s. As a third grader, when everyone was socially into the elementary school version of grunge (Ace of Spades), I was kicking it with the ‘up in the front’ look. It wasn’t until 6th grade, when people graduated to the Backstreet Boys, that they realize I was right, and before you know it everyone was using level 8 max hold Xtreme hair gel to completely flatten every inch of their skulls except the very inch from their forehead thus creating a “up in the front” look. Then when I did it everyone called me a poser. Later that year I stopped gelling my hair and started listening to Pearl Jam.
As disappointing as it is to not receive credit for UITF (up in the front), it is much harder to realize that I was the one who came up with the iPod and not get my proper due. Hair styles come and go but Steve Jobs will always be a weirdo. It’s not like I told Steve Jobs my idea, so certainly he did not steal it. And it’s not like I wrote him a letter; at that time, computer screens were still black and green and I was receiving extra help in English (though it was my native tongue). I guess the idea sparked as I was struggling to listen through a scratched and skipping compact disk. See, no matter how much a took care of my CDs, no matter what I did, they always, always wound up scratching. (If I only knew that my CDs would be a prelude to my love life I could have saved myself a lot of trouble and actually studied in school instead of thinking about women… In the end, with CDs and relationships, thinking back I could have given a bit more effort.) Anyway, as our family was coming back from a Christmas party in New Jersey, my CD (being played by a CD player with a 30 ESP), was skipping like little school girl. I put the CD player down in disgust and ask my father how songs get put onto CDs and why CDs were so sensitive. He first said that CDs were not that sensitive and that I just don’t take care of things the way I should. After a lecture on how to properly put my bike away, he then professed that information gets digitally placed on the CD and the player reads the info off of the CD to create the sound, which in my case he claimed was shitty. After defending Beck’s album Odelay for a few inconvincible minutes, I said that the walkman companies should just put the information directly on the CD player without using the CDs. And just call it a player, thus throwing the whole concept of a compact disk out the window… My whole family said it was a good idea, and then we started complaining about garlic mashed potatoes. Now it was understood that garlic mashed potatoes can be a good add on for a meal of this caliber, a Christmas meal, but one also has to have real mashed potatoes too, I mean it’s Christmas not Flag Day. Aunt Dotty didn’t think so. And when I, plate filled with biscuits, turkey, crab cake, stuffing, cole slaw, and other fixings, looked for the potatoes, Aunt Dotty pointed solely to the garlic mashed potatoes. I carefully chuckled, thinking it was a Christmas joke. I looked at the counter behind me. I looked in the oven. I looked in the cupboards. The refrigerator. The Microwave. Behind the couch. Then I realized that there is no such thing as a Christmas joke. This was a Christmas reality. No regular, American made, terrorist free, mashed potatoes. Instead, drastically replaced, Al-Qaeda loving, Mussolini style, garlic mashed potatoes. If there is an antonym for the phrase “Christmas Miracle”, I would use it. And if it wasn’t for Twisted Metal Two on Playstation one, Christmas would have been ruined forever.
Now, over ten years later, my invention the iPod is one of my favorite devices. I have become addicted to it. But like all drugs, the good ones at least, there are some side effects. For one, I can no longer go for a run without listening to the This American Life, Preston and Steve, Adam Carolla, or the Fresh Air podcast (nothing gets me pumped up like Terry Gross). Since I am conditioned to have something playing in my ear while I run at all times, when my jog last an hour or more, I am not able to bear my own thoughts. I keep thinking to myself, “You’re a bad runner because you are a bad person. You are a bad runner because you are a bad person.” I need a little Ira Glass to help me along and get my mind off of things.
But that’s more of a personal problem…
One technical problem with the iPod is something you (as a musician) can take advantage of:
When the iPod is touched inappropriately and goes into the PLAY ALL mode, the songs start aphetically. I can not comprehend the total number of times I inadvertently heard the synthesize drums on the opening seconds of Ah-Ha Take on Me. I can’t be the only one who ever made this mistake.
Though I play the drums and guitar, I am by no means a musician nor do I ever aspire to be in a band (and If I were to ever drum for a band, I assure you that it wouldn’t be a good enough band that could get me hot, tattoo chicks with bangs. Or a band that would ever be on someone’s iPod.) But, as a guy who owns an iPod, I would suggest this to someone with musical skills; whatever your band name may be make sure it starts with an A. If your name is, for example, The AAA’s, and somebody just so happen to have your band on their iPod, but they don’t go out of their way to listen to you, they will be forced to listen to at least the first couple of seconds of your song every single time they touch their iPod inappropriately. Your band could be the next Ah-Ha. See, every time my iPod PLAYS ALL, I am reminded of Ah-Ha. For at least 3 minutes, I think about Ah-Ha. I think about that fun pencil cartoon music video. I think about 80s films. I think about Val Kilmer as a teenager. And if your band was called The AAA’s, I would think about you.*
This is a technical problem, but:
One of the biggest side effects from the iPod, on a societal level, is a much more exigent matter to discuss. Most of us in our mid-twenties can claim that growing up we listened to our music on either a walkman cassette or a CD player. The magic of both of these devices is that it was required to listen to whole albums all the way through. I guess in theory you could skip your way to your favorite song, which is perfectly fine, but if you chose not to sit there in your Grandpa’s Ford Escort in silence, you were kind of forced to listen to the rest of an album as well. This made the album, the record in its entirety, vitality in it self.
So think about this:
If Dark Side of the Moon made its debut in March of 2010, would it have the same effect as it did in March of 1973? Now, there are many different variables that go into this of course. For one, rock music was much more popular back in ’73 than it is now. So the music itself, if made today, would probably be celebrated amongst people who were into today’s version of that style of music rather than the, Justin Beaver centered, larger audience. But, because of the iPod and iTunes, I argue, if Dark Side came out today there would be many more people downloading Money and Time rather than downloading and listening to the album in its entirety. And the lack of this notion, the lack of technology like iTunes which eludes people with the option to download just one or two songs, I say, is the reasons why Dark Side of the Moon has made such a mark on time…(that and it’s cool to fog the air and link the record up to The Wizard of Oz.) The point is I feel that the album is more appreciated because people were forced to listen to the whole thing.
Which poses another question, if an album that came out in the 2000s, but had the equal conception and exotic uniqueness of Dark Side of the Moon—say for example, if Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot came out in 1973, would it be now more of a house hold name? Even if a more conventional band, like the very popular group Nickelback were to make a dreadfully experimental concept album, would people listen to it? Or would they only listen to that song about photographs and guys named Joey. Would a band like Nickleback even exist if the iPod were not invented?
I wonder how many bands would not even exist if you couldn’t buy their single on iTunes.
Chapter Two:
There are only a few people, the ones born in my generation, know the true excitement of making a mix tape. Of course there are mix CDs, but for some reason it just doesn’t add up to the rush of putting together a solid mix tape. Sitting there with your hands on the STOP button, waiting for the perfect moment to end the song, followed by the impassioned analytical process of figuring out which song to play next—which of course is based on mood, tape motif, the ending of the previous song, and beginning of the next potential one. Sure, you get all of this pressure while making a mix CD, but if something doesn’t sound quite right—if the order of songs is not in perfect harmony—in a mix CD, the change you make in the playlist is unnoticed. However, when making a mix tape, if you decide to make a change, there will be a loud unavoidable click; therefore allowing the listener know that you’ve made an initial mistake, in which case you are named a failure and you get put on a list.
Making a mix tape also takes time. Unlike a mix CD, where all you have to do is listen to the first and last seconds of each song, when one makes a mix tape one must listen to the entire song. All the way through. And carefully. You can’t just put it on and walk away, you have to sit there and listen to it and stop the tape before the next song begins.
On a side note: whether it’s a tape or CD, putting two songs in order as they originally appear on the album is most likely cutting corners. There are exceptions, most notably, Queens We Will Rock You and We are the Champions.
No pain no gain: It’s really the effort you put in a mix tape that makes it unique and special. Making it easier to mix songs takes the sweat out of it. A sweat that only a few were likely enough to enjoy.
Plus it shows that you care…
I haven’t made a mix CD for a girl in years, but it’s been way longer since I have made a mix tape. I think if I met a girl who would enjoy listening to a mix tape, and had access to a tape player, I would marry her on the spot…
This ultimately brings us to how music affects my love life. See, I want to be able to have conversations with women about music. A girl can be of a different religion, race, or of a different political philosophy as me—she can literally say that we should go back to the gold standard, say that Global warming was created by Nancy Pelosi, be dreadfully convinced that (because of her vast foreign affairs experience) Sarah Palin can solve the Palestine / Israel problem, like garlic mashed potatoes, even love garlic mashed potatoes, be a Dallas Cowboys fan, hate ice cream, hate crab cakes, love canned cranberry sauce, absolutely hate cigarettes, absolutely love cigarettes, absolutely hate hamburgers, be literally the biggest fan of the Big Bang Theory, hates my blog, wears a DARE shirt non-ironically, absolutely love hamburgers, or thinks that Spin City was the only credible thing Michael J. Fox has ever done, and I would STILL like her and STILL date her and STILL marry her if I could have a 45 minute, intelligent conversation about Paul Simons Graceland or John Coltrane’s Giant Steps…and if she likes my two dogs. You know what? Even if the girl like today’s pop music, but hold’s an intelligent conversation about it, I could still dig it. If a girl can fully explain why the forth track of the latest Flo Rida record succeeds on a contextual and socially evocative level, that girl would still be the one for me. The point is, finding a girl who is truly and sincerely and intelligently into music, trumps all other qualities. So, I guess, if you are a girl and you read all of my ramblings on music that eventually got you to the end of this blog—to this very sentence you are reading right now and you were not bored, give me a call and let’s go on a date…you can even wear your vintage, McCain/Palin ‘08 shirt.
Chuck 0ut.
*If you are an artist, feel free to take the name The AAA’s. That is my gift to you.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
Dodger Dog and other points
Listen, I know I walk a tight rope. I don’t have a good paying job. I don’t live in a cool apartment. And really, I’m no Brad Pitt or even a Liam Nesson, for that matter. So when I approach a woman in a bar or the park or at a garage sale, I have to make sure everything I say and do is absolutely spotless. Now the cooler the girl, the easier it is, but when you start quoting Back to the Future Two it’s a real gamble. Odds are, as seen in Knocked Up, girls have no idea who the hell Doc Brown is, let alone Biff Tannen, Jennifer Parker, or the dynamics of the space time continuum (which explains why the film only rated a measly 8.4 out of 10 on IMDB.)
Sports references are okay with the ladies, but don’t start telling a story about Tommy Greene just because the girl is wearing a Phillies shirt. What I noticed is that 8 out of 10 times a guy should NEVER bring up sports, but if a girl shall approach the subject, it’s okay to go with it as long as you don’t debate her on issue’s like Andy Reid’s decision to have Mike Vick run it up in the middle on 4th and 1 with less than two minutes left in the game. Even if you do wind up dating this woman, would you really want your first conversation be an argument?
Obviously having good teams in the city is always a magnificent thing. You can’t walk 90 feet in the city without seeing someone with a Phillies cap. It’s great. But the draw back is that everyone starts to know everything about the team. When the team is the forefront of social activity, things start coming arise. Take for instance, a girl who simply likes sports, but doesn’t watch ESPN or listen to Mike Missanelli every day—a girl who gets into a particular sport for the in-moment excitement and nothing else—she most likely doesn’t give a shit about it outside the minutes within the game. If you were to move your conversation, with said potential lady, to the topic of the Philadelphia Hockey Flyers and you started spitting off random facts about the importance of icing during a 3 on 5 or Canada, you know you could lose the girls interest very easily.
There are certain risk you take when bringing up sports in conversation.
1) The potential girl will lose interest and start to look around for her friends. She’ll find her friends and leave you to watch Sports Center on mute.
2) The potential girl will know more about the sport than you do and you look like an idiot who likes dogs and magic cards.
OR
3) She actually wants to continue speaking with you, but due to lack of knowledge on the newly introduced topic, she now has nothing to offer to the conversation—which makes her feel uncomfortable.
In the latter case, she will search in her mind drastically to make some sort of relevant comment, which will mostly result in, “Dan Carcillo is really hot. That mustache is makes me quiver.” At that point, you now know at least this one thing; Carcillo is now your enemy. You find yourself rooting against him. You drop him from your fantasy team in the fantasy league you previously forgot you were apart of. Remember the Ryan Howard dilemma in my previous blog, Sports and Wine? A woman telling you that she has a crush on the guy you athletically look up to is basically the same thing; you won’t be able to look at him the same way. He will score a goal and you will cheer, but only a great sense of reluctance and jealously.
It is along these lines that over the last few years I have learned to hate Chase Utley for the same reason guys from New York/Jersey secretly hate Derek Jeter. If you ever go to Phillies ballpark you’ll find EVERY SINGLE GIRL is wearing an Utley shirt. The same goes with Jeter at Yankee stadium. If you were to take all of the talent and all of the skill of Jeter or Utley and put it in the body of Paul Giamatti, do you think every girl in the Tri-State/Delaware Valley area would be sporting their numbers? Meh, I think not. It’s kind of similar to hating Brad Pitt or Leonardo Dicaprio—they are both pretty boys who you are instinctually commanded to hate, yet one made Fight Club and the other Inception, which makes it hard to have any revulsion towards them. It’s fun to make fun of a pretty boy if he strikes out or stars in All the Pretty Horses, but once he does something of merit like win the World Series or anchor The Departed it’s hard to preach against him.
When I was living in LA:
I was taking my morning run through South Central near USC. Now you may have heard of South Central, Los Angeles in Dr. Dre songs, but I assure you it is not as bad as the doctor suggest. A friend once said to me that it is earthly impossible to have a dangerous ghetto if palm trees are present. Which is true. The only problem I ever had in South Central was when the taco guy on the corner of Fig and 38th shorted me 35 cents. (Hector, if you are reading this, I will get you. I will get you one day Senor. !Venganza! Venganza, indeed)
Anyway, I was running this one fine morning in the June of 2009, when I saw a raggedy young puppy in the middle of traffic. She had the dirty fur of a Columbus night walker and a fresh collection of real bad ass dread locks—not the kind of dreads rich kids from the suburbs who listen to Phish wear, but actual, Malibu Rum commercial dread locks. She was all alone, nobody calling after her, nobody caring. She ran amongst the cars, slightly evading each one as if it the highway was a game of dodge ball. And I stood there for a moment and watched for second. Then I did what anybody would have done. The most logical thing—what anybody would have done…I continued running. (I was in the fucking zone).
I continued running through the warm California air, admiring how the smog highlighting the Los Angeles sky is oddly handsome, when I came back to see the same dog doing the same exact thing in the middle of the street. And really, in true Los Angeles fashion, though this cute puppy dog was inches away from getting smashed by each passing Prius, nobody gave a shit. So, for the first time in a long time, I picked the girl up and took her home.
That day my roommate and I took her to various veterinarians to see if she had a chip in her that could identify if she was loved or not. She was not. We then went to the LA County SPCA to drop her off to puppy prison. I asked the puppy warden how long they’d keep her before she goes to puppy death row and the man said, because of over crowding, only four days. All of California has this problem; human and dog prisons alike. I then asked if it was a likely chance she might get adopted before the four days. The man sat there in his official brown button down shirt, Smokey the bear hat, and dollar store silver badge, arms crossed, while he shook his head claiming no. It was at that very moment when the dark eyed doggie sitting in my arms looked right into my eyes and with the love of a thousands pounds of kibble, licked my unshaved face. It was over. She was mine and I was hers and there was nothing either of us could do.
At first I thought I could just be a foster parent to her—take care of her, while I looked for a permanent guardian. Who knows? Maybe she could see angels in the outfield during an Angels game like in the movie Angels in the Outfield staring the Inception guy from 3rd Rock from the Sun…But that didn’t wind up happening. However, similar to Angels in the Outfield, I had to learn the lesson that raising a foster child is difficult because the minute you get attached, the child gets adopted by Danny Glover. And exactly what happened, I got attached.
When it was time to move back to Pennsylvania, it was a no brainer to bring the pup back with me. There we were, driving up the 10 out of LA, heads out the window, yelling, “So long, Stink Town!” She and I traveled back east in the summer zephyr, both rejected from the city of Los Angeles and on our way back home.
I named her Dodger. My mom and dad named me Charles. I go by Charlie and Chuck interchangeably. Dodger goes by Dodge sometimes and sometimes I call her Fiffa World Cup or Dodge Caravan or Dodge Stump the Fans or BuBu; all for different reasons which you can ask me about in person.
My little Dodger is one of things I am most proud of, even though she is a pain in the ass sometimes… But aren’t we all? In life, sometimes we shit on the rug and other times we don’t, as long as somebody takes us for a walk every now and we’ll all be cool.
People say to me that I should tell girls the story of Dodger. But how do you bring something like that up at a bar? Whenever I walk my two dogs in the park or down the shore and another dog sniffs my dogs ass, I always know if the dog is a rescue. You know why? Because the pompous prick tells me as soon as he or she gets a chance. “This is Fluffy. I rescued her. I’m telling you this because I want you to think that I am awesome. Did you rescue this one? Are you as good of a person as I am? Because I’m really awesome. I rescue dogs. I also read books and donate to public radio.”
I don’t want to be that guy. Just because you didn’t pay for your dog, doesn’t mean you rescued it. I only have Dodger because she is stupid enough to run through traffic and she is fucking cute. If she were a less cute animal like a squirrel or a giraffe, I would have kept running and thought nothing of it or that the circus is in town. Let’s face it; dogs are cute and friendly as hell. Most of them have true love in their hearts. I guess the point is that I needed Dodger just as much as she needed me. I’m no hero; I’m just a guy without a girlfriend.
Back to the issue at hand:
Finding the right thing to say to a girl is tough, but using stock stories like “rescuing” a dog just sounds cheap. And I feel cheap telling it. It’s kind of cheating. Wouldn’t it be more rewarding to find a girl by thinking quick and with wit.
See, in the amount of time you have to make an impression—the thinking on your feet, making every word count, type of interaction can either make you or break you. Picking up a girl and going to an interview is essentially the same thing; in both cases, you’re trying to receive some sort of “job”. (Don’t think too hard about that pun). But in both cases, don’t make a great deal out of something small. You’ll just feel silly.
Sports references are okay with the ladies, but don’t start telling a story about Tommy Greene just because the girl is wearing a Phillies shirt. What I noticed is that 8 out of 10 times a guy should NEVER bring up sports, but if a girl shall approach the subject, it’s okay to go with it as long as you don’t debate her on issue’s like Andy Reid’s decision to have Mike Vick run it up in the middle on 4th and 1 with less than two minutes left in the game. Even if you do wind up dating this woman, would you really want your first conversation be an argument?
Obviously having good teams in the city is always a magnificent thing. You can’t walk 90 feet in the city without seeing someone with a Phillies cap. It’s great. But the draw back is that everyone starts to know everything about the team. When the team is the forefront of social activity, things start coming arise. Take for instance, a girl who simply likes sports, but doesn’t watch ESPN or listen to Mike Missanelli every day—a girl who gets into a particular sport for the in-moment excitement and nothing else—she most likely doesn’t give a shit about it outside the minutes within the game. If you were to move your conversation, with said potential lady, to the topic of the Philadelphia Hockey Flyers and you started spitting off random facts about the importance of icing during a 3 on 5 or Canada, you know you could lose the girls interest very easily.
There are certain risk you take when bringing up sports in conversation.
1) The potential girl will lose interest and start to look around for her friends. She’ll find her friends and leave you to watch Sports Center on mute.
2) The potential girl will know more about the sport than you do and you look like an idiot who likes dogs and magic cards.
OR
3) She actually wants to continue speaking with you, but due to lack of knowledge on the newly introduced topic, she now has nothing to offer to the conversation—which makes her feel uncomfortable.
In the latter case, she will search in her mind drastically to make some sort of relevant comment, which will mostly result in, “Dan Carcillo is really hot. That mustache is makes me quiver.” At that point, you now know at least this one thing; Carcillo is now your enemy. You find yourself rooting against him. You drop him from your fantasy team in the fantasy league you previously forgot you were apart of. Remember the Ryan Howard dilemma in my previous blog, Sports and Wine? A woman telling you that she has a crush on the guy you athletically look up to is basically the same thing; you won’t be able to look at him the same way. He will score a goal and you will cheer, but only a great sense of reluctance and jealously.
It is along these lines that over the last few years I have learned to hate Chase Utley for the same reason guys from New York/Jersey secretly hate Derek Jeter. If you ever go to Phillies ballpark you’ll find EVERY SINGLE GIRL is wearing an Utley shirt. The same goes with Jeter at Yankee stadium. If you were to take all of the talent and all of the skill of Jeter or Utley and put it in the body of Paul Giamatti, do you think every girl in the Tri-State/Delaware Valley area would be sporting their numbers? Meh, I think not. It’s kind of similar to hating Brad Pitt or Leonardo Dicaprio—they are both pretty boys who you are instinctually commanded to hate, yet one made Fight Club and the other Inception, which makes it hard to have any revulsion towards them. It’s fun to make fun of a pretty boy if he strikes out or stars in All the Pretty Horses, but once he does something of merit like win the World Series or anchor The Departed it’s hard to preach against him.
When I was living in LA:
I was taking my morning run through South Central near USC. Now you may have heard of South Central, Los Angeles in Dr. Dre songs, but I assure you it is not as bad as the doctor suggest. A friend once said to me that it is earthly impossible to have a dangerous ghetto if palm trees are present. Which is true. The only problem I ever had in South Central was when the taco guy on the corner of Fig and 38th shorted me 35 cents. (Hector, if you are reading this, I will get you. I will get you one day Senor. !Venganza! Venganza, indeed)
Anyway, I was running this one fine morning in the June of 2009, when I saw a raggedy young puppy in the middle of traffic. She had the dirty fur of a Columbus night walker and a fresh collection of real bad ass dread locks—not the kind of dreads rich kids from the suburbs who listen to Phish wear, but actual, Malibu Rum commercial dread locks. She was all alone, nobody calling after her, nobody caring. She ran amongst the cars, slightly evading each one as if it the highway was a game of dodge ball. And I stood there for a moment and watched for second. Then I did what anybody would have done. The most logical thing—what anybody would have done…I continued running. (I was in the fucking zone).
I continued running through the warm California air, admiring how the smog highlighting the Los Angeles sky is oddly handsome, when I came back to see the same dog doing the same exact thing in the middle of the street. And really, in true Los Angeles fashion, though this cute puppy dog was inches away from getting smashed by each passing Prius, nobody gave a shit. So, for the first time in a long time, I picked the girl up and took her home.
That day my roommate and I took her to various veterinarians to see if she had a chip in her that could identify if she was loved or not. She was not. We then went to the LA County SPCA to drop her off to puppy prison. I asked the puppy warden how long they’d keep her before she goes to puppy death row and the man said, because of over crowding, only four days. All of California has this problem; human and dog prisons alike. I then asked if it was a likely chance she might get adopted before the four days. The man sat there in his official brown button down shirt, Smokey the bear hat, and dollar store silver badge, arms crossed, while he shook his head claiming no. It was at that very moment when the dark eyed doggie sitting in my arms looked right into my eyes and with the love of a thousands pounds of kibble, licked my unshaved face. It was over. She was mine and I was hers and there was nothing either of us could do.
At first I thought I could just be a foster parent to her—take care of her, while I looked for a permanent guardian. Who knows? Maybe she could see angels in the outfield during an Angels game like in the movie Angels in the Outfield staring the Inception guy from 3rd Rock from the Sun…But that didn’t wind up happening. However, similar to Angels in the Outfield, I had to learn the lesson that raising a foster child is difficult because the minute you get attached, the child gets adopted by Danny Glover. And exactly what happened, I got attached.
When it was time to move back to Pennsylvania, it was a no brainer to bring the pup back with me. There we were, driving up the 10 out of LA, heads out the window, yelling, “So long, Stink Town!” She and I traveled back east in the summer zephyr, both rejected from the city of Los Angeles and on our way back home.
I named her Dodger. My mom and dad named me Charles. I go by Charlie and Chuck interchangeably. Dodger goes by Dodge sometimes and sometimes I call her Fiffa World Cup or Dodge Caravan or Dodge Stump the Fans or BuBu; all for different reasons which you can ask me about in person.
My little Dodger is one of things I am most proud of, even though she is a pain in the ass sometimes… But aren’t we all? In life, sometimes we shit on the rug and other times we don’t, as long as somebody takes us for a walk every now and we’ll all be cool.
People say to me that I should tell girls the story of Dodger. But how do you bring something like that up at a bar? Whenever I walk my two dogs in the park or down the shore and another dog sniffs my dogs ass, I always know if the dog is a rescue. You know why? Because the pompous prick tells me as soon as he or she gets a chance. “This is Fluffy. I rescued her. I’m telling you this because I want you to think that I am awesome. Did you rescue this one? Are you as good of a person as I am? Because I’m really awesome. I rescue dogs. I also read books and donate to public radio.”
I don’t want to be that guy. Just because you didn’t pay for your dog, doesn’t mean you rescued it. I only have Dodger because she is stupid enough to run through traffic and she is fucking cute. If she were a less cute animal like a squirrel or a giraffe, I would have kept running and thought nothing of it or that the circus is in town. Let’s face it; dogs are cute and friendly as hell. Most of them have true love in their hearts. I guess the point is that I needed Dodger just as much as she needed me. I’m no hero; I’m just a guy without a girlfriend.
Back to the issue at hand:
Finding the right thing to say to a girl is tough, but using stock stories like “rescuing” a dog just sounds cheap. And I feel cheap telling it. It’s kind of cheating. Wouldn’t it be more rewarding to find a girl by thinking quick and with wit.
See, in the amount of time you have to make an impression—the thinking on your feet, making every word count, type of interaction can either make you or break you. Picking up a girl and going to an interview is essentially the same thing; in both cases, you’re trying to receive some sort of “job”. (Don’t think too hard about that pun). But in both cases, don’t make a great deal out of something small. You’ll just feel silly.
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