I received my $600 tax rebate yesterday which, if you have been paying attention, is part of the government’s brilliant plan to SAVE US ALL!

This is great news, considering I had to pay the comptroller of Maryland $958.39 in taxes this year. Writing that check was as fun as punching myself in the balls. Since then, aside from cursing liberal taxation policies run amok, I have been eagerly awaiting my $600 tax rebate so I could stimulate the economy as I saw fit.

Stimulating this cock-blocker of an economy isn’t as easy as you think, apparently. Journalists have been writing incessantly about what to do with your money, financial “experts” have been doling out advice like it’s going out of style (it’s not), and bloggers have been asking readers for advice on what to do with the found cash.

Why is this so fucking hard? It’s money! You’ve seen money before, you know how to use it. Do what you normally would do with money. Save it, spend it, invest it, roll around naked on it (otherwise known as Fridays for me), open a sweatshop overseas, adopt a Myanmar child, whatever.

So why is everyone freaking out about it? It’s like someone handed you a free sandwich and you turned to your friend or a stranger and asked, “What should I do with this?” Are you new to this concept?

New York Magazine even had a story recently on 18 ways to blow your newfound load. The article was slightly tongue-in-cheek, but I bet a lot of New Yorkers (anyone else read this magazine other than me?) took it to heart.

There’s even a Web site called How I Spent My Stimulus that is sort of like a Postsecret (only less scary) that allows readers to submit their photos and stories over how they spent their cash. Some of the reader-submitted content is boring (Disney World?) while others are original and funny (like buying Euros).

So what am I planning to do with my $600?

You’ll have to wait and see.

Post from: Arjewtino

I recently gave my mom the address to this blog. She’s known I’ve had a blog - or as she calls it, a ‘blob’ - for some time, but she’s always figured it was something I might not want her to visit. Because, who knows, I might say something a little vulgar, perhaps. Or slip in some vaguely sexual pun. Or, you know, I might drop a few F-bombs down on this bee-atch.”

I never had the problem Rothko had since my mom knew I had a blob — er, blog — about 10 seconds after I started it. There have been moments when I have wished she, along with other family members and friends, didn’t know I had it since it would be easier to write about things I often feel I can’t share, like my inability to drink water out of a straw. So embarrassing.

I don’t mind that my mom reads my blog mainly because she gives me constant validation about my writing skills. My mom honestly doesn’t understand why I don’t have a book contract with a $100,000 first-time author advance or why my life hasn’t been optioned into a movie. All in due time, mom.

That’s the great thing about mothers: they think you’re a fucking genius even when you’re writing about how many five-year-olds you could beat up.

But what happens when someone else’s mom finds your blog?

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Baby Bien (who I’ve written about a lot here) sent me an e-mail alerting me to the fact that Mama Bien had stumbled across my blog. She spent nearly half an hour reading all about her son stupidly losing a $300 bet, wearing what she called “a fake Hitler mustache”, and giving me his mailing address “so now you get schmutz from the internet….oy,oy,oy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” (yes, she’s Jewish, too; all Jewish moms talk like this).

Mama Bien added:

It was fun reading your demented friend’s website. [Arjewtino] should be ashamed of himself… ha,ha…

Now that I’ve had a chuckle and a panic attack, you can safely resume your life. It is no longer a “visiting” site… No parental guidelines…

Love ya, Baby Bien…”

I was on the phone a while back shortly after I posted a photo on my blog of a vagina with a fish painted on it. She said she told a friend of hers at work about my blog and that she checked it out. On the very day that photo was posted. I warned her to look into sexual harassment laws in the L.A.U.S.D.

I suppose there is a lot about us that we don’t want our moms to find out. They often know us better than anyone yet there are facets of our lives we just wish they didn’t know. Moms fed your ungrateful ass, clothed you, comforted you, put Band-Aids on you when you fell off your bike trying to impress a girl, and we thank them by growing up and having the gall to lead our own lives.

Rinse and repeat.

PHOTO CREDIT

Post from: Arjewtino

Back in March, I received a Facebook friend invitation from someone I used to know in high school (in the San Fernando Valley, CA). We weren’t exactly friends back then but were acquaintances and had some mutual friends, so I accepted.

Her friend request, though, didn’t come with any kind of message or “Hey, how’s it going!” or “Can’t believe how long it’s been!” comment.

So I took the novel approach of messaging her to see how she was doing. I wanted to keep it short since catching up with people on the last decade-and-a-half of your life is as much fun as watching cooking shows.

I noticed that her “network” was in Raleigh, so I wrote the following:

“So give me your 14-year recap. What are you up to? What took you to Raleigh?”

She responded with this:

“First of all, I was born in Raleigh…I came to LA when I was 13 years old, remember?

Everything is good…I am still in LA. Having fun…working, going out, dating, etc. How are you? DC, huh? How long have you been there?

Take care.”

There was so much wrong with this message I couldn’t even begin to deconstruct it in my head. “First of all”? Where was the “second of all”? We were barely friends in high school, how could I be expected to remember she was from North Carolina let alone her family’s continental migration habits?

I e-mailed Blue who, of course, also knew this girl. I copy-and-pasted our exchange. Not exactly the online social networking expert, Blue wrote back:

“This Facebook stuff is weird. How the f–k were you supposed to remember how old she was when she moved to LA or that she was born in Raleigh. You cant even remember that you didn’t get a hit in you first at bat at Dodger camp one month ago.”

Thanks, Blue.

Catching up with friends from high school is a superfluous act of nostalgic regression. You remember certain people for certain reasons (like who you took to prom) but have little to no interest in revisiting these memories (like your prom date getting picked up by her parents at 11pm). If these high school friends were so important to you, you would have stayed in contact with them in the first place.

But using Facebook, say, as opposed to the obnoxiously ubiquitous Classmates.com, is different. You can see how your high school “friends” have aged, what they’re doing, where they’re living, and who they’re hooking up with (if at all). You see people who once fretted about carrying enough AP classes instead holding babies. Or that popular asshole who you hated now “out and proud” and actually liking assholes.

And it makes it easier to skip high school reunions altogether, like an AP reporter wrote about yesterday.

The thing is, I didn’t even want to attend my 10-year high school reunion (back in 2003) even before the advent of Facebook. I just had no desire to see anyone face-to-face again and relive a time that had long passed me by. I’d rather look at them online, from afar, with the safety of an Internet connection acting as a social buffer.

In the past few weeks, I have “friended” a few other high school classmates and even joined my high school group.

Blue, however, isn’t sold:

“I don’t like this Facebook stuff. You two reconnect but have nothing to say to each other. Why even start it?”

I wrote the classmate who “friended” me two days later, asking her how she expected me to remember such information but asking who she’s still in contact with from high school.

That was two months ago. I haven’t heard back yet.

PHOTO CREDIT

Post from: Arjewtino

Everyone at some point in their lives have met someone who declared that he or she did not own a TV.

This statement was always perceived as some sort of “holier-than-thou” comment by someone “too good” to succumb to only the most important cultural invention in the past 70 years.

During my freshman year of high school, I had a crush on a girl named Paula, who was one of my sister’s friends. I liked her for three reasons: we once danced at my sister’s birthday party and she let me hold her hips; she once sat in my lap in a car (hilarity ensued); and she held my sweaty teenage hand when we watched Cry Baby in the movie theater.

But there was something odd about Paula and her family and I finally found out after weeks of pining for her. She didn’t own a TV.

When she told me this startling fact I looked at her like she was a Martian. A really hot Martian who liked to sit in my lap.

“So, what do you do?” I asked her.

I don’t remember what she said, but it had something to do with “reading books” or “talking with her family” or some other crazy behavior.

I never understood people who didn’t watch TV. They usually added to this fact by declaring that they didn’t even own a TV set. Television was the first widely available machine to which humans became addicted, bringing diverse people together, and allowing us to avoid eye contact with our friends and family.

But maybe Paula, and all the other aliens who pride themselves on not owning a TV, was onto something. Because on Tuesday night, after enjoying decades of staring at the socially relevant telecommunication system, I did something I am not proud of:

I voted on “American Idol”.

Specifically, I picked up my cell phone and texted the word “VOTE” to (866) IDOLS-02, just like the funny-looking Seacrest man told me to do.

A TV show I had once reviled for being a retarded popularity contest featuring karaoke singers got me this season to watch. And care. And vote. But, I believe, I had a good excuse.

For those of you who watched on Tuesday, you may remember that the phone number I mentioned above was the voting designation for Syesha Mercado (who survived this week’s vote in no small part thanks to me). Though she wept crocodile tears and compared her efforts on “American Idol” this year to those of the civil rights movement, Syesha was so amazing singing “Proud Mary” and, more importantly, looked so friggin’ hot, I was overcome by a desire to text a vote for her.

Turn away, I’m hideous.

Overcome by shame, I then texted my friend MJ about what I did.

Arjewtino: “I’m voting 4 syesha.”
MJ: “We might not be friends.”

MJ didn’t mean we wouldn’t be friends because I had succumbed to voting for some hot chick on a TV show (as opposed to being unable to vote in this year’s Presidential primary). She meant we wouldn’t be friends because she disagreed with my choice. (FYI, she voted for David Cook.)

Sure, my man card should be taken away. Sure, this makes me a hypocrite (big surprise).

But at least I own a TV.

FIRST PHOTO CREDIT

Post from: Arjewtino

For years, The Princess has talked about taking a drive to Pennsylvania to visit Amish country. For years, I have refused.

Maybe it was my reluctance to feel like an outsider to what I would consider xenophobic people. Maybe it was the prospect of having a really boring weekend sniffing horseshit.

Or maybe it was because watching Witness when I was a child traumatized the living crap out of me. Seriously, watching Danny Glover slash a man’s throat in a train station bathroom and watching another man get buried alive under a silo-sized mountain of corn feed is liable to emotionally scar just about anyone.

In any case, I finally agreed this past weekend to take the 2-hour drive to Amish country. We traveled through towns called Cockeysville and Blue Ball before arriving in Intercourse.

FYI: At no point did these jokes get old.

We spent more than 24 hours among these misunderstood Anabaptist Christians, riding their horse-and-buggies, walking among their farms, and doing our best not to offend any of them. Knowing me, I’m surprised I succeeded. I even snickered when I heard some frat boy ask an Amish lady selling homemade root beer to take a photo of her only to have her respond, “I’d rather you didn’t.”

Here are three things I learned about the Amish this weekend:

1. Horseshit stinks.
2. Horses shit a lot.
3. There are a lot of horses in Amish country.

We got to Intercourse, PA, on Saturday afternoon after a meandering drive through northern Maryland and Lancaster County, PA. The Princess, who is nothing if not a well-prepared traveler, read her literature about what we could do in Pennsylvania and soon learned we had made a huge mistake.

Apparently, there is nothing to do on Sundays.

I knew the Amish were a religious bunch but I didn’t realize that meant that everything shut down on the Sabbath. When the Lord wants you to rest, he really wants you to rest. So we tried to cram as much as possible on Saturday.

We took a horse-and-buggy ride:

We visited Amish farms:

We found signs about Intercourse:

We haggled with Amish boys over the price of horseshoes:

We saved a group of kittens from religious persecution:

We drag-raced wild and reckless teenage Amish boys:

We read the Bible (something called the New Testament?) page left open in our hotel room:

And, of course, on Saturday evening, we revisited my traumatic childhood experience by watching Witness, which played in every room in the Best Western at 9pm. More than 20 years later, the movie had lost some of its power over me, I suppose because I no longer empathized with a young Lucas Haas witnessing a brutal murder. And Harrison Ford going ape shit against the local townies for spreading ice cream on the face of that immortal dude from Die Hard was pretty funny.

But man, Kelly McGillis as an Amish woman? Hot.

Post from: Arjewtino

I am an incredible blackjack player. I’m not nearly as good as the card-counting protagonist of Bringing Down the House, but then again I’m not Asian.

More often than not, though, I win at blackjack. They key is to not play desperate, never bet more than you’re willing to lose, and know when to take a chance. Oh, and don’t sit at a table with retarded people.

Once in Vegas, I was at a blackjack table with my friends Blue, Big I, and Scotty. Also joining us was a guy who was a couple of bulbs short of a full deck.

This idiot savant could win. And he won big. Every other hand it seemed like he would draw 21. And every time he did, he would shout “Blackjack!” like he had won the fucking lottery. Oh, and he would start barking and meowing like a house pet.

Yes, the man barked and meowed. Out loud. He even once asked the dealer to hit him on 15 with the dealer showing a 5. He drew a 6. This ridiculous style of play royally fucked us up and we lost more than we won.

The one gambling game I suck at, though, is poker. Maybe it’s because I couldn’t bluff my way out of a paper bag or because I can’t tell when other people are full of shit, but I have always lost at this game.

Still, when my work friend Phillip the Frenchman invited me over to his apartment recently for a poker tournament, I thought I could reverse years of bad luck. The only problem was getting there.

This was the e-mail he sent to me and some other co-workers:

Pretty clear directions, right? You’d think. I walked over to the building and was buzzed in. I took the elevator to the 17th floor and found apartment 1703. I knocked on the door.

Nothing.

Thinking they were outside on the balcony smoking and drinking and couldn’t hear me, I tried the door knob and found it was unlocked.

I walked in to find an empty apartment.

“Phillip?” I shouted. “Phillip?”

Nothing.

I walked in to the living room and took a look around. They were not on the balcony. They were not in the kitchen. There was no one there. As I weighed my options, a girl came out of the bedroom.

I didn’t know Phillip had a female roommate, I thought.

“Can I help you,” she asked.

“Hi, yeah, is Phillip here?”

“Uh, no…you have the wrong apartment.”

Oh. Fuck.

“Is this 1703?” I asked while planning my escape route and hoping she didn’t have a gun. It was Virginia, after all.

“Yeah, but there’s no Philip here.”

Considering she was talking to a man who had just illegally entered her apartment, this chick was remarkably composed. She didn’t scream or feel threatened. In fact, she acted like this sort of thing happens all the time.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry,” I said as I left, trying my best not to seem menacing.

“That’s ok!” she replied.

I called Phillip from the hallway and asked him to verify his apartment number.

“1903,” he said.

Motherfucker.

I got to his place and told everyone what had happened. The first question out of their mouths: “Was she hot?

I lost $50 that night, though I felt like I played ok and even won a hand or two. We got drunk off our asses on scotch whiskey and had a good time.

Next time, though, I’ll be barking like a dog.

FLICKR PHOTO CREDIT

Post from: Arjewtino

I wanted to write about my wild and crazy party weekend in New York City with my best friend Blue. I wanted to write about going to Shea to see the Mets and having a large drunk man fall on us in the stands. I wanted to write about beating Blue at Ping Pong for the first time in my life (bringing my career record against him to a blistering 1-73). I wanted to write about all the stupid jokes and funny stories that happen when you hang out with someone you’ve known for 26 years.

But then it happened.

Blue was taking me to a show. Not Broadway, as I had thought, but “off-off-off-off-Broadway”, according to him. He wouldn’t tell me what it was because he didn’t want me to go into it with any preconceived notions. So I didn’t know if we were attending a play featuring a naked Harry Potter or watching some bad street performance.

Turns out, it was a little of both.

The last time Blue and I went to dinner and a show was several years ago when we grabbed some pizza and attended “Taller Than a Dwarf” with Matthew Broderick and Parker Posey. The play was sort of interesting but not that memorable. The night, though, was.

During the play, my stomach started grumbling. So did Blue’s. As line after line was delivered and each act unfolded onto the next one, we began to realize that the $3 pizza slices might have been a bad idea.

When the lights came up, we bolted. For the bathrooms. We sat on those porcelain stalls like they were our lifelines, cursing the gods of baked dough and melted cheese and struggling to survive an embarrassing situation.

Eventually, a security guard came into the bathroom after the theater was empty and turned off the lights.

“We’re still in here!” I shouted.

“Hurry up!” he shouted back.

There was an awkward pause. Finally, I replied:

“We’re doing the best we can.”

Enough years have gone by that Blue and I can laugh about it now. This past Saturday’s incident, however, might take more time.

The mystery show turned out to be Fuerza Bruta, a surreal revolving stage performance featuring a lot of kinetic energy, wind, and water that looks like Circue d’ Soleil on LSD.

Blue and I had eaten at Arturo’s Pizza earlier, sharing the most incredible half-bacon, half-sausage pie (probably one of the best I have ever had). I finished a half-carafe of red wine on my own.

“Hmm,” Blue said, “pizza and a show in New York. Seem familiar?”

When we arrived at the Fuerza Bruta show, I was feeling a bit tipsy. We walked in and immediately I was wondering what the hell was going on. Everyone was forced to stand inside a circle in the center of a dark room. One guy took off his shirt. A bachelorette party came in with each drunk woman wearing a mask. I started to wonder if Blue had brought me to an orgy.

The show started with a man running on a treadmill above our heads. Strobe lights started to splinter the dark. Wind and water were sprayed everywhere. People started to jump, dance, and cheer. Everyone would move around in unison, pushing us around the “stage” into different formations.

I stared up and got dizzy. I lost my place. I lost myself. I looked for Blue and couldn’t find him.

And then my stomach started to hurt.

The ceiling above us became a see-through mylar swimming pool. Half naked women swam across it as we all watched and cheered.

I looked around for the emergency exits.

The swimming pool ceiling started to be lowered slowly. The wet women got closer and closer and soon they were claustrophobically on our heads. Everyone raised their hands to “touch” the swimming women.

I told Blue I had to get out of there.

Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the pizza. Maybe it was the Italian sausage and hot dog I had at Shea that afternoon. Maybe it was radically changing my diet after a week of observing Passover’s dietary restrictions. Maybe it was the heat in the Fuerza Bruta room. Maybe it was the strobe lights and the psychokinetic energy.

Maybe it was everything.

I buckled over and everything went dark. Blue pushed me to the red EXIT sign.

“Is he ok?” I could hear people ask.

I was catatonic. I couldn’t talk or walk. Blue somehow got me downstairs and to the bathroom. I sat on that toilet feeling like I was going to die. I sat there wishing I would die. This, I thought, is was being poisoned must feel like.

It took 30 minutes for me to open my eyes and stand up. The 70-minute show was still beating through the walls. I apologized to a sympathetic Blue and said, “Let’s catch the end of the show.”

We walked upstairs and entered the room. One minute later, the show ended.

Now, Blue says I didn’t ruin his birthday and that I shouldn’t feel bad for blowing the tickets he paid (discount price) for. But he did say that I shouldn’t sugar coat this story in my blog. That my best blogging is done not when I try to control my online image in a flattering way but when I’m honest to everyone about who I really am. Easy for him to say, he doesn’t have a blog.

So here’s my unflattering story, the one I didn’t want to write about, the one that doesn’t make me seem funny or witty or attractive to strangers. It’s very unflattering. Very honest.

And one more thing. On the way out of Fuerza Bruta, I heard a woman behind me sum up the show to her friend:

“This show would have been amazing if I was on psychodelic drugs.”

Really? I wanted to say to her, you should have had what I was on.

Post from: Arjewtino

Why don’t you blog from the wired wifi super bus?”

Having known him 9 years, I knew he was due to come up with a good idea. So here I am, on my very first BoltBus trip, writing to a total of five readers who Sitemeter tells me are currently on my blog (it’s Friday night, go out). Our WiFi connection keeps going in and out so I can’t guarantee that I can stay online or that it will even be entertaining, but I’m nothing if not determined to make you laugh.

Like a clown.

6:27PM: The bus is about to leave and the very first thing I have noticed about BoltBus is the silly people with their silly laptops (I am NOT excluding myself). The first thing everyone did was look for seats with sockets in front of them. Not two minutes went by before everyone took out their laptops and checked their e-mails.

6:35PM: Arjewtino: “Excuse me, driver, do you have the network code to get online?”
Random girl who thinks I was talking to her: “You don’t need a network code.”
Bus driver who just became my new best friend: “Actually, yes you do.”
Arjewtino to random girl: “Suck it.”

7:36PM: We lost Internet pretty much when we started the drive. Everyone is freaking out. There’s pandemonium. If we can’t GChat while on a moving conductor we’ll just about die. I entertained myself by watching an episode from the first season of Perfect Strangers. Don’t judge me. It’s a great show. That Balki!! So foreign and stupid!

Post from: Arjewtino

Yesterday, while discussing with Blue all the par-taying we’re going to do, he mentioned my recent lack of blogging.

Blue: “You haven’t been blogging much lately. Are you thinking about ending it?”

Arjewtino: “I think about it sometimes. Maybe I’ll delete this blog, take a break, and then start a new, secret one. You know, where I can talk about my feelings.”

Blue: “You should call it Ar-Christian-tino.”

Arjewtino: “That’s a pretty good idea.”

Blue: “Think about everything you would write about and then write the opposite.”

Next week will be a better blogging week. I promise.

Fucking vultures.

Post from: Arjewtino

Observing Passover is like having a systematic spring cleaning. Only with more persecution.

Part of this “cleaning” involves a major overhaul of dietary rules. Now four days (out of eight) into my ban on eating anything leavened or, you know, tasty, I’m starting to wonder if any of those fleeing Jews in Exodus couldn’t have waited just a few more minutes for the bread to rise.

I spent Passover weekend entertaining my 12-year-old cousin (again) and decided to make it the Jewiest weekend ever. So I did what any cool, older cousin would do in this situation. I got him drunk.

Actually, my friend Foxymoron got him drunk. Off kosher wine. At seder on Saturday night, Foxymoron pulled off an amazing meal, cooking the traditional foods, reciting the Passover prayers from the Haggadah, and blessing the candles and wine. And, of course, getting us all drunk.

To be fair, my cousin only had three glasses of wine, and they were more like half glasses. But that boy would not stop jabbering and laughing toward the end of the evening and talking about how much game he had with the girls at his leadership conference last week. Fucking drunk.

Earlier that day my cousin, The Princess, and I had gone down to the Mall to visit the National Air and Space Museum. Since my cousin wants to be a commercial pilot someday, he was pretty stoked.

That museum, though, is incredibly out-of-date. Between the broken displays, the low-tech features, and the barrage of immensely ugly children wandering around, it was a miracle we got out of there.

Rockets

What we look light in infrared light.

“Get off my plane!”

Of course, on the way to the museum, we had noticed a litany of police setting up along Constitution Avenue. The Princess walked up to one of the security guards nearby and asked what was going on. When he stopped staring at her cleavage, he informed her that they were preparing for a neo-Nazi rally.

“On Passover?” I yelled.

I then described to my cousin how our country’s first amendment allows bigots to scream hatred as long as they have an approved permit issued by the Park Police.

On Sunday, I tried to wash away the stench of neo-Nazis invading our city and took my cousin to see records of real Nazis at the Holocaust Museum. The Nazi-themed weekend took on an ominous tone when we noticed the Department of Agriculture’s exterior design:

Also, it being Hitler’s birthday and all (April 20) made me wonder if it all amounted to irony.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one:

Now, the Jewiest weekend since Yom Kippur involving the Ten Plagues, Hitler, and Nazis has given way to a week without eating any sandwiches, tacos, burritos, cheeseburgers, or sushi. And not drinking beer.

This has been harder than I thought and, I would argue, tougher to do than fasting for 24 hours.

For those who remember, I once wrote the following words on this blog:

…when I go out, I turn into Teen Wolf hooked on bread.
Bread? They have bread? Give me some bread! You have any more bread? Give me five motherfucking baskets of bread!

I better get a good seat in synagogue. You know, the next time I go.

Post from: Arjewtino