Hopeless Romantic Joke

Women have never been my forte. The first girl I ever liked doesn't even know I speak English, much less say a word to me. The last girl I liked bottles me up like Jack McFarland in Will And Grace despite the flailing of my arms to get out of the "friend zone." And in between, I have been yelled at and laughed at. I have been misunderstood and embarassed. I am Cusack's Rob Gordon in High Fidelity, soaking wet and face down in the mud. But no beautiful blonde picks me up in her Honda Accord. Nope. Not even a Saab.

I wish I could say that my romantic history were "coulda-beens" and "woulda-beens," but even that would be a stretch. I've been trying to neatly package the blame of a .000 batting average to something outside of my control. Just to list a few:
1) I am too nice of a guy. And girls don't like nice guys.
2) I am the king of the "friend zone."
3) I am an Asian guy, and no one likes Asian guys. Not even Asian girls. Not even Asian gay guys.

But these excuses never make any sense. In rebuttal:
1) I am not a nice guy. I have called straight women lesbians. I have hit children in the past two years. I have called women cunt to your faces. I pick fights with people just because I find their face to be ugly.
2) My success rate with women who do not put me in their "friend zone" is equally poor.
3) Pulling out the race card is like kicking a guy in the balls in the cage match of Wrestlemania XVII. Besides, this blog makes that theory entirely void.

The worse part of these aforementioned excuses is that no one buys them. Not even me.

And thus, the only possible outcome is my status of the "hopeless romantic joke." There's one in every group. And like the saying goes, if you don't know who it is, the "hopeless romantic joke" is you. That is why it took me 21 years to figure this one out. You all know people like me. We are the losers who pathetically write love poems (to woo hearts) and bitter poems (to show off our muscular...ink) to no avail. We make mix CDs and dream of different ways to defeat the captain of the football team. We live off of chick flicks that every guy is supposed to hate, but we take pride in watching and loving them in the hopes of appreciative women.

Hopeless romantics always begin off as well...romantic, sweet, unique. But that's where it ends. Our complicated plans for relational victory gets smothered, covered, and scattered. So the fairy tale never takes place. And why should it? Fairy tales revolve around women finding love. Not men fighting for it.

But the instinct of pity for the poor sap quickly subsides when it becomes humorous. One man failing in the chase of the woman he loves is a Shakepearean tragedy. One man being shut down in the pursuit of women in the span of several years is a Kevin Smith comedy. Call up the agents for Carrey, Carrell, and Ferrell. Get ready to blow the box office records away and send Titanic floating into oblivion.

So this is my life -- highlited by at least one hopeless romantic joke story per year. There is no use telling each one in detail not because I cannot handle the pain, but chances are -- these stories will spread like wildfire to your ear within weeks if not days. And if you still haven't heard Yih's script of romantic failures, just ask any one of his close friends. They laugh the hardest.

But here's to me. The sap. Here's to me. The man women never want and men never want to be. Here's to me. The foreign film comedy hero because he never gets the girl. Ever. Here's to me. The hopeless romantic joke.

Cheers!

From One to the Other

My CNN internship ended after 10 weeks, and I'm still evaluating what happened. In between South Park episodes, 2-hour lunch breaks, and fantasy sports, did I become a better person? Or at least a more valuable commodity?

I arrived at the Orientation Meeting with 49 other interns from around the US, and toured the CNN building -- meeting potential mentors and cute colleagues. I left the Time Warner Center with zero friends and mediocre exchanges, but I did my job and I did my job well. Some time along Week 3, relational priorities took a backseat to the more selfish interests of my own career.

I left the building vowing to come back. Or at least be their competition.

Before I had a chance to breathe or let the dream slide away like most, I find myself in another internship at another news station that is both like CNN and drastically different. At WSB-TV Channel 2 News in Atlanta (ABC affiliate), it is stereotypical. It is a little on the insane side. It is getting yelled at. It is having thick skin, saying fuck you silently, and moving on.

I traded in the 10-floor glassy building in the center of Manhattan for one large news room where $1.00 an hour interns work side by side with 3.5 million a year anchors. I traded in a personal computer and phone, researching for a specific story for a community phone -- taking in phone calls from 80-year old grandmothers tipping me about the "bad man" outside her window on Peachtree. If I get lucky, a police officer may call me to tell me about a car wreck on I-85. Whoop dee doo.

In local news, you seem to take the good with the bad equally. Bad story ideas come in as plenty as great story ideas. 99% of the time, the police will tell you nothing is going on, but if there is something -- you will be the first to know -- before national news, reporters, or desk editors. Some of the most colorful personalities work with you one-on-one. Meanwhile, larger than life reporters who are in actuality much smaller than they think, give you the Anchorman treatment without the comedic effect of Will Ferrell.

At CNN, everyone does their own thing, and the system makes everything else work. At WSB-TV, everyone does everything together in the same room. Unless you're sports, lucky for them. And because of that, it feels like a breeding ground for moody personalities, where apologies and smiles come after a report making deadline.

And yet, one thing remains the same. I leave this place everyday as I did with CNN or countless other competitive institutions: an overconfident attitude -- knowing, or at least tricking oneself to believe, that I am better than everyone above me.

It is, I believe, the only way to think, in order to survive being kicked around as an unpaid intern in a community that will only give you respect if you demand it.

So demand I will till I get a job that pays above minimum wage.

Bush...an Idiot?

Who needs to post new material on the blog when we can tap into the wonderful world of YouTube

Bill Maher For President

I know who I'm voting for now.

Four Thoughts

I.
Sometimes, I get so sick of the silence in New York that I turn on static. I like the feeling of bobbing my head and tapping my foot to an imaginary beat as fellow subway colleagues imagine the Dylan and Panic! and Young Joc in my Ipod I do not own.

II.
Sometimes, I think women never shave. Somewhere in between Hillary Clinton and Alanis Morrisette, women said, "F this. I'm growing it out." I had once thought that if I saw too much hair on a woman's upper lip or armpit or legs, I had just caught them on a bad day. But it's summer. And it's happening too damn much. So I give up. Here's to you, Independent Woman. Fight our football, cheap beer, and Doritos tendencies with your furballs. We're coughing our way into oblivion.

III.
Sometimes, when the alcohol has lost its effects and Chumbawumba is no longer thought-provoking at three in the morning, the same cliche questions come out. These days? "Are you excited to go back to school?" No. Only in college classmates and Screech asks questions like this. It has been a sad, sad year as summer vacations were no longer as fun as they used to be with the Ricky Lakes and imaginary games and solo karoake times. Am I the only person sick of the summer jobs and internships that suffocate us like rats in Grand Central? Am I the only person sick of the idea of sitting in a 16th straight year of class? Am I the only person who also wouldn't mind punching the person who tells me they're excited to learn? Am I the only person who is beginning to feel the air of adulthood closing in our once supple adolesence as there are nothing to look forward to anymore except empty, unsatisfying, two-week vacations that never amount to what we expected?

IV.
I think my college minister reads my blog. Currently FREAKED.

The Lonelihood of the Solitary Gay

Some see it as journalistic instinct. Others see it as a woman trapped in a man's body. But sometimes, I venture into activities that are dangerous to both my sanity and my testosterone level. But to men, is that not one in the same?

Long story short, I rented The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. College is the perfect, and perhaps the only time to experiment, they say. So I dove head first, full force into the world of tampons and giggles and dreamy European boys.

For those who don't know, the plot is this: Four girls, who were best friends since birth. They separate for the summer, but before they do, they find a pair of jeans they all miraculously fit into. Apparently, this is the equivalent of men picking the same teams for NFL pickem on any given week. They decide to pass the pants around for the summer, hoping to bring great fortune to those who receive it. Love, family issues, and leukemia ensue.

How does such an orgy fest of estrogen affect a male? Here is a real-time log of the last 30 minutes. (Seriously, I paused the movie so I can write this intro).

1:33 Indie girl does bad acting job, of trying to give pants to leukemia girl. I cannot believe audiences are falling for this tissue moment. Outside of the bad acting moments, check out this line. "I hope it works their magic on you," to which the other girl replies, "they already worked their magic. They brought me to you." Oh my god. I feel like I'm watching Notebook meets Lesbian Brokeback. The lines are more planned than a WWF matchup, but not the good ones on Wrestlemania, but the crappy ones they feature on network television. This is pathetic! But why am I leaking?
1:35 Hot, blonde girl. She is honestly only there to give boyfriends some hope for finishing this movie alive.
1:36 The only Asian in this movie is a guy who plays Dungeons and Dragons all day at the local supermarket. Demasculize me, please.
1:37 Why does it feel like I'm in the act of jailbait whenever I watch Alexis Bledel? I'm not attracted to her. But she's wearing a skirt. And that alone makes me feel like I'm watching child pornography.
1:39 Girl talk about mothers and bad jokes while eating pizza. I don't even know what they're saying. Even though I would be intrigued to figure out what girls talk about when together, it will probably bore me so much that I'd act the same way when girls talk to me when I'm around. Daydream.
1:40 What the hell just happened? The girl talk led to all the girls crying with sappy Full House music in the background. And here comes the girls telling each other how awesome they are and how much guys suck. This is precious. "You have something else too." "What?" "You have us!" NO, YOU WILL NOT LEAK, YIH. YOU WILL NOT LEAK!
1:41 In Greece. A hot girl just says papu to her daddy. I wish my wife calls me papu or papi when we're making love. At least that would make up for when BT said she liked me like I a father.
1:42 The storyline: hot blonde (high school soccer player) likes her college blond guy coach. The guy plays hard to get, and randomly finds her in her pajamas near the end of the movie. What a tool! And by tool, I say YOU LUCKY BASTARD....she's not even wearing a bra. Again I say, good work from filmmakers to intersperse the girl talk with hot blondes not wearing bras.
1:44 I wonder what I'll eat tomorrow. I can't believe my internship is almost over.
1:48 What did they just say? Is that Kelly Clarkson in the background? The only thing that would make this any more gayer is if it was Justin Guarini.
1:48 Scenes of a fun road trip with girls. Thank God for movies like Road Trip and Harold and Kumar because if road trips are based on films like this, say goodbye to the male marketing strategies for pickup trucks or Range Rovers. Because no man would ever, ever drive.
1:49 The storyline: daughter finds out her father has a new girlfriend and is going to marry. She is very much against it and runs away. Now, she comes back upon the urging of her friends to the wedding, so they sit quietly in the back. The father freezes and says, "There's an important family member missing...my daughter. I miss you, I love you." May the tears flow like the River of Jordan. Okay, I am not leaking. But I suddenly have an uncontrollable rate of breathing. And I am not even touching myself. Yes, yes. That joke was only to reinforce my own masculinity.
1:50 "To us. Who we were and who we are. And who we will be. To the pants. And to the sisterhood. And to this moment. And the rest of our lives. Together and apart." Cue the country music.

And to that, I say. To death. To who I was. And to who I should have been. But who I will be, my gaping vagina. To my lonely days at the Wet Bar. To Lance Bass. Open or closeted. Cue The Village People.

My Sports Guy Story

For those who know who the Sports Guy is, this will quite entertaining.
Write YOUR OWN Sports Guy Column here

The Sports Guy Goes to an Auction

So I'm sitting there the other day watching ESPN2 and I see that Alex Rodriguez had a great game. There is nobody, with the possible exception of Joe Kerrigan, that I dislike more than Alex Rodriguez. In the pantheon of people that 'Make the Sports Guy Alex Gonzalez,' these two are a Alex Gonzalez.

The phone rings. It's my friend Bish. pissed off! Bish is always willing to discuss our mutual distaste for Alex Rodriguez. Don't get me wrong--we respect his abilities. But he's the Screech of sports. Totally annoying, yet on TV all the time. Bish mentions that it would be nice if Alex Rodriguez caught a case of mad cow disease at the beginning of September, paving the way for the Red Sox to the playoffs like Jerome Bettis on steroids.

Bish points out that the chances that Alex Rodriguez will come down with mad cow disease in September are minimal, but that if we expanded the possibilities, there would be a greater chance for debilitating success. As usual, Bish is a crazy genius.

Here is what we came up with:

4. Alex Rodriguez receives a vicious Stone Cold Stunner from David Ortiz in front of 40,000 fans jammed into Fenway Park.

(On a side note, has there ever been a greater moment in sports than when Mankind and The Rock faced off? I don't even care if it was fake, that was sweet. That rivals when Al Pacino's Any Given Sunday speech for 'Most Inspirational Non-Real Sports Moment 2006.)

3. Alex Rodriguez is informed by his wife that their child was not fathered by him but rather by either Billy Koch or Isaiah Thomas.

2. Alex Rodriguez hangs scrapbook-style clippings of Dylan McKay and Mr. Miyagi in his locker and is immediately put on the DL.

1. Alex Rodriguez meets Trischelle from The Real World; Las Vegas, falls in love, and leaves team to begin filming 'My Fair Yankee.'

After we finish with the conversation about Alex Rodriguez we turn ourselves to the real topic of conversation, the upcoming draft of the Melissa Stark in Sexy Memorial Baseball Association, a new fantasy league that Bish and I will be joining this year.

Ordinarily, I'm never an advocate of partnering up to own a fantasy baseball team. That's like getting picked up by Eva Longoria and going back to her place, only to find out that Wilt Chamberlain is already there. If the best you get is to share, sometimes it's not worth it at all, right?

However, this league only had one slot open, so Bish and I agreed to partner up, in the hope that one of us could switch over and manage the next vacancy. After much debate, and eliminating the excellent possibilities of 'Naked Monopoly with cupcakes made of string' and 'Babe Ruth's Shiny hookers as potential team names, we settle on 'The Hasselhoffinators.'

The thing that's exciting about this league is that it's an auction format league, which is totally different than a draft league. I mean, it seems as though it would be the same as a draft league, but it's not. It's like the difference between NHL 93 and NHL 94-you take out fighting and add one-timers, you've got a whole different game, even if they are both hockey. Any good sports fan knows that undefined but not everyone knows how to do an auction.

Pre-Auction preparation is important. First, it is important to choose a date when the auction will take place. This is easy. Choose the date when the whipped guy does not have to buying your girlfriend's tampons, and that's your date. Finding the whipped-guy-can-make-it date is crucial for auction success. (speaking of which, what is with all these girlfriends who think that 'fantasy draft' is code for 'I'm going to have my buddies over to watch Twisted Sister perform songs by George Muresan while I dry hump? Though that would be cool.)

Next, and more difficult, is the auction location selection. Many times people will choose to have their auction in a strip club. This is a bad idea. Nothing good can come of this; at the end of the day every person in the room is going to be i am no longer a virgin and have an extremely sore undefined after four hours.

No, the auction must be held in someone's house-biggest furnished basement wins. The coolness of the wife/significant other can be a deciding factor if two people have similar options-say, if owner A has a super mario bros. arcade game, but owner B has a case of Milwaukee's Best. Nothing will kill a fun evening faster than the host's wife emasculating him with a 'you know what you did.' We have selected next Tuesday night, at 8 pm, at a guy's house where his wife will be in truth or dare, and therefore unable to disrupt the festivities.

I will not be sharing with you my player ratings for this coming season-after all, Phil Helmuth doesn't play poker with the hand face up-but I will give you some insight into my auction strategy. The thing is, an auction has so much more of an influence on your season than a draft does. In an auction, every player in the league is at your disposal. Everyone starts out equal. It's the abortion is wrong of fantasy sports.

It's also like a triatholon. It requires endurance, it requires stamina, it requires concentration and planning. Without further ado, here is my 'Sports Guy Auction Strategy Guide':

Round One-what goes around comes around

Once the auction starts, timing and strategy are much more important than they are in a traditional draft. The first hour or so of the auction has to be spent feeling out your opponents. Are they particularly loyal to the Kansas City Royals? Do they have a tendency toward poking your arm? You are looking for weaknesses that you can exploit later on. Store these like gold.

Here is a good place to test people by chucking out a few names of guys you-d never want on your team-aging, oft-injured players, like Ken Griffey Junior, or over-hyped rookies that will never pan out like Ruben Rivera.

Everyone is going to get some good players at this point, so make sure you don-t overpay and find yourself begging for money like Turtle asking for Vinny Chase's AMEX Black.

Round Two-Have a Sense of Geography

In round two, there will be one moment that defines your draft. Things will be going along smoothly, and all of a sudden you'll get involved in a bidding war on a player. It's not unlike a big pot in a no-limit hold-em tournament-you'll have your the green goblin-spiderman in Spiderman 1 moment, and you need to decide what to do.

Oftentimes, this will come down to a single dollar, here or there-if you bid fifteen million dollars for Doc Gooden, you know you'll get him, but you're facing a bid with the clock ticking. Are you going to be a hero, carried off the field like Kirk Gibson? Or are you Richie Kotite, skulking off the field into the jeering history of your team's fans, with only your family still willing to speak with you. Now is your moment. Set the tone.

Round Three-Moving Day

Hour three of the draft is moving day, like the third day of The Masters. You need to shoot a -18. This is where you'll fill out a lot of the players that, while less sexy, make up the core of your team. Do not discount the importance of moving day. If you wait until the next phase to build the core of your team, you'll find yourself as lonely as Paris Hilton in a Muslim service.

Moving day is the time to make things happen for your team. This is where you are going to define the season that you have. If you end up moving day by taking an accurate mix of future stars, injury-risk players, and alex gonzalez, you'll be okay.

Round Four-The Game of Trivial Pursuit

By the end of the fantasy auction, the endeavor has become ridiculously long. The only thing it can be compared to is a game of Trivial Pursuit, played among friends. Something that, at the beginning of the endeavor, seemed like such fun, but by the end of it, is just a group of people banging their heads against the wall, adamantly trying to finish what they started, the joy of competing against your friends replaced with a desire to prove that you are the knight of All Trivia and that is that.

In this phase of the auction, you must be careful. This is the 'Just... ya know... you're funny. ' moment of the draft. People will be exploding like the atomic bomb, screaming incomprehensible things like Timmay! and threatening to curses if they do not get their way.

Just bite your lip, set your jaw, and try and endure. It's a long season coming forward.

'You can win'

Twenty One and Invincible

Order up the toe tags on my youth and pour Bacardi on my grave. Another meaningless date and another meaningless number has approached and faded. And into the abyss of student loans, disappointing careers, and overweight children I enter.

I never liked birthdays to begin with. Well -- there was a time I did. Ten and younger -- I danced the night away to Dancing Queen and YMCA in a time before I knew or cared about what "cool" meant. I ate till my stomach dropped and drank fruit punch till my tongue resembled the color of my cheeks. I woke up more excited than Christmas morning, running towards friends and relatives, convincing them it was a day worthy enough to smile.

These days, people leave me overly enthusiastic voicemails and lazy facebook messages trying to convince me of the same thing. But they never work. It all seems like a day where the prevailing feeling is the same as accepting a zig-zag pink and blue sweater from an aunt on Christmas. I pathetically answer thank you, wondering why society has forced me into such an awkward engagement.

I admit it, though. Birthdays are only a drag because of my own cynical attitude. But hear my thoughts out. If people remember my birthday, barraging me with happy birthday wishes and extroadinarily nice attitudes, a feeling of "you-are-only-nice-to-me-because-you-have-to" comes over me. I can barely stand superficiality on a day-to-day basis. But to receive it on a "holiday" where superficiality trumps all is downright painful.

Flip the coin.

When they forget my birthday or do not act nice to me on my birthday, I feel dissed. Don't you know it's my birthday? How dare you?

A 12-hour workday. A few meals before, between, and after. Three South Park episodes. Call it an early night. Maybe I will wake up with a psyche unscathed from a 21st birthday most men hope to wake up still trashed.

Now, all I must do is face the aftershocks this post has inevitably help set up. Belated birthday wishes and belated birthday questions. Pretend I enjoyed the summer birthday. Pretend I got drunk and woke up next to a hooker named Alex. Sex: Unknown. Pretend I'm looking forward to my next one.

And when the questions have subsided, I can finally enjoy an alcoholic weekend with no repercussions. I can enjoy a Vegas vacation with no fears of winning and giving it up. I can enjoy a lifetime membership of constantly looking down on those who are not walking into the bar with me.

Till then, may the tail end of a drawn out cocktail party continue.