The Journal of a Highly Functioning Autistic Person
On my very last night of college I was lucky enough to have sex with this redhead named Sarah -- and it’s hard for me to describe Sarah because I wouldn’t say she was ugly but if I had to describe her, I’d say she looked like Rocky Dennis, the deformed high school genius played by Eric Stoltz in the movie Mask:
Either way, it was bitter-sweet because anytime I can get laid is awesome -- but it sucked because, in addition to hooking up with a girl that looked like a deformed guy, while having sex with her, I triggered a recurring back injury which was originally caused when some asshole jumped off a balcony onto my back at a Third Eye Blind/Eve 6 concert. But more importantly, it sucked because while I was lying on my bed in back pain, with a chick I barely knew, I overheard -- and passed on an opportunity to get drunk with my college roommates for the last time at the house we shared for two years.
Actually, you know what -- I take that back. The Rocky Dennis thing sucked way more than not getting drunk with my roommates.
Anyway, after graduating from Syracuse University in May 2000, I spent the Summer working at a Pepsi plant saving up money before moving to Los Angeles in January 2001. And in that time, the only other time I got laid was when an extra special lady friend -- and fellow Syracuse alum drove up from New Hampshire to Maine for an extra special visit.
But after that, I didn’t get laid for a long, looooooooooong time. In fact, I went for almost a year without having sex.
I blame part of it on the fact that I had zero money -- which makes it hard to impress 99.9% of the women in Los Angeles. The rest I blame on the fact that I lived on someone else’s couch for my first nine months in Hollywood -- and it’s hard to bring a lady back to your place when the only privacy you have is a sleeping bag.
Fortunately, I soon got a job at NBC and was able to afford my own bedroom. After that my self esteem was a little better and I had enough money left over after paying rent to finally hit the Hollywood bar scene.
I remember the first time I almost got laid in Los Angeles very clearly because it started when I watched the movie Requiem For a Dream with my old writing
partner -- a shark-like eating machine I like to call Augustus Gloop:
But don’t let that picture fool you. My old writing partner was actually a tall, handsome, athletic guy who didn’t have the same problems getting laid that I did. Because of that, he always went out of his way to be a good wingman -- even at the expense of allowing me to introduce him to dumb women as the actor who played Clark Kent on Smallville:
Anyway, me and Augustus both felt filthy after watching Requiem For a Dream -- especially after the part where Jennifer Connolly has double-sided-dildo-anal-sex with a hooker for the purposes of scoring heroin.
To make ourselves feel better, we went to Cat & Fiddle -- a warm and friendly British pub located on Sunset Boulevard.
After a couple pints and a few games of darts, Augustus and I met a couple Israeli Girls who were traveling across the United States after completing their country’s mandatory army service requirement:
The two Israeli Girls sat at our table and had a few drinks with us. Augustus and I played the part of charming goofballs and were easily making them laugh. At one point, one of the Israeli Girls looked at us and said, “So we are spending night with you two tonight? No?”
Although Augustus probably already had a late night booty call lined up, he wanted to hook up with Israeli Girls more than I did, and we immediately responded in combined desperation, “um, yes. Of course. Okay, yup, you bet. Absolutely. Yes please.”
And with that one simple negotiation, I was finally going to end my sexual drought -- that is until some Douche Bag walked up to our table, looked at the Israeli Girls, and said, “we’re getting ready to leave now. Are you coming or not?”
The Israeli Girls seemed uncomfortable and looked away. The Douche Bag repeated himself, “I said we’re leaving now. Are you coming or not??”
The Douche Bag waited a beat as the Israeli Girls ignored him. He said, “We’re leaving now”, one last time and finally walked away.
The Israeli Girls then explained to us that they stayed with the Douche Bag the night before and they needed to get their suitcases from his car. As soon as they left, Augustus and I high-fived each other and started doing the dance of joy like Larry and Balki used to do on Perfect Strangers.
We then started fighting over who was gonna hook up with which Israeli Girl -- and Augustus, who himself is Jewish, surmised that they both probably had big bushes since they were from Israel.
And so we sat there in our booth and waited… and waited… and waited…
And the clock went from 12:00 to 1:00 to 2:00, and before we knew it, it was closing time. At that point Augustus was starting to realize that the Israeli Girls might not pan out. I refused to believe him and knew in my heart that the Israeli Girls would return -- and they did come back -- but only to inform us that they were spending the night with the Douche Bag again.
At that point I was so angry that I crushed a pint glass in my hand and screamed at the top of my lungs, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
The Israeli Girls sensed that I was upset and said, “Maybe we can spend night tomorrow night? No??”
We exchanged our numbers and all that bullshit, but for the
record, the next night never happened. But that’s okay -- it didn’t matter
because I went back to my apartment that night and jerked off to the scene in
Requiem For a Dream where Jennifer Connolly has double-sided-dildo-anal-sex
with a hooker for the purposes of scoring heroin:
The first was getting hammered at this hip little Hollywood bar called Daddy’s Bar & Lounge which was located on Vine, between Hollywood and Sunset -- that is, until it was recently torn down in favor of building a giant shopping plaza/condominium apartment complex. It should also be noted that I got more action out of Daddy’s than any other bar in Hollywood and it had my favorite bartender in the whole wide world -- this gorgeous brunette with a giant rack and these sexy leather go-go boots.
The second thing I loved more than anything else was harassing whatever celebrities I was lucky enough to cross paths with -- which have included Max Wright:
…Henry Hill:
…and Gary Busey:
One of my more memorable celebrity harassment moments, coincidentally enough, happened at Daddy’s and involved brooding character actor, Jeremy Sisto:
Jeremy Sisto has appeared in many films and television shows, but you might remember him best as Brenda’s younger, psychopathic brother, Billy, on HBO’s Six Feet Under.
And at this time, I should point out that in addition to seeing Jeremy Sisto at Daddy’s, I had actually already seen him a few times before because we both had gym memberships at the Hollywood/Wilshire YMCA
Other notable celebrities who also had gym memberships at the Y included Bob Odenkirk:
…and one of the Chinese guys from Deadwood:
So anyway, I was at Daddy’s one night -- absolutely hammered on vodka redbulls -- and Jeremy Sisto strolls up to the bar next to me and orders a drink.
I immediately screamed out loud, “Jeremy Sisto! What’s up, brother!”
He smiled politely and said, “Not much. Just getting a drink.”
I then said, “Hey man, I’m a big fan of your fucking work!”
Jeremy Sisto smiled again, “Oh, really? That’s nice. Thanks a lot.”
“You're fucking crazy in Six Feet Under! Are you really that fucking crazy or is that just an act??”
“No, it’s just the character I play. He's not real.”
By this point, Jeremy Sisto was hating my guts and all he wanted to do was make eye contact with the sexy bartender so he could get his drink and leave. I grabbed his shoulder and said, “And hey, I love the movie Grand Canyon, too!”
I confused Jeremy Sisto with that one. “Grand Canyon?”, he asked. “Really? That’s an old one. Most people don’t know I’m in that movie.”
For the record, Grand Canyon is a great ensemble movie starring Kevin Kline, Danny Glover, and Steve Martin. Jeremy Sisto played Kevin Kline’s teen son, Roberto.
I then go in for the harassment kill and say to him, “And you know what, Jeremy? We both work out at the YMCA.
Jeremy Sisto looked concerned, “We do?”
“That’s right, Sisto! We’re gym buddies! GYYYYYYYYYYYYMMM BUDDIEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!”
After that, Jeremy Sisto ran off and I blacked out.
And I completely forgot about harassing Jeremy Sisto until about three days later when I was running on a treadmill at the YMCA. Jeremy Sisto walked into the treadmill room and started running on a treadmill right next to me.
All of a sudden, all of my drunken memories from the other night rushed to my head and I remembered being a complete fucking asshole to Jeremy Sisto. I tried to look away and hide my face with the towel around my neck, but it didn’t matter -- Jeremy Sisto remembered who I was.
He turned to me and said, “Hey after I’m done running can you come spot me as I bench?”
I was so confused, all I could say was, “What??”
Jeremy Sisto smiled and said, “What’s the problem? I thought we were gym buddies??”
The date was June 5th, 1998 and I took a road trip with my college roommates, Guthro, Marczak, and Cooch, to a Dave Matthews Band concert at Foxboro Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts.
I have a love/hate relationship with Dave Matthews Band. You know, like most people I have an appreciation for their music. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy a violin in their rock & roll music?
I think the last “band” to employ a violin before that was the Charlie Daniels Band.
But I also hate Dave Matthews because that goddamn music was shoved down my throat all throughout college by both Guthro and Marczak -- who were in some secret competition to see who was the biggest Dave Matthews fan. Currently Marczak holds the record for having the most rare dmb concert cassette tapes and Guthro was able to witness the 1967 Birth of Dave Matthews in Johannesburg, South Africa, via the use of a time machine.
But despite my overexposure to Dave Matthews, I wasn’t gonna pass up an opportunity to see them live in concert in the summer of ’98. And by that point, my friends and I were all of legal drinking age, so we didn’t have to sneak around getting drunk -- unlike the two high school girls who slowly made their way to the front of the crowd where we were standing.
The two girls were Lizzy and her high school friend Kim. They were with a larger group of high school girls, but broke off to venture closer to the stage. Lizzy immediately saddled up next to me and asked if I could buy her a beer at the concession stand since she wasn’t old enough.
I would have felt like I was being used if it weren’t for the fact that Lizzy was also making out with me. And by the way, I’d just like to point out that I did manage to check her ID to confirm that she was at least 18 years-old before any tongues were swapped. Although I had no problem providing alcohol to a minor, I didn’t want to go down as a sexual predator.
Anyway, Lizzy and I really hit it off. She was a great example of a girl, who for whatever reason, was just totally into me. She thought I was cute and adorable -- and to prove it, she invited me inside her 1992 Volkswagon Jetta to continue hooking up after the show was over.
Although the backseat of the Jetta was kinda cramped, I was still able to get Lizzy completely naked in about two minutes -- and I mean completely naked, with her hoo-ha showing and everything. I, of course, was still fully dressed because I was embarrassed of my love handles. Lizzie, on the other hand, didn’t care about my love handles and was already making plans to introduce me to her parents.
I’ve always been somewhat of a one hump chump, which means I go out of my way to take care of the ladies in the oral department because I know how disappointed they’re gonna be when the sex finally comes around. So with that in mind, I took care of Lizzy and satisfied her orally -- and I can confidently say that I provided her with an oral experience that no other high school boy was able to give her before.
After that, she unzipped my pants and exposed the one body part I didn’t mine sharing.
And I was extra excited about this moment. By that point, I had already received several blow jobs in college, but I had never once hooked up with any girls in high school so I was getting a chance to relive a right of passage that I had missed out on.
At that moment Lizzy smiled at me, closed her eyes, and slowly put her head into my lap…
And I swear to god, just as Lizzy was about to wrap her mouth around my little SJ Fatty, we were interrupted by a Middle-aged Black Woman who started banging on the back window of the Jetta.
And she was banging on the widow with the ferocity of a fire fighter. At one point she even pulled out an ax.
Worst of all, she was yelling at us in disgust like we were a couple of stray dogs humping on her front porch. She was yelling stuff like, “Alright, that’s enough! You two cut that out right now! You heard me! That’s disgusting! Cut that out!”
I’m not kidding. She might as well have been hitting us with a broom.
I can only assume the Middle-aged Black Woman was some kind of teacher or social worker. And standing a few feet behind her was a middle aged black gentleman who must have been her husband -- and the look on his face told me that he was as annoyed as I was that his wife was interrupting my blow job. I could tell that the poor man had helplessly stood by on many occasions as his wife proudly crusaded against teen pregnancy, the spread of STDs, or whatever the fuck cause she was fighting.
Anyway, the Middle-aged Black Woman did her job. After banging on the window, Lizzy was too self conscious to continue fooling around -- and sadly, that would be my last chance to ever receive a blow job or have sex with a high school girl.
Lizzy and I made plans to hang out. She wanted to take a road trip to Syracuse, but I never kept in touch. I kissed her goodbye, walked around the massive parking lot for forty-five minutes until I finally found where my friends were parked, and we returned home.
I think the saddest thing in all of this is, I can’t listen to Dave Matthews Band anymore for fear of a Middle-aged Black Woman attacking me.
No, I’m pissed because, in the movie, Jonah Hill’s character reveals that he has compulsion for drawing dicks.
And that pisses me off because I like drawing dicks, too. In fact, I’ve been drawing dicks since I was in high school. And I even created my own dick-themed character when I was in college. His name is Dick Head and he’s a bitter penis that gives dirty looks to people.
Although Dick Head’s body is a pretty much an accurate rendition of my body, I think you’ll agree that his face has a Toby Maguire quality to it.
And he even has a signature catchphrase, “Piss off!”, which he says whenever someone is pissing him off.
In addition, I also created several dick-related characters to converse with Dick Head in a locker room environment.
There’s Curtis, his smooth-talking black friend:
You can tell that Curtis is black because he’s holding a basketball.
And finally there’s Dick Head’s roided-out buddy named Blake:
Now I know a lot of you are gonna say, “bullshit.” You got that idea from watching Superbad.
Wrong. And I can prove it.
In addition to my college roommates, there’s another group of people who can prove that I created Dick Head before I saw Superbad, and those people are the short order cooks from the Ground Round located on Center Street in Auburn, Maine.
When I was home in Maine, during my summer breaks from college, my friends and I would often end up at the Ground Round after a night of drinking.
The Ground Round had these clear plastic display cubes placed on each table which they would use to display their weekly Happy Hour specials -- but I soon learned that you could lift the plastic cube off of the display box and remove the paper that had the Happy Hour information printed on it.
I would go one step further and turn the Happy Hour printings inside out so I could write obscene comments and then place them back inside the clear plastic display cubes for the next patrons who sat at the table to see.
The last time I went to the Ground Round in August of 1998, before I headed back to Syracuse for my junior year of college, I decided to draw a picture of Dick Head to leave inside the display cube.
My friends laughed at the drawing, we said our goodbyes for the semester, and I headed back to Syracuse the next morning.
About five months later when I returned home for Christmas break, my friends and I met at the Ground Round for a couple drinks, and while we were there, I doodled a picture of Dick Head on the receipt that our waitress gave us.
When our waitress returned to the table, she looked at the picture of Dick Head in confusion and asked me, “where did you get that!??”
I told her that I drew it and she immediately ran into the kitchen. She came back a few moments later with the original Dick Head drawing that I left in the display cube the Summer before.
As it turns out, most short order cooks are retarded or, at the very least, they have very small IQ’s, so it only makes sense that they would instantly gravitate towards a picture of a talking penis. And the cooks at the Ground Round were no different -- they loved that picture of Dick Head so much that they even hung it up in the kitchen so they could laugh at it every day.
Sadly, in the ten years since that happened, the Ground Round closed down and was replaced by a Mexican restaurant called Margaritas.
So if there’s any short order cooks out there who remember Dick Head, please call up Seth Rogan or Judd Apatow and tell them I came up with it first.
They can’t even find HIV in his system anymore. I think I saw him donating blood at the Red Cross last week.
For younger readers out there who might not be familiar, AIDS was a gay disease from the 1980’s that you could catch from sitting on dirty toilet bowls.
AIDS killed many regular gay people as well as many gay celebrities, including Rock Hudson, Elton John, and Pedro from the Real World: San Francisco.
By the 1990’s, AIDS had killed so many gay people that it was the basis for an HBO movie of the week called And The Band Kept Playing, which starred Steve Martin and Richard Gere as a gay couple who pretend to be straight so they don’t embarrass their straight son (played by a commanding Matthew Modine) when he invites his conservative girlfriend home for the holidays.
It’s a really funny movie. I think Robin Williams is in it, too. If you haven’t seen it already, make sure to Netflix it this weekend.
Anyway, in 1991, L.A. Lakers’ point guard -- and pussy magnet, Magic Johnson became the first straight man to catch AIDS.
Magic Johnson was determined to survive, so later that year he opened up his first Magic Johnson’s AIDS Research Facility on Crenshaw Blvd in Los Angeles, where he and his team of scientists quickly discovered a cure for the deadly, gay disease.
And that’s pretty much it. I think since then, AIDS has pretty much gone away -- so gay people, start fucking again -- and do it without any of those pesky condoms!
I also believe Magic Johnson and his team of scientists are currently working on a cure for cancer.
I didn’t swim for those 17 years of my life for one reason: Because I hate taking my shirt off in public.
I think a lot of guys out there take for granted how easy it is for them to take their shirts off in public. For some guys it’s a subconscious function like breathing -- you know, they do it without ever thinking about it. And worst of all, they usually do it at anytime or anyplace.
They take their shirts off at the beach, at the gym, when they’re having sex with women, and even when they turn into werewolves.
I, on the other hand, am terrified of taking my shirt off anywhere -- never mind in public. Seriously, I don’t even like taking it off when I have to shower.
As I’ve already written before, I was a fat kid:
So right from the start, I was uncomfortable with taking my shirt off around other people. But I loved swimming and my Uncle Norman, who is a very kind man, always invited us to swim at his pool whenever we wanted to. But as a result of hating to take my shirt off, I became that fat kid who wore a t-shirt in the swimming pool.
And so I continued the habit of wearing t-shirts in swimming pools all the way up to middle school, when my older brother encouraged me to lose weight by offering me $200 if I could lose thirty pounds in three months.
I quickly lost the weight and dropped almost forty pounds in that time -- and my brother happily gave me the money he wagered.
Unfortunately, as soon as I lost the weight, I immediately started growing back hair so once again, I was left feeling uncomfortable with taking my shirt off in public.
But to be completely honest with you, it didn’t matter that I had back hair, because although I lost weight, and was technically skinny, I still had love handles and these little pockets of “back fat.”
At that point, I was so embarrassed and insecure about my body, I made a conscious decision to never take my shirt off in public again. Now that wasn’t such a big deal because I was pretty much already living my life like that -- but the kicker is, I also decided that if I wasn’t going to take my shirt off anymore, than I wasn’t going to go swimming either. By that point, I was smart enough to realize that wearing a t-shirt in a pool is waaay lamer than being fat.
And that’s the way I lived through high school, college, and most of my adult life -- although that’s not to say I never took my shirt off.
Whenever I was lucky enough to bring a girl back to my place after a night of drinking, I was always terrified of the moment when I finally had to get naked. I knew it was inevitable, but I always tried to stall it as long as possible -- and because of that, I mastered the skill of getting girls completely naked before I had removed a single article of clothing.
I soon figured out that if a girl was digging me enough to be at my place at 2:30 in the morning, than she probably wouldn’t care that I had love handles and back hair. Or at the very least it was too late for her to do anything about it -- she had already made her bed, so to speak. But just to be safe I always kept the lights off to soften the blow. FYI – there’s a blow job joke right there but I’m not going for it.
Anyway, something happened to me as I started getting older – I stopped caring.
I just stopped caring about all the dumb shit that doesn’t matter. Things like being fat or hairy, or farting in public. Stupid things that belong in high school. And by the time I turned 29, I was ready to go swimming with my shirt off -- although there was no way in hell I was gonna take my shirt off on a California beach. The girls here are waaaaay too hot for me to go through that kind of public humiliation.
Instead, I figured if I was gonna take my shirt off in public, the safest place to do it would be in Mexico where the beaches smell so much like shit that nobody wants to go swimming.
So I rented an RV, and invited a group of people from every stage of my life to come to Mexico and support me as I took my shirt off in public for the first time in over seventeen years.
That trip to Mexico ended up being one of the most painful experiences of my life. I got diarrhea, I was shaken down by the Mexican Police, and worst of all, my heart was broken by a girl that I had been in love with for a couple years. I don’t have the time, energy, or strength to write about that story right now, but the one good thing that came out of that trip was I loosened up enough to take my shirt off in public and enjoy the warm, shit-smelling oceans that Mexico has to offer -- although to be honest, I didn't enjoy swimming as much as I remembered -- probably because I was swimming in a sea of shit.
I think what also made it easier for me to take my shirt off was the fact that my good friend, and then-roommate, T-Bone, had a body as weird as mine:
Although I still feel uncomfortable taking my shirt off in public, I am now able to use my disgusting physique for positive endeavors -- like winning Halloween Costume Contests dressed as Michael Phelps:
The night that picture was taken I won $50 for scariest Halloween costume.
