The Pitch: Two Puds And A Wedding
The Pitch: Two Puds And A Wedding challenge was for Matt and Sam to write out how they think the other would act when they would hypothetically be at their first friend wedding.
The morning of the wedding, Matt decides that he’s going to take it seriously. After all this is his best friend’s special day. Shoes shined to a mirror finish, pants and shirt ironed under the watchful eye of Eric, he’s looking and feeling sharp. There’s no tomfoolery. He’s so well behaved it’s disconcerting. Even when the mother of the bride has a slip of the tongue and refers to her daughter’s inability to eat legumes as a ‘penis allergy’ he lets it go. It’s weird.
Over the long stretch of afternoon between the ceremony and the reception, Matt stands his ground and sips responsibly at the groom’s wedding whiskey as everyone around him begins to devolve into that primate-like state that comes with the steady pounding back of booze over the course of many hours on a sunny Saturday. Ties are loosened, top buttons are undone and tongues are wagging. Still though, something has changed in Matt. Maybe it was seeing two people so in love that they barely noticed anybody else was even in the room. Maybe it’s just a sense of responsibility to one of his best friends to make sure her new life partner doesn’t try and have their first dance to a Venga Boys song as he helicopters with his cummerbund. At one stage he even pulls the groom aside and gets him to down dry toast and water. He likes the groom, but, he’s still not sure he deserves her. That’s not a conversation for today though, he tells himself.
Matt’s seat at dinner is a precarious one, there’s the drunk father of the bride on one side and the recently divorced Aunty Humpable on the other. They’re both more than a little jazzed up on champagne, romance and ohh-what-a-lovely-dress-ohol. But Matt knows that now is definitely not the time for an illicit dalliance or a brodown. He keeps it light and friendly, which the bride can’t help but appreciate. He makes an escape for the table full of his friends as soon he’s able to do so without looking rude. The bride can’t help but understand.
As the night winds down, Matt is standing outside, smoke rolling off his tongue. The groom stumbles out and in his best drunks English asks for a cigarette. Matt can’t shake the feeling that there’s something about this guy he doesn’t like, but hands over his pouch of Port Royal all the same. He watches with amusement as the newlywed fumblefucks his way through a roll. The groom barely manages to light his cigarette, takes a deep breath and turns to Matt, ‘Some choice meat in here tonight ey?’
We’ll be honest, folks - we’ve still got more fucklists lined up. It’s just that doing them has sort of become a chore. And if fuck(list)ing isn’t fun, then what’s the point in doing it?
Enter Paul. Paul is a really funny guy. We don’t actually know him all that well, but what we know, we like. We figured his fucklist would be funny and weird, probably delivered in a dead-pan manner appropriate for Paul’s clever comic timing.
But what the fuck are we meant to make of this? Who the fuck are these people? Sally someone? A Ryan, maybe Gosling? Someone Boyle or Bogle? Is Tent Henry meant to be Paul Henry? I’m guessing Tom Cruise is the last person? And what exactly are all these made up first names meant to mean? Who would want to get inside a lump of soil?
Fuck you, Paul.
The Many Kinds Of Girls You’ll Never Date - Pt. 19: The Shop Girl
Let’s get this out of the way, dude. You’re kidding yourself thinking that you will ever have a chance with the shop girl. Face the facts. She sees hot guys on a regular occasion, and watches them get undressed. She knows what looks good, and sadly, you do not. She’s friends with fashionistas both male and female. And she is so. Damn. Pretty.
But she’s also kind of a cunt.
Wow, you never really use that word. Where did that come from? Why do you all of a sudden feel that this girl is nasty? Oh, right, because she plays with your emotions. If it’s any consolation, it’s not on purpose. She’s a salesperson, and they have to be confident and friendly on a daily basis. Their flirting also makes them money. It’s almost prostitution in a way. But that kind of rationality does your sore, tender insides no justice. She’s a meanie. She’s a bitch. But The Shop Girl is a 9, easily. She always looks so good, and it physically hurts you that you can’t be with her.
The problem is that you see her on a daily basis. You, not working in the industry you studied, and her, never having gone to university at all… you trick yourself that this is a common interest. In reality it’s nothing more than mere happenstance. You really need to work on not getting those two mixed up. It’s not fate. It’s fact.
This is what you get for working at the mall café or in-store coffee house that’s shared with the shop that The Shop Girl works at. You have to see her on a daily basis. You see her range of boyfriends come in and out every week. The weird thing is you’re a confident guy anyway, but you’re just no match for her. As in you two are not a compatible match. Fire gets on with water better than you two. All you have is a work flirt, and at best, a bi-monthly drunken text asking if the other knows “where the party at?”. You pat yourself on the back every Sunday for not texting her first. That’s feigning disinterest, right? That’s part of the game, right?
She’s a babe and you smell like burned coffee. You haven’t even arrived to work, yet – that’s just become your natural musk. You know she likes her soy flat white at 8:53am every morning, apart from Thursdays when she has the day off. That’s not you knowing her interests, by the way. That’s you being a calendar.
You’ll have other girls you think of as well. But there’s always The Shop Girl. The one that earns her living by being nice, flirting and giving compliments. It’s a horrible way to be if you really sit down and think about it too much. Odds are you’ll be doing that anyway. Thinking about her too much, that is. Sitting (or laying) down, thinking about her and her body. Her style. What she’s hiding under that style. That perfect 9 of a body that she points forward, pelvis first…
Close the door, fella. You don’t want to be interrupted now.
~
Click here to read The One You Went To University With
Diary of a Rube
Friday 18 May
I cannot believe it’s verging on the middle of 2012. It seems like just yesterday I was shoving Christmas ham into my face wondering what possible worlds I could conquer. Now I find myself drinking red wine on an unlit deck at 2am, wondering what would happen if I laid eggs. One of my flatmates ended up bringing home a stray tonight. It left hair all over the couch.
Saturday 19 May
The day started well. We went to breakfast at a cafe named after a French painter. There’s not many ways to start a day that suit me more rightly than that. Apart from being elbow deep in a cow tugging on the arse end of a calf. Someone made me drink what they called a ‘V8 Special’. I later found it was just tomato juice and vodka. White spirits is not an ideal accompaniment to bacon and eggs. I know that now after drinking it, the day took a turn. I’m not sure which turn though, I was still drunk from breakfast.
Sunday 20 May
We snuggled up on the couch and watched An Officer and A Gentleman. It’s really weird seeing Richard Gere before he became known for Eliza Doolittling prostitutes on the regular. Today I also learned the phrase ‘on the regular’. I’m not sure what it means yet though. Something to do with petrol probably? I may have used it incorrectly earlier. I can’t imagine Mr. Gere gets many elocution lessons done if he’s constantly fiddling with his pump.
The Pitch: Two Puds And A Wedding
In our series “The Pitch”, the Puds take on suggestions on what we should write next.
The Pitch: Two Puds And A Wedding challenge was for Matt and Sam to write out how they think the other would act when they would hypothetically be at their first friend wedding.
‘I’ve finally reached that place in my life…” Sam thinks to himself. “That place where my friends get married. How did I get here? Yesterday I was making fart jokes with Matt, and now we’re both here at this wedding. Does that mean I can’t drink cask wine anymore?”
Sam’s inner monologue is louder than the women crying at the first friend wedding he’s attending. He doesn’t know how he should act around the many new faces. Some of the faces are older. Aged. Wrinkled faces, each line demonstrating one profound line of wisdom. There are people who would be called grandmas, nanas, gagas and other pet names children arrogantly but adorably give to their parents’ parents. He wonders what their life was like when they were younger. They probably lived through wars. They probably don’t believe in divorce. They probably will die in the next few years. They probably have a hot granddaughter.
There are children running around while the bride and groom are sharing their vowels. Why aren’t the mothers looking after their offspring? Is that a misogynist way of thinking, assuming that these sprinting brats have mothers? What if they have two dads? Should he not assume that any child has any kind of paired-up parents? Should he assume that all children are orphans until proven otherwise? Are orphans even called orphans anymore? What happened to the English language in the past few years?
‘Shake it out, Sam. Shake it out. Focus on the beauty. The bride looks really pretty. No… beautiful. She looks beautiful. She looks really, really beautiful…”
Sam realises that this train of thought will lead his mind down the boner railroad, and that’s something that is definitely not allowed at weddings. He might not know exactly how to act at these things, but getting a hard-on for the lady in white is certainly a no-no.
Before he knows it, Sam finds himself at the reception. It’s his seventh beer of the day, and he’s feeling nothing. The big breakfast with the boys this morning is working through his system, but he’s determined that he shalt not poop at the wedding reception. Those toilets are meant for vomiting, not for dropping a penguin-suited deuce. Sam can’t quite shake the feeling of aging. Marriage is for old people and church-goers, not mid-20s derelicts. Perhaps he’s not a derelict anymore… perhaps he’s vicariously growing.
Looking around, Sam thinks of the future and what it could entail. His future wife could very well be here. She could be dancing with that big jock on the dance floor. Do women like it when the nerdier looking guy comes along and asks for a dance? Do people even ask for dances anymore? Isn’t dancing just fore-foreplay? What are the ratios of post-wedding drunken hook-ups?
Eric sees that Sam is clearly having a Zach Braff moment by the angle of Sam’s head tilted up – his eyes fixate on something but nothing at the same time. Eric finds this the perfect time to introduce Sam to his friend’s younger sister. She’s an artist. She’s an introvert. But three glasses of bubbles and one wedding that’s been described as “beautiful” by 17 different people in the last 11 minutes gets a girl wondering. Clearly it’s got Sam wondering as well, but wondering and wandering are different things. Eric tells the two to wander and wonder together, thinking himself the suave instigator who watches his playthings walk off onto the grass field under the summer moonlight. Uncharacteristically, Sam obliges and takes the 23-year-old brunettes elbow with his own.
Maybe it is time to grow up after all.
Fun Notes Matt Finds In His iPhone
A Tuesday in May, 8:28pm
I was having so much fun I forgot to poop.
*I can’t wait to show everyone what I was so excited about that my needing to poop didn’t even factor into my tiny man-brain.*
The Many Kinds Of Girls You’ll Never Date - Pt. 18: The One You Went To University With
Remember when you started at university? It was scary. Fresh out of school and not having independent thought, you were still simply a part of the mould. You were, however, ready to crack free and start having your own opinions. First year opinions, yes, but you were sure they were still your own. One other important thing happened at university while you were having unprotected sex and drinking on a daily basis, preparing for your future career you didn’t even up in – you met a special girl. The One You Went To University With.
She brightened your day. She was smart, she was funny, and she was a 9 or 10 easily. She wasn’t your usual type of girl, because she wasn’t an idiot high-schooler. She was a bit older than you. She was friendly, and you were an introvert. She wasn’t fake and she knew that people were people, so she gave you your space when it was needed (although secretly you were just too scared to sit in the seat right next to her).
You’d have a few drinks together occasionally. Sometimes at the uni bar, sometimes just with the class at the end of the semester. She had a beautiful smile and she helped you with your class work. Sometimes you had assignments together. You had several classes together. But most importantly, you were so into her it made you sick.
Then you graduated.
No more of The One You Went To University With, buddy. You had to grow up and find a job. Since your grades were horrible you didn’t get a job in whatever bullshit degree you studied. You slacked off far too much. After some struggling, a quarter life crisis and one broken heart that fit somewhere between puppy and grown-up love, you found yourself in your early 20s with nothing to show for it. You were friends on Facebook but you never talked to her. Why bother? She’s so out of your league and you’re actually into a couple of other girls anyway. That is, until one serendipitous night.
You’re out at an upper class social event that your friend got you tickets to or a bar that is far too classy for you where you’re clearly out of place. Your buddy is slamming away the banter, shooting the shit with all of the babes and gabbing the gift that he has. You go out for a cigarette to calm yourself, as you’re still an introvert when it comes to masses of beautiful people. You hear a familiar voice say your name. A blurry figure comes running up to you with arms wide open. You know it’s her, but you don’t let yourself believe it. It’s The One You Went To University With. She hugs you and your natural response is to go limp. Thankfully the raging erection you’re angling away from her has so much blood in it it’s become a balancing pole, and you’ve no choice but to return the hug.
Not a lot happens between you two. You reminisce, you make jokes and you tell each other what you’ve been doing over the past few years. You play it kind of cool, she’s wasted as fuck and is asking you for a cigarette. Obviously, you oblige. You both finish your cancer sticks and head back inside to the awful party with hundreds of people. She tucks her arm into your elbow, and guess what? It actually looks like the both of you are a couple.
But elbows move, my friend. They extend. They flail. They’re joined to something else, and you were stupid enough to ignore the fact that there’s another elbow out there somewhere that fits her elbow better than yours. Whether she has a boyfriend or not, you’ve just got absolutely no chance. It’s a hard fact to drive into your thick noggin, but it’s an honest one. The brutal honesty that this girl doesn’t like you like that. It’s a classic case of university friendship gone acquaintances gone pardon the drunken interruption. Don’t forget that she’s older than you anyway. She’s near marriage age. She’s done all of the casual fucking she wants to, and odds are they were better lays than you are. Yet, anyway.
You’ll look up The One You Went To University With online from time to time and remember the crush that you once had. The girl that got you through some hard, growing times when you were on your way to becoming a man. You’ll be sad that you never hit that. But you’ll realise that’s what life is, dude.
Bummer of a way to end it, huh.
~
Click here to read The Study Partner
Missed Connections
The fact you were reading Buddenbrooks in my favourite cafe while I was two tables away reading Tonio Kröger means we should probably stop being pretentious in the same place at the same time. This is my yard, bitch. Switch to Jeffery Deaver or find a new place to drink coffee. Or marry me.
•
I was sitting at work staring idly out the window, billing hours under the heading ‘Research’. You were walking down the street, listening to something on your white Apple in-ear headphones. It was late Autumn but you persisted with a dress, smartly complemented with thick tights and a jacket. It was a Tuesday and I imagined that by Saturday I’d manage to have you in my room, drinking but not drunk, expounding on your belief in some sort of ‘balance in the universe’, and I’d be nodding along dutifully despite thinking that balance could also be called uninterrupted chaos. Then I realised you were probably listening to something like M83 and we’d never actually get along…have you met Jono?
•
A bottle of vodka and half a bottle of red wine in you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I also didn’t have my glasses on, but, that’s fine. Let’s meet at the same place at the same time in the same state and wake up with some shared regrets.
Phillipe A. Lovato, Style Aficionado
Hey y’all! It’s me, Phillipe A. Lovato, Style Aficionado. I bumped into Matt and Sam on the weekend (both of them looking ATROCIOUS, obvs) and after those two randy little post-sexual beings managed to quit eye fucking me in all of my transient glory, they asked me to write about something they clearly have NO SENSE about.
STYLE, BABY!
They said I should write about fashion, but we all no that fashion is SO out of fashion. It’s all about what’s IN, not what’s OLD.
I just got back from Paris where I was working on the new line of post-style hobbies with famed creative post-modernist Shenaynay Hemmingway. Shenaynay is a great guy. He’s smoother than that derelict Karl Lagerfeld and wears three pairs of sunglasses inside alone, so you know just how relevant he is. He’s post-rele, and you probably don’t even know him because you’re about as clued up as a piece of penis dirt on the side of a stadium toilet seat. But that’s why I’m here, bitches!
Here’s what’s in right now:
- Marbles: spheres are in and kinetic energy is the hottest kind of energy around right now. Sustainability is SO February.
- Velcro: velcro everything. Velcro pants. Velcro shoes. Velcro eyelashes. Velcro pubic hair. Velcro laptop cosies. Velco pillow cases. Velcro marbles.
- Kitoodles: kitten and poodle crosses. Japan has come up with them. They never grow old and they don’t leave hair around your house or on your velcro jumper.
- Spelling things backwards on Twitter: until it starts trending. Start it now before it starts trending.
- Playing bass: the less movement in a band, the better. Being stationary is the new power-walking. If you’re fat, you have to move. The skinnier you are, the less your body will allow you to waste those precious kilojoules. So if you’ve got any more than 1.2% bodyfat stay on the treadmill and say hello to Chris Farley when you die from a heart attack at the age of 26, fatty.
- Reading: make sure people see you reading. Never - I repeat, NEVER - read by yourself. Find an audience to watch you read. I like to host exhibitions at auditoriums charging $299 per half-seat for people to come in and watch me read. Make sure that the cover doesn’t have more than three colours on it. People should be watching you and your face, not dissecting the cover and judging it. They’re not meant to do that.
That’s all for now. I’m catching a helicopter to Wellington to catch a boat to Christchurch to catch a private plane back up here to Auckland so I can catch my first-class plane to New York where I’ll be working on my next project with acclaimed ghost-screenwriter Dustin Justin. She’s amazing. But you’ve probably never heard of her.
XxX
Phillipe A. Lovato, Style Aficionado
The Idiot’s Guide to Partying for Dummies - Part 2
You’d think it would be simple. You walk in to a room full of people, some you know, some you don’t. You take a drink from your bag, or from the communal supply (if it’s a party full of pinkos) and you begin to lubricate and confabulate with the other attendees. Well you’re very wrong. The act of partying is far more complicated than it seems.
You can’t just walk into a room and start talking to other human beings. Perish the thought. There’s preparation to be done, both physically and mentally. There’s a list as long as your arm dealing with Male to Female Etiquette alone. Let alone Male to Male, Female to Female, Single to Couple and so on. So it’s a good thing you’ve come along to this guide before it’s too late and you rush headlong into a situation you’re not ready to deal with.
Chapter 2: Three Hour Game
It was late last year when we stumbled across the fact that there is a certain amount of serious thinking (and more importantly, serious drinking) that helps you to reach your social peak. It’s what we call Three Hour Game. Note that while we don’t encourage binge drinking, we do encourage drinking because you’re bored, it’s the weekend, you’re sad, you’re lonely, you’re happy, you’re horny, you’re going on a date or you’re going to a job interview.
- Pick Your Poison: Personally I go for the classic 8% Woodstocks. For people who don’t know what that is, it’s value for money. Roughly 2.7 standard drinks in one vessel times four for around $13. That’s about 10 standard drinks you can knock off in two hours, if need be. There’s also the added bonus of a shitload of sugar. It’s important not to go for three hours of beer, as you will end up feeling bloated. Whether you’re a wino, a spirit head or you’ve got a thing for beer in your belly, you should definitely have eaten before drinking. One pie or one sandwich throughout the day will suffice. Enough absorbent ability to slowly release the consumed liquor of choice, but not so much that you end up feeling full after two measly drinks.
- Company: Don’t go at this alone. There’s nothing sadder than a grown man drinking by himself on his deck during winter on a Saturday afternoon. Well, there is, and it’s that on a Tuesday morning, but that’s not really pre-party-prep, is it? Picking your companion is important. There are a lot of factors to consider – is this man more handsome than you? That can work out good or bad either way. Is he a good wingman? He should be. Can he keep you company before you leave to go to the party? It depends on whether you will share banter or pick on him, asserting yourself as the dominant male. If you’re a girl, it’s different. You’re smarter than drinking by yourself, because you’re a woman and you’re not a fucking idiot. You’ll be doing make-up or watching kitten videos or celebrating Sylvia Plath. Don’t lie. That’s what you’ll be doing.
- Play The Game: I can hear you asking “This is all well and good, but what exactly IS three hour game?”. I can hear you asking that because I’ve got one of those spy satellite listening devices. It’s simple, dear reader – three hour game is when you’ve reached the perfect mix of your inebriated peak. You’re drunk enough to be chatty to anyone. You’ve lost enough inhibitions, but not all of them. You’re funny. You’re flirty. You’re willing to dance. Three hour game is a game that we all play, and hot damn if we don’t play it well. But it’s not as simple as just drinking for three hours. There’s a max of an hour’s leeway either side. What’s important is that you know how much suits you. The basic idea is anywhere between six and nine standard drinks, depending on how well you can handle your booze. That’s two to three standards an hour. The hard part is maintaining. Once you feel you’ve reached three hour game, then it’s time to maintain the buzz. You’ve got enough in you for one last chug, but then you have to slow it down. Otherwise you’ll find yourself headbutting your friends, antagonising some girls and slapping anyone within reach.
- Motivation: You’re in this for two reasons. To have fun and blow off some steam or to flirt and (at best) get laid. Three hour game sets you on the journey to a good two hours of confidence and a mixture of social and sex appeal. But you have to know what you’re in it for, and dedicate yourself to that cause. Commit to the bit. Don’t get distracted. Be a brat, but within reason. Most importantly, flirt with everyone. Three is a number in the hour game. And at the end of the day, it’s always a numbers game.
Click here to read part one
