But I’ll tell you how to at least get one piece of the equation: the mullet.
It’s actually pretty simple. Go see Corey at the salon in the Mandalay Bay. Corey is originally from Minnesota, hockey hair country.
That’s all you really need to know.
But I’ll tell you more than that since when it comes to mullets, too much is never enough.
I first met Corey in February, 2008. I was in Las Vegas, staying at Mandalay Bay for my birthday. I walked in to the salon and told the receptionist I wanted a mullet.
“I am not giving you a mullet!” she said.
“What?” I asked. “Why not? I want a mullet!”
“I would not do that to you.”
But then out of the shadows came a voice. It was a voice that was, well, Corey’s.
“What kind of mullet do you want?”
I squinted my eyes and looked behind the counter. “Well,” I said. “That’s what I was hoping to talk to you guys about.”
“Let’s have a consultation.”
During our consultation Corey asked me again what kind of mullet I wanted.
“I was thinking… business in the front, party in the back.”
“Well yeah,” he said. “That’s a mullet.”
I looked at him and nodded. “Exactly. Exactly.”
Clearly the man was cut-out for the job. He cut my hair and the rest is history.
He made me look like this.
That was back in February. This time, which was a few days ago, I wanted something more over the top. We went with more of an old-school, American mullet.
Shortly after getting my haircut I was out on the streets of Vegas. It was night. I can summarize the general reaction to my hair with one word: fear.
One tourist couple saw me coming and they moved the eff out of the way. They hugged the wall on one side of the sidewalk. They feared for their lives. And they should! I’m not fucking around people!
Last week I was so sick though I didn’t get much packing or preparation finished before that.
Thursday night I moved from around 7 p.m. until 4 p.m. on Friday the next day. I took a two hour nap at noon and that was the only sleep I got. I was emotionally and physically exhausted.
The experience was a nightmare among bad dreams. The craziest thing we did was move this 235 lb. TV up a flight of concrete steps. I had to do a 15 minute power squat to keep the the TV from sliding.
Saturday I rested, sort of. I unpacked some stuff.
My truly good friends, Guy and Heidi are here from Belgium. Sunday I met them at the Raiders game. They invited me to Vegas. “Bring your sleeping bag and just crash on the floor.” I told them I would go with them if Raiders won. Amazingly, by coincidence my sweet sweet ex ex girlfriend’s girlfriend who lives in Vegas just happened to call me during the Raiders game. And the Raiders won.
My flight leaves at 7:18 p.m. It’s now 4:08 p.m. I need to pack. But before I can do that I need to find my clothes. They’re in one of these boxes but I don’t know which.
I’ll try to update my blog over the next few days, but if I can’t I’ll do it on Thursday night when I get back.
This is a longer post for those of you who said you wanted an occasional longer post. Or maybe it’s just a longer post. Or maybe there’s someone kissing my neck right now so I don’t really know what’s going on.
In Kepler’s last night I saw Rachel Bird. We had never met before but she told me she would be there. She reads my blog. She wrote me an email but I didn’t write her back because I was ill and I didn’t know if I’d be able to make it. Alice Schroeder was there presenting Snowball, her book about Warren Buffett.
I recognized Rachel but she didn’t recognize me. We made eye contact a few times but she looked away. Finally, after Alice Schroeder finished talking I walked up to Rachel and looked right at her.
She looked away again so I hit her on the arm.
“Hey!” I said.
“Yes?”
“Are you Rachel?”
“Yes.”
“Uh, well…”
“Are you Ian!?!?! Oh my Godddddddd! I didn’t know if you were coming!”
Rachel is, among other things, an author from Santa Maria. She wrote a book that is either about to come out, will never come out, needs to be rewritten before it will come out, or all of the above somehow.
(I’m going to switch tenses a lot in this post and if you don’t like it go fuck yourself. Or read some Bukowski.)
“So, I saw your video.” she said.
At this point I expected her to say it was funny or something.
Instead she hit me in the arm. “Oh my God, what are you doooooiiiiiinnnngg?”
“What?”
“With your life. What are you doing with your life? It just looks crazy. I mean that video looks crazy.”
“Oh. Well. I just thought it was like, entertainment.”
“And plus I saw that you said you would write shorter posts?!!!”
“Well yeah, that’s just so more people will read them.”
“Ok, yeah I know but. Let me ask you something.”
“Ok.”
“Are you happy? You don’t look happy.”
“Whoa. I didn’t realize I was at a therapy session. And well, I wouldn’t say that I’m unhappy.”
“Ok well, I’m just concerned because of all the talent.”
“What?”
“Well, I mean, you have all that talent and I’m just concerned you’re letting it all go.”
I wasn’t happy. At least not definitively. I had talent. I was wasting said talent.
These were major revelations on a Tuesday night. I thought I just had the flu.
But then we hung out for a while. Her friend Adam was there. It was great. I hadn’t laughed that hard in a while.
But yes, I am ill.
Too ill. Too many nights like this.
Or like this.
Ok, maybe just one night like that is too many.
Later I discussed Rachel’s reaction to my video with someone on a modern device known as a cellular telephone. She said the following.
“Ok, Ian. Well, you just have to look at it from someone else’s perspective. You have no job. You have no girlfriend. Your ex-girlfriend and you broke up not too long ago. She moved out. Your other roommate moved out. You live alone in an apartment furnished with free stuff, including a free mattress. You’re about to move in with your friend who will let you stay with him for free.”
Yes. Hm. My life doesn’t look very good on paper.
But maybe that’s like, the point. Where is that paper, anyways?
And clearly it’s time for an Ian Bowman exclusive report.
IAN BOWMAN EXCLUSIVE REPORT
Tomorrow I will move to an undisclosed location in San Mateo, California where I will be allowed to stay for free. This will have almost no impact on you other than that the background of my videos will change.
Yesterday during Monday Night Football I just happened to see the following “Saints Row 2″ commercial. Guess what background music they used?
Aw yeah. I wonder how much they payed the guy to come up with that selection?
I actually like my editing better. The game looks cool, though.
Oh and speaking of editing, I should thank Lou. She’s the one who told me to go with side scrolling list items rather than just using “far, far and away.” And I was also going to take out some of the dancing sequence and she told me that I should definitely leave it in, “as is” haha
I was at the pet store the other day with someone who was buying a fish.
I just happened to see these.
CritterCare. Because merely caring for a pet is not rewarding enough. Plus, you don’t know how to do it right you fucking idiot.
I mean like, that’s what it said on the back of the box. Underneath my thumb.
A sample CritterCare was already out of the package. I checked it out. I found it full of helpful reminders for those of us without a degree in animal science.
1 p.m. - Play with pet.
2 p.m. - Feed pet.
3 p.m. - Pet pet.
The last dog I owned I kicked in the stomach and slowly let starve to death. If only I had owned a CritterCare I would have known to play with and feed him instead. Sparky would still be in my life.
Then in the store it hit me. A genius brainstorm. They should make these for girlfriends. GirlfriendCare. It also would be full of helpful reminders.
1 p.m. - Be different.
2 p.m. - Have girlfriend love you for being different.
3 p.m. - Get yelled at for being too different.
4 p.m. - Take girlfriend’s advice and be more normal.
5 p.m. - Get yelled at for not being different enough.
6 p.m. - Pretend like you actually have standards.
7 p.m. - Don’t admit you want to bang girlfriend’s sister.
8 p.m. - Eat with girlfriend.
9 p.m. - Be like, “that’s cool,” if girlfriend does not want have hot passionate sex with you.
10 p.m. - Ignore massive hard-on and try to sleep.
Incidentally, the girl I was at the pet store with I wish was my girlfriend. After sharing my product idea with her at PetSmart though, I didn’t make my wish any closer to becoming reality.
Facial Hair. If you have it, other people will judge you. They will call you a savage. Crazy. Uncivilized. Out of touch with reality.
It’s completely unfair.
People will also say you are dirty. Like just because you grow a beard means you don’t practice good hygiene.
Anyways, let’s move past the social stigmas of the world.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Ok, maybe nothing.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Ok, maybe everything.
The whole reason I stopped shaving was that one day I was rinsing out my electric razor and one of the blades went down the drain. Not only that, the whole housing fell off. I threw the housing away, and put ordering a new set of blades on the to-do list. That was a few months ago.
Recently I ordered the blades and they arrived in the mail. Check them out.
Note that the blades are not attached anything. Oh shit. Luckily I happen to know where the housing is.
Yeah right. Like I’m gonna dig through that trash just so I can shave. That would be unsanitary.
We are at San Francisco looking for Love Fest 2008. Ross and I.
We pound two beers in a parking lot near Market street and then proceed to not find the love fest. And even not finding it is too much work. San Francisco gets on my nerves.
But we have a productive conversation. Relative to what follows that is.
“Wait! You got high last night. Do you still have any weed left?” I ask.
“Yeah!”
Aw yeah. I have a brilliant idea. On the spot.
“Aw yeah. I just had a brilliant idea. On the spot.”
“What?”
“Let’s just get high in San Mateo instead of finding Love Fest.”
So that’s what we do. Like, a few times. I invite H and D over but unfortunately only H makes it.
I suffer from an anthropomorphic experience with a slice of pizza. Ross rambles about something totally not important. H is suddenly unable to sit up. I take a photograph.
And it is good.
Later we go to Glow, a bar downtown. People stare at us because they think we are totally fucked up. People are right.
I was naked on the couch with K. Well, it wasn’t really a couch it was a love seat. That was the problem. It wasn’t long enough to get comfortable.
So we took it down to the floor. But then there was another problem: rug burn. I cut my knee.
On top of all that there was a third problem. Maybe this was the biggest problem. We were at someone else’s apartment. Not my apartment. Not K’s apartment.
We moved it back up to the love seat.
The night had been good. We walked our friend home since she got too drunk at a bar we went to. Now she was passed out in her bed, and we were in her living room. Flying free. In the buck. Someone else who we didn’t know lived there though. She could have walked out into the living room at any given moment.
I had just met K a few days earlier. That was way past the grace period (five minutes) to invite her back to my place. She had also passed the litmus test.
The fourth and final problem though was my roommate, L. I knew she would freak out, and not only that, her 70 year old mother was staying with us. It would have been awkward.
But not as awkward as lying naked on a love seat in someone else’s living room.
“Do you want to come back to my place?”
“Yeah.”
COVERT STRIKE
We got dressed. We called a cab. On the way home I heard the cab dispatcher doing a Jacques Clouseau impression.
I looked out the window. “Zhere’s ee bawm, in zi tron,” I said to no one in particular.
It was 3:30 a.m. We made it back into my room and the free mattress. And it was good.
The next day we conveniently left without my roommate or her mother seeing us.
K was leaving the country in less than a week. Like, for good. That’s part of the reason she had invited me to the bar in the first place. She was taking advantage of me.
So we did the same thing over and over up until the day of her departure. Weeknight? Fuck it. Get drunk? Fuck it. Hot passionate sex until three in the morning? Fuck it.
My job performance suffered, but oh well. It’s not like I was going to get fired or anything.
Oh yeah, and we always went back to my apartment. It got more and more extreme. I was sure that my roommate heard us, if you know what I mean. In the mornings though, we always escaped unnoticed.
EXPOSURE
Well, until the final morning. It was a Thursday morning. K was leaving at night. I opened the door and there L was staring at both of us. Not only that, her mother was standing there with an open mouth.
I looked back and forth at both of them a few times.
Then I waved to L’s mom and smiled. “Jo-san!!!”
L’s mom started laughing. “Jo-san.”
But L wasn’t into it. “Hey! Now you’re charging me extra because my mom lives here and now you have her here?!”
“What? We can talk about this later.”
“Ok. It’s just not fair. You raised my rent when my mom started living with me.”
“Uh, not for the first few weeks.”
“Oh. Well how long is she going to be living here?”
K of course, was leaving the country that night.
But L’s problem didn’t really have to do with rent. If David Coverdale had busted in and sang some lyrics it would have been highly appropriate.
You talk too much.
Never say what’s on your mind.
It’s written on your face.
I mean the words you hide behind.
I know you want.
I can see what you’re looking for.
I know what you want from me.
After work I gave K a ride to the airport. And that was it.
I didn’t run into L again for the rest of the week. I did however see her mother. She told me having K over was not a problem.
RSS
, her book about Warren Buffett.
