Beav is Chastised for Not Taking Advantage of Wasted Hot Girl

Warning: This post is extremely long and unnecessary complex, just like the night it describes.

10/18

Isn't it interesting how the nights you plan on doing very little sometimes end up being the more eventful nights? Yeah, well this one ended up being one of the more baffling nights.

6:30 Jeff calls me up to tell me that there will be poker and drinking at his and Brett's place. I tell him I love him. If you know me, you know that I love to play poker, but I suck way more at it than I'm ever willing to acknowledge. Let's put it this way: I haven't been on partypoker.com lately because I'd like to be able to afford rent and food. Also, it greatly reduces my frequency of punching stuff. Anyhow, the plan is to show up around 8:30 because game 5 of the now legendary Red Sox-Yankees ALCS should be over around then. Since it's a night with the dudes, I am sporting jeans, a t-shirt from when I used to be frat-tacular, and my Bradford College Fighting Squirrels hat. (Note about me, if you ever see me in a hat, you know I really don't give a fuck. I never wear hats.) I ain't dressed to impress, and I look like I just got off a plane after a weekend of binge drinking...because I did.

9:00 Ben and I show up, ready for some poker. Jeff is drinking Tequila Rose on the rocks, because he has some particular fascination with acting flamboyantly homosexual even though he's straight. I think the baseball game is in the bottom of the 9th and tied up when we arrive. Nate ("A third generation Yankees fan") has his rally cap on, despite the fact that Yankees were leading before the score was tied. He is a picture of intensity. Brett decides he's going to take a shot of Goldschlager for every extra inning played. It was more of a joke as he said it, but damned if we didn't hold him to it. I believe the game ended when the Sox scored in the bottom of the 14th. You do the math.

By game's end, the two hot girls who live downstairs come up to hang out. Because I like to protect the anonymity of everyone but myself and my friends, I'll give them nicknames. I'll call them TheBrunetteOne and TheBlondeOne. TheBrunetteOne is the first to arrive, and I am immediately impressed by how cool she is. Everyone in the room obviously kinds digs her, except Nate, because he's too focused on the game to notice anything else. Besides, he has a really serious girlfriend; he doesn't count. Not especially caring about baseball and not yet playing poker, I amuse myself mostly by harassing Nate and sneaking glimpses of TheBrunetteOne's ass, courtesy of her really low low-rise jeans. I think she might not be wearing any underwear. That's hot. There's something very sexy about this girl, and it's quite possibly the bountiful midriff and cat-like eyes...but who's to say? Somehow, we decide that the rest of us shall not compete, and Brett shall be our nominee to hit on her and see where it leads. I don't know how this happened, but not a word was spoken and it was understood. No cockblocking Brett.

Next thing you know, here comes her roommate, TheBlondeOne. Holy shit, she's pretty hot. Since he thinks I'm retarded and always points out hot girls to me lest I not notice them twice, Ben looks across the room and says, "Hey Beav!" He looks at me, then looks slowly and bug-eyedly at her as if to say, "Hey, look at this girl who I think you didn't see when she just walked into the room. Pretty hot huh?" I nod in concurrence. It's a good thing she's buzzed and didn't notice, because it wasn't subtle...but then, it rarely is with Ben. His lack of subtlety is one of the pillars of our love-hate relationship.

TheBlondeOne has drinking to do, so she wanders in and out of the apartment, and there's some mention of Jack Daniels mixed into her commentary when she's there. I gather that the reason she keeps leaving is to make drinks.

The game ends in a Sox victory, so we give Nate shit and start getting ready to play poker. We go on a beer and change run while he divides the chips out.

I come back with a six-pack of Bud and we play some poker. The girls amuse themselves by leafing through Maxim and Playboy. I'm always struck by how much longer girls will spend looking at those magazines than guys will. TheBlondeOne, quite drunk by now, goes back downstairs and comes back up with the kid who lives across the hall from her in tow. He is kinda goofy looking, and is wearing gym shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt. Sweet, I like to dress in workout attire to meet new people and hang out, too, douchebag. This kid is not any more muscular than I am, and is less toned. I know better than to go sleeve-free in social situations with my modest build...but he must not have gotten the memo. It becomes evident that the kid is nice, but a tool. Brett and Jeff start calling him "DeWalt", in reference to the brand of power tools.

The worst part is, TheBlondeOne seems to like him. She touches his arms a lot and the conversation between the two of them implies that they plan on spending the night together. Her blip on my Respect Radar is getting dimmer by the second. The good news is that she's pretty drunk, so at least she's got an excuse. Besides, we all think she's really hot, so we're willing to cut her some slack.

About a half hour into our poker game, she notices me for the first time and says, "Hey, I like your hat. I just realized that it says Squirrels on it!" I thank her, inform her that I love that hat, and leave it at that so I can continue playing poker. Since I'm intent on my poker game, I fail to realize what I've done. I've just ignored a flirtatious girl. Uh oh...now the cogs are in motion....

She drunkenly floats about the poker game, trying to look at our hole cards, stealing chips and putting them down her shirt. Why is she putting poker chips down her shirt? Doesn't matter. We're guys playing poker, and she's a girl interfering. Naturally we dismiss her at every turn. She loves that she has to work harder for our attention. By the time the poker game is over, TheBlondeOne is staggering drunk, and is ignoring DeWalt in favor of the "I'm gonna steal your hat and try to wear it" game. Ben has won a good portion of our money and must go home so he can be up at the asscrack of dawn for work. Nate and I are the ones with hats, so we are the focus of the hat stealing game. Nate doesn't even care enough to get off the couch when she takes his hat, so she quickly tires of playing with him. Me, now I'm always up for some shameless flirting, and since poker is over I'll play.

She steals my hat, and the ensuing chase leads into the kitchen, which happens to be sorta out of view of everyone. I corner her, and while I wrestle my hat away, she gives me the most blatant fuck-me eyes I've ever seen. She is also standing much closer to me than the situation requires...definitely in my "bubble". If I were drunk like she is, it would be fucking on at this point, but I'm sober and she's so blatant that it actually puts me in denial. My inner monologue is saying, "No way. She can't be serious...it must just be that she acts like that all the time. It can't be that easy. Just can't be. I have hat hair." I put my hat on and go sit down. I haven't even been trying...there's no way I'm a step away from hooking up.

While Ben is on his way to the parking lot, we convince TheBlondeOne that she should run down there and de-pants him. I'm not sure how the idea came up, but de-pantsing people is always funny, right? We encourage, she accepts. I don't know how it turned out, but she's back upstairs soon enough and makes her way out to the balcony. I follow her out a moment later to find that Ben is still down there. I eventually discover that he is engaged in some sort of hitting-on attempt with TheBlondeOne. Evidently he took the de-pantsing as a sexual advance. TheBlondeOne takes my hat again and moves right back in my personal space, but Ben then claims I'm cockblocking him, so I go back inside to let him take his shot. Again, I don't know how it turned out, but TheBlondeOne is right back in my bubble about a minute later, so I assume it didn't pan out. By now the other guys have noticed that she's getting pretty flirty with me, and start openly encouraging me to close the deal. There are problems, though:

Firstly, this girl is drunk. She keeps getting bucked off by the floor bronco, and that's not sexy. Secondly, I'm not drunk, so I still have all my morals and standards intact. Pretty soon the hanging out shifts down to the girls' apartment, with 7 of us still sticking around. The group of 7 includes me, Brett, Jeff, Nate, TheBrunetteOne, TheBlondeOne, and our third problem: DeWalt.

This kid isn't about to give up just because he slid to 4th place on TheBlondeOne's flirtation higherarchy within 15 minutes of coming upstairs. He's tangibly aware that he's on the back burner though, which evokes my pity rather than my competitive nature. This kid thought he had the hookup with a really hot girl in the bag, and with as hard as he clearly tries (he is sans sleeves, after all), he needs this. The mix of hope and defeat in his face is almost more than Sober Beav can bear. I hate to be cockblocked by strangers, so I should probably try to avoid hypocrisy if I'm going to respect karma...but I push on.

The next time TheBlondeOne gets into my bubble, we're standing alone in her bedroom. I say, "fuck it" and kiss her. Just then, my phone rings. It's Ben.

"Dude, all I have to say is you better close the deal with that girl. I totally had her before you came outside, but I let you have her." In my mind, I have to wonder how me telling him to take his shot and going back inside had consituted and act of *letting me have her* on his part, but whatever. I tell him I'll see what I can do.

The blonde one and I are about to start making out again, but Brett enters the room. He stops and stares a second, says "OH!!!" and walks back out. This gives me time to think about the previous kissing, and now comes our fourth problem: she's a bad kisser. Even after controlling for alcohol consumption, I am not impressed. She is lacking in both form and finesse, and I have often found that a lack of form and finesse in the kiss translates to a lack of those attributes further down the hookup path. Speaking of the hookup path, did somebody say fifth problem?

Here's #5: if it turns out to be "like that", I am unprepared. I wasn't planning on even seeing a female tonight, let alone spending the night with one. I have no condom, and have also neglected certain grooming practices usually observed in anticipation of female company. Also, as soon as I kiss her, the following Tucker Max story pops into my brain: http://www.tuckermax.com/archives/entries/tucker_has_moment_of_reflection_ends_poorly.phtml#282
The reason is this: TheBlondeOne has been very flirtatious with no less than 4 guys tonight, just at our little gathering. If this is how she is when she's drunk (and I get the impression she's a party girl), then...just how far around the block has she been? I'm only 3 beers deep, and these factors are adding up fast. Yeah...it's all too much. "Sir, Maverick's disengaging!"

My friends are disappointed in me when everyone parts ways and I follow them out of the apartment rather than stick around and try to nail TheBlondeOne. Sorry kids, but I've known these girls for like 4 hours, and I have no legitimate excuse for staying in their apartment after my friends are gone. Not only that, I'd be there for the express purpose of out-and-out cockblocking, making me a big hypocrite, but Brett and Jeff don't wanna hear it. They are loudly criticizing me and I am loudly defending myself when TheBrunetteOne and TheBlondeOne come back into Brett and Jeff's apartment. We all stop in confusion.

The pretense is that TheBlondeOne has lost her phone, so Jeff offers to call it for her. I'm standing right there as she tells him the number, painstakingly slowly, and loudly too. I make fun of her for saying it so slowly. It fails to ring, so it must not be up there. The girls leave, and I go home...and about halfway through the parking lot I realize that I'm retarded. She didn't lose her phone, fuckhead! She was trying to get me to take her number, and I'm so unskilled when it comes to picking up girls that not only did I not figure it out, I made fun of her for it. Unbefuckinglievable. That was a waste, because while I was too sober to justify fucking her tonight, drunk Beav would have no qualms about calling her up sometime after 1:00 AM central time on another night. Drunk Beav has few qualms.

As I drive home, I contemplate what has transpired in one of the most complex nights of attempted romanticism and flirtation I've encountered since high school. Let's recap:

5 guys show up to play poker, and 2 girls show up unexpectedly. 1 guy is taken, and thus ineligible. The remaining 4 guys are vying for either of the 2 girls. 1 guy gets nominated to go for one girl. 3 guys remain to see how it goes with the remaining girl. A fourth guy gets brought up from downstairs, and he's in the lead. He loses the lead, and Beav thinks he takes the lead. Ben thinks he's in the lead. Accusations of cockblocking are thrown about, pole position is yielded shots are taken and missed, limited making out takes place. Then our new frontrunner, El Beavo Grande, drops out of the race. He is offered a chance at re-entry (or maybe just entry, GOULET), and is too oblivious to consider it. That's a mess.

I give up. I go home. I still don't know if I made the right decision...but I think I may have prevented a disaster. After all, you never can tell when a girl is just waiting to give you a mean case of The HIV.

Post Script: 11/21

Ben somehow ends up going to a kegger at DeWalt's place, where he learns that DeWalt and TheBlondeOne have actually been dating for quite some time. Oops. No wonder he seemed so bummed that she was obviously seeking another source of Vitamin "D". I guess nobody told him...you can't turn a hoe into a housewife.

Highlights of the Weekend at Georgetown

Well, it was a sort of productive, almost fantastically amazing weekend for The Beav and his girl hunting prowess. Notice the words "sort of" and "almost" in the previous sentence. Let's see what I can tell you about my weekend at Georgetown and my couple of near-misses.

10/15
My weekend begins on Friday, when I board my flight out of Omaha. I'm bound for Milwaukee, Wisconsin, because all Midwest flights go through there more or less. (Side note, fly Midwest. It's all first class-style seating, they serve you warm chocolate chip cookies on your flight, and the stewardesses are hot. What more do you want in an airline?) When our story begins, I'm sitting in my seat on the place, my Kel Welco stocking hat in my lap, a mean case of hat hair, and probably an imprint from the knit of the hat on my forehead. I have hat-hair, a knit pattern on my dome and I'm dressed like I'm flying across the country. I am not money right now. So what happens? A gorgeous girl comes walking down the aisle, and she's got the seat next to mine.

Being the chivalrous man that I am (and by chivalrous I mean way too eager to please any hot female) I help her rearrange the overhead bin and put her bag away. She sits down, takes out some sort of academic journal article with highlights on it. It's about cellular biology or something...I don't remember...but it's clearly homework. I fail to remember that I look ridiculous, and then I turn to her and ask, "Doing a little leisure reading there?" Four good things then happen that don't usually happen to me:

1) She realizes I'm talking to her
2) She gets the joke
3) She laughs
4) She starts talking to me

Turns out she's a fellow UNL student; a grad studying nutrition. She's at least a few years older than me, so I figure she's out of my league. Probably for the better, because this means that I actually have a conversation with her instead of trying to throw my weakass game. Long story short, I somehow manage to hold a conversation all the way to Milwaukee. We deplane, and she seems to want to hang out if we've both got a long layover. Well, we don't. My next flight leaves in 30 minutes, so we'll be parting ways, but damned if I'm letting her go without at least throwing out the fact that I'm into her. I honestly can't believe I said the shit that came out of my mouth next. I'm either just a nice guy, or a total douchebag...but I think maybe both.

Me: Well hey, I didn't wanna just sit there and hit on you the whole time...but...I just want you to know that I think you're absolutely gorgeous.
Her: (Somehow not expecting this even though I've totally been eyeing her) Oh...wow, well...okay...thank you.
Me: I mean, I'm sure we'll maybe ever run into each other like once on campus and then never see each other again, so I just thought you should know, I'm really attracted to you...so...you know, you can take that with you. (Did I just say that? Who says that? When did my life become a Ben Stiller movie???)
Her: Well hey um...you said that you guys go to Randy's every week right?
Me: Yeah, Thursdays.
Her: Well, I live in [apartment complex] and it's right by there, so maybe I'll come by and meet you there sometime.

The conversation winds down, and I have somehow pulled off the nonchalant hitting on of a gorgeous girl who is at least 3 years older and probably smarter than me. How did I do that??? Somewhere deep down, though, I can't shake the feeling that she's going to later realize that she just let an undergrad with hat hair charm her on an airplane, and eventually come to her senses. I will not be shocked if she fails to show at Randy's.

Later that night, I arrive in D.C. and meet up with Brad. We get dinner, hang out for a while, and then go to a party and his friend's house. Let me just say that people at Georgetown wear a lot of sweaters and collared shirts, things of that nature. The guys are preppy. So knowing this and being of a rather preppy background, I could be prepared, right? So what am I wearing? Jeans, my oldass boots and our improv troupe's new t-shirt. It's chocolate brown with pink lettering that says "I'm A Huge Embarrassing Failure". People instantly know I'm not from around here, but they love my shirt. It makes for an excellent topic of conversation as I talk to various girls over the course of the night...but none of this happens until I play my first ever games of beer pong. It doesn't take long to find out that I'm bad at beer pong. Brad and I lose to a couple dudes, then we play against each other for a while (terrible idea) and then are challenged by two girls from Syracuse. They're both cute, but either they were real dumb, or they played the part very well. Sadly, Brad and I are too lacking in talent and sobriety to beat them. We play a friggin' long game and eventually call it a draw. We all finish our beers, and I realize that I have been emasculated, and have also had probably 5-6 beers in the short span of time I've been playing.

From this point on, the details of the night start to get blurry, but I talk to a lot of people about my shirt and about improv. I talk to one girl much more than everyone else. Let's call her BlondeGirl. After a while, five things become evident:
1) I want to hook up with BlondeGirl
2)The party is winding down
3) Brad is missing in action
4) I'm too drunk to remember which girls I've met and which I haven't
5) Girls don't appreciate you forgetting that you've already met them

Now, I know Brad as well as anyone, and I know damn well where he's gone, it's just a question of which girl he's with. Turns out he's wandered off with a girl (the only girl for that matter) he was openly making fun of when she walked into the party. He made fun of her because she was wearing big winter boots and it was around 40 outside. He called her "The Eskimo" for the rest of the party, despite her total lack of Inuit ancestry. Brad's G-Town friends are all very concerned for me, but I'm not. Hell, I'd be pissed if he didn't ditch me to get some ass, and he knows it. We go too far back for me to pull the "I'm supposed to be staying with you" card. Besides, I don't need him to babysit me by the time I'm Happy Drunk Beav. I'll hang out with anyone and love the hell out of it if you get enough beer in me. I try to downplay his absence and focus on going home with BlondeGirl because I'm gonna need a place to stay tonight. She seems like she's down with the cause, but uh oh...here comes somebody who ISN'T down with the cause.

TallFriend has gotten wind that Brad is missing, and now she wants to know how I feel about it. I quickly discover the real reason(s) she's come over. Firstly, she used to hook up with Brad, and wants to hate on him while gaining inside information from me, as former hookups are wont to do. Secondly, she's been drinking like the rest of us, and maybe it's the dozen plus beers I've had talking, but I think she might be eyeing me. Wouldn't it be a coup for her if she could punish her former hookup for going off with another girl by scoring with his best friend? A possible third option is that she has some obligation to BlondeGirl and feels the need to cockblock me on her behalf. If there's one thing girls hate, it's to see their friends get some if they're not getting any.

I'm now caught in a weird, weird place. On the one hand, I'm trying to hook up with BlondeGirl on my left...but on the other hand I'm trying to get TallFriend on my right to stop hating on my boy, while at the same time not angering her because I'm also considering her as a backup option if things fall through with BlondeGirl, which means that I'm trying to play a whole lot of cards very carefully all at once, while drunk.

Well, Brad returns, but only to leave again and take a crack at closing the deal with The Eskimo. I, too, must take my shot at deal-closing if I don't want to sleep on a couch or in some vacationing roommate's room in the lacrosse house. I step up my hitting on BlondeGirl, and it's going pretty well. Soon though, following much ushering from her friends, she has to leave. At this point she tells me that, and I quote, "I'd offer for you to come home with me, but my roommate has probably already sexiled me, so there'd be noplace for us to go." Okay, that was just insult to injury. If you're not gonna hook up with me, that's fine. I'll get over it, but for fuck sakes, don't tell me you like the idea but can't work the logistics out! Who does that?!? I suddenly am reminded why I hated living in the dorms. I joke to BlondeGirl that it doesn't matter, we can get a hotel room. The funny part of the joke is that I'm not kidding. I'm drunk, I've got a credit card...let's go halves and get it on right? She fails to go for this idea.

I'm now left alone in the house with a big lacrosse player, a French kid, and some unattractive girl. I'm not about to cockblock the French kid to try to get the unattractive girl to take me home, so I do what any drunk and self-respecting man would do. I start cleaning the lacrosse guy's house.

Just as I have emptied all the beer from the wounded soldiers (and believe me casualties were angeringly high) and thrown all the cans into the recycle bin, and am getting ready to pass out in one of the empty bedrooms, Brad calls me. It turns out that he has failed to successfully hook up with The Eskimo, so he's coming back. We walk back to his dorm, share stories of our close calls with hooking up, and pass out.

10/16 and 10/17

Let's make this long story short. The only major happening of this night that any of you will care about is that Brad and I set out to party at around 9:00 PM. It's parents weekend at G-Town, so not much is going on. By not much, I mean "not a damn thing". This isn't stopping me and Brad, though. We've made great stories with less. We have a 1.75 of Captain Morgan and plenty of ambition. Well, next thing you know, it's 5:30 AM, and between the two of us, we drank the whole fucking thing. To say that we might be drunk is to say that it might not be a surprise when Lance Bass finally comes out. I have drunk dialed a LOT of people, and here's the format of most of the calls.

Them: Hello?
Me: HEY!!!!! Whadd'reyou doin?
Them: Sleeping.
Me: PUSSY! It's (insert time) here, and I'mmmstill drinking. It's only (insert time, one hour earlier) there, you should be ffffuckin' partying. Brad and I are gonna drink a whole 1-7-5 of Captain, because we'refffffuckin' princes among men, and donnlet anyone ever tellyou different!

Miraculously, we don't go around breaking shit or starting fights. We wander around in a very docile manner and drink.

We pass out around 5:30 AM. We don't get up until about 5:00 PM. By this I don't mean "we didn't really do anything until 5:00", I mean "we could not achieve an upright posture until 5:00". At that point we go to Chipotle, because we want to make good and damn sure our digestive systems hate us.

After that we sit around and watch Fear Factor, which succeeds as a show only because it has hot women on it, and then eventually go The Tombs, which is essentially "the" Georgetown bar, to have some beers and watch the Sox-Yankees game. I quickly learn that a bar in Lincoln and a bar at Georgetown are not the same thing. When we walk in, there are guys in button-down shirts, polos, etc there drinking. Jack Johnson is playing over the speakers, and the bar waiters (all of them are male) are dressed in khakis, button-up shirts, and big plaid bowties. The bar is decorated in a theme dedicated to crew. (Note for Nebraskans, crew is a sport popular at colleges where there is affluence and/or water. It involves rowing. We have a crew team here, but they suck, which is probably largely due to the absence of major bodies of water in our region.) This bar is not at all what I'm used to, but I kinda dig it. We pick out a table and sit down. I notice that the girls next to us are drinking a bottle of white wine. This is definitely not what I'm used to...but I still dig it. We have some beer, watch the Sox win at around 1:15 in the morning, get some pizza, head back to the room and fall asleep.

The next morning I get up, go to the airport, and fly home. Through most of both flights home, I share my God-awful Chipotle and hangover farts with the other people on my plane, because I'm a bad person.

Later that day, I would come home, clean house, cook dinner, and then go out to have one of the more confusing nights of my entire existence...more on that in the next post. Basically we didn't terrorize D.C. so much as we terrorized our livers and GI tracts, but when you're hanging out with your best friend, what you do is irrelevant. It's still fun.

NBC Stands for: "Never Been to Cornhuskerland"

As many of you may have heard, NBC has come to the UNL campus to film a new reality show, loosely centered around the following concept: Tommy Lee (of fucking Pam Anderson on video fame, and who also used to be in a band or something) is going to college for a whole month to get an education and better himself. Several UNL students have been cast to somehow be involved in this.

What, you ask, does this have to do with The Beav? Well, check it out:

10/8
Every Friday I join my friends from the theatre department to play football on the lawn in front of Love Library at 4:30. This Friday is no different. The weather is beautiful, and we've got a solid matchup going. We start playing around 4:45 or so. The game is going well. The teams are well-matched, and I'm enjoying myself thoroughly because I'm not playing like utter shit this week. Around 5:15 or so we start noticing what looks like somebody setting up for a film shoot just off the corner of one of our "end zones". We wonder if this is going where we all think it's going.

At about 5:45, we find out that it is going precisely where we thought it was going. Some guy from NBC's camera crew comes over and informs us that they "have to do this interview shot." He first approaches Jeff for negotiations, and thus Jeff becomes the ambassador for our incredulous mob. The NBC guy is lucky he didn't start talking to me, or it would have been a much less pleasant conversation. Here's a rough idea of how the chat went.

NBC: Hey, we've gotta get this interview shot, could I get you guys to maybe stop playing and take a break for like 15 or 20 minutes?
Jeff: You want us to stop playing? We've been here the whole time.
NBC: Yeah, I know, but we've gotta get this shot. Is there any way you guys can take a break? We only need like 15 or 20 minutes and then you guys can play again.
Jeff: We only have until 6:00 to play. If we take a break, our game is over, and we're not done playing.
(NBC guys is awestruck that we haven't bowed instantly to the whims of reality television. After all, we're simple minded hicks who should surrender to him and his fancy TV equipment like Iraqi soldiers in Desert Storm, right?)
NBC: Well, is there another field or something around here where you guys could go play? I gotta get this shot done tonight.
(I can no longer contain my annoyance)
Beav: What? No. We were here before you guys showed up.
Jeff: We're only gonna play until 6:00. We have 6:00 call for our show. We're in Medea over at the Temple building, so if you wait until 6:00 we'll be done and you can do your shot.
NBC: Yeah, but I can't wait. Once the light is gone I'm fucked.
Beav: Yeah? Well so are we. We've been here the whole time, guy. We're playing.
Jeff: I mean, it's not like we just showed up. You saw us here.
NBC: Okay......well........I mean, I know you can't really play football quietly.......but.....could you maybe try to kinda keep it down and we'll try to shoot it anyway?
Beav: Uh.....whatever man, we'll see what we can do. We'll try to *play quietly*.
Jeff: Yeah, sure. HIKE!

Okay so let's recap.

Firstly, I'm sorry, but did you just walk up to some kids in Nebraska and ask them to stop playing football? Clearly you're not from 'round here. Didn't you get the memo? Football is GOD in Nebraska. If Jesus himself asked us to stop playing, we'd be like "Hey, Jesus, we're down a touchdown and we've got the ball. This guy's been playing up on me all day, I know I can get him with a double move." I mean, we're not just in the state, but on the University of Nebraska campus, mere blocks away from our gridiron Mecca, Memorial Stadium. This is practically hallowed ground. You clearly don't fathom what you've just asked us to do.

Secondly, your stupid ass saw us playing football when you walked over here and set up your shot. You're interviewing some student about dumb crap, and now you want us to stop what we were doing? You could have at least brought over your middle-aged, B-list celebrity to try establishing some ethos for your ridiculous request. We have no interest in conceding to you. In fact, we resent your very presence here.

Thirdly, isn't this "reality" TV? What, background noise doesn't exist in reality? Do you honestly think that anyone would have a hard time accepting the notion that there's a game of pick-up football going on somewhere in the background of Lincoln, Nebraska? Granted, we all know it's really "specifically shot so that we get the 'reality' that we want to portray" TV, but I hate to break it to you...the *reality* here is that we're playing football, and you and your dumb show can go fuck yourselves. Better yet, get Tommy Lee and his monster wang to do it. He's accomplished at on-camera fucking, right?

So we resume playing, and are relatively quiet...for a while. We satirize the situation by giving a vigorous "SHHHHH!!!!!!" to anyone who talks as we play. The ultimate breaking of the silence, though, is another in the long list of stuff that makes the story of my college life hilarious. I'll get to that, but first you need some backstory: Matt is a theatre major, and plays football with us every week. He's about six feel tall, and even more of a skinny bastard than I am. We call him "Whitey" because he's pale and blonde. Matt just might be the worst player of everyone who plays with us. The kid routinely gets beaten on pass coverage, drops passes and misses tackles. We harass him about it endlessly. If I had a dollar for every time we've said "Matt! Hit his legs!!" I could build a stadium for us to play in. This kid drops interceptions thrown right at him. Basically he's "that kid" in the football game. On one particular play today, though, Matt beats his man on a deep post route. Jeff lofts a pass in his direction...but it's pretty far out in front. Matt breaks into a sprint toward the ball, makes a fingertips catch in the middle of the field and runs it in for a touchdown. After that, weeks of frustration are instantly released.

As soon as Matt breaks the plane of the end zone, he lets out a mighty scream of "YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!!" This alone is probably enough to ruin NBC's shot, but he isn't done. Still screaming, he carries his flailing celebration into the street behind the end zone, but quickly realizes he can't celebrate out there due to the traffic. He comes back to the mulch in the back of the end zone (we play on a lawn, not a real field) and spikes the ball powerfully, sending mulch flying in all directions, and screams, "UUUUUUUUUGGHHHHHH, MOTHER FUCKER!!!!!!" at the top of his lungs. By now most of us are on the ground laughing, and Matt is still yelling various comments to express his thorough pride at having finally scored a touchdown. By this time we know we've ruined the NBC filming, because the NBC guy screams "QUIET PLEASE!!!" as though he may have a stroke at any moment. This only makes us laugh all the harder. Matt's second scream had literally sent echoes off the buildings all around us.

At this point, the poor girl relegated to the task of keeping NBC's shots clear comes over to negotiate with us. She realizes it's ridiculous that her superior has set up a shot there, and respects our wish to play football, but asks if we can please be quiet. I pity this girl. I explain the situation to her. "Sorry, he's not very good, so he gets really excited when he actually does something good in a game. I'm sure it won't happen again." Presently, she scurries away to us to herd a couple Goth kids out of the background of their shot.

Shortly after that it's 6:00. We finish up our game and go our separate ways. Our team has emerged victorious, I've broken my streak of sucking at football, and we've pissed off the representatives of one of the world's largest media outlets. As we leave, we make a point of screaming our goodbyes to each other as loudly as possible. Ultimately, this will be the last time NBC sets up a shot anywhere near our football game.

Correction: We are the GODS of Kareoke

10/7
Jeff, Brett, Nate, Dave, half the UNL theatre department and I all take some time Thursday evening to make good and damn sure that the patrons and staff of Randy's Grill & Chill know exactly how much we friggin' rule.

First of all, we roll in like we own the place. We bring the expanded crew. At least 15-20 of us show up, so about every 5 minutes we're pulling a table and chairs from some other part of the bar to accommodate our ever-expanding party. Being a bunch of theatre people (and one ex-theatre person...*tear*), we are not shy about doing this. Immediately everyone in the bar is looking at us like "Who the hell are these guys?" Not only because we're pulling tables and chairs to wherever the hell we want them, but because we're hands down the most energetic people in the place. I would try to explain some of the things that Brett, Nate, Jeff, Becca the stage crew girl, and sometimes myself stand up and do during various songs, but you really just have to witness this shit to understand and appreciate it.

We all arrive between 10:30 and 11:15. None of us sing until about 12:15, but when it starts, oh does it roll. Nate does Quiet Riot again, and it once again is everything we hoped it could be, and more. He starts too high again, but still rocks. He finds the key again, and rocks harder. He takes his overshirt off and gives the mic stand a good humpin', kicking it up a notch from last week. Following that, Jeff busts out "Calling Baton Rouge" for our listening enjoyment, and makes a point to sit down and sing to some closet homosexual who warned Jeff not to sing to him. Don't warn Jeff not to do something, it's basically the same as begging him to do it. The guy tries not to act embarrassed, but you can tell he's basically attempting not to be outed in front of the whole bar. After that, Brett gets up and performs his rendition of "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" by The Darkness. This is another mandatory spectacle for those unfamiliar with our kareoke crew. I couldn't begin to describe this phenomenon, but sufficed to say that he gets up there and cranks his "rock" valve wide open. Everyone in the bar ends up doused with rockin'.

Also, this week Jesse and Brittney are with us, and they perform a little Chicago (the musical, not the band) for the people with "All That Jazz". It's pretty hot. Several other people perform between the girls and me. Immediately before me, some girl sings "My Immortal" by Evanescence. Thanks, chick. Get the bar as mellowed out as you possibly can before I perform. Maybe you'd like to slip them some rufies while you're at it. So here's what I'm up against: I am our last of the crew to perform, and am one of the last singers of the night. By now people expect great things from us, and I'm batting cleanup with the bases loaded. Not only that, but this chick just lulabyed everyone, so I'm pretty much looking at 2 strikes and 2 outs. The pressure is really on, but on this night of nights, I am the Joe Montana of kareoke. (Yeah, I just switched sports with my metaphor. You're a bright kid, you can follow.) I don't even sweat the pressure, and with a little help from my teammates, I know I can lead the comeback drive that will culminate in sweet, sweet victory. How do I know? I'm performing Styx, and Nate has promised to dance for me.

It comes my turn, and our crew goes wild. Nate and I step up and take our places. As the intro begins, the whole bar learns what they're in for...that's right, it's Mr. Roboto, and Nate is the robot. It gets better...as the song gets rolling, Brett comes up and he and Nate act out a robot/creator scenario in front of me as I bust out the Styx with my drunk high range. I do a crappy pop 'n lock robot in the background as I sing. Somehow I keep from cracking the fuck up as Nate and Brett act out the scene, but the rest of the bar is laughing out loud. The best is that Brett keeps pressing Nate's "off" button and shutting him down to make adjustments on his robot. We're all nicely buzzed, but the timing and implied communication are somehow all flawless. Nate and Brett are hilarious, my range is somehow greatly expanded (thanks, alcohol!), and everyone in the bar is entranced. They're loving every moment, and by the time we finish, our crew's victory is complete. Everyone now understands why we acted like we own the place: We fucking do. The applause is vigorous, and we collect numerous high fives and accolades from total strangers on our way back to our table. I can feel my ego expanding and flourishing with every comment, every clap, every approving nod.

When we get back to our table, is the praise done flowing? Oh no, no it's not. Here comes the waitress, and she's got a tray full of shots, on the house. There is a shot for every member of our group: still at least 15 strong at this point. We toast to rockin' (or supremacy or...something...I've been drinking) and take our shots. They taste exactly like something, but what? Is it victory? Hmm, could be, but no. I've got it! These things taste exactly like an orange creme saver. This shot strikes me as something that would cost a lot to order if I were to pay for it. This ain't well shit. Must be Bailey's and something else, which means that basically the owner just bought us a whole bottle of Bailey's. At this point I realize that we're not the kings of kareoke like I said in the journal last week. We are the GODS of kareoke, and the rest of the people at that bar were put there to worship us.

A Typical Saturday in The Life of The Beav

10/2
8:45 AM
I get up early and go to improv. I realize that telling stories about stuff that happened during improv is only funny to those of us in the troupe, but I have to relay just one quote of Brett's: "Dude, you don't purr when your cat dies! If your grandmother fell off the roof, you wouldn't walk with a cane!" I'm not gonna tell the story of why it made sense at the time, just think about it.

2:00 PM
I go to Jeff and Brett's hoping to play the Brent Musburger drinking game. (http://lasooner.thoughtshop.net/sooners/mussberger.html)
Much to our dismay, Musburger isn't calling a game in our area this week. We watch Mizzou beat Colorado, and in my mind I watch the prices skyrocket for the Nebraska vs. Mizzou tickets I need to buy for my friends who are coming up for that game. So far, off to a bad start.

6:00 PM
I go to the Nebraska vs. Kansas game, and it's the worst excuse for a college football game I've ever attended. 78,000+ watch as our brand new West Coast Offense sucks ass to the tune of 4 turnovers, a safety, and only 14 points versus fucking Kansas. Luckily our defense is good, and we win 14-8. Nobody in red is especially pleased at the victory.

10:30 PM
I go back to Jeff's and get into a rasslin' match with Nate. He wins, despite being really drunk. I am sober, and can offer no excuse for the loss. We head out to party, and I ride with Jeff. We stop by my house and pick up my old buddy Captain Morgan. I think we all see where this is going.

11:00 PM
We park about half a block away from the party, which is at Brittney's. For the entire walk from the car to the party, some random, fat black guy with a joint in his hand screams at us from the corner about how he'll beat all our asses and he wishes we would come over there. I'm with Jeff and Mitch, who easily weigh over 600 pounds combined. I really don't think this guy would have beaten our asses and I don't know why he offered...but we let it go. Once we get close enough for him to see what I'm wearing, he really gets riled. It's a gameday, so I'm wearing a red t-shirt over a black long sleeved shirt, jeans, a red bandana, and my new gray and red Newbalances. I look like I might think that I'm mildly thuggish, and the fat black man now begins screaming at me. "Ooooh, especially you! I wish you would come over here, I'll beat your bitch ass! Bitch, get over here! I wish you would! I wish you would come over here!" Much though I'd love to get in a 4-man race riot tonight, I ignore him. We go inside and I begin drinking heavily, you know...like I do.

This party is a clusterfuck of various theatre people, many of whom are freshmen. If there's one thing that's funny at a party held early first semester, it's watching freshmen drink. These kids are a case study in social expectations about the effects of alcohol. I am sure that by the end of the night somebody will be pretty entertaining. Ultimately, I am not disappointed.

11:15 PM
Brett is in the kitchen, doing imitations of various theatre people if they were playing his role in the upcoming production of Medea. There are about 10 of us gathered around to witness this, and we're cracking the fuck up because it's hilarious...but only if you're a theatre dork like us and know these people. Since I'm roughly as big of a whore for attention as Brett is, I jump in and do a couple myself. Ultimately his are better, but that's ok. I got a little attention and that's what I so desperately, constantly crave. I forage off of the leftover pizza that Brittney said I could have and enjoy the spectacle.

11:45 PM
Some guy who I've never seen before walks into the kitchen. He's the token old guy at the party. He might be anywhere from 25 to 45, but at least he's friendly. He proceeds to make himself a drink with my Captain and my Coke. I am irritated, but I don't like to start trouble at parties, so I ignore it and hide my bottle of Captain after he leaves the kitchen. I would later find out from Jeff that the guy had paid Jeff $5 to have some of our Captain and Coke. More on that later.

1:00 AM
Everyone who has been drinking the whole time is drunk by now. I am no exception. Jeff and I, with a little help from that old guy, have finished the liter of Captain. Jeff has also talked me into taking a shot of Jaeger, and I've been drinking Bud since then.

My friend Jordan has arrived, and while I love this kid to death, I also have a great time taking advantage of his blatant homophobia. On this night of nights, I spend at least a good 10 minutes telling him how I'd totally do him on the merit of the dance he performed at the show he was in the night before. Jordan doesn't have anything against gay people, and even has gay friends. The weird and funny thing is that he cannot stand any sort of homoeroticism, no matter how joking, if it's directed toward him. He laughs off the first couple cracks, but after a while it's clearly starting to creep him out. This is hilarious to me. Eventually I have to explain to him that I'm just fucking with him for the sake of getting that reaction out of him, because he seems to be wondering if this is one of those moments where your buddy you thought was straight gets drunk and makes a pass at you. (This can and does happen, and has happened to me.) This makes it all the funnier to me. He eventually leaves the party, and I think that I probably shouldn't harass him so much, but fuck it. He's got a hot girlfriend to go home and prove his straightness with; he can endure a little crap from me. Besides, like Tucker Max says, if he can't take a joke, fuck him.

1:30 AM
Remember what I said about freshmen and drinking? Well, we have a winner! Her name is Kate, and she's a cute little blonde thing of an 18-year-old. Kate is around 5'3 and might weigh 125 pounds soaking wet. About 15-20 pounds of that is in her boobs. Got a mental picture? Good. While I haven't seen her with a drink in quite a while, Kate is acting just as drunk as she could possibly act. To her credit, she's not acting obnoxious drunk or slutty drunk, just "Wow, look how drunk I think I am" drunk. I can't resist harassing her, because she's obviously not as drunk as she's letting on. I comment on how she seems pretty buzzed, and she informs me that she's had (4 or 6...I don't remember. I really was drunk.) I tell her that it's a pretty good tally for such a small girl. She is mildly upset that I've called her small. (Note to self: No matter you say about a girl's size, it's wrong. Always.)

The conversation digresses into how she thinks she could "take me down". I think to myself, "Sweetheart, I don't think you could 'take me' in any sense of the word." What she means, though, is physically tackling me. I stand up and invite her to prove it. She declines because "you didn't look that big when you were sitting down". I weigh 160 pounds. I can't possibly look "that big" standing up, either. I kneel. Kate tries to take me down, and can't in at least 5 tries. She starts talking trash about how I couldn't pin her. Oh wow, this is funny. I haven't flirted high school style in a while. What the hell, I'm drunk...I'll take the bait.

I easily pin Kate, who has convinced herself she couldn't possibly have any motor skills. By "pinned", I mean "kinda half laid across with one arm". This was sufficient for victory. Several people are looking at me as much as to say, "You dirty, dirty old man. She was in 8th grade when you graduated high school." I am not trying to nail this girl. I mean, she's cute, I wouldn't kick her out of bed...but even I acknowledge that she's too young. A moment later, Kate rolls over so that my right hand, which had previously been under her back, is now right under her huge boobs. I don't think she notices, and I nearly tell her, but just then a voice in my head pipes up, "Don't you fucking dare! You shut up and enjoy this! She's the one who rolled over, just don't honk them and you're perfectly innocent!" I look up at Jeff, and he's on the same page with me. Here's roughly what transpired in our silent communication:

Me: You gettin' this?
Him: Yes, and I applaud you for it.
Me: I mean, she brought this on herself. I can't help it if she just rolled so that her awesome breasts are now in my hand.
Him: I know. Just savor it.

It is much like the non-verbal exchange we had 15 minutes prior when Kate was using him for a pillow.

Eventually I know that it's fish-or-cut-bait time, and I'm not about to actually hit on this girl. If there's one thing I don't need to do right now, it's lure in some poor, unsuspecting freshman. Freshmen always think you're gonna date them, and I don't need that. I'll stick to the seasoned girls closer to my age, who know better and mess around with me anyhow. Young Kate has a sort of real innocence that is somewhat charming. Some guy will totally ruin that before she's out of college, but that guy isn't me. Besides, innocent girls are awful in bed. What, you thought I was going to end on a noble note? I'm not even done yet.

I use my empty beer as an excuse to break up the high school style flirt-fest and head back downstairs.

2:00 AM
Brittney tells us it's time to go, and it's her house, so we go. I ask Jeff for the $5 the old guy paid him to drink some of our Captain. It turns out to be a $20 bill. Jeff shrugs and says, "I dunno, that's what he gave me." I just made $20 off a bottle of liquor I got for free. Bitchin'. Jaime offers to drive me home, because I'm mighty drunk and without a ride. I'm so drunk, in fact that I'm about a drink away from "Can't Form A Sentence Beav." If you've ever seen me like this, you know it's the only true indicator that I'm shitcanned. In my drunk mind, I think that this offer to drive me home clearly means hookup, because Jaime and I used to date...and, well, sometimes these things do happen.

2:10 AM
Jaime drops me off at the curb. She's not coming inside. Rather than being offended, I am impressed. Touche', Jaime, touche'. I have noticed how hard I have to work to put my thoughts into sentence form, and I realize that it's for the better. I am too drunk to perform in any manner, sexual or otherwise. It probably also doesn't help that I look like a bag of pale ass with a bandanna on it. I come inside, and yell upstairs at Dave and his girlfriend in my best Dave=Chapelle-as-Rick-James voice: "BIT-CHES! I'M HOME BIT-CHES!!! IT'S A CELEBRATION!!! SHOW ME YOUR TITTIES!"

No response. I don't remember what the hell I do after that, but I assume I go to the bathroom, have some water and pass out. That's what I usually do.

All in all, not a bad Saturday. I turned a profit, got drunk, and got huge boobs placed on my hand. I've definitely had worse weekends. Don't believe me? Read the St. Olaf story...

We Are The Kings of Kareoke, Nate Rules All

9/30
For my Thursday night, I go out with Jeff, Nate, Jaime and my roommate Dave. We head on down to Randy's Grill & Chill (yes, that really is the name of the bar) for some kareoke. Now, I hate to be shallow...oh wait, no I don't. We are easily the most talented and attractive people in this place. For the second week in a row. I personally start off by performing Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'", which is funny when you consider that I sing about as low as anyone can sing, and Journey is not low. I still suck way less than anyone I've heard before me.

Sometime after that, the guy who runs kareoke at another Lincoln area bar (which shall remain nameless) comes over to talk to Jeff and Nate, and brag about his recent engagement. He points out his fiancée, and I think to myself, "Wow...you can have her, buddy." He tells us how he's going to perform Dave Matthews Band's "Crash Into Me", but he's not sure how it'll go since he only knows the techno version. I hate him already. This guy is the sort of individual who doesn't realize that he has no reason to be as arrogant as he clearly is. He gets up there and unbuttons his shirt halfway, exposing his hairy, hairy chest, and proceeds to produce a really mediocre rendition of a really good song. Welcome to kareoke. Nobody is impressed at his chest or his vocals, including his fiancée. Dave is getting furious, because this is the song on which he solos for our A Capella group, and he does much better than this guy. Watching Dave get furious is one of the more frequent and amusing occurrences of my life. If you don't like unnecessary screaming at people who can't hear you, never ride in Dave's car. I have fun drinking my beer and watching as Dave can't help but get pissed and sing his own version so that he can't hear the guy's butchery.

We talk Nate into performing "Come On Feel The Noise" by Quiet Riot. We are all very excited to hear this. A little backstory here: Nate can't sing. If I were a choir director, I would not, under any circumstances, want Nate in my choir. The guy just can't carry a tune. Nate can, however, scream his fucking lungs out. Somehow the act of screaming in high tenor range enables him to find a key. If you find the right song for Nate, he will deliver the most amazing kareoke performance you've ever seen, and Quiet Riot is no exception. Nate sings at least a third too high for the first half of the song. It rocks anyhow. He finds the key after the bridge. It rocks harder. I can't stop laughing and throwing up the two handed "rock on" sign and Randy himself (of Randy's Grill & Chill) turns around to us to voice his amazement. We inform him that Nate is nothing short of a Kareoke Jesus. By this time we've turned in several solid performances, and once Nate comes back, Randy tells us he wants to buy us all a shot. Our whole table is given a shot of something grape tasting, and we all thank Randy and head home at closing time. We are all pleased with ourselves about how much we fucking rule for being the big fish in our little kareoke pond.

I stop at McDonald's buy my second $1 double cheeseburger of the night on the way home. While waiting to order at the drive through, I start doing a Harry Carey impersonation because it was somehow relevant to the conversation Dave and I were having. The girl comes over the speaker to ask if I'm o.k. We find this hilarious. She clearly doesn't realize I was doing an imitation and thinks I'm just that drunk. I apologize for frightening the drive-thru girl, get my cheeseburger, go home, and go to bed. All in all, it's a good night.