Go West My Son.. Maybe

Well, I returned to Los Angeles, and yes, that means a return to my (cousin’s) beloved couch (for what this blog is appropriately titled after), my big brown Shangri-La (that screws up my back), a giant L-shaped wrap around with matching ottoman.  A two-week vacation has suddenly transformed into an unpredictable month of soul-searching (wasting my time in 80 degree weather instead of wasting my time in the cold and miserable weather of New York, where I dodged 2 blizzards and 1 monsoon).  Apparently there isn’t a large enough market for tri-weekly amateur blogging about nothing, so my quest for a real job is still in full throttle  (And this whole time I thought I could become the Seinfeld of the blogging world, what a shame).  During this trip I actually managed to stray from the couch a few times, a feat that took me over 8 months to accomplish in my previous stint.  I put in a week on this marvelous invention called the Aerobed (cue The Jefferson’s “Movin on Up” theme song) – courtesy of my friend Allison.  I even managed to stay a few scattered nights in an actual bed.   

I have a  feeling that my trip may lead to an indefinite stay.  A move back to LA will certainly bring a few drastic changes to my life – 2 seem to come to mind right off the bat.  

Even in college the Piggy Boxers played. They must have been serving pulled pork at Rodney that day.

I will have to start purchasing my own underwear, a task that was usually taken on by my mother.  I think she made it her quest to make sure that my underwear would always provide a message as she continually bought themed boxer shorts for me.  Sweethearts and Cupids for Valentine’s Day, Polar Bears wearing Santa Hats for Christmas, Monkeys sharing a New Years toast, Squirrels enjoying a Matzoh snack for Passover,  you know, shit like that.  I seem to have a pair of underwear for every occasion, it has reached the point where depending on what holiday is upcoming or what activity is scheduled determines what pair of boxers I wear.   You know I ’ll be busting out the leprechaun undies in a few days for St. Patty’s Day.  I have holiday themed, seasonal themed, gambling, sports, animals – you name it, I probably own a pair of underwear that can match it – a true shmorgasborg of festive undergarments.   

Cuddling.. My gift,  my curse.  I am the ultimate spoon.  It is innate, unlearned, a totally raw power that I can not control.  I actually look forward to the spoon portion of any sleep over because I know it is where I shine most.  A move to Los Angeles would finally mean that I have the opportunity to unleash my powers in a space that is completely my own.  I will no longer have to endure getting kicked out of bed at 8 am and proceed with the walk of shame back to the couch, or the perform the high school move of sneaking a girl out the backdoor before my (normally pantsless) father wakes up.  

Wherever I am meant to end up, whether it is the West Coast, East Coast, North Pole, Tropical Island, I believe I have a real adventure ahead of me.. and I’m confident that I have the underwear to match.

It’s All About Building Immunities

In my quest to build immunities I often refuse to use toilet seat covers in public restrooms.  Sure, I do a seat wipe down but I usually prefer the feel of the bowl.  It’s like having sex without a condom, you know what the risks are but it just feels better. 

Hug That Seat

While we’re on the subject of toilet seats,  safe sex, and building immunities, this seems like the perfect time to discuss my love life and possibly offer some insight in picking up girls.  

DATING TIPS 

1. Improv comedy clubs, stand up comedy clubs, and seeing a comedy movie are always safe bets for a fun night out.  Why try so hard when you can have someone else do it for you?  If you’re in NY or LA the UCB Improv Theater is possibly the greatest date night place I can think of – it’s cheap and you can bring your own booze.  

2.  Find a martini bar and if you make it to 2 martinis you’re golden.  Bottom line, girls can’t handle their booze.  I’m not suggesting date rape, but there is nothing wrong with having the girl a little loopy when you make your move.  

3.  Say inappropriate things and if you make them laugh you know that they like you.  Even if it is a fake laugh girls just want to let you know they are interested.  Girls give off signs in the first 5 minutes if they are attracted to you.  I’ve never been good at convincing girls to like me but I have a great sense of when girls are interested… and I take full advantage of that.  

4.  If your name is Daniel Grobman please refrain from wearing white socks with dress shoes.  Have some class buddy.  Black socks for black shoes, brown socks for brown shoes.  That goes for everyone else out there, girls like guys who have a good sense of fashion.  I’m not winning any GQ awards but I’ll always show up wearing the right socks. 

5.  Don’t talk sports with girls.  It’s not because they’re not interested in sports, some are.  I try not to talk sports with girls in case they know more about them than I do.  You certainly never want that.  

6.  If you live at home with your parents (or live on a couch in Los Angeles), always… always.. always find a girl who has her own room in an apartment or house.  You’re both just wasting your time if you don’t.  

7.  If you are lucky enough to find a girl who is willing to have sex with you on the first date – GO FOR IT.  Hey.. I take Propecia and according to certain pharmaceutical myths my penis could fall off at any moment.  I might as well use it while I still can.   So, yes, absolutely sex on the first date, sex on the 2nd date, sex on any date that you spend money.  I don’t pay 80 bucks a month to make sure my hair doesn’t fall out and not have sex.  I know my prospects of sex decrease the balder I get.  If what I’m hearing about Propecia is true, tomorrow is never guaranteed.  (disclaimer to all women out there – it works fine.  If you doubt me – you have my number… I never back down when my libido is challenged) 

8.  I have no shame, also – I have no job, so if a girl offers to split the check… Thank you.  

9.  If you have a younger sister make sure you keep tabs on her friends.  It is just like baseball, there is nothing wrong with stocking up your farm system.  Let’s say your Cy Young winner leaves town because the Yankees come around and throw millions of dollars at him, it is always nice to have that younger stud with a nasty slider waiting in double A to take their spot – and when that minor leaguer becomes a Cy Young winner you’ll be glad you had the foresight to hire a great scouting team.  

For the most part I have been in very meaningful relationships with some really great girls.  It seems everywhere I go I have the ability to meet girls that actually fall for my schtick (girls love the Jew wit).  I never find myself going through the motions or trying to force emotions.  I have been in love and I have been hurt…. and you know what, it’s been a pretty fun ride.

The Joy of Women’s Deodorant

Before I start, I think the most important piece of advice I could give to my loyal readers would be to never trust a grown man who wears a fanny pack.

Just Some Interesting Facts About Jason Schaffer

I was born with two ear lobes on my left ear.  My parents had my 2nd lobe removed when I was 2 which left me with an earlobe half the size of the earlobe on my right side.  I tend to catch myself tilting my head slightly more to the right, which causes my barber (who am I kidding hairstylist) to cut my right sideburn a bit shorter than my left.  I have said that having an extra ear lobe was my mutant power to grow extra unnecessary body parts but I don’t think the X-Men are looking for someone with my powers.  Ladies find it cute when I call my left earlobe my “Nemo Lobe,” in  to Nemo’s gimpy fin in “Finding Nemo.”

I have always preferred women’s deodorant to men’s. Whether its “Kissed Peach” or “Whisper” I prefer the fruity aroma of women’s deodorant over musky cologne scents of men’s. I dare anyone to find a better smelling deodorant than Soft and Dri’s “Powder Fresh”… You can’t. I used to say “smell like a woman – think like a woman.” Whether or not I have succeeded in grasping total understanding of women by wearing their deodorant I’d like to think that I am taking the necessary measures to getting closer.

I go through phases where I can’t turn off the latest pop song. While I tend to have differing musical tastes, I have fallen victim to Brittney Spears, Beyonce, Rihanna, and most recently Lady Gaga. She must be using subliminal messaging in her music because if I’m alone in my car and Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” starts playing on the radio I find myself blasting it and singing along (I really enjoy the part where she sings in French). I am cautious and turn it down if I am approaching any of the following – a traffic light, a convertible, a car that I think a hot girl would drive, and the Queens/Brooklyn/Bronx area.

 I’ve held the following jobs (in no specific order) – Pizza Boy, hearse driver to promote a haunted house, basketball referee for 4 year olds, Fudge Packer (not that kind – my mom used to work at a chocolate factory), annoying guy handing out flyers, wine deliverer, client services for a background checking company, 24 year old intern, and softball instructor. Out of all these jobs I truly feel that I will never find a better job than delivering pizza. I’m not saying I won’t find a more rewarding job or one where I can make more money but where else can you spend all afternoon/night listening to sports talk radio. My car used to smell delicious all the time. I still carry the fantasy that one day a sexy, frustrated housewife would find a better way to tip me other than the $3 dollars I was happy to receive. The closest I came to that fantasy was when a 70 year old woman answered the door in a robe and forgot to tie it…. maybe pizza delivery wasn’t so great afterall, the sagging still haunts my dreams.

Hopefully one of these days I will write a post that will allow me to contend for the Pulitzer, but I figured I have to set up a foundation so my readers can start to better understand me.

More to come….

Lady Killer Found in Newark

Jesus H. Christ — Jason H. Schaffer. Coincidence?  Very doubtful.

I want to use this entry to tell you about someone who has become a close friend of mine in a short period of time. 

I wasn’t always a University of Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hen (the only female mascot in the NCAA - trivia fact), for one semester I lived in Western New York and went to school at SUNY Buffalo.  I was assigned to Schoellkopf Hall - the name made me unsure about whether I was going to college or a Concentration Camp, a comforting way for a Jewish Boy from Long Island to start his education. As it turned out the great administrators of SUNY Buffalo decided to make Schoellkopf the exchange student dorm that semester.  How Japanese kids found their way to Buffalo will always be a mystery to me, was it the wings? Beef on weck?  Who knows but not only did I receive the highest GPA of any semester I had in college but I became fluent in Japanese nonsense words… HIYO!!.  Buffalo had a reputation as a party school but my lack of a social life led to my eventual transfer to the University of Delaware in Newark (pronounced NEW-ARC.. not like the airport in Jersey).   My main goal was to find a real college experience unlike the one I was leaving behind.

Driving down main street I wasn’t sure what would be waiting for me at my dorm  in Dickinson E room 107, I was very nervous.  The only real conversation that I had with my new roommate was one where his friends had hijacked his IM account and proceeded to tell me how much I was going to enjoy sodomy for the next 4 months.  Needless to say I was scared for the virginity of my ass. 

His name was David Pessah… and after meeting him my life would never be the same again.

He answered the door wearing an old Allan Houston Knicks jersey and pajama pants, it looked like he just rolled out of bed but I was later told he  arrived only 15 minutes before I had.  The dorm stunk - waiting under my bed were moldy Pop Tarts, used Cup O’Noodles , and half of a bagel.  I was disapointed at his lack of carb consciousness.    He was unable to smell the grossness of the dorm and blamed it on his deviated septum.  He was a character and I immediately liked him.

I felt like I was in Dances With Wolves or Avatar.  I had to prove myself to a one man tribe before I could be accepted.  In Pessah’s tribe you didn’t eat unless you went huntin, and by huntin I mean get with ugly girls.  The kid was slaying girls night after night as if  he was challenging Wilt Chamberlain’s record.  I had the new kid appeal with the ladies and in my first few weeks I was able to gain Pessah’s acceptance. 

If Pessah brought back 10 girls there was a good chance that 8 of them were nasty, and some even earned their own nickname, one  affectionately called The Pigeon.  He credited his strong cheekbones and Italian machismo to his lady killing ability.   He was “The Situation” before being ”The Situation” was fashionable. 

We soon became good friends.  He used words like “Stoolie,” “Don Bone,” and ”Dills,” words that would soon find their way into my own vocabulary. 

Athletically, nobody could touch him.  He was the only kid I saw shoot the ball over the backboard while attempting a free throw.

He finally reached legendary status when I overheard two guys talking at Klondike Kate’s.  I had no idea who these two people were but they stood in the corner of the bar and pointed at Pessah.  “See that kid over there?.. That’s David Pessah, and he gets crazy ass.”

To me Pessah will always be a legend.  One wouldn’t think Pessah couldn’t count, but he does, he counts very well.  So well that he became an accountant for Ernst and Young and has been working there for almost 3 years.  I heard he wasn’t feeling so great these days so I’m hoping to bring a smile to his sad and possibly diseased mouth.  

Love you Pess.

An Ode to the 1984 DNC and Walter Mondale

Somewhere between all the games of ladder golf at the University of Delaware,  the time I spent as a professional piss tester at a background checking company in NYC, and the a year I slept on my cousin’s couch in Los Angeles - I became lazy…. but there’s hope, I feel a new day on the horizon.   

My hope is to use this space as platform to explain why I am the way I am – to my friends, my family, my former girlfriends, my future girlfriends, people I lost touch with, people I plan on losing touch with, people I dislike, people I wish I disliked, people who dislike me, people who used to dislike me and then decided I wasn’t such a bad guy, people who will dislike me because I trashed them in a blog, people who misunderstand me, people who consider me a good friend, people who I respect, people who randomly stumbled on this blog looking for a different Jason Schaffer, and to myself.

So let’s start from the beginning.  I was born on April 17th 1985, I have been told several times that I am the product of the 1984 Democratic National Convention, which doesn’t mean that I have strong opinions on health care reform or the current economic situation, but rather, my parents were  so moved  by speeches by Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro that they decided to get it on, and here I am.

So let’s take a brief look at my parents and what helped shape the way I am.

My Dad - I took on many characteristics of my father throughout the years- my sense of humor, my stubbornness, my receeding hairline, my competitiveness, my choices of the sports teams that I follow who only know how to disappoint me (Mets, Jets, Knicks, Islanders), but most of all the strong sense of family and friendships I have.    

When I was younger, his sole purpose in life was to embarrass me.  For years he was notorious for being the parent that liked to shower at visiting day at Camp Wah-Nee.  One summer while singing Elton John’s “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” as made famous by The Lion King, the shower curtain had managed to fall to the floor revealing my father’s naked body.  As one of my bunkmate’s mother turned the corner and caught a glimpse of  my dad, he figured that instead of covering up it was the perfect time to ask her to pass the shampoo from the adjacent shower.  Even more surprisingly, she obliged his wish.

 My Mom - the other half of the Jason Schaffer equation. I certainly get my patience from my mother (as she has put up with my father for longer than I have),  I tend to be reserved like her,  I inherited her affinity for vodka martinis, and her ability to read people and situations.  There isn’t much I can poke fun at my mother about, so I’m not even going to try.  

As you can tell,  I like to think that I have great relationship with my parents, there is hardly anything that I keep from them and you know what, I am more than okay with that.  I have certainly encountered my fair share of abuse for being a “momma’s boy” but you know what – how would you like to be 24, unemployed,  living at home, in a house where you struggled to get along with your mom and dad? – No thanks, my life is hard enough as it is without fighting with my parents.  I’ll take my relationship with my parents any day.  Plus, my mom makes pretty good scrambled eggs in the morning and I’m not ready to give that up.

Well, I hope this gives you a little insight as to what makes me who I am.  It wasn’t deep, it wasn’t long winded…. I try to keep it simple.  As I continue to sit around during ”the unemployed months,” instead of catching OC reruns on  Soap Net, I hope I can provide a little bit more of what makes me… me.  Til next time.