Boy--
Check the time stamp and you'll see how late I'm up right now. It's my second late-nighter in a row. What the hell? I'm a second semester senior just days away from graduation. Why am I not enjoying myself? I'm pretty much done with this paper, yet I'm blogging and finishing a crossword. I was struck again with Drew's estimation of my character: "Dan always has to be working on something."
I wasn't always industrious. I copied math homework during the break between classes during high school up until junior year. Then something clicked inside and I couldn't stand wasting money or educational opportunities anymore. I can't explain it. I'm not the type of person to hesitate with self-doubt, but hearing another person analyze your personality is a unique moment of do-or-die redefinitions of self-image.
That said:
Aaron, Matt, and I just had our "Farewell T-Sports Roast" where we sat and endured the criticism of our colleagues in comedy. At times, it was a bit too real. My regrettable life philosophy--a man is an island, and mine is inhabited by cannibalistic natives who throw poisoned spears at tourists--saved me from any real harm. The jokes were brief and mainly circled around my insular state and my desire to seem gritty and mean. It looked pretty real for Aaron. His roast seemed to go on forever, and about half way through he got ghost pale with a face I have seen before. It's his face which says, "Hold on momentarily, I've stepped out of the present situation to battle demons in a dimension of darkness where my nudity isn't a weapon of terror." Or maybe that was just a few too many beers welling up in his system.
...
If you watch a Friar's Club Roast, you'll usually see the exalted one with a few status symbols. Hefner had 15 bitches with him, as if to say, "Go ahead and make fun about my dick, but I've taken these women off the market--and if I wanted to, I could build a time machine with my millions and travel back to a time where I could have Viagra-free sex. And I wouldn't mind that they'd only be 5 years old back then." I seem to remember Ramses III had his familiar cane and sickle when they roasted him.
We senior T-Sporters, on the other hand, had very little in terms of status symbols to fend off the ad hominem attacks, hyperbole though they were. Our age and experience were certainly flaccid defenses. I suppose I must rely on the fact that when I had the worst things to say about seniors in roasts-past, I kept my mouth shut. That these friends had loads to say was therefore a symbol of the highest esteem.
And there you have the reinterpreation of reality. People like me; they really like me.
That thing about Aaron going to "a dimension of darkness where his nudity isn't a weapon of terror" is the funniest and truest thing you've ever written Dan. Cheers.
ReplyDeleteMandel, my favorite part of your roast was when Caitlin, all fired up on the most she'd had to drink in her life stood up and said "Fuck you Aaron Mandel! You're a small hairy man with a small hairy dick and it isn't coming anywhere near me!" Goddamn that was real.