Tao of Pauly

Yesterday Was Cinco De Mayo... and Marissa's Back on the Sauce!

I was shocked to find out the origins of Cinco De Mayo. And the last person on earth I expected to know the detailed history of that obscure Mexican holiday was none other than.... the Elevator Button heiress herself... Briana. I'm not giving her enough credit. She actually went to more classes in college than I did. I'm the guy who used to get a letter from the Dean's Office about a month into each semester saying that, "Your instructor informed us that you have not been attending classes..." And then I'd waltz into the midterm, show up once more for the final and still eek out a B. My peers and professors hated me. A kick ass Regis education tends to do that... nothing against Emory... but I was not challeneged enough. I had a job, lived in my fraternity house for 3 long years, followed the Dead all over the Deep South, drank my ass off (I had abandoment issues with half-empty bottles of Jim Beam) and smoked everything under the hot Georgia sun... and still graduated from a Top 25 university with a decent GPA.

But yeah, our favorite UES princess was a history major. Another shocker, I though she majored in women's studies or something obscure like Eastern European 19th Century Lesbian Poetry... oh wait, that was Haley's major. You gotta love Daddy's wasted money at Ivy League schools. So, our hostess let everyone know at our lunch table, including the wait staff, that Cinco de Mayo was in fact... not Mexico's Independence Day... rather it was to mark the day that the French were defeated at Pueblo in 1862. I was impressed. I took back all those dumb blonde jokes (until she said something horribly pathetic about housekeepers).

Any excuse for me to celebrate a French defeat, while sipping Mexican beer at an American bar... at noon is a blessing. Yep, I hung out for lunch with Briana and some of her opulent friends. She picked up the four digit tab for a four hour lunch at a posh eatery that reeked of hispter faux-coolness with uber-priced drinks, barely edible fusion food, and a slew of poorly framed, awful post-modern abstract paintings... that reminded me of a camel taking a shit on a 3 year-old's finger painting. I'm a broke writer. I lost half my bankroll in Las Vegas playing poker, so I'm grateful for any free food or cocktails, regardless of the hipness value of said establishment. After several drinks, I realized that I was having a weird flshback and I felt like I was caught up in a scene from Hemingway's classic The Sun Also Rises... I was Jake drinking with a cluster of aimless hipsters... except we had cellphones.

I got too drunk and got too cocky trying to prove to everyone that God... in fact... does not exist. And I pissed off a couple of closeted Jesus Freaks. Nothing turns me off more than religious fanaticism. And I was ready to pummel them to the ground with my boot,just like a scene out of Goodfellas, while shaking my bloody fist and shouting, "Where's your God now Motherfucker?"

OK, I managed to sober up to play a few hands on Party Poker, where I was recognized by yet another reader. That makes three times since Monday. Wow. I'm friggin' famous in the online poker world... and I'm just an average player.

Then it was the season finale of... The OC. What a wild ride, eh? And now everyone knows that Ryan left The OC to be with the girl from the other side of the tracks, whom he thinks he may... or may not have... knocked up. And that sent poor Marissa spiraling into a depressive binge of alcohol and narcotics (just remember she wigged out and OD'd in Tiajuana). I'm a sucker for women with serious psychological and deep emotional problems. Ooooh. I can't wait until next year.

By the way... am I the only person who doesn't even care that Friends is ending tonight? It's just a TV show. I stopped watching Friends shortly before 9.11. Besides, after four years, a sitcom plateaus... and everyone has fucked everyone else. Alas, it's tough to maintain freshness and the characters develop into caricatures of themselves. It happened to Taxi, Cheers, Seinfeld... and Friends. For fuck's sake pull the plug already.