Cesare V

If we’re related, please reconsider reading this: it’s pretty filthy, and may change the way you think about me.  Hell, if we’re NOT related, you may not want to read this either.

When I was 18, I went to college for two months at Southwest Missouri State.  (Yes, I know they changed the name since, but it was still SMS when I went there and this is a period piece, so SMS it will be.)  To say I was naive would be a bit of an understatement, which may have been evident earlier when I mentioned that I was only there for two months.  Okay, fine, I’ll just be honest with you, since there’s going to be a lot of honesty coming your way: by “naive” I mean that yes, I was a still carrying my Virgin Card.  No, I didn’t want to be.  And yes, I tried very, very hard to give that card away.  And finally no, I did not give that card away until a good while later.  But I almost gave it away while at SMS.  Twice.  In the same night.  So here, for your reading pleasure, is how it went down.

I was flunking out.  My GPA was 0.6, and my father found out and closed my savings account, which is what I had been living off of since I had mostly moved off campus and wasn’t using my meal plan, so I had barely eaten in a couple days.  It was a Saturday, and a friend from my dorm floor decided that he should take me out to distract me from the obvious shit storm that was coming my way, so he got us a 12 pack of Milwaukee’s Best Ice.  Remember, no food.  Also?  I have no stomach for beer- never have.  Two beers puts me worse off then half a bottle of any hard liquor can, and that’s when I’ve eaten.  So yeah, there’s some background info for you.  Enjoy the train wreck.

Dorm-Buddy and I got to this party that we heard earlier (not “heard about”, “heard”- we were out earlier and they were playing loud music) and cracked open The Beast.  In rapid succession, I downed three beers, which you’ll notice is 150% the limit.  And on an empty stomach.  Good times.  If you know me now you may find this hard to believe, but I was painfully shy about talking to anybody, especially the ladies.  Dorm-Buddy? Didn’t have that problem.  He was chatting up the group of local guys that rented the house (the people who lived in Springfield, especially the younger ones) and was asking about who was who, female-wise.  He informed me that the two (local) girls that were sitting on the couch not being talked to by any other guys were BFFs named Velma and Snatch.  Okay, I did change their names to “protect” them here, but the concept remains the same: one had a normal name and the other had a nickname that was what one would call terrible, at best.  Both were my age.  Both were attractive.  I was drunk.  Game on.

So I started talking to Velma first.  We danced to some random song or two, barely talking the whole time, before she informed me that it was getting late and she needed to go home- would I walk her home?  Why sure!  Velma lived on one of the busiest streets in town, and was about a four block walk away from the party.  We exchanged about a dozen words on the way to her place- because I’m so damned smooth and that’s how I roll- so I was pretty surprised when she started holding my hand.  We got to her house and went up onto her porch, which was only a couple feet off the ground and surrounded by hedges.  Now that you’ve got the image, let’s add one more detail- there was a window that was open right next to the front door, which had a couch in front of it that was occupied by her father.  He was sitting there watching Saturday Night Live so close to me that I could have reached through the storm window and slapped his bald head.  I turned to Velma to say goodnight and, assuming I was lucky, get me a kiss from this girl, which would have been my fourth, ever.  Imagine my surprise when I turned to face her and she was on her knees.

And here we go.

Velma started to unzip my pants, which produced an immediate reaction within them.  I was shocked as hell, and very, very happy to be getting ready to get rid of that V Card.  So Velma began doing what one would expect her to be doing while positioned as she was, and for about three seconds I was a very, very, very happy man.  Then things got strange.  Now, I had no hands on experience with this act, but I had an idea how things were supposed to go, (Correction: I only had hands on experience with this act playing on the TV)  and by that I mean that they shouldn’t hurt.  And Velma was hurting me.  See, those first three seconds were normal, happy and well received.  But after that, Velma decided to alter her technique a bit.  Seeming non sequitur: have you ever seen a dog eat a rawhide bone?  You know how they put their paws on either side of one knot to hold it in place then tilt their head sideways and gnaw on the knob at the top of the bone?  That “seeming non sequitur” was actually a description of her new technique, which I did not approve of.  I was drunk, and decided to be honest with her.  I told her that she was hurting me, and asked her to go back to what she was doing at the start.  This seemed like a reasonable request, and she seemed to honor that request by altering her angle.

And by that I mean she turned her to the other side and gnawed some more.  After a few quick seconds of that I asked her again, politely, to stop doing what she was doing.  I pointed out that her teeth were painful.  That stuff at the beginning?  Awesome.  More of that please.  She responded by barely pausing before going back to her “dog with rawhide” impression.  This made me unhappy, so I yelled at her.  I’m more than sure it wasn’t nice.  I’m sure it included the phrase “I can do better myself”.  I’m pretty sure I called her a rude name.  It was at that time that I remembered her father was quite near, so I did the only thing I could think of- I ran back to the party.

Please note in that description that I didn’t include putting myself back in my pants, because I hadn’t.  I ran along the busiest street in town to get back to the party, having omitted that step.  Yup- beer is not now and never has been my friend.  I stopped a couple of houses down to catch my breath and realized the omitted step, which I of course corrected before reentering the party.  Due to my extreme duress, I decided that two more beers would help me get over it.  Those extra beers did not, however, help to “soften” the pain I felt.  But lo and behold, I believed I saw the answer to my problem: Snatch.

I walked straight up to her and asked her to dance, and she agreed.  We stood up, and started to “dance”, and, being the classy person I am, I immediately asked her “so why do they call you ‘Snatch’?”  Now, apparently this girl had the misfortune of being born to a family who’s last name was “Snatchfeld” or “Snatchson” or “Snatch-something” (honestly, her actual nickname/last name combo didn’t sound that stupid).  Snatch said that, when she was in kindergarten, one little kid shortened  it to “Snatch” and it stuck, because, “you know, kids can be so cruel.  But I’m totally not a slut.”  To which I replied “oh, believe me, I know kids can be evil: my name is Cesare, and I’ve heard it all.” Apparently this made me sensitive or kind or empathetic or something, because she asked me if I wanted to go upstairs.  I said yes.

The same song that was on when I asked her to dance was still playing as we climbed the stairs.

Sounds good, right?  I thought so.  We started making out in somebody’s room, and she was naked almost immediately.  We were making out quite well, which made her the fourth girl I ever kissed, as Velma never actually, you know, kissed me.  Plus she was naked, which was a first, so I was happy as hell.  Then my pants started coming down, and I was beyond happy at this point.  Snatch, who, to be honest, was doing all the work decided that she wanted to be very kind to me and stopped kissing me.  Well, she stopped kissing my mouth, anyway.  Hold on, let me clarify something I mentioned earlier: Snatch was doing all the work not because I was nervous and inexperience: no, the beer and porn knocked those two roadblocks right over.  She was doing all the work because I was so drunk that I had two death-grips on the sheets of this dude’s bed brought on by the terrifying way the room was rocking back and forth.  Yes, five beers on an empty stomach got me that drunk.  Yes, I have no doubts that it would still cause that reaction in my twelve years later.  Yes, I know I’m a light-weight.  Now back to the action: Snatch’s face is rapidly moving from my face to my lap, and I’m okay with this.  Once she reaches her destination, however, my happiness disappeared: Snatch looked at it, cocked her head, and started in on me with her back teeth.

I lost it.  I immediately sat up and started pulling my pants up, all while asking Snatch who taught whom how to perform that particular act.  She was confused.  I informed her that her friend Velma was just as bad at it as she was, and that I was leaving before I could be gnawed any further.  Snatch did not like this, not because I was leaving, but because I had just admitted that I had been “intimate” with her Bestest Bestie not even an hour before.  She was unhappy, and in her unhappiness began striking me about the stomach and chest region.  Amazingly, I did not vomit (bet you thought that’s were that was going, right?  I often wonder if it would have made for a better story if it did, but alas, we often cannot control our own gastric destiny).  I rolled off the bed, still getting hit and screamed at.  I made my way to the door and, upon opening it, was greeted by the sight of the guy who’s room we were in standing in the classic “frozen knock” pose.  He saw me for a split second before looking over my shoulder, which prompted me to turn and look as well.  Standing on the bed was Snatch The Naked Valkyrie, legs firmly planted, right arm raised and hitched back to throw a sneaker at me, a look of pure shock on her face.  I faced the room’s owner and told him “she’s all yours”, then practically threw myself down the stairs, out the door, and all the way back to the dorm.  Dorm-Buddy quickly gave chase, as I had a bit of a history with getting into horribly one sided fights at parties (note: they were not sided in my favor), and he wanted to make sure I didn’t end up peeing blood again (long story).  By the time he caught up with me and demanded to know what the hell happened I was wheezing in front of our dorm and feeling generally defeated, so I told him the whole tale of woe.

Real friends know when you’re hurting, and don’t laugh at you no matter how ridiculous you are.  This asshole about had a stroke at my expense and literally went and woke up our RA to tell him the story.  They took pity on me after they had a good laugh and ordered some Domino’s for me, which I ate three pieces of then puked up into my roommate’s wire mesh trashcan while hopping up and down trying to pull my Doc Martins off.  It was almost a full year after that when I finally lost my V Card (another sad tale for another time), but the lessons I learned that night still follow me to this day, and I want to share them with you now:

1) Even the best things in life can be terrible.

2) Never believe a girl with an obscene nickname when she says she’s not a slut.

3) Always sit down to untie your shoes when your drunk.

and most important:

4) Sometimes you should just keep your big mouth shut.

So I’m sick, again.  It’s the same crappy bug I caught last month, but I seem to have discovered it early and am pounding down the juice, resting, and eating both the Day and Ny flavors of Quil to keep the symptoms at bay long enough to get sleep.  It’s pretty tough to sleep when you’re rocked by what I call “The Three C’s” (congestion, coughing, and ca-fever), so the drugs are, in my opinion, the most important part of the healing process.  Plus they’re the only enjoyable part of being sick, nawhatimean?  So I’m not going to be letting up on my drug intake until the fever’s gone at the earliest, and the only thing that could possibly get me out from under my electric blanket today would be running out of my Quils.

I ran out of Quils.

Now look- I’m not one of those people who buys into brand names for the most part, but, when it comes to Quils, I only buy The Big “Qs”- NyQuil or DayQuil.  I’m not gonna trust my sickness to some generic brand “rail Quil”, not me.  Sure it’s an extra $3.00 per box, but hey, I buy Dollar Store toilet paper, so I can afford such extravagances.  Since I ran out of my Ny flavored and have only two doses left of the Day, I had to go get more.   So off to Shop ‘n Save!

I went all the way out to the Maplewood Shop ‘n Save (no, not the closest SnS to my house) so that I could not only get Quils but a bunch of juice, some cookies, and also justify a stop by the comic book store, since it’s on the way.  I remembered the comic books, and the juice, and of course the cookies, but forgot the Quil.  I was on my damned street before I remembered it (drugs:1, Cesare: 0), so I turned around and went to the Schnuck’s on The Hill.  I only wanted two things- Day and Ny flavored Quil.

So of course they didn’t have any DayQuil.

The pickings were pretty slim, and there was a guy stocking the same row of shelves from a cart about 4 feet down from me, so I asked him if there was any DayQuil on his cart.

“No”.

I asked him if they got any in, and were going to stock it soon: I didn’t even want it right then and there- I was willing to shop around for a bit and come back for it.

“Dunno.”

Great.  I didn’t want to get into with this guy.  I worked too many years in the grocery business to be Customer Douche, so I just told him not to worry about it.  Apparently that was too much for this guy, so he walked over to the DayQuil section and started looking at it as if he were doing me a favor, like I had no idea how to find a neon orange box with a giant “Q” on it on my own.  Sure enough, no DayQuil pills- just NyQuil- and of course the bottle of liquid DayQuil, which is too dangerous for me to own (I have self control issues when it comes to hitting the bottles of cold medicine, as I tend to consider the “recommended” part of “recommended dosage” as a very poor recommendation and just double it, often to very ill effects).  So I just told the guy not to worry about it (again).  That’s when he grabbed the generic box and told me “this is the same”, to which I told him, “nah, I only get the Big Q when I buy Quils.”  The look on this guys face made me feel like I had just slapped him with a fistful of wet noodles.  He put the box back in it’s spot, turned around, and walked away.  I went my merry way as well- to Walgreens, where I got my Big Q brand Quils, both flavors.

Sorry if that makes me a Quil snob, but sometimes you just gotta go with what you know works.

Cv

Dear MTV~

It’s been a while, but I just wanted to drop you a line. We sure went through a lot together, right? Remember “Alternative Nation”? Matt Pinfield? “The Real World”, back when you had adults on it that actually tried to do something with their lives (I’m looking at you, Judd!)? Well, I know we haven’t really had much contact lately other than the random “Cribs” when nothing else was on, but I wanted to help you with this problem you seem to be having lately. A problem named “Jersey Shore”.

Now don’t get defensive. We’ve been through too much together for you to just fly off the handle at me and assume I’m going to attack you- I’m not. See, I’m an Italian-American (you knew that), but I’m not about to get all offended over your “Guidos” and “Guidettes”. I know you’re not saying all Italians/Italian-Americans are like them. I get that, believe me. Hell, I’ve tried to distance myself from these sort of “Italian” stereotypes all my life, but, well sometimes a Dago’s just gotta pump his fist, ya’know? No, ya’don’t, because I was being sarcastic. But to get serious again, I am a bit offended that Italian/Italian-American groups are getting worked up about this. Don’t they see that, at no point in any episode, ever, has MTV or any of the people on the show claimed that ALL Italians are like this? Sure the kids on the show are Italian, but that’s not what attracts the attention- their very, very American actions do that.  These kids are from families that have been in America for probably at least two generations, and live in an area where old stereotypes have mutated into something entirely new and different.  These things are of a beast entirely new,  and that’s what makes the show entertaining. If they claimed they were German, or Swedish, or Japanese or from the darkest jungle of Bongo-Bongo it would still be worth watching them make asses of themselves and try and claim they know what “classy” mean. People aren’t laughing at them going “Oh those Italians! They’re all so much alike! I bet they like pasta, and are in the Mafia!” People are laughing at them because they’re so out there as individuals. Okay, maybe “individual” is too strong of a word, but you get the point.

So here’s my solution, and I think you’ll like it. To show that MTV isn’t racist against Italians, and to show that you don’t think all Italians are like the people on “Jersey Shore”, do this: take the show, as it is, and move the location to Palermo, Sicily. Don’t change a single cast member, don’t make them do different jobs, don’t make a single, solitary change, other than the location. I’ll let this soak in for a minute. Don’t you see how perfect this would be? If the actual Italians in the area these kids descendants came from are all just like them, then you can’t be called racist! But really, do you think that’s going to happen? These cartoon characters are their own breed, and are going to stick out like sore thumbs no matter where you put them. If this happens (note: it will), then you’ve made an even stronger point about how you’re not propagating stereotypes- hell, you’re breaking them down by showing how untrue they are.

Now, don’t act like this won’t be good TV. You know as well as I do that fish-out-of-water shows are always super entertaining, and now, with an established, much followed cast that America already knows and loves(?), the emotional commitment on the audience’s part is that much deeper. You could probably double the number of episodes for the season and still have too much usable footage. This is a gold mine not only in the defensive, “we’re not racist” capacity but also in the “holy crap look at how much money we’re making” one.

Well, I hope you found that helpful. I would say “keep up the good work”, but, let’s be serious, how good has anything you’ve done lately actually been? I hope you take my idea into consideration, and I wish you luck in your future endeavors. Oh, and if you ever put Domenico from “That’s Amore” on anything else ever again, I will buy a gun just so I can shoot my TV.

Best wishes,
CesareV

***FULL DISCLOSURE***

I have never actually seen an entire episode of “Jersey Shore”- to date, the only clip I’ve ever seen was the YouTube video of the little drag queen getting punched in the face.  I have no intention of ever actually sitting through an episode, unless MTV does actually take my recommendation, at which point I will buy then whole first season on DVD.