Recently I had to learn how to give a lap dance. Don’t ask me why. You can assume that it had something to do with a lost bet, or the fact that I’m a sucker when people ask me nicely for things. Or you can just jump to the natural conclusion that I have Aaron Rodgers tied to a chair and locked in a basement right now. The point is, I had to learn how to do some sort of stripper moves, using nothing more than my computer and creativity.

For those of you who’ve never seen me in person, allow me to construct a little mental Etch-a-Sketch. I’m five feet tall, more white than whole milk with a side of Wonder bread, with less coordination than a three-legged kitten in the trunk of a Miata.

In a purely G-rated context, my little brain has become so exhausted after a few decades of trying to coordinate my movements that these days I basically navigate the world like a tiny hippopotamus, slamming into everything and hoping to take it out of my way. I should add the super-sexy details that I have a haircut that can only be described as Olympic-era Kerri Strug gone homeless, and I have the build of a preteen boy. I could be a stripper, if boobs, hair, and basic motor skills weren’t required.

So now that I’ve gone all Bob Ross on your imagination’s canvas, let me repeat: I’ve had to learn how to give a lap dance. Using the Internet.

Have you ever tried to use your computer to obtain information about anything even slightly sexual? Do you basically realize that you’re sitting neck-deep in a jacuzzi of porn every time you utilize a search engine? I don’t care how many safe search modes you have, there’s no denying what the ‘net is good for: sexual stimulation for people too busy, too bored, or too hideous to find someone to actually have sex with. Therefore trying to find an instructional guide to give a lap dance without knocking your teeth out or causing a guy’s penis to invert is a little more difficult than you’d imagine.

YouTube is often affectionately thought of as a sort of tree chart, by which you view one video and then leapfrog to related clips, thereby broadening your horizon and learning more and more about whatever subject matter, musical artist, or random act performed by a kitten that you have typed into the search bar. This is an incorrect assumption. YouTube is not a tree chart, it is a drug dealer. Anything you type into the search bar is like an alcoholic’s first Zima, an addict’s first puff of weed.

Let’s say you type in something benign enough as, “How to ride a motorcycle.” In no time you’re mainlining clips of pony porn. Trust me, YouTube isn’t the tree chart of knowledge. It’s the rabbit hole of vice. In my pursuit of “How to give a lap dance” I wound up watching two teenagers choreograph what can only be described as an elaborate hokey-pokey with their buttocks that made me want a Delorean so I could go back in time and perform forced vasectomies on their fathers.

I didn’t learn how to give a lapdance on YouTube, unless I was able to glean some sort of step-by-step guide through a Russian-language clip featuring the most absurdly gorgeous woman I have ever seen.

The only thing I could obtain from my search, other than the fact that there’s at least one studio band paying for their mortgages by churning out nondescript softcore porn hits perfect for half-naked ladies to gyrate to, is that I needed to practice. Like, a lot. If I was going to take off my clothes and grind on somebody, I was going to make damn sure that I at least knew what motions I could make that would sufficiently prevent both ego-withering giggles and an injury. After all, I’m currently uninsured.

I also decided that, if I was going to do this, I was going to do it all the way. I drew the blinds. I selected a handful of slow tracks conducive to a little bump ‘n grind. I put on a leotard and leg-warmers. (Not bullshitting.)

I was alone this whole time, mind you.

To sit in for the unfortunate recipient, I put an empty chair from my kitchen table in the center of the floor. And then I pressed play.

It only took one move where I bent over for my Chihuahua to spring tongue-first at my face, licking and hopping and trying to partake in this new game of musical chair. Frustrated and further humiliated by the fact that the puppy couldn’t understand the nuance in my sexy thirty-second swaying, I locked her in the bathroom, where her whining and scratching served as an undesired metronome to the remix of La Roux’s “In For The Kill.” I reasoned with myself that the dog couldn’t have understood what I was doing in the first place, especially since I’d recently paid a veterinarian to spay her.

I kept trying. Four tracks into Portishead’s “Dummy,” an album permanently associated with my earliest sexual experiences, and I’d run through my full roster of moves.

Several times I did something that one of the clips had referred to as “The Lotion,” where I pantomimed slowly rubbing lotion on my leg like a stoned sufferer of eczema. I crept around on all fours like a spastic, arthritic cat. I arched my back, stuck out my ass and imaginary boobs. I gyrated my hips as though I were trying to hula-hoop inside of a Mobius strip, and I tossed my head around as though I had a bad case of lice.

I created my own choreography, with maneuvers like the Spontaneous Turn, when my ankles defied their joints and wrapped around one another as I tried to keep my balance, and The Bambi, where all of my limbs jutted out at odd angles on my slippery wooden floor. There was also the Spiderman, where I tried to “drop it low” like the do in rap videos, only to discover that I couldn’t keep my balance and had to stick one of my legs out while bending the other and balancing on my palms as though I were the webbed one perched at the edge of a building.

All in all, my improvised dance routine didn’t exactly flow well. In fact, it would have seemed funny to me, if I hadn’t caught glimpses of myself in the mirror that forced me to behold the look of pained shame that froze my face into some sort of resigned, cow-eyed grimace.

It’s hard not to wonder how this could ever be considered sexy. Turns out it was simply a wise promotion for a business back in the day. One of the oldest porn palaces, the Mitchel Brothers O’Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, went from simply providing xxx entertainment to allowing customers to get an up close and personal feel for their dancers; in 1980 they altered their rules so that patrons could pay a buck to have one of the dancers sit on their lap. The benefits weren’t simply that more bodies came through the door, the trend took off because club owners then could pay dancers less money. And thus lap dancing was born, and George Washington’s face got a little more dirty.

I think that, judging by my moves and midget linebacker-like physique, I’d be paid to get the hell away from the potential recipient of a lap dance in a professional setting. Which makes me wonder, if this private performance doesn’t leave me in a body cast, maybe I can get paid to stop threatening people’s genitals with my awkward, spasmodic gyrations, kind of like a robbery where I use my body as a weapon.

In the meantime, you can get this lap dance here for free.

Pittsburgh photographer Jake Reinhart takes photos that are a visual punch in the gut. I met him after scrolling through Tumblr and seeing a shot of a basement show that made me so nostalgic, I nearly threw a windmill at my dog.

Turns out that, not only is Jake a crazy-talented photographer, he’s also a founding member of the magazine Shutterclank!, whose goal is to preserve and promote traditional photography. Next week the Shutterclank crew is having an exhibition in Brooklyn, so I figured why not interview Mr. Reinhart and see what makes this tattooed miscreant tick? Well, you know what they say about books and covers. Not only does this aperture artist propagate poignant photos the way that most of us produce piss, he’s also licensed to practice law.

Beyond the fancy letters that could go at the end of his name, this Walt Whitman fanatic is as humble as Tim Tebow, and fiercely loyal to his hometown. Both Jake and his wife are Pittsburgh natives, they live in the Greenfield neighborhood where is mother and his wife’s father both were raised. “We love it here,” Jake proclaims. And the grit, grist, and determination of an old steel mill town are evident in the photographs he takes, may they be of scantily clad, stunningly hot women or punk shows where ‘bows are being thrown.

What was your first exposure to photography? (Pun intended.)

My father introduced me to photography. He always had a darkroom in the places we lived in when I was a kid. When I was really little, I was afraid of the dark. So spending time in the darkroom with my dad helped me get over that fear. He also taught me how to properly compose a photo when I was around five or six years old.

What was your first photograph? Do you remember?

The first photo I can remember taking is a picture of my parents standing in the living room of our apartment. It’s one of the earliest memories I have, I was three or four years old. My folks still have the photo, it’s pretty neat because it’s taken from the point of view of a little kid. I can remember being really happy that their heads were in the frame. In that picture, my parents are right around the same age as my wife and I are now, so it kinda trips me out.

What led you to try to pursue photography professionally?

I’ve always liked photography. It’s something I grew up around, and it’s always been a part of my life, but there have been times when it wasn’t my main priority. In 2004, I graduated from law school, and my folks gave me a camera for my graduation. I started burning through rolls of film to the point where I was having trouble making rent. A few months after graduation I went on a nationwide tour with the band I was playing in at the time. Between studying for the bar exam in the van and playing shows, I was taking photos.

After tour my loans started coming due, I had to pay rent, and all of these responsibilities came crashing down, so I had to lay off on shooting film. I ended up getting a job as an Assistant District Attorney, which was totally out of left field. During that time I was really stressed and I wasn’t happy at all. I needed a creative outlet. That’s when I picked my camera back up.

After that I started thinking of ways that I could step away from practicing law and spend more time practicing photography. I’m still licensed to practice law, and I have a day job, but now I spend more time with my camera than I do behind a desk.

What influences you?

I pull a lot of influence from poetry. I really think that photography and poetry share a common thread. When you’re reading a poem, your own experiences determine how you react to the poet’s words. I think that happens in photography as well. Often a photographer can really only make a suggestion, the viewer walks away with his or her own idea of what’s being expressed.

Two of my greatest influences are Charles Bukowski and Walt Whitman. Those guys are both self made. They were going to create art whether or not they were recognized for it, it was how they were able to deal with the world around them. I really respect that.

What was your first camera?

My first camera was this Kodak pocket camera, it used those 110 film cartridges, I think I got it off my sister when I was in elementary school. I can remember pestering my mom to buy me film and flash bars when we’d go grocery shopping. I’d be so proud of those shots, showing them off to my dad.

I remember him telling me to conserve my shots, because if I got a roll developed that would mean I couldn’t get any film for another two weeks.

What’s your process for shooting?

If I’m shooting portraits, the process starts a few days before the shoot. We’ll determine the time and the location, then I start collecting reference photos.

I look for photographs with similar lighting or interesting poses, and I’ll send those off to the person I’m shooting. I also like to get a dialog started. I ask the person I’m photographing to send me images they find inspiring, or to tell me what kind of music they’ve been listening too, or any books they’ve been reading. I try to get a little understanding of that person’s personality and their inspirations.

On the day of the shoot, I’ll meet the person I’m shooting. Cameras make people nervous, and photo shoots can be awkward if you don’t break the ice. There might be a stylist or make-up artist or friend of the model, so I just start talking about whatever. I’ll ask the person I’m shooting about the things we were talking about in our prior e-mails. I tend to talk about my camera a little bit, explain how old it is, or tell them about the type of film I’m using, and how that choice will affect the outcome of the photo. Then we start shooting. I don’t direct too much, I try to keep talking to the model and let them riff off of what were doing. What’s most important to me is that I convey the subject’s personality in the photo.

If I’m shooting at a concert I’ll get there early and get up close to the band. Before the band starts playing, I’ll try to meter for my flash and get my range set-up. Once the band starts playing the lights are likely to be low, which makes manual focusing a lot harder. So I make a mental note prior to that of how far away the drums are, or how far the bassist is. Basically, I try to have my depth of field and flash dialed in. When the band starts, I start shooting. You have to listen to the music and anticipate when someone might let loose. I have a great time shooting concerts because of that.

How do you get your film developed?

I have a darkroom set-up in my house, so I handle all of my black and white processing myself. I’m going to start experimenting with color processing soon as well. I’m also working on setting up a framing area in my basement. I want to be able to handle all aspects of the photograph myself, from exposing the film, developing the negative, printing the photo, mounting and framing. Right now I can do everything but cutting the frames. So, if you get one of my prints, every step along the way has been done by hand.

My darkroom is pretty rad, I’ve got my record player down there. A bunch of Mike Budai’s concert posters, some Estevan Oriol photos on the wall. I’ve got my SG and my Jazz Bass hanging up. I wanted to create a space that inspires me. I can get both the Pitt and CMU radio stations, so I listen to a lot of college radio. If I’m not digging that I can put on some Coltrane, Bowie or RUN DMC, or whatever I’m feeling from my record collection.

If you could be anyone, who would it be? I guess for myself I’d pick Nicki Minaj or Henry Rollins.

I don’t know if I want to be anyone else. Don’t get me wrong, It would be cool to have Jay-Z’s wealth or Rick Rubin’s life experiences, but I think I’m pretty blessed.

Growing up, my family never had much money, we lived in apartments and duplexes. As a teenager, I was tormented relentlessly. Called faggot and freak, spit on and pushed around, straight up harassed and publicly tormented every day for years and years. I lost friends and girlfriends due to that. However, through all of that I found my way into Pittsburgh’s punk and skate scene. I started bands and booked shows. I met and played with the bands whose songs got me through bad times and hung around other skate rats. I learned that you can’t let someone else tell you who you are.

I’m 32-years-old. In that time I’ve toured around the United States playing music. I’ve seen friends go from broken homes to platinum records. I put myself through law school and have been the lead attorney in criminal trials. Now people are starting to respond to my photographs and I’m getting more opportunities to display and publish them. I’ve corresponded with photographers I really respect and admire.

Through all of this I’ve met people I never thought I would have. I’ve got a truly amazing wife and some really creative friends. These people make me so proud to know them. I’ve got a house with a darkroom and live in a city where I can ride my bike to the bar, and walk to the grocery store.

I might not be rich or famous, but I’ve received more than I ever thought I would have.  I hope I don’t sound like a narcissist. I don’t want this to be an “I love myself” kind of thing, but my point is this: I know I’m unbelievably lucky to have these experiences and awesome people in my life. I wouldn’t give that up for anything.

Get Murdy Crew for life.

Catch Jake’s photos, along with five other stupendously talented photographers, at the Brooklyn Artists Gym, where their exhibition Innocence Lost will be open to the public on December 3rd. And stay tuned for a future show of Jake’s at the Unsmoke Art Space in April 2012.

Innocence Lost at the Brooklyn Artists Gym
168 7th Street
Brooklyn, NY

Opening December 3, 2011
7:30-11PM

Just like the origin of “Ring Around the Rosie,” I’m sick. Sick, sick. Coughing up solid masses the color of moss, sick. Blood coming from facial orifices in various states of being congealed, sick. Sick enough that I’ve been sleeping during daylight hours, when my little corpus isn’t wracked by bark-like coughs. So infirm that my eyes are as bloodshot as a Phish groupie and I’m using more Kleenex than a teenage boy left alone with a high-speed Internet connection. Sick to the point that I sound like Kathleen Turner deep-throating a cactus.

(That last one is kind of hot, actually.)

You get it. I ain’t well, in fact, I’m feeling just about as bad as I ever have. The only time in recent memory that I can remember suffering more was when I got my heart broken. Which may have been why my the film, My Heart Is An Idiot, hit me as hard as a double-dose of NyQuil taken on an empty stomach.

My friends Dave and Davy decided to make a documentary about love and shit, and this was their final product.

Some of you might know Davy, he’s the founder of FOUND magazine and he’s an awesome dude to boot. David makes insanely beautiful movies and grew up chopping wood! Also, super cute.

Without giving too much away, My Heart Is An Idiot is about Davy trying to get the girl of his (many, varied, often changing) dreams, all while going on tour for a book and for Volume 4 of FOUND. It’s a love story where love itself is the subject, albeit though the eyes and lens of the story’s creator. I thought it was kickass, even though I absolutely loathe romantic shit, and it got me thinking about all of the stupid, douchey things I’ve done for love.

Not really a spoiler alert, but Davy pulls a few seriously dick moves. But we all do, right? Right.

One of my favorite examples of love motivating seemingly inconceivable and churlish behavior is from the 1930s. Originally just the Prince of Wales, Edward VIII of England was an Army officer, and the type of guy who was “linked to” many older married ladies, probably cougars of the time. One of his lovers introduced him to a woman named Wallis Simpson, the socialite daughter of a flour merchant. Edward fell for her, hard. Wallis was on husband #2 by that point, but that didn’t bother Eddie. They struck up a relationship and Wallis began divorce proceedings.

It was at this point, in January of 1936, that Edwards father, King George V died, leaving Edward the throne. Most other men would have gotten drunk off of the power, happily leaping into the king’s shoes, pants, and crown. Instead, Edward got annoyed and did something no man or woman would probably think to do.

See, Edward was planning on marrying Wallis as soon as her latest divorce became final. The prime ministers of the UK, stuffy, crumpet-devouring rich folk that they were, joined up with certain church leaders to cause a fuss. Most members of England’s elite were apoplectic at the idea of a multiple divorcee becoming the queen. So Edward, irritated at the outcry, stepped down, abdicating the throne and turning the monarchy over to his younger brother George VI with the final soundbyte, “I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.”

That’s right, his love for a lady got him to give up on being a king. (Those must have been some stellar hummers that Wallis administered.) He’d only been in power for 325 days. Edward and Wallis got married that May and were known as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. And there’s actually a happy ending t0 this bit of royal history: the couple stayed together for the rest of their lives.

I mean, it’s a happy ending if you don’t know about Edward’s rumored Nazi leanings, but that’s a different sort of love story altogether.

By comparison, My Heart Is An Idiot packs less of a political punch, even though Newt Gingrich makes an appearance. (Yes, really.) But Davy’s documentary includes glorious footage of him gallivanting around the country, grilling everyone for love advice, from Ira Glass to super-fox Zooey Deschanel, so even without his ardor having a national impact on who’s in charge, it’s still universal and affecting. It also reminded me of all the dumb shit I’ve done for passionate infatuation. I joined the track team. I wrote a poem or two. I performed a poem or three. I moved across the country more than once. I got tattooed, also more than once. I had tattoos covered up. (No comment on how many times.) I cut my hair, grew my hair, wore lipstick, stopped wearing lipstick, got a job, quit a job, had sex in a janitor’s closet against my better judgment… the list goes on. Maybe I’m crazier than most, but Davy and I could compare stories.

That said, Cupid cajoled me into that tomfoolery years ago. I can derisively say that my heart was an idiot, ‘cause now I’m a hardened cynic, believing more in the biological need to get laid in place of “love,” scoffing at pop songs that cite phrases like “you’re my one and only,” rolling my eyes at the idea of anyone having a one and only. If I see couples walking hand-in-hand, I switch to the other side of the street. But it’s a bit transparent, I’m probably protesting too much. In my chest, I want to believe in relationships and soul mates. I want to be like Davy, undaunted by past failures, grinning as I throw myself face- and/or genitals-first into the next affair. But until I get the robot-parts removed from the area where my ventricles used to be, I’ll spectate his swooning instead.

And this isn’t me crying, it’s just the illness making my sinuses act up.

Check out My Heart Is An Idiot on the film’s website and if you’re on the west coast, you really should go to a screening. You get to meet both of the totally lovable creators of this masterpiece, and there’ll probably be beer, too.

Thursday, June 9: Los Angeles, California – Bootleg Theater, 8PM
Friday, June 10: San Francisco, California – Roxie Theater, 7:15PM and 9:30PM
Saturday, June 11: San Francisco, California – Roxie Theater, 3PM and 5PM
Sunday, June 12: Sacramento, California – The Guild Theater, 7:30PM
Wednesday, June 15: Portland, Oregon – Crow Manor, 8PM
Saturday, June 18: Seattle, Washington – Central Cinema, 8PM

Anyone who knows me fairly well knows that my best-friend Bean can get me to do nearly anything. Being an only child, I missed out on having an older sibling to guilelessly try to get me to do stupid shit, like jumping off the roof of a garage with a cape tied around my neck, or eating live bugs. Without the social hierarchy of an awe-inspiring peer built into the foundation of my family, I’ve had a revolving roster of people to influence me, and Bean has been the most consistent of the bunch. Because I look up to her and think that she’s the most beautiful, talented, hilarious person on the planet next to yours truly, I have a tendency to follow where she leads. But because, unlike me, she isn’t an alcoholic and she’s relatively level-headed, I often enthusiastically attack whatever she’s suggesting, with little regret later on.

That was until the massage.

Bean is a runner. This is one thing I have never been successfully able to duplicate in my own life. She jogs every day, gets up at the crack of dawn for races on the weekends, and has a tendency to schedule things around her “daily run.” This leads to sore muscles, which she remedies by going for massages at places that, to the less massage-conscious consumer, appear to be sex tourism traps to be featured on a future episode of 20/20. These are the dingy, nondescript massage parlors found on poorly lit side-streets of Manhattan, next to bong stores and a perpetually-closed watch repair shops. They are the kind with no name, no reviews on Yelp, and a man simultaneously smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and re-heeling a shoe behind the counter. Bean swears by these massages, and praises them the way I praise the use of an expensive vibrator. So when I went to visit her in Los Angeles this week, I was finally swayed to accompany her on one of these joint-easing jaunts. This was mainly because she was driving and I didn’t have a choice.

The “parlor” was located on the second level of a two-tiered shopping center, the kind that are frequently found along Los Angeles’ main drags. Across from a Carl’s Jr. in what’s commonly called “Thai Town,” the parking lot was empty except for one or two cars. All of the other stores were closed. A young girl was walking her pit bull barefoot near some dumpsters that bordered the chain-link fence at the edge of the lot. I was not looking forward to this. Even though I look like a teenage druggie who ran away from home in order to be a groupie for The Misfits, I like to equate massage with spas, the kind that have palm fronds and candlelight, bowls of fresh figs and a live harpsichordist. (I don’t know what actual spas are like, but I’m guessing.) When I hear about someone going for a massage, I don’t necessarily think of a tiny hallway with beds blocked by drapes, with the whole area lit by a child’s nightlight and a bare bulb inside of a half-shrouded closet filled with industrial-grade gallons of pink soap and a wall calendar from two years ago. But that’s what it was. A sign next to the front door read:

SEX HAS NO PLACE WITH IN PROFESSIONALL MASSAGE , DO NOT ASK!!

“I like that sign,” Bean said, pointing it out as though it were an emblematic facet of a reputable therapeutic establishment. I nodded.

We were led down the hall of bed nooks. A sheet separated Bean’s little alcove from mine. Somewhere in the darkness I could hear somebody grunting. There was the barely audible, yet ever-present sound of slow motion, punctuated by the occasional whispered, high-pitch tittering  of a language that sounded like Elvish.

“You go here,” said a woman whose face I couldn’t fully make out in the dim light. “Face down.”

Inside of my little cubby was a thin pad, a quasi futon of sorts. On it sat a pair of plaid boxer shorts and a leopard-print tank-top. I opted for the shirt, but eschewed the boxers, deciding to risk it by wearing my own underwear instead. At least I knew when I’d washed them last.

I lay face down on the pad and put my face on the deflated pillow, my breathing shallow and my muscles tense. Next to me, Bean was already being worked on; I could hear the sound of her occasional sniffling, brought on by seasonal allergies. On the invisible stereo, five clarinet notes of a demonic Kenny G loop played over and over again. I thought of quickly getting dressed and sneaking out, citing a family emergency, dead pet, food poisoning. Instead I heard somebody enter, and without so much as a hello two hands began to assail my back much in the way that a butcher flattens a cutlet of veal with a mallet.

Somewhere next to me I heard Bean speak up in a small voice. “Could you go a little harder?”

I have a high tolerance for most kinds of physical discomfort. I have more tattoos than I have pairs of panties, and there’s a skewer through each one of my nipples as though it were a tiny cocktail frank. I workout rigorously six days a week and in the past I’ve enjoyed aggressive yoga practices that – in theory – led to me being able to have sex inside of the trunk of a Subaru. But this woman, who must have been no bigger than an average-sized second grader, was coaxing me to discover a whole new realm of sensation. The experience could only be described as a rainbow of pain. Her hands bombarded me from what felt like impossible angles, until suddenly curiosity forced me to crack my eyes open, unable to maintain my thin veneer of nonchalance any longer.

She was standing on me.

If anyone else were to be in the position she was in, bearing the full brunt of their weight down on my left elbow and ribs as though they were about to execute a WWE maneuver, it would be considered assault. I snapped my eyes shut, drew a small and shaky breath from beneath her feet, and vowed not to open my eyes until I divulged the secrets she was looking for or I was rescued by a Black Hawk helicopter.

A wide variety of manipulations were made to my body, direct hits interspersed by the bending of my limbs into directions they are not supposed to go. (The knee is not a multi-directional joint, last time I checked.) Things inside of me audibly popped. There was the snapping and crackling of cartilage as though we were in front of a roaring fire. I bit my tongue and squeezed my face into an expression that was somewhere between Guernica and The Last Judgment. The onslaught continued.

Here’s something I’ve figured out: there is no training for a massage like the one I received. You simply take a woman with a bad temper, insult her in private, and then let her loose on a victim inside of a small space, where the person lying prostrate at her feet is incapacitated both by a silly outfit and by having paid a few dollars for an experience they’d been misled to believe would ease their aches and pains. I don’t know anything about the lady, what country she was from originally or what had happened to make her so damn mad, but her culture must have a long tradition of suffering. Midway through (or perhaps it was only a few minutes in, I lost track of time while trying to shift my internal organs in such a way as to protect my kidneys and spleen) I began to think of all the things I’d ever done wrong in my life, punishable offenses from which I’d managed to escape unnoticed, free of consequences, giggling at my cunning and good fortune. I saw the faces of my exes and past transgressions play out behind my eyelids: Dustin Merrill, whose finger I broke when he cut me on line for the slide in kindergarten; Alexis Norris, who I bit on the playground in second grade when she called me a shit pooper; my ex-boyfriend whose life I selfishly ruined; my mother…

It only took thirty minutes before the assailant broke my will. Unable to fight, I followed her commands, turned over when she instructed, grabbed her hands in order to be further yanked towards oblivion, bent down when she dug her heels into my back and acquainted me with my own ankles in a manner that I’d neither expected nor desired. At the end there was some sort of incorporation of a hot towel, most likely to wipe away the sweat and tears. Then, as noiselessly and effortlessly as she’d slipped into the nook, the petite pugilist disappeared. I looked down. The paper napkin that had covered the futon was shredded, the pillow haplessly tossed a foot away. Shakily, I discarded the animal-print tank, dressed in my own clothes and retreated from the dark hallway into the front room. I paid the woman a few dollars as a tip, and felt ashamed when, in the fading light of day, it became clear that the person who’d administered that tessellation of torture was at least two inches shorter than me and weighed less than my boots. I sat outside in the late LA sunset and waited for Bean, who emerged a few minutes later, beaming with bliss.

“How was it?” she sighed. “I feel amazing! We should go again before you leave.”

For the record, we both woke up the following morning feeling as though we’d played the pinata to a half-dozen crowbar wielding linebackers. The only difference between the two of us was that I was not surprised. Apparently relaxation is a contact sport. I’m more comfortable chewing my nails on the bench.

I have known people who have split with a significant other over waitstaff. Specifically, how their boyfriend or girlfriend treated the waiter while they were out to eat.

The reasoning was two-fold. First of all, if their former paramour treated a stranger with a lack of respect, that was already a red flag, just shy of dropping dead squirrels into a bucket. Secondly, it showed that they’d never worked in food service. And working in food service is pretty much a prerequisite for being interesting. Honestly, how many charming people do you know who haven’t ever been prep cooks, waiters, baristas, line cooks, hosts, or busboys?

There’s a reason why Kitchen Confidential was a best-seller.

I’ve always treated my waiters as though they were my captors. In part this was because my mother was like a more sadistic version of Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally. “I’d like the pie heated and I don’t want the ice cream on top, I want it on the side, and I’d like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it, if not then no ice cream, just whipped cream, but only if it’s real, if it’s out of the can then nothing.”

Even as a child this made me uncomfortable. I’d look at the pimply, underpaid kid with the pen and the pad and hope that my eyes conveyed a look that expressed both “I’m sorry” and “Can you imagine living with her?!” Instead the waiter probably just figured that my mom was so particular as a result of having a child with a staring problem. Or that being weird was genetic.

A few weeks ago, I found myself in the difficult position of having to prevent a very good friend from ripping out the spinal column out of a waiter using her tongue.

The altercation began with a waffle.

When broken down afterward, nearly every conflict can be reduced to inconsequential minutae. But, at the time, the arrival of this waffle at our table was tantamount to Archduke Franz Ferdinand arriving in Sarjevo.

The scenario was simple. On the menu, the waffle was listed as being a waffle topped with whipped cream and berries. My friend wanted her waffle and whipped cream, but with the berries on the side. This, she told me, was because there are some types of berries that she doesn’t like, and therefore she didn’t want them on top of her whipped cream and waffle. It would be easier to sort through the berries and select the ones that she liked if they weren’t all over the rest of her food. This made enough sense to me, a girl who has a checkered food past that includes strict veganism, a hatred of pizza, and an allergy to Chinese food.

“Waffle with berries on the side,” our waiter-slash-actor said. He was clear-eyed, no more than twenty-three years old, with a perfect coif and clean nails. He had a look that breezily conveyed that he was always ready for his close-up.

My breakfast burrito came…and was delicious. But the waffle was nowhere to be found. Minutes passed, first five, then ten. When my friend tried to signal our waiter, he was in The Zone, running to and fro, filling coffee, taking orders, trying to memorize his lines in his head. The patience of my friend melted like a pat of butter on a piece of hot toast.

When her waffle finally arrived, it was accompanied by a side dish of berries: straw, blue, and rasp. She looked at the fruit, looked at her waffle, and then looked up at the waiter, who by this point in the morning was practicing his acceptance speech for the Emmy’s.

“There’s no whipped cream. It said that it came with whipped cream,” my friend said.

“You said berries, no whipped cream,” the future cast member replied.

“No, I said berries on the side. I still want whipped cream,” my friend curtly responded.

“Okay,” the waiter said. “But you said no whipped cream.”

That last little quip, which was stated flippantly as he trotted off-screen to retrieve the whipped cream and probably spit in it, was what did it. My friend’s face darkened. Her New York roots began to show. Somewhere overhead a clap of thunder rumbled, even though we were indoors. Her fangs grew, her claws protracted, and her eyes began to shoot fire.

“He didn’t just say that,” she said.

I nooded meekly.

“He did?” she asked. Pause. “He did.”

I began to heap saccharine smiles and effusive thank yous on the waiter, while trying to simultaneously distract my friend from flaying him with her mouth while he gave her the stink-eye and probably insulted her choice of hair color under his breath. It was ugly. Although I’ve never seen actual cats fighting, or Project Runway, I imagine the whole situation being similar in tone. There’s a reason why I don’t watch reality TV. I find non-fictionalized conflict to be uncomfortable and disquieting, much like dialog in pornography and the band Maroon 5.

Before Sonic put high-school kids on rollerskates and told them to serve sub-par burgers, there were the precursors to the modern restaurant. In Ancient Rome, there were thermopoliae, restaurant-bar hybrids where customers (and presumably gladiators) would go to socialize and get sated. In 11th century Kaifeng, China, during the Song Dynasty, catering establishments popped up, most likely as a direct result of the booming theater, gambling, and prostitution industries nearby, further illustrating the historic link between acting, hooking, and waiting tables. Later, in the 18th century, France took the reins, creating the precursor to the modern restaurant. Snooty waiters have been on the scene ever since. But at least they have an excuse. Their service charge is included, they’re not air-kissing your ass on each cheek for change.

The term waiter originated in the late 14th century, when it was synonymous with a watchman. Then, in the 15th century, it came to reference to the servants of a household. In the 17th century the word became more broadly associated with inns and houses that serve food, with the term “waitress” first being recorded much later, in 1834. But let’s go back to that first definition, shall we? Watchman. Think about that for a second. The word for the ditzy cheerleading squad reject wearing Silly Bandz and taking your order at TGIFridays traces back to the person who would make sure that your manor wasn’t attacked and that you and your wife weren’t slaughtered, your heads left on pikes. Do not insult your watchman.

I have had friends tell me too many horror stories that include urine, phlegm, unwashed floors, and worse for me to get angry at my waiter. If I’m neglected or my order is incorrect, a sort of Stockholm syndrome occurs. “She’s probably having a bad day. She looks like a student, maybe she’s having a rough time. Isn’t it around finals?” I’ll think when I wind up with Salisbury steak instead of spaghetti. “He looks preoccupied, I don’t want to bug him,” I’ll say about the waiter after I’ve already drained all the water glasses and finished swallowing the dregs from the table’s flower display.

My waiter is my owner for the time that I’m inside of that restaurant. I want them to be happy when I leave, and not because I’ve tortured them and made their life hell for an hour and twenty minutes. From briefly trying – and failing – at working in a restaurant, I know how hard it is. I wasn’t a good enough waitress. Didn’t have the patience, the coordination, or the headshots. I love waiters. They are busting their ass and they’re usually cute. I give them credit, with pity on the side.

Think about it, have you ever heard anyone ever say that they wanted to be a waitress when they grew up? Have you ever been to a party and asked someone what they do for a living, only to have them joyfully regale you with tales from their career as a waiter, saying things like, “It’s always been my calling” or “I’m so lucky that I love what I do, I never have to work a day in my life!”? If you have, it’s because they are actually actors.

Nobody wants to be a waiter or waitress, I can almost guarantee that out of the over 2.2 million waiters and waitresses who were recorded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, all of them would rather be doing something else. Waitressing is what you do between doing other things, or to make extra money, or because your father owns a diner. It’s a hard job and a thankless one. Perhaps this comes from a past life owning a really awesome manor, I don’t know. But, needless to say, I won’t be dining out with that particular friend any time soon, unless it’s at a buffet.

[This was written in response to the brilliant Merlin Mann’s post “First, care” that arrived in the Interether about a year ago. While Mr. Mann is, in my opinion, the MVP of the Internet, and unless you hate being enlightened you should be paying attention to him, the gist of his post is this: highly-lauded graphic designer Frank Chimero said that in order to maintain focus on work, you start by doing one thing at a time. Merlin wrote “First, Care” to address this idea, basically saying that before you can actually do anything, you have to give a shit. Like, a lot of shits, actually. Both points I more or less agree with, especially this part:

You "focus" on the one thing you care about, as you "unfocus" on everything else. If not for every minute of your life, at least for the time you set aside to pursue the thing that matters. If that sounds fancy and oversimplified, then you "care" about too many things. Period. My suggestion? Own your distractions, resist fiddly half-measures, and never for a minute allow yourself to believe that productivity systems, space pens, or a writing app that plays new age music while you stare at a blank page in full-screen mode can ever teach you anything about how to care. That's all on you.

It’s that “every minute of your life” bit that hit me. Below is something I felt inspired to write during this past week, while I was suffering through interminable hours of editing the longest, possibly most self-indulgent non-fiction piece I’ve ever created. (This  blog included.) I was feeling pretty horrendous, and Merlin’s words smacked me upside the head with the realization of what I need to do. I’m not reinventing the wheel here, and I don’t pretend to myself - even in my most grandiose Nike commercials of fantasies - that I’m nearly as talented as either one of those guys, so take from it what you will. Spoiler alert: there are no vaginas in this post. I’m sorry.]

It’s like any long-term relationship, your passion wavers. Your eye wanders. Some…okay, most people cheat.

When many creative people get started with projects that are born from an early and rapturous flurry of activity, they treat the endeavor like it’s disposable, much in the same way that marriage is regarded in the states. Think about it. Some couples are into quickie shotgun unions in Vegas with fat, wig-wearing Elvis impersonators at the helm. Others opt for flashy affairs where doves are released from a piñata of the couple’s likeness and ice sculptures are crafted by carefully vetted Eskimos. From what I gather through Facebook and my limited exposure to reality television, weddings and marriage announcements seem to be more important than the relationship they’re meant to be celebrating. Getting weddinged seems to be a lot of posturing. And let’s not bullshit one another, in the end most marriages fail. Where’s the commitment?

The expression “to be married to your work” comes to mind. A lot of kids I went to school with would proclaim that they were going to be the next Orson Welles or Alan Ball. They’d talk about their latest script or shoot as though their boogers were made of gold. They would have these increeeedible ideas that they’d discuss and never act upon, or, worse, if they did anything with them they’d quit when things got tough, when the equipment failed or they couldn’t quite locate the story arc or they met a hot interpretive dance major. The idea of being a filmmaker or screenwriter seemed to appeal to them more than the actual logistics and effort that went into making a film or writing a script.

Before you start to think that I blow my nose and precious gems are deposited into my Kleenex, this isn’t me feeling high-and-mighty or passing judgment. I was right there with them, discussing my soon-to-be-huge script for the modern sequel to The Seventh Seal. I wanted the fame and fortune as much as the rest of them. In college, pretense reigned supreme.

But to be creative, you can’t focus on the fact that you are creative, you actually have to create. All of the time. With frequent failures. No shit. You have to commit to the process because it owns you as much as you own it. Ask me if I write screenplays anymore.

This is not a Stevie Wonder song. You cannot be a part-time lover.

Allow me to use a mildly inflammatory analogy. I care about my dog, but I have to be honest, sometimes it feels like the honeymoon is over. I recognize that I have to pick up her shit twice a day with a plastic grocery bag, even if it’s raining with a driving wind. I have to deal with her inexplicable staring and anxiety-triggered bouts of vomiting and coughing. This is the price of admission when it comes to owning my particular dog. This is the same dog I fell in love with as a puppy, the one that I cuddled and named and adored. Just like anything that I care about, I accept the responsibility. There are obligations that come with enjoying the perks of our ushy, gushy, who-wants-a-cookie love affair. But after ten years of shit pickup and “No, please, don’t puke, it’s just the TV,” there are days where I’d rather own a goldfish. Or a plant. Or nothing at all.

Do I care about my dog? Of course. But the giddiness behind that care has grown tired. And this is where I think there’s an eventual fork in the road for all passionate people who have dedicated substantial chunks of time to any project or field. (Or animal.) If the first responsibility to your creative process is to care, and the second is to focus on the task at hand, then the third step – the final step – is to endure. Finish what you start. Understand that there are no permanent puppies.

Sure, it’s fine to say this when you’ve torn open the envelope for another rejection letter or run through an entire bottle of Excedrin Stress Headache following your ex-business partner’s highly publicized success. Blah blah blah keep trying blah. But most days, when you’re approaching your desk with Converse made of concrete, when the cursor’s blinking gives you an odd combination of dejá-vu and amnesia, when the care is there but it’s less rambunctious, keep going. Rekindle it. That project needs you, that article is begging you to craft that concluding paragraph, that design is just one spark away from brilliantly done.

Don’t be swayed by the sudden seduction of the new. If you’re instantly compelled to crush on The Next Thing that you think you care about in those moments, you’re allowing weakness to override your passion. You might want to care about it, but part of that initiative comes from not wanting to tough it out with the old battleaxe. May it be the space pen and apps that Merlin eschews, or the brand new project that gives you a mental erection, those things are not manifestations of productivity or accomplishment. Endurance is. Just like the aging celebrity who ditches his faithful wife of a few decades for the lithe Hungarian swimsuit model ⅓ his age, if you’re swayed by The Next Thing your motivation will seem transparent and selfish to those around you, especially those who have dedicated themselves to the idea of perseverance.

And that taps into the most important part about committing yourself to a particular ambition. You have to do more than just commit to care about it entirely and focus on getting it done, you have to actually do the work for the long haul. Put in the time. Pull yourself away from Tumblr, dating, Twitter, Facebook, your friends, The Jersey Shore, if you find yourself more excited about them than you are about your old reliable.

It’s so easy to confuse generating content and puking up opinions with actually creating something and sticking to your goals, especially in this day of instant gratification and social networking. There is such a glut out there, and everybody’s welcome to the fray. (It’s an invitation that I’ve obviously accepted, and I’ve showed up to the party more times than I’m willing to count.) Sometimes it feels like it’s too tempting to resist adding another comment, another post, another blog, another pet project onto your already hard-to-finish task list. But those possibly not-great new endeavors or contributions are likely just a self-defeating method to keep you from actually following through. Find a way to approach your work with the eager enthusiasm that you used to. Turn the potential energy of your dedication to kinetic energy of creation. Discover your own personal system that allows you finish. And then keep going. Do not fucking stop, don’t look over your shoulder, and don’t start another blog. Cultivate experience.

Stop to think about the vows. Till death do us part. In sickness and in health. I mean, think about that for a minute. Think about your work. Do you really want to be doing it until the day you die? No retiring if there actually was social security, no escaping to Boca Raton when you’re in your seventies and playing golf in the sun, no kicking back or making cookies for the grandkids. No resting. No breaks. No sick days or days off from manifesting that care that you’ve prioritized so highly. This is the real deal, ball-and-chain, for-fucking-ever. Are you really sure you want to commit?

If you answered yes, then finish that fucking project already.

After nearly needing to model a straight-jacket, having to completely start over professionally twice, grappling with quirky-to-dangerously ignorant clients, I can say that I’m willing to forgo all kinds of shit in order to stick to the course. Because nothing – no exotic destination, no fat weekly paycheck at a desk job, no loving relationship or flexible sexual partner* – will matter to me as much as doing what I care about does. That’s just the way it goes. I hope that I can keep doing it until I’m one hundred years old and my fingers get too arthritic to type and I have to use a sexy, skirt-suit clad stenographer or college-age assistant to get my thoughts into the computer.

I know that there are more glamorous methods of success other than simply putting in the time. But something tells me that if I asked any of the people I respect how they keep their care alive after so many years, they’d tell me that they’ve just kept going, even when it wasn’t all helium balloons and cotton candy. And then they’d excuse themselves ‘cause they’d have to get back to work.

In conclusion, I’m going to return to that insurmountable mess of a project that I just can’t seem to make right. But I’ll steel myself with another little gem from Mr. Mann, “Failure is the sound of beginning to suck a little less.”

* Unless it’s Blake Griffin. I will delete this post and give up completely if it gives me the opportunity to see Blake Griffin naked…and show him my vagina. Almost made it without mentioning it. Almost.

Like many other people who enjoy witnessing aggressive homoeroticism interspliced with equally aggressive advertising, last weekend I watched the Super Bowl. I barely noticed when Christina Aguilera decided to make scat jazz of our national anthem, as I was primarily focused on the fact that she seemed uncharacteristically voluptuous in the face.

I’d like to point out that both halftime-show train-wreck Fergie and lyrically-challenged Ms. Aguilera were cast members of shows that aired on the Disney Channel. I’m not pointing any fingers, but…

Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised when she fucked up the words, and not simply because she’s a bottle blond, or because she didn’t know that she was referencing the Thai sex tourism industry in a video a few years back, or even because she was a member of the Mickey Mouse Club. I’d heard a report that she’d effed up the anthem before. Also, words are hard, especially when you’re trying to perform reverse fellatio on your vocal cords.

But then I started thinking about opera singers. They sing, most of them arguably better than pop starlets, and their choral contortions generally last much, much longer than a handful of minutes spent oversouling a patriotic drinking shanty. They also sing in a variety of languages. Loudly. So how do opera singers prevent turning Don Giovanni into John Junior Gotti? Do they have any special method that avoids being tongue-twisted with a case of nerves when confronted with a house packed full of opera fans? (Maybe I’m being judgmental here, but I’m guessing that opera aficionados are usually paying a little more attention to what’s being belted out in front of them than the majority of sports fans are when the “Star-Strangled Banner” is being butchered before the game.)

It doesn’t take a multi-lingual Venetian Arcadian Academy graduate to figure out that becoming an opera singer is a lifelong process consisting of equal parts talent and hard work. The word opera is actually the plural form of the Latin word opus, which translates into “labor.” (For those of you who are interested, barista is the Italian word for “barmaid.”)

In brief, to become an opera singer it’s best to start your training as soon as the doctor cuts the cord. It’s recommended that any wannabe starts getting coached before the age of fourteen, with true operatic training kicking in during the teenage years. Could you imagine wailing along to Nirvana with a serious soprano? Angsty!

Though many parents could probably attest to the fact that their kid’s vocal stylings could easily reach the back rows of a theater without the aid of a microphone, not everyone can grow up to be Pavarotti. It’s more than just being loud at a young age, they also need clarity, an ability to enunciate, and flexibility of range. Beyond hours of voice training every week, future singers need to study opera, and not in the way that a wannabe guitarist gets stoned while listening to Pink Floyd and considers that a musical education. The majority of successful opera singers have gone to universities, or they attend special programs that help them to attain advanced degrees in their field.

Somewhere along the way those powerful pipes have to get a serious grasp on a crap ton of languages. No offense to Ms. Aguilera, as I know she’s successfully belted out songs in both our native tongue as well as Spanish, but I think she should probably revisit good ol’ English 101. If you disagree I challenge you to look up the lyrics to her song “I Hate Boys.” It’s from her most recent release too, so you can’t blame her creative use of prepositions on the fact that she wrote it between homework and television tapings.

My first thought about the potential language hurdle was that opera singers probably learn songs phonetically, as there are famous works in German, French, Italian, and Russian. I imagined curvaceous women in pink sweatsuits being taught how to repeat vowels and consonants that only translate into gibberish in their musical minds. After all, Marlene Dietrich made her U.S. debut in the 1930 film Morocco by phonetically speaking her lines since she didn’t know any English. But unlike Ms. Dietrich, you can’t fix opera in post and emotion can’t be conveyed simply in close ups. In opera, the singers have to actually understand what they’re trying to express. How the hell do they do that? Wholesale purchases of Rosetta Stone? Joining the peace corps? Rigorous mind mapping? Are they actually robots?

Part of the secret is in the IPA. No, not India Pale Ale, but the International Phonetic Alphabet. This alphabet is used to represent the sounds of spoken language, and it’s rooted soundly in the Latin alphabet, which makes it a handy tool for all of those romance languages. The IPA depicts intonation and the separation of words and syllables, as well as phonemes. It’s specific enough to even represent other speech patterns and qualities, such as lisping, sounds made with a cleft palate, and tooth gnashing, which would be useful if you were cast in the role of Christina Aguilera’s agent.

Granted, after decades of training, an opera singer is more likely to forget his pants than to forget the words on stage. Be that as it may, no amount of linguistic prep work or familiarity with a creepy-looking alphabet can prevent the average person from drawing a blank when they’re under the spell of a sudden anxiety attack, say, on a job interview or singing in front of 111 million people. So what is it that makes our mind suddenly reboot like an old PC running on Windows 97?

Cortisol. This hormone is part and parcel of the adrenal response, and while its day-to-day activities include regulating blood pressure, aiding glucose metabolism, and cuing up inflammatory responses, it can be a real pain in the brain when it comes to stressful situations. It’s been shown to be a serious pothole when it comes to memory and information retrieval when under stress, as it fucks with neurotransmitters that the brain uses to send messages, leaving us without the ability to recall what we were saying, or singing, mid-stream. It can happen to anyone who is confronted with something terrifying. Like a charging rhinoceros. Or a charging Packer. Or the bill from your charge card.

If you’re the type of person who suddenly gets the spinning beach ball of death over their thoughts when under duress, there are a few things you can do. First of all, if you know you’re going to be in a situation such as an interview or a public appearance, prepare. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of PR. Second, breathe. Just fucking breathe. Take deep breaths that start at the bottom of your stomach and slowly fill up your lungs, then let the air out just as slowly. That helps. Unless you’re, you know, singing a song. I suppose in that case you’ll just have to rely on preemptive beta blockers or being content with a life of obscurity.

I think there’s another way to prevent any mid-performance game of fill-in-the-blanks. You can implement the ingenious method that the Black Eyed Peas and Justin Bieber use and have your song mainly consist of one or two words repeated over and over and over and over baby baby baby oh baby baby baby