Despite All My Rage...Buying Stuff From Nicolas Cage

Oh, How the Mighty Have Fallen...Into My Price Range. - Homer Simpson

The knowledgeable reader might recognize the above quote. The hilarious little quip in question comes from a Simpsons episode where Homer and the family go to Ranier Wolfcastle's Estate sale when Ranier went bankrupt. Well, I recently went to my own estate sale of a bankrupt A-List Hollywood action star. I am of course referring to the one and only Nicholas Cage. How does a huge Oscar-winning star who makes 10-20 million per movie go bankrupt? Gambling and an expensive wife is what I'm told, but I don't much care. The point is that I get to rummage through his shit and take a little piece of Cage for myself. 

Nicolas Cage is a national icon because of the extreme duality of his movie career. He's managed to stay relevant and a top earner because you can put his top five movies up against any other actor in Hollywood and he compares favorably. Whether you're taking his five best (Moonstruck, Adaptation, Leaving Las Vegas, Matchstick Men, and Raising Arizona...apologies to Red Rock West and Lord of War) or his five most enjoyable blockbuster films (The Rock, Face/Off, Con Air, Kick Ass, and National Treasure) he's tough to compete with when he's at his best. However, what truly separates him from the Russell Crowes and the Hugh Jackmans of the industry are just how bad he sinks when he's making a bomb. Clearly this estate sale means that he's in constant need of income and liquid assets and there isn't any need to read a script when some suit is waving 15 million dollars in front of your face. I don't even know if Pauly Shore can compare when you go in the opposite direction and play Cage's worst five films (difficult to pin down but I'll go with Bangkok Dangerous, G-Force, Season of the Witch, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, and The Wicker Man...with apologies to Knowing, Drive Angry, and Deadfall). 

But that's where his cult status comes from. He can't just be bad in a bad film...he gazes deep into the shitty script that he's selected and realizes that the only way to salvage this situation is to try and go with the "So bad it loops back around and becomes good again approach". And it almost works sometimes...almost. Vampire's Kiss probably succeeds. Bad Lieutenant definitely succeeds. Next and Knowing...not so much. The Wicker Man...well, it has it's moment. So basically, you get a man who has launched himself to a new level of stardom simply by inventing his own school of acting...which looks a lot like this:

And that's what makes this estate sale even more special. That clip doesn't even show him playing the role of a skeleton with it's skull on fire. This is a man revered on reddit simply as The One True God. Nobody cares if you have Jason Statham's coffee table or Denzel Washington's wine rack. Hell, I know for a fact that there's a guy out there, in Wisconsin no less, who has failed with pick-up line: "Would you like to see Brett Favre's pick-up truck?" Apparently, it's a little short on the pick-up. But anything owned by the Cage is guaranteed to make the ladies swoon and the fellas jealous. So I of course made a short list of what I hoped to obtain from Cage Manor. I'm always looking for new art to add to my apartment's ever-growing collection (more on that in a future post). Any furniture that wouldn't break the bank would certainly be welcome (this idea was quickly scrapped...homeboy has some expensive tastes). But most importantly...I wanted the man's silverware. As much of it as I could get my grubby, little hands on. I wanted to be able to have separate silverware for special occasions like the top-flight muckety mucks do. "Oh...we're having company. Bring out the Cage silverware!"

Sadly my dreams of snagging Cage's silverware were not to be. You have to get up pretty early in

the morning, or at least skip work and go on the opening Friday, to snag the good, affordable Cage commodities. But there were still some decent pickings on Saturday. RJ, Bley, Erin, and myself left fairly early on Saturday morning. We picked up Erin at about 10am and while we waited outside for her we were treated to the sight of a woman blatantly shitting in the alley across the street. There was no sincere attempt to obscure her actions. She just dropped trou, leaned against the wall, and had at it. I'm not sure if this tidbit of information is apropos of anything, but we certainly didn't need a bad omen like this when right before heading into the jaws of Nicolas Cage's estate. I don't know what horrors have taken place at his Hancock Park mansion, but let's not forget that this man bought Madame LaLaurie's torture house in New Orleans. He purchased the house of a serial killer who is currently a character on American Horror Story, a show whose first season is about a house filled with ghosts who murder the inhabitants of their haunted house. But who am I to throw stones? These are the kind of ill-advised investments that afford me the opportunity to walk away with his loot.

When we pulled up to the Casa de Cage we were immediately greeted by the crown jewel of the sale, the Burgundy pick-up truck that he got from the film Amos and Andy. As much of a steal as this customized gem was at a cool $15,000...the fact that I'll still be paying off my 2005 Honda Civic for three more years means that I'll have to look for some more reasonably priced wares. The furniture wasn't going to fall into this category either. My man likes Corinthian leather. Perhaps if somebody were to introduce him to an IKEA, he'd have a few less estate sales. I scoured the art collection for a piece that would work well the pieces that I already have hanging on my walls. The vast majority of his art is Oriental. I'm guessing Charlie Yeung's underwear wasn't the only souvenir of his time filming Bangkok Dangerous. There was also a drawing of Winston Churchill, done by Winston Churchill's daughter. That one cost more than I make in a month. However, in what appeared to be his study I found a framed needlepoint of an old man smoking a pipe. It's not exactly in line with what I currently have, but I recently got two pointillism pieces that I really dig, and a needlepoint fits well with those. I had to get it. 

I was understandably disappointed that there was no silverware to be had, but there was some

swank blown glassware to be had. So if I want to pour myself a frosty one, I can do so in the same chalices that previously adorned Cage's dining room. In his son's bedroom I found another gem. I love myself a good board game. I'm always down to play Settlers of Catan, The Resistance, Trivial Pursuit, Scattergories...or even Risk if I've got a fortnight to burn. I'm consistently looking to add to my board game collection, and at $4.00 how could I not snag Caster Troy's copy of Clue? Or was it Sean Archer? And the last piece I added to my collection was a chest. The seller wouldn't expressly confirm it, but I'm fairly confident that this is the same chest that he used to store his bow and arrows from The Weatherman and collection of erotic City of Angels fan fiction. RJ also got a nice little haul. Primarily this globe lamp that dates from 1992. I can tell that because Turkmenistan is a country but Bosnia and Herzegovina is not (totally bragging). He probably got this during Honeymoon in Vegas and keeps it around as a constant reminder that Indecent Proposal totally ripped off the plot of his movie and not the other way around like everybody thinks. So now that I've got my own Cage Cache, you should be jealous. In the meantime, I'll be enjoying some Carlo Rossi Zinfandel out of homeboy's chalices and waiting for Keanu Reeves to go bankrupt. I saw 47 Ronin. It shouldn't be long now.

Friday Night Writes: The Topic of Cancer

This is based less on Friday night Reno's discussions and more on actual events that are happening within my life right now. I recently found out that a friend of mine had cancer. My natural inclination is to try and comfort this person and let them know that I'm pulling for them and that I'm here to help. However, shortly after I purchased a card and made plans to visit said friend, I was informed by the person who had shared news of their malady with me that I should hold off because they didn't want anybody to know. This makes total sense to me. I understood the rationale behind it completely and know that should I ever be afflicted with cancer...I'd probably handle things the same way. However, another friend who had just found out about the diagnosis couldn't wrap her head around it. Why would you not be willing to share your diagnosis with loved ones? Why hold that secret? Why not open yourself up to their care and support? Don't you owe it to them in your relationship with them to let them know? I figured we should probably analyze this debate with the following hypothetical:

You have just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. It will require occasional treatment but the physical symptoms will not become noticeable until very shortly before you die. You're doctor says that you'll die sometime between July 1, 2019 - December 31, 2019 and he says this with certainty. Who do you tell and when do you tell them?

I can easily tell you what I would do. That doesn't mean that it's an easy answer for everybody. If the diagnosis came today...I wouldn't tell a single soul. And I wouldn't tell them until I'm extremely close to death. I'd probably tell my family during the final week of June 2019...just in case I go quickly. It has nothing to do with comfort or support. It has nothing to do with sparing them pain or grief. It has nothing to do with shame or fear or their right to know. It has to do with the fact that I'm a sociopath. I like my life the way it is. I like most of my relationships the way they are. A cancer diagnosis would jeopardize all that. When you have cancer, people will start treating you better. However, by it's very nature this means that they start treating you differently. Many of my favorite relationships are very likely to begin with the greeting "What's Up, Douchebag?" That's just how we talk. There's a high degree of mutual insulting and mockery in regards to past, present, and potential future failures. I think this would practically disappear if people knew that I had cancer. Whatever right people might think that they have to know if I'm terminally ill, that right is severely overrun by my right to live the last five to six years of my life the way I so choose. And I would choose to do so with my relationships unchanged.

I don't want people to treat me any better because it's not honest. And the worst part is not the excess kindness or regard that you're granted by others: it's the pity. If there is one thing that I will not abide from people it's their god damn pity. This also stems from an advanced level of narcissistic sociopathy. I think that I'm the greatest thing since KFC introduced the Double Down. You don't believe me? The NSA can vouch for me. I'm confident that when they illegally tap into my shower webcam they sometimes pick up my daily affirmations in the bathroom mirror. They sound a lot like Abileen Clark in The Help. "You is kind. You is smart. You is important." And because of this narcissism, there is absolutely no reason that I want idiotic, insipid pity from people that I think I have it better than. Pity is insulting to the utmost degree. I try really hard to never pity myself...I sure as shit don't want anybody else doing it. If anything people should be treating me worse because I'm blowing tons of money on travelling all over the globe in my final years and they're super jealous. I am not a person who usually believes that the ends justifies the means. Therefore, I care why somebody is acting a certain way and not simply that they are acting a certain way. I want people to like me and respect me because I'm the greatest person they can bear witness to in their lives...not because I am terminally ill. It's a mistake not to look beyond people's decisions towards the motivations that are behind those decisions.

There is one exception to this. It doesn't apply to me now, but it would apply to a great number of people who would be considering this hypothetical. If I had a wife or a serious girlfriend, I would tell them immediately. My choice not to tell people revolves around living the life that I want to live. People might argue that I owe something to other people to let them know, as my existence bears an impact on the lives of others. No man is an island, and all that nonsense. However, if I were to die, my parents, my siblings, and my friends would not be forced to drastically change the direction of their life in response to my demise. A significant other would. Because it is imperative that I give my significant other the necessary opportunity to prepare for life without me, they will need to know right away. Obviously, I know exactly where I stand on this issue. But this wouldn't be a proper Friday Night Writes debate without exploring both sides so I'd like to take a look at the rationale behind sharing this information with other people. I sent this conundrum out to several friends and here is a look at five responses (each participant will remain anonymous with only an identifying letter, the letter is not their first initial...so quit trying to guess if you think you know them) that differed from my own:

"I would tell my close friends and family after the initial shock wore off. What if someone had something complimentary to say about my character before it was too late? I want to give them a chance." - J.

This viewpoint appears to be a mixture of wanting to provide friends and family with some measure of closure at the prospect of your passing while also looking to soak in the pleasantries that are one of the few fortunate side effects of terminal illness. These are fair points of view but they're not considerations that I haven't already taken into account. So while I can respect J.'s thoughts on the matter...this way of thinking has no sway on my own stance.

"I think I tell only a close few friends immediately. Just so I don't have to carry that burden entirely myself. That would be hard. But family would never know. Not worth my parents and family members worrying about." - U.

"I still would take this news very badly. I don't think I would be very strong. Tragically, I already feel life's futility weighing heavy... if I were to be given the actual time span I think I would be a wreck. I would tell my parents because I pretty much tell them everything. I would tell them probably immediately after I found out. I would act according to whatever my Mom suggests I do." - C.

The "Who" that is being informed in these two answers are totally different, but they're stemming

from the same basic need on the part of the afflicted. That is the need to not have to carry this burden by themselves. The confrontation with one's inevitable demise can lead people on dramatically different paths. Some people take the diagnosis and are able to squeeze every last drop of beauty out of their remaining days. However, the more likely occurrence is that depression is likely to visit regularly in one's final days and dark thoughts might constantly be on one's mind. In order to combat this it probably would be highly beneficial to have a confidante with whom you can discuss your thoughts and feelings. Knowledge such as you possess is surely a burden and by not keeping that knowledge a total secret, you'd be able to share the burden. I get it. This confidante sounds like a very useful relationship to have. 

However, there's an issue of trust here. Do you have anybody in your life that you could trust with

this information that would never allow it leave the sacred you-them safety zone? I truly am happy for you if you do. However, I dare say that there are many people who do not. I think that I might be one of them. This doesn't mean that I don't recognize that I have several great friends. I think my friends are exceedingly loyal and I think that they care deeply about me. And that's where the problems start. I'm dead set on not having anybody know that I'm dying of cancer. I have my reasons. Almost anybody I know who could qualify as a confidante is likely going to try and understand my rationalizations. This would be a mistake. They're my rationalizations. I know what's best for me. I always have. However, I have never been able to convince other people that I know what's best for me. They have a dreadful habit of thinking that what I say I want and what I really want are two different things. They start realizing all of the alleged great things that could happen for me if I had more love and support in my life and before you know it other people know and it snowballs from there. 

Benjamin Franklin said: "Three people can keep a secret, if two of them are dead." And it's

understandable why he said this. Knowledge is currency. In order to ensure that the person I'm confiding in could keep the secret just between the two of us, I'd have to know that they were the person that I could trust the most in the world and vice versa. I already said that I would tell my wife or fiance. That's the most important person in your life. That's the contract that we make. Therefore, if I were to tell my best friend, and he had a significant other...I'm not the most important person in his life. He is almost contractually obligated to share this information with her. He shouldn't risk damaging their relationship by keeping such a huge secret from her. And much like I need help coping with the fact that I'm dying, he would probably need help coping with the fact that his best friend is dying...from somebody who is not dying. Therefore, all roads lead to telling her...and from there I lose containment on the information. I appreciate your input U. and C. but I remain unconvinced.

"I tell my family right away. I tell my friends about a year before the termination start date. I tell my employer at the termination start date when I quit." - S.

Wait. What? Why would you work all the way up until your termination date? S. has more money than I'd know what to do with. Can I get a clarification here? 

Clarification received. He's assuming that despite his current lack of a relationship, children, or desire for children, his impending fate will provoke in him a need to propagate his legacy. He'll likely try to father some children and wants to leave them financially secure. OK. That's not how I'm thinking about things...but I get it.

"I'm what you would call a sharer.  I share a lot of myself with people - I've heard that may not be healthy because it blurs your boundaries of what truly makes you who you are vs. who you want to or should be with others, but besides the occasional bully who I make uncomfortable by being myself and takes it out on me via teasing, I have yet to run into any major issues with it.  If I were to find out I was going to die within that six month period, I would tell everyone.  Maybe not immediately, but I would bet within a year everyone who knows me would know I was going to die.  My reasoning is simple - because armed with the knowledge of the almost-exact date of my death, I believe it would give me a chance to truly live.  I would feel 100% free to be myself and share even MORE of myself with others (I mean my inner thoughts, not flashing people).  Knowing the symptoms wouldn't show until shortly before my death, I would use all of the time between now and 7/1/19 to go places I've never been, try things I've never done and spend quality time with people I love, all before I wouldn't be able to.  I suppose all of this could be done without me telling others that it will end in my death in late 2019, but there is a specific kind of genuity you see in people when death is at the door.  And since it would be MY death knocking, I would want all of my interactions to be as genuine and loving as possible." - A.

What you see presented by A. is the exact opposite of the rationalization that I presented above. But it's the only answer so far that provides me with serious food for thought. A's perspective seems to be the total opposite of mine. I can see where the schism comes and it's something that I hadn't considered in this context previously. He’s acknowledging that people are going to treat you differently when you have cancer. He’s just saying that the new way that they’re treating you is real. The way that they’ve treated you for the majority of the rest of your life is the lie. That bulk of time is the charade. Your relationship with them is like the Matrix and your cancer diagnosis allows your relationship to enter the real world. It allows it to realize itself. Well, now we’re just getting into a question of whether or not perception is reality. But the food for thought is there. There’s no question that I hold back my esteem for certain people because I’m worried that if I’m overtly complimentary of them, they’ll get weirded out and start to think of me as more of a fan than a friend. And I understand the sentiment. I don’t take praise particularly well. It makes me feel weird and unnatural. But that just doesn’t seem right. We should be free to tell each other just how great we are. We need to be able to look into each other’s eyes, get “real”, and tell each other how we feel. So if you agree with my boy A. then live as your true self and tell me why you think I’m so great in the comments. If you agree with me, please feel free to slander my good name in the comments below to show that your standard state of disdain for me is more than just the status quo…prove that it’s genuine.

Ray's Top 5: Ways to Shuffle Off This Mortal Coil

There are several factors to take into account when considering a means of death for oneself. The first one that most people consider is often the quick and painless factor. But there are several other considerations. You have to take into account the dignity factor. Some people want their death to be memorable. There’s also a divergence between whether you want to know that death is coming and make peace with it or wanting to die unexpectedly, unburdened by your mortality. I’ve taken all of these things into account. Some deaths succeed greatly on one scale but fail on others. Part of me thinks that it would be awesome to die running with scissors. You’re dying a true rebel’s death. And you’ll be used as a cautionary tale for generations to come. But then I think that depending upon where the scissors puncture you…the slow exsanguination would probably really suck. Every guy jokes that they’d like to die of an erection lasting longer than four hours. This also seems painful and very low on the dignity scale. It might sound like a good idea but I promise you that by Hour 3 you’re regretting this decision. However, I’ve established that I’d be fine with dying by any of the means below. These are my approved avenues for starting my trek to the Great Beyond:

#5: Landmine 

I might need to specify this one further…first world land mine. Oftentimes you’ll hear about the tragic consequences of landmines in third world countries. Civil war overtakes a country and landmines are used to cripple and kill in No Man’s Land. You’ll see people who have been maimed by landmines and hear about those who bled out from more fatal wounds. I don’t want any of this cheap shit. Cameroon might not be able to afford a decent landmine…but Russia can. I don’t want to die in agony. I want to die in awesomeness. I want to die by a landmine that makes the argument of burial or cremation a moot point. There won’t be anything left. It’s quick. It’s painless. It sure as hell will be memorable to anybody who witnesses it…and there is no shame in it. Ka-Boom!

#4: Snakes on a Plane 

Did she learn nothing from Steve Irwin?

There is no guarantee that this will be quick or painless. But it will be awesome. Animal deaths tend to be pretty manly. While he tragically died before his time, I feel confident that Steve Irwin would have rather died of sting ray barb to the heart than natural causes. Animal-related deaths are the ultimate “natural causes”. My death would also be quite the story and internet sensation because contrary to the utterly relatable Samuel Leroy Jackson film…there are no reported cases of deaths by “Snakes on a Plane”. Plus, if you’re going to go out, you want to be able to go out on a good line. And I feel confident that even as snake venom is draining the life out of me or my plane is going down because an Anaconda just unhinged it’s jaw and started devouring my pilot, I’ll still be able to rip off a really good one-liner. I just hope that I’m near enough the black box for it to live on in infamy.

#3: Partying Too Hard

Who doesn't want to die just partying too damn hard? This isn't a drug overdose or any form of substance abuse. This is just straight up exhaustion. I'm going balls to the wall and my body just gives out because it was in no way ready for the 80 straight hours of the manic and depraved abuse that I just thrust upon it. I'm saying that I want to go out in the shindig equivalent of a Ke$ha video on speed...well, more speed than would already exist in a Ke$ha video. Exhaustion doesn't have to be the coroner's actual cause of death...just so long as it's the root cause. If I pass out and drown while getting a coy pond lap dance...I'm cool with that. If I fall out a third story window because I missed the dismount on my rave party break dance battle...I'm cool with that. As long as I've done everything Katy Perry talks about in her "Last Friday Night" song in the previous 48 hours, then I'm at peace with my own mortality.

#2 Self-Assassination 

I’m not feeling suicide. I always feel terrible for suicide victims because in a world with literally millions to billions of great things to live for, they were unable to find the requisite amount to stick around. Suicide also tarnishes the way people feel about you and deeply pains those who knew you closely, who oftentimes try and put some of the blame on themselves. There’s no way I can get down with that. However, if I contracted a painful and debilitating disease and had little time left…I’d be OK with hiring a professional to kill me like Warren Beatty did in Bulworth. Ideally I’d like to pay some foreign hitman for a public execution. I’d tell lots of friends to meet me in the local Ralph’s parking lot at night and because I’d discovered the secret to time travel. Once we’re assembled and I’m a safe distance away from everybody else and about to begin a demonstration, my assembled team of hitmen would come rolling in hot in a van and gun me down with uzis while I shout out “The Libyans! Run for your lives!” But I don’t want anybody else to die and you can’t trust even the most upstanding hitmen with collateral damage. So I guess I’ll just have to settle for transferring a bunch of money through several foreign banks, scattering fake IDs and passports with odd aliases throughout my apartment, and then having myself sniped in the head by a fountain in a public square while I’m wearing a suit and have a briefcase cuffed to my wrist that contains only a leather-bound manuscript full of odd cypher codes. Sorry for tying up six FBI agents and millions of tax dollars for the next couple years but I want to be remembered. 

#1: SIDS 

According to all modern medical terminology this is probably impossible. SIDS (aka Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) is basically just a blanket term to label the death of an infant that died of an unknown health problem. By the time we reach a certain level of physical maturity, it’s easier to determine what killed us and autopsies tend to like to be specific with these things. They'll specify things like brain aneurysm or heart failure. I’m not sure at what age they stop diagnosing it as SIDS but I feel like it’s 6 months or less. However, I would like to die of a medical mystery so great that no coroner can identify it and thus is almost required to label me as the oldest-ever SIDS victim. This will be extremely hard to pull off since medically there is always an answer for means of death but I think that Lady Gaga might have a venereal disease that defies modern science and  can kill me in the middle of the day with no warning, for no reason enough that I can land the coveted SIDS designation on my death certificate. Guinness Book of World Records, here I come!

Did I miss anything? Feel free to share any overlooked final exit strategies in the comments. Also, anybody who can correctly identify all six movie stills in the title card will receive some sort of prize.

Ray's Top 5: Problems I'll Be Needing To Work On

Before I can dive head first into this whole online dating thing, I'll probably need to shore up a few of my flaws to make me a more presentable option. I like to think that I haven't been out of the game for so long because I'm an incompetent fool who has no way with women (I like to think this). I like to think that it's more because I haven't been trying in the slightest. And that's hard to argue against. I haven't been trying to date women seriously because a good woman wasn't even close to the top of my hierarchy of needs. I've had a lot of things I've needed to work on before romance could become a focus. And you can't start working on rungs farther up the ladder until you've taken care of things at the bottom. And I wouldn't want to. My philosophy on women is a lot like that of Groucho Marx: I wouldn't want any girl who would have me as a boyfriend. I'm not in any shape to please a girl of refined taste and she better not think that I'm a fixer-upper. Because nobody, and I mean nobody, fixes me up but me. That being said, I could use some fixing up. It might surprise you to learn that I wasn't exactly a catch as a teenager. But if teenage Ray could see me now, I'm sure he'd say: "How did you make things worse?!?!? You fucking goon!" So let's get to the stuff that I need to fix up to please the ladies:

#5: Social Awareness

I consider myself to be an intelligent, well-spoken human being. When it comes to subjects like geography, politics, science, and current events...I'm well versed. However, I read body language at a third grade level. My brain does not properly sync with other people's ways of thinking and acting. Long-term pranks, cons, and plans are nearly impossible for me because predicting how other people will re-act to situations requires completely ignoring what I would do. This also means that I have an incredibly hard time reading people. And this is important in the realm of courtship. Girls aren't always as overt or frank as we men might like and taking proper care to make them happy oftentimes requires knowing what they want without them actually telling us. I lack the very fundamental ability to do that. Most people use non-verbal cues to make assessments and adjust their behaviors accordingly. The ironic thing is that I'm great at adjustments. Whether I'm bowling or cooking or working on a problem...I have a strong ability to sense what's working and make adjustments to improve my results. However, these assessments are made because I have tangible cues that I can draw from what I'm doing. I have much more difficulty finding those in people. I don't expect a girl to come along who will sympathize and just tell me how she's feeling because I'm deficient in this department...so I have no choice but to try and get better. If you're skilled in this regard, please let me know. And it doesn't relate strictly to women. I need help reading everybody, humans in general. Please teach me. Be the Obi Wan Kenobi to my Padawan apprentice. The Mr. Miyagi to my Daniel-san. The Michelle Pfeiffer to my angry black teen.

#4: Physical Appearance

Physical appearance has never been something that's been exceedingly important to me in a
relationship. I'm not saying that it's not important at all, but I've never leaned that heavily on it when it comes to mate selection. I've been more focused on things like compatibility and being a good conversationalist. And maybe that's the problem. Maybe I need to make attractiveness a larger part of my selection criteria. Lord knows, I'm perpetually horny enough that it should be a concern. Attractiveness has never been that strong of a criteria for me because I like to be realistic and don't know that I deserve it. I've often felt that you shouldn't expect from other people anything that you're not willing to bring to the table yourself. And I've never valued my own physical beauty much above a 3 on the standard scale. But I feel that a few points could definitely be made up with a little work. And I don't mean going under the knife with Dr. Troy and Dr. McNamera. I just mean putting some effort into it. I'm probably about 35 pounds over my ideal weight. I don't do anything flattering with my hair. My shaving habits are sporadic and arbitrary. And if Tim Gunn saw my wardrobe there would be some sobbing. The clothes can help make the man. I'm not a total troll, and a focus on fitness, grooming, and dress could probably put me up into the 5-6 range. Then I could hopefully harness the confidence to be more shallow and reach for more societally desirable women. I'm joking...mostly. I would never want to be in a relationship that's based on looks, whether that means my putting up with a total airhead/ice queen/sociopath because she's hot or have a girl who only wants me because I'm desirable. However, I do think that reaching for and obtaining a more attractive girl will give me a sense of accomplishment which will place an extra dimension of value into the relationship. And trying to better myself and be the most physically desirable person that I can be just seems like the selfless thing to do in a relationship. I need to stop settling for myself. I need to stop selling myself short. And maybe finally women will be able to see past my tremendous intelligence and charisma and love me for my remarkable six pack and chiseled jaw line.

#3: Dating Accumen / Rustiness

What the hell am I doing? It's been so long since I've been on a proper date that I'm not really sure that I know how to anymore. I need a refresher course. One could say that this is an offshoot of the previously discussed Social Awareness, but this is a little different. It's not about not knowing what the other person is thinking. This is more about knowing exactly what the other person's feelings entail and still not knowing what to do with that knowledge. Every girl is different. To say that acting a certain way on a date will play properly with every girl is idiotic. Women are highly complex beings and the variances between them are staggering. I whole-heartedly believe that men are less complex, but even we can't be satisfied in a communal way...no matter what bullshit Cosmopolitan tells you. However, sometimes you just have to play the percentages. There are some things that most girls can agree on as being preferable in the realms of dating and romance. And I have little clue what these percentages say. What do women want these days? Is chivalry still en vogue or is it now considered a listless display of pandering by the patriarchy? And where do women like to go these days? I hear tapas bars are popular...and salsa dancing. But will these things accentuate my whiteness? And don't even get me started on timing. How early do I show up? How soon before you can call back? Have we agreed these things are stupid? Can I just do what I want or will not playing these games hurt my street cred? Does the number of questions that I'm asking properly convey my confusion with dating ritual? I'd have somebody offer to teach me about dating, but there is no such thing as a dating expert. If you're very good at first and second dates then you haven't been on very many of them because you're able to maintain long-term relationships...or you're Rodney Alcala.

#2: Confidence

I don’t have it. At least not with the ladies. And this is problematic because ladies LOVE confidence. You put me on a bar trivia team and I possess a confidence that I’m going to smoke some jabronis. You put me at a dinner table and try to get me to lure a lady towards a second date...Yikes. I am fully capable of manufacturing confidence, but when I do things tend to get out of control. Confidence for me is a lot like shufflepuck. I hope you’re all familiar with the bar staple to which I am referring. You slide a disk across a sanded glass platform and try with difficulty to land it within a numerical zone that scores you points depending upon how close to the edge you are. If you’re still lost…it’s similar to curling. I can easily have no confidence when I’m around women. This is Ray in his most natural state. It requires no effort to manufacture no confidence. This is the shufflepuck equivalent of not pushing the puck far enough to even get it to the numerical zones…hence lack of effort. However, most people that know me in casual settings will wave this off as blarney since I often appear to be overconfident in many social settings. This is me manufacturing confidence. There is not a second of my life that goes by in which I don’t second guess myself, but I am fully capable of entering in a manual over-ride and shouting “Carpe Diem, bitches”. However, when I try and manufacture confidence we get into a very tricky landing zone. Confidence is good, and the right amount of confidence is the shufflepuck equivalent of landing in the score zone. However, there is certainly a thing as too much confidence. And when I hit the manual over-ride switch…I have a hell of a time reeling it in. That’s when confidence turns into arrogance. This is the shufflepuck equivalent of putting too much mustard on the damn puck and sailing it right off the ledge. No points for you, sir. And both arrogance and lack of confidence usually involve me trying to talk someone into thinking I’m great…the only difference is that in one scenario I believe it and in the other I don’t. Confidence is about just expecting people to believe that you’re great because you think you are…no pitch necessary. This requires a sense of entitlement that I just don’t have. If anybody has any tips…let me know.

#1: Organization

I don’t have it. My apartment is not the kind of place that I could take a girl back to on the spur of the moment. It isn’t so much an apartment as it is a “Shame Dojo”. And my car is no chick magnet either. As soon as they start filming Hoarders: Car Edition, my mom will probably send in a tape for me. I'm perfectly capable of putting on a ruse for house guests. Whenever I have people over to watch a football game or do a podcast my place is always passably clean. However, this is always the result of a good two or more hours of cleaning put in the night before and that's not something that I think I can commit to on a regular basis. I need to simply get my place clean and keep it that way through having a more structured organizational system. What's the point of having your own car and apartment if you can't use them to impress women? You may as well live with your parents and take the bus if you're not going to make proper use of what you have. The only solace a girl could possibly take after seeing my apartment on an average day is: "Well, at least his OCD is clearly in check." There is no part of my life that is organized and the many aspects of my life that have descended into chaos are all manifested within my apartment. If my calendar is still showing that it's February, how can she have faith that I'll remember events that are important to her. If I can't even maintain proper balance of my DVR, how can she expect that I'll maintain proper balance of our relationship. Ugh. Priority #1 is right here.

UPDATE: I actually have managed to keep my apartment fairly clean for the last couple months. I cleaned it out in early January (yes, this post was written in 2013) for the recording of the new blog's first podcast and the upkeep has been pretty good. I'm not going to downgrade Organization from Priority #1. I don't think that I'm cured...I just think that it's been a vigilant two months. Disorganization is like crack addiction. You're never out of the woods. You can't ever let your guard down. Not even once. If I start thinking of myself as an organized person, I'll be building IKEA bookcases with a kitchen knife because my screwdriver is buried in my closet somewhere before you know it.

The Year of Living Dangerously Part I: Ray Tries Online Dating

Surely you might think that this is a lame way to begin "The Year of Living Dangerously". And I've clearly tried to danger it up in the title graphic. You probably thought that I was going to start off with base jumping or Russian roulette or spelunking. Maybe you were thinking hang-gliding...or as I like to call it: Suicide Kiting! You most likely thought I’d be telling you about some grandiose adventure that I was going to embark on. Well, let me assure you that any date that I go on is a god damn adventure. You’ve never seen a night fraught with such peril as Ray trying to impress a girl and show her a good time. It would be safe to say that I’ve been out of the serious dating game for “a while”. I haven’t made it to Date #3 with a girl in over five years. Online dating seems like the most efficient route to try and stamp that streak out. Online dating has a less than preferable rep in some circles because it’s not the way that our parents did romantic social interaction and there is the perception that dating websites are the refuge of the fundamentally and irreversibly flawed. Well, I myself happen to be fundamentally and irreversibly flawed…so I’ll fit right in.

The first step on this journey of a many miles is to select the proper vehicle with which to pursue the fairer sex. There are tons of online dating sites and I need to select the one that will deliver the most promising results. I’ve already eliminated J-Date, FarmersOnly, and Ashley Madison because I’m not Jewish, an aggie, or a home-wrecker. I’m going to eliminate Christian Mingle because, while I am Christian, Christianity in no way defines what I’m looking for in a girl and I’d like to cast a broader net. I’m eliminating Plenty of Fish because it has a desperate sounding name. And I’m eliminating Craigslist because I have zero desire to end my date night with one wrist cuffed to a radiator in preparation for my organs to be harvested. After carefully perusing which sites I should obviously not be going with, there are three that are left: eHarmony, Match, and OKCupid. From here it’s an easy decision. Match and eHarmony expect that I should pay to be rejected by their women. I can assure you that I am perfectly capable of being rejected by women for free…thank you very much. OKCupid, it looks like it’s you and me.

So, we’ve come to me needing to put myself out there to try and reel in the ladies. I’ve got to cast some bait…some flirty, sexy bait. And with talk like that I probably should have joined Plenty of Fish. Lying on this web site will get me nowhere. I need to be myself but there’s no reason that I can’t try and be the better, more upstanding version of myself that I’m capable of being. It just needs to be a sustainable me. I need to be comfortable. Trying to show a girl the best Ray that I can be will get fucking exhausting by the second date. The trick is to try and be a better person while also letting them see what they’re getting in the long term. Take my 20 most recent pictures. Throw out the 5 best. Throw out the 10 worst. Boom! Presentable but not misleading. I needn’t try to appear better looking than I am. It’s far better to weed out the shallow ones online, so when I get a hit I can be confident that the girl knew what she signed up for. Don’t talk about my job at all. It’s boring as fuck and I don’t want her to fall asleep while reading my profile. Keep my interests and hobbies real but try to highlight the ones that we might have in common. Chicks love to hike. Fewer chicks like to golf. Keeping both of those in the hobbies section is fine but talk up the hiking more to play the percentages. I don't mean to disparage and over-simplify my own gender, but I'm going to. Men are not terribly complicated to understand. Whereas, the male population will tend to gravitate towards the same type of female profile...women tend to have more diverse interests. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't try and play percentages.I should seem educated and open-minded. By posting honest pictures you’ve already established that you’re not after a girl looking for a mindless meat stick with great abs. (They wish that's what they were getting.) I want a girl that will appreciate the better qualities that I actually possess. I'll have opinions to appear less generic but let them know that I'm flexible also.

Now it’s time to select a girl. Merely having a profile might attract a few moths to the flame, but if I’m waiting for Princess Charming to come and make the first move…then I’d have been just as well off not joining an online dating site in the first place. I’ve narrowed my selection criteria: aged 23-32, within 40 miles of my home, preferably been to college. I’ve read through profiles and carefully minded people’s answers to the list of questions presented. I’ve found several girls who are interesting. There might be one or two that I’d ask out before the others but my selection criteria has gotten me nowhere thus far in life…so why should I trust it now. For this to be a true adventure in the spirit of The Year of Living Dangerously, I can’t just pick the girl that I think I’d be most comfortable with. And I sure as hell am not going to leave it up to fate or chance…that fickle bitch. I think the requisite course of action is to put the decision in the hands of my readership. Below I have selected five girls. Each of them are described in 50 words or less and are presented with a unique alluring feature and a warning sign. To vote for which one I should pursue first, please post your thoughts in the comments section. I'm well aware that given response rates, I'll probably end up contacting all of them. But I want to see where you're heads are at. And in the event that I do get multiple responses, I need to know where to focus my initial efforts. 

Lady #1: Career-driven Boston girl. She's Catholic and fairly religious. She's working on her MBA. Her tone is fairly sassy but well-spoken and intelligent. She's clearly into sports (especially baseball) but also markets herself as a girl's girl. She is interested in kid's and her long-term life aspirations sync well with mine.

Alluring: Her political views and discourse appear similar to mine on all fronts.
Warning: She has dogs and has little interest in a partner who isn't interested in having pets.

Lady #2: Free-spirited Jewish girl from San Francisco. Profile is a little all over the place but not in an obnoxious way. Very artistic. Enjoys painting and the such. Doesn't seem to be in to outdoor adventures, camping, or roughing it. Seems to like guys that are clean cut ala Don Draper.

Alluring: Definitely has a good sense of humor and is not afraid to be offensive.
Warning: Worked for the circus for a few years, we're dealing with a carnie.

Lady #3: Bay Area girl. Teacher and aspiring writer. Family appears to be important to her. She's very open about what she wants even if it's not completely politically correct. Very well-spoken and intelligent...I even had to look up a few references from her profile. Gives off a counter-culture vibe.

Alluring: Clearly very attractive based on pictures and lives an active life.
Warning: Seems to be a little out of my league and knows it.

Lady #4: Extremely well-traveled, bilingual, self-proclaimed nerd. Works in the fashion industry. She's an excellent cook and is very extroverted. If OKCupid's rating system is to be believed, she is also more competitive than me and more adventurous than me. I'll believe it when I see it.

Alluring: She's a big Kings fan, and hockey fan in general...as am I.
Warning: She travels a lot for work. China, Denmark, you name it...she's often on the road.

Lady #5: Very frank and forward social worker. Is originally from Southern California and is still very close with her family. Strongly Christian. Is an avid runner and appears to enjoy all sorts of outdoor activities. Is two years older than me, but is looking for somebody younger.

Alluring: Has dabbled in stand-up comedy...as have I.
Warning: Graduated from USC...so I can't take her home to meet mom and dad.

I will make first contact with whichever of the following ladies you, my readership. deem most worthy by the 31st of March. And any date that comes about will be reported on in a future blog post. Please note that this bottom section may likely be removed on March 31st as my potential dates will possibly be internet stalking me.

Welcome to Embrace the Deception

Hey. It's certainly been a while. The last time you read anything on this blog it probably had a different name, The Hot and Bothered Effect. Maybe you never bothered with the old blog and for you this is the first post you're seeing. Either way, this is the official relaunch of my blog. I love to blog. It's fun. I use it as an educational avenue since each post usually involves some semblance of research on my part. And it's a great way to keep in contact with people. I also am trying to use blogging to push myself into new experiences under the auspices that they would make for great blog topics. However, my blogging fell off over the last two and half years because my move from Cincinnati to Los Angeles presented me with significantly less time for blogging with increased commute and work time. I don't live on the internet. I live in the real world. And if my intention is to use this blog to facilitate real world adventure then it makes no sense for me to use all of my  free time trying to stick to a stupidly stringent blogging regiment that I've set up for myself. My posts were lengthy and took a lot of time write and probably too long for my readership to read in one sitting. It was probably a good idea to take a step back and shuffle some things around. Here are some of the changes that are being made:

1. Shorter Posts

With the length of my old posts, it was nearly impossible to keep the fairly stringent pace of two posts per week that I set for myself. It was also difficult for my readership to get through a post. I may as well have changed the name of my blog to TL;DR. This was the biggest criticism of the old blog. So I'm now going to start capping blog posts at 5-7 paragraphs. I don't have any interest in making a Tumblr-style, super short format with quick hits because that doesn't go well with my writing style and it sort of defeats the purpose of my blog. However, I do want to make the posts more manageable and accessible. It also would behoove me schedule-wise to post less often, but this was a concession that I didn't want to make. If you can't put up content at least once a week then you really don't have much business having a blog. Keeping a schedule is important because it allows your readership to know when they can expect new content and not have to laboriously check for it until they get fed up. I still intend to post 2-3 times a week. I still intend to have regular segments. In order to keep this pace I have banked away 100 blog posts that have been written over my blog's lengthy hiatus. I won't actually have to write 2-3 posts a week. I'll probably write 1-2 so that I can have content that's topical and then fill out the schedule with the banked up posts. Eventually the two will catch up, but by that time I'll hopefully be in Phase 2.

2. Name Change

Another problem with the old blog was that the name of the blog (The Hot and Bothered Effect) and the URL for the blog (embracethedeception.blogspot.com) didn't exactly sync up. It presented a problem for people trying to find the blog and just made things generally confusing for people. So I've decided to remedy this by simply changing the name of the blog to Embrace the Deception. I'm still going to call the monthly podcast The Hot and Bothered Effect to give it a little continuity link but from here on out this blog will be called Embrace the Deception. Time for some new business cards.

3. New Schedule

My ideal posting schedule would be to post about a dozen times a month. Below is the way that I've outlined the new schedle over the first several months of the blog. I'll likely change this up after a year or so once the blog develops:

Two posts every week. One on Wednesday and One on that Alternates Between Monday and Friday.

Wednesdays Posts will be The Hump Day Top 5. It will be a Top 5 list that will usually in some way relate to the week's other main post. This will keep posts short and sweet and hopefully give readers a good laugh as well as an incite into the weekly topic for the other post. The title graphic for this segment can be seen below:

The other weekly post will alternate between Mondays and Fridays. The Friday posts will be called Friday Night Writes. These posts will usually revolve around a debate that I'm having with friends at my favorite weekend pizza spot (Reno's in Burbank, CA). We tackle a lot of interesting dilemmas and conundrums and I think that it would be a good idea to present the arguments and talk them out on this blog. The title graphic can be seen below:

The Monday posts will be a rotating selection of three different segments: The Year of Living Dangerously, ETD Confidential, and free-style non-denominational posts. The title graphics for these can be seen below:

The Year of Living Dangerously will revolve directly around my life. I've tabbed my 27th year as "The Year of Living Dangerously" and I'll let you know how I'll be living up to that. Yes, I know that this is the name of a movie. Please don't tell Mel Gibson's lawyers about this blog.

ETD Confidential will be an investigative segment where I will study a societal phenomenon and share my findings with you all after the detective work is done.

Many of you will notice that this will normally result in about nine posts a month. So the other three posts will be special posts that will appear on the second Thursday of every month, the final Saturday of every month, and the last day of the month without a regularly scheduled blog post on that day. Those posts will be reserved for my Movie and Restaurant Review segment, The Hot and Bothered Effect Podcast, and Guest Blogger of the Month segments respectively. The title graphics for these can be seen below:

Ray's Restaurant Reviews will feature myself and a few friends going to America's oddest eateries and pitching our experiences here on the blog. Obviously many of the establishments will be in Los Angeles, but I'm also trying to set up some on upcoming trips to Denver, Las Vegas, San Diego, New York, and Washington DC. It's not about the food and whether it's good or bad, it's about the adventure. Every restaurant that we go to should have some ridiculously unique premise or absurd quirk.

3 Critics and a Couch will involve myself and two friends watching a film and reviewing it on my couch (or a suitable replacement couch). The film could be a new release in theaters, a classic worthy of a good discussion, or a truly turr-ible film for even livelier discussion. This segment will be videocast to allow me to work with this blog's videocast capabilities.

The Hot and Bothered Effect podcast will be much the same format as the old one. Though I will be working to integrate videocasting into the podcast as well.

The Guest Blogger of the Month segment should be substantially different. Under the old system I would take friends who had blogs and ask them for content for my blog to help promote their blogs, along with taking excerpts from some of my other favorite blogs across the internet. I've decided to open the Guest Blogger segment up to anybody who wants to write for this blog. Many of the best word smiths I know don't have their own blogs and I'm hoping that this segment will propel this blog towards the aforementioned Phase 2. Eventually, I'd like for this blog to have two or three co-bloggers. We'd each write a post a week, but the blog would still pump out content every other day. That's the dream.

Thanks for your readership and I hope you enjoy the new blog. Please feel free to comment as usual.