Category Archives: Stories

I’m Sorry I Disappoint You

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I could tell as soon as I arrived that they were afraid. There I was, a Jew from Brooklyn. In Japan, I may as well of been Michael Jordan. Everyone stared at me with eager anticipation as I warmed up. A lot of people came up to ask me where I was from. I told them I was from New York City. Yes, the world Mecca of basketball New York fucking City bitch, what? Oh yeah, I was the fucking man. I finished my stretches, laced up my shoes, took a basketball, and walked out on the court. I hadn’t been on a court for a long time. It felt good. I walked towards the basket. I stop, set my feet, adjust my grip, and take my first shot. A collective gasp fills the room. An air ball. The basket is higher than I remember. I shoot again. I shoot too hard and it bounces off the top of the backboard and back into my hands. I then sloppily go in for a layup. I let go of the ball and it flows through the air, right over the basket. A guy realizes the truth and comes over to give me some pointers. Yes, I suck at basketball.

This is a sad story. Probably not for you, the reader, but for me, as a person. In Japan, as a foreign American guy, there are many preconceptions about you. For example, I’m supposed to speak none of the native tongue, only eat hamburgers, be fat, not be able to use chopsticks, love coffee to death, and mostly just be loud and obnoxious. These are things that a lot of Japanese not only think about of Americans, but most white non-Japanese in general. I have learned to accept these things, and politely (and sometimes not so politely) inform the person gawking at my use of chopsticks, that I have used them since I was twelve, and I learned how to in Brooklyn, NY from countless nights of Chinese takeout. But recently, there has been one thing thought of me that really hit me in the heart, because I wish it to be true. It also blew out in the open one of my misperceptions of Japanese people. It’s basketball. They think all Americans (even the white ones) are really good at basketball. And I thought (key word THOUGHT), that Japanese people were pretty lame at it (since they are all short or something).

Yeah, I was wrong. Most everyone I have played with so far is amazing. I am totally jealous. And most of them are just as tall, or taller than me. Most of the time. I end up massively disappointing every single person I play with. But there’s something deep inside the people I play with, even after seeing how terrible I am, that think I should have some sort of genetic disposition for playing. So despite them knowing fully well that I am atrocious, they play extra hard against me. The most talented, and scariest players defend me, and my fat ass has to run all over to defend them. They’ll be like, “MAXIM, YOU’RE MINE!” right before we start. All I can do is sigh and get my ass kicked.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to shake this notion that I should be good at basketball. It’s a sad reality. All I can do is show them quick that I suck, sit down, and take the beating that my white ass deserves.

-Maxim

Guess What Mental Disease You Probably Have?

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Do you find you often procrastinate? Do you forget things? Is your desk usually a mess? Are you bored often? If you said “yes” to all (or some) of the above questions, don’t be alarmed… you just have adult ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). Yes, the condition usually only associated with children is now estimated to affect an alarming 4% of all American adults. That’s like seven bajillion people. That means you. You’re probably thinking, “But those symptoms are so broad. Everyone is like that sometimes!” Think again, buster. Go to a psychologist immediately, because the consequences if you don’t could destroy your life and haunt you forever.

So you don’t believe me, huh? Check out some of these real stories and see how their lives were ruined by undiagnosed adult ADHD.

Heather Sinclair was a librarian at the public library. Despite her dynamic and ever challenging profession, she was bored at work often. Her mind would wander. After her shift was done she would often rush home to do things that she found entertaining. With her mind always wondering, she had forgotten to email her dad on his birthday. Heather’s father, who lived off the messages received from his children, was thrown into distress. He then died from a sudden onset of polyglandular Addison’s disease (an illness where sudden emotion shock can kill you). If she had only realized that she had a serious mental illness, she could of saved him the trauma, but no, she forgot. Her father is now dead because of it.

Here’s another one.

Sam Robinson was a 26 year old C average student at Kingsborough Community College. Sure, if you had asked him before, he would he would have told you that he’s just an average Joe, trying to get a better education. But all of his procrastination had deadly consequences. He had three midterms the next week and he hadn’t begun studying. He decided that doing the work was impossible, so instead, he enlisted the help of the Russian mob. He instructed them to hack into his professors computers and steal the answer keys. Little did he know that he was an idiot for asking the Russian mob to hack into anything to begin with. Instead, they found the professors and got the answers out of them by force. One of his professors tried to defend himself, and was killed in the struggle. When they came back to Sam and demanded more money for the extra work, he couldn’t pay and tried to get out of the deal. The mob didn’t take too kindly to this. They took his family hostage. He went to the police, and they killed his parents for his betrayal. Sam is now being kept under the witness protection program. If only he had realized that it could have all been avoided if he had just asked his drug dealing roommate for cocktail of Adderal, Ritalin, Dexedrine, and Concerta, he would have been fine. Too late. His parents are dead. ADHD is to blame.

There are countless stories. And they all end the same way.

You’re still not convinced? What’s wrong with you? You’re talking like it’s unnatural to sit at a desk for hours. Like its unnatural that you should want to do all tasks promptly. You think we evolved from cave people that magically had something exciting to do all the time? You think ADHD is a modern creation?!? You’re worse off than I thought.

I highly recommend that any people suffering from these symptoms go seek medical help immediately. We can only hope that you will reach those pills in time. All of your family’s lives depend on it.

Coming Out of the Closet (Kinda)

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Okay, so I’m an asshole. I can’t get away from it. I love to make fun of people and I love make them feel horrible about themselves. It’s like a social African safari with me. You have the weak little zebras and gazelles, and you got the fucking lions. Not to boast, but I’m definitely a fucking lion. Now, it’s not always, black and white, lion and gazelle. Most of the times there are levels in between, like hyenas, or vultures, or elephants. The difference is, lions actively seek out and kill the gazelles. Those other freeloaders start picking at the corpse once you’re done. No, you don’t have to be a terribly strong person to be a lion, you just got to act like one. So if some poor person gives me the opportunity to make an ass out of them, eight times out of ten I’ll probably take it. It’s a bad habit, but I can’t help it.

So back on topic. There was this gazelle, no, not even a gazelle. Gazelles at least run away. This guy was a sheep or something. He was a self proclaimed introvert that introduced himself to me one day at a bar. And so the story begins…

Most times when you make fun of someone, they do one of two things. Take it like a man and make fun of themselves with you, or leave/not want to hang out with you anymore/hate you. But there are also people who just don’t get it. They just don’t understand that that they are the butt of all the jokes. That we’re not laughing with them, we’re laughing at them. Yes, he was that guy. But you know, once I got started thinking about this guy I realized, without this guy, the nights were not nearly as fun. So I would call him to go out with the specific reason just to make fun of him. Yes, I am that much of an asshole. My friends were already over it, but I just couldn’t get enough.

We didn’t just make fun of him directly. We would lie to him. We would create personalities. We would perform elaborate plays. I was the jew-hating racist, and my friend was my partner in hate-crime. This guy would passively listen to most of our personalities, simply dismissing our rouse as “not intelelectual enough for (his) participation”, sometimes throwing in the “Are you guys being serious?”. However, when it came to me and my friend talking about our violent love affair, or our escapades in bed, he got all in a huff. He loved women, and only women,e he proclaimed. He did not want to hear of our “disgusting and unnatural” talk of homosexual love. Yes, he was one of the most homophobic people I had ever met. Naturally, since this bothered him the most, we pushed it the most.

Sadly to say he moved away after about six months. Yes, it was sad but we got over it pretty quickly. Here’s where the story gets interesting.

Zoom ahead six months to now. I’ve had absolutly no contact with this kid since he left. Then out of the blue I get a call from him. I didn’t pick up. I was done with this guy. He called again 10 minutes later. Hmm, no. Not picking up that one either. He called again. Didn’t pick up, BUT, it got my mind wondering. “WTF?”, I thought. “Is this kid ok? Am I his one phone call from the police station? Is he out for vengence? Is he standing in front of my apartment with an axe?” I couldn’t possibly imagine what this kid would want from me after 6 months. I mean, he wasn’t exaclty the most social guy ever, but I’m sure he had found someone in that big city he moved to to annoy. My curiosity got the better of me, and I called him back. I’ll try to cronical the conversation the best I can.

Me: Hey, how are you?
Him: Hey, I’m good. How’s life over there?
Me: Same as it’s always been I guess.
Him: You know I’m over here in the city now.
Me: Yeah, I know, I know.
(small talk)
Him: Okay, let me jut get to the point
Me: Okay…
Him: Remember 4 or 5 months ago you invited me out to drink at…what was that bar again? Saylaaa….seeelaa….
Me: Swla. (Pronounced soola)
Him: Yeah, Swla. Remember that?
Me: 4 or 5 months ago?
Him: Yeah, you made a comment to me to the effect that you wanted me to go with you on the last train back to your neighborhood to stay over…
Me: Wait…what? Can you say that again?
(at this point i’m thinking he needs a place to stay)
Him: You know, you invited me out, and you wanted me to come with you on the last train to your apartment.
Me: Okay, sure…
Him: Ok, I’ll just say it. Were you coming on to me?
Me: Um…..what do you mean?
Him: I mean were you actually coming on to me?

At this point it all comes back. After months of not speaking to this guy, I had forgotten the extent in which I had preformed my act in front of him. I didn’t remember the specific episode he was talking about, but I had certainly alluded to him many times that I wanted to…do him… Not really, just to bother him… you know…since he was so…homophobic… At this point I had to decide on whether to continue the act, or to just tell him straight up we were making fun of him the whole time. I chose the middle path, like Bhutan.

Me: Yeah, man. I don’t know. It was a long time ago.
Him: Yeah it was.
Me: So, man. I dunno, it’s been a really long time. Have you been thinking about this for a while?
Him: Not that much.
Me: I just mean, you call me out of the blue when I haven’t seen or spoken to you for 6 months. It must of been on your mind a lot.
Him: I’m just curious. I’m a curious person.
(he changes the subject)
Him: So how’s your girlfriend? Things going good?

Couldn’t get a straight answer out of him, but by now it was pretty obvious. It’s always the most homophobic people. We talked a little bit more. Sensing I really couldn’t contain myself anymore, I decide to end the conversation.

Me: Yeah, I should go. I’m kinda busy right now. I’m working on my blog.
Him: Seems like everyone has blogs these days.
Me: Yeah, but it’s a comedy blog, it’s not really about me so much (Except now). Thinking maybe I want to get into comedy.
Him: If you can make me laugh right now you can be a comedian.
Me: No, not like stand up, more like well thought out, written material.
Him: Make me laugh right now and you can be a comedian.
Me: I…can’t….
Him: I just crushed your dreams.
Me: I really got to go…
Him: Ok. If you ever need a random friend to talk to, or a place to vent, give me a call.
Me: Thanks…you too man.
Him: You shouldn’t of said that! Haha!
Me: ha..ha.. Bye.
Him: Bye.

And that was it. I can’t believe he was brooding over this for months. It’s kind of sad really. That I was the guy he half came out to. Makes me think that I should try and fix my assholeish ways to aovid things like this in the future. Nah. It’s sad but its still hilarious.

Till next time.

-Maxim