What would Tucker Max do?

“"I dont live in some bullshit world of objective reality, I live in MY reality” (Tucker Max)

When Marc and I first met he constantly told me I was: straight up delusional, not as awesome as I thought, the girls I thought liked me didn’t really, and I lived in my own reality. Clearly he was just jealous - I knew I was awesome, and therefore I, using my understanding of logic, refuted all his points.

NOTW, CNN and the elation of being wrong!

I was approached by a camera and an interviewer on the topic of NOTW last week:  

Interviewer with a big fluffy microphone: So, have you heard about the NOTW?
Me: Yes...

Interviewer: What do you think of it?

Me: I think anyone who says the newspaper is not as good as the Sun is wrong!

Interviewer: Um . . . What about the allegations that they deleted phone messages from Milly Dowler’s voicemail?

'Friend-Shapes'

I have mentioned a few times how I have differing levels of friends. Well, I am finally going to explain that and a bit more, so you can understand the way I view the world a little bit. I have explained this to a few people, and let me say: Yes! This is a totally independent and original idea I just thought up one day and yes this is adaptable so I am sure you could all create your own shape!

Laughs, celebrities, after – after parties and the Shocker

As I got back to England, I thought the craziness that had been the last three weeks would have subsided. How wrong could I have been?! Jet lagged, physically and emotionally drained of energy, my friend Chris picked me up in his car and took me to the BBC Radio 2 New Comedian of the Year competition in which Tez was a finalist. It didn't matter how tired I was, it didn't matter how drained of energy I was, it didn't matter how I hadn't slept properly for 2 days, it didn't even matter that I hadn't even unpacked, what did matter though was that I had to support my friend and that there was fun to be had... and suffice to say the fun just continued to roll on.

The End...of a chapter

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Drag Show

In general I found Boise to be quite a conservative city, with concepts such as sex before marriage and homosexuality somewhat frowned upon. It’s a place where general Christian values are upheld; it probably helps that there are a lot of Mormons living here. Yet for any of you that know me I do live very in-the-minute and will not always take into account my surroundings and context. This is one of those times:

I was invited to a drag show. Now while London is known for being quite an open, multicultural, understanding place I have never really been intrigued by the drag community or going to gay bars or any such ‘gay’ activities. It’s just not what my friends and I do, or the kind of parties or contexts we roll in.

Bosoms, Blue Fields and Banter... Oh and Food

There were three American eateries I wanted to go to once I heard of them: Hooters, Denny’s and IHOP - all places we don’t have in the UK.

IHOP

This was the first place I got to as it was en-route to work. When some ladies from work asked me where I wanted to go to lunch, I mentioned IHOP and they happily came with me. This is an amazing place to eat, especially for me since I have a very sweet tooth. I got pancakes with chocolate and strawberries, and caramel syrup on the side. These were not like crepes but big fat American pancakes. Man, this sugar high was awesome. The other normal food my colleagues ate seemed fine, but what I did notice was that the place was full of OAPs. It was weird because apparently once the evening/night hit it was full of drunken people like take-aways in England.

My sugar high resulted in me flirting with the waitress. She plays it all cool and not appreciating all my advances, so I said, ‘You are such a lesbian.’ Her face lights up and asked with honest curiosity, ‘How can you tell?’ Rather than explaining this was my standard response to anyone who annoyed/confused me, I responded, ‘Because I want to hook up and you are being all weird.’ At this point the conversation changed and she became friendly and we had some banter. As I was leaving she gave me her number at which point I made it clear: ‘I don’t care if you are a lesbian, I am totally going to flirt with you’ to which

she responded,  ‘Well im not a 100% lesbian!’ ‘Bam! My favourite type of lesbian!’ I jokingly replied. We agreed to meet up later, and she would show me around Boise and we could party it up with her friends. Sounded like fun, and the stories got around the office like wildfire: ‘Abs chatted up a lesbian’. Oh great, 2^nd day. I hope people at work don’t judge me.

Hooters

It wasn’t until the second week of my trip that I was able to get to Hooters. This was a location most people did not want to go, but once I had my colleague with me from England and 2 of the really fun inappropriate girls from work we went. Firstly the food is not too shabby. I thought the food would be  atrocious but it was alright – a definite 6. But it was nowhere clearer than here that sex sells. Sex can even sell OK food.

Karate, Jedi Powers, and the 5 point finger death move!

One of the days I was in America I mentioned to someone that when I went back to England, I wanted to take up Mixed Martial Arts. Due to the awesomely nice nature of Americans and fate this resulted in me being offered a free Karate class.

When I got to the class, I watched a groups of kids varying between the ages of 4 -16 doing fun things. One of the exercises looked like a drunken guy trying to pull a girl at 4 am outside of some night club. Imagine the girl, sober, aware and a guy just about to pounce, (insert cool super duper karate move) the guy goes spinning and continues to fall flat on the ground. However the highlight of the watching part was witnessing a 10 year old girl lift a black belt - 15-16 stone, 6’1” - catapult him over her back and spinning over for him to hit the mat… hard! I later tried this on the same person and managed to do it ¼ times, with a little difficulty.

Once the kids were done it was my time. There was an orange belt, a black belt, and 4th Dan Master Sensei (who looked like Jet Li). To put into perspective how good he was, 5-6 years ago he beat the #1 Karate person in the whole of Japan, and we all know them peeps know their Karate!

Am I famous?

You may have read some of the blog posts recently and thought, This guy is a
douche, or, Wow this guy should have his own reality show. Well, whilst I do flip
between these thoughts myself, and even though I am sure others may not feel
these are disparate concepts, I think they are, and it’s my blog, so there!

A colleague from England joined me in Boise, and I told her the stories you have
read so far as well as some others. While she was genuinely amazed I felt like she
didn’t believe them all 100%. The reason I think she didn’t believe me 100% was
because when I would tell her the things I was doing, her responses were things
like:
•   No way!!
•   Are u pulling my leg??
•   No, I don’t believe you did that . . . really??
•   Is this 100% the truth? (you can see where I thought she might not believe
them 100%)

And while I have been known to exaggerate a story or two in my time (try not to
be too shocked), all the stories I told her were (yes, most definitely, entirely) 100%
true.

American House Party - Wow in my pants

Watching Hollywood movies with house party scenes I thought that house parties were awesome, but once I began going to house parties at Uni and in my early 20’s I came to the realisation that English house parties were just lame, and I believe I now understand the two main cultural reasons for this.

Then I met my friend Zaira and finally experienced fun house parties, and at the time I thought these were 'The best a house party could get'… 

Until, I came to live the American Dream! These people know how to throw house parties! When I got told I was invited to a house party, I wasn’t excited, due to the years of being socially accustomed to house parties being kinda average. Yet this party was certifiably on par with the Hollywood scenes, and I was metaphorically 'Wow'd in my pants'

Power of the Spoken Word

As I have already mentioned I am but a 100 m away from the mall, hence I have frequented the mall more so than I usually ever would in the UK. Thus I have a had a fair few random encounters, these stories are the amalgamation of just some (There are more, if you know me feel free to ask about the Skittles story and the Go-Go Dancer) of the events that have transpired there.

I have already mentioned that Americans have been super friendly to me. I noticed as scary of some of them look, after 10 minutes of conversation they totally open up to me and are super friendly and act like I have known them for weeks. Check out the below before and after photos, it seems my accent is like some super crazy social lubrication. I feel like I have magic powers:

Dinner with Mormons

I had been invited to dinner at a really cool colleague who happens to be a Mormon. Mormons are like a real hardcore Christian Faith sect with some extra’s. Suffice to say one of the first conversations we had was about  the South Park episode, but this is when I realised how cool and my type of people he was, it wasn’t long until we were joking about this and Muslim terrorist stereotyping.

Mall Fun

As I am in America on my own I have most weekday evenings to fly solo and spend my own time doing things. I want to have adventures, so after 2 days of nothing much happening (in the evenings) I go out to the Mall to look for adventure and souvenirs/presents for people.

After spending way too much time in Victoria Secret’s, (for a present obviously :P) I continue to look around the Mall which is a stone throw from my hotel. I walk around a food court, and the American’s are known for their ‘laaarge’ food portions, and yes the large had to be extended, just because of how much these Americans can serve and eat... Impressive amounts, even small people,  from the below pictures you will see, even these women could eat as much, if not more than me.

3 days, 8 virginites! Boom!

I get to Boise after a really interesting conversation with a nice guy I met on the plane. Further showing me I was sooo wrong about Americans, they are actually awesome!!

As I get to the hotel, I have a lot of banter with the receptionist who seems really cool and pregnant; and she let me touch it:

Random fun in Chicago

As I arrive in Chicago and miss my connecting flight I await the shuttle bus to take me to the hotel where I will spend the night before going onto Boise. I feel a mixture of fatigue from an almost 18 hour journey, but excitement as I am in a new place with the possibility of a lot of fun times and adventures ahead. I, the ever optimist think of all the advantages of being able to spend a night in Chicago, and think of the things I can do before my 9 hours are up and I need to catch my connecting flight.

Snakes on a Plane!

Flying for me is a bitch, especially when I go America, which I am. I envision yesterday’s fun will be counteracted by the crap that is this journey, and I am not let down. I get to the airport in ample amount of time, and everything is going great, until I get a random sticker on my passport and boarding card. I later realise this means the American computer has chosen me for random tests. Funny it being random and me being a Muslim, but I am probably being paranoid except the last time I went America this also happened.

As I go to the Airline with my passport the lady behind the counter, a 40 year old ish Oriental woman started to freak me out. She started talking about Halal chicken, and animal cruelty, but this would have been fine, except she kept talking for at least 10 minutes after I totally looked disinterested and explained I was not an expert, but no I was told all about how her son had brought up these chickens, but her mum killed said chicken and her brother was gutted. In my head I was thinking, great story(Sarcasm), get on with my ticket. After another 2 random checks and pseudo investigational conversation I get onto the plane

Random adventure in Balham

After leaving Hamley’s and popping into the office with all the cool new presentations, I left work early to go finish packing, unlike the last time I did this it wasn’t too bad. 2 hours later with the majority of the packing done it was time to have some last hours of fun in England:

Marc and I went out to initially get some food, he wanted to go Nando’s, and since I am a total team-player we walked down to the one on Clapham High Street, but it was as though the shop was fumigated with chicken smoke, it was worse than the smell of the chicken shop I almost moved into. We decided to hit the one in Balham, neither of us knew how to get there. As the rain pours down in the musky gloomy street, Marc shouts: ‘Adventure time’ as we ran to the bus shelter to avoid the rain.

Child Like Fun

So, the day before I flew out to America was pretty fun. It started off at lunch time, when I went to Hamleys with a work colleague and wow, Hamleys is a fun place. I always knew that I was and will always be a little bit of a kid at heart but this really brought out the inner child. It started off with walking round wide eyed, regressing at least 3 years in my head to a mental age of 13. As we walk around I overhear an employee ask another employee, a little too loudly: ‘Why would anyone have a tattoo of their name across their back (above the bum, is where she indicates with her hands). I take a step back into their space, and quip in: ‘Wellll… If she was a bit of a slut or a porn star and liked to say: ‘Whats my name?’ during sex, well then, if the guy does not remember but is playing the manly, alpha card, rather than him replying ‘Shut up Bi*&^’, which would be totally embarrassing or demeaning for one or both parties. He can now read the name (if he can read) on the back and be a respectful gentleman and respond with say ‘Lisa or Gemma or more likely Sparkles’, however this is not the only reason ladies, just the first that comes to mind, I’m sure there could be many more.

PROUD Camden

The night continued and we went to PROUD in Camden, and whilst this sounded like a Gay club it wasn’t. What it was, I am still not a 100% sure. What I do know is that, there was a giant walking around on stilettos, whilst playing with string, which just happened to be attached to a dwarf. Im not sure if this was an elaborate visual mind fuck but it looked as thought he was being commanded like a puppet. Some might say it was like being on acid, others could just say It was a very big and very clever visual representation to alters ones understanding of the norm.

Empty and before the craziness can infiltrate your senses.

Bombay Dreams

It was my friend’s birthday; we went to a restaurant called ‘Bombay Dreams’. The name itself, consumed my mind with images of a colourful landscape, full of beautiful women dressed in Saree’s, and men in tight waistcoat-esque suits. Later on in this fantasy I hear one of the waiters explain: ‘No, Sir, sorry we don’t do that… Thankyou’ in a proper ‘freshie’ (fresh of the boat) accent as he tilts his head very slowly to the right and then left, with a big grin, presenting an almost vacant expression. Then I remembered ‘Goodness Gracious Me’ was not a documentary and maybe I was enacting in some naive racial stereotyping. Maybe this restaurant was full of Indian people, acting very British, extremely prim and proper, because believe me, this is a dream of the Indian people (stereotypically). It seems as Indians float to the higher end of the Social class hierarchy, the more British they act, the more often you will hear them break up their native tongue with English. True Story!