PUT IT ALL ON RED

Kate, the last two years have been the best of my life. I was in free fall when I met you but now I feel like, for the first time in years, I have two feet on the ground. I don’t want too much out of life, but I need someone like you to make it complete. What I’m trying to say is that I couldn’t imagine myself without a Zimmerman girl in my life, preferably you.

I brought you here to your family’s favorite restaurant to ask if you will do me the honor of giving me your beautiful hand in marriage. But if not, I also made a reservation for tomorrow night under Megan’s name. So, Kate, will you either make me the happiest man on Earth or else leave a post-it note on your sister’s door when you get home telling her to call me?

I just don’t want you to feel pressured. I love you so much but I won’t be crushed or angry if you say no. I won’t post dirty pictures of you online or slander you to our friends. I won’t delete you from my contacts or burn your love notes. I will just calmly and quietly go back to the apartment, pack up all my stuff into my duffle bag, and move it to Meg’s room on the third floor.

I remember the night we met like it was yesterday, every single detail. It was Ben Wilson’s holiday party and you wore that beautiful flowing purple dress you love with a white flower in your hair. The moment I saw you, I knew I had to be with you. Incidentally, I also remember that your sister was wearing a bright green blouse and a nice frilly plaid skirt. I guess I should add I also knew that, if I couldn’t be with you, I had to be with her. But I was much more taken with you.

If you’re not ready to get married, though, please don’t tell her I said that.

I went up to you nervously and said, “If I weren’t so hopelessly shy I would totally ask you for your name.” You laughed and replied, “If you weren’t so hopelessly adorable, I wouldn’t tell you.” Sure it was corny, but it felt right. Then we talked for an hour and a half and finally I worked up the courage to kiss you under the mistletoe and you said you thought it was ironic that two Jews would have “the WASPiest first kiss in history.” It was a magical evening.

Then you went to say goodbye to a friend and I chatted up Megan for a while. That was also magical, but less so.

We went to your parents’ house for your dad’s birthday two months later and I got to meet your wonderful family. We played scrabble and I argued with your dad about whether Casablanca was better than the Maltese Falcon until 1 in the morning! I went to shake his hand when I left but instead he gave me a big hug and invited me to come back for dinner that weekend. I wanted nothing more than to be part of your family. One way or another, I plan to make that happen.

I just want you to be happy. If that means spending the rest of your life with me, I will be overjoyed. I will be a loving husband and an endlessly loyal friend for as long as I live. I will be a great dad for our kids when we’re ready for that but you will always be my first love. I would fulfill every crappy love song cliché just to see you smile. So, Kate, please say yes and continue bringing meaning into my life the way you have every day for the past two years. But if not, I’m more than happy to set you up with my brother.

Four years gone by. Wow. It’s difficult to describe the feeling I have standing at this podium in my blue cap and gown and looking at the faces of all my classmates. It’s almost like I’m seeing a living scrapbook of my high school memories. In the front row is the girl that turned me down for Prom both of the last two years, there’s the guy who left a dead possum in my locker for all of Spring Break until I had to have it rebuilt just to get rid of the smell, the gym teacher who used to shout homophobic slurs at me when I didn’t want to play dodge ball, the girl who told everyone that I got an erection when I saw Mrs. Zeever’s cleavage in ninth grade English, etc. I have to say, standing over all of you, looking down, and holding a piece of paper signed by the principal that says I’m objectively better than each and every one of you, I feel pretty good about the whole thing.

I’m sure everyone remembers when Jeff Saunders pulled down my pants in the packed football stadium. I know because I saw you all laugh and laugh until tears streamed down your cheeks. Well, enjoy your job at the Gas-n-Go, Jeff. When I come back to town in my shiny Porsche and stop for a fill up, I’ll be sure to tip you in pennies.

When the administration asked me to speak today, they said the topic would be “What I Learned at Greenville High and How It Will Guide Me in the Future.” Well, I’ll tell you exactly what I learned; people suck. People are sheep. Cruel, mindless, locker-vandalizing, homework-stealing, wedgie-giving, nipple-twisting sheep. How will it guide me in the future? First off, I will never trust anybody. Ever. Secondly, it’s going to guide me right back here for our tenth reunion to laugh at your minimum wage earning asses as I flash my thousand dollar Rolex under your dirty, plebian faces.

But I don’t hate you; I pity you. Actually, let me clarify: yesterday I hated you, today I pity you. Yesterday you were my tormentors. Yesterday you laughed at my awkward attempts to fit in. Yesterday you tied my shoelaces together and turned my backpack inside out for amusement. But today you sit before me, silent in the face of my indisputable triumph over your perverse, juvenile antics. Today you are mere insects and I am a 7 year old pyromaniac with a magnifying glass on a blindingly sunny day.

Well, it looks like I’m getting a signal from the principal that either means “time’s almost up” or “for the love of God, quit drawing attention to the hopeless inferiority of the overwhelming bulk of the graduating class,” so I’ll start to wrap up. But before I go, I’d like to offer these words of advice to the audience:

Treat others as you would like to be treated because the ones who are weakest now will grow to be your masters in a few years.

Everyone is accountable for his or her actions so think carefully next time you consider putting maggots in someone’s Star Trek lunchbox.

Revenge is a dish best served with visible schadenfreude and fits of uncontrollable laughter. So expect that.

Finally, I’d like to close by wishing good luck to all my classmates; you’re gonna need it, fuckers!

It’s good to be on top, even if that means lying lifelessly on top of a sewer grate. Half of the big police procedural stars have stood over me at some point or another, shook their heads, and said something like, “Time of death 2:53 AM.” And you can bet your ass the other half wishes they had. If you’ve ever seen Dexter or Law & Order, you’ve probably seen my mangled body splayed out on a coroner’s table and let me tell you, life is good as TV’s favorite rotting pile of flesh.

Aside from the thrill of seeing yourself on TV, there are lots of perks to the job. I’ll walk into bar and someone I’ve never met will come up to me and say, “Aren’t you the guy who was found dead in his pool on CSI: Miami last week?” And I’ll give him a knowing smile and he’ll call his friends over and ask me to play dead for them. I’ll pretend to be shy but I love the attention and before you know it I’m flopped down on the bar so convincingly that the bartender starts to call 911.

Or sometimes a woman will come up to me and say, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” I’ll respond, “Does this look familiar?” and fall to the ground in a heap. 9 out of 10 times I end up going home with her. Best of all, I never have to search around at the last minute for a Halloween costume!

People always want to know my method. The key is to keep in mind how the character died. If he was strangled to death, maybe you want to put your hands up to your throat as if you were trying to stop the strangler. If he was hit by a car, don’t lie stiff as a board; throw your limbs around in every direction. If it was a slow death like a bludgeoning or a torture case then show some pain on your face. If you’re really serious about the role, you may even want to get into a bar fight the night before to make it look authentic and to understand the pain of being clobbered to the ground.

Also, try not to move or breathe too much.

Do I consider myself an artist? Well, I’m no Ron Goldstein (probably better known to you as “Guy With Ice Pick in Head” in Episode 103 of NYPD Blue). But I think that I am an inspiration to other corpse actors and, when you’ve got more dead bodies on your resume than a New Jersey reservoir, it sure as hell pays the rent.

That said, I didn’t get into it for the money. I do it because I love it. I do it because I’m damn good at it. Most of all, I do it because, when people see a corpse on TV, they shouldn’t think to themselves, “Oh that’s just some guy lying down in a pool of red dye.” They should think, “Wow, there is no doubt in my mind that this guy is dead. I’ve seen living people, and they do not look like that. That is one very dead man.”

To be a good actor, you have to be committed. You’ve gotta love it. Sure it’s a glamorous lifestyle, but it’s not a walk in the park. It’s not easy to day in and day out get up, go to work, lie down, not move, get back up, go home, and lie down again. It’s not for everyone, but I for one couldn’t imagine living a better life or dying better deaths than I do every single day.

Lately I’ve been feeling like I’m just floating through life without any particular purpose or goal. It’s difficult to be happy if you don’t have your own calling. That’s why, even though I’m not sure I could spit up the dictionary definition for you, I think I’m ready to start racketeering.

First off, I know it has something to do with the mafia and I’ve always seen myself as kind of a “large and in charge” type with a devious streak. Also, I don’t get the sense that it’s a violent crime because I definitely wouldn’t want to hurt anyone. All I know is that it sounds lucrative and it sounds fun.

I was thinking about getting one of those “For Dummies” books but I’m guessing that they don’t have them for criminal activity (I think the company would probably be exposed to all kinds of law suits from racketeering victims, if they exist). I figure if I pick up a gambling habit or something eventually I’ll meet somebody in the mob and they could probably tell me what it is.

Of course, I wouldn’t want to sound stupid in front of a mob boss; I’d try to be really subtle about it. I’d say something like, “You know, as much as I like gambling, my favorite crime is definitely racketeering. If you had to pick, who were your favorite racketeers of all time and why? What about their racketeering did you find particularly imitable?”

I assume that I could infer what the crime is without him being any the wiser. If he asks me questions, I can just give generic, all-purpose answers. For instance:

Mobster: When did you start racketeering?
Me: Oh, who can remember that far back.

Mobster: When do you like to racketeer?
Me: The nighttime.

Mobster: What do you use when you go racketeering?
Me: Just my wits and my bare hands.

Mobster: How did you get into racketeering in the first place?
Me: (holding back tears) I… I don’t think I’m ready to talk about that yet.

These are just a couple examples. It may take a while to get the hang of it but I’m a quick study and I think once my fellow racketeers see the persistence and ferocity of my racketeering, I’ll be known far and wide (except by any law enforcement officers in anti-racketeering units). But I’m sure I can be discreet; after all, how will the police know when I start racketeering if I don’t even know?

The point is that I’m not worried. I’m optimistic that one way or another, I’ll figure it out and, when I do, I think I’m going to be great at it. If not, I’ll just try privateering.

Dear Mr. Greenblatt,

I regret to inform you that we have decided to hire a different candidate for the position as a Chinese to English translator for the United Nations in New York. I know this probably comes as a disappointment but, based on your application, it should not come as a surprise. After closely reading your sample translation exercise, it is clear to us that you snuck a Chinese take-out menu into the testing center and, for each term, wrote down the meal description to the item that sounded the closest. We even figured out that it was the menu from Tiger Noodle on Canal and Mott.

Dear Mr. Greenblatt,

I am not entirely sure what led you to think you could apply for the position of “astro-knight” here at NASA, but I assure you that it does not exist. I would assume that you meant “astronaut” (for which you are physically and educationally under qualified), except that your application had numerous references to the Middle Ages and chivalry as well as the television miniseries “Merlin.”

Dear Mr. Greenblatt,

I am sorry to tell you that Mr. Spielberg does not need a new assistant. There was no opening posted anywhere and of course, as his assistant, I read the letter first.

Needless to say, I did not appreciate being referred to as “an irresponsible dick weed” or “a lazy little bitch.” I am particularly offended that you insulted my Czech and Austrian heritage and greatly disturbed that you spied on me long enough to become aware of it.

Please be advised that Mr. Spielberg has filed for a restraining order and that any further attempt to contact him will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Dear Mr. Greenblatt,

I am unable to offer you a position here at Pink Flowers Female Escort Service in Las Vegas. Even if the name was not enough of a tip off, a quick look at our website or brochure would have revealed that we only hire women. Furthermore, as an escort service, we are not particularly looking for people with major intimacy issues and an irrational fear of human contact. In fact, I would venture to say that these are both prohibitive attributes in an escort.

I would suggest that you look for employment in an area that requires less personal interaction, such as writing.