One-oh-two

I was talking to my pal Tim the other day and he said that an old Ju-Jitsu instructor he had won some “crazy tournament” and got like a million dollars. Naturally my first thought was ‘Holy shit, that guy must be fucking tough’, and just as naturally, my second thought was ‘Man, it would be nice to win a million dollars in a Ju-Jitsu tournament’. This notion was quickly followed by the sobering realization that I don’t know the first thing about Ju-Jitsu, and this reminded that until I’m actually really good at something, I’m lumped in there with every other asshole who genuinely dreams, even if only every once in a while, of one day winning the lottery. My next thought was ‘God dammit.’

So then I was thinking about things I have won. I won a walking tour of the Haunted Haight in a raffle a few years ago. One time I won a hundred bucks on a slot machine at the most pathetic casino I’ve ever seen outside of Laytonville, CA (though I lost it all and eighty more dollars within twenty minutes), and just two months ago in a raffle at a house party, I won a little handmade rubber stamp of a hand with middle finger raised. This win fucking elated me, because I got to go up in front of the assembled crowd at the party, give them a double bird salute, and yell FUCK YOU! The crowd merrily responded FUCK YOU!!! That was sublime.

Anyhow, then I was thinking of contests of  merit I have won, and I counted the fifth grade school spelling bee, a couple of $500 college scholarships, and a few middle school sprinting victories, not too shabby of a lifetime roll call, but what else? I had to have more laurels somewhere…

The last real category of achievement I could think of then was that of contests of feat, and the only victory that sprang to mind surrounds a lewd stunt I aced at a midnight screening of Rocky Horror Picture Show in late January of 2006. I had been seeing my girlfriend Dub for a few months, and things were awesome, so when she asked if I wanted to go see the show, I was pretty jazzed. I had sort of been wanting to go for years, but I sure as hell wanted to go with people who could brief me on what to expect, and I never thought it might be someone I was guaranteed to have sex with after the movie was over.

So there we were, liquored up and stoned to the ceiling, and the one thing Dub couldn’t predict what sort of goofy initiation ritual I would have to partake in. She could say without any doubt it would be sexual and pretty juvenile, but as to exactly what, there was no way of knowing.

Turns out I was in luck. With Cal Berkeley getting back into session the following week, some campus group had organized an end-of-break trip to Rocky, and there were like fifty virgins in the crowd. This forced the cast to settle for one or two individual initiations, and then a big group-challenge initiation. I am not allowed, by sacred respect of tradition, to explain exactly what I did, but don’t get too excited. It wasn’t that crazy, and it was all over in two seconds. But me and some frat dude WON, no one else was even close.

I apparently excel at contests involving mild debasement.

Now how to parlay that into a million dollars…