Today I have quite the treat for you. I am allowing my friend Aaron Bensoua to be a guest author on my blog. I promise that he will entertain you in ways you never imagined possible. The following post was written 100% by him, I have not edited it in anyway shape or form (even thought here were parts I really wanted to). After reading this masterpiece, if you feel you have response and want it posted here, then email me.
Thanks,
Chelsea
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"The Apocalypse Dream Team"
By: Aaron Bensoua
So Chelsea came to me one day with an idea during one of our Challenge calls- (Yes, I have to interject off the bat and explain. Chelsea and I get together every week and have a full thirty minute phone conversation about MTV's The Challenge, which if you haven't seen it, might be the most riveting reality show that has ever existed. It's the right balance of athletic prowess and drunken debauchery that I can't rip my eyes away from. I also probably shouldn't mention that we handle our own fantasy league as a result from the show. We draft players before the season and assign points for funny things they do. I digress, that's another blog post for another day.)
Back to the matter at hand, an issue of far more importance. Chelsea came to me at the end of one of these chats and posed a great question: If we endured an apocalyptic event, which 10 friends (5 guys and 5 girls) out of our circle of friends would you take with you? It's funny that she asked me, because I ponder this dilemma on an almost daily basis. It's something that I may or may not have given far too much thought.
Remember that part in the movie
2012 where John Cusack---- ah, who am I kidding, none of you've seen
2012. Let's take a better apocalyptic movie:
I Am Legend. Now in this movie, it was Will Smith, a dog, and the entire empty city of New York (give or take a few million zombies).
(That dog should have been named Wilson.)
The movie was decent but I can only take so much of one actor, any actor, on screen at a time. (The only movie where this worked was Cast Away- the degree of difficulty for Tom Hanks to pull that off for 2 1/2 hours is remarkable.)
But what if Will (I can call him Will now- we're tight like that) got to choose a select group of friends to stay with him? The interaction certainly would have made that movie much more entertaining, but it also would have introduced a group dynamic which would have greatly impacted his potential survival (It also would have saved us from a wildly illogical ending). The decision on which people to take is crucial. This isn't a list of "Who are my top 10 friends?"-- It's a list of people who bring a certain distinct element to the group.
It's like I'm assembling a basketball team- I can't have everyone be the "gun man." (By the way, in my apocalyptic world, I'm just going to assume there are zombies or some sort of alien race running around- I'm just trying to keep this realistic.) So in that case, I am forced to choose friends, not based on how much I like them, but rather on the question, "What do you bring to the table when we're knee deep in toxic waste, fighting off strange creatures at all hours of the night?" (It's funny how much a post-apocalyptic world sounds like half of the bars in Hermosa on any given Friday night...)
Now ultimately, creating a list like this and putting it on the internet can alienate groups of friends, I know for a fact that certain omissions will complain "WHY DIDN'T YOU PICK ME!?!" To which I'll respond, "BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE A SINGLE DISTINGUISHABLE TRADE SKILL, YOU NON-CONTRIBUTING ZERO!" It's going to be a fun song and dance, but needless to say, this list needs to be made. Don't get offended! I still love you all equally. Plus I'm posting this on Chelsea's blog- it's not exactly the Huffington Post.
So, without further ado, here are my Top 10 friends whom I would pick to join me in the Netherworld:
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The Guys-
Bryan White- (aka B-Dub, Chupo, Winglets- If you're ever at the Beatles Revolution lounge in Vegas, bring up the fact that you're familiar with plane winglets, trust me.)
If this assignment were to choose one friend to take with me, I would take B-Dub. Without question. Without hesitation. He would be the MacGuyver of the wastelands; creating slip knots out of electrical wire, inventing some sort of analytical engine to solve tasks- basically doing crap that people like me don't understand and just assume work on their own.
He also has no fear. One time we were in Catalina "fishing" for sanddabs. Now I put fishing in quotes, because I doubt you could even qualify this as fishing. Essentially, you put bait on hooks and simply drop it into the Pacific Ocean until these little bottom-feeding fish swim over, take the bait, and you pull it back up. I exert more energy eating at a sushi bar.
We had been fishing for a while and caught a lot of fish, until one moment, when we caught a baby shark. I jumped back a bit in the boat, while Bryan basically just palmed the shark like John Elway palming a football and pulled the hook out of the shark's mouth before I was done sweating. Dude is nails! I need him with me in my foxhole. It's the easiest way to guarantee my survival.
Phil Eisenhower-
Do you all have that one friend when the first time you look at him, you go, "This guy could be one of two things --Either the lead singer of the band
Kansas or a key member of my apocalypse group?" That's Phil!
Now I'll admit, I don't know Phil as well as everyone else in this group, but I feel very confident that I can judge an entire person's demeanor and persona from limited social interaction, their Twitter profile, and Facebook photos. He wouldn't blink in this situation. He would thrive. Phil would be exploring, creating, mapping out the terrain, setting up a new worldwide bartering system based on old VHS cassettes, whatever comes up! As the elder statesman, we would also look to him for guidance. But however....
Phil, unfortunately, you're also going to be the first to die. But you'd go down in a blaze of glory, ala Goose in Top Gun. You're going to be captured on some recon mission by a band of nomadic tribesman. They'll interrogate you, but you'll keep your mouth shut. It'd be all heroic and we'd honor your memory with a yearly celebration of ale and red meat while blasting
this song full tilt. Carry on brother! We'll get revenge for you.
Tyler Nazarian-
While most of us would be a little amiss and taken aback with a sudden upheaval into an unknown world, I know for a fact that out of anyone in the group, Tyler would be the most excited. He would also be the the one to comfort everyone's inevitable freakout.
My least favorite part of any apocalypse movie is the 10 minute scene when one person has an emotional breakdown and everyone else has to waste time comforting that person (it's usually the girl in the group, sorry ladies.) I watch those scenes and say to myself, "We're wasting valuable screen time here people! We should be smashing aliens!"
But with Tyler around, that scene doesn't happen. Who is going to have an emotional breakdown when Tyler so clearly lays out every possible scenario and situation needed to survive. This guy has probably seen and analyzed every movie out there describing this type of world. (Actually, scratch that "probably" and put down "Absolutely without a shadow of a doubt"). He's a natural leader and would eventually lead the clan. Let's just say, I'm giving him the conch.
(That reminds me of my biggest complaint with
Lord of the Flies, the conch. What a stupid idea that was. I never understood why throughout the entire course of the book another one of the kids never found another conch and claimed superiority-- you're on a beach for heaven's sake, there's a billion of them there! We could have saved Piggy damnit!)
Bret Cogan-
This choice is a slam dunk. Bret brings the single most distinguishable skill out of everyone: The ability to freestyle cook. Now I know what you're thinking- "Wait a minute Aaron, I know how to cook, pick me!"
First of all, no, you don't know how to cook. You know how to follow a recipe. Just because you can cook a successful meal from a recipe doesn't make you a chef. Congrats, you followed step-by-step directions from a piece of paper- you now possess the cognitive skills of a kindergartener. A chef is someone who can create a dish from random ingredients based on their ability to understand how food is supposed to taste and be prepared. Taking your Lean Cuisine out of the freezer and microwaving it just won't cut it.
I'm going to be able to hand Bret a chicken, a half-eaten carrot, and an old boot and have him turn it into Jambalaya. The food situation will be dire here and he'll be incredibly valuable. We'll have to protect him at all costs. We all remember his dessert from the 4th Annual Ryan Weiss Christmas Party. That's not something you just buy from Costco.
(The most concerning thing about the RWCP is that no one won MVP last year-- the winners were so easily defined in years 1-3, but last year, there was no clear-cut champion. Most of us ended up trying to shoe horn Rachel into the crown with a performance not even close to past winners. It's a pretty scary trend guys- we all need to get into the film room, and research where we all went wrong. Someone needs to take the belt in the fifth installment- right now the belt is just floating in exile without a home, like CM Punk and WWE Championship.)
Xander Bertucci-
I vacillated pretty frequently between Xander and Graue for the last slot, but eventually settled on Xander. With Graue, he would absolutely enjoy living in an apocalypse, but would probably enjoy it too much. He would start doing things to make the apocalypse worse, driving the rest of us up the wall. Of course, we'd all look back on the footage and realize it was genius, but in the moment, I'd be chasing Graue around with a machete.
Xander on the other hand would be perfect, He adds just the right blend of sociopathic crazy and intelligence. He is also secretly a fit hiker. If you've ever been backpacking with him, you'd realize that by the time you look up from filling up your Camelbak, he's gone. He marches through terrain like a freakin' mountain goat. I won't have to worry about carrying Xander on my back, because I won't even know where Xander is. But when he returns to base camp in 16 hours, he'll have a handful of wild blueberries and a full caribou with him. Those are the moments when we remember why we love Xandy. Plus he has the ability to rock the sweetest bandana tans ever seen. It's the stuff dreams are made of.
The Girls:
Chelsea Nazarian-
I picked Chelsea because one, it's her idea and two, she wouldn't post this unless I chose her...
Just (somewhat) kidding. I don't know if you all remember the infamous Nazarian "Street Smart-Book Smart" debate of 2010. If you don't, it was pretty much the Lincoln-Douglass Debates of our generation. Basically, Tyler and Chelsea (brother and sister if you didn't know already) were arguing which one of them was book smart and which one of them were street smart.
After some pretty heated back and forth, and wise consultation with their friends (I received a phone call on this subject), the consensus ended up being that Tyler was Street Smart and Chelsea was Book Smart. Both will continue to argue that they are both, but I think the rest of us will agree with what the jury settled on. (Although, if you count comic books, picture books, and volleyball coaching manuals as books, then Tyler is a pretty well-rounded dude, but that is neither here nor there.) That book intelligence is exactly why Chelsea needs to be here. The group I'm assembling has tremendous upside, but they can also be pretty volatile. Without Chelsea, we would either survive or self-destruct within 48 hours. Chelsea needs to be there as the voice of reason- the calm in the storm. The one to say, "Hey Xander, maybe we shouldn't burn through our entire supply of rice because you think you've discovered a better way to solve the moisture issue of your Nikon D90 camera. We don't even need a camera anymore. Stop lighting things on fire!"
Chelsea is also really funny. Not like, "politely giggle and move on" funny, but genuinely funny. She can tell jokes that produce a real guffaw. (I may or may not have just spent 3 minutes researching synonyms for "laughter" before settling on guffaw- it's a great word. I'm bringing it back.) Welcome aboard Chelsea- you're the first girl.
Megan Lynch-
Megan has the perfect combination of sheer athleticism and downright insanity. One moment, she is sweet, normal Megan, and the next, she turns into some creature named Megor and is doing some strange Gollum impression on top of Half Dome (true story). That's the wild card she brings to the group.
Also every group needs a seductress. I know for an absolute fact that our group won't be the only surviving group-- there will be a similar group out there that we'll need to interact and trade with in order to live. When we run into this rag-tag group of kids, I'll try to be diplomatic and work out a deal, and fail. (We've all seen my
Diplomacy skills- worst game ever invented) Tyler will suggest rolling in, guns ablazing, and turning their home base into a smoldering crater, and fail. So with our back against the wall, we'll turn to Megan to go in and put some voodoo hex on their leader to make our escape.
How does this work? What do I look like a scientist here!?!?! I don't have all the answers. All I know is that if anyone can pull off this maneuver, it's Megan. I mean, she actually got people to buy clothes from Abercrombie & Fitch when she worked there, so I know that skill is somewhere in her.
"Wait, so you're saying I can have an extra-tight polo shirt, acid-sprayed ripped jeans, and look like a spoiled, douchey East Coast prep kid for
ONLY $175?!?!! I'll take two!" How A&F has convinced any portion of the public to buy their clothes is beyond me. We should send them to negotiate all foreign treaties from now on. We could drop them in Jerusalem in the morning, settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the afternoon, and have both leaders watching lacrosse and dancing to some super loud Tiesto beat by the evening.
Jenna Quan-
I have Jenna playing a very important role in the group: The Eternal Optimist. I don't think I've ever seen Jenna upset over anything. Sometimes I like to challenge myself and see if I could come up with a scenario that would make her crack: "Ok, Jenna, how upset would you be if it was raining on your wedding day, and you've paid for a ride there that you've already taken, after ignoring perfectly good advice, and all the while the song "Ironic" is stuck in your head?"
She would respond-- "That's weird, but whatever, it could be worse." Followed by a giggle, and that would be that. That's the kind of attitude I need! You could present Jenna the most uncomfortable situation possible and she would roll with it. That is such a huge quality, especially when the situation presented is going to be a dank, depressing underworld with a bunch of desperate kids fighting for survival. She'd keep spirits high.
Colleen Cox-
Time to talk about the elephant in the room: Someone has to be the mother of the next generation of children. There I said it. It's important. Humanity's survival depends on our ability to reproduce and reproduce good kids that won't grow up and cause a second apocalypse. (Looking at you Michale Lohan!) So let me give you a list of my friends who are both emotionally and mentally ready for that job:
1. Colleen
That's it. That's the list.
Colleen is the only person I would trust to raise humanities next best hope. Plus Colleen is athletic. Her kids will be one of those hyper-competitive ones that will flip out over anything: a game of nerts (Does nerts exist outside of our group? Is it popular anywhere else? I've never seen anyone else play it, which is a real shame because it's such a fun way to verbally destroy the person you're partnered with because she missed the Ace of Diamonds RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!), tetherball, or even Heads-up 7-up.
I predict this will be an actual quote from her kids after a Heads-up 7-up game, October 2020-- "THAT'S SUCH CRAP! YOU WERE PEEKING AT MY SHOES THROUGH YOUR ARMS! THAT WAS THE MOST STEALTH THUMB-SLAP IN SCHOOL HISTORY AND THERE IS NO POSSIBLE WAY YOU COULD HAVE PICKED ME! I'M PROTESTING THIS GAME! Teacher, you can't let anyone out of Rainy Day Schedule until this matter is resolved!" -Colleen Jr.
That's what I'm talking about! It's a tough world out there and we'll need people who are mentally strong. (Note- I'm going to give Kevin, her husband, a special voucher to attend this apocalypse just to keep things St. Andrews appropriate cause you know....)
Tina Perkins-
(She's the one on the left...)
I absolutely need Tina here. Mainly for one reason: she's been training a long time for this type of decrepit world for the past few years at ZBT. All those Egyptian soap parties will finally pay off! But no seriously, Tina knows me better than probably anyone and that connection is going to come up huge. I also trust Tina more than any other girl, which may or may not be pretty frightening when you think about it. Actually, wait, that's terrifying....
But Tina has developed food immunities that I know will carry her far. She has spent her entire college career eating food at a place called "Buck Fifties." There is nothing that we could thrown at her that would cause a negative reaction.
(Buck Fifties is a Mexican food shack in Westwood that serves the gnarliest, greasiest delicacies taht you will ever find. It's one of those places that you wonder why it is ever open during hours other than Midnight to 3a.m. But after a night out on the town, nothing sounds better than a 14-inch burrito and dream fries. Of course, the next morning,
ANYTHING, sounds better than a 14-inch burrito and dream fries while you're vomiting in the toilet for hours.)
Also I'm fairly certain we won't have access to automobiles there, so Tina will be safe from that one. ...(if any of you claim too soon on this, I would like to introduce you to the Kettle. You are the same people that rolled out the same "I guess she should have gone to rehab" joke on Twitter literally seconds after Amy Winehouse died this weekend. You all have no shame.)
Plus let's be real for a second, Tina's an attractive girl and I need to make sure attractive girls are with us. Otherwise I'd probably start developing strange feelings for people that I shouldn't. Philip, I'm looking at you. We'd have some sort of weird Brokeback Mountain sequel involving space cowboys. No one wants to see that. This is a pick for my sanity.
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So there you have it, that's my list. I'm going to be real- I'm almost tempted to bring about the apocalypse and try this group out. But before we do, in the coming days and weeks, other people are going to roll out their Top 10 lists and post them here: generating a whole 15 more people to Chelsea's blog. Let the great debate begin- at least until the NFL Lockout is over and I can go back to Fantasy Football..
