Graham Beckwith, Party Animal

Welcome back, Lantern enthusiast. In this post, we'll examine a delightful little morsel of delicious Graham Beckwith journalism. Having tackled world hunger, cold fusion, and global warming, Graham has moved on to another pressing concern: just how awkward he can really be.

Awkward turtle saves my life
Graham Beckwith
Issue date: 3/6/08 Section: Arts

My buddy Fish had rolled into town one weeekend and was staying with a few of his people at the convention center, so I went to go meet him with a few of my people.

Were you wondering how much of a badass Graham Beckwith is? Well, let's put it this way: he rolls with guys named Fish. That's right, fuckin' Fish, man. What a hardass. Apparently, on this particular "weeekend" (good catch, Lantern editing staff!), Graham and a couple of his "people" met up with Fish and a couple of his "people."

If you couldn't tell from Graham's swingin' prose, he and Fish are a coupla goodfellas. You know, goodfellas- they'll take care of youse, whatever ya need. Graham and his people, they're good people, youse all can get together. Also, Mama Beckwith makes a rigatoni dish that is outta-this-world, my friend.

Shortly into our conversation, Fish and his people started making odd hand movements in unison. It was one of the strangest things I had ever seen coming from people who I was pretty sure weren't on drugs.

Graham has seen a lot of people doing strange things on drugs- the entire Lantern staff routinely trips salvia wearing Tupac shirts. And you wondered how anyone could have ever come up with "Pod-Pod the Rhino."

"This - this is the awkward turtle," Fish said with a look of satisfaction one could only get finding something worthwhile to believe in.

Unbeknownst to Graham, Fish had also ejaculated.

He placed his palm flat on the back of his other hand and wiggled his two thumbs - pardon me if I can't draw a diagram.

Graham actually attempted to draw a diagram, but couldn't figure out how to hold a pen to draw both of his hands at the same time- he blames that M.C. Escher drawing for fucking with his head. Hence the testiness.

"Oh, I see." I said. The thumbs are awkward turtle legs, the two palms are the awkward bodies. But what does this mean?

Now, I'm no expert on the awkward turtle like Graham Beckwith, but isn't the "turtle" singular, with the two thumbs serving as flippers? If so, why does said turtle have two bodies?

As for what it means, well. It means Graham Beckwith just took this story to a WHOLE 'NOTHER LEVEL ON YOUR ASS. Graham's 'bout to get investigative.

"I was told about this awhile ago," Fish explained. "Awkward stuff just seems to happen to us. So what we do when it happens is do the awkward turtle, so that at least we can all share in it."

I picture Fish as a sort of older brother figure to Graham, passing on the lessons he's learned when the time is right. At the end of the column, Fish will tell Graham to go ahead and keep the glove and the hat. When Benny "The Fish" Rodriguez is playing ball in the major leagues and Graham is a play-by-play man, you can bet he'll have that hat on when he calls the next pickle.

I was elated. For too long I had suffered through countless awkward moments, all alone in the world with no idea how to react.

(stunned that Graham has ever, ever suffered through awkward moments)

Now I was being given an invitation to the awkward turtle club - maybe not the most prestigious club, but becoming a member felt right to me.

Graham initially struggled with the awkward turtle club's dress code.

Right before I started attending Ohio State, I ended up at this suburban dinner party back home - 70's furniture, appetizers, sycophantic laughs, sparkling white wine.

I will never get tired of how Graham always writes about his social life as if he's some kind of swinging, hob-nobbing Austin Powers-meets-1970s Jack Nicholson type. Graham, you're a pimply Lantern humor columnist. You probably can't do a push-up, and I'd be willing to bet you're a virgin. Your typical weekend night probably consists of wandering around east campus with your roommate like a freshman, trying to slip into a house party and wait in line for the keg. You're not out on the weekends with "your people" rubbing elbows with the Rockefellers. Please, please, just fucking spare us.

"Lots of students at Ohio State, eh?" said someone at the party, after I had been cornered into conversation.

Graham frequents Canadian dinner parties. Also, I'm guessing this person cornering Graham is an uncle or some other relative, but I can almost see Graham hunched over his laptop fighting the urge to change the character to a gorgeous redhead in a clingy, black satin dress, carelessly cradling a champagne flute between her elegant fingers. As she approaches him in a faraway corner of the party, she can't help but notice how cool he looks, leaning against the wall, effortlessly soaking in the party, his fedora cocked forward over his handsome face...

Sorry. Where was I? Ah, the awkward turtle.

"Well sure, but I imagine it'll be just like high school with all the sects," I said.

The beautiful redhead flicked her hand through her auburn hair and laughed a tinkling laugh, like rose petals falling on piano keys.

"What did you say your name was, doll?" Graham asked.

"Lily," said Lily.

"Listen, Lily. Let's you and I shake a leg and scoot back to my pad- we need to get that dress off of you before it goes out of style."

Lily blushed a deep red that matched her hair. Graham's awkwardness, it seemed, had unlocked the door to her heart...and her bedroom.

It took a long pause before I realized he thought I meant "sex."

(boiiiiiiiiiing sound effect) Aaaaaawk-waaaaard!

"No, no," I sputtered, "I mean 'sects.' You know, in groups?"

Graham chose to distinguish between the homonyms "sects" and "sex" by repeating the word "sects" and possibly making little quotation hand signals. Unless nobody told him about that hand signal either. The moral of the story is, Graham would never have been able to make it as a Blood- the two-handed lowercase "blood" would be far, far too much for him to handle.

With the realization that I had told this man that Buckeyes like sex in groups, and the awkwardness taking over the situation, I had to down my wine and make a bee-line for the door.

This man turned out to be Karen Holbrook. Now you know where she got it from. On top of it, she probably thinks that the "drunken orgies" are fueled by sparkling white wine, the drink of badasses like Graham Beckwith.

Save me, awkward turtle!

Pardon me for asking, but how exactly would the awkward turtle have saved you? You make an awkward comment, but if you follow it up with a gay little hand gesture, all is forgiven? Somehow I still picture that encounter being awkward.

There was also the time when a kid who looked like Thurman Murman from "Bad Santa" asked me to buy him porn at a DVD store. He darted away from me before I had the chance to finish telling him "no," but I had to feel bad for the poor fella - he could have used an awkward turtle in his life.

Good one, Graham. Everyone knows what Thurman Murman from "Bad Santa" looks like. Way to bring that story to the readership.

If I had known about awkward turtle during high school, it would have never left my side.

Other things that never left Graham's side in high school:

-copy of People magazine

-iPod loaded with Clay Aiken, Kelly Clarkson

-Danimals™ drinkable yogurt

One time during freshman year of college, my suitemates were watching some "SportsCenter" in the living room. A nice distribution of people I guess: eight ignoramuses, ranging from a Republican former high-school wrestler on one side of the room to a liberal flower-waver on the other.

That is a nice distribution. Seems to be approximately normal, with mean = Average guy that always wears an OSU football jersey and standard deviation = enjoyment of the movie "13 Going on 30." Needless to say, Graham has a z-score over 3.

In a related story, I proficiencied out of my stat class today. See ya, incomprehensible TA.

Maybe watching wrestling highlights prompted the wrestler to talk about wrestling for the millionth time that year. But I had heard it enough times for me to react, even though what he said wasn't bad at all.

Maybe this big, dumb brute smelled Graham's menstruation. Who knows.

"Look, when it comes down to it, isn't wrestling just foreplay?" I said, being the flower-waver.

Idea: Maybe your roommates would like you more if you a) didn't mention homoerotic foreplay so damn much and b) weren't waving a fucking flower while you did it.

It was one of things that just seemed to leak unwillingly from mind to mouth, when it should have remained just a passing thought.

I pride myself on being a more sophisticated humorist than Graham and/or Lyndon Collins, so please supply your own "other things that leaked unwillingly into Graham's mouth" joke here. I won't stoop that low, you hear!?

And as the wrestler sat in his chair across the room, his teeth grinding themselves to dust, all I could do was sit on my side of the room covered in blush.

Addendum to list from two paragraphs earlier: c) Your roommates might like you better if you DIDN'T COVER YOURSELF IN MAKEUP POWDER while watching SportsCenter. Idiot.

*It has come to my attention that Graham may have intended to say "blushing" rather than "covered in blush." That's his fault, not mine, and really- is it all that much of a stretch?

Although the wrestler surely wanted nothing more than to mount me and wrestle the life from my smart-alecky liberal head, all I wanted was someone in the room to flash me an awkward turtle gang sign to let me know everything was OK. I just didn't know it then.

I'm sure he wanted to "mount" you, Graham. If you're keeping score at home, Graham has bumped the bar for "homoerotic quotient in a single column" up a full three notches. Ball's in your court, Peter King. Not so gay without Brett Favre, now, are ya?

Awkward turtle can change the world, if it gets people like me to laugh at this stuff.

I think we can all agree that we had a good chuckle reading about the hilarity that ensued from Graham's awkward hijinks. Either that, or we put the column down, washed our hands, and then watched some girl-on-girl porn just to get that gay stench out of the air. Regardless- a job well done, Mr. Beckwith, a job well done.