By a Show of Hands, How Glad Are You to See Me Again?

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Holy sh*t, has it really been almost two months since I wrote anything? If the three of you out there who read this pile of junk are still with me…what the f*ck is wrong with you? You should have found something else! Don’t look at me, I’m HIDEOUS!!!

Now that I’ve curled up in the fetal position and wept softly and quietly…damn, do I have a lot to talk about.

The past two months have been on a Special Olympics level of retarded, hence my elongated absence from writing. I don’t know how to explain it other than this: when there’s too much going on – as has been the case – I get exasperated thinking about all the stuff I want to write about…and then I sort of implode. So that’s what I did; I just checked out for a while, but unlike Dave Chappelle I don’t have the luxury of going to detox in Africa. I took some time to think about the most important things on my mind, and here I present them for you. Or some of them, anyway.

--My buddy Kyle got married last month on September 3^rd. I was dreading this day – not because of who he was marrying or where it was, but just because I hate weddings. Creepy relatives. Watered-down drinks. Bad DJs. Desperate chicks. Ties. Suits. Blech – blech it all, that’s what I say. But Kyle’s a great friend and I figured I should be there on what would be the best day of his life.

I didn’t expect it to be one of the best days of mine. And none of the above nuisances reared their ugly head.

First of all, let me tell you that I am not using the appropriate words by just saying that this wedding was f*cking amazing looking. Think of the best wedding you’ve ever been to and multiply it by Long Island – this was mind-boggling. If you ever want to do a wedding right, do it this way: have drinks with the groom before the wedding at Hooters while he nearly throws up his steak and cheese thanks to nerves, sit around in a scalding hot church but have the Best Man’s Father (more on him in a second) get up right before the service starts and direct the massive fan right at your pew, kiss the bride, hug the groom, make the parental rounds, go for a pre-cocktail hour cocktail hour, go to cocktail hour, hit the reception. Because that’s what we did.

I couldn’t possibly hit all the highlights so I’m going to try to hand you the most salient ones in the order that I remember them:

1) A member of the wedding party – the kid’s name is Gugo (Googo? Guugo? I have no clue.) – dives off the inside hotel balcony three stories up into the pool the night before the wedding. THAT’S how you begin the ceremonies, folks, so I recommend you have someone named “Gugo” on hand for your next set of nuptials.

2) Direct quote: “Kyle and Karyn, when you were single, you went for it. To all the single people out there, I say to go for it yourselves. Find a nice young man or young lady and go for it – maybe tonight.” – The Minister during the actual marriage. C’mon, c’mon…the Minister TOLD US TO GO GET LAID! That man…he wins, that’s what he does, and we won just by being within fifty feet of him.

3) The Best Man’s father gets into a verbal sparring match with the Bride’s Crazy Cousin (who called him sexist for quoting a line from AS GOOD AS IT GETS) minutes into the pre-cocktail hour cocktail hour. Later, he proceeds to tip back a few glasses of fine champagne, don a fake afro that was being passed around, tie a glowing neon band to his belt strap so as to accentuate his crotch region, throw down some crazy dance moves, and dive into the splits on the dancefloor at the reception. I have known Mr. Krausz for seven years now, and not only had I previously heard him say less than six words in that entire timespan…I wasn’t even sure he was totally alive. But Mr. Krausz…you’re my new hero, and I have not stopped talking about your antics since that day. Again, sir…you win.

4) My good buddy QB Blake and I revert to being seventh graders towards the end of the reception. One of my good friends – and I don’t want to drop any names, so we’ll just call him Chris “Can’t Close the Deal” Loftus – is the guy in our group whom the girls fall all over but who makes a conscious decision never to capitalize on it. I could shoot an entire issue of PLAYBOY based just on the chicks I hooked up with in college that he cast off – we’re not talking Busch League skanks here. Anyway, as expected, he draws the attention of the hottest girl at the wedding, hangs with her all night, and then ditches her to go back to the hotel to drink crappy beers with the rest of us idiots. Said ditching was incredible, and if it had been done as part of a Shakespearean play, it might have gone something like this:

HOT GIRL: Willest thou accompany me back to my sleeping quarters?

LOFTUS: Nay, lady; f*ckest thou off so that I might rolleth with mine boys.

But that’s not the part of the story I want to tell. After about an hour and a half of cutting a rug with this young lady on the dancefloor, Loftus proceeds outside with her; no one sees him for a half hour. Meanwhile Blake and I are pasted out of our heads and decide to take a walk to the gazebo (stop there, because I know what you’re thinking…and yes, I was hoping he would try to kiss me, but I got nervous and left before anything happened) out on this little lake that surrounded the building. We see Loftus way on the other end of the lawn, sitting at a table with this girl, she perched firmly upon his lap. It was far away so I can’t say that I know EXACTLY what was going on, but one might describe it as “necking” or, if you’re British, “snogging”.

I point this out to Blake, Blake notices the rock in his hand, I encourage him to do what we’re both thinking…and Blake chucks the rock at them. It’s at least a fifty-yard throw, and MAN did it come close. Of course we’re giddy like schoolgirls, tittering all the way back into the reception, and then we tell everyone what happened like we just found the cure for Asian Bird Flu.

There’s something about being around your college buddies, watching one of your good men go down…I don’t know, it was just a blast. Kyle and Karyn, best wishes and enjoy the Dremel. And to my friends…what can I say? You guys are the best, and one of the few drawbacks to living on the West Coast is that I don’t have more access to you all. Can’t wait to see you all again at Louie’s first intervention.

--Had a birthday. Twenty-six. I thought it was going to be strange – four years from thirty – but it wasn’t nearly as disheartening as turning twenty-five. I think that’s partly due to the maturation process and partly due to the fact that I don’t remember 75% of the evening. I do know we went to Amagi. I do know that Steve “The Karaoke Ninja” T., by request from Brandy, sang WONDERWALL in my honor, a tribute the likes of which makes me weepy to think about.

The picture at the top of this post is from that un(forgettable) evening. I post it for a few reasons:

1) I don’t remember it being taken, what song we were singing, or what I was thinking.

2) Aviators.

3) With my beard at this level…well, I’ll just never look that f*cking cool again.

But seriously…one of the best birthdays ever. It’s the greatest feeling to have your friends call you the next day and say, “Dude, that was the most fun I ever had at a birthday party,” as you reply, “You f*cking showed up?”

Enjoy the picture. I know you did.

A few more random things that I have thought about in one way or another over the past two months that I could elaborate on but choose not to:

--Emmanuelle Chriqui: my new obsession. If you watch ENTOURAGE (all the cool kids do) she played Sloane, Malcolm McDowell’s daughter. I don’t have words for her past , so when you see her do your best to form something on your own.

--Go see both A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS. The former is one of the best films of the year (even though I’m paid to say that, it’s true) and the second…well, once you’ve seen it you’re welcome to join our firm. That’s all I have to say.

--Top Five NFL QBs ever, in order from Best to Almost the Best: John Elway, Dan Marino, Johnny Unitas, Otto Graham, Joe Montana (and yes, I still want to expound on this).

--I am not nearly as ashamed of my man crush on track jackets as I am of the fact that you’re fat and ugly.

--Everyone needs to give Ryan Gray, JMU Alumnus, a warm welcome to the Bedford Street Mansion. Tonight I watched him – with nary a hint of insecurity or self-awareness – sit in the leather chair in the living room, pull a sock off of one of his feet that he walked on all day, and smell it.

Stephanie, you can’t move back in fast enough. SAVE US. One Lung now has a key – this place is going to hell. You think I’m kidding? I’m walking around in circles, confused out of my mind, and Nathan has started peeing on his floor in strict defiance of natural instinct. Do you understand I watched our little RyRy smell his own sock? It can’t go on like this.

--Rob has a better beard than me, and this pisses me off because he’s been growing it for like two weeks, and f*ck you Rob.

--There’s someone I want to write about but don’t yet have the words for. I’m afraid I’ll say too much or not enough or something wrong or something right…so for now I’ll just say this:

When your (figurative) Head and your (figurative) Heart get into a war, you generally assume they’re going to set the field of battle somewhere deep inside your Mind, a place you don’t tell people about, to which even you have only the tiniest window to observe the fight. There they’ll head and duke it out, Head wielding sticks of You’re Not Thinking Clearly Logic and Heart countering with little more than the giddy smile of Potential Love at First Sight…but then the battlefield shifts. It’s a shock to find out that the war moves, like lightning, to your stomach – where it proceeds from sticks and stones to nuclear weaponry.

It’s an even bigger shock when you find out that, much to the chagrin of your Head…this means your Heart is winning.

--Last but not least, if you pray or meditate or think deeply or get Zen or whatever, think a good thought for my Uncle Marshall. Late last week he was diagnosed with kidney cancer and, though the prognosis is sunny…it never hurts to keep good people in mind. This guy’s got that rare gift of being able to light up a whole room with his laugh, always the man whose perpetual happiness is so contagious you can’t escape it.

We’re with ya, Uncle Moose.

Be back for more writing soon.