Fade to Black...and Intermittent Vagaries

Nope. Not a Metallica reference. A James reference.

I figure I should get this down now before any and all memories thereof are lost and gone forever.

I am pretty sure I was in NYC for a bachelor party last weekend. This time it's James taking the plunge. I would like to preface everything I am about to spew into 0's and 1's by saying I could never live in NYC. Fun place to visit for a day or two but it's just too much....of everything. A city of excesses.

At 9:00, our first open bar commenced at 7:00, a buddy who never drinks (already married) ripped the sink out of the wall at the bar. Big sink too. He must have turned green and hulked out. Another buddy had to run into the bathroom and turn some valve off to keep the place from flooding. As if this weren't bad enough, he sat down at a table just outside the bathroom and ended up puking everywhere. Everyone I spoke to was pretty sure we were getting thrown out immediately... but they actually took the whole episode in stride. The staff was Irish so perhaps they're used to this sort of thing, yes?

Damage control entailed checking drunko into an expensive hotel while he was pretty much incapacitated. Some amongst us felt this was a dick move. I thought it was deserved. Only person allowed to put on a performance like this should be the one about to get married....and seventeen year-old girls. Apparently he woke up a few hours later and met us back out. By that point, however, I was no longer capable of making or holding onto memories. As such, I don't remember seeing him again.

During the aforementioned episode, Casey was conspicuously absent. All we knew was that he wasn't there. Honestly, knowing Casey, he could have been anywhere. Space, New Jersey, a penthouse apartment with Paris Hilton, backstage with a notorious reggae musician, the Caribbean, anywhere. Only after someone had made the trip downstairs to use the bathroom not decorated in vomit did we discover he had mistakenly put a $50 bill into the jukebox. So for about 45 minutes, while no one knew where he was, he was downstairs amongst strangers, flipping out, trying to set up the jukebox with $50 worth of music. He was found panic stricken, trying to use the last $20 worth. I'm pretty sure the bar is still playing his selections now.

The subsequent jaunt to the strip joint was uneventful. Obviously I did not pay for, nor did I receive, nor did I see anyone else receive for that matter, any lap dances. I speak only for myself when I say I wanted one very badly but for fear of retribution World War II dictator style, I respectfully declined. I assume my compatriots had similar rationales.

Later on, after we were done ignoring naked women for fear of varying degrees of retribution from girlfriends, spouses, and soon-to-be spouses, we went to another bar. En route, Timmy decided it'd be funny to lift up his shirt and press his chest and gut against the windows of various swanky Manhattan restaurants brimming with yuppies who had formerly served as inspiration for Sex and the City writers. This wasn't funny. IT WAS HILARIOUS!

Upon our arrival at the next bar, I was apparently singing Ween tunes loudly enough for everyone in Manhattan to be overcome by the majesty of Boog Nish, Ween's god. As drawing attention to myself is very uncharacteristic, I'm tempted to cast this memory aside as a implant, a fake, a phony. But Kev adamantly maintains the very same memory and his part in it. Afraid we'd get tossed for excessive belligerence, he had tried to make nice with the bartender on our behalf. "Do you like Ween?" he offered.

Apparently, the bartender loved Ween. Loved 'em so much, in fact, he went to Bonnaroo this year expressly to see them. Quasi-crisis averted. (It's funny when you bump into random people who like Ween. Doesn't happen often.) So the bartender told us there were tons of Ween tunes on the jukebox. Kev and the bartender urged me to put some on. I turned and walked toward the thing but must have been sidetracked by something shiny because I never quite made it. This is the part of the episode I remember best; walking toward the jukebox intent on picking out tons of Ween tunes. Only in a New York City bar would you find a jukebox stocked with Ween's catalogue. Ironically, the shiny object that diverted me from the task at hand brought with it the darkness that had only moments before been lifted. My inability to focus on anything was apparently amusing to watch though, because Kev couldn't stop laughing when recounted the episode for me the following day.

I can't say with any amount of certainty what happened between that moment and the following morning. The next thing I knew I was waking up in an apartment. Could have been anywhere. As luck would have it, when I looked to my left, on the other side of the couch: Kenyon. After a bout of nausea, I went to the bathroom where I discovered a uni-brow had been drawn in on my face. Kenyon confirmed I'd fallen asleep with my shoes on. I was unaware those rules still applied. At bachelor parties....they apparently still do.

Best of luck James!