Monthly Archives: May 2013

Friday afternoon. Its 3PM. Memorial Day weekend. My company has decided to close its doors early for the holiday weekend.

And the time is finally upon us. It is my best bachelor party weekend and I was the one responsible for setting it up. So to be a great groomsman I decided to take the whole crew to Chattanooga Tennessee to go hanggliding in the mountains.

Being as the drive from Saint Petersburg to Chattanooga is quite a doozy, I knew the Jeep would provide nothing short of an uncomfortable bumpy weekend. Instead I go with a rental car.

After work, my roommate and I head to the Saint Peterburg Airport to pick up our weekend warrior but since short term parking must be less than 10 minutes to be free, we decide its best if he heads back to the apartment as I pick up the new whip.

I walk in the airport’s automatic doors and navigate myself towards the Enterprise vendor and moments later I am walking out the door towards spot 5 in the Enterprise lot. And low and behold what awaits me in spot 5 is is something majestic….

A little red Mini Cooper. Mixed emotions run through my entire soul for a moment but part of me is excited to see what the sport capability all of the fuss is all about. I get in the vehicle and fanagle around with the keys and the push to start ignition for a few moments before I finally figure out how to start the engine. Then Jay-Z’s Big Pimpin’ comes blaring through the speakers and I justify in myself that this car is gonna be alright.

I swing back by the apartment and pick up my roommate and our already packed luggage. He has the same initial reaction of mixed emotions but eventually concludes that the trip will be fun even if all of the other guys end up questioning our sexuality by the end of the trip.

Of course our timing was perfect for getting stuck in rush hour traffic on the Howard Franklin bridge. After an hour of stop and go traffic we finally get to go full speed and my analysis of the coop started to decline. It feels like nothing more than a toy that could break and the get-up-and-go is horrible. I do not see what the fuss is all about. About that same time the song Unbelievable comes on the radio. Shad, my roommate, looks over at me and says “This is mini-coop music.”

Near the Florida Georgia line we decide its time for dinner so we pull off in some po-dunk town called Lake City. Mainly fast food options, so we decide on Burger King. We park and go in and hit the pisser. The restroom emitted a smell that I could only imagine being created as if someone had urinated into a paint roller tray and then proceeded to lather the walls with it. There was some guy that looked similar to Morgan Freeman in there as well. But now I’m just ranting… So we walk out of the restroom and Lake City’s finest have now decided to all congregate in the line at Burger King. There is only one chcik working the register and since we were in a hurry to get to Tennessee we decided we should go somewhere else.

Shad is ready to drive. So I give him the keys and he takes the wheel. Our options are limited. Taco Bell, Arby’s and McDonalds. The decision was that we didn’t want our colons to explode somewhere in Georgia so McDonald’s it was. It pained me. I haven’t been in a McDonalds in years. Shad decided it was a good idea to take a left turn into the McDonalds thru an intersection without a green arrow accross three lanes of traffic while oncoming traffic continued to approach. Remember that get-up-and-go I was talking about? Well it had slipped Shad’s mind and he quickly remembered as the brakes were slammed as we were about to go thru the intersection. It didn’t have enough power to even make it thru the interestion in time. Car Sucks. But back to McDonald’s… I wasn’t ready for what was about to hit me.

McDonald’s has commercialized the hell out of itself since I have last been in one. The menus were digital. Credit Card processing takes place in less than a second. Millions of employees were staffed behind the counter and decor of the restaurant was much more glamourous than I had expected. The play place was a hundred times nicer than anything I ever remember playing on as a kid and the store also had red box machine built in.

While I am on the topic of Red Box I want to get something off of my chest. As I have lived in Florida for a year, I try to capture all of the little differences between KEntucky and Florida. And Red Box is definitely one of them. In Kentucky, if there is someone at a Red Box machine, you do not go up to it and wait in line behind the person operating the machine. If it is an outdoor machine, you patiently wait in your car until the operator is finished so that you don’t rush them. It is a simple common courtesy thing. I don’t know what it is about Florida though. Either the common courtesty of Southern Hospitality doesn’t exist or it can be blamed on the overpopulation of the Sunshine state. Or maybe its the overpopulation that has led to the deterioration of common courtesty. Whatever the case maybe, people will stand in a line of 5 or 6 people waiting to operate a red box. That’s too much stress for me. Maybe I just don’t like to displease people. Regardless, I try not to frequent the Red Box.

But I digress. The McDonalds was super nice and super commercialized. I ordered a 10-Piece chicken nugget. The only thing I have been sure of on a McDonalds menu for years. I was shocked to learn that it is now the number 15 combo meal. Jeeze, how many items can a fast food place possibly have on the menu?

You will be happy to know though, while the restaurant can up its game, the clientele will always remain the same. Obese low income Americans. Oh and some creeper sitting alone a table capitalizing off of the free wi-fi looking at god knows what. All of these things running through my mind while eating dinner my mind was overwhelmed. I couldn’t help but to look over at the super-sized play place. There were tons of kids in there. Why? How has our society established it as a norm to pick up fast food and let your kids play while you enjoy a quarter pound of shitty hamburger meat. Don’t get me wrong, I remember wanting to play on the play place as a kid, but this shit has just gotten out of hand. And hell, I remember even as a kid my mom wouldn’t let me play in the ball pits because she read in the paper that heorin needles were found in the ball pits. Do people even do heorin these days, or is this problem no longer a concern?

Anyways, after my shitty dinner it was time to hit the road again. The rest of the drive was your typical drive through Georgia at night: contemplating the meaning of your soul and other existential crises, road sides promoting Jesus’ return and questioning the birth certificate of our president, and trucker stop bathroom with “Fuck Obama” carved into them.

During the nocturnal drive, a phone call from my buddy Dicarlo comes in. The only thing I can make from the call full of laughter is how shitty the cabin I rented us is. We finally get to the small town that the hanggliding cabin resides in, take a wrong turn and end up spending an additional 45 mintues navigating our way to the 3am drunk sausage fest cabin.

The delusion laughter recieved through my cell phone was justified I quickly learned after taking two steps in the cabin. Immediately I see a couch that has been through 5 decades of drunken shenanigans and random hookups, cheap wooden furniture bought from thrift shops and hanging curtains that should hosted mold. I was in love.

The 16 or so guys I had invited were making the most of it though. At least 200 beer cans were already formed into the perfect base of a beer-rymid that would never be completed during the weekend(not because of the lack of resources but because of the apathetic engineering skills that beer can produce).

The guys gave me a tour of the cabin. It was immediately described to me as reminiscent of a concentration camp. This analogy could be due to the fact that one of the weekend residents was German foregien exchange student that my next door neighbor hosted when we were in highschool. It could also very well be due to the fact that the cabin was very reminiscent of a ghetto housing unit in World War 2 Germany. The bunks were lined 16 deep in a straight line with little to no breathing room whatsoever. Being as Shad and I arrived at 3 AM we had the choice between the bunk with no sheets at all, or the bunk with only a piss cover. Delightful. Oh yeah, there was also the random queen sized bedroom sitting alone with no sheets full of piss stains in front of the cabin. That room was dubbed the bang room incase any of the 16 guys decided to bring back a toothless girl from the northern hills of Georgia back to the cabin for a night. An interesting note, of all of the guys I invited, all but 2 had girlfriends. An even more interesting note, all fo the guys I invited didn’t smoke. To be fair though most, if not all of the guys dipped/chewed. Maybe I forsee a new trend for our generation? Maybe we are just all from Kentucky?

After the tour of the sleeping chambers I was introduced to the pisser. A bathroom with two showers so dirty I would never consider batheing in them. In fact, I hypothesize you might end up more filthy after a shower in these showers than before you started. The best part about the lavatory though was the shitter. The porcelian god was separated by old school western style saloon dars. Awesome. The best part… the doors were mounted just high enough so that you couldnt see the perpatrators face, only everything else.

Everyone seems to be riding out the end of this 200 can beer buzz but I had just arrived. Sure we had to be up at 7AM to hangglide but a few beers, grizzly wintergreens and a few more beers wouldnt hurt. I ended up finally hitting thr hay at 5:45AM cuddled up in a towel that I had the foresight to bring. I am pretty sure the towel might have been the only layer of protection I had that night between evasive bed bugs looking for a victim to pray upon. I tried to not to sulk in my mind too much about this thought but it was all I could do to close my eyes minimally before we hit the top of that hill on Saturday morning.

For some weird reason, when you go hanggliding at Lookout Mountain you have to check in at the lodge on the top of the mountain before you drive 20 minutes back down to the bottom of the mountain to start the actual hanggliding. I had been here before so I was accustomed to process but the rest of the guys were not. The best part though was the hanggliding launch ramp at the top of the mountain. It orginally freaked the guys out as they suspected we might actually jump off of a top of the mountain to go hanggliding.

To all logical reasoning they quickly accepted and were partially somewhat upset when we ended up going back down to the bottom of the mountain to hit the bunny hill. After 30 minutes of standing around at the supply station putting on the saftey gear and listening to the proper protocols we start walking to the bunny hill. Somehow everyone but my friend Lokovich, myself and the ginger instructor get separated. The gingervitus patient quickly decides now is as good of time as ever to tell Lokovich and myself about his life. First he tells us that he quit his job, spent all his money on a nice hangglider, and now lives in a tent. Then he tells us he loves to jump off the top of the mountain with his hangglider in the nude. Fucking weird or just free spirit? I’m not sure but Lokovich and I looked at eachother with eyes that could only express one thing “Did he just say that shit?”

We get separated into two groups when we get to the bunny hill. One with the crazy ginger and one with this lady in her 40’s. Lokovich and I instantly go towards the female instructor with two of our other buddies. This portion of the day ended up being super boring. Just simple techniques and practices of hanggliding. No actualy fun stuff. But to be fair I am pretty sure our female instructor was coming on to me.

At the end of the techniques and practices portions of the hanggliding training package you are supposed to get 5 free jumps off the bunny hills where you launch yourself. And of course the wind was to extreme for us on this particular Saturday to enjoy that luxury. It was noon at this point and we were starved. I made the comment aloud of my hunger instictively when the sexual predator and souless weirdo quickly tried to invite themselves to join us for lunch at the local Bar-B-Que restaurant in the town of Trenton. Everyone pretty much used every lie in the book to avoid uninvited guests until we were able to quickly escape. They did however let us know that their would be a kegger with all you could eat food for $10 within walking distance from our cabin in the evening. We went ahead and RSVP’ed for the entire group.

The next few hours were less than noteworthy. We went to the BBQ place where our server had the sweetest of sweet Georgia peaches drawl and the BBQ is everything you would expect it to be in the south. Afterwards, I immediately went to a Dollar General and picked up a $10 set of sheets. I thought everything in the Dollar General Store was supposed to be a dollar? Then we went on the beer run cause apparently you can’t buy beer in Trenton Georgia on a Sunday. Nap. Time for the 2000 ft hangglide experience.

This was it. That was the big part of the Bachelor party I had set up for everyone. We drank a couple of beers and walked a few hundred yards from our cabin. We were fortunate our cabin overlooked the hanggliding runway. Long story short, you put on some saftey gear, strap yourselves into the glider, tie a rope to a plane, the plane takes off and you fly a hangglider from 2000ft in the mountains outside of Chattanooga. Somehow, I’m not quite sure as the weekend is now a meere blur, I was the one deemed the organizer of the group and so I had to gather everyone’s release forms. I checked some boxes and made the patrons sign on a dotted line. By this point everyone had managed to fanagle their way into the hanggliding line in front of me. I went last but it didn’t matter.

I managed to get the same flight instructor that the Bachelor had. Did I mention this was a tandum flight? It was. Obviously they wouldn’t let a bunch of drunkards fly hanggliders solo in the Smokey Mountains(Is this even considered the Smokies? Not really sure. Not the point). We had the awesome instructor. I mentioned prior to the flight that I had done this previously and his initial response was “Awesome, so you should know whats up. We are going to have some fun!”. After you get to 2000ft the plane drops the line and you free fall/fly for a wonderful 20 minutes. I told my instructor that previously I had had the strict and stern instructor who let me have no fun during the flight. He was distraught at this thought and I could tell he was a free spirit much like the ginger so he decided that he couldn’t let me have a similar experience. Once the plane disconnected I was in control 100% of the hangglider for the entire flight(minus the landing and lets be honest, I don’t want any part of that).

Hangglider lands. We regroup. Head back to the cabin. Shotgun some beers. And then its time for the so called kegger. I am pretty sure this small hippy commune of free spirited hanggliders had no idea what to expect when they invited a group of frat boys to an all you can drink/eat Memorial Day festival. Especially when we are on a Bachelor Party. Basically we brought our Game 7 performance. Sumter, one of my closest friend and former Fraternity president definitely brought his A-Game performance. He was MVP status before the sun even set. Someone suggested to me that I go sign him up for Kaeroke at the party. That right, this kegger had kaeroke. Sure, sounds like a good idea. And I know him so well that I know he want refuse when his name is called.

I walk to the booth. I try to muster some words together and the women operating the both says to me “We already got you.” “Huh?” I respond. “You’re with the Bachelor party right? Someone already signed you all up as a group.”

“Oh,” I respond. “Yes I am with the group but I actually came to sign my buddy up. He’s already gone and it will be hilarious.”

“Sumter you mean?” She responds. “Someones already signed him up. He’s about to sing Halo by Beyonce.” I was left speechless. Maybe because the song was perfect. Or possibly because I said less than 20 words and this woman read deep into my soul like a gypsy in a Cher song.

Sumter sings his song and while at the moment I thought the moment could not get better, little did I know the night was going to become one of those nights I would never forget. Next up was a special performance from some random Tennessee/Georgia snaggletooth natives. He decided to dedicate a special song to the Bachelor boy. While I will never be sure what song he sang (Maybe an Al Green song) I will never forget the actions that ensued. He was dancing around Ben(the bachelor, I don’t think I have identified a name with the Bachelor and how deep into this blog entry are we?) as Ben sat in a chair. I am not sure he was removing clothing or Ben removed clothing but it got weird quick. The weirder it got the more the crowd laughed. Finally Ben stood up and the snaggletooth drooped Ben. I have never seen my best friend blush so much. His boxers remained on and noone saw anything special but he was so embarassed. Honestly I was happy because this moment would end up being the only time during his bachelor party he would become uncomfortable so I considered it a success.

Moonshine happened.

The sexual predator that was our hanggliding instructor from that morning eventually showed up. She started dancing on my fellow fraternity brothers. Memories started fading. The keg floated. I spend 20 minutes talking to a magician… A former marine tells Sumter he will gauge his eyeball out and he has killed lesser men… We end up back at the cabin and hilarity happens.

Everyone is still in Beast Mode. Everything is destroyed. Havoc has been reaked. And then the hanggliding instructor shows up. She proceeds to hit on everyguy their and subjects herself to drunken male comments. If anything her performance might have set the female rights movement back 10 years. I was hopeful that one of my comrads might use the denoted “Bang Room” for something but she managed to hold her dignity together and leave gracefully. She did enlighten us that we were the only Bachelor party to ever come hanggliding as Lookout Mountain. So maybe I am being unfair. Maybe this was the most attention she has recieved in years. Who am I to judge?
Sunday. Wake up late. Some guys have already gone golfing but it is a hot sticky Georgia summer day so sleep in a cabin can only last so long. I need to absorb alcohol from within system. What’s the solution? Obviously Cracker Barrel. I use this opportunity to escape the chaos that is a Bachelor party in the mountains of Georgia and try and somewhat explore my surroundings. After all, I am on vacation. On my way out Josh lets me know I should pick up a plunger for the toilet. I pass it off for now…

As I am sitting there eating my Country Ham enjoying it thorougly, my roommate looks at me with eyes redder than the devil and says “The blueberry muphins are getting to me”.

One of the guys who joined me suggested going to the civil war museum at the top of the mountain. My eyes opened up and excitement flowed through me. This was exactly what I needed to make it through this three day weekend of absurdity. We finish our plates and drive the mini-coop through miles and miles of curvy roads until we finally reach one of the most beautiful places in America, The Battles of Chattanooga war museum.

The fort on the top of this mountain was strategically placed with excellence. Once you see the vantage point that was had from this fort you will be absolutely amazed. Cannons were aligned along the side of the mountain with the perfect shot to river down below and thus protecting the city of Chattanooga.

In the fields on the mountaintop, beautiful monuments were standing basking in the sun. It sadened me to see all of the names carved into these pieces of beauty.

After reading some plaques about the war that I will likely forget by the time I even finish writing this piece we headed towards a trail we spotted near the edge of the mountain. Apparently there are hiking trails to the bottom of the mountain. We start to head down one but haste must be made as we only had a few quarters for the parking meter.

We spot a sign that says restricted access and of course my renegade roommate does his renegade thing and disobeys.

We continue down the trail and the path starts to narrow. After 15 minutes of hiking, my roommate looks to me and says, “Imagine carrying the cannon balls up this mountain.” I was blown away. This might have been the most beautiful thing I heard the entire trip. It never occured to me all luxuries I took for granted to view this beautiful war sight, such as driving to the top of the mountain. I can not fathom carrying hundreds if not thousands of cannon balls up this mountain. It would be horrendous. A new respect for the civil war soldiers was found(Not that it didn’t already exist).

We start heading back to the car and I get a call from Sumter. “Dude, the toilet is flooding. Theres water everywhere on everything.” He hangs up. He doesn’t pick up the phone when I call back. No one does. I start thinking that my friends are fucking with me. But this jovial thought is quickly replaced with a feeling of distraught urgency.

We speed back to the cabin picking up mops, paper towels, and a plunger on the way. Havoc has been reaked upon our cabin yet again.

Fortunately, someone besides me assumes the responsibility and starts cleaning that shit up. The others are in drinking rage mode or have already passed out.

I quickly assume my future role of designated driver for the night. Jamie and I decide to head to Chattanooga to check out the bar scene/Gentleman’s clubs for the night’s festivities. Prior to the trip when I Googled “Bars in Chattanooga” I found what looked like an epic club call the Electric Cowboy. It was either going to be a gay club or a sweet bar with chicks in cowboy boots. We scouted it out and found a suprise that we were going to keep a secret from the guys until we all arrived later in the evening.

Anyways, its back to the cabin to round the troops to get them ready for a group dinner. The dinner on a Bachelor party was the obvious choice… Hooters.

We played Big Buck Hunter, ate chicken wings, drank beers and made lewd comments at the girls. Ben was forced to eat a raw wiener and be danced around. Only slightly embarassing.

Afterwards we rounded the herd and headed to the Electric Cowboy. The surprise I was mentioning… The club was in an old outlet mall. Think JCPennies building. Ha! There were sliding glass doors for an entrance.

We get in and my buddy Gornto asks me if I would like for him to be the DD for me. Hell Yes I Do! Partying ensued. But the chess player I am I was already on the next move. That next move was to find when the Gentleman’s Clubs closed in Chattanooga.

I approach what I think at the time was the most normal looking dude in the place with a simple question about the Gentleman’s clubs. “Excuse me sir, are you from around here?” I ask. He hesitates for a second eyes me up and down from head to toe in what I still hope was not an eye-banging manner. Pauses for a second. Replies “Is that a come on?” What the fuck. Either this guy was just waiting to be picked up by another dude in this bar or his bigoted Tennessee ways were thorougly impressed with my flamboyount purple button down. Either way, douche bag needs to get overhimself and not assume people who come up to him in a bar are trying to pick him up.

At this point I decide its time to ask the only people who I know will know a thing or two about the Gentleman’s clubs in the area, the bouncers. What do I find out. Gentleman’s Clubs in Chattanooga are closed on Sundays! NOooooOooooOOOo (in Darth Vader Star Wars Episode 3 Fashion). I failed. What is a Bachelor party without a stripper. The bride to be, who I am sure is reading this post, will be happy to know, against my best efforts I failed in taking her groom to a strip club on his bachelor party.

This left only one option. Make the night at the Electric Cowboy as memorable as possible. Gornto and I seek out the manager. We eventually convince her to let Ben be the judge of the weekly Sunday Night Bikini contest. She needs two judges so I find myself in the other seat. My how some of the most funny memorable times in your life come and go. I remember barely anything from this moment other than it was a blast.

Everyone slowly starts to filter out and Ben and I catch the last train home. We end up staying up until 5 AM talking about life just like the good ole days. Just looking at the stars. I went to bed knowing it was a weekend well worth it.

I woke up at 8AM and started the drive back to Florida. My best friend’s Bachelor party weekend was over but it was well worth it. I can only hope mine is a fraction of the fun.

2012 was the first year I hadn’t been at Churchill Downs on Derby Day in 6 years. I was ok with it though because I was in Key West (My other favorite place on Earth). But this year, 2013, I didn’t want to fall to same fate. I was sure I was going to be in Louisville for Derby Day… But then life happened and I couldn’t make it. But at least there was a good excuse for 2013. That excuse… the Louisville Cardinals won the 2013 National Championship in basketball and I spent all my money and vacation days to see that glory!

So since I didn’t have the money or vacation days to make it home this year for Derby Day what was I to do? Have a Derby Party at my house of course!

I convinced my girlfriend it was imperative that she wore a big hat to party and while she was originally against it she eventually conceded to my persuasive ways. Not only that, I was eventaully able to persuade her the necessity of her bringing a Derby pie. She wont admit that enjoyed it, but the dish was definitely the hit of the party and I hope she makes it again in the future.

In addition to the miraculous derby pie the kept our sugar-teeth pleased for the entire night, I took it upon myself to orchestrate a Hot-Brown dish for the party. The Hot-Brown is another Louisville recipe that must be experienced atleast once in a lifetime. While it is probably the least healthy dish you will ever consume, it is definitely on of the most delicious. Apparently the story has something to do with late night vagrant travelers requiring anything to eat. The chef of the famous hotel in Louisville, The Brown, took his kitchen’s left of ingrediatnts, scraped something together, and created a masterpiece known as the Hot-Brown.

So long story short, I knew I had to make one for my derby party. I start cooking it before anyone shows up. While the bacon is frying, the grease splatters up and destroys my brand new, unworn, Brooks Brothers suit. But hey, its mint julep day right? I can make that unpleasant go away right?

Now for all of you non-Kentuckians who don’t know how a derby party works, I will have to enlighten you. Everybody brings $5 for the bidding. You pay the “bookie” $5 bucks and you draw a number out of hat. The hat contains all the numbers of all of the horses in the Kentucky Derby. If that number horse wins the Derby, you win the pot of all the people’s $5. They say its the most exciting 2 minutes in sports. I have to agree with this. You can host an Indy 500 party. The reason is that people lose interest after 2 minutes. They stop caring. But I feel 2 minutes is just long enough to gather everybody’s attention around the tv and cheer for some arbitray number. It’s fantastic.

Now let me tell you my sob story. At first, we didn’t think we had enough people at the party willing to throw up five dollars to take all of the horses in the field. So I bought two horses. As the clock drew nearer and neared to post time, more and more people at my party were wanting to get in the pot. The spots were filling up. Then they all filled up. But more people wanted in the pot. So as a nice host, I decide to sell one of my two horses. I don’t know if it was the mint juleps kicking in or what, but i decided it was a good idea to sell my number 16 horse. For some reason my brain told me I couldnt remember the last time that horse with such a high starting number won the Derby. Easy, sold that 16 horse.

Race happens. 16 Horse wins. FML. But hey, you can’t win the Derby pot at your own derby party. So I am glad I sold it.

After the race, the Mint Julep’s flowed freely. I lost count. Apparently I had 13. I call it a success!