Part II: "Is That A Cooler Scooter?"

When we last left our hero, he and his merry band of people he has just met are navigating their way through the glorious anarchy that is Gasparilla in Tampa. He is well-lubricated from about a 20-hour period of drinking and trying to absorb the spectacle through all five senses.

It smells like beer.

It sounds like a cross between a full football stadium and listening to a radio while someone turns the dial really fast through the stations.

It tastes like beer.

It looks like a psycho ward full of people like Steve the Pirate.

And it feels like beer. At least, it feels like things feel after you've imbibed a lot of beer.

Just picture 400,000 people all racing to see who can pass out drunk first after seeing as many boobs as they can with one eyepatch on. With live music.

Our group is quickly broken up as we lose each other in the maelstrom. I'm left with Lala, a sweetheart of a girl carrying a 24-oz. Camelbak bottle of vodka and tonic, at least half of which she doesn't need. We decided to stroll up and down Bayshore before the parade starts so she can achieve her goal of taking a picture with everyone in a cool pirate costume she can find.

The mansions that face the bay and others in the near vicinity all have that stretchy orange perforated riot fencing up around their properties to keep people like Defi from vomiting in their bushes, tearing up their sod or spraying reproductive fluids on the tulips. Not only that, most every house has at least one private, armed security guard standing post at the front of the property just in case people are so hopped up on Jameson that they decide to rush the fencing.

However, some of the mansions apparently have really cool residents, because they were throwing some SICK parties. I'm talking live bands or DJs, those industrial-size grills you can fit an entire cow in, kegs stacked like Legos and girls dressed so slutty you couldn't tell where the neckline stopped and the miniskirt hem started. One of my last lucid moments was spent staring at one of these parties, like a little homeless orphan kid outside the window of a New York steakhouse, wishing for just one bite of that blonde's perfectly round ... rump roast.

Next year, I will be at one of those parties; I swear it before all three of this blog's loyal readers.

The most entertaining part of the people-watching - besides playing that classic game, "Is she 16 or 24?" - was marveling at the dozens of unique, creative and downright brilliant ways people find to transport their liquor. The following are just a few examples:



The basic "pony keg in a grocery cart approach." If you want style points, though, you decorate the cart as a pirate ship:



This is one of my personal favorites:



Who needs a baby in the stroller when you can shove a cooler in there?

There were various forms of backpacks, dollies, belts, carts and other jerry-rigged inventions that provided their creators with a large supply of booze as well. Since vendors were selling cups for $4 of $5 apiece, people were inspired to explore their inner Edisons. I swear, if mankind put as much effort into curing cancer as he does transporting alcohol, we'd have a remedy in like six hours. (Closer to five if you make it into a contest at a tailgating party.)

However, the king of Gasparilla was this guy. He zoomed by too quick for me to catch a shot or ask him where I could buy one, but luckily someone took a shot of it and put it online:



PURE. F*%#ING. GENIUS. If that guy didn't get laid at least 26 times that day with that thing, he should be shot. And whoever invented it should be beatified. I wanna meet him so I can kiss his pinky ring.

As for me and Lala, we pushed our way to the railing just as the parade began to come through by us. She was absolutely determined to score as many beads as possible without resorting to nudity, although her BAC made keeping that promise iffy, at best. My job was to stand behind her, make sure she didn't fall and try and keep one eye out for potential sloreign agents willing to compromise their loyalties to the dumbasses who brought them.

Unfortunately, I wasn't very successful at this because standing right next to the Gasparilla parade is not unlike standing in a hailstorm. The floats are packed to the gills with drunk people who have literally hundreds of pounds of plastic to chuck. And they don't sober up, cuz all the floats have kegs on them; some even had, and I swear I'm not making this up, working bars on them. So they just get more blitzed, which means their depth perception goes, which means they don't realize you're only 10 feet away when they whip a cheap Chinese-made necklace at you like it's the ninth inning of Game Seven of the World Series.

I ended up with roughly five pounds of beads, and at least half of them I got out of complete self-defense. I'd duck my head as three sets of beads zipped at me at once, throw my hand to up block them, and end up catching them. That is the sum total of my advice on catching beads. Self-defense.

Lala, standing strong in her convictions to keep her breasts to herself, realizes that to compete with less-principled women along the railing, she has to do something. What is that something? Offering to kiss each and every pirate who strode along in the parade distributing trinkets. How is that better than not showing your cleavage? I dunno. It's female logic, man.

Halfway through the parade, Lala's face is covered in rubbed-off makeup, lipstick - because there were female pirates, too, although I insisted on calling them "wenches" - and fake blood. Every time a pirate gave the busty blond a few feet down some beads and not Lala, my Puerto Rican homegirl would step off the railing, glare at her and threaten to go "angry brown girl" on her. Bead collection apparently is a very serious matter where Lala's from.

After two or three hours, the parade wraps up and we're just sloshed. At this point, things got real blurry for me, because the combination of fatigue and alcohol had pretty much numbed me to reality. Going through the text messages I sent to Defi, I see I ended up at a barbecue, which sounds vaguely familiar. It seems I also felt I was getting cockblocked. Sadly, I don't recall by who or over whom.

Next year, I'm either at a party on Bayshore or a float, or both if I can swing it. And I'm gonna go with a bigger crew. I have a thing about crowds, especially in unfamiliar places. I need to have some boys with me. So man the f$&% up, y'all, and come kick it. First handle of Bacardi is on me.