MDW 13

“[Jay Swag] was obliterated. [Boy Toy] only had one beer. [MoPaddle] and [“J-Cray”] were hurting. Alex’s parents are pretty cool.”

And with that, TJ summed up his Memorial Day barbecue.

I could turn this into a lecture as to why you don’t plan parties on the Monday of Memorial Day Weekend when everyone there has to be at work on Tuesday morning, but I think the lesson’s pretty clear. The very fact that he had to tell me about the party via email on Tuesday says it all. I was involved in a deep catch-up nap on my couch for much of Monday afternoon, after 60+ hours spent alternating between inebriated and hungover states.


Friday

We gathered at TD and Boy Toy’s home in Mt. Washington for the Penguins’ playoff game. TD and her crew had been drinking for most of the day, so by the time I walked through the door with two six-packs of Goose Island, drunk people were rolling back and forth between the kitchen and living room like a wave motion machine. When you add in that the day was also Alex’s birthday, you have a recipe for reckless boozing—and my crew is Gordon Ramsey when handed that recipe.

• I could barely fit my six-packs into the fridge, which was packed with Miller Lite, Miller High Life, and other various beers of low pedigree. And then Tony rolled in around the start of the second period with a case of Hoegaarden. Almost all of that beer was gone by the next morning.
• It occurred to me that Tony and I were the two most sophisticated drinkers at that party. And that is a thought I never thought I’d think.
• “Under The Porch” (UTP) christened Tyler Kennedy “Sniper Pig.” Which means nothing to you if you’re not a hockey fan, and everything to you if you are a hockey fan.
• Swag insisted on feeding people shots of Jacquin’s Blackberry Brandy. The crowd was underwhelmed.
• Alex once again proved herself to be a woman who isn’t afraid to try new things.
• Shots, shots, and more shots. Holy shit was there a lot of shots being done. And TD was the ringleader, using them as a cure-all. It’s your birthday today? Let’s do a shot! Your birthday falls sometime in 2013? Shot? Oh, you’re feeling tired? Wanna do a shot? Pens just won the series! Do a shot bitches! Feel like calling it a night? How about a shot? Everyone thinks you’re racist? A shot’ll make you feel better!
• I was only half kidding about that last one. While some of us watched a Kevin Hart clip, MoPaddle leaned over to me and whispered, “I just don’t get Black comedy!” Of course, in her hammered state, her whisper was actually a normal-decibel’d exclamation, and UTP picked up on it right away, nearly spitting out beer and stammering, “Whaaa?!?”
• In her defense, though, MoPaddle prefers the comic stylings of Kevin Nealon.
• …That wasn’t a joke.
• I passed out on an air mattress in the freezing spare bedroom next to our friend “Marty”. I can feel 100% secure in his and my heterosexuality, since we didn’t wake up snuggling for warmth.
• …Instead I used a bath towel I found in a bathroom closet.

Saturday

I awoke on an air mattress, shivering under a bath towel with a throbbing headache. A great start to any day, really.

Saturday was actually the day I’d been looking forward to all week. Alex and I had made plans to have a Shadyside night. Perfect temps, my homegirl and her sis, dozens more friends, and my home turf on the Saturday night of MDW—what could go wrong?

• …Oh yeah, hangovers from getting ridiculously wasted on Friday night, that’s what. Saturday was a 10-year war with my hangover. We each won battles, but I won the war by still making it out that night. Tony, TD, and others weren’t so lucky.
• I dragged myself to Shady Grove to meet up with Alex, her little sister (“Bedazzle”), Alex’s girl Em, and Shannon.
• …And Shan eventually checked out early. My favorite Irish lass, victimized. Friday night was a mother.
• I drank a gin & tonic, and realized it wasn’t going to fix me. Gin & Silver Edition Red Bull doubles are now a thing. You’re welcome.
• We learned that Bedazzle has a wild crew of her own in West Virginia. Including one friend who unabashedly turned an “I’m drunk and going to piss on your deck in front of you,” into an “I’m drunk and going to go ahead and follow through with a deuce. On your deck. IN. FRONT. OF. YOU.”
• …that friend was a female.
• This line from Bedazzle: “I guess some people think it’s a big deal to take a shit on a deck…”
• A sexy blonde girl with multiple visible tattoos began dancing—still seated on her barstool—when “Crank That” started playing. Yeah, I don’t know either why that sentence didn’t start, “My new bride began dancing…”
• I taught the bartender, our boy Greg, how to make a Fitzgerald. You’d think that would’ve qualified me for free drinks the rest of the night, but nnooooooo…
  

Sunday

My alarm went off at 9:30 a.m.; I chucked a pillow at it.

TD and Boy Toy picked this fine morning to move most of their belongings to their new townhouse, and several of us kindly lent a helping hand, out of the goodness of our hearts. And for beer. …And pizza.

At least the beer was Victory Hop Devil. That was just the day’s warm up activity, though—something to get the blood pumping. The second half of Sunday was earmarked for drinking faces off in the South Side on a bar crawl that would celebrate the start of Skeets’ 29th year. When I left everyone at the old Casa de T-Toy around 3:30 p.m., my immediate plans were getting cleaned up and navigating my way to my mother’s for dinner. Their immediate plans: BOOZE. (Don’t get ahead of me here…)

• I caught up with everyone at OTB in the sidewalk seating area around 9 p.m. The scene I walked into: Skeets was wobbly, but standing; TD, MoPaddle, and J-Cray were crushed; Swag was nearing Swag Montana territory, and was so invested in a conversation with some guy I’d never met before that he barely noticed my arrival; our girl “Special K”, Mitch Canada, Tony, Marty, and UTP were in varying degrees of “functional”, and were herders keeping the cattle on the ranch.
• Missing-in-action was TD’s significant other. Tony explained that Boy Toy had been playing beer pong at Belle and Finger Bang’s house, and arrived at the birthday crawl’s first stop completely shitfaced. So much so, in fact, that he had to be driven back home shortly thereafter, and threw up all over the car of the friend taking him there.
• J-Cray was so wound up that she was in full-on molester mode, smacking my ass and dancing her booty on me anytime I turned my head. I felt so cheap.
• TD was on a mission—a mission to remove panties. It’s well known that my little sister from another mother isn’t a fan of wearing skivvies, and something inspired her that night to crusade against any other woman who didn’t adhere to her religion. One-by-one she led Skeets, MoPaddle, and J-Cray to the women’s room and ordered them to remove their drawers. After Cray surrendered her panties, the little blonde pantyjacker threw the captured underwear straight into the garbage.
• Her crusade ended, however, with Special K, who fought to keep her panties on no matter how much I loudly TD protested.
• We moved on to Cupka's…with a quick stop to take pictures in front of Chinese So Relax Massage, first. Because why not?
• By now the mystery guy to whom Swag had been talking had been revealed to be Belle and Bang’s neighbor. And homie was going through some things. Tony happened to make a trip to the men’s room at the same time as “Neighbor”; while finishing up at the urinal, Tony said to him, “You know, there’s nothing quite like taking a piss when you really have to go.” Neighbor, who was at the sink washing his hands, paused in thought for a moment. “Yeah,” he replied, “…This definitely isn’t where I pictured myself being at this point in my life,” and walked out.
• This being the height of the NHL postseason, some of the guys—myself included—had been growing playoff beards. TD informed me that J-Cray and MoPaddle, wanting to participate as well, had been growing “playoff bushes.”
• Yes, I gagged a little, too.
• TD’s buddy Tom stopped by. She told him that she’d made three girls remove their underwear that night. Tom’s response: “Teach me your ways…”
• While sitting on the patio talking, I heard a crash and looked up to see Neighbor rolling on the ground next to an overturned chair. He was helped to his feet, and advised to cab it home while we walked off down Carson St. Rumor has it Bang came and got him—that has yet to be substantiated, but may very well have happened. There’s also a rumor that she took advantage of him in his physically-and-emotionally-weakened state. That also has yet to be substantiated, but is just as believable.
• When Tom went in to pay his tab, he was told that Neighbor had taken a similar tumble inside Cupkas, prior to doing so on the patio.
• We were headed towards Rumshakers, but given the distance, we stopped at Mullen's On Carson along the way. A regular seated across the bar thought I was pimping, because I had Cray, TD, MoPaddle, and Skeets all around me at the bar. I was tempted to yell back, “…And none of ‘em got drawers on, homie!”
• We finally made it to Rumshakers. Shots and beers, shots and beers, shots and beers. And dancing. Then more shots and beers.
• Our buddy Joe, a bartender at Rumshakers, took a shining to J-Cray’s drunk behind. We then killed his designs on the night when we told him she’s married.
• Swag Montana was shlammered, and it was time to say goodnight to the bad guy. Canada, Tony, and I bought six packs and got everyone into cabs.
  

Monday

For the third morning in a row…“Ouch.”

• I awoke on the floor of Canada’s bedroom, clutching a large Clifford stuffed toy that I’d used as a pillow.
• TD was still smashed. Swag slightly less so, but he wasted no time in cracking a beer from the fridge to start anew.
• The three of us, Skeets, and Canada went to DeLuca’s in the Strip District for breakfast. While we waited in a line that extended out the door of the restaurant and down the street, it quickly became apparent that having my little sis out in public was both a bad idea and incredibly entertaining. She was like a puppy sister.
• 
  It was my first time eating at DeLuca’s, but not my last. D-to-the-lish. Just typing about it is making my mouth water.
• The Pirate Parrot, without warning and completely at random, rode past on a moped, tooling down Penn Avenue.
• As we walked back to Canada’s truck after eating, we happened upon two women getting into a parked car. TD yelled “High five!” and put her hand up for the woman getting into the passenger side door. The stranger looked back at her with a shocked, nervous smile; TD reacted by yelling “Hunnnnhhhh!” and running away.
• Everyone planned to hit TJ’s party that afternoon, and Swag saw no reason to half-ass it. He asked that we drop him off at Redbeard’s. We stopped, he and TD hopped out, and we pulled off. “So,” I surmised, “They’re actually going to be worse by the time the cookout starts?”
• I got back to my car, got back home, grabbed a bottle of Gatorade, hit my couch, and slept through the cookout.
  

For the first time all weekend, I woke up without a hangover. And yet, I still felt like a champion. Who knew it was possible?

Country Grammar

Close your eyes. Now, in terms of the planning details, describe what you would consider to be the perfect wedding.

If you’re a female, odds are good that you just painted a picture that involved a marble-and-gold-trimmed hall filled with thousands of guests, immaculate flower arrangements, elaborate silk gowns, one or more men on horseback, and doves—carrying wreathes of heather woven into hearts—flying in formation to spell out the names of you and your groom, followed by more that spell “Forever”.

If you’re a male, odds are you ignored the exercise altogether. You probably countered with, “Trick question!” Then you cracked open a beer and turned on a playoff game.

And, of course, the guys were right. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume there is such a thing as “the perfect wedding”. I propose that: (a.) the women were still miles off; and (b.) I attended just about the closest thing to it two Saturdays ago.

My boy Ton has always been an original. A 6’1”, 300-plus-pound Ohio farmboy with a heart of gold and the Pillsbury Dough Boy’s giggle, he’s the type of guy who’s more likely to laugh off a stranger’s taunt—and skate circles around him on Heelys in the process—than to crack heads just for the sake of cracking heads. It follows logic then that, when he finally managed to find himself a woman worthy of wearing his ring, their big day would be done a little differently than how tradition might dictate.

This started with the instructions that were included with the invitations. While the decorative pink cardstock and fuchsia calligraphy were straight out of a 14-year-old’s diary [Note: This isn’t a knock on his wife; it’s a knock on women, in general...], they included at least one specific guideline that I had never seen before in an invitation of its kind: “Dress comfortably”. The ceremony and reception, it turned out, would be held at Ton’s house in Ohio. And not just at his house, but in his barn. Guests were invited to either make reservations at a nearby Days Inn…or to camp out on his property.

Dupa and I decided not to be cowboys, and booked a hotel room. On the Monday before the wedding, we discussed the other logistics and details via texts, with jovial bemusement.

Me: “What are you wearing? Invite sounds like people won’t be wearing suits.”
Dupa: “Yeah not a suit, maybe flip flops, shorts and a beater?”
Me: “Well, it IS a wedding. Got to at least add a trucker hat. #OhioFormal”
Me: “Maybe a button down shirt and jeans?”
Dupa: “Jeans? Wtf it’ll be hot”
Me: “Hadn’t looked at a forecast.”
Dupa: “Lock it up!”
Me: “Shit, so we’re really wearing shorts to this wedding?”

We consulted TK, the best man. He said that, really, anything short of assless chaps was fair game; that being said, the groomsmen would still be wearing tuxes. This left quite a bit of leeway. As a result, when we arrived I was wearing a white dress shirt, black dress pants, and dress shoes. My traveling companion had on a dress shirt, dress pants, flip flops, and a rainbow-colored serape (it was Cinco de Mayo, after all).

Ton’s house sits on a road…and that concludes the list of things that makes it comparable to my way of life. The road itself is gravel, and cuts through fields and untamed wilderness in Southeastern Ohio. Looking in any direction from his house, you don’t see any other homes for (literal) miles. So far as I know, he doesn’t own any crops or livestock, but he certainly has the property to do so if he chose. As we parked, approximately 200 people milled about the barn and road, in every combination of attire between the “formal” and “casual” extremes on the dress scale. Almost all of the women wore a dress of some sort. The men, though… Some wore suits, some wore t-shirts; Ton’s brother-in-law wore a dress shirt, tie, cargo shorts, and sneakers. It was actually beautiful to see so much variety and freedom of individual expression.

Lined up outside the barn [which, for my fellow city slickers, looked more like a large garage than a classic “barn”] were coolers filled with cans of Bud, Bud Light, Yuengling, and Yuengling Light. Just inside the first of three garage doors along the face of the structure was a small bar where you could order wine and liquor. The bar was manned by a little old man in a black dress shirt with an orange and red western scene of horses racing freely across a desert plain. Pimpin’.

We were all instructed to find seats among the rows of picnic tables arranged inside the barn, and the ceremony began. As TK and the maid-of-honor two-stepped down the aisle, I heard someone crack open a can of beer somewhere in the room. I finished my first can of Bud Light as Ton and his wife exchanged vows; I considered opening my backup can that was sitting on the table, but I didn’t want to be that guy. Once the groom had kissed his bride as commanded by the minister, I discreetly cracked it open amongst the roar of applause and cheers.

Before dinner was served, we had to send some people to the beer store for a re-up; 21 cases had met their maker. It mattered little to me, though, as I had switched to gin & tonics, a much more suitable drink when wearing dress clothes outside on a warm spring day. And Crazy Horse, the bartender, was pouring a liberal mix into those 8 oz. Dixie cups. I tore through dinner (homemade barbecue!) while laughing with friends at a table on a patio, enjoying the camaraderie and trying not to stare at my boys’ girlfriends’ chests. Some of our group played “Bang, Marry, Kill” using the wedding guests at the table next to ours (Dupa: “I’d bang the younger chick, kill the older chick, and marry the guy.”). Our buddy Kyle made a run to the bar, and when he came back with a new G&T for me, it was in a 16 oz. cup. They had run out of the smaller cups. And yet, it seemed Crazy Horse had still used the same amount of tonic as he had been putting into the 8 oz. versions.

Viva Ohio!

It had only just dawned on most of us the prior night that TK’s role as best man meant he’d be making the traditional toast. This could only mean good things. And, sure enough, he didn’t disappoint. During the speech, he produced a cocktail shaker, shot glasses, cans of Red Bull, and two flasks from a bag; then he mixed together a batch of Vegas Bombs and distributed them to the wedding party. As they raised their glasses, and the rest of the wedding raised ours, TK closed his toast with, “Here’s to heat—not the kind that burns down buildings, but the kind that brings down panties.”

The dichotomy of crowd reactions was unavoidable; everyone 15-45 years old cracked up, and everyone 46 and older sucked their teeth in (unconvincing) disgust. TK gave less than a standard-measure “fuck”. He brought the leftover Vegas bombs out to us as the party resumed following the maid of honor’s speech. A short while later, TK appeared again, this time carrying a fifth of Patron and an air of determination. “We’re finishing this today.” It took all of 15 minutes for his goal to be realized. The bottle was soon dry, after being passed around a group of about five of us. Even Dupa, who had stayed away from tequila since spring break his senior year, took a swig. There’s a certain fearlessness that comes with drinking miles away from all civilization.

As you might have predicted, things started getting out of control from there on.

• Not long thereafter, several rows of tables were removed from the barn to create a dance floor. As things started getting funky, our friend Shafe’s girlfriend convinced Crazy Horse to let her wear his shirt. She then bopped around the dance floor in the shirt comically, winning the heart of every guy around. At one point I leaned over to Kyle and said, “The only woman here that I want to bang right now is Shafe’s girlfriend.”
• When I recounted that anecdote to Dupa during the drive home the next afternoon, he replied, “Buddy, you weren’t alone in that sentiment.”
• As for the Polish madman, he quickly got wild on the dance floor in typical fashion. That led to the mother of the groom pulling him to the side and politely asking him to pull his pants back up, saying bluntly, “There are kids around.”
• We discovered the photo booth. Kyle and I took a series of random, mildly-homoerotic shots; Dupa and two of our other friends did the same. Our boy and his girl snapped a series of shots, after which they sheepishly showed us their clips, saying, “We didn’t know these were going into the wedding book!” In the last of the string of four pics, our friend was clearly groping his girl’s titty from behind, while giving the camera an equally-raunchy smile.

• As good as that was, though, they were outdone by a random couple at the party, whose photo booth pictures were circulated the next day. The first two pics were normal silliness, but in the third the guy lifted up his gal, who supplied the camera with a full-on, panties-full-off beaver shot.
• I awoke early the next morning to a pizza box snuggled close in my hotel bed. Dupa had ordered a pie after we’d (miraculously) gotten back to the hotel, but I was passed out before it arrived. He therefore ate half and tucked the other half in next to me. I tossed it on the ground, stumbled to the bathroom, and then went back to bed.
• A few hours later I awoke, asked Dupa where the pizza on the floor had come from, and then munched on a slice while we gathered our stuff up and checked out.

Those country boys know how to do a wedding.

Viva Las Vegas: The Hungover

“Ouch.”

I vaguely remember this being my first thought that morning, as I opened my eyes to a dim room. It was about 11 a.m., and sunlight was fighting its way past the edges of drawn blinds. Looking around the room, I felt a bit surprised that all three of us had made it back safely the night before. After Dupa’s Wednesday night/Thursday morning adventure, I had just kind of expected at least one person to be missing when I woke up each day. Maybe even me.

Waking up was difficult, in much the same way that lifting a skyscraper with your pinkie finger is “difficult”. And I say this despite being the first one to get out of bed. Feeling the need to aid the common good, I threw on some shorts and a shirt and shuffled my way to the ABC Store in the mall. I grabbed another gallon of water and another four-pack of Red Bull; I’m not sure if the words I spoke to the cashier were English. …Or words, for that matter. I came back to the room hoping to find T.C. and Dupa exhibiting some level of consciousness. No such luck. I threw the water and Red Bull into our fridge, and went back to bed. If you can’t beat ‘em…

By 2 p.m., there were signs of life. And by 3 we were all back out in the fresh—well, freshish—Sin City air, as we strolled the Strip. More than just my hangover, I was fighting malnourishment; I hadn’t had anything to eat besides water, beer, and Cable Car-tini since dinner at Ellis Island 17 hours earlier. With every step amid the buzzing crowds of Vegas, I felt…fuzzier. While Dupa was buying beers for himself at sidewalk stands, I was teetering and sweating in 67 degree weather like a dusthead, thanks to low blood sugar.

Some fries from a vendor outside of Carnaval Court helped bring me back from the brink, and a burger at Strip Burger steadied my legs beneath me. But I could only eat about half my burger, delicious though it was, and I was only slightly more adept at finishing my “Strip & Go Naked (Grey Goose Citron, lemonade, and pilsner). I felt like I was letting down Nancy, our cute waitress; there was a hint of disappointment in those beautiful eyes each time she stopped by our table and saw my plate and glass. [Nancy, if you’re reading this: I love you, and I never want to hurt you like that again. Come to Pittsburgh, and I swear I’ll be soused with hamburger crumbs all over me every night, just for you, baby.]

As I struggled to put food (and more alcohol) into my body, it occurred to me that I wasn’t the only one moving slowly. True, Dupa and T.C. weren’t nearly as roughed up as I was, but two days of Vegas had clearly put a hitch in their get-along. Since Strip Burger sits across Las Vegas Boulevard from the Wynn and Encore casinos, we decided to tour the sparkling Babylon-that-Steve-Wynn-built; it was only about ten minutes into doing so that I noticed none of us—not a single-fucking-one of us—had so much as a light beer in his hand. We were dry-humping the Encore. The shame was too much; I couldn’t even look at our reflections in the mirrored ceiling.


After a brief stop at the Ferrari wing (where a lovely c**t of a hostess reprimanded me for attempting to take a picture of the showroom—to which I replied, “They’re cars; the camera’s not going to steal their souls.”), we began the return trek up the Strip. We stopped at Carnaval Court, which by now was in full swing: a band played onstage, cougars and young cougars-in-training bopped around, guys standing at the outdoor blackjack tables drooled over the beautiful dealers in their slore-casual attire (tight jeans, cropped t-shirts, etc), and—for no earthly reason—a bartender stood on top of the bar while blowing the loudest coach’s whistle I’d ever heard. T.C. ordered us a bucket of beers as we talked to two middle-aged guys from Pittsburgh who just happened to be standing next to us. There was a problem, though: My hangover wasn’t going away. I nursed my beer, hoping each sip was going to ease me back into my Danny Ocean state. Negative. Instead I was dull and irritable. And I was anxious to go over to the bartender with the whistle, yank him down by his children’s medium tee, and pummel his face with an ashtray.

…Did I mention I was irritable?

Dupa and T.C. polished off the fourth and fifth beers from our bucket (I forced myself to choke down my one beer) as we returned to the Strip. We stopped to snap pictures of T.C. posing with a street performer dressed as Catwoman [she was wearing the costume almost as well as Halle did] in front of the Flamingo, strolled through the Bellagio (this time with a bit more coherence at our disposal), and then concluded our family-friendly tourism with the fountain show, before heading back to our PH basecamp.

By this point, the reason for our sluggishness had been diagnosed: digestive unrest. Two and a half days of plentiful booze and heavy food—two and a half days of Vegas, more or less—needed to be flushed (no pun intended) from each of our systems. After that, a shower (one that I was actually aware of this time!), and some Red Bull mixed with Belvey, I was back up on my game. T.C. and Dupa were still a bit subdued, but we collected ourselves and headed to the curbside pick-up outside of the main lobby, where we would be meeting up with B Rush.

It had been nearly a year since I had last seen B, who’s been busy in Vegas trying to do his thing in the rap game. We caught up on some of the recent doings on our respective sides of the country, his speakers rumbling with one of his latest recordings as we cruised down the Strip. We stopped at Slots’A’Fun to experience a Sin City novelty that B had been telling me about since we had first gotten to town: A 48 oz. plastic cup shaped like a football. A bartender filled one with Tecate, threw in a straw, and handed it to me as I smiled gleefully like a small child being handed a triple-scoop ice cream cone.

B made a similar purchase, and then we climbed back into his car. The plan was simple: We would be touring Fremont Street that night, where casinos have $2 specials on bottles of Corona and Heineken. In other words, $8 refills of Corona and Heineken.

Vivaaaaa…

Dupa and T.C., still in the grips of the slowdown that had been ruining my fun earlier that day, decided to skip the footballs. As we waded through Fremont’s frenetic atmosphere of celebrity lookalikes (Snoop and Tupac!), flashing neon signs, people racing by on zip lines overhead, thick crowds, and a Kiss cover band that tested decibel safety levels from an outdoor stage, they somehow remained dry. I, on the other hand, was clutching my football tighter than Darnell Jefferson. We stopped for some slices of pizza, which did both of them a world of good; afterwards they quickly found a cocktail stand and bought themselves sustenance.

While they were doing that, B and I stood off in the thoroughfare talking. Out of nowhere, a small, older white woman appeared in front of us. Without warning, and to our bewilderment, she began barking at the heavy Jesus piece dangling from B’s neck. “Arf! Arf! Arf!” I don’t know what she’d been drinking, but I can assure you I was jealous that I hadn’t had some, too.

Whatever was coursing through her veins, it most certainly affected her eyesight. When B asked her why she was barking at his Jesus piece, the woman said she thought it was an image of a dog. Then, as if to atone for barking at the prophet, she broke out in prayer while bowing her head in reverence to the golden idol. She then walked off into the crowd and vanished just as quickly as she had appeared. Dupa and T.C. returned from the drink stand to find B and me laughing hysterically, wiping tears.

We headed into the Fremont Casino to use the restrooms and replenish the footballs. Maybe, in another town, a man methodically pouring four bottles of Corona into a cheap, plastic, football-shaped cup while standing at a crowded bar would look…oh, I don’t know…peculiar. Perhaps, one might say, a bit abnormal. Not in Vegas, though. No one so much as blinked. God I love that town.

[To be continued...]

Mixology: A Cocktail Castor Could Drink for Days

Diddy announced a new drink recipe via Twitter that features his vodka line's newest blend, Ciroc Peach. And, never one to miss a marketing opportunity, the name is inspired by his latest viral Ciroc ad.

I haven't tried Ciroc Peach yet; but I find it hard to believe it's good enough to replace my favorite kind of peach. Though, with his smooth demeanor, wouldn't a remake of the "Face/Off" scene—with Diddy playing Castor Troy and Aziz Ansari playing Pollux—be Ciroc's best viral marketing ad yet?