Free Wheeling

Typically, a bachelor party’s potential is based on the personality of the bachelor himself. The more charismatic and larger-than-life the man of honor is, the more likely the party will be worthy of attending. That’s why I can’t wait for the time to come when TJ and Dupa have their respective bachelor parties. Or for when they each eventually have their second, third, and fourth bachelor parties.

When T.C. informed me that he was planning our buddy Trip’s bachelor party, I found myself with a goofy smile on my face, and no words on my tongue. None were needed. Trip is a legend amongst those who know and have partied with him. To what exotic locale would this ode to the Clooney of Western PA take us? Vegas? Montreal? Rio?

Wheeling Island, West Virginia.

There was, however, logic behind this choice. Trip is having a big destination wedding, and knows that means only a limited number of his friends can attend. So to offset that, he wanted to make his bachelor party as accessible as possible. The party would actually span two days, with events on the first day taking place all around Pittsburgh. And T.C., the best man, has been a part of at least two prior bachelor parties held at Wheeling Island, neither of which was short on good times and laughter.

But…Wheeling? To grow up in Western PA is to know that no matter how shitty it is to live here, you always have West Virginia there to remind you that it could be worse. This was not going to be a night of flashy decadence, so much as a night of drunken hootin’ & hollerin’.

I’d planned to catch up with the celebration at the bar on Friday night, but a hard few weeks of work had me backing out of that plan by Friday afternoon. Instead I saved all of my strength for Saturday, and stepped into the casino ready for action about 5 that evening. T.C. met me at the front desk and escorted me up to one of the three rooms he’d booked, where IC Light, Miller Lite, and Shock Top cases were iced and waiting.

Most of the party participants, including the bachelor himself, were still at the golf outing portion of the day. That left T.C., Trip’s college roommate Rex, Trip’s brother-in-law Vince, and I to get the boozing and gambling started. After pounding a few IC Lights in the room, I found myself the first of many Beam & Ginger Ales at the casino’s central bar, where we watched the Belmont Stakes (eight of the guys had each thrown $20 on one horse in the hopes of cashing in on the 20/1 odds; sadly, those odds don’t pay out on a fourth place finish). Then we found ourselves the blackjack tables and got to it.

I’m no stranger to the inside of a casino, but I’m still a relative novice when it comes to blackjack. So there was hesitation in me as I laid down $100 at the $10 table, wading into the kiddie pool with T.C. and Rex. I quickly, though, found myself recounting some of the wisdom Dupa taught me in Vegas, when I made $100 last over four hours. Once again I managed a fluctuating stack, never busting but never going more than $10 over. I’ve realized that while others play blackjack to shoot for the moon, I’m simply at the table to float softly in the air, five feet off the ground like a kid on a seesaw.

Besides, I was content with pounding through the Beam & Gingers they were bringing me every 15 minutes. And I found more than enough entertainment in the guy at the other end of the table. He was an old-timer, well into his sixties, who somehow still hadn’t mastered social interaction. He seemed like a nice guy, but…

He was seated in first position at the table, but was always the slowest to act. He made poorly-thought-out jokes to the pit boss about cheating. After a short while, Trip arrived from the golf outing and joined us at our table; when Awkward Grandpa learned it was our buddy’s bachelor party, he called over one of the chair massage girls walking the casino floor. But, as he bought a massage for Trip, he blurted out, “And give him one of those—what are they called? Happy endings?” A few minutes later, he asked her, “How much does it cost to massage you?”

At one point, I was sipping a Beam & Ginger and weighing the pros and cons of seeing an old man get his ass whooped by security on a casino floor. I mean, I really wanted it to happen, but I knew I’d kind of feel bad afterwards, for at least a few minutes. (Especially since I’d probably try to get a few kicks in myself.)

I cashed out at $60 and joined the rest of the guys at the café just off the floor, where I ate the greasiest double burger ever. By the time I got from the food counter to our table, the bun was soaked through and clear. Mmmmm. One of the guys (“Baby J”) made a trip to the room and came back with cans of Miller Lite in his pockets. It helped to wash some of the grease from my palate, but I still felt like I’d drunk a can of WD40. Thinking about the mixture of ground meat, crude oil, cheap beer, Jim Beam and ginger ale that was in my bloodstream that night makes my skin crawl. I’m fairly certain it’s the chemical compound to pink slime.

It’s always best not to think about things like that in the moment, though. So…#TurnDown4What? Our swarm of tipsy, grease-addled 30-year-olds moved to Wheeling Island’s dog track, where we promptly overtook the bar. I made one bet, while pushing my Beam & Ginger Ale total near double digits; it was on a dog named “Whisky”-something-or-other. It just felt right.

My deeply scientific method for picking a winning dog didn’t pay off. One of the guys in our group, though, won $300+ on a trifecta bet, on a race at another dog track. And none of those mutts were named after what he was drinking at the moment. How does that even happen? I drank more whiskey to cope.

After enough whiskey and gambling—and gambling on Whiskey—it was time for the third side of the bachelor party pyramid: strippers. The thing about Wheeling Island is, it’s very “West Virginia” everywhere but on the small patch of land where Godfathers sits. Inside that oasis, the girls are all cute (at a minimum), the staff is relaxed, the clientele is civilized, and the bar is always well-stocked. In a lot of ways, it’s actually one of the nicest strip clubs in the area. It’s an even better coffee shop and steakhouse.

As cute as all of the dancers were, I quickly detected a theme: None were bigger than a B cup. Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m a lover of women, no matter what size their feminine wiles come in. But one of the underrated perks of a strip club is that you (normally) get to see the whole range of sizes. It’s something a lot of women don’t really seem to understand: Your man isn’t looking at other women naked because he doesn’t want to see you naked. He’s looking at other women naked because they are other kinds of naked women. The more, the merrier, and the inevitable variety of body types and sizes is an ingrained part of that. But at Godfathers on this Saturday night, it was all bee sting everything.

I ordered up drinks for myself and a few others, while I watched our buddy “Play-By-Play” talk up two dancers that looked barely 18, one of whom was wearing braces on her teeth and little black socks in her clear heels. When Play teased her about her socks, she said, “I don’t like walking on that stage in my bare feet!” “But,” he responded, “…you’re a stripper.”

Someone had just sent Trip off to the lap dance room with a dancer when he got called to go up onstage; Baby J had arranged for him to receive the ceremonial beating. The last time I saw this happen at Godfathers, two dancers beat GG’s bottom like he stole their tip money. Baby J had arranged for four dancers to take out their daddy issue-fueled rage on Trip. Ruh roh…

Those four modestly-chested women absolutely destroyed our buddy. And we rained dollar bills all over the stage while they did it. 5’3” girls took belts from seemingly nine feet up in the air and brought them the full nine feet down to Trip’s ass, where it laid prone on the stage, unable to stop the massacre. One dancer grabbed the waistband of his boxers and yanked like she was trying to save them from a burning car. When the band had been completely separated from the rest of the shorts, she relented and moved onto other means of torture.

When his five minutes of hell were over, Trip slowly picked himself up, paused, and then began dancing around the stage, even taking a twirl around the pole.

When he walked down off the stage, the dancer who had been trying to take Trip back to the lap dance room earlier came and collected him to finish that task. The rest of us fell back into our standard bar demeanor and, honestly, I don’t think anyone paid any attention to naked girls on the stage for the rest of night. As I ordered up another Beam & Ginger at one side of the bar, Vince called me over to his side to collect one of the shots he was pouring out. Play renewed his pursuit of Socks. I looked through the DJ booth and noticed I could see into a mirror in the dancers’ dressing room behind it. Then the thought occurred to me that I was spying on naked girls…at a strip club. I turned back to the booze and fun around me.

At one point, while talking to T.C., I heard the sound of glass crashing at my feet. Looking down, I realized I was holding only the top tenth of the Collins glass that I’d been drinking from. I checked my hands for cuts. Nothing. I checked my torso for bullet holes, thinking maybe someone had sniped me. Nothing. No explanation. My glass had seemingly spontaneously combusted. “At least you’ll get a free drink out of it,” offered Vince, as a bouncer swept up the Beam & Ginger murder scene.

When I stepped up to the bar, though, they wanted payment for my new drink. Dammit. I wasn’t the only one who was feeling shortchanged, though. Trip came back from the lap dance with a confused look on his face. “She didn’t get naked. She said they aren’t even allowed to take their tops off during dances.” I guess, even in an oasis, a little West Virginia can find its way in.

From there, the night wound down in pretty timid fashion. We headed back to the casino, where Trip and Vince sat down to play at a $25 blackjack table. (Vince’s gambling that day, where he broke even while probably putting about $50k in play overall, would get our rooms comped.) Some of the guys went to bed, some stood around watching the blackjack action. T.C., Bear Cub, Baby J, and I sat down at a nearby video roulette table, where I turned $10 into $28. Grinding is my life. I finally called “No mas” around 3:30, finding the room I’d been in earlier that night and passing out on a bed next to T.C.

And, really, that’s the best outcome you can hope for when you’re partying in West Virginia.

AWOL

It appears that I’ve hit another lull in my drunken exploit chest-thumpingchronicling, and I really can’t offer up a legitimate excuse for it. I’d like to blame it on the heavy increase in work that has been heaped upon me at the office as of late. But since last December I’ve had a shiny new Dell—complete with all of the MS Office bells and whistles—sitting in my apartment, and that instantly negates the “lack of free time in front of a computer” defense. I could tell you that the slow down has been a result of a concerted effort to scale back my drinking and carousing, but…well I’m sure you would find that only slightly more believable than Ben Roethlisberger wearing a purity ring.

In reality, tons of drunken days and nights have come and gone this year without the slightest mention on the page thus far. Even renowned drinkers’ holidays like New Years Eve, St. Patrick’s Day, the Pirates’ Home Opener, and Brewski Festival have eluded narration in 2010. What can I say? I’m a slacker.

To try to get myself back into the swing of things, I’m going to give a few quick stories from some of my social dealings in recent months (ahh, bullet point formatting; my crutch-away-from home...).


Pirates’ Home Opener

• The entire event was one prolonged, blissful blur. About midway through the day, I found myself in that interesting state known to drinkers as “half blacked out”. It really is an interesting phenomena that only true drinkers can appreciate; if you’ve never spent a random morning trying to weave together the previous day or night’s storyline from various pieces of memory that are separated by chunks of complete blackness, each about 15 to 45 minutes in length, then no words on a computer screen are going to do it justice. My recollection of the day goes from tailgating to McFadden's, to walking into the T station downtown with Steph, to boarding the Incline, to eating calamari at Redbeard’s, to sitting in Steph’s living room watching “Zombieland”. All of which covers several miles of Pittsburgh real estate, spanning from the North Shore to downtown to Station Square to Mount Washington.

If scientists ever determine the exact amount of drunk you have to get for you to be “half blacked out”, television producers could create one hell of a reality-TV game show. Picture a camera crew following around a sloshed, unknowing contestant; then, in the studio the following day, the hungover person has to correctly deduce what in the fizzuck happened to him or her.

Player: “Bob, I’m going to say I vomited behind the McDonalds, then went inside; ordered seven Happy Meals—and a shake; drunk-texted that girl at work I have a crush on; and then fell asleep in the backseat of my buddy’s car.”
Host: “And that’s your final answer?”
Player: *nods while wincing, and then takes a swig of Gatorade*
Host: “Okay—judges, let’s see the tape!”

• After the movie, I had recovered quite nicely. It was only about 8 pm or so, and I decided to resume my inebriation. The boys had all convened at Redbeard’s, and beckoned me to join. It’s about a ten minute walk to there from Steph’s house, and as I finally rounded the corner onto the street where the bar sits, I saw a minivan taxicab parked up ahead. Outside of it stood Jay Swag, Pakistanimal, and MG, who were loading Dupa into the back. He had, it appeared, reached his limit a little earlier than expected. They had almost closed the sliding side door on him when, giggling, he hopped out and ran around the back of the van, and then climbed into the front passenger seat—even though he was the only one taking the cab.

• One of the bartenders at Redbeard’s was Asian-American. Pakistanimal—who had long ago that day throttled past “civilized drinker,” and was now barreling along at a very dickish mach-3-drunk—decided that the best way to endear himself to this gent was to address him as “Jackie Chan.” Want to guess how well that one went over? Approximately ten minutes after I’d gotten to the bar, Pak was being shown the door.

• Earlier in the day, while hanging out at the large tailgate party thrown by Steph’s company, I met a woman who used to work for the same corporation that employs Dupa…and The Ex. While exchanging small talk, I mentioned to her that my ex-girlfriend also works for said corporation.

Her: “Oh really? Who?”
Me: “[The Ex’s real name].”
Her: “Oh—she’s crazy!”
Me: *choking on my beer*
Her: “But I guess that’s why she’s your EX-girlfriend!”

Brewski Fest Eve

• The night before the grandest of beer drinking days found Dupa, our boy “The Entertainer”, Shannon, Dr. Kelly, her friend “Fist of Fury” (FoF), and I drinking ourselves silly in Johnstown, where Dr. Kelly is a surgical resident. Johnstown surely wasn’t prepared for the party that Dupa, Entertainer, and I bring, and we quickly made an impression on Dr.’s boss, an attending doctor who was seated at the bar near us. After about 20 minutes of our typical unfiltered social commentary, the attending got up and walked clear around to the other side of the bar, trying to find a seat as far away from us as he could.

• All of us were sufficiently hammered by the time the bar closed, and we retired to Dr. Kelly’s house. As soon as we arrived, the three girls all ran upstairs to put on t-shirts and sweats. Standing in the kitchen, we guys decided to make ourselves more comfortable as well. So when FoF, Shan, and Dr. came back downstairs, they found all three of us guys just as we had been before—minus our pants. Dupa cooked up frozen pizza rolls, I mixed myself a Gatorade & vodka, and Entertainer air-guitared to 80s music, all in our polo shirts and boxers.

Rocky’s Bachelor Party

• My buddy Rocky will be kissing his freedom away blushing bride at the altar soon, and last weekend roughly 30 of us gathered at Wheeling Island for his last hurrah. Fairly early in the night, one of Rocky’s friends found himself up $500+ from the blackjack table. He decided, in true gambler spirit, to place a $500 chip on “red” at the roulette table. Our crowd of drunken Pennsylvanians watched with baited breath as the little white ball spun around and around, finally landing on…red. A roar went up like Wheeling’s never seen before. The brave soul collected his two $500 chips and went straight to the cage, and then to the bar to buy a round of tequila shots.

• Rocky’s fiancée, beautiful and virtuous, has only one flaw: her utter distaste for anything stripper-related. Therefore, unlike Gaelic Gangsta’s stag party at Wheeling Island last year, there would be no shaming of the groom-to-be at the hand of Godfathers’ maniacal exotic dancers. I don’t think Rocky was even allowed to look in the club’s direction from across the casino’s parking lot. The rest of us, however, had no doubt that we’d be visiting at some point. The plan, therefore, was to get the bachelor as stupid-drunk as we could early in the night, so that we could put him to bed and then head over for a dance or two. But around 12:30, it became clear that Rocky—true to his namesake—wasn’t going down without a fight. No matter how many shots and cocktails we poured into him, he wouldn’t fall.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Rocky’s cousin, a police officer, formulated a new plan: members of our party were to peel off inconspicuously two at a time and head for Godfathers. As we stood talking and laughing a short while later, and with Rocky up at the bar, “Po-Po” looked at Dupa and I and ordered, “Alright, you two—go.” We looked at each other, shrugged, and walked off through the casino towards the doors. About five minutes after we arrived at the club and got seats at the bar, two more people arrived from our group. And then two more. And then two more. Eventually about 16 to 18 of us were enjoying performances by West Virginia’s best. I’m not sure if Rocky ever figured out where half of his party had gone. Hell, I can’t be sure he even figured out that we had gone.

• I recently became a part of the Twitter craze (right at the cutting edge of that trend, I know), and decided to do my best to give play-by-play to the bachelor party’s proceedings. The following is a portrait of 18 hours of madness:

6:00 PM May 15th: “On my way to Rocky's bachelor party on the Island. This...is...going...to...get...ugly.”
8:43 PM May 15th: “Dinner buffet: conquered.”
9:52 PM May 15th: “Dog races and vodka gimlets.”
11:18 PM May 15th: “Middle-aged white man on stage singing ‘My Prerogative’. Oh...my...fuck...”
11:35 PM May 15th: “If you were up $500 on the night, would you throw it all on red on the roulette table? Our buddy did. Tequila shots all around.”
12:43 AM May 16th: “Shots and gimlets flying. This is starting to feel like Savannah.”
1:21 AM May 16th: “Strip club. No bachelor. Weird? Not for our crew.”
7:52 AM May 16th: “5 hours of poker followed by getting locked out of a hotel room. Feels pretty standard by now.”
11:18 AM May 16th: “At Perkins in Wheeling, and looking at our waitress...I think I see where Tiger was coming from.”
12:23 PM May 16th: “Bachelor party was successful. Quote of the weekend: ‘You go home, tell her you love her, touch her where she pees, and it's all good.’”

That’s all for now. I need a bottle of Gatorade and some sunlight. But I promise to have more soon. Salud.

Grown Man Business

Strippers and bachelor parties go together like gin and tonic water. The general presumption, at least amongst brides-to-be, is that their future hubbies end up in a dark back room receiving an endless string of lap dances and affections from beautiful women. From my own personal experience, however, this isn’t very accurate. I can count about eleven stag parties in which I have taken part over the years. Ten of them featured performances by exotic dancers; of those ten, the bachelor was too drunk at half of them to even make it into the strip club. And even when he does stay conscious long enough to see the inside of the club, it’s rare that the bachelor ever gets a sendoff anywhere near the fantasy scenario described above. Sometimes he just hangs out at the edge of the stage with his buddies, sliding the occasional dollar bill into a garter. Sometimes the best man takes him to the private room and buys him one innocent lap dance from the girl of his choosing. And sometimes he gets the will to live beaten out of him onstage by two dancers (who, invariably, experience simultaneous flashbacks of domestic violence, and as a result go all Tina-whooping-Ike-with-a-boot-in-the-limo on the poor, unsuspecting sap).

Unfortunately for Gaelic Gangsta, his bachelor party in Wheeling, WV last weekend fell along the lines of the third—and least enjoyable—scenario.

Most of our party crew began the night by pounding beers at the TGI Fridays in Washington while watching NCAA tourney games. I met up with them late, though, and had only enough time to chug one Miller Lite draught. We caravanned to a Hampton Inn a couple of miles away from Wheeling Island, which would be the night’s main event. The best man, “Mo-Fo,” had booked two rooms, but we had 11 guys congregated. So while he and three others went inside to check in, the rest of us played the old prom night game of “hang back in the parking lot.” We waited about 10 minutes and then finally went inside to catch up with them. Unfortunately, we didn’t know what the room numbers were, and had to try stopping on each floor. When we reached the second floor, the elevator doors opened to a temporary wall; third floor, same thing. The hotel, apparently, was doing some remodeling. “How much you wanna bet,” said GG, “that one of us is going to crash through those walls tonight?”

“I fully expect there to be a man-shaped hole in one of them tomorrow from you running through it,” I replied.

When the doors opened on 4, we half-expected to see another temporary wall. Instead it was Mo-Fo; he ushered us down the hall to the rooms, one of which had a large, full cooler of cold Labatt Blue cans and Smithwick’s bottles awaiting us. “Weatherman”, the bride-to-be’s brother, brought a bottle of Jack Daniels that he was daring to splash Coke at. And it was only about 7 pm. This night was not going to be for the faint of heart.

When everyone decided that it was time to head to the casino to eat, Mo-Fo called the front desk and asked about arranging for the casino’s shuttle to pick us up. The woman at the desk informed him that all he needed to do was push the “dice button” on the room phone, and he would be connected with Wheeling Island. “Wow,” Mo-Fo said impressed. “You guys are on top of it!”

At Wheeling Island we ravaged the buffet, washing down chicken, steak, and pasta with beers, Jack, and vodka. While gathered around a table at a bachelor party, the discussion topics typically have a more macho flavor to them. You’ve got plates with meat piled high, bottles of beer, glasses of whiskey, 12-14 virile young guys, gambling; it’s like a big stew of “manliness” symbolism. One of our friends sitting at the table (“E Bomb”—man, my ability to craft creative aliases is really starting to fade), though, is openly gay [which almost sounds like a sociological experiment: “Let’s throw as much testosterone-fueled, heterosexual overload at a gay man as we can, and then see what happens”]. But E Bomb long ago proved himself able to drink and joke with the best of us. When conversation eventually came to GG’s scrap the previous Saturday, E Bomb weighed in:

E Bomb: “If I had been there, it would’ve been great to knock him out and then look down and say ‘You just got your ass kicked by a faggot!’”
Me: *choking on my Red Bull and vodka*

After eating we hit the dog track to bet on a few races. While not busy raking in the free money (GG, Weatherman, and I all won at different times), some of the guys bought and passed around shots of Jack. After an hour or so it was deemed time to hit Godfather's Gentlemen's Club, which is within walking distance of the casino. Weatherman and I were among the first to arrive at the rendezvous point on the casino floor. He decided to throw a $20 on red at the roulette table; I followed suit, putting $20 on black.

Always bet on black.

I took my small winnings to the cage to get cashed, and Weatherman sat down at a slot machine. He threw in $5, and after a few minutes of automated whirling and beeping, it posted a $95 win. The rest of our group showed up as Weatherman took his voucher to the cage. He was still standing over at the window several minutes later, though, and the rest of us—eager to have naked breasts shook in our faces—began to get impatient. I went over to ask what the hold up was, but once I looked over his shoulder I understood. Being laid out in front of him by the cashier were ninety-five $1 bills. Weatherman looked at me with a big grin. “I’m gonna make it rain!”

Though I had heard mixed reviews of it throughout the day, I was impressed with Godfathers. The girls weren’t superstars, but they were solid 7s and 8s (I think that may count as a 20 in West Virginia). We pooled money to buy a VIP table and bottle service, and we poured ourselves vodka and Jack from a small lounge of leather couches stage left. One of our guys—who seemed to appoint himself Secretary of Strip Club Affairs as soon as we walked in—picked out two dancers, and worked out the terms of the show they would perform for the bachelor. GG was quickly being led to the stage by a tall, tattooed girl with jet black hair (“Tats”), and a petite blonde with a well-sculpted derriere (“WGWA”). He smiled like a little kid about to blow out the candles on his birthday cake. Oh, if only he understood that this was a show for us, not for him.

While he sat on his hands in a chair backed against the pole, Tats and WGWA proceeded to do their best to remind GG of every reason he loves and cherishes his fiancée. To the cheers of the rest of us, they paddled, teased, tickled, and abused him like two deranged cats slowly killing a mouse. A few minutes into the show, Weatherman handed out wads of his dollar bills to some of us. Together, we gathered around the edge of the stage and tossed a rainstorm of Washingtons across it while two borderline sadistic exotic dancers beat our drunken friend silly. The only word I can conceive of to describe it is “wondrous.”

For the grand finale, WGWA climbed up onto GG and stood on his thighs—10 inch stripper heels and all—and began thrusting her g-string covered crotch into his face, pinballing his head between her pelvic bone and the pole behind it. Having enough, he wearily raised his hand and tapped out on WGWA’s firm heiny.

We packed our trampled buddy into the shuttle to the hotel, and the bulk of the party called it a night as well. A few of us, however, decided we wanted to gamble some more. Mo-Fo and his boy stuck to the blackjack tables, and I headed downstairs to the poker room at about 2:30 am, where I repeatedly ordered cups of ice water from waitresses and watched my chip stack fluctuate. At about 9:30 I finally decided it time to tap out myself, down only $55 from what I had stumbled in with. I cabbed it back to the hotel, where 10 guys were packed into two modest hotel rooms like refugees.

As we all said our goodbyes before hitting the highway back to PA, GG showed us a lasting reminder of his last night as a free man: a bruise on his ass about the size of a coaster on a coffee table.

Yep—definitely not for the faint of heart.