I consider myself a semi-reasonable man. I accept the fact that in this beautiful but crazy, fallen world, shit happens. Life is not fair, and anyone who believes otherwise either writes screenplays for Disney or drinks before 5pm on a regular basis. But what happened to me in New Orleans this past May is so ri-goddamn-diculous that I'm forced to consider the possibility that God is on the payroll at National Lampoon. Let me explain...In late April I got a phone call from onetime coworker, current drinking buddy and perpetual man-whore "Mean Joe D". I was staying with friends in Houston at the time and MJD, who had just been let go by the same bald poser that fired me two years ago (as an aside, let me note for the record that said poser - a doppelganger for Uncle Fester - managed a once-great sell-side technology research boutique so incompetently that its parent company was forced to shut it down completely about a month ago), had decided to spend some time driving around this great country of ours. Joe informed me that he had a buddy in New Orleans who could get us a comped hotel room for three nights and wondered if I would be interested in joining him in a pub crawl down Bourbon St. Outside of my very busy schedule of eating, sleeping and relieving myself, I didn't have a lot going on at the time, so I agreed to accompany him. Now before we go any further, there are a few things you need to know about MJD and the Tucker-Max-type shit that ALWAYS happens when he and I tie one on:
1. MJD is the son of narcoleptic gypsies. Ok I made that up. But it's the only logical explanation I've ever been able to come up with for his frighteningly uncanny ability to sleep anytime, anywhere (and frequently, with anyone) over the course of a nine-day bender.
2. MJD was a collegiate gymnast. This is important because it plays a key role later on in this story. It's also why he looks like a 'roided-up circus midget.
3. The last time I saw MJD before this New Orleans trip was in San Francisco (his adopted hometown). During what was supposed to be a seven-day BUSINESS trip he and I managed to: a) visit a whopping six clients (monumental hangovers are not conducive to marketing, it would seem); b) convince five female flight attendants at an SF nightclub that I was the fourth line center for the San Jose Sharks (they were fighting over me like a pride of lions fights over an antelope carcass...it was beautiful); c) get thrown out of not one but two Marina-district bars because MJD was determined to hit on any chick with a pulse and - when they responded unfavorably to his overtures, which they nearly always did - would ask them if they had profiles on "match.fat.com”; d) topple a 20-ft Christmas tree in the Marina and set it on fire in front of 50 cheering bar patrons. Ok that last one was all me but I distinctly remember Joe tapping me on the shoulder and saying, "I bet you’re too chicken to climb to the top of that Christmas tree". Nobody calls me chicken, Needles, nobody. I actually tore my jeans in half during that fiasco and since I was going commando at the time I had to walk around town wearing what amounted to a denim loin cloth for the rest of the night.
In short, MJD is a giant bucket of lecherous douche - just like me. That's why we get along so well. It's also why I had a pretty good idea going into this New Orleans trip that something absurd and probably illegal was going to happen. Moving on...
For brevity's sake, I'm going to provide a quick, expedition-log-type summary of our first 48 hours in the French Quarter then move on to the night in question:
Arrived at hotel...no time for shower, getting right to work...our objective is to hit all 54 bars on Bourbon St (not including restaurants and strip clubs, although we may or may not have entered some of those as well) in four days...we start with the gay bars and tear through those as quickly as possible - one drink only, guaranteeing we're not there nearly long enough to risk finding out that there’s been a flaming homosexual lying dormant inside each of us our entire lives...the next four blocks are a blur of beer, frozen Hurricanes, drunk chicks and their even drunker asshole boyfriends (yes, asshole-dom is axiomatic to any guy who brings a girl he purports to like to this modern-day Gomorrah), human statues, awesome jazz and blues clubs, and Bourbon St.’s patented proprietary odoriferous blend of booze, sweat, sex, urine and horse manure…we somehow manage to stumble back to our hotel occasionally for a few hours of fitful sleep, and I somehow manage to stumble onto one of the greatest bait-and-switch schemes of all time: in the four days I was in New Orleans, I managed to convince 31 different women that my nonexistent brother was the curator of the Smithsonian and that he had asked me to help him get pictures of modern-day American men and women reenacting that famous V-Day picture of the Navy guy dipping and kissing some nurse in Times Square for a “65th Anniversary of V-Day” exhibit at the museum (needless to say, every last one of them fell for it, proving once and for all that women will do just about anything in the name of romantic nostalgia...fellas, write that down)...I also manage to break 1,000 on that “Punch Strength Tester” arcade game (kinda like that thing Ivan Drago does in “Rocky IV”), after which MJD sees the wisdom in affording me a little more goddamn respect than I usually get from him…oh, we ate some oysters at one point – and not much else.
Ok so that more or less gives you the gist of everything that happened prior to the events that would take me from giving an impromptu, shirtless performance of “Riverdance” in the middle of Bourbon St. to a 24-hour stint in the Orleans Parish Prison (the “O.P.P.”, as we inmates called it) to a glorious return to the French Quarter to finish the 54-bar pub crawl. Here we go…
By 10pm on Saturday night – the third day of our Bacchic Odyssey – MJD and I were so ripped that we became telepathically connected and contemporaneously decided it would be a good idea to take our shirts off and keep them off whether we were in a bar, out on the street, or passed out in the gutter (which Joe more or less did twice that day, the only two times I’ve ever seen a man sleep standing up in the middle of what amounted to a boiling cauldron of booze and lust). You see, MJD weighs about 100 lbs less than I do, and while on a pound-for-pound basis he’s much stronger than me, he can’t hold my jockstrap when it comes to the “game of drink”. Like all survivors, however, Joe’s DNA has mutated to the point where he has the most highly-evolved case of narcolepsy I’ve ever seen. The problem is, the minute he wakes up he starts acting like an alcoholic, hypoglycemic albino grizzly rising from a multi-month hibernation.
MJD had been stand-sleeping next to me at the bar for a little over an hour when all of a sudden I hear “aaaaarrrrrggggghhh…get me a beer…any beer…domestic…import…just get me a goddamn beer immediately”. Joe’s ursine rise from the dead scared the crap out of the girl I had been talking to (and by talking, I mean serenading with a slurred, drunken but likely passable rendition of “Could You Be Loved” by Bob Marley) but she was a good sport and, after several beers, a few shots and a Red Bull and vodka slushie (there’s no other way to describe it – in New Orleans they have frozen versions of every cocktail imaginable) we followed her outside to meet her friends. One of these friends was wearing a Carolina Panthers jersey, which Joe and I – both tactically Kitchener-esque vis-à-vis determining which colonies of women are likely to produce the highest possible debaucherous yield – instantly recognize as an invitation to talk about football rather than something insipidly stupid like “the weather” or “life”. Such a topic of conversation does, after all, stack the odds of success in our favor. Furthermore, these were SOUTHERN girls, which means that they were 50% more likely to go back to our hotel room with us than their Northern counterparts. It’s not that Southern girls are “loose” (well, some of them are beyond loose), it’s just that they’re far more susceptible to Yankee charm than their wife-beater-wearing, shotgun-wielding, racist fathers would ever be willing to admit under threat of waterboarding. Game on.
Joe is the first to enter the verbal fray – he’s kind of like the Marine Reconn of semantic canoodling – but my strength lies elsewhere. Namely, in my surprising ability to dance nimbly despite weighing over 240 lbs. So as Joe butters these girls up with innuendo-laced compliments, I begin limbering up. Stretch out the hammies, the glutes, the thighs. A few jumping jacks. Three more beers. One more Jame-O shot. I’m ready.
Now I was a good athlete in my day, but I’m no Michael Flatley. That said, I can jig with the best of the men of my weight class and color and I was putting on a rather good performance on this particular night. I couldn’t see straight, mind you, but I could still dance. After about 60 seconds I was so winded I thought about calling for a gurney, but Joe – excellent wingman that he is – spelled me with some of his own acrobatic splendor. Joe used to do backflips right on the street but he broke his neck in a tragic kiln explosion a few years back and no longer risks it. He does, however, walk on his hands for the enjoyment of any group of girls likely to reward him with a handful of oats or a free grope or two. MJD was on his game this night, which pleased me to the extent that it increased our collective chances of success but also pissed me off because I’m as competitive as they come and he was just plain showing me up. I decided, therefore, that it would be necessary to redouble my jigging efforts and perhaps throw in a few extra moves I learned from a homeless black guy in Myrtle Beach several years ago. And so, once again, I began to dance. Oh how I danced! I was about to parlay a spin into a full split (yes, I can still do one) when I got drilled in the back by something large, heavy and powerful. Recovering my balance, I wheeled around and came face to face with one of Bourbon St.’s many mounted police officers. I was so relieved that I hadn’t been attacked by an actual human being that I made the mistake of patting the horse on the neck. It may have been a vigorous pat but it was a friendly one. Seriously, if you took 25 years off my age, dressed me up like Jon-Benet Ramsey, gave me blond curls but allowed me to retain my current strength it would have looked like a scene from “Shirley Temple Goes to the Kentucky Derby, Punches Horse In Neck”. The next thing I know, I’m surrounded by three New Orleans cops who are pointing Tasers at me and screaming at me to turn around and put my hands on the wall. I was flabbergasted, but not so flabbergasted that I couldn’t imagine what 50,000 volts administered via metal pins sticking into my bare flesh would feel like, so I instantly complied. I was patted down, handcuffed, led off to the police station like a common criminal, and booked on two counts of “Cruelty to Animals”. TWO counts. Because apparently I patted the horse twice. This is the kind of math that makes New Orelans cops the BIGGEST DOUCHEBAGS ON THE PLANET. In the unlikely event that any of them are reading this, I would like to give them a message: like Maximus, I WILL have my vengeance - in this life or the next. You will NOT get away with turning me into a drunk, white Michael Vick.
In Part II of this epic tale I will discuss my time in prison with what appeared to have been – exclusively – the patrons of the Dexter Lake Club. Plus one other white guy. And a Latino crackhead who threatened to cut me. To be continued.
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