A Dave In the Life

The 2012 Apocalypse Fantasy Draft

2012-12-19T10:37:00.000-08:00

During a slow day of work the conversation started about the impending Apocalypse on December 21, 2012. We were discussing who the best person was to have around in various end of the world scenarios. Due to there being so many different variables and possibilities of how the world will end, no one person could be deemed the most suitable. This is when we got out a pen and paper and had the 2012 Apocalypse Fantasy Draft . The parameters for the draft were that anyone was fair game with the exception of Superman, actors would count as any characters they've played as well as themselves, and we would each get 13 draft picks. The teams were Dave and The Weapons of Ass Destruction, Dan's Doomsday Dream Team, and KC and the Jawlines. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you The 2012 Apocalypse Fantasy Draft.

1. Dave and The Weapons of Ass Destruction - Will Smith

With the first pick in the 2012 Apocalypse Fantasy Draft, Dave and The Weapons of Ass Destruction select Will Smith. I challenge anyone to name an actor that has saved humanity more times against a more diverse group of opponents. Aliens (MIB Series, Independence Day), Zombies/Pandemics (I Am Legend), Robots (IRobot). The guy even took down renegade Civil War General Bloodbath MacGrath's giant spider machine in "Wild, Wild, West". The man is a pure bred monster mirker with values that are never compromised. I can think of no better way to kick off the end days than with a "Welcome to Urf"! and a right hook to an alien's dome piece.

2. Dan's Doomsday Dream Team - Taylor Swift

Picked for post-Apocalyptic re-population purposes and the sweet serenade of her guitar. Personally, I find it foolish to be considering re-population in a first round pick. All in all she is the type of girl I could re-populate with, but her lack of fight or feistyness could become a liability. She let Kanye steal her moment and walk all over her. I would prefer someone with a little more backbone on my side when the end comes.

"A world without Taylor Swift is no world for me" - Dan

3. KC and the Jawlines - Les Stroud

Survival expert from TV's "Survivorman". Les would be a great asset for rummaging for the last food on Earth. He'll bring his own camera without the hassle of a camera crew, and you're not going to want to miss the chance to have your Armageddon adventures captured on film. Definitely a better choice than rival survival ~~expert~~ actor Bear Grylls.

4. Dave and The Weapons of Ass Destruction - Bruce Willis

Nearly impossible to kill in all of his movies (Die Hard Series, Pulp Fiction). On the rare occasion he does die it's either sacrificing himself to divert an asteroid from hitting Earth so his daughter can bang Ben Afleck (Armageddon) or he remains the main character as a ghost that still doesn't accept that he's dead (6th Sense). One thing's for certain. This guy is going to fight until his heart stops beating... and then some. - "Yippie Kaye Aye Motherfucker"

5. Dan's Doomsday Dream Team - Al Gore

The man "invented the internet". In the likelihood of a global warming based Apocalypse he is a worthwhile and knowledgeable companion. His leadership skills are commendable and no one deserves to lead post-Apocalyptic Earth more the man that can tell everyone, "I told you so". While he is one of the most boring people on the planet, you're going to need a brain like Al Gore around, even if that is an "Inconvenient Truth".

6. KC and the Jawlines - Rachel McAdams

She is drafted for re-population purposes. Some find her pretty and wholesome. She just doesn't really do it for me. Seems absolutely useless as far as defending herself or the planet goes. Her forehead, however, could be a useful place to rebuild on.

7. Dave and The Weapons of Ass Destruction - Shakira

When Shakira starts shaking she'll stop anything with a pulse dead in its tracks. Those hips could knock out aliens/zombies/robots. This little Latin firecracker has some serious fight in her. If the world needs re-populating, it would only be right to do it with Colombian/Lebanese belly dancers.

8. Dan's Doomsday Dream Team - Keanu Reeves

In the event of a robot takeover, no one can handle robots like "The Chosen One", Neo (The Matrix). Capable of stopping runaway buses loaded with explosives, and ready to handle any situation when challenged with a "Pop quiz hot shot..." (Speed). While I'm pretty sure his character has Down Syndrome, he also has a time traveling telephone booth that could come in handy (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure). He may be one of the dumbest people on this list, and his acting chops will be about as useless in the Apocalypse as they are now, but any man with the balls to jump out of a plane with nothing but a pistol is A-Okay in my book (Point Break). If you ever doubted anything about Keanu Reeves, watch this clip and bask in the glory of what is Special Agent Johnny Utah.

9. KC and the Jawlines - Chuck Norris

Great pick up. I'm honestly surprised he was still around for the number 9 pick. He has been incredibly successful in martial arts competitions off screen and is rivaled only by Bruce Lee in terms of actual ass kicking actors. Any further questions regarding why the coolest bearded ginger since Trey Anastasio is such a great choice, please refer to this informative website: chucknorrisfacts.com

10. Dave and The Weapons of Ass Destruction - Shakira (again)

Give me 1 ~~night~~ minute with two Shakiras and I'm ready for the world to end.

'Nuff said

11. Dan's Doomsday Dream Team - Mark Wahlberg

Mark Wahlberg said he would've stopped 9/11. Quite frankly, I believe him. No apologies necessary, Mark. I've seen "Planet of the Apes" and I know what you're capable of in the event of a global primate takeover, and I'm confident in saying that stopping a terrorist 737 takeover would be a chore you could finish before Sunday brunch. Also, lets not disregard his days as the boss of the Funky Bunch. I'm imagining the Earth being destroyed by massive earthquakes and Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch jamming out to "Good Vibrations" to give everyone an optimistic spin on things.

12. KC and the Jawlines - Bruce Wayne

Far and away the most bad ass super hero in the game right now. He's always got the best gadgets of anyone whose name doesn't start with "Inspector". He may be the wealthiest man on this list and the bat cave could make a fantastic doomsday bunker.

13. Dave and The Weapons of Ass Destruction - Black Jesus Christ

The son of God is always a great person to have on your squad. His record of miracles is particularly impressive: water into wine, feeding thousands, rising from the mother-effing dead. He is experienced in saving humanity and has people willing to do crazy things in his name the world over. In regards to the shear number of his followers, he may be considered the greatest leader of all time. Why Black Jesus and not White Jesus you ask? When it comes to drafting a team you gotta take every chance you can to maximize athleticism.....so .... ya know...

Try to find a picture of white Jesus this jacked. Can't do it.

14. Dan's Doomsday Dream Team - Tim Tebow

He ~~has~~ had miracle performing abilities second only to Christ himself. Obvious follow up pick to the Lord and Savior. If it's publicity you want, it's publicity you will get with Tim Tebow. This team is sure to receive an incredible amount of unnecessary coverage from the entire staff of ESPN, regardless of his role on the team. His overwhelming pureness renders him useless in terms of re-population and his loyalty to the Lord makes him a serious threat to switch sides towards Black Jesus and The Weapons of Ass Destruction.

15. KC and the Jawlines - Neil Patrick Harris

NPH is drafted for his ability to preserve and maintain "The The Bro Code" (How I Met Your Mother). Social order and most rules will be disregarded in the dog-eat-dog world of post-Apolcalyptic Earth. The "Bro Code" shall remain. His vast medical knowledge accumulated during his days as Doogie Howser MD could also come in handy in fighting off a pandemic.

16. Dave and The Weapons of Ass Destruction - Neil DeGrasse Tyson

If you're the type of person that has a favorite astrophysicist, I'm willing to bet it's Neil DeGrasse Tyson. He is an expert on apocalyptic scenarios and talking head in all the great History Channel doomsday documentaries. Stephen Hawking may be smarter, unfortunately, being paralyzed is a pretty major drawback when assessing doomsday survival skills. The planet could be in complete chaos and NDT will be sitting there giving the play-by-play as the carnage unfolds.

17. Dan's Doomsday Dream Team - Charlie Sheen

Armageddon is not all about surviving and trying to save humanity. It's about having fun! If the world's ending you're going to want to go out partying with the best, and Charlie Sheen is the perfect man for the job. If the end of the world is out of my hands, I can think of no better way to watch Armageddon play out than in a hot tub with Charlie Sheen, a gaggle of high end prostitutes, and a mountain of cocaine #winning

18. KC and the Jawlines - Robert Downey Jr.

Tony Starks/Iron Man is an obvious stud to have on the Apocalypse team. The ability to fly and an endless amount of resources will surely come in handy. Throw in some of that Sherlock Holmes intelligence and take into account that he's somewhat of a poor man's Charlie Sheen in terms of his history of partying with drugs and hookers and you've got yourself a very well rounded teammate.

19. Dave and The Weapons of Ass Destruction - Antonio Cromartie

He's a commendable athlete as a cornerback for the New York Jets and holds the record for the longest touchdown in NFL history, but that has little to do with this draft choice. He's making the team as a master of re-population. His current wife is about to have twins, bringing his total to 12 children....by 8 women.....in 7 states... that we know of. His sperm swim like Michael Phelps and with the swagger of Ryan Lochte. I'm just giving him some bottles of Cristal and setting him loose so he can Arm-a-get-it-on! Let him have a lifetime of reproducing on post-Apocalyptic Earth and he'll grow a family tree that looks like a weeping willow. Also, anyone that can handle the pressure of 8 baby mamas while playing on a defense that needs to make up for an offense run by Mark Sanchez, can handle the pressures of the Apocalype.

20. Dan's Doomsday Dream Team - Bill Murray

All around class act of a human being. Additionally, he can take down ghosts and giant marshmallow men (Ghostbusters), he can beat NBA talent stealing aliens in basketball (Space Jam), and he is master of gopher extermination (Caddyshack). Also, he handles the zombie Apocalypse in what is probably the most practical way in movie history (Zombieland).

21. KC and the Jawlines - Yoda

Don't be fooled by his size and muppet-like looks. Sure, it doesn't make any sense that half the time he's walking around with a cane and the other half he's jumping through the sky with a light sabre throwing front double cork 10's like he's Shaun White in the pipe. Regardless of his physical abilities, it's tough to beat the credentials accumulated over 900 years as a Jedi Master. He trained all the best Jedi's and his wisdom and ability to control the force is something anyone would want in an Apocalyptic teammate.

"Do or do not. There is no try" - Yoda

22. Dave and The Weapons of Ass Destruction - Keith Richards

No one, and I mean no one, goes harder than Keith Richards. Take Charlie Sheen in the midst of his infamous bender, and that has been The Rolling Stones guitarist's lifestyle for the past 5 decades. He is a living, breathing, drug vacuum. This creature snorted his deceased father's ashes cut with cocaine for Black Christ's sake! When we're in a doomsday bunker and it's time to go see whether or not the deteriorated atmosphere is filled with poisonous gases, who better to send out than the man who has made a lifestyle out of filling himself with poisonous chemicals. Simply put, Keith Richards is indestructible.

"I picture nuclear war and two things surviving: Keith and cockroaches!" - Bill Hicks

23. Dan's Doomsday Dream Team - Bryan Cranston

Breaking Bad's Walter White may be one of the most unlikely bad asses in television/cinematic/literary history. The cancer fighting chemistry teacher turned meth cook has a Houdini-esque ability to get himself out of tight situations. Whether it's constructing an improvised explosive device or the heartlessness it takes to poison a child, one thing is for sure: he will find a way out of any sort of death defying circumstance. It is this type of ruthless cunning that makes him a great man to have on your team and an absolute nightmare to go against. While his loyalty and trustworthiness is about as suspect as Dan's sexual orientation when discussing Tom Brady, the question isn't "do you need him on your squad"? The answer is "no", but I sure as shit don't want to go up against him. Bryan Cranston was also the dad in Malcolm in the Middle, which certainly doesn't hurt either.

24. KC and The Jawlines - Harrison Ford

The man has a history of playing some incredibly heroic characters. Han Solo, Indiana Jones, the only President to kick terrorist ass onboard Air Force One (take that, Wahlberg). Harisson Ford is an absolute champ. Sure, he is usually frantic and often has trouble keeping his cool, but he gets the job done. The biggest reason I think he is such a great pick is his relentless loyalty to those on his side. If Harrison Ford is on your team, he's going to be loyal and fight for you til the end. Just watch what he's willing to go through for his wife and family and his loyalty speaks for itself.

25. Dave and The Weapons of Ass Destruction - Kevin Bacon

When the world begins to end it's going to be all about who you know. Sure, my team is stacked with every dimension of power you could want, but networking in post-Apocalyptic Earth and getting as many people looking out for the Weapons of Mass Destruction as possible is definitely a massive benefit. The invisible "Hollow Man" star has a network unlike any other, and a network I want on my side. Anyone that has played the game 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon knows exactly what I'm talking about.

26. Dan's Doomsday Dream Team - Madden '04 Michael Vick

When it comes to video game characters there are a few that stand out: Mario, James Bond in Golden Eye for Nintendo '64, Sonic the Hedgehog. But when you compare video game characters to the other characters in the game, only one man stands head and shoulders above the competition. That man is the Michael Vick of Madden '04. He is truly a man amongst boys. Assuming that the skills it takes to scramble out of the pocket and deliver a perfectly thrown, off balance, 40 yard zinger translate to the fields of post-Apocalyptic Earth, you've got yourself a hell of a teammate.

27. KC and The Jawlines - Marley the dog, I Am Legend

Nothing like man's best friend for an Apocalyptic teammate. Factor in he's a German Shepherd with zombie fighting experience at the side of this drafts number one pick, and you got yourself one powerful pooch. His loyalty to Big Willy is rivaled only by Harrison Ford's loyalty to his family.

P.S. I'm willing to bet that all of your pet cats bail on you at the first sign of the end times.

28. Dave and The Weapons of Ass Destruction - Sir Sean Connery

The quintessential James Bond. All the other James Bond's are mere boy scouts in comparison to the original 007. The one man army can take out 100's of Soviet troops with only a pistol, all while keeping his tuxedo looking perfect. Even as an old man in "The Rock", he manages to break into Alcatraz and disarm a group of ex-marines trying to destroy the bay area with thermite plasma. No matter how old Sean Connery gets he's still a force to be reckoned with and only gets wiser with his age.

"Your 'best'? Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen." - The Rock

29. Dan's Doomsday Dream Team - Dog The Bounty Hunter

Is there a person walking this Earth that is more of a real life action star than Dog The Bounty Hunter? I think this beast auditioned for "The Expendables", but wouldn't be allowed on set because he was just too real of a hero compared to his actor costars. I understand that he plays up his character for reality TV, but there is something absolutely genuine about this all American bad ass. If Dog The Bounty Hunter hadn't invented himself, Hollywood or the WWE surely would have by now. The roided out, fake tanned, arms that are as leathery as the sleeveless vest that made the mistake of trying to contain them are enough to send any adversary running in the opposite direction. My hat goes off to you, Mr. Dog, and I'll keep it off in the hope that one day I can grow a mullet with half as much flow as yours.

30. KC and The Jawlines - Jackie Chan

No Asians yet, huh? Reminds me of every other draft Yao Ming wasn't in. If you polled Americans and asked them who they're favorite Asian was in a pre-Jeremy Lin era, it would hands down be Jackie Chan. To be honest, I didn't even know another Asian by name until I stumbled across my first Kobe Tai video. I think everyone has been impressed at some point in there life by watching Jackie Chan get encircled by a group of bad guys and lay waste to each of them as they charge him one at a time. In the "Rush Hour" series he does what most people would consider impossible: manages to create a franchise with the most annoying human being on the planet, Chris Tucker. It seems like the guy can get along with just about everyone. Do I respect the hell at of Jackie Chan? Let me just put it this way: I've disowned close friends for calling Jackie Chan a sellout.

31. Dave and The Weapons of Ass Destruction - Patrick Swayze

Fighter, dancer, surfer, lover, bank robber, soul searcher, bouncer, ghost, well-rounded beyond human comprehension. These are all words that describe the legend that is Patrick Swayze. The most talented individual to ever grace this planet? I'd say so. His role on the team? Whatever needs to be done. If there is a job to do, I'm confident that Patrick Swayze has it in his skill set to complete the task at hand. Now I'm very comfortable with my sexuality as a straight man, but if it's gay for a dude to have a dream "Devil's Threesome" involving Demi Moore, Patrick Swayze, and myself during one of my weekly Friday night pottery sessions, slap my ass and call me Mrs. Swayze.

"If you want the ultimate, you've got to be willing to pay the ultimate price. It's not tragic to die doing what you love" - Point Beak

32. Dan's Doomsday Dream Team - The Pink Power Ranger

The source of more first boners for the young men of my generation than any other person: Kimberly Hart, aka the Pink Power Ranger. You might've been confused. Not sure what was going on in your pants or why you liked it. But it was good. To be honest, this picture still gives me that same confused arousing feeling today. Think she's just a cute piece of ass? Try saying that when you got a Pterodactyl Dinozord flying at you.

33. KC and The Jawlines - Mila Kunis

Drafted for re-population purposes. Nothing wrong with that. She's the type of girl Antonio Cromartie might even hang around with long enough to have more than one offspring with.

34. Dave and The Weapons of Ass Destruction - DMX

Assuming that whatever survives Armageddon is going to be a ruined ghetto, no team is complete without a Ghetto Ambassador. Someone to go into these hoods and make nice before Keith Richards goes charging into the nearest trap house demanding blow. No one is more accepted in ghettos across the globe than Dark Man X. Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings, you name it.. this gangsta transcends it all. A lot of rappers will rep the streets without having much to back it up. DMX on the other hand has enough mug shots to fill a rural middle school's yearbook to prove how "street" he is.

35. Dan's Doomsday Dream Team - Wolverine

Wolverine is a well respected super hero, but I'm here to discuss why. When you break down his actual powers, what's he really got going for him? Claws, metal adamantium skeleton, rapid healing power, animal instincts. His powers really don't take him all that far when compared to the powers of other super heroes. So why is Wolverine such a loved and respected super hero? He's got all the intangibles. A certain je ne sais quoi. He's like the Doug Flutie of super heroes, honing his skills in Canada and all. His memory has been messed with in the same way a quarterback's repeated concussions destroy memory. He doesn't have all that much in the way of god-given talent or powers, but he's got all the toughness and heart a team captain could ask for out of one their teammates.

36. KC and The Jawlines - Heath Ledger

If you've seen "A Knight's Tale" you know Heath Ledger has a Wolverine-like toughness, taking lance after lance to the chest and popping back up for the next jousting match. In "The Patriot" he fights at Mel Gibson's side, who I'm sure would've made the draft himself if his mental stability wasn't so much in question. But what does all this "old timey" battle experience really bring to the table? It's the second craziest person behind Mel Gibson and the pure insanity and reckless intelligence of The Joker that makes him a draft pick.

37. Dave and The Weapons of Ass Destruction - Kate Beckinsale

There is just something about a hot, bad ass looking girl holding two big handguns pointed at my face that makes me realize: I need this on my doomsday team, and in my life in general. Throw in the tight leather clothes and the fact that she's British, and I may have just found my dream woman. She's more than welcome to use each of those pistols to take out both of my two Shakiras. There's a new queen of my post-Apocalyptic Utopia, and her name is Kate Beckinsale.

38. Dan's Doomsday Dream Team - Tom Brady

I can only assume that this pick is for "pleasures of the flesh". The ongoing joke of "if Tom Brady asked you to, would you _______?" has spun out of control. Dan is now officially gay for Tom Brady. I, however, refuse to write anything on the internet that would lead anyone to believe I feel anything other than pure, unadulterated hatred towards this quarterback. Over the course of his career, what he has done to my beloved Buffalo Bills could be considered nothing short of a holocaust, and I hate him with the same passion that the Jews hate Hitler. Eat shit and die, Tom.

39. KC and The Jawlines - Milla Jovovic

I pick a hot European girl with two big guns and tight leather clothes, and Casey's gotta one up me and pick a hot European girl with two bigger guns and even tighter leather clothes. Same logic with Milla as on Kate. It's just the perfect type of girl to take into battle. Take into consideration she fought in a futuristic society with Bruce Willis in The Fifth Element and the final pick in this draft has some admirable credentials.

Recap:

Dave and The Weapons of Ass Destruction - Will Smith, Bruce Willis, Shakira, Shakira, Black Jesus, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Antonio Cromartie, Keith Richards, Kevin Bacon, Sir Sean Connery, Patrick Swayze, DMX, Kate Beckinsale

Dan's Doomsday Dream Team - Taylor Swift, Al Gore, Keanu Reeves, Mark Wahlberg, Charlie Sheen, Tim Tebow, Bill Murray, Bryan Cranston, Madden '04 Michael Vick, Dog the Bounty Hunter, The Pink Power Ranger, Wolverine, Tom Brady

KC and the Jawlines - Les Stroud, Rachel McAdams, Chuck Norris, Bruce Wayne, Neil Patrick Harris, Robert Downey Jr., Yoda, Harrison Ford, Marley the Dog, Jackie Chan, Mila Kunis, Heath Ledger, Milla Jovovic

The teams are set and planet Earth is a time bomb ticking and tocking towards total destruction. Best of luck to everyone out there and may God have mercy on our souls.

Bouncing Back in a Big Way

2012-11-16T16:00:00.001-08:00

I’d like to write a nice blog for the kids teaching them a valuable lesson about how hard work pays off. Something about how if you just work hard enough towards your goals all your dreams come true. It'd be nice to say that all my hard work had finally paid off, but for me, that wasn’t really the case at all. After working hard to try and get a steady a job with good pay doing whatever I thought I’d be good at, I fell ass-backwards into the perfect job. Other than doing well in an interview, I struck gold by chance and by chance alone. I guess it really is better to be lucky than good.

I wanted to pick up some extra work so I emailed the guy who hired me in Panama City Beach, hoping he might have some projects he could put me on for a weekend or two. There was no elaborate cover letter explaining why I'm such a good worker. In fact, I didn't even attach my resume. He told me they were about to hire an intern for a promotional college football tour, and it turned out I emailed him on the last day of interviews.

He happened to work just outside of Charlotte and two hours later I was sitting across a desk from him being told what the position entailed. A tour manager and I would be traveling to college towns across the South in the most bad ass RV I've ever seen and going to some of the biggest college football games in the country. My job would consist of organizing promotions for a barbecue sauce company and executing them at bars and tailgates. It was only an internship, but the pay was decent, and the experience would open up some doors for me. I absolutely murdered the interview and walked out of the office with near certainty that I got the job.

A few days later he emailed me. He said the decision came down to me and the guy who had done the same job last year. They decided to go with him because he had the experience of already working the job and he already knew the markets they would be going to. It wouldn't have been fair to not let someone come back who had done well for them the previous year. It was basically the same outcome as almost every job I had interviewed for that I had really wanted in the past year and a half. I was a great candidate, but there was always somebody else that had a little bit of an edge on me. I felt like the wind was out of my sails again and I was back to aimlessly bobbing around in life.

I continued reading the email as he further explained why I didn’t get the internship. They felt that I was overqualified to be working as an intern. Instead, he wanted to hire me as a tour manager for another promotional tour. They had decided to let an employee go and I would be his replacement. I would be traveling the country to work at NFL and MLB games, I would be making much more money, and I would be promoting one of America’s largest breweries and one of my favorite brands. I’d drive a mobile bar to tailgates in different cities, have my expenses covered, and have a new team of promotional models to manage at each stop.

It was about as close to being a professional tailgater as I could imagine. Instead of having to pay to travel around and go to sporting events, which was all I really wanted to do anyways, I found a way to get paid to do it. I’d get to do for a living what some people would kill to do. I still didn't have my own car and I was relying on Dan for a place to live when I went to the interview. In a few short days I got one of the only jobs that would've made owning a car and having my name on a lease more of liabilities than assets. I suffered another maniacal laughing attack, but this time it was about how so much that had once been problems in my life and how nothing going at all as planned had suddenly paved the road towards landing the perfect job.

"Destruction leads to a very rough road
            But it also breeds creation
            And earthquakes are to a girl's guitar
            They're just another good vibration"

-Red Hot Chili Peppers

Losing Face at "Leather and Lace"

2012-11-14T18:25:00.000-08:00

I finally got the promotion I was waiting for. Good news, right? Wrong. This is when the series of unfortunate events began to get more twisted and sinister than I ever could have imagined. When other jobs I had interviewed with called me I told them I was all set for work. Days later I was told our budget was suddenly cut, work would be slowing down, and the season would be cut short…. right after I killed any headway I’d made on my backup plans. I had a new title for my job and some more responsibility, but I wouldn't be receiving the hours I had been expecting.
Dan got the job in Charlotte and would be moving there soon. I had planned for either Dan leaving and me getting the promotion, or Dan staying and not getting the promotion. Dan leaving, me not getting any more hours, and being without a car was a scenario I didn’t even consider. The one upside to this was that Dan getting the job gave me the confidence that I would get my shot one of these days, but I was seriously running out of patience. Whatever pride I had left would need to be swallowed as I sunk to new lows in my attempts to pull things together. I was…in a word…fucked. I had spent the summer barely working enough to get by and waiting for the full time job that was always right around the corner. I couldn't fake the confidence anymore. Who was I kidding? I felt like a clown.

I don't mean to get excessive with the bitching about my life on this blog. I would like to say that after the few short weeks it took to lose my money, girl, only mode of transportation, one of my only friends south of the Mason-Dixon, my ability to sleep for more than two hours at a time, my health, my sanity, my dog, and any hope that stability in Raleigh would come soon, that the “Debaucherous Descent” had finally hit rock bottom and it was time to bounce back. Sometimes you feel like you hit rock bottom and bounce right back. Sometimes you hit rock bottom and you start drilling into the bed rock.

It was back to square one. The plan was to move in with my boss and, once again, go for any job I could find in his neighborhood to supplement my income until I had enough to buy a car and figure out the next step. My life was like the Greek myth of Sisyphus. I was eternally damned to keep pushing the boulder up the hill towards my laughably simple goal of stability and car ownership, only to have it tumble back to the bottom when I was about to reach the top.
Dan wanted me to move to Charlotte to work on his team. Raleigh was a great place when I had a little money and the ability to get around, and I still wasn’t ready to just give up and start over again in a new city. No disrespect to Dan and his mad amounts of managing skills, but having him as a boss when he only got the job because he was having his stroke of good luck while the timing for me was all wrong would be a tough pill to swallow.

In the end, my decision to move to Charlotte wasn’t much of a decision at all. It’s weird how the most trivial things can happen at a vulnerable time and completely change the rest of your life. My boss had to register his car and get a license plate for it. He wouldn’t have a car for a few days or so, and I wouldn’t have one to borrow to continue my job hunt, get to interviews, or even move my stuff out of my apartment. It seemed like all the forces of the universe were telling me to get out of Raleigh.

"Just a song before I go, a lesson to be learned. Traveling twice the speed of sound, it's easy to get burned". - Crosby, Stills, Nash

If life has taught me one thing it's that the second best asset you can have when you're down and out are reliable friends. The best asset you can have are reliable friends that owe you favors. I had loaned Dan money for months and he was happy to return the favor in Charlotte now that he was on the up and up.

I drove to Charlotte because I could work there that week and I couldn't in Raleigh. I didn't know if I was gone for good, or if I would come back to work in Raleigh the next week. I would like to say I left Raleigh the way I remembered leaving all the other places: with the sun on my face, "Free Bird" blaring out the windows, and looking forward to the adventures that lie ahead.

But, since brutal honesty has become a theme of this blog, I'll admit that my departure from Raleigh was different. I didn't drive with the soothing melody of Southern Rock in my ears and the excitement of moving somewhere new. There was no "Free Bird" coming out of the speakers. Just the muffled rage of late 90's rap-metal. I left Raleigh at night in the middle of a thunderstorm and feeling like a chump while listening to Limp Bizkit and trying to convince myself that I “did it all for the nookie”.

Sure, some of the major problems in my life were working out. I had managed to save a little bit of money, but it was always one step forward and two steps backwards. If there was a point where it seemed like a culmination of everything that had gone wrong had come together in one moment, it was the morning after I arrived in Charlotte and drove to pick up some food. I was driving when I felt the tire on the car deflating and pulled into the nearest parking lot. I got out of the car to see a massive tear in the tire. I still had all my belongings in the car from moving out of my apartment the night before. Then I realized where I was: the parking lot of the beat up shack that is Leather and Lace Strip Club…. with a flat tire… and everything I owned in the car. It was just a flat tire, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The wheel was rusted on and I knew there wasn't a spare buried beneath all my stuff in the trunk.

Yes, that is a pregnant stripper that chain smoked cigarettes. Classy lady...

I couldn’t think of a more poetic setting for the end of the “Debaucherous Descent”. It was so perfect that I almost wanted to give up right there. The only problem was I didn’t even know what giving up would consist of at that point. When your life gets so embarrassingly fucked up that you don’t even know how to give up there’s only two things you can do: cry like a pussy or laugh like mad man. I laughed. I laughed hysterically. I laughed harder and louder than I’d ever laughed in my life. I laughed like Walter White when he realizes his money is gone and the cartel is on their way to kill his family:

For no reason whatsoever it was the happiest I had been in a month. Call it a decision to accept the idea that I could no longer control my fate, or call it pure insanity. I had seen the highest highs and some of the lowest lows in the past year of my life, and it never correlated with hard work or lack thereof. I had spent almost as much time regretting decisions as I did thinking every choice I had made panned out perfectly. I didn't care anymore. I had no fight left in me. I put forth an honest effort at living a stable life with the resources I had, and I failed miserably. I made a decision. If my life was going to be unstable and chaotic beyond my control, I was going to embrace every second of the madness. I would spend the next months moving around as much as I could. It was back to the "go-for-it" mentality and time "to get reeeaaal weird with it".

"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything". -Tyler Durden, Fight Club

House of Cards

2012-11-12T16:45:00.003-08:00

I guess if I’m going to brag about how awesome I was at life when I was living on the beach picking girls for bikini contests on Spring Break while talking shit to all my readers who work in cubicles, it’s only fair to be honest to my readers when things go horribly wrong. When you only need a few things to be happy, you only need to lose a few things for that happiness to escape you. Sometimes it seems like when one thing begins to head south, everything else follows in the same direction. When it rains it pours. I know this is usually a result of taking risks that have led to far more good times than bad times and almost no boring times, and for that reason I can’t regret it or blame anyone else.

I had everything I wanted at my fingertips, but it was all a house of cards. Every day I went back and forth trying to decide if I was either the luckiest or unluckiest guy in the world. I was losing my mind waiting to figure out if the promotion would actually come through. The more time I spent waiting was more time to think too much and to lose the confidence that things would work out as planned.

Countless problems that I had always managed to stay one step ahead of began catching up with me all at once. It seemed like every day another problem came up that I couldn’t solve while trying to save all my money for other things. My health began deteriorating right as my healthcare ran out, possibly due to my diet of hot dogs and ramen. The lease on the apartment would be up next month, and all future planning relied largely on whether or not Dan was staying and I was getting the promotion. My only way of researching jobs and apartments was my lap top, which was barely functioning. Large chunks of the car were falling off and it felt like every turn of the key could be its last. Insomnia was kicking in and money needed to be saved for things other than sleeping. I was wise enough at this point not to rely on the promise of a full time job when it hadn’t come through for me in the past. I was back on the local job hunt and getting the same results as the last one. With transportation being highly questionable, where to look for jobs depended largely on where I would be living next. With each problem being either the cause or the effect of the next one, every dime I had needed to be rationed out to try to solve them in order of importance. They were all problems I had been prepared to deal with if they happened one at a time, but the problems were coming in waves. I thought I’d be working full time soon after I got back from Myrtle Beach, and every day I didn’t was another day I got further from things going as planned.

“We got no food, no jobs... our pet's heads are falling off!” – Dumb and Dumber

Hole in One or Stuck in a Hole?

2012-11-09T10:57:00.000-08:00

I knew it would still be a while before my life reached what most normal people would consider stable, but to me everything seemed rock solid. I would have a few months of cheap rent where I could live on a budget, pay off some debt, and buy a car while I figured out a way to move up in the industry.

As luck would have it, later that week I found out the staff wasn’t getting cut and I still didn’t have a full time job. It was a pretty big slap in the face for my hopes of finding stability in Raleigh. I could stay afloat for a while as long as I was getting decent hours, but with no certainty about how much I could work it wasn’t a very comfortable position. At least the new neighborhood had more to offer in terms of jobs I could walk to. I quickly learned that that didn’t make a difference with school out and no customers or job openings at any of the businesses. No one would be hiring at all for a couple months. It was only days earlier that I once again felt like I had the game of life bent over with its cheeks spread, and now it felt like I was the one with my jaws clenched on the pillow.

I got an email from a girl I worked with in Panama City Beach. She was organizing an activation in Myrtle Beach and wanted to put me up in a beach house for two weeks to work it. I was still loaning Dan money and having enough money for just food and rent was becoming a concern. I was going a little bit crazy from passing most of my days staring at the blank walls of my near empty apartment while not having the money to do much else.

I started to realize how people that hated their jobs could still be so happy with their lives. When you dread the way you spend your work day, you’re happy the moment you leave the office just because you’re not at your miserable job. When your job is paying you to go to the places you used to go on your days off, relaxing loses all enjoyment and turns into boredom and feelings of underachievement. My sanity was relying on me getting back to working full time almost as much as my bank account was. At this point in my life I had gotten pretty good at finding ways to survive in financial situations that would make most people run home to their mothers. I could stretch the money I would make in Myrtle Beach until I found another job.

It was the day before we left for Myrtle Beach that Dan had worked at a conference for a bunch of our company’s executives. He was pulled aside by a manager from Charlotte and she told him she heard we did great work in Panama City and that we weren’t getting the hours we wanted in Raleigh. She asked if anything was holding him back and offered him a job as a manager in Charlotte. He would be moving there soon after we got back from Myrtle Beach. I knew Dan was never as into Raleigh as me and I was happy that he got the promotion we were both looking for, but I also knew suddenly being out of a car would pose a problem. Raleigh is a sprawling city with absolutely hopeless public transportation. I had lived in plenty of places where getting by without a car was completely manageable, but this wasn’t one of them.

A couple days later my boss called me and told me that with Dan gone, I would be promoted and working full time in Raleigh. It sucked that my hetero-travel mate would be leaving my side, but I had been spending most of my time with a girl anyways and I would be getting an unexpected promotion and the full time work that I had moved there for to begin with. Between a bike, the company car, and rides from my coworkers, I would be able to get around for the time being. I would be working enough to buy a car and I could save up enough money to sign another lease once the summer was over. The plan was in place and this time it had to be reliable…. It just had to.

I spent the next two weeks working at the beaches and resorts at Myrtle Beach. I got back and waited for that email confirming that Dan had the promotion in Charlotte and I would get mine in Raleigh. We waited…….and waited……and waited…….

"Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens". - Epictetus

Desperation Vacation

2012-10-19T10:52:00.000-07:00

              It was early May when I found an apartment I could sublease for the summer near the NC State campus. My funds were running low as I waited for pay checks to come through and loaned Dan money as he waited for old pay checks that never got sent out. I didn’t have the money for a security deposit or first month’s rent. I haggled with the renters and made up other apartments as leverage to talk the price down by about 500 dollars, get the first month for free, and pay to have it fully furnished. It was 10 times nicer than anywhere I lived in college, and 100 times nicer than InTown Suites, but moving into an apartment complex full of college students definitely felt like a step backwards.
               I had six days before I could move in and I couldn’t afford more nights in motels. Dan and I loaded up the car and drove to Occupy Raleigh where we were considering setting up my tent and doing some urban camping for a few nights. I got there and it wasn’t so much “revolutionaries fighting ‘the man’ for social change” as it was a “gathering of old homeless men drinking malt liquor.” While we were technically homeless, and I enjoy a 40 oz. with friends in the park as much as the next guy, we still weren’t quite to the point of accepting ourselves as hobos.
              Dan and I sat on the curb with our heads in our hands and our backs turned to the bars where we had been spending our money. We started wondering how we got ourselves into these demented types of situations.We were masters of surviving on a budget, but we had been going out and spending with the false certainty that the missing money would show up the next morning. I knew Dan was good for it and I wasn't as broke as my bank account said. There were big pay checks on the way that would solve our problems, but that didn't do much to fix the current situation.
   I didn’t have the money to put a roof over my head for the next six nights, but I did have the gas to get us up to my friend Aaron’s apartment in Baltimore where he was throwing a Cinco De Mayo party. I saw the opportunity to turn desperation into a vacation. Aaron had been trying to get me to come to the party for weeks, but I didn’t have the money to go. Now that I didn’t have a place to stay and I wasn’t working the next few days, there weren’t many other options other than driving to Baltimore to act like a Mexican hooligan with one of my favorite people to drink with. Without a second’s hesitation, I sent him a text telling him to get ready, hopped in the car, and headed north to the land of crab cakes and football.
                Baltimore went pretty much as expected. Aaron and his girlfriend talked about poop ~~entirely too much~~ the perfect amount, Dan got lost jumping around Baltimore rooftops, and Aaron tried to convince me to move in. He had a five story house with three balconies, a rooftop view of downtown Baltimore, and plenty of bars within a stone’s throw. Everything I owned was already in the car parked out back and I was toying with the idea, but I had seen too many episodes of “The Wire” and I figured the allure of the crack game would eventually have me slanging rocks on the corners of West Baltimore.
                The Cinco de Mayo celebration was in full swing when I got a call from my boss in Raleigh. The staff was going to be cut, Dan and I would be picking up all the extra hours, and I would have plenty of work. Once again it seemed like all the pieces were falling into place. I came back to Raleigh and put my name on a lease for the first time in two years. I would be making decent money and there was a fun girl that always wanted to hang out with me. I had spent way too long thriving on the chaos of my lifestyle. It looked like for the first time in a long time I’d finally have some stability …. but stability isn't anything to blog about...

“Where all is one and one is all, to be a rock and not to roll” – Led Zeppelin

Strapping into the Raleigh-Coaster

2012-10-16T21:24:00.001-07:00

            It was the second night in Raleigh when Dan and I met up with our friends Zack and Rob at a girl’s apartment Rob had been hanging out with. He met the girl the night we all went out in Raleigh on the way down to Panama City and I vaguely remembered her. I walked into the apartment and noticed her roommate precariously sitting on the edge of the railing of their second story balcony. When she told me her name was Ashleigh I immediately remembered meeting her the last time I was in Raleigh. I had watched her bounce around the bar breaking necks in little blue shorts. At some point I had a quick conversation with her. She told me how she spelled her name and I remembered thinking it was cute that the “leigh” in her name was spelled like Raleigh. I don’t know how often I’ve thought this about the best looking girl at any given bar, or how often I would even recognize that girl if I saw her again, but I remembered thinking that she would be a fun girl to date. It only seemed right that she’d be the first girl I meet when I moved to Raleigh a month later. You know the type of girl... Beautiful, independent, fun, and totally into guys that are at a point in life where they are homeless, unemployed, don’t have a car, and are recovering from a minor drinking problem. Sometimes the best things happen at the worst times. The next day she messaged me saying I should come out with her and her friends that weekend. A week later I was hanging out with her almost every day. Maybe Raleigh wasn’t going to be such a bad place after all…..
          .....Or…..maybe it was… Dan and I moved into a place called InTown Suites that rented one room apartments for a week at a time and was littered with the dregs of society. It was infested with drug addicts and hookers we called the InTown Suite-Hearts. The one neighbor we met asked us if we sold drugs and offered to prove he wasn’t a cop by lifting his shirt and showing us that he had “Fuck Tha Police” tattooed across his chest. Apparently he didn’t think his facial scabs and 5 rotting teeth were convincing enough. Due to nightly walks home at 2 A.M. while living in various ghettos in Pittsburgh, where delivery drivers would refuse to come to my neighborhood because they had been robbed so many times, I actually didn't feel too uncomfortable around these types of people. If you try to look mean and walk like you're on your way to kick someone's ass, you can avoid trouble in most any situation. Unless of course you're a girl, in which case your best bet is to smell as offensive as possible. I had only planned to stay for the first week until I signed a lease on an apartment, but due to some unforeseen circumstances I ended up calling it home for the next month.
            I met with one of my bosses and learned some unsettling news. They had just hired two new people before I decided to come up, it would take three weeks for the paperwork to go through before they could pay me, and I could expect anywhere from 1-40 hours a week. Dan and I went back and forth over what the next move should be. We still hadn't unloaded the car and we were considering jumping back in and driving to LA where we might be able to get jobs as valets at the Trump golf course. I could brush elbows with millionaires until I found a way to become one myself. If the job was only going to be part time in Raleigh anyways, we could move to Miami and take the part time positions we had been offered there, but that was just the same problem in a more expensive setting.
              The point of the journey was never to settle down in an average city with a boring job just to make enough money to live a boring life. The point also wasn't to go back north with my tail between my legs and nothing but stories about how much fun I had while I failed to make it. If there was a point to the journey, other than to see if the grass was really greener on the other side, it was to experience as many facets of life as possible until I landed myself in a place where I could say to myself, "I like this. Let's do this for a while."
             It was decided that the best course of action was to stick with the job I had in Raleigh and work to climb up in the company that I was already on great terms with. I had found an industry I loved, but my job was way too easy and I knew I would get restless if I didn't move up in the near future. I started looking for another job to hold me over. This was the first point in the trip where having only one car between Dan and I became a significant problem. I needed a car to get any sort of job I wanted, but I needed a job to get a car.
              While looking for additional employment my boss told me I shouldn’t be on the job hunt because work would pick up soon and he would need me full time. It felt great to throw out a stack of job applications for positions I knew I would hate. The job was sending me to events all over the eastern Carolinas and the work was a blast. Having a job that paid me to make trips to events I couldn’t afford was a perfect fit. I was getting all the hours they could give me, but it would be one 40 hour week where I would lay off on the job search and miss interviews to go to work, followed by a 4 hour week of canceled events where I felt like I needed something more consistent. I would end up spending the next 3 months in a limbo with the company budget as my bosses and I tried to figure out whether or not I had full time work and a promotion. The promise of a full time job doing the work I loved was always on the horizon, but the world was spinning too fast for me to catch up with it in time.

"For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something." -Steve Jobs

Spring Broke

2012-09-26T11:58:00.001-07:00

The job had come to an end. All the college spring breakers were gone, and all the bars were empty. The lease on the condo wasn’t up for another week so we figured we’d hang out. The final week was big for high school spring breakers, which turned out to be far worse than college spring break. Even immature college freshmen have some idea how to keep it together when binge drinking. High school kids get their first taste of freedom away from their parents for a week and the shit hits the fan. Now I don’t mean to sound like an old man who forgot what it's like to be a drunk high school kid, but the amount of fighting, passing out, and crying was absolutely through the roof and becoming obnoxious. One night while casually drinking on the beach I found myself encircled by a group of high schoolers, one with a gun, threatening to kick my ass if I didn’t give them beer. Panama City Beach got lame and I was ready to get out of there and never go back.

Despite the offers to work in several different cities, I didn’t make any real plan of what I was going to do when work ended. Dan and I decided to go to Miami to work for the head of the South East of the company. She was the most important connection we made in Panama City Beach and absolutely loved us. She said to just let us know if we wanted to come down and she’d find us some work. I sent her an email and left “The Spring Break Capital of the World” with hopes of faking the Miami high life with Dominican women with cinnamon skin. We were still in northern Florida when I heard that she was unsure just how much would be available and she would get back to me later that week. I also had options of working in Charlotte and Raleigh, but Miami clearly seemed like the best adventure. We eventually came to the conclusion that moving to a city as expensive as Miami without a certain job was just too irresponsible, even for us.

5 weeks of Spring Break leaves you with one hell of a hangover. I forgot that most people on this planet live in places where drinking all day everyday isn’t the social norm. I flew too close to the sun and I was plummeting back down to the real world. I’d had enough fun for 10 lifetimes, and I felt like I never needed to party again. I was sick, I felt like my IQ dropped 50%, and I couldn’t sleep. I was hurting. I was in need of a serious detox. It was one of those points in life where you tell yourself, “this is the swift kick in the ass I need to get my act together”.
I was seriously considering cashing in my chips and moving back to Rochester to settle down with a sensible job and start the rest of my life. I felt like some serious soul searching in the wilderness was just what I needed. Dan and I hiked around northern Florida and stayed as far away from bars as we could. We hiked through one forest that legend said was home to the "Fountain of Youth." It sounded like the perfect prescription for my hangover, which had now been debilitating me for two weeks. We went to a secluded camping spot in the Apalachicola Forest 8 miles from the nearest paved road. I was about to pitch the tent and make a fire when Dan got a bug stuck in his eye. Some folks just aren’t cut out for roughing it in the backwoods. We drove back to the nearest town where we stayed the night before, Blountstown, and found a cheap motel. I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony that, even in the midst of a detox, no matter how hard we tried to leave, we’d always end up right back in Blountstown.
We went to some of the strangest and most random places in northern Florida just to kill time. We drove on to the Florida State campus in Tallahassee then to a beach community outside Jacksonville where Dan finally got his eyeball fixed. It was when I was watching two guys walk down the street dressed up as Roman guards, berating and whipping another guy dressed as Jesus, who was screaming and carrying a cross, when I decided I couldn’t handle being in the deep South anymore.

A little "soul searching" at Little Talbot Island State Park

I found out that part time was the best Miami had to offer. My boss I hung out with almost every night in Panama City had moved to Raleigh to work for his sister, who I also knew, and told me he could get us full time work there. It was no Miami, but I had a couple of friends from Panama City Beach there and knew the two guys we stayed with on the way down South. There was nothing too exciting about it, but it was a young city, with cheap housing, and I’d had fun the few times I’d been out there. The next day we pointed the car north after a long hike on an island outside of Jacksonville.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived".
- Henry David Thoreau

How I Learned That Tomatoes Are a Fruit and Not a Vegetable

2012-09-20T11:25:00.001-07:00

If someone asked me what the worst job in the world was I would’ve thought it’d be something like a Chinese sweatshop worker or an African diamond miner. After living in Panama City Beach for a couple weeks I realized that the worst job in the world is a late night waitress at a Waffle House in a Spring Break destination. The level of drunkeness that these poor women have to endure for minimum wage is nothing short of a crime against humanity. I’ve always liked the saying “If someone is nice to you but rude to the waitress, they’re not a nice person.” At 4 o’clock in the morning at a Waffle House, this rule tends to be forgotten. It was my first time going to a Waffle House. Before this all I had known about the 24 hour restaurant that can be found at almost every highway exit south of Pennsylvania, was that it was the setting for about 40% of all fight videos on the internet.

This was one of my first nights going out with my boss in Panama City Beach. Before this I had pregamed with him a few times, while he drew up charts and graphs on napkins about his hook up schemes and talked to me like he was some sort of pussy Jedi and I was his young Padawan. Every time we went out to the bar he would disappear in the first 5 minutes to chase unsuspecting college freshmen. On the job I had kind of viewed him as a hard ass that wouldn’t let us capitalize on his friendship while working. The logical solution was to get him as fucked up as possible and make him do some embarrassing shit in front of us. Naturally, Dan and I got black out drunk with him and brought him to Waffle House. We walked by the police officer at the door and got escorted to a table by some poor waitress at the end of her rope who looked like she was ready to dive head first into a deep fryer just to bring her miserable late night Waffle House shift to an end.

I was really hoping for this type of entertainment while I enjoyed my

pancakes. That was 22 "DAAAMMNSS!" if you were trying to keep count.

Dan and myself ordered our food, and then it came time for our boss to order. He asked for an omelet and inquired about what vegetables he could get in it. The stressed out waitress looked at him with tired eyes and responded with a straight forward “onions, peppers, and tomatoes”. This is when I heard one of the most out of line statements ever spoken to a waitress. “Tomatoes are a fucking fruit not a vegetable you fucking moron!” he exclaimed with the utmost cockiness.

My jaw hit the table in shock as I muffled over my words in an attempt to apologize for what she just heard. She left the table and we all agreed that there was no way our food wasn’t going to be fucked with. He tried to justify what he said by saying that a Waffle House waitress should know enough about the food she's serving to know that tomatoes are a fruit. We got our food and our boss fell asleep with his face in his omelet half way into his meal. Dan and I cleared our plates and I picked around my sleeping boss to get to his hash browns. I woke him up when it was time to leave and laughed as he picked up his face covered in egg, peppers, onions, and of course, those fruity tomatoes.

It was a strange bonding experience, but ever since then he was our best friend in Panama City Beach. He became a really fun guy to go out with and he had no problem playing favorites with us at work. It’s a shame that an innocent Waffle House waitress had to be treated like garbage to seal a friendship, but I guess you've got to crack a few eggs if you want to make an omelet.

“I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.”
- Abraham Lincoln

5 Weeks of Spring Break

2012-09-13T14:34:00.001-07:00

Four days before Dan and I arrived in Panama City Beach, I landed us some jobs doing promotions through an ad I found on Craigslist. I had absolutely no information about what the job was until I got to a meeting I was told to attend. I learned that we would be handing out drinks in front of a stage on the beach at the 2^nd biggest club in Panama City Beach, and helping out at various events for the next four weeks. This was by far the most intense promotion going on there. The bosses made it clear that they wanted us to "uphold the image of the brand" by having a good time with spring breakers and flirting with girls while giving free stuff to the hottest ones. It wouldn’t be easy, but it was a challenge I was prepared to undertake.

It seemed like all the pieces started falling into place. I found a condo on the beach just two doors down from where we worked for a great price. The only thing between our building and the 2^nd biggest club in Panama City Beach was the 1^st biggest club in Panama City Beach. It was an old, small, dirty apartment that was decorated by a Christian grandmother. It was perfect. Our first move was to take all of her little glass trinkets, crucifixes, and figurines and store them in the closet, because we both knew they had a minimal chance of surviving the next month, and we didn't want Jesus or The Immaculate Mother Mary witnessing the sins that were to be committed in that apartment.

The next month of my life was a complete and utter blur of amazement. I met so many great people that I’ll never remember. I made best friends with people for a week at a time that I’ll never talk to again. I was making decent money, I always had time to party, and there was never a shortage of people looking to do the same. I spent every day on the beach and every night in the VIP.
They say if you love what you do you never work a day in your life. I couldn't imagine a more fun job and it turned out I was a great at it. Being a hard working northerner surrounded by my lazy southern coworkers made me feel like how a black guy must feel in a shower full of white dudes. I would put forth normal effort at work and all the bosses would praise me like I just developed a cure for AIDS. There were days I would literally receive a standing ovation from my bosses in front of company executives. My superiors were giving me offers to work all over the South East. It looked like my mentality of saying "go for it" for every life decision and my refusal to sign anything that resembled a long term commitment finally worked out in my favor.

I spent a lot of time thinking about all the different ways my life could’ve gone. I had managed to graduate college a semester early and with a better GPA than almost all my friends. Sure, I could've had a more serious job, a stable living situation, and a good idea of where I would be in life a month later, but I loved the idea that anything could happen. I could've been waking up early every day to an alarm, trying not to bust my ass on ice on my walk to work, and sitting in a cubicle making phone calls and reciting a sales pitch. Instead my alarm was the music from the nearby stage, I walked through sand instead of snow, and my biggest issue with a customer was explaining that they didn't have to pay for the drink I was handing them. I would just laugh to myself thinking that if my life had gone as planned I’d be missing out on all of this; that it wasn’t the good successful times but all the shitty and desperate times that landed me in this position. It was all the times I refused to settle for good pay and a mediocre lifestyle. It justified every respectable job I'd ever turned down because I knew I wouldn't enjoy it.

My Spring Break office. The row of blue umbrellas is the beach in front my condo.

            Every day I woke up at 10 o’clock, walked along the beach to work, and spent my days hanging out with crazy spring breakers from all over the country. On the really tough days I would be asked to recruit competitors for the “Miss Spring Break Bikini Contest”. This involved walking through the crowd in search of “10’s and only 10’s”, and asking them if they were interested in being in a dance competition on stage for some huge prize. While I will admit that not every girl is thrilled at a stranger’s offer to shake her ass in front of thousands of people, most were flattered at the invite. Every now and then there'd be a girl that was totally into it until her pile of muscle of a boyfriend showed up to put his arm around her with clenched fists and ask me what the fuck I wanted. There was nothing to do but just roll my eyes behind my sunglasses, give him a grin, and walk away. More often than not there would be a friend of the 10 that all the others would agree would be way better at using her body to get hammered frat boys riled up. The slutty friend of the group I presume. There are few things that give a man the confidence of repeatedly telling 9’s that are literally begging to dance like whores that they can't because they aren’t 10’s.
              By the end of the promotion all the guys had a daily 5 dollar pool to see who could recruit the day’s winner of the “Miss Spring Break Bikini Contest”. Before the competition I would pull my candidate for "Miss Spring Break" to the side of the stage and deliver inspirational pre-dance speeches reminiscent of Herb Brooks' pregame speech from Miracle. You know, if you just change the words "skate" to "shake" and "hockey player" to "spring break bitty" I'd imagine it went something like this:



           We would all gather above the crowd on the roof of the bar and watch our handpicked girls on stage do whatever they could to get cheers from shitfaced spring breakers and win us money. Misogyny at its finest. Now I can understand if girls read this blog and think of what we did as sleazy; that I am someone who objectifies women; that gambling on a woman’s ability to use her body to get cheers from a crowd of drunks is wrong. But in my defense,…. (I caught a terrible case of writer’s block here and that’s why it took 6 months for this blog post). Go watch Magic Mike, read 50 Shades of Grey, and get off my case, lady! I’ll grow up someday….

"Left a good job in the city
Workin' for the man every night and day
And I never lost one minute of sleepin'
Worryin' 'bout the way things might have been" - Creedence Clearwater Revival

Did We Just Kill a Red Neck?

2012-02-28T17:09:00.000-08:00

We were on our way out of a bar in Panama City Beach called Ms. Newby's in search of our next adventure. We were in the parking lot when we saw two young guys having a friendly, shirtless, wrestling match under a palm tree in the rain. Seemed like the perfect people to ask where a good place to party is, right? Wrong. They immediately became hostile towards us and got in our faces demanding to know "why the fuck they seemed like they would know where a party is" in thick southern accents. I informed them that a lot of times people having shirtless wrestling matches in the rain know how to party.
One of the guys came up to me all pissed off with pupils the size of dinner plates, and was clearly suffering from Napoleon Syndrome as he was one of the most riled up little men I had ever come across. Despite the distinct twang in his voice, he couldn't stop talking about how hard he was because he was from Detroit. I responded with a sarcastic, "Word Homie, D-Town down." That's when he turned on Eminem mode. This song is probably the best way to describe exactly the situation I was faced with.

          Now anyone that knows me knows that I can't help but laugh at this type of behavior. The other guy, who began as the more laid back one, had a trash stache that would make even the most rabid pedophile jealous, and a ponytail that made him look like a scrawny inbred Steven Segal that was conceived during a meth fueled conjugal visit.
          I don't claim to be a tough guy, and I grew out of the whole fighting people thing as a teenager, but if there were ever two people that I came across that were deserving of an ass kicking it was these two relentless pieces of shit. It was our first night going out in Panama City Beach, we didn't know what these guys were capable of or who they knew, and the closest person that had our backs was 1000 miles away. We decided it was easiest to just get in our car and go and let these two shirtless degenerates get back to rolling around with each other in the rain.
          Dan was in the driver seat with the key in the ignition when the white trash ponytailed guy pulled his door open. He was able to pull the door back shut as the turd nugget began punching the window. Inbredinem must have thought he was the Hulk or something by thinking he was going to keep us from leaving by standing behind the car and kicking the bumper. Dan slammed his car in reverse as we quickly backed out and heard a loud thud and a faint yell. Ponytail asshole was bruising his knuckles while he was trying to punch through my window. I sat there looking at him with a shit eating grin on my face as Dan put the car in drive and we laughed the whole way down the street about how he just used his Camry to take out the toughest little red neck ever produced by the Detroit streets.

“If there's not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be really whack and boring or something.” -Eminem

If a Pictures Worth 1000 Words, I got 2000 Hilarious Words

2012-02-28T12:59:00.000-08:00

So I must say Dave did a bang up job recounting our trip to the Big Easy. I just want to add a couple things he left out either because he was too drunk to remember them or too embarrassed to publish them on the inter-web:

After a long day and night of walking Bourbon St. Dave found a nice comfy seat

Just another pretty "girl" my drunken compadre was able to reel in

As you can see, Mr. Newell had no shortage of good times. I was up to my usual antics as well, however unfortunately due to Dave's inability to be a functioning human and figure out how to use the camera on my smart phone not many of my proudest moments were captured (which is definitely for the better).

Mardi Gras for the Party Brah

2012-02-27T14:29:00.000-08:00

We had finally reached downtown New Orleans after 15 hours in the car. It was now time to focus on our next problem. Where we were going to stay during the busiest time of the year in New Orleans. We had accepted the fact that any form of traditional vacation housing such as a hotel or hostel was completely out of the question. After checking the rates at some of the local parking garages near the Superdome we found an open parking spot at the intersection of Burgundy and Touro, only 2 blocks away from Bourbon Street. We were surrounded by streets that were illegal to park on and garages that were charging $35 a day. It may have been the best parking spot in the city. My only concern was that all of my possessions, which at this point could fit in half of a backseat of a Camry, would need to be left in the car while we were out. The sunlight had just begun peaking over the roofs of the French Quarter when we decided to get some rest before the festivities began.
In an attempt to make more room for my legs while I slept, I pushed my comforter up towards the windshield. This is when we had a major breakthrough. We could turn our car into a bad ass fort to live out of for the next few days. We tucked the comforter behind the rear view mirror and clamped it under the visors. There was still the problem of the side windows letting in light so we took off our pillow cases and rolled the window up around the edges so they could hang from the inside. In the back seat we covered the windows with my sleeping pad, the top of a box, and a dress shirt. With the dark linens facing outwards, our car just looked like it had tinted windows and no one would ever think there were two drifters sleeping inside. By the time the transformation was complete, our Mardi Gras fort made up of blankets, a sleeping pad, and a Camry with 223,000 miles on it, felt more secure than the Alamo.

Chillin in the Camry fort after a long day

I woke up later that day to a pounding on my window. I pulled the pillow case aside to see Dan's cheerful drunk face and a few groups of people walking down our street. It was the first night sleeping in the car and I had slept like a baby sedated with elephant tranquilizers. It was the energy of Mardi Gras and none of my own power that allowed me to drag myself out of the car and onto my feet. I dug through my belongings in the back until I came across the captain's hat that was taken from the ship the Spirit of Rochester when my friends and I broke onto the boat when we were 16 to raid the bar. Next, I pulled out my suit coat that was still dirty and wrinkled from wearing it on New Years in New York City. I poured myself a cocktail, loaded up the backpack with the rest of the booze, and my Mardi Gras outfit was ready to go.

Dan the Man on the Mississippi with a sombrero

This is the point where the story telling would be done better with a helmet cam than a blog. Writing about Mardi Gras to someone who's never been is like explaining sex to a virgin: you won't know what you're doing, you'll never want your mother to know what you did, and you'll feel like you've lost your innocence when its over.... and there's boobies. The next couple of days of my life consist of walking around New Orleans' French Quarter in a drunken, joyous, blur. There are countless ridiculous occurrences that won't make it to this blog, but here's a few highlights.
After coming inches away from getting my skull stomped by police horse in the riots at UNH after the Red Sox won the World Series in 2007, I've had a bit of a fear of police horses. My drunk courage helped me overcome this fear, but the tomfoolery of a drunken Dave Newell made the fear resurface for what I expect to be the rest of my life. I was making my way down Bourbon Street when I thought it would be funny to get a picture with a police horse with my captain's hat on its head. Unfortunately, the officer riding the horse didn't share my enthusiasm for horses wearing silly hats. As soon as he noticed a wasted guy covered in beads trying to put a captain's hat on his horse friend, he immediately yelled "GET HIM!" And got me he did. The horse immediately charged me, but due to my past experience at the UNH riots I knew the most important thing to do was to stay on my feet. I ran as fast as I could, which proved to be difficult to do on Fat Tuesday in the middle of Bourbon Street in crowds of people. I pushed through my fellow revelers and tried to use my supreme agility to outmaneuver the horse as I felt his hooves giving my shoes flat tires and his chest on my back. I had really expected the police officer to lay off after the first couple times he ran me down with the horse, but he was still having his fun while he repeatedly yelled "GET HIM!" There really wasn't much Dan could do to help me at this point, so he did what any good friend would do. Told everyone to look at the guy being chased by the horse while rolling on the ground laughing. I felt like a calf getting chased around a rodeo in front of thousands of cheering red necks. I ran in circles while failing to evade the horse until I was grabbed by the strong, safe, arms of a footed police officer. Considering I was scared the horse was going to stomp me until Bourbon Street ran red with my blood mixed with spilled booze like a Dave flavored bloody mary, I had never been more happy to be aggressively grabbed by a police officer, or any man for that matter. I apologized profusely with the realization that I was no more than a semi functioning drunken retard that had just tried to put a hat on a police horse. They told me to get off Bourbon Street and that I would be arrested if I returned. It takes more than that for me to throw in the towel on Mardi Gras. I took a lap around the block and got back to my previous shenanigans.


Happy because I just confronted my fear of police horses... right before I put the hat on its head

On our last night in New Orleans Dan went back to the car because he was "Mardi Gras"ed out and we needed to get up early to figure out how we were going to jump our car since our battery was now dead. I was still in all of my drunken glory and hadn't yet had my fill of New Orleans, so we split up. I emptied what was left of my 1 liter of rum and coke into my gullet and met a couple of young ladies who brought me to a strip club to continue drinking. Being in a Bourbon Street strip club during Mardi Gras is like... well I don't know, but its fucking pointless. I was getting bored of the strippers and my new friends when Dan texted me and told me he couldn't bare to sit in a car when Mardi Gras was in full tilt. We agreed on an intersection to meet, I said goodbye to the ladies, and I ventured out. When Dan found me I was eating a bag of rolls I didn't buy in one hand and our trusty party spear that a flight attendant we had hung out with the night before gave us in the other. I was leaning against a steel police barricade when I noticed him. As soon as I saw him I tried to push off the barricade to walk over to him. Instead, I pushed the barricade to the ground as I tumbled to the street with it. The crash of the barricade was loud enough to get Dan's attention. We both laughed and agreed that it was a very good thing he came back out. I picked up the party spear, brushed off my roll, and walked into a nearby bar. A nice couple handed me my wallet that I dropped on the ground right inside of the bar. To show some appreciation I bought us a round of SoCo shots that I really didn't need. Then the DJ made a humongous mistake. He put on "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor" by Drowning Pool in front of a shitfaced Dave Newell carrying a party spear. Needless to say, things took a turn for the worse. Mardi Gras was coming to a close and I was ready to explode with all of my remaining party energy. I stomped around the dance floor slamming my spear on the ground and shouting as a 15 foot radius cleared around me. It wasn't long before I was asked to leave.

Party spear compliments of Xtina

The walk back to the car was equally as reckless. I picked up the habit of asking every girl I made eye contact with if we just had a moment. It turned out to be a great conversation starter. I was kissing one lady's hand when I saw her husband come up behind her. He didn't seem mad but I told him "Sorry for kissing your wife, sir." He must have misunderstood what I said because a big smile came across his face as he said "Sure you can kiss my wife! Go ahead and make out with her!" Feeling compelled by the gentleman's kindness and the hilarity of the situation, I acquiesced. Continuing down Bourbon Street towards the car I kept getting into pictures with random groups of people that complimented me on my captain's hat, which was now decorated with Mardi Gras beads wrapped around it and dangling off. All of the photos were in absolutely preposterous poses. I can't help but laugh that there's probably a picture on someone's facebook of a voluptuous black girl getting her butt bitten by a random drunken captain.
We made it back to the car and we were pleased to discover that we had made it through Mardi Gras without getting our car full of our belongings messed with. We made some tune ups to the fort and basked in the glory of what had been an incredible Fat Tuesday. I had survived horses, husbands, and head banging hard rock. I needed a break. Instead, it was on to the Spring Break Capital of the World the next day once we jumped our car...

"Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?” - Hunter S. Thompson

The Descent Begins

2012-02-24T22:04:00.000-08:00

           We we're debating the idea of going to Mardi Gras in a Taco Bell parking lot 15 miles outside of Pittsburgh when it all began. To understand the desperation and seemingly reckless decisions made on this Debaucherous Descent, you must understand how someone ends up in a Taco Bell parking lot deciding whether or not they should drive directly to New Orleans so they can make it there in time for Fat Tuesday. I had graduated college a year earlier with hopes of traveling the world. 8 months later, within 24 hours, I found myself newly single, homeless, having just watched my only car get thrown into a pile of metal by a massive fork lift, and working a job I hated in my former college town. I was due for a drastic change. I moved to Pittsburgh with my friend Mike who gave me a room and a job until I got back on my feet. I had lived at 6 different addresses in 7 months when I decided it was time to hatch a new plan with my college roommate, Dan.
             Dan had graduated 9 months earlier and watched his friends settle for jobs they hated so they could start climbing the corporate ladder towards their hopes of wealth and stable happiness. He, like myself, felt that we were too young to settle for a life full of stability, happiness, and wealth when there were too many opportunities for excitement and danger out there. Dan was due for a drastic change. We had always spoken about making big moves after college, but they always seemed to get swept under the rug when we woke up and realized how drunk we were during most of those conversations. It was the end of 2011 when money was saved, neither of us were being held back by anything, and we both had a certain sense of desperation to either find an adventure, or submit to becoming boring contributing members of society. Somehow we made the unplanned and random decision that we would load all of our belongings we could fit in his Camry, drive to Panama City Beach, Florida, and figure out where to live and work once we got there.
            Dan had come to Pittsburgh and met me as I was celebrating my last night in Pennsylvania. He found me sitting at Sonny's Bar looking right at home as a 50 year old blonde I had been talking to belted out every word to "I Love Rock N' Roll" about 5 inches from my face. The next day we managed to drive an entire 15 miles before we decided it was time to pull over for some fast food and get stoned. I was about half way through smoking a spliff and 4 bites into my second Cheesy Gordita Crunch when we realized that New Orleans was in the midst of Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday was only 4 days away.
           We had planned to visit Baltimore the first night, Washington the next, then onto Raleigh, North Carolina, and finally Atlanta to stay with some friends on our way to Panama City Beach. Within 2 minutes of our realization that we could be in the South, unemployed, and homeless while being only six hours away from one of the biggest parties in North America, the plan was altered. That evening we continued on to Baltimore to meet up with some of my high school friends and check out the nightlife. We went to a place called Power Plant Live, which was set up as a semi-covered mall comprised entirely of bars instead of stores. Around 3 a.m. we made our departure towards D.C. We noticed the Washington Memorial from the high way and decided that that would be a good area for me to walk off my Baltimore-buzz while quoting Forrest Gump before it was my turn to drive.

             I cruised through the night to Raleigh where we stayed with Dan's friend, Zach, in the huge house that the golf course he works for was letting him live in. We left the next day with Bourbon Street in the GPS and nothing but our open minds and the magnetism of Mardi Gras in our hearts. We skipped the stop in Atlanta and arrived to New Orleans' French Quarter at 4 a.m.

"So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains
And we never even know we have the key"- The Eagles