Lighten up! #&*^$%!!!

I hate when people tell me, "Lighten up!" To me it sounds really rude, and presumptuous. Maybe I WANT to take this shit seriously, maybe it's important to me. I mean, who the fuck are you? It makes me want to light them on fucking fire. How's that for lightening up? Fuckface!

Mmmm, Rob

If I were a certain type of guy, a guy who self-identified as a member of a particular group, referred to internally as bears, cubs, wolves, otters and other furry animal types, I'd say, "Woof!" or use some such turn of phrase. I am not, however, since, as my friends well know, I am the type of guy who, on most days, and when the thought occurs to me, becomes extremely uncomfortable at any kind of self-identification. While I'm neither overly idiosyncratic, nor some sort of iconoclast, I do entertain an extreme misanthropy that strongly encourages me to remove myself from groupish situations, and performing groupish behavior (i.e. do whatever the fuck everyone else is doing).

But this is all neither here nor there.

Rob is a total hottie who I first met way back at the beginning of summer ('06) one night out on Bourbon Street. He lives in Colorado now, but he grew up on the "Best Bank." (So, if you know what THAT means, then you KNOW what that means). He came back to New Orleans over the holidays, and we got drunk again on Bourbon Street. I'm looking forward to the next time we get to hang out.

We were partying with his brother at Bourbon Street Blues Company, listening to a shitty cover band that played lots of obscure 80s metal (loving it!) Shot girls kept coming over to our group (little did they know!) and even though Rob (hot!) and I (drunk!) were not "interested," these pushy broads were impossible to refuse (I love strong women (i.e. total bitches!)!) Of course, the shots were crap, and were way overpriced, but it WAS priceless to see the big guy get manhandled by this little chick wearing hotpants and a tube top (okay her tits WERE really, really big). I got so drunk I couldn't remember why the hell we were hanging out on the wrong side of the lavender line (i.e. St. Anne Street)....

A tale of two tacos

Rich informed me that this is a very famous strip club started in Tampa. It was about 2AM and he, Carl and I had stopped next door for some 4th meal at Taco Bell. Yes, we were thinking outside the bun, and decided to make a run for the border, etc., etc. Anyway, Mons Venus is a landmark. This is what Carl looks like "chowing down", a state he would never admit to realizing (mmm, grilled stuft burrito):

The Infamous Suncoast Resort

Late night, drunken desperation in downtown St. Pete drove us to stop in at the bizarre Suncoast Resort--a one-stop, gay mega-mulitplex that has a couple bars, a restaurant, a store and plenty of rooms to cruise. Needlesstosay, this is one of the scariest places I've ever been, but hey, it's vacation, and no one knows me around here anyway, right? Fortunately, we all came to our senses and left before there were any regretful moments.

New Year's in Ft. Lauderdale - Flashback

This is the view of the Atlantic Ocean from our hotel room.

The beach on a Sunday afternoon (December 31, 2006).

Holiday Pic Flashback: December 24, 2006

My high school buds, Steve and Charlie, on a typical night out in PR (that's Pearl River). Our friend Larry owns this place, and our other friend Mike celebrity bartends over the holidays, hooking up the old crew with pints and pints of Guinness.

A good time was had by all.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006 a few friends gathered together to eat, drink and catch up. Some were meeting for the first time, their common link being that they knew me.

The food was incredible. I had some white truffle for the first time. We had an extremely competent Hungarian waitress. Carl chose the wine, the name of which I am forgetting at the moment; we had several bottles. After dinner, a few of us departed, and the rest headed over to the Monster, which turned out to be like entering a gay time warp back to 1976, but of course, hasn't it always been? I mean, it's the West Village after all, where I think homosexuality was like discovered.

I'm sorry I don't have any more obviously Gay/70s referenced pictures, but at this point of the night I was half in the bag, and on top of that had a major cold, so was additionally hopped up on the real-deal Sudafed (why bother even cooking it up to make Crystal Meth?), so needless to say, I wasn't taking many pictures. But here was a good one of my friends Ryan, John and Emily. Ryan and John, of course, live in Manhattan now, while Emily came down (for the night) from Boston. She totally fuckin' rocks.