Sometimes when I am alone at night, I fancy myself a writer. Sure I have never had anything published...true, I don't keep my tenses straight...yes, I bite off of the styles of others instead of doing anything original. Despite all of those flaws, I think I have a strong voice and generally pace my stories pretty well. But I am never going to get any better at this if I keep using cheap column ideas like this:
THE NEW ORLEANS AWARDS
Most Drunk - Blake. The best part about this award, is that he didn't even wait for New Year's Eve to clinch it. Heck, he didn't even wait for New Orleans. Blake, Michelle, and I started drinking at 4 PM on the car ride there (Hari, the trooper, was driving). Everything was going fine until about the time we reached the city limits. Without any warning, Blake went from slightly buzzed to having no control of his limbs. I was on the phone getting directions, when Blake attacked me to try to get the phone away. Somehow we made it to the apartment in New Orleans. Once there, though, Blake refused to get out of the car. He wouldn't unbuckle his seat belt, because it made him "feel safe". After a few frustrating minutes, we decided to let him have his wish. As we were walking away from the car, he sprinted out after us Gumbi-style, leaving the door wide open. Even then, we couldn't get him up the stairs. Blake instead decided that he wants to go to the middle of the courtyard and yell at the top of his lungs. This brought
1-3-04 - New Year's in NOLA, Vol. 1
12-24-03 - Presents and Predictions
12-11-03 - Baytown Nights
10-3-03 - A Night in D.C.
10-2-03 - Thoughts
10-1-03 - Some Movie Reviews
9-24-03 - Glenn's Thoughts
Archives
1) "Don't Fear the Reaper" - Blue Oyster Cult
2) "Orange Sky" - Alexi Murdoch
3) "Reptilia"- The Strokes
4) "Don't Give Up On Me" - Solomon Burke
5) "Blue Christmas" - Bright Eyes
6) "Saint Simon- The Shins
7) "Molly's Chambers" - Kings of Leon
8) "I Luv U" - Dizzee Rascal
9) "God Loves Ugly " - Atmosphere
10) "Rock Hard Times"- The Eels
Follow-up No.1: Worst Hangover - Jennifer. She was so incapacitated that she missed our 6:30 PM dinner the next night. And I feel a tad bit guilty.
Best Mexican Standoff - Alex and I. Out of respect for the parties involved, email me directly if you want to hear this one.
Follow-up No.2: Worst Drug Problem - Alex. I think we may need to have an intervention.
Best Jeff impersonation - Ben Affleck, Gigli. Watch the movie for the outfits, the mannerisms, the look. It is simply uncanny.
Best Zoo Animals - The Giraffes. As an antidote to all of the debauchery that the previous two days had brought, a group of us decided to go to the zoo on New Year's Day. For me, the giraffes were definitely the highlight. Were they fighting? Were they mating? Is it wrong that I was turned on? Runners-up: The elephants breaking things.
Worst Game Ever - Hitting each other in the balls. For whatever reason, this has been an ongoing game for my friends for about the last month. It started innocently enough...in Vegas, Blake politely asked Jeff to put down his knee so that Blake could see the tv. Jeff lifted his leg higher, so Blake did the only reasonable thing and tried to stop Jeff from ever reproducing. For the next month, this became a constant source of amusement and fear...we couldn't stand around each other without flinching (Highlights: Rob McD hitting Jeff a week after his hernia surgery, Kevin playing the game with his own crotch). It got so bad that I when I went to hit Rob, Jeff fliched. When Caroline went to check the material of a piece of clothing I was holding, I nearly fell over. At our dinner on New Year's Eve, we decided that this game had to end. Blake, Kevin, Jeff, and I entered into negotiations and were ready to toast the end of the game forever. Just before the toast commenced, Jeff started to back away. Not taking kindly to his reticence, I dropped my fist on his nuts with the strength of Thor's hammer. Despite the fact that Jeff and I have negotiated an interesting settlement, I still live in a state of fear. Runner-up: Hari attempting to tackle Kevin, nearly throwing Luke off of the third floor balcony.
Best New Game - Depantsing. With zero warning, Blake pulled down Rob McD's pants in front of a room full of people (including his sister). This would not have been that bad if his underwear had not come down with his pants...or if he would have pulled them back up in the next ten seconds. Granted I have little room to make fun of anyone here, but it did seem like the apartment could have been a tad warmer. Runner-up: Michelle grabbing strangers' butts on Bourbon.
Best Kiss - Luke and Caroline, midnight on New Year's. Of everything that happenned over the week, this is the image that stuck with me. If I were setting up a climatic scene to is a moving, it could not have been more perfect. Two good-looking people, fireworks going off in the background (literally), and a kiss that left he rest of the world silent. Jennifer can attest, for the (considerable) length of the kiss, we could not take our eyes off it. After it finally finished, we looked at each other adn simultaneously mouthed the word "Wow!" Encore, Encore! Runners-up - Blake and Caroline, Jennifer and I, Mary-Margaret and the tequila bottle.
Best Exchange not resulting in a kiss - Jeff and Annie.
Jeff: Annie, how about a kiss to celebrate the New Year.
Annie: My husband wouldn't like that...How about a handshake?
Jeff (without missing a beat): How about a handjob?
Best Food Fight - Jeff and I, Cafe DuMonde. A few weeks ago, Jeff but a pice of meat in my rice to try to get me to eat it (I'm a vegetarian). I responded by hitting him in the face with a plantain covered with sour cream. Jeff one-upped me by reaching into Rob's plate, grabbing a handful of noodles, and throwing them at me. Since then, I been silently plotting my revenge. At Cafe Dumond on the morning of New Year's Eve, Kevin suggested I throw some powdered sugar at Jeff. I took his advice a step further by deciding to hit him in the face with a beignet. He poured a glass of water on my crotch, I blew back a plate of powdered sugar at him. He's 25, I'm 24. We need help.
Best Memory - Mary-Margaret. After Jeff's "fight", the cops were milling around trying to make sense of what happened. Mary-Margaret runs up, taps a cop on the shoulder, and exclaims "I saw the whole thing!" When asked what happened, she responded, "Fuck...I don't remember!"
Best Bribe - Me. Liz allowed one of her underage friends to attempt use her id to get into a club, but the doorman confiscated it after barely a glance. Liz went up and apologized to the Bam Bam Bigelow lookalike and offered him money, but he wouldn't even listen to her. I didn't know this had happenned, so I tried the same technique. With only a second of negotiation, the bouncer agreed. I don't know what changed his mind, but my facial hair has been known to hold a certain sway with doormen.
Best/Worst Wingman - Me. Early in the night, I decided to throw salt on the game of one of my friends (that phrase is going to make a comeback). When I was talking to the girl I knew he had his eye on, I told her to be careful...my friend has herpes. Later, I decided that I needed to be a better person and help my friend get play I retracted my earlier statement, and instead told her that he only had a few months to live. When she didn't seem to believe me, I added "He is going to be shipped out to Iraq next week".
Best Related Phone Message - My above mentioned friend. That next morning at 6 AM, my friend called me from the next bedroom over and left the following phone message (This is verbatim, since I have it saved for posterity):
"Yeah, so I am not getting shipped out to Iraq (female laughter), what the fuck is that, fucking bullshit, and yeah I did have herpes (female laughter), and is it bad when her vagina catches on fire when you have sex? (male and female laughter) Peace out." Runner-up: The 30 minutes (literally) of phone messages we left to Rob from New Orleans.
Strangest Testament to our Friendship - Half of our group, for Liz. Liz really had to go to go to the bathroom, so a group of us gathered in a circle so that she could pop a squat in the middle of our circle (isn't that a great phrase too). I'm still not too sure how I feel about my role in this.
Best Pole Dance - Mary-Margaret and the lawn ornament. I can't say it did much for me, but she seemed to give the scarecrow the thrill of his lifetime.
Best guy bonding - Kevin, Jeff, and I on the 10 inch thick balcony. We crammed out there and talked about the mysteries of life for nearly an hour. And then we made out. Runner-up: Luke and I discussing life, law, and Nick over coffee New Year's morning.
Trip MVP - Me. I was going to nominate Blake and Liz because they were always up for anything and they brought a lot of food, or maybe Jeff for scoring us the apartments, but I decided that it was necessary to recognize my own contributions to the cause. I would go into details, but you all know that I rock.