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Bachelor Party Planning

When Tracy and Dane told me they were planning to be married, I seized the opportunity to insinuate myself into the planning of his bachelor party. Now, I was not Dane’s best man, his brother Alex was, but Alex was 19 years old and lived in Florida, so it was logistically impossible for him to take the lead.

So after a huge amount of discussion over a moderate amount of alcohol Dane and I decided that traditional bachelor parties are lame. At our age, just seeing strippers is not very exciting. To make sport of it we had to take it to the next level somehow. Then it occurred to us: bring the strippers to you. Not in some shady hotel room with a bouncer for security, no, out into the open. We take the party on the road and take the strippers downtown.

Then the idea began to take shape. Where could we take the strippers to places that strippers don’t normally go? The greater the juxtaposition, we reasoned, the more fun it would be. We could take them to the museum downtown. This idea struck us immediately as brilliant. What happens when you introduce strippers to culture (and vice versa)? It was shaping up to be something of a social experiment, like they do in those stupid reality shows. Then we could film it and really have something special to show for all our trouble.

We were so excited about this plan that we kept coming up with new weird activities. The best of these was strippers at the gun range.

Dane and I had both bought guns at the last gun show, which is very easy to do in the state of Georgia. I wish I had gotten a carbon copy of the questionnaire I had to fill out, assuring the vendor that I was in fact a US Citizen, I was not a fugitive from justice, I did not currently have a restraining order out on me, nor was I a convicted felon... It was a long questionnaire. After that it was a two minute phone call to complete my background check and I walked away with a gun. No waiting period if you’re buying at a gun show either.

Dane came by and made a similar transaction; Tracy purchased a stun gun disguised as a cell phone. What followed was a ridiculous display of the three of us in the car playing with our recent purchases. Dane and I had not yet purchased ammo, so we would just cock them action-movie style, pointing them at nothing and marveling at how cool they looked. This was occasionally punctuated by Tracy pushing the button of her TASER, which issued a sharp electric hiss like a moth landing on a bug zapper. At the moment she had the only thing in the car that was actually dangerous, and every time she zapped it me and Dane flinched.

“If you shock me with that thing,” Dane cautioned, “the wedding is off.”

For a while after buying the guns we did nothing at all with them. The next time I saw Tracy she said: “It’s just sitting on top of the microwave. Every now and then Dane will pick it up, cock it, and hold it for a minute, but that’s about it.” He still hadn’t even bought bullets.

Dane and I did manage to get to the shooting range once, but just once. I didn’t have the sense to buy ear protection, so I had a ringing in my ears for so long after I was afraid I’d damaged my ear drums.

But that was the free range, which was actually not far from the hunting lodge where I’d seen the alligators get slaughtered. There was a fancy indoor range we’d been meaning to visit, but it was a little expensive. This bachelor party seemed like the perfect opportunity. What would be cooler than strippers shooting guns? Not only did it give us an excuse to go to the indoor range, but it would be wicked awesome too.

“We’d have to videotape the whole thing,” Dane insisted, to which I wholeheartedly agreed.

But there were a lot of drawbacks to this awesome scheme. The first was that the price of a private party at the gun club (if such a thing even existed) would be more than the price of the strippers. Dane had a buddy who used to run a strip club, so he was pretty sure he could get us in touch with the right people, but we were still going to have to pay the strippers. That being the priority, we didn’t want to introduce any element to the plan that could possibly take away from the overall goal.

The second consideration was location. The rest of the plan revolved around locations downtown, all of which were in walking distance of each other. This provided numerous advantages. If we met the girls downtown we wouldn’t have to arrange for transportation and if the whole event happened right out in public, they wouldn’t need to arrange for their own security. The gun range overcomplicated an already complex scenario, so it was the first part of the plan to be eliminated.

The plan suddenly became straightforward and elegant in its conception, boiling down to one central thesis: How would strippers behave when removed from their natural habitat and transplanted into the everyday world of downtown Savannah? It was a question that didn’t just serve our purposes in providing a unique bachelor party experience, but might prove to serve science itself.

We worked on this plan for months, mostly just talking about how awesome it would be and laughing about it. We would meet the strippers downtown, walk them around to the museums and art galleries and take their picture in front of the city’s landmarks.

The rules were simple:

• They could not know the specifics regarding the nature of the experiment. According to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, nothing can be observed without being altered. This is especially so when the subject knows it’s being observed.
• They had to dress in the their standard stripper attire. No secret identity stuff. The look was key, so long as what they were wearing was legal.
• This addition came from Dane: We would carry a boom box with us and every time we turned on the music, no matter where we were, they would have to dance.
• The whole thing had to be caught on tape and in still photos.

And this was something to get excited about. It had all the makings of a real bachelor party. All we had to do was make it happen.

Fixing the Future

I'm starting this topic to solicit your input on how we can fix the future. Should we go with jetpacks? Or stay on the girl robot technology? Or is it a matter of philosophy rather than technology? If we were to have a World's Fair or build an EPCOT Center, how would we portray a world of tomorrow that's still worth believing in?

I don't mean "fix the future" like it's already broken. Think of it more like fixing a boxing match, like insuring an outcome to things.

Let's pretend that an apocalypse is not imminent, and fixing the future actually means making the world better than it is today, which is actually the point of life in the first place.

The future isn't broken, it hasn't even happened yet, so for the same reason it isn't written either. If you could have any future, what would you ask for?

WHAT SHOULD WE BE WORKING TO ACCOMPLISH?

Ninja Wedding (that title makes it sound cooler than it was)

This was the year for weddings, apparently. I had discovered at the beginning of the year that Tracy and Dane were engaged. Some months prior I had received word from Milford that he intended to marry as well, but dismissed it when no communication on my part warranted confirmation from him on the matter. Finally in February he called me out of the blue and told me that he was indeed getting married the next month and wanted me to be the best man. Tracy and Dane were planning their wedding in May, so that put two weddings on my social calendar for the Spring roughly within a month of each other.

The Milford nuptials were planned for Easter weekend. I don’t know what it is with people planning their weddings on Easter weekend - it’s not even a three day weekend or anything - but this is the second one of these I had been invited to over the years. The first was my buddy Dave’s wedding, which was actually performed during the Renaissance Festival, so half the guests were wearing their medieval attire as formal wear. That’s an interesting scene, but it was a pretty ceremony.

Milford’s wedding was to be a hit and run situation for me. I got fitted for the tux here in Savannah and made arrangements to pick it up just before leaving. I would head down Friday, do the wedding on Saturday, go visit my family on Easter Sunday, then back down to Savannah on Monday, where I would drop the tux back off again. Ninja wedding - no muss, no fuss.

Here’s something you probably already know, but I was stunned to discover: When you’re in the wedding party you have to pay for your own clothes. What’s that about, man? Thousands of dollars getting dropped on this thing, but the players have to supply their own costumes? And that’s nothing for guys, who can rent a tux for $130, but imagine what a drag it is for the bridesmaids, having to purchase outright notoriously awful dresses that they don’t even want to wear once. I was not prepared for this.

I mean, I was prepared for it as in I was in a position to afford it, I’m just saying that the whole business seemed so cockeyed that I quietly confirmed this custom with several neutral parties before I was able to reconcile myself with it.

The weekend was hectic, but since the schedule was so tight it was over soon enough. It was somewhat awkward because I didn’t know anyone involved but Milford, and with the exception of one person who’d been a casual acquaintance in college, this was true of the guests as well. I got to give a speech and do the best man toast, so I guess that’s cool, but as soon as the reception was over and Milford and his new bride made their goodbyes, I hopped in the car and drove straight to my parents’ house. Then it was Easter and out.

But I felt like I missed out on something as a best man in that I never had the chance to organize a bachelor party. Not that I wanted to throw a bachelor party for Milford; he and I were not good together under such circumstances. But it still felt like, under normal conditions, that’s something I should have gotten the opportunity to do.

And this nagging thread dangling in front of me would become the carrot of encouragement I needed for my next adventure. As I said, I had another wedding coming up later that Spring.

Wedding Toast

“At the risk of indulging cliché,” I began, which is admittedly an awkward opening for a speech, “they say that it’s the journey that matters and not the destination. On this point I’m going to have to disagree. While it’s true that there’s no big finish, no promised end to life, every road does lead somewhere and where they lead us matters. They’re the product of the choices we make.”

I’m not averse to giving speeches, whether prompted to or not, so when Milford’s wife to be informed me that one of my duties as his best man would be to render a speech at the reception it didn’t seem like a big deal. Even so, I felt nervous standing there in front of a room full of strangers, which is probably why I offered to go first. If I tanked it’d be easier on the next guy, but I didn’t want to follow someone else’s speech if they nailed it. I had a microphone in one hand and a beer in the other. I’m a class act all the way, folks.

“It’s been a long crooked road that led you here, Joe,” and this got a laugh out of the crowd even though it wasn’t meant to. “That’s wasn’t even supposed to be one of the jokes!” I insisted, which warranted an even bigger laugh. Drinking audiences are usually the best kind, unless they start screaming and throwing things. I didn’t think they were going to turn into one of those crowds, though.

“We’ve had some good times, made some strange choices, and God knows you’ve had your fair share of snares and pitfalls.” This was true in ways I can’t begin to relate to you in this or any other writing. “But that’s all led you here, which hints at purpose.”

“There’s an Irish proverb that says two people shorten a road - according to the menu at Bennigan’s.” This got a mild laugh and I tried to milk it: “What’s more Irish than Bennigan’s, right?” And that was all I was getting out of it, so I continued: “Despite its dubious origins, I think what it’s saying is that the trip is shorter with the right company. The burden is lighter when you have someone to share it with.

“And you’ve got an even longer road ahead of you still, and there will be many challenges ahead. Marriage itself will present some of them. But no matter what happens from now on, you won’t have to face those challenges alone. You can draw strength from each other. And in this I wish you all prosperity. I love you, Jojo.” Then I raised my beer to them and announced: “To Mr. and Mrs. Milford!”

It felt sappy, but everybody seemed to like it. I guess that’s the point of wedding toasts in the first place.

I sat down by Milford and he said:

“That was great, man. You almost made me cry.”

Almost?

Oh well. Fuck it.

Bayou Barbeque 2

As I was saying, I was at a bayou barbeque when suddenly two of our hosts returned with 2 hog-tied alligators. As a group of us gathered to see what would happen next, one of the hunters brought out a pistol and presented it to the crowd.

“Who wants the honor?”

“Holy shit,” I whispered. Those of us who were not amused simply watched in awe.

Typically, there was a guy in the crowd eager to step up and accept the offer. He took the pistol and the hunter showed him exactly where to put it, with the muzzle nestled near the base of the gator’s skull. I guess that’s the sweet spot. They look so indestructible in the wild, but one shot was all it took. The second gator barely even reacted, but followed shortly after. Despite my ambivalence on the matter, it still seemed appropriate that someone witness this with a proper sense of respect.

Before this starts sounding like a diatribe on the universal connection of all things or the bounty of the Earth Mother or something, let me make this one point clear: Alligators are dangerous and they breed pretty fast. When their population explodes they expand into new territory and they have no particular fear of humans. They’ve been known to hunt dogs and kill people, and the only way to keep their population under control is to keep it culled. What we were witnessing was neither a crime nor a sin, I just don’t think anyone should take pleasure in killing anything, so I wanted to approach the telling of this story with a certain reverie.

The hunters stuck their knives in the bullet holes and bore into them as deep as they would go just to be sure. You can’t be too careful, I guess. The gators were still moving, but I think it was some kind of spasm. They looked like they were deflating as their bodies relaxed, like a tire losing air. I took my friend’s camera and snapped some pictures as the blood pooled on the concrete floor. It’s ghoulish, I know, but I consider myself a collector of experience. A thing like this should be documented because a description after the fact would simply be insufficient.

What happened next was something out of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Once the gators were cut loose, one of the hunters pulled a chain down from the ceiling with a giant hook at the end. Rigging them to this chain in a manner I must admit to having not watched, they hauled the carcasses up off the ground. After a few more pictures, the doors to another room swung open and they dragged them into it by means of a track along the ceiling to which the chain was attached.

If I’m lucky in this life, I will never see what happens in a room like that. The hunters took the gators in and closed the door, and to my knowledge there was no further spectating or picture-taking from that point on.

“That’s the fast-track to fucked-up,” I told my friends solemnly as the gators disappeared from view. I took pictures of the blood on the floor until they hosed it back out into the swamp.

One of the girls taking pictures was a painter looking to make this moment the subject of future works. We all laughed about the strangeness of it, which is what people like us do in such situations.

“Isn’t this how horror movies always start?” she asked.

“No doubt,” I agreed. “Bunch of kids, a weird house in the woods, something fucked up happens, then it’s here come the hill mutants.”

But there weren’t any hill mutants. The people there were all friendly and inviting. They had given us nothing but food and hospitality. And as gruesome a thing as this gangland-style slaying of the alligators may sound, they had probably made life a little safer for the people in the area.

I’m not a hypocrite. You can’t eat the meat off something’s bones the way we tore into those ribs and then turn your nose up at the method that was used to procure it. I’ve been shark fishing before, and pulled one out of the water so it could be beheaded and gutted right there on the beach (it is necessary to clean sharks immediately because otherwise they will urinate through their skin and spoil the meat, I was told). I could not have been happier to take it home and cook every last bit of it and eat it. And sharks have lasted the test of time just as the alligators. But just the same, the spectacle of it was unsettling for me. And as is custom when witnessing something unsettling, I am now inclined to share that experience with you.

After this everyone retired again to the lodge, where some of the guys set up instruments upstairs and started playing music. My exhaustion was finally setting in, so I sat back on a couch and nearly fell asleep. We headed out shortly after.

Looking through my friend’s camera, we laughed at the dichotomy of sentiment the pictures stored there represented. Half of the pictures were from the wedding we had attended that same weekend, followed by one really cheery snapshot taken before embarking on this excursion. The rest documented the carnage of the gator killing.

“If we were killed in the woods and this camera were all they found,” I said, “that would tell quite a story.”

The ride home offered the horror movie landscape that had earlier been promised. Where the road was not consumed by the overhanging foliage it simply disappeared into the darkness.

“I’d love to have a place out here,” my friend said merrily. It was pretty cool. Not terribly convenient to work though.

This is the kind of place where werewolf sightings happen, I thought to myself on the way back. The swamp seemed perfectly suited to serve as the backdrop for a backwoods testimonial where some hayseed is insisting that whatever he saw wasn’t a bear because it was walking on two legs.

“I’m a hunter,” they always say, “I know what a bear looks like, and this was not a bear.”

We bantered on this point a few minutes until we were safely returned to the familiar civility of the highway, then we made our way back home without incident.

Bayou Barbeque

It was Memorial Day weekend 2009, the story taking place the Sunday evening prior to the holiday. I was invited by friends to a barbeque out in the swamps. I was exhausted from my previous exploits throughout the weekend, which had begun on Thursday and did not let up until about 1:00 that afternoon, but I was eager to see my friends because I hadn’t hung out with them in a while and they were profuse in their assurances that this barbeque was not a thing to be missed.

The place was surprisingly close to Savannah to be considered the boonies, but it was on a strip of road that ran farther than the pavement. There were a string of houses that reminded me of Howard Fenster’s place, then for a stretch the road was swallowed up by the surrounding flora of the swamp.

It was still daylight, so the passage through this tunnel of moss and ivy was more beautiful than ominous.

“I love driving through this tunnel at night,” one of them declared. “It’s like something out of a horror movie.”

Bear in mind any hyperbole I offer to suggest an element of danger in this expedition is done so in the spirit of fun. Despite the singular trappings of the place, we were just going to a barbeque.

We unloaded a casket-sized cooler of Busch from the back of my friend’s truck and bore it toward the house. There were gun shots coming from somewhere in the woods.

“Oh yeah,” he told me, probably meaning to put my mind at ease, “there’s a gun range near here too.”

“I should have brought my gun,” I joked, then wondered: Should I have brought my gun?

The house itself was actually a hunting lodge. The interior of it sort of looked like the grampa’s house from Lost Boys and a little like the Warriors’ hangout too. A wooden table ran the length of the room like in a Norseman’s dining hall (and regarded in this fashion by its patrons, I think). There was a pool table on the other side of the room with couches and chairs filling the space between. It was also filled with people and that comforting air of camaraderie you come to expect from gatherings of this kind.

The walls were adorned with trophies from various kills, mostly deer heads and skulls or just sets of antlers that looked like they’d make a handy weapon in a pinch (not that I contemplated arming myself; the mood was very friendly and relaxed). One of the wooden support posts sported an alligator head with the skinned pelt of it hanging beneath, still intact. This was a portent of things to come.

In the fashion of Norsemen and Vikings, the table had been laid out with a feast of barbequed ribs, corn still wrapped in the husk and an assortment of equally appetizing selections. We served ourselves and ate meat with our hands, which I think honored the general motif.

When we finished eating, there was a sudden stir outside the lodge, slowly working its way in. The only piece of it left when it reached us was the single word “alligators”. Being in the swamp it was not unlikely to me that there had been a sighting in the water. Alligators are pretty common in that area. But the skin on the wall reminded me of a story my friends had told about a previous barbeque in this lodge. On that occasion the alligator hunters had returned with a fresh catch. Upon securing its mouth shut with duct tape (if you don’t know, you can hold an alligator’s mouth shut with one hand - all the power of their jaws is in closing them, not opening them), they proceeded to release it into the lodge for the remainder of the party. This is the kind of party I usually get invited to, because this is just the type of thing that catches my interest. And the promise of this particular barbeque would not fail to deliver.

Someone had brought a baby to the party and she was sleeping in her car seat on the floor. One of my friends sighed casually, looking down at the baby.

“We should probably get the baby off the floor if there’s going to be an alligator in here,” she decided casually. I will always respect her pragmatism in these matters.

As we walked out of the lodge to the workshop garage the hunters used to clean their kills (does this have a specific name, like meat shack or slaughterhouse or something?), we could see there was a crowd gathered around its entrance.

Just so you understand, I am not a hunter and have never really been around hunters, so if my conveyance of this story bears a sanguine or horrific pretension, I’ll ask that you forgive that. I’m Southern enough for most things and certainly not soft (in my own estimation), but the only place I’ve ever seen stuff like this was in horror movies, so it puts a spin on my perception of it.

There was a stench in the air as pungent as a landfill. The soaked in discarded detritus of past kills had remineralized into the soil, where it was then dredged up by several days of rain, and the smell was as overpowering as it was off-putting. I tied my shoelaces tighter to make sure they couldn’t touch the ground; I didn’t want to drag any of it home with me.

When we squeezed past the crowd close enough to see what was happening, we could see that they had two six foot gators duct-tape-muzzled and hog-tied on the concrete floor. Everyone was snapping pictures. If you’ve never seen a hog-tied alligator, it’s quite a thing to see.

It’s also a bit sad. There’s something sacred about great reptiles like alligators and crocodiles because they have survived the test of evolution. They bear the same characteristics of their prehistoric prototypes for one very important reason: perfection of design. The world adapted to the alligator, not the other way around. So seeing them hog-tied and helpless for the sake of our amusement felt undignified.

But the indignity would not last long. Finally one of the hunters brought out a pistol - small caliber, maybe a .22 or .25 - and presented it to the crowd.

“Who wants the honor?”

“Holy shit,” I whispered. Those of us who were not amused simply watched in awe.

TO BE CONTINUED!