Durian Durian

There's a lot to be said about the cultures of other countries; their customs, traditions, their delicacies... Unfortunately, in this case, we're saying that some should be forgotten because they are dumb and awful.
Southeast Asia, home of the Durian Fruit. This formidable contender weighs in from 4-7lbs and wears a coat of armor that is fully capable of drawing blood, so that the men walking beneath their looming branches are required to wear helmets when harvesting them.
During bar trivia Sunday, our friend Street Traffic Greg, boasts that he has found one of God's abominations in an obscure oriental market in the city and is going to try it Tuesday night for all interested. I am leary of his invitation, presuming that he wishes those around him to share in his foreseeable mistake. I crave excitement, even on new-fruit-small scale, so I accept. The big night rolls around and question as to the means of opening this fortress-fruit comes up. How do you break into heavily guarded produce? A few years ago, my cousin brought me an actual handmade machete from deep in El Salvador's womb. Obviously, I have never had a chance to use it, so defying all intellectual objection, I decide this is the way: Death By Machete. So I roll up my pant legs, weave the machete through my belt, put on a pirate hat and head to ground zero.
Despite its intimidating outward apprearance, the Durian is best known for its funk. Its scent ranges broadly from molding, sweaty gym socks to a molding, sweaty compost heap. Many places make it clear that while you are welcome, your stink-fruit it not, and take security measures to ensure compliance - like, checking bags and purses with their highly trained stank snouts.
Awaiting a sulfuric toxin to engage my gag reflex, I do not anticipate an enjoy-me-in-a-salad type of fruit, but rather the I-immediately-regret-this-decision type of fruit. And that's what I get. Gently persuading it open with the machete, we carefully split it into its three sections and are left looking a bit disgusted and a bit bewildered. Picture a fetus made of egg with the texture of oily, yellowish custard. And we're supposed to eat this. Some people crazy enough to like Durian claim that the worse it smells the better it tastes. This is not so. Your olfactory sense makes up a large portion of your sense of taste, so even science hates the durian fruit. I have my bite, swallow, and plan on it metastisizing in my stomach as it grows into an alien spore and bursts out through my chest, meanwhile vigorously scrubbing the scent off my hands. Being a good friend, I put a sample snack into a ziplock (read as: petri dish) to take home and make Mike try. He is less of a girl about it, but not by much.

Who Doesn't Want To Be a Millionaire?

There is a luxury in regular, liberal states that we do not have the benefit, or burden of, in Salt Lake: Good Old Fashion Gambling. There is no legalized gaming whatsoever in Utah, even to the extent of cracking down on Bingo halls and revoking their business liscenses. I can't help but laugh at the mental image of a Swat-Team of bored cops, kicking in the door to a nursing home and billy-clubbing a bunch of geriatrics for "illegally gambling" away their green jell-o?
The novelty of being able to buy lotto tickets, scratch & wins, and travel mere miles to a Dog Track has yet to fade for me. Especially when friends from Utah come to visit - it's actually a treat to be able to throw money away every time you walk into a 7-11 or liquor store because it feels like rebelling somehow. So, this brings me to the point: I am about to strike it rich and leave behind the hoi polloi. A bunch of people from my work and I have collectedly gone in on around 70 tickets for the $196M jackpot that is being held tonight! Mega Millions spans twelve states, so having an innate gift for statistics, and having taken 2 stat courses, I have a 1/12 chance of winning x70= 70/12. For those of you who can't do math, try to keep up.
After taxes, my share should equate to around $10.8M. With that much money I'll be able to buy anything! Even a lottery ticket!
And thus, the position of feeding me grapes and fanning me with oversized feathers is now accepting applications.

What would your first 5 purchases be if you hit the lotto?
And don't say a shark tank or Scarlett Johannsen, because I'm two steps ahead of you.

Cape Cod (abridged version)

This is an abridged version of the tailend of the evening on Cape Cod. (note that this part of the story starts past midnight - excluding the 12 hours of adventure before this)

12:10am - We arrive in Hyannis and take 12 shots in 12 minutes. This feels like a great idea.

12:25am - Enter RooBar nightclub. Get shots and beer, and proceed to drink whatever wounded soldiers we find. After dancing off against a bachelorette party - and winning like we do - we were challenged to a late night game of kickball. Alas, the bump & grind session had only provoked their now angry bf's, husbands, and guys that wished they were us, so they flaked on the game. (pffssh..cockblocks)

1:00am - Armed with a fifth each, we are off to find a place to crash... immediately rejected twice from getting a hotel room - once because they saw us playing frisbee and drinking in the parking lot, and the other time because "they don't rent rooms to guys," presuming that 6 guys dressed like us were destined to gang-bang the night away. Understandable... donning silly hats including a crab, orca, pirate, fisherman, "Midwest" 80's beanie, and a pink cowboy hat i would have been suspicious myself...not to mention that we all had our faces painted at a charity carnival and were glitter-plastered with unicorns and aquatic wildlife.

1:45am - We realize that we have only walked 1/2 block in the search of another hotel in the last 45 mins... so naturally, sleeping on top of mcdonalds is the only viable option remaining and will put us in prime territory for some breakfast McDeliciousness. Since it's cold, the only way to stay warm until then will be excessive drinking. Only 2 of us make it up. We move on.

2:00am - Using the bad directions we received from the last hotel clerk (who is a douche) we continued the hotel hunt in the exact opposite way of any such thing. Now is when we realize we lost george. We call repeatedly and get no answer. Expect the worst with George.

2:45am - we have walked 45 mins to the middle of nowhere. Brett starts running to see if he can find a hotel. Mike is on the roof of an ice skating rink. Ben is trying to run up a telephone pole to do a backflip (pause for mental image of him repeatedly landing on his head). Frank is not pleased. George is likely dead. I am wondering if the booze is next to his corpse somewhere.

3:00am - we finish off the alcohol we have and Mike realizes he left the rest in a bag in the Mcdonald's parking lot. Idiot. We take brett's camera and film a podcast with Mike ranting about Jesus trying to find a hotel in Bethleham. I see something shiny and get distracted.

3:15 am - Ben & I form a search party for the MIA alcohol. We find george in the driveway of a firestation drunk-dialing EVERYONE he knows, except us of course. We tell him to stay put for 5 minutes while we try and rescue the booze. We go, it's gone, and there is no doubt an elated homeless guy blacking out somewhere on our dime. Good for him. We return to find George just where we left him and are surpised he actually stayed...until we realize the reason is that he's so drunk he cannot stand. So now, our group is reunited but with the news that there is no hotel within 2 miles any direction. Oh, hell. Now we have to backtrack all the way back to the car. En route, we actually find our booze-bag. The bum took everything else, but left a bottle of captain and the goldschlager with no lid. I guess even the dumpster-diving homeless have standards above ours.

4:00am - we are back where we started 3 hours ago. Cops keep passing as we pile into the car. One stops next to us in the street and watches as we try to heave george's body into the backseat. He looks like shit and it is easy to see we are all trashed. Still wearing silly hats and facepaint, we are surely fucked. The cop slowly drives away. We flip a U-turn and realize we are on a one-way street. If that cop is watching we are really screwed now as this traffic violation is the probable cause he needs to pull us over. We go the opposite direction, awaiting our inevitable arrests. It never happens.

4:30am - Enter Holiday Inn Express (we feel smarter already). Brett and I being the most convincingly sober drunks in our group, we field the front desk to get a room with two Queen beds. The clerk thinks we about to go toss each other's salads, and the look on his face shows it. We BS a story about how we are doctor's from Beth Israel hospital and in town for a Cancer Survivor charity event. I boast that I am the youngest resident surgeon EVER. We make small talk about fixing cleft pallets in cental america and how rewarding it is to do what we do. Saving lives....with a glittery purple squid on my face and hair that rivals Doc Brown's.
We get everyone into the room. 2 DOUBLE beds for 6 grown men. George lands on the first sprawled out like the vetruvian man. He is passed the point of no return. We immediately pull the entire comforter and george off onto the floor. You know that trick where you pull the tablecloth out from underneath the glasses and plates, but everything stays where it should? Picture the exact opposite. He lands, hard, but doesn't wake up. We roll him onto his stomach and check his pulse to prevent Neglegent Homicide charges in the morning. This seems adequate enough.

6-6:30am - For a full half-hour Mike makes throat clearing noises that sound like a seagull fighting Gollum in his larynx. Everyone wakes up but him. I punch him in the ribs out of spite.

730am - George gets up to use the restroom. He wakes everyone up by making whooping noises while on the john. He continues having a two-sided, one-man conversation about how to get to atlantic city. We giggle ourselves back to sleep.

11:00am - hotel checkout. George thinks he has lost his shoe. It's in the car, but we lie so he has to walk around like a jackass with one bare foot. Before breakfast, george and I decide to finish the Goldschlager. I am curious if little gold foil flakes will make my dump look pretty. We interrupt breakfast to go to the parking lot and leave a note for our server reading "Petting Wolves. See You Soon." And this is acutally what we were doing. Another patron had a timberwolf (named timber, because he's not clever) and a timberwolf-huskie mix. An actual wolf and a half. Fucking intimidating. 130 pounds of pure muscle, and as scary as it was impressive. We finish breakfast and george goes to destroy the bathroom. To make him feel worse, we leave while he's shotgun blasting the porcelain. In place of the car, we leave his shoe. We hide in the bushes expecting him to find it while we giggle at his misfortune, but he doesn't. Brett goes stealth to grab the shoe and throw it at george's back - it lands on the roof of the restaurant.

1:00pm - Shenanigans continue as we head home drinking and trying to find horseshoes.

5:00pm we find the jager in the trunk.
2 days later we found the bottle of rum.
6 days later we found the bottle of vodka.

Rock Lobstah!

Our good friend Space Frank, given this moniker because he is an aeronautical engineer (read as: a freakin' rocket scientist!) got a job for the summer in Maui. I know, cry him a river, huh? Anyway, he had yet to explore the New England area and all that the East Coast has to offer, and thus decided he should before he moves. And so begins a series of day trips that will hereafter be known as The Bachelor Chronicles. Why? Take a seat, and I'll tell you.


The inspirational catalyst: Portland, Maine.
This was the first trip we decided to take in what would become a series of epic day-long adventures. After a long night of heavy drinking, we arose waay early to hit the road; like, 9am, before God wakes up. First order of the day: Coffee and eats. So we hit up the evil that is starbucks, grab some shitty breakfast sandwiches, 2 liters of water each for proper recovery, coffee for some, and naked mango juice para mi. Still intoxicated, we invariably irritate everyone in the shop for a solid 15 minutes before we hit the road. Aaand we're off! Banning the radio for conversation sake turns out to be genius, as we make up our own songs, tell stories, and other random funny facts that we had on our minds. Including the "scoop," for those in the know.
The car ride itself is a blast, and upon arriving in Portland, we are already bursting with energy and excitement for the day. So we find a pay-lot to park, and hit on the 65 yr-old snaggletooth attendant with lines like, 'how often do you use your looks to get everything you want?'* before we grab predestined silly hats from the trunk. Now we look as ridiculous as we're about to act. The first shop we happen to come across has more silly hats, so we upgrade a few to the fisherman/ lobster genre and keep moving. As we wander the town, stopping in every shop we come upon, we lose two of our five men. Unfazed, we decide immediately to go to the liquor store. This is good idea. They have a walk-in humidor - an awesome bonus, so we buy stogies. We are chatting up the owner who decides he likes us so much, that he will impart us with gifts. Eyes closed, palms up like children, we are given leis in support of our shenanigans.
Despite the cell phones in our pockets, we decide it is better to have the locals help us track down our missing compatriots; "Hey, have you seen Uncle Sam and a Pirate?" ...."well if you do... tell him their test results came back positive, and I'm sorry."
Naturally, people need to know why we're wearing silly hats and leis, and "Uh, duh. It's Saturday," generally doesn't satisfy most that ask. So we magically transform into a bachelor party, and I transmogrify into the groom - POOF!
The rest of the day I am continually congratulated or harangued that my decision will haunt me for the rest of her days. Goodbye freedom and fun, hello diapers and daycare. The enthusiatic people earned my favor by generously buying us drinks, including an Oyster shot at J's restaurant where we ate. For the record, an oyster shot is not pleasant. Judging by taste alone, it would be fish, salty ocean water, vinegar, cheap vodka, and dirty urine. (coincidentally the same flavor as the last date I took out...) By texture, a slimy lump covered in sand. Despite this god awful drink, I do highly recommend this little hole in the wall - great seafood and Long Islands that even Robert Downy Jr. could appreciate.
As we leave J's, hammered into a blissful state of inebriation, we stop and reflect next to a thorn bush. We have been in Portland for mere hours, and have become local celebrities for the day! Each grasping a thorny branch, we make a pact to return should any of us actually get engaged. We are on cloud 9, and soaking up the glorious attention we're getting! Our stories and reputations actually precede us as we move from place to place. "You must be the Bachelor Party from Boston - let me buy you a drink and tell you about my 2nd and 4th failed marriages."
It's great. Just before this, we found an abandoned train yard and harbor. I tried to commandeer a vessel, but my pirate skills don't include hotwiring boats. Plus, jail and I don't like each other, so this is probably for the best.

Mike is now giving piggy back rides around the bar by request. I have just traded hats with a stranger at the urinal in the men's room and we've decided to stage a fake fight for our friends. These guys are lobstermen. Not quite as hardcore as Deadliest Catch crews in the frigid Alaskan waters, but gnarly just the same - having caught over 100lbs of lobster that day alone. It's 7pm and we've had a great day, but realize that it must end at some point, so we reluctantly head out. It's about 40 seconds before we hear live music and decide against our better judgement. After rallying a whole new bar, dancing up a storm, proposing to two cougars and getting put in a headlock by their younger brother, someone tells us to check out a bar called Styx.

Styx happens to be a gay bar. I have never been to one and am intrigued with the prospect of it. I mean, how much easier could it be to meet girls than when there is no competition? Did someone say genius!?
Enter Styx. This place is like pink dolphins covered in rainbow glitter; I don't think I have ever seen so many men in mesh shirts... I immediately decide to drown any remaining discomfort or inhibitions in gin. I strike up conversation with Hotty McBartender. It's going well, but I haven't discovered the best transition to "I'm straight, let's get out of here," so I say just that. I am firmly shut down - pfssh. Silly lesbians. Within minutes, our troop of "groomsmen" finds a stage with a stripper pole and goes to town with it. We look flamboyant and fantastic. I get another g&t, and am actually a little disappointed I haven't been bought any drinks. I blame Mike, who helped break my nose on a hardwood floor during a wrestling match the night before. I look like Owen Wilson and pay for all my drinks.
Round 2: For those that know me, I have a few weaknesses. Blondes top this list, and I have found one that would make a puppy cry. Stunning and a great conversationalist, we hit it off immediately and talk for a solid 30 minutes. I had decided to delay the inevitable admission of being hetero until she had fallen in love. But we're at that point now, so I 'm getting ready to spill the beans when another beautiful Italian girl walks by. I can't help but look, and simultaneously notice that Blondie checks her out too. Are you kidding me? So, I just lay it out; "I like women, by the way." "Me too," she says with Helen of Troy's smile. It's now 2:00 am and the bar is closing, which means we are probably about to head home. I guess trying to get blondie to pinch hit would be moot now. My little boy heart, broken, we part ways forever. The car ride home regurgitates the same travel shenanigans as on the way, but at a booze-fueled, exponential level. There is a solid 40 minutes of hashbrown requests from the backseat, which once again, are firmly rejected.

Self discovery? But what if I suck!?

For the record, I love me. I love being me. Probably more than I should... Do I have to look at myself in any reflective surface when given the chance? Yes. Without fail. The more mirrors the better. The biggest problem with my stunningly good looks is that not every woman has admitted it to themselves yet. Denial can ruin opportunity, ladies. Think about it. Anyway, I am confident with my decisions on any given day, but of late, I have noticed an increasing number of situations that cause immediate guilt and make me to wonder if I am indeed an asshole.
Here's your for instance: Today, I caught a glimpse of a man dressed outrageously. He was donning a hideous Hawaiian shirt that looked like a 3 yr-old's crayon drawing had been vomited on by a flourescent rainbow, Tennis ball green fanny pack, taupe sweater tied around his neck like a j-crew ad gone horribly wrong, Ray Charles sunglasses with chums, and probably equally ridiculous pants/shoes, etc... ( I could only see the upper part of him at the time.) So I silently giggled to myself pondering how anyone could manage to so poorly dress themselves. Then he moved, and the lower half of his body came into view. I still don't remember what the rest of his ensemble was because I was distracted by his SEEING-EYE DOG. Now the sunglasses make sense. A-hole.