The Bachelor Party Part 3

Saturday

My phone rang and woke me up at what I figured was some ungodly hour and again, I had no idea where I was. I fished around the nightstand until I found my phone and answered it. It was Groom.

Groom: You guys left me!

Me: What?

Groom: You assholes left me at the strip club!

Me: (realizing I am in Vegas): We couldn’t find you and I wasn’t going to the champagne room to look.

Groom: Fine. Let’s go to Tao Beach (which turns out is a club at a pool at the Venetian).

Me: Isn’t it still morning?

Groom (rapidly): It’s like 11, but that’s okay because I haven’t slept the whole night. I’m wired on Red Bull. So come on! Tell CHP and Lefty to get up!

Me: ………I’m hanging up.

As soon as I hung up, CHP’s phone started to ring. I guessed it was Groom again but I didn’t care. I was determined to go back to sleep since I figured I’d be out just as late tonight as the night before, only I now had to worry about the drive home. I heard CHP mumbling something and getting annoyed. Finally a third phone rang, this time it was Lefty’s who was asleep on the couch. Apparently the Red Bull screwed him up too so he was wide awake and agreed to go to Tao Beach. He convinced CHP to go as well, but there was no way in hell I was getting up, so they thankfully left me. After grabbing another hour or two of sleep I finally managed to convince myself to get out of bed and go gamble some. It was disturbing to me that I had been in Vegas for the better part of 3 days and hadn’t done any hard core gambling. I went down to the casino and started playing some $15 blackjack at a relatively empty table. It was just me and an older guy and we were doing pretty well, both up a little more than $100. Then some asshole kid showed up and did a driveby. Threw down some cash, got a blackjack and walked away. Suddenly the table turned and the cards went cold. Before I knew it, I had given back the $100 I was up and another $100 on top of that. The old guy kept telling me that we should’ve walked away when that asshole showed up. Down another $100, I got up and went to the Palazzo to try my luck over there.

I circled the tables for at least 15 minutes, trying to find the perfect table. I finally decided to try and recreate the vibe I had at The Venetian before the driveby, so I chose another relatively empty table with an older guy. $15 minimum. I lost $100 without winning a hand. The older guy didn’t win a hand either. The dealer won EVERY SINGLE HAND. It was unbelievable. Usually someone wins at least one hand no matter how cold the table is. Either way, I decided that it just wasn’t my trip with respect to gambling. My lucky shoes were up in my room too. I couldn’t even get that right. Needing to kill more time, I put $20 in a penny slot machine and mindlessly pushed the spin button for at least 30 minutes. By this point in the trip I think the combination of alcohol, caffeine from all the Red Bull, and nicotine had thoroughly screwed up my body chemistry. I was becoming jittery, yet an overwhelming sleepiness started to set in as well. With the prospect of going to the club looming large (a prospect I certainly was not looking forward to), I decided to head back to the room and crash for a while. When I got back to the room, both Lefty and CHP were in there passed out.

After we all woke up, they filled me in on what happened at Tao Beach. Apparently, Malone (who also had his bachelor party in Vegas…one that I thankfully did not attend) gave Groom a list of tasks he had to complete before the bachelor party was over. Some of the ones I can remember: Get 10 bras, get his chest signed by at least 30 girls, and get a picture of a girl kissing his engagement ring. There were quite a few others, but I don’t recall them at the moment. While at the pool, Groom almost got a bra, but the girl said it was too expensive to give away. CHP offered to buy it from her, but she refused. He also got a girl to kiss his engagement ring, but only after he kissed hers. She was there for her bachelorette party and had her own list. Lefty showed me some pictures, and I regretted not going. The talent level was very high. Ultimately though my decision to rest up would pay off when Lefty and CHP couldn’t function well enough to drive home the next day.

We showered and changed into some nice clothes and headed to dinner at Tao, the restaurant above the club. Tao, as you should be able to tell by its name, is a very Asian themed restaurant. Only eight of us made it do dinner: Me, Groom, Lefty, CHP, Macbook, The Russian, The Groom, and a new addition, Neighbor (because apparently he lives in my neighborhood). Neighbor is about 10 years older than us and he and Groom know each other through their wives. Stockton and Malone had to attend another bachelor party, and Toe Jam, Earl, and Slappy were nowhere to be found. When Groom called them, they said they were far away but would be back in time to go to the club. We all guessed that they went to some brothel or bunny ranch or something considering how evasive they were when questioned them about where they had been.

With no one having gotten completely shit-faced yet, we decided to order a couple of bottles of sake to go with our meal. We got a bunch of appetizers to share, including an egg roll with duck inside that was outstanding. When it was time to order our main courses, I ended up ordering Crispy Orange Chicken. It was really good, but I got heckled by everyone else for ordering an $18 Panda Express meal. Throw in the appetizers, my share of Groom’s meal, and sake and I spent $85 on not a lot of food. This concerned me because I knew I’d be doing some heavy duty drinking in the coming hours and I wasn’t totally recovered from the previous couple of nights. The situation called for starchy food, but I didn’t dwell on it though as there was nothing I could do about it now. Two highlights from dinner:

-The Robot left to go to the bathroom and didn’t return for at least 10 minutes. When he came back he said the bathrooms only had the Chinese characters for Yin and Yang on the door and he didn’t know which one he was. So he had to wait until someone came out or someone else entered. No one did so he finally just picked one and had luckily guessed right.

-From where I sat at the table I had a direct line of sight to a table with some very talented women. Including a girl who would be considered outstanding even by Vegas standards. Yes, the visuals in Tao were quite good.

Clubs in Vegas don’t usually open until 11pm, so we had about an hour to kill before we headed back down to Tao (the club this time, not the restaurant). The prudent move was to go back to our rooms to rest up, and for once we took the correct course of action. CHP, Lefty, and I went back to our room and engaged in a discussion on whether or not condoms would be required for the night. No one brought any, and since Lefty is engaged, he excused himself from the conversation, except to say that it would be virtually impossible for anyone to hook up with someone because of our room situation (2 beds and a couch….obviously no privacy). Lefty had a point but CHP was adamant that some might be needed “just in case”. Half of the guys were in some type of a relationship, and as much as we may sound like assholes, one of us would say something if we thought someone was in jeopardy of messing up a perfectly good relationship (no comment on what we would have done if a guy was about to mess up a relationship we all thought was crappy to begin with). That left five or six single guys. I knew some of the guys had done well in the club scene before, but certainly not me. I HATE clubs. Abhor them. And even though I actually do pretty decent in situations where the alcohol is free flowing, I am so predisposed to dislike any girl I could possibly meet in a club, I ruled myself out of the conversation.

This may be a good time to mention that there are 5 kinds of Richard when alcohol is involved. First, we need a baseline of no-alcohol Richard. This is the Richard that is quiet in new situations, a little socially awkward when dealing with new people, and would definitely prefer to sit and listen to conversations rather than participate in them. (Note: This is not me when I go to Florida and I am hanging out with all of you idiots. That Richard is a different one entirely). Then there is the 1-2 drink (over a couple of hour period) Richard. This one is more talkative and not socially awkward at all. Very relaxed and experiences an increase in skill when playing frenetic video games (legendary Puzzle Fighter skills when I have 2 drinks). The 3-5 drink Richard is definitely the Richard that is most fun to hang out with. Outgoing, funny, entertaining, but completely in control of his own actions. 6-7 drink Richard is goofy, with about 10 percent chance of doing something stupid but in an entertaining way. 8-10 drink Richard can be easily coerced to do stupid things like tie a tie to his head and convince Bride’s father (who he had never met before) to do the same for the wedding. Also if there is ever a chance Richard will dance, this is the amount of alcohol it will take. So basically, this Richard generally acts like an entertaining idiot. 30% chance of doing something that will cause regret the next morning. Social awareness is present, but future repercussions from acts are dismissed as being “not important”. Which of course leads to 10+ drink Richard. 100% chance of an all day hangover the next day. 50% chance of doing something that will cause regret the next morning. 30% chance of partially losing memory of the night before. 10% chance of violently vomiting. I was between 5 and 10 drinks for the entire bachelor party.

Either way, I was pretty sure no one would be willing to give up their room in the off-chance one of their roommates actually ended up having a good night at the club. So to say that I doubted the night would end well enough for anyone for even the potential for “just in case” to arise, would be an understatement. I made my points to CHP and he begrudgingly agreed. We killed the rest of the hour watching sickening replays of Dodgers’ pitcher Hiroki Kuroda get drilled in the head by a line drive and seeing the ball carom 60 feet away. Now that’s a way to get ready for a club!

We ran into Macbook on the way downstairs, and at this time, Lefty realized that we left our gum in our room (the two of us had been chewing a ridiculous amount of gum throughout the trip and always had a pack or two on us), so he attempted to buy a pack of gum. Unfortunately for us, we were informed that The Venetian and Palazzo do not sell gum anywhere on the property. Seriously?! No gum on the property? What kind of antiquated place is this? Lefty wanted to run back to the room but we told him there was no time. We were already a little late. Though he was annoyed (as much as a laid back guy like Lefty can be annoyed), he agreed and we walked into the lobby where the club is and were met by a throng of people. For those of you who have been to The Venetian, Tao is located just inside the main entrance off of Las Vegas Blvd. NOT the Casino entrance, but instead the entrance that opens into a square shaped lobby that includes a set of escalators in the center that lead to the Casino, an entryway to the Venetian Shoppes (that include Gucci, Armani, and all that other ridiculously high priced stuff), and a slew of restaurants and stores. People were in a line that was at least a couple of hundred deep that snaked around the escalator. All of them were awaiting entry into Tao. To make matters worse, it was Bruce Willis’ daughter’s 21st birthday that night and she was celebrating it at Tao as well (accompanied by her very famous parents and Ashton Kutcher). So yes, the place was going to be packed.

The Russian had called ahead and informed the bouncer that we were going to be getting a table and bottle service, so we would be allowed to skip the line altogether and get ushered in VIP style before the club opened for “ordinary” people. The bouncer informed us that a couple of parties were being taken care of ahead of us, so it would be a few minutes wait. At this time, The Russian started collecting money from everyone to cover the cost of the table and bottle service. Total charge: $300. Per person. I almost objected, but said nothing. I mean, what could I say at this point? He said we’d probably get the cheap table but since there was a chance that we’d get the more expensive one, he wanted enough cash on hand so he wouldn’t be screwed with a ridiculously large bill all by himself. It was a reasonable argument. After he collected the cash from everyone, he realized we were $300 short. We counted heads. There were only 11 of us. There were supposed to be 12 (the number had jumped due to an unexpected but ultimately irrelevant arrival).

We looked around and tried to figure out who was missing. It was Lefty. I grabbed my phone to call him and saw that he had sent me a text. “Went back to the room to grab the gum. You’ll thank me later”. Moron. Now, Lefty is fast (rumor has it that he caught a wild rabbit with his bare hands like in those stories you read about high school football players who grew up in South Florida), but even he couldn’t be fast enough to fight through a crowd of people, get up to our room floor, haul ass down the hallway, grab the gum, and repeat the whole process in reverse before the bouncer appeared to escort our party into the club. And make no mistake about it, if Lefty wasn’t with us, he’d have to wait in that line. We all started calling him repeatedly telling him to forget the gum and hurry up and get back to the line. He was insistent that he could make it on time. Then an attractive woman appeared at the front of the club and informed us that she would be our hostess for the night and because our party was so large, we’d have to take two separate elevator rides into the club. I entered the elevator 100% certain that Lefty wouldn’t make it back in time. After we exited the elevator we got to see the club while it was still half-lit and let me just say, seeing a club like that is almost a surreal experience. Everything looks so weird. We were discussing this fact, when the elevator doors chimed behind us. We turned around and as the second group exited, Lefty was among them. This will only add to his legend of being ridiculously fast, but also allow us to make fun of his obsession with gum.

With our party now complete, the hostess showed us our first table option. It was coffee table sized and surrounded on three sides by a U-shaped couch. It was located in a side room off of the dance floor and featured another table as well as a bar. It was better lit than the rest of the club and it seemed like a good fit for us. It was also only $120 per person. Actually that’s not true. Tables in clubs are free, but in order to sit at one, you have to order a minimum amount of bottles depending on the table. This table required about $1500 worth of bottle purchases (or 2 giant bottles of Grey Goose at $950 per bottle). Groom looked at the table, pouted a little and said he wanted to see what a better table was like. So the hostess escorted us out of the sideroom, down the perimeter of the dance floor, past the men’s bathroom, up a set of stairs that doubled back on itself and to the second floor. The second floor was really more like a loft that looked out over 4/5 of the club. It was divided into two sections. A waiting area for the women’s restroom, and a VIP skybox section, complete with its own bouncer and red velvet rope. The skybox section had three skyboxes and we were shown one of them. I have to admit that it was pretty spectacular. The coffee-sized table was set in between two long benches with plush seating. At the far end of the benches was a 3.5 foot glass wall that allowed you to lean out over the club floor and observe the dancing. This made Groom happy, and the full $300 that I had given to the Russian ahead of time was now gone.

I grabbed a seat at the far end of one of the benches and fully intended to sit there the whole night. From where I sat, I was eye level with a cylindrical cage that hung from the wall and would, later in the night, feature a barely clothed woman dancing inside. I also had a bird’s eye view of the entire dance floor and bar below and could survey all of the incoming talent. The rest of the guys started grabbing seats or milling around the VIP area. We had two hostesses, a blonde and an Asian, and by this time point in time, I think it goes without saying that they were both unbelievably good looking. We also had two bouncers (both were at least 6’5, black, extremely well built, one had predator dreds the other was bald and both were intimidating to say the least) patrolling the area who gave us each wrist bands and told us if anyone was up there that we didn’t want up there or if anyone gave us any trouble at all, we were to tell them and they would “handle it”. Finally, we had a guy I referred to as the Ice Man, because it was his job to bring us giant bowls of ice as well as our fancy glass bottles of mixers and our heavy duty bottles of Grey Goose.

Typical club music started thumping and people started filing in like ants. Macbook started lining up shots of Goose and we all had two or three by the time our blonde hostess finished making our drinks (mostly Red Bull and Grey Goose, though some people mixed their Goose with Cranberry juice or Sprite). Half an hour into the club experience and I had not moved from my spot, so I was happy. Sadly, that would not last. Groom asked me and Lefty to go with him to get the aforementioned signatures. So we grabbed Sharpies and left our red-velvet roped area and were immediately met by a line of girls waiting to use the restroom. It couldn’t have been more convenient. I was already buzzed and so was Lefty, so were relatively smooth in asking girls to sign Groom’s chest. Some were nervous, but most thought it was funny, so we managed to get five or six signatures before a voice boomed from behind us “LEAVE THE LADIES ALONE!”. I turned around and it was one of bouncers that had sworn allegiance to us. Betrayal! We explained that we were only asking for signatures, but he got more agitated and told us to go back to the VIP area or head downstairs. Ladies in the line for the restroom were not to be bothered. So we headed downstairs and the club was so packed we could barely move. It made no sense to me to pack the club so full of people that it was almost impossible to dance, but whatever. As me, Lefty and Groom made our way around the club, some girls ignored us, others signed, and others flat out refused. Groom was about halfway to his goal when I got separated from him and Lefty and seeing no way to fight my way through a crowd of people I headed back up to the VIP area.

By now it was about midnight and I was working on what was at least my sixth drink (3 shots and 3 Vodka Red Bulls) and admiring all of the talent that was below me. There was a dancer in the cage. There were also two elaborate bathtubs on an elevated platform at the center of the club. Each tub was filled with a red wine colored water (I can’t imagine anyone soaking in red wine for hours) and rose petals in addition to, what else, two beautiful women (a running theme at a club like this) wearing strategically placed rose petals. The women were interacting in very suggestive manners, and Ice Man came up to me and told me that if you can get close enough to them to ask, they sometimes will come up to the VIP area and drink with the guys. The Russian overheard this, and all of a sudden I was assigned a new task: Get the girls to come up to the VIP box. Why didn’t The Russian do this, you ask? Well he was too busy trying to get into the blonde hostess’ pants. Something that would never happen, but didn’t stop him from trying or stop her from leading him on in hopes of a bigger tip. Before I left, Lefty and Groom returned and Groom’s chest was pretty much covered in signatures, his right nipple was completely darkened, and his back read “Pablo was here” with an arrow pointing downward. He thought he was done collecting signatures, but we only counted 25. He also lamented the fact that he had yet to get any bras. I left to go and attempt to complete my mission. I fought my way through the crowd got close enough to get the attention of one of the women in the tub, but before I could ask, a bouncer intercepted me and forced me back into the mass of dancing people. I didn’t mind all that much because I gave it a shot, and that was my only assignment.

I returned to the skybox and found it almost empty. The only people who were there were Groom, Lefty, and The Russian. There were also two girls who Groom introduced as SC (because she went to USC) and Aspen (because she lives somewhere in Colorado and this is the closest thing to a feminine sounding city that I could think of in Colorado). SC was best friends with Groom’s older sister (making her about 29 years old) and Aspen was SC’s much younger (21) cousin in Vegas for her second time. Both were Japanese, though I didn’t know it at the time, and Aspen was definitely the better looking of the two. I said hello, and made small talk with them when the rest of the guys start showing up and more drinks were poured. We notice that CHP is missing, so we take shots without him. Then all of a sudden CHP appears with a hand behind his back and a shit eating grin on his face. He waits until he has everyone’ attention and then reveals what he is hiding: a bra. This causes an eruption and everyone is impressed, that is until he tosses the bra onto our bowl of ice. This causes a different kind of eruption entirely. Ice Man sees this and rushes to get us another bowl of ice. We ask how CHP managed to get the bra, and he said he tried to find a girl who looked like she was desperate to dance, and then as they danced he kept trying to take the bra off of her. Finally, he just flat out asked what it would take to get the bra from her, and she just told him he had to take it off of her. He managed, and so it was his. It was impressive for two reasons: 1. that he was even able to get one. 2. That he managed to find a girl who was actually wearing a bra in a club. Gotta love Vegas!

Of course, CHP’s success caused some other members of the bachelor party to declare that the rest of the Groomsmen needed to pull off the same feat. They herded The Robot and Slappy out of the VIP booth but me and The Russian managed to slip away before they noticed. I sat on one bench and fixed myself another drink, and spaced out for a minute (waiting for the Red Bull to kick in). Then I heard SC calling my name and telling me to join her, Aspen and The Russian on the other bench. I was drunk so I did. I was having a good conversation with them, when all of a sudden SC got a weird look on her face like she was having some sort of epiphany.

SC: WAIT A SECOND! WAIT A SECOND! I REMEMBER YOU!

Me (trying not to get roped into a conversation with only the not cute one): Um, I don’t think we’ve ever met.

SC: No, I know you from the basketball team. I was at your last game when there was the fight! Groom’s sister convinced me to go and I am glad I did. It was crazy!

Me (smiling because last season was great): Yes it was.

SC: You weren’t in the fight though.

ME: No, by the time I realized what was going on, they had broken it up.

SC: Yeah, but then you kept fouling the other team right?

Me (sheepish, but secretly proud): Yeah. That was me.

SC (turning to Aspen): See! I told you he was involved in the fight!

Aspen: Man, aren’t you a little old to be fighting?

Me (wait, I am old?): No. No. It wasn’t fighting, it was vengeance. My teammate (Malone) got kicked in the head while he was lying on the ground. Someone had to do something about that.

Aspen: I’m not convinced.

Me: That’s because you aren’t drinking enough.

Aspen: Okay, pour me another one.

I poured her another Grey Goose and Cranberry and drunkenly thought that I had been pretty smooth. In reality, because the club was so loud, any conversation from more than 6 inches away was really more of a shouting match. So she basically agreed to drink more free alcohol after I yelled at her. Brilliant! Before I could attempt any more of our screaming conversation, I was dragged out of VIP box by Toe Jam and Earl who finally discovered that The Russian and I had managed to sneak out of going on the hopeless bra-gathering excursion. I apologized to the girls and left with the mob of guys. They told me I had to ask at least 10 girls. So I walked directly into the middle of the dance floor and kept weaving through people until I had lost them, then circled back and reported I failed. They were drunker than me, so I guess this satisfied them and we headed back up to the box. When I got back, Lefty was talking to Aspen and Slappy and SC were conversing. Groom told me that he had tried to hook up SC and Slappy earlier in the year but nothing ever came of it. I started talking to Lefty and he introduced me to Aspen again. Before I knew it, Lefty was playing the perfect wingman role. I mean, it was textbook. He was making drinks for us and taking shots with us and talking me up, and all I had to do was basically smile (and considering I was on the verge of slurring my words at this point in time, that was a good thing).

Things were going like that for a little while and then I saw Groom telling Slappy something, and then the next thing I knew, Slappy grabbed SC’s hand and they left. Groom ordered me and Aspen to follow them, so we did, but not before I took one more shot. I knew what was waiting for me: The dreaded dance floor. When we finally made it out to where everyone was dancing, we were basically packed in like sardines which meant that I didn’t have to move enough to embarrass myself (but I was pretty drunk so I just might not remember looking like an idiot). Aspen, SC, and Slappy were really into dancing, and I wasn’t, so I was pretty sure someone would eventually cut in between me and Aspen; and because actually being on the dance floor meant that my loathing for club related girls reared its ugly head, I didn’t really care if someone did cut in. Then the strangest thing happened, a couple of guys tried and she ignored them and put herself between me and them. My mind registered this very slowly (the double-edged sword of alcohol). When we were finally finished dancing (or whatever you want to call it that I did), we returned to the booth and Aspen and I grabbed a seat on the bench. The same place that I had vowed to not move from when we first arrived at the club.

The music cut out and the club announced Rumour Willis’s birthday. Everyone peered over the glass wall and below us at the $10,000 table area in the middle of the club, were Rumour and Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, and Ashton Kutcher. Oddly I was more fascinated by seeing Bruce Willis than anyone else and kept trying to think of a clever Die Hard related line to yell out. Sadly, I drew a blank (after discarding the Die Hard III related line of “I Hate Niggers”). Pretty soon, the music came back on, and the “thrill” of seeing celebrities had worn off. Aspen, as I assume most 21 year old girls would be, (Good God, 21….younger than my youngest brother. That disturbs me for some reason) was pretty excited about seeing them though.

Since this is getting extremely long, I will finish it up with a series of “moments” that occurred the rest of the night:

- I spent most of the rest of the night (something like from 12:30 AM to 5:00 AM) talking to Aspen. It turned out that she was a chemistry major, was actually pretty smart, and a joy to talk to, which surprised the crap out of me. Because the club was so loud, for us to have any type of conversation we had to put our mouth’s next to each other’s ear and yell into it. I know what this looked like to the rest of the guys, not that I cared, but in reality we probably made each other deaf in one ear.

-At about 2:30 I had been making pretty significant progress, we were pouring each other drinks, sharing drinks, and there were enough, um, “body language” signals to suggest that if nothing else, I had enough alcohol to be the correct Richard that this situation required (see above italicized paragraph for a refresher). All of a sudden, Groom sees what’s going on and starts to yell something at Aspen. Neither of us can hear him and when she leans closer to him, I finally make out the words, and I am mortified. Groom is yelling: “FUCK HIM!” “TAKE HIM OUT OF HERE AND FUCK HIM!”. I start making the throat slashing gesture, telling him to cut it out, and then Lefty grabs Groom and drags him out of the VIP box under the pretense of getting more signatures. Aspen excuses herself to go to the restroom. I am fucked….but not in the good way.

-Aspen comes back and sits next to me, but the dynamic has changed, and I spend the next hour trying to repair the situation. Alcohol is of course a good aid.

-Meanwhile, SC and CHP have gotten pretty friendly which does not sit well with Slappy. If there is a fight I have to have CHP’s back, though I don’t necessarily agree with his position.

-Lefty grabs my attention and tells me to ask Aspen to dance. I remember how the last dancing foray went so I am hesitant. He threatens violence if I don’t ask. So I ask her and she says no thanks but grabs my hand and asks me to make her another drink. So that exchange could not have turned out better.

-Aspen leaves to go to the restroom again and asks me to pour her a drink while she is gone. I finish off the last of the $950 bottles of Grey Goose. The Russian says he notices things have been going well for me and says that we have ordered the required number of bottles but he has enough cash to order a smaller bottle of Goose. It was up to me, but he said the guys didn’t care if we blew the rest of their cash. I agreed and we ordered a smaller $350 bottle of Grey Goose.

-Half of the guys have managed to bring girls back up to the VIP club. Macbook, despite having a girlfriend, was pulling unbelievably “talented” girls. He never did more than offer them drinks and have them sign Groom’s chest, but it was unreal how attractive some of the women were.

-Anytime a couple of girls would show up in the VIP area, Aspen would put her hand on my leg, which cracked Lefty up. Clearly I wasn’t going to get up and talk to another girl by that point in the night. But at least he was discrete when he was laughing about it.

-Finally, Aspen said she wanted to dance, and dragged me by my hand out of the VIP area. Considering we were sitting on the far end of the bench, we had to walk past every guy at the bachelor party and they all thought it would be hilarious to slap my ass on the way out. I felt violated. What a great group of friends.

-Dancing this time went a little better because I was drunker and I let her lead. One of the songs that we danced to? I Gotta Feeling by Black Eyed Peas of course. When we returned to the VIP box we made more drinks and she was basically hanging all over me by this point in time despite the fact that we were sitting down. The guys saw this and attempted to find excuses to leave with Lefty leading the charge. What a great group of friends! They said that since it was close to the end of the night they were all going to dance a little more. Well, all of them but The Russian who was seated on the other side of Aspen. At some point in time he had had too much to drink and didn’t get the hint:

Lefty: The Russian, don’t you want to go dance?

The Russian: No.

Lefty: Come on The Russian, last chance to dance.

The Russian: No thanks, I’m good here.

Lefty (gesturing towards me and Aspen): No, you aren’t. Groom wants you out there. Plus, you know….

The Russian (finally getting the hint): Ohhhhhhhhh! I GET IT. Yeah, I’ll dance.

Lefty literally drags him out of there. Me and Aspen keep drinking and enjoying our relative privacy. Then Ice Man shows up to change the ice looks at us, gives me a thumbs up and leaves.

-Aspen is passed out on my shoulder. Or at least mostly passed out. SC shows up, gives me a look.

SC (To Aspen): Do you want to leave?

Aspen: No, I’m good here.

SC: Well, we can do whatever you want, just remember you have an early flight tomorrow. Are you sure you don’t want to leave?

Aspen: No, SC. I’m good here.

SC (shooting me another look): Okay fine.

- I figure this bodes well for me. All of a sudden a bouncer appears and yells at me to wake her up and have her drink some water. He keeps reappearing every time Aspen keeps passing out and its rather annoying.

- The guys show up again and we close out the bill. $3600. Groom tells me to leave with Aspen. I immediately think of CHP's "just in case" argument. I am an idiot. As we are walking out SC appears with CHP in tow. He gives me an apologetic look. SC says Aspen is staying at the Palazzo so I walk her to the elevators. SC drags CHP into the elevators as well. When the elevator finally stops on Aspen’s floor I walk her down a hallway that ends in a T. I hear CHP acting belligerent and know he is trying to keep SC in the elevator lobby area. We finally make it Aspen’s door and she says “I’d invite you in, but my parents are in there”. Um, excuse me? Parents? Could you not have informed me of this before we got on the elevator? But, because I am me, I smile and say no worries. Before we can “linger” in the hallway anymore, I look over her shoulder and see SC’s smirking face sticking around the corner and hear CHP’s voice yelling something. Talk about let downs. We "communicated" our goodnights and I left. When I got to the elevator lobby CHP was berating SC, and saying “See, I told you Richard was a standup guy”. She kept insisting she had to be sure. Whatever. She didn’t have to be that sure.

- SC requested that CHP take her back to her hotel, which was the MGM Grand (all the way at the other end of the strip). CHP pulled me aside, apologized, then asked to borrow $20 for the cab ride. Somehow this all seemed fundamentally unfair.

- I got a text from Lefty at 5:30 AM as I was leaving SC and CHP to do their thing. The text said they were eating breakfast at the Cheesecake factory type restaurant that we ate dinner at the first night we were there. It seemed like a long time ago. I wandered through the Palazzo and to The Venetian and the correct restaurant. They were the only group in the restaurant and everyone looked happy but exhausted. Groom especially looked beat up and I would later find out he got more than 40 signatures and it took forever for them to come off. I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw a giant empty bottle of Grey Goose on the table with everyone’s signature on it. When I walked over, they all looked up.

Macbook: Didn’t expect to see you here.

Me: Didn’t expect to be here.

Macbook: Well, pull up a chair and sign the bottle in honor of Groom’s bachelor party.

And so I did.



One last note. I called the girl Aspen for the purposes of this story, but though I was introduced to her twice I never heard her name clearly because of the club music, and I never thought much of it at the time. I mean, I never anticipated spending most of the evening talking to her and by then it was too late to ask her her name again. I did end up finding out the next day from CHP, but someone at breakfast asked me her name and I didn’t know it. I guessed and everyone said it sounded right, and that they were 90% sure that was what it was, but no one knew for certain. The sad thing was, she even spelled me her last name at one point in time during the evening to prove to me that she was Japanese. This of course made me the butt of many jokes, but hey oh well.

I’ll write an epilogue in a few days about the wedding, since the readers (all one of you) know the characters. Again, I end up doing some stupid stuff, and again alcohol is involved.

The Bachelor Party Part 2

Friday

I had no idea where I was when I woke up. Then I remembered it was Vegas, and a euphoric adrenalin coursed through me. I was feeling good until I actually tried to stand up. At which point the room started to spin. I stumbled over to our case of water and downed two bottles in about 10 seconds and decided to get cleaned up for the day. After showering I realized that I was now red. Apparently the Pepcid/Zyrtec combo wore off at some point and the alcohol still in my system turned me red. After Lefty and CHP woke up we met with The Russian and The Robot for breakfast. They asked me if I had been drinking already since I was red. It had been at least 7 hours since my last drink, so clearly I had had a lot. At this point, The Robot tells me I got lost coming back from the bathroom at Lavo last night and he had to drag me back to the table or I may have never made it back. I smiled and pretended like I remembered. I didn’t.

Groom showed up with his messed up cigar and asked where he got it from. We laughed at the fact that he couldn’t remember. Clearly I am a hypocrite. I attempted to choke down my grilled cheese sandwich but could not. Breakfast or lunch or whatever it was, was over. We headed back to our respective rooms to catch a little more rest before the rest of the bachelor party participants flew in later that day. On the way back to our room, CHP got a phone call from a number he did not recognize:

CHP: Who is this?

Caller:…………..

CHP: From last night?

Caller:……………..

CHP: WHY WOULD I WANT TO GO TO THE GYM?! DON’T EVER CALL THIS NUMBER AGAIN.

Lefty and I just about died laughing. We were in tears. CHP had no idea what was going on. Remember how I talked about functioning blackouts? Yeah, he had one last night. We filled him in on the events the prior evening, or at least the parts we could remember. He only really wanted to know one thing:

CHP: Was she hot?

Lefty: Definitely not.

CHP: Fuck.

Lefty: Neither were the other ones.

CHP: There were other ones? Fuck.

CHP was so disgusted by what we told him that he went back to bed and refused to get up until it was time to go out for the evening. It was at about this time that we got a call from Groom. The others had arrived. They wanted me and Lefty to come over. And to bring the alcohol. Now it was our turn to say “fuck”. We carried/dragged the alcohol out of our room and somehow managed to make it to Groom’s room and waiting for us was the 5th groomsman, whom we’ll call “Slappy” (for reasons to be seen later); Stockton and Malone (the inseparable point guard and power forward of our basketball team, and also two guys who have partied more than Stockton and Malone combined); Macbook (our former teammate who now works for Apple up North); and two indistinguishable co-workers of the groom who will now be known as Toe Jam and Earl (since I never know which one is which).

Our arrival was cheered, though I think the greeting was more about the alcohol and less about us. Drinking ensued. Shots of Grey Goose seemed to be the drink of choice. Groom started hesitating again, and with no CHP around, he thought he could get away with it. Malone had other ideas though and approached groom with a couple of shot glasses in hand. Groom, in his infinite wisdom, thought the best way to ward off Malone was to throw chips at him. $100 chips. One smacks into Malone’s arm, leaving a small welt. After examining the damage, Malone downs a shot, retrieves the chip and fires it back at groom. The impact literally makes a cracking sound when it hits Groom’s leg. A perfect, chip sized, circle appears on Groom’s leg. Malone grabs another chip and throws it, this one hitting Groom’s arm with the same result. Before Malone can throw a third chip, Groom agrees to take many more shots. I decide that between Malone, CHP, and The Russian if we get into any fights during the rest of the trip, we’ll probably be okay.

After drinking we decide to gamble before heading to dinner. Six of us sit at a table and the evil Chinese dealer proceeds to beat the shit out of us. One after another, guys are dropping out. First it’s the Robot, then The Russian. Groom is hanging in but loses three or four hands in a row and gives up down $500 for the trip. Finally, Macbook bows out as well. It’s just me and Malone now, and we are fighting valiantly. I’m “only” down $100 and he’s about even for the table, but informs everyone that he lost over a grand before we all met up. Malone and the dealer are trying to teach me Chinese as we are playing. I am fucking up words left and right but they think it’s hilarious so I guess its okay. Suddenly, Malone catches a hot run of cards. He starts playing two hands at $50 or $100 per hand and he’s winning every hand. I’m still getting killed and am now down $200. I’m worried that if I get up, Malone’s hot streak will end, but if I sit there I’ll end up blowing through half my bankroll. I decide to stick it out, but when I lose another $100 I apologize to Malone and get up. This is fine with Malone who has rallied back to almost even for his trip. Chinese bastard.

We head back upstairs for one more round of drinks, but when we get to Groom’s room, there is no alcohol. Groom had snuck back up while we were gambling and put the alcohol in the room safe. I thought it was a bitch move to say the least, but I was also secretly pleased by this. At the start of the day, my one goal was to not be drunk at the strip club. Buzzed was fine. Drunk was not. With CHP still unavailable, no one could convince Groom to unlock the safe, so we decided to call off the drinking and head to dinner.

Dinner was at Emeril’s flagship restaurant: Delmonico’s Steakhouse. While we were eating we noticed at least 10 to 15 smoking hot women seemed to be entering and leaving a back dining area. No one knew why, and it’s Vegas so there doesn’t really have to be a reason, but we all enjoyed the sights. Later we found out that Larry Flynt was eating dinner back there and everything made sense. Overall, the meal was good but wasn’t worth the $100 I spent. From there it was off to Sapphire, the self-proclaimed World’s Largest Strip Club. Malone (who would go on to become our defacto leader for the evening) thought we should take a limo. Taking a limo to a strip club! Classy! Cramming that many guys in a limo was not easy, but we somehow managed. At this point I should mention that I read a Bill Simmons article about his Vegas trips and he said it always seemed like everywhere in Vegas there was one song constantly being played. In his article it was “Lose Somebody” by Kings of Leon. Well I noticed on my trip it was definitely the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling”. It seemed fitting at the time, since this was Groom's favorite song when we are all hanging out due to the fact that The Russian and The Robot are both Jewish, and there is a section of lyrics that refers to their heritage. So when the song came on during the ride to the strip club, he could barely contain his excitement, and when the verse "Fill up my cup/ Mazel tov (La Chaim)" came, he yelled it out as loud as he could. This for some reason annoys The Russian and The Robot. Of course, because the rest of the party is buzzed we all catch on fairly quickly and as the song continues on, the anticipation builds as we wait for the verse to come back around again:

Black Eyed Peas: I gotta a feeling/tonight's the night/let's live it up/I got my money/Let's spend it up/Go out and Smash it/ Like oh my God/Jump off that sofa/Let's kick it off

Black Eyed Peas plus 10 drunk guys: FILL UP MY CUP! MAZEL TOV! La CHAIM!

We all found this to be uproariously funny, though in hindsight it wasn't as funny as I thought it was at the time. Either way I heard that damn song at least 15 other times during my trip. In fact, due to the fact that I was drunk, buzzed, or hung over nearly the entire bachelor party, every time I hear the song now I feel like I need a drink.

After being downright molested by a bouncer at the club, we eventually headed down a long hallway that led into a lowered open area surrounded by two bars, a hallway that heads to the champagne room and a back wall that faces three stages. As was the theme for this Vegas trip, we decide to get a table and bottle service. Total charge, $50 a person. Not bad. The drink of choice, as it had been for the entire trip so far was Grey Goose and Red Bull, which it turns out is an evil evil drink, but oh so good. Things are going as one would imagine they usually would at a strip club, guys are getting approached by random strippers who are walking the floor, the strippers sit down on laps and try and talk their way into letting them give you a lap dance. Lefty and I bought a couple of dances for each other. One of the dances was pretty unspirited but the other one very nearly knocked the wind out of me. Literally. Let’s just say that because there were wheels on the chair, a few of the stripper’s thrusts left me several feet away from the rest of the group. She was hot and aggressive, so it was enjoyable—as much as these kinds of things can be enjoyable. Everyone bought dances for Groom, and a couple of times some strippers double teamed him and basically proceeded to have sex with each other on top of him. It was pretty funny to watch his reactions.

On a quick side note, I am always a little unsure about how I feel at strip clubs. I mean, hot naked girls are good. A hot naked girl dancing on top of you is even better. Two of them at once is spectacular. But doing it all in front of your friends seems a little awkward. I guess that’s where the alcohol comes in. Remember though, buzzed not drunk.

So things continued to play out along the same lines (stripper sits on lap, talks to you for 5 minutes, you buy a lap dance for yourself, for your buddy, or dismiss her), but with each lap dance going for $20 I was glad that I stayed sober enough to not throw away some semblance of common sense. After a couple of hours, I thought things were wrapping up when all of a sudden a bouncer shows up and grabs Groom and leads him away. Me, Lefty, Macbook, and a couple of other guys are concerned. We start asking the rest of the guys if they knew what was going on. When we ask Malone, he just smiles and tells us to wait. Then, over the loudspeaker, the patrons are told to direct their attention to the main stage (which is raised up 15 feet over the center of the floor) where Groom is standing flanked by three strippers. As his friends we are instructed by some strippers to stand underneath the stage, because the floor of the stage was clear so that we could see all of the action. We declined. What happens next is a cross between a rape and an orgy. I’ll leave all of the details out except to say this: When it was over, Groom had his boxers ripped off of him despite the fact that he was still wearing jeans.

After that “interesting” ordeal, things devolved into near disaster. Slappy was drunk out of his mind, and anytime one of the guys was getting a lap dance, he would proceed to slap the ass of the stripper (hence his name). This didn’t just occur with the strippers adjacent to him, this happened EVERY time anyone in our group got a dance. Some strippers thought it was funny, others didn’t like it, and one started to scream at him telling him that he owed her money for that slap and that she was being violated. Groom tried to intervene but she wouldn’t listen, and I left for the restroom deciding that I didn’t want to deal with all of that. When I got back, Slappy seemed distraught so I (stupidly) bought him a lap dance from a cute Asian chick. Half way through she stopped and hopped on my lap and danced for me. I gave her a questioning look and she simply said, “your friend is too horny for me, I can’t deal with him. You can touch me many places, but you can’t touch me where he did”. Um, yikes. So Slappy was having a bad night. Not only had he been drinking so much that every time I looked up he was coming back from the bar with two or three drinks for himself (a lot for a 130 lb Chinese guy), but he also had gotten bitched out by one stripper and rejected by another. By the time “my” lap dance was over, Slappy looked completely dejected. He had his elbows on his knees and his head down while grasping his drink with both hands. I should mention at this time that I had only met Slappy twice before this so I had no idea what to make of his behavior. Stockton and Malone seemed concerned, but they knew him even less than I did so they didn’t want to say anything to him. By this time CHP and Groom had each separately been talked into going to the champagne room (where combined they would drop more than a grand, and I would later be informed that it is true, there really is no sex in the champagne room. As for other stuff….no comment), and Toe Jam and Earl were off doing Toe Jam and Earl type things, so everyone who knew Slappy well enough to say anything was nowhere to be found. So we did what any group of guys would do in this situation: We ignored him until circumstances dictated otherwise.

Of course, in any good story those circumstances would not be far off, and sure enough within 20 minutes, Slappy had our undivided attention. A group of us were sitting in a circle, with Lefty and Slappy to my left and Malone, Stockton, and Macbook to my right. A couple of strippers came over and someone bought Lefty a dance. During the course of the dance, Lefty ended up facing Slappy (stupid rolling chairs). The stripper was facing Lefty and straddling him with her knees on the chair and her feet extended outwards behind her. Her ass was basically in Slappy’s face which everyone realized was not a good idea, but as Slappy looked up and we all began to fear the inevitable, something far worse than a simple ass slap happened—Slappy threw up. It turned out that the stripper’s positioning actually saved us. The vomit missed her entirely, splitting the uprights essentially, and she was none the wiser. Lefty was not as lucky as it ended up on his feet. He gave me a panic stricken look, but stayed cool and maneuvered his chair away from Slappy (THANK YOU ROLLING CHAIRS). Stockton, Malone and I attempted to cover up the mess with our own seats but then Slappy lost it again. Malone had seen enough and decided we had to get out of there before the bouncers kicked us out—but not before roughing up Slappy a little bit first (this is Vegas after all).

Lefty ushered Slappy out of the building. Stockton, Malone, and I attempted to round up our group. The Robot and The Russian who had been suspiciously absent from the ordeal turned up and told me they were gathering everyone as well, so I should head outside and make sure Slappy was ok. I exited the building, and there were guys everywhere, but no sign of Slappy or Lefty. I was just about to call Lefty when something on the ground of the far right side of the building caught my eye. I walked over and found Slappy puking his guts out while Lefty washed it away with some water bottles he found. Lefty is a good guy. I may have just left Slappy there. Finally, Slappy said that he would feel better if he laid down, and then proceeded to lay down face first on the concrete parking lot of the strip club right next to a tricked out Escalade. Wonderful.

Most of our party (CHP, Stockton, Malone, The Robot, The Russian, and Macbook) made it out of the club and we began to assess our options. Macbook wanted to know if it would be considered amoral to take a picture of Slappy in his current state. We decided that it was not, but even if it was, considering the weekend we had had so far, it’s not like morals were a big concern at that point in time. So everyone busted out their phones and started taking pictures of poor Slappy lying on the ground in a puddle of vomit/water mix. We are great friends—and typical Asians with our camera phones. With that dilemma solved, we now had to figure out how to get back to The Venetian and what to do about the remainder of the party (we decided to leave them). As we debated, the owner of the Escalade appeared and told us that he was actually a cab driver, that the Escalade was his cab, and that we could all squeeze in and ride back to The Venetian for $50. It seemed that fate was with us at that moment.

Slappy mumbled incoherent things when we tried to get him to sit in one of the seats, and then he flat out refused to sit up. I suggested putting him in the trunk, so Malone and CHP lifted him up and placed him in the trunk of the Escalade. We all piled in and the Escalade headed out. The guys in the back seat kept talking to Slappy with the hopes of distracting him from thoughts of throwing up. Malone, who was in the front seat, and the guys in the middle seat, tried to engage the driver in conversation with the hopes of distracting him from the potential disaster he had in his trunk. We made it back to The Venetian successfully I thought, until we opened the trunk. Slappy had thrown up again. Now the driver wanted $100 extra. CHP slung Slappy’s arm around his shoulder and escorted him back up to the room while the rest of us tried to convince the driver it wasn’t $100 worth of bad. We were unsuccessful, so our $50 cab ride home ended up costing $150. Everyone chipped in a few extra dollars meaning the strip club experience probably cost me $250. Coupled with dinner and the gambling losses, meant I was fast approaching the limit of what I wanted to spend in Vegas. As Lefty and I walked through the casino towards our room at 5 AM on Saturday morning, I could hear in the background, "I gotta feeling....that tonight's gonna be a good night! That tonight's gonna be a good night! That tonight's gonna be a good good night!". I couldn't help but laugh and hope that the coming night would not be any more traumatic and costly than Friday night had been.

The Bachelor Party Part 1

I've been writing this off and on for a little while. Parts 1 (The first night) and 2 (the second night involving the strip club) are finished. I'm still working on Part 3 (clubbing at Tao). Since the story is on the internet, I am making up relatively descriptive names for all parties involved. Also, It is not my finest piece of writing ever as I tend to jump tenses as I go, but hopefully it is an entertaining read. If for no other reason than to get some insight on what a possible Vegas bachelor party will look like when I throw one for whichever one of you guys gets married next....

Being a groomsman was more work (and more costly) than I could have ever imagined. The number of ancillary responsibilities that ended up landing on the shoulders of the groomsmen kept growing as the wedding approached. Fortunately, planning most of the Las Vegas based bachelor party was left up to the two best men, whom I’ll refer to here as The Russian (because, well, he’s Russian and a big bear of a guy) and The Robot (for his uncanny ability to express a total of zero emotions). They had to reserve restaurants, figure out the strip club situation, decide on hotels, and ultimately handle the club where we would be spending Saturday night. My only job, as usual, was to handle the alcohol. A job that I had the pleasure of handling with another groomsman, CHP.

I knew CHP from our racist basketball team, but I didn’t really start hanging out with him until we attended a bunch of wedding functions together and realized we each didn’t know anyone else besides the groomsmen, the groom, and the bride. Well it turns out that CHP is actually kind of crazy and can drink like a fish. The only problem is, he will drink to the point of inducing a functioning blackout, and despite the fact that he can walk, dance, talk, or whatever else, he won’t remember anything the next day. Anyways, he told me he would buy all the alcohol and my only job was to bring a bag big enough to fit it all into. Luckily for me, I have a Nike bag big enough to fit a petite woman inside (don’t ask how I know this). I should mention at this point that there was going to be a total of about 15 people at the bachelor party and all but three of them would be flying out there during the course of the weekend. Me and CHP were two of the three because we figured it would be almost impossible to bring the requisite amount of alcohol on the airplane without everything breaking. So, armed with my person sized duffel bag, Vegas appropriate clothes, a sizable bankroll, and a liver I had been training Rocky style for the previous couple of weeks, I was ready to tackle 4 days of whatever Vegas could throw at me. Or so I thought.

Thursday-

I left Irvine around 10AM and headed up the 405 to pick up the third of the three non-flyers, Lefty. I also know Lefty from my racist basketball team. He’s Chinese but we let him play anyways, because well, he’s better than all of us. I also went to school with Lefty so we are pretty decent friends but usually only hang out when there is a group of people and everyone is drinking. Otherwise, Lefty is a pretty funny but quiet guy. He only knows CHP through basketball and they never hang out off the court, so for this reason I had been a little apprehensive about the 4 hour ride up to Vegas. How would three guys who have never hung out together kill all of that time? My apprehension was gone as soon as we arrived at CHP’s place. Waiting for us was a giant bottle of Grey Goose, an even bigger bottle of a type of Russian vodka, a bottle of rum, and assorted other bottles to go along with soda, shot glasses and virtually anything else you might need in order to drink alcohol. On the way up, Lefty and I had picked up 50 bottles of beer, so we were armed and ready for the weekend. We managed to squeeze all of the alcohol into my person sized duffel bag and then CHP attempted to lift the bag into my trunk—and couldn’t. Well at least not without breaking something inside. CHP estimated that the bag weighed at least 100 pounds, but he and Lefty eventually managed, with some effort, to get it placed delicately into the trunk. With the most important luggage safely secured, I tossed my keys to CHP--a law enforcement officer who would not get a ticket no matter how fast he drove—and we were off.

As soon as we entered the freeway and hit our cruising speed of 100 mph, CHP proceeded to tell us a story about the planning of this bachelor party. Apparently, the Groom had been acting like a little bitch for the two days leading up to this shindig. Groom (as he shall now be referred to) wanted us to get a table at the club we were headed to on Saturday night, Tao (located at the Venetian). No one found this to be unreasonable. Considering the number of guys we had going (ten) it only made sense to get a table because a group of guys is not getting into a club like Tao without some female companionship or a table and bottle service. However, Groom didn’t just want a standard issue table (a $1200 charge); he wanted to be able to see the dance floor from wherever the table was (a much higher charge that we’ll get into later). Well The Russian had not planned on doing that. He figured asking for $120 per person for the club alone might be steep for some of the guys, so he didn’t want to ask for that much more. But Groom would not listen. He kept calling The Russian every hour begging for a better table. The Russian was holding firm even as Groom was losing his dignity. Lefty and I were incredulous during the story because we had never seen Groom throw what amounted to be a tantrum befitting a two year old child. But it got worse. According to CHP, Groom’s fiancée, Bride, felt the need to stick up for Groom by sending The Russian a text message that read something like this:

The Russian, Groom really wants a table where he can see the dance floor at the club. I know it’s more expensive, but it’s his dream. I am willing to even pay the difference in cost. I just want him to have his dream bachelor party. Please make his dreams come true.

Me and Lefty could not decide if this was the funniest thing we had ever heard, or the most pathetic. Who has their bride-to-be attempt to finance their bachelor party? And who complains that vehemently about a party that his best friends are throwing for him? Ultimately a compromise was reached between The Russian and Groom, and it was decided that we would look at the cheaper table first, and if it was not up to Groom’s standards we would get the more expensive one. Either way, that story broke the ice between me, CHP, and Lefty and with any sense of awkwardness now gone, the ride to Vegas seemed to fly by (well being able to go over 100 mph without concern also helped).

We got to The Venetian around 4 pm and decided to valet the car and get a bell hop to take our luggage up to our room, considering we didn’t want to carry around that monstrous bag of alcohol. Unfortunately for us, the bell hop took one look at our duffel bag and refused to put it on his luggage cart. Apparently, he was not allowed to carry alcohol to our room for us due to breakage concerns. We had to do it ourselves. Wonderful. Seeing as how Lefty and CHP are pretty strong dudes, and I am me, they each grabbed a handle on the duffle bag and shuffled towards the entrance. I did my best to clear a path for them, but it was no easy task. Our room was at the end of a long hallway, and by the time we got inside, Lefty and CHP both looked like they wanted to die. But the pain was nothing a little alcohol wouldn’t cure and considering nobodies’ flight got in for another two hours, we had plenty of time to drink. And drink we did.

CHP and I both suffer from the same problem in that we get red when we drink. Apparently we lack some type of enzyme—stupid Japanese heritage. Luckily, CHP figured out that by taking two Pepcid AC’s and a Zyrtec thirty minutes before drinking, there will be no redness. I was doubtful at first, but after drinking a glass of rum, I realized that I didn’t get red. Encouraged, I began to drink more. As I mentioned, CHP is a huge drinker so I couldn’t quite keep up with him, but I did keep up with Lefty who is hilarious when he drinks, but in a more understated way. After a little while we got a call from The Robot who had flown in with The Russian and Groom and they wanted us to come over to their room. Considering our level of intoxication, this should have posed a problem, but we were drunk and therefore undeterred. Right before we headed out, we grabbed the bottle of Grey Goose, some shot glasses and cups, refilled our own cups (“One for the road” according to CHP) and meandered our way to Groom’s room—which just so happened to be in a separate tower than ours. That meant we had to go down to the Casino floor over to a separate bank of elevators and ride them to the correct floor. Under normal circumstances the room wouldn’t be the easiest to find, in our circumstances…well, yeah. None of us could walk in a straight line, Lefty couldn’t stop laughing at anything, and CHP was pulling his best Johnny Bravo impression (“Hey Baby”) on any girl we came across. Me? I was just concentrating on not spilling my drink (gotta love Vegas and its lax open container laws).

We finally made it up to what we thought was Groom’s room but all of a sudden, no one could remember the exact room number. This didn’t bother CHP who started kicking the door before abruptly turning and running. Leaving me and Lefty hoping to God that it was the right room. Luckily, The Robot answered the door and we stumbled into a pretty awesome room. The Venetian is an all-suites hotel to begin with, but Groom’s room was a step up. We celebrated this by drinking. Groom was hesitant to start imbibing because he knew he would have to drink the whole weekend and wanted to put it off as long as possible. CHP and Groom go way back, so Groom’s hesitance resulted in CHP unleashing an epic tirade that culminated in a near molestation of Groom, until Groom finally acquiesced to the peer pressure and took a shot of Goose with each one of us (wait, how old are we again?).

Properly intoxicated, we decided to eat dinner at a Cheesecake Factory type restaurant at the hotel. I’m sure everyone noticed that we were drunk, but this being Vegas, no one really cared much. The meal was pretty uneventful with the exception of Groom leaving twice to go throw up (something he has trained himself to do on command) and CHP noticing a group of fairly attractive women sitting at the booth behind him. He pulled out his Johnny Bravo routine and made a couple of other comments while The Robot, The Russian, and I looked on in horror. See, we were sitting across from CHP, so we had a good look at the people in the booth behind him (or in front of us). What CHP thought was a group of hot women, was actually a couple of moms and their daughters. Their clearly, not legal, daughters. The Robot and The Russian kept trying to discreetly tell him to shut up, but CHP wasn’t listening. Lefty finally realized what was going on and desperately tried to flag someone to get us our check. So I finally said something, and I think the conversation went something like this:

Me (quietly): Dude, what are you doing? Those girls are way underage.

CHP (loudly): What are you talking about, they’re like 35.

Me: No, they really aren’t.

CHP (even louder): Look at them, they are at least 35!

Me: No, those are the moms. There are daughters there too.

CHP: Sweet!

Me: No, they are like 14.

CHP (Yelling): Well at least we’ll know what they look like when they get older.

Finally, Lefty grabbed our server, gets the bill, throws down some cash and we pull CHP out of there. I can’t bring myself to look at the table of moms and daughters, as we walk by their booth. I realize that we are the group of people that everyone hates, that I usually hate, in Vegas: You can be drunk, you can be loud, you can even be belligerent, but for fuck’s sake leave the families alone.

Sufficiently sobered up from dealing with CHP we decided to play a little blackjack. I was up like $50 at one point but ended up giving it back and getting up even. No one else fared as well. We end up outside the hotel debating what to do next. But its Vegas in August, so it’s hot even at night so we go back inside. The Venetian and Palazzo are connected so we make our way over to the Palazzo where we come across this sweet cigar shop. Lefty and I buy a couple of $20 cigars and the group heads over to Lavo, a lounge/nightclub type place. It was only 11pm so it hadn’t started picking up yet and we decided to get a table and bottle service which was relatively cheap ($150 total for the 6 of us). Lavo has a dance floor on one end that tapers into a fairly swanky (did I just used that word?) lounge with a bar in the center and velvet seats inset into the curved walls of the lounge. There is a table in front of every five or six seats, and it was to a section of these seats that we were escorted by a barely dressed woman. Lefty and I attempted to fire up our cigars and before we could even get our matches out, a hot blonde server(?) in skimpy clothing materialized out of seemingly nowhere to give us a light. Another hot server, this one Asian, brought out a bottle of Grey Goose, an assortment of mixers (Sprite, Coke, Red Bull) and proceeded to make us drinks.

For a while, this setup couldn’t have been better. The music was loud but not overbearing. We could smoke and drink and shoot the shit while hot girls waited on us hand and foot. But as the lounge area started to fill up, the music got louder, the service slowed down a bit, and conversation was near impossible. At the time, this was all okay for me since the combination of alcohol, caffeine from the Red Bull, and nicotine from the cigar had me buzzed beyond belief. CHP and Groom decide to go check out the dance floor but the rest of us don’t really dance so we just continued to drink (and in my case, smoke). The rest of the night plays out in my memory in a series of scattered flashbacks. I can’t really place their chronological order; I just know they all happened. Some of the highlights:

- At one point in time I am feeling the music enough to be bobbing my head and tapping a foot and it takes me about 5 minutes before I realize I am doing it to Latin music. For some reason this irritates me.

- CHP brings a girl back to the table and offers her alcohol; he attempts to pour some Grey Goose into her glass and pours it all over the table and on The Russian’s feet. The Russian is not amused and I am assigned the task of pouring the alcohol for the girl and CHP. Now I am not amused. I guess I was successful; all I remember is the girl was not cute. Where are the hot servers?

- Groom pretends to drink Goose with sprite but instead just hides his glass under the table and swaps it with one of only Red Bull. I am angered by this but too drunk to do anything about it, or even tell CHP.

- I still hear Latin music and wonder why there is so much Spanish coming over the speakers. My first thought, I shit you not: “Why is there Spanish? We are not in California.”

- CHP brings another girl back to the table and orders another bottle ($100). She is not cute either. I pour CHP a lot of alcohol so he hopefully won’t remember her in the morning.

- The hot server shows up and I am happy. I realize she has the bill and I am not happy. I send her to The Robot.

- TOO MUCH SPANISH!

- We have half of the second bottle left and CHP is trying to talk two girls into drinking with him. I think they think he spiked the alcohol or something. I know they don’t trust him. I have to pour them fresh drinks. Again I do not spill.

- CHP tells me that the first girl he brought back to the table can get him into the gym for free tomorrow. He seems genuinely excited about this. I am confused but pretend to be excited for him.

- The people sitting next to Lefty get up to leave and in the process forget two still sealed cigars. Groom decides he wants to smoke one but doesn’t have a cutter. Groom decides his teeth can cut meat so they can surely cut a cigar. Groom is wrong and now has a half chewed through cigar along with tobacco and cigar paper in his mouth.

- I am now irate due to all of the Spanish music being played. Someone tells me its Latin night tonight. This seems to satisfy me.

- We stagger out of there with CHP trying to bring our bottle of Goose. The bouncers stop him at the door. We drag him out before he tries to fight them.

- We meet up with the Robot’s roommate at a bar in the casino, but I am too trashed to remember how I got to the bar. I call Lefty to see where he is, but it turns out that he is right behind me.

- We magically appear at a blackjack table and I can’t recall walking over to it. I want to play but I wisely decide against it.

- Somehow, some way, we make it back to our rooms and crash.

My Rocky training paid off the first night. Remember, Rocky is not about knocking someone out early, but having the stamina to make it to the last round. I may have been out on my feet, but I knew a little break between rounds would get me energized and ready to go again.