Too bad I forgot to take into account that Grant's Limey ancestors have spent the better-half of last thousand years hunched over in dim caves mining coal and whatnot on their god-forsaken Island country (aka - England). He beat me by a full ten points on the little lightbulb meter. Fack!
So Nina (Grant's girlfriend) invited us to go to her friends' loft party in Brooklyn. After hearing our story about the last time we partied with girls from Sarah Lawrence, all eight of us piled into Brian H's van (yep, he's got a big, white, molester-van) and decided to go check out the party.
Grant was getting sentimental watching all the little kids get swung around by one of the Dads there. Hating to see him down, I was happy to indulge him in a little trip down memory lane.
Turns out that Grant was too scared outside in the dark by himself to take the time to find some dry kindling. So after his "girlyfire" went out I had to go out and find some wood to get the real fire going (but I still let him pose in front of it like he had something to do with it).
Grant gives the thumbs up to the fire he built. (Just for the record, the flame you see is actually just newspaper burning and his "fire" promptly died out like 10 seconds after the photo was taken).
The house was on the edge of lake in middle of nowhere. There was no moon out that night and I don't think I've seen such pitch darkness in a really long time. Turns out that Grant is a big scaredy cat and Tookie and I took turns scaring the bejesus out of him. Look at him scurry up those stairs as I chase him in the darkness shuffling my feet and making "scary" noises. Run Grant, run!
Dave G (The Ladies' Choice) has got to get with the program! He's all in the background making his "Party Guy Face" when we clearly told him that it was a "Blue Steel" moment.
"There was nobody." (Grant's really not this funny looking...I'm only posting this pic because I think it's neat that the words from the TV prompter showed up in the picture.)
For anyone who doesn't know, Grant is hands down one of the best karaoke performers I have ever seen. He choose to sing "You Should Be Dancin'" by the BeeGees (and he sang that shit higher than any BeeGee would've dreamed of singing it).
Chris, Nina, Grant "I Did it for Science" Stoddard, me. (BTW, ever notice that as soon as I get a few drinks in me, okay more than a few, I have my mouth open in every photo? 1 in a series of 3.)
He was also showing off this fucking sweet outfit! A "USA" sweatshirt, Purple Camo pants, and striped, toe-fitted socks that make it look like he has Muppet feet. We bet him $10 that he didn't have the balls to wear it to go out to breakfast at the local redneck diner (and we were right).
But he almost got his ass kicked at said diner anyway! Check it: So we're in the middle of eating our meal, and the really, grizzled couple in their late forties walks into the diner. The guy is a huge, lumberjack-looking biker-type guy and his lady's wearing sunglasses indoors and has bleached-blond hair that's been permed into a frazzled mess...and she bears a striking resemblance to Sammy Hagar!
As their walking past our table, Grant stands up and goes "Ladies and Gentlmen....SAMMY HAGAR!" I grabbed his arm and pulled him down and hissed "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, DUDE? THAT GUY WILL RIP YOUR ARMS OFF!" Grant was like, "Relax, they don't know who Sammy Hagar is..." and then he trailed off mid-sentence when he realized that he was pretty much in the midst of the region that was pretty much responsible for Van Halen's post-Lee-Roth success and shuddered when he realized how close he'd just come receiving a Happy New Year's Ass-Kicking!
So about an hour before midnight, the house's heater stopped working...and considering it was about 8 degrees outside the temperature in the house immediately began to plummet. As Jack (yep, the one with the plaid ass) opened the trapdoor into the basement (Evil Dead Style, yo) we all began to take, um, advantage of his situation.
So I'm all talking to Grant and he's acting all ansty and itchy, but I'm just chalking it up to the fact that he's had 3 beers and that he's fucking wasted (this kid's a cheap date). Suddenly, unprompted, he confides in me (and at the same time unknowingly confides in the entire world wide net) that the reason that he's so antsy and itchy is because...
I knew the competition to earn a slot dancing for the night would be fierce, so I quickly busted out my Photoshop skillz and whipped up two tasty fliers advertising our masculinity that I knew would tantalize those Cake minxes. Here's the first image I sent along...
Because Em & Lo were too preoccupied to take photos of us dancing, I lifted these next few photos off of Cake's website (they were all taken by Jenny Schulder). Grant ran out on stage, screamed "My name is Daniel-san!" in the mic, did a jump kick, opened up his karate jacket and then proceeded to rip off the tee-shirt he was wearing underneath! So tough!
...and when that didn't get an immediate response, I upped the ante with "beefcake" version (check out Grant's sassy, coy lil' smile! Tee-hee!) ...and SHA-POW! It worked. Grant and I got the green light: we were going to become male strippers.
Our Nerve co-workers Em & Lo were right in the front row and were supposed to immortalize our maiden strip performance on film for my photo album, but according to Lo, "We got so excited when you two came out that we were so busy yelling and screaming with our arms up in the air that we forgot to take photos."
At one point in the night, Grant and I gave dirty lap dances to Em & Lo up on stage in front of everyone. (Check out Emma trying to escape my grasp! Hahahaha).
So we're back in the dressing room after the night is over and we're changing and getting ready to leave and all of a sudden Grant disapears into the bathroom (leaving me to fend for myself with the girl who followed us back into the dressing room wondering if she could "get a ride home" from us).
Anyway, Grant's taking forever in the bathroom, so finally I knock and he's like "I can't come out." When pressed, he explained that he had a giant boner that wouldn't go away and he wasn't coming out until it either went away or until I fetched his pants so that he wouldn't have to walk around the club and risk poking some poor girl's eye out.
Growing more beligerent with each drink she downed, she eventually called us "manwhores" and stormed away because we apparently weren't giving her the attention that she deserved. (And in all fairness to her, considering she bought three rounds of drinks for both Grant and I at $10 a drink, she probably had a right to be unhappy...we're definitely not worth $60!)
Here's a photo of Grant starting to strip down for a cute girl from NJ who was the first person to buy lap dances from us. Throughout the night, she kept buying more dances and even started buying us rounds of drinks!
From left:"The Guy Who Told Us Not To Tie-Off Or We Might Lose Our Weiners", Jack, Kung-Fu Grant, and some young NYU kid. Jack looks like a real stud, doesn't he? Looking at this photo you'd never guess that he scurried out of the place like a little bitch ten minutes after the event got going.
Grant, author Jack Murnighan, and some Medieval-type guy who almost jizzed his pants when he learned that Jack had a PhD in Medievel literature. He kept trying to talk to Jack about various Medieval festivals he'd attended. It was great. What you can't see in this picture is that the Medieval guy is wearing a Crash Test Dummies concert-tee. Boo-Yah!
We returned to the safety of the Nerve offices the next day only to receive a standing ovation upon our entrance. We had returned from the land of crazed girls with our egos intact and a fistful of cash taboot. Thanks Cake!
Grant tallies up the Benjamins (okay, the Wahingtons and Lincolns) in my car after we had dropped off the girl looking to get some Hot Male Stripper Double-Dong Actionâ„¢. We both still have her business card that she so smoothly stuffed down our underwear when we were dancing for her!
With headband on, Grant gives his "rig" one final adjustment and he's ready to rock. Actually, at this time we were considering engaging in an age old male-stripper practice known as "tying-off." This is where one rubs his member until he's got some "bloodflow downstairs" (also commonly known as a "chubby"). Once chub status has been achieved, one takes a silk scarf or a piece of rope and ties it around the base of the penis, restricting blood flow and keeping the penis engorged.
Basically, doing this makes you look like you have a huge weiner and makes the girls give you more money because they're all too busy fantasizing about your enormous wang to think clearly. But just as we were preparing to "tie off," one of our fellow not-so-novice dancers, told us to be careful. When we asked why, he told us "Dude, if you tie off for more than 20 minutes you run the risk of....(dramatic pause) a rupture." Needless to say, we decided that it would be better for girls to think we had small penises than tie-off and risk having no penises.
Before heading over to Joe's Pub to be briefed on our stripping mission, Grant and I downed several drinks and consulted sex-advice experts Em and Lo about the kind of moves we would need to be busting to truly insight female frenzy. (By the way, Grant's wearing that fake moustache because he felt like he'd be inhibited if he didn't have "something to hide behind.")
Grant, Frank and Nina. Frank took one of those "fake butt" things, cut out eye holes, glued wig-hair all over it, attached a strap-on dildo, and transformed his entire head into a giant cockn'balls. I'm not really sure what the Star Trek shirt had to do with anything...
Nina, Grant and Viola. Grant's horns came off because he was so fervently making out with Nina...see how she's missing make up and he's got white shit all over his face? Where's her hand anyway? Jesus!
Grant, dressed up as Pan (the horny god of Baccanalia, appropriately enough) and Nina dressed up as a wood-nymph (they were supposed to be from a Midnight Summer's Dream).
Well, three steps into his "run," the board let out a loud "CRACK" and Grant bailed (like we all knew he would). Again, check out Ross screaming with laughter in the background.
Ross and Grant. Grant is pointing to these drunk women in the background. They were piss-ass wasted and bitching about how badly the Yankees had gotten beaten the previous night in the first game of the World Series.
There was this errant piece of wood that we leaned against the truck and in typical "I'm a British Idiot" fashion, Grant started talking smack about how it would be totally easy to run up it into the truck. Well, it quickly escalated into a dare and Grant (after 10 minutes of praying to the English god of Pussydom) slowly worked up the nerve to give the stunt a shot. (Check out Ross screaming in the background).
Underneath our "Greaser Jeans," all the T-Bird boyz were wearing matching, red, 50's-era, Banana-Hammock style bathing suits. We cooked up a boys VS girls sing-a-long routine to "Summer Lovin" and halfway through the routine, we all dropped our pants and wowed the judges with our matching marble sacks (and our manly physiques).
I edited together this montage of some choice cuts of the hits from the evening. (My favorite moment is Fatty's expression at 3:20) Enjoy! Track listing:
1. Christmas Wrapping
2. I Can't Go for That
3. Christmas Wrapping (part 2)
4. Head Over Heels
5. Plush
6. Peace on Earth / Ziggy Stardust
7. Let's Go
8. Fairytale Of New York
9. Creep
10. Don't You Want Me
11. Do They Know It's Christmas?
