We scored a rental car and headed to check in to our...oh, wait, did I forget to mention that our resort check-in date wasn't until Saturday and we'd decided to party the first two nights and sleep in our rental car? Hahah. Ok, so here's the story. Keep in mind, we went on this trip because my Uncle Bruce had a week at a luxury resort that he wasn't going to be able to use. That meant that we had a free place to stay from Saturday to Saturday. When we went to buy plane tickets, we found out that if we flew in on Thursday (instead of Friday or Saturday), our flights would be almost $600 cheaper. Considering we were both trying to save money (neither of us were working at the time), we decided that we take the cheaper Thursday flight and and just sleep in the rental car until Saturday when we were able to check into the fancy resort.
Despite what this story would otherwise indicate, Tobias must actually have a really good sense of humor. At one point during the five minutes he spent trying to get us to hit him, he pointed at me and said "Fuck you." then slowly turning to point at Scott said, "And fuck you." And then to further illustrate his point, he took his lil' marker back out and wrote this on the wall complete with arrows clarifying who he was directing "the fucking" at. That shit ruled. THAT should be his new tag. Tobias, if you ever read this, I'm sorry we gave you a hard time. Maybe we just caught you on a bad night?
PS - The fact that I'm sorry doesn't change the fact that you're tag is GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! Hahahahaha.
Then, much to Tobias' dismay, we started taking pictures of us giving his tag the dreaded "thumbs down." Oooh! That's gotta sting. Tobias was beside himself and spent the next five minutes standing in front of the bench we were sitting on trying to get us to start a fight with him. Tobias really wanted to fight, but only if we did something first. Scott, explained that since neither of us were going to hit him, if he wasn't going to hit us, he should just go away. Despite Scott's words, Tobias stood there for the next five minutes (literally, FIVE MINUTES) sounding like a broken record: "C'mon, hit me motherfucker. Come on, hit me. Hit me you, bald pussy. What about you, blondie? C'mon hit me. Let's do this. Let's do this. Yo, for real, yo. Let's do this. C'mon, hit me. Hit me..."
Towards the end, he mixed it up a little: "Yo, you're lucky it's just me. How about if I call my crew up and get them to come down here?" Scott, called his bluff "Tobias, it's 3:40am on a Wednesday. More than anything else in the world, I would love for you to call your crew up. Go ahead, call them up. And then when they get here, when you're "crew" is all here, we can fight. How does that sound? Does that sound good to you?" The audience that had gathered, laughed at this, and what little signs Tobias had earlier shown of calming down and leaving us along immediately disappeared and he began trying to get us to punch him with a newfound fervor.
At this point, Scott realized that Tobias clearly wasn't going to go away on his own accord, so in his loudest speaking voice (and keep in mind that as a former opera singer, he can speak very loud) Scott said "EXCUSE ME, COULD YOU PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE. I JUST WANT TO SIT HERE AND ENJOY MY DRINK AND YOU'RE IN MY PERSONAL SPACE." Tobias kept leaning into Scott's face saying "C'mon hit, me. C'mon!" etc. So again, Scott said "I'M ASKING YOU AGAIN - PLEASE STOP BOTHERING ME. YOU'RE STANDING TOO CLOSE TO ME AND YOU'RE TRYING TO PICK A FIGHT WITH ME AND YOU'RE MAKING ME UNCOMFORTABLE." Tobias didn't stop. So Scott stands up and Tobias steps up to get close to his face again. Seeing no other way, Scott turned his head to the sizeable crowd that had gathered to watch the very small guy persist to berate the very big, bald guy, and asked them "Does everyone here see what's been going on?" Before they could answer, Scott quickly dipped down low for a second and exploded out of his crouched position and with his outstreched arms sent an unsuspecting Tobias sailing backwards, legs up in the air, several feet through the air.
Tobias landed square on his back, smacked his head on the floor and continued to slide backwards with his legs up. He stopped just short of crashing into the bar (which, no joke, was a good 15" from where he'd been standing just a second earlier) and scrambled to his feet. In the sevearal moments that Tobias stood there wild-eyed and quaking, staring at Scott across the distance he'd just so uniquely traveled, torn between wanting to charge at Scott while at the same time understanding that the guy he wanted to charge at was the one that had just sent him hurtling through the air, the bouncer (that I guess had been standing outside on the street the whole time) heard the commotion, came running to the back, grabbed a hold of Tobias and positioned himself between the two men. As soon as the bouncer got a firm hold on him, Tobias, who'd spent the prior ten seconds in a state of non-action, started ferociously struggling to get free so he could kick Scott's "fucking bald ass." After thirty seconds of trying to calm Tobias down, the bouncer looking over Tobia's clearly larger opponent and told him "If you don't calm the fuck down, I'm going to let you go." Tobias immediately calmed down.
With Tobias under control, the bouncer walked over to Scott and told him that he was going to have to leave. At this point, the whole back room chimed in to tell the bouncer that it was the other guy that should be thrown out and Tobias (with cheers from crowd) was ejected from the bar. The bouncer, whose name was Jamal, came back in, and after hearing what had happened from a few onlookers, apologized and bought Scott a beer. Oh, and here's the best part:
Wednesday night I went to CBGB's (also on Bowery, wooo!) to see Chrisina Alessi's band, Hey Tiger. I went to HS with Chris and ran into fellow Roxbury High School alumnus, Megan Mee and Gary Chase. (That's 2 points for me!)
Afterwards I met up with Emily and we headed over to Nolita Tavern for a little late night Sid and Buddy karaoke which we arrived to find in full effect.
And...this is so exciting...after almost two years of super-nerdy "we're CYBERFRIENDS!" online correspondence...I finally managed to meet up with (the smoking hot...hooo-ah!) Emilie Elizabeth.
Ladies, you know him, you love him...and if you live in NYC, he's probably gotten drunk and tried to play grab-ass with you - it's Greg the Boyfriend! (Yo, besides Sarah's blog, Greg is the only other person I know whose website I actually read. If you haven't been there, go now.)
Around 5am, I headed a few blocks north up to Don Hill's to go see Sarah who was DJing at the Burning Angel New Year's party. Here's me with Sarah and Raphael.
Here's Vin getting ready to light what he's betting me $20 will be his "last cigarette...EVER!" (Update: He managed to make it for six days before he had to hand over a Mr. Jackson.)
After karaoke, we headed over to the *ahem* Roxbury Diner (which for as long as we'd known it had always been called the Victoria Diner before the Hatzimihalis family decided to go all weak on us and cash out) for some late night burgers...
You know him, you love him. Ladies and gentleman, put your hands together and give a warm welcome to Chi-Chi's Mexican Mall Strip's very own, Music Man Jo-Jo Russell! (Yo, y'all may remember Jo Jo from entries like "Thanksgiving 2002," the good news is, his long-promised website is finally up and running!)
For Christmas day, my grandparents and one of my mom's sister's family (The Carricks) came to our house. Christmas dinner in the house y'all. When I say "Hey," you say "Ho!" Now when I say "Je" you say "sus!"
...and packed in the car to go to south Jersey for our annual Christmas Eve with my great uncle and aunt Walt and Ann (You know the drill by now, we do it every year (. Here's the backseat crizzew: me, mom and Brett's girlfriend Amy.
Fare thee well Fatty! After seeing Dave off, Grant and I went to a bookstore and killed some time before we came back for him to drop me off (I was actually supposed to stay another two days, but being in 65 degree weather a few days before Christmas proved to be too much and I switched my flight so I could get home, do a little Christmas shopping and spend some time with my fam.
After I'd finished documenting our facial hair, we headed back to the house, showered (and I shaved, thank god), packed up and hit the road to head back down to Los Angeles (to attend the surprise birthday party that Jordana had put together for him. Shhhh!).
Those of you who know me know that I couldn't grow facial hair to save my life. Seriously, fifteen year olds with "dirtstaches" put me to shame. But after admiring Grant's crazy-ass cowboy beard, I decided that I wouldn't shave for six days and see what it looked like. And six days later...BLAMO! Check out my fucking beard!
What do you mean you can't see anything? Maybe you just need a closer look...
One of the ranch hands was kind enough to give our saddle-sore cityslicker asses a lift back from the stable to the house (saving us the embarrasment of a bowlegged walk of pain home).
So remember how I said these weren't no pussy horses? As soon as we got them on the open trail, they all started galloping. That's right: not a trot, not a canter, a full-on fucking gallop. Holy shit, I almost did something in my pants that would've put Dashiell to shame. Here's a pic Grant managed to take of me right as we all finally managed to slow them down.
After Fatty and I spent the better part of Wednesday getting acquinted with a few of the ranch's horses, on Thursday we were ready to ride. Here's me on the walk down...
Later that night Grant, Fatty and I went over to the The Buckhorn, the local cowboy/loggers bar to do some research for Grant's "Sex Advice from Cowboys" article. Here's me with the bar's very real stuffed bear.
After food we went back to the ranch and relaxed. Then later that night we drove to the nearest theater (like 45 minutes away) to see the midnight showing of the third installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. (Bonus points to Grant for flipping the bird while pulling a Pomodoro Guy face! Noice!).
After a restful night of sleep at Uncle Ira's, we woke on Monday to do some quick exploring of San Fran before starting the four and a half hour drive out to the ranch in North Fork.
Here's Grant and I in Ira's kitchen. We were all crabby from our drive and if I remember correctly were pretty much ready to fight each other (I'd SOOOO win) when this mutual "get a load of this fuggin' guy" photo was taken.
After getting settled in at Uncle Ira's, we all headed to downtown SF to meet up with some friends (my friend Alysha, Jamie Waxman, who we know from NYC, and one of Jordana's good friends from school) and have some Thai food.
So I was talking to this girl (whose name I've since forgotten - DOH!) and we found out that she was to Harvard (ooooh! faaaaaancy!) with my good buddy Seth Familian (who y'all may remember as the evil culprit in June 23rd's notorius "Story That Can't Be Told" incident). Hehehe.
MISSING PHOHTOS (oh no!)
After the Farmer's Market, Grant and I bid the Martin's farewell and embarked on a two-stop, six day trip. First up to San Fran to rendez vous with the Fatty (who had flown into SF earlier last night) and then the three of us were going to head to North Fork, California (just outside of Yosemite) and spend five days at Jordana and Ross' house located on a 4,000 acre ranch! Normally I'd have a ton of pics of the drive up, but in a far too common display of total incompetence, I somehow managed to reformat one of my camera's memory cards and about 50 pictures that I had taken with my second (and thankfully, less-used) camera.
...crazy-ass baby diarrhea. Grant and I were sitting on the couch and all of a sudden we smelled something that reminded us of a really sharp block of cheddar that had gone bad.
