Flame on!!
You ever have those nights where you purposefully go out LOOKING for an awesome time? The party sometimes finds you, other times you or people around you MAKE the party. Either side can't be controlled too much, or else the night ends up becoming an average-to-good memory. I still am always surprised whenever a social outing turns into much more of a great time than previously expected. The night in question was this last saturday night, and I was already having an incredible day fighting off an incoming cold. The sniffles, the throat-gags, and watery mucus threatened to run my plans into the ground before the first drop of alcohol touched my weezing mouth. I wasn't having it, though, because my boy Phil was in town for the weekend and we hadn't properly hung out with our friend Brian in a long time. As long as Phil provided the gas money for the hour-long trek to Santa Cruz, no amount of nose liquid was stopping me. I slammed two glasses of airborne, put on an extra jacket, and joined Alyssa and David in the trendy mitsubishi gallant.
We hung out a Brian's for a couple hours, drinking Pelican Ranch wine and shooting the preverbial shit. This was the first time that Phil's brother had met him, and some subtle foreshadowing took place. Our intial plans of hot-tubbing at Alyssa's were killed, as the weather was a classic Santa Cruz winter...pouring like a rainforest. We decided to make our way over to the Red Room and see who had stayed behind after finals and have a couple drinks. I had never been out with David, and was interested to see how he interacted with our chemistry grad student friends when alcohol was thrown into the mix. Luckily for us, there were quite a large amount of people still in SC, and both floors of "The Red" were packed with 20-somethings. I ordered my usual cranberry and Stoly, and shook hands with a few new people around the area. We were already nice and loose from the big jelly jars of wine we drank at Brian's, and neither I nor David were looking to slow down any time soon. With that said, I offered to buy David a drink as long as it wasn't a double shot of 151 (fuckin' Irishmen and their titanium throats). He brought up a drink called the "Flaming Jesus", which was a shotglass filled with some grenadine, vodka, and a a splash of 151 on top. The barmaid had to be schooled on this new drink, and I was just a interested to see what it looked/tasted like. As soon as she started to make it, David saw that she was making it wrong. She wasn't layering it properly, there was too much 151, and it was filled all the way to the brim. With the strike of a match, our glasses were lit, and I stared at him for further instruction. It wasn't brain surgery, just pick it up, blow it out, and slam it (in that EXACT order, please). We picked them up and each gave a sharp blow across the top....only to have the 151 fly out of the glass and onto our fingers, with the fire following microseconds behind. Suddenly, our hands were engulfed in a low blue flame that grew bigger and bigger by the second. We blew again and again, but it only made it worse. Both of us then proceeded to stare entranced at our flaming hands for a couple of moments too long, and then the pain set it. I quickly put my drink on the floor and blew my hand out, and in the process knocked David's drink onto the floor as well. We're hearing cries of "Holy shit, dude! Oh crap, what the fuck!!", and the bouncer coming closer and closer. We practically had to stamp out the flaming son of God (after a quick sign of the cross, of course)because now the carpet was catching on fire. Yikes! Well, only about HALF the room saw it, so it wasn't too embarrasing. We were mostly frustrated at the amount of alcohol we just lost, and picked up our spilled glasses and drank the thimbleful of liquid left inside. Ouch, now my fingers hurt, mostly because they had just been on frickin' fire! I was reminded of the late Richard Pryor, and his first response to lighting himself on fire in a freebasing accident: "Hmm, well that's a pretty blue. It kind of feels like, FIRE!!!" Fire= funny.
After telling our story to our friends at the table, we went upstairs into the new lounge area of the Red Room. The last time I was here, Brian and I were fairly sloshed, and nursing our Pimm's and ginger ale until last call came around. I don't even remember anything except for the fact that the lights were red, there was a bar, and I was sitting on a couch. This time I was much more aware of the surroundings, and was able to enjoy it much more. We quickly ran into the some chemistry friends and their new friends from after Phil and I graduated. I met the infamous english "wanker", who was quite British but fairly interesting to talk to. We took up two tables and chatted until just before last call, where we walked out the door and allowed David to work his magic on two interested girls for a couple more minutes. One of them lost points in my book by touching my plugs with her bare hands one too many times. Lady, they're open wounds, so keep the hands off. The other one was chill, and had an english accent, but was giving off a heavy lesbian/bisexual vibe to every girl who came into her proximity. Still, very entertaining. From here, we headed to Alyssa's friend Christina's house to pay a quick visit. This is when things took a turn for the openly sexual. David had just come off a gaggle of drinks throughout the night, capping it off with a gargling (literally) of a 151 double-shot. That'll git-er-done! He got fairly belligerant, and went into many vocal rants, ranging from his drinking skills to mathematical talents. This, of course, brought out the not-so-inner nudist that is Brian and his craving for center stage. I gazed down at my cell phone for all of ten seconds, before which Brian sat across from me fully clothed...then looked up to a fully butt-ass naked version of Brian. If he hadn't already secured the title of "Guy I've Seen The Most Times Naked", then it was firmly etched in stone that night. The next thing I knew, he was hurling his naked body at Phil, David, and I. Phil and I have long become desensitized to his display of epidermal confidence, put David was far from it. His drunken spazzing only added fuel to the homo-pseudo-sexual fire, and the gyrating became even more intense. But it was okay, because I got some nice cell phone camera pictures. The room busted into laughing hysterics, and Brian became the center of attention again. It's good to be king, I guess. On the car ride back, we had to explain how Brian's antics worked to a momentarily creeped-out David. Just pretend you can't see his ballsack, and he'll eventually go away. He's like a T-Rex, he can't see you if you don't move or respond. I went out with the guy almost every day last summer, and had many a day dealing with his wiry nude body and the cock-on-the-forehead alarm clock. Hahaha, I LOVE my friends.
P.S.- Christina was actually really turned on by Brian's display, and seemed almost honored that such a unique event took place in her room. Her friend Trevor, however, seemed a little less amused.
We hung out a Brian's for a couple hours, drinking Pelican Ranch wine and shooting the preverbial shit. This was the first time that Phil's brother had met him, and some subtle foreshadowing took place. Our intial plans of hot-tubbing at Alyssa's were killed, as the weather was a classic Santa Cruz winter...pouring like a rainforest. We decided to make our way over to the Red Room and see who had stayed behind after finals and have a couple drinks. I had never been out with David, and was interested to see how he interacted with our chemistry grad student friends when alcohol was thrown into the mix. Luckily for us, there were quite a large amount of people still in SC, and both floors of "The Red" were packed with 20-somethings. I ordered my usual cranberry and Stoly, and shook hands with a few new people around the area. We were already nice and loose from the big jelly jars of wine we drank at Brian's, and neither I nor David were looking to slow down any time soon. With that said, I offered to buy David a drink as long as it wasn't a double shot of 151 (fuckin' Irishmen and their titanium throats). He brought up a drink called the "Flaming Jesus", which was a shotglass filled with some grenadine, vodka, and a a splash of 151 on top. The barmaid had to be schooled on this new drink, and I was just a interested to see what it looked/tasted like. As soon as she started to make it, David saw that she was making it wrong. She wasn't layering it properly, there was too much 151, and it was filled all the way to the brim. With the strike of a match, our glasses were lit, and I stared at him for further instruction. It wasn't brain surgery, just pick it up, blow it out, and slam it (in that EXACT order, please). We picked them up and each gave a sharp blow across the top....only to have the 151 fly out of the glass and onto our fingers, with the fire following microseconds behind. Suddenly, our hands were engulfed in a low blue flame that grew bigger and bigger by the second. We blew again and again, but it only made it worse. Both of us then proceeded to stare entranced at our flaming hands for a couple of moments too long, and then the pain set it. I quickly put my drink on the floor and blew my hand out, and in the process knocked David's drink onto the floor as well. We're hearing cries of "Holy shit, dude! Oh crap, what the fuck!!", and the bouncer coming closer and closer. We practically had to stamp out the flaming son of God (after a quick sign of the cross, of course)because now the carpet was catching on fire. Yikes! Well, only about HALF the room saw it, so it wasn't too embarrasing. We were mostly frustrated at the amount of alcohol we just lost, and picked up our spilled glasses and drank the thimbleful of liquid left inside. Ouch, now my fingers hurt, mostly because they had just been on frickin' fire! I was reminded of the late Richard Pryor, and his first response to lighting himself on fire in a freebasing accident: "Hmm, well that's a pretty blue. It kind of feels like, FIRE!!!" Fire= funny.
After telling our story to our friends at the table, we went upstairs into the new lounge area of the Red Room. The last time I was here, Brian and I were fairly sloshed, and nursing our Pimm's and ginger ale until last call came around. I don't even remember anything except for the fact that the lights were red, there was a bar, and I was sitting on a couch. This time I was much more aware of the surroundings, and was able to enjoy it much more. We quickly ran into the some chemistry friends and their new friends from after Phil and I graduated. I met the infamous english "wanker", who was quite British but fairly interesting to talk to. We took up two tables and chatted until just before last call, where we walked out the door and allowed David to work his magic on two interested girls for a couple more minutes. One of them lost points in my book by touching my plugs with her bare hands one too many times. Lady, they're open wounds, so keep the hands off. The other one was chill, and had an english accent, but was giving off a heavy lesbian/bisexual vibe to every girl who came into her proximity. Still, very entertaining. From here, we headed to Alyssa's friend Christina's house to pay a quick visit. This is when things took a turn for the openly sexual. David had just come off a gaggle of drinks throughout the night, capping it off with a gargling (literally) of a 151 double-shot. That'll git-er-done! He got fairly belligerant, and went into many vocal rants, ranging from his drinking skills to mathematical talents. This, of course, brought out the not-so-inner nudist that is Brian and his craving for center stage. I gazed down at my cell phone for all of ten seconds, before which Brian sat across from me fully clothed...then looked up to a fully butt-ass naked version of Brian. If he hadn't already secured the title of "Guy I've Seen The Most Times Naked", then it was firmly etched in stone that night. The next thing I knew, he was hurling his naked body at Phil, David, and I. Phil and I have long become desensitized to his display of epidermal confidence, put David was far from it. His drunken spazzing only added fuel to the homo-pseudo-sexual fire, and the gyrating became even more intense. But it was okay, because I got some nice cell phone camera pictures. The room busted into laughing hysterics, and Brian became the center of attention again. It's good to be king, I guess. On the car ride back, we had to explain how Brian's antics worked to a momentarily creeped-out David. Just pretend you can't see his ballsack, and he'll eventually go away. He's like a T-Rex, he can't see you if you don't move or respond. I went out with the guy almost every day last summer, and had many a day dealing with his wiry nude body and the cock-on-the-forehead alarm clock. Hahaha, I LOVE my friends.
P.S.- Christina was actually really turned on by Brian's display, and seemed almost honored that such a unique event took place in her room. Her friend Trevor, however, seemed a little less amused.