Did We Just Kill a Red Neck?

         We were on our way out of a bar in Panama City Beach called Ms. Newby's in search of our next adventure. We were in the parking lot when we saw two young guys having a friendly, shirtless, wrestling match under a palm tree in the rain. Seemed like the perfect people to ask where a good place to party is, right? Wrong. They immediately became hostile towards us and got in our faces demanding to know "why the fuck they seemed like they would know where a party is" in thick southern accents. I informed them that a lot of times people having shirtless wrestling matches in the rain know how to party.
           One of the guys came up to me all pissed off with pupils the size of dinner plates, and was clearly suffering from Napoleon Syndrome as he was one of the most riled up little men I had ever come across. Despite the distinct twang in his voice, he couldn't stop talking about how hard he was because he was from Detroit. I responded with a sarcastic, "Word Homie, D-Town down." That's when he turned on Eminem mode. This song is probably the best way to describe exactly the situation I was faced with.

          Now anyone that knows me knows that I can't help but laugh at this type of behavior. The other guy, who began as the more laid back one, had a trash stache that would make even the most rabid pedophile jealous, and a ponytail that made him look like a scrawny inbred Steven Segal that was conceived during a meth fueled conjugal visit.
          I don't claim to be a tough guy, and I grew out of the whole fighting people thing as a teenager, but if there were ever two people that I came across that were deserving of an ass kicking it was these two relentless pieces of shit. It was our first night going out in Panama City Beach, we didn't know what these guys were capable of or who they knew, and the closest person that had our backs was 1000 miles away. We decided it was easiest to just get in our car and go and let these two shirtless degenerates get back to rolling around with each other in the rain.
          Dan was in the driver seat with the key in the ignition when the white trash ponytailed guy pulled his door open. He was able to pull the door back shut as the turd nugget began punching the window. Inbredinem must have thought he was the Hulk or something by thinking he was going to keep us from leaving by standing behind the car and kicking the bumper. Dan slammed his car in reverse as we quickly backed out and heard a loud thud and a faint yell. Ponytail asshole was bruising his knuckles while he was trying to punch through my window. I sat there looking at him with a shit eating grin on my face as Dan put the car in drive and we laughed the whole way down the street about how he just used his Camry to take out the toughest little red neck ever produced by the Detroit streets.

“If there's not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be really whack and boring or something.” -Eminem

If a Pictures Worth 1000 Words, I got 2000 Hilarious Words

So I must say Dave did a bang up job recounting our trip to the Big Easy. I just want to add a couple things he left out either because he was too drunk to remember them or too embarrassed to publish them on the inter-web:

After a long day and night of walking Bourbon St. Dave found a nice comfy seat

Just another pretty "girl" my drunken compadre was able to reel in

As you can see, Mr. Newell had no shortage of good times. I was up to my usual antics as well, however unfortunately due to Dave's inability to be a functioning human and figure out how to use the camera on my smart phone not many of my proudest moments were captured (which is definitely for the better).

Mardi Gras for the Party Brah

         We had finally reached downtown New Orleans after 15 hours in the car. It was now time to focus on our next problem. Where we were going to stay during the busiest time of the year in New Orleans. We had accepted the fact that any form of traditional vacation housing such as a hotel or hostel was completely out of the question. After checking the rates at some of the local parking garages near the Superdome we found an open parking spot at the intersection of Burgundy and Touro, only 2 blocks away from Bourbon Street. We were surrounded by streets that were illegal to park on and garages that were charging $35 a day. It may have been the best parking spot in the city. My only concern was that all of my possessions, which at this point could fit in half of a backseat of a Camry, would need to be left in the car while we were out. The sunlight had just begun peaking over the roofs of the French Quarter when we decided to get some rest before the festivities began.
         In an attempt to make more room for my legs while I slept, I pushed my comforter up towards the windshield. This is when we had a major breakthrough. We could turn our car into a bad ass fort to live out of for the next few days. We tucked the comforter behind the rear view mirror and clamped it under the visors. There was still the problem of the side windows letting in light so we took off our pillow cases and rolled the window up around the edges so they could hang from the inside. In the back seat we covered the windows with my sleeping pad, the top of a box, and a dress shirt. With the dark linens facing outwards, our car just looked like it had tinted windows and no one would ever think there were two drifters sleeping inside. By the time the transformation was complete, our Mardi Gras fort made up of blankets, a sleeping pad, and a Camry with 223,000 miles on it, felt more secure than the Alamo.

Chillin in the Camry fort after a long day

          I woke up later that day to a pounding on my window. I pulled the pillow case aside to see Dan's cheerful drunk face and a few groups of people walking down our street. It was the first night sleeping in the car and I had slept like a baby sedated with elephant tranquilizers. It was the energy of Mardi Gras and none of my own power that allowed me to drag myself out of the car and onto my feet. I dug through my belongings in the back until I came across the captain's hat that was taken from the ship the Spirit of Rochester when my friends and I broke onto the boat when we were 16 to raid the bar. Next, I pulled out my suit coat that was still dirty and wrinkled from wearing it on New Years in New York City. I poured myself a cocktail, loaded up the backpack with the rest of the booze, and my Mardi Gras outfit was ready to go.

Dan the Man on the Mississippi with a sombrero

         This is the point where the story telling would be done better with a helmet cam than a blog. Writing about Mardi Gras to someone who's never been is like explaining sex to a virgin: you won't know what you're doing, you'll never want your mother to know what you did, and you'll feel like you've lost your innocence when its over.... and there's boobies. The next couple of days of my life consist of walking around New Orleans' French Quarter in a drunken, joyous, blur. There are countless ridiculous occurrences that won't make it to this blog, but here's a few highlights.
        After coming inches away from getting my skull stomped by police horse in the riots at UNH after the Red Sox won the World Series in 2007, I've had a bit of a fear of police horses. My drunk courage helped me overcome this fear, but the tomfoolery of a drunken Dave Newell made the fear resurface for what I expect to be the rest of my life. I was making my way down Bourbon Street when I thought it would be funny to get a picture with a police horse with my captain's hat on its head. Unfortunately, the officer riding the horse didn't share my enthusiasm for horses wearing silly hats. As soon as he noticed a wasted guy covered in beads trying to put a captain's hat on his horse friend, he immediately yelled "GET HIM!" And got me he did. The horse immediately charged me, but due to my past experience at the UNH riots I knew the most important thing to do was to stay on my feet. I ran as fast as I could, which proved to be difficult to do on Fat Tuesday in the middle of Bourbon Street in crowds of people. I pushed through my fellow revelers and tried to use my supreme agility to outmaneuver the horse as I felt his hooves giving my shoes flat tires and his chest on my back.  I had really expected the police officer to lay off after the first couple times he ran me down with the horse, but he was still having his fun while he repeatedly yelled "GET HIM!" There really wasn't much Dan could do to help me at this point, so he did what any good friend would do. Told everyone to look at the guy being chased by the horse while rolling on the ground laughing. I felt like a calf getting chased around a rodeo in front of thousands of cheering red necks.  I ran in circles while failing to evade the horse until I was grabbed by the strong, safe, arms of a footed police officer.  Considering I was scared the horse was going to stomp me until Bourbon Street ran red with my blood mixed with spilled booze like a Dave flavored bloody mary, I had never been more happy to be aggressively grabbed by a police officer, or any man for that matter. I apologized profusely with the realization that I was no more than a semi functioning drunken retard that had just tried to put a hat on a police horse. They told me to get off Bourbon Street and that I would be arrested if I returned. It takes more than that for me to throw in the towel on Mardi Gras. I took a lap around the block and got back to my previous shenanigans.

Happy because I just confronted my fear of police horses... right before I put the hat on its head

        On our last night in New Orleans Dan went back to the car because he was "Mardi Gras"ed out and we needed to get up early to figure out how we were going to jump our car since our battery was now dead. I was still in all of my drunken glory and hadn't yet had my fill of New Orleans, so we split up. I emptied what was left of my 1 liter of rum and coke into my gullet and met a couple of young ladies who brought me to a strip club to continue drinking. Being in a Bourbon Street strip club during Mardi Gras is like... well I don't know, but its fucking pointless. I was getting bored of the strippers and my new friends when Dan texted me and told me he couldn't bare to sit in a car when Mardi Gras was in full tilt. We agreed on an intersection to meet, I said goodbye to the ladies, and I ventured out. When Dan found me I was eating a bag of rolls I didn't buy in one hand and our trusty party spear that a flight attendant we had hung out with the night before gave us in the other. I was leaning against a steel police barricade when I noticed him. As soon as I saw him I tried to push off the barricade to walk over to him. Instead, I pushed the barricade to the ground as I tumbled to the street with it. The crash of the barricade was loud enough to get Dan's attention. We both laughed and agreed that it was a very good thing he came back out. I picked up the party spear, brushed off my roll, and walked into a nearby bar. A nice couple handed me my wallet that I dropped on the ground right inside of the bar. To show some appreciation I bought us a round of SoCo shots that I really didn't need. Then the DJ made a humongous mistake. He put on "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor" by Drowning Pool in front of a shitfaced Dave Newell carrying a party spear. Needless to say, things took a turn for the worse. Mardi Gras was coming to a close and I was ready to explode with all of my remaining party energy. I stomped around the dance floor slamming my spear on the ground and shouting as a 15 foot radius cleared around me. It wasn't long before I was asked to leave.

Party spear compliments of Xtina

      The walk back to the car was equally as reckless. I picked up the habit of asking every girl I made eye contact with if we just had a moment. It turned out to be a great conversation starter. I was kissing one lady's hand when I saw her husband come up behind her. He didn't seem mad but I told him "Sorry for kissing your wife, sir." He must have misunderstood what I said because a big smile came across his face as he said "Sure you can kiss my wife! Go ahead and make out with her!" Feeling compelled by the gentleman's kindness and the hilarity of the situation, I acquiesced. Continuing down Bourbon Street towards the car I kept getting into pictures with random groups of people that complimented me on my captain's hat, which was now decorated with Mardi Gras beads wrapped around it and dangling off. All of the photos were in absolutely preposterous poses. I can't help but laugh that there's probably a picture on someone's facebook of a voluptuous black girl getting her butt bitten by a random drunken captain.
         We made it back to the car and we were pleased to discover that we had made it through Mardi Gras without getting our car full of our belongings messed with. We made some tune ups to the fort and basked in the glory of what had been an incredible Fat Tuesday. I had survived horses, husbands, and head banging hard rock. I needed a break. Instead, it was on to the Spring Break Capital of the World the next day once we jumped our car...

"Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?” - Hunter S. Thompson

The Descent Begins

           We we're debating the idea of going to Mardi Gras in a Taco Bell parking lot 15 miles outside of Pittsburgh when it all began. To understand the desperation and seemingly reckless decisions made on this Debaucherous Descent, you must understand how someone ends up in a Taco Bell parking lot deciding whether or not they should drive directly to New Orleans so they can make it there in time for Fat Tuesday. I had graduated college a year earlier with hopes of traveling the world. 8 months later, within 24 hours, I found myself newly single, homeless, having just watched my only car get thrown into a pile of metal by a massive fork lift, and working a job I hated in my former college town. I was due for a drastic change. I moved to Pittsburgh with my friend Mike who gave me a room and a job until I got back on my feet. I had lived at 6 different addresses in 7 months when I decided it was time to hatch a new plan with my college roommate, Dan.
             Dan had graduated 9 months earlier and watched his friends settle for jobs they hated so they could start climbing the corporate ladder towards their hopes of wealth and stable happiness. He, like myself, felt that we were too young to settle for a life full of stability, happiness, and wealth when there were too many opportunities for excitement and danger out there. Dan was due for a drastic change. We had always spoken about making big moves after college, but they always seemed to get swept under the rug when we woke up and realized how drunk we were during most of those conversations. It was the end of 2011 when money was saved, neither of us were being held back by anything, and we both had a certain sense of desperation to either find an adventure, or submit to becoming boring contributing members of society. Somehow we made the unplanned and random decision that we would load all of our belongings we could fit in his Camry, drive to Panama City Beach, Florida, and figure out where to live and work once we got there.
            Dan had come to Pittsburgh and met me as I was celebrating my last night in Pennsylvania. He found me sitting at Sonny's Bar looking right at home as a 50 year old blonde I had been talking to belted out every word to "I Love Rock N' Roll" about 5 inches from my face.  The next day we managed to drive an entire 15 miles before we decided it was time to pull over for some fast food and get stoned. I was about half way through smoking a spliff and 4 bites into my second Cheesy Gordita Crunch when we realized that New Orleans was in the midst of Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday was only 4 days away.
           We had planned to visit Baltimore the first night, Washington the next, then onto Raleigh, North Carolina, and finally Atlanta to stay with some friends on our way to Panama City Beach. Within 2 minutes of our realization that we could be in the South, unemployed, and homeless while being only six hours away from one of the biggest parties in North America, the plan was altered. That evening we continued on to Baltimore to meet up with some of my high school friends and check out the nightlife. We went to a place called Power Plant Live, which was set up as a semi-covered mall comprised entirely of bars instead of stores. Around 3 a.m. we made our departure towards D.C. We noticed the Washington Memorial from the high way and decided that that would be a good area for me to walk off my Baltimore-buzz while quoting Forrest Gump before it was my turn to drive.

             I cruised through the night to Raleigh where we stayed with Dan's friend, Zach, in the huge house that the golf course he works for was letting him live in. We left the next day with Bourbon Street in the GPS and nothing but our open minds and the magnetism of Mardi Gras in our hearts. We skipped the stop in Atlanta and arrived to New Orleans' French Quarter at 4 a.m.




"So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains
And we never even know we have the key"- The Eagles