Originally posted: July 15, 2005
I woke up Friday morning in my hotel room in Santa Barbara with, surpringly, no hangover. I patted myself on the back for my recent rediscovery of gin and rolled out of bed. Might as well get started. It was going to be a busy day, and already I was getting those familiar hotel jitters where I really hoped that the front desk had done a shift-change sometime between 3am and now.
Oh, and at some point that morning while everyone was packing their bags, Aye Aye had the hotel room door open, and the hallway-girls from the night before walked by. They peered in, saw Aye Aye, and made ghost noises as they walked away.
Boooooooooooooooooo…..
Ah ha! See, I told you they dug our act! And here you are thinking the Poop Street Players are a mere flash in the pan. Shit, I bet those girls are sitting outside of gym class right now talking about us.
“Green Day rules soooo much….”
“Yeah, but have you heard of The Poop Street Players? They’re gonzo!”
I don’t know if gonzo is a real adjective that the kids use, but I think I heard it on Laguna Beach one time. Not that I was watching Laguna Beach or anything! It just happened to be on before the latest episode of Road Rules Real World Marathon.
So anyway, we checked out of the hotel room, then met up with Dre for a Groomsmens lunch at Sharkees, then picked up our tuxes, then checked into our new hotel rooms, then threw on some nice looking clothes, then cabbed to the Reheasal Dinner at some classy museum/library-type place, then walked over to a wine bar, then headed to Dre’s hotel to drink a Night-Before-The-Wedding bottle of wine, then headed back to our hotel rooms to crash. Yowza.
That next morning I woke up with a slight feeling of terror. The Knife and I had written a kick-ass toast for the wedding, but had not yet had a chance to practice together. We were actually getting frustrated by it all, being that every time we tried to get together to work on it, a car full of out-of-town pals or relatives would drive up, and we didn’t want to be dicks and ignore them, so the script rehearsal kept getting pushed further further back. Finally we said fuck it, grabbed the script and a pack of smokes, and headed out to the Santa Barbara streets. We walked up and down the streets for a couple hours, going over and over the script. Being we were in California, we probably looked like a couple of poser actors preparing for their first commercial audition…
The wedding went off without a hitch. The place where the wedding/reception took place was seriously beautiful. I actually used the word “mesmerizing” to describe it, and didn’t feel bad afterwards. I need to figure out a way to be successful and married just so I can go back there. The woman who married them – I’d say minister, but I’m fairly certain she wasn’t a minister – was the ultimate Santa Barbara New-Ager. She was almost a mystic, I tell you. I was really amped on her. During the ceremony, she actually used the words “portal”, “infinity”, “dimension”, and if I recall, she even mentioned “physics.” I was so damn stoked on all the meta-physical vocabulary, that, had she mentioned the word “vessel,” I probably would have levitated over to her and slapped her five.
About an hour into the reception dinner, the wedding coordinator stopped by the table and dropped a microphone in the middle of it. She looked at me and said, “We’ll be ready for your toast in a couple minutes.” I leaned back and eyeballed The Knife. Showtime. Time to crap the pants.
Now, I don’t have a problem with being in front of crowds, and I sure as hell don’t have a problem with making an ass of myself in front of crowds. But there’s something about standing up in front of a Wedding crowd that just scares the shit out of me. Mainly, I guess, it’s that it’s not your night to be the star, or the asshole. There’s the fine line you have to walk where you want to display to your bro and his wife how happy you are for them and how important they are to you, but you also want to remember that the only ones who should be getting any serious attention on their wedding day are the ones getting married. Plus, since everyone’s going to remember this day, I’d sure hate it if one of the things they remembered was the jerk-off groomsman and his accidental “fuck” into the microphone. That’s a legimate fear of mine. I can practically hear the old women gasp as I think about it.
So The Knife and I stood up, gulped, grabbed the mic, lifted our champange glasses, looked out over the hundred-fifty or so people staring anxiously at us, looked down at Dre and Catherine who looked up at us with excited smiles on their faces… and began. Boom! We started rolling, bouncing back and forth off each other, smoothly passing the mic to whosever line it was. The audience was laughing at all the right places. Then we’d hit them with a sentimental line. And they’d clap! No shit, they’d actually clap! Then we’d hit them with another zinger, and they laugh some more. We were on a roll up there. Nailing it! And then…
Silence.
Both The Knife and I froze. Fuck! What was the next line? We just froze. You could practically hear the sound of ice cubes melting in rocks glasses it felt so quiet. All my old high school drama club fears came rolling back with a force… Uh oh…
The one good thing about being a couple of neurotic bastards, though, is that you don’t leave the house without a Plan B. So, we yelled out, “Line!” – a little theatre allusion for those in the know – and sitting over to the side of us was Jenn, nonchalantely holding the script on her lap. She looked up at me, mouthed the necessary keyword, and The Knife and I ran with it. We went right back into motion, and rolled the rest of the way. And I’ll tell you, as nerve-wracking as these toasts can be, looking down at your big bro and his new wife and seeing their huge smiles and wide, excited eyes, and knowing that they’re just digging it.. just fucking digging it… Well, hell, I’d do one of these things every damn day for that.
We finished the toast and the crowd cheered. I thought to myself, “That’s it. My last wedding toast. Now, I drink.” Dre stood up and wrapped his arms around The Knife and I and thanked us. For that moment, as the three of us hugged, all the crazy shit that boils in my brain and makes me a freakin’ space-cadet chilled for a moment, and it was just me and the bros. And it ruled…
It was a party from there on out. The dance floor immediately filled up and a couple of pretty girls pulled me out onto the floor. Ignoring my cries of “I don’t dance”, they threw me right into the middle and tried to get me to groove.
“Isn’t this fun?” they asked.
Uh, well, see I’m not much of a dancer. The concept terrifies me, to tell you the truth. I could fart in front of a Senator and feel less self-conscious. Every bend of the knee, every turn of the shoulder, sent nuerons firing up to my brain to be analyzed and re-analyzed and de-constructed and re-constructed until I felt like I was the only one out there, dancing alone in leopard panties, with the entire wedding party pointing and laughing at the dork with the leopard print wedged up his hairy ass. I should really take lessons. Or get a girlfriend. Or at least drink more. And the coolest thing I could think to say was, “Doesn’t anyone want to go out for a smoke?” Shit…
So the wedding was a blast and unfortunately eventually had to end, and all the happy revelers began to pack into the shuttles to head back to the hotels or the bars. Except for me. I stalled a little too long saying goodbye to Dre and Catherine, and when I walked out to the dark, woodsy area where the shuttles should have been, I found myself alone. Uh oh. Panic time. I grabbed my cellphone and furiously began dialing numbers. I connected with The Knife, and began shouting, “Dude, what the fuck!!! I just got ditched!!!”
And then Dre and Catherine pulled up in the limo and rolled down the window…
“Bones, everything ok?” Dre asked.
“Of course, man,” I lied. “Shuttle’s on it’s way to pick me up! You guys have a great night, ok???” I flashed my toothiest grin. And when they were out of my range, I screamed back into the phone to The Knife, “You fucking assholes!!!”
Sadly, I guess the wine had affected my judgement, cause Dre was still in audible range. So, what he heard was a wedding-mode Bones gushing, “You guys have a great night, OK???” and then into the phone, “You fucking assholes!!!” He laughed his ass off.
Anyway, The Knife and Aye Aye felt so bad that immediately my anger subsided. It was my fault anyway. They called me a cab, it arrived, and it dropped me off at the bar before anyone else got there. Good things come to those who wait, apparently…
Eventually everyone made it to the bar, and we laughed and drank and raised hell for the next few hours. Until, of course, that horrible old Last Call reared it’s ugly fucking head. We all piled out of the bar and conglemerated outside.
“Let’s go party in the rooms,” we yelled.
“We need beer!” someone smart yelled.
“We’re on it,” yelled Jesse and I, and we headed off on foot into the Santa Barbara streets in search of a liquor store. Two dudes hauling ass – a skater in a suit and a weirdo in a tux – desperatley looking out for any window that might have a neon “Budweiser” sign still buzzing. Finally we stumbled across a gas station, grabbed two cases of bottled Bud and threw them onto the counter, with one minute to spare before the evil “No More Alchohol Sales” law kicked in.
We lugged those big ole boxes of beer back the 3 or 4 blocks to the bar where we expected everyone to be waiting. They weren’t. “Mother fuckers! I’ve just been ditched for the second time in a row!!!” I yelled.
It wasn’t true. The gang had no reason to think they were supposed to wait for us. But, I guess I just wanted to be the screaming martyr for a moment. I blame it on the wine. I’m not used to drinking quality wine…
Jesse and I cabbed to the hotel and lugged the beers up to one of the rooms, where a big mass of drunken couples were all hanging out. Not suprisingly, they just couldn’t figure out what the hell Jesse and I were pissed about. But at this point, I had convinced myself that I had been ditched twice (ignoring the fact that both times were my fault), and I was all cranky, and all I could see were couples everywhere. I gave up.
I handed the beer off to someone and said, “Look. I’m calling it a night. I’m just too stressed. Night’s over for ole Bones.”
The Knife and some of the others kept trying to reason with me. “Oh c’mon, man, chill out, grab a beer. Have some fun. It’s why we’re here.”
“No, I’m sorry. I’m done. I’m calling it a night. I’m just too pissed.”
I turned around to head out of there, and spotted a glimpse of the girl I’d been talking all night chatting outside one of the rooms. I turned back to my pals, looked up at them, shrugged, and said, “You know what? I think I’m over it. Let’s grab a beer!”
“Yeah!” we cheered.
And we walked into the hotel room to join all the others, where we’d spend the rest of the early morning laughing, reminiscing, drinking, and cursing the sun that would be showing up all too soon…
