Really Really Pimpin' in Da South....No, REALLY

Just more proof that the 11th Circuit is the best Circuit of All Time....

If you haven't heard about the pimp game opinion yet, let me educate you. This is by far the best judicial opinion I have ever read. If you disagree, then I'll "trunk" you. Pay special attention to the first eight pages, then let me know if it is accurate pimpology.

11th Circuit.....This is how we do.

U.S. v. Pipkins
http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200214306.pdf

Great Case

I found this case this summer while researching for something else. It's funny, simple and well-written. It comes from a state appellate court district within which is my hometown. I'm including it here only because I find it hilarious. Hope you enjoy.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.
STATE of Florida, Appellant,
v.
Alvin WILLIAMS, Appellee.
No. 90-2258.
Aug. 22, 1991.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Bonnie Jean Parrish, Asst. Atty. Gen., Daytona Beach, for appellant. Nathan G. Dinitz, Daytona Beach, for appellee.

PETERSON, Judge.

“Don't you have anything better to do than bother someone trying to make a living?” was the question submitted by Alvin Williams to DeLand police officer Margaret Lefavour on June 5, 1987, while she was arresting him for littering in violation of section 403.413(4)(a), Florida Statutes. The act for which Alvin Williams was arrested was one that he testified he had repeated a number of times before while operating a ready-mix concrete truck. Williams testified that, after delivering a load of concrete to a subcontractor who was constructing sidewalks pursuant to a Florida Department of Transportation (DOT) contract, he drove his truck forward several feet on the road right-of-way to clean the truck and to remove any concrete remaining in the chute or the mixing tank that might be propelled onto vehicular traffic on his return to the dispatch site.

A DeLand police officer saw Williams cleaning his truck and directed Officer Lefavour to go there and have him clean up the debris from the right-of-way. Lefavour arrived on the scene, observed a small pile of noncured concrete on the right-of-way, and demanded that Williams remove it. Williams explained that the subcontractor would clean it up and asked the officer to walk to the end of an adjacent parking lot to verify it. Finally he said, “Ma'am, let me get on the radio and call someone to talk to you. I see that I can't explain it. All you have to do is walk down to the other end of the parking lot and ask them. They're responsible for the cleanup. They told me to wash out here.” Lefavour then requested Williams' driver's license, explaining that, if he did not clean up the small glob of wet concrete, she would have to arrest him for littering.

Williams would not produce his driver's license and at that point asked Lefavour the above-quoted question, whether she didn't have anything better to do. He entered his cab, and upon exiting a few moments later, he was handcuffed. During the cuffing process, Lefavour positioned Williams' hands behind his back, but, allegedly because of a shoulder injury, Williams resisted this placement of one of his hands. Another officer on a motorcycle happened to be driving by the scene when he saw Lefavour apparently in need of assistance in taking Williams into custody. The motorcycle officer immediately drove to the scene, dismounted, drew his .357-magnum revolver, and assisted in the arrest. Williams was arrested for littering, disorderly conduct, and resisting an officer with violence. However, the information filed by the state charged only littering and resisting arrest without violence by “refusing to obey the lawful commands of Officer Lefavour or struggled [sic] against any legitimate attempts to place defendant in patrol car after being arrested.”

At the hearing on Williams' motions to dismiss the information, Williams testified that he had no tools that could have been used to pick up the glob of wet concrete, that it was the subcontractor's duty to pick up the cement debris placed at the job site by the ready-mix truck drivers, and that the DOT would not pay for a job until the cleanup was complete. He also produced evidence that the glob of concrete was picked up by the subcontractor on the very day of Williams' arrest.

Although Williams has never received an oral reply to his question, his arrest and the extensive judicial proceedings that ensued leave no doubt as to how the question would be answered. After Williams was arrested, he moved for dismissal on the grounds that the littering statute was unconstitutional. He also moved to dismiss pursuant to rule 3.190(c)(4), Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure, alleging that no material fact was in dispute and that the undisputed facts did not establish a prima facie case of guilt. The county court granted the motion to dismiss on the ground that the statute was unconstitutional and did not rule on the merits of the (c)(4) motion. The state then appealed the county court's decision to the circuit court where it was reversed and remanded to the county court. The circuit court found that the “facts of this case brought under this statute are subject to attack under Rule 3.190, Fla. Rules of Crim. Procedure”…

…We now vacate the county court's order declaring the littering statute unconstitutional, decline to consider the constitutionality issue, and remand for consideration of the (c)(4) motion. In essence, the case is back to the posture that existed at the time of the decision by the circuit court during the initial appeal. We agree with the circuit court that the (c)(4) motion should first be considered to determine whether this case can be disposed of without testing the constitutionality of the littering statute. The Florida Supreme Court has noted that courts should avoid holding a statute unconstitutional if a fair construction of the legislation will allow. State v. Ecker, 311 So.2d 104, 109 (Fla.1975), cert. denied, Bell v. Florida, 423 U.S. 1019, 96 S.Ct. 455, 46 L.Ed.2d 391 (1975); see also State v. Williams, 343 So.2d 35 (Fla.1977); North Port Bank v. State Dep't of Revenue, 313 So.2d 683 (Fla.1975); State v. Aiuppa, 298 So.2d 391 (Fla.1974); Armstrong v. City of Edgewater, 157 So.2d 422 (Fla.1963). We believe that this duty extends to avoid ruling that a statute is unconstitutional if the case can be resolved in another manner. In this case, a ruling on the (c)(4) motion may finally dispose of this case; if not, the next route of appeal perhaps will be less circuitous than the first.

REVERSED and REMANDED.
GOSHORN, C.J., and GRIFFIN, J., concur.
State v. Williams, 584 So.2d 1119, 16 Fla. L. Weekly D2349, 16 Fla. L. Weekly D2224

Believe it or not, I'm sleep-ing on air....

Hey America! Want to wake up feeling cold, achy, and unfulfilled? Want to partake of your weary slumber on something that makes you sound like you've "cut one" that all the kids at summer camp would be proud of every time you roll over? Get an air mattress! Only forty dollars (twenty dollar pump with no other uses not included)!!!!

Airing it Out

"Stuck you for your stash in your pissy mattress..."

I have been sleeping on an air mattress for the past week and boy is it wonderful. It is amazing how they can design such wonders as this --featuring trendy material like felt on top of vinyl, a $20 air pump that is not compatible with anything else in the history of mankind, a shape too big for full size sheets and too small for queen sized ones, and material that attracts and shares more dirt with its owner than The National Inquisitor.

One night on the air mattress reveals even more great feats when it comes to engineering. It takes like 10 minutes to inflate. It provides absolutely no back support and is virtually incompatible with pillows. It retains absolutely no body heat whatsoever. It does not maintain its air pressure or integrity for more than two nights. What a modern marvel.

Last night was exceptionally fun. Thanks, Mother Nature, for that unexpected cold front this weekend. Ironically, all my sweatshirts are in 80-degree Florida, and all I have up here are t-shirts. I woke up at like 4 a.m. in the morning, and I felt like I had been sleeping on a soft ice cube at Chilly Willy's. I went downstairs and realized I had no warmer clothing. Not to be defeated, I put on 3 t-shirts and microwaved a bath towel for two minutes which I took back upstairs with me and stashed underneath my blanket.

Now, uber-strong as it is, the air mattress felt like it was going to buckle when topped with my burly frame, two sheets, a blanket, a hot towel, two pillows, and three t-shirts, though I eventually settled in and began the road back to Sand-man-land. However, refusing to go down without a fight, Coleman's finest portable sleeping accoutrement began drawing me in like a Venus Fly Trap. Sinking in to the middle, the ends of the bed began to rise, exposing my appendages to the unduly harsh atmosphere of the room, which now contained less heat than Freddie Mercury would feel reading Hustler magazine. The air mattress had managed to defeat conditioned air, three layers of cotton, sheets, blankets, hot towels, the principle that hot air rises (I was upstairs), and one 98.6. What a night.

I woke up at 7:30 unable to sleep anymore, back aching, freezing, with eyes with more baggage than Michael Jackson. And my first final is tomorrow.

I think I might just try sleeping on the floor tonight. Hell, if it got Arnold laid in Twins, it's got to be good enough to get me more than three uninterrupted hours of sleep......

Drunk Post

"Especially when I'm drunk off the liquor/ Smokin funk by the boxes, packin Glocks is/ natural...."

One of my goals was to make a drunk post. I am attempting to achieve that 2 nite. I am kind of drunk. I drank and then I went home and drank more. Hold on.....

OK. I just took out my Glock and started playing with it. It kind of makes that quote up there more true. But I am not stupid. I am not playing with it loaded. I keep it unloaded because I am careful. It is not a toy. I do not treat it like one. Perhaps "playing with it" was an exaggeration. Please don't send this post to one of those stupid citizen groups. Screw them.

I don't know what else to say. Getting drunk is cool. But the problem is that getting drunk used to be enough. Now, getting drunk is not enough to be cool. You have to get drunk and do something stupid to be cool. I remember when getting drunk was cool in and of itself. I want to go back to those days. Partly because it only took 5 Icehouses to get drunk (and because Icehouses tasted good back then), but also because it was just fun to get drunk. Now, you have to spend a ton of money to get drunk and spend a ton of money to do something else cool . I, as a broke-ass person, am not down with that shiznit. I wish I had mo' money. I mean cash, and not that movie with Damon Wayans.

My gun still smells cool. My wife went out of town and screwed me over. She left me P-nut butter but no jelly, cookie sheets (aka baking trays) but no oven mitts, 2 teabags but no sugar, dishes but no d-ter-gent. I am pissed.

I have a lot more to say.....I want to be h-e-r-d. I am not having too much luck with the opposite sex recently. Wifey and I had a fight. There are 1 or 2 female classmates who will not talk to me much anymore, and I have no idea why. My only female friends are "Camp" and "M.D.Y." And it is not because my blog is offensive to women.

I just realized that drunk I am still more gramatically correct than most of my high school friends. Mabye I am not drunk enough.

Florida is cool. A lot of people diss Florida, but they suck ass. Florida is a fun state that is very closely divided politically. That makes it exciting, not bad. An example of a bad state is South Dakota. It is cold, sucky, cold, sparse, poor, and landlocked. Florida has cool things like sunshine, "no tax week," no state income tax, the Daytona 500, C-World, and more lakes than Minnesota, which calls itself "the land of 10,000 lakes." Those misleading bastards should call themselves the land of 10,000 flakes. I have no more use for this topic.

I started some trends, man. I liked pro wrestling before it was "cool." I like Chappelle's Show before it was "funny." I liked that song, "Victory," on Puff Daddy's album in 1997 before it was "awesome." I liked the High Life before everyone knew it was the "Champagne of Beers." I knew that the election for the Pope was going to be short and was going to elect an insider for the new Pope. I am cool like that. I started the trend of liking me before it was "cool." Oh, wait, that's not cool yet? Oh, okay, well try me again in 10 yrs. or so.

Well, I am probarbly going to pass out now. Thanks for glistening.

-- The Real Dookie

P.S. -- there has been no "Shield Update" for the past 2 weeks. This is because it does not need an update. The Shield is cool and it has continued to be cool for this year entirely. If you don't watch it, you should slit your wrists or at least apply for handicapped funds from the government.

Extra! Extra! (S)Law Review Student Almost Starts Racial Conflict!

“She grabbed my arm/ and said ‘Let’s leave calm’…”

By popular demand, I will recount the story of the near race war almost started last week by a younger member of the law review.

Last week we had our annual (S)Law Review banquet, the usual course of events being a bunch of nerds dressed up, discussing cite checking and law with professors and each other, ending at the “wild” time of 10:00 p.m. This year, however, the event produced quite a bit of near-fireworks. Here are some of the mildly amusing things that happened:

1. “Gelato” and “Camp” arrived together, prompting one employee of the LR to speculate that they were an item. We were just glad she was talking about something as mundane as this, compared to last year, when she talked about her sex life.
2. The bar tab at the restaurant was a flat cap, meaning that once the set amount of dollars were reached, drinks were no longer “comped.” The R.D., sensing how this system could be abused by one who arrives early and drinks quickly, kept ordering revolving rounds of whiskey sours, Kamikaze shots, and beer until the tab was tapped. I ordered about 9-10 free drinks, as opposed to the 3 I got last year. I refer to it as my “sense of fiscal responsibility to ensure that no dollars of the bar tab were wasted.”
3. Camp asked “Professor Rooker,” an Asian professor at our school with incredible teaching skills but an odd sense of humor, if he would do a Kamikaze shot. Upon hearing this, I exclaimed to Camp, “You Racist!” Camp, who was three sheets to the wind at the time, thought I was serious and felt horrible for a while. Camp, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry, I’m a bastard. But it was too funny.
4. An attractive 2L from the LR almost started a racial conflict.

What? What was that last one? That’s right, we almost got involved in a racially based argument/fight with a customer at the restaurant. Here’s what happened:

“Chaps,” a younger member of the LR, apparently also took advantage of the LR’s bar tab system and got really, really hammered. Chaps is an attractive, female member of the lower class who dated another member of the LR earlier in law school and is single now. Maybe because she was uncomfortable being there, or maybe because her Baptist upbringing has inculcated in her an inability to drink moderately (i.e., either you can’t, or you can’t stop), Chaps got so drunk that she could not walk, talk, or even sit straight. I first noticed her on a trip back after “breaking the seal,” sitting in a bar stool, swaying back and forth with a glass of red wine talking to a customer who was most decidedly NOT a member of the LR party. Chaps’s audience was a black guy, about 6 feet tall, and probably about 250 pounds, and looked to be about 40 years old. He was clearly flirting with her. After I passed her, I looked back, and Chaps nearly fell over in her stool and onto the guy’s lap, prompting him to smile and laugh, and then act as if nothing had happened. The worst part was that “Chaps’s Wingman,” some girl who I don’t know, was standing right next to her and was not intervening.

So, let’s recap: we have a drunk, lonely girl, still drinking, 10 minutes from Pukeville, inhibitions totally gone, possibly about to go home with a 40-year-old man drinking alone at a low-quality Italian restaurant at 10:00 at night, with a friend nearby who would not stop the madness. The R.D. could see that the dookie was about to hit the fan, and hence summoned Gelato to help him intervene.

Gelato and I had a simple plan – intervene in the conversation. This would take two people – one to interrupt the “conversation” (if you could call it that) and one to get the drink away from Chaps and help stand her up. Then we would take her to “Wingman’s” car and get her the hell out of there before the LR was spending some of its bar tab on vomit cleaners. Unfortunately, as I pointed out to Gelato, this plan forced us to “cock block” the dude, but we thought it was necessary before Chaps did something she would regret or got herself into a bad situation.

The plan worked fairly well. Gelato cut in while I grabbed the drink, which we drank (so she could not). We criticized “Wingman” for her lack of proper wingman etiquette, but she was cool, and promptly agreed to drive Chaps home. Chaps took ahold of my arm and Gelato’s and we walked her out. The condition: I had to walk her by the LR table so she could calmly say goodbye to everyone. So, after Chaps’s slurred goodbyes, which sounded more like German than like English, we got her out to the car and they drove home.

Gelato, being the nice guy that he is, decided we should go apologize to the dude for interrupting him. After Gelato apologized, the dude turned around, clearly upset. Then, the dude dropped the bombshell:

And I quote, “I thought you guys were just playing the game of getting the White girl away from the Black guy.”

We have just lost cabin pressure. Now, we were so shocked that there was an awkward second of silence before Gelato and I reassured him that we were just trying to get our drunk friend home before she did something she regretted, like attempting to drive home herself. “Spritz,” a female 3L member of the LR who likes wine and was nearby, also chimed in, telling the man that we were “two liberal guys from the law school” and that “we weren’t like that.” Now, while I appreciated her non-sequitur-ish, off-topic, lies about my/our political affiliation, they did nothing to calm the situation. Gelato, who to this day takes full credit for calming the situation down, adopted the somewhat better strategy of over-laughing at everything the guy said after this point in order to convince him that we thought he was a good guy and were not racist, angry, or bad in any form. I chimed in with agreement, although I could tell for some reason the guy liked me even less than he like Gelato, of which I can’t understand, unless my absolute amazement and irritation at him for attempting to play the “Race Card” was showing on my face. Well, it probably was. Here were some of the ridiculous things the guy said after that, followed by our attempts to calm him down (to the best of my memory):

[Race-Card-Playing Black Man]: I didn’t want to go home with that girl. I don’t need another ‘mistake’. I’m not like that.
[Gelato]: [incessant laughter]: That’s right. We know that. You don’t want another mistake. You’re a good guy. We’re sorry we had to interrupt you.
[The R.D.]: Yeah. [I just agreed with Gelato and followed suit. I just smiled and tried to conceal the look of scorn on my face. I just kept thinking about have been lied to by a lot better and lot more genuine guys than this. This dude clearly wanted to take the girl home. I mean, she fell over into your lap, guy, and you just kept flirting with her. Give me a break!]
[RCPBM]: I have a 15 year old son at home. I don’t need another ‘mistake.’
[Gelato]: [laughter]. Wow, a 15 year old son. You don’t want another mistake. You’re a good guy. We just didn’t want her driving home.
[The R.D.]: If you don’t want to go home with drunk girls, than you are a better man than I am. [This was my one good line of the conversation, I hoped it calmed him down.]
[RCPBM]: I mean, I don’t want another mistake. I’m not like that. I don’t go home with drunk 3Ls.”
[Gelato]: [laughter] Drunk 3Ls? That’s awesome. No, no, we’re not saying that you do. That’s awesome. Neither would I. We just didn’t want her to drive home.
[The R.D.]: That’s right. [At this point the look of scorn on my face was probably visible. First of all, Chaps is a 2L and not a 3L. This means that this guy was probably not even listening to what Chaps was saying to him. Second of all, if you didn’t want to go home with her, guy, perhaps continuing to flirt with her and letting her almost fall over into your crotch was not the best way of demonstrating your intentions to the outside world.]

After several more repetitions of him using the phrase “I don’t want another ‘mistake’” in varying forms, and us agreeing, we squashed it and went back outside. We didn’t even buy the guy a beer or anything. Gelato seemed convinced that “we could take him,” and I agreed, but I still could not believe what had happened. I felt bad, sad, and angry all at the same time. We stayed for another hour or so, having a few more drinks, and then we all went home. I think “the incident” ruined some of the night’s potential for me.

Just for the record, please note that I am not racist in any way. I am offended by racism, sexism, and discrimination on the basis of religion and national origin, like any decent person should be. I hope I didn’t even need to say this part, considering the fact that this blog is a virtual shrine to a black man, but I just wanted to be sure. If it was a 40 year old white dude trying to get with Chaps, I’d cock block the hell out of him, too. Was I out of line to be angry? Do people really use the race card to justify behavior like that? Am I a bastard, a good friend, or just lucky that Gelato was around? I don’t know. I thought it was the right play at the time. If I had to do it over again, I’d do the same thing.

I saw Chaps the other day and she didn’t even thank us for taking care of her. I guess it’s true that no good deed goes unpunished. Or, maybe she just doesn’t like me because I’m white.

Update

Just wanted to send a quick explanation and apology for the lack of blogs lately to my 1-2 loyal readers. I am exhausted. The past week featured moving the fam to the O.C. and a stressful group of projects I had to get done for school. I have been averaging a good 5 hours of sleep per night, if that. New posts are coming later this week. For now, please feel free to use the comment feature to tell my ass what you want to read about. Here are some ideas I had about future posts. Let me know which ones sound good or bad:

1) A long, long, long one about the worst experience of my life, also known as buying a house.
2) A picture of Justice Scalia I took last Monday, if anyone can figure out how to email pictures from a Verizon phone
3) The weekly "Shield update."
4) Some more stories from my personal collection re: weird things that happen to my high school friends and me.
5) More Random reflections on society.
6) "This week's sign that the Rapture is near," taken from Sports Illustrated's "This week's sign the apocalypse is upon us," this will feature a weekly list of very screwed up things that I have noticed which suggest that our time on this earth is short.
7) Drunk Slaw Review student almost ignites racial conflict -- a little diddy from last week.

Well, love to hear from you, and sorry that the low-quality blogs you have become used to and accepted have been missing this past week.

Puffery!

"Smokin' mad Newports / 'cause I'm due in court...."

"Camp" and I were walking back to school from lunch today when we had probably the most surreal moment in recent memory.

As we crossed the street, one of our colleagues from the (S)Law Review, normally a quiet and unassuming fellow, was giggling like a schoolgirl with his friends. We only noticed him address us as we were almost past him, but he said something to us like "...he's smoking a cigarette!", and thrust his arms aft to the side door of the Law School.

As Camp and I approached the door, we saw none other than Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court, reading some papers and puffing on a cigarette, surrounded by four Federal Marshals and a Metro police officer.

Camp and I just walked in stunned silence for a while, attempting to soak it in. We both had different internal reactions that made us stunned, but we could not make out a full, coherent sentence for a while. Camp kept repeating over and over that "He should know better than that!", referring to why such an educated man would be puffing on a cancer stick, especially considering his age and weight. I agreed, but added later that "There probably are a lot of people who would be glad to know that Scalia smokes."

Camp was in such "shock and awe" by Scalia's small fireworks that she repeatedly refused to allow me to take what would be this blog's finest picture -- the potentially new Chief Justice sucking down some nicotine right outside my school. Camp redeemed herself later by allowing me to use her camera-phone to take 4 pictures of "Uncle Noni" later that day, one of which will hopefully be up later this week.

Justice Scalia was in town to visit the law school and lecture on one of his favorite topics, "An Originialist Approach to Constitutional Law." He spoke to an Admin Law class, a Con Law II class, the Federalist Society, and later, the entire school.

Here were some highlights of the presentation(s):

1. At the Admin Law presentation, Scalia smacked down "Bull" after Bull turned a Standing discussion into a whiny complaint about the length of time it takes the court to hear cases alleging important deprivations of constitutional rights.
2. "Gelato," a friend of mine who manages to be nerdy, personable, funny, accepting, and offensive all at the same time, berated Assistant Dean "Spamdine" for not having enough seats to accommodate one of the Scalia presentations, forcing us to have to "retire to an anteroom" and watch the presentation on closed circuit TV. He also told her that he would not be giving any money to our school. Spamdine, not too quick on the "comeback train," waited for Gelato to walk away before she muttered a paltry "Oh, Please."
3. Justice Scalia, during his discussion of a case where the Court held that a state law forcing election campaign ads to list the source of the advertisement was unconstitutional (Scalia dissented, believing the law was a legitimate exercise of a state's police power), discussed why his brother-in-textualism, Justice Thomas, broke sides with him to vote with the majority. He noted that Thomas was taken by the argument that the Federalist Papers, one of the nation's first memorable political writings, originally listed the author's name as "Publius," a pseudonym. This prompted huge laughter from Gelato, "Syria," The Magic Williams, and myself (if you do not know why, read the next paragraph).
4. The look on Justice Scalia's face via closed circuit TV, and the corresponding laughter, when one of our more wordy professors, "Silverburg," attempted to carve holes in his lecture via the use of an overly long and complicated hypothetical.

[During the Clarence Thomas Confirmation hearings, it was alleged, among other things, that Justice Thomas used to place his pubic hairs on, or "Pube," if you will, Anita Hill's Coke Can and/or coffee cup. Hence, we found it rather amusing that Justice Thomas would be so taken by the "Pube-lius" argument.]

All kidding aside, it truly was a great thrill to meet Justice Scalia and hear him speak. He was a laugh riot during his speech about the dangers of having a "Living Constitution." I personally find myself agreeing with his opinions often (possibly more often than any other Justice in some areas of the law), so it was a special treat for me. I have a strong feeling that Camp, who often avoids giving me straight answers regarding her ideology, does not agree with Scalia very often, but still enjoyed the presentation. Syria said later that hearing the "Pube-lius" comment was one of the defining moments of his law school career. The only downside was some of the stupid questions that law students asked him. I even heard one girl after the presentation say something to Scalia like, "that argument is kind of simplistic, no?" Maybe he had to dumb it down for you, honey.

As for my final thought, let me just say that it does not surprise me in the least that my Law School can drive even a visitor for a day to smoke.

The Best Worst Trip Ever

"With a calm breath I say, 'We gots to float'/Throw Lil' Cease the keys to the boat..."

My friend "M.C." once told me recently he wanted to compile a list of the craziest and funniest things that have ever happened to us, and maybe even make a small book out of them. Now, while the book would surely lose money, since it would take all of our resources to spell-check his work, it still is a great idea, for the sheer volume of f'ed-up things that happen to us is fairly startling. Anyway, if we did go ahead with this idea, this would be one of my first submissions. I hope I do it justice.

My high school friends and I grew apart really fast after we left town and all went to different colleges. Because I am the most nostalgic and needy of the group, I proposed a yearly trip so we could all re-acquaint with each other. The most ambitious trip I had ever planned was the subject of this post -- a 3 day, 2 night Canoe/Camping venture through Central Florida during Spring Break. The participants on this trip were as follows: M.C., of drunk-dialing fame, "Cue," at the time a neurotic engineering student and co-planner of the trip, "Leminem," at the time an unassuming, quiet college kid just coming out of his shell, and yours truly. Although we had several pre-trip follies, including M.C. running out of money, almost grounding our trip, closed rural roads requiring a detour, and a severe housewife-like overpacking by all four of us, we managed to arrive at our destination and get into the river only an hour or two behind schedule.

The real fun began after we left civilization behind. It started out okay, just like your average horror movie -- 4 kids drinking heavily, busting each other's balls, and being carefree. A few hours later, fatigue settling in, we realized we had several problems: 1) it started to rain, despite our canoe rental place assuring me that "it does not look like it is going to rain for the entire week." 2) there was very little public land for camping, despite our canoe rental place assuring us that "unlike the Suwannee River, most of the land along the Santa Fe river is public." In fact, the count was something like "No Trespassing" Signs: 140; Drunk, Easy River Chicks: 0, a reverse of what we had hoped for. Finally, we found some abandoned, unmarked, uninhabited land just before sunset, and set up camp. We began a campfire, and cooked the most perishable food first. Now, about half an hour later, some crazy hick appears on the land sitting on other side of the river and begins yelling at us. At first, we have no idea he is even talking to us, hoping he is just sacrificing himself to the Rain Gods, but eventually Leminem and I canoe over to see what the fuss is about. Crazy-Hick-Man performed a few functions:

1) CHM informed us that the land we were camping on was private. CHM knew this because the owners, who bear no relation to CHM, apparently let CHM squat on their land to ward off "trouble."
2) CHM, possessing such great detective powers as he does, knew we were on that land because he had the cunning to spot our campfire, which we "did not hide too well." We informed him that we thought the land was public, and hence, as 4 near-drunk college kids, had no desire to conceal ourselves. Nonetheless, CHM did not withdraw his compliment of himself.
3) The real owners of the land were on their way.
4) After explaining to CHM that the canoe outpost told us that the land in this area was "almost all public," CHM did not believe us. We showed CHM the map where this area of land was circled by the canoe outpost for camping. CHM, in his role as enforcer, confiscated our map.
5) After all of his enforcing, CHM told us, "if you keep the fire down, and promise to be real quiet, they might let you stay."

A few minutes after we went back to the campsite, the owners, a crazy fat woman and her silent husband, showed up. After chastising us and the canoe outpost for several minutes, they demanded we leave their land. The reason? We could have "burned down their whole property" with our campfire and that we were "violating a fire ban in the area." Of course, what CFW had neglected to realize, was that a) it had just rained making a forest conflagration near impossible, b) we had our campfire controlled, in a small underground pit, with a partial lid on it, and c) obviously, if it took Crazy Hick Man all of his detective powers to spot the smoke from the fire, it couldn’t have been that big. We apologized to CFW and explained how the canoe outpost told us this was likely public land, that it was uninhabited, that there was no sign indicating ownership, and that the fire had been out for a while. Then, CFW attempted to confiscate our other map to use against the canoe outpost which, according to her "will do anything to get your money." Cue, realizing the ridiculousness meter had just hid redline, told her we were keeping the map. Of course, such Good Samaritans as CFW, CHM, and silent bob told us we had to leave immediately, despite the fact that it was almost totally dark out. To make us feel better, she added "its only 45 minutes to the public bridge." Thanks, Lady.

We encountered several more problems attempting to reach this mythical bridge in the dark. First, Cue slipped and hurt his knee on CFW's property, hurting his paddling ability. M.C. has also hurt his ribs or something. Furthermore, Leminem, not so renowned for his capacity for deep-thought at the time, forgot the posts to his tent. This meant that we were hauling 10-20 extra pounds of tent, spikes, and apparatus for a tent that we would not be able to raise off the ground. So, if we ever got to this mythical bridge, we would have to squeeze 4 adult males into a 3 person tent. Finally, we all assumed that CFW was telling the truth and that we were not allowed to even have a campfire, thus making all our frozen burgers and dogs worthless.

Finally, we got to the bridge and set up camp. The ground was so hard that our literal tent-pitching options were to sleep over a) a rock (concrete) or b) a hard place. To make things worse, our diet for the next two days would consist of beer, Pringles, mayo sandwiches, and cold oatmeal, but we tried to make the most of it. Tired and pissed, we were all about to go to sleep when we heard voices. M.C., who during a camping trip once handed me a fork to ward off "wild animals," grabbed his three-decades-old machete and prepared for battle. But what we encountered was much worse than wild animals or a criminal element. Much worse.

This night, trouble took the form of five drunk, ugly, stupid hick teenagers who had been sitting under this bridge all day with a case of beer. This posse was made up of two girls and three guys, and they could barely drag a sentence together. Among this motley crew was "Red," a chubby, odd fellow, and Elaine, a chubby, highly intoxicated girl who was lusted after by all three men in the group. As it turns out, the Hicks took quite a liking to us and wanted to "party" with us that night (I don’t really know how sitting under a rural bridge can constitute a party, but we didn't fight it). What turned us into friends? Apparently, I had passed Red's coolness test by having several "Boone's Farm" malt liquor bottles in my cooler. After offering him some, we were golden.

Now, I swear to God, I could blog for days about what all we talked about that night, but in the interests of brevity and sanity, and in the hope of keeping some of these repressed memories repressed, here are the highlights:

1) Red was glad they found us because they were "almost out of beer."
2) Red informed us that the Santa Fe River was much better than the Suwannee River, because the Suwannee River is "the color of your diarrhea."
3) Elaine was very easy.
4) Hick Boy #2 had just engaged in a sexual act with Elaine. We know this because Hick Boy #2 allowed Red to "smell his fingers." After this, Red informed the group that "That's some gooood p*ssy!"
5) Red was trying to get Hick Boy #2 to get Elaine to come over to his house after Hick Boy #2 was done with her.
6) Hick Boy #3 comes to Orlando a lot and would love to hang out with Cue and his friends. He then asked for the phone number to Cue's frat house. Cue, sensing that the Ridiculousness meter was almost at self-destruct level, gave Hick Boy #3 a fake phone number.

The following day we woke up, thankfully alone (the hicks had left after two hours or so), and all had backaches. I gave Cue and M.C. some tylenol and we continued on. We came across a local hero -- a seemingly crazy man who built himself a treehouse on public land, wore a leopard-print one-piece loincloth all day, and lived off the government, occasionally convincing the local park rangers to bring him cigarettes. We chatted with him for a while and found out that he allows campers on his site, but only if "there is at least one girl in the party." The gist of it was this guy was not crazy at all. He had a good thing going living off the government, and had even wired a phone line and electricity into his treehouse. Locals put him up during bad storms, and he had become a good attraction for the area. Now, on any other day this experience would still be blog-worthy, but not this day. We took several pictures with him and moved on.

Later that day, the guys and I were party to something that almost broke us apart forever. It is now, and forever will be, known only as, "The Paddle-Throwing Incident." Now, as a prelude to this part of the story, let me remind you how our mood was by this time. Our only reliable and non-gross source of calories were beer. We all had backaches. Cue and M.C. were both injured, with M.C. barely able to paddle on one side, and Cue finding it hard to paddle on the other. Leminem forgot the most important part of his tent other than the tent. I had picked both this river and this canoe outpost. To make matters worse, we were sunburned and fatigued. M.C. was in charge of bringing the sunscreen, but to my amazement brought non-waterproof sunscreen. After I grilled him about it, he attempted to justify his choice by saying "it was a gift from [my girlfriend]." Perplexed, we paddled on. At the time of the incident, Leminem and I had gotten ahead of M.C. and Cue, and Cue was getting on M.C.'s case for always paddling on one side of the boat. I was getting on M.C.'s case for the sunscreen. You combine all of these factors, and tempers are going to ignite faster than a controlled substance at a metal concert.

Then, it finally happened. M.C. had stopped again to rest his hurting side and re-apply sunscreen again, and Cue got angry at him. Leminem and I were peeved because we had to stop again, and so we all got on M.C.'s case. Then, M.C. just lost it. He took his paddle and chucked it in my direction, coming fairly close to hitting me (according to Cue). Then, Cue lost it. He berated M.C. so loud that I think he scared every snake in the area away, because we didn't see any for hours. Leminem and I turned the boat around thinking that a fight was a'comin, but fortunately, they squashed it. Then, after we all caught our collective breath, we realized there was another problem -- we were canoeing upstream, and M.C.'s paddle had gotten behind us during the shouting match. This was made worse by the fact that Cue's boat now only had one paddle to use to catch up to it with. After a minute or two of harsh paddling, they were finally able to grab it, just before things got really hairy.

Now, I know this story sounds hard on M.C., so let me just add the disclaimer that we were probably on his case too much, and that we were all about to explode. And, to his credit, M.C. turned all of that anger into elbow grease. After Cue let him have his paddle back, M.C. let out a huge grunt and began paddling like an 18th century schoolteacher. He spoke zero words for an hour and a half, grunting like a caveman as he and Cue sped past us to our next public bridge. When we caught up to them, M.C.'s knuckles were white, and Cue was speechless. We set up camp, and after one more round of cold oatmeal, beer, and mayo sandwiches, we made up for good, stronger than ever.

After getting to the bridge, we split up and searched for a payphone. M.C. and I went together to split up him and Cue. After hiking for over a mile, we found a payphone and called the canoe outpost. Those bastards were about to leave for the night, and the low-level employee who answered informed me that he did not have the authority to pick us up that night and give us a refund for the next day. I changed our pick up time to early the next morning instead of the next evening, and we schlepped it back to camp. That night, we played a memorable round of "never have I ever" (it was too windy and dark to play a card game) and fell asleep packed like sardines in one tent. Little did we know the legendary story that this trip would become over the years.

Epilogue:
The following day, after making it back to civilization, we complained to the canoe outpost owner about our experience. He did not offer us our money back, and we were too weirded-out and tired to demand it. After the drive home, Cue, Leminem, and I celebrated by going to Sonny's BBQ and hitting up that All-You-Can-Eat-Beef special. A week later, Cue and I sent complaints to the Better Business Bureau, citing the canoe outpost's lies about the weather, the true state of ownership of the property around the river, the fire-ban, the refusal to give us our refund, our spoiled food, and several other things. As it turns out after we got their reply, Crazy Fat Woman totally lied (or was misinformed) about the fire-ban. Ironically, we wasted all of that food for nothing. However, the canoe outpost compromised with us, returing the money for the lost food, offering us a free day of canoeing on any non-holiday weekend, but NOT giving in on the refund (isn't that bassackwards? Shouldn't it have been the other way around?). We ended up getting a check in the mail but not the free passes. We considered it a victory, because it's not like we were going to ever go back there, anyway.

The moral of the story? There are several: 1) You can get a lot further in life than I had heretofore thought with a leopard-print loincloth and a dream; 2) Always carry a bottle of Boone's Farm when you travel; and 3) No matter what you do, never, ever, ever do business with the Santa Fe Canoe Outpost.

The Man!

Shield update:

Last night's episode of "The Shield" was the best of the year so far. Vic, who for some reason has his way with ANY police dog trainer in America, convinced a dude to let his K9 spend an "extra" couple of minutes with a rapist, helping to insure that he'll never rape again.

Again, we see the Vic Mackey paradox play out -- police captains chastize him for being overly rough, brutal, and tending to "cut corners," yet as soon as that high-profile case drops, leaving them with a shitstorm of bad publicity, they tell Vic he's moving too slowly, and then tell him to "be creative" or "solve this case any way you can." Then, when the Strike Team delivers, they yell at them again for being too rough.

A quasi-expert on the Shield message boards says that Vic carries a nickel-plated .45 caliber semi-auto Smith and Wesson with the high-capacity magazine. I will take his word for it -- I was almost sure it was a .45, but did not know the brand. Personally, if I was a cop in L.A., I'd roll with a Glock, Sig, or Beretta before I went to a S & W. The last great gun S & W made was being carried by Murtaugh in Lethal Weapon.

Team Chemistry

“…your whole team-and/ Be Mor-gone than Freeman…”

[Note to loyal readers – I know, I know. This piece isn’t really that funny. It’s not even up to my crappy standards. If I had to characterize this piece, I’d characterize it as “filler,” pure and simple. Hopefully, though, it will produce at least a few chuckles.]

To a certain degree, life is all about teamwork under stress. In college and law school, I have had a lot of opportunities to work on group projects or in teams on various things, with some successes, some failures, some study-group horrors, and some outcomes that belong in a “what not to do” pamphlet. I have come to the conclusion that some people just aren’t meant to be teammates, and that forced teamwork can be worse than overloading an individual with stuff to do. Sometimes, you just have to cut the dead wood. Here are some examples.

In college, I had a teacher who assigned at least two group projects a semester, with the teams often selected at random. She often made us make a group presentation to the class, culminating in a discussion/debate about the reading material. I landed in a crazy group once with “FratBoy,” an oversized dummy who never came to class or did any of the reading, “Pigma,” a fat sorority girl who liked to bite off more than she could chew (pun, again, intended), “Hottie,” one of the hottest girls I have ever seen (unfortunately engaged to a dim-witted jealous-type from back home), and several other people who had a genetic disorder against contributing to the group. In our first meeting, which lasted about twice as long as it needed to, FratBoy kept desperately trying to impede our progress by asking me basic questions about the reading we were supposed to have done the week before in order to complete the group work. For instance, he would ask me a question about a certain theory of the book, to which I would give him a correct answer in 2-3 sentences, which he would then attempt to re-characterize in four totally-off base words, only three of which he had the intellectual capability of memorizing before the exam. Here is an illustration of the extent of our conversations:

FratBoy: So, what does the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs do?
The R.D.: Well, the OIGA is an organization that consists of fairly high-ranking officers from several areas and branches of government. One of the things [the professor] wants us to get from it, I think, is that it really helps deal with [a problem where different levels of government each attempt to address the same problem, causing inefficient behavior when they butt heads]. We saw this in [a certain case study].
FratBoy: Oh, so they help Congress, right?
The R.D.: [thinking] -- #%@^&*%#*@ !!!!

In order to get the hell out of there, I just started saying “Right!” whenever he attempted to “Cliff’s Notes” my interpretation of the reading. I don’t think I ever saw that guy again.

To make things worse, Pigma volunteered to spearhead the presentation to the class. I knew she would flop like a wounded duck in front of the class, but it was less work for me, so I agreed to write some stuff up for her. However, in one of those “I knew it” moments, Pigma, giving new meaning to the word “dead weight,” writes me this unsolicited email the night before the presentation, telling me she was “really sick,” and that “she knew I’d do a good job in her place” at the presentation. Of course, she didn’t send anything to anyone else, I in no way was her “backup” for the presentation, and she hadn’t prepared a thing, meaning our grade was feast or famine based on what little prep work I could do in a few hours.

The presentation ended up going okay, thanks to Hottie and my work on it, but as an added slap in the face, Pigma had the gall to show up for the presentation and watch me do all of her work. I would characterize her “serious illness” as moderate sunburn and possibly a hangover. The only saving grace was that Hottie and I got most all the credit, made fun of Pigma the rest of the semester, and I got some extra credit for being a presenter. Hottie thanked me, but not in the way I had hoped. Instead of telling me something like, “Your presentation was magnificent. It made me realize I need to stop settling, dump my current, slow-witted man and find someone like you…,” I had to settle for a “You were wonderful,” and count my blessings.

The moral to the story? Just as large knockers have taken some good men off the market into the arms of bad women, so too can a large engagement ring allow a good woman to fall for a guy so insecure that he would not even let Hottie study with me alone in a public library. And I’m not that good looking. Not at all. Just clownin’ (except about my looks) -- the real moral – keep the dead weight as far from responsibility as possible. I handled FratBoy right, but I let Pigma rake me over the coals twice.

Another experience to which I still have trouble understanding was my experience on a flag football team. Now, our team was the subject of several misadventures, some chronicled elsewhere, but what comes most naturally to this column was our team’s love affair with a player I’ll call “Egowen.”

Egowen on paper was the greatest flag football athlete ever created. He could have played college ball in several sports. He ran and could change directions faster than an alley cat running from a Chinese restaurant. He was stronger than an ox and cut like Stallone in “Cliffhanger.” He could catch, he could throw, he could kick the ball farther than I hit a golf ball, and he could play defense. In short, he was a dessert topping AND a floor wax. Rightly, we hung on his nuts like white on rice. But when I was ready to cut the cord, some of the rest of the team wasn’t, and it may have cost us a title.

The problem with Egowen was his attitude – he loved himself and at times couldn’t be bothered by the rest of us, whom he regarded as “weekend warriors.” Our first year of playing football together, Egowen hurt himself during the first game of the year and decided that it wasn’t worth “pushing it” by playing for us again and jeopardizing his status in another sport. The rest of the team and I were totally okay with this; our health came first. However, we were all pretty surprised the next year when Egowen decided to play with a rival team in the same league as ours. He claimed that he did not know there were two separate teams with his friends on them, and we all believed him (and I think his assumption was probably justified). However, we were all appalled when Egowen not only failed to atone for his honest mistake by showing up for the match against us that year, but also proceeded to single-handedly defeat us in the match of his former team (us) against his current team. You see, Egowen’s team that year was made up of a bunch of flag football scrubs, just like us. We were beating them when they decided to simply hike, hand off, or throw the ball to Egowen on every single play. They didn’t even try to fake us out. It was all Egowen, all the time, and we just could not stop him from making first downs. Then, they put him in on defense, too, having him rush the passer. They ended up beating us by like 3 points. Then the rest of the losers on his team, who only contributed to the victory in the sense that they showed up, preventing a forfeit, had the chutzpah to brag about “their win” over us.

Ah, but the tale does not end there. We decided to play one more year in the league, and the following year, we begged Egowen to play on our team. He did, but only sporadically. Here is a list of what happened that year. See if you can spot a pattern.

Game One – Egowen plays. We lose.
Game Two – Egowen shows up. We lose.
Game Three – Egowen does not show up. We win.
Game Four – Egowen does not show up. We tie.
Game Five – Egowen does not show up. We win, and make the playoffs.
Game Six – Egowen plays. We lose.

See a pattern there? I did too. To make matters worse, Egowen got hurt again in the first game of the year. He said he did not want to risk himself for other sports. We understood. However, we found out that after Egowen got better, he started playing flag football on another team, and never came back to our team until we made the playoffs and our Quarterback asked him to come back. In our final game, Egowen, known for his strong kicking ability, even missed an extra point. He described the team that beat us as a “bunch of great guys,” despite the fact that they tried to run up the score on us both times we played them that year. In short, Egowen is not going to get my vote for man of the year anytime soon.

I don’t know what it was about Egowen. Maybe he thought we were losers. Maybe we just relied on him too much, like a crutch. Maybe we just got lucky without him. Or maybe, as I would like to believe, there are some people who ruin team chemistry so much that it is not worth it to have them around, no matter how great they are at what they do. Maybe it was a combination of all of these. I don’t know.

I don’t know what would have happened had we played that last game without him, but I would have liked to find out very much. We probably would have lost by four touchdowns instead of three. But, at least I would have been able, as the ball was hiked, to look to my left, look to my right, and look back, and know that, win or lose, we were going to do it as a team.

The moral of the story: sometimes you can choose your team, and sometimes you can’t. When you can’t, keep the dead weight off your chest, lest they take you down with them. When you can, know that what looks good on paper isn’t always what works best in practice.

And that, they say, is why they play the games….

The Fine Art of the Drunk Dial

“…
[phone rings]
[B.I.G.] – Yo?
[voice] -- I’ma kill you motherf**ker
[B.I.G.] -- Hello?
[voice] -- Kill you motherf**ker
[B.I.G.] -- [sarcastically] WORD?
..........
[voice] -- Better watch your motherf**kin back
[B.I.G.] -- Watch my back? WORD?
[voice] -- I'm gonna get Biggie, I'm gonna kill Biggie
[B.I.G.] -- You soft dude, you soft……
[whispering]
[B.I.G.] – [yells] Eat a dick!!
[click]…”

Today is actually my half-sister’s birthday. One fully thing about my family is that I have two half-sisters and one half-brother. In one of those weird twists of life, I was born one day after my half-sister (in different years, though), and my half-brother was born one day after my other half-sister. This was done even though we all have at least one parent different from each other. You will soon find out that this is just one way my family is incredibly funked-up.

Anyway, my sister loves to get drunk and post odd pictures of her and her sloshed friends on an online photo book that she has, which I was visiting last night. Not people to leave such lasting impressions of ourselves on the internet, my friends and I, however, have a different way of expressing to the world our drunkenness. Well, we actually have many different ways, some legal, some illegal, all I hope to tell you about (when the Statute of Limitations has run, of course), but I’m going to focus on our oldest tradition – the fine art of the drunk dial.

Now, this tradition dates back to even before I was old enough to drink, so I have it down to an art form. Of course, it doesn’t take that much effort, normally, just a phone with a lot of free minutes (it gets expensive, quickly), a few drunk people, and a funny message or idea we attempt to pull over on a sober person (often one who has been asked to join us and snubbed us by refusing), but my friends and I have made it more elaborate. We use the phone of a stranger so the number can’t be immediately known. Sometimes, we will videotape or tape-record our best schemes. One or two times, we broke out a dry-erase board, a video camera, paper, a speaker-phone, and lots of notes, going until the wee hours of the morning leaving people ridiculous messages. Wine in a box makes you do funny things.

Listed below, in no particular order, are some of my best drunk-dials, and some of the ramifications:

1. The Child Molester
I have a friend, “CrazyLiberal,” who (I think) has been on a dry spell with the ladies for a while. Despite the fact that we lived and worked only an hour apart this summer, he never hung out with me. Some facts about CrazyLiberal: he is a crazy left-wing socialist-type (kind-of), he loves flying airplanes, and he has been single for a while. So, we staged an elaborate plot where we would leave him a message and play multiple roles. “M.C.,” one of my older partners-in-crime, was a federal agent. “Yvette,” his girlfriend, was a little boy whom CrazyLiberal molested after taking him for a ride in his airplane. I was the informant who got nabbed on a drug beef and gave him up. We worked in how we knew where he had worked this summer and how they had reported him putting pictures of it over the internet (which is why it was a federal case), and also a back-handed dig on his leftist poltics. It was awesome. We had to leave a message, because he didn’t answer, but it was still one of the best ever. CrazyLiberal didn’t speak to me for a while after that.

2. A Current (Lesbian) Affair
One time, I had “Yvette” drunk dial “Camp,” a female friend of mine who was working far from home over the summer. Left a message for Camp saying that she was the girl whom Camp met at a club in the city where Camp was working, and let on that they ended up making out that night. Yvette was awesome. Then, I added in a little twist. Since Camp was engaged to be married, I had Yvette add in that she was hoping they could “close the deal before [Camp’s] wedding,” because Yvette would feel a little uneasy about making it with a married woman. Camp ended up freaking out and didn’t figure out who was responsible until like two days later, when her man, who is a friend of mine, called our bluff. She ended up telling some of her co-workers about it and how scared she was. In fact, one of her friends brought it up when school started back up a few months later, allowing me to re-live the thrills. That one’s a first ballot hall-of-famer!

3. If You Can’t Take the Heat…..Don’t Lie
I put this one in mainly for the reaction it got. I have a crazy friend, “C.J.,” who went to college and high school with me. C.J. was a substitute teacher for a while after college to raise some money before he moved on to bigger and better things. Now, C.J. used to be a notorious gossip, responsible for more than his fair share of unfair (yet funny) rumors. Now, we had heard, although not from a reliable source, that he hinted to his substitute kids that he used to date my wife, or, at the very least, that he did not deny the rumors (the truth: they were married once – in a theater production!). So, one night we got tanked after a “Casino Cruise” and spent the ride home drunk-dialing his ass. I don’t remember what exactly what I said, but my sarcastic side was at work. I said that my wife wanted him, and remembered how good he used to give it to her, and was ready to leave me for him. I said I had heard the shit he told his class and I was ready to fight, then my friend “Slave” chimed in and said some other ridiculous shit about how C.J. was a liar and just wanted to date his students, or something like that. We were falling-over-ourselves drunk and could not stop laughing, so we were obviously kidding. But the next morning, C.J. flipped out. He called me like 6 times, and then, when I would not answer (it was too damn early!) he came over to my house to tell me off. I was leaving at the time to go study, so he started following me in his car and after I pulled over told me how “he would never do that,” and how my call was “F—ked up” and all of this. I apologized over and over, told him I was drunk, added that he should have known that I was drunk, and that it was weird that he came over just to berate me for an obvious joke. We have squashed it since then, but his reaction was legendary – we still talk about how someone is going to “pull a ‘C.J.’ on us the next morning.”

4. Pump, Pump, Pump It Up!
One time, “M.C.” had an acquaintance who was a huge jerk. The dude was just a loser and M.C. rightly thought he was a dirtbag. So I called him from my phone and apologized for the lateness of the call (it was like 1 a.m., Eastern), and told him that I was calling from Amsterdam. The reason? He had ordered such a large amount of erectile-dysfunction drugs from our overseas warehouse that we were going to have a problem getting it to him in one shipment. A also wanted to confirm that he actually wanted to order 2000 E.D. pills, and that this was not just a typo. It was over the top, and fantastic. Then, M.C. chimed in and totally gave it away, saying that this amount of drugs would produce a stiffie “longer than a tree” and “was more than enough to satisfy a whole football team” or something like that. I don’t know how we held back from laughing, because when we watch it on video now (yes, I know, we are sick bastards), we can’t even hear the next line we are laughing so hard.

Well, I’m sure there are a lot more I have neglected, but hopefully I have not missed any of the greatest ones. If I have, or if you have one that tops any of mine, feel free to leave me a comment.