[***This is Panama-length, plus some. What can I say? It was a wedding weekend and I probably won't even really cover half of it. ***]

Have you ever seen a stripper start reading a magazine in the middle of her act?

Like a Jet Magazine?

I have.

And let me tell you, if there is one thing that this world does not need, it’s lazy strippers.

However, not even a lazy stripper could bring down (though it did make me reconsider cosmic signs) the amount of joy and excitement I experienced over the past 5 days. I went back to Atlanta to witness the nuptuals of one of my good friends from college and let me tell you, it did not disappoint.

So, I figured I’d do a recap of sorts, partially for the entertainment value, and partially so I can remember this 10 years from now assuming this site is still up and hasn’t been taken over by the CIA or somebody. Just know that if one day you ever hear me talking about having a drink from Starbucks, well, click the “x” at the top right of your screen because the government is monitoring you.

Before I get to the festivities and the chroniclization of such festivities (and there wasn’t any real debauchery to speak of), I must take a second to comment on marriage and seeing your friends proclaim their love for eachother. Well, let me just say, it brought me to tears. Literally. The most gangsta of all gangstas was boo-hoo’n up in the wedding. Now, I wasn’t really crying, it’s more like I teared up because when the new-wife did her vows…man…there weren’t many dry eyes in the building. I loved seeing them get married, I loved seeing them happy, and I loved how good the two of them are doing together.

Basically, this made for one of the happiest times in my entire life. I was smiling the whole damn weekend. Just…good times. Neither of them read this site, or probably even know it exists, but I really do have to thank them for the fact that their love was able to make me so happy. It just felt good to be apart of it all. That’s that contagious stuff right there.

Well, I feel gayer now. How about you?

Excuse me one moment.

*going outside to rob somebody to retrieve my gangsta*

I’m going to take this day by day and try not to overdo it by being excessively long or anything about this. Okay, I’m kind of lying on that “excessively long” part. And I think I’m going to do this as a sort of “lessons learned” kind of deal. Shall we? Yes let’s…

Things I Learned on Thursday, May 25, 2006

-It’s hot as the fuck in Atlanta, even at 11am. I got off the plane and felt like I had just been hit with an Egyptian camel.

-Camp Creek Parkway is long as the fuck. I didn’t even KNOW that Campbellton Road eventually crossed Camp Creek Pkwy. And do you know why? Because there’s no good got damn reason to ever be that far down the road. Now there building all of these affordable homes so folks are moving out there, but it’s way too far.

-I’m definitely moving back to Atlanta. There are no ands, ifs, or buts about it. Not only do I love the city, but its also like a gajillion times cheaper than any other city I’d consider living, which would be: DC, NY, or LA. Sorry Des Moines, but your city sucks ass.

-It’s never too early to start drinking. Too bad it took us, me and my boy, The Most Shady, about a good 5 hours to actually get our first marital-induced drink. And it took me even less time to feel the repercusions of said drink. Time started to float…

-In Greenbriar Mall, the wings at Abdullah The Butchers are way better than the little wing spot in the back corner by the bathrooms. My boy, CoolBreeze, wouldn’t admit this outright, but he wanted another one of my wings…I didn’t want another one of his. And umm…no brokeback.

-A little short drunk man was going to get his ass WHIPPED up in Dave & Busters. This nigga got a little ignant when he thought I was by myself…even going so far as to tell me that he had his boys with him. Then a few of my boys showed up while I was talkign shit to him. Oh how the tables turned. I am glad we didn’t get into the fight that seemed like it was about to happen. It’s a wedding weekend.

-Patron shots at the bar in the arcade were like 4 bucks at Dave & Busters. Maker’s Mark? 3 bucks. And how do I know this? You friendly neighborhood, Xquizzyt1, was blessing us with her presence.

Let me just say something about your friendly neighborhood, Xquizzyt1. How about she showed up, and all of my friends loved her instantly. Too bad random other dudes did too. Poor guy. Have you ever seen a man’s spirit completely broken. I have. This overly loquacious gentlemen who was trying really hard to rap to a few of my friends before me and X showed up began attempting to deconstruct manhood, the man woman relationship, and other shit when we showed up. Me, I was drunk. So I just sat there and looked around curiously. And since X never met an argument she didn’t like, they went at it.

In what can only be deemed, “How Not To Get Into A Woman’s Drawz In 10 Minutes Or Less”, ole boy actually said to her…”I guess you aren’t what I expected…” El Dumass. She took his pride after that. Kicked it around on the floor. Then right when he went to pick it up…hurled that bitch into the bar. When he was leaving, he just put his head down and said, “bye.” But…

…on the brightside he gave me props when he realized I went to Morehouse. So he wasn’t all bad. He did recognize his superiors.

*evil snicker*

-I also learned that there are some cool ass folks from up in Chicago. But that would be a running theme from the whole weekend as the bride is from Chicago (and Milwaukee or Killwaukee as it was referred by one of the brides cousins or something…a lot of black folks were running rampant this past weekend).

Sheesh this is long already…I’ll try to speed some of this up:

Friday, May 26, 2006

Fuck the things I learned. I’ll just recap this shit.

So after leaving Dave & Busters, two of my friends brought me back to my boys house at like 2am…I don’t actually remember them leaving, but they did leave at some point. That’s how damn tired I was. So what does a supremely tired black man do after being drunk and going to sleep somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-something A.M.??

He wakes up at 756am and can’t go back to sleep. Fuck. Me.

Went to BBQ. Had a Michael Jackson dance-off at the BBQ. That was fun as shit actually. There were way too many dancing negroes…and I was one of them.

Oh and let me say…i HATE the gotdamned Cha-Cha Slide. Hate Hate Hate it. It is a sorry excuse for a group dance.

Oh yes, on Friday, Atlanta was once again…hot as the fuck. I started stripping. Please, put your dollar bills away. Though I did offer to strip for money at the BBQ. Word to the wise: If you offer me money, I might offer to strip. I also might say no.

Here, I must get into how following the cosmic signs is probably always going to lead you in the right direction. This is a story, please have a seat.

Goal: Entertainment for males
Location: As of 9pm, we ain’t have one AKA Sign #1

By 11pm, we were having fun at my boy The Great’s home and had started to get a little nervous about whether or not we were gonna be doing anything. We were drinking, having fun with a few folks. I’d met another person from Panama and a doctor who was moving to Maryland.

1130pm and nowhere to go? Sign #2 to keep your black ass at home.

1135 or something, we get a call to meet on Fulton Industrial at Riley’s. That’s a strip club. Ehh…we don’t want to roll at this point, but what the fuck, it’s for the groom. And he’s our boy. My boy has a spare tire on his car and we can’t go faster than 55 MPH. In Atlanta, that is a severe problem. Shit’s already far as hell, to have to drive it slowly?? Painful.

We get to Riley’s. Ready to party?? NOPE. You see, we aren’t actually going into that club, we’re waiting outside for some dude to show up with some of our own personal entertainment.

Wait time, one hour and some change. Sign #3. Me and my boy, The Great…get ready to roll. We want some Krystal’s (similar to White Castle but better). We start to leave and say fuck it, but we get the call. We deliberate and go against our better judgement…and go with the caravan. Sign #4.

Fuck it…let’s just say that when you go against your hunches, you get lazy strippers in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere.

And THEN the spare tire blows out on you on Piedmont Avenue leaving you stranded for like 2 hours while you wait for a tow truck to come get you. And you end up on Piedmont when you were just out in Austell (a long ass fucking way apart) because one of your boys also wants to leave the lazy strippers and asks for a ride.

Me, I drove to fast and blew the spare. Plus, putting 300 miles on that bitch in 2 days will do that to you. Luckily, one of our other friends was still up at like 4 something AM and came to get us from Stone Mountain…

…let me just say I really love my friends. And also, I skipped signs number 5 throuh 100 as to why we should have just stayed home.

GOT DAMNED THIS IS LONG.

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Get in at like 6am from the Great Piedmont Car Fiasco of 2006. Wake up at like 10am. Went out to eat lunch with a friend. I also gave this friend a tour of Atlanta of which she had never really seen before. See all these folks think they know about certain parts of the city. I had to take her ass through Adamsville and the real Southwest. Not just driving up and down Cascade. I also took her to Simpson Road and Center Hill. Went through Dixie Hills. Basically, if you ever really want a Westside of Atlanta tour, I’m your man.

Dropped her off. Went to hotel for party. Party was fun. Played spades. Set our opponents, TWO TIMES IN A ROW. On some straight Debo shit. And by the way, I was fuckin’ drunk off my ass. Too much Henny and not enough Coke will do that to you. Especially when you’re playing spades like this:

If you win the book, the other team has to take a drink. If you set them, you tell them they have to do some guzzling. Let’s just say, we were some drunk ass spades players. At about 230, we packed it in…except, I made some phone calls and two of my friends, including your friendly neighborhood Xquizzyt1 and everybody’s favorite Bulletproof Diva came through to hang out at the hotel with us.

And get your mind out the gutter.

They leave at around 4 or something. I really don’t remember.

I get back to my boys house at around 5am.

Sunday, May 28th, 2006 AKA Wedding Day

Wake up at like 9am. Get pissed because I’m up at 9am. Watch the History of Metal on vh1. Head out at 1130am to go to Lenox to do some shopping. Run into the friend I went out to eat with on Saturday. We kick it while she goes shopping. She tried on everything in every store we went into. Lots of fun was had by all. I dipped out.

Went to get ready for the wedding.

Wedding.

Let me just say that it was a wonderful ceremony. I was extremely happy and all the groomsmen and bridesmaids looked good. The pastor presiding…well, it must have been her first wedding because she fucked up more lines than Keanu Reeves doing Shakespeare. No lie…she said this:

“I now pronounce them husband and wife…or I will after they exchange rings. Oh yeah, and then kiss…wait, what else are they gonna do? I can’t remember. This is a wedding right? Fuck it…y’all just do your own thing cuz apparently I’m unprepared.”

Okay, I embellished a little.

The reception was the best party I’ve been to in years. I can’t even explain it. It was that much fun. I sat down for like 2 or 3 minutes in total when the dancing started. Slow dancing, line dancing, soul train lines, ATL dancing, a go-go segment. We had a party. AND an open bar. And we do damage to those.

Hell, I wish he was getting married again this weekend.

After the reception, we kicked it more. Spades, dominoes, late night runs to Krystal’s. Sleep time: somewhere around 3-4 or 5am. I really don’t know when.

Monday, May 29, 2006

Wake up at 730am. Say peace to the groom and tell him to enjoy his honeymoon.

Might I tell you that there is tired. And then there is fuckin’ tired. Bulletproof Diva had a pool party. Me and my boy, The Most Shady, went to sleep there. At a pool party.

Late night dinner, X, came through and hung out. In fact, she hung out on 4 of the 5 days I was there. She’s a trooper that X.

Sleep time at 1230am to wake up and go to the airport at 730am on Tuesday.

All in all, it was a great time, I got to hang out with new friends, old friends, and X all weekend. And I didn’t even really spend that much money.

So cheers to my boy and his new wife for providing a weekend I’ll never forget and here’s hoping that some of you people decide to get married and invite me to the wedding, I promise I won’t let you down.