Reporters Gone Wild, Meow Style

This is the story of three editors and a vendor. See what happens when writers stop being sober and start being: drunk.

Mark, Jay, Matt and I got an invite from Marilyn Monroe on the Las Vegas Convention Center floor to attend an open bar at the Hooters Hotel and Casino. This screamed class to me. Of course we were going. Marilyn Monroe + Hooters girls + Open bar = Mandatory attendance.

The liquor was provided by a company called ShowRack which Matt kept calling ‘the RackShow.’ Classy AND appropriate.  I started the evening off by ordering a Bud Light then changed my mind to a Jack and Coke. I got both anyway. I’d been at the party 45 seconds and I was already double fisting. Yup. That’s just the way we roll.

Three shots of whiskey and three glasses of Jack and coke later — I was chasing shots of Jim Beam with Jack and coke, which is always wise — the open bar closed an hour early. Daunted, but determined, the four of us wandered downstairs to the Hooters bar to keep imbibing what I like to call ‘adult soda pops.’ Which we did. For a long time.

Eventually, Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ start blaring over the PA. We’d been loudly drunk for a while now, but hadn’t reached abnoxious quite yet. That all changed with one word: Meow. Jay, a non-journalist, but all around great guy had been kind of quiet while we were at the bar. I thought he was just hammered, but I now realize he was simply biding his time. Waiting for the right moment to make his move.

“I see a little silloutte-o of a man/meow meow MEOW/meow meow MEOW/Can you do the fandango?”

You know that surprised look that you sometimes get on your face when someone drops some knowledge on you after drinking for a while? He got it from the three of us in spades. And thus began the long and magnificent decline that lead to the videos you see here.

We must have sat at the bar and meowed for a solid two and a half hours. We drove patrons away. Bartenders tried to ignore us. Hookers looked for easier pray. And still, we meowed. No song was untouchable. Eddie Money? Journey?Alice in Chains? Barry Manillow? Meow.

Finally, Tom Petty slithered down from the speakers to where we sat at the elbow of the bar. I remembered my phone and its video capabilities. I started filming.  I don’t fancy myself much of a documentarian, but had I actually been doing a study of the affect of the word ‘Meow’ on drunk reporters in concert with music that is easily parroted, I’d be booking a flight to Cannes. As it is, cell phone video. 15 second clips. I hope you enjoy.

Leftovers

Originally uploaded by packyourlunch.

If you judge the quality of a party based on the amount of trash it generates, then I’d say Saturday night was a total success.

Happy in Munich

Munich19

Originally uploaded by packyourlunch.

People live the right way in Munich. Maybe it was the Beerfest. Maybe it was the post card perfect weather in late September.

Everyone was friendly. And if they weren’t friendly to begin with, after a few beers they were. This snap was shot after a night of hard drinking with some just-made friends. I was walking from the Beerhall back to my hotel.

I don’t remember taking this picture — or the walk home for that matter. I do think I remember speaking perfect German to a Bavarian man while he, in turn, spoke perfect English to me.

It looks like the marquee of the theater near my hotel was in the background when I took this picture. It is fitting because no one knew who I was in Munich, except that I was the only American around. Valerie grilled me about George Bush. Freddy asked about traveling from state to state. I was on stage.

But if that isn’t a content look, then I’ve never seen one.

Out The Door

I’m twenty four hours from vacation. Let me restate that: twenty four hours from getting out of Boston and bumming around Europe for two weeks. When I booked the trip, it seemed like it would never get here. Now it’s here and I’m… doing laundry. The backpack that I’m going to be living out of is still empty and I have to change some money.

But it’s time to go on the trip.

I get into Zurich 8am Thursday morning. Then Munich for the Oktoberfest. Then Amsterdam for, well, Amsterdam. I catch a flight to Dublin for Guinness, Jameson and Joyce. Then I fly home.

Two weeks without a phone or reliable internet access. Two week without work. Two weeks without Boston. Just me, a backpack, a passport and a stack of travel information. Here’s hoping to meeting everyone in Europe – hopefully I make a few travel buddies.

I’ve got to get going. I’ve got to finish packing. I’ve got to prep my liver for the liters of beers I’m going to be drinking.

I’ll be back soon. I’ll post an obscene amount of pictures when I get home.

Communing with Kerouac

I went to Lowell with a friend this weekend to see Kerouac’s grave and partake in the annual Jack Kerouac Pub crawl. This year is the 50th anniversary of the publication of On The Road. Lowell is Kerouac’s hometown, so every summer the city does something in appreciation.This year, the On The Road scroll is being displayed in Lowell for the summer. I didn’t make it to the scroll this time, but I did make it to Kerouac’s grave and a few of his old haunts.

I was surprised at how modest Kerouac’s marker is. I wasn’t expecting some giant monument with a type writer etched into it, but I wasn’t expecting such a modest marker either. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made, though. There was something very pleasing about the fact that it’s just a flat marker with the phrase “He honored life” inscribed on it. Rest well, Jack.