Biloxxxi's Woodshed

Cue up Highway to the Danger Zone cause we’re about to buzz the tower.

If you’re a male over the age of 13, chances are you’ve probably hit on a girl. It’s also just as likely that you’ve failed miserably at it more than once. Fortunately, since I traffic in dumbassery the way that Pablo Escobar trafficked in cocaine, failure pretty much just rolls off my back. No big deal, there’s plenty more where she came from. Most of the time it’s pretty painful to watch somebody get shutdown, but sometimes God throws somebody under the bus just for the sake of my mirth.

During the course of the gift from the Blog-Gods that was this past weekend, we ventured out to the bar. Not our typical bar, but a different, douchier one. Some friends from out of town were with us, and they wanted to go there. I shouldn’t be allowed to get my way all the time, so I was actually kind of happy with this. I needed a change of pace. There were six of us, so we grabbed a booth in the back and ordered a round of cold adult beverages. One of the girls with us, Rachel, saw a guy at the bar who caught her eye and sidled up there to exploit her good looks for a drink. (Don’t protest, you girls know you do it, and we guys fall for it every time. It’s just the way of things.) Evidently, that tact didn’t work, but thankfully, someone else stepped up to take his place.

Rachel’s a pretty damn attractive young lady. She’s tall, thin, and likes to wear white shorts. Give that girl some aviators and a southern accent and she’d be dangerously close to my dream woman. The guy that bought her a drink though, he didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hell. He was probably a good 6 inches shorter than she was (He was obviously not a critical thinker. How are you gonna wallow around with a girl half a foot taller than you?) and decked out in his finest yuppie wear. Lime green button up shirt, (tucked in, of course) khaki shorts that ended 3 inches above the knee, and those God-forsaken boat shoes. I swear, Bass made so many of those things in ’85 they just waited 20 years and started selling them again. I never caught his name, but he reeked of Kennebunkport, so we’ll call him Preston.

Preston had some friends sitting at a table across from us, so he sorta wandered back there after Rachel. Bill (you may remember him from the car wreck story) wasn’t gonna miss this opportunity to put Rachel in an awkward situation so he immediately went up to Preston and told him her name and favorite beer. He goes up to the bar and wanders back with two Sam Adams beers. Somehow in this span of two minutes, he’s managed to forget the most important thing, her name. I don’t know exactly what it was that he called her, but it sure wasn’t Rachel. It was really easy to tell that Rachel wasn’t having any of this, and if I was this guy, I’d just turn right back around and go sit down, but Preston was persistent.

It was also about this time that I got a good look at Preston’s face, and he looked just like freakin’ Jean Claude Van Damme! I pointed this ridiculous fact out to the friend sitting next to me and she concurred, so I started pulling out the references to Bloodsport. So there’s this guy trying his damndest to come up with the right name for Rachel and Jennifer and I are behind him doing slow motion karate moves and yelling, YEEEAAAAH! A la the final fight scene in Bloodsport. (Seriously, watch this clip starting at about 2:00 minutes and you’ll understand).

He stomps and stammers for a couple minutes with us yelling KUM-I-TE in the background until finally Rachel just picks up his beer and starts drinking it. “But that’s my beer,” he says. She says, “I know. I’m just gonna drink it until you remember my name.” The look of utter defeat on his face was priceless. It was seriously like someone had peed on his sand castle until it became one with the ocean. Somebody at our table felt sorry for him and told him her name, but she was so over him at this point, there was no salvaging his dignity. She gave him his quarter of a beer back and said ‘Why don’t you just go sit down now.” He trudged on back to his table to no doubt drown his shame in some over priced libations. Later in the evening I saw him trying to make out with what was either a Hobbit or Hoggle from The Labyrinth. Proving yet again, that trying is the first step to failure.

There are very few dull moments in my life, but even so, there are some moments that are even more not-dull than others. This weekend was a conglomeration of those moments. A veritable cornucopia of awesomeness, if you will (to which you respond, “and I will”). Admittedly, some moments are not blog-appropriate, if that’s even possible considering the things I’ve written about on here. But on the other hand, some moments were exceedingly blog-worthy. This is the tale of one of those moments.

We were at a friend’s house after returning from the Braves Vs. Red Sox game, a day so face-meltingly hot that I was able to drink 5 tall boys of Bud Light (at $6.75 a pop, broke now, click on some sponsored links) without having to pee. A few of us were sitting around in the living room, waiting on some of the beanheads to get ready for supper, when somehow we got on the subject of odd talents. One of the girls, Jenna, had the ability to rap the first letter of every word in a song. Once I wrapped my noggin around this concept, I would have been less surprised had she told me she could see dead people.

This may not seem like that big a deal, but let me explain. We’ll use “Hot In Herre” by Nelly as an example. This was the first one she did.

Hot in Herre chorus:
“It’s gettin’ hot in here
So take off all your clothes
I am gettin’ so hot
I wanna take my clothes off”

This is what she sang:
“I-G-H-I-H
S-T-O-A-Y-C
I-A-G-S-H
I-W-T-M-C-O”

WTF? Now, it’s easy to do this if you’re looking at the lyrics written down, like above, but it’s a whole different story when it’s coming out of your head. Go ahead, try it for yourself with a song you know by heart (If you’re white, you probably oughta use “Don’t Stop Beliving” by Journey.) Not easy, huh? We made her try it with a few more songs that were popular, (including “Don’t Stop Believing”) just to make sure she hadn’t memorized them that way. She passed with flyin’ freakin colors. I wish my cellphone hadn’t been dead so I could have gotten a video of this momentous occasion, but unfortunately, my Friday night exploits put the kibosh on that.

Now that you’ve grasped how cool of a talent that is, think about the implications of it. I asked her how she did it, and she said she just “sees” the words in her head like they’re written on a sheet of paper. Since I am essentially a lazy bastard, I like to take everything I’m marginally good at or enjoy the least little bit and wring every last ounce of the goody out of it. So naturally I started thinking about what else she could do with this super power. I was thinking along the lines of identity theft or bladder relief wands, then she told me she was in law school. If there was ever a trade other than Pro Text-Messager (Messenger?) where a hyper accute sense of abbreviation would be totally tits, it’s lawyerin’. Just imagine that she’s there defending Ole’ Biloxxxi in the libel case of the century, when the need arises to draw from some arcane trial in the 20th century, like Liebeck v. Mcdonald’s Restaurants. Argument: Much like McDonald’s Coffee, Biloxxxi just ain’t the same cold. Bam! Acquittal. I-T-G-D-F-Y-M-A!

“Two thumbs way up!”
-Siskel and that other guy

“Pants-shittingly hilarious”
-Rolling Stone

“…A depth of scope not seen since Gone With the Wind. Someone may explode from the sheer badassness of it all.”
-Time Magazine

I spend an inordinate amount of time making fun of other people. I try not to be too harsh unless it’s deserved, but sometimes I feel a bit bad nonetheless. Therefore, to show that I can take it just as well as dish it, I’ve decided to share with you what is probably my most embarrassing moment thus far in life.

The year was 1997. The Original Star Wars Trilogy was being re-released into the theaters with some new CGI crap that was supposed to enhance it. I was in 8th grade and like many 14 year old boys before me, I thought Star Wars was totally tits. A couple of buddies and I caught a ride down to North DeKalb Mall to see Star Wars: A New Hope on the night it opened (On an ironic note, my car would be stolen from this same mall a year and a half later). We grabbed a bite to eat, most likely a calzone from the pizza joint there because that’s about all this mall ever had to offer. Then we stood in line to get our tickets. To this day I can still remember the excitement of standing in line to go see Star Wars in the theater, like my brother had 20 years before me (albeit at a much younger age). The geeks were out in force for this one. I remember seeing at least 4 Darth Vaders, several Stormtroopers and 1 or 2 Princess Leias to boot. Note to any future Princess Leias: If you weigh enough to be a stormtrooper, you’re automatically disqualified from Princess Leia contention. She was a spritely little thing.

We got our tickets, grabbed some snacks, and went to find some good seats for the show. About the time we sat down, I felt my stomach “drop” about 6 inches. By “drop” I mean something went bad wrong in there. It sorta made that sound that a water cooler makes when an air bubble travels to the top. I thought “No big deal, it’ll pass” and stayed in my seat. It didn’t pass. I sat there and squirmed for a moment and said to myself “There are so many folks in here, I’ll just tear a little ass and nobody will know it’s me.” So I did and I’m pretty sure what came out would gag a maggot. Fortunately, it didn’t reveal itself in solid form, but I knew this was an indicator of things to come, so I quickly made a break for the restroom. After exorcising a demon or two in there, I returned to the theater hopeful that I’d finally be able to enjoy the movie. Wrong.

After missing the first 10 minutes of the movie, I made it back to my seat. All is calm for about the next 15 minutes or so and then my stomach “drops” again. I wasn’t suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome, I was suffering from Vengeful Bowel Syndrome. My innards were out to ruin Star Wars for me. What a douchebag move. I cropdusted for a few minutes as discretely as possible, then when I couldn’t possibly hold it any longer, I rushed back to the restroom for round two. Seriously, it was like the beginning of Rocky III where Mickey dies. Damn you, Clubber Lang.

I know what you’re thinking right now. You’re saying to yourself, “No way his body hates him enough to go a third round.” But that’s exactly what happened. My demon innards were kind enough to give me a respite long enough to make it through most of the movie. That old familiar wave of terror washed over me again about the same time the main battle scene was ramping up. I didn’t want to get up again and miss the best part of the movie, so I tried holding out as long as I could. Right towards the end of the battle, I thought perhaps I could just let a little fart slide out to relieve some of the evil in my stomach so I could make it through the rest of the movie. When I did, every last shred of dignity that I had left at the ripe old age of 14 came with it. I shat my pants right there in the middle of damn Star Wars. I looked over at my buddy Jake sitting next to me with absolute horror in my eyes and he knew. “Fuckin’ No way!” He exclaimed and doubled over with laughter. I gotta hand it to that kid, other than that he never said a word to anyone else including my other friends that were there about this incident. Do you even realize the kind of damage that could cause to a kid in middle school?

We should pause here for a moment to bask in the enormity of this event. I straight up pooped my pants right in the middle of the greatest battle scene in the greatest movie of all time. In an absolutely jam packed theater on opening night. I basically flew out of that theater into the bathroom and I’m pretty sure most of the people in the immediate vicinity knew what was going on. To further increase the already pegged out embarrassment meter, some of my neighbors were a row behind us. How would I ever be able to look them in the eye again?

I rushed into the restroom to check out the collateral damage and believe me, it was not slight. Without going into too many undesirable details, let’s just suffice it to say that I attempted to flush my underoos down the toilet and they wouldn’t go. I ended up just leaving the sumbitches in there. I’m sure whoever cleaned that up hated their life for awhile.

I made it back into the theater about the time the credits started rolling. I’d missed the majority of the movie, and I’d shat my pants. What an awesome day. I don’t think I even tried to go see The Empire Strikes Back but Return of the Jedi totally made the unending shame worth it. Well, at least until George Lucas decided that Jar Jar Binks was an acceptable character. Oh, and one final note, my neighbor called my mom that night to make sure I was ok, so I had to explain the whole situation to my mom. F.M.L.