The Who, Lucy Liu, and the Wonderful Town of Swampscott

It was simple, really--get four or five people to come with me for a weekend of partying in Boston the last weekend in July. The table was all set--I've got a few good friends in Boston, the weather (probably) won't include snow, there would be wild times for the night until the state-sanctioned nighty-night time of 12:45 AM. You can imagine the fun, then, as everyone that swore they would be able to come meet up started to fall like dominoes, either deciding to show up on a different weekend or bailing out altogether.

But every time you get the slight sinking feeling that something is amiss, you're wrong--and this past weekend in Boston was a beautiful testament to what happens when you get the right mix of people, no matter what the activity list includes...even if it's nothing at all. Why is it that these weekends always come down to the same things for me? Because it's all so easy when you've got the greatest friends in the world!

In describing what might be one of my greatest examples that associating with a team of highly-trained professionals makes the details meaningless, you first have to know the team. The away team from DC: me. The away team from NYC: Beth "Thumbs Up" Renaghan (so nicknamed in this space for her customary shimmy style of going dancing like she goes running), who just got funnier and funnier as the weekend went along. The main away team from Boston: Wimberly "Wimtucket" Taylor, husband of Beth's sister Mandy. Mandy was with us in pockets throughout the weekend but had a ton of work responsibility over the weekend, forcing her into an incredible display of fortitude by working 8-6, 8-6, and 8-8 on the three days of this weekend...and then, going out each night. A tiger, yes, but she was sadly in absentia for the greater part of the weekend.

Wim at the spot...a man in his habitat!

So, it was Wim, Beth and I for the majority of my stay, with a cast of supporting characters that were to die for:

Andrea (aka "Dre Day") and her boyfriend Mike, who currently resides in Moscow. Andrea has an energy level not unlike that famous bunny from years back, except that you love talking to her just as much as you love looking at her;
Sarah, known to most as just "Dobson", despite the fact that that's not even her last name any more...in between packing for a move to Florida AND, you know, being pregnant, she made time for a couple of meals with the Away Team;
Some guy named Ty, who instantly became my best friend when he showed up Friday night in a Super Mario Bros. mushroom 1-UP t-shirt;
A surprise appearance by my friend Wendy's man Michael (yes, that Michael!), who showed up with about a half-dozen troops at the spot Friday

And, when you are toting around a team like this, it didn't really matter where we went...the WHO was so solid that the WHAT didn't really bother me. Don't you love those times when you can get your friends together to just trash a bad TV show, or howl over memories at a wedding reception, or recite lines from movies you saw together? This was one of those weekends--for some reason, everything that Wim or Beth or Dre or Dobson or Mandy or Michael said was alternately the funniest thing you had ever heard or the jump point for a more serious discussion that got input from all forces at the table/bar/park bench. There were no wallflowers this weekend...it was like something out of a dream...everything mattered, but much of the dialogue was about nothing at all.

Dre Day and Mandy, warding off the menfolk

Take, for example, the Away Team's running commentary on the spot we hit Saturday night, a posh lounge/bar called Whiskey Park. After finishing a 10 PM - 2 AM shift at the bar and cabbing it back to Mandy/Wim's spot, we had an almost-hour-long discussion about Diesel and Angel (yes, the names they used to introduce themselves to us when they arrived), a couple sitting on the chaise lounge next to us that spent a majority of their team all up in each other. Conclusions that were made:

Diesel was a good-looking man.
Angel was literally falling out of her shirt, given the blindingly-large bazookas she was attempting to cover with her garments.
Diesel's ego is out of control...and, oh yeah, his name is fucking Diesel.
Diesel's shirt, belt and possibly his car were all very shiny.
Angel clearly likes dong. (Sorry, but I'm not going to mince the facts.)
Men like women who like dong, but more importantly, men like women who like them enough to show they like dong to complete and total strangers.
The men felt that Diesel might be packing the goods.
The women felt that Diesel might not be packing the goods.
Everyone felt that it was cool seeing a couple that was really, really into each other.

Or maybe it was the conversation over brunch on Saturday, when many other points were decided:

Sharks are bad. This refers to big sharks, little sharks, sharks the size of your pinky. If you are going to spend time in what you believe to be shark-infested waters, do NOT go out during dawn or dusk, when sunlight is closest to the horizon and sharks have the best chance of seeing you swimming along the surface.
If you are being eaten by a shark, apparently it is good advice to play dead, because there's an outside shot that the shark will tire of chewing on you because it believes it has robbed you of lifeforce. Don't mind the fact that you are going to have to trick your body into not passing out from the pain of having your fucking leg chewed off, or the fact that you might drown because you clearly have almost hyperventilated from the surprise of having said leg be chewed off and now have to remember to swim to the surface. This goes back to point 1), "sharks are bad."
On a similar note and from an episode of "Oprah", a four-year-old that was attacked by his murderous father got shot in the chest and rolled over, playing dead, and the father thought the little kid was dead and didn't bother to check this fact as he went on and killed the rest of the family. The kid survived. Apparently, if a four-year-old can play dead, YOU TOO can play dead if you are getting chewed on by a fucking shark.

This is the kind of silly stuff that took place all weekend. It was like every silly conversation ever, rolled into one three-day stretch, and it was magnificent. There was so much pain-inflicting laughter that I was almost fearful that someone else would say something funnier than the last line spouted; this was ESPN Classic on speed, the jokes were flying so fast.

It was like Friday night, when I was out on the dance floor at Middlesex Lounge, just doing my normal routine of dancing in my space, occasionally spinning Mandy or Beth or some of Michael's friends out on the floor with grinding or ballroom moves to the hip-hop mash being grooved by our DJ. At one point, I was in-between sips of something concocted by our bad-ass waitress when I looked up and there were literally four women surrounding me, getting down and taking time out of their busy day to pat me down for weapons and other metallic objects. This ring of four was led by Lucy Liu--so named for her vague resemblance to the real Lucy Liu, i.e. the only famous Asian woman we could think of at the time. Lucy, who gave us all the impression she was looking for a way to make me her ManCandy for the night (whoa, whoa! I'm on vacation), had a penchant for pure insanity and proceeded to work me over--to the sheer delight of the Away Team--by working the walls, the floor, the couches and my crotch before I found a way to break away from this girl and get back to my group. Lucy (as Wim might say, she was "not unattractive") is part of a growing trend of the female aggressor at the clubs, someone that Ain't Too Proud to Beg but begs the question--if not me, then who's next?

Me and the Renaghan sisters...chillin'!

My goodness, the laughs didn't stop the whole way through! Was the highlight Sunday brunch, where the Away Team enjoyed playing the role of usher at S&S Deli in Cambridge, as we were waiting for Dobson and had to sit behind the "Only Complete Parties Will Be Seated" sign, as Wim and I happily made friends with other "incomplete" large parties? Or was it Saturday dinner, when Beth and Mandy picked up maybe the most random dinner ever--ribs, teriyaki wings, chicken breasts, broccoli, an orphaned Foster's from the fridge and my request for Frosted Flakes to also be thrown on my plate?

It quite possibly was our "day trip" to the beach at Marblehead, which was classic because it wasn't a day trip at all--we didn't leave until 3 PM, and the whole trip lasted maybe two hours--nor was it a trip to Marblehead, since we stopped in the wonderful little town of Swampscott, MA, short of Marblehead because we realized it didn't matter where we went, as long as we could walk off lunch and make fun of the locals. Swampscott--which became the main gag for the weekend with the Away Team members--is 15 miles northeast of Boston, and can be distinguished as such: the dogs there can't swim (we watched one dog almost drown on the beach trying to retrieve a foam ball tossed by its owner), the ice cream is pretty good, and the restrooms are for customers only.

Beyond that, Swampscott is really perfect in terms of summing up the weekend--it's just a place, somewhere, sometime...it's got people, it's got restaurants, it's probably got nightlife, it might even have culture. But, with the wrong group of friends, it's Swampscott, a place that would never be worth the salt in the water. In the case of the Away Team, it was an adventure, a thing to do on the road of things that may or may not matter...it is a memory because we had some good times there (talk of The Perfect Wedding, fear of open water, and other random topics) but we had better times getting there, making fun of random local businesses like Girls, Inc.--no, I'm not kidding--and the San Francisco Market, so named because apparently San Francisco should remind you of Central American goods and services. Or leaving there, and making fun of everything we could get our hands on, and soaking in the sun of a crisp 85° afternoon, no humidity, a fading sunlight.

What can I say? I do like the trips where I do a lot, or see a lot of new things, or eat a lot of exquisite meals. But something about these trips with my friends is just beautiful--hell, even Sunday afternoon was fantastic, with a trip to a place called Hingham where my old buddy Wheels lives with his 20-month-old twins and his lovely wife Heather--and I know that these chances are fleeting, and I am working very hard to keep the friendships I care about alive. Maybe the best idea from the weekend--that a number of my good friends could start a commune and move to a place like, I don't know, Savannah, GA--could happen, but assuming that it doesn't, you've got to work to make the world a very small place. All we can do is try that one day at a time...and hope that you get the face time with everyone you care about.

Random Bellviews, courtesy of Bell and Longer Community Trust:

Jellybean's a freakin' dad!!: Opening Weekend
Having a female bartender hook you--a pretty female--up for the first time: $9.50 Show
The prospects of UVA Football for '06: Matinee
Being 29 years old and owning a fridge the size of your frat fridge from college: Rental
The food at Rio Grande: Hard Vice

bellview--whole lotta zoomin'

The Who, Lucy Liu, and the Wonderful Town of Swampscott