Day 1 - After successfully navigating the hellish lakes of molten rock New Jersey calls roads, we arrived at the home of my little brother, Jimothy. Upon arrival and ceremonious dry humping, we preceded to tour his humble abode, meet his three legged cat Sir Integra, and finally, get to drinking. Much fun was had, we waxed philosophical about "whiskey dick", we learned the story of one Fatty McGee, we attempted to watch Real Genius but instead got too wrapped up in our own festivities to be able to concentrate. There was also a moment when I imitated a dragon with Bacardi 151 and a tiki torch to everyone's enjoyment, and Juju locked my keys in my trunk, which turned John, Jimothy's roommate, Pawl and myself back into our old habits of picking locks and stealing cars to which Pawl was finally successful (and the least drunk). However, the keys were recovered, John and Emiry decided to play a game of hide and seek with everyone else, but no one else played. We fell down..... a lot. And then finally, our minds and bodies exhausted from the strain of so much excitement and possibly alcohol, we collapsed into a comatose state.
Day 2 - Upon awaking and moving in what appeared to be slow motion, we collected ourselves into a working model of a group and began to make our way towards the New Jersey beach. We of course had to stop for breakfast, and the only place that was acceptable was one with the title of "Budd Crud Diner", not it's official title mind you, but the one that Jimothy had described to us. Upon encroaching on this unaware establishment, Jimothy in his hawaiian shirt, my pornstar tshirt from 10 years ago, and board shorts, myself in my tweed houndstooth fedora, TMNT (80's cartoon style) tshirt and bright blue board shorts with large orange flowers printed upon them realized that we were unwillingly about to re-enact a scene that very possibly could have been in Fear and Loathing. Burdened with new found knowledge and elated to possibly apply it, we entered and were required to occupy two booths across from each other. What other's did not realize is that this would create a disturbance that the entire diner would then have to live with. However, Jim soon told me that being loud, obnoxious, and talking with great abandon on any subject was perfectly acceptable in New Jersey, thus confirming something I once thought to be a myth. After creating quite an uproar we decided to move on to actually attempting to find the beach. With a comatose Pawl we made our way down through the American version of the Autobahn known as "the Parkway". After two and a half hours of New Jersey traffic we finally arrived. At the beach we preceded to crash our bodies upon the ocean surf and shortly retreated to the safety of our towels. We then cruised the fascinating boardwalk, amazed at Jimothy's skill with crane machines, and entertaining ourselves, and many others, with our antics. Upon returning to the spot where we had left the majority of our stuff on the beach, we realized the gates had been locked due to fireworks. Jim, being the heroic type, jumped the fence and retrieved our much needed shtuff. We continued about the boardwalk, eating, playing games and enjoying the overall merriment of the day. We watched as they launched fire propellants at the sky and ocean as if to anger or appease some ancient New Jersian sea gods. After watching such a magnificent pyrotechnics display, I found myself craving semi-raw red meat. Having no luck finding an Outback, we managed to find an Applebees where we took a corner booth and looked a lot like a New Jersey branch of the Irish Mafia. Our waitress, Theresa, was at the end of a very long day and was having great fun on picking on our own mental exhaustion, even going so far as to help Pawl with what he wanted to eat. Afterwards, being unbelievably tired, we returned to our base of operations and promptly fell asleep.
Day 3 - Ah, the day of great expectation. Unbeknowst to Mr. Steppenwolf, Jimothy and I had planned our last day in New Jersey to be a celebration of all things Kevin Smith. Steppy had preceded to bug us all the previous day about stopping in Red Bank and visiting the Quicke Stoppe. I had feigned annoyance and Jim beautifully played it off as if he had never heard of this "Kevin Smith" person and knew not what Steppy was rambling about. Once arriving at the first stop, THE Quick Stop, I swear to you the dear Mr. Steppenwolf had but a single tear glistening in his left eye. Much goodness was had, and of course, I bought a Coke. It was slightly disturbing how very little the store had changed in the 13 years since it had first appeared in the movie that was destined to become legend. Swiftly making our way through the tri-city area to Red Bank we were surprised to discover they were having a fair upon the street. We mingled our way through the crowds and interesting shops to the Secret Stash where I was overcome with a wave of nostalgia, not because I had been there as a kid, but because it was a REAL comic book store. The type of which I had not seen for many a long year. I was saddened slightly that it was not closer, but I grabbed some good swag, even going so far as to buying a Ranger Danger tshirt, after seeing Jim had already grabbed one and my keen detection skills had missed it. I then further annoyed him by putting it on and wearing it the rest of the day, as he was also wearing his. Upon our return to Jimothy's we stopped at our last great New Jersian site. White C
astle. We set forth consuming an entire briefcase of burgers and then watched as Jim attempted to construct a tower of White Castle containers. We also learned that no matter how you order fries, you will always get a sack of them. Once finished with our wonderfully greaser, and yet small, square burgers, we set forth for home.
The trip home was long and relatively uneventful. So we are all home now, returning to the boredom of our everyday lives and making more things for you people to buy, speaking of, I have confirmation that the T-shirts will be in our hands by the end of the week.
I think we will need to take a vacation at least annually, though next time, we're getting a Bad Luck Bus.
