Let’s face it, most of us were hit pretty hard by the news that one of the last great bachelor hold-outs of the Tonsley family, Martin Telemachus (“Taily”) Twist, was to draw a line under his life of unremitting sleaze and marry a beautiful and accomplished American. For years those who had already bought-in to the perceived attractions of marital monogamy had lived our lives vicariously through Taily’s exploits. We marvelled at his global wanderings, jealous of his boast that he knew every quality strip club between Prague and Key West. We were dubious but not entirely dismissive of his claim that he has, in his own words, “had dealings” with many of the strippers…
Well, that’s all over now. The wedding took place in early June, in Richmond, Virginia and with Joe as best man, it was a given that the Tonsley Tourists would be decamping for the American South. Hot dang diggety, y’all.
With many if not most of the guests coming from the Old Country, Tails and Melissa sensibly decided to stage wedding-palooza-style festivities over a period of four days. Both were to have their respective Stag/Hen Night’s (known locally by the bizarre terms Bachelor and Bachelorette parties) on the Thursday. The great American tradition of the Rehearsal Dinner was to take place on the Friday night, with the wedding proper in the Cathedral on Saturday morning. Faced with such an agenda, the Tonsley Tourists took the greatest care to pack their drinking wellies and adopt an over-the-top American optimism. It would be rough, but we would survive…… wouldn’t we?
Most arrived on the Wednesday before the wedding. Martin and Melissa had arranged for us to meet for welcome drinks in a local restaurant. Your correspondent, who had flown one hour from his home in North Florida, arrived first and set about developing a personal festive attitude by consuming the best beer in America (Sierra Nevada Pale Ale) in twelve ounce increments at what onlookers described as “an unnatural speed”. Excitement does that to me. By the time Martin and Melissa arrived, I was wobbly and loud. As the room slowly filled up, I fell into a fantasy that it was a 1930’s Hollywood version of the gathering of the clans.
I was alone, in a Highland Glen, despairing of the future of the auld country. Wrapped in my plaid against the biting wind, with only my faithful retainer for company, I was in an agony of doubt. Would they come? Would they?
Then, softly… on the wind, barely audible, a skirl of pipes… Could it be…? A movement on the horizon… It’s the MacDonalds! And from the east, the Macleods! Aye! And behind me bonnie MacDougal!
For Highland Glen, read Tex Mex Restaurant in downtown Richmond, Virginia, for the clans read Joe and Georgie, Woolfy and Floody, but you get the idea. Great catch-up times (some folks had not seen each other for over ten years) and a cracking night in which the conversation centred, as always, on Taily’s Ripley’s Believe it or Not!-style chest hairiness and how Melissa was way too hot for him. Was she, maybe, on some kind of medication? If not, perhaps she should be?
With big all-day Stag/Hen Parties planned for the next day, most, including the Tonsley tourists went to bed at a reasonable hour. Those who chose to honour the impending nuptials in a way best described as Pre-Melissa Taily-Style, quickly succumbed to the temptations of a new city, freedom from family responsibilities and all of the licentiousness permitted by American law. Your correspondent partied into the early hours with devastating biological consequences the following morning. I will draw a much needed veil over this. You need know no more.
Martin’s stag party began at 11 am with drinks in the bar of the amazing Jefferson Hotel, at which the Tonsley Tourists were resident. In his capacity as best man, Joe had sent the stag instructions as to what he should bring with him. Stupid stuff, like a Stetson, a shiny trombone, some Swarfega. Stuff that no stag would ever bring, really. Nevertheless, on the dot of 11 am Tails turned up in his Stetson, carrying his trombone. Apparently, he had spent much of the four weeks prior to the day scouring craigslist and ebay searching for every item on the list. Woolfy opined that this kind of behaviour indicated borderline Aspergers.
We set off for the first event: White Water rafting. The minibus to the river had no air conditioning and it was 90 degrees in the shade outside. In addition, it was overloaded with Martin’s friends, enormous Royal Marines, mainly. In such conditions, some came to regret the excesses of the night before, but thankfully escaped semi-liquid disgrace and the profound disapprobation of fellow travellers by the skin of their teeth… On arrival, it was a local bush that received the goods.
The rafting was fun, but nobody spotted any white water. Our main concern was the submerged automobiles that could cause nasty injuries if you fell into the water on top of one; that and the alligators of course. We’ve all see the Spy Who Loved Me. We know what the fauna of the American South comprises, just as we know that the sheriffs are all fat and racist. The boat containing the Tonsley tourists had two River Guides: One, a chap, who did all the work; and the other, a comely frippet, who helped out when necessary. The guy, though nice, was hopelessly incompetent, stranding us on rocks time after time and then talking an age to get us back in the flow again. Naturally we mocked him in an increasingly vicious manner with Floody in particular calling him out for his utterly pathetic skills and his lack of professional know-how. “Complete spacker!” was the descriptor of choice. Our guide took it very well, it has to be said, but we probably would have been a little less harsh had we known at the time what we later found out – that the other guide was in fact his boss, and he was being tested with a view to getting a full time position with the company. Ten out of ten for dealing well with client abuse, however. I understand he now works at a Mega K-Mart in Tuscaloosa.
With the compulsory fun of the rafting over with, we set about getting what the locals called “our drink on”. Taily’s incessant trombone playing was beginning to grate and Woolfy alerted us all to the dangers of “Fuzzy Lip”, a fungal disease common in trombonists. With this in mind we temporarily confiscated the instrument and, after dressing him in the first of his Stag Party Costumes (a Guantanamo Bay detainee) subjected him to The Treatment – an unpleasant Ice Torture, in the hopes that this would make him buck up his ideas.
The evening debauch began in semi-civilized manner in a bar with attached restaurant, nightclub and seedy dance floor megaplex that America does so well. The Virginia Tobacco Company treated us mighty fine (see what I did there?) and we sat down to dinner, eagerly awaiting the challenges of Joe’s Favourite Drinking Games. There was food, apparently, but your correspondent missed it in a haze of good will and wooziness that, I am told, is similar to the life-destroying high favoured by addicts of Crystal Methamphetamine. As the games were about to begin, I realized that I had a brief window in which to take action that would impact Martin’s levels of enjoyment (in a stag-night negative way). I produced my bag of tricks and, to mildly worrying leers of encouragement from certain loafer-wearing American guests, took Tails into the men’s lavatories…
One day, I shall write a definitive treatise on stag-night costuming. I think the key is originality. Not for Martin the time-worn “Shackled Prisoner”, “Telly Tubby” or “Bare Breasted Nun”. No, for him only one costume was appropriate. Martin would dress as a member of the US Gold Medal Winning All-Female Synchronized Swimming team of the 1926 Olympics.
An immediate drawback to this costuming was pointed out by Joe, Floody and Woolfy, in unison. In a restaurant-environment Martin’s unnatural hairiness was off-putting in any outfit, but in a lady’s vintage one-piece it causes women to faint, children to cry and grown men to gag. There was only one solution, and Joe happened to have clippers, a razor, and shaving foam with him. I think it was Floody who suggested only doing half of his body, for greater comic effect…
Ritual humiliation complete, the games began. You know that one game “Mister Freeze” where everyone has to freeze as they notice others freezing and the last one to stay animate loses? Simple enough, non?
You haven’t played it with Virginians. It is utterly beyond them.
What a CLUSTER!
Never in the history of drinking games has so much vitriol been directed by so many at so few. After 40 minutes of rules-explaining, dry-runs, Q&A sessions and heavy doses of Ritalin to keep their attention, the game was abandoned. The mood was ugly. It was time for dancing.
Amazingly, I don’t think I have danced alongside Martin for twenty years. He has some Schweet Skills, ruined only by his “look” – leotard, Stetson, trombone, half-hairy. The Royal Marines all have dance-trance set-pieces, much like Hot Chocolate or Legs Eleven. Or Pan’s People, now I think of it. I stuck to the “runaway lawnmower” (a crowd pleaser – every time a coconut). Joe and I also spent some time working on a new dance “the Sexy Typewriter” which by the time you read this will be mainstream, I am sure.
After two gruelling hours of drinking, dancing foolishly and suborning women with the intention of having sexy pictures taken with Taily, a Party Bus arrived full of young students to take us somewhere else. It was 2 am; as the Party Bus passed our hotel I tipped the driver 20 bucks to clandestinely let me out… I made a run for it, abandoning my stag-mates, an act of betrayal for which the Gods punished me immediately. Though I had left the bus, my iPhone had stayed.
And it’s probably still there…
(Look forward to the next exciting instalment of Melmart 2010 detailing “the Mole at the Stag night”, “the Rehearsal Dinner” and the wedding itself, including indigent punk rock wedding crasher!”)
Simon Keymer
[Ed: Simon, this is “Part I” – when do we get “Part II”?!]
