An adventure in drinking in Vegas. (Kind of long)

Vegas. 2006. 3rd Annual Modern Drunkard Convention.

I'm not making up the title of the convention. Modern Drunkard Magazine is a publication out of Denver, CO. It's a magazine dedicated entirely to the art of getting soused.

I was in Sierra Vista, AZ for 6 months, retraining for a different job for the Army. Since I drove down there, I had to drive back up. On the way back, as would be expected, I stopped off in Las Vegas. I love that town. It just so happened that MDM was having their convention the same weekend, and I managed to get a hotel room a block from it.

I check into the hotel Friday afternoon, and promptly go to the poker tables. I order a scotch on the rocks, and proceed to get nice and shitty in preparation for the convention. A friend of mine and I went to the convention the previous year, in Denver. I didn't realize that I could drink that much, over that amount of time. This weekend, I decided to break my previous record. Scotch/rocks every twenty minutes. I won a very large pot when I got my third drink, and forced the waitress to keep bringing me the same glass, otherwise she wouldn't get a good tip. I tipped her $2 for every drink, regardless of what was happening at the table, but if I won a good pot, she'd get $5. I must have paid her rent that weekend. I still have the glass somewhere, too.

The convention starts, so I register. I've been drinking for about 3 hours already, and had at least 3 drinks per hour. I am rather wobbly already, and we haven't really even started feeding the monkey yet.

I'll pause at this point, and let you know, my dear reader, that at the previous convention, I didn't think I had made much of an impression. My buddy and I were just back from a tour in Iraq, and I was still in the mindset that a soldier in public is a representation of the entire service. So, I was keeping a pretty low profile. Meeting people, drinking my face off, and generally trying to keep everyone from knowing that I was REALLY FUCKING DRUNK.

Anyway, when I checked into the convention, I ran into the Chief Editor of MDM, Frank Kelly Rich. Nice guy. Hot wife. Fellow drunk.

Frank sees me out of the corner of his eye, recognizes me from the year before, makes a bee line for me and throws a hug on me. "Ray! You're here! Welcome back!". I didn't realize he remembered me at all. Turns out, all the employees of the magazine remembered me. The couldn't believe how much I drank, and apparently, everyone I had met remembered me. Made me feel like a rock star, ya know? So, we belly up to the bar, and nearly all the employees of the magazine start buying shots. I see nearly everyone from the year before, and we all have a great time.

Before the night ends, I meet this girl who decides that she wants to play a poker tourney, and she's going to buy me in as well. We get into the $125 buy in tourney at Binions, and she disappears about 20 minutes later. Turns out she drank waaaaaaaaayyyy too much, and threw up in the bathroom downstairs, then went to bed. I was so drunk at the table, that I had to cover one eye to make the cards stay still. I ended up getting 7th place out of 400 people . Kudos to me.

Fell asleep with the glass of scotch. Woke up with it still in my hand, unspilled. I'm a professional drunk, apparently.

Got breakfast, started playing poker again. Poker paid for the entire trip, basically.

Went back to the convention later that night, and they had what they called the "First Annual Modern Drunkard Bar Olympics". It was basically a timed contest on stage with 8 events in this order:

Get a beer - They set up a bar on stage, and you had to get a beer from the "bartender". Didn't matter how, you just had to get it. Bribery helps.

Chug the beer - Simple. Chug your ICE FUCKING COLD bottle of beer.

Hit on the Floozy - Frank's wife was sitting at a table on the side of the stage, and you had to give her your best come on lines. If she liked it, she would hand you a piece of paper that represented her number. Some of the contestants took longer than others. They didn't have very good game.

Order a drink - You then ask the "Floozy" if you can buy her a drink. She will tell you a complicated one, and you have to go back to the bartender. He's playing stupid, and doesn't know what's in the drink, so you have to tell him. If you don't know, you have to go back, and ask the Floozy for a less complicated drink.

Clear the table - 5 large cups are on her table, and you have to clear them off, spilling as little as possible.

Order a shot - Same as order a drink, but it's a shot of your choosing.

Make a toast - Simple. Make a toast. If it's really good, they will take time off of your score.

Toss the Drunk - This is the fun part. One of the other contestants is playing a belligerent drunk (not a far stretch for us), and you have to kick him/her out of the bar. Since we're on a stage, a point near the front of the stage is designated the exit, so we don't have people flying off the stage into the crowd and hurt someone.

So, my turn eventually came up. Here's the play by play, in order: 1) I threw 3 bucks in the bartenders tip jar, and he hands me a beer. 2) I suck at chugging beer when it's cold, much to the amusement of the "bartender", who kept asking me if I wanted a nipple for it, and of Frank, who kept asking "Didn't your mama teach you how to chug?". Finally finished the beer. 3) Looked Frank's wife right in the eye and said, "I have a three pound cock and a trust fund." She handed the number over immediately. 4) She asked for an Old Fashioned. Thankfully, I remembered how to make it., and explained to the bartender. 5) Brought her the drink, and cleared the table without spilling a drop. 6) Ordered a shot of whiskey. Easy enough. 7) My toast: "I love each and every one of you. But I would kill any of you for $5000. Some of you, even less." 8) The other contestant playing the drunk had laid down on the stage near the "Floozy". He was holding onto the edge of the stage with one hand, and her chair with the other. I tried to reason with him, but he wouldn't come quietly, so I grabbed him by the belt and by the crotch. He let go of the stage, but held onto her chair. I then dragged him across the stage to the exit point.

I will repeat that.

I dragged a 230 pound man 20 feet across a stage, while he was holding onto the leg of a chair being sat upon by a 135 pound woman, BY HIS BELT AND TESTICLES.

I won the contest by 3 seconds. They didn't even count the bonuses I got for a great pick-up line and toast. The prize was a 3 foot tall, wrought iron trophy shaped like a bottle. I will post a picture of it later on tonight. Needless to say, I was the envy of the convention. Even the guy who won the drinking contest the previous year was impressed. More so by the fact that I was still standing after having been drinking for 14 hours, and having at least a scotch/rocks every 20 minutes. I finally did the math, and figured out that by that time, I had around 45 drinks. In 14 hours.

But I wasn't done.

A couple hours later, we're closing up the convention, and Frank asks me to talk to these two hot girls that were vendors at the convention selling Fernet Branca. It's really not bad stuff, if you like Jagermeister mixed with horseradish and some leaves from the gutter of your house.

These girls had missed their flight, and were going to just going to go to the airport, and wait on the next one. I wasn't going to have any of that. So, I invited them to come party with Frank and the rest of the gang from the magazine. When you drop the words "Penthouse Suite", they come running. We partied our asses off.

Incidentally, these two gorgeous women were lesbians, but somehow, I ended up in the bathroom with both of them. At the same time. I'd tell you the details, but it's kind of a blur. Remember, I had been drinking for at least 16 hours at this point. I do remember the good parts, but I'm not going to disclose them. You can imagine what happened.

Greatest trip to Las Vegas I have ever had.

And here's a picture of the Trophy: