January 22, 2004

Aruba Vacation Part 1: Leaving NYC and First Night In Aruba

Back in December, I was down in South Jersey with my family visiting my Uncle Bruce for the holidays. After dinner, Bruce turned to me and said "Hey, you're not working right now are you?" Me, "Nope, I'm still looking for an interesting job. Why, you know of something?" Bruce: "Nope, but I just realized that I have to go on a business trip and I'm not going to be able to make it to Aruba to use my timeshare there and it's too late to cancel. Do you want a free week at a nice resort in Aruba?" Me: "Ummm, yeah." Bruce: "Cool, if you can find cheap tickets on short notice, it's all yours." And that's how Scott and I ended up taking a low-budge trip Aruba during the last ten days of January!

Our tale begins late Wednesday night (technically early Thursday morning). Scott had a friend drive him in from NJ to my place in Manhattan, and he got to my place a little after midnight.

scott, victoria — We went over our packing checklist and got some three dolla Chinee foo from across the street and the hung out shooting the shit with my roommate Victoria. Around 2:45am, we were still wide awake and decided we should go out and grab a drink before settling in for the night (that and the fact that Scott was getting my roommate to talk about dirty stuff - I mean, c'mon, do you really need to know your roommate's got a penchant for shaved nuts - and I needed to get him outta there before I lost my mind. Hahaha).

Here comes the story of the night (this is really long, but worth it. Trust me): So after we left my apartment, we ended up walking over to Max Fish and sat down in the back against the wall next to the bathrooms. It's a little after 3am at this point and Scott and I are sipping our drinks and shooting the shit about our upcoming trip when suddenly, this white, twenty-something, wannabe thug in a hugely oversized hoded coat who's standing near us while waiting in line for the bathroom busts out a magic marker and attempts to discreetly tag the freshly painted wall (with what is clearly the corniest tag ever). After he'd finished, he looked over at us and realizing that we'd seen him do it, he gave us a defiant, what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it, tough-guy shrug before walking in the bathroom. Which in our book is basically the equivalent of begging to be fucked with.

So when he came out of the bathroom, Scott waved him over and said in a good-natured tone "You know, I spent four hours today painting this place - if you're going to write on it, you could at least have the courtesty to practice your tag more at home." It was just some light-hearted ball-busting and we expected the guy to be like "Oh, shit" and bust our balls right back. But instead, without missing a beat, he leaned over, got all up in Scott's face (keep in mind that at 220, Scott had an easy 70lbs on this guy) and was like "What are you trying to say, bitch?" Scott, not breaking his mellow tone, replied, "Oh, was I unclear? I was saying that I think you're tag isn't very good." Again, we waited for him to get the joke and tease us back but instead he got REALLY ANGRY.

When someone gets really angry for no apparent reason, the best way to insight further anger is by staying (antagonizingly) calm. In the spirit of this maxim, Scott batted his eyelashes at the guy (whose name at some point we'd learned was Tobias) and said "Before you go getting all angry at me about my opinion, I want you to step back, take a good look at the tag you wrote on the wall over there and ask yourself 'Tobias, is this my personal best?'" I had no idea where Scott was going with this and as soon as I heard the phrase "personal best" I started cracking the fuck up which about sent Tobias through the roof.

He stepped over in front of where I was sitting and got up in my face "What, MOTHERFUCKER? You a fucking art critic too? You want to get in a fight over this shit, MOTHERFUCKER?" So without standing up, I politely explained "No, I don't want to fight. I just don't think you're tag is very good either. In fact, I think it's the dumbest tag I've ever seen." At this point Tobias questioned my ability to criticize his tag (I believe he sited me as not being "street" enough, yo) so I decided to appeal to the crowd of onlookers that had begun to gather when Tobias started raising his voice. I called over the nearest person and asked what he thought of Tobias' tag. The guy, who'd clearly heard the whole exchange (and clearly wanted to wind Tobias up further) said "Oh, man, that the GAYEST tag I've ever seen. I mean, it's truly, truly terrible."

Then, much to Tobias' dismay, we started taking pictures of us giving his tag the dreaded "thumbs down." Oooh! That's gotta sting. Tobias was beside himself and spent the next five minutes standing in front of the bench we were sitting on trying to get us to start a fight with him. Tobias really wanted to fight, but only if we did something first. Scott, explained that since neither of us were going to hit him, if he wasn't going to hit us, he should just go away. Despite Scott's words, Tobias stood there for the next five minutes (literally, FIVE MINUTES) sounding like a broken record: "C'mon, hit me motherfucker. Come on, hit me. Hit me you, bald pussy. What about you, blondie? C'mon hit me. Let's do this. Let's do this. Yo, for real, yo. Let's do this. C'mon, hit me. Hit me..."

Towards the end, he mixed it up a little: "Yo, you're lucky it's just me. How about if I call my crew up and get them to come down here?" Scott, called his bluff "Tobias, it's 3:40am on a Wednesday. More than anything else in the world, I would love for you to call your crew up. Go ahead, call them up. And then when they get here, when you're "crew" is all here, we can fight. How does that sound? Does that sound good to you?" The audience that had gathered, laughed at this, and what little signs Tobias had earlier shown of calming down and leaving us along immediately disappeared and he began trying to get us to punch him with a newfound fervor.

At this point, Scott realized that Tobias clearly wasn't going to go away on his own accord, so in his loudest speaking voice (and keep in mind that as a former opera singer, he can speak very loud) Scott said "EXCUSE ME, COULD YOU PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE. I JUST WANT TO SIT HERE AND ENJOY MY DRINK AND YOU'RE IN MY PERSONAL SPACE." Tobias kept leaning into Scott's face saying "C'mon hit, me. C'mon!" etc. So again, Scott said "I'M ASKING YOU AGAIN - PLEASE STOP BOTHERING ME. YOU'RE STANDING TOO CLOSE TO ME AND YOU'RE TRYING TO PICK A FIGHT WITH ME AND YOU'RE MAKING ME UNCOMFORTABLE." Tobias didn't stop. So Scott stands up and Tobias steps up to get close to his face again. Seeing no other way, Scott turned his head to the sizeable crowd that had gathered to watch the very small guy persist to berate the very big, bald guy, and asked them "Does everyone here see what's been going on?" Before they could answer, Scott quickly dipped down low for a second and exploded out of his crouched position and with his outstreched arms sent an unsuspecting Tobias sailing backwards, legs up in the air, several feet through the air.

Tobias landed square on his back, smacked his head on the floor and continued to slide backwards with his legs up. He stopped just short of crashing into the bar (which, no joke, was a good 15" from where he'd been standing just a second earlier) and scrambled to his feet. In the sevearal moments that Tobias stood there wild-eyed and quaking, staring at Scott across the distance he'd just so uniquely traveled, torn between wanting to charge at Scott while at the same time understanding that the guy he wanted to charge at was the one that had just sent him hurtling through the air, the bouncer (that I guess had been standing outside on the street the whole time) heard the commotion, came running to the back, grabbed a hold of Tobias and positioned himself between the two men. As soon as the bouncer got a firm hold on him, Tobias, who'd spent the prior ten seconds in a state of non-action, started ferociously struggling to get free so he could kick Scott's "fucking bald ass." After thirty seconds of trying to calm Tobias down, the bouncer looking over Tobia's clearly larger opponent and told him "If you don't calm the fuck down, I'm going to let you go." Tobias immediately calmed down. With Tobias under control, the bouncer walked over to Scott and told him that he was going to have to leave. At this point, the whole back room chimed in to tell the bouncer that it was the other guy that should be thrown out and Tobias (with cheers from crowd) was ejected from the bar. The bouncer, whose name was Jamal, came back in, and after hearing what had happened from a few onlookers, apologized and bought Scott a beer. Oh, and here's the best part:

me, scott — Despite what this story would otherwise indicate, Tobias must actually have a really good sense of humor. At one point during the five minutes he spent trying to get us to hit him, he pointed at me and said "Fuck you." then slowly turning to point at Scott said, "And fuck you." And then to further illustrate his point, he took his lil' marker back out and wrote this on the wall complete with arrows clarifying who he was directing "the fucking" at. That shit ruled. THAT should be his new tag. Tobias, if you ever read this, I'm sorry we gave you a hard time. Maybe we just caught you on a bad night?

PS - The fact that I'm sorry doesn't change the fact that you're tag is GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! Hahahahaha.

Thursday Morning

We got some dinner and then walked around Orenjestad checking out the scene. The town was pretty quiet and the only thing of interest we saw was this, fat, sleeping tiger that was in a huge glass cage in a public park.

ramses, scott — So Scott got back from the bathroom and after being introduced to the group we all went out to Ramses car. We figured that he'd drive us around or something but he was like "Aruba was a Dutch colony - nobody here cares if you smoke pot."

ramses — He then proceed to pull out a 14" glass pipe from under the driver's seat. Hahaha.

alexandra, me, ramses — Me, Rameses and Alexandra.

Me preparing to do my one impressive 80s dance move.

That's right. Jumping over my own leg. Awwww, yeah.

me, ramses, scott — Here's us with Scott and Eric, two guys that we met that were originally from Boston. Eric, the guy in the JERK shirt, moved to Aruba for good and is a lawyer there.

While making friends with the local bartender (some Dutch guy whose name I've since forgotten) we found out that this particular bar had a...

alexandra, ramses, scott — So by this point in the night, we'd told everyone that we'd flown in without a place to stay and that we planned on partying ALL NIGHT our first two days and sleeping in the car for a few hours each morning. So when when the Paddock had last call at 2am, the group (still clearly riding high from our Jersey-pride fueled rendition of Bon Jovi's seminal hit "Livin' on A Prayer"), was only too happy to indulge the "crazy New Yorkers," and suggested we all head to an all night karaoke afterhours club. ("An Arubian all night karaoke afterhours club." Is there a sweeter phrase in the world?)

By the way, as we were getting ready to leave the Paddock, the bartender put a stack of plastic cups on the bar. When I inquired what they were for, our new friend Inge explained that they were "to go" cups for your drinks. She mistook my blank stare of disbelief and explained further, "You know, in case you're not done with your drink - you pour it in one of those and then you have it with you for the car ride to where ever you're going next." Me: "Um, but isn't it illegal to drink and drive?" Inge: "I don't think so. Wait, maybe it's illegal for the driver to be drinking, but it doesn't matter. Everyone does it anyway." Me: "Isn't that dangerous?" Inge: "Not really, there are only a few roads and the speed limit is 35mph everywhere - so even if you crash no one really ever gets hurt." Um. Yeah. O-kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

Scott, Alexandra and I piled into Ramses car and headed for club ECHO (you have to whisper it: ECHO!). When we got there, the place was closed. Ramses explained that afterhours clubs in Aruba only open if they feel like there will be enough people for them to have a good night. So what you do is, hang out outside the place and wait for more people to show up. When a large enough group has congregated, they open the joint up. We were only outside for 10 minutes or so and VOILA, they opened the place up.

This guy showed up late night and we were told that he was a police captain. We were like "Oh shit, is he closing the place down?"

alexandra — Oh, did I forget to mention that the girls started doing body shots?