The Archive

Madness and then some

So, it was a Friday night in Savannah and it was time to hit the town.

We started out wandering down to the area on the riverfront where much of the nightlife could be found.

“Oh god, it’s like Blackpool,” commented Wig.

And he was right. We stuck around for a drink or two and then found a spot for a delicious seafood dinner (1 small fish, 2 bottles of wine. Each.)

‘There has to be more than this,’ we decided, and headed into town.

Which is how we ended up in Jinx. Jinx was a bar, with a few people in it, much like any other bar.

Except for the karaoke.

We’d been drinking a bit by this time and so, contrary to any of our usual tendencies, we decided to ‘have a go’.

Thus was born the supergroup Kabongo!

We submitted our form and waited for the call. Before long it came…

“Kabongo to the stage please. Kabongo to the stage.”

We crowded up on to the stage and the music started.

Whilst ‘Our House’ by the mighty Madness played, one or two of us shouted into the mike and everyone else stomped crazily around the stage, making us the first band in history to consist entirely of Bezzes.

Now you’d think this would be a pretty dull event for the audience. But not so. Not only did everyone go crazy, we even had a stage invasion by a couple of girls who joined in the dancing.

Remarkable.

It was just after this that I checked out another venue, during which I ran into the Friends of Peter Benchley (SPRAT ATTACK! Sorry for your loss), before returning to the fold.

Now I have to admit that things get a bit hazy from here. Assume more drink and foolishness.

And now, imagine your screen split into 3 sections, in the style of the TV show ‘24’.

In screen one, the majority of our group, having an enjoyable drunken time, return to the hotel and go to bed.

In screen two, I have somehow separated myself from the group.

But don’t worry, I have found some new friends, all of whom are young soldiers from the nearby army base.

“Let’s go to a club” they say. Or I say, I’m not clear.

They have a plan. Soon we are in a cab, heading out of state to a club.

Now I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie Porkies, but in it there is a brothel which is like a large, neon lit nightclub in the middle of nowhere.

That is pretty much where we ended up, a strip club just the other side of the state line.

Yes, I was in an 18 certificate episode of the Dukes of Hazzard.

I stayed in the club for some hours, meeting and chatting to people and at one point losing, then miraculously recovering, my wallet and generally having a good time.

Finally, with one of the guys I think I had arrived with, we decided to head home. Grabbing a taxi, we got back to a gas station on the edge of Savannah. I bade my newfound chum farewell and walked back into town, to the hotel.

It was about 7am. It was light.

I opened the door.

I was the first one back. Wig was still out there.

In screen three, Wig embarks on an adventure of his own in another cab. At some point, he realises that he has no money.

‘No problem’ he thinks, ‘I’ll go to a cash machine’.

It was at this point that he realised why everyone else had phoned to tell their banks that they were going to America before they left. He couldn’t get any money out.

The cab abandoned him. Lost and confused, he began to wander. Finally, he happens upon a gas station.

“Excuse me,” he asks, “Could you tell me how I can get a cab around here.”

The woman behind the counter shakes here head. “No cab’ll no come aroun’ here honey. You in the projects.”

Panic sets in.

Fortunately, just behind panic lies several weeks of military training, acquired in the school CCF programme. A little survivalist voice in his head pipes up, “Dig in.”

And so he does just that. Finding a nice comfortable bush, he proceeds to shove himself deep into the foliage and settle down for a nice nap.

An hour and a half later he awakes, refreshed and raring to go. But still not at home. Don’t worry though, there’s a solution.

He starts to run.

In no time at all, he finds himself at the hotel. Although strangely, his key does not seem to work.

This is perhaps due to the fact that it is the wrong hotel.

He gets chucked out. He starts running again, this time following directions to ‘the river’.

At some point, his shoe breaks. He picks it up (leave no shoe behind) and continues running.

Eventually, sweaty, covered in leaves and holding a shoe in one hand, he arrives at the hotel.

“Erm, did you chuck me out of here about half an hour ago?” he asks, alert to the idea that he may well have just run in a big circle.

“No,” they reply. It is the right hotel.

And so, about fifteen minutes after I return, he shows up to the room. We chat briefly before he suddenly announces, in a tone of righteous outrage…

“I can’t believe it, you’re still drunk.”

Some people just have no sense of moderation do they?

posted by Peter The Great @ 9:19 AM