Here's to you, Mr. Stevenson...

Prologue

I know I promised everyone a rich and lavish story about one of our own dear friends turning to destitute. And yes, I know that the story is three weeks overdue. And yes, I do in fact know that I am a gigantic alcoholic of a procrastinator. I am aware of these three facts, they plague my thoughts--not to mention my comments’ section--so you don’t have to constantly remind me of them. However, this time, there’s actually a decent reason why this posting has been so delayed... and besides, I don’t get paid to write this shit, so fuckoff. (Not to mention, I gave you some Photographis Blogicus loving to tide you over.)

[Author’s Note: It’s amazing, “fuckoff,” is a real word, at least according to my word processor. Sure, I thought it’d give me, “fuck,” and, “off,” but the two of them together? With no spacing in between? Kudo’s to you Wordperfect.]

[Post-Author’s Note: Even more amazingly, “Wordperfect,” is NOT a word... despite the program displaying it at the top of the screen. Yeah, way to give your own program name the red underline... fuck face. Kudo’s to you Wordperfect.]

Anyways, back to the point. Before I wrote this blog, I had to ask myself a series of questions... First off, is the alleged story hilarious? Yes. Is it blog-worthy? Sure. Will it live up to a thirty-some-odd day hype? I don’t know. And there we have the origin of the delay. Is this story still worth telling? Was it even worth telling in the first place? I thought long and hard about these questions; reaching Socratic levels of concentration and ponder. And one day I came to the conclusion that yes, yes it is. And as I stumbled to a keyboard last Tuesday night, ready to record this tale into the annuls of Ruckus Maximus history, I came to a stark conclusion.

This story is comedy. The protagonist truly exerts great effort and endures much suffering, but for those of us who know the aforementioned protagonist, we know that it was hardly a Herculean Labor by his standards. This man--nay, this legend--has done some one-hundred percent, bonafide, over the top, ri-fuckin-diculous shit. And rather than shining the light of Ruckus Maximus on an incident that, by comparison, is barely noteworthy, I found it much more fitting to highlight the career of a man whose extraordinary levels of self-destruction will never cease to amaze me.

So, without further winding of an introduction, I present to you, my friend... Steve.



Who is Steve Stevenson?

“He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp. A cry followed; he reeled, staggered, clutched at the table and held on, staring with injected eyes, gasping with open mouth; and as I looked there came, I thought, a change--he seemed to swell--his face became suddenly black and the features seemed to melt and alter--and the next moment, I had sprung to my feet and leaped back against the wall, my arms raised to shield me from that prodigy, my mind submerged in terror.”
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
- Robert Lewis Stevenson (No Relation.)

Many people have asked me over the years, “Just who the hell is that Steve Stevenson guy?” And ironically, the above passage is a pretty accurate summarization as to exactly how I came to know Mr. Stevenson. Steve Stevenson is not so much a person, or a human being, as he is a... I don’t know; part-time person? More precisely, he is a compound manifestation of Karim Rashid’s personality. Allow me to explain.

When Karim Rashid, a seemingly mild mannered tank driver, clocks out, parks the tank, and heads home for the night, he is met by a temptation. A potent temptation; a voice that screams from within his very being, “Let me out! Let me out you son of a bitch!” Like any temptation, it only needs the slightest of coercion to come boring out at full speed, and, in this case, that coercive element is alcohol. Once the proper mixture of alcohol, menthol cigarettes, and ridiculousness is achieved, Steve Stevenson peels off his restrictive Karim-husk and comes barreling out into the real world, primed and ready to partake in some mischief.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of making Steve’s acquaintance, consider it a blessing... a blessing, and also a terrible void in your life. For, although Mr. Steve Stevenson is an alcoholic force capable of more destruction that the most Katerinaesque of hurricanes, he is also a vessel of fun. I think--no, I’m certain--that the most I have ever laughed out loud (or “LOL’ed” for you internet hommes) was in his presence. And to be honest, I feel bad for anyone that was not present for his antics... so bad, in fact, that I am hereby going to dedicate the next few Ruckus Maximus postings to counting down my personal, favorite, top-ten Steve Stevenson moments.

On that note, I bid you welcome to the first of a ten part series: Here’s to you, Mr. Stevenson



The Chronicles of Stevenson, Episode Ten: Racism and Sleeping in the Gutter.

I know this story should probably be ranked a little higher than number ten on the Steve-Stevenson-Scale of drunkeness, but I feel I owe it the honor of being the first story told. After all, it is the story I promised you all so many weeks ago... and if I made you wait even longer for it, I would be classified as a true bastard. So, fuck it, it got bumped down on the list.

Anyways, the story started off innocently enough. Our friend, Ex to the Tina, had just graduated college, and what does any good, red-blooded, American college graduate do? She gets drunk to the max... in a hotel room... on The Strip. I’m pretty sure it’s in the Bible; Thou shalt get soused until thy head shrinks and thou’t does’th unforgivable things. It’s like Corinthians 17:26 or something... I’m not sure. The point is, Karim and I showed up, and we were escorted by our old friend, 1.75 Liter SoCo. Now, I shouldn’t have to say this, but it’s always a great time whenever that guy shows up. And also, it’s always a terrible time whenever that guy shows up.

In fact, George W. Bush should just come out and say it. Mr. 1.75 Liter SoCo is a weapon of mass destruction. It’s true. I know for a fact, that, in the hands of an expert, he is way more destructive than anything that the U.N. Weapons Inspectors found lurking in the basement of an Iraqi coffee house. I know this fact because I am that expert. In the past, armed with only a bottle of SoCo and a lack of better judgement, I have laid waste like the fifth horseman of the apocalypse to a vast array of parties and social functions. But, like I said, we were going to keep it low-key tonight, and I thought that Karim and I could more than handle a few swigs from the teat of the southern devil. I would be wrong.

An hour later, we were lurking downstairs in front of Fat Tuesday, each armed with our group’s signature Fat Tuesday beverage; a yard of 190 Octane/Hurricane Mix, with two extra shots of Ever Clear. Yeah, sure, it may sound pretty alcoholic to a layman, but keep in mind, we are highly trained professionals. It is with this confidence that I turned to say something meaningless to Karim and saw the transformation.

If you’ve never seen the metamorphosis before, it is truly a thing of terror. His eyes start to burn an intensely heated stare, a stare that grows hotter and hotter until his very pupils start to boil. Sweat billows out of his every pore like a sponge being squeezed by a championship bodybuilder. Then, in an almost sudden release, his skin begins to melt until there is nothing left of Karim but a puddle on the floor. And, there, standing in his place, knee-deep in the mess of our deconstructed friend, is Steve Stevenson; relieved to be finally liberated of his Rashidish prison. As is usual, this is when our night started to go downhill.

Once Steve’s eyes adjusted to the harsh, halogen lighting of the real world, it was time for him to satisfy his dark and sinister agenda. The first thing Steve always does after he emerges into our world is politely excuse himself, go to the bathroom, and vomit like a world class super model. I don’t think he does this because he is partied out though. No, quite the contrary... In fact, Steve seems to spew all over the nearest piece of porcelain as a way of purging any final shred of common sense or decency that might still be floating around inside of his body. With that task done, he walked out of the bathroom, wiped a chunk of semi-digested nacho cheese off of his lip, threw his keys at me, and demanded, “Come on, we’re going to the Double Down.” Because, if there’s one place Steve Stevenson always has to visit while he’s in town, it’s the Double Down.

I would like to break story for a moment to explain that the art of describing a Steve Stevenson infused trip to the Double Down using only the English language is near impossible. It simply can’t be done. The only language that can even come close to describing it is a weird hybrid of Demon, Pig Latin, Slur, and for some reason, Dutch, known as, Stevenson, which unfortunately, I can not speak. Sure, on some long nights of drinking with Steve, you might see us having a conversation, so you might assume that I can speak Stevenson, but you would be wrong... it’s a Han Solo and Chewbacca sort of thing; don't ask.

Anyways, given the above linguistic dilemma, I’m not going to go into what exactly happened at the Double Down, but I will post this little blur of a filmstrip as an attempt at paraphrasing what went down. In fact, if you kind of cross your eyes and stare at it, you’re left with pretty much all I can remember about it anyways...



After the Double Down, we always get this weird urge to goto the Hard Rock, and that, my friends (A.K.A: those of you still reading), is where the true Steve Stevenson antics begin.

We saunter into the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, and it is about four-thirty in the morning, so what do we do? We immediately seek out our cocktail slinging friend, Booty McLeatherpants, to supply us with beverages of an alcoholic nature. It’s interesting to note that while we were talking to her, she kept telling me how drunk and fucked up I looked, yet she said nothing to Steve, despite the fact that he kept wandering off to tell people that I was, “Tyler from The Killers,” bringing them over to meet me, and then trying to slap them in the face for talking to me. Apparently, she’s met Steve before, and everything seemed to be in order.

After about ten minutes of those antics, Leather McBootypants, or Booty McLeatherpants, or whatever, kind of took us over and sat us down in the sidebar to feed us drinks, because we were way too drunk to be participating in the regular areas of the casino. So, as I’m sipping on my Jack & Diet and chugging the crap out of bottle of water, I somehow lost Steve. Losing Steve is not really that uncommon of an event; as he tends to wander off from time to time, but if you order him a fresh beer, he usually can sniff it out and find his way back. But, after about fifteen minutes had passed, I became a little bit concerned and went to go look for him. I checked out all his favorite hangouts; teasing hookers at the Circle Bar, teasing off-duty hookers at Mr. Luckies, getting rolled by hookers in the alley, you know, the usual.

After searching high and low, Steve was still nowhere to be found. That left two last places to check before chalking it up as a loss and heading home; the drunk tank and the morgue. But, before taking the trek downtown, I decided that I needed to hit the bathroom real fast, and as I walked into the bathroom, I somehow stumbled into a fucking scene.

Standing in the bathroom was a well composed black man. See-through, clubbing sunglasses rested on his nose, neatly tied corn-rolls graced his skull, and a three piece Italian suit hung from his body. But all of these lavish physical adornments were immediately trumped by the elegant, diamond studded, three-foot cane in his right hand. This man was calmly lounging in the bathroom, by the sinks, and standing next to him, screaming into his face was one, Mr. Steve Stevenson.

I walked in just in time to hear the man say, “Look, pal, I’m not a pimp,” and I knew we were in trouble. Now, I’m not going to type out a transcript of their argument for several reasons, the first of which being the fact that I was hammered, which would defeat the very invention and merit of the quotation mark. The second, and more important, reason is that certain words and phrases that occurred would undoubtedly deliver to Ruckus Maximus and myself the complete and unbridled fury of the NAACP. I can, however, tell you that Steve kept saying things like, “Naw, naw, come on playa... Look at those cornrolls; you a pimp. Come ON playa!” And the black guy, who, at one time, may or may not have been a body guard for Murder Inc. kept repeating, with an increasing level of anger, “I’m not a pimp!”

This went on for, no exaggeration, like ten minutes, until it was finally interrupted by a large sausage-fingered hand falling on Steve’s shoulder. I looked over and saw the biggest goomba of a Las Vegas security guard I have ever seen. Imagine if the five biggest goons in Goodfellas, The Godfather: II and The Soprano’s all showed up and Mighty Morphin Power Ranger style combined into one giant, neck-breaking, Italian enforcer. Now imagine two of him standing next to each other, that’s about how huge this guy was. To his credit however, he didn’t whip out a piano wire and instantly teleport us to the bottom of Lake Meade, he merely informed Steve that, “It was time to leave.” Steve, who was still arguing with the black dude, despite the fact that the black guy took the fuck off as soon as security showed up (warrants), just kept saying, “Naw playa, it’s all good playa, we’re cool, playa.” To which Security Guard, Mafia McSausagehands, replied, “I’m not a playa, I’m security,” and “escorted” Steve outside. I use italics to emphasize those words because he used mispronunciation to emphasize them in his own scary, uneducated sort of way.

As he took Steve out the side door, I feared the worst and followed them outside; not that I could really do anything to prevent him from beating Steve to death with his own arms, I just kind of wanted to watch. Besides, it was on the way to the car. Luckily for us, and by us, I of course mean Karim, the security guard didn’t violently sodomize Steve in front of the valet parking line, he didn’t even eighty-six him. He just sent us on our merry way, free to drive home and endanger the lives of several hundreds of Sunday morning, church going commuters.

Nevertheless, we somehow managed to pull up to my house, unscathed, and even better; with enough time for me to catch an hour and a half of sleep before I had to leave for work. I turned and tried to wake up Steve, who passed out in the passenger seat before I could even put the key into the ignition, but failed miserably. Going back to the old Chinese proverb, “Let sleeping dog’s lie,” I decided it was best to just let him sleep in his car, rather than to have him dominate the interior of my house with gallons of vomit, shit, and toothpaste (tune in to a later update of this series for the 4-11 on that.) Anyways, little did I know that just one short hour later, I would wake up for work, and have my mind fucking blown by a belligerent site...

It’s weird, when you drink all night, it doesn’t matter what your drink of choice was, you always end up smelling like vodka the next morning. I think it has something to do with the way your body processes, and then sweats out, alcohol... I don’t know, it’s just a mystery of life. And here’s where I found myself brushing my teeth for the third time and rubbing a stick of deodorant over my entire body in an effort to make myself smell less like a bottle of vodka--and not even a good one, we’re talking some hardcore, charcoal-filtered bullshit. Because, as we all know, going to work drunk is a classy maneuver, so long as you don’t smell like a hooker.

Once I Febreezed myself to a respectable level of skeevy, I put on my sunglasses and walked outside, bracing myself for another long day at work. As I was walking to my car, I bore witness to a strange and unusual sight. There was this congregation of old people standing in the middle of the street two houses down. Now, seeing old people out this early in the morning is not a strange thing amongst itself. I mean, by nine o’clock in the morning they’re already getting ready for lunch, but you never see them just standing around--they don’t have that sort of time on their hands. They’re usually doing something; walking their dogs, watering their sidewalk, walking around with a leash with nothing attached to it, something. But this particular gaggle of geezers was just standing there, staring at the ground like MTV’s Pimp My Ride came by and put TV’s all up in the sidewalks or something. Curiosity got the better of me, and I walked over to see what they were looking at. I mean, there could have been a hundred dollar bill on the ground that they all lacked the dexterity to pick up, but much to my disappointment there was no one-hundred dollar bill, nope... just Karim passed the fuck out in the gutter, drooling all over himself.

Realizing that, in the spirit of geriatric crime stopper, Benjamin Matlock, these people probably already called the police, I needed to get Karim out of there, fast. I ran over and started shaking him, slapping him in the face, and shouting his name; nothing. Finally, after about five minutes of me shaking him like an unwanted baby, his eyes popped open and he punched me... right in the balls.

To this day, he claims he doesn’t remember anything that happened in the gutter that morning, but I have witnesses, witnesses that are bound to be claimed any day now by the Grim Reaper of Time, but witnesses nonetheless. And I swear to you, Stephen Tiberious Stevenson, one day, when you least expect it, I’m going to hit you square in the balls... with a miniature Chicago Cubs souvenir baseball bat. Actually, scratch that, I’m going to let T-Money hit you in the balls to make up for the time K-Mill hit him in the balls because I lifted up her skirt and slapped her in the ass. But I wouldn’t really worry about that too much, there’s no way he kept reading my blog this long to find out that he owes you a crack in the sack.

And that concludes my tenth favorite Steve Stevenson story... make sure to tune in next time for,The Chronicles of Stevenson, Episode Nine: Camping Out and the Amazing Nacho Squeegee .