Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates by Mike Stangle Page A

the bar, I couldn’t find her at any other bars, and the hotel night manager assured me there was no LAH POOP staying at his hotel. What’s worse? No one except the bouncer even saw me leave the bar with her. I came back to a crowd of drunken friends yelling at me for flaking out on them. When I told Mike the story, he laughed me off as if it never could have happened. I didn’t fight him on it; what was the point? I was happy to be back there with all of my organs still inside my body and all my demons outside of it, finally.
    The night ended how most nights like that ended back then, in a complete blackout. When I pulled myself together the next day, I got The Entertainer out of the water and onto the trailer, loaded up my friends, and began to head home. The drive out of Lake George the day after is always depressing. You drive past all the things you still want to be doing, then watch them fade into the rearview mirror. The last landmark you drive by on your way out of town is Fort William Henry. As I looked into my rearview to bid adieu to one of the wilder and luckier nights I’d had, I caught a glimpse of that statue of William Henry. Someone had found the coonskin hat nearby and put it on his head. I’ll always remember you, Lisa L’Poop.

It’s All About the Nipple
Young Man, Count Your Titty Blessings
    (Mike)
    The older fellas I know love talking about how much technology has changed the flirting game between their generation and mine. Once upon a time, they were just like me. They were in their twenties, young professionals, living in a bustling city filled with women. The major difference between chasing women then and chasing women now? Technology. When they were our age, the concept of a gal being willing and able to take a sexy picture of herself and then instantly send it to a fella she was sweating was absolutely bonkers. All a gal needs to do nowadays is pop off some clothes, do the skinny-arm pose (hand on hip, ladies!), kissy-face those lips, and snap. Some lucky guy has a little red number 1 in the corner of his Snapchat and the games have begun. We men take for granted how easy that process is.
    Picture the entire operation if you limit yourself to the technology of previous generations. I’m not just saying before Snapchat, but before camera phones, digital cameras, before everyone had a Dell desktop computer riddled with viruses. I’m talking about a time when the phrase “nudie shot” would make people think of the Hooters drink menu. Back then, it was so much more than point, snap, and send. Imagine trying to replicate that with limited technology? I imagine a young, plucky gal named Sue asking her older friend Peggy to borrow her camera, because younger people can’t afford cameras. So she goes to Peggy’s apartment at a time they designated to meet hours earlier, while in the same company, because no one had cell phones to make last-minute plans. Then she lugs the camera in the over-the-shoulder case to the local pharmacy and buys a roll of film. Then she goes back to her apartment and puts the film in the camera, but she forget to get batteries. So she goes back to the pharmacy and gets batteries, but they’re the wrong kind. She wasn’t even paying attention, because she had gotten a little high at her apartment while loading the film. Once she gets the film set and the right batteries, she gets the camera on and uses the entire roll of film taking nudie shots of herself. Selfies, mirror shots, full bush everywhere. There is probably an Andy Warhol print in the background of some of them. She has to take a ton of them, because she can’t see whether they are good or bad as she takes them. Then she has to get the film developed, but she doesn’t want to go to her local pharmacy. They are pictures of her naked, and that shit is unheard-of. Plus, she’s already been in there three times for film and batteries, and the guy who