Friday STATTS Are Here To Get You To The Workday Finish Line (7/30)

Welcome to Friday afternoon STATTS (Stories, thoughts, and TikToks), where we get you to the work week finish line with an extra-long snake blog you can sneak into the handicapped stall for a few golden moments of alone time. Instead of more potty humor to kick us off, I figured I’d reach into the bank of bachelor party stories with a tale so ridiculous that even Jeffrey Toobin can’t beat it. Happy hour is just hours away, but after hearing this train wreck of a story, you may opt for a life of sparkling water instead.

PART I

Haircuts & Doughnuts

A close friend of mine got engaged years ago, and we ended up in Las Vegas for the festivities. This was no golf retreat; everyone had their game-faces on and knew the mission: to send our boy off with the celebration of a lifetime. The squad was the right size (life lesson: if you’re ever invited to a bachelor party with 25 people, don’t go) and very tightknit. Everyone spent a lot of time together back home and could handle themselves; that is, except one soon-to-be-infamous man: Sick Haircut.

Sick Haircut was a college friend of the groom whereas the rest of us were all hometown buddies, so none of us really knew him. All that mattered was that he was vouched for and therefore welcomed with open arms, but still, none of us really knew what to expect. He didn’t travel with us to Nevada (shoutout to Vegas flights pre-COVID; it was a party), so most of us met him for the first time in the Mirage lobby where he greeted everyone with big hugs and tons of energy. Dude seemed great, all was well.

The next morning, Sick Haircut strolls into breakfast with a high fade cut to perfection. For those who don’t know, a high fade (or at least that’s what I call this haircut) is when the sides of the hair get buzzed super short and the top remains long and luscious—sorta like a mullet that’s vertically integrated. Business on the bottom, party on the top. Basically, he looked like Johnny Bravo and had the swagger to match. Funny enough, the high fade is probably the most popular men’s haircut right now, although eight years ago you hardly ever saw them. Certainly nobody we knew rocked that haircut.

But Sick Haircut didn’t give a solitary f*ck. Shades on and guns out, he waltzed in with the bravado of a professional wrestler, proudly displaying this new signature look that apparently he had ordered fresh from the hotel barber shop, which I didn’t even know was a thing that existed. I mean seriously, who gets a haircut on vacation, in a casino? Like the geriatric roller derby from last week, it’s just a great reminder that wild people are out there everywhere. Anyways, we all had a good laugh (and more laughs the next two mornings when he had the fade touched up to perfection again and again; yes, three trips to the hotel hair girl), but little did we know, our guy was about to pull off a feat later that weekend that would blow his silly haircut antics out of the water.

On our last full day, we bought a cabana at a higher-end pool party. Not one of the massive parties where the water turns gray by mid-afternoon, but still a very “Vegas” atmosphere nonetheless. If you’ve never been to one of these parties, there’s really only two things that will get you in massive trouble: sneaking in something prohibited, especially something glass, and being too drunk for the party. Security is always extremely tight and willing to toss you out at a moment’s notice if they deem you a liability. Sick Haircut was about to drop bombs all over those rules, though.

Our party was smaller than this, but it gives you an idea. Photo via Eater Vegas.

Somehow, he managed to get a small shard of glass stuck in his foot right when we arrived and were about to spend thousands of dollars on vodka and chicken tenders. Management and security panicked when he spoke up; nobody could believe it, how did a piece of glass end up around a pool where absolutely no glass is served, ever?

Because of the faux pas, the staff tried to make it right with a few free drinks, lots of apologies, and, most detrimentally, a lot more rope than we ever would have had normally. In other words, to avoid a lawsuit, we were basically given free rein of the place, which is a great thing to happen, until the moment it’s not.

Sick Haircut accidentally got so plastered by the end of the day that we found him in the poolside bathroom barely hanging on to a stall door, mumbling incoherently, a pile of fresh piss all around him on the floor. Any other day, he would’ve surely been cut off or kicked out hours before, but not that day. Because of the glass, he was allowed to keep drinking and strutting around with his fresh fade way past his expiration date. What came next has become some of the wildest folklore in our group’s storied history, told year after year with tears of laughter as we reminisce about that fateful day in the Vegas bathroom.

Photo via LA Times

We immediately knew it was time to get him up to the room when we found him. Luckily, nobody else was in the bathroom besides me, one other buddy, and Sick Haircut, so we had a few moments to get the exit plan right. The piss was gross, but nothing that couldn’t be hosed off, and nothing a group of ex-frat stars hadn’t seen before. But as we stood him up for the long walk upstairs, something devestating happened.

A victorious butthole battle cry rang from his britches that would make a newborn baby blush. I shit you not, the kid shit himself right in front of us. A giant log slid out from his bathing suit and ran down his leg, coming to rest neatly in the middle of the room like a Baby Ruth by the drain pipe. As we pulled him out by his neck, Sick Haircut was unfazed, as if he didn’t even know it had happened. The man had just dropped a full chocolate éclair on the lido deck and didn’t even seem to notice. The stench hit and all bets were off. The next few minutes were a blur of trying to keep this stellar head of hair out of jail and his chocolate frosting off our legs.

I slipped the outdoor janitor a twenty dollar bill and shook my head gravely, silent and mortified like Lee Trevino, as me and my buddy dragged Sick Haircut through the casino and up to his room with a giant skidmark on his calf. Shocked at what we had just been through, the two of us threw him in his room’s bathtub and left him to sleep it off, our jaws on the floor as we scampered back down the elevator to meet the rest of the crew. It was one of the most absurd moments of either of our lives—a true galvanizing moment of friendship that we still cherish to this day. That trip birthed lots of great stories, but none as crazy as the live-action standing deuce by the new guy of the group.

But here’s the best part. I assumed Sick Haircut was destined for a long night of bathtub sleep and a diaper’s worth of shame in the morning...but no. This crazy SOB strolled into our steak dinner four hours later like he was headlining Wrestlemania, all smiles and finger guns. Not only was he cleaned up and dressed impeccably, he seemed to have no recollection of the day’s events whatsoever. He sat down, ordered a drink, and asked what we were doing that night. He was light on his feet, like he had just squeezed out a big problem or two from his life. At that point, the hilarity of the story was worth more than the pound of flesh he owed us for the massive ASS-ist in the bathroom. We’re still friends to this day, so this column is my small slice of revenge. And of course, when he showed up to dinner, his hair was perfect.

Moral of the story? Bring a little piece of glass to the pool party next time, but use the toilet before you go.

PART II

Random STATTS

1. Speaking of Baby Ruths in the pool, I met a real life Danny Noonan the other day at an engagement party. The bride’s father was this cool ex-hockey player type guy who grew up in Minnesota but was able to afford a nice college tuition in Texas thanks to a caddy scholarship he earned in high school at his local club. He told me he even had a Judge Smails whose ass he had to kiss to get in pole position for the big payday. No word on any Lacey Underall encounters, but I’ll get a chance to follow up at the wedding. Stay tuned.

3. Best possible response when someone asks for your help: I’m no gynecologist, but I’ll take a look.

4. Fun Family Fact of the Week: My older cousin was the blonde actress in Alan Jackson’s Chattahoochee music video back in 1993. She was a high school student in Nashville at the time and was discovered at a Pizza Hut hanging out with friends. Almost 30 years later, she has girls of her own in the same high school. She’s also still one of the most beautiful people I know, inside and out.

5. Vintage bombshell of the week: I was never a huge country music fan growing up (it’s grown on me lately), but goodness gracious, have you ever seen anyone as sexy as Shania Twain in her prime? I’ve met dozens of celebrities in the biz, and even call some of them friends. But I’m almost positive I’d be tongue-tied to this day if Shania and me crossed paths.

Here’s how you know she was a real legend: ask yourself, how many people named ‘Shania’ do you meet regularly? Almost none, you know why? Because that’s an act you just can’t follow. Mothers instinctively know this, too; they aren’t subjecting their daughters to a lifetime of silver medals. If you're a mom, you better know that baby is going to be a bombshell before you go naming her Shania, and even so, she better be talented as well. Otherwise, she's stuck with a real country name and a legacy of greatness attached. In other words, unless she's a gem, you’re paving a tough road of slinging wings and draft beers at Hooters for her.

So if you’re out there Shania, reading OutKick and dunking on libz, just know you’re still a legend in our minds. A real front-door walker, if I do say so myself.

6. What’s a front-door walker? Glad you asked. A front-door walker is a woman so sexy that you walk her straight up to your front door and tell your entire family to get the hell out. No sneaking around, no lying to your spouse. Just strut right up to the door like Johnny Bravo and start a new family, right then and there.

7. That joke was told to me by a fun-sized Texan with a mouth bigger than Alaska when I was working on a nuclear power plant as a consultant in 2015. The plant, and lots of high paying blue-collar jobs around the country, were chocked full of characters like that—guys whose respect you had to earn but who treated you like family once you did. I often joke that bleeding heart leftists just need a year at a power plant to understand the bigger picture in life. It was the kind of place where if the guys weren’t talking shit to you, it meant they hated you. The jokes, ribbing, and locker room talk meant they liked you.

This new Charmin-soft generation of crybabies with clutched pearl necklaces and IKEA fainting couches will never understand what it’s like to be a part of something that's both difficult and rewarding. The brotherhood of plant workers (yes, with women, too) there was something special, and once I was finally accepted into it—once I EARNED it with dependability and hard work—these hardass union boys from all over the country treated me like a brother, too. It’s a time that shaped me, and one I’ll never forget. Shoutout to PSEG in Salem-Hope Creek, New Jersey.

8. Tweet of the week:

My boy Gary Sheffield, Jr. made me spit out my water with this rogue fat joke from the top rope. I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for mean jokes (see why directly above), but dammit, insult humor just can’t be topped. The key is to be able to take the jokes as well as give them, like how Lizzo takes an extra biscuit from the buffet line on set of her music videos. Okay, that was a cheap shot, but it’s Friday and I know you’re hungry for some humor. Dammit, did it again. Okay okay, like a New Year’s diet in February, we need to get back on track.

9. All this food talk actually made me remember an amazing moment from one of my first shows in Hollywood, VH1’s Hip Hop Squares. If you’ve never seen the show (then you probably did well on your SATs), the premise is just like Hollywood Squares tic-tac-toe, but with hip hop culture celebs smoking blunts in between takes. I have so many great stories from those two weeks on the lot; maybe we’ll do a deep-dive one week as the intro to STATTS, but today I’ll give you just one great quick chicken nugget.

During a lunch break, B-list celebrity and certified snacker Blac Chyna was trying to take three (!) plates of food back to her dressing room. If you’ve ever worked a set before, then you know that the food is all free, but there’s still an unspoken code that exists about taking too much. My production manager, a fiery little Mexican dude who made his bones in Hollywood as Mario Lopez’s personal assistant in the Saved by the Bell days, was having none of Blac Chyna’s bullshit that day. In front of the whole crew, he marched over to the buxom woman and told her, I quote, no no no honey, you only get one plate per asscheek, and made her put one plate down. What an industry, no?

10. STATTS Bookclub: If you even moderately enjoyed The Irishman on Netflix, I highly recommend reading the book it was based upon, I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa. It’s the PERFECT beach read—easy, entertaining, and fast. I thought the movie was pretty good, but DeNiro doesn’t even come close to matching the gravitas of Frank Sheeran. Read the book instead.

"I heard you paint houses" are the first words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran. To paint a house is to kill a man. The paint is the blood that splatters on the walls and floors. In the course of nearly five years of recorded interviews, Frank Sheeran confessed to Charles Brandt that he handled more than twenty-five hits for the mob, and for his friend Hoffa. He also provided intriguing information about the Mafia's role in the murder of JFK.

PART III

TikTok Roundup: Look Who’s Tokking, Too (1990) (volume up)

This blog is already running long, so my video analysis will be a little shorter than normal.

Here's a live look at Sick Haircut as a kid, breaking all the bathroom rules without a care in the world. Hopefully this kid's mom stopped for a Krispy Kreme on the way home after abandoning him in the mall stall.

I'm ALL IN on Dr. Zimmerman the dick doc from TikTok, get this man a Discovery Channel show STAT. And how about this great news for white dudes everywhere? Not only did I learn that 5.5 is the league average, but also learned that all you need to do is step on it a few times to make it flat like a dry-eraser. We're back, baby!

Honestly, what other point is there to have kids then to put them to work and trick them whenever possible? This kid may wear his parents' faces for Halloween when he gets older, but who cares? A good viral prank will more than pay for the therapy coming down the pipeline.

Sorry, Lizzo, you misunderstood; I said cake toss, not steak sauce. But you still might want to hang around for any dropsies. Seriously, though, how much fun does this family look? It's like the Festivus Feats of Strength for every birthday. Good for them, we all need to lighten up more. Love it.

Dr. Zimmerman told me third legs aren't necessary, but good on these chaps for having some phenomenal third legs in their Olympic debuts. You really don't ever need a business card when you have an introductory video clip like that in your back pocket. If that's your mate, what do you call him when he gets home? Rudder? Trolling motor? The list of possibilities is just girthy, if not long.

Thanks for stopping by today, and enjoy your cold beer at happy hour. These columns are a lot of fun to write, and I sincerely thank you for reading them. I think they will be even better with some reader-participation, so shoot me an email with your STATTS at outkicktommy@yahoo.com to be featured.

Follow me on Twitter @outkicktommy. Cheers!

Cover photo via Shania Twain Instagram.