Poutine > Wahlburgers

The past week has been a nice accumulation of odd and unique experiences of which I have the responsibility to tell. Welcome back folks; friends, family, coworkers, former lovers, currents lovers, enemies, random people I went to school with, former teachers, some lady my mom works with, my boss's fiancé and strangers. So much has happened the past 7 days I'm not even sure where to start. I could kick it off talking about hanging out (not really) with one of the New Kids on the Block or how I got shot in the mouth by a paintball while drunk in Canada. I'll just go in order, stray from subjects with my patented rants, random rap quotes, movie references, typos and pretty dames I get butterflies over.

Derek! Look at the camera!

Monday was a long day, brought the thunder at softball (double header). Went 7 for 8 with three doubles and scored 4 times. noooo biggieeeeee. I also tried to catch a ball at the fence, it hit my glove and flew over said fence. Home run on my error, it was pretty funny. What did you think I was going to brag about being good at softball and just leave it at that? No way, I'm also a goon. Plus the better you are at softball, beer pong, bean bags, or darts the sadder your real life is I think. I know that's fucked up but it's true if you really think about it. I'm decent at dumb shit like that but if I ever took it seriously I would have to take a long hard look in the mirror.

Tuesday was the Wahlberg's charity poker tournament and I was pretty excited about it. I left work early, got dressed like a high class waiter and headed to fancy county club. My first job at age 12 was at a country club and I've always had a distaste for them. I was a caddy from ages 12 to 14. I HATED that fucking job but it was still a job. My brother Jamie was the best caddy in history and got me the gig. One time I found like 10 golfballs in the woods over the course (pun) of the day and the caddy-master (I hate this term but think Brian Doyle Murray's character in Caddyshack only less awesome) saw I was bringing golf balls home. He decided to put the fear of god into me at the ripe age of 13. He pushed me against the wall and threatened to burn me with his lit cigarette. Pretty tough move for an adult in charge of children. The next day my father put the fear of god into HIM and threatened to "bury him under the 18th hole" that's my dad folks. Alas now that I'm 32 years old the memory still makes my blood boil. If I ever run into Rich Morton (yes I remembered his name) again I will kick the ever living shit out of him. I don't care if he's in a wheelchair, I'll pull that fucker out and shatter his orbital bones (eye sockets) with my bare hands. Look! My first off topic tangent! But if you know Rich Morton tell him Matt McAskill is coming for him. The event was really nice but a bit disorganized for my taste. None of the chip stacks were ready for the event which is pretty time consuming. They finally organized their fuck up and the event began. There were some pretty cool C-grade (more like D) celebrities there. Donnie Wahlberg, the other non-Mark Wahlbergs, Torrey Krug from the Bruins, Dennis Seidenberg, Jimmy Hayes, Micky Ward and others who I now can't remember due to their lack of memorability. I only cared about the Bruins players but I guess meeting Donnie Wahlberg would be funny. I dealt my first table then got pulled off to deal the TV table. They were shooting an episode of Wahlburgers and the tournament director wanted to give me a chance to be on the TV show. I don't watch that show but my mom does so I was stoked to be filmed. I wasn't sure if the cameras would fuck me up dealing or not. They didn't, so that's a plus. At the TV table was Micky Ward and Rob Wahlberg? I think his name was Rob. He's the one who is aging the most poorly and also wasn't a fan of me. I dealt him some shitty hands and he blamed me in that overly forced Boston accent. The one that the Wahlberg's have made so famous and made us Bostonians look so cartoonish in the media. I'm just (half) kidding, Rob was pretty cool with me, he just liked to break balls. Micky Ward was also in the lineup, The Fighter himself. He was sitting next to Rob and they were talking about Micky's favorite fights. If you're a boxing fan that would be an interesting conversation to overhear. The only thing I could think of is the fact Rob's brother (Marky Mark) played this guy in a movie. I wanted him to go "my brother played you in a movie once bro!" but sadly he never did. After that table I dealt to Jimmy Hayes of the Boston Bruins. That was really cool since I'm a huge Bruins fan but he's like my least favorite player. He was really nice, horrible poker player and fizzled out this season since I'm kicking him while he's down. I wish I got to deal to Seidenberg but you can't win them all, right Bruins?! See what I did there? OK fuck talking about this event, it was so much work and I didn't get paid enough. Although I made friends with these 2 guys who were cool as fuck. I also spotted the waitress from the poker room whom I have a small (large) crush on. She was playing in the tournament. Oh you're indescribably gorgeous, funny, cool and play poker? Girl! Are you trying to make me fall in love?! Oh. You have a boyfriend? Gotcha, catch ya on the flip side. Some knob won the tournament, first place was an Indian motorcycle. Between his ugly dress sense, age of his lady, haircut and sunglasses I'd say the hideous motorcycle completed his white guy midlife crisis starter pack. Ok that's enough with that goofy poker tournament. I got my new friends info, cleaned up the tables, talked to the angel for 3 seconds, got paid and got the fuck out of there. I drove home my homegirl Melissa who I've known for about 10 years. She's a really good person, I even dated her sister who could not be more lovely. Hi Jen! I still think your kid looks a little like me! After all that history Melissa still didn't introduce me to the devilish angel waitress poker playing goddess whom she is close friends with. So rude, but probably for the best.

May I refill your water?

Last 2 people of this crap shoot.

Now it's time for the main event, my trip to Montreal. My friend Landry is getting married next month to his main squeeze Jacqui. Landry is a firefighter/EMT, a great dude and is 0-2 in drunken wrestling matches against me (sorry Landry). Jacqui is the most energetic dancer I've ever encountered on the dance floor, it's madness. She's also cool as hell and I'm glad my friend found a girl he cares about so strongly. To send Landry off to marriage we set off to throw him an epic bachelor party. I don't think I've ever spelled the word bachelor correctly on the first try in my life. To be specific Greg (Landry's best man) planned the weekend so he gets all the well-deserved credit. To unfold this tale I must list all the players involved; Landry. One time I told Landry that he and I should open a bar called the Landry-Matt, only let patrons pay in quarters and serve a signature drink called the "spin cycle." Yes. I agree, I am a genius. Back to our players; myself, Nato (my cousin), Koplov, Greg (best man), Kyle, Natedog, Rob, Bowden, and Derek (also essentially my cousin). Getting my (first) passport for this adventure was a large pain in the ass but would ultimately be well worth it. I was (over) packed and ready to go Friday when I got to work. I was in a great mood all day and fired out of there at 12pm sharp. I made my way up to Nato's house who met me at the door to inform me he lost his passport. Snag number one! But my positive energy was to powerful to let this stop the fun train. We hopped in Nato's car and headed to his office to hunt there. After making me walking up 6 flights and rummage through an empty office I was sweaty and Nato was resigned to his fate of not going. Not on my watch cousin. Our plan was to go back to his house and power-hunt for the diabolical miniature blue folder. Junk drawers were ransacked, desks were picked apart, luggage was combed over. Finally John (Nato) showed me where he usually leaves it. A small shelf in his closet which was empty. John was ready to give up, I remarked "when I find this you're buying me a shot and a lap dance" stakes were raised. Nato agreed and I turned the flashlight on my phone on and checked all the crevices of this sinister black-hole of a closet when I spotted something. Wedged against the inside wall of the shelf in question was the passport. It's dark blue and blended in with the black shelf. We high fived, hugged then got the hell out of there! Snag one handled by your boy.

Handled.

We met at Derek's house where Gary, Derek's dad and my friend/loan shark was waiting to babysit his grandson Andrew. As a side note, I've known Derek since he was 15 and I have been fortune enough to watch him grow up. He is best friends with my brother Kyle and I've considered Derek family for a very long time. I'd take a bullet for him and I've had to see him face a hardship or 2 and he walked out of the flames stronger for it. Derek is a man of his word and honor isn't something you see everyday, I'm proud to call him family. He went from an immature kid to an amazing father before my eyes and it fills me with pride that I got a front row seat. We left baby Andrew with grandpa Gary but not before having a beer and cutting a deck of cards for $10. Koplov won that showdown that lucky fuck. Road time! Fuck me this is gonna be a long one folks! Buckle up, it's a good time! The team in Derek's massive truck was myself, Derek, Nato, Koplov and Bowden. The ride up was a blast, surprised the Bachelor at the first rest stop, stocked up with some booze and cider doughnuts. This rest stop in New Hampshire has amazing doughnuts! Cider ones to boot, the very pastry that tried to kill me a few years ago (that story is one for another day). On the way to Montreal, oh sorry, I forgot to tell you the bachelor party was in Montreal Canada. Wait, did I already say that? Fuck it. On the way up we stopped to play disc golf in Vermont. The course was beautiful and I was pretty buzzed so I was having fun, minus all the bugs and sucking at disc golf.

God I'm talented.

We didn't have much time to play so we left after 9 holes. Back to the car we went and made it to the border. We got stuck in traffic getting in but made it to the hotel around 9.

We had 3 rooms booked, one suite and two rooms with double queen beds. I bunked up with Nato since we are family and have a good history sharing beds at bachelor parties. Before hitting the town we had some drinks and Bowden challenged me to a push-up contest. Let me first preface this by saying Eric (Bowden) is built like a literal superhero. I did 33 and he got near 50 but I questioned his form (basically a sore loser and made up excuses why I lost haha) so we went again. I did 31 and Eric did around 40, still didn't love the form Eric ! Alas 64 pushups later we got dressed and hit the town. All of us were starving so we got the grossest pizza on the planet while an elderly man played guitar and sang strange songs in the corner of this sad excuse for a pizza place. After we ate we made our way to the first strip club to meet our bachelor party planner, Kyle. First of all there are too many Kyles in this post. One is Senator Kyle who is my friend and was at the bachelor party, one is my cousin Kyle who was not there but introduced me to all these guys and the third is this ass-hat douche bag bachelor party planner. This specimen met us at the front door of an establishment called Kamasutra. He did a great job getting us in for free and reserving us a booth. Except there was no cover charge, I paid the bouncer for said booth and Kyle disappeared to presumably buy another ugly shirt to wear under a cheap blazer. Perhaps he was getting the shaved part in his hair freshened up, or maybe he was checking the dumpster for a higher quality of personality. As you can tell I hated this guy and debated starting shit with him night one. This trip wasn't about me so I digressed. We took care of Landry at the club, getting him drinks and crap. I passed on lap dances myself. Not buy choice really, I saw two women that were unbelievable but I spent most of my Canadian money already and wasn't going to drop my higher valued American money (sans conversion rate) in that place. After that spot we walked around hunting for a suitable bar. We walked past a sign that read "THR Bar" and had skateboards all around it. We said "fuck it" and ventured in. As we climbed the stairs the temperature rapidly increased to roughly 90 degrees of humid insufferable heat. Everyone else seemed turned off by this but I've been to far more punk/ska shows than them. I know this air well, this heat turned me into who I am today. We got inside and saw they had a mini ramp in the middle of the bar.

We watched guys skateboard for a while and a few members of our crew couldn't take the heat and left. We were thinking about leaving when some cute girls started to dance nearby and that's all I needed to convince the remaining team to stay. Senator Kyle got us a round of beer since he was the last one with Canadian cash on him and we proceeded to dance the night away.

Get em senator Kyle!

This bar played a nice mix of punk, pop and classic rock and we were feeling it! Just then we spotted some stripper poles that appeared to be vacant. Well we're tipsy and extroverts so we put on a pole-dancing clinic for the bar. After 3am rolled around we stumbled to the hotel with convenience store snacks and listened to more music in the suite and shot the shit till about 4am. We headed to bed and I shockingly slept like a baby, for about 5 hours. Better than most nights for ya boy. Saturday everyone in our room woke up around the same time, except Eric who hit the streets of Montreal early to explore. I woke up separate from the rest of the boys, showered and did some exploring myself. I exchanged my American money for the way cooler looking Canadian money and went looking to meet up with Derek and Koplov who found a nice park/cafe near the hotel. On the way there I stumbled upon a cute candy shop playing 80's music so I filled a Chinese food take out box with a pound of candy while The Cure's "Just like Heaven" played over the speakers. It was basically a montage scene from a of a romantic comedy except I was alone hahaha.

I did well on this.

I got my candy, looked at some pretty ladies, great graffiti and beautiful architecture and found my boys in the park. This was the morning I began to fall in love with Montreal, it's a beautiful town and the women are unspeakably gorgeous. I don't mean like trampy college girls, I mean heart-stealing beauties that shake you to your core with one look. Once at the park we shot the shit and then I ventured into the small cafe to get non-candy food. They had freshly baked croissants being sold by a very cute girl who spoke french. I ordered in french, which wasn't too hard since it only required me to remember one sentence from high school French class. She knew I was American so she spoke to me in English, hopefully she appreciated my feeble effort. Nato met us at the park with Eric who immediately assimilated to the culture by walking 5 miles around the city and getting a fresh haircut (he looked very sharp).

Street arttttttttt

We headed back to the hotel for our "breakfast service" which was tastefully referred to as "legs and eggs" which is just strippers bringing you food. Sounded good to me but the caveat of that is, my experience with strippers who are willing to come to you are not of the highest quality. I was also concerned about food prep technique. I love naked women but not enough to sacrifice the quality of my food intake. I was pleasantly surprised when the ladies arrived with really good deli meat and french bread. It wasn't eggs but I'm sure that was for the best, apparently the food was from some famous deli in Montreal. Here comes the dicey part of the blog, what shall I write? I must protect the event's details to maintain the bachelor party code. To be honest nothing overly salacious happened and everyone was well-behaved. At one point a stand up gentleman of my crew was seated next to me with his arms crossed caught the attention of one of the ladies. This man could care less about the show and was mostly just joking around with myself. The dancer sat on his lap and attempted to get him to take advantage of the full contact style of lap dances Montreal is known for. I noticed my friend wasn't interested, arms crossed and shaking his head. So I put my hands to work and informed the lady to relocate to my lap. It's not too often that me grabbing strippers fake (albeit fantastically done)  boobs is a gesture of being a good friend. Look, I like stuff like this but I also don't expect others to be into it. When I see a member of my team is in peril I step up and get handsy with a strange French Canadian stripper, that's the kind of man I am! I know these men's lady's read this blog and I'm not one to pull punches. The show was fairly tamed and nobody crossed any lines, these guys like to party but are all respectful people which is another reason I love them. After the show we got on our paintball clothes. Well we did some shots and whatnot and headed over. I've never done paintball and I was excited/drunk.

I held my own and impressed the competition with my natural skills. I'm just kidding, I was terrible but had so much fun. There were two young kids on our team and I kept shouting how they were my children and if anyone hurt or shot them I'd hunt them down in the parking lot. Truth of the matter is they were mini assassins and protected me for the most part. The second game I got shot and was walking out of the arena and lifted up my mask to get air. BIG mistake because I got shot in the fucking MOUTH. I don't mean shot in my full powerful smooch lip muscles, I got shot IN my mouth. The paintball broke on my back molar filling my grill with white paint. It looked like I just had my first porn audition and I promptly washed out my mouth and laughed it off.

They got Koplov in the mouth too haha

Paintball was a blast minus two douche buckets walking in with no shirts and just mesh shorts and masks to prove their skills/show off some abs. They say pride cometh before the fall and it could not have been more true with these assholes. One remarked that he'd give his shirt-wearing friend a free shot at him. Presumably to prove his medal, which feels ironic in a simulated battle field. His friend shot him right in the balls which forced him to double over in pain. I saw this as an opportunity to salt his fresh wound and teach him more of a lesson. I shot him in the gut and leg while he was doubled over in pain. He seemed upset by that "who the fuck did that?!" which I proceeded to inquire as well "yea! not cool guys!" fuck that guy. This is a long one folks! Tap out whenever you like, but if reading over 4,000 words is an issue for you I don't want you as a reader anyway so get to steppin'.

we out here.

After paintball we went to dinner and I ate a mountain of poutine, Derek also slapped me because I guess i tagged him while tipsy. After dinner we had another private show. This one was kinda whack and the quality of performers had gone down. The only highlights were me being welcomed to slap one of them in the ass. Which I proceeded to do and left a hand-print that was still there later in the night when we ran into them at the strip club they worked at. Go me. Another highlight was one accusing my friend of taking pictures when he was texting the mother of his child while paying zero attention to the show at hand. I snapped back that he was a papa bear and had much better things to attend to than capture photos of the likes of your kind. I think my wording was confusing enough for her feeble mind and she moved on. I like strippers but accusing my most honorable friend who hadn't even lifted his head to look at the show of such a foul gesture upset old Matty so I handled it. Oh and I took a picture just to piss her off, she deleted and it and it was all in good fun. At the end of this garbage I got a text from my friend Holly who asked if I was in Montreal for the concert. I responded "what concert?" she then said "Isn't Less Than Jake playing up there? I thought that was part of the reason you went up" pardon me?! My favorite band on the planet is playing in the foreign land I happen to be in?! I frantically tried to order an Uber but the app kept crashing. Finally I went out front to meet the driver. Derek followed and i guess the driver went to the location I was earlier in the day. Derek grabbed me and goes "Matt! The concert is right there!" pointing to the bottom of the hill our hotel sat on. I stood still for a moment and could hear my favorite band playing in the distance. I sprinted down the hill full clip, throwing my beer against a fence. I got to the venue, rushed past the gate and made my way to the stage. I danced my heart out, screamed the words to every song, sent videos to Ethan whom also regards Less Than Jake as his favorite band.

I STILL can't believe this happened.

It was one of the best and most amazing coincidences of my life. After the show I had a grin tattooed to my face, I showered, changed and headed to the casino to meet the boys. I played some poker, lost like $40 and then we went to one more strip club. I wasn't a fan of this one, line was too long and I was dead tired. We didn't stay long before calling it a night. We all disbanded to get different food. I stuck with cousin John and he got pizza near the hotel where a large fight apparently had just happened. We saw a bloody man who couldn't stand and kept saying he was from Toronto. We then got some pizza in a place housing another bloody man who was the size of a small car. He looked like if a tree wished to become a human, the result of that alchemy was this bloody gentleman. The bloodied warrior didn't phase John while ordering his pizza and poutine.

This shit is so fucking GOOD.

The cops showed up and we got the fuck out of there and avoided puddles of blood while going back to the hotel. Falling asleep was tricky but around 5am it sort of happened. What a great day! But the next was sleepy and sore (from paintball and Less Than Jake). We got packed Sunday morning, got some crepes, I pinched a nerve in my neck somehow (still is killing me) and we hit the road.

This Was Derek's crepe, mine was egg and cheese and not as good.

The ride home was a mixture of overtired laughter, making fun of Koplov's horribly ugly shirt, traffic, dozing off, rain storms and then a stop at the Ben and Jerry's factory. I liked the wholesome ending to the trip as a fun juxtaposition with the debauchery enjoyed the days before it.

We made it back to Massachusetts in one piece. I played Frisbee with John, his wife Jecka and my friend Brittany. We got pizza and Jecka tried posture being mad a John then finally broke down and just admitted missing him. It was a nice way to cap off a great weekend with amazing friends. I headed back home to Beverly and went to bed within an hour of being home. Did you make it all the way through this post? I feel like I should reward you! Next time I see you I owe you a high five or bear hug. Hope you enjoyed my international journey! I still can't believe Less Than Jake was playing a block away from my hotel! It must have been karma from finding John's passport and grabbing that rogue boob. I deserved it. Later folks!

Enjoy the eye candy.

Keep smiling (even when your belly is packed to the brim with poutine)