On May 17, 2011 I promised to begin the first of a three part recollection series on Andrew Hiatt’s Carolina Beach Bachelor Party on, ugh, May 18, 2011. My concept of time is clearly lacking.

After verbal threats of physical violence from bride-to-be Kathleen Gaudet, I now return to my blog, tail between my legs, finally ready to divulge the first night of that celebration.

Just kidding. They took my tail away at birth. (I say “took” because, yes, it was without my consent. That thing allowed me to express myself and was instrumental in providing balance. On the Stephanie Tanner/Full House “How Rude” scale, that would rate a solid eight.)

If you need a refresher before embarking on our magical journey, please refer to the previous post on “The Legend of Drew Drew.”

Before we officially begin, a look at our complete cast:

Man-love since 2004.

The Cast of Characters

Andrew Hiatt - The groom-to-be. This bright-eyed ginger fellow currently works for someone and devises strategies for some purpose in Toronto. I don’t usually pay attention to talk of work. Then again, maybe I know exactly what he does and I just like being irreverent. Either way, the thing you need to know about Andrew is his general hobbit-like sneakiness when inebriated (or “sneeness” as he calls it), and his yearning to feel “safe” at all times. He also possesses a conditioned aversion to monkey masks. For more information on Drew Drew, again, see this post.

Scott Nuckols – “Scottie Too Hottie”, or “Tommy Knuckles” if you go by his late 19th century fighter name, is a gentle beast of a man who benevolently allows the rest of us to co-exist with him simply because of the comedic value we bring to the table. A beer bonging champion, Scott is perhaps best known for perfecting the “I’ll do one!” technique, which inevitably leads him to performing a half dozen bongs and continuing to scream out “I’ll do one more!”, even when there is no longer anyone in the kitchen to hear him. He also makes up one part of a fearsome two-man beer pong tandem with fellow cast member William Green. Scott attended The University of North Carolina, being the champion that he is.

William Green – “Willy G” aka “Willy Genius” once dominated Craige Basketball Court as the kind of talented, tenacious Caucasian big-man that cast member Nation Hahn loves to hate. Known for waving street signs while blacked out in Ashley Forest as if he was auditioning in front of King Arthur’s Court, William never met a stranger’s back porch he didn’t like to sleep on. He’s also known for running through the rooms of your house like a member of the Scooby-Doo Gang.

Read the rest of this entry »

It's been a "sad panda" time for me.

Just a quick check-in before I finally get around to revealing the magical occurrences that cropped up during Drew Drew’s Carolina Beach Bachelor Weekend Bash.

You may have remembered the mental anguish, psychological suffering and general, crippling distress I underwent after learning that a piece of my essence had been stolen and burdened with a price tag, that a bit of my soul had leaked away thanks to the unwarranted profiteering on my illustrious name. It was a “sad panda” sort of revelation.

Apparently, my howls of pain reached the presumably pampered, wealthy ears of Billykirk, Inc.’s Kirkland himself (at least it appears that way), as he tweeted after having the blessed serendipity to stumble upon my site following my original post.

My personal description on my Twitter account reads, “Writer. Insomniac. Pleasantly lazy.” The Billykirk, Inc. account tweeted the following in response to my post: “Writer, insomniac, pleasantly lazy, satirical wordsmith & in no way affilated with Billykirk, Inc.”

Satirical wordsmith?! Whoa, baby. They sure know how to make a girl blush over at Billykirk. They even had the decency to link to the post.

The above is property of Billykirk, Inc.

In all seriousness, it reflects well on Kirkland’s ability to take a joke. At least the folks over there aren’t stuffy, pretentious and boring. While I’m not sure I’m ready to officially relinquish the rights to my name, I suppose my good readers get the green light to purchase billykirk goods. Just, ugh, maybe not the $550 purses. That’s a wee bit much for me to stomach still.

Oh, and if Billykirk, Inc is interested in using the dashing, charismatic likeness of the real Billy Kirk, all will be completely forgiven. You know, with proper compensation in place, and all. Just sayin’.

If looks could kill....then Andrew wouldn't have to use his ginger fire-breath to, you know, kill you.

On a dark, unsettling night sometime in June of 1986, a wolf howled into the night, a brave, chilling call of the wild that few would ever think of challenging.

That wolf’s call was suddenly silenced by the latest member of the bloodthirsty ginger race.

Birthed under an evil star, some say Andrew Hiatt has in fact been born and re-born into the most desperate epochs throughout human history, a portent of wicked times to come, a veritable harbinger of doom for those far more human than him. In August of 2004 he cast his shadow over the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, throwing his sullen cloak of treachery over a hapless number of noble lads who were just looking for a college education, not an education in fear.

I was one of those lads. I am one of those survivors.

In 2007 the flame-headed beast mercifully left his UNC killing grounds to pursue the study of the German language in, well, Germany. (Read: He went to join the Hitler Youth.) It was here that he managed to ensnare an unsuspecting Canadian sweetheart in Kathleen Gaudet.

Just kidding, ya’ll. Drew Drew Hiatt, while indeed a ginger, is a swell and unassuming scholarly gentleman who wouldn’t hurt a fly, and his wife-to-be Kathleen is indeed a sweetheart and a lucky lady. (Well, you know, modestly lucky.) The two of them currently jam out in Toronto, where Andrew has recently applied for permanent residency – not to be confused with citizenship – and also where their open-bar wedding bash will be held in July.

Who looks more ridiculous in this photo? You decide!

This past weekend we joined Andrew in Carolina Beach, NC for bachelor party beach shenanigans, and boy, were there shenanigans! It was a clash of two worlds, Canada vs. America, a meeting of two true superpowers. Well, okay. One superpower. But they still have mounties.

With the introduction of the legendary Drew Drew now out of the way, tomorrow I will begin relaying the events of the past weekend in three glorious parts. Stay tuned, dear readers. And lock your doors. There are gingers out there!!

"billykirk leather goods are bulls***!!" - Eminem

Ever have someone get their meal ticket off the renown of YOUR OWN NAME?

If you think such a dastardly deed is the exclusive domain of clown people, poo poo heads, and general asshats….well, you’d be right.

No doubt sometime shortly after tales of my greatness and general legendary status reached their ears, the “handmade leathermakers” over at billykirk decided to capitalize off my name, charisma, essence, and general “X-factor.” Look, I wish I could explain it any other way, but my narrow-minded logic keeps me from reaching any other conclusion.

If you’re unfamiliar with the identify-theft experts (read: d-bags) over at “billykirk”, they have purportedly been making various, upper-cut leather accessories such as wallets and belts for both men and women since 1999. Yep, for the math majors and those of you paying attention out there, that’s 13 whole years after my illustrious birth and all the prophecies that came with it. From their dubious website which will surely cop the design I have here within the next couple weeks:

We formed the company in 1999. We always knew we would own a company together and it would be called, “Billykirk.” What that was going to encompass just hadn’t surfaced. In fact, in the mid 90’s I made some “Billykirk Designs” business cards for Kirk who was graduating from college with a clothing design degree.

So, apparently these originality-deprived goons knew they wanted my name before they even knew they had an actual business – or any other direction or inspiration, for that matter (although I’ll admit, my name alone is pretty inspirational). You may ask, however, “But surely ‘Lil Bill, one of their names must also be Billy Kirk, right?” I’d love to tell you that is the case. Again from their official site:

Our brand name came from our father who often calls me “Billykirk” because my full name is William Kirkland. This is also probably due to our Southern roots and the melding of the first and middle names.

BOOM, exposed. The guy’s name isn’t Kirk. He may not even really bear the nickname of “Billy.” He’s a Kirkland, which everyone knows is code for “wannabe Kirk.”

Now these clowns have stolen my domain name (hence the hyphen I have to put up with in my web address), and sell “leather weekend bags” for as much as $550. Could they sell these bags for so much if my name wasn’t attached to them? Duh. No way, José.

What a sad tale of treachery, amirite? Fortunately, I own the Twitter universe, having gobbled up the Twitter name of “billykirk” in Sept. of 2008, apparently before they could. The one upside to all this? Due to the company’s goods, I now get tons of hashtagged comments such as (literally): “I just love me some #billykirk!” I know you do, baby. It’s cool.

Also, speaking of Twitter, I noticed that I have more followers than people I follow. Conclusion? I’m at “celebrity” status. Super cool. I’d like to thank the Academy.

Anyway, I am off to prepare for a big beach bachelor party this weekend. For more on that, look forward (or don’t) to my next post, “The Legend of Drew Drew.”

Thanks for listening to my little rant. Have a good day!

Like Juan Ponce de León searching for the Fountain of Youth, I know many of you out there have been searching for a fountain of resplendent Internet wisdom that will cure you of your ailments and restore vitality in your life through the sheer awesomeness of its content. Unlike Ponce, however, your quest has actually succeeded!

(OK, that opener was a stretch even for me….look, I’m sorry, I’m tired. I’ll open better next time.)

Anyway, after speaking to a friend (you can find her site in the blogroll to the right….hi, Meagan!), I decided to start blogging again. Little did I know that a variety of issues would arise due to WordPress’ crappy handling of automatic updates in their 3.0 version, leading to some simple updates and changes that should have taken 5 min lasting 3 hrs – and that was before making the header image. As such, this first post is going to stink because at this point I’m tired of the process. Also, the theme I usually use refused to install (for no reason), so I’ll probably have to re-do the site layout as I’m not happy with it currently.

Speaking of the header image…yeah, maybe we should just not speak of it. Sorry for the bad dreams, readers. I was too lazy to do something better, and too cheeky not to make something that obnoxious. Then again, what image would headline a site called billy-kirk.com, if not that?

Speaking of headlining stuff, I think I’ll start with the whole tweeting thing again soon, too. Formerly reporting on my Twitter account, Twitter Magazine called it “Breathtaking in its scope; revolutionary” and All Tweets on Deck proclaimed, “Your children will be watching a documentary on it one day.” So, with that in mind I figured I should get back to it. Also, I didn’t make any of that up.

I’m afraid I have nothing to report about my day’s business, either because nothing happened or because my brain is worn down currently, as I mentioned. I feel like the guy to the left. Well, except he actually showers, apparently. (Why am I “zinging” myself on my own blog?)

In any case, I’m going to spruce up this blog a bit very shortly – if not redesign it altogether, as mentioned – and add more content soon, of course. Tonight I’m going to make one of those novelties the kids call “cash”, I think, and also browse Hulu and go to the Teet. I’m hongry.

Bye, readers! (All one of you…all zero of you? Who knows.) Next time get ready for a tale of true treachery and underhandedness against yours truly! Also, be sure to send your fan mail, love letters, and threats to bkirk@billy-kirk.com! That email isn’t a joke, by the way. It works.