Team 3ezer and the American Tale

So my story concludes. Mussy will hopefully add some of his adventures and comments later. It is a bit long-winded (ie I ramble a lot), but it was to make up for not driving from SLC to LA! Regards to all and see you next year! BalkanExpress

The warmth and madness of the crowds of Belgrade were behind us (as was the lady with no belly-button – a story to be recounted only in person and over a beer), and Mussy drove us back north to the calmness of home of Budapest. Unlike the majority of Gumballers, we had the glorious luxury of 2 whole nights of normal sleep in our beds before rejoining the rally for the last of the US leg. The other Gumballers were stuck on an ‘Air Iceland’ plane. Not a 747, but a little thing that has to make regular stops for fuel – just as well as Alex Roy was going to tape all the toilets and mark them as out-of-use! First thing to do was clean out the car prior to a stay in the intensive care clinic of Porsche Hungaria. It truly is amazing how much crap and garbage can be accumulated in only a few days.

The car goes into Porsche to sort out the oil leak we know about, and to put in new brakes and pads. Then the garage phones. It isn’t one oil leak; it is two and will require an entire engine removal and strip-down to repair. We knew it would be painful (at least to Mussy’s wallet!) and were prepared for the figure: just over 1,000 euros. It is a good thing that labour is still cheap in Eastern Europe! Then came the surprise; remember the oil can splitting at the start and Mussy just ripping out the lining of the front storage area? They wanted over 600 Euros just to replace it!!! WTF? Mussy and I have agreed that instead of paying this outrageous sum for a piece of glorified carpet, we would get a local to manufacture a bespoke ‘Louis Vuitton’ cover, complete with faux-diamonds on the holders – and would still be cheaper.

Saturday came all too soon (according to the nagging girlfriend) and Mussy and I boarded ‘Malev’s’ largest jet for the jaunt to California (Malev – Hungarian airline and damn fine!). The plan was simple: fly to NY, change and fly to LA, arriving in the late afternoon and then rent a Porsche, Bentley or an H1 Hummer and drive to Vegas in time for the party and to rejoin the rally. Why do all the ugly trolly-dollies serve Business Class? Why are all the pretty ones back in cattle?

One thing we noticed as we landed 45 minutes late at JFK: the Americans really want you to savour your entry experience into the US. So much so that they gave us 2 hours in which to do so. Admittedly it didn’t help that in front of us were 200 odd people (and I do mean odd!) from some Caribbean island. It appeared that every single one of them had problems with their visas or who they were, etc, etc. Not one person took less than 5-10 minutes to be dealt with, many taking longer before being escorted into a side office. The result was that instead of their being 8 security officials to deal with the people, there were soon only 3. 3 for all the non-Americans. The queue for the septics was fast moving and served by 8 officials. 8 officials who seemed determined not to allow anyone else through, no matter that there were connecting flights being missed. Great. By a mixture of lies (Mussy bluffing his way through the American queue) and rudeness (me going to the head of my line, and I hate queue jumping – reminds me of German skiers) we finally got through.

We had missed our connecting flight, and though the staff at the First Class desk of American Airlines were very kind (especially as I was not travelling in First!), we could get no flight to LA with an arrival time before 10pm. Gutted. That meant we could not get to the hire-car place on time. We made the decision to get very, very drunk instead. Going to the AA Lounge we were given a token each for a ‘beverage’. WTF? Upon entering I soon understood that the AA did not stand for American Airways, but for a self-help group of Alcoholics Anonymous. We exchange our tokens for G&Ts, and pondered what sort of sick society forces business class travellers to pay for their drinks?

The AA plane was utter, utter shite! Next to the doorway we could see large segments of rust that had been painted over, and other sections where rectangles of metal the size of A3 sheets had been replaced. Was this American or Uganda Airlines we were getting on?

Upon entering the cabin, was stunned to discover such tawdry and ancient furniture – I have only seen worse in low-class brothels in Germany! I was pleased that I had not taken the option of the 4,000 dollar upgrade to first! We settled back in our chairs (at least 20 years old) and forced ourselves to sleep – better to have bad dreams than experience the nightmare that is an internal flight in the USA. Sorry to go on so much about the plane, but I have only ever flown BA, SAA, Malev, KLM and Virgin before. I expected so much more than AA delivered.

Arriving in LA, life returned to Gumball standards. Mussy had used his Concierge service at Coutts Bank (very posh!) to organise a limo to pick us up from the airport and to book a table at ‘Maestro’ – the best steak house in LA. At the hotel we bumped into a couple of the Gumball crew. They were not staying at the Hilton, but at some hostel a couple of miles away. Poor sods! We went to the restaurant. To say it was the best steak of my life would have been an understatement! Absolutely superb, as was the wine. We both heartily recommend it to anyone in the area (provided you do not object to a 500 dollar bill for 2). This was not a place to declaim loudly “a bottle of your finest!� without checking the price (just over 5,000 bucks – gulp!). Thoroughly sated we retired to our rooms: we did not want to be too tired for the night at Heff’s House!

The big day dawned, and Mussy and I walked to Rodeo Drive to see the cars coming in (yes, we walked! And we were followed by a police car that couldn’t believe that two men could walk in Beverly Hills and not be criminals!). First car to be seen was the big Merc of Alessandro Grimaldi (why does MS Word want to change this to Garibaldi?); the smoothest dude on Gumball! Knowing that he had never been the fastest of Gumballers, I enquired how he had evaded cops and beaten everyone else. His answer: skip out a dull checkpoint! He was waiting for the true leaders to appear before parking up behind them (a bit of integrity that certain other Gumballers would do well to emulate).

As the street started to fill with silicon breasts and really nasty fake tans (in LA for gawds sake! The sun shines every day and you have people with orange skin and inflated lips all over the show). The we heard the dulcet tones of a VW Phaeton… err I meant a Bentley Continental GT J, and cruising round the corner came Alex and Michael, closely followed by the gorgeous Ford GT or Torquenstein. Alex and Michael had ‘won’ the Rally! Having said hello and posed for photos (see the internet for my ugly mug), it became apparent that knowing these people is good: impressionable girls think that you are rich/famous/important and then chat to you J

Rodeo Drive soon filled up with Gumball cars and onlookers. The crowd soon dispelled forever the myth that people in LA all look like the cast of Baywatch – more women with faces like chewed toffee and bodies of melted ‘Lego’ in such a small area I have not seen in a long time. I passed this observation to Mussy who reminded me that living in Budapest has spoiled me. Fair enough I reckoned – and all such women are only a light-switch away from beauty!

Still with me? Good. At 1900 Mussy and I assembled in the bar in our skirts (err… Highland Dress: kilts, sporrans, the lot). And damn fine we looked as well. Wolfing down a bit of food (we know how Gumball feeds people at the parties) we prepared ourselves for the party. The good thing about wearing a kilt is the sporran (the little furry handbag in front of your balls, for those ignorant of the term). Not only can it hold money, cards, phone and alcohol, but when weighted down does a fine job of hiding any – ahem – ‘rising’ issues that cannot be contained by thinking of Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day J.

We arrived at the Playboy Mansion, a feat that I had dreamed about doing since I was fourteen, but have never dared to think was a possibility in real life. We bumped into some friends, and as the Bunnies started to appear I popped open a bottle of ’95 Dom Perinon bubbly. Very nice it was too: stood near the bar next to the Grotto, sipping some decent champagne and watching Ron Jeremy – another childhood hero who proved that ugly people can have sex with some of the most beautiful women in the world (it was not until years later that I realised the true difference: he has a 30cm long cock, and I don’t!).

Some of the champers I gave to the barman who had so kindly provided 5 champagne flutes. I didn’t think anything of it until I went to the other bar to get some drinks. He comes over from the first bar, got all the bartenders’ attention and announced that I was a ‘Platinum’ customer. So what does that mean in reality? It meant I got served the moment I arrived at the bar; no queuing for BalkanExpress! It also meant that some rather impressionable girls thought I was important/rich/regular guest at Heff’s place (see how I managed to bluff this earlier in the day? It is a valuable skill) and so clustered around me.

One of these little lovelies was saying how she needed 10,000 USD for a new set of breasts. I casually informed her (trying not to salivate on them) that her current breasts looked great (like a dead-heat in a Zeppelin race). Apparently not; they were silicon, but had hardened. “What do you mean?� says an innocent BalkanE. “I mean that they are like rocks – go on, feel them!� sayeth the lady. So I did. They reminded me of cricket balls wrapped in a thin layer of plastic (for our non-Commonwealth readers – a cricket ball is like a baseball, only harder). “Nah!� spoke the Balkan, ever the gentleman “more like the firmness of a 16year old� (lying to women is also an important skill). Before I knew it, I was squeezing the breasts of two other ladies nearby to get a comparison. It goes without saying that they all had plastic/silicon/soya oil/air bags for breasts. Much merriment was had, and I had to use my sporran to all its good use until the presentation of the prizes interrupted our play.

Moving into the marquee we spotted Alex, his delightful girlfriend and Michael, so we occupied their table. There was a bit of chat and then we noticed that Hugh Heffner had arrived – to sit with several rather cute young girls on the table next to us. My God! He looks bloody old (err… he is. He is 80 years old). His bouncers then cleared a path to the podium for him to do his stuff. Prizes were given out: the ‘Spririt of Gumball’ – the most sought after award – was given to the crazy lunatics of the crashed Rolls Royce Phantom. Not only had they made their way to their private jet at Belgrade airport, but on arriving in Thailand had used a taxi to take them to Bangkok. Arriving in Salt Lake City they were greeted with a brand new Phantom (that they had purchased while on the way to Thailand). How much money? A fair chunk of style and panache as well though (as per my account of the European leg, the car they wrote off only had third party insurance)!

None of the other awards registered – we were too busy drinking and talking and letching at Heff’s bunnies. I would later lie to my wench and tell her that close up, the girls were not that pretty and they obviously used a lot of airbrushing and computer touch-ups for the magazine. What a lie! These girls were pure hubba-hubba J I suspect I did not impress them as I was just dribbling onto my lap and making ‘Mllllaaaaarrr’ sounds. I wouldn’t have pushed them away even if I had found them eating biscuits in bed (and biscuits is the name of my dog!).

So what did all the Gumballers get this year as a trophy? Would it be a baseball cap or a t-shirt? Nope. For the princely entry sum (for a new guy) of 40,000 GBP (about 75,000 USD) Gumball participants this year received…. a passport cover. Actually it is a nice black leather passport holder with ‘United Nations of Gumball’ on the front and was in keeping with the checkpoint system of giving out stickers (like visas) to go into a Gumball Passport. We had hoped to get at least 15 minutes in a darkened room with one of the Bunnies (darkened out of compassion for the lady)!

Heff then went to bed, taking most of the Bunnies with him (a bit selfish I thought), so we roamed the place looking for drunk/stupid ladies. We found some. Cue the old question from one of them “what do you wear under your kilt?� the answer “nothing� prompted (sometimes rather fake) expressions of disbelief. As we would not have our honour impugned, we were forced to allow several ladies within the 21-30 age group to place their hands up our kilts. If one was shy and just tried to go up the side of the leg, we told them that proved nothing as we could be wearing jock-straps. So either way we got our balls played with! In my defence, and before any more photos appear on the internet, I believe that there was some freakishly cold wind that night! It is the only explanation I have for why I went to bed alone L

At around 1am the party was kicked out of Heff’s house (very nice it is too) and back at the hotel a party was started. All was going well (plenty of ladies, plenty of alcohol) until 2am. The hotel (Beverly Hills Hilton) decided to close the bar – without telling anyone! People were not too happy, but being Gumballers there was never a suggestion of real trouble. Then one of the Brits lit a cigarette. So what? So the hotel called the police and before we knew it we had 6 response teams ordering us to move on. Neither us or the plod seemed to amused, and they threatened to restrain and arrest anyone who “didn’t get back in your automobile or room�. They were not happy when I produced my diplomatic passport and told them they were mad: “Get back in my car? Are you mad? I’m absolutely cnuted! Which Lambo do you want me to crash?�

The party ended.

And re-started with about 15 diehards who returned after the rozzers had left. The management kept pleading with us to move. So we did. One table every 20 minutes. When asked why they had called the shut the bar and called the cops, the duty manager explained that by law, all hotel bars shut at 2, and they had called the cops because one of the Gumballers lit a cigarette indoors and the security team was too scared to tell him to stub it out. California: land of the free?

At about 0430 I realised the time. At 0445 the limo was due to take us to the airport. The bottle of Louis XIII was nearly empty and I was still in my kilt, talking absolute bollocks to some really decent guys (also talking bollocks but all Gumballers together). I went to my room where the phone indicated I had several missed calls. It was Mussy, slightly concerned that I was going to miss our flight. Somehow (alcohol auto-pilot) I got changed and packed in time (all those years of Mess life!) and staggered out. The flight to NY was uneventful for me. I got on, passed out and woke up somewhere over Nebraska. I then puked (I felt sorry for the poor lady next to me) and then passed out again, waking only when the wheels touched tarmac at JFK.

Mussy informed me that I had missed the medical emergency on the plane at LA which had caused it to abandon the take-off and return to the stands, as well as missing the paramedics rushing on to help a man sat 3 rows from me! I had also failed to respond to his attempts to wake me. I will say one thing for Remy Martin Louis XIII: no hangover!

Arriving in Budapest the next day was a relief to my body. Going home and telling the lass “oh, the party was ok� was hard. The party had not been ok, it had been fantastic! We had got bunnies and other ladies to play with our balls, we had met porn god Ron Jeremy (a scarily intelligent chap btw), got drunk, nearly been arrested and pulled a ‘get out of jail free’ card on the plod. Going to LA from Budapest for a party? Makes sense to me!

All we have to do now is let our bodies and bank accounts recover in time for next year. Allegedly it is London to Dubai (hopefully skipping south-east Turkey, Iraq and Saudi Arabia). What car? Already decided: an Ariel Atom (275hp and 450kgs J) Sweet!