SEAN'S U.P.A. NEWSLETTER ARTICLE
Luxuriousness Attacks
Ultimate Players
Few Deaths Result
Ultimate snuck across the border into Mexico this past Cinco de Mayo in a
way some called flagrant and relatively clean-smelling. Like hungry
locust, forty players descended on the hapless Club Med Sonora Bay for
the first ever Luxury Format Tournament, leaving in their wake a
dessicated corpse. After eight days and seven nights of debauchery,
hedonistic fire rituals, excessive tequila consumption and the occasional
game of ultimate, all returned home whipped, beaten, pureed, and in dire
need of detox.
Designed by a sequestered troop of super-intelligent howler monkeys, the
Singular Luxury Ultimate tournament sought to rend the fragile fabric
holding together our universe by creating a tournament where even the
most reserved ultimate player could run about howling at the waning Moon,
naked and drunk.
Varied social activities such as beer pounding, tequila quaffing, rum
running, and margarita mixing were conceived of by the master of
ceremonies, Jesster Raphael, while Dave "Mo" Moscoe, Juniors Director of
the U.P.A., master of Hats, Chief Primate, and renowned foot fetishist,
ran the disc competition. Each morning Mo chose two teams based on hat
size, alignment of the planets, the stock market, and players' ability to
recite at least two stanzas of Jabberwocky from memory, then painted
everyone funny colors and made them dress up like bad American tourists.
Which fate they justly deserved.
To promote positive, um, spirit, all players were amply lubricated with
tequila prior to games, and fabulous playmakers were awarded mid-point
with the Silver Hat of Offense, the Golden Hat of Defense, or the
Chartreuse Hat of Ignominy. Jesster himself personally penalized
(rewarded?) all players bold enough to make calls with a shot of tequila
and a free ride on the Mexican lawn zamboni.
Fought to the death on a dry, rocky mountainside, the finals saw two
spiritual leaders, Joseph "The Mad Canadian" Kopec and "Her Ultimate
Johodiness" Jody "Boozin'" Bouzilleri lead their respective teams in a
glorious recreation of the Battle of The Alamo, repleat with swords,
primitive misfiring rifles and still more tequila. Viva Santa Anna! Joe's
team proved victorious, and after kindly sparing the lives of the losers,
all participants burst into glorious flame and melded with the universe.
Ostensibly in Mexico to play ultimate, the players concerned themselves
most diligently with winning the party, which lasted eight days and seven
nights. Participants enjoyed sunsets naked (or clothed and staring at the
naked people) and, in most cases, drunk, atop the pi in the sky,
sometimes playing Scrabble in Italian or, for the more daring, Trivial
Pursuit in French.
The meek, subdued, befuddled Club Med guests quaked at the sight of the
Disc Olympics, which included Pool Layouts and Pool Butthead, two games
fraught with danger and excitement. Like cornered badgers, these guests
leapt about frantically, emitting high pitched screeching noises while
the ultimate players flaunted their aquatic skills and, lest we forget,
their surprising ability to drink yet more tequila.
Evenings at the dining hall featured Aristotelean buffet dinners followed
by, in the time honored tradition of the great Greek philosophers, beer
drinking. Most nights the premier beer drinking event was one known as:
Drain The Kegs Before They Kick Us Out. Other nights featured boat races
against each other and, less challengingly, the limp-throated volleyball
players, whose pitiable beer drinking abilities were matched only by
their bad fashion sense. The final dinner competition involved tables,
chairs, beer, and a lot of large men stepping on my head. What the hell
was that all about?
Strangely, the tennis and volleyball players refused to sell us their
women, even though our unique dancing at the disco impressed everyone
into a wordless stupor night after night. So shocked and disoriented was
the Club Med staff at our ultimate disco fashion show that the DJ
consented not to suck for upwards of eight minutes, a new Club Med
record. Speaking of disc golf, them Club Med yahoos had five disc golf
baskets sitting in storage, the purpose of which eluded them utterly.
Once a ten tee course had been set up, happy desert squirrels went
running for safety as discs flew into trees, bounced across streets and
nailed scorpions.
Special tournament notice goes to: Fire Queen Tami who, with the help of
a human icepick, wowed us into drooling submission with her display of
twirling fire chains; Jan for shocking us with the craziest pants known
to humankind; Tom "The Gruntled Postman" Cleworth for hanging out with
all us kids; Brian and Mary for spending at least a few minutes of their
honeymoon playing ultimate; Al for finally having enough space; and
everyone else without whom no one would have been there. Ahem.
Players arrived from all over, and probably went back to all over at the
end. Few knew each other upon arrival, and few could remember a damn
thing that happened in the interim, but tearful hugs and waves were
exchanged over beer and tequila at the end of the week, and all secretly
feared what madness might occur out there in the year 2000, where the
desert meets the sea...
