Michael Jackson & Strip Clubs

If you know me at all, you know I often break into random song; anything from Disney musicals, to old school Dean Martin Christmas songs, and yes, Michael Jackson too. I’m a huge fan, even before his sudden & tragic death last week. I was so excited about his comeback tour and had even already bought tickets. He grew up a Jehovah’s Witness like I did, (So did many other famous people; Prince, Venus & Serena Williams, Selena, etc., I’m in good company, LOL), so I felt like I could relate to what growing up might have been like for him a little bit.  There are a lot of rules for young JW’s, and having over-bearing parents is sure to add to the stress of the already difficult task of just growing up. I might talk more about my experience as a Jehovah’s Witness youth in a future post, it’s a pretty personal subject though. Last Thursday when the news of Michael Jackson’s death was rolling in, my phone was blowing up from well meaning friends with texts like, “Hey, I’m sure you heard Michael Jackson just died, I’m here if you need somebody to talk to.” LOL. Needless to say, it was a great lost to the entertainment world. He changed the music scene forever, and his influence is still seen in musicians today.

Last night was another crazy night. I was coming down from a crazy weekend of working, partying, boating, and socializing. I think I had been going non-stop for a couple of weeks now, because my body just shut down. I ended up with a fever Sunday night that knocked me out for most of the day Monday. After a day of recuperating on the couch, I got a call from another one of my buddies who wanted to meet up for a quick drink. As shitty as I was feeling, I figured getting out of the house and catching some fresh air would do me some good. I forced myself up, showered, shaved and got ready. Well, one drink hardly ever stays that way, after a while, we had a group of about 10 of assembled at one of our favorite local pubs, Sherlock’s and were knocking the drink specials back like it was the weekend. The night died down and the crowd thinned out. Then someone had the random idea of going to Jaguar’s for some after hour strip-club action. Now, I’m not a huge fan of the strip club scene, but I decided to go with the flow anyway. There’s just something about paying to see a girl strip that I can’t touch. It’s like going to a restaurant and paying to look at the food. You’re like, “Man, I could have just stayed home and myself a snack.” Haha. It actually eneded up being one hell of a night.

However, the last time I went to a strip club, it didn’t go so smoothly… It was the night of one of my best friends’ bachelor party. There were about 20 of us at The Spearmint Rhino in Dallas, I knew a couple of the girls that worked there, so I was actually trying to behave and was making sure that the man of the hour was having a blast. Well, I think I had just gotten off work and I was in a full suit, which is what strippers kind of look for when they’re working the floor. So before you know, this topless chick is on my lap, talking to me. I was under the impression that you couldn’t touch a stripper, so you can imagine my surprise when we end up making out and she’s encouraging me to have at it. I’m not going to get into too many details, my future wife might read this, LOL. But I’ll suffice to say that things went pretty far. (Disclaimer: I was not 100% sober) After every song, she would ask me if I wanted her to keep going. Of course, I was going to say yes. Big mistake.

After about 5 songs of us making out and shocking the hell out of all my friends, she stands up, and says, “That’ll be $100.” I completely am taken aback. All the other ‘dancers’ shake their head disapprovingly at how she just manipulated the situation. So I reach for my wallet, and mutter,” I thought we were just having fun.” LOL, well I had been buying drinks and dances for the Groom-To-Be, so my cash funds were tapped out. Well that makes the stripper flip out! She calls her boyfriend on the cell, gave him my description and told me if I didn’t give her $125  he was going to kick my ass in the parking lot! I think she raised the price because she knew she was going to get away with it. All the boys chip in, because they didn’t wanna see me get my ass handed to me as much as I didn’t want it handed to me. She gets paid, we close out, and reconvene in the parking lot and start laughing our asses off. But ever since then, I’ve made it a point to stay away from Strip Clubs. Last night went a little better. No angry strippers. Just the way I like it.

Send Me To Antarctica!

So I came across this competition, “Blog Your Way to Antarctica”, that will send me to Antarctica and all I have to do is write about the trip. I’ll be gone for a month, and I can bring someone with me! Altogether it’s a $20,000 trip that’ll be completely paid for if I can just get enough votes. The competition ends in September, and they’ll be sending the winner out next Spring. I’m starting to get a little bored here in Dallas, and am looking for a new adventure to spice up my life. Help me on my quest to become The Most Interesting Man in the World! Go check out this site, read my entry, register and vote for me! Imagine getting to read about all the crazy things I’m getting into at the South Pole. I’ll be the first person to get a penguin to do a jello shot! LOL. But seriously, I really wanna make this happen. Help a brotha out! It will be the adventure of a lifetime, and I’m sure that I’ll be able to knock out more than a couple of the 101 Things To Do Before I Die.

Here’s the entry I wrote for my submission:

VIP at the South Pole!!!

By Joshua Shronce   June 24th, 2009 | 7:56 pm

So as soon as I saw this opportunity, I knew this was for me. I already have an adventure blog where I document my misadventures from all around the world, as well as knocking out the 101 Things To Do Before I Die. I have tons of experience writing interesting, relevant & entertaining blog entries and articles. I currently run a club marketing & Promotions Company in Dallas, Texas, so having a dynamic personality comes with the territory.

I’m not afraid of anything, so you can be sure that I’ll be experiencing the trip to Antarctica and the entire polar region to the fullest, and you’ll get to hear all about the drama, emotion and excitement as it unfolds! I also have a keen eye and appreciation for natural beauty, so you’ll be receiving award-winning photographs from half way around the world.

I’m an International Business major at the University of Texas at Arlington; I’m bilingual in English & Spanish, and I’m on a current mission to be The Most Interesting Man in the World. This will definitely give me a push in the right direction! I’m currently 22, but will be 23 by the time the ship leaves port next February.  I am very passionate about conserving our environment and hopefully my adventures and blog (if I get enough votes!), will give me the opportunity to present one of the most precious and beautiful ecosystems that the planet has to offer in a new light, sharing with you some of the beauty that our wonderful planet still holds.

Please vote for me and make a childhood dream come true.

Check out my current adventure blog at http://JoshVIP.wordpress.com

Also, get to know more about me at my facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=25315141&ref=profile

And myspace page: www.myspace.com/josh_shronce

Thing To Do #51: Learn Another Language

I can go ahead and mark this one of my list of ‘Things To Do”. After spending almost 3 years growing up in Central America I was able to pick up Spanish and Nicaraguan Sign-Language. Learning Spanish there is pretty self-explanatory, but the Sign-Language part is a little more interesting of a story. There’s a huge deaf /mute population in Nicaragua. See, when an infant here in the States gets a fever, we give it a Tylenol or an aspirin, or whatever it is responsible parents give their kids, LOL, but there, medicine isn’t readily available to the population living outside of the capitol or a few other key major cities. So they’ll end up with a high fever, and without treatment, it’ll end up leaving them without their ability to hear, and since this takes place at an early age, their communication skills have yet to develop. Seeing this when we got there, my brother and I decided to do something about it, having just recently over-coming a language barrier ourselves. (Before we moved to Nicaragua, I couldn’t even go to Taco Bell without an interpreter. LOL)

So together with the religious organization I was a part of at the time (Jehovah’s Witnesses), and some direction and funding from the Nicaraguan government, we set out to combine what we already new of American Sign-Language, what was already pretty established in other Spanish deaf communities in other countries and what the scattered deaf individuals were already using to create an official Nicaraguan Sign-Language. After compiling it all together, and getting it bound into a book form, we set out to do the hard part; getting enough people interested in helping us in finding the deaf communities and individuals that were scattered throughout the country. The entire process from beginning to end was a rather lengthy process, taking anywhere from 3-6 months. First, we had to gain the trust of the individual and their family, teach them Spanish, how to read and write, the Sign-Language alphabet, then help them to polish whatever hand gestures they were using to communicate into what was to be the new official Nicaraguan Sign-Language. It really was the most rewarding experience of my life. Watching a grown man, who had been shut off from the outside world sign to his mother that he loved her for the first time? I’m tearing up just thinking about it again. I made friends for life with that project. My parents moved back there and set up shop and still remain close friends with most of our old students, who have gone on to live very normal and active lives. I still would like to learn Italian or Portuguese since my aspirations for my career have an International undertone. So we’ll see when the opportunity for that arises.

Star-Gazing & Frank Sinatra

So today was another gorgeous day on the golf course. I think it’s safe to say my golf game is improving. I’ve found that when you try too hard to make it happen, you end up playing shitty, but when you just let it flow and relax, everything just seems to fall into place. What an appropriate metaphor for life in general. There was this one shot on the 6th hole I believe, I had a beer in one hand and found myself in a sand trap. So I pulled out the sand wedge, took a sip of my Miller Lite. and just took a swing. I was about 20 yards from the hole. The ball went up in the air and curved on the green to sink the ball for Birdie. It really was a once in a million shot, not quite the hole in one for Thing To Do #33, but I’m sure it’ll happen soon .

It was a pretty hot day on the course today, but thankfully we were well stocked with alcohol and positive attitudes, which is all you really need to get through life anyway, right? After several hours playing golf, me and my partner parted ways and I took a much deserved nap. I woke up feeling slightly refreshed and ready to relax with another of my friends. As chance would have it, we actually ended up back on the golf course at 1 o’clock in the morning! There’s this bridge that overlooks one of the creeks, so I picked up a bottle of Italian wine, a pint of mint chocolate chip ice-cream and headed back out to enjoy the beautiful night we were graced with. I saw 3 shooting stars, but for some reason, I didn’t make a wish. I think I already have everything I could ask for; an awesome career, the best friends that you could hope for, I’m healthy, and I’m finally, maybe for the first time in my life, completely happy with myself, just being me. I was feeling rather introspective tonight, so I called a couple of my best friends who are scattered around the country just to check on them. And if you’ve ever spent any time with me at all, you know I often break into song just because. Well I found myself singing Frank Sinatra’s ‘I Did it My Way’. That song MUST be played at my funeral or my 50th birthday party, whichever happens first, LOL. I hope I have a life as full of life as he did. He really did do it and experienced it all. Fame, fortune, friends, (i.e. The Rat Pack), and at the end of it all, he married the girl of his dreams and grew old with her. What more could you really ask for out of life? Tomorrow is another business day, which consists of revising the business plan, the rum label and logo, working on the marketing strategies for the various clubs and restaurants I’m working with, gearing up for a successful art gallery opening of my dear friend and colleague Aralyn, (See the previous post for details on this event), and sipping mojitos at my favorite patio hangout. But hey… “TAKE IT EASY!”

Club & Art Gallery Openings, Tubing on the Lake, and Other Updates…

So I promise to write a little more consistently, it’s just been one thing after another lately. Went out to the lake and tubed on a speed boat last weekend, tore up the links with my boy Ben at the Prestonwood Country Club, taking care of the nights at Ibero, pool parties, walking in the door at 6 in the morning, like an old R. Kelly song. I’ve been busy, LOL.

Ibero has ended up being a fun and interesting venture, it’ll only keep getting better. We’ll be there again tonight. Great music, no cover, and incredibly cheap drinks. I’m offering anyone who shows up with 8-10 people a complimentary bottle of Grey Goose vodka. Kind of hard to beat that. LOL. Speaking of alcohol, the rum venture I’ve been working on is starting to pick up steam, I got my graphic designer working on labels  and logos, I was able to make progress with the rum company in Nicaragua that I really want to do business with, and I commissioned label art from an extremely talented local artist named Aralyn. She has a gallery opening next Saturday, June 27th here in downtown Dallas at The Cedars Art Gallery at 1114 S. Akard St. Check out some of her portfolio at aralynmcgregor.com. The process of working on developing the rum line, has been much more interactive and educational than anything I ever worked on in college. I strongly recommend anyone who has an idea to run with is as far as they can to see what develops. You never know what’ll end up being successful and paying for your kids’ Ivy League education one day. Haha. I’ve signed a couple more clients with VIProductions & 50Listed, the club promotion and advertising side of what I do. So look for more updates on that in the near future. I’m really proud of how productive I’ve become lately. The pieces are starting to fall into place.

I’ll be taking another group out on the lake this weekend for another full day of wake-boarding, tubing, sunning, and of course drinking and having an all around great time. Hit me up if you want to join in on the festivities, and I promise to do a better job at keeping you updated on all the goings-on of Yours Truly. Come out tonight if you’re feeling frisky.

Thing to Do #38: See These Animals in the Wild

This Thing To Do has a pretty hefty list attached with it for it to be considered completed, I mean I’m going to have to see lions, and tigers, AND bears, (Oh my!, LOL, I couldn’t resist). The tricky thing is that you have to see them in the wild. So none of this zoo business is going to count. It makes it more interesting. Here’s what I’ve managed to see so far.

• Monkey- I grew up in Nicaragua, these things are everywhere. There’s this Nature Preserve called El Chocoyero there. We went a couple times. On the first trip we were dropped off at a visitor center and given a quick intro to the park and were told which trails to stay on. From there we walked through the rain forest for a couple of kilometers through monkey infested canopies. At first all I saw were the top of the trees moving, then this defeaning howling started! Apparently they do that when you’re in their territory. I thought the Howler Monkey was going to be a lot bigger than what it was. I was just about to think how cute they were when they started throwing poop at us! LOL, that was pretty crazy.
• Crocodile- Again, growing up in Nicaragua, we had to take wooden rafts to cross rivers that had crocodiles in them while on a trip to the Northeastern part of the country. Luckily we crossed at a safe point where there weren’t any. When we were safely on the other side, the guide pointed to a bend in the river where we could see 3 of the huge animals just soaking in the sun. Eat your heart out Jeff Corwin.
• Humingbird- I’ve seen a ton of these all over. There’s a lot of them in Houston where I lived for a couple of years, and they’re all over Costa Rica, and I saw a few on my last trip to the island of Culebra off the coast of Puerto Rico.
• Eagle- We took a lot of road trips growing up, so I was able to see a lot of these when we took a trip to the Grand Canyon.
• Manatee- I was able to catch a glimpse of one with my dad when we were in South Florida several years ago. I didn’t realize how endangered they were back then or really what that word really meant at that time. LOL

I think maybe an African Safari and a trip Down Under are what I’m going to need to do to cross off the rest of the ones on the list.

Blame it on the A-a-a-alcohol

Yesterday was an incredibly slow day at work. An incredibly destructive storm blew in the night before and uprooted 35 trees and caused several hundred thousand dollars worth of damage to the Country Club and courses. So of course, there was hardly anyone that came in all day long. Towards the end of the day, me and a couple of the bartenders sit down and start playing blackjack, listening to music, and I get the bright idea to pop open a new bottle of Crown. I don’t know how I got blitzed so fast. I think it was a combination of not having eaten much during the day, and getting like 2 hours of sleep the night before. Either way, after two 24oz styrofoam cups of Crown with splashes of Coke, I found my way to the Locker Room and curled up on a bench and passed out. At work. On the clock. At a Country Club.  For two hours. LOL.

I think I woke up to my phone vibrating, showing 20 missed calls and texts. I’m like, ‘Shit…, I’m so fired.’ Haha, so I stagger into the 19th hole to one of the bartenders, Melissa, where as soon as she sees me, she shouts, “JOSH! Where have you been!?” Apparently she got worried when I disappeared and sent my boss to go look for me. Yeah, my boss came into the locker room and tried to wake me up while I was passed out. Kids; don’t drink on the job. Luckily Melissa was a good alibi, and told my boss that I had already clocked out and was just waiting on a ride. No harm, no foul, LOL, but it was still a pretty close call. After getting my story straight with Melissa, I do the smart thing and get the hell out of the before I have to talk to my boss, which would have given him a chance to note my level of inebriation. Haha, geezzzz.

VIP at Prestonwood Country Club

So today was another awesome day. I woke up fairly early for it being a day off and Carpe Diem’d my freakin’ day. I added a couple of things to the Shronce International business plan, and spent a couple of hours talking to bottling companies and rum distilleries in Nicaragua and Puerto Rico. I got this crazy idea to start my own spirits line, I think I’m going to start with rum since that would be the easiest for me to break into, growing up in Nicaragua and everything. I’ve already talked to several bars and clubs that I work with here in Dallas, and they said that they would stock any liquor that I sell them. There’s several steps from Point A to Point B, but I think it would be an awesome venture. I’ll keep you posted on any updates.

Afterwards, me and my awesome friend Klara went to the Prestonwood Country Club for a round of golf. We had a blast, the weather was perfect, the beer was cold, and we just had a blast taking it easy. LOL, neither of us are pro’s by any means, but we had so much fun, and really, at the end of the day, that’s all that matters. We only played the front 9, we’ll try our luck at the back 9 next week. Around the time we got to the 8th hole, we decided we were hungry, so I picked up the cell and called the 19th hole, told them we wanted quesadillas, and by the time we got in, BOOM! Lunch was served. We took it to-go and made a picnic out of it. All-in-all a pretty awesome day off.I made it home just before a huge storm blew in, if I had been a little more sober I could have tried to cross off Thing #11: Storm Chase a Tornado. LOL, maybe next time.

We’re still gearing up for Friday Night Fuego at Ibero Ultra Lounge, I hope to see everyone there, it’s going to be pretty ridiculous; no cover and $2 wells? Can’t beat it. So all in all, I had a pretty awesome day. Check out the link to see how I felt by the end of it: Best Scene of Wanted

Thing To Do #18: Study the Kama Sutra and Put Theory into Practice

LOL, so this thing to do has probably been the among the funner ‘Things To Do Before I Die”. I’m an extremely open guy, but I also try to be fairly discreet in this department, so I’m not going to go into a whole bunch of details. The book lists about 20 different positions that you are supposed to be able to do before you can cross this item off as accomplished. Well… check! Haha, if you want some of the nitty gritty details, feel free to hit me up personally. But I think I gotta try and keep this blog PG-13. I recently got a message from myspace that said:

“We had to remove an image (or images) from your account because they violated our Terms of Use. Our site is for people as young as 13, so we can’t have certain kinds of pics (nude/sexually explicit, violence). If you continue to violate our Terms, we may be forced to remove your account. Thanks for your understanding. MySpace Safety & Security”

Haha, what’s the world coming to?

Friday Night Fuego!

So here you have it! VIProductions and 50Listed are teaming up to bring you a hot new venue to spice up your Friday nights. We just signed a new contract with a cool spot called Ibero Ultra Lounge at 1905 Greenville Avenue here in Dallas. It’s going to be a salsa themed night with crazy drink specials ($2 Wells!) and no cover. They’re also going to be playing Top 40, so no worries if you’re not the salsa king or queen from Havana Nights, LOL. There’s no list to try to get on, but be sure to dress to impress! The party starts at 10 and will be going strong till 2 in the morning. Afterwards, I’m sure we’re all going to grab a bite to eat, so feel free to come along for that too!