Listen guys, as everyone knows, bachelor’s parties are something we all feverishly look forward to.  But watch out.  There are plenty of pitfalls awaiting you around every curve and bend and in every cocktail glass and G-string.  I’ve compiled a series of tips to follow lest you be deceived by the tempting hands of alcohol, erotic entertainment and general debauchery.

First off are the things you should never bring or bring up:

Never bring up your ex-girlfriend.  This can only lead to undue tears and/or anger.  And, uh, since I’ve gone there…never bring your ex-girlfriend.  In fact, just thinking about that should make you shudder in displeasure.

Never bring up your last experience with a stripper.  Your buddies don’t care and the strippers certainly don’t either.  And for the love of everything good in your life – don’t bring the last stripper you experienced.  She will ruin the night in two ways – one, by causing a turf war with the other female entertainers and two, giving you no other choice but to watch as it all unfolds.

Don’t arrive with more than $50 in singles.  You shouldn’t be spending that much money and especially not 50 separate times.  Do not bring checks made out for one dollar each.  The only thing that the strippers want bouncing is their more favorable body parts.

Next, I’m going to address some common mistakes:

Please, don’t arrive on an empty stomach, having planned to save room for the sumptuous feast of malt liquor and grain alcohol that awaits you.  Conversely, do not under any circumstances arrive with a full stomach, assuming that nothing will happen during the course of the evening that’ll cause you to evacuate your entire Baja Chalupa value meal.  Because it will.

Don’t mistake the stripper’s friendliness for interest.  She wants to get to know the inside of your wallet, not your childhood fears and life goals.  On the other hand, steer clear of propositioning the stripper as if she’s a part-time hooker.  I don’t care if her name is Cherry, Destiny, Sunflower, Sugar Mama or Steven.  She’s probably not as freaky as you want her to be.

Don’t bring a weapon or anything that could maim, injure or kill if used properly.  Murphy’s Law states that if anything violent can occur at a bachelor’s party, it will.

So, that’s it.  Prepare yourself mentally.  Prepare yourself physically.  Prepare yourself financially.  Because the night of a bachelor’s party could end with just a light hangover and a few fun memories or your life in complete and total ruins.  The choice is yours and yours alone.  Have fun!

So you want to throw a bachelor party? Well you’ve come to the right place. First off let’s get a few myths out of the way:

1. At a bachelor party, everyone gets laid: Well I’d surely hope not. Maybe in archaic society it was ok for the groom to be, to run a train on a few hookers before surrendering to the shackles of marriage, but in the real world that’s not the way it works. Aside from putting yourself at risk to unknown STDs (remember your friends could have picked her up for 5 bucks at the docks) you’d still be cheating on your fiancé, which in the code of relationships and cheating is worse than cheating on a long-term girlfriend. Nice one asshole. Also, if all your friends are getting laid and they subscribe to the belief that women can’t be present at bachelor parties, then they’re all sharing the same hooker.

2. Women (aside from strippers and whores) should not be present at a bachelor party: I don’t think so. If you have a best friend (female) who is more like one of the guys than your soon to be wife, why not have her there? Besides, single guys at the party are gonna wanna hook up, and odds are you’ll be at a place with single women and end up intermingling with them anyway. Guess what, now you have women at your bachelor party.

3. I don’t need strippers, hookers, or naked women at my bachelor party: Um, yea you do. Maybe not hookers, especially if your friends don’t know where to find em, but it’s not a “bachelor party” without at least one pair of tits. I’ve heard plenty of stories about guys going to play paintball, or camping, drinking a few beers and calling it a bachelor party. I’d call it a camping trip. This is your last night of freedom, and other people are paying for it, shut up and trust your friends’ judgment. No strippers? I’m not coming!

4. The bride’s father should be at the party: Why? Unless you’re overly close with your father, I wouldn’t suggest inviting him either. The bachelor party is for the groom, and HIS friends. You might wish to include the bride’s brother, if you are close but that’s it. Do you seriously want the father of the woman you’ll be defiling on a nightly basis (if you haven’t already) to watch the depraved acts you do around strippers and or hookers? Not to mention the things your friends will be doing?

5. I don’t need alcohol, to have a good time: You might not, but the rest of us have some form of dependency problem. Don’t be a prick about it.

6. Traditionally, the bachelor party should be held the night before the wedding: I don’t know who came up with this rule, but it’s a BAD FUCKING IDEA. So far I’ve been to two bachelor parties. I didn’t move til 3pm the next day both times, and on a daily basis I’m up at 7:45am coffee and a cigarette in hand. Think back to the time in college where you drank most of a pitcher of jack daniels straight, woke up pissing your self and just barely made it to an exam you bombed. The bachelor party is supposed to be like the Jack Daniels night to the 10^th power. I would not show up to the wedding pissing my tux and slurring my “I dos.” I wouldn’t even make it the same week. Fuck it, Ideal bachelor party, Two weeks before the wedding. No more than 3 months before though.

7. I can have two bachelor parties, a rowdy one, and a “family one” with my fiancé and her parents: First off, if you have your fiancé at the party, and she’s not a really cool with the situation professional stripper/porn star, then you are entering into eternal pussy-whipping. NO! Secondly, no, you do not need to have a “mature” for show party to appease the family. This whole thing is for you, do it the way you want it done.

8. It’s ok to just let the groom be, it’s his party: Sorry guys, you’re gonna need a DD, or the closest thing even if no one is driving. Remember the example of the guy getting wasted in college. College kids that wasted don’t remember things like responsibility, commitment, or being conscious. There’s been horror stories for millennia of a groom who had one too many, or accidentally banged a waitress the night before his wedding.

http://www.kmbc.com/news/13414424/detail.html (this poor bastard dropped dead in his sleep)

Point is, let him throw up on himself, but watch the guy. Someone needs to draw the short straw and do some babysitting.

9. What happens in Vegas: If you saw the “Hangover” and by now if you haven’t, then you shouldn’t be near an article about bachelor parties anyway, you’ll remember that at the end (spoiler) the guys deleted the photo evidence. Sadly, the Vegas moniker doesn’t hold up in 2009. If you steal a cop car, punch a hooker, or have dirty elevator hotel sex with someone who isn’t your girlfriend, you can bet it’s all on camera, and whats on camera will bite you in the ass on youtube/facebook. A great idea would be to ban, and collect all cameras, ipods, and cell phones at the start of a party. Watch the antics in public, because passersby will be sure to record a gaggle of 32yr old frat boys riding the groom through Caesar’s Palace.

10. I need drugs at my bachelor party: If you want to have some recreational weed, then so be it, but for the amt of coke that shows up in most movie bachelor parties, you could be facing some serious jail time with a wedding on the horizon. The “Donkey Scene” in Bachelor Party alone, would have had Tom Hanks sent away for 20-Life for trafficking and intent to distribute, not to mention the whores. A few hits of X, and a little herb won’t kill anybody. Remember if you get a hotel room, or hold it at a private place it’s better than using a bar that’s open to the public. Odds are your mini whore house will get busted.

With all that in mind, let’s get to the party basics:

You really only need two things: strippers, and booze. The groom shouldn’t pay for a thing, and doing something where you aren’t just stuck at one place would be better than renting out a creepy bar full of guys.

Hiring someone to work the door is a good idea. As I mentioned it’d be good to have someone (preferably an already married guy) willing to stay semi sober and watch the groom before he chokes to death on his own vomit. If you need strippers, you can always revisit our favorite avenue of craigslist. (you can also find the hookers here, you might have to do a bit of digging) And remember to check out “The Hangover” “Very Bad Things” and of course “Bachelor Party” for an example of what not to do.