Shimee Shay's Bar & Grill

I haven't had a drink almost 3 months now, and I feel pretty great. I'm more present for things going on in my life, more aware, more in the moment. I feel healthier and happier, getting more done, and enjoying my time with my family more.

So that's that.

Hey, let me tell you about someone else who was drunk. A friend of mine was in town with his son (he wasn't the drunk one, nor was his offspring), and he was bringing his young boy to his first baseball game at Wrigley Field. This friend has been living in LA for years-and-years now, but he decided he would be damned before he let his son's first game be a Dodgers game. And guess what? His son had the ultimate Wrigley experience and will likely (read hopefully) be a Cub fan for life. He got onto the field before both games and got autographs, the whole 9. 

So onto the funny drunk person story. After I parted ways with my buddy at a rooftop hotel bar overlooking the ballpark (where I drank fake beers, staying the course) an attractive 20-something attractive gal approached me. Did I say attractive twice?

"Do you know where the karaoke place is over that way," she said, motioning south down Clark Street.

"Well, Murphy's Bleachers used to have some karaoke" I suggested, not knowing if this was still true all these years having gone by since I painted the town brown in that neighborhood.

"No, that's not it."

"Oh, well, you could for sure go to Trader Todd's. That's not far at all, on Belmont and Sheffield. They do karaoke 7 days a week."

"That's not it either. It's a big name," she said, spanning her arms out like jazz hands in either direction, looking deep into my eyes like I would get it. She might have been on something besides booze, now that I think about it. "The name is like . . . Shimee shay," she said in an epic, important-sounding manner, "Like that's not it, but it's like that."

"So that's not the name at all because that's nonsense, but that's like the rhythm of the name?"

"Yeah!" She said, thinking I got her.

I didn't. "I'm sorry I don't know this gibberish bar. I wish I could be of more help."

"It's okay," was the last thing she said to me as she joined her friends walking south bound, relaying to them that the guy she talked to didn't know where the bar was. I hope they found it. I walked away not wishing at all that I was drunk like her, but looking back fondly on those drunken adventures. I don't need any more of them, but they're nice to fondly look back on in the rearview.

New Beer Vendor Hated By Wrigley's 500 Level Seats

I took my good friend, Beatnik, to a Chicago Cubs baseball game last night in my season ticket seats.  My Cubbies are on a roll, by the way, having won 11 of their last 12 games including last nights defeat of the Milwaukee Brewers.  But you can look statistics like that up elsewhere.  What you come here for is the minutia of meaningless and hopefully funny observations of everyday life of your good friend, Dr. Kenneth Noisewater.

Myself and the three other buddies in our season tickets package have a beer vendor in our section that we dislike and don't buy from anymore as a result.  He made one off-handed comment in response to a simple clarification question we had about what inning/time they stopped selling beer that was something to the effect of "What is this your first game?"  We didn't take kindly to it, and over the years we have built up an irrational hatred and talk about things we would like to do to the man we call Walt Disney (due to a slight resemblance), such as curb stomp him like in "American History X."  Would we ever do such a thing?  Of course not.  It's just our sense of humor to grossly exaggerate and crack each other up when we're texting each other when one of us can't be at the game live.

("That's right, Bambi!  Bite that prick's shoulder off!")

Now, not buying from Walt is really something silly we like to maintain as tradition and superstition. Our hatred for a new beer vendor in our section is quite genuine and shared by our entire section.  This new guy is an overweight older gentleman who refuses to walk up the few steps into the 500 level sections.  He will, however, walk downwards a few steps into the more expensive 400 level seats, which to me goes beyond laziness and into some sort of class debate, showing preferential treatment to those more fortunate.  It could very well turn into a working class rebellion by the time the playoffs arrive, but only time will tell.

I am not saying he won't sell to us, but he will only do so by passing beers and exchanging money right up the seats.  I have never seen this done.  You see, a beer vendor can go up or down and aisle and pass things down a row.  That is fine, and that is how it has always been done.  This lazy son of a gun doesn't use any rows or aisles.  What he does, in effect, is instead of just disrupting one row of people, he makes up to ten rows stop what they're doing to pass a beer upwards, awkwardly reaching behind and passing over shoulders.  Lots of beer can be spilled that way, and that's perhaps the biggest tragedy of this guy's horrible technique.  It's really ticking off not only other customers but other beer vendors have shot me looks in agreement when I show frustration as if to say, "You believe this guy?"

(Even in Japan they pass down the aisles, not up the seats.  And check out that Samurai cup scabbard!)

Beyond just not buying his beer, where do I go from here?  I was thinking I could take to Twitter and start lambasting the guy on there to raise awareness.  Any other thoughts on how to get this guy fired or at the very least demoted to hot dog vending?