To Bird-Dog a Russian

I have to admit that in the past a lot of the stories I would tell on this blog took place at a bar. Since becoming a parent my nights of carousing are a lot more rare, but I did step out with some buddies recently for my birthday. We ended up at a place in my neighborhood with one of the biggest beer lists in the city, and although it is a classy joint with an excellent menu, they surprisingly have a no kids policy. So, I thought it was a great chance to get in there since I didn't have Erik Noisewater as a dining companion for a night.

I came in there to find my good friends Night Train and 312 bellied up to the bar. We ordered clams, a tray of fancy cheeses, you know, man shit, right? There were playoff football games on, but believe it or not this place and their clientele are way more into their beer than they are into sports. 312 flipped his phone up on the bar so we could watch, and a manager actually came over to us to say that he had to turn the sound off. We didn't put up a fight, flipped the sound off, went back to our hors d'oervres, sipping Belgian beers we couldn't pronounce, and telling lies. 

Just to give you the lay of the land to set up the situation I want to share with you, if you were there and facing the bar, the order of us was 312, Dr. Kenneth Noisewater, and Nigh Train. Our relationship status for the three of us is that I'm happily married, Night Train is in a newly committed thing, but 312 is single and ready to mingle with Kris Kringle. No idea if that spin on the expression is a thing or makes any sense whatsoever, but there you have it. 312 had a young lady to his left who was all alone at the bar, and when he started chatting her up he ascertained that she was waiting for a date (I believe their second date), and the guy was considerably late. Bad form. The late guy not only screwed up by breaking the important rule that he should have learned long ago about never keeping a lady waiting, but by doing so he allowed 312 to start working his charm. 

When Late Guy finally showed up all three of us noticed that he wasn't at all apologetic about making her sit there all alone on a Friday night waiting for him. You'll notice that our attention to the NFL had disappeared completely. Our chief concern was this Russian (did I mention she was Russia?) gal and if there was any possiblity at all that 312, in an unprecedented move, could steal her away from him. When the date went off to pee, 312 casually asked how it was going. She said he had already told a story about taking too many weed edibles and getting lost in a grocery store. Not sure how that scores a guy any points. She said at this rate she would be home very soon.

312 asked Night Train and myself for input about how he could find a way to see this woman again without looking like an alpha male jerk or something. I first suggested that when she went to the bathroom, he could intercept her around the corner so Late Guy couldn't see it and exchange numbers then, but that window closed when she sat back down. I asked if he had a business card so he could discreetly get it to her. I mean, Late Guy did seem like a turd, but that kind of puts her in an awkward spot to be on a date with one guy and get hit on by another one - so discretion was key. Believe it or not, my friends, he did have a business card in his possession and was able to do a slight of hand drop off before we made our way out. We high fived him and forgot all about it. 

Then later in the night as we are in the cab on the way to the next spot, 312 got a text from Russian Girl. By god, he pulled it off. She was interested in him. 

We had a helluva fun time that night, and the from Russia with love switcheroo gave me a chance to live vicariously through a single friend. All us married people do that with our single friends a little, don't we? 

Okay, I'm off. Got a fun weekend ahead of me, but more of a family oriented one than the other one where I was giving bird-dogging advice on the fly to a buddy. No, this weekend the family will be in a resort with a pool and spa and stuff, swimming and enjoying that beautiful memory-making time. Hope all of you also have a fun-filled weekend ahead of you. Farewell, Blog Buddies. 

Ivanna

I had a bachelor party at a beach house in Hermosa Beach, California for a good friend of mine named King of the Beach (not his real name), and we met someone named Ivanna (also not her name).

We spent a lot of the week playing volleyball on the gorgeous beaches, bumming around the beach house, going to bars, and going to other bars with naked people, as is customary for the occasion. One night we are at a rooftop bar, and when we looked over towards the bar, one of the more mild-mannered gentlemen in our group was talking to a fetching leggy woman at the bar. He introduced Ivanna to us, and the first thing we noticed is that she is 5'11" and taller than me in heals. And she was absolutely loaded on the Bolivian marching powder.

Ivanna is a former model and singer (of sorts) born in Russia or some place similar and raised in Australia. And she absolutely loved us. All 10 of us men. Sure, it could be the endorphins in her brain triggered by the piles of cocaine she was doing in the bathroom, but we took it as just being great dudes and her good "mates." She said mates a lot. Here's the thing: She managed to be kind of charming even though she was talking loudly and a mile a minute.

The poor gal had just wrapped up a bad first date with a guy who only wanted to talk about how much money he made all through out their dinner. She wanted to go up to the bar for a drink, and he didn't want to go. At least I think that was her story. They got into some sort of argument, but most of us were guessing that she was way, way too high and the dude split as a result.

Ivanna told us that she used to date a guitar player who played in a high profile 1980's musician's band. She met a lot of famous musicians and other celebrities during that time. Sadly, guitar player boyfriend died. She brought her deceased ex a number of times, and I was getting the feeling that she was nowhere near over this event - and it seemed to be a trigger for her to want to drink and do more drugs. Oh, also she told us she was 42-years-old but looked and acted 22. I actually felt bad for her at times, but mostly I was laughing and having a good time at the outrageous things she would say - and I don't want to say I was laughing at her all the time, because that wouldn't be true. She was funny intentionally too.

But her singing was absolutely horrible. I think she said she used to be a back up singer, but I'm guessing they just had her look good in tight outfits, swaying back and forth with a tambourine and her microphone off. It wasn't all that loud at the bar, but she felt a need to lean in and sing loudly into everyone's ear. She had an affinity for the 1980's, so we instantly became good buddies. I remember her trying to sing lots of Foreigner and Hall and Oates jams, and when she found out my one friend was a singer, she tried to impress him even more. And the harder she tried, the worse she got.

She told me that she thought I was attractive and then motioned towards our respective genitals and pointed back in forth and said that down there it was going "woo! woo!" Like our genitals were carrying on some sort of intense conversation down there. I laughed and said that I was flattered but that I have a wife and a kid at home. Ivanna was very flirty. She told one guy in the group that he had "bedroom eyes," and he was eating that up. We called him Ol' Bedroom Eyes all weekend, of course. So, truthfully I was not all that flattered because she loved all of us. She kept saying how we were such great guys with good energy, but I think she just needed a friend badly - someone with whom she can overshare and sing songs to.

Ivanna told me that this wasn't her worst first date. She went on another one where the guy told her at the dinner table that he would like it if she stuck things into his rectum later that evening. She was offended and didn't see him again, but she admitted that until that point he had been pretty charming She may have indulged him had he been a little more patient. She said she does piles and piles of cocaine (duh) and she can get into just about anything in the bedroom with the right amount of chemical assistance. Let that be a lesson, gentlemen. Don't overplay your hand. You may get all the wonderful things into your butt that you want if you just exercise a little forbearance with your freaky-deaky requests.

We also had a random business man from France come into our crew and another blond woman from I-don't-know-where. Ivanna was the perfect scientifically proven element for repelling the stuffy tight-asses away with her loud shitty singing and drawing in the right types of people who like to have fun. We had to get to the next stop on our itinerary, and it seemed as if Ivanna was going to continue on with French man and blondy. However, after yet another trip to powder her nose, the two of them had opted to part ways with their third six foot third wheel* and sneak out while she was gone. Dejected but likely determined to find more friends willing to stay up until 7AM, Ivanna went out into the night. Alone.

Ivanna brought us a boost of energy and left a lasting impression upon us, as we were still discussing some of her awesome antics when we had a break the next morning in between volleyball serves. God love you, Ivanna. May you find the man who will help to get you at peace after losing your fallen love, and wherever you go, let it snow down coke in a good times establishment full of bedroom-eyed folks ready and willing to sing loudly and poorly right along with you. My first beer at today's Cubs game is for you, Ivanna.

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*Six Foot Third Wheel is the best band name I have thought of in a long, long time.

All This Time Off of Blogging and It's a Dang Dream Blog?

I had a dream the other night where I'm out at the bar, and then all of a sudden everyone wants to do cocaine and put things in each other's butt holes.  I don't do either of those things, so in the dream I was desperately trying to get out of there.  Even if I were to dabble in either venture, right in plain sight at the bar hardly seemed like the right time.  To make things even weirder, everyone had bright blue bungholes.

The friends in my dream thought I was the biggest prude ever when I finally got out of there, but boy was I glad to get free of those twisted, blue-butted, drug fiend, anal exhibitionists.

Tell me the last time you saw the above sentence.

And what in the blue blazes do you think the dream means?

Team Strike Force and One of the Best Summers of Dr. Ken's Life

Many moons ago some friends and I played in a coed softball league and drinking team.  I'm not making a joke here; The sponsor bar actually kept track of how much all the teams drank after each game, certain types of drinks were worth different points, and the highest point getting team would win a free party for all their friends.  Hence, at the end of the season there would be a champion on the diamond and another in the bar.  This is not something that would be allowed now, and it probably wasn't allowed back then seeing as it encourages competitive binge drinking.  Team Strike Force finished near the bottom in terms of our record, but our drinking statistics were the stuff of legend.      

We weren't anything to brag about when it came to playing the actual softball games, but we did have one guy who was maybe the best player I've ever seen.  He could scoop up a ball on the run from anywhere, and throw from deep in the outfield to hit any plate he wanted right on the button.  Plus every time he stepped up to hit it was an automatic extra base hit.  Come to think of it, his girlfriend (now wife) was a really good player.  The rest of us were just biding our time to prove we were worthwhile at the bar immediately following the mere formality of the actual softball game.   

These were the two best moments on the field (because all the other memorable moments were at the bar):

1. One guy's girlfriend (also now wife) had no baseball experience whatsoever, so naturally we put her at catcher.  She was one of those people who could never get past pointing the open side of the mit straight up instead of turning the wrist inward so the open hand faces out.  You know, so you don't worry about plunking her in the face when you throw to her?  Consequently, she was very rarely able to catch much of anything, usually jumping out of the way to avoid getting hurt if you threw to her.  For this reason, the pitcher typically covered home in the event of a play at the plate. 

The RIGHT way

However, one time our stud player with the rifle arm sent one home with a runner on third and first and second base open, and our favorite female catcher was our only chance to tag the runner out.  She stepped up to the front of the plate, actually caught the ball, and jumped up and down saying "yay" as the runner trotted in behind her untagged.  There was no force at home, so she needed to apply a tag.  Nobody on our team cared because it was the funniest thing we had ever seen, and we didn't want to spoil her joyous moment of catching a softball.  Like I said, we sucked.

We would not have challenge the real Strike Force to any athletic event.  Except drinking. 

2. Then another time we were playing our arch rivals.  They had a guy on their team that was friends with a girl I dated not long before that team started.  This guy cheated on his girlfriend with a number of girls, including the one I was dating.  Not at the time I was seeing her though, but maybe.  Who knows.  She was not such a good girl for me, but at the time love was blind and I was young and stupid.  He was a butt hole on the field as well as off because he was like the coach figure, encouraging all his male players to take walks.  When you're a grown man you swing the bat.  That is what you signed up to do, right?

Also, he would yell at the girls when they screwed up.  This made us all really mad, and we found ourselves consoling his girls when they would get on the base paths and yelling at him to take it easy.  It made for a strange dynamic where the score of the game didn't matter; all that really mattered was that this a-hole drop dead.  Then there was another line drive single hit out to center field to our one good player who came up firing the ball towards home plate as Captain A-Hole ran home from third.  Boom!  The ball plunked him square in the back, and he winced in pain as he scored the run.  None of us gave a damn that he scored.  In fact, we were all cheering him getting hit with a ball.  You see, our guy is good enough to have gotten him out.  He chose to peg him in the back from fifty yards; He was that good.  It could very well have been the single most impressive athletic achievement I have ever seen and certainly the most rewarding.

We lost that game and many others that season, but again, in the bar we were champions.  I will never forget the two highest point-getters were a table tapper of Saint Pauli Girl, and a bottle of Tsingtao, a horribly skunky Chinese beer that led to wicked hangovers the following Friday morning.  Win or lose, our table would be littered with table tappers and buckets upon buckets of the green Chinese death juice: Tsingtao.  Then we would all text each other the next day how General Tsingtao had beaten us down with yet another crippling hangover.  But we would do it all again the following Thursday for the good of the team because champions fight through adversity. 

I remember one bye week (a week where our team didn't play) I still went up to the bar to make sure we at least got a few points.  I brought a girl with me who wasn't a heavy drinker.  She could only muscle down one Tsingtao that I insisted she order, and I powered back the other four in the bucket.

In the final week of the season we were eliminated from any chance of winning on the field, but we were very much in the running to win at the drinking.  The only team who had a chance at catching us was the arch rival team.  To make sure we beat those jerks we set up an evite (remember those?) and got all our drinking buddies up there.  We let all our friends know that if they helped us win, they would all be invited to the free party we would earn on a Saturday night for $500 of free boozy fun!  There were five or six tables full of friends for that last night to earn points, and some of those friends were very tangential.  We were marketing wizards and very heavy drinkers. 

And we "must have" bought a hundred that night.

The culminating pivotal moment did not come on the field; It came when Captain A-Hole from the team we hated came over to our table counting up all those buckets and table tappers and he asked, "Shit, you guys aren't team Strike Force are you?"  "You're damn right we are," we all said and a loud cheer roared through out our section of the bar.  Arch rival team only had five or six people to our giant hoards of booze hounds.  It was a lock for Team Strike Force.  We won that "free" party to drink whatever we wanted through paying for tons of types of beer we didn't like every Thursday night.  If you did the math, we likely lost a lot of money, but you can't put a dollar amount on being drinking champs and having that much fun.

I can't run around the bases as fast anymore, I certainly can't drink that much on a Thursday these days, but I can always can look back on that summer as one of the best of my life.  Let's put it this way, If someone asked me right now if I would rather be the first man on Mars or be transported back to the summer of 2005 to watch that guy get pegged with a softball in the back and tip back some celebratory horribly skunky Tsingtao, I would have to give it some serious, serious thought.      

We were out at the bar the other night, and were are all picking up the smell of marijuana from somewhere every so often.  We weren't sure at first who it was, but then we saw couple sitting at the table just below us and knew they were the culprits.  You see, we were in a row of tables elevated up a step or two, and seated below us was a couple not saying one word to each other but rubbing each other's arms and faces.  They enjoyed the texture of one another's skin for the better part of two hours, and it was endlessly entertaining for us.  There is no way this was just pot they were doing because never have I seen two people out in public acting in a way as if there were no one else around, or in the world for that matter.

Or maybe some good pot is just that good these days.  But do I want to be that messed up anymore?  I mean these two couldn't even form words to talk to one another.  Or were they speaking to one another through some sort of weed ESP?

What do you think, readers? What were these kids puffing on?  You ever see anything like that?  

B-4 and After the Lesbian Proposition

I went to a Cubs game the other night with my buddy, Dangerous, and he and I went to a great little cozy bar called the Burwood Tap for a few night caps.  It was Bingo night, which sounds stupid and an activity meant for folks 40 years our senior, but in reality it was great fun.  For some reason Dangerous knew all the corny jokes to yell out.  For instance, if B-4 is called, you just have to say "and after!" And when it's time for B-9, you gotta say "or malignant!"  So stupid, but funny as hell when you're as drunk as we were.

Me thinks their sign needs a comma, but I love them nonetheless. 

But here's where things get interesting.

After Bingo, an attractive woman I hadn't said one word to walks right up to me, hands me a piece of paper with her name and her number written on it and says "I can't talk to you right now because I'm kind of on a date, but call me."  Then she walks away back to her table, and her date comes out of the bathroom.  And her date is another woman.  I watched the two of them leave shortly after that, and through the window I saw them across the street both stretching their hamstrings.  What sort of insane lesbian sex acts did they have in store for the night that required stretching out their leg muscles?  And did one of them want me to be a part of said acts?

"That's it!  Breathe on my back!  And don't ever talk to a Bingo dork again!"

I'm in a committed relationship with the greatest gal I've ever known, so I discarded her number.  Actually, that's not entirely true.  I tried to get it out of my pocket as proof to some guys at the bar that it actually happened (or prove to myself that I hadn't imagined it), but I had already lost it.  I'm the least organized person I know.

When I woke up the next day with a clear head, I had decided that it couldn't be that she was totally taken with my rugged good looks and my command of the Bingo stamper.  What was going on was one of these three scenarios:

A) She was on a date with a woman who exposed all women to be what she was growing tired of, and she decided right then and there that she needed to mix things up with a fella.  And I was nothing special but the nearest halfway decent looking man with a functional wang.

B) Her date was her girlfriend and she wanted to start a fight with her by coming on to someone that would piss her off the most: a man.  Had I taken that bait, I would be in store for an epic cat fight with me in the middle and being crushed to death between their super-strong stretched out thighs.

C) She wanted me to be part of a an epic three-way sex romp that would go all night and I would have to ice my genitals all the next day.

I have actually ruled out choice C.

Then Dangerous is taking pictures of some people he happened to know in the bar, and he says "hold on, that great big tall girl was right in the way of that shot."  And the girl got all sad about it.  Then he spent the better part of an hour consoling tall girl and trying to convince her that she is pretty.  She went on-and-on about how she has a low self concept.  I had no idea what they were talking about, so I walked over there and said "Wow, you're tall!  Do you play volleyball?  Stand up for a second and put your arms up.  You would be terrific at the middle-block position!"  I think that set Dangerous back an extra twenty minutes on his quest to make her less self conscious about her height.

We're going to need a bigger lens to make this shot work.  That or shorter trees.

So that's it.  Anyone have any thoughts about the lesbian proposition or the poor tall gal with low self-esteem?  

"Did Someone Just Skip My Song?"

So I'm out drinking the other night and loading up the jukebox with songs with that application where you can pick songs from your phone.  It's great fun to not have to leave your friends to stand by the jukebox, and that way everyone can brainstorm songs together and pick them as a team.  So when we heard the first few thundering bass notes to our first song, "Ace of Spades" by Motorhead, we were very pumped and I was head banging as such.  Then before Lemmy can get through his hoarse voiced,  bellowing first verse, I hear the song being skipped and look up to see one of the bar maidens suspiciously setting down a remote.



I calmly walked over to the bar and said, "Did someone just skip my song?"

To which she said, "Yeah, that was awful."

I told her it's Motorhead and probably not for everyone, but I was excited to hear it.  I added that it would have been over in 2 and a half minutes, and surely she could have just waited that out.  Just then the other, much cooler, bar maiden handed me a dollar while not as cool bartender asked me if they had any other better songs?  I explained that they did have lots of other songs but they all sound: Just.  Like.  That one.

I told her she would hate them all equally and this was the only one other people in the bar were likely to know.

I had to add "And you skipped my song and stuck us with this Rascal Flats crap?"  All the while I stood there with my returned dollar bill in my hand, unsure if it had resolved the situation.

The cooler bartender said I looked familiar, and I said that I have been in there a number of times and I'm a pretty good customer.  Just then I heard the country song get skipped, and I heard the beginning of "Give It To Me Baby" by Rick James - it was my next song.  I smiled ear-to-ear, and they both laughed as I danced my way back to my table.



Then my friends and I laughed our asses off seeing Rascal Flatts guy getting hopping mad about his awful Rascall Flatts song getting skipped.

It's always more funny when it happens to someone else.

These Are the Top 10 Awful People At the Bar. The People That You Meet Each Friday.

10. The Jukebox Saboteur.  Some jerk played In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida three consecutive times, but no one there will fess up to it.  More than likely he keyed that up and left to another bar just to stick us with 19 minutes of crappy drum and organ solos.

9. The Jaeger Bomber.  You have already told this guy that you don't want to do any shots because you have to go into work the next morning, but every time you turn around there is a tray of shots coming your way, and usually something disgusting like Wild Turkey.  You see, the Jaeger Bomber is not happy until we're all slobbering drunk and peeing on ourselves.  Like him.

8. The Barfly Loner.  He sits there alone every single night, knows all the staff members by name, and he is sipping his drinks and slowly killing himself.  And that's totally fine, so long as he doesn't talk to us.  It's when he chimes into everyone else's conversations that he becomes a problem.  We know, you have it all figured out and know the answers to all the world's problems.  But why haven't you found out how to avoid spending all your time and money perched at the end of this dark and dirty bar and dying a lonely death?

7. No Game and No Quit.   Sometimes the ladies just want to go out and have a few drinks, maybe dance a little, and yes, meeting some cute guys is a bonus.  However, you have got to know when your very presence has begun to ruin their night.  There are some guys out there who just don't know when to cut bait and move on.  Some men will tell you that all women are bitches, but the truth is they have to resort to being a monster bitch just to get guys like this to go away.

6. The Ping Pong Ball: This guy just doesn't seem happy with any bar you've gone to all night long.  The minute you walk in, he has immediately surveyed the scene and decided that there aren't enough women in there, the TV's aren't in high def, the bartenders aren't good looking enough men's room attendant has shitty mints, and the hardwood floors need to be refinished.  So he keeps convincing the group to bounce to another bar, which will be another one he will hate.  It seems the Ping Pong Ball is content spending more money and time on taxis than in bars.

5. The Stumbler.  He is blind drunk, falling over, making no sense, throwing up and falling asleep, but he won't leave!  If the bouncers won't do the right thing, sometimes someone in his group of friends needs to physically grab his pickled ass and show him to a cab, and usually tell the cab driver where he lives and maybe pay him (as it doesn't seem as if he is capable of doing anything on his own at this point).  Once everyone has had a good laugh and stored up enough stories to thoroughly embarrass him the next time you all get together, it will be well worth it to send this man home and absolve yourselves of babysitting duties.

4. The Inescapable Bad Conversation Guy: He has honed on you.  Yes, he has chosen you to share his wisdom of a particularly boring topic, be it to which route to take to shave 3 minutes off your commute, who to draft in fantasy football, or how to totally own the chumps in your condo association.  You have tried going to the bar to get a drink and going to take a pee, and you really didn't have to do either one - you just wanted to get away.  But he will keep finding you because he has you pegged as someone too nice to tell him to please put more beer in his mouth and make less boring words come out of it.

3. The Crop Duster.  The drinks are flowing, the music sounds good, everyone is looking beautiful, but suddenly there is the foul smell of rotten eggs blasting out of someones diseased intestines, and everyone is pulling their shirts over their noses, clearing out an entire section of the bar as fast as possible.  And the worst thing about the Crop Duster is that he never owns up to it, so you could be talking to someone and will have to convince him/her that it wasn't your own putrid ass that just unleashed hell.

2. Fishhooks in the Pockets/Alligator Arms.  You're out with all your friends, and every time it's this guy's turn to buy, he is sneaking outside for a smoke, to the men's room, or anywhere he and his wallet won't have to get involved.  Or better yet, he wants $12 craft beers all night, but when it's his turn, it's Bud in cans all around for his men.  What a swell guy!  

1. Dude Thinks It's Roadhouse.  Some guys out there don't feel their night is complete unless they have gotten into a fight, and it doesn't matter what it's about.  Sometimes it's insane jealousy, others it's about who's sports team is better, but It could be an argument about something as stupid as Mac VS PC, Star Trek VS Star Wars, or "Little Mermaid" or "Lion King."  What matters is that they are finally going to get to punch someone in the face and possibly get arrested, where they could very well land in the same cell as the guy they fought and kick back up that "Little Mermaid" debate and ring the bell for round two.  Listen, pal, you'll never be as cool as Dalton in "Roadhouse," you'll never rip out a throat, but you will either land in jail, get beat up by four bouncers, and have to explain your shiner at work on Monday.  So just relax and drink your beer, maybe try some yoga or something, and put away your dukes.

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A) All this being said, I think I have been, I have been 7 out of 10 of these fellas, and sometimes more than one in a night.  But at least I'm conscious of which bar behaviors are bad, and that is half the battle.  How about you?

B) Honorable mention goes the Overzealous Drinking Game Guy.  He wants everyone to play his drinking games, but we just want to have good conversation.  Is it possible he has nothing worthwhile to say, and that's why he insists on these stupid games?  And what's more, I don't need rules to tell me when to pour gallons of booze down my gullet.  I do just fine without being forced, so shut up, right?  Should this guy crack the top 10, and if so, who should get bumped out?

C) Any other additions that you would like to submit?

Early Morning Riser

I had a long day today.  Stressful and emotional.  I stopped off for a beer by myself at a good bar by my apartment.  It's worth the extra few blocks because it's awesome.  Talking about Journey Atari games got me engrossed with some of the regulars, and as some country music played, I got excited to go home and listen to "Bustin' Out" on vinyl by Pure Prarie League.  I bought this record years ago only because "Amy" is on it, but it is chocked full of awesome southern rock.  And I bought it for $0.49.  Yes.  Less than fifty cents.

I just read that paragraph and saw that I was excited to go home.  Wow.  Officially a dork.

Kim Coulter wrote her name in some permanent marker across the front of the cover of the LP.  Don't you ever want to know who these people are?  I imagine tons of people have sold this record for a host of reasons, but the way I operate is I need to know who owned THIS VERY COPY.

I'm a weird fan of rock music.  The kind that wants to know who listened to this album and where.  And which drugs were consumed.  And did Kim have any feelings about having to part with this record, or was it Kim's daughter who sold it?  And is Kim dead?  Did Kim ever really dig this record?  I mean, she cared enough to write her name on it . . .

Anyone else think at along these lines, or am I totally a nut.  I am too nuts to be alone right now, right?  Maybe I should just belly up to the bar again and stop being a nut.

Crazy Eyes

This might have been my longest time in between entries since I started back in 2005, and there is only one thing that could get me motivated to start writing again . . . Making fun of someone!  It's one of the major flaws of bloggers; the fact that we observe people, make mental notes of all the crap they tell us, and mentally construct blog posts where we will make fun of them at a later date.  But as Crazy Eyes (the subject of this post) cornered me at the bar when I was all alone with no escape, I knew she secured herself a blog post in the very near future.

Crazy Eyes is a barfly.  There's just no nicer way to say it.  She works at the bar where my buddy, Southie, has bar tended every Friday night for the last 13 years, and I'm pretty sure Crazy Eyes hasn't missed a Friday in all those years.  I had nothing going on last night so I figured I would go visit Southie who ended up being quite busy in there so he wasn't able to hang out with me much.  Ordinarily being alone at a bar isn't a big deal, but on this warm Chicago nigh, Crazy Eyes sucked onto me like a barnacle and wouldn't let go.

She looks like the big sister on "South Park."  It was driving me nuts trying to think who she looks like, and it suddenly hit me that she looks like a cartoon character designed to be obnoxious, and she succeeds towards those ends without even trying or having the benefit of writers and artists.  There is something in those eyes that can be quite maddening too.  They have an intense look in them, and her eye balls seem to dart around like a lizard at nothing in particular.  You just can't help but get caught up in those crazy eyes while she rambles and spits on you.

That's right.  She spits when she talks.  This has got to be her worst quality.  I remember at one point rolling down the sleeves of my sweatshirt so at least my forearms would be protected from the saliva shower I was enduring.  You would think that she would see the pattern of everyone wiping their faces when they talk to her, and this would tip her off that maybe she was spitting a touch to much.  Perhaps it's that slobbery quality of her voice and the loss of her faculties due to the extreme amounts of booze she ingests that makes her lose control of her spit.  Which reminds me . . . 

She drinks like a fish.  If you have been around this blog for more than a few posts, it's pretty clear that I have a similar problem.  Hell, I even shocked myself to find that some of the highest subjects tagged have been "drinking," "bars," and "the bar."  However, I like to think that I can be an entertaining and intellectual drunk.  Poor Crazy Eyes just gets lit up like a Christmas tree and has even less interesting things to say.  She told me all about her spin classes and her roommate who likes Japanimation a little too much, and I had nowhere to go until more friends arrived.  I just listened, watched those crazy eyes, and got sprayed with the spit.  Oh yeah . . . 

. . . Her mouth isn't the only thing that sprays.  I hate to say it, but I know at least three guys who have said "what the hell," and took her home after last call.  I guess ladies who drink like animals and wear lingerie and garter belts in public aren't that hard to bed.  But my one buddy said that she squirted all over his sheets.  He told me this happened every time they got down, and he said "I just didn't have enough linen to keep fuckin' that broad."

Sorry.  That was crude, but it was funny and just couldn't be left out.  

How about you, Seven Readers, do you have anyone brutal in your life that you would like to talk about in the comments today?

I was at a karaoke bar with a bunch of friends the other night, and I noticed a guy I remembered seeing the last time I was there so he is likely always there.  He looked to be in his upper 40's, had pro wresting hair (bald on top and long in the back), and he just hung out drinking Coors Lights and keeping the DJ company all night, off and on singing a song, usually by the Eagles.

At one point the DJ called for a guy to sing who was nowhere to be found, and my buddy, Choo Choo Train, said "That's karaoke abandonment!"  It was.  And that is high crime where Choo Choo and I come from . . .

After last call, wrestling hair guy went up to sing the last song of the evening, "Faithfully" by Journey.  Now, this is a rather cornball song, but on this particular evening it was the perfect one to play.  I remember playing that song on my sister's CD player because I didn't have one yet, reading along with the lyrics, and wondering how a little weasel like Steve Perry could sing like that.  The whole bar must have some fond memories because they were all singing along arm-in-arm, swaying back-and-forth the way drunks often do.  This particular song also hit me hard because as Steve sang about being apart not being easy on his love affair, I was reminded of the fact that I have been doing the long distance relationship thing for the last 2 years, still seeing each other around once a month, but with just 2 months to go until we're together for good, it's harder than ever.

Thanks for listening and for "stand (ing) by me" all these years, 7 Readers.

And now, an 8-year-old Filipino girl absolutely crushing "Faithfully" by Journey.

Reginald

During my recent travels through California, we ended up in a surprisingly non pretentious cozy little bar in Santa Monica.  It was there, perched at the bar sipping a 151 cocktail, that I met Reginald, a 62-year-old Marine Corps veteran who more than once told me exactly how long he served (something like 21 years, 3 months, and 28 days).  He kept looking back towards the door, saying he was waiting for his 42-year-old fiance to arrive, a woman lucky enough to have the opportunity to become his fifth wife.

I was sipping on tall pints of Boddingtons, and Reginald was appalled that a man like me (I have no idea what kind of man I am) would be drinking beer.  He said it would make my donger soft, but he could not produce any medical journals to back up these facts.  He then boasted that he is still a red blooded stud and younger women can't keep up with him, and in an attempt to prove this, he got down on the floor and did 25 bare knuckle push-ups.  I was convinced and ordered a 151.

After LSD, my lovely girlfriend, came over to say hello, he said to me, "Is that your queen?  She is a thoroughbred!  You have to hold onto that one!"  I will agree.  She is equal parts queen and thoroughbred, and I fully intend to hold onto her.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get on the floor for some knuckle push-ups so that I can be in as good of shape and as much of a gentleman as Reginald . . .

Terrible Blog Topics Jotted Down at the Bar the Other Night . . .

. . . in no particular order

1. My buddy Night Train was wondering why we have v-necks for better boob viewing when there are clearly two boobs to be seen.  Hence, why not w-neck shirts?  Be looking for that at Banana Republic very soon.

2. My other buddy Southie was talking about the plain-Jane-looking girl on 90210 that worked at the school paper with Brandon, the one that was really like 35-years-old when they started filming, and I thought for sure I heard Southie say "rape through it."  He didn't, but then we said rape through it 19 times through out the evening.  No, rape isn't funny, but the phrase was cracking us up because, well, we know each other well enough to know none of us are rapists.

"Ooh!  I know the phrase for that!"

 3. Well, if you're still reading and not crafting your angry comment lambasting me for the last topic, let me know what you think about the next one: Why is it that Matt or Matthew is such a common name, yet so few Black people are named it?  The Chicago Bears have Matt Forte, but then we were stumped.  Little help?

"You were expecting maybe LaShawn?"

4. We were all agreed that Beyonce is a super crappy choice for the Super Bowl Halftime Show, and there should be more rock bands doing it.  My prediction right here at the Gancer is that it will be the reunited 3/4 of Led Zeppelin playing it next year.  Them or Huey Lewis and the News (fingers crossed).

"Let me know when it is, once again, hip to be square."

 5. How come no one at the bar is skilled in the art of reading lips, but when we see Tom Belichick, coach of the New England Patriots, say "fucking bullshit," we all know exactly what he said?  Everyone knows how to read potty mouth lips!  I guess the lesson here is that if you're worried about someone far away reading your lips but you want to let someone know what you think of them who is in earshot, do so with unconventional disgusting phrases like "purple headed yogurt slinger" or "hatchet wound."