Since I Haven't Blogged In Like 5 Weeks, Here Are 5 Updates.

1. I scrolled through some old posts to check, but I don't think that I've told all of you that we are due for our second kiddo in September. It's actually the same due date as Erik Noisewater, so there is a possibility they could have the same birthday. I suppose that would be the most important update for me, creating more human life and all, but let's move onto the random stupid items because if any of you have been reading a while, you know that is what I'm better at reporting on.



2. I've been doing the intermittent fasting about 4 to 6 days a week. I'll stop eating around 630pm and not eat again until 10:30AM the next day. I have to say I feel a lot better when I stick to it, and when I do I'm regular as a the sun, since you asked. It is also a good fit for me because I can get in bad patterns, such as knocking out entire rows of Girl Scout cookies. Mrs. Noisewater was all excited about a cookie after work only to find that after a few too many IPA's one Saturday evening I had ingested my standard entire row amount to polish off a box. Now it is a battle of wills. I bought another couple boxes to make it up to her and to prove to myself that I can control my inner fat kid impulses. So now when I need that little jolt of chocolate I'll open up the fridge and squirt a small amount of Hershey's syrup directly into my mouth like an uncivilized pile of crap human. Essentially it is like going to the methadone clinic for the heroin addict. Nowhere near as good as eating a row of cookies/mainlining smack, but it gets you through.



3. My good friend HLP (Heterosexual Life Partner) and I have been hitting a concert every month or every other month as our music tastes have aligned to a lot of the same doom/stoner/desert/fuzz bands. One thing we do is switching off who buys the tickets, and the other system is kind of a genius strategy that I am now sharing with you, my friends. What we do is look up the setlists of the one or two, sometimes three bands that we like on the bill on setlist.fm. You'll find that most bands these days don't stray from the exact same songs night after night, so we will take all those songs and make them into one giant (especially if it's three bands) mixed up Spotify playlist that we can share with one another. And we alternate who does that task too. And viola! Now we can listen to that playlist over the course of a few weeks and will be totally familiar with all of the songs the bands will play without wasting any time at all with songs that won't be in the set list. Feel free to steal this system for yourself because, while I do admit it's pretty darn ingenious, I see no possible way to monetize it.



4. And speaking of the rock and roll music, the wife and kid joined me for one of my favorite days of the year, Record Store Day, and we had one heck of a good time (at least I did). What I did is look up which stores were giving out free donuts and coffee and such and made a nice route to hit around four stores. Erik Noisewater had his heart set on a pink donut with sprinkles, and by god I found one for him and four records for under twenty bucks for the old man. While at one tiny store I noticed that there was a good deal of sections for hip hop, trance, drums and bass . . . . But where in the hell was the damn rock music? Then I saw around thirty or fifty vinyls filed under "Dad Rock." That is where they file their very limited actual rock music with guitars. And sure enough the dad with the kid running around the store asking for donuts picked himself up some very, very dad-like rock, a Jerry Rafferty album.



5. Do you all feel like you get smarter or dumber as the years roll on? Recently I started getting the notion that my wits were going in the wrong direction. There was a time where I walked into a room and fancied myself one of the sharpest blokes in the room, and sadly I just don't feel that way quite as much anymore. This is something I feel like I have to turn around, so I started some new habits like reading the newspaper cover-to-cover, doing crossword puzzles, and limiting my social media time. And hopefully writing more. I gotta write more, guys. I'm sorry I have slowed up so much with my output, but that is just another step I have to take to avoid gradually growing duller like the rest of America.

Okay, friends. You got any input on any of these five items listed above? If not, then just tell me something else that will make me laugh because laughing is good for the soul and the gall bladder. Mostly the soul.  

Ozzy, the Bus, the Rockstar On the Bus, and the Sad Bodybuilder Woman On the Bus

Ozzy at last!

I went to see Ozzy Osbourne live for the first time. I have seen him play in Black Sabbath (his band based out of Birmingham, England before going solo, in case any of you don't know of the band who created heavy metal) twice, but I had never seen just Ozzy before. Now that I have, the only remaining and surviving huge bucket list guy is Sir Paul McCartney (a guy from Liverpool, another working class England town, called The Beatles, in case you know absolute jack squat about rock music). It's a little frustrating that 9 out of 10 times when I told people that I was off to see Ozzy their first response was a statement something like this:

1. "Can he still sing?"
2. "Will you be able to understand what the hell he is saying?"
3. "Do they have to drag his old bones out and prop up his mortal remains?"

When in reality:

1. Yes. He sounded just fine to me.
2. Ozzy is actually far more coherent when he sings. It is kind of like if you have ever known someone who stutters but does not do so at all when he or she sings. Ozzy has always seemed more comfortable on stage being Ozzy than when he is walking about being John Osbourne. It is like a lot of comedians who are so confident and quick witted on stage but then do not know what in the heck to say at a cocktail party. Also, the Ozzy most people know was from a reality show called "The Osbournes" where he was stumbling about and had a hard time forming sentences. This is because he was falling back into his drug addictions and was at a pretty much all time low during that period. Pull up just about any other video of him, and he is very charming and downright hilarious. Intentionally funny, that is. Not a caricature of himself that he was marketed as after that damn show. But to be honest I could not understand him very well last night, but I think it was the echoing sound of the shitty suburban venue. And okay fine, maybe a little bit because he is Ozzy.
3. No. I saw no one propping him up. Yes, he looks a little old when he paces back and forth a little hunched over, but for the most part you see that exuberance and that way an audience is never quite loud enough for him and see that youthful excitement in his eyes. "I can't fucking hear you!" he says over-and-over. Mrs. Noisewater joked, "Maybe he really can't hear them anymore." Okay, that's pretty funny. I'll admit.

Wow, that was a much longer rant than I intended it to be, but I just get defensive about Ozzy because he has been a part of my life for so long. It was similar with Harry Caray when he was calling games for the Cubs into his twilight years after a major stroke with splashes of dementia and Budweiser. When people made fun of him I would tell them that he was not always this old and he is an institution of the Cubs and baseball as a whole. He is a God damn Hall of Famer. He called games from a fan's perspective, which was innovative in its own right. I honest to god do not think people separate the man himself from Will Ferrell's intentionally over exaggerated impression. When people picked on him, they might as well have been hurling insults at my grandfather and it's the same with my grandpa Ozzy. Shit, another rant. Let's move forward with the actual tale I wanted to tell here.

One of my oldest and dearest friends who has been popping up in this blog since its inception, Heterosexual Life Partner (HLP), and I took a free party bus running out of a heavy metal Chicago bar to get to the pain in the ass venue deep into the suburbs. The giant yellow school bus finally pulled up to the bar very late with all of us standing outside with no explanation from staff. Checking our wristbands as we climbed aboard was an extremely muscular and powerfully drunk woman in a tight-fitting shirt showing all her hard work at the gym. She for sure was twice as strong as me physically and had muscles in her face that I'm not sure how to get, but there was a sadness and vulnerability about her. She was stumbling up and down the aisles trying to remember people's orders and then stumbling back to the front of the bus to fetch the beers out of the cooler. Swaying back and forth leafing through change in her fanny pack, she told us that it was her dog's birthday. Without any of us asking any follow up questions she lowered her head and revealed, "She died in my arms today" and started weeping uncontrollably. A woman said something to the effect of, "I'm so sorry" and muscular bus bartender dove into her for a well developed upper body strength, vice grip hug. Whoever was next to that customer must have said "me too" because our mourning libations distributor burrowed into that customer for yet another deep hug.

This is not an actual picture of bus bartender. This is, in fact, Nicole Bass , an unfortunately deceased regular on The Howard Stern Show.

This was why the pour woman was so schnockered-drunk. She was in a state mourning. HLP and I were shocked that she showed up to work in her mental state. Luckily for her she has a job with a very lax policy on drinking. And weed smoking. She was offering free hits off her bowl. "Anyone need anymore beer? Or weed?" she would say. When the bus pulled up to the amphitheater she said, "The show doesn't start for a little while so you're free to stay aboard for a while. There's still plenty of beer and weed." She seemed like she needed some friends, but HLP and I had a date with Ozzy. When I wasn't sure if my sister was going to make it do to some severe back pain she was experiencing, HLP suggested we could sell or even give the extra ticket to the bus bartender, but then we realized she would be standing next to us all night crying. We had already checked the setlist and "Bark At the Moon" would be the very first song. Those canine related words were bound to send her into more crying or perhaps even suicide watch. She was best left on the bus looking after our beer and weed. 

This is the album cover that prompted a handy man my parents hired when I was a teenager to say, "Did you know your son is listening to Satanic music?" My mom, always the devout atheist, nodded politely and then laughed her ass of when she shut the door.

Oh, as it turns out joining us on the fun bus was the lead singer and songwriter of a fairly popular Chicago area band that enjoyed some national exposure in the late nineties and beyond. I will not say who it was to protect his anonymity, but HLP, being one of his biggest fans, was gushing a little over him. We were tickled that despite being a fairly successful rocker, he was riding the free bar bus like the rest of us. The rock star was very kind on the ride in like in a "I'll be nice enough to you where you don't tell people I was a big dick when you tell the story" kind of way." Then on the ride home he was nice in a "We should totally hang out sometime. Shit, I love everyone!" kind of way. He and his much younger and quite striking blond rocker-chick girlfriend were very well buzzed. She told us that right at the end of the show she was rather politely thrown out of the venue for peeing in the men's room. This has to be done sometimes when the line in the men's room is long. Someone must have snitched, but who? That has never bothered me. We are all God's creatures (if you believe in that sort of thing) doing what naturally has to occur when you pour way too much beer down your throat. Why should the female species have to wait longer to do so? It's an unfair and potentially harmful policy. 

This album cover used to scare and gross me out as a kid. What in the hell did he just take a bloody bite out of?

Rock star guy and I bonded slightly (in my mind) over hating Bruce Springsteen and hating the fact that Ozzy played nothing off of his second album, "Diary of a Madman," the final of two masterpiece records with Randy Rhoads, the late guitar prodigy taken from the world far too young by a coked up bus driver who fancied himself a single engine plane pilot who crashed the plane into the damn bus. Little known fact, I wanted to name my son Rhoads until I learned that Tom Morello, lead guitarist of Rage Against the Machine had stolen my idea, and I stay stolen regardless of the fact that he thought of it first. In any event, rock star guy and I were singing a number of those songs we had wished we heard on the ride home. And we sang all the songs that came on the radio as if they were all the best things on earth even though they were very similar songs to the ones we heard on the way in when we were far less buzzed and were engaging in polite and much more quiet conversations. 

Rock star guy and his girlfriend were talking about making a trip to the Liars Club (the spot where HLP called home and our favorite place on earth for so many years in our late 20's and roughly all of our 30's) later that evening, but HLP and I now have wives and kids at home who would prefer us to not be like the walking dead the following day. Rock star guy is a little older than us, to be honest, but he can get away with acting like a rock star because his job is actually: rock star. Plus it is probably best that we stopped glomming onto him and his girlfriend and allowed them to enjoy one another. Their relationship looked very fresh and exciting for them and the added company of two drunk-daddy fans would likely have worn thin for them after the bus ride was over if it hadn't already. 

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Okay, rock stars. Hope you have enjoyed this story. I do realize it was an extremely lengthy post with many a digression, but I think when the writer and storyteller in me lies dormant for so long, a stored up monster ejaculate of words is bound to be the result. Keep rocking and barking at the moon, my deer blog buddies. 

Time Traveling Concert Goers Serve Their Own Selfish Rock Purposes

I had a dream last night where my good friend, HLP*, and I were transported back to various times in history. What an amazing opportunity! We could have saved the Kennedy brothers from being assassinated, stopped the world wars that cost the world so many lives, and maybe even smacked the AIDS monkey in the head with a crowbar.** But instead the first thing that occurred to us that we could do for the good of mankind went something like this, "Holy shit! We can travel through time seeing all kinds of legendary rock bands!"

HLP and I were discussing what shows we had been to during out time travels. One of us saw Black Sabbath with Ozzy Osbourne in the 1970's, and on another night in the 1970's we saw Blue Oyster Cult. Seeing B.O.C. is not that exciting of an opportunity, but that is all we could find playing that night. And they didn't even play "Don't Fear the Reaper!" Now that I think about it, HLP and I could have been yelling out for them to play that song when it hadn't even been written yet. Trippy, right?

We found our potential Holy Grail when we skimmed through the newspaper to to see that Jimi Hendrix was playing that night! This must be what the Ziggy of our rock and roll "Quantum Leap" has been wanting us to see. It was all so clear now! The only problem was that it was sold out. First we tried to sneak through the front door, but the doorman busted us and kicked us to the curb. We then found a way to get in through the back door. This led us to the backstage area, but from there there was no way to get to where we could see the stage. We decided to hide behind some folding tables where we could hear the show perfectly and see Jimi playing from time to time when he walked by a door with a window on it. 

At one point Jimi happened to glance through the window and looked right at me. I didn't know what else to do, so I just smiled and waved. Mr. Hendrix stopped playing at this point and said, "Hold on a minute. We got a couple white boys*** back here." I thought for sure our goose (or geese) was cooked, but he asked the crowd if we should be let into the show. The crowd responded with an uproarious applause, and we came out and saluted the crowd to a standing ovation. HLP and I found some seats, but people kept arriving and kicking us out (we had no tickets, if you'll recall). Some seats that I sat in I had to leave even before anyone got there because my knees were hitting the head of the person in front of me. I found it odd at the time that some seats had more leg room than others, but maybe it was like that in the early 1970's. I'll never know because I can't really time travel.

Sometimes you just find that perfect Google Image.

With all the time I spent worrying if I would be thrown out, if a ticket-holding patron would arrive to take my seat, or if my knees would graze somebody's ear and piss them off, I realized that I wasn't paying much attention to why I was there: Jimi. Fucking. Hendrix. I will say that dream-time-traveling Kenneth was impressed with his playing, but Jimi didn't play one single, solitary song I had ever heard before.  

So, what does it all mean? Are the rock gods inside my insane brain trying to tell me something?

- Maybe I should just enjoy the moment more and not worry so much about little details?

- Perhaps it's a telling story about how I'm too overly concerned with rock music?

- Help me out, Seven Readers. Maybe there is a hidden meaning that I'm missing?

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*This acronym stands for Heterosexual Life Partner. He has been a good buddy of mine since junior high, all through this blog's inception, and right up until now. We text one another just about every day about sports and music, so I would say life partner still applies.

**I'm sorry if any animal lovers are offended by this. Believe me when I say that it wouldn't be easy because I find monkeys so adorable. But I would hypothetically smash that little guy's infected nose right into the back of his disease-ridden skull for the good of mankind. But he would get a pass if Zeppelin or someone else awesome was playing that night.

***We weren't the least bit offended when he said "white boys" because he delivered it with no malice at all, and in fact, a great deal of warmth. Dream Jimi was extremely kind and gracious. He was everything I imagined him to be, but I just wish he played some songs that I knew! I mean, I have heard his whole catalog, so from what reservoir was he digging through for that night's deep cuts? I'll have to ask Dream Jimi if I ever have the pleasure of meeting him again, and while I'm at it I'll thank him for letting me and my "white boy" friend into the show.

Mr. and Mrs. Noisewater's Love Story

This is the story of the meeting of Mr. and Mrs. Noisewater that I wrote that will go on the site for our wedding.  Hope you enjoy.

Did I ever tell you about the time I met my bride to be?  It all started back when I was living at the apartment on Nelson Street in Chicago that I lived at with a revolving cast of four roommates for seven years.  We were having a birthday gathering for a good friend and a good roommate, and I was telling the guests the story about the time some middle aged woman gave me her powder blue paisley jacket with shoulder pads.  What happened was I was at a bachelor party and arrived back at the hotel before the rest of my friends and was waiting at the bar.  I saw her goofy jacket slung over the chair and this happened:

Dr. Ken: That's a sharp jacket you got there.

Jacket Lady: Buy me a beer and it's all yours.

Dr. Ken: Sure.  What'l it be?

Jacket Lady: MGD.

Dr. Ken: Bartender, one MGD please.

I didn't know it was a female jacket.  I guess I didn't notice the shoulder pads at the time.  I just slapped it on and texted my best man, Mr. HLP, "I am at the bar in a Mr. Furley jacket!

"No sticker for me?"

So here I am at the apartment telling this story when it dawns on me that I should put The Jacket on as a visual aid to give my listeners a better indication of just how awesome it is.  You just have to see it to believe it.  When we make it out to the bar, I'm in one of those moods where I just decide to go out in public donning The Jacket.  So that's what I did.

We ended up at Four Treys, a wonderfully divey karaoke spot in the Roscoe Village neighborhood of Chicago.  After singing a song or two, I'm feeling pretty tremendous when a gorgeous brunette saunters by, slaps a sticker on the shoulder of my jacket and says, "that's an awful jacket" and just walks by without stopping.  I said to my friends that I had to go talk to this one because she gave me a sticker and she has good taste - the jacket is quite ugly.

She was standing over by the Galaga machine, so I thought it natural that I challenge her to a game.  Galaga is a lot like Space Invaders, only the bad guys swoop down on you from all sorts of angles and you can rescue a second ship to get a double shot going.  She said that she has never played but would accept my challenge.  I figured knowing the whole double shooting trick would give me a clear advantage.  Wrong.  She destroyed me.  Mrs. Noisewater was deftly firing buttons to blast ships and moving her plane around while furiously dodging the alien ships and their laser blasts in a way that was demoralizing to me but sexy nonetheless.  I remember her starting to kick butt at the game and offering somewhat of an explanation for her expertise: "Careful.  I'm Asian, you know."  I tried to buy our historic Galaga machine years later for nostalgic reasons but alas, it was gone.  

Beaten but not broken, I asked for her number and we met up the following Thursday.  I remember picking her up with my car when she was stuck in Chicago's bitter cold and feeling like a hero.  Then on the third date she caught me looking up at the Bulls versus Heat game a few too many times and still liked me!    

We got nuts about each other pretty quickly, and then she got notices back from all of the graduate schools she applied to.  Jaemi was looking for a career change into urban planning, which was something more challenging and exciting for her.  She didn't think she would get accepted to any of the schools, but she got accepted to all three.  What is crazy is that even though we hadn't been together that long, we were both ready to tackle a long distance relationship with no hesitation, and off she went to live in Santa Monica California, enrolled in UCLA's Masters in Urban Planning program.

The distance was difficult at times, but it also meant taking fun trips to meet up with one another.  We met in spots in between Chicago and L.A. with trips to Austin, Texas and Denver, Colorado and spent one New Years together in Costa Rica.  I never bought into the whole "absence makes the heart grow fonder" thing, but it was true in our case.  We were so excited to see each other on my trips to California, or her trips to Chicago where we would sometimes Hotwire a "fancy" hotel.  Also, it made us really appreciate when the two years would be over and we could be together for good.  Forever.  That's what we plan on doing, and that's what we would love you to help us celebrate on August the 1st in one of the cities we travelled to together and fell deeper in love, San Francisco.  Thanks for reading.

Love,

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

Hit Me Up!

I haven't posted in a while, but here is the thing, I usually wait until I get at least one comment before going to the next one.  Eventually, I had to face the facts that no one cared to comment on Kerry King in Japan or platonic man love.  Now, you would think that would deter me from the topics that yielded zero results, but along comes another man-love post.  Just read the parenthesis if you care to know what in the heck we are talking about in these texts:

Doctor Ken: I am thumping you 16 to 7. (That is a fantasy football score.  I am so rarely winning so thought I would live it up until Sunday).  How is the in-law Thanksgiving?  Buffalo dip? (His wife makes this unbelievable buffalo dip and when she brings it, the container is practically licked clean and nothing else is even close to being done).

HLP: Just got under way: Forgot to make the dip.  How was Thanksgiving/Roadhouse? (I was texting him on Thanksgiving how I was flipping between football and Roadhouse and how I never felt like such a man)

Doctor Ken: That was going swimmingly until my dad demanded football only.  And right before the throat rip! (In "Roadhouse," Swayze, portraying a bad ass bouncer,  rips out the throat of an unruly bar patron.)

Doctor Ken (again): "Who is Mike Jones!"  That just came on.  Great disc.  So many vodka Redbulls back then, like we were subject of some diabolical science experiment. (Back when we were roommates we would listen to a lot of Built To Spill before going out.  There was one disc by this brilliant Idaho band that we got an early leak of where to keep it from being a full on bootleg before the release, the bootleggers would throw in some rapper named Mike Jones pipe in with boisterous "Who is Mike Jones?" every few minutes, usually right at an epic part.  This was annoying for the first few listens, but now he and I actually prefer it that way.)

HLP: "Hit me up!  281 . . ."  That vodka Redbull period took years off of my life expectancy.  (Mike Jones would often leave his phone number in his songs for fans to hit him up, as it were, as you can observe below.)



Doctor Ken: Hahaha.  Yes.  Our hearts are even more pissed off than our livers. (This is when people first started ordering drinks with alcohol and energy drinks, and we thought, because they made us feel so good, that we should just drink them all night.  We only figured out later that you should just have one, maybe two, through out the course of the night when you start to get sleepy.  When you knock those back all night, when you come home, your whole body is super tired except for your heart which has serious palpitations all night long). 

That concludes this texting conversation.  Hope you enjoyed it.  Hey, readers, do you have a friend who makes you laugh out loud consistently when you get a text?

Another Damn Bar Tale?

Last night after watching the Chicago Bears lose in terrible touchdown-less fashion, Oates, HLP, Cliff, and myself went to another bar for a few nightcaps.  We started getting friendly with some girls who were in there, and I remember putting on one girls' sweatshirt that was really snug on me and had glitter.  I like that feeling of tight clothes clinging tightly to me, like I'm getting a prolonged hug, so I just left it on for an hour or so like a total jackass.

For some reason, perhaps because a Michael Jackson song came on, another chick in there said she could do the moonwalk perfectly.  I expressed my doubt that she could, so we agreed that if it was good, I would buy her a drink.  She took her shoes off and did a pretty crappy, white moonwalk for a few of us to see.  I told her I was not that impressed because when Michael did it, it was faster and it looked like he was levitating, and when he did it for the first time at the Grammy's, we all lost our minds.  So, she yelled at me, said I was just some idiot in a girls' sweatshirt, and I'm pretty sure she called me a fag.  So, I just laughed my ass off at how angry she got over a stupid moonwalk, and that just made her more mad.

It should have looked a hell of a lot more like this:

 

Forever Awesome

I was over at HLP Uncle's place, and he does these them parties on Sundays based on the cuisine of the apposing city of which the Chicago Bears are playing.  For example, if the Bears are playing New England, you got your clam chowder, Boston baked beans, maybe some Sam Adams.  I suggested that we go a whole different direction and have a Forever Lazy party.  You will notice in the commercial below at around 38 seconds where they suggest you "party it up with friends" and the dudes are getting all amped up in their onesie jammies, hollering at the television as if they don't look like dorks or about to have a big man-cuddling festival.  They also have a part at 1:07 where they think it would not be idiotic to go to ballgame in the Lazies where you will be the "talk of the next tailgate."  Oh, they would talk about you . . .



I want to put this to the test and watch the game with some buddies in some fuzzy PJ's.  Another guest on Sunday asked how we would pee in those things.  I'm way ahead of them.  We simply have to make it a Forever Lazy/Stadium Pal Party.  That way we could just pee away without having to unzip our pajamas or miss any snaps.  And, they make Stadium Gal so that we can invite ladies too (as if any would want anything to do with this)!

Getting enough interest in this will probably prove difficult, so I guess my dream of attaching a catheter to my penis and zipping up a furry outfit for a day of NFL football and chips and dips will remain a dream.  A fuzzy pee pee dream . . . 
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It dawned on me midway through this update that I already did a post about Forever Lazy right over here.  Oh well.  This adds a new element, I think. 

Binge Drinking Recap #325

So yesterday I met HLP, his wife, and their baby out at a very hot and humid Chicago street festival nearby.  I'm really happy for him because I can tell he is totally content.  You know why?  He walks around a festival with tons of hot chicks around with a burp cloth on his shoulder, and when I point it out, he just leaves it there.  He had to go home, but luckily I bumped into some other friends, and Oats came out. 

We ended up at a random Lincoln Park bar because we thought they did karaoke.  Turns out they didn't, but everyone was smiling and we had a good vibe, so we just stuck around.  I like those bars where everyone talks to each other.  It didn't have those huge wolf packs of girls that only want to talk to each other.  One woman was there in a toga.  I mean, it was a really fancy toga, but still a toga.  Her friend said she picked her up and was like, "Okay.  A toga."  She was really nutty, so she kind of pulled it off.  She was nice too, but that didn't stop me from calling her the Iron Sheik and quoting Julius Caesar with an over exaggerated Charlton Heston voice. 

I then achieved a level of drunkenness where the Michael Jackson jokes just started flowing out of me.  That's a good level.  For me at least. 

Percy

I went out yesterday for St. Patty's Day with HLP and Jumper, and we ended up at Duffy's, a bar that used to be our hangout when we were the age of the people who still go there.  Sometimes we get feeling drunk and all powerful and invincible and think we need to go back to our old school spots.  Yes, we felt like the chaperones in that joint, but we still had fun.

There used to be a middle aged Black guy at Duffy's who was always wearing a giant white fur coat.  I thought for sure he was a pimp, but Jumper talked to him all the time and got a business card from him.  Turns out he sold those awesome coats, or maybe that was just his front for the IRS and he really was a pimp-daddy.  Who knows.

I got wondering what happened to old Percy, so straight away I asked our waitress, and she said "Who the fuck is Percy?"  I wasn't going to quit there.  I asked a few more folks, and no one had any clue what I was talking about.  I was on the case now, canvassing the joint for information like Columbo.  Jumper Houdini'd out of the bar suddenly, so now it was up to HLP and myself to find Percy's whereabouts.  I thought I had a good lead when I saw a 40-something looking guy who was there by himself trying to mack on the dance floor.  He said he comes in there all the time, and he looked to be around Percy's age, but even he didn't know our furry friend.  Damn it! 

If you have any information leading to tracking down Percy, I'm offering a reward, maybe a fur coat or a vodka Red Bull, but not top shelf, we're talking well here. 

This Big Goober Can't Read for Shit

 Get a look at this video.  This is a clip of some DJ's making fun of Tyler Hansbrough from the Pacers trying to read "Chicken Little" to some kids in Indiana.  HLP (Heterosexual Life Partner) told me about this thing over some beers and Zubaz, and watching it today for the first time, I laughed so hard that I nearly shot Mountain Dew out of my noes, which is weird because I haven't done the Dew in years.  Here's some things that are awesome about this chronological order (be sure to turn off the music player on the right before hitting play).

1. Ironically, In the first line of the story he says that Chicken Little was not the brightest chicken in the coop. 

2. He says "a corn fell," but it's "acorn."  Wow.  You dumb-dumb!!!

3. His reading is so choppy and obviously at around a 5th grade level, so just how in the hell did he attain a bachelors degree from North Carolina University?  I'm quite sure the readings for his Western Civilization class were a little more advanced than "Chicken Little."

4. At 2:04, he messes up "farther" and "further," which would be okay in an interview, but when you're reading it?

5. And then at 3:15, he says "grasps" instead of "gasps."  Good lord, you dumb billy!

6. At 3:50, he says "squashy" instead of "squishy."  I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that's just the way it's written, but given all his other errors . . .

7: At 4:00, he says "libarian," as in minus the "r."  God, I really hate that tragic error.

8: At 4:10, they play him saying "In-i-anna Pacers," as in minus the "d," a couple times in a row.  This might be where I laughed the hardest because he plays for the damn team in the damn city and can't say it right!

9. I probably wouldn't poke fun at this guy so much because there are lots of people with reading difficulties, but in last night's game against my beloved Bulls, he shoved Brian "The White Mamba" Scalabrine.  There is no need to shove the garbage-time bench player who gets a standing ovation from the crowd just because he's a goofy-looking ginger who barely plays, especially since Hansbrough's illiterate ass was down 20 at the time.  Maybe we have Tyler and White Mamba in a reading contest, live from the "libary." 

's

Drunken Weekend Wrap-Up

Friday Night:

I wanted to stay in to save money and avoid too much boozing, so I settled in with a bottle of wine and some NBA basketball. Just when I was so bored that I couldn't even take it anymore, Oats called me up and told me he was in a cab down the street from my house.

He had some friends in town, and they were a good time. We ended up at a 4AM bar, getting hammered, ordering beef sandwiches at Brothers Beef and watching "Glory."

Saturday Night

I watched my 10-year-old nephew crush in his basketball game. I'm proud of the little ginger.  Kid can ball, son! He's aggressive as hell, like on of the Bad Boys on the '88 Pistons. Then we played Pictionary with the whole family, and it was me, grandpa, and 10-year-old versus sister, grandma, and 6-year-old. We blew a huge lead, largely due to the fact that I couldn't draw a convincing enough bum.

My buddy Guile was in town from the suburbs, so he and I met over at HLP's place for cocktailing and dubstep music, a form of music that I need to get my hands on for workouts. Turns out it's also good boozing music.

The idiots dancing outside the liquor store in this clip are dancing to dubstep stuff.

Anyone ever use the autotone application on their iPhone where you can make stupid T-Pain songs from any phrase you say into the phone, picking from various background music? I made a song called "Does it smell like fish?" based on a now famous statement from an East St. Louis stripper who was smoking a cigarette on stage. And not with her mouth . . .

Then we went to Liars Club where I moshed around the room to the Misfits in a Randy "Macho Man" Savage mask that was inexplicably but thankfully at the bar.

Then back at Oats place with Brothers Beef again, only this time watching "28 Days Later," my favorite art house zombie flick, Oats heeded a 4AM booty call. He came home the next morning, already late for work, to find me sleeping in his bed with my shoes on.

Sunday

I stayed in all day and watched City of God with two Italian beef sandwiches, and it only just now dawned on me that they were my 3rd and 4th of the weekend, not to mention like 25 beers. I need some of that dubstep shit and a heavy workout today . . .

It's a Punjabi-Jammy-Jamm!

I figured out at an Indian wedding in Costa Rica that Punjabi music is fun as all hell; you simply can't not be having fun with a room full of people dancing around to the stuff. Heterosexual Life Partner (HLP) and myself are dying to get our hands on some Punjabi discs. Can you imagine working out to a song like the one below? You'd feel like an all-powerful Genie! (Be sure to click off the music player to the right before playing the video)

Just look at the cat in this video. I dig how he decides to just have like five versions of himself, and each version is even more enthusiastic about this Punjabi groove than the one before him. Together, forget about it. The dude crashes down to earth in a comet, multiplies, and starts dominating and flinging around fireballs. I'm not sure of the significance of the spinning fans, but he no doubt worked up a sweat with all that rocking. At 3:10, he puts his hands into a huddle with a few other guys like the starting five of a basketball team, as if to say, "What time is it?!? . . . Punjabi Time!"

I'm going to have a Punjabi Jammy Jam at my apartment this summer. You're all invited for samosas and dancing like crazy-asses, and this guy is landing in my backyard in the form of a comet right around midnight.

The Costa Rican Go Go House

Sorry about the long blogging absence, Seven Readers, but I was getting settled back in after my trip to beautiful Costa Rica. Myself, LSD (Law School Dropout), and two other couples stayed in a house, formerly owned by one of the Go Go's, right in the jungle and just off the beach, and we had the craziest caretaker-lady ever, which is what I want to tell you about.


She was waiting on the front porch when we got there for what she told us was 5 hours, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. She was a pleasant enough looking woman if not a little weathered and haggard, but it was nice that she went right in for hugs, even rubbing HLP's (Heterosexual Life Partner) wife's pregnant belly immediately upon meeting her.

She then began her tour of the place, which was extensive and intense, bordering on meth-infused, complete with far too in depth instructions of which light switches did what. She went on to make the bold claim that we were guaranteed to see monkeys, sloths, and pumas right outside the place. She also said that you could go down by the river/waterfall and see shrimps at night, that is if we packed our infrared goggles. I'm afraid we did not have the foresight for that.

Not only did this woman say we'd see fun animals, but there was a guestbook full of entries of people saying how many critters they saw. We saw no animals we couldn't have seen variations of in Chicago. One time while on a hike, a monkey tried to pee on HLP, but he barely got a good look at him. Other friends of ours saw a sloth while zip lining, but we missed that one too. Some other friends of ours said they were having breakfast outside by their hotel, and a bunch of howler monkeys could be seen and heard just going bananas and ape-shit all over the damn place. We searched high and low for fun animals, and these monkeys were just coming over to their damn breakfast nook to perform. Totally unfair.


The tenants in the guestbook said that "Sammy the Sloth" came to visit them every morning, and more than one entry spoke of the monkeys that showed them their babies, like they were dangling them over a balcony like Michael Jackson or hoisting them up like Simba in Lion King. What animal waves their babies out for a bigger species to eat? Pretty selfish, like, "Eat this little fucker and let us go. Cool?"


One night I thought for sure I heard monkeys, so I put on my slippers, went outside, and frantically circled the whole veranda . . . nothing. LSD said I was beginning to slip into Monkey Madness. I was. She also said that the guestbook and the caretaker made it sound like the monkeys would want to be our friends, but they didn't. The little pricks. Caretaker-lady said that when you look outside in the morning, you'd see anywhere from 5 to 100 monkeys. What? 5 sounds perfect to me, but 100 sounds more like a hostile takeover like in "Planet of the Apes."


HLP thought of the perfect entry for us in the infamous guestbook, and it was as follows:

We didn't see a God damned thing.
-Chicago, 2011.

I really do hate all those monkey-seeing jerks . . .

Sorry about that last awful post. I was still a little buzzed up and pissed when I wrote it in the middle of the night. I'm not sure why I put a link to a Kyuss song at the top of it because that really didn't have anything to do with anything.

I had one of those depressing hangovers from all that cheap white wine. So now I'm having a glass of red wine at midnight (a great hangover cure) and just watched a sad and sort of crappy movie called "Weakness" in which a high school teacher's mom dies, his girlfriend bangs the guy fixing his dead mom's roof*, he cares for his autistic little brother, then he starts nailing a former student, loses his job . . . Okay, so now you don't have to watch it. I only rented it because I like the actor, Bobby Cannavale.

It turns out I'm still angered by cheating. When this big Latin stud was laying pipe in this fictional guy's wife, I was just getting pissed as all hell. Next to anything bad ever happening to any of my nephews, which I'll give you a hint - that was the subject of the last post - cheating enrages me the most. Now this movie has me all scared that LSD is fooling around with some idiot from her high school reunion right now. I know she wouldn't do something like that, but nights like this can do weird things to an already weird guy's brain.

I don't know if I ever told any of you this, but I was married once. I'm also unsure if I ever told you that she and I had differing views on marriage: I thought it was a committed relationship when you go through the whole production of a wedding, and she thought she could screw a Chicago cop like 8 months into the thing. I now know that it was the best thing that ever happened to me, but at the time I was a wreck, losing weight, couldn't sleep - that whole bit. The last one breaking up with me also turned out to be a good thing. They were both the wrong type of chick for me. Heterosexual Life Partner (HLP) was talking to LSD and told her, "Wait, you're not a bitch." My good friend, Big Business, told me after the break up with this last one, "Dr. Ken, you need to get away from this brand of woman." Man, was he right, and I finally found the right brand. LSD is funny as hell, beautiful, kind, and loves the shit out of the good doctor. No more adversarial relationships. That shit gives me stomach aches. Shortens my lifespan.

Well, I don't really have a point to this post. It was just sort of a free writing exercise. Hope you are all well. Good night.

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*The worst part about that is not only did he shag his wife, but he f'd him again by not doing a good job fixing the roof - it still leaked.

Great Weekend, But I Have One Regret

Until this weekend, I had never been to a wedding with coolers of beer with stickers on top saying which beers were in each one, and you could just reach in and grab them yourself. I'm telling you this because it led to HLP (Heterosexual Life Patner) and myself lining up the tops of them on our table in an attempt to drink every different type of beer, which led to horrible, horrible drunkenness on my part.

Back in our cottage with other guests, while in varying stages of blacking out watching the World Series, I threw a stuffed goose for this great dog that was along for the wedding, she jumped over a couch to get it, knocking red wine all over some poor guy's suit. I don't remember much of this, but apparently I thought this was hilarious and I never so much as apologized.

Now, I know this was stupid on my part, but when there's a stuffed goose and a terrific dog in the room with me, I'm not NOT going to throw the stuffed goose for the terrific dog. Right?

No, it was dumb, and I need to get my boozing under control . . .

Does The Naked Guy Run Marathons?

And yes, "The" is capitalized in the title of this post because that's just how I write his name.

I ran with a running group for the first time along with my friend Monique, who is running her first marathon like myself, and first let me rant about how dumb these groups are. Yes, you get some free Gatorade and water along the way, it gives you encouragement not to stop, they have pace people to keep you running at whatever pace you want, and there are no doubt many other advantages. Ooh, and free crackers and shit at the end. That's good too, but here's what I don't like: They yell out when there is a guy on a bike coming, they yell when there's the slightest divot in the gravel, and overall, they just make you feel like when you were with a nerdy group of friends in high school when you see normal people who simply run by themselves, the cool kids in this scenario.

Okay, now for what's been on my mind, and brace yourself because this is a break through:

I think I saw The Naked Guy from The Liars Club running in the 8 minute mile group with Monique's friend.

We opted for the 9 and a 1/2 minute miles and that was plenty fast when you're doing 15. I don't want to get off on another rant about how dumb it is to run so damn far because I need you, My Seven Readers, to help me get to the bottom of this mystery.

Now, The Naked Guy is the gentleman who strips naked and dances around at my favorite bar of all time, a place where my ashes will likely be on a shelf behind the bar next to the Goldschlager, The Liars Club. I know from my conversations with The Naked Guy that he is a nudist, but if he were an avid runner it wouldn't surprise me because he stays in pretty good shape (click here if you want to know a little bit more about the LC or the NG).

I write on The Liars Club Facebook page from time-to-time so I was going to ask on there if The Naked Guy is also The Marathon Guy, but I was the last guy to comment on the page - making me look like a weirdo if I comment twice in a row.

This is why I enlisted the help of my Heterosexual Life Partner (HLP), also a big fan of the bar, the two of us got in lots of trouble in there over the years, to ask this burning question for me.

I shall keep you posted, Seven Readers . . .

I'm halfway, okay, maybe a third-way, through a short story, and I just had to get a break from it and update the old blog. I'll probably post the finished product on here tomorrow.

I'm in the Starbucks, and some woman came in here with the two nuttiest little boys ever, like 2 and 3 years old respectively. She went to the counter and let them terrorize the place, begging for some of the orange soda from the guy across from me and then reaching for my hot coffee. I told them, "No, boys. That's hot." The guy across from me was laughing and smiling and so was I. The mom at the counter didn't even turn around to see what her kids were doing.

Then she sat right by us, and there was something really off about these kids but more in the parenting. She kept saying please when asking them to do things, and it was with this nicey-nice tone. I'm critical of shitty parents in public places, which probably means I'll be worse at it than all of them some day, bribing my kids with cookies like this lady.

In other news, I'm reading "Rules of Attraction" by Bret Easton Ellis, and it's outstanding. Anyone ever read it? It sort of inspired the idea for this short story, the notion that people are always falling for the wrong people.

Also, tomorrow I'm going to a Chicago Cubs game with HLP, James Douglas, and Captain Jack. You know what's funny? I recently had someone tell me that she wanted to get into the blog and get a blog nickname. Anyone else have people requesting that?

Also, I'm not quite ready for this marathon in a couple months, but I may be filling in for LSD in a half-marathon this weekend. My workouts inspired this Facebook update:

Lately, when I work out, I need heavy metal, and when I work out a lot, I eat healthier, buying and enjoying more produce. As a result, I'm going through a simultaneous heavy metal and produce revolution. I call it: Megadeth and Mangos.

I think that the eating healthy thing is great, but the metal thing is really strange because I haven't been this into metal since I was in high school, over 15 years ago. No other type of music can push me in the way that a good and heavy song can. I need that aggressive pace and angry vocals to help me wince through the pain. The ultimate band for this is called Kyuss, and if you haven't heard of them, go buy either "Blues for the Red Sun," "Welcome To Sky Valley," or "And the Circus Leaves Town," all of which are perfect heavy records, not necessarily metal, but heavy, sludgy, progressive, and addictive.

Okay, I'm going to finish this book, hang out with LSD for a bit, and then when she meets some friends for a drink, I'll try to finish this story. Take it easy, Seven Readers.

Storytelling Podcast 4 of 4: The Stripper

(this above pic will make sense after you listen)

I've always said that LC, a.k.a. HLP (Heterosexual Life Partner) is a funny, funny man and should be on a podcast some day, and he really delivered. All the participants agree that he put down the most entertaining story, and I think you'll agree, My Beloved Seven Readers.

I would not feel comfortable giving anything away here, as that would kill some of the surprises that caught us off guard as well. Yes, I know it's 25 minutes, but it's worth it. Just sit back and enjoy . . .



Remember, click the arrow play button to here it on this site, and click the word play to download it to your iTunes to listen later, which may be preferred due to the length - break it up during your commute! If you play it just now without the download, be sure to turn off the music player on this blog, along the right panel.

Songs Used:
"St. Louis" by Nelly
"Forever in Blue Jeans" by Neil Diamond
"Waiting for the Sun" by The Doors
"Don't Let the Sun Catch You Cryin'" by Not Ray Charles (little help, anyone?)
"I'm In Love With a Stripper" by T-Pain
"Meet Me In St. Louis" by Judy Garland
"Big Hard Sun" by Eddie Vedder

More on Podcasts

I got some buddies on their way to record the second set of podcasts for The Gancer. When I did podcasts in the comedy group I was in a few years back, I always thought it was fun as hell, but I felt like I wanted to have more control over how things were done. It's not complicated really; you just hit record, crack some beers, and shoot the shit. Still, it's good to be the host so I can move it in the right directions. In that group, most everyone was a better actor than me, many of them had more time to devote to the group, but when it came to the podcasts, I really think that is where I should have been the lead. For one, you can't take it serious. Once it's not fun and seems like work, then the whole thing is crapped out.

So, Crom is on his way over to Dr. Ken's apartment to do his second one of these with me. The first being the series of Rule #34 podcasts that I think came out tremendous. He's funnier than hell on these things.

Also on his way is a friend who doesn't have an alias yet, so I'm going to call him Beatnik for now. He's a guy who I wasn't too close with back in high school, but through the magic of Facebook, we figured out that we have a lot in common, such as hating high school, drinking too many beers sometimes, and dating artist chicks who drive us nuts.

THIS JUST IN: It sounds as if HLP (Heterosexual Life Partner) might be joining us as well! He has been featured in many blog posts over the years, and I'm sure my beloved seven readers are enthused to hear his voice!

This one's going to be unbelievable, so stay tuned . . .

"Well, Actually . . ."

I once knew this guy a long, long time ago who could launch into a lecture at a drop of a hat. Recently, HLP (Heterosexual Life Partner) and myself got talking about this guy, and another friend of mine said, "Yeah, he's a real well, actually type of guy." That's exactly it! He can well, actually the shit out of whatever you say to him. There are so many speeches that could be avoided by just a quick anecdote, and he doesn't even come up for air to give you that window to divert the subject away - and what good would that do because he's only going to hit you with a discourse around the next turn?

Ugh!

In any event, thanks, buddy for nailing the perfect nickname for him.

How about you, Seven Readers? Do you know anyone like this, or do you know any other good nicknames for someone similar or all together different? Well, actually, I knew a guy when I was a little kid who told such fantastical stories that we called him Teddy Ruxpin, the story-telling bear . . .