I saw Roger Waters from Pink Floyd play "The Wall" the Other Night . . .

. . . and here are some thoughts.

1. Roger aged very well into that big face of his, and believe it or not, he is a better looking 65-year-old man than a 25-year-old.

Here he is from the other night

And here he is in the Nineteen Seventies

There were ladies there saying that he looked like Richard Gere.  Yes.  Heart throb and American gigalo Richard Gere.  And these were young and attractive girls saying this.  Girls who would have no idea that back in the day he looked like Georges Muresan.  Of course they didn't know this because few really knew what rockers looked like back then, before the MTV days.  No band will ever make as many amazing records as Pink Floyd for a myriad of reasons, but one is that Roger could just be ugly and make art without people caring what he looked like, what brands he was wearing, or who his date was to the Grammies. 

(This guy didn't put out "Animals in 1977, but he is 7'7" and uglier than just about any animal.)

2. The show was at Wrigley Field, which is where the Cubs play and my favorite place on planet earth, so how could I miss the guy from my favorite band in my favorite place?  One thing you may know about me is that I love a good urinal trough.  What I noticed is that a lot of the people there were not the usual ballgame crowd, so they were shy and waiting for the stalls.  No way all those fellas had to go poop - they just didn't want to join in the trough fun.

Gross, yes.  But more efficient.  

3. During ''Young Lust," the one about him figuring out his wife was cheating on him so he decided to bang every groupie he could get his hands on, they showed very hot and naked women on a giant screen.  As a man in a long-distance relationship, it was all I could do to stop myself from flying in my girlfriend that very night.  Earlier in the show a bunch of little kids sang the chorus for "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2," and my partner in crime that night, James Douglass Morison, said, "I hope those kids aren't still here.  They're all going to get their first wood tonight."


(She's naked right about 2:35)

4. When "Run Like Hell" was playing it reminded me of when I ran my first race as an adult.  I believe it was only 5 miles, but that was really hard for me back then because I was a long haired doughy guy who rarely worked out.  While running the race, my long stupid hair flopping around in a stupid pony tail, they played "Run Like Hell" over the loud speaker, and I just remember clapping along and feeling really good.  So, among all the other reasons I have to thank Roger and the remaining, surviving members of Pink Floyd, I can thank them for getting me into running, the thing that keeps me sane, where I can think straight, and put my universe back in order.  Thanks for everything, Floyd.

Old Style Beer and the Old Style of Peeing

Wrigley Field announced that it will stop carrying Old Style and replace it with, rumor has it, Coors Light. This is a tragedy. Yes, Old Style tastes like liquid ass, but it's a man's beer - it tastes like a beer. Bitter, gross, and like diesel fuel - it tastes like when your dad gave you a sip of beer when you were seven and you wanted to puke.

Now, Old Style used to be a quarter or fifty cents cheaper, but then it became the same price. Once it became the same amount of money, the only time one opted for the Dog Pile (as it's sometimes known as) is when the Bud beer vendor hadn't been to your section in a while. It's not like I'm going to miss the taste of the beer too much, but taking away Old Style is kind of like taking away tradition. A nasty, skunky tradition that I treasured and something that has been a part of the ballpark for as long as I can remember.

If you're anything like me, and I hope for your sake you're not, this is making you worry that they will take away other mainstays, like the trough-style urinals. I started a Facebook group to keep the troughs in Wrigley around a year ago, and we have built a robust number of seven people who are willing to put their name on a movement to keep peeing in something horses eat out of.

With your help, we can get over 10 people . . .

Click these words to join the movement.

Go Cubs Go!

Baseball season is, yet again, upon us, and this no doubt means another disappointing year for the Chicago Cubs. I’m tired of them fucking sucking. I don’t think people get how serious I am about Cub baseball. Let me give you some of the alarming signs that I am a die-hard Cub fan.

1. When someone insulted the post-stroke Harry Caray, I honestly think I could have killed a few of these jerks. This man’s voice was around my house so much growing up that he might as well have been my grandfather. Hell, he was my grandfather, so don’t make fun of my fucking grandpa! Will Farrell, I’ll let you slide, since your impression is God damned funny.

2. I’m not sure if there is a God or not, but I AM sure that if I leave a game early, I can drastically affect the outcome of a game.
I can also alter the results of a game by turning the radio or television off for a brief while. Believe it or not, my bleacher bum friends and I can turn the tides of a game simply by switching our seats. I don’t believe in a higher power, but I swear by this bullshit? There’s something wrong with that rationale.

3. Wrigley Field is not just a ballpark to me. It is my favorite place in the world. I love all the sights, sounds, and especially the smells – beer, hotdogs, ice cream . . .
I don’t like the smell of cigars, but I love to smell it at Wrigley. I have even grown to love the smell of hot urine in the men’s room. It is one of the only parks in the country that still has the trough-style urinals. They maximize available pissing spots by cutting out the spaces in between urinals. Efficient? Yes. Smelly? Definitely. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

4. Speaking of urinals, and why not speak of urinals, I love getting off that self/team deprecating one liner that makes the whole men’s room erupt in laughter, and not your usual laughter, but the bazaar looking laughter of men looking straight ahead, so as not to be accused of looking at a penis.

5. I will drink a piss-warm Old Style beer out of a paper cup and ask for seconds, and thirds, and tenths, and stack my dead soldiers up to show my drinking prowess. I dreamed of being the guy with the seeminlgy endless, stacked up cups when I was a young man, and look at me now America! My first frothy brew at the Friendly Confines will be for you, my 9 readers.

I know it's been a while since I posted, but Mrs. Noisewater and I had a baby boy on September 8th. Erik is his name, and he is one hell of a cute son of a gun. The day he was born was an unbelievable day, and it's a tale I'd love to tell all of you. However, it's a long story that I don't have enough time blocked out for right now to relay to my beloved blog buddies at this moment. This little guy has been keeping us so busy that I saw this block of a couple of hours at midnight as my only chance to bang out a blog. Since it would have to be a short one, I figured I'd go for a laugh and tell you some funny stuff that's happened so far.

Let's just come right out and say it: Circumcision is a dated and crazy practice. The lady who performed the mutilation of my son's penis came by first to tell us that any benefits to the surgery (cleanliness or risk of STD's) are such a small percentage in either case that it's hardly even worth doing. I decided to go through with it for very stupid reasons such as: That's how mine is, I've heard women say that they have been freaked out when they have seen on the other way, and some of the ones I have seen look like those worms in "Dune."

Here's another thing, a nurse said that the tip-snipper lady would first have to come by to assess if my boy's ding-dong was big enough to do the surgery. This was one of the first times I found myself stepping in to stand up for my son. "Hey, it's plenty big enough," I said in his defense. "You just tell her to grab her best scalpel and come down here to surgically remove this young man's turtleneck!"

Hope no one is offended by my assessment because it's only an opinion. Plus I'm an idiot.

For those of you who don't know, seeing your son's freshly circumcised penis for the first time will scare the living daylights out of you. It's bright fire engine, red like when a dog has an erection and shows everyone his red rocket. There is some upkeep involved too. Every time you change his diaper for a week (which is many, many times int the first week), you have to put some ointment on a gauze pad and stick it to his sore ding-a-ling. If you don't, the poor little guy's sore penis will stick to the diaper. Ouch! I was telling a friend that it's a lot of pressure because I didn't want to screw up my boy's dick. That's a big deal. "That's a huge deal," my friend said emphatically in agreement.

No transition here other than funny baby genital stories, but I was assisting with weighing Erik at the doctor's office the other day. For some reason they plopped him down on a cold metal scale. He doesn't like being on his back much to begin with, but this ice cold hard surface upset him even more. He instantly screamed, and he put up such a fight that he didn't sit still even for even a split second to get an accurate reading. He then let loose with the only play he had. Erik sprayed a stream of pee in the upwards of three majestic feet that sprayed all over a nearby leather chair. I heard a loud splat as it  hit the back of the chair. He had some power behind this shot. I was cleaning it up as fast as I could and apologizing, but what I was really thinking was, "That's my boy!"

When the doctor came by to ask us some questions, one of them was if he is peeing enough. I said to her, "Did you see him out there by the scale? He damn near took the upholstery off one of your chairs with his power washing. He's plenty well hydrated. As a matter of fact, you should have a plaque in your waiting room commemorating that performance for longest distance in his age division. Next question." Just kidding. I didn't say of this, but I will say I was beaming with pride for the rest of the appointment. It won't be long before he is ready to pee in the trough at Wrigley Field. This is a very daunting task for any young man, but I think by 4 years of age he will be able to take a step back, put some arc on it, and deliver a perfect stream with laser point precision and not a drop hitting the floor.

I told you it's scary to saddle up there for a pee as a kid. This youngster is apparently intent on waiting for everyone else to leave before giving it a go.

Okay, I know these were baby genital stories and it's a little strange. But I do plan on delivering the heart-warming and more earnest tale of when Erik Noisewater first came into the world and changed my life forever. For now I just had time for these quick goofy stories while he is sleeping, but isn't this post more fitting for what this blog has been all about over the years? Thanks for reading, friends.