Man Night

I have some friends coming over in a bit for one of our Man Nights (no wives, kids, or girlfriends aloud). After spinning records and sampling a few craft beers at my place, we're going to go down the street to a nice restaurant that I've been meaning to try. Going to dinner with just dudes was not something I did in my twenties. Back then the dinner might be a slice of pizza chased down with something in the neighborhood of 30 beers. As a matter of fact, if 20's Ken just heard 30's Ken's nerdy agenda for the night, he would makes an excuse to blow off 30's Ken and never call him again.

However, right about now, being with a collection of some of the best friends I've ever had with great music and tasty beer sounds perfect. Here is some of the stuff that will be going down so that you, my beloved readers, can feel like you're here with us. For the virtual version of the party, all are welcome (women, children, and members of the animal kingdom included).

I got this on hand. It's one of my favorite beers ever. This is not my house in the pic. I can prove it because Mrs. Noisewater and I have no fireplace. We would like one, but not as much as we would like a dishwasher.

And let's not forget the vinyl that will be spinning:

Bought this one for $0.99 over a year ago, and I haven't found the occasion to throw it on. The soundtrack to a buddy cop show is the perfect accompinanet to a buddy's night, I think. And Crocket and Tubbs would surely agree. 

I haven't played Vol 4 or Masters of Reality in a helluva long time, so I decided to just play them both. Maybe what I'll do is pick the best side of each, and play each of those sides. That's a diplomatic and time efficient solution. Thanks for pointing me in that direction, beloved readers.

I have a warped version of Santana's first album that is TWICE as bad as this one, and the thing is that despite the fact that the needle raises over an inch up and down as it spins, it plays perfectly! There are some jams on this one, such as "Jingo," but mostly I just want to show my buddies how it wobbles away and plays just fine. Looks like the less warped record in this picture is a Beatles one based on the big apple, don't you think?

I do enjoy a good cheese spread, and hopefully they offer a good one at the fancy-pants restaurant tonight. Someone told me recently that cheese has addictive qualities like drugs. I for sure suffer from this affliction because if there is a fancy cheese in the fridge, I will go to town on it when I come home drunk or during the day when I'm not even hungry. I may have a problem, but tonight I'm going to feed the cheese beast what he wants, and that's a lovely Gruyere, or whatever the fuck.

Then we will go to a few bars and possibly end up at the infamous Liars Club. At that point all classiness will come to a screeching halt, and we will be reverting back to the 20's versions of ourselves, dancing our faces off to goofy stuff like Britney Spears immediately followed by moshing around to Suicidal Tendencies. Hey, did I ever tell you about the time my buddy was taking a pee there and felt something dripping on his bare feet (he was wearing flip-flops)? It was his own pee dripping through a hole in the urinal. Now, you know a place has a certain cache' if we continue to go back there when there are disgusting health code violations such as that. I wouldn't try their cheese tray, let's put it that way.

Thanks for joining the party, readers. Hope you are also having a fantastic weekend.

Last night when I was at a Lakeview neighborhood bar there were two giant groups of people and us.  In other words, If it weren't for these big groups, the bar would only have a handful of people in it.  First, there were participants in a sweatsuit pub crawl.  I talked to the founding father who informed me that he hosts this annual event right around the time of his birthday each year, and because it falls in November, the sweat suits are the perfect attire for the weather.  His only rule is that the sweat suits must be monochromatic (the tops must match the bottoms).  Birthday boy had a red, white, and blue one on with a U.S.A. embroidered on there, and it cost him $100.  This seems like a lot of money, but it looked really damn comfortable.  Plus we were saying that after wearing it again for the Olympics and World Cup, he will have recouped the losses.  

This is the sexiest sweats outfit I could find on Google Images.

The other group were members of Jewish fraternity having a reunion of one time.  It was the solitary Black member of the frat that said something during one of those quiet moments where an odd statement goes right into you head and stays with you all night: "Sorry, I couldn't hear you - my dick's too big."  I googled this quote and couldn't find it anywhere, so I guess I'll never know just what in the hell he meant by that.  It's funny, even if it makes no sense.  Actually, it's funny because it makes no sense.

I then got a text from an old friend saying he was headed to The Liars Club, which if you have been around this blog for a while you know this to be the best bar in Chicago.  This friend of mine recently split up with his wife who was cheating on him, and he has been dating lots of women.  This is the best way to get over events like this, I have found.  The guy is on a role too because he is in great shape and it seems like many of my friends over the years have had wives and girlfriends say how good looking he is.  He had one of his Tinder ladies out with him last night, so I was sort of third wheeling it.  We had fun for a while talking about some of their commonalities, such as both of them having giant tall dads.  His is 6'6" and hers is 6'8"!  I said that even if they don't work out in the long run, they should just go ahead and breed anyways to make a star volleyball or basketball player.  Then on a trip back from the men's room I saw the two of them talking very closely and intimately and Tinder Girl was grabbing at his schlong.  They were getting down with that notion of breeding in the very near future, so I saw this as a good time to leave . . . 

Now I am hungover as hell and have accomplished almost nothing today, but what little I have accomplished, I have these two friends to thank for it.  

I have a new post over at The Liars Club.  I don't say this often, but I kind of think I knocked this one out of the park.  I was going to do proper post here, but then I got sleepy.  More to come, but for now, get a look at this:

Don't Ask Me Why . . .

. . . but LSD, Oates, and myself (The Liars Club) were talking about uncircumcised penises, and two Liars think they look like the worms from Tremors, while the other thinks they look like the sandworms from Dune.

What do you think?

Do they look like this?

Or more like this?

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 made a key today for the shitter at my work, which is a huge coup by the way, and while in the locksmith shop, as the old guy working there turned around to make the all-important key, I completely forgot that he has a gray rat tail hair style. I blogged about it, and I still forgot about it.

That goes to show you how long it's been since I or anyone else has posted at The Liars Club. I'm still looking for Chicago area writers to post with me. Email me if you're interested or know someone who may be interested in keeping The Liars Club alive.

In the meantime, what's the most embarrassing hairstyle you've ever had?

The Naked Guy

You heard it here, folks. If you ask me what the best bar in the city of Chicago is, without a doubt, and without hesitation, I will tell you The Liar’s Club. Let me give you a few reasons why:

1. Take a look at this picture. I mean the place looks condemned for Christ’s sake. You know that if a bar has a façade like this, then it must stay busy on reputation alone.

2. They have the best music/DJ’s. I know the Friday and Saturday DJ’s by name, and they not only play awesome stuff on their own, but they play most anything I request. If you were by the DJ booth around 12:30 last night, you would have heard this exchange:

Me: I’m going to leave it up to you, Kevin. Do you want to play Chains of Love by Erasure or Billy Idol’s Dancing With Myself?
Kevin: I’ll play them both, man.

What’s crazy too is that they will blare heavy metal music out of nowhere. Everyone will be done dancing to Justin Timberlake, or whatever, and then Mother by Danzig will kick in.
You’d think that would clear the floor, but people dance away and sing to their friends, and sing to people they’ve never met, but could tell are cool because they know the words to a random song like that, or some other terrific song.

3. They have The Naked Guy. On any given Friday night, when you hear It’s Getting Hot In Here by Nelly, look over to the end of the bar for a guy who looks like a mix between Kevin Spacey and the guy from Midnight Oil. The second he hears the song, he takes one last drag from his cigarette before extinguishing it, he takes one last healthy swig from his cocktail, and he marches out to the dance floor. It’s kind of like when Batman gets the call. The only difference is, I’ve never seen Batman strip naked and dance by himself, although for the right price I think Adam West might be willing to do a naked appearance and dance the Batoosie. As I was saying, the man who is simply known as The Naked Guy begins a dance that seems to be intentionally done in a way as to create an over exaggerated flopping motion. Girls circle around him and take pictures of him, while I dance with a hand blocking the view of the flip-flopping member. One night I struck up a conversation with The Naked Guy, and I said to him, “Say, Naked Guy, how ever did you start this fine tradition?” Evidently, someone dared him to do it a number of years back, and he has been dancing in nature's own just about every Friday night since. He’s also a card-carrying nudist, well, I don’t know if they have cards, or where they’d carry them when they’re naked, but he goes to nudist events all over the country. Through the course of the conversation I did get his real name, but to me, and the other loyal patrons of the best bar in Chicago, he will always simply be The Naked Guy. Here’s to you, Naked Guy. May you continue to flip and flop yourself to your heart's content.