star wars

Drunken Recollection… The Empire Snuggies Back

Posted on by sgottahurt

In the middle of the night, a strange cough – that sounded distinctly male – startled me awake.  I was passed out in a queen-size bed with my cousin Steve.  We were in a hotel in New York City recovering from a long day of travelling and a longer night of drinking. 

…And we were each wearing a Snuggie.

 

EPISODE V
THE EMPIRE SNUGGIES BACK

The pub crawl on which the trip was focused was starting at noon.  It was ten when we started moving.  Steve kept mentioning how well he felt; I kept quiet about how much I was not.  We had set our sights on getting back to East Village by noon, but our first mission was to stop at the store to buy a vital item.

Steve called them safety pins; I referred to them as diaper pins.  Steve thought we could find them at Staples; I thought that was funny.  To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if they were still made.  Was there a need for diaper pins anymore?  (Safety pins?  Maybe.)  And why did we need them?  We each had grown fond of our Snuggies and didn’t want to ruin them.  (Oh, and we ended up finding some at Walgreen’s.  They weren’t by the baby supplies, but amazingly, condoms were.  Hmm.)

We had a plan to carry the three Snuggies we possessed in a backpack, and to don them as required (the third was Mike’s – another friend that was coming in from DC for his birthday).  It was New York though, and we probably could have worn them the entire way from Midtown, but… well, I don’t have a clever excuse.  I guess we weren’t 100% convinced the Snuggie Pub Crawl was real, and didn’t want to be left out in the cold heat (it was such a nice day… 70+ degrees).

Our first stop was the sign-up location.  We had purchased four tickets in advance (even though we thought it might not be real we used credit card information on the web… go figure), and on the train ride over, Steve verified the first bar stop on those four tickets.  When we arrived at the sign-up, Steve checked his pockets.

“I have some bad news.”  Apparently, somewhere between checking them on the subway and walking to this bar, the printed up sheets fell out and blew away.  We weighed our options.  We thought of alternatives.  They guy told us we needed tickets, and we didn’t want to have to purchase them again.  Luckily, he accepted viewing the receipts on my iPhone, gave us four tickets and four cups (Tim from Episode IV would be also joining us), and we arrived at our first official spot:

Bar None: The Fun Begins

Bar None: The Fun Begins

Now properly attired in our blankets with sleeves and with full crew in tow, the drinking began.  The three of them were off in a mad dash, but I was limping.  Mike put it best:

The days that start off slow very often end in a hurry.

Now I’ll let some pictures do the talking.

img_0056img_0057img_0061img_0063img_0065

Needless to say – some drinks were poured, some drinks were spilled, some conversation was had, and the Yankees got blown out by the Indians!  All-in-all, the crawl was a success.  But the night was not yet finished…

———————————————————————–

Over the course of the day, I had received information about a secret place.  The specifications were these:

  • It was a hot dog joint in Manhattan.
  • This hot dog joint had a “secret bar” located within it.
  • To access this “secret bar” you had to enter a phone booth and pick up the receiver to enter.
  • The location I was texted stated: 113 St Marks Pl

Here’s where my hubris caused an issue (and maybe drinking… maybe).  I thought I understood the lay the island, and I took the location to mean “113 St. @ Marks Place”… not what it said.  And the little torn brochure map I carried with me cut off around 110 St. at the the top, so how could I be wrong?  Birthday boy Mike passed out at Tim’s place (near East Village), and Steve, Tim, and I made our drunken way out to the fictional 113 St. and Marks Place.

The taxi driver didn’t even correct us, and brought us to 113 St. and Broadway, way up on the west end.  As I approached the waterfront, I stumbled into a closing bakery.

“Excuse me, do you know where Marks Place is?”

The confused baker answered, “He probably lives down by the river.”

As we brewed and stewed and reviewed my mistake, something caught my eye down the road.  It wasn’t a wasted trip after all!  This is where we had a late night burger before returning to home base (to pass out in our dirty Snuggies in a queen-size bed):

img_0068

"Doo doo doo doo, doo doo-doo-doo..." - Suzanne Vega / "Tippy toes, tippy toes, tippy toes!" - George Costanza

Drunken Recollection… New York: The Saga Continues…

Posted on by sgottahurt

Okay, so where was I?  Ah yes.  On Wall Street, which was under construction.  We were looking for the giant bull statue for the hell of it, even though we (Steve and I) were unsure if there was a giant bull statue in New York.  (There is… but we couldn’t find it.)

Around this time, I finally got to hear the voice of a fellow blogger (we’d eventually meet up later during my trek through East Village).  Our phones were running lower on energy than we were, so we decided in order to make it through whatever the night held in store for us, functioning electronics seemed important, and we returned to home base.

At the hotel, we plugged in our cells and due to the lack of sleep (this will be explained in the prequels), the Snuggies (this will be explained in the sequel) and bed were mighty tempting.  Yes, I typed “bed” with no “s.”  They only had a queen available (which I should probably specify is a bed size, seeing as how people might have preconceived notions about NYC).  Apparently, a four-star hotel according to Hotwire consists of this criteria: if they don’t have a pair of twins available (again – bed size), they’ll give you each a cookie.  A cookie that was prepared earlier in the day.  Possibly for the continental breakfast’s dessert?

But I digress, and as such, our digestive systems had processed those cookies long ago, so dinner sounded like a plan.  We asked the concierge to recommend a pizzeria (one that served booze was our only criteria).  He recommended one nearby – Angelo’s, on 55th and 2nd.  (Don’t I sound all local-y?  My confidence in understanding the map of the city ultimately proved to be a bit too confident.  Sequel…)

We ordered the flat-bread pizza and $6 beers.  Steve quickly learned that when the choices for $6 beers are Bud, Bud Light, and Bass Ale, you choose Bass Ale.  As we ate, we eyed the happy hour going on across the street ($3 beers!), and as soon as we finished, we headed over there for a few more (choices: Miller Lite, MGD, Sam Adams?  Sam Adams, of course!) and then back to the hotel to retrieve our banes of existence means of communication.

We headed toward Central Park to await our first fellow bar hopper – another Steve.  As we wandered the streets, we passed the bridge that Spider-Man battled on with the cable cars (I’m soooo cultured), and I missed the entirety of the quiet beauty that was the sunset that night.

As we began slinking in and out of a plethora of East Village bars, our group’s number grew to four with Tim, and five with Evan.  Eventually my fellow blogger met up with us after a lot of phone- and text-tagging, which was cool.  The hookah joint we were waiting to get into was taking too long, so we headed to another bar that carded people for some reason (nowhere else did).  In the sorta dark, sorta empty, martini-ish bar (what would be the opposite of a hole-in-the-wall?) we ended up at, I brought up Lost, I investigated something weird on the table with my fingertip (thankfully it was Guinness foam), and I think I even mentioned Twilight (the movie – not the book, as if that makes a difference).  Oh yeah… wonderful, wonderful Guinness was ordered around.  One guy selected a bottle of wine “with one glass.”  And mussels somehow ended up on the table.

Members of our group started parsing off at that point.  I recall a sliver of a diner that was stopped at by the solo wine drinker and that it amazingly carried no smell whatsoever, good or bad.  And somehow Steve and I made it back to home base.  (Taxi?  Subway?  Feet?)

I’m beginning to feel like this may be Uncle Sean’s Drunk Story Time all over again… So much more to go!

Drunken Recollection… The Saga Of New York

Posted on by sgottahurt

Holy Magnolia cupcakes… New York City rocks!  In preparing to tackle the monumental amount of momentous situations that occurred over my weekend in the Big Apple, I thought, “What would be the nerdiest way to unfold such adventures?”

As if it was the Star Wars saga!  (I’m not sure if I’ll do the prequels… I’ll probably do the prequels…)

EPISODE IV
A NEW YORK

As we arrived in Newark, NJ (that we being cousin Steve and I), we parked our car in a 24 hour lot, stored our ticket to retrieve said vehicle, and noted that we needed gasoline prior to our journey home.

Realizing we had no idea exactly how we were getting to NYC via the train system (each for our various reasons), we flew by the seat of our pants, as we’re prone to do, and which usually tends to be more expensive.

We walked up some train tracks to find a NJ Transit machine, and luckily, a woman offered to help us the entire way through the process.  She almost missed her train, which ended up being our train as well.  Guilt-free help!

May not be inspiring to the locals, but to a guy from Detroit: "This city is alive!"

May not be inspiring to the locals, but to a guy from Detroit: "It's alive!"

Upon arriving at Penn Station (we thought we were heading to the WTC station – we were way off!), I witnessed a monk wearing a baseball hat and an old man in a super pimped-out Little Rascal cart.  We reached surface level and my first view was this:

We had attained some sizable pamphlets from underground, and after ripping away all the advertisements, we had all the map that we’d need.  We pinned down our location (Madison Square Garden), and our hotel’s location, and we got moving.

On the way, the saw Fuse Network Studios, the Sbarro restaurant that I thought Michael Scott on The Office referred to as “authentic New York cuisine,” and a comic shop that had a Silver Surfer in its window.  (We stopped inside because of this, but not much else was going on.  This is obviously why they have a Silver Surfer in the window.)

"Look up for power lines." "But I don't see anything." "That's good." (Detroiter inside joke)

"Look up for power lines." "But I don't see anything." "That's good." (Detroiter inside joke)

Then I had a chance to take this photo up above.  When I take things like this, I hope to impress my sis that’s a photog.  Eees good, Becks?  (Too bad she doesn’t read this blog.)

I think it's so the pigeons can be comfortable.

I think it's so the pigeons can be comfortable.

At my hotel, we had a nice view of the back of buildings, which I still thought was cool.  For some reason, there were a bunch of pillows, down below. 

Anyhotelincidentals, I have to put the brakes on this post.  To quickly wrap up the rest, we walked from our hotel to 30 Rock because of the show (the skating rink is not as big in person).  We hit up Broadway and Times Square, and figured out how to take the subway down to the World Trade Center reconstruction.  The Statue of Liberty was visible in the distance (has anyone realized her initials are SOL?), and I think we found the area that Will Smith rented jet skis in Hitch (over in the financial district).

Okay, there’s more to come for sure.  Stay tuned!  (I’m losing my TripleDoubleU connection shortly hence the wrap up… EPISODE IV is not finished.)

25 Years Of WrestleMania AKA “WWE” = “What Wrestling Emitted” (Wait, That Sounds Bad)

Posted on by sgottahurt

I’d never proclaim to be a huge fan of wrestling.  Even back before the World Wildlife Fund made them change their name, I wasn’t too into any of the WrestleManias or the Sunday matches.  A few of my friends were, though, so the WWE superstars of the day blipped my pop culture radar.  And a little cartoon BITD (“back in the day”) also helped:

But since this Sunday (tomorrow) is WrestleMania XXV, I’m going to post the best things I ever think came out of the WWF WWE… BITD, of course. 

5) “Macho Man” Randy Savage sure did love him some Slim Jims.  Why it’s relevant to me?  On a trip to Houston, Texas, there was one day I devoted to eating only Slim Jims and pickles, and drinking MGD.  The next day I devoted to the hotel bathroom.

4) Andre the Giant was in The Princess Bride.  Why it’s relevant to me?  I always thought he seemed like a nice guy, and the movie helped confirm that (if I remember correctly).  Man, I haven’t seen that movie in a long time.  All I truly remember is the scene where Wesley and the “Inconceivable!” guy keep switching poisoned glasses.  And Inigo Montoya, of course.

3) Sargent Slaughter was a G.I. Joe toy and on the cartoon!  Why it’s relevant to me?  He was on the cartoon!  (I wasn’t allowed to collect G.I. Joe because they were too much like Star Wars, according to my mom.)

2) Rowdy Roddy Piper was in John Carpenter’s They Live.  Why it’s relevant to me?  Just watch this clip and tell me it’s not relevant to you.

1) Hulk Hogan was a Real American.  Why it’s relevant to me?  Um, Hulk Hogan plays on an electric guitar painted like the American flag standing in front of an American flag like he’s motherfucking General Patton just before a scene of a building being demolished.  That’s just the first 30 seconds!  And it only gets better, I promise you…

Drunken Recollection… More Or Less Than Jake

Posted on by sgottahurt

Let me begin with this: last night I saw Less Than Jake in concert at St. Andrew’s Hall in Detroit, and I.  Had.  A.  Blast.

It was quite possibly one of the best concerts I’ve been to in a long time, and I’m pretty sure it can be attributed to going with my brother, Scott, and my cousin, Steve, the fact that I’ve been a fan of LTJ since their Losing Streak album came out in 1996, and lots and lots of draft beer.

I swore to try to remember as much of the highlights as possible.  So here I go:

  • We started at the casino.  Scott and Steve had been drinking prior to, and I was playing catch-up (I think Steve was playing mustard).  Scott was recounting how at one concert he was hit in the head with a full water bottle and got knocked out for a bit.  This will play out later.
  • Having only one phone between us, we decided we should make our way to the show so as not to miss LTJ.  We got there in time to see the Flatliners (not the Julia Roberts/Kiefer Sutherland pic).  We were glad not to miss any of the main act, but we wished we could have gambled more.  Especially once I realized they had Star Wars penny slots.  May the force be with the 30-line spin!
  • We laughed at a woman wearing Mom Jeans and her man that looked like Tom Cruise circa The Firm.  Steve would end up befriending them and giving them high fives later, but still…
  • I thought of a pickup line.  Then I thought it might work as a pickup line to ask if the pickup line would work as a pickup line.  I was going to ask one girl but her man came back.  So I turned to another girl who was way too crossed-eyed to be so snotty in my opinion, and I said, “I heard your brother’s the drummer in the band.”  Her response, “If my brother was in the band, I’d be backstage, duh.  But nice try on the pickup line.”  Steve returned from the restroom or a beer run, and he heard the ending.  He thought I asked about the line, but I informed him that I just used it as is.
  • A gaggle of older dudes (my age) started moshing at the back during the second opening act, which was the more more accessible band called the Expendables.  One dude bumped me more than once which caused me to spill beer on Scott’s phone.  I turned to face them and the dude’s friend apologized.  What I said to appease him, I want to put on t-shirts:

Like this but better... not much better, though.
Like this, but better… not much better, though.
  • Also, the dude that made me spill my beer wanted to get punched in the face… he told me so.  I said I would, but he had to punch me too, kinda like a Rocky/Apollo Creed freeze frame kind of thing.  His friend told us to wait until after the concert.  I agreed.
  • Once LTJ started, the mosh pit was incredible.  Being one of the taller guys, I’m usually asked to lift people to body surf, but not as many people were willing to for some reason.  At the end of the regular show, I decided to go.  The bouncer that flipped me over told me I was too big to be doing this.  I agreed.
  • When the encore was in full swing, some of the kids that helped me up before wanted me to do it again.  I told them I was yelled at last time, which only spurned them on more.  So I went up again, and the bouncer repeated the fact that I was too big to be doing this.  If I did it again, I was going to get kicked out.  I didn’t go back by those other kids again.
  • It was about this time that Steve was high-fiving Tom Cruise and Mom Jeans.  Scott had been hit in the head, but by something other than a water bottle.  This little kid appeared out of nowhere as the main floor cleared, and he was picking up who-knows-what off the floor.  I saw the friends of the dude I was supposed to punch, but they lost him.  They informed me that if I saw him, I should swing for his right eye, because his left eye was already bruised.  I agreed.
  • Scott was going to sleep in the car while Steve and I would gamble more.  We parted ways at the garage.  As we were wandering around in the casino, we ran into Scott.  He couldn’t find the car.  It was amazing to stumble across each other because only Scott had a phone.  Lucky!
  • I lost ten bucks in the Star Wars penny slots.  I would have only lost five, but a woman asked me to watch her spot so she could run to the restroom.  I only had thirty cents left, so I threw in another five.  More or Less Than Jake, it was a good night.

In My Brain While Sleeping… Gash Monsters, Flying Pucks, And Robert Redford

Posted on by sgottahurt

I had a series of strange dream flashes recently.  Here’s the gist of them:

1) The Gash Monster.  This one is a little messed up.  The opening of the dream started like a pinhole fade-in… except the pinhole was a square.  As the blackness pulled away, it revealed a creature comprised of eyes that looked just like this one below: 

(Kinda) Artistic Representation

(Kinda) Artistic Representation

It was covered in gashes (take that word choice however you may), and in every slit (same goes for that word choice) rested a beady, blinking eye.  The beast was the size of a couch and shaped like a boar.  Its snorting (and endless staring) woke me up immediately.

2) The Floating Puck.  In this dream, there was a ten foot cushioned, hockey puck-looking thing in a play area.  Some kids were floating above it, but I thought they were flying by jet packs like we’re used to seeing (even though I saw none):

In case you couldn't put "jet" and "pack" together in your mind.

In case you couldn't put "jet" and "pack" together in your mind.

When they started doing flips, it freaked me out.  I was worried they’d crash and smash their heads.  As it turned out, this puck-thing blasted air which made everyone virtually weightless.  At the point I finally stood on it, I had to jump to get started.  I lifted a bit higher with each jump, but I was too heavy for it and slowly descended back to the ground.  For whatever reason, this made me wake up, laughing out loud.

3) The Giveaway.  This is maybe even stranger than the other two dreams.  I was in my basement doing laundry, and Robert Redford was also there, going through all of his old awards.  He was pulling out all kinds of trophies and throwing them in the trash – even his Oscars.  The only one he wanted to keep was from Butch Cassidey and the Sundance Kid (for which he wasn’t even nominated).  He told me he’d give me his Academy Award from The Sting (he didn’t win, but at least he was nominated).  When he reached into the box, he pulled out a toy of the Gash Monster.

Like this Star Wars creature, but not at all.

Like this Star Wars creature, but not at all.

Drunken Recollection… Flying Bags, Trashing Toilets, Saving Bathrooms, And Other Weird Thoughts

Posted on by sgottahurt

Sometimes things you enjoy can get ruined by the mere fact that someone points out the obvious to you, well-enough is not left alone, or something becomes cliché about it.  Examples:

  • One episode of South Park lampooned Family Guy and pointed out the show makes pointless jokes that have no basis or bearing on the plot.  It sounds highbrow, but it ruined Family Guy for me.
  • Matrix 2 and 3, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3, and Star Wars Episodes 1-3 all turned the awesome originals into tripe.  What wonders the first works brought us were repeated and retreaded until the wonder was no more.  The signs of forward thinking creativity became watered down to levels of… luck.
  • Don’t get me started on using famous songs in commercials.  Too late.  I’d give anything in the world to NOT think of KFC when I hear Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”… but alas, that’s not to be.  The classic Southern rock anthem is now an unfortunate cliché.

The reason I bring this all up is fuck American Beauty.  Especially this scene:

Why do I have such disdain for this sequence?  It’s not that I hate it… at all.  It’s that I quite actually agree with it wholeheartedly.  I’m the type of person that likes to look up at the clouds every now and again and feel small.  I enjoy remembering my minuscule place in the universe that I share with the floating grocery store bags and the tumbling cardboard containers blowing in the wind.  What makes me mad is that I liked paying attention to the things too many people ignore before the movie came out (ten whole years ago), and when I do so now, I feel like a cliché because I’m reminded of that movie.

I thought of that on the way to the bar before soccer last night, and I needed to get that off my chest.  On to the Drunken Recollection!

SIDENOTE: Does it bring anyone else extreme amounts of joy to see toilets being discarded on the curbside?  Oh, the stories they could tell.  And it looks so juxtaposed with its surroundings.  Can you imagine being the garbage man that has to hoist the porcelain throne into his compactor?   I tried to Google Image Search “toilets being thrown out” for additional laughs, but all that showed up were pictures of Lily Allen. Weird.

Once at the bar, time constrained nicely between basketball and soccer, I had to save yet another restroom from flooding.  What’s up with people not being able to turn off faucets!?!  Have we gone numb?

Anyway, a few topics of interest came up that I thought I’d share:

  • My (possibly brilliant, or perhaps stranger than I) cousin Steve brought up the suggestion that adults should start referring to their age in months as opposed to years.  It’s more specific, it sounds impressive the older you get, and it gives clues to your birthday… that is if you’re good at math and know your times table.  Just remember, you have to be older than 252 months to drink and older than 216 months to vote, see Rated R movies, and be considered “legal.”
  • I was reminded of an old daydream I used to have where people kept growing the older they got, so you’d have to have bigger homes and bigger cars and bigger clothes and bigger factories to make all those big things.  Nobody could lie about their age or get Botox or plastic surgery to stay small.  And even if you were fifty, your seventy year old parents could still pick you up if they needed to, or you had a bad day and wanted to be nuzzled.  (I’m probably stranger than Steve, hands down.)
  • Do celebrities have insurance?  Do movie stars walk around with Blue Cross cards or Medicaid, or do they simply pay cash?  Maybe they get comped like with stores and restaurants.  “Hey, guess where Angelina and Brad went when they got the flu?  Kaiser Permanente.”  “Man, I wanna go there, too!”  I could research this further, but I only really cared about it last night.

Sober Recollection… Going, Gothic, Gone!

Posted on by sgottahurt

Last night I went out for my friend, Jenny’s, 30th birthday.  We went to a goth industrial night club in Detroit called the (Leland) City Club:
Like Blade rave minus vampires and blood shower, I think

Like the rave in "Blade" minus vampires and blood shower, I think

We arrived late by my standards (courtesy of the snow and collected company), but it’s primarily an afterhours spot, so to the regulars, we were probably early.  Since it was midnight, I could have either pounded as many bottles as possible, or keep my mind clear for people watching.  Speaking of clear…

  • Upon arrival, I thought “I’ll keep my mind clear,” and I saw a dude in a clear shirt.  Then a grand woman passed by that put the BOOST in bustier, and I thought, “Biiiig.”  Then a woman no taller than 4′ followed her, and I thought, “Smaaaall.”
  • On the telly above the bar, this scene from “Superbad” was playing.  Notice the wound on McLovin’s cheek at the end… is it CGI?  It sure looks like it was digitally added, and I never noticed until last night:
  • A woman sat on a dude’s lap in the corner, straddling and facing him.  There was no movement, per sé, but I wondered if they were doing the deed.  I brought this up to another friend, Lisa, and she suspected the same.  It wasn’t until moments later that I saw them both smoking side-by-side that my suspicions were confirmed.
  • The electric chandelier above us had energy-efficient coiled black light bulbs:

Like this, but purple
Like this, but purple
  • There was a dude that looked like an elf, and a dude/dudette (?) that looked like an anime character, amongst many other things.  I pondered what percentage of people here partook in the Renaissance Festival (nice alliteration… at least the first part).  Since two people in our group of eleven had, it was fare to assume they weren’t alone.
  • I wasn’t surprised to find out that I knew some of the music (Ministry, Depeche Mode).  I was surprised to smell fabric softener coming off someone’s black hoodie with the anarchy logo on it:
Smells like Snuggle

Smells like Snuggle

  • I learned that my brain may be wired like that of a moth, as my eyes were wont to follow any bright light in the form of glow sticks, light up yoyos, and a shirt like this (the sound bars actually moved):
See the music, taste the light!

See the music, taste the light!

  • Finally, my nerdery outstepped itself by conjuring up reference to an obscure “Star Wars” character no one in my group knew, as there was a guy who looked exactly like this, save the green pigmentation… and his hair was in a bun:
"How do I get to Detroit? Is it on Hoth?"

"How do I get to this... Detroit? Is it on Hoth?"

(Sorry BillyGoatBluff, but it was another sober night.)

Uncle Sean’s Story Time… When Red Wings Attack At The Bar!

Posted on by sgottahurt

Gather ’round, gather ’round, kiddies… it’s time for another one of Uncle Sean’s drunk stories… this is a tale about how to go out with a bang… or not to, depending on how you look at it…

After moving back to Michigan from Los Angeles, I was out of work but willing.  Your Aunt Becky worked at a night club in Royal Oak that I had frequented prior to leaving and during my return visits home.  They needed someone to run the pair of dance floor servant stations (and by run, I mean run back and forth and get ice and replenish other supplies).  I was their man.  This story isn’t so much about my first day (which happened to be an *NSync concert before they blew up… see SIDENOTE at bottom of post).  It’s about my last day working there (well, my first last day… I went back a couple more times to help or when I needed money).

I had announced to all it was my last day, and everyone was sad to see me go.  One of the order loaders arranged it so that I would get a bottled water filled with vodka so I could make drinks for myself through the night.  And partake of it, I did.

The funny thing about drinking while working in a night club is that people tip better when you’re on the same playing field as them.  I would help out the bartenders from time to time when I was slow and they were swamped.  This night was no exception.

A patron came up and ordered a shot called Red Wings.  “What’s that?” I asked.

“Cranberry juice and Jaeger,” she responded.  She ordered three shots.  I asked if one was for me, and she said to make it four.

Did I ever tell you Jaeger is my death nail?  Each of the liquors have a varying result in my actions, but they are consistent.  Jaeger is the anomaly.  Jaeger answers the next morning’s question – “Why did I do that?”

The woman came up shortly after that, and ordered another round.  Coupled with the screwdrivers I’d been downing, this is the last thing I recall.

Later, your Uncle Jay (who also worked there) and Becky would recount to me what followed.  As the night winds down, it’s my job to count out what items were left, to dump the ice trays, and do general cleaning.  I don’t know what time I disappeared, but Jay took care of my bars as well as his.

After the place closed up, my manager had a brainstorming session with Jay and Becky that went something like this:

“Perhaps he got in a fight, and the bouncers didn’t recognize him, and they threw him out?”

Jay and Becky shook their heads.

“Well maybe he met a girl and ditched this place with her?”

A pair of negatives again.  “That’s not the type of person he is,” Becky explained.

Jay piped in, “Check all the toilets.  He’s hugging one of them.”

Surely I was.  Upstairs, in the employee stalls.  Becky knocked on my door.  I remember that her voice sounded like an angel.

I pulled myself together and made my back to the main floor.  It turned out there was a concert the next day, and we had to set up all the chairs.  That was my penance.  If only that was the type of person I was…

MORAL OF THE STORY: Red Wings Team = good.  Red Wings Shots = bad.  Unless by “Shots” you mean “Scoring Attempts” then = good, again.

(SIDENOTE: Justin Timberlake and crew came out dressed in spaced suits to the Imperial Death Marchfrom “Star Wars.”  Their costumes made them look like the guys in colored hazmat suits in those old Intel commercials.  Girls had to be pulled out of the crowd from passing out.  Insane!  Who passes out at a night club anyway… never mind.)

Picture this, only worse.

Picture this, only worse.

Laziness Springs/Summers Eternal In The Winter

Posted on by sgottahurt

As I was finally shovelling the snow in front of my house today, two people commented on it.  (SIDENOTE: I probably would not have cleared the walkways if it was not 54° outside somehow,as opposed to, say, -8°.)

The first was a neighborhood kid from across the street that always beats the ever-living shit out of my door and doorbell when he wants to shovel the snow or cut my grass.  This is a routine we share because if I do answer, I tell him, “no, I’m gonna do it” (and usually don’t), or I don’t answer at all due to hangover/overall laziness.  I had dreams of making perpetual use of his services a few years back.  It was a world where I never had to pull out the mower or shovel ever again, but he blew it by not doing that great of a job.  (Two caveats: I did pay him $10 before I left, and it was the second snowfall on top of ice, but still…) 

Today, he started with, “Need help?”

“No, I’m gonna do it.”

Then he followed with, “Don’t you think it’s a little late to shovel now?”

To which I snapped back, “At least it’s getting done.”  If I had faith the temperature would have melted it all, I wouldn’t have put forth the effort, but it is Michigan.

The second encounter I had was with the mail carrier, and it was because of her I was doing this at all.

“A little late, aren’t you?” she started.  It has been over a week since the snow fell twice and turned to ice.  “You get my letter?”  Every year, the mail carrier and I also share a dance – I wait for the snow to melt; the mail carrier gives me form letters telling me to shovel my snow before it melts.

“It always melts after the snowfall.  This one just took a little longer to happen.”

She gave me a look as she gave me the mail.

“It’s a weird day.  I could be shovelling snow in shorts.”

“I’ll take this weather anytime.”

I wished her a Happy New Year’s and we made peace.  At least ’til the next snow fall. 

P.S. …I think I’m going to start having deliveries come to my office in the new year.

Through sleet, through snow, through rain, through Tattooine...

Neither rain nor hail nor sleet nor Jedi...