fumbling over words that rhyme

I’m not sure at what point the wheels came off the sanity/sobriety train on Saturday, but they did, as they inevitably do on Self-Improvement Saturdays, and as soon as said train came to the first bend in the road, well, that fucking train went careening off the side of a mountain and into the water of Self-Loathing Minnetonka Springs, NY.

Let’s start with Friday though, shall we? As I alluded to in my previous post, Friday night was dedicated to seeing the Comets on Fire. An 11pm start time seemed so freaking cool at the time. Unfortunately, as we came to find out, the two opening bands who came on after 11 quickly turned the night into a test of endurance. Also, the 11PM start time combined with the two openers left plenty of time to convince ourselves that $6 for a PBR and a shot of house whiskey was a fucking brilliant idea. After trying unsuccessfully to trick the bartender (Shot of house whiskey with a Beam back, please) we figured, ‘ah what the heck’ and took it to the house, as no one should ever say again.

I’m not sure how the three of us didn’t vomit immediately afterwards, but I’m quite certain we all came pretty close. Seriously: well whiskey. It had the color of dirty mop water and smelled like a blue toilet bowl cleaner. I have no idea how Dave, aka Ole Boy Dave, aka OBD, aka Toby Maguire was able to do another shot of this stuff, let alone operate a camera ad nauseum (seriously dude) through the whole night, but even though he seemed to hold up well, his night ended when, in his words, he “must have blacked out and left the bar without you guys.” Well played Dave.

But he wasn’t the only victim. Senor I Only Leave Comments and his lady friend also showed up expecting an 11PM or at least a 12AM show, but barely made it to 12:30 I think. That left only the Handsome One and me to witness the Comets on Fire. And after terrorizing some of the ladies there (Them: “What year are you?” Us: “Um, 1980?”) we finally settled in for some damn fine rock and roll. And rock hard they did. I recognized the first three songs from Avatar as comprising three of the opening four songs, but after that I got a little lost. No less entertained, just sort of treading water in a sea of drunken haze and unfamiliar tunes. It was all good stuff. I threw a beer can (empty) into the crowd. Handsome threw his glasses (seriously). We felt we had paid our dues. We tried to catch disappearing Mr. Fantastic back at the Skinny, but he had made for home already. So we ate San Loco and called it a night. If you’re keeping score at home, you can score Handsome as having eaten five (5) tacos.

Saturday I got out for a run despite being completely hungover and slightly nauseous. But, seeing as how there’s like 54 freakin days until I have to run in the marathon, I guess every day counts. (I’ll write more on this some other time I guess. Yeah, I’m running the marathon. It will be amazing if I live through it.) So I ran, went to Epsteins where I talked to some very cool people while watching the Notre Dame game (sorry, dudes, dudettes, if you were there too I forgot all your names. There were four of you, give me a break. I could barely remember my name through most of the night after I parted ways with you all.) So, right, the female bartender there: thanks for the round and the shots. And in case you're wondering, Handsome was logging yet another 13 hour day at work. "Ah perfect. Love that fucking purple background."

Anyways, upper east side was the next stop. Ship of Fools. Know the place? Yeah, neither did we. But, there were OSU jerseys outside and mad props being thrown the way of my Flying Pizza shirt, so it had to be all good. Um, right, so let’s see, from there it went something like this: pitcher, pitcher, chicken wings, pitcher, girls at the bar caling me an asshole, pitcher, touchdown, Handsome making out with random girls, pitcher, touchdown, ted ginn jr., bathroom, pitcher, AJ, Dave, O-H, pitcher, and end game. There was some yelling and cheering in there somewhere, but honestly it was all a huge blur. The important thing is that the Buckeyes kilt the stupid Texas Longhorns. Back downtown where we met up with Dave and his friend who’s a girl, over to Motor City Bar where, for the first time, I heard a non-LES resident say, “Oh yeah, the Skinny? I love that place.” Needless to say, we didn’t need much other reason to peace out and head directly over there. We had more drinks, shook our head’s at the DJs play selection which went steadily downhill, posed for some more pictures, then said our goodbyes. Somewhere on the street, we found a piece of plastic that slightly resembled a sled. When I say plastic, I mean a top to a garbage can cover corral (pictured above, cowering in fear) that had been demolished. So we grabbed it, brought it back to the apartment and celebrated its existence.

Today I'm still fighting the stinging pain of self-loathing (thanks CBS 9/11 documentary), and I still can’t figure out if the pictures below are humorous or just downright scary. I mean, I used Travis as my focus group today, because he's seen a lot of shite. Yet, all he could muster was, "Jesus, what the hell is wrong with you guys."

I guess I’ll just leave the ultimate verdict up to you all…