The wife and I braved freezing temperatures last night to watch game three of the National League Divisional Series in a four and a half hour affair that left our extremities numb. 50,000 faithful at Coors Field were in attendance, an impressive number considering the cold. Some highlights:
The Rockies organization once again fucked up some form of the post-season. The game started at ten after eight. We arrived at the gates at ten 'till eight, happy we would be catching the first pitch. We waited outside Coors Field for forty five minutes in the cold. No announcements as to why tickets were not being taken. No signage explaining why there was a delay. Chants of "Let Us In," almost degenerate into an angry mob poised to rush the gates and get into the game. My sweet wife even mentioned to me how easy it would be to get away with kidney-punching Phillies fan in the mayhem.
By the time we get to our seats, it is the bottom of the second inning and the Rockies are up 2-1. Fucking Rockies organization. I almost do not enjoy my Rockies Dog and refreshing beer(s).
Our section is fun early on; good fans, good spirits and an overall good vibe. This situation changes as sobriety slips away and is replaced with stupidity. Once polite Phillies fans sitting a few sections below us become raging assholes and start picking fights. One of the fans is a fat white guy who has long dreadlocks. Insults are hurled his way. "Cut your hair, white Bob Marley, " and, "Got any weed?" and my personal favorite (because I said it), "Go home to your bottle of shampoo, hairbag."
The couple in the row below us are stoned out of their mind. Through out the game, the guy eats slices of salami he has smuggled into the game via his coat pocket. No Ziploc. No brown bag. Literally eating slices of salami from his coat pocket.
The girl below us dances like she is at a rave every time music comes on. Her balance is so off I remark to the wife, "That girl is going to take a spill." Within minutes of my comment, it happens. The crowd is on its feet after Carlos Gonzalez belts a solo shot to right field and the girl takes a head plant into the seats below her, flips over another row, lands on her head again and somehow manages to finish the maneuver with her ass in a seat four rows down. She looks confused, disoriented and possibly concussed. Her boyfriend expresses no concern and casually takes another slice of salami from his coat pocket.
We decide to head out in the bottom of the ninth as our infant son it at his grandparents and probably needs sleep. It kills us both considering Brad Lidge has been a nightmare closing ball games this season. By the time we arrive at the the car, the Rockies have lost 6-5, unable to cash in two walks.
Upon further reflection, I should have kidney-punched a Phillies fan to make my night more enjoyable. Especially the fat one with dreadlocks.
Kaye: We met everyone before the trip at our friend's house in Highlands Ranch. The Exterra looked out of place around all the Audis and Beemers. Me: Fucking Highlands Ranch. A girl I used to work with told me she grew up in Highlands Ranch. I told her, "No wonder why you are so boring." Living on streets named Wildcat Aspen Lane or Wild Mountain River Court or Bobcat Sunset Honeydew Boulevard. Kaye: All the houses look the same, too. Me: We went to my cousin's poker tournament down there awhile back. "Our house is the sage green house on the left side." Oh really? EVERY OTHER HOUSE WAS FUCKING SAGE GREEN. One house is brown, then ecru then sage green. Repeat until you want to rip your eyes out of your skull. Kaye: Ha! It's the crazy homeowners associations down there. Our friend had to have a shade of gray approved before she painted her house. Me: Jesus, is it 1938 Russia down there? All bleak and ubiquitous? Motherfuckers waiting in line for toilet paper? Kaye: Nice. Me: Actually, that is not fair. They are probably waiting in line for a Starbucks latte. Or some trendy plates from Crate and Barrel.
Mark: Have you heard of Art Brut? Euro-Indie rock band. Not bad. That would also be a good name for your next child other than Spilly. Me: Did you stay up for the game and watch the grand slam? Mark: I did not. Although I was there for Tulo's unassisted triple play and that was dope. Me: This was ... doper? More dope? Dopest? Mark: Unsure.
Super Joe hangs 'em up. One of the most entertaining, humble and classiest guys to ever play the game, Joe Sakic could have scored at a nunnery in the dead of winter. He is guaranteed to be a first ballot hall of famer no matter what snow blowers try to do to him. During the span of his twenty year career he is eighth all time in points, has won two Stanley Cups and holds the NHL record for game-winning overtime playoff goals (8). In celebration of watching Joe play regularly since the Avs landed in Denver in '95, here is my favorite "Sakic" moment:
Timberlake absolutely killed Saturday Night Live over the weekend. I am loving the Color Me Badd personas he and Samberg take on. Acid-washed jeans? Christ.
The Denver Nuggets have been rolling through the first two rounds of the NBA playoffs. The main reason? Homegrown talent Chauncey Billups. I remember watching Chauncey eat my high school alive in the state basketball tournament back in '94. If the Nugs win it all, there is no player more deserving of MVP honors.
Rwanda, fifteen years after the genocide. The new government granted Get Out Of Jail Free Cards to most participants of the single largest mass murder in African history. Good times.
The wife and I are officially prepared for our spawn to make its grand entrance into this world. The nursery is littered with the spoils of numerous baby showers, bathed in gender-neutral tones and is decorated with a ridiculous amount of monkeys. We have registered with the hospital and have taken assorted labor preparation classes. I have read two great books (Punk Rock Dad and Babywise) that have given me honest perspectives on fatherhood and read half of one terrible book (The Expectant Father) before throwing it across the bedroom and calling the author a "new-age queer." All we need now is the living, goddamn baby (the wife is due on April 3). In an effort to celebrate the last few weeks of our baby-free couplehood, the wife and I are spending this Saturday night at the Brown Palace Hotel for a romantic, in-city getaway. It is there where we will renew our love affair and my wife will get her pregnant lady bubble bath on while I drain cocktails at the Ship Tavern and watch opening weekend of the NCAA college basketball tournament.
Buck Fifty has fast become my favorite site for Denver and Colorado history. Today's installment: The Ku Klux Klan in Colorado. In the 1920s; the Klan boasted nationwide membership in the millions and was not the backwoods, hillbilly joke that it is today. Regis University (my collegiate Alma mater) has a stone wall on the southwestern edge of campus declared a historical landmark (or so I was told) where students of the 1920s and 1930s fought off the Silent Empire on numerous occasions. In my day, said stone wall was used by students to park the pricey SUVs their parents bought them next to or to smoke cigarettes against on a warm autumn day. I was also unaware that the old Denver airport (Stapleton) bore the name of noted klansmen Ben Stapleton.
The majority of my ancestors settled in Denver in the early 20th Century. My mother's Italian relatives took refuge in the various brownstones of North Denver and my great-grandfather, an illiterate fruit peddler, was one of the founding members of Potenza Hall (an Italian lodge that is still standing today amidst a landscape of Rite Aids and Taco Bells). My father's Slavic ancestors settled in the Globeville area; a hard neighborhood know for its rail yards, smelting and meat packing industries. My dad grew up in this community in a small house amongst Slavic kin who liked to drink, cuss, smoke and hate anyone who was not Slavic (my great uncle is still getting his "Gran Torino" on in a Globeville neighborhood that is now predominately Hispanic). The Western Slavonic Lodge was founded around the same time my great-grandmother arrived in Denver from what is now modern-day Russia. I think these lodges are indicative of the mindset of immigrants at the time. It was a place to gather with fellow countrymen, drink, offer support and learn about the idea known as "America." Being "American" was important to all of my ancestors that settled in Denver. My great-grandfather, for example, when asked by his children to teach them Italian would reply, "We are in America, and in America you speak English." I often ponder what happened to this mindset; where people identified themselves as American first and their ethnic background second. Perhaps it withered away as class systems divided. Or maybe it disappeared with our manufacturing base when we decided culturally that it was better to consume goods rather than produce them. Perhaps it vanished when people accepted that being friendly was merely waving hello to your nameless neighbor at Starbucks. It could be all these things, or it could just be that a fucking McDonalds became more important to us than a community center.
At the entrance to Denver International Airport (DIA), a lone sculpture stands amidst the backdrop of high prairie and the distant Rocky Mountain front range; Mesteno (or as I like to call it, Demon Horse). The sculpture is a polarizing fixture as its bright red eyes eerily glow out over Pena Boulevard (at dawn or dusk, the effect is particularly creepy) and most Coloradans despise the sight of it. I like the sculpture and enjoy the satanic evilness of it. Besides, how could I openly bash a sculpture that killed its own creator? I do not taunt Demon Horse. For he may come alive with the magical powers of hellfire and gallop across the prarie to claim my soul. Or, at the very least, just fall on top of me and sever one of my arteries.
Americans all have their own traditions for the Thanksgiving holiday. The wife and I are usually run in the Turkey Trot pre-gluttony, but in lieu of her being with child, we are skipping this year and instead I am skating in an early morning ice hockey game at Denver University. We will then partake in two Thanksgiving meals; one at my parent's house in the afternoon and one at the wife's parents house in the evening. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, will have a quiet holiday at home, cooking a turkey for her husband and her children named after English towns. This will occur, of course, after some guy slaughters a turkey during her interview with a local television network. We are all different, yet we are all the same.
Friday. The wife and I attend the 2008 Punk Rocks show at Red Rocks. The band lineup includes NOFX, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Bouncing Souls, Street Dogs and young Denver skate punks Frontside Five (the Circle Jerks are a no-show). I soon recognize how old I am when I breeze through beer lines in mere minutes. I soon learn that new punk kids like smoking weed way more than old punk kids. NOFX, Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Bouncing Souls are still awesome. The Street Dogs are the opposites of awesome due to an hour and a half set and a fifteen minute dissertation on who the Ramones are and why they are so important to punk music. The only way to make their set less cliche would have be for the lead singer to not remove his shirt before his Ramones tribute song only to reveal a strategically planned Ramones shirt underneath. I conclude that six hour concerts and $7 beers are not nearly as fun in my thirties as they were in my twenties.
Saturday. Enter the annual neighborhood pool luau. We represent a respectable drinking crew and my next door neighbor's classic rock cover band melts faces. Our HOA is awesome because they allow (tolerate) my next door neighbor to wheel an ice-cold keg over to the pool to serve free beer. I soon realize that inflatable monkeys cannot sustain the belly-flop weight of a grown man from a diving board. Post-luau we torch a fire in the backyard pit and the wife provides ingredients for 'smores. Three people fall asleep in their chairs. I conclude that staying up late and drinking until intoxication two nights in a row is not nearly as fun in my thirties as it was in my twenties.
Sunday. My annual fantasy football draft goes down in the living room. Being as this is the fifteenth year of my league's existence and the same team owners have been in said league for the past six years, I expect the draft to take no more than two hours. Four hours and eight cases of beer later, the draft concludes after much humor, animosity and stupidity (this sums up my fantasy football league perfectly: upon the draft's conclusion one team owner loudly proclaimed, "I have to get going. I am late for marriage counseling.") Steak, potatoes and a gigantic apple pie from Costco are then decimated in less than twenty minutes. I conclude that sports gambling and NFL football viewing are not nearly as fun in my thirties as they were in my twenties.
I have been consumed with Olympics viewing all week and thereby disturbing my normal sleep and freelance design routines to watch riveting "sports" such as synchronized diving. The thing I did know about synchronized diving is that synchronized showering and synchronized hot-tubbing are a major part of the "sport." The first week of the 2008 Beijing Olympics has shown the world that at least one female Chinese gymnast is underage, sportsmanship is not necessarily alive and well in Olympiad and Michael Phelps is kind of good. Maybe Michael Phelps can teach Carmelo Anthony work ethic before the next summer games so Melo shows up ready to compete on the world stage instead of spending his entire first game on the bench after going 0 for 3 from the field.
After running down an errant couch on I-25, the wife and I decided the time was nigh to purchase a new automobile. We first called our credit union to get pre-approved for a loan and were pleased to learn they offered their customers a free auto broker service. This was exactly what I wanted to hear as car salesman rank in character somewhere between necrophiliacs and Rent-A-Center employees to me. The wife and I were referred to a genial gentleman named Gordon. He called to inform of us of an auto inventory showcase they were having the next day at Bandimere Speedway and invited us to come down and test drive whatever he had. So we did. He introduced himself and then became scarce and the wife and I spent the rest of the morning speeding new and used whips around the hills near Morrison, Colorado. We fell in love with the 2008 Toyota RAV4, both for the V6 engine and the stellar Consumer Reports ratings (thanks EZ). After discussing the features we were looking for in an automobile with Gordon, he informed us that he would scour the Denver metro area for what we wanted. The next day he called to inform us that he procured a 2008 flint-colored, be-moonroofed Toyota RAV4 and that he was driving it up to the crib to let us take it for a spin. We loved the damn thing (of course) and two days and fifteen minutes of paperwork later, the wife and I had us a new ride.
I made my final voyage in the Ghost of War yesterday (a youngster in Castle Rock bought her for $500) first to Santiagos for a sack of breakfast burritos and than to the office. She was a steady machine that gave me scant trouble in ten years of hard driving (I work a clutch like a Mexican field hand works a burro). Godspeed, Ghost of War. May all your future rides be down the smoothest of couch-free roads.
Tonight on our drive down to south Denver for a hockey game, the Ghost of War smashed into an errant sofa on I-25 at about 75 mph (the sofa conveniently lay on the highway less than three hundred feet from Furniture Row). I am guessing that a new sofa purchaser, unskilled in the art of twine and furniture hauling, dropped that big bastard on the road upon merging and failed to look in their rear view mirror to notice that their load was lost. The sofa lay in the far right lane as we sped along in the far left lane. An eighteen wheeler barreled through said sofa and sent it careening across the highway. The Ghost of War happened it be directly in its wake. I swerved enough to deflect the brunt of the blow, but the old girl still got tagged pretty good. The damage included the passenger side mirror being shattered into oblivion, a large dent on the passenger side door and the passenger side headlight being bashed to pieces (click here for some hot Flickr action). Being as the Ghost of War still gets 35 miles to the gallon and is paid for, I am running her for at least another 100K. I plan on hitting the Yota Yard at lunch tomorrow for some replacement parts as it is close to the office and located directly across the street from the Walnut Room (which makes a mean meatball sandwich). May the parts be with me, indeed.
Now that the bulged disc is mostly healed, the sciatic nerve is growing less annoying by the day and my stupid injury is tolerating two league nights of ice hockey again, the wife and I decided to get back on the fitness train. For Xmas we bought ourselves a treadmill and are looking into a bench and dumbbell set (I am hoping some recently divorced father of three will be unloading a joint cheap on Craigslist because he is moving into a crappy one bedroom apartment due to crushing monthly alimony and child support payments). These fitness items all fit nicely into our unfinished basement. My goal is to be back in pristine condition for the 2008 Runnin' Of The Green in the middle of March (Runnin' Of The Green is a 7K road race through downtown Denver which features free beer and corned beef upon crossing the finish line. The Irish finally got something right).
On Monday we started a high-fiber, high-vitamin cleansing that has shaved four pounds off my middle and has seen feces flying from my ass faster than a midget being fired from a cannon (I tallied a lifetime record ten bowel movements today that were both refreshing and enjoyable). We finish said cleansing this Saturday when I will start eating solid food again in lieu of fitness shakes and health bars.
Saturday saw the send off for my buddy Wil who is walking the Earth for the next six months to a year. He will return home whenever his money or his transsexual hooker sugar daddy connections dry up (literally). We procured a limo for his last evening in the city and took a dive bar tour of Denver in style. Some highlights:
The limo was compliments of one of my work clients who hooked us up with an amazing deal. He gave us a two week old Mercedes Benz limo for the night and stocked it with complimentary beer, gin, whiskey and champagne. The whip was so new that the stereo could only play CDs as the sound system was like the Death Star in Return Of The Jedi and not yet fully operational. We only brought one CD between the seven of us. Said CD was a shitty local techno band and ended up being fired from the limo window by night's end.
Number of individuals in our group that ordered bacon: 2.
Number of individuals that asked the waitress to "Look away" as he attempted to pick up and eat a strip of bacon that fell of the floor: 1.
The Hilltop, my favorite college-era haunt, did not fail to disappoint (except for the omission of "Ballad Of The Green Berets" from the jukebox which was the traditional way to close all drinking benders back in the day). While walking into the bar a guy came out yelling "Who needs some blow? Some meth? Some X?" While sitting at the bar some troll-looking kid was attempting to start a fight with the a gentleman three times his size. The bartender encouraged smoking after asking if we were cops and than proceeded to light up and "fuck the anti-smoking laws."
Changing the name of a strip club from Cheerleaders to The Player's Club does not make your joint instantly classier. You still have to wash the vomit and sweaty ass from the carpet.
Number of individuals in our group that had their wife pick them up from The Player's Club: 1.
Number of individuals in our group that lost an electronic device sometime during the night: 2.
Number of individuals in our group that were called by the limo company with the whereabouts of their lost electronic device: 1.
Be sure to rubber up in the jungle, Wil. Once you establish your white warlord presence in Belize, we will be down to slaughter cattle with machetes in front of the locals as a lesson not to cross you. In short, be safe and enjoy your adventures.
The rain falls softly on the metal roof. OJ is currently in jail for a B and E. I inhaled eight tacos and a bowl of green chili with Team Hofkamp during the Broncos game yesterday. Two homeless guys just walked by our office window with four shopping carts full of cans that were covered with assorted tarps and bungee cords yet neither were wearing a rain slicker or a poncho. I get free Brothers BBQ for lunch today. We just learned that one of our freelance designers is a con-artist and wanted for fraud. Pumpkin pie sounds delicious.
Conspiracy theorists have long been masturbating to DIA for its seemingly clandestine activities. To date, the Freemasons, Illuminati, UFOs, underground military bases and reptilian aliens have all been linked to Denver International Airport. Prophetic messages are claimed to be seen in the art murals of Leo Tanguma that predict the impending apocalypse (conspiracy theorists apparently have never taken an art history course nor are familiar with Mexican muralista painters). Traveling in and out of DIA on countless occasions I have never seen any concentration camps full of reptilian aliens nor any Freemasons holding a virgin sacrifice in Concourse A, but I have seen some long goddamn lines at the Frontier check-in counter.
In case you have not noticed by the recent minimal posting, these past few months have been a blur of work and liquor. I have been pulling some long hours in order to catch our production schedule up to an acceptable level as well as drinking at a frat boy pace during an autumn social (a charity golf tournament this past Saturday had me knocking back Bloody Mary's at seven in the morning). Tonight our office park held an "official" open house rife with free hooch, gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches and pulled pork fajitas. We got the chance to chat up our neighbors who are mostly architects, photographers, creative types, tech junkies and one drug addict painter contracted to complete odd jobs until the end of the year. As I post this I am draining a glass of scotch and researching how to create a typing text effect in Flash. Welcome to my OCPD.
One downfall of the new office location is the lack of decent eateries. Despite the area being redeveloped into the fancy new architecture/design district, we are still surrounded by industrial warehouses and old cement factories that closed during the Carter Administration. Our immediate food options include two McDonalds gas station annexes, a Quiznos and a strip mall Mexican joint that does not deserve to be named. These past few days we have been venturing into nearby Five Points as it provides places to eat that specialize in food rather than Coors. For those unfamiliar, Five Points is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Denver that is renowned for its jazz history, its rich black heritage and its high crime rates (or perception thereof). Today, upon Jake's recommendation, we rolled up on Tom's Home Cookin' for some soul food. I ordered the fried chicken, mashed potatoes, collard greens and corn bread and am still wallowing in its delicious glory. My boss was rendered speechless by the peach cobbler and proclaimed upon regaining his facilities that our future intern would soon be making afternoon cobbler runs. The best part of the dining experience came after the meal when we walked back to the car and caught the chef sharpening his butcher knife on a curb in the parking lot.
Tomorrow I start the new gig and I am wetter than a mating walrus with excitement. Much of my elation stems from the fact that my office is located in the titty-licous TAXI By Zeppelin Development. If Grandpa Broz were alive today he would be proud that I was bringing the Brozovich name back down to Globeville (from the 1930s through the 1970s, Globeville was the capitol of the Denver Slavic community and home to any handle ending in "vich" or "czk"). Being as my Great Uncle Al and Aunt Tillie still live in the old 'hood, I might just have to hit them up for a sandwich and a WWII or rail yard story one day for lunch.
I am a burrito junkie. I used to make last call pilgrimages with my crew to the Original Chubby's in Denver for some desayuno especial or a smothered beef and bean. Before the neighborhood gentrified, Chubby's was not a good place for a lanky white guy with a shaved head and goatee to be at two in the morning. Chubby's, you see, is a run-down burrito shack. Upon ordering you either took your meal home or you ate it off the hood of your car and watched the police arrest the perpetrators of a gang fight in the nearby 7-Eleven parking lot or bought a pack of Newports for a dollar from a guy that shoplifted them from the nearby 7-Eleven or ignored the pleas of female drinking companions from the back seat urging me to take them home. I was thrilled when Chipotles started popping up all over the Denver metro area. The burritos are big, tasty and inexpensive. But something was missing from these burritos. Something I could not put my finger on it until I started frequenting Illegal Pete's. At the end of burrito-making process at Pete's, they take a spoon and mix the ingredients of your burrito before wrapping it. This ensures an even distribution of flavor with every mouthful as opposed to a bite of just rice/sour cream/chicken/cheese. Illegal Pete's is a fifteen minute walk from my office (ten if I take the mall shuttle) and I stroll by three Chipotles (including one directly across the street) just to get there. Shall I cross the Rubicon at Chipotle and ask them to start mixing my ingredients with a spoon upon wrapping my burrito? I should probably learn how to say, "Please mix it with a spoon" in Spanish just to cover all my bases.
This afternoon an awesome spring thunderstorm tore through downtown Denver and briefly turned the streets into a mess of gridlock and moisture (watching poor bastards drive through almost two feet of rushing water on 19th was the highlight of my day). Dig on these twoshots of the affair. The event even caused stoppage in my hyper-laborious coworkers. Nature's wrath demands attention even from the most over-worked and under-sexed.
On the corner of 16th and Welton a man by the name of Claude has been operating a shoe shine business for eight years. He has a small, tattered shine box and likes to yell at passersby regarding the nature of their footwear. I have been wanting to get a pair of my shoes shined by Claude for a couple of weeks now but he is usually swamped with the Mall lunch rush. Yesterday, I was finally able to get the shine I was desiring. Upon resting my foot on his shine box he immediately went into a sales pitch about a lifetime membership (he normally charges $6 a shine). A suit was skulking behind me with a bag of shoes for Claude to shine. The suit commented that Claude had been shining his shoes for years and he was the best there is. He added that paying a $60 Lifetime fee is money well spent. Claude told me after the suit walked off, "I charge assholes like that twice as much for a 'lifetime'. For you? I'll knock it down to $30. But don't tell nobody." I haggled him down to $20. Included in my lifetime membership is free shines anytime (plus tip), shoe drop-off (he will shine up to four pairs and call you when they are ready) and free shines for any ladies I bring to the shine box. During my shine Claude dropped some gems:
To a young kid with a pair of beat up brown loafers: "Damn, man. How long you had them shoes?" "Two weeks." "Two weeks??! Shit. I hate to see what your underwear looks like."
To a guy walking next to an attractive woman: "Hey girl. Look how he treat his shoes. You think he gonna treat you any better?"
To a hot Asian woman in a mini-skirt: "You look like my third ex-wife. I've only been married twice."
As I walked off Claude called to me, "Thanks Lifetime! See you soon." Indeed, my good man. Indeed.
An Open Letter To The Miserable Bitch I Had The Displeasure Of Sitting Next To At Lunch
First and foremost; it's called lotion. Look into getting yourself some. The skin on your legs looks like the leather on a catchers mitt that hasn't been oiled in twenty years. Your knees are more dry and calloused than a constructions worker's hands. Aren't all women supposed to be moisturizing themselves with fervor? My wife has at least twenty five tubes of lotion spread around in strategic locations. There must be five alone in her purse. After you are done stuffing your cake chute with that sandwich, walk down to the Walgreens and pick up some Jergens. Preferably with Aloe. That leads me into my next issue; your mouth. Are you hearing the shit that is coming out of it? Seriously. You live in Wash Park. I get it. The entire lunch crowd on 16th Street gets it. You loudly proclaimed it three times in casual conversation to your coworker as if it was a badge of honor. Congratulations. You live in an awesome neighborhood in a house that is one hundred years old, has shitty square footage, no garage, rusty plumbing and bad wiring that you cannot afford to update because you spend all your income on a ridiculous mortgage. I am really proud of you. What's that you say? You need to get out and run around the park to lose some weight so you look good in a bikini this summer? You have child bearing hips and a sperm bag, honey. Even with a stringent exercise routine and a crash diet that does not allow you to eat your coworker's leftover Reuben, nothing short of cutting your head off and putting it atop Jessica Alba's body would make you look good in a bikini. Even then. Your mouth would still be attached to the head. I suppose we could sew your mouth shut. That would definitely make you more attractive. Still, it is your head. Your thoughts, opinions and twisted views on reality are still in there. That settles it, then. Even with your head atop Jessica Alba's body, you still would not look good in a bikini. Finally, I direct this parting shot to the clueless gentleman sitting across from you. Please do not encourage her anymore. Your leading questions and weak compliments are only exacerbating the situation. Do you need a slump buster this bad? Just pay for sex with a transvestite hooker and get it over with. Nobody will fault you, man. Especially a guy just trying to read the paper and enjoy his Italian sub.
Tonight the wife and I will be attending the Gwen Stefani concert at the Pepsi Center and joining throngs of anorexic sorority sisters whacked out on Dexatrim, underage girls adorned in midriff shirts and flaming homosexual men badly singing, "This shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S!" I bought her the tickets for Valentines Day after scoring a sweet deal on StubHub that will put us in the fifteenth row. This should be a close enough to turn the wife into a blubbering mess of drunken fan girl as well as fill my masturbatory database for a solid year after catching shots of dew and early morning fur from the Pussycat Dolls.
Post-Concert Update: A Gwen Stefani fan demographic I completely overlooked yesterday: lesbians. Namely, hardcore, golf coaching, femullet sporting, hardware store lesbians. We were lucky enough to sit next to a fun couple that fit into this aforementioned classification. Not only were they friendly, half drunk and had a great sense of humor; they enjoyed making out during most of Gwen's ballads. I was saddened to learn the Pussycat Dolls were not opening (I was fed misinformation) and instead had to listen to the verbal abortion that is Lady Sovereign. Akon took the stage next and was solid all around save for the ten minutes he gave the mic to some Beyonce-wannabe hack signed to his label that sucked the life out of the crowd. Akon sang about the ghetto and being in love with strippers and made countless inquires to the female audience members while taking off a shirt saying, "Ladies are you ready for this?" Eventually he got rid of the shirt all together and informed us it was alright to do so because he goes to the gym and gets "his fitness right." Gwen took the stage amid the piercing shrieks of thousands of middle school girls and proceeded to dominate the set. She was at her best when the show antics were at a minimum (she had a troupe of break dancers and Japanese girls doing all sorts of shit behind her) and did one song in the middle of the crowd (much to delight of the folks sitting in general admission). She accidentally called Colorado "Utah" in the middle of a song, but she made up for it by mocking herself for the slip up afterward and displaying her naked, shredded midriff and scantily-covered "mom" boobs for the rest of the night. Overall I would say it was a great performance. Walking out of the venue we ran into my best friend growing up and his girlfriend (he also bought her the tickets for Valentines Day) and we decided to stop into Brooklyn's for "a drink." After downing six beers each we then headed home.
I am enjoying the new job and the downtown scene. Within a block of the office there are five coffee shops, four sandwich joints, a Chipotle, a flower vendor, a blind bum that likes to sing Isley Brothers tunes and the always lively 16th Street Mall. The mall is usually teaming with business executives connected to their ear piece cell phones like Lobot, statuesque women in six inch heels walking with mean swaggers, homeless panhandlers and disheveled, mentally ill crazies that yell and carry signs. The latter are by far the most entertaining. Yesterday a wild-eyed maniac sporting a wig that looked like a dumpster diving reward was walking down the mall with a sign that read "GESUS LOVES U." He nearly got ran over by a shuttle bus as he was thrusting said sign into the faces of a nice looking gentleman and his two younger daughters who were participating in Bring Your Child To Work Day. This morning as I was looping around the building to the parking garage, a filthy homeless drug addict was flashing a two-way sign on the corner which read "HILLARY IS FIDEL" on one side and "JFK SHOT MARILYN" on the other. It was comforting to learn that even homeless drug addicts hate Hillary.
The working from home experiment officially ends on April 24 as I have accepted an Art Director position for a consulting firm in downtown Denver for a ridiculous amount of money. I learned many things during the home office endeavor:
When not physically interacting with society on a regular basis I will not change my shorts until I squat down to pick something up and smell the essence of my own ass.
When not physically interacting with society on a regular basis I will not shower until I squat down to pick something up and smell the essence of my own ass.
When Divorce Court is on I will not turn it off. Preach on, Judge Toler. Preach on.
There are times in life when porn is your enemy.
I do not hate society as much as once initially thought.
Conference calls are just as worthless as face to face meetings.
Clients cannot tell when you are calling them from the bathroom.
Clients cannot tell when you are surfing your RSS feeds instead of taking notes.
Clients will not take you seriously if your "team" consists of anyone from India or the Philippines.
Total hours (per week) put in at an office job during a normal work week: 42. Total hours (per week) put in at a home office job during a normal work week: 55.
Working from home is a lot like bedding a really hot girl and then finding out that she is a lousy lay; at first you cannot believe its happening to you and then you realize its just a means to an end.
Today while meeting with a client at the downtown Tattered Cover, an unsavory character with crack pipe burns about his hands stopped me while exiting the store and asked for spare change in exchange for reciting one of his poems. I am opposed to giving street urchins any form of compensation (it is not in my nature to enable) so I agreed to the transaction with the caveat that if I did not like his poem he would receive no payment. He agreed, pulled out his mangled spiral notebook and began reciting prose. The poem was surprisingly good, rife with inflections of loss, pain, happiness, despair and hope. I gave him 47 cents, told him to stay off the rock and to keep working the poetry angle. He said thanks and then told me he had to catch a bus that was taking him to a drug test. After his drug test I am sure he was meeting up somewhere with his nymphomaniac girlfriend that has 'Fuck My Whore Ass' and 'Fuck My Whore Pussy' tattooed on her hips.
The wife and I celebrated our annual Thanksgiving tradition and ran in the Denver Turkey Trot this morning. The weather was beautiful and my legs and lungs felt good. My iPod crapped out on me during mile 3 and after numerous attempts to reboot the device, I am now faced with retiring the old girl for one of those new fangled jimmys. Soon we will be off to gorge on basted fowl and curse Jake Plummer as he fumble fucks around on the gridiron and causes our beloved Broncos lose two in a row to division rivals. Happy Thanksgiving.
I heard back from both companies I interviewed with last week. Company #1, located in Downtown Denver, gave me the "I just want to be friends" routine via email. Classy move. Maybe you should hire my ex-girlfriend She Who Will Not Be Named, Company #1. Like you, she is a cold-hearted bitch with no regard for social etiquette and would thrive within your corporate culture. Company #2, located near the Governors Mansion, offered me the position and I turned it down. Sure, it would be nice to start working again and sock away my severance booty towards a Mexican holiday with the wife, but something told me to stay away from that place. Perhaps it was the HR lady wearing sneakers, the invasive personal questions regarding my values or the "We do not use Macs" line that turned me off. All I know is that I ignored my instincts far too long while languishing at the data slaughterhouse and I refuse to ever do that again. In more interesting news, a neighboring town home burned down a few days ago. It appears as if the firewall did its job and kept the whole unit from succumbing to the flames. Good times.
The Avs are playing with verve and poetry and there can be only one explanation; the magic Christmas sweatshirt. Since the future wife gave it to me for Jesus's birthday, the Avs have gone 8-2 and are now in first place in the Northwest division.
You also may have heard about the other Denver professional sports franchise. If they beat the Steelers this Sunday, they head to Detroit for their seventh Super Bowl bid in franchise history. Take care of business, D-Broncs. Daddy wants to see another Lombardi trophy in case at Invesco Field.
An Open Letter to the NFL: Who's idea was it to have Detroit host the Super Bowl? Whoever it was, you should fire them. Was Miami or San Diego closed that weekend? If I am going to risk getting shot outside a stadium during the big game, I expect to feel a warm ocean breeze on my face as I hold my intestines in my hands and writhe in agony while waiting for an ambulance to arrive. Also, as you are probably aware, the Roman Empire collapsed almost two thousand years ago. We use these things called numbers now. Look into it.
It would suck to be homeless in Denver right now. I do not give panhandlers anything for two reasons:
I never carry cash or change. I am all about the cashless society written about in the book of Revelation.
I prefer not to enable addiction. I am not saying all panhandlers are addicts, but a good number of them are and I would rather not be chipping in on a bottle of Thunderbird (unless they are splitting it with me).
It is not to say that I am unsympathetic to the plight of downtrodden. Our society casts aside those that are mentally ill, unemployed and otherwise down on their luck. I look at the homeless and see tragedy. I am quick to remind myself that if I chose some different paths in life, I might be on that street corner self-medicating and begging for relief, too (whether it be in the form of cheap wine or a half-eaten meatball sandwich that someone tossed in the trash).
I do not ignore beggars like most people do. I acknowledge them, tell them no and go on about my business. I have had some funny exchanges with panhandlers over the years and here are but a few:
Beggar: Spare change, sir? Me:No. Beggar: C'mon, man. Me: No. Beggar:Do you not have any or do you not want to give me any? Me: Pick one.
Beggar: I need a dollar, man. Give me a dollar. Me: I do not have a dollar. Beggar:...looks the future wife up and down... With a lady like that I can see why.
Beggar:...leans over railing of an outdoor cafe and points to my garnish... Hey man, are you gonna eat that? Me: Yes. Beggar: You are gonna eat that green stuff? Me: Yes. It cleanses the palette. Beggar: It also gets rid of cotton mouth.
NC State runs a classy program. All I know is that if that Mexi-Cam business were pulled at Invesco Field At Mile High during a Denver Broncos home game, the stadium would probably be burnt to the ground.
A funny anecdote regarding the kissing cam: A few years ago I was in attendance at the Pepsi Center when the Colorado Avalanche took on the St. Louis Blues. In the second period, Joe Sakic fires a slap-shot that shatters the non-shatterproof glass behind the goalie. This causes a long delay in the game as the Pepsi Center crews work on cleaning the glass off the ice and installing a new panel. The Jumbo Tron begins entertaining the crowd with video clips, hockey highlights and the kissing cam. The segment drags on longer than normal due to the delay, and finally, it casts a parting shot of the St. Louis Blues bench; more specifically Keith Tkachuk and Barret Jackman. The players, engaged in a conversation, look up to see themselves on the Jumbo Tron kissing cam, smile and then lean into each other and kiss. For that brief moment in time, I actually liked Keith Tkachuk.
It may be Wednesday but I just now recovered from this past weekend. After treating my liver to a host of pollutants for three straight days, my body was pleased to remind me that it is not 21 years old anymore. On Friday, I went to the Great American Beer Festival with the usual cast of characters, minus one future brother-in-law who came down with sore ovaries stayed home (click here for some hot Flickr action). On Saturday, I went bar hopping with a large group of rowdy and intoxicated family members to celebrate my cousin's impending nuptials. On Sunday, I attended the System of a Down concert at Pepsi Center with my future brother-in-law (who miraculously recovered from his sore ovaries) and friends, where two cases of beer and a can of Skoal Bandits were killed and an annoying fat guy in glasses who quoted Plato was almost killed.
Local serial rapist and child molester Brent Brents has been busy writing letters from prison. Can we please throw this piece of shit into a holding cell with some hardcore gang-bangers from Aurora and then look the other way when they sodomize and jab a sharpened spoon stuck into his neck?
In a few short hours, I will be on a plane headed for Chicago and the 2005HOW Design Conference. Once the conference concludes, the future wife and I will be hanging around the Windy City for a few days. We will be back in Denver next Thursday only to leave for Oregon the following Saturday to visit with our in-laws for the week. Posting will be minimal to none on the MB during this time. If you start going through withdrawals consider Jake, Boing Boing, /mark or Fleshbot your methadone. Especially Fleshbot. They have dirty pictures and stuff.
It is a dreary day in Denver today as the sky is overcast and it is raining. This somber backdrop seems to have affected my mood as I find myself reading soul-crushing links about the lives of juvenile sex crime investigators. Not surprisingly, most pedophiles have an affinity for Star Trek.
According to Men's Fitness Magazine, Houston is the most overweight city in the United States and Seattle is the healthiest. Colorado has two cities listed in the top five for the most fit: Colorado Springs (3) and Denver (5). We represent from a mile-high, America. On the other end of the spectrum is Texas, which has three cities ranking in the top ten for the most fat: Houston (1), Dallas (6) and San Antonio (10). It is called proper diet and exercise, you fucking whales. Stop eating so much Carl's Jr., get off your cousins and take a run around the neighborhood or something.
A weekend of heavy drinking caused me a Sunday morning hangover that could rival a Kennedys (minus a sex assault and driving a bitch into a lake). The recap:
Friday. I attend the Great American Beer Festival at the Denver Convention Center. The Great American Beer Fest works as such: assorted beer brewers from all over the United States set up keg stations in a large convention hall. Attendees are given an empty one-ounce glass upon entry. Assorted brewers pour beer into the one-ounce glasses. Attendees shoot glasses of beer. This process is repeated for four hours. Our group becomes intoxicated quickly. I run into two sisters I went to high school with who are both wearing cowboy hats and have the following exchange:
"Courtney, how is everything going?" "Good, Matt." "How is your sister doing?" "Ask her. She is standing right next to me."
The evening degenerates into immature drunkenness. A member of our group throws a road cone into a public parking lot for no apparent reason and hits a car. A large man in a jumpsuit passing by proclaims, "Hey man, that ain't cool" to which the cone thrower replies, "Keep on walking, Devo." The cone thrower later orders a $20 sampler platter at Old Chicagos, eats most of it and then smears the remainder of it onto the gentleman next to him. The evening concludes with our heavily intoxicated group standing outside of Old Chicagos waiting for our ride where a Ford Explorer with twenty two inch rims is urinated on, a foreign cab driver is yelled at for not using his mirrors and a biker riding down the sidewalk is kicked and told to buy a handlebar bell to alert pedestrians that he is coming through. The biker proceeds to ring his handlebar bell when he reaches the end of the block.
Saturday.Jake's bachelor party starts off at a Westminster dive bar called On The Rox. A meth addict shooting pool gives Jake marital advice. We consume $5 pitchers of beer and watered down whiskey. Our group becomes intoxicated quickly. Unbeknownst to us it is Karaoke night. Jake attempts to sing "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye, but ends up talking through most of the song as our group heckles him unmerciful. We proceed to the Brunswick Zone where we bowl three games, smoke cheap cigars and drink numerous buckets of Coronas. After our games, we retire to the bowling alley lounge where unbeknownst to us it is Karaoke night. The evening concludes with a drunk hairbag singing Karaoke to Slayer's "Seasons in the Abyss," Jake's fiance cleaning puke out of her car, drinking a nightcap poured by a fat bartender in a sports bra with a large tattoo on her breast and me calling an Asian coworker "Spanish" while I dominate him in air hockey.
It has been raining in Denver for the past week now. Today it is 45 degrees and coming down like Jehovah is smiting the wicked with an Old Testament plague. I just read that this gloomy weather is going to stick around for another day or two. This news depresses me. I think tonight I will go out like Kurt Cobain and pen train-of-thought lyrics on a cocktail napkin, cook up a spoonful of smack and blow my head off with a shotgun.
For the next two weeks I will be going on tour like a trashy hair metal band in 1988. Early tomorrow morning, my lady and I are off to San Diego where we will walk on the beach, eat fresh sea bass, patronize the new Padres stadium, visit the San Diego Zoo, watch a live donkey show in Tijuana and drink our body weight in margaritas. Sunday night, my lady flies back to Denver and I will stay in the OC for the 2004 How Design Conference. The HOW Design Conference lasts three days and I will be attending sessions, chilling with my old boss Michael and last year's partner in crime Scott from Minnesota (who won a free pass to the event and will be crashing in my room, assuring me he will not go all Fear and Loathing up in that bitch) and kicking it California gangsta style by the pool with chocolate honeys and bottles of Courvoisier.
After the HOW Design Conference wraps up, I will be catching an afternoon flight to Las Vegas where my good friends Kaye and Aaron will be getting married. I will be staying in Sin City for one night, winning big at various gaming tables and drinking free watered-down whiskey as I insult professional card dealers for giving me trash.
I arrive back in Denver Thursday evening, only to catch a plane to Boise, Idaho the following morning. In a state that is synonymous with potatoes and the white power movement, I will be attending my lady's grandfather's 95th birthday celebration.
On Sunday, May 23, I finally make my way home to Denver exhausted and battered from almost two weeks of traveling where I plan on crawling into my king size bed and sleeping until Armageddon.
The Avs lost their playoff series last night. The Broncos season does not start until September. The Nuggets got knocked out of the playoffs over the weekend. All this town has to watch now is the red-headed stepchild of Colorado professional athletic franchises: the Rockies. Sports fans will receive another summer of Larry Walker injuries, the formula* for winning baseball in Colorado explained in detail at least fifty times by baseball analysts, the Rockies winning 80% of their home games and losing 90% of their road games and colorful stories in the press about baseballs being stored in a humidor because sportswriters have nothing else interesting to write about this sack of shit team.
* Load your team with steroid freaks that can hit the ball to kingdom come and pitchers that do not care if their ERA is above six.
At the zenith of my barhopping years, I made some bad decisions. Decisions like exchanging phone numbers with seemingly attractive females before the harsh lighting of last call came on to reveal that they had eye patches and an Adam's apple. I think the worst decisions I made were purchasing and eating the $2 burritos from the vendors on the street corners of LoDo. The end result was always me passing those intestinal claymores through my whiskey soaked GI tract hours later in a sweaty, hungover heap atop the toilet, questioning the ingredients of said burritos and praying to every deity I could remember from my religious studies class during my sophomore year of college. I never would have guessed those gut bombs had people in them.
On a related burrito note: Taco Bell has just introduced its new shrapnel burrito.
The Colorado Avalanche kicked the shit out of Vancouver Canucks last night 9-2 and Todd Bertuzzi tried to kill Steve Moore. Moore was said to have given Canuck Markus Naslund a cheap shot during a game on February 16. The hit in question was not a penalty and the NHL, after reviewing the incident, deemed it legal. Vancouver coach Marc Crawford still opened his ballwasher claiming it was "a cheap shot by a young kid on a captain, the leading scorer in the league," and his Canucks vowed revenge on Moore. Enter last night, the final regular season meeting between the two hockey clubs. From the moment the puck drops, the Avs play like a riot looking for a place to break out. In one glorious minute, they put three in the back of the net and at the end of one period the score is Avs 5, Canucks 0. With eight minutes left in the game, down by six goals and feeling the inadequacy of playing for a franchise that has never won a Stanley Cup, Todd Bertuzzi attacks Steve Moore from behind (a tactic he probably mastered sodomizing guys three times smaller than him in prison) and then proceeds to crush his face into the ice. Fuck Todd Bertuzzi for being a bitch punk. If he had any heart at all he would have come at Moore straight up when they played in Denver. Fuck Marc Crawford for encouraging his team to intentionally injure another player and then smiling about it when it happens. Most importantly, fuck the Canuck fans for cheering as Steve Moore lay on the ice unconscious causing me to loathe them and their franchise now more than the Detroit Red Wings.
After the Denver Broncos won Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII, young fans under the influence of assorted chemicals draped in their John Elway and Terrell Davis jerseys took to the streets of Lower Downtown Denver and celebrated in their own special way. That special way included random acts of vandalism, tipping over parked cars, lighting shit on fire and punching each other in the face. It was a magical time that brought the community together. Fans in Boston have celebrated the Patriots Super Bowl XXXVIII victory in this same special way. I will put $20 on this guy being named Sully and using the word "wicked" often in casual conversation.
The radio just announced an AMBER Alert informing listeners to be on the lookout for an abducted child and said child's abductor; a Latino male, mid to late twenties, wearing jeans and a Denver Bronco shirt and driving a truck. That is not helpful information considering nearly one third of Colorado are Latino males in their mid to late twenties wearing Denver Bronco shirts and driving trucks. That poor kid is doomed unless the authorities get lucky. Here is to hoping they do.
I was involved in an uncomfortable situation in the company break room this morning. I was making a vat of cocoa (and when I say vat, I am not fucking around. I swooped up a Brew Keg from 7-11 that holds fifty-five ounces of hot liquid. On a cold bitch of a morning like this, it holds me together like steel) when a fellow employee walks in. I have my back turned to him, so I ask him how his holiday was (being as I had the past two weeks off). We engage in lighthearted banter and I turn to look at him and immediately notice that his eye is swollen shut. Needless to say, I was taken aback. He notices the look of horror on my face and acts as if I offended him and walks away. Well excuse me, Mr.Sensitive but your fucking eye is swollen shut. Should I act like I did not notice? Christ.
Upon further reflection I was then reminded of an even more uncomfortable social situation I experienced. I was out barhopping in lower downtown Denver. I consumed many spirits and was feeling loose but focused. Our group eventually made its way to a dance club, which was peculiar because nobody in our group liked to dance. We waded through a sea of sweaty young people contorting their bodies to shitty house music and bellied up to the bar. After a shot or four, I decided to hit the dance floor and fuck some shit up. Nobody joins me; not even the women in our group. So there I am, drunk, alone and swaying on the dance floor. I feel somebody rubbing on my ass. I glance back and notice an attractive female smiling at me. We proceed to engage in what the kids call "bumping and grinding" for almost an hour nary saying a word to each other. Finally, I become parched and invite the young lady to the bar offering to buy her a drink. She informs me that her and her friends are getting ready to leave but thanks me anyway. I ask her if I can get her number and take her out sometime. She smiles and then reaches in her purse for a pen. She hands it to me and I write her number down on a cocktail napkin. I reach out to shake her other hand (now keep in mind its dark in this club and I am totally obliterated so my powers of observation are skewed) and instead I grab a stump. She did not have a fucking hand. I jump back, completely surprised and utter, "Holy shit! Where is your fucking hand?!" She stares at me for what seems like an eternity and then says, "You are an asshole." Good times.
Crazy Bitches And The Guy Who Did Not Get His Penis Cut Off By Them
Christian Slater has a hot wife who happens to be a tornado of crazy. I have had numerous experiences with juicy psycho girls (thankfully, I completed my tour of the crazy bitch circuit in college) and here are two of the best:
During my freshman year of college I was dating a girl I will call Skank Bait. Skank Bait and I dated for a few weeks, during which time, she asked me if I would be her date to the autumn formal dance. Not only do I hate formal dances, I hated most of the kids I went to college with (they were children of privilege who looked down upon crusty, blue collar kids like me who took advantage of the free tuition benefit given to children of the university's employees). I had yet to have familiar relations with Skank Bait, so I assumed my attendance at this event would be the deal closer. Skank Bait invited a male friend of hers from Colorado State to be a date for her roommate. Skank Bait failed to inform me and her roommate that she was currently involved in a serious relationship with said male friend from Colorado State. Only the voices in her head and her psychiatrist know why she invited us both to the formal (my guess is it was an inability to trust brought on by emotionally abusive parents which caused her hurt people before they hurt her, but I digress). Skank Bait's roommate and I quickly sized up the affair, so we got drunk at the bar and ignored Skank Bait and her male friend from Colorado State most of the evening. Skank Bait's roommate and I decided to leave. Skank Bait sees us getting on the elevator, runs over to me, grabs my wrist and starts raising her voice and making a scene in the lobby of the hotel. I remove her filthy meat hook from my forearm and she screams, "Don't you ever fucking touch me!" At this point, male friend from Colorado State enters the fray getting in my face and saying, "Get your hands off of my girlfriend!" He proceeds to put up his dukes in preparation for fisticuffs. I laugh at him as the elevator doors close. The highlight of the evening comes on the walk back to the car as Skank Bait's roommate and I smoke cigarettes with a pack of drag queens on the 16th Street Mall that tell me I look "decent" in a tie. I never talk to Skank Bait again and Skank Bait's roommate gets a single dorm room shortly thereafter.
During my senior year of college I ran into a girl I will call Dishrag Whore while shopping at the local mall. I had been fond of Dishrag Whore's fantastic body ever since I ogled it for an entire semester during a statistics class, so we exchanged numbers and decided to meet for drinks sometime. The next night Dishrag Whore calls me and we met up for beers at a local watering hole. Things end up going extremely well and the night ends with us hitting skins in a sweaty heap of meaningless joy atop her bed. Post-coitus, Dishrag Whore breaks down and cries for reasons known only to the voices in her head and her psychiatrist (my guess is our sexual encounter triggered a latent memory buried deep within her subconscious regarding sexual abuse at the hands of a friend or family member, but I digress). I never see Dishrag Whore again, but for the next two months, she calls me to discuss the following topics:
Why she liked to drink a pint of vodka over the course of a day.
If I knew of any good places she could score some blow.
Why she would have sex with Jesus if he were alive today.
If I would be interested in a three-way with her and her fat friend.
Back during my hardcore boozing days, I drank at some pretty rough joints around the Denver metro area. Many of those hellholes were similar to this. Thankfully, the older I have become, the more I value my life and would rather drink my own urine from a rusty oil pan at home than patronize any of the places I wasted time at during my early twenties.
Friday.I work until three in the afternoon until I notice that myself, Neal and Brandon seem to be the only people left in the office. I give myself the rest of the day off. At home, I order Chinese food, drain four Newcastles and paint the fucking walls. My sort of lady calls me on her way home from the final Bronco Pre-Season game. Talk gets serious.* We hang out anyway, agreeing to avoid relationship conversation for the evening.
Saturday. My sort of lady wakes up early because she has stuff to do. I leave her house and walk home and we agree to meet up later as I need her to help me purchase new bedding and towels. She is the shopping queen and I hate shopping (read: I am willing to pay $80 for a set of sheets at one store as opposed to shopping at many stores and finding the same sheets for $40.) I paint the fucking walls. In between painting the fucking walls, my sort of lady takes me to numerous linens and bedding stores. I purchase new linens and bedding. My sort of lady and I head downtown to meet friends for birthday drinks. We consume numerous whiskeys, vodka tonics and eat $9 steaks. The birthday girl informs us she wants to go to the Diamond Cabaret. We comply with her request where my sort of lady and I consume many beers and I smoke a $10 cigar that tastes like filthy assholes. We stuff dollar bills into stripper's panties.
Sunday.My sort of lady wakes up early again. After she leaves and I spend twenty minutes staring out my bedroom window at the rain as I told the boys I play hockey with that I would meet them for practice at an outdoor rink at nine o'clock. I roll over and go back to bed. My brother-in-law picks me up and we proceed to our fantasy football draft. I have been competing in the same fantasy football league for ten years. Every year, we sit in the same basement, tell the same jokes, drink assorted Coors products and draft fourth string NFL players thinking we got a "sleeper." I get home and paint the fucking walls half drunk.
Monday. I sleep in. I work out. I buy groceries. I eat a pork chop for dinner. My sort of lady and I rent a movie. Talk gets serious* again. We laugh at ourselves and go to bed.
* My sort of lady and I are currently "hanging out." The relationship dynamic has progressed into something neither one of us expected. I like my sort of lady. My sort of lady likes me. I am interested in pursuing things further. Taking risks, especially when it comes to matters of the heart, is something I am willing to do. I figure it is best to try it and realize it does not work, then not try it at all. Relationship situations are like combat; you either get out of your foxhole alive and return home the conquering hero grateful for every day thereafter or you wind up getting shredded by machine gun bullets, laying on a field of battle with your intestines in your hands being comforted by a fat soldier named Murph telling him things like "I am so cold" and "I wanna go home now" before you die. Thankfully, my sort of lady does not use war analogies like me to describe her feelings.
Weddings are usually a source of happiness as two people commit and celebrate their love in a timeless ceremony amongst family and friends. They are also a great place to get rip-roaring drunk and fuck some shit up. While I never bit a man's finger off or smeared cake on a child, I do recall (vaguely) one wedding I attended six years back:
The ceremony is in North Denver and I ride shotgun to it with my cousin, Monica. Both of our mothers asked us to show up early and help set up chairs. We arrive 20 minutes late because we had to stop for cigarettes.
Monica and I sit in the back of the church during the ceremony. We make crass comments about a family member's hairpiece that gives him the appearance of a young Ringo Starr. Joking in a British accent I say things like, "Hey Paul, it's time to get married." Monica giggles like a dirty schoolgirl.
The ceremony ends and Monica and I realize the reception is at the Boettcher Mansion (near Golden, Colorado) nearly an hour away. We stop off at a local liquor where nobody speaks English before we begin the trek.
In the car we consume alcohol as quickly as possible. We smoke many cigarettes.
We arrive at the reception hall drunk. I sign the guestbook "Matt." I have neither a gift nor a card for the couple. Nels and my sisters have saved us seats at a table. We proceed to the bar.
The greatest combination of words in the English language: open bar.
After dinner, our table is trashed and loud. Family and friends shush us. Nels and I decide to get a round of anisette shots for the table for the toast. We drink all the shots on the way back to the table and wind up going back for more.
The anisette shots are downed at the table before the toast even begins. Then we remember they bring around champagne for the toast. Instead of waiting for the caterers to pour us the bubbly, Monica acquires a bottle for our table and after taking the first pull proclaims, "No more for me. I have to drive home."
The garter belt ceremony begins. Nels, my sister's date Mike and I stand in the pit of bachelors. The garter is flung and gets caught in the chandelier. Nels and I decide to hoist Mike up to the chandelier to grab the garter. Our sense of balance is skewed thanks to the alcohol we have consumed and Mike nearly falls on his face as we lift him. Mike braces himself against the chandelier, grabs the garter and jumps down. The chandelier swings wildly for about five minutes. My grandmother looks scared.
I see a hot girl and ask my Mom if I am related to her. She says no. I ask hot girl to dance. At this point I have spilled liquor all over the front of my shirt and smell like a brewery but she says yes anyway. As we dance I sing the song being played loudly in her ear. When the dance is over she informs me she is leaving and gives me her phone number. As she walks away I blurt out, "You look hot, and I am not just saying because I am drunk." (Days after the wedding I forget the number is in my pants pocket and it gets ruined in the wash).
Reception ends late. Nels and I talk the bartender in giving us some beers for the road. We smuggle them out in our dress pant pockets.
Monica ends up chauffeuring most of our drunken table home. We get stopped at a sobriety checkpoint. Luckily, Monica is now sober and passes with flying colors. I sit in the backseat staring blankly at her walking a straight line with an open beer in my hand and the remnants of a twelve pack at my feet. Much later I realize that if I were asked out of the backseat we would have all spent the night in county lock-up.
I have bore witness to some wicked drunks on the Jagermeister and I, too, have succumbed to the unadulterated madness that dwells within the green bottle. One hazy night long ago my brother-in-law bought me seven Jager Bombs while we hung out at the worst strip club in Denver. The night concluded when a patron actually took a swing at one of the strippers. While she was still dancing. Behold the rage that is a seventeen year-old girl after succumbing to the Hunt-Master. When I was seventeen, most girls got their buzz on with wine coolers or some other fruity ghetto swill. The times they are a' changin'.
I arrived back in Denver today safe and primarily sound. Aside from a wicked day-long drunk followed by a slow, mind-numbing hangover, I am in good spirits and had a great time. Last night I attended the finale party hosted by a paper company (I was too drunk to care which one) where conference goers were given free reign over a warehouse where the majority of the Mardi Gras parade floats are stored. In the midst of six foot paper-mache heads of jazz music legends, sports heroes and animals, we drank and danced the night away.
Over the course of the 2003 HOW Design Conference many relationships were established and by three o'clock this morning were solidified by toasted imbibed spirits. A design posse has now been established reaching across the North American continent. There is me, Holly and Tina from Denver, Wes from New Jersey, Scott from Minneapolis, Mark from Montreal, Dave and Beatriz from New York, Stacy from Pittsburgh, Rod from New Orleans (who gets props for taking us tourists to some of the best eating establishments in town) and whoever else I forgot to mention that I may have sat next to at a session, ate fish with at a restaurant or drank with on Bourbon Street.
Although my liver hates me, the rest of me had an excellent week.
Four fans are suing the rock band Creed for putting on a bad concert. Front man and cocksucker Scott Stapp was reportedly too intoxicated to sing. I understand how frustrating a concert can be when the band sucks. I have seen Stone Temple Pilots twice and they were terrible each time. In the summer of 1997, I saw them at Red Rocks and Scott Weiland had shot up smack just before the set, sang three songs and then spent the rest of the time talking about Indians eating peyote. In 2001, I saw them at the Family Values Tour where a sober Scott Weiland sat on a velvet couch and played their new songs acoustic while my date was lying on the Pepsi Center bathroom floor vomiting because she had drank too much with her heart medication. Needless to say, I do not feel sympathy for these fans because 1) they actually like Creed and 2) they should be used to being disappointed because Creed sucks.
Friday was the Colorado Rockies home opener, and attendance is an annual tradition amongst my circle of degenerates, er, friends. Once a year, we brave the concrete jungles of lower downtown Denver and binge drink like it was a Kennedy mixer. In the fuzzy haze that was Colorado Rockies Opening Day 2003, here is a list of events that may or may not have occurred:
I consumed six beers and a hamburger before the game began. During the game I consumed three beers, one foot long hot dog, a bag of peanuts and a tub of nachos.
At one point in the game, the intoxicated gentleman sitting in front of me (who was rocking a rat tail) got up and hollered, "Fuck you Walker! You fucking suck!" to right fielder Larry Walker. Larry Walker has a career .316 batting average and has won seven Gold Gloves.
It was discovered by Nels and I during Colorado Rockies Opening Day 2002 that Hooters does not serve hard liquor. That fact, however, did not stop us from attempting to order a Jack and Coke at Hooters this year.
I can throw a baseball 60 miles per hour while heavily intoxicated.
Magnetic schedules make excellent missiles to hurl at the opposing team's outfielders.
An ex-stripper showed half of the bar her breast implants during post Colorado Rockies Opening Day 2003 revelries at Swankys. We happened to be sitting next to her at the bar when this occurred. One member of our party claims to have been instrumental in talking her into the flash.
Within our immediate group two fights almost broke out. Reason for fight number one: One party comments on how amazing it was to supposedly talk an ex-stripper out of her shirt. Another party (me) comments on how easy it is to talk any ex-stripper out of her shirt. Reason for fight number two: One party comments half-jokingly that Nebraska would lose to Colorado State in football if they played this year, thus desecrating Nebraska football and its entire history and tradition. Another party, who happens to be a Nebraska fan, was heard yelling, "Don't judge Big Red, motherfucker." Unfortunately, one party of our group was involved in both potential skirmishes.
Being a Denver native, there was nothing I loved more than watching the Oakland Raiders getting their collective asses handed to them in Super Bowl XXXVII. The Oakland Raiders organization and their fans are scum of the earth and second only to Texans on the bottom of the American evolutionary scale. Football fans who wear metallic spiked shoulder pads, Darth Vader helmets and grenade bandoleers, call their stadium the Black Hole, throw batteries at opposing teams and beat their children do not deserve to win a world championship; they deserve a trip to prison to be somebody's bitch.
Kids in the Denver metro area will be braving a cold Halloween night. I will refuse candy to a child if I see their parents dropping them off in a car. If these spoiled punks want sugar, they better be out in the elements with a pillowcase risking hypothermia, pneumonia and frostbite. I want kids half frozen at my front door with teeth chattering. Then and only then will I give them two mini-Reese's Peanut Butter Sticks.
Jam Master Jay was gunned down at his recording studio in Queens yesterday. Rest in Peace Jam Master Jay; the turntables might wobble but they won't fall down.
With Valentines Day fast approaching, young lovers are scrambling to find each other the perfect gift. If you are at a loss for ideas on what to get your sweetheart this year, try this on for size: GWAR is coming in concert on February 15 at the Ogden Theater. Trust me on this one; tickets to a GWAR concert would show your mate how much you love and respect them as a person. Picture this scenario: You and your lover go out to a nice dinner, a fancy steakhouse or someplace where you can get a nice piece of fish. You take a drive into the mountains. You whisper sweet nothings into each others ears. You make love in the backseat of the car. To conclude the magical evening, you go to the music hall and listen to insane thrash music and watch in wonder and joy as a giant vagina spews fake menstrual blood out of its opening, and a giant, hairy cock sprays the unsuspecting crowd with large amounts of semen. All this occurs while grown men and women dressed like barbarians and Oakland Raider fans simulate murder and rape. Who said romance is dead?
