After reviewing this list, I would have to say 1984 was hands down the best year for movies. I can quote countless lines of dialogue from memory on most of those films. My dad really let me watch some inappropriate films during my impressionable years. He took me to see Ghostbusters, Gremlins, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (the very first movie rated PG-13) and Police Academy in the theaters. Terminator, Red Dawn, Revenge of the Nerds, Nightmare On Elm Street and Sixteen Candles found their way to me via HBO with my dad's standard caveat, "Don't let your mother know I let you watch this." There was some excellent gratuitous nudity in those films; Police Academy, Purple Rain (Apollonia jumping into Lake Minnetonka), Revenge of the Nerds (full frontal), The Terminator (right before Sarah Connor's roommate gets "terminated") and Sixteen Candles (Caroline in the locker room shower). Sadly, there will probably never be a year of cinema packed full of winners like that again. Unless someone decides to resurrect Steve Guttenberg and Ralph Macchio's careers.

Labels: boobs, chicks, dad, glory days, movies, pop culture

I could not help but overhear your whining to the manager on duty regarding the broken cart-pushing machine while I was waiting in the checkout line with my steaks and diapers. I wish I could say I felt sympathy for you, kid, but you are nothing more than a spoiled bitch. Back when you were still playing with your own crap and watching Sesame Street, I was pushing carts for Uncle Sam Walton without the aid of mechanized transport. The Slushy Gutter Crew toiled and labored in that godforsaken parking lot, but we all took pride in pushing cart trains into the warehouse with our youthful exuberance and brawn. We also took pride in pushing those same carts into the lake behind the warehouse, playing Nerf football games when the manager's backs were turned, daring each other to climb into the hydraulic bailing machine and turn it on, loading eight flatbeds full of merchandise into a motorcycle gang's refrigerated truck and kicking boxes across the asphalt. In short, suck it up and push the carts in yourself, princess.

Labels: babies, glory days, open letter, sg crew, tomfoolery

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.

Labels: chili dog, denver, drinking, drugs, glory days, kaye, l-i-v-i-n, music, sg crew, sports, the greens, weekend that was, wife

In high school I listened to thrash metal almost exclusively. I considered Pantera to be the quintessential hardcore band (even overlooking their three pussy metal albums before the big thrash breakthrough Cowboys From Hell). They took hold of my immature teenage mind and led me to believe that punching people in the face was cool, tattooing "Unscarred" on your stomach illustrated that how tough you were and serenading a lady with the song This Love was the most efficient way to win her heart.* Back then I would have been downtrodden if Phil Anselmo and the boys broke up, but I doubt I would have dealt with my grief by firing six bullets at point blank range into Dimebag's head.

* During my sophomore year I made a mixed tape that included This Love for my girlfriend, Crystal. I believed that she would enjoy the song and award me originality points for its placement amongst the cacophony of hair band ballads. Our relationship was over by summer's end (upon my discovery of cheap liquor and loose women) and I assumed the mixed tape became a relationship casualty of war. Fast-forward eight years into the future to Crystal's wedding. While dancing with her during the traditional dollar dance, she mentions to me that she still has the This Love mix tape. Yeah, it is that easy.

Labels: death, glory days, music, pop culture

Over the weekend I celebrated my ten year high school reunion. Festivities spanned the entire weekend, capping off with an adult prom on Saturday evening. I chose only to subject my lady and I to the Friday night homecoming game and post-homecoming game drinks with former classmates. Here is a breakdown of said evening:

• Number of former classmates I did not recognize due to an excessive weight gain: Three.
• Number of former classmates I did not recognize due to an excessive weight loss: One.
• Number of former classmates who had to, "Go get something out of their car" then came back smelling like marijuana: Three.
• Number of former classmates who had just "Gotten something out of their car" that thought my lady went to our high school and graduated with us: One.
• Number of former classmates I had to convince that this website was not pornography: Three.
• Number of former classmates that look like Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan: One.
• Number of former classmates that look like Lou Ferrigno: One.
• Number of former classmates that were wearing a trendy GAP-style stripped shirt: Five.
• Number of former classmates that are working in real estate: Four.
• Number of former classmates that are working in real estate that got pissed I did not use them to sell my town home: Three.
• Number of former classmates I told, "My lady is only in it for the dick" to: Two.
• Number of former classmates I told "You did not like me because I am white" to: One.
• Number of former classmates I gave my business card to: Twelve.
• Number of former classmates I gave my business card to that I expect to hear from: Zero.
• Number of years I hope to see the majority of my former classmates in: Ten.

Labels: a-town, drinking, glory days, l-i-v-i-n, wife

I am a public urinating menace. My patented move in high school was the "piss walk" where I would whip it out, amble side-saddle and relieve myself on the move. I am all about multi-tasking. And taking leaks on trees, bushes, lawn ornaments, car doors, truck tires, off of balconies, off of bridges, off the top of houseboats, in lakes, in rivers, in goldfish ponds and in shampoo bottles. Unfortunately various authority figures do not share the same affinity as me for public urination. One evening outside of Fiddlers Green Amphitheatre for example, my friends and I were draining Fosters oil cans in the parking lot in an effort to enter the concert venue intoxicated (who we were seeing that evening escapes me as most of the concerts I attended in my 20s all blur together in a glorious miasma of noise pollution and overly-priced, watered-down domestic beer). As we walk to our seats, I decide to take a piss on a nearby chain link fence behind some pine trees (the line for the men's room had a long a line). As I begin relieving myself a sawed off rent-a-cop emerges from the shadows and tells me in his best authoritative voice, "Zip it up, punk." I taunt him as I continue urinating saying, "I would probably have a Napoleon complex too if I did not graduate from the police academy." Thankfully, he did not have a registered firearm.

Labels: colorado, drinking, glory days, tomfoolery

Ten years ago I was sitting on my parent's couch, watching the NBA Finals and eating a ham sandwich when the broadcast was interrupted to show live footage of OJ's white Bronco creeping down the freeway with a menagerie of law enforcement vehicles behind it. It is rare when an event freezes in time, embeds itself into your psyche and you can remember the most inane details surrounding that event for the rest of your life. I can tell you, for example, that I was seated in my sixth grade classroom listening to my teacher ramble on about the Philippines and his time in the Peace Corps when it was announced over the intercom that the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. Or one night in November 1989, when my father interrupted my phone serenade of "Love Bites" to my junior high school girlfriend Becky to tell me that the Berlin Wall had fallen. Most importantly, I remember that the Steve Miller Band song "The Joker" was playing on the radio and I nearly drove off the road when the girl I lost my virginity to told me she wanted to have sex with me.

Labels: glory days, history, pop culture

When participating in sports at any level, men need to understand hazing is part of the gig and they have to be ready for it; even if it entails a cock to the skull. I still will not fall asleep on buses due to the fact a sick bastard on my high school football team would wake sleepers up with a used, sweaty cup pressed firmly to their nose/mouth region. I still keep my head on a swivel whenever I take a public shower because another dirtbag on my high school football team would sneak up behind people when they were soaping up and piss on them.

Labels: glory days, sports

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'.

Labels: bro-in-law, denver, drinking, glory days, rage, strippers

Reporters for High Times Magazine are convinced that Jesus was the ultimate dope pusher of the first century. According to these baked cheeba-monkeys, Jesus and his apostles would heal the masses with an extracted form of cannabis oil. We had a guy that liked to cure the masses with narcotics at my high school. His name was Kurt. Everybody liked Kurt because he always had good drugs and was always willing to share. I am sure if Kurt said he was the Son of God, half of the student body in my graduating class would have agreed with him just to keep scoring free dope. The same situation could be true for Jesus. Picture a group of stoned apostles sitting on a boat on the Sea of Galilee, smearing cannabis oil all over themselves convinced that Jesus was walking on water. "Dude, check out Jesus. He is walking on water."

Labels: drugs, glory days, history, religion

I played a few sports in high school and was witness to many methods of hazing. There were the classic methods that our fathers and their fathers before them taught us; wedgies, pink bellies, swirlies and the duct taping of an underclassmen to a locker. This was all accepted behavior and usually resulted in the victim being elevated to "untouchable" status after said hazing took place. Unfortunately, there were always twisted bastards that took locker room shenanigans a step too far. My football team was rife with these individuals. Like the guy who took shits in underclassmen's helmets. Or the guy who wore nothing but his cowboy boots around the locker room and put his dick in your face if you were not paying attention. Thankfully in my experiences, nobody got held down and sodomized with a marker. One of the perpetrators moms stood up for her son claiming the marker incident was blown out of proportion. "My son is a big boy, and he likes to lift people up and let them down." He also likes to stick things up their assholes.

Labels: glory days, sports

Last night, in midst of an early winter storm, it took me three and a half hours to drive home from Boulder. This drive, mind you, is normally 20 minutes. Apparently, Boulder uses an environmentally friendly alternative to road salt that does nothing to ice when the temperature is below a certain level. The roads out of Boulder were like a hockey rink. During this period of time, I was a seething cauldron of anger. When I got home I wrote this. Enjoy.

The Catholic Church may provide a consequence free environment for pedophiles but it condemns tea bagging. I cannot believe kids get in so much trouble for this nowadays. In the locker room during my high school sporting career, tea bagging was nothing compared to guys pissing on you in the shower or sneaking up behind you and covering your face with a protective cup dripping in ball sweat (a.k.a. the Gas Mask).

Labels: boulder, colorado, glory days, rage, religion, sports, tomfoolery

I wish we had this club at my high school because I might have actually joined and formulated a positive opinion about organized clubs into adulthood. Instead we had the garden-variety student council and pep club scene with kids promising another pop machine in the cafeteria should they be elected to a meaningless political post. Some one (read: my buddy Tim) should have dedicated a club to Satan, Lord of the Underworld. It would have been more constructive for me to talk about Lucifer within the safe confines of a high school classroom with a faculty adviser present mediating discussions rather than what I actually did; discussing the Prince of Darkness over a three foot bong in a stoned kid's basement, listening to Slayer's "South Of Heaven" on the stereo, smoking Camel Wide cigarettes and drinking stolen whiskey.

Labels: a-town, drinking, drugs, evil, glory days, music, pop culture