The Naked Truth

I know, I know...I suck

2006-03-07T22:33:00.000-06:00

But seriously, I really have been busy lately. The last chance I had to post before this was last Thursday night, but I opted instead to play online poker for six hours straight, the highlight of which came when I battled my way into the final 20 of a tournament that began with 350, and my internet decided to cut out, leaving me out of the game for a good ten minutes. I finally reconnected to find myself with such a small stack that I would have had to double up ten times in order to post the big blind without being all in. Miraculously, I survived two blinds in a row and finished in twelfth place. Not bad, but rather frustrating, considering I was as high as fourth at one point in time.

Anywho, I started improv classes last week, and I pretty much plan on it becoming my life. My classes are on Wednesday nights, and I get into all the shows for free as a student, so I plan on spending about 2-3 nights a week at the theater. This is another reason I haven't had ample time for blogging, and I'm afraid it's going to stay that way. But it'll be interesting to see how capable I am of channeling my artistic efforts in two different directions at once (that being improvisation and writing). Hopefully, they will feed off each other and provide transcendent inspiration, or (more likely) I'm not talented enough to keep them both up, and my writing will inevitably suffer. Either way, I don't plan on abandoning my fledgling project I call The Naked Truth, so I will do my best to keep it up and running. I'm also open to suggestions, so if you have an idea of something you'd like to see, I'm all ears.

Finally, March is going to be a busy month, and it already started this weekend when I went back to Ohio for Yaney's wedding, and proceeded to complete a three day circuit that went Chicago>Celina>Lima>Columbus>Celina>Lima>Chicago. The wedding was a smashing success, and only slightly less debaucherous than the preceding bachelor party. I'm afraid a running diary would pale in comparison, but suffice it to say that Jaeger bombs were done, stogies were smoked, dollar bills were stapled to the ceiling, bartenders were dragged out on the dance floor, someone slipped on the floor in a drunken mess and her mug actually bounced off the hard tile in rather comedic fashion, I slammed a seven year old kid's head into a bathroom wall a little harder than intended, Deemo and I ended up in what could have only been a crack house, and we actually heard the phrase, "I'm so excited to become a Yaney."

The happy couple is now on their way to California for the honeymoon, and we're left here with that early to mid-March weather where it gets up to the mid-forties every afternoon just to make you think that Spring is right around the corner, but don't worry, more snow is on the way. I don't know when, I don't know how much, but trust me, we will see snow again before it's officially time to break out the shorts and flip-flops. If growing up in the Midwest has taught me one thing (other than how to shotgun a beer) it's that you never say Spring until at least mid-May. Pessimistic, you say? Alright. Go ahead. Get cocky and wear those cargo shorts for the first time next week and see what happens.

By the way, have I mentioned that St. Patrick's Day is coming up? The debauchery kicks off Saturday morning at 9 am, and we'll see what kind of stones I still have in me. Especially considering that Ian and Chad's birthday party begins exactly 12 hours later at Burwood Tap. So, we're looking at a potential two-a-day this weekend. I'm going to be honest here, I'm giving myself about a 60% chance of going the distance. I'm not saying I can't, I'm just trying to give you the Vegas odds in case you're considering going to your bookie on me. I can still do it, it's just that all the stars have to align. It would be kind of like betting on Roger Clemens to throw a no-hitter next season. He's still got it in him, sure, but you don't want to put the mortgage down on it.

Sunday night in unit 532...

2006-02-26T21:56:00.000-06:00

First off, if anyone has an idea as to why my profile and links and everything are showing up all the way at the bottom, please share; it's driving me crazy. I think it has something to do with the Internet Explorer browser, because when you open it up with Netscape or Mozilla, it looks normal.

Got a pretty big week coming up. Three chiropractor appointments, (apparently I was born with my fifth vertabra fused to my sacrum. Good times.) hearing #2 with the condo board for noise complaints, my first Improv Olympic class, and a wedding in Celina, Ohio.

You may be asking three questions right now: 1) You're taking comedy classes? 2) Why do you have a hearing with your condo board? and 3) You're getting married? To a girl from Celina? And the answers to those questions are, respectively, Yes; because they're stupid; and HELL no.

After the train wreck that was our New Year's Eve party, we received a letter from the condo management saying that we had to appear at a hearing in front of the "condo board." Talk about a room dripping with unintentional comedy. These people seriously believe that they're on a congressional committe on counterterrorism. Prior to that "hearing" I actually had an open mind, and expected that we would be dealing with reasonable people and we could simply explain what had happened, and possibly they'd be lenient on us when they saw that we're actually intelligent, respectful people.

Well, it was obvious about two minutes in that they had absolutely no interest in what we had to say, and that this "hearing" was merely a facade to make it appear that they have some form of judicial process. There were four units cited for the night of New Year's Eve, and each one of them received the exact same fine of $500. Yeah. Looks like a lot of thought went into that one. How much is it going to cost to fix the broken lamppost by the way? $2,000? Hmm. That's a coincidence. Well, maybe if you're going to extort money from your tenants based on false charges that you have no obligation to prove, you could go ahead and fix the damn lampppost. Dicks.

So, that'll be fun. I don't know who I'm more excited to see again. The dude who's so old they have to practically prop him up in his chair, the fat bitch to whom the meeting was so important she dressed up in her best Bears sweatshirt and ponytail holder, or the slightly effeminate guy who gave us a left-handed, backwards, limp-wristed handshake. I should have punched that guy in the mouth just for the way he shook my hand. Never mind that he sits on a condo board and thinks he's a memeber of the House Ways and Means Committe.

Moving right along, Wednesday marks two exciting beginnings. The first day of March, which Mark and I have determined is the "new October", and my first day of class at the Improv Olympic. Yes, it's true, I'm finally following through on my ambition that was born two to three years ago. Finally, I'm actually doing something that I always said I was going to do whenever I was drunk. For those in the dark, the Improv Olympic is a comedy club in Wrigleyville that performs its own original long-form improvisation. It boasts famous alumni such as Mike Meyers, Bill Murray, Amy Poehler, and Danny Bonaduce. (Ok, I made that last one up.) They also offer improv training; five levels of classes, two months a piece. So this time next year, with some determination, a little luck, and the money I tucked away for tuition not falling prey to an emergency raid, I could be on stage performing. I know, I know, pretty cool. But don't get too excited. I haven't really done anything yet.

So, with all that ahead, I should probably get some sleep. Mikey and I's weekly Sunday Night Conversation is over with, so I don't really have anything else to stay up for. (If recorded tapes of the Sunday Night Conversations ever surface, Mikey and I are screwed. I'm serious. We'd be finished. We'd never be able to secure a wife or run for public office ever again. [Wait, did I say again?] We'd probably just pack up and head for South America; start all over. In fact, I think I'm going to pull up Expedia and start looking for flights right now, just to be safe.)

Insomnia, vertigo, and green beer...

2006-02-24T04:20:00.000-06:00

So, I sat down with a blank sheet of paper last night to write ya'll an update, and twenty minutes later I was sound asleep. This was 9:45 PM, by the way. It might have had something to do with the fact that we went to the Improv the night before, then next door to Bar Louie for a drink, and for some reason I still think I'm capable of staying out after midnight on a weeknight and not making my life miserable the next day, and I ended up going to bed at 1:30.

Anyway, my rock solid night of sleep lasted till just shy of 4 AM, when the flagpole in my back that I call a spine woke me up yet again. That's right, I'm 25 years old and I have back problems. Good times. I'm going to the chiropractor this Saturday to get my world rocked, and hopefully that'll help. If not, the chiropractor's receptionist is really hot, so I got that going for me. For the moment, here I am, updating the blog at 4:30 in the morning because when I lay down it feels like someone's playing accordian with my backbone.

I wrote a few weeks ago about how lame the month of February is, but I forgot one thing about it: it goes by in about twenty minutes. It just occurred to me that tomorrow is the 24th already. March of course brings with it the basketball tournament, the beginning of a teasing of thinking about starting to get warm weather, but most of all, St. Patrick's Day! I never fully appreciated the greatness of this holiday until I moved to Chicago. Last St. Patty's Day was clearly one of my top three weekends of 2005. The way this city comes alive for that day is unbelievable. I mean, we dye the freaking river green! That's bringing the intensity.

For a while I kind of found the idea of everyone celebrating St. Patrick's Day kind of silly. I just wondered how actual Irish people felt about the fact that it was a day meant to honor a saint, but everyone just kind of took it upon themselves to get steamin' piss drunk and act like they're Irish for a day. Then I realized we're talking about Irish people here. Last year sealed the deal too, because as part of my first Chicago St. Patty's Day celebration, I met an actual Irishman, straight from Dublin (whom I later discovered to be a co-worker, but that's neither here nor there). I asked him how he felt about people exploiting this Irish holiday, and he just laughed and said, "I think it's great, man. Everybody's Irish today." Only he said it with that really cool Irish accent that I can't really effectuate in print. So, I feel like I have official indemnification straight from Ireland.

Some friends of ours here in Chicago host what's becoming an annual St. Patrick's Day kegs and eggs party, beginning at 9 am. It just got moved from Saturday the 18th to Saturday the 11th, so I need to start mentally preparing. The 9 am kickoff was hard enough to do in college, but these days I've got two to three per year in me at best, and there has to be a damn good reason. Well, trust me, St. Patty's Day in Chicago is a damn good reason. Expect the text messages and drunk calls to abound that day. I smell running diary...

Windsor: Part Deux

2006-02-16T17:50:00.000-06:00

If you're just joining us, scroll down and read the previous post first, as this is part deux of the weekend recap...

6:00 PM: Deemo and I donâ€™t even bother going to the hotel, choosing instead to park at the casino. Little do I know that we would not be returning until it was time to leave on Sunday, not even to take our bags out of the car.

6:03 PM: Let me just say real quickly that I think itâ€™s hilarious how much we make fun of Canada for absolutely no reason. In fact, I think thatâ€™s the reason we make fun of them so much, because we really have no reason to dislike them at all. Theyâ€™re one of the most peaceful cultures that has ever lived on the planet. Speaking of which, do you know why Canadians only have sex doggy-style?

6:04 PM: So they can both watch the hockey game.

6:09 PM: We start off with some horse races on the nickel slot floor, to get our gambling blood flowing. I have two hundred Canadian dollars in my pocket. Itâ€™s extremely dangerous when youâ€™re carrying money that looks to you like Monopoly money. This could very well set the world indoor record for the fastest $200.

6:33 PM: Iâ€™m sitting down at my first real casino table. Oh, yeah. This canâ€™t miss. Three card poker is the game, ten dollar minimum bet. Hey, Iâ€™ve got Wagner by my side. What could possibly go wrong?

6:48 PM: Down to my last five bucks out of eighty. Well, that was fun.

6:49 PM: Straight! 6 to 1 payout on my pair plus bet! Weâ€™re back in businessâ€¦

6:51 PM: Another straight! I think I could used to thisâ€¦

6:59 PM: We had agreed to meet up at 7 pm to determine a plan. Hitting three card straights like itâ€™s my job sounds like a plan to me, but this weekend is about Yaney. So I stroll to the cashier, and somehow, by the grace of the gambling gods, Iâ€™m up $225. Ok, then.

7:42 PM: Beer towers at The Honest Lawyer. Oh yeah, it would probably be smart to eat dinner too, huh? Details, detailsâ€¦

8:46 PM: Shots of Jaeger on the house for the whole bachelor party. No, not Jaeger bombs. Shots of Jaeger. Oh, yeah. This canâ€™t miss.

8:49 PM: It hasnâ€™t occurred to me yet that Becky is the only girl at the bachelor party.

8:51 PM: It just occurred to me that Becky is the only girl at the bachelor party.

8:56 PM: I just dropped my cell phone in the toilet! Nooooooooooo!!!!! I immediately open it up to see a blank white screen. Son of bitchfaces. This very nearly ruins my weekend. Not the least of which because I was taking notes in the phoneâ€™s digital notepad for this very column. So, if the rest of this sounds confusing, or like I made it up, thatâ€™s why...right. Thatâ€™s why.

9:38 PM: The hour is upon us. Time to hit up a local den of iniquity. Jasonâ€™s is the destination. Iâ€™m glad some people know where the hell theyâ€™re going this weekend, because Iâ€™m pretty much worthless to the group as a whole.

9:53 PM: Believe it or not, this is my first time entering a strip club. I like what theyâ€™ve done with the place.

9:59 PM: Since Iâ€™m at a high-class joint and all, I feel the need to order an amaretto on the rocks. Two minutes later, the waitress hands me a four ounce shot glass full of ice, with amaretto filling in the cracks.
Waitress: â€œThatâ€™ll be $8.25.â€�
Me: â€œUm, you can go ahead and bring me a Molson while youâ€™re at it, because Iâ€™m going to be done with this before you get back to the bar.â€�
Seriously, Iâ€™ve taken cough medicine in bigger doses.

10:15 PM: Weâ€™re taking up a collection to get Yaney on stage. Oh, yeah. This canâ€™t miss.

10:23 PM: Iâ€™m officially in money-is-no-object mode. Beers and lap dances for all.

10:28 PM: Just put the battery back in my cell phone, trying the â€œletâ€™s see if itâ€™ll dry out and magically work againâ€� method. A brief glimmer, then a blank white screen. Damn it all.

10:37 PM: This really is a unique experience. Iâ€™m sitting in a club with friends, drinking beers, chatting away as if everything is normal, and then I look up and a woman is on stage taking her clothes off. Meanwhile, for a mere twenty dollars, I can see any one of these women walking by naked in a private room. Maybe Canada isnâ€™t so bad after all.

10:59 PM: Becky definitely needs a lap dance. That much is clear now. Letâ€™s see, the Spanish-looking one in the teal dress will do.

11:04 PM: Iâ€™ve got to hand it to Becky. Sheâ€™s taking this pretty well.

11:06 PM: Wow. That was priceless. Best twenty Canadian dollars Iâ€™ve ever spent.

11:23 PM: Yaney is now up on stage in a giant stiletto heel-shaped chair awaiting his fate at the hands of four curvaceous Jasonâ€™s employees.

11:25 PM: Yaney now has his hands on the chair and pants down, getting whipped by four strippers. Good luck explaining that one to the fiancÃ©e. Let me emphasize here that the only time I ever want to see Yaneyâ€™s ass is with four strippers surrounding him, whipping him with a belt. And I mean FOUR strippers. Not three.

11:43 PM: Somehow weâ€™re at a different strip club now. Not too sure how that happened. Itâ€™s getting to be blur time again. I think the thing that fascinates me most about these places is the way youâ€™ll see one of these girls just walking around the floor nonchalantly, just another employee, then you turn your head, and theyâ€™re naked and straddling someone whoâ€™s sitting three feet in front of you. How many places can you see something like that?

11:49 PM: I think Iâ€™m in the middle of one of my drunken philosophical ramblings with Becky. God, Iâ€™m a dick.

12:00 AM: Somehow weâ€™re back at the casino. Not too sure how that happened either. Now Iâ€™m in possibly an even worse situation than I was before. I already won money, so not only am I confident, but now Iâ€™m drunk, so money means even less to me. Diving into probably my thirteenth Molson of the night.

12:05 AM: Back to horse races. The horse race game isnâ€™t about the money. Itâ€™s about making bets with seemingly meaningless Windsor Casino tokens, then standing up in your seat and screaming at the top of your lungs for your horse as he comes around the bend. For some reason, I feel the need to tell Becky at the beginning of every race, â€œIf these two horses winâ€¦weâ€™re going to be rich people.â€�

1:00 AM: Becky and I wander the casino floor for a while looking for everyone, because I think weâ€™re heading back to the hotel. For some stupid reason, Iâ€™m getting the bright idea that itâ€™s time for me to take my winnings back to the poker table. Easy, Rodâ€¦

1:15 AM: Well, that was a quick sixty bucks.

1:46 AM: Iâ€™m pretty sure everyone left, but it just dawned on me: Iâ€™m at the casino. Iâ€™m in Windsor. This isnâ€™t the real world. Nothing bad is going to happen. I can just sit at the table and keep playing all night and somehow everything will work out. Thatâ€™s what the Molson is telling me anyway.

1:52 AM: Just got this text message from Mark: "You guys need to leave town more often." I know exactly what that means.

2:13 AM: Back at the Three Card Poker table and Iâ€™ve just been informed that the casino stops serving beer at 2:00. Wait a minuteâ€¦Iâ€™m in the middle of Canadaâ€™s answer to Sin City, where I can gamble on whatever I want, give women money to get naked, and I canâ€™t have a beer because itâ€™s after 2 in the morning? In what way does this make sense?

2:14 AM: Actually, on second thought, this is probably the best thing that could have possibly happened to me right now.

2:30 AM: Apparently my luck from earlier was only the beginning. I really like this game.

2:47 AM: Are the odds of drawing a three card straight 1 out of 6? Because the way I'm hitting, it sure as hell seems like it.

3:00 AM: I just looked down and saw four $100 chips in front of me, along with a stack of $25 chips. Somehow, Iâ€™m up about $600. Alright, then. Now if only the girl sitting next to me that Iâ€™ve been hitting on isnâ€™t with some huge guy thatâ€™s about to step out of the shadows and snap my neck, Iâ€™ll be all set.

3:12 AM: Well then, apparently sheâ€™s here on a date. Iâ€™ll be waiting for my neck to snap any minute now.

3:43 AM: Trying to guess the Arab-looking dealer's country of origin, and I'm just spitting out random Middle Eastern countries. I'm sure she appreciates that. God, I'm a dick.

4:27 AM: Finally meet up with the few people that are left to head back to the hotel. Well, I guess I shouldnâ€™t say back to the hotel, considering we havenâ€™t been there yet. I cash out for $677 American. Subtract the $200 I started with, along with the money I spent in five hours at the bar and strip clubs andâ€¦WOW. What the hell just happened? I don't know, but I'm getting the hell out of here before they change their minds.

5:00 AM: So, apparently coming back from the casino at 5 am wasnâ€™t the normal thing to do, considering everyone is already asleep. I curl up on the floor with nothing in the way of pillows or blankets, and couldnâ€™t care less.

5:01 AM: Me: Deemo, you want to go back to the casino?
Deemo: Dude, I canâ€™t. Iâ€™m cleaned out.
Me: What if I give you a hundred to play with?
Deemo: (A grimace of pain, followed by a grin of evil delight)â€¦Alright. Letâ€™s go.

5:05 AM: Walking down the street, on our way BACK to the casino. What in Godâ€™s holy name is wrong with us?

5:32 AM: Eating breakfast because itâ€™s been almost twelve hours since I ate last and Iâ€™m actually starting to sober up. Hey, thereâ€™s the girl I was hitting on at the table earlier! Andâ€¦ok, I guess her date is a huge guy who could easily snap my neck. Letâ€™s get the hell out of here, shall we?

5:49 AM: Bellying up to the poker table again. I found my same dealer from earlier. Brentâ€™s the man.

6:03 AM: Iâ€™m down fifty, and donâ€™t give a shit. Weâ€™re trading Wedding Crasher lines with the dealer. God, life is good.

6:30 AM: The hundred I started with is history. Eh. Whatever. Deemoâ€™s up, so the trip back was worth it. I think Iâ€™m just now getting tired.

6:31 AM: Yep. Just hit the brick wall. Wow. I might actually pass out with my head on the green felt.

7:00 AM: The front doors to Casino Windsor burst open and out stumble Deemo and I, rubbing our eyes, and buttoning up our shirts because it still hasnâ€™t occurred to us to go to the car and get our coats for the half mile walk back to the hotel. We look up, across the river, and see the glass skyscrapers of downtown Detroit glistening in the early morning sunlight. Thereâ€™s something about the way the rising sun hits the red and blue windows that still sport the logo of Super Bowl XL that takes us aback for a second, and gives us a â€œholy crap, did all that seriously just happenâ€� moment. Looking at my watch, I realize out loud, â€œI have to be at work in 24 hours.â€� Reality is tapping at the door, but weâ€™re looking through the peephole and ignoring it. Weâ€™re well aware of the consequences that are coming. We know how miserable the next two and a half days of our lives are going to be. But right now, we donâ€™t give a shit. Weâ€™re strolling along the banks of the Detroit River with wads of money in our pockets, at the tail end of a thirty-hour bender, living the mid-twenties dream. This is the kind of shit that makes you shake your head and think, â€œGod, itâ€™s just good to be alive.â€� Maybe some day Iâ€™ll look back and be ashamed of spending a weekend like this. But right nowâ€¦Iâ€™ll take it.

A Weekend in BG, and, oh yeah, Windsor...

2006-02-15T02:27:00.000-06:00

Like the great Bill Simmons, I have a few rules in life. And one is that any time I visit a college campus and a casino in the same weekend, I have to keep a running diary. This weekend happened to feature the bachelor party of one Steve Yaney, an original resident of the Hacienda. We started things off Friday night visiting Deemoâ€™s sister, Jenny, at Bowling Green. Without further ado, hereâ€™s what transpired:

Friday, February 10th, 5:15 PM (CST): Standing at the corner of Clark and Randolph, waiting for another one of Deemo and Iâ€™s flawless pick-up-from-work-and-skate-out-of-the-city-as-quickly-as-possible routines. Do you ever get the feeling that you know whatâ€™s coming, but you have no idea what youâ€™re actually in for? Terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. Kind of like all great things in life.

5:24 PM: Me: Shit! I forgot my phone charger.
Deemo: Well, youâ€™re gonna have a dead phone.
Me: (in my mind): Alright, then.

6:28 PM: â€œWelcome to Indianaâ€�. Ahhh, Indiana. My favorite state in the union. Not only do you get to drive in a straight line for three and a half solid hours, getting crappy cell phone reception, staring at nothing but corn, and having only Hardeeâ€™s, Fazoliâ€™s, and Subway to choose from every 15 miles, you have to pay a freaking toll for it. Indiana doesnâ€™t go on daylight savings time. Did you know that? They just decided against it. Whatâ€™s that, other forty-nine states in the union? Daylight savings time? Nah, go ahead...weâ€™re good. With the exception of the campus of Notre Dame, this entire state could sink into the earth for all I care.

8:03 PM (EST): Do you know what the second largest city in Indiana is? Exactly. Neither do I.

9:58 PM : â€œWelcome to Ohio.â€� Wow. The very northwest corner of Ohio might actually be more barren than Indiana. I mean there is just nothing here.

10:15 PM: Iâ€™m officially 25 years old to the minute. Woohoo! My car insurance goes down! Oh, waitâ€¦I donâ€™t drive. Eh.

10:32 PM: Rolling into BG. Iâ€™m telling you, no matter how long Iâ€™m away, or where it is I come back to, the feeling of showing up on a college campus just never gets old. As soon as I see the crappy houses with huge porches, beat-up grills, and trash in the yards, I just feel at home. Itâ€™s like I never left.

10:48 PM: Chilling with Jenny, Megan, and Lauren, killing some Miller High Life. Why do I get the feeling that the girl in the crescent moon really is going to be talking to me before this night is over?

11:30 PM: Lauren just showed us her ass for the first time already. Oh, yeah. I like where this is going a lot.

12:14 AM: We pile into a car to go to the bars. Pile into a car to go to the bars. This is a new concept for me. Just heard the first line of the night that made me laugh out loud. Lauren, after being asked if sheâ€™s OK to drive: â€œI hope so. You guys are gonna have to stick with me here.â€�

12:15 AM: Weâ€™re there already. Wow, we just drove roughly a third of a mile. I hope these girls arenâ€™t planning on moving to Chicago any time soon.

12:18 AM: Weâ€™re officially immersed in the BG bar scene, â€œUptown-Downtownâ€� being our watering hole of choice. The first shots are dispersed and dispensed. Oh, yeah. I like where this going a lot.

12:26 AM: We hit the upstairs scene, where the girls know the bartender and sheâ€™s going to conveniently forget to ring in our drinks. Ahhh, senior year. Beautiful thing. The lights are dim, the musicâ€™s loud, and the dance floor is packed.

12:39 AM: OK, Iâ€™m pretty sure this song just said, â€œShake your laffy taffyâ€¦your laffy taffy.â€�

12:40 AM: Noâ€¦thereâ€™s no way.

12:41 AM: Yepâ€¦â€œShake your laffy taffy.â€�

12:48 AM: So, apparently in this bar, youâ€™re either a student, or a thirty-seven year old gang member.

12:55 AM: Deemo just coined a brilliant new term: Dickscreen. Dickscreen is when youâ€™re hanging out with a bunch of girls, and you can stand behind them and stare down dudes you donâ€™t like, but otherwise wouldnâ€™t stare down, because you know the girls will stop anything from happeningâ€¦Dickscreen. Sheer brilliance.

1:10 AM: Did I see this correctly? Art Shell has been hired as the Raidersâ€™ new head coach? Whatâ€™s next? Is Marty Schottenheimer coming back to the Browns? Is Lou Piniella coming back to the Reds? Are the New Kids on the Block getting back together? What in the name of Jason Priestly is going on here?

2:13 AM: Deemo gets his tab for the night, which contains no less than twenty beers and fifteen shots. The total? Ten dollars. Ahhh, college bars where the bartenders are unsupervisedâ€¦

2:30 AM: We show up at the late night party, with High Life in hand. Things are already getting a little blurry. And I used to do this three nights a week? Good lord. Waitâ€¦I meanâ€¦God, I miss this life.

3:00 AM: Iâ€™m officially in Iâ€™m-too-drunk-to-sound-or-look-coherent-so-Iâ€™m-just-going-to-sit-on-the-couch-and-be-the-mellow-guy mode.

3:26 AM: The chair I was sitting in just imploded on itself, dumping me on the floor. Iâ€™m pretty sure it was broken before I sat down. Umâ€¦yeah. Thatâ€™s what weâ€™re gonna go with.

3:56 AM: Somehow I ended up in an upstairs bedroom. Not exactly sure how. The world is a blur of beer bottles, cigarette smoke, a six headed lamp that looks like something from War of the Worlds, Megan passed out next to me, and random chatter thatâ€™s probably English, but I canâ€™t really be sure of anything right now. Have I mentioned how much I miss this life?

4:13 AM: What? What happened?

4:39 AM: zpoiaj;lkejlkjzlxjbopiuoijoj;ljsoaidbepoibjlkmaqewiouoiahdlsjhrtjkaopdinmua; ldkfjtl;eqkrjbnoabidjflkntao;fiunjaodrflt/akjenopajdl;fkmta

5:00 AM: Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a conversation and youâ€™re not really sure how you got there or how long itâ€™s been going on? Deemo and I are finally following through on my earlier plan of convincing someone that Iâ€™m an English professor at Bowling Green. I think itâ€™s actually working. I also think itâ€™s Jennyâ€™s boyfriend Iâ€™m talking to. Oops.

5:17 AM: Crammed into the backseat of a car again. No idea where I am.

5:19 AM: Somehow thereâ€™s a dude on top of us all of a sudden.

5:20 AM: Ok, heâ€™s goneâ€¦whatever.

5:30 AM: Brushing my teeth. Thatâ€™s right, brushing my teethâ€¦at 5:30 AM. Have I mentioned how much I miss this life?

Saturday, February 11th, 12:30 PM: Unbeknownst to me, this is the last sixty minutes Iâ€™m going to be sober the entire weekend.

1:00 PM: Meeting Yaney and his dudes at Frickerâ€™s for lunch. The bachelor party has officially begun. Drinking again already. I never learn.

1:21 PM: A family with three kids about five and eight years old just sat down next to us. God, these kids are going to be scarred for life.

2:38 PM: Back at Jennyâ€™s before hitting the road. Taking a hot shower-cold beer. Itâ€™s the simple things in life. It really is.

4:10 PM: Definitely a good decision to have a buzz for the afternoon drive to Windsor. Seriously, is there anything better than the afternoon buzz?

4:34 PM: Deemo is in rare form this weekend: â€œWhy do half of all the Great Lakes belong to Canada? Thatâ€™s bullshit. That goes against everything Manifest Destiny stands for. We own your country anyway. Stupid Canada.â€�

4:35 PM: Deemoâ€™s trademark completing of both sides of the argument without anyone else ever saying a word: â€œAlthough, I guess itâ€™s just water. What the hell does that do for you? Good job, dumbasses. Have your stupid half of a lake.â€�

5:31 PM: Weâ€™ve been on Canadian soil for about twenty seconds and Deemo is officially in â€œFuck Canadaâ€� mode: â€œWhat the hell are they gonna ask you at the border? â€˜What are you bringing into the country?â€™ Weâ€™re bringing our money that weâ€™re dumping into your economy, you fucks. Get the hell out of here and go hump a moose.â€�

5:49 PM: Iâ€™m literally two miles outside of the American border, and I canâ€™t get cell phone reception? And what the hell is this triangle symbol on my phone? Iâ€™ve never even seen that before. How the hell do they even know Iâ€™m in Canada? Stupid Canucks. I think Iâ€™m starting to see Deemoâ€™s point. God, thatâ€™s scary.

OK, I've decided that this is a long enough post and to continue from here would just wear on your attention span. Therefore, the Windsor segment is coming up. TO BE CONTINUED...

Coming soon...Tales from Windsor

2006-02-12T21:31:00.000-06:00

Just a quick post to let everyone know that I successfully survived the debauchery this weekend, didn't get arrested, didn't get any kneecaps broken, and actually came out on top. I'll be posting shortly with a Simmons-esque running diary of the events of the weekend, but right now, my mind is absolutely fried, and I'm struggling to get this single paragraph out and have it make something resembling sense. Just need a full night and day of trying to piece my mind back together and figure out just what the hell happened in the last fourty-eight hours. Right now, unfortunately, the brick wall of reality is repeatedly slamming me in the face, the way it tends to do when you see the sun rise in a foreign country and have to be at work in 24 hours, 260 miles away.

Don't go, Chad. Please don't go...

2006-02-06T23:09:00.000-06:00

The day after the Super Bowl. Or, in other words, the worst day of the year. The ultimate sports hangover day. And just to hammer the point home, and make sure we know that our beloved pastime is leaving us for another seven months, the sports world makes sure it gives us virtually nothing to entertain ourselves with for the entire month of February.

Seriously, is there a more boring month of the year than February? Footballâ€™s over, baseball doesnâ€™t start for another two months, March Madness doesnâ€™t start tillâ€¦well, March. Youâ€™ve got NBA and NHL (well, this year anyway) right smack dab in the middle of their seventeen-month season where nothing exciting is happening. During the dog days of summer, when baseball season goes on cruise control, at least itâ€™s nice enough to go outside and enjoy yourself, do something productive on a Saturday afternoon, roller blade on the lake trail, play a pick up game of hoops, throw rocks at the little kids getting off the school bus (those poor suckersâ€™ legs just arenâ€™t long enough).

(Anyone reading whoâ€™s from Texas can just go ahead and skip this next paragraphâ€¦)

But February is that month where youâ€™re outside a total of 150 seconds every day, you see the sun for half an hour in the morning on your way into work--only youâ€™re looking at the ground the whole time because youâ€™re afraid of the wind ripping the skin off your face--and itâ€™s dark by the time you go home. If it werenâ€™t for my recent discovery of the Colbert Report on Comedy Central, a new season of Survivor starting, and an upcoming trip to Windsor, I would likely be relegated to reading email forwards and checking away messages for two hours a night before rolling down to Ballyâ€™s at 8:30, and turning in at 10:00 out of boredom more than anything else. (Speaking of which, I just worked out tonight for the first time in about a month. How miserable is that first workout after an extended period of apathy? Itâ€™s kind of like when you sleep with someone for the first time. You know youâ€™re doing it wrong, you know you probably look like an idiot, but you just keep your head down and try to get through it without anyone getting hurt.)

But this year in particular, I already miss my boys more than usual. For the last five months, whenever I would be at a bar and I would look up at a TV and see Bengal stripes, my heart would race. This weekend when I looked up and saw them, by virtue of a Steelers clip in which they had been playing the Bengals, it felt like being home for the summer and hearing a song that reminds you of freshman year of college. I miss them like an old friend. And Iâ€™m so bummed that I donâ€™t get to see them for another seven months. You have to understand, this was quite possibly the most exciting football season of my life. The Bengals and the Irish returning to legitimacy, and as an added bonus, my high school team going to the playoffs for the first time sinceâ€¦wait a minute, since 1989. The same year the Bengals went to the Super Bowl and ND won the national championship. Just what the hell is going on here, exactly?

I have to say, however, I certainly would have preferred an exciting finish. What exactly was that last night? That was the Super Bowl? Shockingly, I think the playing was actually worse than the officiating. Roethlisberger probably played the second worst game of his two years in the NFL, and it won him the Super Bowl at age 23. The only part of the night that was remotely interesting was the awarding of the MVP trophy, simply because I was at a loss as to who they were going to give it to. That award suddenly took on about as much legitimacy as that Bishopâ€™s Cross award that was always given at the end of the school year to whatever kid talked the least. (I would offer my apologies to any Bishop's Cross winners who happen to be reading, but, seriously, you know it's true.)

I mean, I guess they won the Super Bowl, so theyâ€™re the undisputed champs, but, good Lord. Did it even feel right that one of those teams had to win that game? Canâ€™t they do it like boxing, where they declare a â€œno contestâ€� and neither fighter gets paid? Then the belt goes back up for grabs, and they re-seed everybody and have an unprecedented February round robin? â€œThe Second Chance for All the Marbles,â€� or something like that? Or am I just grabbing at straws here for something to do in February? Right. Why donâ€™t you sit the next couple plays out, huh, Champ?

Anywho, I guess February does bring with it the countdown to St. Pattyâ€™s Day, the mark of only six more months till our one month of warm weather, my birthday, and of course, the most underrated of all holidaysâ€¦Presidentâ€™s Day. (Come on. Work with me here. I got nothinâ€™.) And, seriously, I really am going to Windsor this weekend. Be prepared for a full, uncensored rehashing. If you havenâ€™t heard from me by Tuesday morning, just go ahead and assume that Iâ€™m stuffed in a trunk somewhere with two broken knees, a dead hooker, a bottle of vodka, and three grand in cash strewn about.

As for CJ, Carson, Rudi, and the rest of the crew: until next time, my friendsâ€¦

Super Dilemma: Bitter or better?

2006-01-31T22:26:00.000-06:00

Well, the Super Bowl is this weekend, so I guess I have to declare a side. One thing I love about the Super Bowl is that itâ€™s the one game a year that youâ€™re not allowed to be neutral on. In any other football game of the year, if you donâ€™t have a vested interest in either team, be it negative or positive, youâ€™re just a casual observer. Just a fan of the sport. Even in the college national championship game you can be excused for being impartial. The World Series goes on too long to support a team you donâ€™t really care about, and the NBA and NHL finalsâ€¦well, letâ€™s just say people arenâ€™t exactly drawing lines in the sand.

But during Super Bowl week, the second question out of everyoneâ€™s mouth is, â€œSo, who are you rooting for?â€� It doesnâ€™t matter if youâ€™re an ex-player-fantasy-league-member-bet-placing football junkie, or a sixty year-old nun who doesnâ€™t own a TV and thinks football involves goalies and corner kicks, you better know who youâ€™re rooting for by 6 p.m. on Sunday. (Well, 5 pm for us CST'ers.)

Secondly, Iâ€™ve always been amused by these media members who act like the American public is disinterested in, unhappy with, or even insulted by the match-up of a certain Super Bowl or World Series. Skip Bayless wrote an indignant column on Page 2 about how lackluster this yearâ€™s Super Bowl is, and how bored he is to have to be there to report it. He claims that, â€œThe problem here is that, for the first time, the Super Bowl features two underdogs, two Cinderellas, two teams that came from nowhere on destiny-kissed rolls.â€� Um, the Seahawks went 13-3, were the number 1 seed in the NFC, and they have the MVP on their team. What exactly makes them "Cinderella"?

Basically, if a championship match-up in any sport doesnâ€™t feature a) the team that was the mediaâ€™s darling all year long that everyone wanted to see complete the script that had been written for them, (Colts) b) the long-reigning champion of said sport that everyone wants to see defend its title, (Patriots) c) a loud-mouth idiot that everyone loves to hate (T.O.) or d) at least one team from a major media market, (New York, L.A., Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia) then the American public, outside of the two participating cities, is supposedly up in arms over the excuse for a sporting event theyâ€™re being forced to watch.

How about this? These are the two teams that made it to the championship game, so thereâ€™s probably a damn good reason it happened. Iâ€™m sorry if this match-up isnâ€™t â€œsexyâ€� enough for you, but if thatâ€™s what youâ€™re looking for, go write for fucking Us Weekly, not the World Wide Leader in Sports. Not to mention, where exactly do you get the idea that no one is interested in this Super Bowl? Except for the 2004 Red Sox, we havenâ€™t had a team with a better story than this Steelers team in recent memory. The Bus is on the verge of retirement after a 15-2 season and a playoff loss to the long-reigning Patriots, and his teammates plead with him through tears to come back for one more year because they promise theyâ€™ll get him to the Super Bowl, in his hometown, no less? Then they have to win their last four games of the season in a row to make the playoffs as the sixth seed and proceed to beat the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd seeds all on the road on three consecutive weekends? What more do you want them to do?

Which brings me back to my dilemma, as mentioned at the top. The Steelersâ€™ story, as I just glossed, is quite a remarkable one and easy to admire and get behind. However, I am, as most of you know, a Bengals fan. As a Bengals fan, the Steelers are my sworn enemy. Theyâ€™re also the team that knocked our franchise quarterback and messiah out of the playoffs on his second play from scrimmage and made him questionable for the start of next season. This fact alone, of course, is more than enough for the meathead, unthinking, unfeeling fans among us to wish nothing but harm upon them the rest of the way. I, on the other hand, have somehow retained this uncanny ability to be at once a sports fan and a rational thinker. (Unheard of, I know. You should look into it, though. It makes your life a lot easier to not have your day ruined by strangers who have never met you and donâ€™t have your personal happiness on their agenda.) Iâ€™m pretty damn sure that von Oelhoffen did not intentionally blow out Carsonâ€™s knee, and that it had nothing to do with Pittsburghâ€™s game plan. Itâ€™s a game, people play hard, shit happens. Get over it.

Also, my obligatory hatred for the Steelers is really just now starting to brew, mostly because the Bengals sucked so bad for so long that it was never really much of a rivalry, and itâ€™s going to be just now in the upcoming years that the all-out battles between these two teams are really going to heat up.

Finally, how can you not respect the run the Steelers have been on? Ever since they lost to the Bengals the first weekend of December, they have been on an absolute mission. Seven wins in a row, in convincing fashion, when they needed every single one of them. Consider this: If the Steelers win this Sunday, they will have beaten the numbers 1,2, and 3 seeds from the AFC, the number 2 seed from the NFC, (Week 14 against the Bears) and the number 1 seed from the NFC (against the Seahawks this Sunday) all within two months of each other. Unless thereâ€™s a post-Super Bowl exhibition game against the Pats, I donâ€™t think they can do much more to prove theyâ€™re the champs.

Thereâ€™s also the Bus. The fact that heâ€™s an ND alum. And how fitting it would be to see him ride off into the sunset cradling the Lombardi trophy. Thereâ€™s Ben. I want to see my fellow Redhawk do well. And thereâ€™s also AFC vs. NFC. Letâ€™s face it. With the two conference fields coming into these NFL playoffs, it would be an absolute travesty if the AFC did not emerge victorious.

I think my brother said it best in an email last week: â€œIt's about having a spine and picking a side. This country is about winning and having a competitive spirit. It's not about sitting idle on the sidelines with no care of who wins or loses. It has been said that the only thing worse than hate is indifference. To be indifferent about the biggest athletic event of the year would be a horrible reality.â€�

Well said, bro. Thatâ€™s why Iâ€™m swallowing my pride and rooting for my mortal enemy this weekend. Honestly, they just goddamn deserve it. Iâ€™d like to think that at least some of them would do the same if the situation was reversed, but then againâ€¦theyâ€™re Pittsburgh fans. So, for this weekend, go Steelers. But as of Monday morningâ€¦itâ€™s all blood.

Friday Night in the Chi-Town

2006-01-28T00:05:00.000-06:00

Friday night, I walked out of work at 6 p.m., capping off a 12 day-130 hour stretch. An absolutely brutal two weeks that served as my â€œWelcome to Managementâ€� mushroom stamp. The only thing I wanted to do was put my feet up and drink a few beers. Mark was meeting people at the Union for happy hour, one of those 10 dollar all-you-can-drink-all-you-can-eat deals that sounds too good to be true. And the reason it sounds too good to be true is because, in reality, ten dollars all-you-can-drink-all-you-can-eat usually means all the flat Bud Light you can drink whenever you can fight your way to the bar, and burn-the-roof-of-your-mouth pizza thatâ€™s set on a table every twenty minutes that you have to fight Big Ten frat alums like hungry swine for, when all you really want is a Sam Adams and a hot burger all to yourself brought to you by an insincerely friendly waitress with a tongue ring and C-cups.

Now, donâ€™t get me wrong. Iâ€™m certainly not averse to the cheap deals that allow me to suck down water-flavored beer like Iâ€™m still in college every now and then. It just wasnâ€™t what I needed that night. And itâ€™s entirely my fault, because I knew before I even got on the train that it was a bad idea, but, alas, the beer was calling. I knew full well what I was getting myself into, but for some reason I went anyway. Well, it only took one trip to the bar and ten seconds of doing the slow-motion squeezing-between-jail-door-bars routine for me to realize I just didnâ€™t have it in me that night. Much to the bewilderment of my cohorts, I put my coat back on and left all the Jeremies, Joshes, and D.J.â€™s to fight each other for the attention of the newbie waitress who got stuck with the shitty happy hour shift that she wasnâ€™t going to make any tips on because the beer was â€œfree.â€�

Which left me, of course, in a curious situation: a single 24 year-old guy leaving a bar and going home at seven oâ€™clock on a Friday night because he didnâ€™t feel like being social (if thatâ€™s what you want to call it). Whatâ€™s wrong with this picture? part of me asked. This is supposed to be my roaring twenties. Iâ€™m supposed to be packed into meat markets, paying five dollars a beer, oozing my way through jam packed crowds amid a blue cloud of smoke, and screaming to make myself heard for seven consecutive hours just because itâ€™s Friday night. Iâ€™m supposed to wind up at Streeterâ€™s at three a.m., debating with myself for the third weekend in a row if the bartender really is attractive or if I just think that because her shirt covers about 3% of her boobs in order to take the attention away from her questionable-at-best face, then recognizing the fact that it doesnâ€™t really matter anyway because, if push came to shove, I wouldnâ€™t even think twice about it.

Instead, I ended up at home, making a frozen Home Run Inn, reading Bill Simmons, and drinking by myself. And you know what? I donâ€™t care. More and more, I go out on weekends, almost out of a feeling of obligation more than anything else, a scene similar to the one described above plays out, and I come home, seventy dollars poorer, still alone, reeking of smoke, all memory of what happened that night blurry at best, and dialing everyone in my phone, hoping to find someone awake because I just canâ€™t live with the idea of letting the night end without something happening. Why do we do this to ourselves?

The answer can be found in the wording I used two paragraphs up. â€œsupposed to.â€� It seems like we repeat this cycle of degradation weekend after weekend because we feel like weâ€™re supposed to. Itâ€™s what weâ€™ve grown accustomed to, and after a while, we just didnâ€™t know how to do anything else. â€œSo, what else do you want to do on weekends, then, smart ass?â€� you might ask. Honestly, I donâ€™t know. I havenâ€™t figured that part out yet. What I do know is that I donâ€™t want to shoehorn myself into a bar where I canâ€™t hear myself think, much less what the person next to me is saying, just because Iâ€™m considered a loser if I donâ€™t. I donâ€™t feel unhappy or inadequate because Iâ€™m sitting at home on a Friday night, peacefully sipping draft beer from my kegerator and listening to G. Love. I sometimes feel unhappy and inadequate because I donâ€™t have a beautiful woman to stay at home and be lame with, but thatâ€™s a different issue altogether.

Neither am I saying that Iâ€™m against the bar scene entirely, or that Iâ€™m swearing off bars for life. Indeed, I sometimes find a kind of surreal peace by sitting in the middle of a crowded bar, letting a nice buzz slowly take over, feeling the music rattling the interior of my ears, and just looking through the crowd of faces, these throngs of people from all over the city, all cramming into this one tiny space for a few hours, none of them having any clue who I am or where I come from, and just sitting there, thinking and feeling nothing. Itâ€™s kind of rewarding to find peace in the middle of utter chaos.

But the point is that if I decide to do that, itâ€™s going to be because I want to. Not just because itâ€™s a weekend night and Iâ€™m â€œsupposed to.â€� The freedom of being in your mid-twenties and single is not in being able to party till the sun comes up and never come home or have to answer to anyone. Itâ€™s in having the choice to do that based on whether or not you want to, not based on the social agenda that a societal custom has set for you.

The point here (other than trying to rationalize why my party intensity is a fraction of its once legendary stature) is that this theme can be applied to a lot of different areas of your life. How many things do you do just because youâ€™re accustomed to doing them? How many things have you made yourself believe youâ€™re interested in or care about just because you were told to so many times? Why do people believe that performers who have songs written for them, an image created for them, and donâ€™t even sing while performing live deserve the title of artist, let alone fame and riches? Why does it make sense for a young couple with a combined annual income of $65,000 to start off their financial life together by going $5,000 in debt just so that the woman can have a worthless rock on her finger thatâ€™s so expensive only because its entire world supply is owned by two people?

Iâ€™m not telling you to quit your job and go join Green Peace. Just try a little critical thinking now and then. Learn the art of stepping back and looking at things objectively, separating the truth from the bullshit, and recognizing whether you believe something because you truly believe it, or because youâ€™ve been programmed to. In other words, keep it real. And now, stay tuned for the recap of the eighty-dollar, nine-hour bender that will likely be my Saturday nightâ€¦

Still Alive Over Here...

2006-01-24T23:06:00.000-06:00

In case you were thinking, "Well, your site was a cool idea for a while, Steve, but apparently it was just a passing whim that you're not going to follow through on just like most other things you ever aspire to..." let me say in my defense that I worked seventy hours last week, including Saturday and Sunday, and am on pace to log about 55-60 between Monday and Friday this week, so, as you can imagine, blogging hasn't exactly been something I've had the luxury of time to do. For those who are so far out of the loop or so incredibly lame that they actually don't know what's going on in my life, I just started a new management position last week, and Monday the 23rd was our opening day, so things have been slightly hectic. (There are boucous of boring details missing there that I'm going to assume you're not interested in; I mean, I work for a document services company; I think Butter might actually have a more interesting job than me; nevertheless, if you really want to know about it, ask me later, it's actually kind of cool.)

Anywho...
I do take it into consideration that the hope of a blog update or two is the only thing that gets some people through the work day (particularly some people who work night shifts in NYC) so I hope to have a fresh commentary up on the board by the weekend. In the meantime, for a little amusement, scroll all the way to the bottom and check out the exchange that took place in the comments section of my first post.

Celebrity Vending Machine: Must Have Correct Change When Stupid Whore is Flashing

2006-01-19T19:27:00.000-06:00

(Originally posted on worldfinest. blogspot.com on 01.04.2006)

Since the world has selected me as the sole remaining voice of reason and protectorate of what we used to know as dignity and common sense in societal issues, allow me to pose a question that has blown my mind for a year or two now: Why the #$*@!! is Paris Hilton famous? Seriously, why do I know who she is? My first reaction when I heard about the Paris Hilton sex tape was: "Who the fuck is Paris Hilton and why am I supposed to care that sheâ€™s making amateur porn?" After learning that she was the spoiled rich bimbo daughter of the Hilton Hotel franchise, I thought, "Oh. So, who gives a shit? I guess now sheâ€™s going to embarrass her family, cause their stock to go down, be ostracized from Thanksgiving dinners, and be the punch line to a dirty joke within a week. Whoopty-doo. Put Tiny Toons back on."

Much to my shock/dismay/chagrin/actually-what-am-I-saying-I-didnâ€™t-really-care, she instantly became one of the most popular celebrities in the country. Within a year, she had her own show and was hosting Saturday Night Live. I didnâ€™t understand it. Did I miss something? Was she a one-time great recording artist that hit rock bottom and America was giving her a second chance? Was she an amateur porn star that was crossing over into the mainstream and showing the world that itâ€™s OK for members of the adult film industry to keep their clothes on and make an honest living in entertainment? Or was it actually true that our society had become so fickle and soulless that we actually reward this kind of behavior by instantly showering fame and riches on any whore who comes out with a video tape of herself getting bulldogged in a hotel room under night vision?

For a while, I assumed she was just the flavor of the week, and that she would soon be deposited in the same pop culture refuse bin as Rob and Amber. But, for whatever reason, Iâ€™m still hearing about her. The main source of my bewilderment is simple: What does she do? She doesnâ€™t sing (which is hardly even a requirement to make it in the music industry any more). She sure as shit canâ€™t act (as evidenced by her insulting appearance on SNL in yet another pathetic installment of that down-spiraling once-great show). And finallyâ€¦SHEâ€™S NOT EVEN ATTRACTIVE! Yeah, thatâ€™s right. I know you just assumed sheâ€™s gorgeous because sheâ€™s tall, thin, blonde, and standing in front of a camera. But look again. Take off the rose colored glasses that MTV and Entertainment Tonight have sewn to your head, and look at the world through your own eyes again. She is not attractive. Not that this characteristic alone would validate her mind-boggling presence in the limelight, but at least it would make something resembling sense. Iâ€™ll accept superficiality over outright nonsense.

Now, Iâ€™m certainly not embarking on a crusade to determine who is and is not worthy of celebrity; Iâ€™m simply pointing out the most extreme example. Does Tara Reid deserve to have her own show? I wonâ€™t dignify that with a response. Tara shouldnâ€™t be allowed to act in the Christmas play my little cousins put on for my grandparents in our living room. Sheâ€™s that bad. But at least she sucks at something. At least we can categorize her as a terrible actor. I can at least fathom her celebrity because her case is not exactly a rarity: atrocious actor, smoking hot, hard working agent, instant millionaire.

With Hilton on the other hand, the sheep followed the farmer to market so fast and so obediently, no one bothered to stop and ask, "Wait! Why are we celebrating her? What has she done? What does she do? What art form does she fall under? Why do I care that her stupid little dog has a new pink hat?"

Seriously, guys. Can we please develop some sort of criteria that people have to meet in order to be considered a celebrity? Give me the guy who beat Super Mario Brothers 3 in eight minutes. At least I would have one, maybe even two questions to ask him (namely: How long did it take you? and, Whenâ€™s the last time you saw a woman naked?) Give me something to work with. Throw me a bone here. I will now remove my eyeballs with a rusty butter knife and fill the sockets with silly putty.

An Evening with the Blackhawks...and a new friend from Long Island

2006-01-18T00:36:00.000-06:00

Last night, Mark took me to the Blackhawks-Islanders game with the club level seats that his sister gave him as a Christmas present. First of all, thank you, Shanna. The seats were fantastic. In fact, we were so close we could actually see how hot the Ice Chicks really are, instead of just assuming that theyâ€™re hot because theyâ€™re wearing tight black pants and have long hair.

Now, this event is not exactly noteworthy in and of itself. Fortunately, there was an Islanders fan sitting directly behind us who put on such an outstanding display of unintentional comedy, I just had to put it in print. Itâ€™s not even that he was really obnoxious. Just not funny in the slightest, but trying really hard, and absolutely convinced that heâ€™s not only funny, but maybe even witty. You may not have known this, but these guys tend to be named Eric. Only they go by â€œRicâ€� without the â€œk.â€� You know this guy. Heâ€™s the guy that still wears a digital watch with a rubber band, pulls the â€œWhatâ€™s that on your shirt?â€� trick, and yells things like, â€œGet that ref some glasses!â€� So, for lack of knowing the guyâ€™s name, Iâ€™ll refer to him as â€œRic.â€�

Ric had a comment for everything and couldnâ€™t let anything in the game happen without his expert analysis. Every time the Blackhawks would put a slap shot right on goal that the goalie had to make a great save for, Ric would yell, â€œNOT EVEN CLOSE!â€� At intermission, when a video image of a gray haired man making an announcement came up on the scoreboard, he said, â€œI donâ€™t want to hear from Old Man River.â€� Old Man River? Thatâ€™s so not funny, itâ€™s funny how not funny it is. Unintentional comedy at its best. Ricâ€™s pearls of wisdom will be better presented in snippets than a cohesive, flowing narrative, so thatâ€™s how Iâ€™ll proceed from hereâ€¦

First off, I didnâ€™t think it was possible for there to be a less intimidating sports team name than the â€œIslanders.â€� That is, until I heard this guy referring to them as the â€œIsles.â€� (Obviously, â€œIslandersâ€� is far too long of a name to cheer, so he shortened â€œislandâ€� to its abbreviated form, â€œisleâ€�. Very clever, Ric.) And thatâ€™s what we would hear every two and a half minutes. â€œLETâ€™S GO ISLES!â€� â€œGET THE PUCK OUT OF THERE, ISLES!â€� â€œCOME ON, ISLES!â€� Letâ€™s face it. The only place the average person ever hears the word â€œisleâ€� is in the Gilliganâ€™s Island theme song. Any word that invokes an image of Bob Denver in a sailor hat is simply not intimidating. Moving right alongâ€¦

The first point in the night when Mark and I realized we were in for a show was when the Islanders had the puck in the Blackhawksâ€™ zone and were trying to center it up for a shot. â€œGET IT OUT!â€� yelled Ric directly in my ear. Mark and I half-turned to each other with a confused look on our faces. â€œGet it out?â€� Mark repeated. â€œIsnâ€™t it in our zone?â€� I said.

Toward the end of a scoreless first period, Ric declared, â€œThis is gonna be one of those games where someone scores in the last minute.â€� Yeah. Ya know, one of those games.

An errant puck went flying over the side glass and into the stands at about sixty miles an hour. Before it even stopped, as if he was waiting for it, Ric yelled out, â€œThereâ€™s a lucky fan!â€� Right. Tell that to the mother of the girl that was killed by a speeding puck three years ago. Dick.

Of course, the entire night was replete with the obligatory, repeated screams of, â€œGET IT OUT OF THERE!â€� â€œCENTER IT UP!â€� â€œPUT IT IN THE GOAL!â€� â€œCLEAR THE PUCK!â€� Thank you, Captain Obvious! Permission to come aboard, sir!

Shortly into the second period, Alexei Yashin scored the first goal of the game for the Islanders. According to Mark, Alexei is currently dating supermodel Carol Alt. What would I do without this kid?

(Random interjection: The Bullsâ€™ championship banners hanging in the United Center look impressive when you first see them: 19 giant banners that stretch the width of the arena, with six extra large ones in the center, depicting the NBA championship trophy. Looks daunting, like the spoils of a long-ruling empire, until you notice that for each of their six championship years, they hung a â€œDivision Championsâ€� banner, a â€œConference Championsâ€� banner, and a â€œWorld Championsâ€� banner. So, this seemingly endless display of championships is all representative of their eight-year, six-crown run in the 90â€™s, plus one divisional champion banner from 1975. Why donâ€™t they just hang up a giant picture of MJ and be done with it?)

A slap shot went high over the net and smacked near the top of the glass: â€œIf that puck was an inch higher, thereâ€™d be a foster parent in here!â€� Waitâ€¦what? What does that even mean? I was at a complete loss, but fortunately Mark stepped up to the plate: â€œSoâ€¦apparently, if you catch a puck, you get toâ€¦adopt a kid?â€�

To his credit, Ric actually had a few jokes that carried a common theme. Sprinkled throughout the night were these three knee-slappers: â€œMan, theyâ€™re giving it up like a prom date!â€� â€œMan, weâ€™re getting luckier than a prom date!â€� (Luckier than a prom date? Again, what does that mean?) And, after someone had yelled, â€œNice stick!â€� about a certain defensive play: â€œThatâ€™s what I said on prom night!â€� At this point, Mark turned to me and said, â€œMan, I feel sorry for this guyâ€™s prom date.â€� Literally, not five seconds later, we heard this exchange:

Ricâ€™s buddy: â€œMan, youâ€™re carrying a lot of baggage from high school tonight.â€�
Ric: â€œI know. I have issues.â€�

The â€œIslesâ€� were trying to clear the puck out of their zone, so of course Ric was screaming â€œCLEAR IT! CLEAR IT!â€� An Islanders player got checked hard into the boards and, feeling left out of the imaginary laughs Ric was hogging, his buddy, a Blackhawks fan, finally entered the mix with this gem: â€œHeâ€™s gonna have a hard time clearing it when heâ€™s eating glass!â€� Not to be outdone, Ric immediately fired back with, â€œYouâ€™re eating glass!â€� From there, it naturally morphed into a feeble attempt at the Spade-Farley â€œYour brain has the shell around itâ€� exchange, but it never really got off the ground.

Beginning of the third period: â€œThis score could easily be 10-10.â€� Iâ€™d like to note that at the time he said this, the score was 1-1, and the shots on goal were 25-18 in favor of the Blackhawks. That means for the score to be 10-10, the Blackhawksâ€™ goalieâ€™s save percentage would have had to have been .444, and the â€œIslesâ€™â€� goalieâ€™s .600. For the hockey illiterate, that would be kind of like a pitcher having an ERA of 43.76.

I donâ€™t even remember what the context of this one was: â€œItâ€™s like two sophomores trying to find their zippers!â€� I donâ€™t even know what to say to this. Maybe that makes sense on Long Island or something. I donâ€™t know. It was about this time that I started chewing on my elbow skin.

In case anyone cares, (and after the material I was handed on a silver platter, I certainly didnâ€™t) the Blackhawks ended up losing 2-1 in overtime. Mark and I were bummed, not really because the â€˜Hawks lost, but more because we were pumped to see a shoot-out. Ric, of course, was fired up because the â€œIslesâ€� pulled it out. As I braved the cold and walked stiffly to the Blue Line, I imagined Ric going back to his buddyâ€™s place in the suburbs that night and drinking cans of PBR until well after midnight, all the while insisting that Chicago was behind the times because they started drinking PBR on Long Island first. The next day, Ric boards his flight back to New York and insists on a second bag of peanuts, and when the stewardess brings it to him, he pumps his fist and says, â€œScore!â€� He then turns to the sleeping passenger next to him, nudges her awake, and says, â€œSee? I got a second bag of peanuts. Iâ€™m special.â€� Somewhere in Ricâ€™s head, an audience laughs hysterically.

The Great Giambino: "ComeBack Kid"?

2006-01-16T13:07:00.000-06:00

(Originally posted on http://worldfinest.blogspot.com on 11.04.2005)

As I was browsing ESPN.com, I caught a headline out of the corner of my eye that began with the phrase, â€œComeback Kidâ€¦â€� Now, surely this must have been an article about Joe Montana, right? I mean, after all, Montana is the rightful owner of the nickname, â€œComeback Kidâ€�. And surely ESPN wouldnâ€™t disrespect such a hallowed great as Joe Montana by applying his nickname to a less deserving candidate, right? And if they did, surely they would only apply it to some courageous athlete who overcame a debilitating disease or some horrible hardship to pull off an odds-defying return to the top that A&E will inevitably make a movie about starring Barry Pepper, right?

Nope. The article was about Jason @%#!@#ing Giambi. Yeah. In case you hadnâ€™t heard, MLB fans recently awarded this cheater the â€œAmerican League Comeback Player of the Year Awardâ€�. In a related story, the world just awarded the â€œAmerican League Comeback Player of the Year Awardâ€� the â€œAward That Suddenly Holds the Least Legitimate Significance Awardâ€�. And, in case youâ€™ve been paying even less attention to baseball than the average disgruntled fan, the reason Giambi had to make a â€œcomebackâ€� is because he admitted to using illegal steroids. To which everyone reacted with a similar look as when my cousin Mikey told us that he had a crush on Keri Webb. â€œOh, really Mikey? We thought you were justâ€¦ reallyâ€¦protective of herâ€¦or something.â€� â€œOh, really, Giambi? We thought you just lifted a lot. Andâ€¦drankâ€¦milk. It does a body good, you know.â€�

Thatâ€™s not the worst part. I havenâ€™t even told you what the entire headline said: â€œComeback Kid: Giambi signs deal with Reebokâ€�. Thatâ€™s right. Heâ€™s not the Comeback Kid because he cheated, used illegal drugs, desecrated the game the same way scores of other players have, but then admitted to it, â€œrehabbedâ€�, and eventually learned to play the game the way that honest, hard working athletes are supposed to; heâ€™s the Comeback Kid because his act of contrition has now landed him an endorsement with Reebok.

The article begins with a sob story about how Giambi â€œhad hit rock bottom.â€� About how admitting to steroid use lost him his endorsements with Pepsi and Arm & Hammer. This kind of reminds of the South Park episode in which Kyle and Stan claim that downloading music for free is not a big deal, to which the overbearing interrogator replies, â€œNOT A BIG DEAL?!â€� then proceeds to take them on a Christmas Carol-esque tour of wealthy celebrity musicians who, due to people downloading their music for free, had to buy the slightly smaller private jet, or wait a few more months to have the thousand gallon shark tank installed in the middle of their private swimming pool.

Now, look. Iâ€™ll bet you think this is going to be a rant about how much faith Iâ€™ve lost in Major League Baseball and the fact that the game has held no credibility since 1998 when MLB pretended they didnâ€™t know McGwire and Sosa were using illegal drugs simply because they were bringing disgruntled fans back to the ballpark after the â€™94 strike. Or that if Pete Rose doesnâ€™t belong in the Hall of Fame because he dishonestly and illegally affected the outcome of games, then neither does anyone who ever played on steroids because they also dishonestly and illegally affected the outcome of games. Or that if a record stands for thirty-six years and then is suddenly shattered five times by three different people within four seasons, then thereâ€™s probably something else going on hereâ€¦

But youâ€™re wrong. My point is simple. If you want to strip the game of all its integrity by allowing obvious illegal drug use to run rampant for years and only put a stop to it finally because the U.S. FREAKING GOVERNMENT steps in, then fine. Iâ€™m a grownup. Iâ€™ll get over it. I started getting over it in the summer of 2001 when Bud Selig ended the All Star Game in a tie and it became apparent to me that MLB didnâ€™t care about baseball any more, so why should I? But donâ€™t try to act like someone who has just now, on the backside of his career, decided to start playing the game by the same rules as everyone else is the â€œComeback Player of the Yearâ€�.

And, at the very least, please, for the love of God, and the love of everything that is decent, donâ€™t defile a nickname held by such a legend as Joe Montana by applying it to an unlikable, unforgivable cheater such asâ€¦him. And this is coming from a lifetime Cincinnati Bengals fan who had his heart broken at the tender age of seven by a Montana touchdown pass late in the fourth quarter ofâ€¦well, a game I donâ€™t like to talk about. Mr. Montana, allow me to apologize on behalf of those who should.

The First Shots are Fired on Fort Sumter

2006-01-14T16:53:00.000-06:00

Well, it was only a matter of time. After a short-lived partnership that produced an unrivaled body of work and a microscopic fan base, Mark and I figured it was time to go our separate ways. Hence, the creation of "The Naked Truth." In order to create the illusion of legitimacy, we're claiming that we're splitting over "creative differences." (An hilarious notion, considering the closest Mark and I have ever come to having "creative differences" is arguing over who puts their Hamburger Helper in which cupboard.)

Here at The Naked Truth, you'll get just that. The world as I see it. You'll get rambling and pontifficating on whatever occurs to me as significant or noteworthy on any given day. I'll spare you the online journal format that you get with so many of these sites, that essentially reads like the end of a Doogie Howser episode. I'll do my best to provide intelligent, thought-provoking, and possibly even slightly humorous (whether intentional or unintentional) insight on the various topics and events that make up our crazy little world. Once in a while, I'll feature guest spots from our old buddy Mark, as well as anyone else who thinks they can cut it in the cut-throat world of blogs.

To get us started, I'll re-post some of my old columns from Mark's site that you may have missed. And just for the record, no, I did not cry when Carson Palmer hit the turf last Sunday...