June 22, 2008

• With the Cubs playing the Sox at home yesterday, this meant that the Sox fans come to our house to watch the game. Among John and I, Dave and Kelli, Don, and Keith and Heather, the only 2 Sox fans were Keith and Heather. What did suck was the early start time of noon. I was up early (at least for a Saturday) at about 9:30ish so that I could get some shit done before the game. Keith and Heather were pretty much here by game time. Dave and Kelli, who I had not talked to and didn't know were coming, showed up shortly after 1 in the pm. Mason arrived about an hour later. And the Cubs offense showed the fuck up in the 4th inning scoring 9 runs including 2 home runs in that one inning for Jim Edmonds. The Cubs pretty much cruised to an 11-7 win. Unfortunately, Kelli and the kids had to leave to go to a pool party, so that gave me custody of Dave for the rest of what would turn out to be very long day and evening. Wait. That made it sound bad. It was a great time, just a late night.

  During the game we ordered deep dish pizza from a place here in town called Fat Ricky's.I've always loved that name, it sounds like a mafia name. After the game we were hanging outside when I decided that since we had pizza, we had to have ice cream as well. So this resulted in a brief trip to Dairy Queen for Dave, Don and I. This particular DQ doesn't have a way for you to go inside, you pretty much either order through the drive thru or outside the front of the building. Dave ordered his ice cream and then walked next door to the 7-Eleven to get a pack of smokes, leaving behind his ice cream on a ledge where you order. Don and I felt it was our duty to perform ice cream maintenance eating some of it while he was gone. Serves him right though, I mean why would he leave the 2 of us alone with ice cream.

  When we got back home we hung out playing beanbags and playing a little bit of basketball. Dave always likes to play basketbrawl instead of basketball. This often amounts in him pushing, kicking and in one instance, ramming his shoulder into my back, sending me flying into the house. It was all in good fun, however my back was sore for a while.

  For most of the afternoon, as Dave often does when he comes over, he kept trying to get us to play cards. After everybody else but John had left, Dave and I played a game of Texas Hold-em. It was a rather quick game. About 15 minutes into it, there were trip fours after the turn. The whole hand I was betting big and decided to try to bluff Dave. I even went as far as to go all in, thinking he would fold as I was playing as if I had the only remaining 4. Normally he would have folded.....................except, he had the 4 giving him 4 of a kind. And that was why our game ended so quickly.

  Last night our friend Dae was playing an acoustic set at a bar in Lisle called Mullen's. Allow me to give you some background on him. 11 years ago on the night before Labor Day,  Dave, John and I went to play volleyball at a bar in Downers Grove called North Beach. While there we saw this very fun guy, Dae playing guitar and singing for what seemed like forever. Now Dave and I were both unemployed at the time, so we soon started going up there every Sunday to play volleyball and listen to him. Soon we stopped playing volleyball and went up there just to see him. Once Jt hit blackjack (meaning, when he turned 21) he joined us. Oh, by the time we were employed though and he was playing other places in addition to North Beach and other days of the week in addition to Sundays. Still, it was a great time he would sit up there and take requests and ALWAYS attempt to play whatever anybody wanted to hear. Some of the best times I had with Jt and Dave were going to these shows. On occasion, Kelli would come with us. Some other times more people would come too. Dae's girlfriend (and now wife) Jean was his manger and sound person and was at every show. Dae also played in a band called Forgotten Toys and Jt, Dave and I became their roadies, working for beer and food.

  Well, Dae and Jean eventually got married and had a couple of adorable kids. Needless to say, he does not play bar shows anymore, or at the very least, he does it on very rare occasions. So yesterday morning when I got an email saying he was playing, I just had to get people together to go. As it turned out, he was playing a show with a guy he had never met before. The other guy plays electric guitar and had a singer who quit earlier in the week and was looking for another guy to play and sing with him. They had not played together at all before last night and in fact had only spoken on the phone a few times over the course of this week.

  The show was supposed to start at 9 in the pm. They were playing in an outdoor beer garden which was perfect as that meant that Dave could smoke without having to miss anything. And although it had poured out earlier in the morning, it actually turned out to be a very nice night. Oh, I think I forgot to mention this, but it was just John, Dave and I. Although I drove there, John decided not to drink so I gave him my keys and had a chance to drink. Dave and I got a pitcher of Dos Equis (spelling please) which was the first time I ever had it. Not bad, but then again I'm not a huge beer drinker and they all don't taste all that good to me.

  Soon into the show it was just like old times with a couple of notable exceptions: Jt and Kelli weren't there. Dave had tried calling and texting Jt but of course he never heard back from him. Even though he and I aren't really friends anymore, It would have been awesome had he had the courtesy to actually return a phone call and actually show up. Still, we had a great time. There were lots of Cub fans at this place and Dave, John and I occasionally broke into "Go Cubs Go " every now and then getting about 10 other people to go along with us. Although they didn't know the song, both Dae and the other dude at least attempted to play it based on our lousy singing.

  One thing about Dae is that he would always play for hours without taking a break. I was always amazed at how he could drink and drink and drink without ever stopping to pee. After the shows were over though he almost always made a bee line straight to the bathroom before coming back to talk with us. Last night once again they played straight through, all the way until shortly past one.

  Shit, this post seems to be going on forever. It is taking a long time for me to write it. I think its because I'm hung over. I should try to find ways to shorten it. After the show we went to grab something to eat at Omega. This is where things got a little.................er.......................odd. This other dude that Dae played with whom none of us had ever met before last night,  decided to show us pictures of his ex girlfriend that he had on his phone. And yes, I do mean "PICTURES". And they weren't even only pictures of her. Some of them included pictures of him if you know what I mean. So here we were at a restaurant at 3:30 in the morning looking at amateur porn on a cell phone. Later on after he left, John, Dave, Dae and I stood in the parking lot discussing what would posses him to show us those pics. I probably could have and should have told this story better, but hey, I'm hungover, I got to bed at 5am and was up at 10am, so I'm just not up to it right now. You make your own jokes.

  • 12:42 pm
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