Ohhhhh, before I get started will one of yous run to the store and pick me up some shampoo? I was just there and I totally forgot to buy some and I’m too lazy to go back. I know it’s important that you don’t feel like a freeloader, so I’ll even let you pay for the shampoo. Thanks, I really appreciate it.

Depending on when you are reading this, either Wednesday or Thursday, or shit maybe you are really slow and its the fucking weekend, but the point is we are pretty much at the halfway point in the year. If its Wednesday, we are not quite at the halfway point, that will come at noon on Friday July 2. But you get my point. And Independence Day, July 4, for Americans is like our halftime. The funny part is that whenever we get to this time of the year people inevitably say “before you know it, Christmas will be here.” Why don’t they say in January “well before you know it, the fourth of July will be here.” Of course, last year I was hearing commercials on the radio in August for Christmas trees, so I guess we are really a looking forward to Christmas society.

So the year is halfway over and it just makes me think holy shit, the year is fucking halfway over, where the hell has the time gone! Oh shit…………before you know it, the year will be over and yadda yadda yadda, another few years will pass and next thing you know its a decade and yadda yadda we’re dead. Oh great, now I’m depressed. Good job fuckers, ya depressed me just in time for the holiday weekend!

Did anybody get that shampoo yet?

Longtime readers might have realized that I’ve got a very overactive imagination. Or maybe you are a longtime reader who was too dense to realize it. Or perhaps I just have kept my overactive imagination tamed. Nevertheless, I’ve got a rather overactive imagination. My mind never stops. I can often times come up with a wild, crazy and funny (or at least I think its funny) story at the drop of a hat, much to the amusement of those who realize I’m making something up, which is usually everybody.

But the other side to that is things I think to myself that are so irrational that they are ridiculously funny. For example, you might have remembered a few months ago that I had an odor emanating from my house. I wrote about how at some point, I thought it might be a snake living in my attic and how the snake was going to come out of the attic through a vent in the ceiling and kill me. I know, totally crazy right? Yet funny. Another irrational paranoia is that when I’m driving through tunnels or over bridges or overpasses it collapses. Certainly possible but not likely that its going to happen at the very minute that I’m driving over it. Last week I was driving home during a tornado warning. I know that sounds bad, but the potential funnel cloud had passed the area I was driving through and instead I had to deal with the rain and lightening. My mind got really going on this one, I was a little worried that lightening would strike a tree or a light post and it would come crashing down on me as I was driving. Again, possible, but very unlikely. That being said, its funny as hell.

I realize most of these thoughts are irrational and ridiculous, but they are at the very least, interesting. Okay so its not interesting to those of you reading it, but it keeps me from getting bored. If nothing else, I’m rarely bored.

I read an article in Parade magazine this weekend about one Willie Nelson. Although you’ll need the actual hard copy to read the article, you can read the interview here:

http://www.parade.com/celebrity/celebrity-parade/2010/0625-willie-nelson-exclusive-extras.html

Wait, maybe I’ll hold the issue up to the camera and take a picture and post that so you can see what it looks like. Ohhhh, I know, maybe I will draw a picture of me reading the magazine. No, Mike, it’s enough with the drawings. Nobody likes the drawings. For the love of Jeff, no more fucking drawings!

So anywho, back to Willie Nelson. Turns out that in some ways, he is the perfect celebrity. How so you ask? Well, he appeals to pretty much everybody. Try finding somebody who doesn’t like him. I’m not saying that people like his music, because outside of “On The Road Again” I really don’t like any of his music, as its country music and I HATE country music. But, the guy can not be anymore likable. Let’s face it, there is a certain demographic that likes country music. Don’t understand? Well let me spell it out for you. White people. And not just white people, but, well, rednecks and Republicans. Oh sure, there are non rednecks or non Republicans that like country music, but for the most part that is the demographic of country music. And while many of them disagree with many of his views they still like him. And for a mega liberal like myself, when I read about his views and his life, he stands for everything I stand for. And how could you not love a guy who is nearly 80 and still as big of a pothead as a college student and proud of it?

I do realize that he could totally be a fake and not be as compassionate and caring as he seems to be, I’m convinced that he is genuine in that compassion. He wants to bring people together instead of dividing people as so many things seem to do in life. Just ask people what they think of him, most people would not have a bad thing to say about the guy, which is damn rare to find about anybody, especially a celebrity.

After a very rough day at work on Friday, I was down for a great weekend and I had a good one planned. It started Friday night as I had plans to play cards at a friend’s house. My friend and his very impregnated wife had moved into a new house recently and this was the first time I would get a chance to see it. Turns out its a palace. Its huge. I was going to draw a picture of it to show you but it was so big that I forgot what it looked like. I did draw a picture of me gettin’ my ass thoroughly kicked at cards though:

I always play poker with Rold Gold pretzel rods. Rods are my thing…………I’m renowned for them. Unfortunately, I’m also renowned for sucking at poker.

Speaking of things that suck, the Cubs and White Sox played each other this weekend for a chance to win something that sucks even worse than they do: the B.P. Cup. Really though, can they honestly say they are a winner if they win that cup? The losing team though has to go clean up the oil spill. So I went to a Cubs-Sox party at a Sox fan’s house. Here is a 100% accurate drawing of me watching the game:

Really, you don’t need to know who won the game.

Sunday was one of my favorite days of the year, the day my friends and I go to the Taste of Chicago. I went with my friend Brett Favre and his wife Bugs Bunny, my friend Shirley Fucking Temple and his girlfriend, Spunky Brewster, Dr Demento and his wife, Jane Spencer-Drebin and their daughter, Mini-Me. The plan was to meet at my hizzy at 10:30 in the am, but due to a torrential downpour, we had a rain delay of an hour. It was ok though, because hell, the food tastes just the same an hour later. We left about 11:40 in the am and arrived in downtown Chicago about 12:20ish. After parking in the Scratchy lot, we got out and walked into the world’s greatest food festival, the Taste of Chicago.

Whenever we eat at the Taste, we eat so much food and such a wide variety and mix of food that I’m worried that if I die over the course of the next 24 hours, the coroner will do an autopsy and cut open my stomach and find all the crazy shit I ate and say “well, its no wonder why this fucker is dead, I mean, its just not healthy for one human being to eat such a mix of foods.” This year was no different, I’m having a tough time remembering everything that we ate. I do have stories though.

This year, we seemed to have a really bad case of the dropsies. Bugs Bunny and Brett Favre combined to drop a cheesy eggplant sandwich. Brett Favre was trying to give me some of his food and dropped a tomato. I dropped part of a bread stick. But by the far the worse case was the last. One of the things we got was the most expensive thing at the entire Taste of Chicago. It was a small lobster tail in a small shell with a potato. Myself, Shirley Fucking Temple and Brett Favre went thirds on it. I was holding it in a styrofoam container while Shirley Fucking Temple was trying to get the lobster separated from the shell. The container was open and he thought I was holding the top portion of the lid and he set it on there and FLOP, the lobster tail fell right the fuck down, landed on my bare toe (I was wearing sandals) before resting on the ground. We all stood there, stunned when Spunky Brewster said that it had landed on its shell, so it was still good. Well shit, for 12 tickets, I would be damned if we were going to let it go to waste. So we picked it up and ate it, just in time for a co-worker of mine to walk up as I was eating food that had fallen on the ground! After that we made a rule that we would use two hands when holding something, always two hands, kinda like catching a fly ball.

We continued on to a booth that had no food, but instead had scratch off lotto tickets. If you bought $35 worth of tickets, you got a chance to spin the wheel of destiny and do what ever it said. You could win a hat, $350 or a chance to punch Rod Blagojevich squarely in the junk. So Brett Favre bought some tickets so that he could spin. Here is a depiction of what happened next:

That’s right, Brett Favre used his 150 pound fingers to spin the wheel and won $350 American, which was so much better than the time I won $350 Mexican!

Every year when we go we always take a picture in front of Chicago’s world famous Buckingham Fountain. This time I took a picture and did a drawing so that you could see just how damn good my drawing is compared to the real thing:

See, ain’t that an amazing skyline!

Actually, all of us are in the drawing, but all but three of us are blocked by Brett Favre’s fat fuckin’ fingers. Still, clearly you can see that my drawing is nearly as good as the real thing; if not better!

Here is a drawing from the other side of the fountain of me and the boys

Now I should mention that Brett Favre and I are very messy eaters. When you combine that with the fact that we were walking and eating, its a perfect storm of messy, only this time Shirley Fucking Temple also had some major stains on his shorts. Most of the stains were from food.

All in all, it was a pretty good time, probably one of the best years we have ever had at the Taste of Chicago.

I always knew this day would come. Its tragic and it is probably going to be very tough for you to read this. I’m so upset, I almost couldn’t bring myself to post. Well, I’m just gonna come right out and say it.

I’m broke……………….

……………….I’m out of address labels. After many years of prosperity in address labels, I’ve finally run out. Back in the day, charities used to always send me address labels in hopes that I would donate money. I didn’t, but the address labels kept coming. I haven’t gotten any in shit, probably 3 years now and the ironic part is that I’m donating more money now to charity than I ever did before and they aren’t sending me any. Dare I say, I may have to write out my return address by hand!

Okay so I didn’t have anything tonight, so you have to deal with one helluva lame post about address labels!

I’m sure you have read stuff I’ve posted……………..wait, let me correct that. I HOPE you’ve read, I can’t take anything for granted, about various things or activities that I do with my large group of friends. No, I don’t mean sex, although maybe I should find a way to add that to the list. But, I sexgress (its kinda like digress, except digressing about sex), allow me to continue, not that you stopped me.

First off, I should explain that I’ve got a group of about 20 or so people, give or take, who hang out together on a semi-regular basis. I should mention that while I’m gay, nobody else in the group is gay, or if they are I just don’t know about it. I’d like to say that we are a normal bunch, but that is probably only half true. Collectively we have a decent amount of issues and problems. Oh heck, who am I kidding, we have more issues than T.V. Guide. But, we are above all a fun bunch who for better or worse, accept each other for our own fucked up flaws and issues. And after all, isn’t that what being friends is all about.

Let me give you a little bit more of a background as to how this group came together, I will try not to be confusing but still keep it brief. There is my older brother who is six years older than my twin Mark and I. He has a group of 8 friends or so that he has been hanging out with since high school. I’ve got a few friends who I met at my first job, which ironically is where some of my brother’s friends met but who did not work there when I worked there. My brother and his friends used to go camping and white water rafting together in Wisconsin. One year Mark and I went with. The next year, we went again and each brought a friend. And 15 years later, here we are. Each year though, we have a bunch of traditions and things we do together of which I will discuss here chronologically from January to December. Its important to note that not everybody takes part in every event and also there are some events that some extended friends who are not among the 20 I mentioned who take part as well.

• Gamblefest- Each year in honor of the birth of the biggest gambler I’ve ever known, my mother I host a poker game. Its usually the last Friday before or on her birthday, February 1. I host it at my house, but the money I lose goes home with them.
• The Super Bowl- Okay, so many people have Super Bowl parties. So do we.
• Scootyfest- One of our friends, who goes by the name of Scooty, used to live in Springfield. Each year we would make a pilgrimage to his tiny two bedroom apartment in Springfield on Valentine’s Day weekend. He since has moved back into the area, but that doesn’t mean that we stopped having Scootyfest, we still do it but in a much bigger house.
• St Patrick’s Day party- One of our friends is Irish and has been having a St. Patty’s Day party for years, in which she makes a full Irish dinner and we have all the other Irish things that people do, like fight and fuck. Except we don’t fight and we don’t fuck. But sometimes, there is a dude playing bagpipes.
• Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day baseball and bbq-  Many of us like sports and baseball is among our favorites. So we play baseball, rain or shine every summer holiday and usually spend the rest of the week recovering. Getting old and out of shape sucks. After the games we usually go back to my place to grill. This one time, I hit the ball SOOOOOO far that it only went three feet! True story.
• Cubs-White Sox games- Being in Chicago, we are split with our allegiances to our baseball teams. Every year the Cubs and Sox play each other. No, we don’t actually go to the games, but we just get together and watch usually the Saturday games at somebody’s house, when they play in Wrigley the Cub fans host, when they play in……………..ahhhh, who gives a shit about the Sox?
• The Taste of Chicago- This is my friend Dave’s absolute favorite day of the year and among my favorite days of the year. Every year Chicago has a massive food festival and well, we eat our motherfuckin asses off!
• Beanbag Tournament- Mark’s in laws host this every summer, usually in July or August. What frustrates the hell out of me is that I will play great the rest of the year, but when it comes to that one day, I suck.
• Birthdays in July party- About three or four in the group have a July birthday, so its the perfect excuse to get together.
• Halloween party- Gee, can you take a guess about this one?
• Friend’s Thanksgiving- This one is held every year the Saturday before the actual Thanksgiving. Its exactly what it sounds like, a bunch of friends getting together for Thanksgiving dinner. I’m still full from last year’s feast.
• Not one, but two different Christmas parties- One is at my brother’s house, one is at another person’s house. Its probably a bit much, but hey, why the fuck not?
• Christmas Eve breakfast- Before everybody rushes off to waste the day away with their families, we have breakfast at a local place and usually leave with out paying! How’s that for Christmas spirit!
• Clem’s- We hang out at a local, dive bar usually every Thursday. They keep the lights dim because of all the ugly people.
• Pizza Club- We all love pizza so I started a monthly pizza club and declared myself president in a bloodless coup.
• Shotgun Eddy (R.I.P.)- This is kinda where it all got started. As I mentioned before, every summer up until about 2003, we used to go camping and whitewater rafting in Wisconsin at a place called Shotgun Eddy. We don’t go anymore because most people have kids and its tough to get a sitter for the whole weekend. This place is hallowed grounds for us, what with the river, our man forced horseshoe pits and the over powering stench of the outhouse.

Its not to say that these are the only things we do throughout a year. I may have forgotten about a few things. There are always poker games here and there and guy’s nights and chick’s nights and birthday parties and just random shit. But these are the core events that make up our year.

Three names you go by:
1. Michael
2. Mike
3. Hey there fucker

Three favorite vehicles you have owned:
1. My first car was an ’87 ‘Vette! Can you believe it, an actual ‘Vette was my first car!
2. 1982 Ford Tempo Hot Wheels car. I played with that thing everyday when I was growing up.
3. You thought I meant Corvette, didn’t you? You dumbass, it was actually a Chevette!

We got in a bit of a debate today at work about bed sheets and if you are a tucker or not. Let me explain, first of course you have the fitted sheet that goes directly on the mattress. Next you have the sheet that you get under to sleep. The question is, do you tuck that sheet at the bottom or foot of the bed under the mattress? As for myself for years I had a twin sized bed mainly because I was alone and too cheap to buy a real bed. I did not tuck the sheet then. Then when I was in my mid to late twenties, somebody gave me a queen sized water bed and the fitted sheet and other sheet are sowed together and therefore, I had no choice but to tuck. Earlier this year I bought a normal, non water bed and because I had gotten used to tucking, I have been a tucker ever since. What do you do?

I watched President Obama’s address tonight about the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. I was happy with much of what he said, but being a politician, I know that much of it was probably just lip service. The frustrating part is that we need it to not be just lip service. We need action and I don’t mean just with the oil spill but also with the environment. We need full environmental reform and I don’t mean this pussy ass half-assed health care reform that was just recently passed. I mean full fledged, sweeping, change the world reform. Will Obama deliver? Probably not. Will it be his fault? That’s not as simple of an answer.

Part of the problem is that generally, the American people don’t care, which is part of the problem. When he forced health care reform through, there wasn’t a big ground swell of support for reform. In fact, there were more people protesting against it than for it. But yet he got it done because of the support of Congressional Democrats. But the environment? People don’t care enough. Its sad but true. And while Obama might care or at least pretend to care, there are not enough people in Congress who will support him, the reason being is that the people don’t care enough and they don’t want to go against the people if it means they might lose elections. If only people protested global warming and oil spills as much as other issues.

Than there are the Tea Partiers and the Republicans. They are the ones who claim to be the most patriotic Americans and the ones who care so deeply about America. They insist that America is the best country in the history of the world. Yet, here we are the southern shores of their precious America damaged greatly in this disaster and they have not protested shit and we have not heard a peep from them. If they care so much, why aren’t they protesting? Well, I should correct that, some of them have spoken, like Congressional candidate from Kentucky Rand Paul, who when speaking about the oil spill said “accidents happen.” This is coming from a guy who is an eye doctor. So if his treatment accidentally blinds somebody does he tell his patient “well accidents happen” and does he expect them to accept that answer? Hell fucking no. So when 11 people die and 17 people are injured and billions of dollars lost and thousands of jobs affected and countless animals killed or injured, the proper response is not “accidents happen.” The proper response is reforming change.

Obama has an unique opportunity here. He has the chance to use this as a spring board to really make the environment not a top priority, but THE top priority as it should be. For decades, Democrats have always talked a big game about the environment being important but it has never been the top priority. And Republicans……………….well they just ignore the problem altogether and claim it is not even an issue. But its high time that it is no longer pushed on the back burner, the time is now to rally around the Earth and do something. And while the President can start the revolution, its the people who need to get fully behind it and support it for change to happen.

I’ve been chatting with this cool guy online for a long time……………….a whole week! That’s right, seven days. So yesterday it was determined that we would meet. Yadda, yadda, yadda, I was really tired this morning.

Okay, I guess it would be cruel to just leave it at that. We met up at Ikea, he in his jeans and button down shirt and me wearing nothing. I figured, why mess with clothes, after all they would only be coming off in the end anyway, so I might as well save time and not wear any. Turns out that its illegal to appear naked in public. So after a visit from the public defender (again!) and a posting of $10,000 bail, we were free to continue our meeting. Have you ever been to Ikea? Me neither, turns out its really really big. And confusing. With tons of furniture nobody wants to buy. So after he looked at some furniture there, we decided to grab a bite to eat.

We headed into downtown Naperville.We parked in a parking garage and started to walk around to find something to eat. We happened upon a little kid selling candy for his camp. I was hungry and I love chocolate, so I pushed him down and stole his candy. My friend might have stole his money too, I dunno, I was too damn busy running my ass off as I didn’t want to get arrested twice in one day.

For dinner we settled on the Mongolian Grill. And I do mean settled, after hearing good things about it, I was really disappointed. Turns out they don’t let you have sex anywhere in the entire restaurant which included the massive grill in the middle of the place. Well shit if they didn’t want you to have sex, then why would they make it so damn hot?

After dinner we started to walk around in the damn air and slight drizzle of this late spring evening. We walked along the river walk and through the woods. We passed a huge bell tower which had music being played by the bells. Let me tell you somethin’, you ain’t lived until you heard Gin & Juice played by bells from a bell tower.

So that was pretty much it. The end.