Dual meaning blog title! So subversive! Mystery! Intrigue!
Just call me double oh nuffin’.
Adam is a big fan of Supersystem and along a week or so ago he mentioned they were playing in St. Louis on Wednesday the 11th. He kinda jokingly asked me if I wanted to go and I pretty seriously said yes. Then he asked Tricia if she wanted to go when we went skiing last week and it was on like, as my friend Tony says, Donkey Kong.
So Wednesday I bailed from work a little earlyish, loaded up my precious and hit the damn highway for some high speed shenanigans. After a brief Subway detour and the late afternoon downtown traffic I set the controls for the heart of the sun (and the cruise control to 89) and pointed it east. We rolled into St. Louis right around 8pm and quickly found the bar and a hotel. Turned out there was a reasonably priced hotel right next door to the bar so we got a room there. Bonus!
The show was excellent, the bar was very cool, the bands were great and the PBR flowed like PBR. Adam drank pitcher after pitcher of the stuff while Tricia and I pounded Redbull and vodka interspersed with PBR. After the show we hung around chatting with the bartender till they kicked us out. We were the last to leave. We had been told to head next door where there was a bar open till 3am so off we went.
The bar was indeed open till 3am and full of just the kinda people you need when you are drunk and it’s late. We met the tall, shady country singer who had apparently lost everything and was just happy to be alive. He told me in the bathroom that he had wrecked his car in some horrible accident and so on. Later on he tried to get us (and by us I mean Tricia, really) to go out to his car and smoke a joint. I’m assuming he had his wrecked car towed there on a flat bed. We also met Neil who I think of as a lost and lonely puppy dog. I don’t remember the details but I think we met him when I told him I was going to kick his ass. He had said something that pissed me off. I have no idea what. It could have been “Hi!” He turned out to be a really nice guy and I bought him a shot. His choice. He ordered Jameson’s. Whiskey on top of Redbull, vodka, PBR and Bluemoon. Oh yea, that hurt.
When that bar finally kicked us out we stumbled on over towards our hotel. We got to the door, turned around and Neil was with us. I don’t remember if he said anything to the effect but he definitely wanted to join us. We gently scraped him off and headed upstairs where the real fun started. And by fun I mean vomiting.
I’ll spare you most of the details, but this wouldn’t be the blog you know and love if I didn’t tell you that Adam threw up all night. It was great. Let me just say that if you ever stay at the Cheshire Inn and Lodge in room 211… don’t use the ice bucket.
I herded my damaged charges into the car the next morning and we headed west. Made pretty good time and everyone got home with everything intact. Great trip!
Friday I was mostly recovered and I managed to convince Jono to go skiing with me. I had a quick bite with Adam and JoLynn at Tanners before running home to meet Jono. Snow Creek and the “snow” was flying. We had both decided to try to learn how to snow board. Both our first times. After some histrionics with boots and boards we got on the snow and proceeded to fall down a lot. I made it down the hill thrice before I slammed my shoulder into the ground at about Mach 3. Something ripped, or broke, or something and now I’m an invalid.
Jono did a lot better. He stuck with it for a while longer while I traded my board for skis. I practiced up for a while and eventually Jono got some skis so we skied for the rest of the night. Bailed out of there around 2:30am cold, sore, in pain but satisfied with a job well done.
Saturday I pretty much did nothing but sleep in preparation for what I expected to be a hard night. I had plans to go out with Adam, JoLynn, Tricia, Cristin (sp?) and Steve for a nice dinner and some kickin’ it. I had done a little shopping Friday so I was eager to test out some new clothes. I’m not normally one to brag (much) but I was thinking I looked pretty damn good. We had a glass of wine at JoLynn’s and then Adam drove us over to PF Changs on the Plaza. Adam was still recovering from Wednesday so he had offered to be DD for the night. A decision he probably regrets.
Dinner was excellent. The food was awesome, good conversation, plenty of saki and lots of fun. After dinner we tried to come up with something to do and ended up at the upstairs bar at Brio. Maybe if I hadn’t had such a rough week, and I wasn’t in pain it would have been better for me but I just didn’t have a very good time. I was uncomfortable with the crowd and the environment and I didn’t feel like I had much to talk about. You can take the Jason out of the Hurricane but you can’t take the Hurricane out of the Jason, I guess. Not enough tattoos and piercings being displayed. Makes me antsy. We stayed there till maybe 12 and Steve and Cristin decided to call it a night.
So we froze our way back to the car and headed towards home. At least, that’s what Adam thought we were doing and I kinda did too. The girls had other plans. JoLynn got us pointed at The Record Bar and I started having a good time again. There was a swingish band on stage called The Grand Somethings and they kicked ass. I was drunk enough that I wanted to dance but no one would oblige. We stayed there till they kicked us out and then headed home. Jo and Tricia wanted to hit Buzzard Beach or it’s equivalent but Adam was having none of it.
Eventually we made it back to Adam and Jo’s place and settled in for some more drinking and watching of Trailer Park Boys. Good times. Jo and Tricia continued to get plastered and I passed out on the futon.
Amazingly I woke up on Sunday feeling good in body but bad in spirit. I fucking hate Sundays. I decided to try to cure my loneliness by spending as much money as I possibly could in as short a time as possible. I started with a cheese steak to get things running again and headed for Dick’s for some snow gear. After browsing jackets for like 2 hours I ended up with some badass snow pants, a North Face triclimate jacket and a really sweet North Face beanie that is light on top but insulated around the ears. Headed for the mall to return some jeans I didn’t like and decided to try to get my watch repaired. The clasp had broken. Not possible to repair locally, of course, so I bought a new one. Then some valve caps for my car, some new books to keep me busy that night and eventually some Chipotle for the same reason. Ha.
And that’s that! Heck of a week or two. And here we go again!