05/14/2005 - 1:54 p.m. | i want to be an alt.country superstaaaarrr

This past weekend was like an exercise for manic-depression for girlthing Melissa.

The first night was OK - allegedly I had been working on schoolwork, but I mostly just watched new "Scrubs" episodes as they were downloaded, so maybe I was a little behind. The next day was Thursday, and I had a shit ton to do, and I did not want to do it. So I delayed and delayed and delayed and pretty soon it was dinner time! Yes! I got Smacko to come over with some chicken strips from his cafeteria (as long as I called him "Sir Charles" for the night), but it was Cinco de Mayo, and fuck it all if we weren't going to go out like the rest of the mindless drones and get some Mexican food! Of course, Dos Reales is the only really decent place in town, and it was filled with idiots and trumpet players, so we took our standards down a few hundred notches and hit the haunted place on University. Those ethnic people really know how to decorate, mmm-hmm!

You know a place is high up on the class level when it lists Tampico as a fucking beverage option. Kyle and I opted for this, but there was only one glass, so he gave it to me (DON'T feel too fucking sorry for him, though, as I bought him a whole gallon of the shit later that he hid in his mini-fridge like a mini-miser!). Anyway, we decided from here on out that every place we go to we should ask if they have "Tampico orange drink." This lasted about a day, but can you really blame us?

I am actually looking at the Tampico site right now, trying to sort through their madness and see if I can buy some sort of product with their Mr. Tampico mascot on it (e.g. "It's not juice, it's Tampico!"). Finally Spanish has proved to be less efficient than English in one small aspect, though! Apparently in Spanish you can't just say, "Click here." You have to go, "Do/Make click here." SUCKERS!

Missy got horchata (which I kept calling "whore-chata" and point alternately at her or Shelly) and Smacko used his older brother's ID for the first time to get a whole pitcher of shitty, shitty margaritas. He seemed sort of nervous about using it, but a) we were in a very low-quality Mexican restuarant and b) his brother looks so much like him (bangs included) that it puts me and Sean to shame. The margaritas were bad; I poured some of my Tampico in mine. And look, I'm still describing our beverage orders! Better than describing me and Missy getting rutty the night before, am I right?!

Anyway, we had a pretty crowded house - Kyle, Shelly, Missy, me, Smacko, Spritz, Amber, Dank, Kay, Kay's friend Somebody, and then Booger and Jevon came in, drunk and swearing loudly. "WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH YOU, BITCHES?!" Everyone looks over. Neat. So Mega Mullet delivers our food, and we're all eating, fairly content, and suddenly Missy notices that the bean-and-cheese burrito she ordered was actually a beef-and-beef burrito. I know what is coming, actually, this being far worse on the scale for her than, say, biting an apple and seeing a half a worm (which I never really thought was that horrible anyway). This is what we call a "low point." So I give her a moment, lecture Mega Mullet, and then go to see if she's OK. She is, but she doesn't have much of an appetite after that (the random shrimp parts in her fried rice did not help much either).

So, she got her meal (which she did not eat) for free, but Missy was far hungrier for revenge, specifically in the form of taking as many Starlite mints from them as she could lay her hands on. This turned out to be a good deal of mints, the five pound bag of them sitting on the table right by the register. She first tried cajoling me or Smacko into taking it, but she finally walked tall and took out the door with them on her own. All the subtlety of a rhinoceros. High point.

I still had that fucking eight page paper to write, so I took Smacko and Missy to the Schnucks to get some booze for them for the evening. Although it did lead them to bond, which is good, it might have been a mistake on several levels. 1) Missy was trying to go beer-for-beer with Smacko, and that is simply not going to happen. 2) Missy is about as tiny as anyone non-Little Person is ever going to get. 3) She did not have a thing in her stomach. Add a quaff to that and by the time I come down for the night (5 pages done), she is blasted. She keeps passing out with her face in my crotch, which she then starts breathing on all heavily, and that is just weird. Then Tebben and his girlfriend come over, and Missy keeps calling her things she should probably not be called unless safely out of earshot. Meanwhile, Smacko and Kyle are having the time of their lives with a) the Pat O'Brien voicemails (wherein the little mustached man from "Access Hollywood" leaves creepy messages to some woman, coked out of his mind and repeating himself - "I wanna fuckin' go crazy with you!" / "You are so fuckin' hot!" / "I am so fuckin' into you!" / "Cockberry jam!") and b) the Sprint relay chat thing. See, how it works is if you are deaf or something, you can use this website to call somebody up. Then, you type whatever you want to say, and the operator tells them this, and then whatever they say to the operator is typed back to you. Clearly, this is a system designed to be abused. You can make that poor operator say the most ridiculous, awful shit, and she will (in a hilarious monotone). The best part is that to end your side of the communication, you have to say, "Go ahead." So Smacko will be like, "I was fucking your mom last night, and you might want to tell her she has a yeast infection because fucking awful cottage cheese stuff came out, and I definitely did not put it in.... Go ahead."

Meanwhile, Missy continues to make stabs at my crotch, so I decide maybe it is time to drag her upstairs. That is literal phrase, unfortunately, as she was so completely gone that any and all motor coordination had left her, leaving her the human equivalent of a wet noodle. She could not stand up at all, wavering back and forth before finally tumbling over, followed by a very depressing and desperate attempt by her to crawl some. Followed by knocking her head on at least three objects in the immediate area. She made it about halfway past the couch before Allison and I intervened and carried her most of the way up the stairs, followed by another desperate dash towards the bed. Low point. Home free, I thought, but of course she had to piss and almost sent herself launching face-first on her stomach down the stairs, but I caught her and hauled her slowly towards the bathroom, where she bashed her head on a few more tables and bookcases for good measure. She peed (quite happily, I must add) and then stumbled out of Spritz's room with her pants mostly down... right into the arms of Tebben, who was coming up to see if she was OK. New low-point. At least he got a free show, am I right?

We finally went to bed for the night (albeit at like 10:30) and Missy started pawing at my crotch again. "Miss, now might not be the time," I prodded (her other hand being on the puke bucket I had secured for her). "You like it," she groaned and then conked out immediately. "I'll, uh, just move your hand over now, I think."

I am amazed that little girl never has a hangover, but she always seems fine the next day. I finally hunkered down and beat out the end of the paper while she and Kyle bonded for a while downstairs. I was finally done and all happy to be done (although God only knows if the teacher will like it... My paper was about Ashlee Simpson and, as such, was written in the style of "Us Weekly," all horrible cliches and whatnot. I hope the poor woman understands satire, but then... I also sort of hope it blows up in my face. I also like how I don't give anyone credit ever), so she, me, and Kyle all went out to Panera for lunch. Panera, by the way, closing down on campus, and as we fought through the throngs of people trying to find a table, I said, "Yes, I can see why."

After lunch I ran back and forth between some libraries to find a copy of the book I was supposed to be studying for my media ethics test. Found something fairly close (although the last owner was one of those highlighter-crazy psychotics) and banged through that in an hour and a half just in time for the test. Which, by the way, was just a huge, huge pile of low self-esteem. Even besides the girl with the huge noisy bracelet besides me, there were 25 essay questions about things that have no answer and that I do not know about, so I just took stabs in the dark and prayed for the best.

Needless to say, I walked home in heat in a very bad mood. And normally, I've sort of set up this nice situation where I can sit alone in my lair and scream songs until I feel better about myself. If I don't do this, I'm just a complete bastard to anyone who tries to come into contact with me. Lacking in emotional control and all. Unfortunately, though, Missy doesn't have any other place to go, and so she kind of took the brunt of my anger. This is not fair to her - not fair to anybody ever, really - but I didn't know what to do. If I hadn't let her come cross the guard with me, that would have upset her, but because I did let her, I was all pissy and upset her anyway. So, yeah, she was crying (low point), and I was not being very sympathetic because I also am terrible and stubborn too sometimes, and she didn't even want to go to the concerts anyway, and everyone was sort of waiting on us and shit.

Well, we got on the road anyway. Had to wait for Shelly's sorry ass forever and then we were still making plans as to how many cars we should take and who was staying where and who would drive with whom and blah blah blah. Finally, Spritz (not even going on the trip) pretty much made all of the choices for us, bless him, and we got on our way, all of us piled into my station wagon. Smacko took his position in the caboose quite seriously, playing a couple of fun new games. In the one, he would keep smiling and giving doube thumbs up to the car behind him until they finally gave him some sort of positive acknowledgement back. Then he would return an abrupt "fuckyou!" with the bird flying from both hands. One time he even managed to pull a twofer: He got this trucker all happy, gave him the double finger, which pissed him off, held up the double thumbs again, like, "Naw, man, I was just kiddin,'" which got him all happy again, and then back to the middle fingers. The best, though, was using Kyle's laptop to show various porn clips to our fellow drivers down the highway. Mostly old black people. You get a whole mixed bag of fun reactions!

We got into St. Louis (despite some of Missy's apparently lack of any sense of direction) and, grossly unprepared, started hunting around for supplies with which to make our signs with. We wandered to some scary ass convenience store (Missy weaving in the road) and started hassling them for boxes, bargaining simultaneously with the Indian lady in the front and the black guy in the back ("Just toss them out the back, man! We'll pay you.") Kyle, who as far as I can tell, had been living on energy drinks for the past 48 hours, got another energy drink for the road, and we went somewhere where we would be less likely to get stabbed so I could make the signs.

I was slow as balls, however, as I wanted "STEWART HANDSOME MILLER" to be perfect (and it was!), so I left "RAW IS WAR" and "RHETT 3:16" to Shelly. We got inside and payed our surcharge (Wasn't going to risk getting kicked out as Sean tonight!) and started beating our way to the front of the crowd, which was still pretty easy by that point. There were lots and lots of "that guy" around (See PCU: "What's this? You're wearing the shirt of the band you're going to see? Don't be that guy."), which, I'd hate to inform you, does not show your devotion to the band but rather the fact that you are an idiot. Good thing you wore that shirt, man. Otherwise I would have thought you were just one of those poseurs who only came to the show once the band went mainstream. Riiiiiight. Fuckwits.

To show our own, superior, devotion to the band, we took a marker and wrote each of the band member's names on our bodies. Shelly had Phil, Missy had Ken, and I had Murray hidden on my chest underneath my shirt, which, because of the snaps on it, I could rip apart for a very dramatic display of homoeroticism. Awesome. Of course, we couldn't help but attract a scene, so some stranger out there has a picture of their tummies and my chest all to themselves. That's not the least bit creepy.

The opening act, Earl, came on, and we will say that reviews were mixed, although I'm thinkin' Kyle might have loved it as it was exactly the type of band he wanted to be in. The lead singer ("Earl," we all unanimously agreed) played a haphazard harmonica and sang, but mostly he headbanged about the stage doing the weirdest air guitar I have ever seen, fingers all pawing at his crotch like he wanted a piece. Add to that his insane chicken pose and the fact that he kept trying air-fellating his bassist, and we were fairly sure he was coked out of his gourd. This was only confirmed doing the closing number when he fell on his back (intentionally? unintentionally?) and thrashed wildly about, like a bug flipped over. The music wasn't terrible, though, although it was sort of funny who Earl kept acting like their band was the fucking most awesome thing in creation. Tee hee. Oh, Earl.

They finished up, and we were all set to go, firmly ensconced in the first and a half row, about to see our favorite band in the world. High point. But then this goon started coming around, checking to see who was 21+ and chucking all of us minors in this awful, awful side stage like twenty feet away. Oh, hell no. We were there, man! We were there with the real fans, the ones who drove fucking three hours (11 hours in Missy's case) to scream all the words. We made signs, motherfucker! So we kept arguing, how we had already paid our dues with that bullshit surcharge and how this was an all ages show so we should be able to go where ever we want and so on and so on and so on. They would have none of this, though, and we shortly did find ourselves on that awful side stage. "There's free water and soda for you guys, though." Fuck your soda! The only thing I can taste now is the bile from how sick this whole situation makes me!

Actually, I fold like rice paper, so I had already pretty much given up on this, but Missy was a woman incensed. She ran around, yelling at everybody, cursing her head off, making demands. It was pretty admirable, really. It's funny how she can be so sweet and worried about offending people but then go and bitch out the fat manager of Mississippi Nights when she sees injustice. Anyway, I guess the poor man had sort of a one-two punch with Missy's potty mouth (coming from this apparent 12 year old girl) and Shelly's crying, so he gave the two of them their money back, but they still had to sit in the shit seats. Low point. I had convinced Justin and Lisa to come the day before, so they showed up in the middle of this and were assaulted by our psychotic rantings, poor kids. Rules were very firmly enforced, such that people even trying to walk into our area were forced to chuck their drinks aside to use the pisser. Fascists! lol Kyle and Smacko went to try their luck with a refund, but the bastard acted like the whole thing had never happened. Damn you, Slick Rick. I didn't even really care, as the show was starting, and I had singing and jumping to do.

We started out in a fairly bad position, with Missy trying to stand on various things so she could see, then being dragged down by one of the goons. I was behind one of those weird little groups with one chick and like four guys, and the chick kind of keeps hitting on all of the guys in order so that they will all think she is interested in them, and I don't know why... that just makes me nervous. They weren't even focused on the music, too absorbed in their love drama and weed pipe. Some girl with bangs was all interested in me because I am cute and know all the words, so I took off to where Missy and Shelly had moved to.

It ended up being a pretty sweet spot, actually. It was right by where the bouncers would cut through, so I don't know if people were scared of them or what, but it was a nice clear shot in about the closest position we could be to the stage (except, you know, where we had been standing before). I didn't mind being elbowed aside by a goon every five minutes, as long as I could see Rhett and company in all their glory. Maybe it was open because people were scared of Beatle Bob, sitting alone on his stool and drumming. Well, we know him better than that, so I was fine next to him (We even got a picture!) He did seem sort of sick, though. He wasn't dancing at all like he normally does. I bet it was because the youth were not allowed access to the main floor. I bet that was it exactly!

I am fairly terrible at remembering set lists, plus you probably don't care about that anyway, so I'll just say it was a pretty normal show. I was entertained. This one girl in the front row (who I had originally been standing behind, damn it) was doing this awesome girly stop-and-go movie star dance that I tried very hard to imitate. It would seem I am girly, but not that girly. One fat mutant proposed to another during "Question" (Rhett screaming all drunkenly). It was sort of sweet. I hope you never have kids. Meanwhile, we were totally getting attention from the band because of our posters and body scrawlings. Although it would have been a lot funnier if Smacko or I had held up the handsome poster, I'm sure we got a lot more positive attention because Shelly did. The revealed sweaty tummies did not hurt. I kept waiting for the right moment to reveal my chest to Murray, but either he was lost in his own world or he was ignoring us. We kept screaming at him and trying to get his attention, but that never fucking worked. Rhett was lovin' it, though, all smiling and looking at us (well, looking at them... and also possibly at Beatle Bob... it was only in my dreams that he was actually giving me the eye). Justin and Lisa, transforming more into weird grad students every day, stayed in the minor section (perhaps afraid of our wrath if they had not) and didn't even move closer when we did, staying on stools, I think. Oh, God, when I'm 24.

The show ended, and with nothing better to do at all, we decided to wait and guard the band's van until they came out and we could assault them. This one guy was handing out CD-Rs of his band to everyone in sight. Smacko asked what kind of music they played, and the guy goes, "Oh, we're a jam band," to which Smacko replies, "You guys smoke a lot of weed?" The boy ran away, unnerved, and most of threw our CDs in the bushes. We decided that this was some sort of endurance competition, and that the band would only exit the building when most of the stalkers had left. As such, we moved across the street and tried to stay hidden, lulling them into a false sense of security. An hour passed, and though the crowd was thin, still no sign of the band, and Justin and Lisa took off.

They should have stuck around, though, because half an hour later we met this sweet troll - er, I mean, the band. We met the troll, too, because Kyle had been going through some random blogs one day and found one that mentioned the show we had been to last year. He had started talking to her, thinking she might be cool, and though she was very nice, once he'd cajoled a picture out of her, he pretty much ran off into the night. I audibly gasped when I saw the picture. Cripes. The real thing was not much better. Hell, she was three dimensional, so I'd say that was worse. We'd actually been talking about her during the show, how she was right up in the front row and how she probably kept removing any sign of an erection he had from looking at Shelly and Missy dance for him. Anyway, she recognized Kyle and there was some awkward chit chat, and finally she left. The Last Barrier, I have decided to call her.

Ken came out, and Missy ran up to talk to him about her tummy and whatnot. Of the band members, he is the most personable. He came out all cool ("Yeah, we wanted to meet up with you guys...") and just started talking to us. Missy frantically tried to tell the story of how their band was intertwined in our own relationship and all the driving and whatnot, and he goes, "You need to cut that down. Is he your boyfriend? Just say you drove 3,000 miles to meet each other. The other one is too long." Smacko came up in his awesome thrift store DARE t-shirt (already hand-scrawled messages contained thereon: "your a wonderful son," etc.) and had Ken sign it. Ken took his time, writing about how he loved DARE and then drawing an arrow to Smacko's asscrack and labeling it "FUDGIE" Then, suddenly, Rhett came out, and all things sort of lost meaning for me.

I didn't think I would be so starstruck, first of all. But for you Christians out there, this was like meeting this Jesus fellow you always speak so highly of. The first couple moments are a little blurry, but I think Ken was explaining to Rhett that these were the girls with the signs and whatnot, and suddenly I am running up to him and ripping open my shirt and oh God what have I done? He was so effing cute, though. So he shook my hand (my hand! FIRST! HE REACHED FOR MY HAND) and was all like, "Hi, I'm Rhett," and I told him my name which means, however briefly, Rhett Miller knew my name, and we spoke, and then Missy and I got a picture with him (her in the middle, meaning it's going to be a hell of a lot harder to Photoshop her out if we ever break up) and he got pictures with the rest of us and signed some shit, and I'm sure all of us were playing this game in our heads where we figured, "Rhett is interested in me than all others" (I, for instance, maintain that he never took eye contact off me for more than two seconds, possibly because I look enough like him that he was started to wonder about some of those one night stands he might have had, but oh God I'm delusional), and Phil was out there, too, and he seemed sort of shy and maybe a little happy that he got some attention (e.g. Shelly's stomach) for once, and we tried waiting for Murray, but man, fuck Murray! RHETT FUCKING MILLER AAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE And his voice is so high-pitched and gay, and Smacko was all talking to him, like, "See you tomorrow, man," and he was like, "Yeah, gotta get a picture with Smacko," and I fucking concur:

High point. We rode on that excitement for a while, screaming at each other and people on the phone. Visited a stripclub-adjacent gas station for water and rushed back to Waterloo to crash, ate a lot of junk food, and passed out about ten minutes into The Score.

Woke up the next day in a fairly good mood (Nothing like sleeping on the floor to remind you you're alive), and Missy went to talk on the phone to her mom while I tried to rouse Smacko and Kyle for the hastily-prepared barbeque Shelly's mom was making. At first I thought Missy was laughing a lot in the other room. Then I realized I was wrong. Turns out the call was from her parents, and her dad was going to have quadruple bypass surgery that coming Tuesday. Very low point. It's not that I mind comforting; I just never have any idea about the right thing to say. But I got right on that and started building up a case while I sat there holding Missy (poor Shelly's sister has the misfortune at entering the room at such an inopportune time). From everyone I talked to, I guess the procedure is fairly routine these days - they perform over a million a year - and it will make him stronger, and my grandpa had one 13 years ago, and he's doing fine, etc... But they're still only words, and it's still her dad going under the knife. Time for BBQ!

We stayed down there for a while, and eventually Missy numbed enough to go upstairs and try to eat. Then she thought she found a piece of tuna in her broccoli cheese casserole, so that was the end of that. Kick her while she's down, Lord. She talked on the phone some, to the rest of her family, while the rest of us downed out food so that we could get back on the road. I made sure that she wanted still wanted to go to the concert, and she did, so we started leg one of our drive. Everyone pretty much slept while I sat there listening to the jam band CD from the night before. Oh, Madahoochie. Your songs are so long, brother!

We briefly hit Wal-mart for more poster supplies (and a gross ass sub sandwich for Kyle - it makes me laugh that he loves to eat), and then we came home for a brief break. I, uh, tried to make Missy feel better. High point? Well, she might have been faking it. Since both Shelly and Jevon are ADD spazzes who couldn't make themselves get tickets, neither of them were attending the show that evening, so we decided to switch to Missy's car for the drive. Oh shit, now we was one of them creepy groups - Smacko, Kyle, me, and the one girl Missy. Luckily, there would be no sexual tension, as Kyle and Smacko were getting absolutely bombed in the backseat, splitting a bottle of Jack (cooling in paintcan) between them. Missy later noted the the two of them were the only people who could drink around her without making her want to drink. I think this is a good thing? It was a pretty fun drive up, though, them all drooling whiskey over themselves in the backseat, and all of us discussing the various regrets we had, as far as one night drunken partners go. I think I was the king of the evening, but that is only because Spritz was not in the car with us.

We got in town, and Kyle and Smacko started screaming Wesley Willis lyrics for the city to hear (ROCK N ROLL MCDONALDS / ROCK N ROLL MCDONALDS, with additional crazy lyrics about fat and salt content). Found some parking the far fuck away and then decided I should probably get drunk, too, thus placing Missy in the most awkward company possible. We went to some liquor store, and I knew I did not have to worry about the Indian guy questioning Sean D (even as Kyle was running drunkenly behind the counter, looking for something salty enough). I got what actually turned out to be a really awesome bottle of wine. Kelly's Revenge Cab Sauv. Only $8, too, and even Kyle and Smacko liked it. Of course, they probably would have liked my piss by this point if I had told them it had 12.5% alcohol by volume. We wandered back to the car (stopping first at coffee place so Missy could get some energy and so Smacko could destory their poor meager little bathroom) and tried to straighten up. Kyle and Smacko shared elk jerky, I think, or did I just make that up? and I downed the wine out of a paper bag, just like a homeless person. We still had the handsome sign, and Shelly had made us a new 3:16, but we still had one left, so Smacko scrawled an amazingly-inept "KEN [HEART] FUDGIE," practically unreadable, which Missy colored for him (with the promise that they would draw no more cocks on windows either).

I am not what they call a fast drinker, so we took the rest of my wine and dumped it in a coffee cup so as to be all sneaky, and set out on our way. It had been nice and warm all day long, so we were taken by surprise how cold it was in the city. We skipped along, though, all inebriated and merry. This girl tumbled over as she walked by, so we assumed she was just as smashed as we were. She was not. Awkward! Finally, got to Park West (really the far hell away from where we'd parked), but I still wasn't done with my wine. We passed it around as quick as we could, but the brunt of it still fell on me. As we ran in to get in line, I threw up the last big gulp I'd taken on the front step on the entrance. Let's rock and roll!

My parents had told me how neat the Park West is to see a show, and from what I remember, they were right. Using that bundled aggression I love so much, Missy staked her way through the crowd, dragging the rest of us behind in her wake, until we once again ended up in the first and a half row. It's hard to roust those freaks at the very front. Anyway, we settled in, and Kyle (as he has been known to do) started hitting on anything with female reproductive organs in our general vicinity. He eventually settled in on those two girls that seemed strangely familiar to me...

And some people question my inane attention to detail. Check out this excerpt from the entry I wrote when I went to the Old 97's at the Vic last year: "As far as the people about me went, I had some real winners. There were a pair of redhead sisters next to me. Yipe. The one of them was OK enough, but the other was so much like Kathy Griffin that I kind of wanted to stab her on principle. GAH, the facial expressions! WHY!! They were on a date of sorts with two ridiculously tall college guys, both of whom had redhead fetishes so blatant that even I picked up on it within moments. Obviously, there is no accounting for taste AT ALL. They kept whispering shit between each other all night long, to the point where I was tempted to yell, 'JUST TAKE HER MUTATED VAGINA ALREADY! WE CAN ALL SMELL THAT SHE WANTS IT'"

Yeah, same redhead sisters... except now I know their names. The OK enough one, the one Kyle beer-goggly thought was "so fucking hot," dyed her hair brown (Good choice) and was named Wendy (Why did I call her Melinda?). The Kathy Griffin one was Carrie, and she ended up buying drinks for Kyle at a huge, huge markup as far as I can tell. I started talking to them, too, mentioning the information above without all the insulting parts (I didn't say much); I think I creeped the one out, though, when I pointed and said, "You dyed your hair, didn't you?!" Hehehehe One of the tall guys was there even, and he turned out to be immensely helpful during the show. I would hand him my Polaroid and pantomime what I wanted a picture of (windmill guitar or yelling or whatever) and he was so fucking tall that he could stick the camera right in Rhett's face and get it. But he wouldn't let any of us encroach further on his territory. No, we musn't dare.

The opening act was, uh, present and entirely forgettable in my drunken mind, some chick on some guitar (Murray's wife, they said), so I took turns with Smacko and Kyle going out to the bathroom and talking to the punk rawk towel hander-outer guy. I think I even gave him like 5 bucks because I "felt for his plight." Jesus, wino. We even ran into Ken. Back in the crowd (I'll never know how we made it back twice), there was some sort of accident and Missy's $600 camera went crashing to the floor. Since then, the lens has stayed stuck out and while all the software seems to work, it won't let her take pictures. Uh-oh... low point.

This show seemed a lot more fun, but I might have had a small chemical bias. Plus we were tons closer. We weren't supposed to hold up our signs, but we did anyway, eventually tossing them on the stage. Rhett put the handsome one on display, and Murray held the "FUDGIE" one above his head, which was about the most surreal thing I've ever seen.

The setlist was almost exactly like the night before, which sort of sucked, but they did play "Eyes for You" (an early song) and "Cryin' Drunk" (an early song about Rhett Miller vs. Walker Texas Ranger), so I freaked out during those, and the redhead girls pointed at each other during that line from "Coahuila" ("And I don't do red haired girls from Louisiana") just like they fucking did last time. IT WASNT CLEVER THEN EITHER BITCHES And Kyle would mostly jump around with me, too, but then sometimes his drunken brain would get lost, and he would just stare at Rhett with loving awe. Or tell that guy Nick next to us that I had farted. Good one, Kyle. The next day was Mother's Day, so Rhett tried to get people to drunk dial their moms, and I dunno - from the reviews I read, I guess the Park West is normally a pretty reserved venue, so we must play well off each other if there are folks dancing on tables and shit. I also read that they had played in March at some outdoor BBQ place with The Gourds, and that would have been pretty sweet. But I am digressing some, so I'll continue.

[Here is a line from someone else's review of the concert: "Throughout the show there were these guys behind us who kept holding signs up that said "Rhett 3:16" and one that said "Stewart Handsome Miller" which isn't even the right line... it's "Ransom" guys.... but whatever, it was really funny, and Rhett looked a little freaked out." I would go on the message board and bitch her out, but she was the one kind of fucked up girl who knew Rhett sort of (He wished her a happy birthday and let her in for sound check), so who am I to shit on parades?]

Once the show let out, we knew what to do. Our first task was to find the vans, so we would know where to be. From there, we would run back to the car quick snap, get some J. Roget for Kyle and Smacko as they were starting to sober up, and then wait in the car until someone important came out. Unfortunately, neither Kyle nor Smacko are the biggest of runners, Missy and I took off on our own. Drunk running in the city. Lord, it is good to be alive. She ran to get the car while I ran in the same liquor store, already aware that they were open 'til one and that they would let me buy their shit. Unfortunately, there was no cheap champagne there, and I was pressed for time, so I grabbed a $15 bottle of Korbet and took off to catch Missy. The two of us grabbed Smacko and Kyle and then parked illegally as close as we fucking could to the vans. We sat in the car for a while, trying to warm up and passing the bottle of champagne around and giggling how it made our mouths tingle. After not too long, roadies started pulling shit out the door, which was our cue to advance last time, so we stormed out onto the field.

Trickery. We had to wait at least another hour before Ken came out and another hour on top of that before the rest of the band joined him. To pass the time, we passed the champagne and talked to anybody who was nearby. This one guy was waiting even more dedicatedly than us; he wanted his damn guitar signed, and he was not leaving until it was. The same fifteen year old and her dad from St. Louis were there, so Kyle once again contemplated making his move, and we were eventually joined by those redhead sisters again. Still, it was cold as balls, so we all clung together and sang to keep warm, some of us a little more noisily than others. Eventually this guy came over to try and quiet us down, but at least he wasn't a dick about it. He just didn't want anyone hauled off by the police. His name was Chandler (*sigh* Yes, like the "Friends" character of the same name), and he apparently had met the reviewer above and gotten into the sound check as well. There is also the chance he was the "middle-aged computer programmer" that awful lady was hitting on at Vic show last fall. Small world. We talked for a while and finally FINALLY the band started leaking out.

It was pretty awesome how Ken came over and talked to us first before doing any of his "work" stuff - signing autographs and all. One step closer to my dream of being friends with Old 97's. Missy had managed to grab a guitar pick after the show and showed it to Ken, asking him who it belonged to. "That's a man's pick," he said. "Rhett doesn't use that shit." Haha, poor effeminate Rhett. Then the rest of the band came out, and it goes a little blurry again. Smacko was wearing the same DARE shirt, which he got Murray to sign and now has a complete set. I do believe I might have flashed my chest to Murray this time, but we try to block that out from embarrassment. I think all of us gave Rhett hug this time around, and I was able to get this sweet shit:

His arm is around me!!!! Plus, as we were taking it, he even said something about how cool my Polaroid camera was: "It's like it spits out a dollar every time you take a picture..." RHETT MILLER EVEN KNOWS HOW EXPENSIVE POLAROID FILM IS *sigh* Wendy (the lesser of two evils redhead) had already gotten me to take one picture for her during the show, and she would have had another had I not fun out of film right at the end there. Damn my quest for self-esteem for any possible source, even those that fill me with terror.

We started back home. Kyle and Smacko had gotten their buzz back and were now making it a point to terrorize the rest of 294. Luck was with them, it seems, for road construction or something brought traffic to a crawl, allowing them to show "BOOYA" with all the time in the world. You're probably fortunate enough not to have seen that particular porn clip, so let me summarize. A black man has his testicles in a white woman's butthole. He pulls them out, it makes a popping noise, and he yells, "BOOYAAAAH!" Smacko would just hold it up to the window, smiling and nodding and laughing like a goon, occasionally saying, "Booya!" along with the video for good measure. Surprisingly, reactions were pretty positive. This one rich white couple in their shiny SUV were cracking up, and he got tons of thumbs up and smiles and shit. "What is that shit, man?" some guy asked. "He's pulling his balls out of her asshole," Smacko explains. It sort of ruled. Even Missy, who is totally disgusted by porn, was cracking up. High point. This one car with these two Arab guys in it made it a point to slow down and watch and then kept asking where we were going. I think they wanted to do Missy.

And let's not forgot the mooning. We were playing some sort of high-speed leapfrog game with this 2 Fast, 2 Furious guy where we would pass him and then he would zoom by and slow down again. So Kyle and Smacko started mooning him - pressed ham, they said - and then they pretty much started mooning everyone. Good game, America.

We went the wrong direction for at least ten minutes, and then in Kankakee, we had to take all three exits because Kyle kept thinking that this would be the one with the 24 White Castle on it, and each time Smacko would get madder and madder. "You fucked me, Kyle! You fucked me!" We never did find the thing, though, and just carried on our way, Missy driving dangerously fast for how often she seemed to nod off. Luckily, I was on the watch, so I'd give her a Wet Willy if she ever seemed to slip too far. We didn't get home until 4:30. At some point Shelly drunk dialed me and told me how her "friend" Micah kept trying to make smoove with her all night long (She was stuck at home with the freak friends, see). Boy's gonna need some ass kicking fairly soon. Or at least a real stern Facebook message.

Which means we didn't get up until like 1. And even then we didn't get up up until like 4. Missy had planned on going home to see her dad but figured it was too late that day anyway and decided to stay for one more. She was scared mostly. Low point. But then a very high point which we will not discuss except to say that she was giggling uncontrollably. Then we went to Courier with Kyle and Shelly and then, what do you know, back to bed! I thought I had an exam on Monday, but it turned out the 10th was a Tuesday, so instead we did shit all day. I had this weird painful bump on my back that I thought was maybe a zit, but everyone else thought was maybe a spiderbite. As long as it weren't them ants! We have a truce going! (That was probably yet another low point for Missy, the one evening suddenly noticing that we had all sorts of fun guests sharing our living space. Well, shoot! I don't mind ants, how could anyone else?) We eventually rose to eat again and then out to door for the last bingo of the semester. Unfortunately, Missy seems to curse Smacko whenever she's in town for bingo, as he was still out for the count (Could it have been the hotdog wrapped in bacon wrapped in a mixture of eggs and very rare hamburger pieces? Possibly). Jevon didn't show up either, but when $300 is on the line, friends start showing up out of the woodwork anyway. Neither Missy nor I drank, so it was actually sort of slow, but 3 members of Team Tourettes did make it into the shambo, which means hell for the rest of the crowd. Ninjas over and over again. I don't even like ninjas that much, but it saves me a lot of time thinking and strategizing. Finally, he who was most willing to forgo the ninja won (Another one of Shelly's industrial design friends, this one we don't have to hate as he seems to understand that Kyle is awesome and that Shelly is in a relationship with him). We didn't win the money, but Spritz did use an awesome psychological move. He took some bullshit card with nothing on it and yelled out "BINGO!" all excited and happy and dancing (and got us to do the same) so that some people might clear their cards in bitchiness. I don't think it worked, but it was still ballsy as hell. We tossed the can of oyster pieces we won in the street.

Missy and I walked home ahead of them, stopped for ice cream, and still managed to beat them home. That should be very embarrassing for you, is all I'm saying. The next day I got up to cross the guard while Missy supposedly packed, and then we were both worried about who those strange old people lurching up to our house were (Oh God, I took one of their ribbons! We're fucked! Hide in the Closet of Infinity!), but they were just Spritz's grandparents. Missy, exhausted, finally started to get her shit together - but where did her floor mats go? - and took off, all sad and lonely. Low point. And then fell asleep and drove off the road. Low point. And then went home to see her dad get surgery. Low point. Sorry to end it on that note, but I bet she was, too.