Item #11 - Attend the Ballet

One of the great things about growing in the Detroit area . . . . hmmmmmm . . . . . one of the things that's nice about growing up in the Detroit area . . . . ummmmm, OK, one of the saving graces about growing up in the Detroit area (yeah, that works) is that it's just across the river from Windsor. Windsor is in Ontario. Ontario is in Canada. And since Canada has their heads out of their asses, they've set the legal drinking age at 19.  So not surprisingly, my summers as a 19 and 20 year old, the time back home living with my parents, included weekly caravans across the river to get drunk. 

And lucky for us, back in those days, the exchange rate was a godsend. $1 American got you $1.50 in Canadian.  Add in the fact that Canadian beer is like moonshine (oh Molson XXX, you were such a delight), and that as a 19 year old your tolerance isn't exactly at it peak, and you could get destroyed for $20. Ahhh, those were the days. And we used to walk over the bridge to Canada in our barefeet through 4 feet of snow, uphill, both ways, and that's the way it was and we liked it! 

OK, maybe not. But on a Friday night at 9pm, the bridge and tunnel to Canada was 98% full of idiot Americans making they're way to Windsor to get loaded . . . and at 2am, it was full of idiot Americans puking out their car doors while waiting to get through customs. And remember, this was pre-9/11. When the customs agent asked you "what was your business in Canada?", and you/your driver responded with "we went to Bentley's and Woody's to get drunk and find slutty girls", rather than of getting searched, you were more likely to get a high five.

I know Manhattan-ites have the term "bridge and tunnel club" for all the Jersey folk that make their way over to Manhattan, effectively killing any coolness that may still reside in a bar. But I now wonder if the Windsor canucks had a similar term for us stupid Americans, who swarm like locusts on weekend nights, consuming all the available Labatt's?

So like every other suburban Detroit kid, Canada gave me my first true taste of the bar experience. But being as that they're such a giving country, the legal age to get into a gentleman's club is only 19 too. And since my friends and I came from a Catholic background, and since we went to an all-boys Catholic school, lord knows we had more than enough pent up hormones, so you're damn right we took advantage of that opportunity as well.

And as I learned about my tolerance for alcohol during my bar experiences, I also learned about my tolerance for boobs. Yes, there is such a thing. The nudie (nudy?) bar is is a fantastic thing, especially when you first get there. I mean, there's boobs . . . and they're all over the place. But like all things in life, you can have too much of a good thing. And the longer I'm at a nudie bar (which is actually pretty damn rare), the more my excitement wains, until it's finally passed the point of indifference.

Then, it's time to go home. 

But, there IS a way to have my excitement curve stretched out just a bit more (wow, after typing that, I just realized that sentence may not be the best wording for a story about nudie bars, but whatever. It stays). There is a way to push out that point of indifference. And it's even a little surprising to me - to have girls that are actually good dancers. 

Now granted, I'm not talking about classically trained ballet, but rather the ancient art of the pole. But it DOES make a difference. If a girl is showing some energy, some moves, and actually looks like she's having a good time up there, it honestly makes a difference (and actually, you can probably make the same argument about sex in general).  For any show really, in any walk of life, if the performer is legitimately good at what they do, no matter how exciting or boring you may think the overall material is, their skill will impact your enjoyment. 

And those nudie bars, those delightful Canadian dens of debauchery? Well, in Detroit, one of the most well-known euphemisms around is that if your going to Canada to go to the strip clubs, you just say your going to the "Windsor Ballet". 

So attending the Slutcracker last week was kind of like seeing the Windsor Ballet's brother from another mother. The Windor Ballet is a whole lot of nudity with a little bit of decent dancing thrown in, while the Slutcracker is a whole lot of legit dancing, performed by people who majored in dance, who just, well, don't mind taking their clothes off while doing it. And since co-worker Daemeon was creating a documentary on the Slutcracker, Sarah, Katie and I came out to support him . . . and to see some naked ballet.  

As you can probably tell from the name, the Slutcracker is pretty much the Nutcracker . . . . with sluts. Actually, it's pretty darn close to the Nutcracker. Same score, same dancing, same story . . . with a few tweaks (at least that's what I'm told. I've never seen the real Nutcracker). SPOILER time!

• Instead of a nutcracker coming to life, a dildo comes to life
• The main character struggles to choose between the aforementioned dildo and her new fiance
• Before making a choice, the main character certainly makes the most of her time with the dildo
• A 10 foot penis that spews confetti makes an appearance
• So does a gimp
• So do a plethora of pasty-covered boobs

In the end, the amusing storytelling (sans words of course), along with the massive amounts of skin (ladies don't worry - while the show was johnson-less, there's ample male skin for your viewing), made the first trip to the ballet a damn good experience. And the great thing is . . . .it was a ballet. While there was an obvious difference in the skill levels of the various dancers, the majority were damn skilled (said as someone who knows nothing about ballet skill). I mean, there were several toe-only full spins thingies going on.What more do I need to say?

And just like the Windsor Ballet, if this was just a hastily thrown together show, with all parts being filled by Foxy Lady cast-offs, I probably would have been damn bored after an hour. But I wasn't, and it turned out to be 2 hours of XXX-Mas Delight, fit for both guys and girls, that I would absolutely recommend. And really, that same $20 at the gentleman's club only gets you 1/8 of the time anyway, right?

Item #10 - Wax My Chest

OOOOOOO Kelly Clarkson!

 Warning: This post is NSFPWATOBSA (not safe for people who are turned off by shirtless Alan)

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April 1998
As a freshmen at the University of Michigan, I learn about the existence of the Naked Mile, in which thousands of students, mostly seniors, get naked and run a mile through the heart of campus at night, after the last day of classes. Like the majority of campus, I head down to check it out. And yes, it's thousands of students (not surprisingly, the guy:girl ratio is around 5:1) running naked through a mile-long course, which is lined 5 people deep on each side. It is . . . far from sexy. However, it IS very amusing. Thus, I commit myself to running it as a senior.

April 1999
After the last day of classes as a sophomore, I head to a house belonging to a group of good friends for a party. The house is a mere block or so away from the start of the Naked Mile, a perfect spot for viewing.  We all drink. We all drink a lot. We all get drunk. We all decide that it's a perfectly sane idea to run through the heart of campus while naked, thus answering the rhetorical question - if 1,000 people jumped off a bridge naked, would you? Yes. Yes I would.

Drunk enough to decide the Naked Mile is a good decision, but yet sober enough to not fall while running a mile, and sober enough to not bump into whatever guy was in front of me, which I'm sure would have caused a short bout of homophobia

April 2000
Having run the Naked Mile as sophomores, and having already overcome any fears that might go along with it, my friends and I make the obvious decision to run it once again as juniors. However, as one of the most-PC schools around, the University of Michigan decides to start cracking down it and actually having the Ann Arbor police start ticketing/arresting people, claiming that they were worried about participant's safety (though really, they just didn't want the bad press of hosting the Naked Mile and seeing DVD's of it winding up on German porn sites). Despite the added level of difficulty, and now lowered participation (~500 people), we strip down 1/5 of a mile into course, joining it on school property instead of city property where the cops where really doing the enforcement, and run it anyway.

April 2001
Naked Mile day as a senior and police presence is wide spread. If you're ticketed/arrested, you may have to register as a sex offender. I was able to handle an MIP ticket (minor in possession, aka, hosting a party while underage) during college, and handle the resultant 3 hour alcohol-is-bad class. I decide I cannot handle going door-to-door "meeting" the new neighbors every time I move, or not being able to live within a half mile of any school. We skip the Naked Mile, which in its last year of any existence probably had less than 100 runners. A tradition is dead. Sigh.

December 2008
I learn about the Santa Speedo Run. I head down to the heart of Boston to hang out with Danielle and Meredith, and watch them, and 500 others, run it. A mile plus through the streets of downtown Boston in the middle of winter.  30 seconds into meeting them at the bar, even before the run, I commit to running the following year. I twice ran a mile naked with hundreds of other people - running a mile with a speedo covering my ass and junk should be a cake walk.

December 12, 2010
I run my first Santa Speedo Run. It is incredibly enjoyable. Though the bits and pieces are covered by a speedo, it is 25 degrees or so out in Boston. Thus, the level of stupidity is still comparable to the Naked Mile.

 I'm the one not in a bikini top

December 2010
Having already naked through a college campus in my life, and having already run with a speedo through a major city in the middle of winter, I decide to add a little flavor to this year's Santa Speedo Run . . . and wax my chest. Last year, there was some trimming. This year, I go bare.

So, a few days before this years run, the girl who introduced me to the Santa Speedo Run, Danielle, came over to . . . wipe the slate clean? And her new fiancee Jim came along for the ride.(And by "new", I REALLY mean new. As in, they got engaged that day at lunch. So yes, whenever they'll think about their engagement for the rest of their lives, they'll be thinking about my chest hair. Now that's friendship!).

 And as the saying goes, a picture is a worth a thousand words. Thus . . .

A somewhat hairy BEFORE

3 . . .2 . . .1 . . .pain

When the wax kit ran out of material, we improvised, and the MacGyver engineering worked

Danielle really enjoyed this too much. I think the whips and chains have been added to her wedding registry already

 A very red AFTER

As you might imagine, there was definitely some alcohol involved. OK, more than some. On both my part and Danielle's. But while it certainly hurt, like 30 ultra-adhesive extra-large band-aids being ripped off hurt, it wasn't exactly the scene from the 40 Year Old Virgin, though I'm sure Steve Carell's cardigan chest had something to do with it (however, I did get a few specks of blood).

In the end, while the pain may not have been god awful, and I am actually kind of digging the smooth chest thing, the bareness only lasts 2 months apparently, and there ain't no way I'm going through that again just for the baby smoothness. Just clippers and slight trimming from here on out . . . like a man!

Item #9 - Kelly's Roast Beef

I moved out to Boston back in 2001 with my college roommate Walter (if you're reading this, there's probably a 80% chance you knew that, and, know Walter). And when I did, I worked at a start-up company that had, oh, about 4 employees at first. I loved the company. I loved the people. But what I didn't love was the fact that the other people there were all in relationships and weren't exactly of the go-to-the-bar-every-weekend age or mindset. Add to that the fact that Walter and I lived in Marlborough, a suburb about 30 miles from downtown that makes my old home of Sterling Height seem lively. And add to that the fact that Walter decided to start a long-distance relationship right before moving and usually preferred talking on the phone for 3 hours on a Friday to going out.

You may or may not find this blog interesting, but I'm pretty sure if I started a blog that just told Walter-isms and Walter stories, the followers would grow to the 1000's in a month. He is the only person I know that I would actually encourage to start a Twitter account, for better or worse. Walter in 140 characters would be an adventure . . . though mostly an adventure into the offensive and un-PC.

The combination of all those things led to me having a near non-existent social lifeearly on in my Boston going, which was made worse by me coming off the most enjoyable summer I had ever had - the post-graduation no-real-job drunk-fest in Ann Arbor.  That first year out here can only be rivaled in its social ineptitude by my 2 years spent at grad school in West Lafayette, Indiana (one of the first times I drove across town to the grocery store, I passed an old timer sitting on his rocking chair on his porch wearing overalls and no shirt. Right there, I knew it would be a long-ass 2 years).  

But at least in Boston, there was, ya know, an actual city to see. Thus, Independent Alan was born, and I was able to actually get out and start doing things alone. Going to musuems alone. Going to the movies alone. Going to concerts alone. But one thing that still kind of weirds me out is going to dinner solo. Maybe it's because with that one, it's blatantly obvious to an entire room that you're a loner (at a concert or movie, the lights go down and you're just one in a crowd).  Or maybe it's just because as I've said before, I have the patience of a 5 year old, and thus even the one time I did stop for dinner on my way home from work back then, I made sure to bring along a magazine (just sitting and thinking to myself for 20 minutes? What am I, a psycho)

Seriously, not counting eating at airports, where 50% of the people there are eating solo, I think I've only actively decided to eat at a restaurant alone that one time. So while going to Kelly's Roast Beef in Revere (a Boston institution. Ann Arborites - think Blimpy Burger or Zingerman's) wasn't an exciting list item, it at least carried the slightest fear of being that guy who's eating alone like a freak in the corner.

But as I learned, like many things in life, the fear was completely misguided and unfounded. No, not because I would stop caring about what the other diners thought with me eating alone, and actually grow up and be an adult as I continue on the list. No, it was because Kelly's Roast Beef's is just a damn take-out food stand by the side of the ocean!  I've seen this place 100 times on the Phantom Gourmet, and not once did that fact ever get processed by my Masters-level brain. So smart, and yet so dumb.

 

And while a Kelly's sandwich should probably be enjoyed as you bask in the sun and smell that salty seaside air, I, always the genius, decided to go there last week, at 9pm in December. Thus instead of the above, I got the below. Not exactly a lifetime summer memory. 

And instead of being that weird guy in the corner eating alone and mumbling to himself, I got to be that weird guy eating in his parked car while listening to talk radio, and who probably causes the neighbors nearby to call the cops on what they think is a potential pedophile.

Nope, not sketchy and/or sad at all.

So while I still need to get over that uneasy feeling of being the solo diner, I at least discovered a dining experience that can beat it in terms of overall level of depression. If only I had a quart of pint of Ben & Jerry's to finish off that meal with.

(and thus ends the blog post seemingly written by a single 55 year old lady with 4 cats).

• Thanks to Ang for the suggestion of Kelly's
• Yes, this theme of this post was probably a stretch, but what do you expect? It was a roast beef take-out stand.  Topics were limited. Just be happy it wasn't 1000 words on various sexual euphemisms.
• All are still welcome to come out to the Slutcracker Thursday. Ballet for the ladies, boobies for the guys.
• And tomorrow, item #10 . . .and there will be pain.