Item #50 - Shakespeare in the Park

"or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
and by opposing end them.
to die . . .
to sleep . . .
no more"
-Billy Madison
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Comedy

As part of my pad-the-college-resume spree, I was a member of the Wig and Mask Society for 4 years in high school. While that sounds like something Tom Cruise got to see in Eyes Wide Shut, it really just meant being affiliated with the play. I was an usher 1 year.  I worked on the set crew for all 4 years, which gave me skills I would use later on in life. And while those skills include basic knowledge of hand tools, the real experience I gained was from the vast amount of euchre everyone played. Being a quality euchre player is ingrained in a Michigander's DNA, like bowling and the ability to grow mustaches.

Euchre is played to 10 points, with typical rounds going for 1 and 2 points, and the rare round going for 4 points. My friend Jim and I once beat our buddy Drew and his lady friend in 3 rounds, which is the fastest win possible. Granted, vast amounts of deck stacking occurred as the happy couple got schmoopie with each other and we continued to steal the deal, but a wins a win. In the words of Jesse The Body Ventura, "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat." 

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Tragedy

The head of the set crew was a teacher who we'll just called Mr L. I never had him for an actual class, and thus, only interacted with him via the set crew. He was one of the "cool" teachers at school that you could joke around with, but at the end of the day you respected him and did what he said. He encouraged the euchre play when there was down time, and always made sure the stereo was on (and usually made sure it was playing Rush. Several years later I would finally learn that Rush's lead singer Getty Lee was actually a guy). 

Seriously. Without the soul patch, you might expect this person to be headlining Lilith Fair.

Anyways, the "cool" teacher story can only end in 1 of 2 ways. Either he teaches everyone life lessons that they will use for the next 50 years and reference in college applications and valedictorian speeches . . . or he fucks up and gets fired.  Luckily, in the year of the Penn State scandal, I don't have to talk about Mr L getting shit-canned at an all-boy school for the stuff that makes you target 1A for rape in prison. He ended up getting caught buying beer for students, and at a Catholic school, that's easy grounds for dismissal.

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Comedy

Despite being an all-guys school, we had our fair share of gossip (yeah, I'm stereotyping ladies), as word traveled fast in our rather limited hallways. But no news traveled faster than when school play time rolled around and a girl showed up in the main office to sign up for tryouts. Before she finished the 90 second application, all 800 guys had done walk-by's to check her out. We certainly got enough female interaction at the sporting events and monthly club-like dances, but to actually have one in the building during normal school hours, that wasn't a nun? That was gold. 

We really did get a ton of girls to go to our football and basketball games, and those monthly club-like dances in the gym where it was $5 to get in  and only guys from our school could go? It was a nice 3-to-1 girl-to-guy ratio. An all guys school, but we did just fine for ourselves, thank you very much. End of rationalization paragraph.

My senior year I finally decided to suck it up, be a man, and actually perform in a dance in the play along with doing sets. At the very least, it would be a chance to hang out with some new people, AKA, meet some new girls. And while I did meet some new people during dance practice, no dates came of it. So come play time, we mostly hung out backstage with our crew of friends. But on the night of dress rehearsal, this girl Lara I knew, who went to the closest thing to our all-girl sister school, came over and said "Hey, there's a girl I want to introduce you to." FINALLY. So I followed her over to her group of girls and came face to face with a very cute dark haired girl with a great smile. I liked where this was going. I was a hip young 17 year old who could be in the market for a prom date. "Alan" Lara said, "this is Nikki, though I think you've actually met before." And we had met before, about 10 or so years ago . . . at our relative's birthday party. We were second cousins, and the brief romantic thoughts ended milliseconds after they started, as we spent the rest of the weekend igniting nothing more than a friendship (when I tell this story in the South, they consider this ending a tragedy instead).

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Tragedy

Along with re-meeting my second cousin, I also got to meet one other interesting person during my time as an actual participant in the play.  You know how I said 800 guys would walk by the main office when a girl would come in? Well, that number should actually be 799. While the laws of probability say there should be more than 1 out of 800, there was only one out-of-the-closet guy at our school - Doug (a sophomore) AKA, "Dance or Die" (everyone at the play called him that because he wore a shirt that said "Dance or Die" to every single dance practice).

Being an all-boys, 98% white, 95% middle-to-upper class Catholic school doesn't exactly breed awareness in diversity (meeting the Jewish girl next door to our dorm room freshmen year of college was like meeting a martian). So I can't imagine what it was like for the one gay kid in a testosterone-filled sausage fest. What I do know is that some of the brief stories he told us backstage at the play aren't fit to rewrite here.  But our little group of friends treated him well, and I'd like to think that we made him feel good about being himself, as he got to hang out with seniors and wow us with stories about hanging out with lesbians (telling lesbian stories to guys at an all-boys high school is like telling a sumo wrestler about visiting Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory). And after being a close-minded conservative Catholic my whole life, hanging out with Doug may have been the first time I said "Ummmm, I think me and the pope might be on the wrong side of this gay-is-a-sin thing" (Update - relative to this issue, I am definitely not on the pope's side anymore). 

Sadly, as this falls under the Tragedy headline, you already know where this goes. The 3-night play was a success, everyone had a great time at the wrap party, and a few days later, Doug committed suicide. I can only assume he waited until he had that last great moment in the sun, and he got to go out doing what he loved. 

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Hmmmm, well that's a tough story to come back to the present from. But, if I'm going to talk about my experience with our HS play, I might as well tell it all. The blog occasionally needs some serious  meat to go with the fluffy potatoes I suppose.

Anyways, I told high school play stories because I ended up going with friends Jessica, Ryan and Buddy to Shakespeare on the Common in downtown Boston (yes, its now winter. That tells you how much I've lagged on these last couple post-list-completion posts). 

The stage was the high tech thing on the left. Not the cool circular thing on the right.

Since college, I think the extent of my play-going was seeing the Slutcracker (both last year and this year) and seeing the Rocky Horror Picture Show in NYC (starring Skid Row's own Sebastian Bach!). So Shakespeare was definitely a change of pace. That evening's show? All's Well That Ends Well. Yeah, never heard of it. But I figured it was better to see something NEW, right? At first, that was a poor decision, as trying to decipher ye olde timey English from 50 yards away in a park proved to be rather difficult (a special thanks goes out to my smart phone and its ability to let me follow the plot via Wikipedia as necessary).

Shakespeare Enjoyment vs Time

But as the plot slowly began to unfold (3 hours of old English = SLOW), and I slowly began to understand what the hell was happening, I eventually did come to enjoy it, as that Shakespeare fellow kind of knew what he was doing. Your 10 second synopsis (Shakespeare Spoiler Alert!) - Helena wants to marry Bertam. Bertram says "ummm, no thanks" and ditches. Helena eventually hunts him down and tricks him into marrying her. Fin.(insert 80's comic joke about all girls being crazy. I mean, women be shoppiiiiiinnnnng! Am I right?!?)

The way the whole thing played out was fairly dramatic, and while Helena got what she wanted in the end, it was actually kind of sad for Bertram, who seemed to accept his destiny in a "well I'm screwed" kind of way (and I'm not just saying that as someone who used to enjoy the motto "marriage is for suckers"). It sure seemed like a tragedy . . . until I talked to the resident renaissance man at work about it the next day and he informed me that its actually intended to be a comedy, at which point the plot seemed to make a lot more sense to me. Despite the lack of laughter derived from that particular performance, Bertram wasn't the guy you feel sorry for, he was the 90's sitcom character who gets his comeuppance and learns a oh-so-hilarious lesson at the end just as the camera goes to a freeze frame.

So while you're not supposed judge a book by its cover, in this case, you couldn't even judge the book by all the words inside. Next time I see Shakespeare, I'll request the version with the director's commentary.

#49 - Go to Funspot

"Funspot . . . The Spot for Fun!" -The no-false-advertisement Funspot website
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Ali & Frazier . . . Bird & Magi . . .Michigan & That School Down South . . . . Steve Wiebe & Billy Mitchell.  All classic rivalries. What? You haven't heard of Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell. Well, you poor child. Billy and Steve are only the 2 greatest Donkey Kong players that ever lived. Not interested? Then please watch this informative 2 minute video and be wowed.

STILL not impressed? When then you obviously hate America, you pinko Commie bastard. A million different people could have gotten high and invented the iPod. Only a select handful can actually finish Donkey Kong and do so in such glorious point-scoring fashion. You've got to respect greatness, and these 2 men represent the modern day greatness of the American dream, pulling up their bootstraps and building their Kong skills up from nothing but a quarter and a sparkle in their eye.

I think King of Kong is available on Netflix streaming. It's how I watched it, but I don't have a streaming account anymore because like much of America, an extra $4 a month was just too much to bear when prices went up. Seriously though. Go watch it. You may not give a shit about video games, but by the end, I assure you that will have chosen a side and have rooting interest in this ongoing battle (the world record is currently held by someone else, as these 2 greats attempt to reclaim the throne). What is NOT surprising is that you'll most likely be rooting against the guy who speaks in the third person, wears a tie way too often, and looks like a villain from an 80's buddy cop movie.
 
So if you watch the epic documentary King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, you'll learn all about the still-living rivalry between Billy and Steve. you'll learn that there is an actual organization that acts as the keeper of video game world records (no, not Guinness). They're called Twin Galaxies, and every year they hold a get together for the world's most elite classic arcade game players. And if you haven't figured it out, it's held at Funspot in Laconia New Hampshire, the world's largest arcade. So being an average male, and thus a video game geek, I decided to pay respects to the gods of the sport and make a detour to Funspot one Sunday while coming back from camping in the White Mountains. And since your average girl also loves to pick up guys who know how to work a joystick, Angela come along for the ride. 
 
When I walked into Funspot, I immediately went into overload mode. Hundreds upon hundreds of video games, the vast majority of the classic cost-a-quarter variety. It was like walking into a Vegas buffet. I want some prime rib . . . and some garlic mashed potatoes . . . and even though I don't like it, I'll take some lobster to get my money's worth.

My last trip to Las Vegas was about  2 years ago (about 18 months too long). We got drunk. I lost money. Buddy stayed up for about 30 hours straight. I marveled at the bidet in Mike's fancy-boy room at Ceaser's. Traditional Vegas. For brunch on Sunday, we decided to hit up the Luxor. The buffet was $30. Overpriced, but you're in Vegas, so who cares? But then we sat down and the waitress informed us that if we'd like, we could get unlimited mimosas for just $5 more . . . . so we made our money back. 

The Hallowed Grounds of Funspot

At a mere quarter per play, my metaphorical stomach in this case was pretty limitless. But like Vegas, I only really wanted a taste or 2 of everything they had to offer. Play for 5 minutes, and even if it wasn't Game Over, move onto the the next one . . . and the next one . . . and the next one . . . until even a nerd like me couldn't stands no more. 20 or so classic games later (too many to even remember, besides Donkey Kong of course), we moved onto the skeeball & pinball portion of the day. And after spending $5.00 worth of tokens to earn a plastic Funspot cup, we called it a day.

However, if you have the time, you can truly make a day of Funspot. They've got 3 giant rooms of video games and ticket-type games (500+ in all), but they've also got bowling, mini golf, bingo, more mini golf, a bar and a ropes/zip-line course. Oh the wonder of it all! However, I suggest you go as a group, because while I was on my own playing games, I definitely felt like I had driven a window-less van full of candy to Funspot. Chris Hanson could make a year's of episodes at that place.

A good time was had, but most importantly, I got to play on the Donkey Kong machine that the legends like Steve and Billy play on. I touched their joystick! I pushed their buttons! And I spanked that monkey! (Donkey King is a monkey you sick bastard). Anyway, it wasn't exactly like getting batting practice at Fenway Park, but my name is neither Matt Damon nor Ben Affleck, so I have to work with what I got, which on that day, was a fistful of quarters.

#47 & #48 - Learn to Drive Stick, & Get a Mani/Pedi

I love to go running. I've been doing it for the last 5 or so years. I typically run between 3 and 5 miles on an average run, though I have done 13.1 in the one half-marathon I've run. I've run a 4.5 mile leg through the hills of New Hampshire at 3:30am while doing Reach the Beach. I 've run 3 miles at a 6:52 per mile pace, which is faster than the 2 mile timed run we had to for high school soccer when I ran it at a 7:05 per mile pace.When I run 5K races, I typically finish in the top 10%. I . . . am a MAN.
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5 years ago I started running because I looked in the mirror and was disgusted with myself. I was 30 pounds heavier than I was when I graduated high school. Now, I'm 20 pounds lighter and 1 jean size smaller than I was in high school, and 50 pounds lighter than I was when I started running. It's been a HUGE self esteem boost, but to make sure I don't slip back, I keep track of my weight. In fact, before I shower every morning, I look at myself in the mirror, and then weigh myself. If it's just a few pounds heavier than I like, I'm once again disgusted. I calorie count almost every day.  I  . . . am NOT a man.
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 More after the JUMP

Item #46 - Take a Guitar Lesson

"Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?"
"I don't know."
"Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?"
"Put it up to eleven"
"Eleven. Exactly. "
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A set of random music-based lists, because there's just too much shit to cover in a single post about music, and because lists are so damn easy to write about and then talk about in the comments.

Top 3 Concerts

1. Sloan. Clutch Cargo's, Pontiac. 1-29-99. My favorite band, in a probably my favorite venue. They played for 2 hours. Then a break. Then a 30 minute encore. No opening band. Non-stop Sloan action . . . except for that one stop.
   
2. The Hives and The Mooney Suzuki. The Roxy, Boston. 6-11-02.  "Howlin" Pelle Almqvist from the Hives controlled the crowd like nobody I've ever seen. And I had never heard of the Mooney Suzuki before, but they were the one opening band I've seen where they finished and I said, "I must download their stuff tonight." A small venue that RAWKED.
   
3. Suicide Machines. Detroit. 2000? I may not be into punk as much as I once was, but the venue for this can't be ignored. A now-deceased radio station in Detroit used to occasionally have these concerts for maybe 20 people at a small studio, with a decently popular band (Suicide Machines were fairly big in Michigan, as far as punk goes. Bostonians, think of a less popular, less anoying Dropkick Murphys). I ended winning a radio contest to get in, so I went with my little sis. Loud punk rock in a 20 x 20 room with 20 people is pretty bad-ass.

More random/self-deprecating stuff after the jump

Item #45 - Go Surfing

One of my favorite arguments is the classic "what's a sport?" debate. So in an effort to encourage discussion in the comments, or in an effort to just piss some people off, here are Alan's 2 simple guidelines to what is and is not a "sport" - it must be objective, and it must be athletic. See the handy dandy chart below.

Rule #1 - There must be a concrete and objective scoring system.

So Rule #1 typically pisses off the following types athletes - figure skaters, gymnasts, cheerleaders, half-pipe snowboarders, divers, etc. Because if there are judges (as opposed to a referee or umpire), then I'm not buying it. The engineer in me thinks judging these events is like grading an English paper. Just too much subjectivity.  Maybe I'd be OK with it if you increased the sample size and instead of having 10 judges from different countries, you have 1 from every country in the UN. Either that, or have every competitor have the exact same goal, AKA, they all do the exact same routines. Everyone keeps doing triple axles. You fall, you're out. Last man standing wins. That's concrete goodness! Take your artistic merit and go back to the ballet, hippie.

Rule #1 Tough Call - boxing. At least, when it goes to a decision. A knockdown in which one man is barely alive and bleeding profusely is a fairly good indication of a winner. But with just 3 judges, and fights often getting split decisions, its too damn subjective to just pick a winner. And in the spirit of the previous paragraphs, I say bring back the early 1900's and have every fight go like 100 rounds so that there will always be a winner, preferably one with a handlebar mustache. The cock fights I saw may not have been humane, but at the end of each one, there was no question about who won.

Rule #1 Disclaimer - These people are ABSOLUTELY "athletes". 90% of female college gymnasts could kick my ass (please don't hurt me Lisa). But, these are "athletic competitions" to me, not "sports".

Rule #2 - An ample amount of "athleticism" must be exhibited

Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said about porn "I shall not today attempt further to define (it), . . . but I know it when I see it." Well, that's the same with the "athleticism." Darts . . . no. Billiards . . . no. Bowling . . . no. Poker . . . you're an idiot. Golf . . . now we start to see the gray. PGA Tour golf? No. It's no more taxing than being a hippie on a disc golf course. Playing 18 on the weekend, but while carrying your own clubs? Maybe, because now we're actually bringing a little stamina into the equation. Speed Golf? Hells yes.

Rule #2 Toughest Call - Baseball Pitchers. A lot of people can argue against golf simply saying the words John Daly

This man won 2 majors

Well, David Wells = John Daly. And CC Sabathia isn't exactly helping the cause either. But, since theoretically every pitcher has to "sprint" to a ball occasionally to field it, and every NL pitcher has to "sprint" to first base if they ever actually make contact, they just barely qualify. Sprinting is required in the sport of baseball, its just that some of these guys are really, really, really shitty at it.

Rule #2 Disclaimer - These folks may not be athletes, but becoming a pro at these "games of skill" is still near impossible. I like golf. I play golf several times a year. Yet, a few weeks ago, instead of walking 100 yards from the 15th to 16th holes, I walked 100 yards to the parking lot to leave early because I could've probably thrown a ball further than I could have hit one. I've gotten better every single year I've been playing soccer, however, I could probably play my 12 year old self right now at golf and win by maybe a stroke. It's embarrassing.

So to quickly summarize with examples:

Anyway, I kind of wanted to try a new sport during the last year, but the closest I came to that was the trapeze  and the unicycle. So I figured if I did one more "athletic competition", 3 halves would make a whole (I should be better at math). So I headed down to Narragansett RI for some surfing lessons with my friends Ryan and Sarah (Narragansett Beer, while arguably the best cheap beer around, is not actually made in Narragansett).

Surf Lesson #1 - Be an adult and don't stare at the instructor's metal peg leg. Yes, our surfing instructor had a metal peg leg . . .  and he was a bad-ass. And being someone who loves to break the tension by using humor as a crutch, I totally appreciated the fact that he made a joke about it before anybody every said anything (not that I expected anyone to say anything. But, trying to figure out the logistics of surfing with a peg leg may have made someone inquisitive enough to say something). But he absolutely made a joke about sharks getting his leg, and I absolutely enjoyed it. And to answer any lingering questions, I think his peg had a suction cup on the end of it (he didn't actually get on a board during the lesson).

Surf Lesson #2 - Learn to pop up on your board while you're still on the beach, and try not to look like a total tool while doing so. Lesson 2B is hard.

Lesson #3 - Show up with upper body muscles. Considering I hadn't lifted weights since sophomore of gym class when it was required, I did not pass lesson #3. This lesson I didn't expect, but I learned about it pretty quickly when we got out into the water. The hardest part of the day was a combination of timing the waves as they came in, and getting yourself up to speed to actually catch the wave. That meant lots and lots of paddling, and lots and lots of disappointment about not having enough arm strength to get your damn board up to speed as your watch a fantastic wave go by. Luckily, Bad-Ass Instructor Guy was there to occasionally give us kids a push. Thanks dad.

And that's about all there was to it. The longest I ever stood on the board was probably a whole 3 seconds, but considering the size of the waves and the minimal time they actually existed, I'll take it. So I spent a lot less time on the board than when I first learned to snowboard, but this time I got to walk away, instead of having to waddle away with a sore ass.

Item #44 - Run the Brooklyn & Manhattan Bridges

In #43, I went to NYC to go to a Mets game and finish out the 30 stadium tour. The game was at 1:00, and there was a Michigan game at 8:00 that night (why explore all that NYC has to offer when you can stay inside and give yourself multiple heart attacks watching a college football game!), so I had a few hours to kill in between. So earlier in the week, before heading down, I decided to keep up my running and at least spend 45 minutes touring NYC by doing a 5 mile run. I was staying with my buddy Aaron in Brooklyn, so I could do the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge on the same run. Convenient . . . until this news item came out:

U.S. security forces in high alert after the latest intelligence information said the militant group Al Qaeda planning to detonate a car bomb on the bridge or tunnel in the city of New York and Washington DC at the 10th anniversary 9 / 11 attacks, this weekend.

Just great. But rather than pick a different non-bridge-crossing route, or not run altogether, I said fuck it, and proceeded as planned. Because if I didn't run, I'd be letting the terrorists win, right? And after having been in NYC September 7-9 of 2001, I had always wanted a NY disaster story of my own (see Item #25). So maybe this was my chance. I could be running on the Brooklyn Bridge, have a bomb go off in the middle, breaking the bridge in 2, and then I would have to pick up the nearest child and sprint back to land as a hero, as the rest of the bridge continued to crumbled behind me. Or more likely, something would explode and I would curl up in a ball and start crying, as the children around me pointed and laughed, because I freaked out over an M80. Yeah, that's the more likely one.

The obvious spoiler to the story is that nothing happened. However, I did get a little freaked out on the bus ride down to the city. Right before crossing into Manhattan, less than 100 yards from the bridge (coming from the Bronx), our driver, who was either Arabic of Afghani,  pulled over to the side of the road. He didn't say anything. He just got up, went to the back of the bus and closed the door. My first thought? Well, we're dead.  We're near a bridge.  He's wiring up his bomb. This thing's gunna blow. But after a couple, I stopped being an irrational profiler, because our driver finished his poop break and got back to driving. A bathroom break with just a few miles to go wouldn't normally make sense, but thanks to the added security from the aforementioned threats, it took us another 45 minutes to get halfway down Manhattan to our stop. Our driver knew that. Your idiot author did not. So much for being a bad-ass.

Eventually I made it into Brooklyn and then to the Mets game. And afterwards, I took the following route, which proved to be pretty interesting for a threat-level-midnight kind of weekend.

A - The view from the Manhattan Bridge looking downtown and to the Brooklyn Bridge. Perfect time of day that lead to a postcard-esque view of the city. And "postcard" is an apt word as I certainly looked like a tourist trying to get on the Manhattan Bridge. There was only one pedestrian lane open, and there was a sign that said "bikes only." So I kind of puttered around looking for another path across, not wanting to be yelled at by the scary New Yorkers. Eventually I asked some lady on her bike, and she was perfectly nice in telling me that the bike path was the only way to get across, as I'm sure she then inaudibly muttered "pussy ass tourist."

From mile 1-2 I ran through Chinatown and its countless street vendors. Chinatown grocery vendors + big city smog/sewer/piss smell does not equal a pleasant running air. Somehow I made it through though without purchasing a live chicken.

B - 10 year anniversary of September 11? Of course I had to run by Ground Zero. The new tower was obviously not done, and the memorial wouldn't be open until the next day, but that didn't stop the area from being flooded by people, included a dude ranting and raving about the US and Muslims while in full traditional garb. I'm all for free speech and freedom of religion, but dude, have you met some of the people from this country? Sometimes common sense needs to prevail. That guy was basically asking someone to recreate the Die Hard Harlem scene for him.

C - Coming back across the Brooklyn Bridge. For a site that may have been target #1 based on the report mentioned above, this place was even more hopping than Ground Zero. You want to put a threat on our bridges? New York says "Fuck you, we're doubling on foot traffic on it." America . . . fuck yeah.

D - Shots from the end of the run, just outside my friend's apartment, looking at the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges. From just outside my apartment, I can see a Starbucks and a nail salon . . . I'm slightly jealous.

So I didn't get blown to bits (despite 1 instance of irrationally fearing it), but nor did I get to save my own life by showing off my wheels, running from a collapsing bridge. Eh, we'll call it a win-win.

Item #43 - Go to a Mets Game, and finish the 30 stadium tour (Part 2)

For Part 1 go HERE. If you haven't read it, this will be pretty random, and you need context dammit.

For Part 2, continue reading after the jump

Item #43 - Go to a Mets Game, and finish the 30 stadium tour (Part 1)

"I never realized how boring this game is"
-Homer Simpson, while at a baseball game sober
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I graduated from Michigan in 2001 and moved out to Boston with my buddy Walter shortly after. Near the end of that summer, the 2 of us decided to meet up with 4 of our Detroit friends (Matt, Joe, Dave and Chris) in Pittsburgh so we could take in a Pirates game at their new ballpark. It was kind of in the middle of our 2 cities, so we all could drive there . . .  and then we all got stupid drunk. Just like that, a tradition now known as The Baseball Trip was born. And for the last 11 years, we've been meeting up once a year at various ballparks, so we can enjoy America's Pastime in a new venue. At least that's what we tell people.  The reality is that it gives us an excuse to get back together once a year, get loaded, and act like we're still in college - girlfriends, wives, babies, travel distances, maturity be damned.  Of the 6 of us, MAYBE 3 of us care about baseball (me being one of those. Anyone else excited to see Brad Pitt in a movie about baseball statistics? I AM!).

Different people have joined and ditched the trip at various points through it's 11 years, but the Original 6 still remain, and we'll keep going as long as humanly possible. Granted it may now be just a 3 day weekend like it was this year in Minneapolis, as opposed to the 9 day, 4 city excursion we took back in 2002, but The Trip lives.

The Trip itself has now been to 27 different venues, but I had been to Toronto and Cleveland on my own. So for me, I only had the Mets left on my list. And this Saturday, I took a bus down to NYC to meet my friend Aaron, and we crossed off the final franchise on my list. 

I use the word "franchise" because I can't technically say I've been to every team's current home ballpark. Over the last 11 years, multiple team's have built new stadiums, and 1 has even moved to a new country. These new stadiums give us a great excuse to keep the trip going, as the number of possibly immature adventures continues to grow. But the spirit of the every-ballpark mission has been accomplished. And frankly, I would have rather of been to the ones I've been to than the current 30 because while a lot of the new ones are nice, they lack the character of the older ones (and even the semi-older shitty domed ones). 

So 30 franchises, 30+ ballparks. ESPN has it documentary series called 30 for 30? Well, here's 30 pictures and 30 very short stories about my own 30 adventures, capped off by the weekend trip to Citi Field in Queens. Some stories are about the parks, but most are about the journeys in and around the parks. Hopefully all are at least slightly amusing.

Continued after the jump

Fun Facts

I haven't disappeared. Just busy. I'm woefully behind in posting (4 items done that haven't been posted).  But the self-imposed deadline is less than 2 weeks away, so getting stuff done > writing. 6 still to go. Will I finish? Oh the drama! Feel the excitement!. . . of a blog read by like 60 people.

And speaking of the people that read this blog, let's have some fun with, ummm, fun facts. Google Blogger keeps a bunch of stats, including where your web traffic comes from, and if they got there through a search, what words were used. So here's some of the search keywords that have gotten people to my site. 

"do52new" (searched for 54 times) - OK, that makes sense. You know the blog name or idea, but forgot the site. Pretty basic.

"52 new things detroit cockfighting" (1 time) - one of you knows me well! Same idea as the one above, but a little more specific, in case there was someone from NYC doing 52 new things that included cockfighting.

"segathon.com" (2) - From the post on the video game tournament.  Link by association, since the guys we played have a website setup at segathon.com.

"university of michigan naked mile" (4), "ann arbor naked mile" (2) "campus naked" (2) - I reference the Naked Mile in the post about chest waxing, still by far the most popular post.  As per usual, sex sells.

"colleg naked" (2) - for the spelling-challenged pornography connoisseur, which got me linked to not once, but twice.

"zubaz" (1), "zubaz shorts" (2) - From the post on Second City in Chicago.  I'm glad to see someone out there isn't just trying to bring them back, but trying to bring them back in shorts form.

"i think i have too much chest" (2) - again with the chest waxing, you masochistic bastards.

"rick porcello shirtless" (7!), "rick porcello shirtless pic" (2) - Wait, what? . . . .I had to search the blog, and indeed, the words "Rick Porcello" (the Tigers pitcher) and "shirtless" appear in the post about being on the Jumbotron, though I didn't put the words together, not do I have a shirtless pic of Rick Porcello posted (though apparently maybe I should to drive up traffic). 

"the flintstones gays" (1) - No idea. No post has these words in it. (though coincidentally, one year when we went out on yearly guys baseball trip, Walter had shirts made up with Fred Flintstone and the saying "We'll have a gay ole time" on the front. Complete coincidence though)

"  "dildo comes to life" -mindy  " (1) - Apparently Mindy has a famous quote about a dildo coming to life. Again, nowhere on this site . . . until now! Bring on the traffic!

And now if someone wants to really help me drive up traffic, they can create a Photoshopped picure of Rock Porcello getting his chest waxed while wearing Zubaz and holding a magical dildo at a cockfight in Ann Arbor.

Item #42 - Go to a Boston Breakers Game

"Is your remarkably sexist drivel intentional, or just some horrible mistake?" -Lisa Simpson
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Ummm, its intentional. I love to debate, and I love to get a rise out of people, and one of my favorite ways to do both is by being intentionally sexist.

Note: I don't actually believe my sexist drivel. I've veered way too far to the left to actually mean it. However, my views on equal rights/politics have no correlation to my being an ass for the sake of being an ass.

And by "sexist", i mean way over-the-top sexist. Saying you don't think Hillary Clinton should ever be president because she's a woman and would have mental breakdowns once a month? Meh . . . too believable of sexism. I think 70% of the South actually backs that thought. Saying that a woman's best jobs are either in the kitchen cooking or typing memos for her boss? Come on, that's too Mad Men. That's like, cool retro sexism or something. And it was already done to perfection by one of my favorite comedians, Andy Kaufman. 

NOBODY was better at getting rises out people just for the sake of it than Andy Kaufman.  He created several personas (a foreigner comedian, a lounge singer). He wrestled women. He got slapped by Jerry Lawler on Letterman. He fought a producer on an SNL ripoff . . . and it was all bullshit for the sake of bullshit. If you were smart enough to be in on the joke, then he was a genius. But if you were on the outside, he was a fucking asshole. And he was the best at it (even though I was 4 when he died. I may be smart (on occasion), but not smart enough to get Andy Kaufman at 4).

More fake-sexism after the jump below

Item #41 - Play the Ponies at Suffolk Downs

"No more peanuts until you pick a winning horse"
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This is Tablelegs.

Tablelegs was my hamster in grad school. Not grade school. Not middle school. I had a hamster in grad school. And he was the man.

Another very middle school thing I did in grad school? Cover my walls in posters. Like, every poster I had, in an attempt to cover up all available wall space. This included posters of Scooby-Doo and Kelly Kapowski. But, I at least I had a good excuse - I didn't want my place to look like it hosted 70's key parties. You see, my 420 square foot studio apartment was wall-to-wall wood paneling, and 80% of the floor was covered in orange and brown shag carpeting. It was like if John Holmes had a ski lodge. So it wasn't so much what was on the posters, so much as how much space they could cover ("but Alan, why didn't buy some updated posters, and perhaps frame them, so you looked like an adult?" Because I was a poor grad student happy to have enough spare change to buy a 12 pack of Natty Light. Stop judging me)

Anyway, Tablelegs was awesome. He was my little homie while I lived away in a little cow town (see many many previous posts for explanations and bitching). He lived to be 2 and a half year old, and yes, there were some tears shed when he died. He was a trooper, and he was also a little speedster, often waking up in the middle of the night because he wanted to go for a light 30 minute jog on his wheel. But this was fitting, as Tablelegs was named after a race horse.

More after the jump (this is the first time I'm trying the whole page break thing, where you click below to continue reading. Hopefully it will make the front page a little cleaner. And hopefully it actually works).

Item #40 - Indoor Rock Climbing

"Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no! And it ain't over now." - Bluto
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Last year I lived with 2 gal friends, Jill and Danielle. They're both running freaks, and because of the constant exposure to them, and their freakish running habits ("it's 25 degrees out, but I need to keep up my training, so I'm ONLY going to run 16 miles today"), I slowly made the final transition from soccer-player-who-runs to soccer-player-AND-runner. I began to up my mileage, and slowly went from running 3 miles to running 4 . . . and 5 . .  and 6 . . . and 7.   And around that point, Danielle decided to get me drunk enough that she could take advantage of my body . . . by getting me to sign up for a half-marathon she was running on Memorial Weekend, despite me never having run a race over 5 miles. The half marathon was on May 30. I signed up for on April 30. That . . . was a mistake.

Over the course of the next month, I trained as reasonably much as I could train. I went to 8, then to 10, then to 11 miles. Granted I hit 11 miles a week before the race, and most training regiments apparently say you should be hitting that 3 weeks before the race, but who cares? I'm a bad-ass. I'm 31 years old, play 3 soccer games a week and only sub out when I get dragged to the sidelines kicking and screaming. I have no stop button . . . or at least I have no stop button for the 70 minutes that out soccer games last.

"Too Much, Too Soon" - my half-marathon training / many a girls response to my advances

On race day, I felt pretty good. Despite the rookie mistake of missing the first water station, I hit the turn (it was an out-and-back race) at around an 8:30 per-mile pace. Probably a faster pace than I should have been setting, back again, who cares? Bad . . . . ass. 

At around the 8 mile mark (coincidentally about the length of my soccer games), I got caught by Danielle. Up to that point, I had actually thought she was ahead of me, so to finally see the veteran runner catch me at that point kind of gave me a runner's high . . . that lasted all of about a 1/4 mile. I then promptly waved good-bye to her and sent her on her merry way, as my body decided to say "Hey dummy. You're 30. You've never run a race over 5 miles. You want to run a half-marathon? Maybe you should have put a little planning into it, fuckhead." I tried to reason with my body, but all my engineering logic is sadly located north of my equator, and the dogged legs in the south ended up winning the argument (actually, that's the usual case when it comes to arguing with any part south in my southern hemisphere, especially my Cape of Good Hope (too many geography metaphors? Whatever. Look at map. It makes sense, I swear)).

So with 4 or 5 miles to go, the occasional walking began. A good 45 seconds worth, about every 4 minutes. I ended up finishing the race in 1 hour, 57 minutes and change, with a 8:59 pace. BUT . . . who cares. I am a bad-ass no more. I finished. I finished in a decent time for a first half-marathon. But I walked. And to continue the half-baked sexual metaphors, it was the difference between sex and masturbation. Sure, they both get you to the same finish line, but one is a way more satisfying way to get there, and far less embarrassing than the other. Sigh. It was a tough realization to face - I fought my body, and my body won.

When I was in Chicago last month, I went another round with my body, this time with the Northern Hemisphere, as I went indoor rock climbing with my friends Megs. Megs works at a college as a rec sports something or other (sorry Megs. You can define this in the paperback version), and she has full access to their facilities, which includes an indoor climbing wall. So I jogged a mile over to her work from where I was staying, we geared up, and we attacked. Oh, one thing I should mention - my lifetime preperation for this moment was about as thorough as my half-marathon training.

Besides mandatory weight lifting for 6 weeks in gym class in high school, and a very brief period before I started actually getting off my ass and running where I thought I could sit on my couch and do a few curls for 10 minutes and develop a 6 pack overnight, I haven't lifted. I find it boring, and I kind of just figured I'd wait until (maybe) having kids and then gaining my Dad Strength (you cannot beat your dad at arm wrestling until you've owned a house for 5+ years and had kids for 2+ years. Its science). So me climbing a rock wall was like bring a knife to a gun fight, as pictures from the chest waxing post clearly show that I do indeed lack guns.

So yeah, the rock wall. The wall itself had 2 parts. The main part was 10 feet up, and just a giant wall of grips. To get there, you could either use a ladder and start at the bottom of that section, or, you could first traverse the very bottom part of the wall - the much tougher lower section that actually went into a 30 degree inversion. Being hard-headed and forgetting anything my body had previously told me about no longer being a bad-ass, I went the inversion route . . .

. . . and I failed. I got my hands on the grips on the main section, but couldn't overcome the inversion. So I tried again . . . and I failed again. So I tried again . . . and I failed again. So I then said fuck that, we got the ladder, and I started at the bottom of the main wall . . . and I failed again.

My self-proclaimed-god-like legs were worthless, or at least, I made them worthless. At this point, my spotter finally got it through my head that I should have been using my legs for the majority of the climbing, while only using my arms and hands to hold on to the wall. Up until now, I had been doing 90% of the climbing with my weak-ass arms, and bringing my legs along for the ride. Big mistake, especially after initially trying the inverted route, which absolutely crushed my forearms. I was then lowered down, so I could  watch Megs take care of the wall (sans inversion) in her first try, furthering my embarrassment. Also furthering my embarrassment? The 15 children that were there for a summer camp and watching us the whole time. "Hey kids! Do you know what the word emasculation means?"

So after seeing Megs conquer the wall, I decided that quitting is for quitters, and that I should give it one more try . . . and I succeeded. I rang the bell. Hooray for me. I'M A MAN!

Bu the damage had been done. Like the half-marathon, I had finished, but I had basically "walked" my way up the wall with multiple stop-and-go's. Success and failure all at once. What a country! 

Sadly with my upper body stamina, the whole indoor rock climbing excursion only took about 10 minutes. I was sweaty. I was tired. Afterwards, I needed a nap. I finished after the girl, and that was after she had made me feel embarrassed . . .
(insert final sexual metaphor here)

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• Thanks to Megs for the free indoor rock climbing
• After having done generic yoga and then hot vinyasa yoga, Friday I did bikram yoga (thanks to Katie, Sarah and Malinda), also done at 100+ degree temperatures for 90 minutes. It was a quality ass-kicking, and I dug it more so than the hot vinyasa (though maybe it was just teacher dependent). The vinyasa was like going on a distance run - a constant exersion of of a moderate amount of energy. Bikram was like playing soccer - constantly going back and forth between going as hard as you can and taking short breaks.
• Friday - bikram yoga in Harvard Square. Saturday - degenerate gambling at the horse track (post forthcoming). Sunday - an exhibit at a Boston Library (another post forthcoming), followed by an impromptu 3 person pub crawl . . . I am a man of many faces.

Item #39 - Climb the Bunker Hill Memorial

"Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time" - Stephen Wright
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The Bunker Hill Memorial resides in Charlestown, MA. It actually sits atop Breed's Hill, as some jagoff screwed up his history back in 1827 when the construction began. The 221 feet tall obelisk was finished in 1843 and has 294 steps. I've been to the bottom of the monument before, but didn't actually climb it (partly out of apathy, partly out of pure laziness), so I had added it to the list. But, since my tree trunk soccer legs can knock that out no problem (I may have average self-esteem about most of my body, but my legs bring out the cockiness), I decided to up the level of difficulty.  Boston likes to call itself America's Walking City? Well, I decided to prove that moniker by walking 7 miles to the monument before walking up it.

So at 11:00am Sunday morning, I put on a dry-fit running shirt and a pair of soccer shorts (I initially had on cargo shorts, but the vast amount of swass I expected to have on a mid-80's day with the sun beating down made me decide otherwise), threw on my backpack, and headed out to Charlestown. Here's the rundown of my adventure, noting my personal monuments along the way.

A - Cafe Nation. My first stop (and really, my only stop) to fuel up for the trek with some iced coffee. If you're an anti-big-corporation hippie that dislikes Dunkin Donuts because of their connection to the Bush family and the Carlyle Group (damn you Aaron G for teaching me this), then this is your place in Brighton Center

B - Devlin's. A nice bar with an outdoor patio. I've gone on a few internet dates over the last year+, but on that patio is the only time I've met up with someone and the second she walked in I said "Ah crap. She. . . . does not look like the picture." I'm no 10, but I at least know how to set up a profile without false advertising.

C - A statue of a hammer thrower, in which the artist could not afford an extra $200 for some steel chains to connect the handle to the ball. You want me to use my imagination? Screw you fancy artist guy.

D - Redneck's BBQ. They have several items they call "double stuffed subs." We got one once there. It was a version of a chicken parm sub that had chicken, cheese, marinara sauce . . . and waffle fries . . . and cheeseticks. U-S-A! U-S-A!

E - Sunset Grill. Mandatory dining for all visitors that don't think a a good beer includes the word "lite" in its name. 380 beers. 112 on tap. Dee . . . lite . . . full.

F - Agganis Arena. Home to the BU terriers. I've seen Michigan play basketball and hockey here, and we had front row seats for both. One required connections. One required us showing up 5 minutes before game time to buy $15 tickets. I'll let you figure out which was which.

G - Fenway Park. I've been to home games for 29 of 30 MLB franchises, and this is my favorite. 35+ games, and I STILL haven't been kicked out of one. Something to strive for I suppose.

H - Former home of my friend Katie, who lived on the 9th story and had a roof deck. It was basically the perfect place to watch both the marathon and the fireworks. However, she's since moved out to the burbs with her hubby and daughter. So, until I become better friends with Tom Brady, I'm going to need one of you people to move to a top floor apartment in Back Bay so I can abuse your living situation as well. 

I - Lir. The bar that's home to the Santa Speedo Run. I'll be hitting you people up for donations for the 2012 charity run soon enough, but in the meantime, you can go back and read Item #10, which, according the Blogspot stats, is the most read post on this site because apparently you people are a bunch of masochistic bastards. Either that, or because it will eventually turn up as a hit if you search for the words "naked" and "mile." (though now that those words are in this post too, maybe this one gets some extra hits also? and if that's the case . . . . boobs boobs boobs)

J - Mindy Kaling. AKA, Kelly Kappor from the office. I rarely see famous people in public. I've seen Hulk Hogan at a casino in Fort Lauderdale. I've seen Fab 5 legend Jalen Rose at a steakhouse in Mandalay Bay (maybe I just to to hang in casinos more often). And I've seen Mindy Kaling walking Newbury St. I'm so hip and cool.

K - The Rattlesnake Bar. When I first moved to Boston with Walter, and we didn't really know anyone yet, I think this is the only place we went to (once) as just 2 guys going to the bar. Walter thought it was "kind of gay" for just 2 guys to go to a bar, and I don't think we did it again. In 4 months, I will be giving the best man speech at his wedding. If I can keep the Walter stories under 20 minutes, it will be a miracle.

L - The start to the Corporate Challenge, a 3.5 mile charity race with approximately 10,000 runners. In a normal race at that length, I'll typically run at a 7:15-7:30 per-mile pace. The last time I ran this clusterfuck? 8:49 pace. Though with the amount of weaving we had to do, we probably ran 5 miles. This . . . . is not an enjoyable race.

M - The Duck Pond, which is now a wading pool and fountain for kids. Approximate ratio of water to piss? 50-50 at best. 

N - Massachusetts State House. Massachusetts? More like TAXachusetts! Right? I just came up with that.

O - The Greenway. For you non-Bostonians, as you can of see on the map, the highway runs underground here, thanks to the Big Dig, which was definitely not built by the mafia with substandard materials. It's actually pretty damn cool. Though what's not cool the is $800 I end up paying each year in tolls. Occasionally, I do miss the free pot-hole-ridden constantly-under-construction highways of the Motor City.

P - The part where I got a little lost. Damn you Boston and your wacky unlabeled curvy roads.

Q - 7 miles and approximately 12,320 steps later . . . I'm there.

And after an additional 294 vertical steps . . . .

Nice. Maybe not "I spent 135 minutes walking in 85 degree heat while sweating my balls off" nice, but nice none-the-less. (I realize that we have soldiers in much more gear doing much more bad-ass things for much longer times in much hotter conditions . . . . but I'm a pussy, soooo . . .  ya know).

So after my adventure, I put in another 0.7 miles and walked over to my friend Megan's place (R) to enjoy the quintessential American monument to summer and opulence. U-S-Freakin-A.

Item #38 - Go to the Roller Derby

"And so we're running just as fast as we can
Holding on to one another's hand.
Trying to get away into the night
And then you put your arms around me
and we stumbled to the ground"
-Tiffany

Is there a better anthem for the days of the 80's school-sponsored skating party night? No. No, there is not. Every single time I hear it I think of the ole-timey skating parties, and it's still one of my favorite guilty pleasure songs (and yes, I know it's actually a cover song).

And do yourself a favor right now and go watch the video. It's mall-tastic.

Even the lyrics are a near-perfect anthem.

Running as fast as we can (or skating. use you imagination people).
Holding hands.
Getting away into the night (I think a dimly lit rink with disco ball-created stars is damn close).
Tumbling to the ground with that special girl because you have problems skating together, as you share a flirtatious laugh. Tee hee hee

Of course, the only difference for me was that I wasn't nearly the suave and witty ladies man you see before you today. I was . . . . slightly less-than-smooth, as the big-ass glasses, braces and slicked-back side part probably didn't help.

Yeah, that guy isn't asking any girls to skate with him. That guy had enough problems trying to not fall on his ass by himself, let alone while holding hands.  In fact, that guy spent most of the skating party in the arcade. You could laugh at that, though maybe you just don't understand how much cooler it was to play Paperboy in the arcade than on Nintendo. I mean, come on - it had actual handlebars for you to steer the bike! I could have talked to girls during class (theoretically . . . not that I actually did), but you only got to play Paperboy with bike handlebars once a month at the skating party. I think I made the right decision.

20 some years later, and approximately 20% cooler (I'm sure that number is up for debate), I was once again off to the skating rink. This time, it was a shriner's auditorium in Winchester, MA, with Alycia, Buddy, Megan and Daniel, a native German who was in town for a few weeks for work, and what better way to showcase Americana than drinking piss beer in a dimly lit hall while girls in short shorts body check each other? Actually, you can make that scenario better - have that same German catch a T-shirt from the T-shirt cannon.

The T-shirt was a Small. No offense to Daniel, but he's no Small

We showed up for 2 matches, 1 between a couple Boston teams and 1 between a Boston All-Stars team and a Chicago team, and we went into knowing, well, almost nothing besides the fact that we'd see skating chicks beating the crap out of each other. So after some pre-gaming Wikipedia lessons, and 3+ hours of live lessons, here's the gyst:

• There's 2 30-minute running halves. Each half is broken into a bunch of small periods, or jams. 
• Each team has 5 girls on the rink at once. 4 girls are blockers, with the 5th girl being the jammer. 
• The 8 blockers on the rink form a pack that has to stay together. When a jam begins, the jammers start behind the pack and try and break through it. The first jammer through the pack is the lead jammer.
• After that first pass of the pack, the jammers try and catch the pack again, and for each person they now pass, they get a point.
• The jam ends either after 2 minutes, or when the lead jammer decides to end it by putting their hands on their hips. So being the lead jammer is a damn good thing, because they can strategically stop the jam. Simple example - the Team A jammer gets through the pack first, becoming the lead jammer. Team A's jammer stays ahead of Team B's jammer as they re-catch-up to the pack, and gets through the 4 Team B blockers, scoring 4 points. Team B's jammer is just 15 feet behind, at the back of the pack about to score points, so Team A's jammer, the lead jammer, ends the jams. Make sense? (just nod your head).
• Most of the scoring ended up being 4 point per jam, as 1 jammer would get through the pack of 4 blockers before the other jammer got through any blockers, and then they'd call off the jam. But, you can continue to score as many points as possible in 2 minutes if you'd like. This usually happened when there were penalties, in which skaters would basically get sent to a penalty box, leaving their team short-handed

Once you got the lingo, it's really pretty simple. Enough so, that I think I can actually explain the video I took below.

The red team earned lead jammer status, and their jammer has just caught the back of the pack in the video. Meanwhile, the blue team's jammer is lagging behind, a half-lap behind the pack. The red jammer is able to fight her way through the pack, passing the 4 blue blockers and earning her team 4 points in the process. At this point, she sees the blue jammer is a half lap ahead, so she can either

• Bust her ass, hope the blue jammer slows down enough for her to pass her, and then get through the pack again before the blue jammer does.
• or realize that the more likely scenario is that the blue jammer will catch the pack and start scoring before she can re-catch the pack and start scoring again, and just call-off the jam . . . and she does by putting her hands on her hips at the end of the video.

See. You got it now.  And we really got it after 3+ hours of it too, as we picked up on not just the rules, but the strategy, figuring out when lead jammers would call off the jams, and when the packs would strategically try and pick up or slow down the pace, in order to put more or less distance between them and the chasing-jammers.

The inter-Boston was a nice way to pop our derby-cherry, but the Boston-Chicago match kicked it up a notch, as the Chicago ladies were . . . slightly more aggressive. Elbows were thrown. Bodies were checked. Winds were knocked out (as 2 Boston gals had to limp back to the bench after jams). It was an old-school 70's style derby smackdown, and sadly they put the hurtin' on the hometown Boston gals (the Windy City Rollers ARE the #1 ranked team in their division. Yes, there are rankings. Yes, you Detroiters have a team. And yes, you should go check them out).

But despite being 147-44 losers, unlike skating party Alan, the Boston Derby Dames still managed to be pretty damn cool.

Item #37 - Go to Second City in Chicago

"polish sausage . . . Ditka . . . Ditka . . . . sausage . . . . bears . . . . " -Todd O'Conner
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I love Chicago. It's been my 3rd home for the last 10 years. After graduating from Michigan in 2001, I'd say a good 1/4 of the people I knew ended up moving there. And why the hell not? If you're from the Midwest and wanted to stay close enough to your family that they were just a half day drive away, and wanted to be in a city that wasn't 10 years behind the trends of the coasts, it was the place to be (oooooh! burn! that's right. I'm an East Coast Elitist now. Just like the Michigan Fight Song instills a sense of intellectual arrogance with the "leaders and best" lines, living on a coast makes you feel a decade of trends ahead of you flyover folks. I think yesterday's Detroit News had a story about a new fad called "Zubaz" . . . I kid because I love).

Estimated Date of Photo? . . . 2009

So with so many friends living there, I've consequently made many many trips there. And Chicago, you've supplied me with some damn good times.  All-you-can-drink happy hours, deep dish delisciousness, two great weddings, redheads, trough peeing in Wrigley, roofdeck parties, Old Style bars, and Chicago even let me date my biggest crush ever (spoiler alert - it didn't work out). Granted, I've also spent one night puking in a cab, and another getting kicked out of a cab because I had no money and then ended up on a corner in the middle of northern Chicago without a fucking clue where to go (kudos to Hillary and Regan for making sure I woke up in a bed as opposed to a puddle of some homeless dude's urine), but the good has far outweighed the bad. Chicago, you're my kind of town.

But having been to Chicago so many times, I've already exhausted a shit ton of the possible new things to do, or at least all the things the average tourist would do.  Sears Tower. Shedd Aquarium. Millenium Park. Navy Pier (its like Fanieul Hall, but with 225% more mustaches!), etc. But as I brainstormed with 52-partner-in-crime Megs, I remembered that I was a comedy elitest, and that Chicago was home to the single greatest breeding ground of comedy over the last 30 years - Second City Chicago.

I've been to improv before. Hell, I've been to Second City in Detroit before. But this is different. This is a comedy landmark.

 

I don't even need to give the detailed history of the place to justify it having that status. All I need to do is list their famous alumni, and holy shit, there's quite a few - Fred Willard, Harold Ramis, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Mike Myers, Chris Farley, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey. And that's just the start. Check out the rest of the list, and you'll find a bunch of other second tier names (Dan Castellaneta, AKA, Homer Simpson) and "that guy"s (Jack McBrayer, AKA, Kenneth from 30 Rock). That's comedy gold, Jerry . . . GOLD!

Since I count an even 20 people on the Chicago alumni list that have connections to Saturday Night Live (mostly as stars), let's have a little SNL diversion, shall we? It's a nice coincidence that SNL has a musical act every week, because just like with music, older people will always tell younger people that SNL was better back in their day, with "in their day" typically occurring around ages 11-16. Darrell Hammond was basically filling the role Phil Hartman left, but I'm always going to prefer Hartman because I was raised on a Hartman-backed SNL. So now at the age of 31, I of course think SNL . . . well, blows (save for the occasional Digital Short or Timberlake-hosted episode), even though its basically the same formula of 1-note jokes being retold 6 times in a 5 minute span. Landshark = Hans & Franz = Gap Girls = Spartan Cheerleaders. It is what it is, it's just that most of our comedy tastes have evolved. I mean, I consider myself a comedy elitist, but even I once thought . . . . Dane Cook was funny (forgive me Mitch Hedberg, for I have sinned). So even though it appears to suck, maybe it only mildly sucks these days. I don't know. Or maybe I just need to drink more during it.  But one thing I do know? Norm MacDonald was the greatest host of Weekend Update in SNL's history, regardless of your generation. If you disagree, your opinion is wrong.

 

So Megs and I had a nice little pseudo-date by attending the 8:00 show on a Tuesday, which was surprisingly, a packed house, despite Second City actually having 2 different theaters there. And maybe we saw the next Bill Murray up there . . . or maybe we saw the next Horatio Sanz (star of Boat Trip!). Either way, it was funny as expected. Though what I didn't expect was the mass exodus after the second act and just before the final half hour of 100% improv (the first 2 acts were probably 70% sketches, 30% improv). What gives? You could have set your Tivo to make sure you don't miss your Jay Leno, dammit. And you ditch early and miss the best part of the night? To quote another great comic: "Whooooooooo . . . . are these people?"