I Too Blister In The Sun

Friday after work Jocelyn and I went to the zoo to "Feast with the Beasts" and see the Violent Femmes. It was a good time. We walked around the zoo and ate items from some different restaurants. The food was ok but I was really there to see the Femmes. Their entire show was awesome and they entertained from beginning to end. The thing that made it weird was I hung out with the lead singer a couple times in New York. Gordon was a regular at The Blind Tiger in NY, as was I, so we had talked to each other a couple times. Don't get me wrong here, we weren't bosom buddies or anything. We were just a couple of the privileged few who got to stay after bar time and have a few extra drinks while the Tiger was being cleaned up. So most of our encounters were about 5 in the morning with a belly full of beer. The craziest was the time that Gordon, Chris and I went to see a band at The Knitting Factory. It a good time but I felt very awkward the whole night for some reason. Anyway, I got to see the Femmes at the zoo and they absolutely kicked ass. Shout out to Wertz, The Blind Tiger, and Gordon. Saturday morning was the first step on my quest to get back in shape. J and I signed up for the 5k Sausage Race at Miller Park. We got up about 7 and made our way to the race. I did my pre-race ritual of sitting around and waiting to start. Finally at nine the race started. If all of you thought being one of those racing sausages is nothing but fun, think again. The sausages all had to run the 5k with us. They all got to start in front and it took me a mile to catch the Polish. The course was fairly easy and towards the end of the race you run into Miller Park and do a lap around the field. I finished and had way too much left in my tank. I ran it in 22 minutes. Not what I wanted but it'll do for my first race back. Jocelyn on the other hand kicked major booty and ran the race in 25 minutes. When it was over you received a free brat or hotdog. So I ate J's hotdog as well as my brat for breakfast. When the race was over we cruised home. The day was gorgeous and with your entry in the race you also received a ticket to that night's game. We were going to go to the game at six but the weather was too nice so we headed the park at three. We met some nice people next to us in the lot so we talked with them and grilled up my marinated tenderloin and a can of beans, delicious. We went into the game about the third inning.…

Wastin’ Away Again In East Troy

I thought now that 'fest was over I was going to get some much needed rest but no such luck. Since almost everyone had Monday off we did some pre-planning and bought some tickets to the Brewers v. Cubs on the day after the 4th. The game was fun and went as expected. We got drunk and watched the Brew crew beat the Cubs with a first inning Counsell homerun. What I didn't expect was buying tickets to the next two games on drunken whim. So I ended up going to the next two games as well. The games were not the drunken debauchery that one is used to but they were still too much fun to explain. Why can I not explain the games you may ask? Because there is no better feeling than sweeping the Cubs right out of Miller Park and back across the southern border of Wisconsin. [INSERT FAVORITE EXPLATIVE] THE CUBS!. Thursday was finally a well deserved day of rest. Friday we headed back to Miller Park to see Brewers v. Reds. The main reason we went was because of the Beer Pen tickets. $10 for a t-shirt and a ticket is a great deal. It's my second such shirt but can anyone really have too many t-shirts. J and I went to the game with Delahunt and Steph so we had our drinking buddies. We hung out and drank up a couple of Wisconsin's largest jager bombs. The game was awful and I have to say one of the worst games I saw of the year. We ended up staying at TGIF until one drinking yards. That was way too long because I was able to snatch up a couple Jimmy Buffett tickets on eBay so we had to be prepared to be waste away again tomorrow. Saturday was a perfect day. It was the first summer day I think we had all year. Mid to high 80s with plenty of sun. We left for the show about one. We met Jocelyn's boss from the Sports Dock in a Wal-Mart parking lot outside of East Troy so we could park together at Alpine. Once at Alpine we set up camp and did tons of people watching. People watching is always half of the experience and this concert was no exception. To our right there was a passed out fifteen year old who had too many margaritas with his mom and now she was taking care of him. To our back there were some guys that had a weed whacker blender with a sombrero and hula skirt on the blender. Once we scoped out the lot we settled in and got to the eating and drinking. Jocelyn's boss and her husband were all kinds of fun. Besides those two there were two other guys who were friends of theirs. Gina's (Jocelyn's boss) husband is a cop and one of the other guys was a detective. They had some great stories. Gina's husband was also a…

Color Me Exhausted

I believe I left off on the Tuesday of 'fest. Tuesday J and I were going to go see the Midwest Operas stirring rendition of Pink Floyd's The Wall and then go to see Kenny Wayne Shepard. We made it down to the fest ground in plenty of time and got a good seat for what we thought was going to be a cover band doing Floyd. Instead it was absolutely the worst thing I've seen in my life. We weren't the only ones that thought that this "rock opera" was going to be worth watching because there were tons of hippies waiting to see them as well. Since the hippies had their senses dulled/heightened they couldn't process how much this rock opera sucked. J and I as well as handful of people were able to determine how awful they were in about two minutes. So we left which really threw a wrench into our plans because now we had 3 hours to kill before KWS. So we decided to walk to get a beer and I ran into my good pal Gregory. He and his woman were down for the night. In the process of getting the beer we learned that you didn't need a wristband to get into the main stage. J and Greg's woman both loved Jessica Simpson so we did what any whipped man would do, take them to their free concert and then hold it over their head that we went to the JS concert. We sat there for a couple hours and watched the concert. I think Greg and I were watching different things on stage than the rest of the audience so we were able to block out the music and prepubescent screaming. After that was over we headed on home. Thursday was our next day and was going to be the last. I biked down to the grounds and got wristbands to see The Bodeans and Steve Miller. We headed down to grounds pretty early and grabbed a bite to eat before the show. We went in and got some pretty good seats for the show. The Bodeans put on a really good show. I've seen then a couple times at Lakefest in Sheboygan but I can honestly say I don't "remember" seeing them there. We then stayed for a handful of the Steve Miller songs. It was getting late so we headed out of the concert. On our way out we got to check out Paul Oakenfold. We watched him for a bit, admired the trance scene and glow sticks, and then started home again. On the way home we ran into another stage and heard Peter Frampton doing "Do You Feel Like We Do." No true rock n' roll fan could pass that up so we had to stop and listen to that. Finally we got out of there and made it home. Friday I went to a house warming party at my buddy Chappy's new place. It was going…

Big Gig I

Well the 'fest is here again. This year we took our Big Gig cards and headed down to the grounds on the opening Thursday. J and I went down there fairly early so we could get in for free. We thought that we were going to have four hours of boredom while we waited for the Big Wu to start things off at eleven but we ran into some of my old college buddies, Steven Herman and Kyle Barton. I guess they always meet at the same spot at the Miller Oasis and I was just lucky enough to stumble across them. We had a couple beers and caught up with each other. It was good to see them again. Then around nine we decided to take a lap around the fest. Once we made it around the huge line of people waiting to get into Prince we were able to double back to our stage and see the ekoostik hookah. ek was, eh, and they played up until the fireworks. After the big bang we did the hippie bounce to the Wu and felt old until midnight and went home. Friday the acts at 'fest weren't that good but more importantly I wasn't able to get my wristband so I couldn't get in for free. Instead of spending tons of cash at Summerfest I decided to meet J after work at the Wicked Hop and spend tons of cash there. We had a slew of different beers and some food. We sample beers there until eleven and then swayed home to get some sleep for Kondofest on Sat. Saturday was the annual Kondofest party. I have to admit that overall you can see that the ol' wreckin' crew is getting older and a little more docile. Don't get me wrong here, the day still had the usual yard nomads wandering around playing boce ball, 3 hours of volleyball, and some quarters. It also lacked the beer bong and casual chug off that in the past made barrels, plural, evaporate. It could be that in their old age people just prefer the mixers and that's why only one barrel was enough for the crew. Either way, I still had a good time and got to head butt a girl in the face while putting my Swisher Sweet out on her cheek. That's what she get for trying to D up the big dog on the blacktop. Once Kondofest was finished everyone headed downtown as usual. This year I split from the group because everyone and their mother were going to see O.A.R. and I wasn't going to deal with the massive crowd. After stopping for some unneeded liquor at the store Marti, Graham and I went back to my place. While there we proceeded to drink Captain and Captains as well as Gin and Gin drinks. We played some Euchre listened to some tunes and got ready to go to the Metro. This unnecessary trip turned out to be a…