a story and a top five.*

well. i’ve been gone for a long time, and so theoretically i should have a lot to tell from my three wonderful weeks in the midwest. so i’m gonna try to spend the next week or so putting down some of the most fun parts for posterity. and along with that, since i was not internet-ready for the close of 2002, which is normally prime time for reflection on the best things to come out of the year just past, i will try to lay down some year-end top 5 or top 10 lists as appropriate, as a way of looking back. it was a damn eventful year for me, i’ll tell you that much; friends gone and returned, loves lost and gained and lost again, identities wrestled with, futures contemplated…good thing i had such a great vacation to bring it to a close.

so here’s a story.

my second night in chicago i was staying with my roommate dom, and we were meeting up with our other roommate mike who was in town visiting relatives. three california friends meeting up in chicago for a night of frolicking — we couldn’t lose. so after driving with dom to somewhere in the sticks to pick up mike (but not as far in the sticks as i used to live when i was an illinoisan myself, mind you), we head back to the city. the plan had been to meet with some of dom’s local friends and go to a bar that supposedly served pitchers of beer for a penny on saturday nights, then crash at one of the guys’ frat house at northwestern. it sounded too good to be true, not to mention economically infeasible, that they could sell pitchers of beer for a penny: even if you tip and give a dollar or two when you order, how can they be covering the cost of what they’re pouring?

but that wasn’t our problem. maybe the five dollar cover helped. what does it matter though? between 7 guys i’m fairly certain that at these rock-bottom prices we managed to put down something in the neighborhood of 15 pitchers of beer. we were working hard there. the only thing that came between us and our task was the shot girl that was trying to get us to buy some bright green stuff for 4 dollars, which is preposterous considering the alternative. of course, since she was cute enough to want to keep around, and one of dom’s friends is apparently famous for not holding back, he just came out and said he wasn’t interested in the shots. however, he’d buy some off of her if she stood on our table and danced for us.

it wasn’t really that kind of bar, but she was wearing leather pants, so i guess maybe he knew something i didn’t. the best thing wasn’t that actually she did it, but that afterward the guy opened his wallet and had no cash, so he had to get some of the other guys to give her what they had in their pockets which only totalled something like three dollars. it was terrible and wrong, but in that funny way. even funnier still when she came back toward the end of the night and all on her own started dancing really suggestively with another girl that had come over to talk to us. totally free show — not bad at all.

not to let things end there, we walked out to get some food around 1:30am. dom’s friends were all about the burger king a few doors down from the bar, but mike and i, who only get out to the midwest once a year, were hell-bent on white castle. we could not be dissuaded. only none of the guys knew where to find one, and of course mike and i had no clue where to go from this random bar near loyola university.

mike, ever the quick thinker and fast mover, did what anyone as purposeful as we were should have done, which is flag down a cab and ask how much it costs to get to the nearest white castle (answer: about 6 dollars). in minutes the three of us had departed from the group and were ordering our crave case (with cheese). for those who don’t know what that is, it’s 30 steam-grilled mini-cheeseburgers which are at the same time disgusting and delicious somehow, and strangely irresistible. keep in mind we’d already drank probably at least a meal’s worth of fluid apiece, and now we were sitting down to this questionable feast with one mission: to polish off this box of burgers.

perhaps i just couldn’t feel my stomach, but eating my 10 seemed almost too easy. maybe the hometown buffet the week before had trained me well. dom also seemed to have no difficulty, although we both groaned a little and feared for the aftermath. mike slowed down around 8, and finished his 9th about ready to give up. he had drank more, which we conceded, but all the same we threatened to call him “niner” from then on if he didn’t sack up, and i even offered to eat the last one for him just to humiliate him. he flailed about a little and got moral support from some of the other people in white castle at 2 in the morning — one guy responded to mike’s asking if he thought if he could do it with a hearty, “hey man, my money’s on you! — and finally gobbled it down. we rushed out victorious and ready to sleep, and mike had a nice conversation in the cab ride back about why the driver should never, ever go to white castle, but why he should see the lord of the rings movies.

we crashed on some leather couches in the living room of a frat house, and we all felt a little funny the next day (car windows had to be rolled down, for sure), but we did get some good pictures which i may share if i get them scanned. aaah, the midwest is great.

*note: top five live shows of 2002 postponed because of space: i do go on sometimes.

[now hearing this: jawbox – my scrapbook of fatal accidents; sure, it’s out of print, but if you check under “j” every time you go to amoeba for about a year, you’re sure to find it eventually (i.e. yesterday). mmmmm, jawbox.]