"Memories" of Memorial Day Weekend

Nothing like a long weekend. Here are some highlights:

• Now that Memorial Day has passed, I finally broke out my many pairs of white pants.
• I ate enough deviled eggs to merit an angioplasty.
• In related news, the amount of beer, brats, burgers, and various mayonnaise-based salads that I inhaled this weekend took a year or two off of my life.
• I had some late-night Bamba's both Saturday and Sunday night. I'm assuming that was a wise decision. It certainly seemed as such at the time. Then again, so did boosting a complete stranger onto a second-floor porch roof from steep stairs.
• VH1 Classic (a wonderful station, by the way) introduced me to VH1's phenomenal four-part series entitled "Heavy: The Story of Metal." Check it out if you have a chance, particularly the "Looks That Kill" episode, which focuses on hair bands and features a scene from the 1988 documentary "The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years" in which W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes (shown to the right) is shown floating in a chair in a pool, fully clothed and fully sauced, discussing his severe alcoholism while chugging vodka, with his mother sitting poolside. That guy knew how to party.
• I received my first piece of hate mail regarding GMYH: an email from someone whose name I shant repeat, who I had apparently angered by including him or her as a bit character in one of my hilariously poignant biographies. The subject of the email read "Hey nut job" and the body read "Do me a favor and remove my name from your ridiculous blog. Thanks, I would greatly appreciate it."
  Nut job, I'm fine with, but ridiculous? Infantile, sophomoric, irrelevant, devoid of rational thought, often politically incorrect, more entertaining than venereal diseases, and extremely well-written, sure. But ridiculous? Well that just hurts. I guess he or she doesn't appreciate satire. Nonetheless, I obliged. We here at GMYH respect our readers' privacy rights to a limited extent, and if you don't want your name to be associated with of one of the funniest fake biographies ever written, then that's your prerogative, no matter how ridiculous it may be.
• The amount of swass I experienced this weekend was about enough for the whole summer. Sadly, I know there's more to come.
• After Jester and I hosted a delightful cookout Sunday evening, a group of about ten or fifteen of us headed over to my favorite bar in Chicago, The Burwood Tap. For those who don't know, every Sunday at the Burwood is Hillbilly Sunday. They play only country music and have, among other things, Lone Star beer on special. I hate country music, but I love Hillbilly Sunday.
  John, the bartender/owner, also loves Hillbilly Sunday, which means that he partakes in spirits right along with all of the patrons. John's drink of choice is Jim Beam. At one point, I made my way to the bar to order myself a Lone Star. John was busy helping others, which was no big deal. Apparently he must have thought that the wait inconvenienced me more than it did. Without asking what I want, he hands be a half-full bottle of Beam and a sleeve of plastic shot glasses and tells me to hand some shots out. I began pouring shots as fast as humanly possible, thinking that John would soon come to his senses and realize what a horrible decision he had made. I killed the bottle in the process, handing out 10-12 shots, while saving a shot for John of course. Then, to top it off, John gave me a bottle of Lone Star on the house. This, my friends, is why The Burwood Tap is the greatest bar in Chicago.
  In addition to the many free or deeply discounted drinks we received over the course of the night, John gave Jessie a cowboy hat to wear during Hillbilly Sunday (and apparently forever because he told her to keep it). Here, Jessie is shown in said hat while Kyla tries to make Jessie one of the undead.
  Also at the Burwood, Holt nearly got me punched in the peen. Knowing damn well that I hate Notre Dame and that when I get really drunk I have no problem telling people that went to Notre Dame about my hatred of their alma mater, Holt tells his friend Mike's female friend (who went to ND) that I hate Notre Dame. She of course asks me why, and I explained myself succinctly and as politely as possible given my close proximity to cirrhosis. I guess I didn't do a great job because at one point she asked Holt if she could "punch [me] in the dick." Then again, she also claimed that Notre Dame was a better party school than IU, so I'm sure I didn't take that obscene lie too well. It ended well, however, as we agreed to disagree and had a nice hug.
  Then several of us (which included my lovely wife Jessie, or so I was told the next day) went to LaBamba for a wonderful end to a wonderful evening.