Two Nights in B-Town and The World's Your Oyster

Yeah, I just made a Murray Head reference. What of it?

This past weekend was Tradd's bachelor party in Bloomington. While the weekend would prove to be a memorable one, this bachelor party would not lead to as much sleep deprivation or to photos of friends pretending to puke along Mississippi highways that for some reason cause strangers to question my future ability to be a parent. This will be a long post, so get ready.

Friday

Gregerson, Tradd, and I left Chicago after work on Friday and got into Bloomington around 11 local time. After a strangely slow attempt to get room keys from the front desk of our hotel (strange because we were the only people in the lobby), we headed to our room. I should say, we headed to the room that we were told by the front desk clerk to go to. Upon our arrival at "our room," we were greeted by Tradd's dad, who informed us that this, in fact, was his given room. (A quick shout-out to Ken and all the other Louisville crew reading this. You are, quite simply, the sunshine in the otherwise horribly dark, bleak world I struggle to live in.)

After some strong-arming with the clueless woman at the front desk, we got everything sorted out, got our own room, and quickly changed. Several other New Albanians – Matt, Joe, and Chad – were in town as well, so we went over to their room. As the only one of the group with a two-syllable name, I felt a bit out of place. To calm myself down and hopefully get in everyone's good graces, I suggested a trip to a local juke joint called The Bluebird, where a hot new group called Hairbangers Ball was playing. I even went through the trouble of calling a couple livery vehicles to transport us.

Of course, as soon as we get to the front of the hotel, we see a cab pull away. Another cab pulled up a few minutes later, and Tradd, Gregerson, and I took it, at the other guys' insistence, based on the representation of our grizzled female cabbie that "another won's on the way." I assume that she's not a good speller.

Another one was not on the way. Thus, when we arrived at The Bird, we were informed via telephone that the other guys were just going to call it a night, as we had a fairly early tee time the next morning. That just left more of the Ball for us.

Inflation has apparently hit Bloomington's bars, as what used to be a $5.75 32-oz. Miller Lite draft is now $8. Not that that stopped us. We grabbed some big beers and headed back to the show. As usual, Hairbangers Ball rocked. I quickly realized that there were only two original members (Jefferson Jackson and Zeek Zildjian) left in the band. Polly Pantz was no longer up there, but fear not. She was replaced by Gina (or possibly Geena) Simmons, an equally as hot and saucy tart.

My love of hearing a nice variety of live hair band music was only tempered by a certain segment of the audience who had infested my happy place for the weekend. It's a Friday night, and you're at a bar in Bloomington, Indiana. Why wouldn't you be wearing a Terrelle Pryor away jersey with an Ohio State soccer-style scarf wrapped around your neck? More on my hatred of O$U fans later.

After the Ball finished rocking everyone's world, we headed next door to Rockit's for some of the best late-night pizza these buds have ever tasted. A man who looked like a young Fonzworth Bentley cut us in line, after claiming that he played football at Florida State and that he drove a BMW 7 series. We then caught a cab back to the hotel, where we burned aluminum cans in the fire pit that this hotel for some reason still had burning in its courtyard at 4:30 in the morning.

Saturday
When the alarm rang at 8 the next morning, I was praying that it was raining outside. It was, of course, a typical fall day in Bloomington – sunny and full of hope. So, we all headed over to the IU Golf Course to play some "goff," as the Scots originally called it. Joining us at the course were Tyler and AC (not Jamie and Amy's four-year-old son AC, but rather Tradd, Ryan, and my former roommate AC).

Playing golf in the fall, when leaves have peppered themselves over most fairways thus impairing your ability to find even the most well-hit of balls, proved to be a challenge. To describe my round of golf as an abortion would be a disservice to the fine men and women who rid the world of future petty thieves. It was a bad sign when I lost a ball before the first tee. I managed to lose about a ball a hole for the first five or six holes. It was around this time when I realized I only had three balls left in my bag. Thus, when I hit a ball into the woods or the rough – one of which was bound to happen on every shot – I would be coming out with a ball, even if it wasn't the one I hit in there.

On one of my jaunts into the woods, after trudging around and finding a couple balls that were not mine, I realized that there was no good place to get out because it was lined with thick bushes and other shrubbery. I started freaking out, which caused me to revert back to my cutting days. Tyler pulled the scalpel away from me before I could complete the entire hangman.

Trying to explain this at work was a treat. "If you think this is bad, you should see the insides of my thighs."

Tyler and I decided to skip the 18th hole because we didn't want to continue to show everyone else up, so we headed back to the clubhouse to meet up with Ryan, Goni, and Dan Weeser*, who had recently arrived from Chicago via motorcar.

After golf, everyone headed back to the hotel for a quick change, and then we were at the tailgating fields a little bit before 3. As expected, we were surrounded with not only IU fans, but also O$U fans.

In case you didn't already know, Ohio State fans are the most insufferable conglomeration of degenerates that the world has ever had the misfortune of knowing. Ohio State has to have the most obnoxious fan base in collegiate sports, more so that Kentucky basketball, Notre Dame football, or Illinois basketball fans. The chip on O$U's shoulder is unbearably large, such that they feel the need to talk shit even when unprovoked.

These people are as rational as people who buy yellow cars. These are the people in the now-infamous 2002 video before the Michigan game pissing all over their own city and generally acting with class. These are the people who are incapable of leaving the house without wearing some sort of Ohio State gear. These are the people who defend the fact that Andy Katzenmoyer was allowed to play after pulling his GPA up to a 2.0 by taking summer school classes in golf, AIDS awareness, and music appreciation. These are the people who sat at the bottom of a ramp in Memorial Stadium several years ago at halftime of an IU/O$U game telling every IU fan (man, woman, or child) coming down the ramp "you fucking suck." These are the people who ripped down IU's goal post after beating us in 1996. These are the people who, when I moved to Ohio after obtaining two degrees from IU, could not comprehend that I had not turned into an O$U fan upon my arrival in Ohio ("but you live in Ohio now"). These are the people I hate.

This is not to say that every O$U fan is a miserable piece of shit. I know several who are nice, good-natured, and respectful people, even when talking about their alma mater. I guess "alma mater" would be a key word there. Interestingly, most of these nice ones actually went to Ohio State, unlike most of their fans, who adopt O$U simply because they grew up in that state and they need something to cling to that will take their minds off of their otherwise meaningless and pathetic existences. Perhaps this creates the giant chip on their collective shoulder – the fact that they could not get into a school whose admissions form merely requires you to spell "O-H-I-O" and indicate whether you are willing to ruin "Hang on Sloopy" for the rest of the world.

Anyway, these simpletons infest Bloomington whenever O$U comes to town. They generally act like assholes while they're in town. More on that later.

The tailgate was a great success. Holt came into town for the tailgate and game and brought with him a female O$U fan that seemed either very amiable or scared shitless of saying anything ill of IU in the presence of a dozen IU fans who were providing her with food, drink, and a place to sit.

Not unlike the IU/Purdue game in 2007, the tailgating fields were slammed, which meant that it was not out of the question for there to be a 200-person line for a cluster of 4 porta-potties. Luckily, we were only about 100 yards from an apartment building outside of which people were drinking. Thus, I paid a hammered college student $5 so that Holt and I could pee in her bathroom. It was money well-spent, considering she was too drunk to realize that I upperdecked her.

The highlight of the tailgate came sometime around 5:30. I learned that Horoho was in town and tailgating relatively close by, so I called him and told him to head over to our tailgate, since we had a pretty decent-sized group. He arrived rather quickly, and within about ten minutes, AC gave Horoho the old pie in the face. Yes, AC purchased a pie crust, pie tin, and two cans of whip cream for the sole purpose of hitting someone in the face with a pie at the tailgate.

I did not know that Horoho was the intended target. Otherwise, I would have stepped back and recorded it on my phone. To his credit, Horoho took it in stride, wiping his face and hair and neck and clothes off without so much as an ill word about AC. An elderly gentlemen a few tailgates over walked over and gave Horoho a towel. He was more pissed off about it than Horoho was.

6:45 rolled around more quickly than anyone hoped, and it was time to head into the game. Upon entering Memorial Stadium, Dan Weeser*, Goni, Gregerson, and I went to the bathroom. Predictably, there was a late 30s O$U fan wearing white Broakleys in the style of Frogskins with the iridium lenses that you and I might have found fashionable in 1993. He was talking shit, so, as I'm inclined to do when provoked by an O$U fan, I talked shit right back.

A word to the wise for those of you inclined to talk shit, especially about academics or your supposed intelligence: when you are talking said shit, you should make every effort to speak English properly.

This mouth breather and I engaged in some banter here and there relating to sports as I was finishing up a piss that would make a power washer proud. As I walked past him towards the sink, this conversation happened:

Him: "OSU's academics is better."

I finished drying my hands, threw the towel into the trash can using what I thought was an extremely effective option-style pitch, and I walked up to him and placed my hand on his shoulder.

Me: "You mean OSU's academics ARE better. But you knew that."

This adorable buffoon had absolutely no idea that I had insulted him. Instead, he continued his previous course of attack.

Him: "OSU's programs are ranked higher than IU's."

He used "are"!

Me: "Like what?"
Him: "Everything."
Me: "Everything?! No."
Him: "Name one thing at IU ranked higher than OSU."

So I did. And then I named another. And then another. Kids, another key rule when you are talking shit: make sure you know what the fuck you're talking about. After I rattled off several IU programs ranked higher than O$U, he interrupted me and said, "Well, yeah, but I graduated with a degree in logistics, and that's ranked in the top five." That's fabulous. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. I was thinking about actually saying that, but I'm pretty sure they don't teach metaphors in top five logistics programs, so this poor guy would have probably tried to explain to me that he isn't blind. (And upon research, OSU's graduate program in logistics is actually ranked #7 by U.S. News. Apparently they do teach lying.)

The game itself was good for most of the first half. The back breaker, in my mind, happened when IU was driving down 17-7 with less than three minutes left in the first half, and Ben Chappell threw a pass right at an O$U defensive tackle, who intercepted it. O$U then scored to go up 24-7 at the half.

Most of us went back out to the fields for a halftime beer or two. Goni, AC, and a couple others decided to skip the second half to go to Nick's to secure a table. This proved to be a wise decision. Gregerson and I headed back into the game at the beginning of the fourth quarter. This proved to be an angering decision.

With 10:31 left in the game, OSU got the ball up 33-7. Instead of taking his starters out or trying to run down the clock, Jim Tressel left Terrelle Pryor in. Over the next five minutes of game time, OSU drove, passing nearly every down. Of their 13 snaps on that game-deciding drive, OSU threw (or tried to throw) 11 times, trying to march down the field on an IU defense that was merely playing for pride at that point. Thankfully, Chris Adkins intercepted a Pryor pass on the 1-yard line to prevent O$U from running up the score. I'm sorry, but when you're up 26 points with 10 minutes left in the game (or even less, later in the drive), it's time to call off the dogs. In basketball, when a team is up 30 points late in the second half, the coach generally doesn't leave his starters in and tell them to jack up 3s.

I don't care if you are trying to get your starting quarterback some more throwing reps or if you think the AP voters will look more favorably on a 40-7 victory rather than a 33-7 victory. Leaving your starters in and throwing every down with the obvious intention of running up the score is a dick move and simply unacceptable, especially after what happened to Tim Tebow last week. In fact, one of O$U's receivers did have to be helped off the field after taking a hit near the end of that crucial fourth-quarter drive. That's what you deserve, I guess. It's just too bad for Tressel it wasn't Terrelle Pryor. I would have liked to see him try to explain that (or O$U fans try to rationalize why it was okay to have him in at that point). I've come to expect that O$U fans have no class, and now it's pretty clear that the same is true of Jim Tressel. I guess I shouldn't expect much in the way of judgment from a man who wears sweater vests.

As if that wasn't bad enough, IU got the ball with about 2 minutes left, and, God forbid, tried to score themselves. With less than 10 seconds left, IU was on about the 5-yard line and called a timeout to try to get a last-second touchdown. At that point, the vast majority of the people left in the stadium were O$U fans. These ingrates had the balls to boo IU for calling that timeout. Yes, how dare the home team not run out the clock when they were down by 26.

After the game, those of us who had not already headed to Nick's went back to the hotel for a quick change. Given the lack of time, I was unable to shower as I had previously planned on doing, so I took a variation of the proverbial "whore's bath," which I suppose would be called a gigolo's bath: putting deodorant on and changing all of my clothes – even my underwear. That is, I would have, if I actually wore underwear. I find it emotionally restrictive.

With that, we all headed to Nick's, where AC and Goni had gotten us a table in the Hump Room. Booyah! In addition to all of the aforementioned bachelor party attendees, also joining us were Zemy (a man who would have been Tradd, Ryan, and my roommate back in the Fall of 2001, were it not for the fact that he now has a seven-year-old daughter), BD, and Bad.

When Ryan, Gregerson, Dan, Tradd, and I walked into the Hump Room, our table was singing a rousing rendition of "Buckeyes Take It Up the Ass, Do-Dah Do-Dah." Unfortunately, our waitress informed us that we had to cease such activity, as her manager had given all servers strict instructions that there were to be no cheers and the like because O$U fans are generally disagreeable and are prone to fighting. I'm not making that up.

Not only had everyone been playing Sink before we got there, but they had been playing with the added variation of quarters, wherein, if someone puts a quarter in your glass, you have to finish your glass before your next turn. BD and Bad looked like a train had run over their eyes. Bad continually sunk it twice in a row, meaning he had to drink two glasses each time. They left for Kilroy's about 45 minutes after I got to Nick's.

At some point, we all realized that sitting down and drinking at this pace was not beneficial to our longevity, so we settled up and headed across the street to Upstairs. On our way over there, I saw the girl who slapped me in the face a few weeks ago. She apparently took heed to my observation, as she was wearing jeans, an IU t-shirt, and dignity.

At Upstairs, we enjoyed some AMFs, as you might have expected.
As is usually the case when I go to Bloomington, I randomly ran into someone I know. In this case, it was Meredith, former student body president. Whatevs. She was down there with her sister (who unfortunately went to O$U) and her sister's friend. The three of them found respite in the Erotic Photo Hunt machine, along with Goni, Gregerson, and others. If there is a better bar touch-screen game that has been invented, I sure as hell haven't seen it.

Unfortunately, I managed to miss a bouncer throw someone down the stairs leading up to Upstairs and the Jungle Room. Apparently Dan was outside when it happened. A hammered dude tried to take a beer from Jungle Room to Upstairs, which was not kosher. Then, it turned out he didn't have improper identification on his person. Instead of walking away, he tried to just walk past the bouncer, and then, after being rebuffed, tried to spin move away from the bouncer. Thus, the bouncer escorted this guy to the top of the stairs, where the guy's less-than-perfect balance took care of the rest. Damn, I would have liked to have seen that, especially if it had been this man.
Once Upstairs closed, those of us left (Gregerson, Tradd, Ryan, and Dan) headed back to the hotel, where we ordered two Big Ten specials from Pizza Express and devoured them while talking about pizza, breadsticks, and snatch.

Sunday
The next morning, Ryan called me at approximately 9:45 to tell me that that was his chosen time to take me to pick up my car (which I had left in a parking lot after driving to Nick's the night before). I told him I would be down in a few minutes, then went back to sleep, waiting for him to call me back. Twenty minutes later, I received said call, and then finally put on some clothes and got a ride to my car. I was not happy to be awake.

Upon my return to the hotel room, I opened the door to what I assume was the worst smelling hotel room in recent history. Good Lord. Tradd, Gregerson, and I must have emitted quite a collective stench. It smelled like a combination of ass, old pizza and ranch sauce, stale beer, sweat, and terror. With that, Gregerson and I hit the road.

Now that Bachelor Party Season is over for me, I can again start working out. This is probably a good idea, since the last time I worked out before this morning was the week before my brother's bachelor party. In related news, I have gained back nearly all of the weight I lost while giving up drinking for Lent and working out subsequently. Here's to yo-yo dieting! As added motivation, I've made a deal with myself that if I can get down to 175 by the end of the year, I will be allowed to get another tattoo. Elephant ears on my inner thighs, here I come! Anything to cover up the scars.