People-Watching At Roots Fest

Last weekend I went to Paola, Kansas for Roots Fest, a little BBQ/music/town festival type of thing. It's right up my alley, between the food (BBQ, cheesesteaks, and chili cheese fritos as far as the eye can I see) music (mostly bluesy, jazzy, soul-y rock, although there was some country and this guy mixed in) and the fact that it takes place in a quaint little town square that's straight out of Back to the Future, sans clock tower.

It's tough to pay full attention to the music when you're constantly glancing out your periphs, waiting for Marty to come flying around the corner on a makeshift skateboard, or Biff Tannen to drive into the back of a manure truck. In related news, I know what I want my next birthday cake to look like. Look at that thing.



It's also prime people-watching time.

>> It's a pretty typical small-town Kansas scene (population 6,000ish), so there's plenty of interesting characters strolling around, but this guy took the cake: a guy in his mid-30's, walking with three small children (he was holding hands with one of them, so presumably they were his) with a shirt that said in huge letters ROB MOTHERFUCKING ZOMBIE and on the back THAT'S RIGHT BITCH....YOU HEARD ME. I mean....c'mon guy.

>> New favorite porta potty game: while peeing, I like to start loudly singing a song, some sort of crowd-pleaser that is sure to get people to join in. Songs I tried on Saturday night: the Cheers theme song, 'Don't Stop Believin', and the chorus from 'Sweet Caroline'. Best-case scenario: the song spreads down the row both ways, and everyone enjoys a good sing-along while peeing. Worst-case scenario: it doesn't catch on at all, and as you exit the porta potty, you have to look around and loudly announce "Did anyone hear that guy singing in there? Who was that? What an asshole." Then quickly hustle out of the area.

>> I know that I'm not exactly a bastion of maturity (see preceding paragraph) but I couldn't believe some of these kids who were around 9-12 years old. For lack of a better word, they were just.....dipshits. Like literally running around in circles and scribbling in the dirt with sticks and stuff like that. Was I like that at that age? I hadn't started watching good movies yet, so I know I had no sense of humor, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't laying used popsicle sticks in the sand, then taking off my shoes and seeing how far back I could go before I couldn't jump over the popsicle sticks anymore. I guess there's no way to check. My family never had a camcorder when I was growing up, and thus no live-action memories of Brother and I as little kids, because we'd rather spend our disposable income on guns, and decoys, and copious amounts of ammunition, and camoflauge from head to toe. All that deer meat sure was tasty though.

>> Question for you guys: at what age is it appropriate for us to start calling out punkass kids? There was this one in particular, probably around 14 years old, with his knee-high black socks and sandals, some Little League baseball All-Star shirt on (with the word Buffalos spelled like this) and walking around like he was the fucking Prince of Paola. He walked by me at least 10 times over the course of the night, mean-mugging the shit out of me every time. I had the almost uncontrollable urge to pop out of my chair, rack him up against a tree, and tell him to cut the crap.

But I feel like I'm at an in-between age right now. At 28, I'm old and grumpy enough where I look at these kids with nothing but disgust at how they're carrying themselves...but still young enough where it's conceivable that we could actually fistfight over this (and I would almost certainly lose, since I've only thrown 3/4 of a real punch in my whole life, and this kid's 9th grade football practice that morning was more physical contact than I've had in the last couple months-- unless you count when the opposing first baseman wandered into the basepath as I was trying to stretch a blooper into a double and I plowed into him.)

So at what age are we allowed to start letting these kids know that they're assholes? Or maybe a better question would be: at what age do we command the respect of asshole kids? Is it anytime soon? Not until our 40's? I'm pretty sure when I was 13 years old, if some late-twenties-looking guy tried to curtail our shenanigans, we'd laugh in his face. However, I remember one incident when we were in 7th grade, throwing water balloons at cars and pedestrians, and we hit an older guy walking with his wife, who may or may not have been Central's hockey coach at the time (normally when I say 'may or may not' it's my smartass way of saying it definitely was, but I don't want to come right out and say it...but in this case, I really don't remember if it was him or not) and he came storming into Bergman's backyard, and we dropped our stash of balloons and ran like it was the T-Rex from Jurassic Park or something. We had a healthy level of respect for that dude, only because he was an older guy, and he could bring the thunder down on us, simply by being the age that he was.

(We still tell this story 'round the campfire late at night-- Bergman will never live it down. I was the first one to see a soaking wet, pissed off guy stomping around the corner of the house at us, and I took off sprinting. Everyone else but Bergman took my cue and immediately followed me to freedom; for whatever reason Bergman did not. Despite being the only one of us who didn't throw a water balloon, Bergman was the one who got racked up against the house and threatened. Justice is blind when it comes to water balloons.)

So anyway, at what age do we get to start pushing kids around with impunity? That's what I really want to know here.

Lust

For me, these new style of hot pockets are like the smoking hot girl you see across the bar, but you're not quite drunk enough to talk to yet. Yeah, I see you over there, Pretzel Bread Lean Pockets. I see you lookin' all kinds of good tonight. I'm kinda in the middle of a round of Golden Tee right now, and I'm gonna take a couple shots with the boys before I stroll over to talk to you.....but don't worry. I see you.

Minneapolis, Or: Twins Fans Annoy Me Yet Again

I was originally going to write about the Minneapolis/Green Bay trip, but nothing life-alteringly funny besides inside jokes happened, and can be summed up thusly:

1. Target Field is pretty awesome.
2. I miss ADawg and wish he didn't move to Oregon and only visits once every Presidential term.
3. Lambeau Field is even more awesomer than Target Field.
4. NFL preseason bets: I'm either riding a crazy lucky streak, or I'm on to something here.
5. Jeremiah Weed & water (aka the Michael Phelps) gets me really drunk really quick-- that stuff is delicious.
6. Junior's, a lil' diner/restaurant/bar in Burnsville, is one of my new favorite eateries ever. We ate there for breakfast on Friday, Saturday, AND Sunday morning, and I dominated the #15 cajun andouille all three days.
7. When we get right down to it, I'm just not that good at team-play competitive golf, even though it's my favorite format of golf to play.

So back to the Twins fans.....

Full disclaimer: I know a decent part of the blame belongs to me. I usually refrain from wearing Red Sox gear when they're not involved in the sporting event. When I'm at a random Royals game, I'll throw on a Titleist hat, or an incidental college team, like TCU or something. Since the Twins were playing the Yankees, however, I thought I'd show my support by wearing a Sox hat. Look, I hate the Yankees, you hate the Yankees, let's get together and just fucking hate them together, cool? I'm with you guys tonight. But in a slight understatement, let's just say my support was not appreciated on this evening. (The best line of the evening: Bergman and I rode the light rail in from the suburbs, next to this guy for a solid 25 minutes. He waits until the moment I step off into the streets and the door is closing behind me to yell "I've got bad news for you buddy.....you've got the wrong homestand!") Hey screw you, guy.

Look, I'm sorry that the Red Sox are good now. And I'm sorry that lots of people are bandwagon jumpers. But you know what? I'm not one of them. If you go back to what my sports fandom was like in 2003, with all the close-but-no-cigar-disappointments and maybe-next-year-will-be-the-year-mentality, it's borderline crazy that I have to constantly defend myself now. Sorry that KU won a title, the Red Sox won two, and Phil starting collecting green suit jackets like they cost 70 cents at the thrift store. I paid my dues.

Also, I can pretty much guarantee that I can name more members of the 1987 Twins than 75% of the Minneapolis metropolitan area. So I'm not just any geek off the streets. I'm handy with the steel, if you know what I mean, earn my keep. It's insulting to me that as soon as you lay eyes on me, you assume I'm one of the post-2004 fans, when in reality I was entertaining my parents' friends at dinner parties at age 5 by naming Boston's entire roster, with batting averages and ERAs included for most of them.

I promise I'll never bring this issue up again, as long as I don't have to hear about how "Boston just buys their whole team" anymore either. Something to think about: having a large payroll is undeniably a huge advantage, but that advantage mostly comes in keeping their own players. The Sox haven't really bought anyone that has a major positive effect on the team. Look at their lineup:

Ellsbury, home-grown
Pedroia, home-grown
Gonzalez, trade
Youkilis, home-grown
Ortiz, signed on the cheap after Minnesota discarded him (to be fair, he wasn't juicing yet, or the Twins probably would've kept him.)
Lowrie, home-grown
Crawford, bought and paid for (and he sucks.)
Reddick, home-grown/JD Drew, bought and paid for (and he sucks.)
Saltalamacchia/Varitek, trades

And their pitching staff:

Lester, home-grown
Bucholz, home-grown
Beckett, trade
Wakefield, signed on the cheap, so long ago that I think he might have been around before free agency was even invented yet
Lackey, bought and paid for (and he sucks.)
Bard, home-grown
Papelbon, home-grown

So yes, the Sox have a huge payroll. But it's used on keeping the guys that they brought through the minors and turned into all-stars, and for overpaying shitty players that just piss the fanbase off.

I really do hate talking about this; I just got more and more annoyed, the more I thought about last Thursday's game. I'm tired of being made to feel like a douche, just because my team won a couple of World Series. Red Sox fans get the bad rap, but I've met far more annoying Twins fans in my time. (And I'm not counting ball-busting from friends, that's fine. You guys are mostly dicks and it's expected. I mean the randoms like light rail guy.)

Now there's just this awful vibe hanging in the room. Here's some comic relief.

Two And A Half Thoughts

I noticed this the other day, and I'm wondering if I'm the only one...

When creeping pictures on Facebook, and you're looking at lake pictures, is it just me, or does every lake/yard/cabin/beach area look the same? When I don't know what lake said pictures are from, I automatically scan the background and try to pick out landmarks that would identify the lake as one of the five or so that I'm familiar with in the area. Oh snaps! I recognize that American flag! That's totally right down the shore from Steg's place at Maple Lake! Man, that blue cabin with the triangle-shaped window looks so familiar....oh yeah, it's right across from Ike's place at Union Lake, where we tipped over the jet ski and I almost got my head ran over!

And it always turns out that I'm completely wrong (Minnesota does have 10,000 lakes, you know. It's their motto and everything.) Am I alone on this one? Should I stop talking for awhile, sit the next couple plays out?

***************

I've mentioned before how there are certain singers whose voices make me fall in love with them. Singers like Jenny Lewis, Alicia Keys, Prince...you get the idea. Usually it's an immediate swooning; I'm swept off my feet upon first listen. This time, though, it took me years before I finally had the realization: I am in love with late 70's era-Aretha Franklin. Just a big, sassy black woman, hittin' notes and doin' work. If I was a child in an affluent family, living in a southern town in 1977, I would want Aretha to be my family's live-in babysitter. Then, as I grew into puberty and later high school, I would come home late one early September evening, having gone to a high school football game, then snuck out to the old Swanson farm, swiped a few beers from his storage shed, and drank them with my buddies, laying on the hood of our cars and talking about girls. I would come home and Aretha would be out on the porch, not being able to sleep, and although she calls it "just having one of her thinkin' nights" really, I know it's because she's missing her husband, who passed away nine years ago. Then we would start talking, and she would slowly but steadily seduce me, right there on the porch, and I would learn all about the sweet lovings a woman can offer, from Aretha the 1970's Housekeeper, on the outskirts of the sleepy town of Decatur, Alabama.

So long story short, I really enjoy Aretha Franklin's voice.

***************

I'm going to Minneapolis tonight to visit some buddies; the reason this week was picked was because the elusive ADawg, who moved to Oregon after his wedding almost three years ago and never comes back for holidays or weddings or anything, will be in town. While it will undoubtedly be a good time, and I'll get to cross an event off the sports bucket list when we trek over to Lambeau Field for a preseason game on Friday, there's a kicker: the Red Sox, who only come to Kansas City to play the Royals once a year, come this weekend. Between the Metrodome, trips to Boston, and KC the last few years, the last year I haven't attended a Boston game live is 2002. This has happened to me an obscene amount of times since I moved to Kansas. Hey, the Avett Brothers are coming to Kansas City! Oh, crap, I'm out of town for a wedding that weekend. What's that? You've got free tickets to the KU/K-State game on Saturday? 8th row? Dammit, I have friends in town this weekend, they're not big basketball fans. Guess I'll have to pass. Holy shit! They're handing out free chili cheese wraps at the Sonic on 31st at 9 pm? Too bad I'm leaving to go home for Christmas earlier that day.

I don't have much of a point, just that I'm tired of missing things in the Kansas area cause I'm doing other stuff. I blame ADawg.

(Also, those last two examples are entirely fictional. We all know I would NEVER pass up free 8th row tickets to a KU basketball game, and would probably punch my mom in the face while she's sleeping if it meant free chili cheese wraps.)

Canoeing Vs. Tubing

Ever since I moved to Lawrence, I've been very conscious not to use the phrase "Back home..." and then launch into some story from my North Dakota days. Sometimes it's inevitable, since we've got plenty of good stories, and my friends are generally better than yours, but for the most part I've stayed away from that phrasing. I remembered how much I disliked it when I heard other people do it in college and I was meeting people from other parts of the country.

However, one instance where I've never been afraid to play the "back home" card was in regards to tubing. It's one of the things I miss most about North Dakota/Minnesota. Some of the greatest drinking shitshows of our lives came while we lounged on cheap inner tubes, floating down that glorious little stretch of river. Down here they have "float trips", but there are plenty of differences. Being skeptical about how much fun it would actually be, during the leadup to the trip last week, I did what I do best: openly bitched and tried to find excuses to bail on the trip, before finally going and enjoying myself. A breakdown between Northern Tubing and Kinda Southern But Mostly Still The Midwest Depending On How You Look At It Float Trips:

Distance traveled: Something I definitely took for granted with tubing. It was only a 45-minute drive to Red Lake Falls from Grand Forks. Plus the drive was always filled with booze and let's-get-fucked-up music, so it felt like about ten minutes. For the float trip, we drove for almost four hours into Southern Missouri to arrive at our campsite (although the drive was still filled with booze and good music-- nothing like pregaming with 40 oz. Mickey's and 90's jams to get me rocking and rolling. Without a doubt, the greatest thing about Missouri is that it's legal to drink in the car as long as you're a passenger.) Advantage: Tubing.

Time spent on river: Tubing varied, depending on the depth of the water. Sometimes you flowed along crisply, banging it out in just over an hour; sometimes, when the water was lower, it was a three or four hour trip. About the perfect length, really. Canoeing, however, was an eight-hour marathon. Definitely a couple hours too long, especially when you're abusing alcohol at the rate that we all were. The last couple hours were a battle to finish. Advantage: Tubing.

In-flight shenanigans: For tubing, there was The Island. Located at roughly the halfway point, it made for a nice little break to climb off your tubes, stretch your legs a little bit, bong some beers, and try to get girls to show their boobies. There was also the bridge towards the end, at which point the bravest (read: drunkest) of us would jump off into the water, unless the cops happened to be watching that day. One time, in a particularly stupid move, even for tubing, Jennifer and I took an empty six-pack holder, each hooked an arm into a hole, and jumped off at the same time. That none of our friends were ever seriously hurt was a small miracle. I've heard stories of people getting maimed (or even killed? I can't remember) by jumping off that bridge....but it was never anybody I knew, so screw them, right?

For canoeing, there were dozens of smaller islands scattered throughout the river, with plenty of people at each one (there were TONS of people on the river. There were at least 75-100 people in your line of vision at any time while floating down. Sometimes you'd get jammed up against them, but for the most part it flowed pretty smooth.) Also, some people just periodically pulled their canoes over to the banks or shallower water and stopped to chitchat with randoms there. This is where I won my $50 bet from Shaun and Nelle. I had five chances to smell a random girl's hair- the only rules being that I couldn't get caught, and both of my feet had to be in the water. I went 0 for my first 2 (my first at-bat being a pitiful attempt to wade up to a moving raft, grab the back of it and launch myself up to hair level to get a whiff. I got busted immediately, fell off the raft and got buried underwater, losing my sunglasses and quite a bit of dignity in the process.) I realized it would be much easier to just stand in the shallow part of the river, wait for people to pass by, and grab a noseful of Pantene Pro-V while I pretended to help steer them back out to the deep water. Resourceful. I still can't believe they offered me $50...I would've done it for $3 and a coldcut sandwich out of their cooler.

Also, I think there was a large tree that hung over the river that people were jumping out of....but that was towards the end of the run, I was hammered, and I'm not 100% sure that I actually saw that. Might be a drunk hallucination.

Advantage: Draw. I don't know if anything can beat The Island during tubing; just too many good memories. However, just the sheer number of different people you can bullshit with at various points during canoeing makes it even. It would be interesting to know how many thousands of people floated down that river last Saturday.

Potential for disaster: Pretty minimal during tubing (assuming you don't kill yourself while jumping off a bridge while being constrained in a six-pack holder like a trapped duck.) You're probably gonna get your tube stuck on a rock at some point, and it might cause you to flip or have a few seconds of inconvenience while you get sorted out and untwisted...but nothing too crazy.

Canoeing, however....holy hell. People are dumping left and right; it's like a friggin' war zone out there. People flailing in the water, yelling and screaming and pandemonium like the scene in Saving Private Ryan where they're storming the beach in Normandy. Of our seven-canoe entourage, only two didn't flip (myself being one of the lucky few, only because we were on the inside of our homemade barge, so it was pretty much impossible to completely overturn.) I still ended up in the water a million times though, as I made it my personal mission to head up the alcohol search and rescue squad after a cooler would empty its contents into the river.

Favorite random moment of the trip: after Jud and CK violently tipped and lost their entire cooler, apparently I yelled "Jillian, hold my shit, I'm going in!" threw my beer at her, launched into the water like David Hasselhoff, and ended up 50 yards downstream, collecting as many beers as I could hold. The reason it was my favorite moment is because of the sense of community out there. There were countless strangers helping us scoop up beer and vodka and swimming back up against the current to return it to us. People helping people, it's powerful stuff.

Also, I was wearing Wes' super-douchey white sunglasses, since mine were lost in the aforementioned hair-smelling incident, and while I was swimming around saving beers, some huge muscular guy with a shaved head grabbed me, all super-serious, and told me I looked just like Jeremy Renner while the rest of their group all yelled "Holy shit, he TOTALLY does!" Even with how drunk I was, I knew it was really weird as it was happening. Big, big advantage: canoeing.

So overall, tubing is still my preferred method of traversing down a river while pouring beer down your throat and hollering at girls to show their boobies. However, canoeing was much more fun than I thought it would be, and I'm a solid "yes" for next time.

Happy Friday.

I Just Wish I Had A Picture

Quick mini-story from our canoe trip last weekend, while I work on a "canoeing vs. tubing" post:

My goal for Saturday, knowing we would be on the river for eight effing hours, was to get REALLY drunk. The stumbling, slurring words, texting your parents and telling them how much you love them and how much you appreciated your childhood, hitting on women old enough to be your grandma, harrassing small children, fistfighting dogs kind of drunk. And it was pretty much mission accomplished. We got back to the campsite about 6 pm, and I confidently strutted (read: stumbled haphazardly) to my tent to "take a couple hour nap, so I can keep going tonight."

Yeah. Next thing I know, it's pitch black outside, deathly quiet except the crickets...and about 2 a.m. Easily the hardest I ever passed out in my life. Whoops. So now I'm wide awake after getting a solid eight hours sleep, bored out of my mind, until finally I see Jen and CK get out of their tents at about 6, so I scramble out, eager for any kind of company. Turns out that 8 of the 14 in our crew did about the same thing as me, and we had all been sitting in our respective tents, wide awake for hours and bored out of our minds. It's too bad we didn't have some kind of a secret bird call, then we could've all hung out in the wee hours of the morning together. Such is life.

So since we'd been up for awhile, and to us it felt like about noon, and it's no fun taking down tents and cleaning and doing manual labor, and beer sounded kinda good....we started having a few Early Sunday Morning Cordials.

So fast forward a couple of hours. Now we're driving through the Bible Belt on our way back to Lawrence, it's about 9:30 in the morning, I'm eight beers deep going on nine, I haven't showered since Friday morning, wearing an "Ol' Dirty Bastard is my homeboy" t-shirt, still in my swim trunks from the day before, limping around on torn-up feet in old polka-dotted girl sandals I borrowed from Jillian (my sandals having been lost in the river the day before) and I mistakenly brought my Natty Light into the gas station with me. The gas station attendant gave me a look (understandably) and I assessed myself and ashamedly admitted to him, "I might be the biggest piece of shit in the state of Missouri right now."

To which he replied, "Nahhh I doubt it. It is Missouri, you know."

Well played, sir. Totally nailed it.

Whoa, What, Oh!

The above video cracks me up. I love finding little things like that in movies. And it reminded me of a little phenomenom I've found that drives me crazy/fascinates me. Bear with me for awhile here. We can probably file this under "who gives a shit?" but it's my blog so screw you:

I used to play Ken Griffey Jr. baseball for N64 A LOT. Winning the World Series after my 162-game season was the 2nd coolest thing that happened to me in the summer of '98 (1st being getting my driver's license, but it's close.) After hitting a home run, the game would show a shot of your dugout celebrating, and you could hear a "yeah yeah! wooo-wooo......gone!" or at least that's what it sounded like to me. Not very noteworthy at the time. But because I played that game so much, and heard that cheer after EVERY SINGLE home run, it was pretty well burned into my brain. Soon, not because I was listening for it, but because it was so easy for me to pick up, it started turning up everywhere. I'd say, in the last thirteen years, I've heard it at least 25 times in different forms of media (movies, commercials, TV shows, etc.) It's like they've got this default "crowd cheering" button in the standard Hollywood studio that they press when the time is right, and I find it hilarious that it's this exact one so many times. This would be much better if I could find a clip of an actual home run from the video game to hear it clearly, but I can't, so here it is in this Corona commercial, the latest example I have stumbled across. It's at the 24 second mark, although it's tough to hear the "gone!" part at the end, which really ties it all together for me.






Keep your ears open, and you'll hear this generic cheer everywhere and it will drive you crazy enough to write 350 words about it. Or don't. Whatever, really. I don't even care anymore. Shit, I'm hungover. Drinking 45 beers in a two-day camping trip will do that, I guess.

30 Day Song Challenge

Normally I'm not an enormous fan of the "Here's a random set of questions, use your Facebook status to answer them" memes that go around the interwebs. This one seemed fun though. I'm answering all of them at once though, not answering one per day for a month, as per the instructions. C'mon guys.

day 01 – your favorite song of all-time: 'Fool in the Rain'- Led Zeppelin.

day 02 – your least favorite song of all-time: 'Jenny From the Block'- J-Lo. A tough one to pick, as it could be a number of different songs from over the years...I'll choose J-Lo because I fucking hate it when a good old school rap song gets its beat ripped off to make a pile of garbage like this (in this case, 'South Bronx' by KRS-One gets raped by Ms. Yennifaaa.)

day 03 – a song that makes you happy: 'M79'- Vampire Weekend. Within the first eight seconds of the first time I heard this song, I moved Vampire Weekend into my top 5 favorite bands.

day 04 – a song that makes you sad: 'No Woman No Cry'- Bob Marley. Sad in a good way, if that makes sense? This song messes up my mind- like when I listen to it, it feels like I was there for the live recording or something, and it was an especially emotional evening, and ended on a depressing note, but yet the evening as a whole was a blast. Or like every failed relationship I've ever had runs through my head while this song is playing, but only the good parts of those relationships, so it makes me a little nostalgic? Clearly I don't know how to describe how this song makes me feel. Let's stick with "sad."

day 05 – a song that reminds you of someone: '1,000 MILES'- Vanessa Carlton. This can kinda be a super-long story, so I'll make it as short as possible, in an effort to confuse everyone except the girl in question, and my friends from the golf course. This was an old girlfriend's and my "song" when we were freshmen in college (cue up the "Jum's a big homo" jokes.) While drinking a few months ago this song came on and I inadvertently made it seem as if this girl had passed away while we were together. Awkwardness ensues. Later in evening, story gets cleared up. Now my golf course buddies constantly play this song when we're out at bars, while shouting "R.I.P. Molly!" and we all have a good laugh at my expense.

day 06 – a song that reminds you of somewhere: 'A Little Less Conversation'- Elvis Presley. The first time I ever went to Vegas. Bergman, ADawg and I left Los Angeles straight from the bar at midnight trying to beat the New Year's Eve rush, now we've been driving through the desert for four hours, my buzz has worn off and I'm sorta hungover, ADawg and Bergman have been arguing for the last two and a half hours....and then we came around a corner and got our first glimpse of The Strip in all its glory....and then this song came on the ipod.....and it was pure magic. Woudn't have arrived in Vegas for the first time any other way.

day 07 – a song that reminds you of a certain event: 'Dreamin'- G. Love & Special Sauce. Reminds me of the road trip to Seattle and Portland that DR, Karan, and I took right after I graduated high school. We would alternate who picked the CD (I was riding Journey REALLY hard the whole road trip.) We were also supposed to be alternating driving, but instead DR and I drove the whole way from North Dakota to the west coast, while Karan slept for about 23 consecutive hours, conveniently waking up right when it was his turn to pick a CD, mumble "G.Love dudes....G.Love...." then go back to sleep again. I don't think he picked another CD the entire time, and in roughly 55 hours in the car, he drove a grand total of 2 hours before claiming he needed a nap.

day 08 – a song that you know all the words to: 'Let Me Ride'- Dr. Dre. I've always thought a great idea for a music video for a hardcore rap song would be to just set up a camera in the backseat of some white boy's car (not unlike myself) and have shots of him rapping along, interspersed with shots of Dre and Snoop doing Dre and Snoop things like drinking 40's, or standing alongside an Impala bouncing on two wheels. Maybe that's just me though.

day 09 – a song that you can dance to: 'Apache'- Sugarhill Gang. Duh.

day 10 – a song that you fall asleep to: 'Please Read the Letter'- Robert Plant & Alison Krauss. I remember having an argument at the Derby a few years ago, me and Youngest Schneweis, arguing against the two elder Schneweis brothers, who say that this song sucks. I enjoy it tremendously.

day 11 – a song from your favorite band: 'Hey Hey What Can I Do'- Led Zeppelin. Probably my second-favorite Led Zep song. I don't really like this question though, it's too general, so I'll amend it to 'most overrated song from your favorite band', which is unquestionably Stairway to Heaven. Always cracks America's top 10 greatest rock and roll songs of all time, and it's definitely not a bad song, but if I was making a desert island Led Zeppelin mix that only allowed 20 songs, this one wouldn't make the cut.

day 12 – a song you love from a band you hate- 'Sweet Emotion'- Aerosmith. I've always said that there are few experiences that suck more than being at a concert of a band you don't enjoy (unless booze is involved...it's THE great mitigating factor.) I somehow got roped into going to an Aerosmith concert in 2001 (sober) and it was one of the worst, longest nights of my life. This song rocks though.

day 13 – a song that is a guilty pleasure: Approximately 40% of my ipod consists of guilty pleasures. It's a one-hit wonder and 90's jam dream collection. If I had to pick one, it would probably be 'Mmmbop' by Hanson, since that song is the 37th most-played song since fall 2006, when my itunes was re-loaded. Real talk.

day 14 – a song that no one would expect you to love: 'Time to Say Goodbye'- Andrea Bocelli. I listened to this song 23 times in a row last week, until my boss finally broke down and asked me what the hell was going on in my office (we share a wall that doesn't reach all the way to the ceiling.) Also, since this song is pretty much impossible, yet TOTALLY fun to sing along to, I like to make up lyrics, most of which are related to drinking in my kiddie pool and smelling girls' hair. Remind me to sing it for you next time we're together. (Unrelated, but in this live version of the song, I love the part 15 seconds in, when the chick strokes Bocelli's face, and he kinda flinches and pulls back. It's the same look I have on my face every time a girlfriend has ever tried to hold my hand in public. I have intimacy issues.)

day 15 – a song that describes you: 'Why Can't We Be Friends'- War. I can usually make friends with just about anybody I meet. Sometimes this works to my detriment.

day 16 – a song that you used to love but now hate: 'Smoke on the Water'- Deep Purple. That guitar riff was about the coolest thing my 14-year-old brain had heard up to that point. Now it almost makes me cringe.

day 17 – a song that you hear often on the radio: I don't listen to the radio anymore unless I'm in someone else's car, but nothing will ever, EVER touch the amount of times I heard 'In Da Club' by 50 Cent in 2003. I think we heard it seven times in one Friday night at El Roco.

day 18 – a song that you wish you heard on the radio: 'Hey! We Want Some Pussy!'- 2 Live Crew. Self-explanatory.

day 19 – a song from your favorite album: 'I Wish'- Stevie Wonder. The album Songs in the Key of Life = life-changing.

day 20 – a song that you listen to when you’re angry: 'Know Your Enemy'- Rage Against the Machine. Kind of a cliche answer, I know, but still true nonetheless. Really anything by Rage works here. Also 'Cop Killa' by Ice-T.

day 21 – a song that you listen to when you’re pregaming: Changes by the week. Right now I'm on a big 'Sweet Jane' by the Velvet Underground kick.

day 22 – a song that you listen to when you’re drunk: 'Tyler'- The Toadies. Often on repeat.

day 23 – a song that you want to play at your wedding: 'One Shining Moment.' I'm serious, too, don't anybody steal that idea from me. I've had a few of my wedding ideas pirated from me the last few years- this one is mine, assuming I can get my future wife to go along with it (which I will, because it will be non-negotiable. You want to marry me, then 'One Shining Moment' is getting played. If that isn't perfect for the photo montage, then I don't know what is.) Also, when people are filtering into the church and being seated, I'm using the music from CBS' coverage of The Masters. As long as we're laying copyrights on the table here.

day 24 – a song that you want to play at your funeral: also 'One Shining Moment.' This song extracts a wide variety of emotions from me. Obvious alert.

day 25 – a song that makes you laugh: Depends on how you interpret the question. I would say 'Give it to Me Baby' by Rick James, since that reminds me of the Chappelle Show Rick James skit....but I actually like that song, so I'll make this answer a song that I didn't really like before, but now laugh when I hear it because of the Bloomington Bros.....'Ants Marching' or 'Crash' by DMB. "Wait....wait.....little DM?"

day 26 – a song that you can play on an instrument: Does Guitar Hero count? If so, then I choose 'Jessica' by the Allman Brothers; I barely had to look at the screen to play rhythm guitar on that little ditty. If that doesn't count, then I'm pretty screwed, as I don't play any instruments. I feel like I could totally rock the xylophone in 'Hitsville UK' by The Clash though. I've got the general idea when I play air xylophone in my car; just put a real one in front of me and I'd have the keys down after one run-through.

day 27 – a song that you wish you could play: 'Here Comes the Sun'- The Beatles. Strum that at a party and watch the 19-year-old gash come your way, bro.

day 28 – a song from your childhood: there's literally thousands of those. The first song I can ever remember liking (besides children's songs) is 'Everybody Needs Somebody to Love' from the Blues Brothers movie.

day 29 - your favorite song right now: 'Charley's Girl'- Lou Reed

day 30 – your favorite song at this time last year: 'How I Could Just Kill a Man'- Cypress Hill.


Now tag somebody and they have to answer next! LOL LOL ;)