Sunday, December 9, 2007

The Legend of the Red Baron

Details are hazy, but spent the better part of my week researching and interviewing some of the sharpest minds this world has to offer to fill in the gaps. My memory was jogged by running into Michelle/Nicole Rader last week, and our conversation turned to the time we all went up to her relatives property.


Setting - Vacant land in Glen Arbor, MI

Date - No idea....summer, maybe 4-5 years ago

Characters - Raders, Rader's brother and his crew (think Doughboy's brother was there), Deboer, Dave Schroreder, Caulky, Bret & Nate Walters, Knoll, Knoll's little brother (guest appearance), Daddy, Newman, Savage, Phil, Amy T, Lynsey Warington, TOR, Tracey Lake, Balbach and his sister, and others


When we arrived, Rader's brother's crew had already set up camp. They seemed surprised, almost shocked, to see the fifteen of us show up and start unpacking our gear. There agitation increased when we had to rearrange their stuff a little to better accommodate our group. I believe their tolerance reached its limit when Rader's brother began yelling at Deboer. Deboer and Dave, in an attempt to enhance our setup, had decided that we needed Dave's full size truck by our tents so we could listen to the radio. This was a problem because there was not enough clearance between branches to fit a vehicle through. Well, Deboer got out his machete and started hacking off branches to create an opening....problem solved, right? One would have thought so, but Rader's brother was NOT to keen on the idea. When all of his protesting ceased, he saw it Deboer's way and ultimately enjoyed the radio the rest of the week.


We hit the beach hard the first day. On the way to the beach, Rader invited us on a booze cruise in the afternoon. Plans were falling into place. Got to the beach, and the girls were looking GOOD son! We were doing our thing, not attracting women, soaking up the sun, preparing for our booze cruise. Some of us were getting more sun than others, notably Newman, but he didn't have much of a base to begin with. By the time we left, he was already a deep red/purple color. We approached Rader's grandparents house, and the 15 of us headed straight for the pontoon, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. As I boarded the vessel, I faintly heard some elderly person mention a "small craft advisory", but assumed they must be joking. Phil piloted the vessel, with a towel wrapped around his neck. A group was also out in the water in a speed boat, and for some reason they were bringing us Knoll's car keys. It must have been decided that a toss would be easier than a hand-off, so they threw the keys to Knoll. 25 sets of eyes watched as the keys hit the water, and quickly sunk to the bottom. This left Knoll in a tough situation, but we had bigger problems. The wind was blowing hard and Phil had somehow put us in a position where our pontoon was taking on water at an alarming pace.....and we were in the center of the lake. At one point the entire front was capsized...we had people running from the front to the back of the boat....ON PHIL'S COMMAND?!?! Finally, TOR (110 lbs) and Radar (90 lbs) decided their combined weigh was too much for our ship and moreover they would rather take their chances swimming in than leave their lives in Phil's hands. Fools....as fate would have it Phil had everything under control.


Knoll's little brother drove 300 miles to give Chris his spare set of keys, but that's not all he brought. Also in his bag was a half gallon of vodka which he spent the week cutting with Gatorade. He also brought with him many outrageous call-outs, prompting Chris to mention "that's blood baby, that's blood" more than once. Deboer found his puppet, and shortly after Knoll's brothers arrival he left with Deboer and Deboer's crew to go "2-tracking" and "maybe do some shooting". As we sat around the campfire, Savage was game-planning before he went to bed early. He made it very clear to us that under no circumstances should we allow Amy T to follow him into his tent. Like the Nostradamus he is, it wasn't five minutes after he went into his tent that the lovely Amy T followed. She wasn't given much time to seduce, because shortly after she entered, she heard yelling from the campfire - "Savage, come here quick. My cock is bigger than it has ever been". We are told that the next words she heard were from Savage and they were - "Oh shit! Daddy's got his cock out! I gotta see this". And he did.


The rest of the night consisted of booze, smoke, Newman complaining about his sunburn, Knoll's little brother getting Caulky pukey drunk and passing out in the bed of the truck, and was capped with rain. So we all went to our respective tents, but because of the heat radiating off of his sunburn, Newman chose to sleep in the "sun room" of his tent. The "sun room" had mesh walls, but he was instructed that as long as he didn't touch the walls, water wouldn't get in. He awoke in a puddle of water, which no doubt had a soothing effect on his sunburn. He left early the next morning.


Editors Note: Found it weird than when speaking to Phil last week, he asked if this is the trip that he and I shared a tent and he sleep nude.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Biggest Bar Night Ever........EVER!



I don't claim to know a whole lot about "cool" (I suppressed "fashion", "Greek mythology", and "crazy hot sex" for the sake of length), but up until last Wednesday I could have sworn the "cool" thing to do was to go out to your hometown bars the night before Thanksgiving. I thought this was a time honored tradition...like circumcism, but I have come to realize both have come in question.





The night before Thanksgiving was big time, don't get me wrong. We started the night with a small crew at the tap room. Your usual HITTERS, doing what we do. Catching up with everyone, reliving high school stories, etc... As you might expect, we starting reciting lines from movies when the conversation got dull - "That's right, Iceman, I am dangerous" "One, Two, Ten....Oswald was a fag" "Dropping loads all over" "Oh, who are you? Isaac Fucking Newton". You know, lines from all the hits. What's that you say, you aren't familiar with one of the quotes? Which one? As it turns out, most others weren't aware and were quite startled when Phil loudly stated this to the bar. Upon inquiry, we found our friend has taking a liking to the work of Nick Manning (or HERE if you are NOT at work...do NOT click if at work and your volume is on). I can't speak for the others, but I became very concerned for Phil when I realized about 80% of what he said that night was actually things he had heard Mr. Manning say at some point in time. While most of us were excited to get back together, Phil couldn't stop talking about how his man was going to release ring tones. Forgive me, for this could just be me showing how out of touch with "cool" I actually am.


Barber, Graham, Balbach, please do not read further.

As the night progressed, we made our way to Main Street....place was packed! Schultz was manning (Phil, by "manning" I mean operating, not a reference to your guy) the door, on the lookout I'm sure for the perpetrators that vandalized his state of the art restroom. As we walked in further, we saw Phil Hall sitting on a chair overlooking the room making sure trouble did not break out. I'm fairly confident this was not a contracted position he was receiving compensation for, but oddly no one was really surprised.
Quick digression - Watching the Missouri game...are the big ass Dr. Seuss hats still cool? What in the hell is going on...where do they breed these people? Oh, just answered my own question.

We saw a couple of men in uniform at Main Street. I figured I would thank them for their service, so I approached them only to be cut off by Phil Zeilinger, his wife, and Matt Kasawski. Phil is not stable, so I chose to wait my turn, but soon realized Phil was not there to thank them. Rather, Phil was attempting to point out that they were wearing their gear incorrectly. Is this cool? Is it possible that Phil forgot he was dishonorably discharged from the Armed Forces 10 years ago and further he would find it a challenge instructing someone how to cook a hot dog? We left Main Street, went to Hook's. Young, unattractive crowd...left shortly after arriving.

Someone help me.....Biggest Bar Night.....not cool now?