Ah, Valentine’s Day.

I suppose it’s as good a time as any to formally announce I’ve somehow managed to land an actual girlfriend. She’s biologically female, sane, responsible, smart, witty and so attractive she makes me pretty much legally retarded when I’m around her. (Seriously. When she answered the door the last time I visited, all I could think to say was “ICE CREAM!”) I am gratuitously, sickeningly, shockingly nuts about her. Inexplicably, she feels the same way about me.

Of course, if I’m going to blog blogs on my blog about our adventures, she needs a nom du Internet. Long-time readers of RiF and RRC know the folks in my neighborhood—Uck, Spike, Miss Black, my traveling companions, Cookie and Jens. My girlfriend needs a moniker, too. We discussed it over coffee last Sunday. That’s how much of a dork I am. I was compelled to discuss with my actual flesh and blood girlfriend what Internet name she would like while we sat in her real, actual living room. I’ve called her Missy D, Hamslice, Hamsizzle, Hamslizzle, and a bunch of sweety-poopy-moopy-doopy-type names, but nothing seems to stand out. I’d open it up to the floor, but I don’t think she’d appreciate a nickname like “You Poor, Poor Woman.” So, until I can come up with something better, I’m going to call her MK. You got that? My girlfriend is MK.

Back to Valentine’s Day.

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I went to CVS last night to pick up some cock lotion, or, as my dad calls it, PeterCetera. A lady was already speaking to the pharmacist when I arrived. I queued up behind her with ample distance between us, giving her a pharmacy-appropriate privacy zone. (I don’t want anyone listening in on my cock lotion order, so why would I crowd her?) It so happens that the privacy zone caused me to stand about ten feet into an aisle–the “Family Planning” aisle, actually.

I stood there, absent-mindedly gazing at the rubbers and the gels and the lubes and the creams while the lady finished her business. It barely registered I was looking at the stuff, in fact, until the lady had finished her business and turned around to walk out. The route she chose was between me and the sex goodies. She quickly glanced at the goodies, then at me, then slouched down and slunk past with this awkward half-smile/half scowl that seemed to say “I am visibly uncomfortable due to my intrusion on your selection of items designed specifically for sexual intercourse. Don’t get any ideas.” I snapped out of my stupor long enough to look at her slinking past, then at the goodies, then to think “Hey! This lady thinks I’m browsing for sex items! And I’ve been here the entire time she was at the counter yakking it up with the pharmacist! She thinks I’m putting a lot of thought into this!” I wanted to yell “But I…I was just…I needed to…” but I stuttered in my brain just like I would have had I spoken out loud.

When the pharmacist asked if he could help me, I explained to him that I was picking up a prescription. He told me I was in the wrong line–that prescription pickup was at the other end of the counter.

Stupid PeterCetera.

Thanksgiving 2007 - Simon at the Table - Photo by me - Caption by RRC forum member DB Hunter

When I walked into my dad’s house on Thanksgiving, I was surprised to be welcomed by my sister, live via Skype on my dad’s iMac. A year ago, using his old PC running Windows ME, my dad could barely cut and paste. Nowadays, thanks to Apple, he is Skyping my sister in California, shooting photos, scanning old photos and computering like a pro. To anyone struggling with a Boomer parent and a PC: Get an Apple, download Thunderbird and Firefox, and watch ‘em go.

Two years ago, Dad cooked Thanksgiving dinner–a turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, gravy, rolls, and cranberry sauce in a can (which is the best cranberry sauce, by the way.) Cooking all of that stuff is a massive effort and a massiver pain in the ass, especially for just two people (and seven hungry animals). Last year, Dad decided to cut down on the effort and order one of those pre-made dinners from Kroger. Guess what? It was every bit the pain in the ass that making everything from scratch was. You still had to warm up the turkey and the kitchen and get all hot and sweaty and uncomfortable and stressed out. Since we wouldn’t have felt comfortable hanging out together shirtless, we decided we’d skip all of the kitchen madness this year and simply go out to a restaurant.

We settled on The Barnsider. We’ve been to the place several times before. It’s strictly an old -school-leather-booth-Tom-Collins-and-iceberg-lettuce-salad type of place but they serve a good steak. I wouldn’t be surprised if they still served a “Diet Plate” for lunch consisting of a scoop of tuna salad in the middle of a bunch of fruit and lettuce. We debated all week about getting steak or a traditional Thanksgiving meal. We knew the steak was good but were we willing to throw tradition out the window?

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*Sniff* AW, MAN!

I haven’t updated my old site, Rock And Roll Confidential, in nearly four years. That doesn’t stop people from sending me photos for enshrinement in the Hall of Douchebags. In fact, the shirtless mic sniffer pictured above was sent to me just a few days ago. (He’s got a whole album of photos documenting his shirtless mic handling skills. Enjoy!)

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: There, but for the grace of God, go I. There was no such thing as The Internet when I was a band dude. And thank Christ for that. I was every bit the attention whore Shirtless McSniff up there is. I would have posted every musical noodling I conceived, every thought that crossed my mind, and several photographic examples of every outfit I owned in every imaginable badass pose. I would have had a MySpace account, a Facebook account, a Twitter account, a Flickr photostream, a LiveJournal, a blog–oh, right.

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In a previous blog entry, I talked about a CNN anchor who gave me a call out of the blue. In order to protect his identity, I referred to him as “Vic Blackstar.” I didn’t come up with that name out of thin air. Someone else made it up years ago.

Back in the late eighties, in Columbus, Ohio, I met a roommate of friends of mine, a Columbus native named Vic Fishman. As you may have surmised by his surname, Vic was Jewish. He was hyper-aware of his Jewishness and brought it up in a comical way almost daily. “Play football? Jews don’t play football.” “I am a Jew and, as such, I have secret Jew powers.”

I remember vividly sitting in their living room one evening with Vic and my friend John. Another of our friends was downstairs arguing loudly with his girlfriend. These two were a complete disaster as a couple. They were the kind of couple that amplified each other’s worst qualities. As the fight became louder and more boisterous, those of us in the living room began to feel awkward. The television show we were watching had taken a back seat to the battle raging downstairs. Suddenly, we heard a massive crash and the screaming reached a crescendo. Up the stairs, the girlfriend screamed “VIC! VICTOR!” Our gazes snapped immediately to Vic. He sprung forward in his seat and looked at us with horror. “What? What? Did she say my name? Why is she calling my name?” he shouted at us. “I’m not going down there!” he sputtered. “Why me of all people? What the hell can I do?” On the list of people who should have been called to intervene, Vic was third, at best. Both John and myself had known the couple for years–much longer than Vic. We never found out why the girlfriend shouted for Vic. Fortunately, the fight was over soon after that. No injuries were reported and the whole ordeal was chalked up to two idiots in their early twenties bringing out the worst in each other.

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When we last spoke, we were on our way back to the room to settle in for the election results. We stopped by a button vendor on the way and I bought a button each for Cookie, Miss Black and myself. See Cookie’s button pictured above? That’s not the button I bought. As soon as she saw that one being offered by another vendor, she snapped it up. I think she tossed the one I bought in the street. I have approximately twelve photos of her button because she asked me that many times throughout the night to take a picture of her button.

At one point on our journey, Cookie spotted a cranky toddler in a stroller. She said “Boy, he sure is cranky for somebody that doesn’t have to walk anywhere.” I couldn’t have agreed more. At that point, I hailed a cab.

Once we got back to the hotel, everything becomes a series of mental Polaroids. So much happened in the next few hours that I can scarcely weave the rest of the evening into a cohesive narrative. Between the thousands of people on the street, the rally right across the street, the results coming fast and furious on the television, the multiple trips down to the street then back up to the room, my cell phone ringing with calls and texts, talking to the people I was actually with and, finally, a few visits to the Internets, I suffered from extreme sensory overload. It felt very much like I was hammered.

I tried to reach as many of my Chicago people as I could to invite them up to the room. (Sorry Neil and Kevin!) What had started out as a lucky booking for a computer class had become one of the most sought-after tickets in the city, if not the country. Miss Black and her husband arrived at some point with foods and drinks. This is where everything goes kaflooey.

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My second day in Chicago technically began watching CNN’s coverage of the voting in the tiny hamlet of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, just after midnight. Obama won in a walk, fifteen votes to six. It was an excellent omen for the day to come.

We started day two with a hearty breakfast at Yolk, down the street from the hotel. I began the day of ridiculous portraiture by placing my camera on the table, propped up by a few jelly tubs.

Obviously, Cookie prefers to remain anonymous. I mean, look at her traveling companion.

The interior of Yolk.

After breakfast, we made our way to a nearby booze vendor to pick up celebratory champagne. On the way, I snapped a few photos of some of Chicago’s many public works of art.

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It’s taken me a week to fully process my Chicago visit. Here is my account of the first day.  

Last Monday, Cookie and me piled our luggage into my bad ass Maxima and headed West to Chicago for the week.

I was scheduled to take the second part of a two-part class in Web design at a training facility on S. Michigan Ave. I took the first part in January, during a brutal winter storm. I put off taking the second part all through the summer because, as I have mentioned several times before, fuck summer. Sometime in September, it occurred to me that Chicago might very well be “The Place to Be” on election day. I checked the training facility’s schedule and, sure enough, they offered the second part of the class beginning the day after election day. It was a bit of a gamble, but with Obama dominating in the polls, I felt it was a safe bet. I thought I’d arrive on election day (having voted early in Ohio), watch the returns on television, then either wade into the celebratory hullabaloo on the streets, drown my sorrows in Pepsi at the hotel bar, or, if I was lucky, head over to wherever Obama’s victory party would be held.

As I had for the first class, I booked a suite at The Essex Inn on South Michigan, just a few blocks south of the training facility. I made sure the room was facing the lake and on the top floor. (The room I’d booked in January was facing the pool to the south and was on the sixth floor. Lame ass.) Nearly two months after I’d booked the room, I found out Obama’s election night rally would be held in Grant Park—just across the street from the Essex! Upon hearing this news, my Psyched-O-Meter was pegged at “Fully and Completely Psyched.”

Since Cookie hadn’t been on the first trip, I invited her to accompany me on the second. I knew she would make an excellent entertainment director and assumed I’d get at least a drunken handjob or something on election night. (Thumbs up on the former, and thumbs way down on the latter, by the way.)

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This time tomorrow, I hope to be pajama-clad and full of tasty eats after the first night of five in Chicago. I’m heading west again to complete the second half of a two-part computering course. (Thank you, work!)  I plan on eating, seeing a few sights, and enjoying the fact that it’s not “totally blizzarding.” Rumor has it, some guy from Chicago might win some big contest and throw a party in Grant Park. As luck would have it, I’ll be staying across the street.

Pics and stories to follow.

All peters hang!

Back in 1999, my pal Mark and his girlfriend had an idea: “Let’s run off to Vegas and get married!” Sounds like fun, right? A couple of kooky kids throwing convention out the window and jetting off to Vegas to tie the knot. Problem was, Mark and Mary Beth weren’t impetuous kids. Mark was a senior executive at a prosperous IT firm and Mary Beth was a med student finishing school. Running off to Vegas, getting married, then telling everyone after the fact was not in their respective makeups. Ten years prior? Maybe.

So, things started to get complicated. The Vegas wedding became a Vegas wedding with a few close friends. Mark asked me to be his best man, so I was on the hook. I’d never been to Las Vegas, nor had I been so honored to serve as a best man, so I was ready and willing. I was under no illusion that Las Vegas was anything like the idyllic Rat-Pack-at-The-Sands-era Vegas Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau dreamed about in Swingers. In fact, the words “Vegas, baby!” never crossed my lips. I hadn’t been any farther west than Iowa, so I was excited to see a new part of the country.

The Vegas wedding with a few close friends quickly became a Vegas wedding with a few close friends and immediate family. Then, it became a Vegas wedding with friends and family. Then, it became a regular wedding–best man, maid-of-honor, groomsmen, bride’s maids, a priest, a church, a reception hall, a cake, a bartender, a DJ, the whole kit and kaboodle–only in Las Vegas. The “running off to Las Vegas” part was the only part that never changed.

At the time, I was making eight bucks an hour pulling data cable in Maryland. I was bringing home about $250.00 a week. My rent was $600.00 a month. Needless to say, I didn’t have a whole lot of extra mad money lying around. I didn’t have a whole lot of gum money lying around. Mark was nice enough to spring for a room for myself and my girlfriend, and I worked out a deal with my employer, who bought our airline tickets on the condition I pay them back through payroll deductions. After the gift and the tuxedo rental, we landed in Las Vegas with about two hundred dollars to blow. It’s a good thing I’d quit drinking the month before. Yeah, you read that right. I’d quit drinking the month before my best friend got married in Las Vegas, where I would be in the company of my old “runnin’ crew” from my twenties. In Las Vegas. Nice timing.

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