Sean Makes Me Do Bad Things

July 3-4, 2002

Practice seemed tensely long although I was 30 minutes late in arriving. I had just bought my second dream guitar - Fender Telecaster, sunburst finish, maple neck, great action. Fifteen cock rock kicks later we huddled trying to make plans for the evening. Sean was up for anything. Alex had to go home to his wife. Troy was feeling too dirty.

After about 15 minutes of telling Troy he was going to go out with us whether he liked it or not, he agreed. Our destination...Don's Depot, a piano bar on 5th Street.

After a quick shower (alone...get your minds out of the gutter) and change, we jet to pick up Troy. Our night has begun. I put on Guided By Voices.

We enter Don's in search of some of my friends who have already been drinking heavily(Tim, Adam and Crew). We tried to start it off right. A shot of crown, a crown and seven, and a beer. Then, just to bring the pain, tequila and yaeger shots.

Then, for some reason, I don't remember what else we drank...funny how that happens.

Anyway, the people we came to see left. It was getting close to 1:30 a.m. when Sean pulls something that looks like dried fruit from his pocket.

"Take some, they're shrooms."

So of course Troy and I both grab them. Sean, unbeknownst to us, had already taken some. We drink a few more beers and go to pay my tab.

That's when it hits me...I begin to notice everything. I hear a familiar sound...whoom, whooom, whoom(like the sound effects they use in horror movies). A large girl asks me my name. I don't reply, but ask if she has gotten her tickets yet.

"To what?" she replies.

"To the gun show."

I flex.

I finally manage to get the barkeeps attention and scribble my name onto the receipt. Onward and forward. I didn't trust myself to drive, so I gave the keys to Sean. Did I say I didn't trust myself to drive?

He immediately knows where he is going to take us...Southwest Parkway, a stretch of road (usually without cops) full of curves. We head out.

I can't seem to figure out where he is going, but I didn't feel that concerned. I pop in some Belle and Sebastian as a joke (Troy hates B&S), but it just seems to make sense. We have the music all the way up, the windows and moonroof all the way down.

We hit SW Parkway at full tilt (or at least as fast as my 4-banger Civic could take us). We go faster and faster. Taking curves at 90...the wind deafening the music.

We were good.

Sean's eyes were focused on the road, his teeth clenched, lips peeled back in a tense grin, knuckles white with pressure. Troy lay listfully in the back, head resting between the two speakers. I sit shotgun, dancing wildly, laughing...feeling the weight of acceleration.

We hit the end, turn around and do it all again. Sean randomly turns off the headlights to freak Troy out. We finally decide getting off of the road would be best. That and we all have to take a tremendous piss (again, not together).

We stop at Sean's place on Franklin. We relieve ourselves and decide to take it easy. Troy takes a shining to a turntable set-up in Sean's living room. He get's it started and tries to fade breakbeat into 80's music (a talent designated to Craig).

We try to frantically get sound to come out of more than just the headphones. I find a 1/4 inch jack and plug the turntables into an amp...the jam was on.

Troy attacked the turntables with a deft defiance. He would conquer them tonight...even if only in his mind. Sean and I smoked on the porch while Troy burnt wax, later joining us as we laughed into the early hours.

I remember standing up quickly and saying I had Sammy Davis Jr. running thorugh my veins and tap danced tea-for-two. I found olives in the refrigerator, which Troy and I quickly demolished.

Sean attempted to roll a joint out of the skankiest weed I have ever seen. We tried to smoke it to no avail. I re-rolled it into a fatty boombatty. We smoked and watched CNN talking about the anchors we would do and I notice that Troy needs to go home. It's around 4 a.m. and his wife is probably worried.

I drive him home and go back to my place with Sean for more beer and smokes. We sit and talk on the porch for another hour-or-so...Sean with a Dos Equis, me with an Amstel Light (I will never drink this beer again unless under duress).

We talk about politics. I ask him to breakfast (at this point is is 6:30 a.m.).

We sit at Kerby Lane, but have to move because the air vent is pointed at us. The waiter calls us sissies. Sean calls me his boyfriend, but the waiter says he doesn't believe him.

Sean had steak and eggs, I had a baked potato omelette and a short stack of blueberry pancakes. We leave as the normal patron begin to arrive. Sean drops me off and I go to sleep.

Why was this a shining moment?

Not because of the wild partying or the booze...

Because of friends.

The Stinky Clam Incident

Truly a shining moment.

With Alex and his fiance recently engaged, congratulations were being thrown left and right. I had my doubts, but generally kept to myself, because he was my pal and he was happy. Unfortunately, I have the tendency to sometimes imbibe mass quantities of alcohol...hey, we all do (I don't want to be alone here).

It started out like any other night...a few laughs, a few jokes. I don't really remember a lot of what happened. I remember being so drunk that I couldn't get out of the bathroom. When I finally did, I pushed on the door so hard that I did a front somersault into the living room. Again, as commented on before, my freakishly good sense of balance allowed me to look like a gymnastic pro (I am sure I amazed friends and confounded enemies...I think). I also began to pass out money...$20's I think. I faintly remember asking if we were going to throw a party for Alex to which most replied that they were a little low on cash. I don't remember how I had so much money in my wallet ( I usually carry less than $10...in case of theft of course). But the next day, I ended up missing one of the $20's. I figured I had spent it somewhere in my drunken stupor. It wasn't until about a week later Sean came up to me (I guess feeling guilty or just trying to make sure I didn't go broke) and gave me back the missing $20.

Hey, that's what friends are for....

I also distinctly remember doing front flips all the way to my car and crashing into a bush, but I digress.

At some point during that night, I decided it would be hilarious to start calling Jen (insert spit noise here) S.C. She kept asking what that meant and would continually ask Alex about it. Alex, also a true friend, told her immediately that it stood for stinky clam.

This was the beginning of the end.

Alex tried to convince her I was joking (of course it was a joke, but you know what they say...). It didn't help matters much when I decided during Alex's bachelor party to call her and make up funny voices or just be annoying(she was having her own bachelorette party that same night). I admit I started the calls, but as my friends tend to do with a good joke, we kept doing it ad infinitum. Nothing makes a joke better than repeating it around ten times. At some point, Jen (ptewie) didn't find it funny anymore (should I say anymore or ever?).

The next day she was not happy. I decided she hated me already, so I took the blame for all of it. From that point on, I didn't see Alex very much...

Oh, another shining moment was the bachelor party night...for several of us.

1. Alex getting kicked out of a strip club for groping dancers.
2. Sean making a ball-and-chain for Alex to wear out of actual chain, epoxy and a bowling ball
3. All of us for continually knocking Alex off of his feet in Troy's yard (at 2 am) by tossing the ball back-and-forth to each other.
4. Me for throwing a full can of beer at my own car window
5. Me again for pouring an entire beer out onto the limo as it drove away.
6. Alex again for waking up with bruises from canoodling with strippers.
7. Troy's wife for making us go home because we were too loud.
8. And finally, me again for failing to call my girlfriend and let her know I wasn't coming home (it is hard to call someone when you are passed out) .

Man that was a good night.

You asked...

So I must deliver.

Shining moments from the life of Bryan.

I have to be serious for a moment and say that the past month has been the most exciting, frightening and happy moment for me. I not only married a wonderful woman, but found out that I am going to be a father (fear for the future).

I met America over 5 years ago after a very difficult relationship of 3 years (my previous grilfriend broke up with me in line at graduation...classy). I didn't know how I was going to get over it, but America with kindness and compassion saw me through it. I was not the best person in the world back then and took her kindness, but cast her aside. She moved to New York and I thought that was the end of it. After a series of disastrous relationships and a short-lived wedding, we found each other again. Being in a more fit state of mind, I realized whatI had passed up. We have a serious and deep connection. That, and she gets along with my friends (which is a tremendous feat...we all know why).

With that said...I would have to say my other shining moments would be less amazing and more freakishly strange.

Kindergarten -- Age 5
"The Club"
I actually met Alex in kindergarten, but he will, to this day, never admit he was in this club with me. I can't actually say if he was or not, he may have blocked it from his memory.

The club met after school under the west wing. We had pulled back a bit of chain link and would meet beneath the school. We dragged several benches from the schoolyard and dug a large pit. We would smoke homemade cigarettes made from dry grass and notebook paper. At that age, I was the best artist of the bunch and would draw pictures of naked women for the rest of the group. I even went so far as to sculpt a woman from the sandbox in the palyground...which the other members would hump until she went from a D to an A cup.

The only really strange thing I remember about the club (because the other things aren't strange enough) were the rituals we would perform. We would set up the benches in a circle around the pit and walk on top of them. We would chant as we walked and pushed each other forcefully forward. Whoever fell out of the ring would then have to kiss every other members' ass.

We would line up in a row, drop our pants and wait for the moment.

I never had to kiss anyone's ass, because I never fell out of the circle (I have always had a fairly good sense of balance...most likely from the fact that I wore coke bottles since the age of 3...you know that "other senses improve when another goes"). But I do remember distinctly the feel of hot breath and wet, tear-stained cheeks against my ass .

It only happened once (I swear...at least that what I told my therapist). My mother found out I was sneaking underneath the school and narced on all of us. They boarded up the fence and no one ever spoke of it again.

Promise not to tell.

More to come....me sleepy.

Forgive me friends, for I have sinned...

It has been 2 months since my last blog.

I have been too busy making babies...

Boo ya!