Sympathy for the Devil

I have become horrible at blogging.

Or at the very least, grossly negligent.

Honestly, life has kind of swept me up and away from the keyboard. I don't think that is a bad thing either. Generally, I think it's good to be out places, doing things, interacting with people, yadda yadda, as opposed to staring at a computer screen. It has some bad aspects, though. Writing focuses my thoughts. I also think that it keeps my mind sharp. I write every day for work, but that's a different kind of writing. Rare is the day where I get to put a bit of myself or even a slice of creativity into a summons and complaint or an affidavit.

I'm going to make an honest effort to take some time every week to write something, even if it's just for my own edification. I should be able to do it with some minor sacrifices. I'm going to have to trim my reading time down a bit. I decided to not get TV service in my new apartment for as long as humanly possible (I have a TV, a big one actually, but I just use it to watch DVDs... no broadcast or cable service), so I spend a lot of time reading. It's working out pretty well so far. I figure that taking some of that free time and diverting it from reading/listening to music to writing isn't a bad idea. I guess it all depends on what I produce...

TV Casualty

Big embed. Need the space...

























I'm busy moving, so this is all you get.

But before I go, two quick comments.

McCain's got some pretty good ads, which is shocking to me honestly. I still think Obama is going to win this election, but McCain's got a shot.

And this...

If I had my choice, my presidential ticket would be Mark Sanford and Sarah Palin, governors of South Carolina and Alaska respectively.

50% ain't bad.

Perfect Gentleman

Strip clubs. Let's talk about them.

I'm going to say something, and I know that no one is going to believe me but here it is: I really am not a big fan of strip clubs. I'm not. And I'm not just saying that to try to score some "nice guy" points with the lady-folk out there. I have no desire whatsoever to do that. And I'm not just saying it to act like I'm above the whole situation and too cool for skin bars. I'm not some high and mighty moralist, looking down my nose at the plebs who enjoy a night at the local vagitorium. Anyone who knows me can attest to that.

No. The whole strip club scene just doesn't appeal to me that much. I'm a little too... desensitized to get all revved up just by seeing naked tits and ass gyrating on stage. The whole "tease" thing doesn't appeal to me. It's like watching someone prepare a four-course, gourmet dinner and then throw it into the garbage before I can eat it (no pun intended). Beyond that, the drinks are almost always overpriced, and the selection of beer and even liquor is piss-poor.

Now, this isn't a big deal. I don't get a kick out of titty bars. Big fucking deal, right? Well, I have a few friends who enjoy going to these places. And they go fairly frequently. These trips are usually spur of the moment things, so it's not like I can just stay home and avoid strip club night. Someone in the group gets the thought implanted (no pun intended) in their head during the course of an evening out, usually thanks to a clothed pair of breasts in a clothing non-optional bar, and off we go. I'm not going to play the wet blanket and bitch about it either. After my usual "Here we go again..." head-shaking lamentation, I'll go along without any further complaint. There's no reason why you should rain on your friends' parade, especially when that parade is full of blondes in clear heels.

Based on these frequent trips, I've learned a bit about strip clubs. More specifically, I've learned a lot about strip clubs in Las Vegas and Milwaukee. I thought I'd take some time talking about things I've noticed, lessons learned, yadda yadda. Here goes nothing...

Vegas clubs are mildly amazing. I was in one last Summer that was/is the biggest strip club in the world. Honestly, I haven't kept up with the current record holder on that one, hence the was/is. Anyway, this place was like Kohl's department store with poles and stages. It was huge. It was also run with the efficiency of a German auto factory. As I walked in with two friends, a man with a walkie talkie opened the front door for us. "We got three coming in, three coming in." After we paid the cover, we were met at the second set of doors by another door man, flanked by three clothing removal technicians. The ladies accompanied us to our table, and let's just say that the night began from there.

Milwaukee clubs are very different. Vegas is all about the sell. Those ladies will bleed your wallet dry. It helps that they are usually drop dead gorgeous, thanks to the proximity to LA. Milwaukee is much more laid back. I have never once been pressured by an MKE stripper to buy a lap dance. In Vegas, you are lucky if you go five minutes without being hit up for a lapper. For someone who isn't there to pay for a dry humping, that's a great thing. I suppose that's why I don't really put up a huge fight when my friends want to go to a strip club. It isn't the annoyance in Milwaukee that it can be in Vegas.

Seating is very important. First, let's talk tables. If you are in Vegas, you want to be the guy in the middle. Going back to my previous Vegas example, I made sure that I took the middle seat between my two friends. They were on the ends, so they got pestered (that really seems like the wrong word for it...) by more of the strippers for dances. I was sort of tucked away, so only the most motivated of girls would make their way to me to make their crotch grinding sales pitch.

Our next stop is the stage. Nine times out of ten, this is where you will find me sitting with my friends. I'll be the guy on the end trying to maintain a conversation with one of my distracted friends or staring up at the lights, thinking. Oddly enough, I get a lot of good thinking done at strip clubs. Strip clubs and buses... great venues for deep thoughts.

Anyway, the stage is actually a great place to be if you want to keep the night cheap (and I do). The dancers don't hit you up for lappers on their tip walk. You end up dropping only a single or two during each song, especially if you are cheap as fuck like me. You can also nurse a beer for a long while and not have to worry about waitresses pestering you constantly for more drinks and/or shots. The stage is good.

Finally, the bar. I have occasionally sat at the bar while at a strip club. It's a fairly rare event, usually reserved for those times that I either really want to drink or don't feel well (I was once at a strip club while sick... I don't recommend it). Good things can happen at the bar though. Quick story about a friend of mine, M. On his first trip to Vegas, M was dead set on going to a strip club. Unfortunately, he wasn't with a great group. He was with a mutual friend of ours who never goes out anywhere other than sports bars, this mutual friend's born again Christian brother, and their 50-something year old mother. Not exactly the crew you want with you for a wild night out. M said fuck it and went to the strip club alone. Yeah, he was that guy. He sat at the bar, ordered a few drinks, and just sort of took it all in. After a while, one of the dancers came over by him and started chatting him up. They talked for a while and got along pretty well. So well, in fact, that she decided to take him home with her at the end of her shift. Like I said, good things can happen at the bar.

Usually, I can come up with some nugget of insight about a topic, but I'm coming up short here. This has really been more of a description than a critique or an analysis. I guess the topic has been on my mind for a distinct reason, though. I have a friend coming in from out of town for the weekend. She's getting married Sunday and wants to have an impromptu bachelorette party. Guess where I'm going to end up Friday night.

The Waiting

Holy shit on a stick. Things have been insane lately. I have honestly never worked as hard in my life as I have in the past three weeks. Hopefully, things at work will be calmed down enough this week for me to do some posting. I have the itch to write.

I have a few ideas in the hopper already: a very poignant look at strip clubs, a thrilling retelling of a trip to Chicago that I took in law school for a conference (it's better than it sounds), a brief but thorough explanation of why this election makes me want to shit blood, and probably some kind of self-psychoanalysis about whatever the hell it is that is my personal problem of the week.

Those are the posts that are currently floating in my brain, half finished and raw. Hopefully, they don't all suck. I'll try to steer them away from Suckville, USA (which is somewhere near Philly, I think) if I can. No promises.

Steady as She Goes

I've been busy as hell lately. There's a lot going on with work right now, and it's not going to let up for a while. I'm one of those people who is really into symmetry and balance so when I work a lot, I go out a lot. It keeps me on an even keel. Or so I think. Anyway, here are just a few random thoughts that I've had recently that I may or may not expand on at a later date when I have the time.

• I'm no dietitian, but 3 Red Bulls and an order of nachos from Qdoba is more than enough to live on for one day.

• The live version of The Flaming Lips "The W.A.N.D." is played every Wednesday night on the jukebox at Palomino without fail. No, I'm not the one playing it.

• The Brewers will not win their division this season (they will win the wild card, though) because they cannot handle easily beatable teams (like the Rockies and the Astros) even when playing at home.

• Schlitz sucks.

• Everyday, I want to vote for John McCain less. Oddly enough, everyday, I want to see Barack Obama fail more. There's that symmetry again.

• I will never have what one would call a successful, traditional relationship until I become less selfish with my time. That day is not coming soon.

• Even win they win, the Cubs still suck.

Okay, back to work.

The Same Old Song

I was reading a message board the other day and came across a thread called "What songs always bring up a memory for you?". I’ve always linked memories, times and places, people, etc. with music. I guess that the more senses that you get involved, the better and stronger the memory is. Anyway, I took a quick scan of my iTunes and found a few...

Alice in Chains "Angry Chair" - I remember listening to the "Dirt" album (on cassette, mind you) while walking home from high school freshman year. It really is the perfect song for an angsty, brooding teenager... and I most certainly was one.

Black Crowes "Hard to Handle" - This song (or anything off of Shake Your Moneymaker) reminds me of a day trip that I took in while living in Eau Claire. A few of us drove out to a beach somewhere in picturesque Northern Wisconsin. I don’t remember what the place was called, but there were islands, some waterfalls, and a bunch of frisbee-playing college students. Everyone was on one of the islands, and the only way to get there was to hold all the shit you brought over your head and walk on the bottom of the lake. The water was up to my eyes. Good day. Didn't drown.

Charlie Daniels Band "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" - I was in Las Vegas for Ben’s wedding. Dave, Ben’s friend Nate, and I were the last people from the group out that night. After a little gambling and drinking, we decided to call it a night too. As we walked back into our hotel, we heard a band playing in one of the casino corner bars. It was just a cover band, but we decided to check them out for a while. "A while" became all night. There were many more rounds of drinks. There was dancing with middle aged women. There was general obnoxious behavior. The band said that they were going to play one more song, but they would let the crowd choose. It was either going to be "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" or The Eagles "Hotel California." I, like The Dude, hate the fucking Eagles. Most of the polite crowd seemed to want "Hotel California." But a few people, including us drunken hyenas at the corner table, loudly demanded "The Devil Went Down to Georgia." We won; they lost. We danced; we shamed our families for generations to come. The night got better after that, but that’s a story for another time.

Dave Matthews Band "Two Step" - I really don’t have any feelings about the Dave Matthews Band. In my travels, I generally hear this band discussed mostly by two groups of people. Sure, there are casual fans out there (I’ve met a few of them), but I run into Group 1 and Group 2 more often. Group 1 is frat boy, hemp necklace, college douche bags who love "Dave" (as they call him, as if he’s on their fucking speed dial) and would listen to anything he does and praise it unconditionally. The guy could make an album that consists solely of him farting on a snare drum and these goons would call it the next White Album. Group 2 is indie rock, hipster pricks who say his name with the same kind of revulsion that a Holocaust survivor would say Hitler’s. These tight pants wearing pseudo-Bohemians gauge a person’s worth by their taste in music, movies, and other media. Remember, it’s not what you’re like that matters; it’s what you like. So consider me Swiss in the great DMB wars. Anyway. That song reminds me of many, many nights at Mel’s, where I watched Matt spend way too much of his money on booze. They played that song once a night. It was a welcome break from all the hip hop. Lots of build up and not much of a story there, huh?

In Flames "Pinball Map" - I bought the Clayman CD right at the end of my sophomore year of college. It was my first year at UWM. I was happy to be back in Milwaukee. The weather was beautiful. I had reconnected with my friends here. Everything about that summer seemed to start off right. All was well in the world. This song reminds me of good times, as most Swedish death metal should.

Jimmy Buffett "Fins" - This song reminds me of the following winter (that would be fall semester of junior year). I remember the shitty cold weather, piles of snow, slush and ice everywhere... basically, winter in Wisconsin. The song itself is about a girl that travels south on vacation and gets swarmed by guys trying to fuck her. Why did I like this song: a desire to leave the cold weather or latent homosexuality? You be the judge.

Led Zeppelin "Fool in the Rain" - Back before the days of MP3 players, I carried a CD player with me everywhere. Since I have the attention span of a gnat, I would make mix CDs of a bunch of different artists and listen to those during the day at school between classes. I would never label these CDs either, so I’d have half a dozen blank CDs on me at any given time. That added to the randomness of whatever I listened to. I remember walking out of my last exam of college (undergrad) at UWM, putting a CD into the player, and hitting play. This is the song that played. It sounds cheesy and made up (it is cheesy but not made up) but it started raining while I was walking across campus to the union. Seriously raining too. We’re talking Biblical downpour. I ended up taking shelter under an outcropping by the library. I just stood there for 20 minutes or so, watching the rain, relishing the fact that I was now a college graduate, looking forward to starting law school in the fall, and just generally fucking pleased with myself.

Pixies "All Over the World" - This or anything off of Bossanova reminds me of my fall exams of my last year of law school. I played the shit out of that album while studying during the weeks before exams. I also had a huge paper to write, and I can’t do that in silence. There was also some general shittiness going on in life at that moment. Luckily, The Pixies rule and can help me get through anything.

I could go on and on (and I may edit this at a later date to do so), but I think this paints an accurate picture of how linked music and memories are, at least for me. It’s kind of interesting that most of the songs that I listed aren’t really ones that I listen to actively. I don’t own a single album from the Black Crowes, Charlie Daniels, Dave Matthews, or Jimmy Buffett. I certainly don’t listen to any of them with any regularity. Kinda odd, isn't it? That's par for the course for me, though.

Ordinary World

Deadwood is probably one of the best television shows that I've ever seen. Strong characters and solid writing helped distinguish it from the already impressive line up of HBO shows. Seriously, does anyone even watch network TV anymore? The cable shows are just miles ahead of anything that the networks are producing.

Anyway, this clip is vintage Deadwood and vintage Al Swearengen. For those of you not watching along at home (either via reruns or DVDs), here's the setup. Millionaire asshole George Hearst didn't like some of the things appearing in Merrick's newspaper, so he sent some muscle to ransack the place. Merrick's a bit of a coward, so his friend Al decides that he needs a pep talk. It's my favorite kind of advice: good and profane.

For Boston

I've been working a lot lately. A lot. I don't mind it 99% of the time. I would much rather have a job than not have a job. But I have been thinking about vacations lately. Because of my rather full schedule, I'm probably just going to do some long weekend trips instead of an entire week off. I've had some great short trips in my time, including my trip to Boston last year. Here's how it went down.

It was a Monday night in January of 07. This was the beginning of my last semester of law school, and the first week of the new semester to boot. Dave, Mark, and I were sitting in Caffrey's, enjoying a few beers and shooting the shit as we are prone to do. The conversation touched on the usual suspects of work, school, and women. We did what we do best: bitch about all three. Something was in the air that night, though. Maybe it was the roasted smell of the Newcastle, the stale smell of the popcorn, or something else. I don't know for sure. Whatever it was, something got into our heads and produced the same response from all three of us: we need to get the hell out of Milwaukee, fast. I had flashbacks to Fear and Loathing when Dr. Gonzo told Duke to get the hell out of L.A. for 48 hours. Maybe a short vacation was what we all needed to ignore the piles of crap weighing down our troubled minds.

The next question was where. This was going to be a quick trip, a day and a half including travel. We needed a place that had interesting stuff to see and do, good food and drink, and a good public transportation system or a lot of stuff in walking distance. We also needed a place that we could actually get to without getting stuck in an airport while flying standby. After my last experience trying to get to and from Las Vegas (which is another story), I was a little wary of any traditional "vacation destination." Basically, that eliminated anywhere warm and sunny. No big loss. There was an attractive option within our means: Boston. It had everything that we needed plus the Sam Adams brewery tour.

Three motivated people can put together a trip very fast. The idea was hatched on Monday night and we were on planes Friday morning. Dave and I would fly out on US Air, first to Philly, then to Boston. Mark would fly out on Midwest, straight to Boston. We would arrive at approximately the same time. Waking up at 3:45 AM was not exactly fun. But we had a 6 AM flight and we had to be on it for this whole thing to work. Everything went off without a hitch... no issues with security or lines or anything. This may shock you, but the airport is pretty damn empty at 4:30 in the morning.

After a little unscheduled exploring (we were lost), we found our hotel. It was a fine establishment and our room was more than adequate... balcony, Select Comfort Sleep Number beds, the whole nine yards. We dropped our bags, jumped on the T, and were on our way to the Sam Adams brewery. Just to be safe, we got there an hour early. There was no way we were going to miss this opportunity by getting there late and being turned away from a full tour. The brewery was very cool. The waiting area had a lot of historical Sam Adams brewery stuff like bottles and photos, a video about the company and its history (which, unlike most of those kinds of videos, was actually interesting), and a few of the many awards that they have won. The tour itself was informative and well run. We got to meet that guy with the big beard from the commercials too. That guy rules. The beer tasting was both free and good. They let us try an unreleased (at the time) beer, the Boysenberry Wheat.

After a trip to the gift shop and a few purchases (I bought a hooded sweatshirt and a half liter stein), we needed food. None of us had eaten for about 8 hours and the stomach full of beer wasn't helping to quell the hunger at all. At the tour, they told us about a few Sam Adams-related places that we could visit. One of them was Doyle's, the first bar to sell Sam Adams Boston Lager. More importantly, they had food. We were sold. You might remember Doyle's from the movie Mystic River. It's the place where Sean Penn's daughter and that other girl were dancing on the bar the night before the daughter gets murdered. Hope I didn't spoil the movie for anyone. There was no bar dancing, murders, or Tim Robbins (thank God), but the food was good.

Dave, Mark, and I decided to return to the hotel for a while. We had our Sam Adams purchases to drop off, and the three of us were kind of tired. That is the biggest danger with these short, fast trips. You wake up very early (sometimes with very little sleep the night before), you spend all morning in airports and on airplanes (which is rarely restful), and a big meal and a few beers can really knock you out in your weakened state. We relaxed for a while and consulted the map to find the bars that I previously researched online during the week. Feeling fairly confident about where we were headed, the three of us left for the night.

Boston is incredibly alive on a Friday night. It had been about a decade since I've been there, so I hadn't had the chance to notice it before. The energy of the people and the crisp night air really helped wake us up. On our way to the bars, we stopped by a few notable sites, including Boston Common and the statute of Sam Adams, one of my personal heroes. The first bar we checked out was Hennessy's. None of us were impressed. It did illustrate the problem with trying to research bars online. I found this place at the top of the list of Best Irish Bars. Physically, it looked like an old Irish pub. And it was. The crowd and atmosphere were far from it. Yuppies and loud pop/hip hop music aren't exactly attributes that I think of when I think "Irish pub." Maybe that's just me.

After one drink there, we headed further down the street. There we ran into the Bell in Hand and the Green Dragon. The Bell in Hand is the oldest tavern in America (or so says their sign). The Green Dragon was the site of a lot of Revolutionary War planning and plotting. Lots of history in Boston. We decided to start at the Bell in Hand, then go to the Green Dragon. The Bell in Hand was pretty cool, so cool that we didn't make it to the Green Dragon. The Bell had a few different bars inside, lots of great beer on tap including their own signature ale, and a rather attractive and cool bartender named Jen. Dave took a shine to her. We met this funny Boston native named Wally who worked in the same building on one of the floors above the Bell in Hand. He was quite a character, very funny and very Bostonian.

For some reason, I had two beers the entire time. I guess I should have ordered something other than heavy, hoppy beers all day. I was just full. Dave and Mark didn't seem to have that problem. Good job drinking all of the Jim Beam at the bar, Mark. That's something to tell the grandkids. Dave was definitely setting the pace though. He's good at that... years of practice.

It was getting late, money was running low, BAC was running high, and we were all hungry. As we walked over to the walk up McDonalds (like a drive thru minus the car), I noticed just how incredibly hammered Dave and Mark were. I sort of expected it from Dave. He and I were both drinking beer, so I could gauge his consumption level against mine. Mark was on booze most of the night, so I couldn't really tell how much he had. Apparently, they both had lots. At this point, I realized something. Neither of these two were in any condition to lead us back to the hotel. Mark and Dave had both been to Boston fairly recently (at least much more recently than I had). They both used their old maps to plan the trip. They both did the navigating earlier in the day. I had no map. I had not been paying any attention while we walked around that day.

So here is us, two guys wasted out of their minds and one guy that isn't exactly sure where he's going. And we all have rapidly cooling McDonalds. I'm not a total dipshit. I knew I could get us back to Boston Common. But I was a less confident after that. Getting these two moving in the same direction was like trying to herd cats. They would run off like 4 year olds in a department store. Luckily, Mark got a phone call from Jon and that seemed to occupy their attention long enough for us to make it to the Common. In transit, Mark loudly proclaimed into the phone (and to a large portion of the Boston metropolitan area) how he would gladly have sexual relations with an unattractive woman he knows back in Milwaukee. This is sort of a theme for Mark when he's drunk. Fortunately, he was a time zone away so he couldn't seal the deal.

While Dave ran off into the Common to piss on one of Boston's fine trees, I managed to consult a map. We were in pretty good shape... at least as far as getting back to the hotel. All we needed to do was hang a left as we got out of the Common, go straight a few blocks, then turn right. Unfortunately when we left the Common, Mark took off running into the Boston Public Garden for no apparent reason. Like I said, herding cats. Okay, fine. We'll be a block or so off of where we want to be, but I can steer us back. The entire time we're walking, Mark and Dave are trying to tell me which way to go. Strangely, Dave would alternate between disagreeing with me and telling Mark that he should listen to me. Drunk logic, it's a beautiful thing.

We made it back in one piece and returned to the room. All three of us ate our now-cold fast food and watched HBO. Then the great bed debate began. There were two beds and three of us. Dave was more than happy to sleep on the floor. Fine by me. I was sober enough to know I wanted a bed. Mark was very against this. Mark demanded that Dave sleep with him. He was adamant about it. "You get in this bed right now!" I found this incredibly funny and ridiculed Mark. I get the feeling that he was going to love up Dave if they were in that bed together. That would've been even more funny. And creepy.

I woke up long before the alarm went off at 6 AM. It was a combination of my general restlessness in an unfamiliar bed, Mark and Dave snoring (it sounded like I was in a mill), and my fear that both of them would sleep through the alarm and we'd miss our flight. I showered, got dressed, and went out on the balcony. I turned on my iPod and just watched Boston wake up for a long time. It was very cool.

We left for the airport early that morning and flew back. Dave and I had a long layover in Filthadelphia, but it wasn't that bad. We had a good breakfast, I caught upon on some Criminal Procedure reading, and I did some always interesting airport people-watching. Philly is a weird city. I was intrigued to see that the gift shop/newsstand thing sold 8 different porn magazines. Who buys porn at an airport? Do you read it on the plane? I told Dave to buy all 8, just slam the stack on the register counter with a big smile. The young lady manning the counter would've been impressed. Or disgusted. One of the two.

It was a fun trip, and I wouldn't mind heading back to Boston for a few days. I just need to pick a weekend and make it happen. Easier said than done.

In the Meantime

I just have one of those faces.

That's the only explanation that I have for it. Or perhaps I subconsciously give off this "confess your crimes to me" vibe. Whatever it is, people seem to open up to me.

Case in point. A few weeks ago, I went to a Brewers game with a few friends from work. After seven innings of underwhelming Brewers offense (fucking Glendon Rusch was out-pitching our best hitters...), we retreated to the Metavante Club. Hell, if we have to watch a crappy game, we might as well do it in style. There, I met a co-worker's daughter, a rather attractive and flirty young lady who seemed to take an interest in yours truly. Not being one to offend, I started talking with this young lady, who we will refer to as A.

After the game (how the hell do the Milwaukee Brewers lose 2 out of 3 games at home to the Colorado freaking Rockies, huh?), we were booted from Metavante and headed downstairs to Fridays. A and I continued talking at the bar. I will spare you the details of the conversation, but let's just say that things seemed to be going well. At least things were going well until a wall of button-down striped shirt walked up. This guy, Captain Cockblock, decided that he wanted in on the conversation. This guy looked like he came straight off the Water Street assembly line: the aforementioned white-striped button down, the "I was an athlete in high school but now I'm just big and overweight" physique, the sixth grade vocabulary, the whole nine yards. He was painfully average.

Anyway, I'm not the kind of guy that's going to get all confrontational about a situation like this, especially for a girl I just met. If they want to talk, fine. I will direct my attention elsewhere. It didn't take me long to find something to keep me occupied. When Captain Cockblock sauntered his Cro-mag ass over to where A and I were standing, he left a rather pretty young lady standing alone at the end of the bar. I'm sure you're seeing where this is headed.

I started chatting with this other girl, who we will call C. C and I talked for well over an hour. Well, let me rephrase that. C talked to me for well over an hour. I honestly didn't say a whole hell of a lot during that time. I just stood there while she poured her heart out to me. Apparently, C had moved to Milwaukee a little over a year ago. She spent the previous four years in Chicago, and fled north to Milwaukee after a long term relationship went sour. Her last year was spent with a new fella here in Milwaukee.

Unfortunately for her, there were some major issues with this chap. He was in some sort of depression-like funk that made him unbearable to be around. This funk also killed any desire he had to have sex with C. Like I said, I just have one of those faces. People tell me things like this.

Anyway, this had obviously become an issue for C. She moved out of their apartment and was crashing on a friend's couch. During the course of her story, C apologized to me half a dozen times for rambling on and on about her problems. Each time, I told her that she had no reason to apologize and that I understood what it was like to be in a relationship with "issues". You just have to talk about it. C agreed and said that she didn't have many friends in Milwaukee that weren't friends with her (ex?)-boyfriend. The whole shared friends thing can make a bad situation even worse when a relationship goes down the shitter. Even Captain Cockblock, who was a "friend", wasn't someone she could talk to about this. Apparently, he was kind of a douchebag (shocking, I know) and not the kind of person that one would speak to about real problems.

C continued talking about her situation and how it affected her personally. Aside from the normal relationship drama bullshit that it caused, the whole situation was a huge blow to her emotionally. I could definitely see what she meant. Here is a very pretty girl whose boyfriend has no desire whatsoever to have sex with her. That's a huge blow to the self-esteem. I could imagine how that would screw with one's head. Then, she let this one fly...

C: "You know, I just want to get fucked."

I have never done a stereotypical Hollywood spit take before but when she said that, I almost let a mouthful of Captain and Coke spew all over the bar. Followed by...

C: "You're really cute."

Okay, at this point, I felt like I had wandered into a Penthouse Forum letter. Fridays was closing and the bar staff really wanted our group (the only people left) to get the hell out. We obliged, but not before I got C's number. I'm sure that this whole situation is a pile of hell on earth drama that I don't want to get involved with, but eh, you only live once.

The whole episode was pretty weird, especially for a Wednesday night. Crap like this happens to me sometimes, though. People open up to me for no discernible reason. There was also another time where a girl told me that she recently went to the gynecologist because she thought she had HPV. Turns out it was just razor burn from shaving. How the hell do I always meet these people?

I like said, I guess I just have one of those faces.

A Change

I have been abandoned on a Friday night. Completely. It's Friday night and none of my friends are going out or want to go out. This never happens. Is everyone sick? Has everyone picked today as "Boycott Steve Day"? I don't get it. After the hellish week that I had at work, I was ready to spend a night out. I guess that will have to wait for another day.

Maybe this is a good thing. A lot has happened this week, a lot to process. An introspective evening at home would probably do me some good.

And there's beer here to drink.

Hands of Time

I've taken in two Brewers games this weekend and thoroughly enjoyed this entire series against the Pirates. It helps that the Brewers swept them, but there was more to it than that. The games were exciting and the weather was perfect for baseball.

Saturday night's Brewers game was a tribute to the Negro League teams, including our own Milwaukee Bears. In honor of the event, the Brewers and the Pirates wore replica uniforms of Negro League teams (which were very cool) and there was a ceremony at the start of the game to commemorate the contribution of the League and its players. Honestly, none of that really registered with me until late in the game, though.

In the bottom of the ninth, the score was tied, 1-1. Rickie Weeks was sacrifice bunted to second base by J.J. Hardy, who is currently playing like a man possessed. That brought Ryan Braun to the plate. What did the Pirates choose to do? They walked him to get to Prince Fielder. Prince then hit the game winning base hit that drove Weeks home.

Something about the situation struck me as odd. True, it was good baseball fundamentals to walk Braun and get the double play possibility open with one out. But isn't it kind of interesting that the Pirates walked the white guy to pitch to the black guy during the Negro League tribute game? And then the black guy won the game.

Baseball. It's not just a game; it's a lesson in racial equality.

4th of July

I honestly enjoyed the Fourth of July this year. I really did. I started the day by sleeping in until about 11:30, a rare treat for me. With distractions like television, Internet, and short bouts of going back to sleep, I finally got up and moving by 1 PM. Considering that I did jackshit last night and had no real reason to be tired, this entire episode was pure decadence. Quite American, isn't it? I spent the remainder of the afternoon sitting outside, working on my tan (which is now a semi-painful sunburn), reading a book (Centennial Crisis by former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist (Shorewood, Wisconsin's own)), listening to the Brewers game (which I could have and should have gone to), and drinking whiskey. No parenthetical is necessary for the last one.

In the evening, I briefly participated in a family cook-out before leaving for Summerfest. Dave, Nikolai, and I met at a local bar for a few beers before jumping on the shuttle bus. The shuttle bus (drunk bus) had its usual cast of characters: the loud obnoxious guy, the obviously stoned out of his mind hippie, the dumb as a brick hot girl, etc. The drunk bus is a microcosm of Summerfest itself, minus the underagers.

I have a love-hate relationship with Summerfest. I'll be the first to admit that I bitch about it all the time. Yeah, I'm one of those people. "It's too crowded, the beer is overpriced, the food is expensive, there are never enough bands that I want to see..." Basically, I complain endlessly about it. But deep down, I do love Summerfest. It may be a flawed institution, but it's our flawed institution. Summerfest is Milwaukee, the good, the bad, and the ugly of it. When you really get down to it, a ten day long music festival a few miles from your home is pretty damn cool.

The music was pretty good. We saw The Championship headline the local music stage. I've been a fan of theirs for a while now, so I was especially happy to catch one of the t-shirts that they threw into the crowd. At ten, we checked out The Roots over at the Miller Oasis. The place was absolutely packed. It wasn't easy to see the band (which is too bad, because they put on a great show), but we had no problems hearing them. With my somewhat bizarre music tastes, it's a real coup for me to find a night at Summerfest with two bands that I really want to see.

All in all, no real complaints. I only got beer spilled on me once and it was just on my shoe. The company was good, the music was good, and I got a free t-shirt. Add that to a morning of relative leisure, a Brewers win, and some great grilled food, and it was a great Fourth of July. Go America.

Welcome (Back to) the Machine

Once upon a time, I was somebody... at least a moderately sized fish in a moderately sized pond. I used to devote my free time and energy to writing this. I was pretty successful at it, as far as the world of legal news and analysis blogs go. The biggest sites, How Appealing, Volokh, Above the Law, etc. had all linked to my posts. I got praise for my analysis, most notably my Gonzales v Carhart posts. I was a minor Marquette University celebrity (hot shit, I know). I was living high on the E-hog, so to speak.

Then my muse left town. She packed a suitcase, tossed it into the back of a 1970 Dodge Challenger, and got the fuck out of town. I don't know how or why it happened, but I completely lost the urge to write. A huge part of my life and one of my few creative outlets was choked to death by some unknown force or influence. It was quite odd, really. When you spend years, literally years, working on something, it's hard to not do it anymore. It's especially hard when you actually want to do it but can't do it. After months of struggling with it, I walked away... hung up the spurs, so to speak.

Fortunately for me and unfortunately for any of you reading this, I've decided to start writing again. I don't know if this is the same muse that I had before or if this is an entirely new one. All I know is this, she smells like cigarettes and whiskey and swears more than an Irish dockworker. I think that she and I will get along swimmingly.

I have no idea what this is going to become. I figure that I will just write what comes to mind, regardless of the topic. That's really the ultimate example of narcissism (well, maybe posting picture after picture of myself and commenting on how handsome I am would trump that), but I'm falling back on that old axiom, "Write what you know." I know me.

Where did the blog title come from, you ask? A while ago, someone posed this hypothetical to me: If someone made a movie about your life, who would you want to play you and what would it be called? My response: Tim Roth and "Apparently". I tend to use the word "apparently" a lot. It's my go-to word for any situation that calls for a tepid affirmative response. I use it like most people use "I guess". It's also my favorite one-word sarcastic response when I'm feeling snarky yet lazy. Brevity has its positive aspects.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm going out for a beer. More to come...