Gus: "We are 600 miles away from Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a Power Bar, it's dark [it was raining heavily] and we're wearing baseball caps."
Ed: "Hit it."
I take first shift, and we set out for Chicago. We are scheduled to meet Ed's friends at the ballpark in time for the 7pm start of the White Sox vs. the Royals. 10 hours to get 600 miles is doable, but only if we minimize stops and don't hit any major traffic issues. Of course, we get as far as Friendship, NY, before we realize that we're both starving, and we pull over at a greasy spoon diner called the Iron Kettle.
Spoiler Alert: this photo has significance that will only become apparent much much later in the trip...
This from Ed: "We walk into this diner, and it's pretty clear that this is not a 'please wait to be seated' kind of place. But Gus stops as we walk in, looks at the waitress behind the counter, and says 'Two.' She replies with 'Two what?' So then I just grab Gus and say 'Let's just grab this booth right here.' It was pretty funny how out of it he was."
Yeah, that's pretty funny. Excuse me for trying to be polite.
"We finish eating and get back on the road at 1130 a.m. We gotta make good time now, and it's still raining. It's my turn to drive again b/c Gus can't drive after he eats; it's pretty amazing how his fatigue is automatic after a meal."
Listen, people. We've all got our little quirks. I've got 'em, you've got 'em. One of my little quirks is, immediately after eating food in any non-trivial quantity, I want to sleep. Like a python. What's happening here is that my body chooses to focus on digesting the food in as quick and efficient a manner as possible. 'Cause that's what I'm about: employing a laserbeam-like focus to achieve goals as quickly and efficiently as possible. So, I sleep after I eat.
Since it's a long drive, there's plenty of time for mixes again. So I pop in today's mix:
BMFRTE: 08-21: Chicago
1) Take Me Out to the Ballgame - Unknown
2) (Love is Like a) Baseball Game - Unknown
3) A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request - Unknown
4) Gamblin' With My Love - Dan Bern
5) Route 66 -
6) Mr. and Mississippi - Tennessee Ernie Ford
7) Traveling Riverside Blues - Eric Clapton
8) If You Leave Me Now - Chicago
9) When You're Good to Mama - Chicago soundtrack
10) Minnie the Moocher - Blues Brothers soundtrack
11) Hard to Say I'm Sorry - Chicago
12) Cell Block Tango - Chicago soundtrack
13) Hill Street Blues - Original TV Theme
14) Hard Habit to Break - Chicago
15) All That Jazz - Chicago soundtrack
16) Chicago - Frank Sinatra
17) You're the Inspiration - Chicago
18) Sweet Home Chicago - Blues Brothers soundtrack
Holy Toledo, Batman!
And, the last of the guest mixes:
Guest Mix: 80's Revival, by Jill
1) Here I Go Again - Whitesnake
2) Some Like It Hot - Robert Palmer
3) Venus - Bananarama
4) Relax - Frankie Goes to Hollywood
5) Midnight Blue - Lou Gramm
6) Talk Dirty to Me - Poison
7) Perfect Way - Scritti Politti
8) Lay Your Hands on Me - Thompson Twins
9) Kyrie - Mr. Mister
10) Tell It to My Heart - Taylor Dane
11) Invisible Touch - Genesis
12) Heaven is a Place on Earth - Belinda Carlisle
13) New Blue Moon - The Traveling Wilburys
14) Poison - Alice Cooper
15) Heat of the Moment - Asia
16) Love Shack - B-52's
17) New Sensation - INXS
18) Holiday - Madonna
19) California Girls
You know you're pretty hard up as a state when you're sitting around at the State Motto Idea Generation Meeting, and after a long, awkward silence, someone says: "Well, a lot of roads go through here."More from Ed: "We are a little worried about making it to the game on time. But we actually make good time through New York, a small stretch of Pennsylvania, and into Ohio. I drive us past Cleveland, and then Gus takes over. As we cross into Indiana, I call Jud to tell him we think we'll be getting to Chicago at about 6:30 p.m. (we're meeting Jud and Chris for the game). Jud says there is no way we'll make it by 6:30; we take that as a challenge."
One thing Ed and I have in common is that one of the most effective ways to motivate either of us to do something is to tell us we can't or aren't allowed to do it. My response to this challenge was "Oh yeah baby, it's on now!"
So, after driving as fast as humanly possible all the way into Chicago, where we thankfully avoided any rush hour nightmares, we get to the new Comiskey park and (eventually) find a place to stow the trailer. And, more pleasingly, we beat Jud and Chris to the gate by several minutes. Most pleasingly, we make it to our seats in time for the first pitch...
A beautiful evening in the Windy City...
"We do see the 1st pitch, but not before a drunken Sox fan stops Gus to ask him why he's wearing a Cardinals jersey. She explains that she just broke up with a guy who was a Cardinals fan; immediately I think that this jersey will be a coup for the ladies."
Ed & Jud, taken from our actual seats. We had _awesome_ fucking seats. Thx Jud!
"After the game, we grabbed a drink at the Bullpen bar- it's actually a bar behind the bullpen in right field. After the drink, we're off to park the car at Chris's building and drop our stuff off at Jud's place, where we're staying. But we don't leave the bullpen bar until we're again stopped by a pack of drunk chicks b/c of Gus's jersey and my Red Sox hat. The proceed to tell us how much they love the Sox and hate the Cubs, and they insist on taking a picture with us."
Yes folks, it turns out that my Ozzie Smith Cardinals jersey is like a giant electromagnet for drunk hoosier chicks. It is one of the special ironies of my life that I am accosted only by women I have less than zero interest in.
"After dropping our stuff off at Jud's, we go out. First we hit the bar where Jud works for more drinks and delicious pizza and wings. We meet Jud's girlfriend Cassie and a few of her friends. For whatever reason, these chicks love to rub my head/short hair (and I don't mind it too much). There was also this arcade boxing game at the bar so you could punch the shit out of this bag, and it would tell you how hard you punch. Cassie punches harder than most of the guys in the bar, and almost as hard as Jud- Gus and I are scared (and impressed).
We leave that bar around 130 a.m. and head to another place that stays open until 4 and has trivia. We drink and play until the place closes and we're all pretty wasted (except Gus who has been pretty subdued the whole night- boo!). We part ways [Jud is staying at Cassie's since his apartment is pretty small] and Gus and I go back to Jud's to try to get at least a few hours sleep."
You're probably thinking- wow, what a shitty picture. Gus must've taken it. Wrong! This is what downtown Chicago looks like at 4 a.m. when you're totally souced, as Ed was when he took it."Here's where things get interesting- Jud keeps calling and calling my cell, and I figure he's just fucking around so I don't answer. ut then at 5 a.m., just as we're about to fall asleep, he comes into the apartment and says, 'Hey, you guys have to move the car.' Apparently there was a new security guy on duty at Chris's building who was calling a tow truck to take our car away. So Jud and Gus head over to Chris's to move the car (to where? we have no idea) and find Chris belligerently protecting the car and screaming at the security guy.
So Jud calms Chris down, and Gus decides that, since it's almost 6 a.m. and it's going to be really hard to find a place to park our monstrosity of a vehicle, we should just get on the road to St. Louis now (we had planned to sleep and leave at about 11 a.m.) Keep in mind that I'm wasted, and we're both dead tired after driving all day and being up all night. So I disagree with this decision (which, in retrospect, turned out to be a good decision) and I just tell Gus, who is clearly tired, to not be a hero and pull over if he's tired (he only had two drinks the entire night, so I'm not worried about that, but i'm way too drunk to take over the driving)."
Yes, I was pretty mellow that night, a combination of having a lot on my mind, and a general tendency to drink in proportion to how well I know the people around me. Since the only person I knew was Ed, I nursed a drink at each place we went.
"So we leave Chicago and head south to St. Louis. Gus insists he's fine, ready to go, not tired at all.
45 min later we pull off the highway b/c he's falling asleep, and in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn at about 645 a.m. we just passed out in the car."
OK, so we didn't get very far. You know, when Ed and I first discussed the possibility of the BMFRTE, and we had it fleshed out conceptually, we had a lively discussion about whether we would actually survive it. All I can say is, 5 days and still livin'...
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