Morton Malaise

Since parents apparently like to bump uglies in September, there are 4450948707 birthdays in June. I’m issuing a bulk “Happy Birthday” to everyone who has a June birthday. So happy fucking birthday. Save me some cake. But not the corner piece with the big frosting flower on it. I hate those. And the only way to have a decent birthday party is to get a keg. Or three. And several bottles of middle shelf booze. And some strippers. Female ones. Preferably live, definitely drunk. Cokehead strippers will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. And remember, absolutely, positively NO penetration.

This is an entry from 9/23/2005 in my old Journalscape blog. I decided to read a few of the entries the other night for a trip down Memory Lane. All of this occurs in and around the Pumpkin Festival.

So, the Pumpkin Festival came and went, certainly not without excitement. Friday night at the beer tent was ridiculously crowded and loud. Brandon, Casey, Reno, Sean, Chip, and I were out there. We grabbed a table near the beer counter and watched the crowd. I went out on the lawn and mingled with the Morton folk, and ran into Abbie and Amanda. Abbie looked stunning. She’s dyed her hair blonde and seems to have lost a bit of weight. Amanda was cute as always. I was drunk, so of course I made an unsuccessful pass at Abbie. Connie and Stu were there, as well as Wendy and Bunker. Kevin made a surprise appearance, which was cool.

After we left the tent, we went over to the Brass Bull, where once again, drunk Cory made a fool of himself making a pass at Tanya. Good thing she’s so damn cool, or I would’ve felt like a total ass. She just laughed it off. After we left the Bull, I completely forgot where I had parked my car, so we wandered around Main St. for a while trying to figure out where I put it. At one point, I laid down on one of the medians at the bank drive-thru in frustration. I remember yelling something at Brandon that some girls thought was directed at them. We finally found the car, right where I left it in front of the Liquor Station. Doh!

Let me preface Saturday by saying we started drinking at 230 in the afternoon. Yes, 230. Lunch at TnT’s, then back to Brandon’s for beer there, then to Travis’ house for a little shindig he was having in his backyard. Tim was there, but he was being very well-behaved. Nothing to make anyone think the night would end up the way it did. We then made our way to the beer tent after I made a very careful mental note of exactly where I had left my car. The whole group was there. Scott, Alicia, Casey, Reno, Sean, Brandon, Tim, Chip, Kyle, Bobby, Topher, and whoever else I’ve forgotten. Tony and Dana were there as well- Definite blast from the past. A bit later, I ran into Abbie and Amanda again. Much to my pleasant surprise, Abbie kissed me. That put me in a good mood. She must’ve been drunk. After that, I ran into Heather and my Mom, who were both at least a sheet and a half to the wind. Everything seemed to be going along quite well. But Timmy was still drinking.

I don’t remember how exactly it started. Scott started staring at Timmy, and mouths started to run. I was standing next to Scott at the time, and Scott started moving towards Tim. I decided in a moment of clarity that taking care of this business was not an especially good idea with two Tazewell deputies and two Morton cops standing 10 feet away. I pulled Scott back and told him something about revenge being best served cold and this not being the time or place for this. Mouths continued running, and for reasons I still can’t fathom, my Mom and Heather decided to butt in and try to talk to Tim. I told her to mind her business and stay out of it. I tried to talk to Tim as well to get him to calm down and save it for a day when there weren’t 4 cops standing there, but he tried to start with me, so I walked away. Everything from this point on is sort of blurry, because I was rather drunk. From the bits and pieces I’ve gathered in the days since, one of Tim’s boys tried to start shit with Topher, which isn’t a good idea. Alicia jacked some dude in the face for calling her a whore.
By the time they got thrown out, I was either in the car on the way home, or sitting Indian style leaning against Brandon’s garage trying not to puke. Can’t be sure really. After Brandon got tossed, he came by the house with Bobby and Sean for a few minutes, then left again for Bobby’s, where they apparently did a lot of shots and Brandon passed out on the floor. By that time, I was at home in my bed.

Good times. Pumpkin Festival like whoa.

I don’t know many details, but I do know there was some sort of large fight at the Gateway Building during Steamboat Days Saturday night. Why in the world, if you are a member of a gang or responsible for scheduling gang events, would you plan a fight in the middle of a festival where half of the Peoria Police Department already are? Whatever happened to fighting in dark alleys and highway underpasses like the Jets and the Sharks>

*************SPOILER ALERT*************

(In the interest of laziness, all future references to the narcissistic prick filmmaker will be expressed as “MNS”, because that last name is a pain to type.)

Max and I went to the 640 PM showing of “The Happening” last night, the new MNS piece of trash. He earned himself quite a bit of good will with the Sixth Sense, so for some reason, I continue to get excited when his movies come out. Even with the huge disappointments that were Lady in the Water, Unbreakable, and Signs, I continue to waste my time and money on the runny excretions he refers to as film. Well, The Happening was no exception.

The entire film centers around some sort of neurotoxin that is attacking smaller and smaller populations of people, forcing them to commit suicide. MNS spends most of the “film” figuring out more and more gruesome ways for people to kill themselves. Eventually the Happening targets the final group of 3. Marky Mark and Zooey Deschanel are stuck in two different buildings, and they decide that if they’re going to die, they’re dying together, because they love each other and blah, blah, barf. They leave the buildings, and amazingly, the Happening ends just as they come out of the buildings, and they and the child they’re with are safe. How splendid. The movie then cuts to a scene three months later, and somehow, even though practically the entire population of every major city in the Northeast was decimated, things seem to be back to normal on Marky Mark’s happy little street. The very last scene of the film is the Happening striking in Paris, fade to black. Crap. Absolute and utter crap.

Now that I’ve figured out (for the second time) how to add YouTube videos to the blog, I thought I would put up a couple from Summercamp. This first one is called “Distraction #74″ by the Avett Brothers. It’s like mixing Appalachia and CBGB’s. Enjoy. The semicircular screen behind them framed w/ red tubing was used later in the evening by the Flaming Lips, and it really does a number on the video’s resolution.

This is a short snippet of a longer song, “Escape from the Prison Planet” by Clutch. They were by FAR the hardest band there, and they’re not all that hard. Their lyrics are highly symbolic, and sometimes don’t seem to make much sense.

I was completely outraged by this letter in today’s PJS. These plebeians start running their mouths every year in the few months surrounding Summercamp. There are far more drug arrests as a percentage of attendees at the Cornerstone Festival, an alleged Christian music event, than there are at Summercamp. If you want to cancel Summercamp because a few people got hurt, then you better go ahead and cancel Cornerstone. While we’re at it, let’s cancel the Cherry Festival, Taste of Peoria, all the concerts downtown and at the Civic Center, the Pumpkin Festival, the HOI Fair, and every poker run ever, because all of them create a venue for drug use and driving under the influence. Know what? We should probably just outlaw music altogether, and dancing too. And we could really cut back on the DUI’s if we just make it against the law to go anywhere. Protect people from themselves and all that.

I seem to remember a couple years ago when moving the festival was discussed, all of the business owners in the surrounding area begged for it to return to Chillicothe. Now everyone wants it gone again. Be careful what you wish for. As he’s threatened to do before, Jay Goldberg will be happy to move the festival if it’s going to be a hassle.

I put some videos up on the YouTube. A few are from Summercamp, but the best is Max doing the “Big Wheel Song” at the Winchester a few weeks ago.

Delicious Cake