DAY Six
03-13-2002
11:01pm
Chicago, Illinois
Ah, another smoggy day in Chicago. After a quick head-count we realize we are missing Dice. Ruggs says he thinks Dice left about an hour ago to visit some fire stations.
11:30pm
Chicago, Illinois
Still in the parking lot. Dice is still gone. We all solidify plans to duct-tape him to a flagpole while in Memphis. It is decided that the secret word to rush Dice is "Peanut butter & jelly."
12:01pm
Chicago, Illinois
Pace returns. We quickly depart the parking lot we filled with gallons of piss.
12:14pm
Chicago, Illinois
We pick up Mike Walsh aka "Monkey Man," Primary's partner in crime. As he approaches the bus we blast the Train Horn, causing the construction workers to hoot like a Maxim cover girl had just walked by.
12:29pm
Rock & Roll McDonalds
Flash stops four lanes of traffic, by living up to his name, so the bus can squeeze into the Rock & Roll McDonalds parking lot. We park in the designated short bus parking area. We feel "special".
12:29pm
Rock & Roll McDonalds
As the short bus parking is for McDonalds customers only, we walk in to buy a small fry, before continuing out the other door to Ed Debevics.
12:35pm
Walking to Ed Debevics
JotaErre, Laura & Tiny's cousin are meeting us at Ed's.
12:45pm
Eat at Ed's
After Jota warns us about parking at R&R McD's, he, Primary & Monkey Man go back to retrieve the bus.
1:00pm
Eat at Ed's
You see, Flash has an interesting way of getting women. He uses the theory of 50. If you ask 50 women to sleep with you, one will. Flash is always always always working it. Let's look on as he woos Jota's girlfriend Laura. . .
1:43pm
Eat at Ed's
Someone gets the wise idea to tell the wait staff that it is Primary's birthday.
1:50pm
Eat at Ed's
At this point, Ruggs is completely tapped. He eats everyone's leftovers, then dances for nickels.
2:05pm
Leaving Ed's
During our whole meal we had to keep in mind that this place is notorious for waiters that are paid to be shits to you. Kudos to the person who invented this place, we would jump on the job that would pay us to make fun of people and get great tips for doing so.
Our waiter was a smartass and a good one at that, all in all he was a pretty cool guy.
2:09pm
Leaving Ed's
We wanted to include as much of the help as possible in our pictures, so one of our guys asked a young lady who worked at the establishment if she would want to get in a picture with us. She was a BITCH and said her boobs were too small to be photographed for a contest that might put her in Maxim magazine. Well, she was right. We took a picture of just us instead.
2:26pm
Western Union
Ruggs was tapped for money and Dice still had a shitload of Canadian play money in his wallet, so we drove around the big city looking for a Western Union, the place broke college students call heaven.
2:42pm
Driving around Chicago
After we converting all our cash back to God's money that we decided to go see our nation's tallest building, which used to be the world's tallest (foreign competing bastards). On the way there we saw some unintentional porn (YEAH!).
2:51pm
Sears Tower
Time to go bling blingin in America's architectural pride and joy. A big middle finger thrust out of the center of Chicago in Osama's general direction.
3:25pm
Moving on up. . .
Before going up in the Sears tower we watch a video that starts with (we shit you not) the reassuring sound of a loud jet engine.
3:25pm
I'm On Top of the World!
Going up! Tiny farts at floor 7, and by floor 30 everyone is more curious what the view looks like from 1/2 way up Sears tower. When we finally reach the top, the group waiting to go down politely states "We'll take the next one."
4:39pm
Chicago Fire Department
Primary, Dice and Flash insist we visit the country's finest fire department. Yeah, the fire department that inspired Backdraft, and every woman's fireman fantasy. At the station we got a chance to talk with Charlie, one of the station's firemen. He explained to us that the fire department was currently lobbying for the city to buy them bunker pants. For you non-firefighter types out there, those are the fire resistant pants that prevent a structure fire from turning into a weenie roast. While all firemen have balls of steel, their schlongs are flesh like yours and mine. (And women firefighters would like all burning bush references to be strictly biblical or VD in nature). Charlie told us that the mayor was having a hard time justifying the $7Million dollar expense to equip all firefighters with bunker pants. He is hoping the recent schlong-burning of a couple local firefighters might change that. Our suggestion: Hold a bic lighter to the mayors nuts and ask him how much they are worth. $7Mill might seem like a deal.
While on station, they got a call and let Primary, Dice & Flash ride tailboard on the back of the pumper for a block. All our able-bodied camera men were too incompetent to get a picture, so here's some guys on a bench. . .
4:59pm
You bum looker!
Between the strip club, the casino, our "whiz across America" campaign, and pairing up hot chickies to make out for the camera, we had compiled a good amount of bad karma. Time for a good deed. We gathered up a box of food and gave it to a "residence challenged" streetperson.
5:00pm
Chicago Rush Hour
Time to head to F&F's parents house in Sandwich. Yeah, that's right, she lives in Sandwich, Illinois! This one is just too easy, so we're not even going to touch it. As we were attempting to leave downtown Chicago at rush hour, Primary took the helm. While he was initially intimidated by the crowd of honking motorists, he quickly learned that the bigger & shittier looking your vehicle is, the more power you have in rush hour traffic. The MaximRoadTrip bus was a God. Primary's cardinal rule was: "I turn on my signal, they get 20 seconds to get out of my way, then I am coming over." Chicago drivers seem to have a love affair with their horns. The bus's train horn drowned out every pathetic honk in a six block radius.
6:18pm
Back to Bad Karma
Almost at F&F's house we spot a bunch of military aircraft parked at an airport. We decide that our boys fighting domestic terrorism could use some cheering up that only the MaximRoadTrip bus could provide. D'oh! The base is closed. . .I'm sure they wouldn't mind if we took a closer look at some of America's firepower.
6:27pm
Osama Spotting
Seeing Osama sneaking around the facilities F&F lives up to her name by jumping in a plane to fire a laser-guided missile. On the ground, Clintorious paints Osama's butthole with a laser pointer.
7:00pm
The Wow Seven
We get clearance to park at the local movie theater where F&F's bro works. F&F's mom picks us up and trucks us to civilization.
7:15pm
The Bright Household
At F&F's house we thoroughly enjoyed our second non-truckstop shower. While road trippers were cycling in and out of the showers we took advantage of the amenities at casa-Bright including the pool table and fully stocked bar. Being that the house sat right on a badass lake, Tiny finally had his opportunity to put his shrunken member where his mouth is and jump in a frozen lake like he had been promising the whole trip. He came up with lame-ass excuse #341. F&F's mom was most accommodating, making us the best meal we had all trip, and washing and ironing all our clothes. While waiting for our clothes to dry AC and Ruggs had an impromptu jam session on the guitar and drum set in the basement. They paid homage to our host city by playing the blues.
11:15pm
On the Road Back to Chicago
As the House of Blues was unable to provide parking for the bus, we took two of the Bright's cars to drive back to Chicago. AC and F&F were the designated drivers this night, as neither would be able to drive the bus on the trip. AC couldn't because his consigliere was not comfortable with the liability implications. F&F couldn't because she was not blessed with the "Y" chromosome that imbues one with driving skills. We made one stop on the side of the highway so Flash could purge. When running back to the tree line, he managed to run through a foot deep puddle.
12:28am
House of Blues
We finally arrive at the HOB and meet up with Monkey Man, JotaErre and Three-Kidney Spahr. As we enter the House prepared for our VIP treatment, we are thoroughly disappointed when conversely, we are treated like pond-scum.
The House of Blues
Concert
Club
Bureaucratic Blues
The Dope: The House of Blues is located at the foot of Monkey and 3K's apartment, Marina Towers. This seems like a cool, small venue to see some decent talent. The perfect place for folks that are tired of arena venues.
Chick to Dick Ratio: 4 1:1
Quality of Ladies: 3 In all fairness, the show was dueling DJ's and it was a Wednesday night.
Hospitality: 2 John R. with HOB provided us with very nice accommodations. We got free admittance to the show, passes to the VIP room, and an opera box in which to watch the show. John earned every point awarded to the HOB. Unfortunately the bouncers treated us like we were street urchins asking for a second bowl of porridge. These guys were sporting a major "big fish in a small pond" power trip. After being majorly turned off by the half-hour hassle at the door, we were unable to enjoy the show and our $9.00 drinks.
Overall Score: 2 We gave up enjoying an "11" hospitality at the Bright household to truck our asses back into Chicago for a hookup from our boy John. It could have been way worth it, but the more-brawn-than-brain bouncers made it a huge waste of time. The HOB's atmosphere is pretty cool, and they seem to host decent talent, but with the help they employ, we can see why Monkey, 3K and Jota have never been there in their collective 5 years in Chicago. The sorry fact is, you can't take a cool blues club and make it a franchise. You can attempt to recreate atmosphere and talent circuit, but you lose quality control when it comes to hiring practices. And a shout-out to the bouncers: I don't care if you're an aspiring anything, at the present time you are hired muscle at the McDonalds of Blues Clubs. . .get over yourself!
We luck out on a close parking spot near the HOB. Monkey, 3K and Jota meet us outside. When we arranged this meet earlier Jota had warned us he was getting duded up for the occasion, but we weren't quite expecting his fruit roll-up pants and full-house shirt. Such is the Jota. By this time we had chewed up most of our evening at F&F's house, and on the road, but we were looking forward to the Chicago hospitality that John R. with HOB had set up for us. We had free admittance, tickets to the VIP room, and opera box seats waiting for us inside. Ruggs was even pumped about the DJ's spinning, who the rest of us had never heard of.
When we get inside we are anxious to quickly check out the VIP room, then get to our opera box, as the DJs are only spinning for another hour. Then we talk to the man behind the podium of dickheadedness. He informs us that because we arrived after 12, the box office is closed, and he needs to blather on the phone with about 30 different people before he can nod his head in an upward, then downward motion to let us in. Wow, this quaint blues club seems rather. . .corporate. After he finally gets the OK, he informs us, that only the over 21 in our group will be allowed into the VIP room. Oh, and Tiny has to leave his camera behind. This was not the setup John arranged for us that enticed us back into the city, and for Jota to wear his dry-clean only clothes to.
Agreeing to no flash, and signing some paperwork, Tiny was finally able to bring in his camera. As we were being led to our opera box to enjoy the last 5 minutes of the show, the opera box bouncer stopped our leader and waitress as he did not recognize her. Yes, despite all this super-tight security, an underage member of our group was allowed into the VIP room while the on-duty waitress, that has worked there 5 years, was not. We certainly understand that tight security such as this is worth alienating a good deal of customers.
1:12am
House of Blues
After catching the end of the "Thank you very much for coming out" speech by the DJ, we quickly turned tail to flee Alcatraz. . .er House of Blues. On our way out we decided it was time for another good deed, so we donated all of our VIP passes to a handler of pans outside.
1:20am
Chillin' with Raymond
Spending some much more rewarding time outside the HOB with our friendly local bum Raymond. Dice convinces one of Raymond's buddies to verbally abuse Flash for a quarter.
1:40am
Photo Op
Following some general bumming around Chi-town, we give Jota a ride to the train. Spotting an excellent photo op on the way, we pull over.
3:51am
Flash Passed. . .out
A bum-traumatized Flash passes out on the way home, and the group decides to leave him in the car overnight, cuz we're just good friends like that. Unfortunately Dice & Primary wake him up with the light on the camcorder when they video him snoring in the car. Flash comes trodding in the house, remarking, "My neck hurts."
4:00am
Crashed Out at the Bright's
The only night we cheated and crashed in real beds. It was like sleeping on clouds.
Day Six by the numbers:
Camels Killed By FU Jet: 32
Flash's Neck Flexibility (Degrees): 180
Additional Pictures From Day Six
