A Perfect Day At The Hair Farm (A Dorm Daze Prequel)

One of the things that drives me in life is the quest for "the perfect day." Now that means something different to everybody. For me it means a day so goddamn good, if you could bottle it up and relive it over and over again, you would. I can think of maybe three of those off the top of my head. Days where you are actually kinda sad when your head hits the pillow at night. 

There was a day last Fall where after sort of knowing somebody online for over a decade and texting or talking to her every day for four months solid, I took five days off of work, blew out of town, drove nine hours and a state away and we finally met in person. Let's call her Katie. Katie and I spent a Friday (and eventually the whole weekend, where unfortunately we made one bad decision after another, not the least of which was spend entirely too much money on club seats to attend the atrocity that was my beloved Chicago Bears taking on her Denver Broncos while unbelievably hungover) together. DIAGRAM THAT SENTENCE! But that Friday, I'm telling you, that Friday was a perfect day. We met for breakfast, had our first actual golf lesson for the first time in person after several years of virtual online sessions, played eighteen holes, got dressed up (GOOD LORD, SHE'S A KNOCKOUT), shared a fancy dinner and drinks, talked about what we wanted out of life and capped it off with a warm embrace and kiss to cap the evening. I never felt more alive in my goddamn life. Now, somehow, despite my best attempts at screwing things up royally in the ensuing month and change, Katie is still as good a friend as I have, I love her to death and always will, and we at the very least message daily if not talk. I'm sure I'll write about her again some day. Things didn't turn out quite the way I pictured it in the future with her when I drove back to my hotel that Friday night. As always, I massively over-read the situation like I do the majority of putts these days. My dumb brain going places it shouldn't have and seeing things that weren't there. That tends to happen more often than I'd like. But that Friday was as perfect a day as I'd had in two decades. If I could bottle up that day and sell it, it'd fetch more on the streets than cocaine.

Halfway through a perfect day!

Most recently, I had a day a few weeks ago where I got up, watered my garden, taught an awesome golf lesson, fired a red-number on my old golf course and spent the afternoon with a pretty special gal, let’s call her Carly, who took me shopping at one of those high-end clothing stores that I wouldn't have ever pictured myself wandering into in a million years. I could’ve never fit in their clothes! She outfitted me with a whole new wardrobe. Stuff I never thought I'd wear, but you know what? They look fucking fantastic on the new bod! We capped the day again, with a lovely dinner and drinks at a swanky restaurant talking about how we got to where we were at. Unfortunately, I was actually successful at torpedoing that friendship royally and I still don't know if Carly and I are really friends anymore. I suspect probably not, and that really fucking bums me out. Sometimes the perfect day doesn't result in better things down the road. In fact, by definition, it's really all downhill from there. But sometimes, when you can just live in the moment of the perfect day, those things stick with you and burn a memory so vivid in your head you couldn't shake it if you try. 

This entry covers the events of one of those days, and we're going to turn on the wayback machine. Just a little over twenty-one years ago to one perfect June day that I spent with one of my best friends before I moved away to go to Westminster. I call this one "The Perfect Day at the Hair Farm."

It was June 19th, 1999. My alarm clock blew off at 5:30 AM with my favorite Keith Richards Stones' song, "You Got The Silver." I had to catch my pops before he left for work so he could sign my financial aid paperwork. My whole application to college came in pretty late. I'll tell that story another day, but I was behind the eight-ball and couldn't afford to wait for the mail to deliver it, and the money was starting to run out. So my buddy Skwez and I were going to drive it up to Salt Lake and hand-deliver it ourselves to the school. Plus, I wanted him to see how good this situation was going to be. He wasn't only one of my best friends, but he was also my golf coach in Junior College at Eastern Utah. He wasn't just going to send me off into the wild without seeing the lay of the land first. And I at least wanted to introduce him to my new coach. 

The old man and I sat at our ancient-ass 70's era kitchen table (yellow veneer? TACKY), hammered down some bacon, eggs and coffee and went over the paperwork for my pell grants and work-study. I think it was finally setting in for both of us, the clock was ticking on my leaving Price for good. Less than two months to go. I still miss those breakfasts. Pops Nickas was a hell of a breakfast cook. I swear it's the paprika on the hash browns. Goddamn fantastic. "You guys staying up there tonight?" he grumbled. 

"I don't know pop. We're flying by the seat of our pants today. The only real item on the agenda is dropping off these papers and checking out the dorms."

"Didn't you do that three weeks ago?"

"Yeah, but this time I'm taking a camera so I can see what I've got to work with as far as space goes." I obviously needed to figure our a way to fit all of my worldly possessions into an 11'x9' space. "Have a good day at work, pop. I'll find a pay phone and let you know what we do."

Nickas and Skwez, lookin' like a couple preppy
assholes, circa 1999.

Skwez pulled up an hour later at 6:30 in his pimp-gold 1996 Jeep Cherokee. I tossed my golf clubs and overnight bag into the back. He tossed me the keys as he filled up his CD changer with our road-trip standards. GNR's "Appetite for Destruction," Ozzy Osbourne's "No More Tears," Metallica's "Master of Puppets," and Rob Zombie's "Hellbilly Deluxe," among others.  "You're driving." He hated driving that canyon. 

"What's the plan?" I asked.

"I had TK call in a favor and we're teeing off at South Mountain in two hours. Fucking step on it dude." The course was roughly two hours away.

South Mountain Golf Club was at the time (before Salt Lake County bought it) was one of the two high-end golf courses in Northern Utah in the latter part of the 90's. Carved into the hillside in Draper, it opened up in 1998 and immediately got a reputation as one of the best tests of golf in one of the best conditions in the state. And for $90.00 at the time, it sure as hell better have been. That was pretty much unheard of for a public course green fee in Utah back then. 

We blasted through the canyon. Just a college dipshit and his slightly older than college buddy screaming metal tunes and power ballads at the top of our lungs. Not being my own vehicle, I drove extra carefully and we pulled into the South Mountain parking lot in an hour and twenty nine minutes. We popped the hatch on the Cherokee and started unloading our gear and changing our shoes when a bag attendant pulled up and loaded our clubs onto a cart. I damn near pulled the Happy Gilmore and tackled him when he grabbed my bag, until I remembered that yeah, nice courses have those guys. We tipped the dude and checked in where the guy informed me that I wouldn't be allowed to tee off unless I wore a collared shirt. Free golf at a swanky track though. Blew my mind, but I saw a decent looking one in a fat-kid size (MORE X'S THAN A PORNO THEATER) on the rack and bought it so we could tee off. Only $70! I couldn't believe how much of a rube I was back then. I'd like to say I still have that shirt, but no. It was in that giant tub of giant clothes I donated to the shelter last Winter. 

We teed off and this track was better than advertised. Super long from the tips, tight, with trouble everywhere. The greens were slick and the wind was whipping. Birdies were hard to come by, but we both made a few. Our scoring was pretty unspectacular, we both shot 75, but we had a damn blast and took a hundred bucks off the suckers we got paired with in a best ball match. We thanked the Director of Golf for being an awesome host and said hello for TK. "Come back anytime," he said. I don't think he lasted more than a year in the job.

DJ for a Day!

We dropped our gear off at Skwez's sister's place, got cleaned up and I got my paperwork together. We still had to make my meeting with Financial Aid at 2:00. We jumped back in the car and headed for downtown, switching this time to the radio. It was no secret, radio in Price Utah in the 90's was liquid shit. Radio in Price is STILL liquid shit. We had three country stations, two right-wing talk stations, a pop station, and an oldies station that I probably listened to more than anything. In fact, I can still sing along to almost any 60's song on Sirius Channel 6. I heard them all a thousand times. Liked them, but we were hurting for variety. But Salt Lake had the mighty KBER 101.1. Still, for my money the greatest radio station in the history of this state. We flipped it on just as the last refrain of Tesla's "Modern Day Cowboy" blasted out and the DJ, Hammer (who I got to actually host a show for an afternoon a few years later) came on. "Let's check in with Helmut over at Rocky Mountain Raceway getting warmed up for the big Poison/Ratt/Great White/LA Guns show tonight!" 

We looked at each other, "Dude, no way we're driving home tonight. We've gotta go to this. There won't be twenty people there, they might let us play in the band." Don't get me wrong, we still loved those bands. We grew up in the timewarp that was Carbon County, where it was still 1988, but we both knew most of those acts hadn't been heard from in years. Thankfully, the legendary Heavy Metal Shop was in the Sugarhouse neighborhood within walking distance to Westminster so we popped in and managed to snag their last two tickets. We were gonna rock our dumb asses off that night. 

Formerly known as Res.3

The college visit was every bit as good as my initial one, if not better because one of my best pals was there with me this time. We met with my new coach, DP, briefly and it was like a passing of the torch. We took another dorm tour. And this time I got to see my actual room. Res. 3, Room 302. The Penthouse of the new building. And I didn't know it at the time, but I also met one of my future roommates, Jerry Flynt. I took a few photos of my bedroom to get some idea of what I had to work with space-wise. Not much, but at least I got my own room. I was going to have to stack some furniture, or do some "Step-Brothers" shit. Skwez was impressed. "This dorm is nicer than Harvard!" he said. I have no idea if that's true. We stopped over to the Campus Patrol office so I could pick up my residential parking permit, made one more trip by admissions to say goodbye to DP and my admissions counselors Kenny and Clint and booked it over to Tres Hombres for some dinner before the show. 

Over giant smothered burritos and for him a margarita, for me a Sprite (I was still 20 years old and the DD for the trip), we talked a bit about what I was about to dive into. He asked me, "What do you think about your coach?"

"Seems like a nice guy. And this is the chance to get in on the ground floor of something. Yeah, we're probably gonna get our asses kicked, but at least this is a chance to play. I mean, I won our Conference last year and I couldn't get a look from any of the big schools. I just want to play man. I know I'm not D1 talent. But I think I can hang in the NAIA."

"I think you're making the right move man.That campus is awesome." he said

"Yeah, and not a ton of rules when you live there. Just enough rules. And I kinda like the idea of living in the dorms. I kinda need rules and structure to bend and push!"

We finished eating, paid the bill, I hit up a pay phone (REMEMBER THOSE?) to call Pops Nickas to let him know I was staying up there that night, and we lit on out of there towards Rocky Mountain Raceway. After driving for what felt like a goddamn eternity we approached the 5600 West exit off of the 201 freeway. Felt like we were basically in Wendover, kind of funny to think that’s pretty much where Casa de Nickas is now. But about a half mile from that exit we ran into bumper to bumper traffic. “Shit, maybe there’s more people that remember this stuff than we thought.” 

It was a half hour before we reached the venue to find an absolutely jam-packed parking lot. We got out of the car just as the opening bars of LA Guns' (Jizzy Pearl Version) "Ballad of Jayne" echoed across the property. Bummer, we'd missed most of their set while stuck in traffic, but managed to clear security just in time to see them blast through "Never Enough" and "Rip and Tear" to close out their set. The infield of the racetrack was packed wall to wall with people. There might've been 13,000 people there. Which considering it had been nearly a decade since any of those bands have had a hit, really said a lot. 

This dude was put in charge
of reviving the unrevivable

Next up was Great White. I know, I know, but this is pre-Station fire. We were at the same time both struck by how good they sounded and how awful they looked. This was a weird era for rock music, Sony had created a label called Portrait that summer and tabbed producer John Kalodner to revive the careers of these old glam rock and blues metal acts. I bought a couple of those albums that year and while they sound pretty good, don't exactly hold up to the older material. But there's a couple gems on each. Great White recorded one of those albums in which they pretty much re-recorded most of their old hits along with a new song or two. It was pretty stereotypical, when the new songs came out, that crowd made a mass exodus for the john or the beer line. It was uncanny. 

Their set wrapped up, and I was really most excited to see Ratt. So Skwez hit the beer line, and I hit the restroom. When I came out he was talking to these two fairly attractive women who immediately ran up to me and asked if I'd buy them a drink. I'm an idiot, so dumbfounded, I obliged and they planted a kiss on each side of my face like to freaking Doublemint Twins and disappeared into the crowd. Skwez was ten feet away laughing his ass off. "The fuck was that all about?" I asked.

"Oh, I told them you were one of the promoters and loaded. But you 'don't like to make a big deal out of it.'" 

"Thanks pal, I've barely got a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. Especially now that I'm going to that school!" Still, at the time, that was pretty damn funny.

Utah! Get me two!

We waded back into the crowd just as the opening riff of "Lack of Communication" brought Ratt out onto the stage. They sounded great, and unlike about 2/3 of the times that I've seen them live since (6 or 7 times in various clubs and bowling alleys) actually put some effort into the performance. They blasted through all the songs you recognize and a few only us heshers recognized. For us, the highlight was easily "Nobody Rides For Free," just because it was the closing credits song on one of the two movies (the other being Top Gun) that we'd watched over and over again that summer, Point Break. Bottom line though, Ratt sounded fucking awesome that night. That tour might've been the last time they were really at their best and the crowd was shit hot. I had no clue this many people even still liked this music, but this crowd was genuinely into it!

And now Tan Mom plays the hits!

Poison was Poison. Even if you're the type that thought of them as "metal for chicks," you still couldn't help but have a great time jumping around to their songs. They basically blasted through their entire greatest hits record, which for a nostalgia tour, should be an actual law. Played pretty much every recognizable song they had. About halfway through the set, I got bumped into by a guy absolutely flying on grass, hobbling around on crutches. "Dude, you look sturdy, I need a favor!"

"Uhhh, whatcha need?"

"Put my lady up on your shoulders man!"

Hey, who am I to say no to a man in need. Up she went for "Something To Believe In." I managed to catch a glimpse of Skwez's face. He had a mixture of bemusement and a bizarre pride when she handed me her tube top. It was funny at the time, but there's a good reason you don't see that too often at shows anymore. And that's definitely for the best. 

They wrapped up the show with "Rock and Roll All Nite" from the legendary Less Than Zero soundtrack. A hell of a good time was had, and as we filtered our way out of the racetrack and back to the car, Skwez and I just looked at each other like, "did that day just happen?" We ran pretty much nonstop from 6:30 that morning until now at 12:30 at night. And everything we did tangentially hit on just about every aspect of our friendship. From playing golf (where we first started hanging out), to touring the halls of academia, to blowing our eardrums out with a bunch of obnoxious hard rock tuneage. It was a the fullest of days with one of my best friends, dare I say "perfect." Because while life has moved on for us both, and we're still pals and have had many good times since, that day was pretty much our apex mountain. And I'll remember that forever.

Epilogue:

Two months later, I left Price for the last time as a full-time resident. In fact, outside of the summer after my first junior year, I've only popped in for a few days here and there to visit the family and a few friends. Skwez got married, moved to Colorado, divorced and married again, adopted a couple kids and now is a domesticated family guy. Neither one of us are fat kids anymore. My history in the years since has been pretty well documented here on the 'Monster. But that perfect day will stand out as a real turning-point in my life. That day, moving to the city became real.

Time Just Fades The Pages In My Book Of Memories...

Well, the air outside is freezing-ass cold and so filthy you can taste it. The grass is turning random shades of brown and there's barely enough time after the frost comes off to finish eighteen holes these days. Yep, it's Winter, and that means I finally have some time to sit down and put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, or something to something. After a summer in which I finally achieved some success, made a competitive comeback, fell back into some bad habits and ultimately walked away from my dream, I've got some shit to get off my chest. And in the next couple months, I'm going to cover that and a whole lot more. It's time to GET IT ON!

Last week Guns N' Roses made their way back to Salt Lick for the first time since the Use Your Illusion era, eighteen years ago. In that span a whole lot of things have changed. Everybody knows that the band is completely different these days. Lunatic frontman, Axl Rose, is the only member left from the famed Appetite For Destruction lineup.  In the twenty years since Appetite era drummer, and famed coke fiend, Steven Adler quit/got shitcanned, the band has gone through almost as many lineup changes as my beloved Chicago Bears have had starting quarterbacks.  Yet still, Axl remains, after eighteen different members have come and gone and come back and went away again, he's the only really consistent thing about that band anymore. 

In that same period of time, my own life has taken many turns as well. Even in my early teenage years, where every kid is a crazy, loud asshole, well I was still and asshole, but a quiet and reserved asshole. Thinking back, I kinda was the creepy kid in the back of the classroom that liked reading non-age appropriate novels and listening to oldies bands that went out of fashion twenty years previous. But I did play baseball, and I was pretty good at it so nobody gave me any shit. As much as I loved it though, the game eventually started to feel more like work than anything else. So I took up golf, simply because it was something almost nobody my age was doing at the time. In fact, since this was the pre-Tiger Woods era, playing golf was about the least cool thing you could probably do at that age.

But a new kid came to school in the ninth grade, Bryan, a big Texan kid and the first person my age that I knew could swing a club. Together we were the lone freshman kids on the Carbon High golf team that season and through that, we started hanging out. He was really one of the first post-baseball world friends that I had where we'd hang out other than at school or practice. It was Bryan that introduced me to one of the segments of pop culture that have really defined me in the last twenty years, the world of hard rock and heavy metal.

As I mentioned before somewhere along the line, we didn't have much for local radio in Price. We had a right-wing talk station, a soft rock station, six or seven country stations (at least that's what it seemed like) and the one I gravitated towards (because that's all my dad listened to), the oldies station. We had cable, but outside of Remote Control, I didn't watch a ton of MTV back then. Of course, why would I?  Most of the bands I knew and loved at the time had their heyday twenty years before then! I think I was hipster before hipster was hipster! But I remember vividly, always stopping while flipping channels by three videos in particular:  Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer," Metallica's "Enter Sandman," and Guns N' Roses' "November Rain." So I kinda always was a closet hard rock fan, but I felt like I'd painted myself in a corner as far as my musical tastes go. I was so scared to fucking death of looking ignorant discussing it, because it was one of the few things I didn't feel like I had and encyclopedic knowledge of and because I was so afraid of being considered "uncool." I ultimately didn't realize that I was already the least cool kid in my hometown (which considering where I grew up put me in contention for least "with it" guy nationwide,) simply because I was always afraid of being true to myself. In other words, a typical teenager.

In keeping with the trend of staying about ten years behind the times, I got my first stereo and Sony Discman for Christmas in '95 and began spending almost all of my job and lawn mowing money building a music collection.  My first two CD's:  The Best of The Doors, and the soundtrack to The Big Chill. I WAS 16 GOING ON 50! But in the Summer of '96 things kicked into high gear as far as my musical education goes. We had a full-fledged group now. Bryan, Odie, Jahon, White Chocolate, Trey, Olie and myself formed our very own band of idiots. Also that Summer, Bryan introduced "The Tape."

"The Tape" was a mixtape he had made containing all the popular standards of heavy music from back then, Metallica, Megadeth, GN'R, Ozzy Osbourne, Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Van Halen and more. We played that fucking thing back to back in Bryan's "Pimp-Mobile," a shit-brown 1982 Buick Regal, all summer long. And while the grunge tunes didn't excite me too much, I was fiercely attracted to the speed and power of the thrash bands, the technical mastery of Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads, and the sleazy swagger of Guns N' Roses. I set about spending almost every spare penny I had for the rest of my high school life finding every recording I could of the 80's hard rock and thrash bands. I'd finally found a real passion about something outside of sports that I could share with my friends. And with the way the dynamic of that group was set up, and the way we busted balls, quiet and shy no longer cut the mustard. So I was forced to discover a confidence that I never thought I had. Didn't help much with girls, hell, I still clam up and have no idea how to act cool around the ladies, but I was at least finally sociable.

The Crew. Probably before a nice night of roadblocking or committing random acts of mischief!

Two years later, my folks split up and my family melted down. By that time, I'd taken a couple sophomore kids (Little Nick and Ben) under my wing and brought them into the fold. I'll always be thankful for the support of my friends during that time, but I was a mess. I took up drinking as a hobby and started to retreat back into myself again. To their credit, they wouldn't let me crawl all the way in that hole. But I was a pretty pissed off guy and not happy with life in general. Other than gaining another new friend in my Junior College coach, Skwez, by the time the JC years were over I was ready to get the fuck out of town. I was ready to put it all in the rear-view and move on.

Towards the end of that last summer, we got the whole gang back together for one last barbecue. I spent a good chunk of the evening out on the patio, brooding, pounding Miller Genuine Drafts and generally being a drag. Bryan sat down and started talking, but I wasn't in too much of a listening mood. He was talking about who was hooking up with who, how they had the dog eat some of the tapped melon and how excited but nervous he was about Metallica's upcoming album release of their collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, S&M. He realized he wasn't getting through too well until he launched in with a tirade that has stuck with me since that day. My recollection for detail in that era is for shit, so I'll paraphrase:

"Nickas, stop being a dick. Do you think you're the only one here with any problems? Tomorrow, I'm leaving for Colorado, and you're moving to Salt Lake. Tomorrow, we're both starting from square one in the friend department. Sure, there might be a few people you know in the community, but that's not going to be enough. We're both living in dorms and are going to be around strangers nonstop. Would you want to live with someone that hates the fucking world?"

He was right. I had a real choice to make. Be the type of antisocial asshole I always was scared shitless of becoming, or at least put on a good face and be sociable. Thankfully I made the right choice. As luck would have it, or maybe it was some kind of sick experiment in the Dean's office, everyone in my dorm unit came from a broken home. Some more recently than others, but we all had that in common so we had a place to start. And we all helped each other deal with those issues that will always linger.

It didn't take long, but soon I was no longer faking happiness, I was enjoying my place in the world. That confidence came roaring back, and soon, some of my more overbearing personality traits took over and I got LOUD. I started to preach the gospel of rock and roll to my new friends and before long, I was getting them into hard rock and metal tunes too, dragging them to shows, meeting some rock stars. I was simply excited to share my passion, and I was going to do it whether they liked it or not. It was like I didn't just come out of my shell, I completely obliterated it! Some of them probably didn't like it, but by the time school was done, I'm pretty sure they at least had an appreciation for it that they didn't have before.

In late 2008 Guns N' Roses released their first all-original album since I was twelve years old, Chinese Democracy. My old college roommate, and biggest GN'R fan that I know, VodkaRob and I hit the indie record store on the very night of its release to pick it up. By then we'd both settled into careers. He was a computer tech, I'd just been promoted to Head Golf Professional at the University of Utah. And even though that record sounded absolutely nothing like the classic GN'R of my youth, and you can argue that it doesn't hold up at all, I couldn't deny that chill I got when I heard the first chord on the title track officially (heard tons of demos over the years,) for the first time. I realized that while the band was completely different, I was completely different as well. An hour later we came to the conclusion that with the exception of a few songs, that album basically sucked! But deep down, I didn't really care, I was just happy to share that experience with a friend. And folks, that's one of those things that makes life worth living. Experiencing that kind of shit with your friends.

When I started writing this, I fully intended to do a concert review of that GN'R show from last week. Instead I had a flood of memories and got a little sidetracked. If ya'll don't mind, I'll give the review its own post later this weekend. And down the road, I'll be sharing a few stories from the shenanigans that my old crew of high school buddies and I would get into.  Think of them as a "dorm days prequel!"

Crazy Pete Gets The Girl - Another Dorm Days Flashback!

Hey chickapees, how are ya? I hope you're enjoying the tour through my days of yore. I promise to have an original piece that's tentatively titled "The Ballad of the UGC" up by the end of this weekend. Tomorrow is probably going to be my last shift at my current job up at the University of Utah, and I'm pretty sure I won't have much to do except to craft a story in dedication to the rich tapestry that was golf at the "U." So be on the lookout for that. Anyway, tonights bawdy tale flashes back to February of 2001. There's a few new characters in this one. I dole out a little relationship advice, which in itself is hilarious. God knows, I don't think I've had a relationship last longer than twenty minutes in the last ten years. But I did listen to Loveline every night, so that means I'm qualified, right? Also, make sure you read through to the end for a little bonus video action featuring a few appearances by the characters in this story, just so you won't think I'm making this all up. And away we go:

"Crazy Pete Gets The Girl"
(February 2001)

It was in late February of year 2 in Room 302 and all of us were finally gelling as roommates. Earlier in the year, The Nate, Big Nick and I were pretty stunned when Junior and The Dave did not return, but the new guys VodkaRob, Jose' and Crazy Pete fit in with our fairly messed up personalities quite nicely. We were actually going to make it a full year without somebody giving up on us! Unfortunately, The Nate was becoming increasingly withdrawn, taking part in our weekend binges less and less frequently. Apparently something about Pete and Jose' rubbed him the wrong way. But none of us could figure out what. Kind of a shame, he missed out on quite a few good times down the stretch that year, even some not so good, and some that were both like the subject of the story today.

It was your typical Friday at Westminster. The best kept secret of that school is the vast majority of classes ran from Monday to Thursday with very few classes on Fridays. So if you played your cards right, it was almost like a three-day weekend every week! It was perfect for nursing a Post-"Margarita Thursday" hangover. And man-oh-man; I was feeling it that day. But hell, it was worth it, because tonight was the school's Mardi Gras celebration as well as the beginning of Spring Break.

We also just happened to be one day away from tickets to the AC/DC Stiff Upper Lip Tour going on sale. If you did not live in the Salt Lake area, you probably would not know just how big of a deal that was back then. After an incident with a fan getting trampled during a Razor's Edge Tour show a decade before, the band had not scheduled a tour stop in Salt Lake since. So Crazy Pete, VodkaRob, Jose' and myself were especially stoked to see those legends grace the stage once again in our neck of the woods. Crazy Pete seemed especially excited for the show, but he had been growing increasingly anxious about something else.

There was this certain female classmate of his that, in his words gave him that familiar "climbing the rope in gym class" kind of feeling. The dude was smitten with her. One problem though, she was afflicted with what was known in the Latin as "Boyfriendus-Douchebaggus." You know, she was with the wrong guy. Crazy Pete was the right guy. And since I was in the midst of a not-so-ideal situation myself with Golf-Girl, it was one of the few things Crazy Pete and I found some common ground on. Women were the subject of many of our beer drinking sessions.

Anyway, I had finally got home from an all-afternoon session in my office down at the gym assisting with breaking down tapes on UM-Western for the basketball game the next day. I stopped in the kitchen to pour a shot, grabbed a Michelob out of the fridge and cruised down the hallway to my room. Crazy Pete stopped me in the hallway. "Nickas! Dude! Candace finally broke up with that prick!"

"That's great! How'd you find out, brah?" I asked.

"Well, we were in this study group this afternoon and she told me while we were planning out the work on our class project," He replied.

"Sweet! So she went out of her way to tell you?"

"Yeah," he said, "I thought it was kind of weird."

Now, one thing that I am not very good at is catching a hint, especially from girls. Hell, the writing was on the wall between Jules and I before school even started, but that did not stop me from feeling pretty blindsided three weeks into the year when the hammer finally dropped. And after I took her to see Def Leppard too! But this situation right here seemed obvious as hell to me. "Dude, you have to call her. She wouldn't have told you about her breakup if she didn't dig ya!"

"I don't think she wants me too." He said sheepishly.

"Bullshit man! This is your chance! Call her right now!" I had no idea if that was a good idea or not. Sadly, my biggest problem over the years when it came to women was inaction. I never made the call at the right time if I ever made the call at all. "Dude, make something up, invite her over to work on your project or something." Why the hell was he listening to me?

"I don't know man." He started to wear down.

So I went over and picked up his phone, looked at her number pinned to his bulletin board and started to dial. "Pete, I have fucked up way way way way way too many times. If I let you walk away from this I won't be able to live with myself." The alcohol was definitely talking there. I got to damn near the last digit when he grabbed the receiver out of my hand.

"All right, man, I'll do it." Crazy Pete hit the last button on the phone and pulled his best Optimus Prime impression by transforming into fucking Mr. Suave! He made a little small talk and invited her over to work on their project and hang out that night. It fucking worked! Even I was surprised!

"Are you going to take her to Mardi Gras tonight?" I asked. "I think Jose' and I are going to cruise down there in a couple of hours or so."

"We'll probably just work on the project and hang out." And then he said the magic words: "We'll see what happens."

I snagged a giant can of Fosters out of the fridge to drink in the shower, entered the bathroom and flipped on everybody's favorite rock and roll institution KBER 101. Motley Crue into Metallica into AC/DC into White Zombie into Def Leppard into Godsmack; is it any wonder why I love that station as much as I do? By the end of my shower I felt good and loose. I loves me a long hot shower with a little alcohol. Anyway, I hopped across the hall to my bedroom and got dressed in the nicest pair of cargo pants and the cheesiest looking Hawaiian shirt I could find. I went with the Hilfiger with the Woody cars on it. Real subtle. It was time to get festive! I entered the kitchen/living room area to find a bunch of girls from that room down the hall and VodkaRob pounding down some cocktails.

As I was joining in the festivities, I heard Crazy Pete knocking on The Nate's door. "Can I borrow some tequila, man?" he asked. The Nate shot him down. Things were starting to get a little uncool with old Nate, but at the same time, he had a $50 bottle of Herradura he did not want going to waste. So I kind of understood. Fortunately I had a huge bottle of Cuervo in my stash that I was more than happy to part with for a good cause, and this certainly qualified as a good cause. "What are you mixing up bro?" I asked.

"I thought we'd just do some shots or something."

"Well Pete, I'll tell you what, use as much of that bottle that you want, but if Candace isn't up for tequila, you can use whatever of my stuff you want, except for the Goose. That shit is expensive!"

VodkaRob and the girls from down the hall soon vanished, leaving just myself, Crazy Pete and Jose' playing some Tony Hawk II on our little television. Big Nick and Ali were in his room "taking a nap" which usually involved a lot of slapping noises and laughing. The Nate and his girl Lisa had locked themselves up in his room and were pounding something against the wall, probably each other. Good times! It was about 10:00 when we heard a knock at the door. In his excitement, Crazy Pete nearly busted his ass tripping on a stool while running to the door. In walked Candace who seemed just a little too made-up to be coming over to work on a class project. This was a slam dunk for the Pete-ster! As Col. Hannibal Smith of The A-Team once said, "I love it when a plan comes together!" They went down the hall to VodkaRob's room to use his computer while Jose' and I had a shot and caught our ride down to Mardi Gras.

One thing Westminster always got right was the parties they threw. As opposed to the student events thrown down at the College of Eastern Utah, these were typically wild-assed soirees where the liquor flowed, the tuneage thumped and everyone was dressed to the nines. I'll get a little more in-depth about those parties in a future story. They were a doozy!

We got down there around 10:15, met up with Peeze, Dane-o, and The Line-Stepper and commenced to having a couple drinks, limbo-ing and having a good time. I didn't intend on staying too long just because we had to get up early the next day to stand in line for the tickets. The years of self abuse had taken their toll by then and I just could'nt hang anymore. So I bailed around 11:15, catching a ride with Rachel, one of my teammates from the golf team.

I got back to 302 to find some of the girls from down the hall digging through the cupboards in the kitchen. "Where do you keep your bread?!" one of them yelled at me.

"What bread?" I slurred, my head already starting to pound. "What in the blue hell is going on?"

"She's in there throwing-up!" She hollered.

So I headed back up the hallway towards my room and I heard the moaning and retching noises coming out of the open bathroom door. I saw a trail of vomit leading from the door to the john as two more of the girls from down the hallway nearly ran me over. "Where are your paper towels?!"

"Paper towels? They're in the pantry." I answered. Why the fuck were they yelling at me? I looked in Crazy Pete's room. He was lying down on his bed, the faint odor of tequila and hurl was in the air. I looked on his desk, the entire fifth of Cuervo was reduced to about 3/4 of an inch in the bottom of the bottle. I had to look at the clock twice. 11:30. Yup, only an hour and fifteen minutes had passed since Candace had arrived. Zero to puking in an hour! "That's got to be some kind of a record!" I thought. "Pete, are you all right?" I asked shaking him back into the land of the living.

"Oh fuck dude, give me a minute." He moaned.

I figured things would get a little messy so I went into my room, flipped on Scott Ian's "Rock Show" on VH1 and changed out of my good clothes tossing on a pair of basketball shorts and my Megadeth t-shirt. Whitesnake's Still of the Night video kicked on as I decided it was time to take over. I retreated to the kitchen, filled a glass of water and went back down the hallway. I went into the bathroom where poor Candace was praying to the porcelain god. "Hey. Are you gonna be all right kiddo?" She looked up, the sweat and tears making the mascara bleed down her face, giving her the vague appearance of Alice Cooper in the early years. "Here, sip some of this, real slowly." I handed her the glass, trying to not look completely horrified. "It's just some cool water." Crazy Pete shuffled in. "Grab a washcloth out of the drawer, and soak it in some cool, but not cold water," I hollered at him.

"You asshole." He hissed as he handed me the washcloth.

I handed it to her, "Here, wash your face off a little bit and hold it against your forehead." I turned my attention to Pete, "Why am I the asshole?"

"If you hadn't have made me call her, this never would have happened. This is all YOUR fault, man!" He wasn't making any sense. In my previous days I probably would have let him have it, but my many years of experiencing consistently fucked up situations had tempered me. He was obviously still pretty drunk. Anything I said probably would have made the whole situation worse. But Christ, what the hell happened in that hour? And where the hell was VodkaRob? He better be having some fun. In my best Winston Wolf from Pulp Fiction impression I looked Crazy Pete dead in the eye and very calmly laid it out.

"Pete, we'll talk about this in the morning. Right now, we've got a sick girl on our hands that we need to take care of. And considering both you and VodkaRob are still underage, if we draw the attention of the RA or the Dean we are ALL fucked. So sober your ass up right now and help out. Go and empty out one of my cans of coffee." Evidently my great aunts, bless their little old hearts thought I drank twenty cups of coffee a day. So every time I went home to Price they'd send a giant-ass can of Folgers up with me.

Pete shuffled down into the kitchen and I got poor Candace another glass of water and a multi-vitamin. I walked past my room to see one of the girls from down the hall in there looking at my music collection. "Something I can do for ya?" I asked. She looked up, blank look on her face, "I like the heavy stuff too. Are you into Creed and Vertical Horizon?" she asked. My eyes rolled, this was definitely a conversation I did not need to have right now.

"Uhhh, not now," I said more annoyed than anything as I grabbed my extra blanket and pillow out of my closet and tossed them on the couch. "Okay Pete, I'm going to need some help right now dude. She threw up her shoes a minute ago so I think she's done yakking, let's have her lie down. We need to move her out to the couch." Pete and I carried her out, layed her down on the couch, propped up her head and threw a blanket on her. The girls from down the hall finally left and I grabbed a Dewzer out of the fridge. Pete sat down on the big chair and hung his head. "Pete, you did a good job tonight. I'm proud of ya. The two of you are going to be all right, man." I said.

"I think I love this girl." He slurred. "What went wrong?"

"Cheer up dude, you've still got a chance. One bad night isn't going to kill ya's. You saw how she was dressed when she came in, it's pretty damn obvious that she digs you." I continued, "Just take it a little bit slower next time, Dude." Silence. "Pete? Hey, bro?" I looked up at him. He had his head in his hands and was passed out snoring. I threw a blanket over his shoulders, turned out the living room light, and grabbed a mop. He was probably right, it was all my fault. I guess I deserved cleanup duty.

Metallica's Motorbreath jolted me out of bed at 7:30 the next day. Thankfully the headache was gone. I jumped in the shower, cleaned up and got dressed. Tickets went on sale promptly at 9:00 AM so we had to bust ass down to the store. As I walked out, the living room area was deserted. No sign of Crazy Pete or Candace. VodkaRob popped his head out his door, looking a little worse for wear. "Hang on, let me put on some pants and I'll go with you." He said groggily.

"Take your time. Just meet me out at the Blazer." I said walking out the door.

Rob walked up to the truck looking disheveled to say the least. "Rough night?" I asked.

"You don't want to know?" he replied.

We met Jose' and another buddy of mine, Little Nick, down at the grocery store and waited patiently for the ticket lottery. In walked Crazy Pete about twenty minutes later. "What a trooper bro! You're alive!" I exclaimed. "Why aren't you in bed dude? Rob and I could have handled this."

"I had to be here man. AC/DC." he replied, horns up.

"How much of your project did you get done?" Rob asked.

"Not a whole lot. That chick is nuts. I can't remember too much."

That's probably a good thing.

Epilogue:

We ended up getting awesome seats for AC/DC, right on the floor. I even scored a hottie rocker-chick, Jess, from the dorm for a date. This was a first for me for a big rock concert. Before the show, we shot a little video in the parking lot that planted the seed in VodkaRob, Jose' and I for a little project we're coming out with in a few months. VodkaRob started an on-again/off again relationship with one of the girls down the hall. And as for Crazy Pete, well, Crazy Pete got the girl. Pete and Candace got an "A" on their project and dated well into the following summer. She became yet another one of the crazy characters woven into the tapestry of the Room 302, the Penthouse of Residence Hall 3. Score one for the good guys.

Bonus:

Here's a rough cut of the video we shot in the E-Center parking lot before the tremenduous AC/DC Stiff Upper Lip show. Hope ya'll like it!

The ten albums that best describe who I am...

My old 9-Ball/trivia bitch Ben stumbled upon a hell of an idea. Which ten albums do the best job of explaining your personality. Kind of a desert island list here. What are the ten albums that shaped your world? Here's mine in no particular order at all:


1. AC/DC ~ Live (1992):
The first hard rock album that I ever purchased. This record captures their best recordings from one of the old Monsters of Rock tours. It was the first live record featuring Brian Johnson on the lead vox and the first live album the band released since 1978's If You Want Blood (You Got It) featuring Bon Scott. Now that one might be the better live record critically, but I didn't wear out two copies of that album in my old truck like I did with the Live record. It wasn't until I finally saw them live back in 2001 that I finally realized just how damn good that band really is. They are every bit as good and dare I say even more powerful live than they are on record. As a bonus, they're one of Keith Richards' favorite bands, and really, has that dude ever led us astray?


2. The Rolling Stones ~ Let It Bleed (1969)
Speaking of Keith Richards, when discussing the Stones, the first album almost every rock critic pulls out as the pinnacle of their career is 1972's Exile on Main St. But for my money you can definitely do worse than the record that came before it, Let It Bleed It captured the band in a state of flux. The band's founder and original rhythm guitarist Brian Jones died on the day the last tracks for this album were recorded. A lot of the band's most recognizable material came from this album like "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and "Gimme Shelter" but I kind of liked the deeper cuts like "Love In Vain" and "Monkey Man." This album also has Keith's lead vocal debut on one of my favorite songs called "You Got The Silver." Back in my senior year of high school, I had a shitty little clock radio that would also play tapes. So for the better part of a school year, I was woken up by a different Rolling Stones song every morning. "You Got The Silver" woke me up on the morning after I learned that my family was disintegrating. So that song kind of earned the title of the first song of the rest of my life.


3. Led Zeppelin ~ Houses of the Holy (1973)
Gotta echo Ben's sentiments here. Some of my most vivid memories growing up were playing this album on a seemingly endless loop while we were down in Nick's basement shooting pool and crushing Market Express Cherry Cokes. In fact, that record might have been the background music for "what Chad said," the single greatest psych out in amateur billiards history. I remember those times often because, things weren't exactly going the greatest for me at the time with the family situation and all, and I was a bitter, pissed off kid. Those days helped me get past it. Plus it also helped that one of those Page and Plant tours was the third concert we ever went to. My personal favorites off this disk, "D'yer Mak'er," "No Quarter," and "The Crunge." Also had a great mention in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure when noted thespian Keanu Reeves referred to ancient Greece as a "countryside that much resembled the cover of Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy."


4. Supersuckers ~ Motherfuckers Be Trippin' (2003)
I spent the better part of 2003 recovering from a very dark period in my life. Early 2003 found be flat broke, busted, unemployed and destitute. A buddy of mine took a chance on me and gave me a job that put me back in the golf business. Only this time, I was sitting on an overheating mower for eight hours a day in 105 degree heat. I actually really liked that job and it made me a more rounded professional later. Anyway, as I was sitting on a fairway mower hallucinating daily from heat sickness and trying to go in a straight line, more often than not, I was spinning this disc in my ancient CD player. I don't know why I didn't get into this band sooner. I think it was primarily because up until this point most of their songs were about smoking dope, which is one thing I've never really been into. This album though was primarily about drinking and fighting, which was a little bit more my speed. This one's a pretty solid punk and hard rock record highlighted by what's become a staple of their live sets the last few years "Pretty Fucked Up," as in "She used to be pretty, but now she's just pretty fucked up." It's a tune that finally made sense to me recently when I reconnected with an old friend. And in a lot of ways almost wish I hadn't. But hell, it's all good. Other awesome tracks on this disk include "Bruises to Prove It," "A Good Night For My Drinkin," and "Sleepy Vampire."


5. Metallica ~ Load (1996)
Okay, not their best album by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, most people would probably say pretty much every album not named St. Anger (which I actually kinda liked) was better than this one. And I'd be hard pressed to disagree. But for its time and place, namely rolling around in Bryan Wischer's 1982 Buick Regal in the summer of 1996 it's got its moments. Our little gang must have spun this cassette tape at least 1436 times while driving all over the state playing golf, camping and raising hell that summer. It provided a pretty good soundtrack to the last summer before our senior year. My personal favorite song off this one is the closing track "The Outlaw Torn," and was happy to see that song get fully fleshed out on their S & M album three years later. I also dug "The Hero of the Day," "Wasting My Hate," and "King Nothing." During my first Metallica concert, up at Weber State's football field, they were playing "Bleeding Me" when Ben, Nick, Chris and I, ditched our shitty seats, jumped the fence and stormed the pit. Along with about 1000 other heshers. Good times! Although, if I were stranded on a desert island I'd probably pick a different album from my favorite band.


6. Social Distortion ~ Social Distortion (1990)
I came along pretty late to this band, but was turned on to them by a few of my Metal Sludge brethren. Great old-school punk band that brought a lot of outlaw country influence (at least thematically) to the mix. Most hardcore fans of theirs will point towards Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell and White Light, White Heat, White Trash as better albums, but this album's got probably my favorite three songs of theirs: "Ball and Chain," their cover of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" and "Story of my Life" which is more or less my theme song nowadays. When I'm announcing games on the PA for Westminster Basketball, I play a lot of varied stuff that you'll rarely hear at any other sporting event, I'm not much of a "jock-jams" guy. But for the last 3:30 of halftime I've made it a custom to spin "Ring of Fire" as the team comes back out to get ready for the second half. When the crowd hears Mike Ness' chugging intro riff to that song, they know it's about time to get rowdy again and will the Griffins to victory.


7. Anthrax ~ The Sound of White Noise (1993)
Just an overall punishing record. When the band ditched Joey Belladonna in favor of Armored Saint's John Bush, they took on a much more serious tone than the goofy punk-infused thrash that they were known for previously. I'm usually not too big a fan when a band starts putting out more serious material. That's usually a good sign that they're becoming a little too full of themselves and are starting to get a little blowhardy. I listen to music primarily to elevate my mood, put a smile on my face, and get me jumping around like a freebasing orangutan. But this album just, plain works. They became more of a straight-up metal band with this record, and you're going to have to travel far and wide to find a better album sonically. My fondest experience listening to this album had to be borrowing my old college roommate's jacked up, top-off Jeep to drive across town one morning my senior year of college. My old Blazer was broken down, and I'd just had my wallet stolen the day before so I was feeling particularly shitty. And I needed to hit the DMV to get a new drivers license. He let me borrow his badass ride, complete with as loud a sound system as you could fit into that little thing, to run that errand. I threw in The Sound of White Noise, cranked it to eleven, and when the first couple blast beats from "Potters Field" kicked in I could literally see the windows on the dorm shake. Awesome. Great release and needless to say, I felt better. Also has the track "Black Lodge" which had one of the weirdest videos ever, directed by David Lynch and starring Jenna Elfman. I just had to sneak that track onto my playlist the day I got to host a four-hour show on the local rock station KBER 101.


8. Motley Crue ~ Motley Crue (1994)
Not a lot of people outside of the Metal Sludge community don't know about this hidden gem of a record. Hell, a lot of people don't even consider this a proper Motley album due to the band's firing of longtime lead singer, Vince Neil, a couple of years previous. In some ways they have a point, because this almost sounds like a brand new band. Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee and Mick Mars decided to soldier on and tabbed journeyman frontman John Corabi, formerly of a little known but excellent L.A. band called The Scream, to take Vince's place. The song's on this record took a decidedly darker and heavier tone on this album than the typical Motley party anthems that came before it. I'll tell you what though, I don't think Tommy Lee's drumming ever sounded better than it did on this album, and adding Corabi to the mix also added his solid rhythm guitar work as well. So instead of having to do all of the guitar work on the songs that freed up Mick to concentrate solely on the leads giving all of the songs a lot more depth. Corabi's scratchy, blues soaked vocals did turn off a lot of fans used to Vince's cleaner, high pitched wail. I played the hell out of this album back in college, often playing along with it with my own guitar, much to the dismay of my roommates or any dogs that happened to be in the neighborhood at the time. Listened to this record a lot on the driving range warming up for golf tournaments. My own personal favorite tune on this one is "Til Death Do Us Part," but I also like "Hooligan's Holiday," "Smoke the Sky," and "Uncle Jack." Give this one a chance folks, trust me, if after two or three spins you just can't get into it, feel free to call me an asshole.


9. Alice Cooper ~ Trash (1989)
I'd be remiss if I didn't include at least one Alice Cooper album on my list. The guy is hands down, and I will not argue about this, the most original American rock star of all time. And it's a goddamn crime against humanity that he isn't in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame right now while tripe like Steely Dan, and James Taylor is. Unbelievable bullshit. Anyway, I can't just pick a favorite Alice record because, well he's got 32 of them going back to 1967. Over the years, I've managed to acquire all of them and there isn't a shitty one of the bunch. But the Trash album got my foot in the door with the guy. Senior year of high school, on those long debate trips, I was spinning the hell out of that album in my little discman in the back of the bus. Always liked "Poison," the lead track but this disc was loaded with good tunes. "Bed of Nails," "House of Fire" and what's become my favorite over the years, "This Maniac's In Love With You." Alice often credited golf with helping him to finally kick his alcoholism and eventually save his life, and I certainly can relate to that. I can't imagine what kind of mess I'd be right now if I didn't have the game in my life. People need to get wise. Based on his total body of work, both with the original Alice Cooper Band and solo, Alice Cooper is the undisputed heavyweight champion of American rock and roll and it's not even close.


10. Guns N' Roses ~ Appetite For Destruction (1987)
Lightning in a bottle. One of only a few absolutely perfect albums ever made. And that's a statement backed up by hardcore fans, critics and even people that don't seem to like heavy music all that much. Even they all agree on this one. There isn't a single bit of filler on this record. Just an onslaught. Although songs like "Welcome to the Jungle," "Paradise City," "Night Train," and "Mr. Brownstone" are lyrically about the kind of trouble you can find if you try to "make it" in the big city and fail. Anybody that grew up in my little hometown could find something to relate to here. I didn't know too many kids my age that didn't own this album back home. When my buddy Rob and I went down to Vegas to see the "new" Guns N' Roses a couple of years ago, they ended up playing most of this album. It's now wonder, as much as I like Lies, Use Your Illusion, The Spaghetti Incident?, and even Chinese Democracy, they don't quite measure up to the debut. Lately I've been cranking it whenever "Out Ta Get Me" and "It's So Easy" pop up on the shuffle in my car. But the closing track, "Rocket Queen," I'm convinced, is probably the absolute apex of hard rock. One of my top 5 songs of all time. The whole album still gets regular spins in my car.


Honorable Mention: Prince ~ Purple Rain (Dude played the halftime show of the first Bears Super Bowl in 22 years!), L.A. Guns ~ A Nite on the Strip, Live! (Probably my favorite "hair" metal band), Rob Zombie ~ Hellbilly Deluxe (All of us on the 1997-1999 CEU Golf team played the hell out of this album on trips), Metallica ~ Death Magnetic (Great return to form for the band and has been the soundtrack of the chaos my professional life has been in since September), and a special honorable mention to my buddy Bryan Wischer's famous mix, "The Tape." (The only other cassette that ever seemed to find its way into the deck in his car during the Load summer.)


How say you folks, what are your "ten albums?"