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 Unfortunately, The Nate was becoming increasingly withdrawn, taking part in our weekend binges less and less frequently.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?"

The World Famous Dave Story, a Dorm Days Flashback...

Okay. Some good stuff happened last week, but it's all part of a bigger picture that I don't quite want to spill the beans on yet. But to tide you over until I get that story written, we'll continue the tour of some of my past writing. Here's an eight part story dealing with one of my roommates back in college. I originally published this story back on my old MySpace.com blog three years ago in January of 2006. It made the semifinals of a rather large writing contest that year and got me a little bit of attention. I often said that I'd be telling stories about this kid for the rest of my life, so I figured a few of these stories needed to go down on paper so my often booze soaked brain would never forget them. Strap in, this one is a little long, but there's a good message here. At the time we thought we were making this dude a better guy. It turned out that he made us better people. A quick disclaimer, as with all my Dorm Days flashbacks, time, and a couple thousand beers, can make things a little bit fuzzy. This was how I remember things went. If you were around back then and you noticed that I screwed up the details a little bit, let me know!

"The Passion of The Dave"
(March - May 2000)

I:
I awoke from my afternoon nap around 4:30 on Tuesday afternoon on March 28, and wiped the sleep out of my eyes. Suddenly I heard a faint ringing from the apartment's main phone line. This was never a good sign, none of us even knew the number for that phone and every time it rang, something bad was about to happen. Only administration types had that number. I saw the caller ID on the phone; it was the Student Life Director's office, which probably meant we were in trouble again. It had been about a month and a half since the party we had thrown in our dorm apartment, room 302 - The Penthouse of Residence Hall 3. The story of that party will be told at another time, but just so you know, there was fallout involved. Ever since, we felt the ever-watchful eye of the Dean upon all of us. She made it pretty clear to us that she was not to be fucked with. "Hello?" I picked up the phone.

"This is Britton Bates, Director of Student Life, do you have a minute?"

"Yeah no problem, what's up?" I slurred out groggily.

"We have a solution to your roommate problem Mr. Nickas"

"I wasn't aware we had a problem."

"You have two empty rooms in your unit and we just found you a new roommate."

"Well, the more the merrier, I guess." I replied.

"But there may be some issues," she continued, "He grew up in a troubled home, and lived a sheltered life. We figured down here, that if anybody can crack his shell, it would be you guys."

"So what are you getting at?" I questioned.

"Listen Nickas, he's suffered through a traumatic childhood, but he's a brilliant student. It was all he had. If you guys can show him a few methods of peer interaction, and try to make him feel a little more normal, it'd go a long way toward smoothing out your reputations with the Dean." She absolutely sledgehammered that last point down. From what I could gather, helping this kid out might buy us a little bit of leeway and get our crew to the end of the semester without getting kicked out of school.

"When is he moving in?" I asked.

"In about three hours."

"And it's a done deal?"

"Yeah, he'll be there about 7:30."

I took inventory of the situation. We're getting a new roommate in three hours. There's only one month left in my first school year away from home. Where the hell were the other guys? Junior was at work, Big Nick was down at the weight room, and The Nate was in class. I've got class in a half hour! So I called Junior at work, he was not pleased, but empathized with the situation. He was the new guy just three months previous. On my way down to the cafeteria, I ran into Nate. He was not very hot on the subject to say the least. I grabbed a tray of food and plopped down into a booth where Big Nick, lean protein fanatic, was crushing his post workout meal of a couple of grilled chicken breasts with salsa.

"Are we going to make this work?" he asked.

"We don't have any choice in the matter. She sounded pretty serious on the phone, at least this might get us out of trouble."

With everybody warned and ready to roll out the welcome wagon, I cruised to class where I endured an hour and ten-minute lecture on the consequences of the deteriorating European treaty system in the late 1800's and how it eventually led to WWI. Doc Welsh was a fascinating teacher, but this was one of the less interesting lectures he'd given all year and I was chomping at the bit to get back to 302 and figure out a plan.7:15 hit and it could not have come soon enough. I was back to the penthouse in a flash. Big Nick and his Tuesday night girl Heather, Nate, Junior, and my girlfriend at the time Jules were all in the kitchen having a drink. They asked me exactly what was said on the phone, so I grabbed a Michelob and relayed the story again. Nobody was thrilled. We all agreed to meet over breakfast in the morning to discuss what we were going to do. Room 302 had been a revolving door since December when Jerry Flynt and the Mormon kid had left. The Dowder had quit school just three weeks ago. We just wanted some stability. But as I grew to learn, stability was a luxury we never were going to enjoy.

II:
There was a knock at the door. I opened it up and found an unruly mop of dandruffed hair staring back at me. He looked up, his Peter Gallagher style eyebrows arched, "I'm David, your new roommate."

"Welcome to the club dude! Come on in!" I exclaimed in a manner that didn't exactly convey my true emotions at the time. Dave took one step in the door, caught our doormat in just the wrong way and went flying ass over teakettle, crashing to the floor in a heap! We're talking Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford style here. His little shaving kit burst open, spilling pill bottles all over the kitchen floor.

"Holy shit dude! Are you okay? Let me help you," as I started putting the bottles back into his bag. I noticed a few of the names on the prescriptions, Lithium Carbonate, Xanax, Haldol, and penicillin. "Nice cocktail of anti-psychotic, and mood stabilizers," I thought silently, just happy to have remembered any of the shit from Psychology outside of the classroom. I helped him to his feet. "David, this is Big Nick, Doug or as we call him Junior, Nate, Heather, and Jules. I'm Nickas. Anything you need dude, just let us know. Your room is right over there, just don't touch the wire coming out of your wall. It's our cable hookup." Jerry Flynt had a cable TV hookup in his room that they conveniently forgot to shut off. A little creative wiring later, and we all had cable.

"Do you need any help carrying anything in bro?" Big Nick offered.

"I've got everything in my bag here, but thank you." He said quietly. His whole life was in a little duffel bag and a backpack.

Everybody sort of separated. Big Nick had to work on a paper so he sent Heather home. The Nate hit the sack. Junior took off to find himself some strange ass, and Jules and I retired to my room to finish our drinks and kick back. About a half hour later, I see Dave walk past my door toward Big Nick's room. For about fifteen minutes there was dead silence. I peered out the door to see Dave staring at Nick while he was typing. Five more minutes go by. Big Nick finally looks up, "What's up buddy?"

"Thank you." Said Dave creepily, as he slowly turned walked back towards his room. Jules and I finished our wine and said goodnight. I was more than a little nervous and slept with one eye open that night.

The next morning I met Big Nick and Junior down at the cafeteria. You could tell none of us slept a wink the night before. Where the hell was Nate? As I got up to grab another cup of coffee Nate crashed into our booth looking a little worse for wear. "What the hell happened to you, amigo?" I asked.

"Dude, I'm alone with him on that side of the apartment. He's fuckin' weird, man."

"Care to elaborate?" Junior quipped. "Yeah, this morning I woke up to hear him making noises in the shower. Strange noises. Like the Three Stooges or something, NYUK! NYUK! NYUK! WHOOOO! I don't know what he was doing in there, but it was freaking me out!" Two minutes of masturbation jokes went by and then we finally decided to storm Ms. Bates' office and find out what his deal was. She was less than thrilled to see us, but gave us what information she could. It turned out that he had found his father swinging from a shower rod when he was a small child and grew up with an alcoholic and abusive mother. He had some serious emotional issues growing up. We still weren't sure how we could help, but we figured we would just try to treat him like a normal, everyday Joe. Little did we know, just how tough that would end up being.

III:
None of us saw Dave until three days later, until I returned home from my job one afternoon to see him sitting in the living room talking to Annie, our hottie RA. Typical situation for anyone new to the dorms, but a very atypical scene based solely on what he was wearing. That is, he wasn't wearing any pants. All that he had on were just a pair of briefs and a sweater. For the first time since I moved to Salt Lake I did not know what to say. You could tell that Annie was uncomfortable as hell to say the least, but her policy was that she always had time to listen to her residents. She got up to leave looking at me like she had just seen Elvis alive or something, said hello to me and walked out the door. "Everything all right?" I asked, as I snagged a Michelob out of the fridge.

"Everything is great." Dave muttered with a goofy look on his face as he went into his room and closed the door.

"Well, that wasn't weird or anything." I thought to myself as I threw Anthrax's The Sound of White Noise disc into my stereo and plugged in my guitar.

IV:
A few days later, I was alone in the apartment cooking up some Philly cheese steaks in the kitchen and in walks Dave. He was dragging his right leg, which seemed to be encased in some kind of giant full-length splint. "Christ dude, are you okay? What the hell happened?"

"I just...I just woke up this morning, and my leg felt like it was broken. So my grandmother brought me a brace."

"What did the doctor tell you?" I asked. "He said he couldn't find anything wrong. I don't believe him though." Dave replied and walked into his room before I could ask any more nosy questions.

I finished plating my sandwich, grabbed a beer and went into my room. Five minutes later I hear somebody running past my door, slamming into Big Nick's door, and then running back past mine again down the hallway. I opened the door, peered down towards Nate and Dave's half of the apartment and saw nothing. Ten minutes later, I heard the same thing. Same result, only I heard a door slam on the other half of the apartment. "It sounds like he's running ladders or something." I thought, plucking the strings on my Epiphone. The next day I had two separate conversations with both Big Nick and Junior who had heard the same thing over the course of the previous week. Double weird.

V:
The next weekend, I went home to Price for my family's Easter celebration. We typically barbecue a whole lamb on a spit, and make a big party out of it. The local Orthodox priest even joins us, about twenty-five people in all. It is always nice to see everybody, even if it is only once a year. Anyway, that Saturday night, WWF wrestler The Rock, with special musical guests AC/DC hosted Saturday night live. Thinking that it might be a good show, I dialed up The Nate to ask him to hit record on my VCR when the show started. "I might not be able to." The Nate said quietly over the receiver, almost whispering.

"What's the matter?" "I'm stuck in my room. He's outside my door, wigging out at the mirror."

"What the hell?" I said, "What is he saying?" I wasn't really buying it, but who knew?

"He's wearing a jacket with a clip-on tie. Get this though, he is not wearing any pants, just his underwear! He's yelling shit at the mirror like "YOU LOSE! YOU LOSE! YOU'RE RUINING MY LIFE!"" The Nate started to sound scared. "I'm watching out the peephole in my door. Uh-oh," He stopped.

"Nate, what the hell is going on?!" "I think he saw me. Jesus Christ, my door is shut, but I think he knows I've been watching him. He looked up in the mirror!" The Nate paused momentarily, "I think he just left." He said exhaling.

"Okay, keep your door shut and lock it tonight before you go to bed, and if he leaves, hit record on my VCR bro. Just sit tight, I'll be back tomorrow night."I hung up the phone. That episode of SNL was probably the high water mark of that particular era. The Nate managed to hit record in time.

VI:
It was two in the morning a week later, Jules and I were curled up under a blanket watching "She's All That" or something equally Prinze-ey. The credits rolled, "I've got to go home. My friend's coming to visit in the morning." She said.

"I'll walk ya over there, kiddo." I replied, not sure if I was still asleep or not. As she was putting her shoes back on, I smelled something burning. Like a melted tire. "Christ almighty, what the hell is that?" We creeped down to the end of the hall to the little sliding door that we had taken to shutting lately. This sealed the Big Nick/Junior/Nickas half of the apartment from the main area. I could hear someone milling around in the kitchen so I cracked the sliding door open very quietly and peered into the darkness. There was Dave in his familiar sweater/jockey shorts garb standing in front of the microwave. All I could see was something blue spinning around in there. But the smell was something else entirely. It could strip the varnish off a footlocker! "You better wait a second darlin'." I whispered.

"Let me see." She said, poking her head through the sliding door. She pulled back quickly. "Wow. Just...wow. Does he do this all the time?" she asked.

"Naw, this is the first time I've seen this," I said as the eerie blue light emanating from the microwave grew brighter and brighter. By this time, Big Nick and Junior had joined us in the hallway. And all four of us were quietly watching the scene unfold. Dave started rummaging through the utensil drawer.

"Shit! He's using my tongs!" Big Nick hissed.

Dave used the tongs to remove some kind of smoky, dark mass the size of a softball out of the microwave. The smell threatened to knock us all over. He dropped it into a little black bag, zipped it up and shuffled down his and Nate's hallway, quietly closing the door. We collectively exhaled and made our way into the common area. Suddenly Nate slipped out of his room in his blue bathrobe, wild look in his eyes. "I told you he was crazy! You assholes thought I was nuts, but what do you call that?"

"Pretty weird." Was all I could muster as I walked Jules across the floor hallway to her room and gave her a kiss goodnight. We never did find out what the blue thing was.

VII:
Junior was sitting in his room typing up a paper on his laptop one afternoon. In shuffles Dave. "Doug, do you have any scissors that I could borrow?" he asked.

"I don't, but ask Nickas, he might have some." Junior said, probably wary to give him any sharp objects.

I overheard this and dug through my shoebox full of school supplies. I did not have any decent scissors, but I managed to come across a pair of those shitty rounded safety scissors from the fucking third grade. "I know they suck bro, but will these work?" I asked as he came into my room.

"Thank you." He muttered quietly as he walked away toward his and The Nate's half of the apartment.

About half an hour later I heard the main door close. Dave must have taken off to get some chow or something. Nate soon came home from work. The guy had started to get a little less personable over the last month or so. Dave's antics were obviously a little too much for him and seemed to be wearing him down little by little. Nate obviously saw shit that none of the rest of us had, but was reluctant to talk about it. I think the episode with the mirror really fucked with his head. And he was clearly agitated that he had to deal with it after he paid $20,000 a year just to attend the school.

"You guys! Get in here and check this out!" he hollered. Junior and I grabbed our beers and cruised down the hallway. In the bathroom sink, there was a large pile made up of clumps of hair of varying length. My shitty ass scissors lay on the floor. Dave had given himself a haircut.

VIII:
I arrived home from class a few days later to find Dave in my room perusing my CD collection. I had an open door policy with my room. If you wanted to borrow a disc or a movie or something, feel free. Just let me know when you see me. He looked up as I walked in. "What's up buddy?" I asked.

"You have quite a strange collection. Of music." He said quietly. I had everything from some Johnny Cash gospel albums to Morbid Angel in there. Kind of contradictory, but I like it. "Some of this is, well, kind of Satanic. You're not into the occult or anything are you?" He looked almost scared holding my copy of Slayer's Seasons in the Abyss. Having had this same conversation with my grandmother the previous summer, I patiently explained to him that it was all an act, they did not really worship Satan and neither did I. Hell, I was a Christian, just not necessarily of the fire and brimstone type.

"I just like the guitar work." I said.

"Oh, you play guitar?" He spied my shitty little Epiphone Strat sitting in the corner.

"I just like to dick around with it a little bit, I'm really not any good." I said laughing. "I straight up suck! You play?" I asked.

"A little, but I haven't played in a long time." He said.

"Well here, strap it on dude." I handed him my axe and kicked the power button on my shitty little Peavey amp. Next thing I know, he's laying down a bitchin' little bluesy guitar solo! "Dude, where'd you learn how to do that!?"

"My grandpa played a little bit for me when I was a kid. I only know that one." He said, turning red in the face. "Nickas, can I ask you a question?"

"I'm all ears bro, what's on your mind?"

"Do the other guys hate me?" I was a little taken aback. "No, nobody hates you David, but to be totally honest, you have made us a little bit nervous from time to time." I said honestly. "How so?""Well..." and I kind of laid out some of the stuff that had happened over the last month. "Now listen" I told him, "I'm trying not to be judgmental or anything because maybe it's just your shtick, but some of this stuff might be seen by a lot of people as, well a little strange. At first everybody was a little weirded out, but now we're kind of concerned."

"Sometimes my medicine makes me kinda black out and I don't know what's going on. I'm sorry about that."

"I've been meaning to ask you about that bro. Now I know it's none of my business, but my textbook says some of that shit shouldn't be mixed together. You might want to narrow it down to one doctor who knows his shit and can take care of ya." He nodded in agreement. "And trust me," I added, "If we didn't care about you, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation. If you live in this unit, you're one of the family. We're all a little bit fucked up in here. Hell, I think that is why they put us all together. We just don't want to see you getting hurt. And for god sakes, next time you need a haircut let me know and I'll loan ya $20, leave that to the pros!"

That was the first time I'd seen Dave laugh since he moved in. I shook his hand, and told him that for the next week, if he was not sure about his response to a certain situation, to not be afraid to ask what to do. And he definitely took us up on it. We even got him to lob his first middle finger at some asshole in the cafeteria! For the first time in his life, he was just one of the guys.

Epilogue:
A week later we all went our separate ways for the summer. None of us are really sure what happened to Dave. But I heard from a fairly reliable source that his grandpa had passed on and left him a rather sizeable inheritance. Dave was no longer crazy. He was eccentric! I ran into him recently on the train ride home from work one day. He still had the unibrow, but he looked anything but the disheveled outcast we knew back in the days of Dorm Apartment 302. He even had a steady job working at a little watering hole downtown, not that he has to work anyway. He said he just liked being around people. I learned a lot from that kid, and I am glad to see he is doing okay.

Flashing back a few years...

Okay, this first one is from a few years ago. This is the first time that I ever really described in writing one of the two main reasons why I love the game as much as I do. I'm not the most religious guy in the world, but I definitely felt something otherworldly. Or maybe the wind finally quit blowing down there, who knows?

Confessions of a NyQuil Addicted, Hard Rocking, Golf Pro From Hell Part 2:

(Originally published on the old blog back in November of 2005)

It's been a really weird year. Financially, it's been decent, but I'm still barely above water. Like idiots, my sister and I re-upped for another year in our apartment. It's the kind of place that I'm pretty sure any building inspector worth their salt would probably condemn on the spot. Our landlord is a total asshat. But the location is too convenient to leave. I worked pretty hard on fixing things up inside and trying to make it nice. But the end result is a beautiful crumbling mess. It'll get better.

Business was pretty good this year. Shop work was pretty much the same as it always is, but despite being crippled by a no-compete lesson policy that prohibits me from advertising my rates, I've actually made a few new lesson clients this year and have really improved as a swing teacher. Hell, I even taught a semester of an actual "for-credit" golf class, which probably makes me the worst former college student on record ever to actually teach for a major university. Da Professah! I even managed to win a few bucks in tournaments this year, although I was a major under-achiever in that department.

Now on to the meat and potatoes of this episode of "Confessions." I recently returned from a weekend getaway to Las Vegas with some folks I met on my vacation last year out in Hollywood. Had a hell of a great time out there with the Cracker, Nate, Cross, Gray, Desiree, and Renee. Drank more than should be legal, lit some cash on fire playing the slots, and made one of the greatest blackjack comebacks of all time to come out ahead a whole dollar! Saw the shark aquarium at the Madalay and some Muay Thai Kickboxing which was some brutal shit. May the Westward Ho rest in pieces. Their $2 margarita was quite simply the greatest liquor value known to man. It was kind of refreshing to be able to walk around on the street with a drink, compared to Utah where you can only drink in a basement with the lights turned off. The Bears won and I still lost my bet. But it's little sacrifices like using my shitty luck to propel them to victory that make a playoff contender! The Fremont Street Experience was the freakin' bombola!

The last time I visited Sin City was waaaaay back in December of 1996! That was the last time my family ever took a road trip/vacation together. On that trip, I was kind of in my "retreat inside myself" phase so I pretty much wandered the strip by myself or with my buddy Curtis the whole trip. Pausing only to eat breakfast and dinner with my family, I had a damn good time. Even won a couple small jackpots. Much like now, I looked a hell of a lot older than I was. Hell, I was just a senior in high school! As an icing on the cake, I returned home to find out I was seemingly the only person in the whole debate club that wasn't suspended that week due circumstances surrounding what ended up being pretty much the only tournament weekend I didn't attend in two years! Funny shit!

Unfortunately, I've got some serious regrets about that trip. Little did I know, my family was crumbling all around me, and my ass was just too much of a space cadet to realize it. This was probably the last opportunity I would ever have to have some quality time with my sister, mother, and father all together. Three months later, my mom split town on us and threw my life into a tailspin. It seemed like everything I had ever believed in my life was now bullshit. For awhile I completely withdrew from everything, save for a small group of friends and my dad. At first I was bitter, and pissed off, throwing blame around like any ignorant teenager probably would.

Then one day, the following summer I was out by myself playing golf at good ol' Carbon Country Club. As was typical at the time I was thinking about what a mess I was. It was late in the day, right around dusk, and the course down home seemed completely deserted. I striped my tee shot down 18 and walked to my ball. When I reached my ball, I had a good look around and something weird happened. I noticed the grass was the most beautiful shade of green I'd ever seen. The sand in the trap seemed pearl white, even though it was the same shitty sand we'd always had. The clouds in the sky looked to be on fire as the little remaining light cast what seemed to be the air around me in the most surreal shade of blue. The scene gave me pause, and then for the first time a sense of total calmness came over me as all the chaos and strife in my life seemingly lifted away. It was almost like someone or something else was there standing next to me letting me know that everything was going to be all right. Then I stepped up to my ball, and shanked it straight into the weeds. But you know what, I didn't care, because I was in a good state of mind. Things were going to be all right.

Now, in the years since, I've certainly had some ups and downs. But ever since that day I've been chasing that feeling again. That's kept me around golf more than any reason. Just so there's a chance I might feel that indescribable presence and feeling of calm again. I'm telling you it felt better than any over the counter, prescription drug or liquor I've ever had. Who knows what it was, but I'd love to feel it again just one more time.

The Great Westward Ho Blackjack Comeback of 2005
L-R Alan, Nate, The Golf Monster, Cracker

Been awhile...

Folks! Sorry it's been so long. Been kind of a weird Winter and as soon as I'm able, I can't wait to let you know what's been going on. Got some big changes coming up for me professionally, and I'm both nervous and a little excited. I promise some regular, new material on this site very soon. So, to tide you all over, I'm going to import all of my old writing over to this site over the next couple weeks. If you've seen it before, I hope it's still as good. If you're just stumbling across this stuff due to my incessant whoring over on the Facebook page, please let me know what you think! Thanks!