The True Confessions of a Film Freak: First Edition

For anyone that knows me well, they know I'm a movie junkie.  I like them all, from great movies like Casablanca to films that are pretty much universally considered to be tripe.  Freddie Got Fingered comes to mind there.  I like long movies, short movies, documentaries, and everything in between.  As I was mentioning in my previous entry, I'm a regular listener to a weekly podcast called The Film Vault on ACE Broadcasting.  This ought to be required listening for anyone into the cinema.  On each show, the two hosts, Anderson Cowan and Brian Bishop spend a segment discussing the last few films each of them have watched in the previous week.  This often leads to some frank discussion of each others tastes, and frequently involves some bustin' balls.  Always good stuff.  So I figured I'd bare my movie loving soul for ya'll on a weekly basis.  I'll confess a few movies that I've watched in the last week.  This will typically include two or three features, a documentary, and a segment on a basic cable standard, and I'll sprinkle my opinions on each.  I'm not going to pretend to be highbrow.  But hopefully, I can point you in the direction of some decent movies, or some horrible movies if you need a laugh.  Oh yeah, there will be a spoiler or two, but only on the older flicks.  Here we go!

The Features:

(1984)

Starring:  Michael Keaton, Joe Piscopo, Maureen Stapleton, Marilu Henner, Peter Boyle

What the hell happened to Michael Keaton?  That guy was all over the place between Night Shift in 1982 and Batman Returns in 1992.  It was an incredible body of re-watchable work in a ten-year span, many of which I'll be profiling in this space.  And then, really nothing of note save for the occasional cameo here or there.  Damn shame if you ask me.  Dude was every bit as comfortable playing an over-the-top role (Beetlejuice) as he was as a straight man (Hunt Stevenson in Gung Ho).  He could even play a stone-cold psychopath (Carter Hayes in Pacific Heights).  He had great range.  

Johnny Dangerously features Keaton as a mobbed up guy with a heart of gold in a sendup of 30's gangster flicks.  He takes up crime as a young boy as a means to pay for his mother's comically expensive surgeries.  Joe Piscopo (who made Keaton's post '92 workload look like Bruce Willis') plays his rival in the gang, Danny Vermin.  Great fucking name.  Maybe the best sounding internet handle after Jackie Treehorn.  This flick throws out sight-gag after sight-gag and wacky hijinks ensue.

This came up on the HBO comedy channel at around 1:30 AM the other night, and that might be the best time to see it, in a sleep-deprived haze.  I must have seen this movie a hundred times growing up.  It was one of my old man's faves.  His favorite character being that of evil nightclub owner Roman Maronie, played by another 80's character staple, Richard Dimitri.  Maronie unsuccessfully attempts to murder the leader of Johnny's gang and commits wholesale slaughter on the english language as shown here:

Fargin Iceholes!  Goddamn hilarious.  Bottom line, if you like stuff like Airplane!, give this a shot.

(1976)

Starring:  Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, William Katt (The Greatest American Hero!), Nancy Allen, and an if-you-blink-you-miss-him John Travolta

Yeesh!  Carrie was goddamn creepy the first time I saw it when I was twelve, and it still gives me the chills to this day.  This story of a teenage misfit with telekinetic abilities taking out the frustrations of a shitty home-life on her tormentors by ruthlessly massacring them on prom night will freak you out.  Jesus, the first time I ever saw the very last scene I nearly pissed myself, and it still gives me the douchechills!  

Director Brian De Palma's set design did a great job of making ordinary, benevolent things look strangely menacing.  The creepy-assed St. Sebastian statue in Carrie's prayer closet is a good example.  LOOK AT IT'S FUCKING GLOWING EYES!  But he really gets his money's worth out of his sound designer who combined popular soft-rock songs of that era with creepy sounding organ music, and enough squeaks, screams, and bangs to create an almost Hitchcockian atmosphere. 

I don't know whether to pray for forgiveness or run away screaming like a kid with a skinned knee and shit

 But the real standout star in my opinion was Carrie's psychotic, religious fundamentalist madre, played by Piper Laurie, who, sadly ended up doing mostly TV Movie of the week work after this.  She had several awesome monologues in this movie.  Just absolutely chewing scenery in an unreal performance.  Here's my personal favorite:  

I LIKED IT!  IIIIII LIKED IT!!!  What a whackaloon!  See this one if you haven't already.  IFC's been playing it at night every few days lately.


 My feature Doc of the week:

(2010)

Directed by:  Josh Fox


GasLand popped up on HBO last summer the day I got back from a vacation to see the Yankees in Phoenix.  It begins with the filmmaker, Josh Fox receiving a letter from an energy company offering a few bucks to drill for natural gas on his land.  The most popular natural gas extraction method is known as hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" in which a highly pressured mixture of water and volatile chemicals is injected deep into the ground to break up shale rock formations and release the gas.  

Not sure what that would do to his land, he set off across the country to see how this method of natural gas extraction is affecting the people who made the decision to allow the drilling rigs on their land.  I know you guys want an example.  Here ya go:

Here's the thing.  These gas rigs are absolutely dotting the landscape all over the place these days.  Where Saudi Arabia and "The-Iraq" have the world's largest petroleum deposits, the United States is pretty much the exact same way with natural gas.  So there's tons of jobs at stake, and a glimmer of hope for energy independence.  But for fucks sake, people's water shouldn't be lighting on fire.  This flick was a real eye-opener, and it was recently nominated for an Academy Award.  It's damn good.  And it kinda freaked me out considering my hometown is virtually surrounded by huge natural gas fields.

And now, a short review of a short:

(2009)

Moth:  Hot actress burns a J, hoovers three rails, and pops a handful of pills.  Trips out in a bathtub and sees wolves and shit.  Kinda sucked.













This Week's Basic Cable Standard:

(1989)

Starring:  Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita, Thomas Ian Griffith, Martin Kove, Robyn Lively, Sean Kanan

Karate Kid 3!  While the first Karate Kid movie is an undeniable watershed moment of my formative years, the brand got a bit watered down as the years went by.  But this one might be one of the most re-watchable of any of the multitude of unnecessary sequels to early 80's flicks that were released in the latter part of that decade.  Simply because the plot is beyond ridiculous.  


Millionaire industrialist asshole takes time away from doing whatever it is that millionaire industrialist assholes do to assist his old buddy from Vietnam's attempt to ruin the life of a high-school karate champion and resurrect their evil dojo franchise.  After about twelve beers that actually seems to make sense.  Sober however, it fails miserably.

What makes this flick enjoyable are the little things you notice when you watch it for the 563rd time.  It also benefits from a small amount of research.  I'm fascinated by the fact that Ralph Macchio, the aforementioned Karate Kid, was actually a year older than Thomas Ian Griffith, playing Terry Silver, said billionaire industrialist asshole.  Daniel-San was supposedly a senior in high school in this movie.  This means Terry Silver was up to his asshole in the muck in in Southeast Asia, mowing down the North Vietnamese with John Kreese AS A ZYGOTE during the height of the Vietnam war.

Robyn Lively puts up with a lot as Jessica, replacing the iconically yummy Elisabeth Shue from the first film, as Daniel-San's apparent love interest.  I say apparent because he seems much more interested in hanging out with a 65-year-old maintenance man than with her,  Describing Mr. Miyagi as "my partner and best friend."  But hey, Miyagi has the ability to massage a body part back to life.  The jokes write themselves.  This movie might be joining Top Gun as two of the most sneakily homoerotic movies ever made.


It's a great testimony as to how much of an unlikeable douchebag Daniel-San was, that in three movies spanning the course of a year, three different groups of people on two different continents took time out of their busy lives to fuck with him.  Is it any wonder that people are making homemade cuts of these flicks, casting the Cobra Kai in a more sympathetic light?  They were obviously just misunderstood.  STRIKE FIRST!  STRIKE HARD!  NO MERCY!

This flick had a great run on basic cable throughout the 90's.  TNT, USA, and TBS were literally built on the backs of films like this, Road House, Rocky IV, and Beastmaster 2.  And now it's popping up again on Encore or HBO 8, The Ocho.  It still passes the remote control test.

The one where a random musing reminds me of an old Dorm Days Flashback...

Coming up later this week will be the debut of a weekly feature here on the ‘Monster. I’m calling it the “True Confessions of a Film Freak.” If you listen to the awesome weekly podcast on ACE Broadcasting called The Film Vault (and if you aren’t, you should, it’s a must-listen for any fan of the cinema), they have a segment on each of their shows where they confess to the movies they’ve watched in the previous week. Their tastes tend to run fairly high-brow. Mine, unfortunately, do not. It’s been established that I have very little in the way of shame, so weekly here on the blog, I’m going to confess the films I’ve seen that previous week and accept your mockery. 

Today I was spending some time filling out a little paperwork. But it wasn’t just any paperwork; it was a Resident Advisor Candidate Recommendation Form for one of my Griffins Women golfers. She wants to be an RA next year. Now, for anyone who has read my writing, especially the stories about my college life, The Dorm Days, know I was never a big fan of rules back in the day, and would expend a foolishly ridiculous amount of effort to circumvent them. I was a moron. So the irony wasn’t lost on me as I answered some questions as to why I think she would be an awesome college dorm authority figure. She’s going to be a great RA. And not by the “college-me’s” fucked up standards, but because she’s exactly who they are looking for. 

That leads to tonight’s entry. It was one of the last on the old site before it died, so a lot of you probably missed it.  It’s a tale of heartbreak, frustration, debauchery and redemption. This is the final classic piece of my writing from my old blog, and the last of the original “Dorm Days: The Penthouse Chronicles” stories. Don’t worry, there will be some new ones coming down the pike: 

“The Good, Bad Week” 

(August 2001) 

Originally posted to the old blog in January, 2008 

There was a light at the end of the tunnel and it was called my senior year of college. The old digs had been abandoned. The Penthouse of Room #302 in Residence Hall #3 had finally passed on to some new denizens as Big Nick, VodkaRob and I had just moved into the newest building on campus, Residence Hall #5. The standard 6-bedroom setup was no more, now we had a choice between 2, 3, 4, and 5 bedroom apartments. In the springtime of the previous year, the administration had an open sign-up date to request roommates. Big Nick and I thought we’d give the 2-bedroom apartment a shot, but there were only three available in the new building so we figured we’d have to be the first in line to sign up, like waiting in line for concert tickets or something. So I slipped a buddy of mine on the maintenance crew twenty bucks and he let us into the Dean’s office waiting room at 5:30 in the morning. Not even the cafeteria cooks would be coming in until 6:00! We had it for sure! The cafeteria opened at 6:30 and people started crowding in around the waiting room’s locked door. They were pissed when the Dean finally showed up to unlock the door, only to find Big Nick and me already in there! Especially considering we were already her favorite targets of scorn, (see: pretty much every story up to this point!), it made it especially satisfying at the time to get our requested room. 

VodkaRob and Crazy Pete were the next ones in. In retrospect though, it turned out to be a mistake. Crazy Pete ended up getting a spot in the Navy House, and left VodkaRob on his own. Big Nick and I should’ve gotten the 3-bedroom setup with VodkaRob. As it stood, the only thing that could split up the chemistry of #302 was our own stupid decisions. We shouldn’t have left him hanging like that, and that’s one of my big regrets from that period in time. We could’ve had some fucking fun. Luckily VodkaRob ended up only two doors down in room #304, so it wasn’t like he was clear across campus or anything. Not only that, but it turned out his bedroom seemed like it was as big as Big Nick and my whole apartment! But still, it was kind of a bummer. As luck would have it Big Nick and my top-floor 2-bedroom unit had a familiar number. Yup, we were in Apartment #302 Part II! 

Anyhow, that may be the very first example of somebody starting a story off with an aside. Kids, that’s guaranteed to get you a “D” on any paper you write in the future! But fuck it, it’s been awhile, so I figured I’d better bring you folks up to speed. This story is going to chronicle the third week of school, my senior year. It was easily one of the most eventful weeks in my college life, and certainly the biggest roller coaster. I went through damn near every emotion there was that week, and still somehow came out of it with a smile on my face. We’re just gonna take this one in chronological order. 

Tuesday, August 28th, 2001 

I was getting ready to head to work when Coach DP called me down to his office for a chat. I should’ve known something was wrong when he was sitting in there with the athletic department’s liaison to the registrar’s office. She was the one that certified us and made sure we were all academically eligible to play our chosen sports. “We’ve got a problem Nickas,” coach said with a concerned look on his face. 

“What’s up?” I replied, wondering what the hell was going on. 

“According to the NAIA rules of progress, we just discovered that you are 1 credit hour short over the course of the past 4 years of your eligibility. We just caught it, and we’ve filed an appeal on your behalf, because it was our mistake. But during the appeals process we’ve got to hold you out of the first two tournaments this season,” said the liaison. 

Evidently I’d been borderline eligible throughout my stay at Westminster, but I had taken a just-above-full-time schedule the previous semester that pulled me a single hour short of the limit. The one summer-session class that I’d signed up for getting cancelled due to my being the only registrant didn’t help either. They explained the steps I needed to take, and had me sign the appeals paperwork, and I just walked out of the coach’s office, pissed off. I went to work and lost myself in the driving range. 

What a shitty start to the school year! Golf Girl was gone, she’d transferred elsewhere two weeks before school started, never to be seen again. My buddy VodkaRob got ditched by his roommate, and now this! Things can only go up from here, right? Nope. 

Wednesday, August 29th, 2001 

After a mostly sleepless night, I awoke to a brand new day. After meeting up with VodkaRob and Crazy Pete for breakfast down in the cafeteria, I cruised to my first class, sociology of the elderly, and realized I’d forgotten my notebook and a pen. Not good, but luckily, the swingin’ gal sitting next to me, Jan, hooked me up. “You all right?” she asked. 

“Must be losing my mind or something,” I mumbled. Smooth man, real smooth. 

Sitting in class was like pulling teeth, but it just seemed like I was biding my time for the afternoon. I was scheduled to play in an 8-man team golf match with my co-workers at Rose Park Golf Course against those rotten bastards from Park City Municipal Golf Course. 12:30 hit and I jetted across campus like I had a rocket up my ass, grabbed my sticks and loaded up in my Blazer, affectionately known to my high school friends as the “Sweet Ride.” 

I popped a copy of Pantera’s “Cowboys from Hell” into the CD player and turned the key in the ignition. Dead silence. Hit the key again and the indicator lights lit up my dashboard like a Christmas tree. Nothing. “No no no no no no no!” I yelled. “Fucking electrical shit!” That was one of the few things I didn’t know how to repair on my own. Things had been acting strangely with the truck and I was hoping to get my pops to look at it that Sunday when I went down to the old hometown to play in the “Beer League.” 

It looked like I was going to need a jump to get it started, so I figured I’d save it and take my chances on the trip home Sunday. I dialed one of my bosses at Rose Park, D, who thankfully was still in town to get a ride up to Park City for the match. “No problem bud, I’ll be right over,” he said. 

We arrived at the Park City Municipal Golf Course at 1:30. Just enough time to warm up for a half hour before my partner, a plastic surgeon named Doc Baldwin, and I led off the pairings against Park City’s #3 and #4 players Richtenburg and Veloso. I went through my pre competition routine of washing down 3 big and blue Advil with a can of Mountain Dew; sticking my wallet, keys, and cell phone in my bag; putting my divot tool and ball marker in my left pocket and two green tees in the right; and taking about five swings with each club up through the bag. It wasn’t my greatest warm-up session, but I felt like I was ready to go. 

The rain started to fall early on and just got worse as the round wore on. The four-ball match was a dead heat as Doc Baldwin, while overmatched was just playing out of his mind. I struggled to put Richtenburg away and as we hit the 18th tee, he had pulled to even. He absolutely smoked his drive right up the pipe on short par-5 hole. “Gotta pull out the big dog,” I said as I reached for my Titleist 975 D (yes, all you golf aficionados, I was still rocking this model in 2001. Best center weighted driver ever!). I cranked one down the right side of the fairway, leaving myself about 190 to the center of the island green. Unfortunately the ball managed to settle into an old divot. Richtenburg pulled out his 5 iron and gave it a run at reaching the green in two. His shot landed about 4 feet over the water and struck a sprinkler head, catapulting his shot straight into the air and finally landed about eight feet from the hole! 

Needing to reach the green in two myself, from a ridiculously shitty lie, I pulled out my six iron. Needless to say, that the way this week was going, disaster had to be looming. I smothered the ball out of that divot, pulling it about ten yards left of the green right into the middle of the pond. Game over. Our team as a whole got blitzed by the Park City guys on their home track that day, so my match didn’t mean much, but it still sucks to lose, you know. 

So D and I pulled up to the dorm, I took my gear out of the trunk of his car and reached into the pocket to grab my keys and wallet. Oh shit. Something was missing, and it wasn’t my keys. My wallet was gone. Jesus Christ! Can things get any worse?! After sticking my head out the window and unleashing a growl that probably could’ve been heard in Magna, I jogged through some scenarios and did what I could to recover it, including borrowing VodkaRob’s Explorer to drive to Park City to retrace my steps. 

It was long gone. After making some phone calls to cancel my ATM and charge cards, I took a double shot of NyQuil and passed out. Tomorrow, it was time to crawl out of the hole. 

Thursday, August 30th, 2001 

BRRRREEEEEP! BRRRRREEEEP! 

At 8:00 AM I awoke in a daze, my phone was ringing; it was the front desk of Residence Hall #5. My Godmother had arrived to bring me her spare junker car, a banana yellow and rust 1987 Pontiac Grand Prix. “I’ll be down in a second.” I said, groggily. God bless her, my νονά had taken on a motherly role to me in absence of my own (at the time). She wasn’t going to let me miss a day of work just because my truck was dead. I gave her a lift back home, kissed her on the forehead, and scrambled back to campus to get to class. 

After four hours of Abnormal Psychology and The Sociology of Marriage, I cruised on out to Rose Park to clean up the driving range. One of the two jobs I carried through college, (the on-campus job gets a chronicle of its own eventually), I was in the words of Bud Light’s Real American Heroes - Mr. Driving Range Picker Upper Guy: 

Yup, that about sums it up. It was a fun job, I got to blast some tuneage in my not so protective tractor and play human target for four hours. But what it did get me, besides some extra spending cash and an occasional welt when a ball would fly through the net, was free golf anywhere in town. Unfortunately, as fun as that job was, on Thursdays I needed to leave an hour and a half before closing time in order to make it to my night class at 7:30. So back across town to the campus I drove, stopping by Room #302 to pick up my books. Big Nick poked his head out of his bedroom door. “Where are you goin’?” He asked with a goofy grin on his face. 

“I’ve got to go to class man, Greek and Roman History,” I replied. 

“No, you’re not.” 

“Uhh, yes I am.” 

“No, you’re not.” He said laughing. “You’ve had one of the shittiest weeks known to man. You’re going out tonight. Rock, Pablo and the other guys are waiting for us. We’ve got the cure, a Death-Star.” 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” 

“Just get cleaned up, you’ll see.” 

“I guess I’m not going to class,” I said as I looked at the clock, now reading 7:35. I grabbed a can of Fosters out of the fridge and hit the shower, cranking Def Leppard’s Pyromania album. I threw on a pair of jeans and a Superman t-shirt. On our way out the door, Big Nick, shot a look my way. 

“You got any ID man?” 

“Fuck, I didn’t even think of that.” I said. “Waitaminute, I’ve got an idea.” I ran and grabbed a couple of items from my desk. 

We jumped into Big Nick’s Jeep and pulled into a little strip mall up in Highland in front of a Mexican restaurant called El Chihuahua. I’d be lying if I wasn’t thinking that Mexican food sounded pretty fucking good right about then. We walk into the cantina where Roc, Pablo, Trig, the Masshole and a few of our other buddies were sitting around a huge table munching on chips and salsa. 

“Something to drink?” the waitress said as she approached our table. One by one everybody had the same answer, “DEATH-STAR.” 

“I guess I’ll be having a Death-Star.” I said, wondering what the hell I was getting myself into. 

“I’m going to need to see some ID” she said, as everybody pulled out their drivers licenses. Seeing as how I was sans-wallet, I laid a copy of my birth certificate and my Salt Lake City employee card out on the table. The poor girl called out her manager, who also happened to be tending bar, who noticed that my Social Security Number was on both documents and hooked me up. 

After about ten minutes of cracking jokes and busting balls, the drinks arrived. The Death-Star came in a giant fish-bowl sized glass that looked like a purple version of that drink Garth ordered in the first Wayne’s World flick. The bartender/manager guy came over and explained to us that in order to get around some of Utah’s more archaic liquor laws, certain alcoholic parts of the drink had to be labeled “flavorings.” The Death-Star was comprised of ten shots of different “flavorings” and five shots of various juices. I took a drink, “Wow! This tastes just like antifreeze!” I thought. I took another drink, “sweet, sweet antifreeze.” And another, “hey this isn’t half bad.” And another, “this is actually pretty good.” And finally, “I think my face is numb, and I can’t even taste it anymore.” The Death-Star folks, it’s a keeper! 

After we all had a Death-Star (one was all it took) and a shitload of various Mexican delicacies, we cruised back to the dorms. That Death-Star plus a couple of beers pretty much made me forget the next hour or so, but the next thing I remember was rolling down the road in Big Nick’s Jeep, while Pablo and Trig shot fire extinguishers out the back. Not sure where those came from. Typical college, drunken behavior but it was still funny for some reason. Oddly enough, "Death-Star" night is a tradition among college kids in Salt Lake that continues to this day.  What can I say, we were trendsetters!

Friday, August 31st, 2001 

I awoke with such a headache, that it felt like somebody was stabbing me in the right eye with an ice-pick. “Christ, I can’t handle the hooch like I used to.” I thought. Thankfully, there were very few Friday classes at Westminster, which allowed for maximum “Margarita Thursday” recovery. I went down to the Dean’s office to fill out the paperwork to get a new school ID. Surprisingly the picture actually looked better than my previous ID. Maybe things were looking up. 

I got back to #302 just in time to meet Big Nick. He gave me a lift out to the hellhole known as the DMV. We blasted Anthrax’s The Sound of White Noise on our way out there. Nick had never heard them before, I think he was hooked, but that might’ve been because it was cranking out of his ridiculously awesome system. I forgot to mention, he had the top off of his Jeep and we had to take the freeway to the DMV, so I ended up with one of the most bizarre hairdos in the world for the next 5 years on my new driver’s license. I looked like a husky version of Wayne Static! 

Only fatter

We got back to campus around 1:00. On our way back up to our building, I ran into my friend Jess, (the girl I took to the AC/DC show, as well as several others, plus, her dad had owned a record store). “I’ve got some CD’s for you if you want ‘em,” she said. 

“What do I owe ya?” I asked. 

“Not a damn thing,” she said, “I’ve already got most of them. It’s all extra stuff my dad had lying around.” 

“Sounds good, just drop by a little later this afternoon, I’ll be around after golf practice.” 

“Good luck.” She smiled. 

Well, after that, how could I not shoot a 1-under par 71 in practice that afternoon? It was easily the best round I had shot on Wingpointe since I was in Junior College. And it just made me even more frustrated about my eligibility situation. But still, it felt good to be striking the ball purely and putting out of my mind. If only Golf Girl had been around to see that. 

I got back to #302 around 5 o’clock to find a stack of about ten CD’s on our counter. Pretty good shit there, some Danzig, Slayer, Tears for Fears and several other pretty decent bands of stuff that I didn’t have already. Goddamn that Jess is a sweetheart. It was time to get ready for the evening’s festivities. Nick and I were “bouncing” at a house party, and it promised to be one for the ages. 

Friday Night, August 31st, 2001 The Party Big Nick, Rock, and I piled into his Jeep and drove up to Pablo’s condo up on Wasatch. The first thing we noticed was two giant tubs full of red liquid that would’ve made the Reverend Jim Jones proud. “Jungle Juice man!” Pablo jumped into the room. Good god! There had to be $200 worth of liquor in those tubs. I wonder how many people they expected to show up for this shindig. 

Big Nick and I took our positions at the door. In order to keep the “ratio” good, and to pay for the provisions, Pablo had erected a sign. “Chicks - $1.00 Dicks - $5.00 Cups - $1.00 We reserve the right to deny entry” I guess we were taking money at the door too. People started to arrive, in droves. The music was thumping, the booze was flowing and everybody was having a good time. Nick and I busted up a couple of fights, and had just finished tossing a couple of punks out on their asses when I noticed I yellow object sticking out of Nick’s back pocket. “What is that?” I asked. 

“My taser,” he replied, matter of factly. 

“What in the blue hell do have that for?” 

“Just in case, man.” 

“What, a rampaging gorilla decides he really needs a drink, or wants to fight?” 

“You’re paranoid,” he said, grinning. 

The party raged on, and I must’ve had $400 in my pocket. Hate to admit it, but damn, I was having fun. It was like every shitty thing that had happened that week didn’t matter anymore. Everybody seemed to be having fun, and this was easily the biggest party I’d ever been to. There had to be at least 100 people crammed into this condo with another 30 or so in the back yard and hot tub. 

Suddenly, an obviously wasted party-goer crashed into me. “Duuuude, I think the cops are here man.” 

“I haven’t seen any, none have come in the door, and we haven’t let any in.” 

“Man, I got to get out of here maaaan…” as he ran out the door. I walked outside to get some fresh air and looked down the road to see a massive caravan of police lights rolling up the street. I heard some thumping and looked up to see a helicopter with one of those giant spotlights trained down on the house. Oh shit! It’s the cops! 

I ran back into the house, just in time to see the “one guy that nobody knows at the party” pull a Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office badge on a chain out of his shirt. As more of his buddies popped in the door, and people started scrambling around I couldn’t help but kind of snicker at the scene. The house looked like a giant circle pit. The biggest deputy bellowed, “All right! Everybody over twenty-one, whip out your ID’s, show them to the deputy at the door and leave! Everybody under twenty-one, go to the backyard. You’re in for a long night!” 

Big Nick and I were two of the first few back through the door. God knows, I was happy to have an ID again. As we made our way out, I overheard some of the cops talking about possible charges they could ring our friends on. Things you wouldn’t even think of, beyond shit like contributing and things like that. They were talking about things like the size of the party and the amount of people constituting an “event” which would require an “event permit” and an actual liquor license. On our way out, they asked if we owned the house or knew who did. We denied everything. Hell, they’re the government, if they want to know bad enough, they have the resources, they can find out. 

We got half a block away, when Big Nick decided to turn back, explaining that he had left the faceplate of to his Jeep’s stereo in the house. I didn’t think that was a very good idea, I mean, we just got away from a virtual hornets’ nest with a shitload of cash in our pockets, but there was no stopping that dude. He handed me his roll of the door money and took off on a dead sprint back to the house. Bad idea. 

About a block away, I ran into one of the guys who owned the house who was just coming home to join the party and had missed the chaos. I handed him the stack of cash. “You might need this to bail out your roommates, bro.” He asked what all had occurred, so I laid the details out to him and suggested that he make himself scarce. He agreed and made a hasty retreat back to his car. I made it back to the Jeep and waited for what seemed like an eternity, before starting back down the sidewalk toward the house. I paused at the corner which overlooked the back yard and quietly observed the carnage. There were at least four lines, twenty people deep waiting in line to blow into a tube. Cops were literally EVERYWHERE! I wondered just how much the local taxpayers paid to have their sheriff’s department bust up this gathering. It must have been a slow night on the crime front. There were perfect little Mormon college princesses with tears streaming down their faces, knowing that their reputations were now tarnished. It was a surreal atmosphere. 

Suddenly, Pat, another one of our buddies ran up. “Nickas! They’ve got Big Nick down on the floor, spread eagle! I think they’re gonna cuff him!” 

“Oh shit!” I thought, “Maybe I should have hung on to that money to bail Nick out!” I started to mosey back towards the house, trying to think of what to do, when I saw Big Nick shuffling my direction. “Christ almighty man! What happened?” 

“They found the taser dude.” 

“And they just let you go?” I asked with a quizzical look on my face. 

“Yeah, but they confiscated it.” He replied, dejectedly. 

“Well shit man, let’s cut our losses, get the hell out of here and regroup back at the apartment.” I said, “Looks like we’re lucky to get out of here on our own terms!” 

Aftermath 

We met up with Pablo and those guys at a local diner the next day. The statistics were staggering. Over 90 consumption tickets were handed out. I can’t remember for sure, but I think those guys incurred a small fine, which in this state is getting off light. Rock had to call his dad to tell him about his consumption ticket, but carried around his breathalyzer tube for a week, kind of like a merit badge. Big Nick, after his close call in nearly avoiding a weapons charge, mellowed out quite a bit after that episode. And that party went down in history. 

As for myself, well, I never did recover my wallet, but my dad figured out the electrical problem in my Blazer and managed to fix the problem in about ten minutes. I won my eligibility appeal and was reinstated for the last half of the last season of my collegiate career. That week put a lot of things in perspective for me. I felt like if I could weather that particular shitstorm and still come out smelling like a rose, then I’ve got to be pretty much bulletproof. It certainly helped later in life when I have come across a rough patch here and there. Things settled down and I had a pretty good senior year. I figured out that no matter how low I got, at least it has never gotten bad enough for the police to have to call my folks! And for some reason, I took a lot of comfort in that.

Sundance Yourself To Death!

I've always been a fan of the Sundance Film Festival and independent film in general.  There's this retarded thing in hollywood where a director has a vision and wants to see it fleshed out.  But by the time he brings guys on to finance it, a studio to back it, and a distributor to get it out there, suddenly there are hundreds of people all with a stake in the final product.  Unfortunately, that means all these people have a say in the final product, and what might have once been a good, original idea gets watered down.  So there's something to be said about guys that max out ten credit cards and deal with having to cut back on bloated effects and production values in order to distill their idea down to what matters.  Characterization and story arc.  The Sundance Festival is often times your only chance to see some of these films because more often than not, they're not going to see the inside of your local cineplex.  Sometimes, there's a really good reason for that, but on the flip side, once in awhile, there's some truly great ideas that never get the chance to reach a wide audience.  There's not a whole lot that I like about living in Salt Lake, but I do consider myself lucky to have access to something as great as the Festival every year.  

Four feature films and three shorts this year was by far the most I've ever seen in one Sundance Festival. Sadly, I didn't make the trip to Park City for any of these, instead opting for the screenings within walking distance of my apartment here in Salt Lick. I kinda missed the mountain ambiance (and the $10 beers) of a night in Park City, but on the other hand I discovered a new independent theater, The Broadway Center, that I'm planning on frequenting in the future. I'm even thinking of joining the Salt Lake Film Society as well to support it. Here are my brief reviews of the seven films that I screened at the Festival this year.

First up was a film titled I Saw The Devil. It was directed by Ji-woon Kim, who was also one of the writers for The Uninvited. This movie was in Korean and thankfully had subtitles. Which was nice, because even though at least half of my lesson clients early on in my career were Korean, I still didn't understand a damn thing.  But even if there weren't subtitles, you could still pretty easily figure it out. This movie stars Byung-Hun Lee (who played Storm Shadow in that GI Joe flick last year) as a Korean Secret Service agent whose fiancee falls victim to a serial killer. He then sets off to find the killer and put him through hell, possibly at the cost of his own humanity. 

He could have just nunchucked you right there and you would even have known it!

This movie was fucking violent, as most Korean revenge flicks tend to be, and at times hard to watch. But as gory as it was, psychologically it was even more brutal. Beautifully shot, but might've been a little too long. Good movie though. Afterward, I stopped into the coffee shop next door to the theater to take a piss, and ran into the Byun-hun Lee waiting outside the door to the john. Talked to him about the movie for a few minutes, seemed like a pretty cool guy. My buddy VodkaRob told me I should've tried to fight him for raping our childhoods with GI Joe though.  Good thing I didn't.  Dude would have beaten me about the head and neck with my own severed limbs.

 

A day later, we tied one on at The Tavernacle and walked down the street to the Broadway for the one we'd been looking forward to the most, Hobo With a Shotgun.  It was preceded by a short film titled The Legend of Beaver Dam.  It was the story of a group of wilderness scouts singing songs around the campfire that according to legend, summons a crazy killer. Chaos ensues in a bloody, vulgar, and musical fashion. As a fan of movies like The Goonies and The Monster Squad, I've got to say that I love kids that curse. It was a fun twelve minutes.

Where you probably won't get I Saw The Devil at your local cineplex, there was actually a legit buzz around the festival circles for Hobo With A Shotgun. What can I say? People seem to like the truth in advertising. This flick stars Rutger Hauer (who seems to have entered the Mickey Rourke zone of guys who you aren't sure they are even acting anymore) as said transient. 

Got any spare change?

He jumps off a train during a stopover in Hopetown, a run-down metropolis that makes Detroit look like Dubai, that is ruled by an evil gangster named The Drake.  Seeing injustice at every turn and meeting the proverbial hooker with a heart of gold (usually they just take your wallet), he forgoes his dream of starting his own lawn mowing business and instead takes his last fifty bucks and turns it into a pawn-shop 12-gauge and a seemingly unlimited amount of ammo.  From there he sets about taking back the streets of this urban hellhole, one shell at a time. This one was a bizarre, bloody and overall batshit crazy exploitation-type flick. If you like those types of movies from the mid-70's you'll enjoy this one. From what I hear, they've sold this movie to a distributor, so come April it'll be in theaters nationwide.

Arguably, the best part of Sundance is the documentaries.  So a few days later, I took my little sister to a screening of Resurrect Dead:  The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles.  Before the feature, was a five-minute documentary short titled The High Level Bridge. The film profiled the High-Level Bridge that spans the Saskatchewan River in Edmonton, Alberta, its man-made waterfall and its reputation as a local suicide hotspot. The filmmaker sounded clinically depressed himself. One of the ladies on the golf team that I coach is from Edmonton, and when I asked her about all the suicides off the bridge and if it's an accurate representation of her hometown, she said "That's not what we're aboot back home." Touche'.  Here's the film in its entirety:

A very interesting real life mystery is featured in Resurrect Dead...The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles. Dating back to the early 80's, somebody has been gluing peculiar signs to the streets of Philadelphia with a strange four-line message: 

Creepy!

These tiles fascinated a local layabout named Justin Duerr who began a quest to document all known locations of these tiles (which are found in eight states and three South American capitals) and find the mysterious artist who put them there. He teams up with the filmmaker, John Foy, and two other like-minded individuals to attempt to finally solve the mysteries of who, why and how. It was a fantastic documentary and it was interesting to see how these four guys were able to tie together seemingly unrelated clues into solid leads. I can't quite call Resurrect Dead... the best movie that I saw at the festival, but I can say that it was probably the most enjoyable of the bunch.  

Finally, VodkaRob and I wrapped up our Festival experience last Friday night with a midnight showing of The Oregonian.  Attached to this movie was a short titled The Pact. It features a pair of siblings in the home of their recently deceased mother discussing a secret that they share, something that happened in the basement. This one was genuinely scary, as opposed to the feature it was paired with, which I'll get to in a second. And it brought on those feelings of dread without any typical "payoff."

I went into The Oregonian expecting a grindhouse-y type of horror flick. What I ended up getting was a throwback to those late 60's early 70's psychedelic movies or something reminiscent of those "Coffin Joe" Brazilian horror flicks from the mid 70's. It featured a heaping helping of washed out colors and a horrifyingly brutal sound design that was light on dialogue, but heavy on shrieks, grunts, squeals and insane laughter. It was by far the loudest movie I've ever seen. My ears are still ringing. It lacked any semblance of a plot, or overall narrative other than a bloodied girl (True Blood's Lindsay Pulsipher) wandering in the woods encountering strange scenarios. It did, however, have plenty of horrifying visuals including a creepy old lady breathing hard while grinning from ear to ear, a redneck dude pissing all the colors of the rainbow during a pit-stop, a guy in a furry frog costume jerking off against a window, random hicks drinking pina coladas made with gasoline and some suspect-looking milky liquid, and plenty of people drooling bile while laughing. Read that sentence again. 

Thank god this is a still photo!

Most of it was gross, and none of it was scary. It was marketed as a horror flick and ended up being an arthouse flick. The Oregonian was basically an hour and twenty minute acid trip and I was sorely disappointed. But at least I made it all the way through it, which can't be said about the twenty or so people that walked out in the middle of the screening. It came into the festival with a considerable buzz and left the festival getting absolutely crushed by critics and viewers alike. 

So in a week's span, we saw some pretty good films, and a real stinker.  Like I said, sometimes there's a reason these aren't studio pictures.  But overall it was an awesome experience for any film geek for sure.  You ought to make it out here for the festival at least once in your life.  I guarantee, if you spread it around a little bit, you'll come away seeing something you like.  It literally has it all.   

 

In which our hero returns with another Dorm Days Flashback to whet your appetite for things to come…

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. We're so glad you could attend. Come Inside, come inside…

After a couple "false-starts" I'm ready to give the blogging thing a go again. I've got a lot more direction these days, and a lot more creative fire. I'm also ready to talk about what has been happening to me professionally the last couple years. It's been gone now for two years, but I think the story of the last years of the University Golf Course need to be told. I'd also like to branch out a little bit and do some reviews, as well as sound off on a few things going on in the world to anybody that'll listen, or read. So sit back, get comfortable, and feel free to peruse some of my earlier work on this site.
 
Here's a little flash back to my Dorm Days to whet your appetite a little further (or turn you off completely.) I've cleaned it up a little bit, mostly for typos (of which there were many), and changed a few more names around to protect the guilty. I've got to say, I'm fairly shocked at the amount of F-bombs I used to throw around! Anyway, here we go!

"On The Map"

(January 2000)

Originally posted to the old blog in March, 2006

We had just returned from winter break, and I've got to say, it was great to see Apartment 302 once again. I was the first one back, and the first thing I noticed was my John Belushi "College" poster on the wall was stripped of its "frame" of about 90 friction-rubbed beer bottle caps. They had cleaned the joint up! That frame took a lot of work from Big Nick and me to put up there, so much work that I couldn't even remember doing it! But the snapshot Big Nick took of the poster was still stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet. "Oh Shit! Hope they didn't discover the stash!" I thought as I went into the back of the utility closet and found, thankfully in the box my stereo came in, five 20-packs of Bud Light 6-percent bootlegged from Evanston, Wyoming (You can only get 3.2 ABV beer here in Salt Lick). Well, at least it was going to be a good homecoming!

But coming back was a little bittersweet. The good news was, the missionary kid, who had threatened to report any of Big Nick's or my own "misbehaviors" to the Dean "for our own protection" no longer seemed to be rooming in The Penthouse, his room was empty. Unfortunately, the old guy "Jerry Flynt", the guy that cooked for us when the cafeteria just wasn't cutting it, was gone as well. While we tried everything we could to get the missionary kid tossed the previous semester, but Jerry's departure hurt. The dude fed us, man.

I heard some keys unlocking the door, "I wonder who is left?" I thought as I hurled the door open to find The Hottie R.A. from across the hall leading a fresh-faced youngster into the apartment. The kid had a Yankee hat on, so well, he had that going for him, which was nice. "Nickas, this is your new roommate, Doug. He's NINETEEN (emphasis on the NINETEEN), make sure he stays out of trouble," she said with a wink as she sashayed out the door.

Shit! Big Nick's birthday was last week. We were finally all twenty-one years old in here. Finally, we could all party out in the open in here without getting written up. And the fucking dean's office had thrown us a curveball. According to the ridiculously detailed ol' Westminster handbook, you could consume alcohol in the main area of the apartment if all residents were over the age of twenty-one. If not, the demon alcohol could only be consumed in the individual bedrooms or the bathroom. Which I always thought was kind of funny. Not that we ever really gave a shit about the rules anyway, but it would have been nice not to get written up for throwing on a drunk after class in our own living room.

Always the fucking ambassador, I introduced myself and helped the kid haul his shit into the apartment. Like everybody else in the apartment, he was the child of divorced parents. But he was the only one with a father in prison! Hardcore! He'd recently quit the Mormon Church to become Catholic, but was having extreme difficulty getting his name off of the church rolls. I knew of a few people who had at one time the same problem, so I understood what he was going through. All of this, and this was his first time away from home. It was pretty overwhelming for the kid, and since he was now part of the family, I figured we all needed to help him out.

Big Nick and The Nate showed up a couple of minutes later and they got their first impressions of Doug. They were admittedly pissed that the Dean's office had given us an underage roommate. But at the same time, and this is a good indicator as to how good those guys were, they made it abundantly clear that it wasn't Doug they were pissed at, but the Student Life office in general. And like I said, since when have we ever given a shit about the rules anyway? Big Nick had stacked one of the 20-packs in the fridge when he had walked in, and the four of us had a toast to a new beginning. The Nate even tagged Doug with a nickname within an hour, and "Junior" was born.

We figured we needed to get Junior acquainted with as many people as we could. So the first week of class, we started introducing him to as many of our friends as we could. Big Nick took him down to the weight room, a newly returned Dowder (the "fifth" roommate in the way that Pete Best was the "fifth" Beatle) introduced him to the Frisbee guys in the quad and I took him door to door on the third floor and the apartment directly below us to meet the neighbors. You had to get in good with the girls on the floor below because then they'd be more likely to talk directly to you about excessive noise than an RA.

We came to the apartment directly across the hallway from ours and I started to get a little nervous. Not only was this particular apartment the RA's room, but also this was where Jules lived. I'd kind of been crushing on this girl pretty much the entire holiday break. Before the break, I was working on the infamous "One-Night" fifteen-page term paper in the small Residence Hall 3 computer lab when this girl came in and asked if I could listen to her class presentation. Evidently somebody had told her that I'd done my fair share of public speaking back in the day and had some advice to offer. So I helped her iron the bugs out of her presentation and we shot the shit briefly before I had to get back to the term paper. A few nights later we met up again at the "Midnight Breakfast" the night before finals began, and I was pretty hip to the idea of asking this girl out. She went home to Alaska for the holidays, and I spent two weeks thinking about what to do.

Junior knocked on the door, and Jules answered it. "Hey, hey! Just wanted to introduce you folks to the motley crew across the hall's newest member, this is Doug!" I bellowed. She invited us in. It was on. We sat down as two of the other girls, Alice and Elizabeth came out to say hello. They started chitchatting with Junior and Jules hollered at me to go into the other room. "How'd your presentation last semester go?" I asked.

"Pretty good, I got an A." She said as she gave me a hug. It was on. "Hey Mike, I think Elizabeth's got a crush on Doug. She said she saw him in the hallway the other day and she won't shut up about it."

"Well, that's certainly interesting. I don't know man, she's pretty Mormon," I thought to myself as I nodded my head.

"You think you could maybe encourage him to get lunch with her or something?" Jules asked.

"I'll say something; see if he's feeling it." And then my brain finally kicked in. For years, I'd been the kind of shy quiet dude, always afraid to really go after something or just plain say it. So instead I made an event out of shit. I wanted to get with this girl, so my primitive brain thought; "I've got to do something big." "I've got a better idea," I said, "Let's throw a party Friday night."

"Like a mixer?" she inquired, eyebrow raised.

"Like a big, wild mixer." I said nodding my head thinking to myself, "if the party in Can't Hardly Wait could be considered a mixer". "The Penthouse, Friday night. Tell all your friends." It was so on.

Now, doing anything of this sort on a wide scale in the close quarters of the residence halls presented a few logistical problems. How not to get caught by the RA's and administration was chief among those concerns. One of us was going to have to fall on a grenade. We left that up to The Dowder, who asked The Hottie RA on a date that night. Hesitantly, she accepted. Next, we had to find out who was the RA on duty. Luckily it happened to be the Comrade. All it took was a bottle of Stolichnaya and a burned copy of Metallica's S&M album and the Comrade was properly bribed off.

Next was the liquor. I had no idea how big this thing was going to get so I went to where I usually got some cheap advice, my Maxim Magazine collection. I found an article from issue #12 in the "How To" section titled "How to throw a soiree'" and followed its suggestions of two large jugs each of rotgut tequila, vodka, gin and whiskey. Plus I bought a new bottle of Makers' Mark and a bottle of Champagne for myself. Adding in the mixers and I must have dropped about $150 on liquid refreshment. With the girls across the hallway making the food, this sucker was on! There was an actual legitimate buzz going around the dorm about it.

I got home a little bit late from basketball practice that Friday afternoon and hurriedly set everything up. Junior and Big Nick got the bar area up and running and cleaned up the house. I cleaned out my Bud Light keg bucket, filled it with ice and got the champagne chilling on my desk in my room. While I was taking care of the last minute preparations, The Nate took it upon himself to start the festivities, mixing himself a gigantic Electric Lemonade. He used his own high-end liquor and we estimated that particular drink in a bar would probably cost about $25. The Dowder, who usually resembled Pigpen from the Peanuts Gang, came out of his room as clean as I had ever seen him, in a nice sweater and khakis. He pounded a shot and left to pick up The Hottie RA. I grabbed a Fosters can out of the fridge and hit the shower for a long one.

I wrapped up my shower about a half hour later and got dressed. "Fuck it. Let's go all out," I decided. I owned at that time this maroon and black Heffner-esque silk smoking jacket. I didn't even smoke! It was cheesy as all hell, but dammit I was feeling it that night, I was going to class this shit up. I was an idiot. One of my high school golf teammates used to wear one on the overnight trips and I always thought it was hilarious, so I picked a jacket up right after I'd moved to Salt Lick. I was comfortable. I walked out and we all had a good laugh. I looked over in The Nate's direction, "How many is that bro?" I nodded at his drink.

"Number four dude." He replied, downing the last few drops of Electric Lemonade and started to pour number five. He was already getting a glossy look in his eyes.

The doorbell rang; it was two of Big Nick's gal pals, Heather and Shauna. They came in, mixed drinks and retired with Big Nick to his room for some "entertainment." We wouldn't see them again until things were wrapping up.

Suddenly people started showing up in droves, we got the music pumping and it was becoming a boisterous occasion. There were at least thirty people crammed into that little apartment. Some friends of ours, but mostly people we didn't know. I couldn't believe we'd thrown something like this together in a few days. The girls from across the hall arrived with a gigantic 7-layer dip in a huge baking dish. The Smokers descended upon it like buzzards to a fresh road kill. Elizabeth had a surprised look on her face. I don't think she imagined a dorm "mixer" to resemble anything like the rager that was taking place. And then there was Jules. She looked absolutely fantastic, with a smile that could launch a thousand ships. "Why the hell does she wear those baggy clothes all the time?" I thought to myself. She was in tremendous shape.

Junior was really starting to get after it, and so was The Nate. The Nate was a big guy, probably twice my size. As I was mixing myself my third or fourth martini of the evening, I looked over at him sitting on one of the bar stools. He was HAMMERED! He saluted me with his sixth Electric Lemonade, leaned his head back and raised his glass to his gullet. As he leaned back, I saw it. Dude's eyes rolled back into his head and he kept going back, going, going, gone. BOOM! He landed flat on his back on the floor. Room 302 shook. The windows rattled. The stereo skipped. Everybody paused for a second, looked, and went back to their revelry. I still had my wits about me so I rushed over to where he was laying on his back, making that sick moaning sound that usually signaled that he was going to hurl. This was a problem. If he honks on the floor, the party is pretty much over based on the smell alone. So I got my buddy Little Nick to grab The Nate's legs and I snagged him by the armpits and we slowly dragged his 350 lb. ass down the hallway to The Nate/Dowder bathroom, I filled up a glass of water and set it down next to his huge, corpse like figure. That boy was destroyed. I looked at my watch, 11:30 pm. "This has to be some kind of drunk-record for Nate." Little Nick quipped. We rejoined the party.

Dowder returned from his date. Dammit! He was supposed to keep The Hottie RA occupied until at least 1:00! "No worries brah," he said, "I dropped her off at her friend's house. That's a weird girl, man." He said as he gathered his crew of stoners and retired to his room to spark up. Everybody was having a good time, but people started getting paranoid. Every time there was a ring at the doorbell, everybody scrambled to hide their drinks and the sub-21 kids hid themselves in the closets and showers. Fucking hilarious.

I had damn near worked up the courage to ask Jules out on an actual date when the first glass was broken. We looked up and saw Junior panicking in the kitchen. "What happened bro?" I asked.

"Sorry, man. I broke your glasssssssss." Doug slurred.

"Are you all right?" I asked as I saw the bottle he was holding in his other hand. It was Everclear, and there wasn't very much left in the bottle. "Dude, you didn't drink that whole bottle did you?"

"Yeah man. It tastes like shit, but I can't stop drinking it. THIS PARTY IS GONNA PUT US ON THE MAP DUDE! WHOOOOOOOO!" He was starting to lose it.

"Bro, that's like pure grain alcohol. I don't think you are supposed to drink that much of it (or any of it for that matter), especially straight up." I don't think he knew what he was doing. But hell, he was a fresh-faced nineteen-year-old kid. I was there once. "Just settle down a bit." I suggested.

Things got progressively louder and more out of control. Everybody was having a good time. I made the rounds, being a gracious host by saying "hey" to everybody in my ridiculous smoking jacket and leopard print cowboy hat. I looked like I was half-crazy. I'd finally made it back to Jules when there was a loud knock on the door. "Campus Police! Open Up!" Everybody scrambled to hide their shit or themselves as I looked through the peephole. Sonofabitch. It was Squirrel fucking with us. He actually was a campus police officer, but he was off duty and ready to party. Sometimes it's good to have friends in high places.

Things had reached a crescendo when there was another crash of breaking glass. This time it was from the living room. And once again, Junior was the cause. Only this time he was half hanging out of one of the windows! Little Nick, who was some kind of everywhere-at-once super-hero that evening, yanked him back inside. The booze had taken the kid over. Thankfully, I knew a couple of the maintenance guys on campus, and that hinge looked mighty rusty, so we were able to eventually go around the dean to get it fixed. Thank god for the lowest bidder. Poor Elizabeth, both overwhelmed and upset ran out of the apartment in a huff with Jules and Alice in tow. On her way out the door Jules gave me the "call-me" signal. So I had that going for me, which was nice. But I was definitely in a sour mood as Little Nick and I carried a now passed out Junior down the hallway and tossed him onto his bed.

Around 3:00 AM, things finally fizzled out. People started heading home. Thankfully, they all seemed to have had a good time. I checked up on The Nate and helped him to his room with the trusty coffee can. He would have a three-day hangover. Little Nick and I commenced to cleanup duty. At 3:30 Heather and Shauna slipped out of Big Nick's room, giggling, and took off. Big Nick poked his head out the door, rubbed his eyes, looked at the carnage, laughed and shut his door. Little Nick and I finished cleaning up the broken glass, empty beer bottles and plastic cups. He went home soon after, leaving me and the bottle of Champ-an-ya that I had hoped to be sharing with my new lady-friend alone in my room. I popped the cork, took a giant swig and passed out. This was a sad attempt at seduction gone horribly awry.

The next day I woke up and made myself a bowl of fruit-loops. As I walked into my room a girl busted out of my wardrobe, apologizing profusely holding her head. Evidently she had gone in there to hide when there was a knock on the door and had fallen asleep. I shooed her out of the apartment and turned around to find Junior and The Nate sitting on the living room chairs with identical "death-warmed-over" looks to them. "Rough night, fellas?" I asked. Neither of them remembered anything from the night before. They looked at the busted window and then at me. "Last night put us on the map." I said to them as I cruised back to my room for breakfast.

EPILOGUE:

Well, the administration found out about us. Not from our odd request for a new window, but from an upset Elizabeth mentioning the party in conversation to the wrong people. I reckon we were on "double secret probation" for the rest of the semester. I finally worked up the stones to ask Jules out, and we went to a hockey game for our first real date. This kicked off my first real relationship in college. Good times! Junior and Elizabeth never did hit it off, although he did take a run at The Hottie RA, later in the semester. That night however resulted in us having more friends than we knew what to do with for the rest of the year. The Super Bowl party a few weeks later went swimmingly, and the motley crew of Room 302 became sort of the unofficial leaders of the campus community.