As soon as Smooty ordered the two shots of Jack Daniels, I knew I was in trouble. You see, I hate whiskey. Hate it. Especially as a straight shot.
But then I remembered a little tip Gus gave me at Teabag's wedding last weekend. I sitting there bullshitting with Erik at the reception when he starts telling me about some old guy he was talking too. The guy was drinking whiskey on the rocks and Erik proclaimed that no matter how much he tried straight whiskey, he can never get the hang of it. Well the older guy tells him that right before you take your drink, you should inhale through your nose. Then take your drink and exhale afterwards. Erik said he tried in and it seemed to work.
So as I was raising the Jack to my mouth, I inhaled through my nose and shot it down. As I was exhaling I thought to myself, this ain't too bad. Then my stomach trembled. And it wasn't one of those little trembles. I was scared. I started drinking down my Bud Light and it seemed to do the trick.
We made our way back out to the bowling lanes and started bowling. I finished my first game with something like a 132 (very good for me) and promptly fell apart at the beginning of game 2. My final score was something under seventy. I was feeling no pain at this time and was trying some behind the back and through the leg bullshit. And it wasn't working for me.
The plan before bowling was to hit as many bars as possible before retiring for the evening. Well somehow we got fandangled (great word) into bowling three games. And trying to bowl three games in a timely fashion while consuming more and more alcohol, not such a great plan. We were at the bowling alley a good couple of hours.
We left the Hilander Family Fun Center without playing any lazer tag and headed towards Longview. Our next stop was the Silver Star. And it was dead. We ordered a pitcher of beer or two and somewhere along the line Mrs. G-Dizzle bought me a Vodka Redbull (thanks Abby, you rule!) cause I was beginning to drag ass. As I was finishing my Vodka Redbull the Coach called me and asked where I was. He said he needed to chat with me and it was extremely important. I left and met him and we talked over our gameplan.
I made my return to the Silver Star ready to hit another bar or two. It was approximately midnight at this time. We decided our next stop should be the new bar Kesler's and made our way there. After getting carded on the street before entering (WTF? I thought we were in Longview) we were able to make our way to the bar and wait sixteen fucking minutes to order our beers as we watched ALL of the Bud Lights disappear. My the time I ordered the best possible choice was Rainier. So I snatched up five bottles of Rainier and distributed them to the Guttormsens, Smooty and Dicko.
Interpol just came on over my iTunes and it kicks more ass than Mr. Miyagi (R.I.P.) If you don't have it, you should get it.
We finished our Rainiers and somehow ended up outside. I don't really remember the next half hour or so but 2 AM came around and it was determined that we should make a run for the border. Eighteen dollars of tacos and burritos later we were headed back to the Guttormsen residence. Then Mrs. G-Dizzle decided she needed some Muchas Gracias too. So we went through the drive-thru picking up a couple more burritos. We made our way back to G's and grubbed down on some burritos. I finished a burrito and decided to head home since we were all going to have a long day drinking the next day.
The plan for Saturday was to get my little brother Travis (T.R. for short) drunk. You see T.R. doesn't drink much. The last time I drank with him was on New Year's Eve-Eve (12/30). And he was a trooper drinking whiskey with our step-dad. He made me very proud that night. Well what I didn't know was that T.R. got really really really sick that night and puked from about 2 AM til about 10 AM. And he spent most of New Year's Eve curled up on the couch recovering. So when he agreed to head down to Brewfest I was ecstatic. And since he is getting married in less than a week, we decided to make a mini Bachelor party out of it.
The plan was to stop in Vancouver at a place called Hot-Track that had indoor go-karts. We decided to meet at my place and then head out. T.R. and our cousins Matt and Kyle were going to ride with me. Apul was going to borrow his parents van and take Gus, Smooty, Dicko, Shaun C and our buddy Lowell. Apul and Lowell arrived late to my house due to a communication breakdown and soon realized that Apul had forgotten the third row seating in the van. So they decided to run back to his parent's place and grab the third row seat and then meet us in the Couv.
I figured that since we had a good fifteen to twenty minute head-start we would swing by the Vancouver mall and try to locate a Viking helmet for T.R. One tradition that my group of friends has had is that the bachelor would always were the Viking helmet. I'm not sure if Gus wore it or not but I'm sure that Burck, Bronson and Tosh all wore it. And I was going to be sure that my brother wore it too. The one problem was that it was missing. So we needed a new helmet. And after searching high and low in the mall there was not going to be any Viking helmets on this day.
We were leaving the mall when Gus called me. They were at Hot Tracks and the building was vacant. You would think that when the webpage looks like
this you would think that they were open. The place was in fact closed. This fucking sucked. We went there for Burck's bachelor party and had the time of our lives. Well maybe not Williamson but everybody else did. The plan quickly turned into just heading to Brewfest. Matt said he was hungry so I told Gus that we were going to stop and eat and then head to the waterfront for Brewfest.
We couldn't decide between McMenamin's (my choice), or Hooter's (Kyle's choice). Well I was driving so you know were we ended up. We took an outdoor seat at
McMenamin's White Eagle hotel and I ordered a Brewery Sampler for everybody. And it was delicious as usual. Kyle didn't care for the seasonal Koelsch so I drank it for him. The Ruby was the bomb as always. After eating and finishing our beers we made our way down towards the waterfront. Finding parking on this day would prove to be a challenge.
We finally just pulled into lot and paid six bucks to park. We walked the three blocks down to the waterfront and took our spot in one of the two entrance lines. Gus called me wondering where the hell I was. I told him we were in line and he said to find them at the entrance of the second tent. After getting carded (not really, the guy just glanced at my ID. It could had a picture of Bill Cosby on the mofo and they would've let me in. I jumped in line to get our beer mugs and some tokens and ordered enough for T.R. and Matt. Kyle was gonna D.D. so he cut himself off. Thanks Kyle for being so cool, cause my plan was to get wasted.
We found the group and they pointed me towards a line were they were serving some beer with 9% alcohol content. It kinda tasted like Arrogant Bastard only a little stronger. It reminded me of the brewery on the San Juan Island that brews Raging Mane, another 9% brew. After that I tried an ale then wandered to the other tent with Dicko. We decided to jump in the first short line we saw which just so happened to be for a Raspberry Wheat beer. And it wasn't too bad. Kinda fruity (like Gus) but pretty good. And it ended up being the perfect prop for what was a running joke for Dicko and I. Dicko would stop somebody and cheers them and ask if they knew where the Pabst Blue Ribbon/Old English/some other malt liquor line was. They would laugh and we would point to our cups and say we just found the Mad Dog 20/20 line and point to one end of the festival grounds. Dicko and I thought this was hilarious. Somewhere along the way Smoot got shit-faced. BIG time shit-faced. And I also lost track of my bro and cousins. After another Raspberry wheat and my third trip to the port-o-potty I jumped into a short line. After my first taste of their beer I realized why the line was so short. It was fucking terrible. It's name was Rooster. And it tasted like a barnyard smells. Dookalicious.
Somewhere along the way I ran into UFC fighter Ed "Short Fuse" Herman. I went up and said hi, shook his hand and came to the realization that he's an asshole. He thinks he's pretty fucking cool but he was a prick.
I found my cousin Kyle and he took me over to were Matt and T.R. were sitting. They said they were getting hungry so we decided to take off and try to find some grub. We were unable to decide between Sushi or a strip club. My cousin Kyle said his buddy knew of a strip club where you could eat Sushi off of a naked girl. I was intrigued. Kyle made a phone call and we learned that this place was about ten minutes away. After getting lost and finally finding the place about a half hour later we made our way inside. There was nothing posted anywhere about Sushi off of naked girls. I wandered back out the front door and started chatting with the doorman. He was cool as shit and explained that the Naked Sushi deal had to be called in at least four hours beforehand. We were out of luck. We left disappointed but tried another strip club. The Acropolis has some of the best steak and for six bucks who can resist. I figured we would stop there, grab a steak and a beer and then head home. One problem was that the place was packed and it was standing room only. Somebody suggested Hooter's and we were on our way.
Our waitress Amanda was cool as shit. She stood at our table bullshitting and joking with us while we decided what we were eating. Somehow the conversation got turned to the fact that T.R. was a bachelor on his last free weekend night and she said she was going to make it special. After our meal she came up to T.R. with a tank-top and a pair of the famous orange shorts and told him to put it on. There was another bachelor at the table next to us and they were also putting a tank top on him. Out of the other side of the restaurant another bachelor appeared already sporting his orange shorts. They found a fourth bachelor and make them all come up to the front of restaurant where they proceeded to make fools out of them. I had no idea T.R. knew all of the words to YMCA until last night.
After about another twenty minutes of sitting around we decided to start heading home. Somehow T.R. made it out the door with the shorts and tank-top. I think it's one of his deep down dreams to be a Hooter's girl. All in all I think T.R. had a blast.
I'm sure Gus will be posting some great pictures of our weekend here in the very near future.
