Friday Night Recap - Newby's

Ok, as I was going over the evening for this post, I looked at my bar tabs from last night. Holy crap. I'm not going to say what I spent, all I'm going to say about it is that I am shocked. Kinda blows my mind. Enough of that. Let's talk about last night.
I started emailing, making myspace comments, and sending text messages to everyone around 3:30. Some bug must have bit my ass because I wanted a ridiculous crowd to come drinking with me. Here's the general message that many of you got:
"Hey, come to Newby's tonight. Marc Broussard is playing. I'm ready to party."
Funny thing is they sold out of tickets for that show before I got to the bar. But I'll get to that later.
I ended up leaving work around 6. I got home and just wanted to unwind before I started partying. I picked up some McAllisters and grabbed a bite to eat. DP & AP wanted to eat at Newby's so they got there at 8. I hung out at home and eventually got in the shower about 8:15. The brother got to my house about 8:45. We hopped in the truck and picked up HM. We rolled to the Highland Strip and walked to the bar. It turns out that DP & AP left within 5 minutes of us walking in. They were never to be seen again (apparently if you get married in your 20's, you lose all your coolness and have to be asleep before 10 on a Friday night).
The bar side was crowded and the band side had a friggin line out the doors. We walk in and order a few cocktails. I started with a Rockstar and Vodka. HM and the brother both had 1792 with a splash of water (damn good bourbon). We walked the room and I saw Dom. He said that the show sold out about a good hour and half before we got there. So basically I had told a ton of folks that I was going to a show that I couldn't even get tickets for. Oh well. After that show ended I heard that it was so packed in there that the A/C couldn't keep it cool.
We saw a few more folks around the room and then headed to an open booth in the side room. We were there a little while when the Shady Hasbeen showed up with Kenny and his wife Mallory (whom the last time I hung out with them I thought was called Valerie). We hung out for a while until Gordo showed up. I'm not going to give a chronological recap of the evening because I'll miss stuff. Here are a few stories I remember and then I'll post pics:
The Shady Hasbeen got up to go see the bouncer at the door. She walked over there and he said hello in a too familiar way (he playfully grabbed her butt when she hugged him hello). This freaked Mallory out. She would not stop saying how she thought he was molesting her. That led to the running joke of the night. Anything we did somehow revolved around someone "being molested."

The last time I went drinking with Kenny, Mallory, and the Shady Hasbeen I learned that these two have a strong love for buttery nipple shots. After they had been there about 15 minutes, I ordered a round for the two of them. They both said "Yay! Our favorites! Thank you!" I told them these were the only ones that I was going to get them. Then I bought another 6 rounds throughout the rest of the night secretly. Lauren (our badass waitress and all around hottie) would bring two shots, set them in front of the girls, and leave without saying anything. She was a perfect accomplice. The girls kept asking who was buying the shots and trying to get me to confess. I kept reminding them that I was only going to buy them one for the entire night. Yeah, they were drunk after the last one I bought. But hey, we all were. At the end of the night, I blatantly ordered another round for them and forgot to do it where they couldn't see me order them. Oh well. I got busted:
Them: "Philip, did you just order shots for us?"
Me: "Shit. I mean, no. No I didn't."
Them: "We knew it!"
Me: "Shit."

At one point in the evening Gordo (or "shutterbug" to several of his friends) decided to take my camera so he could get pics of people in the bar (read: hot chicks). These are the two pics he took:

Ok the guy in the blue hat in the pic above is our buddy Todd who owns Newby's. But we have no idea who the rest of the folks are. Gordo just wanted pics of people.After taking pics, Gordo came back and said "You know Philip, I couldn't really find an excuse to take pics of any of the hot chicks. I felt like some dirty old guy with a camera." I said "Gordo, you felt that way because that's what you were doing. You were being that guy with the camera."

While we missed Marc Broussard next door, there was a band on the bar side. Chris Brown played and did a damn good job with Voodoo Chile (Slight Return). He was good. He had a ton of girls dancing. Todd told me that this was Chris's last gig in Memphis. He's heading to LA. He's got talent.

Ok, here are the other pics from the rest of the night and the stories that go with them.

We are going to start our pics towards the beginning of the evening before the debauchery got too bad. Here is a pic of some sexy dude with a Shady Hasbeen.Here is a pic of Gordo with the Shady Hasbeen.Here I am with the brother. Yeah, if you can't tell, we are some sexy mofos, and we have the attitude to prove it. Seriously when the hell did I start channeling the Rock and going that damn eyebrow thing? Now can you tell a difference between this pic of me and the earlier one? You can watch throughout the pics as I get sexier and sexier. Ha.The Shady Hasbeen grabbed my camera and decided we needed a self portrait of this.I told her I had a better idea for a pic. If you can't tell, the running joke from the evening is in the pic (hint: look at my right hand). I had just said something like "Hey Mallory, is this me molesting her? I want to make sure I know which lines I'm crossing."Ok, what the hell is the deal with the pic of legs? Can anyone tell me?Ok, this chick in the shorter jean skirt was dancing by their table all night...WITHOUT SHOES. Let's recap a few details to better explain the absurdity of this. She is dancing without shoes in a bar. They serve beer in bottle in bars. When bottles are dropped, they break. Broken glass is sharp. Sharp things cut your skin. So what have we learned? This girl is a real blonde.Here is a pic of the brother, the Shady Hasbeen, and HM. Gordo decided he wanted pics of the booth crowd. You know, after all the pics I've seen him take (millions) I'm surprised he hasn't learned about having glass behind someone when taking a pic.Here is Kenny, Mallory (or as I had blatantly started calling her at this point, Valerie), and the sexist dude in the bar.Here Gordo finally figures out how to take a pic of the whole table, but forgot about the flash off the glass.AAAA! The Rock has possessed me again!I guess only one person was ready for this pic. Can you guess which one?I totally forgot who took this pic, but it is most of us around Lauren.Here is Lauren and Gordo.Here is Todd and Lauren. Why does it look like the pic is being shot from on top of a mountain? Because at this point in the evening, I was sitting on the back of the booth with my feet in the seat. WTF?

That's all the pics I have...that I can post without losing a friend or two. Ok, I'm exhausted just reliving it. Have a good rest of the weekend.

Don't get none on ya

Weekend Plans

So I’ve done the FU Friday thing. Now I have to decide what I’m going to do for the rest of the weekend. Here are the temporary plans:
Friday night:
I’m going to Newby’s with DP & AP. Some dude named Marc Broussard is playing. He’s supposed to be good, and I’m supposed to know his music. But I don’t know him off the top of my head. I just listened to him on MySpace. Damn he’s good. I may enjoy this.

I also have to head to Oxford to help the brother move the last stuff out of his apartment Sunday. I promised Mendi that I’d try and make her Sunday drinking team. Sounds like a fancy name for a bunch of future alcoholics anonymous. I’m also going to grab a bite to eat with my grandmother.
As far as Saturday night, I have no official plans yet. So we will see.

Have a good one and don’t get none on ya.

Edit 3:36PM: MG just emailed me a Marc Broussard song called "Where You Are." It's pretty good. So she is now on my good graces. I told her I'd do a toast to her tonight. And she knows what she'd have to do to get several toasts.
I'm trying to get several folks to go tonight. So far I know the Shady Has Been may go. The rest of you need to get off your butts and get up there. Let's have a ridiculously huge crowd show up. That'd be badass.

Songs on the Playlist:
Stone Temple Pilots – Big Empty
Bush – Greedy Fly
Led Zeppelin – Ramble On
Boston – Smokin’
Van Halen – Eruption
Jimmy Buffett – Domino College

FU Friday

Ok, so MG, TequilaGirl, and some other bloggers are doing some new thing called FU Fridays. There are no rules so I guess I can do whatever the hell I feel like doing. So who do I tell off? I really can’t think of anyone. So here’s my official response:

FU “FU Fridays”
I guess this only works if you have someone or a group who have pissed you off lately. But I’m in a good mood because it’s a Friday. Why do we have to have all this anger and negativity on a Friday. This is the start of the weekend. You should be happy because whatever has pissed you off is going to leave you alone now.
So let’s change this or something. We bitch enough in the blogosphere. Let’s do something fun or cool. Like Drunk Pics Day or something. Party Pics. Anything. I don’t want to start my weekend off by being in a bad mood. Come on.

HNT

Ok, here's my damn HNT pic:
Yeah, I'm tired. And I think a little cranky. But here's what happened. I met a few buddies at the bar last night. Hung out and left around 12ish. I got home and even though I knew that I had to go to work today, I decided to skip sleep and watch a few shows I'd been dying to get to. So I put on Tuesday night's Rockstar: Supernova. Then I said "well I may as well watch the elimination episode too." So I finished both shows around 1:30. Then I decided, in my infinite wisdom, to watch this week's episode of Deadwood. Man, I'm glad I did, because it was badass. But now I'm stuck at work tired because I didn't get to bed until 2:30am. I know this is all my fault and I'm not trying to escape blame. But damn, I just want to go to bed.

Happy HNT.

p.s. I'll post recaps of the shows later, because they all deserve posts.

Pour Some Sugar On...A Hot Chick

In my neverending effort to provide info and entertainment for you my loyal and hungover readers, I pass along this email I just got from Miniher (also known as Master Polo II in the myspace-osphere):

I haven't heard this advertised anywhere, but according to both of their websites, Poison and Cinderella are playing Mud Island Saturday, August 26th. I'm a sucker for silly 80s bands, so I'm pumped. Can't find anything on Ticketmaster's site, but wanted to let you guys know anyway.
Rock on,

Now that sounds interesting. What do you think? Is it worth the ridiculous price they will probably charge? Or will they actually be cool and charge around $20-30 a ticket? I hope they'll do that. It's actually cool to see bands that are past their prime who don't rip off the fans who are still supporting them after all these years of being pop culture jokes.

And what kind of crowd should you expect? I'm thinking it'll be a cross-cultural crowd. It's going to be a lot of 30-40 something yuppies/moms and dads who grew up with...the posters of these bands on their older siblings' walls. The other half of the crowd with be the absolute white trash:

Yeah those two dressed up as a joke, but I guarantee you there will be people there just like that. You know a bunch of real winners.
The unofficial word around the campfire is that there may be an announcement this Friday or sometime in the near future about this. So keep your ears open.

All right get outta here and don't get none on ya.

Weekend at the Lake Recap

Friday after work, I ducked out of the office and headed for the lake. My brother and Brandon (a.k.a. WB) had left town about 3:15. I didn’t hit the bridge until about 5. Mom and Dad hit the bridge about 6:30. I got to the lake just before sunset which made for some beautiful scenery on the way over.

I got there and heard a commotion down at the beach. I walked out and saw my brother and WB floating in the water with a cooler full of cold beer and the ghetto blaster turned up. I quickly changed into my swimsuit and raced down with a float and a margarita. We floated, shot the proverbial bullsh*t, and drank beer. WB couldn’t stay on his float. It wasn’t a drinking thing. It was more of a lack of coordination thing. Apparently Texas boys have such huge egos that they are a little too top heavy and fall over a lot. I don’t know.
I’d been at the beach for about an hour when the ‘rents pulled up. We hopped out of the water and unloaded the trucks. We kept drinking and hung out for a while. Dad decided he wanted to read his book. WB, the brother, and I wanted to drink out on the deck. We went out there and I lit up a cigar. I think it was a Carlos Y Torano from a little town called Habana. I only had a few cigars left so we only lit one. I wanted to save the others for after HM got there. We drank for a while and finally went to bed.
The next morning there was a terrible noise at my door. I slowly realized that I was a little hungover, and it was just someone knocking. HM was at the lake house before 9AM. He had left Memphis about 6ish. He said that he had stopped at a gas station in Fair Oaks, AR, on the way to the lake. He asked the lady at the counter “what’s the earliest you can buy beer around here?” She said “I guess now is fine.” He picked up an Arkansas six-pack of Coors Light (aka a 30-pack of beer).
We eventually got the brother up and went to the water. Mom and Dad took the pontoon boat and the rest of us took the ski boat. We went into a cove and dropped the anchors. We floated for a while. HM got some great pics of that, BUT I forgot to get them for my computer. So I’ll post them after I get them. Here are a few pics from my camera: Here we have HM & WB saying "wussup!" Yeah, how white are we? Here we have WB & HM on tubes. This is before we throw them off.

Here we have WB & HM after being thrown from the tubes. Yeah boy!

After a few hours we skied a few folks. Then the pontoon wouldn’t work. I love drama. We had to drag it back to the dock. After that we took the ski boat back out, just the guys. We tubed for a while. HM asked us how he had lived for so many years without ever tubing. He said it was a blast.
We came back to the house after a while. I was in charge of grilling the bratwurst and the hamburgers. They weren’t ready yet so I took a quick shower. I raced upstairs and the brats were ready. I grilled them and hung out with HM and WB. We told stories and tried to recover from the day. I took the brats off the grill and put the hamburgers on. Everyone agreed I did a better job with the bratwursts than the hamburgers. I think I over cooked the burgers.
Sunday just the guys decided to go out on the ski boat and leave Mom, Dad, and the dog at the house. They wanted to leave earlier than we did so they were going to leave while we were out. We did a little tubing and then decided to drop anchor and float. Well it was at that time that we busted out the cigars. Everyone got one. We all hung out on the boat listening to music, smoking cigars, and drinking. Here are a few pics of us on the boat:

This is HM, the brother, and yours truly. Yeah, I busted out the ol' cowboy hat. Here's the brother with WB. WB has a nice margarita. Here's yours truly, HM, and WB. I think it goes pale, less pale, and Jamaican.

After we finished our cigars, we all hopped in the water and hung out. After a while we hopped back in the boat and did some more tubing. HM drove the boat while WB and my brother tubed. I laughed and kicked back. It was nice to not have to drive. After a while we swapped and the brother drove while HM and I got on the tubes. We have a tandem rope so we can have two tubes at once. It’s pretty fun.
I honestly think my brother was trying to kill me while we were going. I was doing a great job of hanging on despite all the waves he drove us through, but finally he found one that was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. I was on the port side tube behind the boat. My brother was turning us to the right (starboard) which meant that those of us on the tubes were being swung as far to the port side as possible. All of a sudden there were these three HUGE waves in front of me. I mean three feet tall. I know that may not sound like much to those of you who have been to the ocean, but this is a lake and these were waves we’d just made ourselves. Ok, most waves you’ll see in a lake are just under a foot tall at most. These were monsters. The tube hits the first one and it bounces me a little. I come down into the swell and go up catching a little air. I come back down hard into the swell of the third wave. It hurt, but not that bad. Then I go up to the top of the third wave getting a little more air than I did off the second wave. I come down real hard from the third wave and realize I’m going up a fourth wave. A FOURTH WAVE!!! WHAT FOURTH WAVE?!? I never saw it coming. I went and over the top of the fourth wave while praying. WB, HM, and the brother all say that I was 3 feet above the tube which was a foot above the water. Here’s their description of what happened after I went up on the fourth wave:
I went up and my hands lost their grip on the tube’s handles. Then almost in slow motion, you could see my hands reaching for the tube handles as they were pulled out of reach by the boat. I fall four feet to the water while twisting sideways in the air.
Then I hit the water. And let me tell you it hurt. When I came down after the third wave, I had slammed my nose into the tube. When I came down after the fourth wave and hit straight water, I hit my side and somehow my shoulder. It almost knocked the wind out of me. I have made some bad spills skiing and tubing before, but this one really hurt. They all thought I was in trouble. I just needed to catch my breath. We tubed a little more and then called it a day. When we got back to the dock, WB wanted to catch some of the carp that were swimming around where we fill up with gas. He put on a glove for better grip. Here are a few pics of him trying to get a fish:

He never got one. I guess he needed two hands or something. After we went home and packed up, everyone headed back to Memphis. That was pretty uneventful. I saw more cops on the way back than I did on 4th of July. I caught a glimpse of this car on the way to the I-40 bridge coming into Memphis. It was some mom and her daughter. Apparently they either found a time warp to bring the from the 1980s to today or the mom has repetitive amnesia like in 40 First Dates.The window says "HALL + OATES" with "ROCK + SOUL" below it. Is it just me or is that VERY random?
I had a great time. It was very relaxing. I can't wait to head back.

Songs on the Playlist:
Lynyrd Skynyrd – Tuesday’s Gone
George Thorogood and the Destroyers – One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer
The Beatles – For You Blue
INXS – Mystify
The Rolling Stones – Dear Doctor
Jerry Reed – East Bound N’ Down
Clint Black with Steve Wariner – Been There
Gary Numan – Cars
The Doors – Light My Fire
The Offspring – Why Don’t You Get A Job
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Under the Bridge
The Grateful Dead – Dire Wolf
The Allman Brothers Band – You Don’t Love Me
The North Mississippi Allstars – Drinking Muddy Waters

TV Show Recaps

Ok, I’m going to post the weekend recap after I get pics from HM. He brought his camera to the lake and we both got a bunch of great shots. I’m also going to crop some of mine too.
So on other topics, here’s the TV I’ve seen lately that’s actually worth writing about:

Chappelle’s Show (New Episodes Sundays on Comedy Central)
I’m glad they are actually able to point fingers at the situation they’re in. It was pretty funny. I like the revenge sketch with Dave. That was funny. Some of the bits didn’t flow as well as previous years. I’m looking forward to other two episodes. Hopefully they got some really good sketches done too. I do like the way that Darnell Rawlins (I think that’s his name) and Charlie Murphy can keep things flowing. They aren’t Dave, but you know they’re not trying to be him. They’re just trying to be themselves.

Rockstar: Supernova (Wednesdays and Thursdays on CBS, I think)
Holy Friggin’ Cow! Supernova has Gilby Clarke on guitar, Tommy “the tripod” Lee on drums, and Jason Newstead on Bass. That’s three of the best rock bands of the late 80s and early 90s represented in one band. Yeah, former members of Guns N’ Roses, Motley Crue, and Metallica are all in that band. I hope that they actually rock though. I know that none of them were the main song writers in their respective bands.
So that blew my mind, but then there were some of the performances. I dug a lot of them but the one that kicked my ass was that Dilana chick. Here’s her backstory according to the short video before her performance:
She grew up in Africa. She was dirt poor. Her mother used to have to beg the neighbors for bread to feed her kids.
Her appearance is frightening to say the least (and also intriguing at the same time). She has piercings all over. There are three studs in her lower lip with the middle one being a piece of metal that looks like a hawk’s talon. She has these green eyes that are absolutely mesmerizing.
Her performance was breathtaking. She did Nirvana’s Lithium. She started out and sang three quarters of the song the exact same way. She stood WITHOUT moving in front of the microphone stand. She stared intently into the camera that was zeroed on her face. The director of the episode would try and cut away to other people, but quickly came back to her as if he was afraid to miss something. They showed Tommy Lee’s face at one point and he looked like he was hypnotized. My roommate and I were both freaked out a little by this. He said that she looked like that Darth Maul character from Star Wars episode 1. We were both commenting on how scary she looked when she busted out for the final verse and danced like a crackhead all around the stage. If you haven’t seen it, try and find it. I am still blown away.
Quickly, I also like the guys who did “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” (Toby Rand from Australia), “She Talks To Angels” (Josh Logan), and “Rebel Yell” (Lukas Rossi from Canada). There was also this 22 year old girl from somewhere down in Georgia named Dana Andrews. She’s a single mother and has made it all the way to LA for this. She sang Melissa Etheridge’s “I’m The Only One” and killed it. I really dug this Canadian girl named Storm Large and her rendition of the Who’s “Pinball Wizard.”
On the second episode from last Thursday, Supernova had Dilana perform and encore of her song. She moved a little more during the performance in front of the microphone stand. But she went nuts. It didn’t have the same effect as the first night, but it was still a badass performance.
They ended up cutting Matt Hoffer after he tried to turn a Duran Duran song (“Planet Earth”) edgy enough and hard enough to survive. Dude, you just went up against a guy who did The Doors’ “L.A. Woman”. Are you really that retarded? These are former members of MOTLEY CRUE, METALLICA, and GUNS N’ ROSES! Do you know nothing about music? Why didn’t you just sing some Boy George and walk away? Wow. And you know what? That didn’t take balls. It just took a lot of stupidity. Ok enough of that. My one other criticism of the show was the band wasn’t edgy enough on LA Woman. It didn’t have the testicular fortitude that The Doors had when they played it. The house band needed to put a little more anger or strength or something like that into it. This isn’t some stupid pop show. This is a rock show and you must rock out when covering The Doors. End of discussion. Don’t make me come to LA and kick your collective asses.
I think the next episode will come on Wednesday with the encore and elimination this Thursday.

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia (Thursdays on FX)
I watched that show last year when it started. It is funny. It involves 3 jerks and the jerk sister of one of them who own a bar in what appears to be a semi-shady area of Philadelphia. The father of the brother and sister (played by Danny DeVito) is divorcing their mother and now wants to be part of the gang. Pretty funny. I really like it, and if you like non-Politically Correct humor, watch it sometime. Wait, if you only like PC humor, why are you reading my blog?

Entourage (Sundays on HBO after Deadwood):
Ok, real quick. Entourage is getting good. I really like what they’re doing with Vince having to fight for what he wants. I loved the quote: “I can’t have my Aquaman doing blow on multi-plexes.” I like the previews for next week too. The studio comes back with $10 million against Vince’s request for $20 or he walks off Aquaman. You know he won’t take it. The first Aquaman that Vince did had James Cameron direct it. Now they have Michael Bay directing it and Kevin Smith writing the script. For those of you who don’t know James Cameron did Titanic. Yeah, I don’t like it either, but he also did Alien and Aliens as well as Abyss and tons of other badass films. He is an incredible director. Now in our fictional Entourage world they have Michael Bay directing the sequel. What does that mean? Well I don’t know what Michael Bay has directed besides Pearl Harbor, or as I’ve always called it “The Hawaiian Love Triangle That the Japanese Decided to Interrupt.” Yeah, as much as Titanic sucked, it was 500 times better than Pearl Harbor. AND they have Kevin Smith writing it. I am assuming here that they are referring to the Kevin Smith of “Mallrats”, “Clerks”, and “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” fame. I love him. He is a great director and write…for his films. I don’t see him doing well on an Aquaman follow-up to Cameron’s blockbuster which broke Spider-Man’s record. So I say Vince needs to walk and go play Medellin in Colombia with the badass, nut-so director.
But that’s my opinion. It’s getting interesting folks. But I’m gonna jet. Watch over the next day or so for the weekend recap with pictures.


Songs on the Playlist:
Semisonic – Closing Time
Van Halen – Jump
Widespread Panic – Hot In Herre (live Nelly cover)
The Who – Amazing Journey/Sparks (Live at Leeds album)
The Rolling Stones – Stray Cat Blues
Stevie Ray Vaughan – Pride and Joy
The Doors – LA Woman