The STL Trip

How would I rate my weekend in St. Louis? As the Saskatchewanian on Iss and I’s “Maid of the Mist” tour at Niagara Falls would say, “10 out of 10 SWEEEEEET”.

So here we have it a rundown of the entertaining happenings over the weekend. Please feel free to skip over this, if you don’t find it necessary to read about how I spent my weekend…believe it or not, no hard feelings.

We arrived in St. Louis on Thursday for the noon MVC Tournament Luncheon (aka Lovefest) consisting of talking about how great the conference has been this year, etc. Without a doubt, the Valley has had good basketball over the past several years, and I totally buy the hype about how good the teams are this year, even though I realize that I’m probably biased. Regardless, I like watching this style of basketball as much as I like watching Gonzaga’s style.

So Thursday afternoon was our trip to the Anheuser-Busch Brewery for the “tour”. Of course this worked out perfectly for us after Ben asked if we HAD to go on the tour. When the A-B employee asked, “Do you have enough time?” I of course was lost and started looking at my watch, however the third time she asked we said the magic word, “No.” and we were taken straight to the tasting room. By the way Michelob Ultra Amber is delicious….especially when free, although you know what? They fuckin’ owed me.

This was followed by our pre-game party with more free beer consumed and then the Redbirds game. I would say more than we were eliminated, but I don’t want to be Bob Morgan’d.

Thursday night was followed by a trip to a little place called Club Buca. Obviously a honky like myself doesn’t attend dance clubs like Buca very often but how could we resist the offer of $1 you call its. The funny thing about this place is that they have a few guys that walk the streets telling groups of people about the club like it’s some sort of speakeasy. Here’s another couple of things I’d like to add about Club Buca. First off there was a drain in the middle of the dance floor, so my friend Scottie and I tipped our drinks for our friend Steph who couldn’t make it for the tournament this weekend.

Also, I had a classic conversation with a dude in the bathroom. So someone mentioned "Flavor of Love", which is one of the best/worst shows of the past 5 years, and I would have to consider myself a quasi-expert of the show. I can’t NOT watch even though it kills brain cells every week. So I totally think Flava Flav is going to pick Hoopz (easily the best looking of the two girls left, and apparently sane which set her apart from most of the others). So I mention that Flav’s going to pick Hoopz, and then he chimes in with, “There’s no way he’s picking Hoopz. He’s totally going for New York (the other girl not the city).” Of course I want to hear his theory, so I ask why? He says, “So Flav can have another show.” Just like that, I have completely changed my mind. In any other world, there’s no way that this would be enough of a reason for me to change my pick, but since this is Flav’s 3rd VH-1 reality show, I’m sold.

Of course the night ended with me “asleep” on the hotel lobby couch watching the Korea-Chinese Taipei matchup in the World Baseball Challenge. I honestly can’t believe that I was the only one who chose this way to end the night.

Also it probably doesn’t need to be said that I woke up in the clothes from the night before, including my Pumas...luckily in my hotel room. There was also a Girls Gone Wild infomercial on when my friend Brad entered the room. So anyway I’m running on about 5 hours sleep, and possibly still intoxicated, when we head down for the hotel breakfast. The best part about the breakfast was the Curious George sticker on my banana. Seriously this movie marketing makes complete sense. I now want to go see Curious George way more than I wanted to before. I mean what’s not to like it has it all, an icon from our childhood that will help stave off my quarter-life plus one crisis that I’m suffering, Will Ferrell AND the music stylings of Jack Johnson. I am not joking. Plus, let's compare..."Curious George" sticker on a banana vs. "Spiderman 2" bases at MLB games. If Spiderman played baseball, it would make sense, and we all know that George loves him some naners.

Finally after a shower I felt sober and tired but not necessarily in that order. Then we watched a full afternoon of basketball which was entertaining. After a pseudo-nap, Ben, Bragg, Scottie and I decided it was time to get back on the horse with a couple of hotel room beverages. Then we followed this up with dinner at Charlie Gitto’s, which is a pretty well known Italian restaurant in downtown St. Louis. It has to be good since we sat at the Tom Lasorda table, which on second thought probably doesn’t mean too much. I’m picturing a Fazoli’s in Davenport, IA with a little plaque by a booth declaring the table as the Tom Lasorda table. (Sidenote #1: There was a huge signed picture of Ryne Sandberg right when you entered…in downtown St. Louis. They had tons of pictures of former and current athletes on the walls, but seriously Sandberg in St. Louis. It should have been a picture of him hitting a bomb off of Sutter during “The Sandberg Game”.)

After dinner we went to a piano bar called “The Big Bang” which was a good time. It took me back to a night spent at the Neon Cactus to kick off Day/House Weekend #2. The piano guys (Sidenote #2: I still believe that one of the guys was the lead singer of Hanson.) were pretty good which is the only real thing that matters with piano bars. If the piano player is lousy, it's about as pointless as watching a Korea-Chinese Taipei WBC game in a hotel lobby. The highlight of this trip came during the Hank Williams Jr. song “Family Tradition”. So anyway here’s the transcript as sung by the crowd.

Piano Guys: Why do you drink?
Crowd: To get drunk.

PG: And why do you smoke?
Crowd: To get stoned.

Now here’s my friend Ben’s version.

Piano Guys: Why do you drink?
Crowd: To get drunk.

PG: And why do you smoke?
Crowd: Glaucoma!

Of course I was the only other person to laugh, but then again Ben also requested “Final Countdown”, since it was Gob’s magician theme song on "Arrested Development", so obviously we have similar tastes.

After leaving the Big Bang, we came across a couple of guys once again pushing Buca, except this time they were handing out free cover and free drink coupons. Fantastic. So it was another night at Buca with our entire group. At the hotel bar for our nightcap, I was asked to settle a sports question between someone from our group, a Missouri State fan and a Creighton fan that I didn’t know the answer to: “Was Eddie Sutton the coach at Creighton in the ‘80’s when Benoit Benjamin was there?” Of course I wasn’t happy that I was stumped, but then again I was 6 at the time. Luckily the hotel’s business center/converted bank vault was open so thanks to a little wikipedia.com searching the info that I needed was available. It seriously made me think why there isn't an internet kiosk that could only go to about 6 websites at EVERY bar to settle any dispute in the place. Think about it all you need is, espn.com, baseball-refernce.com, football-reference.com, basketball-refernce.com, wikipedia.com and imdb.com to answer any question.

So that was literally the Cliff’s Notes version of my first two nights in the Lou. There was a third night as well, but that’s coming later this week. Before I provide a little teaser for the blog, I should preface it by saying not to worry because Marissa and I are still together, but anyway here it goes…what do Jim Edmonds and I have in common?