Best Thing I Saw This Weekend

One of these days I'm gonna start realizing that holiday
weekends are approaching, and actually plan for them.

Instead, my son (it was my weekend with him) and I made the most of the mostly good weather and took everything at a lazy, relaxed pace. Not that it was a bad thing in any way -- but here were three mostly gorgeous Florida days available to play with where we could have been traveling or finding new friends or barbecues to hang out at -- but instead one of my main achievements of the weekend is that I was able to finally try steam-cleaning the carpet in my apartment.

All that being said, fun is where you find it -- and there were lots of good times had between the lines of Friday and Monday. Whether it was taking a trip to a downtown memory lane, goofing off at the pool, or just enjoying the vibe that my son and I have when we're just lamping around my place watching TV, playing videogames, or roughhousing -- it was the three days I really needed to come back ready to attack a work week with a smile on my face.

Anyways, onto the best things I saw this weekend.

Winner: Having a drink named after me:

Anyone who knows me is well aware of my thing for sexy bartenders. From the old days at Endo when Bartender Christina and Bartender Brenda competed for my tabs to that time in New York where that incredibly hot bartender at Red Rock West batted her eyes at me and told me to "Ditch your friend and stay here with me" (Satorical almost lost his wingman that evening -- but as a great man once said, "Even when it's on with the help, it's never really on with the help") -- It's as if someone realized that my love for women is chocolate and my love for booze is peanut butter, and then decided to make a Reese's out of it.

Which is why I've been enjoying the hell out of this new blog created by my girl KitVonB called Hello Drunky -- where she explores her love for mixology by creating new drinks and then naming them after her friends.

Seriously, how cool is this?

She comes up with some pretty interesting stuff too -- Jagermeister, Rootbeer Schnaps, and Cherry Coke?

I gotta try me some of that.

Runners up (in no particular order):

• The Milk Bar Reunion -- I wasn't really sure what to expect. The Facebook page said 800 people were planning to come, which seemed like a lot -- especially on a weekend where the Jacksonville Jazz Festival and a free concert at the Landing were taking place, effectively shutting down half the streets in our downtown grid. But into the night I went anyways, meeting up with old friends to revisit glory days at what used to be my favorite downtown spot (and former workplace) the Milk Bar. If you've been there then you know what I'm talking about -- but I actually got a chill going down the stairs to get into the place. It had literally been years since I'd taken that walk, but once I got in there it was like being home all over again.
  
  The place is actually a Jamaican restaurant now, but they cleared out the floors and got it mostly back into the same shape it was. Some thing were a little different -- the stage wasn't where it used to be, the bar in the back was gone, and they finally separated the bathrooms -- but the vibe was still so much the same that it was hard not to get swept up into it all. It started off with Robert Goodman spinning old wave and alternative, which filled the dancefloor for a while -- but then led to a performance by classic Jacksonville alternative rockers The Beggarweeds, who's mix of rockabilly beats, distorted guitars and simple country-music lyrical sneer I hadn't heard in literally years.
  
  The guys sounded great, but to be honest even they weren't sure why they were the only act to grace the stage (they even jokingly said as much during the show). The crowd reaction was mixed -- as people had vastly different memories of a place that hosted all different kinds of bands over the years but specialized in punk, metal, ska, industrial, and alternative acts. In a lot of ways as much as I loved hearing them close out their set with the classic "Churchin" -- an hour and a half of just one band (especially an alt-countryish act) was a lot to ask of people to sit through.

  Which led to the other problem of the evening, which was the bar.

  While I suppose it was possible -- I don't really think 800 people showed up. But even if it was just 300-400, you’d think the event organizers might have planned a little better for that kind of crowd. Instead, 2 bartenders and one barback (who eventually started taking drink orders too) attempted to fend off scores of thirsty people from behind a tiny corner bar that almost immediately began running out of things.
  
  This event was for a bar that had been closed for almost 15 years. The people who used to come there and dance all night are all older now -- and we wanted booze. When it became clear they hardly had any and couldn't get it to us without standing in line for almost 20 minutes a lot of us left for other places.
  
  I ran into a few old friends (Fred Andrews was apparently there, but I missed him) and had a great time revisiting memories -- but all of the hassle involved (especially considering the nearly $20 it cost me to get in) left sort of a bad taste in my mouth. So in the end I'm really glad I went -- even if I did end up at LIT by the time the night was done.


• The Geek Ascention -- I probably shouldn't be as proud of this as I am, considering that I might be damning my own son to nerd prison for a few years just by pointing it out -- but Curren found his first continuity error this weekend all on his own.
  
  He was watching the latest episode of one of his favorite shows, Ben 10: Ultimate Alien -- which features a character named Terraspin (he could tell you this by heart, I had to look it all up). Terraspin is sort of a giant turtle-looking dude who can fly. Anyways, the whole hook if this show is that a kid named Ben is the owner of a device that enables him to transform himself into a wide variety of alien forms that he uses to defeat bad guys. but you can always tell that it's him because all of his aliens have the devices' symbol somewhere on their bodies.
  
  The reason I have to point all this out is that during this episode, the turtle alien dude is trying to escape from a bad guy yada yada yada, so there's all this footage of him running around looking like this (no symbol on his chest) -- but then in a scene somewhere in the middle of the episode he turns around from a computer console looking like this picture:
  
  My son actually paused the DVR on the scene and demanded to know how the animators could make such an obvious a mistake like that. He was actually kinda pissed off about it, too.

  I was so proud, I have to admit I choked up a little bit.

• This: -- Seriously, this clip makes me feel like Rex from Toy Story 2. "I don't need to play the game.. I've lived it!"

  So, what were some of the cooler things you saw this weekend?

[Listening to:  Snoop Dog - "Gangsta Love (feat. The Dream)" ]