Day 2

One of my least favorite things to be is Drunk. Notice the capital "D". I'm not talking about being drunk with a lower case "d", which is actually fairly pleasant. I'm talking about the kind of Drunk where hours are erased from your mind. The Drunk where you don't have to worry about road safety or DUI's because you are physically incapable of getting behind the wheel. The Drunk where you spend the next day scrambling to make sure all your valuables are accounted for, your text messages didn't cross any lines, and you didn't do anything TOO embarrassing or offensive. I hate this Drunk and my attempts to avoid it are usually very successful. Still, it happens about once a year.

The reason I hate being Drunk isn't because of the aforementioned reasons. Those factors are an inconvenience, but only a minor one, probably because it usually turns out nothing too terrible happened...the worst thing I can come up with was getting kicked out of a concert when I was in college and even that wasn't really all that big a deal. (Plus, I still maintain that this was undeserved.) The real reason I hate being Drunk is the loss of control over my surroundings and the vulnerability it opens me up to. My words and actions are generally very calculated. You may not think so but they are. I am in control. When I am drunk I am NOT in control and though it would appear that I still do a semi-decent job at handling myself, I certainly lose that all-important awareness of surroundings and situations. Without this awareness I am more likely to tip my hand and let you into my head, which leads me to another of Mr. Mike's cardinal rules: YOU ONLY SEE THE SIDE OF ME I CONSCIOUSLY CHOOSE TO LET YOU SEE. If I have not revealed to you what is going on in my head it is because I don't want you to know. This is not necessarily a positive personality trait but it is the way I play and I think I play life better than almost anyone (except for maybe Dennis Rodman, who I will be discussing at length in the near future.) I hate Drunk because it puts a chip in my poker face and reveals more of me than I care to reveal. Or maybe it doesn't. The problem is I don't know because I don't remember and I hate not knowing and not remembering and not being in control of my surroundings.

And now for a funny story from last night at Bar Louie.

Shortly after arriving at Bar Louie for the Blackhawks game last night I went to ask the bartender if he would kindly turn the sound on for the game. "Can't...we have a DJ coming in at 9." Oh...well that's kind of stupid you have a DJ coming in when the Hawks have a playoff game tonight...well maybe you could at least turn the sound on till 9. "Nope. They won't let me do that because everyone is here to watch the Hawks game and they will be pissed when we turn the sound off at 9 for the DJ." Hmmm...doesn't that tell you something about the desires of your customers? "Yes...I don't make the rules."

So that was stupid. But then shit started going to Jupiter to get more stupider. The DJ showed up and was playing run-of-the-mill Top 40 fare....not terrible but terribly typical and certainly nothing worth having the sound off on a key playoff game. So I decide I may as well make the best of it...I write on the back of a receipt two words:

BIGGIE
JUICY

...just like that. And I go give it to the DJ with a dollar. And the DJ says..."They won't let me play rap." What the fuck...why? "They just don't want that element in here." What element? Black people? "NONONONONONONONONONO NOT LIKE THAT AT ALL! Like thugs and stuff." But you were just playing that Jay Sean song...that's rap. "No. That's hip hop. There's a difference between hip hop and rap." (Now it's getting interesting because this guy has decided to go to war with me over one of a small handful of things I know more about than anyone else in the bar.) So...explain the difference to me. "Well, rap is all about guns and drugs and hoes and hip hop is about dancing and having a good time." Whoa....this guy seriously just said that. Stunned. But even if your criteria were correct..."Juicy", an autobiographical celebration of rags-to-riches, would clearly fall in the "hip hop" category. "You know what? Fuck it man...I'm gonna play this for you! Just let me make sure I have it." Fifteen minutes later he played "California Love", a song that is, ironically, all about guns and drugs and hoes.

So let me clear up some confusion here: HIP HOP IS A CULTURE. RAP IS THE DOMINANT MUSICAL FORM OF THE CULTURE. THEY ARE NOT TWO COMPETING GENRES. And another thing...GANGSTA RAP IS DEAD. IT DIED WITH PAC AND BIG. WHAT YOU CALL GANGSTA RAP TODAY IS NOT GANGSTA RAP.

That's science....

Finally, kudos to Erica for providing me with the day's biggest laugh:

"my friend's facebook status is 'fucking cubs' . either he's into sex w/animals or the cubs did something bad today?"