First I must start with a poll question that everyone must answer that reads this.   Stacy’s brother has stated that his first child regardless of sex will be named Top Hat Johnny.  Stacy has since decided that Rainbow will be the name of our fictional child.  I have put my foot down and declared that the fictional name of the child will be 4 Horsemen.  Which name is better for a child?  I envision calling the nonexistent kid Baby Enforcer or Baby Arn myself but sticking with the 4 Horsemen name to honor the whole group of Flair, Arn, Tully & Ole and even the version with Windham instead of Ole.  Vote away.   4 Horsemen or Rainbow?

Time to get in here with another update.  Today’s plans for canoeing with Stacy got changed but my wonderful girlfriend did surprise me today by telling me that she has booked a Southwest Vacation Package for us to go to Las Vegas with her friend from high school and her friend for the first week of July right after the Philly show.  I will now be flying out to Philly or at least flying back from Philly the day after the show in order to get back in time to fly to Vegas.  Her friend just quit her job and is getting ready to move and look for another job and wanted to celebrate her unemployment by having a big fiesta in Vegas.  I will make this promise…I will take pictures and blog and what happens in Vegas will NOT stay in Vegas.  That is going to be a realy busy week because Chris and I have autograph tickets for Derrek Lee on the Wednesday right before the Philly show but I have told Chris to prepare himself for possibly dragging his wife along in my place and getting both autographs for us.  I forsee a very long blog about that week!

Last weekend was Ian Rotten’s 29th *cough cough* birthday.  Ok…he’s a little older than that but for this purpose, we’ll let him be younger than me.  I went down to La Casa de Rottens on Thursday so we could go to the David Allan Coe concert that night at Coyotes.  I was able to see the new La Casa de Rottens and it should be real nice when it gets painted…front and back screened in porches will be really nice.  We went to the concert and boy what a disappointment.  DAC was hopped up on something and jumping from song to song after one or two lines.  We saw Bull and that was nice but it wasn’t a storybook ending because Bull didn’t say “sorry Johnny for not showing up…could you please give me another chance” and Ian didn’t say “oh brother you know I can’t stay mad at you…you are more than welcome to come back…the IWA needs the BMFers.”  So what I was hoping and praying would turn into a win win situation turned into a lose lose situation.  We left before the concert was even over.

Friday was Ian’s actual birthday but we just stayed around the house.  I made a couple of trips to Staples because well I get antsy when I’m just sitting around and then we discussed some things for IWA.   James Christopher dancing to the music played on the Grinch bank that Ian has was just priceless.  That kid danced for at least an hour to that music!

I left on Saturday to get back in time to go to the Hairbangers Ball with Stacy.  I didn’t take pictures from this time but I did take pictures from it when I went with Sox last month for his 30th birthday party.  He was upset that they never made it into the ol’ LJ so here are some pictures from the last concert that I went to with Sox and enjoyed so much that I wanted to go back again this month with Stacy.

images gone

So that was from the last Hairbangers Ball…Bon Jovi, Ozzy, Guns N Roses, Poison, Metallica songs galore.  So Stacy and I are looking forward to seeing this concert.  We get there 15 minutes earlier and pick our spot to stand in the mob.  It just wasn’t meant to be however because this other group shows up after us with about 10 people in it.  The girls want to keep getting closer to the stage.  The guys wanted to stay in the back where it was less crowded but the one guy wanted to be with his girlfriend so he kept rubbing into Stacy and knocking her farther over to chase after his girlfriend.  About 3 songs into the show, we were 15 feet farther over and packed into everybody because of this group of people pushing us constantly.  Stacy could tell I was about to erupt so we went to the other side of the bar.  It was worse.  Everyone kept pushing and shoving because well no one can just stand still and enjoy the concert.  You have to make 17,000 beer runs and bathroom runs and constantly be moving through the crowd to see how many asses and breasts you can “accidentally” grab.

Then came the breaking point.  I look over and there is a guy that is completely bent over in front of me and his face is about 1 inch away from Stacy’s breasts.  I bend down and get right into his face ready to deliver a left hook to take him the rest of the way to the floor and then curbstomp his ass straight to hell when he is on the floor.  When I bend down and get in his face, the guy’s eyes are rolled up into the top of his head and he is obviously just passed out on his feet.  Got to love it when jackasses get that drunk.  His buddies quickly pull him back up and Stacy decides that she doesn’t want to see me vs. 8 drunk people so we decide to relocate again.  She goes to the restroom and then I see Roy D Rage of IWA board fame.  He offers to buy me a drink and I decline.  Stacy then gives me a lecture that I can be nicer to fans that ask to buy me a drink and just ask for a diet coke and give it to her if I don’t want it (this is at least the second time now that I have declined a similar offer from a fan in her presence).  We stand up against the back wall of the bar and enjoy about 20 minutes of the concert in comfort.  Then it starts getting crowded around the back wall and Stacy decides that it is time to get out of there before I go Tracy Smothers on people.

I love the music and the Hairbangers Ball puts on a great show but since Joe’s Bar likes to allow 100 more people in the place then there is comfortable room for and they all are drunken jackasses with no concept of decency or giving people their own circle of space, I don’t think I’ll be going back any time soon to see them.

The next day, Stacy calls me up and asks if I would like to go on a walk.  I say sure and go in to her parents’ house.  We decide to take a walk on the tow path.  Here is a couple of lovely shots of the world reknowned tow path:

images gone

We walk up to the tow path for a ways and then head towards my Grandma Dorothy and Aunt Sharon’s.  We get there and they weren’t home.  I then took Stacy through the old neighborhood and showed her where Chris Finch, John Maddox and me all grew up together at basically the same exact location on three straight streets…I don’t think she was impressed…and then we finished going back to her parents house…total mileage on the walk – 7 miles.  I was dying the last mile…seriously…I thought she was going to have to call her dad to come and get me because my feet were having none of it.

Monday and Tuesday was flyering in Joliet for the upcoming show.  It kept raining off and on and spoiling any good amount of flyering but the local Mexican stores and the building and a few of the cars and houses in the neighborhood have flyers now.  I decided to drive past the prison featured in The Blues Brothers and the current Fox show Prison Break and take a few pictures while waiting for it to stop raining.  The main reason for doing so was because my mom and dad used to work for the Illinois State Police Crime Lab across the street from there and had to do fingerprints and such on all the convicts going into Statesville.  Here is my pictures from driving past the prison:

images gone

And here is the building that my mom and dad worked in for the Illinois State Police.  It is not the stairway that my dad fell off of though when the jackass let the door close on his crutch while leaving work and caused him to fall over the side and through the windows that were piled on the side waiting to be thrown away and thus causing him to be in the wheelchair for the rest of his life when I was three years old.  That was around back and I did not go back there.  I did not have it in me.

images gone

That is all for this update…hopefully the crazy weather subsides enough for me to get some good flyering done but tomorrow looks bad again.  However, Stacy will be in Morris all next week and has offered to help me flyer door to door.

That is all.