While flying, I always find myself crossing my fingers that no one will end up sitting in the seat next to me.  It’s happened several times, and it’s pretty nice to have more elbow and leg room.  This situation happened yet again this week, but my hopes were soon dashed as I saw a man and his kids coming towards me while I was seated.  The man was wearing jean shorts, a camouflaged hat with the word “Kansas” on it, and a shirt that had an American flag and some slogan about how awesome the U.S. is.  After getting his two daughters seated in the row in front of us, he plopped down in his seat, turned to me, and asked, “You ever flown in one of these freakin’ tiny planes before?”  As he turned, he dropped his cell phone on the floor and let out a loud, “Shoot!”  Only he didn’t say “freakin’” and he didn’t say “shoot”.  Keep in mind that this all took place directly behind his kids.  He also wreaked of alcohol. The rest of the flight, the man would occasionally speak to me, dropping F and S Bombs the way most people use the word “the”.  He also sat with his legs spread almost completely apart causing me to shift my body towards the window for the entire duration of the flight.  Once he was able to use his mp3 player, he turned it on and conked out, subjecting the whole front half of the plane to a combination of his snoring mixed with the Lynard Skynard blasting from his earphones. 

At first glance, most people would likely label him as “undereducated” or “redneck”.  The more I thought about it, though, the more I couldn’t help but wonder if he was a living embodiment of what the modern day “American” has become.  If you think about it, what segment of today’s population proudly displays pro-U.S. propaganda on a regular basis?  If I had to answer that question, I would say there are two types of people: 1) past or present members of our military and 2) the type of people who act like they could recite every line of every episode of “Blue Comedy Tour” (Sidenote: I am sitting in an airport on a layover as I write out this post.  As I wrote that last line, a man with a mustache, mullet, jean shorts, and a shirt that said “Drink. Pee. Repeat” just walked by as if it was on cue).  Now, I’m not criticizing anyone of being pro-America.  If anything, my point is that it’s sad that we, as a nation, seem to have lost our sense of patriotism — and there could possibly be an inverse relationship of the degree that one is vocal about it and one’s IQ. 

One of my favorite writers, Chuck Klosterman once wrote that he once sent out a mass email asking about patriotism:

I gave everyone two potential options for a hypothetical blind date and asked them to pick who they’d prefer. The only things they knew about the first candidate was that he or she was attractive and successful. The only things they knew about the second candidate was that he or she was attractive, successful, and ‘extremely patriotic.’ No other details were provided or could be ascertained.

He then wrote

Just about everyone immediately responded by selecting the first individual. They viewed patriotism as a downside. I wasn’t too surprised; in fact, I was mostly just amused by how everyone seemed to think extremely patriotic people weren’t just undateable, but totally fucking insane. One of them wrote that the quality of ‘patriotism’ was on par with ‘regularly listening to Cat Stevens’ and ‘loves Robin Williams movies.

Keeping this in mind, it’s really no wonder that President Bush was re-elected, and I’d be willing to guess that it is this group of people who largely account for the 1/3 of the population who still approve of his job in office.  Hopefully this new election will change some of that.  I think a lot of us are hoping to get this country back on track.  And maybe we’ll all be more patriotic as a result.

P.S.  I have a sinking suspicion this post could rub some people the wrong way.  I promise I meant all of this in the best way possible .  Nevertheless, feel free to throw in your two cents in the comments.  I’d be curious to know if others share my thoughts or if I’m just completely insane.

My roommate, Matt, got married to his long-time girlfriend, Kysa, this past weekend in Omaha.  Actually, she was my roommate, too, because she has lived in our apartment since the beginning of the year as well as the past couple of summers.  I was an usher in the wedding so I took Friday off of work so I could head up for the wedding rehearsal.  As an usher, there really isn’t much to do during a rehearsal.  You basically are told which side the bride a groom’s sides will be sitting and then you sit there for an hour or so watching the rest of the wedding party go through the motions a couple of times.  Luckily, I was good friends with the other three ushers so we were able to hang out and help the time pass a little.  We all headed to a brewery/restaurant for the rehearsal dinner where we were all able to hang out, and the bride and groom were able to introduce everyone to the group.  This is always the part of the wedding weekend that seems to be the most emotional for the bride or groom.  It’s funny how it’s always one or the other that cries when they’re talking about family and friends.  I have yet to see neither or both do it.  In this case, it was Kysa, and she was in tears before she could finish her first sentence. 

The wedding itself I think went great.  I really liked the setup of the church, and the service moved along at a decent pace.  I’ve only been an usher once or twice before, but I kind of enjoy being able to briefly chat with friends and family members as I escort them to their seats.  They exchanged their vows (surprisingly, even Matt teared up a little bit during the ceremony) and we headed to the limo to ride with the new bride and groom.

While in the limo, we were informed that they were taking us to a dive bar called The Homy Inn to have some drinks before heading to the reception.  The place was fantastic, and we definitely didn’t fit in with our tuxes and dresses compared to the locals sitting at the bar. 

The main reason they decided to take us all to The Homy Inn was because it serves champagne on tap.  I had never heard of such a thing before.  It’s a pretty great idea, I must say (sidenote: if anyone happens to know of a place in KC that does this please let me know).  Because we had such a big group of people, they opted to pour the champagne into pitchers instead of pouring us individual glasses.  It was a bizarre (if not extra classy) thing to witness.

The reception went very well.  Kysa’s sister, Carrie, got up and gave a heartfelt speech about her little sis.  Matt’s brother spoke and gave an excellent speech, as well.  I wish I had it on video because it was just the perfect length and absolutely hilarious.  To top it off, our buddy Brad got up and talked for a little while, too.  The gist of both speeches was basically that Matt really married up.  Excellent stuff.

There were a lot of guys from college that traveled from all over to attend.  Being able to get together with so many good friends is one of the big reasons why I look forward to these events.  There was, however, a new person there whom I had never had the pleasure of meeting before.  His name is Bradley, and he is my friend Ben’s 10 month old son.  I don’t believe he was named specifically after me, but Ben told me he named him what he did because he’s “never met a Brad that wasn’t a good guy.”  I’d like to agree with him on that.  Anyway, his son is adorable and full of expression. 

The rest of the night was spent hanging out with friends on the patio outside and dancing to Kysa’s dad’s cover band inside.  At the end of the night, her dad had our friend Brad (yes, I know, there are three Brad’s, including me, that I’ve talked about in this post) come up and tell some jokes.  As expected, the crowd cracked up just as they had during his speech about Matt earlier.

Looking back, the wedding was a unique one for me personally.  This was a couple that I lived with for a decent amount of time.  Not only did I get to know both of them pretty well, but I also became friends with each of their families as they would visit periodically.  It was pretty neat to witness just how much the day meant to both the new couple and the families having been a part of their lives leading up to the event. 

I haven’t been able to post at all in the past week.  This is due, in large part, to the fact that I’ve had a week of early mornings and late nights in New York.  By the time I come home at the end of the day I’m just too exhausted to put any effort into posting.  The make matters worse, the roommate and I decided to cut off our internet because we’re each pretty much going to be moved out of here and into our separate abodes within the next couple of weeks.  I still have internet through my work computer, though, which helps.  Still, it’s a minor inconvenience.

I am leaving tomorrow for Omaha because my roommate(s) are getting married.  It should be pretty crazy to see the two people I’ve lived with for the past 6 months (she moved in at the beginning of the year) finally reach the big day.  I’m really looking forward to seeing old friends again, as well.  Of course, as with pretty much every other wedding I attend, I will be posting a recap with pictures upon my return. 

For close to a month now (actually, probably even more than that), I have promised “The D” that I would answer some interview questions he emailed to me.  After much slacking, I’ve finally gotten around to posting them.  Hopefully they will provide some new insight to those who read this site and don’t actually know me.  Enjoy.  (P.S. Darren, sorry for taking so long.)

1)  You travel for a living. But I have no idea what you do. Are you a salesman? If so, what do you sell, vacuum cleaners? Babies? Sex toys?  What? If you’re not a salesman, are you a superhero that travels from city to city selling your services to the highest bidder like a prostitute? Give us an idea of what you do. Be as specific as you are comfortable with.

That’s actually a question I get asked a lot, even by my good friends.  I have always been paranoid to be one of those boring adults who is unable to talk about anything but their job so I almost take it as a compliment when people don’t know what I do.  To me, your job is something you do to make money to afford things, and your actual “life” is what takes place when you aren’t working.  I make a point not to blur the two if at all possible. 

As for what I do, I travel every week to set up fight clubs throughout the country.  Kidding!  I have a marketing/sales position with a company in KC.  I’m basically responsible for boosting sales in my markets.  I used to have cities all over the U.S. that I was in charge of, but I’m now in charge of the Northeast region.  It was cool to see other parts of the country, but it’s also nice to have consistent times for my eat/sleep clocks.  Okay, the job talk is already kinda boring me.  Next question…

2)  In 2006 your site was hijacked by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). What ever came of this, did they ever tell you why? Are you currently in a federal pound me in the ass prison in Leavenworth?

This is actually an interesting story.  My old host, 2MHost, lost ALL of my old blogging one day.  It was several years worth of writing, and they said that DHS seized all of their harddrives/servers, including their backups, because there was some sort of illegal activity from one of their customers.  Interestingly enough, a friend of mine who works at The Pitch contacted me because he was interested in doing a story on my situation.  He ended up corresponding constantly with DHS to get information about whether or not they actually seized the servers.   After months of research, he found that DHS never seized anything from 2MHost.  Basically, 2MHost lost my content I paid to post through them, lost a ton of other people’s stuff, and then lied to everyone about what had happened.  Needless to say, I was irate.  I immediately thought of ways to put together some class action suit against 2MHost but figured all hope was lost.  Luckily, a good friend of mine was able to find most of my old content online and it should hopefully get reposted soon. 

3)  You seam to be in a slump with the blogging. What’s the dealio, yo? Is the sex toy industry really that busy that you can’t keep us all informed as to what you are doing? Or did you go and get your self a girlfriend, and she cut you off from the blogging?

No, no, I haven’t gone off and gotten myself a girlfriend who cut me of from blogging.  Although, speaking of that, I should mention that, in addition to trying not to talk about work, I also try not to talk about my love life.  Nothing good can come of it.  If you’re with a girl, they can easily hop online and read what you’ve written about them, and if you date another person they can easily read about your thoughts and experiences with another girl.  Like I said, bad news. 

As for the slump with blogging, the only thing I can attribute it to is the lack of time I’ve had lately.  On the average workday, I work, go out for dinner which gets me back to my room around 8 or later, and then try to answer emails and whatnot before having to get to bed.  Obviously, if I do something with friends that pushes things even later.  I’ve been trying to take some time out during my travels to have nights in my hotel rooms where I just relax.  I think it’ll be helpful to prevent burning out.  I’m trying to do better with it.  Thanks for noticing, though.  I forget a lot that people actually read this thing to notice when I don’t post.

4)  Have you ever thought about changing your name to Bradillac?

Haha!  There’s actually a friend of mine who drew me a picture of a Cadillac with that name on the top of it when I was in college.  No joke.  I’ve been Bradical for a while now, though, so I think I’ll just stick with it.

5)  Scenario: You’re a generous philanthropist. You have an unlimited supply of money. What causes do you support? How do you dish out the cash, and why?

That’s a tough one.  I’d have a hard time just giving it to one cause because every one of them needs support.  I’ve personally had family members who’ve passed away from cancer so I’ve always been partial to The American Cancer Society.  I also have done with for The March of Dimes and Children’s Miracle Network.  Those would likely be my top 3.

UPDATE (6/12/07): Oops! When I first read the comment from “The D” I thought he said I was off the chain.  Being that I’m from the streets, I was flattered by his compliment.  Then I read it again and saw that he really wrote.  According to the comments below, I apparently broke the chain of this “interviewing” thing.  Regardless of if you are riding a bike or sending postcards out to people around the world, breaking a chain is never good.  If anyone else wants me to interview them please email me and I’ll send you 5 totally (b)radical questions for you to answer and post on your blog.  Then, it’s your turn to be the interviewee to those interested.  Make sense?  Lovely.

What’s Awesome:  Sitting two rows back from Ted Nugent on your plane from Chicago to Pittsburgh.

What’s Not Awesome:  Hearing the riff from “Cat Scratch Fever” over and over in your head during the entire flight. 

Between Ted and Yao, that’s two celebrity encounters in a week.  Those types of things don’t happen all that often anymore now that I don’t travel to L.A.  It’s definitely pretty funny when it happens.

I’ve been gone most of the day and just recently found out the news about Kelsey Smith’s body being discovered in Overland Park.  Her death is no doubt a tragedy. I’ve been meaning to write a reaction about her abduction ever since I heard about it because the media coverage continues to baffle me.  Like I said, her death is both sad and scary, but I can’t help but wonder what kind of coverage her abduction would have received had she been a minority.  I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but we’ve heard, to the smallest detail, about the abductions or deaths of Elizabeth Smart, Natalee Holloway, Jean Benet Ramsey, and the like so often lately.  You can go into any Walmart in this country and see multiple postings on their bulletin boards of others who have been kidnapped.  Many even include pictures estimating what they would likely look like today.  Why don’t those children make the front page of CNN.com?  I can’t help but wonder what would happen if Kelsey Smith was an average looking minority.  Would her tragedy make even a small blip on the local news?  Hearing about things like this brings two different types of anger out in me.  It makes me mad that there are sick people out there that would do such a thing, and it frustrates me to no end that only the cute, white girls are the ones who the media seems to care about.

Yesterday was one of those really annoying days when nothing seemed to go right at the airport.  I was on a plane bound for Chicago where I had a layover before leaving for NYC a couple hours later.  As it ends up, Chicago had storms and we were stuck on the runway for an hour and a half before taking off.  To make things worse, I was seating directly behind a woman who kept her yipping, annoying Chihuahua on her lap the entire flight.  All hopes for a nap were immediately dashed.  This whole ordeal happened just after I had waited ten minutes in line at Quiznos while witnessing an old, senile lady insist to pay for her sandwich with her driver’s license.

As we were just about to take off, I got a “courtesy” call from United Airlines informing me that my flight from Chicago was canceled and the earliest they could book me would be the following morning (this morning).  I immediately had to call my contacts in NYC and tell them I wouldn’t be able to attend the meetings I had set up for today, alter my NYC reservations, and then find a room for me to stay by O’Hare.  Upon arriving at the baggage claim, I was informed I wouldn’t be getting my luggage because my suitcase was going on the next flight to New York.  I’ve only had this happen a few times in the past couple of years, and it’s a pretty significant inconvenience.  The whole ordeal meant that, not only did I have to cancel my meetings for today, but I had to sleep in my clothes, be without my toiletries, and wear my same clothes today until I got to my hotel. 

All of this ended up being totally worth it, though, as I returned to O’Hare this morning.  I was dropped off at the United baggage claim and had to take the escalator up to ticketing.  For some reason, the baggage claim was like a ghost town, though.  I looked ahead and saw a HUGE Asian man and a short woman walking towards me.  It immediately hit me that that person was Yao Ming.  I kind of froze for a moment and then patted my pockets to see if I happened to have my camera on me (it was in my luggage).  The whole thing happened so quickly that I didn’t really know what to do.  Like a complete loser that I am, I just walked up to him, said hello, and shook his hand.  I’m not exaggerating when I say that Yao’s hand completely engulfed my own.  As I walked off, I saw a small gathering of teenage Asian women taking pictures behind him.  It’s not everyday that you shake hands with an NBA all-star center.  Totally worth it.

The Arcade Fire is one of my favorite bands and, after seeing them perform at Austin City Limits a couple of years ago, I also consider them to be among the best live bands in the business.  When we saw that the band was playing all throughout the weekend in Chicago while we were there, we couldn’t believe just how perfectly the plan fit together.  What’s even more crazy is that the girlfriend of a friend of ours in Chicago was Win Butler’s (the frontman) first kiss back in grade school.  I talked with her a little bit at a party we were at on Saturday night, and she told me that even back then Win was very into music and was a little bit different from the other kids.  She also said she was a big fan of Arcade Fire before she even found out that her first kiss was the lead singer. 

The show itself was amazing.  The band now consists of ten members, all of whom completely give it their all throughout the whole show.  I really can’t say enough about Arcade Fire.  They create smart, elaborate rock songs that make it impossible for you not to feel something from listening to it. The theme of the night centered around their new album, Neon Bible, which, in my opinion, is a piece of work dealing with how radical religion is hurting itself and how American commercialism and ethnocentrism is damaging the country.  At a time when Avril Levigne and an American Idol reject dominate the pop charts (not to mention songs titled “Party Like a Rockstar” and “Buy U A Drank” are in the Top 5), it’s really great to see a such an innovative and talented band grow to such heights in popularity.  It’s definitely well-deserved. 

I neglected to take any pictures or video during the show. Thankfully, there were some people in the crowd who uploaded video onto YouTube.  The band opened with “Wake Up”, and I can’t help but re-watch the performance recorded below to re-live the experience.  It gives me goosebumps every time. 

 Last year, our close group of high school friends decided to get together for a weekend of fun in Chicago.  We had so much fun, in fact, we not only titled it The Best Weekend Ever, but we also decided we needed to make it an annual event.  The second Best Weekend Ever took place a couple of weekends ago in Chicago yet again.  Chicago is an easy place because that’s where half of our high school clan lives.  The weekend, as with last year, was centered around going to a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field.  The day tickets went on sale we decided we were going to get tickets for the Cubs/White Sox crosstown series.  I’ve never had the pleasure of attending a crosstown rivalry before so the thought of going to one with some of my closest friends had me giddy for months.

I arrived into Chicago on Thursday night, but everyone ended up getting into town Friday around noon.  We spent the entire afternoon grilling out and watching the cubs game on the back patio of where our friends live.  It was a perfect day and so great to joke around and catch up with each other.  We ended the night by hanging out at a local bar just down the street from where our friends live.

The next day was the Cubs game.  Our friends live in Wrigleyville and every time I’ve been to a Cubs game it just blows my mind how crazy the atmosphere is around there.  The bars are packed and everyone is decked out in Cubs gear.  We tried to get in line early since our bleacher seats were general admission.  We apparently didn’t get there in time, though, because the line was practically wrapped around the outfield portion of the stadium.  Somehow we ended up sitting at the exact same spot as last year.  Unlike last year, the weather was absolutely perfect out. 

Nic even impressed everyone around us by pulling out his “look, I have no pants on” trick. Even back in high school, he would roll his pants up and walk down the halls pretending he was naked.  It’s good to see he hasn’t lost his touch.

In addition to a perfect day and a great game, we were also surrounded by some great people watching.  For starters, we we all had the pleasure of witnessing the lamest tattoo I’ve ever seen.

That’s right, the dude had a Space Jam tattoo of Bugs Bunny on his left shoulder.  I cannot fathom what would possess someone to permanently ink such a think on their skin.  We had some celebrity sightings in our section, as well.  Just a few rows down from us was former American Idol winner Taylor Hicks!

One theme that seemed pretty constant throughout the game was White Sox fans trying to start fights with Cubs fans.  I’ve always been pretty indifferent to the Sox but my view on them has taken a nose dive since the game.  The worst offender was an obnoxious guy who yelled at people all game to the point of turning red and having veins pop out of his head.  Looking closer, we realized it was Limp Bizkit’s own Fred Durst!

The game itself was quite possibly the best game I’ve ever witnessed.  There are two things I’ve always wanted to witness in my lifetime: a grand slam and a pitcher hitting a homerun. It turns out, BOTH of those things happened in the game.  Jason Marquis hit a solo shot to center field, and Derrick Lee pinch hit in the bottom of the eighth to hit a grand slam and give the Cubbies the lead.  I took a video with my camera when Lee was at bat, and I think it’s safe to say the place went nuts when he hit it out (the homer is just after the 1:10 mark).

John Cusack even lead us all in “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh inning stretch.  In short, the game alone was worth coming to town for the weekend.  Simply amazing. 

After hanging out for a bit after the game, Bret and I decided to try to meet up with some college buddies who lived in the city.  We met Jay, Kurt, and Andy at a nearby bar to chat it up before heading to another place closer to downtown.

The place we went downtown had a dancefloor in the basement.  In no time, our group was dancing with a bachelorette party.  We were doing pretty much every cheesy move you can think of, including breakdancing on the floor.  At one point, Kurt took off his belt and next thing we knew everyone starting doing the limbo with it.

The whole weekend was an absolute blast.  The close it out, a group of us went to see Arcade Fire at the Chicago Theater on Sunday night.  I will post about that tomorrow.  As for the weekend, it definitely lived up to its name yet again.