Oktoberfest Weekend (So far away)

Oktoberfest was initiated as a king's greatest party. A rich man's event to showcases an innovative, spectacle beer. An event to celebrate one man, a man who was fond of his own greatest. How jealous am I that this all doesn't pertain to myself? God damnit, am I jealous! Oktoberfest has been going on now for a good bit. By a good bit, I just don't mean this year's opening ceremonies in Munich or Lacrosse. I don't mean the remnits of the hangover lasting for last night's three and a half hour Rochester Peace Plaza event. I'm talking years. Centuries. Millennium falcons. I'm talking a good fucking while. So now I must come clean. Where am I? Where is Stu Pidasso? Where is Pete? Where is that one name that I used to call myself, the name that I haven't thought of in years cause I've been blogging as much as a Klu Klux Klan member's been following through with a lynching...Dave Truthteller? Johnny Speakright? Damned if I can't remember all the alter egos I used to hide behind on this blog of failed dreams. Anyway, where am I? Stranded in a high class Hampton Inn in Alexandria, MN. Killing time by me-self. Drinking Two-Hearted, waiting for a wedding to begin at 3. I feel like I got a world to say today and no one to listen. Welcome back to blogging, Pete. Have at her! So it's Oktoberfest weekend. My memories fade back to last year's. A memorable event that has me thinking that, maybe, I'm missing out this year. Well, for the record, I am missing out this year. Last year was fabulous. It was fun, down right crazy, and absolutely a time that I don't want to forget. Why? Because...Oktoberfest begins with a Friday in September. At least in Minnesota/Wisconsin it does, it do. And if some euro-educated lad begs to differ, I beg them to slag off. I have no time on this blog for education. Rants last and last alike, no education needed, Einstein. So the Friday fell onto the same night as a Twins game, the same night as a cold, wet evening in Rochester, MN. The same night as an Apollo Liquor Oktoberfest tent event held outside of Mickey's Irish Salon. Fast forward a Twin's lost, 40ish 4ounce beers, 4 or 5 shots of of Red Stag, some uncontrolled drooling, and you got me plucking display beers off of the tables and attempting to snatch leftover cases out from under the tent flaps. Come Saturday, and this is what I've been pointing as to as the main event, I'm in Lacrosse. Fresh mullets abound, drunk Russel's amuck, and beer's flowing like the zumbro through Hammond, MN on a late September 23rd morning. I partake, give and take, played beer pong with shots at stake. It was wonderful. A drunk's drunk event. Come that night, P?M throw down a show at NightHawk's Tap Room. The crowd was obviously too drunk to notice our shortcomings. And, again, obivously too drunk to notice that the response they were giving us was worthy of, well, a pretty decent band. So P?M's show came and went. All survived, tabs were paid, shots were taken, Pearl Street brews were downed. Fast forward a Fuck Knight's set, a trip out to a car impound, a last second grub run to Subway, and I'm walking the lonely streets of UW-Lax's neighborhood under a full moon with two-third's of P?M and the Fuck Knights at 3am Sunday morning. It was at this time that I saw the most amazing, beautiful sight I have ever witnessed on an Oktoberfest weekend. I mentioned there was a full moon but I should have mention that in Lacrosse, Wisconsin, Keystone Light is king. The cheap beer of choice for college students and it's hard to argue why it isn't. 30 packs are dirt cheap in that town. Dirt cheap. And I have a sneaky suspicion why...in Rochester, MPLS, anywhere else. 24pks are $15 or so and the beer is fresh and good. In LaX, 30 packs are $12 and the beer tastes old and strange. I feel as though I've laid the ground work. There's lots of Keystone Light drank in Lacrosse and on oktoberfest weekend, when it's drank in excess, and garbage cans are ignored or abandoned, people just toss the cans in the yard. In fact, they toss MANY, MANY, cans in the yard. So to be one of the few people walking through this neighborhood at 3am, as the full moon glares down onto the hundreds of blue-silver tinted, empty Keystone light cans that litter the yards...was amazing. A beautiful sight that I hope the whole wide world could see and appreciate. Fast forward being locked out of a house, turned away from an open apartment full of couches to crash on, and I'm discovered by police while tossing garbage cans onto a balcony. So the cops make me pour out some beers and they tell me to not only leave the apartment compound that I'm hanging out by, but they inform me that it's best to leave town, and soon I'm trying to find a ride back out to the car impound that I was just at 2 hours before. Luckily, I get the back seat on the ride home cause I pass out pretty quick. Now, today, to be thinking about this all in Alexandria, I got to bring some of this Oktoberfest excitement to the wedding reception tonight. I hope someone appreciate it.

Inspiration for this blog:

Boredom
Fat Daddy's Bar and Grill
34oz Bell's Two Hearted Ale x 2
http://jameshyland.bandcamp.com/album/celestial-navigation
Three Men and a Tenor
and a tad bit of Elliot Smith's Baby Britain

Snow Closes I-70; Pete Forced Sit Idle In Parking Lot For Hours

What do you get when you combine twelve straight hours of driving, the Rocky Mountains, a blizzard of monsterous porportions, and a Conoco parking lot? Sleepy time in the western world for three tired out rug rats. As for myself, I braved the storm, fought off Mr. Sandman, and kept my eye on the prize. What prize, you ask? The little road block gate thingy that prevented traffic from heading west on Interstate 70 near Copper Mountatin, Colorado.

Brand NEW! Hillbilly Heroin Music Video!!!

How The Magic Happens...A Glimpse into the Empty Red Sessions

P?M - Shitmonger - www.myspace.com/drunkensermons

!!!Empty Red Sessions out soon!!!

Backstage...Empty Red Sessions

www.myspace.com/drunkensermons

Soon...soon...raccoons...soon.

Dead At 14

Step aside, Bernie McCullough, and quit hogging the spotlight, Todd Bachman, cause there's been a true death in the Money Maker family and I don't need anyone else cramming for attention here. I don't want to shock you but I can't figure out a way to say this without leaving anyone in shock. Best if I just say it, I suppose. Well, here goes...my 1994 Ford Taurus is done dead and gone. It sleeps with the fishes, or soon will as soon as it gets dumped from it's tow truck grave and left for scrape on some metal graveyard in Grand Meadow. A couple weeks back, I was driving the Taurus down Elton Hills Drive, just a block or two from my house, minding my busy, whistling a happy tune, when shit suddenly it the fan. I didn't hear a clunk, I didn't see smoke, and I didn't hear a plutter or a poot but the car just stopped working. My best guess is that it caught a stray bullet from one of Rochester's notorious gang fights and got it right square in the heart. A quick and painless death which I, for one, am glad for. If the Taurus died the same way as Isaac Hayes, by getting weirded out over a prolonged period of time by Sciencetoligists, I don't think I could have handled this as soberly as I have. I admit, I was in denial about the death of the Taurus for close to two months. I kept the car for that long in my driveway. I figured all it needed was a little rest so every so often, I would go outside Empty Red, turn the key, and hoped to all hell that it would start again. I thought that if it ever would, I'd drive straight to Duluth and pull up on the banks of Lake Superior and have one last Grain Belt behind the wheel. It would be the most proper farewell to that car that I could think of. After that, if it broke down again, I'd, at least, would have felt that we had our last hurrah. Sadly, when the key turned, the Taurus just coughed and grasped. Finally, I summoned up the courage to call a scrape yard to give proper burial to the car I held so dear. It was tough seeing 192,000 miles of good times, at least 100,000 miles of those mine, being carried away to rest but, Summit in hand, I held it together. Things just aren't going to the same anymore and I can't think of any other way to put it.

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