The Week 15 Blues

They say the blues were born on the Mississippi. We were not on the Mississippi, we were in Nashville on the Cumberland River which, in a six degrees to Kevin Bacon kind of way, is connected to the mighty Mississippi.  I'm sure some blues cooties made their way over to the country music capital of the world. It was a bad weekend for yours truly. Well, not the entire weekend, just Sunday. No I didn't end up in prison or get into a fight or anything serious like that. Let me explain:

This was the weekend for the Second Annual Side Bet Payoff. As you may remember, last year I took Lenny over to Kansas City to watch a Raiders vs. Chiefs game. This year I won the bet and decided on seeing the Dolphins vs. the Thumbtacks in Nashville with the AFC wildcard in the balance. We rushed out of Manhattan late Friday afternoon and literally ran through the airport to catch our flight. What we didn't know was that the flight was delayed which was neither indicated on any website nor on any signage in the Continental terminal. No biggie, two large sized full flavored Buds later and we were on our way. We landed in Nashville and deposited our crap in the downtown Marriott, conveniently located in the heart of the action and a mere minutes walk from LP Field. Lenny took a second to plan our crawl for the evening and away we went.

First stop was Beer Sellar, a basement sports bar (notice the clever play on seller vs. cellar) at the tail end of the downtown action. Despite the seemingly endless beers on tap, the $2 PRB pounders were hard to pass up. We met a really friendly guy named Anthony (but he asked us to call him Cincinnati) who was chatting us up for awhile. He told us about his stints in prison and how he's holding up with his cuz.  Lenny and I knew where this was heading when he told us he hadn't paid for a drink all night. Unfortunately for Cinncy we moved on without buying him a drop! I mean come on? You trying to hustle a couple of New Yorkers??? Seriously? The highlight of this drinking establishment was this awesome pics Lenny snapped of some dude passed out while taking a leak.



Pressing on we ended up a pool hall named Buffalo Billiards (again, very clever name) where Lenny housed me at some 8 ball on pretty terrible Olympic sized tables.  The only strange thing about this place was that a client of mine recognized the company T-shirt I was wearing. I was getting a little bleary so I just pressed past him in a 'very proud of you' kind of way.

 
The rest of the night is kind of a blur. We're not sure what happened but we swore we went to one more bar then home. It was an Irish bar and I can't recall the name. Somewhere along the line we took this pic and the rest is real shady thanks to brother Jamie. Yep, that looks like a proper end of the night pic. The very next day as we were looking for a spot to break our fast, we walked by Legends. Then it clicked! This was the last bar and where that shot (and pic) came from! Well that mystery was solved but there were a couple more that were baffling us. I woke up in the morning and all of the contents of my suitcase were strewn across the hotel room. Not just dumped on the floor but thrown from corner to corner! I must have been looking for something at the bottom. Then I noticed that the night table that sat between our beds was soaking wet and consequently so was everything on it. I did the smell check first but no, no odor so no bathroom breaks there. One of my socks was on the table and it was soaked. We later surmised that the sock must have been the culprit. How it got wet and then to the table will remain unsolved. I spent that morning drying my knicky knacks with a hair dryer.

Saturday was spent acquiring materials and allowing our crafty sides to come out. We loaded up on booze for game day and procured a cheap styro-foam cooler. Of course I had to make another cheesy handle, this time out of a plunger. Check out the sequence! The other business of the day was making our 'I won a bet, I lost a bet' signage. After browsing around the tourist store we decided it would be best to do it on tacky Nashville license plates.



We woke up and rode over to the stadium. It was pretty dead in the parking lot. Lenny asked where we should set up shop. I looked around and said, "How about over there buy those Jack Daniels tents"? This turned out to be one of the best tailgates ever! I can't give away too much because I promised the proprietor his anonymity but we had full stocked bar, a cauldron of jambalaya, sausages, chips, you name it. Not to mention an awesome group of Titans fans. They welcomed us in to their circle with open arms and absolutely loved our silly little side bet story.  A big thanks to our hosts and to the friends we made there. Our 50 yard line seats were dope. The fans around our section were not so. I looked around at the beginning of the game and noticed that we were the only two people with beer. Bad sign. Some guys walking past me knocked my beer over before the game started and of course it got all over the ground below the people in front of us. They were a little miffed. I wasn't overly impressed with the stadium. It looked like a small college venue and maxed out at about 60k with a lot of empty seats. I did like the downtown location, however. So game on and my Fish played like dookie. All game long the Thumbtacks scored at will. Henne's three picks didn't help. It was pretty depressing yet we pressed on.  The Fish scored here and there and started to get back into it. We finally tied it up in the 4th which was awesome! In our jubilation we accidentally knocked over Lenny's beer and the people in front of us freaked the fuck out! One extremely agitated douche actually called us assholes! Can you imagine? It's late in the 4th quarter! We're probably going to overtime! Why would you think we'd intentially knock over our own beer. Have you no appreciating for the value of cervaza at this point in the game especially considering that beer sales ended almost a quarter ago? Jeez. I guess that's the problem with 50 yard lines seat.. lots of yuppies and people who aren't really interested in the game at all. It seemed more like a social engagement to them. The fancy woman in front of us didn't even think our silly little side bet story was cute. She kind of looked at me like I was the dumbest person on the planet. A note to all you Volunteer State yuppies: don't judge a book by it's cover! Just because we spilled beer on the bottom of your shoes doesn't make us douchebags! Ok we are douchebags but not for that reason! The ridiculous part was that at the beginning of overtime these monkeys started piling out of the stadium! HA! So overtime begins, we get the ball, we throw a pick, they drive 10 yards, they kick a field goal, they win, I'm already angry, now I get more angry, I can't wait to get out of the stadium and take it out on our cooler.