Wednesday night in downtown St. Paul, at a weird bar called "Loto" (get it? Like "lowertown" Ha ha, not that awesome). On the outside patio Jeff attempts to make friends with a stoic pigeon. This pigeon was the master of chill. Totally down with whatevs.
Todd and Jeff on the Loto patio, overlooking Mears Park, giving thumbs up to the sheer solitude and desolation that is downtown St. Paul on a weeknight.
Flash forward to Friday night, the first installment in the annual summer Movies in the Backyard series at Blesto's and Doogie's. Basically, this involves a bunch of people hanging out in the backyard, watching crappy movies from the 80's and 90's projected on a piece of fiber board connected to a laundry line, drinking beers, Sparks, and booze drinks.
On tap for this night: "Airborne" starring a young Seth Green and some dude from Swan's Crossings. A totally extreme rollerblading comedy from 1993 about a surfer dude who gets exiled to Cincinnati and finds himself in the midst of an intense street hockey rivalry. We also watched "Blackjack" on this night, which is a Dolph Lundgren detective story from the 80's.
The brew crew.
McTubbins shows his approval of rollerblading and the evening's events. Truly a kickass way to spend a Friday night.
The next day, Jeff and I head to my aunt's house in Edina for my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary. That is a seriously long time to be married.
The happy couple.
My brother shows us his disgusting peely sunburned back, and for some reason my cousin Jack is touching it. This may be the most disgusting photo ever seen on this blog, except for the time that Jeff spewed in the sink, that might be the grossest.
My cousins and Jeff, drinking keg beer and keg rootbeer by the only shade in the backyard on this hot day. Notice that Jack, my underage cousin, is drinking his "root beer" from a coozy that obscures the color of the liquid. Interesting.
Treehouse parties! The neighbors have a treehouse that apparently all the disgruntled middle-aged dads go to drink gins, smoke stogies, and talk baseball. Awesome. My Aunt Fern likes blogging just about as much as me.
After the anniversary party, Nicole and Ripplechip meet us at our house for an action packed night of beers and Guitar Hero.
Jeff is totally rocking out to Sum 41 right now. Or Audioslave. One of the two.
After the Guitar Hero sesh, we walk through the empty streets of downtown St. Paul to the river. Usually, you can just brazenly and confidently drink beers in public because there is never anyone around to bust you. Tonight, we accidentally stumble onto two Saint Paul cop cars busting a dude in an alley by the river. The cop yells "Drop the beers and walk away!" We comply, and walk away as they return their attention to the dude they're busting.
Bug attacks at the river. Totes scary.
Huck Finn styles.
We send messages in bottles down the river with our empties. Someday, McTubbins is gonna get a phone call about this.
Ripplechip shows us the hot new styles for summer '06. Knee-high argyle socks with knee-length cammo shorts. Consider it done.
On the walk back, Ripplechip and Jeff explore Mears Park. Birch trees and a fake river are no match for these urban explorers. Jeff and Ripplechip take turns jumping over the creek, Woff wins, Chips falls in.
The next day is Grand Old Day! The best street celebration in town. 50,000 clog Grand Avenue in St. Paul, and the day gets progressively less family-friendly as the hours pass and people crush more brews. This is a shot of the morning parade.
TPC is playing at the Dixie's stage this afternoon. Here they get prepped to bring the pain to the unsuspecting masses, backstage lanyards in tow.
Nicole has a lawn party to watch the shit go down.
At the Dixie's stage during TPC's set, there is a crazy chicken walking around with swords, taunting people. Apparently this gets people in the mood to party?
During TPC's set. Cam and Coles are getting sunburned and drunk.
TPC turn their last song into a dance-off. Jeff jumps onto monitors and claps, Beak shimmies and shakes.
The aftereffects of rageful guitar ragings.
Afterparty at our place. More Guitar Hero. Everyone is sunburned, drunk, tired, but ready for more.
Exactly.
Randall (wearing a Washington Wizards baseball hat? WTF?) flashes the Beak sign while JC solos through "Symphony of Destruction."
Mel and Cam. Wasted.
The party thins out, just the three of us our left. We drink all the beers, so are forced to drink the remnants from cans of those who've already left. Youch. Not only that I totally nerd out and probably regret saying a lot of things in the morning.
Craig gives Guitar Hero a try. Fucks up "I Wanna Be Sedated" for like 45 seconds, puts the guitar down, says "I only played cause I wanted to be in the blog," then walks out. Weekend over. Hungover on Monday.
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