Slash and Burn

“So, were you at Chesney?” The ER nurse didn’t even look up from her paperwork while saying it.

And, in fairness, I really didn’t have to answer. My bloody cargo shorts, body smelling of sweated alcohol, and 10:30 p.m. visit to UPMC Mercy spoke for me. It was more of a rhetorical question, anyways. Kind of like when you stumble while walking with someone, and they ask, “Walk much?” Sarcasm is the one luxury afforded to those who must suffer the fools.

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It was a little after 11 a.m. when I parked in front of Jay Swag’s house, but I instantly—and, hindsight being 20/20, prematurely—chalked the day in the “Win” category. Four beautiful 20-somethings with tight, revealing tops and even tighter, even more revealing shorts were gathered on his porch. One—tall, mixed, and of King Magazine cover proportions—I quickly recognized as Liz, a friend of Swag’s that I had met once or twice. The other three were faces I wasn’t acquainted with, though none were making it easy to maintain eye contact long enough to know for sure.

Swag: “Sup dude.”
Me: *In my head, while beaming like a kid who had just walked through the doors of Toys ‘R’ Us* “…Wow.”

This, of course, was the one thing I had been consistently hit over the head with each and every time friends tried, in years past, to convince me to go to the Kenny Chesney concert: You’ve never seen as many hot, nearly naked women as you will at this tailgate. Last year, that stream of relentless hyperbole was finally validated when I attended my first Chesney tailgate. I walked through parking lots so chock full of tanned, toned female flesh that you could’ve mistaken the entire scene for a Michael Bay remake of Bikini Beach. You literally could create a “Chesney Concert Girls” Tumblr page and stock it with a year’s worth of material from just that one day every June.

Liz and her friends—a slender stunner with dark eyes and hair; a smoldering redhead with great curves and girl-next-door beauty; and an energetic, Italian brunette who looked like she belonged in party pictures from the Playboy Mansion—had begun dipping into their cooler bag, which was filled with cans of Bud Light Lime. Swag invited me to grab myself a beer from the fridge. I returned to the porch with two stacked Miller Lites in my right hand and confessed, “I got two.”

After some discussion between Swag and I about auto body repair, and between the girls about anal suction (ask Liz, not me), we all headed for the T. The train was already nearing capacity when we stepped on board, and we still had to pass through five more stops teeming with guys and gals giddy on the one day a year they wear their cowboy hats. We were crammed together, and surrounded by overgrown frat bros who alternated between repeatedly trying—and repeatedly failing—to get “Let’s go Bucs!” chants going, and not-so-subtly nodding and making reference to Liz and her girls (…and their “girls”). Oh well, at least there was cold beer from the cooler bag.

In the year since my last Chesney tailgate, I’ve become a regular on Pittsburgh’s North Shore. Every morning, Monday through Friday, I park in a garage down the street from PNC Park, walk over to North Side Station, and take the escalator down into the city’s underground. And every evening, on my way home, I drag myself in the opposite direction up the towering incline, towards daylight. But arriving at the top of that escalator on Chesney Saturday bore no resemblance to any other time I’ve done it over the past seven months. It’s like your attention span is a Marine standing on a WWII landing craft as the gate comes down. Suddenly sensory impulses are flying at you from every angle: music, noise, skin, pickup trucks, cowboy hats, heat, smells of food, smells of booze, bikini tops, and frenetic bustle covers every square foot of concrete as far as the eye can see. Making it to the beach Gold Lot 2 is a victory in itself.

We found Bill’s annual tailgate party, and got down to business. Swag and I handed over our cover fees and grabbed drinks. The girls had another party they wanted to stop by, so they asked us to wait there for them and headed off. I sipped from my cup of alcoholic lemonade (there was a whole Gatorade cooler of it there; Bill is apparently a fellow student of Ron White), while surveying the landscape in and beyond the party. The scene may be the closest to the definition of “bacchanalia” that any non-swinger will ever know. When Swag mentioned that his girlfriend, Skeets, would be joining us later that afternoon, I expressed pity for him—and I like Skeets. But a Chesney tailgate is no place to endure the limitations of monogamy.

During a brief lull in conversation, Swag suddenly pivoted and headed off towards the port-o-johns. I didn’t think much about it, other than to note that the need to urinate would have to be particularly strong to convince anyone to wait in the lines that stretched around the block. I continued schmoozing with Bill and other guests (including one friend who carried with him a Mason jar filled with a much stronger lemonade mix). Our host expressed gratitude for the visual delights that I had brought to the party, even if they had only been there briefly. Sadly though, his girlfriend, too, was due to arrive soon—and I like Janna. When Swag finally returned to the party, he succinctly explained to me why he had left so suddenly: “Thought I sharted. Had to go deal with it.”

We were far from the only members of our crew who were roaming the wilds of the North Shore Thunderdome that afternoon. Alex, Shannon, and others were a half mile away, camped out closer to PNC Park (Alex had tweeted—while I was still on the train—that she was on her way to being “looped”; she would be in bed by 6 p.m.). LRG, to my amazement, was also tweeting from some unidentified parking lot near us; all attempts at coordinating a meeting with him failed. Entertainer seemed to be the nearest to our position: He was over by the Clark Building, drinking shirtless—that part was a guess, but a pretty odds-on one.

The girls returned, as I worked on my second—third?—third cup of alcoholmonade. We journeyed off with them in search of one of their friends’ parties. All Liz knew was that the party was “by the Clark Building.” This superior field intelligence resulted in the six of us trekking through every foot of parking lot around the building. While walking through the tailgate tent city that stood under the overpass, I couldn’t help but note the feel of a rowdy refugee camp in the air. The air was thicker; the tone was darker, tenser. Dark Eyes grabbed me a Bud Light Lime from the bag; I gulped it down as a coping mechanism as we soldiered on towards brighter terrain. In a small lot located at the base of a cliff, we found both Entertainer’s and Liz’s friends’ parties. And Entertainer was shirtless. I suddenly wished I’d bet someone on that.

While Entertainer was called away by some minor event, Swag and I grabbed beers from his cooler and took cover in the shade at the foot of the cliff. As we stood there bullshitting, I casually turned and looked up the steep hillside…to find a girl halfway up it with her pants around her knees, hovering on a small ledge, pissing. I turned back around and took another sip. Chesney, man.

Down at our altitude, two cute girls—a blonde and an Asian girl—were nervously circling the area. Finally they explained their problem: They had to pee, but didn’t want people watching them as they did. Prudes. I told them to squat behind one of the cars parked in the spots at the base of the hill, and that we would turn around while they did. Out of better options, they dipped down behind a Nissan to our right. After a few minutes, I noticed the blonde walking back out into the parking lot, alone. I turned to find the Asian girl still squatting, looking frustrated.

Me: “You’re still pissing?!”
Asian Girl: “I have a shy bladder!”

Swag and I headed back to Bill’s party to meet up with Skeets, who was finally arriving. Shortly after we got back, Janna passed out Jell-O shots to go with our alcholmonade. Yeah, I could feel all of this going to a good place. We decided to investigate some of the parties that stretched out closer to Heinz Field, in search of…someone. By this point in the day, I’m more amazed that I was standing than disappointed in my recordkeeping. I know we found Rushel Shell for the second time (Swag had spotted him walking past during our first stop at Bill’s party), who informed us that he was trying to return to Pitt. [That, of course, was a failed venture, as would be announced a couple of days later.]

From there, my next clear memory, after walking through various North Shore tailgate parties, is the three of us being on the South Side. For those unfamiliar with Pittsburgh and its geography, at a minimum that transition is typically a solid cab ride spanning two different rivers. And I have no idea how it all happened, and if a cab was even involved. Damn alcoholmonade.

What I’ve since learned from Skeets, however, is that before we ever left the North Shore, we walked over to Rivers to eat dinner. Swag even found photographic evidence on his iPhone; the three of us are gathered at a table full of food in Wheelhouse. To this day I have absolutely zero recollection of this, though I clearly remember the events that followed it in the South Side. …Chesney alcoholmonade.

We went to Mario’s South Side to catch up with TD at Jenn’s bachelorette party. And, as an unforeseen consequence, that resulted in me having to see and speak to BIO for the first time since August. [Guilty of whore crimes, all personal and public record of her was subsequently napalmed. And yet, that persistent, hot ass fought its way through the debris to get in my face, quite literally. Fun.] We moved on to Rumshakers; and then, sometime later…

We were heading elsewhere when Swag, who had decided he wanted a tattoo, broke loose. Skeets spoke the words that were already in my head: “Go get him!” I took off down the sidewalk of Carson St. in pursuit. And then I crumpled to the ground. And strangers on the sidewalk around me had recoiled in disgust. Fun fact: Fire hose fittings protruding from the sides of buildings are impervious to human flesh. Who knew? A girl walking past with her boyfriend was Johnny-on-the-spot with a rag to apply pressure. Though I’m grateful to her for her kindness, concern, and assistance [Seriously, if you’re reading this, Miss, I owe you and your man each a drink; click on my profile name below to contact me by email.] she kept overreacting by saying that the cut was so deep that my bone was showing. It was not. But I was going to need stitches, at a minimum.

As I sat on the ground talking to Skeets and the strangers about my next move, Swag randomly came jogging back past, headed in the opposite direction. When I yelled at him, he strolled back over and said, incredulously, “What? What happened?” Thankfully, our buddy Jay—a bartender at Rumshakers—also happened past, his shift just having ended. He ran and got his car, we hopped in, and he zipped us to Mercy.

I never wanted to watch S.W.A.T., but I caught the bulk of it while laid up in the emergency room. Skeets and a remorseful Swag waited patiently for me in the waiting room while a doctor stapled me together, and I freaked out people on Facebook with a picture of the open wound. As bad as it looked, though, I never really felt much pain. Thank you, alcoholmonade. After my leg had been bandaged up and I was released, I rejoined my friends, and we joked around on the sidewalk outside the hospital as we awaited our cab at 2 a.m.

Me: “Call Liz.”
Swag: “Why?”
Me: “I want one of her friends to come be my private nurse tonight.”

Dark Country

The muffled bars of Childish Gambino’s “Lights Turned On” broke me from the blackness of unfiltered sleep, and into the bright, balmy late-morning air that filled my bedroom last Saturday.

“Swag…
2:30 and we still makin’ progress,
Talkin’ on Twitter to see where to go next…”

My phone vibrated near my outstretched right hand. I picked it up and forced my eyes to focus on the screen. I didn’t recognize the number, so I hit ignore. I glanced over at the clock. 11:02 a.m. My phone buzzed with a new message; it was a text from the same number that had just called. “Hey are you down here for the tailgate?”

“Wait…” I said, picking my head up off the pillow. “I’m supposed to be at a country music tailgate right now…”

A little over a week before that, my friend Bill was once again attempting to persuade me to come to the tailgate party he and his boys throw each year for the Kenny Chesney concert. The show is a huge event in Pittsburgh every summer, and it brings in country music fans from as far away as western New York and Michigan. Bill, Steph, and others had petitioned me for years to come to the party. I flatly refused each and every time, usually countering by naming another activity I’d rather do than sit through a country music concert. Like…solder my tongue to a bus.

As we sat in Bossa Nova at a friend’s birthday party [Note: Their caipirinhas are still magical.] that Friday night, Bill finally won me over with a simple clarification. When I reminded him that I love nothing less than country music, he laughed it off. “I hate it too! I don’t actually go into the concert; I just go to McFadden’s once everyone else goes to the show.” Now he had my ear. And so, when he then reminded me—for the 5,309th time—that the tailgate is always packed with scantily-clad tail, I finally saw the wisdom in exploring this local tradition. You know, for the blog. Yup. *sips drink*

As the week had went on, Dupa and Jay Swag were convinced to join me. Armo decided to have a pool party that same Saturday, and the forecast of temps in the mid-90s indicated that making our way to his place to end the day would be in our best interest. I made preliminary plans to meet up with Dupa and Swag on Mt. Washington around 11 a.m…

…Well, that part was going to have to be amended. I climbed out of bed, exchanging texts with each of them as I looked for my phone charger. My Droid's battery was at less than 20%; which, for a smartphone, means it was running on fumes. When my charger wasn’t in its usual place, I remembered having put it in the gym bag I’d taken with me the night before—I had gone to Dupa’s to pregame by his pool before catching “Ted” on its opening night [absolutely hilarious film, by the way]. And my bag, more than likely, was still in the trunk of my car. I grabbed my keys and stumbled out to my garage, hitting the trunk button along the way. When I didn’t hear the normal sound of the trunk unlocking, I looked up: My garage was empty. What…the…fuuuuuuccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkk?…

11:21 a.m. text to Swag and Dupa: “Ok, got a whole new problem. My car is missing.”

Part of me felt I should call the police. Another, much more logical part of me felt that my propensity for drunken foolishness may be a more likely culprit than a thief. I threw on a shirt and some sneakers, grabbed a bottle of Gatorade, and trudged up the sidewalk. I could only guess that maybe I had, for whatever reason, parked on the street instead the night before. Then, about halfway up my block, a memory jolted awake inside of me: On my way home from Dupa’s place, I had met up with Pakistanimal at Shady Grove. And I had parked near the bar. It seemed probable, then, that I had never moved my car from that spot. The fact that I had no clue if I had, indeed, left my car at the bar—and barely remembered being at the bar at all—made me all the more thankful that this scenario was the most likely one. I found my Bavarian chariot exactly where I had parked it the night before, now with a fresh parking ticket tucked under one of the wipers.

By 1:10 p.m. I was at the Wendy’s drive-thru, picking up some spicy chicken fortitude and receiving confirmation from Dupa that my sunglasses weren’t at his place, which meant I had, indeed, lost them the night before. The very same sunglasses that I’d bought less than two weeks before, to replace the pair I’d ruined at the Furry Safari. Which were purchased in March to replace a pair Dupa stole from me the day after the Super Bowl…

There’s a reason I buy my shades at Target.

I met up with Dupa at his place, parked my car in his apartment building’s garage for safekeeping (I wasn’t going to risk losing it again), and rode with him to Swag’s house. Once Swag had made some quick modifications to his facial hair (see right) and we’d done a shot of Dr. McGillicuddy’s Mentholmint, the three of us set off for the nearby T station. Dupa had brought half a case of Miller Lite with him, but by the time we were boarding the train there were only three cans left. And since Swag is continuing to obey the open container laws while on probation, that damage was done entirely by Dupa and me.

Once we reached the North Shore’s parking lots, where container laws don’t apply, Swag joined us in killing the remaining beers. We waded through thick 95 degree air and thicker swarms of people, many in cowboy hats and little other clothing. The attire for this tailgate has always been described to me as “slutty casual”, and those reports came in years where Pittsburgh wasn’t suffering through a record heat wave. With the sun burning away any fucks that people might otherwise have given, nary a Chesney fan in this land—male or female—hid behind stitched modesty. While surveying this landscape, we walked right into Bill’s party, completely by accident. Even the drunken squirrel finds a nut. They had cornered a large section of Gold Lot 2; here we found music pumping (mostly hip-hop, I believe), kegs tapped, a buffet of food set up, and red plastic cups a-tippin’.

We stopped only briefly, as we each needed to hit an ATM, and had other people we wanted to catch up with first. We walked along the river, taking in the sight of hundreds of boats docked with people partying and dancing everywhere, many of those people being young, tanned women in bikinis. I mentioned I was doing all of this strictly for the blog, right?

Swag broke off to catch up with Belle and her posse, while Dupa and I found Shannon and her girls crowded under a 5’-by-5’ blue canvas tent, tucked in amongst a hundred others like it, a broad ocean of asphalt, sweat, and beer away from Gold Lot 2. They fed us cans of Labatt Blue while we hung out, and we appreciated the cold sustenance and familiar faces.

Occasionally I looked around to find an inquisitive eye staring at me from a pickup truck or tent in the wilds beyond Shannon’s plot of land. Let’s face it, a Kenny Chesney concert tailgate isn’t the well-trodden domain of my people; when I did happen upon a fellow person “of color”, we gave each other knowing nods, as if to say, “The world done changed, homie.” Yet, what struck me more than how many people stared at me, was how many people didn’t stare at me. The overwhelming majority of revelers seemed indifferent to the fact that a 6’6” half-Black man was walking amongst them at a country music concert. The world done changed, homie.

Dupa and I journeyed off to Bill’s party once more. Upon arriving we found Swag, Belle, and the other gals, including Stacks and “AIDS”. [Note: This nickname is real, though it is hardly based in reality. The story, in a nutshell: Upon meeting this cute blonde friend of Belle’s for the first time some years ago, Swag thought it would be charming and/or clever to tell her that she looked like she had AIDS. Needless to say, it didn’t win her heart.] While her girls wore shorts and little t-shirts, AIDS went all-in with a little pink cowgirl hat, a tiny blue bikini, and cowgirl boots. “I told you,” she reminded us, “I don’t really like wearing clothes.”

By around 6 p.m. Dupa, Swag, and I were ready to switch things up, since everyone else (save for Bill and a few of his boys) was heading into the concert. The three of us flagged down a cab, and headed for Diamond Market Bar & Grill in Market Square. I know I ate while we were there, but all I really remember consuming was Moscow Mules. Swag disappeared mid-meal, and was gone a long while. Just when we had begun formulating plans for moving on without him (and eventually exacting revenge upon him for ditching us), he reappeared with a look of pure glee on his face. He had gone outside to smoke a cigarette; while out there, he ran into the ex-WWF wrestler Virgil. Twenty minutes of conversation and an autograph later, Swag was like a kid that had just met Mickey Mouse. He was so giddy, in fact, that he volunteered to pay the bill. All plans for revenge were scrapped.

We caught another cab; Swag, being averse to all things swimming pool, had us drop him off at his second home, Rumshakers. Dupa and I continued to his car on Mt. Washington, and then found our way to Armo’s. My Polish homie was soon snoring from an inflatable raft as the breeze gently pushed it to every corner of the pool. I occupied the rest of my night swimming, eating burgers from the grill, and kicking it with TJ and other party guests. I awoke the next morning to Armo poking my arm, for no other reason than his sheer desire to not be the only one awake. For a solid five minutes I puzzled my mind around how I had even gotten there. A short time later, as Armo drank a Bloody Mary to kick off his Sunday Funday and Dupa moaned like an orgasm-faking porn star from the kitchen for no reason whatsoever, a thought popped into my mind.

“Wait...I was at a country music tailgate yesterday…”