thursday we rode to the gold star to meet up with some kids that were in town early and just happened to run into chas, will and sharkey who had just gotten into town from portland, dirty as shit and amped on life. it was amazing. we left after a bit to get food and ate the worst mexican food ever. do not eat at flash taco if you like real burritos.
friday came and we looked at a few more places and finally met mario's friend caitlin at critical mass and then headed over to mother hubbards for registration. total craziness--bikes locked everywhere and no one who worked at the bar had any idea why there were 300+ dirty messenger kids mingling in a downtown sports bar. some of us headed out to garfield park to check out the course but it was dark and pretty sketchy and we couldn't find polo, so we headed back to the Av-arie, a loft party where they were giving out tons of free beer, some prizes from the alleycat. i finally got to meet augie and talked to the seagull bag guys who said they would replace my sternum-cracker of a buckle for free. yes!
headed out to breakfast with some of the portland kids saturday morning and then to garfield park for the qualifiers. people were everywhere and of course start time ended up being two hours late. i ended up not working a check point and just wandering from checkpoint to checkpoint heckling people along the way and laughing at ridiculous antics people were pulling on the racers. stuffing boxes full of tree branches, writing lewd notes on packages, fireworks, banana suits, the usual. san francisco did really well and it was awesome to see every get out and just kill it, even though the course was real bizzare and people were flatting all over. freight's checkpoint was right next to this pool in the park and after the race, a bunch of the boys jumped in and were running around in their chamois. amazing.
everyone left dirty and sweaty and some managed to make it back to messenger prom looking suprisingly respectable. me christina and caitlin went out to dinner beforehand and ended up getting a free bottle of wine from the people next to us who loved the idea of messenger prom and wanted to ask us a bunch of questions. we headed over to the bottom lounge $2 tall cans, prom pictures and a really awesome back deck that was later used to scale up and sneak in when they stopped letting people in. it got that crowded! talked to a bunch of random people, caitlin did the worm on the exceedingly disgusting floor.
main race came on sunday and only about 50 or so people made it, so it was much more mellow and i ended up working a check point this time. so rad to see everyone out and the tricks and skids after were a blast to watch. we ended up back at the bottom lounge for prizes, where we took over the tables, casey lost his voice from booing augie so much and we witnessed fergus playing the air guitar on his new frame. everyone was in top form, so much fun.
monday we got breakfast with philly eric and steve at chicago diner, complete with in depth conversations about what roast beef looks like and locust swarms, and then headed over the the top of the cock (hancock tower!) for some drinks, running into will and sharkey on the way. after some great views and some dirty looks from the waitresses, we headed over to the bbq for casey's birthday. and then the madness ensued. i think we went through 6 30 packs, people were being attacked with caution tape, damian got his porkchops stolen by the dog and chas almost got a cooler dropped on top of him. we really wanted to do karaoyke after, but labor day weekend prevented it so we settled on the rainbo room, where we got major 'tude from the bartender for being "too cool" squished way too many people into tables, took photobooth pictures, watched the will arnett sex video on damian's iphone (to which i thought augie was going to die laughing) and basically just took over the bar until 2am, to which we realized we really needed to take advanage of the 4am bars here and headed to the continental. steve decided arm wrestling would be a great idea and the dj told us on no accord would he play paul simon or journey. everyone was just ridiculously rowdy and made for a great last night for most people.
phew. there's some more chicago that happened, but that'll have to come later. way too much right now. hope everyone is well, we miss the shit out of you. and california weather.
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