The Long Weekend

Sorry to keep you waiting, didn't get a chance to write until today. This weekend was pretty interesting, as Whiskey Tango sightings occurred not only in the J-town outlying region but also in Minneapolis! Reader of Melanie of Joliet, in Minneapolis for the weekend, spied a pair of rough and tough men who asked her and her friend, "If we shower and get jobs, would you go out with us?" Sadly, the double date did not occur.


Post kindergarten graduation and work and a little E! True Hollywood Story watching with Mom (she's a sucker for any Jackie O biographies), I prepared myself for an evening at the Tuckaway Tavern with Nancy, Megan, Wens, and Tim. Dressed in my favorite Abercrombie sleeveless "Pirate's Cove" tee which includes the slogan "You've never seen booty like this," (note: perhaps I've become Whiskey Tango), I was ready for a night of fun with tonight's band, the Brat Pack, an '80's band that usually gets quite a crowd. After a couple false moves with an ATM, we arrived at the Tavern, described on its website as "boldly glowing with a hinting shimmer of steel." It just looks like a big sports bar to me, but then again, I don't write copy for bar websites. The tavern was indeed hopping, and, for the second week in a row, we were asked to be in a music video. I assume it was the same video as last time, but who knows, perhaps Joliet is becoming a thriving hotbed for music video production. Personally I think that the former Wilderness Mall would be a great place to shoot a video. Does anyone know if it still has the bigass tree growing in the middle? Do old people still jog there? They could be extras! Anyway, this time our music video pusher gave us a business card reading "Johny Letcher" with contact info. Video man would not let us know the name of the band (apparently it's a secret as closely guarded as the whereabouts of the other "n" missing from "Johny") and I asked him if he was "Johny Letcher." Again, we were met with no answer, so I decided to check out Johnyletcher.com. According to the quote on the page, Johny Letcher is apparently the name of the band: "It is a fragile time in the world of rock and roll. Sooner or later somebody must break the mold. . .We are Johny Letcher." Apparently the music video will be shot July 2-6 (alas, I will be in NYC), so, according to the site, " if you are interested in supporting the Letcher and want to be in some of the shots, drop a line to johnyLetcher@aol.com and they will find you a spot." I'd like to tell them that referring to the band as "the Letcher" might not be the best way to get female participants.


We spent the rest of the evening avoiding a lingering Married Man (who showed us pictures of his daughter), getting subpoenaed by Legal Larry, and dancing with a group of guys who high-fived too much. Later on Nancy and I played an interesting video game called Foxy Boxes (ok, that sounded bad). The game basically consisted of matching colored boxes to reveal pictures of scantily clad males. As you can imagine, we had a lot fun with this one, and though we briefly considered putting our friends' names in the high score chart, an accidental tap of the enter key prevented that from happening. Nancy, Megan, and I made a brief stop at Larsen's, but nothing too exciting happened there that I can recall, and we called it a night.

My sister arrived late Friday night, and she and I spent the day shopping at Fox Valley, where they recently opened a new store (no, we didn't go in) that sold a lot of those t-shirts that make it look like your head is on a voluptous or muscular body. Surprisingly the store wasn't packed with eager shoppers. Another question: why the hell is Fergie (Sarah, not Leslie, Ferguson) doing ads for a chain of shopping centers? Does she need the money?

Saturday night, post-dinner with the family, my sister and I headed out to see Star Wars with Joe and Angie. Thwarted in our attempt due to the movie being sold out, we saw Insomnia, which was a quality film with one of the best sick jokes I've heard in a long time. I don't want to give it away, so go see this movie. We got a preview for Katie Holmes' latest movie, Abandon, which looked like it will be a lot of fun to make fun of. Hopefully she won't be singing any Cheap Trick in this one.

Sunday was another shopping trip, this time to Oakbrook with Jen and my mom. There isn't a lot of whiskey tango to be seen at Oakbrook, so when you see some it really stands out. An example of this was a couple we saw walking past the oddly placed Sears store (which, like Shannon, and Joe have said, smells like despair). The male in question was bronzed and muscular, wearing one of those tank tops that guys just shouldn't wear. His peroxided partner in crime had big blonde hair and a bleached out pair of jean shorts that made her look like she dipped her ass in White Out. Quite a sight. Sunday night I went out in Naperville with a large crew, but nothing too amusing happened besides bartenders pondering whether Courtney and I were "tooling around" in the bathroom with our drinks (we weren't), and a guy trying to get his friend to show us his thong. The tendency of guys to want to reveal their underwear is apparently high these days, as a guy at Heroes last Thursday was preparing to show us his boxer briefs until we told him it wasn't necessary.

Nothing too interesting occurred on Monday, except for an encounter with an ice cream man with body odor issues and listening to a six year old singing Outkast. The last few days have also been pretty dull in the Herald, though I enjoyed one entry in today's police blotter:


Family fight erupts


JOLIET — A family feud over a borrowed shirt ended with one cousin hitting another over the head with a pipe Monday night, police said.

The cousin on the wrong end of the pipe suffered a 2- to 3-inch laceration to the left side of the head.

A patrol officer reportedly spotted the man bleeding profusely from his head in the 100 block of Third Avenue about 9:30 p.m.

The man told police he was at the residence he lives in with his cousin when he noticed one of his shirts on his cousin's back.

The man told police that this upset him and he told his cousin to take the shirt off. The cousin refused, police said, and he picked up a metal pipe and hit the man in the head with it.

The bleeding man then fled the residence, police said.

The man was treated for the head injury at Silver Cross Hospital.

Between this incident and the "What's up Cuz" incident of last week, it seems that staying away from your cousins might be a good way to avoid peril.