Cleaning Up Cough Syrup; or, Why I Am Moving to Houston

The Tradition was everything you imagined it was gonna be, fervent follower of the most infrequently updated blog in the new media sportiverse. There were guests from afar, there was snow on the ground, there was a 16-hour journey through each of Hell's nine levels, there was a domi-fucking-nating victory by the home team. There were ribs, friends. There were ribs.

Let's look at some of the highlights of the weekend. The ones I can remember, anyway--and I don't mean that as a joke. I totally blacked out large sections of the last few days.



(I've arranged them, ala an Aspy Peter King, in ascending alphabetical order for no particular reason other than my own Rain Manliness. Uh oh fart.)

Z. The hastily constructed meal at the--ugh--Blue Bonnet that happened after the wife and I panicked and cancelled our 8 p.m. dinner reservations at 4, because we thought Ol' No. 7 and his bride's misadventures would result in their pullin' into Denver concurrently with the entrees. A slight misjudgment on both our parts. But mostly hers. (Kidding! Kidding! In the name of all that I hold dear, namely my genitalia, kidding. Please don't hurt me. I swear I'll be good.) Seriously, though, it was.

Y. The pitchers of margaritas at said meal which resulted in my repeated assertion to Bankmeister's sister-in-law that the second inning of a baseball game is really later than the fourth. By that point I was in extras and Brian Fuentes was taking the hill after drinking a mason jar of mushroom tea.

X. Somehow collecting Waveland from the bar by accident on Sunday night, a condition which unfortunately resulted in both Ol' No. 7 and his mate "sleeping" on a couch big enough for one small dog to stretch out comfortably. If this Christianity thing people talk about is for the reals, that might be the deed that puts me in the eternal red. My back is seizing up just thinking about it.

W. Getting to the parking lot at 8:45 sharp in the a.m., before the guys were even there to collect our dough. There were only two other trucks in the lot for the next three hours. It was somewhere south of 10 degrees and had snowed multiple inches the previous evening. We ate breakfast burritos with chorizo and bacon and drank beer so cold it froze in the neck. Nirvana.

V. The bourbon. Salt-soaked Jesus in a wax tophat, the bourbon.

U. Selvin Mothergoddamn Fucking Young. A try-hard kid with speed and a Rod Smithian attitude. Gimme a double Selvin with extra Hall and no Travis.

T. The sheer vastness of 7's tailgate repertoire. The guy could fry a turkey in an Antarctic blizzard. And the fact that, even though he got in an accident on a snowbound mountain pass hauling a small trailer, the only item of substance that he lost was--drum roll, Jimbo--some Eddie McCaffrey mustard. Jagpot.

S. Bankmeister's choice of footwear, a pair of hiking boots he rescued from a dumpster back in the college days, which it pains me to say was like 14 fucking years ago. At one point they had to be dried on the grill in an aluminum pan.

R. Elvis Dumervil. 11 sacks on the year and the best game(s) of his young career against our biggest rivals. He's also named Elvis.

Q. 7, Bank and I traversing the wilds of Invesco's upper level concourse in search of tamales. Hell to the fuck yes, tamales. Gorgeous, husk-sheltered tubes of masa and carne. They even stayed hot until we got back to our seats; which some might say was because of the insulated foam boxes, but which I prefer to think of it as a kind of pre-Hannukah miracle. And I'm not even Jewish.

P. Downing--upon the beer, blended Canadian whiskey, American bourbon, carbombs and who knows what else--a good shot or two of Nyquil to end Sunday. You lika the good decisions? I make you some good decisions. Felt like I left a party at Terrence Kiel's crib. Does Lil' Flip regularly hork like I did that night? Because that's murder on a grill, I'm sure.

O. I think I already mentioned the bourbon, but if I didn't, I'll quote myself on Saturday evening: "Bourbon is good!" (delivered in a cartoonishly high sing-song.)

N. The cornhole. The cornhole was wet, and heavy, and kinda measty. The cornhole was tougher than Andre the Giant's personal bodyguard. Despite my loosest-limbed efforts to the contrary, I simply couldn't penetrate.

M. Breakfast on Monday at the incomparable Lucile's Creole Cafe...a breakfast I could only watch congeal on my plate while I weighed the relative merits of shitting my pants versus standing up and convulsively vomiting. But the gravy looked delicious.

L-A. The whole durned affair. It'll be a long year waiting for the next installment.