My Weekend Adventure Part 4

Monday, January 8, 12:20 pm
Obviously the blog I was trying to keep up completely fell apart. I gotta tell you, I’m not surprised. Most of the time I’m just not that good at keeping up with these things. Despite all that, I’m going to update you on the last couple of days, or at least what I remember of it. Friday wasn’t a terribly exciting day, mostly just hanging out. Jeremy and I had lunch at an Indian buffet and stuffed ourselves silly. After that we hit up a couple of local comic shops, including Pop Culture Comix, and B-Bop Comics. Clint’s Comics is right across the street from B-Bop, and even though it looked like the better shop from what little I saw, we ran short of time and didn’t have time to check it out fully. As we were leaving Pop Culture, I saw the funniest thing I would see all weekend, and probably one of the top ten funniest things I’ve seen in my whole life.
There was an Airsoft BB gun store right next to the comic shop that Jeremy wanted to check out. He ended up talking with the guy that ran for a bout twenty minjutes about all things guns, and purchased a ”Lara Croft Gun” for his photo reference purposes. The front door of the store was a little weird, it actually shared a door to the street, and small vestibule with the store next door, The door to the vestibule had a big plate glass window right next to it, and through said window, the door to the street was plainly visible. As we were leaving, Jeremy was checking the contents of his bag, and walked into the window harder than I’ve ever seen before first person. You know how usually a persons foot hit’s the window first and they realize what they’re about to do and pull back at least a little? Well that didn’t happen at all. Jeremy was bent over a little looking in his bag, and took the full force of his momentum right in the face. I started laughing hysterically, and couldn’t even ask if he was alright. I could see the glass shaking from the impact, and once the vibrations quelled I could make out an oily imprint of Jer’s entire face on the window. He backed up, dazed, and groggily muttered “I’m allright, I’m all right”, which sent me laughing even harder, and we raced out the door. By the time we made it to the car I was laughing so hard I could barely breath, and I was crying quite a bit. Even as I sit here typing, I keep breaking out in fits of laughter, and the other guys in the car keep looking at me weird. Once we were in the car Jeremy told me that he could feel the whole impact in slow mation, as each of his facial features hit the glass. First his eyebrow, which took the brunt of the impact (and ended up with a visible welt), then his glasses being shoved crooked as his nose was crushed sideways, and finaly his mouth and chin making impact just before his reflexes kicked in and he pulled back. I told every single person we ran into for the rest of the weekend about the incident, and could barely contain my laughter with each subsequent retelling.
After all that excitement we went to the Glenwood Arts Theatre to see Perfume, after which my folks took us to Jack Stack for some friggin awesome barbeque. We ended the night by heading to Seth’s house and palying some poker with him, Clay and Tony. Not the most exciting day, but we ate tons, and generally had a good time.
Saturday started early (comparatively), as we hit the road on our way to Astro Kitty in Lawrence, for the big Atomic Revolver coming out party and signing. Atomic Revolver is a loose studio consisting of three writers (Jason Aaron, B. Clay Moore, and Seth Peck), and three artists (Jeremy Haun, Jason Latour, and Tony Moore). Only Latour wasn’t able to make it to the signing (his nomadic ways had led him elsewhere), everyone else was there, pimping their books, and havin’ a good ol’ time. Astro Kitty is a pretty sweet little store. Despite it’s small size it is packed full of stuff, and run by a cool and knowledgeable staff. I dropped Joel (the owner/operator) a few copies of Abe and G-Dub, so if you’re in the Lawrence area, stop by and tell the folks hey, and pick up a copy of my book!
After the signing, we all went out to dinner, before splitting into two distinct groups. Those who wanted to go to a strip club, and those who did not. I, of course, was a member of the former. Five of us ended up going to the club, after the long and arduous task of actually finding it. Our hunt, however, was well worth it. The club we ended up at is called The Outhouse, and it’s not nearly as bad as it’s name might imply. It is, in fact, the coolest strip club that I’ve ever been to. First, it’s a B.Y.O.B. club, that means bring your own booze for the uninitiated. Despite the fact that it’s merely a juice bar, you can literally walk in to the club with a bottle of whiskey in your hand, which I did. The dancers get fully nude on stage, and $20 will get you a topless full touch lap dance, $30 gets a full nude full touch private dance in the back. You might expect, as we did, to find a lot of skanky, ugly chicks at the little club in the middle of nowhere, but just like us, you would be wrong. In fact, most of the girls there had previously worked at the big “classy” joint in Kansas City, before moving it out to the country for the big bucks that full nude brings in. One of the girls in particular was literally the best pole dancer in the state. Seriously, apparently they have statewide competitions for such things, and she won. I honestly have no desire to go to any other strip club again. There’s just no need. After the experience of the Outhouse, no other club will ever measure up.
I woke up Sunday with a little bit of a hangover, but knocked it out quickly with a couple of Redbulls and a cappuccino. Jeremy and I headed over to Clay’s house to pick up a couple of things, and say our goodbyes. Afterward, we headed by PF Chang’s for lunch, and I got some of the strongest ginger beer I’ve ever had. I like ginger, and ginger beer, but this stuff was STRONG. I drank about half of it with no problem, but it got to the point where I had to take a bite of food inbetween swigs, just to give my taste buds a rest. After lunch, we went on another driving quest, this time to find my friend Tony’s aunt and Uncle’s house. It took us about an hour, and at one point we actually ended up on the completely opposite side of town. Eventually we got there (and here’s a big public thank you to Jeremy for running me around all weekend) Jeremy and I parted ways and the second half of my adventure began, but that’s a story for another time.