More Obnoxiousness

HULLO SIR! I REMEMBER YOU!!
(ain't he just the cutest?)


Now that I'm home, and don't have someone breathing down my neck, I can further regale y'all on the Adventure with Saint Obnoxious this past weekend. The cocktail is poured, so let me begin:

We stayed at a Holiday Inn near Bethleham. Probably the most fucked up place I've stayed in recent memory. (very unlike Holiday Inns, really) The surly woman at the front desk informed Obbie the room wasn't ready, and we ended up waiting for quite some time. Luckily, the Busman's Holiday Inn had not one but two bars. (more on the bars later) So we passed some time watching CNN and having drinks. After 2 beers and 2 Morgan and Diets, the room was ready, and we did a quick change/birdbath and caught the shuttle to the musicfest.

I had no idea how big this thing is. I read the website and all, but damn....I'm guessing there was easily 50 food stands, and dozens and dozens of other stuff to purchase. Music everywhere. Street singers, multiple stages, big acts, you name it. It was great.

We met up with Scott, and his helpers, plus some of his friends, who were lending moral support, and supporting the local brewery. I was introduced all around, but I only remember two of their names. (I'm not good with names.) They were quite interesting, to say the least. Here they are as they were breaking into song:

Anyway, St. Obbie didn't have a real schedule. He figured he'd change into his costume, meet and greet his peeps awhile, sign some autographs, and after an hour, it'd be done.

Ha. He put that costume on, and he totally went into character. It was hilarious! Marching out in the street, calling out to people, shaking hands, signing autographs. It was great. Although in the first few minutes, he did have a wardrobe malfunction. His rope belt dropped down around his ankles, and for a second I had a horrifying vision of him tripping and falling on people. The fates were smiling upon Saint Obnoxious that day, and he caught it before it caught him.

It was fun to watch the looks on people's faces when they saw him. It alternated between smiles and the whole "Don't make eye contact with the weirdo" expression. The people around us were loving it. One older woman came over to me and said, "He's so cute! Does he belong to you?" I was at a loss for a minute, and she continued, "well he has to belong to someone! He's just so cute!" I regained my composure and told her, indeed he did 'belong' to me. (Which made me slightly uncomfortable. Not claiming that this goofy character was mine, but just the who idea of 'claiming' someone in general.)

The local constables didn't seem to be as amused as the rest of us however. They were escorting a rogue car down thru the center of the street, and Saint Obnoxious starts waving and yelling, "HUZZAH!! A PARADE!!" the cops gave him a really shitty look, and he retreated somewhat. (We laughed later that it'd probably annoy Scott the t-shirt guy to have to give up all the proceeds of the day to bail Obbie out of the local slammer) Anyway, most of the kids dug him, although one little smartass told him to "Go back to the gutter where you belong" and it hurt his feelings. Someone else gave him a religious tract, apparently to save his unholy soul, and a muscle head guy was really threatened by him, and glared him down while practically dragging his girlfriend past him. (It takes a real man to be threatened by a monk....) The 'older' crowd seemed to dig him more than the teeny boppers. I figure they don't know what 'obnoxious' means, even though most of them are the embodiment of it. Most of the drunks were fun, there were high fives and handshakes all around with the bleary eyed beer hounds.

After a couple hours, The Saint was whipped, and dehydrated, and his monk suit (vestments?) were soaked. He changed, and we grabbed a beer and decided to leave. The hotel shuttle every half hour and we ended up waiting for about 40 minutes for the next one. Poor Obbie was pounding water, soda, snow cones, whatever was wet to rehydrate his system.

Back to the Busman's Holiday Inn after a shuttle ride with several drunken people. That was fun to watch even though we both were fried. When we reached the hotel room (where the AC had chilled the room to a balmy 63 degrees) we collapsed on the bed for a brief time. "Do you want to get a shower first or just go to the bar?" Obbie asked. Since there was nobody in the bar when we went by we opted out of showers, and just headed for the bar. It was only about 4 doors down from our room (yeeesss!!) And we imbibed on a couple more drinks. Naturally 5 minutes after we got there, the place filled up. Stragglers from the "Bar with No Name" nightclub, mostly. Seriously, the hotel nightclub was called "The Bar With No Name", they have a policy that to gain access to the secrets within, one must be properly attired. No t-shirts with sayings on them, no shorts, only dress clothes, no sneakers. Huh...commies...we briefly discussed perhaps invading The Bar With No Name, in the name of Saint Obnoxious, and all of us scrubs in sneakers, but decided it was too much trouble. Instead we observed the very confused bar/dining room employees who must have had some good meth or coke, for they had awfully big eyes, and were quite zippy in their movements. I mistakenly engaged a couple of strange-oh's in some conversation about music. That conversation soon turned to Saint Obnoxious, and in my best grandiose publicity hound mode, I dispatched Obbie down to the room to get one of his cards to sign for them. After he came back, signed the card for the folks, they continued to engage us in some bizarre, roundabout musical discussion about Elvis. I think it scared us, because in typical 'us' style, we both stood up and excused ourselves and left.

My last memory of that evening was trying valiantly to try and turn off the goddamn TV. After the TV was out, we went out like lights. Dead to the world. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Maybe more obnoxiousness tomorrow....