the great northwest

seattle was absolutely magnificent, a cooler city than i had wanted to give it credit for.  we flew here on virgin, the last time i've been on a virgin flight since...i believe my march 2009 trip to vegas.  absolutely love that airline.  every airplane should have that nightclub atmosphere.  interactive chat between seats, games to play - i'll stop, because i'm sure you've all flown virgin.  anyway, spent the week at reckhow's.  hanging with him and kemp peterson was sweet.  felt like a mini-version of college.  after 6 weeks in LA, being in seattle for only one seemed super quick.  the eight shows were a blur, but michael, anabelle (his gf), kemp, kate, julia and marc (her bf) all came to our sunday night closer and really enjoyed themselves.

the beginning of my week there was bitter sweet.  reckhow lotteried himself into some final four tickets a while back and was in indy with mugica to watch that classic butler/duke game.  i truly wanted butler to win, but after conferring with kemp, it would have been better for us if duke had won.  for those of you who haven't seen mike after a duke loss in a big game...it ain't pretty.  they did a sweet job of showing me the town.  michael lives in capitol hill, which was only about a 15-minute walk from the stage door of the paramount.  cool, nifty little bars.  amazing restaurants.  if you don't know, i'm a sucker for salmon.  went to brunch at glo's, right down the street from michael on olive way.  amazing salmon benedict.  followed that up with dinner on friday night at coastal kitchen, which was sporting a n'awlins theme.  never had gator...until then.  scrumptious gator andouille sausage, followed by a clam-laden jambalaya.  follow that up saturday morning with the best french toast (caramelized banana brioche french toast, to be exact - ricotta cheese filling, super flaky, loaded with pecans and vanilla bean custard) i've had in my life at volunteer park cafe, and i may have had the best 24 hours of food ever.  but nothing could top the shenanigans of saturday night.

if you remove my 0-3 record against yagan in beantown back in february, i haven't played beirut since going out on tour.  i know - shocking.  and apparently, michael is well on his way toward becoming a real adult.  steady job at microsoft, girlfriend of 2+ years, doesn't drink much anymore, still holds up to his college nickname of "sir sleeps-a-lot"...and hell, he even owns a boat!  well, much to the dismay of his seattle core of friends...who have heard numerous stories from myself and his other blockmates about his drunken college days...they don't see that michael anymore.  which means they are ecstatic when "one of us" comes out to visit.  if mugica, muthu, yagan, gartland, etc. - any of us knuckleheads ever rear our ugly heads in seattle, all shit goes to hell.  i held up to my end of the bargain.  saturday night beirut at his apartment.  and beiristics were kept.  beirut statistics, or beiristics, began our senior year over spring break on bald head island, nc.  michael wrote a program that captures shooting percentage, last cups made and several other intricacies of the game.  not only did michael and i win 14 consecutive games (http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=38995055&id=2855), but i followed that up with 3 wins in trei-rut (one-on-one-on-one beirut) over kemp and reckhow.  a career night for sure - looks like i found that right level of drunk and shook off the rust.

the three-hour bus ride down to portland on monday morning was highlighted by mimosa monday - which featured andre strawberry!  =)  i remember the days when naveen and i would pregame on a saturday night with individual bottles of andre.  ah, college.  portland is a mini-seattle - still cozy but not quite as large.  oh, back to seattle for a hot second.  driving along i-5, you can see both safeco and qwest fields just off the interstate.  absolutely magnificent structures.  wished i could have gone to a game at safeco, but the mariners were out of town the entire week.  i have a not-so-hidden desire to go to a baseball game in every city i'm in during the tour, if the team is in town.  ambitious?  yes.  but why not dream big?  back to portland.  syesha, our deena, sang the national anthem monday night at the thunder-blazers game, and a bunch of us got last-minute free tickets to go support her.  the rose garden was absolutely electric, as the blazers erased an eight-point halftime deficit to defeat oklahoma city, 103-95.  watching kd/durantula/kevin durant was truly amazing - he is a phenom and scored his 30 almost at will. tuesday night, went to candlelight on 5th and lincoln.  one of bigg redd's boys was playing bass, and he invited us there for the night.  pretty sweet band, highlighted by gretchen mitchell.  as for the show yesterday, the portland band actually sounded quite good in the morning rehearsal.  but like so many other bands before them, they proceeded to fold under the pressure of our opening night show.  can't quite understand it.  are they tired from playing all day?  seems stupid, since they're professional musicians and have very likely played multiple hours in a day before.  are they thrown off once the voices are added at night after only hearing the instruments in the morning?  whatever it is, it sucks.  but there is one positive.  they're better than the band in seattle.  ZING!

don't know if i've mentioned this here already.  when i got this job, i was around 185 pounds.  drinking a lot during the first couple months of tour ballooned me up to 199 on the monday we left columbus, ohio about two months ago.  that was super scary for me, because i made a personal vow that i would never hit 200 again...after skyrocketing up to 243 at the end of my freshman year of college, losing 70 pounds in 6 months, gaining it all back over the next 3 years, then losing 65 pounds over the next 6 months.  well, i straightened up in LA - drank less, ate better, hit the gym on my own accord.  6 weeks, 12 pounds gone bye-bye.  so clearly, i know how to shave off the pounds on my own when i'm focused enough.  well, the 187 became 190 after splurging in seattle with reckhow, but no big deal.  well, i had hearing from everyone that nikki, one of the girls in our ensemble, how awesome she is.  she's a personal trainer and runs get fit w/ nik.  i know, super cute name.  she does one-on-ones but is also known for her boot camp.  where she beats you to within a breath of your life over the course of 90 minutes.  who in his right mind would subject himself to that?  well, after a bevy of gentle ribbing from her regular boot camp goers, and even nikki herself, i decided to surprise everyone this morning by showing up.  dear god, i nearly died.  if i had to run up that damn hill one more time...anyway.  i celebrated by getting VD.  no no, not a veneral disease.  but instead, voodoo doughnut (btw, i stole that joke from a bumper sticker 'i got vd in portland' at the actual donut shop, lol).  24-hour place only a few blocks from my hotel (hotel fifty, which is very chic and new) that sells really unique doughnuts.  toppings/ingredients include, to name a few: heath bar, cap'n crunch, bacon (yes, there's a bacon maple bar), fruit loops, all different kinds of icings, and they even have vegan options.  there's even a $5.25 "cock 'n balls" that pretty much, uh, speaks for itself.  well, i walked in after boot camp and immediately knew what i wanted.  the "tex-ass."  that's right.  it was the largest glazed donut i've ever seen in my life.  looked about the size of 6 krispy kremes.  i mean, it was gargantuan.  but yet, i stepped up to the plate and took the 80-second challenge.  yep, if i could eat the whole damn thing in 80 seconds, it'd be free.  mammoth fail.  not only was it huge, but i was still out of breath from boot camp.  i only got about half of it down but was proud of my effort.  perhaps, i'll have to go to my second boot camp beatdown on friday morning to work it off...