Boston

Beeker out in Boston

Posted on by Elbrecht

In honor of Beeker’s wedding yesterday, I’m re-posting this story, which was originally published on 11.16.2008. I’ve made a few improvements, but the content, and the spirit of Beeker, is intact. Enjoy. And congrats to Beeker and Beekerette.

A complete recap of last night’s debauchery is unnecessary to understand how the “Human Hurricane”, aka Beeker, came to leave me a text at 4:17PM today. It simply read, “I assume you made it home ok.”

While it’s not out of the ordinary for friends to be checking up on me after a night out, Beeker’s message struck me as the “pot calling the kettle black” after last night’s escapades. I’m guessing he roused himself from a restful slumber around 3:30 this afternoon and felt compelled to find out what the hell had happened.

Thankfully, I did make it home ok… arriving at 10:30 this morning after laying uncomfortably, in a state of fitful rest,  on Beeker’s couch last night. Obviously, Beeker hadn’t remembered that he had ordered me to sleep there: “Bigs! Bigs! Go to sleep on the couch! Go to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!”

It’s true, I have certainly had my fair share of black-out drunk evenings, a combination of dance-induced fatigue and too many Jack and Cokes. But I’m typically pretty mellow even in those cases. Beeker is not.

At around 1:45AM, Beeker, myself, three of Beeker’s doctor friends, and some guy who had a car, left Felt in Boston. The guy with the car, “Jimmy”, appeared to be sober enough to drive, as I peered at him through my J&C-colored glasses. And considering the prospect hailing a cab on a Friday night at 1:45A in Boston, I was confident in his ability to get us all back to Beeker’s in one piece.

Prior to Jimmy getting his vehicle out of the garage, Beeker had decided that he needed to urinate, badly… While the rest of the group was waiting outside the parking attendant’s shack, Beeker haphazardly ran across the street and disappeared down a dark alley.

When he hadn’t returned in two minutes, one of his colleagues asked me, “Do you think we should go look for him?”

I assured her that I’d seen him disappear down darker alleys in more dangerous places without a scratch on his head.

When Beeker returned, the six of us piled into Jimmy’s BMW. He slowly backed out of the parking space. Then he straightened the car towards the exit and pushed the accelerator to the floor. The car jolted forward, projecting my head into the back of the passenger’s seat, and we burned rubber through the parking garage, wheels screeching and stomachs churning. I quickly amended my confidence in Jimmy getting us home safely.

Jimmy slammed on the breaks with enough time to skid towards the parking gate and not burst through it, preventing the inevitable high speed chase where Jimmy would have abandoned his BMW on Storrow Drive and left four physicians and myself still clinging for dear life as the BPD raised their assault rifles and unleashed the attack dogs.

Thankfully, the only issue we had at the parking gate was that Jimmy had somehow managed to lose the ticket, but the woman working the gate was nice enough to let us leave without paying another $30. My confidence in Jimmy was now completely shot. But the idea of finding another way home didn’t enter my mind. I looked over at Beeker and he was none the wiser. His eyes were rolled into the back of his head and he nodded off, despite his female doctor friend, Suzie, beginning to moan about how she might throw up.

Somehow, I still felt that “Jimmy” was doing us a major favor by getting us home, despite my trepidation at him trying to drag race with other vehicles along the way.

Unfortunately, my fears were confirmed. “Jimmy” burned rubber around Boston Common and down Boylston Street, as if we were shooting a scene for Tokyo Drift.  I frantically tried to find the seat belt, but with four of us jammed into the back seat, it was a hopeless endeavor. As I stared ahead, hoping to not see two headlights coming straight for us, it didn’t seem to me that we were even going in the right direction.

Jimmy whipped around a corner, saw the sign for the Kenmore T stop, jammed on the breaks, and wished us well. I was more than happy to have come to a stop and flung the door open like a POW fleeing a Vietnamese prison camp.

The T stops running in Boston at 12:30, but having survived the past three minutes, I was simply glad to have not become a quadriplegic. Beeker, having woken from his slumber, decided he would simply hail a cab, which, at 2AM, is as likely as finding a wad of $20 bills in your coat pocket.

But rather than standing on the sidewalk in front of Kenmore like any sane person, Beeker wandered into traffic and began screaming at cabs. Meanwhile, Suzie and her boyfriend discretely walked around the corner of the building so she could boot all over the pavement. As cab after cab whizzed by us with backseats full of drunken Bostonians, I was convinced  we’d get back to Beeker’s around 4:30AM, only after begging some lost out-of-towner to give us a ride; or someone in a conversion van who insisted on having us call him Uncle Bob.

With Suzie still puking, and her boyfriend pleading, “why do you always have to drink so much when we go out?”, Beeker spotted a potentially vacant cab…

He unleashed a cry of the banshee, “Bigs, get over here… get over here now! Bigs, there is a cab! Get over here NOW!”

I glanced at Suzie and her boyfriend and jogged over to the cab. Beeker screeched, “Get in! Get in NOW!… close the door!” I reluctantly climbed in and shut the door. Beeker barked his address to the cabbie and I asked, “Why did we leave Suzie and her boyfriend… I thought she lives right by you?”

Beeker’s eyes widened. He slurred, “What are you talking about?” I informed him that they had been right around the corner waiting with us.  He pathetically informed me that he hadn’t realized they were still there. It was painfully obvious that screaming at cabs had been his lone focus at the Kenmore T stop.

As we approached his house, I reached into my wallet and found it bone dry. I told Beeker that I had no cash to pay for the taxi, but he assured me that he was bankrolling our trip home: “Bigs, Bigs…I got it. Bigs. I got it. Bigs.”

When the cabbie dropped us off a block from Beeker’s house, I slid out the right back door and he the left.  Beeker began to walk around the front of the cab. I looked at him and asked, “Did you pay the guy?”

He looked at me curiously at the same instant the cabbie rolled down his window and demanded money in a thick Eastern European accent.

After forking over a couple of 20’s, Beeker took off in a dead sprint towards his house.  I slowly followed, owing to my completely full bladder. When I reached the the house, I could hear Beeker banging around in the kitchen, only to emerge with a bag of chips. His housemates were probably sitting up in bed hoping that whoever had just broke into the house only took the flat screen TV in the living room and didn’t come bursting through their doors. He added to the indiscretion by plopping down on the couch and blasting some movie at 125db.

He looked at me and screeched, “Bigs! Bigs! Go to sleep on the couch! Go to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!”

So I stumbled out of the bathroom and took his advice, curling up on the couch with the movie blaring so loud as to penetrate my inner soul… but I ended up falling asleep anyways… and he ended up passed out in his room at some point in time later.

To say that the “Human Hurricane” had been in rare form would be a mischaracterization of my friend Beeker. But to my benefit, the safest part of a hurricane is the eye, and that’s exactly where I found myself last night.

An Ode to Cincinnati

Posted on by Elbrecht

I never thought I would utter the following statement: “I was in Cincinnati this weekend… and I liked it.” I came to this conclusion while on the dance floor at Wade and Lindz’s wedding listening to The Black Eyed Peas “I Gotta Feeling.” It may not have been the most obvious thought, but at that instant, my 11 year disdain for the Queen City had come to a screeching halt.

Most of my ill-conceived repugnance for Cincinnati stemmed from my antagonistic approach to rooting against my college friends’ sports teams, namely the Cincinnati Reds and Bengals. A large portion of my college friends hail from Cincinnati and as a consequence, my unadulterated love for St. Louis sports teams created a stable base from which could be fostered a lasting friendship.  I simply rooted for the Reds to lose to any and every other Major League team and watched as my die-hard Bengals fans/friends endured over a decade of horrific mediocrity.

Their pain and anguish of watching Akili Smith interceptions, Wily Mo Pena strike outs, and Chad OchoCinco’s slowly disapating touch down dances, made me happy.  My joy stemmed from the fact that they could then retort with calling me a bandwagon Boston fan and pointing out the tragic deaths of Cardinals players. [Note: referencing the tragic death of a sports team’s player is only appropriate after enduring another 3-13 Bengals season.]

As a result, I came to view Cincinnati, the birthplace and/or home of Gib, Fat, Wade, Hern, Zelch,  Hoj, Jdawg, Wade, Cole and a myriad of other respectable Cincinnatians, as a desolate wasteland of losing and misery. Even after spending a few joyful holidays and the summer after college graduation in Cincinnati, I still viewed it with disdain. It didn’t matter to me that so many of my friends called it home. Some of this disdain may have subconsciously stemmed from my own hatred for my boring hometown, Wichita, KS, but despite this self-awareness, I still considered Cincy to be another boring example of Midwest America.

When I moved to Boston in the summer of 2004, I felt as if I had been jolted alive and awakened from some sort of zombie-like slumber in which I feel most of the Midwest is entrenched.  My return trips to Cincinnati were for the weddings of my friends, who had returned to Cincy after graduation to start their adult lives with jobs, to find lovely women with whom they could spend the rest of their days, and to start families. This is not what I had in mind. Even when I returned to Cincy to bear witness to these blessed events, I still couldn’t help but think of Cincinnati as a boring place to live, and while I didn’t begrudge the lives of my friends, I didn’t think that an existence in Cincinnati was for me.

So when I was getting my grove on to “I Gotta Feeling” and watching my friends and their wives dance around Wade and Lindz, imbibe alcohol with reckless abandon, and generally have an unbelievalbly happy time, I had another one of those jolts.

I looked out into the Cincinnati skyline from Paul Brown stadium and had my opinion of Cincinnati completely reversed. Maybe it was the heat of the moment and seeing the smiles and joy on the faces of people whom I love and respect, but when I woke up the next morning, it was still there. My opinion had changed and it was all seemingly because of The Black Eyed Peas. Indeed, I got a feeling.

Wade and Lindz are the second to last of my Cincinnati friends to get married. First it was Zelch and MJ right after college. Then Matt and Jo two years later. And then Jeremy and Tiff two years ago. Cole and Mary Lynn weren’t far behind. Gib and K-T tied the knot last fall and were followed quickly by Hoj and Kristin.  And now Wade and Lindz. [Note: Hern and Coll are getting married in 3 months, but I’ll be studying medicine on an island and won’t be able to make it back.]

As several friends made the observation that  they did not know when they would see me next, a stunning reality began to percolate in my brain and culminated in my “a-ha” moment on the dance floor.

No longer can I associate Cincinnati with losing and misery. No longer can I think of it as a boring example of Midwest life. No longer can I return once a year to see another friend get married and revel in old friendships renewed, starting up again where we had left off a year earlier, and eagerly looking forward to the next awesome occasion to celebrate.

Certainly, there will be more occasions to celebrate, as families are started and expanded upon, job promotions are achieved and companies are started, and maybe there will even be a Bengals Super Bowl party.

But I most likely won’t be there for those celebrations. I’ll be busy studying for a Pathology exam, reviewing flashcards on Psychopharmacology, or working late hours into the nite during clinical rotations or as a Resident. It would have been a comfortable excuse before that moment at Wade and Lindz wedding at Paul Brown stadium.

I might still have to use those excuses for some time as I begin the next portion of my life as a medical student, but I will truly miss those experiences. At that moment, Cincinnati was no longer the home of the Reds and the Bengals or a stifling example of the Midwest. It is the home of my friends, people with whom I created relationships with over a decade ago. So I can no longer use such a myopic view to cast opinions of Cincy. It is a bit disappointing in retrospect that I held such an idiotic and sophmoric opinion for such a long time, but it is definitely true: hindsight is 20/20.

Now I don’t have to “find a reason” to visit Cincinnati. Some of my best friends in the world are there. What other reason should I need?

I don’t have the opportunity to wait until another friend gets married. There won’t be a “Save the Date: Hoj’s Big Promotion Party 2011” coming in the mail. I won’t be getting a “Gib and K-T made their 1stMillion Dance-Party Extravaganza” or “Fat and Jo’s Triumphant Cincinnati Return House Warming”. Those aren’t the type of things my friends are going to be sending invitations for. Those events will occur, but when you have a close group of friends like mine, who have grown up together, been each others best friends for the last 11 years or longer, and see each other fairly regularly, those events won’t need much pre-planning. They will just happen. And I probably won’t be there.

No, don’t be thinking all crazy and believe that I’m seriously considering moving to Cincinnati any time soon. That thought has not entered my mind.  It is simply that my high-horse finally died and I can see my friends from Cincinnati for who they really are: a group of special people who happen to be fortunate enough to grow up together, involve other random people in their lives (thanks Gib!), and now have the wonderful opportunity to continue on into adulthood and parenthood as life-long friends.

I don’t think there are too many things more special than that. Except for maybe a Bengals Super Bowl victory. But I won’t be holding my breath on that one. Instead, I’ll make it a point to visit a great group of friends in the years to come, most of whom happen to live in Cincinnati.

Wedding Crasher

Posted on by Elbrecht

Names have been changed to protect the innocent

One of the most celebrated smash-hits of the last decade, Wedding Crashers chronicled the ridiculous antics of two best friends whose favorite past time was attending weddings to which they were not invited. The characters, played by Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, made it a point of celebrating the nuptials while playing fabricated familial roles in order to get into bed with various bridesmaids or guests.

In honor of one of the greatest movies of the 21st century, I, too, decided to crash a wedding…

The opportunity to be a Wedding Crasher arose this past weekend when The Great Snowstorm of ’08 befell the Smith-Johnson wedding. One of my college roommates and his wife, Stan and Helen, were in Boston for Helen’s cousin’s wedding, which was to be a small, but formal affair. Most of the bride’s family were to be arriving from the Midwest and with Logan Airport closing down on Friday, several key members of the bride’s extended family were unable to get into Boston.

Luckily, I decided to brave the winter snowstorm on that Friday evening and meet Stan and Helen at a bar in Allston after the rehearsal dinner. Accompanying me to the bar was another college roommate, who resides in Boston, his beautiful girlfriend, Beeker, and the gf’s bff. All in all, the five of us walked into the bar to be confronted with the only place to sit being a table for four.  Due to this unfortunate turn of events, and my then current mental status being that of a complete jerk-off, I decided to leave the other four at the table and head straight to the bar.

After grabbing a quick pint, I ponied up to the table where Stan and Helen were sitting with the bride’s family. After making quick pleasantries with each of them, and downing my pint in lightning quick fashion, the bride’s father, Rick, sent Stan and I to the bar to acquire a few shots for his daughter. The bride-t0-be and her bridesmaids were seated in a booth on the opposite side of the bar, sufficiently removed from the family, but not out of the line of sight of the bride’s father. As Stan and I headed over to their booth, two shots of Patron in hand, I noticed that there seemed to be a little extra room at the booth.

The bride-to-be quickly imbibed the shots and after making some small talk with her and the bridesmaids, Stan retreated from the table to tend to our other college roommate. I, on the other hand, seeing a window open, decided to crawl right in. I continued chatting up the bride-to-be and her three bridesmaids, eventually sitting down with them in the L-shaped booth after the bride got up to get some water. In the course of discussion, I asked when the wedding was taking place the next day; with some incredulity, the maid-of-honor “reminded” me that it was at 5PM. I looked at her with a hint of confusion, but it was quickly replaced with a grin when I realized they thought that I was also from out of town and was attending the wedding the next day. I informed them that I actually live in Boston and didn’t even know the bride or groom. I believe some of their confusion may have arisen from the several drinks they had imbibed at that point, or they were simply struck by my charm and good looks. Either way, I summarily received a verbal invitation to the next day’s wedding from the maid-of-honor.

I later sheepishly relayed the invitation to Stan without the thought that I would actually be attending the wedding. To my slight surprise, both he and Helen were ecstatic about the idea, even indicating that I could take the place of Helen’s parents at the wedding, who were trapped in wintry Toledo, Ohio…

The next morning I called Stan to see if his excitement had been enhanced by the several beers he’d had the night before or if the offer still stood. To my surprise, Stan told me that Rick, the bride’s father had actually asked him earlier that morning if I would be in attendance. [Disclaimer: A true wedding crash would not entail being invited by the bride’s father, but I am using artistic license in my description.] Knowing that I had absolutely nothing going on that evening, I whole-heartedly agreed to attend. The true dilemma then ensued. The bridesmaids from the previous evening had not been particularly attractive. The bride-to-be was quite attractive, but the bridesmaids left a little to be desired. In the spirit of Wedding Crashers, I knew that the night was meant to end with me literally charming the skirt off of some lucky lady. With the knowledge at hand, I decided it was best to bring a date of my own, rather than chance it.

Upon getting off the phone with Stan, I called my friend Bethany to see what she had going on that afternoon/evening. After a slight hesitation, she agreed to meet me at the wedding once she determined she had a “wedding-worthy” dress.

I arrived at the wedding nearly 30 minutes early even though I had been at the same ballroom for a Christmas party the weekend before. Bethany, due to my lack of detail in the location of the wedding, initially got off at the wrong T-stop and had to walk 10 minutes in the snow before arriving shortly before 5PM. I was quite apologetic for my indiscretion, but she didn’t seem to mind too much. By that time, nearly every one of the 60 attendees were present, along with a few random stragglers like Bethany and myself. For the most part, people seemed to know one another, and there were even several good-looking friends of the bride in attendance. Yet, I was not upset about my decision to bring a date to the event.

The wedding itself was a brief non-denominational ceremony, high-lighted by a touching, but thoroughly adjective-laden love sonnet read by the bride’s brother. The reception ensued as the ballroom was then transformed into a dining area and dance floor. When we finally took our seats at the appropriate table for dinner, Bethany and I were greeted with the name placard of her parents, whose first names were eerily similar to our own and their last name was only one letter off of mine. In a completely appropriate outcome, the couple seated next to us quickly assumed we were married.

When it came time to cut a rug, Bethany, myself, Stan and Helen decided to own the dance floor, despite serious competition from a wide-eyed three-year-old whose frenetic dancing must have been aided by at least 3 Red Bulls. The other wedding guests who were of the same generation did their best to keep up, but the four of us grooved to the never ending series of ’80’s hits that were spun by the DJ. By the time the weekend DJ decided to play something from the last 5 years, everyone still on the dance floor had consumed at least 5 drinks apiece (or at least the reckless dance moves seemed to suggest that). The 40+ crowd that remained seemed to be glued to the sidelines, wishing that their knees and hips still allowed them bump-and-grind in a similar fashion as to the 20’s crowd. Maybe they knew something more than we all did, or maybe they aren’t big fans of T.I., but I appreciated that they stayed out of my way as I spun Bethany around and Stan and Helen danced like it as 1999.

As the reception came to a close, our group of four was still dancing the night away… but like any true wedding crasher, I knew that the night didn’t end with the close of the reception. So Bethany, Stan, Helen, and I collected our things and headed out into the snow-covered Boston night in search of another party, another drink, and maybe something more in line an Owen Wilson inspired end to the evening…