In this installment of Stories from the road, our hero finds himself in Chicago.

Is the multi-day hangover a myth? Fuck no. I’ve got one. I remember the days when I could drink until 3, and then still make an 8 o’clock class the next morning (my notes would be unreadable and would smell like stale beer, but I still made the class). I just got back from Chicago where we drank like rock stars, told and re-told old stories, and realized our age all in one fell swoop. And then we re-told some old stories. The impetus for the trip was a reunion of a rugby team I used to play for, we had won a regional championship game for our division in Chicago 10 years ago and there were 3 international rugby matches scheduled for this past Saturday, so we scheduled the trip, took our pain medication, and went. I think there was a total of 18 guys on the trip.

Friday night was fairly typical reunion fare, a couple of us went to lovely Gary Indiana to play some poker while the bulk of guys went to the Cubs-Sox game. We all met up at bar/restaurant afterwards in the suburbs of Chicago. We sat around and bullshitted the night away while pounding down brew-dogs. And eventually closed the place down. I haven’t closed a bar in years.

Saturday is a rugby day. I only got about 3 hours of sleep (stupid internal clock), and after some greasy breakfast to lube up the gullet, we headed over to Toyota Park for the rugby matches. The first thing I noticed was that the parking lot was full of people drinking in groups of 10 or 15 and singing rugby songs. We entered the gate, and cracked open our first beer of the day. The time was 10:50 AM. We got into our seats on the 50 meter line and got ready for the first match (Ireland vs. Argentina, when the sun came out. I have mixed blood (mostly Irish and Scottish). This. No. Good. For. Sun. My face now glows a deep bright red and you can barbecue off of my forehead. Anyway, I moved into the shade soon after the first game, but too late. The good news was the beer kept flowing, so soon I didn’t feel my face too much.

The other matches of the day were fairly uneventful (England vs. Scotland, and US vs. Canada), my only comment is, we fucking suck. All told we were at the field for 7 hours boozing it up. We headed back to the wonderful Holiday Inn (nuthin but the best for our lot), and had a few more cold ones while we sat around and argued like little bitches about what we were going to do that night. In a moment of drunken clarity we came to the conclusion that some people are planners, some people are do-ers, and some people tell the do-ers what to do. And the do-ers get paid the least and do the most work (i.e., they’re fucked). But I digress. We eventually found a planner who planned an elaborate plan. The plan was, walk across the street to a sports bar. We’re fucking idiots. So a person that tells the do-ers what to do said “hey fuck-nuts, we’re leaving” and we left. Problem solved.

After some food and beer and shots and mustard and a little side of burning rage, we decided (again we needed a planner for this) to head over to a more “exotic” bar. In other words, we found a strip club. We ended up at the strip club and even the burning rage issue went away for some reason. All I could say was “god-damn we drink a lot” when I saw our bar-tab at the end of the night. We got a cab at 3:30 AM and headed back to the hotel. The last beer I finished, 3:20 AM. That’s 16+ straight hours of boozing it up if you’re keeping score at home (assuming I’m doing my math correctly course, remember the multi-day hangover thing?). I realized how old I am when I only got another 3 hours of sleep again (fucking bullshit stupid internal clock!!!).

I’m done… where’s the tylenol?

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That would be me… the fucking slacker (or slackee).  I’ve been AWOL from the interwebz for a while attending to bidness and family.  It’s funny how life can get in the way of digital life.

Anyway, I’m off to Chicago this weekend to watch some rugby, play some poker, and drink some fucking beers (not necessarily in that order).  I haven’t watched a live rugby game since my trip to Ireland in 2002, I’m looking forward to this one, but again, I will feel like a slacker because I haven’t played in 8 or 9 years.  It was always better to play the game than watch it anyway, so I’ll have to get over my discomfort by pounding extra beers and acting like an even bigger asshole than I already am… somehow I don’t think this will be a problem.  Ciao bitches…

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In a former life I used to play rugby, actually, in a former life I used to LOVE rugby. I played for a little over 8 years starting in college and finishing with a couple of mens league teams. There are a number of reasons why rugby rules as a sport, it is truly a team sport, you can have 5 superstars on a team and still suck if the rest are mediocre, and the camaraderie among teammates and opponents is head and shoulders above other team sports. I miss all of the social aspects of the game and competition (I’m pretty much the most competitive motherfucker I know) but lately I really really really really miss the hits. I miss taking out all of the pent up aggression of the week from work or school out on the sad silly son-of-a-bitch that was my opposite. It turns out, that full-contact sports are therapeutic, I tried to take it out on the cat as a substitute, but it’s just not the same. And after you replace 19 cats in a month, the animal shelter gets suspicious. Anyway, I’ll leave you with some of the reasons why I miss rugby, check out these vids, the first is a good compilation of hits (full disclosure for those of you that don’t know the rules, there are a lot of illegal hits in this video), the second is of the haka… enjoy bitches…

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Sadcox over at Hear It From Us recently posted on old Rugby T-Shirt ideas. This post sparked off some memories of rugby and the culture that surrounded it. For those of us who have played rugby in college (or previously) and then in the Men’s/Women’s leagues afterwards, rugby is often a dominant part of your day-to-day life. In fact, personally, rugby was a defining characteristic of mine while I was playing along with student, asshole, and guy-who-was-trying-to-figure-out-what-to-do-with-his-life. Now my defining characteristics are husband, father, provider, asshole, and guy-who-is-trying-to-figure-out-what-to-do-with-his-life.

Short of a post describing the intricate details of how to play rugby, let’s start with how you score (this will be important in a minute so bear with me). In rugby there are basically two ways to score, 1) Score a try. Scoring a try is analogous to scoring a touchdown in American Football, the biggest difference is in Rugby, the player actually has to place the ball on the ground while the ball is in control, this is worth 5 points. The second way to score, kick the ball between the goal-posts, much like a field goal in American Football, this is worth 3 points unless it is a conversion kick after a try and then it is worth 2 points.

Why is this important you ask? Well in rugby, it is a tradition that you perform a “zulu” after you score your first try. What’s a zulu? Do you mean this?

Well, not exactly. A zulu or “zulu warrior” is a little dance or act that you must perform at the post game drink-up (another rugby tradition), while naked. Typically, the team will starting chanting “zulu” or “hey, zulu warrior” while you disrobe and then run around like a maniac while they toss beer on you. Fun tradition right? I’ve seen countless variations on the zulu over the years, from a guy immediately taking off his clothes on the pitch (field) after the score to guys running naked in inner city Philly to order a big mac and fries from a very surprised, and pissed-off, McDonald’s employee (the best quote from this was “the sign doesn’t say anything about wearing pants”).

My personal zulu came after I scored a try in my rookie season against a small liberal arts college in Eastern Pennsylvania. I’m not naming the college to spare them embarrassment, they are a college full of pussies who were too scared to even party with us after the match (the only time I can remember this happening in rugby). At any rate, I was playing in the second side match and was able to block a kick with my right hand, catch the ball when it came down, and score the try. The only problem was when I dove to place the ball on the ground, I dove directly into the knee of an opposing player. The knee was in my eye, and the fucker blew up like Rocky. At any rate, because of the lack of a party after the match, I was spared my zulu until later that month. The only problem here was my zulu occurred at the next big rugby event, our date party.

I was hoping the guys forgot that I owed a zulu, but alas, they did not. The good news, there were a good 7 or 8 other savages already naked at the party (another common tradition, at least with the guys at my university) running around. My zulu was highlighted by my date following me around, slapping me on the ass, and yelling “woooo-whooo!!!”. Ahhh, memories.

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