Denver - My Favorite Suburb of Littleton

This Memorial Day Weekend was spent in the Land of Amazing Butts, or in the native Cherokee tongue, “Denver.”  This being but a 3 day adventure an email is hardly justified.  Denver being the land of the thin, I intend to pass off a lack of content in this message as merely following theme.  With it thusly established that this message will leave any reader only just-the-mental-tip stimulated, onward we go. 

The weekend saw two events of increasing importance.  The first was the night out in LODO, the bar scene of this wonderful little town.  The only reasonable metrics by which to judge a city, the quantity of well-worn tight dresses and the difficulty of parking, both registered two standard deviations to the right of the normal.  Well played, Denver.

The real point of this communique is the giving away of my best friend Schilldawg.  Names changed to protect the innocent….kind of.  And being that this website is dedicated to personal grandstanding and literary brag-plaining, I’ll skip to the good part and copy/paste my best man toast below:

Alex told me I'm obligated,
For the best interests of all attending
To produce one toast which was pre-written sober,
Thusly reducing my risk of offending

But my friend was sadly unaware
That for a wedding to be valid
My family tradition dictates clearly
That one toast must be a ballad

So head to the restroom or go grab a drink
If you don't have time for my song
But as King Henry said to each of his seven wives
I promise I shan't keep you long

Part one of this toast concerns this man
The tall dude who caused all of this
Part two for his wife, the gem of all gems,
Of quality which baffles gemologists

Alex has long possessed the title,
One of unique distinction,
Of being my best most loyal friend
to that, grab a glass and lets and drink some.

His salsa dancing doesn't scream "I'm Man"
his golf swing you can take to the bank though
he won't harm a fly, but he killed lots of turkeys
And vaguely resembles James Franco

His calmness always is beyond compare
A product of growing up watching Sakic
One can frivolously drop the word "cool"
But its considerably harder to enact it

But the best part of our schilldawg
Forgive me one line of sappy,
Is that nothing, NOTHING satisfies him
like seeing those close to him happy.

With that we'll move on to the woman,
Who you've conned into saying I do
It's not that I ran out of material,
Just that she's easier to look at than you.

Jessica Brehm Schiller
What a wonderful human being
And I doubt I'm alone in thinking this,
your new name has a very nice ring!

I feel that I must thank you,
I feel I'm in your debt
i was behind cancun spring break and the bachelor party,
And you haven't killed me. Yet.

Despite all alex's fore mentioned clout
One thing is far beyond debate
Even if he never began boxing
With you He's still be punching beyond his weight

This poem has a third part,
Which you can chug through if you find boring
Its compulsory to at some point to pay homage to the classic how-they-met story

Alex and Jess gelled immediately
Two better fitting people? You cannot produce them.
I hope everyone here is enjoying the party.
You're welcome - I introduced them!

The schilldawg of yore spent once spent his days
around smu with the likes of yours truly
Then Jess arrived from Waco to Dallas
To intrepidly continue her schooling

Jess was single, and not too long been in town
Alex was fed up with an ex
Cupid decreed we'd get margs at ozonas
I think the first night they had second date plans

They returned from postgrad life in Waco to Dallas
And their affection for eachother elates me
However rarely in their home do i see it myself
Because teddy their puppydog hates me

Seriously though, when I say it elates me
I'm not kidding, yall do me a favor
You're a reminder that real, honest love exists,
Worth every effort to locate, protect then savor

It's an honor to be here, plus be your best man
I hope this poem wasnt pedantic
I'm impressed and way stoked and optimistic for you,
In case that was lost in semantics

For the sake of the party Lets wrap this up, it's getting old Standing just talking
Cheers to you both,
Cheers to tonight
And as the Steve Miller Band once said, keep on rocking

The crowd then proceeded to do as instructed in the final verse.  I received a lot of congratulatory pats on the back for this, most of which by people whose names either got chased out of my brain by bourbon or were never there to begin with.  But one among these congrat-pats stuck with me because it helped answer a question I’ve been asking myself lately, which is why I don’t try to write with regularity and make money doing it. 

The congrat-pat went something like “That was really easy for you to write, wasn’t it?”  I was surprised to hear this, but the middle-aged mildly drunk gent spoke the truth.  It had been.  I churned that sucker out on the plane ride from Dallas, inserting only minor edits later.  “It’s easy when you just speak your mind about something you care about and then make it all pretty like that.  It’s barely writing, merely redecorating.”

I was mildly offended, but couldn’t help agreeing.  And that, in short, is why I don’t write on the reg for anyone anywhere.  I can’t rely on myself to have something to say, and to thusly redecorate.  Writing is raw, and forcing a feeling is a crime against oneself. 

So that’s all for now.  Thanks for reading, and by all means do follow Steve Miller’s instructions.  He’s one hell of a redecorator.