Fleetmack.com - Memories Part V

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"This shirt is dry clean only. Which means... It's dirty." --Mitch Hedberg

Memories from Back In The Day, Part V
04-14-2004
by Bryan Mack

It was July 3, 2001 and time to celebrate the 4th of July. I was living in Des Moines, Iowa with Wendl, Brad, and Justin about a month before I moved to Denver. Mike was in Kuwait or something for the Air Force, so Brad and I decideded to go back to Templeton, Iowa for the night as they had a street dance or something. Yeah, I know - we were 22 at the time, still too old for a street dance most likely, but we were going for the beer garden. We proceeded to get hammered that night and crashed at Chief's place back in Carroll. Now here's where the story gets weird. I had to drive to my girlfriend at the time's (Becky) place up in Alexandria, Minnesota the next morning as I was spending the 4th with her and her family. I leave Carroll around 6am. I grab a gatorade and slice of breakfast pizza from Cabby's and drive to my house in Des Moines. I shower and pack up. By now it's about 9am. I leave my house in Des Moines, stop at the gas station for another gatorade, then go to McDonald's for a breakfast value meal. I get on the road about 9:30. About 11:00 or so, I'm up by Mason City, Iowa (about 10 miles from the Iowa/Minnesota border) and I'm driving 68MPH. My windows are rolled down as window tint is illegal in Iowa. Suddenly, I see cherries behind me, I pull over. The cop walks up to me and says "Do you know how fast you were going?" I say "No faster than the limit". He says "I clocked you at 68, the limit is 65". For once I talk back to a cop, "Are you serious? You pulled me over for that? I had my cruise set at 65!!" Cop says "Roll your window up for me sir.", I do, he says "Did you know it's illegal to have this in the state of Iowa?" I say, "Yes, that's why I had my window down so it wouldn't cause any harm." He says "have you been drinking sir?" I laugh and say "Officer, it's 11 in the morning, I've been on the road for 5 hours, I wouldn't have had time to drink if I tired!" He says I reek of alcohol (after a shower, 2 gatorades, 2 meals, and 12 hours of not-drinking). He proceeds to take me to his car and give me a breathalyzer test. I tested .07!!! Are you kidding me! The limit in iowa was 0.10 at the time and Minnesota was 0.08, he requested that I stay at the next rest stop for an hour or so to get the alcohol out of my system! That was insane, and I still got a window tint ticket. I hate Iowa sometimes, that was one of the times.

Ever been "election-signing"? I realize we were all geeks in high-school, but this was one of the funnest things we ever did. I did it about 10 times, and had it done to me twice I think. Man it's fun and the season will be coming around shortly. So to all you high-schoolers - I propose a challenge to you. Do this to somebody, then take a picture of yourself in front of the mess you create with a sign that says "fleetmack.com" and you shall be rewarded. Send a picture to bryan@fleetmack.com. Now what exactly is "election-signing"? Get a min-van (such as the one Kendall used to have, aka, "The Party Wagon"), drive around town and steal every single election sign you can find, then, go to a friends house and stand them all up in all over thier lawn. Their parents will permanently love you. The one time in particular we did this I shall never forget. We gathered upwards of 100 election signs for everyone, from county supervisor candidates to governor candidates to presidential candidates. We piled them in the party wagon and headed over to Klaver's house and posted them all up. Then we went on the drag in Carroll and told everyone we saw to go drive by his house and look at it. Sure enough, Mikkelson got pissed - and rightfully so. He came back and chewed us out becuase his dad was running for County Supervisor I think and was pissed that we took all his dad's signs that he put up! Man he was pissed, we apologized and really did mean it, but now - a few years later, shit that's funny!

There's a ton of pictures on this site, and a whole bunch of them have me in it. Have you ever noticed that one of my big teeth in front is half black? (sorry, that picture shows me HIGHLY intoxicated, but it's the one with the best view of my tooth). Well, this is to set the records straight. Whenever asked about it, I half lie about how it happened, and I think it's time to give Mr. Matthew Renze credit where it's deserved. Typically when people ask what happened, I say "I got my tooth knocked out in a mosh pit." So far - no lie. People say, "to what?" I say "White Zombie." This is only half-true. Let's just tell the story from the top. It was Easter-Eve in 1996 and The Crue was out in full effect (The Crue was what Mule, Christy, Anne, and myself used to call ourselves becuase the four of us went out road tripping together about 200 times over the four years of high school). So The Crue was road trippin', having massive quantities of duff, the girls were smoking their cigs and drinking, and I was, as usual, trying to play some unheard of rap who I was sure was going to be "the next big thing" - (the only one I was ever right about was Jay-Z after his Reasonable Doubt cd came out in 1996 or something). Anywho, Renze's band (nVr) was playing in Arcadia that night after a lengthy dance. During their first song (White Zombie's SuperCharger Heaven) I was in the mosh pit, Rich shoved me into Ffej. Naturally I was singing along so my mouth was open, and I bit the hell out of Ffej's head, leaving him with a deep tooth-caused laceration in the noggin, and leaving myself with a front tooth hanging by the threads. Easter morning, I couldn't eat. The next day, I couldn't eat. Finally, I realized my tooth was turning black so I fessed up to Mom. Yup, got the 'ol Root Canal done and had to wear this molded mouth guard thing for like 2 months. Then came the bleaching process. See, the entire tooth was black at the time, the bleach got it about halfway white, but I thought a half-black tooth looked pretty cool at the time and plus the bleach tasted like shit, so I stopped using it. And there you have it, the 100% true story of why my front tooth is a mulato. If I've told you it was at a White Zombie concert, I blatently lied. Yup, sure did. This is my written confession. Sorry.

I was 19 years old, a sophomore at Iowa State. In Storm Lake, a town about 140 miles away, they have nickel pitchers at a 19-bar (only have to be 19 to get in) on Wednesday nights. Since the girl I was pretty much seeing all semester (Jen - wow, she looks fantastic in that picture and I think that's the worst I've ever looked in my life!) went to school there, Schweers and I decided to drive up on this school night to have a good time, some cheap drinks,and some delicious sex, woo hoo! We leave Ames, case of beer in a cooler in the back seat as usual. By the time we get to the bar, we're hammered. I mean blitzed drunk. We get in the bar and order ourselves a pitcher apiece (we had fake ID's) and before the girls even get to the bar, I'm so drunk I cannot talk, stand up, think, and pretty much breathe. Immediately when the girls arrived, I asked one of them to drive me to their house so I could pass out. Here's where things get really blurry and fucked up. There I am, passed out on the couch - and I have to take a piss, the bathroom is vacant but for some reason I decide to run outside to do my duty. I run outside and like a fucking buffoon, I throw my pants and boxers completely around my ankels and start pissing in plain view of the entire block. As I'm releasing my urine all over the snow and grass and mud, I realize I have to puke -- NOW. I bend over and regurgitate all over the place. In the meantime, my penis continued to expel urine at an alarming rate all over my boxers and pants, still secure around my ankels. I realize I'm pissing on myself so I bend back up and hold the puke in my mouth until I'm done pissing. This proves to be unsuccessful and as I'm pissing, dick in hand, I puke all over myself. I'm now covered in piss and half-day-old half-digested gas station hot dogs. I finish my puking and pissing and suddenly see a car coming. I think it's a cop for some reason (I don't think it was) and I turn to run inside before he sees me. Not realizing I never pulled my pants up, as I turn I trip myself and fall down in the mud. So here I am, drunk as hell, naked from the waist-down, covered in puke, piss, and mud. I literally crawl up the stairs and pass out on the couch with, I'm pretty sure, my pants still around my ankels...which is how I was discovered when the rest of everyone got back from the bar. Luckily Schweers drove, becuase the ride home was the single most hungover 2 hour interval of my life.

When I started working at Old Chicago, on my first day we had to tell our most embarassing story. I used the last paragraph for mine, obviously. From what I've heard, to this day whenever someone starts working at Old C's they ask them to tell an embarassing story, then from there someone always says "It won't beat Mack's!" My ex-girlfriend (who worked there long after I quit) told me once that the story has since gotten exaggerated. Apparently I was buck naked outside taking a shit or something and the cops arrested me....I don't know the details, but you heard the one and only true version here, believe no other versions of this nearly-world-famous story.

Well, since I've already humiliated myself with my embarassing story and told you about my tooth wound, I suppose I should keep the theme of Stories part V by telling of yet another time I hurt myself. This again, has been covered up by lies. Ever seen my arm? How about my right eye? My right arm is covered with about 8 scars (some visible close-up here the during the stitches/staples stage), and I have a 3 inch scar that goes diagonal just above my right eyebrow. I've used lies (jokingly as I don't usually tell what happened to my arm) such as "A football player was pissed that his girlfriend was hitting on me, so he threw me through a fishtank." Yup, pretty good and un-true and unbelievable story. The only part that's accurate is the fishtank. Freshman year of college, Mule and my dorm room had a very unique loft. Our ceilings were like 12 feet high since we were on the top floor, and my bed was right in the middle of the room with no walls on either side. Before I even tell what happened and to ruin your guess, I did NOT fall out of bed. That's the reason I never tell this story becuase people say "You fell out of bed?" NO! And before I even tell you the details, I'll answer the other 2 questions every person asks -- 1) No, I wasn't drunk 2) What the fuck do you think? Of course the fish all died! 4:30am on Eazy-E day (March 26) of 1998, I'm sleeping on my stomach with my arm across my face, it goes in this order: Bed, Pillow, Right Arm, Face. One of the 2x4's comes un-attached due to wear-and-tear from the frame of my loft, causing my loft to completely dismantle. I fall a good 9 1/2 - 10 feet straight down onto our fishtank - head first with only my arm to protect my face from being literally one big scar today, which it surely would have been. I smash the fishtank with my head and arm, I'm drenched in fishtank water and pass out on the floor, probably due to shock. Mule comes down the ladder from his loft and wakes me up asking if I'm ok. I stand up, onto glass cutting my feet, and say, "Yeah, just a little wet." I honestly didn't feel anything. I tasted blood as it was oozing out of my face into my mouth. I look down to inspect myself, only to see the first of several lacerations on my right arm. This particular wound was (is) a good 2" long and, at the time, at least an inch and a half wide. As my heart pumped, every single ounce of blood seemed to just pulse out of my new wound. My hand turned white as a sheet. I tell him to go get John (our RA - he had a car) to see if he can bring me to the ER. I grabbed a towel and wrapped up my arm with pressure to keep me from losing all 8 pints of blood. John drives me to the hospital, where they scare the shit out of me at first and tell me I cut a nerve in my elbow and will probably lose feeling in my forearm and right hand soon. Thank God that wasn't true!! I get about 8 stitches above my eye, 10 internal stitches in the above-mentioned wound. The rest of the cuts took approximatley 30 staples and 30 stitches to put back together. Here's a card Fern and Alicia gave me when I got home from the hospital. Yeah, my arm is pretty fucked up, and again - that's a 100% true story.