Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Lordy Lordy

G, looking pretty damn surprised when he walked in.


Then he was hugged his by son J, who shouted "Surprise!" the loudest of anyone.


My friend G, a drummer in many an excellent band, and an all-around great, funny, wonderful guy that everyone loves, turned 40 last Thursday and his wife, my friend B, threw him a huge, fun, crazy surprise party at a club called Martyr's.


The band onstage when he walked in was Exo, who he played with years and years ago. He was really really touched to see em all together. G even got behind the drum kit at the end of the evening with them (for the first time all night!) when they came up for an "encore" after all the other bands had played.



Now, this party was even advertised as a "show" in the newspapers, on the website for more than a month, and on the club's outdoor marquee, and G was still surprised, hadn't gotten wind of it at all. It was awesome.


I forgot my camera, but I had my trusty, non-flash, less than 1 megapixel camera phone handy. This is why the pics all suck.

Probably the funniest moment of the night, Robbie Fulks and band's improv-rap-scat song about G.


I helped out by stage managing the bands that were playing, all 10 or so of which have a G connection somehow. It was super fun. And it was excellent to have a role - if you know me, you know how I hate to just be at a party.


The emcee was Dick O'Day, who was hilarious. We worked together to make the show run smoothly despite the grouchiest sound guy in Chicago (seriously!) trying to bring us down for most of the night.


Oh, there was bingo! Dick O'Day brought it. It was fun. Whenever there was a "G" called, he asked for a piece of G trivia.


Here's the awesome mom of G, who came in from New Hampshire for the party, and brought great posters of digitized pictures and ephemera from G's childhood/life. Including letters like "No one loves me, I hate you, I do not want to speak to anyone ever again and that's final, Love, G" type things in total kid writing. Have I told you how much I love G's mom?

I only drank 3 drinks in about 6 hours, and still I was a wreck the next day. It was super fun though. B did a great job.

1 comment:

Churlita said...

That sounds so cool. I better look and see if I have any notes like that. I remember I put a couple of notes from Stinky on my blog, but they were still from jr high. I'm not sure if I have the cute ones from when they were younger.