My Weekend, Part 2

Smokin’s Engagement Party:
I just wanted to thank Smokin’ and Soni for inviting my wife and me to their engagement party on Sunday. It was wonderful meeting all of Soni’s family for the
first time – they are all very nice people. One funny note – when we were getting our appetizers, the man in charge of the buffet said that we were not allowed to
use the plates, but had to use the salad bowls for the appetizers … normally, this wouldn’t bother me, except there were like 300 plates on the table, easily enough
plates for appetizers and the lunch. I’m wondering, are bowls easier to clean than plates? Please help me out on this one …

BLASCAR?
On Saturday evening, we celebrated my brother’s 25th birthday at a bar called The Frontier Saloon in Holmes. I’ve only really been to this place a handful of times, most recently during our last bar tour and bachelor party. It is your typical hole-in-the wall, with cheap drinks and cheap food. But, there are some “nuances” I need to discuss. First, there are two pictures of American Indian women on the back wall –
every half-hour or so, the cloth on these pictures disappears and the women are naked … so I’m guessing that political correctness is not high on the list of
priorities at this place. Also, this bar is a NASCAR haven in Delaware County (I guess this also shouldn’t be a surprise to me, considering the pictures of the
Indians).

As luck would have it, there was a NASCAR race that night, and the bar had additional specials, such as $1.00 pints of everything (well, Moosehead was $1.25 –
I guess the quarter covered importing), and $1.00 bottles. Additionally, they had a raffle, in which one would receive 3 tickets for $2.00. The raffle is done when there is an accident in the NASCAR race – Really, I can’t make this stuff up.

Additionally, the bar hands out 1 ticket a person for another raffle, in which they raffle off NASCAR related stuff – t-shirts, hats, key-chains … the typical crap. During our bar-tour, my brother somehow was able to fix the raffle (by taking the raffle bucket, and eliminating most of the tickets in there but ours – it is amazing what one can do when he/she is drunk). During that time, my brother won a blow-up
NASCAR (not sure how many “inputs”), a NASCAR basketball (again, I can’t make this up), and a bunch of NASCAR keychains and stickers. Last night, our group won a Budweiser Racing T-shirt, and an Eagles fold-up chair.

While we were “watching” the race (I have about as much interest in NASCAR as I have in the WNBA), and drinking, of course, my brother and I started getting into a conversation about NASCAR – specifically, the fact that NASCAR isn’t very friendly to people other than white people. I think in the history of NASCAR, there have only been 2 black racers (neither of which raced very often). We decided that this was a
travesty, and came up with an idea.

Let me preface this by saying (A) I am very much against racial prejudice (I think a person who decides if he/she likes a person based on skin color is an asshole – just sayin’), and (B) when we had this conversation, we were pretty drunk.

With that being said, we thought it would be a great idea if BET or the new CW channel would come up with the BLASCAR circuit, to combat NASCAR. Now, it would be a race, but that would probably be the only similarity between BLASCAR and NASCAR. Instead, points are given to the coolest “hoopties,” the loudest base sound, fattest grille, and stuff like that. Racing is strictly secondary. In fact, this race would probably more resemble a parade than anything. Of course some of the race names would be the “Compton 300,” “The Detroit 500,” and “The Camden 400.” I would probably
watch this.