What is the wildest thing you have ever done?
As I began this school year, I found myself reflecting on our school's most recent graduates. They too would be starting a new year. Some would be at college, others would be starting new jobs, some would be entering the military and others would be chilling in their parents' basements.
This reflection caused me to think back to the speech delivered by my school's valedictorian in June.
Wow! A graduation speech someone remembered 3 months later? That is quite impressive!
This young lady gave her classmates an interesting piece of advice. She explained that whenever she meets someone, she immediately asks, "What is the wildest thing you have ever done?" She's suggested that the audience should do the same.
This is probably a solid 8 on the crazy meter. For our purposes, let's keep it below a 7.
She then went on to advise her classmates to be wild. Live their lives. Enjoy them... because in a blink of an eye they will be 50 years old sitting in a gym and watching their children's lives begin... while theirs is basically over.
She knew what she was doing. All of us old people laughed. She was ripping on us, but she really had no clue. (50 is the new 30! Right? Please? Pretty please?)
They see me rollin'. They hatin'...
I started thinking, if someone asked me this question, what would I say?
I quickly came up with that answer. Then I immediately erased those images from my mind and pondered some more.
What is the wildest thing I have ever done... that I can write about in a blog that my kids might read?
In May of 1996, I was a crazy "club kid"... well I was 25 so I'm not sure if that still qualifies as a "kid". I used to go to Industrial clubs three or four nights per week. When you live that lifestyle, you get to know the employees at each establishment pretty well. This meant I did not have to wait in lines, pay cover charges, or pay for most of my drinks. The "regulars" kind of became part of the show at the club. We also helped police it a bit and made sure people were having a good time.
One of the clubs I frequented on Wednesdays was called Crobar. It was HUGE. Although it always had a pretty big crowd (especially for a Wednesday) that year something happened that truly made it explode. Dennis Rodman (crazy person and starting power forward for the Chicago Bulls) started to frequent the club on Wednesday nights as well. When people heard this, the place blew up! It went from a big crowd to wall to wall sweaty suburbanites. It was actually kind of annoying. But somehow my friends and I fought through and managed to enjoy our free drinks (we were truly heroes).
How crazy is Dennis Rodman? Rodman is so crazy that he hangs out with Carrot Top.
On May 16th, Dennis Rodman threw himself a 35th birthday party at Crobar. Being a Wednesday night, I decided to go. There was one problem... so did Bulls players Scottie Pippen, Ron Harper, Luc Longley, James Edwards, Dickie Simpkins, Bill Wennington, Jason Caffey, and Jack Haley. Blackhawk stars Chris Chelios and Jeremy Roenick also attended. Musicians Darryl Jones (Rolling Stones) and Eddie Vedder were also in attendance. David Schwimmer and Chris Farley represented the Hollywood crowd (They were actually popular in 1996).
You get it. There were a lot of celebrities on the guest list.
Do you know who wasn't on the guest list?
Me.
As I proceeded to the club that night (I was actually going alone... I always knew people there to hang out with) I didn't think much about the fact that it was Rodman's birthday party.
As soon as I got out of the cab, I discovered how wrong I truly was. It was an utter madhouse. It looked like a disaster of biblical proportions... Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes... The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!
Run! Rodman's dressed like the Marshmallow Man again!
Ok it wasn't that bad but it was the largest crowd I have ever seen outside of a club.
As I approached my bouncer buddies, they just looked at me, shook their heads and smiled.
What? How could this be? I am the great hanshotfirst! How dare they not let me in? I plead my case and really stressed, "I'm only one person... and I'm really small." But there was nothing they could do. There are fire codes after all (which I'm sure they were violating) and there were lots of paying customers.
I started to head back to the street to hail a cab. As I did, I passed by the alley behind the club. I noticed a few people hanging out behind Crobar. Assuming I knew them, I decided to approach to see what was going on. Although it turned out that I didn't know any of them, they were friendly enough so I hung out for a while. We were standing by a door. Through the cracks, we could hear the music and lots of happy shouting.
I think Ross is in there. And it sounds like he matters!
Then something amazing happened. The back door opened. A couple of people came out and started asking us questions about the club and "in and out privileges". What the hell were they asking us for? We were the losers who couldn't even get in. They were the cool beautiful people. What were they...
Oh My God!
They thought we were bouncers watching the back door!
Actually, as we scanned the area, we realized that we did kind of look like bouncers guarding the back door. Hmmm I wonder how many other people thought that? We found out rather quickly. People started walking down the alley and asking us if they could pay us to let them in the back door. We kindly explained this was impossible and sent them back to the massive and motionless line in front. As people continued to come outside for air, our small group of strangers looked at each other. None of us said a thing.
We didn't need to.
Make way ya numbskull!
We smiled and nodded at each other. When the next group of pretty people exited the door, me and another fake bouncer walked in. We waited a couple of minutes and surveyed the ridiculous scene. Then we opened the door to let the rest of our newfound hooligan friends in.
The party was absolutely insane!
Because I prefaced this by saying I needed to pick something that my kids could read if they stumbled upon it ... this is where this part of the story must end. I will tell you that I did get to sing a version of "Happy Birthday" that was lead by Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam. I will leave the rest of the night to your imagination.
The whole scene still seems surreal to me. I honestly can't believe it happened. It seems more like the plot of a bad mentos commercial than an event I actually experienced. Wait. Was this a Mentos commercial?
Nope. It really happened.
First of all thanks for the very interesting post.... and moreover I haven't done anything like that yet
Stood on the platform in York waiting for a train to london, heard the announcement that the train on the opposite platform was going to durham, decided Id always wanted to go to durham so got that train and spent an amazing unplanned weekend in durham!
Pretty cool. 😀 😃 😄 😁
That's fantastic!
I trapped vampire bats in the Central American rainforest. All in the name of science and for a few college credits. We sept outside in sleeping bags. As we gathered around the campfire on the first night our professor told us of a previous trip he had been on in which he had awaken during the middle of the night and discovered a vampire bat perched on a student's face and quietly licking blood from a small bite it had inflicted. Our professor quickly scared the bat away and when he woke the student up the student had revealed that he was having a wonderful dream in which angels had been fanning him.
lolol i love that show "friends".
The wildest thing i've done? uhmmm secret hahaha.
This is so funny! upvoted! 🤗
An impromptu bicycle ride, that went horribly wrong!
I always loved going on long bicycle rides back in India. The first thing I bought with my salary was a Schwinn mountain bike. I was absolutely in love with it! On weekends sometimes I would go on a ride from MG Road in Bangalore to the international airport, have a subway sandwich, and return back. That is a total distance of 70 km, and the road was mostly flat. I even went to office everyday on it (8 km one way), avoiding the horrible Bangalore traffic. But after I traveled abroad for my Master studies, I hardly had any money or the time to continue with my passion for bicycling.
After my master thesis, I received an internship offer in Crailsheim, Germany. This place is beautiful and a perfect location to go around on weekends for bicycle rides. So, obviously, the first thing I did was buy a bicycle so that I can commute everyday from my room to work and back. I checked out online for any used bikes and found one for 200 Euros. But this seller was staying in Schwäbisch Gmünd, which was around 60 km from my place, Crailsheim. So I decided to take a train to that place, reach at around 10 am, have a look at the bicycle and buy it if I like it.
So I wake up at 10 am the next day and miss my train (Yeah WTF!). There, the obvious sign that this day is truly determined to screw you up! I had to be back by evening so that I can cook some food, get some good sleep and wake up for my first day at work. I go ahead with what I had planned in total oblivion of what the day had lined up for me. I wouldn't cancel my plan since I was very excited of having a bicycle finally, and more because I was a stubborn piece of shit!
Everything seems fine, I buy my bike and get a helmet along with it as well. Like many times and of course this time as well, a ridiculously stupid idea crosses my mind. Why not bicycle all the way back to Crailsheim? After all the distance is just 60km and I had my camera with me (I am an avid photographer). I could take beautiful photos of the countryside, after all it was spring and didn't have to worry about the weather going all nuts on me (which it didn't, it just went all fuckin dark!). It was already 3 pm and so I got my ass outta there like Millennium Falcon on hyperdrive, soon realizing I was no more horizontal. The entire way was lined with steep ups and downs, small hills, big hills, fuckin big hills (No, not mountains now please!). I had never accounted for all this because of my stupid Geography teacher.
Anyway, I got tired within 5km of cycling. Moreover, I had nothing to eat and only a bottle of water. No spare tubes to fix any flat tyre, not even a bloody pump. There are only very few tiny towns in between and no way to take shelter for the night. I didn't even know the language to ask for directions. My phone gave away (Yeah, forgot to charge my phone the previous night. How cute!). So now I had no sense of direction as well. Got lost, in the middle of nowhere. Came across a cabin in the woods (not the horror movie, although I did fantasize being Chris Hemsworth for a while). I had watched way too many scary movies to not be scared. It was straight out of the Wrong Turn movie, minus the hot chicks! It was also starting to get darker very soon, I was shit scared, had to pee! My only option was to guess one of the routes and just keep riding. That is exactly what I did and luckily I found the main road and kept myself going along wherever it lead me. I finally found the right way and after hours of drudgery I finally reached my room at 12pm and woke up at 6am for my first day at office (6 hours of sleep, like a boss!)
Here are a few pics I took on that dreadful night. Yes, probably going to get lost tonight in the woods, but first let me take some photos first.
NICE BIKECYCLE :-D
This is awesome! You need to make this a full post!!! Nice movie references too.
50? lol, I had 6 grandkids by 50 (8 now). I guess that's the craziest thing I've ever done!
Not sure what would qualify for that. Racing a Corvette in my El Camino down 16th Street in Phoenix wouldn't be at the bottom of the list. Neither would be screaming up the same street in a Porsche 911 turbo (130ish). But crazy without being stupid? Hrmmm... I told my wife she was wrong once... once... Now that's crazy!
8 grandkids! Wow you must be a cool grandpa! Yes telling your wife she was wrong is definitely crazy!
Hahaha, this post was funny and really nice, made me reminisce of the amazing time I had in the 90s. I'm from Tupac era so my 20s were lit and insane, I really can't tell you the wildest thing I've done because it would make most in comments section and you as the author of the post look like choir boys in comparison to me... Hehehe... No harm or foul intended. Really nice post though
Speaking of the Tupac and Biggie era brings back some amazing memories. Cheers.
Lol! Yeah I had to keep this pretty tame. My 12 year old reads what I write here. When my kids are 21 I will share the true debauchery that was my youth.
very interesting post, full of inspiration. Thank you very much.
Wildest thing or craziest thing?
I'd say they are different, but I'll go with one of the very crazy things I did as a 15 year old kid.
After my Mom was a sleep at night, I would take her car keys and then her car and go driving around town. I only did this a couple of times and both times drove about 30 minutes to the airport.
Why the airport? I don't actually know, maybe I was dreaming of actually going somewhere fun and warm.
But once there, we'd wonder around and see what we could find of interest.
Understand, this was way back when airport security was light and especially at 2am. We never did anything that was harmful, we were just looking around. We would never be destructive, that wasn't who we were or are.
It was just some strange curiosity.
The 2nd time I did this, one the way home, a police car with siren blaring and lights going comes flying up behind me and I pulled over, as I was supposed to do.
My heart and in my throat!
Fortunately, he had other business and went flying by me.
That was the last of my mid-night ventures in my Mom's car.
Wild? Not sure.
But, definitely some that was very crazy and I'm even surprised today that I did it.
Lol! Perfect story. When I was 17 I would take dates to the airport. We would watch planes take off and people watch. You could basically walk to the gates back then. It was cheap and unique... just like me.
Very happy to hear you avoided the police record!
Thanks - I'm not sure what it is, but people love to watch the planes take off and land. It's just amazing that something so massive can fly and carry all those people.
Yes, I'm very glad of that as well. - No police record here.