The ID Police-a "Heroes and Legends" guest entry by Megan

Friday night's Brat Pack concert at Heroes and Legends included a little scuffle with security on the dancefloor. Reader Megan of Crest Hill provides us with the details.

The Brat Pack was playing in town so of course we head out to see them. Upon entering the bar we paid $5 cover and get a black paper bracelet with yellow smileys on it-for what reason--I have yet to figure out. (Note from Emily: when Melanie and I got our bracelets, the guy at the door told us that he was giving them to "pretty girls." However, Melanie's brother entered after us and got a bracelet, so it's a mystery.)

We girls are mingling and finally I decided to get a beer. Soon after we head out to the dance floor and dance to a few tunes. Nancy leaves to go outside, while Em, Sarah and I continue to dance. The three of us were given floral headbands by the lead lady singer chick. 2 dances later Nancy then rejoins us and a guy in jeans and a T-shirt approaches us and asks to see our ID's. So we all show him and he believes everyone's ID but mine. He then asks for another form of identification (which I don't have b/c its Heroes and I have been going over there for over a year). This guy then asks another question but he can't hear my response and makes me go out of the bar in-between the 2 doors.

He proceeds to ask my address and birthday. He still doesn't believe me, and asks my height and weight. I said, "Wow, that was 2 years ago so I was about 5'1 and 105 lbs." So he asks if I lied on my ID and I said no--I have gained a couple pounds, cut and dyed my hair so the pic doesn't really look like me. He then hands my ID to his partner and says, "Do you believe that she is 5'1?" He said yes. So at this point I am pissed and whipped out my phone and I said to these fellas, I will call someone at my house and have them bring over my birth cert, SS card and forms of Ids to prove to you both that I am 22. He says, "No ma'am that is not necessary." I said, "Yes it is, first you accuse me of underage drinking, now you accuse me of lying on my ID not to mention embarassing me in front of the whole bar, I am going to prove to you that I am 22." Again he said that is not necessary, but I responded with yes it is --we'll all wait here outside the bar, I only live 5-8min away and this will be all solved. He then told me he'd let me back in the bar this time, but take this as a lesson: always carry 2 forms of ID and never lie on it. So I went back into the bar and turned to him and said, "If in the near future I decide to cut or dye my hair, gain or lose weight, I'll be sure to head over to the DMV and update my ID so it looks like me."

The lesson I learned from this experience: Just because he asked to see my ID, I have every right to see his, because being in plain clothes and having a gun might not make him a cop!!!

I have one thing to say: if our beloved flashlight shining bouncer was there, this whole situation would not have happened. Where's the love, Heroes? Considering that a male bargoer asked one of the employees to ask Nancy and I if we would touch his "hisness," and the employee complied, I think they might need to get their act together. I'll be back soon with tales of the Wheel. . .of. . .Fortune!

Sam-why's?

My my, it's been an interesting week. Reader Megan of Crest Hill will soon be making a guest entry about Friday and Saturday evening's adventures, and I will fill you in on the rest. Let's start with the Herald News' BEST HAPPY AD EVER.

Go, go, go!
Go, AJ,
it's your birthday!
We gon' party like it's your birthday!
But you're only 14, so you won't be in da club!
Love, your family

Gotta love misappropriated 50 cent lyrics. Speaking of songs, a certain song I heard yesterday on the radio has really vexed me. I'm all for fun covers, but when you mess with one of my favorite songs ever and make it sound like 93.5 lite fm crap, I get quite angry. The song in question is Laid, originally by British band James. If you don't recognize it by the title, it's the song that starts out, "This bed is on fire with passionate love, the neighbors complain about the noises above. . " and later on in the song is the line, "You think you're so pretty, eeeeeee heee." Anyway, I love that song, and there is an ass remake of it by some dude named Matt Nathanson. I don't know much about Mr. Nathanson, but judging from his website and the fact that he'll be touring with Train, he appears to be the kind of generic alternarock singer destined for overplay on the Mix and VH-1. I feel a bit bad for Matt, but if John Mayer had started his career with a cover of Laid, I'd hate him too.

Ok, we'll start with Thursday. Megan and I decided to brave Studio 54, aka Samy's. We got there around 9 and were pleasantly surprised to see that there was no line. As there wasn't a line for quite a while, the beginning of our evening was not too exciting, though we learned a lot on ABC news. A snaggletoothed man eventually sat to the left of us and bore through our heads with his laser eyed stare. We eventually acknowledged him and he asked if we were sisters, a recurring theme for the evening, as later on a drunken 21 year old asked the same question and said that Megan and I had the same eyes. Megan's eyes are green and mine are blue, but oh well. We eluded Mr. Teeth and headed on to more entertaining pursuits, including dancing near middleagers who were grinding on the dance floor (the woman was wearing a skirt, rather inappropriate for such behavior), reliving high school musical memories with Charlie Brown, and accompanying a drunken friend of mine in his pursuit to tell various female bargoers that they were giving him Pac Man Fever. A tiny man I recognized from my Troy Junior High days decided he needed to be my chaperone as I ran around chatting with people but I shook him off without too much trouble, luckily. The only low point of the evening was that they didn't play "Magic Stick", my new favorite song (note: my neighbors have a book called Donald Duck and the Magic Stick). Another note: I just saw the lyrics to that song and man are they nasty! I think I'll stick with the radio version.

Friday night's adventures, will as said before, be discussed by Megan in the next entry. The only other item of note from Friday's Brat Pack evening was the scary skinny drunk guy who first drank from a pitcher on the dancefloor, and later took his shirt off, which was not a pretty sight.

Early Saturday evening Courtney, my sister and I headed to downtown Joliet for the All City High School Reunion, which unfortunately did not live up to the hype. Highlights (if you can call them that) were being called "Sarah" by a neighbor, chatting with a religion teacher from my high school (that was actually rather entertaining), and doing fashion commentary on the wedding taking place at the Rialto.

Later on in the evening Nancy, Megan and I headed out to Sean Kaley's in Lemont for the Spin Doctors concert. However, when we arrived at the bar, we saw that the cover charge was $15. We were not about to pay fifteen dollars for "Pocket Full of Kryptonite," so we headed back to Joliet with plans to go see Crash at Heroes for a while and then head to Samy's after midnight so we wouldn't have to pay cover. However when we got back to J-town, we got on the topic of pie and decided to head to Baker's Square. Unlike that scary ass Baker's Square commercial, none of us got proposed to after our meal. However, there was a quality mullet sitting behind me that I was not able to see until I got clued in by Megan and Nancy, but man I wish I had my camera. Post-pie (I had French Silk, Nance had some kind of apple, and Megan had brownie, if you're curious) we went over to Samy's. Unfortunately, there was a $5 cover due to a band, but ignorant of what was to come, we forked over the cover charge. When we came in we were treated to a Whiskey Tango night like never before. The band was called the Sandbox Junkies, and to get an idea of their style and potential fans, check out this website quote from bass player Steve Duncan: when asked his favorite smell, he answered, "Racing fuel. Burnt that is." Another gem:Worst feeling in the world?
"Having an itch in an inappropriate place in public." Anyway, they played an interesting mix of AC/DC, Jimmy Eat World, and spoke colorfully about sexual habits (family website, can't go into detail). Their fans included many women who had the Regis cut, and a lot of couples who enjoyed singing and dancing while looking into each others eyes. My notes about the ubersketchy men who hit on us at Samy's can be summarized by the following list:

How Not to Hit on Emily
1. Grab her ass
2. Come over to her and ask why she's staring at you (she's not staring, she's looking at the band, which happens to be in front of her)
3. When the ultrasuave "staring" line doesn't work, send over your drunken cowboy hat wearing man to smooth over the situation by mumbling unintelligibly.
4. Get angry when she doesn't recognize you (she has only met you twice, and both of the times you were wearing glasses).
5. After getting angry, invoke the name of her ex-boyfriend and comment that she would recognize you if you looked more like him.
6. After the non-recognition incident, hang on her and comment that her friend probably thinks you're a weirdo (you're right, BOTH OF THEM and probably everyone else in the bar thinks you're a weirdo.)
7. Wear an orange condom shaped hat (ok, that guy didn't bug us, but it's still a frightening thing)

As you can imagine, we got out of there ASAP, we didn't even finish our drinks we were so horrified. Luckily, by the time I got back to the house it had started to rain and I felt cleansed of all skankiness by the purifying water.

I was going to put up my Wheel of Fortune adventure (no, I didn't make it on the show, but I got lovely parting gifts) and Megan's guest entry tonight, but I'm exhausted. I will try to put it up today or tomorrow. A final note: one of the founding members of local Dave Matthews cover band Crash works at Best Buy! According to this guy (I don't remember his name), they've played for Dave's sister and will stop performing in the fall so they can record their first original album. Who would've thunk a trip to buy the Old School dvd (frightening note: I overheard some young lads talking about cameltoe while looking at video games) would have brought forth such exciting local celebrity gossip? I'll have to check with Joe to see what local bands work at the Circuit City; maybe that's where the Sandbox Junkies have their day jobs.