William Drew

Friday Night Videos

Can you believe it?  I'm actually getting the Friday night videos up on a freaking Friday!  Whoot!  Anyway, we'll get right to the point.  First off, this video might not be safe for work.  Well, now that I said that, pretty much everyone at my work... saw it at work.  And they all laughed their asses off.  Anyway, remember, if yer at work, watch this at your own risk.  Regardless of where you are, click here to start laughing.

New Vikings Uni's

So, the Vikings have tinkered with, and re-designed their uniforms.  I was a little nervous when I heard about this.  Yeah, ok, it's just the uniforms a sports team wears, but have you seen some of the uniforms teams have been switching to recently?  Ugly.  And when I heard that they were bringing back the purple pants, I was... um.. not too excited about that.

So, they unveiled the new uniforms today and I gotta say, I'm impressed!  These look freaking cool, and even with my limited spending money, I just might have to go get me one of these.  Even the purple pants look good.   Anyway, here are a couple of pics of the new uni's.  What'cha think?

 

A Night For Vince

No, I didn't forget about Friday Night Videos.  This week I was waiting on purpose as I was planning on posting a video from Saturday nights benefit for Vince's daughter.  Last night, Saturday 4/22/06, we had a Benefit Concert at the Bunkers Nightclub in Minneapolis.  It was a fantastic night, and there are a lot of people to thank for making it such a wonderful night. 

The night was originally scheduled to be a night featuring local band Tagine.  These guys were one of the local bands that Vince followed so closely, he even drove down to Iowa to watch their shows.  He got to know the guys in the band, the they were more than willing to help out by making the night a benefit concert.

I arrived at the club around 7:00 PM, well before the club started jumping.  When I showed up, the only others there were my good friend Matt, who help put the show together, and Vince's parents, brother, and a couple of other close friends. 

The night started off with The Tracey Blake Project taking the stage.  They were joined by Kip Blackshire.  Tracey Blake Project is another of the local bands that Vince got to know personally by checking out their gigs as often as he could.  I was talking to Tracey after their show, and he told me about how Vince was there for them from the beginning.  He even brought up a night that for whatever reason no one showed up to see there gig, and Tracy really didn't feel like performing because of it.  But there was Vince and his video camera, and that energized Tracy, so they went put and put on a fantastic show.  I also got to talk to, and get to know, Ronna J, the drummer from this hard rockin trio.  He had nothing but kind words to say about Vince and how much he really appreciated having Vince around.  Kip is a local singer that spent time touring with Prince and has since released a solo record.  Kip started off by using his amazing voice to do a vocal solo of Amazing Grace.  He then stayed on stage for a few songs, including Stevie Wonders 'Superstition', of which I'll have a video later in the post.  After Kip left the stage, The Tracey Blake Project then proceeded to tear it up for a while.

After their show, Matt and I took the stage and gave out some goodies for a raffle that we were doing to help raise money for Vince's Daughter.  We had CD's, Shirts and Hats from the three bands that were playing, we also had some items from a couple of the local beer companies that deliver to the restaurant that Matt and I run.  We also used two of Vince's possessions: A poster that Hoobastank personally signed for Vince, and a video, yes the now outdated VHS video tape of "Clueless".

Shortly after that, The New Congress took the stage and it got Fonkey in there.  These guys can tear it up.  Vince knew a couple of these guys before they got together to form The New Congress, and he again spent a lot of time checking out their performances.  This group has only been together a short time, but they are already going places.  They have opened for a couple of national touring acts, and have released a debut CD earlier this month.  During their set, they gave time for Matt, Tefft and myself a chance to take the stage, and we were each able to give a little speech about what Vince meant to all of us.  We all appreciated that TNC allowed us to do that during their set.

The night wrapped up with Tagine taking the stage.  Since it was a night that had been advertised as their night, the dance floor in front of the stage filled up quickly as they tore into their set.  These guys are nothing but fun to watch on stage.  From their own material, to their rocked out covers of songs like Young MC's "Bust A Move", I can see why Vince followed these guys all over the place, and I have to say I wish I had tagged along with Vince on some of those nights.  Tagine also let Matt and I take the stage for one last time to give away the remaining items from our raffle.   

It was also another great night of catching up with all of the different people whose lives were touched by Vince.  A lot of good friends, and a lot of people that we, er, I haven't seen in years and years, were all brought together for this event.  Tefft and Kathy even flew in from Los Angeles to be here for the event.  But most importantly, we were able to raise some money to start a college fund for Vince's daughter, and we were able to have a night to celebrate Vince in the perfect venue.  Live music, friends and family.  Exactly the way Vince would have wanted it.

All three of the bands gave the money they made from performing and selling their merchandise to the college fund.  So make sure you check out their websites, and support these bands.  Buy their CD's, go check out their shows and help return the favor they did in making this night possible.  I put links to their sites throughout this post, and I will list them again at the end.  In the mean time, here are some pictures of the night:

The empty stage early before the show.

The Bar getting ready for the night.

Good friends David and Susan.

The Tracey Blake Project with Kip Blackshire.

Tefft and Kathy.

Rob and Steve.

My brother Mark and Steve.

My parents, brothers and sisters-in-law.

Vince's brother Adam.

Rob, Matt and Chad.

Tagine tearing up the stage.

Matt, Vince's father, and a photo of Vince early in the night.

Alright, here is the video.  This is The Tracey Blake Project with Kip Blackshire joining them and thier performance of Superstition: Superstition

Again, here are the links to each of the bands websites.  Check them out, buy their CD's, and go check out their shows.

Kip Blackshire (you can also click on the song title to hear Kips 1st single: I Got What You Need)

The Tracey Blake Project

The New Congress

Tagine

Trash 'N Toilets

Ahh, Spring is in the air.  Flowers are getting ready to bloom, birds are singing, the air is crisp and clean.  Let's talk about Trash and Toilets, shall we?

So, I've had some fun (wait, not sure I want to call it "fun") these past few weeks dealing with not just one, but two different trash companies.  I have one company that picks up the trash at my house, and another that picks it up at the restaurant that I run.  Well, two Friday's ago, I got home from work, and saw that my trash bin was still full (my pick up day at home is on Friday).  So, the following week I called this wonderful company and asked what the dealio was.  They said that I owed them $51.  GASP!  The Horror!  A billion dollar company was "missing" $51 so they stopped picking up my trash.  Well, I grabbed my statement from them, and I gave them the transaction number of the 51 bucks I paid them the previous week.  Their reply?  "Oh, you did pay it!"  Dee dee dee.  I guess one of their wonderful bean-counters misplaced my money.  That whopping sum of $51.  The fun part of it was that particular Friday, I decided to fill up that trash can.  Anything and everything I could get rid of I did.  So, if I had any trash during the following week, well, there was no where to put it as I had already filled up my trash can.  So, this last Friday comes, and I again put my trash can out to be picked up.  Got home from work....FULL FRIGGEN TRASH CAN!.  So, I again call my wonderful trash company, and I find out that I am on the active list.  So why wasn't my trash picked up?  Well, it appears that even though I called on Tuesday, they didn't correct their mistake until Friday morning, after their trucks left to make their rounds.  So, here I sit, an over-flowing trash can, and more trash waiting to be brought out.  The top item on next week's agenda:  Find a new trash company.

Yeah, so we also have a trash company at the restaurant I run.  Actually (you're gonna love this) we have a "Trash Management" company that gets paid to manage our actual trash company.  Somehow this deal is supposed to save money for our company.  To begin with, do you think you go through a lot of trash at home?  Imagine feeding 400 people a day and the trash that would bring.  Anyway, last summer I called this trash management company of ours, and I switched us from three pickups a week down to two.  We had a slightly fuller trash bin in our dumpster room, but it never got too full, and it was saving us $250 a month.  A month or so later, this trash management company called to say they got a new trash company for us and they would be starting the following week.  The only question I had for them was to make sure we would still be on the twice-per-week pickups.  They said we sure would be.  No problem, right?  Well, this new company comes in, and after the first couple of weeks I noticed that they were picking up three times a week.  So I again call the trash management company to find out what was going on.  They said we were all set up, and only paying for, two pickups a week.  OK, sweet, I was getting a freebie each week.  Well, now some 9 months later, this new trash company finally catches on to their blunder.  They wanted to bill us for all of those extra pickups.  I put an end to that thought right away.  They then put us back to a twice-per-week pickup schedule, which should have worked.  Except for one thing.  They put our pickup days as Monday and Thursday.  Sooooo, our three slowest days on one pickup, and our four insanely busy days on the other pickup.  The trash room would be a mess every weekend.  I said no way, move the days back to Monday/Friday or Tuesday/Saturday.  The trash company said those days don't work for them.  Well, after going back and fourth (the whole time I was only communicating with the "trash management" company, not the actual trash company), we somehow came out with a deal that is still making me scratch my head.  We were paying $474 a month for two pickups (even though they were picking up three times a week).  After all of the back-and-forth, we were offered three pickups a week.... for $400 a month.  Yeah, you know that "Deal or No Deal" game with Howie Mandell on NBC?  I slapped that red button in a freaking hurry.  DEAL!  Well, that was two weeks ago.  These last two week?  The trash company "forgot" to pick up our trash on Saturday.  So each Monday morning, we had trash everywhere.  Each week, the trash company has apologized, and made an additional pickup during the week to get us caught back up.  Then they again "forget" Saturday. So we'll just  have to see what happens this weekend.

Alright, enough of this trash talk.  Let's move on to Toilets!  I actually won't be talking about toilets, just gonna show you pictures of some, um, works of art...er... toilets.  Enjoy.

Friday Night Videos

Alright, alright, alright.... Saturday Morning Videos.  Yeah, I got home from work last night, sat down at my computer, and pretty much fell asleep right in the chair.  But here we go another video: A guy juggeling to a Beatles song.  Yeah, that's right.  Juggeling to a Beatles song.  You'll be amazed at what this guy does.

The Beatles Juggler

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

On Tuesday night, I went out to catch the Minnesota Twins home opener.  This was a tradition for Vince and I, and this year we bought our tickets ahead of time with 4 others.  The five of us were all just at his funeral on Sunday, and we left his seat open for him at the game.  The strange irony in it was we bought the tickets ahead of time so we could be there for the tribute for the passing of Kirby Puckett. 

It ended up being an incredible game.  The Twins won 7-6 after 1st being behind 4-0 early on.  Before the game started, we all made our predictions as to when Brad Radke would give up his first home run, and while we were all pleasantly surprised that Radke put up a 1-2-3 first inning, Patrick nailed his prediction: A 2-run homer by Eric Chavez. 

As you can tell from the picture, we didn't exactly have the best seats in the house.  We were smack dab up against the big display screen right in the last row of the stadium.  Not only were we as far away from the action as you could get, but we were also right in the middle of the longest row of seats ever built in a stadium.  Actually, we had 3 seats in the last row, and 3 more seats in the 2ND to last row.  You would think if we bought six tickets at the same time we'd all be in the same row, but this actually worked out better as instead of being all spread out across six seats, we were all closer together and we could all be involved in every conversation.  Not that every conversation should have been shared by all.  The other four there with me were my friends Patrick (in the Twins jersey in the pic) and Matt, and my parents. 

A place in Heaven

I haven't been on here for a while, and there has been a reason for that.  I've been left without knowing what to say.  I've always been someone that takes things as they come.  I absorb what I want to absorb, and I let everything else bounce off of me.  What happened a few weeks ago wasn't something that I could absorb, nor did it bounce off of me.  Instead, it hit me with a force that I couldn't even begin to put words to.   

On Friday, March 17th, I drove my roommate and best friend to the airport.  He was taking his 7 year old daughter out to California for a vacation.  This has become an annual event for those two.  They would stay at his aunts house.  He always spends one day out there with some friends of his that live out there and go to Mexico.  He also spends a day or two at Disneyland with his daughter.  The rest of the time they just hang out and enjoy the Southern California weather. 

On Sunday, March 19th I got a call while I was at work.  It was one of my co-workers and very good friends who was also a very good friend of my roommates.  Actually, it was Vince that introduced me to him.  He uttered two sentences that have been burned into me.   Two sentences that I'll never forget.   "Bill, we have a dilemma", he said.  I thought, ok, throw it at me.  I'm at work, it was one of my managers calling me.  I don't care what kind of work related dilemma it was, it wasn't anything that I couldn't handle.  I was standing in the middle of a very busy restaurant, and as he said the next sentence,  it was like a scene from a movie where the room starts spinning in 3 different directions.  Somehow through all of that spinning a Mack Truck found it's way to me and slammed right into my chest.  "Vince is dead."

After arriving in Cali late on the 17th, he awoke early on the 18th to meet with his friends and they went to Mexico.  Early in the day he twisted his ankle pretty bad playing basketball while waiting for everyone to show up.  After they arrived in Mexico, he bought some Mexican Vicadin to help with the pain.  Vince never awoke the next morning.  He didn't fall off a cliff.  He wasn't in a horrible car accident.  He twisted his ankle.   

Since then it has been an unfortunate tug-of-war between his "wife" and his parents.  He had been separated from his wife for 4+ years.  They were supposedly all set to sign the divorce papers on the Monday before he went on vacation.  A blizzard on that day canceled that meeting. 

I have known Vince's family since 1988.  I met his older sister and his father at a Prince concert as they were there with the same group I was.  Shortly after that his older sister and I became best friends and spent many nights a week at Prince's old night club.  I then spent a couple of years in a relationship with a girl that became my best friend, and when that ended, Vince and I started hanging out and he's since lived in my house for 8 of the past 12 years or so.  And now he's gone.

Since he passed away in another country, there were some issues getting him home.  The tug-of-war between his "wife" and parents didn't make things easier and his body has finally been returned home.  There is a funeral this weekend, and we have organized a benefit concert for him later this month.  Vince was a HUGE follower of the local music scene.  He had become friends with several local bands.  Those bands will all be performing at the benefit concert, and all of the proceeds are going to go into a college fund for his daughter.  The 3 biggest things in Vince's life were his daughter, live music, and his friends.  This benefit concert will allow us to celebrate his life with all 3 of those things. 

Since it's Friday Night, it's time to get the Friday Night Videos going again.  I'm going to post one that ties Vince and I together.  We were both huge Prince fans, and we were both there at Prince's studio when Prince shot this video.  The following video should have been a smash hit, but since Radio ignores Prince, way too may people have never heard this amazing song.  Click on this link here, and then select the song "Gold".