Where Dave Is

Dave is…

Not doing anything fun.

Literally, nothing fun. Not a thing. No watching the LARPers in Prospect Park on Saturday morning, not going to the Blessing of the Bikes downtown, not watching the savagery of International Pillow Fight Day in Union Square Park, nothing.

No, for the last six weeks what I did do was write 15,000 words on the failures and problems of the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission final report; another 10,000 words on the African Union’s failed attempt to escape their obligation to enforce the ICC’s indictment of Sudan president al-Bashir; do a large number of job applications and a much smaller number of job interviews; and study for three final exams, which in essence meant, teach myself three, semester-long classes in their entirety in a matter of days.

Needless to say this period sucked. It involved long nights in the library, lots of shitty take-out, more than a few games of online Axis & Allies with fellow law school failures, and the kind of coffee consumption more appropriate for a lifetime drinker not someone who just took it up a couple months ago.

But the papers were submitted on April 28^th, and after one last brutal 36 hour stretch that saw me take one 3.5 hour in-class exam and another six hour take-home,  I am finally finished with law school. Least that’s the presumption. Grades aren’t due till June 8^th, so perhaps it’s a bit presumptuous to assume I passed after cramming what feels like three years of law school into one semester. But I am banking on the school’s paranoia about its rankings to ensure I make it through. Failing people would look very bad to US News and World Report.

The conclusion the law school chapter of my life was celebrated, though not at the official school “senior prom” style dance. I refused to give that damn institution anymore of my money and opted to drink on a resurrected tug-boat instead. In a certain amount of symmetry, it just so happens I actually celebrated my graduation from the undergrad part of this university on that same boat six years ago. If only I had known then what I know now I NEVER WOULD’VE DONE THIS.

Sigh. Nothing like end of school bitterness. My apathy over this graduation is profound. People keep congratulating me on it. To hell with that. Congratulate me when (if) I pass the bar and get a job.

(Ed. Note: So the blog is still wildly behind, but at least you get a sense of why. Post-graduate activities have been better about leading to stories, but as I am currently cramming for the bar, those tales will only be told intermittently. I apologize for that, but at least I’m proving the blog isn’t completely dead yet. Bear with me till the end of July and things will go back to normal. Whatever that is.)

Dave is…

At Drive by Truckers at Webster Hall.

Well, if I am gonna go into seclusion for six frenetic weeks of academia there are worse ways to do it than following up a music and snowboard festival with K’naan and DBT in back to back weeknights.

I almost missed out on this show as I was inexplicably unhurried in trying to get a ticket and so had to beg on NineBullets message board to find one. But I got it eventually, and I’m happy I did, as the Truckers are a show that I wouldn’t miss under any circumstances.

However, this was probably my least favorite Truckers show. It wasn’t so much the band, who performed with their usual commitment, as it was the venue and atmosphere. Webster Hall in the village is really a hipster dance club thing. It’s a strange venue, for example the show had to be over before 11pm so they could funnel everyone out and bring in all the people who like dancing at things called “80s Prom Night”. The real problem tonight was the crowd. Overcrowded to the point of obnoxiousness and with people who seemed to lack the appropriate level of enthusiasm it was aggravating, and without any of my tried and true concert running buddies around to pour bourbon in my beer it was tougher to deal with them.

Contributing to that was the heavy reliance on the new album. I like the new album. It’s pretty solid  and has some kick-ass tracks but it doesn’t stand up to some of the others (maybe it’s the inexplicably small number of Cooley penned songs).

The Fourth Night Of My Drinking

Birthday Boy

Girls Who Smoke

Marry Me

Sink Hole

Drag The Lake Charlie

(It’s Gonna Be) I Told You So

Get Downtown

This Fuckin’ Job

Carl Perkins’ Cadillac

The Living Bubba

One Of These Days

Dead, Drunk, and Naked

Guitar Man Upstairs

Home Field Advantage

The Wig He Made Her Wear

Self Destructive Zones

Hell No, I Ain’t Happy

The Flying Wallendas

Zip City

Let There Be Rock

Lookout Mountain

People Who Died

Fourth Night of My Drinking is an instant classic, This Fucking Job is solid, and Girls Who Smoke is alright, but I keep going back and forth on Drag the Lake (Charlie) and I feel like the Flying Wallendas is to consciously trying to be epic.

Still I will take a passable Truckers show with a crappy crowd in an overstuffed venue over just about any other band in any other venue out there so I left happy. And shoot, with a pre-eleven pm curfew I even made it home in time to get some rest in anticipation of beginning six weeks of total hell tomorrow.

Dave is..

At K’naan and Wale at Irving Plaza.

I don’t see a lot of rap shows, mainly cause they tend to start much later than they’re supposed to and are (at least in my limited experience) poorly mixed, phoned in, and messy. Still, Wale and K’naan are hardly typical rappers, both in the college radio audience approved, Mos Def and Talib Kweli style.

I discovered Wale with his 2008 Mixtape About Nothing which is thematically based around Seinfeld (and which samples not only the theme song, but quotes from the show, Michael Richards infamous nightclub rant and even a Julia Louis-Dreyfuss voicemail.). K’naan released his album of the year candidate Troubadour last year but I didn’t discover him till I was in South Africa as his Waving the Flag song is Coke’s World Cup theme song. We got to see him play at the World Cup draw concert in December and I have been listening to his album almost obsessively since then.

The double bill tonight was the kick-off to their joint tour. Even got broadcast live on MTV.com (Videos still up: HERE) Wale’s opening set was definitely the weaker. Backed by a DJ he suffered from some of those usual complaints about rap shows, mainly the difficulty in making out the lyrics over the sampled backgrounds.

K’naan on the other hand was excellent. Backed by a live band the Somali rapper put on a hell of a set, hitting most of Troubadour as well as the best off his first album. He even brought out Nas and Damian Marley for a guest spot. Nas spitting out a bit of New York State of Mind before they backed K’naan on I Come Prepared. He even mixed in a powerful a cappella  version of Somalia.

Dave is…

At Snoe.down in Killington, VT

Snoe.down is the band moe.’s winter festival, a chance to see some music and do some snowboarding. When I moved back to town, in addition to the bag and Zulu shield I brought back from Africa, I brought back two bags from Christmas in Illinois. One of them was my snowboard bag. So given that my earthly possessions on the East Coast for the last couple months consist of a couple pairs of pants, some t-shirts, a collection of Zulu weaponry and a snowboard, I might as well get as much use out of it as I can.

After our success earlier this month Jeff and Gregg were in and we added Derick.

An overnight drive got us up there on Friday morning in time for some of the best sausage, egg and cheese on a croissant I have ever had before we hit the spectacularly empty slopes.

Gregg won the title for Worst Wipe-Out of the Weekend for a SPECTACULARLY failed attempt at going off-piste.

Jeff meanwhile despite occasionally achieving dangerous speeds, avoided any major spills for the second consecutive outing.

After a full day we shifted from the slopes at Killington to Spartan Arena in Rutland where the local hockey team’s home ice was given over to the show. Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings opened it up. Part of that soul revival, they have been huge in New York for the last few years and on my list of bands to see for a while.

Really high energy set. Sharon Jones in addition to having a hell of a set of pipes really knows how to own a stage. And the Dap-Kings, man they are really smooth backing band.  The only downside was the crowd wasn’t as filled in as they deserved.

Moe. followed with a strong opening night performance. Mexico got the crowd into it immediately and the first set included a sweet Four. But it was really a solid Faker>Tailspin that I enjoyed most. I’ve loved Faker since I used to listen to it on a bootleg on my Discman walking home through Soho after my evening classes back in college.

Set I: Mexico, Captain America> Four, Queen of Everything, Shoot First> Moth
Set II: Raise A Glass, Faker> Tailspin, Cape Cod Girls> Water> Bearsong> Hector’s Pillow>Timmy Tucker
Encore: She Sends Me, Spine Of A Dog^1
1 double speed due to time constraints

Day II

Derick and his sock-gloves explores a part-time job as a highwayman.

The day started with more amazing sausage, egg and cheese croissants and then another full day on the hill. Even with it being a Saturday and tons of hippies in town for moe. the runs weren’t crowded at all.

Well cept for one intersection where a teenage snowboarder rocketing down a blue absolutely laid out some European beginner which sent him literally flying a few feet into the air and then down another few feet into drainage ditch. I thought he was dead, frankly, but he popped up in time to get absolutely laid into by the victim. Easily the worst accident I’ve ever seen on the hill.

The whole afternoon bands were set up and playing at the lodges, culminating in a rare outdoor winter moe. set at the base of one of the runs. The weather was too nice and the lure of the slopes too much for us to hang out with the hula-hoopers for too long. Besides it was a lot more pleasant listening to them play from the lift, or coming down the tail end of the runs.

In fact Derick and I, after inadvertently going down a terrain park and a mogul run (I’ll never let him lead again) paused after a wipe out to watch from up there. Sounded like a pretty good set from the parts I heard with St. Augustine, Akimbo and Happy Hour Hero all echoing up the hill.

Set I: St. Augustine, Skrunk, Not Coming Down> Wormwood> Okayalright, Akimbo, Crab Eyes, Happy Hour Hero> Seat Of My Pants> Sensory Deprivation Bank

Encore: Down Boy

Back at Spartan Arena for the second night it was just me and Gregg as Jeff and Derick opted for bowling. Hippie shit just isn’t for everyone I spose. A shame cause Railroad Earth was spectacular. Man, I cannot see that band enough.

Set 1:

Mighty River ->  Like A Buddha, Bread and Water, Bird In A House, Warhead Boogie ->1759, Mourning Flies, Long Way to Go

Bird in the House was spectacular, as always and Long Way to Go was solid, and it was much more crowded than last night.

In fact the place was packed by the time moe. went on-stage. Moe. can be a hit or miss thing. When they are on their shows can be great, but when they are off there is just no saving it. It’s all just directionless bass jams. This whole weekend luckily they were pretty on. The highlight of their weekend was the first set Stranger Than Fiction>Cissy Strut>Stranger Than Fiction followed by Plane Crash. Real, real solid.

Set I: Wind it up> Spaz Medicine, Understand, Stranger Than Fiction> Cissy Strut¹>Stranger Than Fiction, Plane Crash
Set II: Threw It All Away, The Road> Lazarus> The Road, Blue Jeans Pizza> Bring It Back Home, Nebraska, Opium> 32 Things
Encore: Willin’, New York City

Sunday morning we got back up and managed to wedge in practically another full day on the slopes before driving back down to the city. Really was an excellent weekend, which is great cause I am about four days away from ceasing even the slightest leisure activities till mid-May.

(Note: All the good pictures of the bands? Not taken by me. Credit to those who took them.)

Dave is…

Snowboarding.

Yeah, clearly this is months behind. So uber quick recaps to get us more or less up to date. Shouldn’t be too hard cause all of April and half of May were given over to writing tens of thousands of words on transitional justice and cramming for what were (god willing) my last exams ever.

But back in March when I was occasionally still having fun I went snowboarding with Jeff, and Gregg. And that ruled.

Photographic evidence.

It was Jeff’s first time on the slopes. Despite going the upscale, retro stylings of the skier, he was actually pretty good.

Although I gave him a good run for worst fall after a failed attempt at “grinding” a rail.

It was a nice way to salvage a weekend after having to take the MPRE exam Saturday morning. An ethics test is tough when you don’t have any.

Dave has…

produced over 25,000 words in the last three weeks in a futile attempt to graduate from this damn school.

And while I can throw up 25k on this blog in a few minutes of ranting, caring about factual correctness and meticulous footnoting means writing these two papers took me the better part of three crazy weeks. Now with those done I get to learn three classes from scratch in the next 10 days. So needless to say the continued backlog on the blog isnt going to be alleviated any time soon. However, to tide you over I am reprinting what has to be the greatest list ever posted on the internet. Courtesy of 11Points.com (I encourage you all to go over and check out the original post that includes a host of interesting photos and graphs) I present The 11 Things You Didnt Know About Natty Light (Besides the fact that George Washington was the first person to brew it and it’s the beer this country was built on.)

Ed. Note: While the facts are amazing, the opinions expressed below are those of the author of the original piece. They in no way reflect the opinion of WhereDaveIs or its author, who think Natty Light rocks sweet balls and can do no wrong.

Here are 11 great trivia facts I discovered about Natural Light, the beer that America simultaneously mocks and adores.

1. Natty Light is the FIFTH-best selling beer in the U.S.According to this article from last August in the Wall Street Journal,Natty Light has skyrocketed into fifth place overall for American beers.

It’s behind only Bud Light, Bud Heavy, Coors Light and Miller Lite (and ahead of Corona, Busch Light, Busch, Heineken and Miller High Life). Yeah, they only list the top 10 best-selling beers in total cowardly fashion.

It’s so un-prestigious and so rarely discussed that I never would’ve guessed Natty Light was that popular. It’s the exact same way I felt when I found out “NCIS” was the number one show in the country.

1. The recession has made it so Natural Light isn’t just for college kids and wine-averse hobos anymore.  Of the top 10 (I shudder even writing that phrase) best-selling beers, Natty Light had the biggest growth between 2008 and 2009. That’s not a coincidence. When our world went to shit, so did our tolerance for that flavor of beer.

   As my friends at Newser wrote last year, all of the “sub-premium” beers have flourished in the post-Bush, pre-Romney America — Miller High Life, Busch Light, Keystone Light, Pabst Blue Ribbon — with Natural Light leading the pack.

2. Yes, there once was a Natty Regular (or Natural Heavy, if you will). Everyone’s seen Natural Ice, the high-alcohol cousin to Natural Light. (I almost wrote that Natural Ice is “the black version” of Natural Light because of the color of the box and label, but, as a champion of calling out accidental racism, I will not get caught doing that.)

   With those two variants in existence, it oft begs the question: Is there a Natural Regular, colloquially a Nat Heavy?

   Turns out there was a Natural Not Light… but just briefly.

   In 1993, Anheuser-Busch debuted Natural Pilsner, the, quote, “full-bodied complement to Natural Light.”

   It only sold in Hawaii, Arizona, California, Nevada, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia and Texas. (And, dare I say, in choosing those states, A-B just straight up WHIFFED on putting it in several of the Nattiest regions of this country.)

   I can’t find any record of it being sold after 1997.

1. Natty Light was Anheuser-Busch’s first light beer. This is a good trivia fact to use if you want to win a bar bet. (Do people still make bar bets?) Or if you’re using your “Pick Up Artist” tricks to try to seduce women and you peacock over to a few and say, “I’m taking a survey but answer quick, with those buck teeth of yours, ’cause I gotta get back to my friends. What was Anheuser-Busch’s first light beer?”

   A-B introduced Natural Light in 1977… a full five years before Bud Light.It was a direct response to Miller Lite, which was introduced in 1973… and had started gaining a real market share.

   Instead of going the Bud Light route, A-B decided to introduce a completely separate light brand… because they were reluctant to water down the Budweiser name. (Pun most certainly intended. On this website, the puns are ALWAYS intended. Puns are the highest form of comedy. One step above mime, and 45 billion steps above improv.)

   It took five more years before they realized that the light beer market was the future, and making a Bud Light would actually help, not hurt, their brand.

   It’s kinda like how Neve Campbell refused to get naked for “Wild Things” because she thought it would hurt her career, so she let Denise Richards have all the (female) nudity… but then Neve’s career started going badly and Denise’s started going better. So, several years later, Neve caved and started getting nude for movies which helped rebuild her cred, while Denise ended up on a reality show and went back to being a cheaper alternative.

2. Natural Light is the beer that ruined Iowa State head basketball coach Larry Eustachy. You might remember the scandal from 2003 when Eustachy was photographed at an undergrad party drinking and kissing a variety of comely Iowan co-eds.

   Just three years after leading Iowa State to the Elite Eight, those photos led to him being was forced out of his job. He played the addiction card (alcoholism, in this case, not addiction to corn-fed co-eds)… and was hired to coach at the University of Southern Mississippi.

   Anyway, more importantly –the photos from the undergrad party show him getting all messed up on Natty Light.

   When in Rome, right?

1. It’s one of the best beers to get drunk on minimal calories AND with minimal cost. In my list of the 11 Best Beers To Get You Drunk But Not Make You Fat, our research found that Natural Light had the third-best ratio of calories to ounce of alcohol. Behind only Beck’s Light (although there was a TON of debate in the comments about whether I had gotten the numbers wrong on that and, quite frankly, I probably did) and Beast Light. With 95 calories per can and 4.2 percent alcohol, it has an outstanding ratio of 188.5 calories per ounce of alcohol.

   Natural Light didn’t chart on my list of the 11 Cheapest Ways To Get Super, Super Drunk– I mean, how could it compete with boxed wine, grain alcohol and Mad Dog — but, when I plugged in the math at $12.49 for a 30 pack, it came out a very impressive 17th overall (just behind Colt 45 and just ahead of PBR) at $2.48 for three ounces of alcohol. That makes it the highest-ranked light beer.

   In other words: If price is a big issue for you AND you want to drink beer and only get kinda fat (not super duper mega fat), Natural Light is your best possible option.

1. Miller Brewing Company filed a complaint with the government to try to get Natty Light pulled from the shelves… because it wasn’t actually natural. Seriously. After Natty Light was introduced to the market, Miller filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and claimed Anheuser-Busch was using deceptive packaging and advertising to sell the beer — because there was absolutely nothing “natural” about it.

   A-B claimed that was just retaliation; Miller was mad because, a few years earlier, A-B filed an FTC complaint that Miller’s Lowenbrau was deceiving people into thinking they were drinking a fancy German import when really it was just the same old American crap.

   The FTC rejected both complaints.

2. Natty Light won a major award in 2008… for its taste. This one should have you nice and confused. At the 2008 World Beer Cup… which, apparently, is the Oscars of the beer world… Natural Light won an award for its delicious taste.

   In the category of “American-Style Light Lager,” Natty Light placed third, behind Old Milwaukee Light and Lone Star Light. It beat out 31 other beers (including all of the bigger, more popular mass-produced light beers).

   I could not find any explanation nor comments from the judges on what separated Natty Light from the field, but I’ve got to think this is just a monumental upset. It would be like “Avatar” losing the Best Picture Oscar to “Who Dat Ninja” or “Fat Bitch (She’s Off the Leash!”)

3. Until 2009, Anheuser-Busch only devoted 0.015 percent of its advertising budget to Natty Light. Last year, with Natural Light becoming more and more popular (and profitable), Anheuser-Busch finally decided to toss it some actual advertising money.

   A-B has an enormous marketing budget. They spend $455 million on advertising. It’s what pays for all of those brilliant Bud and Bud Light Super Bowl commercials, ya know, like the one on Sunday where the guy did the thing or the other one where an animal did a different thing. (Yep. I’ve forgotten their commercials already. But that violin-playing beaver still haunts my dreams.)

   In 2008, you know how much of that money went toward marketing Natural Light? $680,000 — or 0.015 percent.

   But last year, as Natty Light accounted for nine percent of A-B’s sales, it finally got a raise. For the first time in 25 years, Natty Light got a TV campaign. All those Nattyisms commercials — those only happened because of the beer’s newfound growth.

   In 2009, A-B spent somewhere between $2 and $2.5 million marketing Natty Light — still a fraction of their overall ad budget, but a gigantic increase nonetheless.

4. In its early years, Natty Light had commercials featuring Christie Brinkley and Mickey Mantle. So, as I said in the previous point, it’s been 25 years since a Natty Light TV ad campaign. What happened 25 years earlier?

   Well… in the late ’70s and early ’80s, Anheuser-Busch actually tried to put some celebrity muscle into promoting Natty Light. First they ran ads with such luminaries as Norm Crosbyand Ray Jay Johnson (whom my generation knows exclusively from mentions on “The Simpsons”, by the way).

   Those didn’t work, so they ran ads featuring Mickey Mantle — who, at that point, was still alive and whose number hadn’t yet been turned into a baby name by George Costanza.

When those didn’t catch on, they went the sex route, and ran ads featuring Christie Brinkley — who, at that point, was America’s fantasy woman via the “Sports Illustrated” swimsuit issue and “Vacation”. Kinda like today’s… oh, I don’t know, who do the kids like these days? The pale chick from “Twilight”? Leighton Meester? Megan Fox (when she’s not talking)?

When even the celebrity sex ads didn’t work, A-B stopped putting any advertising money behind Natty Light — it was going to have to sink or swim on its taste. And a mere two-and-a-half decades later… it kinda did.

1. Anheuser-Busch realizes that quite a few people think Natty Light sucks. I saved this for last because it’s my exclusive. During my search I went down a tangent to see if Anheuser-Busch embraces or dislikes the term “Natty Light” (they like it… they’re even using it in promotional materials).

   In the process, I found that A-B owns the domain name nattylight.com. I decided to type in a few other related domain names, just on a hunch they might own them. And there was one incredible diamond I found: Anheuser-Busch is the proud owner of the domain name NaturalLightSucks.com.

Max is…

I spent two hours watching streaming video of the Weather Channel this afternoon with the expectation that Waikiki would be wiped off the face of the earth by a tsunami. Only to end up watching two hours of security camera footage of a placid ocean. There are few more boring ways to spend two hours.

My brother apparently thought so too. I called him this morning and asked what he was doing to prepare for the state of emergency. His response was, “Well I just went to the store and bought a twelve of Natty.” No food, no batteries, flashlights or water. Just Natty. Never have I been so proud of my sibling.

Of course even Natty can’t make sitting on a balcony staring at a placid ocean exciting. Nice, relaxing, pleasant, but not exciting. So what did the kid do? He got a tattoo.

For his birthday (happening tomorrow) Max’s girlfriend got him a tattoo, fulfilling a long held dream of the kid’s. Now up till this week I had assumed it was going to be a variation on a Bears tattoo, cause that’s what he’s discussed for years.

But no. The kid decided to go big. He decided when it comes to permanent body art the more ridiculous the better. So, the kid got, in a large 5×5 inch section of his back, the above image of Max (from Where the Wild Things Are) walking the dog Max (from How the Grinch Stole Christmas).

On one level this makes sense. After all those are the inspirations for his name. But on the other hand, THAT’S AN INSANE TATTOO! And I don’t mean it’s insane cause his legal name isn’t actually Max. I mean HE HAS A TATTOO OF MAX WALKING MAX ON HIS BACK! The level of ridiculousness might be unmatchable. For years despite his dogmatic allegiance to mismatched socks, his dreadlock phase, his constant tie-dye he has always been considered the sane one. But now, oooh now, it doesn’t matter how many bizarre places I go or how many fried bugs I ate, the title for most ridiculous offspring will be his.

I had a good run, but now I am happy to pass the title onto Max. Congratulations, you’ve earned it.

Dave is…

At Jason Isbell solo acoustic at City Winery.

This one almost slipped under the radar. A solo acoustic performance as the opening act at an unusual venue for some cat named Joseph Arthur.  But pouring over the concert listings every week paid off.

The show as good. The set was far too short for my tastes, only an hour, but I’d never seen him to a solo acoustic performance before. He played Goddamn Lonely Love, Danko/Manuel, a number of tracks off the 400 Album and debuted a few new ones, all of which were pretty solid.

But the Joseph Arthur guy did not do it for me and City Winery, while a nice space, isn’t my kind of venue. A sit down dinner-theater type joint, its pricey and limits you to conversing just with your table mates. Luckily ours were pretty cool, but there were other tables where the people just yakked it up the whole set.

But it’ll work for my fix till the Truckers hit town in April.

Dave is…

On a snow day.

(Editors Note: Oops, sorry seems like I missed an entry when I was posting.)

NYC got a lot of snow today. So much snow that I had to break down and leave my sandals in the closet for my much more sensible Kool-Aid shoes. (Boots? Who owns boots?)

So much snow that NYU announced its first snow day in 13 years. Of course they didn’t do it until after I had already slogged all the way into school.

So when they announced they were shutting it down minutes after I arrived there was nothing for me to do but turn around and head back home.

I stopped at the grocery store on the way to the subway and loaded up on food which ended up being a pain in the ass to deal with cause the trains were crowded with people leaving work early.

I ended up having to stand the whole 40min ride back to Park Slope with my bags somewhat awkwardly arranged at my feet.

This wouldn’t have been a big deal cept for the fact that somehow this led to be standing with my weight strangely displaced and completely unbeknownst to me my right leg fell asleep. Not in the tingly, you should shift your weight kind of way, but in the for all intents and purposes no longer exists kind of way. So when, a stop or two before mine, I went to gather my belongings my brain said “right leg move” it got no message back from the leg indicating noncompliance.

Which left me completely bewildered a split second later when I found myself on the floor of the subway car. I went down, I mean straight down.

And I wasn’t the only one surprised and baffled, the whole car was looking at me, obviously not expecting a completely non-descript guy who’d been standing quietly to suddenly collapse like one of those little toys that collapse when you push the button on the bottom loosening the string that holds them together.  I thought the nice church-going looking lady across from me was gonna swallow her tongue she looked so startled.

As it was I sat there for a moment going “Wtf?” before realizing that there was absolutely no feeling or response coming from my right leg. So even after falling it was so asleep I couldn’t feel any signs of it. It felt like what I imagine a phantom limb is like.

It took me a minute or so before I could even let a guy help pull me up and swing myself over to a seat. By the time we got to my stop feeling had returned enough for me to collect my groceries and hobble off the train but it wasn’t till I had covered the four blocks home that enough feeling returned to my leg for me to realize IT HURT.

Because of how I was standing and because I thought I was going to put all my weight on this nonexistent right leg, when I fell I fell straight down on it, wrenching my knee and ankle both pretty badly and landing all my weight on top of those joints.  My whole leg is messed up now. I am gimping around like I’m Long John Silver missing his peg leg.

Of course that night when I finished my work and the close proximity of Prospect Park silent and gorgeous in the falling snow at night beckoned, I couldn’t resist despite my game leg.

So I suited up in my snowboard gear (and Kool-Aid shoes) and limped (serious Hunchback style limped) the block to the Park and wandered around for a good hour and a half, taking pictures, admiring the fields of snowmen and listening to the mellowest tunes I could find on the IPod.

It was solitary and spectacular but holy fuck was I unable to walk by the time I made it home. I might have seriously done something to my leg.

Dave is…

gonna eat himself to death.

I thought I had seen it all. But when it comes to clogging arteries Springfield has just taken it up a dramatic notch. Because I am so speechless (probably due to vocal cords clogged in deep fried fat) I am merely reposting the recent SJ-R article. Cant wait to get home and eat one.

It might be the greasiest, gooiest, cheesiest and most caloric horseshoe this side of Prairie Heart Institute.

I’m talking the Titanic of horseshoe sandwiches, a temptress not to be approached by children, wimps or anyone with a cardiologist’s number programmed into their cell phone. It’s the deep-fried horseshoe at Fieldhouse Pizza & Pub.

“We were skeptical when we first put it on the menu,” said Fieldhouse co-owner Tom Hart, “but people keep coming back for it.”

I had to have one. I ordered the Angus beef variety. But I wanted to know how it was made. So I asked if I could go into the kitchen and watch cook Dustin Lewis prepare it. Permission granted.

He started by tossing two 4-ounce beef patties on the grill. A hefty order of french fries was lowered into the fryer. When the patties were brown, Lewis chopped them into crumbles. Likewise, when the fries were golden, he diced them like a hibachi chef takes on a daikon radish.

The bits of meat and potatoes were mounded onto a 12-inch flour tortilla, then folded — burrito-style — and soundly secured with toothpicks so the screams of the innocent beef and fries were muffled when the deadly beast was plunged into sizzling hot oil.

When it emerged a few minutes later, Lewis held the monster above the fryer while errant oil gushed out. I imagined kidnapped cholesterol suddenly released from the confines of an artery.

The crisp, overstuffed tortilla shell was plated and then ladled with copious amounts of white cheese sauce. The deed was done.

With the help of nutritional-analysis software, I figured the calories on this deep-fried hulk, called a Shoe Burrito on the Fieldhouse menu. It comes in at a whopping 2,710 calories, about the same number of calories in five Big Macs. Other stats: 199 grams of fat, 151 grams of carbohydrate and 5,920 milligrams of sodium.

Good news: If you’re on a high-fiber diet, you can cram in 8 grams of fiber in one sitting.

The sandwich costs $7.75. Meat choices — besides hamburger — are chicken strips, Buffalo chicken, pork tenderloin, Italian beef, bacon-tomato, ham and turkey. There’s also grilled chicken, which would be the choice of healthy eaters, I guess.

Gargantuan entrees at the Fieldhouse, 3211 Sangamon Ave., don’t stop with the deep-fried horseshoe. There’s a 14-foot-long pizza.

“It’s the equivalent of 18 large pizzas,” said Hart. The lanky pie is nearly 2 feet wide.

And there’s something called the Big Game Burger. It’s a cheeseburger of otherworldly proportions: six half-pound beef patties, six slices of cheese and 12 strips of bacon. The super-duper-sized burger is topped with lettuce, tomatoes and pickles, in case you want a side of vegetables with your steer.

“No one’s been able to take it down yet,” said Jade Hart, Tom’s daughter and a server at the Fieldhouse.

I sat at the bar and ate half of the deep-fried horseshoe. I started to feel groggy. I considered calling someone to drive me home, but I toughed it out.

Once home, I felt satiated. I felt sluggish. I felt ashamed.

I slept it off and was glad to wake up to a new day.

Food editor Kathryn Rem can be reached at 788-1520 or kathryn.rem@sj-r.com.