The Jam

A good day involves coming home to a mailbox stuffed with the original Godzilla movie on DVD. A kick ass day is coming home to a mailbox stuffed with three Godzilla movies (Godzilla, Godzilla’s Revenge, Godzilla vs. Megalon). Color my day kick ass-tic.

Jam Sackson made an abbreviated stop in the City last week. In typical Sam style, I got a call from him on Wednesday afternoon asking if I wanted to meet him in a Biergarten out in Queens. Mind now, that I hadn’t spoken to the kid in over a year. We met up for a drink that instantly catapulted us 8 years into the past (my goodness, has it been that long?!?) and carried on at that same pace for the rest of the week.

The Texas-Exes had organized a Chili Cook-Off for that weekend. A $30 all you can eat/all you can drink affair. It’s pretty hard to pass up a situation like that. We bit on the offer and found ourselves on a 28th floor, Midtown patio cowering below the Empire State Building. Coming out of the elevator, that familiar color of orange was my first greeting and tears of comfort welled up in my eyes. Stupid, I know… but it’s been a while since I’ve felt that at home. The rest of the day was spent trying to fenangle the next beer, dip into the next chili, and talk to the next (Texan) girl. All the while being serenaded by Willie and friends over the radio.

Proceeds benefited the Texas scholarship fund. These proceeds were also driven by raffel ticket sales. We offered to help out the next high school student get to Texas by purchasing a few tickets. The Grand Prize drawing came and went and my tickets were 3 numbers off. I cursed and pointed it out to everyone. No one really cared, a natural reaction, until Sam realized he bought his tickets immediately after me. He checked the numbers, and wouldn’t you know it… a non-Texas grad walked off with 2 Jet-Blue tickets, destination “anywhere”. I laughed and got another beer. And gave my praises to Texas.