Surfin', Safari!

DID YOU KNOW? Tina Fey was barely able to rehearse her astonishing performance on SNL this week because she was busy filming an episode of 30 Rock with Oprah guest-starring.

So, Milwaukee? So, Couchsurfing.

It's basically my goal in life to recommend this two things to every single person I see. Seriously, Milwaukee. Greatest city that any civilization has ever produced. Outstanding. No weaknesses.

Let's see how much I can compress this. It's going to be the SPAM of blog entries, seriously.

Because I promised you.

When you last left your hero, he had attracted the attention of the Sandusky Police Department twice in one day and become too dizzy to walk straight. Twenty dollars in hand, having eaten his emergency S'Mores Pop-Tart last night to quell fears of his own death, he stumbled back to Lou Mitchell's for four eggs, four cups of coffee, and whatever accompaniments Lou decided to give him that morning.

He wandered back to Union Station to find his partner (not in crime, for once) Ruthie had brought his bag with her, as promised. Empowered by caffeine and architectural tours, respectively, the pair skipped onto the next train to Milwaukee--where, unbeknownst to them, they would face their destiny.

They ate cheese curds. He bought the greatest white cheddar ever produced by the hand of man. They got on a bus. It had a video screen telling them what stop they were at. It took them to the Miller Brewery.


They took pictures.


They went through the bottling station. They watched a video. They climbed fifty-something steps. The smelled hops. They drank three beers. They watched a grandmother try to procure alcohol for her underage grandson. Then they headed north.

Because there was this dude named Ian and Sam had found him through Couchsurfing and they were staying in his house while they were in Milwaukee. Well, the first day. Then they were going on a road trip, and they were going to come back and go to a hotel.

So they went to a Starbucks and hung out and went to Ian's house at the appointed hour. They called him. He said, "Here's where my spare key is. Go inside and turn on Sportscenter. Also, the news is coming at 5:30."

Ruth succeeded at Duck Hunt while Sam pieced his life slowly together. Ian's roommate came home first. Then the news came. Then Ian came. There was a lot of confusion. But then they got on the news.

No, really, they were on the news in Milwaukee.

Click on "video."

Someone thought they were dating.


Then Ian produced beer, scotch, and friends from the very aether, and before our heroes knew what was going on, a swarm of Couchsurfers descended upon the house. They had names. They all went to a music festival. First they went to a supermarket, where they met an ivy league graduate who had been freaked out by Steer Roast some years before. They also bought some subs, which were the most delicious subs on the entire Earth at that moment in time. They spent so long doing this that there was no more music when they finally got to the river. Time passed.

Then Sam fell asleep with his eyes open.

This was a trick he had learned in one of his past lives, in which he was a goldfish.

Sam woke up in time to move into a chair for his last two hours of slumber. Ian and all his roommates went to their jobs, but said they'd see Sam and Ruth tomorrow, a deal which Ruth had skillfully brokered in Sam's absence the previous evening. Enterprise came and picked them up. They were going on a road trip.

So they went to a museum of honey, where they watched a slideshow. A real slideshow.


They went to a museum of dead squirrels. It was in the basement of a funeral home. This meant that they had to walk inside and ask someone where the museum was. This is not an establishment that sees a lot of walk-in business, when you think about it.


They went to a museum for mustard and ate every single mustard that had ever been produced.


Sam crossed the Mississippi River in a car for the first time in his entire short but eventful life. He wished it had been a police car.


Ruth was hot.

They got cheese popcorn and they ate it while singing Radiohead a capella underneath an infinite glowing sunset en route to a bar in Iowa that was closed anyway. They went to Arby's for the second time today and slept at a rest stop on the Minnesota border.


Their suspicions that Minnesota was far more welcoming than Iowa were confirmed.


They went to a museum of SPAM but first they ate spam and eggs and all in all your hero ate so much SPAM that his kidneys nearly failed. It was like a pilgrimage to Mecca. They saw a letter from Dwight Eisenhower on the subject of SPAM. They learned more about Hormel than any other MIT graduate has ever known. Sam discovered that he's a youth medium and that this saves tons of money on souvenir t-shirt purchases (although this would cease to be true if he continued eating SPAM).


They listened to Beck over and over and then they went here, where there is no bottomless pit but there is the world's not-largest bicycle. They crossed the Mississippi again. Ruth returned the car. Nichole, who they had met earlier that evening, picked them up at the rental car place.


They went to the Lakefront Brewery, and if there is a heaven it will either be Trachimbrod or it will be the Lakefront Brewery. Among other things, they ate fried fish and danced polka. Nichole brought three friends and one of them was the son of Sam's high school musical director.

Seriously, what?

What?

What?

Your hero does not remember what happened after that and the reason he is providing is that this all happened one month ago.

Your hero went running the next morning and got lost on the docks in Downtown Milwaukee and he blames this on the fact that there are two rivers in this stupid city. Ian's roommate Adam made him a better breakfast than he deserved. Then Ruth escorted him to a real Catholic wedding.


They were wondering how long it would last. Sam's only frame of reference was a Catholic funeral, and he did not remember how long that lasted because he was too busy crying. It lasted one hour. They took a bus with some old friends. They went to Starbucks. They played Pictionary and produced a new piece of art for their living room because Sam forgot that camels exist.

They went to a reception and there was more food than entire counties eat in a day. There was a chocolate fountain. There was Stephen Flowers (not this one). Thanks to him, there was the best rendition of B.O.B. that our heroes have ever done. There was a garter toss and Sam, quite literally, kicked him in the rear end in order to get the garter (it was a diving catch and your hero is awkward athletically).

It was beautiful. Not just the wedding, but Sam winning at anything.

It took him back to high school.

Your heroes and friends closed out the reception. Then they went gay cage clubbing. Your hero doesn't even know anymore, okay? It was Nichole's idea.


And Couchsurfing again proved itself to be the greatest single invention of mankind. The wheel can bite me. Your heroes went out to breakfast with their new friends and went to the Milwaukee art museum for free. There were a lot of exhibits but mostly Sam just sat in a room for 20 minutes and freaked himself out. He told everybody else to do this but they were all like "Sam you are a crazy person."

He thought, "My, this is what this room has done to me."

It was really freaky.

Then your heroes watched olympic women's indoor volleyball (more or less Sam's sport of choice), acquired pizza, and were chauffeured to the airport. This is because Couchsurfing is awesome. Then they got back to San Francisco and it was freezing.

There is a man and his name is Chris Glazner. In descriptions of his life, the phrase "shot, stabbed, shipwrecked, hit in the head with a nail sticking out of a board, and had a tree fall on you while you're barbecuing" is often used.

Now your hero can use, "tittilated, caffeinated, filmed for a news broadcast, driven through three states, picked up by police, reconnected with someone from his high school in a Michigan Brewery, and late to a wedding at which he was performing because of international public transit." And all of that happened in one week.

Oh, and add "he drunk-dialed a senator."