It was all smooth sailing as we pulled into Green Bay, right up until I opened the door of the car and I was immediately slapped in the face by the frigid cold air. I can remember watching The Packers play on television and seeing the constant vapor of breath coming from their face mask which, watching that as a kid, made them look like dragons to me. Welcome to Green Bay and its frozen tundra.
Green Bay and its famous Lambeau Field are legendary within the country and I was looking forward to seeing the sprawling, cosmopolitan metropolis, but it turns out…it only took us about ten minutes to get through it. It was funny, before coming everyone I spoke to knew of Green Bay and knew where it was, but its actually size, even by the locals standards, was small. Here they have renowned Lambeau Field, infamous fans, they had (even though they don’t want to admit it now) legendary Bret Favre and yet, it has a very town like feel to it. The unpretentious people, appear to be in no hurry, there were no traffic jams and everyone wants to talk to you once they find out you’re not from there. It was funny to hear people say “Oh, you’ve never been here? Well there really isn’t much to do, oh but you have to see…” and they would proceed to list off about fourteen things, which (in all my spare time) I could not see. People think it’s so cool that I get to travel around and see the country, and it is, but they also assume I am doing the tourist thing when I am there. Truth be told, I have little time to do anything else, but work on the computer, make phone calls, do interviews, workout, tan, eat and head in to work, which I don’t get out of until usually 3AM. Speaking of tanning, there was a great tanning place there about a block from the club. The owner was very friendly and helpful and it was inside of this old downtown building complete with wood floors and he had Christmas music playing which made me feel all in the holiday spirit. The tanning experience was enjoyable, but I have to tell you about the restaurant next to the hotel.
The convenience of the location of the restaurant combined with the really fucking cold temperatures meant that we ate dinner there every night. It seemed like every night we went in there, there was a new cute waitress waiting on us. Now, we invited them to the club every night, which they coyly refused so we tried the other angle. How about a ménage a tois? That’s always the next natural step, right? Guess Green Bay is not ready for our kind of ménage a tois.
Ironically, this town of Green Bay had the best hotel we have stayed in the whole country. It was part of the W chain and it was named A Loft AAANNNDD when you walk in everyone says “Aloha”… like, every time. It was modern but practical and it had some of the best functional, no-nonsense features, like a fitness center that rocked, 24 hour coffee (which consisted of everything from lattes to espressos), a deli, a business center, a checkers and chess board station, a pool table, and a bar where everyone in the whole city seemed to congregate in after 5 PM turning the place into almost a nightclub. But as happening as this was, they didn’t have anything on Tony that night at the club.
We get to the club and it is show number one. It went well, everything was cool, we go downstairs for promo and it is time for the second show. I am on stage and I come to my last song of the set, Tony grabs the mic and the party starts rockin. We had about 8 people on stage and Tony says, “Okay we are going to have a dance off on stage and the winner gets the video”. Let me describe the contestants for this dance off, four kind of attractive guys about mid thirties, three women, two of them very attractive probably early thirties and…one old woman. The dance off ensues and they’re off! And the old woman begins to strip every stitch of clothing off immediately…and, and, and her breasts were naturally huge! Of course, we all know what happens to natural, huge breast as age takes them. Well, these sadly were not spared time’s evil curse of gravity and they spilleth over and the contest was over. What could I do? I had to give it to the oldest (now naked) lady….and try to do it without laughing. It was all good natured fun and I give it up to her for not caring and having fun. Wait to go old lady! Todd, our helper floorman, saw things differently and was pissed at Tony, “Man, I’m gonna have nightmares. You didn’t have to do that, man.” That’s Tony. No crowd forgets him.
Of course, we couldn’t leave without seeing the sacred Lambeau Field. I’m from Texas and we have a lot of pride there and we love our Cowboys, but THESE people REALLY have pride and REALLY love their football team. I was scared I was going to get jumped if I even had a negative thought about the Packers. I was ready to run if they discovered my Texas heritage. We had lunch with Ricky the Photographer there and had the whole Lambeau Field experience, beer included and complete with about fifty television screens on simultaneously playing EVERY game. Like I said, welcome to Green Bay.
From: www.tonybatman.com and www.GStringChronicles.com
