Tomorrow I leave for our annual hunting trip. I’ll be up in Trinity for the next two weeks. I’m so excited I know I won’t be able to sleep tonight.

Two weeks of fresh air, pine trees, and sweeping alpine views. Two weeks of nightly bonfires, cocktail hours, and grilled tri-tip. Two weeks of ice-cold frosty mornings, bad coffee, and desolace.

No cell phones, not even a land line phone, no TV. Just a cabin on the side of a mountain overlooking a lake in the middle of nowhere. Two weeks, baby.

So much left to do, so little time. I still need to buy my hunting license and deer tags. I still need to load up on ammunition. I’m bringing all the dogs this year. I need to buy a few cases of clay pigeons, a few value packs of 12 gauge shotgun shells, 7mm magnum rifle ammunition, .22LR, 9mm, and .45ACP ammo.

Yep!

Me and Dave have been Eddie Money fans for as long as I can remember. Yes, Eddie Money. Two Tickets To Paradise, Take Me Home Tonight, I Think I’m In Love… that Eddie Money.

Well, last year I had bought tickets for us to see Money at a little Indian casino in Oroville. We talked about it for a good two months beforehand. Dave decided to wait until the last minute to clear it with his wife, and failed to get a pass for the night. Dave missed an epic show.

Well, this year Dave redeemed himself. A few weeks ago we discovered that Money was playing at the Walnut Festival in Walnut Creek. Dave informed his wife that he was, indeed, going this time.

So Friday comes and it’s the day of the show. We headed out to Walnut Creek and found the place without incident, even though neither one of us knew how to get there.

The actual concert was on a soccer field. Money played Saturday Night Live back in the late 70s and used to play sold out arenas. And now he’s playing Indian casinos and soccer fields. But you know what? Money still rocks.

Dave and I drank way too much beer and acted like the fools that we are, screaming “MONEEEEYYYYY!!!” and “EDDIEEEEEEEEE!!!” from the 3rd row. We danced along with the crowd and sang the lyrics right along with all the true fans. When the show was over we could barely speak, our voices were so hoarse from all the yelling.

Back at Dave’s house we killed a 30 pack of Silver Bullets and played Tiger Woods PGA Tour on his Playstation until 5am. I barely remember walking upstairs to the guest room to crash out.

What a perfect evening, eh?

Here are some pictures of me and Dave at the Eddie Money show at the Walnut Festival in Walnut Creek.

Dave’s wife has hula practice every day this week, in preparation for the big show on Saturday night. It’s crunch time, and they are working very hard. She doesn’t get home until after midnight.

Well, Dave gets off work around 4pm. He’s got nothing to do, and doesn’t want to sit at home by himself, so he asked me if I wanted to go play golf.

At around 6:30pm we’re finishing up our round when his wife calls. I can hear bits and pieces of their conversation, but not the whole thing. When Dave hangs up the phone he’s got a pained look upon his face.

He explains what happened. Their conversation sorta went like this:

Dave’s wife: What time will you be home?

Dave: About 9pm.

Dave’s wife: Why so late?

Dave: Well, what’s the hurry? I mean, you’re not going to be home until after midnight….

Dave’s wife: I’m going to call you at home at 8:30pm, you better be there. It doesn’t take you 2 and half hours to get home. Don’t go to the bar when you finish golf, don’t drink a beer, go straight home.

What’s going on here? I don’t get it. Why can’t Dave hang out with me? I mean, it would be different if she was at home waiting for him. But she’s not, she’s at practice, and she won’t be home until after midnight. What, she wants Dave to sit at home by himself? And why can’t he have a beer?

That’s fucking bullshit. That crap would NEVER fly with me. I don’t care who you are, NOBODY tells me what to do.

Dave and I spent a few minutes trying to figure out what her reasoning behind the whole thing was. I can’t figure it out. Why did she order Dave to go home and wait 3 hours for her to come home?

“Marriage is a prison.” – Dave Finn, et al