My Kind of Town, Chicago Is

Here's what I find fascinating: I believe that at the Gladiator auditions, we were the ones that stood out as weird. Let me say that again: I WAS THE WEIRD ONE AT AMERICAN GLADIATORS. How strange is that? That's kind of like being the ugly one at a Rosie O'Donnell lookalike convention. We were loud, cocky and dressed alike. Qualls was screaming the American Gladiators theme song in the parking lot while we were waiting in line (see video). We ate McDonald's breakfast burritos while we waited, everyone else was eating wheat grass and suffocated kumquats (they're good though, they are good). I was expecting screaming, grunting hooligans in Gladiator memorabilia. That wasn't true at all. We actually made quite a few friends. "The Pitbull" was awesome. He was an old marine vet from New York. There was also an attractive physical trainer who insisted on having pictures taken with Chris for her website (I guess she didn't see me or she was just too intimidated to ask for a quick pic.....Oh the perils of being me).

What a strange trip this turned out to be. All plans we made were deliberately indefinite. We actually were going more to travel than to arrive anywhere. Probably the strangest thing that happened was when Chris willingly and wholeheartedly became a democrat. No one saw that coming. Oh, Chris also fell passionately in love with a rubber lobster named Moleski.