the whole weekend was a blur. i was in town early because of work, so i managed to get my party on thursday, friday, saturday and sunday. i’ve been a shriveled shell of a man all week which is why this post has been delayed.

work consisted of visiting a hospital for a couple days in east st. louis. not that spectacular or interesting to those of you in the poloverse, however, i have since learned from francis (stl) that east st. louis has only two reliable sources of income – strip clubs and prostitution. so it’s a good thing i did my part by starting the party off at ‘larry’s house’ as my boss called it.

not really my environs, but it was $2 beers because it was a snow day … as in it was snowing outside. those women were desperate and it was insane. felt like a scene from devil’s adovcate. notice the daylight … it was 3:30 pm. from there i caught a blues game, won $80 at the casino and passed out.

friday was when the craziness began. everyone started getting to town and by 6pm francis (stl) and i had finished the bottle of early times 357 i brought. dinner was at plush with the pitt crew and some stl folk. from there it was the handlebar to receive everyone else, lots of drinking, pool hustling and then finally a locale change to the gay bar next door. i won’t even elaborate on that any more other than to say that those of us who were in town on friday partied until the bars closed and danced into the morning. it turned out to be good practice for the lock-in.

saturday brought the lock-in and i managed to grab jimmy and zach from the train station in time for us to make it to the skatium on time this year. as soon as we set foot inside, i was greeted by the scent of stale cigarettes and wet ass, but that subsided pretty quick once LEX arrived with our shipment of country club malt liquor. if you haven’t tried it, you should. it’s AMAZING and CHEAP.

i won’t even try to explain what happened over the next 24 hours because honestly there are gaping holes in my memory and certain things are blurry or just have to be experienced. my brain still feels like an apple full of worms.

here’s what i rememeber: dumptruck eating enchilada sauce (idiot), lomax’s pupils, lomax sleeping, sarah requesting sandwiches, sarah’s kissing booth, $2 u-call-its, vengaboys (i hate that song), sliding, falling, bourbon, country club, the devil’s pretzels, sandwich orgy, couch sprawl, polo, a pinata, roller skating, cold, people sleeping, secret rooms, iphones with orange dust, credit cards, temporary tattoos, american flag, irrelvant scoreboards, bad parenting, bad examples, fireball, jim beam, custom bikes, snuggling, crashes, baseball cards and friends. and a shit ton of partying.

here’s some of what i saw:

since we’re cheap and don’t have video on here -

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10100104563825434&notif_t=video_processed

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10100104580417184&ref=notif&notif_t=video_processed

i’m sure the others will add their two cents. we have shirts coming soon. and koozies for those in need.

in other news … andrew w.k. is going to be touring again this year. playing nothing but the entirety of ‘i get wet.’ grandpa and i are gonna be there with bells on.

- magoo.

Our newest transplant, this time from Lexington, Matt, has come up with a design promoting our state and unifying his two cities. (Look close ‘Skulley’ is getting cuddly with Fred near the bottom.)

And from our sticker pack. The “God Hates Bike Polo” shirts are almost in production.

 GHBP shirts will be unveiled at the STL Lock-in.

Check back with us soon for pre-order info.

ZachRob

we still play at least once a week, but it seems the courts themselves have become a ghost town in favor of the garage. with the cold weather rolling in, the non-stop rain and just the overwhelming hassle of having to deal with an avalanche of hood rats … it’s just not worth the effort to play in the toilet bowl of the metro parks system. we’ve poured hundreds of our own dollars into the courts, hours of our time and exhausted all of our patience only to be rewarded with… nothing. well, almost nothing. we did get a sign that the neighborhood kids promptly broke. i guess that’s something.

it’s great that nearby locations like lexington, cincy, columbus, bloomington, etc. all seem to be getting some support from their local governments but we constantly get the shaft. personally, i’m done. i’d rather travel somewhere and play then deal with this headache. this is year 4 in the garage and it’s better than most places.

with that all said, i’m looking forward to next year. unlike most others i’m sure, my plan is to attend zero NAH events. that is unless they start to resemble the non-NAH events that i so enjoy and can actually stand to attend, which i doubt will happen. it’s not worth the effort, the money or the annoyance factor. give me the lock-in or a columbus tourney anyday.

speaking of the lock-in … looks like three of us will be making the idiotic journey to STL again this year for a straight day of partying. we might even play polo.

- michael.

not as nuts as this was …

but nuts all the same.

mind you all this is a for-fun, friendly get together, not really a tournament. we have prizes, but they’re more just a formality. this is the end of the 2011 polo season for most of us, let’s just try and relax and leave your serious at home. seriously.

we are asking for $5 donations for each person, we just secured a set of nice steel goals, so we are trying to recoup some of our losses. plus we put in some decent work on the courts so you should be a little surprised at the improvements. they still aren’t perfect and they never will be.

we probably won’t have restrooms at the courts this time … will try and have a nice map to toilets close by on hand.

remember, we are in public, so keep your adult beverages concealed and damn it … PUT ALL VALUABLES OUT OF SIGHT OR ON THE COURT AWAY FROM THE DOORS. there are some sticky fingered kids that don’t seem to know any better that have walked off with plenty of our stuff.

for those of you that need an itinerary … its mostly drinking. if you’re getting into town on friday, we will be at one of two shows and drinking. if you come in saturday, we will be at the courts and drinking. if you stay for sunday … more courts and drinking. the garage has been fine lately, but we have received some heat in the past couple weeks … will need to ride to the courts if possible or park around the corner so you aren’t trapped inside.

if you need anymore information, get a hold of one of us or email louisvillebikepolo(AT)gmail.com.

- michael.

Regardless we’ll have heaps of goodies for the taking, most of all will be fun. Don’t fuck around and start playing like an asshole (Bruce), cause we’re not having any of it. Remember, FUN, that’s what we’re here for. And beer. Fun and beer. And bourbon. Fun and beer and bourbon.

in sadder news, we got kicked out of the garage during pickup for the first time in nearly 4 years of unrestricted bliss. take note that during the boondoggle weekend, we may not be able to play 30+ hours of pickup and we might actually try night games at the courts. bring body armor as you deem appropriate.

you thought we’d forgotten. true, we’ve talked about this tournament since May, and it took this long to even get a flyer together… but it will happen nonetheless. all the information you need is on there. costumes are mandatory. its 3v3 random draw. it costs $5. the only questions left in your head now should be ‘where am i staying?’ and ‘do i have enough in savings to bail my team out of jail?’. we can help with the first. shoot us an email at louisvillebikepolo(AT)gmail.com and we will find you a couch, a floor, a cot, a bathtub, a backyard or a broken down van to sleep in for the weekend.

big thanks to sarah e. for her help in trying to make this tournament something out of nothing, as after our derby performance we’ve given up on ever organizing something legit. if we have something neat to give your greedy hands when you arrive, it’ll be because of her. if you don’t really care and just want to party, just show up and you’ll be handsomely rewarded.

if not for the prizes, do it for this guy - http://www.whas11.com/news/local/Police-on-the-scene-of-a-possible-shooting-at-11th-and-Muhammad-Ali-129800818.html#comments.

see you idiots this weekend in c-bus.

- magoo.

its been a long while since anyone seemed to have the time to update this thing. we’ve all been busy and the polo crew, while growing, has become a little disorganized and thankfully some of the new guys have been stepping up and making things happen. we’ve gained brian from cincy but aj will be leaving soon enough. the courts have seemed to resist the constant vandalism from the neighborhood kids, but the BOOOOndoggle is just around the corner and there are some repairs needed in order to not piss everyone off (then again it is fun to watch Kremin slide in place as the court surface removes itself slowly beneath him…). the midwest is full of activity these days and Lousiville has been making every effort to join in the fun.

the cincy Mostrocity Polo Triathalon was a roaring success, what i can remember of it. davis, alec and i went up for the sunday festivities as Hookers & Blow 5.0, and managed to secure the first Louisville +8 in swiss rounds, second overall. then we fell quickly during the tourney in two hard games of 2-1. between all the gin/powerade and old milwaukee and the amazing chili, we were doomed to fail by the time the actual tourney started. it’s hard to play that trashed without jimmy on my team -davis and alec have some training to do in the off season. it was amazing that we didn’t do better in a tournament almost created solely for Louisville to win, but in the end i had a great time, heckled my ass off, snuggled with dana in a hammock, ate some delicious brownies, played flip cup, knocked dana clean off his bike, beat dayton in a tournament and came home with a megaphone.

next on the agenda is the columbus Equinox tournament. at this time, it’s just me going, but i’m sure a couple others may come along if given enough pressure. rumors are i’ll be on a LOU-GR-GR team, but we will see how that all pans out. plus, a certain Mr. Lomax has found himself a little lonely, so i may not even leave my tent. i’d love to make the star city tourney, but the stars unfortunately aren’t quite aligning in my or anyone elses lives right now for that to happen.

remember, october 29/30, louisville, Bluegrass BOOOndoggle. costume mandatory, 3v3 hat tourney. start planning and let us know if you need a place to stay.

321Polo has a introduced a new feature on the site being player profiles. First up is Ann Arbor’s Quinn. I never knew if she really liked us or just tolerated our moronic ways from the south… err midwest, whatever. Read her interview and find out for yourself.

On a somewhat related note. That being Quinn being female… Ladies Army IV is in Lexington motherfuckers!

That said, lets consider the polo bike for a second. These bicycles are simple machines, throw them in a polo match and they’re going to get beat to fuck. The simpler they are the better they work and with less maintenance. Think about that next time you go fucking around with you stupid bike trying to change shit up and gain some edge by a mechanical advantage. The best bike in the world isn’t going to do shit for your shitty ball handling skills or piss poor shot accuracy… neither is playing clipped in. Keep it simple stupid.

Speaking of simple, I like the idea of share and share alike. Give a little, take a little if you will. I bring this up because there are a few people that like to show up at pick up and have a beer or two which I am obviously more than in favor of. However, there are a couple people who tend to show up beerless time and time again asking for said beer. I don’t mind sharing, hell it’s the exact reason I show up with more beer than I’m going to drink. I’m just saying if you don’t show up with beer one week, you damn well better have it the next. On that note, pick up your fucking empties! Two people, I’m not gonna name names, but one starts with the last letter of the alphabet and sounds like back and the other is a homonym for the opposite of poor, left empty cans on the ground last night. What’s that first rule of polo? Don’t be an asshole.

Now, get off my lawn!

has been hounding us for months about a T-shirt and personal instruction on how to play polo. His name is Micah and its pretty fucking simple; you hit the red ball through the orange cones with the ski-pole thing, your holding, while riding a bike. I have had it either come out or stop pestering us. Tonight i put him on the spot here are the comments from Facebook:

(Click to enlarge)

and here is a link to the Facebook event I created. Either he’ll sut up and come out and have fun or i’m the biggest asshole in the world and he’ll hate us forever and leave us alone.