The Stunning End to a Fantastic Pair of Pants.
Initially, I was saddened to see that one Mr. Burmila would decide to part with such a valued historically significant pair of silver vinyl (possibly from Hot Topic but if my memory serves purchased at Gadzooks) pants. I figured there must be some logical explanation. Perhaps it is some kind of benefit auction? Since the bidding has now stopped, we might never know.
What we do know is as follows:
The year was 2000, or possibly 2001. Actually I am pretty sure it was 2001. The date is insignificant. The location was CO Daniels. You see, at the time Mike and I both lived in Champaign. Ed Burmila lived in Madison Wisconsin (in a house with an amazing little bitch named Toby….at an address that to the best of my knowledge is still listed as the ginandtacos.com corporate headquarters). Fairly regularly Ed would flee from Toby and come and visit Mike and myself. About once a year we would decide that it would be funny to go out to Kams or CO Daniels for the evening- as a point of reference, this was never fun and or funny.
One particular time that this occurred we decided that we needed to either attempt to fit in or look ridiculous. I honestly can't remember the motivation. However, the result is firmly affixed in my brain.
mike purchased an exceptionally expensive pair of green pants (which he later returned) and a comic book t-shirt. I bought a pair of black vinyl pants and a Black Flag t-shirt. And Ed, Ed bought a System of a Down t-shirt and a pair of….that’s right, silver vinyl pants.
Your eyes aren’t deceiving you Ed, we have a picture of you in the pants thanks to Sylvia Rios
We wore these outfits to CO Daniels. We did not fit in, we did not have fun. We however decided that we did need to fit in. We proceeded to go to the campustown dance "club" Orchid- what is now Tonic, where, and I am not kidding I believe we all received compliments on our pants.
So now, in 2005…four or five years after this fateful night took place, Ed was the last remaining owner of his pants. Mike of course returned his- which was his plan all along- and I…well I must admit to frequently getting drunk and wearing my vinyl pants. They were cheap, they basically self destructed in a couple months.
Now some guy from Ebay is the proud owner of the silver pants. The frightening thing is that this man is one of the most disreputable Ebay patrons I have ever seen. He goes by the name r.not and has only three current feedback entries all of which are negative. Although I can't look at any of these auctions directly, I can only assume that they were all for "gothic" pants or shirts.
March 16th, 2005 at 6:48 pm
I'm going to throw apart everything I own tonight to find the picture of the three of us….
And for the record, i wore a green latern t-shirt and glow-in-the-dark day-glo green pants (which were like $50 I didn't have – and the tags were left on and it was returned). And my pants did glow in the dark of champaign's nightlife.
March 16th, 2005 at 6:58 pm
I regret a lot of things in this life. Taking this picture is not one of them. Opportunities to embarrass others are right around the corner: be prepared. When you think to yourself, "Do I really need this picture of ______ wearing/doing/ drinking/ eating/etc ______?", remember the answer is "yes."
Erik – you were also wearing a pair of black aviator sunglasses (before J Lo made them cool again). Thanks for the photo credit.
Mike – when you find the picture, the security tag will be very noticeable.
Ed – please don
March 16th, 2005 at 7:07 pm
First of all, Mike wearing a comic book t-shirt was never and is not an anomalous event. We all know there is a very good chance he would have purchased a green lantern shirt that night regardless of our plans.
Second of all, I believe we consciously set out to look like "ravers" before going to the orchid. Hence the highly reflective pants.
Thirdly, Mike's penis was clearly and discomfortingly visible through the green pants, which glowed in the dark. In a sense, therefore, his dong glowed in the dark that night.
March 16th, 2005 at 7:11 pm
I am very dissappointed that I didn't remember until just now that the green pants were also glow in the dark. I also remember Ed and I engaging in some long logical debate with Mike about whether or not the pants were worth 60 dollars or whatever.
March 16th, 2005 at 7:11 pm
Also, I am puzzled by the implication that I would somehow be embarassed – or anything other than happy – about this photograph or series of events.
March 16th, 2005 at 10:42 pm
No regrets. That's a good outlook to have. By the way, I also found a picture of Ed chatting up Val Nelson at a party(Circa 1999). If I remember correctly, it was related to some sort of bet. . .
March 17th, 2005 at 10:32 am
Erik, do you still have that gold velvet suit we forced you to buy while you were over here?
I ask because I have fond memories of you wearing it while telling the catholic girls in the hall what a slick pimp you were, and asking them to consider being your bitches.
March 17th, 2005 at 1:15 pm
You mean the suit with magical beer spill absorbing qualities?
Yes, I most certainly still have it. I think I might have actually been wearing the jacket on the night referred to in this post.
As for the suit…Odd thing is I put it on a while ago only to realize that the jacket was too large?? I am certain that I am bigger now than I was then, so it must have always been huge on me. I suppose I was just blinded by the gold velvet.
**Dave- You do remember the first time I wore that suit nearly everyone I knew accidentally spilled beer on me. In exasperation I came over to you and said something like "Jesus Christ, I think you are the only person not to have poured a beer on me"….To which you responded by spilling your beer over my pants.
March 19th, 2005 at 3:38 pm
The number of times Erik used the phrase "You know, my favorite band is in fact Black Flag" that night was unprecedented.
March 20th, 2005 at 5:52 pm
I'm not sure I remember a whole hell of a lot of that night. I'd consumed a lot of absinthe. I was overcome with fear when you told me you were doing experiments on my brain with Vodka, and fled the club.
It still rings a vague bell though…. I think I poured a fairly large amount of cheap pissy lager on you. I'm sorrry about that.
Tenaciously clinging to the Black Flag comment, I'm the proud owner of a videogame where the point is to kick the shit out of various rappers. Between rounds you get called a little bitch by Henry Rollins, and told to get to the gym. I'm not making this up.
March 22nd, 2005 at 8:31 pm
That's a nice winnie the pooh hat you have up for auction over there. Did you have to pay to list that?
April 27th, 2006 at 1:16 am
Ed is my Y318 teacher. This shit is too funny.
October 2nd, 2006 at 7:48 pm
please wear these pants to class wednesday. thats why you were winking at us to come… get these snakes off my plane!!
October 24th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
jonny
June 9th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
I gotta say, whilst searching through hundreds of blogs daily, the theme of this blog is different (for all the right reasons). If you do not mind me asking, what's the name of this theme or would it be a customized affair? It's greater compared to themes I use for some of my blogs ;-)
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