special olympics

When a group of twenty-somethings in a band travels around, staying in free hotels and with access to lots of free alcohol but little income otherwise, they come up with creative ways to entertain themselves.

We were in Natchez, Mississippi one weekend, playing at a regular club on our gig rotation, a small underground bar that was probably one of our favorite places to play. They always put us up at this terribly low end hotel on the opposite side of town, a hotel that didn't raise a fuss when the guys used the nightstand drawers as their ashtrays and that eventually filled the swimming pool in with concrete, presumably because their clientele wasn't of swimming pool caliber.

We'd finished our gig at the club and made our way back to the hotel, at least one female hanger-on in tow, a somewhat homely girl that I was charged with befriending in order to keep her entertained watching the guys until their antics were over. Having drunk more Crown and sevens than I care to mention, I had no problem chatting with the total stranger that was now part of our crew for the night.

Our typical continual drinking and occasional pot-smoking aside, the guys were looking for something new. Something competitive. Something maybe a touch athletic… which isn't really the forte of musicians, in most of the cases with which I have experience. And so, the Hotel Room Olympics was born.

The first order of business was naming the national affiliation of each competitor. Kyle, the muscle-bound guitarist who had the only athletic physique, was dubbed the German competitor. Brent, the dark-complexioned drummer, was declared from Mexico, since his band nickname was Taco, contrary to his Cajun background. Mike, the bass player who had a skin condition labeled of the Bovine Nation. Randy, the barely over five foot tall rapper in the band, was named of a Chinese country, possibly less for his short stature than for the effect his frequent pot-smoking had on his eyes. And the games began.

The game that was the most indicative of typical evenings with the guys was the backfarting competition. This was an event that the drummer had invented that had grown to epic proportions. While a damp bathtub was the best medium of sound, we eventually moved the event to the requisite table in all cheap hotel rooms.

Backfarting consisted of a damp table, a shirtless contestant, and stomach muscles at least strong enough to lift one's legs up by the gut. If you do this with an ample amount of back fat, it makes a sound like, you guessed it, a fart. This was a crowd favorite, causing us to interrupt more than one cheap traveler's night in neighboring rooms with our raucous laughter. The "Mexican" contestant, whose nickname was Taco, always ruled this particular event. As the gold, silver, and bronze medalists stood on stacks of pillows at varying heights, the room burst into "Frito Bandito," the closest we could get to a "Mexican" song in our drunken stupor.

The other events didn't have the regular victor that backfarting did. They included the high jump (over a pile of pillows), the bed vault (which led many cries of "WHAT A DISMOUNT!") and the floor exercise. The hanger-on and I cheered after each event, laughing at the "national anthems".

As the floor exercises died down, and the last beer was drunk, and the laughing turned into snoring, I could only think one word, one word suitable for these nights. Special.