Lonnie Bruner vs. the catfish

My pal Lonnie is one of my favorite people in the whole world. He's a good friend and true original with whom I share a lot of great times with. The son of bitch is blessed with good looks, musical talent, a great wife and was given a fuckin' BOAT, but he has still called me the luckiest guy he knows. I'm definitely lucky to know him.

There are many Lonnie stories, like when he found a deer that had just gotten hit by a car and ate the whole thing and his subsequent bout of vegetarianism or our rock and roll adventures in the Milk-O-Matics, or the story behind my song "(Lonnie) lose the girlfriend (you gotta)" (I will say it wasn't about his wife) but I'll tell just this one because the man himself asked me to.

About a decade or so ago, my roommate and I were watching movies in our living room. We were under the influence of a substance. I don't want to get to specific , so I'll just say it made PCU the greatest movie ever and Jeremy Pivin a shoo in for best picture oscar for his poignant portrayal of James "Droz" Andrews. It wasn't powerful enough, however, make it seem possible that John "Gutter" Favreau would become a successful actor and director. They haven't made a drug that strong yet.

Out of the only window allowing natural sunlight into the room there arose such a clatter, we'd have turned of heads if they weren't made of batter. To what should my bloodshot eyes should appear, but it's Lonnie, knocking and screaming, "Come here!" Somebody else may have used the door, but Lonnie doesn't go out like that. He knocked at the window and instantly overloaded our chemically altered noggins. " You've gotta see what's in my trunk!"

He dragged us out to stinging daylight to show us, thankfully parked on our lawn for easy access. He was on a date(really), fishing, and caught a big-as-frig catfish on the Wicomico river about 4 blocks away. He pulled it out and aimed it's face at me and the fish gasped at me. I could almost hear it say, "Dude, Dude."

It was all too much, Lonnie went back to put the catfish back in the river (it survived, by the way) and then came back to take us to Taco Bell. There was to much going on with the fish that we weren't introduced until he came back to his date, Serenity. Yes, that's right, her actual given name was Serenity. She lived on a houseboat with her Mom and Dad and had only recently started listening to the kind of music that the rest of us took for granted, for example, she'd never heard "Stairway to Heaven."

We made the mistake of informing the serene one about the psychedelic journey we were on. "Really? What's it like?", she asked. She start jerking her hands quickly in front of my face,"Does this, like, totally freak you out?"
"Not totally," I deadpanned, but I was dangerously close to losing my shit.

She'd been looking at my eyes for so long grabbing my paranoia soaked attention that I didn't notice that her hair wasn't short like it seemed, but in a tight bun in the back of her head, so when she took it out in the middle of our conversation, it looked like she grew a foot and a half of hair instantly.

That was it, I just stared at the floor until I could be safe again in my own living room with my soft taco supreme.

But that's life with Lonnie, the best trip of all.
YOUR PAL MONDAY BONUS!
The second most unintentionally funny stage patter I've ever heard.

This happened, maybe not unintentionally, at the location of THE most unintentionally funny stage patter,(link) Scandals in Ocean City at about the same time.

The reggae band uprising was playing and right when I got there the singer introduces this one song in a Jamaican accent so thick you could practically smell the ginger beer and ganga, "This one is 'bout our 'omeland, this is called 'Baltimore'".