If this article was a Quentin Tarantino movie I would have to start it like this:
I was in the middle of the ghetto of Chicago, surrounded by boarded up houses and men in puffy jackets looking at me strangely, while heavily armored police surrounded my car.
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My day began like any other except I was incredibly hungover from the night previous. I’m not a big drinker, but a bar serving absinthe was situated about thirty yards from my cousin’s apartment off Ashland Avenue, and after a hard week of UFC on Fox 2 coverage, we wanted to celebrate. Celebrate we did…way too much.
I woke up the next day in a Green Fairy induced fog, stumbling into the shower because I had an hour to meet Brian Ebersole at some sports bar. West end street or something. See, that was my fatal flaw: I Googled ‘West End bar’, not West loop’s West End Bar & Grill, but we will get back to that. I gathered my camera equipment and set out east to go see TWAS.
I knew something wasn’t right when the surrounding area looked like a set out of Robocop.
I followed the directions I put in my GPS to the letter, I had a mission, and I would find Brian Ebersole even in this horrible ghetto. The deeper I got the more I realized something was horribly, horribly wrong. Everyone was driving Lexus’s from the late 80’s and I was being stared down at every stoplight, hard. I made sure I wasn’t wearing any red or blue, nothing, just a healthy green MiddleEasy tee. Finally my GPS stopped me in the middle of what I think was a condemned neighborhood, but people were still living there, that’s for sure. Not without worry for TWAS, I decide to stop looking for this sports bar in the middle of this dilapidated part of town and make a U-turn. ‘Eff this’ I thought to myself, and furthermore, who is booking Brian Ebersole appearances in this horrible area? I hope he’s OK.
Lights flash behind me. The cops. Oh my God I didn’t do anything and I am in Cook county. I am not cut out for this, I’m just supposed to be trying to find a guy who shaves an arrow into his chest and now that cop wearing body armor is coming at me with a shotgun. A shotgun!
I’m 99% sure my face looked like Arianny’s when Overeem stood on the scale. My O face was completely realized as I rolled down my window. The cop looked at me, then turned to the other two heavily armored and weaponized policeman who were flanking me.
‘It’s not him.’ Then he turns to me. ‘You need to get outta here’.
I don’t remember the next five or ten seconds of my life after that. I know I started driving away and I made it home safely obviously, as I’m writing this, but I truly don’t even remember pulling away. I don’t even think I checked for oncoming traffic now that I think about it. Zeus was my first phone call. His advice? ‘Dude, you gotta get outta there man, go!’ I went. ‘I need to get out of here alive, I have no will’ and ‘I’m so hungover’ were the only thoughts going through my brain as I raced far, far away.
About thirty minutes later I pull back into the Ashland Avenue apartment, surrounded by yuppies and hipsters. Safe, yet still wondering what happened to TWAS. Seconds later I get a call from The White Anderson Silva.
Hey man, where are ya?
What do you mean I just tried looking for you! Are you OK? Are you in the ghetto? Ebersole seemed confused, his phone was breaking up and I heard him say something about lunch. What street are you off of? I asked.
Madison. Twas replied. I look on my Google map-The West End Bar & Grill is a 4 minute drive or about a fifteen minute walk from my current location. I told him I was on my way then slammed the phone into the receiver.
Finally, I showed up to the autograph signing tired and buzzed from a near death experience, straight into the welcoming arms of Brian Ebersole and his lovely girlfriend Alecia. I drank beer and was happy, but footage still had to be gotten. Brian and his buddies from Vigilante MMA told me that he and Alecia usually gave away the leftover pizza from autograph signings to homeless people on the way to events. Well, without further ado, this video is the TWAS and Alecia trek to the United Center, in the freezing cold and in the back of a rickshaw with hour old pizza to give away.
We hope you enjoy it.
