This is a baseball post because when I was watching the Washington Nationals game the other day, I saw behind home plate that on Saturday, June 8th; Blues Traveler will be the on-field concert. The radio advertisement had me grinning and thinking of my connection to this man. It’s also a story of how if you are willing to let it – sometimes the fun just finds you.

A few months before my wedding I went out to Las Vegas for a few days of fun. Vegas is one of my favorite places, but I wouldn’t recommend it for a bachelor party. Not when you’re 28 and you’ve basically shut down that part of your life that sees you going out several nights in a given week. Not when you’re domesticated. Because when you get out there you will inevitably try to go just a bit harder. You will find yourself acting as if you were in college again. At least, that’s how my friends and I carried on when we ventured to the MGM Grand in July in of 2011.

It started out an ordinary trip. We picked up a few bottles of of Patron Silver at a liquor shop on the way from the airport to our hotel, a stop the taxi cab driver knew to make before we even asked him to once we had told him it was my bachelor party.

Before we knew it night had fallen on Las Vegas. A few drinks in the room and a few stops at the tequila bars with video poker placed at the bar seats in front of the patron’s had us all feeling numb. The pretty dancing Flamingo lights had never looked so elegant. We played blackjack somewhere with go-go dancers standing above us. We let the roulette wheel have it’s way with us. I tried to learn craps but was too drunk to listen to my friend Mike.

My buddies retreated to bed. The next thing I remember is waking up at a poker table at the MGM Grand with a guy next to me nudging me. I had nodded off. My stack had dwindled. I asked him what he wanted. He said “are you in the hand”? I took my few lonely chips to the cashier and begrudgingly gave into human nature. I went to bed. Before that, I (allegedly) had the ability to snap a photo.

I woke up the first morning in Vegas with a skull rattling hangover. My buddies were down at the lazy river with my uncle when I awoke so I did what seemed like the sensible thing. I had a coffee, took a xanax (the only time I’ve ever taken this medication is when I have the hangover of a lifetime) and read the morning baseball lines to see who I was going to bet on. The Reds had won two in a row but were scuffling to make a season of things. They had a Sunday Night Baseball date with the Atlanta Braves. There was no question that my money was going on them.

I did what seemed logical; plucking a $100 bet on the Reds and ordering a screwdriver almost simultaneously. I had my butt kicked by the dealers on the first night, and the Reds were going to help me turn it around. I headed down to the MGM pool to meet my friends and uncle and drank my hangover away.

Let me preface this by saying that I had long stopped drinking like I used to in college. I just couldn’t handle it anymore. I was career driven (and still am) and I’m not one of those people who can hold it all together when booze gets mixed into the equation. But it was my bachelor party, and we were in the city of lights. If I couldn’t push the limits one more time, what good was I?

We headed in from the pool and hit the blackjack tables some more. Amazing things were happening for the dealer as she took our bets hand after hand. We tried everything in waiting out the cold decks. Counted cards, hit when we should have, and held when she showed a bust card. She was making 21 out of 12 too simply time after time. We continued to drink and make playful chatter with the dealer until it was time to prepare for a night that we would never forget. We grabbed a shower that consisted of a few more beers for each of us, and headed down to the sports book to watch our Redlegs turn this trip around.

As luck would have it, the Reds won a 4-3 ballgame that night on a Drew Stubbs opposite field home run. During the course of the game my nerves caused me to smoke part of a pack of Marlboro Reds. I don’t even smoke. My Uncle was feeding us shots of Don Julio Blanco. It had been a while since the old boy had been out himself. I invited a homeless man to sit with us. This was about the time my uncle decided it was time for him to go to bed. Us young guys just getting started.

When the game ended we headed over to one of our famous haunts in Las Vegas, the Tropicana. We had stayed there several times, and something about it reminded us of our favorite movie Casino. It was one of the few old time places left on the strip from those days. The Tropicana pumps in refreshed air, but has a musty feel to it of glory days gone by.

Using some of the money that Drew Stubbs had rewarded me with I was trying to change my luck again in trying to solve the blackjack table. By this point I was drinking double straight scotch on the rocks. My friends had lost all their money and were around the corner from the tables at the bar in the Tropicana. That’s when some magic happened and our luck finally hit.

My friends Sam and Tyler came from around the corner and asked if I wanted to meet Blues Traveler.

Blues Traveler? You mean he’s alive? It’s sad, but that was my first thought. “Hell yes I would like to meet him. That man was the first concert I ever saw,” I told them. In 1994 at the H.O.R.D.E. Festival in Columbus, Ohio; Blues Traveler headlined a group of popular bands at Polaris Amphitheater which is about 200 yards from my home now. I just had to tell him that.

I rounded the corner and there he was – he was thinner than when I had last seen him on television and with a lady – but he was seated at the bar at the Tropicana having a few drinks.

“Is this the bachelor?” Popper asked.

After telling him that indeed I was, I let him know that he was my first concert. He replied “No shit? That was you out there? Let me buy you a drink.”

He quickly ordered up more than one drink, shots of Don Julio Blanco; and immediately let me know how much he loved doing shots of tequila. He was in the mood to really raise some Hell on this night. That much I could tell from the onset.

“Let’s call your wife!” he added. I explained that she was at home in Ohio and that back home it was really about 4 a.m. but that didn’t seem to phase him. I pulled out my cell phone and called my fiance. She was fast asleep and didn’t answer. Blues Traveler grabbed the phone from me and said he wanted to leave her a message.

“Hi Stephanie. This is John Popper from Blues Traveler here with your soon to be husband and I just wanted to let you know that he’s a great guy. We’re having a great time out here and he really can’t wait to marry you. Have a great night and I’ll get him home in one piece, I promise!”

With that, Popper pulled a harmonica out of his coat pocket and played her a tune before hanging up. It was the most Blues Traveler thing I’ve ever seen.

We did a few more shots, and what I expected to be only a brief encounter turned into much more. It seemed that Mr. Popper had taken a pretty good liking to my friends and I. He was laughing – in a loud bellowing echo – at many of the things we were saying. He knew opportunity when he saw it, and in us he and his lady friend saw the opportunity at a very good time.

“So do you guys want to go rip this town up or what?”

Of course we did. What he didn’t know is that we had been ripping it up for two days now. This was probably nothing to a fella that has been on tour and been a rock star. Sometimes you fold your cards when you should. Sometimes you keep playing the hand to see what it turns into because you’ll never be in the moment again.

I asked my friend Mike if he wanted to go raise some Hell with Blues Traveler. Always the responsible one, he didn’t like where this was headed for obvious reasons. He was the mature one; the smart one. He said he was going to bed – and he didn’t have much interest in the man made famous for his harmonica and fast lyrics.

My friends Tyler and Sam were down for whatever Blues had in mind. Within ten minutes, he had a limo in front of the Tropicana and we were headed to a strip club. Strip clubs aren’t my thing. And I hate to blame the rock star on this one, but it was Blues’ idea. I figured it would be okay as long as I told my fiance immediately when she woke up and as long as I acted responsibly.

And this brings another disclaimer. I don’t smoke marijuana. I don’t like it, it doesn’t agree with my system, and it’s just not for me. But before I knew it a joint was being passed around in the limousine and the world was spinning to me. I was going in and out of mental consciousness. The memory gets a little hazy around the point. I figured a few hits off a joint might settle my stomach. Someone had told me that once. But the puffs could not settle what two days of hard living would cause.

Someone produced a bag. Mr. Popper is yelling “puke! puke! puke! puke!”. I throw up hard a few times. Everyone in the limo cheers for the idiot bachelor who had lost all his winnings that Drew Stubbs and the Reds awarded him with.

“Someone hand this man a beer” Mr. Popper said with enthusiasm. I started to laugh at myself and what was going on. Mr. Popper’s lady friend said that we were awesome. I said that Mr. Popper was awesome. We were all having a wonderful time. Then the limo arrived at some strip joint in Ellis Island. I don’t care to know the name. I don’t plan on stopping back in there.

I was sitting at the end of the stage talking with Mr. Popper and he had his arm around me. We seemed to really connect. I was in and out of conscious mental capacity, but I remember one thing that really caught him. I wasn’t paying attention to the women there. I was telling him why I loved my fiance, how I knew I wanted to marry her and what it felt like to only want to be with one woman the rest of my life. It really seemed to get his jollies to hear about this – and I was so drunk that I was being as genuine as one could be. I was simply too drunk to lie and he knew it.

He continued to tell me how awesome it was what I had found; and that for all he had been given in his life he was never given that gift of being able to fall in love. He didn’t know what it was like to be able to love just one woman. I began to feel sorry for the guy. He had a life in rock and roll. He was chosen for that. It’s probably not easy to have a normal life in that situation.

I began to drink water, and somehow; rally my spirits. I had an idea in my head. I wanted to get out of there and head to a karaoke bar. It sounded good to everyone else.

We headed over to a hole in the wall karaoke bar where the drinking and revelry continued. Blues was spending an irresponsible amount of money on everyone. I’m told his buzz was starting to show – my friends told me later that he was very vocal and was asked to settle down by the staff at the bar. I waited for what seemed like forever to sing my song. When I got up on stage, there was only one logical choice. I sang “Hook” to Blues Traveler, and his lady friend as well as my friends. I think they loved it. I don’t really remember to be honest. It was probably a mess to be honest. It’s just something I wanted to say I did.

I’m told the next thing that happened was I was put in a cab back to the MGM. My friends headed in the opposite direction over to Bill’s to throw some dice at the craps tables just as the Vegas sun was coming up.

And when I awoke the next morning, I had a hangover and felt just like a character from out of the movie. I couldn’t eat for two days. I spent almost a full week recovering when I returned home. I haven’t partied like that since, and I never will again. But I’ll always have the memory of a night in Vegas with Blues Traveler. A guy that I can provide testimony for definitely understanding ‘Natitude’.