The memories keep me from dying
SATURDAY
Warning: This is a long post. Every concert we caught was eventful, even if I can’t talk about one of them. If you’re looking for a quick-and-funny read, you should head out. Same red-and-bold method as Friday's stories.
Woke up way too early (nine) for the continental breakfast. That was a bloody awesome breakfast - I’d recommend Marriott’s breakfast bar to anybody who just feels like walking into a random hotel at nine in the morning. I mean, fuck, they didn’t even need our keycard off the street get their breakfast and assume they were a guest, especially during a busy weekend like this.
After I (thankfully) got a few hours extra sleep, we all got up and had lunch at this vegan place called the Sunflower. Micah offered me all the money he had to ask the waiter for a dead baby sandwich, but I didn’t do it. One, had anyone heard, I’d have been severely beaten - not eating animals doesn’t necessarily stop you from beating the shit out of them. Two, I didn’t think Micah would give me the money even if I didn’t get beaten, or if I at least survived the beating I got. (He admitted that he wouldn’t have.)
Things were getting really tense around this point. Karen’s had a shitty week, so she was snapping. Andy and I were practically at each other’s throats. Andy was kind of being a dick about lunch, for reasons I won’t get into here for fear of making this post even more asinine. Micah and Aaron were pissed because the three of us had gotten ready quite quickly despite K&A’s bitching, and they were the ones who took all year getting ready and made us late. Okay, only nearly late. The end result of this was Micah, Aaron, and I getting dropped off at the gate and K&A parking way back in Buckhead and MARTAing back. We didn’t mind, of course, because we finally got to go to Music Midtown after an entire day’s delay. I think it did us some good, actually. When you’re forced to be around the same small group of people ALL WEEKEND, some private time is for the best. Plus, Karen was somewhat relaxed when she got back - but as you’ll see, that relaxation was not to last.
Micah, Aaron and I caught the last little while of Finger Eleven while we waited for K&A. They were okay, but Micah said it best - their whole attitude was, "Yeah, we’ve never played here, you don’t know our music, sorry if you hate us." It didn’t help that a small group of teenagers moshed.
We caught up with K&A right before Smile Empty Soul. That concert changed the course of my life, I swear to Jesus Christ.
That small group of teenagers turned into an entire audience of teenagers and twenty-something’s. The original group managed to follow us to about eight rows back, and their idiot ringleader was right next to me before the band started. I caught him smoking dope and bragging about how much he loves pot, talking about all the bitches he wanted, and planning to mosh - and I felt really grateful to everything and everybody that I was no longer a teenager. (Yes, I still brag about wanting bitches, but I’m respectful to those bitches.)
So the concert starts. The crowd’s hyped about the first song, and our idiot teens are relatively calm. SES plays "I Do It For the Drugs," and the teens lose it. They start a huge mosh thing that lasts a couple of songs. We’re getting violently knocked back, because even though they made a loose circle for the moshing, they’re still throwing one another into and through the people on the outside of the circle - say, us. I was pretty calm about it, but Andy and Micah got pretty pissed, and Karen was just scared. It died out fast, though, lasting maybe a song or two.
This, however, gave way to the crowd surfers. Before City Stages three years ago, I wanted to crowd surf at one point. I sure didn’t after that, and I don’t now. Those guys are assholes. We all got kicked in the head by at least one crowdsurfer. In my case, however, it was karmic payback.
The first two crowdsurfers that passed directly over me? I aimed quick and furious punches directly at their testicles. "Hey, let me help you over! BAM!" Then we’d pass them over to the fence, where security would escort them away, and they’d just have to swing back into the crowd to do it again. First guy, if he noticed, didn’t make a scene. (I’m relatively sure he noticed, because people notice it when you punch them in the balls, right, Chris?) I’m somewhat convinced that he was either stoned, or he also thought of karmic payback. "Okay, that hurt, but then again, I probably kicked someone in the head doing this, so I can understand that."
Second guy? PISSED. As we’re passing him over, he starts screaming obscenities at me, telling me he’s gonna get back in and tear my ass apart. I’ve never been hysterically amused and in somewhat mortal dread at the same time. Some people in front of me want to know what’s going on, so I tell them. I’m a hero in their eyes - one of the kids, who later crowdsurfed because he’s a hypocritical fuck, admitted to also having punched people in the nuts. I explain the situation to Karen and Andy.
That song ends, and soon after, there’s SecondNuts, trying to get by Andy so he can beat my ass. For once, Aaron stuck around and I rabbited. I sought refuge amongst my new followers until Andy scared the guy away for me. Andy described it as such:
SECONDNUTS: ::scoots up to Andy::
ANDY: ::throws out his arm across the kid’s chest, does not move it during the conversation::
SECONDNUTS: ::like he’s just some guy, trying to make his way up to the front:: Hey, I just wanna get up there, man.
ANDY: No. Go back.
SECONDNUTS: Hey, the guy who punched me in the balls is up there!
ANDY: I DON’T CARE. GO BACK.
SECONDNUTS: Hey, man, it’s disrespectful to punch people in the nuts!
ANDY: So? You shouldn’t have been over our heads to begin with. Now, go back before I really try to get involved in your little spat.
SECONDNUTS: ::trying to save face:: I’m gonna head away! Because I’m an adult, and I don’t have to do this!
ANDY: Yeah, I’m sure.
Oh, I love Music Midtown.
Of course, there were many more crowdsurfers. My favorite was the one and only girl who got passed over our heads. Karen told me her perspective on that incident:
"So this stupid chick gets thrown over our heads, and she gets passed on a few people up. I look up, and there’s these hands reaching up and grabbing the crap out of her breasts. Then I look down those hands to the arms, and it’s Adam!"
Hey, you want to crowdsurf over me, you pay the flesh toll - I either assault it or molest the shit out of it. And it wasn’t a nice tender caress, either-I was squeezing both her breasts like I was gonna tear her nipples off or something. I mean, it’s not like I knew her or anything. In my defense, though, I wasn’t the only one molesting every chick that we passed, but I’m not naming names.
One non-violent part of that concert, and I kinda like this one: As the band’s leaving, I feel something hit my chest. I look around on the ground to see what it was, and I find a Smile Empty Soul guitar pick.
Smithereens next. I liked them, but I didn’t like the crowd. Going from a bunch of crazy, way-too-energetic teenagers, to hanging around a bunch of thirty- to fifty-something’s was a big transition. It was like watching all your aunts and uncles partying. We were about twenty feet from the stage, though, so that was cool.. I liked the music, even if their stage presence was scattered here and there. The lead guitarist, Jimmy, was one of the coolest people I’ve ever seen. He was a big fan of this whole propeller-style air guitar strum, which still makes me grin.
Right before the concert, Aaron and I were chatting to this guy who was a little younger than Andy. He knew a little more about the band than I do, so that was fun, but he also told us about collecting guitar picks. Midway through the concert, I see him holding out a guitar pick and catching Mike’s (the bassist) attention. He points to the pick, to himself, and to Mike. Mike nods, keeps on playing. Simple, to the point. I watched this encounter and thought about it for all of two seconds before deciding to try it. I’d already gotten one pick without even trying, so imagine how awesome it would be to actually get one after trying for it.
It was a good little while before I caught Jimmy’s attention, even though I was pretty close to him. He looks down. I point at him, he looks at me. Guitar pick, me, him. He nods and, instead of continuing to play, stops playing during the song and chunks his guitar pick. Unfortunately, he’s about fifteen or twenty feet from the front of the stage, and the wind’s against him, so the pick just comes right back and lands a little bit before the stage. He curses, but the rest of the band ignores him and just keeps on playing. He grabs a pick from his stand and runs to the front of the stage and flings it. The wind works with him, and it goes, according to Andy, a good seventy feet. He says "Holy shit!" pretty loudly - we just saw him mouthing it, but the singer heard it and started laughing. He chunks another one, but I didn’t get it. I got hopeful at the end of the concert, because he chunked another one at the crowd before leaving. It landed in front of the fence, so the guard threw it back. The other pick-guy and I are vying for it, but he gets it in the end, to my chagrin. Ah, well.
That hopeful little moment was pretty awesome, even if I didn’t get what I was going for. I think if I could treat my romantic targets with the same hopeful-but-easy-to-shrug-it-off attitude, I’d do a lot better. That’s it, damn it! All you women are guitar picks!
We headed over to the 99X stage after that and saw The Strokes. I deny that anything whatsoever took place, on the same grounds that I’d have liked Karen to use when discussing that thing she told Micah on the way to Birmingham. Also, I’d probably get my dick cut off for telling anyone about it ever. I will say, however, that though they play very well, this band was fucking boring.
Fortunately, I can talk about the Offspring. The band’s not too bad, except they had their mike down way low. What made that concert memorable was Aaron acting most un-Aaron-like. Karen found out some time Friday night, Saturday morning that Aaron had been raised Mormon, and she’d had no idea about this, even though she’s known him almost as long as she’s known Andy. Chris, you remember how I used to think you were Jewish, until you set me straight? That’s what Karen was going through. That’s about how these last two concerts were for everybody - you think you know someone, and they throw out something new and utterly "well, what the fuck?"
Well, while this story started playing out, I had no idea Aaron would be involved in any way. All I knew was that some really drunk chick came up to me and told me to smile, and things were gravy for me from there. We chatted for a minute, and she decided to tell me that if I wanted to drink or party, she was at [hotel]. I’m thinking, "She’s really drunk, but I’m obviously not going to the hotel." We flirt until she saw her friend, hugged her, gave one of those I-am-way-too-drunk screams, and began to give her a standing lapdance as a joke. I decided, fuck, she’s drunk and wanted me to smile, why not? I stand over one of her legs and start humping the shit out of her crotch. It was like being at Brother’s Bar again. She had no problems with it, of course. She’s grinding me, too, and I’m getting kinda hard along the way. I look over her shoulder and see looks of dismay, shock, and laughter on Karen’s, Andy’s, and Micah’s faces. I just give them the Brodie grin, shrug, and go back to grinding.
So DrunkenWhore grabs Aaron by the arm, says hello, and asks if he wants to dance with her too. I notice that her friend is gone, and she’s implying if Aaron wants to grind her in the ass. To everyone’s complete and utter astonishment, he gets behind her and starts to not just freak-dance with her, but to practically fuck her in the ass through her clothes. She’s grinding him, he’s pumping her furiously, and I’m on her other side humping her like I’ll drill a hole straight to her vagina.
Karen, Andy, and Micah were shocked at Aaron’s actions. (Not mine. They’re used to me getting freaky with skanky girls. Didn’t stop them from lecturing me about it all the way to IHOP, mind you, but still.) Karen and I were the first to notice, though, that our lovely new friend was grabbing pretty much every guy and, as she did with me, telling them her hotel and room number. Complete and utter whore. Not that I minded, of course - hell, when she came back by me a little while later, I took Aaron’s place behind and in her for about five minutes.
I’m gonna get one thing straight up front: Karen and everyone but Aaron were down on us for having a random sexual encounter with a skank, but really, I don’t feel the slightest bit of regret for what I did. I mean, shit, people, good girls don’t engage in that kind of activity spur-of-the-moment, and if having those kind of activities spontaneously means using a girl so drunk and whorish that she’s practically advertising for hotel sex with every drunken redneck she meets, why make my dick suffer for my morals? K&A&M also felt the need to imply that my dating life is bad because I only go after skanks. Not true any more. Sick of them, I want a quality girl now. But this was not dating. It was, as I’ve already said, a completely out-of-nowhere chance to grind with a total stranger. And dammit, she was not ugly, as they said, she was very attractive. If you’re reading this, DrunkenWhore, thank you for a fun time.
Foo Fighters next. Why, oh why, do these guys feel the need to give all but two songs a seven-minute breakdown? Some of those weren’t even new versions of the breakdowns - they just started playing the original breakdown extra-slow. Once, he stopped to chug a beer. Sometimes, he’d just stop and talk in the middle of a song. Seriously, if there’s a band that can get away without doing that, it’s these guys. The fact that they felt like they had to do it every time made it fucking annoying. Plus, these two idiots kept climbing a lightpole and hanging from the light fixtures. To my disgust, though, they managed to climb back down unharmed.
One upside, though: We saw the one and only girl we’d see flashing this weekend, during this concert. Unfortunately, she had her back to us, so we only kinda saw a breast from the side. So I dare Aaron to go ask her to turn around so we can see it. Aaron, who never does anything this ballsy, walks up to the girl, tugs on her shirt (she was still on her boyfriend’s shoulders), and asks her to flash all of us. She laughs, gets her boy to turn around, and gives us all a quick peek. Aaron’s the guy that utterly pusses out when Karen and Andy try to set him up - how the fuck does he just ask some girl to show us her titties? I mean, it’s cool, but it’s out of the ordinary.
About ten minutes before the end of the concert (during yet another breakdown), some stoner came up to me and wanted to chat. I didn’t have anything better to do-the band sucked-so I chatted with him. It’s worth mentioning that we were standing in front of a huge rain puddle.
STONER: Hey, man, why don’t people splash in this mud puddle? I mean, we did it when we were kids!
ME: Well, we’re not kids. I mean, half these people are way too drunk.
STONER: So? That shouldn’t stop them.
ME: Well, they’re drunk and concentrating on how to get their dicks sucked.
STONER: What?
ME: They’re concentrating! On how! To get their dicks! Sucked!
STONER: I don’t get it.
ME: "Hmm, I can splash in a mud puddle...or I can try and get my dick sucked. What should I do?"
STONER: Ohhhh, okay, I get it! They’re trying to suck your dick!
ME: ...NO, not my dick! Their own dicks!
STONER: They want you to suck their dicks?
ME: No! They’re trying to make sure they get their dicks sucked! By someone not me! And that’s why they don’t splash in mud puddles!!
STONER: Ohh! How do you know all that?
ME: I’m what’s known in colloquial terms as a genius!
STONER: Ohh!
How do people stand being that out of their heads?
IHOP after that - it’s a tradition. Unfortunately, when we got there, we were told we’d have to wait on a table, even though most of the tables were empty. It seemed the cooks had twenty orders to make, and we couldn’t sit until someone named Bob gave the okay. We were un-freaking-happy with that. Then we saw a cook storm out of the front door, cursing.
We managed to get in eventually, though. The waitress gave me two sides with my shrimp, and I tried to get the leftovers in a box for later this week, but Andy wouldn’t let me. Ah, well, such is life.
No, fuck, seriously this time: Sleep. Sunday’s way-too-many-details story features Adam nearly breaking his arm trying to touch a vagina, as well as his extremely foolish attempt to partake in a certain clandestine activity one might be able to refer to as 420.