a;lkadflgsigjfldj!
alright so my stepdad ended up working yesterday, so I ended up going to abc instead of long island,
awesome!
well, the day started out sort of shitty. emily ran into the ex and they're still friends, obviously, because they knew each other way before I knew her. nothing in particular happened...I just have this problem where every time I'm reminded of his continued existence, and how closely it still overlaps with mine, I get a little bummed out. but I wasn't about to let that totally ruin my day.
you know those friends that I hadn't been able to see in a while, so as to avoid awkwardness? well a few were at the show. and in a totally friendly, comfortable environment, I was actually able to enjoy hanging out with them for a bit. like, gabba, marlon (well, marlon before he got totally wasted...don't worry, that was after abc had closed, I didn't let them drink there), etc.
it was sort of stressful because we were SO FUCKING PACKED, and scrambling to make food and shit, but we took care of that with a bunch of pasta and store bought sauce and there was no harm done. we couldn't really do anything about the enormity of the crowd. so many people had bought their entrance and then left to wander around before actually coming in that it had been hard to keep track of how many we had (the ticker broke). we wound up overdoing it a little.
I missed most of the first couple sets because I was still shaking my icky mood (and eating a really good burrito with lola), but I went in at the very end of detonate (I THINK it was detonate..I know, I'm horrible, I wasn't even entirely certain of the setlist...I know perdition went on first, and then this band, and then a female fronted band, before moderat), to catch them cover killing machine by the partisans (though I got it confused and thought it was a varukers cover at the time, oops), which was fun.
I realized that I just needed to release a lot of fucking energy, so I stuck around for the next set. this band's music wasn't especially spectacular, and I didn't actually like their vocalist that much, but the pit was wild. this is the first time I've been to abc where the VAST majority of the crowd was made up of punxzzxxxzzxzzz types hahahaha. so of course everyone felt the need to get really fucking into it. I got a pretty epic nosebleed that I was rather proud of hahaha. it's still a little tender this morning but it's all good. at that point the violence was still fun, and friendly, and with respect in mind. I had missed that kind of craziness. I've been to some pretty good shit at abc, but nothing has matched the level of intensity from last night since MDC at cakeshop last april. it was satisfying.
I was trying to keep up with my duties in between all this. I feel kind of bad because in the last two weeks I don't feel like I've done much at all. but I did check the backyard periodically and no one was drinking back there (they were definitely drinking SOMEWHERE, but I think everyone had been there before and knew they couldn't on site). And I alerted some other volunteers when I found people (who I knew, boooo) in the show drinking out of an orange carton. I'm fucking AWFUL at yelling at people, so I didn't feel comfortable doing it myself, but I'll work on that, seeing as crowd control is really the bulk of our duty as volunteers.
unfortunately, when moderat likvidation actually came on, things got out of hand rather fast. the pit went from intense to a little scary. obviously a lot of alcohol metabolized in a short period of time because people who were just tipsy before were suddenly raucously drunk or dead weight. these were big ass dudes just plain falling over in the middle of this stomping, jumping, punching, climbing, gyrating entity. at first it was one or two every once in a while, which is to be expected, but then huge 3-5 guy pileups arose as more and more crowdsurfers flung themselves onto everyone's head, more and more people stopped supporting said crowdsurfers and let them down on their ass or head first, and more and more dudes lost the ability to actually pick themselves up. it could have been - and other shows have gotten - much worse, I'm aware. although it wasn't as horrible and ultraviolent as certain stories in the past, it was still legitimately bad in its own right.
and then emma, the essential mother-figure of the volunteer group (besides jon (strfvr), obviously, but emma actually bosses us around) got punched hard in the ear and thrown into the drum kit. and when she attempted to pause the show so she could get out of there and get medical attention, the douchebags in the crowd turned on her. she stormed out and the madness continued. shawn and dave ended up pulling a couple of guys out of there. I ended up sticking around to get further jostled about. I think I was one of two or three girls in the center, at most. I don't really know why I made that decision, I guess because the music was legitimately good, and I wanted to see if I could? I mean, I really, really like mosh pits. like, a lot. but even at the time I could feel that the situation was getting to be too much for me to handle. luckily I held my own and didn't get injured or anything. you live and you learn. next time I know to trust my instincts a little better...when I am seriously intimidated by the level of violence around me, I should probably go ahead and bail. I'll be extra helpful next week to make up for it.
oh boy I'm not even up to after the show yet. well once everyone left the volunteers basically got kicked out, because no one with keys was going to be there and emma was still in a piss poor mood. so I went off with gabba, marlon, emily and camila to get $0.75 cobras with them. marlon started apologizing to me and saying a lot of really nonsensical shit, but I explained to him as best I could in his state that we were cool and that whatever he was worried about was 1) taken care of and 2) completely contained between the people involved, having nothing to do with him. and then he turned on emily and started talking all this shit on her, and at first it was funny, but then we realized he was fucking serious, and then it was just annoying. luckily he and the kid he was with decided to leave to go to st.marks on their own, which left four of us, none of whom were being assholes.
we found this cool park and sat behind a wall while they drank, and talked. it got a little awkward because topics turned to all sorts of depressing shit but we reversed that pretty quickly and I took a break to go chat on the phone for a little while. then the park closed and we all went back to abc, because rich had showed up with a pair of keys and it turns out everyone was pretty much still hanging out there.
pictures of that hooliganism will be posted at some later date, but essentially it was the typical late night at abc, meaning awesome. we discussed weird kinks, then torture and execution methods with nat and gabba (nat's so fucking smart and serious and gabba is so over the top, it was perfect), and then we moved onto a euthanasia debate (that was actually really interesting...this is why I like hanging out with gabe, because when he's not doing his best to irritate everyone around him, he actually brings up some really fascinating, intelligent shit).
then shawn arrived with some dumpstered nunchucks and I have no idea where the fucking conversation went from there. it collapsed into nat beating shawn with these foam toys. much other hilarity ensued, but eventually it was time to go, and me, emily and lola all got a ride with lola's dad back to her house, stopping for pizza along the way (2am food runs ftw).
emily had to leave early to go to arvid's, and lola had to go to pilates, so while I was hanging out in bed with lola, imitating this tough ass puta, now I'm just chillin with daisy (best dog ever), waiting for her to get back.
awesome!
well, the day started out sort of shitty. emily ran into the ex and they're still friends, obviously, because they knew each other way before I knew her. nothing in particular happened...I just have this problem where every time I'm reminded of his continued existence, and how closely it still overlaps with mine, I get a little bummed out. but I wasn't about to let that totally ruin my day.
you know those friends that I hadn't been able to see in a while, so as to avoid awkwardness? well a few were at the show. and in a totally friendly, comfortable environment, I was actually able to enjoy hanging out with them for a bit. like, gabba, marlon (well, marlon before he got totally wasted...don't worry, that was after abc had closed, I didn't let them drink there), etc.
it was sort of stressful because we were SO FUCKING PACKED, and scrambling to make food and shit, but we took care of that with a bunch of pasta and store bought sauce and there was no harm done. we couldn't really do anything about the enormity of the crowd. so many people had bought their entrance and then left to wander around before actually coming in that it had been hard to keep track of how many we had (the ticker broke). we wound up overdoing it a little.
I missed most of the first couple sets because I was still shaking my icky mood (and eating a really good burrito with lola), but I went in at the very end of detonate (I THINK it was detonate..I know, I'm horrible, I wasn't even entirely certain of the setlist...I know perdition went on first, and then this band, and then a female fronted band, before moderat), to catch them cover killing machine by the partisans (though I got it confused and thought it was a varukers cover at the time, oops), which was fun.
I realized that I just needed to release a lot of fucking energy, so I stuck around for the next set. this band's music wasn't especially spectacular, and I didn't actually like their vocalist that much, but the pit was wild. this is the first time I've been to abc where the VAST majority of the crowd was made up of punxzzxxxzzxzzz types hahahaha. so of course everyone felt the need to get really fucking into it. I got a pretty epic nosebleed that I was rather proud of hahaha. it's still a little tender this morning but it's all good. at that point the violence was still fun, and friendly, and with respect in mind. I had missed that kind of craziness. I've been to some pretty good shit at abc, but nothing has matched the level of intensity from last night since MDC at cakeshop last april. it was satisfying.
I was trying to keep up with my duties in between all this. I feel kind of bad because in the last two weeks I don't feel like I've done much at all. but I did check the backyard periodically and no one was drinking back there (they were definitely drinking SOMEWHERE, but I think everyone had been there before and knew they couldn't on site). And I alerted some other volunteers when I found people (who I knew, boooo) in the show drinking out of an orange carton. I'm fucking AWFUL at yelling at people, so I didn't feel comfortable doing it myself, but I'll work on that, seeing as crowd control is really the bulk of our duty as volunteers.
unfortunately, when moderat likvidation actually came on, things got out of hand rather fast. the pit went from intense to a little scary. obviously a lot of alcohol metabolized in a short period of time because people who were just tipsy before were suddenly raucously drunk or dead weight. these were big ass dudes just plain falling over in the middle of this stomping, jumping, punching, climbing, gyrating entity. at first it was one or two every once in a while, which is to be expected, but then huge 3-5 guy pileups arose as more and more crowdsurfers flung themselves onto everyone's head, more and more people stopped supporting said crowdsurfers and let them down on their ass or head first, and more and more dudes lost the ability to actually pick themselves up. it could have been - and other shows have gotten - much worse, I'm aware. although it wasn't as horrible and ultraviolent as certain stories in the past, it was still legitimately bad in its own right.
and then emma, the essential mother-figure of the volunteer group (besides jon (strfvr), obviously, but emma actually bosses us around) got punched hard in the ear and thrown into the drum kit. and when she attempted to pause the show so she could get out of there and get medical attention, the douchebags in the crowd turned on her. she stormed out and the madness continued. shawn and dave ended up pulling a couple of guys out of there. I ended up sticking around to get further jostled about. I think I was one of two or three girls in the center, at most. I don't really know why I made that decision, I guess because the music was legitimately good, and I wanted to see if I could? I mean, I really, really like mosh pits. like, a lot. but even at the time I could feel that the situation was getting to be too much for me to handle. luckily I held my own and didn't get injured or anything. you live and you learn. next time I know to trust my instincts a little better...when I am seriously intimidated by the level of violence around me, I should probably go ahead and bail. I'll be extra helpful next week to make up for it.
oh boy I'm not even up to after the show yet. well once everyone left the volunteers basically got kicked out, because no one with keys was going to be there and emma was still in a piss poor mood. so I went off with gabba, marlon, emily and camila to get $0.75 cobras with them. marlon started apologizing to me and saying a lot of really nonsensical shit, but I explained to him as best I could in his state that we were cool and that whatever he was worried about was 1) taken care of and 2) completely contained between the people involved, having nothing to do with him. and then he turned on emily and started talking all this shit on her, and at first it was funny, but then we realized he was fucking serious, and then it was just annoying. luckily he and the kid he was with decided to leave to go to st.marks on their own, which left four of us, none of whom were being assholes.
we found this cool park and sat behind a wall while they drank, and talked. it got a little awkward because topics turned to all sorts of depressing shit but we reversed that pretty quickly and I took a break to go chat on the phone for a little while. then the park closed and we all went back to abc, because rich had showed up with a pair of keys and it turns out everyone was pretty much still hanging out there.
pictures of that hooliganism will be posted at some later date, but essentially it was the typical late night at abc, meaning awesome. we discussed weird kinks, then torture and execution methods with nat and gabba (nat's so fucking smart and serious and gabba is so over the top, it was perfect), and then we moved onto a euthanasia debate (that was actually really interesting...this is why I like hanging out with gabe, because when he's not doing his best to irritate everyone around him, he actually brings up some really fascinating, intelligent shit).
then shawn arrived with some dumpstered nunchucks and I have no idea where the fucking conversation went from there. it collapsed into nat beating shawn with these foam toys. much other hilarity ensued, but eventually it was time to go, and me, emily and lola all got a ride with lola's dad back to her house, stopping for pizza along the way (2am food runs ftw).
emily had to leave early to go to arvid's, and lola had to go to pilates, so while I was hanging out in bed with lola, imitating this tough ass puta, now I'm just chillin with daisy (best dog ever), waiting for her to get back.
