Overwhelming pressure has forced me to finally write the NYC show story, so here it is. My adventure started at 1 in the morning the day of the show, as I got in my car and headed for the east coast. It was about a ten hour journey, but it took me a big longer due to my large number of stops. It actually wasn't that bad of a drive though, and I arrived at my friend Ryan's house (in New Jersey) still in a good mood. His friend Alex was there, who I'd never met before. We waited for Pat to arrive, before heading over to Justin "Wallbanger" Keuper's house. When Pat got there I met his mom in an effort to prove to her that I'm not a drug using sex-crazed maniac who was going to corrupt her son. I'm not sure if she was convinced. She did agree to let him in the car with me though, so I guess we accomplished something.We got to Justin's house, and I met him for the first time. We hung out in his basement for a long time, and much hilarity ensued. Pat kept trying to take a picture of me, and was actually sneaky enough to capture one. I don't remember a whole lot of details from what happened (probably because of all the drugs Pat and I were doing...hehe), but I did determine that Justin is really strange.
After a little bit we went over to Ryan's dad's house. I discovered that Ryan has one of those giant trampolines in his back yard! I was quite excited, and insisted that we go jump on it. After we finished jumping on the trampoline we went to go see what Justin and Alex were doing in the garage (they had wandered off while the rest of us were on the trampoline). On the way to the garage I spotted a broken bowling ball from the time that Ryan (and someone else, I forget who) tried to find out what's inside a bowling ball. Turns out it's cement, wow! Learn something new every day.
We went back inside, and Justin proved that he's even crazier than I initially thought. We convinced him to sing for us, and hooked up a microphone so he could sing along to the Queers' "A Day Late and A Dollar Short." It was truly hilarious. We hung out for a while longer, until I had to leave to go pick up Kelley, and actually, I was already a little late.
On the way to NYC, I realized that New Jersey is really stupid. After leaving Ryan's house, I couldn't find the stupid freeway! Well, actually, I found the freeway, but there was only an entrance for the way I didn't want to go! Argh! Finally I was able to get on the freeway, but that was not the end of my troubles. I got off at a rest stop to get some gas, but somehow on my way out, I ended up on some surface road (it was really confusing, I still don't understand how). So I found the freeway again, but once again was faced with the problem of them only having entrances for one direction! Finally I got going in the right direction, but I was extremely frustrated, and even more late. Not good considering I was about to enter New York, the absolute most stressful city in the world.
I got to the Cornell Club where I was supposed to pick up Kel with out any more directional problems, but it took forever because the traffic was really really terrible. Imagine that. I went into the club, and much to my dismay, Kelley wasn't there! I realized that I was a bit late, but I was THOROUGHLY pissed. Not only because I went out of my way and fought extra traffic to get to the place to pick her up, but because I didn't look up directions to the club because SHE HAD THEM. New York is enough to make me mad on it's own, so her ditching me was not a helpful factor. There was nothing I could do about it now though, so I just got back in the car and headed for the club (sort of).
I had the address of the club, but unfortunately, the street it's on isn't on the map. Great! My only choice was to drive aimlessly around Manhatten on Halloween, a night when the city is even more crowded than usual! AHH! I had a vague recolection of where the club was (that is, I remembered it was in the low numbers, 8th, or 3rd, or 5th or something), but that didn't really help all that much. I fought hellish traffic for about 45 minutes, then finally arrived at the club. Unfortunately that was not the end of the hellishness. Next I had to find parking! That took about another hour, literally. Needless to say, when I got to the club, I was NOT NOT NOT happy. To make matters worse, when I arrived the Parasites were just finishing their set. I'd really been looking forward to seeing them, but alas, it would have to wait another night.
I talked to Pat for a few minutes near the door, then went off to find the boys in MTX. I saw Kelley, but since she was about the last person I wanted to see at that moment, I didn't really stop to chat. I said "hi" to Joel, he was pretty busy with the merch table though, and then went off to find Frank. I ran into him near the bar (what a shock!). I told him about my troubles on the way there, and then went off to find Ryan. The club was SO crowded. It sucked. I really don't like that place one bit. After finding Ryan and everyone, we fought our way to the side of the stage to watch MTX.
They were really awesome, and I was able to chill out a little bit about my stressful day. The only thing that sucked was that stupid crowdsurfers kept winding up onstage and knocking into Frank's mic and stuff. At one point Frank started talking about how he tries to be the best Dr. Frank he can be, and he'll try to sing all the lyrics to the songs as much as he can remember, as long as they don't knock over his mic. It was right after "Thank You For Not Being One of Them," so Frank then said [of the crowdsurfer who was being the most obnoxious and kept getting on stage], "I'd just like to point out how ironic his song choice was for that stunt. I'd like to thank the rest of you for not being one of him." Later, these kids in the front row just started beating on that same guy. Now, I don't usually advocate violence, but this guy deserved it!
I'd like to thank the rest of you for not being one of him.Afterwards Ryan and I went downstairs so that I could introduce him to Frank since the doctorate I gave Frank for his birthday was also from him. Joe Queer was downstairs, and I could tell he recognized me, although he didn't remember where from. Luckilly, Joel said, "Hi Rebekah!" so Joe's memory of my name was refreshed. Ryan and I stayed downstairs for a while, and then went upstairs to watch the Queers. They were really awesome! We didn't stick around for the encore though, and headed back downstairs. Unfortunately, there was a stupid security guard there who decided that we didn't have a right to go downstairs anymore. After arguing for a few minutes I convinced him to let us through, but it was still pretty stupid.
We stayed downstairs for a little bit, then went to find Pat and everyone else. The security were being huge jerks, and promptly started kicking everyone out. Everyone was getting stressed out, which sucked. I asked Frank to tell them not to kick me out, and he did and then told me to stand by Jym at the merch table. Jym was getting really stressed out, so I took over selling merch so that he could go get his drums. While I was standing there the security started yelling at me that I needed to get our shit off the walls. I promptly started putting stuff a way, while they insisted that they were doing me a favor by rushing me. Uh-huh. Everyone was running around, while the security guards continued to "help us" by yelling and being total assholes.
The process was made even more difficult by the fact that the street was filled with people. They couldn't be bothered to step out of the way to let all the people carrying heavy equipment get through. Nice. Kel and I were helping MTX carry stuff, and on our way back inside one security guard stopped us and said we weren't allowed in yet. "Um..we were helping to carry equipment" "Well, if you're helping to carry equipment, you need to be carrying something every time you walk in this door!" "Well, we're loading equipment out, so that would be rather counter-productive" He then started apologizing a lot and being really nice. Too bad the other security people's attitudes didn't change that easily.
We all hung out outside after all the equipment was loaded for a little while, but then the bands had to go. Ryan's dad still wasn't there to pick them up, so Kel and I waited with them for a while. Finally after an hour or so his dad showed up. In the meantime we saw some very strange people, including a giant chicken, and some Jesus loving cows. Hmm. After Ryan, Pat and the others left, Kel and I walked to the car. I made Kel drive (a couple hours of driving in New York is more than enough for me), and we headed for her sister's in Philadelphia. Next time I plan on going to the New York MTX show, somebody, please, shoot me!