(no subject)
So I'm back from vacation and had a completely kick ass time.
Unfortunately, my camera was stolen Saturday night so there will be no awesome pictures as promised (sorry leenhead).
That means that you'll all have to settle for my descriptive writing abilities to paint your mental pictures of me living it up in the bay,
Thursday I flew in to Oakland and quickly got denied my rental car because despite being able to reserve a car with a debit card, you need an actual major credit card to do the actual 'renting'. After a long angry discussion with Expedia they assured me that this was stated somewhere in the fine print on their website. I cared little for their excuse as to why they were leaving a skinny white kid stranded all alone in industrial Oakland and told the customer service rep that while I didn't hold her personally responsible, Expedia could lick my balls. Luckily I was able to take the BART out to the end of the line where my buddy Joe was able to take off from work and come pick me up. From there we went and had lunch in Modesto and then he took me out to the winery for him to finish up work. That place is freaking huge. To get an idea of how big, plug this address into google maps:
18000 River Rd, Livingston, CA 95334
After that we hit the town for drinks which was largely uneventful.
Friday I spent all day at the winery tasting wine for hours on end and taking tons of pictures (which you will never see) of incredibly cool industrial equipment and machinery. Because my buddy Joe is one of the wine makers there nobody questioned why I was walking around taking pictures that could probably be sold to their competition (If I wasn't taking random pictures of cool cement textures and hundreds of pipes leading off to nowhere). Friday night we went out for more drinks and eventually ended up at the local Critical Mass party where we danced the night away with cute girls in rollerskates.
Saturday morning/afternoon we headed into SF to meet up with Brandon. I remember drinking a lot which should explain why I don't remember a whole lot else. At some point we ended up at my new friend Larry's place for some BBQ and the opportunity for me to mess up my back screwing around on their trampoline. I think it was in leaving Larry's that I lost my $8 plastic crown that was supposed to be my costume for the show. Oh well. Marco and I played early from 10-11:30pm which I was totally cool with because I didn't want to miss RAW or Meat Beat Manifesto. After walking around the beautifully decorated venue for a bit I walked in on 6Blocc's (RAW's dub-step alias) set. He was dropping chunky beats, but the crowd didn't know what to do with them so I asked if he wanted an MC. He seemed excited about the idea so I plugged in an commenced to rock. By now the crowd was going nuts, and stayed that way for the rest of the set. I must admit, I brought the lyrics to dub-step like I never had before. It was sometime during this set that somebody wandered on stage and grabbed my camera. We both got mad props afterward which has kept a smile on my face ever since despite the loss of hundreds of cool photos. There was a lot of other great acts that night, but the highlight had to be Meat Beat Manifesto who to my surprise were playing a lot of low end organic sounding stuff. Amazing!
Sunday was the Brass Tacks party in Golden Gate Park which was also amazing. Hundreds of people listening to Breaks all day long in the sun, sipping beer and kicking back, dancing and going off in the middle of an inner city park while confused passer-bys wandered by looking perplexed.
Monday & Tuesday were largely spent recuperating and shopping before heading back to the airport. So there you have it. Who needs pictures!
Unfortunately, my camera was stolen Saturday night so there will be no awesome pictures as promised (sorry leenhead).
That means that you'll all have to settle for my descriptive writing abilities to paint your mental pictures of me living it up in the bay,
Thursday I flew in to Oakland and quickly got denied my rental car because despite being able to reserve a car with a debit card, you need an actual major credit card to do the actual 'renting'. After a long angry discussion with Expedia they assured me that this was stated somewhere in the fine print on their website. I cared little for their excuse as to why they were leaving a skinny white kid stranded all alone in industrial Oakland and told the customer service rep that while I didn't hold her personally responsible, Expedia could lick my balls. Luckily I was able to take the BART out to the end of the line where my buddy Joe was able to take off from work and come pick me up. From there we went and had lunch in Modesto and then he took me out to the winery for him to finish up work. That place is freaking huge. To get an idea of how big, plug this address into google maps:
18000 River Rd, Livingston, CA 95334
After that we hit the town for drinks which was largely uneventful.
Friday I spent all day at the winery tasting wine for hours on end and taking tons of pictures (which you will never see) of incredibly cool industrial equipment and machinery. Because my buddy Joe is one of the wine makers there nobody questioned why I was walking around taking pictures that could probably be sold to their competition (If I wasn't taking random pictures of cool cement textures and hundreds of pipes leading off to nowhere). Friday night we went out for more drinks and eventually ended up at the local Critical Mass party where we danced the night away with cute girls in rollerskates.
Saturday morning/afternoon we headed into SF to meet up with Brandon. I remember drinking a lot which should explain why I don't remember a whole lot else. At some point we ended up at my new friend Larry's place for some BBQ and the opportunity for me to mess up my back screwing around on their trampoline. I think it was in leaving Larry's that I lost my $8 plastic crown that was supposed to be my costume for the show. Oh well. Marco and I played early from 10-11:30pm which I was totally cool with because I didn't want to miss RAW or Meat Beat Manifesto. After walking around the beautifully decorated venue for a bit I walked in on 6Blocc's (RAW's dub-step alias) set. He was dropping chunky beats, but the crowd didn't know what to do with them so I asked if he wanted an MC. He seemed excited about the idea so I plugged in an commenced to rock. By now the crowd was going nuts, and stayed that way for the rest of the set. I must admit, I brought the lyrics to dub-step like I never had before. It was sometime during this set that somebody wandered on stage and grabbed my camera. We both got mad props afterward which has kept a smile on my face ever since despite the loss of hundreds of cool photos. There was a lot of other great acts that night, but the highlight had to be Meat Beat Manifesto who to my surprise were playing a lot of low end organic sounding stuff. Amazing!
Sunday was the Brass Tacks party in Golden Gate Park which was also amazing. Hundreds of people listening to Breaks all day long in the sun, sipping beer and kicking back, dancing and going off in the middle of an inner city park while confused passer-bys wandered by looking perplexed.
Monday & Tuesday were largely spent recuperating and shopping before heading back to the airport. So there you have it. Who needs pictures!