(no subject)
Business as usual.
- Like two weeks ago Liza came down for a belated graduation celebration. Bangin' dinner at Kelly's Tavern, as usual, followed by barhopping on Granby in Norfolk. Hell's Kitchen first, which was dead at the time except for some dude's bachelor party so we bounced over to Scotty Quixx. Chatted and exchanged numbers with a musician guy who was kinda cute until he compared his musical stylings to that of John Mayer. GROSS. And now he won't stop texting/calling me even though I have not once responded. Tried ditching him but he was so damn persistent, but this one really cute bartender saved us and helped us make our escape, haha. Headed over to Granby Theater, where I salsa'd with some random guy and danced to a mega-mix of Michael Jackson. Went back to Hell's Kitchen, but the band playing sucked and I was c-blocked from talking to this really cute tattooed boy I was oogling by some other broad, so we went over to Baxter's. We were there for maybe 10 minutes until I started feeling some really bad juju about the place because it was almost a year ago that I met Matt there and lately I've been feeling shitty about that whole situation...but anyway. It was pretty much closing time at that point anyway, so we stopped by Scotty Quixx again to say bye to our cute bartender and headed out, where we passed by a guy wearing earmuffs and playing the ABC song from a boombox mounted to his shoulder, got hit on by 87353475 drunk dudes, and had a random creeper do a drive-by grope on my collarbone. WTF.
- The following day I FINALLY got the beach day I had been feenin' for since it stopped being buttcold/I started driving past the beach on my way to work. Went to Yorktown beach with Liza, where we basked in the sun gabbing and bullshitting. We got up to take a walk by the shore and started taking goofyass pictures when around one of the dunes came three VERY, VERY GORGEOUS HOTASS TATTOOED ROCKERBOYS. One guy was asked if we needed a picture together, so duh, of course we did...haha. So we got to chatting and turns out they're in a band from Chicago called 1997 and they were going to be playing at Buddha's Place the next night, and they were in search of someone with a boat...because they just wanted to hang out on a boat. Somehow the conversation took a turn toward Liza and I wanting to start a music blog, and they made Liza do an impromptu interview. They asked what we were doing and if we wanted to go grab some beers, so we ended up going with them to meet up with the rest of the band. Liza and I took our stuff back to my car and then followed them to their van, where we sat and bullshitted and smoked and ate Pop Tarts, and then headed back down to the Yorktown Pub. More chatting and bullshitting and making friends with their merchgirl, Jaz, who is awesome. After having a few Red Stripes we went back down to the beach, where Caleb, one of the first guys we met started playing guitar and singing a random song about boats and wanting to get on a boat, while the singer, Kevin, went off to ask random people if they had a boat they could get on. Another random passerby started talking to them and somehow ended up with Caleb's guitar and she started WAILING to some Hendrix on that thing. We were all mightily impressed. Hung out for a bit longer when I noticed it was getting a bit late and I had to work the next day, so we called it a night...but not before Caleb asked for my number. SCORE. So we said our goodbyes and told them we'd be at the show the next night, with plans to do a REAL interview.
- The following night we did, in fact, go see our new friends 1997. When we got there we stopped by and said hey to Jaz, their merchgirl (who is fucking rad), and asked if they ever got on a boat. Which they did, like an hour after we left. DAMNIT. Liza and I went off to try to find the bathroom, and these two like eleventeen year-old girls who were giving us the stinkeye all night long told us to look for the pink door...which took us to a supply closet. Yeah fuck you lameass bitches. Anyway, Liza and I decided to do some shots real quick, when Cody, the guitarist/harmonica...ist?...came over so we ended up buying him a shot. Chatted with various members of the band walking around before the show (Buddha's is super-tiny and there were like, less than 10 people there), and Caleb came by and gave me a hug and talked with him for a minute. I ended up chatting with Cody at the bar while the first band was on - some local kids that 1997 had also met at the beach and had invited to play, but since they didn't have a drummer, Nick from 1997 filled in. And for just having met these kids and not even rehearsing with them, he really pulled it off...even though the band kind of sucked. Anyway, they played for all of 20 minutes, and since one of the bands didn't even show up and the other band who was supposed to play 1997 had kicked off their tour because they were apparently real cockasses, it was just them and 1997. So then 1997 went on and they were fantastic. They were really into what they were doing, lots of energy, even though they were playing for a teeny tiny little crowd. So then Caleb thanked pretty much everyone individually, some girls apparently brought them food, and then he pointed at us and said "Thanks for coming from the beach," haha. Aww. So after they wrapped it up, Liza and I of course bought a ton of merch and left a tip for them to help them out since they're broke, and then we all chatted over beers (or Malibu + ginger in my case). Liza was off talking with Arthi (who is the SWEETEST GIRL EVER, I love her) and Nick while I talked to Cody more. I told them they definitely needed to come back, and since now I actually knew about them I'd definitely promote the hell out of a show, so then we talked about Richmond and venues up there. They were all headed out to Atlanta to play a show the next night, so we all said our goodbyes...I told Caleb and Cody that it was rad randomly running into each other and they said to keep in touch and that they'd be back to see their new friends. Aww. So then Liza and I bounced and headed back to the crib, and then Liza and I said our goodbyes as she headed back home to Maryland.
- Saw the Business in RVA a couple days after that with Keith. Before the show we were hanging out with the Bitch City crew when this gnarlyass thunderstorm rolled in and we all sat around watching the lightning. It had started raining lightly when Keith and I were about to head out, and by the time we got to the door the torrential downpour started. I had parked about a block away from Bitch City so we got completely soaked running to my car. I had my windshield wipers on the highest setting and I STILL couldn't see, and every intersection was like a class 5 rapid. We could've taken a raft and ridden down the rivers forming on the sidewalks all the way down to Shockoe Bottom, haha. So the rain let up a bit by the time we got to the Canal Club. Doors were at 7 and we got there at 7:30...to a group of punk kids telling us they had decided doors were now at 8. So Keith and I huddled under the awning with a bunch of kids for like half an hour and ended up talking about eastern Europe and swine flu with a girl from Russia. So we finally got in, and first up was the Bottle, a hardcore band fronted by the singer for the Christmisfits (Misfits songs Christmas-ified...they do a show for Punks For Presents). Pretty decent, except some old skin who was somehow already piss-drunk started moshing and rammed into a girl beside me (and we were well off to the side mind you, in a pretty small crowd), who knocked into me, causing my full $4 whiskey sour to be crushed into my chest and dumped all over me. Awesome. I was pissed. After that was the Ladies, pretty oldschool style Sex Pistols-esque punk, and I think it was the singer's goal to try to cause a fight, by throwing beer cans into the crowd and spitting beer all over...some of which landed on me, so by the end of the night I smelled like a hooker. But he was hot so that's okay. Up next was Flatfoot 56, also pretty decent but played for way, way too long. I was once again standing off to the side but after the same piss-drunk skin started getting out of control I had to stand pretty much in the back. Lame. Randomly ran into this guy Rick and he bought me another drink for graduating (last time I had seen him was in January or something). Then the Business finally played and it was fucking amazing. So much fun. And I loved how much of a crotchety old man Micky Fitz is. Also, hearing him say "twat" repeatedly was great. And singing along to "Drinking and Driving" with the singer of the Ladies = good times. After the show Keith and I went and hung out with Rick and Ash (another Richmond-by-way-of-Gloucester guy I know from waaay back) for a minute and smoked and had all around good times.
- Friday after work I went back up to RVA to have Ash touch up and put an outline on the heart on my finger, which took all of like, two seconds. Sihf, another tattoo artist there, kept asking me if it hurt yet and I'm like "Uhhhhno is it supposed to?" He told me everyone he ever did a finger tat on were all squirmy and in pain. Bitches. I didn't feel a thing. So Ash asked if I wanted anything else while I was there since I drove from Williamsburg to get 5 minutes worth of work, so I told him I had been wanting to get roses done on my chest. So he drew some up real quick, and the price was right, so I was like "Fuck it, let's do it." Sooo yeah, I got my ninth tattoo. Roses on my chest. I love 'em. And I was quite surprised that it really did not hurt much at all, I was expecting a lot worse. When Ash was finishing up Sihf was talking about my pain tolerance and said he had a job for me, to come be his human punching bag when he was having job stress and he'd pay me in tattoos. He said I look like I could take it, so that momentarily made me feel like a badass, haha.
- Saturday and Sunday was filled with a whole lot of stress from really fucking dumb customers that made me hate humanity. I actually had t go in the back and take a five-minute break to chill out before I snapped on someone. Ugh. Retail.
So that brings us up to speed. Friday is Leftover Crack at the Canal Club, and Agnostic Front at Ottobar in Baltimore on Saturday. Fucking stoked. Aaand next month CIVIL TWILIGHT in DC and Baltimore back-to-back. Even more fucking stoked. It'll be almost a year to the day since I last saw them, and going from seeing them every month to not at all has sucked and it's been way too long. Oh, and forgot to mention, some of my Bravery board girls saw them the day before Liza came down and called me from the show, and then got Steven to leave me a voicemail. SO SWEET. I'm saving it forever and everrrr.
- Like two weeks ago Liza came down for a belated graduation celebration. Bangin' dinner at Kelly's Tavern, as usual, followed by barhopping on Granby in Norfolk. Hell's Kitchen first, which was dead at the time except for some dude's bachelor party so we bounced over to Scotty Quixx. Chatted and exchanged numbers with a musician guy who was kinda cute until he compared his musical stylings to that of John Mayer. GROSS. And now he won't stop texting/calling me even though I have not once responded. Tried ditching him but he was so damn persistent, but this one really cute bartender saved us and helped us make our escape, haha. Headed over to Granby Theater, where I salsa'd with some random guy and danced to a mega-mix of Michael Jackson. Went back to Hell's Kitchen, but the band playing sucked and I was c-blocked from talking to this really cute tattooed boy I was oogling by some other broad, so we went over to Baxter's. We were there for maybe 10 minutes until I started feeling some really bad juju about the place because it was almost a year ago that I met Matt there and lately I've been feeling shitty about that whole situation...but anyway. It was pretty much closing time at that point anyway, so we stopped by Scotty Quixx again to say bye to our cute bartender and headed out, where we passed by a guy wearing earmuffs and playing the ABC song from a boombox mounted to his shoulder, got hit on by 87353475 drunk dudes, and had a random creeper do a drive-by grope on my collarbone. WTF.
- The following day I FINALLY got the beach day I had been feenin' for since it stopped being buttcold/I started driving past the beach on my way to work. Went to Yorktown beach with Liza, where we basked in the sun gabbing and bullshitting. We got up to take a walk by the shore and started taking goofyass pictures when around one of the dunes came three VERY, VERY GORGEOUS HOTASS TATTOOED ROCKERBOYS. One guy was asked if we needed a picture together, so duh, of course we did...haha. So we got to chatting and turns out they're in a band from Chicago called 1997 and they were going to be playing at Buddha's Place the next night, and they were in search of someone with a boat...because they just wanted to hang out on a boat. Somehow the conversation took a turn toward Liza and I wanting to start a music blog, and they made Liza do an impromptu interview. They asked what we were doing and if we wanted to go grab some beers, so we ended up going with them to meet up with the rest of the band. Liza and I took our stuff back to my car and then followed them to their van, where we sat and bullshitted and smoked and ate Pop Tarts, and then headed back down to the Yorktown Pub. More chatting and bullshitting and making friends with their merchgirl, Jaz, who is awesome. After having a few Red Stripes we went back down to the beach, where Caleb, one of the first guys we met started playing guitar and singing a random song about boats and wanting to get on a boat, while the singer, Kevin, went off to ask random people if they had a boat they could get on. Another random passerby started talking to them and somehow ended up with Caleb's guitar and she started WAILING to some Hendrix on that thing. We were all mightily impressed. Hung out for a bit longer when I noticed it was getting a bit late and I had to work the next day, so we called it a night...but not before Caleb asked for my number. SCORE. So we said our goodbyes and told them we'd be at the show the next night, with plans to do a REAL interview.
- The following night we did, in fact, go see our new friends 1997. When we got there we stopped by and said hey to Jaz, their merchgirl (who is fucking rad), and asked if they ever got on a boat. Which they did, like an hour after we left. DAMNIT. Liza and I went off to try to find the bathroom, and these two like eleventeen year-old girls who were giving us the stinkeye all night long told us to look for the pink door...which took us to a supply closet. Yeah fuck you lameass bitches. Anyway, Liza and I decided to do some shots real quick, when Cody, the guitarist/harmonica...ist?...came over so we ended up buying him a shot. Chatted with various members of the band walking around before the show (Buddha's is super-tiny and there were like, less than 10 people there), and Caleb came by and gave me a hug and talked with him for a minute. I ended up chatting with Cody at the bar while the first band was on - some local kids that 1997 had also met at the beach and had invited to play, but since they didn't have a drummer, Nick from 1997 filled in. And for just having met these kids and not even rehearsing with them, he really pulled it off...even though the band kind of sucked. Anyway, they played for all of 20 minutes, and since one of the bands didn't even show up and the other band who was supposed to play 1997 had kicked off their tour because they were apparently real cockasses, it was just them and 1997. So then 1997 went on and they were fantastic. They were really into what they were doing, lots of energy, even though they were playing for a teeny tiny little crowd. So then Caleb thanked pretty much everyone individually, some girls apparently brought them food, and then he pointed at us and said "Thanks for coming from the beach," haha. Aww. So after they wrapped it up, Liza and I of course bought a ton of merch and left a tip for them to help them out since they're broke, and then we all chatted over beers (or Malibu + ginger in my case). Liza was off talking with Arthi (who is the SWEETEST GIRL EVER, I love her) and Nick while I talked to Cody more. I told them they definitely needed to come back, and since now I actually knew about them I'd definitely promote the hell out of a show, so then we talked about Richmond and venues up there. They were all headed out to Atlanta to play a show the next night, so we all said our goodbyes...I told Caleb and Cody that it was rad randomly running into each other and they said to keep in touch and that they'd be back to see their new friends. Aww. So then Liza and I bounced and headed back to the crib, and then Liza and I said our goodbyes as she headed back home to Maryland.
- Saw the Business in RVA a couple days after that with Keith. Before the show we were hanging out with the Bitch City crew when this gnarlyass thunderstorm rolled in and we all sat around watching the lightning. It had started raining lightly when Keith and I were about to head out, and by the time we got to the door the torrential downpour started. I had parked about a block away from Bitch City so we got completely soaked running to my car. I had my windshield wipers on the highest setting and I STILL couldn't see, and every intersection was like a class 5 rapid. We could've taken a raft and ridden down the rivers forming on the sidewalks all the way down to Shockoe Bottom, haha. So the rain let up a bit by the time we got to the Canal Club. Doors were at 7 and we got there at 7:30...to a group of punk kids telling us they had decided doors were now at 8. So Keith and I huddled under the awning with a bunch of kids for like half an hour and ended up talking about eastern Europe and swine flu with a girl from Russia. So we finally got in, and first up was the Bottle, a hardcore band fronted by the singer for the Christmisfits (Misfits songs Christmas-ified...they do a show for Punks For Presents). Pretty decent, except some old skin who was somehow already piss-drunk started moshing and rammed into a girl beside me (and we were well off to the side mind you, in a pretty small crowd), who knocked into me, causing my full $4 whiskey sour to be crushed into my chest and dumped all over me. Awesome. I was pissed. After that was the Ladies, pretty oldschool style Sex Pistols-esque punk, and I think it was the singer's goal to try to cause a fight, by throwing beer cans into the crowd and spitting beer all over...some of which landed on me, so by the end of the night I smelled like a hooker. But he was hot so that's okay. Up next was Flatfoot 56, also pretty decent but played for way, way too long. I was once again standing off to the side but after the same piss-drunk skin started getting out of control I had to stand pretty much in the back. Lame. Randomly ran into this guy Rick and he bought me another drink for graduating (last time I had seen him was in January or something). Then the Business finally played and it was fucking amazing. So much fun. And I loved how much of a crotchety old man Micky Fitz is. Also, hearing him say "twat" repeatedly was great. And singing along to "Drinking and Driving" with the singer of the Ladies = good times. After the show Keith and I went and hung out with Rick and Ash (another Richmond-by-way-of-Gloucester guy I know from waaay back) for a minute and smoked and had all around good times.
- Friday after work I went back up to RVA to have Ash touch up and put an outline on the heart on my finger, which took all of like, two seconds. Sihf, another tattoo artist there, kept asking me if it hurt yet and I'm like "Uhhhhno is it supposed to?" He told me everyone he ever did a finger tat on were all squirmy and in pain. Bitches. I didn't feel a thing. So Ash asked if I wanted anything else while I was there since I drove from Williamsburg to get 5 minutes worth of work, so I told him I had been wanting to get roses done on my chest. So he drew some up real quick, and the price was right, so I was like "Fuck it, let's do it." Sooo yeah, I got my ninth tattoo. Roses on my chest. I love 'em. And I was quite surprised that it really did not hurt much at all, I was expecting a lot worse. When Ash was finishing up Sihf was talking about my pain tolerance and said he had a job for me, to come be his human punching bag when he was having job stress and he'd pay me in tattoos. He said I look like I could take it, so that momentarily made me feel like a badass, haha.
- Saturday and Sunday was filled with a whole lot of stress from really fucking dumb customers that made me hate humanity. I actually had t go in the back and take a five-minute break to chill out before I snapped on someone. Ugh. Retail.
So that brings us up to speed. Friday is Leftover Crack at the Canal Club, and Agnostic Front at Ottobar in Baltimore on Saturday. Fucking stoked. Aaand next month CIVIL TWILIGHT in DC and Baltimore back-to-back. Even more fucking stoked. It'll be almost a year to the day since I last saw them, and going from seeing them every month to not at all has sucked and it's been way too long. Oh, and forgot to mention, some of my Bravery board girls saw them the day before Liza came down and called me from the show, and then got Steven to leave me a voicemail. SO SWEET. I'm saving it forever and everrrr.