Coming Clean

You know, sometimes, I can be a real ass-hole. Maybe not in the Mooninite sense – it’s not like I do whatever I want to whomever I want, at all times (obscure reference, my apologies). What I’m getting at is that I’m not a traditional or even a frequent ass-hole, but I certainly have the capacity. As a sort of self-exploration exercise, I thought I’d talk about the flaws that I see in myself.

Which brings me to my first one, I’m terribly afraid of confrontation. Physical, emotional, whatever – I hate to fight, and I hate it when people are angry with me. I’ve never really had to deal with physical confrontation, as I don’t pick fights or do anything to piss someone off that much. Well, there was that one time that Carrie convinced me to try and sneak into a TKE party with her to find Christina. We knocked over the big plank that was blocking the back entrance and then I had an angry brother bearing down on me. I paid $10 (though the cover would’ve only been $6 – but I wasn’t going ask for change) in order to avoid the ass kicking I assumed I would receive. I digress.

Like I was saying, most of my confrontations are emotional ones, and they usually have to do with Vicki. I usually do everything I can to stop a fight as soon as one starts. I’d rather let an issue lie than try to fix a problem that seems unsolvable. This is linked to my next problem: I lie like a bastard.

Not big lies, really. I do tell white lies pretty constantly, working under the “what they don’t know won’t hurt them logic.” A lot of things I lie about are things that I do that might hurt someone’s feelings or something someone asked me to do that I just haven’t gotten to yet. I generally feel that people’s feelings get hurt because they assume things that just aren’t true, so I go about doing whatever I want to do and then lie to cover them up. Unfortunately, I’m either a terrible liar or Vicki is an excellent lie detector, because I rarely get away with things. It truly is unfortunate, too, because sometimes she takes offense and assumes that I must be feeling a certain way towards her that, while I understand why she may think that, it simply isn’t the case. I’d be happy to share examples as embarrassing as they may be, but I don’t think that Vicki would approve, so that’s that. Next issue!

I’m pretty selfish. It’s an awkward thing really, because I really am a very generous person, in a material sense. When I have money, I throw it around like no ones business. Sadly, I rarely have money, so I look like a cheapskate often enough. Someday, I’ll repay my debts, that much I swear. I’m more emotionally selfish – insensitive, if you will. I couldn’t tell you why, but I seem almost incapable of putting myself in someone else’s emotional shoes. The most common example is, of course, with Vicki and I. I’ll do something and really not think about it how it may affect her. For instance, we always fight about how I don’t do enough nice things for her – you know, flowers, cards, and all that stuff. Myself, I’m the kind of person that feels happy to just be with her, and I fail to consider that she may need more than that. The way I see it, I’m happy with just being together with her, why can’t she be? It’s sweet and all, but really quite unfair. See, I told you I’m a jerk.

I’m the same way with people’s stuff. Like, if someone lets me borrow something or lends me some money, I’m gracious but I’m never overwhelmed by their kindness. I feel that way because I know that I would do the same for them if given a chance. Three of my biggest debts: Jim and Jeff let me crash at their place for a whole summer, rent free, and Jim gave me a ride into work every morning. If I had an apartment to myself, I would be glad to let any of my friends crash there for any period of time. This past summer, Brian let me use his car while he was in California, and I put quite a few miles on it. Had the roles been reversed I would have done the same for him. The third is to Vicki, who’s done more nice things for me than I count. To her, I owe everything – and one day, I hope to give her just that.

So, for those of you who know me, if I ever seem like I don’t appreciate something that you’ve done for me, don’t fret. I truly do appreciate all the kindness I’ve been given, and I promise that I will honor all debts to the best of my abilities. This will probably sound terrible, but part of the reason I may come off as an ingrate is because… I almost expect kindnesses from others. Part of it is probably because I’ve always been treated well, but another part of it is because I’m naïve enough to believe that a lot of people are as generous as I am with material things. I feel like I would do nice things for people, so I expect that they will do nice things for me. It sounds stupid, I know – but try me. I am no deadbeat.

What else… I’m pretty stoic. Look if up if you don’t know it. Dictionary.com is wonderful. Anyways – I’m not sure if stoicism is really a flaw. Depends who you ask, I suppose. I’m not terribly emotional or affectionate towards pretty much anything. I’ve definitely grown more affectionate, but I still don’t talk about or show my emotions so much. I’m lukewarm with just about everything – I’m rarely really excited or really sad – just shades of those feelings. I think I’ve cried maybe once since adolescence, though I’ve come close a few times. Some people have said that I seem emotionless, but that’s not the case at all. It’s really just a matter of how I display my feelings – I don’t. I do feel things, I just don’t often find it necessary to share my feelings. It’s like what I said in my first post on this Blog – I just don’t believe that my stories (or my feelings) could be that interesting to others.

Which is ironic, really, because I’m really very arrogant. Arrogant to a fault, even. It’s not the sort of arrogance where I believe I’m better than everyone else, or the vanity where I admire my own abilities. I used to have a horrible self-image. My arrogance is very centralized one – there are certain things that I know I am good at and certain instances where I believe I am always right.

Why do you think I failed out of college? Arrogance. Some people claim it was laziness, and I’ll admit that that had something do with it. With all honesty, however, I believe that the primary factor in my fall from the pillars of academia was, without a doubt, arrogance. I don’t believe that I’m good looking, I don’t believe that I’m strong, I know I have little common sense, but one thing that I know for certain is that I am fucking smart. See what I mean? I’m a cocky son-of-a-bitch about some things.

The reason I flunked out was not that I was not smart enough or that I was too lazy. My failure was primarily based on arrogance and a lack of passion. I was an English major – which basically means that I would read a book, go to class, and then talk about the book. I’d write a few papers and maybe take a final, and that was that. I struggled through most of my classes because they were so painfully boring. Soon enough, I just stopped going. Sometimes I didn’t even read the books. I would just bluff my way through some papers and if I came out with a C or better, I was happy. Considering that I put about an E-level of effort into some of these papers, getting a C just reinforced my cockiness. I wasn’t proud of a C, but I wasn’t here to impress anybody – I was here to get a degree so that everyone would pat me on the head and tell me I was a good kid.

That was the other thing – a lack of passion. I really wasn’t in college for the right reasons. I wasn’t there to learn. It’s not that I didn’t want to learn anything – I just didn’t care for having books written by long-dead authors chewed up and regurgitated at me, picked apart and overanalyzed, as “academics” tend to do. If you couldn’t tell, I’m really rather bitter about the whole academia thing – I think that some people think they’re too smart and frankly just rape all the joy right out of good literature with all their analyzing. Then there are others who think they’re too smart and that they see some hidden goodness in books that are just bad writing. My final paper for my Literary Theory class was about how stupid Literary Theorists were. Isn’t that priceless?

After my first couple of semesters, professor’s attendance policies grew stricter as my attendance dwindled. The first dismissal came, but I got an appeal. It didn’t even faze me. A written appeal? That’s another area where I am arrogant… I consider myself a pretty good wordsmith. People have told me that since I’ve been writing – I have a way with words. I employed them well, and I bluffed my way into another semester at Geneseo. I was even brazen enough to tell the committee overseeing my dismissal exactly what I’ve written here – I don’t go to class because I’m too arrogant. I’m really quite brutally honest when it’s appropriate.

So I went back for another semester, but I never wanted to be there for academic reasons. I went back because my life was at Geneseo now, because Vicki and my parents would be disappointed if I didn’t, because I would be “just another loser” without a degree. I rarely felt like I was learning while I was at college. I really didn’t care. If I had had more common sense, I’d have done well enough to stay and make living arrangements easier out here. But my heart just wasn’t in it. So I failed again, and this time I was dismissed for real – but damn, I put up a good fight. That’s a story for another time – I’m already running pretty long here.

Anyway, I think I’ve run out of bad things to say about myself for the time being. Wait – one less thing. I have a tendency to forget about people when they aren’t there. I did it with my friends at home, I did it with my friends from freshman year, and I may just do it to my friends here when we part ways. I really feel sorry for that – if any of you are reading this, I’m sorry that I haven’t kept in touch as much as I should. It’s like I said, I’m an ass-hole sometimes. I’m going to try and be better – but if I don’t, forgive me. I’m as bad at goodbyes and I am at reunions, so if I’ve faded out of your life, I’m sorry – but know that you are not forgotten. Thanks.

Peace,
Mike

Jobs Galore

Up until today I had been in a sort of employment limbo.

As I mentioned before, I was doing landscaping work under a woman named Arlene Farmer who ran this little company called "Doing It All Enterprises," until she started getting shady. Here's the story:

Towards beginning of the summer, Vicki's friend Kerri told her about the landscaping job that she had gotten through an employment agency, and that her boss (Arlene) was looking for some more help, so Vicki joined the crew and started working. At this point I was still working at glorious Pizza Hut for about the third month (about three months too long). After a few weeks, Vicki told me that Arlene might still need more help, so I got on the bandwagon and quit Pizza Hut to start working full-time for Arlene. As I understood it at the time, my help would probably be needed full-time for a few weeks, then on-and-off as work started to dwindle at the end of the season.

The first couple of weeks working with Arlene were fine. I was getting good excercise, good money, and Arlene seemed like a very friendly and caring sort of person. Then things started to go downhill.

Maybe three weeks in, Vicki told me that Kerri had told her that Arlene had said (yeah, I know, it may not be 100% reliable) that I worked too slow and she would have to let me go if I didn't improve. That could me by surprise; I thought I was doing all right, especially for someone with no real experience. I felt that I went slow because I was thorough, as Arlene had told me the first day I worked, "My customers like me do it meticulous, so that's what I'm known for."

Things went on, and around this time, Arlene started her "I don't have enough money routine." Every week on payday, and sometimes other days, she would complain, saying "You guys are killing me, I don't have enough money to pay you," and so on. She always did pay us although one week she didn't pay me overtime that I had earned (that week, she asked Kerri if she'd work for no overtime, Kerri said yes, but she never asked me). Now mind you, Arlene makes at least $50 an hour when we work. I'm not sure if that's $50 for each of us, or $50 for a two-man team, but that's still at least $30 profit for each hour that we work. Now, if you subtract transit times and gas, etc. she's still making at the very, very least $15 every hour (probably closer to $20-25)... from each of us!

Add that to the fact that at least two days a week, often more, Arlene would leave to run various errands while we worked -- running to the bank, the DMV, to talk to a client about an estimate, etc. So many days Arlene was profitting $30 an hour for driving around while we worked out in the hot sun for between $8 and $11 an hour. But that was okay. We complained about it to each other... it was sorta like a bonding experience, bitching about Arlene. A lot of days we'd go get ice cream at this great place called the Big Moo and just complain about our boss.

We did discover what may have been a big cause of Arlene's supposed financial situation. The woman didn't send her bills to her clients for like a month after the job was done, and it sometimes too months after that for her to collect! That, or she just has an insatiable crack addiction or something that she is trying to feed.

Despite all of Arlene's complaining, she soon hired one her client's sons, Ben. Ben was a pretty cool guy, a little quiet but a video-game fan like myself, so we got along well enough. Anyways, the first couple of days that Ben worked, he went painfully slow... and what did Arlene say: "I like the work he does, he's very meticulous." That pissed me off a bit, given that I had heard that I was about to lose my job for that. On top of that, another complaint that we all had was that Arlene rarely ever complimented us on a job that we had done. Often, the clients, if they were home, would say "thanks" and "beautiful job" and all, but never Arlene. Arelene had nothing but criticisms, generally. We never seemed to do anything well enough on the first try.

After a few weeks of this, Arlene told us that she was running out of work (so why did you hire another person?), and there's was a week where we probably wouldn't have any work before going back on part time. Now of course, Arlene had told Vicki that she would need her for the whole summer, full-time. Still, we weren't too worried at this point -- by this point, we were used to Arlene either lying or exaggerating or just having no idea what she was talking about. We were going to take that week off to go back to my home in the Albany area, though Vicki got real sick and we ended up staying at home.

When we called Arlene before going back on Monday, she said she'd have to "find work for us." We would later find out that Kerri, Ben and Arlene's cousin, Tom, had worked that day. We had both started before Ben and Tom, so we didn't know why they should get preference over us. But wait! There's more! We would later discover that Arlene apparently said, "I thought I made it clear to them that they were done."

...

Both Vicki and I clearly remember, the last thing that Arlene said to use before we left on the previous Friday was: "Bye guys, enjoy your week off." Maybe I'm dumb, but I fail to understand how anyone could interperet that as "I'm sorry, I'm not going to need you anymore."

Nonetheless, Arlene found us some work for the next two days. On the third day, Vicki called her up to confront her on all this bullshit. She got absolutely nowhere. Arlene insisted that Vicki had "betrayed her trust" by not telling her that was going back to school (Vicki and Kerri both remember making it clear to her), she maintained that I was still slow, went on about how her sister was dying of cancer and she could have to drop her business at any moment -- whatever that has to do with anything. She was also upset at us for not being available during our "week off." She had asked if we'd be available to work Monday or Tuesday on our week off, but I had had to take Vicki to the doctor on Monday and then be with her on Tuesday. Nevermind the fact that asking us to work those days completely contradicts her whole story of getting rid of us.

Oddly, we ended up working for her that day and the next, and things went on as though nothing had happened. I got a chance to work with her cousin Tom. A friendly enough guy, if a little... well, thick. He had apparently just gotten out of prison for some dispute with his wife. He was taking care of two kids, he needed the money, sure. Kerri had told us that almost every day that she worked with him, he would complain all day about the hard work, say he didn't make enough money, and sometimes just take random breaks for like a half hour (on top of just plain being slow). He also apparently asked Arlene for a raise from the $9 he already made -- which was more than I had made to start and as much as Vicki had been raised to. Not to mention, Arlene told Vicki during their conversation on the phone that she only paid Tom $7!

On payday, Arlene spent at least an hour arguing with Tom about how much she owed him. He insisted 33 hours, though Arlene had recorded only 29. Arlene was right, but even after she showed him the math, he still insisted he deserved more. Oh, did I mention that Arlene also told Vicki that Tom was a good, fast worker? As far as I could see, he was slow, complained too much, ran his mouth instead of working, and hassled Arlene over pay. If I recall correctly, he also showed up significantly late a couple of times. I don't know why she'd want to pay an extra dollar an hour for that over me or Vicki who worked at least as fast and didn't give her a hassle.

As it stands, Kerri and Tom are still working for Arlene, I don't know about Ben. I called her at the beginning of this week, since Kerri and Vicki had gone to Virginia for the week and I thought I might be able to get some hours, but no luck. Back to the drawing board.

---

Thank god for Monster.com. I applied to seven or eight places, and within the past two days I've secured one job and gotten three more offers. As of August 18th I'll be employed by ADT Security, making $9.30 an hour. Nothing to jump for joy at, but not too shabby either. I've got to check into these other opportunities and then take a drug test for the ADT people tomorrow, but at least I have some security. Now if I can just get the $20 I have now to last until the week of the 18th... :)

Peace,
Schmitty

Rolling Rock Town Fair V

Ah, bad luck. It does make for good stories. This story is not all about bad luck though... it was mostly good, actually. I only mention the bad luck thing because I've feel like I've had more bad luck in this summer than I've had in my whole life. I'd had it pretty easy though, so I suppose that I'm due for a little misfortune. It's really starting to make me superstitious, though. My bad luck didn't start until after a black cat crossed my path, and since then another black cat has done the same and I broke a mirror. Oi.

This weekend I went to the Rolling Rock Town Fair in Latrobe, PA. I had been planning to go to the show, but then my money and my work dried up and it was looking like the trip wasn't going to an option. I had talked to my cousin Chris and my friend Justin from back home (in the Albany area, north-eastern New York) about going, though, and they still wanted to make the trip, and fortunately, Chris was willing to front me the $50 ticket price. Problem was, however, that by the time we figured all of this out, it was just three days before the show, so getting tickets through "normal" means was pretty much out of the question.

I did a fairly rigorous search for tickets, e-mailed five or six people who were selling tickets on Ebay and through other sites, but no luck. Chris seemed sure that we'd be able to get tickets from scalpers, but I was wary of making the five hour trip down to southern Pennsylvania just to sit in the car all day while they enjoyed a show. I was hesitant, but I agreed and hoped that some good luck would come my way.

Chris and Justin came up on Friday evening (the show was Saturday), driving five hours across New York state, and there was another five hours to drive down to the Westmoreland County fairgrounds in Latrobe, PA, where the show was taking place. Of course, we didn't take the opportunity to sleep, really, despite the fact that we would have to leave at about 4 AM in order to get to the show at a decent time. I was eager to get their early, as I figured that'd make for better chances of finding scalpers.

Instead of sleeping, though, we went down to Rochester with Al, Ryan and Jen (Jenn? I dunno) to this Asian-ish restaurant called Aja Noodle and to Milestones, a bar with live music by some pretty decent jazz/funk-type bands. The restaurant was pretty good and the music was too, though it seemed like Justin wasn't very into it, so I felt bad for that. I also had to pay an extra $2 for the cover charge, and almost didn't get in at all because I didn't have an ID. You see, Vicki had hidden my wallet on me because she wanted me to clean the room (I never really moved in to the room we're staying in, as I knew I was just going to have move again in a couple months, so there're clothes and things just all around, not really organized). Since I couldn't find my license, I couldn't prove I was at least 18 (which they required), so I almost didn't get in at all. Fortunately, the bouncer was cool about it and let me in without much hassle.

Justin, Chris and I hung out in the back and played some darts and pool, then Chris left for a walk and Justin and I got randomly accosted by a joke-telling, cracked-out bum on a bicycle. I wasn't sure if he was actually going to ask for money, but sure enough, after his little "routine" he asked for $2.75. For what, exactly? I dunno, I couldn't understand much of what he said. Some of his jokes were kinda funny, if a little insensitive (before you get too offended, he was black, I'm mixed, and Justin is white... so we've got all our racial bases covered):

"Why doesn't a black man like blowjobs?" ... ... ... "Because he doesn't like any kind of job."
"What do you call an elevator full of white folks?" ... ... ... "A box of crackers."
"What do you call a black person living in Ireland?"... ... ... "A lepre-coon."

Racist? Sure. But all in good fun, really. You gotta learn to laugh at yourself.

So we get home from Milestones at about 1:45 and attempt to sleep after deciding that we're going to leave at 4 AM. Mind you, Chris had gotten only about two hours of sleep the night before, as well. This particular night, Vicki and her friend Kerri had gone out to Kelly's (a local bar), so it had occurred to me that there may be drunken loudness later in the night. Lo and behold... there was some drama. Vicki and Kerri came home with a couple of random other guys (I think they were twins, maybe?) and they were quite loud and generally obnoxious. Long story short, we maybe got in 20 minutes of sleep between the lot of us.

When we left, a little after 4, I started out driving as I had woken up at like 1 PM the day before, so I was still somewhat awake. We hit up the convenience store for some energy drinks and snacks and began the long-ass drive down to Latrobe.

It was so disheartening when I finally reached the end of I-90 and was about to work my way down to Pittsburg... and realized it was still 130 miles away. And Latrobe was still well beyond that. I ended up driving for about 4 hours, then Chris took over for the last hour. We finally reached the airport where we were supposed to park and then catch a shuttle to the actual fairgrounds. We later discovered that the parking pass that Chris had purchased would have allowed us to go up and park right outside the fairgrounds themselves. In fact, the cop who was directing traffic near the airport directed us past the parking area and toward the fairground, but we had no idea and basically just took a twenty minute detour. Oops.

When we got into the parking area, there was about three guys standing out in the rain (it had rained nearly all the way from Buffalo down to Latrobe, and continued to rain on and off all day). They were holding signs saying "Need Tickets!" and the like, and I got more than a little worried that I wasn't going to get in. We board the shuttle anyways, Chris still confident we'll find something, and after another twenty minutes riding on a school bus to the fairground, we finally reached our destination... Now just to find a ticket.

I was in luck. Very good luck, in fact... After wandering around for just a few minutes we ran across a group of people who asked if we needed a ticket. We said we did, and offered $50 for it... but they just gave it to us instead. So not only did a get a ticket, but I got it for free. To top it off, the rain had stopped, and I thought we were in for a nice, warm day. I was wrong about the second part, but hey, one outta two ain't bad.

So we make our way through the fairgrounds... it was quite a bit bigger than I was expecting. I thought I heard Finger Eleven playing, so I was eager to get to the stage. We follow the music to get to the stage and look for away down into the lower pit area. I'm the only real Finger Eleven fan among the three of us, and I really want to see these guys. They've already been playing for awhile, so I'm a bit annoyed when Chris wants to sit down to get out of the rain. This is coming from the guy who was in the Army, a cavalry scout no less. I suppose he just wasn't as interested in F11 as I was and he said he wanted to get out of the rain.

After one song, I get sick of sitting and bitch at Chris some more for sitting. Justin and I head down to the ground level and Chris goes to get some beer and says he'll meet us down there on the right side. There's a massive hill leading down into the pit area, and the rain has made the a big, maybe twenty-foot stretch is just mud. People have started sliding down it, and there are people absolutely covered in mud already. It reminded me of the Smashing Pumpkin's video for "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" (am I thinking of the right video?).

I get down there to hear the last song from F11, and I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't get to see more of them. They rocked for when I saw them, though the singer, Scott, didn't seem to be a very active frontman -- which I consider an intergral part of a great stage show. Ah well.

So the stage is tricked out with this huge rotating platform so that there's less setup time and bands can start sound checks and stuff while other bands are performing, so its not long before Three Days Grace takes the stage.

I've got mixed feeling about Three Days Grace... on the one hand, "I Hate Everything About You" is a good emotion-driven tune, but the second single "Just Like You" is so lyrically shallow that I really can't bring myself to like it that much. Those are the only two songs I knew before this show, but I was overally very happy with their performance. They definately rocked, although there was some sound trouble during their set where the speakers kept completely cutting out. That got some boos from the crowd, but there's nothing much to be done for it... the band still kicked some ass, and I'm seriously considering picking up their album now.

Finch was the next act to perform. I hadn't really heard of Finch or any of their music, except for a sample from the Fair's website. The best description I'd heard was "Screamo," and that definately seemed accurate. The band was decent, though their vocals weren't nearly loud enough and got completly drowned out by their guitars. Anything that could be said about the music, however, was lost in what happened before Finch started playing.

I didn't see the whole thing, but suddenly a fight, like a big old melee, breaks out on stage. I couldn't tell who was fighting, but I did see Finch guitarist Randy whacking someone with a guitar. It was like something out a movie, it was just messed up. Security breaks up the fight, but not before there are five or six people are involved. Nothing more is said before Finch starts playing, but the band clears off the stage pretty quick and the show goes on. I was somewhat disappointed that anyone was fightning, I think that fighting is stupid... but there is certainly something to be said for defending those you love. Since I don't know all the facts, I'm not going to say "Finch sucks" like so many braindead fanatics are. I still have respect for both bands... and I hope they just stay out of each other's way in the future.

In other news, the lead singer of Finch looks a hell of a lot like my friend Zink. Those of you who know him, check it out: http://www.mcarecords.com/MCAImageUpload/739915-Full.jpg... The guy kneeling in the front... I swear he looks like Zink.
Some others:
http://www.mcarecords.com/MCAImageUpload/739904-Full.jpg
http://www.mcarecords.com/MCAImageUpload/739899-Full.jpg

Next in the line-up was... it's sad, but I can't remember. Lemme look it up real quick... ... ... I guess it was Sevendust, though I feel like they came on later in the show. I dunno. Anyway, Sevendust is a great band, though I haven't been keeping up with them really since "Home." I don't really like their newest single "Enemy" as much as some of their other tunes, but their set was still great. Lajon, the singer, has an amazing voice whether he's singing bone-crunching aggro-rock or something soft like their tribute song, "Angel's Song."

Hoobastank was next up on the bill. Hoobastank, in my opinion, is an underappreciated rock band. They get lumped in with the whole "nu-metal" wave and kinda lost among all those carbon copies. They're really better than that. Then there's "The Reason"... a find song, but the radio and the music channels raped the fuck out of that song. God, I'm tired of that song. It's good, but it ain't that good. I was hoping they wouldn't play it, but they did... the crowd dug on it anyways, so it was good. They played a good amount of songs from both of their albums and they absolutely got the crowd into it. Whenever I tell others about Hoobastank, I usually describe it as "high energy, straighforward rock," and that's just what it is. It's all about the energy, and the Hoobastank had everyone moving. Second best performace of the show, in my opinion.

By this time, everyone up in the front was covered in mud. People had taken to throwing mud and various mud-covered articles of clothing, so if you were in the front, you were getting dirty. It was kinda fun, very chaotic... the problem was, as always, some people just had to be ass-holes. Most people would chuck mud up in the air and let it rain down, but of course some fuckheads had to chuck it like they were trying to hurt someone. It never fails. It's like mosh pits. Most people get in there to jump around and have some fun, but there's always someone who has to swing his arms around and try to clobber everyone.

After Hoobastank, the Crystal Method came on. While I find occassion to listen to techno, I wasn't particularly interested in their live show, show Justin and I went back up the hill to get some eats. We still hadn't found Chris, and we'd pretty much given up. The same thing happened when I went to a Disturbed show last year -- Chris just went off and I never saw him for the whole show.

So by this time, the mudslide had expanded to more than twice its original size. We scaled back up the muddy hill toward the vending stands. I bought some chicken tenders and a 20oz. Mountain Dew... for $7. Now mind you, the "tenders" were about the size of $1 Menu McDonald's chicken nuggets. So I got about $2.50 worth of food and drink for $7. Not that I'm bitter.

We went back down for the last couple of Crystal Method songs, and I managed to push forward in the crowd until I finally found Chris. He was quite drunk and a bit stoned, and having a hell of a time. After TCM was done playing, we all walked up to the main entrance area so Chris and Justin could get some beer. The beer was ridiculously over priced, too -- $5 a cup. This, I might remind you, is in Latrobe, home of Rolling Rock... you'd think they could give out some cheap beer with their $50 tickets.

N.E.R.D. came up next, but I didn't get a chance to see them since I was waiting for my buddies to get some beer. N.E.R.D. struck me as an odd artist to be at this show, but from what I heard, they sounded decent. I was surprised they got such a warm reception from the crowd, as I'd read them as more of a hip-hop sort of act. I thought about trying to find some way to run into Pharrell Williams from the group and get an autograph for Vicki, but I didn't see any autograph booth or anything, so I dunno. Random trivia: N.E.R.D. apparently stands for "Noone Ever Really Dies." So there you have it.

Chris and Justin still weren't back from their beer run by the time Disturbed came on, so I stopped waiting and headed back to the pit area. Disturbed just straight up rocked. The crowd went nuts. David Draiman (the singer) has this incredible charisma (not to mention a phenomenal voice) and the band really does have a great message. What more can I say? Disturbed is great, go buy their album. Even if you don't like metal. Just do it.

Staind was up next. I was a bit wary of Staind's act, since they're third album had been such a disappointment. Fortunately, they only played their two singles from the new album and also played some songs from their first album, "Dysfunction." I'm still not sure whether I like "Dysfunction" or "Break the Cycle" better, but I know I like both of them more than "14 Shades of Grey," so I was glad that most of their set came from the first two. I wasn't overall impressed with Staind's set, but there were a couple of major factors that led to that:
1) I was getting tired. I'd been up for about 28 hours at this point, and I'd been jumping around all day.
2) They played three of their lighter songs ("Outside," "It's Been Awhile," and "So Far Away"), which really kinda wound me down.
3) Toward the end of the set, some idiot threw mud and hit me in the eye, so I spent the last three songs trying to get it out and otherwise being miserable.

Staind finished up and there was a bit of a wait before Velvet Revolver came on. VR, for those of you who may not know, is the amalgamation of Guns and Roses minus Axl Rose and Stone Temple Pilot's singer Scott Weiland. I'm not really a G&R fan, but I'm a big STP fan, so I was excited to check these guys out. Unfortunately, I was also exhausted... it seemed like the whole crowd was. There was scarcely any moshing going on save for when they played the single, "Slither." In any case, it was a pretty awesome performance. VR definately has an energy, Slash and company still act like an 80's metal band and Scott's wildness makes for a crazy show. I had known by reputation that Slash was a great guitarist, but damn, that man can rock a fucking solo. And he did, again and again. It was awesome.

Scott has an interesting sense of showmanship. He was singing through a bullhorn several times, and his outfit was just... eclectic. He looked like a dominatrix. No, that wasn't a typo. Scott just had a very feminine way about him, at least as far as his body language... hell, even his body in general. He's thinner than most girls I know... but that's probably just the drugs. The show rocked though, and I'll have to pick up VR's album, "Contraband."

Phew. So the show was over, and I was more than ready to make my way home. I was looking forward to sleeping all the way back to New York. But no... no, it was not yet to be. Justin and I file out (we'd lost Chris again) and we head for the shuttles back to the airport parking lot. The lines for the busses are massive, so we expect a bit of a wait. After the first convoy leaves, there's a looong delay before the next one comes through. And an even longer delay next time. It's getting dark, my ankles are sore and I'm falling asleep, and these busses are taking for-fucking-ever. I'm at that delerious state where every time I close my eyes I have to completely re-orient myself and figure out where I am because I'd started dreaming (or hallucinating, I dunno).

Turns out there was an accident nearby that's causing the delay, and its a full two and a half hours before we finally get on the damn bus. Justin and I are some of the last people to board. Chris had gotten out in the first wave of busses, as he was exhausted and left even before VR took the stage. He'd been sleeping pretty much the entire time we waited. Of course, if we had just realized that we could've parked at the fairground, we'd have gotten out no problem and been on our way home about two hours earlier.

Chris is apparently still too sleepy to drive, so Justin takes the wheel. We were all tired, but he seemed to handle himself decently well... he only ran two red lights on our way through Pittsburg. We made it home in one piece, of course, but the story isn't quite over. We get back into New York on I-90, and stop in the little town of Westfield (my housemate Ryan's hometown) to get some gas. After all the, the sign on the 90 said there was gas on that exit. We get into town, and we pass at least five gas stations... and not a damn one of them is open. We ask a locl cop if there's any 24-hour gas stations, and he tells us to go to Fredonia, the next exit over, about twenty miles away -- but there's no way we're gonna make it. We drive a little longer, asking a random dude on a bike if he knows where to go to get some gas. He tells us we can make it to one a couple towns over, so we attempt it, but are running desperately low on gas. It's about 4 AM at this point, so we eventually just decide to pull into the nearest closed gas station and just wait for it to open. We find one in some little, tiny backwater town whose gas station, oddly enough, doubles as their post office. Weird, huh? We nap for a couple of hours, then I take over and start driving since Chris just isn't looking like he's going to start anytime soon, and I'm cold, wet, tired, miserable, and just wanna get home. It's about another two hours before I'm finally home to get some food, a shower, and a nice warm bed... there's no place like home.

Despite the trip back sucking major ass, the concert was great, and hey, what the hell... it was an adventure. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I'm looking forward to Rolling Rock Town Fair VI!

Peace,
Schmitty