Sweaty Saturday Night.
2006-11-12/4:35 p.m.

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Tonight turned in to a super fun nostalgia trip. The Parasites were playing in a basement and I was dancing and screaming along the words to �Refuge� at the top of my lungs. Just like Halloween 1998. Then they launched into �Hope� by the Descendents and it was all over. One of the best times I�ve had in a long time. Now I am smelly and hoarse, but it was all worth it!

When I heard about this mini-reunion tour I thought it sounded fun, but I didn�t freak out or anything. I still go through phases of loving them and listening to a song over and over, but for the most part I left them behind in college. It wasn�t until their first song that I realized how psyched I was to be seeing it. Then again, I am one of the most sentimental people ever so this kind of thing is right up my alley. I went to the show in 1998 with Kim and Michelle, and it was at the now defunct Coney Island High on St. Marks Place. Kim�s friends Jamie and Bobby came in from Long Island and just missed the Parasites but were there just before Mr. T Experience took the stage. Jamie�s first question to me was �did they play Refuge??� and I lied and said they didn�t so she wouldn�t be sad to have missed it. I think it was a pretty transparent lie but she played along.

I would say that tonight�s show was even better. A lot of my friends lately seem to be in some really great punk bands. I was super into punk back in high school and then got into the poppier stuff in college, mostly by way of Michelle (who is now into harder things, I think). My old favorites were Discount, Egghead, Weston, the Kung Fu Monkeys , (whom I just made a video for!), the Parasites, and the Beatnik Termites. There were probably more but these are the first ones I think of at 2:24am, 10 years later. I still get happy when a Discount song comes on my ipod, and the KFM are still one of the best bands ever but some has not aged as well for me. However, tonight the Steinways , the Leftovers (whom I am supposed to make a video for!), and the Ergs! put on amazingly great shows that left me with a big smile on my face.

Most of my friends have never even heard of these bands, but I think they may have a broader appeal than I realized so I wanted to give some links. �Camel� by the Leftovers, I highly recommend. Also, the Unlovables is one of the catchiest bands going (with sweet as pie band members) but since they didn�t play the show tonight I didn�t mention them before, and same goes for the very short songs of Short Attention (seriously, their songs are all under 20 seconds and pretty maddening, yet catchy as heck). It�s great to have so many friends doing these creative, fun things that I get to watch (and sometimes make videos for!).

I guess this is really just happiness talking at the end of a long day, but whatever, I should gush sometimes. And I don�t link to enough friends around here. If you like any of the stuff I�m linking I can let you know where it�s for sale, or make you an awesome mix. Just ask!

My favorite lyrics at the moment are:
When I see you tonight it's gonna be so cool
We could watch tv and maybe listen to some Husker Du
(and that was on the Valentine's cd I made this year!)

(Other amazing bands/artists who aren�t in punk at all but ARE friends with me, Cheeseburger and Benji Cossa . Just listen to them!)

To end I will recount 2 weird things that happened on Saturday:

1. I am walking around and am at 3rd ave and 1st street and I make a left. Some dude (let�s call him �Mustache�) who is sitting in a parked van starts going �pssst pssst� so I turn around. �Hey, you have a nice ass,� says Mustache. Ahhh, I see what�s happening so I turn around and continue walking. Behind me I hear a lot of �pssst pssst� happening. Then I realize that he has gotten out of his van and began to follow me down the street talking about my body. Awesome. So we get to 2nd ave and Mustache goes �oh shit! I can�t just leave my van, hang on� like I�m just going to wait for some cat caller to go get his van and come back. Incredible. So I keep walking and get to 1st and 1st where I�m meeting people for dinner. As I wait outside the dude drives by in his van, again yells about my ass, and then makes the international sign for �call me� with his hand. Um, he thinks I have his number? Okay. I have no idea where he got that impression. But I was psyched that I was meeting some boys right then in case he came back.

2. After the show there is a large group of people from it outside on the sidewalk. My friend Joe yells �Where is 116?� because he was repeating some inside joke (that I am not on the inside of) for some people. This guy walking buy (to be called GUY1 from now on) is walking by eating something and basically goes �WHAT?!� but also appears to want to know if Joe needs directions. Joe just kind of ignored him and turned back to his friends. A few minutes pass and I look over and across from us are three guys glaring at us- GUY1 is in this group. Then GUY1 starts throwing half eaten pieces of pita at Joe. Joe is one of those sweet faced boys who looks 16 all the time and is the exact opposite of menacing. Anywho, I tell Joe that he has food stuck to his back and I turned to the guy and said �Why are you throwing your food at him?� At this point his friend GUY2 flies into a rage �WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT, BITCH?!?!� as he screams and bugs his eyes out. To which I say �I�m not gonna fight you�I don�t get it.� Then he starts going NUTS. Like absolutely nuts and I happened to have my phone in my hand so I said that I wouldn�t fight him but if he touched me I�d call the police. Then he started spitting �on� me�from like 10 feet away. In other words, he missed by like 8 feet. And his friends are now holding him back while he screams and attempts to run at me. There were maybe 20 of us on the street and 3 of them. I have no idea what the problem was since they never answered me, and in the end their friend was dragging them away calling them idiots. Bizarre. Patrick later informed me that one of the things he was screaming was that the police work for him, so go ahead and call.

And that was my night.

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