johnnymidnite:

One of those reasons is we’d like to hang out with you in whatever city you live in, and we’ll sneak you in to Warped Tour… maybe.

Just in case you didn’t see it the first time.

I’ll be working on banging out 3 entries on Sunday. Who knows what kind of adventures I’ll get into.

Did that just happen?

So, this one time, this one guy came up to me. I think this was at something happening at C-Squat, I could be wrong. Anyways, dude says to me “Hey, Johnny, how are you so cool?”

Needless to say, I punched him in the face and took his wallet and his beer. I don’t have time to be bothered with such nonsense.

Also, good news: I’ll be back to doing these soon!

I woke up in her apartment at around 1 PM. She was gone. That was probably for the best, though. I was sober, and I was feeling mean. Not the regular kind of mean, the “I hate the world, so I want to kill people” mean. Not drunk mean.

Speaking of being drunk, or mean. Wait, what were we talking about? Oh, right, being mean. I then proceeded to smash her mirror with a sledgehammer because “Fuck you, mirror. I will fight you forever!”

After smashing her mirror, I fell off the fire escape, 12 stories down. I got up unharmed, brushed the dirt off myself, and stumbled into the nearest bodega. I punched the guy at the counter in the face. While he was unconscious, on the floor, I smashed the register open, and took some money. Then I stole 40 40’s.

I was down to my last 40 by the time I reached the platform for the Manhattan bound L train, and by then I was feeling like the kind of animal that wants to eat other animals, or maybe humans. I don’t know, some kind of terrifying beats from Australia. Something you don’t want to run into. I was a fierce jungle cat. I was feeling great.

I swaggered about towards ABC No Rio. I punched out a skateboarder, and took his stupid hat and lit it on fire. Man, I hate that hat. I hope I never see that hat again. Oh, wait, I don’t because it’s now ashes.

Once I had reached the venue, I stumbled over to the guy taking money. He looked at me up and down. Noticed the red fedora I was wearing with “PRESS” spray painted on me.

“I’m here to review this fine concert you’re putting on today. Wait why are you having this show during the day, anyways? Is this even a thing people ever do?” I growled at him through my handsomely straightened, but pill-yellowed teeth.

“Well,” said the doorman “we didn’t invite anyone from the press. I mean, you’re allowed to write up a review, but you’re not getting in for free” he explained through a plastic smile trying to show how friendly he thought he was.

I looked him in the eye, then kicked his teeth in. I had started to hate his teeth. They were big, and reflecting all the sunlight. I then walked in and looked around my domain.

“I’m home, baby!” I shouted at some random girl I’d never met in my life. She looked at me like I had lost my mind. I looked at her like a hungry lion, and she slapped the shit-eating grin off my face. I had only said three words to her, and she already hated me. Good, we’re getting off to a good start. Everyone in this city should hate me. I’m slowly becoming a terrible person. The best kind of terrible person?

The first band finished setting up. They were a a four piece with bass/guitar (the guy playing both would alternate), accordion, drums (more like dumbs, am I right? Yes? Good we can move on), and a girl with a Radioshack megaphone. They shouted and screamed, and were all around pretty great.

I tripped my way over to the bodega on the corner across from ABC No Rio, and picked up a few more 40’s. I swaggered over to where The Swaggerin’ Growlers were hanging out. My short shorts and stockings wearing friend Danielle introduced us.

“Hey, guys, this is Johnny” Danielle said as I pulled back my fist to punch Johnny Swagger in the face. I decided not to, but then he flinched, so I decided to punch him twice in the arm.

“Two for flinching, asshole!” I shouted at him while finishing off my last 40. He nearly jumped on me, but Danielle stopped him. I laughed manically, and Danielle brought up that their drummer, Chestnut was doing tattoos at where Danielle lives afterwards.

“Hey, dick nose, can you tattoo ‘FUCK YOU!’ on my face after the show?” I sneered at him.

“Yeah, give me $40 and I’ll do it” he replied.

Sadly, I didn’t have $40, so this never happened. Oh, well. Maybe next time.

I stumbled back into the venue. People were just waltzing in for free now that the doorman had been knocked out. The next band was coming on. They were Baby something or other. I don’t really remember the name, just that it had the word “baby” in it, and they sang songs about babies. They were pretty alright. Not bad, just not really my thing. I stumbled out side to talk to the headliners again. Then, all of a sudden, Lady Gaga walked by with a small entourage. She turned to look at me and I screamed wildly like I was going to kill some one. I lunged at what I assumed was her manager, spit in his face, and shouted “Hurts, don’t it?”

It made sense in context. As soon as Lady Gaga and her entourage ran off, I noticed The Swaggerin’ Growlers were just about ready to hit the stage.

I shoved my way through the crowded room to get a good look at the band.

The Swaggerin’ Growlers played a fantastic set of Irish influenced punk. I waltzed with some boys and girls, and ended up with three stolen t-shirts, and as many patches as I could snatch and run with.

Have you ever been to a show that’s so awfully boring you wish some one would saw your head off just for a little amusement? Yeah, this wasn’t one of those!

The night started out simple enough: down 20 bottles of Jack Daniels get on a subway, get lost around Houston st, try to figure out if I had stumbled drunkenly in the wrong direction, vomit on strangers like a tiger vomiting on strangers, only you’re also not a tiger but a human. You know, the basics for getting ready to go see a band or two play live.

Eventually, I staggered into the club where Yula & the eXtended Family (no, that’s not a typo, that’s how they spell the name) were to be playing later that night. And by “stumbled in” I mean stumbled to the curb, fell into the gutter face up, and shouted at God. Challenging Him to a fist fight when he got the chance, because “Who the hell do you think I am, God! I will fight you right here, right now!”

Eventually, some friends of mine showed up and picked me up from the gutter and dragged me in to Rockwood Music Hall. Upon entering the red lit room, I swaggered over to the bar and punched the male bartender in the face. I then shouted at another bartender “I think I killed that jerk! Give me a beer on the house!” The bartender gave me a beer, and charged me for it. Was this lady not paying attention? I told her I had just killed the other bartender, and I might kill her next. I payed for my drink, then staggered toward the stage where what I assume was the first band playing that night was in the middle of their set. They played some awful song about America (not that America is awful, well there’s some things I don’t like, but we won’t get into that now, just the song was awful), had the people running the lights bring up the house lights. I hated every second of it, then I punched out the guitarist. Seriously, that guy was a jerk, he deserved it!

The band left the club in terror leaving all their equipment behind because they were awful, awful people. The staff at the club cleared out the mess left behind by those jerks in that awful band who’s name I can’t remember. They were really that mediocre. I walked outside to have a cigarette. I fumbled through my pockets looking for my pack of smokes. After half an hour of searching and dropping the pack and trying to get it open, I finally pulled one out, and lit it backwards. Threw it on the ground because it was now just an awful  mess of backwards cigarette, then had some lady on the street make sure my next one wasn’t backwards.

By the time I had finished my cigarette, Yula & the eXtended Family were done setting up. Either I took my sweet time smoking or they set up really fast. Which one of these it was, I’ll never know. My sense of time was all messed up.

I walk in, and see the band on stage, Yula was sneaking about in a hoodie and sweatpants, trying her best to keep hidden from the crowd. Eventually she was ready to start. She pulled up her guitar, and started playing.

Like, I said, this was the exact opposite of one of those shows that’s so boring you want some on to come and saw your head off just to feel something other than boredom.

They took the stage, and with the ferocity of a tiger vomiting on strangers, tore into their first song. However, they weren’t actually tigers, they were humans. Humans playing musical instruments, but they were channeling the energy of a tiger vomiting on strangers. Anyways, I recognized the first songs, and I wish I could tell you the names, but the first few songs were just a giant blur. Then the band leaped into “Barcelona”, and I stumbled up to some young lady and asked her for the dance, and we spent the song dancing and singing. Then there were the next set of songs I can’t remember the name of. Now, I can’t remember the names of the song not because I don’t like them, but because I’m still relatively new to the band, and I don’t have my own computer at the moment, and because of not having my own computer, I can’t look up their discography and listen to all the songs over and over again. I guarantee they’re excellent songs.

At this point, they turned the house lights on and encouraged the crowd to join in a protest against Afghani censorship of rock ‘n’ roll. We all shouted and screamed in protest, trying to rally up support on the Internet. After this, they called up Roy Gurel, formerly of another one of Ms. Beeri’s bands, Nanuchka, and smashed into their song “Red” where I pulled another attractive young lady in to dance with me. Once again, we were dancing and singing/shouting into each other’s faces with joy.

They asked how much time they had left. The sound guy told them they had 15 minutes left, so they went into two more songs, then jumped into “Yulix 96”. At one point, the entire audience bum rushed the stage to dance and sing along.

Overall, besides the 24 fights i got into after the show, I’d like to think it was an excellent night. Definitely not a boring one, and a great send off to the band as they take a short break for a few months. Hopefully, I’ll get to see them again soon.

Stay tuned, folks, more reviews of things coming soon!

New York City, if you can make it here you can make it anywhere, right? Then why wasn’t I really making it in Miami, then? Maybe I wasn’t applying myself, maybe there was no work. I’m not too sure, and maybe I’ll never find out. I’ll be happy if I only have to back to Miami once or twice a year. I’d be happy if the parents would come up here for the December holidays (I’ll get into the October holidays and why they’re important to me in some other post later down the line.)

Roughly three weeks before posting this, I packed my bags and moved to New York with a vague possibility of having a job interview. Depression, a fear of stagnation, and a slew of other things set in, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to get out. There was this deep seeded fear that if I didn’t get out now, I’d never get out. I’d spend time looking for work to save up money, but the work would be minimum wage, or something I hated, or something I was just awful at and got fired after a week or so afterwards. This couldn’t go on, and things had to change. So I packed a carry on and got on an airplane and left. Luckily I had somewhere to stay for a while.

I left, and got a call the next morning for that job I might have had an interview for. Turns out they wanted to interview me. I went to the interview, everything seemed okay, and I thought I’d have this job for a while. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I had the job interview on a Thursday, started work on a Monday. Well, it was training, but I still went out on the streets and all that. And by “on the streets” I mean this job was a door to door sales job, and it was just awful. We’d get into cars cramped with everyone that worked there. My co-workers were awful, miserable, greedy people. Some of them were rampant, unapologetic misogynists, cheating on their girlfriends and cat calling every girl that would walk past us. Some were emotionally unstable man-boys trying to get every sale from everyone. Others were just boring, dull people that followed anything that was popular at the time. So, I quit that job after two days of working there, and immediately started looking for another one.

In the mean time, I had been slowly becoming a regular at this art collective, The Hive, where several of my friends lived. This place was (still is) fantastic. It was filled with familiar faces, and great music and art.

My next job was canvasing to help gain support for Planned Parenthood. I got hired the same day I had quit my previous job. It wasn’t a bad job, but not a great job either. I’d stand on the street asking people if they wanted to help Planed Parenthood (which I support, if you must know), gave them information on what was going on, and ask them to become members and give monthly donations. Overall not bad. I wasn’t doing all that great, though. So, after a few days of working there, they let me go because I wasn’t improving all that much.

Then I spent about a week in a panic of not knowing if I’d find work again. Then, on Labor Day, I got a call from a promotions company that was working with a famous comedy club in Manhattan. I jumped at the opportunity because it’s New York, and I needed work, and maybe I’ll do this until I figure something better out.

At this point, I still didn’t know my way around this city all too well. This caused some problems. I was late to my interview, and my first day of work. I basically got told, on my first day of work to go home because I was to late, and to come back the next day. I came back the next day for training, and they told me I couldn’t work there because I was too late. Late by 10 minutes, but still late, and I understand. And really, it’s not that big of a deal.

So, that basically brings us up to speed on what’s been going on with my new life here in New York. Stay tuned for more adventures.