a recent comment post from josh got me thinking about a stop we made in killeen. the place was called guns galore. and the name of the joint FIT. but the comment got me thinking about gun shops in general. does it really GET any more “manly” than gun shops? i only put the term in quotes because, in my opinion, it’s not the true definition of the term. but in the generic, stereotypical sense? oh yeah, game on.

my first experience of this was when the brady bill came out. i was with my friend lance as HE was shopping for a new pistol for work (relax…he’s a cop). while he was browsing about, this guy behind the counter was going off on how his second amendment rights were now being stepped all over ’cause you could no longer buy guns with a mag capacity of over ten rounds. “what the FUCK?”, he said. “so, if i have a NEWER gun with only ten rounds, and ‘he’ (whoever ‘he’ may be) has one with the older, fifteen round version, i’m up shit creek!!!”.

actually, from where i’m standing, if you’re in a position where the ammo capacity is a survival issue in your world, you’re ALREADY up shit creek. and in the rapids section. for that matter, if you can’t “do what you got to do” in ten rounds or less, than you really don’t need a bigger magazine…you need to take a firearms course and learn to AIM.

takes me back to that day with lance…i was looking at shotguns, and this guy comes up and hands me one. “check THIS shit out…”, he purrs, obviously already aroused by what he’s about to say, “mossberg…twelve gauge…pistol grip, pump-action, police issue (he pauses to wipe his chin) barrel shroud so it never gets too hot to hold, and a shell capacity of eight on deck, one in the chamber…” he excuses himself to go squeeze off a few rounds in private (leaving the gun behind, just so y’all know how that was meant) and i just look at it. when he returns to me he adds, “and that eight rounds CAN be increased to ten, if need be”.

“if need be”? if you have the “need” for more than eight rounds of shotgun ammo, you NEED to watch who you piss off. and take more friends along when you do. if anyone’s stupid enough to hang with your “i give the finger to bikers for giggles” ass. but you know how i know that none of these arguments for bigger, harder, faster guns that can shoot through SUVs and such hold any water? ’cause there’s one thing you hardly ever, EVER see in a gun shop…

WOMEN

because a woman will look at mossberg boy stroking the barrel (of the shotgun, that is…just to clarify) and think to herself “how small IS it, anyway?”. and in this case, i think she might be right. gun shops are basically a freudian field day waiting to happen (bring a lunch!!!). and they all hide under the “blanket” of the second amendment. the one that includes the phrase “the right to keep and bare arms shall not be infringed”. but that’s only PART of it. that’s selective interpretation. that’s like saying one of the commandments is pro-murder because it says “thou shalt…kill”, leaving out the “not” part.

it includes the phrase “in order to maintain a well regulated militia, the right to keep and bare…”. we have a well regulated militia. it’s called the national guard. and the army. and the marines. etc. etc. etc. this was written when it was still basically every state for itself, and BEFORE the army national guard was established in each state. plus, is IS supposed to be we regulated. that means they (they being our somewhat elected officials) have the right to say that you DON’T need armor-piercing, poison-tipped, explode-on-impact fourty-five caliber shells to hunt DEER. you DON’T. get over it. until bambi starts to shoot back.

and speaking of bambi, to all you strippers out there who took THAT stage name, you DO know bambi was a DUDE, right? remember, in the movie, he falls for a FEMALE deer, and has all male friends? do you think the guys at disney were THAT forward thinking in their support of lesbian culture? i’ll admit, it’s not the most masculine guy name, but it WAS a guy. and once again, i digress…

where was i?

oh yeah…stay outta my booze.

don’t ask me why, but for some reason whenever my company has it’s annual trip to schlitterbahn, it rains. now, since most companies don’t even TAKE an annual trip to schlitterbahn, i guess i can’t REALLY complain. but it DOES always seem to rain. saturday was gorgeous. i was wandering san marcos for the bulk of the afternoon sweating my ass off and thinking of how pretty der bahn would be on sunday. not so much the case.

i WAS gonna get up early on sunday and mow the grass. i still got up early, i just didn’t get to do any yard work, because of the rain. “oh, this’ll blow over…” i thought to myself. well, it’s now monday, just a pube hair past noon, and i’m STILL waiting for this to blow over.

the trip was still a blast, though…yeah, it was rainy, and yeah it was cold (although not so much in the hot tub…QUITE warm there). but there were NO lines, and so you could ride the rides you usually have to wait two hours to get on in under ten minutes INCLUDING the fourteen story stair climb. having an attractive, curvy date/guide that has been to the park every summer since the dawning of time helps, so you can find your way around. of course, if you’re female you might want yours a little less curvy. but then again, you might not…

we went on the “blastenhoff”? whatever one actually shoots you uphill in the water…and shoots GALLONS of water up your ass in the process. kinda reminded me of that one time…at band camp. well, never mind that now. then came “black knight”…a completely dark water slide. that is TOO damn fun…several tube shoots and body slides and freezing tram rides later and we were tossed out of the hot tub. not for lude conduct or anything…’cause it was six and time for the park to close for the season. if ANYBODY needed to be tossed for conduct, it was the drunk motherfuckers at the bar.

you know one of the CLASSIC signs that you drink too much? when you’re level of intoxication gets you cut off and removed from a HOT TUB. or when you fall off the bar stool face first into the hot tub, cigarette still dangling from your lips. we saw both. all the more fun to watch when you’re sober…but that last part changed with dinner. ah, mamacita’s…why must you pour them so mean? why? ’cause i wouldn’t want it any other way after a rainy day at the ‘bahn. now that’s a moist tradition worth re-living over and over again.

Replies: 3 Comments

speaking of which, i’ve decided that now instead of the yeah yeah yeahs, i’d like the white stripes second album “de stilj”. yeah.

josh said @ 09/17/2002 03:35 AM GMT

your WHAT? did i promise you a subscription? does your wife know about this? don’t feel bad…josh is still waiting on his cd from when he guessed the number i found in my car…or closest to it.

sean said @ 09/16/2002 06:43 PM GMT

you have got to be the only person that bitches about being wet at a waterpark. And dont say anything about “at least i’ll go” I dont want to hear it. By the way Im still waiting for my maxim subscription. Jackass

JAB said @ 09/16/2002 05:42 PM GMT

saturday – the day was spent running all over san marcos; the night working a show with folks that couldn’t run if they tried…and try they did. after a nice fun afternoon all over sm, it was time to pay the fiddler and actually work. with a fiddler. and a slide guitar player. and god help us, yodeling people. yes, the ray price show…attended by people who have followed ray since day one. literally. i don’t just mean day one of his career, i mean the original DAY ONE. ’cause these folks were THAT old.

in checking i.d.’s for will call, i didn’t see more than TWO where the birthday was AFTER 1960. these people killed the bar staff ’cause they NEVER touched the hard stuff, only beer and wine. and almost more of the latter than the former. plus, the concessions did next to NO sales (as evident by the fact they actually charged me, full price i might add, for my brisket sandwich) but i blame that on the fact that most of these folks can’t have solids after seven.

what was worse was that this was a SEATED show. never seen one of those at stubb’s before. and that meant they had to scramble for a good seat (where they all stayed COMPLETELY seated the whole damn show, i might add). some of them TRIED to run when they gates were open, to get a good seat. these people were all older than my parents. i kept waiting for someone’s hip to go south when they tried to rush things. i’m not being TOO cruel here, am i?

five things i heard at this show i’d NEVER heard at a show before…

1. what do you mean (the headliner) starts at 9:30? why so late? lord, i didn’t know this was gonna be an all-nighter.

2. do you guys have coffee and tea inside?

3. i remember the first show of his i went to….we skipped school after lunch to drive out to see him in my momma’s brand new 1959 buick.

4. those tattoos on your arms aren’t REAL are they?

5. can i use my aarp card to get a discount?

the sad thing about that last one is she asked AFTER i’d printed her ticket. if she’d asked BEFORE, i would have comped her in…’cause that was just TOO cool. and no, folks, the same thing WON’T apply if you’re around my age and try and use that line to score free koRn tickets.

Replies: 1 Comment

You mean no AARP discount for me, too? but dude, you promised!

old fogey said @ 09/15/2002 06:05 PM GMT

that’s what my horoscope SHOULD have said for today. it didn’t, but it could have REALLY fit. ya know, friday the thirteenths TRADITIONALLY rock for me…but every tradition gets broken eventually, and apparently that one is no exception.
[continue reading…]

tonight was jimmy eat world, or as i call them, weezer jr. at least, that’s what they sounded like. and going off their fan base, it looks like a fairly accurate description…in quality AND age. i swear about 65% of the i.d.s i had to check for will call were of the side-ways variety, which ALWAYS look fake (or at least odd) to me.
[continue reading…]

well, the 9/11 anniversary has now come and gone, and i wanted to wait till AFTER midnight to let it all hang out and say, “hey look…nothing happened”. with the exception of the car fire at wal-mart that started my day (and no, it wasn’t my car) nothing happened. at least nothing i’ll write about. went to work, went to the gym, went to sonic, went to the house, watched a combo of that 9/11 documentary that those french guys shot that i hadn’t seen when it originally aired and the concert for new york on vh1. then i went to bed. yawn. not much to write home about, let alone post on the porno-fueled forum known as the world wide web. so here’s a couple lil’ ones for you…and the title was in place as a “just in case” thing…it’s the only two words anyone seems to nail on any of the verses to r.e.m.’s “it’s the end of the world as we know it (and i feel fine)”. better safe than sorry, right?

english, mother fucker, do you speak it?

just a quick note left over from ozzfest…it was raining, right? REALLY badly for most of the day. as a result, as we have at EVERY outdoor show since woodstock (and probably before for all i know…even woodstock was before my time) we get mud people. they’re covered in it. they smell like it. they eat it, and to the chagrin of many, they throw it. and once they were all ushered out of the swamp land that was the space before stage two, they started tearing up the lawn hill. right before rob zombie, one of the promoter guys, or tour guys, or whoever, got on stage and made this announcement:

“people, please stop throwing sod. we all want to have a good time, and we all want all of you to have a good time, but this can’t happen with sod throwing. so please stop throwing sod. thank you.”

nice. only one problem. if you’re british (as he was), and in your forties (which he was), you know what “sod” is. if you’re a teenager, and from taco city texas (or austin, but either way), you know what DIRT is. you know what MUD is. but SOD? NO fucking clue. and as a result, the sod stayed air born. if only they spoke the language that’s named after them in the first place, huh?

we remember 9/11…but do we remember 7/04?

just one observation. a little something that bugged me about the “concert for new york” on vh1 last night, which i KNOW was a year old, but i hadn’t sat through a large portion of it. but the headliners surprised me…as did the high alcoholic content of the rescue workers, but i guess when the going gets tough, the tough get going…but then get REALLY drunk later. the forgotten half of the phrase. but never mind that now. the headliners they picked, to show our american pride, or to show how “these colors don’t run”, or countless other bumperstickerable phrases? SIR paul mccartney. SIR elton john. the who. the rolling stones. don’t get me wrong, all GREAT artists. and they make their country proud. only one problem…

this ISN’T their country.

it’s not. they play here. they tour here. a couple of them even live here. but they’re not FROM here. i know, i know…technically none of us are FROM here, unless you’re indian, or “native american”, or O.S. (original squatter) or whatever the term de correct is for the day. but hey, at least some of us were BORN here. i mean, these people are all british…the country we liberated ourselves from AGES ago. half the songs that were sung in patriotic spirit were about kicking their dart-throwing, warm beer drinking asses…and they headlined our “american pride” fest. even paul mccartney got a single out of it…”talkin’ ’bout freedom” (not his lyrical masterpiece, i might add…the title is basically all the lyrics are, repeated…a LOT). but what was our ORIGINAL freedom? freedom from the country he’s not only a citizen of, but a KNIGHTED citizen of…the highest honor you can get as a brit without being part of the inbred royal family. hello? am i the ONLY one that noticed this?

one bad bratwurst can ruin your whole day

talk about going too far. this guy had the ULTIMATE 9/11 embarrassment. picture it…tail end of the flight, can’t wait any longer, so you answer nature’s screaming call. next thing you know, you’re in cuffs. then you’re on the wire services. at least his name didn’t get mentioned…he’d have to move PLANETS to live this one down…

Replies: 3 Comments

“that’s great it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane…lenny bruce is not afraid.”

josh said @ 09/12/2002 08:36 PM GMT

putting on the virgo hat, it’s traditionally spelled, “Bratwurst” and “chagrin”. Nothing to see here, move along now.

ham bone said @ 09/12/2002 07:31 PM GMT

the potential for bad puns out of that “news” story is just MIND NUMBING!!

kathi said @ 09/12/2002 07:08 PM GMT

2019 NOTES – “ham bone” in the above comments is kramer, who’s correcting two of about forty typos this bit originally had (the rest have since been corrected). in my defense this was written back when your internet plan had minutes (like your cell plan did back then, too) so i’d log on, bring up the text input screen, then knock myself offline while i wrote, logging back on to post. therefore a bit used two minutes of my plan, not forty-two…but it meant spellcheck never kicked in.

also, the “news story” kathi brought up (happy belated b-day, by the way) was a link in the last bit that no longer works. it went to a netscape news page story, and to my absolute fucking shock the netscape news page is still up AND current…but that story is long gone.

we gathered yesterday with an agenda…to celebrate my “sister” kathi’s birthday and to get loaded. in that order. and mission was accomplished. i got there first, slapped my check card down with the waitress, and said, “anything she and i touch tonight goes on this card…it’s her birthday.” slowly, but surely, the crowd filed in ’till we graced the double digit marker (and some change). when the night came to a close some three hours or so later, the bill was brought up. since it was my card that had secured everything, and most were paying in cash, some with cards, i just said, “put in what you think you need to, have her total it all up, and put the rest on my card…i’m hitting the head”.

when i got back, all the money was gone, all the OTHER charge slips had been signed, and mine was sitting untouched. when i opened up the little folder, i saw my total. now keep in mind, kathi and i had ordered THREE different appetizers to get the ball rolling (total of $11 by happy hour prices) and another four rounds of drinks EACH (at $3 per…do the math…we’re now up to $35). my total “leftover” bill? WITH the 18% gratuity they already added in since we were a large group? $11. i through down another $20 towards the tip…she WAS good, and handled the birthday cake thing like a pro.

it was at this meeting that kramer approached me and asked how i was gonna “handle” today here on the whore. when i said, “what do you mean?”. he looked at me with this puzzled look in his eye like “you DO know what tomorrow’s date is, right?”. yes, i do. and we all have our reflections…of where we were that morning. what we thought. how it’s forever changed us. or something like that.

where was i? i was running late to work (i worked the mudvayne show at stubb’s the night before…it was acceptable). i was walking to our office (back when we were downtown) and was coincidentally wearing all black. hair was still long. and i was carrying (this is one of the reasons i stopped using these) one of our rather eye-catching, aluminum-trimmed show cases…and when i passed the j.j. “jake” pickle federal building, the mall outside was a sight….S.W.A.T. everywhere. federal marshals. but no by-standers. no “what the fuck” crowd. i decided i needed to start the “what the fuck” trend, and started to walk on the mall. this big, long-haired, scary looking guy wearing all black and dark glasses carrying a large metal case. in the eyes of the badge-carriers, not good. i had NO idea what had happened that morning.

all of a sudden people are pointing at me. people are getting on their radios. fast. i see all this and say (i think out loud) “FUCK THIS. i’ll just catch it on the news later”. and turned around. one of the marshals trailed me to the corner to make sure i left. two minutes later i walked through our office door, and saw it all on tv. THEN it made sense.

i found my patriotism and love for all this country represents a LOT more than a year ago. and the events of last september 11th didn’t re-awaken anything because nothing in my head was sleeping in the first place. i live my life by our basic guiding rights…that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. because at it’s MOST basic, that’s where we all NEED to be.

if your reading this, you’ve already got the first one down in my book…your breathing. (add to that “female” and your kramer’s type, but never mind that now). “liberty” i view as just having the right to basically “do what you got to do”, in the most ghetto of terms…and it’s best used when going for the perfect three. if you’re not happy, you’ll never be happy, until you make YOURSELF happy. it’s the one thing that nobody can truly do for you. others can INJECT happiness into your world, but it’s ultimately up to YOU to MAKE yourself happy. or at least relentlessly pursue it. and if you’re not happy in your life, and aren’t trying to do something about it, i feel for you…because if you’re doing it right, that’s all life needs to be…a constant pursuit of a new level of happiness. you have that right. it’s number two on the list, for crying out loud…and not everyone in the world gets to. that’s why a year ago, people tried to stop it. they couldn’t catch their own happiness, so they decided to try and stop everybody else’s…the whole “misery loves company” thing.

think of it like algebra.

a+b=c. life + freedom = right to be happy…and when others can’t achieve it, they have to bring you down to their level. they can’t climb up to your level, so they prefer to sit where they are and knock ground out from under you till you’re eye to eye again. don’t let ’em do it. go out, live your life, and be happy…or at least quest for what it takes to make you that way. if at the end of the day, you don’t feel better, or haven’t at least TRIED to feel better, you can only blame yourself. and kramer. of course, i blame him for EVERYTHING.

Replies: 3 Comments

Well done, my friend. Well done.

— chris

Chris said @ 09/13/2002 04:14 PM GMT

Well put…

I suppose this whole site is a testament to our beliefs and ideas. Its not in every country that you can express your thoughts in the way that you do. Some may say “AMEN to that, we wouldn’t have to read his ramblings” but in the basic sense of the idea, it all comes down to our choice to do it and not a mandate.

You have such a way with words.

the redhead said @ 09/11/2002 02:03 PM GMT

you’re seeing my speechless face again. you’re brilliant.

kathi said @ 09/11/2002 01:43 PM GMT

junior’s birthday was on sunday, which WAS supposed to be when this posted…the late sunday / early monday edition. but as many of you know, there were technical difficulties beyond my control (or the control on anybody i could bitch slap for technical difficulties) so it didn’t get posted. monday ended up being a long corpus / sa excursion, so now it’s 1:30 in the morning on TUESDAY, and i just got home. more on all that later…right now, we gotta make up for the lost sunday thing…so just PRETEND we’re reading this on monday morning, okay?

so, today (remember the land of make believe we’re in, folks) is junior’s birthday, and yesterday was ozzfest, where we WERE supposed to hang out. but we didn’t. and i KNEW we wouldn’t. why? because it’s tradition…we NEVER hang out for our birthdays…we’ve barely been friends a year, and i can already spot the trend. look at the history…

it’s just after labor day, 2k1…the star offices are still shoe horned into downtown austin, and i wander into subway. i scam my traditional free liter of pepsi refill, and ask junior what’s up. he says, “nothing much”, and asks me what i’m doing that weekend. i tell him probably hitting sa to go to a show. he fires back, “really? i was HOPING you would say that…static x and mudvayne, right?”. “yep”, i reply, “you going?” “i WANT to”, he said, “but have no money, which sucks ’cause saturday’s my birthday…” “well then, we MUST make this happen….you’re going with me!!!”, i reply, and plans were set.

they were simple. TOO simple. sound familiar?

at that time, he didn’t have a car worth a shit, and he didn’t have a mobile. we set up to meet at the target in san marcos. i told him (half jokingly) that i would only wait fifteen minutes for him, and then i would bail. he took me at my word. he HAS since learned not to do that at certain times, but in his defense, our friendship was pretty new then.

but here was the problem…i couldn’t remember if we were supposed to meet at 5:30 or 6:30. and he didn’t work that day, so i had no way to reach him and see. so, i showed up at target at 5:30…and waited till 6:00. when he didn’t show, i figured i had told him 6:30 so i went into target to do some shopping. i came back out at 6:35 (long lines) and waited till 7:00. then i called information, got the number to subway, and then got ahold of his home number. called, but no answer. called BACK to subway to verify, and they said to try his girlfriend’s and gave me another number. no answer. so i went to the show, had a great time, and ended up hanging with some of the guys from both bands to have stories to rub in junior’s face from his birthday since standing me up IS cardinal sin numero uno in my world.

but here’s what went down in juniorland WHILE i was in target:

he showed up at 6:15 and waited ’till 6:30. he then went to a payphone and tried calling my house which was written down on the back of my business card. what he DIDN’T notice was that below the address, phone, fax, and email line on my card was a line PRINTED ON THE CARD AS WELL that said “mobile” and had my mobile number (which, like almost all star phones, contains the numbers 666). he got no answer (duh – i was in target) and since it had been fifteen minutes, he left. two minutes later i walked out.

flash forward to june of 2k2, and my birthday. we are ALL wanting to hang out, and jethro tull is playing that night….and i have NO intention of spending my birthday listening to the extended flute solo of the live version of aqualung…so, i decline working the show. so they schedule the only two star employees i figured would join the dinner and such at guerro’s…josh and junior.

then, came ozzfest. i found out later that junior and his room mate (dion) HAD gotten there at 9:00 am as planned…but decided to take only dion’s phone in, so junior forwarded his calls to dion’s phone. and then, the rains came…and like many of the phones in the world, dion’s ISN’T waterproof. so that’s why i couldn’t reach him. and have you ever tried yelling the name “JUNIOR!!!” at a rock show in SA? you get about two hundred hispanic guys turning around at you, but no lanky white boy. i figured it would be easy to find him when the crowd thinned out for ozzy (still think that kinda sucked, but it DID allow me to get up close), but since they had been there so long, junior was part of the thinning, and therefore was unfindable because he was….well….gone.

so now, i guess we can shoot for next june and my next birthday…or we can just throw in the towel on the whole birthday thing and say fuck it. maybe arbor day needs to be our specified hang out and party day of the year. does anybody know when the hell arbor day even IS?

Replies: 1 Comment

I’m almost positive its sometime in May….

former Ann Arbor resident….. said @ 09/10/2002 11:34 AM GMT

ozzy got me wet. true story. see, when on stage mr. osbourne tends to get overheated. and when he does so, he runs to the side of the stage, and dunks his head in a five gallon bucket of water. he then runs over to the front of the stage, still dripping, and slings the bucket over the crowd, dowsing concert goers with the water he just dunked his own head in. would this mean i’ve been ozztized instead of baptized? but this was WAY late in the day, we’ve got a bit to cover first.

it was pouring when i got there, but stopped when i stepped out of my car. TOO cool. actually, to be a bit more accurate, NOT too cool. pretty fucking hot, actually…with the heat (in fine texas tradition) being only outweighed by the humidity. i was parked…and almost within TWO MILES of the door. see, for all the modern luxuries the verizon wireless amphitheater has it lacks one basic one…a parking area that’s more than 50% pavement. that means when it pours, more than half their parking becomes swamp land. not wanting to see cars bogged and sinking, they do a park-and-ride shuttle from near by retama park raceway. surprisingly, there was no big line of cars to get into the lot (or at least, it WAS moving pretty quick). likewise, there was no line at all to get on the shuttle bus (i have to say, for the amount of people they had to deal with, the ride there went quick…but the ride back? well…) then i got to the box office to get my ticket, and there was no line either. “they’re spoiling me”, i thought to myself. then i heard it. what i was really, deathly afraid of. the line i’m supposed to be SAYING, not HEARING.

“sir, i’m not finding any tickets here for you….how did you arrange these?”

first instinct was to pull out a business card…but flashing one of my business cards to a storm trooper of the evil empire (i.e. ticketmaster) would be like showing your sugar’s uptown cabaret platinum v.i.p. card to your minister…it’s gonna do MANY things, but winning you favors AIN’T one of them. so, i hopped the phone (which i almost left in the car but due to the park-and-ride thing i decided that would be WAY stupid to do for just such an emergency). a few calls (and more than a few minutes) later i had my ticket, had signed my ($105) receipt, and was in the door. JUST in time for the second stage to be done and a few thousand sweaty, muddy folks to head my way. in the middle was a former star employee and her room mate, and thus started the first chunk of my non-alone time.

we stood in the concourse while mud people walked around us until they decided they wanted food. i wasn’t hungry, but wandered with them, and we got in line at the domino’s pizza counter. this was the first line of the day, and it took (no bullshit, and i only know ’cause i called chuck when i first got in line so i had the timestamp on the phone as a reference) FIFTY-FIVE minutes to get food. total cost for one small (as in small enough to barely hold four pieces of pepperoni) pizza and a thirty-two ounce (mostly ice, of course) coke? $9.00. and i missed adema. darn.

next up was tommy lee (in for texas-based drowning pool, who’s singer died last week of heart failure – no word on any drug involvement in said ailment…but they still sold more shirts than tommy, and they didn’t even play). i went to see tommy for two reasons:

a. when i met him at la zona recently he was VERY nice, personal, and cool…but i couldn’t stay for his show.

b. he opened with shout at the devil, including the full album intro track “in the beginning”. you HAVE to respect that.

but i was denied entry to the place. why? because i didn’t have a wristband. the $100 ticket stub didn’t mean SHIT without a wristband to get you on the floor. and they didn’t stop me till i was right by the floor, then told me to walk all the way back up to the venue entrance to get one, only to find out they were out and had to wait in ANOTHER line (fifteen minutes) of REALLY pissed off, mostly intoxicated mexican guys. this was NOT gonna get pretty. the cool thing was, i was the tallest (scary) and most intimidating (build-wise) one of the bunch. which meant that when one, slightly older, quite frightened security guy found he had a single wristband in his pocket, he motioned me over rather quietly and slipped it in my hand. MY wait was only fifteen minutes. everyone elses? more like about thirty. sometimes it helps to look harmful, i suppose.

next up was the “good vs. evil” portion of the day, i.e. p.o.d…the christian-based hard rock act. while they certainly would have fit in a bit more at the v.w.a. in about three weeks when creed comes to town (i wouldn’t look for me to even be in san antonio on THAT day…i’m not female, they don’t do much for me) they were part of the tour, and provided some background noise while most of us went to pick up merch. i went to the merch tent, WAITED IN LINE (twenty minutes) only to find out that they (supposedly as everyone else) had sold out of the ONE ozzfest shirt that came in xxl. they did, however, have what i think is THE best concert merch deal i’ve ever seen since the $10 t-shirts at the rage against the machine show at sunken gardens… a big, black, foam hand giving you the one-finger salute with “ozzy” written across the palm for only $5. needless to say these sold out FAST. i even talked to one guy who had bought FIVE. christmas IS only a few months away, you know (he seriously bought them as christmas gifts).

with only moments left in the p.o.d. set, i bolted to the merch booth on the OTHER side of the stage area to try my shirt luck. i was in line there for only about ten minutes, when some guy said, “oh man…they just sold the last foam finger”. when i told him they had them on the other side and he turned to thank me, i told him i was looking for the RAREST of the rare…the “satan stage diving” shirt HE was wearing, but in xxl. his girlfriend’s eyes LIT up. it seems that she worked one of the snack booths earlier, and since this was the second-to-the-last ozzfest of the year (the last being in dallas tonight) they were gonna run out of EVERYTHING. so, she sent a friend to get her “one large system of a down shirt and two xl ozzfest shirts”. well, she went and got the system shirt and a SINGLE ozzfest shirt in size 2xl (i.e. xxl). and they WOULDN’T buy it back. so she sold it to me (unworn, and neatly folded, i might add) for only $20 (versus the $32 they were charging) SCORE!!! and just in time for p.o.d. to shut the fuck up.

then on came rob zombie. (thus began the “sean goes deaf” part of the day). this was my fourth time to see him (second in sa) and he never seems to disappoint. he also never seems completely happy with his crowd response, but maybe that’s just me. last time i saw him in sa was at freeman with koRn, and i got to hang with him a bit after the show. SUPER nice guy, and not nearly as “dark” in person as you’d expect. after making my ears bleed for forty-five minutes he was off, and i went to hit the head. line number whatever of the day, for about fifteen minutes. but enough to kill off most of the twenty-five minute down time between bands and i was able to get back on the floor AND find my old college radio buddy (and they guy i used to go see a LOT of shows with in college) randy to hang with during system of a down.

what can i say? SOAD is just incredible live. no two words about it. and this was randy’s first time to see them (and see me smoke with him, if you know what i’m saying and i think you do…in college it was cigars, NOTHING more…not even booze. you should’ve seen the look on his face when i smacked his arm and gave him the ‘are you gonna pass that shit or WHAT?’ nod. he almost looked proud). well, randy “blew his load” on them, and decided that was it for him, as did apparently MOST of the floor, because by the time the opening film montage of ozz started, it was pretty empty down there compared to the system crowd…and never recovered. but that was okay, ’cause it allowed me to get close enough to read the “o-z-z-y” on his knuckles and get “ozztized”. then soaked by rig-mounted water cannons. then by ozzy’s squirt gun. many tunes (we all sung with), some drum work from his son jack, and a fatherly “don’t drive if you’ve been drinking” speech later, and we were off to wait in the MAJOR (forty-five minute) line to get BACK on the bus to go BACK to our cars to wait in the car line (ten minutes before a security guard lifted a cone for me and let me shoot out a side exit that wasn’t supposed to be used) and i was on my way home….wet, sore, and deaf. kinda like a lot of my dates end up, but never mind that now.

and no, i never did find junior. but THAT didn’t surprise me.

it’s just a hair before noon on saturday, september 7th, in the great state (nation, according to some) of texas. today is two things: junior’s birthday celebration (actual day to follow next week…or is it tomorrow? i’m a guy…we don’t remember these things) and ozzfest 2002, which is where i’m SUPPOSED to be meeting junior in a few hours.
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