Man, that weekend seemed looooong… which is awesome. The party on Friday night went off without a hitch, and I think it was a rousing success. At least, everyone I talked to seemed to have had a good time. If you were there, thanks for coming – if you missed it, you are one sorry sucka. Anyway, Ben and Anthony had a great idea and suggested I code up a belated costume contest page with pictures from the party. I thought it sounded awesome, so I started coding on it right away. I’ve got it working to the point where you can make comments on each costume, and almost have the voting taken care of (involves some cookie-work to stop cheaters from voting more than once). Anyway, I hope to have that up by tonight – because the longer I take to get it done, the less fun it will be.
As for the party itself, it was rad to the bone. Nearly everyone showed up, and there were only a few non-costumed bums. Sometime during the night my neighbors even dropped by to enjoy themselves. We played Pac Man, danced in the fog and strobe light, drank copious amounts of beer and other… it was a good time. One reason I wanted to do the costume page is because so many people were good sports and dressed up for the occasion, and there were some great costumes too! A lot of effort went into them, which made the party even more fun. I got a lot of pictures, and there’ll be a proper page about the whole fête as soon as I can cobble something together.
The remainder of the weekend was cool too. Saturday was cleanup. The carpet got pretty trashed from the night’s activities, so we busted out the steam cleaner that my folks had given us as a housewarming gift. We hadn’t used it yet, but we were both really happy with the results. All the party-stains were erased, and the carpet was nice and shiny new. After some more sweeping, mopping, and general tidying – the place was brand new again. Saturday night was a recoup night, since this cold is still dogging me.
Last night was the Modest Mouse / Shins show in SF. Ben and I had originally got tickets a while ago, and it was set to be just the two of us for the outing. The show last night was the 1st night of a three-night stint at the Fillmore for that lineup, and all three nights had completely sold out. Just knowing that made me a more excited than normal about the show. At the last minute, Sharaun and Anthony decided they wanted to come along and try to pick up some tickets outside the Fillmore. The chances were slim, since the show had sold out three nights, but they both figured they could hang out and have fun somewhere even if they didn’t make it in the door.
Once again, traffic was terrible on the way out there. We parked and walked through the cold drizzle to the Fillmore, where millions of people had the same idea as Anthony and Sharaun. Ben and I said our goodbyes and goodlucks, and headed indoors. Unbeknownst to us, there was a 2nd opening act – the Helio Sequence. Now, I’d never heard of them, but Benz seemed to know who they were.
Helio Sequence took the stage at about 8pm. It’s just two dudes, lead guitar and drums – with the remaining music being served off a PC loop. Man did they rock, they made a lot of noise and sounded really good. I was super impressed with their stuff, and they were really entertaining to watch. I’m sure it helps that the sound in Fillmore is always amazing, the acoustics in that place make live music sound great.
We called Sharaun and Anthony after the first act, and let them know there was still time. They had wandered into some dive-looking place called the “Boom Boom Room” and were staying warm and dry in there – but said they’d poke around for tickets again soon. They mentioned the outlook was grim, since everyone seemed to be wanting tickets and not trying to offload any. They found a couple people taking some $75/ticket noise… and promptly shut that down – it was a $20 show! They never did make it to the Fillmore, and ended up hanging out in the Boom Boom Room for the whole time.
The Shins came on around 9pm and played for about an hour. They also sounded in top form. The singer’s voice was a dead ringer for the album, and the only thing missing were some of the fancy harmonies and overdubs from the studio. The set was a pretty good mix of old and new, with one track that neither Ben nor I could spot. It was a nice long set, with a couple slow songs to give the stoners their chance to spark the tweeds. Man, I think Benz and I were the only two dudes in there not puffin’ chronic… it was more evident than normal it seemed.
After their set, people started pushing up front in anticipation of the headliners. As the Shins’ keyboardist said… it was about to be “… Mizouse in the hizouse.” Yeah, he was funny. Ben and I managed to stand firm and push up pretty close. We had a nice spot, right next to some girl who I had halfway fallen in love with by the end of the evening.
Modest Mouse came on around 10:30pm, and played until 11:30 on the dot. Right off the bat the singer apologized, saying he’d lost his voice at a previous gig – and would do his best to “Lou Reed through this.” Well, it was hit or miss… this is the 2nd time I’ve seen them live, and neither time was particularly stunning. Musically, they rocked – crunching guitars and heavy drums, but the vocals were seriously marred by the whole laryngitis thing. In fact, they couldn’t even do an encore it was so bad at the end, they sent some roadie up to apologize as the house lights came up and people started booing.
We rounded up our other two from the Boom Boom Room, and headed home. After our requisite getting lost in SF, we eventually found the Bay Bridge and were off. We made the traditional stop at Krispy Kreme for donuts and coffee – and were back home in bed by 2:30am or so. ‘Twas a good night.
Well, as I promised – more about the Halloween party to come. I wanted to do a special blog about it, and I just haven’t had time to craft it up yet. I’m going to try and throw it together tonight, so keep an eye out. Sorry for the long boring entry.
Dave out.
Also written on this day...
- shopping for me - 2010
- on abundance - 2009
- halloween bash '08 in pictures - 2008
- and all i can think about is the music - 2008
- i got blood on my shirt - 2005
- early returns - 2004
FYI: "Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown" and "Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown". Only available on VHS for now.
"le chateau is burning!"
dang i love charlie brown…
Alright?
Once again Dave skims over the true excitement of actually getting to the venue. Ben was the smart guy this time and brought directions to the club. Which Dave followed exactly. The problem is that the street we were supposed to turn on was on an overpass which we couldn’t get to going in our current direction. Dave remembered this and we turned around and headed back to Fillmore Street. Here is where the dilemma starts. Dave knows we need to be to the right, heading to the top of the over pass, but decides to stay in the left, until it is too late. Now mind you we are traveling about 40 MPH and a concrete curb is separating us from were we need to be. But wait there seems to be a 20 foot opening in the curb which Dave decides to dart his incredibly responsive Ford Explorer (If you can’t sense the sarcasm read it again) through the opening. Ben screams like a little girl, I wet myself and fire shot out of Sharaun’s eyes. If she could have reached him I’m sure she would have had pulled his hair out.
Almost there the excitement must be over, right? Nope, not when Dave is at the wheel. We pass the club and find a parking spot on the street a few blocks from the club. If you have never been to San Francisco, it is a city built on a hill. Almost every street is built on a hill? And I mean steep hills. The spot we found was tight, but Dave feels he can parallel park the Explorer. Ben and I get out to spot him so he doesn’t hit either of the cars. He starts out doing ok, backing up slow, getting closer and closer to the car behind him. I’m holding up my hands showing that he only has a foot or so before he hits the car. He stops, rolls forward about a foot to move the front of the Explorer to the right. OK, here we go the excitement starts all over again. I’m holding up my hands showing he has about 2 feet of clearance. He pushes on the gas to back up the steep hill. The Explorer doesn’t respond to the pedal since he is backing up a 35% grade. So what does Dave do? What everyone would do?? He Freakin floors the Explorer?? By god it’s going to move this time. The truck lunges backward. He slams the breaks and stops inches from the car behind him. At this point Dave realizes his parallel parking abilities aren’t up to the park job. So he says we need to move to another spot. Good thing I was there to show him how to park a car 😉 Seems we didn’t have to move after all???
You got PUNKED! I’m Awesome!!!!!!
damn man… you done me wrong.
it was *sharaun* that wanted to find another parking spot… i was willing to give it another go. but since you´re skillz are superior – i let you handle it.
anyway, we´re all alive – and we got new stories! that´s what i´m here for: narrowly escaping death, and to generate stories.
biatch.
dang…
_your_
not
_you´re_
i got punked. i´m not awesome.