But let me start at the beginning, where it�s best to start most stories. I have a friend named Joe who works at a radio station. He hosts a metal show on Friday nights. (You can listen to the show Friday nights, 9-2 on 89.7 in Geneva, NY, OR on the internet at http://www.weos.org/live.html. I recommend you check it out, even if you don�t like metal. The talk breaks will make it all worth it, trust me. They are fucking HYSTERICAL!)
Anyway, he got some tickets to the Alice Cooper show at the New York State Fair on August 30th. He asks me if I want to go. Hell yeah, cuz Alice Cooper is one of the best live acts you can ever see, so if you get the chance, check him out when he�s playing near you. If you have any taste at all, you won�t be disappointed.
So we�re all set to go, driving down to Syracuse to the Fair to see one of the best live performers EVER. Then a few days before the show, we are listening to the radio and they are giving away tickets to the same show, and we�re laughing about it. The gist of the contest was they played about 20 seconds of a song backwards, and you had to guess the song. We knew it wasn�t one of the three or four Alice songs this station regularly plays, and of course those were the first things people called up and guessed. Remember what I always say: people are fucking stupid. In fact, it will help you greatly to keep that simple four-word phrase in mind the entire time you are reading this.
So the DJ comes back on the air and starts naming off all the songs that WEREN�T the right answer that people had guessed off the air. He also named the song that I thought WAS the correct answer. Then about a minute later he says that he thinks he accidentally named the correct song when he was saying what the answer WASN�T, and proceeded to name all of the songs again EXCEPT the one I thought it was. And then several people called in and STILL guessed the wrong fucking song. Remember my motto.
At this point Joe proclaimed that all these other people were too stupid to deserve the tickets, and we had to win them. Using both of our phones, we dialed the radio station relentlessly for a couple of minutes before finally getting through. And they STILL hadn�t gotten the right answer, (which was a song called �Be My Lover� by the way,) so we won two MORE tickets. Now two more people could come to the show with us. This kept getting better.
Of course, the DJ said he couldn�t pronounce my name when he came back on the air, despite the fact that I have been doing promotions with them through the store I manage for well over a year. I give him free dildos for his goofy contests, and he can�t remember my name. I am no longer 100% certain that all those dildos were actually used for contests.
So now six of us are getting ready to go to the show. We�re all pretty excited about this. Then Katrina hits. You know, big storm in the Gulf of Mexico, broke some shit down there, like whole cities, killed some people, and dumped an assload of rain on the entire eastern part of the country. Well, in Syracuse we got our share on Tuesday, August 30th.
But I�m getting ahead of myself. One of the guys going with us hears that there�s a bus that runs down there, so I don�t have to drive. With the oil companies falling all over themselves in their attempts to be the one to assrape us the deepest, not driving sounded like a pretty good fucking idea. So we go down to where the bus is picking people up, and we run into our first problem. Well, not really a problem, but an annoyance. We stand where the busses are stopping, and wait patiently for one to unload. The driver is watching us the entire time, not saying a word. Then when the bus is finally empty and we try to board, she tells us that she�s not the next bus going down there, and we have to go to a different area and wait for the PROPER bus.
Now you know in every line for ANYTHING there always has to be one person whom everyone else wants to kill, right? And for a wonder this time it wasn�t me. It was some big fat gene pool skimming who spent the entire time we were waiting, as well as the entire 40 minute bus ride, yammering on about ANYTHING that someone else commented on. You know this guy, right? The one who has done everything, knows everything and everyone, and has a story for whatever subject comes up. Don�t you want to murder this fuckstain in his sleep? I know I do.
This one claimed to work for the radio station that I won the tickets from. As soon as we mentioned that we had won, he had to of course ramble on about this until he stopped to take a breath, and we quickly changed the subject to something else, something we hoped he wouldn�t have a comment about.
He also said at one point that he had worked in radio for over 30 years, but then later made mention of the fact that he was only 39. I wasn�t aware of any radio stations hiring fucking NINE-YEAR-OLDS in the mid-seventies, which is when this would have had to take place. And of course, he had also spent 11 years doing driveways, and owned five cell phone stores, and a bunch of other shit that I can�t recall because I was busy plotting his painful demise.
After about six weeks we finally reached the fair, and we quickly got away from the cretin who never shut up the entire time I had known him. Then we had to walk across the entire State Fair to get to the Grandstand for the concert. We passed about 73 million food vendors, and I of course hadn�t eaten all day. I am brilliant that way sometimes. But we finally reached the show, and after a few minutes we found our seats.
The opening act was Cheap Trick, and by the sound of it, they were using a cheap sound system. Probably used, and not very good when it was new. Cheap Trick has a few songs that I knew, and some of them weren�t bad, at least not on the radio. But this is a band that hasn�t aged well at all. They used to be two pretty guys, the singer and bass player, and the two weird guys the guitarist and the drummer. Now they�re just four old guys, and the bass player looks like he could keel over dead at any minute. In fact, when they left the stage the first time before the encore, he looked rather confused, perhaps thinking that there was supposed to be more songs, or perhaps wondering what his name was. I don�t know.
It rained lightly on and off during Cheap Trick�s set, and right before Alice Cooper took the stage, the rain picked up and continued steadily for the rest of the show.
The show itself was typical Alice Cooper, which is to say it was great; a lot of fun. Sadly, he still seems to ignore almost everything he recorded during the 80�s, with the exception of the set�s only low point � the God-awful �Poison� from the Trash album. But on a positive note, he did play a track off of the oft-overlooked, (and one of his best, if you ask me,) album, From the Inside, so I�m not going to complain too loudly. Although it would be fucking spectacular if next time he plays something off Raise Your Fist and Yell, which I think is his best album.
The steady rain during the entire set was annoying, as was security�s constant presence. I say this because it was an outdoor show, (which should be obvious since we were getting rained on,) and they were still escorting people out for smoking. And I�m talking about just cigarettes, not the other smoking that usually goes on at concerts. This to me is fucking ridiculous. We�re OUTSIDE, for Chrissakes! Don�t these trouser stains have anything better to do?
So now the show is over, and we head back to the bus. It�s now only a few minutes after 11PM, so we figure we will have to wait until midnight for the next bus, since they are scheduled to leave every hour on the hour. But one of the guys with us spots the bus to our stop still sitting there, so we run for it, and made it in plenty of time.
I should mention that by this time I am completely fucking soaked. The only part of me NOT wet is the top of my head, protected by my hat. Hell, my skin was wet on the INSIDE, which I can tell you is not very comfortable. I�m figuring on a miserable bus ride home. Oh, how right I was.
As soon as we board the bus we hear, �Hey � there�s those dudes!� Sigh. Yes, it�s Mr. Cockstain from the bus ride down to the concert. We have managed to be on the same bus again. This is looking to be a joyous end to the evening, although not unexpected. If you have read any of my previous columns, then you already know that I AM the Universe�s crapper. And this guy was like the Universe�s constipation that simply wouldn�t come out so I could just flush already and get it over with.
And he didn�t disappoint, at least at first. He was every bit annoying as he was early in the evening, and I managed to come up with some new and even more creative was to off the little fucker. But this time around, having learned our lesson, none of our group acknowledged him. This didn�t completely stop him from commenting on what we were saying, but without any response from us he eventually stopped. Or maybe he simply passed out, since I had not seen him without a drink in his hand all night.
But just because he stopped being his annoying, needing to die self after about fifteen minutes doesn�t mean the rest of the ride was peaceful. Oh, no! We then had the chick up in the front of the bus berating her boyfriend for the entire trip. And I do mean the ENTIRE trip. I don�t think she even paused to take a breath. At one point somebody else started whistling loudly, but she didn�t seem to take the hint. None of us cared about her problems, whatever they were, with the dude. We were all tired and wet and just wanted her droning voice to stop. Permanently if need be. If any chicks wonder just why guys get frustrated with them, and either cheat on them or dump them or otherwise do things that might upset them, something like this would be a reason. There is absolutely NO reason for this type of behavior. You simply don�t spend the entire bus ride home surrounded by all these people, berating someone like that. And I would say the same thing about a guy doing it to a chick. All that shows is that you�re a worthless shitstain who doesn�t deserve any of the oxygen being wasted on you.
So even without Mr. Cockstain�s input, this was still a VERY long ride home, or back to the car at least, since we still had about another twenty minute drive back to pick up everyone else�s cars. And wouldn�t you know that this is when Mother Nature decides to be her least cooperative, dumping rain on us like it was free or something. Downpours the whole way back, and after I dropped the rest at their cars, all the way home for me. And then, about five minutes after I got home, I looked outside and it was nothing but a light sprinkle. My final kick in the crotch for the evening. Or perhaps my next-to-final kick in the crotch for the evening, since my phone, which had been in my pocket all night, and which had been working even just a half hour earlier on the bus, had now decided it had had enough of the water and simply wasn�t going to work. You know you have had a miserable day when you are sitting at home at one in the morning blow-drying your phone.
But despite all this, I would do it again, although I think I would probably take out a loan for gas money and drive next time. As I said, it was a great show, (Alice NEVER disappoints live,) and at least it provided some funny material for a story here on this site.