On Thursday, March 20, Justin and I decided to abandon all responsibilities in Nashville to make a sooner-than-expected trip home to STL for a weekend of partying, Zwan, and Justin's 21st birthday!! The pictures I actually took seem random in comparison to the whole of the weekend, so I must write a lot more, as the pictures don't tell the whole story this time around.
We decided to hurry home
...got to SIUE (in Edwardsville, IL) in no time, and of course could not get a hold of Mike, whom we told we'd be arriving around 8! So we ran into some of Mike's friends that Justin knew from previous visits, and told us to come with them to this party, because Mike would probably be there, and if he wasn't there already, he would be soon. So we get to this party, finally track down Mike, and he's there very soon. I met Britney, his girlfriend, who is really freakin awesome (anyone who can put up with, and even play along with Mike's weird shit is amazing in my book). Then Mike and Justin proceeded to get me drunk for the first time in my life. I'm fairly certain I asked the same guy his name 30 times. I was fully conscious of the idiocy spewing forth from my mouth, but I could not stop blabbing, as Justin will gladly tell you. He later told me to punch him in the face many times, and of course I took him up on it.
We later retreated to Britney's room where we crashed. I got her roommate's bed (who was not there, I don't know why), Justin got the floor (only because I beat him to the bed) and Mike danced around the room naked before falling asleep. The next morning was full of dorm breakfast, scaring people with Jamal (I want to say "take a freakin picture, it'll last longer!" but I do enjoy the reactions to Jamal, so I try not to be mean), and finding Wal-Mart to get things for Britney (namely an ethernet card so she can access the internet on the computer she's had in her room since the beginning of the year!).
After Justin drove home to prepare for dinner and pick up Michele at the airport (she came in from New Jersey - we met her at the Columbia show last April - she's one kick ass chick), the afternoon was spent driving around with Mike finding the perfect gift(s) for Justin. Also, kidnapping Micah. Mike called him saying "Micah, we have the perfect weekend planned for you. I hope you can get off work the next 2 days, because you're coming to party with us all weekend and see a great concert!" He did so. It was fun. Mike found his mailbox key for the first time in months, and enjoyed the piles upon piles of mail spilling out of the box... most of said mail consisted of notices from the library of overdue books and impending fines...
We went to Taco Bell for lunch, just the 4 of us...
...and proceeded to Slackers, where Jamal found a Black Dog CD!
So we got stuck in traffic on the way home to have dinner with Joos and Michele, but at least the sky was absolutely gorgeous
It's a shame we didn't get a picture of Justin's first birthday gift: a blowup doll named Vanessa. We presented her to Tha Joos in front of his Mom, and she suggested he put her in the shower to scare Andrew when he got up to take a shower. So Andrew, did you enjoy your surprise, or are you a dirty dirty bum who hasn't showered in days?!
After dinner courtesy of Justin's Mom, we went to GINGHAMS!!!!! for some dessert. Mike was rather eager to get back to his house so the festivities could begin, so we headed there. Already an interesting group of people (myself, Justin, Michele, Mike, Britney and Micah), the group was only about to get bigger and more eclectic. Quinton and his buddy Greg from Taylorville showed up a little later in the evening, as I was planning on going to bed (I think i went to bed 3 hours later... whee!)
The next morning, Michele and I took Jamal to Target to see what kind of spatula selection we could find. I bought 17 spatulas. Why? Because 17 spatulas is all you really need.
We then gave Justin more birthday presents. Check out this shirt we got him!!!
I think it got the desired result:
Before leaving, we had to have a round of SPATULA JOUSTING! Justin and Quinton gathered the people that would be riding in their respective cars and faced eachother on Mike's street, and they'd drive towards eachother and hit eachother's spatulas out the window. We tried this from the passenger side, but it was harder to safely line up the cars at such a speed that way (and of course, safety first in the spatula games). After a few rounds like this, we got out of the cars for a land attack, and Quinton got sneaky and stole Justin's car! So we got into Quinton's car and did the same thing. Justin and I then got out for a road block, and jumped on Justin's stolen car and WON THE BATTLE! SPATULA!!!!!!
Now it's time for standing in line all day! We got those 17 spatulas and began distributing them to our friends. People began asking about the spatulas, but as you may already know, it is against the nature of the spatula to question the spatula.
Check out Michele with her spatula, T*Bone:
All my friends ditched me at the same time to sit in line by myself (though most of them said they would go grab some food and eat it in line with me... oh well!). Eventually, everyone came back and I got to go enjoy the loop with J.C., Micah, and Rosemary. We went reckid shoppin, picked up some Root Beer and Hip Hop Pop at Fitz's, and a burrito at Tomatillo. On the way back to the line, we ran into Paz and got a quick picture...
It was in line and at the show that our group turned into an even more varied mix of folks. Our group already included myself, Justin, Michele, Mike, Britney, Micah, Quinton, Rosemary and Greg (all coming from Nashville, New Jersey, Illinois, St. Charles, etc...). Then add to the mix my cousin J.C., Nick, my Mom and Mario. W00t! I got a call from Ryan Westhoff right before they opened the doors to let us in. He was on his way, but was gonna be late because he had to do stuff at school in Kirksville before coming down. Also, he told me that he had an extra ticket that was going to go to waste because he bought it thinking Susie would go with him, but she bailed on him. So not only did he pay for a wasted ticket, but he had to make the drive from K-ville to STL by himself. This makes me very upset. Unfortunately there's nothing I can do about it now.
Mike and Justin made asses of themselves out in the line before getting in, by being horribly loud and obnoxious. Many people wanted to kill them, including me, but all I could say was "Yeah, those are my best friends. In fact, I helped write this song... whoops, I wrote ALL of this obnoxious song" amidst the screams and chants of "Jesus Likes the Rope" and "Civil Rights Act of 1964", among others like their new rendition of "I-E-I-E-I-E-I Am Just a Rat in a Cage". They told us we couldn't bring in the spatulas, so some of them were confiscated (including T*Bone, whom Michele gave to some dude with blue hair and big earlobes) but many were crotched, and therefore saved!
The opening band, the Children's Hour, made everyone miserable. They had this one invisible guy finger picking a muffled acoustic guitar and this chick singing Bjork-style while horribly playing guitar and ukelele. She played harp on the first song, and looking back, that one wasn't so bad, I wish she'd have stuck with the harp instead of picking up the guitar. Though they had no bassist, they brought David Pajo out to play drums for a couple songs. This ploy to interest the crowd with their shitty music worked temporarily, but once the audience realized it was still boring, they continued to talk over the band. Thankfully they got done before the people next to Justin killed him for being an obnoxious ass! He may not have lived to see his 21st birthday!
Zwan came out to ear-splitting applause and immediately broke into "Lyric". It was incredible. I don't remember the exact song order, but they played "Endless Summer" somewhere at the beginning, and it was just amazing. I was hoping to hear "Lyric", "Endless Summer" and "Yeah", and they played two of them immediately. They played "Honestly" fairly early into the set, and the Spatula Brigade was hard at work. I think our group held up a total of about 12 spatulas for that song, through the entire song. I really have to wonder what the band thinks when they look up to see a mob of crazies waving spatulas in the air in rhythm with their songs. At the beginning of "Yeah" I made an ass of myself (kind of intentionally) by screaming "YEAH!" the one time where he doesn't say "yeah" in the song. It was fun. I rock.
Jimmy Chamberlin is a god among men. He makes being the most excellent drummer of all time look so easy. The explosive "God's Gonna Set This World on Fire" kicked my ass so hard. The drum fills, the guitar solos -AHHHHH!!! As Michele and Rosemary can probably tell you, I would just scream my head off after a drum fill (which, well, since Jimmy is the god of drums, happened quite frequently). Sometimes I didn't scream, I would just stand there with my mouth wide open and would forget to breathe. It's not the best idea to stop breathing when the rest of the time I was jumping or screaming or waving the spatula like mad! In conclusion about Jimmy, it is no coincidence that he and Jesus Christ share the same initials, because only Jesus could play the drums like that.
They played a new song called "Lovers as Friends" or something along those lines, which Billy dedicated to his Grandma, who was in attendance at the show (Justin told me he met her after the show and gave her a hug). "Mary Star of the Sea" blew me away. Once again, Jimmy.. AH!!!!! It rocked so hard and they just played and played and played. They came out for an encore of "Spilled Milk" which was beyond cool, especially with Michele adding lyrics about the spatula over the main riff of the song. Pretty nice, I must say. SPATULA!!!! They went away again and did a second encore of "And So I Died of a Broken Heart". I didn't think they'd end the show on a mellow number like that, but then again, this is Zwan, not the Pumpkins. I do not mean to say that it wasn't cool, because it was still incredible, it just surprised me. I'd have taken pictures, but I didn't want my camera to get taken away like Rosemary's. That is why there are no pictures of the show on here. Sorry!
After the show, Justin tried to get Rosemary's camera back to no avail. We gathered outside to decide what we were going to do, and eventually ended up at Westport Plaza to see Mike's Dad (Blind Willy Dineen) play with Black Dog. By the time we got in to the place, it was midnight and Justin was officially 21. Blind Willy, who was on a break from the set, immediately escorted Tha Joos in to the club and bought him a drink. AFter having just rocked out with his idol, putting up with asshole security, and getting a ticket for running a red light, I think he really needed a drink. My Mom proceeded to offer buying him a drink, thus making Justin come to the realization that it seemed rather odd to have your friends' parents buying you drinks. I got to talk to Ryan for the first time in many months (at least for more than 2 minutes here and there), which was very cool. I miss hanging out with that guy. He rules. Justin got very wasted, not because of the amount he drank (4 people bought him drinks, plus he bought one or two of his own, I believe), but because he drank it really fast on an empty stomach. He gave me his keys and passed out in the backseat of his car leaning on Micah and Jamal. We got back to Mike's and had to drag Justin down the stairs after falling to the floor many times.
Britney was obviously very stunned at how well he was holding up!
After making pizza for everyone and having them fall asleep before eating it, I decided it was probably time for me to sleep as well. (Well, I did wake Michele up to eat pizza, because I went through the effort of de-cheesing hers, and dammit, she was gonna eat it! MWAHAHA!) I fell asleep to Boondock Saints (Mike, I've never seen that movie, and neither has anyone else, so we must watch it 40 times next time I am at your house!!!!).
Sunday morning we woke up and were determined to get up in the Arch. Progress was slow however, as Justin, Mike, Quinton and Greg had to do a couple rounds of birthday shots in honor of Tha Joos. It was Rosemary's birthday as well, but I guess she didn't really feel up to the birthday shots! MWAHAHA! Gotta love drinking in the morning, huh? I guess. He took a little break from that to take a few pictures with Michele, though...
Justin told me to go online to get Arch tickets, and Mike showed me how to get online with their computer:
After everyone finally got showered and ready to go, we had another quick round of spatula jousting, and proceeded to downtown St. Louis to take Michele and Britney up in the Arch for the first time. The drive down consisted of much spatula.
After a dangerous (and sometimes exciting) drive of speed and spatulas, we finally arrived at the Arch. Check out this scenery!!!!!
So I took a picture of Michele against the Arch and the clouds... who knows what Justin, Mike and Britney were scheming behind her?!
I know what they were scheming!!
A few of the guys tried (unsuccessfully, obviously) "The 2nd Annual Great Arch Flip"! They tried flipping over the Arch with spatulas. Mike decided we just needed more spatulas, and we'd try again later. We got through the Arch security with our spatulas (they looked at us funny, but decided they didn't provide a terrorist threat, so they were cool). After a little wait (not as long as I've waited in the past), we finally got up to the top!!!
Check out some views from the top!
If you look closely, you can see Quinton and Rosemary waving their spatulas up at us!
Can you see Rosemary spinning? Quinton probably can, but everyone looks like ants from the top!
Check out the people saying Hi!
Michele: "Look Mom! I made it to the top of the Arch!"
take THAT, St. Louis!
"Hey guys, let's look out the windows, not at the camera!"
Spatula: "Hey, I wanna see too!!!"
One of the trams up to the Arch messed up (just 10 minutes after we rode it) so we had to wait to go down in the other one. Kinda scary, eh? We lost Micah at some point, and had security looking for him. We found him, and had to leave to take Michele to the airport. Thus ended a killer weekend! I had so much fun, and I think everyone else did too. I left stuff out, but I'm sure you didn't want to read all this crap as it is! So be happy I left stuff out!!
That's all. Bye!
It's funny because Jamal is a... BLACK DOG!! HAR HAR!!!
...and we had Britney to change the CDs after 1 song each...
If you look closely, you can see his name inscribed on the handle - she spent 20 minutes carving it in there with the gun knife! W00t!
She asked us if we knew anywhere to eat around there. If she'd only walked about 50 feet further, she would have run into the loop, where everything on that side of the street for about a mile is a place to eat!
Let's join Mike and Britney in screaming: SPATULA!!!!!
Aww, how cute...
All that 'tude in one picture. You've got Justin Dixon 'tude, and Michele's northerner 'tude. Holy shit!
Mike's dad is just as nuts as Mike! Look at that background!!
Here we come......
Scared yet?
SPATULA!!!!!!
SPATULA?!
Can you see Micah standing out Mike's sunroof with the spatula?!
Poor Micah...
Good thing we had good cell phone reception up there (actually, the best reception ever!) so I could tell Quinton when the "Hi" people could get up!
Something about this picture seems really cool... I'm not sure why, cuz it's a dumb picture!
