Menzinger's concert.

For the record, this is written stylistically to sound a little insane, and the run-on sentences are intentional. It is as true as it can be given the circumstances, alcohol may have made my memory fuzzy at some points, but I never blacked out and assure that this has not been exaggerated at any point. The events took place whenever the Ravens Steelers playoff game was this year, I am not going to bother looking up the date.

It was about two O'clock in the afternoon and I was at work. All week time had seemed to slow, the exciting upcoming weekend making time spent at the ol' job seem like molasses making its way down a twisty slide at the park. I had worked either at night or the next morning each day, so I hadn't really had a night to myself to unwind since the previous weekend. Outside the snow was coming down harder and harder, and the prospect of a road trip to Cleveland in a car ill-equipped for a ride to the supermarket seemed less and less likely. I had to take action. Due to the nature of my work and the inclimate weather it wasn't difficult to go home early. Although I had brought clothes to change into I decided to head home for a spare pair of socks, one can never be too careful.

I called my friend Kyle.
"Hello," he said with a hint of despair in his voice.
"Hey," I replied, "I just left work early. When can you get me?" I said.
(Silence) "Dude, that is fucking key, I thought you were about to call the trip off with the snow the way it is," Kyle said.


We were on the road within 15 minutes; armed with the leftover Keystones from last weekend, a full tank of gas, and a pile of CDs all in the wrong cases. I was not a big Menzinger's fan at the outset of this trip, but Kyle and I have a standing agreement where if there is a concert one of us wants to see less than three hours away then the other is obliged to go. He told me that they often go on stage wasted out of their minds, with beers in hand, so it was a done deal.

Kyle had just seen the Zingers in concert, but this was different. They were headlining. How does a band whose most viewed Youtube video only has 15,000 views get a gig headlining? Only a special venue like "The Scourge House" could offer an up and coming band like them such an opportunity. If I had to describe the venue to one of my friends, I would say that it was like my house except they have concerts in the basement. If I had to explain it to somebody who has never seen my house then I would relay this short conversation from a cleveland punk blog which references Scourge to best encapsulate the venue's identity.

Q"We are Steelers fans, will there be a TV we can watch the end of the game on?"
A"There is a TV, but it only plays old McCauley Kulkin (sic) movies."

The road was not kind to us. Kyle and I are big believers in pre-pregaming, also known as drinking and driving to the laymen. But with the conditions, Kyle said that he wouldn't start drinking until bare pavement was visible. I held out until 3:30. As we drove the roadside sites became less and less familiar. (caution, Buffalo references coming up for any non-locals) From the big blue water tower, to the standing red Indian, we felt pretty safe, but as we passed a site that seemed unfamiliar in the form of "Lion's Den Adult Megastore," I knew we were not in Kansas anymore. I later found out that we had never been in Kansas to begin with. As fireworks billboards began to dot the way, my urge to urinate became unbearable. Luckily, we were right near an exit. Incidentally, the Spanish word "exitoso" means, "successful".

The bathroom had not one, or seven, but two condom machines. Not normal condoms either, French ticklers, and ones covered with grooves and ribs, for her pleasure. I had time to read all of this as my bladder was past capacity. I briefly toyed with the idea of creating some kind of implants or intentionally grown tumors for a man's penis to match these ribs and bumps for men who didn't trifle with silly things like condoms, but still cared about the pleasure and experience of his partner. "Dick tumors," I thought, "Guaranteed to grow tumors on your dick or your money back." The knock on the door drove these thoughts out of my head for the time being, and I went out to get something to eat. However, the prices of the food and gas, (gas should have been much cheaper than NY's since their taxes are lower) coupled with the twin condom dispensers clued us into the fact that we had almost fallen into a tourist trap. The sudden realization that "tourist trap" is an anagram for "rapist tutor" gave me a sinking feeling in my gut. Like the girl at the bar who was just going to check on a friend, we were gone.

Back on the road we had a technical difficulty with the CD player, and were listening to Rush Limbaugh for a good 45 minutes. (Kyle is a fan.) At the culmination of this I again got the sudden urge to urinate, and we had no such luck this time in finding a providentially placed pit stop. I told Kyle I was seconds away from peeing in some bottles or peeing on the side of the road. While on the side of the road I had no idea that greater problems lay ahead. I thought I saw a rainbow, but I didn't see a rainbow. Our beer supply was dwindling, thanks in large part to the wintry conditions making our trip longer than normal. Luckily the Specially lined nature of the Keystone cans kept our beers cold inside of our hot car all throughout the journey. As we entered Ohio we decided to stop and replenish before reaching Cleveland, we did this under the assumption that the city prices would be higher than those of the outskirts. Inside I by chance saw an old enemy of mine, an ex, one that I had sworn I would never turn back to, but I surprised myself as I paid for the half dozen Four Lokos. As Bon Jovi had put so uneloquently, my bad medicine. We had just cracked into the city limits, and though we had not seen dry pavement yet, Kyle's will power cracked and he reached for a beer, which he cracked open.

Cleveland had recently gained a soft spot in Kyle's heart as he had just decided to switch from being a Miami Dolphins fan to a Cleveland Browns fan. All men have dreams, but some dream big. I decided to make Kyle feel like he was with a fellow fan, and for the rest of the trip I drew from all of my knowledge of Cleveland sports fans, which was largely gained from one trip to see a Bills game several years prior. The stadium was not open I assumed, so when Kyle pulled up to a Quiznos, I started to pee in the parking lot, while facing the busy street. To be fair, I had not planned this, but the Quiznos was closed, something we didn't realize until parking. I'm not sure if I'm speaking for this great nation when I say this or not; but I can normally wait quite a while to use the bathroom, but once I am within site of a bathroom, my body lets its defenses down. Almost as if it is calling "shotgun" on the bathroom. The employees in the neighboring Subway restaurant were watching me and laughing, so that was also out of the question as a dinner option. Down the road we found a Wendy's where we ate, and I washed my hands. I had after all pissed on them a good amount.

It was around this time that I began to realize how drunk I was. Somehow sitting in a car was easier to do than walking around conversing with strangers, at first I met these new challenges valiantly. Of the 17 beers we had brought, I had already drank about a dozen, and we weren't even at the concert yet. Kyle realized this as he reached into the case for his 2nd beer, and felt the bottom. A little angry at me, he loaded up his pockets so that he had something to drink at the concert other than his single four Loko. We pulled onto the street that Google maps told us to and knew that we had made a mistake. Nice houses with large yards, and some with matching guest houses lined the avenue. Was it some joke? Was this an elaborate ruse to get unsuspecting schmucks like us to go knock on some rich bastards door asking for some band he had never heard of? We parked and approached the house cautiously. A large driveway and garage gave us some hope that this place could handle a concert. We walked in the back door and saw two men throwing folded over beer bottle caps into an empty pitcher, verbally keeping score as they made them in. Other than them we were the only others. VHS tapes filled the walls like library bookshelves; not a single Culkin film in sight though, not even Home Alone, not a good sign.

"Uhhh, Menzingers?" Kyle said.
"Oh, yeah, you're in the right place," the taller man said.

We felt strangely at ease, even as the house filled with a strange array of freaks, geeks, punks, and the tattooed, pierced, and overpriced band-Shirt wearing fans that the Scourge house was likely used to. It was an intimate setting and Kyle was able to converse with the Zingers and the opening band and ask them what kind of beer they liked, etc. I awkwardly switched between following Kyle around to watch sound check, to watching the end of the Steelers game (liars), to talking to strangers about the weather and driving. My interest in these subjects made me think that perhaps I was growing up at last. As is often the case with me when I am nervous, I was occupying my mouth with various duties, biting my lips, eating chips, and taking sips of four loko. This was done to obfuscate the fact that I was standing in a circle of people who were talking, while I was not talking. I rapidly went through my first can of four loko, and not wanting to be the only one not drinking, cracked my second one. I made my way downstairs to watch the show.

The venue was everything that we imagined. The lighting was poor, desk lamps affixed to copper pipes running across the uncovered ceiling. The sound was so-so, the speakers seemed nice enough, but the acoustics were like we were in a basement. The stage was almost indistinguishable from the cement floor that surrounded it. One might be so foolish as to think that there wasn't a stage, and yet, a band stood before us proving that postulation wrong. The show was hard and fast and loud, like a proper night in a terrifying basement should be. The alcohol began to take hold of me, and I began doing stupid things for no real reason. I found a notebook in the corner, and quickly convinced myself that this belonged to some band and would be filled with original lyrics to some future hit song. I tore some pages out when nobody was looking and shoved them in my pocket. It was between sets so I went upstairs to pretend to be sober. I vaguely recall making fun of some girl's shirt whose sleeves looked like spider webs. I meandered around and realized that my 2nd four loko was about empty. Again fearing being the only one without anything to drink, I went out to the car to get another Loko.

My knowledge of alcohol via a few college classes, and my ability to do simple math converged on the walk there. I calculated that I had already drank enough to cause a novice drinker to enter a coma. And I was about to drink another Loko, which is the equivalent to a bottle of wine. When I reentered the house I felt my anxiety on my face. Strangers asked me if I was Okay. I began texting my friends garbled messages with a bunch of extra letters asking them what to do. My phone vibrates and I get a one word text response: "Pray". Visions of my pathetic obituary coupled with my funeral not being at all how I would like it to get me to put down the can. I somehow managed to barter with somebody and got a can of black label beer in exchange for a worthless dollar bill. I made my way back downstairs, but the difficulty that this presented made me go right back upstairs. Everyone in the crowded basement who wasn't on the other side of the furnace watched me do this.

Everyone is a mirror, my worries are surrounding me in the disconcerting looks people give me.

I decided it was time to make myself throw up. The line for the bathroom was too long, but the outdoors presented me with endless places to throw up. As it turns out the best place to throw up was immediately outside the back door. A patch of grass was just yards away. While waiting in line inside I was holding back the urge to throw up, but now I was outside and the fresh Cleveland air soothed me as if I were on the banks of the Meditteradean. I decide to go for a walk, but the sudden motion of me slightly turning my body brings the familiar feeling back to my stomach and throat. I bend over slightly, since I didn't want to throw up all over myself. The act of not wanting to throw up on myself seemed intuitive. Somebody came just as I am about to have what Nathan's hot dog eating contest would lovingly refer to as a "reversal of fortune". I utilized the fact that I was wearing shoes at this point by pretending to tie the laces affixed to them. This act of subterfuge was about as effective as somebody coughing to cover up them sound of gunfire. Incidentally, it is very painful to throw up while in the kneeling-shoe-tying position.

In my drunken state I decided that it would be a good idea to take a walk around the block. I called my friend Steve, or at least my phone says that I did, and that we talked for 15 minutes. I realized when I was half way around the block that the block is incredibly large. I decide that it would be the coward's way out to go back the same way that I came, so I continue around the block. I pass random groups of strangers and if they say anything to me I respond by only saying "Yeah, the Menzingers." As I approach my friend's car, I see that I have a few missed calls and that he is calling me again. We discuss going to a bar to watch the night game, but decide that it would be a fucking terrible idea. He asks me if I threw up, and when he says that, I suddenly remember what four Loko tastes like, and I ask him to pull over, although we are on the highway by now. It's always nice to have some bottled water or juice after you throw up, but with them not at my disposal I take a handful of snow and get back in the car. Then next thing that I know we are just outside of Buffalo, I have been asleep for about 3 and a half hours. We decide that it was a successful trip since Kyle saw the Menzingers and I didn't throw up on myself or in the car. When I got home I emptied my pockets. I have a few crumpled up sheets from a Stats101 notebook, a black label beer, some metal hanging unit which I inexplicably tore off the wall in the bathroom, and all of the normal stuff. I vow for the fourth time in my life to never drink Four Loko again. At work the next night everyone is glad to see that I am alive.