who doesn't like tour stories? this is a story where a band goes on tour with two other bands and spends the night on a hill in oneonta, alabama. Not New York, Alabama.
So Thieves and Crime in Stereo are on tour together. This is in like... 2004 I think. Way back when in terms of hardcore. Scraps and Heart Attacks was on the tour too, but they had somewhere cool to stay. We just had three goodnatured alabamians willing to let us stay with them.
so let's talk about them.
We met in this pizza place where we went to hang out and talk to people after the show, looking for a place to stay as always. We find these two girls, but they get their dude friend to come with them because maybe they're just a little bit afraid of rape or something.
Two girls and a dude. I don't even think the dude was at the show. The dude had a misfits shirt on. But not like an OG shirt. Just one of those misfits shirts you get at the mall because it glows in the dark or something. He also had big pants on. Real big. Like... black parachute pants with all that shit hanging off of them. Do you know why this is an important detail? I guess it isn't, but hey, this is what sticks out to me because I'm the type of asshole who judges people on the way they dress because you don't accidentally buy black parachute pants with shit hanging off of it. He's like a cro-magnon juggalo. A small, yet important step in the evolution of musical genus species.
This other girl looks like pretty normal girl. Jean shorts, maybe some shirt with some sort of logo on it. Probably a babydoll tee. Let's call her Jane. Meet Jane. Now say goodbye to Jane because she doesn't really do much in this story.
Now. The belle of the ball. Let's call her Crystal. That might even have been her real name. I was gonna call her Crystal anyway. It was her cabin we were staying in. What is a cabin? That's what people call a house they have somewhere that has electricity and shit but no heat and you don't sleep in it every night. Crystal had invited us up to this cabin up on a mountain in Oneonta, Alabama.
Let's talk about the drive up the mountain. It was a good drive. Very rural, but it was the summer and it was through the woods and as creepy as it was it was also very nice. There was lightning in the sky but no rain. If the nicest places in the world are inhabited by the worst people this was some middle ground where sorta ok people are able to experience sorta nice things like heat lightning from the side of a mountain.
Now I'm no city mouse, but like any other Long Islander a half hour drive through the woods feels like the first act of a teen slasher. Woods? Lightning? Strange women willing to take us in? Thank god none of us are black because it was just a matter of time before someone disappeared into the woods.
Speaking of thank god none of us were black, we get to the cabin, and we poke around a little bit. This cabin is like some loft-style high peaked cathedralish type residence where the basement is finished with a tv\kitchen area leading out to the backyard (a hill with trees), the first floor is a small living room with a master bedroom directly across, and the loft area is where the kids sleep because the ceilings are low and sloped. The perfect environment for a child because hey let's face it kids like sleeping in cracks and tents and floors because there's still some survival instinct in a child that knows to survive the night it must hide from predators. So, we poke around, and somehow someone that might have been me stumbles upon a picture of the Reverend Raccoon Jones. The Reverend Raccoon Jones is Crystal's dad in blackface and a Don King wig. I guess he performs as a sort of stand-up comic or something?
Here's a good improv line from the Reverend she told us about when we asked her how his act went:
[couple of black folk enter the room where he is performing and sit in the back row]Riiiight...
RRJ: Why y'all sittin in the back? Fought so hard to sit in the front!
So we keep on hangin out. One of us is in the master bedroom with Jane Shorts getting cockblocked by the misfits dude. Some of us are chillin in the living room. A couple of us, myself included, are on the back roof of the house, accessible via loft window. We start asking normal questions to this girl in the general "getting to know you" spirit of things, partially out of genuine interest, partially to profile this girl and find out if this girl is a Klan sympathizer or just a good-hearted girl full of Southern hospitality. The questions get a little more serious as we finally realize this girl is, with all due respect, kind of a dummy.
Us- Do you smoke meth?
A- If it's around
Us- ... ... ... so you smoke meth.
I mean we all sorta do drugs if they're around, but I'm not usually in places where meth is around and if I am I don't do it just because it is around. But I've always been sortof a pussy when it comes to narcotics and I'm glad to see this girl is less inhibited. She showed us just how uninhibited she was by blowing one of us twice, but we don't have to talk about that. It just sorta happened. And don't go trying to figure out which one of us it was because if it was me I'd tell you and if it was anyone else they would probably not. To their credit they were very discreet. The touch of the arm, the come hither glance, all that shit. Anyways, before all that shit...
Not sure what else she said, but it was fun to hear about on a night like that in a place like that.
Me- Is this place haunted?
Crystal- Yeah, I guess. I mean the sliding glass door opens by itself sometimes, not sure why. [Pronounced 'Yeah ah geyiss, ah maine thuh slahding glayuss doughurr opins bah itself sumtahms, not shoore wah']
Ok, so let's get real.
Everybody is either upstairs or in the living room or getting blown. It's time for me to take matters into my own hands and sneak downstairs for some quality time with myself. It was honestly one of the only times I jerked off on tour. There's something about being in a van with dudes all day then playing a shitty show that keeps erections away. But this is one load I'll never forget.
It was a pretty mediocre session. No porn, nothin fresh in the spank bank, standing in the bathroom of a cabin in Oneonta, Alabama. No touch of the hand, no come hither glance, just me staring into the unforgiving eye of the toilet.
While I'm in there, I hear the tv downstairs den go on. It's Will Smith! "THE CHAMP IS HERE. THE CHAMP IS HERE." It was that part in ALI where he says that. Remember? It was in the trailer?
Anyways, I hear that and successfully block it out of my mind. A moment later I hear two kids poking around the downstairs area. Now, keep in mind I'm in the bathroom and at this point safely assuming they just need to use the bathroom and, for safety's sake, are using the buddy system. One good thing about tour, you'll always have a buddy. Except when you're jerking off in a shitty bathroom.
So me, in my post ejaculatory depression, begin the walk of shame back to my friends. I walk up the stairs to the living room where most of them are chillin and I hear "FUCK, it was YOU!" followed by laughs of what sounded like relief. And I was like "uhh... whaddyamean?" thinking I'm gonna be called out on jerking off by those dudes poking around or maybe I shouldn't have flushed the toilet because it blew a fuse or whatever the fuck.
One kid, in a very accusatory tone, goes "Tell me you didn't turn on the fucking TV."
"I didn't turn on the TV, I was in the bathroom. Maybe it was whoever was poking around down there."
"Dude, we went down there to see who turned the TV on and we didn't find anybody."
"Well I was taking a shit I didn't turn on anything."
"No.... Fuck you, really?"
"Yeah, really."
And then they all look around at each other, laugh, put their hands on their heads and say "what the fuck?!"
Why did that TV turn on? Couldn't tell ya. Nobody can tell ya.
Maybe somebody stepped on a remote or something.
Maybe the force of my orgasm caused an electro shock wave that resonated through audio\visual appliances everywhere.
But maybe...
just maybe...
(this is where you put the flashlight under your chin)
...The Champ showed up.
