Mostly Semantics

Halloween has never been good to me. In fact, among major holidays, it may be my least favorite. I think this may be a jealousy thing - every year I see costumes and think ’shit, that’s clever, why didn’t I do that?’ I’m no fan of Halloween because I never have good costumes, like, ever. There’s no real reason or excuse for this, but I’m sort of lazy and cheap and particularly hard to dress, and I don’t shop for clothes. When I do ‘buy’ clothes (by which I mean allow my mom to buy clothes for me (I realize how weird/sad that is, yes)) it’s not, y’know, a thing that might be funny or weird or anything like that. It’s something functional and boring. So I can’t just throw together a costume, and I hate storebought ones, and so Halloween is just this big anxiety trip for me - an impending annual reminder that I am fundamentally boring and lame.

I mention this as a preface to the story of this Halloween so that you’ll understand how weird it is that I was excited for this one. Like, really excited. Why? Well for starters, I wasn’t going to have to do much thinking about my costume - big relief. The thinking had been mostly done for me, I just needed to make a selection, because the amazing Be Your Own Pet was coming back to DC for a Halloween night concert, and in honor (of something, maybe) the Rock and Roll hotel was having a ‘The Warriors’ themed costume contest. So, a band I really like meshing with a movie I really like in a place I really like on a night I fucking hate. Perhaps I should’ve known better.

Red Flag 1: It’s Halloween
Red Flag 2: It’s in Northeast DC
Red Flag 3: Half our party dropped out
Red Flag 4: Everybody was dressed in gang colors. I mean, yes, colorful hilarious gangs, but gangs nonetheless.
Red Flag 5: BYOP is loud and nasty
Red Flag 6: The event was being ‘hosted’ and ‘djed’ by The Bravery

Now, I should point out that despite the apparent ease, due to a confluence of events and circumstances (not the least of which is my natural apathy towards costume-building) I did not have my Hi-Hat costume ready to go, and was forced to go out in my normal dorkwear. I’m aware that this is awful and no-fun, and I’m sorry, but not that sorry. It’s just not my holiday, man.

So V and TM and your new favorite blogger Meatball and I headed over just ahead of when we were told BYOP would take the stage, 10:30 - a full 2 hours after doors. We were met there by TM’s special lady, who I think we’re calling ‘Tomahawk Chop’. Now, bearing in mind that the movie clocks in at a lean 93 minutes, I think we may have walked in just as they started showing #2 - we walked in on the Orphans section, for those of you who know what I’m talking about. I believe it was TM who portentously asked ‘they’re.. they’re not gonna play the whole thing, are they?’

Why yes, TM, yes they are.

So we wait around for an hour and a half feeling (in my case anyway) alternately old and no fun for being there without a costume, and also remarkably hot and crowded and just vaguely uncomfortable - but dammit, BYOP. In such a small, rad venue. Ultimately, just as the movie ended, they went on - we made it a bit further up, and they were electric. Really, so incredibly rock and roll. I generally demure from loud screaming punky metal explosions like that, but (probably because they’re young and Jemina Pearl is hot) I am not as threatened or as bored with BYOP as I might be for an equivalent band playing the same sort of music. She just turned 20 (says my quick googling) and the rest of the band is probably about the same age - none of them were drinking - and they’re just brimming with incredible energy - rock and fucking roll incarnate. They’re awesome - we were all enjoying ourselves immensely. I remember being very satisfied with my decision to attend, and I think we were all as engaged with the show as I’ve ever seen us.

Not that I regret going, but things started to escalate pretty quickly during the set. It’s just a loud, ballsy fucking band, and the crowd is a few steps removed from your typical $20/ticket Canadian indie rock show at the 9:30 club. Not that there’s anything wrong with those crowds (though there is). I thought we might see some stupid things start happening when a couple of guys started the whole moshing, running around arms-akimbo, generally being aggressive dicks thing front and center. We were pretty far back, but one guy in particular was intent on making sure the whole crowd was really, um, into it. The same way he was. Which is to say, he went through the whole crowd repeatedly, shoving and hitting everyone - with particular focus paid to anyone who obviously didn’t want to be involved, and, yes, the girls.

So, you know, I get it, it’s a rock show, you wanna rock out, whatever. Fine. There were some dudes indulging him for awhile, but he got more and more aggressive and after awhile he just had a whole huge space right in the center of the crowd to himself. Which only made him more aggressive. I suppose I should take this opportunity to describe the dude - tallish, I suppose, not skinny but sort of scrawny, and, not to be a total hypocrite (foreshadowing!), but dude had a pretty half-assed Furies costume. I mean, he did the facepaint allright, but were any of the Furies in tank tops? Um, no. He painted his face, wore a hat, and pinned a copy of the Furies logo that he printed on his mom’s computer to the suspenders he’d wear any other night.

We mostly ignored and just focused on the band, because, y’know, concert, but it became increasingly difficult as he managed to single out Tomahawk and The Maestro for some special scorn, for unknown reasons. Now… ol’ Tomahawk Chop, she’s… she’s many things, ‘awesome’ and ‘a rock star’ got used plenty tonight, but this is in part because she’s fiery/fiesty/wily - she’s a fighter. Dude could sense it (I mean… she was kind of staring daggers into him and *possibly* calling him a cocksucker, like, a lot - we all could feel the mood turning violent) and this, of course, only encouraged him. So weirdly he goes up to the stage between songs and asks for (demands) the mic - weirder still, Jemina lets him go. So dude releases this pretty incoherent diatribe about how ‘music is politics and people who stand at the back are just sheep, they’re (see) hypocrites, and this is fucking rock and roll, this is for freedom (no shit)’. Now, again, they’re a pretty rocking band, and so no hard feelings about them sort of halfheartedly cheering him on - she’d already called the crowd members without costumes ‘pussies’, which, y’know, fair.

Dude was only emboldened by this and went back out to swing wildly at the crowd giving him an enormous amount of space to ‘do’ his ‘thing’. TC was just waiting for it, and TM too, and the next time he came around, shit just snapped - first TM was holding her back, then I grabbed the left arm while V got the right, and TM got between the two and kept the asshole out of her face. She was *DEFINITELY* going to jack that guy in the face, and this dickhead was pretty likely to fight back, and then we actually would’ve had a brawl on our hands.

Tomahawk managed to land a pretty good elbow chop across Vermonstrous’ chin, at which point I took both arms and she was well-tethered (she’s a spitfire but I’m, like, a battleship.) Anyway, as we made our shameful, incensed exit from the venue, apparently Jemina called to us, something along the lines of ‘awww, guys, don’t leave’ - which does make me feel better about the whole thing. Some employee on the way out swore that they were going to handle it, but the truth is that guy should’ve been handled about 20 minutes before it came to that. It was clear he wasn’t going to stop until somebody got hurt or fought him. I just can’t really believe it was one of us.

So we were set up, framed for hypocrisy and forced to fight our way back to Coney Island (Mt. Pleasant). With the tickets last night came free tickets to any RnR hotel show in the next month, but honestly I’m not sure we can go back after this. It’s a pretty sweet venue, but if they’re not willing to set in to toss a guy who is doing his best to fuck up a good time for everybody else there, I don’t think I can comfortably support them. Shame that we had to duck out before the end of their concert, because it really was a tremendously fun show before it got derailed for us by this aggressive ass.

Fuck, is it Thanksgiving yet?

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