Friday, May 2, 2008

Over-explaining the Obvious

Friday, May 2nd
Day Off

I drove around Brooklyn for a bit since I'd never been there before. After an hour or two of checking out what goes on in Brooklyn at nine in the morning, I came across a parking lot I thought was safe to leave the van in.

We all piled out and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan.

The Republic Tigers called Trevis sometime Thursday evening and were looking to borrow an amp for Letterman or some other New York show. We were talking about spray painting our band's names and Chomp Womp on my amp if they were actually going to use it on a tv show. I don't remember what happened, but they ended up not needing the amp, which was a good thing, I forgot all about it and left all of our amps in Brooklyn with the van.

We got some Indian food for lunch and then we split up. Drew, Luke, and Allen decided to walk; the rest of us got Metro Passes and headed uptown. After smoking in Central Park, we jumped back on the subway. Well... two of us did. James didn't make it on. I turned around as the door was closing. Just in time to see James go "oh" and pull his foot back out of the doorway. We got off at the next stop and went back to the stop we separated at, but he was gone. He didn't have a phone, but we figured we'd hear from him eventually. All six of us were planning on meeting at the Momo sometime between 4 and 7. The Momo has free admission after 4 on Fridays.

I ate a mystical altoid about 4. Me and Trevis started walking toward a subway entrance so we could make it to the Momo to meet everybody. When we got there, James was already there. We walked into the museum thinking it was free and were escorted back to the front desk where we were asked for a $20/person donation. Thinking this was the free museum and it wasn't a mandatory donation type thing, we gave a total of $9.73 between the three of us and went back in.

My phone was dead and I saw an outlet next to a three thousand year old statue. Lack of sleep and entheogens were making me feel daring, so I took advantage of the situation and started sucking power off the grid. I got away with it for about thirty seconds, then a security guard came and told me to unplug. I bullshitted with him for a minute and he let me keep it plugged in for another few minutes. Then I started returning missed calls while it was charging and the guy came over again and told me the party was over. Gabby had called while my phone was dead, so I went outside and called her back. I don't remember but I don't think she answered.

So back inside the museum I went off by myself. After bumping into a few tourists, I realized I hadn't showered in a week and was really stinky. I think I scared a few people, but I wasn't too worried about it. The museum was, as could be expected, really amazing, I liked the 20th century section the best, it was mind melting. I thought I'd come up with a really cool album name, "Over-explaining the Obvious". But in the soberness of the next morning, it wasn't a keeper.

We met back at the front steps around eight and called the other guys. It turns out we weren't at the Momo, we were at the Met. So we took the subway back down towards the other guys, I was still feeling like a surrealist painting. We stopped at a book store, I found a Robert Anton Wilson book for my brother, and I called my dad to say, "Happy Birthday." Whitney called and I was talking to her about what was going on, in a moment of brilliance she reminded me that if we had to pick up the van by midnight and we were still dicking around in a bookstore in midtown Manhattan at eleven, we needed to start moving south. That was a good call; we started toward the subway, hiked across the Brooklyn Bridge and made it back to van ten minutes before close. If we hadn't made it back to the van, we would've been fucked.

James called Allen and we picked up baby birds in Manhattan. We took James and Allen to Nick's house in Williamsburg, the rest of us went and picked up Gabby. She led us back to her place in North Bergen and we got hooked up with our first free parking spot in a few days. It's amazing how the simple things like access to electricity and parking spots can make you feel so happy. When we got out of the van, I took in every electronic device I had and plugged them all in at once, just because I could.

Gabby's place was sweet, graffiti all over the walls, futons, couches, blankets, a shower, a studio upstairs. After living in the van for the last week, it was a mansion of wild excess. I was upstairs brushing my teeth when I heard what sounded like a Beatles vocal melody, but it was isolated. I walked into the studio and heard something crazy; it was the four tracks that were used in the final mix of 'A Day in the Life'. There was also a 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' four track sitting around too. I grabbed a copy to take with me.

Then it was back downstairs where everyone was starting to pass out. Even though I hadn't slept more than a few hours in the last four days, I stayed up until almost sunrise before passing out. As I was passing out, I heard Drew and Gabby talking about dinosaurs.

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