Million Dollar Deals

Sep 15

A tease for our friends at CinemaBlend.

How Not to Ride an Airplane (and the Adventures of Being a Half-Assed Roadie)

I knew this trip was going to be a bit wild, especially seeing how Loki and me were heading to the airport directly after the bar in Suffern, but I never thought it’d be so ridiculous so fast.

“Sir, are you a diabetic? ARE YOU GOING INTO DIABETIC SHOCK? Are you on any prescriptions that we need to know of? Do you need help? Do we need to take the plane down for an emergency?” Coming to consciousness, finding yourself sprawled across the floor in the back of the airplane to the barrage of these questions is not something you usually expect from a standard plane ride, but then again, you’re not me and nothing apparently is standard when I’m around.

I came to after hearing these questions and answer “huh? what?” I look around and see 3 stewardesses hovering over me with the utmost looks of concern and shock as I kinda put up one arm to block the flashlight in my eyes. One stewardess piped up and goes “Sir, you look very pale, is there any health problems you have we should attend to?” I try and shimmy my body up against the back wall of the airplane as I reply with “I know, I’m always pale. Just leave me alone, I have to piss or puke. Just leave me alone.” AS I’m sitting there, another stewardess comes running up with a damp, cold paper towel and throws it on top of my forehead and starts patting my face. I kinda do one of my Frankenstein arm toss and grunts. You know the one, the one where he yells “FIRE! BAD!” But, that wasn’t the case. My case was that I just let out “I HAVE TO PEE!” They point to the bathroom door, and don’t tell me this isn’t the standard door one would expect. I start pulling on it really hard like some dumb ape and grunting trying to get it open. I throw my arms in the air in frustration and exhaustion and am about to sit back down on the floor until one of the stewardesses tells me “sir, you have to push into the door and it will collapse and open.” I looked at her like she was on drugs when she told me this and start shoving into the door. Weird shit, it worked just like she said it would. I must say, pissing during turbulence isn’t fun. I kicked the door open to exit and staggered back to my seat to find where I threw my hat and ipod. Memories came back of me standing up to throw those 2 items down onto my seat as I stood up. All I remember after that instance was that I was taking a footstep and then what I can only describe a feeling as if someone hit me on the back of the head and everything went black. Obviously, no one was standing behind me and striking me across the back of my head, but yea. All of this happened within an hour of the plane having had taken off and us being up in the air.

When the plane landed, several stewardesses came up to me to make sure I was ok. They offered me drinks (which I said yes to only to find out the drink offered was orange juice) and sandwiches (which thank God I declined, because they had intentions of charging me 6 buck for a turkey sandwich I would have refused to have eaten because it had turkey in it). When I finally gave in to their repetitive questioning as to what it could have been that made me do what happened, I kinda just lied to them and told them it was a mixture of not eating dinner and not getting a good night’s sleep. They believe it and I obviously didn’t want to tell them it was most definitely because for 6 hours straight me, the birthday boy of the night and an ass-ton of people we know headed over to Suffern for a night of nonstop drinking pints of booze and shots of God only knows what. Apparently the birthday boy’s brother had to corral the two of us out of the bar cause we wanted to stay and keep drinking. I was reminded after the whole ordeal of me being in California that I was just a mess in the back seat staring at my cell phone as the birthday boy was dead to the world in the shotgun seat, snoring his heart out. He and I sat there the next day when we got off the plane, staring at one another, hung over as all hell asking one another “how did we get on the pane in the first place?” The birthday boy didn’t even remember leaving the bar, let alone, how he got on the friggin’ plane. All I remember is the two of us stumbling around, the birthday boy dropping all his belongings all over the airport and being told he had to check his bags.

Anyway, after the two of us landed, we staggered off the plane like those zombies in Michael Jackson’s music video for Thriller. First on the agenda after arriving at LAX was to rent a car. We hopped some bus to the rental car place after sitting there, trying to remember the night prior as well as me loudly pointing out how ugly these 2 girls were sitting near us on the plane. I of course, not having any sense of care, was probably loud enough for not only the 2 said girls, but also everyone at the baggage claim to hear me go “UGHHH, SO FUCKING BRUTE LOOKING!” At the rental car place, we were given the choice of a full sized car. We saw a Dodge Charger, but the keys weren’t in it. We were thoroughly disappointed and ended up sticking with a white Chevy Impala (I later found out there were V-8 Impalas when we returned the car and was kinda disappointed). But yea, we hit Denny’s and sat there staring blankly at each other, grunting in pain and hating on what we eventually figured out was a fire alarm beeping every five seconds (you know, when you need to change the battery, and it keeps letting out that annoying high pitched beep? Yea, try sitting there eating your food while that is going off and causing the utmost annoyance since you have a hangover like no other).

After that, we hopped back in the car and headed out to Manhattan Beach to find the singer and bassist and head on out to Hollywood to get our new hotel room and set everything up. The two of them were just about dead to the world, sitting there in their room, still asleep, probably totally annoyed by how early in the morning it was that we were banging on their door to wake up and let us in. After a bit of trying to get our shit together and them doing the same in their room, we headed out to Hollywood.

Once we all got set up and everything, we headed to some Guitar Center that’s well known in Hollywood… at least I think it was a guitar center. I’m sure the bassist is gonna harass me about not knowing the place once he reads this, but whatever. We hung out in there for a while checking out guitars and amps while the singer got some stuff him and the bassist needed for the next few shows. While we were originally outside the place, we came into contact with the first crazy of our arrival in Hollywood. Some crazy old black lady came up screaming gibberish to God only knows who and saying shit like “YOU THINK YOU BRINGING THAT IN MY HOUSE? AWWW NO!” and so forth with the insane nonsensical rants to lord only knows who. Quoting her became something funny to do for the remainder of the trip (well, at least until me and birthday boy introduced the singer and bassist to Frank Calienda’s impersonation of Charles Barkley, which is fucking hilarious).

We wandered around for a little bit doing some other tourist shit and ended up eating at this surprisingly good place called Red something or other that we went to cause everyplace else on Sunset Blvd was closed for some Goddamn reason. I can only describe where it was by telling you that if you’re headed away from highway 101 and headed towards the sunset strip, it’s on that bend where there are some billboards over a high-class coffee shop with valet parking (signs of how ridiculous Hollywood is). The food was damn good and we enjoyed it thoroughly. Oh, and where we initially parked on the street was right next to where the bus stop is you see Axl Rose getting dropped off in the very beginning of the video for Welcome to the Jungle… yea, the bassist made it a must that if I’m gonna be doing the Axl Rose shimmy anywhere while I’m out in Hollywood, it has to be at that same spot. So yea, I can now claim that I did that.

All of the above was followed by sitting around the hotel room and digesting, re-stringing the guitars and re-tuning them and so forth. The singer and the birthday boy eventually headed out afterwards to meet some people while me and the bassist got the merch and everything ready for that night’s show at the Knitting Factory out in Hollywood. By the time we were done loading up the truck, the singer and birthday boy met us up and we headed on our way to get shit done.

We arrived at the Knitting Factory, checked in, loaded all the shit into the back room and then headed back out for a bit down the street to meet up some people. We went to some high scale looking place to meet up some of the head people for the Free the WM3 cause. We get to the door and the 4 of us are looked upon like dirt bags that don’t belong there. The guy working the door was like “um… are you guys here for the band?” We didn’t know what he meant and the singer, clueless as the rest of us, said something like like “yea, we’re the band,” thinking the guy knew we were heading there to meet the WM3 guys. He tells us to go to the back down this hallway and so forth. After sitting around and seeing nothing but signs saying “Restrooms” we’re pointed down this velvet hallway. We all think “cool.” We get back there and see it’s some girl playing an acoustic guitar. We sit there wondering what the fuck is going on, cause we’re supposed to meet these people, not sit in on some woman playing guitar. the bassist and I left to find the bathrooms while the singer and birthday boy wandered off to look for the guys they needed to find. The bassist and I got down to the bathrooms thinking we have it all to ourselves to do our businesses in peace. How wrong we were. I start pissing and all of a sudden I hear the bathroom door come flying open and about 3 or 4 guys come charging in like some goddamn stampede of overt machoism. I turn around and am like “what the fuck is going on?” I finish up, clean my hands as quick as possible and run out cause I wanted no part of some mongoloids yelling “BRAH!” at one another as they wag their dicks. I wait down the hallway for the bassist who I was gonna laugh at for being stuck in there with so many people (it was such a tiny room and people just kept piling in there. Then this DOUCHE BAG fucking comes up to me and is like “is this the line to the bathroom?” I go “nah, I’m just waiting for my friend,” he goes “what’s going on in there?” I reply back sarcastically with “a fucking party.” He goes “but I can go in there?” I go “yea, sure… if you don’t mind being stuck in an overcrowded room filled with a buncha guys.” He throws the door open and nails it right into some big guy who had some choice words to tell the douche bag as he walked out. The guy then tried saying something very smart-ass and I just gave him a sarcastic “hmph.” He then tried saying something else and made it apparent it was directed at me, staring at me and finishing his sentence with “hrmph, right? hrmph?” I gave a “hrmph” and smiled like a dick right back at him. The bassist finally came charging out of there trying to get out of the melee that must’ve been taking place in there and the douche then goes “Is this your buddy? your friend you were waiting for? what, you take turns going to the bathroom?” I just gave him a wise-ass reply of “yea, exactly.” and we walked away. God, only my second time out in LA and I fucking loath the masses there, already.

We finally get upstairs and find where the singer and birthday boy went to sit down with the WM3 people. The guy from the record company also met us up with his cousin. We all had a few drinks and talked. The bassist and I headed back to the Knitting Factory to check up on everything and leave since we felt out of place. We ended up hanging out with a buddy I met last time I was out there and his brother as well as some other people who’d come up to us to say hello (it’s weird how many people recognize me and I’ve never done anything mildly important in my life… I’m like the Paris Hilton of Horror Rock. Maybe now is the time to put out a shitty single and release some cheap cologne. HA!).

Anyway, the singer was on the ball with his set that night. The bassist and birthday boy pulled the shit together as well and made it a good show. The crowd was big and I was a sweaty mess running around, going back and forth between the truck getting more of the merchandise that was selling like mother fuckin’ hot cakes. Bringing my megaphone along with us was quite entertaining and helpful. When the set was over, the singer and birthday boy were off to the side singing shit and the bassist and I were taking turns yelling into the megaphone and selling shit off the merch tables we set up. Fucking chaos like no other went on. More people who apparently knew of me came up to talk to the bassist and I about nonsense. One kid kept showing me pictures of him in Joker face paint and his custom made Joker guitar, etc, etc. Some girl got dragged out “for air” cause she was so drunk. Another girl was out cold on the couch as we were just finishing up packing up all the merch and gear. Of course, I had to fuck with her. As she was lying there, I walked over and tried shoving my finger up her nose to freak her out. Freaked out is basically what she got. I kept yelling gibberish to add to her being freaked out and she just rolled away like a steam rolling pin and got up and left… or at least left to the other side of the room to hide from any more attacks to her nostrils and ego like that. Afterwards, the 4 of us, the owner of the record company and his cousin (who eerily looked like Tom Petty) and 2 or 3 other people all went to celebrate the good outcome of the night at some diner called Mel’s or something like that.

At first we had to go to the parking lot of the hotel and drop off the singer’s truck and the car the birthday boy and I rented. In the parking lot was some crazy Indian guy (the kind with the dot, not the feathers) who just blew up at us telling us we couldn’t park there. Very hard to understand a damn word the guy was saying. The singer went off on him like no other, though. Putting the guy in his place and telling him how we have a hotel room and a right to a parking space for our cars. The guy tried getting us to pay more money for a parking spot and we basically told him to go fuck himself for being a wise ass and then we left for the Diner. I swear, everyone is an asshole over there. Even the ones who can barely form sentences properly.

Never have I been to a diner where there’s 2 guards outside the door and a rope you have to line up behind. At this point I’m smashed, telling girls shit like “what up girl, wha’s good” and so forth. Not much obviously came out of any of that ‘superb game’ of mine and I just got fat on food til we left for the hotel room. Instead of hitting the bottle of Maker’s Mark that me and the bassist picked up at the liquor store earlier in the night, we all just hit the hay.

That was just the first night in a 4 or 5 day trip to sit in on an acoustic tour that my friend’s somewhat big horror punk band was doing back in 2008. If you were there, or you heard the rest of the story, you would understand why I can’t remember what the fuck went on out there either or how long it was. Clearly, after my Cisco and well gin and tonics from shitty rock clubs along the sunset strip during my first trip, I didn’t learn my fucking lesson.

What have I learned, if anything? Try not to drink yourself into a coma right before going on an airplane. Shit gets serious.

- heartshapedtaco, Staff