Ah, this weekend was kind of amazing.

I guess it sort of kicked off thursday night, when my friend Erika came over with her friend Ashley, ostensibly to watch this documentary about the making of Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the original), but instead Sonny, them and me ended up shooting off fireworks in the Dirtfarm, blowing shit up, drinking rum and whiskey, going to a playground and generally just shooting the shit.

The next day I got a lot of stuff done at work, suprisingly, then headed out to go pick up Kara for our trip to NYC! We ended up making at about 2am, after an extended side-trip to try and find food that ended with some really nasty burritos. We pondered on why they always make it seem like the food is RIGHT OFF the interstate, when in reality it is like 373673673 miles away from the exit ramp. We listened to the Rolling Stones, Pulp, Avail, and Jawbreaker. We rocked out to Dixie repeatedly even though we were driving away from the South. We again got a spot right next to Evan's apartment.

The next day we rose and ate at this little resteraunt right next to Evan & Michele's apartment. He didn't eat with us since he is now vegan!! But we met up with him after and walked to the post office with him and then we took the subway. Me and Evan talked constantly about boring music stuff and a guy sat between us and Kara because it seemed like she wasn't even with us, we were so absorbed in our conversation - sorry, Kara.

We split up, since Evan was meeting Dima and Grillo at ABCNORIO and me and Kara were gonna catch Tragedy at the Knitting Factory. After getting FRISKED (Nyc is crazy!), we got into the show and were on the super guest list jawns, thanks to Evan. We palled around with Patrick, this bartender who Kara thought was super-hot and joked with him about how there was a Salsa band playing after Tragedy, and Kara's ideas about beer-flavored bubble gum.

Tragedy was GREAT. I was very happy to see them play, and they played a lot of my favorites. I wasn't having the best time from the mid-back side so I went right up front. At first, I was worried that I would get pulverised by the moshing kids, but I realized that most of them only weighed like 80 pounds so I could just stand there and let them run into my while I watched. It was a really fun time.

After, we met up with Michele and watched some of Challenger (who were playing upstairs), but Kara and I decided to just get more beer and talk to the bartender more. Eventually, Evan and Dima got done with the Yaphet Kotto show and showed up. We all filtered out and made our way to a Sushi resteraunt. Good eats. I made fun of Dima, he made fun of me. We met up with Kiche and Craig, then Nathan and Heather. We went to Odessa, then this other semi-busted bar. We also had coffee. Heather and Nathan gave us a ride back to Evan's, we saw the Queen Mary 2. We slept like logs.

Sunday, we got up and all ate together at a Vegan-friendly place. Michele left us Jelly Belly's for the road, that sweetheart. We bid adieu to Evan and hit the road. Kara and I got to Philly about 2-3 hours before the Tragedy/Yaphet Kotto/Mannequin/Stop It!! show. We wandered, her looking for beer, me looking for a bathroom to use. Finally, we each found what we needed, then we decided to while the time away until my friends Erika, Ashley, Gary and Brandon showed up. Medusa Bar, a really odd bar that was totally empty fit the bill. We sat and watched Taxi Driver and chatted some with the bartender Mike. Finally, the kids showed (I had their tickets). We pretty much skipped stop it!!, but I saw the rest of the bands. Mannequin is totally different now, sorta grunge, but good. Yaphet Kotto was very good, as usual. Totally pummelling, but their vocal were up too loud, I think. Tragedy was EVEN BETTER than the day before. The crowd was wild, but not dangerous, the sound was really good, they played all the songs they didn't play the day before, they were just very good over all and enjoyable and the vibe of the room was really, really nice overall.

All in all, a great weekend. Hopefully next time I'm in NYC, I can see a few more of ya! But I think I may chill on the road trips for a bit. Next weekend I would like to just vegetate.