Demon War Yell Down Hell Ride

So I left Rory's graduation party feeling pretty good. I had a lot of fun, I was laughing a lot, I came in contact with people I had not seen in a long time, I met Rory's parents, Wood kept talking to me about something called career day (he apparently works at an elementary school), I called Orlando "Donny" as he was leaving, but nobody cared, and so on and so forth.

At this point, there wasn't that much to complain about.

When I got to Jen's I parked and ran up the street, through the rain, to her apartment. She had already gone to sleep, so I sat up for maybe a half hour with everyone else watching something called "Survivor Man" on the discovery channel. Two a.m. rolled around, and I figured that it was in everyone's best interest to leave, so I left.

Or, at least, I tried to leave.

After driving down the hill for a bit towards South Street, I noticed that the car was bumping along in a funny way. I got a sudden rush of panic, which was quickly replaced by a sense of excitement. Maybe I would get to change a tire! I know how to do that! What fun! So I get out of the car to look things over, and I come slowly to two realizations:

1. I have TWO flat tires.
2. It is probably the work of man or beast, not sharp thing in road.

So someone slashed two of my tires. There was only one puncture on each, so I've ruled out Wolverine.

I call triple A, and I call my house to let my parents know what is going on. These are the two choices that dictate the rest of the night.

My Dad shows up first, and we're waiting for the truck. There's a little bit of confusion because, at first, we were going to tow the car somewhere in Arlington, but my father wanted it to be towed to Fahey Tire in Wakefield (that looks like an advertisement). The truck driver arrives, learns this and, to summarize, he says the following:

"It is 3 am. My shift ends at 5 am. I was under the impression that I was driving to Arlington. I do not want to drive to Wakefield. Another truck is on its way. I am going to leave."

Now he says all of this AFTER he has attached my car to his lift and sat in his truck conversing with someone on the other end of his radio, so from our perspective, we're thinking that if he had simply done his job, he would have been more than halfway to Wakefield right now.

There ensued a lot of bad noise.

My car is still parked pretty much where it died, with a sad note on the windshield reading:

"TWO FLAT TIRES. DO NOT TOW. WILL RETURN IN MORNING. THANK YOU."

I got back around 4 or 5, I don't remember. And, for once, I'm happy my work day was rained out.

Now it's time to pick up the car.

- - - -

It's several days later, more than a week later, and the car has undergone several massive, rather expensive changes. A Dominican man led us through Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, and Dorchester to 93 back to Wakefield (after making me wait more than three hours in JP), stopping once at a liquor store to pick up some booze somewhere near the Heath Street Projects, but, all told, he got the car to Fahey's Tire Center, and after new tires, new vacuum tubes of some sort, and an innecessary oil change, the car is running rather nicely again.

All of that seems pretty meaningless and extremely distant now, given the fact that I got back from the Bonnaroo Music Festival around two in the morning last night.

I think that my Bonnaroo experiences should get their own post, so I won't say much here, but I will give you a teaser.

I will have to talk about the wonders of Waffle House, the near-frightening frequency of baptist churches south of the Mason-Dixon line, a gollem-like figure in horrid looking black cut-off jeans selling pipes who never slept, Veggie quesadillas, Hari Krishna literature, and a kid named "Balls" who wandered into our camp site on a lot of drugs.

I also yelled "SEX IN DE MUD!" when people were setting off fireworks on the final night, and got a rousing response.

But I'll get to all of that in more detail next time. I need some time to rest on it.

Here is a list of bands I saw, in no particular order:

Devandra Banhart
The Magic Numbers
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Cat Power
Beck
Radiohead
Tom Petty
The Dresden Dolls
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
Sonic Youth

Maybe I'll post some photos too. We'll see how much patience I have left. The next few days are going to be filled with work, rollerblading, and wiffle ball, so who knows.

Be easy, friends, be easy.