A little over a month ago a few of my buddies and I ventured across the swamp to watch NoFX at Ram's Head Live! I was totally fuckin' stoked about this concert. Life has done an excellent job of finding me otherwise occupied every time these cats have been anywhere within 100 miles of the District. This was my first NoFX concert. Sad, I know.
While certain parts of that evening remain somewhat of a blur to my rum-addled brain, I distinctly remember bellowing, "I am very happy to be here!" in a voice tantamount of Eddie Murphy in "Coming to America." This was just as the house lights were dimming, and Fat Mike was about to stumble on stage. The random guy standing next to me at the time laughed, turned around, shook my hand. With a wry smile he remarked, "couldn't have said it better m'self." Nice guy. I'm insecure and feed off any form of flattery. I enjoy compliments.
At 6'2" I'm not really a short guy. Even more so when I'm wearing combat boots. Even more so when I'm surrounded by a buncha' teenagers and those cute little females that all weigh 90lbs and can make clearance under my armpits at a dead run.
We're about an hour into the set and I'm havin' a blast. I'm hovering in that no-man's land that exists somewhere on the fringes of the sweating, pulsating crowd, and the awfulness that is the mosh pit. Like I said, I'm big... but rubbing up against other large, sweaty guys innit my idea of a swell time. Especially if they're swinging and kicking.
Oh, tangent! So a few months ago I blacked out for the first time. It was awesome!
Trail running in Southern VA.
Triple digit weather.
Hyperthermia.
Bonked.
Cracked head on ground.
Woke up naked with ice on my junk and more in my armpits.
Not as much fun as I would've imagined. The paramedic told me that once somebody blacks out for the first time, they are prone to doing so again in the future. Som'n about a learned response. Your body now knows it has some sorta' fail safe, should it be under duress or blah, blah, some medical nonsense. I put holes in people, I don't bother learnin' how to patch 'em up. She wasn't makin' much sense.
Anyways, this is somewhat essential for what happened next.
Back to the concert... the sky falls on my head.
Well, the dude was big enough, at least.
Some wonderful human being decided he would stage dive into the crowd. Normally... this ain't no problem, however, this individual forgot the two rules of stagediving.
1) Weigh restrictions. You, kind sir, weigh over 240lbs. Your feet shall remain firmly planted on the ground at all times. No exceptions. This includes crowd surfing. Sorry. House rules.
2) It's called stage"diving". The second part of the word indicates some sort of, uh... grace. Ya'know... like a diver.
You, you miserable waste of flesh, decided to disregard points one and two after I have clearly and succinctly addressed both. So, I apologize if I seem crass when I complain about your beefy shoulder as it collided with my collarbone at 20mph after you sent your massive bulk hurdling off the stage. Like lightning, you were attracted to the tallest motherfucker in sight.
Fucking midget girls. Your diminutive stature offers me no protection against the awfulness of nature's wrath.
The good news is that this time I was only unconscious for a few seconds. I was back to the world quick enough to see that as my body was propelled backwards by Sir Beefyshoulder, I managed to take out half the crowd behind me. Big guy, remember?
I didn't see the human bullet or his in-human flight until he was being pulled offa my person. Oh yeah, I s'pose he decided it best to land what seemed like the entirety of his body on my head when he was finished playing Greg Louganis for the evenin'.
As soon as I was capable of doing so, I stumbled into the men's room to check myself out in the mirror. Made sure nothing was protruding where som'n shouldn'ta been protrudin' and that nothing was bleedin' or otherwise outta place. Head was swimming something fierce, but I appeared none the worse for wear.
Earlier this week I told an abridged version of this story to David, my physician, after he showed me the x-rays of my inner ear. It happens that "my ear's been killing me the past three weeks and I'm OD'ing on Vitamin-I" wasn't elborate enough of a story to satiate the man's curiosity.
...and I know now where on my body to locate my "incus" and "malleus" bones. I also know that, when broken, time is the only thing that can heal both.
So... Thanks for crushing my ear against the floor and breaking shit up in my skull.
I'ma take more Ibuprofen now.
Oh yeah, the NoFX fuckin' rocks!
While certain parts of that evening remain somewhat of a blur to my rum-addled brain, I distinctly remember bellowing, "I am very happy to be here!" in a voice tantamount of Eddie Murphy in "Coming to America." This was just as the house lights were dimming, and Fat Mike was about to stumble on stage. The random guy standing next to me at the time laughed, turned around, shook my hand. With a wry smile he remarked, "couldn't have said it better m'self." Nice guy. I'm insecure and feed off any form of flattery. I enjoy compliments.
At 6'2" I'm not really a short guy. Even more so when I'm wearing combat boots. Even more so when I'm surrounded by a buncha' teenagers and those cute little females that all weigh 90lbs and can make clearance under my armpits at a dead run.
We're about an hour into the set and I'm havin' a blast. I'm hovering in that no-man's land that exists somewhere on the fringes of the sweating, pulsating crowd, and the awfulness that is the mosh pit. Like I said, I'm big... but rubbing up against other large, sweaty guys innit my idea of a swell time. Especially if they're swinging and kicking.
Oh, tangent! So a few months ago I blacked out for the first time. It was awesome!
Trail running in Southern VA.
Triple digit weather.
Hyperthermia.
Bonked.
Cracked head on ground.
Woke up naked with ice on my junk and more in my armpits.
Not as much fun as I would've imagined. The paramedic told me that once somebody blacks out for the first time, they are prone to doing so again in the future. Som'n about a learned response. Your body now knows it has some sorta' fail safe, should it be under duress or blah, blah, some medical nonsense. I put holes in people, I don't bother learnin' how to patch 'em up. She wasn't makin' much sense.
Anyways, this is somewhat essential for what happened next.
Back to the concert... the sky falls on my head.
Well, the dude was big enough, at least.
Some wonderful human being decided he would stage dive into the crowd. Normally... this ain't no problem, however, this individual forgot the two rules of stagediving.
1) Weigh restrictions. You, kind sir, weigh over 240lbs. Your feet shall remain firmly planted on the ground at all times. No exceptions. This includes crowd surfing. Sorry. House rules.
2) It's called stage"diving". The second part of the word indicates some sort of, uh... grace. Ya'know... like a diver.
You, you miserable waste of flesh, decided to disregard points one and two after I have clearly and succinctly addressed both. So, I apologize if I seem crass when I complain about your beefy shoulder as it collided with my collarbone at 20mph after you sent your massive bulk hurdling off the stage. Like lightning, you were attracted to the tallest motherfucker in sight.
Fucking midget girls. Your diminutive stature offers me no protection against the awfulness of nature's wrath.
The good news is that this time I was only unconscious for a few seconds. I was back to the world quick enough to see that as my body was propelled backwards by Sir Beefyshoulder, I managed to take out half the crowd behind me. Big guy, remember?
I didn't see the human bullet or his in-human flight until he was being pulled offa my person. Oh yeah, I s'pose he decided it best to land what seemed like the entirety of his body on my head when he was finished playing Greg Louganis for the evenin'.
As soon as I was capable of doing so, I stumbled into the men's room to check myself out in the mirror. Made sure nothing was protruding where som'n shouldn'ta been protrudin' and that nothing was bleedin' or otherwise outta place. Head was swimming something fierce, but I appeared none the worse for wear.
Earlier this week I told an abridged version of this story to David, my physician, after he showed me the x-rays of my inner ear. It happens that "my ear's been killing me the past three weeks and I'm OD'ing on Vitamin-I" wasn't elborate enough of a story to satiate the man's curiosity.
...and I know now where on my body to locate my "incus" and "malleus" bones. I also know that, when broken, time is the only thing that can heal both.
So... Thanks for crushing my ear against the floor and breaking shit up in my skull.
I'ma take more Ibuprofen now.
Oh yeah, the NoFX fuckin' rocks!