SOC #42: Sheltered Riot

Olavi: "Let me tell you a story about the time my cousin Antonio and I went to the Coachella Music Festival in the summer of 2007. We took a train, then a bus down to Southern California. On the train we met two Canadian dudes from British Colombia or wherever the fuck, and had a long conversation about the differences between our two great nations. By the end of the train ride, I realized there honestly was no difference. Well, they learn French and English in grade school. Anyways, we then had to take a 3 hour bus ride to where the Festival was located. Antonio planned our ride to the place, I bought the tickets for the three days of the festival, and provided the tent for the campgrounds where we'd be sleeping at. This was the first time either of us had been to a big multi-staged music festival. The only reason I wanted to go was because Rage Against The Machine were reuniting for a show since disbanding seven years before. We made it through security with no fuss. I snuck in a flask of vodka, and some cigarettes with tobacco and weed packed in together. After being assigned our camping spot, we started to put up my tent. Antonio ended up doing most of the work, because I started drinking vodka from the flask and became useless. He didn't drink, nor did he smoke anything. A clean cut, smooth sailing guy, my cousin. I thought he'd live it up and imbibe some booze on this trip, but no. He'd say, 'I'm just not into it, Olavi.' I'd say, 'Fine, more for me. You might have to carry me here to the tent tomorrow if I go overboard.' He said, 'Look, you're family, and I love you, but I ain't carrying your fat-ass all the way here. There's security for that.' The tent was up, our things inside the tent. It was night time, so we went to the venders and bought ourselves pizza. He drank pepsi. I drank a Miller. We then went back to our tent and met one of our fellow campers. They said they drove all the way from Oregon. I forgot everything else they said. All I remember was it was two dudes and a chick in a menage a trois relationship, and all I was interested in was the fact they were passing around a weed pipe and they were nice enough to let me smoke some. The next three days were awesome. Saw a lot of great bands, but mostly ones I'd never find myself listening to on a regular basis. There were displays of Art all over the place, structures made by passionate individuals. One was a big locomotive which would annoyingly blast it's horn every ten minutes. I hated that fucking thing. Guess it was suppose to represent humanities horrifying treatment of planet Earth, blah blah blah. Anyways, at the end of the first day, my cousin and I were sleeping in our tent. I was so drunk I slept in an awkward angle where my foot was sticking out the front of the tent. And obviously a damn hippie hoodlum came up and tickled my foot. I jolted awake, saying, 'Fucking shit! Bastards!' The culprit was gone. Antonio said, 'The fuck you bitching about, drunk.' I said, 'A clown tickled me, man.' He asked, 'How?' I answered, 'My foot was sticking out the door.' He suggested, 'How about you bring your foot inside.' I said, 'I got a nice cigar. You wanna have some of it with me?' He said, 'No, you idiot. I've told you, I don't want to smoke anything, I don't want to drink any booze, I just want to enjoy the music. And in order to do that I need fucking sleep, not stay up late smoking a fucking cigar.' I looked at my watch, and informed, 'But it's like, eleven-thirty, man. It's like early, man. Do you hear that outside?' He said, 'Yeah.' I said, 'The people cackling laughter, people singing, guitars playing, and the drums pounding. Those, my dear cousin, are the sounds of life - not simply life - the love of life. They're all making love to life out there, Antonio, and all you want to do is sleep.' He said, 'You're drunk babbling, and everyone out there is on drugs. The drums don't even have any fucking rhythm. My mother would be disgusted by those fools.' I said, 'You know, your sister would be proud you came to Coachella with me. The last thing she told me was to get out of the house and do things. I'm sure she said the same thing to you.' He said, 'I know. I just don't want to get drunk or high.' I said, 'You don't have to get drunk or high. Look, man, lets share the cigar I brought, and walk around the campground for an hour, until the cigar goes out, then we can go to sleep.' He said, 'I don't want to inhale that shit.' I informed, 'Cigars are for the taste, you don't inhale the smoke.' He finally sat up in the tent. I sat up as well, reaching in my backpack for the cigar and my lighter. I said, 'This could be the only one you'll ever smoke in your entire life.' We spent the rest of that first night wandering around the tents, puff and passing the cigar back and forth. I smoked it more than he did. When we stopped to watch a bunch of morons on shrooms try to play their instruments, I asked him, 'How you like the cigar?' He said, 'It's okay, but I don't find it appealing.' He then gave out a small, genuine cough. I said, 'Even tomatoes aren't for everybody.' The next morning, before they let people back into the festival, a girl came up to me and asked if I had shrooms. I said, 'I don't do shrooms.' She then said, 'Why?' Then continued to walk around, inquiring if anyone had shrooms to spare. A year later I would find out why shrooms were loved by millions of drug abusers. Later that day, at the Stephen Marley concert, a man was walking around the crowd, holding up a sign that said: I need LSD. And, yes, a year later I'd find out why people enjoyed that shit. That night I drank a few beers, a strong Bloody Mary, and passed out, sleeping like a dead man, dreaming about a field of daisies being crushed by an armored tank. I woke up the next morning truly rejuvenated. Antonio told there had been a near riot at 3am. Riot police showed up. The campers, those stoned idiots wouldn't stop with the drums, so people who lived in homes near the festival called the cops. The stoned idiots threw bottles at the police, calling them Nazi's and yelling obscenities about their mothers. A helicopter flew overhead with the guy who ran the Coachella Festival yelling into a bullhorn, calming down the crowd of idiots, telling them to go back to their tents and to please be quiet. 'Peace and Love is what we should be about,' he had said. Antonio said, 'I can't believe that shit didn't wake you up.' A year later I had forgotten about youth's desire to treat stupidity like it were just another night club to do ecstasy in. My cousin had not followed me down such a path. His sister would have been proud."

SOC #41: New Year Cooky

Olavi: "There was once a time when I was young, fresh out of high school, and had a mature sense of rationality where, if I had made more formulaic decisions, I wouldn't have the time to actually tell you this story of New Years Eve 2004. My friend Mario and his two friends, Salvio, and Chris took a flight from San Fransisco Airport at around 6pm to Las Vegas for the New Years celebration. It was a spur of the moment invitation by Mario only days before. He called me up and asked, "Hey, Olavi, wanna go to Vegas for New Years?" At first, the words I really wanted to say were, "No. Not last minute like this. I don't feel like it. Not my thing." But I must've been actually silent for nearly half a minute, because Mario said into my ear, "Did Olavi hang up on me?" I said, "No, I'm still here, man." Mario then said, "Well, you wanna go or not?" In the split second before I answered, I thought about the last moment I saw my cousin two weeks before she died. Olavi, she had said, you got to get out of the house more. Go do stuff. Go party, kid. Do it when you're young, because believe me, the older you get the less fun you'll be able to have. Where's your mom's cookies? As I remembered, I said, "Cookies." Mario asked, "What's that you say?" I said, "Okay, I'll go. Is it just you and me?" Mario wooed with excitement in my ear. I said, "Damn, man. I don't want to watch fireworks def." Mario then said, "About fucking time you do something fun for yourself. It just won't be you and I. Chris and Salvio are coming as well. Chris booked everything. The flight, the room, everything, man." So a few days later, on New Years Eve, our flight landed in Vegas just before 8pm. After picking up our luggage I followed Chris and the rest as we wandered around the Vegas airport. I had no clue what we were looking for; we weren't headed outside where all the taxi's were but inside where people seemed to be standing around, waiting for whoever and whatever. Chris then appeared from the crowd of people with a man wearing a suit, and holding a sign with Chris' full named written on it. It was a fucking limo driver. I couldn't believe it. We were headed to the fucking hotel on the Las Vegas strip inside a fucking limo on New Years Eve with the celebration just around the corner. I felt good, great, excellent, and elated with the decision I had made. Sometimes it's okay to spoil yourself and just eat the damn cooky. We sat inside the stretch limo as the driver drove us through the city, the strobe and neon lights passing by. Salvio noticed there was a CD player in the roof over the back seat. He put in some rap music. The speakers blasted with true gangsta lyrics. I wish he had let me play some of my Danzig music, then I would've truly enjoyed the short trip to the hotel. I looked out the window as the limo was nearing its destination. The Luxor. That black pyramid with the white light of a tip, stretching its beam up into the dark, starless sky. Cooky, I thought to myself. Mario and I stood far from the front desk as Chris was checking himself and Salvio into the room. The thing was Chris only booked two people into the room, not all four of us. So Mario and I just stood at the border of where the lobby ended and the Casino began. I was admiring the decor of the Luxor when Mario said, "Doesn't look good." I asked, "What do you mean?" He said, pointing, "Look." I looked over and saw Chris arguing with the clerk, but it wasn't the clerk, it was the fucking manager. I asked, "You think they saw us, saw we were Mexican, put two and two together? Figured things out? Fucking bastards." Mario looked over at me, "You don't even look Mexican, you half-gringo." I said, "Hey, that kind of hurts my feelings. Sometimes I do wish I was born a little darker." Mario said jokingly, "Bullshit." I emphasized, "Key word, Mario, 'Sometimes.'" Chris and Salvio appeared. Chris said, "They won't give us the fucking room." Mario asked, "Why the fuck not? You made the reservation weeks ago." Salvio informed, "They said it was because we weren't twenty-fucking-one." I said, "What's us not being twenty-one have to do with sleeping in the Luxor?" Chris said, "Cause the fucking mini-bar in the room. If all of us are under twenty-one it's a fucking liability. Fucking morons didn't tell me when I booked it. But the manager said this kind of shit happens all the time, so they booked us a room at a cheaper hotel." Mario inquired, "Is it on the strip?" Salvio said, "He said it was." I said, "I bet he's fucking full of shit." We went back outside and got into the cab. The cab driver told us the hotel we were headed to was a mile off the strip. Chris said, "That lying cocksucker. Olavi, you were right. Fuckers don't care about us underage people. They just want all the money they can SUCK OUT OF YOU!" Salvio said, "Hey, it ain't all bad. It's like just after ten-thirty, we can make in time for the fireworks." The cab driver said, with a heavy Russian accent, "Good luck with that." Then he chuckled. I said, "Still a good cooky." Mario asked, "What?" I said, "Nothing." We made it to the cheap-ass hotel, checked in as fast as we could, dropped off our luggage inside the room, and then waited ten minutes outside for another cab. The cab couldn't make it all the way to the strip due to heavy traffic and the fact some roads were blocked off for the nights celebration. Mario paid the cab driver, we got out, then ran on foot to the strip. Yes, we made it to the crowd of drunk people waiting for the clock to strike midnight. During this time of my life I had never been drunk, and I simply stared at all the people around me, all the tourists, from all around the country and all around the world, and thought in my sober mind how much I didn't want to be like them. I saw all these smiles, heard all the laughter, saw bravery in men walking up to beautiful women and begging for their love. What I truly saw, as my friends and I waited for the year 2005 to arrive, were unhappy people numbing themselves into a fantasy which would never come. I saw the biggest wish for an eternal utopia in those faces and eyes, and the minds behind them were full of dreams never coming true. At this time in my life I was in between joy and depression, and when the big sign said Happy New Year 2005. I could only hear annoying bangs of colorful lights in the sky, and annoying shouts from drugged up, drunken fools. We continued to walk through the strip as the new year began to go and go as it always did. Mario turned to me and said, "Dude, look." I inquired, "Where?" He said, pointing, "Up there. The dude is climbing that big neon sign. Fucking awesome." People began to cheer and woo, clap and whistle. Then a big flash of sparks burst from the sign. A light brighter than any of the fire works. I covered my eyes for a second. I uncovered them a moment later as the cheers changed to screaming. The neon sign was out of power. The man was gone. Salvio yelled, "The fucking guy just fried." Everyone ran. Later, we would find out the man was from the Bay Area in California. Not only that, he was from where Mario and I lived. We later found ourselves inside a new cab headed for the hotel. Chris asked the driver, "Is there an eighteen-and-up strip club in Las Vegas?" Fifteen minutes later we were sitting inside a dirty fucking strip club in the front row. It was nearly empty. I wasn't enjoying myself like the others were who looked on the stage like drooling dogs, so hypnotized by the naked lady onstage, going up and down on the damn pole, crawling pathetically on the ground right in front of us. She beckoned for Mario who, like a Zombie in a horror film, went up to her obediently at the edge of the stage. She touched him all over. He got carried away and rubbed both her inner thighs with his hands. She pushed them away immediately, waving her finger before his eyes, saying, "No, no, bad boy." I simply sat there uninterested, smoking a cigarette. I'm not saying strip clubs shouldn't exist, but goddamn, they're fucking boring. I'll admit, I was a virgin at that time, and I love pussy, but I certainly was not a dog with his pink lipstick dick poking out. The found the faces of the men more interesting - and honestly more fucking hilarious - as they stared at the strippers onstage. Seriously, why pay to see a comedian when you can look at a man mesmerized by a naked woman. When the place closed, we were outside getting a cab, but the fucking greedy cabdrivers wanted to charge us fifty bucks for a most likely fifteen dollar drive to the hotel cause of the traffic from the New Years Celebration. We ended up paying one of the drivers, but guess what, NO TRAFFIC; city workers had already cleared the strip for civilian traffic, so the roads flowed smoothly. Chris was fucking pissed, so he got the cab driver to stop at a gas station and buy us underage kids a case of Corona. The driver said, "I could lose my job." Chris said, "No, you won't." We got back to the hotel with the twelve Coronas. I didn't drink any. I just didn't feel like it. I thought about that idiot who electrocuted himself to death on that night. It wasn't because he wanted to die, it was because he was a drunken moron trying to impress a girl who was probably actually a hooker he couldn't afford. Such a thought made me sleep well. I didn't want to spoil myself by eating too many cookies. Three years later I'd find myself back in Vegas with magic cookies, and numbing myself from the fire, because, with the right drugs, one can have a wonderful time in Hell."