Fun, Fighting, and Free Drinks: CMJ 2005

Day 1: Everyone gets to the Holland Motor Lodge of Jersey City with pretty much no problems, except that the other van somehow ended up in Manhattan, rather than going around the city as the directions said. Anyway, so we get into the rooms, and immediately head to Lincoln Center to get our badges. This is when I realized subways are continually 125 degrees. You walk down the steps, and literally begin sweating; you can't help it. Let alone all the other things wrong with the subways, the heat was the worst.

After the badges and the traditional CMJ purging of the free stuff tables (which this year included the now infamous Mountain Dew X,) we all as a group headed to Chipotle for some Mexican food. On the walk there, some guy walks up to Silva and says to him, "Let me look at your hair." Silva screams, "NOOOOOO-WAH!" like a seven year old boy. I'm still finding it funny a week later.

Now, I had never eaten at this place, and had only heard of it a few days before, but supposedly they are everywhere; it nothing, special, though, just a higher class, overhyped Taco Bell.

We then went to some place in some dirty part of the city to see some crybaby bands and whatnot. The reason almost all of us went was because of the free beer, Red Stripe to be exact. We sat, listened to Tim Fite and some other garbage, then left. Me, Silva, and Dustin went back to the hotel room to change and get ready to go out.

When we were ready to meet up with everyone, we asked the most experienced how to get to this new bar (where they had free beer and Sparks,) by subway. And since the people who were at the bar were apparently having too much fun and didn't want to be bothered to give us proper directions, we ended up walking about 30 blocks through the part of NYC that smells totally of urine. When we finally got there, not only did we miss the free drinks by 10 minutes, but when we asked why they didn't give us good directions, we were given a shrug as the reply. I was pretty pissed, since it was simply that no one could be bothered to be pulled away from their drinks for a few minutes to help us out. Then it started pouring rain. I was wet, sweaty, and had been up for twenty hours. I went to bed that night, pledging the next day would be better.

Day 2: Dustin, Feldman, Silva, and I woke up early, took advantage of the motel's continental breakfast, which consisted of some fruit and juice, and the Daily News. When Silva went out to go get some food, he came back with what I believe will be the #1 catchphrase to survive for years to come:

When he went out to go get some food, some thug black dude followed him in, and when Silva was filling up a cup of juice, the guy says: "Man, you gotta drink the juice, gotta keep it gangsta."

Now if you can't appreciate the humor in that, you have no sense of humor and should just end it now.

Anyway, we head out to catch reverend Run from Run-DMC give the keynote speech. It was decent, nothing to write home about. We hung out in Lincoln Center for a few hours. Me and Silva headed uptown later on to catch the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line.

On the way there, we see a ton of black sedans with flashing lights inside. And a bunch of guards all around the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Some of the guys blatantly had Secret Service patches and badges, while others were plainclothes. Me and Silva stopped to take a look, and one of them walked right up next to us, and started to talk into his wrist and look high up into the skyscrapers, like you would see in the movies. Eventually, some diplomat came out, they scrambled the guy into a car, everyone started yelling "GO, GO, GO!" and they took off into the heavy traffic. I figured it was someone in town for the UN Summit.

After we walked down the street, I saw some street vendor with a suitcase full of silver chains. I did a double take when I saw one with a big Benz emblem on it, and talked the guy down from $25 to $10.

We then saw Walk the Line, which was really good. Joaquin Phoenix does a great job playing Cash, and even though I hate to say it, Reese Witherspoon did decent, too. Definitely something you should catch when it comes out in November.

After the movie, we tried to get into a hip-hop show starring Blackalicious and Aesop Rock. Unfortunately, Webster Hall wasn't letting in any more CMJ badges, and we were going to have to wait on line until more badges left. Instead, me and Silva found the greatest deal in New York City: 2 pitchers of draft beer (which included Yuengling) and a 10-inch pizza for $10. Instead of going to the show, we sat in Roll n' Roaster and got drunk, ate pizza, and talked to the Spanish girls in the place for about two and a half hours. We actually went back with everyone two more times, because we couldn't believe what a great deal it was. Next time you're in the city, go to Roll n' Roaster, you won't be disappointed.

We then headed this time to the same bar from the night before, this time using our own resources by figuring out the subway system by a matter of necessity. Yet, unfortunately, when we arrived, we again missed the free drinks. However, we decided to stop being cheap, and bought some drinks, and sat down in this ultra-trendy place in some modern art booth. Me, Meg, Miller, Shayne, Silva, Dustin, and Josh all hung out and had a good time, and even ordered a bottle of champagne.

When we left, everyone was pretty gone. And while we were trying to go back home, Josh and his girlfriend started having some dumb fight on the phone. While this was going on, we were hanging out in some dingy park occupied by no less than nine bums, one with a wheelchair that Dustin wanted to steal, and drinking Colt 45 out of a paper bag. After about an hour of sitting in this scummy park, me and Silva couldn't take the drama that was going on, and went back to the room.

Day 3: Saw the movie Domino, starring Keira Knightly. Eh. It was OK. Wait for video.

Anyway, we find out everyone is at Roll n' Roaster so we head down there. It turns out we got 7 tickets to a private Fuse party at Webster Hall that night, starring Coheed and Cambria and Thursday. Now neither of these bands I like too much, but I knew a few of their songs, and I thought it would be better than the typical CMJ fare of crybaby rock, so I went. Turns out the tickets we got from somebody were also VIP tickets, which meant we had OPEN BAR FOR THE ENTIRE CONCERT. This warrants caps because all we did was have mixed drinks for three hours for free. This made the concert much more enjoyable. I was getting smashed and singing along with the songs I knew, and had an awesome time. I enjoy the concerts much more when they're bands I know. Everyone was getting out of control and having an awesome time, and it was the best part of the entire trip. Plus, they filmed it for some Fuse special on Coheed and Cambria, so we are probably on that somewhere.

After the concert and about 9 drinks later, we stumbled into the pizza place again. This is where it gets hazy for me. I don't think I threw up, but I remember sitting on the bathroom floor of this place. I was seriously on the edge of losing control, and asked Silva to take me back, because if another drop of alcohol hit my tongue, I would have exploded.

So we're on the train to go back, and we see some girl wearing a shirt that said "I love..." and then had a lot of Arabic writing. Silva, being the suave individual he is when he's drunk, says to her, "What the FUCK does your shirt say?" We proceed to have a good half hour conversation with the girl about politics, the army, and the Utah desert. We all get off at the same stop, and she, for some inexplicable reason, asks us back to her apartment. There was no sex thing involved on our side, because she was fresh out the army and looked like a lesbo, which she probably was, and we were too messed up to really know what to do.

So we go to her apartment, and she tells us she was in art major in school. Then.........

I don't know if I could go on.




This really was the most disturbing thing to happen to me probably ever.




And from the people I've told and shown this to, they are sad I told them this tale.




Do you really want to know? Seriosuly, I'm warning you, if you like life and being happy, don't read further.



OK, so she pulls out this book and tells us it is her favorite artist. This book is called The Cremaster by Matthew Barney. The Cremaster is a 300+ page tool of Satan, that is supposed to be a metaphor for the descension of the male testicles, an act which is controlled by the cremaster, a muscle only used once in a male's life. This thing was by far the most fucked up object I've ever encountered. Page after page of seemingly nonsequitor photos which are really scary: and old lady wearing a super tiny corset, the Utah Salt Flats, a guy in a surgical room with his dick cut off and a flower put in its place, a lady with no legs and clear plastic prosthetic legs kicking a wall, a guy standing in a hotel lobby with all his teeth knocked out, a shot of the Chrysler Building. It was so fucking weird and scary, especially when you consider we're looking at it on the 7th floor of some stranger's apartment who we just met on a frickin' New York City subway train at 3am.

THEN....she busts out the Cremaster MOVIE!!!!!!

Yes, the guy made a movie with the same wild shit in it. We part we saw had a guy in a pink Scottish kilt, with a bloody mouth and a rag stuffed in it, climbing the walls of the Guggenheim Museum, while naked girls and Rockettes rise out the water and dance around the girl with no legs, who we were informed was his "archenemy."

At this point we said we had to go, backed out of the apartment slowly, smiled until the elevator doors shut, then screamed at the top of our lungs, "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THATTTTTTT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"

I had nightmares that night. The next day, I felt kind of uneasy and depressed. This thing was so out of control.

I'm putting a link below if you want to see a brief sampling of what I saw. It gives a pretty concise idea of what it was. But just imagine it in the setting we were in. We could've been killed.

The Cremaster

Honestly, after that, there's really not much to tell. The fourth day was all right, I didn't drink that night and when we went out, everyone was bickering and fighting and generally pretty lame.

So that's it. Down below are some of the highlight pictures of the trip.