So I guess I'll have to fill you in on what's been going on.
Patrick and Todd and I went to see AFI, and they were amazing. A photographer from the Rochester Insider took a photo of us and put it on the Rochester Insider website along with a couple other pictures of attendees and also of the bands playing. A band called Gallows opened up, but I didn't really like them.
Patrick and I decided to try to get closer to the stage before AFI started playing, because while Gallows was playing, we were leaning against the wall on the side of the room. I know it's rude to be getting in front of other people who were already standing there waiting for the band, but I don't really care. I'm rarely a rude person, and if I want to be closer to the stage to see one of my favorite bands, I'm going to get closer to the stage. Of course, if you can seem a bit less rude, why not try?
So I noticed two females making their way through the crowd of people to get closer to the stage too, so I made the decision to walk behind them. I believe it was a mother and her teenage daughter, and I figured people wouldn't get as annoyed at Patrick and I if we were following these two females. They would get very, very annoyed for other reasons though. One such person got very, very annoyed because as I was walking past her, I stepped on the toe of one of her boots. She was leaning against one of the big posts keeping the balcony up, and she had her feet sticking out really far, so it was her own fault really. I don't think you have any right to get mad at someone for stepping on your feet at a concert, especially when you have them sticking out. The problem was, as I stepped on the toe of her boot and she yelled at me, the mother and daughter I was following had stopped, and I couldn't move forward, so I was just standing on this poor girl's toe, unable to move. She kept yelling at me and there wasn't really anything I could do about it, but give her my "oh well, whatcha gonna do?" face and shrug my shoulders. After a few seconds the mother and daughter started moving again to get closer to the stage. When they found the place they wanted to stand, Patrick and I stopped next to them. I think I really freaked the mom out, because I had followed her all the way to their spot and stood right next to them. I understand how that might seem creepy, but I wasn't following her for a creepy reason, just to take advantage of the fact that she's a female. Okay, that still sounds creepy.
AFI started playing shortly after, and they were so good. Possibly the best I've ever seen them. If not, then the best I've seen them since the first time I saw them. I was very sick and had only just gotten my voice back the day before the show (I had lost my voice for about a week. Couldn't speak above a whisper.), and was concerned I wouldn't be able to sing along, and that if I did, that I'd lose my voice quickly. To my surprise, I sang along the whole show and, if I might say so myself, sounded quite good doing so.
I bought a new AFI shirt, and while I was at the merch table, I had an interesting conversation with the merch guy. I asked him if they carry all of the merchandise with them the whole tour or if they somehow get new merch along the way to avoid having to carry it all over the country. He told me they sell out most of the stuff every few days, and they get new merch shipped to the venues, so it's waiting for them when they get there. They just keep track of what they have and what they've sold so that they get everything they need in the next shipment. I found the conversation to be very interesting, because I've wondered about that for a while. I found it unbelievable that they'd bring enough merch for the whole tour, but I also didn't know what other options there were.
A week before Halloween, my cousin Megan (Patrick's older sister) had a Halloween party. I was going with my mom, and we couldn't go until an hour after it had already started, and my mom wanted to leave early because she had to work in the morning, so I decided to stay for the whole party and then spend the rest of the weekend at the house Patrick is staying at. Right now he's living with his friend Aaron. Aaron also came to the Halloween party. I've met him a few times before, and he's pretty cool. He came to the party as The Red Hood, and as soon as he walked into the room I was blown away by the costume. He had a black pinstripe suit, a red mask, red cape, and purple gloves. He looked like he stepped right out of the pages of The Killing Joke, except his mask looked more like Jason Todd's Red Hood mask than the cylindrical mask Joker wears in The Killing Joke. There was a costume contest, and Aaron won. Interestingly, I was also the Joker, but I was wearing the mask he wore in the beginning of The Dark Knight to rob the bank. Patrick was Iggy Pop. He came to the party with a wig on and jeans, and with muscles painted on his shirtless torso.
The day after the Halloween party, Patrick and Aaron and I walked to Carousel Mall. Aaron decided to leave early to go to some gospel choir performance, but Patrick and I stayed at the mall until it closed. We love being at the mall, and could spend all day there. The next night we all went to Denny's and I had a Texican burger. It was a burger with cooked onions, jalapeno peppers, pepperjack cheese, and barbecue sauce. That thing was delicious. We got some crayons from the front and we each drew Halloween-themed pictures on the back of our paper placemats. Patrick drew a haunted house, Aaron drew a bunch of random stuff including a scarecrow, and I drew Frankenstein's monster. The waiter, who knew both Patrick and Aaron because they're regular customers there, declared me the winner of our drawing contest. We got some dessert to go (I got caramel apple crisp with vanilla ice cream), and we went back to Aaron's to watch some movies. We watched two movies I brought. Clue, and The Road Warrior. Patrick or Aaron hadn't seen either movie. Patrick and I have almost the same taste in movies so I like sharing movies with him.
Lately I've been really busy, because in addition to my part time job as a janitor, I've been painting my uncle's house in Syracuse so it's more presentable for him to sell. The best part of doing that is lunch. A couple different days I've been there, we went to the Green Hills grocery store and I got a couple slices of taco pizza from the deli and some bottles of soda. The first time I got grape soda, and the next time I got black cherry soda.
The music I've been working on recently is for my album. There's a jazzy song I have which has samples of rain and thunder in it. I've been working on a guitar solo for the climax of that song, and it's coming along great, but my fingers hurt from doing the tapping parts so much. I changed the structure of "We're All Lost In Autumn" and have been working on vocal melodies for it. I added this little bit to it (or more accurately took a bit out) so that everything drops out for a measure after the first chorus except for the guitar and then comes back in. It sounds cool, and adds a little more variety to the song. I've also been working on sort of a scrap book for my album. I am using one of my old binders from college, and I bought some dividers for it. I am making each song from my album a section in the binder. I've been putting things in there like pictures or artwork that go along with each song, and lyrical ideas, and also free-writes I do about the meaning or inspiration of each song. When I'm working on a song, I can have the binder open to that song so that I have those pictures and words right there, inspiring me. And I can keep adding more to the binder anytime I want.
So that's most everything I've been doing lately.
