So... Alright - Story Time

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

Geoff gets nostalgic and tries to remember and tell a story from his past. Sponsored by http://shadyrays.com code ALRIGHT , Express VPN http://expressvpn.com/SOALRIGHT Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So, I've been thinking about the past a lot lately, or specifically, memories of the past and how time tends to alter those memories, right? And I've also been wanting to tell some older stories, some of the colorful stories from my younger years. On this podcast, the one that always pops into mind first is the time I ran my car into a ditch on the way to Lollapalooza. And I actually decided to record this episode telling that story. And I thought briefly, I should go back and listen to an old RT podcast or episode from like a Let's Play or wherever that I told the story previously to make sure I have it right.

And I thought, no, no, I'm not going to do that. What I am going to do, though, is I'm going to tell the story right now to the best of my ability as I remember it at 48 years old. It's probably been at least 12 to 15 years since I have told this story. So it's probably been about that long since I've thought about it. And so understanding that memory is elastic and often fallible, I wonder how close I'm going to get. So my goal here is I'm going to tell it to the best of my ability. And then after that, at some point, I will go back and listen to an old episode of whatever, wherever I told it previously, you know, when I was probably 33 or 34 and the time. I was 17 years old. And the way it worked is it was called a deferred enrollment or something. I may be making that up.

But I went up to MEPS, which is where they process you into the military and sign the paperwork and you pick your MOS and that whole thing. I went up on a bus one weekend and joined the army. And then I came home and went back to school. And then I had, you know, March, April, May, I graduated in June. So I was technically in the military for the last three or four months I was in high school. Then I got out of school in early June. I didn't go into basic training until September. So I had one last summer, which I was really excited about. I had just graduated high school. That in itself is exciting. I'm sure you remember the feeling of freedom you had when you graduated high school

and the sense of wonder and possibility at what lays in front of you. And I really leaned into it because I knew that I didn't know, right? You ever hear that phrase, people say, you don't know what you don't know, or you know what you don't know. I knew that I didn't know what I was getting into. But I knew that I was getting into something pretty heavy and pretty serious. And it was going to radically alter and change my life. I had at that point, well, my grandfather was in the Air Force, and so he told me a lot of stories about basic training from the 1950s or 40s, whenever he went through. And it was pretty terrifying the way he described it, because it was a very different military

then. And then I'd seen Full Metal Jacket, right? Which was especially, I guess, important to me because I was joining the military to become a journalist, a photojournalist, and that's what Private Joker was, the main character of Full Metal Jacket. So watching him go through basic training and then go into the military, I thought would be similar to my experience, except, you know, Full Metal Jacket is a fucking horror movie in every sense of the word. fucking horror movie in every sense of the word and i was terrified to have an arlie ernie in my face and to get put into situations where dudes could beat the shit out of me and i couldn't

really defend myself or do anything about it and to to lose my freedom and all of uh the ability to to make choices in my life right i'd as ever As most people who joined the military, I had lived a pretty sheltered, simple life. I'd moved around a bunch, but I was mostly just a kid who hung out in his bedroom and read and really liked my parents and didn't get up to too much nonsense. And so it was going to be a... I knew it was going to be a... I didn't know exactly how, but I knew it was going to be a radical change for me. And so I really wanted to blow out that summer and have as much fun and freedom as I could. It's funny, I can still go back and think about that, that time and how I started running every day because, that would that would put me in some kind of shape, that kind of shit. I also decided that, you know, it would be my last summer to kind of be a kid and then I would grow up. So I remember I went to the comic book shop where I had, I think, a monthly subscription to about 35 comics.

I was basically working jobs to pay for comic books at that point in my life, and I canceled it. And the guy was like, man, you've been coming in here for years. Why are you canceling? And I was like, I'm growing up, and I'm too old for comic books now. And I remember him being kind of miffed at that as he was a dude probably in his 30s. He seemed incredibly old to me at the time, but he was probably in his 30s who was making a living selling comic books. Didn't realize how probably insulting that was in the moment, but I was probably in his 30s who was making a living selling comic books. Didn't realize how probably insulting that was in the moment, but I was under the idea that I was about to become a man. I'd been a kid my whole life. Actually, I had been forced to grow up a lot, and I didn't

realize that because it was the only life I'd known. And I definitely wasn't a kid in the same ways that a lot of kids were at that point in my life. But regardless, I had this idea that there was going to be a great change. And I wanted to prepare for that, but I also wanted to have some fun. And that fun presented itself to me in the form of Lollapalooza 93. It was the biggest tour in the world to a 17-year-old kid in Alabama. And it was playing in New Orleans, which was about two hours away from me in Mobile, Alabama. And so I immediately bought tickets as soon as they were on sale. I believe I probably had to go to a record store to buy them, if memory serves. God, I can't even remember. I think that's how

you had to do it back then, though. I think I had to physically drive to like Satori Sound in Mobile or somewhere like that and buy tickets. Or I may have even had to go to New Orleans to like Mushroom Records and buy tickets. I honestly don't remember how I got the tickets, but I remember I got them in advance. And back in the old days before the internet, it took some doing. Anyway, that was gonna be my big moment. I was, I just, I turned 18 in June right after I graduated high school. The drinking age in New Orleans was 18 and I was just so fucking excited to go.

I had the tickets, I had a car, I had enough money saved up to go. All I needed were people to go with and none of my closest friends had any interest in going or had the money saved up to go. All I needed were people to go with. And none of my closest friends had any interest in going or had the money to go, but mostly didn't have interest in going. I didn't share musical tastes with a lot of my friends in high school. Just one dude named Brian who was awesome in every way and who turned me on to punk rock and who I probably owe a debt of gratitude for the rest of my life to him for that. He also introduced me to dnd but uh he was a good dude still is a good dude i assume he wanted to go and he had some

other friends who you know there's like kids in your school that are they're not like super popular they're not like football players or jocks or or whatever but they're not they're just cool they just exude cool and they're cool in the way that like you can tell they don't care if they're cool, which is a very well crafted thing to do because they absolutely do care if they're cool. It's just they get really good at looking like they don't care if they're cool. Anyway, these kids were the cool kids to me because they wore band T-shirts and Doc Martens and they had like long hair and they just didn't give a fuck about school they didn't seem to give a fuck about much of anything they did hard drugs which I've never

really done uh and I didn't want to do then but I kind of was impressed that they did it just seemed like a really grown-up brave scary thing to do do. And when you're dumb and young and you're figuring the world out, other kids that are doing stuff that you're too scared to do... Looking back on it now, I'd say I was probably too smart to do. But in the moment, you feel like you're too scared to do. They seem somehow larger than life and cool. Now, looking back on it, I just, I feel sad for those kids. I think that they were probably dealing with a lot in their personal lives and their family lives

and drugs were an outlet to that. Or they were just dudes that wanted to get fucked up. I didn't know them that well. Anyway, they were going and they needed a ride. And so I wasn't cool enough to hang out with those dudes at all. We weren't friends in school. I knew my friend

Brian and he knew them and he was like the, I guess the fulcrum that connected us. And so he arranged this deal where we would all go to Lollapalooza together and I would drive because they were too cool to have cars and I had jobs. So I had to have a car and my car would get to New Orleans and back. It was pretty, it was a 1980 Buick Century. It was a big old boat of a car, kind of sky blue. And it was, oh man, it was the coolest fucking car. It had these long, long vinyl seats that you could just slide all the way across. You could fit like 20 people in this car, I swear. It was like a clown car almost. And so a plan was hatched. We all got together. I got to hang out with them briefly, which to me was a big deal. I was just like, wow, these guys are so cool. And I'm going to go on a vacation. We're gonna be best friends. Like, they're gonna like me so much throughout the

course of this trip that we're all gonna hang out all the time. And then we're gonna be like buddies. And then I thought, oh, even if that happens, I'm going to the army in like two months. going to be like buddies. And then I thought, oh, even if that happens, I'm going to the army in like two months. And also, they're not... They don't think that's cool. So they were good dudes. Turns out we didn't maintain friendships. I don't even remember their names, these two guys. I just remember that they were who I thought I wanted to be in high school, right? And we did have a lovely time together. But a plan was hatched. I drove, we rented one hotel room. There was me, Brian, them. And then I feel like there were two more people that they knew that we met up with in New Orleans. And they stayed in the hotel. Yeah,

there were eight people in the hotel. I don't even remember who these two people were because I didn't really know them. And they didn't drive with us. So we we rent this hotel on on Canal Street, which ended up being its own story. And maybe I'll tack that onto the end of this if it's not going too long. Otherwise, I'll tell the story a little bit later in another episode, maybe. But so eventually Lollapalooza comes around. I don't remember when it was by July or August. And I was so excited Rage Against the Machine was playing and Fishbone was playing and I'm pretty sure Jane's Addiction was playing and pretty sure Free Kitten played and I want to say maybe The Breeders I can't remember if it was before the anyway there was a ton of bands at the time that were very big they're a very big deal and I was

very excited to see mostly I was excited to see fishbone they were at that time probably just about my favorite band and i was looking forward to it all summer you know just fucking it just couldn't couldn't wait to go and eventually the day came i picked up my friend brian i picked them up my mom was scared to let me go i had never gone to another state on my own. I think it was, for me, it was a good little primer to get ready to leave and go to the military. And I think maybe for my parents, it actually ended up being one as well. Because I remember my mom being pretty nervous about letting me go. And I remember being a little scared myself. It seemed like a pretty big grown-up thing to do. But we all piled into my big old blue Buick Century,

and we set off down I-10 through Mobile, out west into Mississippi, then into Louisiana, then into New Orleans. We got hit with a storm. If you grow up on the Gulf Coast, or if you've spent a lot of time on the Gulf Coast, you'll know that these insane storms will come in. Which is funny, I live in Austin, Texas. Now people talk

about the storms in Austin and they are nothing compared to what we would get in the Gulf. It would be sunny and hot and sticky and humid and 88 degrees. And then, and the sun is just blinding you. And then two minutes later, the sky is black and there's lightning everywhere and thunder that you have to cover your ears for. And it seems like the world is ending and it dumps about 7,000 gallons of fucking hard stinging rain right on top of you for 15 minutes. And then it's gone, right? Those storms you get, we were used to them growing up in the South and we got hit with one.

I want to say we were in Louisiana. As a matter of fact, I want to say it was mile marker 143. I don't know if that's correct, but that's the number that jumps into my head. It might be wildly wrong. So this is an ad that helps keep this podcast going. Tis the season of giving. Get the perfect gift for a special someone, yourself, or both. Our friends at Shady Rays have you covered with premium polarized shades

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All right. So expressvpn.com slash soalright to learn more. All right. So we get hit with one of these storms, and it's no big deal. I've driven in the rain. I grew up, I learned how to drive in these storms. So I'm just, we're just listening to music. I think we're like listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers,

probably Mother's Milk, or the Uplift Mofo Party Plan. And we're just like singing along and getting to know each other and having fun and laughing. And it just starts shitting rain on us, just dumping it on top of us. And I'm not thinking too much of it because I feel like I'm good at driving in the rain because at this point I've been driving for over a year. I feel like I'm an expert. However, I'm driving on bald tires in a big, swimmy boat of a car. And looking back on it now, I was not a good driver. So the rain hits, and we're making the most of it. We're laughing and joking about it and just going through it. Windshield wipers are going insane. I have to slow down a little bit. I'm trying to match the cars around me. I'm a

little freaked out maybe, but everybody else is still driving like 60 miles an hour. And so I'm trying to match the cars around me. I'm a little freaked out maybe, but everybody else is still driving like 60 miles an hour. And so I'm just trying to maintain pace with the flow of traffic. And then the lightning and the thunder starts and it's on top of us and it is intense. And I think everybody is like kind of nervously laughing at that point and singing along. And a bunch of 17 year old kids trying to pretend like a scary thing isn't bothering them. So we just keep barreling down the road. Lightning strikes, I want to say, 30 feet from me like the ground shakes. It's an incredible flash of light to my left. I scream. And then the next thing I know, I'm hydroplaning. I think I must have instinctively turned away from the lightning or whatever. But I start hydroplaning and this road

is incredibly wet. And I don't know what it's like in your town. But in the south, we have these huge ditches off the interstate and off the main highways, because we get these floods constantly, we get tons of water that comes in really quickly. And so I'm now hydroplaning, probably going about 60 miles an hour on I-10. And then there's mile marker 143, which I... 132? I wonder if I mentioned the mile marker in previous stories. I'd be interested to know how close I am to it. Somewhere between mile marker 143 and 132, I think, I go off the road, and there's nothing I can do about it. We just go barreling off the right side of the road into one of those ditches. And then I just ride the ditch for a little bit until I can stop the car. It's already kind of wet and grassy.

These ditches are, I want to say six or seven feet deep. They're really deep and big and they're just covered in grass, right? And so we go nose down into it. Then I'm able to turn the car a little bit so that the nose is pointing back up as I'm trying to get out. But there's no way I can get the car out of there. The tires are caught in some mud or whatever, and it's stuck, right? And all my friends and I are just like, holy shit, what just happened? And everybody's like, are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay? Yeah, everybody's okay. We're just sitting there. And I've never been in a car accident before. I've never run off the road before, you know, and it's still pouring down rain. Everybody's cool. We all realize we're all right.

Sit there for a second and collect our thoughts. And I think, okay, uh, I got to spring into action. What do I do? I'm a, I'm a responsible guy now. What do I do? Uh, I'll get out and I'll hitchhike to the nearest gas station and at a gas station, there'll be a tow truck and I'm gonna hire a tow truck guy to come pull the car out. And then we'll get back on the road because nothing is going to stop me from going to Lollapalooza and having this big blowout weekend where I see tons of cool bands and get drunk with these cool kids and then get to feel like a grown up. And then that'll be that'll be enough for me. I'll feel like I've put my childhood behind and then I'll be ready to join the army. Right. So I do that. I get out of the car and I'm just getting rain dumped on me. And I, I, I remember like having to climb up the, the ditch on my hands and knees because it's slippery and

tall grass. And I get up to the, I get up to the top and I just start sticking my thumb out, you know, like a movement Thurman and even cowgirls get the blues and, uh, and not almost immediately somebody pulls over and is like, hey, can I help you? And they can see there's a car in a ditch full of teenagers and I'm just standing there like an idiot. And so he's like, hey, let me give you a ride over up to the next exit. I think there's a gas station there.

And so I say, thank you very much. It's only about a two mile ride. We go up to this exit. We pull off into a gas station. It's like a service station. He lets me out. I walk inside and I go, hey, I just wrecked my car. I need somebody to pull me out of a ditch. I need a tow truck. Can I get a tow truck? And the guy behind the counter is this big old dude

with a beard. I say big old dude. He's probably in his early 30s and he goes uh no man I can't help you and I'm I'm like looking out the window at a tow truck and I go hey man there's a tow truck right there I need a tow I can you have to help me and he goes I don't go out in the rain I don't go out when it's lightning and I go well my car is stuck in a ditch and all my friends are stranded there and we're supposed to be somewhere. And I, you're the only person that can help me. What else do I do? And the guy just looks at me for a while, just with these fucking dagger eyes. And he's a really scary looking, I mean, he's a dude who drives a tow truck, right? He's got a big old burly beard and he's, uh, he's got about a hundred pounds on me and, uh, just a tough looking son of a bitch bitch and he just gives me these like dagger eyes sees right through me and i'm you know i'm 129

pound six foot tall dork and who's scared of everything and uh i'm trying to figure out if if i've offended him because he looks like he's going to fucking kill me, right? And after a few seconds, he just goes, all right, man, show me where it is. And I'm like, thank God. So I follow him out into his tow truck. I hop in the passenger side. He's in the front. I tell him the mile marker. We go as we're driving back to it.

It's like I said, it's about a two mile drive. And we were like pulling out. And I go, you don't like to, I was like, you don't like to go out in the, in the bad weather, huh? And he goes, uh, I don't like lightning. And I go, oh, uh, oh, well, why not? And he goes, uh, my, uh, my brother got struck by lightning once and, uh, hurt him real bad. And I'm like, Jesus Christ, I don't know how to respond. So I tried to make a joke of it. I said, well, you know what they say, lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place, you know. Without skipping a beat, he goes, yeah.

And then my sister's kid got struck by lightning at the beach. And then it was just silence. I didn't know how to respond to that. I didn't know if the kid was okay. He didn't elaborate. And it just became a very, very heavy, thick of my friends standing on across the on the other side of the interstate holding all of their stuff and my stuff just like it's just getting rained on. Right. It's just getting shit just rain dumped on them. And they're all holding like backpacks and whatnot. And then I see he goes, where's the car? And I go, well, there's there's my friends.

So the car that's where the car was and uh so we turn around and we pull up to them and i see them and they're where the car was and then i see that the car is down the road a little bit it has i guess been picked up by the water and moved not far like maybe i don't know 10 10 or 15, 20, 30 feet, something like that. And I can't see most of it. I can see some of the top of it and I can see the hood and I can see on my antenna. I had a one of the jack in the box antenna balls and I had one of those on and I can see that. And the rest of the ditch is a river. I guess the rain came in and it came in fast and it flooded that ditch.

It flooded my car, picked my car up and moved it down the road a little bit. And my friends are all standing there with all of our stuff. They were able to get all the stuff out of the car before it took off and before it started to get too deep. And they're just shell shocked. They can barely talk. They're like, it just, it got real bad. The water started rising really quickly and we just grabbed everything we got out and

then it took the car and we didn't know what to do. So we just thought we'd stand here because this is where you left us. And I'm like, it's going to be OK. You know, don't worry. I got this guy to help us. You know, we're going to be fine. We all walk over to where the car is and the guy is looking at it. And I'm seeing, you know, 25% of my car is above water.

The entire the trunk, the back seat, it's all submerged completely. And the guy goes, I don't think I can get this out. And I go, but you have to. You're a tow truck driver. This is what you do. Because in my simple head,

my simple 17-year-old mind, there are people that do things and they're able to do, to do that thing under any circumstance, right? Like there's no like too hard or too dangerous. It's just like, you're a tow truck driver.

You tow cars out of bad situations. Right. And he looks at me again and he goes, he just starts grumbling to himself. He's like, I don't know what he's saying. I don't want to know what he's saying. The guy scares the shit out of me.

Uh, I back up and I go tell my friends, I'm like, uh, I'm trying to explain the under hushed tones like the lightning doesn't strike twice faux pas and why this guy seems so fucking angry. And it's still just dumping rain down on us, by the way. And the ditch is getting fuller. And so the guy drives up a little bit. He backs his tow truck up to kind of like the edge of the ditch and he gets out and then he gives me just like the most hateful look and he grabs some some chains off the

back of the tow truck and then he wades into the ditch to where he's I shit you not above his navel, right? He's above his belly button and water and he's like goes underneath. He hooks something under the front of my car and then he wades back out and he gets in his car and he drives up a little bit and then he cranks it and then he just pulls my car out pretty as you please looked like the easiest thing in the world my car just like just goes and comes right back up and he pulls up uh you know he's got to go down the road a little bit to get it all straightened out and where the car is safe. And my friends and I all start walking over toward it.

He gets out of he gets out of the tow truck. He walks over to the back of the car and he starts undoing the chains that are connected that are connected to my car. And as he does that, lightning strikes very close. I didn't see where it struck i only heard it we all jump and scream because it's so loud he screams and then he's on the ground clutching his arm and his chest and rolling around and i'm like holy shit what happened i guess the lightning struck so close to where we were and he was holding onto those big metal chains that he caught a spark and it knocked him flat on his ass and he lays there for a moment

and groans and i think oh my god am i gonna have to drive the tow truck back to the exit to get to call an ambulance like what the fuck am i gonna do is this guy dead and then he just kind of like goes to his knees and he gets up and he just, he doesn't say a word. He just looks at us and he goes and he gets in to the tow truck. And then we all just pile into the tow truck as well. And it's just dead, utter silence. We drive the mile and a half to the exit. We pull up to his gas station. He pulls around to the right. He drops my car. We all go to my car. We open up all the doors and just gallons of brown water rush out of the car, kind of like in risky business when they would do much the same thing with the Porsche.

And I'm just befuddled. I now have a car that has been completely submerged, including the engine, underwater. And I don't know if it's going to run again. I don't know what to do. I walk inside and the guy's standing there and I go, thank you so much. He just looks at me and I go, I need to pay you. And I opened up my wallet and I had about, I think I want to say I had about 250 bucks saved up for the whole weekend because I already had my ticket. Right. So I just needed money for food and I think to help pay the hotel. And, uh, and I just opened up my wallet in front of him and I go, how much do I owe you? And he looks at me and he looks at my wallet and he looks at me and he just reaches his hand out and he takes all of the money out of my wallet and just kind of crumples it in his hand

and stuffs it in his pocket and looks at me. And then I just walked away. I didn't know what else to do. I walk outside and all of my friends are standing around my car as it drains. And we sit there for, I don't know, a half hour or so. And then I start my car up and it works. And so we get into a soggy car. And then we drove to Lollapalooza. We did the, I had to stop at a Western Union in New Orleans to get my grandfather to wire me money, which was the most confusing and complicated thing I had ever done at that point and very stressful. I felt like a complete asshole having to ask for 200 bucks from my grandfather. We do that, and then we go to the hotel. I pull into the parking lot at the hotel. I just can't

believe that my car still runs. We're all completely soaked from head to toe. All of our clothes are soaked. Everything is wet. Our bags are wet. And I did one of the dumber things I've ever done. I parked on the top of the parking garage in the sun because I think it'll dry the car out. But I leave all the windows rolled up because I don't want anybody to break into the car. And then I walk away from my car for two days. We go and we check in and we,

I think we go to a laundromat and clean our clothes. And then we proceed to have an amazing weekend. That was everything I wanted it to be. There was even a point in that hotel room where I think it was the next day. We all go out and we get pretty drunk that night and have a ton of fun on Bourbon Street, running around, being little assholes. And we're staying at a hotel. I remember it was on the 18th floor, and it was on Canal Street. And I wake up the next morning completely hungover. People were all just sleeping on the ground because there's eight people in a room with one bed. And I'm stepping over people, and I go to the bathroom and everybody is totally out still. It's like maybe seven or eight in the morning. And I walk over to the window and I stick

my head on the window and I look out because I'm just like hungover and headachy and nauseous. And I'm just like, I remember appreciating how cool the window felt to my forehead. So I was just leaning my forehead on the window to appreciate the cool. And just watching this scene unfold, this circus truck with a trailer on the back of it pulls up on Canal Street and it stops. And then some dudes come around the back and they open up this trailer

and then they lead an elephant out, like right out onto the street. And I guess they lead an elephant out like right out onto the street and i guess they brought an elephant out to promote that the circus is in town well anyway i'm watching this and i just start saying to the guys behind me i go hey there's an elephant there's an elephant on the street and nobody hears me they all sleep that ignore me. I think maybe one person was like, shut up. And I'm like, we're weird, there's an elephant here. And suddenly, the elephant, they're like, they're like backing it off this ramp. And then before it even gets all the way down the ramp, I remember kids and families just start to swarm it. Like, I guess they see an elephant on the street and the first thing they think to do is just run at it, right? And I think that freaked the elephant out.

I don't think the elephant appreciated that because the elephant starts fidgeting and moving around and the handlers look visibly nervous. And so they're like trying to tell the people to back away. Then the elephant does one of the craziest things I've ever seen. It swings around and it projectile vomits. Pink sludge. It looked like the elephant had eaten 500 watermelons right before. And it just starts spraying pink vomit all over the people, the ground.

And it's hitting the families and the kids and the circus employees. And it's just spewing this pink vomit everywhere. Kids start screaming. Parents start screaming parents start screaming everybody starts running the elephant starts like rearing up the circus performers just start shoving the elephant and like trying to throw it and pushing it and pushing it pushing it back into that uh into that trailer and then and they're like struggling and fighting with it and you can tell they are scared to death anyway Anyway, after a couple seconds, they get the elephant like back in that thing. They slam the top shut and they got the fuck out of there. And the whole time I'm just going, guys, the elephant's throwing up.

It's throwing up on the kid. Guys, the kids are covered in puke. And everybody's just like, shut up, dude. And nobody got up and nobody saw it. And nobody believed me the rest of the trip. Nobody saw it and nobody believed me the rest of the trip. And I swear to God, I'm going to find somebody who was on Canal Street in the summer of 1993 and they saw the circus truck pull up and they saw the elephant get out and they saw the elephant throw up on 40 people.

It happened and I want to find somebody who lived through it. So if that's you or you know somebody who's ever been thrown up on an elephant, please email eric at jeffsboss.com. I would love to connect with you. The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful. Just fun. Just a really good time. There was no more vomit or there was no more elephant vomit, I should say. And when it was all said and done, we checked out of the hotel on Sunday morning. All the blues was awesome, by the way. It was a fantastic show. I think I had the time of my life. I barely remember any of it,

so it must have been great. We go to the top of the parking garage and my car, you just can't see inside of it because it's so fucking fogged up with condensation because I left the windows rolled up and it's summer in New Orleans

and it's like 88 degrees and like 75% humidity. And we opened the doors and we are hit with the most intense smell of mildew. I can't even describe to you what that was like. But we roll all the windows down and then we had a very hungover, very quiet, very grossed out ride home. I dropped all those guys off. And I don't think I ever really talked to him again after that. It was a wonderful trip. It was a terrible trip. Turned into a lot of great stories for me and a lot of great memories.

But yeah, it didn't result in us all being best friends or anything. Then I remember the next day, I got up bright and early and I went outside and I took that car apart. I took every single thing. I took the seats out. I took the carpet out. I took the dashboard out and I cleaned it all and I put it back together.

And that fucking car ran until I joined the army and it didn't smell at all. And then I sold it back together and that fucking car ran until I joined the army and it didn't smell at all. And then I sold it for parts. Anyway, that's how I spent my last summer before going into basic training and joining the military. All right.