So, who's sending me Carcinogen Crush?

I have a new tattoo.



I am obviously stoned in this photograph, but...

Isaiah is not just my name on the AFI board. I have been (inconsistently) composing a story of which he is the main character for five years. He was developed to reflect my personal interpretation of a model human being - a male Mary Sue if you will - and I think tattoos serve a similar purpose, existing on you flesh as a menagerie of not just who you are but who you'd like to be.

And I only made that sound so thoughtful because I wanted to distract from the fact that I just permanently fixed my DF name on my body.



POST-SCRIPT:
Gabriel just typed his first word -
///oioeiorfuire0iuiu3ifl

Hey, guys. I lost my virginity. But that was like six months ago so who cares, right?

I DIDN'T CUT THIS BECAUSE I'M AN ASSHOLE WHO BELIEVES HER OWN WORDS ARE SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH TO RUIN YOUR FRIENDS PAGE.

AFI - MYRTLE BEACH - JUNE 28, 2006

The Trip: Kris and I left Chattanooga sometime between 7:30 and 8:00AM on Tuesday morning. I can't really justify my reasoning for leaving 36 hours in advance, but my official excuse is that I wanted to be in Myrtle Beach before the Happy Holiday Motel's non-existant 3:00PM check-in time. For eight hours, we were regaled by the sounds of Hanson and AFI (I am not the most predictable girl on the planet). As soon as we hit South Carolina I began explaining the four landmarks of travelling towards a Southern coast line to Kris, telling him that Spanish moss, followed by palm trees, tourist geared billboards advertising alligators and firework stands, and the smell of fish, in that order, were the appropriate tell-tales in gauging the distance between your car and the ocean. I don't think he was interested, and in any case, I was making them all up as I went along. We were greeted by torrential rains in Myrtle Beach at 3:30-ish, and spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening dining at Chuck's dimly lit Steak House and cruising hot gift shops like the Gay Dolphin, which is the least gay store I've ever visited.


Concerning the motel . . .
If there is just one place in all of Myrtle Beach cheaper than the El Dorado, it's the Happy Holiday Motel, an effeciency so ravaged by drunken frat boys of an erstwhile season that I had to sign a contract swearing I would not hurl furniture out the window of my room nor would I dive into the five foot deep swimming pool from the second floor balcony.The refundable security deposit cost more than the price of a room for one night. But for all its neurosis, our room was clean, the linens were fresh, and the TV had the A&E channel, which is home to Criss Angel's Mindfreak, an EXTREMELY guilty pleasure of both Kris and myself. If ever you find yourself in need of cheap accomodations in one of the worst tourist traps this side of the Mason-Dixie Line, I would reccomend this place.


Wednesday: I am born. I wake up. Blahblahblah breakfast blahblahblah I bought a slinky at Cracker Barrel blah blah blah.

We arrived at the House of Blues around 11:00AM, and I had only been in line for half an hour before I saw Michelle and her friend Meredith. Fifteen minutes later, Lauren showed up with her friends. We talked about Hanson, the internet, traded AFI gossip, and lusted after a certain NOLA author's fictional, underage vampires until Jessica arrived, at which point she and Michelle and their friends went to eat in the HOB's restaurant and I left Kris to go buy a portable fan from Wal-Mart (the heat was oppressive, to say the absolute least). On my way out to the HOB parking lot, I ran into Stacy, my pen-pal from everybody's favorite big, dark message board, who was staking it out on the hot pavement in the sun with a couple of other people. After returning from the store with a $20.00 fan I doubt I'll ever see again, I sat with Kris and complained about Jim Cantore's inaccurate forecast for rain in Myrtle Beach.





Michelle used the plastic lid of a tupperware container to fan herself in the heat while her friend Meredith worked to create a book containing the poetry of Marc Bolan for Davey.


Kris looked super gay in the pink tank-top I gave him after a Hanson show last October.


You can see Chelley's bunny in this picture of Lauren's legs.

Michelle, Jess, and Co. joined us again in line around 4:00, then we decided to check out AFI's buses out back in hopes of seeing/meeting the boys again. Michelle, Jess, and I wound up seeing Jade and speaking briefly to Adam, and we also encountered an older man with a tanned and shaved chest, holding a very expensive camera with one hand and the arm of a groupiefied daughter with the other. At first we thought he was paparazzi or a pimp, but it turned out that he was just a concerned father . . . or something.





I used the camera I would later shove down my pants to beat the HOB's anti-recording policy to take a picture of a tour bus and Jade's ass.





On our way back to the front of the House of Blues, we heard the sound of AFI performing their sound check coming from behind a door surrounded by a brick wall. We found our way around the wall and spent the next twenty minutes jamming our ears and eyes through a crack in the door while the band played Summer Shudder and Love Like Winter.

Olivia was there by the time we finally got back in line at around 5:00PM. I spent the rest of the time waiting outside with her, her friends, and Kris. In Atlanta during the DOS tour circa 2004, Matt Willson and I stood in line next to her at The Tabernacle without my realizing who she was, so it was nice to hang out with Olivia while knowing I was hanging out with Olivia.

The Show: The doors opened a couple of minutes after 7:30. I had already decided that I wanted for once to avoid the floor, a choice I knew I wouldn't regret when Olivia and I found a place behind the soundbooth, three steps above what would become a writhing mass of flesh and sweat as soon as Dillinger took the stage. Not that I have anything against writhing masses of flesh and sweat; I in fact am an enthusiastic proponent of most any scenario that inspires the writhing mass of flesh and sweat thing . . . I just wanted to see for the first time what AFI would be like live when one actually retains respiratory function.

Nightmare of You's set began within a half hour after entry. I think I remember telling Olivia that they sounded like a less energetic Hot Hot Heat. It wasn't bad, just boring, especially right before two acts as famous for their performances as The Dillinger Escape Plan and AFI.

Dillinger went on 9:30-ish. Anybody who has seen these guys live will understand what I mean when I say their riffs were even more exciting than the strobe lights. I mean, this is a band who sounds more exciting on a studio recording than most bands do live, so nobody really stands a chance. And Greg Puciato is fucking sexy.




As for AFI . . . if any act can follow TDEP, it's AFI. The boys, as always, knew exactly what they were doing when Davey and Adam finally appeared on stage to lead the Prelude at around a quarter to eleven. It was a brighter entry than any other I'd seen before, and I mean that literally: white light, white pants, white guitars, white everything. Beautiful.







I have yet to find a single part of me that is above the ardor, the ebullience, this band inspires and shares at every show. I love it.

They were as enthusiastic as we were, and everything went extraordinarily well. Even Davey's collapse into the drum set and Jade loosing sound at the beginning of GNG made the performance seem better for it. They loved us, we loved them . . . it was the classic exchange everybody always talks about in describing AFI live. The crowdwalk was spectacular, the boys and girls having supported DXH until the end of God Called In Sick Today instead of engulfing his person in a sea of hands ready to rip his shirt and grope his balls. As Davey himself said, it was "fucking fantastic."

In order:
Prelude 12/21
Girl's Not Grey
The Leaving Song Pt. II
Ever And A Day
Bleed Black
Kill Caustic
Summer Shudder
Silver And Cold
Love Like Winter
A Single Second
This Time Imperfect
Death Of Seasons
Days of Phoenix
Dancing Through Sunday
Miss Murder
God Called In Sick Today
TotalImmortal

Aside from the non-Miss Murder DU additions, the set-list was virtually identical to both Bamboozle and MTV's event at the Nokia Theatre, but every song was still as fresh as it was the first time I heard it. Maybe I'm a sucker. Honestly, do I miss Sacrifice Theory? Yes. Did I pray for the first time in ten years to hear Endlessly and The Interview? Maybe. Did I notice anything missing at any of these shows? No.

For the record, AFI wasn't the only thing that made my day. Spending time with Chelley, Jess, Olivia, and Lauren and meeting Stacy is what made everything that much better than the last show. You girls make wonderful company. I look forward to the next time.

AFI again in Myrtle Beach, two-ish weeks. Olivia, Lauren, Jesse, and Chelley: I'm lookin' at y'allz.

Oh, yeah, I'm going to MTSU in the fall. That's Middle Tennessee State University. If you didn't know it exists, consider yourself charmed.